Currently Obsessing Over Improv Shows

i don't think that hearstopper or red white and royal blue are not made for queer people. it is just that they are about being queer rather than directly for queer people.

hearstopper, especially, is about teenage queer experiences (first love, coming out, discovering your identities...). while dead boy detectives plot doesn't revolve around the queerness of the characters, since its a detective show.

and rwrb is something else, even. I would say it represent an in-between: although important part of the plot focuses on alex's sexuality crisis, the subplot revolve around politics and international relationship.

rwrb represents the middle ground of the queer media venn diagram. It panders to straight people by offering a clear and distinct representation with some explanation of queer identities while having queer characters whose identities don't solely revolve around being queer.

i say that we need all of those kind of stories, some like hearstopper, some like dead boy detectives and some like red and white and royal blue, because they serve different purposes.

while stories like hearstopper help straight audiences or young queer people to understand queerness and its diversity and struggles, shows like dead boy detectives further humanizes LGBTQ+people by representing them in casual yet meaningful ways with all of the nuances that come with being queer.

as someone who is a huge fan of other queer content (like heartstopper and red, white and royal blue), dead boy detectives feels so incredibly different.

despite how much i love those two, they don’t feel like they’re made for queer people.

in a lot of ways, they feel like media made for cishet people about queer and trans people which is fine and doesn’t make it unenjoyable, but dbda has a totally different feel to it.

it feels like queer media made FOR queer people.

they have so much nuance to their characters and don’t shy away from it. charles openly flirts with both edwin and crystal despite the fact that he never says anything about his sexuality and edwin’s backstory doesn’t try to hide the horrifying way that queer people were treated historically and i think that’s really important.

though he is very clearly repressed, he is still unapologetically queer. he showcases his jealousy loudly and there is no doubt in the viewer’s mind that he is queer even for a moment.

same with monty and the cat king. they’re so vibrantly and boldly queer. monty begins flirting with edwin nearly the moment we see him and as does tck. what i really appreciate about tck is his gender nonconformity. i think that’s so important and i honestly really appreciate that they don’t even mention it.

with tck in particular, his actions can be considered rather predatory, but we never really feel like that’s due to his queerness which is FASCINATING because that is a really harmful stereotype of queer people, but it never feels like that’s what they’re going for or like they’re using it to demonize queerness.

with jenny, she says so casually that she’s attracted to women and it’s not even something that they have to discuss again. it’s such an unimportant aspect of her character, but it’s still so unabashedly there. i love that niko doesn’t even say anything about it when she learns, she just accepts her, no questions asked.

even with simon, he very clearly discusses his sexuality in E7 when he tells edwin that he liked him, but he never has to say the words. we just KNOW contextually because he talks around it. he i would argue that he is the only instance of a character discussing shame in their identity and it immediately results in one of the loveliest quotes in the show.

“if you punish yourself, everywhere becomes hell.”

he has spent over a century repressing himself and when he finally tells edwin, the boy he liked and treated terribly because of it, he is immediately told that it is not torture to be queer. he is immediately told that there is nothing wrong with his sexuality.

the confession scene btwn edwin and charles in E7 and the scene in E6 where edwin is TRYING to confess are so fucking important to me. nearly immediately, charles tells edwin that it doesn’t make any difference that he’s queer and that he accepts him. when he does confess, he doesn’t make him feel bad for it. he tells him that he loves him too, but that he can’t say he does in that way right now, but that he’s the most important person in his life and that that will never change.

the scene in E7 where they’re on the roof and edwin tries to apologize for potentially having made things awkward, charles shuts it down immediately. he says “it doesn’t.” and that’s the end of it.

this show exemplifies queerness through a queer light and it’s very clear who the intended audience is for dbda not to sound like i’m hating on the first two pieces of media (rwrb is literally one of my special interests, trust me, i adore them both), but maybe that’s why hs was given a third season and dbda was cancelled within five months of airing. i feel that these two pander to straight people in a lot of ways, but dbda doesn’t. it’s something that is incredibly important to me and i’m really happy about it.

for the record i 100% support chappell roan being as much of a bitch as she wants to fans who don't respect her boundaries. like yeah celebrities hold a lot of privilege in terms of wealth but that doesn't make it less fucked up that they're treated like public property and the fact that she's gained so much notoriety so quickly is probably A Lot to deal with. was she kind of blunt about it? yeah but why the fuck would you expect a perfectly polished pr statement when at the beginning of this year nobody knew her name? let the woman breathe jfc

This is exactly the same for me. Dbda resurrected the feral fan in me who used to read fanfic every day and draw, and imagine their favourite characters in every universe possible.

I'm honestly grieving the show.

It was one of the best shows netflix has ever put out, amazing enough to get me to run to resurrect my tumblr after years of not using it to be a part of its fandom.

