#also that i love my bi men friends and more than everything else. i love my immaculate wife

[sexy-sapphic-sorcerer]

1: Magic is a Metaphor < 2: Morgana is a Lesbian < 3: Merlin is Gay < 4: Arthur is Bi

Do you remember when you were bullied in middle school? Because if you're reading this, I think it's fair to assume that you were. And your parents would say to you, 'that boy is just being mean to you because he likes you'. That's what this is.

Arthur is just so repressed. He has really bad daddy issues, and he doesn't know how to express his emotions, and he's really uncomfortable with physical intimacy, especially with other men, especially with Merlin. And this isn't me trying to psychoanalyse away his heterosexuality. It is a very evident part of his character.

And another big part of his character is that he has inherited all of these bigoted ideas about magic from his father that he has to work to overcome. Because, of course, Arthur himself is born of magic, but his dad is so ashamed of it that he hides the true circumstances of his birth from Arthur. Honestly, I don't know exactly how that would fit into this whole metaphor. I do have a half-formed theory that it could be interpreted as an allegory for intersex identity, I know that a lot of people headcanon Arthur as trans, so idk there could be something there. But regardless, it is only through his relationship with Merlin that he is able to overcome this magicphobia, because he realises: how could it be wrong when everything about Merlin is so right. And I just feel like there's a metaphor in there somewhere.

Of course, I have to mention this iconic quote from the audio commentary of the final episode: when the executive producer refers to Arthur taking off his royal seal to give back to Guinevere as passing over "the last vestige of his heterosexu- oh sorry, I mean his marriage." So, they knew exactly what they were doing.

I also thought I would just draw your attention to the fact that at one point Arthur says, "I only care about my men, they're more than friends, more than brothers." Now, I think we can all agree that out of context, that is a very gay thing to say, and yet somehow the context is even gayer, because Arthur is pretending to be talking about the Knights of the Round Table, but he's actually talking about Merlin, how Merlin is the only person he cares about, more than a friend. And then Merlin responds, "I understand. I wish I didn't, but I do." It's barely subtext at that point. This of course, brings me to my final argument:

Arthur risked his life to save Merlin at least eight times. It could be more than that, I genuinely lost count. And you have to keep in mind that Arthur is the King of Camelot and he doesn't have any heirs. It is quite important that he stays alive. And yet anytime that Merlin is in the slightest bit of danger, he will just drop everything to protect him.

And it's really only in those moments where he's faced with the thought of losing Merlin that he shows him genuine emotion. Such as in this scene (which was cut out of 4x02 purely because it was too gay) where Arthur is planning to sacrifice himself to protect Merlin, again, and he gives Merlin his mother's sigil, the only thing he has left of his dead mum and he wants Merlin to have it as something to remember him by. Also, apparently in medieval times giving someone your family crest was basically a marriage proposal, so that's pretty gay.

You know what else is pretty gay? Telepathically communicating with Merlin and then immediately leaving Gwen in the middle of an active war. This is literally the last time that Arthur and Gwen ever see each other. Poor Gwen.

In conclusion, Merlin is the story of gay sorcerers and bisexual knights getting into love triangles. Everyone in this show is queer and you cannot tell me otherwise.

#because I realise this is the first post you'll see on the dash: this is all taken directly from a tiktok I made over a year ago #my thoughts on this point especially have developed a bit since then. and this is written for a more entry-level tiktok audience #so it's very lukewarm takes to my fellow soldiers in the trenches #but I'm not expecting this to get much notice and idc/idk how to articulate my thoughts better so just take it for what it is #arthur pendragon #merthur #bbc merlin #merlin #merlin meta #the magic of metaphor

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Barbara Stanwyck (Ball of Fire, The Lady Eve, Double Indemnity)—I hope someone else has submitted better propaganda than I because I don't want my girl's prospects to rest on me just yelling PLEASE VOTE FOR MY TERRIBLE HOT GIRLFRIEND. She is a delight in everything! She is often a sexy jerk! (It's most of the plot of Baby Face!) Even when she plays a "good girl" (as an example, Christmas in Connecticut, which more people should see) she's still kind of a jerk and I love her for it! She won't take men's shit and she sure wouldn't take mine!

Mae Clarke (The Public Enemy, Frankenstein)—she was in frankenstein. which i think is neat

This is round 1 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Mae Clarke propaganda:

Barbara Stanwyck propaganda:

"THE queen of screwball comedies. I adore her, I'd kill for her, I will cry if she's not gonna win this poll."

"listen ok she had awful politics she was a mccarthyist right wing wacko BUT she's so incredibly hot that i've deluded myself into believing i could fix her. if you see her onscreen she carries herself in a way that's just so effortlessly sexy AND she has just a stunning face. imo she was at her hottest in the 1940s but even as early as the late 1920s she had a rly captivating screen presence and just a beautiful face, and then post-1950 she was just irresistibly milfy so really she was just always incredibly hot. she was also an incredibly talented actress who was equally stellar in melodrama, film noir, and unhinged screwball comedy. the blonde wig they made her wear in double indemnity is notoriously silly looking but she still looks sexy in it so that's gotta count for something. i've watched so many terrible movies just for a chance at seeing her that i think her estate should be paying me damages."

"Not often thought of for her sultriness, Barbara Stanwyck was incredible in that she could actually choose to be hot if the role called for it, and then have a glow-down to look ordinary for another role. She wasn't the most beautiful or effervescent, but damn did she have rizz. Watch her with Gary Cooper in Ball of Fire teaching him about "yum-yum" or with Henry Fonda in The Lady Eve whispering huskily into his ear."

"THE leading lady of the golden age of hollywood. One of the only actresses to work independent of a studio, making short-term contracts that enabled her to make movies wherever she wanted. She had so much range, and could act in basically any genre. She's been rumored to be a lesbian literally since she was active in Hollywood; most notable is the rumor that she had a long time on-and-off relationship with famously bi Joan Crawford, her "best friend" for decades (They lived right next door to one another). She also lived with Helen Ferguson, her "live-in publicist" for many years. She was the quintessential femme fatale in Double Indemnity, and really pushed sexual boundaries in her pre-code films like Baby Face, and the famous screwball The Lady Eve, where she plays basically a downlow domme. Allegedly, when a journalist asked her if she was a lesbian, she straight up threw him out of her house. She even played a lesbian in Walk on the Wild Side"

"She is always the smartest woman in the room. Watching her play Henry Fonda like a befuddled fiddle in The Lady Eve was a highlight of my life. Femme fatale in Double Indemnity, comedy queen in Ball of Fire. She can do anything."

"She was part of my gay awakening"

"SHE'S A PRE-CODE QUEEN. She did everything, drama, comedy. The most beautiful woman in the world to watch weep. Beg for to step on you with those legs. Fun Babs story: Ginger Rogers was offered the role in Ball of Fire but said, “Oh, I would never play that part, she’s too common.” So they called Barbara Stanwyck and they said “We offered this to Ginger Rogers but she’s turned it down, would you be interested?” And she read the script and she said; “You bet! I LOVE playing common broads.” (Source: https://misstanwyck.tumblr.com/post/72996544180/barbara-stanwyck-photographed-for-ball-of-fire)"

#mae clarke #barbara stanwyck #hotvintagepoll #ladies 1 #fuck that old woman #Youtube

[kisses4lao]

Could I request kung lao who can't take his eyes off from!reader? Like she has thick thighs and tits that are super hard to cover. I'm totally not self projecting here👀 thanks!!!!!

Girl the way I relate to you so hard 😭 these triple D's make my life so much worse I swear

Tw/cw: Kung Lao being extremely horny, kind of pre established relationship??? Idk, Liu Kang being able to hear his horny thoughts and getting fed up with it, Raidens fed up with it too tho DW, Bi Han is also a simp for reader but Kung Lao is cooler, readers THICCC in the tits and thighs department, cursing, takes place before Bi Han became grandmaster because we all know he wouldn't let a woman NEAR the Lin Kuei

Not proofread

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I said this once and I'll say it again, Kung Lao is a certified thigh man. Any thighs, small, big, muscular, soft n squishy, he loves them all.

So when you showed up as a new Lin Kuei recruit member, much to the dismay of Bi Han, Kung Lao was head over heels for you.

You needed to get a uniform tailored specifically for you. Considering you were one of the first female recruits, you couldn't take a man's uniform, according to Bi Han, at least. Not only that, but you needed a uniform to cover up.. well, everything. You had incredibly thiccc thighs and awfully big breasts, both being very hard to cover up.

You were able to persuade Bi Han to make you a uniform that had a turtle neck long sleeve shirt with bell bottom jeans (that's what I'd want at least smh). Bi Han was quick to have someone get your measurements as well as making the actual uniform.

Truth be told, you could tell Bi Han had a small soft spot for you. Which is why he was always more than happy to help you out. When you finally got your uniform, you were confused as to why it was so tight if you got your measurements taken. It had hugged every curve you had perfectly and made your thighs and bust accentuated.

Other than the fact it was revealing without having anything showing, you enjoyed your new uniform and wore it out to train. You could feel your colleagues eyes on you, especially Kung Laos. God did he love how your thighs looked in your new uniform, he couldn't take his eyes off of you.

He'd often times try and spar you, being completely mesmerized by the way your breasts would move in your uniform. He'd purposefully lose that way he could rematch you.

Other times he'd just stare. The other men training would too, but they had the decency to at least look away after a few seconds. Not Kung Lao though. He'd stare at your body for minutes at a time. Raiden would have to genuinely slap him before he got the hint.

He wasn't objectifying you, or at least, not on purpose. He genuinely did have a lot of respect for you as a fighter, he just couldn't help but think about you in the most perverted ways possible.

If you guys were ever next to each other, whether it be at dinner, during training, or something else, he'd spare small glances at you. He'd take in every part of you, your luscious hair, eyelashes, a side profile he deemed perfect.

He'd stare at your lips, wondering what it would be like to kiss them, touch them, have them wrapped around his cock. Same with your thighs and breasts, he'd wonder what it would be like to touch them, to kiss them, make small hickeys on them. He'd love to know what they'd look like bare, or maybe with his cum painted on them.

Sometimes Liu Kang would just look him dead in the eyes while he's thinking about these perverted things and give him the stankest look. Like he'd look at him like a disappointed father.

Raiden is also getting fed up with how much he talks about you but never WITH you. Raiden thought you were gorgeous, both mind and body, and he just wanted what was best for his friend. That, however, did not include Kung Laos endless rambling about you. He had gotten so sick of it that he ended up confessing for him.

Raiden waited until you were alone to approach you. You guys were pretty good friends, so this wasn't out of the ordinary. He'd mentioned Kung Lao once and could see how your eyes lit up at the thought of him. He told you about how he had the biggest crush on you and set you guys up on a date.

Kung Lao wasn't thrilled to find out Raiden told you for him. He wasn't happy about it at all actually, but he'll be damned if he missed this opportunity with you.

The amount of times he's fucked his hands, or wrapped a pillow around his cock just to simulate what you could feel like was too many times to count. The date was at a fancy restaurant, he had picked you up and you were wearing a low cut dress that left nothing to the imagination. You had to keep pulling the dress down because of how often it rode up your thighs, and every time you did, Kung Lao felt like he was in heaven.

