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bylertruther · 1 year

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crazy how people will see you bring up literal scenes from the show, quotes by the duffers, actors, casting director, and costume dept, as well as the stranger things bible/first pitch, and be like "you're so dumb and offensive, that's NOT will, i'm so sick of will being babied and 'fEmiNizEd' blah blah blah" like girl maybe you just don't like women or will byers. have you ever considered that?

maybe YOU'RE the one failing to watch this show with your eyes and ears open if you're out here straight up denying scenes from the show itself. maybe YOU'RE the one failing to see that will has always been brave not despite his fear but because of it, and it's LITERALLY his bravery that inspires mike to start a search party and kickstarts the show. maybe YOU'RE the one that has super regressive, small-minded, and one-dimensional views on what bravery looks like, what strength looks like, and all the different ways there are to be not only a man, but a person in general.

like i just don't know how you can think you possibly know more than the actual people that make this show and dedicate literal years of their lives to making it the best it can possibly be and most accurate to their creative vision LOL like. sometimes you're just wrong!!! suck it up and go find another character that you'd actually like more instead of taking one that's impressively complex and cared for in ways that we seldom see in media!! much less media as globally popular and impactful as this one is, and esp not when it comes to gay male characters!!

will is complex and layered and beloved by many precisely because of that very complexity and capacity to be many things at once that you are so bafflingly intent on erasing!! if you find yourself disagreeing with canon & the creators to the point where you have to completely remove his most important traits and reject the literal show itself, then the fact of the matter is that you just don't like him!! AND THAT'S OKAY! but at least be honest with yourself instead of digging yourself deeper and deeper into a pit of denial and trying to make it seem like the duffers are the crazy ones here and not the fucking stranger things equivalent to flat earthers like 🤦‍♂️

#i just. girl this is not a matter of opinion canon is what canon is like ??? hello. lmao #are you gonna tell me will isn't gay next. are you gonna tell me he's a jock or something. where does it end lol #when it comes to headcanons you can think whatever you want but headcanons are NOT canon #you can't look at the literal TEXT of the show and go 'hm. no actually this isn't real.'#that's just not how reality works? we need education reform immediately this is tewwwwwww much #gatekeeping will and mike forever until the end of time idc thts my toxic trait we been knew this #keep ur headcanons and enjoy them but don't try to say that they're canon #i love my trans will hc i love it and hold it to my chest so near n dear but i don't say that it's canon..... i believe many things abt #mike's character and his actions etc but i still am always open to the idea that i could be wildly wrong bc s5 isn't here yet #like. i just. can we not equate headcanons and canon . can we not look at literal scenes from the show and be like Mmmm No.#nd make it into a moral issue when it really fucking isn't. will is the way that he is like SUCK IT UPPPPPPPP GO AWAYYYYYYYY THERE #ARE OTHER CHARACTERS FOR U TO PICK FROM!!! CHOOSE ANY ONE OF THEM!!! LEAVE WILL'S ASS ALONEEEEEEE

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soliusss · 1 year

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Oh god the next bsd epsiode isn't Sigma it's Yosano's backstory. That was the only time I cried reading the manga o_o I am not prepared

#bsd gets a lot heavier in the decay of angels arc #across the board #war and police brutality themes really start coming out #we should kill jouno I think #solius posting #I LOVE THEMES OF GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION ‼️‼️‼️#anyway Yosano is one of my fav characters ever she deserves so much #i wish she got more fandom attention #gay little doctor #I'm suprised so many people like the hunting dogs tbh #OBVIOUSLY you can like morally bad characters but I feel like most of the fandom doesn't understand them #corrupt police force modeled after japenese imperials #nobody talks about that #it's just OOOOHHH TECCHOU JOUNO SO GAY #THEYRE LIKE WAR CRIMINALS AND NO ONE TALKS ABOUT IT

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coolspacequips · 7 months

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I feel like I broke the seal and now I keep wanting to urgently tell you guys about this mean gay valet, too, RIP

#Any other Thomas fans out there.... my fear for him now that he's looking for a young handsome powerbottom to brighten his days....#makes me realize i must be a fan #i actually find self serving and or chaotic neutral characters to be so compelling #and i think it's bc characters like that can really make you have to think about why they do the things they do #bc they don't just adhere to meeting a moral standard or a social obligation and when they do it's like 👀 they've got a lot going on inside #who hurt him (other than being gay in 1900s Britain and being taken advantage of romantically by nobility bc he's a servant)#the whole time watching s1 i thought what is driving him and O'Brien... now I'm obsessed w the plot of them turning on each other #i have so many questions about them but instead we have to watch teppid upper class waffling around #some of these flop soapy plotlines have Nothing on the tension in just ONE of their mean gay little smoke breaks #I'll tell u this tho bridgerton really truly served with their gay valet love story in the flashback season when it comes to this #so while I'll give Downton it's flowers for including him all i can say is that I'm halfway thru and they have been scared to commit to him #the season of bridgerton had it's problems but fear of committing to the gay protagonists they included was not one of them #mixed feelings about them getting The Near Hand Touch of the season but i feel it i appreciate it in some ways #ugh don't get me started #text posts

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poems-of-a-lover · 1 year

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agh. wanna play silly games with a silly guy.

