#the brokeback of it all

[stil-lindigo]

the sunset.

a comic about two outlaws who loved each other, despite everything.

creative notes:

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#cw: gun violence + blood #par for the course for most homoerotic cowboy media #conway loved roy and roy loved him back but only figured that out when it was too late #god i love tragedy #this was indirectly inspired by the lifechanging heartache of a movie that is brokeback mountain #i watched that movie and was ruined emotionally for a calendar week #these poor self sabotaging cowboys #i havent been this proud of a comic as a finished product since RED btw #like if it was just the art or the poem on its own it wouldn't hit but i really do think i did my best for both components #really pulled out all the stops on this one so i hope you all like it as well #and as always #thank you for reading #cowboys #western #gay rights #and wrongs #original art #comic art #stillindigo art #stillindigo comics #hearteaters

[ingravinoveritas]

Someone shelving a DVD of Staged series 1 and 2 in the LGBTQ+ section of a shop is entirely too accurate and will never not be hilarious...

#michael sheen #welsh seduction machine #david tennant #soft scottish hipster gigolo #staged #or 'Brokeback Mount Him' which is what i am referring to Staged as from here on out #either the person who shelved it is an MS/DT shipper #or they saw the cover and decided it was queer based on that alone #or they watched it and saw the same thing we all saw #all excellent possibilities #could they possibly look more like a couple #bisexual disasters the both of them #amazing #ineffable lovers #lolz #discourse

[portraitofadumbassonfire]

COWBOY CARTER

(There Will Be Blood, Brokeback Mountain, Killers of the Flower Moon, True Romance, True Grit, The Harder They Fall, Paris Texas, The Power of the Dog, Coyote Ugly, Django Unchained)

#had this in my head all day #beyonce #cowboy carter #films #brokeback mountain #the harder they fall #Coyote Ugly #paris texas #killers of the flower moon #the power of the dog #true grit #true romance #there will be blood #texasbama

[testoster0ne]

tommaso and unai by alfonso anton cornelis for lewis magazine

#soft #organic #gay #male #photography #all of us strangers #brokeback mountain

[deramin2]

I don't know how to really express this except to come across as a "kids these days" scold, but so much of the criticism of queerness in Good Omens would simply not be a thing if kids these days watched more 20th century queer media. Or more complex indie queer media in general.

People seem to want a show that's like the straight stories they grew up with but gay. Or the gay fanfiction they grew up with. But that's not really the tradition it's coming from. First off the novel was released in 1990. Queer film classics of the time are Dead Poet's Society (1989) and Torch Song Trilogy (1988). The TV miniseries Tales of the City (1993) wasn't made until 3 years later and it was so far out there it never had a huge audience. Philadelphia (1993) is also 3 years out and was basically the first big studio queer film. The first fluffy queer Hallmark-style romcom wasn't until Big Eden in 2000, a full 10 years after publication.

Queer stories from the time it was written were about complex and often fraught relationships between people who the world was trying to force apart. There is an incredibly strong tradition in queer films of relationships with no guarantees they will work out both in the face of their personal baggage and the weight of the world. Take a film like Torch Song Trilogy that's about the two great loves of Arnold Beckoff's life over 9 years and how homophobia shapes them. Both externally (especially Allen) and internally like Ed struggling with his bisexuality and being terrified of being publicly out. Written and starred in by Harvey Fierstein, who identified as a gay man at the time and only came out as nonbinary last year.

The Boys In The Band (1968 play, filmed 1970 and 2020) was a monumental moment in Broadway history where finally there was a play about gay men in their own words where no one died and very strongly showed that homosexuality doesn't make people miserable but homophobia sure does. But that homophobia also throws their personal lives into constant turmoil and none of them are in happy relationships, although Hank and Larry are devoted to each other in their own fucked up way.

"Relationships are complicated and hard to make work and sometimes a struggle against the odds" is an aesthetic of classic queer film making. Partly it was influenced by the Hays Code (although independent films were not bound to it), partly influenced by the rampant queerphobia in society at the time that was inescapable. But it's also an aesthetic choice to resist the banal and unrealistic relationship depictions of straight media. There are actual stakes to the relationship. Queer people were actively resisting a world that said "Romance is seeing someone across the room and instantly falling in love with each other and little conflicts happen along the way but ultimately they're destined to be together and everything is happily ever after." Recall that "stalking as romance" was a completely inescapable trope in 1980s straight romance films, and every goddamn movie was being turned into a romance film.