You were so beautiful to him, and finding out more about you as a person just made him even more attracted to you. He'd asked you so much about yourself that by the end of the night you'd known nothing about him. So when you asked him for another date, he was ecstatic.

He absolutely went home and masturbated so much that night he felt like his dick was gonna fall off. He's probably into that tho

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/n: do you guys think Kung Laos into drinking breast milk. I do. I think he'd be all up in those titties fr

#mk1 #mortal kombat #mortal kombat smut #mortal kombat x reader #kung lao x reader #kung lao mortal kombat #kung lao mk1 #kung lao smut #mortal kombat kung lao #kung lao

[genderkoolaid]

It’s weird because I love my non-binary and genderfucked siblings, I have two friends who have “weird” “cringe” genders and I love them and I think they do gender so well. But I’m scared that by “demolishing” the gender binary, I won’t get to be a binary man anymore. What does that mean? I want people to see me on the street and think “he/him”, I want people to think of me as heterosexual when I show affection to my girlfriend. I want to be a binary man, and I don’t know how to do that in non-binary world

Playing with gender and fucking with it is good and I fully support people doing that. But I do not want to be seen as anything other than Pure 100% man, I have been constantly called “they” as a way to undermine my masculinity and refusal to gender me properly by people who know my pronouns. I don’t want to be seen as anything other than a Man. I want to be associated fully with masculinity, I don’t want to seen as a lesbian, I don’t want to be seen as anything other than a heterosexual man. Not even that I don’t want to be seen as a lesbian, I don’t want to be associated with lesbians. I’m a trans man, I’m a MAN and my attraction to women is heterosexual, and I cannot accept ideas that tell me otherwise because that would cause me to misgender myself, and I’m tired of being seen like that When I say I’m a man I don’t mean “butch boy girl lesbian” etc etc, if someone wants to be that and fuck up everything, I appreciate it, but I feel uncomfortable with them saying they’re a trans man because when I say I’m a trans man I mean a MAN as in binary man

I think its very good that you started this by acknowledging that this is a product of fear and anxiety. Its important to understand that that is where this is coming from.

You are insecure about your manhood. That is not an insult. Its entirely understandable to feel that way, especially as a trans man. There was a post a little while ago where I talked about how trans men can fall into toxic masculinity, not because its a product of being a man, but because trans men more than cis men (solely in terms of gender) have their manhood scrutinized and devalued. Manhood is a rat race & trans men are fucked over from the start, so we have to try 10x harder to be seen as Proper Men. That leads to a constant pressure to perform "proper" masculinity to the fullest extent possible to try and avoid having your manhood discredited, which can be not only emotionally damaging but legitimately dangerous.

But you need to understand, and I say this with love: this is a you problem. It is not other people's responsibility to change how they identify to soothe your insecurity about your manhood. Other people's identity, in fact, means nothing about your own. Someone else using a label you use to represent a different experience does not mean you must also share that experience, or that you cannot use that label to describe your own.

You are, understandably, fearful that your manhood (which is already constantly being scrutinized and attacked), will be further devalued if "trans man" can also mean "lesbian". You share a community and a label with those men and as a result, their genderweirdness feels dangerous. They feel like a threat to your being. This is not dissimilar to how cishet men react to visibly queer men in their communities and families: "how will people think of me, as a man, if they associate me with a man like that? I need to stop him from being a man or make him be a man right in order to protect my own manhood." This is how the patriarchy functions; make every man constantly compete with each other, under the threat of violence if they fail. Its not your fault you feel this way- you are made to feel this way on purpose because of the patriachal panopticon that makes us self-regulate- but it is your responsibility to work on yourself and resist the urge to view other men as a threat to your manhood.

"Bi lesbians" existing does not mean that people will/should assume every lesbian is bisexual, and for men to use bi lesbians as an excuse to harass lesbians is lesbophobic but not the fault of bi lesbians. In the same way, "lesbian trans men" existing does not mean that people will/should assume every trans man is a lesbian, and people using lesbian trans men (or nonbinary people for that matter) as an excuse to misgender straight trans men is transphobic but not the fault of lesbian men. In both cases, lesbians who have felt pressured to be attracted to men and trans men who have felt pressured to be lesbians see this new fusion identity as a threat to their own as a traumatic response. That fear is valid, but we need to understand that its our own fear. Its not their fault that bigots tried to pressure you to be a certain way, and their identity does not mean that those bigots were justified in any way. Other queer people are not the enemy.

If you care about your genderweird friends- and I don't doubt that you do- its important that you recognize where this fear is coming from and take steps to confront & cope with it. I don't like when people use "fragile masculinity" as an insult; fragile masculinity is part of what keeps the patriarchy running, and men with fragile masculinity need the compassion that the patriarchy will not give them. So please know that when I say you are insecure about your masculinity, I'm not saying you are doing a Bad Thing. You have been made to have a fragile masculinity as a way of controlling you, and now you need to work on healing that in order to have productive and healthy relationships with other queer people (and people in general). You can't support other queer people while also viewing them as a threat to your own manhood, even unconsciously. It requires a process of strengthening your identity as a man and not letting anyone or anything make you feel like it can be taken away because you (or someone you are associated with) Did Manhood Wrong.

You might want to check out @gay-otlc. He's a straight trans man who's talked about the issues straight trans men face, while also being supportive of lesbian trans men, and his blog might help you out with dealing with these issues. In general when it comes to identity issues, I think its very important to see and interact with other people of your identity, especially those who are confident and able to confront/cope with bigotry in healthier ways. I wish you the best, anon.

#m. #ask box

[vegasandhishedgehog]

Fuck this, I wasn't tagged by anybody but since y'all are making me insane sharing your lovely faves on my dash I gotta join the fun!

10 BL People That I Want Carnally

Just so we're clear, I'm immediately not limiting myself to 10. I'm bi. You think we have limits? (Tumblr says yes, but that's why I'm on desktop for this instead of mobile)

Night from Dirty Laundry

Are we surprised? This awakened a whole thing in me. I was constantly yelling from the rooftops about my love for this man in the cheapest drag you ever saw. This is my JAM. I'm already trying to calm myself down making the first entry on this post. GOD. And his whole committed-to-the-bit romancing a mafia leader and then robbing her because he needs money, but really he's a wee romantic who just wants to write exciting stories like all of us bitches on AO3? Honey I am FREE at 5pm on Saturday. Also, shush, I know it's not a BL, I'm counting it as part of the Midnight Series as a whole :P

Yok from Not Me

PAINT ME LIKE ONE OF YOUR POLICE OFFICERS. We already have matching tattoos babe. He isn't perfect but he's a well-intentioned mama's boy and has swagger.

Maya from Laws of Attraction

Listen, I don't think much explaining is necessary here. I'm a woman but she can call me "pretty boy" any day. Is she just Silvy Pavida with a MILF wife? Yeah. That's the point. I'll join. They would let me.

Speaking of Laws of Attraction, Nawin

I deserve an insane golden retriever boyfriend. I deserve a man who can't spell his ex's name but can get a pilot's license. He deserves someone who will enable his silliness, even when there's trouble with the accountant. *kisses all over his wing tattoo*

Togawa from Old Fashion Cupcake

Mr. Hamster Cheeks my love <3 The dates would be so good. And so would the food. And the food naps afterward. I'm a good snuggler, he's tall and there's a lot to snuggle. Win-win.

Ink from Bad Buddy

I know many of us are weak for Milk Pansa, but like, there's a reason for that. She gave us the ICON for lesbian side couples. Please, girl, scare men away from me when they mistake a boner for full-fledged love. Make me feel welcome and important and pretty and like I'm the specialest girl alive. Be taller than me ;)

Wen Qing from The Untamed

She didn't die, actually, we just eloped together, haha. I just think as someone who studied medicine, she'd have a lot of good tricks up her sleeve and I don't mean acupuncture needles.

Saifah from Enchanté

Yeah. I needed to use this gif. Get that record deal my man. Live your dreams king. I also love that he's both the old man and woman here. Impeccable. We deserved more of him.

Uea from Bed Friend

Gimme this catboy realness right now. Also, I just love him so much. He owns his narrative despite all the shit he has suffered and gets everything he deserves for it. We could be besties even. We could be...no I shan't say it.

SamMon from GAP

I just want whatever is going on right here. Let me join. Simple as that.

Tops and Marwin from Ingredients

I'm this guy. Except I think they'd be sad to see the other with someone else so I gotta have them one at a time. Tops, who's a shy cutie who can make yummy foods. And Marwin, who is basically Jeff Satur just pumped with extra himboisms.

Todd from Not Me

All principles out the window. He's evil, he's sexy. I know exactly how much that specific hotel room costs to stay in for a night. It would be luxurious.

Rain from Love In The Air

I know most people would say Phayu, and for Boss, yeah I understand, I am all there. But something about the way that little guy can fuck kinda makes me dizzy, I'm owning that. He doesn't have to be smart, he's just gotta be given compliments. Plus, my bed sheets match!

VegasPete from KinnPorsche

They altered me chemically once and I'd let 'em do it a second time and many more after that.

Tagging @kissporsche @thisautistic @omegaphobe @shubaka @risu442 @khathastrophe @loveable-sea-lemon @fawndlyvenus @viva-yas-vegas @first-kanaphan @wherelanguage-ends @xxatlasxx @adanima @snake-and-mouse @scarefox @scattered-stardust @callipigio @sparklyeyedhimbo @jdotsodomite @futureexmrsmalcolm @suzteel @jeffsatyr @coconuts-mafia

#I really come across like i'm really into threesomes here for being such an asexual virgin #and what of it #maybe i'll get into that #i'm capable of whatever i want #this was really fun #i hit a lot of bases i think

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

I know it is only anybodys guessing really, and I truly do not want to sound like 'the historian' but you would go as far as calling these relationships of napoleon 'homoerotic'? Why? Couldn't it be the case of him having just very warm attitude and be close to his friends like that?

Again nothing against it, but I needed to ask since I as well am the person to get alike towards my close friends and I don't feel it having any attraction undertones.

Thank you for the ask! As usual for me, my response got really long.

I mean correct! It’s literally anyone’s guess. Who knows? Certainly not me! Certainly no one who is alive right now!

I’m just a queer on the internet having fun who sees Napoleon and goes "ah yes, a chaotic bisexual even though the concept of modern sexual identity wasn't a thing in his time etc. etc. [insert all the other usual disclaimers required on this webbedsite]" so that's why.

[How do I know he’s a chaotic bi? Well, it’s very simple, he couldn’t sit properly in a chair, liked to sit on his secretaries’ laps, pull their ears, and tell them Fun Facts he learned that day, and wanted to make the tsar of Russia his mistress. He also dearly loved Josephine and wrote about how he liked going down on her. This is clear proof that he was a chaotic bi king and we should be so lucky to know this about him. ;)]

I'm also a writer who likes to slap a queer lens onto most things because that's how I role and I'm very unapologetic about it. Which most people who follow me know.

I’m also someone who has incredibly deep, intimate friendships with a close selection of people in my life that are not romantic/sexual or whatever in their nature—but they are incredibly intimate. They are friendships where partners of my friends have been jealous and insecure because of how close we are—which is a them problem, not an us problem.