#i looove playin games with ppl #im not the biggest Gamer Boy out there but its so fun #i play with friends and we do longer choices matter games together and i love discussing morals and life over. a video game.#and even now like i play pokemon and deltarune on my switch and id love to just sit with someone and play together #give all the characters silly voices or somethin #idk i like games #me when i am. gay trans gamer movie nerd bf. me fr.#mlm #mlm yearning #mlm post #mlm love #gay mlm #trans mlm #mlm blog #t4t #mlm thoughts

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br1ghtestlight · 1 year

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i love mr ambrose i love gay people that are just clearly fucked up and terrible with no morals but theyre also so funny

#he is both VERY heavily implied to be gay bcuz of the way he acts and how he sounds and everything #but also i think he canonically is bcuz in that one theatre episode he was uhh having sex with a lot of men <3 and said men were into him #anyway i love gay FREAKS!!!! we dont need more morally grey and complicated queer characters we need more queer characters #who are just objectively so horrible and manipulative #THATS REPRESENTATION BABY!!!!!#<- bobs burgers posting btw #txt #bob's burgers

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mejomonster · 2 years

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Also though I think via last post, emotional silly liveblogging is kind of expected anyway. Nice pretty well weighed meta is impressive but it's not liveblogged in the moment usually. (Also people liveblog being angry at a scene in the moment Because it's meant to make u angry, even as in the long term they appreciate it for making them angry and making a brilliant thematic point - like Bai Lin being so awful and abusive and violating I coukdnt stop screaming seeing him, an excellent subversion of the usual xianxia romantic lead turning it into the villain. Or people love waxing poetic on a ship when it's overall a very small part of their appreciation of the material, like me with pingxie I do care about it but it's a very small part of my enjoyment of dmbj, or even weilan while written to hit very specific things I enjoy I actually love the mutants as metaphors and commentary on society Guardian does and that alone would have made it one of my favorite shows so Zhao yunlan being bi like me and a romantic relationship hitting as much I enjoy as theirs and as close as spirk like theirs is just extra wonderful but not the only thing I care about by far, etc. Liveblogging just tends to skew emotional reaction and quick fun tidbits one notices - or painful ones lol). At least that's what I assume is sometimes the case...

#rant #also fyi i love when mutuals liveblog. bothing makes me intrigued by a show #like incomprehensible but interestjng commentary on something ive got no context for but sounds Intriguing #all the cang lan jue liveblogging prepared me zero percent for how GREAT #it is as a xianxia doing things nuanced and not traditional and doing them exceptionally well #jnstead the liveblogging was very surface level demon king and fairy tropes. but it got me to check it out so im very happy it did!!#gay vampires being messy is gonna get people into iwtv #and i do enjoy that part. but i think the meat of iwtv #is more louis grand view of morality and good and evil and guilt and himself ans his loved ones and furure and past #which i relate to greatly. and its interaxtion with and contrast to lestats broken relationship with belief in other things #to lestats impulsive here and now and good is what we want and outside of that morality is unimportant #and claudia as a character study all her own is intricate and emotionally a lot #thats the real draw. but if gay fucked up vampires is an intro. it def would get me to chexk it out. u know what i mean

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moki-dokie · 6 months

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been seeing some stuff on blue eye samurai and big yikes to nearly everyone pushing extremely western ideals onto these characters.

this is early edo period. 1600s. the japan you know now did not exist yet.

yall. please. there was NO concept of sexuality in pre-modern japan. that came with both the influx of christianity and western influence very very late in history. like, mid-1800s. (yes, there was christianity pre-1800s but it was not a widespread idea yet and wouldn't be until about the 1800s since, y'know, missionaries were routinely murdered before then)

