you're grabbing lunch with a nice man and he gives you that strange grimace-smile that's popular right now; an almost sardonic "twist" of his mouth while he looks literally down on you. it looks like he practiced the move as he leans back, arms folded. he just finished reciting the details of NFTs to you and explaining Oppenheimer even though he only watched a youtube about it and hasn't actually seen it. you are at the bottom of your wine glass.
you ask the man across from you if he has siblings, desperately looking for a topic. literally anything else.
he says i don't like small talk. and then he smiles again, watching you.
a few years ago, you probably would have said you're above celebrity gossip, but honestly, you've been kind of enjoying the dumb shit of it these days. with the rest of the earth burning, there's something familiar and banal about dragging ariana grande through the mud. you think about jeanette mccurdy, who has often times gently warned the world she's not as nice as she appears. you liked i'm glad my mom died but it made you cry a lot.
he doesn't like small talk, figure out something to say.
you want to talk about responsibility, and how ariana grande is only like 6 days older than you are - which means she just turned 30 and still dresses and acts like a 13 year old, but like sexy. there's something in there about the whole thing - about insecurity, and never growing up, and being sexualized from a young age.
people have been saying that gay people are groomers. like, that's something that's come back into the public. you have even said yourself that it's just ... easier to date men sometimes. you would identify as whatever the opposite of "heteroflexible" is, but here you are again, across from a man. you like every woman, and 3 people on tv. and not this guy. but you're trying. your mother is worried about you. she thinks it's not okay you're single. and honestly this guy was better before you met, back when you were just texting.
wait, shit. are you doing the same thing as ariana grande? are you looking for male validation in order to appease some internalized promise of heteronormativity? do you conform to the idea that your happiness must result in heterosexuality? do you believe that you can resolve your internal loneliness by being accepted into the patriarchy? is there a reason dating men is easier? why are you so scared of fucking it up with women? why don't you reach out to more of them? you have a good sense of humor and a big ol' brain, you could have done a better job at online dating.
also. jesus christ. why can't you just get a drink with somebody without your internal feminism meter pinging. although - in your favor (and judgement aside) in the case of your ariana grande deposition: you have been in enough therapy you probably wouldn't date anyone who had just broken up with their wife of many years (and who has a young child). you'd be like - maybe take some personal time before you begin this journey. like, grande has been on broadway, you'd think she would have heard of the plot of hamlet.
he leans forward and taps two fingers to the table. "i'm not, like an andrew tate guy," he's saying, "but i do think partnership is about two people knowing their place. i like order."
you knew it was going to be hard. being non-straight in any particular way is like, always hard. these days you kind of like answering the question what's your sexuality? with a shrug and a smile - it's fine - is your most common response. like they asked you how your life is going and not to reveal your identity. you like not being straight. you like kissing girls. some days you know you're into men, and sometimes you're sitting across from a man, and you're thinking about the power of compulsory heterosexuality. are you into men, or are you just into the safety that comes from being seen with them? after all, everyone knows you're failing in life unless you have a husband. it almost feels like a gradebook - people see "straight married" as being "all A's", and anything else even vaguely noncompliant as being ... like you dropped out of the school system. you cannot just ignore years of that kind of conditioning, of course you like attention from men.
"so let's talk boundaries." he orders more wine for you, gesturing with one hand like he's rousing an orchestra. sir, this is a fucking chain restaurant. "I am not gonna date someone who still has male friends. also, i don't care about your little friends, i care about me. whatever stupid girls night things - those are lower priority. if i want you there, you're there."
he wasn't like this over text, right? you wouldn't have been even in the building if he was like this. you squint at him. in another version of yourself, you'd be running. you'd just get up and go. that's what happens on the internet - people get annoyed, and they just leave. you are locked in place, almost frozen. you need to go to the bathroom and text someone to call you so you have an excuse, like it's rude to just-leave. like he already kind of owns you. rudeness implies a power paradigm, though. see, even your social anxiety allows the patriarchy to get to you.
you take a sip of the new glass of wine. maybe this will be a funny story. maybe you can write about it on your blog. maybe you can meet ariana grande and ask her if she just maybe needs to take some time to sit and think about her happiness and how she measures her own success.
is this settling down? is this all that's left in your dating pool? just accepting that someone will eventually love you, and you have to stop being picky about who "makes" you a wife?
you look down to your hand, clutching the knife.
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omfg I am so behind on this (and yes I’ve only become aware of it because Nicholas Galitzine offof rwarb is in it) but they’re making a fucking Duke of Buckingham series!!!
And you’re all sitting there like “who??” well let me tell you about this absolute fuck.
George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham was the favourite of King James VI&I and by favourite I do mean it in the gayest of ways. (He started life as Sir George, the shittest of titles, and fucked his way to a Dukedom.)
Long story short, here’s a list of things I need to see in this series or I will SUE:
George slut dropping his way into James’s bed. (I mean, he danced for him, but whatever the 17th century equivalent to slut dropping was you can bet George was doing it.)
The exasperation of James’s advisors when he picks yet another beautiful young man to fuck and give totally unreasonable amounts of money and power to.
Even funnier if they show them actively helping George overthrow James’s old favourite before realising “oh shit this one’s worse.”
George failing consistently at every job he was given. (Yes I know he didn’t actually but where’s the comedy in competency? Give me himbo George or give me death.)
