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hoardlikegoldenirises · 1 year ago

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more self-indulgence!!

one part headcanons one part this is just how they are in my AU probably—uh... watching a parade? idk actually. i just. drew them.

because... i felt like it.... there are still missing characters because spider-man has five million supporting characters which is truly both a blessing and a curse (also like, i didn't include any foes or villains lmao but rest assured at least two of peter's rogues are queer...)

i decided this is like 2019 or something for?? no real reason other than i guess a lot of the adults finally being out or whatever... idk... that would make peter and his friends around 30-32 on average (well no felicia would be like 34) so still youngish but also definitely Adults™...

the kids are meant to be late teens early 20s but drawing that very specific age group is like, way difficult... also all the youths are short compared to peter's friend group of exclusively 5'9" to 6' people XD (well gwen and harry are shorter so i guess it's fine XD)

some of these are more firm than others. like. should randy be straight? i dunno. is aunt may straight or are all the alive parkers bisexual lmao? idk. what about literally all of the teenagers except andi? i have no clue and a lot of the stuff with them is waaaay later and I am not anywhere close to, so i just put them all in rainbows cause why not! but i do think janine is a token heterosexual in this instance lmao—see, not ALL of my AU versions of characters are queer, just most of them

also i'm going to put a few close-ups/crops below the cut just because it's hard to see them in the lineup without zooming in or w/e

obviously felicia and peter are bisexual and flash is... probably also bi? but i'm really still not sure... but she is trans :) and they're probably poly together but even after writing man-spider i'm genuinely... not actually sure if felicia is peter and flash's girlfriend or not 😂 they've got SOMETHING going on with the three of them but what it is, idk... i think peter is definitely polyamorous regardless, it's just a question of whether their relationship is or not.

red and blue hearts on peter's cheek technically poly but double as spider-man LMAO—plus earplugs cause pride is loud…

obviously felicia's also into leather and bdsm and stuff (and so is peter...) so i included some little hints of that... but didn't bother including any of the kink flags cause there's only so much i can fit tbh a collar works well enough.

i made his tie teal satin because of the teal ribbon for sexual assault awareness. but just a hint, cause i don't think he would be comfortable being public about that. he's out and proud as a bi jewish dude with a trans wife but he's really not out about being a survivor to anyone except a few very close and trusted friends/family. similar for kaine. so a teal necktie is just something for him. he's been through a lot in his life but he's happy 🙂

anyway i think i made flash's hair shorter than it's supposed to be here but it's fine, maybe she got a trim or something

supportive aunts!! i already established like 3 years ago or something in some offhand line that MJ's aunt is an Eccentric Lesbian (huh wonder where she got that from—) so i'm sticking with the lesbian spinster aunt there. I don't know about Aunt May though. I always kind of waffled there on whether she's like straight, or bi... cause I like the thought of old ladies in love. I think maybe they have some kind of queerplatonic thing going on or something... either way she is proud of her boy :>

MJ I never know so I just go with the umbrella—she's Queer. What kind? Gender? Sexuality? Yes, (relatable)

What matters is that she is always Glamorous.

i don't have any deep reason for making Glory bi, i just thought it would be fun, and also cause I like Glory/MJ... they are so fun... they compliment each other so much... I know that can be a just straight gal pals thing but listen, i like it

Gwen is the lesbian who's a teeny tiny bit bisexual but mostly into women. Also: not dead. lmao.

Harry is 100% gay (and divorced) but I still don't know when/if he ever comes out. Liz will def be out as a lesbian by the late 20-teens though cause I think she starts exploring her sexuality w/in 3-4 years after she and harry get divorced... also cause i thought it would be funny if liz and lily (who i did not draw) hooked up LOL

i didn't draw the babies because i ran out of steam for that but they would be... what... i think normie might actually be in like 5th grade or something at this point now that i think about it... stanley would be like... 5 though

