#also known as hawke and the gays

[dancermk]

HELLO MY FELLOW TRAVELERS!

I, like many viewers, have been completely entranced by Hawk and Tim’s love story in Fellow Travelers. As a mature queer person, this show has been very emotional, and I am deeply invested. (I WILL riot if Tim doesn’t get to die in Hawk’s arms, and know that he is, and has always been, loved by Hawk.) But I digress.

Something that I have been fascinated by are the differing opinions that have surfaced about the characters, especially Hawk. I’m not looking for any arguments here, everyone is entitled to their opinion, and this is simply mine. To me, Hawk falls hard and fast for Tim. He breaks all his own rules for Tim - they topple over like a house of cards.

When we are introduced to Hawk, he’s cold and heartless with the men he hooks up with - they are nothing more than a body to fulfil his sexual needs and desires. He doesn’t do repeats and he doesn’t bring them home. But Tim, he instantly begins returning to, gets him a job, then allows him into his own apartment, etc. When Tim pushes back, Hawk relents further, letting him in emotionally, sharing parts of his past, crossing lines by introducing him to others in his circle, and so on.

Hawk is a traumatised man, carrying guilt and anger and shame, and a bucket load of fear! Yes, he has some internalised homophobia, but interestingly, he’s also extremely righteous about his homosexuality -and I don’t believe he thinks being gay is wrong in any way. (His response to his father is indicative of this).

I can personally say that I’ve never thought it was wrong to be queer, yet I spent much of my life hiding who I was and feeling shame. It’s an odd thing! Perhaps it is that the shame forms purely from what is outside of us, while what is inside of us can love another person of the same sex, knowing it is right and pure. Perhaps these contradictions between self and society are what causes so much pain and conflict?

But back to Hawk. Hawk is undoubtedly most affected by his teenage first love experience. A love that he fucked up through his own fears (fear for many men is unacceptable and a sign of weakness), and now carries the burden of believing he is responsible for their death. Hawk doesn’t allow himself to love again, until Tim. And we see many times throughout the show how much Hawk fears losing Tim. And in the end he’ll have to face that fear. I think that, in part, not attempting to have a life with Tim, is also fuelled by his fear of fucking it up and losing Tim - so it’s easier to just not attempt it! In episode 7, when he loses his son, part of that spiral is Hawk recognising that he can’t really prevent loss, and he wasted his life trying to be something he’s not - still losing his child and Tim along with it.

But Hawk is a survivor! And no one has the right to hate or judge him for it. I don’t think some young people truly understand what it feels like to live in a world where who you love can put you in jail, and destroy your life. I grew up in the 70s/80s and my experiences were bad enough, but I try so very hard to think about what it was like before that! When being queer was a crime and a mental illness! That’s pure terror! And for Hawk, he chose to survive the best way he knew how, and he wasn’t able to change because that’s fucking hard when all you’ve known is living in constant ‘fight or flight,’ and when have chronic trauma and experience collective trauma.

I think in episode 8 we’ll finally get to see Hawk grow - I certainly hope so - because he deserves to be free. Our beautiful Skippy has been free for some time, and while we mourn for the cruelty of a world that would take such a truly decent man, I am glad he got to live freely. Being closeted is the worst kind of suffering- a compartmentalised and fragmented existence where you are never truly whole, and therefore can never be the best version of yourself.

Before I go, I just wanted to also talk about being in a closeted relationship-which I experienced in my youth. I think that Hawk and Tim’s intense and toxic and exquisitely beautiful relationship, in part, arises from this. Because two closeted people in love live their relationship in secret, in a bubble, only in certain rooms, with none of the outside world reflected back at them. It becomes the two of you against the world. It’s so insular. Hawk and Tim literally live their 1950s relationship within two rooms - their apartments. All their memories are held within those walls. And it only belongs to them. They know each in ways that no other living soul does. It’s all-consuming and often unhealthy, but also stupidly romantic.

Anyway, sorry for this long winded post that no one will read and is likely full of grammatical errors because I’m tired! This atheist is praying we get everything we need from episode 8! Acceptance, forgiveness, understanding resolution, healing and a whole lot of love! ❤️

Cheers queers! 🏳️‍🌈

PS Matt and Johnny are exquisite on and off screen and I am so thankful to them for bringing these characters and this story into our lives!

#fellow travelers #hawk and tim #hawkins fuller #tim laughlin #hawk and skippy #matt bomer #jonathan bailey #lgbtqia #queer media

[jbaileyfansite]

Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer's Interview with The Hollywood Reporter (2023)

“Johnny B! Johnny B!” Matt Bomer exclaims as he logs in to Zoom to join his Fellow Travelers co-star, Jonathan Bailey, to do press for their critically acclaimed Showtime limited series.

“Hey, Matty Mo,” Bailey replies. 

The actors spent about six months filming the eight-episode series — so, of course, they’ve established a playful bond. On this particular day, they’ve even given each other nicknames.  

“I don’t think I’ve ever called Matt ‘Matty Mo’ in my life,” a smiling Bailey says.

“I love Matty Mo,” Bomer replies. “Listen, I love Matty Mo. I appreciate it.”

Bomer and Bailey built a brotherhood and onscreen chemistry for the historical romantic drama about two male political staffers who fall in love at the height of the Lavender Scare, a time when homosexuals were banned from holding positions in the federal government. The series — based on Thomas Mallon’s 2007 novel of the same name — follows their intense affair into the ’80s, also visiting Vietnam War protests and the AIDS crisis.

Zoom, it turns out, is where the actors first met, reading lines together to see if there was magic. And there was.

Since debuting in late October, Fellow Travelers has had an overwhelming response from viewers — some connecting directly with Bomer’s Hawkins Fuller, a veteran and State Department official who carefully hides his homosexuality, or with Bailey’s Tim Laughlin, an eager and naive congressional staffer who falls hard for Hawk. Others have identified with some of the supporting cast, including Allison Williams in the role of Hawk’s wife, Lucy Smith, and breakout stars Jelani Alladin as reporter Marcus Hooks and Noah J. Ricketts as drag performer Frankie Hines, whose gay Black love story is one of the show’s many highlights. 

“It’s so nice to be able to have discourse with people who are responding to the show. That’s been really refreshing and enlightening,” says Bomer, who is also an executive producer on the series.

Bailey, best known for Bridgerton and his theater work, says he was drawn to the show because “it felt new and it hadn’t been done in this way — in an elevated, eight-hour, rich aesthetic with gay actors.

“The queer experience is so different for so many people,” he adds, “but the one thing that unites the queer experience is these moments in history.”

In an interview with THR, Bomer and Bailey talk about prepping for their roles and being gay while playing gay, while also breaking down those milk and toe-sucking scenes.

What has it been like to have people connect emotionally to the series?

MATT BOMER: I won’t name names or anything, but I’ve known people over the years who’ve made similar choices that Hawk made in order to survive. Not governmentally — I mean in a society that certainly didn’t want to see them succeed. But for me, the most refreshing thing has been the young people who are really engaged in the show and knew nothing about the Lavender Scare, and are speaking to the show and the characters, but also, aspects of our history that they were unaware of that the show has — I don’t want to say taught them about, because it’s not a teaching tool — but they’ve learned about through the show.

JONATHAN BAILEY: When people respond in that way and you hear their personal stories, it’s amazing that people feel that they want to share that. It’s the most grounding thing to tell a story and investigate a time or a period or a movement, that hopefully leaves an imprint on people, and/or catalyzes them to tell people and talk about their own stuff. That’s the dream, really.

Jonathan, it’s so heartbreaking to watch Tim hurting in various scenes. What were you pulling from to give such a strong emotional performance? 

BAILEY: Thirty-five years on this earth. (Laughs.) Drawing it from the ground. Naturally, it’s totally parts of me and parts of people that I know, experiences that you think of. Tim’s character arc is so huge, and [I wanted] to capture his youth in those early moments and then expand into what breaks such a pure, optimistic, passionate soul and all the different ways in which that could show itself. There were moments on set that you couldn’t help but be incredibly moved by. 

We found ourselves filming by coincidence on World Aids Day. It is really not hard to feel the importance, but also just the grief is palpable in the stories. And there is a lineage — you inherit this in your community. It just felt like an opportunity to learn as much as I possibly could, generally, about the queer experience. We are surrounded by amazing gay men, as well. And then, of course, I’ve lived my life trying to understand the gay experience, so it wasn’t a shallow pool to [pull from].There’s a well there.

Matt, your character is so cutthroat, but obviously there’s sympathy for him, as well. What was it like playing Hawk?

BOMER: Hawk does what he has to do to survive. He has his empathy and his allegiances, but anything that calls his survival into question, there are immediate and severe boundaries. But then enters Tim, who is so guileless and so full of love and all the things that Hawk wishes he could be at his core, or maybe once was before certain aspects of his life changed that or his point of view about that. You’re always looking for a shadow in your character, and it was so refreshing — he obviously has a public persona, a veneer that he presents to the world in order to maneuver in it, but he really leads with a lot of the more shadowy aspects of a typical character. It’s the love and the more open and vulnerable aspects that are his shadow in many ways. That was an interesting flip for me to get to sink my teeth into. 

It’s profound to have two gay actors playing two gay characters on a TV show. Did you ever think something like this could exist?

BOMER: Honestly, no. My mind has been blown so many times over the past 20 years. I’m just so grateful that the gatekeepers gave us this opportunity. I was doubtful, almost up to the 25th hour on this, that they were really going to put the money and the opportunity into this series that they did. And I’m just so grateful that people who are in the position of calling the shots gave us the chance to tell the story — and the way we needed to.

BAILEY: It’s the Tims of the industry, who are searching for more, who are deconstructing, who are questioning. Because they’re all a similar peer group — [series creator] Ron [Nyswaner] knows Dante [Di Loreto, executive producer of Glee and P-Valley], who’s at Fremantle [which produced the show], and they’ve worked together for years. This isn’t something that just got commissioned overnight, because there’s a wave of progress. The people who are really doing it, as well as the actors, are the people in positions of power who have worked their way up with these questions.

And it’s funny, the one thing I have thought over the years is — I’ve just looked at gay characters, they’re such rich, brilliant, oppressed, complicated, joyous characters to play, so of course people want to play them. And this is a brilliant example of: What better way to do a character study of two polar-opposite gay characters than have gay people play them? But that’s what I felt growing up. I just thought, “Of course people want to play those parts,” which is great. It’s just, what happens if, just for a moment, gay people play them?

And I do think that everyone can play everything, and that’s what we should be headed toward. But I do think there’s a balance that needs, and needed, addressing. And there are a lot of people whose questioning and hard work have created a world in which this can fly.

BOMER: I agree with you wholeheartedly. And it is the Tims of the industry or maybe some Hawks, too, hoping for retribution.

BAILEY: That’s true. We stand on the shoulders of all the Hawks, as well. 

BOMER: (Laughs.)

BAILEY: [The Hawks] did all the work at MGM, yes. (Laughs.)

Jonathan, your character drinking milk in the series got a lot of attention. 

BAILEY: It was a brilliant way of showing such naiveté, and immediately you know that this is a character who’s completely outside the world Hawk inhabits, and he sees the world completely differently. He’s so open. It’s so interesting, isn’t it? Because, it’s funny that Tim leads with his heart and his openness and his childlike wonder, and his shadows are his compulsive nature of constantly needing something that he can’t fill. There’s a moment in episode six — they’re in Frankie’s flat, and I was like, “He’s got to be drinking milk.”

BOMER: There was a power shift in episode eight, too.

BAILEY: Exactly. The milk was on the call sheet. It’s a character in its own right. And also the milk’s character arc is more dramatic than everyone else. Give it a spinoff, I say. (Laughs.)

There was also that toe-sucking scene. Jonathan, did you get the script and it said “suck toe”? 

BOMER: Just “suck toe.” (Laughs.)

BAILEY: It was very, very precisely written down — it was as precise as it needed to be. I saw that as an incredible way to dissect power. I got it when I read it, and I wasn’t intimidated by it. I was just like, “If in the first episode that’s what we are doing, it’s going to be worth five months moving to Toronto, and it’s going to be a series that I would want to watch.” Because not only is it incredibly complicated, not only is it really hot, it’s also something that masks as being provocative, but actually it’s really psychologically impactful and the people who get it get it.

BOMER: I think all those scenes were a really external representation of what was going on with these characters internally, emotionally. And for me, it was really refreshing to see the gay love scenes brought to light in a really unflinching way.

