#not knowing anything about the queer community and being super closeted

[shmaroace]

sorry but i'm that person who makes their sexuality their entire personality. actually in fact i WILL be obnoxious about being aroace and there's nothing you can do to stop me :)

#i know it's annoying but i'm so proud of being aroace and how far i've come #in the past few years i've gone from #not knowing anything about the queer community and being super closeted #to being a (mostly) out and proud aroace/trans person #like yeah i'll shout it from the rooftops because im finally happy with myself and my labels #isnt self love important anyway? i love myself and i will be obnoxious about it. not sorry #aro #aromantic #arospec #ace #asexual #acespec #aroace #aspec

[boytoyhalo]

actually i have thoughts about qfit coming out and the fucking courage that had to have taken him as someone who spent the past 10 years of his life on 2b2t

Idk how much people who have never played on 2b2t actually know about the culture and environment there but because it has no rules, theres a shit ton of casual (and not so casual) bigotry of all sorts. Im 100% sure fit has to cut a TON of shit out of his videos, because the first and only time I ever logged onto it it was less than 10 seconds before i saw a wall of bedrock swastikas and slurs being thrown around in the chat. and anti-gay slurs in particular are a big part of the common terminology there, at least according to the wiki and a few of my friends who used to frequent it. Actually, the reason I never watched fit before the QSMP despite being aware of and interested in his content is because I made a point to stay away from anything 2b2t related for my own mental health - the hate speech there is so notorious that I had been warned to do so, and that was reaffirmed the one time I tried to play on it

Basically, that server is a fucking nightmare to be gay on just in terms of the real life community - in-universe, i imagine that would be reflected tenfold. So for Fit to have spent so long surrounded by that kind of attitude towards gay people, presumably closeted and possibly not even aware of his own queerness... it makes sense that he's been as hesitant as he has been to verbalize his feelings for pac. He can do it just fine when it's played as a joke with Phil or Forever or whoever else, but to find yourself entering into a real queer relationship after spending so long surrounded by violent (and most likely deadly) anti-queerness is fucking SCARY. Even without factoring in the general trust issues that spending that long on an anarchy server gave him, there's no way he didn't internalize at least some of that attitude.

So the fact that after these 7 (8??? is it 8 now i cant be bothered to count) months on Quesadilla island, surrounded by queer people in queer relationships being treated completely normally and supported he feels safe enough to (kind of) come out as gay to his son.... idk I'm just feeling super soft over it rn. Obviously it's Ramon, it's his son, who's been talking about getting him a new husband, so he knows he's safe. But knowing that logically and FEELING that are two different things and it's huge for a man who's spent a third of his life on arguably the least queer friendly space in the entire minecraft community to be able to speak it out loud like that..... im so proud of my bald gay cubito guys

#qsmp #qsmp fitmc #q fitmc #q fit #fitpac

[queerism1969]

What is something about being LGBT that a straight person would never guess is a thing you have to deal with on a regular basis?

People asking how you have sex

Once you come out, you never truly stop coming out.

Being queer means that you are going to be really lonely a lot of the time.

The mini internal debate you have every time you tell a story about your SO. Do I say friend or girlfriend? Have I come out to this person yet?

People ask if I know X person because they're also gay.

When you're gay, there's a very real chance your Significant Other will not have a family to bring you into.

Any expression of my sexuality is "being in your face about it" and "it shouldn't be your whole personality".

Everyone had an opinion about my mere existence.

People legitimately question the validity of your relationship, and whether it's just a phase-especially if you're bisexual

Straight people always want to know what your type is. It always feels like a test to see if you find them attractive.

How to properly have sex. They REALLY don't teach you that in sex education.

You never know who is secretly homophobic whether at work or in public, so you always have to act "straight" in a lot of situations

You get sick of never being represented in media, but straight people don't really get it.

Getting polite service is difficult.

Office workers will sometimes purposely send you on goose chases because they don’t want to serve you.

Before y'all knew I was gay, you talked a lot of smack about "the gays." You don't remember, but I remember. I will always remember.

Losing nail clippers can really harm a relationship.

Being queer sometimes feels like being a 30-something-year-old teenager in a community full of 30-something teenagers and weirdly grown-up kids who’ve been living on their own since being kicked out by their bigoted parents at 16.

We have to constantly police our language.

The shame/internalized homophobia.

Your right to exist being a political debate

Wondering when the Supreme Court will revoke my rights.

You can’t really just have sex on a whim... You have to spend time (a lot more than you think) to clean.

While closeted, probably the weight of the secret or the fear of someone finding out.

A gay person will watch any TV show or movie, no matter how bad, if they hear there is even a slice of positive gay representation in it.

When a gay couple kisses in public, people stare. Not even out of disgust or anything, but just because it’s still kind of foreign to them.

You can't always go to the place you want for your honeymoon, because you might get killed

Being described as someone’s “gay best friend” and not just their best friend.

Every time we tell someone we have a partner, and it catches them off-guard, they proceed to tell me about a gay person they know.

The doctor is always super surprised as to how we can be both sexually active and be 100% sure that we are not pregnant

People force you to come out, and they act like they’re doing you a favor.

You have to be prepared to lose any friendship at the drop of a hat

Every couple of years or so, we get a random homophobic death threat on social from someone we've never interacted with.

