#i mean look at rwrb and heartstopper

[potatomoonjuice]

Why can't fictional queer men over 40 just be happy :(

[weirdgirlvampire]

welcome to tumblr dot com <3

[vandalizingyourschool]

I'm rlly sorry but please don't send me donation asks 😔 I'm a minor and i can't donate, and my blog isn't popular enough to spread the word far enough

kind of jobless so i figured why not make an intro post

if your here for some or the other reason you're cool and bmf…?

(ik this is very awkward but im trying ok)

Name : sam (samrat)

Age : minor

Pronouns : he/they

Gender : trans guy

Likes : NOAH FINNCE :D, yungblud, conan gray, marvel, heartstopper, riordanverse, good omens, artik monki, rwrb astronomy and sketching throwies in my blackbook

Dislikes : most vegetables, my parents, myself, transphobes, homophobes, das it……? (i think)

I have an rp account: @nick-nelzzzzz

also look NOAHFINNCE community: x

DNI: pedophiles, zoophiles, transphobes, homophobes, terfs, radqueers, ableists, racists, sexists, anti abortion, religious people, nsfw adult accounts, basically if your mean and got a problem with me

Moots: @savi-of-ithaca @sleepforlife @rivenantiqnerd @aled4laide @sassypainterangel @is-it-funny-because-its-true @aloserwholikesheartstopper @helphowdoiusethis @msadviceforyou @amarawisbey @xoxonxo @thechronicgoth @rascaltheidiot @heybuddythatsnotok @frank-tony-ray-typeofshit @distressed-noises-aaaaaaa @pidgewildwind @aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh @fa1ryy-z1n

yeah that's it

ong why are you still reading this???? this is so boring

now go away

bye

[meraki-yao]

Way back when a few months ago, I mentioned that the Chinese fan translation of Taylor's name 忒樂 meaning "really happy", which is adorable and fits him pretty well

Never got around talking about Nick's name's translation, but since I'm translating a couple of Chinese rwrb fan content, I might as well share this too lmao

The official translation of Nick's name is 尼古拉斯 · 加利齊納 which is weird to me because the pronunciation is not that similar:" Ni Gu La Si · Jia Li Qi Na." In English, it ends with "zine", a close-mouth sound, but in Chinese the same syllable is translated to "na", an open-mouth sound. What the fuck.

So most of the fans when talking about Nick for most of the time, say fuck that and use a translation they made up: 妮寇拉 嘎了心 Ni Kou La Ga La Xin, which sounds a lot closer to his actual name, but also is fun when you look at the meaning of the characters

So to start with his first name Nicholas:

妮 Ni: young girl

蔻 Kou: Caradom

啦 La: just a sound/expressive sound

The thing is, this ends up sounding more like "Nicola", or they sometimes simplify it to only the first two character so it's "Nicole", than "Nicholas", which is the Chinese equivalent of calling him "baby girl"

But the fun comes with his surname: see, 了 Le is a word to indicate past tense, and 心 Xin means heart. But 嘎 Ga, the first character, is originally just a character for the sound ducks make but recently developed into slang meaning "killed/died/cut off"

So Nick's surname literally translates to "killed your heart", which after translated, is closing to the meaning of "heartstopper" in a romantic sense, like you're so pretty you made my heart stop and killed me

So Nick's Chinese Fan Translation Name

Means

Babygirl - You made my heart stop

Which, hey, also suits him!!!

Gotta love me some wordplay :D

[lily-s-world]

I have always been a supporter of you can dislike whatever you desire no matter the popularity, but I must admit that sometimes the reasons people dislike something are so illogical that that dislike can only translates to looking for reasons to hate stuff just for the sake of it.

Like for example, I read in Instagram someone telling that Nicholas Galitzine played once a military man with idiotic friends, and therefore he wasn't suited to play Prince Henry in RWRB. That was the entire argument, you played an awful military man once and your career should be over after that.

Or this other when someone commented that Kit Connor's face wasn't like they pictured Nick Nelson and that he should be recasted. And it wasn't just one comment, I saw the same account do it in a few pictures of a fan account of Heartstopper. The kid already hit the gym like crazy because some awful people told him he didn't have Nick's body, and comments like actually made me worry about how he will react and how we will feel with himself.