BAILEY: The shock and overwhelm and the tantalizing chemical combustion that happens seeing it — it’s a greater sensory experience because that’s exactly what it meant for Tim in that moment. It captures exactly what’s going on for Hawk and Tim, hopefully, allowing the viewer to experience a bodily reaction to it in the same way, whatever that may be. 

Source

#fellow travelers #jonathan bailey #matt bomer #interviews #interviews:2023 #the hollywood reporter interview #NEW!

[one-squash-one-end]

An unhinged recap of Ronan's homosexuality

Hi! This once again belongs to my big Raven Cycle analysis, click here for the masterpost.

Again, there's not much room for speculation here, but i had to write it for completionist purposes. I apologize for certain metaphores used, for the most part when I was writing this I was going through it (brain was fried).

Here u go (also spoilers for Greywaren)

d) Ronan Lynch

Next to Adam, Ronan is the only other canonically queer person in the Gangsey. A flaming homosexual with a car fetish (because there was something unbelievably sexy about cars at night). Ronan is the original Be Gay, Do Crime. (Adam is the Be Crime, Do Gay to that.)

You get the gist; he is seriously involved with one guy but used to have some bits of self discovery (not only on the topic of his sexuality) with another, which ended because that guy kidnapped his brother because despite being gay, Ronan unbelievably was not into him. I’m sorry, I really do not want to dissect the entirety of Pynch in here, that would go way too far and I bet there are so many people who could do and have done this better than I ever could, so I’ll stick to elaborating some more on how we find out that he is gay, considering I think he doesn’t say the word until Call Down The Hawk.

In the first book, Ronan does not get a pov, maybe because Maggie needed some more time to figure out how to make a character subtly and thirst over another character in a secret and homosexual way. Still we get some small hints, based on conversations with other characters, or just his behavior in general.

Gansey: “From now on I need all of us to be straight with one another” Ronan: “I’m always straight” Adam: “oh man that’s the biggest lie you’ve ever told” This, of course, is legendary. Ronan is gay, he jokes about it, Adam knows it. I genuinely cannot tell whether Ronan had come out to his friends, whether he just did it through jokes like this etc. If the latter is the case, I honestly doubt that Gansey would have known, as oblivious as he is.

We also have the case study of Declan and his Ashleys. Ronan seems to despise the heterosexual standards that his brother portrays, but it is not clear whether that’s because of heterosexuality, or because of Declan, because let’s be honest, in book one, Ronan would hate, absolutely hate, anyone Declan dates out of principle, because Declan’s just a bitch, or a manwhore, as Gansey would say.

Then it gradually all becomes very much obvious in The Dream Thieves. We got the parallels with religion, his nightmares (his night horrors/self-hate maybe being because of internalized homophobia?) and of course the secrets. The secrets you keep from yourself, the very obvious metaphor. Plus Kavinsky literally calls him the f-slur. You will very easily pick up on that if you’re not as oblivious as I was when I first read the book (I was in my Declan Lynch era with a tummy-ache ok?), but it is explicitly resolved in the epilogue. There is no more room left for ambiguity, thank you Maggie for ending the queer speculation yourself, within the book.

Then there’s gender, of course there’s gender. Gender is like Tad Carruthers, just always materializing out of nowhere, especially when you just want to stay away from it because it’s fake and a massive bitch.

Ronan definitely identifies as male, but if you look at this a certain way he is somehow trans or defies the entire concept of gender either way, considering he is a supernatural being, spirit, entity, that was just socialized as a boy. Ronan is like Cabeswater, or Lindenmere, which both don’t have a gender, obviously, they are forests. The Greywaren is often referred to as an “it”, which makes sense when people don’t know the Greywaren is human, but something about the entire thing smells very trans rights to me. Also that eldritch horror, not quite human at all,  jumble of dark matter thing in Greywaren was just so gender of him.

Ronan would wear a crop top, there’s no doubt to me.

#still sorry about tad carruthers #ronan lynch #adam parrish #the raven cycle #trc #the raven boys #the dream thieves #the raven king #blue lily lily blue #greywaren #greywaren spoilers #the dreamer trilogy

[spacehostilityy]

rewatching the OVAs (netflix s2)

low key one of my fave intros art wise (we all know howling by granrodeo is my fave intro song lol) like the suits !! are so !! cute!!!

and this frame is adorable !!

I love the search for hawk sm theyre all so fucking cute

Meliodas casually dropping “you are my purpose in life” to Elizabeth like a month after they met is INSANE. Bc from his side, makes sense. Fell in love when they were young from opposite sides of a war, risked everything to be together, have been finding and losing each other for 3000 years. But from her side, he is a cool guy she has a crush on (who is at least 15ish years older than her) who she might have known as a child. He also just described her as his entire life’s purpose. Like bro THATS CRAZYYY

Seeing Meliodas destroy the horn of cernunos is such a badass moment to me. The way he responds to her taunting with direct action and violence rather than his usual merciful beating around the bush. My favorite Mel moments are when he is using his silly goofy little guy façade and suddenly has to drop it. This is when we see a glimpse of who he was when leading the 10 commandments: arrogant, powerful, and constantly full of rage

it just so happens that arrogant, powerful, and constantly full of rage are my most prized qualities in any character

WAIT HOLY SHIT IS THE “HEINOUS SIN” MELIODAS IS CONSIDERING THAT THE GODDESS SAYS WILL DRIVE EVERYONE HE LOVES AWAY REFERRING TO HIS PLAN TO BECOME THE DEMON KING ?!?!?!?

THAT WOULD MAKE SO MUCH SENSE AND ADDS LOWKEY A TON CHARACTER MOTIVATION TO EVERYTHING ELSE MEL DOES FROM HERE ON OUT

maybe everyone knew this and im late to the game but damn that would be so cool

im pretty sure ban switches out his red leather for the long burgundy coat is bc he keeps getting stabbed front to back and the coat has a hole in the back so the weapon wont tear it lolll😭

i feel like their faces (esp meliodas’s) look a tiny bit janky in the OVAs

once again appreciating the intro 😌

They’re so fucking cute !!

Merlin and Ban clearly don’t rlly like each other much yet and it’s so funny to me

Like these are Meliodas’s closest friends and they just kinda annoy each other a lot

it’s like fuckin icarly

Gustav: the captain and one of his fellow sins going one on one? We might neve see something like this again!

hahahahaha nooo. i mean gustav didn’t, he’s dead. but the rest will el ol el

Gil is the biggest dork to ever live and howzer is concerned. Mans is crying at watching them fight and howzer is just like … ok ??

Bartra: where the fuck is my daughter

his daughter: literally watching a cage fight

MELIODAS RIPS OFF BAN’S FUCKING ARM AND SMACKS HIM WITH IT AHSDBFKSKFSDHFFK LOLLLL

theyre literally the cutest

bestiesss (boyfriends)

every one of these bitches is a fucking alcoholic

ban’s whole character is that he’s a depressed, violent alcoholic and I love him

my horrible secret is that im skipping through a lot of ova 3 bc im just not a kiane girlie😔

i do love diane tho she so babygirl

nakaba’s not even thinly veiled size kink strikes again. Seriously, i can fuck with it, but its so funny that every single main ship has a significant/abnormal height difference

hendy and dreyfus are so gay for each other im genuinely surprised it’s not canon

like look at this scene and tell me something lgbt is not happening here

omg my pfp !!

Howzer’s dad is such a dick i love it

Meliodas using the sugar spoon to full counter is literally so fucking cute, i love when they have to use dumb weapons

but also vivian lost to a tiny spoon hehe

bet gil regrets not killing vivian after she kidnaps and permanently fucks up his son ahaha🥲

Merlin being fucking terrifying saying that vivian should have realized that she is a monster is why im gay

Meanwhile Meliodas:

I love when his face does that he’s so baby

KASDBFKLHDFNWDKF GIL, HOWZER, AND GRIAMOR ALL BEGING HORNY ABT “MATURE WOMAN” MERLIN

anyway time to start season 2!!

#tess rambles on her nnt rewatch #tess rambles #nnt #elizabeth nnt #merlin nnt #bandit ban #banlaine #melban #ban nnt #7ds #meliodas #nanatsu no taizai #seven deadly sins #diane nnt #king nnt #elizabeth liones #bamf!elizabeth

[homomenhommes]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … February 13

518 B.C. – Pindar, the Greek poet was born today. Again, it is impossible to say precisely when the Theban poet was born, so we're picked this arbitrary date. So this is as good a place as any to mention Pindar, the greatest lyric poet of ancient Greece, whose love for Theoxenus of Tenedos is celebrated in his verse.

Self-portrait

1891 – Grant Wood (d.1942) was an American painter born four miles east of Anamosa, Iowa. He is best known for his paintings depicting the rural American Midwest, particularly the painting American Gothic, an iconic image of the 20th century.

After graduating from Washington High School, Wood enrolled in an art school in Minneapolis in 1910, and returned a year later to teach in a one-room schoolhouse. In 1913 he enrolled at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and performed some work as a silversmith. From 1920 to 1928, he made four trips to Europe, where he studied many styles of painting, especially Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. But it was the work of the 15th-century Flemish artist Jan van Eyck that influenced him to take on the clarity of this new technique and to incorporate it in his new works.

From 1924 to 1935, Wood lived in the loft of a carriage house that he turned into his personal studio at "5 Turner Alley" (the studio had no address until Wood made one up himself). In 1932, Wood helped found the Stone City Art Colony near his hometown to help artists get through the Great Depression. He became a great proponent of regionalism in the arts, lecturing throughout the country on the topic. Wood taught painting at the University of Iowa's School of Art from 1934 to 1941. During that time, he supervised mural painting projects, mentored students, produced a variety of his own works, and became a key part of the University's cultural community.

One common theory is that he was a closeted homosexual, and was fired from the University because of a relationship with his personal secretary.

On February 12, 1942, one day before his 51st birthday, Wood died at the university hospital of pancreatic cancer. When Wood died, his estate went to his sister, Nan Wood Graham, the woman portrayed in American Gothic.

Wood's best known work, his 1930 painting American Gothic, is also one of the most famous paintings in American art, and one of the few images to reach the status of universally recognised cultural icon, comparable to Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Edvard Munch's The Scream.

It was first exhibited in 1930 at the Art Institute of Chicago, where it is still located. It was given a $300 prize and made news stories country-wide, bringing Wood immediate recognition. Since then, it has been borrowed and satirised endlessly for advertisements and cartoons.

Wheeler and Wescott by Lynes

1899 – on this date the American curator Monroe Wheeler, was born (d.1988). Poet and author Glenway Wescott and Monroe Wheeler were an extraordinary couple. The two met for the first time in 1919, and it was, it seems, a classic case of love at first sight. At the time, Wescott was still in his teens and Wheeler just 20. Seemingly inured to the social mores of the time and inconstancies of youth, the two embarked on a relationship that can be called nothing short of a marriage, for the next 68 years, until Wescott's death in 1987. They are perfect gay Valentine icons.

The young couple travelled the world, stopping in on Gertrude Stein's Paris Salon and crossing paths with Jean Cocteau on the Riviera, while Wescott developed his poetry and later fiction (he authored The Grandmothers and The Pilgrim Hawk, among other bestsellers of his day) and Wheeler found his path. Eventually he would become the director of exhibitions and publications at the Museum of Modern Art.

The two moved with equal ease through the literary and artistic circles of London and the continent as well as their families' Midwestern homes. That their relationship thrived is notable enough. But 1927 brought a new challenge to their pairing. High-school student George Platt Lynes fell passionately in love with the strikingly good-looking Wheeler. And Wheeler, for his part, was entranced by Lyne's 'full, luscious mouth and his wasp-like waist'. Instead of driving a wedge between Wescott and Wheeler, as might be expected, Lynes soon became part of their shared life. When, after some casting about, he hit upon photography, the two nurtured his career and used their considerable connections to get him both work and gallery shows.

Triptych of Wescott-Lynes-Wheeler by Jared French

In 1930, while still in France, Wheeler entered into a partnership with Barbara Harrison to establish the Harrison of Paris press, the goal of which was to publish fine editions of new and neglected classics. Over 5 years, they produced 13 titles, including works by Thomas Mann, Katherine Anne Porter, and Glenway Wescott's A Calendar of Saints for Unbelievers, with illustrations by Pavel Tchelitchew.