I would go so far as to argue that friends are more likely to slot into that problematic category of “soulmate” than anyone romantic (ymmv). And from the outside, I’m sure people might read my friendships with a few people (have read them, in fact) as romantic/homoerotic and frankly I don’t care. Whatever. I know what my friendships are, why does it matter what other people read them as? More to the point, why does it matter that someone reads a dead person’s friendships as homo-something? How does that impact my friendships which may, or may not, mirror that dead person’s friendships? Who cares? One should love one’s friends however one wishes to. Fuck everything else.

--

In an effort to avoid the Great Queer Napoleon Discourse War of 2013-14 I shall include a disclaimer because hot damn do people get REALLY uppity about this: I’m a writer, first and foremost in all things. I’m not a historian. As noted above, I’m a queer fag on the internet having fun. Take what I say with a grain of salt.

(Honestly, doing anything with Napoleon’s sexuality aside from He Was the Straightest Straight Who Ever Straighted, gets everyone’s hackles raised. I think that says more about those with hackles up than it does the person going: maybe he might have had a bit of a queerness about him, it’s not implausible.)

--

Some general stuff on Napoleon & That Doesn’t Seem Entirely Straight, Even For the 18th and 19th Century:

From Cronin’s biography on Napoleon:

“Napoleon found that his friendships with men often began with physical attraction, and this took a curious form. ‘He told me,’ says Caulcaincourt, ‘…that for him the heart was not the organ of sentiment; that he felt emotions only where most men experience feelings of a different kind; nothing in the heart, everything in the loins and in another place, which I leave nameless.’ 

The feeling Napoleon described as ‘a sort of painful tingling, a nervous irritability…the squeaking of a saw sometimes gives me the same sensation’.”

In addition, Talleyrand speculated Napoleon and Bourienne were, uh, intimate in all senses of the word. Talleyrand, of course, well—one should treat his hot takes with some caution.

There is also the (in)famous letter Napoleon wrote to Josephine about Alexander where he said that he and Alexander were inordinately pleased with one another and if the tsar were a woman, he’d take Alexander as his mistress (Napoleon, honey, don’t write that to your wife).

I mean, do what you want with that. Take it for what it’s worth /shrug

---

Of the three friendships under discussion: Lannes, Duroc, Junot—I always read Lannes and Napoleon’s friendship as just friendship. Duroc and Junot though. That’s where we start getting into arguments for a homoerotic friendship—or romantic friendship, if one prefers that term.

I’ll do a little ramble for each, because they all deserve it.

Lannes

Napoleon’s friendship with Lannes was intimate, close, and they loved each other dearly—but as said, I always read them as friends. Even if they lived today and were free/able to be whatever they wanted to be to one another, it’d still just be friendship.

People did make Achilles/Patroclus references to them—particularly around Lannes’ death—but that was the mode of how people spoke back then. It’s the 19th century version of comparing everything to LOTR or Harry Potter (read another classical epic people, jeez).

Their friendship was volatile for sure—these are two hot headed, strong minded, opinionated men who were not afraid to snap and snarl at one another—but at the end of the day I do not doubt their love for each other. But it’s what we would term a platonic love.  

Brian Martin writes this in Napoleonic Friendship: Military Fraternity, Intimacy, and Sexuality in Nineteenth-century France:

Napoleon’s grief for Marshal Lannes took on the very public character of open lamentation. Rather than grieve behind closed doors and conceal his personal vulnerabilities in order to show public strength, Napoleon’s mourning for his beloved friend became a matter of great public spectacle. Like Achilles mourning his beloved Patroclus, Napoleon wept publicly and openly expressed his affection in a way that was widely reported, discussed, and admired by the officers and soldiers in his armies.

[…]

Napoleon’s public grief at the death of Jean Lannes represented a new model for social relations between soldiers in the early nineteenth-century France. weeping over his friend’s broken body, Napoleon demonstrated how the revolution and empire had made it possible not only for an emperor to grieve openly for a fallen marshal, but for a soldier to love his comrade. This uncharacteristic expression of affection between Napoleon and Lannes was echoes in similar relationships between officers and foot soldiers in Napoleon’s armies. Military memories of the first empire bear witness to a wide range of intimate relationships among generals, colonels, and captains as well as sergeants, corporals, and grunts (grognards), the infantry soldiers who made up the majority of the imperial armies. Napoleon’s love for Lannes might thus be said to represent a broad spectrum of masculine affection and intimacy in the ranks of the Grande Armée, or what could be called Napoleonic friendship.

So yeah, I’ve not much more to say on them. Their friendship was loving, affectionate, intimate, and complex. Lannes could be frustrated with Napoleon (often was, the longer Napoleon remained in power—because Lannes loved Bonaparte not the emperor), but Lannes loved his friend and Napoleon loved Lannes. But my read on them has always been that it was what we would term platonic.

------

Junot

This one is messy. Because Junot and Napoleon are messy people. I also think this one is the strongest case for “something more than friendship”. I personally believe Junot loved Napoleon in a deep, phenomenal, possibly obsessive fashion that absolutely was romantic—maybe sexual/erotic—and Napoleon for a time may have returned at least some of those feelings. Then it all went south.

I’m ripping a lot of this from a previous ask I received about Junot—since it covered a lot of the more romantic aspects of his and Napoleon’s relationship.

Junot and Napoleon were close friends when they were in their 20s. Incredibly close. Laure Junot, whose memoires one should treat cautiously, intimated that there was more than just friendship between them at this point. But if that is the case, we’ll never know for certain.

Brian Martin sums it up well (and saves me from having to dig out my copy of Laure’s memoir):

Soon after his imprisonment, Napoleon was released and exonerated, but with little money and no desire to take on a new military post in Brittany, he returned to Paris where, as Laure Junot explains, he lived with his comrade Junot and depended on his friend’s emotional and financial support … The 1794 letter from Toulon initiates a half-year period in the lives of the twenty-five-year-old Bonaparte and twenty-three-year-old Junot when … these ambitious young men relied on each other during their impecunious days in Paris. Describing how Junot “loved Bonaparte as one loves at the age” (1: 188), Laure Junot implies that the young Jean-Andoche developed an adolescent crush on Napoleon, as the two young men grew in intimacy.

[…]

Laure Junot tactfully observes many years later that it was difficult to assess the nature of these friendships [with Duroc and Junot] without offending their masculinity: “These are the very profound and abstract mysteries of the human heart. It is difficult to explain them without first wounding a man’s dignity” (11: 131).

In relegating Napoleon’s military relationships to the realm of the mysteries, Laure Junot defines Napoleonic friendship — long before “the love that dare not speak its name” was articulated by Lord Alfred Douglas in 1894 and invoked at Oscar Wilde’s trial in 1895 —as an enigmatic and unspeakable love incapable of being articulated without shaming a soldier’s manhood. Amid such ambiguity, it is unclear if such “mysteries” encompass both the emotional and the erotic. What is clearer is that Napoleon and Junot shared a degree of affection during their youth in Paris that was undeniably intimate.

As Napoleon climbed up the greasy pole, the power dynamic changed and expectations of interpersonal relationships became more formal putting a strain on his and Junot’s friendship. Junot, like many who knew Napoleon from the early days, loved Bonaparte, not the emperor. As Laure put it in her memoire: “Now let me explain the sadness and pain which afflicted Junot on learning that Napoleon was no longer his General Bonaparte of Toulon. Perhaps the affair simply followed a natural decline. But Junot … did not see it this way. He wanted reciprocity, which he craved even more as his own affectionate fantasies increased … He loved the man, not the emperor.”

In 1800, Napoleon named Junot Commandant of Paris on the condition that he marry because, it seems, there were too many rumours flying around about the two of them. (As noted above, Talleyrand was already making some “huh. Interesting closeness, there” comments about Napoleon.) Dutifully, Junot married Laure.

Junot always exhibited some signs of mental illness throughout his life and at one point he received a head wound (I forget which battle) that massively exacerbated whatever existing mental health troubles he had. (And note that this was one of many wounds - nor was it his first head wound. It’s just the one people in his own life pointed to as a moment of change.)

Junot had jealous and possessive tendencies, something that drove Napoleon a little batty, and they got worse. While Junot was in Portugal, and later Spain, he wrote Napoleon a series of desperate letters begging him to reappoint Junot as his aid-de-camp. We unfortunately don’t have these letters anymore, Napoleon was notoriously secretive and private when it came to personal correspondence and had a habit of burning lots of it. However, we do have Laure’s account of Napoleon’s reception of Junot’s pleading. Laure writes:

"Look here, Madame, what your husband writes to me!’ said the Emperor, ‘Read this and tell me if he sends you such letters."

I read these letters, and this caused me some pain: my husband sent me affectionate missives, but never in the tone of a lover; here were letters that resembled those between Julie and Saint-Preux, or those of the Portuguese nun.*

Napoleon then goes on and says:

“In admitting that Junot loves me more than anything in the world … [he demonstrates] that he does not love me more than his own ambition”

To which Laure replies:

“He loves you, Sire, more than all the honours that you can give, more than your crown, more than me perhaps, for it was pride that made me say the contrary just now, perhaps even more than his children!”

-

*Note: She’s referencing Guilleragues’s Portuguese Letters (1669) and Rousseau’s Julie or the New Héloïse (1761)

Also, as I said above, treat Laure’s accounts cautiously. As with all memoirs, she is positioning certain scenes with a purpose and some things are downplayed, or exaggerated, accordingly.

-

In 1813, Napoleon dismissed Junot from military duty and sent him off to be governor of Illyria which Junot, rightly or wrongly, saw as a form of exile. During his ambassadorship he famously entered a ballroom wearing nothing but his epaulettes and his medals. [above para' edited per conversation in the notes]

Brian Martin:

While one could blame Junot’s naked diplomacy on his progressive dementia, his shocking entrance can also be seen as a kind of buff rebuff to Napoleon. After a lifetime fighting for Bonaparte, watching shrapnel rip into young men’s bodies, leading thousands of soldiers to their deaths, and suffering twenty-seven wounds* of his own, Junot offered his own ravaged body as a hideous and spectacular product of Napoleon’s violence.

-

*Note: Junot says he had 17 wounds, not sure where Martin got 27 - unless there were wounds Junot wasn’t counting.

-

After this incident, Junot was swiftly recalled back to France where he soon after died by suicide.

In his final letter to Napoleon he wrote:

“I who love you with the affection of a savage for the sun, I who am entirely yours. Well then: this eternal war that we must fight for you, I want no more of! I want peace! I want finally to repose my tired head, my sore limbs … to enjoy that which I earned … with my blood! The blood of an honest man, of a good Frenchman, of a true patriot. I therefore ask, at last, for that tranquillity that I earned through twenty-two years of effective service and seventeen wounds from which my blood has flowed for my country, and for your glory.” (emphasis in original)

After Junot’s death, Napoleon ordered that Junot’s personal papers be seized and destroyed as he was afraid their personal correspondence might make its way to a public forum.

So yeah, Junot’s love for Napoleon was definitely on the romantic side, I would say. Because Napoleon burned all their correspondence we don’t know what he sent in reply to Junot—especially in the early days of their relationship. I suspect it was intimate and possibly in line with what Junot continued to send him throughout their life and like hell did Napoleon want that escaping to the public.

