I think being on Tumblr is gonna be tough this week: I've blacklisted sp*ilers because I wanna watch the new season with my mind as free as possible (like I did for the first 2 seasons) but it means that right now my dash is 99% empty, just an endless list of blocked posts 😅 So 1. it's boring and 2. the temptation to check these hidden posts is growing bigger and bigger by the minute >< I'm not entirely sure I can make it spoiler-free 'til next Monday...
But anyway, I was just thinking tonight how lucky we are to live at a time when shows like Young Royals are being made, and well-made, and successful, and so so loved by so many people.
Earlier tonight I got struck by a faint memory of a scene from an old TV show I watched when I was (way) younger and so I went on a deep search to find it. It was an old French TV show that I watched with my parents growing up and it made me laugh to check some bits of some episodes: but I ended up watching a scene where a (secondary) character comes out to his best friend (a main character on the show) and it was awful. The best friend reaction was terrible and homophobic, but treated as if it was totally normal and acceptable. And it made me so so sad, because I grew up with that, I grew up watching that. And it's probably not the only scene, the only show, the only movie with that kind of message that I've watched when I was young.
I grew up in an environment, a family, that was quite close-minded. The mere concept of not being straight, not being cis, was not at all something that I was aware of at the time. We didn't talk about that with my parents or at school. And the little representations I got on TV (like this one) were pretty awful. It makes sense that it took me so long to really realize that I was neither straight nor cis, to be able to actually put words on what I had been feeling my whole life (and I'm not even done questioning it all). But yeah, growing up then meant not being exposed to the amazing representation that we have now.
And I am so so so happy that young people now can have that!! That we can all have that! I am sometimes incredibly frustrated by the idea that my life would have been so so different if a show like Young Royals existed when I was growing up, when I was a teenager... Where would I be now? Who would I be now? Most of the time I'm just happy and grateful that I still managed to get where I am today, but yeah, the frustration over what feels like wasted years can rear its ugly head sometimes...
Glee was my first "Young Royals", my first fandom, my first show with a good and real and strong LGBTQ+ representation. It's the show that will always have a special place in my heart because it made me see, made me realize things about myself. It's the show that pushed me head first into queer culture and told me to "look look here! Look at these people, look at this history!". The show that took me by the hand and told me I could be strong and brave and myself. And that I was not alone. Blaine and Kurt will always be the fictional characters who helped me the most, who made me start the process of becoming myself, who started healing me.
At the time I didn't participate in the fandom life as I do now with Young Royals, because I was quite introverted and not comfortable talking to people, and still trying to figure things out about myself.
But Young Royals changed that. This show arrived at the perfect time, when I felt ready for more, ready to take a step further in my healing process.
Anyway, such a long rant just to say that Young Royals is incredible. It didn't change my life quite as radically as Glee did, but it is making it incredibly better! Part of it is of course due to the show itself, and Wilhelm, and Simon, and the cast (Omar!!!!). But it is also this fandom, and the people I've met and chatted with. You all have no idea how incredible you've been, how happy you've made me. How healing you've been for me.
I'm realizing that I've written a whole novel in this post >< Which was not really my intention! I was mostly just thinking about how awesome our little show is, how lucky we are that we're gonna have 3 incredible seasons to watch and rewatch. And how happy I am to be part of our little fandom family 💜
So I hope you're all enjoying the season 3 content that we've been getting today (even though I don't know what it is 😱) and I'm excited to be there with you all next week to be happy and sad and unhinged as usual about our dear dear show 💜💜
Chapters: 5/25
Fandom: Glee
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Blaine Anderson/Sebastian Smythe
Characters: Blaine Anderson, Sebastian Smythe
Additional Tags: Christmas Compilation, The Great Seblaine Christmas Extravaganza, Fluff and Sweetness, Occasional hurt/comfort, probably, But mostly fluff
Summary:
A collection of Christmas-themed oneshots about Seblaine.
Memory - Kurt Hummel and Maggie Banks + Lexington Home Retirees
“I'm a countertenor, and I practically have the score memorized. I was obsessed with my tape of Mary Martin's version when I was a kid. She was my childhood hero. Which explains a lot now that I think about it.”
Memories To Last A Lifetime Masterpost - In Progress
A Klaine fanfic by @enchantedlandcoffee
In their senior year of high school, Miss Pilsbury's class are assigned a two-month long project to help build their financial skills and independence. Kurt Hummel is paired with a name that doesn't seem familiar to him, Blaine Anderson.
A screencap style fic portraying the lives of Kurt and Blaine as they plan for and carry out this project.
i had a like. the thing where you remember one thing incorrectly with glee where i thought, for some reason, blaine was doing the cheerio choreography in centerfold/hot in here instead of the choreography the rest of the guys do