#This isn’t meant to be homophobic is it

[zappedbyzabka]

johnny is a man glazer tho. a meatrider 💀💀perhaps thats why he fancied bike riding.

What is glazing? Help😭

[atopvisenyashill]

oomfs i need your help. most of you touch grass. you don’t have more than two unserious opinions per person. i have a serious question and i need you all to be serious with your answer. on my reality tv show a woman (who is cishet) called a man (who is cishet) a pansy. like “cam is a pansy for not winning that comp” basically. here is my question. is pansy a slur.

again. i need you to understand i am approaching this as like, calling someone a trollop or a harlot (so the second option in my poll), and then next thing i know people were reporting this as “chelsie said a slur” which i found perplexing. if EYE am reading this wrong, i know u all will be like “unfortunately twitter is right thats wildly out of bounds” and if twitter is saying this wrong i know u all will tell me that too.

[sundriedsanctum]

it was sirius

[racingbarakarts]

I was talking to my husband about YouTubers I used to watch and I said “there was Dan and Phil, where I watched them religiously until they quit YouTube. They’re back now on the gaming channel and Phil has done some videos throughout the hiatus, I still like their videos”

And my husband said “oh I’ve seen a few of their videos years ago but I had to stop because the one guy was kinda annoying. The gay one” I wonder which one he meant

[slateston3]

‘Nother other end of the scale: I’m from Texas which is a Bad Place as we all know. I had a friend who’s parents were divorced. She and her mom lived in a duplex with a (female) room mate. One time I mentioned the room mate in passing to my mom, who immediately assumed

but did not say anything about it as is Texas Law(/sar) anyway then later she asked my friend how her moms were, it was awkward.

Remembering when I went over to my female teacher's house in 5th grade and saw that she lived with another female teacher & went home going "wow, so teachers really do all live together!" & then my family had to explain to me what lesbians are

[teethbomb]

”I’m not even a frickin woman!”

“oh well nobody’s perfect!”

the first trans inclusive misogynist

[solarmorrigan]

For the angst prompt thing: Steddie and "Don't fucking touch me."

Hello! Thank you very much for sending a prompt, I'm sorry it took me so long to post, but I do think this one is my favorite out of all the fills I've done for this prompt list <3

[No warnings; Unnamed Freak (who apparently got a name in the most recent novel, but I didn't know that at the time) is named Oliver]

Angsty-ish Prompt List

-

“I’m gonna step outside for a minute,” Steve leans in to murmur in Eddie’s ear, even though the music isn’t that loud.

“Yeah, sounds good.” Eddie nods, and only just keeps himself from turning to catch Steve’s mouth in a kiss when he feels the brush of his lips against his ear; it’s not his fault he’s developed some kind of Pavlovian association between having Steve’s mouth anywhere near his skin and receiving kisses – but they do have company.

Said company is just Gareth, Jeff, and Oliver, but still. Eddie has some decorum.

Steve stands from the couch and the arm he’d had slung around Eddie’s shoulders slides away slowly, his hand brushing warm and heavy over the back of Eddie’s neck, thumb stroking once, familiarly, along the side of his throat before disappearing entirely as Steve moves towards the front door. He doesn’t do so great with groups of people in small spaces anymore; the noise gets to him, and the heat generated by so many bodies in close proximity tends to give him a headache, so he takes breaks now and then, just to give his brain a few minutes to unbend.

The door swings open on silent hinges (Steve had attacked it with a can of WD-40 and a look of determination earlier today, insisting he couldn’t stand the squeaking anymore; he’s always doing things like that around the house – little repairs, organizing, picking things up, even though Eddie insists he doesn’t have to. He says he wants to, the endearing little weirdo) and Steve steps out into the cool evening, leaving Eddie and the boys behind in the warm light of the trailer’s main room.

“So,” Jeff says, looking up from his spot on the floor and gesturing vaguely at Eddie with his beer can, “how’s that going for you guys?”

Eddie blinks at him. “How’s what going?”

“The whole thing between you two,” Jeff clarifies, and Eddie raises a skeptical brow at him.

“You wanna talk about me and Steve having sex?” Eddie asks.

Jeff’s nose scrunches in distaste. “What? No.”

“Not ever,” Gareth jumps in.

“I mean…” Oliver says with a shrug, flinching when Gareth pelts him with a balled-up napkin.

“No,” Gareth reiterates.

“I refuse to apologize for simple curiosity,” Oliver sniffs, and Eddie, seated next to him on the couch, gives him a shove.

He’s glad his friends are accepting – supportive, even (he’d like to say he wouldn’t hang out with them if they weren’t, but let’s be real: nerds could be hard to come by in their neck of the woods, and as long as they were the quiet type of homophobic, Eddie would probably still play D&D with them. But he’s glad they’re not), but he does have some boundaries.

Like, one or two, maybe.

“I just meant the whole… dating thing,” Jeff says, taking a sip from his beer. “Because I’ll be honest, I really didn’t see it at first, but it actually seems to be working out.”

“Dating?” Eddie parrots blankly.

“Yeah. You guys are in, like, some kind of never-ending honeymoon phase or some shit,” Gareth says. “Hasn’t it been over two months?”

“Uhhh, no, I think you gentlemen are confused,” Eddie drawls. “Steve and I are not dating.”

This declaration is met with a moment of silence.

“Seriously?” Oliver finally says.

“Yep,” Eddie replies easily. “No relationship shit here. Strictly a friends-with-benefits-type deal.”

“Seriously,” Olver says again, flatly this time.

“Yes, Oliver, seriously,” Eddie huffs, reaching over to give him another shove, only to have his hand pushed away.

“Eddie, he was practically sitting in your lap just now,” Jeff says. “You two are all over each other.”

“Constantly,” Gareth adds.

Eddie shrugs. “It’s not like this is a big couch; we gotta squish. Anyway, Steve’s just a touchy kind of guy.”

“He doesn’t sit like that with any of us,” Gareth points out.

“Yeah, well, you guys aren’t the ones receiving benefits,” Eddie says. “You want him to sit on your lap? You could ask.”

Gareth lets his head hang back with a noise of frustration. “That’s not the point, and you know it.”

“Don’t you two go on dates?” Jeff asks. “I’ve seen you at the movies. You talk about going out to eat, doing other shit…”

“Yeah, see, that’s the friends part of friends with benefits,” Eddie snarks. “Friends hang out sometimes, I’ve been told. We are all, in fact, hanging out right now, but that doesn’t mean I’m dating any of you.”

“You don’t see the way he looks at you?” Oliver asks, and Eddie can’t help but scoff.

He appreciates the fact that Oliver is passionate about pretty much anything he does, but it also means he’s given to romanticizing. He doesn’t usually manage to drag Jeff or Gareth in with him, though.

“Pretty sure he looks at me like a friend, because that’s what we are.” Eddie rolls his eyes before offering a smarmy little grin. “I mean, I’m sure he looks at me as an exceptionally attractive friend, but that’s it.”

“Genuinely can’t tell if you’re fucking with us, man,” Jeff says, rolling his eyes.

“Genuinely, I am not,” Eddie promises, taking the last viable swallow from his beer before getting up and heading for the kitchen, wiggling his empty can at the others with a raised eyebrow in question. Gareth raises his own near-empty can with a shrug and Eddie nods. “Look,” he says as he ducks towards the fridge, “Steve isn’t the kinda guy you have a relationship with, anyway, you know?”

Eddie doesn’t mean this in a negative way, just as a matter of fact. Steve just doesn’t seem to be a relationship kind of guy. Nancy had been something of an outlier, in how long she and Steve had lasted, and it had become clear after the dust from the Upside Down had settled that he really doesn’t have any interest in pursuing her further. Just the other day, he’d mentioned to Eddie how difficult relationships can be, and about how glad he is they have their thing together instead.

“Being with you is just… easy,” Steve had said; he hadn’t been looking at Eddie at the time, his face instead pillowed on Eddie’s chest, hair sticking to his naked skin where the sweat was still cooling from their last round, but Eddie could see the edge of a smile on his lips.

