#eta answers

[trippedandfell]

ok shocked by some tags i’m seeing so

[captainofthetidesbreath]

"place, by hand, into the pool" is there... another way

[hyuuukais]

🤭🫶

rain ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! 😭😭😭

[rushingheadlong]

I’ve anonymized this ask because I actually want to talk about this publicly but I want to respect their desire to not have their name attached to this conversation.

(Usual warnings for length, also CW for discussions of homophobia. Because of how this ask was worded we're going to engage with the possibility of Brian being queer, but there are criticisms about some specific ways the fandom discusses that. If any of that sounds upsetting to you, just skip over this post.)

First, a fairly significant correction: I didn’t say that Harold wasn’t the biggest contributor to “Brian staying in the closet” at all. I’m going to talk about that assumption of queerness later, but this is what I actually said in my tags:

#it's really REALLY clear that at the VERY least his upbringing by Harold impeded Brian's ability to fully explore himself #and his identity/attractions/etc. the way he should have been able to #(tho I don't think Harold was the biggest/only contributor to that but. idk.)

Which I think is fairly self-explanatory but, to break it down more simply, based on all the evidence we have of what Harold was like as a person it seems that he was an extremely traditional patriarch who expected Brian to grow up and fulfill the same role within his own family. We know that they had major clashes over this and from interviews we know that Brian struggled with feeling inadequate as a husband and father specifically because he couldn’t step into the patriarchal role that he felt pressured to fill.

From there, I don’t think it’s unfair to extrapolate out and say that an upbringing that pushed that very traditional view of manhood would likely have also included other “traditional” ideas i.e. misogyny, homophobia, etc. The misogyny is easy to confirm, not just through Brian’s earlier songs (like Son and Daughter) but through later comments on his parents’ marriage that revealed specific ways that Ruth May was absolutely subservient to her husband while he was alive.

The homophobia I don’t think can be “confirmed” in the same way, although I do recall once reading an interview with Brian where he admitted to having to let go of homophobic ideas he used to hold in his youth (though I cannot for the life of me find that interview now, so take that with a grain of salt). But regardless of the extent of homophobia, if it was there I again don’t think it’s unfair to say that that would have impeded any potential experimentation with men at least in Brian’s younger years - I mean for one thing, Brian has already specifically said that he declined the advances from men while on tour even though he didn’t decline when propositioned by women.

If you want to theorize that Brian is some form of queer you can look at him turning down offers from men as possibly a sign of internalized homophobia due to his upbringing. It’s possible that even after Brian unlearned those prejudices with regards to other people, that he couldn’t unlearn them with regards to himself. It’s possible that Brian privately acknowledged his queerness, but felt that acting upon it would be somehow a “worse” betrayal of his marriage than cheating with another woman.

However, it’s also possible that there was no internalized homophobia at play at all and that Brian’s actions and comments (or lack thereof) are driven by concerns about the band, with really nothing to do with Harold at all. We already have Freddie saying, on multiple occasions in both the 70s and 80s, that if he were to be more open about his own sexuality that it would ruin Queen forever. If Brian were also queer it would make sense for him to have the same reservations about saying anything, and those reservations could have been enough to make him hesitant to be with another man at all for fear of rumors spreading.

(ETA: Not to mention, the AIDS crisis could have been a deterrent to try anything as well, especially if he hadn't already by then. That wasn't too uncommon among men who lived through that time.)

There’s also the issue that if Brian were queer, any reservations he had about coming out were likely compounded after Freddie’s death, because there’s simply no way to make that announcement now without Freddie’s name being attached to things whether it should be or not. There would be speculation about whether Brian and Freddie were ever more than “just” friends, speculation about the full extent of Brian’s history with men, speculation about the validity of his marriages to Chrissy and Anita, speculation about Roger and John and if they knew or if they were also queer… The tabloids would have a fucking field day with an announcement like that and it would reverberate throughout Brian’s life, impacting not only himself but his closest friends and family, as well as all his relationships suddenly becoming hyper-scrutinized by people intent on “proving” what is “real” or “not real” about any of them.

Even if you want to believe that that wouldn’t happen and people would only react positively to such an announcement, I need you to step back and consider what sort of comments you consider “supportive” and if that’s actually how they would be received. An entire fandom of RPF shippers crying “I told you so!” and descending on his IG to ask invasive questions isn’t supportive. A world that nitpicks identities to make sure that people are using the “right” ones isn’t supportive. A culture where “jokes” about single-gender schools turning people gay are still prevalent isn’t supportive (and when I am still seeing people defend comments about Freddie’s boarding school playing a role in his own identity, you can’t tell me that people wouldn’t make the same jabs about Brian if they got the chance).