So queer people in film and television when they can make what they please have a long tradition of saying instead "People don't always realize the feelings they've developed for a queer partner right away. They may have reasons for denying those feelings that are both a reflection of the cruelty in society and of their own insecurities. People struggle with where they belong and their relationships reflect that. Loving someone doesn't mean they don't also drive you crazy and you might fight with them constantly. But that doesn't negate the love or that feeling that even if things aren't okay, they're better with that person around. But maybe that person can't stay around. The world may be against you. And also maybe you don't just want that one person in your life. Soulmates is a very flawed model. Sometimes the strongest love is a struggle with yourself and the world and your person. You have to overcome yourself first. Happily ever after is a lie. You may be happy for a while, and hopefully for a long while, but everything ends. And you have to be ready to love again. Also your platonic bonds are just as important and life-altering as your romantic ones. Sometimes those platonic bonds include fucking if you want them to. Real life isn't a bunch of platitudes and world-altering moments, it's daily work to better yourself and the world around you. Especially when things just fucking suck. But also remember to have fun and fuck the haters. People who don't support you can eat rocks and you should yell at them more to shut the fuck up."

That is a fundamentally different outlook on what a "good relationship depiction" looks like. Personally, I thought I hated romance movies and then I started watching queer romance movies and discovered I love them and watch them all the time. Because it turns out what I hated was relationships being shown that had nothing at all to do with reality and privileged incredibly toxic ideals. Finally there was complexity, there were stakes, and there were people who had to truly want to be together enough to fight the world for it and not because they happened to be there. There were people actually talking out their problems and looking for resolutions. (And sometimes that resolutions was "I can't fucking deal with this bullshit anymore and I'm out.") For the first time it felt real.

I'm an aroace trans gay man. Nothing about relationships or being in relationships has come easy to me, and the whole paradigm of straight patriarchal romance depictions makes absolutely no sense to me. It's completely alien. Queer romance stories actually feel human.

And that's the tradition Good Omens is coming from, even as it's being retold in 2019-2023 and hopefully beyond. Gaiman's work has always been based in that queer media paradigm. (I've been remiss and daunted and haven't read Pratchett but from what I do know his work also seems to sit more in that world view.) It's a beautiful cinematic tradition and it's baffling to me that people would resist it instead of embracing it for being honest.

And that's when I turn into a crotchety old man complaining about the youth not connecting with the history of their beautiful culture and instead begging for assimilation into a shithole allocishet media landscape that doesn't actually want them except for their money and has nothing at all interesting or valuable to say. But it's very funny (annoying) to me when people claim Good Omens is someone against queer culture when it's so thoroughly bathed in the best of queer media's storytelling traditions and what people are asking for is straight media with the serial numbers filed off. Like, stop being boring please and know literally anything about the culture the adults in the room lived through and were influenced by. The world didn't begin in 2015.

EDIT: I also want to add that in straight media arcs are linear. Traditionally in queer media arcs are cyclical. Queer media very often depicts people going around in circles relearning the same lesson over and over as they inch towards it sinking in. But every time they go through the cycle they gain just a little bit more enlightenment and slowly move towards a better place. From the comments this is an immensely important distinction. People don't actually have cathartic moments where suddenly all their past bad programming is shed and they saunter forward a new person with none of their old baggage. In reality people fall into the same patterns over and over even though they have had every opportunity to learn better. "People magically get better" is a trope of straight media that's an outright and frankly dangerous lie. Again, Good Omens follows the queer tradition not the straight one and it's depicted 6,000 years of that cycle. The world didn't end, and the wheel keeps turning, as it always has and always will. That's so fundamental to queer storytelling traditions I forgot to even mention it.

#good omens #good omens season 2 #good omens spoilers #go s2 spoilers #good omens discourse #queer media #queer history #discourse #I have been a crotchety old man against the youths since middle school to be clear #if you don't know where you've been you have no hope of knowing where you should go next #I didn't sit all the way through deeply homophobic Brokeback Mountain or Tár just to hear people complain that honest rep is bad rep #This is also why I'm a critchety old man about most Critical Role Shadowgast haters #Liam and Matt have not only watched but copiously reference older queer media and Shadowgast is so clearly that tradition

[voilaammayi]

John Watson saying you join me and my companion/colleague/friend/flat mate while the only thing I can think of is oh please cut the bullshit.

Companion is already the gayest word in existence and yet you want to salvage yourself by flat mate in a desperate try of not using roommate which is actually nothing more than just the second gayest word in existence and you and I both know it.

Who do you think you’re fooling John, my beloved sweet summer child, only yourself I’m afraid.