#lgbtqia #lgbtq community #lgbt pride #lesbian #nonbinary #sapphic #lgbtq #queer #nonbinary lesbian #gay girls #lgbt nsft #pride #lgbtqplus #queer community #queer culture #queer nsft #queer pride #queer artist #lgbt #trans #mtf pride #pride month #happy pride 🌈 #trans pride #gay pride #pride flag

[m3r1m4r5u333]

I'm getting a bit tired of the fandom's overwhelming consensus that Eddie is surely gay even thought there are plenty reasons why his relationships with women would not have worked out.

Personally bisexuality makes more sense to me, and I feel like that's what the show is trying to show, too. And since the show already had "closeted gay man in a "straight" marriage, I think it would make more sense to go for Bi Eddie.

Because Eddie is different from Buck even if he's also bi. Religion. His family's expectations. Marriage. Parenthood. And I also think - earlier realization of sexuality even though he remains closeted. Fun fact: that's what bisexuals do! Even in supportive environments, we stay in the closet the most and the longest.

I'd really like for Eddie to be bi.

Eddie's the type of bi in disguise that the world is full of and nobody notices because the marriage with a woman would be a true one.

This matters because it seems like there's this odd idea that these bisexuals are doing fine in the closet. Why talk about them?

The reality is actually that according to just about every study, bisexuals are distinctly not fine.

The biphobia and erasure comes from all directions. People expect and understand the concept of heterosexuality and homosexuality well enough. Bisexuals...?

It's called the Double Closet. Expectation to either be straight, or gay, and if you're anything else you're just confused.

Also, bisexuals may not just have shitty parents. They also end up falling in love and marrying people who are biphobic. Fun times.

Anyway, I'm listing my reasons why Eddie being into women and men would make the most sense to me:

He agreed with Shannon that sex was never the issue for them.

His marriage to Shannon failing? He was young, the pregnancy was unplanned, he was pushed to marry a high-school sweetheart at young age and then facing the stress of trying to figure out how to raise a special needs child with her.

He went to a war, and returned traumatized. Trauma tends to make everything even harder.

Their mutual lack of trust and communication.

Meddling parents.

Perhaps... Being a closeted bisexual dating a woman who does not know.

Because that's one way to keep a partner at a distance - by hiding a part of yourself.

Losing a loved one, being afraid to love again.

Being pushed to date too soon after grief and trauma.

Falling for a male friend who he thinks is straight.

Being pushed to date someone else.

Oh and the panic attacks - Learning that his friends have died,

being shot by a sniper and thinking Buck was hurt,

ending up in a rapidly developing relationship with someone who is falling in love with him...

When he just likes her... but feels pressured to keep the relationship going anyway.

Because his son loves that person, and Eddie is programmed to go for marriage in every relationship he ends up in. Catholic guilt... They love marriage.

Family expecting him to be straight. Family pushing him to date despite him saying he isn't ready.

Being totally new in the dating world. No wonder he talks about performance anxiety and feeling like he needs to perform - his heart isn't in it.

Also he's probably never even been on dates. How to act on dates? He's not a teenager anymore, it's embarrassing and awkward to fumble and not know the dating culture.

Also when we first meet Eddie he's only been with one woman. Women aren't carbon copies. Sex can be intimate and awkward with someone new. Of course he'd be nervous.

Then finding out that his girlfriend was almost a nun... and being closeted bisexual!

And so on. Nothing actually says the man MUST be gay, and I feel weirded out by the insistence that he surely is gay.

I feel like... Maybe the show expected this, that people would dismiss his interest towards women, and wanted to make the queer community check their prejudice?

Because that episode which focuses on Eddie's fight club and has that super queer coded ice skating scene??

It's Hansel pushing Gretel away... How gay! Expect then we find out that Hansel was only scared that she would miss out an huge opportunity by staying with her. A role in the big leagues.

And that joke about Bobby being a hockey player and a figure skater??? And saying

"Who says you can't do both?" while a piece composed by Paganini - also famous for mastering both guitar and violin, plays.

The shot shows Buck AND Eddie, and Hen with Chimney looking and pointing at them in amazement.

Saying "We'll google for photos later!"

Maybe the implication of

"Who says you can't do both" being referred to isn't just

"Who says you can't do both women and men?"

.... but ALSO "Who says you can't write both of these characters to be bi?".

#911 on abc #911 buddie #buddie #eddie diaz #evan buckley #buddie 911 #evan buck buckley #911 abc #tv: 911 #eddie díaz #911 speculation #who says you can't do both

[bengiyo]

Hi, what's your 30 favorite Asian BL characters from dramas or series you've watched? (unless you don't have that many) Thanks.

Nonnie, respectfully, that's just too many characters to write about. However, I have written about The Knowing and why I identify with those characters, and I've written about Framboise, one of my favorite characters of all time.

However, now is as good a time as any to join @lurkingshan and @waitmyturtles in reaffirming my love for Dynamite!

In her post, Turtles talked about how Dynamite and Fire are products of internalized and externalized homophobia. Shan went on in her post to talk about how their story works because of how Fire shifts as he becomes comfortable with himself and his relationship with Dynamite.

I think part of why I feel so protective with it comes to Dynamite and his friends is that I care so much for fem gay men and the kinds of visible queers that don't get loved, especially when they're assertive about themselves. It was always obvious to me why Dynamite, Prem, and Samsee were together. They're all lonely queers who don't expect others to love them or take care of them.

I've noticed over the last decade that fandom really struggles with friend groups like these. It was somewhat similar with the SCOY quartet on the front end, especially Toh. I often wonder if there is a component of visible queerness or gender play that doesn't reach sections of the audience. However, as a gay man who is loved and protected by queers like this, these are my best friends. You've heard my best friend on @the-conversation-pod when David guests, and he is one of those queers. He is a fighter. I am not.

