#‘what would it be like for these specific guys - who are freaks - to be gay men in this setting?’

[youaretheunicorn]

moments in bottoms (2023) that have permanently altered my brain chemistry in no specific order

"omg ive always wanted one of these" *holds up a normal grey hoodie*

hazel's "why would you lie to me :(("

when complicated by avril lavigne started playing and we got a scene of josie walking broodily and sad while kicking a can on the ground

"so maybe ill buy a gun" "noOo"

"im gonna fuck up some football players and im buying a gun"

"YESSSSS YESSSSSS QUEENSSS SLAAAAYYY YESSS"

"is it because i said amelia earhart was a fake hero?"

when pj basically attacked hazel with her tongue

that kiss also being like the best kiss ive seen on tv in the last 10 years like unironically im so serious

josie and isobel making out covered in blood

the guy who wanted to blow the school up and literally wrote "BLOW UP SCHOOL" in his diary

"i know you're a black republican but you're the smartest among us"

"im not (gay). i just like gay porn"

hazels mom sleeping with jeff

"i FUCKED your mom" when the mom joke is actually real but also it makes your gf break up with you

hazel

just hazel she's so pretty pls give me a chance

that whole final fight scene

the football team that would kill a player every 20 years and was going to kill jeff by putting pineapple juice, to which he is deadly allergic, in the sprinklers???????????????????

"yes hazel, let's do terrorism"

*does the terrorism*

TWICE

again the guy that wanted to blow up the school who went THAT WAS MY THING after the tree blew up. he was holding a bomb button thingy. where was the bomb. what. let's go back to that for a second. hello. where was the bomb

horny freak #1 horny freak #2

[doberbutts]

There's also this Gamer Behavior (derogatory) where I see these folks going off the rails about having a meltdown because of something that is 100% optional.

Taash exists as a nonbinary romance option. They have optional side quests regarding their exploration of their nonbinary identity. You 100% do not have to do any of this and can in fact ignore Taash 99% of the time and the worst that will happen is MAYBE not getting the exact ending you wanted from the final battle. Maybe. Because you don't have to send Taash at all if you make other character choices.

But cue freak out over the game forcing you to gender them correctly and forcing them as a romance onto you etc etc. I did not romance Taash and found it quite easy to not pursue that option actually. I did do their character side quests but only because if I'm paying that much money for a game I'm doing alllllll the things including the optional stuff.

You have the option of top surgery scars and colored hair and more in the character creator. You can just as easily not have these things on your character and instead look like something else. You do not need to put any character traits on your character that you don't want to.

But cue freak out about normalizing mental illness and transgender traits and SJW aesthetic. It's woke now. Top surgery scars are by default turned off and you have to locate it within the menu and then press buttons to turn them on. Somehow that is seen as forcing them onto the player.

You have the option of romancing a man and a nonbinary character as Yasuke. To be entirely clear there are also women available for Yasuke and in order to romance the other two you have to like, deliberately put forth effort into chasing them. This is not a Gale BG3 situation where being mildly nice to him turns him into an incel that refuses to leave you alone- it very clearly lays out that if you choose these options this character will take it as pursuit of a romance. The easiest option is to simply not do that.

But cue freak out about how Ubisoft is forcing the gay agenda on you and making you be gay and witness gay things. You literally do not have to do this. There's even a setting which you can turn off romance options entirely. If it bothers you that much, you can skip over it completely, or go kiss a different person besides either of the queer romances.

Within the game itself you don't really have to play as Yasuke outside of a very limited number of quests. You can actually play entirely as Naoe and ignore that Yasuke exists for the bulk of the game. Naoe is the much more Assassin's Creed style character as she relies heavily on stealth tactics and does poorly when outnumbered and surrounded (ask me how I know lmao) compared to Yasuke who is much more an Eivor situation of a wrecking ball in combat but sucks at parkour and stealth.

But cue freak out about how these guys think it's stupid that a 6ft tall black dude built like a wall of muscle would be in a stealth game. Yeah uh the game actually tells you straight up that if you want to do stealth you need to be Naoe because Yasuke kinda doesn't blend in. "How is this guy standing on rooftops not being seen" he actually goes get spotted and quite readily on every difficulty except the easiest because the man is 6 feet tall with nearly jet black skin and that sort of is a bit out of place in a setting like idk feudal Japan. You can switch between them- so once the game opens up and gives you the option you genuinely can just ignore Yasuke if you want to play as the series-typical assassin instead of the RPG tank.

Really the problem is that these Gamers (derogatory) have a difficult time with "other people besides you like playing these games" because they already have what they are asking for but they're mad that there is the option to do something they specifically dislike.

[suzukiblu]

Day fifteen of “obligatory sugar baby Kon” behind the cut. tw: mentions of past grooming/abuse; mentions of homophobia. prev: (( chrono || non-chrono ))

“Naw, naw, it was his name-name,” he says with another laugh. “Dude swore up and down it was Greek. And then I’m pretty sure he specifically went out of his way to find a ‘Leander’ to date just so he could validate that shit, because he absolutely did in fact date a super-ripped alien named Leander.” 

Tim pauses again, and isn’t sure if . . . 

Just something about the tone Kon was using and the look in the back of his eyes is sticking in his head a little, maybe. And he does in fact want to know if this guy at least is a valid source of intel in regards to anyone he might need to put on his supervillain hit list, so . . . 

“But he was cool?” he asks carefully. 

“Um–yeah,” Kon says, tearing up the last bite of his sandwich stack a little restlessly and watching himself do it more than making eye contact. Tim represses a frown. “Just, um–I wasn’t into him or anything, for the record, just he was, like . . . I kinda didn’t really know anybody else who was, like–who liked guys or whatever, before him. I mean, like–other guys who liked guys, I mean. And I didn’t know why I felt–like, how I felt about that. And then, like, not everybody was actually cool with him liking guys, and it was just kinda like . . .” 

He shrugs a little, then glances back at him. Tim stomps on so many invasive questions, and wonders again if Tim Drake is, like–an experiment, or if Kon has dated other guys before. Or at least liked other guys, anyway. He already said he hadn’t really done anything with any, and he said he wasn’t into this guy, but . . . 

“I didn’t even ever tell him I was, you know–like–” Kon shrugs again, then takes another grilled cheese off the stack and starts ripping bites off it too. “Like, whatever I am. Did not actually know that I was that at the time, admittedly, but then Tuftan put a collar on me and not remotely unclearly kept me as his pet and I had some memory problems goin’ at the time, and anyway I woke up to some real interesting, uh, realizations or whatever after that one.” 

“. . . I’m sorry, I know this is a serious conversation and you’re telling me something important, but did you just tell me that your gay awakening was a tiger-king who was keeping you as a pet?” Tim asks, trying not to laugh because, like, clearly Kon is being serious, but oh god, what are their actual lives? What is Kon’s actual life? 

“I mean, technically he was still the prince then,” Kon mutters under his breath, flushing in embarrassment with a sheepish laugh and half-hiding his face with the hand not currently full of incredibly-cheap-but-still-calorie-packed grilled cheese. “Listen, he was just real nice to me while I was all fucked-up and freaked-out about a whole lot of shit, okay, and I swear to god, babe, if you make one single furry joke I will actually go throw myself in a volcano and die, so please have mercy?” 

“I am the most merciful guy you know,” Tim lies, and feels a weird sort of–just a weird feeling, kind of, because Kon would never ask Robin something like that. He’d just get irritated or pissed off or defensive. He wouldn’t just–ask, and think there was any chance he’d actually agree not to do something like that. “Won’t hear a word about it out of me.” 

Though he’s not gonna pretend that the fact that Kon apparently had a crush on a guy who was effectively taking care of everything he needed in life isn’t a good sign for his cul-de-sac plans. 

Maybe Kon’s just more into castles. Tim could get him a castle. Get one built or just import one, he doesn’t know. 

“Uh–thanks,” Kon says, still looking sheepish even as he smiles at him again. “Look, literally not even my fault, alright, if you’d met the dude you’d know. He is literally the tiger from Zootopia who would treat you right, okay? Like, I watched that movie and was like ‘huh okay this is a mortifyingly familiar experience’ the friggin’ moment that scene came on.” 

Tim briefly remembers a couple of tiger-themed memes that he remembers seeing around the time that movie dropped, then decides not to go down that rabbit hole or learn anything new about himself today. Like–not anything else new, anyway.

He has maybe learned a few too many new things about himself lately, admittedly. 

Or, uh . . . definitely, yeah. 

[rebelspykatie]

Part 3

ao3 - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5

Eddie’s pretty sure he’s never thought about kissing another guy. He rarely thinks about kissing anybody. For the longest time, he was convinced that no one would ever want to kiss him, so he never saw the point in dwelling on it. 

But maybe that was unusual. He might have mistaken his apathy for normalcy when really he’s the freak. The average person probably thinks about kissing an awful lot. He’s listened to Jeff talk about asking out Lacy from his calculus class and Gareth go on and on about how unfair it is that he can’t make out with his boyfriend behind the bleachers to know that the average high schooler is pretty horny. 

Yet, Eddie’s childhood wasn’t littered with school yard crushes. There aren’t fond memories of girls that he imagined sneaking off with during lunch period or recess. There’s just…nothing. A part of that was his rocky childhood and jumping from his parents, to just his dad, to Wayne. But a lot of it was pure disinterest in the hottest girl in their grade growing breasts before all the other girls, or how tenth grade Mandy would make out with anyone with the right incentive. 

He’s never thought about it long enough for anything to stick. He figured, one day, when he was old enough to escape Hawkins and all the small minded bigots who think he’s a devil worshiper, that he would find a girl that appreciated his specific eccentricities. That he’d settle down somewhere quiet, a little closer to the city than Hawkins, and find some blue collar job and start a family. That’s just what everyone does, right?

He knows that’s not true, though. That everyone doesn’t follow that path. He knows people like Gareth and Robin, and apparently Steve, don’t get to just walk into happily ever after. There’s no white picket fence in their future, and Eddie’s never had to confront that reality so head on before. He knows what it’s like to be different. To have a target on your back. But, it’s nothing like the ostracization of being gay. 

Thinking about kissing Steve scares him. When he closes his eyes, it’s a looping replay of that day. Steve’s soft lips on his unmoving ones. Big hands cradling his face. He can perfectly recall the terror and confusion. It’s seeped into his bones now, because he’s realized something about himself and he doesn’t know what to do with the information. 

