#I know this doesn’t define queerness

[thatineffablewitch]

Me: *doesn’t feel queer enough for other LGBTQIA+ people to recognize me as part of the community* Also me (at one singular event): “Have you heard Hozier’s new album?”, “You know, Chiron? He’s from Greek mythology,” “omg I LOVE the Percy Jackson books!”, “fuck the system! *insert social justice rant*”, “Remember SuperWhoLock?”, “Good Omens is my favorite show, it’s so good!”, “This would be better if they served garlic bread, and cake for dessert,” “Do you know your sun, moon and rising?”, *styles mandatory T-shirt with the most extra skirt, shoes, earrings, giant flower hair clip, crystal + moon necklaces and literal rainbow and black/grey/white/purple bracelets*

***These things a queer person doth not maketh. You can be queer and not like any of these things and be totally valid

#Just asexual feels #I felt very gay that day #I know this doesn’t define queerness #But liking things many other queer people also seem to enjoy made me feel like I can belong #I don’t always feel “queer enough” as an asexual #Even though I reject heteronormativity and compulsive heterosexuality so that’s literally queer #But something about that day helped #hozier unreal unearth #hozier #percy jackson #good omens #queer community #asexual community #asexual #greek myth memes #queer humor #asexual humor #ace cake #garlic bread #Astrology gay #my post

[squuote]

realizing that maybe I am just some crow who does not like labels. or at least using too many

#crow thoughts #sorry this is about queer stuff tehe ^___^ #but fr I’ve kinda decided that queer is enough for me. like I’m comfy with aro and enby as defining terms #but in terms of my overall sexuality queer is enough for me :-) #honestly while this is about queer stuff I think this also can be used for an sort of identity label for myself #I think I’ve just come to the conclusion that I hate being put inside a defining box for others to assume of me #aside from the ones I actually want to be in #finding out I was aro was kind like one of the best things for me in terms of identity #cause I’ve never rlly given a shit about my sexuality. if I think someone’s cute I think they’re cute #if I don’t think they’re cute then I don’t think they’re cute! simple easy and flows just right for me #in the end it doesn’t matter because to me that aspect of myself is tiny like it doesn’t rlly define me that much #I’m glad to have any identity that allows me to push away the forceful nature of heteronormativity #same with being nonbinary! tho that one was an easy fit hehe #but I’ve also been thinking about other identity stuff as of late too. not just gender n sexuality #like religion and the whatnot. you know the deal #and like yknow what? nah you don’t get a defining term on that personal shit #you don’t get to know why I like calling myself a crow or my religion or whatever other personal shit I got going on #I’m just me. just foster. I’m not one defining characteristic I’m just me #I’m more comfortable with myself than I’ve ever been in my life. I know myself and I will continue to learn more #but I’m comfy not telling anyone until I wanna mention it :-)

[plinkcat-gif]

lowkey hate when my mom is like “i hate that everything has to have a label/be put in a box”

#like i understand what she’s saying. but also it’s like #idk. when queer people use microlabels or have a million labels for themselves. #ok. not my problem. it doesn’t affect me in any way #this time we were talking ab politics and i wa s explaining why socialism literally isn’t bad (she agrees lmfao) #and how a lot of people in america don’t understand socialism. and she said that and it’s like #yeah i know. like I Know that identifying as One Political Thing is hard bc u don’t agree w all the ideals #but for the sake of people who lack critical thinking we have to ‘put ourselves in boxes’ #until we can get people to think critically ab shit #which may never happen #IDK ALSO. PUT URSELF IN A BOX AND THEN DECORATE THE BOX FOR URSELF. THE BOX CAN MEAN SMTH DIFFERENT TO U THAN TO ME!! #u aren’t defined by a box #that’s the point here

[wordsinhaled]

i’m so totally normal about the fact that aziraphale’s last (known) deliberate foray into the queer community was when he learned the gavotte at the fictionalized hundred guineas club (!!!) in the 1800s and now in the 2020s he’s like “grindr? what’s that?”

many are talking about his repression which is very valid… and yet the thing to me that stands out about aziraphale is that he’s actually… incredibly stable in his identity and that identity IS incredibly queer. queer by the standards of heaven AND by human standards as well

metatron describes his “de facto partnership” with crowley as “irregular.” and in fact aziraphale in his entirety is irregular. he likes and makes it his business not only to understand but to be a connoisseur of all manner of things angels aren’t supposed to even remotely care about. food. music. books. theatre. sleight of hand. and more.

it’s the sort of behavior that would’ve gotten him othered, treated as a bit odd, in heaven even if he hadn’t chosen to consort all across the earth with a literal demon. and it IS treated that way - the fact is aziraphale even as an angel has got proclivities that set him apart from the rest of the host (even after offering him the highest position in heaven, metatron still acts deeply dismissive of him… like aziraphale’s bookshop is merely a quaint little hobby of his that can be easily transferred to another custodian, and not a literal extension of who aziraphale has become, full of his tartan and unique bibles and special vintages of wine and the books arranged in a very specific way)

so. aziraphale is a queer angel but of course he’s also queer to other humans. but in such a way that… he had his realization a LONG time ago, and put the matter very much to rest after that. aziraphale is perpetually something like several centuries behind schedule. he owns an ancient computer that probably continues to run windows 98 simply because aziraphale’s decided it should. he wears the same waistcoat and coat for generations because he simply likes them precisely the way they are and sees no reason to change them. but the idea that he doesn’t know how he comes across to others - of course he does. he knows he looks like your prim and proper grandfather and he prefers it that way

aziraphale looked around at humans in the 1880s and said: ah yes. this is where i fit. and promptly ensconced himself in that queer subculture. learned the gavotte. read his austen. loved crowley from afar. aziraphale is fiercely and vibrantly queer. just with the sort of assurance of someone who lives with his lover in a commonlaw marriage for decades and then shows up at city hall for the certificate once society decides it’s ‘allowed.’ like… he hasn’t had any need to know what grindr is because aziraphale’s ‘scene’ was a century and a half ago and it defined romance for him too.