Hobie is bisexual almost entirely because when I read the newspaper strip and the prowler showed up, he and Peter were giving me Flirtation Vibes so he is bi, and also punk because I enjoy the aesthetic Spider-Punk has going on, so even though that's not going to be a thing in this universe, I still like to make some little nods to it. also it just feels like a fun combo. he's a kind of alt guy, he's not very straight, he's not very normal, he's had issues in his life trying to figure out who he wants to be... it feels like it just fits well... i like it

he gets MORE punk AFTER college and shaves half his head etc. (instead of having his twist-out), which is funny to me but you know, it takes time to figure shit out sometimes... i didn't draw his girlfriend Mindy (wife? idk if/when they get married in this AU...) cause like i said, omg, so many people to draw... also idk if she's like, straight or what. probably? there's gotta be SOME straight people XD how does she feel about hobie's fro-hawk...? hmm

ah, cain and abel ben (and janine)

Ben is bisexual... like Peter. They both prefer women to some extent, but they have slightly different tastes (...well maybe not SO different) and Ben is more uh, subby? LOL—at least with Janine. Switchy. Unlike Peter, Ben has/had? a crush on Robbie LMAO but that's more of a like, mentor/mentee admiration kind of thing... not like a "i wanna make out with you" situation. Robbie is far too old for him. and also happily married.

In my notes I have that Ben was ofc also abused by Warren but a lot of his was medical and psychological (some physical as well), but... i would think there is an undercurrent of medical sexual abuse there nonetheless esp as much of this w/ warren hinges on sexual power dynamics and control, but i won't get into that here as it's partly still being developed and I don't want to get TOO heavy on this post lol

Kaine is, like I mentioned, a little complex and i'm not 100% sure about (also aracely painted his nails) I think that he's ~bi/pan in general? but maybe not? could be only into men? or not into anyone at all. but the thing about Kaine in this universe is that he's got a difficult relationship with sex and sexuality because of what he was put through by Warren, so while I don't necessarily think he's asexual I do think in this universe he's a little bit sex-averse or sex-repulsed and has a difficult time dealing with that stuff. He also just really desperately wants to be loved and he doesn't care who as long as it's someone, which is toxic in a lot of ways i think... being around Aracely would imo help him a lot in coming to terms with having like, normal, platonic, non-sexual, non-romantic, healthy (or at least healthier) interpersonal relationships, and understanding things like that... idk where he's at by 2019 though, mental health-wise... but yeah i wasn't really sure what colors or patterns to put on his clothes so i went with the dark purple and gray tones since they are the kind of common recurring colors on a lot of ace-spec flags including repulsion and related stuff.

as a sidenote as someone who has a kind of aro and ??? relationship w/ my own bisexuality etc. (idk if i consider myself ace necessarily but it's not totally irrelevant) i also don't want to like, Just Make Him Ace because trauma (but obv betty is aro at least) cause it's not that simple etc etc etc but also there absolutely are people who consider themselves asexual from trauma or for whom it's informed by trauma (though trauma would inform any aspect of interpersonal relationships, of course, and for kaine it does)... idk idk kaine is always like, much to think about for me. He's def not like... "normal" in the eyes of cishet patriarchal culturally christian society. I mean he's disabled for one thing,

ofc peter has many similar traumas esp after meeting kaine and HE'S def not asexual (though peter is also disabled)

idk idk i am always thinking about it and never quite sure. kaine has a very complex and largely negative relationship with his body.

i was also considering genetic mosaicism (46,XY/47,XXY) but i did not include any intersex colors etc. because a lot of this wasn't fully hammered out yet when i drew this. I think Kaine is probably intersex though. It's not necessarily obvious to anyone who looks at him, but it's also not something that comes as a huge surprise to him.

obvs the tiny hint of a teal ribbon is the same as for Peter, sexual assault/abuse awareness, and it's small and easily hidden. probably was given to him by someone trying to be supportive (ben and janine maybe? idk)—i mean ALL of it is from other people really. the sticker on the noise cancelling headphones? def from Aracely or someone else. his presence in the first place? dragged out of the house by a 19 year old girl. he didn't even have time to do his hair and he would rather be drinking coffee in a dark room alone :/

Anyway, Janine. Less complicated.