Prem and Samsee clearly know Dynamite's story. The crux of why Samsee is upset with Dynamite at the end of episode 9 and going into episode 10 is because he felt like he should have been trusted with something important about Dynamite. Samsee is the kind of man who is like Whoopi Goldberg: He doesn't want people in his house. However, he opens his door for Dynamite when he loses his apartment, and keeps letting him live there even when he's pissed. Samsee believes in his friends and loves them. Dynamite is the de facto leader of their friend group because they love and trust him. Dynamite is more than just his persistent attraction to Fire.

Dynamite likes Fire because Fire protected him from what clearly reads as a bashing. Dynamite has been thinking about that for years, and toughened himself up because of white Fire inspired in him.

We also know that Dynamite lost his parents to homophobia. You don't get a queer like Dynamite if they're loved and supported by the people who were supposed to do it. You get this when he's loved and supported by the people who chose him. I keep my guest room ready because we sometimes have to take care of a friend in the local community.

When Fire gets serious about Jane and weird about Dynamite, he backs off, forcing Fire to come after him. He knows that Fire is also into him, but he isn't going to be jerked around. It's the sincerity of Dynamite's attraction that makes Metha force Fire to reckon with how he's suppressing who he is.

More than anything, it's that Fire admits this to himself when he can't put up the front anymore. Dynamite is so important to me because so many of us who were closeted are like Fire. We pretend like we don't like gay men chasing us, like Intouch chasing Korn in UWMA, and then we lose them! You will lose confident gays like Dynamite if you treat them like shit and keep calling them annoying. Their friends will call you DL trash and you will not be invited out.

I just love Dynamite so much. He is the kind of gay character I love the most in BL. He's a kinda fem gay man who is earnestly pursuing his hot, super fit love interest. He has the support of his visibly-queer friends. He knows what he wants out of his relationship. He supports his partner through a major difficulty while still being clear about what he wants as secondary to his partner's safety. He is passionate about his goals, and wants to succeed with his friends (I ugly cried about their dish narrative in episode 10).

We have a fully-realized queer character surrounded by complex, layered queer characters. His story and those of his friends are about queer love making people's lives better. He will always be a favorite, and I really hope the people in the audience who've struggled with him can find more ways to appreciate him.

#answered #cooking crush #cooking crush meta #ben writes

[bloggingboutburgers]

Heyyyyy, got a question if you don't mind

I'm aroace. The problem (I think) is that I'm not visibly aroace (can one even be visibly aroace?) and I'm also quite antisocial in general.

It's not that I'm hiding it (I can (I think) casually mention it when relevant) or that I'm in the closet, I just don't really feel the need to change my appearance due to it. If that makes sense

Anyway, now for the (I suppose) controversial bit.

Due to not being "visibly" queer, I don't face (I think at least) the using discrimination (or whatever you call it).

And due to that I sometimes (quite often) don't feel like I'm "actually" queer/aroace.

And yes, I know that it super fucked up to "want" (not the right word, but I'm not English. Just to clarify in case it's not obvious, I do not actual want that) to face the challenges other people do.

Any advice for this?

(extra appreciated if the advice doesn't include going out and/or meeting people, it that's just wishful thinking)

Hey! OK, I hope I don't ruin anyone's day (including yours) or say anything that might be harmful to anyone, as always I'm not gospel and can only speak from my own experience...

...But long story short, honestly, if you don't feel discriminated against, and don't suffer from it on a day to day basis... That's awesome!! And... I feel weird having to say this, but I don't think suffering discrimination should be a requirement for being queer, should it? I mean, that's literally our goal, as queer people, to end discrimination against ourselves, so if this is a demonstration that we're getting closer to that, that's awesome, honestly!

...But yeah. I mean... I hope it's not a stretch to say, but I can imagine there's quite a few queer people out there (not just aroaces) who have had the luck in their life never to be discriminated against, and I hope that continues for them, because... Yeah, that's the goal!

Being queer isn't about that, I don't think. I think first and foremost what defines you as queer is that you deviate from the hetero norm that is viewed as the "default" in society. And I've said that before and I'll say it again, because it might be even harder to actually integrate as an aroace (there's so much external pressure from in and out of the queer community, and yeah, like you said, it's hard to be visible when your orientation revolves around the ABSENCE of something), but you don't have to prove anything to anyone. If you feel you're aroace, then you are. It oughta be that simple most times.

Plus... Not feeling discriminated against at one point in your life sadly doesn't mean that won't happen later down the line. When I discovered myself as aroace as a teen, I didn't really feel my orientation gave me many problems, other than having zero resources at the time to figure out what I was even existed, and being mistaken for gay and facing the occasional homophobia because I didn't date boys. But after a while, after getting into adulthood and being dismissed a couple too many times when I mention my orientation, after the lack of rep getting to me at times (though hey, there IS rep, which I didn't even think I'd see in my lifetime), or after people decide you're old enough to ask you when you're gonna get married too many times for comfort (why do people even do that?), it kinda stuck with me to the point where I wanted to vent in comics. I don't have much to complain about in my life at all! Thankfully the laws in my country or the society I live in can't FORCE me to follow a hetero pattern, so the worst I get is systemic stuff and micro-aggressions, so yeah, I have it good. It's just an itch on a day-to-day. But yeah, made me wanna talk about it sometimes I guess.

