#especially as a young queer person me and my friends thought it was truly us against the world and for a large part it was

[thecanyon]

I know everyone focuses on the queer lyrics in burn bright (as they should) but it’s also the most clear and lyrically stripped down song Gerard ever wrote about how he felt about being the frontman of my chemical romance and when I remember that I’m honestly gagged.

the cameras feel like a chemical burn

obviously this is about how he’s sick of touring but also implies his sense of self is so deeply tied to being a person who others can find hope in, AND that without this role he becomes a hopeless cause himself.

which is reiterated here and I think foreshadows the total collapse he experienced once MCR was over

And “I took the pills for these empty nights/cause it makes me who I am” is another allusion to his substance use to cope with mental illness and how that became tied to his identity in the early days of MCR

And this is where it ends, the line that gags me the most, which I can only interpret as a moment where the martyrdom mask slips and shows how he really feels about the toll the band has taken on him. It sounds like a warning to everyone, but especially people who idolize him despite his openness about how devastating his career is for his personal wellbeing. there’s barely even a metaphor in this one he’s just going straight out with it and it’s so brutal

[cowboyjen68]

Dear Jen--

I'm writing to ask you if you ever felt pressure to be a "good butch" or a "good masc". If there was a ever a time when you felt there was one specific way to present yourself, how did you go against that? I'm a stone butch, I'm sensitive and kind and I know that all of these things have to exist within me at the same time so I can be myself, but sometimes I feel like I'm not being a butch the "right way". I know there isn't one way to be anything, especially queer, but I never got any advice when I was young, any consolation when I realized I was a lesbian and was too scared to accept it. I never had an "elder" to guide me. At least no one like you. I hope you've been enjoying your spring.

When I first heard the word “butch” I was intrigued because so many of the traits fit me. Being mistaken for “not a woman”, being told “you should have been a boy” and how I related to women was a shared thread from the bits and pieces of stories I heard from older butches.

I was handed a copy of Stone Butch Blues while camping at a  women’s festival and it made me sad rather than comforted. I thought perhaps I could not be butch because I just did not relate to Leslie, (the book is NOT an exact autobiography but is often mistaken as such).   I had not experienced much of the trauma nor the harshness in life Leslie dealt with, both in real life and the character in the book. 

It was another year before someone, besides my girlfriend, referred to me as butch. Having a stranger call me that truly changed how I saw myself. All my friends were like “yeah.. Duh”.    I was told by one elder butch 20 years my senior that SBB is the story of ONE butch, not the story of ALL butches. That helped me understand we are not all the same in all ways. We share certain experiences and those differ based on location, upbringing and, most importantly, our personalities. We are as varied as any part of the lesbian (and human) population. At that point I really started to embrace being butch and using that part of my lesbian story to inform my life, to do what made me happy and not what I was “supposed to do” as directed by my culture or even by other lesbians who were not butch. 

I am so glad you reached out. It makes me sad that so many young butches do not benefit from the real life community of lesbians and butches who have live through and been where you are right now. I want you to know, you are not alone and we understand. I understand. What you are feeling is not unusual for butches. You are not bound to reach some “standard” of butchness.  There is no scale, except for fun and to sort of bond over the humor of our shared stories. 

You can be masculine and mistaken for a man, and called “unapproachable:” or perceived as rough or scary or told you are not “like other women” but the fact is you are like many other women and you are allowed to have your own personality. YOU are allowed to be  Quiet, soft, gentle, vulnerable or outgoing, loud and funny or any mix of these and you can still be butch. 

I have been told I am too short and happy to be butch. Neither of those things informs my butchness but I had to learn that through the guidance of butches. 

You are great just the way you are. 

[lizardboy66]

im deeply bored so here are all of my gay 911 thoughts for your entertainment.

OKAY SO

Idk about 911 being queerbait guys...i dont think it ever was. I think we have entered a new era of fanservice. Usually with queerbait, the creators and people involved in the show are quite vicious to shippers and queer fans generally, and any easter egg or "moment" feels like crumbs to keep us hooked enough.

911 acknowledged the shipping very very early. Like second half of season 2, and there has never ONCE been a joke at the expense of the concept of being gay, or about buck or eddie being queer. It was simply a nod, like "hey, we get it, you want it, thats all good."

Its not 2010 anymore, gay people are accepted and visible in a way that has never been a reality in the past. In fact, gay people, especially gay men, have come to be understood as a fantastic marketing tool.

This is where i get jaded and cynical, but listen the outcome is the same so stick with me here. Gay pairings and relationships = money is not a groundbreaking concept. It's why they did queerbait. But with stuff like supernatural, it seemed like a far greater risk to make the repressed men kiss than to piss of the queer fanbase. But times have changed. But since the age of queerbait, there has been a rise in gay romance content being made, and being made FOR the fangirls, boys and theys. Think Red, White and Royal Blue, or Heartstopper, or Young Royals, or Our Flag Means Death, or Good Omens. Gay isn't a risk anymore, its a marketing category with a level of guaranteed success. And not just in the global north, Boys Love content has been booming in places like Japan, Thailand, Korea for decades, but never more than now. TV companies in these places figured out very quickly that producing fluffy, comforting gay love stories earns them billions, and have not hesitated to seize this opportunity. My point being, gay dudes sell as fuck.

911 got cancelled and had to move networks. The budget is too high and they need to pull viewership and quick. I think their answer is canonise that ship! I couldn't tell you if that was there original intent, but i do believe that it would be far less lucrative to fuck over their viewer base. I could be wrong, this could be a crazy long game to make the fans trust the show, then pull the rug from under them. But i truly think we are past that point with shows like this.

911 is pure fluff! No one ever dies, if someone is hurt they recover quickly and with no complications, conflict is tame and easily resolvable, and everyone is a sickeningly good person. And the show is also about family, found family, unconventional families. I think originally, the unconventionality of the eddie, buck and chris family dynamic was that it is two men who are not together or married raising a child as coparents and friends. Which is a great story, but even better fanfiction fodder.

I think they are going to do it like the fanfiction. It's the easiest way to bridge the epistemic gap between the current cannon and the reality of both buck and eddie being queer and having feelings for each other. they could try and explain it in their own way, but the fans have already done it, and have clearly agreed on some elements of how this love story plays out, so i think that will be the route they go down. Currently my evidence is that Buck is now canonically bisexual. For some reason a lot of the ships people have have one bisexual and one gay, so the trope is being realised. My next piece of evidence is the catholic thing for eddie. This has literally never come up, its a fan invention, and its in the show now. The eddie and marisol plot line is slightly bizzare, but i think the reason for that is that it is eddie making sense of why he struggles so much to commit to the women he dates. Or its just a bad storyline and isnt very coherent. I guess we will see. My next evidence is the whole set up of Tommy. He is so clearly a way to push eddie and buck together in my opinion. From his introduction, he acts as a wedge between the two that neither of them can make sense of. Very love triangle energy. And my last evidence is all of those goddamn interviews. It seems no one can shut up about these fire fighters getting it on with each other. I feel if they weren't doing it, there would be more effort to shut down the clowning gently, as they have done previously.

In conclusion, i too am a clown. My theory has rocky foundations, a rocky middle and an equally rocky conclusion. I am so tired and delulu right now. I'm with you girlies, this is stressful.

[nellzzzzzsblogg]

Late night thoughts:

Is it silly that I crave some female bisexual representation, I need it so bad, I know nick nelson is good bisexual representation but he's a boy, and I'm a girl, and I feel like my feelings are valid in the same way because I am a female, I just want some bisexual representation that isn't some side character, not like Sarah, I need an actual popular female bisexual character who is the main character and her bisexuality is part of the show, she has to be confident but also have struggles.

I want to play a character like that what I do badly need, it just proves how representation can change people, I crave the representation that I don't have because it makes me feel invalid or that I'm supposed to be secretive about bisexuality when it comes to women, and I know queer representation has come a long way in the last decade but I need more, I need some female bisexual representation, and this doesn't include female Bisexuals who only date men or, their bisexuality has nothing to do with the plot. I need something like a heartstopper, that kind of fluffiness but also angst that makes you understand people's point of view more, I just really badly want that for myself and for other bi girls who feel like this.

I know there is wlw shows but most of them are lesbians or like I said earlier, side characters, I just need a female bisexual character who is confident and nice and like me I want a me in as a character, I'm not the most interesting person but it's what I need, accepting my sexuality would be so much easier if I had that representation that would help me along the way, my problem with my sexuality is that I have no bisexual friends, or I sort of did but they all ended up being like "oh yeah, it was a phase" and it hurts to know that I don't have anyone like me, don't get me wrong having queer Friends in general is a big help but nobody understands my feelings in the same way because they're not me, and I don't think I can truly accept my bisexuality until i have somebody like that.

How long do I have to wait till I can get the representation, me and so many other young girls need, especially during this age when knowing your sexuality is so pressured, it doesn't feel like I can be truly comfortable with it until I have someone demonstrating that for me, and to show me that it is okay and it will be okay, I don't know how long I will have to wait for this, maybe I'll do it myself.