And Eddie doesn’t have much experience with relationships himself, but he knows that being friends with Steve is easy and that the sex feels equally easy and that the way he’d agreed with Steve and carded his fingers through his hair had sent Steve right to sleep with that same smile still in place.

Easy.

Now, Eddie shoves his head into the fridge and reaches for the beers that have somehow gotten pushed to the back. “It’s nothing major, okay?” he calls back towards the living room.

“Eddie…” Gareth calls back, an edge to his voice.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m on it.” Eddie waves vaguely, making sure to grab a second beer. “Anyway, Steve’s a good friend, and he’s really hot, and we’re just having fun.”

The bang of the front door against the frame startles Eddie so badly he nearly smacks his head on the underside of the freezer as he stands, a beer clutched in each hand like he might be able to use them as projectiles.

There is no threat, though – just Steve, who had apparently failed to catch the screen door before it had shut too quickly behind him. He doesn’t seem to have noticed; he’s just standing there, staring at Eddie, color rising high in his cheeks, eyes wide and shocked, like he’s just been slapped.

Concern wells up from Eddie’s gut, and he opens to his mouth to ask what’s wrong when Steve finally speaks.

“Yeah,” he croaks, “I’m not having fun.”

Eddie’s brows furrow in confusion, the beginnings of cold dread trickling into his veins well ahead of any conscious thought.

“I think I– I think I should go,” Steve says.

He grabs his keys from the side table by the door, where they’ve lived next to Eddie’s and Wayne’s for the last few months whenever he’s been at the house, and then he’s gone again, the screen door banging shut once more behind him.

And Eddie has no idea what just happened, but he knows it wasn’t good. He drops the beers on the counter and bolts out the door after Steve.

Steve is nearly to his car by the time Eddie scrambles down the front steps, and he’s paying absolutely no attention when Eddie calls after him.

“Steve,” Eddie tries again, stumbling to a stop right behind him as he jams his keys into the driver’s side lock. “Steve, for fuck’s sake, what–” he reaches out, wrapping one hand around Steve’s bicep, and Steve jerks out of his grip.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” Steve snaps.

Eddie pulls his hand back, but doesn’t step away, entirely baffled by the sudden turn the evening has taken. “What the hell happened back there?”

Steve goes still, grip going lax on his keys. “I heard what you said, Eddie.”

“About – about what? Are you mad I was talking to them about us sleeping together? Because, Steve, they already knew,” Eddie insists, a little incredulous. “You said you were fine with them knowing! You were practically feeling me up in front of them!”

“I don’t give a shit if they know we’re having sex!” Steve hisses, finally whirling around to look at Eddie. “I meant the rest. About how I’m not the kind of guy you have a relationship with.”

Eddie’s stomach sinks. He hadn’t realized that was such a sensitive subject. “I – shit, I wasn’t trying to hurt your feelings, I just didn’t think you wanted–”

“About how we’re just having fun,” Steve cuts in, and if he’d sounded raw before, his voice is practically ground down to nothing now.

That brings Eddie up short. “…aren’t we?” he asks after a moment.

Steve says nothing.

“I mean, shit, Steve, it’s not like we’re in a relationship,” Eddie says, offering a little laugh, because even Steve would have to admit that the idea is a little silly.

Except.

Except Steve just glances away, staring at the ground beside Eddie’s feet, and – oh, shit.

“Oh, shit.”

Steve is still unnervingly silent, one arm curled around his middle while the other hand comes up to pinch briefly at the bridge of his nose. He still won’t look at Eddie.

“You… you thought we were,” Eddie says dumbly, and Steve shrugs.

“Can you blame me? We spend all our time together, Eddie. I’m here more than I’m at my own house, I think I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve slept in my own bed in the last month. We go out and do things together, I try to keep things nice around the house because I want Wayne to like me, we have, like, a lot of sex, and– we… I mean, we kiss and touch and just – do shit like that even when it doesn’t lead anywhere.” Steve shrugs helplessly, finally looking up. “I mean, Christ, Eddie, what did you think we were doing?”

“I thought we were friends!” Eddie insists. Steve throws him an incredulous look and Eddie amends, “With benefits!”

“Right.” Steve’s expression flattens back out, going cold and hard and unlike anything Eddie’s become used to from him. “Because I’m not the kind of guy you’d want to have a relationship with.”

“I said that because I thought you didn’t want to be in a relationship!” Eddie snaps. “It’s not like you stay with anyone for very long, so I just assumed you didn’t want to be with anyone.”

Some of the ice retreats from Steve’s face, leaving a watering kind of hurt in its stead. “Do you listen to me at all when I talk?”

“What? Of course I do!” Eddie might have gotten turned around in certain respects, but he will not have his merits as a friend called into question; of course he listens to Steve.

“Are you sure? Because I talk about you an awful lot. I talk about doing things with you, about doing things in the future with you,” Steve says pointedly, “about how I want to stay with you.”

And Eddie had wanted Steve to stay with him, too. He’s just been thinking – well, he’d thought it was because they get along so well, that Steve had wanted to stick around. That it had only made sense.

“We never talked about… being anything else,” Eddie says, the protest a little weak even to his own ears. “I’m pretty sure I’d remember that.”

Steve pulls a sharp breath in, pinching at the bridge of his nose again; he leaves his hand there this time, eyes scrunched shut. “Just a few days ago, I told you how much I liked being with you. How good and how easy it felt compared to anyone else I’ve ever been with,” he says, barely more than a rough whisper. “And you said…”

I like being with you, too.

Eddie had said that.

He’d meant that he likes being around Steve, likes being his friend, definitely likes having sex with him, but he’d said it while combing his fingers through Steve’s hair, while cuddled up with him in bed, and – okay, yes, he can see the mixed signals there. He can see where Steve might have gotten the idea that they didn’t have an arrangement, that they were just together.

“I– I didn’t mean–”

“Obviously,” Steve snaps, dropping his hand from his face and turning back towards his car.

Eddie tsks, frustrated, and reaches out to grab Steve’s wrist – not pulling, just trying to keep his attention.

“Don’t,” Steve warns him, pulling back from his grasp for a second time.

“I didn’t mean to lead you on,” Eddie tries desperately. “I really… I really didn’t.”

“Yeah. I can see that. But Eddie…” Steve is quiet for a moment, posture so tense and still that Eddie suspects he’s not even breathing. “I’m probably the best-qualified asshole around to tell you that you really have to fucking think about how what you’re doing affects the people around you.”

Somehow, that stings more than any screamed insult Steve could have thrown at him.

“Steve…”

“I’ll come get my shit out of your place tomorrow,” Steve says, low and sharp, before getting into his car and slamming the door behind him.

After that, Eddie has no choice but to step back or get run over, and he watches until Steve’s taillights are no longer visible.

He can hear the hissing of some whispered conversation just beyond the door as he trudges back up the front steps, but his friends fall conspicuously quiet the moment he steps inside.

“…hey,” Gareth finally ventures after several seconds of awkward, sticky silence.

“Hey,” Eddie says flatly.

“Do you… want us to stay?” Jeff asks.

Slowly, Eddie shakes his head. “I think I should… I need to– think about shit.”

The boys all nod, throwing him variously sympathetic glances and clapping him on the shoulder on their way out. Oliver pauses, as if he’s going to say something, but Gareth gives him a shove and gets him out the door before he has the chance. Probably for the best.

Eddie feels numb as he trudges back towards his room, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened.

He flops down on his bed, face landing in a pillow that smells entirely too much like Steve’s shampoo. Probably because it’s on the side of the bed that Steve always takes. Next to the nightstand with the small stack of sports magazines that definitely aren’t Eddie’s. And the spare pair of glasses that also isn’t Eddie’s.

With a low tug in his gut, Eddie realizes how much of Steve’s stuff has crept into his room, into the trailer, into his life – how much Steve has become a part of his life, how much of Eddie’s day has been built around him, how much he’s come to lean on his presence, has come to want him there.

And Steve is going to take it all back sometime soon. Take all of his things away before he removes himself from Eddie’s life, too, because Eddie hadn’t been thinking and he hadn’t been careful and he hadn’t realized–

Eddie’s pretty sure he just broke up with Steve.

