#i think all of these are very easy to read in a gay way which one is the MOST gay?

[yoshifawful64]

okay so before we move on from Bloomburrow…

[peppermintquartz]

Canon divergence in that Buck does call Tommy the next time he's free, asking to go up in a chopper (instead of the harebrained scheme of going to the BBPU game)

+-

"And that's my favorite view," says Tommy, angling the helicopter to face the Pacific. It's late in the morning so sunlight glitters on the water like diamonds scattered on blue silk.

Buck shields his eyes with his hands. "It's beautiful!" he exclaims, almost giddy with delight at the panorama.

"It is. And at night, I like to look the other way, at the city spread out before me." Tommy's aviator sunglasses hide his eyes but his big smile is on full display.

Buck can't help the shiver in his belly every time he looks at Tommy. It's clear the air is his element. Already Buck knows that Tommy is very competent - they wouldn't have pulled off the rescue otherwise - but here, without anything to distract them, Buck sees how the chopper is an extension of Tommy himself. A deft touch, a slight adjustment, and the vehicle moves smoothly for Tommy to point out different landmarks from the sky.

By the time they land, Buck's spirits are still soaring. He's spent forty minutes flying with Tommy, who not only talked about the mechanics of flying, but also answered almost all of Buck's questions without ever sounding bored. In fact, he seems happy that Buck has done some research before he came for the ride.

"Okay, now I really need to buy you that beer, and also a meal." Buck wants to bounce on his heels. He feels lighter than air, like he's just a balloon full of happy emotions.

Tommy grins, shrugging as he tucks his aviators into a pocket. "I'm free for the rest of the day," he says. Ducking his head, he adds, "Didn't feel too good leaving you alone the other day to go watch the fight, but I didn't think we'd take two hours to tour Harbor Station either."

Buck's cheeks flush. He remembers being irrationally angry when Eddie and Tommy flew off, and he did go home to pummel his pillow a little before sulking. But he's done the mature thing, which is ask Tommy for a flight demo, instead of something insane like figure out what other activities he would be doing or events he would attend and try to show up there like a toy surprise.

"Well, that was because I wanted to find out so much, and it's really your fault, because you answered everything in detail." Buck falls in step with the older man as they head to Tommy's car. "You have to be accountable for your mistakes."

Tommy laughs. Buck feels tingly and proud that he's made that happen. Daringly, he nudges Tommy's elbow with his.

"So, what would you like for lunch?" Buck asks. "My treat, as thanks for the flight."

"Sure," says Tommy with an easy smile. As they approach the car, Tommy halts.

Buck stops as well, a little concerned. "Everything okay?"

Tilting his head, Tommy studies Buck, and then his expression grows a little more nervous and serious. "I... I don't wanna presume anything, and I want you to know that, regardless of anything I'm about to say, I wanna be your friend."

Buck blinks at the older man. "Okay, um. What's this about?"

"Evan, before we go to lunch, I kinda wanna know what's going on here? I mean..." Tommy licks his lips, and Buck's gaze snaps to Tommy's mouth. "You're adorable and you're funny and, well. You're a gorgeous guy. I'm not... I'm not really sure why you wanna spend time with me. And I don't wanna get my hopes up if this is just me reading the signs wrongly."

"Uh, signs?"

Tommy's face falls. He glances away, wiping his hand over his mouth, and licks his lips again. "Shit. I've read you wrong."

Buck reaches out to touch Tommy's wrist. "Tommy, I'm not sure what you're saying."

Tommy looks back at Buck, blue eyes taking in the younger man's expression, and sighs. He flips his hand over to hold the tips of Buck's fingers.

"Hell. Might as well lay my cards out," he mutters, mostly to himself, and then looks - really looks - at Buck. "Evan, I'm gay. And these couple times we've met up, I really, really like how we click. I like your energy, and how earnest and open you are. And it doesn't hurt that you are one of the most attractive men I've ever met, and I really like spending time with you, and I'm hoping... I'm hoping I can ask you out for a date and maybe we can... find out if we could. If we could be more than friends."

There's an anxious cast to his features. Buck can see Tommy's jaw clench and the nervous swallow, and a part of Buck's mind is screaming static. Another part of him is frantically stammering, "I'm just an ally!!" But thankfully that part of him has no control of his mouth, because he instead steps closer to Tommy and-

Oh. Oh.

So that's how it feels to kiss a guy.

He pulls back slightly, but is stopped by the touch of fingers under his chin, and Tommy draws him back for a second kiss, his head angled, and-

Wow. Wow, okay. They're near the airfield in the parking lot and the breeze is cool and the sun is shining nice and warm and they are kissing, Buck is kissing Tommy and this feels right.

When they finally separate, possibly two centuries later, Buck blinks at Tommy. His face feels hot and his skin is tingling. With a small, happy grin, he says, "I would say yes to the date, if that helps."

Tommy chuckles. He licks his lips again and Buck forces himself to look away from those lips. "Okay. I'd like to ask you out on a date on Saturday night, if you're free."

"I... I'm free." Buck's grin grows brighter. He tilts his head. "Lunch, now?"

[llyfrenfys]

I'd like to preface this with that this is a screenshot of a post I saw a few days ago in the #welsh tag and that the OP has since deleted this post, but the sentiment is something I'd like to address since I see a lot of parallels with this kind of thinking in other contexts, such as in LGBTQIA+ rights conversations.

So, the most obvious elephant in the room is the idea that Welsh is super widely spoken in Wales now and that it isn't in as much danger as other Celtic languages. This idea is wishful thinking at best and erases the very real danger that Welsh is in and that it could be lost just as easily as Irish or Scottish Gaelic. Cornish (which is related to Welsh) actually did die out and has had to be revived. To make a metaphor out of this, we classify languages on a scale of non-threatened to endangered in a similar way to how we classify species.

Here are the statuses of Welsh and Irish as of 2010 (above) and the statuses of Lions and Tigers (below).

On paper tigers are more 'in danger' than lions. But that does not mean that lions are suddenly not in danger at all. The little bracket above CR, EN and VU labels all of these classifications as threatened. It isn't (and definitely shouldn't) be a competition of 'who is most in danger' because you do not want the thing you care about (whether it be a species or a language) to be in danger.

To come back to the original screenshot "they* [Welsh speakers] have always had the means and the ways because the English didn't beat or slaughter them for speaking it"- on the most basic of levels, this is just incorrect. The Welsh Not was a wooden token hung around schoolchildren's necks if they spoke Welsh in school. If someone else spoke Welsh the Not would be hung around their neck. At the end of the school day, whoever was wearing the Not would be beaten and caned by their teachers. I needn't go into much detail but there have been concerted efforts to beat Welsh out of schoolchildren. With the lions vs tigers metaphor, making the claim Welsh speakers have never been beaten for speaking Welsh because they always had the means and ways, while Irish speakers were beaten and never had the means or ways is like claiming poachers have never shot lions, only tigers. Bottom line is, lions and tigers are both victim to poaching and both species have suffered as a result. Similarly, Welsh and Irish have both suffered language loss and both need conservation efforts in order to survive.

(*sidenote- the consistent use of 'them' and 'they' in the original post is definitely indicative of a 'us vs them' sentiment which is a deeply unhelpful attitude to have when it comes to endangered languages and the Celtic languages in particular)

I see parallels with LGBTQIA+ rights in this situation. When equal marriage came in for gay and lesbian couples in the UK in 2014, many allies began to act like gay rights had now been achieved and that gay issues had been done, they're solved. Except, they really weren't (and aren't). Progress has been made in Wales and undeniably Welsh is doing the best out of the living Celtic languages. But that doesn't mean Welsh has been saved or that full equality for Welsh speakers has been achieved. It very much hasn't. The sentiment of the post in the screenshot is not conducive to helping Irish or Scottish Gaelic. Putting down Welsh speakers and erasing Welsh-language history will not save Irish or Scottish Gaelic. Pretending Welsh has had it easy in some kind of lap of luxury is a deeply harmful and bogus claim.

I'll address the tags under the cut as this post is getting long.

To address the tags, personal feelings ≠ an accurate reading of a situation. Nor is it praxis, for that matter. Why is pride in Welsh different/less good than pride in Irish? Is it the assumed proximity to England? If so, that's a terrible claim to make. Not only that, but Scotland is also next to England- does that make pride in Scottish Gaelic the same as pride in Welsh according to this metric? It's a ludicrous thing to say and deeply insensitive to the needs of Scottish Gaelic and Welsh speakers, who cannot help any current or former proximity to England.

Additionally, proximity to England ≠ worse. I know it's a popular internet joke to hate on England because of English attempts to eradicate the Celtic languages, but when the joke becomes praxis, it does not help. England ≠ a place devoid of Celtic languages either. Many English counties near the Welsh border actually have communities of Welsh speakers, such as Oswestry (Croesoswallt) in Shropshire. Cornwall is also home to many speakers of revived Cornish. It does a disservice to Celtic speakers in England to insinuate that proximity to England taints or corrupts them somehow. This is how ethnonationalism starts and we ain't about that.

And "#it feels a little.... blehhhhh you were seen as sophisticated and english enough and you assimilated however the Irish and the Scots? #brutish animals that need to be culled". So, this is arguably one of the worst things to say about a Celtic language- or any threatened language in general. First of all, the 'you were seen as' - 'you' is very telling. The switch from 'them', 'they' to 'you' indicates that this sentiment is aimed at Welsh speakers directly. This was likely a subconscious thing that OP wasn't thinking about when they wrote this. But it does indicate unhealthy feelings of jealousy and bitterness unfairly directed at Welsh speakers, who are also struggling. This righteous anger at the decline of Irish and Scottish Gaelic would be better directed at efforts to help promote those languages- some useful things to get involved with are LearnGaelic, similar to DysguCymraeg but for Scottish Gaelic or supporting channels such as Irish channel TG4 by watching their programmes.

The idea that Welsh speakers were or are 'sophisticated and english enough' is insulting and carries with it a lot of baggage of how any of these assumptions came about. Welsh speakers were definitely not seen as sophisticated. Where Welsh was 'tolerated', it was treated as a curiosity, a relic of a bygone age. Classic museification which all Celtic languages and cultures suffer from as well. Welsh was not tolerated in any legal sense since 1535- with English becoming the only valid administrative language and the language of Welsh courts after England annexed Wales into its Kingdom. Monolingual Welsh speakers suddenly had no access to any legal representation, unless they learned English. This is no voluntary assimilation- it is an act of survival for many speakers of minoritised languages to 'assimilate' into the dominant culture, or else risk losing access to legal security and other kinds of infrastructure. You need only ask any non-native English speaker living in an Anglophone country what that process is like. Welsh people did not see English incursion as an opportunity to become 'sophisticated and english enough', they had to assimilate in order to survive.

The "Irish and the Scots? #brutish animals that need to be culled" is also painfully misrepresenting a very complex social and political process that unfolded over the span of hundreds of years. The phrasing itself of 'brutish animals that need to be culled' speaks to righteous anger at the damage done to these languages and cultures, but it reinforces negative stereotypes about the Irish and Scots themselves. It also is more complicated than a simple English hatred of anything non-Anglo, since the English conception of particularly the Irish changed a lot over the centuries. It was (and still is) rarely consistent with itself. See: the enemy is both strong and weak. The very earliest Celticists were by and large, Anglos or French.