Anyway—Junot and Napoleon, I would argue definitely had some homoerotic/romantic undertones and such to their friendship. I think it was mutual in their 20s then Napoleon’s feelings retreated to more platonic but Junot’s never changed.

It just man, gives me strong flashbacks to when I was a teenager and one of my best friends at the time  declared herself my soulmate and carved my initials into her arm and left me a million and a half messages on the home answering machine and said that I was cold like Napoleon and she loved me for it etc. etc.

When I look at Junot and Napoleon I see myself and my old friend in all that glory of the strange complexities of young, intensely emotional and intimate friendships that absolutely blur the line into romantic/erotic.

------

Duroc

Ah sweet Duroc! Duroc who regularly compared himself to Junot in terms of his relationship to Napoleon.

Duroc to Laure Junot in May of 1813:  “Poor Junot! It’s that he’s like me! The Emperor’s friendship is our whole life.”

And again, this is from Laure’s memoirs:

‘Junot and some others,’ Duroc said to me, ‘misjudge me and misjudge my position as well. The Emperor would disgrace me if he made me a marshal of France. What would I do away from him? No doubt it’s a great honor; but my attachment to him, how could it not be affected by that distance? I love the Emperor as Junot loves him. And isn’t he going to choose the post of first aide-de-camp instead of that of governor of Paris? So why judge me otherwise!’

-

Duroc’s a hard one to pin down because he was such an exemplary marshal of the palace, in addition he left us no diaries or memoirs so we have the word of others and what survived of his letters, little else to go on.

However, I think it telling that Duroc compared himself to regularly to Junot—who everyone was aware of how he felt about Napoleon—and that Junot was so jealous of Duroc. That Junot saw Duroc as a rival for Napoleon’s affection and love but not Lannes tells me that clearly Junot could see the similarity of what Duroc and Napoleon had to what he and Napoleon may have once had but didn’t anymore. And, that Lannes was different. It was a different relationship and one that Junot didn’t find threatening.

It's also worth nothing that Duroc was the only one of Napoleon’s officers, aside from Lannes, who was allowed to use tu with Napoleon. Las Cases writes: “I’ve heard the Emperor say that in all of his military career, Duroc alone possessed his blind confidence and received all his affection … Duroc loved the Emperor for himself; he was devoted most of all to the private man, even more than to the monarch”

Duroc’s role as marshal of the palace also put him in an interesting position as a sort of quasi-wife to Napoleon. The role he played was very much a “wife” role—Cronin summarizes Duroc’s duties thus:

"Napoleon was struck by Duroc’s sweet nature, his beautiful manners and the patience which he himself lacked. So he employed his friend as a diplomat and when he became Emperor chose him to run the household and court. […] He had his hands full ensuring that the grocer did not overcharge for the Chambertin, since Napoleon would be sure to notice, and, as Napoleon put on weight, tactfully persuading the Imperial Tailor not to make new clothes but to let out the old ones a couple of inches. He also had to make peace when Napoleon lost his temper: pushing over the table, for example, when he saw crépinettes of partridge. He did this admirably, because he was devoted to Napoleon. Many a time, when the Emperor had hurt a visitor with a sharp word, Duroc would murmur on the way out: ‘Forget it. He says what he feels, not what he thinks, and not what he’ll do tomorrow.’"

No one else of Napoleon’s intimate friends really takes on that wifely role—even after Duroc’s death. Bertrand has the same role, Marshal of the Palace, and he was damn good at his job, just as Duroc was, but there was a difference in their relationship and Bertrand doesn’t read as so close and devoted on a marital level to Napoleon. Not that Bertrand didn’t love Napoleon, he did, gods know he did, but it was more in line with Lannes than Duroc or Junot.

Napoleon describes Duroc to Las Cases:

‘Duroc,’ concluded he, ‘had lively, tender, and concealed passions, little corresponding with the coldness of his manner. It was long before I knew this, so exact and regular was his service. It was not until my day was entirely closed and finished, and I was enjoying repose, that Duroc’s work begun. Chance, or by some accident, could alone have made me acquainted with his character. He was a pure and virtuous man, utterly disinterested, and extremely generous.’

[…]

When he [Napoleon] went to see Duroc, after he had received his mortal wound, he attempted to hold out some hopes to him; but Duroc, who did not deceive himself, only replied by begging [Napoleon] to make them give him opium. …

After this recollection, the emperor, with an apparent effort, began abruptly to talk of something else.

I believe that Napoleon and Duroc were able to see each other’s interiority in a way that few others were able to and that formed the basis for their affection, love and friendship.

Duroc’s letters to Napoleon, anytime they were apart, are also more intense than usual. Plenty of Napoleon’s friends wrote about wanting to be by his side when they were sent off on diplomatic missions or what have you. But Duroc’s express a particularly intense form of devotion:

Duroc to Napoleon, May 29, 1801:

I am waiting to leave, Citizen Consul, until I receive a response to the letters that I had the honor to write you, unless the circumstances or the letters I receive from Paris let me judge that I can leave earlier. I beg you to remember that I am eight hundred leagues from you and, although I’ve been well-received here, I am never better than when I am near you. (Emphasis in the original)

Duroc to Napoleon, July 7, 1801:

I have sought to conduct myself here, Citizen Consul, in a manner that would satisfy you. I am well-regarded and thought highly of everywhere because I belong to you particularly, but I will not be happy until I’m sure that I deserve your approval. I am waiting to set my departure until I know that you’ve received the letter that I had the honor to write you and that I sent with Captain Leclerc. I very much want to find myself near you as soon as possible. (Emphasis in the original)

When Napoleon offered to have Hortense marry Duroc, Napoleon’s proposition was that Duroc would receive five hundred thousand francs and be named commandant of the 8th military division and would be stationed in Toulon (Napoleon was against having a son-in-law in the house).

When the proposition was passed on to Duroc he turned it down because he didn’t want to be sent away from Napoleon’s side and if marriage meant being apart, he didn’t want it, even though from all accounts he was quite fond of Hortense (and she was fond of him).

Later, when Napoleon was having to negotiate his name in exile he said to Barry O’Meara:

“The name of General Bonaparte was the one which I bore at Campo Formio and at Lunneville, when I dictated terms of peace with the Emperor of Austria. I bore it at Amiens when I signed the peace with England. I should be proud to bear it still, but the honour of France forbids me to acknowledge the right of the King of England to annul the acts of the French people. My intention was to take the name of Duroc.”

But he felt he had to keep Emperor Napoleon in order to Make A statement.

In another account, I forget to who, he repeated his intent to have taken on Duroc’s name in exile in order to be a little more incognito/not draw attention to himself, but because England refused to acknowledge that he had been emperor he was like “fuck that, I’m going to insist on being called emperor”. So, had England not been like “you were never emperor” it’s possible Napoleon would have taken Duroc’s surname as his own.

How very married of them.

------

Apologies for the long reply. Not sure this will really answer anything, but it's an amalgamation of my thoughts.

Junot is the clearest of the homo-something friendship between Napoleon and another man. Like, I think that's a tough one to read as anything other than a messy break up. Which is why, when we were all nattering on about queering Napoleon in film yesterday, I focused so much on Junot over the others.

But same sex intimacy, even in Just Friends, can have homo-something undertones to it. Friendships can be complex, multilayered and include some romantic and erotic aspects to them. This doesn't mean those friendships are Romantic Relationships as we think of them, but if there's a romantic tinge to it, or a strong homoerotic tinge to it, then why not explore it? See where it takes the story or the interpretation and undestanding of the person and their actions. Maybe it'll go no where useful, maybe it will. Only one way to find out.

Thank you for the ask!

#reply #anon #ask #napoleonic #napoleonic friendships #duroc #junot #lannes #napoleon bonaparte #napoleon #now I get to sit here and be stressed about possible Discourse #suicide mention

[chipped-chimera]

So, I'm a Lesbian I guess.

So uh, life update. I came out to my Mum, so I figured I'd do so here too.

I've done a bunch of self reflection, healing. I reached out to my ex and we had a good conversation and I think that just made everything even clearer for me.

So yeah, this is me saying I'm not bisexual. I'm lesbian. And I probably always was.

More context below the cut if you want it (it's long). But anyway, here's to finally feeling like I'm finding the real 'me' in all this rubble.

❤️🧡🤍💖💜

I thought I was bisexual for ages. The fact I even got to think that wouldn't have happened if it weren't for my ex, who identified that way and I felt in a safe enough environment to express it. In the past two months I went through some self reflection, and talked to my ex for the first time in 2 years. It was good, and it's too complicated to explain easily but at least on my end I was getting a double dosage of the comphet juice between just regular expectations and the undiagnosed autism (also jesus christ, being a teenager in 2005-2010 that environment was just fucked up for anyone who might be trying to come to terms with not being straight). Kids in my school were more accepting, but also in the same breath using 'Gay' as an insult).

We were both undiagnosed neurodiverse people and maybe it was just the first time we'd encountered someone who just actually understood for once. Who saw who we were and were okay with that. The 10 year relationship, put in that context makes a lot of sense. So I don't blame him for how it ended. If anything I thanked him for breaking it off, because I was in such a goddamn state after being used by the Australian government (see Robodebt) there was no way in hell I had the mental tools or even brain space to realise anything about myself because I was too busy just trying to fucking survive. I would have lived and died in that relationship simply because at least it was safe, and stable. But it wasn't genuine.

Past two years since that relationship ended were fucking rough. For most of this year I kind of just turned into myself I guess, but I was letting it happen because after finding out about the high comorbidity of chronic health conditions with Autism and how it's likely related to long-term compound stress from masking for so long, I really asked myself when was the last time I just let myself 'rest'? Didn't do anything I didn't want to do or feel compelled to do because of some social contract or guilt?

I couldn't come up with an answer.

So I rested. And I think that's basically given me the strength now to finally 'wake up'. I dunno. That's how it feels. I only recently noticed my thoughts about women were structurally very different than the ones about men (and yeah it's goddamn fuckin' embarassing to say but uh thanks Larian specifically for giving me a female love interest tailored to my exact preference which FINALLY connected some dusty neuron in the back of my head or something. It was Karlach. MY GODDAMN GAY AWAKENING WAS KARLACH, ffs) and the more I examined it, the more everything became clear. I was hesitant to remove the bi label from myself, wondering if this was just a really extreme 'bi-cycle' swing but the more and more I thought about it, went through memories in my life, how I could never see myself with someone else it was always characters together and really it was the relationship and intimacy between them, regardless of gender that I was appreciating.

I thought I was grey ace but after going 'huh these thoughts are kind of different' and realising that yeah, I could imagine myself with a woman - it wasn't some weird other shit I'd told myself like it was just visceral self hatred or something, placing myself with a guy it was literally I did not want to be with a guy - it became obvious. So fucking, embarrassingly obvious.

I'm not sure where things will go from here. I am incredibly socially isolated in real life. My best friend is my Mum. I don't have a social circle at all outside of online spaces. I'm 30 and that's a fucking weird age to be thrown out into the world essentially experiencing goddamn delayed idk mental puberty because you suppressed it that hard. I haven't used a dating app in my LIFE. I'm still kind of scared of being hurt by others and I'm aware it's not entirely logical, but I just feel fragile. I'm also still picking up the pieces of my life.