I need a celebrity or something who uses bisexuality as part of their personality, because as much as people complain it helps so many people, and make them feel like it's okay to be who they truly are, but I can't think of any female bisexual celebrities who being bisexual is a staple part of them. For example Chappell roan, she uses being a lesbian as part of her personality which is so refreshing for young lesbians and old ones as well, it can help so many girls, but I don't have that for a bisexual woman, and I want one who actually dates females and males (not that it's invalid but I just need it for myself) I need a celebrity/character who actually likes men and woman equally and isn't afraid to show it.

I don't think people understand how badly I want and need this for myself and others.

If you read the whole thing, thank you for reading my vent/rant

(This is in no way saying that people who are even more underrepresented aren't important I just was voicing my own thoughts and feelings)

[xtrablak674]

Finding Your Tribe

Initially I had come across the image during my morning Tumblr'ing, and as I was wont to do I was doing a reverse image search to find a higher quality version of the image. I mean if I am going to download smut, better have a good-looking version of said smut. During my search I had come across the young man's Twitter account and prayed to my goddess that I wouldn't have to scroll long to get to the image I was looking for.

The thing about scrolling through someone's social media is you get a sense of the person, even if it's a highly curated and polished version. Its the version that they would like the world to see. One thing that became immediately apparent to me is that this curly-haired light-eyed sort of middling looking young man had found his tribe.

His "friends", because I am not sure what the kids are calling them these days, especially when the lines between plutonic and sexual were so clearly blurred, were clearly of the same tribe. Young people and others who had similar sexual interest and also loved documenting their merry-making in photographs, gifs and videos. Celebrating their lust and loves in a very public fashion. It had me very curious what these misfits did for work, because clearly they didn't care that their faces with dick in mouth were on very open display for all to see.

I could map the similar aesthetic between them, artsy but alternative, definitely not the main-stream gays that colour places like Chelsea but the on-the-edge queers who would exist in places like Bushwick barely boarding on being hipsters but divergent enough to be their own sub-genre of gay. Whereas a Manhattan gay may brag about wearing Prada and Louis Vuitton these ones would thrive in a new piece thrifted at L Train Vintage, never caring for those luxury brands but finding solace in their grandfather's old boots or jacket, paired with their grandma's pearls.

After watching the twelfth episode of Tracker last night where Colter finally met up with his wayward and possibly murderous older brother Russell, this made me think of the last time I had a tribe to speak of. And it would be back when my mom was still alive and I lived with my two younger siblings. It was the only time in my life I had a true connection to someone else around me, and albeit after her passing and our separation I would never truly find anything remotely the same.

In college I had a "crew" of sort largely based around the terraces where I lived my freshman year at this private college in upstate New York. They were gay, like I was at the time, some were lower-class like I thought I was, and would only later find out I was actually middle-class. None were of color, which then made me a novelty of sorts. I recall quite often being quizzed about how to use the language these upper-class queers had just learned from Jennie Livingston's infamous documentary Paris is Burning.

Ms. Trevor how do I say FIERCE? And what exactly is shade? Girl, teach me how to vogue! I mean I did my best to hobble together bits an pieces from my short-lived foray in the queer culture of New York City, which I had only really begin to explore the peaks of in my last two years in high school right in the middle of Manhattan. But this didn't feel exactly like my tribe, I seemed to be torn between allegiance to the HEOP Black kids on campus and the LGBT queer kids, not totally fitting in with either because of either class, orientation, how I preformed gender or how I performed race.

Post-college I continued the activism I had started moving into HIV/AIDS education through GMHC. Joining their youth program which was made up of primarily of other post-college kids but unlike upstate was more diverse having more woman, Black and people of color in its ranks. I can say I felt a connection to these young people as we tried our best to educate others our age and younger about how to navigate the complexities of trying to stay safe while being a young queer.

I have always had very mixed feelings about work relationships and albeit there are some people I met at my first advertising agency job that I would connect with an be friends with years after I left that company. I am not sure any of those relationship had a tribal feel to them.

My next significant connections would be to small or micro-business owners I had associated with through a non-profit that was out to help us with micro-loans. I was never really interested in the loans having long had an aversion to debt, but I did like the fellowship with the mostly Black business owners and using my own brand design business to help these folks out, at least with the visual aspects of their own brands.

But like all things that passed too.

The last fifteen years I have been a loner, most of my friendships drifting a part for one reason or another. I even stopped dating and then sexual relations too. It is a popular platitude to say to young people that you will find your tribe, I just haven't found that to be true. It has felt like all throughout my life I have had to partition pieces of myself to be accepted in certain areas. Even my fifteen year stay on Flickr seemed to be primarily based on folks sexual desires towards me, not really seeing me as a whole but just parts of a whole.

At this point I have let it all go, and find solace and comfort in my own company or in having parasocial relationships with the characters in my comics, books or television shows. If a tribe is a thing, its a thing that has always eluded me, maybe my not being able to compromise my values to 'group think' and allow folks to make me feel less than I am has not allowed me to assimilate into a group dynamic. Maybe my strong sense of self and moral aptitude and not ever being one to succumb to peer pressure or other ill-conceived notions has left me adrift. I am not sure I will ever understand how to be a part of a group.

My nephew was talking to me last week about this group chat, and I thought I have never been in anyone group anything. Even my attempts to start them have failed, like the group I created on Facebook for my fellow grand jury members. I thought we had an amazing eighteen month together, but I think afterwards we became the strangers that we were before. This has been the rhythm of my life since my mom died and I truly don't think it will ever change, and curiously I am okay with that.

Albeit our society loves to preach about how important relationships with others are I have found I think the most important relationship you can have is one with yourself, one unbound by pretense, pretensions and falsehoods. One unencumbered by expectations, animosity and aggression. One that lies in seeing who you are and appreciating all aspect of whom that person is and what they bring to the table never asking them to select which pieces are the most suitable for acceptance. But embracing, loving and encouraging them to come as they are and be welcomed.

[Photo by Brown Estate]

[sizzlingpatrolfox]

I’m a straight woman who thinks jimin may be gay/bi but totally independent of jikook or any ship. I don’t think any other members are queer actually but I also don’t follow them as closely as jimin. My oT7 real life army friends are also of this thinking but they are very not online and don’t even know about the jikook taekook stuff lol.

The way I see it, those PJMs who react aggressively to any jimin being queer talks are just overcorrecting for the jikooker stuff that they see is hurting jimin. Idk just my opinion.

I truly don’t care what jimin is I just love his gentleness and strength and kindness and wonderfulness and these qualities you rarely see in cis men, especially ones that rich and famous. He’s so special 🥺

I do ship him with wi hajoon and Charles melton in my head tho 😶‍🌫️

I got into BTS in mid 2017, and only started thinking there was something between jikook in late 2018- early 2019. But even before that, I already thought Jimin wasn't straight.

People who think more than two BTS members are queer are SO DELUSIONAL I CANT STRESS IT ENOUGHHHH. Sometimes I think even two is kind of a reach but it's still a sensible statistic. I actually don't think many idols are queer.

Even for Jungkook, the only reason shippers have to think he's gay is ships 😭 there's not much he does outside of skinship and other BTS related stuff that could be used as proof he's queer. I mean, in the real world. In the world of a kpop fan, wearing a crop top is peak queerness. They're an easy public.

Imagine if Jimin was the one watching and liking tiktoks of a girl showing her thong, or dming female dancers on Instagram, copying her choreography, or constantly interact with a girl group member the way Jungkook did with chaewon. The video inside his apartment, as well. And that's only talking about the recent stuff, because if we go way back there's years of actual evidence of Jungkook having close relationships with women that his same fans would use to shit on Jimin. Even jikookers would think Jimin liking a girl showing her thong was a red flag as to how he's straight. They believe Jimin saying wow during a hwasa performance was peak heterosexuality and bring it up every 3 business days. Makes you wonder why they don't do the same with Jungkook seemingly showing interest on women.

Yeah, a lot of pjms react to strongly because they can't look past the ship or because they don't want others to use "gay" as an insult towards Jimin. But that's not helping any matters.. being called gay never was and will never be an insult, no matter who or why they say it.

I don't care what he is, either. I just have a feeling and that's it. I've had the same feeling about other people all my life and I've always ended up being right lol.

Just a funny anecdote; I think Ashley Benson was my craziest case of impeccable gaydar. I watched the first season of pretty little liars when it came out. I was 14, and while watching the show and the interviews and all, I kept thinking Ashley wasn't straight. A million years ago by, and she ends up dating Cara Delevingne. It was crazy just because of how young I was, and I knew nothing of Ashley except for the show.

In 2019, I was watching an interview of the queer eye cast without knowing anything about them (because that's how I go about when I'm getting into something -trying to get to know it by myself), and while watching I couldn't stop thinking "this one's not gay, he's bi" about Antoni. A few weeks later, I found out Antoni had come out as bisexual.

But you won't see me talking about that stuff because I don't really go around telling people "I think this one's gay", I don't care like that; it's just thoughts that cross my mind, a feeling, a hunch or whatever. If I end up being wrong, it's not a big deal since I was never going to put my hand on the fire for any of it. I'm not scared of being wrong. That and... I know that Jimin is a real person. There's more to him than his sexuality, and it's not the reason I started liking him in the first place.

