#(with less homoerotic undertones)

[kaeyapilled]

i dont think kaveh and alhaitham were romantically involved back in the akademiya. and in fact i believe that the repressed pining particularly from kaveh's part made their friendship breakup worse

#i cant elaborate Yet. but i feel it #i dont know if alhaitham was repressing it as much as he was just. silently sitting in it #anyway yeah i like it better if they have never kissed each other. have they thought about it. oh yes extensively. but it never got to that #their bond kept taking homoerotic undertones back in the day but it never quite bloomed into anything #like not even a friends w benefits situation #maybe it would have if they had less issues. but its better that it only becomes something more years later #i also have feelings about them being an established relationship in current canon. as in like. how would that come to be #i like the idea that it would just slowly happen until kaveh sits up one day and is like huh. this is like. it's like we're married. #al-haitham. are we married? #BUT i believe they need to have Conversations before that can happen. but its still possible #sighs.. kavetham on the mind today tomorrow and the day after too #my posts #kavetham #haikaveh #kaveh #alhaitham

[lovevalley45]

#alli says shit #legends of tomorrow #amaya jiwe #mona wu #astra logue #spooner cruz #gwyn davies #charlie lot #i didn’t include behrad bc technically we know it should be close to zari 1.0’s #(with less homoerotic undertones) #so that feels like cheating #this is like. who is the funniest two ppl to throw in a room together

[frogdetective]

incredible that in this game sidon is engaged to a woman yet manages to be even gayer towards link than in botw. getting to zora’s domain i was like damn sidon ok happy pride . he’s writing odes to link on the walls. he’s got a STATUE of them together in the middle of the domain. his fiancee tells link that sidon talks about him every day. sidon ur incredible

#just bestie things! #it's just hilarious to me sorry . the unintentional and yet overrwhelming homoerotic undertones of sidlink. #nintendo do you have any idea . #inserting the word bestie doesnt make it seem less gay i'm sorry. #i've only just got here too . it may well get even gayer. happy pride #alex plays #totk spoilers//

[magicianarcana]

persona 5 royal was not enough i need a goro akechi game.

#goro akechi #goro akechi tag #mp #and the game needs to be over 150 hours i refuse to indulge in anything less #it better be gay as hell too…homoerotic tension greek tragedy etc #text #the shuake better be so twisted in the narrative that you can’t play it and miss the homosexual undertones #bia.txt

[narutodivorcearcreal]

assorted f fight club designs!!! emo haired marlon for tylerstesticles

closeups and rambles under cut

before meeting taylor/tyler f narrator would mostly conform to standards for women both internally and externally. she would shave, keep her hair long, dress feminine but i dont think she would invest a lot of time in things like makeup (excluding foundation and such for fight club bruises) or diets. she would be self conscious about her appearance a lot, and would have beauty products but i dont see her consistently using them.

in my mind she collects kitchenware because 1. she expects to get married and take on the caretaking mother/wife role and 2. its less expensive than furniture (insurance call center salary). she could collect makeup. i see her as being pretty insecure that she isn’t married by 30 but doesn’t really want a boyfriend/husband.

as she spends more time with taylor she would adopt taylors masculine characteristics both because of taylor’s ideology and because narrator wants to be taylor.

despite marlon never having sex with taylor, narrator would harbor more resentment for him than regular narrator does for marla.

she would also hate her boss so much more. her boss would see her as daughter-substitute as well as a woman (inherent object to dominate) which would lead to him treating narrator with affection (from his pov) condescension and creepy undertones.

she would hate angel face less, though. still mutilates her but it’s the thought that counts.

taylor/tyler is the one who designwise changed the least. to me shes just tyler with slightly longer hair.

i might change her name bc taylor is too feminine a name for her

she would be very masculine, yes because of her whole liberate women thing but also because this is what narrator thinks is hot. i.e wearing mens clothes (obviously) being built like a brick wall, masculine mannerisms overall

this is also because she fills the same traditionally paternal roles as tyler: 1. the parent (not as nurture but teach/guide. taylor is mother and father substitute but leans more towards father substitute) 2. ideal self (not explicitly masculine but this is who narrator idealizes) 3. God.

i think project mayhem would be more explicitly homoerotic in this au because advocating for independence from men/you can get away with no-homoing relationships a lot more if its between women/??????????

primary members of project mayhem

-disenfranchised housewives (financial dependence on men)

-young women (objectification, beauty standards, etc)

-middle aged working women (undervalued female-majority jobs like nursing, too old to be valued for sex and now valued for nothing)

though taylor’s ideology would be mostly centered around liberation of women etc she would still hate women in management/power. pisses in rich people soup regardless of gender

despite his and taylors relationship being healthier(????) than its canon counterpart due to them being just friends instead of hookups+????? i think taylor would still burn marlon w cigs and call him a human butt-wipe. he’d be fine with it though

he wears womens clothes from the thrift but i dont think he would act particularly feminine

in this au taylor cant steal his moms liposuction fat to make soap as i imagine he doesn’t have a great relationship with his parents

almost gets castrated by project mayhem when shits all going down

overall not that different from canon marla.