I've confirmed a C-PTSD diagnosis with my psychologist, which explains why all the CBT tools I'd learned over the years just stopped working (CBT doesn't always gel well with PTSD or Autism) so that's probably going to inform treatment going forward. My intense fatigue issues are probably caused by having to carry all this fucking trauma and suppression of myself. As I said to my Mum, it's like I'm just 'Tired from being alive' at this point. I'm really, really fucking hoping it's not Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ME. The new medication I'm on seems to be keeping me going past the 4hr mark though, so we might be onto the right medication mix (I do not appreciate the 7:30pm crash, like clockwork, where instead of feeling unfocused and tired like before I now feel jacked up as hell like I'm waiting for someone to punch me however :V)

I don't know where this is going. Or where I'm going. All I know is 'I'm going'. When the breakup first happened, when I hauled myself out of the Mental Health ward and back to my parents home where I had to figure out what the fuck to do after any kind of certainty of my future had been completely obliterated - I saw a lot of snakes. I'm kind of vaugely pagan, if I'm honest. I don't know how to put it. I am very scientific but I also don't think we know all the answers.

My ancestors were likely heavily Celtic, likely some Viking and Pictish influence as both family lines go back to Scotland and Ireland. I know through my reading that natural signs were important to them, so I start noticing when I see multiple occurrences, especially in odd places (I'll be real, I just remembered earlier in this relationship when I was more into pagan shit I saw a lot of Moths. Yeah. Yeah I feel like smashing my face into my desk about that. No I never figured it out then EITHER). I know quite a few things about snakes. Snakes are an animal that is both used as a symbol for medicine, but also classed as 'evil', especially in the modern christian context.

They are considered symbols of rejuvenation, of immortality, much like the Phoenix, they are constantly reborn through the shedding of their skin. Shedding is critical to a snake, because if it does not shed it's skin, it will die. This is a legitimate concern for zookeepers with snakes that have scars - they often struggle to shed completely, and they have to soak the snake's skin in water so they can cast off the skin.

So it's shed or die.

I have struggled to let go of things. Of everything that was done to me, but I knew it had to be let go. And today I have shed a lot of that shit. I am crying on and off but this is probably the first time it's easy. It's not physically painful, like knives in my throat, or something I have to shove down and keep contained for fear of being rejected. It's happy crying.

Because that skin being shed - it wasn't mine either. I needed rest, I needed to soak in that goddamn water dish so I could get through all the scar tissue. So it's probably the strongest image I have in my mind of everything. Of who I am. My entire life.

If you're going through difficult shit in life, all I can say is - you're strong. You're strong as fuck. Strength isn't being able to get into a physical fight, or being super confident around people - it's enduring life and the chaos thrown at you. It's being able to be broken down and rebuild, just like the snake casts off skin for their new selves. You will endure things and be stronger for it, than those who have lived all their lives without any pain whatsoever.

But it could be better, I know. It doesn't justify the pain. But please listen to yourself. Listen to your body. If you need to be selfish? Be fucking selfish! Don't want to do that thing? Don't do it! If you know it is costing you, if it is adding to that scar tissue - stop. Take the time you need to reset, to regain your breath. Ask yourself who you are doing this for. Ask what skin you are wearing and whether that is something you want to keep. Shed it. Let go.

It will hurt, but this is just the beginning. Change feels like a broken bone. But it will heal.

#kerytalk #lesbian #lgbtq+ #sorry this got real long and kind of spiritual at the end but yeah #this is I guess the culmination of 30 years of my life and a lot of pain #uh yeah that spn tattoo I provided was taken directly from that idea bank for my own tatt because I felt it fit #and it's a good message to carry I think

[just-doing-lesbian-things]

I headcannon Avatar Korra as a lesbian

Ik the fandom largely recognizes her as bi, and idt the creators knew about comphet so they probs didn't even know they could make her a lesbian after everything with Mako, but her romantic journey feels ridiculously similar to my experience as a lesbian who dealt with deeply rooted comphet (compulsory heterosexuality) and I want to explain why and how this character means to much to me in this respect

(Don't come for me; it's a f***ing headcannon and I acknowledge that it's not anything more than that)

Background: Comphet

So comphet is ultimately borne from a lack of representation. When you're a little kid in a society that only allows heterosexual-passing love stories to exist (and queer rep is made through a hetero lens), you often don't even realize that you can feel same-sex love and attraction; that it's even an option. So when you do feel those feelings you chalk it up to something else.

It technically affects everyone, but it disproportionally affects lesbians (which is why many lesbians get up in arms about other groups of people using the term to describe non-lesbian experiences) because when this happens in a patriarchal society--one that centers men and men's stories--being a girl/woman who doesn't like men is astoundingly difficult to wrap your brain around because everything is pushing you at men.

It can be even harder to wrap your brain around than being asexual (note: i say can be), because at least with pure asexuality you aren't attracted to anyone, whereas lesbians not only don't feel the "right" feelings for men, they feel them towards other women. And as women themselves who (1) may never have truly wanted to receive those feelings from men but (2) have been raised to expect that sort of attention from only men, getting over that those feelings are okay to feel for women (that it's not inherently predatory as men's attraction to women is made out to be and can really feel like when you're not attracted to men at all) It's a clusterfuck basket of feelings to sort through. And this leads to a lot of tension as you struggle against your own self-expectations in multiple areas.

Why I See Korra As A Lesbian:

1. What we know about her upbringing.

The Avatarverse is queerphobic. We learn about that in the comics when Korra tells her parents about her relationship with Asami, and from her later conversation with Kya. Same-sex relationships are taboo in the Avatar world, a topic of conversation best not shared, and best experienced on the DL so right away we have a representation issue. And

We learn pretty early in Korra's story that she's been isolated from peers her whole life. She's spent her whole life training at the compound and Naga is her only friend. This level of isolation means her only experiences of romantic relationships are going to be from witnessing her parents, coupled White Lotus members/guards/etc, and what she hears from mainstream stories--which again, as we learned from the comics, were likely not queer as queer relationships are taboo.

We don't see the same level of outright misogyny from Korra's era like we saw from Aang's era, but the centering of men was still there baked into the familial gender roles and expectations--meaning the centering of men in women's lives was probably-definitely also there.

All of those points together means that Korra's upbringing most likely gave her a heterosexual expectation for herself and lends itself to a situation where a young lesbian would definitely have some comphet to work through.

2. Her relationship with Mako.

Often, lesbians dealing with comphet will "choose" guys to have crushes on based on their perceived social value (often it's the mainstream safe option or "the underdog") and sometimes lesbians know they're choosing this guy, and sometimes it's more subconscious, often experienced getting oddly obsessive only to discover they're not into him once he reciprocates or the relationship is established ("getting a boyfriend has been achieved. societal validation unlocked. but wait, why don't I like the reality of having a boyfriend?").

That "oh she likes him" music played for Korra after Mako pulled impressive stuff at the Pro Bending arena and was waving to the crowd. And like, yes, people can become more attractive based on their actions and achievements, but a lesbian under comphet would definitely see Mako prove himself to be an impressive guy (loved by an entire cheering audience) and go "I choose that one." I myself used to scan a room, pick the most conventionally attractive guy, and go "i want that one to like me" and then genuinely thought I liked him. This behavior is not about actual attraction, it's about a subconscious understanding of social dynamics and what you need to be valuable to a community--emphasis on the subconscious.

She gets pretty obsessive about him, which makes total sense if he's her first crush and she's been isolated her whole life, but also lines up with the comphet lesbian.

That line in her confession, too, "I really like you and I think we were meant for each other." Like, girl, what soulmate romance novels have you been reading between training sessions?? And this doesn't mean she couldn't have actually been attracted to Mako, but it does mean she really built him up in her head (and what she should expect from a chosen guy).

Then they get together, and you know how long that lasted for? Like, two episodes. This was where I started to think she never actually liked Mako. Immediately Korra starts picking fights with him and then quickly physically separates herself from him. And she does this to him almost every time they're in a scene together after they start dating. Meanwhile, Mako was just being a relatively supportive, attentive boyfriend so clearly her own feelings were the trigger. This wasn't a problem of personalities clashing, it really seemed like Korra didn't like the reality of being in a relationship with Mako.

In the end Mako takes it on that he's just not equipped to handle being the support-partner to the Avatar and Korra agrees that they're better off as friends, I even seem to remember her being the one to verbalize that they made better friends than gf/bf all after she worked so hard to convince him to be with her. And why I ask you? Possibly because as soon as she had the boyfriend, she realized she didn't actually want a boyfriend. Emphasis on the boy.

She took like zero social cues from him: He says he's confused, she jumps in and kisses him. He's uncomfortable with her grabbing his arm, she tells him to play along (translation: "suck it up, this is happening"). And then there was that scene where she kissed him out of nowhere in the locker room. (And Korra picks up on social cues from everyone else, so it's not an autism thing or something.) This is actually behavior you'll see frequently from people who are more into the idea of a person than the actual person. Liking an actual person requires acknowledging their personhood (not just how great they are), and Korra does way less of that than she does of deciding how things with Mako can or should go all, the way up to their mutual decision to just be friends. And lesbians under comphet? Yeah, liking the idea of a guy is the closest they usually get to actually liking a guy.

I don't doubt that Korra doesn't care for Mako, later seasons definitely proved that time and time again, but: a lesbian under comphet could very easily mistake that care for different feelings and lead to a relationship like what Korra had with Mako.

3. Her Intro to Bolin

It's such a small thing, but that first moment she has with him in the gym, the way she bristles at his "implication" that they were "together" screams bby lesbian to me. Because I did this. Often times I was looking out for such implications. And I've been a bby lesbian so I would know (technically still am).

4. Apart from her intense and then very short-lived feelings for Mako, we never see her express interest in a guy again.

And four seasons does not translate to a lifetime of examples, but several guys are shown to express interest in Korra over those four seasons (I'm including Prince Wu hitting on her in their first encounters) and meanwhile we only see Korra interested in two people: a guy and a gal. And one of them, I think, can be really well explained by comphet.

5. What Her Relationship with Asami Tells Us

The way Korra acted toward Asami when she had feelings for her was completely different from the way she expressed her feelings for Mako. And, like, yes, she's been through at least two seasons of trauma since she first thought she liked Mako so she's changed, and this was a show on Nickelodeon so they wanted the queer to be as subtle/nonexistent as possible, but still:

The way Korra acts while liking Asami is c o m p l e t e l y different from how she acted when she was in her Mako phase.

Even after they get together in the comics, the way Korra expresses her interest in Asami is still completely different from her interest in Mako. Her interest in Mako was obsessive and forceful and after they got together it was very platonically comfortable in small moments before she consistently turned combative. Her interest in Asami was receptive and emotional, and then when they got together it was secure, protective, and fierce. And I'm not saying bisexuals can't experience this difference between two partners of different genders, but as a lesbian who dealt with comphet and then started dating the actual correct gender for her sexuality, her relationship with Mako screams of forcing something she thought she wanted. Especially when compared to her relationship with Asami.

In Conclusion

Arguments could be made for ace umbrella rep in Korra, and certainly the fandom's consensus is that she's bisexual rep, but I wanted to express a different possibility; one that never gets fully explored in media.

