#two kinds of gay people who are so different they actually start to become the same

[avisisisis]

Seeing people saying that Satoru doesn't actually care about Suguru and that the only reason Kenjaku caught him was bc he was surprised to see a person he killed alive is fucking wild, man

Like. Gojo's entire life revolves around Geto. The entire series happens because he loved Suguru too much to kill him, even though he knew he would have to do it eventually. The world literally went to shit because he wasn't over him

Geto Suguru's life would be completely unimportant to the story without Gojo Satoru, and Gojo Satoru's would be completely unimportant without Geto Suguru. They complement each other. They need each other

Two male betta fishes can't coexist. They will fight and one will die. They can't see each other — even if they're in different tanks, they won't be able to live. They'd eventually tire each other out, resulting in death. The only way for Satoru and Suguru's lives to be able to continue without the other would've been for them to never have met at all. And they can't be together. Not now, not ever again. Not while they're still alive. Not after everything that's happened

The entire story revolves around their relationship. Yuuji is a boy who ate a curse('s finger[s]), and Megumi is the prodigy who befriends him. Satoru is a prodigy, the strongest, and Suguru, the boy whose technique is eating curses, befriends him. The Jujutsu Kaisen story is all about parallels and they all connect to fucking Satosugu. It's all about them

The only reason Kenjaku's plan worked is because the body he used didn't belong to some random person Gojo killed, it worked because the body he used was Geto Suguru's, Gojo's one and only, his best friend. He must be thinking “Thank god they're gay” right now lmao

Gojo fucking hesitated. He hesitated multiple times when it came to Geto. He was supposed to kill him, yet he let him go. He has the Six Eyes, he could've easily tracked him down. He probably could tell if he was nearby (he can recognize Suguru from his scent) and just didn't go looking for him. And he could've so very easily escaped the trap that was set up for him, he was going to run away from it because we see him about to take that step but then Suguru's body shows up and says “Yo, Satoru!” with Suguru's voice and Satoru freezes and hesitates

They weren't able to let go of each other even after years of being separated (like a decade). When they meet, Suguru still greets Satoru warmly

Suguru is pretty much Satoru's moral code. He was the only person Satoru took at least mildly seriously pre-Toji (and we know Satoru just didn't do serious back then). He actually took his words to heart. He was kind, of course (especially from Suguru's PoV, since he's the person that knows him most), and not a bad person, but he wasn't nice. Suguru was always the ‘nice(r) one’, the one who actually had a moral code, while Satoru was more of an asshole to literally everyone and everything (some more, some less), thinking he and Suguru were above everyone else

When Suguru finally snaps (which, honestly. Fair) and goes genocidal (not so fair), Satoru slowly starts to be somewhat nicer and starts applying Suguru's old moral code to his own being — their roles weren't exactly reversed, but now they're not together anymore, so they might as well be. And Suguru was shown for having faith in the school and its system while it was Satoru the one who absolutely abhorred the higher-ups and all kinds of authority, but then it ended up with Suguru being the one to leave and become a cult leader with the blood of hundreds on his hands while Satoru was the one that stayed behind in the same place of the people he despises so much

(Imagine someone saying something like “Sometimes I doubt you even have a moral code” and Gojo answers with “Oh, my best friend my one and only is pretty much my moral code. He went homicidal a while back but it's okay haha” “...Actually, that explains a few things”)

Gojo doesn't have a god complex, but I wouldn't blame him if he did. I mean, he might as well be the closest thing to god human beings have ever seen. He used to put himself above everyone else, when he was a teenager. He thought that, the higher he was, the more he could do. And no one was better than him. But not Suguru. Back then, it wasn't “I'm the strongest” it was “We're the strongest and “We're the best” and “We're the ones that will beat you” and “We're the duo” and it was all about “us, us, us, us, us” instead of “me, me, me, me” like people thought it was — they were a pair. They still are

We know people thought and still think of Gojo as a weapon. As something that must be controlled, because on the moment he decides he doesn't want to be around them anymore, he could just straight up kill then without any effort (but getting rid of people in positions of power only gets other people in positions of power and it'll be a neverending story, and Gojo knows this so he's trying to do his best to fix it all through the younger generation, by letting them live). And we also know that Suguru is one of the very few people who did not believe that at all

Like their personalities and characters and stories and literally everything, their names complement each other. Gojo Satoru and Geto Suguru are such similar names, I get them mixed up all the time (the amount of times I've called them “Gojo Suguru” and “Geto Satoru” is embarassing. Also, “Saturu”. “Goto”. “Gejo”. Ugh). Both of their last names start with a G, end with an O and have 4 letters. Both of their given names start with an S, end with an U and have 6 letters. They complement each other. They need each other

The only times we've seen Gojo with an expression of actual pure, raw emotion is when it's about Geto. When he finds out about what Geto did, when he realizes how thin and wrong Geto looks, when he sees him again for what we assume to be the first time in years, when he dies, when a thing wearing his corpse and using his voice greets him (“Yo, Satoru!” oh my god)

Suguru was able to fight back when in Kenjaku's control after Satoru said his name. Kenjaku himself says that had never happened before

And you don't even have to see them as romantic. You don't have to ship them if you don't want to. But you can't deny that they care about each other more than they will ever care about anyone else

#hey is it whose or who's #how do those words work???? english is so confusing sometimes smh #jujutsu kaisen #satosugu #they love each other your honor #jjk #jjk manga spoilers #kenjaku #satoru gojo #gojo satoru #geto suguru #suguru geto #gay #this is kinda long haha #but they deserve the longest of paragraphs #edit: i changed this a little bc my dumbass self said gojo had a god complex #i didn't actually know what a god complex is. mb #edit: i'm proud to say this is pretty much my best post

[twopoppies]

I think Harry is a lot more open with his sexuality then Louis is. Even a lot of anti’s think Harry is gay, they just don’t believe in Larry and are completely convinced that Louis is straight or worse homophobic. Louis seems to be a lot more reserved and closed off regarding it. What are your opinions on this? Do you think Louis struggled more to come to terms with it then Harry did?

I think Louis is a very different sort of gay man than Harry is in terms of the way he expresses himself. He has never been sort of person to wear feather boas and wave rainbow flags and strike stereotypically “gay” poses. It’s so much easier to pick up on Harry’s queerness because these days he does do that kind of thing, but that’s who Harry is. They’re not the same person.

I think categorizing Louis as “reserved and closed off” about expressing his sexuality is actually extremely unfair. There is no one way to be gay. There is no one way to show comfort with it. I think, like Harry, he has become much more private about his life beyond his career.

I don’t think Louis has had any difficulty accepting his sexuality. I find it so bizarre that fans today even question it because when they were in the band, he was considered “the gay one“ by so many people. He was very clearly effeminate and very, very pretty (and the suspenders outfits didn’t help).

I think the combination of this new breed of fan who makes sexual comments about him every time he’s on stage is part of the shift. I think his decision to start wearing the sort of clothes he wears now (plus the drinking/smoking/talking about weed, etc.) gives many people the impression that he’s a “lad“ and therefore somehow can’t be gay.

Beyond all of this, I think it’s really important to remember how harshly it seems he was punished for so many years for looking/sounding/being “too gay”. I honestly can’t imagine going through so many years of being told everything about me was wrong and having the whole world commenting on everything about me, and coming out the other side without being at least a little reserved about expressing myself freely.

But this is the man you’re wondering about. Do you seriously think this is a guy who’s not at peace with who he is?

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LOUIS NOT BEING HOMOPHOBIC

JUST LIKE YOU MUSIC VIDEO

THERE IS NO HETEROSEXUAL EXPLANATION FOR THIS

FLAMBOYANT LOUIS

You’ll have to scroll through this tag, but X FACTOR JUDGE LOUIS being super supportive of all the queer acts who auditioned

And honestly, do you really think someone who wasn’t comfortable with their sexuality would stage two fucking rainbow bears with so much LGBTQ+ history night after night?