#fight club #tyler durden #f fight club #marla singer #narrator fight club #thank you and congratulations if you managed to make it through the end #very impressive if you somehow managed to understand my crazy ramblings #fem fight club

[bthump]

this has probably been asked here before but how likely do you think it is that the author actually truly intended for Griffith and guts relationship to be romantic? How likely do you think it is we’ll get a blatant confirmation (eg a confession of love beyond being friends or even a tragic kiss) and if it does happen do you think it’s likely we’ll get an explicit confirmation on both of their ends so we know the feeling is reciprocated (because I know guts feelings can be underestimated sometimes compared to griffiths). Likelihood as a percentage or on a scale from one to ten lol. I think it’s already pretty obvious enough for me to be satisfied whatever happens but it would be nice if there was an undeniable proof of mutual romantic love. because I think no matter what happens if it’s anything less than spelling it out word for word people would still make attempts to deny their feelings which is kind of sad to me. But I could be wrong of course and romance wasn’t intended by the author. Either way I want them to reveal their feelings for each other whether platonic or romantic.

I'm cynical, so I feel like the odds of something textually romantic happening are like, 2/10 at best. Might've gone up to 3/10 if Miura was stlil alive since it's getting more and more common to confirm gay subtext and that might've influenced him, but since it's being written now by someone determined to adhere to the plans Miura told him, whatever happens is frozen in amber circa Miura and Mori's last conversation, with no room to evolve.

That's all pretty much a moot point anyway because again, I think the odds were always gonna be pretty miniscule anyway.

That said, I think the odds that Miura intended the gay subtext are like 9.5/10 lol. I think the romantic undertones are almost certainly deliberate.

I guess I just don't think it necessarily follows that the point of the subtext was ever to eventually become text. I think it was probably there for a lot of potential other reasons: to add a sense of depth and complexity to their relationship; to add more chemistry; potentially to appeal to women; to suggest that their relationship had the potential for romance that will never be realized therefore making their relationship even more all-encompassing and adding to the tragedy; serving the theme of childhood trauma fucking up your relationships; etc.

Of course I'd be overjoyed if it was acknowledged eventually, and I think the story would ultimately be better for it, like I'm not gonna say it's ~deeper~ if it stays subtext lol. But I think that considering the main target audience for Berserk is horny straight dudes, and while it's getting more common it's still very rare to have textual gay romances between two leads, and almost unheard of in legacy media properties, I just don't think the odds are in griffguts' favour.

Oh, though I do want to add that I'd say the odds of getting an acknowledgement of intense feelings between them post-eclipse is very high. I don't think it'd likely be a romantic confession, but yeah I think it seems very likely that Griffith and Guts are going to acknowledge the intense emotional hold they still have over each other. And if that happens I'll be happy even if it's not textually romantic. I'm sure it'll at least be homoerotic enough for me lol.

Thanks for the ask!

#ask #anonymous #b #theme: speculation #theme: homoeroticism #ship: griffguts

[cowgirleddiediaz]

When fandom realizes that buck being bi has nothing to do with Eddie/buddie and the same for Eddie being gay having nothing to do with buck/buddie sanity should be restored but it won’t be

tbh it’s really funny to me that both of them have been coded as queer in a way that’s almost entirely independent of their relationship to each other.

and it's complicated, because that’s the thing i like about buddie (compared to a lot of popular non-canon queer ships imo). It doesn’t just feel like a friendship with some accidentally homoerotic undertones, they both feel like queer characters in their own right.

however it probably also makes me less attached to them as a pair than a lot of hardcore shippers and I’m definitely open to the show exploring their sexualities in ways that aren’t buddie.

#911 abc #911 spoilers #evan buckley #eddie diaz #buddie #bucktommy #ask

[winterlady1967]

clocks in matteo jwhj 0175's Goncharov

I know we’re all a bit tired of talking about the clock symbolism in Goncharov, but there’s a fascinating story about it that I want to share.

So This post says that it was considered lost media until 2006, but that’s only in hindsight. The first full screening of the film didn’t take place until 2010, due to Russian mob interference. The Russian mob tried to destroy every print of it because of its critical portrayal of Soviet era government (and likely because of its heavily homoerotic undertones between Sofia/Katya and Andrey/Goncharov (and even Goncharov/Mario, although that is less obviously intentional).

But about the clocks: Christian Marclay’s art piece The Clock (2010) is a 24-hr supercut of clocks in films and television. The work itself functions as a clock, with the timepieces and clockfaces counting the hours, seconds, and minutes in real time. The film was shown at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Tate, The Lincoln Center, etc.

In 2006, while working on the idea for The Clock, he purchased two film cannisters from a garage sale, and used a couple clips from them to create The Clock.

