rat bastard

4th man out - On his 24th birthday Adam decides to come out as gay to his three best (and straight) friends, Chris, Nick, and Ortu. The film follows them as they all navigate this new information and do their best to get their bro laid. Pretty funny in the way straight dudes are pretty funny.

Alex Strangelove - This Netflix Original follows Alex Truelove, a highschool senior with a girlfriend eager to take the next step in their relationship. Alex isn’t so confident. After meeting a charming gay kid at a party, Alex starts to question things he’s kept secret for awhile.

Blockers - probably one of the funniest movies on this list, Blockers follows the parents of three teenage girls who have all made a “sex pact” with each other, to lose their virginity on prom night. It’s a refreshing, queer, feminist take on a classic trope. All the parents make it their mission to stop them. One of the girls is a lesbian and her father only comes along to prevent her from being tricked into losing her virginity to “the wrong sex” aka a boy.

But I’m a Cheerleader - a lighthearted take on a very serious subject (especially in the late 90s when this was made) But I’m a Cheerleader is a campy comedy parody of conversion camps. After Megan’s boyfriend suspects her of being a lesbian and informs her parents, she’s shipped off to “True Directions,” a boot camp with the intent to set gay kids straight. While there she meets fellow lesbian Graham and hits it off with her. The entire aesthetic of this movie is very cool.

D.E.B.S - cheesy lesbian spy movie! An elite teenage spy falls for a criminal mastermind. Watching their story play out is like reading fanfiction, and its no cinematic masterpiece but its a cute, lighthearted, easy to watch film.

Edge of Seventeen - Set in 1984 Ohio, this comedy-drama film follows a teenage boy coming out during the same era gender-bending pop stars like Boy George and Annie Lennox were hitting the mainstream.

Handsome Devil - Irish sports comedy about a gay teenage boy who attends a boarding school full of rowdy straights obsessed with rugby. It had some genuinely funny moments and the exploration of homosexuality and the way its treated in Irish culture was very interesting.

Life Partners - A straight lawyer in her late twenties and her lesbian best friend undergo a dramatic shift in dynamic after one enters a serious relationship. This film chronicles love, relationships, and change.

Love, Simon - Based off the novel “Simon vs the homosapiens agenda” this film follows Simon Spier, a closeted gay 17 year old. He begins to fall for another mysterious, anonymous gay classmate he speaks to online.

The 10 year plan - honestly probably one of the most fanfiction-esque trope-y movies I’ve ever watched. It was cute and funny though and my greatest struggle was trying to tell the two leads apart from each other. The premise is that two gay best friends make an agreement to be with each other if they’re both still lonely and single in 10 years.

This is an in-progress list, so more titles and categories will be added, but feel free to reblog and/ or add something!

Movies

 4th Man Out- A gay man goes through the process of coming out to his aggressively straight buddies. Comedy with a happy ending.

Adam & Steve- Ridiculous series of events during a relationship between two men. Bad comedy with a happy ending.

Beautiful Thing- A teenager dealing with his preoccupied mother falls in love with a classmate. Happy Ending.

Blue is the Warmest Colour- Coming-of-age romantic drama between two teenage girls. Unhappy ending.

Brokeback Mountain-A complex emotional and romantic relationship between two men in the American West develops between 1963 and1983. Unhappy ending. 

Carol- A forbidden affair between a young photographer and an older woman going through divorce during the 1950s. Happy Ending.

Capital Games- Two men fighting for the same position in a company struggle with their feelings for each other when forced to do a team-building exercise as part of a business retreat. Happy ending.

Dog Day Afternoon- Hostage drama based on the true story of a man who held up a bank to fund his partner’s bottom surgery. Unhappy ending.

Milk- Documentary about the life and death of pioneering gay politician Harvey Milk. Unhappy ending.

My Beautiful Laundrette- A young man living in london reunites with an old friend, eventually developing a romantic relationship with him after offering him a job running a laundrette to get him off the streets. Happy ending.

My Own Private Idaho- Two friends embark on a journey of personal discovery that takes them to both Idaho and Italy. Unhappy ending.

Pariah- A Black butch lesbian slowly comes to terms with her identity. Ambiguous ending.

Pride- The story of an unlikely alliance between striking miners in a Welsh village and London gay rights activists. Happy ending.

Shelter- Gay surfers fall in love. Happy ending.

Show Me Love- Two teenage girls begin a tentative romantic relationship. Ambiguous ending.

Tangerine-A transgender sex worker discovers her boyfriend and pimp has been cheating on her. Ambiguous ending.

Tomboy- A ten-year-old experiments with their gender. Ambiguous ending.

The Weekend-A romantic drama of a brief, touching encounter between two men. Bittersweet ending.

Tropical Malady- A soldier arriving to investigate the mysterious slaying of animals and a farm boy strike up a connection. Ambiguous ending.

  Books

Camp Rewind- Two women strike up a romance at a summer retreat.

Never Lose Your Flames- A fire elemental and the bounty hunter being paid to arrest him fall in love. 

Bad Boy- A transgender youtube star by day and vigilante by night, a job goes south and someone is out to ruin Ren’s life, leaving him struggling to clear his name.

Of Fire and Stars- A magic user and future queen falls in love with a princess, and her husband-to-be’s sister.

If I Was Your Girl- Trans romance written by a trans author

The Fifth Season- In the distant future, nature ravages the land, with a select few being able to control it. Main characters include a bi man, a gay man, and a trans woman.

Six of Crows (two book series)- A gang of thieves take on their most ambitious job yet- stealing a magic-enhancing drug. Features a lighthearted love story between a sharpshooter and the demolitions expert.