#sherlock and co #it’s all about the childlike wonder and awkward words fumbling with this man #don’t you even try taking him away from me #actually who’s gonna bet with me that john will be the last person to know that he himself has fallen in love with sherlock #not would but will because it w i l l happen one day #like come on companion?? are we in the victorian times once again trying not to get arrested for the gayness or what please #do you mean companion like maybe achilles and patroclus? yeah well they were gay #or maybe companion like ennis del mar and jack twist that summer on brokeback mountain? oh no would you look at that they were gay too #you ain’t fooling anybody darling #john watson #sherlock #sherlock holmes #johnlock #goalhanger #goalhanger podcasts #sherlock & co

[teruel-a-witch]

Brokeback Hawai'i

Putting these two iconic desperate rocking embraces next to each other, the similarity is remarkable. I can't help but feel like the person who put Danny in this specific shirt knew what they were doing, what are the chances of it being a mere coincidence?? The people making this show literally snuck in allusions to and invoked images of one of the most iconic cinematic gay romances of all time and they still expected us to buy that Steve and Danny are just platonic bros?

And even if it were a coincidence, that doesn't make them look any less romantic. In the episode where it's canonically established that Steve would rather die with Danny than live without him. It's the stuff epic romances are made of.

#mcdanno #h50 parallels #h50 meta #brokeback hawai'i #h50 #myh50 #h50 hugs #h50 3x06 #steve mcgarrett #danny williams #brokeback mountain #h50 picspam #h50edit #h50 graphics #i saw the bbm gif after having watched 3x06 and was like 'whoa i know what this reminds me of' #i had to make this #all caps are mine #mcdanno webweaving #mcdanno is eternal #mcdanno was canon all along #tactile mcdanno #same shirt trips me up lmao #because of editing it's not that obvious but it's literally same colour #been meaning to make this for months lol i made these caps ages ago #hawaii five 0

[mikustan27]

brokeback television.HELLO. who said that ujmmmmm haha

#shoutout 2 the greatest movie of all time #persona4 #persona 4 yosuke #souyo #persona 4 #yu x yosuke #p4 yosuke #yosuke hanamura #yu narukami #souji seta #p4 #p4g fanart #p4 protagonist #p4g #p4 golden #persona #persona series #brokeback mountain

[cowboy-robooty]

watched brokeback mountain yesterday.... mid as fuck. i think it wouldve played out a lot better if the main characters were yuri and jimmy from yarichin bitch club. do u see my vision?

#brokeback mountain #yarichin bitch club #yarichin b club #toru fujisaki #yuri ayato #ybc #ybc jimmy #yuritoru #idk their fuckin ship name #im a gay male im allowed to say brokeback mountain actually fucking sucks #i get what its doing yknow time period repression tragedy wrong time wrong place BUT GODDD I JUST DONT CARE #I DONT CARE IT SUCKS AND CHEATING TURNS ME OFF SO BAD #its like good in a technical skill way okay its a well made movie but my enjoyment was a solid 2/10 i could only watch it wif my friends #main way this could be improved is if the main characters were jimmy and yuri #if yuri and jimmy were doing this shit.... lets just say they wouldnt be hatecrimed to death for being gay #theyd be begged to leave town purely bc theyre both batshit insane and jimmy would accidentally kill 17 people via homemade cookie poisoning #draws #**obama voice** just to be queer. i traced over screenshots for this shitpost. that is all

[chirpsythismorning]

When byler is trekking the UD together in s5 and one of them brings up how they’re like Sam and Frodo 😳

#byler #stranger things #then what? #we would never recover I fear #no bc imagine antis not being able to refute byler paralleling sam and frodo bc mike and will themselves make a joke about it… #for reference st has made references to LOTR before #even some of will’s drawings in the earlier seasons seem LOTR inspired #it goes even further beyond that with several moments paralleling Sam and Frodo with Mike and Will… #with the added bonus of sean astin literally right there in the shot beside mike 😭 #and given one of the few things we know about s5 is that it’s going to be inspired by Return of the King… #with sam and frodo journeying towards mordor… #combined with all the hints that mike and will are going to end up alone in the UD together… #there’s a serious possibility one of our final verbal LOTR references is gonna be byler/samfro related #let that sink in… #‘remember when the boys made us watch that movie about the gay guys on the mountain!’ #‘Lord of the Rings!’ #the fact that this joke not only applies to lord of the rings but also brokeback mountain 😭 #anyways #summer roberts predicted byler endgame believe it or not

[cherubbies]

happy valentine's day to everyone who’s experiencing love ♡

#a few of my favourite romantic films 💌 #call me by your name #titanic #the handmaiden #acros the universe #bones and all #me before you #brokeback mountain #phantom thread #my policeman #icons #film icons #couple goals #film moodboard #moodboard

[ingravinoveritas]

I've already shared many of my thoughts on Staged winning two I Talk Telly awards today and the subsequent acceptance speech videos for those awards, but I can't stop thinking about Michael not being in either video.