#louis’ sexuality #He’s gay Petra #coded clothing

[reggieslocket]

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

1. "freak" as a queercoded word

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

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

2. the handkerchief code

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

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

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

3. joe and joseph's interview

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

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

4. gaten ships them as well

remember: if gaten ships it then it's canon

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

5. the chrissy-eddie thing

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

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

6. steve's attempts to find a girlfriend

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

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

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

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

[ffverr]

On the discourse (that somehow still exists) of why the X-Men are feared and hated but other genetically modified heroes like the Fantastic Four or some of the Avengers aren't :

I still see this argument online that some people, usually not X-Men fans, pull out in a sort of gotcha moment. To kind of stick it to Marvel for being unrealistic or to vouch for the fearing of other heroes in the marvel universe to tip the scales.

There are two points for the "why is *random x-men* oppressed and not *random marvel hero*" discourse that people are always intentionally missing.

One- A base of mutant fear and repression is the argument that "it could happen to your children too". It could happen to ANYONE, from birth, and there is nothing you can do about it. No being careful of scientific experiences can stop your close ones from becoming a mutant. (Kind of like people are okay with gay celebrities as long as they're doing their thing from afar but it's a threat when it comes to their children/Friends/family being gay)

They layed it on thick with this amazing advertisment back in the day: "do you know what your children are"??? I mean come on it's not rocket science

Fun fact, the kid labeled "mutie" here is actually Franklin Richards, son of Mister Fantastic and Invisible woman. He used to be a mutant and this goes to show how somehow johnny storm can be beloved but his super powered nephew doesn't get the same treatment.

Two- Spider-Man, the F4, the Avengers etc... All these heros who get some powers by some incident. They're supposed to be rare and few in between. The fear of mutants mainly comes from the fact that they started popping up in the MILLIONS. A mutant isn't necessarly seen as an honorable individual that acquires powers and realises they have the responsibility to use it for good. To humans, they're millions of people (or at least hundreds of thousands) that are, just by existing, threatening the status quo of humanity. They are changing the natural dominance of humans for good.

So of course humans love the F4 (usually). Because they're not scared to be replaced by them in their day to day life, however they are scared to be rendered obsolete by mutants. When humans look at the F4 they see brave selfless HUMAN heroes. They relate to them, they identify with them. They're a sweet family dedicated to the world's safety. In contrast, the mutants represent a world changing threat that truly shifts the balance. And that's not comfy at all no matter how cute or harmless the power is.

This difference can even cause very understandable tension in between the X-men and other super powered groups:

In short, the mutant moral panic comes from the fact that for exemple:

-humans are afraid to loose their jobs to super powered level talents.

-humans are scared from groups of super powered people that could threaten their safety.

-Governments are scared of these groups being the equivalent of entire armies concentrated in a single individual.

- They're scared that their children could turn into something unimaginable once they hit puberty

-And some just hate the idea of being manipulated by a random telepath on the street without ever knowing.

In contrast of Spider-Man, humans feel like nature is done with homo sapiens and THAT'S what brings hate and fear.

That's why everytime a mutant hate crime happens in the comics, it's always accompanied by some human saying "y'think you're better than us weirdo".

+ Contrary to the avengers, mutants also claim a culture, a shared history and common experiences between thousands. This binds them together in a way they doesn't necessarly make them identify with humans. And this is overall irritating and scary to humans.

Also, religious fear-mongering of mutants is rampant!!! It does a ton to set appart the mutants from the scientifically modified heros of the marvel universe.

In the end, one of the best comic to portray this whole thing is still God loves man Kills.

It depicts a villain, Striker, that gains popularity by spreading religious propaganda to justify mutant hate. In an emotional and shocking twist, we come to find that Striker has had a mutant son, that he killed with his own hand because he was a "monster".

You can understand how Captain America, with his super body, doesn't really evoke the same existential dread. Bigotry isn't rational, but also, a shit ton of things complicate the mutant's inclusion into society that doesn't necessarly parallel perfectly with real world struggles so that's also to take into consideration.

#the only part of truth i'll concede to this discourse is that yeah it's blurry how humans wouldn't assume #that any super powered person is a mutant #but this is i think a useless gripe that would just make mutants too present in other marvel books #xmen #marvel #comics #x men comics #scott summers #comic panels #jean grey #xmen 97 #the x allegory #mutant 101 #magneto #professor x #charles xavier #storm #kitty pryde

[melonsharks]

Tell us everything about the parent trap au immediately please please please

to give u an insanely quick rundown with a wip art i have:

aziraphale as elizabeth. wedding dress designer under his pen name A.Z. Fell. (hes an artist as confirmed in s2 and the whole "drawing on napkins" thing elizabeth would do appeals to me immensely)

crowley as nick. owns a vineyard. I NEED HIM TO OWN A VINEYARD SO BAD. shoutout to Old Vines on ao3 for changing me in a fundamental way. he makes wines and he tends to the vines and he is so passionate about it to an abusurdist degree. he yells at his vines when they arent growing right. you already knowwww.

when they meet for the first time, they don’t meet on a boat like in the movie, they actually meet at a wedding party :J crowley was a wine collector, just starting out. he loved offering aziraphale samplings of his most vintage collection out of impulse. (he likes seeing the way aziraphale savors them) (he’s besotted) Wants to own his own vineyard one day. aziraphale, on the other hand, has dreams of becoming a fashion designer of sorts, always drawing ideas on any scraps of paper he can find. his designs are very old fashioned, but thats like… part of the appeal. his work very much reflects who he is, and the people who flock to it understand that.

they enter this kind of… whirlwind relationship, they get married, and then eventually adopt two golden haired blue eyed baby boys. twins. :J warlock and adam.

they break things off because aziraphale leaves... alluding to their recent breakup in season two, the reason he left was because "we both clearly had very different ideas on where our lives were going. so. i packed up and left." (parallel s2 divorce 😋 they don’t know how to talk to each other) (aziraphale throws a book at his head after this argument, like the hairdryer in the movie LOL. it was pride and prejudice. crowley still has it.)

aziraphale leaves with adam. warlock is left with crowley. crowley eventually leaves London because he finds he cant stand being anywhere near Aziraphale (hes just irresistible in that way), and he goes to California where he finally fulfills his dream of owning a vineyard. a nice one on Napa, Northern California.

Aziraphale’s wedding dresses become more and more well known, Adam grows well-adjusted. Same kid you know from the show and book, natural born leader, a good head on his shoulders. (Aziraphale has no idea why Adam is like that, but he is so proud)

Crowley’s vineyard (The Garden Of Eden) grows and grows… Warlock is spoiled rotten, but he does love actually working at the vineyard with Crowley to and he and Crowley have a really good relationship…

Eventually the kids go to a summer camp together in London (i dont know if they . do this in the UK, but suspend your disbelief if you will) Adam meets The Them there, then meets Warlock after a nutty fencing thing, they kind of hate each other at first and the rest is history :J

side characters UM. LOL. idk……. i mean i kind of know but not really? theres just so many possibilities that make the rounds in my head. chessy could be anathema OR nina (ive had people suggest eric too?) and martin could be newt OR maggie (ive also had people suggest muriel????) gestures vaguely.

as for meredith…….erm…………🤷‍♂️ ive had everything under the sun suggested to me and i still……have no idea. LOL. gabriel, lucifer, shaX, FURFUR, THE WIFE FROM THE NON-SPOILER SPOILERS. I DONT KNOW. IT ALL FEELS WRONG. its hard to come up with this role in particular when these gay bitches literally only have eyes for each other. always. forever. u know. i think lucy is like. the classic answer. but idfk.

ask me about . more things if u want. this is consuming my every thought.

anyways the cover im working on for. for something:

#good omens #good omens 2 #gomens #aziracrow #aziraphale #crowley #adam young #warlock dowling #parent trap au #asks #paradox-progressing #i said insanwly quick but this is so fucking long. im sorry

[letteredlettered]

Hi Im sure you answered this already but i sadly cant find it: how did end up shipping or rather writing drarry fics?

I've actually been asked quite a few times why I ship H/D. I never answer, because it's complicated and long and I have an essay on the subject, so I'll answer the 'how' question without addressing the 'why'.