Into this River I Drown- A man searching for the truth behind his father’s death falls in love with his town’s guardian angel.

Not Your Sidekick- After failing to manifest powers, the local superhero duo’s daughter takes on an internship with their super-villain rival, and falls in love with her. Also has a trans boy.

Chameleon Moon- A group of people struggle to survive in a city of magic and turmoil. Has a married lesbian couple, several gay characters, and a nonbinary character.

Last Seen Leaving- After his sort-of-girlfriend vanishes, a closeted kid is forced to team up with another friend of hers, and develops feelings for him along the way

The Lightning-struck Heart- A wizard and a knight are sent to save the knight’s boyfriend, and fall hopelessly in love along the way. There’s also a gay dragon.

The Girl With the Crooked Fangs- A half-vampire develops a crush on her daring human friend.

Ice Massacre & Ice Crypt (two book series)- A mermaid hunter develops feelings for an old friend of hers, who happens to be one of the mermaids she’s sent to kill.

The Coldest Girl In Coldtown- Vampire story with a twist, and both  a bisexual and transgender main character.

The Foxhole Court (3 book series)- Neil, a gifted Exy player with a rocky past, joins a competitive team. Several gay and bi characters, including the protagonist.

The Raven Cycle (3 book series)- A group of boys and a girl who serves as a psychic amplifier try to find and awaken a Welsh king. Stars a romance between a boy who can take things out of his dreams and a magician.

Shallow Graves- A girl awakens several feet underground, at the same moment when all birds in the nearby vicinity drop dead. She struggles to piece together the identity of the killer while finding out what she is. Bisexual protagonist.

TV Series

In The Flesh- Kieran, a Partially Deceased Syndrome (PDS) sufferer, is brought back to live and returned home. He’s gay, as are various other characters.

Carmilla- Lesbian vampires! Plus a nonbinary character played by a nonbinary actor

Skam- The story of teenagers in a secondary school, with each season being told from a different characters point of view. Several gay main characters.

Shadowhunters- Hard to explain, but has both a gay and a bi character.

The Get Down- The lives of a group of nyc teens in the 1970′s, with two of the characters in the latest episode stopping just short of kissing

Torchwood- About an agency created to control alien beings. Lots of bi and gay characters.

Like, a man wearing historical fashion: eh, ok I guess, I mean it’s still cool cause- history! but still just ok…

but-

This? :

an incomplete list of LGBT+ characters in (fictional) period pieces [insp]

anyway, first of all i just want to say how much i appreciate your asks and how much i love writing the replies. i already wrote an extensive response to this, but tumblr deleted it so i’m sorry if this is messy and not as long as my original answer!

and yeah, definitely! everything in bare is based around society and the church, because all of the characters’ actions are based on what they think society expects them to do. in addition to that, i’d argue that most of the characters, especially the kids, are not inherently or fundamentally homophobic. for their entire lives, the church and society have told them what to believe and what’s best for them and what to do. they never even had the chance to form their own opinions, because the church forced them on them before they even knew what being gay was. being gay was introduced to them as this terrible thing that needs to be antagonised at all costs and realistically... why would they question it? they only begin to question it when they are directly confronted with being gay when peter and jason get outed. suddenly it’s no longer just a concept that they antagonise and hate for whatever reason, it’s a real thing in their environment and they have to actually deal with it. suddenly, they realise that they’re hating actual people, and only then do they wonder what the reason is. of course, this promptly gets shut down by father flynn (the church), as seen in confession when matt questions whether the church might be wrong about what they say about being gay.

even peter and jason are heavily influenced by society and the church! role of a lifetime consists entirely of peter questioning society. he begins to wonder whether conforming to what society expects of him would even make him happy and he realises that maybe it’s not what he wants or even needs in order to live a happy life. this is when peter slowly begins to break out of the mold of society. throughout the entire musical, he is slowly escaping the rules and ideals of society, because he realises it would never make him happy and that pretending to be something he’s not would ultimately destroy him (best kept secret: “you know we can’t go on forever this way”). and this is where peter and jason’s paths divide. peter has long realised that there is no way he can fit in and now he’s just trying to understand and figure out how to live properly if he can’t live the way he’s always been taught (role of a lifetime: “god, i need your guidance, tell me what it means to live a life where nothing’s as it seems”).

jason never had this moment of sudden clarity and instead forced himself to conform to societal expectations, even if it hurt countless people around him, because he felt like he needed to do this, he needed to fit in and there was no other option. he kept pretending that he could maybe, maybe be happy eventually, that he could learn to fit in and eventually it would be okay until the very end when he suddenly realised that no, he would never be happy and he couldn’t live in a world where he would always have to hide who he was and act like he was something else. additionally, there’s so much extra pressure on jason. everyone expects him to live a perfect and ideal life, he’s the golden boy (plain jane fat ass: “we always knew you’d keep the mcconnell flame burning, love dad”). even peter expected jason to inevitably succumb to societal pressures (although peter knew jason would not be happy living like that). role of a lifetime, while also being about peter’s own struggles with society and its expectations, is also how peter views jason’s struggles in the situation (role of a lifetime: “but i know the scene will change, white picket fence and a dog, a trophy bride and children, god i know that’s what he wants”). note how he says trophy bride. peter knows jason will never truly be happy if he’s only pretending for the sake of fitting in. and he knows it’s impossible to live this way, it’s impossible to spend your entire life pretending and hiding. but jason hasn’t had this realisation yet and that’s the problem (role of a lifetime: “one day realise that these feelings aren’t going away, so we drive ourselves insane, spinning circles in our souls as we dance around and play pretend and once again reprise our roles”).