I think it’s safe to say that Harold’s view did have an impact on how Brian explored himself and his identity because we already know for a fact that those views deeply impacted the entirety of his first marriage, to the point that Brian has said that he likely wouldn’t have gotten married to Chrissy at all if it wasn’t for pressure from his father.

(ETA: But I don't think you can safely say that Harold was the biggest/only contributor to how Brian explored his own identity when you consider the overall time period we're talking about, and the complications of both the band and Brian's existing marriage. And with regards to his attraction to women specifically, Brian has already made it clear that that was impacted by the lack of socialization with girls at school, not his father.)

But to engage with your question, if Brian is queer I think it’s far more likely that Brian has stayed in the closet due to concerns about the response, to protect the privacy of himself and those closest to him, and out of respect for Freddie’s own legacy, rather than because of specific views of his father, especially since both of his parents have been dead for decades now.

Now, this isn’t what you asked in your question but I do also want to address the phrasing of “Brian staying in the closet” because I think it’s actually rather worrying that that’s what was taken from my tags.

Is it impossible for Brian to be queer? No, of course not, and to be honest if he did ever come out I wouldn’t actually be surprised. However I am begging this fandom on my hands and knees to remember that Brian has said that he’s straight on multiple occasions.

Here’s him calling himself heterosexual in 1993, shortly after Freddie’s death:

And here’s him saying that he’s not attracted to men a decade later in 2003:

There’s nothing wrong with talking what-ifs but you have to keep in mind what Brian has actually said himself. Even more importantly, you absolutely have to be mindful of what you’re using as “evidence” of queerness because, while it doesn't happen all the time, it is very common in this fandom for that sort of speculation to run straight into stereotyping and, by extension, homophobia.

A man will never be queer simply because he wears jewelry/nail polish/women’s clothing/etc., or because he’s friends with other queer men or wrote songs for them, or because he was unhappy in a heterosexual marriage, or because he’s done drag a few times, or because he’s spoken out about queer rights and history, or because his music resonates with queer people today.

These are all reasons I’ve seen given for why Brian “has” to be queer… but why? Why do you think that wearing things typically worn by women makes a man queer? Why are you so quick to disregard the existence of any femininity in straight cis men? Why do you think that people can’t support the queer community unless they’re queer themselves? Why do you think that your feelings about Brian’s music are any indication of what he actually meant, when it's incredibly common for people to attribute meanings to songs contrary to what the artist intended?

I don’t think that most people who point to these sorts of things as “evidence” of queerness are being consciously, maliciously homophobic but it absolutely is homophobic to reduce these traits down to one-dimensional stereotypes in order to argue that because Brian does XYZ that means he must be queer. I mean, do I really have to break down why it’s problematic to enforce binary gender norms by saying that Brian wearing necklaces is proof of queerness, as if straight men are somehow physically impossible of also wearing necklaces?

There are absolutely more respectful ways to talk about "evidence" of queerness and the OP mentioned in this ask is a great example of that, by using direct words Brian has said specifically about his sexuality, attraction, and relationships to make their point rather than relying on stereotypes about looks or behaviors.

Because if you're going to have these conversations, you have to acknowledge what Brian has actually said. That includes his comments about heterosexuality and attraction to women and, furthermore, acknowledging those comments is not the same as denying any possibility that he's queer.

Brian is an English baby boomer and you cannot separate that from these sorts of discussions. It’s very common for people of his generation to have ideas and identities that are directly at odds with the philosophies of younger generations, and pretending otherwise - or condemning those things for being “wrong” - requires you to completely ignore and rewrite actual queer history in order to do so.

If you look at how people have identified throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, you’ll find a ton of examples of people proudly using seemingly “wrong” labels for themselves. Tom Robinson, author of the song “Glad to Be Gay”, continued to identify specifically as a gay man for years after marrying a woman. Phill Jupitus, a former stand-up comedian, once had an entire 20-minute podcast where he talked about his past sexual encounters with and continuing attractions towards men while identifying the entire time as a straight man and not bisexual. Hell my best friend for over a decade is a queer man married to a woman who still identifies as a lesbian for deeply personal reasons that are unlikely to ever change.

As a queer man myself, I would love to see discussions about this that acknowledge that kind of nuance. I would love to see people approach this conversation by asking why Brian identifies as straight instead of just looking for proof that he’s lying about his identity.