I decided at some point Janine is straight (but not narrow, as they say) so she gets an ally shirt lol. Like Peter and Kaine, I put her in some teal including a little ribbon bow on some satin ballet flats—obviously her history as a sexual abuse survivor etc. is very, very public in contrast to peter and kaine (and arguably ben, though i don't think he necessarily conceptualizes his abuse by warren in the same way, in part because it was very medicalized) but... it's not like she would want to draw a lot of attention to that. but i also do just like teal so i think it looks nice.

like those are just genuinely cute shoes 😂 but also it's to tie it all together.

the kids, the teens, the youths,

i really don't... feel like i know enough about them to figure out sexualities or if any genders are involved, and I'm a million years away from including them in any fics so a lot of that stuff simply has not been built out right now cause finer details aren't relevant to me yet (like. i'm in 2007 rn? miles is like... 8. lmao), so I just put them in some fun rainbow-y stuff. teens like going to pride and wearing rainbows right??? i mean i did.

i'm SURE miles and ganke have got something going on i just don't know What Exactly. nerdy friends...? nerdy boyfriends?? something else??? miles is wearing a tracksuit to hide his spider-man costume lol.

aracely is an enigma, i don't think anyone knows what's going on with her tbh. she is there to have candy thrown at her. she seems to like boys at least a little though.

i actually do know what's up with Andi cause she's actually supposed to first appear in 200...8? when she's like. 10. she is trans, and she is also why Flash was able to accept herself more and also why Flash transitioned. Flash wanted to be a good role model to help Andi feel good about herself and to not make her feel like there was something wrong with her, and then later re: transitioning, Flash saw how happy Andi was and wanted to also... be happy like that even though she was scared. and Andi herself really was (will be, idk i never know what tense to use for this stuff) helped a lot by Flash trying to self-improve, by having a supportive babysitter, and a dad who loves her, and so on and so forth... makes a big difference!

Andi and Flash are kind of intentional contrasts here in that, where Flash took until her late 20s to really fully be able to accept herself, Andi is the kid who goes on puberty blockers in high school and knew right away she wasn't what everyone said she was. (Flash had like, hints of that, but really didn't even realize until around ~19 years old and wasn't able to act on it for like... 9 years whereas Andi just really got motoring lol)

also Andi is a lesbian 💖

As far as Betty! I wasn't sure about her at first but I was chatting with Kita and I was like, thinking about her relationships and stuff and thinking, you know, she seems kinda aro... and then i was like... I can just do that. If I want. So I did. so now Betty is aromantic (at least, in my little alternate universe) and ALSO bisexual 😂 Peter's social circle is just a bunch of quirky bisexuals. bi4bi4bi

also dolled the fuck up. Betty said "overdressed? i don't know her. a pearl necklace goes with everything." (...😜)

I also am not sure about Randy (he also just has not come up yet i guess...) but I was thinking, you know, IDK, maybe he's straight as well. two whole straight people. i know he's dated a couple of girls in 616 (...i mean... so have most of the male characters lol) including like, Norah... but I'm not 100% sure what I would do there. I did end up making him a little bit of a hipster 😂 he's probably like... heteroflexible or smth... 🤔

Maybe Randy is ALSO bisexual??? or queer of some flavor.............. at least seems to KNOW about community stuff

idek what the hell is going on with these four but Robbie and JJJ sure do run a bisexual-ass newspaper (...well now that i think about it peter doesn't technically work for them anymore by 2019 but i'm sure he drops the occasional photo) (still a lot of bisexuals)

jk jk there are plenty of other employees of presumably various sexualities including straight ones AND gay ones (probably?) but like, betty, glory, ben and peter are all bi here which struck me as amusing. Two 60-something year old men supportive by way of having a bunch of homos working at their newspaper. Also because it's funny to me to have Jameson be actually very chill about The Queers. something something "you don't tell me what to do in my private life, and i don't tell you what to do in yours!"

anyway that's it. have a gay day 🌈

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