"so and so is either bi and hasn't figured it out yet or..." no. that isn't how it worked then. nobody gave a shit what was between your legs. anyone could be attracted to anyone else. it was a little more common for male homosexual relationships to be between an adult and younger male - like many other places around the world - but two adult men could bang and love each other just as easily. relationships between women were quite common - especially since so many men were often away at war. there's tons of pornographic prints from the time depicting all manner of fun queer relationships. sex itself had absolutely no moral assignment to it. good sex was good health. it didn't matter who with. (well, social class/caste mattered more than anything else tbh but that didn't stop upper and lower class from fucking.) that isn't to say people didn't have preferences. of course they did. that is human nature. preferences arose more from physical appearance, caste, and circumstances with gender being about the last thing one would look for in a partner - romantic, casual, or otherwise. the only role in sex where gender actually mattered was for procreation.

there would be no queer awakening moment, no sudden switch flipped, no stigma to have internal conflicts about because it simply did not exist as a concept whatsoever. you were either attracted to a person or you weren't, it was that simple. gender played no role when it came to sex and sexual attraction. the japanese were lightyears ahead of western cultures in this particular area - like most cultures were before christianity came in and ruined everything with its backwards morals and strict good/evil dichotomy.

yall have got to realize queer rep will not and should not always adhere by modern western standards. there was no straight, gay, bi, or anything else of the sort. the closest they ever got was referring to roles during sex - as in who is giving and who is receiving.

i know this is mostly a made up story but it is still set within a very specific time period and culture, which should be honored and respected by not making it fit into our box. tons of research went into making this show historically accurate (albeit with some discrepancies but tbh they aren't really that huge) right down to the calligraphy writing. please please please don't whitewash the culture from these characters.

i say this mainly because without this knowledge, so many of you are going to build these characters up on a foundation they aren't meant to be on and then you'll rage about queerbaiting and bad queer rep if it isn't somehow super explicitly stated, if it doesn't match your very modern, very western ideal of what queer looks like. don't try to force this plot and narrative and characters into something they canonically and historically aren't. headcanons are a thing, AUs are a thing, fanfiction is a thing - leave your western thinking for those and let these characters simply exist as they should otherwise. this is one of those times where the queerness really does not need to be examined at all beyond what we get.

i know it can be hard to wrap your head around - sexuality is such a huge part of our identity in the western world and has slowly started to spread amongst other parts of the world in importance. but just keep in mind with these particular characters, that concept would be so very alien to them.

#blue eye samurai #i'm gonna bite people if i see complaints about queer anything in this show

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calder · 6 months

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Released in 2010, Obsidian Entertainment's Fallout: New Vegas actively concerns itself with the realities of gay existence, and is widely recognized as a noteworthy work of queer science fiction. New Vegas extensively examines social attitudes towards homosexuality among the game's major factions, and primarily conveys this lore through gay and bisexual characters describing their own experiences. It also allowed the player to mechanically set the Courier's sexual orientation. By taking both available perks, the player character can be bisexual. By choosing neither, the player can opt out of seeing flirtatious dialogue options.

Uniquely, Fallout: New Vegas explores homosexuality in the context of wasteland societies, and touches upon related issues. The core theme of New Vegas is that the desire to recreate the past is driven by irrational nostalgia, and any endeavor to manifest past glory is dangerous and doomed. The social issue of homophobia is used as a demonstrative example. The resurrection of corporate and military power structures presents new avenues for Old World problems such as institutional homophobia to reemerge. One of the many issues that divide the New California Republic and Caesar's Legion is the latter's open persecution of gay people. The NCR is described as tolerant and even accepting of same-sex relationships, though acceptance tends to fall off the further one moves away from the developed, urbanized core of New California. In recent years, the Republic's rapid economic transformation has led to an unforeseen erosion of the humanitarian ideals which it was founded to serve. In practice, to recreate America was to take on its shortcomings and its sins. As subsistence scavenging has dried up, the people of the NCR increasingly turn to wage labor, entrepreneurial venture, or military enlistment to keep their families fed. Meanwhile, their government enacts morally corrosive imperialism (narrative verbiage), their dominion expanding indefinitely as their infrastructure crumbles from within. This has led to a profit-based imperial monoculture which must conquer, consume, and coerce to perpetuate. As personal politics and service labor grow in importance, people find themselves more inclined to present as "normal" in the interest of financial stability and political expedience. A loading screen visualizes this culture of artificial social normalcy: the portrait of President Aradesh on the NCR 5$ bill neglects to depict his unibrow, earring, and facial scarification, overall portraying the once-chieftain so cleanly-cut as to be unrecognizable at first glance. He also appears to be wearing a collared shirt or suit as opposed to the robe he wore in Fallout.