Well, it turned out that he’d somehow come across some rough edits from a couple scenes from the lost Scorsese epic. Goncharov features twice—a shot of the clocktower from the dénouement, and the shot of Andrey’s watch (from the scene where he is waiting for his mark). When The Clock originally debuted, audiences were struck (pun intended) by the powerful imagery and uneasy tone of these two shots in particular. When asked about their source, Marclay shrugged and shared the story of finding them at a garage sale. (finding a full copy and restoring it is another long story that I can’t even get into rn bc it’s so complicated).

So even if we’re tired of talking about that symbolism, it’s literally because of its powerful imagery that we even know it exists.

In fact, Goncharov was still so controversial in Russia that The Clock had to be edited to show there. In 2011, The Clock showed at the Garage Center for Contemporary Art in Moscow. It was mired in controversy, and was re-screened with different clips substituted for the Goncharov appearances. Due to copyright laws, many scenes and clips of The Clock are technically illegal, and Russian interference made Marclay remove those clips entirely, which is the only version that exists now!! I haven't seen the original version bc thats now lost media too!! Anyway. CLOCKS. They're important.

#goncharov #martin scorsese #matteo jwhj 0715 #clock symbolism #JUST SO YOU KNOW: the hyperlinks here are real. they are not rickrolls #i reallyl ike the clock and this post is for leo <3 #unreality #to clarify: the clock and christian marclay are real. and it actually DID screen in moscow #but everything else is a lie. i'm lying. it's not real #i have literally more posts like this lined up bc im losing my mind. #pers #clocks #clocks in goncharov #gonchmeta #gonchlore

[chansaw]

how is standing by each other as gay as making out?

you got me there anon!! the non-canon homoerotic girl best friends don’t kiss onscreen! next you’re gonna remind me that one of them dies less thirty minutes into the movie, so why bother at all?

i’ve already alluded to tibby’s rich girl/weird friend manifesto and i once again encourage you to read it to get a little more insight into why the fact that they never kiss onscreen is essential to their dynamic. see also this article from the cut about jackie and shauna, whose relationship has much in common with chansaw.

because i have terminal yellowjackets disorder i also want to point to the showrunners’ excellent comments on the homoerotic undertones of toxic codependent girl best friendships

all that to say is that chansaw transcends the boundaries of romantic and platonic. it’s about the cruelty of adolescence and the wasteland between girlhood and womanhood.

so yeah sorry they didn’t make out but vote for them anyways here on the @redandbluebracket

[ilistentogirlinred]

a bunch of ideas for essays i have

ESSAY IDEAS:

fandom and parasocial relationships with celebs

primarily musicians

KPOP!!!

shipping

how this effects the idols themselves

and the fans perception of idols

“delulu”

competitive nature

groups

positions

obsession

racism

infantilisation

“maknaes”

lisa, jungkook

ONE DIRECTION

fucking larries

obsession

FITTH HARMONY

SWIFTIES

the idolisation

white feminism?

performative activism

NOT SEEING CELEBS AS REAL PEOPLE WITH FEELINGS!!!

mysoginy in fandom culture

internalised mysogyny

mysogyny in the works themselves

how that is internalised

the prevalence of m/m ships

patriarchy!

boo

KPOP!!!

shipping

how this effects the idols themselves

+ their friendships with each other

and the fans perception of idols

homophobia in the industry

“delulu”

competitive nature

groups

positions

obsession

racism

non fans who dislike the industry/fans

infantilisation

“maknaes”

lisa (crazy horse)

jungkook (seven, etc)

DEBUTING ACTUAL CHILDREN

THOSE ARE CHILDREN WTF DUDE

SHE IS BARELY 14

SHE IS 13

SHE WAS 12 WHEN SHE WAS ON THE SHOW

possible human rights violations?

work hours

neglect

mental health issues

suicides

beomhan therapy video (managers)

homophobia in the industry

if an idol comes out, fans will treat it as “proof” that their ship is “canon”

or will just be outright homophobic

FANSERVICE

its not gay but…

influence of fandom on modern media

queerbaiting/queercoding to attract an audience

destiel

teen wolf

bbc sherlock

tropes

enemies to lovers

DONE WRONG

queer rep in media

queerbaiting/coding to attract viewers

supernatural, sherlock

destiel, johnlock

teen wolf

queer coding in disney!

accidental?

LUCA!!!

cultural differences?

anime

YOI, SK8, Haikyuu

Naruto

superwholock -> ourgoodshadows

early 2000s/2010s YA dystopia plague, ya books in general

hunger games

marketing

movies

divergent!!!

bad

no second half of the third one lmao

maze runner

technically first!

LOVE TRIANGLES

twilight (either read or consult ms elloy, mya, etc)

hunger games

“big strong guy” vs “childhood friend”

predictable

repetitive

c’mon guys make it gay for once

try a conga line love triangle

that resolves itself with polyamory?

