#and also gay sex onscreen

[rookisit]

how the fuck do I explain the Qsmp to my parents

Like yea I'm just going to go disappear into my room for 5-7 hours on a perfect summer day to watch my favorite white cis 34 year old Minecraft streamer take care of eggs due to the fact they made the mother leave by blowing up a wall because they have the impulse control of fucking kindergarteners and also to watch him get dragged kicking and screaming into gay role play and having to put up with the government. Oh, and did I mention that this is why I randomly started learning spanish?

The islands main goal despite the government having conflicting ideologies is communication and connection! Sure they kidnaped a few people but they are making lifelong connections between the island residents despite language barriers!

...

[larnax]

what i really like so far abt 2 is that they put in a lot more little details. the sprites still have the paper doll thing where sometimes you need to approximate an action thats too complicated to animate but way more stuff DOES have custom animations like particio pulling out a bag or throné doing the little knife flip at the end of battles, and also it seems like the protagonists you havent picked up yet have different dialogue depending on the party leader who talks to them which is great. most importantly though i really like that they have dialogue that react to each other in combat though, like giving them all lines for when specific party members do a good job or are in danger is really sweet

[youngpettyqueen]

grabbing people and going look at me. listen to me. its not "omg the Doctor is finally gay now!!" the Doctor has been queer this entire goddamn time. 9 kissed Jack on the lips in 2005. 10, 11, and 12 openly discussed being attracted to men. 11 ALSO kissed men on the lips. 13 was in love with Yasmin Khan, and openly expressed attraction to women. 14 openly expressed being attracted to a man. these are just off the top of my head I may be missing things

the point is that 15 is not the first Doctor to be openly queer and he is not the first Doctor to become romantically involved with someone of the same sex. stop believing the headlines from Disney that this is the first time the Doctor has been queer onscreen. we are NOT letting them take credit they dont deserve

[introspectivememories]

nah because crofty is genuinely insane because why would you say that about your coworker???? and to his face??? "this man knows lewis hamilton. friends, teammates, childhood buddies, rivals, everything but a lover." hello???? why are you saying that to nico rosberg's face???? why are you, as the lead f1 commentator, writing fanfiction about your coworker???? about him and his ex???? and also, what an insane thing to say about someone else's relationship!!! "everything but a lover"... just show them having gay sex onscreen, it would be less intimate than whatever the hell you just said.

[qcellbit]

i know it’s just minecraft roleplay but goddd qcellbit constantly emphasising that he’s a gay man and being proud of that while also being open about the fact that he doesn’t have sex and that doesn’t make him any less gay because love can be expressed in many ways.. obviously in an age of mass censorship and discomfort around gay sexuality this isn’t revolutionary and open onscreen gay sex is extremely important but in a character sense it is comforting to hear as someone who feels the exact same way about their sexuality. i think roier being understanding about it whilst being hypersexual himself is what makes it perfect. these are complex characters with depth to their sexualities and experiences and it makes me happy to see when it would’ve been very easy for the content creators to dance around these topics and not touch on them in any depth or with any grace. makes me feel very seen

[andy-wm]

So...Who then?

A BRIEF SYNOPSIS of WHO:

Jimin is searching for the girl he thinks is out there for him (one who he can give the world and more to). He can't understand why he hasn't found her. Who is his heart waiting for?

Clue: it's the person who literally falls into his path. This is the ONLY person for him - everyone else has walked away.

I have to confess... I didn't hear WHO as more than a generic pop song the first couple of times i listened. I was in my car driving home from work when i first listened, and then bustling around with domestic stuff as i listened a second time.

Its very unusual for me to be so casual and negligent with first listens but my head wasn't in the game. I didn't want to push it.

So I consciously put it aside until i could give it the attention it deserves.

I want to clearly state that if WHO was purely a fun and impersonal pop song i wouldn't be judging the song or Jimin for that. It's got a catchy tune and i enjoyed it, and I'm not expecting everything Jimin creates to speak to me personally.

Some things are just for fun and that's okay.

But I think there more to this song...

