#AND the hyper-queer focus of Monstrous Intent lol

[typingatlightspeed]

you don't have to answer this if you want, as it's about a potentially iffy subject, but…

something i've been wondering ever since i started reading is: how prevalent is queermisia in the universe of monstrous intent? i know from reading that queermisia (queerphobia) isn't so commonplace in the universe that any of the mercs experience it (not that they have to) but i am curious on what exactly your angle is on it. despite being an au, monstrous intent is pretty canon-compliant. you clearly love tf2 and its lore!

in tf2's canon, saxton hale and soldier hate hippies, and presumably all they stand for—which means not just the anti-war sentiment, but free love and all the queerness it entails. which would not be much of an arousing thing to include in series about queer monster porn, but it exists in canon, which is why i'm curious. i can't remember if it's brought up at all in the fic series, but do you interpret saxton hale and soldier's hatred of hippies only being because of their anti-war beliefs, and nothing else? or do they not really hate hippies at all in the monstrous intent universe? and again: how prevalant is queermisia in the universe of monstrous intent? how much if it exists, if it truly exists at all?

again, you don't have to answer this if you want. i was just curious ajajsnsksnsjsjdjdjjd

Oh it's no problem! I was actually pretty excited by this ask when I saw it this morning and have been rotating my phrasing in my head all day at work, lol. I have a bunch to say on the matter! Also ty for noticing how canon-compliant I try to keep MI. It's something that matters a lot to me, where it's basically only an AU in so much as there's a stronger focus on supernatural elements (something already existing in canon) and my take on the BLU team themselves, but even then I try to keep them as close to canon as I can in characterization with my spins on them, with just little variations (except Soldier by and large being chiller; maybe undeath is good for him that way lol). I like a canon-compliant AU. It gives me a really strong framework upon which to build, a playground with lots of slides and monkey bars lol.

I'll fully answer under a cut so as not to destroy people's dashes, lol. This gonna be wordy. Especially because I made myself a cocktail after I got home from work so I'm going to be much more annoyingly wordy with a light buzz lmao.

The queerphobia of Monstrous Intent doesn't get addressed directly often, much like most bigotry, simply because the mercs tend to be pretty isolated from most of society both in their day-to-day life and job, and their role as people on the fringes to start with, but I've established a few things. Aside from the kind of monstrous bigotry Pyro tends to face, the other -isms and -phobias do exist, but to a far less dramatic degree for the time period. And with much less institutional power.

In "Gratitude" Scout's brother Lou is revealed as being married to a man, his husband Wally, and reference to same-sex marriage having been somewhat recently legalized is made, and that it was a direct result of it being legal in Australia.

Australia in canon is shown as being an incredibly advanced utopia of giant, buff, moustached himbos, bimbos, and thembos, powered by super science and Australium. It looks pretty utopian, and the fact that they elect their sovreign through fist fight suggests that it's likely at least somewhat a vanity position and that's it. Maybe governance is done via fist fights, but I like to imagine they have little need for singular sovreigns. In my mind, Australia's always been a global economic power thanks to Australium and super science, but because of the near-complete lack of scarcity this causes in Oz, rather than creating false scarcity like you see in the US and most of the world to justify Capitalist policies, they said yeh, nah, and instituted something a bit more Democratically Socialist. Not lucky enough to be something further Socialist or Communist than that because lbr they're still an economic world power, but enough that they're not scraping by on an individual citizen's level, leaving room to uncouple bigotry from politics because the average citizen's pocket isn't being picked by every level of government and business, so those in power don't need to deflect the ire of the privileged proletariat onto the marginalized proletariat. This is a bunch of leftist buzzwords to say that Australia probably ended up much more socially progressive much sooner than the rest of the major world powers for its time period. Not to say there aren't social problems, but they're probably different or at least greatly diminished compared to the United States, for example. I'm sure the aboriginal population would have some words about how much ancestral land they don't own, for example.

That said I imagine just like happens in real life, cities and large population centres tend to be more egalitarian than rural communities, which tend to be built around old-fashioned family structures and such. So while an Aussie bloke walkin' around with another bloke on his arm wouldn't bat an eye in Sydney, maybe it would out in the Mundys' neck of the woods. Sniper's mom mentions in "Approval" that they accepted Sniper being pansexual, which suggests that it's more scandalous a thing in their community. Considering farming communities tend to rely strongly on having lots of kids and big families to have a lot of hands to tend the farms and take product to market and whathaveyou, it makes sense that comphet is probably still kind of expected out there. Same as bigoted attitudes being looked past if someone's an able hand and willing to work cheap, for swagmen and such. Again, Sniper mentions in "Approval" that his dad threatened to shoot a swagman who was saying bigoted shit about an aboriginal man who was also working as a hand for the Mundys, so it exists, but far less violently than the US, especially for the time period.