Yes, he's totally secretly dating wi hajoon and dated charles for like a month in the past. We all saw charles putting his arm on Jimin's back and that can mean only one thing in Korea.

[fair-dinkum-mechanic]

I'm going to try and put this into words again but I always fail because it's so overwhelming and makes no sense to try and intellectualise such an innate feeling of dread that has been with me since I was a small child.

If anyone has an input on this (bc it's been a thing latent in my brain ever since I can remember) please dm me. I need to know what this is bc I believe it's where a significant chunk of my mental illness lies.

So ever since I was a young kid I NEVER felt I fit in. At first I thought I was just weird in general, but then I started to realise I didn't fit in with "masculine" things. I remember even was I was 2-6 years old adults commenting that I wasn't like the other boys, I was interested in reading and making my own little worlds and not running around or kicking a ball or anything like that. Now I know most queer men experience this in childhood, but what I mean extends further than that I feel. I truly felt like I was defective. Something was deeply, deeply wrong with me for not enjoying the things i was supposed to enjoy. From a VERY early age I was friends with girls. Some boys sure but I always thought the girls were nicer, cooler, something to aspire to. But I didn't grow out of that. I never saw myself as a "male" I just kinda... existed? But of course masculine things were FORCED on me every day and the anxiety I used to get going into school, or going home, or picking out clothes to wear, was terrifying. I remember being called a poof by my family in a joking way but I could see that deep down they were terrified that I was gay. It was not an acceptable thing to be in my family, it was explicitly stated by all members several times. But I never, ever related to anything masculine. I am spiritually estranged from my dad and my brother, where I can't even stand to speak to them because they were both so aggressively value and prioritise masculine views and ways. I would have "crushes" on girls but all that was, was me imagining cuddling with them or hugging them or going on cute dates and if I ever imagined it getting sexual, or even a kiss that was too passionate I was repulsed. So clearly, I was gay from a young age but didn't know it.

But now in my life, almost at 30, I still don't relate to masculinity. I don't know what's wrong with me. So many gay men, most of them I see actually, have been able to embrace it. Especially as someone who is older, and mostly a "top" there's a certain role I'm expected to fulfil, in order to be worthy of a relationship or anything like that. I did go to the gym every secondd day for a few years, and even then I wasn't lifting hard or monitoring my gains or doing ANYTHING like that because I can't think of anything worse, but that's what these men do. And on the other end of the spectrum, I'm not a feminine guy either. I'm put off by long nails and long hair on men (sexually, honestly do whatever you want with your body and slay), but like I don't find interest in makeup or fashion or any of those traditionally "feminine" things. Though I do see more merit in those than the opposite.

But I still have this internal view of what I need to be to be worthy of living in this world. I'm a man. I'm not trans, I've had that debate years ago in myself and found that out. But I'm not a man. But living as one there are certain things I need to be, certain ways I'm expected to behave, ways I'm supposed to look and things I'm supposed to want. Sure I may align with very few of them but I don't even HOLD myself like other men I see. I can't grow a beard like every other man I see. Like every man I see plastered over social media and commercials and in movies and in music. I actually hate and am deeply unsettled by masculinity. Deeply. But I feel like because I'm not that I'm destined to die alone, and I put that as a personal failure on my part. Maybe I'm not trying hard enough? Maybe I'm too weak? No self discipline? And I can't help but believe that this lack of masculinity in looks, in behaviour, in drive, is why other men are offput by me. Why I'm so disposable. Not in an incel way bc I don't blame anyone else in the end I blame myself. I don't have trouble hooking up, bc that's the most masculine thing about me. But I don't want that. I've done that. I want... peace. I want comfort. I want love and light and warmth and I want to feel like I'm worthy of that but I don't. I don't feel worthy of that. Because I'm wrong. There's something wrong with me. I'm broken and that's why I'm feeling so alone.

[lilicohirukoma]

✨ Do you have any nicknames?

✏️ Have you ever written fanfiction?

 💛 Do you have any piercings?

🌼 What’s the last thing you said out loud?

🙃 What’s a weird fact that you know?

🦉 Are you a morning person or a night owl?

🧸 Favorite place to nap?

🏳️‍🌈 Are you a member of the LGBTQIA+ community?

🌙 How long have you been on tumblr?

💙 Relationship status?

🤎 What color is your hair?

💄 Do you wear makeup?

🌸 Best compliment you ever received?

✨ Apparently @macgyverwife calls me Z (bc my irl name starts with a Z.) There are other nicknames that derive from it but that would make my name known and that would defeat the purpose of using an alias lmao.

✏️ Yes... I was young and stupid. It was a fanstory about the Slenderman brothers sister, it was quite a deal on quotev (I am FUCKING PRAYING no one here knows of it tbh) (that account is long gone)

💛 Earrings (lobe), I used to have a conch but it fell out and grew closed. I am also considering getting the Dahlia piercing. I'll probably stop after that, I personally don't like the look of tons of piercings (ofc thats just my taste)

🌼 It was a voice note to my beloved friend Victoria where I threatened to kill the people that are with me in the council for my group home, a lot of drama happened today and I was fucking raging.

🙃 So many serial killer and cult facts. Did you know the male equivalent of a Black Widow killer is called a Blackbeard? Did you know the flavor of the Jonestown 'koolaid' (it was flavor-aid) was Grape? Did you know the first serial killer in recorded history was a Chinese Prince? Did you know the Church of Satan (LaVey one) and the Manson Family allegedly had a connection? Did you know that nurse/doctor serial killers don't count in the traditional serial killer sense? Did you know- (Yes I lowky regret my true crime hyperfixation but whatever you asked for weird) (and also the hyperfixation controls you, you do not control it)

🦉 I used to be a massive night owl but I'm getting old and need my sleep. I'm okay in the morning? I don't jump out of joy when I wake up early.

🧸 Ok hear me out, I love sleeping on carpets. Like grab a pillow or two, a stuffed animal and a blanket (not the massive blanket for your bed but one of those small onces for the couch.) Best nap of your life.

🏳️‍🌈 Yes, I am bisexual (and have been considering possibly being bigender). I also pride myself on my extensive knowledge on Queer Culture/Pop Culture, like I could teach a class on it.

🌙 Judging by the date of my first tumblr post: April 2019. My account is older than I thought oof

💙 Single :'(( Gods I wish I had the courage to approach people

🤎 Naturally it's brown but rn it's dyed red (a natural shade of red.)

💄 Yes, most of the time I just slap on eyeliner and I'm done but sometimes I'll do a whole eye look. Maybe some blush and concealer if I'm really feeling it.

🌸 All compliments truly get to me but it's especially something when my grandpa compliments me, this man is honesty incarnate if he says I'm pretty he fucking means it.

[oldxenomorph]

now that it's been a while since romulus came out, i can incoherently talk about my thoughts and feelings and what elements i'm incorporating into my canon. enjoy!

for all my friends new and old, here's my personal stance on the alien franchise thus far. my own opinions, of course, some of which may be controversial. i'm very picky about my alien media, i guess.

alien and aliens are my personal, all-time favorites. nothing in the franchise can really be better than these two. they’re the gold standard. they're our introduction to the xenomorph and the xenomorph queen. these are two incredibly tight, well crafted films. i saw alien at a very young age and it was truly thee formative influence. (more like my mom let me see it at a young age and it started our tradition of watching horror movies together.) the first time i saw the xenomorph it altered my brain chemistry permanently. the xenomorphs live inside my brain at all times. these two films will always have a special place in my heart.

alien 3 is a polarizing film in my household. i don't like it, my mom loves it. first it was stuck in development hell and then there was too much studio interference. i don’t care for the writing. but i did like the royal facehugger from the special edition cut, i think that was interesting. (also i’m glad david fincher moved on to make truly great films because he’s one of my favorite directors.)

i'm a certified resurrection hater. i think it's the worst of the franchise. it's just..... so bad. i hated the way it looked. i hated the writing. i hated the acting. i absolutely hated what they did to the xenomorph queen. i hated the newborn. the only thing i liked about resurrection was seeing xenomorphs swim. (i understand that there are queer viewers for whom this movie means a lot to them, and that's fine. it's just not for me.)

i don't care for the alien vs. predator movies.

i haven't read the comics because i have too much to read already.

on the opposite end of the spectrum, i'm one of those freaks that LOVED prometheus and covenant. despite their flaws, i think they set up really interesting thematic elements to the franchise and add a lot of interesting depth. i loved the look of the engineers (so much so that i made their body the basis for the emperor's). i love the trilobite, the deacon, the neomorph, and the preatomorph. i love david 8 and all his weird idiosyncrasies.

alien: isolation is the only video game of the franchise that i've played and its one of my favorites, of all time. it's right up there with mass effect and hades.

and now: romulus.

this was pretty much everything i wanted from a new alien film. (fede alvarez, king, you have done it again.) i absolutely loved the use of practical effects. i loved the atmosphere and the tension. the facehuggers and the xenomorphs were plentiful but still terrifying (and beautiful). andy and his actor really stole the show for me, what a great performance. I EVEN LIKED THE OFFSPRING.

i think where romulus really shines is in how it utilizes the themes and elements that were set up in prometheus and covenent. especially covenant. the connection between david reciting ozymandias and the station being named after the creation myth of rome, is a straight line. (also huge moment for us prometheus/covenant enjoyers when the black substance returned!) while romulus is less about faith, the themes of godhood, horrific godhood, creation and destruction, humanity's hubris, exploitation and expansion, are still, in my opinion, at the center of the film.

romulus was also smart in bringing back weyland-yutani as the evil corporation that influences the events of the films. pairing weyland-yutani with the romulus and remus myth was such a good choice, i think it speaks a lot to the central themes of the franchise. (i know fede alvarez said that the romulus and remus motifs are Not That Deep, but that won't stop me from finding deeper meaning and symbolism and context.) something about weyland-yutani's hubris to exploit the black substance to expand its corporate empire. weyland-yutani has always been an indictment of capitalism, in the way it views all life as being exploitable, expendable, in the name of capital domination and profits.