but my favorite thing about aziraphale is how much of him is about appearances versus the truth. he can lie straight to angels’ faces and sleep at night. he knows he comes off soft but he once wielded a flaming sword. he dissembles helplessness but he’s far from it and he knows precisely how it makes others treat him. and at the core of aziraphale is rigidity, inflexibility of ideas… his sense of self is stable where crowley’s is malleable, and so on, and so on

and the fact that he’s continuously fixated on trying to misguidedly do the right thing, the fact that he seeks heavenly approval and wants to fit the world into his schema of good vs evil… in no way do i think that means he isn’t one hundred percent aware of how he feels about crowley or what it means about him by angelic or human standards. i’ve seen some folks saying that aziraphale doesn’t want to like kissing crowley and like… as much as i love me some brideshead revisited/atonement flavored angst; i put forth that it’s not internalized homophobia or queer panic but simply: “i’m trying to do the right thing for both of us and you won’t let me.” and “i wanted our first kiss to be different.” he was envisioning an entirely different flavor of romance than what he got but he emma woodhoused too close to the sun

like, y’all. aziraphale in all likelihood has a glorious collection of historical queer erotica. he just has a feathery diva coat hanging in his closet, and for what. “oh, good lord” he says at crowley’s revolutionary outfit in the bastille, while eyeing him up like an entire meal. he’s so good at affected propriety, at carefully constructed stuffiness, but between the two of them aziraphale’s got to be the one who has experience

aziraphale had been physically throwing himself at crowley the entire season. he orchestrated an entire regency ball so they could touch hand to hand. he spends the entire season (well, and season 1) looking at crowley like he’s particularly coveted. he looked at crowley before the fall like he was glorious and beautiful. aziraphale’s queer and he knows it and i think that isn’t his problem, it’s the fact that he wants to build a different sort of future for the two of them but crowley’s gone and thrown a wrench in it by reminding him of everything he can finally have. like. that’s the heartbreak. it’s how dare you make this ugly? i forgive you for our first kiss being all pain and salt. it’s my dearest, i wanted to make heaven as beautiful as you deserve. as sacred and safe for us as our bookshop. and i can do that for us, because once i held a flaming sword and i still remember how the hilt felt in my hands. and now the taste of you is in my mouth.

#coughs this is also why aziraphale’s a dom. but that’s a separate post #good omens #good omens 2 #ineffable husbands #good omens 2 spoilers #this continues to be an aziraphale stan account #‘aziraphale is traumatized’ and ‘aziraphale celebrates the part of himself that loves crowley’ are two ideas that can coexist #feeling a bit like this take might get me flamed whoops but. i’m deep in my az feelings tonight so i guess i’ve decided to share anyway

[makingqueerhistory]

Nah Myung-won, 26, was a participant who identified zirself as an asexual -- meaning ze doesn’t feel sexually attracted to anyone, regardless of their gender. Nah said ze only realized zir sexual orientation after reading a news article published by a foreign news outlet, written in a foreign language. “There was a phase where everything was confusing,” Nah said. “All I wanted to do was to have coffee or watch movies with my romantic partners, while they obviously wanted other things. Things became clear when I finally got access to information on asexuality and there were other people like me.” Nah said asexual individuals often encounter ill-informed comments from both straight and queer individuals, many of which ze found to be violent. “I’ve heard things like, ‘you just have not met the right person,’ or ‘you should explore more to know for sure – maybe you are a lesbian,’” ze said. “So I thought it was important to be here, to challenge what is often defined as ‘normal,’ both in queer and straight communities.”

#queer history #queer #lgbt #lgbt history #gay history #making queer history

[wigglebox]

It’s really not that hard to understand how Destiel is canon despite not having Dean verbally textually concretely saying “I love you” back, which is what most people who only consume media on a surface level understand.

You have a jigsaw puzzle. Let’s say there’s 327 pieces. One by one you put it together with some bright spots where you get a bunch of them in a row and some more complicated spots where it took you longer than you wanted and the picture made it difficult to match up the pieces.

After awhile, you get 326 of them in, even tho your dog almost ate the 326th piece and it’s a little chewed up but whatever. It’s passable.

But, you realize you can’t find that 327th piece. It’s somewhere — it’s gotta be somewhere. You can see the hole where it belongs. You see it’s shape in it’s empty space, you see how many curves it has and how many sticky-out bits it has to connect perfectly with the rest of the puzzle.

However that final piece is still missing.

You look up and down, come up with theories about where it could possibly be (did the dog eat it? Did the manufacturers just screw up and there was a glitch in processing? Was it your own fault you lost it and it’s somewhere super obvious?).

But despite you being unable to find it, you’ve stared at that empty space for so long it’s almost like it is already filled because the shape is so clearly outlined. It’s the final piece and even if it’s not there, the rest of the picture is, and, the empty space is so well defined that there is no QUESTION that’s where the missing piece should go.