He’s also pretty sure he hadn’t wanted to.

His main consolation, as he curls up on his side, nose still buried in Steve’s pillow, is that as soon as Robin hears what happened (and she will hear, he has no doubt), she’ll probably come murder him.

At least he won’t have to wallow for long.

Part 2

[vordemtodgefeit]

If you take issue with the tone of our replies, maybe look to the OP?

For me, at least, what the film and musical do with the Maguire Wicked novel is a little beside the point, which is why I’m going to take your reblog from me as referring to that and therefore not really about my tags (if I assumed wrong then please tell me). It’s not an invalid conversation by any means, and the subtext you mention is certainly not the only alteration that was made in transferring it to stage and screen, but it’s just not the conversation that I’ve been having, and other people can take the reins on that one.

My issue was - as it always has been for the discourse that absolutely was rampant on Tumblr for years before the release of the film - the personal insults of it. And judging by the other reblogs, I think that’s a common issue to take. The text of the OP called Fiyeraba fans homophobic twice, self-righteous, and media-illiterate fools with no ability to comprehend a book. That actually does feel rather invalidating, and this kind of mud-slinging is how the thread started - it’s hardly surprising that people reacted to it.

I know we joke about it, about how they cut the scenes between Elphaba and Glinda because they were too gay, about them being played very fruity and shit, but it always rubs me the wrong way that it still is left into this terrain of deniability or uncertainty that the jokes feel bitter sweet now, like they were willing to cut a crucial scene of character development for Glinda and Elphaba that was essential for their relationship in the movie because it was too suggestive on the romantic intentions of it, and regardless of what they say publicly is very obvious why they cut it, so I'm genuinely heartbroken about how Wicked still cowards away from it's queerness, and unfortunately it does make me inevitably lack some sort of respect for it.

Did I love the movie? Yes, but in such a way where I feel bitter about it.

I adore it the same way I do a show, as book Elphaba would say, it is a theatrics, yes and it is a beautiful spectacle, but it is just that, a spectacle, that never fully commits. Don't get me wrong, the musical has its merits, but there's this insatisfaction, this conformity this fear of being more that leaves me feeling unsatisfied when it's over, and not because it's a tragedy, but because it feels shallower than it's book counter part.

Because the book, as much as it also only suggests, it never cowards away from how weird and queer it is and never uses a veil of heterosexuality to cover up Glinda's and Elphaba's unsaid romance, (basically the existence of musical Fiyero), the book suggests Gelphie and let's it linger to become real for those with enough sensibility to comprehend it, enhancing the romance that never flourished, but the musical is just the same cowardice it so blatantly criticizes, and for that it may never actually gain my respect the same way the book has done before.

There's much I could say about how the musical just downright destroys its original material for the sake of making the audience comfortable, without actually being this revolutionary piece of media it calls itself to be, but I am frankly tired. Sadly the movie commits quite a lot of the same mistakes as the musical, and that's why I can't love it like I wish I did, it hurts more knowing the movie had the opportunity to change it yet didn't and I'm not only talking about Gelphie, I'm talking about many other things, Fiyero himself as well, because if you look closer, it seems as though the movie tries to fix it, to rewrite what was once a butchering of the original material, but it never commits, too afraid to diverge, because committing would mean to let the queerness and the uncomfortable topics flourish in the text if ever so lightly, but they can't have that, so the movie is between this very thin line between trying to be faithful to the musical and wanting to improve it, but never achieving either perfectly for it's fear of commitment. I didn't expect it to be a book one on one because it is first and foremost a musical adaptation, but they had a chance to bring what was only subtext into text and they threw it away. I want to hope that in part two they will improve it and I still hold onto said hope because the movie also does a lot of things right, but they cling so desperately to such mediocre romance between Fiyero and Elphaba and such waste of narrative that it is for the three of this characters with Glinda that it's so pathetic, why are they so attached to such mediocre 2000s stereotypical straight love triangle is beyond me, obviously if you read between the lines it is more than that, but it's subtext, like it always has been.

So yeah, as much as I adore the musical now movie as the spectacle of theater it is, it will never gain my respect the same way the book does, it feels like being gaslighted and manipulated just for there to be people who say "what? No you're seeing things".

And it's sad because you'd think we're on a day and age that has the ability to do this, to make what was once buried subtext, text, but it doesn't, and it may never will, but whatever had happened between Glinda and Elphaba was real to me, and real to them in a way beyond their comprehension and their control and time, it was then, what went unsaid that became buried for us who seek.

Also before the movie, there was never this amount of stupid discourse between Gelphie and Fiyeraba shippers, maybe because most of the fandom was a Gelphie shipper because well what we couldn't get from the mainstream we sought in the community, but now that so many straight people are joining in they not only feel threatened by the overwhelmingly queer community, but they actively want to shame it.

And although I do think Fiyeraba is boring, made there too be palatable so the straights don't get mad and shit, and to hide the intense level of tragedy that is Gelphie, I never bothered to mess with the Fiyeraba shippers before or give much though to them because there was no need, but suddenly they feel the need to be so annoying and homophobic and have some gotcha moment because their ship is the one that ends up together and all I can say is ... What a superficial way of viewing the story, because Wicked is a tragedy and that part is in itself a tragedy, but I digress, I don't want to hate on Fiyero it's not even worth it, but people will do anything to hate Glinda, without understanding her character, praise a male character clearly written to be a narrative device for Elphaba more than his own character, a cheap attempt at writing a Glinda that does abide by Elphaba's narrative necessities, then they bring down a queer ship and act self righteous about it while also being discretely homophobic. Like the irony, they feel so self-righteous about it too is ridiculous.

Talking about irony, it's funny because if musical Fiyeraba shippers read the book I might actually say, yeah book Fiyeraba has its merit and I agree Fiyero meant as much to Elphaba as Glinda IN THE BOOK, but they don't even bother reading it. They can't even grasp Glinda's musical complexity I doubt they'd understand the book, but I'm being bitter and pretentious.

Oh and everything they did to Fiyero is a blasphemy, book Fiyero has my appreciation.

This already lasted way too long, but I couldn't stay quiet about it anymore because I had never felt so attacked on what was once a really safe fandom for queer people specially sapphic/queer women

[evidence-based-activism]

Domestic violence is more common in lesbian relationships than it is in heterosexual relationships.

the point is that in heterosexual relationships men and women are equally likely to initiate DV. When examining female only relationships they are more likely to suffer violence than male only relationships.

Researchers theorise women initiate violence more often because society tends to ignore female violence and punish male violence harshly. They see no downside. This effect is magnified in female only relationships.

This info is not intended to put anyone down.

To add to this, heterosexual DV is still going to be more common than lesbian DV based purely upon the number of heterosexual couples when compared to lesbian couples. This isn’t to put down lesbians, it’s a statistic that I’m not too sure if it’s still liable or not.

So, apparently I need a frequently asked questions page ... or something.

You are wrong anon; these statements are factually incorrect.

Domestic violence is NOT more common in lesbian relationships. (And the larger post for context.)

Men and women do NOT have similar rates of domestic violence. (See, also, this post.)

People support/fail to support male/female victims and condemn/fail to condemn male/female perpetrators at similar rates. (Also see this post and this post.)

There is also no evidence of a criminal sentencing disparity caused by sex.

"This info is not intended to put anyone down." -> Yes, I am sure you came to this blog where I discuss the pandemic of male violence against women to claim that, against all substantial, overwhelming, evidence to the contrary women are actually more violent than men to be ... friendly.

Male violence in heterosexual relationships is higher in both absolute and relative terms (see above).

"it’s a statistic that I’m not too sure if it’s still liable or not" -> I'm guessing you meant either "reliable" or "viable", in either case, it was never reliable, or viable, or true. It's a homophobic, misogynistic myth perpetuated by malice and poor understanding of statistics.

[thecolorblockcurator]

It’s taking a lot of effort to not block anyone tagging my art as q slur.