Michael and David are the heart and soul of Staged. It's not a far reach to say that they are the reason Staged came to exist in the first place, after Simon witnessed their amazing chemistry in GO, and that they are also the reason it continued on for as many seasons as it did. I am in no way attempting to diminish the supporting cast, but there is a reason that Michael and David keep winning the acting-related awards and no one else has.

For them/the show to collect two new awards (Best Comedy and Best Comedy Partnership) and Michael to appear nowhere in either acceptance speech video is very strange at best, and at worst, downright concerning. And it is further not helped by the way in which the videos are presented. It would actually be much less bizarre if we only saw David and Georgia's video, as they did the same exact thing when Michael and David won that same award in 2021 (when Michael was sick with Covid, which was why he wasn't in the video). So it makes sense for them to have gone this particular route:

...And then we have Anna's video. A video that contains cardboard cutouts of David and Georgia in the background, and in which Michael is neither seen nor even mentioned, which seems thoughtless at best given that Michael is the reason Anna was in the show in the first place (and apparently as a very last minute addition).

And for some reason, Lyra is the one speaking while they are both in front of the cutouts and AL is standing there like she's giving away a new car on The Price Is Right:

I'm just honestly at a loss for what the reasoning was behind this. Because all it does is draw more attention to the fact that Michael is missing, that he's been virtually absent from Twitter since the end of October, and that he's been previously reluctant to promote Staged and is apparently equally reluctant to appear in a video with his own girlfriend co-star (as he himself once referred to her, mere moments after saying that he loves David).

Whatever the case may be--if someone from PR has told Michael to continue laying low, if he's busy with rehearsals for the play he's about to star in, or if Michael is fully over promoting Staged in any capacity--none of this seems normal. I'd love to hear what my followers think, of course, so please feel free as always to speak your mind in the comments on this post...

#michael sheen #welsh seduction machine #david tennant #soft scottish hipster gigolo #staged #or 'Brokeback Mount Him' which is what i am referring to Staged as from here on out #georgia tennant #the more i think about it the weirder this all seems #it's giving Michael David and Georgia as a polyam unit #and Anna being completely separate from that in every way #choices #not all of them good #regardless the fandom is certainly worse off without Michael #anna lundberg #thoughts #discourse #gifs by me

[qbicearth-moved]

heartbreak..

#edit: oh.my.god 100 NOTES!! THANK U GUYS SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!! #brokeback mountain #jack twist #ennis del mar #jake gyllenhaal #heath ledger #fanart #girl i havent posted here in YEARS #also tumblr early access bc twt n insta have all those hours rules but idgaf here #theres something off abt this compared to the sketch that i just cant put my finger on... #i have no idea what tho #maybe ill fix it in the future if i figure it out #also do u guy slike ym water mark :3 its my name n it look slike a snail haha #love talking in the tags

[ofpd]

#sorry if there are inaccuracies as this is from memory. also ik there are a few words left out but it was hard to fit it all #txt #brokeback mountain

[honorarybuckley]

“alright cowboy, go get ‘em”

#all i can think about #evan buckley #eddie diaz #two guys one soul #buddie #911 #911 fox #brokeback mountain #christine.txt

[landwriter]

2!

Hounds of Love by The Futureheads. Oh! What a gem!! I first loved this song when I was a wee bab and rediscovered it this past summer. It, along with all my top songs, was on a summer driving playlist which is why it is so insanely high haha. There's a sort of lovely pastoral wildness to this and I think that suits our lads so well.

An outdoorsy AU with competence kink out the wazoo, where Dream is a bird specialist at a wildlife rehabilitative centre, who becomes a minor TikTok celebrity (much to his enormous apathy) when the centre starts doing interpretive meet-birds events and the internet falls in love with this dour hottie who only smiles when he's talking about birds (Matthew, naturally, runs the account). Hob is a hunter - bow, mostly - who is regrettably very on TikTok, very on all social media - he hates the term but he is unquestionably an 'influencer'. He just likes sharing his knowledge and passion, alright? And the gear sponsorships are nice.

