#these writers do not know how to show queer characters' sexualities without making them have sex.

[supercalime]

I know Buck wasn’t originally written as bisexual but looking back to season 2, you actually can interpret buck being attracted to eddie. He may even had a little crush on him. But Eddie being canonically straight didn’t show any romantic or sexual interest towards buck. I think if he was canonically gay and interested in buck and made any moves towards it, he could have had his bi awakening or realization back then and could have caught serious romantic feelings for Eddie. You can’t deny some parallels between his first meeting with eddie and with tommy. The unknown jealousy and the ranting about them. But because eddie is straight and never showed any sign of beeing into buck, his (maybe) feelings for eddie turned into an incredibly great friendship. That’s why I think his feelings for Tommy are very real and don’t have anything to do with Eddie. Tommy is canonically gay and reciprocated the feelings and attraction to buck. He was the one who made the first move and kissed buck. Buck was clearly interested in him and tried to get his attention. I do think that if tommy wasn’t interested in him and didn’t kiss him, buck still wouldn’t have figured out that he’s bisexual and his feelings towards him probably would’ve eventually turned into friendly feelings. I personally tend to hope for bucktommy rather than buddie but I wouldn’t be mad if buddie became canon. But I think the only way would be to make eddie demisexual, because there were really no signs that he likes men in any way other than his strong connection and chemistry with buck. Different from buck where you can retrospectively see many unintentional signs.

Oh yeah! I want to make it abundantly clear that I’m all in the bucktommy train 100%

I fell in love with them and I’m more in favor of them than the ship that shall not be named. I can’t stress it enough, I want bucktommy to be endgame. I’m a bucktommy slut.

I do believe you can look back and see clues that maybe buck was into eddie, whether that was intentional or not. I believe the writers accidentally queer coded him and when they noticed they decided to run with it when they got the green light from the network.

But as you said, he could have had an initial crush on a friend and that changed with time. And that is completely fine! It doesn’t mean he had been in love with him the whole time and repressing it. Of course there is the possibility that buck and eddie can be an item, if the writers decide to go that route.

That being said, as of now, there are no concrete evidence on screen that buck and eddie were/are going in that direction. Like you said, eddie hasn’t shown he’s into men/buck and if buck was into eddie since the beginning and vice versa, i believe the writers would have pushed that queer coding to the max she-ra style to force the network to get them together. There had been opportunities for the writers to not be that ambiguous.

And yes! The canon bi buck storyline is not about Eddie and it shouldn’t be even if buck and eddie are supposed to be endgame. All the signs since 07x03 (when Buck touched Tommy’s shoulder and we all got a little bit of the gay vibe) have pointed that Buck had been into tommy and mistook who he was placing the jealousy on during 07x04. It’s a classic trope and I hate that b*ddie stans conveniently forgot how misdirection works to feed into what they want (not only that, but also stating as fact). When 07x05 rolled around and we got the coming out scene, it’s clear to me that there was no intention to place bucks attraction to men on eddie or eddie also realizing he’s queer. It would have been the perfect opportunity to sprinkle in some queer eddie but there was not even a subtle hint of that in that entire scene and I honestly hope their friendship stays that way.

Not to be a bitch but, why can’t they “just” be friends? It’s so rare to have these archetypes of characters be as vulnerable and devoted to each other, without an ounce of toxic masculinity, being true friends and nothing else. I whole heartedly believe what buck and eddie have is even bigger than family or romance, they are each others rocks and defining them as brothers or “husbands” does a disservice to their relationship. I think of them more as platonic soulmates. They are others ride or die, which reminds me a lot of Marjan and Paul from lone star (they have a very similar dynamic and despite theoretically having the possibility of being a couple - as a straight woman and straight man - I don’t see them going that way ever because that’s not what their relationship is. They love each other, would literally die for each other but are not and will never see each other as potential romantic partners).

On a waaaaaaaaay lighter note: I’m excited for next episode. We are surely getting more bucktommy and I simply can’t wait to see what the writers have cooking up for this lovely ship!

#lety rambles #ask #911 #bucktommy #tevan #911 abc #911 lone star #firefly #firepilot

[six-of-cringe]

never thought i'd say it. not happy about gay sex

#look. some of it might not be as bad as it seems. #i don't have context or all the facts i haven't watched it yet #maybe this 'bathroom scene' is just a precursor for a later callback #but like. jesper had a one night stand or something with wylan and FUCKING FORGOT ABOUT HIM??? #real cute real romantic. /s #the hypersexual bi man trope!! the unnecessary sexualization of queer relationships!!!! #like there's nothing wrong with stories about relationships like this! to me it's the fact that it's being applied to wesper! #a relationship which i enjoyed bc of the slower building of care and knowledge and trust and meaning and all that sap shit #these writers do not know how to show queer characters' sexualities without making them have sex. #jesper just forgot about the prince who fell into the wrong story dude i'm gonna be sick #of all the ways they could have written jesper and wylan's pre-SoC history........bruh #listen wesper might have been the least developed of the SoC relationships but holy shit it was better than this #jesper wylan get behind me sweethearts #idk how to describe why it feels so hurtful. it just feels like something has been taken from that story #shadow and bone netflix spoilers #sab spoilers #s&b spoilers #delete later #this isn't like SEX BAD GAY SEX BAD. it just has me going like. who are these guys. these are different guys. #they are doing strange things that the people they claim to be would not. this story has been altered in a way that makes me feel it less #if you enjoy it still fine. but for me it detracts.

[lunityviruz]

Something I've noticed is that no matter what fandom or community we are in—black people will always always have to make a safe space for ourselves. Every single fandom I was in there were always black people being treated badly by white people and nonblacks and everytime we spoke on it we are told that we are either making it up or causing problems/discourse.

Even in the LGBTQ+ community where niggas preach about being sooo accepting we have to make *our own flags and spaces because we get talked over and forgotten so damn much. You look up queer related stuff and white people show up first (try the trans selfie tag or look up androgynous stuff on pinterest.) You look up queer shows and it's only white people with a black side character or a white person x a black person like we can't exist on our own. White queers calling black people cops for being uncomfortable with certain labels.

Even with fictional black characters they get the same treatment. Marina from Splatoon 2 and Hobie Brown from Spiderman both are victims of nonblack people hypersexualizing them and masculinizing them. Xinyan from Genshin Impact is a complete and utter stereotype of black people—being seen as aggressive and mean and a literal theft. Don't get me started on how yall whitewash the fuck outta them. It's either sexualize them, whitewash them or forget about them completely.

For some reason white people are seen as more aesthetically pleasing compared to Black people and when we look up aesthetics we literally have to type in "black person x aesthetic" or afro punk or afro goth despite us being the creators of some of these aesthetics. Same with cosplaying, white peoples cosplays are seen as more "canon" compared to black people or even people who's race is literally the character being cosplayed.

Fanfiction writers constantly cater to white people despite trying to market their stuff as "inclusive" while black people get shitted on for making character x black reader fics and don't you know weird ass white people still read them??

Yall tell us to make our own things instead of "complaining" about it and we do, then we get hit with death threats and hate. We make our black edits and get told that it's "blackwashing" and the artists get called the n word, we make black movies and our actors get death threats. We make our own original black art with our black OC'S and get told that we're being selfish and "racist" for not drawing other people. We literally cannot exist without you people hating on us and unnecessarily critiquing us.

[Note: If you nonblack or white niggas come up here and being like "well acschually op🤓☝🏾" I will actually hurt you. If you ask "why is this in the x tag" I will hurt you as well. You try n derail and make it about a different race I'm hurting you.]

#rants n rambles #hooowee time to tag #genshin impact #genshin impact xinyan #xinyan #splatoon #splatoon 2 #marina splatoon #hobie brown #spiderman atsv #hobie spiderverse #star wars #the little mermaid #john boyega #halle bailey #jojos bizarre adventure #fandom spaces #fandom #lgbt pride #lgbtqia #lgbtq community #black queer #coqette #coquette #fandom culture #marvel #loki marvel

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

i think i've said this before but i want to elaborate on it. i genuinely feel like the spop crew wrote c//a as some sort of torture p*rn. they know that people usually find an enemies to lovers arc sexy and intriguing. but the problem with c//a was that their fights were never equal. i don't know about y'all but when i think of enemies to lovers, i think of a dynamic where both individuals are at least somewhat on equal footing. i don't think about a relationship with a huge power dynamic where one of the characters is helpless and weak while the other takes every opportunity to torture them.

adora never tried to harm catra apart from self-defense, she always held back when she was fighting catra. she tried to reason with catra or just hold her off. meanwhile catra never held back on hurting adora. not once.

and all of this is framed as “hot”. it's framed as “sexual tension”. it's framed as “gay pining”, even though it's not. not to mention, most of the “homoerotic” fight scenes are where adora is either weak or helpless in some way. she's either restrained or too scared to fight back or actively stopping herself from injuring catra. and catra takes advantage of her kindness.