In the Legion, Caesar has mandated that every legionnaire take a wife and produce children, citing high infant mortality rates and the constant need for soldiers, and going as far as instituting child quotas. He treats human beings as a resource to be exploited for war. Ostensibly in this aim homosexuality has been declared a capital offense punishable by death. Historically, routine demonstrations of violence towards women and gay people are a deliberate feature of fascist societies, the only logical cultural conclusion of a government devoted entirely to war and control. In Forlorn Hope letter 9, an NCR soldier wrote wrote the following to his boyfriend:

Dearest Andrew, Writing this seems pretty morbid, but tomorrow we march into the no man's land between our camp and Nelson, which is crawling with Legion. The Major insisted I write this damn "if you get this, I'm dead" letter so here it is. What a crock. I have the luck of the devil and your love on my side, so I'll be home soon. Keep the porch light on for me. We'll party in New Vegas when I get back. I love you. —Devin

Devin believed he would prevail over the Legion because his love would keep him safe. He was found dying or dead on the battlefield, the letter was found on his body. In a post-release patch, the injured soldiers were removed from the battlefield for performance reasons, and never re-implemented. Driven largely in reaction to the Legion's hyper-masculine posturing and misogyny, rumors persist across the Mojave that gay male relationships are not only common within the Legion, but condoned. These rumors are repeated commonly in NCR society. A closeted NCR Major mentions that the Legion is "a little more... forgiving" about close male "friendships," speaking in a hushed tone to avoid suspicion. At the same outpost, the player can encounter Cass, a bisexual civilian woman. She may flirt with a male Courier, who may imply they are gay, prompting her to imply gay men are more common in the Legion. Even as gay men fight and die in the name of love under his command, NCR General Oliver may remark to Courier Six at the Second Battle of Hoover Dam: "If you think after all that's happened, I'm going to grab my ankles and take it like the Legion..."

This writing pertains to institutionalized homophobia which manifests in practice though power structures and social interactions without being written into law. Simply put, in his derogatory remark, the general expresses to his army that military surrender is gay, much like their gay enemy. From the brevity and bluntness of this remark, it's clear that this sentiment is already well understood among his ranks. Logically, to project strength in the eyes of such a leader, one might also project homophobia by scrutinizing and harassing one's peers and subordinates. In this atmosphere, the expression of homophobia is not only normalized, but materially incentivized. For the ambitious, it becomes a tool, and a way of casting shame upon rivals. For the closeted, homophobia becomes a survival tactic, hoping to throw scrutiny off oneself. This is why Major Knight is immediately frightened when a male Courier flirts with him. He is so profoundly alienated that he romanticizes life as a gay man under the Legion. The Legion punish homosexuality with death, and yet Knight characterizes them as more "forgiving" than the NCR. Through these apparently disparate events, the audience can trace how a distorted perception of gay people emerges among insecure men in a military environment, and subsequently becomes ingrained in the corresponding civilian culture. At the 188 Trading Post, a lesbian from the Brotherhood of Steel named Veronica also wryly remarks that she believes legionaries have gay sex about as often as straight sex. She also notes that this only applies to men, as women have no rights whatsoever in Legion society. In this aside, she conveys a pre-existing frustration with lesbophobic social norms. Veronica also mentions that the people of her bunker would rather she remain on the surface. The Mojave Brotherhood of Steel has no official policy prohibiting homosexuality, but an implicit attitude among its dominant members that their limited numbers require everyone to have children to avoid extinction. Numerically, this may seem logical on the surface, given their reluctance to recruit outsiders. However, given their tiny population, this is an ineffective countermeasure, as they do not have nearly enough members to maintain genetic diversity for more than a few generations. This approach is not universally supported by all family units within the Brotherhood, but every individual is ultimately at the mercy of the elder. Veronica was in a lesbian relationship, but they were quietly separated by Elder Elijah, due to the dominant culture of enforcing heterosexual pairing among their population.

Caesar's law has not ended homosexuality within his domain. Despite the obvious risks, some legionaries have continued to pursue relationships behind closed doors, especially given their access to slaves. So long as members complete their societal obligations and fulfill the child quotas, they are able to pursue romance with other men in secret. Homosexual relationships in the faction are noted as being relatively equal compared to the average Legion husband and wife, in a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" sort of open secret policy. Gay legionaries must always make sure to keep their activities hidden. A centurion was once almost caught fraternizing with the teenage boy he had chosen to tend his tent. Despite previous "romantic" intentions, he quickly resolved to dispose of the slave to dispel suspicion. Had they been caught together, the centurion would have been charged with homosexuality and sentenced to death. This story is only known because the enslaved young man, Jimmy, managed to escape execution. Further illustrating the cruelty intrinsic to Legion governance, it's stated that homosexuality was the crime, and not the rape of a young slave; in fact, it seems Jimmy was forced to contribute to the child quota despite being a gay teenager, and the experience left him traumatized. He has resolved to never have sex with another woman, as the very notion triggers memories which fill him with disgust, and (in his own words) makes him feel like a slave all over again. The Strip is indifferent to gay people, viewing them as another opportunity to make caps. Both the Gomorrah and the Atomic Wrangler are interested in maximizing profits, and their prostitution services cater to clients regardless of their orientation. The openly gay Jimmy works at nearby Casa Madrid, but there is some tension among his peers due to his co-worker Maude's blatant homophobia. She supposes he's "okay, for one of those," and if propositioned by a female Courier, Maude will direct them to Sweetie for such "perverted" services. Pretty Sarah must regularly intervene to keep the peace among her staff.