Ernest Renan (1823-1892) for example, was an early French Celticist who published La Poésie des races celtiques (Poetry of the Celtic Races- English translation) in which he says:

"... we must search for the explanation of the chief features of the Celtic character. It has all the failings, and all the good qualities, of the solitary man; at once proud and timid, strong in feeling and feeble in action, at home free and unreserved, to the outside world awkward and embarrassed. It distrusts the foreigner, because it sees in him a being more refined than itself, who abuses its simplicity. Indifferent to the admiration of others, it asks only one thing, that it should be left to itself. It is before all else a domestic race, fitted for family life and fireside joys. In no other race has the bond of blood been stronger, or has it created more duties, or attached man to his fellow with so much breadth and depth"

Yeah. This guy (unsurprisingly) was a white supremacist. Note that this sentiment is being applied to all people considered Celtic by Renan- Irish, Welsh, Breton, Scottish, Cornish, Manx etc. None unscathed by the celtophobia of the day. In this period, Celticity was romanticised (yet disparaged at the same time). It is less 'brutish animals' and more 'archaic, time-frozen peoples' in this period. Of course, 'brutish animals' attitudes towards Celticity did still exist, but it is disingenuous to act as if it was this attitude alone which drove English celtophobia. Like many things, it is always more complicated and never clear cut as it might seem.

I'll bring this to a close shortly, but returning to OP's suggestion that the Welsh assimilated and the Scots and Irish did not, is also incorrect in that some Scots did have to assimilate to survive as well. The Statutes of Iona (1609) required Scottish Gaelic speaking Highland chiefs to send their sons away to be educated in Scots and/or English in Protestant schools. Many did as the statutes required, which led to further language loss in the Highlands of Scottish Gaelic. These are acts of survival- and not ones always taken willingly.

This has been a long post but it's one which I felt I wanted to address. There's no need for infighting between speakers of Celtic languages over who has it worse. There isn't any answer to that question, nor is it a good use of time or energy. All in all, the Celtic languages have suffered greatly over the years and its only just now that some of them are turning a corner. If you care about these languages, put your energy into something good. Only through active work will these languages be saved for generations to come.

[emblazons]

forewarning: this is the longest "this is mike's arc and I'm tired of denying it" breakdown i've done in a min (it's def about gay mike bar none so. skip if you want)

I keep reading posts about "where Mike is with his feelings for Will" all across the dash now, and...while I get the idea of wanting a Mike as devastated by not hearing from Will as Will was because Mike's aware he has romantic feelings, *Arya Stark Voice* that's not him?

In the show, Mike Wheeler wears his heart on his sleeve. He is prone to emotionality and doesn't really track his feelings within himself the way Will does—is "less interior," for a lack of a better phrase, which both plays dramatically into how things are playing out with both El and Will and makes it (dare I say it) out of character to believe he's as "hurt by his own hope" as Will is when it comes to mutual feelings.

Let me see if I can explain.

First: I think it's important to keep in mind that, at least with Mike, you get someone who will subconsciously act on "inner truths" before he even realizes they're true about him—and someone who will behave according to whatever external reality deems "correct" until he realizes 1) its bullshit or 2) its not true for him personally. We see this season over season:

First with how he willfully breaks rank with authority (his parents, the police, even the community) first to find Will and then again breaks rank with even his friends to protect Eleven in season 1

Then in S2 when he throws "proper" behavior to the wind (which is even slightly acknowledged in Will's 'don't tell the others' / 'crazy together) to be there for + lowkey confess the depth of his feelings to Will (everyone say thank you shed scene)

Again (though slightly different) in S3, with how there's this bubbling thing being gay he doesn't realize has started to manifest itself—cue that comment the duffer's made forever ago about S3 being about "the monster of puberty," aka when people start to understand their own attractions—until the very end of the season with how he realizes he's not attracted to El

And finally in S4, when he consciouslly knows for a fact he's not into El and tries to hide it—quite poorly, because, as I said, he can only abide a "lie" when he doesn't realize it is one—but hasn't yet realized that the thing bubbling up inside him THIS season (that keeps slipping out without him realizing it) is his attraction to/romantic feelings for Will.

In Season 4 especially, its easy to track how this "I can lie...until I know it is one" affects Mike's romantic prospects; we see plainly that his lying about his feelings to El during the monologue was a failure because the power of Mike's whole character is rooted in the importance of him being true to himself and his heart. Season over season, we've seen that Mike has to be honest with people once he knows what he feels in order for his leadership to be effective—and by S4, he knows he doesn't love El romantically (+ has known for a HOT minute, aka since his little S3 post-kiss revelation)—which is why he tries to skirt around the issue with that "I care for you so much" rather than lie to El's face about his lack of romantic feelings.

Basically: once Mike consciously knows something is not right in either the world or inside himself, he has to act on it...or suffer the consequences of his lack of honesty. But then....what does that have to do with him not being the one "not trying to be in love" with Will?

Despite the fandom urge to deny it even in the wake of The Duffers and Finn Wolfhard themselves telling them it's true: Mike being oblivious to his own feelings, or at least consciously unaware, of his own romantic feelings for Will is a solid amount of what's driving his character's growth right now. Mike "friends don't lie" Wheeler has spent the entirety of this show trying to be as honest as possible with the people around him, and we've clearly seen as of S4 what happens when he isn't honest—the world (quite literally) falls apart.

When it comes to his romantic arc especially, it's important to remember this is true, because it means, through logical deduction, that Mike isn't hiding the fact that he has feelings for Will throughout season 4—he's hiding the fact that he's not in love with his girlfriend the way he's supposed to be, which both plays into the whole forced conforming through-line of the season and explains the crux of his narrative even as we are primarily shown that experience through Will's eyes—unreliable as they are. The thing leaking out of Mike without his knowledge is the fact that he likes boys—but the thing he's consciously hiding and lying about is the fact that he doesn't like girls the way he knows he's supposed to.

Now: does that mean he doesn't have a million subconscious responses to things regarding Will—one's rooted both in his attraction to men and his friendly/romantic/evolving feelings for him? Absolutely not. Half of what drives Mike's S4 narrative was built into his wordless/subconscious actions throughout S3, from the way we see him look disgusted with girls when they're mentioned, the way he take's El's hands off him when she tries to kiss him, and even the way he looks conflicted by her kiss at the very end of the season. Just because Mike is consciously unaware that something is happening to him doesn't mean the thing isn't happening—it just means that Mike himself is oblivious to it.

Even so: Mike being oblivious to the fact that he's attracted to men/in love with Will means he isn't consciously trying to keep himself away from Will—which is clear, if you pay attention to every moment before he gets guilted into remembering he has a GF by Argyle.

Basically, the crux of Mike's own experience with his problems is—

"I don't love El the way I'm supposed to, and it's going to cause problems if I can't do that for everyone I care for,"

not

"I am trying to hide my feelings for boys/Will and have to pretend they aren't there to be normal."

—which is a subtle but critical distinction in understanding both where he is by the end of S4 and where he's headed moving into S5.

Now: I get that it's more fun to imagine a Mike fighting his feelings for Will consciously throughout S4, but....that's Will's story and experience of his feelings, not Mike's. Mike is fighting with his lack of attraction to women more than his attraction to men/Will—which is also why you see it slip out so much despite the time/era/what he knows of what happens to gay men in Hawkins.

If Mike knew he loved Will/boys consciously, he'd be much more afraid of himself and Will than he is even as of the last shot of S4—but he's not, which is shockingly telling if you consider how he already knows what he doesn't feel for Eleven. Once he does know what he feels—his "a-ha" moment about liking Will, the same as his consciously realizing he didn't love El "like that" as of end of S3—it will be impossible for him not to address it in himself...and finally be honest/undo the damage of The Lie he told El (he loved her) during the monologue.

That's the (canonical) trajectory of Mike "The Heart" Wheeler—and why him being oblivious to his feelings for Will, not just "secretly longing without wanting to indulge hope he might have the boy he loves" the way Will is experiencing moving into S5. 🤷🏽‍♀️

[kanmom51]

Are you sure? Announcement

Ok, so waking up to this little surprise kind of made my day.

With this following:

The two of them in a nutshell. 🤣

And this is how it looks on the Big Hit IG account.

Curious how their names are actually placed next to the other, so that JK's name is next to JM and JM's name is next to JK's.

Curious is what I am going to say.

But back to that little surprise we got.

And before I get into it I want to stress, and this is a given by now, but I will say it once again: these are my observations and opinions. Opinions being the key word here.

Just before we begin on this little surprise clip we got, can someone explain why it's titled 'Are you sure?!' Announcement (from USA) when it actually looks like this was filmed when they were in Jeju?🤔

I'm sorry, but we afraid of watering down, were we?

They couldn't even edit out the gay from a 1:23 min. announcement...

And this is them trying really hard to be on their best behavior for less than a couple of minutes on camera with a script to follow. 🤣

What will we be getting when they are in a relaxed natural setting???

With so much stand alone Jikook content, no amount of editing will be able to hide their dynamics, what they are to each other, what they mean to each other.

I cannot wait!!!

I've already mentioned this in the reblog of JM's Muse numbers, but I am bringing this up again the 1:23!!!

Intentional. A choice. Not a coincidence.

Not when this just keeps to happen again and again and again and again and again... countless times.

What can I tell you? They just melt my heart.

The way I just know that this ended with shits and giggles.

You can see JK breaking into laughter as the camera cuts. That little bob of his Adam's apple, snickering away.

This wasn't an easy one for them to shoot. JK looked tired (end or start of a day filled with activity?), JM looked I don't want to say flustered at times, because that is a big word, but at the same time I don't know what word to use to describe him being a little off his game. JK did his stimming and a little of his swaying, and as much as they clearly had a script to follow (I will get to that), it felt like it was still a hard one to keep a straight face to (JM was the one that mainly faltered on that part). I guess that was also him finding it hard to stay stoic when JK is being adorable, and even harder to do when you have to read out a script describing something that as is has you a little anxious, and you are JM and think that every single thing that JK does is adorable.

🤣

This announcement was all about them and only them. We know how they are with these announcements with the other 5 around to buffer them. Not only was there none of that here, but this was about them, their show, their travels, their Tokyo (notice how very unalike themselves they were while talking about the Tokyo trip? Trying to be unemotional? Like reading out of a text - which they basically were). This show is not a big deal for them. It's a huge deal. And it's not about 'coming out' or not. This is the first time we are being allowed into their world, just them. Not a few minutes of interaction. A whole show seeing them in what JM described ups and downs (I am very curious to see what that's about). We have seen them in relaxed situations in the past. We had BV and ITS. But that has 7 members with interactions and dynamics amongst the lot. This is just JM and JK the whole time. And even with a shit ton of editing that will surely be going on, we are going to be getting a peek into THEM, and this is something that is a huge deal for them, even more so JM.

This is JM talking about the show, their moments that they will be sharing with us. And think that this is JM talking before Sapporo (not to mention Tokyo which looks like we aren't going to be getting any of in this show - shock - not really).

If there was an unscripted moment in this clip, I tend to think this might have been it. Other than that, I think that the two were pretty much on script.

Now let's address that one for a second shall we?

I do believe this announcement recording was scripted. They weren't doing bullet points. This was too hard for them to come up with off the top of their heads. Situation too charged. So there was a script, that could have even been written by themselves. There were things that needed to be said, points to keep to, especially if it was them having this all squeezed into a neat 1:23 minute clip. And just winging it, even more so on this specific subject matter was not an option (btw, most of their announcements are scripted, we see that, we know that, and this in that sense is no different, although again, this one was, in my opinion, way harder for them).