In 1935, following the marriage of Barbara Harrison to Glenway's younger brother, Lloyd, Wheeler and Wescott moved back to the United States. They soon set up households both on the farm in New Jersey bought by Barbara Harrison and Lloyd Wescott and in New York City, where they shared a series of apartments with George Platt Lynes.

It was at this time that Wheeler began an association with the Museum of Modern Art when, in 1935, he guest-curated an exhibit. His position at MOMA became permanent in 1938 when he was hired as Membership Director, then moved quickly into the position of Director of Exhibitions and Publications. Wheeler's innovations in publication and exhibit design soon became well-known. In 1951, in recognition of his work in bringing French artists to the attention of American viewers, he was made a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor by the government of France.

In 1967, in preparation for his retirement, Wheeler shifted his duties at the museum. Having long been a trustee of the museum, he was appointed counsellor and joined the International Council in its biannual meetings. After his official retirement in 1967, he continued to advise the museum on exhibitions and serve with a number of civic and arts organizations.

In 1969, Wheeler travelled as a cultural advisor with Nelson Rockefeller on a presidential mission to Latin America. In the 1970s, Wheeler travelled extensively and worked on projects documenting the history of MOMA and the collections of the Rockefeller family. Monroe Wheeler died in Manhattan on August 14th 1988 at the age of 89, 18 months after the death of Glenway Wescott.

1961 – Henry Rollins is an American spoken word artist, writer, journalist, comedian, publisher, actor, radio DJ, activist and musician.

After performing for the short-lived Washington D.C.-based band State of Alert in 1980, Rollins fronted the California hardcore punk band Black Flag from August 1981 until mid-1986. Following the band's breakup, Rollins established the record label and publishing company 2.13.61 to release his spoken word albums, as well as forming the Rollins Band, which toured with a number of lineups from 1987 until 2003, and during 2006.

Since Black Flag disbanded, Rollins has hosted numerous radio shows, such as Harmony in My Head on Indie 103, and television shows such as The Henry Rollins Show, MTV's 120 Minutes, and Jackass.

He had a recurring dramatic role in the second season of Sons of Anarchy and has also had roles in several films. Rollins has also campaigned for various political causes in the United States, including promoting LGBT rights, World Hunger Relief, and an end to war in particular, and tours overseas with the United Service Organizations to entertain American troops.

Rollins has become an outspoken human rights activist, most vocally for gay rights. Rollins frequently speaks out on social justice on his spoken word tours and promotes equality, regardless of sexuality. He was the host of the WedRock benefit concert, which raised money for a pro-gay-marriage organization.

He has said of his sexuality:

"If I was gay, there would be no closet, you would never see the closet I came out of. Why? I would have burned it for kindling by the time I was 12. Because I know with all certainty in my mind, there is nothing wrong with being gay, and you know it."

1969 – Joe Phillips is a black American artist, known for his mainstream comic book art and for his work depicting his views of gay life. Ironically, he is most recognized for portraying white, preppy males. He currently lives in San Diego, California.

Phillips was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1969. Upon graduation he travelled to Europe where he furthered his artistic skills, taking part in various projects such as guerrilla street art.

His first major comic book job was working on the comic book "Speed Racer" for seven issues. He produced artwork for titles including "Justice League of America", "Silver Surfer", "X-Men", "Legion of Super-Heroes", "The Incredible Hulk" and "Lobo".

Phillips was one of the founding members of Gai-Jin Studios. In late 1992 he began work on the revival of "Timber Wolf," written and inked by Al Gordon, where he worked as both a penciller and as the cover artist, this run lasted for an entire story arc. In 1996 he created a new comic book character, "The Heretic", of which he was both a writer and artist. The title was released by Dark Horse Comics. Other later work included "Captain America", "Wolverine", "Green Lantern" and "Superboy".

Sexy Superboy

It was while Phillips was working on a Superboy comic entitled "Superboy & Risk: Double Shot" that he first sexualized his artwork and dropped hints about homosexuality. Some readers picked up on this, one such person was art director of XY Magazine, Eriq Chang. Chang quickly offered Phillips a slot in the gay publication drawing a comic strip that would later become known as "Joe Boy".

Phillips was approached by the hardcore porn website Karas Adult Playground to produce adult animation, his first - Cumquest - was a spoof on the popular sci-fi series Star Trek. Another animation job followed for the gay porn website Absolutely Male for which Phillips created the animation The House of Morecock, a story about Jonas Morecock, a gay paranormal investigator. Morecock proved to be very popular and a set of 10 episodes was released on DVD by 10% Productions in 2001. In 2002 Morecock was nominated for a GayVN award in the category "Best Alternative Release"; it subsequently won in its category. A series of comic strip books followed alongside sets of postcard books. TLA Video lists Morecock as one of their all-time bestselling titles.

'A Boys Will Be Boys" illustration

In 2001 Phillips released "Boys Will Be Boys" - a calendar featuring original gay-themed art. In 2003 a book of the same title was released; it featured the art from the 2002 and 2003 calendars and incorporated some new original pieces. The calendar continues to be released annually.

another typical "Boys Will Be Boys" illustration

In 2006 with Adult Visual Animation, Phillips released his second adult-themed animated movie entitled Stonewall & Riot: The Ultimate Orgasm. The movie was a cross-over of the two genres Phillips was known for - Superheroes and work for the gay community. The movie was created entirely in 3D graphics. As with his previous movie, "Stonewall & Riot" was nominated for a GayVN award.

In 2013, Phillips animated and directed the official music video for UK Rock singer/songwriter Matt Fishel's single "When Boy Meets Boy". Described by Out Magazine as a "cute (and sexy)" love story "with a superhero twist", it shows an animated version of Fishel meeting a mysterious skater boy in a bar and concludes with a superhero fight and rescue sequence. British magazine The Gay UK called it "one of the best music videos we've seen in a long time." On 30 October 2013, the video for "When Boy Meets Boy" won the 2013 RightOutTV Music & Video Award for Best Pop/Rock Video. Phillips also created all the artwork for Matt Fishel's debut album Not Thinking Straight, which was released in April 2013 on Young Lust Records. The album booklet comprises 18 original illustrations by Phillips, each representing a different song's lyrics and portraying themes and issues surrounding young gay life, relationships and experiences. Phillips also created the artwork for Matt Fishel's 2013 singles "Radio-Friendly Pop Song", "When Boy Meets Boy" and "Oh Santa!"

Below: When Boy Meets Boy (3 mins 47 sec)

1987 – Steven Dehler is an American model, actor, and dancer. He has been described as the "the poster child for the modern male underwear model". He is a regular performer at The Abbey, a gay bar and nightclub in West Hollywood, California, and has been face of Marcuse Swimwear for their 2015 campaign.

With an active social media presence, Dehler has amassed over 142,000 followers on Instagram as of November 2015. Also in 2015, Dehler made the cover of Odyssey Magazine and played Mr. Coconuts on the Ellen Degeneres Show.

Steven Edward Dehler was born in Simi Valley. He is one of two children, with an older brother. While in elementary school, Dehler was the victim of bullying, where they would call him "Steven Gayler".

Dehler began his career working in West Hollywood. Originally he was a server in a small bar, then moved to doing bottle service at a club called Eleven. After winning a hot body contest at another club in West Hollywood, he was asked by a go-go dancer bookers saw Dehler and asked him to dance. After dancing at many locations around the area, by 2012 Dehler was dancing exclusively for The Abbey.

Dehler began his modeling career with Timoteo, an underwear and swimwear line. Along with Timoteo, he has also modeled for Marcuse, Freedom Reigns, and Marco Marco Underwear. Most prominently, Dehler has modeled for male underwear company Andrew Christian. One of the shoots he did involved a commercial called Freshman Car Wash, which also offered an unrated version online. Another was "Lick", which was shot with then-boyfriend (and fellow model) Montana Volby.

Well-known in the West Hollywood gay scene, Dehler is sometimes the subject of gossip columns

2009 – on the campus of Cornell University, a group of roughly 20 students lined up to hold a colorful banner that read "QUEER KISSIN' ... in progress" and then proceeded have a queer kiss-in. Direct Action to Stop Heterosexism sponsored the event, according to kiss-in participant Ashley McGovern. She explained that heterosexism is "kind of like homophobia except heterosexism has to do with all facets of society."

DASH didn't necessarily have sweeping or profound aims for the kiss-in, according to McGovern. "It was just supposed to be a fun action before Valentine's Day, it wasn't really a protest, it was more of a visibility thing ... just letting people know people are queer on campus and not afraid to be affectionate ... that was the goal — visibility and having fun," McGovern said.

Meanwhile at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado, the Dalton Trumbo Fountain outside the University Memorial Center was the site of a mass make-out session titled "Make Out Stake Out." The "flash mob" of student couples of varying sexual orientations suddenly appeared at the fountain square, made out for two minutes — and then dispersed. "We're trying to remove the stigma that surrounds same-sex affection in public and, more importantly, the misconception that if you are queer and you are expressing affection in public that you are rubbing it in people's faces," junior Spencer Watson said.

#Youtube

[marley-manson]

My main takeaway of Fade Out, Fade In is that Hawkeye is extremely chill and secure lol. I feel like I've seen it used as an example of Hawkeye's egotism and I think that must be due to misremembering the episode because Hawkeye is constantly gracious wrt Charles as a surgeon. He's overjoyed that Charles knows the aneurysm operation they need to do and more than happy to let him do it, assist, and learn from him, asking questions and complimenting him. He's quick to give him the credit afterwards when Dr Berman wakes up as well.

When Charles finds a flood of patients too intense and doubts himself, Hawkeye reassures him by saying, "We're not any better than you, it's just that by sheer repetition we've gotten fast."

What Hawkeye takes issue with and makes fun of is Charles' superiority complex. He rolls his eyes when Charles pointedly insults him or anyone else, he mocks his haughty demeanour and upper class accent, calls him Chuck to annoy him, etc. This is all separate from his skill as a surgeon, which Hawkeye vocally admires, and all completely warranted because obviously Charles is an asshole lol.

The second takeaway of this episode is that I wish Potter was a villain. I'd forgotten this, but he's the one who arranges to keep Charles at the 4077 when otherwise Baldwin would've taken him back. Blah blah blah they need good surgeons and saving lives is important and someone's gotta do it blah blah blah, fact is Charles is well within his rights to hate Potter for this and I wish he did, and I wish we could be on his side about it properly, because I absolutely am on his side here.

Instead it's framed as something Charles deserves for being haughty, and a trial by fire to improve him. I would prefer to see it framed as a personal tragedy that engenders sympathy, perhaps planting the seed of comraderie between him and Hawk and BJ. Not a fan of framing being forced to work in a warzone as character building.

And now some miscellaneous thoughts:

-- Hawkeye clocks that Berman is jewish after hearing him speak one sentence (i assume, since hawk immediately jokes about him kibitzing), for the jewish hawkeye headcanoners

-- also love how overtly gay Berman is, I'm calling the "you doctors are all alike" joke as evidence of Berman clocking Hawkeye in return

-- "command me, o tall one with the presbyterian features" is such an amazing Klinger line

-- Hawk stealing Frank's boxers for himself

-- the scene with Margaret and Hawkeye and BJ is such an awful bait and switch lol, I go from 'aw they're friends!!' and loving Hawkeye when he tells her she doesn't have to tell them what's bothering her but she's clearly upset so she should sit and have a drink either way, to 'nooooo' when the (narratively endorsed) answer given to Margaret is she's too much of a flirty slut and it hurt Donald's feelings :(

-- Hawkeye being nice to Frank on the phone even when he's pissed at him and throws the phone immediately afterwards was cute honestly. Hawk speaking for both him and BJ was cute and married too ("we both think that's wonderful. we're proud to have known you")

-- BJ and Hawkeye both collaborated on the snake prank but Hawkeye's the one who gets a comeuppance >:( "Please, Mozart" is a fantastic final line though.

-- OH! the patient who didn't want to go back to the front because he doesn't want to kill anyone else! When he speaks to Mulcahy, Mulcahy starts off with his usual rote 'yeah it's scary go fight anyway' thing, and when dude corrects him about his reasons Mulcahy doesn't say anything, just stares off into the middle distance. And that's the end of that storyline.

Like man I would've liked to know what Mulcahy said to him lol, how Mulcahy squared that with himself. It's a fantastic counterpoint to his usual encouragement but I want more. Wish we could've repeated this premise in a Mulcahy-heavy episode.