Once upon a time, the internet was becoming a thing that people used regularly. The news kept talking about how the youths of the day were "surfing the 'net" and this was going to be the new normal. As usual, I could not identify with the 'youths of the day,' even though I was one. What could possibly be of interest to me on the internet? Reading books was far better than talking to other people. Then one day in my senior year of high school it dawned on me that you could possibly talk to other people about books, something I had never done before, as I didn't know anyone but my parents and brothers who ever read for fun, and my parents and brothers did not like to read things like Jane Austen. What if there were people on the 'net who liked Jane Austen??? Seemed fake, but I gave it a try.

The first Jane Austen website I found was Republic of Pemberley, which hosted something they called "Bits of Ivory." Through the "Ramble" board on Republic of Pemberley, I found out that there were "Bits of Ivory" elsewhere. It was called fanfic and hosted on fanfic.net.

Almost all of it that I was introduced to was Harry Potter fic, as HP was the megafandom of the time, and my Sense and Sensibility friend was obsessed with Snape, mainly because of Alan Rickman. I was also obsessed with Snape, though I must say that even though I had been obsessed with Alan Rickman since 1995, I never did like his casting as Snape and still don't. Anyway, I ended up getting interested in Snape/Hermione fic, and continued to be interested on and off for over the next five years.

I should pause at this moment to say that I had been writing fanfic since the fourth grade. I didn't know it was called fic. I didn't know other people did it. It never occurred to me to share it. When I found "Bits of Ivory" it actually took me a while to process that the stories there were in a similar vein to the stories I had been writing all my life, stories based on fiction by other people. It was just so wild to me that anyone would share that stuff, as though other people would want to read the different endings that they came up with, the self-inserts and the cross-overs they came up with.

I should also take this moment to say that I didn't really have slash ships. I was aware that slash existed, and I thought it was great. Sirius/Remus was a background ship everywhere at the time, and even though I didn't really see it in canon and wasn't terribly interested in it, I thought it was a nice thing. And when I started getting into X-Men through Wolverine/Rogue, it seemed obvious to me that Professor X and Magneto had a past sexual relationship. I, in fact, had an original story that I'd started writing in eleventh grade that had similar tension between two male characters, and the idea that they were in love and unable to have sex about it explained so much. And I wrote more original stories in college that were gay.

I think my problem was that the canons I was consuming were quite straight, and while I wasn't obsessed with writing canon-compliant fics, I was (and still am, to some extent) obsessed with writing characters who were true to canon. At the time sexuality seemed some kind of immutable thing to me that was deeply a part of who a character was. Also, sex to me was very Other; it meant something really deep and serious about you that obliterated other things you were. For instance, I was frustrated with all the Frodo/Sam porn, because I felt it obliterated their beautiful friendship and made their relationship about sex and being gay rather than the deep pure bond of friendship. So I was maybe kind of homophobic and confused.

Then I fell in love with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and while that canon has a lot of heteronormativity, it not only has a character who thought she was straight who realizes she's gay, it also has vampires who have lived for centuries and who have broken every kind of social norm that exists. It seemed silly to me to assume that Spike or Angel were straight, which is how I began shipping Spike/Angel, which is how I got absolutely obsessed with slash. It was so liberating to write porn where the power dynamic wasn't influenced by centuries of patriarchy! It was so liberating to write porn where I didn't have to think about my own anatomy or gender or position in a sexual dynamic! It was so liberating to write porn with a bunch of dicks!

Having discovered slash, I turned back to ye olde faithful fandom, which had ten billion fics about everything. I'm not sure I even tried Sirius/Remus, because I was still so uninterested in it, but now I read all the Snape slash, the majority of which seemed to be Harry/Snape. The thing is, I don't ship Harry/Snape. It can be very hot! But while the porn is fine and some of the stories are fun, these are not two people that I want to live happily ever after. I just think that the power dynamic between them, the history they have, and the personalities they are do not make me want to imagine them as a couple with a happy marriage who occasionally have the friends over for games of Quidditch and Exploding Snap. And while I like queer complicated, angsty stories, I also like a happy ending in a semi-heteronormative sense, especially for Harry Potter, who really seems to want one. So, I started looking for other Harry Potter slash.

I knew that Harry/Draco was a juggernaut pairing, but I just hated Draco Malfoy so much. I honestly could not stand him. I used to go about saying that I hated him not only as a person (like, I also hated Snape as a person; he's a dick, and he's cruel to children! But he's a great character) but as a character. I just didn't like the function he played in the narrative. I like big, dramatic rivalries and evil vs good; meanwhile, Draco Malfoy is a little worm. So I kept thinking about reading HP slash, but resisting.

Then, one day, I was sleeping on the couch, and woke up suddenly with the idea that Draco Malfoy could be reformed. He could be sorry for all the shitty things he's done! He could be really apologetic! He could be really trying to make up for his past, and Harry could find this truly beautiful, and they could have sex about it!

Surprisingly, it was hard to find fic about this. For some reason, in most of the fic, it was Harry having to earn Malfoy's approval, instead of the other way around, which I found absolutely bonkers. But I eventually found Eclipse, by Mijan, which was just what I wanted. Then I was obsessed and was reading every Harry/Draco fic I could find.

Eventually, I even read the ones in which Harry was a cad and Draco Malfoy was a perfect snowflake who never did anything wrong. And then I started finding fics that really emphasized that Draco had a very different point of view of what happened, which showed that he really had no way to understand who Harry was, or what Harry had been through. In these fics, Harry had to do some work to understand Draco, which is what really sold me on the pairing. I still want fics in which Draco has to do a lot of heavy lifting to address his past and deal with the hurt he has caused and the violence of his previously genocidal outlook, but I love it when Harry, too, has to adjust. After saving the world and losing most people he loves and protecting the innocent and doing his exhausted little best to be honest and righteous and true, Harry Potter still has to do work, again, to overcome his past and find a peaceful life. And that's what made me start writing Harry/Draco, the end.

#harry potter #draco malfoy

[aida-sparks]

Buddie fans are relentless (and it's a good thing)

Geez, I was not prepared for the rollercoaster of woe that comes from shipping a pair that is not canon (yet!).

I am not a new fan to the show, 9-1-1. I've loyally watched every week for years, cherished the members of the 118, cherished Buck and Eddie's special relationship. I just hadn't been involved in the fandom of it all up until recently. I was just a tv viewer. But being newer to interacting with the fandom, I admit that consuming social media about 911 and Buddie has thrown me for a bit of a loop. I keep seeing the same recycled tactics to argue why people who ship buddie are delusional and why buddie will "never happen". These arguments are off-putting and frankly quite poor. (I don't like to focus on the negative so this will be my only post dedicated to this.)

Argument One: "There's already a gay couple on the show." No kidding. The statement is problematic in and of itself; people don't go around limiting the number of straight couples on a show, do they? It's fantastic that we have a strong, integral gay couple in Hen and Karen, two beautiful and fabulous lesbians, that are vital to this show, but why can't there be more? One representation alone doesn't cover the spectrum of LGBTQ+ portrayals of different romantic dynamics.

Argument Two: "Why can't we have two guys be close without putting a romantic label on it? It's refreshing to see male friendship." Bro... Platonic male friendship is important (all friendship is). It's not all that uncommon, though. Male friendship is focused on a lot already in many shows. But two adult male friends discovering new aspects of their identify that shift their relationship with each other toward something romantic? That's the more refreshing take here; it's one that we don't get to see in media right now but should. Flip the script, 9-1-1.