In the end: she's a cartoon character, so any aspect of her personhood is completely dependent on her creators (like what stan lee said about people who ask him which superhero would win in a fight, the answer is "whoever I want to win.") and while I super doubt the creators knew they could go this route to explain Korra (meaning it's probably not in the cards for actual cannon) I still hold this headcannon dear to me because I see so much of my own (misguided) romantic history reflected in it.

Thanks for reading.

#tlok #avatar korra #lesbian #comphet

[bisexualmultifandommess]

This is going to be on the Titans version of Gar because he’s my favourite!

I’ve mentioned before that I see Gar as bisexual.

I think that Gar has kind of always known that he’s bi even if when he was younger he didn’t know the term. He didn’t really officially come out as Bi until he met Dick, Kory and Rachel but everyone he lived with at the Doom Patrol Manor was aware that he liked both men and women.

He definitely found Dawn and Donna attractive but always kept that hidden to be respectful. He really likes strong women.

He gained a small crush on Superman and Batman when he was quite young the way most people develop crushes on their heroes. Although he eventually grew out of those crushes once he became older he still respects them as heroes and becomes very excited when they’re mentioned.

Upon first meeting Jason he developed a small crush on him. Robin has always been a favourite sidekick hero of his and even though he was excited to meet Dick he was even more excited to meet a Robin that was just a little older than him.

His crush on Jason became stronger after the two of them started spending more time together in Titans Tower. He had a bit in common with him and they both liked training together. Gar felt very connected to him and would often feel shy when Jason would compliment him during training. He held back from revealing that he had feelings for him due to being a little younger and Jason’s feelings for Rose.

He was very upset when he could see that Jason had feelings for Rose. It took a while for him to get used to it.

He always tried to see the best in Jason even after he became Red Hood.

After Jason was gone for a while he didn’t really try to seek anyone else out and didn’t develop feelings for anyone until he developed feelings during his friendship with Conner.

Gar found Conner very attractive and had a lot of fun with him teaching him about video games and different things to enjoy around the tower. It started out as just attraction but after everything with CADMUS the two of them became closer and Gar started developing feelings for him. He tried to ignore any future crushes he developed on any guys or girls after Conner developed feelings for Blackfire. The two of them are obviously still friends and somewhere down the line after Gar got over his crush Conner found out that he liked him like that at some point and was flattered that his best friend liked him.

Eventually I like to believe that Gar and Jason got closer again in the future because Jason always felt closest to him out of any of the team apart from Dick and I think he��d develop feelings for Gar too and Gar after spending time with him would start to crush on him again. They’d both see how it goes and start slow but I think they’d work out.

Gar definitely likes muscular guys although he’d love anyone no matter how they look.

He can get flustered when anyone flirts with him. He once got flirted at by a cute girl who worked at a coffee shop and he couldn’t really form a sentence when she started flirting with him. Rachel who was with him at the time found it hilarious and teased him about it the whole way home much to his annoyance.

When he found out that Tim is bisexual too he was excited because it would be good to have someone to talk to about it. He’s always willing to listen to Tim if he has any problems and Tim is the same for him. He’s also 100% ready to hype Tim up or give him a confidence boost.

Gar has a pride flag and pin that he keeps in his room at the tower.

#I was stuck on whether I wanted to hc jaygar or garkon as endgame so pretend there’s an alt version where garkon is endgame instead #I love both it was difficult 😭 #titans #dc titans #garfield logan #beast boy #dick grayson #nightwing #kory anders #starfire #rachel roth #raven #jason todd #red hood #conner kent #superboy #tim drake #jaygar #garkon #pride #pride month #happy pride 🌈 #lgbt #lgbtqa #headcanons

[scalproie]

for the character ask game: kuai, hanzo, bi-han, and smoke with 12, 15-20, and 22 :)

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

Kuai: I like to think that in the 2nd timeline, post-alliance, kuai wouldve unknowingly taken some inspiration from hanzo's leadership of the shirai ryu to lead his own clan, reforming a lot of stifling rules to establish more of a community within the lin kuei members.

Hanzo: And similarly, especially after the trauma of having lost his entire clan, hanzo wouldve also unknowingly picked up a few things from kuai to lead the new shirai ryu, but rather than making changes to his clan's rules, he's doing most of the work on HIMSELF to lead it more "efficiently" and avoid past tragedies from happening again. Which, if mk11 didnt happened, would have resulted in both clans being similar enough that they have no issue partnering and temporarily switching members for missions, and, should it ever come to that, could even be merged as a single clan (as they once were after all), all thanks to the efforts of their grandmasters.

Bi-han: In the 1st and 2nd timeline, I wanna think bi-han initially did wanted to take the masters' attention and implied abuse away from kuai by being a cocky (but talented) little shit, but over the years the act became who he is as a person as he rose through the ranks to become the lin kuei's best assassin.

Smoke: 2nd timeline smoke literally Came Back Wrong, its impossible to tell where tomas the human boy sacrificed by a cult ends and where enenra the smoke demon begins, is he a human posessed by a demon? or a demon with a human's memory? He is neither completely from earthrealm nor the netherrealm, he belongs nowhere, hence why he has found a home in, and is extra protective of, the few friends he has made.

15. What's your favorite ship for this character? (Doesn't matter if it's canon or not.)

Subscorp for kuai and hanzo, Bireena for bi-han, and I guess Subsmoke wins by default for tomas (obv not the mk12 one). Im a basic bitch what can I say.

16. What's your least favorite ship for this character?

Everything else, im not a multishipper

17. What's a ship for this character you don't hate but it's not your favorite that you're fine with?

Again I guess I'll go with subsmoke

18. How about a relationship they have in canon with another character that you admire?

Kuai and hanzo in the 2nd timeline over the course of three games... pretty good👍 (<- rewrote my brain chemistry). Bi-han and hanzo's rivalry is great. Smoke is underutilized but I do love that he and kuai will be friends in every timeline

19. How about a relationship they have in canon that you don't like?

EVERY relationship they all have could be better bc sadly we get our storytelling from a fucking fighting game, but I want kuai to have a better (not necessarily more positive) dynamic with frost, I want hanzo and harumi's relationship to be done justice, I want bi-han to have his childhood as well as kuai's explored and their history toward each other as brothers deepened (1st and 2nd timeline ESPECIALLY bc man. fuck mk12) and I want smoke to form one meaningful relationship that isnt tied to kuai.

20. Which other character is the ideal best friend for this character, the amount of screentime they share doesn't matter?

Kuai: kitana

Hanzo: harumi/kenshi/jax/sonya (legends). For the loner of mk, he sure has a lot of bestie potential

Bi-han: sareena (the brotherhood of shadows really)/sektor & cyrax/fujin (I stand that he and fujin would have the funniest dynamic, especially as noob saibot. I want them to have a 80s buddy cop-like adventure together)

Smoke: jade/reptile/johnny

22. If you're a fic reader, what's something you like in fics when it comes to ths character? Something you don't like?

WHEN ITS WRITTEN BY MY FRIENDS honestly my wants are simple: I just like when theyre written as adult men raised in a very isolated at best, oppressive at worst (for the lin kueis in particular) environment with lots of unadressed trauma, I also dont like when theyre written as TOO openly romantic, these four men are aaall about repression of feelings (hanzo a little less so) so it'd all be about the subtle, little things. and pining for ages.

#THANK YOU SO SORRY FOR THE DELAY #tagging later #bluehairedspidey #ask meme

[sunflowerdigs]

Wow, MORE interviews! I love this. Based on what we've gotten and what we kind of know...I'm leaning more and more towards Buck not having a crush on Tommy but instead simply realizing that he's in love with Eddie (with help from Maddie after the basketball game).

It's a huge revelation to have, and I think it stretches credibility (for a straight audience) for Buck to have it about someone he's just met. We're talking about a character who has only dated women for the whole show. The smartest way to get the straight audience on board with bi!Buck is to anchor Buck's new romantic attraction in a strong and familiar platonic emotional attachment that viewers have watched him develop over 7 seasons. They're more likely to understand suddenly having feelings for a friend than suddenly being sexually attracted to someone of the same gender who has just arrived (though, lbr, the latter happens all the time irl).

More under the cut, this got a lil' long...

Also, Oliver has only talked about feelings, he hasn't talked about relationships. And that's interesting. He doesn't say that a new relationship may have him questioning things about himself, he says that new feelings and attractions will. Small point, but the devil is sometimes in the details.

So, yeah, I'm thinking Buck feelings for Eddie revelation in episode 4. And the next few episodes explore how he feels about that revelation (my lesbian heart loves that Buck can't fart without having huge feelings) and being in love with a man (including ridiculous antics when faced with his crush). And then, obviously, at some point, he comes out to Eddie, which should be both poignant and hilarious, my favorite combo.

Buck: what if I told you I might have feelings for another man?

Eddie: what man? Do I know this boyfriend-stealing whore man?

Buck: Uhhhh...

A feelings realization for Eddie doesn't mean that Buck wouldn't try to date to get over him and maybe that includes Tommy (or some guy we don't know). But I think that rather than making the centerpiece of the story Buck being attracted to men, 911 will make it Buck being attracted to Eddie, and everything else will come from that.

And, of course, once Eddie realizes that Buck is attracted to men...that opens up all kinds of questions for him.

#911 abc #buddie #911 spoilers #also maddie and chim will scheme behind their backs #and chim will be so amused

[respectthepetty]

Another day, another ask, but this time, it's about what are some currently airing shows that you're watching and really enjoying and how would you describe what you like about them briefly?

For example, The Warp Effect: Wholesome and sex positive QL, with so much representation and topics brought up weekly. Nothing like what I was expecting - in the best way.

Happy (Belated) Valentine's Day @sliceduplife! I hope it was kind to you because my response is going to be just like me and my favorite characters - problematic and absolute basura!

To begin, I'm actually going to tell you what I'm rewatching instead of currently watching:

Great Men Academy - Much like 3 Will Be Free and The Warp Effect, Great Men Academy isn't a BL, but it doesn't stop it from being queer af. It has a unicorn that grants wishes, a magical lake that requires nudity to activate, a ghost, a school sanctioned Hunger Games, body swapping, and an Elite level moment:

If you don't get the Elite reference, know that this lead-paint-level-toxic hottie, Cruz, delivered the best line ever uttered in the series:

¡No soy gay! Ni bi. Ni tri. ¡Soy futbolista! (I'm not gay! Not bi. Not tri. I'm a footballer!) <- I say "¡Soy futbolista!" all of the time when people ask about my sexuality without clarification and leave them in their confusion.

*moving on to your actual ask*

The Warp Effect - I came for Joy, the cinematographer who also did KinnPorsche, and Jojo, the director who does everything else I love, but stayed to see all the ways people could come... to an understanding about their sexuality. Also, it's very queer.

My Beautiful Man 2 - I do not condone stalking, but when it comes to my idol and his devoted worshiper, I'm trying to invent new ways of stalking, so Hira can always be within a 100 yards of Kiyoi. They should be more red flags than California during fire season, yet they are wholesome and adorable.

Well...in a very kinky way, kinda like these two wild kids from Secretary

Never Let Me Go - It has a teenager becoming the CEO of his family's multi-million dollar company and another teenager being his bodyguard falling in love! How could I not love it?! It's outrageous! And somehow the most unrealistic thing about this plot is there being a genuine good guy who openly talks about bitcoins, and I LOVE HIM! I did not have falling in love with a man who enjoys "investing" on my BINGO card, but then again, look at my very good boy. LOOK AT HIM!

