#gay teenagers they so did

[bixels]

Learning that fans hated Applejack and called her "boring" is crazyyy to me because I genuinely, unironically believe AJ's the most complex character in the main six.

Backstory-wise, she was born into a family of famers/blue collar workers who helped found the town she lives in. She grew up a habitual liar until she had the bad habit traumatized outta her. She lost both her parents and was orphaned at a young age, having to step up as her baby sister's mother figure. She's the only person in the main gang who's experienced this level of loss and grief (A Royal Problem reveals that AJ dreams about memories of being held by her parents as a baby). She moved to Manhattan to live with her wealthy family members, only to realize she'll never fit in or be accepted, even amongst her own family. The earlier seasons imply she and her family had money problems too (In The Ticket Master, AJ wants to go to the gala to earn money to buy new farm equipment and afford hip surgery for her grandma).

Personality-wise, she's a total people-pleaser/steamroller (with an occasional savior complex) who places her self worth on her independence and usefulness for other people, causing her to become a complete workaholic. In Applebuck Season, AJ stops taking care of herself because of her obsessive responsibilities for others and becomes completely dysfunctional. In Apple Family Reunion, AJ has a tearful breakdown because in she thinks she dishonored her family and tarnished her reputation as a potential leader –– an expectation and anxiety that's directly tied to her deceased parents, as shown in the episode's ending scene. In The Last Roundup, AJ abandons her family and friends out of shame because believes she failed them by not earning 1st place in a rodeo competition. She completely spirals emotionally when she isn't able to fulfill her duties toward others. Her need to be the best manifests in intense pride and competitiveness when others challenge her. And when her pride's broken, she cowers and physically hides herself.

Moreover, it's strongly implied that AJ has a deep-seated anger. The comics explore her ranting outbursts more. EQG also obviously has AJ yelling at and insulting Rarity in a jealous fit just to hurt her feelings (with a line that I could write a whole dissection on). And I'm certain I read in a post somewhere that in a Gameloft event, AJ's negative traits are listed as anger.

Subtextually, a lot of these flaws and anxieties can be (retroactively) linked to her parents' death, forcing her to grow up too quickly to become the adult/caregiver of the family (especially after her big brother becomes semiverbal). Notice how throughout the series, she's constantly acting as the "mom friend" of the group (despite everything, she manages to be the most emotionally mature of the bunch). Notice how AJ'll switch to a quieter, calmer tone when her friends are panicking and use soothing prompts and questions to talk them through their emotions/problems; something she'd definitely pick up while raising a child. Same with her stoicism and reluctance at crying or releasing emotions (something Pinkie explicitly points out). She also had a childhood relationship with Rara (which, if you were to give a queer reading, could easy be interpreted as her first 'aha' crush), who eventually left her life. (Interestingly enough, AJ also has an angry outburst with Rara for the same exact reasons as with EQG Rarity; jealous, upset that someone else is using and changing her). It's not hard to imagine an AJ with separation anxiety stemming from her mother and childhood friend/crush leaving. I'm also not above reading into AJ's relationship with her little sister (Y'all ever think about how AB never got to know her parents, even though she shares her father's colors and her mother's curly hair?).

AJ's stubbornness is a symptom of growing up too quickly as well. Who else to play with your baby sister when your brother goes nonverbal (not to discount Big Mac's role in raising AB)? Who else to wake up in the middle of the night to care for your crying baby sister when your grandma needs her rest? When you need to be 100% all the time for your family, you tend to become hard-stuck with a sense of moral superiority. You know what's best because you have to be your best because if you're aren't your best, then everything'll inevitably fall apart and it'll be your fault. And if you don't know what's best –– if you've been wrong the whole time –– that means you haven't been your best, which means you've failed the people who rely on you, which means you can't fulfill your role in the family/society, which makes you worthless . We've seen time and time again how this compulsive need to be right for the sake of others becomes self-destructive (Apple Family Reunion, Sound of Silence, all competitions against RD). We've seen in The Last Roundup how, when no longer at her best, AJ would rather remove herself from her community than confront them because she no longer feels of use to them.

But I guess it is kinda weird that AJ has "masculine" traits and isn't interested in men at all. It's totally justified that an aggressively straight, misogynistic male fandom would characterize her as a "boring background character." /s

At the time of writing this, it's 4:46AM.

[bicryptide]

"Rise leo is not canon queer/MLM-"

Be serious.