So Destiel is canon because the rest of the puzzle was filled in through years and years of subtext, text, basic narrative structure, romantic tropes, queer coding, etc etc.

The one piece that’s still missing is Dean saying three words but you don’t know where that piece is, aka, we don’t know why he wasn’t allowed to say it back. But we know that’s what has to be said. There won’t be a refusal of reciprocation because if that was the case we would have gotten it when the show was airing because there’s no harm from executives perspectives in denying queer feelings. They’d probably prefer it.

Dean’s missing words is the one single puzzle piece that’s missing right now. And we are all still searching for it but that doesn’t mean that it’s clearly defined space isn’t already there outlining exactly what could only fit right. There.

#destiel #sorry I saw tiktoks on puzzles and someone was missing a piece #and I’m like #in my Destiel feels like I always am #and I always had the puzzle analogy in my head but didn’t know how to really voice it #then the adhd meds kicked in this morning lol #anyway #happy Wednesday

[golden-haired-native]

I know the debate died down a while ago, yet I still constantly hear the rhetoric that aros are inherently un-queer and non-lgbt.

Yes, it is slightly different from the other queer identities due to the lack of attraction that is integral to the identity. Nonetheless, I will defend aros with all my might.

Just because it is “different” doesn’t mean it doesn’t belong in the community. Yes, it may be different because of the lack of attraction inherent to the identity and the disconnect from sexuality. And, that doesn’t matter. Not one bit. It diverges from the heteronormative and amatonormative.

I’ve seen people try and justify its exclusion by stating it is not discriminated against. They’re wrong. They couldn’t be any more wrong.

It faces discrimination like many other queer identities, but in different ways. It faces aphobia and prejudice, amatonormativity, and ignorance.

But that is beside the point, discrimination shouldn’t qualify you for queerness, your queerness does. Thus, aromanticism is a queer identity.

To further clarify, I define the word ‘queer’ as an identity that diverges from the normalities in today’s society surrounding gender and sexuality. And I’d be dense if I said that didn’t include aromanticism!

#lgbtq #lgbtqia #aroace #aro #arospec #aro positivity #aromanticism is valid #aromantic #aphobia is a real thing and aromantics are as discriminated as any other queer identity #aphobia #arophobia #aro pride #aromantic spectrum #aromance #aromanticism #aro spec #aroallo

[ober-affen-geil]

It’s ace week again and I want to start by saying I appreciate the constant and consistent rise of overt queer representation in media. I really, really do. This post is not about that, but I did want to start by recognizing that we are definitely seeing a positive trend of queer rep and I’m not begrudging anyone that.

On the other hand.

Why is it that Sex Education, a show lauded for its depictions of teenage sexualities of all kinds, only openly discusses asexuality in one Very Special Episode?

Why is it that Brooklyn Nine Nine, a show respected for its diversity, only mentioned asexuality once and it was clearly meant as an insult?

Why is it that Faking It, a show inclusive of many teen sexualities and groundbreaking in its inclusion of a main intersex character, only references asexuality in a single throwaway line meant as a “we’ve collected them all” joke?

Why is it that Heatstopper, a show that gently yet explicitly includes all sorts of different identities in its main teen characters, doesn’t have a single reference to asexuality? And if Isaac or Tori were meant to be included as ace rep, why weren't they identified as such the way the rest of the characters were?

Why is it that Jughead, a character known in the entire run of comics going back to 1941 as having two defining characteristics: a disintrest in girls/dating and an obsession with food and who was made explicitly asexual in a 2016 run, was not made asexual in Riverdale when the opportunity presented itself?

Why is it that when fandom was presented with Good Omens they chose to call it “not queer enough” when the option to see Aziraphale and Crowley as ace or aro was very obviously there?

Why is it that I’ve seen BoJack Horseman, a show that has earned every Emmy it has won, praised as groundbreaking for having main reoccurring character Todd Chavez’s asexuality be a part of several different storylines only ever from asexual sources?

I know why. Do you?

Happy Asexual Awareness Week.

Edit: I did address this in a reblog but since a lot of recent people seem to be finding this through the tags and this is happening with enough frequency I will add it here.

To all the helpful people in the notes telling me that a) Alice Oseman is aroace or b) that there are plans for explicit ace representation in season 2 of Heartstopper or c) that there are other publications within the Heartstopper universe that examines aspec characters...thank you. I know. That is actually most of the reason Heartstopper made it onto this list.

Because what that means is, a creator that *has* explicit aspec rep in other works, *has* explicit aspec rep in the main work that is the subject of the adaptation, and *is* aspec themselves made the choice to relegate explicit aspec rep to a second season that had not yet been secured at the time of writing season 1.

Setting aside that I know fuckall about what the adaptation/creative process was like or what TPTB were like during said process, from my perspective that fucking sucked. A lot.

Happy Asexual Awareness Week.

#rant #personal #tw aphobia #asexual awareness week #ace week #asexuality #a riley special #continuing my grand tradition of soapboxing during this week

[gatheringbones]

[“Why not identify as bi? That’s a complicated question. For a while, I thought I was simply being biphobic. There’s a lot of that going around in the gay community. Most of us had to struggle so hard to be exclusively homosexual that we resent people who don’t make a similar commitment. A self-identified bisexual is saying, ‘Men and women are of equal impor- tance to me.’ That’s simply not true of me. I’m a Kinsey Five, and when I turn on to a man it’s because he shares some aspect of my sexuality (like S/M or fisting) that turns me on despite his biological sex.