He sees Dream, and sees, mostly, a really great collab opportunity, so he messages him, and Dream (who is Matthew, and just shouted HOB FUCKING GADLING? IN MY DMs? at his phone when he got the message, immediately sets up a meeting at the centre. Then he breaks the news to Dream, specifically when Dream is holding Jessamy, so he can't be murdered.)

Dream, of course, expects Hob to be some like, swaggering font of red-blooded machismo talking points, and suspects Hob is only popular because he looks like an advertisement in Outdoor Living. (Matthew showed him pictures.) He disregards Matthew, who says Hob is actually super cool, because Matthew has terrible taste and would be the first to admit it. But his interest is piqued when Lucienne also knows who Hob is. It turns out Hob is deeply involved in nature and wildlife conservancy. Gives talks at schools. Gets involved with land protection initiatives. Teaches orienteering to youth. But everyone seems to expect him to hate Hob, which he would find faintly insulting except that he also expects himself to hate Hob. He doesn't. Not that much. Even when he shows up in a plaid shirt that is made of 'technical' fabric, because he's smart and excited to talk to Dream about birds, has an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of falconry, and most importantly, Jessamy takes to him immediately.

They run into each other again at a renaissance fair, another thing Dream hates but has been strong-armed into doing, and so they are both dressed in very silly clothes when it happens: the first time Hob watches Dream demonstrate falconry, the first time Dream watches Hob use a longbow made from a yew tree he fell himself, the first time they go from a wary sort of respect for one another to a wanting.

Dream, who has a recurring fantasy about running away from it all, listens to Hob tell tracking stories and thinks, If I went into the woods, you would find me. But he doesn't want to run from Hob - except sometimes, when he sees Hob chew on his lip consideringly before giving a thoughtful answer about the guiding industry, or when Hob grins wildly at the crowd after his archery demonstration, and most of all, when Hob phones him out of the blue one day - he doesn't text, he phones - sounding a little breathless with excitement, and asks Dream if he wants to come with him for a week in the mountains, on "probably a wild goose chase" and promises "all sorts of birds if nothing else." (Hob had meant to only share the news with Dream. Fuck, he thinks. I am so fucked.)

He says yes, for the birds, of course, and tells Matthew the next time he's at the centre.

"So what's the wild goose chase?" asks Matthew.

Dream plumbs his memory of the phone call and says, "Hob told me he received a bighorn sheep tag." Matthew gapes at him.

"Holy shit," says Matthew. "He's in love with you."

"He is certainly not."

"Uh, no, respectfully boss, he 'certainly' is. Lucienne!" he shouts, "Hob invited Dream to come out on his Dall sheep tag. What the fuck, right?"

Lucienne comes in and raises her eyebrows. "Oh dear," she says. She's smiling.

"What," says Dream. "It's a sheep. I don't understand."

Lucienne and Matthew exchange a glance.

"Him. I cannot believe Hob chose him," says Matthew.

"Love works in mysterious ways," says Lucienne.

"I am right here," says Dream.

Matthew turns to him, "Have fun in Alberta," he says.

this would ft. nights of wild stars, rugged terrain, type ii fun, sexual tension around a campfire, homoerotic form checks, tent sharing, dream glassing beautiful birds with hob's $3000 binoculars while hob stares at him in abject adoration, dream watching hob strip off his clothes and jump into an alpine lake, and refusing to join him out of pretended prudishness when it's really because he's suddenly so hard it hurts, camp coffee, confessions about themselves instead of confessions about their feelings for each other, sore muscles for a VARIETY of reasons, and lots of allegories about wildness and taming and running away from things, and SO MUCH COMPETENCE KINK, friends. so much. i would probably write it like - act one them leading their separate lives, their desires and aches etc., act two - meetcute and circling one another, act three - The Trip. this one has a very happy ending i can tell

#the sandman #dreamling #'this one won't be more than a few paragraphs' i say #stopping myself NOW ha ha #another AU I Would Write for suuuure #luring you in with the promise brokeback mountain style pastoral yearning #then leaping onto my soapbox and waxing poetic abt our relationship with meat and nature and nonhuman life #about hunting trips and multiday outdoor trips in general as a way of enriching relationships with others #about connecting in profound ways that feel only accessible in a place where humans are exceptions and not the rule #where our endemically lonely society and all the guardedness is stripped away before the beauty and the ache of the suck #wild spaces making room for wild emotions #for humanity #in a way cities and towns do not #ANYWAYS #shout out to the person reading this who understands the significance of a bighorn sheep tag as a feelings confession lol #(hucks this post onto my teetering want-to-make-this-a-WIP pile) #spotify wrapped prompt #my writing