Queer Stories - Tumblr Posts

I assumed that Flint's Treasure Island death was just a rumor is Black Sails-verse, just because tonally it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And Jack Rackham's whole ending monologue is about how stories diverge from fact over time, which allows for wiggle room between the show and book.

Listen the heartbreaking thing is that Treasure Island is James Flint’s greatest fear. He says in the absolutely iconic Freedom in the Dark speech that I am still not over

“We will have been for nothing. Defined by their histories distorted to fit into their narrative until all that is left of us are the monsters in the stories they tell their children.”

And that is what happens. That is what Treasure Island is: the definitive pirate story, in which Captain Flint is nothing more but a monster. A novel that almost every child reads….Flint literally becomes a monster in the stories they tell their children. A man who tried to change things, to destroy the myth of the inevitability of empire, to remake the new world…becomes a monster in that empire’s stories. 

Well great, anon, now I’m crying. 

I mean, the entirety of Black Sails is about stories. The irony is that the reason James is so effective as Flint is precisely because of the myth he himself creates around Flint - and yet in that myth, he is the monster. He has to be, that’s the only way that myth retains power. That label plagues him, as John Silver points out to him (John Silver, conveniently, is “not int he least bothered by whatever labels anyone decides to afix to you.” This doesn’t change - his “I don’t care” in response to Flint’s speech in 4x10 is literally the same sentiment). Part of what makes the war/rebellion so effective is the story of Long John Silver that Billy comes up with. Jack is absolutely obsessed with the reputation he’ll have and the stories they’ll tell about him - seriously, it’s a running gag, and when he goes to Philadelphia he realizes just how much those stories get twisted. 

The thing is, queer people have always struggled to tell their own stories, from their perspective. Stories in which they’re not monsters or predators, in which they aren’t insane or diseased or wrong or perverted. Stories in which they don’t die. Stories of their lives as they are. I could come up with dozens of examples. The way that queer people are told “don’t shove it in our faces” while the media is covered with heterosexuality. The way that an entire generation of queer people was lost to the AIDS crisis because the government completely ignored it - and their lives and their stories and their experiences create a glaring gap. The way that Forster’s novel about two gay men who get a happy ending, Maurice, couldn’t be published until after his death, in the 1970s, even though it was written in 1914. The way that the queer character always dies, or the queer couple never gets a happy ending in the media, with very few exceptions. The way that queerness is coded as monstrous in horror cinema. I mean, I could go on for a while here. 

Flint, in his “Freedom in the Dark” speech, is talking about exactly that. He is a queer man who is fighting for (among other things, including, yes, revenge fueled by rage) the right to be who he is without shame, who implores John Silver to not go down in history as a monster - and John Silver, who is, as far as I can tell, a straight man, looks him in the eyes and says “I don’t care.” Another queer story is erased, told in such a way as to profit those in power. 

In a way, then, since Black Sails is the prequel to Treasure Island, I suppose John Silver’s choice was predictable (though hindsight is 20/20).  Treasure Island is the story that we’re left with about what happened, and the finale tells us how that story came about. 

So yes, Treasure Island is absolutely fake news and untrue and not what actually happened, but on a kind of meta-level, that very fact is still super important, because the story that gets left behind, even if it’s not actual fact, is important. You could say the whole story of Black Sails is the tragedy of queer stories being erased, of Black Sails being transformed into Treasure Island by those who wield power. And those stories have power - even if they’re not true, they affect things. They change things. James Flint knows this, and that is why he is so scared of going down as a monster in their stories. 

Thank you, thank you, you’re far too kind, as always, @the-golden-comet! I’m adding @gioiaalbanoart, who has also been nothing but kind to me, and also loved The Tengu And The Angel, and my darlings Kunio and Nathaniel, as well as @alwri-tes, who had also read and loved my debut novel! Shadow’s Hidden Blade is 100% gonna be the next item on my reading list!

I’m sick of being told that tumblr is dead and new artists/writers can’t thrive on here. This is the only website that has ever supported my work - work that is too queer, erotic, and genuinely subversive to survive the omnipresent corporate algorithm. The fact that there are people out there making posts and memes and fanart about my book blows my mind. 

(Staff has done everything in their power to run this website into the ground, so I don’t want to heap uncritical praise on them of course.)

As an aro-ace author who has a main character on the aro and/or ace spectrum in all my books, I second this. There will not be any sex scenes in my upcoming book, Night Of The Blue Moon, on account of both main characters being on the asexual spectrum, and I’m not sure what I’m going to do with Blood On A Yellow Rose but right now I’m leaning towards a queerplatonic relationship due to both main characters being aromantic…

I think we need to work to get away from this idea that a queer story is inherently about two or more characters of the same gender ending up together

A story about a bi character ending up with someone of a different gender is still a queer story.