Because if you want to talk about the possibility of Brian being queer, what does it then mean that he chooses to publicly identify as straight instead? Does he claim that label because he doesn’t identify with queerness at all, because he feels obligated to because of his relationships with women, or because he feels those relationships are more representative of who he is?

What does it say about the dynamics among Queen if the others always assumed something, but never said? Or if Brian only told Roger and John after the fact in the 90s? Or if Brian made the choice to never say anything to them either? Disregarding shipping entirely, what would it say about Brian’s friendship with Freddie if he knew the singer was gay but never shared a hint of his own queerness in return?

What does it say - about Brian, the band, the fandom, society - if Brian is indeed making a conscious choice to hide any attraction to men? And we do need to include the fandom here, because while it’s tempting to assume that nothing we do makes it way back to the band that’s really not the case at all. The official Queen discord server has had to make multiple statements not to post about shipping etc. and there were innumerable comments on Brian’s own IG page post-borhap accusing him and Roger of homophobia because of the movie. Discussions of Brian’s relationship to queerness have already reached his sphere of influence, whether we wanted it to or not.

We’re in a time where the prevalence of social media is wearing down the concept of personal privacy and making people feel entitled to information about celebrities that’s none of their business at all. We’ve seen this with Kit Connor being forced to come out after Heartstopper due to accusations of "queerbaiting" and F1nnster delaying coming out due to fears of backlash from not using the “right” label. Or if you want an example from an older generation, when Con O’Neill came out he said he was doing so because he felt ready but there is still rampant speculation in the fandom that part of his reasoning was in response to the queerphobia being leveled at Izzy Hands fans.

Let me repeat that: a queer man explicitly said he was coming out because he felt personally ready to do so, and a wide swath of fans have already made it about themselves and their fandom experiences.

These celebrities are far from being isolated cases. There are countless others who have been forced into making deeply personal decisions based not on what feels right to them, but what will appease the crowds of strangers who watch and follow them.

So, since the original question was about that post on Harold, let's bring it back to that point with one final question from myself:

If Brian is in fact queer, do you think that his long-dead father is really the biggest reason that a world-famous multi-millionaire twice-knighted astrophysicist rockstar may still be choosing to stay in the closet after all this time?

One final note that anyone who engages with this post in bad-faith is being blocked. I have neither the desire nor spoons to argue with anyone who insists that this fandom isn't homophobic or that their homophobia is somehow different because they mean well by it.

[lindwurmkai]

not to make an overly personal mysterious lotus casebook post again, but i think i understand what li lianhua has been doing these past ten years.

when you've been sick for a long time and it only ever seems to get worse instead of better, you stop having goals and dreams. you don't know what your health is going to be like a year from now, much less five years from now, so what's the point in planning ahead? li lianhua experienced an even worse and basically instantaneous version of this because he knew for a fact he was dying.

aside from searching for shan gudao's body, which was more of a guilt-driven obsession he couldn't let go of, he didn't have any big goals or long-term plans. but here's what you can do in that situation: you look at your current life and ask yourself, "which aspects of this could i improve slightly?" and then you do that. and maybe you find that you enjoy growing vegetables.

my favourite part of lianhua lou is the lotus tower itself. li lianhua built himself a home (portable, the better to search for shan gudao's remains perhaps? or just to escape being exposed as a fraud), he carved out a life for himself despite knowing his time was limited, he got himself a dog. these are not the actions of someone who has no will to live left.

but he didn't make friends because he knew he would only hurt them by leaving them in the end. he looked at his new limitations, some of them caused by the poison and others self-imposed, and said, "okay, i can't do anything about these, but i can learn to cook."

eventually, you're so used to the limitations that every little achievement starts to feel very satisfying. it may not be as exciting as having grand aspirations, but there is a kind of peace to be found in that lack of excitement, too. (this is what di feisheng understands the least. this is probably also what fang duobing understands the least.)

the grief is relentless, but he thinks he deserves it, so he doesn't try to change that part and focuses on other things. small things. and it turns out this kind of life is not all bad.

what would happen if he suddenly got healed? if half the limitations suddenly disappeared, or even all of them?