SPORTS ANIME

why is it so popular?

fandom, duh.

ok but why?

easy. gay anime boys

why is sports anime so gay?

power of friendship?

close bonds between people of the same gender

lack of characters from the opposite gender so less heterosexuality and f/m ships

but thats fandomy

the inherent homoeroticism of sharing a locker room

referring back to friendship/close bonds

BLUE LOCK

HOLY CRAP BLUE LOCK

its gayer than haikyuu but there’s no power of friendship really

there are very close bonds and strange definitions of attraction tho

bachisagi, reonagi, ryusae

REONAGI SHOUJO SPINOFF

attraction -> obsession

soccer -> dream -> lack of care about self

RYUSAE FUCKED UP IDEA OF (and perception) ATTRACTION

soccer = attraction, bond, romance/sex, etc.

BACK TO HAIKYUU

rivalries

rivalry -> close friendship

mirrors enemies to lovers very slightly

tis the power of friendship

power of friendship combined with coming of age?

YUURI ON ICE!

the canon gays

SK8 the infinity

queer coding?

QUEERCODING IN ANIME

is it all perceived and unintended due to differences in cultural upbringing?

possibly but the undertones are still very much there

maybe its censorship? who knows

killugon -> possibly find sources

the homoerotic queer-coded rivalry or friendship

established from the start

sasunaru, kagehina, bakudeku, renga, killugon, fucking soukoku, etc

also tsukkiyama, matchablossom, leopika, etc

SOUKOKU (and the rest of bsd)

the irl authors - were they queer?

FIND SOURCES!!!

#holy shit there are a lot

[mswyrr]

The continued interest in historically “problematic” imagery is more than a queer scavenger hunt for representation. After all, there are now also more explicit portrayals of queer relationships on screen than ever before. So why do so many queer horror fans keep returning to these films, which are more interested in homoerotic undertones than they are in any commentary on “queerness” as an identity?

The lesbian vampire remains a figure rafted between two schools of popular feminist discourse. Mainstream feminist theses have steered the discourse from the ivory tower to the art house screen. Decades later, the erotic potential of the lesbian vampire outside of a patriarchal framework and these particular feminist responses remains woefully untapped.

Feminist writers have typically written off sadomasochistic imagery in this subgenre of a subgenre as yet another violent male fantasy. But what to make of women whose sexual modalities incorporate violence and fear into the erotic experience? A binary is reinforced in these texts that male fantasies are uniformly violent and that, conversely, women’s desires are delicate, almost chaste. As a leatherdyke, my sensibilities are entrenched in the sadomasochistic and perverse. Lesbian vampire movies scratch that itch for me; they utilize a host of traditional imagery associated with sadomasochism, including bondage, domination, and submission — all practices that have only been improved upon by queer people throughout leather history. In my writing, lectures, and podcast work, I posit that the lesbian vampire figure can be reclaimed not necessarily as a figure of women’s empowerment, but as a symbol of dark eroticism and the less savory aspects of queer life, those of which have not been abated by assimilationism and neo-queer pride.

#monster girls #horror #horror meta

[witsserviceablesubstitute]

Doggedly chasing one IASIP storyline into a rabbit hole will certainly turn you into ConspiracyTheoristCharlie, but it's not silly to believe that there are complex layers of communication in such a self-aware and self-referential satire. The creators do seem to think hard about the implications of what they're using and why. How they want to say what they're saying and why. Really, you could write a lit essay on many of the 20 minute episodes of the show.

There's nothing wrong with applying that level of analysis to shipping on the shipping website. And while I still don't know if Mac and Dennis will end together, people aren't crazy for thinking they will. Or in wanting to pick them apart. Or at being excited about the prospect of it happening (though the excitement does make me feel a little sad— a watching Frank leading the twins to their empty Christmas presents sad).

IASIP continues to use Mac and Dennis exclusively as their toxic 'married couple', sending up sitcom romance tropes with their homoerotic 'friendship', pairing them to parody domestic horror in episodes like 'Mac and Dennis Move to the Suburbs'. Honestly, the best indication that they will end up together is that IASIP escalated that premise when Mac came out rather than slowing it down. They absolutely know the implications of what they're doing by using them this way, for teasing the sexual undertones of their relationship for as long as they have, and by making both their queerness textual. They also understand how it looks if they can't drag all that subtext into the spotlight (especially in today's anti-queer climate).

However, as much as I miss honeymoon era Mac and Dennis being joyful psychos together, if Mac and Dennis are the toxic married couple then they're in their divorce era imo. It feels equally simplistic to me to say Dennis is in love with Mac as it does to say he hates him. It's both, it has been both, much as it can be both in a marriage full of resentment and miscommunication.