This clip we got to see today is them being on camera scripted for 1:23 minutes.

And this is them on camera without a script for basically the same amount of time (even less in the one frame).

This, my friends, is a good example as to why they needed not only dot points but an actual script to follow here, lol.

So, you understand now why this HAD to be scripted. Same reason why JM kept denying JK of his wish to have a live together.

Before continuing, just wanted to mention this as well:

The way JK is holding on to his hand (there was absolutely nothing wrong with it, this was just him holding himself back). That was the first thing I thought of when this clip started and JK was standing that way holding his hand. But then I looked again and what did I see? Nothing too significant, just the two mirroring each other in they way they are placing their hands, left hand over right. Not a biggie, just a cutie. At the start of the clip, as seen above. And towards the end of it, as seen below.

Cuties.

Back to the scripting... sorry for getting off track. It's not me it's them.🤣

And then you will say: "well, what's the difference between that (as in the announcement clip) and the show?" and to that I will reply:

"Everything".

The show is them being them, travelling, having fun doing different activities, relaxing, at times forgetting the cameras are even there. They get to be themselves without holding back. Because they know that if they are themselves too much then they have the editing to fall back on. Not to mention the difference between an announcement or a live where the full attention is on the audience, that's us (and if they don't have a script they tend to lose focus on us and focus on each other instead - same reason JM told us in the past why he didn't have JK over for his live - he would be paying attention to him instead of us), and the travel show where the attention is on them and their interactions. In that capacity they are supposed to forget the cameras are there. The cameras are there to document them being themselves, natural, with genuine interactions, which they will be, and we, my friends, are going to enjoy every single second of it.

Back to our announcement clip.

The amount of cuts and probably re-takes they needed here. And even with this obviously scripted message it was hard for them to stay grounded (yes, for both of them).

I see where Bunny is going with this and that cut does feel a heck a lot sus. And it is very possible that JK did say something that flustered JM. Although I do still believe that his "I'm not even sure it's ok to release this" isn't meant for something JK might have said while recording this clip (which had multiple cuts to it as they knew it would), but more so to what was referenced by them as "you'll see us as we are".

And yes, it appears like JM is pulling JK back into frame, but if you watch the full video you see that they were both kind of going in and out of it without JM bothering too much. So why here? First off, I think that JK was a little more jittery at this point, he was stimming more and doing a little of his swaying, which JM calms with a touch at times. Perhaps because this was the 'revealing' part? The one they get into a bit of the nitty gritty of the show? Idk.

But I don't think that was the only reason either. I think JM needed the touch at that moment as well. See how he moves from JK's arm to his nape holding on as he says "I'm not even sure it's ok to release this"... like he needed that reassurance himself as well at that moment.

Idk, to me it felt like JM hand placement was done not only to comfort JK but also himself.

And cut/edit, JM is not holding on to JK anymore...

I guess what I'm trying to convey is that we are used to JM being the one to calm JK, ground him. And although I do think that was the correct assumption in the past, I do think that since 2021 that has changed and JK is to JM as JM is to JK the person who calms or grounds them. JM told us as much in Letter.

We also got to see the two with one single hoop in their left ear.

Was this the same day, or did they just wear the hoops like that their whole Jeju getaway? JK in the photos from their meet up with Tae seems to have another earring in his right ear, so possibly not same day.

And will leave you with this as well to do with as you wish.

Ok, not going to talk your ears off, pun intended.

Just one more little secret to tell you, if I already have you here:

Shh...

Don't tell anybody else, this is between me and you...

These two...

They're in love.

Shh...

You didn't here it from me.

[johannestevans]

I came out as trans at about fifteen or sixteen, changed my name, and I’ve lived as a man since. As a young man doing my A-Levels, going to university, and working afterwards, I was out as a man, using he/him pronouns, using my actual name —

Two pictures of me, one at age 16, the other at age 19.

To people who had no idea what a trans man looked like, it was pretty easy to give people a funny look and say, “I’m a man,” in a tone that made them suddenly flustered and nervous, because cis people feel extremely guilty about misgendering another cisgender person in a way they don’t when they know you’re trans.

I was thin, had a lower-toned but still not masculine voice, didn’t have much of a chest — I got gendered correctly automatically maybe 30 or 40% of the time, and maybe up to 50% if I employed shame in the right way, implied I was cis with a hormonal imbalance, or if people assumed I was still a teenage boy rather than an adult.

To people who did know what a trans man looked like but weren’t trans themselves, talking to them was fucking excruciating.

I remember once when I was selling house alarms and some hideous cis girl asked, “Are you transgender?” and I immediately told her, “Nope,” as she kept questioning the point. Another time, I was in the back of a taxi when a man asked if I was trans, although thankfully when I told him, “Nope, just low testosterone,” he seemed to immediately believe me and back the fuck off.

It’s one of the reasons I feel conflicted about trans visibility — it’s great for other trans people to see a variety of trans representation, but cis people knowing what trans people are is a double-edged sword, because cis people are entitled, invasive, and often just straight-up weird about gender, most of all when they think they’re being allies.

When I started working at a hotel, my immediate boss was a very abusive woman — she was petty, vindictive, and because she had poor organisational skills and frequently got flustered by her own workload, she would take this out on any staff around her, whether that was her juniors, other management, or sometimes guests.

Her being abusive in the workplace wasn’t that unusual. Now and then the managers would misgender me, and I’d correct them, and they’d brush it off as they apologised, that sort of thing.

Because this manager identified as an ally, she flipped her fucking lid.

She went off on a tirade for some ten minutes about what a great ally she is, and how much she knows about and cares about trans people, and how a lot of people wouldn’t hire a trans person, and she volunteers with local queer groups (she was at the time a mediocre DJ, and frequently DJed at a local gay club), and all this bluster.

Over one (apparently needed) correction.

All she needed to do was not misgender me — a quick “sorry” might have been nice. A ten-minute rant about how she was a saint for hiring me?

Not really necessary.

Cisgender people hate trans people — and I know some cis people reading this are immediately raising their hackles and about to go “well not ALL cis people — “ because they’re allies, and it’s important that I know that they’re a good one, actually, and they’re a real ally.

But the reason that cis people have a knee-jerk negative reaction to trans people, intersex people, and any person that they have decided is gender non-conforming, the reason they respond so punishingly to our existence or to mild misbehaviours on our parts — such as demanding respect or correcting their mistakes — is because our very existence is an interruption to their worldview, the ideologies and biases by which they live.

They should know what a man is just by looking at one, and if they get it wrong, that’s embarrassing for them — because to cisgender people the binary male-female divide is crucial to the way they respect or disrespect others, people that interrupt their thinking on it can trigger a lot of rage and upset. A trans person represents a frightening challenge — what if they accidentally treated a man with the casual disrespect that is rightfully allotted women? What if they sexually objectified a man thinking he was a woman, and it made them gay for a moment?

If they think you’re cisgender and heterosexual enough, any of these things are their fault, and they feel very bad about them.

But if you’re trans?

Well, it’s your fault for existing that way, right? You’re the one doing genders wrong — they’re not the one that made the error!

There’s a particular rage reserved for trans men, lesbians, and any other trans or GNC person that’s perceived as being “biologically female” — because society feels the greatest gender-based entitlement over these people’s bodies, in large part due to institutional misogyny, we’re perceived as gender traitors.

Cis men hate us because we’ve ruined what they perceived as a resource for them — a source of sexual gratification and aesthetic pleasure, a breeding vessel for birthing babies, not to mention a mother with all the domestic labour that comes with; cis women hate us because they perceive us as gaining all the privileges of being male, of gaming the system, and at the same time breaking what they sometimes feel is a sort of sacred trust of femininity.

In order to cope with institutional misogyny, some cis women effectively craft a further gender-based bioessentialism — if you have a uterus and are perceived as a woman by society, you’re not just physically capable of birthing a child. You must also innately have the traits of an ideal mother — you must be nurturing and lovely, you must be caring, you must have the correct emotions, you must be submissive in the right way. But also, a woman like this must be cleverer than a man, and if she effectively parents or cares for the men in her life, she just does that because she is so smart, and men are so stupid.

Again, trans people represent an interruption to that mode of thinking. If trans people are real, and we’re the genders we say we are, all of that ideology is nonsense.

If I, a trans man, can just “choose” to be a man, doesn’t that mean that every woman that experiences misogyny is just “choosing” misogynistic abuse?

The fact that as a trans man, I experience abuses that are linked to misogyny is irrelevant — that I’m at a higher risk of sexual abuse, that medical professionals dismiss my symptoms as soon as some of them realise I’m “really” a woman and cease my treatment or cease treating me with the respect due a man; that people dismiss me and dehumanise me, either because they think I’m transgender, and therefore a lesser being, or an ugly and not sexually available woman, and therefore a lesser being.

If I’m a trans man, I must experience male privilege — why else would I choose to be trans?

And if I don’t experience male privilege in every situation, because people don’t always consider me male or legitimately male, or if male privilege in any given situation I experience is actually complicated by other factors, such as race, disability, sexuality, and so on, then I must be lying.

Passing privilege isn’t the same as male privilege — passing privilege generally refers to the privileges a transgender person experiences because they reliably pass as cisgender.

I don’t think that it’s universal — “passing privilege” assumes that everyone passes in all situations, and while I would say that I pass very reliably in a lot of mine now that I’m several years on T and my second puberty has been very good to me, this doesn’t apply everywhere.

When I’m in the hospital, for example, or otherwise seeing a doctor, I get treated with even more hostility — partially because most cis doctors practice misogyny-based medicine and are more likely to dismiss women’s symptoms or generally give them worse medical care, especially male doctors treating women. In my experience, cis female doctors are more likely to punish me for being transgender than a cis male one is.

I’ve noticed multiple times going to see a doctor, being treated as a man with all my pain or symptoms being treated as a concern, and then abruptly there’s a sudden withdrawal of care and concern when the doctor either realises I’m transgender and/or realises I’m “really” a woman.

But the thing is?

I’m pretty sure that the reason I suddenly receive such aggressive negative response is because I pass so well. When cis people realise that I’m trans, they feel even angrier and more personally betrayed, because I’ve so thoroughly “tricked” them by being a man without their permission.

Me at 24, about a year on testosterone; me at 25, about two years on testosterone. Same blouse, same vest.

But in general, day-to-day life — yeah, I’m perceived as a cis man.

Notably, a cis gay man.

Regularly, other trans guys and some butches tell me that as they began to present in ways perceived as more masculine, they noticed that women in public responded to them differently.

If they were out at night and a woman was walking alone nearby, she might cross the street to be a bit further away from them; she might choose to sit elsewhere rather than be near them on a bench; a woman alone might not want to share a lift with them.

I thought this was interesting the first few times I heard it — I hear it all the time, and it still strikes me as curious, because I don’t experience the same thing at all.

I’ve never had a woman walk away from me, or be careful not to be alone with me. Frequently, women strike up conversation with me in public, they chat to me on buses the way they might with other women — a little while ago I was waiting for my boyfriend to pick me up from the airport, and a young girl of 19 or so actually came up to me to ask if she could hotspot off my phone for a second and to ask me for directions.

It’s not that women alone shouldn’t strike up conversation with men, or shouldn’t be alone with them — but just to avoid any potential discomfort or risk of being harassed, many of them understandably avoid it.

But a lot of women see me in the street or in public places, and when they perform their internal risk assessment, I don’t prompt a red flag.