[furibond]

List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox for the last 10 people who liked or reblogged something from you! Get to know your mutuals and followers.

thanks for the ask! ~<3

1. hanging out w my friends

2. live music concerts, always a good time

3. cosplaying! i would love to learn how to sew so i could do more complicated looks, but even just with what i can put together from store bought clothes it's fun to plan an outfit, find the right pieces, go to an event all dressed up and have people recognize your character, get weird looks from strangers as you walk to the event lmao it's all fun

4. crocheting tiny amigurumi - behold my tiniest creation:

5. this little gengar sticker i put on the inside cover of my kindle

[mirror-ralsei]

cryptic things toby fox has said that we have no context for compilation:

““Anonymous asked: Penumbra Phantasm??? ” “ＡＴ ＂ＳＨＡＤＯＷ＇Ｓ ＥＤＧＥ，＂ ＳＨＡＴＴＥＲ ＴＨＥ ＴＷＩＬＩＧＨＴ ＲＥＶＥＲＩＥ｡ ””

"It only appears random. All chaos is ordered."

""Everyman"" "is that his name. please tell me that's his obj name" ""Everyman"" "everything i aspire to be" ""Everyman" you aspire to be." "Description: Just a good guy that shows up on occasion."

"Of course, that's not the only version of that song. Lots and lots of things happen. I just hope you can be friends with everyone someday."

"You've all seen the happiest outcome. Neither of them could fix the machine, no matter how hard they tried. No one can."

“Q: How many endings are there? A: One. Q: Then doesn't that mean nothing I do matters? A: There's something more important than reaching the end."

all the allusions to sleeping/nightmares and garbage and darkness

[viperwhispered]

So, as much as I love a dom Jamil, I do also love the idea of him calling me you mistress/master in bed.

Whether he'd be actually willing to do that is another matter, though.

So, I'm curious. Assuming an established relationship where they're comfortable exploring kinks together,

And to clarify: I'm not asking if he'd try it once, but rather if it's something he'd have be a part of their repertoire with his s/o, so to speak.

[blacktofade]

hello just found ur writing specifically on gemtho and am very interested in whatever else you have cooking up ty for your work

Hello hi welcome in!!!! Thank you so much for reading my ramblings! I have so much coming up! We've got gemtho boat sex! We've got gemtho heatwave cave sex! And We've got real nasty rpf fic where Gem and Bdubs hook up at a Con and Bdubs invites a secret special friend to join... ;)

[spittingoutthebloodandscreaming]

No way an interviewer brought of fan fic to his face !?!?!?!

a few times, but the really gross example i mentioned was in an interview for disorder magazine in 2006. someone transcribed the interview on livejournal, idk if more reliable sources exist online unfortunately. Here's the transcription eta: someone scanned the full thing here!

and here's the direct quote:

From the films on YouTube that trace the forbidden (and fabricated) love between Frank and Gerard to the hardcore written stories that put the Way boys into some compromising positions, it’s mind-boggling. And so what better than to drop Gerard, the poor bastard, right in it.

Gerard, have you heard of Waycest and Ferard? He gives the barest of sighs, he smells trouble. “No.”

Hee hee. Well, it’s all about you and Frank or you and Mikey being lovers.

His eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. “Wow,” he says, shocked. “Oh wow, uh yeah. Like the Ferard thing, there was that thing about Mr Spock and Captain Kirk fiction, so I guess it’s just representative of having a huge cult fanbase.”

Yes, but they weren’t related. He squirms. “Mmmmn.”

Just says it’s a bit gross. He laughs, “Oh okay, it’s definitely gross, but it’s kinda funny though. I find it more funny than gross.”

That may be, love, but you ain’t read it. “I probably won’t,” he grins.

But then you’d be missing out on the shower scene – you, Mikey, lots of soap and, er… are you okay?

Gerard, slumped on the couch, possibly with near heart failure, sits up. “Yeah, sorry. If I’m comfortable, you can get away with it. The only thing I don’t talk about is my personal life and everything else is game on.”

[cowboyshit]

gentle reminder that you’re whitewashing willow nightingale, please be mindful of skin tone when giffing poc

my apologies, normally when making gifs of willow (or bandido or any poc) I add an anti whitewashing psd onto my gifs I downloaded forever ago and I completely failed to do that with this latest gifset. I was too distracted by the whites of her gear and wanting that to pop, I didn’t take anything else into consideration. I’ll make sure not to make that mistake again. thank you.

[un-local]

Fic Noir is so clever i love it.

11. 12. 13.

Thank you! <3

11. What scene are you most hyped for this chapter/fic?

Honestly, I'm really hyped about most of it. I've had a really great time rearranging canon to make this as focused on Nick and Sole's ordeals as possible, lol. Here's a taste of what I mean:

In a long silence, the haze of the memory begins to fade. Slowly, she looks to Nick. “Nora was part of the Vault Program. Her husband too. He was out in town that day, so… she got me in.” When she breathes in to continue, her voice is brittle and shaky, in a way she can't stand. “She’s a lawyer, you know.” A terrible, dark pit opens in her stomach. “Was,” she amends. “Are there even still lawyers?” “No,” he says, softly.

