#It was the go to thing used to indicate or make fun of gay men with. Both in tv/movies and irl

[otakusapien]

It's utterly bizarre to me how many young people seem to think the limp wrist thing is a subtle jokey code that only other queers will understand. For decades it was a stereotype cishets used as shorthand/coding for (effeminate) gay men, usually derogatory, and if you do that to an older queer person in public 1. You are not being subtle, 2. They may think you're mocking them

#Believe it or not- yes a hand gesture is technically a reclaimed slur #When I say older I generally mean 'gen x or higher' #Or people who are less online/less tuned in to current trends #Or it may be someone who is up to date but doesn't like it bc they have negative associations with it #But most importantly /most cishets will know what you mean. Stop trying to signal strangers with it bc it WILL be clocked/ #I'm not an expert but like. After my entire childhood and teenage years #Of living in a small conservative area #It was the go to thing used to indicate or make fun of gay men with. Both in tv/movies and irl #It was only in the last few years I saw people talk about a limp wrist as a fun thing and not #What every high school bully went for as a cheap shot #And I'm baffled by how cavalier some young people have been with this like they somehow missed it #this wasn't that long ago I'm not even 30 #So like. Be aware not everyone has the same connotation with it

[the-soliloquies-of-sadists]

This is a direct follow up to Story #387, Story #389, and Story #394. It is strongly advised that you read those stories first.

#400

“There he is!  Timothy Stone, get on up here!...  Welcome aboard!  Welcome to the Zelus.  I see you are impressed with my tiny tugboat.  Ha! Ha!  I love looking at reactions of new passengers.  You ever been on a yacht this big?

“It’s sixty-nine feet, and enough power to get us around the entire Bahamas and back here to West Palm Beach.  It has four staterooms and two crew quarters.  You get one of them.  Sorry, with the entire executive team here each of us will get our own stateroom. 

“Let me text Lloyd to take us out of the marina.  All of us have been here for some time.  No, don’t worry about it.  I told you to be here at three, and it’s five ‘til three.  No, we’ve been having fun with our new faggot we got tied up….

“You want a drink?...  I have this cognac that I was given in Vegas the other day by a potential client.  I haven’t tried it yet.

“Ahh we are moving.  We should be out of the marina in a few minutes.

“Here you go….  Cheers!  …Ahhh!  Smooth.  I’m not a fan of cognac, but this is pretty good.  It should be.  Courvoisier Mizunara is supposed to be one of the best out there.  On the shelves it’s worth $2,500.  But shit, I couldn’t tell that from a $100 bottle.  Bourbon is more my thing. 

“Growing up in Tennessee, my Uncle Jimmy used to make his own.  Everyone in a five-mile radius of his home had a bottle of his bourbon.  I used to help him out in his garage in the evening when his son went off to college.  Uncle Jimmy showed me everything, but we always wound-up drinking.  I was sixteen at the time.  I’d plow his ass at the end of the night.  After a few times, he didn’t even wait until we started drinking.  He had one of the best pieces of ass I ever had.

“His bourbon lives on with my cousin once my uncle passed.  I have a bottle of it here.  I may break it out sometime during this trip.  My cousin fucked it up when he went ran the company.  It’s definitely not as good as it was before.  Some boys just don’t have a mind for business.

“Speaking of boys in business, your son Michael is doing great.  From what Lloyd was telling me, he’s really taking to his new role as intern.  I know he finds it a challenge, but Lloyd, Ben, and Gary think he’s handling it better than anyone they have seen in a long time.  Apparently, he has a gift for adapting, kinda rolling with the punches.

“What I like about him—I met him this morning—is his ability to take directions without complaints.  That is such a difficult characteristic to find in boys these days.  Lloyd and Gary were indicating they want to keep him around after his initial internship.  I left him earlier working hard trying to impress me.

“…Oh you hear that cabin tone?  That’s Lloyd telling everyone that we’ve cleared the marina and are out at sea.  This is your first time on the Zelus.  When we are in open water, we strip naked.  All of us.

“I told you the other day when we were talking about promoting you to lead our European expansion, that we are a close group of men—of four gay men.  We share our conquests, our lusts, our dark needs with each other.  I trust these men like I would trust my brother, if not more.  We have been in countless gang bangs tearing up some faggot’s cunt.  I have seen their cocks and asses so much that it’s awkward to see them clothed.  The other two on board are faggots.  Naturally those two are going to be kept naked.

“So strip.  This is not an option.  You can jump overboard and swim back to shore if you would like.

“Good.

“You can leave them on the couch.  Ben’s boy will put them in your cabin.  If you go out on deck you can keep your sunglasses and baseball cap on.

“You have got to realize that the four of us have known each other for years.  Lloyd and I go back to our time in the Corps.  What connects us is our love for using and abusing faggots. 

“Right now, as I was saying there are two faggots on board.  One is Ben’s boy.  While Ben has taken him on as a partner of sorts, he’s still a faggot at heart.

“…I guess I should ask, do you know the difference between a gay man and a faggot?  A faggot is a gay man who has a need, an urge, a longing to submit to the whims of superior men.  The more humiliating, degrading, cruel the better.  Faggots live for the cum of its superiors.  It loves to degrade itself in order for the man to be elevated.  It needs the beatings, the piss, the bondage, the punishment to feel complete.

“I don’t know why you were hesitating about stripping.  You have a great body, average sized dick, nice long foreskin, and holy shit… Those balls are huge!  Let me hold on to them….

“Hey don’t hesitate.  We are all physical with each other as well.  Look, I’m standing here in front of you naked.  I already saw you check out my dick.  Yes, it’s very fat.  If you want to touch it, go right ahead.

“You know, as a man who says he bisexual, you certainly seem apprehensive….  Or is it the fact that I’m your boss telling you to take a hold of my cock.  I get it.  If you are going to be a part of this team, you are going to have to drop those pretenses.  When you walk around you should let those low hangers swing free and guide your every step.

“Let me check out your ass.  Hey, what can I say?  I’m an ass man.  I’m going to see it anyways, might as well be now.

“Solid and meaty, just as I would have guessed.  Nice and hairy.  Faggots seem to love licking a hairy crack.  You ever have your ass eaten out?...  There may be some ass eating ahead.

“Speaking of which, right now that faggot is down below.  It is tied down, blindfolded with a noise cancelling headset on, ass up.  The four of us have already bred it.  You will be up next.

“Your cock doesn’t seem like it wants to get hard….  Do you need something?  We have Viagra, Cialis, Levitra, Muse, Tri-mix.  Well, I need a shot of Tri-Mix.  After this morning’s big load, I don’t think I could get hard again until tomorrow.

“You ever do Tri-Mix?  I use it when I want to fuck for a long time.  It keeps me boned up for a few hours.  You want to try it?  After a few minutes have passed you will be rock, and I mean rock hard.

“If you are nervous, this being your first time with me on the Zelus, just do it.  Let me get it.  It’s kept cold.  Don’t worry, I have a doctor that gives me whatever I want.

“Just stand right there.  Don’t worry.  I’ve done this many times.  Yes it’s an injectable.  And it’s injected into the shaft.  Aww, don’t turn into a pussy on me.

“I brought two syringes.  Let me do it to myself.  Here watch….  It goes in, I plunge, and it comes out.  Like that.  It’s over quick.  Now a few tugs and I can already feel it working.  I’m not going to get completely rigid for about 15-20 minutes.

“Look, you say you are bisexual, but I’m thinking that you are making up the gay side of it because you want to impress us.  You want this promotion so fucking bad you are willing to fuck some faggot in front of us.  You wouldn’t be the first straight man to shoot up his cock to fuck fags.  There’s a whole term for it: gay-for-pay.

“You want to be part of this team, you are going to need to learn to love using faggots, that includes dumping a load into them.  To do that you need to get hard.  This injection will do that for you.

“Here feel my cock again.  Grab a hold of it….  Feel that?  It’s harder than a few minutes ago.  Here let me inject you.

“Come here.  Just look up.  On the count of three.  One!  See, it went in….  And now you are done.  Give it a few tugs and you will start to feel it.

“You’ll be hard for the rest of the night.  Lots of fucking in your future tonight. 

“When we had our conversation in Vegas, I told you that I was pissed off at your skimming the profits but was very intrigued at the process you used to do so.  It took some serious creativity to pull that off.  I was impressed.  The guys too.  We set this cruise out to a remote island in the Bahamas to get to know you—to get to know you as a fag fucker.  Besides, the shit we do… man, we wouldn’t take on anyone who had a shred of decency.

“Do you feel your cock getting larger?  I can see it growing.  Yeah, once we go downstairs into the media room that doubles as a dungeon, you will see the faggot cunt secured to the sling or fuck bench.  Your cock will slide into its cunt.  And it should be silky smooth.  Better than any woman’s pussy.

“We have been training this faggot for a couple of weeks.  Lloyd secured him about the time when you and I went to Vegas.  He was an easy target.  What you probably don’t realize being essentially straight is that there are faggots out there that will do just about anything to serve men like us—brutal men like us.  Lloyd has a good talent for reading a potential faggot.  He says things that just seems to work on getting that faggot to be collared.

“Once that happens then it’s only a matter of time that they submit to whatever we want to do to them.  And all it took was this.  See this little fob?  This is the tool we use.  Here, press the number one button.

“Do it again.  And again.  What you did, is you sent a shock to the faggot down below.  The collar we put on him is wired up, like a collar for a dog to get it to stop barking.  Once they feel that, total submission is almost immediate.  With this particular faggot, he turned into a whipping post for Ben and toilet paper for Gary in no time. 

“Where we keep the faggot is wired up for numerous cameras.  So we can see what the faggot is doing and send a shock from anywhere in the world.  I even sent one from Vegas when you were looking up some number from some report.

“Look at your cock.  It’s starting to get rigid.  Damn!  You are a grower! 

“You know, let’s go see the faggot.  The guys will be down there.  We are certainly far from shore so Lloyd will have the autopilot on.

“This way….  Doesn’t it feel right to be walking around buck naked?  Trust me you’ll get used to it, and soon enough you’ll be naked pretty much all the time.  If you need to piss and you don’t have a faggot nearby, just aim off the side and go.  The one thing you’ll learn is pissing with a hard-on will take some time, which is great for loading up a faggot’s toilet cunt.

“And here we are.  Before we go in, I want to point out that you can see the men are enjoying themselves.  In general, we casually use faggots’ holes.  It’s about pleasure and not so much about busting a nut, although busting a nut happens a lot.

“Look at how the men are enjoying what’s going on.  Ben is balls deep in his boy, while the boy is tongue fucking Gary’s shitter.  Lloyd is pile driving the faggot over on the fuck bench, stirring up the cum stew. 