But yeah! My bottomline would be: you're in a good situation, from what I understand, and that's great. I hope for you that it lasts. And you shouldn't feel guilty or less valid as an aroace or as a queer person for it. Your experience and your identity are what they are and no one can define your identity but yourself. I know saying "don't feel guilty" or "feel more valid" is easier said than done, but I hope that helps, anyway TwT

#softandwigglybones #aroace #aromantic #asexual

[howtosingit]

Some good/bad/ugly (but not super ugly, I'm not a dick about it) thoughts on RWRB. Obvious spoilers.

The Good:

The cake. Different from the book in a few ways but so damn good and a really strong beginning for the film. Also, watch through the credits for a tiny post-credit cake moment.

Alex and Henry messaging back and forth and talking on the phone at the beginning. A perfect way to translate that to the screen, taking advantage of the visual medium. I laughed out loud multiple times during the segment and just really enjoyed watching it.

Zahra. All of her scenes. So good. Dare I say her relationship with Alex was the most developed in the film? Maybe. It was certainly my favorite.

The polo match was a lot of fun, too. Though brief, it was very much in-line with what was on the page and that was satisfying to watch.

The King. He's a very different character than Queen Mary and by casting Stephen Fry and refocusing the moment, it became layered and interesting. An implied foil for Henry. Probably one of the better changes from the book.

The Bad:

Nora and Bea don't have a lot to do. Nora certainly gets a little lost after the first part of the film, though she’s around. Bea doesn't really mean anything until the last half of the film. Neither of them really have any of the depth that their book counterparts had, which is a shame since they're so great on the page.

Percy (because I'm pretty sure he is never referred to as Pez in the film) is an absolutely nothing character. Surprised he wasn't cut, but they clearly wanted Henry to have a counterpart to match Alex's Nora. But he actually gets nothing at all to do.

Alex and Henry's Christmas phone call is gone, and they only really have one big moment of vulnerability before New Year's (the hospital closet), which kind of makes the big kiss feel unearned. They're definitely friendly by New Year's, so that's something.

We're told a lot about the cages that Alex and Henry find themselves in, but they're never clearly defined in the film (it's very tell, don't show), which makes the stakes of them breaking out to be together feel lower, at least to me. I wish we saw a little bit more of the world that they inhabit so that we could understand the risks, but instead it's all summarized in TV segments.

For me, Alex and Henry never really feel fully-realized, especially Henry, who doesn't get his big moments until the later half of the film. It's a shame, but none of their moments of sincerity felt truly earned. I don't know, there was some kind of barrier between me and them for the entire film, I struggled to feel for them outside of "oh that's cute" or "oh that's sad" or "oh how nice."

The Ugly (or, more accurately, things that still don't sit right with me 15 hours later):

Miguel. Oh, boy. I really, really don't understand the choice to include this original character. From the very beginning it's just very... what? And why? All of the leak and antagonism of the leak, instead of being contributed to the white conservative Republican was instead placed on a queer Latiné man with no depth and I'm just... so very very confused by this choice. Obviously it was to streamline a lot of the backstory and details of how the leak came to happen, but my god... I really don't even know. I don't know if Matthew will ever talk about his choices for this character, but I'd really like to hear them. Also, he's not Liam or Rafael Luna, not even close. A pity that comparison was even made at any point during promo because it's 100% not true.

We get maybe 3 mentions of Arthur, no sight of Catherine. In fact, while Catherine is an absent mother, it's not attributed to her grief at all, but more just that she'd rather be anywhere else than by her children? And Henry and Bea are both very resentful of that fact. And I was like... why are we doing that to Catherine? She doesn't deserve that writing.

So after the leak, we get the communications lockdown which makes it impossible for Alex and Henry to speak to each other. But the film decided to have Alex make his big public speech during that time, without having Henry by his side or without him even talking to Henry about it first, and I found that really really upsetting. That was one of my favorite parts of the book, that Alex got to Henry as quickly as he could and then they walked through the whole situation together, side-by-side, as a team, both consenting to the everything after their consent was ripped away from them because of the leak. The film didn't give them that and I really didn't like it at all.

I mean, there were other things, too (the big sex scene was in Paris and happened way too early in my opinion - not because of the sex itself, just how it was framed), but I'm really not interested in picking the film apart. It's an okay film. It's not a terrible way to spend 2 hours. All in all, it feels like a solid summary of the book with glimpses at a lot of the book moments that we love. That doesn't make it a bad film, just a straightforward, simple one. It was made to be palatable for a general audience and that's fine. There's a deeper and more complex story here, which we know from the book, but this film wasn't the place to tell it. It tells a version of it, and it does an okay job at it.

(But, like, I'll take a 5-6 episode mini-series one day so that we can get the fully complex Henry backstory and screen time that he deserves to have.)

Also, Taylor Zakhar Perez's bare ass is a 10 out of 10, would recommend. There will be plenty of gifs of that in the next day or two, and no one will be complaining about it.

Oh, the opening credits were cute too and had an early-2000s rom-com vibe, which was great!

#just some thoughts... not all positive #but certainly not hate either #no one lose their heads here #sometimes you just have to word vomit #rwrb #red white and royal blue #rwrb movie #rwrb spoilers #spoilers #red white and royal blue spoilers

[alarrytale]

I do feel sorry for Louis because I think he suffers from internalised homophobia from growing up in Doncaster where he would have witnessed his peers being bullied for being gay. Unlike Harry who has two gay managers, gay band members, support acts and close friends like Alessandro who are gay, Louis is largely isolated from his community as an adult especially when he's touring.

Hi, anon!

I disagree with you that Louis suffers from internalised homophobia. I think you are reading this all wrong and like the gp would. I've talked about this before too.