As with much of Jimin’s work, what seems simple on the surface is more complex when you dig a little deeper...

I watched the mv with the lyrics onscreen and my impression is forming (It's still basically a first impression though so i probably missed things)

What i notice, reading the lyrics as i listen, is that it's not the love song i first thought it was.

It's not a love song at all.

This song is all about about Jimin

and it's full of questions...

She's always on his mind, this woman he has yet to find. He thinks about her every day.

He's not telling us his standards are too high, or all the girls he likes are unavailable, or he never goes out to meet people.

He's telling us he's been searching but he hasn't even MET her yet.

Hes telling us he doesn't know why he hasn't found her.

((Why the insistence that it has to be a 'her'?

That's easy:

Anyone who was raised in a hereronormative environment is going to go through life thinking they will find love with the opposite sex. It's the default expectation. Everything in society tells us this from advertising, to entertainment, to the government. For a lot of gay or queer people, you expect that to happen. You kiss a lot of girls or boys and you expect to feel that spark (shoutout to the enbys who nobody can see).

And the spark just isnt there, so you keep looking. You search for that one individual who will make you feel the way you're *supposed* to feel.

The lyrics of this song are basically saying exactly this.

If you believe - as i do - that Jimin struggled with his identity and that he didn't recognise his love for JK as ROMANTIC love until JK started returning his affection, then it makes sense that he believed he would (or should) fall in love with a girl.

And look, he dances with ALL the girls. He has a red hot go at this. He really tries, but nothing sticks.))

Now back to the song...

He tells us that he goes out and meets a lot of people:

But he still doesn't know who she might be.

HE'S NEVER MET HER...

"We've never met" he says it twice in succession. So he hasnt even met a girl he thinks COULD be the one?

🤔

Can i take a guess?

MAYBE THERE'S A CLUE HERE:

"Who is my heart waiting for," sings Jimin as a BILLBOARD falls from the sky.

Its "crash landing on you" but figuratively, not literally.

The face on the billboard looks very familiar 🤔

And also...

KEEP GOING>> says the billboard.

When asked in an AMA what he would say to his debut self, Jimin said "You nice. Keep going."

We know how tough things were in the lead up to debut, especially for Jimin. He nearly lost his place in the group several times. And it's no secret that as a group they struggled to be taken seriously by the industry.

But wait... what else does the billboard say?

W H O

Not 'WHO?' but WHO

It's a statement, not a question.

If you're looking for a sign, this is it.

THIS IS LITERALLY A SIGN

Dont forget that this billboard/person crashes into his life - falls directly in his path - when hes alone out there.

There's nobody there but Jimin.

And for Jimin, there is nobody else

🐰🐥

ETA: Here's the next part of my response to 'WHO'. This post looks at the MV Specifically.

[theajaheira]

but really. you cannot put giles and ethan talking wistfully about doing magic in the Magic Is Gay Sex season when you have never had them have a moment of connection like that onscreen before, AND ALSO have a moment where it looks very much like ethan is telling giles he’s “really very attractive,” and expect us as a society to NOT read gay sex into that. those two had a bad breakup in the seventies and everyone who’s interacted with either of them since then has had to deal with the consequences.

[goodluckclove]

Some Loose Thoughts on Queer Rep (Specifically Aspec Rep)

(Just in advance I'm going to dunk on Alastor from Hazbin Hotel like a lil' bit, as a treat. Mainly the team that made him and what he represents, but still. If that's rage bait for you, I suggest maybe dipping out now)

I have a theory that queer media needs both queer characters and queer genre characters. The difference is very important.

I think a queer character would be a character in a story about their queerness. For some reason the only two characters I could think of are the guy from Love, Simon (What was his name again?) and the protagonist from Rubyfruit Jungle, which should express the weird and complicated relationship I have with this particular archetype.

Queer stories centered around queerness are definitely needed, but at the same time I feel like we're just starting to come to terms with the desperate need for the alternative, which are queer characters in genre media that contain overarching plots larger than their sexuality. Not separate, necessarily (Their queerness certainly influences things), but just beyond. This is more accessible for a variety of artists, which is also the reason why it can be a flop or a massive success.