It sounds like a lot of you might might need to learn some queer history. Which is fine - there is no shame in learning our history. We don’t get taught it- you have to go and specifically look for it.

It’s also important to note- Every single lgbtqia+ community label has been thrown back at us as slur. There isn’t a single one that homophobic, transphobic people haven’t used in a derogatory way. If we collectively decided to call ourselves Humans as our only lgbtqia+ label - no doubt there would be hateful people screaming back at us. Those types of people hate us - and no matter how sanitized, and pure - and free from any stigma you present your queer self - they will still hate us.

Queer was strategically chosen as an umbrella term during the protests in the late 1980 & 90s. If you’re not aware of the AIDS crisis- please learn about it. It was brutal -and the disgusting response from the government, conservatives, religious extremists was - they were happy that it was happening. They let hundreds of thousands of queer people die because they thought we deserved it. It was a truly horrific medical emergency that was purposefully ignored for many years.

So “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re not going to disappear.” became one of the slogans people would yell during marches and protests.

Queer was chosen because it wasn’t sterilized, sanitized, it wasn’t an assimilated, quiet version of being lgbtqia+. It was fucking in your face queer.

You couldn’t ignore it- we weren’t going to hide away in shame, or keep things wrapped up in secret like previous generations. Homophobic , transphobic people had to deal with the fact that queer people existed- and would always exist & there was nothing they could do or say to change that.

Because that’s exactly what they wanted. They wanted assimilation, or total nonexistence of all queer people. And unfortunately they still do.

Which is why seeing “the q slur” is so messed up. It’s giving that sanitized, reagan administration evangelical morality - homophobic, transphobic people everything they had hoped for. A fear based response of - if I make make myself as palatable as possible will you finally respect me?

Here is an amazing photo by Dan Nicolette that I think encapsulates that idea of what queer meant. I’m not going disappear, make myself easier for you homophobes to digest.

[girlishwhimsies]

y’all just imagine… gay darry secretly hooking up with paul (who is engaged oopsie) and soda finds out and just goes MENTALLLLLLLL like full argument bro is NOT happy he doesnt want darry to be with someone who he will never actually get to be with and be proud of. pony has No Clue what’s going on and is not used to his brothers fighting and is freaked out. so pony ends up trying to find out what’s going on and somehow finds out darry is gay even if he doesn’t get the details of what’s going on with paul. pony immediately assumes that soda and darry are arguing cause soda is homophobic and that darry may be gay but like is ashamed of it and would be ashamed of and mad at ponyboy if he came out. so ponyboy tries to spend less time with soda cause he thinks he’ll fight with him like he’s fighting with darry and is scared of that. then sodas all confused and thinks that darry said something to him to get him on darry’s side meanwhile darry notices pony pulling away from him too and thinks soda said something to him. so everyone mad at each other right? eventually they all push each others buttons a bit too much and they all just scream at each other and argue and there’s no one to separate them and calm them down this time. eventually pony just screams DONT YOU GET IT, IM JUST LIKE YOU DARRY AND YOU HATE ME FOR IT and then runs out the door cause yknow. bro is an emo teen boy. darry and soda are just lost cause like bro is 14 and very much not hooking up with a married man. then they realize oh bro meant he was gay (they’ve known that for a while buddy) and have to set aside the argument for a bit to like talk to ponyboy. btw they find him at johnnys grave. anyway haha isn’t this funny.

[writingwithcolor]

My alternate universe fantasy colonial Hong Kong is more authoritarian and just as racist but less homophobic than in real life, should I change that?

@floatyhands asked:

I’m a Hongkonger working on a magical alternate universe dystopia set in what is basically British colonial Hong Kong in the late 1920s. My main character is a young upper middle-class Eurasian bisexual man.  I plan to keep the colony’s historical racial hierarchy in this universe, but I also want the fantasy quirks to mean that unlike in real life history, homosexuality was either recently decriminalized, or that the laws are barely enforced, because my boy deserves a break. Still, the institutions are quite homophobic, and this relative tolerance might not last. Meanwhile, due to other divergences (e.g. eldritch horrors, also the government’s even worse mishandling of the 1922 Seamen's Strike and the 1925 Canton-Hong Kong Strike), the colonial administration is a lot more authoritarian than it was in real history. This growing authoritarianism is not exclusive to the colony, and is part of a larger global trend in this universe.  I realize these worldbuilding decisions above may whitewash colonialism, or come off as choosing to ignore one colonial oppression in favor of exaggerating another. Is there any advice as to how I can address this issue? (Maybe I could have my character get away by bribing the cops, though institutional corruption is more associated with the 1960s?) Thank you!

Historical Precedent for Imperialistic Gay Rights

There is a recently-published book about this topic that might actually interest you: Racism And The Making of Gay Rights by Laurie Marhoefer (note: I have yet to read it, it’s on my list). It essentially describes how the modern gay rights movement was built from colonialism and imperialism. 

The book covers Magnus Hirschfeld, a German sexologist in the early 1900s, and (one of) his lover(s), Li Shiu Tong, who he met in British Shanghai. Magnus is generally considered to have laid the groundwork for a lot of gay rights, and his research via the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft was a target of Nazi book-burnings, but he was working with imperial governments in an era where the British Empire was still everywhere. 

Considering they both ended up speaking to multiple world leaders about natural human sexual variation both in terms of intersex issues and sexual attraction, your time period really isn’t that far off for people beginning to be slightly more open-minded—while also being deeply imperialist in other ways.

The thing about this particular time period is homosexuality as we know it was recently coming into play, starting with the trial of Oscar Wilde and the rise of Nazism. But between those two is a pretty wildly fluctuating gap of attitudes.

Oscar Wilde’s trial is generally considered the period where gay people, specifically men who loved men, started becoming a group to be disliked for disrupting social order. It was very public, very scandalous, and his fall from grace is one of the things that drove so many gay and/or queer men underground. It also helped produce some of the extremely queercoded classical literature of the Victorian and Edwardian eras (ex: Dracula), because so many writers were exploring what it meant to be seen as such negative forces. A lot of people hated Oscar Wilde for bringing the concept to such a public discussion point, when being discreet had been so important.

But come the 1920s, people were beginning to wonder if being gay was that bad, and Mangus Hirschfeld managed to do a world tour of speaking come the 1930s, before all of that was derailed by wwii. He (and/or Li Shiu Tong) were writing papers that were getting published and sent to various health departments about how being gay wasn’t an illness, and more just an “alternative” way of loving others. 

This was also the era of Boston Marriages where wealthy single women lived together as partners (I’m sure there’s an mlm-equivalent but I cannot remember or find it). People were a lot less likely to care if you kept things discreet, so there might be less day to day homophobia than one would expect. Romantic friendships were everywhere, and were considered the ideal—the amount of affection you could express to your same-sex best friend was far above what is socially tolerable now.

Kaz Rowe has a lot of videos with cited bibliographies about various queer disasters [affectionate] of the late 1800s/early 1900s, not to mention a lot of other cultural oddities of the Victorian era (and how many of those attitudes have carried into modern day) so you can start to get the proper terms to look it up for yourself.

I know there’s a certain… mistrust of specifically queer media analysts on YouTube in the current. Well. Plagiarism/fact-creation scandal (if you don’t know about the fact-creation, check out Todd in the Shadows). I recommend Kaz because they have citations on screen and in the description that aren’t whole-cloth ripped off from wikipedia’s citation list (they’ve also been published via Getty Publications, a museum press). 

For audio-preferring people (hi), a video is more accessible than text, and sometimes the exposure to stuff that’s able to pull exact terms can finally get you the resources you need. If text is more accessible, just jump to the description box/transcript and have fun. Consider them and their work a starting place, not a professor. 

There is always a vulnerability in learning things, because we can never outrun our own confirmation bias and we always have limited time to chase down facts and sources—we can only do our best and be open to finding facts that disprove what we researched prior.

Colonialism’s Popularity Problem

Something about colonialism that I’ve rarely discussed is how some colonial empires actually “allow” certain types of “deviance” if that deviance will temporarily serve its ends. Namely, when colonialism needs to expand its territory, either from landing in a new area or having recently messed up and needing to re-charm the population.