Parliament calling James to task on George being a fucking useless nuisance and James standing up in front of parliament and literally saying, “You may be sure that I love the Earl of Buckingham more than anyone else, and more than you who are here assembled. I wish to speak in my own behalf, and not to have it thought to be a defect, for Jesus Christ did the same, and therefore I cannot be blamed. Christ had his John, and I have my George.” (Huge points for throwing Jesus under the gay bus too.)
James practically arranging George’s marriage for him and then riding his horse around the park crying because George, shock, got married.
What better be the dirtiest sex scenes ever broadcast on British television that lead to the “master and dog” letter.
The consistent drama queenery from James, e.g:
I refuse to tag this as a spoiler because it happened 400 years ago: George smothering James and then playing the heartbroken widow to his son. (Historically debated, if anyone wants details shoot me an ask.)
George getting stabbed to death in what was probably the justified climax of him being the most irritating man alive.
George’s assassin getting the warmest send off ever given by any crowd at a public execution cause the people hated George so fucking much.
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For Want of a Nail
New Kings
If Neil hadn't gone to Hernandez's house? (@stabbyfoxandrew)
New Kings AU | Unusual Fic Asks - Closed
Andrew felt like he was going to crawl out of his skin. It'd been a month and a half since anyone had heard anything from Neil Josten. Neil Josten may not even exist anymore but everyone was telling him to be calm, telling him to wait.
He snapped at the upperclassmen who did not matter and drew his knives more than once just to make them shut the fuck up. He wants to leave, wants to head out and start tracking down clues to find Neil and bring him back.
If he has to go to jail then he'll go to jail. It's never scared him before and it's not about to scare him now. He is more than happy to be Neil's trophy husband this time around when he gets out.
He makes plans to leave in the dead of night. He writes letters to Aaron, Kevin, Nicky, Wymack, and Betsy to explain himself but in the end that's the only kindness he can give them.
Neil had long been the highest thing on his totem poll. He has no idea what it would take to have someone come above Neil or to have Neil's importance to him wane.
He has plans to lock himself in a storage unit he's rented that is temperature controlled and remote so no one will hear him screaming for his medication. He can't be going through withdrawal on the meds.
He leaves the Tower in the dead of night and makes his way over to his GS having already started to come off of his medication slightly so that he'd be sober enough to drive out of town.
"Where are you going? It's not safe for you to drive." comes a voice and oh great he's hallucinating Neil. It was something he'd often done back at East Haven, his perfect pipedream always just out of reach.
"I'm going to go get you. I'm sober for the next hour before the effects start to hit." he returns with a roll of his eyes.
"Get me?" his hallucination asks. Andrew doesn't want to turn and look into Neil's young face. He's not sure he can handle seeing it.
"You ran off before Wymack, Kevin, and I could get you." Andrew scrubs a hand through his hair wondering why he's talking to this figment of his withdrawal. Except he knows why and that reason why is that he misses Neil desperately.
"Andrew...are you..." he hears the figment of his imagination trail off and then footsteps and then-
His hallucinations have never been able to actually touch him.
He whips around and there standing in the parking lot at 3 AM is a young and exhausted looking Neil Josten. Andrew's hands shoot up to cup Neil's face and he is alive and warm under his fingertips.
"Drew, it's you." Neil says with a watery smile and that was all he managed to get out before he pitched forward and utterly collapsed into Andrew's arms.
"Neil?" Andrew questions before realizing that Neil had truly lost consciousness, he can feel Neil's forehead burning against his shoulder where it lay"Neil!" he exclaims and gets a proper arm around Neil before he falls to the ground. He manages to get the passenger door to the GS open and puts Neil inside before rushing around to the other side.
Abby's old address in mind he twisted the key and started her up. Stomach churning as he broke speed limits and ran lights.
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Huh, just saw that not everyone takes "Captain Sodom and Captain Gomorrah. He's Gomorrah," as a gay joke. Not adding this to the post going around because I don't want to come across as argumentative or rude, but seeing it does compel me to overexplain why I think it's unambiguously a gay joke lol.
"Captain Sodom and Captain Gomorrah," would be a generic joke about debauchery imo. "He's Gomorrah," is what makes it a joke about gay sex specifically, by pointedly referencing sodomy. Because while technically sodomy refers to a lot of things, based on my own experience and 20th century media consumption I feel like I can pretty confidentally say that in public consciousness, at least in US media, it's functionally a synonym for gay anal.
Like I'm no expert here so maybe I'm wrong and biased in my media consumption and experiences, but if I saw someone on TV using the word sodomy to refer to het sex acts without it being in the context of like, an informative conversation about how sodomy doesn't just refer to gay sex, or like, in the context of a deep south bible thumper type railing against all non-piv sex in antiquated terms, I would be very surprised. I'd at least expect a woman to be specified if it's meant to be het pia, and idt I've ever seen it used as a synonym for blowjobs except in real life 'fun fact' discussions lol. (Also fun fact, cunnilingus is not legally sodomy.)
"He's Gomorrah," also just doesn't function as a joke if it's just referring to general heterosexual debauchery, the whole point of that line is to make the reference to sodomy in particular explicit, in differentiation from Trapper. And in this context Hawkeye isn't calling himself an enjoyer of receiving blowjobs or fucking women in the ass in comparison to Trapper who only has good christian piv sex, he's differentiating himself from Trapper in terms of his effeminacy, something he does often in comedic contexts.
And my impression is that the point of the gay sex jokes in general isn't "Hawkeye is bi representation" or "getting gay references past the censors sneakily," it's "Hawkeye making jokes about being unmasculine which includes making jokes about getting fucked in the ass in an exaggeration of his gender expression, which is not actually all that out there in the 70s counter-culture context."
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