Louis probably grew up in a place where gay was used as a slur by kids, that i agree with. However, when Louis moved to London i think that was very freeing for him and he blossomed. Louis is proud of being gay and proud of his relationship with Harry. Louis has a triangle tattoo ffs, and half his tattoos is complementary to H's tattoos. He was behind the bears too. He sings i love him i hate it and has songs about holding H at an Ed Sheeran concert. He's bathing his fans in rainbow lights at his concerts.

The reasons why it might seem like he's suffering from internalised homophobia is because he is harshly closeted. Probably one of the worst cases of unwillingly closeted in history. Believe me, if he had a choice he'd be out and proud. Both him and Harry has been banging on the closet door for years wanting out. It hasn't been as visible these last few years perhaps, but he does what he can to tell us who he really is. You just need to look past the surface and his constructed het image to see he's gay and closeted. I don't neccessarily think Louis would be the poster child for gay men when he's out and go to pride etc, but that doesn’t mean he isn't proud of who he is and hasn't accepted he's gay.

I think Louis is close to his childhood friends, and they know about him and H and support him. Louis doesn’t have as many public friendships with queers, that's true, but then again he's more harshly closeted than H is. He is being kept from his community, but that's due to his closet. He does have queer openers and he does have queer members on his touring team, but i get what you mean.

Louis' public twitter account has been one of the most important tools for closeting him. People think it's him tweeting and it has a wide reach. It's easy, because it's low effort and high reward. You hide behind a screen and you don’t have to stunt or say anything on camera where the lies can easily be detected. It's super effective and to the point. You can gaslight the fuck out of people. You get the narrative you want out there. Everything that "Louis" says on twitter shouldn't be trusted. Same with things in printed interviews.

It's a fight to look behind all the bullshit and gaslighting they throw at us, but don't let them fool you into thinking he's an insecure, scared man who hasn't yet accepted he's gay and isn't proud of it. That's simply not true.

#long post #internalised homophobia #solo louis #louis image

[shouldiusemyname]

This is

THE FINAL NAIL IN MY AGENDA'S COFFIN...

Well, wasn't going to say anything about it this week, but then I read this by @thegalwhorants - bestie I applaud your determination and thoroughness 💜 and it made me want to write.

So Tee, honey, if this ever gets to you - please call me before your next show cos I get you. I know what you're trying to do and I can help you make it better. It's my job (seriously, like irl I help people to better say what they want to say).

This has the 3 major Tee themes:

Family - found and biological

Queer life - within and outside of the community

Communication - the importance of

I was disappointed that all this goodness was overshadowed by the lack of communication within the show itself. Like parts of it were NOT communicating with each other AT ALL.

However, if you want the what could have been version then let's go!

This show is about Zo coming to terms with himself on all 3 levels:

Struggling with his own family and feelings of disappointment. Trying to be the perfect son as he believes he was never enough in his mother's eyes. It turns him into a people pleaser and he becomes detached from himself. He finds Joke who grounds him and gives him a sense of family where he is accepted without the constant need to be more. Joke saying "you are enough" was exactly what Zo needed to hear. This issue with mum also affects his ability to explicitly come out with Joke as his boyfriend and we are left with the sense that mum knows but wasn't really told. She gets it, but Zo never says it.

On the queer life front we have Zo's past experience of being shamed over his feelings towards a confused closeted friend leading him to think he might like a girl cos he wants to BE her - which is also a major contributor to Zo's 'I'm not enough" issues. So basically, this experience has left him scarred and caused him to further disconnect from the part of him that likes boys, leaving him very confused when he realizes he likes Joke. In addition, he also gets a glimpse into the complexities of queer life and relationships through Jeng and Pok's relationship, which imo makes him hold back when it comes to telling his mother (but this might just be me).

And for the communication - Zo learns to communicate as he's slowly reconnecting with himself. When you people please, you hide yourself. Zo's been hiding for so long that he doesn't know who he is. He's so used to hiding that he can only speak in metaphors which is why all the stories. This is the only comfortable and safe space he has to express his thoughts and how he truly feels because he doesn't have to expose himself. It's the story, not him. Add to that his super diplomatic skills expressed by his excellent debating - cos you have to be able to see all sides if you're a people pleaser...

So, this is the show I was watching and I have extended it all the grace that I can because Tee speaks to my heart.

Basically, the main issue is the name...

#hidden agenda meta #hidden agenda #my 5 cents

[drumlincountry]

I’m sorry you’re feeling so down about finding a community to write with. :( I’ve had some really similar struggles the past few years after moving to a new place—it’s SO HARD to know where to start (and unfortunately I’m still trying to figure it out, so this is more an ask to express sympathy than offer solutions).

If it’s not too weird to ask/you don’t mind talking about it, what kind of stuff do you gravitate toward for writing?

Thank you for this lovely message!!

uhhhh what DO I write. Well. In the spirit of Anne Boyer's Not Writing, currently:

I'm not writing a short story set in historical rural ireland which uses the tradition of lifting stones to explore themes about disability, masculinity, and (of course) transgenderism.

I'm not writing a two-person, one-room play called The Immortal Irishman which is about cowardice and trauma and the experience of living through Interesting Times.

I'm not writing a YA novel about a deeply closeted 17 year old figuring out she's queer during Ireland's 2015 marriage equality referendum. I particularly wish i was writing this one because I interviewed quite a few people who were queer teens not of voting age during the referendum & the experience fucking sucked. Plus, we're only a little over a year off All That being 10 years ago & wouldn't it be great to publish a book in time for that comemoration?