In how I percieve Australia's impact on the world in Monstrous Intent, I imagine they were mostly an economic power til post-WW2, when so much of the world ended up connected by the conflict, and Australia's superscience and weapons technology became much more well-known, that they ended up a more central figure on the world stage. Kind of like how the US went from being kind of isolationist (aside from how much it was fucking with Central and South America and continues to today) to a global power with massive economic sway and lots of cultural imperialism. But instead of getting anywhere near the Cold War, they looked at how other countries treated their people and went "Strewth, no, you do WHAT to your gays? You do WHAT to your people of colour? You do WHAT to your women? Shit what year is this, 1897? You backwards cunts!" and dragged their closest economic allies into the Australian 20th century kicking and screaming on a social front. So by the late 50s the US was no longer institutionalizing their queer people, and by the late 60s marriage equality was passed into law, thanks to Australian strong-arming.

But here's the thing. Before that? It was still like America was. Queer people were being institutionalized, blacklisted, imprisoned, chemically castrated, the works. And even though Scout was a kid during it, Soldier and Engie were very much not.

It's been offhandedly mentioned, but BLU Engie is homosexual, and in his 20s (during college and his time on the rigs as a roughneck), he was a fixture of his local leather/bdsm scene. Engie was a leatherman, and a dom, and guaranteed has fought the cops on more than one occasion during a raid. He came of age during a time when being queer was punishable, and it's coloured the way he interacts with things. He's just now getting used to being public with his orientation. And even then he's still a Southern man at heart so PDA is deeply uncomfortable for him off-base. On-base at this point it's kinda whatever he's put his dick in damn near every one of those men lmao. But when he was younger he was part of a gay culture that performed hypermasculinity as a defense mechanism against violence and bigotry and effeminate stereotypes. That culture absolutely still did exist in the 40s post-war.

For Soldier, who fetishizes the military in a lot of ways, I'm sure the allure of being surrounded by a bunch of fit fighting men with little privacy afforded had its own pull, lol. Aside from simply his powerful blind patriotism and bloodlust, after all.

Soldier's complicated. Soldier as we know is delusional-levels of patriotic. He's a nationalist, without really understanding why that's bad or what that really means. He loves America, America is the best, everyone should want to be American, everyone should be American, because America is strong and beautiful and the greatest nation on God's Green Earth, Amen. But, like, that's as far as his understanding goes, lbr. The man couldn't tell you what Capitalism is, other than it's what America does, oorah. He's been told Communists hate America and hate Capitalism, which is what America does, so Commies Are Bad (which is basically what your average American understood of the situation at the time anyway ough). He probably had no idea Australia's pressure is what legalized same-sex marriage in America, just heard it was legal now and was proud because America loves him as much as he loves her and is always giving him new freedoms because America Is All About Freedom! Why wouldn't you want to be American? You get all these freedoms, and the purple mountains and their majesty, and redwood forests!

But BLU Soldier in particular has enough internality to understand that it wasn't always this way, and he's grateful. As far as he's concerned, he's been fed the line that soldiers go to fight for American freedoms. So if he's been given more freedoms, it's because the troops fought for them! And he loves war! He loves violence! Fighting was the only thing he was ever good at (to somehow draw a comparison to Gray Fox from MGS of all people), and he's given his life and his unlife to it. He lives for war. So when hippies smelling like patchoulli oil and dressing all counterculture with their loose flowy clothes and long flowy hair and YOUNG PEOPLE SLANG tell him he's wrong for loving war and loving America, he will BE OFFENDED and GET VIOLENT.

Someone who grew up and came of age in an environment with strict rules for appearance, grooming, and behaviour, combined with fetishizing and glorifying the military, which is even stricter with how someone presents their appearance, probably isn't gonna vibe with hippie aesthetics, too lol. Which is funny, considering he's absolutely all about free love and is open about expressing it, as opposed to Engie who is much more stifled about public expressions like that. But then Soldier is also way more likely to start AND end a fistfight if someone gives him the wrong kind of look, and is happy to challenge people to try. After all, he's dead. And his capacity for violence is not tempered by adherence to social norms nor politeness.