He can do nothing. He can move forward and pretend that he doesn’t wake up panting, picturing Steve on top of him pressing him into the mattress with their faces attached. He doesn’t ever have to acknowledge that for the first time in twenty years of living, he’s having honest to god wet dreams that involve another person. And that person he’s envisioning is a guy. Everything can just be swept under the rug.

But he’s pretty sure it scares him more to know that he can’t. It’s eating away at him. Eddie feels trapped in his own skin. The truth is clawing its way to the surface, wanting to break free, even if Eddie’s shutting down as it tries to spill out. He knows it’s inevitable, that overflow. The dam breaking. 

It takes an intervention to set everything in motion. Wayne’s been fussing over him for weeks. He’s been doing that worried parent thing that he thinks Eddie doesn’t know about, where he stands outside Eddie’s closed bedroom door like he wants to knock and say something, but doesn’t. He’s studying Eddie over their morning cereal like the little floating letters are going to spell out why Eddie’s been holed up in his room almost mute. 

But the final straw is when Wayne comes home from work to Eddie painting figurines on the stairs of their new trailer while pretending that he’s not watching Steve help Max fold laundry next door. There’s this polite distance between them and Eddie that didn’t exist before, this wide expanse where before Eddie would’ve been sitting on the picnic table in front of Max’s trailer teasing both of them, or maybe helping if it was a low pain day. 

Instead, he’s sat like a toddler in timeout, taking furtive peaks over the little paint brushes and praying that Max’s sharp intuition about situations like this is dulled by her literal lack of being able to see Eddie from over there. Steve can see him, though, and Eddie’s feigning that it doesn’t bother him. What a grave he’s dug for himself here. 

“Boy, don’t you think this has gone on long enough?” Wayne sighs as he climbs out of his truck, this world-weary, too knowledgeable sigh that makes Eddie squirm. 

“I don’t know what you mean, old man.” Better to just play ignorant. Even though Eddie’s pretty sure he can’t escape Wayne’s withering gaze. He hasn’t in over ten years, so he likely won’t be starting now. 

Wayne just stares at him. A raised eyebrow and crossed arms that tell Eddie he means business. He’s not getting out of this. 

Eddie’s jaw shifts and he looks down at the figure in his hands. “I don’t really know what to do, Wayne.” 

“Move over,” Wayne says, settling down beside Eddie until they’re shoulder to shoulder, barely waiting for the little shuffle Eddie does to make room. He doesn’t say anything for a moment. Just stares across the yard in the same direction Eddie was moments before, a contemplative look on his face. “This about that boy?”

Eddie follows his gaze over to Steve. His silence goes on a little too long before he softly says, “yeah.” 

Wayne hums, still looking at Steve. “You know, you always were a late bloomer.”

That grabs Eddie’s attention. He turns towards Wayne, who takes that as his cue to continue, and sets down the figure behind them. 

“Nothing ever happened when I thought it would when you were a boy. Lizzy said you took forever to walk and talk. I kept waiting for you to come to me about the birds and the bees, but you didn’t. Not sure if that was a good thing to let go, but I knew you weren’t getting yourself into trouble. Probably wasn’t much I could offer you that public school wasn’t already teaching you.” 

Eddie wonders briefly if he should’ve hidden the condoms in his room better, but maybe that’s what gave Wayne the confidence to leave Eddie to his business. Even if they were collecting dust before they became dust that day the trailer cracked open.

“You never brought anyone around.” He nods in the direction of Steve. “Not until him.” 

The conversation with Steve is distantly replaying in his head. How he went over their every interaction with Robin and they came to this same conclusion. Maybe Eddie really is an idiot. 

“It wasn’t intentional,” Eddie adds. “I didn’t know what I was doing.” 

“I don’t think anyone knows what they’re doing, son. That’s part of life.” He pats Eddie on the back. “It’s ‘specially a part of being in love.” 

Eddie’s not sure he’s willing to start that train of thought, yet. He’s grateful for the quiet, unspoken acceptance, but he’s not ready to think about labeling it something as profound as love. He flounders for a second before saying, “I think I’ve missed my chance there,” as he looks back over at Steve. 

“Are you dead and I don’t know it?” He squeezes Eddie’s shoulder. “Seem pretty real to me.” He whacks Eddie’s head gently. “Ain’t nothing missed if you’re still alive to make things right.” 

“Hey!” Eddie laughs, mock offended at the attack, rubbing the back of his head and leaning away from Wayne. “Isn’t it socially unacceptable to joke about someone that was legally dead for almost three minutes?”

“I think I get leeway as the one that kept you alive for ten years by myself.” Wayne wrangles him into a side hug, pulling him to his chest with an arm around his neck. “Just cause things are broken, doesn’t mean you can’t fix ‘em, son.”

[yanderepuck]

Okay okay okay. Lulu and I were talking. About who would be a bad driver and what not and I was gonna write about ALL of them. But I specifically need to talk about Rei.

But I'll give a lil rundown first

Eiden: okay driver. Goes over the speed limit but follows road laws.

Aster: clearly a passenger princess

Morvay: he can't even read road signs lbr

Yakumo: no, well he can, but he rather be a passanger. Too much anxiety. Had a bumper sticker saying 'do t honk I'll cry'

Edmond: following ALL the laws. 100% model driver but you also hate him bc he will drive 5 under the speed limit

Olivine: he's gay and hitting the curb

Quincy: he has a truck but the back is 100% filled with the most random shit and it's never cleaned. Bonus: Topper has really bad road rage and makes Quincy roll down the window so he can cuss at others

Kuya: cannot and will not drive. Is Quincy's passenger princess but he's forced to sit in the bed of the truck.

Garu/Karu: don't you dare put him in the driver's seat. Can't reach the pedals.

Blade: he can...but that doesn't mean he should

Dante: he's a passenger princess. But he has the ability to drive. Doesn't mean he's good

OKAY NOW REI

God he drives a mini van. You know. One of the ones that has third row seating. The destination is 20 minutes away? He's getting there in 14.

The doors are different colors. It's so old..you aren't sure how it doesn't break down. Half of the dash board doesn't work. Every light is on.

Oh. And he doesn't have a license.

Scenario:

Eiden is freaking out because they have to be somewhere in 15 minutes but it's a 35 minute drive. And Rei is like 'oh don't worry I got this' and shove everyone in his van.

The set up:

Rei, driving obvs.

Kuya is in the passenger seat bc princess.

Quincy is in the seat behind Rei

Dante is in the seat behind Kuya, and Garu is on his lap, no working seatbelt.

Olivine is on the floor between the two

Back row is Eiden Yakumo and Edmond, they have one of those lap seatbelt that goes across the whole seat. Eiden is holding Aster (in lil guy form)

Blade somehow squeezed in the now tiny trunk part and is holding Morvay (also in lil guy form)

Rei looks at Kuya and tells him to put his seatbelt on, and Kuya is like "don't tell me what to do" and doesn't... Which Rei planned... because Rei doesn't know how to slow down. His foot is either from the gas or the break. Quincy knows this and is death gripping the seatbelt and making sure Topper is safe.

Rei slams on the breaks and Kuya slams his head off the dash just as Rei intended. This happens at least twice.

Dante is holding onto Garu for dear life who keeps asking to roll the window down.

Edmond is in the back, being held down by Olivine and Eiden

Edmond: KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD

Rei: *holding a mirror to do his make up*

He is the one who somehow is using a hair dryer in his car. Father is actually driving. Rei just uses the pedals.

Dante: your Holiness. Can you start a prayer

Olivine: *already started*

Edmond: I'M MAKING SURE YOUR LICENSE IS SUSPENDED

Rei: if I had a license

Edmond is having a fit

Dante is hoping Garu weighs enough to keep him safe in his seat.

Topper is now up front squeaking out the window and Quincy is telling him to be nice.

Rei: I know a shortcut

It's through the woods where there is no road

BUT. They made it with 2 minutes to spare.

Dante falls out of the car and throws up.

Blade and Garu are the only ones who had fun.

Rei is like "told you I could get us here on time"

Edmond has not stopped yelling for 8 minutes. Kuya's forehead is red from hitting the dashboard. Dante rather stay where they are and walk back then get in that van. Eiden and Edmond are offering to drive back but Rei won't let anyone drive his van. It's literally falling apart. Nothing works. Only he knows how to work it.

[homunculus-argument]

The ancient Romans didn't really care that much about distinguishing legends from historical records, a cool story is a cool story regardless of how much truth there is to it. Anyway, this one guy, named Gaius Mucius Cordus, later given the cognomen Scaevola - "left-handed", because ancient Romans weren't all that familiar with steel, and "balls of steel" was not an available option. Anyway the story goes that as a young soldier, he sneaked into an enemy' camp to assassinate their king. The attempt failed and he was captured. Looking death in the eye, he figured that the best course of action would be to survive by sheer audacity.

So he looked the king he just failed to assassinate in the eyes, told him that yeah I came here to kill you, and you can kill me now but you better get just as lucky every single time, because there's like 300 guys beside me who volunteered for this mission. And then he stuck his entire right arm into a pyre that was within reach, standing perfectly still in place while letting his hand burn, solidly keeping eye contact with the Etruscan king the entire time, just as a way of going "this is what I am capable of doing. This is what I can and will do to myself just to flex on you. The fuck do you think you could do that would harm me."

And the king was sufficiently freaked out by this and decided to just go alright, fair enough, you win this one, by all means please do fuck off, seriously just get the fuck out of my camp. So Mucius was freed and allowed to return to Rome, alive and unharmed if one does not count the collateral damage of one sword arm. And the Etruscan king came to the conclusion that whatever the fuck the Romans have going on, he wants nothing to do with that, and sent ambassadors to Rome to negotiate peace.

Anyway, that's also vaguely how I feel every time I see a tumblr user whose screen name is something like "autistic-faggot". I'm gay myself and have nothing but respect for people on the spectrum, but if all I know about this person is that this isn't just what they're braced to be called, but what the have specifically chosen to name themselves, and how they prefer to be addressed, you can't tell them shit that would even make them blink.