My interpretation of their whole deal is that Dennis hates himself and is furious at Mac for being stupid enough to openly love him. What person of value would love Dennis? Would willingly give Dennis that much power over him? I think he'd treat Dee similarly if she ever openly loved him instead of being as emotionally unavailable as he is. Regardless, he does try to live up to what he thinks Mac's expectations and needs are while also keeping Mac at arms length. If he's the one in control of both of them, responsible for both of them, then he tries to fill that role even though it obviously stresses him out. It reminds me of the Dennis in 'How Mac Got Fat', the one that hurts himself to fulfil what he believed Mac and Dee expect of him.

My own prediction for them moving forward is that Mac either turns the tables on Dennis or leaves completely, but I'm less certain of what the fallout or conclusion will be. I suspect that the possibility of it being a romantic reconciliation like some (me) hope is about as likely as them deciding to crush those hopes altogether, but I'm happy to let them tell the story they want to tell.

#iasip #it's always sunny in philadelphia #dennis reynolds #mac mcdonald #macdennis #navel gazing #queerness in television

[mopheadmarie]

eight vampire movie/series recs for spooky season 🦇

Will there by vampires in my still-unplanned NaNoWriMo story? No idea. But at the very least, there will be a slight mention of witchery, the occult, and our beloved sanguine-suckers.

I owe the vampire fixation to an ever so slight obsession with Astarion recently. Was a Lae'zel fangirl from the start, but it took me a while to see past the posh bugger to find the scared little guy inside :(((

bg3 rant over, movie recs coming.

Carmilla (2019)

A reimagining of the novella, this Carmilla suffers from the homophobia of the people that surrounds her. Subversive and intriguing. None of these are in any particular order, but Carmilla's probably my favourite vampire film ever.

Dracula (1931)

The classic, sexy icon of vampirism. Regardless of how gay or bi Bram Stoker envisioned Dracula, the adaptations did not shy away from flamboyance. 1931s Dracula is my favourite.

What We Do in the Shadows(2019)

For a giggle. A mockumentary that parodies vampire flick tropes.

The Hunger(1983)

Bowie's character isn't really portrayed as into men, but there's a teensy bit of queerness when you have a vampire played by a bi icon thirsting over guy's necks. Oh, and Susan Sarandon's character is clearly gay. Played by another bi icon of Rocky Horror Picture Show fame? C'mon, it's worth a shout.

Thirst(2009)

Korean film by the director of Oldboy. This one... This is messed up. A priest is forced to live a life of violence and a lot of freaky stuff happens with interesting characters. That's all I have to say.

The Lost Boys(1987)

One you're likely familiar with, featuring punks and homoerotic undertones. Need I say more?

Interview with the Vampire (1994)

The titular vampire is brooding, Byronic, and moody. Queer, because of course, and the main relationship is a lot less subtle yay! And this film actually casts the vampire as the anti-hero instead of a villain, which is fairly unique for its time.

Let the Right One In(2008)

Taking a break from the funny and spicy, here's a Swedish vampire film on a POV we don't often see. The characters are the best parts, and these kids deliver a touching drama.

psst if you've made it go far go subscribe to verity (verilybitchie) on yt. her videos on queer vampire history and the channel's content in general is delicious

#halloween #vampire #astarion #movie recommendation #nanowrimo #mopheadmarie #mhmfilmtvrecs

[thisnevermeantnothingtoyou]

Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess first listen though!!

Femininomenon: I am not 100% sure but i think that femininomenon, got a new mix (the music video is deleted/unlisted now, plus a few weeks back i listened to the music video and the track on apple music side by side and the one on apple music was pretty clearly different), it has more oomph now, but it still retains the charm of the original. as always I love this song!

Red Wine Supernova: I love this song to death, its so fun the backing vocals are muah muah muah "put her canine teeth in the side of my neck!!" the final "i don't care that you're a stoner" is just muah, beautiful delivery, loves it!

After Midnight: YES SOFT POP!!!!! aughhhhh the delivery on all the lyrics is beautifull, chappell said "chaos bisexual anthem" and i LOVE it!!!! when the tracklist was released i was a slight bit miffed that so many of the tracks were previously released, but hearing the quality of what was kept for the album i am less pressed.

Coffee: live cassie reaction

im fine, im fine, my heart hurts, but im fine. this song is. wow, makes me hurt, i love it "I'll meet you for coffee, Cause if we have wine, You'll say that you're sorry, I know that's a lie" oh god and the final chorus, oh my heart cant take this.

Casual: I love this song, but hearing it after coffee, just makes it so much MORE, like coffee is the aftermath of the relationship, but causal is what the relationship WAS, and GOD IT HURTS, still a bop tho, the ending few lines always get me, like i will yell the bride but i SOB the last few verses "I fucked you in the bathroom when we went to dinner, Your parents at the table, you wonder why I'm bitter, Bragging to your friends I get off when you hit it, I hate to tell the truth but I'm sorry dude you didn't, I hate that I let this drag on so long, now I hate myself, I hate that I let this drag on so long, you can go to hell" but my heart

Ultra Graphic Super Modern Girl: OH MY GOD YESSSSSS "fugly jeans!!" i though that would be the bridge, but it being the opening is SO MUCH BETTER!!!!!!! OH MY GOD, this is how chappell charts, if this doesn't crack top 50 im rioting!!!!!!!

