I Love How These Books Are Just A Bunch Of Lesbians Running Around Being Gay And Then There's Palamedes

Speaking of fandom racism and misogyny (and this is a bit of a hot take) while I love and adore the fanon depiction of Dan and Matt as black, it does also make me uncomfortable sometimes. This fandom constantly lambasts Dan as too aggressive and angry and unfair towards their soft sweet perfect Andrew, and then decided this was the woman they wanted to make black, essentially depicting her as the stereotypical Angry Black Woman (just like Thea) from a broken family and sex work, a lot of the time. And when she's not, she's the Sassy Black Captain. The same with Matt often being nothing more than Neil's Cool Black Best Friend in fandom depiction. It's not everyone all the time, and in a series like AFTG there's going to be some unfortunate negatives no matter what race you hc someone as, but when that's what fandom reduces them too, it's got some unsettling undertones sometimes.

I definitely agree with you on the point of people will reduce down Matt and Dan to the “black best friend” and “angry black woman” stereotypes. It’s real uncomfortable.

you'll never get a second chance plan all your moves in advance stay dead, stay dead, stay dead stay dead and out of this world

(read summer sons by lee mandelo. non-gif version under the cut)

come home...

saw nosferatu and had to hit the gangsey (ft declan) w the victorian beam

Had an amazing time at the dungeons and daddies live show last night! Dressed as Elizabeth Mothman! This cosplay took me 4 days to put together in a frantic rush hopefully I'll take it to a con soon!

Please stop recommending Foxhole Court as asexual representation

Hello! In honor of asexual awareness day I'm going to write about why you shouldn't recommend Foxhole Court based off of it being asexual rep.

disclaimers:

I am Asexual

I head canon Neil as asexual

I'm dyslexic so I apologize if there are spelling errors or if something is unclear

I am making this post because in the past I have seen book lists that are recommending asexual books that have included Foxhole Court. I am not trying to attack anyone in specific but it is a fucked up thing to do.

First Neil is not asexual in canon. Yes there are elements of his character that could be read as asexual and I too read him as on the ace spectrum. However there is a big difference between actual representation and a head canon.

No where in canon does Neil allude to being asexual. What I mean by that is in his inner thoughts we never get any indication he is uncomfortable with the idea of having sex with someone. No where does he consider himself outside of normal for his sexuality. His identity with being ace or gay does not come up often or at all because he has other things on his mind.

Now, there are some things that could be considered evidence towards Neil being asexual (which again I head canon him as asexual). But much of this is taken out of context.

The first thing people use to defend recommending AFTG as ace rep. is Neil saying that he "doesn't swing". The context for this quote is that Nicky is trying to flirt with Neil and making him uncomfortable so of course Neil is going to say something to make Nicky leave him alone. And what comes after this line is Neil flashing back to his childhood where Mary beats the shit out of him for kissing a girl.

While asexual people can have trauma, I think Neil is scared of relationships because his mother literally beat him for having relationships.

Again Neil can be headcanoned as asexual that is fine and something I do too. But to recommend these books based on a loose head canon is bad to do. It's hard to find actual ace representation in anything. Again is perfectly fine to relate to him as an ace person but that is not the same as a book that has a character who is actually ace.

What do I mean by "actually ace"? I mean a character who identifies under the label or says something along the lines of having no interest in sex. Now I know that people do not have to have a label to be ace or openly identify as ace. Also I am aware that some ace ppl have sex. What I am trying to get at here is that for a book to be recommended based on the fact that a character in it is ace, that character should identify as ace or make some strong statements that imply heavily the character is ace.

For example, Don't Let The Forest In by: CG Drews has a ace MC. Andrew (the MC) thinks that he can't be loved because he doesn't want to have sex and anyone who would want a relationship with him would want sex from him. He thinks about it often in the book and ends up somewhat identifying as ace when someone tells him what ace is.

That is actual ace rep. Andrew struggles with his identify and clearly is somewhere on the ace spec.

Now I realize that in Foxhole Court the plot does not really focus on any of the character's sexualities. However at no point does Neil think about not wanting to have sex or having any hesitations around sex. Now from an outside perceptive it's pretty clear that Neil has no interest in anyone but Andrew which may indicate that he's ace. But he was being hunted and tortured for most of the books series so who knows.

And my final point it is fucked to recommend these books to people of the queer community without any warning of how bad the harmful gay stereotypes are in it. For the first two books the only canon gay rep. is Nicky who is a predatory gay man. Nicky constancy is flirting with people and generally making people very uncomfortable. (not to mention the rape joke). Also on top of all of that he is only canon person of color in the main cast. so yikes

I am not saying that these harmful stereotypes mean you shouldn't read or love AFTG. Personally I have a lot of love for these books but you have to recognize the stuff that is harmful in them.

Anyway please don't recommend these books as ace rep. because they are simply not :)

caitlyn: *takes off her top*

vi: 😯

This is true. Also I've never met a history major who wasn't autistic. (I'm an autistic history major)

see people describe neil as autism coded a lot, but i don't see people talk about how relatable kevin day is as an autistic guy. like i could write an essay

Camilla is ace. Palamedes is a straight twink. Dulcinea has enough milf sexual prowess to fuel their threesomes just by herself.

I just finished Call Down the Hawk and the last thing I expected out of it was to relate to Declan Lynch. It's the amount of times that man mentions taking Tums because he gets nauseous from his anxiety that got me. He's just like me fr. (I'm also an older sibling so it's bad)