“This is the life we created.  This is what you are coming into.  Let’s go in.

“Gentlemen!  I got Timothy here.  His cock has been shot up and he’s ready to fuck.

“Damn Tim!  You really are a grower.  I should have expected that when I saw your long foreskin.  Now only the tip shows.  Skin it back; I want to see how big your head is.

“Shit!  Do you ever clean that thing?  Look at that dick cheese….  Come here.  Stick your dickhead in the faggot’s mouth.  He’ll clean you off. 

“The faggot is blindfolded and has noise canceling headset under his hood.  He won’t know what to do until you use the handle on his hood to pull his head back.  Then just shove your dick in his mouth.  The faggot knows to clean off dick cheese; I’m sure Gary made sure of that. 

“There you go….  I see that smile.  Feels good, doesn’t it?  Better than any woman.  A well-trained faggot is better than anything a woman can do. 

“Well you got Gary and Ben to stop and watch you.

“Oh you see his welts.  Yeah, a well-trained faggot also takes a beating.  We punish faggot slaves appropriately, but they also are made to understand that sometimes the beatings are for our enjoyment.  Ben and Lloyd certainly like to have their fun.

“This faggot has been trained to do so much.  He’s going to fetch us a good price.  Yeah, we plan on selling him.  There are men around the world that pay top dollar for a well-trained faggot slave.

“Pull out.  I said pull out.  I told you that you will enjoy this.

“Lloyd, move the faggot to the sling.  I think Tim here is ready to fuck.

“While he’s doing that, care for another drink?  Or would you like a cigar?  No?  Ok.

“Boy.  Go upstairs and pour Tim here a glass of the Courvoisier Mizunara cognac.  The bottle should be sitting out.  Hell, bring the whole bottle down.

“That’ll help you adapt and sink into everything to come.  So have you ever been to a gang bang, or fucked a woman who has several loads in her?  The feeling on your cock is amazing.  Yes it’s sloppy, but it also feels silky smooth.

“That’s a sight, isn’t it?  That cunt has been trained to take cock after cock and still remain tight to give pleasure and loose enough to not cause your dick to struggle to fuck.

“Here’s your cognac.  Might as well down it.

“Now go on.  Step up.  Slide it in.  Trust me, this is going to be a fuck you will never forget. 

“…Good.  You ready? 

“There you go!  There’s the smile.  Now FUCK!

“Give that faggot what he deserves.  Slam into him.  Faggots were made to be fucked not made love to.

“Hell yes!  Look, we are all stroking our dicks for you.  You have no idea how hot this is….

“Guys, gather around.  You should see this up close.

“…Go for it!  Don’t hold back.  Breed the faggot. 

“FUCK YEAH!  FUCK!

“…You did it!  In record time!  Well done!  Don’t pull out yet.  Let the rest of your body calm down first.  Savor the feeling.  Savor the moment. 

“You did good.  Now, I need for you to pull out slowly.  The faggot is trained to clamp down.  Good.  Good!

“Look at that slime on your cock.  That’s all our juices.  How do you feel?  I know.  Words elude you?... Ha!

“Get on your knees….  You heard me.  I want you to look at this faggot’s cunt. 

“Gary, pull apart the fag’s cheeks.  Let’s really see that cunt hole.

“On your knees….  There you go.

“Ben.  Lloyd.  Now.

“…They move fast, don’t they?  You have the same shock collar on you as the faggot does.  Now pay attention.  This is a level one zap. 

“…Hurts like a motherfucker, right?  There are ten settings, and you had the weakest.  I don’t think another demonstration is needed.  Do you understand your situation?

“…Shut up.  I don’t want to hear your babble.  That was a ‘Yes Sir’/’No Sir’ question…. 

“OK.  You really thought you could skim money from us and be rewarded with a promotion?  Please!  You need some sort of punishment.  That begins with your lips kissing the faggot’s cunt lips.  Go on!  Lean in. 

“…That was level two….  There you go! 

“Now keep your mouth open.  The faggot may be wearing a noise cancelling headset, but we can speak to him.  He’s going to be told to shit some of his cunt slop into your mouth.  Do not swallow it.  Nod if you understand.  Good.

“Whew!  That was a messy fart!  Remember don’t swallow.  Now pull back.  Look up at us.  Show us the load.  Now gargle it.  Like mouthwash! 

“Two minutes ago, you were a man, but now you are a gargler of cum gobs.  Now don’t swallow.  Stop gargling.

“Get up and go share that in the faggot’s mouth.  Get up….  You know I hate having to repeat myself.  If I have to do it again, you will experience level three.  Now go and have a deep passionate kiss with the faggot.

“Hold his head and swap spit.  Pretend he’s a woman.  Hell, pretend it’s your son Michael’s mother.  I don’t care.

“Fuck yeah!  I didn’t realize that you are an excellent kisser.  Pull off.  There will be more kissing.  Get back to kneeling at the faggot’s cunt. 

“You are going to repeat the process exactly the same, except for the gargling.  You can skip that.  Any hesitation will be met with level three for triple the length.  You understand.  Just nod.

“Good.  Oh, I forgot to tell you one thing.  You need to hear it before you go back to eating another splatter fart out of your son’s ass….

“…Oh yeah!  The faggot here is your son Michael.  This is the internship we set him up with.  Oh yeah.  Your son was a faggot before us.  It was easy for us to pluck him.

“Now, remember level 3.  You are to do the exact same thing with the same level of passion.... I'm fucking serious.  Go!

“…Damn!  That was close.  A split second longer in hesitating and you would have been shocked.  Keep licking.  While you wait to receive your gift from your son’s cunt, Lloyd here is removing your son’s hood.  He still has his blindfold and headset on.  We will be removing those shortly.  You probably won’t recognize him initially because Ben had removed all this body hair even on his head.

“Did you hear that?  Gary just busted a nut watching you felch out our loads from your son’s cunt.

“Pull off when your mouth is full.  Good.  Now go French kiss your son. 

“Just like before.  Go on now….  Fuck yeah!

“This is so hot.

“Now go back to his cunt.  But this time remain standing.

“Stick  your slime covered cock back into your boy’s cunt.  And fuck him.  That Tri-mix I injected you with should keep you hard for a long time.  You’ve already fucked a load into him.  Now just fuck.

“You really should see yourself.  Oh wait, you can.  Look over at that TV.  Yes, we have been filming you.  See your face.  There’s panic, fear, guilt, regret, and even a little disgust.  All the good emotions.  And over on the TV to your right, you can see how your son became a faggot with each of us.  Oh yeah, he wasn’t coerced into being a faggot like you were.  No, he was totally into sperm burping and pole riding.  The fear you had that he might be gay turned out to be true in the most glorious way.

“DO NOT STOP FUCKING.

“And now, we get to see shame you have in him and in yourself, by taking the headset off first. 

“Faggot, it is imperative that you do not say a word.  If either you or the shithead fucking you say one word, you both will get shocked at level 3.  This includes screaming.  I want both of you to nod that you understand.

“Good.  Now Tim, remove the blindfold. 

“Look into your son’s eyes.  Let him see just how much your fuck up has cost him.  All this is because you had arrogance and ambition.  You tried to fuck us over, you tried to steal from us, and you believed that we would be ok with it and promote you as well?  Fuck that!

“Are you crying?  You are!...  Do not stop fucking your son.

“Faggots!  That was level 3.  Yes!  The both of you got shocked.  That’s how punishments will be going forward.  One fucks up, then both gets shocked.

“Now get back to fucking your son.

“Here’s the situation.  We still have about four hours to go.  And you have a hard on that will last another three to six.  You will be fucking him non-stop until we get to where we are going.  Until then, you will not say one word to each other.  Remember those shock collars we have padlocked on you were meant for barking dogs.  If you say one thing, the sensors will register sounds and you two will be shocked.  Also, that sling has a sensor that will monitor for movement.  If that movement stops or even slows down—say due to stopping fucking—you two will be shocked.  Tim, if your collar should go more than 6 feet away from your faggot son’s collar, you two will be shocked.  If any one of us bring up one of our video feeds and see that your cock is not inside your faggot son’s cunt, you two will be shocked.  I will free the faggot’s hands.  I want the two of you to enjoy playing with each other’s chest.  What can I say?  I’m a nice guy.

“That’s a lot of fucking between the two of you between now and when we reach the island.  But here’s one thing before we leave you both to go have dinner.  That island is a small private island, about two to three acres.  There’s a small dock and a metal shed to shield from the elements.  The owner of the island always has a box stocked with water bottles and something to eat.  Last time we sold a faggot there, they put in a hammock between two of the four trees on the island.

“Faggot, you will be left on the dock.  The island owners will send carriers to pick you up either tomorrow or the next day.  From there, they will arrange delivery to your new owners.

“Until then you are free to roam the small island.  Swim.  Whatever.  If you want to swim to the next island, it’s about 7 miles in open ocean, and that island is about ten times larger, but still uninhabited.

“So that’s the life your dad has caused you to have.  Look at him.  He’s a failure, and he knows it. 

“Well Tim.  While you cry, keep fucking your son.  This will be the last few hours with him.  What do you have to say?  Oh, let me turn off your noise sensor….

“…No we can’t simply forget all this.  You stole a lot of money from us, it needs to be paid.  We paid a lot in fuel to get us out here.  We paid for a pick up on the island.  They expect a faggot.  Now, if you want to switch places with your son, that can be arranged.

“You want to do that?  You want to be sold into sex slavery instead of your faggot son?...

“…Well fuck!  I wasn’t expecting that!  You didn’t waste any time in shaking your head no.

“Faggot, did you see how fast your dad just gave you up?  Shit! 

“These past weeks have been carefully planned.  Every word, every detail.  From the Vegas trip where we had our talk, to Lloyd convincing faggot here to sign up to be our intern, to the strip club dancer I paid to have sex with you so that a potential buyer could see you in action, to the tri-mix dose on hand, to the video feeds cued up, and to me handing the shock remote to dear old dad to get him to shock his son three times.  The one thing I was expecting you to do was the fatherly thing and offer to go instead of your son.

“Nope.  You chose to sacrifice your son.  Didn’t even think twice.  That’s fucking brutal.  Just when I think you can’t be more of a piece of shit, you surprise me.

“No YOU are going to be sold, not your faggot son.  Your new owner saw you fuck that stripper, and he wanted you.  He’s into hairy middle-aged straight men as his sex slaves.  He doesn’t want your hairless faggot son.