[charliegyrth]

Improving Myself

A Weight Gain Romance

Louie stared at my paltry salad with an expression that could only be described as pity. He took another big, messy bite from his greasy burger and literally grunted in pleasure. “Dude, you’re missin’ out.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered. It was bad enough to have to eat a pile of lettuce while my brother enjoyed the juiciest looking burger I’d ever seen, but I didn’t need him to keep rubbing it in.

“What’s wrong? Boyfriend problems?”

I appreciated that my brother was so cool with having a gay brother. He was the least gay person you could imagine (this big, bearded construction worker who watched NASCAR and wore the same three shirts over and over), but because he cared about me, he always made a point of asking about my dating life. I wished he didn’t, though.

“No problems, I guess. Because there’s no boyfriend.”

“Dude! What happened to Bryce?”

“Bryce broke up with me a month ago,” I said. I didn’t want to give him specifics. Too embarrassing.

But since you’re reading this, I’ll tell you. Basically, Bryce said I was too “insecure.” He was definitely hotter than me. Just naturally fit and handsome. He didn’t have to work for his body like I did. If I didn’t restrict my diet and work out four times a week, I’d end up looking like Louie. Everyone in my family was big and burly (including my sisters), so I was really fighting a battle with my own genetics to maintain a body that guys would like. It was freaking hard.

And yeah, I looked good. I’d never have a six pack like Bryce, but with constant vigilance, I’d have a flat stomach. That was the best I could hope for.

With Bryce (I guess because he was so good looking), I pushed myself extra hard. I don’t think I’d eaten a single carb in months. (Slight exaggeration, but not really.) And the fucker had the nerve to break up with me because I was “trying too hard.” All my effort to keep him had caused him to push me away.

I don’t know, man. Gay dating sucks.

I didn’t tell any of that to my brother, though. I knew he wanted to push the issue, so I changed the topic back to his burger (“What sauce is on that?”) and he got distracted. This worked for the rest of our lunch. We talked about a bunch of other stuff—family, work, movies, even (sigh) NASCAR—but he didn’t mention my singlehood for the rest of the meal.

I thought I was home free until we got up to leave. As Louie held the door open for me, he casually said, “You know, I have a gay coworker. Good guy. I asked him where he meets people, and he recommended this club called Frantix. It’s on Lankershim, right by your apartment. You should check it out.”

I did not need dating advice from my straight brother, but then again… maybe I did. I really should put myself out there again, and the bars I went to always had the same people every night. A change of pace might be nice.

“Thanks, Louie.”

He slapped me on the back, almost knocking me over. That was his way of rubbing in how much bigger and stronger he was. “What are brothers for, man?”

***

All dressed up, I took one last look at my reflection. Yup, all good.

My strawberry blond hair was fashionably messy. My short-shorts showed off my muscular legs. (Probably my finest feature. The one good thing about being naturally big-boned.) My shirt was tight enough to show off my narrow waist.

I was a solid 7, about as good as I could get. Now, fingers crossed that Frantix wasn’t filled with judgmental 9s and 10s like my usual bars.

I drove there at 11, hoping that wasn’t too early. I didn’t know why I was so nervous. I guess because I hadn’t gone out in nearly a month. Or because Bryce’s very blunt break-up speech had really eaten away at my already-low self-confidence.

The place looked pretty standard on the outside. A brick building, a neon sign, a serious-looking bear as the sole bouncer.

God, I hope I don’t embarrass myself. Act confident. Be direct.

I took a deep breath, smiled at the big, hairy bouncer (who barely acknowledged me) and headed inside. The place looked pretty much like I’d expected. Large dance floor, tables along the wall, a slightly elevated bar area. Black walls with pops of color. Cages for dancers (though those were empty). All normal.

The people, however, were not at all what I was expecting. It was a sparse crowd—I’d say 30 people in total—and they were huge. Some were like the bouncer, muscular and big-bellied. Some were straight-up obese, just oozing out of their clothes. Some wore leather. Some had flannel. Some purposely chose super-tight outfits to accentuate their bulges.

There were a few guys my size, too, but they were each hanging off of much larger men, clearly getting off on the size different.

I mentally connected the dots well before I noticed the “Bear Night” posters on the walls. I’d picked the absolute worst night to come to a place like this. Nothing against bears, but I just wasn’t interested in guys who could barely move around without grunting. I had a very specific view of what a gay guy should look like (an ideal that I was both drawn to and that I struggled to achieve myself), and the men around me might as well have been a different species.

I noticed a guy with a gut bulging out of his mesh shirt. He was giving me a look, inviting me to come over. I pretended not to see him.

I should’ve just turned around and left, but that would’ve meant admitting defeat. I’d come all this way. I’d dressed up. I freaking skipped dinner again so I could look my best. I wasn’t going to leave this place until I got a drink.

I walked through the mostly empty dance floor. It seemed like the only people dancing right now were mismatched, skinny/fat pairs. Big, fat guys swaying lazily and overenthusiastic twinks grinding on them. Seriously. I didn’t get it.

I hurried across the dance floor, purposely ignoring a couple other bears glancing hungrily at me, until I reached the bar. Thankfully, the bartender seemed normal. Handsome, slightly stocky, but definitely more otter than bear. He smiled at me.

“Bear Night, huh?” Not sure why I said that.

“Yup,” he said, polishing an empty glass, waiting for my order. “Lots of eye candy.”

“Uh huh,” I said. Obviously he was just being polite. “A, um, rum and Coke, please.”

As he fixed my drink, I took one more scan around the place. So many of the guys here reminded me of my brother and his equally burly coworkers. Good for them, I guess. Showing off their bodies on the one night where their gross flab could be appreciated.

I accidentally locked eyes with one of the biggest men there, a bald guy with a black mustache and a carpet of fur on his exposed gut. I quickly looked away, but our half-a-second of eye contact had made him think that I was interested. He started lumbering toward me.

Crap.

I was so awkward in situations like this. I instantly regretted staying here. And since I’d just ordered, it was too late to leave now.

He leaned against the bar, his belly low enough to rest on the stool in front of him. Perhaps he was the single biggest guy here. Definitely not the most muscular, though. His fat flowed off him in all directions, just rolls upon hairy rolls. He'd left his button-up shirt mostly open, and so much of his hairy mass was spilling out.

“Hey,” he said. His deep voice sounded oddly familiar. “Sorry if I’m wrong, but is your name Jordan?”

I gulped. It was.

I looked into his face. (I’d been avoiding eye contact so far.) Nope, he didn’t look familiar at all. Even if I mentally subtracted his extra chin and narrowed his fat cheeks, I wouldn’t have recognized him.

“Uh, yeah,” I said.

He smiled, showing off deep dimples that probably wouldn’t have been there if his cheeks weren’t so damn thick. “We know each other,” he said, “but I’m not going to tell you my name. I’d rather you guess.”

I didn’t find this guy attractive. At all. But I kind of liked the flirtation in his voice. He wanted to play a little game with me, and—I don’t know—that was a little hot.

“Sure,” I said, as I took a swig of my just-finished drink.

The bartender smiled at us and then left, assuming this massive stranger and I had made some kind of connection.

“Do you work at my brother’s construction company?” I asked. That seemed like a good first place to start, though his extreme softness told me that, despite his size, he probably wouldn’t be very good at building houses.

“Nope, but I remember your brother. Louis, right?”

Okay. That gave me a bit more to work with. My brother started going by Louie in college, so this guy probably knew us when we were still in high school.

“Did you go to Farber High?” I asked.

He nodded.

That narrowed it down. No one at my high school was anywhere near his size, so I tried to think of all my chubby former classmates, guys who could realistically grow into someone like him. That wasn’t too difficult. As a deeply insecure fat kid myself, I was constantly comparing my body to everyone around me. I knew every belly because I was constantly keeping a tally of who was bigger than me.

I had a short list in my head, but I was able to narrow it down even further. This guy was bald, but his mustache was jet black. So I thought of all the black-haired fat kids at my school.

“Kenny?” I tried. He was a real porker.

The stranger laughed. “Kenny Reynolds? Seriously?”

I guess not.

“Lucas?”

He shook his head.

“But I knew you in high school, right? We were friends?”

“More like frenemies,” he said. “I was kind of a dick back then.”

I looked deep into his dark eyes, trying so hard to sort through my memories. That’s when it finally hit me, and all the color drained out of my face. “Max?” I could barely whisper the name. I hadn’t thought about Max Ganter for years. I’d purposely blocked him out of my memory.

“Bingo.”

***

I was shocked. Kind of horrified. Flooded with a dozen different emotions all fighting for space in my pounding heart. This was what Max Ganter had turned into?

Sorry for taking a break in the story, but I figured that you need a bit of context to explain why I was so floored. So give me a second for a short flashback. I promise it won’t take too long.

Let me take you back to junior year of high school. I’d just come out of the closet and my family was still trying their hardest to handle it. It came as a big shock to pretty much everyone I knew, not because I was particularly manly (I definitely wasn’t) but because I didn’t look the part.

Like the rest of my family, I was big. Burly. Five foot ten and about 240 pounds. I didn’t have a lot of muscle (didn’t play sports), but I was solid. A guy who was just naturally larger. Because my entire family had the same body type, I never felt self-conscious.

When I came out, I expected the other openly gay kids at school to accept me. When you’re part of a marginalized community, that’s what’s supposed to happen, right?

Well, that didn’t happen for me. The four gay guys in my grade (all fit, all members of Drama Club) did not accept me as one of their own. They reminded me, over and over, that I wasn’t hot. That I didn’t look like them.

And the worst of the bunch was Max Ganter. He was popular. And gorgeous. He had the body that I wanted, and in a way, I built my image of what a gay guy should look like based on him. We talked a couple times, at parties and stuff, but when I dared to flirt with him, he took one disgusted look at me and read me to filth. I don’t remember his exact words (blocked them out), but he was so, so mean. In front of dozens of our classmates, he poked me in the belly and told me (loud enough for everyone to hear) that I’d never get a boyfriend unless I “improved myself.”

So I did. I spent the last two years of high school working out and starving myself. By graduation, I’d gone from fat to chubby. And by freshman year of college, I finally achieved a body that felt acceptable. I started dating, winding through a series of long-term relationships that always ended with me getting dumped, and the whole time, I focused so much energy on maintaining a relatively slim physique.

I backslid a couple times. (All it took was a couple cheat days for fat to grow around my waist.) Whenever that happened, my boyfriends always freaked, further solidifying my belief that gay men had to be slim.