so what's the torture p*rn part of this? well. torture p*rn is basically a trope where a person (or multiple people being tortured) is the main attraction of the plot. c//a is supposed to be enemies to lovers, meaning they should be fighting equally, right? especially since adora is stronger and the “chosen one”, you'd think she'd definitely be defeating catra a lot more.

but no, most of their conflict is catra taking joy in harming adora. these scenes are framed in a more “intimate” way, with catra often touching adora without consent, saying vaguely flirtatious yet threatening one-liners and overall fueling the whole “sexual tension” part.

just take a look at these scenes. i can't completely blame the fandom for thinking these are sexy or erotic because they are framed that way. the crew themselves have admitted that c//a were supposed to have some sexual tension (despite being teenagers for at least two seasons, mind you) and it shows. adora may look scared or uncomfortable but it doesn't matter because the writers wants us to think that this is hot.

villains being creepy and borderline perverted is not a new thing, it's something that mainly came with queer-coding villains. but people often only do this to villains who are supposed to stay villains. and especially with the context that catra supposedly “loved” adora during all this, it just adds another layer of discomfort. it just feels like catra is taking the opportunity to not only hurt adora but also make her deeply uncomfortable by touching and interacting with her in a way that she did not consent to.

keep in mind that whenever adora has the upper hand, the show never frames their fights as homoerotic or weirdly intimate.

most of the time, she uses long range attack or she just goes on defense. the one time she attacked catra head on, she just decks catra in the face and is done with it. she doesn't cross catra's boundaries, she doesn't act flirtatious or touch catra inappropriately. the only scene where she can be described as “flirtatious” (though i would say she was just being smug) was when she wasn't attacking catra, but instead destroying one of entrapta's robots.

(and of course with no remorse, catra orders entrapta to activate the self-destruct on the robot so that adora could be blown to bits.)

so yeah. just because catra is a villain doesn't mean she has to be a creep. if the goal was to make her sexy (which is still weird since she was a teenager but regardless), there are other ways. there have been plenty of villains who are attractive and have a charming personality without being a total creep to the protagonists. for example, azula from ATLA is widely known as a queer awakening for many young girls because of how attractive she was (i know she was also a teenager. these are not my words, i'm just quoting the general public). and yet, you never see azula being creepily intimate with any of the protagonists. she often used long-range attack and she only goes as far as using some condescending language. it's just weird to write a villain who we should sympathize with, but then also make them a total creep.

#spop critical #spop #spop salt #spop criticism #spop discourse #she ra #anti catradora #anti catra #anti c//a #anticatra #antic//a #anticatradora #anti spop

[tocomplainfriend]

Funny thing (not really) I’ve noticed is that Viv has always fetishized m/m relationships. There’s obviously Stolitz, but it goes back way further. There’s Addison from Zoophobia being shipped with a guy who works at his high school, but to mention that Viv has drawn NSFW of them despite Addison canonically being a minor. There’s also Autumn and Rusty, the former whom gets bullied by Rusty cause Rusty is secretly in the closet. Ten years later and she’s still weird about m/m relationships.

TW: fetishizing Queerness

I tried to search a little for Addison's age. In the wiki, that I know Viv did not write it says he is 18, other post say 17- there are people saying the age got changed too? I know almost nothing to zoophobia- if anyone knows about this claim, share your knowledge and importantly evidence of the age thing in specific? I do know about those snake drawings. And also was Viv 19? Have no clue-so I'm not gonna super talk about it without knowledge.

About the Rusty thing, I don't think Viv is a good enough writer (of relationships especially, cause Stolitz mainly) to pull that relationship or story. I don't think she can pull the idea of the closeted bully, purely by the fact that she doesn't understand or acknowledge the problems Stolitz has. If she needs to put down characters to make Stolas seems better and try to justify the power imbalance. I don't think she could write this if she wanted to. This closeted gay bully is such an old trope, too. I think the worst you can do (also as a non-amazing writer) is actually tried to make a romance out of it? Cause a lot of these tropes are more like "HAHA THE BULLY IS GAY HAHAHA", rather than "aww the bully was just sad and gay all along". I don't like it. (also this includes when the bully doesn't bully his romantic interest)

A lot of problems in mlm stuff Vivziepop does is similar to those Yaoi fetishization shit. Where there are also power imbalance. Also, this treatment of the characters like Moxxie? Like he is bi, and with Millie- and his treatment is so shitty. The hole thing of MILLIE PEGS MOXXIE, and that funny cause is less manly of him? Or where the succubus sexually assault them and that is funny??? (that one is not even Blitz being an asshole to him, it's made to act funny). As soon there is something viewed as feminine from him, the show makes fun of him. His feminine appearance in Unhappy campers also leads to make fun of him. Where he is the most vulnerable and insecure is that episode. He is more objectified in a feminine appearance.

Just the entirety of Stolitz is literally a lot of yaoi-sh problems. Also, I do see a lot of red flags in how they wrote Fizz and Asmo'. Because Fizz was insecure af, that he needed the approval of Mammon as an imp. Mammon was using the power that he had over Fizz to use him to get money. He got his approval from Asmo another sin in a higher position of power. (The power imbalance is not the problem vibes). Plus, The Big dominant protector and the sub small uwu cure relationship. Fizz, compared to the first time he appeared, he is so vulnerable and acts so cutesy. Like, the confidence he had during the S1, disappeared so bad. Acting so nice to Glitz and Glam, felt like cutting out all attitude to "uke-fing" him into needing a savior. They make him so powerless

Fizz, a quad amputee, was put in a vulnerable situation related to his trauma and where he lost all his limbs and horns. All to make Blitz "redeem" himself and make them friends again... THAT SUCKS.

Also, there was the fact of how over-sexual all the male mlm characters are, too. Like, Chaz was so much more sexual than Verosika as a succubus.

IT JUST SUCKS.

#vivziepop critique #vivziepop critical #helluva boss critique #helluva boss criticism #helluva boss critical #hazbin hotel critical #hazbin hotel criticism #hazbin hotel critique #zoophobia criticism #zoophobia critical

[celluloidbroomcloset]

People in other fandom are criticising the 1st gentlebeard kiss again, and I think we need to discuss how this is the result of oversexualation in queer media

I’m assuming that other fandom refers to the Canyon? I’ve mostly either blocked or been blocked by them, it seems, which is perfectly fine by me. They don’t want to see me and I don’t want to see them.

I’ve written, as have others, about how there’s a clear progression to those kisses, from the very tentative sweetness of the first and the absolute confidence of the last. In that beach scene, Ed can barely get out what he wants to say, and Stede doesn't immediately clock what it means (because he's dealing with that initial emotion of "I make...you...happy?"). I’m not sure what was wanted with the first kiss? Like, full-on snog? How would that make sense to either of those characters at that point? It might even have looked like assault, since Stede is obviously surprised and not quite expecting it. The fact that it is gentle and unsure is part of their relationship - they’re figuring out who they are to each other, and Ed especially is being so careful about how he does it.

In terms of oversexualization generally...I'm not a queer media scholar or critic, though I've done work with queer theory and I know a lot of Hollywood history. So much of mainstream queer media was initially about subtext and suffering - characters that were typed as queer without being made explicitly so (because they literally couldn't), stories that treated queerness as a mental illness or that ended in death and destruction. So there's been a natural pushback against all that, often outside the mainstream and then more into the mainstream now. I think there was also a desire to shock the straight world, hence things like John Waters's films, Rocky Horror, etc. (not knocking these - I fuckin' love 'em), which are also in conversation with pornography.

With Our Flag Means Death and a handful of other shows and films (Good Omens, A League of Their Own, Heartstopper, etc.) there's been major movement forward, in part because there are more queer writers/artists/creators getting a say in mainstream texts. But there's still that fear of assimilation - because mainstream. So there's a cadre that will demand that if it's queer, it's gotta be explicit. It's gotta shock the straights. Which leads, eventually, to a sanding away of complicated emotions and nuance and not allowing characters or plots to progress in an organic way. There has to be space for sexualization if it's natural to the story, but it can't be forced.

I would absolutely have been upset if all we ever got was that beach kiss, and all we ever saw was Ed and Stede barely kissing each other. That wouldn't have made sense to the story that was being told. I even remember messaging my friend after "Curse of the Seafaring Life" that I was glad they "finally got a proper kiss." And looking back, even then, I was pretty much thinking that that's all we were gonna get, because I've been so conditioned to just expect crumbs in mainstream media. (Also, like, I remember very well how Ellen lost her sitcom when she came out, how people had an absolute fit about Will & Grace featuring a nonromantic same-sex kiss, and how all the interviews around Brokeback Mountain were along the lines of "how terribly uncomfortable was it to kiss a dude?!" So the idea of two straight actors maybe possibly not being grossed out by kissing each other is relatively new, in terms of media history.)

I think some of this is a desire for all queer media to be all things. That if any show doesn’t do ALL THE THINGS, then it is bad and problematic. And that’s just not the nature of art. It would be awful if they tried to do all the things. It wouldn’t work. But that's also a result of having so little explicitly queer stuff, especially from mainstream shows/films, that when something like OFMD or Good Omens comes along, it gets picked apart and people are upset that it didn't do all the things. The more queer stories there are, the less we'll have to depend on single works and the less infighting there will be.