“So you are going to be sold.  But I wonder.  Hmm.  I’m going to contact your new owner and see if he’s interested in the pair of you two as a set.  Yeah, that is a great idea, to sell your son into slavery as well.  If you had just offered yourself up instead of your son, he would have been spared.  But no. 

“If you have anything to say, save it.  I just put your noise sensor back on.  Get back to fucking your son.

“Gentlemen let’s go have some dinner.  Ben, I see your boy is gone.  To start cooking I presume.  You are one step ahead, as always.  Let’s leave these two have some private time.  They have lots to talk about, too bad they can’t say anything.  Lloyd, I know you have been eying that cognac.  Go ahead and grab it.  It’s yours for all the hard work you put in.  Actually, you all did good.  I’m proud of you all.  That was fun.”

[reggieslocket]

prepare yourselves because i'm going to give you a bunch of reasons and hints that will show you the high chance of eddie being actually gay and him and steve becoming a thing >:)

1. "freak" as a queercoded word

let's start with the scene where dustin, robin, steve and max find eddie in the house where he was hiding and particularly on the dialogue between the five of them

there's this scene where eddie says something about how the people in town are getting ready to hunt him because they think he's guilty and he says "hunt the freak right?" and we see robin giving him an almost sad but understating look before replying "exactly" and i find it curios that they made her respond that out of everyone, i feel like it could be because she kind of relates to eddie's situation? she also would probably be considered a freak by people if they knew about her sexuality and that's why i believe the word has a queercoded meaning, if you think about it, "freak" was already used in the past seasons when bullies made fun of will, who also happens to be a queercoded character (even though we know he's coming out this season)

2. the handkerchief code

the handkerchief code gained popularity in the 70s and later on in the 80s and it was used especially by gay men to let others know their sexual preferences and fetishes. there were different and specific meanings depending on the color of your handkerchief and where you decided to put it (left pocket or right pocket)

now if you watch closely eddie can be seen wearing a black hanky in his left pocket throughout the seven episodes and of course these little details have their own meaning, in fact the black one was used to indicate S&M (sadomasochism) and as mentioned before the fact that it is placed in his left pocket isn't casual because that placement indicated that the person wearing it was a top (the dominant one in bed) while if you put it in your right pocket it meant you were a bottom (the submissive one)

this whole hanky thing made quite sense for me except for the fact that it was hard to believe that eddie is into sadomasochism but then rewatching the show a few days ago i noticed some handcuffs in his room and i found it weird because honestly what is a 20 year old man doing with those? he's not a cop or anything and so the fact that they are in his room is a bit strange for me... i just hope that the choice of making eddie wear the handkerchief isn't casual but a powerful move by the duffer brothers in order to hint at his sexuality

3. joe and joseph's interview

this interview really do be getting my hopes up. basically the interviewer asks joe what season one steve would think of his season four self and he replies with "surprised, approving... approval" WHILE looking and smiling at joseph who is also grinning, like there's no way they aren't hiding something and i hope it's the relationship between steve and eddie and steve's bisexuality. plus the fact that even maya is smiling while it seems like natalia is the only one able to be subtle about the whole thing lmao

then obviously there are steddie-antis saying that he would be approving of him and nancy getting back together but like... what should he be approving of? they were already a couple in season one so it wouldn't make much sense

4. gaten ships them as well

remember: if gaten ships it then it's canon

i love how the first couple that came to his mind is steddie and how proudly he says their names. he seemed so serious while saying it that it made me reflect on the fact that it's not that impossible seeing it happen and if not in season 4 maybe in season 5 since i read somewhere that luckily neither steve nor eddie are going to die in the last two episodes of this season (i don't know if it's true but let's hope so)

5. the chrissy-eddie thing

almost everyone who hates the fact that we headcanon eddie as gay will give the same explanation that he is clearly straight because he was flirting with chrissy and honestly i didn't see that as flirting at all, i just thought he was being really nice to her like he is to everyone. she was having a hard time and he was able to make her laugh and loosen up a little, i didn't find it as something romantic and furthermore who says that every interaction between a man a woman has to be romantic?

like friendship exists as well people?? and don't try and say "tHeRe cAn'T bE sO mAnY qUeEr cHaRaCtErS iN oNe sHoW, iT's nOt rEaLiStIc" like trust me it's more realistic having a group of only (or almost) queer people than one where everyone is straight and i know the show takes place in the 80s but gay people existed even then but they just couldn't openly say it so stfu

6. steve's attempts to find a girlfriend

we all know mama steve is trying his hardest to find a girlfriend but none of them really "suists" him right? what if eddie is the person that suits him? i mean it would be epic if he spent two seasons trying to find a girlfriend and then he ends up with a dude lol, i'd like to see bi steve happening so bad and i just know that robin would be super supportive of him and my boy dustin would be the happiest person on earth if his two dads got together

you can't tell me that they aren't developing a little crush on each other or that they don't care about each other, just look at eddie's face and his loving eyes in that scene and steve staring at eddie's lips for the whole time. i swear if they are really trying to get nancy and steve back together i'll start a riot because honestly they would be so forced, it wouldn't be good for both of their character development and also my boy jonathan doesn't deserve this, they made jancy dirty this season and i'm still pissed ugh

anyway if you read the whole thing ily and thanks for coming to my ted talk :)

#stranger things #stranger things 4 #stranger things s4 #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #steve x eddie #eddie x steve #stranger things volume 2

[jarviscockerssecrethusband]

One thing I love about the harringrove fandom is the agreement both that Steve is dyslexic and Billy is a MASSIVE reader.

Because while Steve’s always been surrounded by teachers or his parents or exes who either believe that he’s incapable of appreciating reading or that he just doesn’t care, Billy thinks that’s bullshit.

Because when Billy gets told to tutor Steve in English, he doesn’t start with a book for toddlers or fucking Shakespeare. They start with Billy reading him Wuthering Heights.

And at first Steve does not fucking get it. He doesn’t understand the plot, the message and especially not the dialect. But he finds himself enjoying it a lot. Billy’s a natural storyteller. He could be on stage.

Billy’s taste in books is both eclectic and weird. He’s reading Finnigan’s Wake for fun. In Irish. He likes Portuguese romance books and German surrealism and a lot of George Orwell. So much so that Steve kind of feels that love rubbing off on him.

He’d used to like reading. Before he was told he was doing it wrong. And even though he despised the books set by Hawkins High with every fibre of his being, there was this fire set in his belly, a want to impress Billy.

So he starts with The Hobbit. Eddie “Freak” Munson’s the only other dyslexic Steve knew and he loved that shit. How hard could it be?

The Hobbit is fucking difficult. It starts with a map, Steve thinks is in Elvish and some of the chapters feel like they go on forever. The words still bounce around the page and switch constantly. He likes it though. It’s weirdly fun as a story and he finds himself rooting for Bilbo.

Henderson can never know. That is the one thing Steve is certain of.

Billy doesn’t laugh when Steve tells him that’s what he’d decided to start with. He just rolls his eyes, not meanly and says he used to read that with his mom. Back in Cali. Before Neil fucked everything up.

Billy reads a lot of Oscar Wilde. The Importance of Being Earnest is constantly tucked into his back, dog eared and well loved. Steve knows enough about Oscar Wilde to know what that indicates.

Billy’s a poof. A faggot. A queer.

Billy is like Steve.

He doesn’t have the courage to look out for anything gay. Nothing even that hints at the matter. Steve knows that his dad has The Iliad tucked away in his office. He’s away on business while his mom sits in the kitchen and complains about America. Even after 15 years in the States, she still misses Poland.

His daring heist after she goes to bed leads to him sitting on the kitchen floor, crying about Achilles and Patroclus. Billy’s right, classics are a fucking bummer.

Steves not as stupid as other people think. He knows that if this were a book, him and Billy are hurtling towards deaths door. Even in real life, he’s seen the guys on tv, worn down to the bone on hospital beds.

Gay does not equal a happy ending.

He resolves to never touch The Iliad again.

Billy comes to their next session with a black eye and his mullet chopped off. They don’t talk about it.

1984 is depressing. And surprisingly apt for how Steve feels that his 1984 has gone. He does feel like he’s constantly being watched. Like being in love is illegal. Like saying anything too far against the government will have consequences.

Steve asks if Billy thinks Orwell wrote 1984 about America or Russia. Billy snorts but doesn’t answer.

That’s the note they end on for the year.

Christmas comes and goes. So does New Year. Two months of not seeing Billy aches in his gut.

Then he comes back.

It’s the middle of February. Billy’s been kicked out for a week. Steves playing nursemaid.

He’s beaten up pretty bad. Still, Billy insists he’s had worse.

Steve hedges around asking why it happened. Like the confirmation might suddenly make the full scope of their plight real.

Still, eventually Steve asks. Billy looks at him like he’s particularly simple.

He’s gay. Obviously Steve. And he actually has the balls to go out there, meet men, dance. Even if it does mean getting caught by Neil.

During his explanation, Steve notices they’ve gotten closer together. Like significantly closer.

They’re grazing hands. Electric.

Then Billy moves.

Billy kisses him and Steve’s world turns into a fucking supernova.

They kiss and it doesn’t make Neil vanish in a puff of smoke, it doesn’t make the shopkeepers who sneer at his mother go away, it doesn’t make Steve magically able to read.

But it does make Steve feel like maybe they’ll survive.

#billy hargrove #steve harrington #harringrove #harringrove ficlet #dyslexic steve harrington #tw homophobic language #tw abuse

[thewrongmoon]

El's Possible Queercoding

been meaning to actually documents my findings on this for awhile, so I'm gonna go over some reasons I think its possible that El is gay, specifically just how I think she may be attracted to girls, whether you think that means lesbian, bisexual, pan, etc etc.

El's interest in femininity:

I think to further understand why El has an interest in feminine things, we have to look at how she was raised:

The children in the lab were pretty much stripped of a gender identity entirely. They all had the same haircut and hospital gowns. They all played with the same toys, most of which were puzzle games which have no societally assigned gender. It's worth noting that these short haircuts do have a masculine association (at least in modern western culture) and the kids also pretty much solely interacted with men. Really the only indication of their gender was the pronouns that they used for them.

The concept of different genders acting differently was probably completely foreign to El when she had just escaped the lab. We can see that she tries to strip in front of Mike, Lucas and Dustin and is confused when they all react negatively.

Being surrounded by all this masculinity, seeing someone feminine like Nancy for the first time (or at least the first time in years) is magical to El.

El takes a very quick interest in feminine things. Long hair, pastel colors, dresses...

What sparks more of a queer connotation is her interest in the feminine form. We see her appreciate the ballerina in Nancy's music box, which would very well just be because she thinks the dress is pretty or something, but she also singles out the figure on Mike's trophy.