The Followers of the Apocalypse, well-read punks who seek to embody healing through anarchistic values, are not concerned with gender. Most are openly and casually sexually active. Upon meeting Courier Six, Arcade Gannon offhandedly makes his gayness known, unprompted. The audience must face the fact that Arcade's apprehension of the Legion is far from abstract; under Legion law, he would be put to death. One possible ending gives further insight into Caesar's hypocrisy: should the player sell Arcade into slavery and leave Caesar alive, he will keep Arcade as a personal physician and philosophical advisor. They intellectually spar at length, and Caesar grows singularly fond of him. Accordingly, Arcade imitates the historic suicide of Cato the Younger by disemboweling himself. The Legion's remaining medics attempted to save his life, but none were Arcade's equal. Caesar understood his doctor's final gesture of contempt, and mourned him for months.

New Vegas ventures further into themes of healing from the trauma of sexual violence, from the perspective of a lesbian character. Corporal Betsy, an NCR sharpshooter, is a rape survivor, and suffers with PTSD from the incident. Her unprocessed trauma has manifested as a maladaptive tendency to aggressively and explicitly proposition the women she encounters, in an effort to reassert a sense of control. This defensive hypersexual impulse has negatively impacted her ability to connect with other women. A male superior officer notes that her behavior is inappropriate for anyone of her stature, but abstains from disciplining her out of sincere concern for her mental health. The Courier can help her begin to recognize these problems, and convince her to seek treatment from Doctor Usanagi at the New Vegas medical clinic, which proves helpful to her as she processes and heals from her trauma.

In Old World Blues, the Think Tank are five floating brains in jars who express themselves by waving robotic arms bearing screens depicting facial features. Before the War, they were federal scientists who committed crimes against humanity in the name of weapons development. Each is stuck in some sort of neuro-bionic feedback loop which prevents them from moving forward with their projects, mentally binding them to their central laboratory. Walking through their homes at Higgs Village, it's clear each was deeply neurotic before they were transformed into floating brains. Now without bodies, they attempt to maintain the illusion that they are exempt from sexuality as purely mental beings, but each displays obvious interest in the human form. They have codified this shaming with the term "formography." Most of the men are obsessively defensive over their complete disinterest in penises, which they talk about constantly. However, the shameless Dr. Dala shows overwhelming interest in observing and recording any and all human functions. Already androgynous in her pre-War life, Dala has taken to self-identifying as a "gender neutral entity" (though she is not known to use they/them pronouns). Regardless of the Courier's gender, they may coquettishly scratch themselves, clear their throat, and stretch in front of Dala until her biomed gel decoagulates. Dr. 8 also responds positively to graphic masturbation advice from Couriers of either gender. The X-8 research facility is ostensibly a massive immersive shrine to Doctor Borous's hatred of Richie "Ball-Lover" Marcus, a long-dead child who bullied Borous centuries ago. He also clings to his resentment of one Betsy Bright, who refused to attend a dance with him, supposedly so she could "go smoke with RICHIE MARCUS." Clearly arrested in development, Borous has literally built a temple to the fantasy of torturing his adolescent romantic rival and feeding him to dogs. His frozen, static characterization of the jock Richie Marcus as a "pinko-commie" who "likes balls" reflects the shallowness, pettiness, and overall misanthropy underlying his patriotic identity. It remains apparent throughout Old World Blues that the Think Tank are all chronically sexually repressed, which is inseparable from the values of the violent and judgmental pre-War culture which created them. With time and isolation, this ingrained repression has manifested as various intense and deranged psychosexual behaviors, including rage-fueled homophobia, voyeurism, and the obsessive performance of puritanical pretense.

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“Although I’ve been out for a very long time, I made a conscious effort to be out with relation to this project, as I wanted to be visible as a lesbian in the game industry. New Vegas itself is, I think, one of (if not the) best games out there in how we treat homosexuality – and all of that is very intentional.”

“If my work on FNV, if my being out has helped even one gay person, then I have succeeded.” — Tess “Obsidian’s Gay Cowgirl” Treadwell

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written (with help from other editors) for fallout.fandom.com/wiki/LGBT_representation_in_the_Fallout_series criticism welcome

#fnv

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billfarrah · 1 month

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One of my favourite things about Young Royals and its characters is how much it romanticizes being utterly ordinary.