Well, there, I wrote way too much. This is all very complicated and I'm not trying to pretend that it's easy to distill down or that I'm 100% right here. I'd be happy to hear other opinions or caveats (that are not "no, I love Izzy, therefore you're wrong").

#ofmd s2 #ofmd #queer theory #queerness #stede bonnet #edward teach #blackbonnet #gentlebeard #our flag means death #i will however block any straggling canyon folks #i am even upset that i know what canyon means now #bad faith arguments are not cool #i've been through the twitter trenches and i ain't doing that again #long post #it's an oldie but for early queer theory #do read the celluloid closet #not everything in there is 100% correct imo #but it's deeply important

[siriuslydeadfr]

The thing about Luca is that. And I say this as a writer, I suppose, but also as a queer person, that he exudes a certain feeling of safety, and comfort. Like, to have him play something will mean he's going to give you his everything. No matter the character, you'll see a sincerity that isn't just the product of the script, or the demand of it, but also the mind of the actor.

To know that a person of his calibre is out there playing queer characters so effortlessly, and without a doubt in their mind, without any prejudice blinding his artistic choices and who he is as a person, it's obviously a ray of hope, but it is also, then, a kind of trust, even if it is just parasocial in many ways.

I know if it's Luca playing a certain queer character - regardless of what happens to them in the script, that is if the script is stupid and insincere to the queer perspective in certain ways - I'd still easily trust him to do justice to the queer experience, for how sincerely he plays everything.

The whole every-character-of-his having a underlying homoerotic quality to them is all fun and cool and great and beautiful, but also, it's so fucking refreshing

It's been decades of asking for the correct representation in media, it's been years and years of queerbaiting and, if not that, just general lack of care

I've been accustomed to just wanting some of my favourite characters to be gay. Just thinking and wishing and hoping that someone someday will let them reach the full scope of their personality, let them have the right sort of ending, see first the fabric of their person, and not just the thread of their sexuality, and maybe then write the script. There have been all sorts of emotions, and so to find now a person who is doing just that? It's pure beauty.

For a while now it's been changing, more and more shows and films are becoming inclusive and accepting and understanding of the queer gaze, and it's so beautiful that Luca contributes to it with his whole heart, and has been for a long while.

Many must remember how it used to get with artists and makers always denying or trying to tip toe around the obvious queerbait, or shying away from the conversations that involved that queer perspective, or outright rejecting the very idea- it happens still - but then you see the likes of Luca and Marwan being comfortable in each other's company and also about the love they shared on screen (especially, i think, it begs to say, with them being men), talking happily about their characters, making playlists for them, recommending poems for them

A lot many actors now are open to these conversations, a lot of them now talk about it with nuance and care, with just the right words, and though it's in no way any less a contribution to the conversation, or any less genuine, but again, there is something to be said about the ease Luca shows.

Again, as I said before.. it feels safe, with him.

In a lot of his interviews, he doesn't bat an eye before saying things like - I was lucky to have him as my husband. And he means it, you can tell that by the smile on his face. When people are focusing on the movies' objective and the friendships in it, he easily goes and says it's not only the friendship, but also the love.

In another of his interviews, there was once this question about Roberta, about if he knew what was demanded from him and how he prepared for a transsexual character. I remember it because I was almost sure I'll be hearing some generic answer like I studied trans people for this role and this that blah blah, something ignorant, basically. I was braced for it. But he just said. (And he was talking in english, and all that he was trying to say was conveyed more through his face and gestures, it was super cute actually) - I read the script, and I just felt something. I didn't think about playing a transsexual, but a woman, with a friend. It was important for me to show the love she had for him. So. I just played a woman helping out a friend :)

And I was like ?? wait that's? That's all? You're not going to go deep into the character's psyche and the great moral upstanding you must be feeling for doing a role like this? You're not going to talk about how you "prepared" for this role or how it was "different" for you?

I was so used to people doing that, his simple answer took me by surprise.

and that's what's so refreshing, so comforting.

There's no hesitation in him, no prejudice or preconceived notions or activism, even, compelling his choices and words.

It's just him, plain and simple.

He's committed to his art in a way that people rarely are. Especially in media, where even big companies and huge hollywood stars often fail you.

I wish more people in this world were like him. So gently open in his ways, so effortless in his understanding and acceptance that it becomes intrinsic to him.

He's one of the few people, I would say, who are an artist not just by work, but also by nature.

#luca marinelli #the old guard #le otto montagne #l'ultimo terrestre #writing #he's so?? sweet and beautiful #he's someone I want to sit and have a conversation with. the other person who i want to do this with is #andrew garfield

[tillwehavefaces]

I have literally never posted about Buddie before, but I want to add my two cents to the whole Buck/Tommy debate. I know there are mixed feelings and both sides have valid points, but to those who were expecting a Buddie kiss this soon - I don't get it?

Ever since I found out abc had picked up 911, I was and remain cautiously hopeful for Buddie endgame - in fact, the kiss makes me far more hopeful than I was a week ago. Because the truth is that if they'd gone straight for Buddie, it would have been bad storytelling. Offensively bad storytelling.

Hear me out. I agree with y'all that the storytelling that's happened up until now makes it clear that Buddie are in love with each other. I also happen to think that the storytelling that's happened up until now makes it clear that neither of these himbos have any clue that they're in love with each other, or that they even could fall in love with a man.

And it's not for lack of opportunity, if the writers had wanted to go that way, obviously! There's was Buck's reaction to Eddie being stuck in the well and Eddie making Buck Christopher's guardian in his will and both of them almost dying and Eddie having a literal breakdown over all the trauma he's repressed and they've both been to therapy and they've both broken up with women who were all wrong for them ... I could go on and on.

But not only did the writers not take any of these opportunities to make at least one of them realize their feelings for the other might not be platonic (certainly, no explicit indication on screen), but because fox was so afraid of losing viewers if they made both their supposedly straight male firefighters queer, they doubled down on Eddie and Buck seeing their relationship as platonic. Every time one of them went through some kind of life-changing experience and questioned deeply held beliefs about themselves yet never questioned their sexuality, it made it seem less and less likely that *anything* would make them realize they might be queer and in love with their best friend.

Honestly, I think if abc had gotten the show at a different point, they might have been able to go straight into Buddie. For example, a season earlier? Eddie's just gotten through a ton of trauma with the help of a therapist and is returning to the 118, and it would've been easy to write a storyline where he's realized his feelings for Buck and tries to do something about it. Or maybe right after Buck's near-death experience. But they both got through those traumas and started dating new women, as oblivious to the love right in front of them as ever. And that's how S6 ended.

So I don't think there's anything abc could have done to convince me that either one of them suddenly realizes how they feel without something happening. If that Buck/Tommy kiss had instead been a Buddie kiss, I would have loved it, but I wouldn't have really believed it. It wouldn't have felt genuine.

Excuse my nerdy science brain, but it's like inertia - Buck and Eddie have both been going in one direction for so long (the 'we're straight best friends!' direction) that it's going to take some kind of force to knock them off that path. It can't be near death experiences, cause they've both been there and it hasn't worked. It can't be finding new girlfriends or breaking up with said girlfriends. No, it's gotta be something really obvious.

That force is Tommy. A canon gay character who recognizes Buck as queer even when Buck doesn't recognize himself as queer. Who (unknowingly) forces Buck to confront that part of himself by kissing him, which will in turn force Eddie to confront his feelings and reaction to seeing his best friend and co-parent now dating a man. I can't say for sure that Buddie is coming, but I honestly think this (not Tommy specifically, but a queer man who is outside the whole Buddie situation) is the only way to tell this story in a way that makes it feel true to life, given the mess that fox created.

#buddie #9 1 1 abc #evan buckley #eddie diaz #buck x eddie #9 1 1

[cadybear420]

Cadybear's Reviews- Murder at Homecoming

Welcome to the thirty-seventh official Cadybear's Reviews! Today I'll be talking about Murder at Homecoming, which I have ranked on the "Platinum Tier" at 9 stars out of a possible 10. My last and only playthrough of this was during September-December 2022.

This is definitely one of the better, if not the best release, of 2022, and it’s easily among my personal faves. 

A MC who is proactive and gets shit done, multiple LIs, highly compelling story. How can I not love that? All three of the LIs are amazing characters– and Tyler especially is just precious. I think he’s the first love interest I have ever adored nearly as much as I’ve adored Aiden. I miss when we had male LIs that are just so babygirl. 

The incorporation of mature topics and queer themes was especially excellent. MTFL, take notes! Because THIS is how you write a teen story that talks about queer sexuality and mature behaviors. Besides maybe BiBound I mean BloodBound, this is probably the first book in Choices where each LI has some degree of confirmed sexuality outside of their LI option status for the MC. 