There’s yet another twist. I have eroticized queerness, gayness, homo- sexuality – in men and women. The leatherman and the drag queen are sexy to me, along with the diesel dyke with greased-back hair, and the femme stalking across the bar in her miniskirt and high-heeled shoes. I’m a fag hag.

The gay community’s attitude toward fag hags and dyke daddies has been pretty nasty and unkind. Fag hags are supposed to be frustrated, traditionally feminine, heterosexual women who never have sex with their handsome, slightly effeminate escorts – but desperately want to. Consequently, their nails tend to be long and sharp, and their lipstick runs to the bloodier shades of carmine. And They Drink. Dyke daddies are supposed to be beer-bellied rednecks who hang out at lesbian bars to sexually harass the female patrons. The nicer ones are suckers who get taken for drinks or loans that will never be repaid.

These stereotypes don’t do justice to the complete range of modern faghaggotry and dyke daddydom. Today fag hags and dyke daddies are as likely to be gay themselves as the objects of their admiration.

I call myself a fag hag because sex with men outside the context of the gay community doesn’t interest me at all. In a funny way, when two gay people of opposite sexes make it, it’s still gay sex. No heterosexual couple brings the same experiences and attitudes to bed that we do. These generalizations aren’t perfectly true, but more often than straight sex, gay sex assumes that the use of hands or the mouth is as important as genital-to-genital contact. Penetration is not assumed to be the only goal of a sexual encounter. When penetration does happen, dildos and fingers are as acceptable as (maybe even preferable to) cocks. During gay sex, more often than during straight sex, people think about things like lubrication and ‘fit’. There’s no such thing as ‘foreplay’. There’s good sex, which includes lots of touching, and there’s bad sex, which is nonsensual. Sex roles are more flexible, so nobody is automatically on the top or the bottom. There’s no stigma attached to masturbation, and gay people are much more accepting of porn, fantasies, and fetishes.

And, most importantly, there is no intention to ‘cure’ anybody. I know that a gay man who has sex with me is making an exception and that he’s still gay after we come and clean up. In return I can make an exception for him because I know he isn’t trying to convert me to heterosexuality.

I have no way of knowing how many lesbians and gay men are less than exclusively homosexual. But I do know I’m not the only one. Our actual behaviour (as opposed to the ideology that says homosexuality means being sexual only with members of the same sex) leads me to ask questions about the nature of sexual orientation, how people (especially gay people) define it, and how they choose to let those definitions control and limit their lives.

During one of our interminable discussions in Samois about whether or not to keep the group open to bi women, Gayle Rubin pointed out that a new, movement-oriented definition of lesbianism was in conflict with an older, bar-oriented definition. Membership in the old gay culture consisted of managing to locate a gay bar and making a place for yourself in bar society. Even today, nobody in a bar asks you how long you’ve been celibate with half the human race before they will check your coat and take your order for a drink. But in the movement, people insist on a kind of purity that has little to do with affection, lust, or even political commitment. Gayness becomes a state of sexual grace, like virginity. A fanatical insistence on one hundred percent exclusive, same-sex behaviour often sounds to me like superstitious fear of contamination or pollution. Gayness that has more to do with abhorrence for the other sex than with an appreciation of your own sex degenerates into a rabid and destructive separatism.”]

pat califa, public sex: the culture of radical sex, 1994, 2000

#pat califa #lesbian literature #history stuff #gender stuff #terra preta

[twopoppies]

x

[…] We’ve read so much about it, heard so much about it, yet somehow people like Billy Porter pop out of the woodwork every 6 months to accuse Harry Styles of exploiting queer people. Aside from being so utterly boring, these bad faith criticisms have lately taken on a malicious edge.

[…] Clearly, attempting to fit his sexuality into a precise box and be defined by it did not serve Bowie well. He later called his coming out “the biggest mistake I ever made” and that by being reduced to his sexuality, “it stood in the way of so much I wanted to do.” To me, it’s clear that Harry Styles, who is often discussed in the same breath as Bowie, is simply treading more carefully. He says he doesn’t label himself, he loves who he loves at his own discretion, and his fashion is extraneous to this. For some people Styles’ firm refuting of labels isn’t enough, which takes this discourse onto the slipperiest of slopes.

Putting pressure on a celebrity to address their sexuality in terms more suited to their fan base and the industry is depressingly familiar. Kit Connor of Heartstopper fame came out last Halloween, tweeting, “back for a minute. i’m bi. congrats for forcing an 18-year-old to out himself. i think some of you missed the point of the show. bye.” It was a full-throated indictment of the toxic side of the Heartstopper fandom, who interpreted the show’s warm message of inclusivity as the green light to go on a merry witch hunt for any potentially straight cast members. The entire affair hurt Connor, as would any induced coming out, and it’s an example of what happens when the Internet insists upon knowing who’s shagging who.

Porter’s recent comments are not the first time he’s criticised Styles and they espouse exclusivity in the name of inclusivity. He refers to Styles “using my community”, as if queerness or gender nonconformity is a members’ club Styles is gatecrashing. His point about Styles’ whiteness and beauty playing a prime part in his position as the first man to cover American Vogue is obviously correct, but it is not for Porter to proclaim who is in the ‘community’. There is no hierarchy within queerness or gender nonconformity and Porter is wrong to claim there are “leaders of this de-gendering of fashion movement” because the de-gendering of fashion is something that has existed since fashion began. It has no leaders because it’s literally just clothes.