As I’m writing this all down, I can finally see how much Max’s comments had shaped my perspective. If I hadn’t met him in high school, I probably wouldn’t be so obsessively health-conscious. I definitely wouldn’t be so confused by the very existence of the bear community.

And now, there I was, looking at the one man who had forever shaped my worldview and seeing how far he’d fallen from his own ideals.

It was a crazy feeling.

***

Okay. Back to the story.

Max smiled at me for a long time, waiting for me to process all the thoughts that I’d just described. He wanted me to say something.

What the hell was I supposed to say?

“So, um, what happened to you?”

He didn’t flinch at my question. In fact, his smile got even wider. “Oh, I went bald,” he said, rubbing his hairless head. That didn’t answer my question, and he knew it. “And what happened to you, Jordan?”

That question made my anger rise up. I lost weight. I did exactly what you told me. I “improved myself.”

I didn’t say that, though. I couldn’t form words.

“Listen,” he said, “I’m sorry for how I acted back in the day. I was a little… bitchy when I was skinny.”

That apology meant a lot to me. It really did.

“Yeah,” I said flatly. “You were.”

That made him flinch. I think he finally had to admit to himself how much he’d screwed me up. Finally, he leveled with me. “I thought you were really handsome in high school. I wish I could’ve told you that, but I wasn’t ready to admit it, even to myself. I guess I was overcompensating.”

“So you like being like this?” I asked.

He’d been leaning against the bar throughout this conversation. Finally, he scooted two stools next to each other and carefully sat. For a few seconds, I saw a twinge of fear on his face, considering the possibility that they’d break under him, but once he was sitting, and the sides of his wide ass drooped over the edges of the stools, he got comfortable again.

“I love it,” he said. “Everything about it.” He waved at the bartender. “Ultra nacho platter, please.”

“Then why…?” I started.

“You know I was jealous of you, right?” he asked. “This probably sounds insecure, but back then, I was constantly comparing my body to everyone else. I had this mental list of all our classmates who were fatter than me, and I just… I wanted to be like them so badly. You in particular. And when I found out that you were gay, too… I mean, my God.”

“You were jealous of me?”

He sighed. “Some people are born to be fat. It’s in their genes. You were one of those people. Me, however…” He grabbed the bottom edge of his soft stomach and flopped it up and down. “You don’t know how hard I had to work to grow this. And how hard I still have to work to maintain it.”

“Why?”

“You’re here on Bear Night. You should know the answer to that question.” When I didn’t respond, he continued, “Because big is beautiful. Because I love feeling myself wobble. Because people stare when I waddle past. Because the feeling of my body makes me horny. When you were fat, you didn’t feel that?”

“No!” I snapped.

He looked at me with such sadness. “I don’t know what to say, Jordan. My life would be so much easier if I felt like you do. And I’m guessing that your life would be easier if you felt like me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You work really hard to stay thin, right? How often do you work out? Every day?”

I glared at him.

“But it’s worth it to you, right? Because you love the way you look?”

“Yes,” I said. He could tell that I was lying.

The nachos were sitting next to us, a massive pile of meat and chips and tons of guacamole. I hadn’t noticed them arrive. Max immediately grabbed a handful.

“Try some,” he said as he chewed.

“Not hungry,” I muttered. Knowing me, a couple bites of that and I’d be jiggling in the morning.

But he wouldn't let up. He just stared at me and chewed.

“Fine,” I muttered as I took a couple chips. This was Bear Night, after all. I’d just work extra hard on the treadmill tomorrow.

“Good, right?” he asked. (He was already on his third handful.)

And it was. These nachos tasted amazing.

“You know,” Max said, “I remember exactly what your belly used to look like. Very round and solid. I think mine’s so shapeless because I was never meant to grow it. Yours looked so… natural.”

I took another handful to avoid responding.

“If you ever decided to grow to my size, I think you’d look a lot firmer than me. I’m not trying to pressure you or anything. Just a, just an observation.”

“Do you always talk about fat?” My voice came out colder than intended. “Is that, like, the only thing that matters to you?”

He laughed. “In a place like this, surrounded by fellow fatties, yeah. Pretty much. But not usually. I’m a well-rounded person.”

He wanted me to smile at his pun, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction.

Then he started telling me about his life. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of a local gay lifestyle magazine, one that I’d read many times. He curated the articles, took a lot of photos, and even wrote a monthly advice column.

So yeah, he was pretty well-rounded.

Then he asked me about my own, much less fulfilling career as a bank manager. I wasn’t embarrassed by my job (and I probably made more money than him), but hearing him gush about his work made me think that I’d… I don’t know, held back on my dreams.

“Very cool,” he said after I explained the day-to-day drudgery of bank work. He didn’t sound sarcastic, though. “Should we get more nachos?”

I looked over at the platter on the bar. Aside from some stray lumps of guacamole, we’d finished the whole thing. During our conversation, I’d been eating on autopilot, sort of matching Max bite-for-bite.

Shit. I’d really be paying for it in the morning.

He noticed my panicked look. “Come on, Jordan. Relax a little. Doesn’t it feel good to be full?”

“No,” I said, though my whole body felt deeply satisfied. I hadn’t felt full in a long, long time.

“Well, I’m gonna get more. Just for me, though.” He got the bartender’s attention and asked for more nachos, plus a refill on my rum and Coke.

Our conversation continued. He told me about his dating history, which seemed a bit less disappointing than mine. He had plenty of good memories with all of his (plus-sized) exes.

“And what about you?” he turned the tables. “You’re single, right?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled. I didn’t want to talk about my steady stream of relationship disappointments.

He let out a very long, very sad sigh. “I still feel bad.”

“For what?”

“For high school. For fucking with your self-image. You were so damned beautiful back then, and I feel like I was one of the reasons you didn’t see that.”

“You were.” I shouldn’t have said that out loud, but I didn’t take it back.

Neither of us said anything for a long time. Then slowly, he reached forward and placed his hand on my stomach. All those nachos had left me bloated. He didn’t rub my belly or anything. He just kept his hand there, looking me dead in the eyes.

I wasn’t sure what unspoken message he was trying to tell me, but I didn’t look away. And I didn’t push his hand away, either.

The second tray of nachos arrived, this one even bigger than the first. Huge globs of sour cream were balanced on the top.

“I’m really glad I saw you again,” Max said, finally pulling his hand back.

“Me too,” I said. And I meant it. 100%.

The more I talked with him, the more comfortable I felt. My initial horror at his fattened appearance had faded away completely, replaced by… admiration? I don’t know. He seemed so happy. So normal. And yes, so handsome. All his features that I’d trained myself to dislike—his sloping breasts, his folded belly, his hanging chin—were starting to look good on him. He used to be one of the hottest guys in school, but his former hotness had hidden a layer of self-loathing that was completely gone now.

As I watched him dig into the second tray of nachos, allowing dribbles of food to flop onto his chest, I realized something. Back in high school, he’d defined for me what it meant to be a gay man. I’d been chasing that image ever since. But right now, he was redefining it for me. I didn’t have to be fit. I didn’t have to fight against the shape that my body desperately wanted to grow into. I could just let go. I could be full.

And big.

And happy.

Smiling at him, I grabbed a huge handful of nachos and stuffed it all into my mouth. It was time to start improving myself.

The End The Beginning

Thanks so much for reading, everyone!

[nugatorysheep]

What your favorite SU character says about you but it's just mean as fuck

Steven — How is being a mentally ill, people-pleasing queer going for you? Did your mommy issues and anxiety resolve themselves yet or are you still avoiding therapy?

You either disliked or were neutral about him until he got a neck. You think Future is peak cinema (correct) and can't understand why everyone else hates it. You have a better grasp on this show's characters and themes than most of the people who watched it.

Connie — You were likely the gifted kid in school but a total burn-out now. You either see a lot of yourself in this character (How are those helicopter parents of yours doing? Have you gone no-contact yet?) or you're a normie and boring to sandbox with. Probably both.

You've got a lot of Feelings™️about her and if people don't agree it causes Problems™️. In case no one has told you yet, stop caring what other people think. Your constant virtue signaling to appeal to other normies is a crutch that's just holding you back. It's okay to have fun!!

Stevonnie — You want to fuck this character, though you'd never say that out loud. You like Steven and Connie; maybe you like one more than the other, but you like both at least a little. If you're using them for shipping you're the only person in the entire fandom doing whatever hyper-specific ship you've latched onto.

Rose and or Pink — You really suck as a person! Or you used to suck but you've gotten a lot better and we stan! If you're the former you almost certainly have terrible takes on this show (but not in the way people might think), sorry, I don’t make the rules. Either way, you gotta stop finding ways to bring her back, dawg. She's gone.

Greg — You're a man (positive) and gay as hell. Gentleman on the streets and a fucking freak in the sheets. We stan. Pop off king <3

Garnet — If you headcanon her as acespec she is not actually your favorite, Ruby and Sapphire are your favorite, but you like them both equally so you just say you like Garnet. If you headcanon her as anything else you're definitely shipping her with one of the other gems, probably Pearl or Jasper.

Amethyst — Super chill person. Would be in most people's dream blunt rotation. You're a live and let live kinda guy and I respect that, but you also have no hills you'd die on so you're not the first person anyone goes to if they need serious support. You can get away with misinterpreting this character (on purpose or accidentally) because it's hard to say things about her that most people won't just shrug at and go "yeah that sounds right I guess"

Pearl — You're annoying as hell. You see yourself in this character and that's not a good thing. Your social media presence gives off the same energy as every white woman's Instagram profile. If being a victim was a contest you'd take home the gold.

You think everyone is out to get you. They're not.

You think you're being persecuted. You're not.

Most people who see you from a distance and don't know better think you're alright, so you're probably pretty well-liked in public. The only people you will get along with in close quarters are all walking mean lesbian stereotypes.

Peridot — You're annoying as hell for a different reason. You see yourself in this character too and that is a terrible, terrible thing.

She's your pfp on every website and app that will allow it. Your lifeblood is this fucking character and e v e r y o n e will know it. You're weirdly possessive of her and the hyper specific headcanons you made for her (even if you don't say that) despite every grass-fearing autistic person on the internet projecting onto her, so ironically you don't like other Peridot fans, which always ends up with you sitting alone even on websites with millions of people on them.