One thing that’s especially notable is how Tyler will talk about how he used to think he was straight if you romance him as a male or enby MC. I normally don’t mind much when LIs in GOC stories are made with the “playersexual” style of writing, but these sort of little changes are a good show of effort and give Tyler more character.

But of course, it’s not without a handful of problems. 

Like COP (1), the story is incredibly linear and none of the clues or choices really affect your story. Sure, they give you a bit of extra background, but that’s about it. 

The only choices that really have any impact are the stuff related to the queer discussions, Tyler’s romance route, and how the options for how your MC can talk about their queer experience can change based on your MC’s gender and romance choices. Which is still highly praiseworthy, don’t get me wrong, but I’d have loved to see some variation in the other elements of the book too.

And as much as I did enjoy this MC and do consider them one of the more refreshing ones, they were also a bit too rigid and pre-set for me at times. I get that some MCs will need to have pre-set details about them, and to some degree that does apply to this MC, but it was a bit much at times. Like, there was especially no need to give them a default first AND last name. I do like the aspect of MC preferring to go by their middle name, but we still could have been allowed to change their first and last names too, to be honest. 

I found it really hard to feel for the loss of Perdita for this reason; the traumatic event backstory didn’t feel as well established, compared to that of ILITW and ACOR MCs. Though to be fair, I do remember there being a handful of premium scenes to see a memory with Perdita, and I do remember skipping all but two of them. 

But even then, I never felt she had quite as much importance as the writers clearly wanted her to have? Outside of being a motivator for MC to solve Gabbie’s case and allowing MC to connect with Donovan better. Maybe my opinion on this might change after I give it a replay, though. 

That being said, I’m actually fine with the story not telling us what really happened to Perdita, as much as I’d have loved a continuation for this book. MC not knowing what happened to Perdita is what motivated them to solve Gabbie’s case, and in that regard, the two cases kind of juxtapose one another. Whereas MC is able to get closure for Gabbie’s case, they don’t do that for Perdita’s case.

That makes the ending a little more nuanced in my opinion. Sometimes, we don’t always get closure for these kinds of things. While I’m still mixed on how well the story integrated Perdita, this message was handled decently and didn’t feel like it was in bad spirit. 

So if there were a continuation for this story, I wouldn’t mind it being centered around MC finding Perdita, motivated to work on that case more actively after their success with Gabbie’s case. But rather than having them solve the case, it can mostly center around them struggling between whether they should keep up that search, or leave it as a cold case and move on. 

Overall, definitely a higher-tier and very respectable story that definitely deserves a replay. 

#choices stories you play #choices #choices game #choices stories we play fandom #choices stories we play #cadybear's reviews #murder at homecoming choices #choices murder at homecoming #murder at homecoming spoilers #mah #choices mah

[eisforeidolon]

In regards to that post [X]:

We could talk about the same old fallacies - OMG, Dean's siren is a guy! Yeah, a brother. OMG, Dean was supposed to say I love you in the Crypt scene! Yeah, it was removed and replaced with what the writer explicitly said was the less OOC version of what he meant anyway, "We're family". We could talk about the blatant absurdity of statements like "Dean liked men it happened on my screen" which bear no resemblance to the SPN that aired. But we've done that before and others have got this reiteration of it well covered.

So I wanna focus for the moment on this particular even more repulsive gem: "Like he literally doesn't need to verbally tell us he's bisexual we just know. He may not know but we do. This is an unmovable fact sorry."

It tells us a few things. One, this person is a fucking idiot. Two, this person, yet again, thinks that ~*interpreting*~ sexuality from the way someone looks/stands/makes eye contact/eats pastry/whatever numbnuts conspiracy bullshit you like? Is more valid than how a character identifies and is identified by those who created him. People can just look at you and know what your sexuality is better than you do, there's nothing repulsive about that idea at all! I've got a mountain of shiny pennies that says if Dean had literally never interacted with a man for the entire span of the series, they would have insisted it was because he was so afraid of how much he wanted to fuck them. There was no way the writers could have written Dean that someone like that would have accepted as actually heterosexual, because that's not what they personally wanted, so that's not what they were going to see.

I'm not saying there aren't things that might be said about how relatively questionable some of the gay jokes in SPN are, especially in the early years in terms of making queerness a punchline. But if we're going to talk about that? We need to do it not only in the cultural context of 2005 rather than 2023, but in the context of portrayals of real world men - and particularly those in fairly rural settings who aren't going to be particularly conscientious in the way they rib each other. Which becomes a whole other discussion about where to draw lines when you're writing fiction and dealing with things that might be realistic but also potentially offensive.

Furthermore, I'm not saying there aren't things that might be said about how SPN continually used romantic tropes for platonic relationships and how it's not entirely absurd for that to land different with the audience when the characters are not blood-related. Except that discussion needs to include not just how maybe the writers shouldn't have treated it as such a joke that a relationship between two male characters might have been possible, but also how fans should absolutely not have equated a relationship being theoretically possible with any specific relationship they wanted being owed to them. Especially in the context of those romantic tropes being used so so so much more between brothers all the fucking time setting the tone. As well as how it's not just problematic to treat the possibility of homosexual relationships as a joke, but problematic to insist literally any closeness between two male entities is gay, reinforcing all kinds of nasty toxic stereotypes about sexuality and masculinity which underlay a lot of modern adult men's issues with expressing their emotions and having genuinely close and open relationships outside of their romantic partners. I've seen fans wonder how heterosexual dudes can watch this show and love the brothers' relationship without seemingly noticing the weird undertones of how claustrophobically intertwined they are, and I think it's very much that when it comes to wanting a fantasy of platonic closeness, they're looking for realism as much as most women reading trashy romance novels are - but that's a whole other digression and this is already too long.

At the end of the day, not only was SPN not created in the cultural context of Very Online Tumbrites in 2023, convinced that nothing should ever be is heterosexual and every fictional story should be about them and what they want? The fact their ostensible original point misses is the real world and most other media of 2023 aren't like that either! Some of these shippers come across like they've literally never seen two adult male friends interact with each other or any actual love stories in media - and it's not just early 2000's television characters getting this treatment from entitled shippers who want to use representation as a weapon against creators as to why they're owed things they absolutely aren't.

#destihellers #faux social justice #long post #Dean *exists* = OMG SO BI!

[a-slut-for-vegaspete]

Playboyy – Porn without Plot?

Initial Thoughts on/ Reaction to Playboyy Episode One

As someone who loves to study (quite literally; I’m currently pursuing a MA degree in cultural studies) and investigate depictions of sex and sexuality in media, Playboyy has been one of my most anticipated releases of 2023 and it’s easier for me to work through my issues with a piece of media when I put my thoughts on paper or in a word document; so this post is primarily for myself.

Sex is sometimes presented as a personal, individual matter but in reality, our thoughts on sex, our dislikes and likes are a product or, at the very least, are shaped by, and of course in term can also influence, existing, dominant discourses on sex(uality), gender, class, race etc. One example of this – one most BL viewers/ queer individuals will recognise  – would of course be sex between queer individuals; an issue that remains highly debated. Some people/governments to this day like to think that they have the right to dictate who is allowed to have sex with whom and what sexual practices people can engage in without facing societal/legal punishment. So sex is never just about sex but is always also political; it’s just that this is more obvious to people who are part of a (or multiple) marginalised group(s). Sex is an entangled, complex phenomenon that always needs to be understood in relation to other discourses on e.g. (normative) femininity/masculinity, national identity etc. So any sexual act (on screen/irl), whether intended or not, engages with these discourses, subverts them and/or reaffirms them.

Regardless of whether the creators of Playboyy – or any piece of media for that matter – have meant for this series to serve as a critique or subversion of certain ideas surrounding sex and sexuality, the series (un)intentionally presents us with certain performances of sex and in doing so adds to, intervenes in and shapes existing discourses on sexuality and influences how topics such as kink, queerness, sex work (to name a few) are understood and talked about. 

Since only one episode has been released so far, and since I don't know what goes on in the writers’ minds, I, of course, can’t say for certain whether Playboyy is intended to engage with the political and social aspects of sex. However, I do think that Denice’s Twitter accounts (he is one of the writers (@ VivienneActing)) can provide us with insights into the writers’ intentions behind creating this show. In addition, the opening scene of episode one makes it clear that this piece of media, in some capacity at least, serves as a social commentary on the construction of sexual practices and sexual identities (in Thailand). The viewer is seemingly directly addressed, questions regarding sex are posed and the statement that “sex has many forms and careers in many places with many preferences” is made, which leads me to think that the creators have thought about and want the audience to critically think about how sex is often presented and talked about within dominant discourses. The character goes on to say that “it would be great if we could stop faking it and be frank about it”, which implies that the way we currently talk about sex is dissatisfactory to the character in the show/the creators of the show and that this series intends to present their own – potentially non-normative – views on sex. Especially the comment that “it’s a shame that we can’t be that free in this country” functions as a critique of how sex and the sex industry are frequently conceptualised in Thailand. (And when I say ‘Thailand’ here I of course don’t mean the entire country; I’m specifically referring to people/institutions/political parties that uphold and propagate conservative beliefs on and attitudes regarding sex. And I think this is the part of Thailand the series is critical of here as well).