A story about aro characters in a queerplatonic relationship is a queer story, regardless of gender.

A story about trans or nonbinary characters is a queer story, not matter who they end up.

A story can be queer even if nobody ends up in a primary relationship. A story can be queer even if nobody falls in love or has sex.

Writing Rant: Adam/Playboy Ship Complex

It's 9:03 and I have a wedding to get to in the morning so let's speed this up!

Basically, I am going to be focusing on a point I brought up about how stories attempting to write queer men with a heteronormative gaze tend to ascribe hyperfeminine men to the role of women even to the point of giving them the same tropes.

PART BL: The MADONNA/WHORE COMPLEX EXPLAINED

Quick explanation time, skip if you already know! TLDR; The Madonna/Whore Complex describes how men view women through a reductive lense. Either women are the:

Madonna: Enigmatic and unattainable or a domestic down-to-earth goddess. Both subtypes are united by their lack of overt sexuality and a distinct and desirable femimine charm.

or

Whore: Sexually attainable and often judged for their sexual desires. They're desirable but not respected as humans with the freedoms they're allowed to enjoy having to fit the fantasy of a sex bomb.

BUT HOW DOES APPLY TO BL STORIES?

If you have read any mlm story on either Wattpad or AO3 you can already tell.

You have the protagonist who typically falls into the enigmatic unattainable doll/Adam archetype with soft porcelain skin and doe-eyed expressions of innocence despite being in their early twenties. They're often younger than their love interest by several years in order to further highlight a power imbalance between the love interest and them.

The name Adam has further symbolism due to the fact that when the male lead and love interest have sex for the first time there is an undercurrent of moral corruption with the normally enigmatic and reserved protagonist turning into a moaning mess with creepy narration about how the protagonist isn't "pure" anymore. Adam as a biblical figure is often said to have been corrupted by the sinful presence of Eve and the apple.

The protagonist is challenged by a "Playboy" character who desires the Male Lead. The character is often portrayed in darker clothing and behaves exceedingly similar to the figure of the Femme Fatal.

You also have several plotlines based on the Madonna/Whore Complex which repeatedly appear in heteronormative queer stories.

"Good Girl Boy Who "Saves" The Sinful Man"

" The Redemption Of The "Playboy" Through Love"

"Wife Vs Mistress/Husband Vs Mistress"

"The Moral Fall Of Adam"

How To Not Stereotype Characters

So you want to write a minority, eh? Think you tough, eh?

This is a post that applies to all types of minority groups from religion to race to gender to disability to everything else!

In All Cases Involving Minorities The Trick To Avoiding Accusations Of Stereotyping Is TO AVOID TOKENIZATION!

Tokenization: to take one example of one type of person and call it perfect overall representation of an entire community

You want to write a villainous trans character? Cool! Just take a character on the hero's side and incorperate trans characteristics into them! Heck, take fifteen random cannon fodder characters and incorperate a trans identity into them!

You want to write a flamboyant gay man? Great! Just take that accountant character you have and make them have a picture of their sam-sex lover! Take a best friend, love interest, protagonist, ally, or enemy, and make them gay!

If you are a dummy you might think that this is "unrealistic". You want to know what isn't realistic, your plotline! Most people don't get into the shit your characters do!

But seriously, minorities are as omnipresent as white straight cismen neurotypical and able-bodied men are. Probably more so! Those list of characteristics I just mentioned aren't the default! Besides, minorities are more likely to be seen together than seperate!

I just remembered something I wanted to do.

Essentially, I grew up reading and watching yaoi (and also self-identify as a fujoshi) and it's always been a dream of mine to have a queer show go on for as long as something like Naruto or SpongeBob. You know, just longer than three seasons as is typical with shows that have queer main characters.

So, I'll share some of the stories of mine that either have MCs that are gay, have queer characters, or have a plot related around something LGBT.

Also, I wanna use this as a way to detail special cases in my stories as well.

! I am but a simple ally. So if something I say is wrong or there's a better way to phrase it, please kindly let me know. I truly mean no offense by anything here !

Stories with gay MCs

Tales That Were Told (Not written)

So, this is a story that's pretty much done but I haven't written one bit of it aside from a random scene I had to get out of my head. But, originally, this was just a story where two highschool kids were dealing with highschool shit. A slice of life story with two cuties. Then, it got turned into this new story (Tales That Were Told) that is a sequel to another story I'm still currently writing (Tales That Were Lived). It's hard to summarize, but essentially the main story is an adventure dealing with three characters and a fantasy world where they're all coming to terms with finding themselves and learning to love who they are despite where they may come from. In Tales Told, I intend for this story to have like relationship shit, but the relationship is two men *gasp*. It's not gonna be some weirdly specific thing; no, they're just two kids who have a crush on each other while other shit in the world is going on. Revolutionary concept I know.