This doesn't mean that people doesn't have the right to criticize, I have had entire discussions about a book/film that I enjoy in which we talk about things that should had been better or things we didn't liked. But this type of comments are just there to spread hate amongst others, and ruin the experience for everybody else.

Please be better, with the upcoming seasons of show we are waiting for, and movies we are eager to see... Don't be that type of accounts that only spreads hate and awful comments. There is already enough of that in the world.

[alarrytale]

Hi Marte. Do you think it is harder for male popstars and actors to CO than female popstars and actresses? Because fans of female popstars and actresses are mostly gay men and straight women but fans of male popstars and actors are mostly straight women who sexualize and fantasize about them. Billie CO hasn't impacted her career at all because she doesn't have a thirsty audience but it would impact Harry and Shawn's right? Due to having a female audience who fantasize about sleeping with them. Well Ricky Martin managed to do it but he waited until later in his career. I hope we don't have to wait that long! How would a male artist go about CO if he has a female audience? Do you think it's possible? I'm talking gay male artists by the way, not bi. Bi it would be easier to CO as straight women will stick around.

Hi, anon!

I agree with you that it's harder for gay male popstars and actors to come out because of their target audience. For gay male popstars, coming out will kill the fantasy and het women will lose their chance to project their wants, needs and use them for their heterosexual exploration. For gay male actors they will maybe lose the chance to play het romantic roles and action movies, or other hyper-masculine roles that het males project onto. They're afraid they'll loose het male respect and recognition.

It's totally doable to come out to a female audience as a gay popstar. Like gay men love popstars like Lady Gaga, Madonna and Beyoncé, female heterosexual women love gay men the same! There are plenty of straight women who are larries, plenty of straight women who read gay fan fiction, and plenty of older women screaming about Elton Johns flamboyant outfits.

Gay men can still be fashion icons, trendsetters, influencers and role models to women when they come out. Even if they can't deliver on het female fantasies anymore. Gay men are more relateable to women, less misogynistic, feminists and more supportive and understanding of females than straight men are. Women might not want you anymore, they now want to be you. They still want to know who you're dating (is he hot), which celebrity friends you hang out with, what brand you're wearing and what festival you're playing next.

If Harry (and Louis) start to age up and act their age, they will stop attracting so many teenagers as fans and continue keeping fans their own age, and grow and older fanbase. Most people will stop projecting their sexual fantasies onto celebrities when they grow up (or at least realise that you won't marry them). When you've been around as an artist on top of world for a decade, your fans will also have grown loyal to you. They won't stop buying your music or going to your concerts because you come out as gay. People will have grown up alongside you, you're a part of their childhood and you will always have a place in their hearts. You can’t love someone so much for so long and reject them just because they come out. You can still attract teenagers as fans, but they will be fans for other reasons than you being someone to project onto. Teens love the cast of Heartstopper, Young Royals and RWRB for example. As long as you stay relatable, iconic, cool, inventive and explorative, and be someone to admire and look up to, you'll be fine.

If the coming out is done right, slowly and by seeding, your fans will get the picture and start rooting for you to come out. They won't be taken off guard and will come to accept it, little by little. Boil the frog. I also don't believe going from a straight image to totally changing up everything to exaggeratedly show off your queerness is the right way to go in order to keep your longtime straight fans loyal and supportive (i'm looking at you jojo siwa and sam smith...). If finally being free and doing whatever you want is your main goal, then by all means. But if you still want to maintain your fanbase and level of fame, then don't change everything up and make the artist your fans know and love totally unrecognisable to them. It's too much. Don't do a personality transplant. Show that you are still you. That basically means still catering to heterosexual women. They are still your biggest target audience. You will automatically now also appeal and cater to queer people. I think that's a good way to do it. With time and more acceptance, you'll be able to be more and more your authentic self and self express the way you wish. Your fans will have gotten used to it and not notice it. Boil the frog.

[bluedalahorse]

Complicated queer media feelings beneath the cut…

Is anyone else feeling… I dunno… complicated about the part where we have Heartstopper, Red White and Royal Blue, and likely more YRS3 promo happening all in the same month?