Stories often focus on characters who are exceptionally good at something or who are more ambitious than the average person. Even in the teen shows I’ve watched, these young characters always seemed to have their dream career and dream university figured out at a young age and I could never relate to that because I had none of those things figured out as a teen. It always felt like pushing this narrative that teenagers need to have their entire lives figured out before their brains are even fully developed.

None of the characters in YR seem particularly ambitious and in fact, the main character’s journey is a story of anti-ambition. When he is introduced to Simon, it is precisely Simon’s ordinariness that draws Wille to him. Sure, Simon is a very talented singer, but it’s never indicated within the series that he has dreams of being a pop star. It’s just something he likes to do. Simon is motivated by very ordinary things - he wants to do well in school so he can have better opportunities for himself, he wants to take care of his family, he wants to hang out with his friends and play video games. He’s a dedicated student but not necessarily valedictorian. It’s not his ambition that Wille is drawn to but his integrity and kindness and warmth.

Wille had a chance to be extraordinary - to be Sweden’s first gay king - but being extraordinary has never been Wille’s ambition. Wille’s ultimate goal and dream within the series’ narrative is to be free to make his own decisions and live his life as he pleases. He just wants to kiss his boyfriend and get drunk at parties and live his life one day at a time instead of spending every moment of his life preparing for an inevitable future he doesn’t want. In the end Wille is extraordinary not for his ambition, but for his bravery to reject the expectations thrust upon him and throw himself into the unknown and see where it takes him. Wille had a whole future in front of him as crown prince and future king - he’d never have to work a day in his life and would have people advising his every move - and he rejects that. This lack of ambition is not portrayed as a moral failure, but a necessary step in Wille’s journey to personal self-discovery and fulfillment of his own desires. His desire right now is simple - be free with Simon, but that doesn’t mean his dreams end here forever. He deserves peace and tranquility after all the trauma he’s been through without having to worry about where or who he’s gonna be in a few years. He deserves time to just exist.

None of the characters know where they’re going when they drive away at the end. We as the audience don’t know what careers if any these characters will find themselves in, but that’s also not important to this story. The series is saying you don’t have to have everything figured out when you’re 17 and you don’t have to do something just because your parents think they know what’s best for you and even if you don’t know exactly what you want to do, that doesn’t mean you don’t have the agency to know what you don’t want.

It’s not a moral failing to want the simple things in life or to be ordinary, and I love that Young Royals celebrates that. It shows the beauty in simple moments that feel revolutionary to a person - touching the person you love, forgiving someone and making amends after a hardship, whooping with your friends in a car as you drive into the summer and celebrates them. Ultimately these are the moments that make life worth living.

#young royals #idk if this even makes sense but I had to get it off my chest

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bisexualnonsense · 1 year

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My partner made a comment about how this episode fed into “bury your gays” and like, while his heart was in the right place with the critique, I felt so strongly the opposite way

Like on its face, yes, two gay men died…. But like, in a show about a zombie apocalypse where we’re tracking at least 1 Major Character Death per episode, Bill & Frank are triumphant compared to every other character. They got to live to be old and gray together after a life of relatively peaceful flourishing. They chose their deaths on their own terms, a luxury most people don’t get in this world. They got to die together, in each others arms, neither left to live and suffer alone. They got to go with dignity, autonomy, and love, in peace, together. They got to choose. They made their end meaningful. They were happy and satisfied and fulfilled. Everything that gay characters are so often not afforded in life, much less in death.

Not only that, but narratively speaking, their deaths were used in exact opposition to “bury your gays.” The trope was created to reinforce that being gay is a sin, that gays must die as punishment for their evil ways. It’s intended to be a narrative consequence, the moral of the story, a warning to its audience.

But the deaths of Bill and Frank were used as closure to a story arc about living a happy, fulfilled life with your partner. Even further than that, their arc was used to demonstrate that there is meaning in life because we choose to create meaning, that purpose is found in each other, in loving someone, even at the end of the world. They are held up as an example of what to strive for, of a reason to keep living, of something to pursue. It is completely antithetical to bury your gays and is in fact a brilliant subversion of it in that it grounds the purpose of the narrative itself.

Tl;dr: TLOU really said love wins.