Hit Bite Love - It's so messy. It has stepbrothers in love, open discussions about condom sizes and lubricant, Kinks-R-Us, a bi Burger looking for his King, and so much more. This past episode hid a pivotal scene behind a paywall due to the two characters having sex in the school's locker room, so half of the plot was missing in the edited version. It made NO SENSE, but I didn't care. Give me all the mess, but I draw the line at taking off your sock and putting it in someone's mouth. BAD BOY! VERY BAD BOY!

The End of the World with You - Japanese BLs stress me out. They give me a lot of an anxiety, and I'm constantly preparing for someone to die or for one of them to be a murderer. Even in the "happiest" Japanese BLs, there always exist this undercurrent of malice..and I'm attracted to it. >insert Ritsu aka El Diablo<

Moonlight Chicken - Eff "More than Friends, Less than Lovers!" That's child's play. Give me my HussyVille Gang Gang! Give me the "we've been breaking beds and each other's backs since day one, but I'm not even sure what his name is, and if I'm being honest, I don't really need to know" squad. Then, on top of that, it's EarthMix doing the devil's boogie?! I waited for over a year for this, and I don't say this often when it comes to men, but the anticipation was worth it.

HIStory 5: Love in the Future - I will always show up to a Taiwanese BL. They are like Rihanna at the Super Bowl. They do the bare minimum but are still very entertaining, include all the fan favorites (domestic bliss, high heat, office romances, good side couples, marriage equality), and pop out with a few surprises. Others may be disappointed, but I am ALWAYS pleased.

My School President - Did you read the list before this? There is a common underlying theme. Even if the show isn't messy, I'm going to find the mess and fixate on it, and it doesn't get stranger than Por's obsession with the chinchilla. GMM better get on merchandising this critter ASAP because there is a gold mine behind this, capitalizers.

Bed Friend - It hasn't started yet, but I'll be watching it. It has a Blue Boy and Red Rascal BUT they are not who would normally be coded that way, which means they are clearly going to have to resolve the reasons why they changed their behavior to cover up their obvious colors. Who hurt our Red Rascal that he turned into a nun? Who harmed our Blue Boy to make him the slutty slut he is? I cannot wait to find out!

Chains of Heart - One word: Papi. Wait, sorry. Let me try again: Poppy. The show has a plot, and I care about it, but...Poppy. He is playing a bad guy, which I got a glimpse of in Love Mechanics, so I'm hoping it means we get to see more of him, and I don't mean screen time, although I wouldn't be opposed to that either. Obviously, I have to be interested in the actual plot since he is a supporting character...but POPPY! mmmm, papi!

#My current watchlist #Spoiler Alert - It's basura! #Great Men Academy #Chains of Heart #Bed Friend #HIStory 5: Love in the Future #Hit Bite Love #The End of the World with You #The Warp Effect #Moonlight Chicken #Never Let Me Go #My School President #My Beautiful Man 2

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Ruan Lingyu (The Goddess, New Women, Love and Duty)—icon of chinese silent cinema known for her luminous beauty, her exceptional acting talent, and her tragic life story

Barbara Stanwyck (Ball of Fire, The Lady Eve, Double Indemnity)—I hope someone else has submitted better propaganda than I because I don't want my girl's prospects to rest on me just yelling PLEASE VOTE FOR MY TERRIBLE HOT GIRLFRIEND. She is a delight in everything! She is often a sexy jerk! (It's most of the plot of Baby Face!) Even when she plays a "good girl" (as an example, Christmas in Connecticut, which more people should see) she's still kind of a jerk and I love her for it! She won't take men's shit and she sure wouldn't take mine!

This is round 3 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Ruan Lingyu:

silent era chinese actress who had a subtlety in her acting ability that was way ahead of her time. huge star but her career and life was sadly cut short by damaging publicity

Widely considered one of the best actresses of Chinese silent film

Ruan Lingyu had an eight year movie career, starting at 16 and ending with her suicide at only 24. Despite this, she made some of the most widely acclaimed films of early Chinese cinema and the BBC called her "China's Greta Garbo." In "Love and Duty," she plays her character as a teen, a young mother, and an older woman beaten down by life AND her teen daughter in an early application of split-screen technology. Lingyu is absolutely unrecognizable as the older woman, yet emotionally the transition is seamless because she does such a good job. Lingyu had a hard life and killed herself after ination [sic] of media scorn and private problems. Her funeral was three days long, the procession was allegedly four miles long, and three women killed themselves during her funeral. The New York Times called it "the most spectacular funeral of the century." I'm adding this to show what kind of hold she had over the public at the time, much like Rudolph Valentino's raucous funeral. I would rather she had lived.

Barbara Stanwyck:

"THE leading lady of the golden age of hollywood. One of the only actresses to work independent of a studio, making short-term contracts that enabled her to make movies wherever she wanted. She had so much range, and could act in basically any genre. She's been rumored to be a lesbian literally since she was active in Hollywood; most notable is the rumor that she had a long time on-and-off relationship with famously bi Joan Crawford, her "best friend" for decades (They lived right next door to one another). She also lived with Helen Ferguson, her "live-in publicist" for many years. She was the quintessential femme fatale in Double Indemnity, and really pushed sexual boundaries in her pre-code films like Baby Face, and the famous screwball The Lady Eve, where she plays basically a downlow domme. Allegedly, when a journalist asked her if she was a lesbian, she straight up threw him out of her house. She even played a lesbian in Walk on the Wild Side"

"THE queen of screwball comedies. I adore her, I'd kill for her, I will cry if she's not gonna win this poll."

"listen ok she had awful politics she was a mccarthyist right wing wacko BUT she's so incredibly hot that i've deluded myself into believing i could fix her. if you see her onscreen she carries herself in a way that's just so effortlessly sexy AND she has just a stunning face. imo she was at her hottest in the 1940s but even as early as the late 1920s she had a rly captivating screen presence and just a beautiful face, and then post-1950 she was just irresistibly milfy so really she was just always incredibly hot. she was also an incredibly talented actress who was equally stellar in melodrama, film noir, and unhinged screwball comedy. the blonde wig they made her wear in double indemnity is notoriously silly looking but she still looks sexy in it so that's gotta count for something. i've watched so many terrible movies just for a chance at seeing her that i think her estate should be paying me damages."

"Not often thought of for her sultriness, Barbara Stanwyck was incredible in that she could actually choose to be hot if the role called for it, and then have a glow-down to look ordinary for another role. She wasn't the most beautiful or effervescent, but damn did she have rizz. Watch her with Gary Cooper in Ball of Fire teaching him about "yum-yum" or with Henry Fonda in The Lady Eve whispering huskily into his ear."

"She is always the smartest woman in the room. Watching her play Henry Fonda like a befuddled fiddle in The Lady Eve was a highlight of my life. Femme fatale in Double Indemnity, comedy queen in Ball of Fire. She can do anything."

"She was part of my gay awakening"

"SHE'S A PRE-CODE QUEEN. She did everything, drama, comedy. The most beautiful woman in the world to watch weep. Beg for to step on you with those legs. Fun Babs story: Ginger Rogers was offered the role in Ball of Fire but said, “Oh, I would never play that part, she’s too common.” So they called Barbara Stanwyck and they said “We offered this to Ginger Rogers but she’s turned it down, would you be interested?” And she read the script and she said; “You bet! I LOVE playing common broads. [link]"

#barbara stanwyck #ruan lingyu #tw suicide #hotvintagepoll #fuck that old woman #ladies 3 #Youtube

[harocat]

I hope this doesn't come across as rude or anything, as I'm bi myself, but based on some posts from confused danmei fans I've found on the TTEOTM tag, I'm afraid that Tantai Jin or the drama are not gay enough for Tumblr to lose it over him, like they did over MDZS 😢

I'm a lesbian and I'm not offended lol. I think for things to draw the tumblr audience, it's not so much that they have to be gay as they have to be potentially gay.

And by that I mean potentially gay and about men, specifically, because fandom is frankly like 75% less interested in stories about women and it's still rare for a women-centered series and an f/f ship to break out and be super popular.

So something like TTEOTM doesn't really have a lot of m/m shipping potential. There's a bit of a spark between Xiao Lin and TTJ near the beginning, but it sort of pitters out. Nian Baiyu and TTJ are close, but they just don't really have that vibe that makes them feel super shippable. There's no getting around that the most compelling relationship TTJ has in the series is with a woman (though you all, the enemies to lovers vibes you all love are here and they are so good). I've been trying to get all my fellow queer friends to watch Love Between Fairy and Devil because I'm like 'IT'S REALLY GOOD I PROMISE' and I have succeeded with several of them, but the m/m shipping potential is definitely minimal so it probably won't ever catch fire in fandom at large.

Add in that, and this is more important than anything else in this specific case, it's a Chinese drama, which is not something widely popular on tumblr EXCEPT for The Untamed and Word of Honor, both of which are based on canon bl novels, and there's just no hope of drawing people in.

I don't want to insinuate that things are just popular because they're gay or potentially gay, because I do think there's generally a level of quality that they need to have to get people actually into them. And many of these shows have SO MUCH more going for them than just 'they're canon gay' so it's a bit of an insult to insinuate that's the only reason they're popular. I feel like there should be a balance in discussion where you can go 'hey a lot of people may have tried this out because it's canon gay, but the reason it sustained a large following is because it's legitimately a really excellent story with great characters, in addition to the gay.' I always get super defensive when people say Yuri on Ice is only popular because it’s gay.

There's after all plenty of gay or just really slashy shows no one cares about on this site because they're not good. There are exceptions to this (I mean is SPN good? No), but I do think fandom on the whole has gotten choosier in recent years, which is not a bad thing. People are definitely less tolerant of stuff that strings queer viewers along like BBC Sherlock.

MDZS is very good. Wei Wuxian is probably my second favorite fictional character ever. I have issues with the actual narrative of Word of Honor (it's just kind of shoddily written at times), but the characters themselves are very good, and that's what matters most in fandom.

I can never fault people on tumblr for checking into canonically gay media because it is gay, because hey, almost all of us are queer here and we want to see stories about ourselves. But I guess I do get frustrated when over and over the biggest fandoms on here are things that aren't gay, but are just about men that people find shippable. And TBH I think people miss out on so many great stories and characters when they just kind of go purely from big slash fandom to big slash fandom, whatever is popular at the moment.

I also think that, and this is maybe my most salient point of all, people in fandom should try just... not watching everything with a fandom mindset. Like here's a great show, but there's not really a popular ship in it with a lot of fanworks, so people don't watch it. But why not? Not everything needs to be a fandom for you. Sometimes you can just enjoy media, and who knows, maybe something will surprise you and you WILL feel fandom-y about it.

#anonymous #till the end of the moon

[gimmequeerbooks]

Before We Disappear by Shaun David Hutchinson (review/rec)

Genre: Historical Fantasy

My rating: 7/10

Alright, now we’re on to books that maybe not everyone know about! Shaun David Hutchinson has been one of my favorite authors since I read one of his first books, We Are The Ants, when it came out in 2016. I will probably be reviewing each of his books at some point or another as nearly all of his books are about LGBTQ+ people and only a handful of his main characters are ever hetero cis and as a bonus he usually includes people of color and/or queer people of color, and disabled people to his stories.