Argument Three: "They weren't introduced as gay or bi-sexual. It would be too out of left field to go there now." Not true. The show has the creative freedom to explore this narrative and can do it plausibly. There is obviously a very large part of the 9-1-1 fandom that has already interpreted Buck and Eddie's story as having the potential to become romantic. The pair has many parallels to the other canon couples on the show. There are plenty of moments and scenes from prior seasons (post-tsunami with Christopher, the shooting, the Will, all of Eddie Diaz's fond gazes aimed at Buck, etc.) that can be referenced in future episodes via well-crafted montage/edit that will help shed light on any developing feelings from either or both Buck and Eddie. Besides, not allowing a relationship to evolve into something different just because it didn't start out that way? What kind of stunted outlook is that? We want a story about how individuals can question and explore their sexuality at any age. Heck, during the graveyard scene near the end of season 6, Buck and Eddie talked about how experiences have changed them. They're clearly still growing and changing as individuals. It is not a stretch for them to discover whatever they've been searching for this whole time is actually found in each other. ---- That's it from me on this. I'm going to try doing a better job of ignoring the negative talk out there. I hope all buddie fans stay positive too, and when they call us relentless, we take that as a good thing. I hope we all recognize and resect the other characters and ships of this wonderful, wonderful show of ours too! Most of all, I hope we respect each other.

#buddie #911 abc #911 buddie #buddie canon #buck x eddie #eddie diaz #evan buckley #buddie thoughts #tv: 911 #shipping #fandom culture

[gerardpilled]

New fan here!! What exactly happened at pro rev? I see people talk about it a lot but I can't find out exactly what went down

Lol I love seeing this question asked on my dash and thank you for trusting me with the response. This kinda became longer than what I was expecting but I love to over explain sorry:

Okay so pro rev is kinda famous in the fan community because of how insane everyone seemed to have been acting during it. mcr was always known for their stage antics - even in the early days - and specifically for how they responded to homophobia (and to be clear- they faced a lot of it) by not denying being gay, but encouraging the idea. Specifically Gerard and Frank would kiss each other or Gerard would kinda feel-up the other guys in what people coined as “stagegay”. Although mcr fans were kinda weeded out to expect and accept this, festivals like Warped Tour were always the biggest issue for them because they were in front of thousands of people who didn’t necessarily want to see guys in eyeliner and eyeshadow*.  

Then comes 2007 - Linkin Park hosts another “Projekt Revolution” which was kinda a mini traveling festival with about 10 or so bands in the lineup and would run from July 25th to September 3rd. Mcr was actually second bill so while not nobodies, most of the audience still consisted of Linkin Park fans. I know nothing about the music or guys of Linkin Park, but they simply attracted a different kind of crowd and might have heckled mcr more than a mcr-headlining show. The guys really played this up and seemed to turn up the stage antics A LOT. (I say ‘seemed to’ because I do think the number of people in attendance and the fact more people had access to digital cameras in 2007 than 2004 might have just resulted in more examples being recorded and uploaded)

They were grinding on each other, chewing on condoms, licking each other, fake masturbating, fully making out, and fighting on one occasion. Gerard would ask the boys in the audience to take their shirts off during Prison to which Ray joined in once. Frank specifically was acting kinda wild and was just commonly writhing around on the floor and flinging his guitar a lot. The main famous “frerard kiss” was said (by Gerard) to be the result of Frank rubbing his bloody finger on Gerard’s face and Gerard opting to seek revenge by kissing him.

The funniest part of all this is that it could theoretically be explained away by the fact they were probably just frustrated from being away from their families on tour for so long at this point (notably, Mikey did not attend prorev because of his recent marriage and/or mental health issues) if it weren't for the fact that at the start of tour Gerard began dating Lindsey (m. Ballato) who played bass in another band. Gerard was seen watching her play a few times and the couple would also have matching slogans written on their bodies (presumably by each other). The couple then got married on the last night of tour by an ordained member of the crew backstage while wearing matching airbrush unicorn shirts with each other's names. This was all very sudden for fans especially because it was only around May of the same year when Gerard is thought to have broke off an engagement with his ex girlfriend.

Another notable point is that this was the first time mcr had two tour buses because Frank brought his WIFE. I don't see a lot of people pointing this out, but I believe Jamia was there. Also Frank appeared on an episode of Kat Von D's tattooing show in the middle of tour lol

The aftermath of the tour has kinda become equally as famous due to rumors and theories. Specifically the fight has been speculated to be the result of deeper drama where people think Frank was hurt by Gerard's new relationship or whatever. All that is speculation and mostly baseless. Bottom line is this did influence a ton of fanfiction and kinda made the band known for their stage behavior. They really calmed down on the more homoerotic aspects of their stage personas in later years which more conspiratorial fans contribute to Gerard's marriage. More likely is that they realized the intended reaction of pissing homophobes off was being lost, and instead people were into and sexualizing it more than anything. Gerard once tweeted about it.

I think it's all very funny because to be honest and until they talk about it in any meaningful detail, we still have no idea what going on with them. Just a fun period in mcr herstory.

Links to magazines covering the tour:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Other stuff I couldn't think of a place to mention:

David Cassidy

Gerard singing Umbrella

"it's like having buttsex"

gerard hugging worm

infamous hickey gerard had that he tried to cover with a bandana

Gerard on "my super sweet 16" in the middle of tour

____

*That's not to say mcr was facing the most discrimination ever at this show. I have no knowledge of how people who were outwardly lgbt (such as Brian Molko of Placebo) were treated. Also it's important to note that there was a severe lack of racial and gender diversity when it came to this tour's lineup. There was not a single band with a non-white front person and only 1 band with any women in it.

#I might add more to the videos if i think of more #sorry this was a lot but i kinda wanted to provide a quick primer for any newbies #feel free to reblog #ref #prorev #2007 #mcr

[shapeshiftersvt]

M'Mothm'n.

Here's the thing about the Mothman. Even though he scared the ever-living shit out of the people who saw him, the speculation around him has become, over the years, actually very kind. What if he's only here to help? What if he's trying to warn us about impending disaster? What if that horrible feeling you got that something wasn't right, what if that was the Mothman telling you to look out, be careful, danger is coming, doom is nigh?

It's one thing to be a harbinger of doom; there are apparitions of ghostly black dogs all over the world that will give you that, red eyes and all. It's another to have one who actually means well.

I'm going to be an Old Queer for a minute, now, and talk about gay politics in the USA as I watched it over the past thirty years. My experience is my own; my history is shared, but not universal. Sound off in a reblog if you saw it happen differently. I want your story, too.

There’s a certain line the right wing in this country likes to use against The Gays, one I’ve heard since I was a small child. It goes: queer people are threatening our way of life. Queer people are the pebbles that start the avalanche of apocalypse, the collapse of civilization as we know it. If marriage becomes something other than Man + Woman, or if Man and Woman become something other than we think they are, then we will lose everything we know and love.

The rise of the Respectable Gay in the 1990s was a pushback against this. “See,” cried Degeneres and Savage and all the rest, “see how we’re so very normal? We want to get married and buy a house and have 2.1 kids and a white picket fence. Our marriage doesn’t threaten yours. How could it? We’re just normal, ordinary, white, moderately wealthy, people. We're like you."

This move shifted the narrative across the 90s and 00s. Homosexuality was officially decriminalized in '03, and we got gay marriage in 2015, and every year in between there was another Influential Gay Person saying "I just want to get married, that's all." There were even commercials about it, remember? “Gay marriage is just like yours. Only gayer.”

But... in the mid-2010s this was already wearing thin. Transgender people, gender non-conforming people, gays who didn’t go in for two-person marriage, everyone in the greater LGBTQ+ umbrella who had thrown their support behind gay marriage and waited our turn to get our rights; we'd all been mobilizing, too. We'd been putting together our own coalitions, under the aegis of the greater umbrella or not. And, here's the crux: we were, in fact, threatening the right-wing Christian ways of life. Just by existing in public, by talking and writing and performing and living our lives during the Transgender Tipping Point, trans and non-binary people like me were challenging the foundational definitions of Man and Woman as exclusive, all-encompassing categories of humanity.

It wasn't just the right, either. Straight liberals who were totally on board with gay marriage would look at us and say, "um, wait, really? Really, like that? Do you have to?" The discomfort was palpable. This was my experience with my own family; they were fine with me dating and getting married, but a new set of pronouns was forcing something on them. It was hurting something intrinsic to their identities. It was, in a very real way, threatening them.