Part of it is that I’m skinny and white, sure — I’m not very physically intimidating in terms of my size, and I’m not racialised in the way many Black and dark-skinned men and boys are. Sometimes, I’m using a mobility aid like a cane, and that makes a difference, too.

But as a rule, I’m pretty. I wear make-up — I often wear face stickers and have visible “tattoos”. I’m fussy about my hair, and it shows. I dress in bright prints and florals, I wear silks and satins, I wear waistcoats and high-waisted jeans, I wear block heels.

When I walk, I sashay my hips. I hold my hands in a delicate way — I gesticulate freely, and I move my fingers when I do so in an effete way. If they hear me talk, people often guess from my accent that I’m English rather than Welsh, and that I’m more educated than I am, not to mention significantly posher.

The average cishet stranger in the street absolutely sees me as a man — and they exclusively see me as a gay one. No one ever mistakes me for a straight one, and that absolutely affects the way I’m treated.

I couldn’t possibly pose a threat of sexual harassment in many women’s eyes, because I’m obviously gay, and many cis straight women feel very comfortable with — if not entitled to — gay men’s companionship, especially white gays with effete mannerisms.

When talking about gender-based privileges for trans men and mascs, we don’t tend to consider any impact that perceptions of our sexuality can have, but because of the way gay men are sorted into a different subclass of cis masculinity than straight men, there’s a noticeable impact.

Straight people sometimes roll their eyes or look amused when they think I’m being particularly dramatic or gay; occasionally straight men wolf-whistle at me or make comments about how gay I look; people strike up conversations with me about RuPaul’s Drag Race, start chattering to me about drag, because they just assume that’s the sort of thing I would be into. I get looks sometimes on the bus if I’m chatting with friends or on the phone, or sometimes if I’m just there in front of them and I look very gay.

Most of this isn’t incredibly malicious — is it homophobic? Sure, sometimes. A lot of it is just straight people trying to understand what they think is gay culture the best way they know how.

Parents with kids actually make me the most nervous — not because there’s any danger posed by the kids themselves most of the time, but because parents can be the most vicious when it comes to homophobia. They’ll accuse gay men of being paedophiles just for existing in public and seeming a bit fruity, or they’ll get nervous about how gay someone looks in case their kids ask questions about it.

And kids do find how I look interesting — all the time, I’ll be out in public, and a kid will notice that my nails are painted or that I’m wearing high heels or that they see tattoos on my face, and they’ll ask their parents about it.

It’s anxiety-inducing for any parent when their child starts acting about a stranger’s appearance where the stranger can hear them, because they get worried about the potential impoliteness — when that stranger is a faggot, some of them get angry at me, because once again, even without their knowing I’m transgender, I’m interrupting their worldview of what the correct gendered behaviours are, forcing them to think about it, forcing them to explain aberrations to their kids.

A “normal”, “real” man is straight, after all, and does straight men’s things, like dress badly and sexually harass women and get ugly haircuts. It’s confusing, if I’m out on the streets looking fuckable.

The last time I was travelling, I was sitting in a restaurant in the airport, and some boys at the next table were staring at me.

“Dad, why is that man wearing makeup?”

“I don’t know, some men wear it.”

“How come?”

“…”

It is a truth universally acknowledged that wherever a faggot goes, little boys will be asking their mildly homophobic but well-meaning and liberal parents questions about that man’s physical appearance.

A classic response, and one that I overhear often, was this man’s retort: “Why don’t you go and ask him?”

Sometimes teenagers and kids laugh at how I dress, especially if they’re in groups together — and especially, too, if there’s a bunch of us visible queers together.

One thing I’ve noticed about wearing crop-tops is that some people get het-up about how hairy I am and the hair visible on my belly, or under my arms if I’m wearing a vest — because some straight people see a white twink and want to reclassify him as being part of the woman subcategory instead of the man subcategory (based on his assumed sexual availability to men), they then apply women’s rules of physical appearance to him.

After all, if I’m wearing makeup and high heels and high-waisted jeans and a crop-top, that’s like how a woman dresses — and if I’m going to dress like a woman even though I’m obviously a man, I should be held to the standards a woman would be too. I should be hairless and odourless, like a sexy child, because “sexy child” is the ideal for an attractive woman, right?

Some cishet women also hate how I dress and instead of laughing or grumbling about it in the way that cishet men do, they wrinkle their noses and get really quite scornful about it.

Some of those women’s husbands are secretly on Grindr (I know because I have sex with them), and I believe this is the closest they get to facing their suspicions as to their husbands’ bisexuality.

A photo of me from earlier this month, age 26.

I started taking testosterone some months before the pandemic started, but experienced the bulk of my second puberty’s physical effects over the course of the following years.

Subsequently, when I went to a queer event being run after about two years on testosterone, many people there hadn’t seen me out in some time. I got a lot of looks and a lot of interest, especially from other queer men, in a way I never had before — I always got a lot of engagement and looks, but many cis gay men would take a little while to warm up to the idea of me as a man if they knew or suspected I was trans.

Maybe it’s just because I’m hotter, though, right? I’m hardly the only person to go through a glow-up on HRT, and I certainly feel more attractive.

Except that several of the older men looking at me were men I’d known casually for years — and a bunch of them came up and introduced themselves. Said hi, what’s your name, I’m x, it’s nice to meet you, are you new to the city?

Because up ’til then, they really hadn’t much looked at me in much detail. Many of these men had heard me give talks, had talked to me in queer bars, had met me at one event or another, and I just hadn’t stuck in their minds — they certainly hadn’t come up and spoken to me before, let alone with such enthusiasm.

And I do want to say, like —

None of these men would call themselves anti-trans — they’d try to use the right pronouns, they’d say that there should be trans events on, and so on. But there’s still going to be unconscious biases there — whether up ’til now they saw me as a woman (and therefore just looked past me) or saw me as trans (and therefore just looked past me), suddenly I was a fully realised human being. Maybe I was attractive and fuckable to some of them — but crucially, I was also another gay man, and therefore real and worth talking to.

And I will say that this isn’t all older gay men in my community or even like, a massive majority of them — but it was enough older gay men to be noticeable.

Even entering into new gay spaces, queer men tend to be friendlier to me than they used to, more outgoing in conversation, chattier, etc.

That’s obviously not necessarily because I’m trans — like I said, I’m also hotter than I used to be, I’m older, more educated, I dress better and more confidently, etc. There’s other factors at play, and I’m not comparing friendliness to cruelty or coldness — I’m comparing it to polite apathy, which was often mild enough that I wasn’t hugely affected by it pre-T.

Some men do treat me a little coldly, but from what I can tell it’s not usually because they suspect or know I’m trans — a lot of the time it’s actually because I’m so faggy and effeminate, or they just don’t trust that I’m gonna be cool because I’m so young.

Mixed queer spaces can be another story.

Other queer people my age have often found me intimidating — I’m a pretty outspoken person, my politics are more aggressive leftwing than many people’s, and as a autistic, I speak plainly and directly in a way that a lot of people don’t care for, or can find scary and overwhelming.

Now, though?

The response to my perceived aggression is a lot more dramatic and avoidant — because now they assume I’m a cisgender man.

People often interpret me as angry or aggressive when I’m not — I can sometimes be somewhat flat in my affect, I can be a very blunt communicator, I don’t tend to beat around the bush when it comes to my opinions. All of these are pretty standard as an autistic guy, and a lot of other people have experienced the same thing I have — the interpretation of those personality traits as aggressive or argumentative.

But it’s been interesting experiencing the negative response ramp up so much as soon as I’m perceived as “really” male, even by other transmascs, queer people, and trans men.

It can be strange at times navigating broader trans spaces as someone who doesn’t look trans in the way even other trans people expect you to, where they just assume that you’re cisgender, or that as someone who already passes and has therefore “finished” your journey as a trans person, there’s less reason for you to be in community with other trans people.

Especially when it comes to trauma like…

There is an assumption by many young queer people that cis gay people are just fine now, that homophobia doesn’t impact them in the traumatic way it did older generations, or that homophobia is no longer an active impact on people’s lives — I obviously am transgender, but to be brushed off with the assumption I haven’t experienced the same extent of bigotry or negative experience because I appear cisgender always strikes me as fucked up when of course a lot of cis men have had similar life experiences to me, or worse.

I will say that again, the negative responses are from a minority, just big enough to be noticeable, and the more people talk to me, the more they relax a little about the whole thing.

It’s still funny though, like —

I met some trans friends of a partner recently, and I came downstairs without a shirt on because I was hurriedly multitasking, and watched her do a double take at my chest.

I laughed and was like, “Did you not realise I was trans?”

And she went, “No!” and we had a giggle about it.

Most of the time meeting other queer people across the board, I’m extended care and compassion and love — it’s just weird, I think, being so aware of the gendered differences in how people speak with and apparently perceive me, and how things have and do change, especially because people assume transmasculinity means a one-way journey to Male Privilege, and all the benefits it can come with.

As with any and everything else, these matters come with nuance and layers, and nothing is as simple as A to B with no complications.

[thottybrucewayne]

Another James Somerton lie that's super egregious to me is his lying about Janelle Monáe having to come out of the closet when Pynk came out because "Everyone got confused and thought the song was a girl power anthem when it was really Janelle's coming out song." and making a big deal about erasure and what not but it's like A. None of that is true the second that music video came out everybody and they mama said, "Janelle Monáe gay?????????????????" That was the primary reading of the music video, and it's very well-documented B. It could be argued that the music is somewhat of a "girl power" anthem too and I doubt Janelle would have an issue with that interpretation given that Pynk has a very "owning your sexuality and taking up space" message. C. Funny that James Somerton would make such an impassioned defense of an artist being "forced" to come out because he literally lied on a bisexual writer who was forced to come out after people assumed that she was some gross straight woman obsessed with gay men. James, who supposedly did alllllllll this research, lumped that author in with the "Straight woman who writes gay men's stories." in his video and proceeded to get pissy with her when she left a pretty mild comment of "Hey, after a whole harassment campaign against me forcing me to come out of the closet it kinda sucks that people are still calling me straight." Then, after very gently being called out over him erasing her sexuality to fit his narrative, he proceeded to omit the title of that author's work in his later videos and make up a lie about her being mean to him on Twitter when his audience questioned him on it. LITERALLY TALKIN OUTTA BOTH SIDES OF HIS MOUTH

This whole situation reminds me of a TikTok creator who's been called out for stealing from Black women all the time and how every time it's brought up, it's met with silence. Once, He just straight-up read out a Black trans femme's tweets without properly crediting her or asking her for permission to use her work. Making the excuse of "Well, I screenshotted the tweets and put them on the screen so..." then his fans spent days bashing her for calling him out on using the work of other creators without asking and making fun of her for having a donation up which I don't think he ever addressed outside of the occasional stray comment.