Saxton Hale is whole different can of worms, whoof. Yes, he is Australian, true blue, but he's also very American. Which is to say that MannCo was founded and based in the US. When Barnabus inherited it, that tied the Hales to the US, no matter how Australian the family may be. Based on Barnabus, his son Billious, and Billious son Saxton's size, moustaches, and accents, there's no doubt their roots. It does suggest, however, that in spite of owning a company headquartered in America, the Hales raise their families back in Oz. Barnabus had the advantage of inheriting as a grown man, but Billious, looking like he did, clearly didn't come up in the US. Same with Saxton. So I'm assuing they kept their homes in Oz, and did a LOT of commuting to the US for business, or at least kept their families there, making sure their sons were raised proper, true blue Aussies by their mums and other family members. So it makes one wonder just how present their fathers were in Billious and Saxton's lives. Though I also get the feeling that Billious spent most of his time in America compared to his father, based off his appearance (suit, hat, clearly more a businessman than an adventurer like his father and son, though maybe that implies that when Billious took over his father saw to rearing Saxton? I quite like that, actually...).

SO HOW DOES THIS AFFECT SAXTON'S VALUES??? WELL.

Coming up in Oz, Sax probably has the socially progressive values of most Aussies, including an openness about queerness in general. Saxton's pansexual and doesn't care to hide it. Why would someone get mad if he's got a bloke on one arm and a sheila on the other? Unless he'd nicked bloke or the sheila from some other bloke or sheila, but people aren't property, mate, so you've likely earned them leavin' you for a fine specimen of manliness like SAXTON HAAAAALE, yeh?

But his economic values? Less so. Man's a fiscal conservative, a Capitalist, drilled into him by his father and grandfather, the ceos of a powerful weapons company. War is his business and business is good, and free enterprize is his god-given right as a man who inherited his business by fist-fighting his father for the title! Just like any proper Australian inheritance! He takes the propensity for fist-fighting for positions and to settle disputes into a might-makes-right worldview only exacerbated by being a guy who manufactures guns for a living. He may have come up in Oz, and traveled the world, but he did it fighting, always fighting. Violence is his way of interacting with the world. It's joy, it's fun, it's horseplay. It's how he makes his money and maintains his business. So of course he's going to take umbrage to fucking hippies telling him war is evil.

But just as much, Sax clearly doesn't like idleness. He's brimming with energy at all times, always doing SOMETHING. Always coming up with new products, always coming up with new business ventures, always fighting someone or something, always jumping out of planes or through windows or breaking something for the sport of it. He IS the grind, in business and in play. Everything is MAXIMUM EFFORT because nothing else is fun or engaging. Hippies, these comunally-living, jobless, economically-divested, itenerant, peace-loving protest-mongers, are the opposite of everything Saxton values. He doesn't care if they could be fun at a party, with booze and good drugs and loose sex partners, he'd have to listen to them TALK POLITICS, and that would end up with him caving in skulls immediately. They're sanctimonious and insufferable to him, worldviews completely incompatible, plus they don't want him to go fight cougars with his bare hands and who the hell doesn't want to go fight cougard with their bare hands? Bleeding heart cowards. This is all ignoring how a frustrating amount of actual irl hippies of the time period were middle-class white kids doing poverty tourism for the cheap drugs and easy sex, eventually going back to their old lives once they got bored and turning into the conservative middle class elder boomers many of us loathe today, casting a pall on true believers who were out there actually doing political protests, community work, and mutual aid. Nothing but respect for ACTUAL hippies, though. Especially the old ones still engaged and doing activism. <3

I was just about to publish when I remembered that I did forget to mention something: Monstrous culture! Which is to say whether there is queerphobia amongst monsterkind like there is among humankind. I feel like if there is, it's in the more human-like and human-linked creatures, but by and large queerphobia isn't A Thing overall in monstrous culture both as a vague overarching concept and in smaller cultures within. Monsters tend to be long-lived, ancient, separate from humans in a lot of ways, and of course shunned or outright persecuted by many religions. So their values likely don't align with a lot of the bigotries of humans. They care less about who is fucking whom and more about where their next meal or bargain is coming from. Though of course, things outside of the norm can always be good mildly-scandalous gossip.