90% chance you're a furry, otherkin, therian or think you have DID. You think you're misunderstood, and in some ways you are, but the reality is most people don't speak dog and don't have the time or energy to learn. You need to go outside and learn to speak cat whether you want to or not

Lapis — You don't like Peridot fans or kinnies, which is weirdly in-character. You're the biggest hater but you don't hide it and I can respect that. You think Lapis is a victim, but you're only half right. You would probably fall for propaganda if it was dressed up fancy enough.

Jasper — You want to fuck this character, full stop. There's a 50/50 chance you're chill af or the most insufferable person on the planet. If you're the former you're friends with a lot of people. You float easily from one group to another, but a jack of all trades is a master of none, and you're no one's first pick if they're looking for someone close. You probably hate Lapis and her fans but you should really just let that shit go ngl

Spinel — You need therapy (derogatory) and you're making that everyone else's problem. Despite the clown aesthetic you're not very funny to be around and you should get a better sense of humor. You project onto this character way too hard and it shows in your fandom habits and headcanons, but most of the time that's fine

Like Spinel, you're a little two-faced. Some people pick up on that right away and some don't. The people who do hold you at arms length until you make it clear which clown you'd rather be. You hate it when people ship Spinel with any character besides your favorite pairing, but you'll never say that out loud unless it's a ship the people you're talking to don't like.

Blue Diamond — You're a man (derogatory) or a minor who doesn't actually understand anything about this character yet, and would immediately fall for any and all forms of propaganda

Yellow Diamond — If you think she is wearing a helmet you're a man (derogatory) and you expected things out of SU that were never gonna happen. If you think it's just hair you have a much better grasp on this character than 90% percent of SU's fandom and I'm platonically kissing you on the mouth.

White Diamond — You're a man (derogatory) or an incredibly based and sexy queer.

The Zircons — You like Ace Attorney, or would like it if you haven't played it yet. You're making them kiss sloppy style. UwU

Lars — You probably didn't like him until after he died. You will defend this boy with your fucking life. Also you should just…. go watch Star Trek if you haven't. Seriously what are you doing—

Sadie — You're an oddball. Very lax though. You have complicated feelings about Shep

Peedee — You're a little quirky, a little freaky, but you're too scared to just say that. You desperately need some fun in your life, but the people around you make that difficult. Eventually you'll find the folks that are worth hanging around. See you on the flip side :)

Ronaldo — You're the type of person this character is based on and you take it in stride. If you're shipping him with Lars, you're the only person who's opinion on this character matters.

Kevin — I dunno who hurt you but you have a terrible taste in men. You only have fun in bed if it involves a damn near human rights violation

Mayor Dewey — You're normalbirb

Any other townie — This is a trick question! No one has these as their favorite lmao

[andreilslovechild]

A Study on Aaron Minyard and Hatred

I've been in this fandom for years now. somewhere around 5 years or so. and since I've been here there's always been a distinct theme in how people talk about the brother of our beloved main love interest. see people speak about aaron in two ways mainly. the first way is, of course, labeling him as hateful and homophobic and disliking him because he dislikes Neil. the second way is building on his more personable characteristics and having him paired with someone else like Katelyn or Kevin to mellow him out. both of those are all well and good, everyone is entitled to their opinions and all, but I've never quite seen people look at both of those sides at the same time so I want to try and consolidate my thoughts on the matter.

first of all, I personally rarely consider aaron inherently hateful in my own understanding of him. annoyed or disgusted sure, but not necessarily hateful. mainly that hate is focused on three people from what the fandom talks about: Neil, Andrew, and Nicky. I'm using hate a broad term for dislike just for the ease of things right now so don't yell at me, but I think it fair to say the fandom typically pits these three up against aaron in a way that makes aaron look like the bad guy a lot of the time.

if I'm honest, I never really felt he hated Neil more than just didn't care much. at least until he found out about him and Andrew and gave him his version of the shovel talk. maybe a bit when Neil used Katelyn against him. but overall I never quite got it when people said he hated Neil, let alone hated him for "no reason". like id be annoyed too if a guy waltzed onto my college sports team while im studying premed, and turned out to be the long-lost son of a serial killer with a mouth so big it was a wonder hes still alive. plus he was super shady before all that was revealed too, but aaron was still pretty neutral when Andrew brought Neil into the monsters. he even spoke back to the upperclassmen when they freaked out about Neil sitting with the monsters. if you all need me to get the quotes I will, but it's currently like 2am, and I just can't be asked right now lmao. either way, the only time aaron really hates Neil in the books is when he uses Kate against him to get him to go to therapy. which was done for his own good in the long run, and I doubt aaron stayed upset about it for too long. plus we always have to be careful here because we are seeing things from Neil's perspective, someone who is inherently an unreliable narrator in the story.

in Nicky's case, there's a lot to consider. aaron definitely does and says some things (again not finding specifics rn because it's 2am) that are hurtful to him, or offensive. I certainly don't really blame people for reading it as homophobic on a surface level. but that's exactly what it is. surface level. his feelings about Nicky are probably the second most complex in this instance. because Nicky is his cousin, caregiver, friend, whatever you want to call him. They're close, they mean something to each other. but aaron also grew up with Tilda, probably talking with his family over the phone every few months, seeing them maybe once a year or two. when aaron moved to South Carolina he was 13. Nicky would have been 17. aaron probably spent a lot of time with him at first to avoid being alone before he made friends himself. used him as an excuse to get out of being around Tilda alone. which undoubtedly left him susceptible to Luther's preaching. I could make a whole other post on this alone. Still, he would have known Nicky was gay and that it was "wrong". He likely saw only his mask, not the depression inside because Nicky would have wanted to be happy with his cousin. he probably was around when Nicky went to Germany and then came back loud and proud, telling him about a man named Erik and finally standing up to his parents. to us, it's inspirational, exciting even, but for aaron it was like Nicky was abandoning him. He had gotten through Nicky being gone with drugs and staying out of the house as much as possible, but now knowing Nicky was leaving him there alone with his mom for what he assumed would be forever would have hit him hard. he never hated Nicky for being gay. he was angry he had left him, and he had grown up surrounded by the ideals Luther preached and likely his mom did too. with that, plus how uncomfortable it would be to have your cousin being openly sexual around you to an extreme extent like Nicky, I don't blame him really for how he reacted. he was disgusted by the thought of his cousin having sex, not who it was with. I can't remember if his disliking Erik is a canon or fanon thing. Still, he disliked him for taking Nicky away, not because he was a guy. Long story short I don't think aaron ever truly hated Nicky or was truly homophobic. I think he was just a scared kid who learned the wrong words and didn't know how to be vulnerable.

Andrew. good old Andrew. the most complicated relationship in Aaron's life save maybe his mom. I think we all know aaron doesn't hate Andrew. just like Andrew doesn't hate aaron. it's impossible for them to hate each other because they are so irrevocably tangled up and tied to each other's lives. from the second they found out about each other, everything they've done has been for the other in some way. mostly on Andrew's end sure but aaron has also done his share. see out of everyone here I think Andrew is the person that aaron thought he hated the most. he was angry about Tilda, about the drugs, about how Andrew refused to look at him. but deep down he knew he couldn't really hate Andrew. if he truly hated him he wouldn't have stuck around him this long to try and form a relationship with him. he wouldn't have bothered renewing their deal after graduating high school. he may have been stubborn and confusing and made aaron want to pull his hair out in frustration, but I don't think hatred for Andrew truly existed in him. For certain actions maybe, but him overall? definitely not.

Aaron Minyard may have been complicated, cranky, and annoyed for the majority of the times we see him, but he never truly hated anyone. not in the way people seem to think at least. and certainly, never the three people hes accused of hating the most.

[sequoias-fandoms-and-hottakes]

Specifically Dabihawks Incorrect Quotes

Hawks: We’re having a moment, aren’t we?

Dabi: If by 'a moment' you mean me not wanting to strangle you for the first time since we met, then I guess we are.

Dabi: I love you. Hawks, not paying attention: What was that? Dabi: I said I’m selling you to the zOo-

Hawks: Are you busy? Dabi: Yes. Hawks: Cool, listen to this...

Hawks, talking about Dabi: WHAT THE FUCK I WAS ARGUING WITH THEM AND I SAID “OOH YOU WANNA KISS ME SO BAD” AND GUESS WHAT? THEY DID. THEY KISSED ME. WHAT THE FUCK WHAT DO I DO.

Mirko: You need a hobby. Hawks: I have a hobby! Mirko: Fawning over Dabi isn’t a hobby.

Hawks, staring upwards: So, Dabi broke up with me… haha… Mirko: Why are you looking up? Hawks: I need to cry, but my foundation was 48 dollars!

Dabi: Hawks and I are no longer dating. Hawks: Dabi, that’s a horrible way of telling people we’re married.

Hawks, throwing his head into Dabi's lap: Tell me I'm pretty! Dabi, lovingly stroking his hair: You're pretty fucking annoying, that's what you are.

Hawks, at Dabi: You're my significant other. Dabi: Yeah I am! Hawks, at Tokoyami: You're my child. Tokoyami: Yes boss. Hawks, at Endeavor: You're my bitch. Endeavor: Yeah I am- wait, what? Hawks, at Mirko: My bestie. Mirko: Naturally. Hawks, at Shigaraki: HA, GAY! Shigaraki: Fuck you.

Hawks: Hey, Dabs, what do you think it would be like if we had kids? Dabi: What would it be like? Inconvenient, mostly. Hawks: No, I mean, what would they be like, the kids? You ever think about it? Dabi: Can't really say I have. Hawks: You know, for someone as eccentric as yourself, you can be boring as fuck sometimes. Dabi: Sorry, birdy. For what it's worth, I'm picturing them now. A boy and a girl. Two perfect little freaks of nature raised by people who've clearly got no business bringin' up anybody.

Dabi: Pros and cons of dating me. Dabi: Pros. You'll be the cute one. Dabi: Cons. Holy shit, where do I begin-

Hawks: Yeah, a partner sounds nice, but a supreme enemy you can make out with in secret sometimes sounds a lot more hardcore.

Dabi: Love is weakness and an evolutionary mistake. Toga: You are literally making a Valentine’s day card for Hawks. Dabi, pointing his hot glue gun towards Toga: You’re on thin fucking ice.

Dabi: Fight me! Hawks: gets on one knee and pulls out a ring Hawks: Fight me for the rest of our lives.