By that I mean: if a fascist group is struggling to maintain popularity, it will often conditionally open its doors to all walks of life in order to capture a greater market. It will also pay its spokespeople for the privilege of serving their ends, often very well. Authoritarians know the power of having the token supporter from a marginalized group on payroll: it both opens you up directly to that person’s identity, and sways the moderates towards going “well they allow [person/group] so they can’t be that bad, and I prefer them.”

Like it or not, any marginalized group can have its fascist members, sometimes even masquerading as the progressives. Being marginalized does not automatically equate to not wanting fascism, because people tend to want fascist leaders they agree with instead of democracy and coalition building. People can also think that certain people are exaggerating the horrors of colonialism, because it doesn’t happen to good people, and look, they accept their friends who are good people, so they’re fine. 

A dominant fascist group can absolutely use this to their advantage in order to gain more foot soldiers, which then increases their raw numbers, which puts them in enough power they can stop caring about opening their ranks, and only then do they turn on their “deviant” members. By the time they turn, it’s usually too late, and there’s often a lot of feelings of betrayal because the spokesperson (and those who liked them) thought they were accepted, instead of just used.

You said it yourself that this colonial government is even stricter than the historical equivalent—which could mean it needs some sort of leverage to maintain its popularity. “Allowing” gay people to be some variation of themselves would be an ideal solution to this, but it would come with a bunch of conditions. What those conditions are I couldn’t tell you—that’s for your own imagination, based off what this group’s ideal is, but some suggestions are “follow the traditional dating/friendship norms”, “have their own gender identity slightly to the left of the cis ideal”, and/or “pretend to never actually be dating but everyone knows and pretends to not care so long as they don’t out themselves”—that would signal to the reader that this is deeply conditional and about to all come apart. 

It would, however, mean your poor boy is less likely to get a break, because he would be policed to be the “acceptable kind of gay” that the colonial government is currently tolerating (not unlike the way the States claims to support white cis same-sex couples in the suburbs but not bipoc queer-trans people in polycules). It also provides a more salient angle for this colonial government to come crashing down, if that’s the way this narrative goes.

Colonial governments are often looking for scapegoats; if gay people aren’t the current one, then they’d be offered a lot more freedom just to improve the public image of those in power. You have the opportunity to have the strikers be the current scapegoats, which would take the heat off many other groups—including those hit by homophobia.

In Conclusion

Personally, I’d take a more “gays for Trump” attitude about the colonialism and their apparent “lack” of homophobia—they’re just trying to regain popularity after mishandling a major scandal, and the gay people will be on the outs soon enough.

You could also take the more nuanced approach and see how imperialism shaped modern gay rights and just fast-track that in your time period, to give it the right flavour of imperialism. A lot of BIPOC lgbtqa+ people will tell you the modern gay rights movement is assimilationalist, colonialist, and other flavours of ick, so that angle is viable.

You can also make something that looks more accepting to the modern eye by leaning heavily on romantic friendships that encouraged people waxing poetic for their “best friends”, keeping the “lovers” part deeply on the down low, but is still restrictive and people just don’t talk about it in public unless it’s in euphemisms or among other same-sex-attracted people because there’s nothing wrong with loving your best friend, you just can’t go off and claim you’re a couple like a heterosexual couple is.

Either way, you’re not sanitizing colonialism inherently by having there be less modern-recognized homophobia in this deeply authoritarian setting. You just need to add some guard rails on it so that, sure, your character might be fine if he behaves, but there are still “deviants” that the government will not accept. 

Because that’s, in the end, one of the core tenants that makes a government colonial: its acceptance of groups is frequently based on how closely you follow the rules and police others for not following them, and anyone who isn’t their ideal person will be on the outs eventually. But that doesn’t mean they can’t have a facade of pretending those rules are totally going to include people who are to the left of those ideals, if those people fit in every other ideal, or you’re safe only if you keep it quiet.

~ Leigh

[sunny-three]

Aaron and homophobia

- aaron is meant to homophobic on purpose Nora specifically wrote him this way yes it probably comes from the environment he grew up in that doesn’t really make him any less homophobic

- if I see anyone trying to claim that aaron isn’t homophobic because his he’s aspec may I remind you that pov character Neil is canonically Demi and does not say the same shit aaron does

- yes aaron loves and protects Nicky that does not mean Aaron’s behaviour cannot be hurtful towards Nicky take andrews behaviour towards aaron as an example Andrew hurts aaron with comments about tilda knowing that aaron loved her and aaron hurts Nicky by being homophobic despite knowing how Nicky’s parents treated him, that he was sent to conversion camp and knew Nicky got hatecrimed

- I’ve seen people say try and say that Aaron is not homophobic and just feels like Nicky’s flirtation crosses boundaries is uncomfortable with it and yes it makes sense that people would be uncomfortable because of this

- but given that Aaron is okay with Andrew literally drugging people and literally left Neil drugged with Nicky after hearing the comments Nicky made about him Aaron definitely does not have any moral objections with Nicky’s comments besides the fact that they are directed at other men

- Aaron’s comments towards Nicky would desist if Nicky were directing his flirting towards women instead

- this is not meant to be hate, Aaron is one of my fav characters look at my blog if you don’t believe me but if I have to see one more post talking how Aaron’s canonical homophobia is not Aaron’s fault but instead Nicky’s fault for being too gay I’m gonna lose it

[vyrewolf]

As much as I wanted to, I could never buy into the 2004 mean girls lesbian reading - Cady always just felt too straight, and Regina was too nastily homophobic to Janis for me to personally be able to read her as a lesbian with internalized homophobia. My lesbian heart wanted to buy into it so very bad but I just couldn’t.

But mean girls 2024?? Oh boy they got me. They got me by my dykish little throat. Those gay musical theatre ass bitches managed to give me toxic doomed yuri in my mean girls movie!!!

Anyways funny part of the post is over allow me to over analyze:

Janis is a lesbian - she always was and we already knew that and I’m so glad they weren’t cowards and committed to giving her a girlfriend for prom this time. Janis and Regina were close friends who started to realize they liked eachother and while Janis was comfortable with that Regina wasn’t which lead to the whole ordeal with spin the bottle and with the beanie baby and the pride pin which leads me to…

Regina is a lesbian with some deeply internalized homophobia. We see it with the way she treats Janis but keeps the pride pin WHICH by the way is like fanfiction levels of toxic doomed yuri and I appreciate it so much. She has all this popularity and control over the school that she’s so afraid of loosing which causes her to act nasty and bitchy and her being a lesbian can absolutely fit into this - being outed as a lesbian would hurt her popularity and reputation and so she throws Janis away and ruins that relationship, and as she grows older and matures she gets stuck in this toxic mindset where I feel like she knows deep down she’s a lesbian but she’s not letting herself acknowledge it because she knows what embracing that would do to her social life. HOWEVER she’s toxic and absolutely still uses her hot dom lesbian energy to enact control over her friends who are all very down bad for her which leads me to…

Cady - bisexual home schooled jungle freak who starts normal high school and realizes what romantic attraction feels like and doesn’t really know what to do with those feelings- did y’all see the way she looked at Regina’s titties during that seduction scene, we all saw it right?? (And yes I’m calling it a seduction scene because even if you don’t read it as a sexual seduction that’s the term I’ve been taught to use for a villain confrontation where the villain is trying to convince the hero to join their side - seduction as opposed to threat - fun fact from film school) Cady wants to be like Regina, she WANTS regina, and Regina’s absolutely aware of that but is so buried in her persona and internalized homophobia that instead of acknowledging and reciprocating those feelings in a healthy way she kind of half reciprocates them enough to lead Cady on but not enough to treat Cady well which leads to this relationship dynamic where Regina is pretty much benefiting off of the way her unacknowledged lesbianism is enacting control over her friends who are all down bad for her which leads me to…

Gretchen - you can’t tell me that girl isn’t in a horrific one sided situationship with Regina especially after her song!??? That girls WANTS REGINA SO BAD and Regina knows that and again exploits that somewhat unintentionally because she can’t acknowledge her own identity. Gretchen is what Cady very well could have became in a different reality where Cady didn’t have Janis and Damien’s perspective to help her realize what she’s gotten herself into and lead to the conclusion of the film.