This article is about far more than just Billy Porter (as the video above addresses very well). But this part stood out to me and I thought was worth highlighting.

Full article here

#Harry’s sexuality #billy porter #queerbaiting #kit connor #david bowie #celebrity coming out

[what-even-is-thiss]

Even when I do “feminine” things I personally feel completely disconnected from the concept of femininity.

Androgyny isn’t by necessity a combination or confusion of masculine and feminine elements. I think I’m just some guy but in an androgynous way. A neutral way, even. Even when I do things typically considered “feminine” that doesn’t really feel feminine to me.

I feel like gay man or even asexual man sort of feels like a gender by itself sometimes due to societal necessity. So much of manhood in our society is defined by its opposition to and partnership with femininity. So when you refuse to make that a part of your life the world doesn’t quite know what to do with you. Everything you do with your gender presentation whether it be hyper masculine, hyper feminine, just normal, or androgynous, has become disconnected from the reasons society says you should or should not be that.

I see lesbians talking sometimes about their gender being lesbian and I get that completely but like from the other angle. Even if you have no partner and never will you’ve disconnected yourself completely from society’s ideas of how a life should go for someone of your supposed gender.

And all this is just my perspective and personal experience. I can’t speak for anyone else. But I guess that’s part of why I feel barely connected to my own gender even though I am trans and chose to be a man because that’s what I am and what makes me happiest. Part of why I also identify as non binary I think. Most gay or ace men won’t but to me at least society ties your gender so much to your sexuality that I can’t help but feel weird about where I’m sitting in that ecosystem and feel disconnected from it. I feel like gender wise I have far more in common with other queer men cis and otherwise then I do with anyone else. Just the way I see it though.

#roman said a thing #trans stuff

[firehose118]

Okay even after writing this I’m still thinking about the importance of Tommy calling Buck Evan.

Names are identities. Names can be armor or they can be intimate (if you want a deeper exploration of this in fiction, please watch Black Sails). A chosen identity can be especially important as a way to control how you are viewed by others.

He goes by Buck because that’s what they called him in the academy. “Buck” is a firefighter, and as we know being a firefighter is his whole reason for living (as evidenced by the cursed lawsuit arc). He could have gone back to “Evan” when he joined the 118, but he introduced himself as “Buck” very intentionally. It was a reinvention, a shedding of his past.

Evan is a name that he associates with his parents, and his parents are so much of the reason why it took him so long to understand who he is fundamentally. Evan is who he was as a child. Evan is his parents’ unwanted son, the name they’d say like a curse whenever he did something stupid to get their attention. He hates being called Evan because his parents yelled it at him so many times that the very sound of it feels like a scold.

As others have pointed out, he probably got flustered and introduced himself to Tommy as Evan Buckley before correcting himself and saying Buck. But Tommy latched on to that and kept calling him Evan. It doesn’t seem like Buck corrected him. He doesn’t mind the name in Tommy’s mouth.

Tommy isn’t talking to Buck-the-firefighter. He’s talking to Evan-the-man. When Tommy says “Evan” he’s saying, “I see the you that is underneath the person you project out into the world. I see the you that you really are and I will call you by your name.”

There’s something deeply intimate there. Buck was a womanizer (which, he wasn’t, but that’s another post). Evan is queer. Tommy sees the Evan that Buck has been suppressing for so long—the one he didn’t even know was there—and he brings that person to the surface. He speaks to the heart of him directly.

Think about how few times people call him “Evan” throughout the series. Maddie uses that name when she hasn’t even spoken to him in three years. Evan is her little brother. She starts calling him Buck when she gets to know him as a man, not a little boy. She respects that he is a different person now than he was when she last saw him. She understands the difference.

Eddie calls him Evan exactly once, as far as I can remember, and that was very intentional on his part. When he sat on that hospital bed and said “Because, Evan,” Eddie needed him to listen, needed him to understand how important what he was saying is. Eddie understands the power of calling him Evan, understands he needs to address a fundamentally different part of this man to get him to understand how important he is to Eddie. To Chris. At all.

One thing I haven’t personally seen discussed is the sort of meta reason why his character is called Buck: his defining characteristics in the first season are how young and inexperienced and reckless he is. He’s a young buck. I genuinely believe the writers came up with that and then decided to give him the last name Buckley as an excuse to call him that.

So for Tommy to call him Evan, and for him to accept that as an identity without cringing, is him growing up. Excuse the phrase, but it’s him healing his inner child. To hear “Evan” said casually, reverently, lovingly is a revelation. It is a connection between the lonely child and the actualized adult. It is the man in his totality.

#this is a little disorganized but I am GRIPPED by this #tevan nation rise up #911 #911 abc #bucktommy #911 meta #mine

[the-crimson]

I was gonna make a comment on someone else’s post but I’ll just make a new one cuz I don’t wanna derail theirs XD

(This is aimed at the fandom, the characters being confused about 4halo is perfectly fine lol)

In regards to 4halo, I think the fandom needs to keep in mind that cc!bbh has said q!bbh is aromantic. That means that you will never be able to put any of his relationships into neat little boxes of platonic or romantic.

I’m aromantic and I’ve had people tell me my relationship with one of my closet friends has to be a romantic one because of how close we are/how we act with each other when it’s not in the way they are imagining. We aros often joke that we’ve unlocked a “secret third thing” but a lot of times relationships aren’t as cut and dry as you’d like to believe even between allosexuals - especially within the queer community.