#mash #marley on mash #mash s6 #hawkeye mash

[musicalchaos07]

When Robin sees them together on Monday morning, she thinks she must be hallucinating. Like maybe all the cow manure scented air of Hawkins has finally rotted her brain. Because that would be more reasonable than whatever reason NANCY WHEELER has for stopping by Jonathan's locker.

“Is that is that Nancy Wheeler with Jonathan Byers” Robin hisses, dead-stopping in the middle of the hallway. 

“Yea they're supposedly together” Kate informs with a shrug. 

“Together? Like together-together?” she questions. 

Kate nods.  

“Like together as in, Nancy Wheeler kissed Jonathan Byers?” she grills, skeptically. 

“They've done more than kiss, supposedly they got busy in some motel off the interstate after Tina’s Halloween party.” she gossips

“Ew, but also where did you even hear that?” 

“Tommy H. was telling anyone who would listen.” she explains.

“Then it's probably just a stupid rumor.” Robin dismisses.

“Ok then why are they blocking your locker?” 

Robin glances back over and Nancy is practically skipping away with an unreasonably giddy expression for ten in the morning. She watches Jonathan shake his head but he’s got a huge, well huge for him, smile. She swears he even briefly looks to watch her walk away. 

But she knows Jonathan, probably better than most. She spent the summer working with him at the Hawk and they've had lockers next to each other since freshman year. He's quiet, but kind with a clever sense of humor that he doesn't share often. He doesn't give a shit about his hair looking perfect, or how his clothes fit and he's worn the same shoes the entire time she's known him. 

Long story short, Nancy Wheeler isn't his type. Honestly she was starting to think that no one was his type. Or that maybe there was a smidge of truth to those rumors about him being gay. But that might have been more wishful thinking on her part.

“They're probably just exchanging homework or something” She rationalizes, remembering that the two are in the lead for valedictorian next year. 

“Besides, isn't she dating Steve Harrington?” Robin asks before Kate can rebuttal. 

“Yea, well,  you know what they say about Nancy Wheeler” she taunts.  

“No” 

“She's a slut” Kate reveals with a casual cruelty. 

Robin tries to let it go. To not pay as much attention. But the harder she tries the more she fails. Nancy Wheeler is like suburbia personified. She’s got the girl next door trope down to an art.  What with the pastels, the shiny hair and the goddamn trapper keeper. There’s just no way she’s swapped her perfect jock boyfriend for someone like Jonathan. Unless maybe she’s trying to piss off her dad or something. But at the risk of her own reputation? That doesn’t add up. 

So yea, she’s a little too invested. By Wednesday morning, she finds herself obsessing over bagel boy, hoping to notice the slightest change in his behavior. He looks the same as ever, same stupid hair, same stupid members only jacket, same stupid bagel crumbs. 

Steve's not even supposed to be in this class. But the story goes that not even top of the class, little miss perfect, Nancy could help salvage his grade last year. And rather than do summer school he opted to take the class over again before graduation.

“Nice work Buckley” he congratulates when passing her test back to her. 

Robin wants to be uncharacteristically nice. She wants to tell him that if he spent less time on perfecting his hair and more time studying she's sure he could pass this time. But a funny thing happens in the translation of her thoughts to her words. 

“Did Nancy Wheeler dump you for Jonathan Byers?” she blurts and he looks at her horrified.

“Uh I'm not” he pauses and Robin waits for him to tell her to fuck off and mind her own business. 

“I dunno, they've been keeping to themselves lately” Steve tells her. 

And for a guy who might have gotten ditched for the town weirdo he sounds incredibly sad about being left out of the loop. She briefly entertains the idea that Steve ‘the hair’ Harrington might be lonely before deciding that that's almost as impossible as Jonathan and Nancy dating. 

“Tell you what, they sure look happy though” he huffs but there's no bite to his words. No lingering resentment. Just that same hint of loneliness. 

Robin chalks up the whole situation as just plain fucking weird. She resolves to mind her own business. If Jonathan and Nancy want to have little rendezvous at his locker that's not her problem. As long as they don't intrude on her space, why should she care?

Except mid-morning on Friday that's exactly what they're doing. She got out of band practice a little early, the hallway is mostly empty and they’re standing right in front of her locker, hands intertwined, practically swaying. Nancy Wheeler is looking up at Jonathan Byers like he hung the moon and Jonathan Byers is looking at Nancy Wheeler like she’s more precious than any jewel. 

To his credit, Steve was right, they do look happy. Not in the grotesque, over the top, peaking in high school way Jason and Chrissy look happy. But in a genuine, sweet, Nick and Nora Charles way. 

“Mundy has a pop quiz today” she overhears Jonathan telling Nancy.

“So?”

“So you're honestly telling me you don't care if you miss that?” he asks. 

“Jonathan in five years from now I'm not going to remember some stupid math quiz but I am going to remember a nice afternoon with my boyfriend” she contends. 

Boyfriend, she definitely said boyfriend. Or maybe it really is some mass hallucination. Maybe Hawkins High has turned upside down. Because there’s simply no way in hell this is really happening. 

“I'll meet you by my car” Jonathan resigns. 

“I knew you'd come around” Nancy teases gleefully. 

“Yea yea” 

Then, Nancy plants a quick kiss on the side of his mouth before prancing away and Robin knows she’s lost her mind. Nevertheless, she needs her history book from her locker so she bravely makes her way to her locker. Laser focused on opening it, grabbing her book and getting out of there. 

“Uh I’m sorry if we've um blocked you lately I'm not trying to be next door” he jokes nodding his head in the direction of Jason's locker. 

“Yea no, no it's totally fine like I get you guys are super in love like lookout Hawkins High here comes the new power couple” she rambles. 

Oh God, why would she say that.

“Yea, uh I guess…” he admits softly and Robin just nods, for once not sure what to say. 

“Anyways I'm sorry sometimes I just get so… caught up in her that I forget other people exist you know?”

Jonathan says it casually, almost like he told her the cafeteria is serving chili instead of admitting to being so consumed by his girlfriend that it makes him blind to the world around him. 

“Uh yea” she lies because she’s not about to tell Jonathan that even as much as she privately adores Tam it’s never been like that. 

“Well have a nice weekend” he bids, shutting his locker and walking away. Leaving Robin with more questions than answers. 

#Anyways I think this might be the first part in a new fic #but like idk I was just having THOUGHTS #i am plagued by visions #it be like that sometimes #I thought I'd share with y'all so we can be plagued together #stranger things #jancy #jonathan byers #nancy wheeler #robin buckley #my fic #st fic

[cheesybadgers]

Out West, the Gay Cowboy Roams Free

The frontier has long been a symbol of American masculinity. Now a rising generation of artists are creating a new queer mythology.

The gay cowboy ensemble — Manu Rios (from left), José Condessa, Jason Fernández and George Steane — from Pedro Almodóvar’s “Strange Way of Life” (2023), photographed in Madrid on July 12, 2023. From left: Y/Project shirt, about $715, yproject.fr; and Cartier ring, $3,700, cartier.com. Loewe shirt, showpiece only, and jeans, $990, loewe.com. Gucci T-shirt, $590, gucci.com; Levi’s jeans, $98, levis.com; and stylist’s own belt. Gucci shirt, $2,100, and jeans, $1,300.Credit...Photograph by Carlota Guerrero. Styled by Alicia Padrón

By Evan Moffitt

Published Sept. 5, 2023 Updated Sept. 27, 2023

TWO MEN, A grizzled sheriff and a gunslinging vigilante, confront each other in a dusty saloon town. It’s a scene familiar from countless western films, but in Pedro Almodóvar’s new short, “Strange Way of Life,” in theaters next month, only a few minutes elapse before the two characters end up in bed together. When Silva (Pedro Pascal) visits his former lover Jake (Ethan Hawke), he rekindles their romance before revealing less amorous intentions. Intrigue ensues, and the shock of two gay cowboys gives way to what we might expect from a classic western: shootouts, horseback chases, fugitive justice. Almodóvar’s second film in English forgoes the melodrama for which he is best known, adhering instead to genre traditions, so “the interrupted and then resumed love story between these two men will be taken more seriously,” the 73-year-old Spanish director says.

In America, as Almodóvar knows, cowboys are serious business. They might be our national paragon of masculinity: Generations of American boys were taught that real men should have the swagger of the Marlboro Man and the gruff voice of John Wayne. But like so many aspects of gender, those were just performances. This is partly why over the decades many queer artists have made winking references to cowboy culture. By homing in on make-believe and dress up, they’ve deflated some of its homophobia-tinged machismo — and even sometimes turned it into an object of horny fun. Campy versions of the Lone Ranger’s costume appear in explicit photographs by Bob Mizer from the 1950s that were distributed in physique pictorials, a forerunner of gay porn magazines. In 1965, Andy Warhol directed some friends in a western-themed striptease for his film “Horse”; three years later, he released “Lonesome Cowboys,” a drunken romp among five gay gauchos, a madam and a cross-dressing sheriff. Then there was the gay disco troupe the Village People’s dime-store cowboy, Randy Jones, who was meant to be read as a tongue-in-cheek archetype (one since referenced by musicians like Lil Nas X and Orville Peck).

Oscar yi Hou’s “Coolieisms, a.k.a.: The Fugitive (John Chinaman)” (2023). Photo: Evan Sheldon. Courtesy of the artist, 12.26, Dallas, Los Angeles, and James Fuentes, New York, Los Angeles

While such appropriations subvert the straightness of cowboy culture, they also highlight its latent homoeroticism. From cattle drives to prisons to navy ships, men will often have sex with each other when there aren’t any women around. Western films in particular are spectacles of rowdy male bonding on the open range, where a lot can happen after a drink or three. There’s palpable sexual tension in the 1969 buddy drama “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and the 1959 classic “Warlock,” from which Almodóvar took inspiration. In the 1970s, men in urban gay enclaves began wearing Stetsons and bandannas color-coded to indicate their sexual proclivities. These gestures weren’t entirely ironic; they also reclaimed a masculinity that gay men were told they lacked.

As lone riders in a land characterized as empty and lawless, cowboys were also a perfect symbol for queers seeking to liberate and reinvent themselves. Such is the fragile hope of “Brokeback Mountain,” the 2005 blockbuster (which Almodóvar turned down an offer to direct) that was adapted into a West End play earlier this year. Its portrayal of a doomed love affair between two male shepherds was groundbreaking in many ways, but its presentation of the West as somewhere white, masculine men might be safe to explore their desires for each other without ever having to run into anyone else — including a person of color — mostly followed conventional tropes.

Kenneth Tam’s “Rabbit” (2022). Courtesy of the artist and Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles, Mexico City © Kenneth Tam. Photo documentation: Ian Byers-Gamber

NEARLY 20 YEARS later, several younger artists and filmmakers are developing a more nuanced vision of queerness in the American West, with particular emphasis on the country’s changing race and gender dynamics. This builds on past efforts by writers, artists and filmmakers like Kahlil Joseph and Chandra McCormick to celebrate the many nonwhite cowboys who have always been an essential part of American life.

“National Anthem,” a feature film written and directed by the Los Angeles photographer Luke Gilford that premiered at South by Southwest in March, chronicles queer rodeos and ranches in the Southwest. Many of the movie’s diverse characters and the actors who play them identify as trans. Notably, while the plot hinges on relatable, everyday dramas (jealousy in open relationships, the pain of a first heartbreak), homophobia and transphobia are mostly absent — a reminder that queer life needn’t be defined by a culture that oppresses it.

The frontier has always been a place where people have come to live on their own terms. At the turn of the 20th century, the trans huckster Harry Allen was a notorious outlaw in the Pacific Northwest. Hundreds of newspaper reports from the era reveal that trans cowboys weren’t uncommon in the West, even if they’re absent from official accounts. When the 32-year-old artist Gray Wielebinski was growing up in Dallas, he saw 10-gallon hats and boots as the marks of a fantastical machismo that belonged as much to him as to cisgender men. In 2022, the trans-masc artist erected a mechanical bull at Bold Tendencies, an arts organization that stages shows on the roof of a disused South London parking structure, where visitors were invited to take a ride that, like sex, was brief but ecstatic. The bull bucked in a ring of fencing set with stained-glass panels that recalled gay bars and public cruising sites, which Wielebinski notes are at risk of disappearing because of gentrification. In his work, the cowboy is a tragic figure professionally endangered by commercial ranching, making him an analogue to the queer establishments that have closed in recent years.