This way of "building a progressive brand" through stealing the work of marginalized writers is actually common in left circles and academia and has been an issue, particularly for Black trans femme essayists, for a while. Black MaGes (people of marginalized genders) will come out and say, "Hey! This really popular essayist ripped me off word for word bar for bar" and get paid dust because their platform isn't large enough to speak out and because their platforms are smaller, people are less inclined to care when they get ripped off. Like, it's easy for us to point at James and say, "Omg? How could he get away with stealing this much for so long?" when the answer is simple, nobody cares what you have to say if you don't have a big platform, thus nobody cares if you get stolen from and unfortunately, we're all complicit. Look at how much this situation has blown up just because a super-popular guy brought it up. If Hbomb and Todd in the shadows didn't speak on this story and these small creators made a bigger stink about James biting their shit, yall would have ignored them at best or crucified them and accused them of trying to tear down the body of work of a gay man and probably throw in something about them secretly being a kiwi farms troll trying to sew discord in the community (I know how yall get down...) at worst. To address this issue more substantially, WE have to be better about learning slowly and taking time to pour over materials ourselves and not fall into the trap of letting whatever video essayist we like the best at the moment shape how we think and feel about whatever topic they're covering. Ismatu Gwendolyn and their threadings essays on substack have really helped me personally start removing myself from the "quick learner" rat race and the need to digest as much information as possible that video essays fulfill and reintroduced me to learning slowly and with intention and reading sources for myself first without depending on the thoughts and feelings of a creator I like and agree with to color my view of things. If we work towards getting used to treating video essayists like essayists and not our parasocial besties being our beginning and end to learning on a topic, we can A. Mitigate the amount of misinformation and plagiarized work circulating by being able to identify them easier and B. Improve our personal relationship to learning so we don't have to rely on some stranger with "bisexual lighting" to make us feel smart.

Edit: Please rb the typo-less version,,,,

[hotvintagepoll]

This is a three-way poll. Only one of these women will continue to the next round of the bracket.

Propaganda

Deborah Kerr (Bonjour Tristesse, An Affair to Remember, The King and I)— For several decades she held the record for most Oscar nominations without a win (6 in total), and she was a prolific leading lady throughout the 40s and 50s. She's best known today for the romance An Affair to Remember with Cary Grant, and as the governess in The King and I. Many people have this erroneous perception of her as extremely prim, proper, and virginal, but this could not be further from the truth. When she first came to Hollywood under MGM she was typecast into boring decorative roles, but broke sexual boundaries for herself and Hollywood generally in From Here to Eternity, when she made out (horizontally!) with Burt Lancaster (on top of him!) in the famous Beach Scene. She went on to play many sexually conflicted women, a character type that would define most of her post- Eternity work. She continued to break Hays Code boundaries with Tea and Sympathy, which addresses homosexuality/homophobia head-on, and even did a topless scene in The Gypsy Moths 1969!! One of the only classic stars to do so. She deserves a more nuanced and frankly a hotter legacy than she currently has!!!

Keiko Awaji (Stray Dog, A Japanese Tragedy, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs)— Her role as Harumi— a dancer who lives with her mom and will go to incredible lengths for one nice dress— is so fucking killer. she more than holds her own against Toshiro Mifune, the incredible sense of dread and foreboding in their scenes has really stuck with me

Hazel Scott (Broadway Rhythm, Rhapsody in Blue)—ok ok let me tell you about Hazel Scott. She was a Trinidadian piano genius. By the age of 3 she could play the piano by ear. She would play jazzed-up versions of classics in nightclubs and could sing too! She appeared in five movies, and used her influence as a piano prodigy to improve Black representation in film—she turned down offensive parts, demanded equal pay, and always wore her own costumes to ensure she was portrayed as glamorous and beautiful. She was the first African-American woman to host her own television show, The Hazel Scott Show. She stood up for civil rights and was an overall icon! If you want to watch her being a genius, here she is playing two pianos at once. And here's this one that shows off her consummate glamor! [videos beneath the cut]

This is round 4 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Deborah Kerr:

I think she was one of my first crushes before I realised I was bi in The King and I when I watched it as a kid honestly. The kissing scene in From Here to Eternity is iconic for a reason. Actually tried to learn the accents for the characters she was playing if they weren't English which is more than pretty much anyone else was doing then. Played very restrained characters who frequently seemed to be desperate not to be so restrained. Did horror movies without venturing into hagsploitation tropes. Gave Marni Nixon the credit she deserved for her share of the singing in The King and I.

Anne Larsen is a peak late 1950s bisexual with big MILF energy. Have you seen the behind the scenes pics of her wearing a suit?? Have you????? Vote Deb as Anne Larsen.

Nominated for an Oscar six (6) times and never won, but besides her having actual talent (hot), and besides her looking Like That (very hot, also beautiful), she was always playing women who are, like, crazy repressed. Which makes it fun and easy for me to read these characters as queer. Icon!!!! You know what's hot? Playing ambiguously gay in vintage Hollywood.

Her face and talent and body, yes, ofc, duh. But also!!! Her HANDS!!!! I may be but a simple lesbian, but she is the best hactor (hand actor) that ever lived and that's HOT! For propriety's sake I feel I must redact a large portion of my commentary on this subject. Anyway. She's hot in her most famous roles (mentioned above), and also some of her sexiest hacting is on display in An Affair to Remember (her hand on the bannister when Cary Grant kisses her off-screen??? HELLO???), Tea and Sympathy (when she's trying to persuade Tom not to go out and she keeps flexing her hands like she wants to reach out to him but can't??? ALLY BEHAVIOR! WE STAN!), and The Innocents (which opens and closes with extended shots of her hands bc director Jack Clayton was also an ally and he did that for ME). Much of her appeal also lies in the fact that she often played deeply repressed characters and you know what's hot? When those uptight characters finally unravel. It's sexy. It's cathartic. It's erotic. Plus, she's beautiful to look at in both black & white and technicolor, and the more of her films you see, the more you can't help but fall in love!

Literally is in thee most famously sexy scene of all time (or maybe just during the hays code era which is what we're talking about HELLO), which is the beach scene with Burt Lancaster in from here to eternity. To quote a tumblr post of a screen capture of a tweet of a video of joy behar on the view: "y'know, there used to be movies where they were kissing on the beach... From Here to Eternity. They're kissing-- Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr are Kissing on the Beach and then the WAVES crash!! You know exactly what they did!"

She might have a reputation of being chaste and virginal or whatever, but we all know it's the quiet ones who are certifiable FREAKS

Keiko Awaji:

Hazel Scott:

[traumasurvivors]

Here's a link to a blog post on my personal website on a topic that I think is very important.

I've also put it below the read more for people that don't like external links.

When it comes to healing from trauma, there are a lot of emotions an individual may feel. One of these emotions is anger. Anger is one of the emotions I see invalidated the most. For example, I’ve been told that being angry is “letting the person who hurt me win.” I’ve been told that I’m only hurting myself with my anger and that it’s holding me back from healing. All of these assumptions were wrong.

Anger is often viewed as a bad thing because it can drive a lot of unpleasant behaviours but it can be used for good. While anger can hurt you and others, it doesn’t have to. There is a difference between destructive anger and constructive anger. Destructive anger is often expressed in a way that causes harm to yourself or others whereas constructive anger can be used to better understand your situation and figure out your needs. Constructive anger can be a way to show respect for yourself.

For example, if you’re in a situation with a friend where they do something that makes you angry (for example: cancelling plans, forgetting an important date, etc), constructive anger may involve you stepping away from the situation to figure out the cause of your anger (for example: you feel their actions imply you’re not important to them) so that you can then sit down with your friend and communicate in a calm manner. This may allow your relationship to grow and build with a better understanding of each other. Destructive anger in this situation may involve you yelling at your friend and insulting them, which will likely damage or destroy the relationship. If the hurt your friend has caused makes you want to re-evaluate your friendship, this is valid and there are still constructive ways to end a friendship that will cause the least amount of hurt for all involved. It is also important to note that ignoring the anger and bottling up is likely to cause a bigger blow up down the line or cause “overreactions” to other circumstances.

If anger is bottled up, it can end up coming out unintentionally. You might find you’re getting much angrier at everyday annoyances and disagreements than you might think reasonable. People might push you away or respond badly to your anger, because they feel they do not deserve it - and looking back later, you might feel they don’t deserve it, either. However, because of the anger you’re holding back, you can’t see that in the moment. This is why it is important to think and consider your anger, and listen to what it’s trying to tell you. I have found asking questions of myself to analyze my anger can help, such as in an anger inventory like this one.

While many people see anger as an emotion that causes people to lash out and destroy things, anger can also help to motivate people to create new things. Marches to “Take back the night”, or for “gay pride” have much of their motivation based in anger at injustice and oppression. New laws to better protect survivors of domestic abuse or otherwise help society are often driven by people feeling a huge amount of anger. Properly harnessed, anger can help to take action to change things for the better.

On a more personal level, anger can also be a motivator to improve one’s own life. Many people have used the anger they felt at those who put them down as a motivation toward success. That success might be completing schooling, winning an international athletic competition or publishing a novel. One thing all of those have in common is that they are rarely possible to do with only a little time or a little effort. They are time-consuming tasks which usually require months if not years of work. They can be easy to give up on without motivation - and for many, anger is a big help to keeping that motivation.

It took me years to feel anger. For the first while, I felt ashamed, guilty and like I deserved the abuse I’d endured. Feeling angry at the people responsible for this was a step in my healing. I began putting the blame on those responsible and not myself. I was realizing that I did not deserve to be treated in the harmful ways that I was. This was huge to me as someone that had spent years thinking I deserved my trauma and as a result, future trauma and abuse as well.

There were instances where my anger was destructive, mostly to myself. I engaged in self-harm as a way to vent my anger and it also caused problems in my relationship at the time because I held my anger in and would get really frustrated and project my anger onto my relationship which was not fair to my partner.

Over the years, I’ve learned to cope with my anger more efficiently. What works for someone is largely dependent on them and their needs. For me, it was a literal punching bag to vent out frustrations and journaling. It was sitting down with my anger and treating it like a friend trying to protect me (because it was in a way). It was listening to it and finding the cause. My true anger came from those who hurt me, and in a way, took a part of me. My anger largely came from grief and betrayal. Understanding where it came from did not make it disappear, but it did offer me perspective and allow me to better manage it.

For some, anger is a cover up for other emotions. It becomes a defense mechanism against feeling the sadness, hurt and other emotions that a person does not want to feel. The anger is just the first layer and understanding where that anger comes from, and that the anger is a cover up is a great step in moving beyond it. Feeling the emotions beneath it will play a big part in moving beyond the anger.

Anger is a valid and understandable emotion when it comes to healing from trauma, even if your trauma does not have a specific person to blame (natural disasters and death of a loved one are examples). If the person who hurt you did not mean to or did not know better (like another child), anger is still a valid emotion. You’ve been hurt and you should not have been and it is reasonable to feel angry at this.

For a lot of us, anger plays a part in our healing. And that’s okay! You’re allowed to feel angry. Anger becomes an issue when you allow it to consume you and hurt you or others. The feeling itself is not inherently bad, and it can actually be a good thing. Your anger can be used to help you. It’s what you do with your anger that decides whether it’s helpful to you or not. When I was first told that my anger was “letting the other person win,” I believed that and felt invalidated. I have since realized that my anger has been an important part in understanding my pain and my needs. My anger is not letting someone else win, but letting me win, by helping me to heal.