We get more of this than ever for gay and sapphic characters, as well as some trans folks and occasionally non-binary. It's definitely way less seen in aspec characters, and even less respected. I started thinking this way because the internet is flooded with references to fucking Alastor from Hazbin Hotel as an aroace character and - like - god, I don't get it.

Like you can have your serial killer comfort character, that's fine. But latching onto him as representation for the entire aspec community when he was only confirmed to be aroace through a reference in a livestream and the weakest joke onscreen is pretty disheartening. It definitely reads like this part of his identity was added pretty late in his character development, and by a team of people that didn't seem to consider what the response and reaction would be and how they'd handle it.

I also wish the newest aspec icon in media wasn't created by a team so adamant on encouraging shipping culture above actually respecting the identity they've decided to provide representation for. Like I see it means a lot to people to have an aroace character doing something cool in a fun TV show that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with their identity. Then there's like four other people right behind that person who really wants that person to be romantic and fuck.

And like, yeah, aroace people can do that sometimes. It's a spectrum, I know. But can't we start with a baseline representation before providing proof of fluidity?

I just think we deserve better. Like a character who in the media is established to be aspec, and people are like "great" and move on to fight robots or do magic or whatever. And the person can be morally grey, or even a total dick, but like I'd personally prefer something with a little more depth than Hot Topic genericism.

Like don't get me wrong, I'll take some sort of eldritch horror as my representation, but...make him at all horrifying? Like everyone talks about how he has Eldritch powers, which I know to mean unfathomable and maddening. But I've seen everything he does in the canon of the show and it is both incredibly fathomable and makes me feel normal and sane. Yog-Sothoth this man is not.

But yeah, I don't think there's a solution here besides more aspec artists creating aspec characters in their work. That way people can still like Alastor if they want, but he's not like the only viable option in terms of representation in the media. Let me see lovingly-crafted cool guys and dipshits and chaos goblins and little babies and True Horrors, all of whom have varying degrees of distaste or indifference towards sex and romance.

Do it. We need it. Please.

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Barbara Stanwyck (Ball of Fire, The Lady Eve, Double Indemnity)—I hope someone else has submitted better propaganda than I because I don't want my girl's prospects to rest on me just yelling PLEASE VOTE FOR MY TERRIBLE HOT GIRLFRIEND. She is a delight in everything! She is often a sexy jerk! (It's most of the plot of Baby Face!) Even when she plays a "good girl" (as an example, Christmas in Connecticut, which more people should see) she's still kind of a jerk and I love her for it! She won't take men's shit and she sure wouldn't take mine!

Margaret Lockwood (The Wicked Lady, The Lady Vanishes)— Gorgeous feisty funny talented and the sexiest stubborn face ever committed to film. And if people haven't seen the original Wicked Lady they need to be introduced to a glorious poly highway romp of a film. When a woman outsneers James Mason you know she has sex appeal!

This is round 2 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Margaret Lockwood:

Barbara Stanwyck:

"THE leading lady of the golden age of hollywood. One of the only actresses to work independent of a studio, making short-term contracts that enabled her to make movies wherever she wanted. She had so much range, and could act in basically any genre. She's been rumored to be a lesbian literally since she was active in Hollywood; most notable is the rumor that she had a long time on-and-off relationship with famously bi Joan Crawford, her "best friend" for decades (They lived right next door to one another). She also lived with Helen Ferguson, her "live-in publicist" for many years. She was the quintessential femme fatale in Double Indemnity, and really pushed sexual boundaries in her pre-code films like Baby Face, and the famous screwball The Lady Eve, where she plays basically a downlow domme. Allegedly, when a journalist asked her if she was a lesbian, she straight up threw him out of her house. She even played a lesbian in Walk on the Wild Side"

"THE queen of screwball comedies. I adore her, I'd kill for her, I will cry if she's not gonna win this poll."