I find a kind of enjoyment in each of these, so on one hand, I’m happy about it! (YR is my dearest fandom love right now about which I have many deep feelings, Heartstopper brings me joy and is what I’d watch with my middle school kids if I had kids, and RWRB is more on the “fun popcorn media” side of things for me but also has a lot of government humor that I laugh at as a person living in DC who gets subjected to motorcades etc.)

And I also think it’s awesome that queer rep has come a long way since when I was in high school, and there was only kinda Will and Grace and Willow on Buffy and you barely heard about some kids watching Queer as Folk if they were lucky enough to have HBO and parents who weren’t weird about it.

And and at the same time I know I’m going to be looking at my dash like, huh, that is a lot of mlm romance kissing between photogenic cis men.

Which. Again. Is progress? But also I’m a not-skinny aroace homosocial queer who is very interested in the stories of women and nonbinary people as well, and stories about friendship as well as relationships that reject traditional definitions. I want sweet romantic moments in my stories and decent makeout scenes but I also want stories about how queerness can challenge capitalism and hegemony and how we can create new families of choice and so on.

And for some of the texts I’m talking about, the canon definitely delivers? Things feel balanced? YR explores the class system with so much skill, and makes me ask powerful questions about justice and identity and such. It also has incredible female characters, including Sara as B Plot Protagonist driving a significant part of the story. (I wish I could find more fanfic from female characters’ POVs. I wish there were just as many “can’t wait until they get their happy endgame” posts about the Sara-Felice friendship as there were about the Wilmon romance, and I adore the Wilmon romance. I just love everything else about the show alongside it, and sometimes I find myself desperately craving discussion about the other aspects of the show while not knowing how to find ways of engaging about it.)

Heartstopper—I love how a multiqueer friends group is so centered in the story. Nick and Charlie are the main characters but Charlie’s friendship with Tao matters as much in the first season as his romance with Nick. I love how the show chose to have Elle carry a significant subplot in season 1 (although they could do better with that) and I am hopeful that we’ll get an ace discovery story for Isaac in season 2 and I’m looking forward to seeing more Imogen and we get a new disabled character and we’ll also get Tara and Darcy being Tara and Darcy! I don’t really follow people for Heartstopper necessarily, because it’s not really something I analyze or write fic for, but, you know, there’s a lot of it that goes around and I have generally positive feelings about it. I’m curious about what parts of the show and what characters people will choose to focus on.

RWRB… well, it’s been a long time since I’ve read the book, but I’m sort of holding off on comments until I see what’s different between the book and the movie.

Long story short I think I’m going to feel great about these various mlm pairings individually, because they’re all distinct personalities with stories and such, but I’m going to be feeling kind of weird and overwhelmed about the attention and gif visibility and squeeing that mlm romances between photogenic cis men get in aggregate.

But also also. Maybe that’s on me for not being into something like Yellowjackets fandom or not spending more time browsing the tag for XO Kitty. So the problem could also be me. I mean who knowsss?????

[paperstorm]

I don’t know if I’m getting old or Tarlos has ruined all other couple for me but I watched RWRB and was so underwhelmed. I know this will be a safe space to say that. Don’t get me wrong, glad we are getting LGBTQIA rom coms and happy endings and great to have representation etc but I feel so out the loop because I see everyone gushing and saying it’s the best thing ever and I just don’t feel that way. It was so rushed never really felt anything for the main characters, particularly the Prince. Crucial plot development from the books missed. No time to build up and so they didn’t seem like they were so madly in love and all the drama was resolved too quickly so never really felt worried. The chemistry was ok but not that hot. The acting was meh in parts. That whole Baby scene everyone is obsessing over? Just sounded weird and no emotion from Alex. Tarlos do baby better. Tarlos do everything better there is just no comparison in my eyes. Any one else out there feel the same or am I a lone wolf?

I don't go here tbh but I have quite a few friends and mutuals who do and I can say that there are people who loved the movie adaptation and people I know who really hated it. So you're not alone, book adaptations are so tricky. I'm sorry it was a let down, that SUCKS especially if you were looking forward to it.