[astrobei]

hi i love your fics and I was wondering if you had any byler fic recs

thanks

hello there! in all honesty, i have not had the time to read a lot of byler fic as of late, but it’s been a while since i posted some recs so i’ll drop a few that i’ve enjoyed recently! as always, i do endorse every fic in my bookmarks to the highest possible degree, so always feel free to look through those for new reading as well <3

say it with your hands by pseudologia (@hellfiremike) — will is a new employee at the movie theater mike works at, and mike starts thirsting over will’s hands to a degree that’s downright detrimental to his employment status

GOD. this fic. i gushed in their dms immediately after finishing it because this might be my favorite modern will characterization of all time, and this is coming from someone who has a million and one takes on modern era will byers. this fic just checked all of my boxes — from the summertime romance to mike’s painfully in-character teenage angsting to will being a frequenter of star wars reddit threads and an enjoyer of sufjan stevens. and the TENSION. oh god the tension. i’ve read all their fics probably three times over each, and i also highly recommend like i am home again, a college au set during a halloween party which made me stare at my phone refreshing ao3 hourly until it updated, and can this be a real thing (can it?) wherein mike and will reunite in a gay bar. enough said

landslide by chamb3rs — the party’s senior year of high school

i don’t often reach for chaptered fics since i usually have such limited reading time, but i’m sooo so so happy i stumbled across this one. there have just been very few fics that have touched me like this one did. i blew through this in one sitting a few weekends ago and subsequently experienced the full range of human emotions (and then some) all in the span of a few hours. everything about this was perfect — the will pov, the weird liminality of transitional periods, the party and byhop family dynamics, down to my favorite portrayal of theeeee jennifer hayes in any fic ever. on top of all of that, this fic perfectly captures the heartbreaking euphoria of being in love with your best friend, and all the ups and downs that come with it. i crawled out of the ao3 tab covered in blood and my chest was hurting and i was shaking and i had damn near chewed my own arm off — and then i sent the link to my friend 10 minutes later and watched her experience the same exact thing like a train wreck in slow-mo HAHAHA

what a time to be alive by passerine_in_jade (@newlesbianprideflag) — will disappears and haunts mike from the upside down

i’m forever a total sucker for a good haunting metaphor, so it’s absolutely not a surprise that this fic is appearing on this list. the premise for this was so so so cool and interesting, and it’s another chaptered fic i’m glad i had a little extra time to read. the way the author had me rooting for mike and will the whole time even though half of the pairing was offscreen for a large majority of the fic is a highly commendable feat. mike’s unyielding loyalty to will and will’s constant faith in him felt so true to their canon selves, and there were so many moments that were so quiet and intimate and tender that i really felt like i was intruding on something. good good stuff

that’s what you get for falling in love by harriet_vane — will gets his first boyfriend in college, and mike, ever the ally, has very normal feelings about it

i want to preface this by saying that this fic is rated m, mostly just for mentions/allusions to sex, and one largely non-explicit portion of a scene in the last chapter. if that’s not your cup of tea, it’s easy to tell when it’s coming up and to skip past it without detracting from the plot, but i think it would be a greater detriment to not rec this fic at all, because it has quickly made the list of my favorite byler fics of all time. something about this take on jealous mike especially resonated with me — his inner monologue is simultaneously hilarious and depressing, and his obliviousness regarding his feelings for will feels so true to life without being overdone or cartoonish. you can tell just how much they really care for each other, and the conflict in this actually made me start crying because it felt so visceral and so fundamentally them. you can tell this author really understands their characters, and the love put into this fic is soooo palpable. it’s the kind of fic where you want to bonk their heads together to knock some sense into them, but you are helpless to do anything but hold on as you’re swung along for the ride.

finally, i try not to just rec fics written by my friends, but my recent reading list would be incomplete without these two wonderful additions:

the way you love me by strangeswift (@strangeswift) — byler exes (absolutely heartwrenching edition)

i’ve been hearing abby talk about her ideas for this fic for the better part of a year as she worked on it, and she actually edited and posted the first two chapters while i was visiting her! and by god is this world a better place with her byler exes concept in it, because if you want angst, you’ll never have to look further than her ao3 page. something about the way she writes will in this fic just makes my heart shrivel up and die in my chest — his quiet resignation, the bitterness (always love a good bitter will byers moment) and the Longing that never quite went away. mike’s characterization is also top notch, and you can really feel the chemistry between them during every interaction. at the time of me posting this list, chapter 4 is not yet up, but trust me when i tell you guys it’s going to soooooo be worth it. :-)

the end is here by bookinit (@bookinit02) — a speculative byler-centric season 5

if you’ve been following my blog for any amount of time, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that haven’s canon rewrite series is hands-down my favorite series across any pairing and fandom. her creativity with her season 5 concepts never fails to astound me — from the scripts she’s been working on as an alternative to the episodes she rewrote for s1-4, to her ideas for possible plot lines, and just incredible writing all around. i’ve had the privilege of reading through her scripts before she posts them to her blog (definitely go check them out) but special privilege bias aside, it takes soooo much skill to create such a visually powerful story in a medium that allows for such little narration, and the corresponding chapters just totally pushes it over the edge. pre-s5 required reading for every byler, and 100000% my new canon if the show doesn’t pan out

this definitely is not an exhaustive list because i have a million and one fics on my to-read, and one day i will get around to reading them all, but i hope there is something on this list that strikes your fancy!!

[bellalove69420]

My main struggles with the percy jackson fandom, but its an ADHD rant, that ended up being wayyyy longer than i meant it too.

I can't wait for them to do a heroes of olympus show (I hope so), and most of these leo girls are so surprised when he isn't this super hot, conventionally attractive guy, because in the book he isn't supposed to be conventionally attractive. He's supposed to be kinda ugly, that's one of the reasons he's so jealous of Jason.

It's one of the things that frustrates me most about the percy jackson fandom, is some of the erasure that goes on, in lots of characters. I mean so many. Not only Leo, but also Nico, Piper, Hazel, and Frank. People think of these characters in such ways that are so base level.

There are probably many others, that is just off the top of my head. Now there is things that are understandable, like how Hazel is just a cutie pie, but even then, I feel like people erase how truly powerful she is.

Also, minus nico, this happens mostly to the characters that are people of color, and I'm white, so I don't want to speak to much on something I don't understand. But it is something that happens very much, is that people see these characters as what they are on a base level, but not on a deeper level. Whether that is Piper and how she is barely brought up to be Native American anymore, and Rick Riordan hasn't done this, but I feel like this fandom has majorly white washed her. This has also happened with Frank, who, yes, in the book he does say many times "I'm from Canada, I'm not really Chinese" but thay doesn't mean as a fandom we erase that from him entirely.

This also happens with LGBTQ+ characters, I STILL find people writing nico di angelo x FEMALE readers. Which is unexeptable and not okay. That man has been out as gay for 10 YEARS, and people are erasing that as such a huge part of his character. What is wrong with u, there is a whole chapter that made me SOB as a 13 year old, that you people are not going to take away from me. Especially from someone who was outed.

Also, there are so many fanfictions I read where I feel like everyone's ADHD is just gone, like not there at all. What happened to that? That's such a huge part of how people discovered they were demigods. That's coming from someone who struggles from ADHD, also, if you don't know how to write it, do research, Google is free, and easy to use, and there is many good resources for ADHD research.

So, yeah, as a whole for such a wildly inclusive book series, that I love so much, I feel like this fandom needs to work on the erasure of minorities, as a whole.

[hellojuiceboxbaby]

I saw a post by another user getting into the already prevalent shipping discourse about Crystal and Charles and how she’s “getting in the way” of paynland. Please read their post, they talk about how it’s a load of bullshit.

I want to talk about why Crystal and Charles work, the potential longevity of their relationship and how it doesn’t affect the paynland ship anyway. (And this is coming from a paynland shipper and someone who wanted Crystal to be crushing on Niko lol).

First of all, when I watched the show within 10 minutes (like most people did) I very much assumed that Charles and Edwin were gay for each other. I’d hoped in my heart it was going to be a potential plot line because it was so obvious the boys were in love with each other. Their already established dynamic made it easy to see that.

Then Crystal was introduced and shifted their partnership dynamic. She challenged Edwin in a way Charles never did, ultimately being one of the catalysts to his self discovery the led to paynland actually being a possibility (everyone say thank you Crystal). Edwin didn’t hate Crystal because she was stealing Charles away from him. There’s no doubt in his mind that even if Charles and Crystal were to stay together that Charles wouldn’t still love him and prioritize their relationship, and Charles reassures him of this constantly.

What Edwin is bothered by is having to deal with an inexperienced human, who has no idea why they do what they do, getting in the way of them solving cases that matter to them. Which is figured out pretty quickly when she proves herself to be an asset to the agency and they enter into a sibling like dynamic with wonderful banter I love to see.

What I enjoyed most about Crystal and Charles (if I’m completely honest) is their very out in the open flirting and the way she rejected his advances multiple times but he persisted anyway. Charles gives off a “will go for anything that breaths in his direction” vibes especially when he defends Crystal by saying it’s fun to have someone their own age around.

Also it’s so refreshing to see a black girl being paired with someone who isn’t white (I’m black lol). The bwwm ship dynamic is so overdone in media. In fact the woc x white man dynamic is so prevalent in media today that I just assumed they wouldn’t actually get together. I thought the show runners were just dangling forbidden fruit in my face lol. They do work as a couple because they give off mean bisexual gf with her golden retriever bf to me.

I’m just gonna say it as well because it’s worth thinking about before this fandom gets too crowded and opinionated, but why do you see a woc (especially a blk woman) being in a relationship with one of the mmc and immediately see them as ruining your favorite ship or as causing queer erasure? If we all watched the same show you’d know that Crystal didn’t get in the way of anything. And why don’t you feel that way about Monty of the Cat Kings pursuing Edwin?

Im not gonna dissect paynland as a ship because im so bad at understanding the nuances of male relationships lol as a bi woman. I can talk at lengths about the potential for Niko and Crystal if yous want me to though.

Anyway drink water lovely people <3

[autismcatboy]

i hear the sunspot is a story about being human first, disabled second and a bl third. it doesnt flow like a bl and has very brief moments of romance because its not intended to be read/watched a romance.

the mangaka did not write it as a BL because she herself wasnt even familiar with it as a genre until after she started publishing. she was writing a story that just happens to also feature queer romance.

the live drama is not going to end with them getting together. its an adaption of just one series within the story and even at the most current series, they only barely got together.

the story is not unrealistic in how it handles communication (or lack thereof). its a lot easier to judge characters (and people in real life) when you think you have all the pieces, but the reality is we know very little about how others truly feel and when you have a lot going on and pulling you in different directions, its hard to know it yourself.

continued below the cut, spoiler free.

taichi and kohei are busy adults. between work/school, family and personal health, they dont have a lot of free time. many people dont have ways to contact friends they made in school because usually, you just see each other and dont think about exchanging contact information until later.

exchanging contact information is a bigger step to take in japan compared to places like the us. taichi uses a flip phone until hes pushed to get a smartphone after it breaks. data plans are expensive and many are selective about when and how they use them, and chatting apps like line are usually the main form of communication method. many people in the us dont like to give out their number or social media (which is also a feature of line) to people they know, like coworkers or classmates.

theres some pretty big assumptions about japanese culture and what its like to be a young adult by fans watching the drama that, in my opinion, just arent realistic. you're thinking like a bl fan and not like what people actually do in real life.

i hear the sunspot is a story about navigating the awkward, the hardships, fumbling and coming to terms with the things we may not like about ourselves. this isnt just about being disabled. able bodied, fully healthy people have things they dont like, push off and ignore. we see this in taichi, and how he continues to push that hes happy, nothing is wrong, he's just a big goofball and doesn't have anything below the surface and a lot of you have fallen for it.

relationships rarely go "we met, we fell in love, and now we are together and everything is perfect with only mild and entertaining drama." in fact id say they almost never do. people get scared to get close to other people, people dont think about if their feelings are romantic love or not when theyve never considered they might be gay. people get busy and distract themselves from addressing the things theyre not ready to look at and understand. all of these things happen much more often and often subconsciously, too.

people are mean and bullheaded when they feel like their comfort zone is threatened. people *run* when they feel like their status quo might change and they dont know what that will look like.

its easy to say someone is being ridiculous when you dont have their full story or dont stop to consider their circumstances. will it be different from how you'd react? absolutely. you lived a different life and had different experiences shape who you are.

but its equally as ridiculous to assume you know exactly how you'd react better than someone in their situation. no one is perfect, and definitely not 20 something year olds figuring out how to be adults after tough moments completely changed their childhoods. your early 20s, especially, is about thinking youre an adult and realizing just how little you know about adulthood. its easy to look back on when i was taichi and kohei's ages and say "oh there is a /lot/ that i fucked up with and couldve done better".

i hear the sunspot is about being human. the mistakes, the drama, the pain and the laughter. it happens to also have a gay love story but its not written to *be* a gay love story or even to be any love story in the first place.

if youre not willing to wait, and consider all the troubles that come before and during their relationship, this is not the story for you. save yourself the time, its got a long way to go. maybe come back in a few more years and see if the story resonates differently.

theyre not going to dive right into a relationship when they still barely know themselves.