This one features two boys, Jack and Wilhelm, both of which are gay. Other queer or potentially queer characters to note include Ruth and Jessamy they are both lesbians or possibly bi. Lucia, presumably a woman, also often wears men's clothing.

Jack and Wilhelm work as assistants for rival magicians at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific World’s Fair Exposition in 1909. Jack, a talented thief, assists the Enchantress and at times steals tricks from other people for her to perform. At the fair, he sees Laszlo, an amazing magician with impossible tricks. After some digging, he discovers that behind it all is a boy named Wilhelm, and he can perform a real sort of magic and that he does not assist Laszlo by choice. The pair fall in love, and Jack must find a way to free Wilhelm but in doing so he will turning his back on the Enchantress, the woman who took him in when he had nowhere else to go.

The thing that I really love about Hutchinson’s works is that the focus is never really on the fact that the characters are gay or queer. Instead, the characters typically just accept how they are and move on with the story. He doesn’t write coming-out stories or anything like that. So, I would say that this story is actually about manipulation and abuse, trust, found homes, and what freedom means.

See, while Laszlo is an absolute piece of shit, abusive “guardian” to Wilhelm that is definitely not above horrendous acts, the Enchantress is not wholly in the clear either. She uses Jack and while both seem to care about their wards in some sort of way, neither treat Wilhelm and Jack well. The dichotomy between the two magicians is something to behold. Wilhelm also has to trust Jack with a lot of secrecy, that he will stay safe as they go behind the Enchantress’s and Laszlo’s backs, and that Jack knows what he’s doing and can help Wilhelm escape. Jack has to put his trust in Wilhelm that he knows what’s best for himself and that his friends will pull through for him. Both Jack and Wilhelm have to define for themselves what home is and what it would like if they were to leave the magicians. To them, leaving would mean stepping away from everything and everyone they know.

Seeing Jack and Wilhelm as foils for each other through the lens of what their freedom looks like is was interesting to see as well. Jack is practically required to be devoted to the Enchantress mentally. He is allowed to have a life and friends outside of his job, but he is constantly at the Enchantress’s beck and call. He’s ready to risk his life for her, follow her around the world, and do whatever she asks out of both gratitude and admiration. Wilhelm on the other hand, is trapped physically. He doesn’t like Laszlo at all, but he has no choice other than to do as he’s been ordered. Both are under some sort of confinement by the adults that raised them, but in different ways.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. However, I will admit that Wilhelm and Jack were possibly a little too perfect to each other. We didn’t get to see them mess up with each other often, but again, I don’t think that that was the point of the book, so I’m not too upset.

I wouldn’t say that it’s the very best of Shaun David Hutchinson’s books, that would probably go to his memoir, Brave Face, but more on that at a different time. Before We Disappear was a solid book and a good read.

I should mention that this book does come with a fair number of trigger warnings such as: physical abuse, emotional abuse, and gaslighting. All of which are listed on his website. The physical abuse can be quite graphic at times. There is also some racism and homophobia.

#lgbtq+ books #booklr #books and reading #queer fiction #queer books #queer #gay books #Before We Disappear #shaun david hutchinson #lgbtq+ #book review #book recommendations

[ditzydreamsss]

HEADCANONS LATER (+incorrect quote), after the rant :D

watching korean minecraft youtubers from six years ago for the nostalgia and I didn't realize how big the pit was. Like how many videos actually are there?? How many actually good minecraft roleplay series?? I'm nodding along to most of it tbh but STILL!!!

잠뜰tv (or Sleepground) is who I'm watching mainly and HHJHHHHHHH SHE HASN'T CHANGED!! It's been 5-6 years and she hasn't fallen for the algorithm!!! SHES STILL MAKING FIRE VIDEOS HHHHHHH!!!!!?????? I've already seen one of the older creatures doing skibidi toilet and was so disappointed, so I decided to visit 초능력 연구소 (superpower laboratory) and i checked her channel today after binging 스틸 하트 (Steel Heart) and I WAS SO HAPPY!!! Her latest video is like a labyrinth thing I haven't watched yet but that reminds me of this other series about a labyrinth so I'll get to that later but AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! /POS

No one knows what I'm talking about and it kinda sucks because the series and cc's are all korean and only korean and i doubt anyone in 2023's still watching these and can also speak english and is not a child BUT!! BUT! HHHHHHHHHHHH I LOVE THIS. no, i will not shut up about 각별/수현 (Gakbyeol/Suhyen (romantic)) shipping in Ddotty's lab rp and every other universe/rps ever. (The characters! Not the ccs!!!)

Oh wow those are a lot of words.

Okay hear me out about Gakbyeol and Suhyen. Okay listen maybe they hate each other but what if they didn't. What if then. What if they made out in Ddotty's lab rps after recording (the characters, again, not ccs). My headcanon is that Ddotty records all the crazy events that happen and store them away for the gang to watch later when they're bored.

Anyways. What if this happened, huh? What if?

Suhyen, alone with Gakbyeol: My byeol <3 [byeol means star] Gakbyeol: My bunny~ <3 Jamdeul, who just walked into them cuddling: oH PDA- Suhyen: I- Gakbyeol: I'll kill you. Chou, who also walked into this: Aww. But also. Pda. Sunyen: SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT- Jamdeul: *pretending to throw up* Gakbyeol: You all voluntarily walked into our lab. Coa: *walks in and walks out again* Suhyen: oh my gOD GAKBYEOL PLEASE DON'T KILL THEM (Coa) Chou: *making stupid comments about them making out for ten hours* Gakbyeol: I'm this close to snapping, bunnyboy.

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수현, 각별과 단둘이 : 나의 별 <3 [별은 별을 뜻함] 각별: 내 토끼~ <3 막 껴안고 걸어들어온 잠들: oh PDA- 수현: 나- 각별: 죽여버릴 거야. 역시 여기에 들어간 초우: 아아. 하지만 또한. Pda. 선연: 닥쳐 닥쳐 닥쳐-!!! 잠들: *토하는 척* 각별: 여러분 모두 자발적으로 우리 연구실에 들어오셨습니다. 코아: *들어갔다가 또 나옴* 수현: 맙소사- 각별 제발 죽이지 마세요-! (코아) 초우: *그 사람들이 10시간 동안 사귄다고 멍청한 말*각별: 나 찰칵거리기 직전이야, 버니보이.

(same thing, just translated. I used google translate and tweaked really small things so it isn't great, but I think it's funnier said in their native language)

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GUYS WHAT IF.

The ship formed in my brain at the wonderful hour of 3 am and now they've made residency in my brain. For all my scu and gribzly lovers, I'm sorry. I've fallen into the pit and it's too late.

Guys but they.

Also what's with Jamdeul (잠뜰) and Ddotty?? I headcanon them as best friends just to be safe.

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Headcanons (PRONOUNS)

-- Suhyen: he/him, xe/xem, bun/buns -- Gakbyeol: he/him, sol/sols (solar) -- Jamdeul: she/her -- Coa: they/them, he/him (in order of preference) -- Chou: she/her, dove/doves OR they/them, dove/doves (((changes))) -- Dotty: he/him

Headcanons (labels)

-- Sleep: straight (supports pride like insane. like. even more than some of the actual lgbtq+ in the group) -- Coa: pan [definitely not closeted, will fight.] -- Dotty: "straight" (questioning. he's bi), transmasc -- Chou: "mhm. women." [not in the closet. casual] -- Suhyen: omni (prefers men) [closeted about everything. his friends know pronouns. everyone else assumes he's straight] -- Gakbyeol: gay, demi. [doesn't talk about it much but if it comes up then he'll argue/fight.]

Other headcanons (reminder this is, again, about their persona/characters! NOT THE CREATORS THEMSELVES)

-- Suhyen and Gakbyeol's petnames for each other are "Bunny" and "Byeol" (which means star in korean)

-- Gakbyeol called Suhyen "Bunnyboy" once, and now it's his nickname forever.

-- Coa is chaotic neutral/evil.

-- Suhyen is usually really chill unless someone mentions food. Ironically, his favorite food is pork (he's a rabbit hybrid). After someone mentions food, we've lost xem. Bun ain't coming back.

-- Suhyen gives major bottom energy. I'm not sorry.

-- Jamdeul does whatever she wants. Dotty can't stop her. No one can.

-- Besides maybe Chou. Actually, second thought. Chou would definitely support Jamdeul when she's feeling chaotic.

-- Jamdeul has two moods. Tired and done with it, or chaotic and literally the devil. Even Coa is afraid of her in those moods.

-- Gakbyeol is really closed off and almost never admits sols affection for the gang™.

-- It had been an ongoing bit that Suhyen and Gakbyeol hates each other, so everyone was surprised when they found out the pair made out everyday every year every second.

-- Dotty is so gullible bruh. The poor guy. (psst. 32.)

-- If the characters were in a DND game, Dinosuar (공룡) would be the DM.

-- I forgot about Dinosaur completely, tbh. I'm not going to spell out Gonglyong every time I talk about him so Dinosuar or Dino it is.

-- In a survival island situation, Suhyen would take all the food and take the responsibility of rations and treat every bit of food like his children.

-- Also in a survival situation, Coa or Jamdeul would suggest they just swim in the ocean to (South) Korea. All the way. No food. Just swim. Gakbyeol would quietly build a tent and only let Suhyen in "out of pity".

-- Also also in the survival island situation, Gakbyeol would definitely find a random mirror lying around and admire himself. Or die because he can't take a proper shower and looks "ugly".

-- Not really a headcanon but if Suhyen started reading audiobooks I would get them (the cc).

-- Back to headcanons. Suhyen would read stuff/talk about stuff and post them on Spotify (He would start a podcast probably because of a dare or peer pressure). Gakbyeol would casually listen to them.

-- Gakbyeol is traumatized by pianos. He doesn't want to talk about it. (Reference to one of his videos)

-- Everyone in the group (maybe minus Coa, sorry.) can sing really well but only Dotty sings regularly and proudly in front of everyone else. Jamdeul sings when she's alone and would kill if anyone walked into it. Chou would casually hum.

-- Gakbyeol is really standoffish and everyone who doesn't know him well dislikes him. But he's pretty reliable and he expresses his affection through criticism and arguing. If he actually hated you, he wouldn't interact with you. Not even a glance. As if you're a ghost.

-- Duckgae (덕개) and Rather (라더)(Pronounced Lah-ther, fyi) followed Jamdeul to the lab one day and they've been staying in her lab ever since. Duckgae dragged Rather into this. They and Suhyen get along pretty well. Everyone else (especially Coa) keeps forgetting they exist cause they never show up anywhere.

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I didn't realize I ranted so much. I zoomed out I think. I have science homework to do sob.

I've been calling this little era of mine the Nostalgia Run.

#ditzy nostalgia run corner #long title but eh #sleepground #잠뜰tv #잠뜰 #Ddotty #각별 #수현 #dont know what else to tag #there isnt much people who use these tags anyway #by not much i mean ive seen three-two posts #guys help #i cant' #im trapped here #도티와 친구들