Hawks: That was so hot, Dabi. Dabi: I literally called the person who just flirted with you a degenerate dog and told them I hope they get dragged through the streets. Hawks: I'm so in love with you.

at 3am Twice: runs into Dabi’s room and turns on the light Wake up sleepyhead! Dabi: wakes up Dude! Twice: cackles Hawks: sits up from where he was sleeping behind Dabi What the fuck, Twice? Twice: jaw drops Wait WHAT-

Kurogiri: Just be yourself. Dabi: Really? Kurogiri, I have one day to win over Hawks’s parents. Dabi: How long did it take for you guys to like me? Mr. Compress: Couple of weeks. Spinner: Six months. Shigaraki: Jury’s still out. Dabi: See Kurogiri? ‘Just be yourself,’ what kind of garbage advice is that?! (joke's on him, if Hawks's parents actually like him that's probably a red flag)

Hawks: How much did you spend on this date? Dabi: $1400. But all of it's on credit cards, so it's like $5 a month for the next 2,000 years.

Toga, walking into Hawks and Dabi’s bedroom in the middle of the night: I had a bad dream. Hawks: What was it about? Dabi: No, don’t ask her that! Hawks: Why not? Dabi: Cause she’ll answer!

okay I'm feeling much better now that's all thank you goodbye

[relaxxattack]

I humbly request your dave nonbinary thoughts, we may not be ready but I want to know, I want to be enlightened

okay so here’s the thing.

dave strider is a closeted and repressed queer boy in 2009.

in the culture at the time (especially on the internet where he basically grew up) "gay" is used as a catch-all for basically all things evil, stupid, and wrong. as kids grow up they learn that— because patriarchal privilege is something you can lose the second you’re not performing your masculinity to an insane degree— being gay makes you not a real man. being gay means you’re an effeminate little freak, a subversion, a pervert. something to be scorned and taught a lesson. which is terrifying to these kids.

on top of all this, dave is being abused daily in the name of becoming a real man a hero. his ultimate example of heroism is a hypermasculine freak who physically, mentally, and sexually abuses him. of course dave doesn’t want to do introspection into the idea of liking men. just being a man is a burdenous ideal, and the sexuality of men is something that has been consistently used to harm him.

that’s where we come to the meteor trip. dave seems to be of the opinion that because earth is long gone, a lot of those restrictive social conventions should be gone as well— especially things like toxic masculinity, and gayness as a complete “other” that you have to “turn” to; he claims (correctly) that a lot of these restrictive social boxes are imaginary lines built by prejudice, and less absolute then people assume.

so, dave does not subscribe to the idea of hard labels.

it’s important for him to reclaim the idea of gayness, of course. dave has been agonizing over that for the entirety of the comic. his own sexuality is something that terrifies him, to the point where he cannot even manage to date women he actually likes. even if he really is truthfully interested in women, he cannot really handle that until he’s finally come to terms with himself as “gay”. (which is why i don’t think dave would use the term bisexual. even if he does know what that means, that’s not the word he’s been terrified of embracing for the past 16 years. dave strider is gay. his entire arc revolves around accepting this.)

but i think if dave was contemplating gender as much as he was contemplating sexuality on that trip, he would come to a similar conclusion about labels. and besides, masculinity isn’t exactly something that he’s had a positive relationship with.

this is why i think he’d be some form of nonbinary or agender. dave calls himself gay because of his hard-earned reclamation of that word, not specifically because he is never interested in women. i think if he were to call himself a guy, it would be along those same lines.

(i could also go on a tangent about dave’s existence as a hussie self insert and his arc and dialogue with these concepts as a reflection of someone who eventually came out as agender, but this post is long enough as it is)

basically, gay nonbinary dave strider. he’s real.

[dragoncityinteriordesign]

Hey, Guardian fans! Got something here you might like!

And that something would be Kaleidoscope of Death (the 2018 gay webnovel) and the Spirealm (the 2024 drama based on it). You can read the more detailed rec posts for both Kaleidoscope of Death and the Spirealm (as well as for some other media, all of which you can read here), but I wanted to come in and do a specific post about why I think fans of Guardian would really have a good time with these two.

This isn't just my observation -- other people who are fans of both have commented on how they scratch the same itch. They're just similar enough to one another to feel familiar, which still different enough that nothing feels repetitive/derivative. It's also funny to me how much the relationship of Guardian the book to Guardian the show is like the relationship of Kaleidoscope of Death to the Spirealm. They're both spooky gay stories that lose a lot in the adaptation to television, but also gain a lot in the process, until it's hard to say which one is the superior telling of the story.

So I'm coming in here with an extremely quick, spoiler-free-as-I-can-make-them five reasons why fans of Guardian in particular might be inclined to enjoy this book/show combo.

1. These boys are not normal about one another

I know you love it when the boys are not normal about one another. Ruan Nanzhu (cunty, well-dressed, on the left) and Lin Qiushi (sporty, cat dad, on the right) are extremely not normal about one another.

(Guardian lucked out in that when the drama was made, shows hadn't yet started doing the bullshit of changing the danmei boys' TV names. Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei are Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei no matter where they are -- but these two are Ruan Nanzhu and Lin Qiushi in the book, and Ruan Lanzhu and Ling Jiushi in the show. I'm going to be using their book names just because I've seen them written more often and they look more correct to me now.)

There's a Reason they're together. Maybe they don't go back as far as Ye Olde Haixing, but rest assured theirs is not a random encounter. Also, just like in Guardian, the Reasons in the book and the show have some surface similarities, but play out very differently.

This is a slow-burn gay love story that's a freak4freak relationship featuring two completely different kinds of freak. Lin Qiushi is the only person Ruan Nanzhu's ever let get close to him. Ruan Nanzhu's the only person who's ever pierced Lin Qiushi's cat-loving veil of obliviousness. Theirs is the true love of being willing to burn down the world for the same person you love annoying the pants off of. They're hot-and-cold messes who can't live without one another.

Obviously, as in Guardian's case, the boys-kissing parts are textual only in the book, not in the show. But keeping them from kissing actually ends up making them way less normal about one another. Yes, tell the guy who's technically your boss to platonically call you "daddy." What's not heterosexual about that?

2. Fun horror(-ish)

Both books have fantastic worlds and weird metaphysical conflicts, where terrible and unsettling things happen. They have ghosts and ghost-like things that can scare you and even kill you. Both contain some really unsettling passages about gore, violence, and body horror, and both include at least a bit of background cannibalism from one of the party members.

...And both shows have had those elements totally nerfed by censorship. Just as the ghosts of Diyu become the aliens of Dixing, the mysterious door worlds of Kaleidoscope of Death become the eeeeevil American video game of the Spirealm. It's exactly as silly and nonsensical as it sounds, and I know you can laugh your way through how stupid the adaptation choices are, because you already have.

Does this destroy the horror of it? Eh, yes and no. No, because there are still fundamentally some horror-esque things going on. But also yes, because having all these killer doors be part of a video game is about as nonsensical as having a lot of aliens living in the center of the earth, and it all winds up being a bit ... well, silly. At least Guardian had the excuse of having to do a last-minute scramble; the Spirealm was committed to this from the start. (What the Spirealm also has that Guardian the show lacks is the occasional hilarious, perfunctory digression into how eeeeeeevil capitalism is, which is its own form of both cringe and comedy.)

The book is legitimately creepy, though. There were a couple points I found myself reading it late at night, right before going to bed, and thinking, hm, maybe I should not be doing this. I love it so much that I actually read it the first time, got to the very important information in the first extra, turned right around, and read it a second time with that new context. It's not so horror that a casual reader couldn't enjoy it, but maybe leave the lights on while you do.

3. We're not co-workers, we're found family.

You know how the SIU/SID crew is the best and the most wonderful and you want to pick them up and hug them all and put them in your pocket and carry them around with you? Yeah, it's likely you're going to have a similar reaction to the Obsidian members and their associated friends.

Both SIU/SID and Obsidian have similar qualities where they're organizations operating under the radar of normal society, doing jobs that do not respect 9-5 boundaries or lunch breaks, where things are dangerous enough that you have to trust your co-workers with your life on a very regular basis. But while only the Guardian ghosts live at headquarters, everyone in Obsidian shares the same house. They eat meals together, watch movies together, play board games together, hang out and read in the TV pit together, decorate the house for New Year's together, barge into one another's rooms together...

Did you love it when Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan wound up living in apartments conveniently across the hall from one another? You're likely going to feel a similar kind of way when Ruan Nanzhu immediately moves Lin Qiushi (and his cat!) into the bedroom across the hall from his own.

As with Guardian, the book has more characters than the show does, but that's because it's cheaper to write a new character than it is to hire a new actor. And it's also easier to write off a new character than it is to get rid of a main cast member, so the book and the show have slightly different lists of who lives and who dies, and when. Take my "be careful who you get attached to" warning seriously.

4. A similarly batshit television aesthetic

Okay, okay, so nothing will ever be like Guardian's thrift-store maximalist approach to set dressing. The Spirealm is more intentional about its choices, and less like all it can afford to do is to keep reusing the same dozen objects repositioned slightly. The Spirealm is what it looks like when you actually have all the money you need and still choose to decorate like Guardian did.

Because of the story's supernatural main conceit, a lot of the environments are bizarre, impossible worlds that do not rely much on petty little things like logic or accuracy or the laws of physics. They're basically dreamscapes, filled with things that don't make sense but also don't have to.

The whole thing is also beautifully shot. I know that a lot of the screenshots emphasize the extremely yellow Wong Kar-wai color grading that I honestly wish weren't there, but it's fine in context. Really, the framing, the motion of the camera, the composition of scenes -- it's just all lovely. I've been watching it with no sound or subtitles on to do screenshots, and I keep being astonished by how nice it is to just look at.

Shen Wei's clothing choices seem tame compared to the high strangness Ruan Nanzhu considers fashion. He'll see your arm garters and raise you a coat that somehow has three lapels. No, I don't know how it works either. But if you like seeing a beautiful bitchy man in bizarre outfits (and I know you do), the Spirealm's got you covered.

And are there inexplicable English-titled books, both generically fake and perplexingly real? Baby, you know there are.

The Spirealm's set design is ultimately not nearly as interesting as Guardian's is, but it's definitely more engaging than most. If you (like me!) enjoy pausing and squinting at the backgrounds of shots, this will bring you hours of scrutinizing entertainment.