(also, i totally thought that the painting in the hallway was a version of les sabines by david, but i wasn't sure because it didn't look quite right. luckily someone on reddit pointed out that the painting is actually view of the hotel de ville marseille during the plague of 1720 by michel serre. still thematically tracks especially re: the offspring both nursing from and devouring kay at once. incredible imagery and symbolism in a single shot.)

romulus is by no means perfect. i didn't like all of the callbacks to the previous films. i definitely had a 'he would not say that' when andy said "get away from her, you bitch." when they showed the rook android i was like "oh no.... they gave ian holm the peter cushing treatment." i think those were mostly my main complaints, that the callbacks felt a bit forced.

anyway. things i'm adding to my canon.

the cocoon. i'm so glad we got an addition to the xenomorph life cycle! loved this thing.

the offspring. not the offspring itself, but it's giving me ideas for the princes of entropy.

i'm really intrigued by how the offspring looks (not just its resemblance to the engineers). i've always imagined the princes of entropy has being perfect balances of nyx and the emperor's genetics; generally the emperor's body and signs of nyx in their faces, eyes, and hair. after seeing the offspring, i'm envisioning them not having carbon copies of the emperor's body, but something that's has more xenomorph qualities: dorsal tubes, tail, metallic teeth, that retractable tongue with a jaw. they be embodiments of the 3 possible ways the universe will die, but they still meant to be reflections of their mothers.

they wouldn't come into their fully formed shaped until after the finish their n7 training (hard to blend into humanity when you're 7'7"). but yes, i'm envisioning them as being perfect versions of the offspring, sharing lots of characteristics with their sisters. deep down i just want them to look even more fucked up and unsettling. they are my special little guys.

(something about the princes being, in many ways, the diametric opposite of the moirai, nyx's oldest children. not just in what they represent, but the fact that they get to be so close to their mother. i know i've touched on this before, but it's something i like exploring. we know that, according to achilles, nyx created her children alone, and sometimes under great stress, even if the great family sent their midwives to help her. she loves her children, but even she acknowledges that motherhood wasn't always a success. when she had the princes, the first of her children with the emperor, she was surrounded by the great family, the xenomorph queens, the rachni. she had them in the black palace, with the emperor's true shape next to her, holding her hand. every time she looks at them, she sees herself and the emperor.)

the scorched xenomorph. i imagine her being one of the older drones, and received her scorched scars protecting her sisters. love thinking about her taking pride in her scars because the emperor has scars and she is a reflection of her. also her more mechanical design, i loved so much. thinking about her taking on such qualities because she dreamed about the reapers when she was born, maybe her facehugger impregnated someone with high level indoctrination.

not only did i love how terrifying the facehuggers were, i loved their spider-like behaviors. raising their forefingers up like the way tarantulas do. also they were so fast! look at them go!

anyway, alien: romulus good. sensational. fantastic even. thank you for my life, fede alvarez. i've already bought two romulus shirts. i am going to be the best dressed person in my department.

[morg-among-the-stars]

An In-Depth Letter to Middle School Morgan, letting her rest and heal <3

Hey Morgan,

I hope this letter reaches you well. This is you from the future. I’m nineteen years old and quite happy with my life. I’m not “old and wise” but I know more than you do, but you understand that. You’re a smart for eleven, you’re a smart kid no matter what anyone tells you.

You’re the oldest, you don’t have a big sister to give you advice and tell you things, so I’m going to be your big sister in a way, and tell you some things about your life.

First off, I know autism is a big and terrifying word to you right now. Regretfully, the teasing because of it still happens as you get older, but it becomes manageable. You become quite tough, learn how to fight back the right way. You talk non-stop and that helps with come backs. You also have a partner who likes when you talk.

I should get into that, shouldn’t I? I bet you’re curious. Surprise! You don’t end up alone! Hurray! You have a girlfriend who’s kind and tries their hardest to understand you, understand your ramblings or general thoughts. Your mind is rampant now and it will stay like that forever, it’s a gift. People do love it, even if you don’t think so now. Said girlfriend even asks you to elaborate on your thoughts and to give more thoughts. Pretty cool, right? (Oh, I should mention that today, 1/10/23, is your eight-month anniversary! Your abundance of words comes in handy, guess who learns healthy communication. You!)

I do see the irony in an autistic person being good at communication. I know you’ll find it ironic as well as funny. Your sense of humor doesn’t change much as you grow.

But there is change, I know you’re scratching your head at my repeating of the word, “girlfriend.” Another surprise, you aren’t straight. Not getting all the hoo-pla about Team Edward vs Team Jacob back in third grade hopefully makes more sense. (Win for us lesbians, Kristen Stewart is queer! Your fondness of her has always been valid.) It will take time but your family accepts you and embraces you.

If we’re on the topic of queerness, you also end up a theatre kid. If you remember, (who am I kidding? We have the memory of a super-computer) mom watched a movie called, “Pitch Perfect” when you were young and during the end credits, you saw the name Ben Platt on screen and the picture of a man who wasn’t “sharp” as you classified most men and boys. Literally, he was less intimidating to look at. He becomes quite important to you. Thank him (in your mind, I’m nineteen and I haven’t met him or seen him live) for making music that helps you be okay with being queer.

Oh, and in 2019, he stars in a show called, “The Politician” and you become the unofficial ambassador for it! You become cool amongst other people who love Ben and his shows. But everyone who likes him is cool, you find cool people and friends. It’s awesome, truly, to find people who are nerds like you. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise: nerds, geeks, and oddballs are the coolest kinds of people!

Life will get hard, growing up will be hard, especially in the years that are coming for you. But trust me when I say that it gets better. Not just because of your cool nerd friends, or the girlfriend, or anything else. It gets better because you learn how to ask for help. Asking for help is hard as hell for you, but you seek out help.

It’s hard to let people in, I’m older and I still push people away or downplay myself, but you’ll work at it. You will, and you’ll be happier because of it.

You achieve a lot as you grow. You learn how to play guitar; you play in front off hundreds of people during school! You get into writing. It’ll be terrible at first, downright bad, but you’re a kid. You’ll get better and you’ll find an escape for when the world gets hectic around you. People like you. Teachers, friends, loads of people. People want to talk to you. You’re well loved as you grow.

To close out this letter, I’m going to give you a bulleted list of things to look forward to, to know, and general advice:

-Wait about two years and you’ll learn about an incredible game called, “Detroit: Become Human” and then wait another five and you’ll be able to play it.

-Don’t let people step on you; set boundaries.

-All your old special interests do come back around. It’s cool to have a Monster High collection again.

-High school is not like the movies, neither is college. Just do your work, please. Turn it in at a reasonable time.

-Don’t be afraid to push back against people who do you wrong.

-Be honest.

-Be kind.

-Give yourself slack sometimes.

-A few deep breaths helps you not to faint.

-Enjoy those Game Theories, MatPat retires eventually.

-Some people just want to stir up drama. As much as you want to fight them, please don’t. Let them be dumb.

-One bad day is just one bad day.

-Go outside.

-Don’t stay up too late on school nights.

-You are not ugly. Anyone who’s ever made you think that is wrong. They have always been wrong.

-You get to go to New York as a teenager. It’s epic.

-You get to try ziplining as a teenager, too!

-You’re beautiful.

-You are smart.

-I love you.

Sincerely,

Your friend, Morgan, from the future <3

[moku-youbi]

It's so strange to me, because while I understand that a lot of these young folks just don't have the same experience, what I don't get is the lack of understanding or empathy for the history of our community and what their elders have lived through and fought for in order to give them the freedom of expression they have right now. You guys NEED to expose yourself to more older media and stories of the queer community and read up on the struggles of those who paid, sometimes with their lives, so you have the option to be ignorant of how awful it was.

Take HIV/AIDS. While I was not really old enough to understand it beyond the very basics of transmission and deadliness when the epidemic was at its height, and that by the time I was hitting puberty was when we started to see a significant drop in new cases, better treatments, and an effort to destigmatise them, that didn't prevent me from learning about the devastating impact on the gay community. It was everywhere you looked, if you were a queer person searching out other queer folks, queer books/films/television, even token queer characters that (rarely) popped up in mainstream media, HIV/AIDS was unavoidable. Any story you told inevitably was impacted by it, whether from the main character or their love interest contracting it and becoming ill, or from the loss of family or countless friends to the illness. The palpable fear of transmission up against the desire to be with the person they love.