HOT TO GO!: I LOVE this song so much, for months before its release i'd listen to love recordings of it, and it is so infectious, chappell you are a genius!! this song makes ME want to be a cheerleader in a mid 2010s chick flick with heavy homoerotic undertones.

My Kink Is Karma: This song is for girls who watched a few too many "shipname yandere edits" in middle school, its just so good, the music video is so fun.

Picture You: yee haw??? YEE HAW???? oh those strings??? hellOOOOO??? This song is for girls who think too much about men who do not think about them, and i respect that because i am one of those girls.

Kaleidoscope: this song makes me cry so much, i can't really write anything about it i love it but i will cry if i think to much about it.

Pink Pony Club: What can i say about this song that hasn't been said before, it is amazing, i love every second, I especially love the bridge, especially the last line "i can hear your southern drawl a thousand miles away saying-" leading into the more striped down start of the last chorus. muah muah muah amazing!!!

Naked in Manhattan: the fact that Chappell had never kissed a girl when she wrote this, is just muah 10/10 lmao, seriously i love this so much. "wont you fuckin touch me?? i just want to touch you!!"

California: I love this song so fucking much, seriously its so good, it makes me happy, its just muah so good, i love how its depressing. But like yeah, i have never signed to a label at 17 and moved across country just be be dropped from my label and move back to my small town and work at a drive though while effectively looking at my dreams and hopes in the rearview mirror. but like i have felt like my failures are affecting my parents more then me, so.....

Guilty Pleasure: okay a slow one, i'm liking this resurgence of pop records ending on an introspective slow note. NOPE NOT A SLOW SONG WHAT HUH what just happened??? "I want this like a cigarette, lets drag this out and never quit" OH MY GOD IS THAT COWBELL??? wait no its electronic, this is so fucking fun!!! I love me a good 80s inspired bop about sapphic lust!!

Conclusion, this Album is amazing, and i really hope Chappell receives the accolades that she rightfully deserves for this piece of pure pop perfection, it is amazing, and I know exactly why Dan Nigro started an entire imprint for Chappell, seriously, this is an amazing project, and it slots so nicely into Dan's catalogue of amazingly produced albums. I won't be able to make it to chappels naked in north america tour stops near me, so I am now waiting patiently to see if i get off the waitlist for guts tour tickets so I can see her open for Liv (I really hope her and Chappell sing lacy together for the dates where chappell is opening)

anyways right now my rankings of the new tracks are

ultra graphic super modern girl

after midnight

guilty pleaure

coffee

picture you

(im just not in my sad song era, mkay)

#chappell roan #the rise and fall of a midwest princess

[my-deer-history]

I was transcribing an undated letter to John Laurens from Jean-Antoine Chais when I came upon this surprising line:

Les premiers mois que nous avons passé ensemble m’avoient fait esperer que j’avois trouvé pour toute ma vie un vrai Pilade, et je m’en felicitais bien sincerement.

The first months that we spent together made me hope that I had found a true Pylades for life, and I was sincerely pleased.

Chais was one of John's tutors in Geneva, and John and Harry lived in his home from June 1772 until John, suddenly and without prior explanation, moved Harry to another home in February 1773, and then moved out in June 1773 himself; by all accounts, John's relationship with Chais had broken down quite suddenly and John was cold to him afterwards.

John explained his motives to Henry in a letter (rather than in person, even though Henry had visited them a few months earlier to check in); Henry found the reasoning persuasive but chose not to repeat it to Chais. And John definitely bent the truth in that letter, because he claims that Chais was on board with the move - but Chais seems to have been blindsided by it, and wrote several letters about the matter to Henry when he couldn't get the answer out of John.

But the curious thing is the reference to Pylades.

I'm not a Classics expert - and if you are, please help me out - but some brief research shows that Pylades (a mythological figure from Greece) was understood as a homoerotic figure - especially in the 18th century - due to his intense, possibly romantic relationship with Orestes. For examples, this 18th century cameo of them includes "homoerotic overtones", and Lord Byron lists Orestes and Pylades among a series of same-sex couples in 1807.

There's also this comment on Wikipedia (uncited, so taken with a pinch of salt):

The wider context of these remarks, describing the physical intimacy open to male pairs, indicates that the love exemplified by Orestes and Pylades would not necessarily have excluded even more overt homoerotic or homosexual elements. [...] The fame of Lucian's works in the 18th century, as well as the generally well-known tradition of Greco-Roman heroic homoeroticism, made it natural for theatre audiences of that period to have recognized an intense, romantic, if not positively homoerotic quality, to the relationship between Orestes and Pylades.