[onesidedradiostatic]

A trembling thought hit me like a freight train, what if the reason the crew went back on saying Al in aro is because he and Vox actually did date?

And then Vox wanted more and they broke up?

Like, I just have a nagging fear that that might come up in season 2 and I really don't know how to feel about it

Like on one hand it should make it easy to clarify that, yes, Alastor really is aro for he gave it a try and found it really wasn't for him

But on the other, what if the crew (or whoever is in charge) is all, "Well he dated once so he can't be aro, therefore he is only ace"

I've seen these kind of conspiracy theories before where people think there's some planned surprise romance plot for alastor and that's why they don't want to confirm him as aro and well.

I disagree.

for in-text, meta, and my own reasons. lemme go through it one by one.

in-text reasons

if we ignore ANY sort of word of god, statements from staff and whatnot, the only thing we have is the rosie dialogue. I've talked about it before, although she only says "ace in the hole", the context in which this is said is the idea of alastor dating charlie, this is a romantic context, and rosie says she's joking because she knows he wouldn't do it because he's an (aro)ace in the hole. the joke here is that alastor brought a girl with him and she's jokingly assuming they're dating (unless we're really thinking she jumped to joking about them fucking). so she KNOWS he wouldn't date and that's the thing, the only way I could see vox and alastor having previously dated and still have rosie say this is if them dating and alastor realising he's uninterested is specifically what got rosie to realise alastor wouldn't do that. otherwise no, it wouldn't make sense to me that alastor would've dated when rosie said this.

meta reasons

old faustisse streams. I'm not a pre-series fan but I've done my research. sure, there's info they've said before that's been deconfirmed but that's because some info from them are stuff they only say they "think" and not stuff that they 100% confirmed with vivzie, just opinions based on what they know about the characters. alastor's aroaceness is different though, faustisse was VERY forward that alastor is AROace and they SPECIFIED vivzie did not want to canonise it because of shipping wars and all that, so I'm fairly sure it's not because of some surprise alastor romance plot. faustisse may not be a 100% reliable source since this is from years ago now but I will say alastor being aroace is about as canon as husk being pansexual. both of this info is from faustisse. arguably alastor being aroace is even more canon than husk being pan because of the rosie dialogue. you can read the transcript of one of the old streams here. don't take this as a necessary reflection of my take on alastor shipping, no, I don't like reciprocated romantic alastor ships. at all. but I also definitely don't think harassment is okay. shippers will exist, and nothing you say will stop them so it's best not to waste your energy shouting at them.

my opinion

first let me say, I DEFINITELY don't like vivzie's choice to not confirm it. I understand yes people can be very aggressive in shipping wars, I understand harassment happens. but. IT IS HAPPENING REGARDLESS. ALL OF THIS IS HAPPENING REGARDLESS. it's just made WORSE by no solid statement on him being aromantic because then there's people who will argue it's not canon. confirming alastor as aromantic will not stop the shippers from shipping or having fun, this is like saying confirming angel dust as gay prevents angel dust x women shippers from having fun. they will exist regardless. confirming alastor as aromantic WILL NOT CHANGE THIS, all it will do is ASSURE aromantic people that they are being represented. all it will do is stop people from saying "alastor is ace not aro!" and acting like alastor being aro is an obstacle to their shipping.

that aside, I'll talk about my opinion on the idea of alastor having dated vox in canon. now, okay, I don't mind the idea if it's done in a very clearly aromantic way and it was just something alastor tried out but didn't like. I would even like it if it was done properly! but I also don't trust vivzie to write an aromantic character in a romantic relationship, so I'd rather it not happen in canon. and I do think vivzie is more likely to not take the risk of trying to write an aro character in a relationship anyways (and if she did I would definitely hope she does lots of research).

also it doesn't really make sense to me why he would try dating with vox instead of like. a woman. like rosie or mimzy. and I don't mean this cause of heteronormative reasons I mean this because alastor is clearly more comfortable with women, it just makes more sense to me that if he were to try out dating it would be with a woman. like... why vox? the only reason I could see it happening is vox is the only friend who tried to confess to alastor and so he decided to try it out cause he was a friend but then didn't like it. that isn't to say I wouldn't enjoy reading about this in fanfics or anything cause I probably would LMAO it's an interesting concept, but doesn't really make much sense to me and I'm not sure if I trust the allo writers to do it in canon.

that's all I have to say.

*mic drop*

[kevinsdsy]

THE TROJANS SOCIAL MEDIA AU HEADCANONS pt. 1

laila dermott

laila dermott is muslim!! i've had this headcanon since i read the king's men for the first time in 2019 hehe and now is my time to push it.

nabil & laila are besties. they're both muslim and both in same-sex relationships which leads to them having an understanding of each other like no one else on the team could have with them.

ntm laila fr was his standing pillar when he was figuring out his sexuality

nabil mahmoud

nabil is gay!! which is something he really had to deal with and accept due to him being muslim too (bc what am i without the religious trauma due to sexuality lore)

nabil and tony are dating each other in the socmed au!! even without the au i would like to believe and headcanon there's something happening there :))

i've written a bit more about them in another headcanon post tho.

antonio "tony" jones

tony is what like a year or two older than the rest? he's an assistant and i'm not sure how old they're supposed to be in the book tbh so i would like to think it's possible or he's an intern (i love him being an intern either way tho so i'm very much leaning into that one)

jeremy knox

JEREMY KNOX USED TO PLAY FOOTBALL (soccer), but due to him playing so aggressively and due to him always being guilty of too many fouls he switched to exy :))

cody winter

cody doesn't know what sleep is and they don't care to find out. they're living on like 2 to 4 hours a sleep a night and surprisingly enough it works for them too.

cody is also SUPER competitive which is why they have managed to be part of the captain gc. their competiteviness has led to them pushing the backliners as much as cody can and the backliners actually listen to them too.

shawn anderson

oh shawn. shawn shawn shawn.

you were supposed to be no one. a random guy on the team.

you exist to me now. i feel like i could make a whole post about just him atp.

shawn was supposed to be comedic relief for the posts i felt were too out of character for the rest of the team LMAOO, but now he actually has a personality (to me)

shawn works a part time shop at a café. even though he's surrounded by coffee at all times and drinks so much of it he's the sleepiest guy to ever exist.

like that man gets about 8 hours a sleep every day and still takes nap, but still ends up with bags under his eyes.

he's always tired for some reason and everyone is so used to it atp. like he will ALWAYS sleep on the bus/airplane, no matter how long the drive/flight is.

but when he's finally awake he's so hyper. he says the silliest things. repeats the same phrases over and over again and has about zero filter.

most of the time the zero filter has to do with the fact he speaks before he thinks. it even catches himself off guard sometimes.

i feel like this is too long and we haven't even gotten into jean and shawn dynamic so i'm just gonna cut it off here and they’ll get another part i think

derrick allen

bro we don't even know who derrick is, but apparently he's someone to me now too.

this man has crazy attachment issues, but is also the biggest simp for shawn too.

he likes going around kissing shawn and making out with shawn, but whenever shawn mentions something serious derrick acts like it's just a joke. which i guess is easy to do, because shawn is always treating everything as a joke anyways. except he's really not trying to when it comes to derrick.

jean falls victim to shawn ranting and crying about derrick. so jean respectfully ignores derrick til he gets his shit together.

and i just realised i have SO MUCH to say about derrick and shawn too so let me cut myself off.

derek thompson

same as shawn and derrick. derek is supposed to be a no one, but here i am and suddenly derek is being perceived by me too

SOOO derek was supposed to be like the third party with derrick and shawn. it was supposed to be the three of them flirting and making out and being little shits but then y'all were asking about derrick & shawn and i decided yk what let's do it. then later the short oneshot was written by oomf and derek got mentioned as the one shawn is in love with and i was like oh... i fucked up the dynamic. but in another universe it would've been the three of them ig

ANYWAYYSS derek takes medication. i haven't really decided on what kind of medications, but while thinking about him i always imagined either depression or adhd or both idk

and i have so many more headcanons for the au, but this is too long so i´ll post part 2 another time :))

[scoupsahoy]

i wanna talk about The Ship War going on right now in the 911 fandom (largely on tiktok and twitter) and i'm not a bnf especially in this fandom (and i wouldn't want to be) but i'm kind of hoping people on both sides are willing to read this post anyway because i cannot be the only one completely turned off by it

i finished writing this so i wanna clarify: this is officially aimed at buddie shippers (i am one of you) because i genuinely want to have meaningful discussion and also i'm not exactly defending tommy here. but! i think if bucktommy shippers were interested in reading, there is stuff in here for you too

i have to split this up into sections which is annoying but i won't be able to make any sense without sections so. sorry

1. pre-tommy buddie shipping

so like a lot of people i knew about 911 and buddie entirely through tumblr osmosis, and there was a general attitude of confidence: buddie WILL become canon. if it doesn't... something something. i don't really know the season 6 finale was hard for a lot of you. and after watching, i do really understand why. but.

from an outside perspective, this fandom attitude was nothing like i'd ever really experienced before. i stopped watching supernatural around season 11, several years before gaycas, when confirmed bisexual dean was genuinely outside the realm of possibility.

i was a tjlc believer. i was an episode 4 conspiracist. i have been delusional about gays on my television screen before. so i was really apprehensive at the way buddie fans were moving. not only was buddie GOING to happen, but if it didn't it would be a failure of the network and the showrunners and the actors and it could have been the greatest love story ever told and shipping was not ENOUGH. it had to be canon in order to matter. shipping anything else was fruitless and offensive. this was what i was seeing. and i was like. well there's no way that's going to happen

and then season 7 started airing and there was this reignited hope

and then 7x4 aired.