We similarly couldn't avoid the threat to our lives, if the wrong person knew we were queer--worse even than being kicked out and disowned, the threat of conversion therapy or physical violence. Honestly, you didn't even have to be queer. If you didn't conform to the accepted idea of masculinity for men or femininity for women, you could be assumed to be queer and in the same danger of being ostracised, beaten, or killed. Matthew Shepard is a name that has been lost to these kids, and that is truly a tragedy--especially when, while it's become less common, it's still a real threat that faces queer folks right now in 2023. And that despite his murder in 1998, it took over a decade before violence based on sexual orientation wasn't officially a federal hate crime. Again, we saw this in queer media--the need to hide our identities, to remain in the closet, participate in het relationships, to conform to society's expectations, or risk being met with violence or outright murder.

And what about when these two factors meet--illness and lack of acceptance by family and society. The queer lovers who were kept away from hospital beds from family who misgendered their child or refused to acknowledge their sexuality and the validity of their relationship? The queer families separated upon the death of the biological parent/adoptive parent, and blood relatives sweeping in to 'save' the children from the influence of the remaining parent? And that's if you could even manage to have a child, almost certainly biologically, because who was going to let a queer person adopt (and you definitely weren't going to BOTH be able to adopt)

Like I honestly do not think they realise how recent history we're talking about. That I still referred to my now wife as my 'fiance' as recently as 2011, rather than even 'partner' because there was too much of a chance that the gender neutral 'partner' might make people automatically assume I meant a woman, because why wouldn't I just say boyfriend/husband instead? And I did this out of FEAR of getting fired/being harassed/losing out on opportunities because the wrong person found out I was queer. I'd have to wait and get to know people, weighing whether or not it was safe to tell them. At that point, I still also thought I'd never actually be able to get married IN MY LIFETIME, that's how hopeless it felt, even as recently as 2012 I hated actually using the term 'fiance' because I couldn't actually get married, and it was a defence mechanism, hating the term and idea of a fiance/marriage, because it was something I'd never get to have with the person I loved.

Or how about when we got pregnant? My son was born in 2012, before marriage was legal for us, and the best we could do in our state to protect my wife's rights to him was for me to put in my will that I would *prefer* custody transfer to her if I died. A judge could still decide to grant custody to someone else if they believed our relationship wasn't valid or that my wife was a bad influence. We had to switch pediatricians when he was around 9 months old, because they suddenly decided since she wasn't his 'real' mother, she could no longer bring him in without me. I can't even begin to explain the relief when we were able to be legally married and have our state recognise it (which, btw, wasn't until he was 3), that she was now officially a step-parent.

Look, I think it's great that kids today don't worry about these same concerns to the extent we did. I am so glad we get happy queer stories now, instead of every single one tinged with loss or fear or tragedy. I love that young queer kids are living loud and proud. However, the derision towards their elders is so shocking and disheartening. The fact that they immediately disregard the stories, experiences, and lessons from those who came before, or the validity of art or important cultural contributions by/about/for queer folks, because they don't like the terminology used therein.

But I gotta be real with you, those old fear have never gone away for me. Especially under Trump's administration, but honestly even now, life feels so scary and uncertain. Our families and rights are still under attack. Queer folks, especially trans folks, still face violence and death. The murder rate of trans folks has nearly DOUBLED since 2019. Don't mistake the influence of terfs on such things. Our community is splitting over arbitrary lines drawn in the sand, infighting over the fucking 'q-slur' and kink at pride and gatekeeping- Please understand that all this focus on what divides us instead of what unites us is allowing those would like to see us dead chip away at the hardwon rights we've gained.

V grumpy today ok bye

[cowboyjen68]

howdy jen!

I’m a younger butch, 22, and i only recently came into this label in the past year or so. i cut my hair and started embracing myself and am so much better for it, but it’s also brought a lot of struggle. primarily, i have a really hard time feeling desirable. i don’t know if it’s something to do with where i am or just my age, but i feel like it’s so much harder to meet people who are into people who look like me. it’s hard to look visibly queer, and it’s hard to be masculine. a lot of the time i feel pride in my roll as a protector and safe person, but it becomes so exhausting when i never feel safe myself. when i never feel desirable. i wonder if this is a common thing amongst butches, and if so, how do i get past it?

You could be me talking when I was 23 and just coming out. My first thought, once I really realized that I was a bit different from many of my female friends, was “What lesbian is going to be attracted to me? Lesbians like other women and I kind of look like a boy”. I truly thought that my stature, the way I walked, whatever energy or movement got me consistently mistaken for a boy (or man) was the very reason why I would never find love or passion with whom I most desired, another woman. 

In college I toned it down, I kept my hair long with a sort of short in the front mullet. I wore generic jeans and a sweatshirt to try to be somewhat comfortable but also unremarkable in my clothing choices. Looking back it made no difference. I was clockable as a lesbian, and butch, long before I fully admitted who I was to myself. 

I felt unattractive. I refused makeup and more feminine clothing and convinced myself it was because I was a “feminist” or didn’t want to invite the gaze of men because I wanted to focus on college and not date. I just knew I would be alone forever (which sounded better than being with a man in any case) and no woman would look at me as anything more than a goofy friend. 

Years later, after talking to my old friends and nights chatting with my older lesbian friends in my early 20’s I realized we all shared very similar experiences. Very few women think of themselves as desirable to others. It was the rare one, usually traditionally attractive and outgoing, who had some idea that she was interesting to the opposite sex even if she had no desire for that. Most of us had this idea that we were just plain, or ugly or just not attractive, especially to the demographic we most wanted to desire us as a romantic partner. 

The fact is, many women have a similar feeling to what you are going through regardless of her sexual orientation. 

On to the good news. The greater Western culture tends to portray butches in the media either ugly and rude or stoic or as some perfectly physically fit woman who wears a sports bra to show off her muscles and is brimming with a snarky confidence. That is show biz and not real life. 

I hear young butch4butches and young femmes and garden variety lesbians lament all the time that they can’t find butches today. “Where have all butches that love being butches gone?”  they ponder. So as a butch there are plenty of women out there seeking you and wanting to see and meet you. 

We are quite visible and it is hard to hide our lesbianism when we are in public. And most of us don’t want to. We want to be comfortable as ourselves so we put on a stiff upper lip and go into the world looking as confident and sometimes as tough looking as we can muster. Once you meet the right friends and date a woman with whom you connect you will find a feeling of safety if you let it. Allow your friends to carry some of the burden. Listen to them when they say they have your back. Let the woman you are dating stand up for you and talk about how wonderful you are. 

Take a look at my tiktoks or posts here on tumblr and you will see that butches are loved and appreciated but a vast majority of the LGBT Community. 

Wear what makes you feel confident. Get out to events at the gay bar, concerts, even non profit fundraising events. Take the time to go to places that require you to dress up and put some effort into picking an outfit that suits you. Looking good can truly lead you to feeling good. You can boost your own confidence by getting a good haircut that you love, shining your boots and putting on some light cologne. The best way to get past the feeling of being inadequate as a dating partner is to get out and meet more women to befriend.  The more women you meet the more you can see you are not alone 

As you meet more people,  and form more community connections, you become more comfortable as yourself and you feel much less endangered in public. You learn that much or your fear is thinking others are watching you when in reality most people are just trying to get through their day. This is not to say it is not important to read your surroundings, it certainly is, but you will feel much more at ease if you feel confident in yourself.

[c-is-for-circinate]

For a long, large part of my life, being queer in a media landscape--finding queerness in a media landscape--has meant theft.

I'm a Fandom Old, somehow, these days, older than most and younger than some, in that way that's grown associated with grumpy crotchetyness and shotguns on porches and back in my day, we had to wade through our Yahoo Groups mailing lists uphill both ways, boring and irrelevant anecdotes from Back In Those Days when homophobia clearly worked differently than it does now, probably because we weren't trying hard enough. I've seen a lot of stories through the years. I've read a lot of fanfic. (More days than not, for the past twenty years. I've read a lot of fanfic.)

When people my age start groaning and sighing at conversations about representation and queerbaiting, when we roll our eyes and drag all the old war stories out again in the face of AO3 is terrible and Not Good Enough, so often what we say is: you Young Folks Today have no idea how hard, how scary, how limiting it was to be queer anywhere Back In Those Days. Including online, maybe especially online, including in a media landscape that hated us so much more than any one you've ever known. And that is true. Always and everywhere, again and again, it's true, we remember, it's true.

We don't talk so much about the joy of it.

Online fan spaces were my very first queer communities, ever. I was thirteen, I was fourteen, I was fifteen--I was a lonely, over-precocious "gifted kid" two years too young for my grade level in an all-girls' Catholic school in the suburbs--I lived in a world where gay people were a rumor and an insult and a news story about murder. I was straight, of course, obviously, because real people were straight and anyway I was weird enough already--I couldn't be two things strange, couldn't be gay too, but--well, I could read the stories. I could feel things about that. I would have those stories to help me, a few years later, when I knew I couldn't call myself straight any more.