I'm not writing a post-post-apocalyptic coming of age/YA novel with the working title Whalefall about a small community living difficult lives in a harsh landscape, who are contacted by a "more developed" culture who want to "trade freely" with this community, and aren't like the old empires no sir we're sustainable now. Specifically this story follows the trainee doctor of this community, who would super love to have access to better healthcare technology, especially as she has a physical disability herself, but still can't quite trust these newcomers are as benevolent as they seem.

I'm not writing a short story or possibly novella about a haunted forest, a tween ghost, and a teenager from the city who doesn't really believe in ghosts but is in this situation anyway.

I'm not writing a BBC Being Human Season 3 Softer-and-kinder AU where Hal, Tom, and Annie get a year or two of peace and healing before the vampire prophesy shit kicks off, and Tom joins a parenting group at the nearby community centre.

I'm not writing the rest of my Good Omens/Daredevil crossover WIP, where Adam turns up.

I'm not writing a novel with the working title Slime Chunks which is about reconnecting with ur childhood best friend who has since got youtube famous. & she's now in legal trouble & possibly she did some very shady things, which should be unforgivable, except that you're realising with dawning horror that you would forgive her anything.

I'm not writing the rest of my Gilmore Girls series about Rory & Paris getting together while Rory figures out the whole pregnancy & motherhood thing, & Lane is being poly with her two husbands and many girlfriends in the background.

Those are the main things I'm not writing! There are other projects too, of course.

My work tends to deal with themes of:

queerness

disability

trauma

surreal shit, the supernatural, goth stuff, etc

#me fein #thank u so much for this ask it made me look at my projects and u know what they're cool projects #Love u thank u!!!!! #convo #i want to tell stories

[bongwateriero]

Can I just say thanks for talking about the stuff with g**lgerard. I am honestly shocked about how that account was able to get so big and amount a cult following after the super invasive stuff that has been posted for a while. I also don't understand any one can look at the stuff being posted and how “clocking trans people” has gotten people hate crimed when some of those people are Cis. This whole “well I can tell” mind set is the same ones that the anti lgbt+ folk have and it has hurt everyone because people don't appeare is enough to them.

Gerad has also stated many times that 1) they don't like labels and 2) they use he/they pronouns. For a community of people whom a lot are queer and either trans or nonbinary themselves you should know that missgrendering people and placing your thoughts as truths about people is super damaging. I also can't get over the wild take the queer people need to be told what they are. That's how so many people stay in the closet for years since their own community can't even stop mistreating them.

I am now sorry you have to deal with the asses that follow that account coming to you just to run their mouths. But again thanks for pointing this out because that account has been posting shit like that for far too long

i hate to be like I NEVER LIKED THEM but they really rubbed me the wrong way, ever since i made this blog. i didn’t follow them and i tried to avoid their posts, so i never realized how BAD they actually were.

what i had seen was a certain pretentiousness to all of their posts. and they definitely always posted like they got mcr and gerard in a way nobody else did. and their followers fed into it and thought it was cool and coddled them.

this was such a small thing that i mentioned in the tags of a post last night. i remember after one of the secretary gerard shows, either on here or in a server, people were talking about mira needing some time to process it all because the show was so hard on them and he was really going through it after the show. that they weren’t even at. and it’s not anything that serious but i think it really shows the way that their friends and followers treated them.

so after what happened on here, and on twitter, i’m glad me and other people are seeing that it was all beyond just someone being annoying.

[doitinanotherlanguage]

July 2023 Wrap-up: 1960s

(You can read more about the challenge on my post introducing the challenge. Basically, Reading Through the Decades is a year-long reading challenge where we read books - and explore other media - from the 1900s to the 2020s, decade-by-decade.)

Super late with the July wrap-up, but here it is at last!

What I Enjoyed This Month

📖 Picnic at Hanging Rock (1967), Joan Lindsay -> In 1900, a group of female students at an Australian girls' boarding school vanish at Hanging Rock while on a Valentine's Day picnic, causing varying effects on the school and local community. -> I watched the fantastic, queer 2018 mini-series (starring Natalie Dormer!) earlier this year and absolutely fell in love! So I knew I had to read the original novel as soon as possible. Since the book is written in the 60s, I decided to read it this month. I might prefer the mini-series (because in it, the themes of queerness are much more explicit and central) but the novel definitely holds its own, too.

🎬 Flickorna (1968; The Girls), dir. Mai Zetterling -> A feminist reinvention of the ancient Greek play Lysistrata by Aristophanes: Three actresses prepare to go on the road in a theater production of the classic play about women and war. As the women re-assess and deal with the problems in their respective private lives, they recognize the parallels with the play and begin to realize that it is serious - even tragic - after all. -> Very 60s, very awesome. I love watching older movies that centre women and feminist themes. This is definitely a very inventive and experimental - even surrealist - film.

📖 SCUM Manifesto (1967), Valerie Solanas -> A radical feminist manifesto that argues that men have ruined the world, which women have to fix by forming SCUM, an organization dedicated to overthrowing society and eliminating the male sex. The manifesto was little-known until Solanas attempted to murder Andy Warhol in 1968. -> I don't really know what to say about this. Mostly, the manifesto is filled with absurd bullshit - I don't fuck with violence, I emphatically don't think killing is the solution to anything, and radical feminism is definitely not the brand of feminism for me. That said, the manifesto is also hilarious as fuck: the manifesto totally flips the age-old "women are inferior" dynamic from Western, patriarchal philosophy and theory around, so yielding the manifesto up to an interpretation as a delicious satire. (Unfortunately, it seems that Solanas did not write the manifesto for irony and satire's sake.)