Unnamed erotica (unedited, 40k wc with a planned sequel at 10k currently)

it has a name, but I don't really like it :(

I was a little iffy about writing this one at first because I'm the type of person who's extremely tired of queer media just being softcore porn. I just want a good story and the characters happen to be gay. But, I also know it's important to write stories like these as well to show all the different sides and to show people that there's not much different about anyone who happens to be lgbt. In this story, my MC Kit is a famous voice actor (like Johnny Young Bosch) and is a total asshole that everyone is scared shitless of. His soon to be boyfriend is a lovestruck puppy boy childhood friend who is desperate to be with him. He's so sweet it's almost sickening! They deal with normal relationship issues, societal problems, workplace harassment, as well as their own personal issues and some of their issues are even from each other. scandalous. Kit as the MC has a million and one issues within himself (including some from his family), but his loverboy is right there to help him! Also, here's another summary I wrote for this on my website that better explains the origin of the story.

Stories with queer characters

Orange Perfect (unfinished at 21k)

This is had a few mentions of queerness in it. A quick summary: this is a coming-of-age story where three kids (Cassie, Lucius, and Shay) are forced to become friends after all getting targeted by a gang. The MC named Shay is discovering himself. He doesn't know if he's gay, bi, non-binary, gender non-conforming, etc... and is conflicted about his various feelings as he wishes he had a simpler answer for how he feels. Another important character is a trans man (Gabe) who acts as a physical representation of Cassie's own realization of who she wants to be. It's tough for her to live as herself, so Gabe eventually reveals to her that he is a trans man. That his struggles to realize who he really was changed once he accepted himself. As well, he wants her to be different from himself as he's still living partially in the dark since very few people know he's trans.

Any story that has one character named Ren in it (too many to count)

Ren is my MCs twin brother (whenever I want her to have a twin brother) and he is always in a relationship with another character named Mari who I originally made as a trap (I was like twelve). Now a days, Mari is just best described as a twink, but I like his name too much to change it. So that part of the "trap" still exists. Ren is full on gay and screams it from the rooftops as he expresses his interest in men quite often. He's not a flamboyant gay, but he will openly tell people he has no romantic or sexual interest in women and isn't shy to kiss his boyfriend in public. Oh and bonus that women often like him and he has a ton of female friends.

The Entire Fourth Dimension Reality series (total wc of ~100k)

Aside from this story being one long shit post I thoroughly loved making. One of the secondary main characters is suppose to be pansexual. Why this is, is because she only interacts with the other three main characters because she finds them cute (one girl and two guys). Now, she's actually pan for a reason. It's mainly due to her family that made her desire to be loved by everyone around her. This manifested into her just liking anything that would show her affection. (dw Mandy, I love you💗) One of the villains I made to be feminine presenting because he was really pretty in my head when I first developed him. He was going to be genderless, but I decided to make him more feminine and most of that is just with his appearance, but he is defined as a man and acts as so, he just happens to have traditional female attire and mannerisms :)

All The Screams (unedited at 61k)

So, the main point of this story is about Cassie who ends up finding out that she's cursed, but she only does so after going on a mission to escort the prince of her kingdom to his lover. This mission is kept secret and why lies in who this lover is. It's a prince from another Kingdom. Kyo, the prince of Cassie's kingdom, is a little selfish brat who wants what he wants. He fell in love with another kingdom's prince and immediately chose him over his kingdom. With the other prince, his parents are actually gay as well and I made this story around the time I was heavily into yaoi and BL so that may have been an influence as to why tons of characters in this story are gay or why there's major plot points relating to it.

Characters that are iffy/I didn't plan to be queer

The State of Quandary (unfinished with ~60k)/ Before the Reignfall (finished with 45k)

Technically this involves two characters. One of the MCs (Fang) and the MCs friend (Dani) are in the same boat. Originally, Dani was suppose to have a crush on the other MC (Cassie), and that was suppose to explain why Dani even interacts with her in the first place and why they have such a close friendship. However, it felt queerbaity and I felt gross having that as a plot point when it's so obvious Cassie will never even get close to having romantic feelings for Dani. Then, I thought to have Dani be a lesbian because she has trauma with men and dislikes most, if not all, grown men in the world. Fang was the remedy with that as I thought to make them be in a relationship as Fang would be the first guy she ever met who isn't a total loser. However, Fang was originally going to be involved in a love triangle before I realized there's a bit to many conflicts in the story and got rid of it. So, I ended up in a gray area where Fang also doesn't show any interest in women (the result of the love triangle being removed) So, this was my fix. People can either think Fang and Dani are cute together and he manages to break through her trauma, people can think they're both gay and just show no romantic interest in the opposite sex, or their romantic feelings for anyone just isn't important to the story whatsoever. And tbh, I don't mind any one of those options. It's cool when there's different ways to interpret character relationships and it won't lead to fans fighting each other if even I don't really know what it is.