And those stories were theft. There was never any doubt about that. We wrote disclaimers at the top of every fic, with the specter of Anne Rice's lawyers around every corner. We hid in back-corners of the internet, places you could only find through a link from a link from a link on somebody else's recs page, being grateful for the tiny single-fandom archives when you found them, grateful for the webrings where they existed. It was theft, all of it, the stories about characters we did not own, the videotaped episodes on your best friend's VHS player, one single episode pulled off of Limewire over the course of three days.

It was theft, we knew, to even try and find ourselves in these stories to begin with. How many fics did I read in those days about two men who'd always been straight, except for each other, in this one case, when love was stronger than sexual orientation? We stole our characters away from the heterosexual lives they were destined to have. We stole them away from writers and producers and TV networks who work overtime to shower them in Babes of the Week, to pretend that queerness was never even an option. This wasn't given to us. This wasn't meant for us. This wasn't ours to have, ever, ever in the first place. But we took it anyway.

And oh, my friends, it was glorious.

We took it. We stole. And again and again, for years and years and years, we turned that theft into an art. We looked for every opening, every crack in every sidewalk where a little sprout of queerness might grow, and we claimed it for our own and we grew whole gardens. We grew so sly and so skilled with it, learning to spot the hints of oh, this could be slashy in every new show and movie to come our way. Do you see how they left these character dynamics here, unattended on the table? How ripe they are for the pocketing. Here, I'll help you carry them. We'll make off with these so-called straight boys, and we only have to look back if somebody sets out another scene we want for our own.

We were thieves, all of us, and that was fine and that was fair, because to exist as queer in the world was theft to begin with. Stolen time, stolen moments--grand larceny of the institution of marriage, breaking and entering to rob my mother's hopes for grandchildren. Every shoplifted glance at the wrong person in the locker room (and it didn't matter if we never peeked, never dared, they called us out on it anyway). Every character in every fic whose queerness became a crime against this ex-wife, that new love interest. Every time we dared steal ourselves away from the good straight partners we didn't want to date.

And: we built ourselves a den, we thieves, wallpapered in stolen images and filled to the brim with all the words we'd written ourselves. We built ourselves a home, and we filled it with joy. Every vid and art and fic, every ship, every squee. Over and over, every straight boy protagonist who abandoned all womankind for just this one exception with his straight boy protagonist partner found gay orgasms and true love at the end.

Over and over, we said: this isn't ours, this isn't meant to be ours, you did not give this to us--but we are taking it anyway. We will burglarize you for building blocks and build ourselves a palace. These stories and this place in the world is not for us, but we exist, and you can't stop us. It's ours now, full of color and noise, a thousand peoples' ideas mosaic'ed together in celebration. We made this, and it will never be just yours again. You won't ever truly get it back, no matter how many lawyers you send, not completely. We keep what we steal.

.

Things shifted over time, of course. That's good. That's to be celebrated. Nobody should have to steal to survive. It should not be a crime, should not feel like a crime, to find yourself and your space in the world.

There were always content creators who could slip a little wink in when they laid out their wares, oh what's this over here, silly me leaving this unattended where anybody could grab it, of course there might be more over by the side door if you come around the alleyway (but if anybody asks, you didn't get this from ME). We all watched Xena marry Gabrielle, in body language and between the lines. We sat around and traded theories and rumors about whether the people writing Due South knew what they were doing when they sent their buddy cops off into the frozen north alone together at the end of the show, if they'd done it on purpose, if they knew. But over the years, slowly, thankfully, the winks became less sly.

A teenage boy put his hand on another teenage boy's hand and said, you move me, and they kissed on network TV, in a prime-time show, on FOX, and the world didn't burn down. Here and there, where they wanted to, where they could without getting caught by their bosses and managers, content creators stopped subtly nudging people around the back door and started saying, "Here. This is on offer here too, on purpose. You get to have this, too."

And of course, of course that came with a whole host of problems too. Slide around to the back door but you didn't get this from me turned into it's an item on our special menu, totally legit, you've just got to ask because the boss throws a fit if we put it out front. Shopkeepers and content creators started advertising on the sly, come buy your fix here!, hiding the fine print that says you still have to take what you've purchased home and rebuild it with your semi-legal IKEA hacks. Maybe they'll consider listing that Destiel or Sterek as a full-service menu item next year. Is that Crowley/Aziraphale the real thing or is it lite?

And those problems are real and the conversations are worth having, and it's absolutely fair to be frustrated that you can't find the ship you want on sale in anything like your color and size in a vast media landscape packed full of discount hetships and fast-fashion m/f. It's fair to be angry. It's fair to be frustrated. Queerbait is a word that exists for a reason.

There's a part of me that hurts, though, every time the topic comes up. It's a confusing, bad-mannered part of me, but it's still very real. And it's not because I'm fawning for crumbs, trying to be the Good, Non-Threatening Gay. It's not that I'm scared and traumatized by the thought of what might happen if we dare raise our voices and ask for attention. (Well. Not mostly. I'll always remember being quiet and scared and fifteen, but it's been a long two decades since then. I know how to ask for a hell of a lot more now.)

It's because I remember that cozy, plush-wallpapered den of joyful thieves. I remember you keep what you steal.

Every single time--every time--when a story I love sets a couple of characters out on a low, unguarded table, perfectly placed to be pilfered on the sly and taken home and smushed together like a couple of dolls, my very first thought is always, always joy. Always, that instinct says, yay! Says, this is ours now. As soon as I go home and crawl into that pillow-fort den, my instincts say, I will surely find people already at work combing through spoils and finding new ways to combine them, new ways to make them our own. I know there's fic for that. I've already seen fic for that, and I wasn't really interested last time, but the new store display's got my brain churning, and I can't wait to see what the crew back at the hideout does with this.

Every time, that's where my brain goes. And oh, when I realize the display's put out on purpose, that somebody snuck in a legitimate special menu item, when the proprietor gives me the nod and wink and says, you don't have to come around the side, I know it's not much but here--there is so much joy and relief and hope in me from that! Oh, what we can make with these beautiful building blocks. Oh what a story we can craft from the pieces. Oh, the things we can cobble together. Look at that, this one's a little skimpy on parts but we can supplement it, this one's got a whole outline we can fill in however we want. This one technically comes semi-preassembled, and that's boring as shit and a pain to take back apart, but that's fine, we'll manage. We're artists and thieves. I bet someone's pulling out the AU saw to cut it to pieces already.

And then I get back to our den, which has moved addresses a dozen times over the years and mostly hangs out on Tumblr now (and the roof leaks and the landlord's sketchy as fuck but at least they don't charge rent, and we've made worse places our own). And I show up, ready for joy--ready for a dozen other people who saw that low-hanging fruit on that unguarded table, who got the nod and wink about the special menu item, who're ready to get so excited about this newest haul. Did you see what we picked up? The theft was so easy, practically begging to be stolen. The last owner was an idiot with no idea what to do with it. The last owner knew exactly what it could become, bless their heart, under a craftsman with more time on their hands, so they looked away on purpose at just the right time to let me take it home. I show up every time ready for our space, the place that fed me on joy and self-confidence when I was fifteen and starving. The place that taught me, yes, we are thieves, because it is RIGHT to take what we need, and the beautiful things we create are their own justification. We are thieves, and that's wonderful, because nothing is handed to us and that means we get to build our own palaces. We get to keep everything we steal.

I go home, and even knowing the world is different, my instincts and heart are waiting for that. And I walk in the door, and I look at my dash, and I glance over at twitter, and--

And people are angry, again. Angry at the slim pickings from the hidden special menu. So, so tired and angry, at once again having to steal.

And they're right to be! Sometimes (often, maybe) I think they're angry at the wrong people--more angry with the shopkeeper who offers the bite-sized sampler platter of side characters or sneaks their queer content in on the special menu than the ones who don't include it at all. But it's not wrong to be mad that Disney's once again advertising their First Gay Character only to find out it's a tiny sprinkle of a one-line extra on an otherwise straight sundae. It's not wrong to be furious at the world because you've spent your whole life needing to be a thief to survive. It's far from wrong. I'm angry about it too.

But this was my den of thieves, my chop shop, my makerspace. Growing up in fandom, I learned to pick the locks on stories and crack the safes of subtext at the very same time I learned to create. They were the same thing, the same art. We are thieves, my heart says, we are thieves, and that's what makes us better than the people we steal from. We deconstruct every time we create. We build better things out of the pieces.

And people are angry that the pre-fab materials are too hard to find, the pickings too slim, the items on sale too limited? Yes, of course they are, of course they should be--but my heart. Oh, my heart. Every single time, just a little bit, it breaks.

Of course the stories are terrible (they have always been terrible). Of course they are, but we are thieves. We steal the best parts and cobble them back together and what we make is better than it was before. The craftsman's eye that cases a story for weak points, for blank spaces, for anywhere we can fit a crowbar and pry apart this casing--that's skill and art and joy. Of course we shouldn't have to, of course we shouldn't have to, but I still love it. I still want it, crave it. I still thrill every time I see it, a story with hairline cracks that we can work open with clever hands to let the queer in.