But also honestly, if it just didn't spark joy for you, then it didn't spark joy. Tarlos is so wonderful they've probably ruined me for some other things too but just because something is LGBTQ related doesn't mean everyone in the community has to love it. Some people don't like Heartstopper. Some people didn't like Portrait of a Lady on Fire. I couldn't stand Kurt/Blaine in Glee. You aren't obligated to love every single piece of media with the representation you're looking for. If this movie didn't do it for you and if you found their chemistry lacking, it's just not the movie for you. There will be others.

[i-identify-as-cheese]

I am genuinely so fucking tired of modern books (in English at least) to be mainly romance books. Everything is romance, usually with no plot. I don't mind romance (I mean, I love Heartstopper, RWRB, Young Royals, etc), but when I'm looking for something that's sci-fi or fantasy, then I want sci-fi or fantasy, not romance in a fantasy setting.

I'll be looking through books at a bookstore, marked as fantasy, and it'll look like an interesting book, then it's like "this YA romance!!!".

like. where's the brandon sanderson-like sci-fi and fantasy books. where's the percy jackson-reminiscent series. where's the story that feels similar to harry potter but not written by a transphobe.

where are the books that actually do care about plot and world building and who each character is individually, rather than just "main character" "love interest" "other love interest".

can bookstores please stop throwing all their advertisement towards "booktok" books thanks.

[myheartalivewrites]

Tag someone you want to get to know better.

Thanks for tagging me @bitbybitwrites ! ❤️

favorite color: no clue! I look particularly good in pink, white, navy blue so let's go with those!

last song: playing on my Spotify just now: Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper, which... yeah, I stand by it.

last movie: the last film I saw in a cinema was Red, White & Royal Blue at the London premiere. Actually, now that I think of it, I took my kids to the Super Mario Bros movie more recently, but that can't be my answer, so we'll stick with RWRB.

On the tv it was Love at First Sight on Netflix, which was alright.

currently watching: rewatching Sex Education before diving into season 4. Watching the current seasons of Taskmaster and Only Murders in the Building as they air so I don't get spoiled.

other stuff I watched this year: if I was a goldfish I wouldn't even be able to find my way around my fish bowl, by which I mean my memory sucks and I can barely remember what happened on a show from week to week. I watched Succession. Loved the second season of The White Lotus (I think that was this year 😬). Season 2 of Heartstopper. Strange New Worlds. Queen Charlotte. The Night Agent. Good Omens. Starstruck. Rewatched Schitt's Creek. I'm sure there's more

shows I dropped this year/didn't finish: I started on The Americans, forgot I was halfway through but I want to get back to it. Abbott Elementary I've been dipping in and out of when I need a v chill evening. Same for What We Do in the Shadows and somehow pretty much everything I like that's on Disney+ I keep forgetting to finish. Res Dogs, Grey's, Station 19, Fleishman is in Trouble. That's weird.

currently reading: I just finished The House in the Cerulean Sea 🥹 and now I'm reading Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit bc I like to alternate easier books with more challenging ones 😂

Oh, and fic wise, this weekend I started With so much of my heart (that none is left to protest) by @kiwiana-writes

currently listening to: my most highly in rotation playlist atm is a very poppy one filled with BSB and N'Sync and Britney and other bangers including Nobody Like U (from the film Turning Red) which is fucking excellent and will always be famous to me 😍. It's out of character for me, but it peps me up!

currently working on: a few attempts at expanding recent fics. My south of France fic. Something original that I'm hoping to really dive into come October, if the fic brain worms leave me alone.

current obsession: def still RWRB ❤️

Tagging @daisymae-12 @inexplicablymine @historicallysam @gwiazdziarka @letloverule1111 @kiwiana-writes @celaestis1 and if YOU too feel inclined to overshare on the dash why not do it and tag me so I can read it? 😁

[daffodilsonaprettystring]

There is a little over an hour left until RWRB drops for me and I don’t think I can coherently say just how excited for this movie I am like—

I only picked up that stupid pink book last year because I was on a Heartstopper high and needed more queer joy, but honestly? RWRB surpasses Heartstopper for me any day now.