I'm happy and grateful to say that most of them learned to discard the parts of their own foundations that excluded me from existence. This is rarely easy for anyone. I'm honestly proud of those members of my family who have learned to look the Mothman in the eyes, so to speak, and think, "He's just here to help."

("Pop your hood up," I told this model, "and look at them. They should see their impending death in your eyes."

Layton is an incredible model, a great human, and they know and love the Mothman. They knew exactly what I meant.)

It can be awful, sometimes. When I'm unapologetically myself in public, I can walk past a line of protesters at Planned Parenthood and see the hostility rise up, the anger and revulsion and fear. And I do think it is fear, at the core of it. I think something in them knows that I'm just one of 2.6 million transgender people out here, living my life, casually being a harbinger of their doom.

Next time they come to Brattleboro, I ought to greet them with red glasses and a twelve-foot wingspan.

#mothman #cryptids #queer cryptids #the cryptid collection #the trans experience

[erinelliotc]

I was thinking about "A Fistful of Ed" because I always see people talking about how gay they're being in this scene. I personally never thought much about it because Eddy's using Double D's reputation as a bully to earn respect from the other kids and boss everyone around and that naturally makes him very excited and makes him cling to Double D (more than usual), which in the end doesn't change how gay the scene is because there was no need for him to be so nice to Double D and worry so much about making him comfortable in order to use him (like when he makes Double D his wife/romantic partner in his scams/plans. There's no need for this, it doesn't change anything in the plan, he just adds this part because he wants to). Double D is already his long time friend, he didn't need to act differently in any way to use him to his advantage, he just had to be around him as usual.

And before even thinking about ruling the place, Eddy's first reaction was to be impressed and extremely excited and admired by Double D, finding him very cool, and I'd say he even seems attracted to that side of Double D. With this vision in mind, the way he starts to act towards Double D from then on seems like someone "marking territory", wanting to show that that cool and strong guy already has an owner. Eddy's feeling like the luckiest guy in the world to be close to such a cool guy like him. The scene now has a "Look at my cool boyfriend who's going to kick your ass! You wish you had him, but he's mine!" energy. He also wants to be nice to Double D to please and seduce him.

From this, I conclude that part of his excitement is because he's actually genuinely proud and happy for Double D that he has finally become more confident and learned to be able to defend himself, something we know he really wanted to happen and tried to help Double D with in "Tag Yer Ed" (one of my favorite episodes because it shows how much Eddy cares about Double D, as he spends the entire episode, spontaneously, just dedicating himself to helping Double D be stronger and more confident because he can't stand seeing him being mistreated by others), and besides, I think he might find it hot to see Double D show an aggressive, strong, confident and determined side for a change, and that also makes him admire him more and think he's cool because it reminds him of his brother, the person he admires most in the world.

In fact, I came to this interpretation because I was reflecting more and this scene from "A Fistful of Ed" reminded me of a post someone made about a scene from "Tinker Ed" (a post that Danny Antonucci shared on Facebook by the way!!!) and made me draw a parallel between the two scenes.

The post talks about how Double D's smitten with Eddy in this scene. He doesn't seem like someone who's just happy for his friend, his expressions indicate that he seems to be melting with love for Eddy's unexpected kindness. He's completely touched by just seeing Eddy being kind, as if this were his weakness, something that makes him more attracted to Eddy.

But the impression I have is that Eddy's acting like this on purpose, trying to seduce Double D (maybe not from the beginning, but the moment he realizes that Double D is completely melting in love with him, he immediately takes advantage of the moment) because he was so inexplicably sweet in this scene, he never acts like that, but he knows how much Double D appreciates kindness. There's no heterosexual explanation (so much so that this episode's storyboard was made by Raven Molisee, so it was certainly intentionally gay). It seems to me that he just wanted to share a sweet romantic moment with Double D and wanted to melt his heart by showing him how kind he can be sometimes. Like, Double D says he's very proud of Eddy in the most passionate tone of voice possible, and Eddy immediately reacts by reciprocating and wrapping him in his arm, and the detail of his hand on Double D's waist always gets me. And Eddy even keeps showing off to Double D, bragging about his kindness, saying he's "all heart". And on top of that, Eddy saying "Right, Ed?", asking him to confirm what he's saying, why does he suddenly involve Ed in the situation? It seems a lot like that kind of situation where a guy asks his friend to help him win over his crush by confirming the things he tells his crush with the intention of seducing him. Like, why is he trying so hard to convince Double D that he's a sweetheart? I don't know any other way to interpret this other than him blatantly flirting with Double D. They exchange lots of touches and looks and end the scene walking away hugging each other exactly like a couple, and they do it so naturally.

Anyway, the parallel I wanted to draw when comparing both scenes was that in both they surprise each other with unexpected behaviors that please them. Eddy was attracted to Double D's supposed aggressiveness and determination, and Double D was attracted to Eddy's supposed kindness and sweetness. They're also both proud of each other in both scenes.

#ed edd n eddy #ededdneddy #eene #ed edd and eddy #eddeddy #eddxeddy #edd x eddy #eddyedd #eddyxedd #eddy x edd #eene analysis #my analysis #danny antonucci #raven molisee

[doomsdaydicecascader]

my problem with postcanon jade was that it said she was a cis girl before fusing with bec. i took it as the same "true in a transmisogynist way" troll as transmasc roxy

like, truly, i miss transfeminine roxy every day, and my house is fairly glass when it comes to things here considering i'm writing The Butch Lesbian Jane Comic, but like. the way homestuck fans exert ownership over the text of homestuck is fundamentally what the homestuck epilogues and post-canon are about. act 7 is about the dead calliope saying "fuck canon" and making her own, and she does not know how to care for the characters in question. i genuinely believe reconciling these facts, that what homestuck wants to be and what fans want homestuck to be are tangibly, ideologically opposed, is what post-canon is about

"fans read this character as X identity" is fine and good but that's paratext at best, and making demands of a text that has no obligation to respect them at worst. the epilogues are cashing in that desire to not respect them. homestuck has always been shaking off its readers who exert too much ownership, feel too comfortable with it. this goes way back as far as act 5 act 2 - the author commentary describes switching between walkaround sprites and hussnasty mode in such close proximity as a means of saying "if you always get what you expect, you will become complacent and that's no way for a reader to be", the "come in, go away" routine of homestuck is so repetitive now that i'm surprised basically nobody's caught on - homestuck is always doing insane flips to try and shake people off of it.

and now homestuck is doing that with your headcanons. like, this is a thing i see genuinely, all the fucking time in fandom over the past 15 years or so, people hype themselves up on paratexts and pretend the paratext is the source. the worst i ever saw of it was people having full blown self-harm threatening panic attacks because klance was not endgame in voltron legendary defenders. genuinely, i remember this so well - i think there were still two more seasons of the show after that event too, but i didn't watch it.

i only looked on from afar because what i saw of season 1 wasn't especially novel. castiel was never gay, no matter how many times he was caught leaking omegamusk in walmart or whatever, i'm stealing valor with this joke i was never a superwholock omegaverse girlie. there's so many fandoms i'm not a part of, it's unreal.

anyway, my point is people get really invested in their reads on characters and pretend it's real for the same reason a normie's sports team is gonna go the distance this season. and when they don't, they riot. this is literally just sports fandom 101. we may as well be talking about fucking inflategate here. i also don't go to sports. it's basically just homestuck for me these days.

i imagine this is what it's like to run my little pony before bronies came along: the show was negligible in relevance beyond its capacity to show off the new toys to play with. but the difference is that my little pony is about the toys, it's about encouraging that kind of play, it's fundamentally a set of toys they made a show about, as opposed to homestuck, which was always niche art for webcomics weirdos that caught on, quite literally, with the brony audience. i remember the first time i ever saw dave strider was on fucking ponychan, chronologically it would have been mid-act 5 act 2. it was an image of dave ransacking the lohac stock exchange, which is an a5a2 thing, it was before season 2 started, etc etc.