ANYWAYS I’m a cadina truther because Janis and Gretchen both have been hurt by Regina and deserve better but that doesn’t mean that Regina doesn’t deserve better either and I thoroughly believe that after the events of the film Cady helps Regina work through her shit and Cady gets the hot dom gf Regina was meant to be

As for Aaron I can absolutely believe that Cady is genuinely attracted to him I don’t think it’s a case of Cady likes Regina but doesn’t realize and so redirects her feelings into a man (tho I also totally support that reading) but dude that guy is so bland there’s no way that relationship lasts.

Tldr a lot of Regina’s behavior and relationships can be explained by her internalized homophobia and the way she somewhat benefits off of the control she gets over her friends who have feelings for her and Cady helps her break the pattern and become a better person

[guidaozongshi]

I know Kishimoto probably wrote sns gay on accident but sometimes I see things and it look on purpose like double suicide. No way he didn't know what it meant.

I strongly disagree with the idea that Kishimoto unintentionally wrote Naruto and Sasuke's relationship with homoerotic and romantic elements.

While I am in disagreement with many of Kishimoto's writing choices, claiming that he or even the editors working at Jump don't understand what he is writing about is just condescending.

Firstly, let's make one thing clear: no Shonen mangaka since the 1990s has ever unintentionally put homoerotic subtext in their work.

Statements like :

" Shonen mangakas accidentally make their male characters gay because they can't develop their female characters "

Is simply not true.

Shonen Jump deliberately allows homoerotic subtext in their works because it is profitable; it attracts a considerable female audience, i.e., fujoshi, to be interested in their series. This is not a recent phenomenon but something that can be traced back to the 1980s with the advent of series like Gundam, which at that time had a primarily female audience due to the intense personal relationships between the cast.

Take this snippet from an interview with Yoshiyuki Tomino, the creator of Gundam

What I want modern day Gundam fans to understand is that Gundam wasn't nurtured by the PlaModel enthusiasts. It was young women who first came to the after recording studio, and Gundam is a work that began with their support. And it was a work that had no connection to the popularity of Gundam PlaModels. So I think the most important thing is creating a work that will attract those kind of girls to it again. I don't think movies as an entertainment industry can succeed without touching on that kind of fundamental portion.

The girls he is referring to are those people who are invested in the emotionally charged male-male relationships of the series.

A lot of people mistakenly believe that Weekly Shonen Jump solely targets boys, which is understandable given its name. However, the strategy of WSJ has continuously evolved alongside its readership, and for many of its series, more than half of the audience is female. In fact, many of its titles, such as Prince of Tennis, Kuroko no Basuke, Haikyuu, etc, have a primary female audience, you can guess why. The homoeroticism and shoujo-esque elements are deliberately added.

To quote a blog that does scholarly work on manga

I also want to make it clear i think any analysis of shonen manga especially Jump manga being soooo friendly to fujoshi and m/m shipping due to misogyny in writing falls flat when you think the authors and editors are thick headed and have no idea how the readers could possibly get that kind of interpretation from their works when Jump has been a STAPLE of the comiket yaoi corner ever since the mid-80’s and their whole shtick is being hyper aware of reader opinion. they know and have always known how female readers read into the works and authors who enter jump only get more and more savvy about how to feed into it. You can’t see the accidental kiss gag and trick yourself into thinking Kishimoto didn’t know what he was doing with that

Now that we have made it clear that whatever written was deliberate, let's discuss whether Kishimoto wanted to portray Sasuke and Naruto in a romantic relationship. This is something I cannot give definitive answers on.. as there are certainly mixed messages

Once again to quote the same blog

When talking about fujobaiting boys manga from now on i will have to put an asterisk on Naruto bc yes i know Kishimoto knows what he’s doing but this really isn’t normal behavior

-

The way that he does everything from being self aware by having the boys get called a slur ( homophobic ) for trying to save Sasuke to the lol wouldn’t it be gross and funny if Kakashi and Gai were gay for each other moments it all contrasted by Sasuke and Naruto playing out a fantasy novel marketed to girls where Sasuke (love interest) turns to the dark side and Naruto (the protagonist) misses him and yearns to have their time together back and is conflicted about the idea of having to fight him one day and the person who comforts him the most during this is Sakura (secondary love interest who gets the short end of the stick) like they can try to repeat the line that they’re like brothers but Naruto doesn’t have siblings like 🤨 how is he sure 🤨🤨 simultaneously to all this Gai and Kakashi are called gross old men for giving each other piggyback rides

But you are right. Kishimoto invokes a lot of romantic tropes that are impossible to ignore altogether or even dismiss as a simple fujobait, and concludes that he never intended to portray Naruto-Sasuke in a romantic light in the text. Libraries worth of content has been written about their relationship so I wouldn't be saying anything new that hasn't been said before.

As you mentioned, the prospect of Shinjū (心中), meaning "double suicide" is invoked between Naruto and Sasuke. At a point in their relationship, Sasuke stands against Konoha. He asks for an ultimatum from Naruto whether he would kill Sasuke to save Konoha or be killed by him, and Naruto says he wants neither. But they will inevitably have to face off against each other because of their obligations as a Uchiha annihilated by Konoha and a Jinchuuriki bound to Konoha. It's also inevitable that when they both clash, they will have died together since they are both equally matched in power. Naruto is ready to face Sasuke's hatred against Konoha and to die along with him. Naruto then says that if the above happens, in the next life they would be able to meet each other without their respective obligations.

This is an obvious romantic trope, especially how straightforward it's played in Naruto that doesn't allow for any other interpretation.

In Japanese theater and literary tradition, double suicides are the simultaneous suicides of two lovers whose personal feelings (人情, ninjō) or love for one another are at odds with giri, social conventions or familial obligations.

Lovers committing double suicide believed that they would be united again in heaven, a view supported by feudal teaching in Edo period Japan, which taught that the bond between two lovers is continued into the next world.

Dying together, because of their respective obligations, despite their feelings for each other, with the hope of being able to unite again in the next life. Is this literally not Naruto and Sasuke?

When one talks of the relationship between Naruto and Sasuke, the Land of Waves arc is considered one of the most pivotal points in the trajectory of their story. Their relationship is frequently made analogous to that of Haku and Zabuza.

And one of the most controversial points I will make is that Kishimoto added blatant romantic intent in Haku and Zabuza's relationship, portraying them as lovers, to make their relationship resemble wakashūdō.

In the warrior (samurai) class it was customary for a boy in the wakashū age category to undergo training in the martial arts by apprenticing to a more experienced adult man. The relationship was based on the model of a typically older nenja, paired with a typically younger chigo. The man was permitted, if the boy agreed, to take the boy as his lover until he came of age; this relationship, often formalized in a "brotherhood contract", was expected to be exclusive, with both partners swearing to take no other (male) lovers.

Wakashū were prominently featured in Edo-period woodcuts, where they are often distinguishable from the female beauties in the same pictures only by a sword or the shaved spot on the crown of their head. In erotic prints ( shunga ), they are often depicted as more feminine than their female partners.

You can't possibly believe that Kishimoto, who is known to imbue Japanese historical and mythological motifs throughout the series, does this by accident.

Why would Kishimoto make Naruto and Sasuke's relationship be compared to that of Haku and Zabuza, two people with heavy romantic implications? It also doesn't just stop at Land of Waves. Even the ending scene of the series, where Naruto and Sasuke lie together, is made to be a direct parallel to the final moments between Haku and Zabuza.

I am not condoning 'shipping' Zabuza and Haku at all, and I think people have the right to be repulsed by a romantic reading of their relationship, but this is a very obvious observation.

Even to an average viewer without any shipping intentions, Zabuza and Haku's relationship has always been weird and it has spawned countless discussions speculating the nature of it

Kishimoto could have easily used a less controversial and more recognisable platonic relationship as the one that onsets the trajectory of Sasuke and Naruto's relationship, but he didn't.