I’ve read the book six times since last April, I bought the signed special edition last fall, I have saved every little crumb the movie has given us and watched it religiously all these months just DYING from anticipation to finally see this movie come to life. I was there when they dropped the casting, when the common opinion was this movie would be trash, when we finally got the trailer and everybody flipped that opinion upside down (as they should) and now that we’re finally here I don’t even know what I’m going to do when it’s over.

Alex and Henry’s story means so much to me on so many levels, so many layers of comfort and happiness and just the idea that that kind of love can exist somewhere that isn’t fiction? It’s beautiful and I will always be so, so thankful I picked up the book when I did so that I could be here for all of this.

That anticipation almost killed me, but I wouldn’t have traded it for the world. I AM READY TO WATCH HENRY AND ALEX MAKE HISTORY, FINALLY, ON MY TV (or computer in my case) SCREEN.

Ngl I’m really gonna miss getting new content every single day and coming to tumblr to scroll through the RWRB tag to scream with everybody about two seconds of Alex and Henry looking at eachother lmao but I’m so happy we’ve finally gotten here GOD I CSNT BELEIVE ITS FINALLY THE DAY

This got incredibly sappy but yknow what Im ok with that

HAPPY RWRB RELEASE DAY I WISH ALL RWRB FANS A VERY HAPPY FIRST WATCH AND MANY MORE AFTER

❤️🤍💙

[iwouldgiveherthestars]

As an avid fanfiction writer and reader (and lesbian) something that is very shocking to me is the amount of fanfic in certain *very* widely watched queer TV shows. Historical queer TV shows like It's a sin and Hollywood (which is absolutely amazing watch it if you haven't already) have something like 20 fanfictions each on Ao3 . This is so sad for me. For a queer tv show to have a large fandom I have noticed it has to be meant for younger audiences (like Heartstopper or Young Royals) or be quite whimsical and happy like rwrb.

And it is so shocking because Brokeback mountain with it's 600 fanfictions is so angsty with a slow burn and a sad ending. Everyone loves those! Queer people would have a field day with Jill from It's a sin, debating whether or not she was queer but it wasn't central to the story or a great ally. Colin is the relatable innocent gay person we have all been looking for. Hollywood has such a great amount of diversity it is just *chefs kiss* and Archie and rock are one of the cutest couples ever! Us gays would have a field day with fanfiction for them .

The morals of the story are:

just because something does not have a lot of fanfic does not mean it is not an excellent piece of queer media.

Search Netflix for little gay gems

Don't be afraid to write for a tiny fandom! Because one day someone like me will look for fanfic for that and will love you forever for giving me content about a small ship. Writing fanfic makes people more happy than you could imagine.

[ariainstars]

In all honesty, this is the scene in RWRB that I like least of all.

For one thing, it's overplayed. Look at Henry's expression and listen to how he pronounces to words: the actor clearly exaggerates. The scene is meant to be very, very dramatic. Well, for me it falls flat. It just annoys me.

It starts with Alex (obviously) coming into the palace looking like a drowned rat because (of course) he came through the pouring rain.

Ever since the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice, the audience can't seem to get enough of this. Guy confesses his love to the woman after having run to here through the rain for dramatic effect.

There was no rain in the original scene in the book, they both were in a (dry) parlor.

This scene may make sense in a 19th century novel, but by now we have

umbrellas

hoodies

cars

you name it. There is no reason to risk pneumonia. It just reeks of emotional blackmail ("I ran through the rain just for you, how can you say no to me?")

In Heartstopper, there was a similar scene. I recently watched Back to Black - of course. It's not even an original scene any more.

I dislike how Henry plays the victim here. So he was "not raised by a loving, supporting family"? His mother, father and sister all love him. They have their own problems. That doesn't mean they don't care for him. His brother Philip is afraid for the good name of the crown. There is no scene where he says or shows that he dislikes Henry.

In the book, Henry's grandmother is portrayed as a veritable monster, a cliché I utterly disliked (of course, gay couple needs a villain. Sigh.) Thankfully, the movie made his grandfather a reasonable man with his heart in the right place. Like Philip, he is afraid of the family's reputation. That does not mean he does not understand Henry's and Alex's fellings. On the contrary, he accepts them, he just asks them to be discreet.