However, I also don’t want to place too much importance on the intentions of the creators (in part, bc as I have said before, unless we are told specifically we can only speculate about their motives). I for one am also very interested in how I myself (and other viewers) read and interpret the narratives the series presents us with.

Little disclaimer: I watched episode 1 last night, half asleep, I don’t have the best memory and since the story has literally just begun (and there are so many ways this could pan out), my stance on these issues will probably change with the release of future episodes. So my ramblings have their limitations. In addition, I’ve grown up in the West, which influences how I conceptualise sex(uality) and gender; which is definitely something to be wary of and to be critical of, as well. 

As of right now, I’m the most intrigued by Zouey and by how he navigates sex and how he expresses himself sexually. What I find so interesting about his character is his non-normative approach to sex. While he is introduced as someone who apparently hasn't slept with anyone yet, we also see that he has sexual needs and desires. I love that the show does not limit sexual expression to intimate relations between two or more people but also showcases the possibility of exploring it on your own. 

I’m fascinated by people’s initial reactions to Zouey and what people make of his character; in particular people’s thoughts on the scene where he is in a dark room masturbating to a painting. I do wonder how much the colour grading (quite dark and gloomy) and the music (somewhat ominous) might influence or shape viewers’ perceptions of this scene and their conceptualisation of Zouey, and more broadly speaking their reception of expressions of non-normative sexual acts (in media).

The way Zoey negotiates his boundaries regarding sex is so interesting to me, as he clearly feels sexual attraction but does not feel comfortable being touched sexually. (I do wonder if there is a reason for this. Not saying that there needs to be a particular reason; I’m genuinely just curious if we might find out more in future episodes). I personally love how that doesn’t stop him from blowing Teena (twice if I remember correctly). I think his performance disrupts the normative script of sex, (or one of the normative scripts. To say that there is only one normative way to have sex would be incorrect I guess). He definitely doesn't adhere to this script/these scripts, and this seems to have created discomfort/confusion for some viewers, while others seem to really appreciate it. 

Also a little side note: the way Zouey does or doesn’t have sex can also lead us to posing the question of what counts as sex. Only penetrative sex? That seems like a somewhat outdated and not exactly queer-friendly definition of sex, right? And what even is virginity? Is Zouey still a virgin or not by the end of the episode?

I think the first episode already touches on so many different issues and I love it. People have pointed out the different social statuses of First and Soong, so we already have a storyline that highlights how sex and class are interconnected issues. We have seen a fair amount of kinky sexual practices, and sex workers have also made an appearance. So to come back to my initial question, is Playboyy porn without plot? Personally, I wouldn’t classify it as such. In my opinion, while the first episode does heavily focus on sex, sex is used as a tool for storytelling and the creators have taken the unique approach of introducing the viewers to the characters via sex. Plus, there is the mysterious disappearance of Nun/Nant(?). But also to me, it doesn’t really matter whether this is porn without plot or not. Firstly, because I think that sometimes (emphasis on ‘sometimes’, okay?) when something is labelled as porn without plot this is done to discredit a particular piece of media and to paint it as something that is inherently ‘less’ (less serious, less valuable etc.) and I don’t agree with this particular conceptualisation of plot without porn because I think it fails to recognise the value of such stories, not just for people’s own enjoyment but also in regards to academic analysis. And secondly, because I am more interested in how the series is situated (and maybe even actively positions itself) in relation to broader discourses such as (non-normative) sexualities, kink, sex work (in Thailand) etc. and for this we don’t necessarily need a “good” plot structure. So I, for one, am I excited to watch (and analyse) the rest of the show. 

#i’m known to change my mind quite frequently #so there is a good chance that i will have changed my opinion on a lot of things by the end of the show #also this is clearly by no means a fully flashed out analysis #i just needed to get this out of my head so that i can focus on the things i actually need to do today ahah #if you see a typo ... no you didn't #playboyy the series

[therumpus]

Strong Women and Tenderness in Poetry: A Conversation with Caitlin Coey

by Jeri Frederickson

Through the strength of Ani DiFranco’s songs, Jessica Chastain’s ass-kicking characters, and a host of friends, Caitlin Coey’s debut poetry collection, Without the Cliff (Finishing Line Press, 2023) weaves strength and beauty to bolster the reader through the grieving and painful seasons of life. The poems explore complex memories and relationships through healing and beauty.

Coey is a queer writer whose work focuses on gender-based violence, mental health, queer love, and the importance of friendship. Her poetry names childhood traumas that many have experienced and reminds readers they are not alone. Coey’s poems resonate with the strength of friendships that guide folks out of dark nights of the soul. Her works reimagine what could have or should have been - and how to draw strength from the icons of our day. Her poetry has appeared in Shambles, The Roadrunner Review, Awakened Voices, Sad Girls Club, and The Heduan Review.

Coey and I met attending poetry seminars and workshops, and I have had the privilege to publish her poems in Awakened Voices, a journal for survivors of sexual violence. I spoke with her recently on Zoom to learn how these poems came to be and how she has cared for herself and her reader.

***

The Rumpus: Congratulations on your debut book! How did Without the Cliff  title come about?

Caitlin Coey: There is a poem in the book called “A Prayer for When Legs Crumble and Vision Blurs” and the last couplet is “make me Thelma and Louise without the cliff.” It's a prayer to myself about wanting to be strong. Something I do as a coping mechanism when I’m feeling disempowered is watch movies and TV shows where strong women are kicking butt and defeating villains. It’s comforting because I know it’ll end well and my body remembers what it is to feel empowered. 

Rumpus: The book ends on a poem with strong women and a prayer. You’ve offered coping mechanisms to the reader at the end.

Coey: The poem that ends the book now is a calming poem. It's a soothing poem. My goal was always to be mindful of not overly protecting, but not triggering the reader. I didn’t want to include anything just because it was difficult or because it was shocking. So, ending with a piece that's comforting is like giving the reader a warm blanket, and it lets the reader know that I, as the author, am okay too.

Rumpus: Why is it important to you that the reader knows the author is okay?

Coey: I come from a theater background and if you're an actor in a challenging scene, and you're not okay as the actor, the audience knows that. Then the audience worries about you instead of following the story and having their own experience. That's something that I really carry with me as a writer. I didn't want to shy away from anything, but I also didn’t want to re-traumatize anyone if I could help it. I know there's a big divide about trigger warnings, but I like to have them. At 34, I know what a lot of my triggers are, not all of them, but a lot. Even if there aren’t the words “trigger warning” or “content warning,” there are often breadcrumbs and you can sense what something is going to be and choose if you want to engage with it. To be clear—even if I end up being triggered by something I watch or read, I'm never mad at the person who made the art. But if there are intentionally no breadcrumbs and no warning of any kind, it feels like valuing the art over the mental health of the audience.

Rumpus: You begin the book with an Ani Difranco quote. Is this a way to prepare the reader and yourself for the sometimes difficult content in the book?

Coey: As many queer women do, I have a long relationship with Ani DiFranco and I love that song “If He Tries Anything” from the album “Out of Range.” It makes me feel empowered. I was probably listening to it during the writing of many of these poems. I wanted there to be those breadcrumbs. The dedication is to survivors. For me it functions as both a welcome and a content warning. For this book, I’m saying listen this happened to me, and I made it out of the bottom of the well, metaphorically. And you're going to be okay too. The only reason I was able to write any of this is because I had people around me who showed me how to get out because they’d been there too.

Rumpus: How did you know these poems all went into a collection?

Coey: I've been writing for most of my life—since I was ten—but it was sporadic. When I started going to therapy and diving into and uncovering the stuff that I talk about in the book and dealing with it, writing is what helped. The poems go together because they’re all a part of my healing process.

Rumpus: There are several poems that are letters to specific people in your life, but the reader gets to be someone who knows you and the person that these letters are written to.

Coey: I’m glad to hear that as a reader you feel let in by those pieces. I got some feedback a while ago that those poems shouldn't be in the book because they’re an inside thing between me and somebody the reader doesn't know. I was adamant they needed to go in the book because those people are very important to me.

Now there's a lot of books and surveys that talk about how friendship is equally as important as romantic relationships. But I remember a time when, and maybe it was just the atmosphere I was in, but friendship was looked at as a placeholder to romance. I’ve never agreed with that. I wanted to elevate the importance of friendship and show that a big part of what enables me to be okay enough to write about what’s in the book are the people I wrote letters to.

Rumpus: As a fellow writer, I was impressed with the beauty of the language that was in poems that include difficult subject matter. As a reader, it also felt like an elevation that holds everything.

Coey:  I have always dealt with complicated feelings with metaphor, even before I knew what a metaphor was. As a kid, I had a lot of really complicated feelings, but I didn't know how to describe them. I can remember being asked, “Do you feel sad? Do you feel happy?” I was always like, “That's not enough; those aren't enough words.” I still have trouble as a 34 year-old identifying my feelings sometimes, which is a result of things I talk about in the book. So, I use imagery to express myself and to understand how I feel and what I think.