Why?

Decide for yourself.

[ellieslaces]

KISSING LESSONS.

featuring: hazel callahan x fem!cheerleader!reader

synopsis: Hazel’s worst decision was to join her friend’s fight club, until she met you. or, really got to know you, she knew you, you just didn’t know her. she never thought a cheerleader, much less one of the prettiest girls in the school, would ever pay attention to her. until you did.

content warnings: harsh language; mentions of violence; internalized homophobia; light smut; kissing (wlw); so much loser lesbianism; some homophobic slang (faggot, munch)

notes: mentions of violence (duh, it’s lesbian fight club); mentions of reader being bisexual (more toward women tho); homophobic slang (faggot, munch, etc) ; there is no real smut in this as i do not write explicit content containing minors.

word count: 3.13k

chloe talks: watched bottoms and then hyperfixated on Hazel for two weeks before I decided to write this. God, I need her so bad. Chloe has a type doesn’t she? (soft mascs make me hhnngg). hazels so fucking cute I need her to kiss me ok bye. <3 (also, I hate the way this turned out, I’m so sorry it’s terrible)

now playing: kissing lessons ; lucy dacus

Fight Club — a popular 1990’s film, that’s all those two words had ever meant to you. You’d never even seen the film, you just knew it was fucking gay, despite it not actually being about the hot topic of homosexuality amongst young men (or women, in your case). But, I digress.

It had been your friends, Isabel and Brittany, who managed to get your ass to attend your school’s resident Fight Club. A women’s Fight Club. How fucking gay. Oh well, it would teach you how to defend yourself properly. Which, in this day and age — or any day and age of we’re honest — is horribly necessary.

It shouldn’t be, but knowing how to beat the shit out of a grown man is something you should know how to do. Self defense isn’t a topic to be taken lightly, and it seemed PJ and Josie knew this.

PJ and Josie — or faggot #1 and faggot #2 as the school knew more endearingly — where the school’s resident ‘ugly and untalented gays’, as Jeff and his little crew liked to say. Really, you suspected they were all just pissed because the girls knew their way around a pussy better than any of them did. They wouldn’t know the clit if it slapped them in the face.

It had been about two weeks into the girls’ club that Isabel and Britany attended for the first time. They showed up to cheer practice the following day with busted lips and bruised faces. At first, you hadn’t known what happened. Maybe Jeff’s dramatics had finally gotten the better of him. But no, they had willingly gotten beaten up for the sake of learning how to better throw a punch.

Finally, after hours upon hours of begging and pleading, Britany and Isabel got you to attend a meeting. You had walked in, nerves wrecking your body as you trailed unsurely behind the two girls you considered your best friends. You trusted them, they wouldn’t let something bad happen.

You had planned to spend your first meeting simply observing, but PJ tried so hard to convince you to join in. She almost even pushed you into the fucking ring. When you finally conceded, you were face to face with Hazel Callahan.

You knew of her, but you didn’t know her. You’d passed her a few times in the hall, you had a science class with her. Jeff said she was another one of those ‘loud mouth munches’ — to which you nearly punched him square in the nose had he not been Isabel’s boyfriend and a complete moron.

Hazel seemed nice, she’d smiled in your direction when you walked into the gym. It was a nice gesture, no matter the awkward air it held. You felt sort of bad for putting her in the situation she was in, even though it was PJ’s fault that she now had to fight you.

You stood awkwardly, fists raised in a defensive position, eyes on Hazel as she stood in front of you. She smiled again, still awkward as it had been when you walked in. You were set on not getting the shit beat out of you.

As soon as PJ’s whistle sounded, you barely gave Hazel a chance to move. She’d shifted on her feet, sending a spark of fear through you, causing you to send a punch straight to her face. You’d gasped, watching her face scrunch up as her own hands flew up to cup her nose.

“Oh my God, I’m so fucking sorry.” You cried, stepping forward, ignoring the claps and cheers falling obnoxiously from PJ’s lips.

Hazel let out a choked laugh, brows raised as she held her nose. “No uh, nice hit. Fuck, that was a good one.” She blinked rapidly, momentarily lowering her hands.

You let out a small squeak as you saw that her nose was indeed bleeding. “Shit, your nose.” You stepped forward again, trying to find something to stop the bleeding. But of course, there wasn’t anything you had on you.

“Alright, Hazel’s fine. Let’s move on.” PJ droned, giving her whistle another sharp blow — she really abused her whistle privileges, you thought as you ushered Hazel toward the bleachers.

Hazel gave a thumbs up — her hand covered in blood that dripped from her nose — as she walked toward the bleachers. No one seemed to notice other than you as you walked with her. You felt so bad, so terrible because now this girl was bleeding because of you.

“I’m sorry,” you weakly apologized again, sitting in front of her on the bleachers, looking frantically around for something to give her to stop the bleeding.

“It’s okay, I’m okay.” Hazel shook her head, trying to convince you she was fine. Even though you both knew she wasn’t.

“Uh fuck, there isn’t anything — don’t do that.” You’d cut yourself off quick, voice deadpanned.

Hazel paused, her head half leaning backward as she looked over in your direction. Her ringed fingers pinched the bridge of her nose — it seemed she’d had the idea to lean her head back to stop the bleeding.

“Lean your head forward, not backward. If you go backwards, the blood could go into your lungs. Go forward and let it drip out.” You instructed, pulling her hand down gently by her wrist, moving to take off your cardigan so she could hold it below her face to catch the blood as it dripped.

“How do you know that?” Hazel questioned, brows pulled in a frown as she leaned her face forward so the blood could freely drip from her nose onto the bundle of fabric in her hands.

“I had to get a certificate to be able to babysit.” You shrugged, moving the strands of hair from her face without thinking about it. When you’d realized what you’d done, you froze, dropping your hand in embarrassment, muttering a sad ‘sorry’ again.

Hazel shook her head, not responding verbally to your millionth apology. Your cheeks warmed, suddenly so embarrassed for an entirely different reason. Not just for punching Hazel square in the nose, but you’d managed to embarrass yourself by noticing just how pretty she was.

Hazel sat on the bottom row of the bleachers in the gym, watching the rest of the group fight each other in turns, different girls winning. Some had busted lips, others a myriad of bruises spattered across their faces.

You took the time to notice just how pretty Hazel was — a sharp jawline that would make Jeff jealous, brunette hair that mussed in just the right way and looked so goddamn soft, her nose that was long and straight save for the small bump in the bridge that made your throat constrict. God, she really was a sight. How hadn’t you noticed sooner?

Maybe it was the fact that Hazel wasn’t in your social circle. You were a cheerleader, friends with Isabel and Britany, the focus of stares. Hazel was a loser — in the kindest and most endearing way — someone who wasn’t popular. Someone who had hardly any friends. And despite the fact that today was maybe the third time in your entire life you’d ever spoken to her, you wanted to be one of her friends.

A quick, sharp quip of PJ’s whistle brought you back to the present, her loud voice announcing the day’s session was over. You blinked, looking away from Hazel. Who somehow didn’t seem to notice you’d just spent the past five or so minutes just studying her face.

She turned to you, eyes apologetic as she held out your crumpled cardigan in her hands. “It’s really bloody, sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. You can keep it,” you shook your head, holding out your hand. It was only after the words came out of your mouth that realized how stupid that sounded. “I mean, it’s just, you don’t have to give it back. I don’t like it that much anyways. And it’ll probably stain. That sounds bad, I’m sorry.”

Hazel smiled a little at your words that seemed to stumble out of your mouth. You regretted every single one of them. You moved to take the cardigan anyway, acting as if you hadn’t told her to just keep it. But she pulled it back.

“I’ll wash it.” She said simply, standing. There were specks and smears of dried blood on and below her nose. You felt another pang of guilt then, seeing that your punch would definitely cause a bruise across her nose.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that.” You shook your head, standing as well. Isabel and Britany stood a few feet away, clearly waiting for you to come over. You didn’t want to though, for some reason.

“It’s fine. I’ll see you at the next meeting right?” Hazel asked, not relenting and continuing to hold the cardigan in her hands as she started to back away.