That used to be cause for celebration, around here. I ask him to go back to the ruins of Aeor with me, two men together alone on an expedition in the frozen north, it feels like a gift. And I understand why some people take it as an insult. I understand not good enough. I understand how something can feel like a few drops of water to someone dying of thirst, like a slap in the face. If it was so easy to sneak it hidden onto the special menu, to place it on the unguarded side table for someone else to run off to, why not let it sit out front and center in the first place? I know it's frustrating. It should be. We should fight. We should always fight. I know why.

But my heart, oh, my heart. My heart only knows what it's been taught. My heart sees, this thing right here, the proprietor left it there for you with a nod and a wink because they Get It. It's not put together yet, but it's better that way anyway. It's so full of pieces to pull apart and reassemble. I bet they've got a whole mosaic wall going up at home already. We can bring it home and make it OURS, more than it was ever theirs, forget half of what it came from and grow a new garden in what remains.

And I go home to find anger, and my heart breaks instead.

[amuseoffyre]

Feeling the need for a bit of introspection about why Ed’s reversion to Blackbeard 1.0 model hit me where I live. Because sweet christmas, that really, really did.

Department of backstory time. Came from what I presumed was a normal family and background. Was extremely miserable for a large number of reasons, but assumed it was on me because I was entirely used to it and didn’t realise until I left home for uni that whoops, actually, no. No, you have been getting emotionally abused and bullied and stigmatised your entire young life. This is what the world looks like without that.

Full disclosure, turns out when you have undiagnosed ADHD and autism on top of being queer as a nine bob note, you pretty much have a target painted on your face. It’s fun. Especially when you don’t know what it is about you that is catching like a hangnail on everyone. Such fun.

But anyway, getting off the point. The point being that I was so used to being constantly utterly miserable despite being top of my classes, very good in all the places I needed to be very good, and - oh yeah - had my own personal Izzy telling me my behaviour was weird and stupid and “stop doing that, focus, behave yourself”.

And then one summer at uni, I got a job in a different country and I spent an entire amazing, glorious summer surrounded by other neurodiverse, open-minded people. People who showed me how to do art, how to create things, who basked in nonsense with me and didn’t treat me and my interests as something to belittle.

It was amazing and would highly recommend it. But then came the crash. The job was seasonal. University was done. Without enough funds to stay anywhere else and too far from my nearest friends, I had to go back There. Back to a place where you had to behave the right way, as demanded, as expected, or else it would come back and bite you.

And oh they didn’t like the friends I’d been spending time with. Oh, they really didn’t like the dangerously liberal and arty ways I was developing. Waste of time. Stupid. Ridiculous. No need for it. Not the “right sort of people”. You know. Supportive family things -_- They didn’t like that my behaviour had changed and they let me know about it. I was meant to behave as they wanted me to behave. Back where I was cis and het and ‘normal’ and obeyed God and my parents and no, none of that art, none of that Internet, none of those people.

When there’s someone that toxic in your life, someone who knows all your buttons and can push them without a thought, someone who can kick away your self-assurance from under you, it’s very, very hard to keep yourself resilient and upright especially when you’re in a place where you don’t feel valued or accepted at all.

When Izzy described Ed as “this whatever it is you’ve become” it made me flinch, the way he dehumanises and belittles the things that clearly and truly make Ed happy. The things you love aren’t worthy of respect. You liking them diminishes you in my eyes. I would rather hurt you than let the things I dislike make you happy.

So Ed’s initial switch back to Blackbeard, I got it. I could see why he did it. And then those absolute bastards ruined me because he did what he was meant to and put on his outfit again. He’s doing what’s expected of him. He’s behaving in the appropriate and approved ways.

And then they cut to him in the room, stripped of all the things that made him so happy, alone in the dark and crying, and that reached into my chest and twisted up in all those memories that still knot around my lungs, that place where I was treading water, waiting to drown, and I was wrecked.

This show isn’t just about the deconstruction of toxic masculinity. It’s about surviving the trauma of a world that has been cruel in a thousand different kinds of ways. It’s about people who have been crushed into a shape that isn’t them by society and are only now starting to realise there’s another option.

It’s absolutely destroying me emotionally because seeing someone around my age still dealing with the BS and trauma of their youth is not something we get to see every day. We don’t get to see adults who survived by the skin of their teeth and are still picking up their pieces. We don’t get to see the damage it can do to them and their relationships. This show is giving us that and I love them for it.

[sleepystrawberrybunny]

hi! thank you so much for taking the time to read and to answer and share your experience, your words mean a lot!

fortunately, my university overall has always had a positive or at least tolerant attitude towards the queer community until now. this professor specified that we should not feel obliged to intervene and that she understands that it is not easy to open up in front of strangers, especially on very personal topics, but some controversial situations - more than this - have arisen. from a certain point of view it is likely to happen because in this course we are dealing with delicate and taboo topics, but I am struck by the reaction of the teachers and my colleagues. again, I'm so used to live on the internet that I lost sense a bit of real life, that out there there are lots of people, my age even, that are not exposed to certain things as I am, or are ignorant or not even respectful about it. what you said about "the classroom should be a safe space, not somewhere where you feel like you have to justify the existence of your identity." feels so accurate. (it's the dream, truly.) apart from this episode, the ease with which some people felt allowed to intervene in a certain way towards people with whom they do not share identities and experiences is truly irritating to say the least. one of the previous lessons the professor talked about a little girl who's in the same class of her son who was previously known as a boy. her reaction was to respect her identity, name and pronouns, thankfully, and to pass the message on to her son. in the classroom instead, some intervened asking how it was possible that a little girl of her age could know such a thing, misgendering her, etc., some even insisting to be right... not in an heavy way, but they still did it. the most respectful person about it was a fifty or so year old woman (we do have some older people attending this course too, not only people in their 20s) that also talked about knowing a woman that is intersex.

it really is hard standing up for yourself or your community. I don't know that little girl, but I wanted to defend her because she deserves it, as part of my queer ingroup but not only, because she's a human beign first.

"i know i experience that full-body anxiety reaction, shaking all over when it comes time to speak up, particularly when it is personal." this! i thought my heart was going to explode inside my chest, i could literally hear my heartbeat resound in every part of my body. it took me a bit to calm down too. anxiety is the worst.

what you said about not being so hard on myself and protect my peace, thank you so much for that. now that i'm writing this i'm also realising how i shouldn't burden myself too much. thank you also for wishing me luck with finding my people irl. it really is hard, but i won't lose hope! (after all still i'm young, and hopefully i have many years in front of me for this too) i do have a close friend that currently identifies as asexual, i'm very grateful for her, but i do crave more queer connections, i feel you. so i'm also happy to find a fellow demiromantic!! i couldn't agree more about how isolating the experience can get. i've been trying to understand if i am demisexual too for the longest time... i probably am to some degree, it's not that easy for me to experience sexual attraction, but still it does happen easier than with romantic attraction. i have experienced sexual attraction to not many but more that a couple people until now, i realised what i used to call "crushes" are me being attracted to them sexually, not romantically. on the other hand it's really is hard for me to develop romantic feelings, the realisation was mindblowing.

"(and honestly the jury is still out on that one - is this romantic attraction?? is it a reallyyy strong desire for emotional intimacy ie. qpr?? why can't there just be a litmus test for such things lol)." THIS IS SO RELATABLE!! i've only really experienced romantic attraction towards one person until now, my feelings for them lasted a few years and i don't think i've ever felt that way before, it was so hard falling out of love too... but i still have doubts yeah 🤡.

i agree with what you said about the lack of in-person identity sharing and the intersection of identities. again, it's hard but we shouldn't lose hope.

i can't thank you enough for answering to this! it made me feel really great talking with someone that shares my experience <3 i wish you all the best!!

i feel like opening up about something that happened.. kinda ranty, pretty queer.

i'm following a course at uni called 'psychology for intercultural communication' and the main focus is prejudice studies (the irony of it all). my professor - she's not queer, she's cis and hetero - asked how come gen Z in particular feels the need to use and create so many different labels for their identity, especially queer people. she didn't use a judging or mocking tone, she had genuinely curiosity, more the spirit of a scholar who wants to understand a certain thing, you know? so that felt a bit reassuring.

no one responded in the beginning (we were like 50/60 people in total in that room). then a girl opened up about being poly - she's cis hetero though - and how she partecipated on a podcast with a queer friend and they talked about asexuality, something she didn't know existed. other people started to mumble, the professor and her assistant asked what it meant. they didn't know what asexual was, let alone aromantic or other more "obscure" identities.

as queer myself - currently identifying as demiromantic bisexual - my mind had instinctively started to form an answer to give from my point of view.. but then i got incredibly anxious to talk because, not only i have anxiety and even though i push myself to intervene when i feel the need to - not doing it and regretting it later feels worse most of the time - it's still hard, but how the situation got made me feel so alone.

even though i wasn't going to come out to the entire class - i'm a very private and reserved person in general, i prefer to keep these things to myself and my inner circle.. i also experienced bullying as a kid and as a teenager so there's trauma fear that comes with that as well - exposing myself got even scarier.

in my daily real life i'm very alone in my queer identity. i don't really know many queer people, i'm surrounded by people with a conforming identity, and those few queer i know i don't have a close enough bond with. sure, i have my group of close friends that are really accepting... but i don't have an explicitly queer safe net for my queer identity to run to and talk to about my feelings and experiences as a queer person that talks with other queer people who can understand and sympathise with me. i dream of that. of an heartstopper kind of thing.

i also realised how much i actually consume and live on the internet. for me all the words and definitions and labels felt so familiar and natural because of how used i am to come in contact with them daily through the internet, but it's not the same for the majority of people even of my own generation. it was kind of alienating realising of how much i've been living inside my own bubble.

if it wasn't for the internet, it very much probably would have take me a longer time to find out that my feelings, behaviour and experiences meant, in fact, being attracted to girls the same way i am to boys, and it wasn't just "how female friendships are". i was so confused and lonely in my feelings, but then internet showed me that it's something that's real and has a name, and that people like me exist out there.

in that class maybe there is someone like me, queer and with an answer to give but too scared to do it, who knows. and maybe one of us should have courageously opened up for us to find eachother. maybe it was a missed opportunity.

i'm writing this here and not only in my journal because i think i'm hoping for more queer people to answer and share their experiences, if they feel like it of course. i'm in need of feeling less alone i guess, even if it's through the internet again, but it's the only outlet i have for it atm.