A romantic relationship is not defined by what people do with each other or how they act around each other but by their attraction to each other. Q!bbh has made it pretty clear he has no romantic or sexual attraction to anyone so trying to put his relationships in those boxes is going to leave you disappointed.

As an aromantic person, it’s difficult to classify my relationships into these simplistic categories so I usually just avoid the question or change the subject. Q!bbh does the same.

Part of it is that cc!bbh is a troll and is obligated to always chose the dialogue option to create maximum drama but the other part is q!bbh probably doesn’t know how to explain the nature of his relationship with Forever in terms of romantic or platonic because it doesn’t fall into either.

It’s just like his relationship with Skeppy. They are immortal soulmates who are extremely possessive and codependent but good fucking luck trying to put their relationship in a box.

I think trying to look at 4halo through a purely romantic or platonic lens is doing yourself and the characters a massive disservice. You cannot forget or ignore that fact that q!bbh is canonically aromantic when analyzing this ship. Yeah go on a write ur romance or smut or what ever but when looking at the cannon, do not forget it or you are setting yourself up for disappointment.

#qsmp #crimson speaks #4halo #forever player #badboyhalo #idk if this is discourse but it’s something people gotta remember #we are probably never going to get a clear cut declaration from q!bbh on the nature of their relationship #and that’s how a lot of aro relationships work #that’s how mine work #it’s honestly really refreshing seeing an aro character being explored also well #our relationships are confusing! they don’t follow standard norms! #that’s just how we work!

[bkatlips]

Ranking and explaining my rankings of Mike Flanagan’s shows and how they make me feel in honor of spooky season and just finishing Usher!! Why not!! Everyone else is doing it!! I’m also going to give it a gay score based on how gay they are (which also includes how big of a role gay characters played).

Disclaimer: Every one of these shows is well-made in one way or another and deserves to be watched based on whether someone else finds the premise interesting and not whether I liked the show. Too often I see “that show was bad to me therefore you shouldn’t watch it” and I disagree with that line of thinking.

1. The Haunting of Bly Manor-I can already hear people screaming “Hill House is better!” In some ways, yes! In some very important ways, however, I disagree. The biggest being Bly Manor emotionally resonated with me a lot more. The themes, the found family (as someone who is an only child), and of course, the lesbianism. Dani’s story of compulsory heterosexuality may be one of if not the best in media and her love story with Jamie ended up being one of the best media has to offer, too. And really using a horror story and turning it into a love story is kind of brilliant (and annoying for the people who were just there for the jumpscares I guess). Don’t get me wrong the show has flaws (why the FUCK do Peter and Rebecca have so much screentime? was that eight episode really the best placement?) but the stuff that lands, really really lands. I’m still thinking about Dani and Jamie 3 years later. Hannah’s episode was very well done. The kid actors little Amelie and Ben were phenomenal. Upon rewatch you notice most decisions and dialogue in the show were made with some purpose and it usually relates to something thematic. Some people may say it doesn’t really have one defining central thesis therefore making it messy, but to me the fact it has many themes actually makes it more fun to think about. Gay score: 100000/10

2. The Haunting of Hill House-A horror classic that got me into Flanagan! This is Flanagan’s best series as far as making you pee your pants. That hat man is just scary! The character work is nice. Those first 6 episodes are incredible. Perfect. The thing that brings it under Bly Manor for me is honestly the ending. It left something to be desired for me. I can’t pinpoint exactly what it is, but it just did not conclude in such an emotionally resonant way as Bly Manor to me. Shout out to the Newton Bros because the music on this damn show (and Bly too but that’s basically Hill House music continued) is so so good. Also the character work is masterful because Shirley Crain is kind of a bitch but you do come to love her. In fact, there wasn’t a Crain I didn’t feel for. They’re deeply fucked up, sympathetic people. It’s a great show with some great thematic work but it just doesn’t speak to me quite as much as Bly, that’s it. I know that’s unpopular but it is what it is. A great good show nonetheless. Gay score: 8/10

3. The Fall of the House of Usher-This show is wild and honestly I couldn’t decide between ranking this one or Midnight Club third. I went with this one because the acting and technical stuff was so phenomenal. I’m not really into gore horror so this wasn’t like my thing on the surface but I do appreciate what a homage to Poe it is in the very limited knowledge of Poe’s work that I have. It was fun to see all the cast from previous shows back again especially T’nia. One of the downsides to this show is it doesn’t really make you feel a lot and so compared to the Haunting shows for me that makes it inferior for sure. But it’s a fun watch and honestly I need to rewatch the final episode because I had a hard time paying attention for that one. Gay score: really fucking queer/10

4. The Midnight Club-Ah Flanagan’s little dud. This one is really not very loved compared to the others, seems to be just about nobody’s favorite, however personally I liked it. I think people are a little unfair to it and while it may not be Flanagan’s best, I don’t think it’s awful. It doesn’t really tackle anything new when it comes to themes. There’s some death, grief, stages of acceptance, and cult stuff. I think the way it has these kids telling stories to deal with their reality was really brilliant in a way. There was one episode (six I think) that dealt with depression and suicide that made me sob and I thought was super well done. That one stuck with me.I think it would have benefited from a more likeable main character and also from the second season that was planned! Gay score: 6/10

5. Midnight Mass-To be honest, I probably could have gone without watching this show. It just didn’t really resonate with me and didn’t really entertain me save like the very last two episodes. It’s technically well-made and I appreciate what Flanagan was trying to do and convey with the danger of cults and religion. It was obviously a very personal project and was him working through his own experiences but it wasn’t for me. It had a few too many monologues and I don’t think monologues make an interesting character piece. However, it’s a critically acclaimed work so I recommend anyone who wants to check out Flanagan’s work still check it out! Especially if you like weird vampire stuff I guess. Also the acting especially from the priest was phenomenal. So there’s definitely pros to this show, but it didn’t add anything to my life for me! Gay score: 3/10 :/

Also, shout out to Mike because every single one of these shows is queer to one degree or another. He loves the gays! Ally! Bisexual wife probably helps too!