Obviously I don't mean anything explicit by pointing this out, but as a lesbian I remember having a similar reaction to things like mannequins of women at a young age.

There's definitely a duality of her longing for a childhood where she's able to express her femininity that I don't want to dismiss, though. There's a shot where she stares at Nancy's childhood photos, and it's pretty clear she's wondering what her life would be like if she were raised like a normal girl. That storyline is further explored when she visits the Ives in season 2.

El was also previously not interested in Mike's nerdier hobbies, but when Max shows her comics, specifically ones with female superheroes, El is intrigued. She assumed comics were just about boys at first. We all poke fun at Mike for having a crush on Superman, but maybe we should stop to question if El had a thing for Wonder Woman?

Fashion choices - Mirroring other girls:

A classic quandary for anyone with same-sex attraction. Do I want to be them, or do I want to be with them?

We talk a lot about how Mike tries to wear and do things Eddie does (this was confirmed by the costume department), and how that totally makes it look like he has kind of a crush on him. But what about El?

In season 1 we definitely assume El wants to be Nancy. Her attempts of mirroring her are clumsy and largely influenced by Mike, Dustin and Lucas. After the wig comes off she just gives up, surrendering to her fate of never being "pretty."

In season 2, she wears mostly boys clothes provided by Hopper. The main makeover of this season is done by Kali, who turns El into her mini-me. This time we see El refer to her new look as "bitchin'" rather than "pretty."

Her new look is very punk inspired. Punk subculture has close ties with the LGBT community. As the punk scene is all about questioning/rejecting societal norms, queer people flocked to it.

In season 3, her makeover revolves around Max. While Max tells El to pick something that she likes, El still kind of chooses to resemble Max. In the beginning of s3, her hair looks like this:

But after her trip to the mall with Max, she chooses to part her hair to the right like she does.

They later have both their hair tied up:

Middle parts for both of them:

This is all to say, she mirrors Max's looks, because she likes Max. Not necessarily romantically? And there's also no way to tell if she's doing this consciously. But I feel like there's something in El's brain that just goes "pretty girl = I have to steal her look"

Which brings us to season 4:

Now, there's no makeover scene for her in this one. Disappointing, I know. But she's had a considerable glow up since season 3.

Her hair is now down past her shoulders. Now you may be wondering who her style inspiration is. And the obvious answer is Joyce, because she looks just like her.

But I would actually like to propose an alternative to her hair style inspo:

We can see that Angela pulls up the sides of her hair but still has bangs framing her face, similarly to how El styles hers.

Angela is an awful human being who bullies her, but she's also everything El wants to be: pretty, well dressed, well-liked by the people at school. This is precisely why she chooses her to lie about being friends with. She thinks Angela is cool, so Mike will think El is cool if he sees she's friends with her.

Let's move on to her fashion.

El's style is dependent entirely on layering in this season. But she has one staple in her closet, which we also see in seasons 2 and 3-- flannel.

The wardrobe department head has stated that they specifically wanted it to seem like she was wearing clothes from Will's closet.

Will has always been associated with flannel, wearing it almost exclusively in every season besides season 3. This is interesting because flannel is generally seen as masculine, and gay men are usually stereotyped as more feminine. He does wear those short shorts in s3 though so I guess it balances out idk, this is besides the point, moving on:

Flannels when worn on women are associated closely with lesbians. There is some historical basis here; back when women were first being allowed to wear pants (1940s), lesbians were some of the first to jump on it. Jeans were seen as most normal for women to wear, and flannel was usually paired with it. Flannel was warm, durable and practical. A lot of women in the work force wore it because it held up well. Usually work boots (doc martens in particular) were worn as well, which is why they are also associated with the queer community today (though it was more of a practicality thing than a fashion thing back then.)

From my research, it seems like lesbians wearing flannel became a stereotype in more popular media sometime during the 90s. This doesn't necessarily mean it didn't exist during the 80s, I honestly wish I could find more info on when exactly it became a well-known signifier of lesbians, but alas, I cannot find any good sources. Doesn't change the fact that we as an audience know of it's existence, though.

Wearing flannel definitely makes El stick out from the crowd. It was probably considered really normal in Indiana, where the temperatures are cold, but in California you really have no use for flannel in your wardrobe. The late 80s was also known for it's focus on loud colors and bold prints, which isn't at all like the muted, practical nature of flannel. You would definitely see waaay more men than women wearing it.

So El being seen almost exclusively in more masculine fashions would have probably been one of the points of bullying for her. I think her neurodivergent coding was also a factor, but that's an analysis for another time.

El's bullying: possibly homophobically charged?

So this is the furthest stretch I'm gonna make in this post. But upon noticing how often she wears flannel, I jokingly said in my head, "I wonder if they just saw her constantly wearing flannel and assumed she was a lesbian and that's why they started bullying her." And then I was like oh wait but what if actually that's what it was.

I'm assuming she was probably labeled as a tomboy for just wearing her brother's clothes. But then I began to imagine her interactions with girls like Angela which would have caused their hatred for her.

El has a habit of calling other girls "pretty." One of the first thing she seems to notice about other girls, actually. So imagine that Angela sees this girl in men's clothing, and the first thing El probably does with her is call her pretty. Would it be a stretch to assume Angela may have thought El was hitting on her?

I don't think she was, I honestly don't know if El knows how to hit on someone at all. But the perception of Angela and the school at large could have just been... "Jane is a lesbian."

We see other girls avoiding her. This would be a good reason (not morally, but logically, especially considering the time period) for them to do so.

There's also this line from Angela: (0:09-0:14)

Now, I first noticed this when editing a completely different video. And I had to rewatch this clip like 50 times to see if I was crazy or not (I still might be, lol.) But, does it not sound like Angela is.. saying "boyfriend" in quotes?

So I went back to rewatch Angela entering the roller rink, and her and her friend group seem surprised that she has a boyfriend. Now this could be just because El is unpopular and has no friends (that they know if.) But just like Ted Wheeler saying "our son with a girl?" could just be a dig at Mike being a nerd, other context makes me wanna look closer into this line.

Did they maybe think El only got a boyfriend to mask her "real" sexuality? It's definitely possible.

Paralleling El to other characters who are queer or labeled as so

This is a point I'm going to need to further expand upon on a later date. But in watching movies off the s4 inspo board, I've found a couple where the characters are meant to parallel El:

Let The Right One In-

I have a whole post on this parallel, if you want to read it.

So basically, El is Oskar in this parallel. Oskar is a character who is bullied for 2 things: being fat (this is better shown in the book the movie is based upon) and being possibly gay (this is also shown better in the book.)

Oskar does end up having a romantic relationship with a character who is gender-nonconforming. Not gonna go into that particular character's exact gender bc it's kind of debatable and their backstory is sad, but the character, in their own words, is "not a girl." Oskar himself seems to be bisexual, again, you could maybe debate this, but he is non-straight at the very least.

The character he's in a relationship with, Eli, has also had their gender identity stripped away from them, which could make another interesting parallel to El, character wise.

Welcome To The Dollhouse-

So this parallel is a bit less concrete, but the only one I could draw from it is that, once again, the main character being bullied is referenced in El's own bullying.

The main character of this film, Dawn, is bullied for two things: being "ugly" and being a lesbian. She is not actually a lesbian, but the kids bully her for being one, and girls avoid her. One goes as far to claim she was "making a pass at her" when all Dawn did was have a conversation with her.

Being paralleled to two different characters who were bullied for being gay is definitely a weird coincidence.

El's relationship with Max:

El has pretty unarguably romantic themes with Max.

It could just be the Duffers trying to break free from a trope, but in S4 Max takes up a damsel in distress role while El takes on a hero role, for like, the 4th time, please give this girl a break omg.

We see both Mike and Lucas attempt to save El/Max, but at the end of the season Max and El save each other. You could say this was with the power of platonic love, but there are some lines that really make you question if it could be something more.

Conclusion:

I feel like El being gay is a theory that has some legs to stand on! You could definitely go even further and find a lot of rainbow imagery with her, maybe some other small details. This was just my own findings.

#el hopper #eleven hopper #jane hopper #byler #elmax #long post #analysis #stranger things #eleven

[mana-jjk]

finally someone who actually understands inuokko and doesn't mischaracterize as an alpha sigma male and Toge as an uwu boy! bestie you don't know how happy I am that you came up on my fyp.

omg hi anon !! 🥺🫶

i love analyzing characters way before any shipping, i could actually read nothing but found family fics because i just feel like they always catch the perfect dynamic. with yuuta and toge specifically, i do feel like you can appreciate aspects of how their dynamic is on an appearance level or how they fit certain popular tropes, but i don’t think it’s the driving force behind what makes them so good together.

i do acknowledge that if we default to the stereotypical gay men tropes without tangible reason, it’s more indicative of getting used to knowing how to write LGBT+ relationships and tending to default to what we might be used to in straight relationships. i say that without any offense intended, it’s just a part of the writing process. especially with toge as a character, who has so much of his characterization sprinkled outside of the manga and anime. a lot of his backstory and characteristics are derived from the fun facts, light novel, and now even the unreleased game has given us so much more content. but i also think that’s why he’s so popular, there’s so much freedom in exploring him, especially if you haven’t discovered the existing content. taking that with yuuta who is honestly a fan favorite of the chad dude straight bros and gets a little too much ‘alpha male’ treatment from them, it can be a little confusing. (it kills me a little to see some one say he’s an alpha male with a bad attitude and smoking guns when manga panels will literally have him looking like this (・・?) 😭)

i do have preferences in how both yuuta and toge are portrayed, but that’s just because i care about them so much as individual characters.

for me, toge is soft and kind, but he was also born as a weapon and has spent his life sacrificing himself over and over. you can still have that softness and kindness, even more so when experiencing certain things, but there’s also a degree of hardening from trauma. i do characterize him to be less overtly an instigator lol, but that’s personal preference in how i see him combined with canon material. i find a lot of his trolling to be slipped in and more of a double take than full on gremlin, but that’s less mischaracterization and more preference. i find his relationship with living and death so, so interesting, especially in how he tries to shield the first-years and yuuta from having any kind of blood on their hands. it implicates him to have done that very thing, and he spends his life silencing himself because of it. i do believe his language barrier is almost a relief, because it acts almost as a self-imposed wall. but despite that wall, he still reaches out because while he himself is okay being alone, the thought of someone like yuuta, someone he sees as exactly like him, suffering by himself is painful to him.