this is one hell of a tangent to say as far as the text of mspaintadventures is concerned, problem sleuth characters have gender signifiers that are more similar in nature to drag and performance of gender roles than any actual sexual dimorphism. homestuck characters are built atop the gender expression of problem sleuth. jade was a 13/16-year old girl, and that's the only information there was. over time, this changed.

this was an explicit change, too - it's in the change to act 6, passing through the fourth wall, that these characters, who fundamentally are game pieces, that homestuck starts to contend with the fact that people are emotionally invested in them as people. people don't like dave or vriska in the same way that people care about problem sleuth or nervous broad, and this comes out in the text. we get a lot of the best stuff in homestuck out of that change, too, like. the retcon only works because of that emotional investment, and i go so hard for the retcon. the retcon is the coolest thing ever.

and with that change, now, in 2024, she is explicitly a 39 (? i think she's 39.) year old woman with a penis. she didn't go from "cis woman" to "trans woman", she went from game piece to human person. there is no "cis jade" to be overwritten. you're assuming a "cis is default" worldview of a team of transgender and/or nonbinary people and thats just like. its not ideal, really

#really letting these posts get away from me here. #i write really nonlinearly and got distracted to go post resources on the mspfa discord so if theres a sentence fragment in there: idgaf

[kindalikerackham]

The Black Sails Drama Highlights™️

Like, what the fuck happened over there?

Lucky for you, I was there on the ground floor (even sent in some propaganda that elicited a truly baffling response from the poll runner) because I'm a nut for goofy little tumblr polls and a nut for best little lesser-known-tv-show Black Sails.

Alright, so. @/pirate-battle (from here on out referred to as OP -- the Original Pollster) was running, as one might expect, a pirate bracket. At first glance, it wasn't explicitly presented what the criteria were, so people voted on their preference, often moving along pirate icons (Hook from Muppet Treasure Island)/characters from active fandoms (TAZ), etc etc you know the drill. (Although they later clarified they were looking for favorites, not the "best pirate.")

OP's first mistake, I think, was the assumption that a silly goofy little tumblr competition about characters archetypically ungovernable would remain silly goofy and with minimal strong language.

But this wouldn't become visible until they made their second mistake, creating a first-round poll between James 'brutually murdered a crewmate in the first episode solely to maintain power for his revenge-quest against England' Flint of Black Sails vs Stede 'notable used tissue' Bonnet of OFMD. They did recognize some of the coming danger even with that post, tagging "#I predict slaughter in the tags"

O Apollo, strike down these children with prophecies that bite them in the a--

Anyway. Predictably, there was slaughter in the tags. Violent language rather typical of the tumblr that I came from (the tumblr of the early 2010s), but seemed to be utterly shocking to some OFMD fans.

Exposition time: It should be noted here that there exists at least two-ish different kinds of users of tags. Those that use them to scream personal thoughts into the void and/or whispers into their mutuals' ears, and those sneaky little fools who will peruse everyone's personal little screams/thoughts to their internet buddies. And original posters are relegated to suffer the yelling/whispers without choice.

So that slaughter, in the tags, those rivers of blood through the whispers of a fervent fanbase of a violent and freeing queer show, did reverberate around other users, regardless of etiquette.

And for some of those very sweet very uwu our flag means gay fans, that was.. very scary. (Must be all those spooky theatrics with the smoke and mirrors).

(....Idk??? Maybe I'm just battle-hardened from superwholock, but saying a tag a la "AHHHHHH I'm going to rip something's head off my BOY BETTER WIN" just doesn't really phase me?? Nor does "#I'm literally going to k/m/s if x wins." Overkill? Yeahhh... But this is tumblr. We invented overkill for the media we like. And again, this was in someone's tags.)

Moving on, as tags of that violent nature starting pulling through, and people started vigorously defending black sails as a franchise over ofmd, myself and others sent in some propaganda of my own, urging OFMD fans to really understand that Black Sails is mostly incomparable to OFMD and... Black Sails is just kinda better. Cuts deeper. Genre difference at work here.

Soapbox Side Note: Black Sails can actually be kind of game changing, especially for a show that came out in 2014. There's so much to say about it but it's hard to talk about without spoiling. I might add a link to a good 'things to know' post if you're looking to get into it.

Anyway. OP was starting to lose it.

Like, I really just don't think they had mentally prepared for how truly feral Black Sails folks were/are about that show, and how they were willing to get all HRRRRRRR CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP about it.

Additionally... OP was white, and they were super duper unprepared to engage with any of the discourse about racism that these shows dig up (They're about pirates, and a lot of pirates engaged in the slave trade. Or had freed slaves on their crew. Some even owned slaves themselves. It was complicated and pirates are typically a white fantasy vehicle and anyway I'm getting off-track--)

OP started to really fan the flames with more and more visibly emotional responses

They said "it's not a competition" between the two shows, despite it... being a literal competition...

They called people out for "gatekeeping," but didn't really define what it meant in the context of saying one gay pirate show was way better than the other.

They told Black Sails fans not to express negative feelings towards OFMD on the internet (because good representation is the god us internet queers pray to, and we wouldn't want some network exec to say "oh those mean people on the internet, better not renew the popular pirate romcom" obvi)

After some more of this, they then threatened to overturn the results of the poll entirely and remove Flint from the poll wholesale, despite the fact that he had won. (Which is hilarious if you know anything about Flint in Black Sails. He's literally That Guy That Makes People Break Democracy Attempting To Unseat Him).

Finally, after a day of trying to ignore the fact that they'd become a meme within black sails circles (one post even screenshotted then with "new copypasta just dropped" yikes), they threw in the towel. And bless them, I do think they needed the break. They were kind of going through it.

In conclusion,

The Black Sails fans pulled what I might even daresay to be,, , a fuckery "of censorship and fear",, over OFMD fans and some poor unprepared poll runner who had no skin in the game, while using only strong language and some mild mean-spirited memes (95% of which in their own tags and posts).

#black sails #poll drama #pirate drama

[sennqu]

ok i am ready to be spicy. so i made this post the other day (or yesterday what is time) without tags: (with some slight word changes)

"oh, I get it now. I think I understand a big reason why the "Mike is in love with Will but just doesn't want to admit it because he has internalized homophobia" is such a popular fandom opinion. Because then Mike's behavior becomes "obviously" romantic since this take assumes that he's aware of his behavior.

The take that he's "simply oblivious, simply doesn't know his feelings are actually romantic in nature", which -- in my opinion -- is much more heavily supported by the text, is... actually kind of scary to consider from a "wanting the ship to be canon" perspective. Because it's pretty much close to saying that his feelings are actually just platonic after all because that's what Mike thinks they are."

So, I have been thinking very hard on this for a while because I do think that this is why there is a sort of...friction? anxiety? in the general vibes of the fandom with regards to how byler can even work out in S5 after the events of S4.

In my opinion, I think that the second take -- Mike is oblivious -- actually lends itself well to the prospect of official, no ways around it endgame byler better than the first one does.

Because imagine it: Mike doesn't have to suffer through thinking he's wrong or he's a mistake or that he's not conforming to society's standards before coming to terms with his feelings. He just has to realize he's in love with his best friend, and that his best friend is in love with him. Mike is going to be the out, loud, and proud person of this relationship. He just has to figure his shit out.

First, what do we know about Mike so far and what can we take away from it? and why is it not "internalized homophobia"?

The biggest evidence for me against the "internalized homophobia" take is in S1 when Will was being called names by Troy and friend. Mike physically retaliated. He didn't look ashamed; he looked angry. Because they were insulting his missing best friend right in front of him. He was not internalizing these slurs. What he was doing was defending Will, who was the target of this hate. He prioritized defending Will, who wasn't even there, over cowing to displays of homophobia.

What about that "It's not my fault you don't like girls" line? Surely that means he's repressed and internalizing some shit? Yeah, and maybe he was just talking faster than his mind could think? Mike ends up clarifying this line and gives away the actual thing that's holding him back: heteronormative thinking. He talks about getting girlfriends as part of growing up as a young man. He says this like a neutral piece of information.