"listen ok she had awful politics she was a mccarthyist right wing wacko BUT she's so incredibly hot that i've deluded myself into believing i could fix her. if you see her onscreen she carries herself in a way that's just so effortlessly sexy AND she has just a stunning face. imo she was at her hottest in the 1940s but even as early as the late 1920s she had a rly captivating screen presence and just a beautiful face, and then post-1950 she was just irresistibly milfy so really she was just always incredibly hot. she was also an incredibly talented actress who was equally stellar in melodrama, film noir, and unhinged screwball comedy. the blonde wig they made her wear in double indemnity is notoriously silly looking but she still looks sexy in it so that's gotta count for something. i've watched so many terrible movies just for a chance at seeing her that i think her estate should be paying me damages."

"Not often thought of for her sultriness, Barbara Stanwyck was incredible in that she could actually choose to be hot if the role called for it, and then have a glow-down to look ordinary for another role. She wasn't the most beautiful or effervescent, but damn did she have rizz. Watch her with Gary Cooper in Ball of Fire teaching him about "yum-yum" or with Henry Fonda in The Lady Eve whispering huskily into his ear."

"She is always the smartest woman in the room. Watching her play Henry Fonda like a befuddled fiddle in The Lady Eve was a highlight of my life. Femme fatale in Double Indemnity, comedy queen in Ball of Fire. She can do anything."

"She was part of my gay awakening"

"SHE'S A PRE-CODE QUEEN. She did everything, drama, comedy. The most beautiful woman in the world to watch weep. Beg for to step on you with those legs. Fun Babs story: Ginger Rogers was offered the role in Ball of Fire but said, “Oh, I would never play that part, she’s too common.” So they called Barbara Stanwyck and they said “We offered this to Ginger Rogers but she’s turned it down, would you be interested?” And she read the script and she said; “You bet! I LOVE playing common broads. [link]"

[olderthannetfic]

The issue isn't just "there are less female characters and characters of color to begin with, there's usually only one for every cast of four or five cishet white men," but also that even in media that makes an effort to be diverse, the fact that people are so desperate to avoid stereotypes inadvertently means that the cishet white male characters end up being the most human and interesting because they're allowed to be in ways minority characters aren't. I don't want to accuse anyone of "inserting politics into fiction," that's not necessarily what my issue is, but it's frequently very obvious when a creator is so obsessed with avoiding stereotypes that it hinders their ability to actually write convincingly human characters. It feels like the characters exist just to be subversive and earn brownie points. And you can never win! You write an Asian woman that's not interested in sex? You're infantilising her. You write an Asian woman that's flirtatious? Fetishising her. You write a black woman that's cold? Mean black woman trope. You write a black woman that's warm? Mammy trope. You write a gay man that's not interested in romance? You have to depict gay romance onscreen for it to "count." You write a gay character that's flirtatious? You're just depicting him as a cock-obsessed maniac. You write a minority character with a good life? You're santitising oppression. You write a minority character with a bad life? That's trauma porn. There might well be people out there that say "there are no compelling female characters or characters of color" because they inherently don't find women or people of color interesting and that's their issue. But when I'm presented with media with an actually diverse cast of characters, where there are lots of characters of many different genders, races and sexualities written in different and interesting ways like Borderlands, a lot of my favorite characters end up being women and people of color! Surprise!

--

And even the media that's doing a bit better will often reserve certain roles like the funny geek for the white guys. (Boo!)

There's media that doesn't fall into this trap, but it's common enough to have an unfortunate effect in aggregate.

[badass-queer-couples-battle]

Gay wrongs tournament, round 2 of the losers bracket

Propaganda:

For Vegas and Pete:

Evil babygirl & stealthily evil babyboy. Vegas, known committer of atrocities, and Pete, who didn't rise up the ranks of being a mafia bodyguard for nothing. Never forget how Pete brutally shot and killed his coworker who dared to shoot Vegas in front of him.

I mean. They both kill people all the time. They even have evil gay BDSM sex. It's all right there.

it's plainly obvious to anyone even looking in their direction how murder husbands they are. both have canonically killed multiple people, often on screen. Not to mention the onscreen scene of Vegas literally torturing someone. 

For Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu:

you've got the founder of the fantasy ancient Chinese CIA and the leader of what is essentially the mafia and then they're soulmates and in love. they're both willing to kill anyone who dares hurt the other while also just wanting a soft domestic life together

Zhou Zishu is an assassin and spymaster who put the current Emperor on the throne, and then quit his job by faking his death (kinda, hes still dying but not as fast as he was supposed to). Had done A Lot on his old job, including murdering children (more than one, and at least one of them in a way I can't even describe without several trigger warnings), exterminating whole families, war crimes (and i dont mean this in a buzzword way, i mean "organized a public execution of foreign diplomats during war time")… btw he doesn't feel particularly bad about any of this, because he believes it was necessary. Like he wouldn't do it for fun, but he thinks the ends (putting a good Emperor on the throne) justified the means (all of the atrocities). As a retiree, he definitely cut down on the amount of morally reprehensible murder, but not murder in general. He still routinely kills ppl, he just doesn't go out of his way to kill more. Wen Kexing, meanwhile, is the Ghost Valley Master - Ghost Valley being a place where the worst of criminals are exiled. Even in such a place, he has reputation as a complete lunatic, owed partially to the fact that he either skinned a man or fed him his own flesh or both at one point, and partially to him having a rule where he would kill anyone who came closer than 3 meters to him. But in truth, everything he'd done was to survive the Ghost Valley and eventually take revenge for his parents, who were brutally murdered when he was only nine. By the start of the novel's timeline, he put his plan in motion - the plan that would drown jianghu in blood, but also deliver poetic justice to all responsible for his parents' deaths, as well as all who'd commit the same crime given the chance. And these two men, these two murderers and schemers, meet - and unexpectedly, find in each other the person who /understands/. The person who is just as ruthless and whose hands are just as bloody, but also the person who knows standing at the top of the world is not worth it, who seeks the same freedom of leaving it all behind, and who is still, underneath it all, a human, with human heart seeking connection. So you have this couple who understand each other with barely a word, and who want the same things - who are so hungry for domesticity and for people they can just goof around with when all their lives they had to measure every step and word - but ALSO where one half a couple is like "i gotta go murder hundreds in revenge" and the other half is like "ok pick you up at 6". (This btw is why I'm submitting novel's iteration of the couple in particular. Show wenzhou with their ridiculous breakups over morality could Never.) Also they were both hiding who they are when they first met, and later flirted about having figured each other out. Finally, I'll leave you my favorite quote that just. perfectly sums up their relationship: "And just like that, they fell asleep in each other's arms, steeped in the smell of blood."

You’ve probably already had submissions for them but I’ll add on. One of them founded an assassin’s guild and killed a staggering number of people. His malewife is the leader of a sect of insane murderous outcasts, and he attained his position by proving to be the most crazy and murder happy of them all. Most of the plot involves him wandering around watching his schemes get more people killed. Together they adopt a kid that was only orphaned due to said scheming (oops). They’re terrible and I love them.

[valtsv]

what's the terror about? i'm really into like, arctic explorations and their fuck ups, but i have a feeling the terror might have different kinds of fuck ups than i'm used to (say, i don't know, gay sex with the group gone wrong, instead of incompetent people driving into ice and then eating each other)? not that i'm complaining. just want to be prepared (went into hannibal thinking it was hannibal but he had gay sex and left shocked that they didn't have gay sex).

so there's actually no onscreen gay sex in the terror unfortunately (although there is canonical gay sex and some implied relations of the homosexual nature). it's much more that it's a character and relationship-driven survival horror (with elements of period drama and high adventure story), allowing a lot of room for fans to get creative with how they read the nuances of the actors' performances and the unspoken and unseen things between the lines and scenes (which, on the gay sex website, has exactly the results you'd expect). both multiple cast members and the show writers have also expressed that it's a story, among other things, about love and humanity and how they contend with and rise to the situation in the face of truly dire circumstances and horrific loss and suffering, which i can confirm makes for an incredibly moving and profound watching experience. and if you want some gay sex to supplement that there's plenty of fanfiction (which i can honestly recommend, this show brings out some brilliant writing in just about everyone) sfdgjkl.