“Uh, yeah, I guess so.” You shrugged, somewhat embarrassed. You didn’t really want to come back. Not since you’d punched Hazel and made her bleed on your first meeting. But, maybe this would be a good incentive to come back. To see her.

“Cool,” Hazel grinned, nodding in your direction before she walked toward where PJ and Josie stood. You remained sentient for a moment, hands folded in front of your lap as you watched Hazel.

“Jesus, you hit hard.” Isabel’s voice rang in your ears as she and Britany approached, the latter’s eyes wide as she looked at your hand.

“Might want to wash your hands,” the girl motioned to your dominant hand — the knuckles were spotted in blood from where you’d punched Hazel and blood had immediately started to pour from her nose.

Your eyes latched onto the specks of blood on your knuckles, brows creased as you stared. Bright, rusty red adorned the skin of your knuckles, bits of Hazel Callahan’s DNA there. It was strange, but it made you smile.

The attendance of the fight club had steadily grown — girls coming to the gym after school to brush up on their combat skills. All in preparation for the upcoming football game against Huntington. The fear ever since one girl had gotten attacked by one of the boys and word had gotten around about it.

So, attendance had spiked, the ‘female solidarity’ — as PJ liked to call it — had risen in the school, even the girls were kinder and nicer to one another. And your mind was muddled with constant pictures and thoughts of Hazel Callahan.

It was confusing — you’d never felt such a strong connection to someone you hardly knew. Hazel was as much a mystery to you as the rest of the ‘ugly, untalented gays’. Meaning she was a huge fucking mystery. Sure, you were vaguely aware that her parents had divorced, and that the girl mostly kept in the background in school. But other than that, Hazel was purely mysterious to you. And you found yourself wanting to know more.

To remedy thhs, you continued to attend fight club, naturally. Yes, you shared a class or two with the girl, but nowhere else did you have the chance to actually interact with her. To converse with her, hear her voice, see her smile. God, what a loser you were.

It wasn’t until two weeks later that you’d come to realize how disgustingly and embarrassingly obvious your infatuation with Hazel was. And what made it worse — it was PJ who brought it to your attention.

“Yo!” PJ’s obnoxious voice rang through the gym as you stood in the circle with the rest of the girls, watching Silvia and Brittany spar, your name on the girl’s lips as she spoke. “Quick eye-fucking Hazel and pay attention! Huntington is like, two weeks away.”

Your cheeks flamed a bright red as you sunk into yourself, shoulders curling in. God, you wanted a chance at PJ in that ring to strangle the fuck out of her for that. Your eyes quickly cut over to where Hazel stood — her own cheeks dusted with light pink as she avoided your gaze.

Great, now she probably wouldn’t talk to you at all. Fuck PJ and her obnoxious, loud mouth. Your embarrassment was not short lived as the fight club went on. You couldn’t look in Hazel’s direction at all as you waited out the meeting until its end so you could retreat with your tail between your legs and never show your face in this gym again.

It was as you shouldered your backpack, heart still racing, stomach still uneasy with embarrassment that you heard someone clear their throat behind you. You turned, eyes going wide as you were face to face with Hazel. Your eyes trailed down to a bundle of fabric in her hands.

“Sorry it took so long, but uh, I got the blood out.” She held out what turned out to be your cardigan. The cardigan that you’d leant her two weeks ago when you’d punched her too hard.

“Um, you didn’t have to do that.” You said, offering a sheepish smile as she held out the cardigan. You gingerly took it, eyes locked on Hazel’s face. As you grabbed it, you swore you could feel a spark when your fingers brushed against hers. A fucking spark — cliche but true.

It was silent between you two for a moment before Hazel shook her head, jutting her thumb over her shoulder. “Sorry about PJ. Things kind of come out of her mouth without her brain processing first.”

Yikes, Hazel meant the ‘eye-fucking’ comment. You offered a small, horribly obvious chuckle. “Yeah, I kinda noticed.”

There was another long stretch of silence between you and Hazel, your lips pulled to the side as you held the folded — she’d fucking folded it, Jesus she was adorable — cardigan in your hands. It was strange, but not too uncomfortable. Like that stupid thing from Pulp Fiction, the right person is someone that silence isn’t awkward with.

“I wasn’t eye-fucking you.” You blurted. Great, you made it awkward again. A small groan fell from your lips, head dropping as you closed your eyes with a frown. You shook your head. “Sorry, I dunno what’s wrong with me today.”

“PJ’s just jealous.” Hazel offered with a small laugh. How could one solidarity laugh sound so beautiful?

“Of what?” You asked gingerly, looking up to meet her eyes. For some reason, you were weary of her answer.

“That you aren’t giving her attention. Besides, I don’t think she’d know what to do with your attention anyway, you’re so pretty.” She said it not as an insult to PJ — or at least it didn’t sound like it — but more as an obvious fact. And you were stunned because Hazel had just called you pretty.

You were at a loss. A true loss. How the hell were you supposed to respond to that? So, like an idiot, you just stared at her blankly, eyes confused and wide.

Her own eyes went wide, brows furrowed as a worried look crossed her features. “Shit, was that too much? Too much. Fuck.” Her voice lowered as she cursed, brows knit together.

“No! Not too much, I just… I just didn’t think you thought I was pretty too.” You shrugged, quick to correct her. Quick to reassure that you were flattered and not weirded out.

“I mean yeah, of course I do.” Hazel nodded, her voice soft, words intentional like her statement was an obvious fact.

A smile spread across your face, cheeks warm again. You weren’t sure why, but you suddenly felt so much about Hazel. You’d never had a crush on a girl before. It was new and strange, but you definitely thought this was a crush.

“Thanks.” You whispered, eyes darting down to the cardigan in your hands for a moment before going back to looking up at Hazel. “For the compliment, and bringing back my cardigan. You didn’t have to wash it.”

“It’s fine, I wanted to. It’s a nice cardigan.” Hazel shrugged. It seemed she was at a loss for what to say around you too.

The gym was near empty by now — Josie and PJ chattering away in the far corner, and Isabel and Brittany waiting for you (but not paying attention to anyone but themselves) by the gym doors a few feet away.

So, due to the empty state of the gym and the disgustingly thick tension between you and Hazel, you stepped forward, pressing a quick and gentle kiss to her cheek.

This took the girl by surprise. Her eyes went wide as your lips pressed to her soft cheek. You leaned back, her brows creased as she watched you.

“Thanks,” you said again, with a shrug. Letting her know that was your way of thanking her. Small, but meaningful to you.

It was a long moment that you stood there, Hazel staring at you with wide eyes. For a couple of long seconds, you thought you’d fucked up. Misread the situation, mistook the tension for something else. But, you were proven wrong as she leaned forward, closing the distance between you by pressing her mouth to yours.

“You’re welcome.” She murmured as she leaned back, your eyes wide now from processing that Hazel had just kissed. That you’d just had your first girl-kiss. Fucking scary, but nice. You liked it. Liked her.

“I’ve never done that.” You whispered, blinking rapidly to ground yourself. “With, with a girl, I mean.” You corrected yourself almost instantly.

You’d kissed a guy or two before. Sadly, your first ever kiss was Tim at the ninth grade freshman dance. He was a bad kisser and you hated it. But, you liked how Hazel kissed. Despite it being a quick peck, it was full of intention and it was gentle too.

Hazel shrugged, a small half smile forming on her lips. “Maybe I can give you lessons.”

You grinned, laughing a little as you nodded, backing away toward the gym doors, needing to escape before you said anything else stupid. “Yeah, that’d be nice. I’ll send you my address.”

“Okay,” Hazel nodded, grinning widely to herself as you mentioned her coming over.

You almost skipped as you walked out of the gym, trailing behind Isabel and Brittany as the girls chittered away, the prospect that Hazel would be giving you fucking kissing lessons. You held the bundle of fabric close to your chest as you walked to your car. And it was then you noticed it smelled like Hazel. The detergent, obviously. But, there was something else that was just Hazel. And you never wanted it to go away. Maybe, you could wear it while she gave you kissing lessons that night.

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