for yuuta, i am a big advocate for the continued acknowledgment of his anxiety, depression, and low key craziness. he had a normal childhood, but that somehow makes the transition to everything with rika so much worse. because he had that normalcy and it was shattered completely. he’s hurt, maimed, and killed people both unintentionally and intentionally. but he sees it as necessary in protecting the people he cares about the most. in a lot of ways, i think his dubious morality and how far he’s willing to go is an expression of his love. for example, killing getou in his eyes is the ultimate act of service to gojo, so he himself would not have to kill him. his character is such a juxtaposition compared to everyone we’ve been introduced to. here you have these child soldiers, ready and willing to sacrifice themselves, where death and suffering is more feasible than ever living their life to entirely. then they give us yuuta, who wants to live so badly in happiness that he’s willing to inflict and do everything for and against their society. it’s almost an unhealthy relationship to a degree, but it’s the only kind of relationship any of them know how to have.

together they work so well, because like i’ve said before, they defy each other’s expectations in what they ever believed they could have or deserve. despite their rough edges, the blood on their hands, the years they’ve lost to fighting battles they never started, they treat each other so gently. as if they are the better half, yet simultaneously knowing exactly how much they have done. yuuta who sees violence almost as a love letter, who absorbs toge’s curse as if it’s something to admire and adore. toge who sees himself as unforgivable in his crimes, who self-enforces isolation and barriers yet took a step out just to comfort yuuta from a mild spell of anxiety, because he couldn’t stand to see him suffer even in a minor degree.

i have so many feelings about them so i’m so glad that they come across the way i want them to !! i love all content, and i’m always willing to share my thoughts, but ty so much for the validation bestie, i’m sure i’m eating up your content as well !! 🥺

#inumaki toge #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #yuuta okkotsu #inuokko #ottoge #i have so many thoughts

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

Is funny to me how the crew in She-Ra always talks how important is for them to make the cast with body diversity, but them they have three male characters with the same body type

If you pay attention you can notice that Sea Hawk, Bow and Mikha all have very similar body types (broad shoulders, small waist and descent amount of muscle) which is funny for a show that cares so much about representativity

And the LGBT representation seems very disgenuine, it doesn't seem natural like the writers or animators were having fun on making the characters gay, just look like they made them like that for obligation, it doesn't look genuine. And then we have the cultural and racial diversity that is...lacking, to say the least

Like, yeah we have a bunch of characters with different skin tones, but they never seem to be an actual ethiniciy? Like, Catra aparently is supposed to be latina but nothing in her character actually looks latina other than her skin tone and Mermista i guess is indian? I always headcanon her as indian because of that dress she uses in princess prom that looks a lot like a Sari, but we also never see anything in Selinia culture that may indicate that. I know that is a fictional world, but Avatar was able to mix real life culture with their shows lore, so She-Ra could also do the same, the characters would really benefit for that cause would make them more unique and would make Etheria actually look like a planet with different people and countries instead of a fairyland straight out of a child dreams

oh yeah. i've noticed only female characters seem to have some diversity in the body types, while all the male characters look pretty much the same. i guess micah has a slightly wider body than bow and seahawk but it's still not a huge difference. hordak and horde prime also have the “standard male body”. kyle is skinny but that's not really breaking any norms, especially since he's portrayed as a weak loser who doesn't matter to the plot.

it is nice to have female characters who are chubby or muscular or different from the norm, but why can't we also have that for men? (and non-binary people but the show literally only had one enby character so..)

the ethnicity thing is a little more tricky since it's a fantasy story, and a lot of fantasy shows tend to go this route since it doesn't take place in the real world, so for example, we can't really say a character is asian if asia doesn't exist in a fantasy universe.

but yeah, the thing with spop is that the worldbuilding is really poor. we don't get to see much about the cultures of the different places in etheria. if they had taken more time with the worldbuilding and differentiated each culture, we could have gotten a more compelling storyline. other than avatar, the dragon prince also does this pretty well. the different types of elves are shown to have different cultures, ethics and practices. they also show how these cultures sometimes clash with the human cultures and norms, it's pretty interesting.

but yeah, it feels like spop just added diversity for the sake of diversity. it's not that they're interested in representing people of different ethnicities or sexualities, they just did it for the brownie points.

#spop critical #spop #spop salt #spop criticism #spop discourse #she ra #anti spop

[spade-riddles]

Hey there, SR. I have been thinking some thoughts, and I wanted to share them. I would like to hear if others agree, or maybe why they don't. I will admit that I'm not the best at puzzling out her games, so maybe my thoughts are way off.

So, I know a lot of us really don't like the mustached dudebro Taylor has attached herself to. I feel like the situation she's in with this guy and his thirsty family and the massive attention this whole thing has generated feels cheap. Like, the whole thing cheapens her and her brand. It seems like some of her PR moves are uncharted due to her massive popularity and to social media, so sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. I think it's way to soon to tell if this one is working/has worked because we have not clue what the point of it is. But I know we don't like this and how it looks like she is diminishing herself for this stunt.

At first, I thought the whole thing was all about the money and promotion for her movie - with the NFL involved, and given the reports of how her participation in this stunt has increased the fortunes of most everyone involved, this didn't seem like a bad guess. It was frustrating to think she was doing this for mere money. Like, babe, I love you, but how much fucking money do you need? I think, given how much she's made and the financial acumen of her parents, that she's already a billionaire, or close enough that it doesn't matter.

But then I was reading a post about the two of them, and someone mentioned that they didn't like how much physically bigger than her he is. And it made me wonder if this isn't a part of why she chose this particular guy to stunt with. And if that's important, why is it important? Who would care about that? I thought that maybe it was to make her more palatable to fragile men without really diminishing her power. Like she is what she is, but if you squint (and we don't), she needs a big strong man to be with. And if you believe that, then you can buy into the fact that maybe she isn't really that powerful (again, to make her more palatable to someone). But that took me again back to the why. Maybe she really is considering going into politics, or maybe it's about her conquering Hollywood or starting her own label. I suspect we will know the why at some point.

And then I circled back to the cash grab. Maybe she is working on getting everything she can - Eras could be a goodbye to the performing part of her career. If so, maybe she really is planning on coming out and wants to make bank while she can just in case. Then I thought of the Jack-O-Lantern messages, and how they seemed to indicate that Halloween was an important date. NGL, when I first read the messages, I thought it was about this year. But then when the international tour dates were released, I wondered if it wasn't about Halloween next year. She will be finished enough with the tour by then, after all.

Also, with all of the articles about how fake their relationship is, do we think Tree is either encouraging this or at least tacitly approving it? I have a hard time believing that all of those media entities are ignoring Taylor's PR directives, but maybe it was a situation that spiraled out of control. If it is being encouraged, or at least not being discouraged, I wonder if/how this plays into the mass coming out theory?

Anyway, that's what I'm thinking. Taylor, if you happen to read this, well, I'm not going to ask what your plans are, because I know you won't share that. And I'm not going anywhere, but damn, I'm tired of paying attention to all of the messages you send only to get made fun of by my friends and family. If you don't plan on coming out at some point, can you please stop with the gay signaling? If you keep it up, I am going to assume that you actually have a coming out plan in place, and that maybe this time you'll have the courage of your convictions. Much love, and I hope everyone is taking care of themselves and each other.

[aveline-amelia]

On sexuality assumptions in Sherlock (part 2)

So, I literally forgot this was supposed to be a two-parter and what I was even going to write about in part two, but then I remembered. This is about examining some TJLC/Johnlock evidence that is potentially actually problematic and regressive if taken as fact. Not all of them are ProblematicTM, some are just... weird. These are in no particular order and some are possible stretches, but hey, I am allowed to have meta fun too.

Number 1: Mycroft making the sarcastic comment about John and Sherlock's engagement is proof Sherlock is gay.

The reason why this feels regressive to me is because it implies that you can only make quips about your brother dating a man if your brother is gay. But... why? Why is it only acceptable to make this comment if the men in question date other men? It's not a joke about the concept of homosexuality itself.

The 'joke' is "You have been very close to my brother, moved in with him, and are spending a lot of time with him. What's next, marrying him?" That's the point of the comment. It has nothing to do with anyone being gay.

Mycroft doesn't mean they are actually a couple. I fully believe that if Sherlock had a female flatmate, he would have made the exact same comment. All this tells us is that Mycroft doesn't think being gay is a big deal or possibly that being gay in this world isn't that big of a deal.

First of all, let's entertain the possibility that Mycroft believes or knows that Sherlock is gay. If this implies that Sherlock is gay, isn't telling that to John, whom Mycroft just met, and can't be certain that they ever even discussed the topic, basically outing Sherlock to his flatmate?

Now I talked about the fact it's very possible Mycroft made this comment and the later one hinting about possible John/Sherlock sex in the future (which is much better evidence, but people focus much more on the first one since it's more apparent) is testing the waters to see how John feels about gay people and how he feels about being mistaken for a couple with another man or being accused of having feelings for a man.

If John reacted in a very defensive and/or homophobic manner, it's possible Mycroft would have made sure John stayed far away from his little brother. This in itself doesn't have to mean Mycroft believes Sherlock is gay, just that he is being cautious because bigots are unsafe to be around (let alone live with!) for anyone who isn't a bigot themselves.

Number 2: If Sherlock isn't gay, why doesn't he ever correct the people who think he is or that he's dating John?

Because he doesn't care what they think of him. Related to number 1. It's okay to wish people not to mislabel you. Not wanting people to think you're gay if you're not is not homophobia. But Sherlock just doesn't care. This is in contrast with John, who does correct people and doesn't want newspapers calling him a confirmed bachelor.

Number 3: Sherlock got a case wrong and accused a gay man of being a murderer because he was feeling bad about his Unrequited Gay Love for John, who was dating someone else at the time and he thought gay relationships were doomed to fail (this is about a case on John's blog)

This one is just... why. Sherlock is the Great Detective. He's the world's only consulting detective. Why would a man's sexuality influence his decision solely because he's hoping for a gay relationship for himself and is salty about it? Gay or not gay, there's no indication sexual orientation plays any factor in how he views or treats people. This assumption is just straight-up homophobic. I can't see it any other way. Sherlock thinking a man is a murderer because he's gay... is homophobic. Even if you believe Sherlock is gay, internalized homophobia is a thing. It would also make him look quite incompetent, unprofessional, and just straight-up Bad at his job, the one thing he is unquestionably Good at.

Now we get into the weaker ones, at least according to me.

Number 4: Sherlock knowing purple apart from lilac or making serviettes makes him Camp Gay.

I think this is just Sherlock being Sherlock. He knows the color because he knows and notices the things others don't while ignoring those he deems unimportant. As for the serviettes? Why? Because planning a wedding is a gay stereotype? Sherlock is most likely hyperfocused on the wedding because he's nervous about things changing.