2. the birth of bucktommy

so i started watching 911 after 7x4 aired. a lot of people did. i'll be honest i did genuinely think that eddie was out and gay and i was like "oh shit is it finally happening??" and then i realized it was some other guy and spend like 4 straight days tumblr deepdiving into it

like i said i was almost exclusively following buddie shippers so my consensus was like. buck and tommy are cute but it's obviously (TO ME) a steppingstone for buddie. after watching the entire show i do still feel that way.

here's the thing though: shipping isn't about what is going to be canon. i'm a marvel fan. my first fandom was fucking icarly, okay, my track record of shipping non-canon couples that actually end up together starts and ends with nbc sitcoms and even then barely. shipping to me is about character analysis and smooshing barbie dolls together with my friends. shipping to me is putting some guy in a blender and another guy performing frankenstein experiments on them

it doesn't matter to me actually that a ship isn't going to end up together, even if i like them. i'm not saying some bucktommy fans don't overstep certain boundaries (that i'll get into) but a FAIR BIT of them know this. a fair bit of them were buddie shippers and a fair bit of them still are. and there's a reason theyre put off

3. social media discourse

the first real piece of morality discourse came from tiktok. i won't namedrop this creator but if you're on tiktok you know who i'm talking about.

this person started the tiktok talking about something that i genuinely do agree with: fans who love tommy but hated all of buck's ex girlfriends should probably perform some self-reflection on the very real misogyny problem in 911 fandom and fandom in general. this i am 1000% behind. a call-in of sorts: hey guys! check yourselves! it is really easy to fall into misogyny especially with gay shipping. though i will argue that buddie shippers could stand to do the same thing (looking at you, people who write fanfic where ana flores is ableist for no reason)

they went on, however, to say that bucktommy shippers Must only like bucktommy because they are a gay ship, And Also Therefore, these people Must Be gay fetishists, as the only reason you would like bucktommy over buddie is because you just want to see men make out with each other. You People don't like gay shipping in the Correct way that i do, you like to gay ship in a nasty fetish way (only slightly exaggerating). you saw that buck and tommy kissed online and you watched the entire show just to watch men make out with each other which is Bad And Wrong.

aside from the fact that this person also literally started watching the show after 7x4 aired (and like i said so did a lot of people. one would think this is a morally neutral thing to do), this struck a nerve with me. this take (which was repeated ad nauseam by everyone in their circle) is just plainly irresponsible.

it is inappropriate to suggest that someone is like. morally reprehensible for *checking my notes* shipping a canon television couple. is tim minear a gay fetishist for writing the bucktommy kiss? is the average viewer a gay fetishist for going "oh i didn't see that coming! they seem like a nice couple"? is my mom a gay fetishist? are you calling my mom a gay fetishist??

this is an argument that i've seen happen in a billion different ways over the past decade and a half of being in fandom spaces by the way. are women allowed to read gay fanfiction? what about gay porn? what if they get off to it? are they allowed to write it themselves? what if they're not straight? what if they're not women? was casey mcquiston fetishizing gay men when they wrote red white and royal blue? is the romance genre allowed to exist with gay men and straight women in it? do you have to check everyone's gender or sexual identity at the login page for ao3 and tumblr dot com to determine if it is morally okay for them to participate in fandom at all?

and then there was the comparisons between bucktommy and buddie fic stat breakdowns: bucktommy's are writing more smut And That's Bad and buddie fans are writing stories with plot And That's Good.

it. is. irresponsible. it is oversimplifying. it is judgmental and above all else it is irrelevant. people could like bucktommy because they think they're hot or because they think theyre interesting or because buck realized he was bisexual or because they think tommy has potential as a character. it is a ship. creating a dichotomy where one ship is the morally good thing to ship and one ship is the morally bad thing to ship is irresponsible and not in the spirit of fandom.

morality and purity conversations in fandom are like. an entirely different can of worms to talk about and this is going to be long enough already. but bucktommy shippers shot back with the same energy:

if you don't like bucktommy then you are homophobic because tommy is gay

i did see quite a bit of this argument because a number of people that id been following did get into bucktommy and i do still follow and like these people

i covered most of my feelings about this type of argument above but to reiterate: it is possible to like different ships without making it a morality competition. it's disingenuous and annoying.

especially that brief stint where people were saying that the bucktommy shipname was a slur against gay men. you can just not like it. you can just not like it and have it end there. it's an ugly shipname but you don't have to make it a moral issue.

especially because then buddie shippers pulled out the trump card:

4. the tommy problem

because these people just watched the entire show in like four weeks (again, neutral statement, i did the same fucking thing) they remember tommy from hen and chimney begins. and. okay

i'm not about to be taken out of context here. i watched bp's video when it came out, i think what was said was wrong, i'm not about to say that being racist was like. cool or excusable 20 years ago. i think there is a discussion to be had here about this though. there's a reason i'm typing this out carefully:

i want to say firstly that there IS a conversation to be had about the social landscape in 2005 and especially pre-obama america for the purposes of a bunch of 20 years olds who were not alive or fully conscious yet. people told casually racist jokes (casual in that they are told casually without intent for violence, not that they are not violent. all racism is violence) and there were fewer social ramifications for those racist jokes in 2005. that does not make them Magically Not Racist. they were. it was not okay. it was, however, Extremely Common. does that make it okay? no.

i'm saying that largely because it seems to ME that tim or whoever wrote that particular episode wrote that joke to paint a picture of where the characters are in the story. chimney is not under bobby. he is not being treated with respect. he is 15 years in the past (from when the episode aired. whatever) it is different. it wasn't supposed to matter who said it

(it did matter and it does matter that it's tommy who said it by the way. because that's like. the universe of the show)

(though my theory - and i'm just being stupid for a sec indulge me it's 3am - is that tim and ryan both LOVE writing in guys named tommy. seriously i've been rewatching glee and when i watched 911 i noticed this too that there are so many characters that we never even meet named tommy. abby's ex for one. my theory is that tim wanted to bring in some guy named tommy for buck's awakening and he realized he already had one. lol.)

SECONDLY. sorry that was longwinded. secondly, i am a person who believes that people are capable of change. 20 years is a long time to grow. even as an adult. again, this does not excuse racism, but it is important anyway.

this is all theoretical but i want you to walk with me: it is possible for a 20-30 year old closeted gay white man with a homophobic captain pre-obama to pick up and not experience consequences for inappropriate comments and casual racism and even be seeking out a parent-like validation from someone who encourages it AND THEN, after 20 years wherein he realizes he's gay, comes out of the closet, i believe it is POSSIBLE for him to unpack his internalized racism, apologize, and grow as a person

obviously these are fictional characters but it is important to my fucking philosophy of life that people are capable of change and having empathy or understanding that in fictional characters is so fucking baseline.

it is important that we as a society can agree that someone's behavior, ideology, and/or biases can change. that like. that just HAS to be possible.

caveat #1 that does not mean that any people of color who are fans of the show have to like tommy or even forgive him (or even like. hen and chim lmao it's kind of clear to me that at least hen doesn't) and i am not going to tell them to

caveat #2 i also understand that there is no explicit acknowledgment of this on screen (i think this is because tim forgot which i find funny but like i said. it still matters that it's tommy regardless of intent) and because of that there technically is nothing To forgive

ALL OF THAT TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT.

even if we are assuming that tommy has learned nothing and has not changed at all. the leap from "tommy is/was racist" to "shipping bucktommy or finding tommy interesting Makes You Racist" is heinous to me.

sometimes people like characters who are shitty people. some of you like tony stark. sorry

it's ridiculous to me because there are plenty of other reasons to dislike bucktommy that doesn't like. vilify random people on the internet. he's not even framed as a particularly good boyfriend! we don't even know if they're boyfriends, for one thing!

i've been complaining about buddie shippers for this entire time but i literally am one of you and that's what pisses me off. you threw the first blow in the morality competition and you are bigger - and you KNOW you are bigger because you are proud of the fact - and you are winning.

you are right about a lot of it: tommy isn't a good guy. there is an active racism problem in this fandom. there is a misogyny problem in this fandom. but by and large buddie shippers have been in the game longer and have much larger followings and there is nasty shit i'm seeing which brings me to

5. social media discourse 2 electric boogaloo: twitter edition

twitter is a cesspool in the best of times but i have seen some shit in the past two weeks that makes me never want to write fanfiction for this fandom or even interact with most of the fans ever again. and i'm serious

there is a big buddie fanfic writer who is like. beloved. if you read buddie fanfiction you've read their work for sure. they started writing bucktommy and buddietommy fics around april. and people are being so nasty about them on twitter it is actually fucking embarrassing.

AND LIKE. god. fandom etiquette is so simple.

when i first started reading buddie fanfic the first thing i noticed was how many fics are locked. and i was like "i wonder why that is"

just look at these tweets. i have kept the author's handle here uncensored but please be normal do not bother this person. i'm sure their ao3 comments are hell enough already

what the fuck is your people's problem i'm serious

i'm like actually appalled. this is embarrassing. this isn't even the most embarrassing thing i've seen buddie stans do recently and it is NOT uncommon. it is not small accounts. you guys are the majority. these tweets have hundreds of likes.

i don't give a shit what this person was writing. i actually don't care. their fics are locked. they write for free.

to take someone's fic outside ao3 is considered bad fandom etiquette. to talk about an author where they don't have an account is generally considered bad fandom etiquette. to complain about fanfiction openly is bad fandom etiquette. i don't care if this is y'all's first fandom. in what world are you going to take to twitter and openly complain about someone writing fanfiction for a ship you don't like.

if i were them i would delete all of the buddie fics or never write buddie again i'm so serious. this is so ridiculous.

and this is sort of the nail in the coffin for me, seeing this tweet the other day:

this tweet has over a thousand likes

this is a larger fandom issue as of recent with the use of like. mental health terms as insults but it actually fucking disgusts me!

i looked at mark's twitter. it's pretty clear to me that he's a troll/having fun/provoking people on purpose but on TOP of that his tweets get at most 35 likes. i checked and this tweet got 21 likes. and over a thousand likes calling him schizophrenic. 24 replies doubling down. 25 retweets. 47 quote tweets. 62 bookmarks. over a thousand likes.

and buddie shippers are the good guys

it is ridiculous to me that as a fandom buddie shippers have created a space where it is impossible to have a meaningful discussion about fandom misogyny, racism, of homophobia because everyone who disagrees with you is morally opposed to you, and yet it is this side of the fandom with enough traction and support to openly bully and mock these people that you have decided are morally reprehensible.

6. in conclusion i'm sorry i know no one read this

fandom in general post-covid has become less of a community based in sharing creativity and the love of something (and i know this intimately as a kpop stan lol). online spaces in general have become something i don't recognize or want to participate in. which sucks. i've been here for a long time.

i know there's not really any way for that group of like 5 or so tiktokers that complain about tommy ad nauseam to see this or even take it seriously. i know there's not any way for those people on twitter to magically understand fandom etiquette or just block the people they don't want to see.

everyone would be happier if they just. blocked and moved on. i know i would. and i have! in a lot of cases. there's a reason i blocked out the names on those tweets (note: i blocked mark's twitter handle. the person who screenshotted it so he wouldn't be notified and then called them schizophrenic did not. because they do not care) because it's not about THEM it's about the whole fucking thing.

and a lot of these people want to be mad. it's why they're so hung up on tommy. like i'm sorry if any bucktommy fan is still reading this but GOD TOMMY HAS BEEN ON SCREEN FOR LIKE TEN MINUTES TOTAL IN THE ENTIRE SHOW. HE DOESN'T EVEN MATTER. JUST ADMIT THIS IS ABOUT A SHIP WAR. IT ISN'T ABOUT HOW GOOD OF A PERSON YOU ARE OR ANYONE IS. IT'S JUST A SHIP WAR. and they want to be miserable. they want to sit in their little echochamber of morally upright big name fans and they want to provoke bucktommy fans into saying something shitty and they love it because they don't really fucking care about the show.

you know how i know? because tommy is the least important part of chimney begins. that is in the best 3 episodes of this entire television show and none of y'all have anything to say about it. because you're just as obsessed with tommy as they are.