[edwinisms]

it’s actually so wild to me that this fairly quirky YA type show gave both of its main characters deaths that can, in one way or another, solidly be considered hate crimes. they were both flat out murdered as a result of being A) gay and effeminate or B) brown (south asian, specifically) and you could argue whether or not those kids thought of it that way in the moment or whatever but the bottom line is that they would not have been in the situations that killed them if they weren’t of their respective minorities. like legitimately that is a ballsy choice for this kind of netflix show, let alone for the two Main Characters, and i respect it big time

[jetkast]

Sometimes I think about how Jin Ling goes by that instead of Jin Rulan and I just vividly picture his young mistress persona going like "yeah my not uncle was an unaware pining cut sleeve and my mom kind of just enabled it so... juijui and I just try to pretend it didn't happen -- it's cringe af" and I die a little in both grief and hilarity

[ratatatastic]

men who have a normal relationship with each other and the cup

[goatsandgangsters]

does everybody want to hear a funny story about my Favorite High School English Teacher(™)

so my Favorite High School English Teacher was the faculty adviser for the gay-straight alliance and for a student literary magazine of bad angsty poetry, and somewhere in his spare time he volunteered to teach Troubled Youths at the place where my mom worked as a therapist 

so they ran into each other there and they like, vaguely recognized one another and were trying to figure out how they knew each other, and eventually realized “Oh! You’re My Kid’s English Teacher!” 

so he’s like “oh yes, I am, great kid, great student, we have class together and also the gay-straight alliance”

now. admittedly. my favorite high school english teacher should have known better than to tell a parent their kid goes to the gay-straight alliance, but I’ve already told you this is a funny story, so no harm came of it 

but my mom says to herself “hm. what is my kid doing going to the gay-straight alliance.” and she wonders if she should Talk To Me About It. and ultimately decides to respect my privacy and figures that if I want to tell her, I’ll tell her 

this was in like 2009. a solid decade+ has past, during which time I have come out to my parents multiple times, first for my sexuality, then again as trans 

and a year or so ago my mom—tearfully and riddled with guilt—confesses to me about this conversation with my Favorite High School English Teacher and how she’s so sorry that she never talked to me about the gay-straight alliance and how she wanted to respect my privacy but maybe she should have said something and it’s been eating at her ever since I came out that she never did and she wasn’t there for me about it—

which is when I stopped her and told her 

I was never IN the gay-straight alliance with my high school english teacher

I worked with him on the literary magazine 

and yet I was (correctly but too early) assigned gay at English teacher

[thepersonperson]

So basically what I'm getting is that penetrating gojo('s infinity) endears you to him and the only ppl who've done it successfully are two older men, one of which was literally his awakening

…Yeah Gojo’s relationship with men is not healthy. (Not that he’s any better with women. It’s just a different flavor of messy.) But you don’t need to be violent with him! Geto and Nanami are proof of that.

I think the common thread between the 4 of them (Toji, Sukuna, Geto, and Nanami) is not only their fighting prowess, but their strength when it comes to tolerating Gojo’s insufferable personality. They don’t let Gojo get under their skin and can take control of the conversation from him.

[aithusarosekiller]

When someone tries to take the moral high ground when talking about Regulus and all you can hear is that they don't understand brainwashing and character development

I'm so sorry the literal child sacrificing his life to go against the ideals he was raised into isn't good enough for you, I'll tell him to do better next time

This was a Snape superfan too

Like you can't say that Snape only joined the death eaters bc the Slytherin environment was so dark and then turn around and say it doesn't apply to another character in the same environment who also had the outside expectation from family to do them proud and side with voldy after he'd been brought up surrounded by those beliefs even before he joined school

[kirkwallguy]

my rook is so funny. extremely boring normal ex criminal who joined the wardens in his 30s to avoid going to prison. feels no alliance to his faction at all but is a little freak who enjoys taking orders so he does well. meets varric who instantly projects act 1 marcus onto him for no real reason other than they're both kind of assertive guys he has to work with and wants to fuck. has no idea who marcus is and assumes "hawke" is a recent ex varric isn't over. enters a weird situationship with him because hooking up with a weird older dwarf is more fun than being a warden. suddenly finds himself in charge at the lighthouse and starts acting like an old grizzled commander even though he and neve are like the same age. kind of wants to die so he doesn't care about anything that's happening but he'll see it through until the end because that's his Job.