Rafa Esparza’s “Al Tempo” (2021). Courtesy of the artist and Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles, Mexico City

“Cowboys only live in a sense as myth,” says Nora Burnett Abrams, a director at the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art, which will open the expansive exhibition “Cowboy” this month. “But you also have this lived experience of contemporary cowboy life and a culture far more diverse not just in terms of identity but also labor and function.” A new installation and video by the artists Rafa Esparza, 41, and Fabian Guerrero, 35, will document the queer cowboy bars popular among Mexican and Central American immigrants throughout the Southwestern United States. Esparza’s 2021 diptych “Al Tempo,” painted on adobe, distills one such scene: gay Latino couples in sombreros dancing under the soft lights of Club Tempo, an East Hollywood institution. Esparza, who grew up in nearby East Pasadena, visited the venue for the first time in the late 1990s. “I remember thinking, ‘My dad or my uncles could very well be here, and I wouldn’t be able to set them apart from everyone else,’” he recalls. “It felt like a beautiful, queer version of what my family members have striven to preserve of their life back in Mexico.”

The dreamy scenes in the Austin, Texas-based 34-year-old artist RF. Alvarez’s paintings, which were on view at Alanna Miller Gallery in Manhattan through June, on the other hand, are mostly imagined. White and Latino men dine outdoors and lie naked in bed together. Cowboy hats abound: in a self-portrait of the artist wearing nothing but white briefs and in a still life hanging above a wardrobe beside a silhouetted portrait of a gay male couple. The paintings are a kind of reclamation — of history, but also of space. “There is no place for me in the West,” Alvarez says. “But multitudes can exist.”

RF. Alvarez’s “Luncheon on the Pasture” (2022). Courtesy of the artist and Taymour Grahne Projects

OTHER ARTISTS ARE mining time instead of place, looking at the past for clues to the inner queer lives of those who have been removed from most historical accounts of the West. In the artist Kenneth Tam’s 2021 film, “Silent Spikes,” also included in the Denver show, Asian American men in cowboy garb pose and dance in front of a purple backdrop, intercut with footage of railroad tunnels dug by Chinese immigrant workers in the 1860s. The piece imagines what kinds of relationships might have formed among these laborers, who were treated brutally and paid poorly. “I wanted to think about how their bodies must have felt against one another’s in that space, working together in close proximity,” says Tam, who is straight but whose work, he adds, is concerned with homosocial dynamics. Scant evidence of the Chinese laborers’ lives has survived, so Tam’s vision of them as queer cowboys becomes a speculative attempt to complete the record.

Stills from the film were on display this summer in “The Range,” an exhibition at 12.26 Gallery in Dallas that likewise explored cowboy iconography. There, they hung near paintings by Oscar yi Hou, 24, a British-born, New York-based artist whose works are replete with clichéd signifiers of Asian and American identity, including cowboy hats and details from the Japanese anime series “Dragon Ball Z.” His solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, which closes later this month, includes a self-portrait of the artist as a muscled, pickax-wielding miner, his pose modeled on a 1970s flyer for the Manhattan gay bar the Mineshaft, referencing both cruising culture and those same railway workers. Another buff Chinese laborer appears in a black leather bondage mask and cowboy hat in “Coolieisms, a.k.a.: Leather Daddy’s Highbinder Odalisque” (2022) — the series’ title riffing on a slur for immigrants from Asia — holding his long braid like a whip.

The work is “about the American cult of masculinity and rugged individualism ... conquering the ‘uncivilized West’ — and how this gender ideology dovetails with American expansionism,” says yi Hou. The raw sexual power of his subjects refutes stereotypes of Asian masculinity while offering a fantasy about how the Chinese men who literally built the West might have explored their own desires. In challenging the outdated image of the cowboy as a white, cisgender macho man, clearing the land in the name of racial purity, they suggest that America’s national mythology can be made to speak for everyone in it — that the West is more expansive after all.

Hair by Olga Holovanova at Another Agency using GHD. Makeup by Lucas Margarit at Another Agency using Dior Beauty. Set design by Cito Ballesta. Photo assistant: Guillermo Tejedor. Stylist’s assistant: Irene Monje. Produced by Alana Productions SL

#Cowboys #Queer cowboys #Gay cowboys #Cowboy art #Queer art #Gay art #LGBTQ+ #LGBTQ #LGBTQ media #Strange Way of Life #Pedro Almodóvar #Pedro Pascal #Ethan Hawke

[aprillikesthings]

I have the house to myself because people are at a sportsball party

So what else would I do but keep watching spop amiright

s1 ep8 lez go

YES IT'S PRINCESS PROM AHAHAHAH

Oh, that explains why (in a muuuuuuch later episode) there's that little ideal future and they're at Scorpia's ball (iirc)

Catra: I NEED TO BE IN CHARGE Scorpia: party!

Poor Scorpia

Catra: giving a passionate-if-faked pep talk to Scorpia (like I get she's manipulating Scorpia here into going to the party, but it's still the kind of thing Scorpia should hear!) Also Catra: still real mad about Adora!!!

I cackled, y'all. CACKLED.

I mean she's...not wrong...

Okay I know it's just how this kind of show works and isn't important but it implies the Ball is known about for years in advance, but the invites only actually go out like a day or two before?? IRL that would be such a disaster because they don't even know the theme until they get the invite. The sheer amount of logistics/planning attending something like this, including the outfits...

This was intended to be Lolita fashion and you can't convince me otherwise

Also CATRA. They intentionally made her look so, so gay and hot.

Same, Catra. Same.

Adora (to the weapons-check person): be careful with it, don't lean it on something with the other swords or it might get confused!!!

Poor Adora. I suppose if I had an object that made me both popular and nearly invincible I'd be upset and worried to be separated from it, too.

It's Molly and Nate!!!

🎶Just like the viiiiine🎵

I love that we know these characters enough that they can just say a couple of lines here and imply a ton more. Anyway Mermista's outfit is great.

This is literally their entire dynamic. They're clearly together, Sea Hawk is loud about it, Mermista is (mostly) pretending to hate it.

Sorry this is shot is just great

Glimmer's jealousy (over Bow coming to the ball with Perfuma) is SO ANNOYING and I know that's on purpose but boy do I hate most "jealousy makes them obnoxious" plots

ANYWAY one small note: you can tell their budget for this episode is just not very high, because the characters in the background are so often not moving or only moving like one thing.

Oh hey, Netossa and Spinerella! (...and Molly again lol)

"Bow isn't the type to just leave his old friends behind, and neither am--" *Scorpia and Catra walk in*

DIDN'T THINK YOU'D SEE HER HERE, HUH, DIDJA

I can't screenshot this bit but it's so good:

Catra, in her most fake-gentleman voice: I love rules and obey them all the time Adora in the most high-pitched voice possible: YOU DO NOOOOT

🎶Every move you make And every vow you break Every smile you fake Every claim you stake I'll be watching you🎵

...I'm showing my age again. But also I'm looking at the lyrics and ngl they nearly all fit. If I knew how to make fanvids, I could make a vid that like ten people would watch.

Instead I'm working on a fic like ten people will read, heyoooo

*cries*

BACK TO THE GAYS PRINCESS PROM

is there crack-y pwp of this please say yes

Once again reminded of that fanvid of every time they say each other's names in the first two seasons

Literally cannot see Adora opening that without the "bah-dm tsh!" sound affect in my head from watching that video so many fucking times

Bow is so delightfully emotionally intelligent

Entrapta: have you met my new assistant? She brought snacks.

When Entrapta said "assistant" Catra's ears literally did a wiggle. Oh my gooooood

"she stole my food and asked me to spy on people with her,

lolol

once again whether the sword is actually sharp-edged or not is entirely dependent on plot

Scorpia is unreasonably hot sometimes

im gonna chew my fingers off ghgha;lksdhka;

I remember the screenshots/gifs of this scene hitting tumblr--that moment when every hopeful sapphic fan watching the show when it released went OKAY WAIT we're not making shit up this time are we??? ARE WE???

Also at least one person working on this show likes period dramas where tons of emotional plot happens during extremely formal dances where everyone is barely touching

there's nearly a billion gifs of that scene from one of the versions of Pride and Prejudice, but also:

once again proving my advanced age, this movie came out when I was 17 and side note I'm the same age as Claire Danes, anyhoodle

Has Adora been dancing Lead this whole time

HNNNNGNGHGHGHHHHHH IT'S SO GOOD

EXTREMELY UNDIGNIFIED NOISES Adora literally has one thigh between Catra's gghngng

i want to EAT IT

I'VE HIT THE IMAGE LIMIT FOR THIS POST LOLOL i don't wanna cut any out imma post this and then reblog it

#april rewatches spop

[nighttimeebony]

LGBT Class 1A Headcanons because season 6 is making me sad

Izuku is bisexual. He's known this about himself for a long time, and he probably came out when he was still in middle school. He definitely had all sorts of hero crushes when he was younger, and he's VERY easily flustered by pretty people. He almost definitely had a crush on Hawks.

Ochako is also bisexual, but it's something she didn't figure out until recently because she doesn't have a lot of experience with dating or even crushes. Like Izuku, she for sure had her hero crushes, but it wasn't something she put a whole lot of thought into.

Iida is straight, but almost aggressively supportive of his friends. Iida is also flustered very easily, and he is very attracted to women who are confident, flirty, and capable in their field of expertise.

Bakugou is gay. End of list. He's never had any doubt about it, nor any interest in girls. Like at all.

Todoroki is gay and demiromantic as well as demisexual. Todoroki has no experience with crushes, dating, and almost no experience with physical attraction. Dating was never something he cared about until he came to UA and was allowed to discover himself and explore the uncertainties in his identity. He had a lot of help from his friends and definitely went down a dozen internet rabbit holes of research on the topic.

Tsuyu is a lesbian. Full stop. She's very comfortable with herself and her identity, and it's something she's always known about herself. Tsu and Habuko are technically ex-girlfriends. They dated for a little while in middle school, but the relationship kind of came to a natural conclusion when they found out they'd be going to different high schools. But they're on such good terms with each other regardless of the breakup, and they're still very good friends that love each other very much. Tsuyu's siblings love Habuko and think she's the coolest person ever.

Kirishima is gay, but his identity has always been a source of self-consciousness for him, as the few friends he did have in middle school weren't as supportive as they should have been. They weren't bigoted or anything, but they definitely made a few jokes and comments that made Kirishima feel self-conscious enough that he just never told anyone. Not even his mothers. It wasn't until UA that he finally told someone, and it was Mina, since he's known her the longest, and is probably the most comfortable with her, aside from Bakugou.

Jirou is the most flirtatious bisexual to ever bisexual, with an extensive list of ex-partners that she is increasingly proud of. Some people at her old middle school called her a slut for it, but haters gonna hate, and she never hesitated to deck those kids in the mouth because she has no fucks left to give.

Mina is asexual and aromantic. Because she doesn't experience romantic attraction, she's kind of obsessed with the concept of romance and shipping, and gets unnecessarily invested in her friends' love lives; almost like she's living vicariously through their romantic experiences. She also flirts with literally everyone purely for fun, and she refers to everyone with pet names like "babe", "sweetie", "hun", etc.

Satou is a straight trans boy with a lot of love to give and will punch transphobes in the face. His parents are loving and supportive and he was able to take advantage of gender affirming care since he was young, and has had a near seamless transition.

Momo is a lesbian, and thinks men are gross and women are goddesses. While Momo is... aware of her preferences, she doesn't have any experience with dating, as schoolwork and hero studies have taken up almost all of her time and attention, and left little room for dating in the spare time she actually had.

Sero is pansexual and proud and shameless. He and Jirou currently have a running bet about who's dated more people and who can collect the most phone numbers. They're either each other's hype man or nuisance depending on the person they're trying to ask out.

Shouji is also pansexual and is definitely some brand of gender non-conforming. Shouji most likely uses he/they pronouns, but he's never actually told anyone, because unless they deliberately ask for his pronouns, he just doesn't see the point in bringing it up. He kind of has a "don't ask, don't tell" mindset, in that they will not willingly offer information about themself unless it's prompted out of him by other people. Quite literally, if they don't ask, he won't tell.

Tokoyami is gay, and has only ever dated one boy. He revels in the mystery he thinks he has by intentionally keeping things vague and playing hard to get because he's a dramatic goth like that. He's secretly a massive dweeb, though, and Dark Shadow frequently cramped his style, so he learned to have better control over when Dark Shadow was allowed to be out and about.

Ojirou is straight, but also a massive ally. He's only ever dated a couple girls before UA, but he's a sincere, earnest gentleman who's always very honest about his feelings and very down to earth.