[moltengoldveins]

alright before I look at the tumblr tag for top gun 1984 or 1986 or whatever I can’t remember lemme take a wild flipping guess as to what tumblr thinks of the movie. Alright. Guess taken.

Now, I’ll just check the tag aaaaaaand- yep it’s all ice x mav content. so glad we all saw that completely unsubtle full-body scan up and down. When in the movie did that happen you ask? Uh. Like every time they’re both on screen I’m sorry men are allowed to be aggressive and competitive and also friends but not those men. Those men made me shift uncomfortably in front of my conservative parents. Those men made me more scandalized than the actual sex scene. Those men were 👌 this close to aggressively making out onscreen and when I brought it up literally all my parents said was “well men don’t act like men anymore no wonder you think it’s gay” my parents in Christ they were staring at each others lips. Their faces were within four inches of one another that is not enough room for Jesus. If men used to act Like That in public I think we may have as a society actually gotten straighter. What the heck. (also the emotional core of the movie re: Mav’s and Goose’s relationship was amazing 10/10 loved that entire arc I did enjoy the movie but Dang. I had to get that off my chest somewhere where I knew people would get it-)

Edit: I didn’t even mention The Bite TM. What the hell. I brought it up and all mum said was “well you’re not supposed to like him during that scene, of course it makes you uncomfortable.” Mum it’s not making anyone uncomfortable but you. Everyone else is checking their blood pressure. If it weren’t for my parents’ insistence that this movie was straight I’d have absolutely no idea how this movie got past censors. The power of denial is incredible.

[eddiediazismyhusband]

i think some people get so lost in this idea of eddie being this loner loser type that they don’t realize that eddie diaz does in fact have game— he just doesn’t want to

like this man has had women flirting with him COUNTLESS times yet he always brushes it off/ignores it bc he’s not interested

just bc his three serious relationships have failed due to his inability to commit to them over his husband doesn’t mean that he couldn’t go out and pick up people if he wanted to…. again, he just doesn’t want to.

we also have to take into account that ana and marisol both stayed with this man FARRRRR too long for him to not have any bedroom skills

like that man treated both of them like glorified babysitters yet they both stayed with him and actively chose to be w him/were upset when the relationship ended…. you cannot tell me that their bedroom activities were not clouding their judgement there.

eddie canonically is a crippling people pleaser due to his desire to please his family…. he quite literally gets off to pleasing people in bed which is why he probably hasn’t realized he’s gay; he thinks that he has a duty to please his partners, and take no pleasure for himself (although his pleasure comes from giving pleasure) so the fact that he ‘seems’ satisfied in these relationships is clouding his judgement of what he actually wants bc he thinks he doesn’t deserve what he wants (and also comphet pressuring him into thinking that what he wants is wrong but that’s another topic)

to say he’s bad in bed bc he’s “solely focused on the pleasure of his partners” is just blatantly incorrect…. whether he’s good in bed or not is objectively about whether he leaves his partners satisfied, which we know CANONICALLY he does…. im not saying he’s a fucking freak in the sheets who’s the best they’ve ever had, but you can’t negate the fact that there is evidence within the plot that people find eddie very attractive, and that the few times he’s been with someone onscreen (in this case shannon and marisol since we never saw anything of the sort onscreen between eddie and ana), they have canonically been very satisfied and pleased with eddie’s prowess to the point where shannon came back to him solely for sex, and eddie was having to run and hide from marisol to avoid having sex.

this man canonically fucks, and getting into the psyche of his own sexuality/pleasure isn’t the point here- the point is that objectively in canon eddie is found to be very attractive, snd has left his partners very satisfied, so because of that you can’t say he’s objectively bad in bed or that he has no game.

bc again: just bc he doesn’t accept the advances doesn’t mean the advances aren’t there.