Rumpus: This beautiful language also extends through the First Kiss series.

Coey: The first one I’d never written about before because it's about a coercive experience. I was always mad that was how my first kiss went. And you know, you can get into conversations with friends about first kisses and what they were like and it’s supposed to be fun. I would always have to decide if I was going to say the real thing or pick something else. And that just makes me so mad and sad for myself. So, I wrote what I wished instead, which is where the redux poem comes in. The other First Kiss poems are those alternative stories. I liked the idea of surprising the reader in an exciting way with those stories. I’m reframing the experiences and choosing what I want to tell in the moment.

Rumpus: Is Without the Cliff telling the story you want to tell?

Coey: Absolutely. I hope people feel less alone. Maybe one day we won't have to say this anymore, but writing about trauma isn’t just therapeutic, it’s valid artistic material. Even ten years ago, I can remember feeling like my work didn’t have a place in the literary world, and that could have been my specific bubble, but I don’t think so. With that idea resounding in society, it can be hard to keep writing about these difficult things, to remember that your voice is important. That’s what I want people to know. Don't listen to the critic in your head saying you don't matter or that nobody wants to hear it because it’s not true. Your story is valuable.

________________________________________

Jeri Frederickson is the author of You Are Not Lost, available from Finishing Line Press. She is the Creative Director of a nonprofit arts organization in Chicago whose mission centers survivors of sexual violence. She graduated from Antioch University Los Angeles with an MFA in Writing.

#writeblr #lit #creative writing #interviews #the rumpus

[jinkieswouldyoulookatthis]

Subtext - Part 2

This is a follow-up to my previous post about subtext.

Subtext vs. Text

So, if the potential meaning(s) of subtextual elements is not part of canon, Jinkies, how can you say that Sam and Dean are canonically soulmates when the show never came right out and said that they were?

Great question! The short answer is that there is a difference between subtext and text that shows rather than tells.

Writers are always being told to "show, don't tell." But what the fuck does that actually mean? It means that good storytelling isn't just exposition. Sure, you can explicitly tell your readers/viewers a thing, it happens all the time, but if you want to really draw your audience in and make them suspend disbelief for a time, immerse them in your story, you want to show them things because that makes them feel the things. So instead of saying, "Bob went to the store and bought eggs, milk, and flour," you would instead, perhaps, describe Bob coming back with shopping bags that he unloads, pulling out eggs, milk, and flour, and putting them away in his kitchen. The fact that Bob went to the store and bought these items, while unsaid, isn't subtext. As the writer, you just chose to show your reader the results of an action instead of talking them through the steps of that action.

Likewise, in the episode Dark Side of the Moon (5x16), the writers show us that Sam and Dean share a heaven by having them be able to find each other without breaking out of their individual heavens, a thing that they show and explain to us through Ash as needing to happen to jump from one person's heaven to another's. But Dean just follows the road through his heaven and it leads him to Sam... because they're in different parts of the same heaven. Taking Ash's metaphor of Heaven being like Disneyland a step further, both Sam and Dean were in the Winchesterland heaven portion of Heaven, just on different rides within that portion of the larger park. Then Ash says, while looking pointedly at the two of them, that special cases like soulmates share a heaven. So while the story did not say, "Sam and Dean are soulmates," it gave us the equation, explained all the variables, and just left us to fill in the answer on our own because they had faith in our ability to do the basic math. Turns out that faith wasn't 100% justified, but whatever, not everyone is good at math.

So in this case, Sam and Dean being soulmates is a part of canon even though they never came right out and said those specific words in that order. It is text that is shown not told.

Text, in a written work, is the actual words used, whether those words are describing actions, dialog, or setting a scene. While subtext is the space between and underneath the words where implied additional meanings can be found, if one chooses to go looking for them.

A great and fertile ground for subtextual readings can be found in discussions about Sam and Dean's sexualities. Because while the text only tells and shows us both brothers being heterosexual, there is a lot of subtext that speaks to a lot of people in support of one or both of them being queer in some fashion. Queer readings of either character are valid head canons with lots of support that can be pulled from the subtextual elements of the show. There is room within the story for a lot of subjective readings, even though all the canon tells/shows us is that they are heterosexual cis men.

Now I know a lot of you may screech to a halt here and start objecting that I am putting a subjectively heteronormative read on this. Yeah, I know. Unfortunately, the entire issue with the heteronormative bullshit that we all deal with in the really real world on a daily basis, is that it is the default presumed pov. This is changing (thankfully) but Supernatural was created before that shift really began in the collective consciousness, so the default presumed pov of the show is a heteronormative one. That is how the show was created, the filter through which it was written and acted and presented. And while reading it from a different pov is valid, it is not going to be in line with canon... it would be head canon.

Again, HEAD CANONS ARE VALID even though they aren't canon.

#canon vs headcanon #canon vs fanon #subtext vs text

[thelostgirl21]

Alright, I might need your help / input on this one...

As some of you know, at some point over the summer, I'd noticed that:

a) Jaskier's LGBTQ+ wiki page was empty (a page had been made, but without any content yet),

b) that Radovid's page wasn't there,

c) that Radskier didn't have any page on the shipping wiki, either;

d) and that the Netflix versions of the characters of Radovid and Vespula were both missing from The Witcher's wiki, also.

Thus, I took the liberty to start filling those pages, doing my best to interpret and make sense of all the information I'd gathered throughout interviews, news articles, etc.

And, as I've explained here, I made one massive mistake of interpretation, that I then attempted to fix by rephrasing things in that manner:

I gave the moderator the explanation in yellow (i.e. the one at the bottom), and they reverted it back exactly to the way it was.

Therefore, I've now, at the very least, attempted to remove one paragraph, and given them the other explanation in yellow (the one at the top), hoping it would at the very least be kept off the wiki.

Because this is the huge mistake I made I was talking about, that was utterly and completely wrong:

Hopefully, they'll keep that paragraph off the page. It if comes back, just know that I no longer agree, at all, with what I'd previously written (yeah, I'll probably never let myself live that one down).

Where I need some input, is to see if you have some ideas on how Jaskier's sapiosexuality might have been supported by the show's narrative, to have it recognized as a valid sexual orientation for the character on the wiki?

Okay, first of all, I probably should say that the moderator appears to have a very strict "to be accepted on the LGBTQ+ wiki, a sexuality must both be shown on screen (through either text or queer subtext), and identified as such by someone working on the show," policy.

At least, that's how I've interpreted it, based on the answers they've given to other people's questions on their wall.

For example, an actor could not be officially claiming that a character is bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual, or polysexual if there's been no evidence, in the show (or the movie, videogame, etc.) that they have the potential to have sex with more than a single gender.

Therefore, I was able to get pansexuality accepted as part of Jaskier's sexual identity in the table, because Vespula tells Jaskier: "I’ve cursed you for chasing tails of every kind. Men, women, dwarves, elves, polymorphous…  […] But never have I ever seen you have a crush,” and there was an article stating that Jaskier was a panromantic or pansexual character.

And they've accepted sapioromantism for similar reasons, likely because "crush" is a-spec slang for romantic attraction.

For your personal information, the main ones I personally know and remember are:

Romantic attraction = crush.

Platonic attraction = squish.

Alterous attraction = mesh.

Sensual attraction = lush.

Sexual attraction = smush.

Aesthetic attraction = swish.

So, the whole scene is layered with heavy aromantic subtext, making the claim from Joey Batey that they'd built something very special for their audience - a sapioromantic and sapiosexual connection - be something very tangible on the show.

As someone that watched season 3 having already read that article before, and being overexcited to discover how they'd handled showing the character as being a sapioromantic on screen, I felt like Batey and the writers fully delivered on their promise, and wrote the queer scenes with a queer audience in mind.

But the moderator has refused to accept "panromantic" under Jaskier's romantic identity.

And my guess is that, by having Vespula tell Jaskier that she's never ever seen him have a crush before, then the show only lists the different people that Jaskier has been with sexually.

Reading into the a-spec subtext, we are more or less told that what Jaskier is experiencing for Radovid is a crush (romantic attraction), seemingly based on the way that Jaskier appears to be fascinated by and connecting with Radovid's intelligence and insightfulness (sapio).

Jaskier insists that he doesn't have crushes (aro), thus implying that either it's never happened before, or he's never fully been aware of it happening before.

So, I'm guessing they are saying "Well, the show has failed to show us that he's been romantically involved with people regardless of gender, since they only explicitly identified a single crush that Jaskier has been experiencing on the show, and it's with Radovid (a man).

There's no suggestion, in the narrative itself, that Jaskier could find himself experiencing a crush regardless of a partner gender. We've only seen him crushing on a man."

Therefore the moderator only considers sapioromantic as being a romantic orientation that's been named and that is being backed by the show's narrative, but not panromantic.