Alex's parents were divorced and can hardly stand to see one another. We never see them together. Alex is closer to Nora than to any of them. In the book there is his sister June, but she was cut off the movie. And it is never referred to what his parent's divorce must have done to Alex, who, like all children of divorced parents, lost his home when he was still a child. How is this a loving family?

Henry is afraid that his subjects may not like him any more if he comes out as gay, and that's understandable. But he has no reason to fear his family. And there is no way he could be so stupid as to assume that the good name of his family or the future of his entire country could suffer due to him coming out as gay. It was bound to come out sooner or later, since he's a popular and influential person.

Red, White and Royal Blue is still a good movie, and I enjoyed it a lot. But this is not a good scene. It's just useless drama. The usual trope must apply - a couple can't just be happy, no, they have to go through a misunderstanding, a separation, an argument before.

I dislike this scene because Henry comes across not as an actual victim but as whiny and cowardly. It's a good thing Alex talks him out of it. But he could have asked someone for a towel before he went to him, really.

I'm going to let you say what you need to say, and then I'd like you to leave. What's going on, Henry? A week ago, we were happy, and then you disappear without saying a word? I think you at least owe me an explanation. I have done nothing but explain myself to you this past year. I don't know what more you want me to say, and I don't appreciate you barging in here in the middle of the night. Well, I'm sorry I can't turn my feelings off as easily as you.

RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE

[trinkeds]

Maradeo.

Genderfluid, Any Pronouns. 18↑ — VIRGO, ENFJ.

Interest List.

• Music: BOYNEXTDOOR, ENHYPEN, aespa, Seventeen, Stray Kids, Deftones, Taylor Swift, Niki, Men I Trust, Mitski, Radiohead, Sza, Omar Apollo, The Weeknd or Abel Tefasye, Phoebe Bridgers, slchld, bôa, DPR live, Chet Baker, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Keane, Kanye West, Tupac Shakur, Arctic Monkeys, CAS, Chase Atlantic, Lana Del Ray, The Cranberries, Paramore, Doja Cat, Chapell Roan, w2e, Bryson Tiller, Tory Lanez, PARTYNEXTDOOR, Drake, The Neighborhood, PinkPantheress, Childish Gambino, Lloyd, Nirvana, Brent Faiyaz, eaJ, Kiss of Life, Nadin Amizah, Bernadya, and more.

• Movies: Little Women, RWRB, Bottoms, Avatar, Knives Out, Top Gun, The Conjurings, Jurassic universe, La La Land, Grand Budapest, Midsommar, Her, Pride & Prejudice, Bad Genius, Not Friends, Do Revenge, The Autopsy of Jane Doe, Mamma Mia, Mean Girls, The Notebook, Priscilla, Wild Child, Clueless, White Chicks, Barbie, The Devil Wears Prada, Interstellar, Marry Poppins, Don't Look Up, High School Musicals, Descendants, etc.

• Series: Heaven's Official Blessings, B99, Modern Family, Young Sheldon, Gilmore Girls, Girl from Nowhere, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Heartstopper, Sweet Home, The Office, The Crown, The Umbrella Academy, The Big Bang Theory, Alice in Borderland, Euphoria, Junji Ito Maniac, 23.5, Bridgerton, Queen Charlotte, Never Have I Ever, Don't F**k with Cats, Derry Girls, etc.

• Anime: One Piece!!! Black Butler, Sasaki to Miyano, Haikyuu, Attack on Titan, Given, Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, Trigun Stampede, and many more.

• Games: Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, Plato, Spiritfarer, Roblox, Rhythm Hive, Enstars.

⋅˚₊‧ ୨୧ ‧₊˚ ⋅

Spotify

Telegram!

Neospring!