Let's talk about Mike's fears. So far, all of Mike’s insecurities are about being needed, being useful. It's not conforming to society. It's not fitting the mold. If he feared that then he'd have done what Lucas did and joined a popular group. But what did he do? He leaned into his DnD hobby and even started dressing differently, growing his hair out too. S4 Mike is not afraid to be an outcast.

What he does fear most is people leaving him behind. That's what he says about/to El, and that's practically what he says to Will as his excuse for being weird at the airport. The knock-off outfit, the flowers. That wasn't him trying to be straight so he wouldn't be outed as gay or in love with his best friend or whatever. That was his attempt at saving his relationship because he does love El and he doesn't want to lose her too. But they are incompatible. He doesn't realize he doesn't love her romantically but he does love her. That's why he's struggling. Because he can't differentiate between the two.

Lastly, he says to Will: "I feel like I lost you". Which means he felt like he already lost Will. Loving someone and losing them is something Mike never wants to happen again because it already happened once, twice, three times before with Will. Once when Will vanished, the second time when Will got possessed, and the third time when Will moved away. Mike's issue isn't about loving Will and fearing he's gay; it's about losing Will again.

The bolded part is the one I want to highlight because it's the most important piece of the puzzle imo. I am willing to bet that not wanting to lose Will again is going to be a huge part of Mike’s arc in S5 and is going to lead to him finally realizing his feelings. I honestly don't think Will's confession is going to figure into things at all until Mike's realized his feelings. Because the audience has to see Mike fall in love with Will before he figures out Will loves him back. The audience should not be made to think that Mike only falls in love with Will because Will's in love with him.

But how will Mike realize exactly the difference between his love for Will and his love for El if he's this goddamn oblivious? How will the process even start? El has to break up with him. No other way around it. El has to tell him straight up that she does not believe he is in love with her. Only then can Mike be free to even think about what romantic love actually means to him. I imagine this is where he and Nancy will actually get to talk about something substantial again, when he asks her what being in love means. and that will further get the ball rolling. And I believe however his arc plays out, we will get to see Mike and Will definitively end up together.

Because Mike loves Will so much. He isn't quite aware of what this love is yet but he has it in abundance. That is why he was the only one apart from Joyce who pushed for finding Will initially; that is why he is always the first to apologize when he and Will fight; that is why the best thing he's ever done was ask Will to be his friend; that is why he lashed out at Will at the roller rink; that is why he was so over the moon about Will's painting and Will's words in the van that he ironically didn't even see Will crying; that is why he only said his monologue after Will practically told him to.

Will is and continues to be Mike's most important person. Once Mike realizes he's in love with Will and the feeling is mutual? Homophobia can go suck a tail pipe because how dare this concept make the love of his life feel like a mistake? Mike is going to kiss Will as soon he realizes because he is not going to let anyone make him wait a minute longer before kissing the boy of his dreams.

sneaky edit: the underlined parts are links to other analyses i've done before regarding Mike's behavior. Analyses over the airport/roller rink scene, him being oblivious, his love for El, etc!

#this is.... very long #absolutely the longest post i have ever written #it's not as concise or as pinpointed as i wanted it to be #but that's fine. I'm laying it all out there #ku blarghs #strangely blogging #byler #this is a great starting off point for my planned predictions post too #and as is the norm for my posts... links abound... #also i know i am very confidence and 100% hope personified in this post #because i am. i am confident. not about the specifics. but i am 100% they are going to kiss #you guys can be worried about it being canon it's ok. i have enough confidence and hope for all of us lmao

[unabashedly-so]

🌹SDV Elliott HC 💃

Content warning: Americanized contexts ahead. 😅 Not pigeonholing SDV as American but I'm using Americanized regionalisms because that's the language I have to communicate I'm trying to portray. 🤷‍♀️

************

It takes a high heart level and a moderate intoxication level to bring it out, BUT Elliott has had years of ballroom dance under his belt.

I'm imagining a southern old-money style upbringing for him (subject to change) and he started being trained in different dances bc he was involved in whatever the male version of debutantes is.

he wasn't big into it at the time but yknow mommy issues he was a diligent well-mannered young man so he learned enough to pass by.

enter university and Prince Slut (freshman year) is finding all kinds of ways to get the tender physical touch and affection he craved as a child make friends and finds the uni's ballroom dance club

his foundation of skill and reputation make him insanely popular within the club so it becomes a genuinely healthy outlet for him.

he never takes it seriously in terms of competition; he's just there to have fun and make his partner shine but you KNOW he's flaunting and flexing along the way, like executing daring moves with his partner, showboating, getting so overly sultry with it, etc.

he gets so many numbers and so much ass whenever he goes out, it's upsetting.

anyway tl;dr he spends so much time on that and other social activities in college that he barely passes most of his classes and it's actually a huge regret of his but that's a whole 'nother post

he stops dancing after uni for the most part as he has to reprioritize his life

but that doesn't mean that he lets it go, oh no.

get enough drinks in this man and enough room to move and he's 10years younger ready to sweep anyone off their feet.

He'll trot with the foxes, swing from one coast to another, cha-cha real smooth, give him tequila and he'll give you salsa, etc etc

of fucking course he can waltz but like 1) ya Basic, and 2) dinner and a movie first (and let's make it Viennese, for the love of Yoba)

he'd much rather rumba or tango tbh but only with someone he really cares about. poor boy'll catch feelings quick rocking hips like that.

which like. alternate ending to the 6heart scene has him inviting you to dance with him to blow off some steam. nothing too stilted or sensual, just an easy swing or something so he can move and move you and maybe even give you a twirl if you're so inclined 😉

(at 8hearts and above he's twirling you, dipping you, and rocking you on his hips during wrap-ins 🥴🥴 you've also unlocked private rumba, tango, and waltzes with him, and boy is it getting humid in this seaside cabin 🥵🥵)

it does take getting him at least buzzed to bring it out, but he has no shame once it's out, so it's like an open secret in Pelican town that he'll show anyone who's a good sport a good time

EXCEPT.

(and this is a big one)

he's so fucking judgey about what music people choose to dance to.

full on Big Sassy Gay energy.

"oh you want to slow dance to [Ed Sheeran]? yeah I remember being in middle school too."

"*Thinking Out Loud playing* is this the wedding song where people teeter back and forth like two rickety sideways rocking chairs with room for Yoba in between because your grandma's watching for three straight minutes? ...no yeah it's fine. I mean to their credit it probably functions as their run through for the consummation later too so good for them I guess"

*I Won't Give Up playing* "if you need to dance to a song where someone else declares how you're So Definitely going to be together forever, I'm sorry but I give it two years tops." "Elliott, this was Haley and Alex's song." "I said what I said. Next."

"*dramatic sigh* just because you can mathematically fit a 5 step into a 4/4 doesn't mean you can or should turn any bubblegum pop song about casual sex into a tango. It's NOT about sensuality, it's about THE CONFLICT THEREIN."

just take him home at this point. 😅 no one understands what he's saying but they know it's probably insulting.

anyway fast forward to domestic bliss and he's regularly pulling you in to show you how happy you make him

he's definitely singing any lines he thinks fit you under his breath while he dances with you. He'll bring you in close and murmur them into your ear or kiss them into your neck if he's got bedroom thoughts. 🌹

#wow this got way out of hand and also intensely personal lmaoo #sdv #sdv Elliott #sdv headcanons #Stardew Valley #stardew elliott

[intrusiveinks]

I have a question. What is your MLP poly au about?

Sorry for the bad formatting I'm on phone and in a rush bc I spent all lunch writing this lmao

I also wanna start out by saying you don't have to agree with all my hcs n I don't mind other interpretations of these characters obviously, lmao

Tbh it's mainly just like random gay little hcs of mine, mainly surrounding the mane 6 being Poly, of course. I suppose it's technically one of my more fluid aus, as in not everything is honestly set in stone bc I can't decide if I want some of it to be darker or completely keep it more to Canon yet.