🎬 Victim (1961), dir. Basil Dearden -> A British neo-noir suspense film about a closeted lawyer who risks his career to bring a blackmailer to justice. The film is credited as being the first British film to explicitly name homosexuality and deal with it sympathetically. -> I am not the biggest neo-noir fan, but I very much enjoyed this one. I love a good queer classic!

🎬 Midnight Cowboy (1969), dir. John Schlesinger -> A naive hustler travels from Texas to New York City to seek personal fortune, in the process befriending a scrounging, sleazy small-time con man with big dreams. -> Another queer(?) classic! Idk, I really like watching movies about drifters and down-on-their-luck people struggling onwards in life and maybe finding some modicum of companionship in each other.

🎬 Stonewall (1995), dir. Nigel Finch -> A historical comedy-drama film that gives a fictionalized account of the weeks leading up to the Stonewall riots, a seminal event in the modern American gay rights movement. The main story follows a cross-dressing sex worker who meets a young gay man, freshly arrived in NYC. -> There was a horribly disappointing Stonewall movie made more recently in 2015 - forget about that shit and watch this one instead! This film actually centres cross-dressers, trans women, and queer politics while also incorporating humour, a love story, and several lip-synch numbers!

#reading through the decades #booklr #litblr

[juneviews]

With today being Bangkok Pride, I have noticed actors get backlash for not posting anything on their twitter account about it and that is just so interesting to me because while yes there are actors who of course don't care about the community and profit from it which is wrong there are also closeted actors yes who do BL but that is acting very different to what I suspect their real life experience of being queer is we don't know what they do IRL for the community and it is wild to me that people actually want to unstan someone for not posting a preformative tweet on their twitter account what to you think about it all?

yeah that's kinda dumb tbh. like of course it's super nice for actors to voice their support for the lgbtq+ community to which they owe their careers in the case of bl, but also it's not a requisite. I'm queer & I don't really post things about pride or lgbtq+ stuff on my personal insta, even though an enormous bulk of the content I consume online is queer activism. does that make me a bad member of the community? a self loathing repressed woman? absolutely not. I think it is right to call out homophobes who have used bl to their profit despite their views, but no actor should be forced to make a performative tweet about how nice it is to be who you are or whatever. honestly I couldn't care less, let's focus on actors like foei who have voiced their literal support to anti-lgbtq+ policies.

xxx

#answers #literally livid I'm not at bangkok pride looool #I still ate up off's pride tweet tho lmao but it's not a requisite

[aroaceconfessions]

I just found out one of my best friends had gone to the pride (in my country) without me. Like, she apologized to me and said she thought I have said I don't want to go in group (that was with her friends). Like, I'm not mad at her, it's no one's fault.

But I did want go. Like, maybe to say I was looking forward to it is pushing it. It was just the back of my head that on some date is the pride and we would go. I didn't check the date or anything because 1. I lost track of time and 2. I thought she'd text me the place we would meet or something.

It's the second (I think?) pride since I found out I'm aroace. The previous year(s?) we didn't go for whatever reason and well. I just wanted to go, you know? I imagined how I'll wear my rings and would look with other people with them.

Tbh I'm kinda crying rn and it's just not because of this. I'm thinking how insecure I'm feeling in my aroace identity being queer and what happened today Did Not Help.

See, this friend is allo queer and I do love them. They're one of my closets people to me. But... I often feel like she just... doesn't get it. She doesn't understand my aroace-ness. There's this connection between queer people, the community, the solidarity. I feel so left out of it. I feel like there's this... this abyss between allo queers and aro/ace people. We are constantly left out and misunderstood in the community that praise itself for being so accepting. Tbh I felt more welcome in the community when I thought I'm just straight, super supportive ally.

I don't know, I feel left out. I feel disconnected. I want to meet another aspecs irl. I know two other aces, but not aros or aroaces. This frustrates me because for me, my aromantic identify is very, very important, maybe more so than any other ID, and I want to share stuff about it with someone who understands. But I have very, very small circle of friends - two of them, I don't want to talk with them about this. And with the other one (the same that went to pride without me) it's always a joke or something funny about how I'm "so aroace". Which is fine, I enjoy this, there's nothing wrong with it. But it's not enough and it becomes so tiring to not be able to talk seriously with someone who gets it. And she's someone who is "proper" queer and who just... doesn't make me feel welcome. I mean, it's not their job to do so and she has never made me feel unwelcome. But you know, there's a difference between support and don't-mind-you-here. But the first four, even the first three letters in LGBTQ+ has this... idk, mainstream-ness (lol) and no one can deny them their queerness. And this is not the case for some other identities who are less "popular".

Recently, I have come to realize (even more) how my mental illness took away from me and my life and what happened today reminded me of it in a very unpleasant way.

When this is posted, I would be better but I needed to vent. (And sorry for my English, it's not my first language)

#aromantic #asexual #aroace #arospec #acespec #aspec #aroacespec #arose #friends #friendship #pride #invalidation #aphobia

[polyamorouspunk]

I have nothing worthwhile to contribute to this conversation other than the fact that I am a queer trans person who's very alt and it gives me a lot of comfort that other queer people can hopefully tell I'm genderfucky from it even though I'm closeted.