5. Not not the same endings

By this I mean, the end of Guardian the book is to the end of Guardian the show as the end of Kaleidoscope of Death is to the end of the Spirealm. I don't mean the exact same things happen, and I can't tell you exactly what happens without spoiling some major things I don't think should be spoiled. What I do mean is that they feel very similar in the relationship between source and adaptation.

Now that I've said this, you're going to be thinking, oh, I know how it ends! No, I promise, you really don't. But when you finally experience said endings, you're going to understand what I mean. Xi Zixu, writing Kaleidoscope of Death in 2018, could not have been responding to the ending of Guardian the show, which was airing at the same time the novel was being released. However, I'd be willing to put down a not-small amount of money that the production team on the Spirealm was at least passingly familiar with Guardian. I don't think it's accurate to say the Spirealm's ending is a direct response to Guardian the show's ending, but I do believe it understands that it's contributing to a conversation to which the endings of both Guardian versions already belong.

And that's all I'm going to say about that! You'll get it when you get there.

bonus: kitty!

This is Chestnut. Chestnut is perfect.

I find it charming how much Xi Zixu, the author, loves cats. She talks about her cat in her author's notes. She waxes poetic about how great cats are in the prose. She has obviously chosen to make Lin Qiushi a cat dad for reasons of writing her own favorite personal traits onto her blorbos.

Of course Ruan Nanzhu is jealous of a cat. He's jealous of himself. He's a one-man jealousy machine when it comes to Lin Qiushi's affections. He's being so normal right now.

Have I convinced you?

Scroll down to the bottom of the rec posts I mentioned earlier to find all the information you need to read Kaleidoscope of Death and all the information you need to watch the Spirealm.

My final verdict is that Guardian the show is substantially better than the Spirealm, and Guardian the book is also better than Kaleidoscope of Death -- but by a much, much narrower margin. I don't even have strong feelings about which one of them you should experience first; I actually started the show, jumped to the book, read it while I was watching the middle episodes, and then finished the show, and even that broken-ass order was not a bad way to approach them. But be prepared to do both! You'll want to do both. Trust me.

Anyway, after you're done watching/reading, come find me at @thirteenthdoor, which is where I'm putting all my Kaleidoscope of Death/Spirealm analysis, reblogs, and shitposting. But only after, because I'm not being careful about spoilers at all over there.

See you in the doors!

[canichangemyblogname]

I’d personally like to know what fandom they’re in because every third day since May of this year, I have been subjected to takes that include statements like:

Tommy will cheat on Buck because gay men cheat.

Tommy will give Buck an STI because gay men sleep around.

I hope Tommy dies of AIDS.

Tommy is homophobic for dating Buck instead of a “femme twink bottom.”

If I were Buck, I’d have killed Tommy for flirting with me.

If you like Buck x Tommy, you’re just a fetishizer. Even if you’re a queer man. I said what I said.

We should stone Tommy.

M/M romantic relationships have always centered women.

Temu is a predator for dating a grown man who’s younger then him.

Jakey only wants Buck for his body and youth because gay men are shallow and superficial.

Which crime makes you want to execute Tteokbokki the most? Cutting a date short or calling a man by his given name?

Gay men are never actually gay; they just think they are. They actually like women, but don’t realize it or are lying.

Men like T*mmy should be beheaded for flirting with men the way he has with Buck.

Tommy is such a typical gay man, forcing himself on Buck in his loft and turning him gay.

Gay men are all liars, so I don’t expect Buck to put up with Tommy long.

Stereotypes about gay men obvi come from somewhere, and that’s real life! I have good cause to think Tommy will be bad for Buck as a gay man!

Buck’s not actually into men; Tommy is your typical man and pressured/coerced Buck into a relationship.

Tommy and Buck dating makes light of women’s relationship trauma.

Someone needs to tell Buck that he’s actually in love with his best friend!

The gayest thing to ever happen to Buck isn’t kissing a man or the implication he’s had sex with that man, but the one time he told his best friend he’d beat him up.

Buck x Tommy is problematic because they’re both men.

Tommy is a pedo because queer people prey on children and a teen in the show called him “cool” off-screen.

Any number of takes calling fans of 911’s recent decision to expand queer representation by including a same-sex male couple “bummies” or “bummers” << UK queer people have told y’all to knock it off. It’s a slur.

Also any number of takes saying that Buck & Tommy’s relationship feels “off-putting,” “creepy,” “gross,” “weird,” “nauseating,” or “obscene”

If you flirt with men like Tommy, you’re a predator. Simple.

Tommy is a freak and a fetishizer.

Relationships are only meaningful and worthwhile if it’s a slow burn and you more friends for the better part of a decade first.

I think this queer guy is secretly in love with and pining for his (straight) best friend.

Queer guys and straight guys can’t be friends; the attraction gets in the way.

Buck is going to cheat on Tommy because Tommy’s old and has a low libido and Buck’s a bisexual slut.

Tommy is grooming Buck!

So, yeah, I’d like to know what fandom you’re in where people are being homophobic to real queer people for *not* liking Tommy, because all I’ve seen is people literally sending death threats and CSAM fics to queer people—often specifically targeting queer men—who support 911’s newest canon queer couple. It has been MONTHS of targeted harassment. Months. I’d like to know WHO these people are who are harassing queer people in the name of defending a “homophobic queer character,” and then I’d like to know how that character is homophobic.

Please—I beg—tell me how Tommy is a “homophobic” gay man. How is he anything like the self-proclaimed “homophobic gay men” of buddieblr? Do tell. Without relying on any tropes about gay men being predatory. Because the only reason y’all think he is and can and would “groom” or “prey upon” a grown man is based in very popular irl queerphobic stereotypes about queer men. Y’all have spent the last five months essentially saying: “I want to subject this fictional character to violence because of real life false conceptions about men like him.”

[jinbeisluffy]

Me and my friend hung out for a few hours yesterday and yapped about op way too much so now i wanna contribute more sexuality hcs but for side characters instead of any specific group. you can have ur own hcs these r just mine

ace - TRANS TRANS TRANS TRANS TRANS you will believe in transmasc ace agenda. he is so trans, what are you doing walking around shirtless CONSTANTLY if not to flex your top surgery scars. he’d beat up anyone as a kid who called him a girl hes known this for a WHILE. sexuality wise hes gay, hes gay and theres not a hint of asexuality in him because hes a freak and unapologetically loves men openly. gay icon in the op world

law - i havent seen law being shipped with a woman once and i find that really funny and telling of what people think of him. and theyre correct, hes a gay man. difference between him and ace is that he’d rather die than admit he even likes people so yk. cis but he did ace’s top surgery

sabo - i have never before seen a character so very much be aromantic without being an implied aromantic character. hes not repulsed by romance its just that hes preoccupied with overthrowing the government and supporting his brothers at all times, he has other things to worry abt. gender, could be anything and could honestly fluctuate depending on the day. at the very least, he fist fights transphobes on the daily and in a modern au would hangout at iva’s drag bar and fight anyone who acts weird

yamato - if you dont think yamato is a transman i want you to get away from my blog okay thanks. that isnt a hc, thats a fact and ppl who disagree are weird in my eyes. sexuality wise, he could honestly like ANYONE, but he just finds himself drawn to men more often than not (ace) so if you were to ask him he’d just say “oh men are cool, women are pretty but you know i cant find myself drawn to them” and he thinks hes normal get a load of this guy

kaku - most proudly bisexual guy to exist. i think he started to think more to himself about things during his time at water 7. he could also be okay with it and live his life that way without any shame because he wasnt an assassin working for the government there, he was kaku so yk, he could actually openly be with whoever he wanted. gender, cis man but if you talk about him using they/them only he’d just laugh and not correct you

lucci - hah gay. him and kaku probably got married in water 7. cp9 questioned kaku for marrying lucci, meanwhile pauile just questioned to himself how things would work cause of the pigeon. lucci is such a gay man, he fucking trans too dont ask me how i know i just know. Ai can sniff out my fellow transguys from a mile away alright

kalifa - oh i love it when women hate on men but the second a woman shows up she acts all flirty and confident. totally heterosexual of you kalifa. no but shes such a man hating lesbian, she always has been and could probably be due to men’s treatment of her during childhood which made her really not like most of them. i need to write out a backstory for her damn. oh and shes trans trust me on that one

koby - sometimes a lot of op characters will be inlove with luffy and never get their feelings returned, and one of those people is koby. yeah hes gay, and asexual he just kept discovering stuff like that when training under garp cause garp is so okay with everything, and then we incorporate more moments between him and helmeppo like in the live action where they sit and talk about stuff. koby realises hes gay and sighs. “that explains a lot…”

buggy - gaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy he doesnt like women he cant bring himself to he had his first tragic yaoi relationship as a teen and never looked back. gender is whatever you want it to be baby. freaky as all hell my GOD every time im reminded of the cross guild and what they do to buggy i just know. theyre so freaky

shanks - bisexual icon but hes been hung up on the same ex (buggy) for so many years that other romances are less prioritised cause “omg what if buggy comes back:}” get over it man he aint coming back for u. trans man, look at him and his pussy yeah thats a trans dude hell yeah

Said friend i yapped with is —> @brooks-heart-sunglasses pookie 🤞

[ritzcuit]

it's no secret that i am a massive fan of spirit of justice, except more specifically, i am a massive fan of datz are'bal, and More specifically, i'm a fan of datz's relationship with dhurke, which i widely have to extrapolate from context clues bc this game hates me. so i often reread the transcripts, of 6-3 and 6-5, to reflect upon the nature of datz are'bal.

well... the way he talks abt dhurke drives me crazy mostly. and i wanted to compile all the freak moments where he yaps about dhurke and the kids. Plus some random extra bits... think of it like a dhurkedatz manifesto, if you want

screenshots using the ace attorney wikia transcript. soj spoilers ahead. Obviously

we have to start midway through the third case, 'cause up until this point datz had brain damage. anyway "brother in arms" gay. "just like you!" gay. Ok not that gay. but it demonstrates datz's entire purpose for being in this game, "im going to tell you about dhurke sahdmadhi in great detail"

oh god It's starting. this is from inspecting the board of photos in the defiant dragons' office.. sorry i forgot datz's other purpose for being in this game, "i'm going to tell you about dhurke sahdmadhi's kids in great detail." i cant. hes so. endlknfgdf

just all this yapping for no reason. it's like a guy showing you photos of his kids in his wallet. Yeah he went to school to study revolution^_^ being close enough to that family to know how much yuty looked up to dhurke is so... to know yuty's motivations... why do you know all this, datz?! do you think he would help yuty study for law school 🥺well dhurke definitely did too, but like...what if both of them helped 🥺