[alarrytale]

Hi! I sent the anon about X Factor contracts and that Harry possibly planned on CO as bisexual with Medicine. Thanks for replying. I just wanted to clarify that I don't think Harry is bisexual. At the time there were syndicated articles about it and I thought it was going to be a 'stepping stone'. So he could be out as queer but still have PR relationships with women. But the articles were buried a short time after so I'm not sure what happened. They were syndicated which usually means it is his team's doing. I do think the reason why he hasn't CO as bisexual is because it's not true to himself. He would still have to fake attraction to women, still do PR relationships with women and still write songs about women. So he wouldn't be in much of a better place. God I hope Harry doesn't have to get fake engaged, even if it's to release a gay album. That would be a train wreck. Where would it go from there? Getting married to a woman? Having kids with a woman? In that case I'd prefer that he waits until he can CO. Because that would ruin him. He already gets backlash for playing all sides and it's going to keep increasing. People are going to tire from him. Even fans are tiring from the back and forth. More celebrities will call him out. Imagine him being engaged to a woman and still expressing himself as a gay man. It would ruin him lol. I really don't understand why Sony are so afraid of him CO? They can use his sexuality to market him. They'll still make money off him. It'll set him apart from other artists. There's no one on his same level who is an out gay man. It'll work well for his legacy, with him going down in history. Which will make them more money. I think they're missing out on a chance to maximize his potential. That they're losing out by keeping him closeted. If they're worried about losing fans then they need to stop marketing him for his relationships and market him for his artistry. His fanbase would soon change. Fans he loses will be replaced by others. By those who are turned off by his public image.

Hi again!

I don't think he'd do a stepping stone approach by coming out as bi first. It wouldn't change much, he'd still not be truthful about his sexuality, still be linked to women and still have his womaniser image. I get that it would have made sense if Harry was single and wanted to date men, but he's not. Harry being linked to men, when he's with Louis would be hard on Louis. So what would coming out as bi accomplish? Getting to be a bit more gay on stage maybe, and openly writing songs about men, but all in all would it be worth it? I think not.

And i agree with your second part. I think the fandom and our society are ready for an out gay male artist at his level. I hope Sony is soon there too. More and more gay artist make it big, and don't lose fans when they come out. Look at Lil Nas X (he's on Columbia with H btw). Even gay country music is going viral. K-pop stars are coming out. Heartstopper and RWRB are successes and not just made for the gays anymore. People are loving it, even the gp. Being out makes you stand out from the crowd, and you have a whole community at the ready to support you, and the gp is following. I hope they have a bit faith in his fans and the gp. But i fear the labels are traditionalists, formulaic, and take a conservative approach. They might be slow to follow and fail to see this opportunity for what it is.

[bluedalahorse]

those things you’re a little afraid to say (YRS3 intimacy edition)

I’m reading this thread here (which I’m pretty sure I missed the first time around due to my hiatus surrounding S3) and it articulates some of what I struggled with re: the intimacy coordination in season 3.

Here’s something I’ve always been afraid to say in fandom spaces: I have a bit of a complicated relationship with the intimacy scenes in YR more generally. I love the ones in season 1 and 2 (both wilmon and sargust) when we see them in the context of the episodes. I think they truly did something unique in terms of how they communicated character and relationships and themes. I also think the writers did a great job of acknowledging the reality that some teenagers can be interested in sex and have ~these feelings~ and that first love can be really significant in a person’s life, without doing the kinds of weird voyeuristic stuff that other teen dramas have sometimes leaned into.

Now comes a part where I am only going to speak for myself. I’m not going to say that anyone has to share my opinion. I have historically felt a kind of way that tumblr as a medium allows for the manufacturing and proliferation of gifsets of a fandom’s favorite scenes in the show, often in a way that takes these scenes out of their context. Sometimes this is fun! But sometimes it has other impacts on how we view the art.

Now, intimacy scenes are often among the things that get gif’d. I found—reminder that I am only speaking for myself here—that seeing the s1 and s2 YR intimacy scenes, again and again, divorced from their context and cropped and curated to look a certain idealized way… well, that just didn’t feel the same as seeing the scenes in context, and I started to burn out on the gifsets pretty quickly and feel uncomfortable. And then came the period when I was seeing them alongside even more kissing gifs from RWRB and Good Omens and Heartstopper and Our Flag Means Death and maybe something involving Andrew Scott or some other actor but I can’t remember what? There was quite a lot and it all started to blur together.