Anyways the real reason for this ask is because it's reminding me of last week when I was talking to this really cool and cute metalhead guy and he said "As a straight man" and I immediately went "I'm sorry, as a WHAT" cause I was so certain this guy was bisexual

(He did say he's not 100% sure he's straight though so like... 👀)

Yeah! I mean like there are a lot of “straight” people that align themselves with queer people and then find out that they are not in fact cishet… and then there are people who align themselves with queer people and maybe they always will be cishet… there’s always a large overlap too with being queer and being neurodivergent or disabled, etc. There are times I 100% dress “straight” on purpose to better blend in with the cishet community but I mean I’m always going to have short or colorful hair too. The day I made that post actually at work I ended up catching the eye of someone who was really cute and we were exchanging glances and I could tell they were queer because of the glances we were exchanging and I told my manager, who is an open flamboyant black gay man, like they were checking out and he was on the other side of the cashier on the computer and I was behind them and I was like waving and mouthing “she’s cute!!!” And pointing at her and he was laughing. And then Wednesday I went to the school library because I had time to kill and I ended up sitting at a table next to someone with aqua hair that was super short and they had like anime keychains and stuff so when they left I said I liked their hair and they were totally some flavor of not cis and me saying I liked their hair was my way of telling them “hello fellow queer person”. And we do dress that way because, to give an example, I have someone in my class who is genderfluid, and I know this because I noticed they aligned themselves with me and the other visible queer trans guy in my class, so I offered to give them a friendship bracelet with their flags and they were like oh I’m genderfluid and bi and I’m like oh okay! But they live in a strict household where they aren’t allowed to cut or dye their hair or get tattoos or anything like me and the trans guy are, and I feel bad because they want to! They want to look like we do! And before we part ways for the semester I want to try and give them tips to kind of… transition slowly into becoming more alt hopefully in a way that their parents will adjust to even just a little. That’s what it’s about. They saw me and someone else who has even more gender fuckery than me and latched onto us as someone who is forced to be in the closet. It’s about being able to make eye contact with people at your store and have that level of attraction and knowing it’s mutual because I have green hair and Look Gay and they dressed Gay and we can have that kind of “you’re cute” “you’re cute too” look at each other. It’s about “I like your hair” as a way to say “hello, I see you, fellow queer person”. And there’s no reason cishet people can’t participate in that, but when we do all this on purpose it’s simply incorrect, both historically and now to say that there’s no correlation.

But also 👀

#punk gets mail

[pcrfectstorms]

okay, so i want to talk a little about eddie munson’s relationship to sex and his sexuality, since i haven’t really addressed it beyond his obvious queerness. tw for SA mention && general nsfw

given the time period, ‘queer’ in the way we use it today wasn’t super commonly used, the reclamation of the word was pretty much in its infancy, and for the most part was still largely used as a slur, so while eddie will crack jokes to those he’s close too and trust about being a queer, it’s not really how he’d self identify his sexuality. he is pansexual, but while pansexual was used in the 80′s wasn’t super commonly used, and more so used within the kink and leather communities. so eddie, if pushed would shrug and tell you he’s gay or whatever, he likes both, doesn’t discriminate, likes to keep his options open --you get the idea. he’s more a vibes over gender type person, but definitely has more crushes on boys.

so what you gotta know is hawkins eddie, and Indianapolis eddie is two very different persona’s, in the city he is much more confident and flirty, and openly queer (in safe spaces), he can put on his persona and be the very best version he wishes he could always, but eddie is a flirt naturally, so while he is more sure of himself in indy, boy will flirt regardless.

most of what he’s learned about sex, has been with the men he met in gay clubs in indianapolisis, he got a fake ID when he was 16, as soon as he could drive and started going into the city, at first it was dive bars and punk scene type venues, and eventually he learned about club 21, and stated to explore the gay scene as a baby queer who had limited experience with men or women. most of his experience were with much older men, who sweet talked him, and took advantage of naivety pushing his limits beyond what he was comfortable with. Almost all of his sexual experiences with older men haven’t been favourable, and the consent has been questionable at best, and down right absent in other cases.

eddie is vers, however given his bad experience in the past, he will say he’s a top, in order to protect himself and avoid getting hurt again, if he’s the one calling the shots it has to go in his favour, right? he does have an interest in kink and BDSM, although he isn’t super well versed on things, since his limited experience comes from older ‘dominant’ tops, and while he has had at least one good experience with a guy who was only 4 years his senior, who taught him all about safe words, and traffic light code, and even taught him some shirbari, which he is super fascinated by.

he is vaguely aware of hanky code, and queer flagging, he knows as much in that wearing it in his back pocket signals to fellow queers he is queer, but not so much in the in depth knowledge that wearing a black one in his left pocket means he’s flagging as an S&M top, however close to the truth that may be, it’s purely coincidental. but when someone points that out to him in indy, he goes along with it, and finds it a little funny since, he’s only really bottomed at this point.

as far as his gender presentation and identity goes, he’s cis-ish, but very much gender non-conforming, metalhead fashion has a lot of cross over with queer fashion and i think that’s super important to take note of, w.a.s.p which, eddie has a pin of so clearly is a fan’s style was very much gender nonconforming, and then you have the lead singer of Judas Priest, Rob Halford,  an openly gay man (although closeted at the time in ‘86) who had HUGE influence on metal fashion and pushing the boundaries of gender fuckery in fashion, eddie is absolutely influenced by him, by bowie, by elements of hair metal style and punk too, all of which have an over arching theme of gender nonconformity, so to eddie, call him a boy, a girl, anything in between and he literally wouldn’t give a shit, he’s an any pronouns kinda bitch and i love that for him.

#❛ so you think you know me ❜ [ headcanons ; eddie munson ] #tw implied sa