#the last of us #tlou #hbo the last of us #hbo tlou #the last of us spoilers #bill and frank #look I’m still a mess but I’m SO glad it didn’t end with bill getting shot and dying right there #the gays stay winning #the absolute best way to go is together with your partner in their arms in peace #this is my hill and I’m dying on it #this just means a lot to me ok #truly the representation we deserved #berry your gays

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vintagegeekculture · 8 months

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Someone deeply influential in a subterranean way to comic book culture passed without comment this week: female bodybuilder Lisa Lyon, who was 70. Even if you've never heard of her, I guarantee you've seen her image, or a takeoff of one of her images.

If she seems familiar in some way, there's a reason.

You see, every single artist in the world has it drilled into them that an art swipe (tracing from figure studies or other artists) is unethical, but here’s the thing:

Every single working comic artist does it!

Is it really cheating if everyone does it? Artists love to mock Rob Liefeld for his art swaps, but it is possible to do the same if you dig into the art catalogue of nearly any comic artist, even today. Nowhere else can I find a better example of the old quote that "hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue."

In any case, there’s no better figure at the center of this than Lisa Lyon, who in the 1980s, was a female bodybuilder who was the center of an enormously influential series of sophisticated physique study photographs by superstar photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. It sounds almost quaint to remember now, but Mapplethorpe was so influential that he was the first photographer to be called to congress for obscenity in the 1980s, based on his male nudes and study of the gay BDSM scene, in a moral panic that sounds extremely familiar. He was also the first photographer to get a video game, the Flowers of Robert Mapplethorpe on CD-I, which was essentially just an image gallery set to muzak, famously reviewed by a completely baffled Angry Video Game Nerd and his sidekick.

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Mapplethorpe’s favorite subject was Lisa Lyon, and his photographs were so widespread that they were essentially traced and used for art swipes over and over by comic artists that need a study of a muscular female physique.

So at different points, photograph swipes of Lisa Lyon were the model used for Wonder Woman, She-Hulk, tons of fighting game characters....it's impossible to list all the times a Lisa Lyon photograph was swiped. We may never find them all. Most importantly of all, she was not only swiped but was the physical inspiration for the appearance of Elektra.

Frank Miller always had a foot in the fine art world, and like his mentor, Philip Jose Farmer, was also interested in the theme of how violence is often a substitute for sexuality in the lives of adventure characters. Miller was always fascinated by BDSM (which to me, explains a lot of 300), and explicitly said in many interviews he based Elektra physically on Lisa Lyon and was a great fan of Mapplethorpe.

#lisa lyon #photography #robert mapplethorpe #comics #Youtube

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drchucktingle · 2 months

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kind of blown away that this is even possible but here is a timeline of my writing career told through erotica books PLEASE ENJOY

1. LONELY AUTHOR POUNDED BY DINOSAUR SOCIAL MEDIA FOLLOWERS.

2. SLAMMED BY THE SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT OF PRESS GENERATED BY MY BOOK POUNDED BY THE POUNT

3. SLAMMED IN THE BUTT BY MY HUGO AWARD NOMINATION.

4. POUNDED IN THE BUTT BY MY BIZARRE ASSUMPTION THAT CHUCK TINGLE BOOKS ARE JUST COVERS AND NOT ACTUAL BOOKS

5. POUNDED IN THE BUTT BY MY CONSTANTLY CHANGING THOUGHTS ON THE ONGOING MYSTERY OF CHUCK TINGLES REAL IDENTITY

6. POUNDED IN THE BUTT BY MY HUGO AWARD LOSS

7. POUNDED IN THE BUTT BY MY SECOND HUGO AWARD NOMINATION.

8. POUNDED IN THE BUTT BY THE PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION OF CHUCK TINGLES SCIENCE FICTION AND COMIC BOOK CONVENTION APPEARANCE

9. NOT POUNDED BY THE PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION OF CHUCK TINGLES TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING DEAL

10. EATEN RIGHT BY THE PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION OF MY PRIDE AND EXCITEMENT THAT THE LEAD CHARACTER OF MY FIRST TRADITIONALLY PUBLISHED HORROR NOVEL IS ON THE AUTISM SPECTRUM JUST LIKE ME

11. POUNDED BY THE PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION OF THE SHOCKINGLY MASSIVE IMPORTANCE OF PRE-ORDERS

12. NOT POUNDED BY MY BOOK 'POUNDED BY THE PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION OF THE SHOCKINGLY MASSIVE IMPORTANCE OF PRE-ORDERS' BECAUSE ITS SO IMPORTANT I HAD TO WRITE ANOTHER BOOK ABOUT IT

13. POUNDED BY THE PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION OF CHUCK TINGLES ABILITY TO WRITE 'FROM USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR' ON THE FRONT OF HIS BOOKS NOW