[dreamyintersexouppy]

transmascs stop pretending that transfems are untrustworthy sources for transfeminism challenge impos- fuck i didn't even finish and you already complained about our terminology

[genderexamples]

"You know, I might be half-man."

- my mom, who might also become a late-in-life genderfluid transmasc

[blatterpussbunnyfromhell]

still not over the ending of hannibal seriously that shit SLAPPED like?? Love Crime being repeated as Will and Hannibal jump off the cliff?? iconic. “I will survive” over Bedelia looking at her own leg on the table, meaning that not onbly did Will and Hannibal ACTUALLY DID SURVIVE THE FALL but they also acted on all their threats to Bedelia who absolutely does NOT intend to die, as she hides her fork under the table. THE MEANINGS AND THE POSSIBILITIES OF THAT ENDING AAAAAAAAH

[robinyourcreator]

writing ulranni is funny because its bringing back so many memories of writing rystila

because they're both "perspective of video game woman dealing with her baffling, ruthlessly competent simp"

[valyrfia]

just reread the mortal instruments for the first time in like seven (?) years and like it's fine and all but the concept would've been so much more interesting in the hands of a queer author

[housecatclawmarks]

It feels important to note that while there can be very healthy age gap relationships between adults and there are ppl in their 20s who seek out much older partners (which im not gonna tell them not to! they’re adults w a right to fuck & it’s none of my goddamn business), there is not a ‘positive tradition of gay age gap relationships’ and I think it’s good to asses that statement critically when someone says it to you.

The historic frequency of age gap relationships in Western gay culture specifically, especially Britain, does not come from roots that have anything intrinsically to do with homosexuality. What it comes from is specifically rich, mostly white queer men doing what many, many rich white men have done throughout history regardless of sexuality-using their racial & class power to have consensual or coercive sex with young working class people & people of color. The power imbalance between age&experience AND financial status was romanticized a Lot by these rich gay men in the late 19th and early 20th century (think about ppl like Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman, E.M. Forster, Edward Carpenter, etc) and relationships with poor young men & sometimes teenaged boys were sought out enthusiastically under the guise of imitating ‘the Greek acceptance of homosexuality’-which makes sense when you consider where & how a lot of these men were educated.

The illegality of gayness & oppression of lgbt people definitely made it hard to find examples of same-gender attracted people in society, which helps contribute to the Greek imitation thing but also more importantly created situations where young lgbt people who were working class, who were immigrants, who weren’t white were facing the most severe consequences under the law for their sexuality & gender expression, were living the hardest lives, & were easier to exploit by rich and powerful men because of it. The ones doing the exploiting weren’t doing it because they were gay, the criminalization of homosexuality just made it easier for them to take advantage as they did the same thing their heterosexual peers did to young women & girls who were working class, immigrants, & women of color.

If anything the fact that conditions in the UK & US have improved so much legally and socially for cis gay people has made it much more achievable to have ethical, healthy age gap relationships between people who want them, even though these issues do still exist. Again, it definitely can and does happen, and adults have the right to date & fuck each other if they want to, but that type of relationship does not need to be culturally tied to something unhealthy, coercive, & produced by classism and racism.

It’s a subject I think a lot of western gay people & historians shy away from talking about and really seeing as what it was because we’re so often wrongly smeared as pedophiles & gay sexuality is accused of being predatory to children & teens as way to harm and criminalize gay people, and I understand the fear of playing into that, which is why it’s so important to me to emphasize again that this exploitation was a product of class and racial inequality and homo/transphobia, not an innate quality of gay or trans society. But we do need to talk about it! We need to address it! And (saying this As one) white gay men NEED to find queer history & role models who aren’t rich, imperialist pedophiles-there have been SO MANY OF US who aren’t that! the majority of queer people in history have not been that! We have a rich culture and history to draw from here without glorifying or toning down really gross, predatory behavior from a handful of wealthy men & the class that enabled them.

[robocops-a-christ-allegory]

Listen up you idiot zoomers who think people can still make meaningful queer art past the year 2000. We all need to sit around and read USamerican comic strips from the 90s because those are pretty much the only true capture of the universal gay experience now and forever, and anything past that is unimportant schlock. And like pinkwashing I think. We have to learn queer history, thats why we need to all ignore that what Im talking about is joke comic strips from the 90s and instead revere them as the most important work created, with nothing capable of surpassing it. Anyway