Welcome to Harebraind's FO4 Remix, everyone. We're gonna have a good time. And an extremely canon-divergent one :)

One other thing I'm hyped for is creating the atmosphere within the fic. I can't wait to get it all fully realized. Here's a few quick notes from various chapters:

Wait, who said that last part. I digress. Anyway, what where we talking about? XD

12. What emotions do you expect your readers to feel?

Intrigue, hopefully! And a feeling of satisfaction, by the end. I'm going somewhere weird with this, but there's a method to my madness, I promise.

To anyone who's read Annihilation, or seen Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky... Yeah. That specific feeling of melancholy, of reverence for a desolate world, where nature yet persists...

13. What common trope(s) do you feel are used in this chapter/fic?

Hmmmm..... this one made me think. Here's a few I have in the outline so far:

"Oh no, bad weather, we need to shelter together" *personal and deep conversation ensues to pass time*

"Oh no, you got hurt in a fight, let me help patch you up" *yearning, and possibly another feeling, ensues*

Radio Songs as Atmosphere

Woman goes Apeshit defending her man

Send me a number!

[creekfiend]

Do you ever remember that the Noodlers Inks man exists and feel just such an emotion

Eta: thanks everyone informing me that the noodlers inks man is an antisemitism I now feel a very different emotion

[crimeronan]

I have so many thoughts/questions/emotions about your Darius Lore. I love that Darius was essentially mentored not just by an individual but that individual’s entire found family/polycule. The fact that Darius lost all of them nearly all at once, completely helpless to do anything about it, and just had to continue on as if it hadn’t happened. As if he didn’t know what happened. For decades. And being the only one to know the truth and being constantly bombarded with the propaganda and lies that say otherwise. And if he gets himself killed, all that dies with him.

Also, just out of curiosity, GG started mentoring Darius around the end of high school (according to wwaitsoatl) so about 17ish? (Correct me if I’m wrong) About what age range was Darius when everything eventually came crumbling down? What about when he eventually rose to be a coven head? Does Eber know any part of this/ has intuited enough from their own experience and what they’ve they now know of Darius to have some idea (even if it might be somewhat incorrect?)

Apologies for the rambling lol

yeah the mentorship started when darius was 17 iirc -- or thereabouts. i'm Awful with concrete timelines. in keeping with being awful with concrete timelines, i THINK the story would span around 4ish years, but i don't have firm ages/times.

(i may already be contradicting my own canon here, i truly Do Not Remember)

you can assume that All The Awful Shit goes down when darius is 21 or 22ish. mentor is about 5 years older, so he'd be in his mid-to-late twenties when he died. same goes for daphne and cayden.

that leaves time for darius to find out about what's going on, meet the polycule/family and gain their trust, start n maintain his reckless experiments with magic, have all the shit go down with the palistrom groves, learn cayden's techniques for faking sigils.... there's a LOT that happens.

darius is already fairly highly ranking in the abomination coven before his mentor is murdered -- prev GG encouraged him to join the abomination coven rather than the emperor's coven, because the emperor's coven is a nightmare. (this was before darius knew anything about any of the shit happening behind the scenes.)

it's not long after his mentor's murder that the prior head of the abomination coven """voluntarily resigns""" and darius is "encouraged" to replace him. belos still doesn't trust him but also gramps LOVES to make people's lives miserable, bc he's a petty bitch. and bc he was almost certainly jealous of darius taking up so much of his mentor's attention.

so darius gets the lilith treatment. congrats on your prestigious position :) you're so powerful and competent :) You Live And Bleed And Die In Hell :)

eber Almost Certainly knows that darius's mentor was murdered, through intuition if nothing else. and he also knows what darius knows about faking sigils. darius doesn't talk about the specifics of his past or his grief, but he has shared his most useful tools for skirting empire regulations.

eber knows that darius must have learned that from Someone. and eber also knows that if that Someone was still alive, darius would have introduced them at some point.

[skerbbie]

hey sorry if you don't like if people ask these type of questions just know you don't have to answer this but are you still working on your horrorfarm fanfic on ao3 or is it cancelled.

hmm.... it's not that I don't like these types of questions? people just don't ask how I'm doing.

you'll get an update when I feel like writing again. nothing is cancelled. guilt trips do not motivate me.