(also this idea that eddie has zero friends when he quite literally plays poker w a bunch of the lafd outside of work ASIDE from the 118 and has also been shown to be friendly with multiple parents from chris’s school…. i understand that we love to hc eddie as this loner boy w no friends, but objectively he has a lot of friends in his life, he just choses to trust his 118 family the most— that doesn’t negate his other friendships though.)

anyway, i just think s lot of people don’t quite get the point of an object question; when you try to start expounding on the fact that eddie subconsciously isn’t deriving pleasure from sex as proof that he has no game and is bad in bed when onscreen we’ve seen that sex leaves both him and his partners satisfied as well as people flirting w him left and right your argument is teetering more into headcanon territory rather than what we’ve actually been shown— headcanon is one thing in fics but as far as what we’ve seen, eddie canonically IS the sexy macho guy he tries to be— even if he subconsciously wishes he could be that for buck.

(again, don’t take this as a personal attack if you disagree: i just think we as a fandom have a tendency to ignore objectivity at times for questions like that poll and there are some moments where digging deeper than surface level either isn’t required, or delves too far into nuance that you start to negate the entire reason the question was asked to begin with which was asked objectively)

[gingerylangylang1979]

Sydney, Love, Beauty

I don’t know if many others noticed but Syd seems to have glammed up a little in the later episodes of S2. It’s very slight, you would almost miss it but it’s there. She has on shiny sheer lip color (yes, her lips always looked so dry last season, thank you), a sliver of eyeliner, and a touch of mascara. I also noticed her lighting is much improved showing off her perfect skin.

Syd has always been attractive but it just really stuck out to me that after the arrival of Claire she’s looking just a tad more dolled up. Is it connected? Did the makeup artist just decide to experiment more? Will we see more changes in the future?

As a black woman I’m obviously going to analyze this more. Black women are always going to notice how we are portrayed onscreen aesthetically. I remember being so pissed, along with much of the black TWD fandom, about how wamp, wamp Michonne’s wigs were. Were we being reasonable? Would any of us have amazingly groomed dreads during a zombie apocalypse? It wasn’t like the white women had fresh blowouts. Was it on purpose or an oversight?

Back to Syd. They could keep Syd looking the same. They could change her to look more glam. Either choice has implications.

A lot of people read Sydney’s style as signaling that she’s a lesbian. That could make sense. Plenty of lesbians style themselves like Syd. But it could also mean nothing. I have two black women friends that dress very tomboyish and both are very straight. They are like sisters to me. I could testify in court they love dick. But especially for black women any sign of non feminine coded style signals gay. I think this feeds into people having a hard time seeing Syd as interested in men or having the show’s sex symbol attracted to her. She could turn out to be gay but I doubt it given the slow burn with Carmy. She could be bisexual which leaves possibilities open. But I think it’s very interesting that the production choices didn’t decide to make Syd a girlie girl when the writing is making her an object of men’s affections. Part of me is really into that.

On the other hand part of me would love to see her have a glam moment. But this could be potentially problematic. Syd has style but also seems to dress for practicality. So if she is consciously making an effort to look more feminine where is it coming from? Is she just growing into a new look? Is she trying to catch Carmy’s eye? Are the producers consciously trying to make her more appealing to the general audience as a romantic lead?

Personally, I would love to see Syd switch it up a little but not go too far. I would love her to have a more modern hairstyle. Box braids are classic but I want to see a more sophisticated, trendy style. Someone posted about her getting knotless boho braids or passion twists. I’m into it. I just feel like Syd is up on design and I want to see her step her game up as her career rises. I don’t mind the little bit of makeup we saw and would love to see a slightly bolder look if she has someplace to go that’s not a restaurant. On that note, can we please see her somewhere that’s not food related? I also wouldn’t mind seeing her in some lighter colors in her street wear. Her wardrobe was so dark this season.

What I don’t want to see is her doing like a full extreme makeover and that’s the thing that seems to be the catalyst for Carmy to realize he loves her. I feel like that’s fine in some white girl Cinderella story but leaves me cold in a black woman’s love story. And if they do a silk press and that’s her glow up I would be super pissed. I’m not anti her ever having straight hair but if it’s like oh, now the white boy falls for her I will ride at dawn to FX.