I've only ever been in 1 fandom in my life before dbda, and genuinely thought I'd never find something that would grip me enough to make me want to engage with its community as much as I did in my previous fandom.

But then, after 6 years, Dead Boy Detectives came along and made me reach for a drawing tablet for the first time in over 2 years. Made me write fics, even though I don't consider myself a writer, and I've never written this many fics this fast. I haven't been this creative in a long time and it's been an indescribable source of joy to me to be able to go back to creating content.

It got me on discord, which always overwhelmed and scared me, but I'm so glad I had given it a chance because I've met so many incredible, funny, talented and supportive people there, and now I can't imagine not talking to them almost every day.

It really was a bright light during a less than ideal time in my life and will still continue to be because I refuse to let it go.

We were given something truly great and can still celebrate it and make and consume fanart, fics, gifs, metas, au ideas, crafts, moodboards etc etc to support each other.

Hi :)

Hello,

I'm midas, but you can call me... god (just kidding)

I've been on tumblr for quite a while now but I wasn't really active. And since a new school year is about to begin, I decided to give it a shot, and try to actually post stuffs on here.

I will post mostly about fandom (Mostly Dead Boy Detectives and PJO, I think), movies, books, music and being a student (I study humanities).

So if you want to be moots with me, I am... right here :)))

PS : I'm french.

Very abbreviated concept, but please consider the classic “Charles gets dosed with a love potion” - but the person the potion latches onto isn’t Edwin, it’s an amateur potioneer with a crush on him and no respect for consent. And it works, fully, Charles is madly in love, sobbing and composing sonnets and proclaiming everlasting devotion and all the rest. He tries to stay with Edwin, but the draw gets too strong as the potion takes hold, and he runs off into the night to meet her.

And then, a few days later, Edwin gets to them, and tries to rescue Charles starting with taking down the potioneer, and the potioneer commands Charles to protect her from Edwin. And Charles freezes, and stares at them both. And then, face covered in tears, slurring apologies, he knocks the potioneer out from behind.

Edwin gives him the antidote, and his eyes slowly clear, coming into sharp focus on Edwin.

“Charles? Are you alright? How do you feel?”

Charles keeps staring, for a bit, eyes fully focused now but brow furrowed, and Edwin gets more concerned, if possible.

“I… I think I feel… I think. No. I don’t think, I’m quite sure. I love you, Edwin. Like, the way you love me. I’m in love with you.”

Edwin lets out a breath like he’s been hit. “Oh.”

He looks back at Charles, hands moving spasmodically through the air, reaching towards Charles and then back again. “I’m so sorry, Charles. I must have failed with the antidote, it must have altered the parameters of the potion instead of ending the effects, I - just give me an hour, I’ll find out went wrong and remedy it, I promise. Don’t worry, I’ll fix it, just - “

Charles surges forward and grabs Edwin’s erratic hands from the air. “No, that’s not what I’m saying! I’m saying - I’m saying that even when the potion was working, and I was madly in love with that bint, I still loved you more. I had to go with her, I couldn’t stop myself, but I still loved you more. And I always have, Edwin, the whole - the whole drunken giddiness or whatever that it did to me, the obsession, it’s nothing to what I’ve always felt for you, I love you so much - so much bigger - than that potion. I love you, Edwin.”

And Edwin looks at him, again, still, eyes wide, hands held clutched in Charles’s, and speaks again, and this time it sounds like a breath let out after having been held for decades. “Oh.”

I think the most radical thing the hunger games does is tell young people that the most revolutionary thing you can do is have unconditional love for humanity. Katniss throughout the entire series is guided by a deep sense of compassion for the people around her. It is what causes her to volunteer, to bury rue, to mercy kill cato, its why she tries to save peeta, why finnick telling her to remember who the real enemy is works, and even though her compassion for the larger world falters when peeta is kidnapped, it comes back when she visits hospitals and asks for mercy for other victors and ultimately, it is love and belief in a better humanity that makes her kill coin. Through it all, she maintains an unfaltering belief in the fundemental goodness of humanity, which is diametrically opposed to dr gaul's and snow's worldview. Peeta is even more unwaveringly compassionate

So the series tells young people that the most revolutionary thing you can be is compassionate. Let compassion drive your politics. Let yourself believe in the fundemental goodness of people. And i think that's deeply important in a world that touts the superiority of pure reason or logic, to allow yourself to be guided by something as emotional as compassion. Katniss everdeen tells us that your politics should be rooted in compassion in a world that thinks detatchment or cynicism is intelligence and i think thats v cool

All I'm saying is Jayce Talis is a bisexual polyamorous man who has a type and that type is just, Higher Beings. His type is just Jesus Christ. Bro straight up wants to fuck God

Edit: damn bisexuals found this post hello y'all hope you have a nice day the post reached its target audience