Now, Chais was John's classics tutor. He would surely have been aware of the connotation. And if he was merely trying to express their deep friendship, he could have picked one of a dozen other references that didn't have a homoerotic undertone - or, given their short time together, a slightly less intense one, since Orestes and Pylades were usually depicted as friends from childhood.

The rest of the letter, which I am transcribing and translating to post later, is full of frustration and declarations of affection.

Finally, there is this mention of Chais in 1781 - almost ten years later:

Finally, a Genevan requests that a letter be forwarded to an American in France. Jean-Antoine Chais writes from Versailles on June 6. He has learned that the oldest son of Mr. Laurens, formerly the president of Congress, is in France, and he takes the liberty of enclosing a letter to be delivered to him. The relationship they had in Geneva several years ago gives him hope that Laurens will accept the letter. If Laurens is not there, Franklin may throw the letter in the fire.

Now for some speculation...

If John and Chais were in fact involved in some kind of homoromantic or sexual relationship, that would explain a few things - the Pylades mention, the tone of the letter, the sudden breakdown, the fact that John doesn't address his desire to move out with Henry in person while he's in Geneva (where whatever embellished reasoning he gave may quickly have crumbled under a small amount of investigation).

Bears further investigating, I'd say!

#historical john laurens #john laurens #queer history #jean-antoine chais #18th century history #orestes and pylades

[vifandom]

Renfield

My dumb little gay brain has hyper fixated on this upcoming vampire film so I wanted to talk about it. Really long post under the cut, so read on at your own risk 👍👍👍

So Renfield is this movie about Dracula’s minion, Renfield, and I got really excited about it when I saw the trailer. I’ll probably still go see the movie, the aesthetic is cool and I like the colors, but based on that trailer, I had an understanding of the plot that did not pan out. Maybe I’m wrong and the advertisement was misleading, but as I’m aware of it, the plot goes like this:

Renfield is your average guy, save for one thing: he works for the narcissistic Lord of Evil, Dracula, who I think serves as a literal representation of his low self-esteem and self-worth. To help alleviate this problem, he goes to a toxic relationship counseling group, who see his panicked rambling about his boss’s powers as hyperbole. His job is to bring Dracula people to eat, and, in exchange, (by eating spiders??? I think???) he gains superhuman strength and agility. But Dracula treats him terribly, and he’s looking to get out of their bargain. He, at some point, saves a bunch of people, and teams up with a police officer lady to an unknown degree. I assume the movie will end with him defeating Dracula, symbolizing him overcoming his mental struggles and finding peace.

Now, I thought this movie was gay. Perhaps that’s my gaggles (gay goggles) talking, but given that he goes to relationship counseling, the bizarre intimacy shown in the promotional material, as well as my inkling that it would have its romantic/sexual undertones addressed narratively if either Dracula or Renfield was a woman, I think it’s justified. So my first thought was, “Cool! Gay vampire action movie with Nick Cage!” And then I thought, “Oh, not gay vampire action movie with Awkwafina.” And some of my initial enthusiasm dipped. But I figured, “I can’t’ve been the only one who caught on to these subtleties, right?” So, to the Internet I went.

Come to find out, almost everyone saw the very homoerotic subtext between the dominating evil fancy man and his submissive good-hearted henchperson. 

Of course, some certain corners of the Internet, such as Pinterest, Tumblr, and Ao3 are perhaps a bit hardwired to see two men in close proximity and diagnose them with gay, but I think that says more about how writers write these characters, and less about how the fans see them. Since straight relationships are largely unappealing (read: unhealthy and possessive) as portrayed in modern media, and a majority of characters with speaking lines and interactions are male, gay pairings are an essential part of the shipping conversation. The top ten pairings in Ao3 fanfiction are all between two guys, for Pete’s sake. 

So why aren’t canonical gay relationships more common? The obvious answer is, obviously, the aggressive heterosexuality of Hollywood, action movies in particular. Sometimes it seems like hetero romance is a quota to fill, as if while making these movies, they thought, “We have to make these to opposite-gendered characters kiss,” with very little reasoning or logic behind it. And even if a straight romance is given buildup and payoff, it seems that many writers are uninterested in actually writing about two people in love, beyond the falling in. (The Thor movies are actually a great example of this, as the relationship between Jane Foster and Thor in the first movie is a pretty well-written one. But then they’ve broken up in the second film, Jane isn’t in the third one, and then she dies.) Indiana Jones has three different love interests for three straight movies, Maverick gets back with Penny in Top Gun 2 for literally no good reason, and Endgame ends with Captain America having gone back and inadvertently removed Peggy’s agency to get his romantic ending. In my opinion, straight romances are largely superficial, not impacting plot or characters in meaningful enough ways to be included. 