#the haunting of bly manor #the haunting of hill house #mike flanagan #the midnight club #midnight mass #the fall of the house of usher #bly manor #hill house #thobm #jamie and dani

[fan-a-tink]

Wille & his family

If you think about it, Young royals is a story of many journeys, but one of the most central ones has been Wille’s journal away from his family. 

He starts the series with his family deciding that he will change schools. He tells them he doesn’t want to but is ignored. When Erik dies he spends what feels like two days with his family, trying to grieve together, but his mother immediately tries to get him involved in his role as crown prince. After all the shit with the video been leaked, his mother makes Wille apologize for it (still think this is one of the most fucked up things to happen in this show) and forces him to make a statement denying (himself) that it was him in the video, thereby betraying Simon, hiding his queerness and ruining his relationship. But Wille does this because this is his family and he has trusted them his whole life, and he doesn’t dare to take the leap and rely on Simon whom he’s only known for a few weeks/months at this point. And then he is betrayed by his family, when he finds out that Kristina knew it was August and didn’t tell him and is also still actively protecting August by deciding not to prosecute him. This is a key moment, because Wille learns that the foundations of his life, his family, was ultimately completely fine with betraying him and forcing him to do the speech. 

In season 2, we see the fallout of that betrayal, the aftermath. With Wille shutting out his mother, refusing to talk with anyone from the court etc. They try to take him from the school, to regain some control over his actions, but he manages to make a fragile peace with his mother by agreeing to see a therapist. His mother seriously believes that she doesn’t need to address her son’s struggles personally in any way, as a mother, and instead just makes Wille someone else’s responsibility. This is another important step, because the queen’s plan backfires and Boris is actually helping Wille realise that he doesn’t have to be defined by his family’s rules and it is possible for him to go after what he wants. At the end of season 2, when he makes that speech, he takes his first definite step away from his family, signaling to them that he will try to live his life on his own terms. 

And in season 3, we learn that this lead to the Queen having a breakdown. I know she always says it’s all about Erik, but she was dealing with that before and the only thing that has changed is that Wille has started standing up for himself. Now throughout season 3 Wille and his family are in a tricky situation: Wille collaborates with the royal court for his work as a prince and for his and Simon's safety, but he is completely on his own in his family. He receives help and support from Farima, not his parents. The Queen’s illness puts pressure on him to be ready for the crown, and at the same time no one in his family wants to really speak about it and when he meets his mother she pretends that everything is fine. Then even his belief in Erik is shattered, and he has to question the only thing he really held on to with his family: his brother and the ideal he represented, the responsibility he felt to continue Erik's legacy. All of this leads to the confrontation in episode 5, where he rightfully calls out his family for never supporting him throughout any of it. He literally yells at his father „I am your only son now. Can you see me?“ and tells Kristina that she is doing a shit job of both being a mother and the Queen. And they prove him absolutely right by just refusing to engage with him, and just leaving the room because they can’t handle the situation. 

So at the point we’re at now, Wille is the furthest away from his family he has ever been. He starts out sitting in between them when he gives his first speech after the fight at the club in episode 1. And he has become completely isolated from all of them by the end of episode 5 of season 3. Does that mean he will go one step further and turn down the responsibility of being crown prince and abdicate? I don’t know. But his journey throughout three seasons has definitely been going in that direction. He becomes more and more estranged from his family and has realised more and more that he can’t rely on them for emotional support, or rely on them to even just consider him in the decisions they make that affect his life. A part of me wants him to just get away from them and make his own way in the world. But another part also wants Kristina and Ludvig to step up and become the parents that Wille deserves and needs. 

#young royals #young royals season 3 #young royals season 3 spoilers #young royals s3 spoilers #yr s3 spoilers #yr season 3 spoilers

[emblazons]

Thinking about how people who only (or primarily) understand Mike’s arc through a “hes queer and coming to accept it / struggling with heteronormativity/will get his happy ending when he gets with Will” lens are missing at least half of what defines his arc in the wider context / themes of the show.

Forewarning: long post (& also maybe an unpopular opinion)

Even as a queer person myself, I know that his arc isn’t solely about embracing his queerness (though it’s inherently interlinked). In Mike, you have a character who is being radically challenged by both external circumstances and his own decisions through a journey away from all kinds of forced conformity (social, familial, romantic & heteronormative) and into someone self actualized enough to live how they want…while also being strong enough to accept that they made mistakes along the way. Someone who is learning to be brave enough to say “this is who I am, what I enjoy, and what/who I love…and while it took me a lot of time to figure it out, now I can exist in the world embracing that even though it will take consistently resisting the tendency to accommodate people who think it’s unacceptable.”

Like. Even from a time before puberty (see: S3) Mike wants a life that stands apart from what’s expected of him in every area, not just in choosing a romantic relationship with another guy. He wants to continue to be a nerd and “child at heart” even though something else is repeatedly demanded of him by everyone from his parents to El in his romantic relationship. He wants to be a writer and someone who takes those nerdy interests into his adult life (cue aggressive gesturing toward the duffers themselves) and grates against all that’s been constructed for him even when he’s not (yet) brave enough to challenge it directly. Mike liking boys/loving Will is just “the final nail in the coffin” of his social and societal nonconformity—not the first (or the last) aspect of what makes him different from Hawkins or the life he was made to believe would suit him best.