At least, that's my theory as to why "panromantic" keeps being refused whenever I've tried putting it in the table, regardless of what Joey Batey himself said in interviews.

Did I ask them why they were refusing panromantic? Yes, I did. But they didn't answer. So, I am left with trying to understand why they've accepted sapioromantic and pansexual, but refused sapiosexual and panromantic, based on the answers that they've provided to other people that appeared to be facing similar issues I had.

Which bring us to the whole "sapiosexual" fiasco.

Sadly, I can't demonstrate that Jaskier is sapiosexual based on the show's narrative alone.

He's seen as being instantly interested in having sex with people's he's just met, and as constantly craving sexual contact to the point where it gets him into trouble.

Hence why even I managed to missed it. I've been so used to read into character behavior as proof of attraction that I totally fell headfirst into that trap!

To the point where, at some point, I was literally thinking that maybe the words that Joey Batey used were

"[We] ensured that these romances are told truthfully — and sensitively and carefully, without resorting to stereotypes… Hopefully we’ve created something that is special, a sapioromantic and sexual [connection] that is as flawed as any other relationship in this show.”

And it was reported as "sapioromantic" and "sapiosexual" by the person writing the article, rather than sapioromantic and sexual (because no official source had confirmed the pairing would be a same gender one back then, and therefore Joey wouldn't have been able to label any gendered aspect of the queer relationship with Radovid yet when the article came out).

But sexual activity can be enjoyed with people for reasons that have nothing to do with finding a partner sexually attractive, and it's not something that can easily be shown on screen, even through the use of asexual subtext.

Unless Jaskier suddenly launches into some kind of educational presentation on what asexuality is, the different types of physical attraction asexual typically experience (aesthetic, sensual...), the different types of asexuals (sex-favorable, sex-neutral, sex-repulsed...) and how each of them might choose to express their sexuality, "canon sapiosexuality" is virtually impossible to clearly represent on screen!

To have any hope of being represented by characters in the field of TV, movie, and videogame entertainment, some sexualities have little to no choice but to rely almost exclusively on what the actors and the writers (or other people involved in the creation of the narrative) of the show are saying their intention was for the character.

I understand the whole concept behind the "death of the author", I do.

I'm 100% fine with people claiming that Poe Dameron being romantically attracted towards Finn is canon based on the queer subtext the actor used in his acting and him saying that he was playing a romance despite the studios disagreeing with that interpretation.

Why? Because the performance was queer coded, the studio knew it, they still released it, and if you queer-bait your audience, you better believe they have every right to claim a character as theirs.

But in the context where we're talking about the intent of the writers and the actor of portraying such a little known and represented romantic and sexual orientation that is part of the aromantic and asexual spectrum, I'm extremely saddened at the thought of people going "Well, we'll just ignore that the character was ever intended to be sapioromantic or sapiosexual, and only give validity to what's explicitly shown on screen!"

Look Lucifer has been seen as being sexually involved with people of any gender identity on the show, but he's never once announced "I'm a bisexual devil!"

It's the actors and the writers that confirmed it.

On the show, we can only interpret his behavior as being compatible with the label bisexuality. But his sexuality was still only explicitly named off screen.

Same with Kaidan Alenko in the videogame Mass Effect, and I *think* Magnus Bane in Shadowhunters.

We interpret bisexual behavior as proof enough of bisexuality, and trust the writers and the actors' words.

But what is "sapioromantic behavior" or "sapiosexual behavior". How can one objectively differentiate it from alloromantic and allosexual behavior, by solely showing it.

If we don't require onscreen bisexual representation to use the label to trust that the people working on the show are using the right label...

...why is it so important to have people say "I'm sapioromantic" or "I'm sapiosexual" before it can be considered canon.

Jaskier was labelled as sharing a sapioromantic and sapiosexual relationship with Radovid off screen. And the show's narrative is 100% compatible with real life sapioromantic and sapiosexual behavior.

So, I personally find it extremely unfair for us to be expected to go one step further, by explicitly finding ways to prove that Jaskier can only be sexually attracted towards people that he establishes an intellectual connection with on screen through the show's narrative itself.

It also makes "allosexuality" the default sexuality, where everyone having sex with a partner can be assumed to be sexually attracted to them unless they find a way to explicitly prove otherwise.

And it requires that the representation of the characters on the asexual spectrum be explicit to the point of needing to name the label, when we virtually never require any gay, bisexual, or even pansexual (has Deadpool ever explicitly stated he was pansexual without breaking the fourth wall? I'd have to check!) to explicitly state their label, just be shown as having sex with more than a single gender identity.

i.e. Engaging in a behavior that is compatible with their sexual orientation.

Jaskier's behavior is compatible with a sapiosexual orientation.

So yes, the idea that you must both have people working on the show naming the character's sexuality, and that it must be explicitly shown on top of it in the show's narrative, rings a bit problematic to me in the context of harder to demonstrate sexualities.

When you're tackling representation for rarer and more specific sexualities, I believe you should trust the writers and actors reporting what the intended labels for the character are, and only require that the narrative doesn't contradict it, not explicitly proves it.

Any bisexual behavior seen on screen can be used as proof of either bisexuality, pansexuality, or omnisexuality (or in some case polysexuality) as soon as someone officially working on the show names the character's sexuality.

It's extremely easily identifiable and simple to show (and even there, some idiots will try to say that anything non-monosexual doesn't exist).

But there's no such thing as widely recognized and easily identifiable "asexual behavior" per say.

And the difference between a queerplatonic relationship and a romantic relationship, for example, can be so subtle that they will present on screen as being exactly the same.

So, asking for explicit representation, and having it 100% confirmed on screen, is a bit much.

Jaskier never explicitly told Vespula: "I am confused over my feelings for Radovid, because I don't think I've ever experienced that type of specific attraction before. This is different. The way I feel about Radovid is different."

And Vespula didn't then say to him: "That's because I think you are romantically attracted to him."

And Jaskier didn't then answer: "What?! But I don't get romantically attracted to people! I love them platonically or alterously! I desire them sexually! I have world ending, heart wrenching affairs! I do enjoy getting involved in romances for the excitement it provides, the love, and the kinship I share with all my partners, but I don't desire my lovers romantically! I have also finally found my chosen family - a family that I share with my very best friend in the whole wide world and the second most important person in my life (since Joey said the first was Ciri)! I thought I was 100% aromantic until today! Why would I suddenly experience romantic attraction NOW, when I finally have the family I've been looking for, and it turns out they are what pleases me?"

Vespula didn't then answer: "Well, you were specifically swooning over Radovid's intelligence and insightfulness, so maybe you're sapioromantic?"

Instead, we've got Jaskier swooning over how intelligent and insightful Radovid is, while saying "the problem is different, the solution must be different, and Radovid... is different", seemingly confused and intrigued by what he's going through emotionally.

Vespula saying "You like him."

Jaskier thinking that she's talking about his feelings for Geralt, and clarifying that they are of a platonic nature.

Followed by her specifying that she was referring to Radovid, and that, despite Jaskier having been sexually involved with a bunch of different people before, never has she ever seen him have a "crush" (aro/ace slang for "romantic attraction") on any of them.

Then, Jaskier's reaction being to deny that "crushes" (again aro/ace slang for "romantic attraction") are something that he experiences and has the known capacity for, while insisting that he only has world ending, heart-wrenching affairs!

It's aromantic subtext. And yes, I'm happy and feel we're lucky that the queer subtext has been recognized as being enough to back up Joey Batey's claims that the character was sapioromantic.

My problem, is that asexual subtext is even much, much harder to portray and describe.

I would not expect Vespula to tell Jaskier "I've seen you lush and swish over so many men, women, dwarves, etc., before; but I think it's the first time I've ever seen you smush after someone!"

Expecting queer people to pick on the differences between a crush and squish? Reasonable. If you tell them "look for the sapioromantic representation" while watching the show by telling them before hand in an article, they'll go in paying attention to it and they'll likely see it.

But trying to differentiate between someone wanting to have sex with a partner because they find them aesthetically and sensually attractive, and they can enjoy sex for the sex itself without being sexually attracted to them (for example)...

...and someone wanting to have sex with a partner because they are feeling specifically sexually attracted to them?

Good luck!

The only way I could *perhaps* see how the sapiosexual attraction between Jaskier and Radovid might have been shown by the writers and the actors on the show, would be by comparing the way that Jaskier seems usually quite playful, casual, and fully in control of his body's responses whenever he's talking about sex, interacting with others in a sexually charged context, and talking about how he might be into certain things sexually.

When he was saying that he wasn't not, not into it while looking at Senchai sharing his own appearance, it was said with an almost detached (if a bit freaked out) sense of fascination and curiosity, I think.

Otherwise, he's often seen enjoying himself and being appreciative of other people's beauty, and curious about all the things they could be sexually doing together. Sex with a wide variety of people is amazing, and he regrets nothing!

It's very loving, and affectionate, too.

But it's true that he's not necessarily intensely vibrating with need or desire for his partner in those moment.

And then, there's the way he's physically and emotionally responding to Radovid in this scene...