Hagakure is also straight and maybe a tad boy crazy. She's more than a bit of a hopeless romantic with all the restraint and dating habits of Mabel Pines.

Aoyama is also aro/ace like Mina and is riding that self-love train all the way, baby.

Kaminari honestly doesn't quite know what he is yet. He definitely likes girls, but he doesn't know if he likes... More than girls. He's currently doing a lot of soul searching (and even more internet searching). It's a good thing his friends are so patient.

Kouda is asexual and panromantic. The idea of sex more than kind of grosses him out, but the prospect of being in love and truly comfortable with someone is as appealing as anything. Dating is hard, especially for someone who struggles to speak on the best of days, but he's trying. And at the very least, he can take comfort in the fact that he knows his friends and family love him.

#bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #mha headcanons #bnha headcannons #class 1a headcanons #class 1a #class 1 gay #ua is the gay hero school and you cannot convince me otherwise #midoriya izuku #uraraka ochako #iida tenya #todoroki shouto #bakugou katsuki #kirishima eijirou #asui tsuyu #jirou kyouka #ashido mina #satou rikidou #shouji mezou #yaoyorozu momo #sero hanta #tokoyami fumikage #ojirou mashirao #hagakure tooru #kaminari denki #kouda kouji #long post

[jbaileyfansite]

Interview with The Telegraph (2023)

We all know what is meant by McCarthyism. It ­popularly refers to the first half of the 1950s, when Senator Joseph R McCarthy led a ruthless ­campaign to hound suspected communists out of the US government. What’s less well-remembered than the Red Menace is the Lavender Scare: by an executive order from President Eisenhower, McCarthyism also targeted gays and lesbians. “If you want to be against McCarthy, boys,” the senator once told the press, “you’ve got to be either a Communist or a c--ksucker.”

Thus gay men and women, living closeted lives as they worked for the state, were targeted by sinister-sounding bodies: the FBI’s Sex ­Deviance Investigations Unit, ­Washington DC police’s Sex ­Perversion Elimination Program and the Department of State’s M Unit. All sought to identify ­government employees deemed to be security risks vulnerable to blackmail.

Popular culture lost sight of the Lavender Scare until it was brought into the light in the US by Thomas Mallon’s 2007 novel Fellow ­Travelers. Set mostly in the early 1950s, it told of a tangled romance between two men; Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller, a handsome war veteran and political fixer who steers clear of emotional attachment until he meets Tim Laughlin, a sweet young Catholic newcomer to DC whom he nicknames Skippy and sets up in the office of a Republican senator.

The novel was not published in the UK. But now it has been adapted for television, and one piece of ­casting in particular feels ­calculated to get the attention of audiences beyond the US: Laughlin is played by British actor Jonathan Bailey, best known as the Regency heartthrob Anthony, 9th Viscount Bridgerton.

His co-star is the American Matt Bomer, who, like Bailey, professes ignorance of what the New York Times, in its review of the novel, referred to as “the Lavender Hill mob”. “It’s a chapter of LGBTQIA history that I was completely ­unaware of,” he says.

This is not the first time the novel has been adapted – it was staged as an opera in Cincinnati in 2016. By then it had already caught the attention of Ron Nyswaner, who laboured over bringing the book to the screen for the best part of a ­decade. Best known for his script for Philadelphia, the 1993 Aids courtroom drama which earned Tom Hanks his first Oscar, it was his stint as a producer of Homeland that persuaded Showtime to fund an expensive eight-part decades-spanning drama. “I’m still in ­disbelief that we were able to tell this story on the scale that we were able to tell it,” says Bomer, who is also an executive producer on the drama.

The scale is considerable. The period detail of 1950s Washington, in both corridors of power and gay demimonde, is lavishly recreated. And as the story progresses it parts company with the novel, which opens with Hawk looking back at the closure of his career as a ­diplomat in Tallinn in 1991. Nyswaner’s script expands to take in other pivots in modern US ­history: the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, and the spread of Aids in the 1980s, when the now-married Hawk and the dying Laughlin meet for a final reckoning.

I met the drama’s two stars in London earlier in the summer, before the actors’ strike in ­Hollywood put a stop to such encounters. It was the first time they’d seen each other since the end of the shoot. Bomer, though just off the plane and heavily jet-lagged, exudes a chiselled, blue-eyed intensity. Bailey fizzes with puppyish energy. Both are themselves gay and Bailey in particular sees their casting as a sign of ­progress. “We would not be playing these parts five or 10 years ago,” he says. The highlights of his CV are mix and match. He has played mainly straight characters on ­television in the likes of Broadchurch, Crashing and W1A, and gay characters on stage in the Sondheim musical Company and Mike Bartlett’s play C--k in the West End. 

The career of Bomer, 10 years his senior, looks a little more linear. His most high-profile film role is as an object of ladies’ lust in male-strippers drama Magic Mike and its sequel. But in 2014 he won a Golden Globe playing a closeted journalist in HBO’s adaptation of Larry ­Kramer’s play The Normal Heart. In 2018, he made his Broadway debut as part of an exclusively gay cast reviving The Boys in the Band, a ­portrait of gay life in 1960s New York. 

Earlier on the day we met, ­Stanley Tucci had said on Desert Island Discs that he doesn’t see why straight actors shouldn’t play gay characters. “I think it’s incredibly complicated and nuanced,” says Bailey with a sigh. “You just want to make sure that everyone feels there’s enough space at the table. Everyone who is panicking that they’re never going to be able to play outside their own experience is wasting their energy.”

Bomer counters that it ought to cut both ways, that gay actors should be allowed to play straight. He speaks darkly of movie ­producers who “wouldn’t hire me because of who I was”, of gay actors who “weren’t even given a shot. A lot of it boils down to opportunity. Was ­everyone given the opportunity for the role? There is something about seeing the most authentic version of who you are represented on screen. It gives you hope.”

In Fellow Travelers that ­authenticity is portrayed most unswervingly in the bedroom, which the plot requires Hawk and Laughlin to visit often. “I haven’t necessarily really seen gay intimacy in a way that I would want to,” says Bailey. I gently remind him of Linus Roache, who plays a senator in ­Fellow Travelers but, back in 1994, starred in Jimmy McGovern’s Priest as a Catholic priest struggling with his sexuality – graphically so in a central scene with Robert Carlyle. “Oh yeah, that’s true,” he says. “I looked to that a lot.” 

As is on trend for male actors ­nowadays, both leads look ­impeccable with their shirts off in low honeyed lighting. “Hawk is ex-military and he also wants to appeal to people in bathroom stalls,” ­reasons Bomer, who did period-appropriate Royal Canadian Air Force drills and looks no less ­pneumatic than he did in Magic Mike.

Bailey concedes that Laughlin, who orders milk the first time we meet him, boasts the body of a Greek god for the simple reason that the shoot overlapped with Bridgerton (yes, he confirms, the newly married Anthony is back for the third season). “There’s no way Tim would have had a Bridgerton body, but what can you do if you’re commuting? I was like, I really want to lose weight to tell Tim’s story, but I lost fat and just got really ripped.”

How resonant is the history ­portrayed in Fellow Travelers to today? It’s easy to play six degrees of separation between now and then. For instance, McCarthy’s ­closeted sidekick Roy Cohn is a lead character (played here by Will Brill). A ferocious prosecutor of both communists and gays, he would go on to be Donald Trump’s lawyer, before dying of complications from Aids. It was Trump’s three appointees to the Supreme Court who this summer enabled a 6-3 ruling releasing businesses and organisations from the obligation to treat same-sex couples equally. The landmark ruling occurred just days before I met the actors, and has been widely interpreted as a ­profound attack on LGBT rights.

“There is an entire generation of men and women who suffered and struggled and loved under a ­government that felt that its morals were more important than their personal freedoms,” says Bomer. “And that’s exactly what we see happening today. Whether it’s McCarthy or the current Supreme Court justices, are morals more important than freedoms?”

Source

#fellow travelers #jonathan bailey #matt bomer #the telegraph interview #interviews:2023 #jonny bailey #interviews #NEW!

[thedragonagelesbian]

Cyrus Hawke | Wood Elf | Gloomstalker Ranger/Champion Fighter | He/Him | ~250

What is your Tav’s…

FAVORITE WEAPON: sword + shield, although he's currently wielding the myrkulite scourge flail for the extra necrotic damage + the adamantine shield. I like giving Cyrus the Pelorsun Blade in Act 3, but I kind of want to stick him with the Sword of the Emperor bc. I am not immune to reclaiming weapons out of spite and saying 'i will do better with this' and also getting to kill the Emperor with its own sword.

MOST PRIZED POSSESSION: Cyrus has two things left from his parents that he's been able to keep through everything: an iron dagger from his father enchanted against fey and an Evermeet family heirloom locket from his mother.

DEEPEST DESIRE: When Cyrus left Iriaebor, he thought he was getting his deepest desire: to live his life on his own terms. It took having that life turned upside down to realize how much his solitude had cost him, despite how often he had told himself that he was better off alone. He still wants peace and quiet and to stop hurting, but more than that, he wants those things with Wyll.

GUILTY PLEASURE: super long & luxurious baths

BEST-KEPT SECRET: In addition to being the Champion of Iriaebor, Cyrus was also known as its butcher for his role in slaughtering the enemies of its ruling lady, to whom he was once sworn as a Paladin of Devotion.

GREATEST STRENGTH: Resilience

FATAL FLAW: Self-reliant to a fault

FAVORITE SMELL: Lavender

FAVORITE SPELL OR CANTRIP: Hunter's Mark (killing you killing you killing you), with Goodberry as a runner-up. Not that he has that spell in-game anymore but he will always have it in my heart and I wanted a space to share my headcanon that (a) goodberries' taste is dependent on the caster and (b) Cyrus' goodberries taste like lavender, with a strong initial cedar scent and a slightly burnt aftertaste.

PET PEEVE: Lying

BAD HABIT: Not accepting help

HIDDEN TALENT: Despite his equivocating and his complicated history with it, Cyrus is actually quite the talented dancer, once he's had the time to enjoy it for himself.

LEISURE ACTIVITY: Gardening

FAVORITE DRINK: Non-alcoholic-- tea; alcoholic-- brandy

COMFORT FOOD: Barley & mushroom soup

FAVORITE PERSON(S): Wyll

FAVORED DISPLAY OF AFFECTION (PLATONIC AND/OR ROMANTIC): Service & physical touch; Cyrus has become a very private man with his affection, but everyone knows the lengths he goes to to keep the camp and their supplies in order, and the longer everyone journeys together, the more evident it becomes that Cyrus is quietly keeping track of everyone's health needs and is always ready with medicinal teas and herbs when they're called for.

As for physical affection, that's still an honor only bestowed upon Wyll Ravengard, but Wyll knows that as soon as they're alone together, he is getting hugged and cuddled and smooched and massaged and adored non-stop.

FONDEST CHILDHOOD MEMORY: The first time he can remember his parents saying they were proud of him. After a narrow and dangerous escape from his father's archfey patron when Cyrus was maybe 10 years old, his mother thanked him for making things so easy by not fussing or complaining, and his father told him he was doing such a good job as the light of his family's life.

I was tagged by @the-eldritch-it-gay (thank you!! <333) and will tag @hexblooddruid @covenscribe @ididitforthedogs & anyone else who wants to fill out a lil Tav questionaire

#cyrus bg3 #cyrusXwyll

[daigina-3]

Listen. It starts with Eddie being dense as hell. Or Robin being way too obvious- or so obvious that she circles back around to not at all obvious? No, let’s just go with Eddie being dense as hell.

Because one day while fucking around Family Video, Eddie mentions Queen- the band, not the old lady- and Steve comments that Queen wasn’t something he thought Eddie would be into. And it’s true, Queen isn’t Eddie’s style at ALL, but you gotta respect QUEEN, y’know? And he says as much.

And Robin zeros in on him like a hawk. It’s like she’s hit over the head and she suddenly won’t shut about Queen. “Yeah, yeah.. gotta love Queen. Or do you? Do you? Why? What’s so good about Queen? That Freddie Mercury guy sure is cool. Or is he? What do you like about him so much, Eddie?”

And Eddie’s not usually a really defensive guy- or, okay maybe he is. Especially when someone’s asking him why he has any interest in Freddie Mercury while eyeing him up and down. Eddie’s gotten several of Those Looks before- never good- the ones that start as weary of his hair and his leather jacket and chains and then it clicks that it’s not just the clothes they have to worry about. And so he gets a little skeptical.