14. NOT POUNDED BY MY HANDSOME SENTIENT STOKER AWARD NOMINATION FOR CAMP DAMASCUS

15. POUNDED BY THE REALIZATION THAT CHUCK TINGLES EROTIC WORKS ARE A SINGULAR PIECE OF ART THAT SKEWERS CONSERVATIVE FEARS OF MORAL DECAY BY REPURPOSING THEM AS THE PROMISE OF A SEX-POSITIVE UTOPIA

16. POUNDED BY MY PREORDER OF BURY YOUR GAYS

thanks for reading buckaroos and for kindness and support and acceptance of my unique way over these years. cant want to see what future holds. if you have not already, preorder BURY YOUR GAYS so we can continue this erotica thread together. LOVE IS REAL

#chuck tingle #tingleverse #love is real #buckaroo lifestyle #queer #lgbtqia #writing

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queerly-autistic · 2 months

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One of my favourite things about S2 was that we got to see so much in terms of Ed's relationships with women, and it just made me love him even more (if that's humanly possible). We didn't see him interact with many women at all in S1 (I think it was only the posh ladies at the fancy party which was...yeah, not a good experience), so S2 actually giving us a glimpse into his friendships with all these (very different) kickass women was so, so special.

I love that, as messy and fucked up as they all are, and even with the 'well we're pirates, we're not normal and we will fuck with each other' threat that hangs over everything, Ed's relationship with Mary and Anne is still so affectionate, and they both thrown their arms around him the moment they see him. Even though Ed is incredibly tactile, I don't think we've actually ever seen him be hugged like this, and it's just so lovely to watch him be embraced and clearly feel very safe being embraced by these women (and I can't with the way he clings to them, as well). I also love that this is a wlw/mlm friendship; yeah it falls apart later and turns into delicious gay-on-gay violence (and I wouldn't alter a note of it), but I love seeing this sort of affection between queer women and queer men, there's not nearly enough of it.

Don't even get me started on the BFF handshake he has with Anne - I want all the history there, give me six spin-off films about their adventures please.

And then we finally get a glimpse of his relationship with Jackie, which is similarly just lovely, but in a different way? You get the sense that they could sit there for hours, talking shit about the world, all whilst casually ripping the shit out of each other (but affectionately). You also know full well these two have talked extensively about men and know pretty much everything about each other's sex lives - we didn't see it, but I'm absolutely certain that Ed went into full gushing details about sleeping with Stede, just like Jackie did when she talked about The Swede fucking like a jackhammer (historical accuracy ftw).

And, again, whilst they're still pirates, and it's messy, the entire thing feels incredibly...safe, particularly from Ed's perspective? He feels more comfortable around Jackie than he is around most other characters (apart from Stede), just like he was with Anne and Mary.

And then, just to hammer the point home even further that Ed has, generally, fantastic relationships with women, and connects with them, and feels relaxed and safe with them, you have Ed and Zheng becoming instant BFFs literally minutes after meeting each other. Ed goes 'ooh, very cool woman kicking ass and killing people, she shall be my best friend, immediately', and Zheng is automatically incredibly relaxed and open with him, too (suggesting she feels as safe and comfortable with him as he does with her).

All I want in life is to see Ed and Zheng get silly-drunk with each other (and this is why we urgently need a S3).

And none of Ed's relationships with these women are a fetishistic 'I love women because they're fabulous' thing, or an overly patronising paternalistic 'I love the women and I must protect them' thing - all the relationships he has with women are very equal, very comfortable, fully believable, just fantastic friendships to watch play out. I feel like, given everything we see on screen, Ed generally feels a lot more comfortable and safe and open with the women he knows than the men he knows (Stede is the only other person he is this physically affectionate and comfortable with). Which is probably very understandable? Yes, the women he's friends with are all violent pirates too (that's part of the joy of it - none of them are lovely demure morally pure women, they're all violent pirates), but Ed has a lot of experience with specifically overtly abusive men - right back to watching his dad abuse his mum. And that's a distinction that matters: the show treats the violence of normal piracy and the violence of abuse very, very differently. Ed is not used to being treated softly or affectionately by men, as we saw in his shocked reaction to Stede holding his hand. I don't think it's any wonder that he gravitates more towards friendships with women (or that the men he feels the most open and safe with, such as Stede, Fang, even Frenchie, are very pointedly the opposite of the abusive men he has experience with). I just love love love that being friends with women is such a core part of Ed's character, and that we got to see all of these fantastic relationships in the show.

#ofmd #our flag means death #edward teach #anne bonny ofmd #mary read ofmd #spanish jackie #zheng yi sao ofmd #ofmd s2 ep4 #episode: fun and games #ofmd s2 ep7 #episode: man on fire #ofmd s2 ep8 #episode: mermen #ed x stede #blackbonnet #ofmd meta #erin waffles

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