So that could, perhaps, subjectively show a difference between "enjoying sex with someone you love" and "being sexually attracted to a partner".

With what triggered Jaskier's sudden need to "pounce" on Radovid to kiss him and potentially initiate the sexual activity being the way Radovid's brain works, and how he chose to express his feelings for Jaskier by learning his song (sort of connecting with Jaskier using his own language).

But it's so, so, so, so extremely subjective... that I'm really not sure how I can build a case for it!

And besides, even when you do feel sexually attracted to a partner, you're not constantly sexually attracted or aroused by them. It comes and goes. Sometimes you are in that more playful and detached mood. At least, I think...

I mean, my allosexual partner is much easier to get in that very aroused, very sexually receptive mood than I am, if I'm being honest.

But if he's being a complete geek about something I'll eventually get there. At the most unpractical and inopportune moments, too.

So asexuality is very complex and there's no way to clearly show it, just basically state it.

So, if any of you have any clue on how I could make a solid case for it, and get it approved on the wiki (because I do believe that sapiosexual representation matters), I'm all ears!

And look, I'm not blaming the moderator, either. That's not the point of that post.

Am I frustrated? Yes.

But I understand the need for a clear system to accept or refuse submissions, and I'm guessing that, with the number of pages they must go through and analyze every day, at some point, some nuances get lost; and they, too, miss that maybe applying the same rules for every single sexual and romantic identities, without analyzing how it puts some identities at a clear disadvantage given the complexities of translating attraction into easily identifiable behavior, is asking a lot.

We're all doing the best we can with the knowledge and abilities that we have.

But yeah, what a mess still...

#Jaskier #Sapiosexual #Sapiosexuality #Asexual #Asexuality #representation #and the complexities of showing aromantic and asexual identities explicitly on screen #My Thoughts #My Posts

[kitkatopinions]

Thought I was done, but I have more to say: This isn't directed at anyone in particular, please don't use this as an excuse to send anons or blame people or anything

I think a problem in the discussion about Blake's bisexuality is that some people are viewing her like she is a real person who stands on her own, and other people (like me) are viewing her as a fictional character and seeing the writing surrounding her as part of a bigger whole for queer rep in media.

I (as a real person) am a bisexual woman who doesn't have to prove that I (as a real person) am bisexual, and anyone asking for receipts on my (a real person's) bisexuality or telling me (a real person) that if I'm not out to everyone then I am not bisexual is being biphobic because my sexuality should be believed and no one gets to grill me for details or proof. This is because I am real, no one is writing dialogue for me, and if I felt like I didn't want to be open about my sexuality irl, it's because of the wide history of bigotry that directly affects me as a bi woman. Someone pointing to a straight couple holding hands and saying "they've been openly straight for ages, what's taking you so long" would be fucking messed up. Because I am a real person.

But Blake is not a real person, she is a collection of pixels, she's a puppet that gets moved without her consent (because she isn't real,) and the words she speaks and the things she does are not because she wants to do or say things but because she's being controlled by the people that made her (because she isn't real.) She as a person does not ~~choose~~ to do things or say things or be things any more than my bratz dolls ~~chose~~ to be secret agents or ~~chose~~ to get a haircut when I wanted to cut off their hair. I love fictional characters, I make headcanons about them, I even care about them, but they don't have feelings. They don't get a say. They aren't queer or cishet because they are, and because they were born like that the way that I am, characters are only queer or cishet when the writers that control the show decide they are. They're tools used to tell stories that are sold to people, and they can't wholly be separated from the history of queer representation (or the lack thereof) in media, they can't be separated from the beliefs and histories of their writers (I.E. when a main creator and writer like Miles Luna has a history of biphobia and misogyny he has never apologized for and was a RT higher up for years and years when RT is a horrifically bigoted company, that affects what he writers and how people will perceive his actions.) Because the characters aren't real people. And they can't be given labels like ~~canon confirmed queer~~ just because the writers tweeted it or because they've shown interest without confirmation. Queer coding and queer baiting are terms used by queer people NOT BECAUSE we wouldn't believe someone in real life isn't queer just because they (as real people) only hold hands instead of kiss but because we know that characters being openly explicitly queer was and still is something that's considered taboo and 'too far' and 'not family friendly' and 'shoving queerness down people's throats,' and so oftentimes queer characters are left to be coded and not made explicit because of that and only in recent years are queer people sometimes but not often seen and represented as clearly explicitly openly queer. Blake is a fictional character who fits into a category made by real queer people to discuss fictional characters that are written to do things that come across as queer and feel queer but are not explicitly openly queer. The RW/BY writers have yet to make her queer feelings (that they write to have) and actions (that they write her to take) explicit or overt, therefore she is queer coded. And before anyone says 'the writers/VAs say she's queer outside of the main show, that makes her just about as canon confirmed as Dumbledore was a decade ago and I don't consider that canon confirmed at all, I consider that weak. This doesn't mean that I (a real person) don't see Blake (a fictional character) as queer personally, it just means that her queerness is coded rather than confirmed. She isn't a real person who just isn't out, she's a fictional character who hasn't been confirmed.

Like, let's use writing for women as a quick but not perfect comparison. Let's say there's a show with around ten main characters and most of them are men and two of them are women, and the women characters (who are incredibly outnumbered by the large amount of male characters anyway) aren't ever written to stand up for themselves or achieve anything cool while meanwhile the male characters often are at least trying and standing up for themselves. And imagine women made posts about that saying 'it really bothers me that these women characters are being written this way' and then another woman got angry at them for 'trying to make women do things they didn't want to do,' or 'wanting women to do everything' or said 'in real life if a woman doesn't stand up for herself or make any grand achievements that doesn't mean she isn't still a good woman." It's like... No, these characters are fictional and there are standards for 'good representation' that some women have where the bar is above what those writers chose to produce due to the bigoted ways women characters have been neglected at best for ages.

Terms like 'queer coding' and 'queer confirmation' are specific for a reason, they're tools, they're used by queer people to talk about the level of representation we're allowed to have or that we're given because of how we've been under-represented in media or given scraps and told to be happy with it while we can't watch ANYTHING without having opposite-sex relationships that are open and explicit. It's straight up upsetting to hear people say that bi women are biphobic for even pointing out when the media we're given doesn't contain explicit representation.

Blake is not a real person. She is a tool used to tell a story. And so far the story that she's been used to tell has not included overt, open, explicit queerness, it has only been used to be coded. If people are happy with that, great. If other people feel represented by that, great. If other people see her as queer even though it hasn't been made explicit, great and same. But it is not harmful for queer people and specifically bi women to say we want more and to say that we're tired of seeing the writers specifically go ten years without ever giving canon confirmed representation when I've dealt with that for ages over and over while we've had to see endless opposite-sex characters get treated with much more clarity - and we especially don't have to give the benefit of the doubt to Miles fucking Luna and Rooster Teeth and say 'the writers are probably just writing a slow-burn, they definitely aren't purposefully giving themselves plausible deniability.'

#rwde #anti rwby #anti rooster teeth

[writingwithfolklore]

Why is Your Antagonist the Antagonist?

                I want you to picture an iconic antagonist. The character who gets in the way of the protagonist again and again, the evil of the world, the nuisance of the heroes, or the only formidable foe—why are they the antagonist? What drives them to evil? And should we be unpacking that further?

                Antagonists are tricky because reality doesn’t exist as black and white as stories often do. Shakespeare often wrote about villains driven by dangerous ambition—is it fair to vilify ambition? Or how about a more harmful example, the villains who don’t fit into heteronormativity, or who are disabled or mentally ill or neurodivergent?

                Even just recently, the new James Bond movie’s villain had a facial deformity and was mentally ill. We should be unpacking that. Why are those villainous traits? Why aren’t disabled and mentally ill people ever the heroes? Why does our dashing hero and the beautiful princess always have to be dashing and beautiful?

                To call a villain ugly is to deem their features as “ugly”, features that real people have, as well as saying underneath it all that people must be beautiful to be loved, or appreciated, or good. To create a villain who acts due to their mental illness is to portray mental illness in a negative light. To imply queer sexuality to a villain is to imply queerness is inherently perverted, or wrong, or drives people to evil (lots of cartoon antagonists fall into this category.)

                Fortunately I’ve seen a lot more writers who are writing their antagonists with complexity, with greyness and empathy—who aren’t defined by any singular trait or feature. To show that people make mistakes and get caught up in situations, who don’t vilify any one thing but rather display humanity in all its forms—complicated and without answers.

                I don’t know, maybe that’s the way to do it.

                Let me know what you think about villains, any examples of problematic villains you can think of, or even examples of really good villains in the comments! Hopefully with a little more examining of biases and questioning assumptions, media can move away from the problematic villain and the stereotypes we think of first when we think antagonist.

#writing #writers #writing tips #writing advice #writing inspiration #creative writing #writing community #books #film #filmmaking #screenwriting #novel writing #antagonist #characterization #opinion #heroes and villains #villain #why is your antagonist the antagonist?