Eddie notices that Robin, every time he sees her, won’t shut up about- well, gay shit. It’s like she’s trying to catch him out and it makes Eddie want to turn tail and run. He thought she was cool, but maybe he should have known anyone who would date Steve Harrington isn’t that cool- or cool like THAT, anyway- although Eddie thought Steve had changed.. maybe he hadn’t. Maybe Robin was trying to get Eddie to slip and then she and her boy toy Harrington could play a rousing game of kick-the-queer. It wouldn’t be the first time someone Eddie thought was safe turned on him..

So, after the third time Robin loudly mentions that Rocky Horror Picture Show was rented out again, asking Eddie if he’d ever seen it (Eddie dodges the question every time) he does what he does best and turns tail and runs.

(Of course he has though- he’s driven the two hours to Indianapolis twice just for midnight viewings.)

And it sucks- it sucks a lot. It sucks when he drives Max to school and she asks why Eddie’s parking so far away from his usual spot- to avoid Harrington’s car, of course. It sucks when he sees Dustin in the hall and has to make up something about Hellfire prep with Garrett because he was invited to go out but fucking Buckley and Harrington are of course also coming. It sucks when Harrington himself approaches Eddie and he swears he sees Harrington’s hair deflate in disappointment when Eddie once again makes up some reason he can’t join in some movie night.

Eddie has to remind himself that if Harrington’s determined girlfriend catches him out, he’d be lucky just to be excluded. He’s become an outcast and stone-throwing target- and for everyone else it would be expected, but from Dustin? Max? Harrington? He doesn’t know if he could take it. So, distance it is.

And then Buckley corners him. In the parking lot, no less, of Hawkins High- after a late night Hellfire session, Eddie for once wasn’t driving anyone home and was the last out of the building, the street lights shining against the wet black pavement of the empty lot.

Or, empty he thought. He goes to open his car door and a hand reaches out and slams the door shut again. He almost pisses himself but then there she is- Robin Buckley, looking like she’s sharpening her homo-hunting knife right in front of him.

“Jesus H. CHRIST,” Eddie shouts, and his keys go up in the air but he manages to catch them, fumbling, bringing them close to his chest- and Robin doesn’t flinch.

“What is wrong with you?” She says.

“Excuse me? I’m not the one assaulting innocent people in parking lots, Buckley!”

“I’m not *assaulting* you,” she raises her eyebrows and then scrunches them up in her confused kinda way. “I’m calmly asking you why you’re avoiding me and Steve and everyone- it’s been like a month and I can’t help but feel like, I don’t know, maybe it has something to do with-“

He cuts her off- “Where the fuck were you hiding, anyway? Coming out of nowhere like a goddamn ghost!”

Her eyebrows go back up. “Eddie, Steve’s car is like, right behind you.”

He turns around slowly and sure as shit, there it is- headlights on and Harrington in the drivers’ seat, hand raised in an awkward hello. He could have sworn- well, he looks down when he walks a lot- whatever.

He turns back to Robin and she looks up at him, almost sheepish. “I just- listen I know I come on strong and I don’t know when to shut up- I mean if anyone could understand that I thought it would be you-“

He raises his own eyebrows. Not untrue.

“- but I didn’t mean to scare you off, I just thought, you know it would be really cool to have someone else around who- I mean, Steve is nice and all but he doesn’t *get it* get it, you know? So I was just trying to see if- I mean maybe I was wrong, I mean that happens, and if you’re mad at me for assuming, I’m really sorry- but also if you’re avoiding us because of me being gay that’s kind of an asshole move, like I’d expect that from a lot of people but not-“

What?

“You’re gay?” Eddie asks. And he just has to hear it again because.. what?

Robin looks at him like he grew a second head. “Uh. Yeah. Was it not obvious? I mean, not to everyone- most people don’t think girls even can be gay- but the Queen? The Bowie? Rocky Horror? I literally joked about Judy Garland being my good pal- I really thought that was laying it on thick.”

“Holy shit-“

Eddie’s brain floats away and his stomachs sinks into the ground. An epiphany. Holy shit.

“Listen, if I misread something, I’m sorry- but you can’t go around telling people-“

“I’m an idiot,” Eddie all but slams himself against his van, his head making a loud *bang* reverberate through the parking lot. It’s quiet for a minute, Robin staring at him. After a thought occurs to him, he whips his head back round to face her. “Wait, so you’re not dating Steve?”

Instant disgust as Robin twists her face, like Eddie forced her to eat a rotten lemon. “Steve? And ME? Good lord, no, we are platonic! The most platonic! Capitol P, pla-ton-ic!” She sounds it out for him like he’s a kindergartner. And for a second Eddie thinks maybe that’s where he belongs, because he is so *stupid.*

“You’re gay,” he says, his voice almost quiet with stupid disbelief. “And all this time I thought you were trying to pin me so you and Harrington could- I don’t know. Oh my God I’m so. Stupid.”

Robin looks like Christmas morning. “Wait, so- I wasn’t wrong? My sad attempts at gay bonding weren’t misplaced?”

“Gay bonding?!” Eddie has to laugh. And he does- Robin laughs too, mostly just following his lead.

And from there it’s easy. It’s hilarious, actually, how Eddie missed all the usual queues and how Robin overstepped every queue in the book in her haste to make a Real Gay Friend (unheard of in Hawkins). They talk and they double over, laughing, and talk some more, until Steve is honking his horn and yelling out the window. Robin and Eddie lock eyes and there’s still so much to say but it’s already almost 11. They don’t say anything to each other but Robin just knows, so she runs over to him and tells him he’s released from his duties as chauffeur.

Eddie drives her home, and they talk the whole way there. Robin tells Eddie about Steve confessing to her and how awful she felt, drugged up, beaten up, thinking she was going to lose Steve right there, sitting on the tile of that bathroom floor. But she told him, and it was one of the best things to ever happen to her. And when Eddie talks about trips to bars, close scrapes with some weirdos, his uncle finding dirty mags under his mattress and being so incredibly cool about it- she listens. And it’s so cool.

Eddie still can’t believe it, even as Robin waves goodnight from her porch and he’s pulling away.

Gay bonding. Something he never thought was something he would have- not in Hawkins. And over the next few days and weeks, Eddie is at Family Video more than ever; loud, obnoxious, comfortable. He leans over the counter and shares looks with Robin that confuses Steve until he has to throw his hands up. Eddie jokes about Robin getting a girlfriend who can decipher Robin Speak and she says he should be one to talk- who would date a guy who looks like he’s never met a brush in his life? And Steve laughs at that one, adding a point to the notebook he keeps that has “YOU RULE/YOU SUCK” written in big letters on one of the pages.

Eddie thinks his hair is a work of art, requiring a lot of complicated back combing techniques that Robin could never understand. Steve nods his approval and adds another point in a newly added column- “YOUR HAIR RULES/ YOUR HAIR SUCKS.” There’s two points in the “HAIR RULES” column and one point in the “HAIR SUCKS” column and no one has to question whose point is where.

Robin pencils in “FUCK YOU”

And Eddie laughs, doubled over, so incredibly happy.

#this was supposed to be a short text post as a precursor to a story I might write #and then it became an actual. story. oops #If I’d don’t just bag this out on my phone in an hour and we’re at a real computer I’d do more but I’m just typing on tumblr and it’s 1 am #I just love Eddie and Robin so much and I want them to be. HAPPY #stranger things #st4 #eddie munson #robin buckley #eddie & robin #Steve is there too #I wanted to put in actual Steddie but I’m sleepy maybe later #I mean steddie is possible always #and let’s be real they happen later I just can’t get to it rn

[homomenhommes]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … April 11

1780 – William Smith and Theodosius Reed are pilloried in England for attempted sodomy. They are attacked by a crowd throwing objects, killing Smith. The London Morning Post endorsed the crowd's actions.

1901 – The Wisconsin author Glenway Wescott, was born on this date (d.1987). A major American novelist during the 1920-1940 period and a figure in the American expatriate literary community in Paris during the 1920s Wescott was the model for the character Robert Prentiss in Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises.

He produced a series of best-selling, highly regarded novels, notably The Grandmothers (1927), The Pilgrim Hawk (1940) and Apartment In Athens (1945), although he didn't complete a novel after the age of forty-five. He was equally well known as an arts impressario and for the company he kept.

Wescott is a linking figure at the heart of the American literary scene in the middle of the 20th century. As a young writer in 1920s Paris, he associated with Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald. On his return to the States he was a central figure in New York's artistic and gay communities - W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood, Somerset Maugham, E. M. Forster, Jean Cocteau, Ford Madox Ford, Thornton Wilder, and many others were among his acquaintance.

Wescott by Lynes

Although only some of his work hints at his sexuality, he wrote a private journal from 1937 until the 1950s, focusing on his private life and relationships with fellow gay artists including lifelong partner Monroe Wheeler, photographer George Platt Lynes and Paul Cadmus – this was published in 1990 as Continual Lessons. His relationship with Monroe Wheeler lasted from 1919 until Wescott's death.

There was a Paul Cadmus painting that hung in his house. In it, three men, clearly arranged in a triangle, are sitting on a picnic blanket. The men are George Platt Lynes, Monroe Wheeler and Wescott himself. The picture below may be that painting:

1914 – Norman McLaren (d.1987) was a Scottish-born Canadian animator and film director known for his work for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). He was a pioneer in a number of areas of animation and filmmaking, including drawn on film animation, visual music, abstract film, pixilation and graphical sound.

His awards included an Oscar for the Best Documentary in 1952 for Neighbours, a Silver Bear for best short documentary at the 1956 Berlin International Film Festival Rythmetic and a 1969 BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film for Pas de deux.

McLaren was born in Stirling, Scotland and studied set design at the Glasgow School of Art. His early experiments with film and animation included actually scratching and painting the film stock itself, as he did not have ready access to a camera. His earliest extant film, Seven Till Five (1933), a "day in the life of an art school" was influenced by Eisenstein and displays a strongly formalist attitude.

McLaren's next film, Camera Makes Whoopee (1935), was a more elaborate take on the themes explored in Seven Till Five, inspired by his acquisition of a Ciné-Kodak camera, which enabled him to execute a number of 'trick' shots. McLaren used pixilation effects, superimpositions and animation not only to display the staging of an art school ball, but also to tap into the aesthetic sensations supposedly produced by this event.

His two early films won prizes at the Scottish Amateur Film Festival, where fellow Scot and future NFB founder John Grierson was a judge. Grierson, who was at that time head of the British General Post Office film unit, saw another of his movies at an amateur film festival and took interest. He hired Mclaren for the GPO as soon as he completed his studies.

After making four films for the GPO in London, including Love on the Wing, McLaren moved to New York City in 1939, just as World War II was about to begin in Europe. He worked as a freelancer until 1941.

At the invitation of Grierson, he moved to Canada in 1941 to work for the National Film Board, to open an animation studio and to train Canadian animators. During his work for the NFB, McLaren created his most famous film, Neighbours (1952), which has won various awards around the world, including the Canadian Film Award and the Academy Award. Besides the brilliant combination of visuals and sound, the film has a very strong social message against violence and war. If you have never seen this brilliant 8 minute film, take the time to watch it below:

Not many Canadians realize that Neighbours garnered its Academy Award in the documentary category, or that McLaren's film was cut and expurgated in classrooms in many countries because of its resolute depiction of violence between two next-door families. The irony is that McLaren was the most gentle of figures, whose experiences filming the brutal fighting during the Spanish Civil War turned him into a lifelong pacifist.

In his early period in Canada, McLaren spent considerable time developing the animation department of the board. McLaren's presence at NFB inspired younger generations of animators, notably Oscar-winning producer, writer and director Derek Lamb, director Kaj Pindal and, perhaps most notably, the tragic, driven talent of Ryan Larkin. Also among his pupils are numbered James McKay of Toronto and George Dunning who designed the animation for the Beatles' film Yellow Submarine.

McLaren was gay, and his longtime companion was NFB director Guy Glover, whom he met at the ballet in London in 1937. The two were together until McLaren's death in 1987.

1932 – Joel Grey (born Joel David Katz) is an American actor, singer, dancer, and photographer. He is best known for portraying the Master of Ceremonies in both the stage and film versions of the Kander & Ebb musical Cabaret. He has won the Academy Award, Tony Award, and Golden Globe Award. He also originated the role of George M. Cohan in the musical George M! in 1973, and the Wizard of Oz in the musical Wicked. He also starred as Moonface Martin in the Broadway revivals of Anything Goes, and as Amos Hart in Chicago.