"dhurke's been beside himself" as if datz didn't just wistfully reminisce about how yuty used to be the pride of the dragons. you are NOT an impartial party my man! "we all thought! we were sure...!" it makes me wonder how many other rebels would know that dhurke was torn up over losing his son like this. he puts on a strong face, right, like everyone in ace attorney... but datz is at least close enough to see him struggling with it. like come awn

just more yapping. mind you, datz is currently pretending to be abandoning the revolution right now (though you probably can interact with this afterwards, when he gives up on that). but still. pov you went to a defector to get info on the defiant dragons, but all he's doing is talking about their leader's sons for no damn reason

BC IT'S THE LIKE. EAGERNESS. THAT GETS ME. he knew those kids and by god he is going to tell you about them 😭

inspecting the old sign........... it brings to mind a datz who used to hang around in dhurke's old office with him, like maya does phoenix, just being in his business for no good reason. young 20 somethings with the whole world open to them. "this place has seen better days" and i know damn well datz was seeing them too! Gay

talking to datz directly, this is under "dhurke the attorney" and the fanboying Begins in earnest. again, theoretically, he is pretending to defect from the dragons right now. it's like he was fucking vibrating waiting for phoenix to ask him about his best friend. "he was a force to be reckoned with! he was a juggernaut, as mighty as a dragon!" YOU! ARE! GAY! just geeking out over how cool dhurke was for NO REASON

STOP

Like i cannot express how much of a fucking geek he sounds like right here. "oh i'm defecting from the dragons cus dhurke is a traitorous snake. Anyway he's SO FUCKING COOL :)" he literally sounds awestruck. He would never surrender... sparkling eyes... EW

while breaking datz's psyche locks. gay

i dont even have anything to say. "that look in your eyes... it's just like dhurke's" Yeah i bet you pay attention to what dhurke's eye looks like you little freak. i bet dhurke said something rly cool in court one time and you fell in love with him then and there. Ewwwww Throws hammers. also i just like these lines it's very badass of him. datz said ok ill die for the dragons idgaf and phoenix said IGAF VERY MUCH PERSONALLY I LOVE NOT DYING

pff

later on, after all topics were cleared, datz exposition dumps some more. nothing actually that interesting but "dhurke was framed, i'm telling ya!" is sooo cute to me. it makes me wonder how many rebels do still think dhurke's guilty, but are critical of the ga'ranian regime for other reasons. probably a lot, right? thinking about datz defending dhurke's innocence to other dragons, but then dhurke's like... datz it's fine if they think i'm guilty, so long as they still agree with our cause. it isn't about me it's about the greater good of khura'in. and datz is like. OK BUT THEY'RE STILL WRONG THOUGH 😭😭

"it's like dhurke used to say" fanboy. there's no other words for it

"fangs of the defiant dragons" is an interesting thing. datz calls himself that thrice (once during the trial after he regains his memory and once later on in 6-5). i don't know what it means. LOL i even made my friend who knows japanese hunt down the original line to try and understand it, and we got nothing bc it's basically identical. it gives off the impression that He's Him, tm, he's The Guy, who does shit.. which isn't actually very dhurkedatz, but it's dhurkedatz to me. so much of dhurke IS the revolution, and the dragons. their entire relationship is through the revolution and the dragons. so it stands to reason that if datz is important to the dragons, then he's important to...?well you know

like the defiant dragon bites down and doesnt let go. it needs fangs to bite, of course.......oh the crucial datz...crying

that's basically it for 6-3, except the very end-

aw. theyre hanging out :)

cutting to 6-5 because 6-4 has nothing for us. i have dreams that 6-4 actually has datz in it somewhere and i just never checked, because there's something wrong with me

datz isn't here yet.. this is from inspecting charley, obvs. who's "we" though. you know who we is? it's datz. now. to me. it's dhurke and datz. they lost aj and then yuty ok let them have their cactus. This could also just be a lie ENDFKLNGDF But its too easy to imagine datz getting a cactus and being like "it's like aj! 'cause of it's spines!" and dhurke is Just enough of a sad lonely old man to keep it around. until it like dies i guess rip apollo

talking to dhurke under "request" gives us this. My Compatriot. god made them compatriots bc they would be unstoppable as canon lovers. my compatriot. i should smack u. THATS UR FANGS IDIOT -_- Anyway it's clear from how much datz yaps abt him, but it's nice to have confirmation that apollo remembers him too :) running around him... maybe its "running around with him"? i wouldnt know. but still...so cute..what if i cried rightnow

a whole bunch of nothing bc they're keen on hiding him from me. this is ages later while inspecting the suitcase in archie buff's house. dhurke...thats ur knucklehead...

apollo remembering enough about datz to make fun of him *wiping tear from eye*im so happy *sniffling*

talking to paul atishon, who does not matter. dhurke... hes your buffoon....

but don't worry. he's here. it's datz. everyone get excited. it's time for The Scene, of which i have actual screenshots

this is my "intellectual attraction" this is my "unnecessary feelings" my "her respect as a coworker wasn't all i wanted" orhowever that shit goes. Dhurke! You're a sight for sore eyes! it's so nothing compared to those other three, but i can't help it. I love it so much.....

i love datz being such a freak who can't calm down for 5 minutes. i love dhurke being so understated here. its so funny. he said girl calm down it's just me 😭 and datz's stupid big ass smile once he realizes it's oomf.. i knew you'd come save me!

it's worth noting that in jp, according to my friend who knows these sorts of things, "you're a sight for sore eyes" is just "My partner!" with partner being aibou, which is also used for phoenix/edgeworth, klavier/daryan, and asougi/ryuunosuke. It's too much...datz likes him so bad. get a ROOM!

theyre both so weird

if you present the founder's orb transfer agreement, you get this exchange. please...the banter. i wish we got 50000p more pages of this.

Anyway um it turns out i hit image limit ...smiles cheekily...i could replace the sight for sore eyes pics with one screenshot, but i wont, bc its that important To Me. well. ill continue this in a part 2 because there is still plenty more to be seen

[0neir0z]

So, I read your post about the idea of Alex and Nigel having internalised homophobia. And I’m actually kind of invested, so how do you think that internalised homophobia would present itself in both of them? Especially if let’s say miraculously Nigel didn’t die and they got to continue being crazy. Would they ever realise “this is kind of gay” or not?

omg hi this is my first ask but here's what i think!

tbh started thinking about this when i did this one trend on tik tok, and thought about far too much for a silly tik tok slideshow:

and specifically the order i put them in, as honestly it seeeemed intuitive at first and then i was hit with This Concept (will elaborate dw).

let's start with alex and his deal with this, i think it is less of a stretch. it's mostly just where and Who he is. (like come on teenage straight boys are So homophobic sometimes. can't even imagine how bad it was then if they're casual about that now.) the top student at a prestige school. the son of an incredibly rich and influential man set on the track of success. he has a girl he likes. and he can get away with anything he wants because of this and he will expend that privilege to no end. he is defensive of this life, against anything that would disrupt it. that's why he's So distressed by nigels presence. if we play with the gothic trope of murder and other deplorable or taboo actions as a substitute for repressed desire and queerness, this gets even clearer. getting dragged into nigels world and becoming intertwined and entangled in it is his worst fucking nightmare. of all the guys in the world that he could conceive of himself getting close with Like That it's a total Freak. this relationship, especially as alex remembers, is only violent. the only place he felt safe to first confront nigel about his deal was a place that he could easily threaten and endanger him. they're always fighting and alex almost always instigates. he doesn't want to be perceived like that, he doesn't want to feel so understood by nigel. he treats nigel and his actions with utmost disdain until after he died... but he mourned him. putting a pin in this rq to talk about nigel.

ngl this is a Bigger stretch as nigel obviously comes off as way more overtly gay. dawg was staring at his lips for like half the movie. (or maybe that's just how alex remembers it.) but also because his lifestyle is represented as an inherently taboo thing that plagues and poisons alex's life. (which in itself is kind of a homophobic media trope. the homosexual corrupting the upstanding member of society.) and i believe that his reclusion is kind of a double edged sword. he may have come to some terms that he is sexually attracted to men but his antisocial behavior doesn't ever indicate he'd be supportive of it outside of himself. but because he is all these things doesn't mean he understands it fully, understands himself fully. nigel was socialized generally in the same manner as alex, putting aside the abuse and dysfunction in the colbie household. he understands that some day he should be a powerful man. he understands his privilege can buy him time and freedom. he understands that there are social repercussions to how he lives his life and what would happen if he expressed what he wanted in less of a secretive way. i mean literally he keeps it contained to his dorm and his basement. and then The Concept hit me. it's maraclea. his internalized homophobia is manifested in his obsession with finding maraclea. that he and alex will have and take their own, the closest and most sacred relationship to the knights. their harvest widow. but nigel can't be maraclea. it's not right, it doesn't fit his mythology. he and alex cannot have each other in the way that he himself wants, he settles instead for being the spade. the right hand and the implement of killing for his knave, it's close but not quite right. and we see nigel getting close and doing everything but expressing his own feelings for alex. he's obsessed with alex's sex life and obsessed with susan and getting alex to take her as maraclea. he returns to his sexually abusive mother. basically he will do anything but actually kiss that mf. it is something he cannot accept yet.

as for if they'll ever realize if this relationship was queer? likely. ngl. it seemed like whatever they had going on was going to actually escalate there in their own fucked up way. (it's why i think alex mourned nigel and was sympathetic towards him when talking to sally about his life. and probably why he recalled nigel looking at him Like That. he was close to acceptance by that point.) in the inappropriate, obsessive, and violent way their friendship was. it probably wouldn't have been public and open, perhaps them labeling it as (knightly) brotherhood, alliance, or friendship still. but i don't think that would even be easy bc it would have to be secret. private only. if the feelings became romantic, i think that it would eat at nigel. ngl.

idk if that makes sense but ty for reading this if you did ig lol. way longer than i thought it would be.