I understand, for a lot of people this felt empowering, and/or hot, and/or fun. And I do recognize the importance of the milestone here—you just didn’t see queer intimacy this visible in the 90s and 00s! And it’s really important to see that! Do you know how much I didn’t have scenes like this as a teenager? And I think for many, posting gifs again and again is a way of celebrating.

I can also acknowledge that for me, personally—again just solely speaking for myself!—the decontextualization and the endless repetition of these intimacy scenes felt more like… almost more like a commodification of queer intimacy than a celebration of it. And it felt increasingly sour for me to see this on my dash 24/7. To be clear: I am not saying I am objectively correct and everyone else is wrong. I am talking about my own feelings.

For that reason I eventually figured the best way to deal with this feeling of sourness/frustration was to block and filter certain tags to keep my dash relatively clear of this kind of curated endless repetition. That way other people could continue to celebrate the gifsets that mattered to them and I could engage through text and other ways of engaging. It also helped me appreciate the YRS1 and S2 intimacy scenes more when I got to see them in canon again—for me that context is so important! Maybe that’s a personality thing, or maybe that’s an ace thing. I don’t know.

Continuing to speak only for myself: I don’t really have an academic way of saying this (honestly @heliza24 has smarter ideas about how the intimacy in S3 was directed, which maybe she’ll share someday, but I am not as smart as her about this stuff) except that when S3 had the “hallway scene” and subsequent stuff happened, it really just felt like the creators were winking at us like “this one’s for the gif makers!” It felt like it was there to be aestheticized and decontextualized and endlessly repeated. Which is fine for like, other shows, but for YR it felt particularly strange and off. I just did not vibe with it.

But other people did! And that’s great! Like I’m glad other people got what they wanted, and at the same time I think a lot of the bonding in YR fandom comes from holding these moments of intimacy in a sort of religious awe. So it’s something that binds a lot of people in the fandom together but it also sometimes leaves out the people who’ve got their own reasons to feel their own way about these scenes.

I have one other thought about season 3 and intimacy, which is that I feel like the girls got done dirty a bit? One of YR’s strengths in my opinion was that in S1 and S2 it acknowledged how teen girls can be just as horny as teen boys, and didn’t hold back from exploring that horniness and yearning. Moreover, when this was explored with say, Sara—Sara’s also got AuDHD, so it’s actually pretty damn important that they didn’t desexualize her like they often do with disabled characters.

But in season 3, they withhold the fact that she’s still feeling stuff about August until the end of episode 5, framing it as a sort of shock twist that she kisses him when he’s at his low point. And I don’t think the writers should have withheld her lingering feelings about him from the audience. I feel like we could have gotten some earlier indication that she’s still yearning and horny and feeling conflicted about it. Because by the end of the final episode, when she makes her decision, we know she says she still has feelings for him but she’s choosing her friends and herself. And it’s important to me that that’s a weighty decision for her, and not something that’s easy for her to do because like, idk, sargust is obviously the devil’s pairing or whatever. I guess Sara’s feelings being hidden away for most of the season makes her more likable to more of the audience, but I hate that we live in this world that holds female characters to these kinds of standards.

We see Sara as an object of desire through August’s eyes but we don’t see her looking back at him, whereas in season 2 we got an equal sense of their yearning for one another. And I know that’s about the falling apart of their relationship, but there also could have been a way to show the disconnect between them, that didn’t involve sweeping Sara’s feelings under the rug until the last hour of the show.

And maybe it wouldn’t have bothered me as much if Felice got to have a new crush in s3. (Rosh and/or Ayub were right THERE; she could have talked to one of them at the camping trip and texted with them in a flirty way.) Maybe it wouldn’t have bothered me if Stedrika hadn’t happened mostly offscreen. And maybe we would have needed eight episodes to incorporate that, but—speaking solely for myself!—I feel really not amazing about the way that the girls’ collective horny-yearny feelings were downplayed in the third season compared to the first and second.

Replies and discussion welcome. I’d especially be interested in hearing from other people who struggled with the intimacy in S3—and if you don’t feel comfortable sharing in the replies, you can DM me instead. I was originally going to make this rebloggable, but then I decided against it because well. People.

Anyway, I hope you have a good Saturday! I am going to get ready to do my exercise for the day.