Number 5: John was definitely about to make a Move on Sherlock during the stag night and that was the perfect time to do it

I sincerely hope this idea only extends to fiction (because I don't want to be one of these "if you support this in fiction you support it in real life too!!! people) but if it does not, hopefully none of these people ever become someone's Best Person at the wedding if they think seducing the groom right before a wedding is a good idea. Do they think John was about to make a move and if it didn't work just Mary marry anyway as a consolation prize? Do they think that's what happened in TSO3? We or John had no idea she was an assassin yet, so that would be really shitty.

Number 6: John lied about being bisexual

He didn't. The only way this would be true is if someone asked John if he's bisexual and he said no. Unless you think John being closeted and potentially hiding the truth about his sexuality and being purposefully vague about it is lying. It's not.

Number 7: Mycroft believed Sherlock was about to kiss John in front of Mary when asking for time alone

This one is just strange. A confession is one thing, especially if you are not directly confessing. But why would Sherlock do this? He was going to his death and had nothing to lose? Why would he do it in front of Mary? And Mycroft? And the other agents who I think were also still there? Why? Was he sure John would kiss him back? Did he even care?

Miscellaneous: John didn't want Sherlock looking at his laptop because he has a bunch of Gay Porn there

Or... because it's an invasion of privacy? This one isn't Problematic, it's just a stretch.

#anti tjlc #anti-tjlc #anti tjlc meta #my meta #sexuality in sherlock #aveline-amelia #tw homophobia

[religioused]

You Aren’t Going Out Dressed Like That!

by Gary Simpson

Deuteronomy 22:5 (NAB) “A woman shall not wear a man’s apparel, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment, for whoever does such things is abhorrent to the LORD your God.”

Today, we are discussing those who perform in drag.

People who have their gaze fixed on those who dress in drag put clothing above hearts.

The clothes police can use the Bible passage in Deuteronomy 22 to this to attack anybody who does not dress in gender typical clothing. Elliot Kukla and Reuben Zellman remark that this Bible text “has been used for hundreds of years against seven-year-old tomboys.”(1) I grew up in farm and cattle country. The farm ladies wore overalls, coats, and boots that looked just like what men wore. I cannot imagine the reaction a person would get if they told a farm lady to dress like a lady.

I searched online for Bible texts related to people who perform in drag and to transgender people. I found an Open Bible webpage that had a long list of Bible texts, most of which were off topic.(2) I am providing the worst example on the website of a Bible text that was taken out of context to support the position that drag is wrong. To give you an idea of how far off topic the text is, I am going to read it for you. The Bible translation used on the Open Bible website is the English Standard Version, which reads as follows: “and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles.” Drag queen and drag king performances have nothing to do with a person of faith being taken to court, because they believe Jesus is the Messiah. Only one of the Bible texts cited appeared to be remotely related to the topic, Deuteronomy 22:5. “A woman shall not wear a man’s apparel, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment, for whoever does such things is abhorrent to the LORD your God.”(3)

RuPaul, who might be the most famous drag queen says that people are born naked, and “The rest is drag.”(4) There is some truth to RuPaul’s comment. We tend to dress in ways that enhance, that make us look different, that give us confidence, and express elements of our artistic sense and personality.

A few quick facts about drag.

• People dress in drag to perform, not to show their gender. That is why drag queens are not transgender people.(5)

•There is more than one kind of drag. There are drag queens and drag kings. Drag kings are women who dress up like men to perform.(6) There are exceptions. Some women are drag queens.

• Drag clothing that is exaggerated clothing for women or men.(7)

• Drag is about fun, creativity, and self-expression.(8)

• Some people find drag helps them accept themselves, or gives them confidence.(9)

Drag is not a recent invention. We cannot blame drag on the cultural changes of the last 50 years. Historically, women were not able to be actors. Men dressed in drag to perform the roles of women in theatrical productions. Male actors in drag were common in ancient Greece and Shakespeare’s time.(10) In England in the early 1700s, there appear to have been drag queens like what we have now. They performed for largely gay male audiences in “molly houses.”(11)

When I was a kid, even before I went to elementary school, I remember seeing photos of distant relatives where I could not tell who the boys and who the girls were. In some cases, the photo had notes that indicated the name of each child. In other cases, older family members had to tell me who the people were. The little boys and the little girls were both wearing gowns or dresses. According to Wikipedia, this was a common practice the mid 1500s until the early 1900s.(12) Somewhere between age 2 and age 8, boys started wearing breeches or pants.(13) I gather starting to wear breeches or pants was an “important rite of passage” for boys.(14) Boys wearing dresses might have related to toilet training and to the need to save money.(15) There were times when I was shown adult photos of the boys who were wearing dresses in older photographs. You could see how these boys, who looked to my amateur eye like girls, looking like rugged, masculine pioneers. Dressing like girls did not make these men gay. The boys wearing dresses were no threat to society or to organized religion. Children seeing people in drag are not going to turn gay or trans. Most people in the world are straight and cisgender. If seeing people with a different sexual orientation or gender identity could change people’s sexual orientation or gender identity, there would not be a single LGBTQ+ person in the world.

Drag performers can provide a positive role in the LGBTQ+ community. The Imperial Sovereign Court of the Wild Rose in Edmonton is a charitable organization.(16) The Court organizes drag performances to raise money for charity. They support the community with more than $50,000 a year.(17)

In general, drag queens do not fool people.(18) Drag queens do not tend to look enough like women to fool people. Famous drag queen RuPaul commented to the effect that he dresses like a drag queen, not a woman. He asks how many women we see in seven-inch heels and wearing four-foot wigs.(19)

Next, we are going to look at the context of the verse. There might be a clue to the meaning of the text we read a few minutes ago. We read verse 5, which appears to take the position that men and women should not wear clothing for the opposite biological sex. Verses 1 to 4 outline our moral duties for our neighbors.(20) Because the immediate context is ethical duties to neighbors, this might be about ethical duties to our neighbors, not about drag queens.

The opinions of Jewish commentators and sages about the Bible text need to be considered. Elliot Kukla and Reuben Zellman note that Jewish “Sages have never read this verse as a literal ban on cross-dressing.” In the Talmud, there is a sense that the verses condemn dressing as a different gender when there are “ulterior motives.” Rashi saw this passage as applying to people who wore clothes from another gender so they could seduce someone. From my studies of the Bible, I get the impression that many condemnations of sexual practices were related to the worship of other gods. Rambam believed this verse is a prohibition against “cross-dressing” that was part of idol worship.(21) Contemporary Jewish scholars Gunther Plaut and Dudley Weinberg indicate that use of the word that is translated abhorrent in the New American Bible suggests that dressing in the clothes of a different gender was related more an idol worship than a sexual deviation.(22)

Discussions of gender can be unsettling for many people. The idea of diversity of gender expressions and identities can be frightening, because it goes against what we learned when we were kids. To those who are afraid of drag queens, drag performers are nothing to fear. We can treat drag queens and drag kings like God carriers. When God’s presence is near, the Scriptures give us the sense that there is no need to be afraid. Jesuit priest Felix Just says the phrase "Fear not! (or equivalent translations) appears only slightly over 100 times in the Old Testament, as well as about 44 times in the New Testament.(23) When you think of drag performers, listen to the Spirit of the Risen Christ. “Fear not! Fear not! Fear not!”

Notes

(1) Elliot Kukla and Reuben Zellman. “ To Wear is Human, to Live - Divine : Parashat Ki Tetse (Deuteronomy 16:18-21:19).” Torah Queeries: Weekly Commentaries on the Hebrew Bible. (New York: New York Univ. Press, 2009), 255.

(2) Stephen Smith, ed. “28 Bible Verses About Drag Queens.” Open Bible. 22 January 2023, 23 January 2023. <https://www.openbible.info/topics/drag_queens>.

(3) New American Bible.

(4) Shelton (2022) <https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/the-joy-of-drag>.

(5) Schacht (2000), cited in Michael Moncrieff and Pierre Lienard. "A Natural History of the Drag Queen Phenomenon." Evolutionary Psychology. (April-June 2017): 2. <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1474704917707591>.

(6) Samuel Njoroge. “What is a Drag Queen?” LGBTQ and All. n.d., 24 January 2023. <https://www.lgbtqandall.com/what-is-a-drag-queen/>.

(7) Njoroge (n.d.) <https://www.lgbtqandall.com/what-is-a-drag-queen/>.

(8) Shelton (2022) <https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/the-joy-of-drag>.

(9) Shelton (2022) <https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/the-joy-of-drag>.

(10) Njoroge (n.d.) <https://www.lgbtqandall.com/what-is-a-drag-queen/>.

(11) Norton (2016) cited in Michael Moncrieff and Pierre Lienard. "A Natural History of the Drag Queen Phenomenon." Evolutionary Psychology. (April-June 2017): 3. <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1474704917707591>.

(12) “Breaching (boys).” Wikipedia. December 2022, 02 February 2023. <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeching_(boys)>.

(13) “Breaching (boys)” (December) <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeching_(boys)>.

(14) “Breaching (boys)” (December) <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeching_(boys)>.

(15) “Breaching (boys)” (December) <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeching_(boys)>.

(16) “About Us.” Imperial Sovereign Court of the Wild Rose. n.d., 31 May 2023. <https://iscwryeg.ca/>.

(17) “History of the ISCWR.” Imperial Sovereign Court of the Wild Rose n.d., 31 May 2023. <https://iscwryeg.ca/history/>

(18) Njoroge (n.d.) <https://www.lgbtqandall.com/what-is-a-drag-queen/>.

(19) Njoroge (n.d.) <https://www.lgbtqandall.com/what-is-a-drag-queen/>.

(20) Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, eds. The Jewish Study Bible. (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2004), 415.

(21) Kukla and Zellman (2009), 255.

(22) W. Gunther Plaut and Dudley Weinberg. The Torah: A Modern Commentary. (New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1981), 1485

(23) Felix Just. “Have no fear! Do not be afraid!” Catholic Resources. 15 June 2021, 30 January 2023. <https://catholic-resources.org/Bible/HaveNoFear.htm>.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

https://patrochillesismyshit.tumblr.com/post/624094022526533632/i-absolutely-love-this-review

?

The way it's phrased I think this was said as a joke and it's very vague for me to address an issue with it. There is also some harmless fun in a post with people who want to see themselves represented and find some solace in Achilles not being "straight". I think the joke was not meant to be analyzed that much.

Now, I will talk a bit about it just because I haven't spoken about "the ship" in a long time and I want to have a recent reference. The tweet is just the cause, I am not addressing this specific tweet.