I wonder what Sydney’s perceptions of her looks are. She seems confident in so many ways. But, yeah, why did she decide to randomly have a glossy lip? Does she view herself as pretty? Has she dated? Has she been told she’s beautiful?

I’m rambling but my point is she can glow up a bit but I never want the messaging to be she had to “get pretty” to get the guy. If she makes changes I want it to be because she’s evolving, maybe a little flirty, but not thinking she has to be a different person to get who she wants.

[graendoll]

I'm almost through season 6 of the queer EMT show and I have a couple of thoughts I really need to get off my chest.

Before I dive in I want to share an observation. It feels like there are two tiers of main ensemble cast and I'm basing this on the character development of each of them. Tier 1 feels like its Bobby, Buck and Maddie who have gone through the most dramatic character arcs, while tier 2 is Athena, Hen, and Eddie. I can't decide which group Chim is in tbh and this is hardly scientific so...

The point of all that is that everything else I'm going to say is based off my observation that Buck is more fleshed out and developed as a character than Eddie.

So now to the point!

First, Buck absolutely adores Eddie. Like is definitely 100% in love with the man. I'm only on episode 14 of season 6 so I haven't even gotten to the onscreen bi realization or the coming out scene outside of gifs on this here hell site. But currently, the way Buck looks at Eddie is so fucking heart eyed its ridiculous.

The hysteria when Eddie is in danger - the screaming at the mudslide, the absolute hard reboot at the shooting? Buck is completely beside himself at the idea of losing Eddie. He literally cries on Christopher's shoulder at the thought of losing him and Chris losing his dad.

This is not standard BFF behavior, I'm sorry.

And don't even get me started on the couch metaphor...I have too much to say about that to include it here.

But what I do want to talk about is the coma episode. Because I feel like that episode was a purposeful "no-homo" episode and here's why:

Buck is in an alternate universe and runs to Hen and Chim, sees Maddie and Bobby. But Eddie is literally just referenced once as "the angry guy" and his contribution to the entire episode is to bring Christopher to see Buck while hes unconscious. Which is weird!

Yes, Eddie rescued Buck and yes he tells the medical team to do better than their best, but compared to Buck literally hauling Eddie's limp body into an ambulance? It's a pretty vanilla response.

And then he doesn't show up in alternate Bucks reality. This is, i believe, one part writers trying to no homo the thing and one part writers implying that Eddie and Chris are a replacement for Bucks "real family" which undermines the entire guardian arc in a very weird way. So it definitely seems, during s6 at least, that Buddie was flat out not happening (again...I'm on e14 only).

So if Buck is in love with Eddie through narrative and acting choices (based on recent PR from Oliver S implying hes lowkey played Buck queer) where is Eddie at? What gives?

I'll tell you what gives.

Eddie is the most repressed motherfucker on the planet. Eddie goes to a call involving a vibrator getting stuck in a woman and he barely clocks that's what's happening.

This man has only had missionary sex for the purpose of baby making and it shows. I have definitely HC'd that Eddie is demi but he's also just locked down so tight. No wonder he spent a whole season beating the crap out of random strangers in illegal fights!

So, what's my point?

My POINT is this. Eddie may be queer underneath all that repression, but he has no idea. None. Zero. Zip. Eddie thinks he can't find a wife and mother for Christopher because he's BROKEN, not because he's maybe just not that into women.

And yes, Buck coming out might give him a clue. Tommy being gay might show him something he hasn't really seen in terms of what a gay man looks like. But that Catholic guilt ridden man has a LONG way to go before he will confess to the fact that he wifed up his bisexual BFF because of non-platonic reasons.

We'll see how the story pans out. But anyone who thinks season 7 is going to end in a Buddie romance is likely incredibly wrong. I mean I haven't seen the episodes yet. So give me a week. But it seems unlikely. Eddie's character is in a very different place than Buck.

Doesn't mean these two don't live together in marital bliss rent free in my head though 😜