It's technically similar in some aspects to my Elements of Necessity Mane 6, just... a lot less horrible overall? Still not the the best ponies but also not the Worst like Necessity plans on being once I work on that again. (Especially w similarities w Twilight at least at first)

Despite shipping (almost) all of the mane 6 together (I just don't rlly see AJ n Pinkie as dating in any way, even if I don't entirely think they're actually related (I don't think they ever officially confirmed things in the show even later on so I could be wrong!)), my main fixation is on Dash x Pinkie x Shy and then also Twi x Rarity x Aj, and when talking to a friend I thought the concept of those two trios actually getting together first (and going through a semi-dramatic (kinda rivals in some cases) to friends to lovers thing and finally calming down then girls from both groups start falling for each other and it's chaos ALL OVER AGAIN!!!

Twilight is a lot more like ep 1 Twi (can u tell I loved that version of her) and she's not super social and when she is she can be rude (sometimes on purpose) and she's very work oriented and perfectionistic, even after she befriends the mane 6 in a similar way to the first ep, she doesn't do a super immediate flip and she doesn't ever entirely drop all of her more unsociable mannerisms because they are a part of her, she's not a total dick, but I like the thought that even people who don't socialize normally can be friends and have friendship!

Aj is a workaholic and kinda judgemental, especially if she doesn't really think somepony is as tough/mature/reliable as her, but she still tries to be polite because of how she was raised. A lot of those judgements normally happen when she feels like she's forced to interact with ponies who aren't relatives, (Rarity cough cough) but a lot of her judgements are because she forced herself to grow up fast and later on some of her frustrations turn out to be because she likes the others and not just bc she's annoyed.

Rarity is pretty much the same but even more slay serve dramatic queen in some aspects, she's actually pretty self conscious though, and for a while she's put herself in a creative rut because she feels ponies only want certain designs from her and she's scared to expand from that. (I wonder if 5 mares w different styles could help her out with that ;]) also kinda a workaholic.

Fluttershy is a EARTH PONY I do think unicorn Flutters is interesting but she's literally so earth pony coded idc!!! She's pretty much the same except a lot of her interactions (especially w Dash and Pinkie) are based on her admiration of them and then it becomes romantic over time. Similar with AJ and Rarity but in a kind of different way. With Twilight she actually relates to her social issues and ends up reaching out more when Twi is struggling to help her and the two of them get a bit of a bond sharing interests. Flutters also doesn't really care about getting messy and loves wilderness activities! The darkness is scary, but if she's scavenging in the day or sleeping in a tent she feels a lot safer, especially if she knows it's just some animals nearby (like a bear. And not a monster).

Pinkie is a pegasus like her Granny pie was because I said so, though she is the only one out of all her siblings to be one, (Maud, Lime, Marble, and Octavio), so she was actually raised on the ground, hence her hopping a lot of the time because it's like a middle ground for her! She's kinda mentally ill, and very ND obviously! She's been besties with Dash for AGES to the point Ponyville thinks they're gay before they even start dating (they don't say anything to be polite, Twilight is actually the one who says it out loud (she's still new) and it kicks off a "wait??? Do I like her??" For the two ponies who for the most part normally don't care about who they might like).

Dash is your local loser gamer boy but he's not only a boy she's also a girl (both states are masculine bc gender is a fuck!!!) She's still egotistical but a lot more aggressive in certain places too because of her own self consciousness issues. She's not diagnosed with ADHD but God he really needs to be! He actually deals more with storm clouds and the aftermath when it comes to weather! She's literally only been open with Pinkie about doing silly things like stimming for Ages bc she has a problem with admitting she may think she has anything. Kinda similar to how she ends up bonding w Twi over reading Daring-Do.

Idk if I've been too open about things but the base hcs for pronouns/Gender/etc for the mane 6 (at least in this au) are

Twilight - She/Her - Cis - Bisexual (She doesn't know it yet)

Rarity - She/Her, They/Them - Nonbinary (I can't decide exactly? Maybe a demigirl? Genderfluid? I'm unsure.) - Unlabeled

Apple Jack - She/Her - Cis - Sapphic (I'm not sure on anything for her yet I just know she deffo likes girls)

Fluttershy - She/Her, They/Them - Demigirl - Queer

Pinkie Pie - She/Her, They/Them, He/Him, It/Its, (Probably neos too) - Nonbinary (not really any solid gender identity but mainly goes as some form of a girl) - Pansexual

Rainbow Dash - He/Him, She/Her - Bigender (Male and Female Specifically) - She likes girls but she doesn't really care to label herself on specifics.

#mlp #my little pony #my little pony friendship is magic #mlp fim #mane 6 #poly mane 6 #mlp headcanons #twilight sparkle #rarity #apple jack #rainbow dash #pinkie pie #fluttershy

[zykamiliah]

they didn’t say that a 20 y/o dating someone in their early 30s was pedophilia though? they said it was a power imbalance, and that it doesn’t disappear as soon as they are a legal adult. look, i enjoy svsss, but it’s true there is a mental gap. and a student pursuing a teacher doesn’t necessarily make the teacher’s reciprocation okay. i think there’s room for nuance here that neither you nor the other blogger is realizing

they were relating the feeling of weirdness they got from reading svsss to the power imbalance of a real life teacher/student relationship or actual pedophilia.

like i said, the power imbalance is part of the conflict in svsss and bingqiu's relationship. No one in this fandom believes they were the perfect soulmates from start to finish, Healthy and Unproblematic. But it's one thing that their dynamic was unbalanced and toxic because of the their misunderstandings and communications problems, and another entirely different what that other blogger was saying.

by the time binghe comes from the abyss, he has already grown into his own power and become a demon lord. when they meet again, sqq is not the one leveling his power against sqq, but the opposite.

here I talked about why i don't think bingqiu is toxic, if you'd like to read my analysis on it.

now, for the mental gap, what exactly are you saying here? Because if we're going to compare mental age gaps, we need to take into consideration that binghe and shen yuan are from different worlds, and that their upbringing was very different. lbh practically grew in the streets as an orphan before his adoptive mother took him in, and the he went back to that after her death, before entering CQM. shen yuan, on the other hand, grew with a loving family, was a rich and pampered young master and never had to go through the struggles that lbh went through: starvation, mistreatment, poverty, loneliness, being homeless and parentless, with no one to care for him or protect him. so really, between the two, who has more worthy life experiences?

okay, let's get at it from another angle. through the entire novel, and specially after the sqq's death, lbh is very honest with himself about his own feelings and thoughts. he knows his mind really well, even under the influence of xin mo. he knows how to manipulate dreams, after all. you could said that his most unhealthy habits are his codependency and the way he internalizes his self-hate, and the subsequent self-harm he does to his mind and body because of this. i'd say his most childish moments are in the Jinlan arc, where his actions contradict themselves, as he's both resentful toward SQQ and trying to win his approval at the same time.

shen yuan, on the other hand? emotionally repressed. he doesn't process his own thoughts and emotions and pushes everything under the surface. queerphobic. homophobic. deep in denial of his own queerness and gayness, oblivious to everything gay going own around him, runs from his problems, self-sacrificial to the detriment of his own well-being, so tsundere it backfires on him sometimes, unable to understand why someone like airplane would write shitty porn to pay the bills; even thought at his core he's kind to must people, he spends a great part of the novel being very vitriolic towards sqh. it's because he can't let go of his hatred towards the authors, who he partly blames for the bad things that happen to him.

taking all this into account, i really can't say what their true mental ages are, and if the gap is really that big, or if it really has such a huge impact on their relationship.

and a student pursuing a teacher doesn’t necessarily make the teacher’s reciprocation okay.

maybe you're right on this one, but are all cases of teacher/student relationships the same? must we, just as sqq did, ignore lbh's agency and own wishes and do what he thought was best?

there's thinking that teenagers under 18 have no way of making rational decisions when it comes to love and sexual attraction, and there's thinking that a 25 years old's agency in regards to who he wants to be with is meaningless.

#svsss #svsss meta #bingqiu #shen yuan #mention of queerphobia #mention of homophobia #zykamiliah-svsss #oh boy this got long