Tales That Were Told (Unfinished at ~90k words)

This villain is a doozy. Their name is Gage and when I first made this character, I pretty much was going to make a woman. However, when I started writing the story, she turned into a he and not even in a way like I intended to change the gender, but even now whenever I write Gage, they're a he. When I think of Gage, they're a she. I don't know what that's about, but even my mental image of Gage is that of both a woman and a man. (If anything, they're comparable to Leo from Tekken). So, to fix this in my head, out loud I refer to Gage as a he. I think of Gage as a she. In the story, the narrator doesn't use any pronoun and characters have conflicting usage as most characters refer to Gage as a he, but there are some who see Gage as a she or simply they/them. Oh, and no, just because Gage might be non-binary, that's not why they're evil. It's not even a plot point in the story. No vilifying personality traits over here lol

Unfinished/unplotted stories with queer plotlines

Unnamed romance (Pink and Brown)

I showcased a snipit of this story (also thanks for everyone who liked it 💕), but there's more to it than what I shared. Back when I actually had a friend, I used to tell him about ideas I had, then he would pretty much allow me to figure out what I wanted to do with it. I told him I wanted to make a story with these two girls I made in a picrew because they were so adorable and they ended up as a couple. I couldn't think of a name so they were named Pink and Brown based on their hair colors. I also couldn't think of the official story I wanted them to have. So, I simply came up with two of them. The first story is a slice of life where Brown and Pink are both in college (for IT and Art respectively) and Brown has a huge crush on two girls--one she knows through mutual friends and another being the artists of a webcomic she really loves. (I'm sure this isn't obvious at all). So, one day, Brown gets a call from Pink and she's really stressed out about something. Eventually, she explains she called her since an IT major could help her with someone hacking one of her social media accounts. Brown agrees and when she finds out what the account is, she's shocked to see that Pink is the artist of the webcomic she's been reading for years. I don't even have a damn conflict in this story so it is dead in the water. I'm sure I'll get some idea for it, but knowing me that'll be years from now, unfortunately. Oh, and the snipit I shared is suppose to be the comic Pink is drawing acted as an AU of the original story (if that makes any fucking sense)

Unnamed romance (Idol x non-idol)

This one feels like a fever dream because I don't even remember why I came up with it. Anyways, this is suppose to be a slight extension of the erotica. This is another famous person who ends up falling for an accountant after a random encounter he had with him after a concert. The accountant doesn't want to be involved with this celeb for several reasons, but mainly because he's known to sleep around. The celeb is determined and pretty much forces them to have a relationship by hiring him as his new money manager. He pretty much gets him fired from his old job and... that's all I thought of. It's suppose to end up being really cute as the celeb eventually reveals the kind of person he really is, but what that is, I'm not really sure.

Random Tangent

Now that I'm writing this, it does make me think about an abandoned story I wrote where a failing manager falls in love with a client who essentially saves him from losing his career. The erotica and it's extension are already related, and this other unnamed story (I'll call it The Client for now) had a connection as well. Real quick, all these stories are connected to Orange Perfect through Cassie and other relationships. Without giving away major spoilers (just in case) Cassie ends up as someone very influential in the media world by the end. As a college age girl, she's meeting with the Celeb and the Accountant; and, at some point in her journey, she meets and works with the Manager in The Client. Kit knows a ton of people in the industry and knows the Celeb, the Manager, and Cassie who he has a business relationship with. So, it's easy for me to add Pink. Pink could eventually be offered a contract to a major publication, and cross paths with Cassie through some means. There's even a chance for Kit to voice any character in her webcomic, the celeb to make music for it, and even the manager could help her somehow. Sometimes I get really good ideas for things that just are not possible. I would love to have these five stories apart of a collection in this "reality" I made up for them. Ugh. It sucks to not have this as my actual job. Anyways, I thought it would be kind of cool to have all these stories be related.

That might not be everyone, but I often use queer elements in my story so, who knows, maybe I'll update this in the future with more!

But, thanks for reading if you did~🍂