Grey was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Goldie "Grace" (née Epstein) and Mickey Katz, a Jewish actor, comedian, and musician. He started his career in the Cleveland Play House's Curtain Pullers children's theatre program in the early 1940s, appearing in productions such as Grandmother Slyboots, Jack of Tarts and a lead role in the their mainstage production of On Borrowed Time.

Grey won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in March 1973 for his performance as the Master of Ceremonies in the 1972 film version of Cabaret. His victory was part of a Cabaret near-sweep, which saw Liza Minnelli win Best Actress and Bob Fosse win Best Director.

In 1958, Grey married Jo Wilder; they divorced in 1982. Together, they had two children: actor Jennifer and chef James. He is also a photographer; his first book of photographs, Pictures I Had to Take, was published in 2003; its follow-up, Looking Hard at Unexpected Things, was published in 2006. His third book, 1.3 – Images from My Phone, a book of photographs taken with his camera phone, was published in 2009. An exhibit of his work was held in April 2011 at the Museum of the City of New York, titled "Joel Grey/A New York Life."

In January 2015, Grey opened up about his sexuality in an interview with People, stating: "I don't like labels, but if you have to put a label on it, I'm a gay man."

1955 – The American singer songwriter Michael Callen was born on this date (d.1993). He was a architect of the response to the AIDS crisis in the United States.

First diagnosed with "Gay related immune deficiency" (GRID) in 1982, Callen quickly became a leader in the response to the epidemic. He was a founding member of the People With AIDS Self-Empowerment Movement among other organizations, and he testified before the President's Commission on AIDS and both houses of the United States Congress. As a founding member of the New York Gay & Lesbian Community Center Board, and through his activities in other organizations around the country, he also became a leading voice in Gay and Lesbian politics.

In 1983, Callen co-authored the book How to Have Sex in an Epidemic: One Approach, which outlined the tenets of safe(r) sex. In 1990, he wrote Surviving AIDS, which received an Honorable Mention from the American Medical Writers Association.

He was a founding member of the Gay a cappella singing group The Flirtations, with whom he recorded two albums. He also had a solo album, Purple Heart (Significant Other Records, 1988), which a review in The Advocate called "the most remarkable Gay independent release of the past decade."

In partnership with Oscar winner Peter Allen and Marsha Melamet, he wrote his most enduring song, "Love Don't Need a Reason," which he sang frequently at Gay pride and AIDS-related events around the country. In 1993 he appeared in the films Philadelphia (as part of The Flirtations) and Zero Patience (appearing in drag as a singing virus, Miss HIV).

During the last year of his life, Michael worked furiously to record over 40 tunes; Twenty-nine of these compositions have been released posthumously as a double CD, titled Legacy, which garnered four Gay & Lesbian American Music Awards, including Album of the Year and Best Recording by a Male Artist. Legacy, recorded with the help of such prominent musicians as Holly Near, Cris Williamson, David Lasley, James Taylor, Greg Wells, k.d. lang, Fred Hersch, Arnold McCuller (Phil Collins) and Steve Sandberg (David Byrne, Ruben Blades) is a testament to Callen's commitment to the Gay and Lesbian community as well as his own passionate struggle for Gay identity and selfhood.

Callen died of AIDS-related complications in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 38.

1961 – Vincent Gallo is an American actor, director, musician and painter. Though he has had minor roles in mainstream films such as Goodfellas, Arizona Dream, The Funeral and Palookaville, he is most associated with independent movies, including Buffalo '66, which he wrote, directed, scored and starred in and The Brown Bunny, which he also wrote, directed, produced, starred in and photographed.

Gallo was born in Buffalo, New York. Both of his parents emigrated from Sicily. Gallo lived in New York City and from there traveled around most of Europe. In his adolescence, Gallo was frequently arrested for petty crimes and for indecent exposure, and has reminisced in print about his compulsive adolescent masturbatory habits. While living in New York, Gallo was a go-go dancer at various homosexual clubs and has also admitted to prostituting himself to homosexual clientele. "I did do sexual things for money. With men, I've never performed or had fellatio performed, but I did do jerk-off things. I would go in a peep booth and watch straight porn and get paid 5 or 10 dollars to have somebody watch me masturbate."

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Gallo was a painter in the New York City art scene showing with famed art dealer Annina Nosei, performed in a rap duo and was part of the first hip-hop television broadcast Graffiti Rock, and played in an industrial band called Bohack which released an album titled It Took Several Wives. In the early 2000s, he released several solo recordings on WARP records. Gallo is known for his outspoken views and generally sarcastic nature, once stating: "I stopped painting in 1990 at the peak of my success just to deny people my beautiful paintings; and I did it out of spite."

Gallo has modeled, most notably for Calvin Klein, and been photographed by Richard Avedon. He first began painting, then racing motorcycles, and finally became an actor.

Gallo acted in the film Arizona Dream, with Johnny Depp, in the cult comedy Palookaville, and in The Funeral, and had a lead role in the film Truth or Consequences, N.M.

In 1998, his debut film Buffalo '66 was nominated for, but did not win, an award for "Best First Feature" at the Independent Spirit Awards.

In 2003, Gallo starred in and directed the film The Brown Bunny. The film, which chronicles a motorcycle racer's cross country road trip, co-starred Chloë Sevigny. The film, which contained a scene of Sevigny performing unsimulated oral sex upon Gallo, received overwhelmingly negative critical response to its initial cut and became a media scandal, in part due to Gallo's use of a still image from a sex scene on a promotional billboard. According to Andrea LeVasseur of the Allmovie, The Brown Bunny "premiered to much derision at the Cannes Film Festival."

1969 – Leonard Miron is a Romanian television and radio presenter and journalist and works for Romanian National Television (Televiziunea Română).

He was born in Galaţi, Romania but was brought up in Piteşti and graduated from the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy before starting a career in media. He speaks fluent English and French as well as German and Spanish.

He has worked on a number of different television programmes, but is best known for presenting music shows and galas such as the national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest.

Since September 2005 he has been living in London, where he has been studying for a Ph.D. in London and working at the same time as a flight attendant for a London-based airline. He returns to Romania weekly, where he presents a range of light entertainment shows.

Starting in 2014 Leonard has worked for Viking River Cruises, one of the biggest river cruise lines in the world. As a Program Director on Viking Embla and Viking Lif, Leonard rapidly gained both respect and popularity among both passengers and crew, and was mentioned in stories in magazines and newspapers in USA, Canada, Australia and Europe. His popularity increased season after season and in 2017 he was a constant presence in reviews published by the acclaimed website cruisecritic.com

He came out as gay in November 2012.

2013 – The French Senate in Paris approves the law for equal marriage and adoption rights for gay and lesbian couples.

[proton-wobbler]

Round 2, Poll 25

Bat Hawk vs Hamerkop

sources under cut

Bat Hawk

“Catches bats in flight and swallows them whole”

Bat Hawk will also capture swallows, swifts, and nightjars to supplement their diet of bats. Almost half of their hunts are successful!

The reason they eat on the wing is that they only really have around 30 minutes to hunt every day. This is also the theory as to why their mouths are so wide- bat hawks have the largest gape to body size ratio of any raptor, seeming almost like a nightjar instead.

Hamerkop

“yo they have orgies and are very gay about it???”

The hamerkop is also known as the hammerkop, hammerkopf, hammerhead, hammerhead stork, umbrette, umber bird, tufted umber, or anvilhead.

The “gay orgy” as noted above is a behavior known as “false mounting”. This happens between mated and unmated birds, and can happen between same sex birds, as well as reverse mounting, where the female mounts the male. Because no mating actually takes place during these events, its seen as a social behavior rather than a mating behavior.

Images: Hawk (Nik Borrow); Hamerkop (Ian Davies)

Birds of the World: Bat Hawk

#hipster bird main bracket #round 2 #bracket: FOUR a #bat hawk #hamerkop #scopidae #accipitridae

[munsonsmischief]

obviously the push for stancy this season was obnoxious and excruciating to watch but i have some thoughts so stick with me.

nancy never wanted a nuclear family, she actually resented that idea for some time. so, why would steve ever think he’d be her future ? like even if they got back together, she wouldn’t fit into that fantasy he has in his head. but that’s just it, it’s all a fantasy to them. it’s a comfort thing for both of them. nancy likes steve around because he’s familiar and things with steve were straightforward, not complicated. she’s having issues with jonathan because of long distance and also the pressure of making it through college. same goes with steve. he’s not having any luck in love like he’s used to and what he does get is unfulfilling. he’s very unsatisfied with his love life but here comes nancy and it’s all too convenient that they’re spending so much time together again in the same situation that brought nancy and jonathan together. the thing with steve though is that i think he truly does want a family, a huge one. he’s been alone his whole life, felt abandoned and neglected by his own parents in that big house. now he’s taken in 6 kids that feel like his own with how much he watches over them and does for them. he can’t see his life being any other way than that picture. however, we add eddie into steve’s equation. eddie is different in every way from nancy. but the thing about eddie is that he fits into steve’s life. eddie is not only dedicated to a portion of steve’s own kids but he spends his time picking up “lost sheep” and taking them under his wig, protecting them and giving them a place to feel like they belong. i think part of steve realizes this and that allows him to soften up to eddie, plus he sees how much dustin cares for him and how they are with each other and his jealousy turns into an understanding. speaking of that jealousy, let’s talk about that. both eddie and steve are jealous of each other. it seems like most of it stems from dustin and how he talks about both of these figures in his life. steve thinks he’s getting replaced well eddie feels like he can never live up to who steve is to dustin. neither realize that they both are kept on the same pedestal, neither of them realize that’s possible. until they have that “heart-to-heart” bro pal moment in the upside down. whenever steve is in proximity to eddie, eddie always has his attention. steve is watching him like a damn hawk, every single flicker of movement and his eyes are on him right away. and eddie, eddie with all the confidence in the world unashamedly flirts with steve every chance he gets. he’s always in his space, always seeking a reaction and never shying away from letting it be known he feels some type of way for steve. that freaks steve out. he’s not used to that. he’s used to girls flirting with him shamelessly. he’s used to girls being interested in him. he’s used to a girl filling that role in his family because that’s all he’s know. he’s seen it in his parents, in nancy’s parents, in his old friend’s parents, in loads of families in town and all around because this was the 80s in Indiana. he can’t just start having a whole sexuality crisis in the middle of the end of hawkins (AGAIN) where his kids’ lives are on the line. he can’t start fantasizing about a life that’s different and new and unknown to him. he can’t start thinking about eddie no matter how much it makes sense to him, no matter how bad he wants to, no matter how hard eddie makes it to ignore that part of his brain itching to do something because eddie. so he does the very homosexual act of gay panicking. he reverts back to that comfort, back to that familiarity of nancy, of a hetero nuclear family. it’s interesting to me that his life isn’t a white picket fence with a three-story house and endless backyard. no, it’s him, his partner, and “six little nuggets” on the road, seeking adventure, traveling to california and beyond in a camper.

hm. i wonder who would be totally okay with living the rest of their life in a camper. i wonder whose idea it was to steal said rv. i wonder who was thrilled at the idea of steve taking charge and driving said rv. i wonder who was headbanging in the back of said rv when they were stealing it and driving away like a bat out of hell. I WONDER WHO. you know who wouldn’t be okay with all of that, though ? nancy. because nancy has her dreams, her ambition cannot be tamed. that’s her whole thing. that’s why jonathan doesn’t tell her he’s not going to school with her because of how important her dreams are to her. her life and what she wants to do could obviously chance but nancy is headstrong and tenacious and when she knows what she wants, she knows how to get it. it doesn’t seem like her dream of being a journalist and going to school for that is faltering, especially NOT for a fantasy that isn’t her own. all i’m saying is that it’s very clear that steve is bi and he was panicking and eddie was the perfect option to fit into his lil family and dustin had his two beautiful parents right in front of them. the duffers could’ve given us SO. MUCH. BETTER.

#eddie stranger things #eddie munson #eddie deserved better #steddie #joe keery stranger things #steve harrington stranger things #steve the hair harrington #eddie and steve #steve and eddie #steve and dustin #dustin and eddie #dustin and steve #eddie and dustin #steddie hcs #steddie is real #eddie x steve #steve x eddie #steve is bi #steve is a mom #anti stancy