Even the fact that Mike has a desire to be “normal” comes from an insecurity and fear that choosing what he truly wants will lead to him being outcasted and losing the people he cares for entirely—which is partially motivated by his queerness yes, but that also has a basis in his general interests and personality…which becomes especially obvious when you realize we are repeatedly shown that he is punished/has his wishes ignored in all areas he doesn’t conform, even long before we get into a plot where it’s clearer he likes boys.

We see it in how his parents have already started to demand he put boundaries on the time he spends playing his “childhood games” the very first scene of season one, how they demand social acceptable emotions from him when Will is missing, and how Karen & Ted want him to give up toys in S2 when he’s showing signs of depression (because they think the issue is him growing up, not that he’s struggling with loss or guilt for what happened to El).

We see it in how his own father comments about taking his CA trip away from him after calling Hellfire being a group for “dropouts” in S4 (implying that he is failing on an academic and social level that matters to wheelers—and that Nancy is good at).

We even see it in the way everyone from his bullies to his own girlfriend threaten and take things away from him when he doesn’t conform to social expectations...from Troy telling him to jump off the cliff to save Dustin in S1 (as punishment for the one time Mike stands up for himself in the gymnasium) to El jumping straight into breaking up with him and spying on him when he doesn’t do exactly what she wants him to in Season 3.

All of these moments are critical to understanding Mike as a person because they show us that, even without addressing his queerness, Mike’s desire to conform to socialized expectations involves but is not solely about him moving out of heteronormativity—it’s about him moving against everything that WASP, patriarchal, heteronormative and capitalistic and performative “wholesome American” values…and how he is learning to move past the fear of what will happen if he steps outside the lines in general, even though he already knows he hates those standards.

Mike’s “coming of age” arc is about finding the strength to choose the “path less traveled” in all areas of his life—even when it means (potentially) losing the support of the people he cares about. It’s about starting from a place of privilege and becoming okay with being outcasted from it in a way your insecurities never let you be before (which is inherently different than Will, who has always been shown to have some kind of support not just for his queerness but his artistic endeavors as well). Mike’s lack of support is why he starts from a place of deep insecurity, yes—but it’s also why him learning power of choosing to be himself, even if it means “losing” people when he’s honest about who (& what) he is will be universally powerful.

You don’t need to be queer to understand the power of what it means to know you will be okay even if people leave you. You don’t need to be queer to understand the power of stepping outside social expectations or your family’s way of raising you. You don’t even need to be queer to understand the weight of breaking up with someone you were only with to satisfy what you thought you should do, rather than be with who you want to.

The power of being strong enough to overcome your insecurities in order to “step out of line” and live and love as you want to is universal, and a stunningly brave choice no matter what or why you chose to do so. The fact that Will will be there waiting to love him in that honesty with himself is beautiful, yes—but it’s not the only lesson to be learned for Mike’s character.

Mike starting out with everything the world (or, at least America) tells would make you happy, realizing he is not happy with those things and rejecting them knowing it might have consequences is what makes his arc powerful, because he is learning (exactly like his sister Nancy) to be brave enough to accept those consequences (which for him are getting dumped, and feeling like he’s being left behind by some of his friends) to follow his own heart.

Even though The Duffers aren’t writing this into a tragic ending (aka: he’s not going to die or be left alone, because the duffers writing is inherently designed ro champion the outcast), these are the things that have (and will) make him relatable even to an audience that doesn’t know queerness. Erasing the fact that his lesson is the bravery it takes to follow your heart solely to talk about him liking guys (even Will) is to undermine his humanity, and the lessons to be learned from him by even the most general an audience.

TL:DR - the heteronormative aspect of Mike’s character is not the sole or even inherent issue within Mike, though heteronormativity is inherently built into his struggle.

There are deep dives on how his arc is also about a war against toxic patriarchy, toxic masculinity, emphasis on capitalistic and academic accomplishments over artistic ones, and even conformist relationships (whether they’re queer or not) that should be explored for his character—and I for one like him too much not to move out of just “this boy is queer because xyz” and into “let’s talk about Mike in terms of the wider scope of his cultural context and upbringing.” 🤷🏽‍♀️😂

#imma go watch the Oscars now but #i know people mean NO HARM in focusing on the heteronormative part of his arc because on tumblr esp that is inherently relatable but #it’s not the only thing that makes his character interesting! #and it’s not the only thing he’s struggling with in his ‘coming of age!’ #understanding white masculinity in America on a wider scale is SUPER helpful to understanding Mike #and in that sense Reddit is actually pretty good at catching his drift—THEY JUST DONT REALIZE THE DUFFERS ARE U N D E R M I N I N G it #erasing Mike’s queerness is to do him a disservice. I absolutely believe this. #but to deny every other part of him that isn’t just expected to be straight is to oversimplify him aggressively #you need BOTH to understand him #which is why you need both El and Will to make sense of his struggle lmao #(I still 100% believe he’s gay not bi) #(but him dating a girl was necessary to make sense of understanding that aspect of socialized expectations). #ANYWAY. Sorry for the rant lmao #mike wheeler core #mike wheeler #my st commentary #byler #< target audience #stranger things