There is the phenomenon of modern people trying to put labels on ancient people who didn't use these labels (e.g. how we use the term "gay" may not have expressed homosexual men 2.000 years ago) which I caution against. We can't "reinterpret" ancient relationships with our modern lens and we should not. "Reinterpret" means "reinvent" or "changing how something is viewed". If you change it, it's not what it was anymore. If you don't like how the ancient story is told you can go read something else, what can I say 😂 We don't have an ancient "gayer" or a "more obvious" version, I am sorry!

I'd love representation as much as anyone, and I am against the erasure of "queer" identities from history but here we don't have enough evidence for the two being lovers except that they were two men very close to each other and had great love for each other, which makes them automatically gay.... if you live in the US Bible Zone.

Some people say "but look how devastated and angry Achilles was with Patroclus's death!" as if one can only feel these things only if their lover dies. If one loses a brother I suppose they feel... better than this? They are not devastated? Don't they refuse to eat? They don't want revenge against the one who killed their brother?

Greek culture encourages more affection than many northwest ones and I don't want us to also fall into the trap of "if you are too affectionate with your male friend you are obviously gay". Kissing on the mouth was also traditionally acceptable for Greek men to show kinship. So in this light, we are not sure what this type of affection meant 3.000 years ago.

We don't know too much about funerals and weddings of that time to draw a parallel to the case of Achilles and Patroclus. We know so little that two men having their bones mixed in the grave could be viewed as valid for two metaphorical brothers. Could they be a couple? Potentially! But we really don't know. I wouldn't have any issue if the original text said "aaand then they had sex" (or something somewhat indicative of a romantic or a sexual relationship). But the text doesn't say that so for me the most respectful I can be is "we don't know if they were a couple". We certainly know they were very close and we should be careful to not give them identities we are not sure they would claim for themselves.

It's true that ancient people also speculated and debated about their relationship. We can also speculate and debate about their relationship but I am a supporter of "work with what you have" (especially since we are 2.00 years more removed from the event) because playing the guessing game can steer you away to different stories and theories which might not have been what the older ancients had in mind.

I can acknowledge all the affection and love in the text and in case this made them lovers back then, then sure, no problem. I just don't know if it qualified to make them lovers based on everything I've read. For me, there is the basis to see them as brotherly friends. It's not that I don't want to see them as a couple! I actually would like us to have enough evidence to say that they were lovers! Buuut we don't have it.

And... what if I "reinterpret" Achilles as an aroace?? All the evidence is there for sure. All strong affection, all this connection, but no romance or sex. Maybe he didn't love anyone else romantically or sexually and he deemed brotherhood so high that he wanted his bones mixed with his best friend, whom he saw as a brother??

But well, the argument "the evidence is there" doesn't always work. Anyone can interpret anything to fit their own image. And if we start "reinterpreting" based on what we know today, we project our own wishes and modern ideas into the text and we lose focus of what the text shows us.

If one wants to have them in the back of their head like two gay men and another as asexuals or two trans men, fine! But we should all acknowledge this is only inside our heads and that the old texts can stand on their own. The text doesn't wait for my headcanon to be valid as it is.

#aaanyways sorry for the long text again #patrochilles #dont interact with the post negatively if it's not meant for you #i am not targeting anyone I just want to have a tag so I can find the post again if needed #achilles #also queer is not a slur #answered

[simptasia]

it occured to me that i have a lot of bi headcanons for lost where it’s like, the character hasn’t accepted it yet. part of this is because 2004 to 2007 was somehow still having issues grappling with this concept

so i’m making a list of bi headcanons in lost, but it’s the characters who haven’t accepted it and why they haven’t yet (or ever)

internalized biphobia ahoy!

jack

he’s attracted to women so rationally he’s not gay, right? yeah he’s using the it’s one or the other logic. jack knows there’s nothing wrong with being gay. he’s just not gay. that’s fine. it’s fine. [shakes images out of his head]

also i know in my heart that christian and margo are queerphobic. not in the full on getting the belt out way but in the passive aggressive way

claire

she just assumes all straight women feel this way about women and it takes a while for it to occur to her that she’s just in a bizarre form of denial

desmond

he regards his experiences with other men in the army to be “experimenting” and he chooses not to dwell on it

richard

it just took a reeeeally long time for him to find his closet key (miles). the bisexuality was always waiting inside him, it just didn’t unlock until he was like 179 ish. and yes, miles finds this fucking baffling in a “you’re this hot and you’ve been alive this long and you haven’t been getting both kinds of ass??” way

ben

he grew up aware that queer people exist (dharma being a hippie commune) but also instilled in him that it’s weird and gross (roger). but also i think ben has a weird view of sexuality, that sexual desire makes people... weaker? in the sense that he’s observed that people act foolish for sex and love and therefore such emotions are a weakness and he’s better than that

so it’s a weird thing where ben isn’t homophobic to other people (if tom, greta and bonnie are any indication) but he is to himself. but he’s also shaming himself for having sexual desire at all. i think cuz he’s convinced himself that he’s selfless and utterly devoted to jacob and the island. sometimes he almost believes his own lies. but yeah anyways touching himself makes him feel icky, whether it’s about men or women or both so... yeah

locke

okay, locke is bi to me but i’ve always been ? about his sexuality because wow, locke feels like such a nonsexual being to me. so like does locke know he’s bi? i think so? but i don’t think he’d ever call himself that

i think if you asked, locke would say “i don’t wanna label it” or something

besides anything else, he’s an older man who grew up in the foster care system, i have to assume he grew up hearing that being queer is a Bad Thing

locke doesn’t agree but he’d rather not commit to the concept. like, maybe locke thinks being Gay would require him to do things or act a certain way rather than just be. so he’s just like “i am what i am” and stares at a sunset

sawyer

okay now here’s a bitch who actually would be homophobic, biphobic, etc. and it’s directed at himself also. he’s got an idea in his head of what gay dudes are like and no way is he like that so he’s not gay. as for being bi, i think if somebody (eg. charlie) said they were bi, he’d roll his eyes because he thinks they’re saying it for attention. “oh yeah everybody’s bi nowadays, pfft”

also i think sawyer thinks bi people, if they exist, are just people who have threesomes all the time. all the while, he is bi and he’s just making himself not confront it. and hey, even if he was, ya know, queer - not that he is - he’s giving not taking so it’s less gay, obviously. yeah, his bisexuality got all tainted by toxic masculinity. i love sawyer but i ain’t gonna pretend he ain’t got some macho posturing shit going on. and he’s canonically bigoted

shannon

making out with girls is just something you do for fun, haha it’s just silly time, it doesn’t mean anything, it’s not like Real Love, haha, your lips are so soft...

....oh

boone

a combo of not wanting to be mocked and a bad case of “it doesn’t count if”. it’s just porn, it doesn’t count because it’s not real. as long as i don’t do stuff with a dude, it doesn’t count. okay so i did stuff with a dude, but it was a threesome and a girl was there so it doesn’t count. okay okay i did stuff with a dude and it wasn’t a threesome but he never put it inside me so it doesn’t count. okay this dude put it inside me but-

and so on

(and to make it weirder, i think boone would just be gay if shannon didn’t exist. like the Wants Girls part of his sexuality only exists because of her. yikes)

anyways

assume that other characters i consider bi had issues with it when they were younger but are pretty much over it by the time of adulthood (tho charlie does grapple with it. like he’s accepted being bi in a “well, there’s no hope for me anyways” kind of way, so it’s... back handed self acceptance?)

thank you for your time

#lost headcanons #i just felt like talking about internalized biphobia today??? #fiction as a form of self expression indeed #some of my own experiences were used for this #and characters like kate and charlie and the sci trio all know that about themselves #not to say all of them fully Accept it (charlie has weird feelings about it) but i mean that they Know #i dunno where the sexually repressed ben headcanons came from. i started thinking that way a long time ago and didn't let go #i've gone into how i think dan felt weird about it at first but it had nothing to do with desmond being a man #daniel faraday has achieved a zen like state of queer acceptance #the bit i wrote about shannon gets sadder the longer i think about it :(

[betweendoctorsanddetectives]

top 5 movie films! top 5 activities to do that make you feel better and alive and in love with life! top 5 sitcoms! top 5 eps of inside no 9 if you have them :D

hiiiiiiiiiiiiii thank you for asking :-)

top 5 movie films:

these are in no specific order because i struggle to pick favourites + they are liable to change often depending on how i am feeling. BUT these are 5 of my favourites

paddington 2 !!! he is a little bear he is your friend and neighbour he is part of your community and making your life better. he is escaping the criminal justice system. simon farnaby has the hots for hugh grant dressed as a nun

stoker - have been meaning to rewatch this but just generally it ticks an awful lot of boxes for me. i like the themes i do like rage and control and blood it is very nice for me

fight club - i think its good i think men SHOULD express their anger and hopelessness at capitalism via interpersonal touching and showing skin and blowing things up . barbara kruger you construct intricate rituals etc etc

god's own country - very important to me personally that there is content about gay people in the rural countryside getting covered in mud and having sex and wearing jumpers and skinning dead lambs to give lonely lambs jackets which will endear them to the sheep

the private life of sherlock holmes :-) there was a gap in the market for gay holmes solving a mystery involving the loch ness monster and by god did billy bridge that gap. my glass of tea :>

top 5 activities to love life:

find a GOOD podcast episode or audiobook (i'd recommend here something comedic but introspective. you'll have tears in your eyes are they from laughter or emotion who knows) and then go on a walk with it . doesn't matter where you walk. anywhere and everywhere. don't need to walk very long or far find a bench or a wall sit on and watch creatures or people around you