(i should probably add that i live in a town in the countryside in italy, and currently it's not very easy for me to often reach bigger cities, so it's easier to get lonely)

[epicene-humanoid]

some trans Jeff thoughts:

he realized he was trans in elementary school and just went fuck it I'll just start introducing myself as Jeffery and see if anyone decides to stop me (as we know, jeff winger can get away with almost anything)

he got top surgery the second he could afford it (around the same time he started at his law firm), and probably bribed someone to keep it a secret

"I'm jeff winger and i would rather look at myself naked than the women I sleep with" are the words of a man proud of his transition

he's really insecure about his fashion sense, which is why he mostly dresses like the douchey guys at his firm in the start of the show, he thought you can't go wrong with the sleazy lawyer look

he will never admit it but he feels super good about the dean hitting on him, because the dean is a (cis) guy, acknowledging that Jeff is more manly than him

i think he starts out stealth and comes out to everyone one by one, probably starting with abed because he knows abed won't judge him and will probably just see it as an interesting backstory.

abed just says it's cool and maybe worth a prequel exploring Jeff's transition, and jeff asks him to predict how all of the members of the group will react to him coming out.

abed's predictions:

britta will be over-the-top supportive and do a ton of research about trans history, probably put together a slideshow just to prove how progressive she is, and jeff will be a little bit weirded out, but also touched that she did all that for him, though he would never let her know that

shirley will be confused, because she doesn't know how someone she trusts and knows so well could be part of a group she was raised to hate, but ultimately realizes that there's nothing actually against the lgbtq people in the bible, and, as a cool character development arch, starts to advocate against use of the bible to justify bigotry

troy will just think it over and decide that Jeff's physique and coolness are even awesomer knowing how much work he'd had to put in to be like that, and respects Jeff's manliness even more

annie will give him a hug, say something sweet about how she'll always love him, and worry about his health, because even she read somewhere that taking testosterone makes you more likely to have a heart attack, jeff will explain that the risk is still only as high a cis guy, and she'll be the one to always remind him to take his shots

peirce will say at best say "jeff winger used to be a chick?" and at worst call him a slur, either way there's sure to be a lot of misgendering from him, and pestering to know Jeff's deadname (needless to say, Jeff just doesn't tell peirce)

the whole group goes out of their way to keep their beach trips a secret from pierce (the girls don't want him there anyways, he's too liable to be creepy) even though jeff knows that even if pierce saw his scars, all he would have to do is make up a story about some childhood accident and pierce would never question it

sorry this ended up being super long. can I hear some of your headcanons for him?

YES ALL THIS!!! yes yes i’m fully accepting this as canon oh my god

i’m about to type a whole ass ESSAY at midnight because i have been DYING to talk about this for months ajfdksljk,,, this is going to be obscenely long and i might end up adding even more to it as i continue to rewatch the show because there is truly no shortage of trans jeff content (especially when you’re trans and see transness in every little thing ajdkslfkjs)

spoiler warning for literally everything about this show under the cut <3

i 100% agree, i feel like he realized he was trans super young, especially since in the show we see him as a little kid a couple of times. 

like look at little jeff with the oversized sweatshirt and little ponytail!! that’s childhood trans fashion. not to be dramatic but part of me thinks that jeff’s dad left before he fully came out to his family (which gives him even more angst about it, because until that one Thanksgiving episode, he’s never able to prove to his dad that he’s a better man), but part of me thinks that his dad left after he came out (which adds that spicy i-should-have-stayed-in-the-closet guilt that he has to work through). 

either way, because his dad wasn’t there, he had to base his concept of masculinity on something else, which was becoming a lawyer!! there’s some line that’s like “after the dust and divorce papers were settled the only man i looked up to was [the lawyer guy]”. like, replacing your father figure in your mind with the concept of “a job where you can talk your way in and out of anything and distort other people’s concept of reality”? that’s trans.

 and the fucking THANKSGIVING EPISODE... i struggle to watch it without crying hehe <3 yeowch! the dichotomy of willy jr. being the “wrong” kind of man because he’s “too soft” but jeff also not being enough despite adhering to all the social standards of masculinity... fuck!! this whole scene of him telling his dad “i am Not well adjusted” and talking about how he gave himself an “appendix surgery scar” when he was a kid and he still keeps the get-well-soon letters from his classmates under his bed? oh my god. the implication of people loving him not despite his scars but because of them?? trans. i can’t think about this episode for too long or i’ll start yelling.

OH and this scene? where he talks about how his mom got him a girl costume for halloween?? and everyone said “what a cute little girl” and after a few houses he stopped correcting them?? and “once the shame and the fear wore off, i was just glad they thought i was pretty”?? THAT’S TRANS... the man needs validation oh my god... and then in all the halloween episodes we see he has these ultra-masculine costumes (a cowboy, David Beckham, one of the fast and furious guys even though he never watched the movies, a boxer with his DAD’S boxing gloves... god) costumes are about becoming something else and he always chooses to be hypermasculine and that is trans.

THE PHYSICAL EDUCATION EPISODE!!!!!!! being uncomfortable during P.E. is a queer experience. period. but him being specifically uncomfortable in the clothes someone else is assigning to him? trans. “are we gonna talk about clothes like a girl? or use tapered sticks to hit balls around a cushioned mat like a man?” TRANS. and him eventually stripping in public? celebration of transness. and the fact that he eventually becomes comfortable in both the uniform and his own style!! trans!! god i love this episode. 

AND AND AND!!! the gay dean coming out episode!!! where it’s the three of them discussing the best way for the dean to come out as gay despite not entirely identifying with that label!! so we have both frankie and the dean who are sort of ambiguously queer, and jeff who’s a stealth trans man who’s probably only out to only the study group at this point. this scene where the dean and jeff have this like eyebrow communication while frankie is talking is just so cute. queer-to-queer communication. “I am so curious” “oh?” “intellectually.” “oh...” ajfdksljfk this scene just screams high school GSA to me and i love it so much.

and SPEAKING of the dean!! i totally see you on that. i feel like jeff has some internalized homophobia/biphobia (like he’d throw punches over someone else, but when it comes to himself he has a lot of shame). and also seeing the dean so confident in all his different outfits/costumes has a weird affect on him bc it’s like “okay, the dean, a cis guy, can do that, but i as a trans guy could Not because that’s Breaking the Rules”. which, like, throwback to the halloween thing. of course there’s no right way to be masculine, but mr. winger does not know that.

another thing!! the episode where their emails get leaked? that includes his emails with his therapist. fuck!! he was outed to the whole world in that episode!! no wonder he was so fucking angry!! this whole episode (and really any time he mentions his therapist) is so interesting when you think about them as a person he talks to about his transition. OH which adds to the thing with the dean!! “and you told your therapist you wanted to be alone this weekend” and “not you jeff, i know you’ll be visiting your dad” ”I told you to stop reading my emails”. luckily his study group has his back and just makes fun of him for emailing astronauts lmao

and WHO can forget “they’re giving out an award for most handsome young man!!!!” what else is there to say about this line besides: he’s trans. you know he didn’t get awarded enough for being a handsome young man when he was a kid, and no amount of compliments when he’s fully-grown can really make up for that. some people crash a kid’s bar mitzvah to cope with the fact that they struggled to be seen as themselves when they were a teenager <3

also his weird relationship with pierce? where he kind of hates him (understandably lmao) but at times has this almost-friends-almost-father-son relationship with him? especially in this episode where he’s forced to bond with him and ends up having a good time by accident (at a barber shop no less, the perfect place to Be A Man with your Man Friend). idk what to say about him besides the fact that pierce says his mom wanted a girl when he was born and made him dress like a girl (and his middle name is anastasia!) so if they’re gonna do any bonding over transness it’s gonna be that. 

okay one last thing and then i’ll shut up for the night. this episode kills me (and almost kills jeff hahahahelpi’mcrying). it’s a very Trans thing to not be able to visualize your future self, it just is. growing up trans at the time he did? i don’t know what kind of future he saw for himself, but i’m so happy that he ended up with a group of friends who became his family and love him the way they all do. i’m so emotional over this asshole it’s ridiculous. 

in conclusion:

they’re trans, your honor <3