And that’s, I think, at the heart of why I can’t stand romantic subplots in action movies. Their superficially and toxic insanity. I can count on two hands the amount of movies with enjoyable and well-progressed romantic subplots. (Howl’s Moving Castle, Shrek, and Tangled come to mind, though that might be my animation bias showing.) It feels tacked on. Cheap. Unimportant. It’s hard to get invested into when the characters are so… not interesting. And when it’s not boring me to tears, it’s making me question the sanity of whoever signed off on it.

For an excellent comparison, look at the 1999 and 2017 Mummy movies. In the ‘99 film, Rick and Evie’s romance couldn’t be removed without substantial changes to the narrative. They positively drive each other’s development. Rick by feeding into Evie’s more outgoing and adventurous tendencies, and Evie by driving Rick to be more open and compassionate. They’re totally focused on each other, and time is given to developing their relationship naturally. It also provides a good foil against the villain, Imhotep, who was destroyed not once, but twice by his obsession with Anck-su-Namun. 

But the 2017 version has one of the most heterosexual stories I’ve ever seen in an action film. The protagonist, Nick, has two love interests, the paranoid researcher Jennifer, and the mummy herself, Ahmanet. He’s linked to Ahmanet through some psychic BS, and she wants to marry him. But he also has a past with Jennifer, and ends up sacrificing himself for her. But instead of these relationships serving as juxtaposition, one driven by genuine caring passion, and the other driven by desire and selfishness, one just keeps getting in the way of the other. At the end, neither are developed or compelling. Too much time is spent with Nick bemoaning his ties to Ahmanet to grow into his relationship with Jennifer, and too much time is spent with Nick angsting out with Jennifer to elaborate on his relationship with Ahmanet. And they’re all such boring characters that you can’t even really bring yourself to care.

So, along comes Renfield. A film with the perfect opportunity to structure most, if not all, of its story around a romantic relationship, albeit a failing one. It felt (and still feels) incredibly What We Do In The Shadows, given the poppy neon lighting, dry-humored dialogue, timeless atmosphere, and campy characters. And, above everything else, a lot of very gay subtext. (Of course, What We Do In The Shadows is a lot more overt with the character’s obviously not-straight sexualities.) Because while the common Internet users seem to look at this movie and say, “they’re gay,” the more official, widespread Internet journalists and film critics seem to look at this movie and talk only about how cool it is that not-so-subtle meme king Nicolas Cage is playing a classy-classic tuxedo vampire. (And, don’t get me wrong, I love that too.) Is it the gaggles rearing their homo heads again? Is this just something we’ve read into too deeply?

I don’t think so. Any millennial/ gen-Z consumer of vampire media, excluding maybe the die-hard Edward versus Jacob Twilight fans, is familiar with the homoeroticism that comes with the genre. Carmilla, widely considered the very first vampire novel, is literally about a lesbian romance! The sexual tension between Jonathan Harker and the Count in the first few chapter of Dracula is wild. So much vampire media is queercoded, if not outright gay, so I think assuming a 2023 “modern monster tale” would address or lean into these expectations is reasonable.

(As a side note, whatever Renfield and Dracula’s relationship is, it’s a toxic one. If my assumption is correct and Dracula represents Renfield’s internalized insecurities, that’s a pretty bad basis for a romance. The promo material has made it very clear that Renfield is unhappy with how he is treated by his boss. His journey in the movie is about getting away from that.

Online fandom culture has an unfortunate habit of romanticizing (fetishizing) gay men in toxic relationships. Look no further than the enthusiastic Killing Stalking fan base, who think a psychopathic, unfeeling murderer and an emotionally unstable, abandonment-issue-riddled nervous wreck should be together romantically. Oh, and the murderer kept the nervous wreck locked in his house for months, physically, emotionally, and sexually abusing him, while feeding into his Stockholm-Syndrome mentality. Such a relationship is similar to Dracula and Renfield’s. A lot of this culture stems from teen girls, which I am, and I don’t want to feed into that.)

If Renfield is gay, it has an interesting opportunity to write an extremely interesting queer romance about a gay dude breaking away from his abusive old boss, and perhaps finding new love and comfort in his sexuality. I would suggest the police officer, but, on top of the fact that she would bring it back to the realm of heteronormativity, she’s unfunny and annoying. (Although, her name is Rebecca Quincy, and Quincy P. Morris is the name of the bisexual Texas cowboy himbo from the original Dracula novel.) Oh, well. She’ll probably be his love interest anyway.

It’s possible that I’m just wrong and Renfield will have all this “good queer writing” that I didn’t expect, and this whole essay will be null and void. (I seriously doubt it.) Honestly, though, I’m really just using Renfield as thinly- veiled window dressing for other romantic- adjacent topics that I’ve wanted to organize my thoughts on for a while. 

Thanks if you read all this way. Lemme know what your thoughts on stuff like this is.

#long reads #long post #essay #in this essay i will #queer stuff #gay #renfield #renfield movie #queerbaiting #maybe #movie essay #film essay #movie analysis #film analysis #lets hope this doesn’t turn out to be a completely irrelevant essay lmao #my stuff