PUZZLES . you have gathered that i am into sudoku well i am also ATTEMPTING to get into crosswords. crosswords have complex codes and indicators which you need to learn along with having a baseline of knowledge of lots of topics. i think finding a topic (such as a type of puzzle) and then endeavouring to learn its secrets is a wonderful thing. approach it with kindness and eagerness . i always find it amazing when i begin to comprehend the care and passion that people have for whatever topic they love. i used to think sudokus were relatively straightforward but there's a whole world of puzzles built upon sudoku logic and there are different techniques to learn and try and there are COMMUNITIES of people who love to talk about it and share puzzles and tips

analysing something you really love will not only enrich your love of that thing and entertain and inform you, it will also allow you to appreciate everything else you encounter in life more deeply and fully. i say this all the time but texts that i have read and ideas i have explored in the name of fun with friends have made me a better and more knowledgable person and i love to notice the little things around me

um idk if this is so much an activity as an ethos but nature makes me love life. i am make an effort to get fresh air, to listen to birdsong, to pay attention to trees and mushrooms and squirrels. i love the weather no matter what the weather is outside because i love the sky i love the rain i love the sun i love the shapes clouds make and i love when its cold and when its warm. i like flowers and i like bodies of water. no matter what happens these things will be there for you and me

a lot of these points overlap but i think that is part of the joy of life. how good things link together and overlap. anyway this one is about poetry. i think it is lovely to read a poem. it will highlight to you what the poet found noteworthy and that thing will become noteworthy to you too and resonate with you at random times. an onion makes me think of love and drinking coke makes me think of love. geese make me think of being unapologetic for existing. and poetry is as detailed as you want it to be depending on how much you care to analyse it but the more you analyse the more there is to appreciate. read the same poems over and over. look up what other people have written about their interpretations. get friends to read poems and ask them what they thought of them. this point equally applies to music with poetic lyrics for example i do this with florence’s lyrics because they are poems and can be treated and appreciated as such

top 5 sitcoms is an incredibly difficult list for me to make because i love sitcoms a lot. one thing about me is i will be watching sitcoms. because i really love so many sitcoms i think i will treat this list as “which 5 do i probably rewatch the most” as opposed to “which 5 are necessarily my favourites”:

vicar of dibley - i have been watching this from a very young age, i know it very well and i still watch it often. i quote it all the time and i think of it all the time. its entirely possible that geraldine deeply informed my personality

outnumbered - i don’t watch it that much these days but the sheer amount and frequency of times that i rewatched this when i was growing up earns it a place on the list. and i DO still love it it is very dear to me. in a lot of ways it reminds me of the best parts of my own family 

community - there’s not much to explain here i just love it and i rewatch it a lot it is special and comforting 

gavin and stacey - another one i can quote pretty much in its entirety. it’s just fun and quotable and its so familiar to me that its comforting 

friday night dinner - its very repetitive i can’t even explain why i like it so much but i DO and i rewatch it a lot. i think i find the characters very likeable and again reminds me a bit of my own family . jim is very very funny as a character, as is martin. rip paul ritter truly a legend </3 i believe we were just witnessing the beginning of his potential as both a comedian and an actor when we lost him

now. to my absolute SHAME it is time to admit i have not seen much of inside no 9. it is completely up my alley and i know i’d gain a lot from watching more. i have seen a few episodes of it and did love them but i have many many left to watch and i DO plan on watching them i just. haven’t yet for some reason. although. a week or so ago i saw you post about a new episode of it and despite having no context whatsoever for what that episode was about i had a vaguely unsettling dream that i was trapped in whatever was going on in that episode. so now i have a question for YOU. what are your top 5 episodes of inside no 9?

[left-the-room]

Hi there! I saw you in my notes and wanted to welcome you into the community :) if you don't mind my asking, how did you peak?

I like peaking stories so here we go

I got into identifying as nonbinary along my readings in feminism/LGBT topics using tumblr back in 2014, feeling understood in the sense of not wanting to be seen as a woman, since being a woman has made my life so difficult and I never fit. Most trans people I'd seen up until then were female and one specifically closer to me was a gay identifying one that introduced me to tumblr, along with destiel, hannigram, marvel slash fandom... I cut contact with that person for unrelated reasons but that pattern stuck in my mind.

I was never sold on the erasure of sex as an axis of oppression- I just thought we could compromise and have it analyzed as AFAB and AMAB and that fellow activists were just being dumb/ having surface level internet understanding of things. But then I started seeing people all around making posts on how "dangerous" it was to talk of "AFAB" oppression and being hyper cautious around talking of uteri and menstruation art and how trans woman "don't have male socialization they have closeted trans woman socialization" like there's some sort of witch-hunt of anything remotely indicating that trans women are male human beings. That made me anxious and angry and I thought we were failling the sex discussion as well as other critiques of porn and beauty culture in name of " gender euphoria and having fun expressing yourself"

Then there came the trans women I came to know in real life. They all presented as, at most gnc, long haired men. Not to suffer a hate crime- they'd say.

They were gamers, deep into cutesy anime girls that give me fight or flight instinct, deep into porn and talked of being a woman like they knew something while idealizing those anime girl version of what they thought being a woman would mean. All that while being pretty assertive... about them being woman and speaking over other people in the room.

I knew the trope from reddit memes and thought thise were rather ironic or weirdos or problematic ones but once I started seeing the patterns of male behaviour I knew what was happening

#radstagg #ask #peak trans

[salted-caramel-tea]

hi hello happy pride month !!! been thinking a lot recently and not a lot of people are aware of queer history outside of the states so I thought it'd be fun to explore the history of lgbt rights and community in the UK!!

Criminalisation and Abolition

this is going to be condensed as possible so bear with me. To start as a general statement, sodomy was illegal across the UK for a good majority of history. The earliest date I can find was an English bill from 1533 making sodomy punishable by death, and this law was extended to Wales (1543) and Ireland (1634), but was not applied to Scotland. This doesn't mean we were any better we had a similar bill although i'm struggling to find out when it was introduced.

The death penalty for sodomy was overturned in 1861 and instead was punishable by 10 years imprisonment, but this decision only effected England, Ireland and Wales, Scotland was excluded on grounds of 'civil attitudes', or the idea that sodomy was not well accepted in these nations. Scotland followed suit with the abolition of the death penalty in 1887.

this isn't that great it was still illegal to commit any homosexual act at this point as stated by the Criminal Law Amendment in 1885, which was actually used to send Oscar Wilde to jail- that one is for the straight guy literacy nerds who still in the year 2022 say people were exaggerating calling him gay, he was literally arrested for homosexuality .

it stayed that way until 1967, the introduction of the Sexual offences Act partially legalised private homosexual activity between men over the age of 21 in England Northern Ireland and Wales, and it took another 13 years literally it was 1980 when Scotland made the same amendments. Its important to note that female homosexuality was never explicitly discussed in legislation on the basis that it was harder to prove and that politicians were scared that the sheer mention of it would encourage women to pursue lesbianism.

Scotland was the first to legalise same sex marriage in February 2014 with England and Wales following suit a month later, but it wasn't until 2020 that Northern Ireland passed a bill legalising same sex marriage.

Researching bills protecting transgender rights in history is a little harder but I can say that the earliest legal thing I can find would be that transgender people have been changing their sex on legal documents and passports since 1970, and again 1999 amendment to the Sex Discrimination Act that states that discrimination of people based on their gender reassignment in the workplace is prohibited. It was declassified as a mental health condition in 2002, although was instead classified as a "widely recognised medical condition". 2006 saw the Equality Act and Gender Equality duty in Scotland that included transsexualism under basic equality and discrimination and that harassment was to ben taken as a serious mater and includes all transgender people.

there is still a long way to go, especially in regards to transgender rights and protection with Bills realted to banning conversion therapy being dropped and trans girls being banned from most girls private schools as well as transphobic microaggressions in politics and education and general public attitudes as well as legally recognising nonbinary identities (Mx titles and nb indicators in schools are allowed).

Community and Pride

Did the criminalisation of homosexuality stop anyone? absolutely not.

as early as 1603 King James VI of Scotland (and I of England) was presumed to have had homosexual preferences. The son of Mary Queen was written by historian Pauline Gregg to have said 'You may be assured that I love the Earl of Buckingham more than anyone else and more than you who are here assembled... Christ had his John and I have my George'. ok

anyway there's so many things to cover so I won't be able to get to everything but the LGBT+ community made up such a large and vibrant subculture of cities across the UK. the 19th century has the introduction of 'Molly-houses' which were essentially taverns, coffee-houses or social situations for homosexual men to socialise with and pursue each other. there was also a large fashion element in gay culture including the 'Macaroni' culture which referred to men who dressed flamboyantly or with a sense of femininity. this would involve waistcoats with a floral patterned silk or softer colours as apposed to the standard plain fashion of the 19th century and into the 20th century.

The First pride parade was held in 1972 as a political movement in response to the treatment of queer individuals by the police force and the Stonewall riots in New York a few years prior. Attendants from the 1978 pride event were seen wearing multitudes of badges like these but not limited to these

Important ones to note here are the pink triangle worn worldwide to remember the gay men who died as a result of nazi incarceration during the Second World War, and the 'Scrap the Section' Pin referencing the bill that was passed in the UK prohibiting the publication or teachings of ideas which may 'promote homosexuality' which directly affected areas like schools and libraries .

A lot of jewellery worn by WLW in this time reflects the labrys, a double sided axe that was associated with the Amazons, to subtly display their pride as a lot of different identities did in a society that could have them fired, publicly outed or arrested.

Hidden Identity

honestly I just wanted to fight the idea that being queer was a new thing. so here's some cool queer ppl that u might find interesting

1812 Dr James Barry earned a degree from the Edinburgh school of medicine, after death he was discovered to have been assigned female at birth

English novelist Mary Shelley aids her novelist friend Walter Sholto Douglass (pen name David Lyndsay) in gaining a passport so he can travel to frabce with his fiancé and helps to make that reflect his identity as male in 1827

look we can go back to roman Britain and talk about the grave of a transwoman Gallus, who transitioned to become a priestess serving under Cybele from around 229 AD

Obviously Oscar Wilde was a huge MLM figure in the 19th century i love the picture of Dorian Gray

The first female doctor in Scottish history, Sophia Jex Blake, graduated from the University in Edinburgh and retires in 1899 to live with her partner Dr Margret Todd.

Great Welsh artist Gwen John was known to have affairs with both men and women throughout her life although never settled down and was largely outcast in her later life.

Former spitfire pilot Roberta Cowell became the first woman to receive vaginoplasty in 1951, and had a successful career as a racer driver after transitioning

Irish pirate Anne Bonny and English Pirate Mary Read both confessed their identity as female to the other after admitting that they experienced a romantic attraction to the other

there’s so many things to talk about that i didn’t get round to - like the governments handling of the aids crisis and protesting throughout u.k. history how, the experience of queer women and a lot more but it’s so long already but my point is . learn your history . know your history

#lgbt #pride month #lgbt uk #lgbtq+ #lgbtqia+ #queer pride

[lordendsavior]

The stupid thing is people started going so hard against him because he wore dresses or flamboyant clothes but personally I think he just likes doing that and thinks its fun especially on stage or in photo shoots. The fact people took it as him doing it to make us think he's gay is weird af to me. Why is this just a gay thing to you guys? Why can't straight men do this lol. Even now, I do think he indicates he's multi gender attracted but not bc of what he WEARS lmfao, they're clothes guys!!

you'd think this reductive heteronormative and homophobic attitude should be reserved for straight people, and yet some queer people are giving them a run for their money nowadays

#anonymous