#it's just that. im afraid of being The Queer One

[comfortstars]

no actually. Can I be honest for a second. I know I said I wasn't gonna talk about it anymore but idgaf

[zellkabellk]

Rambling in the tags don't mind me.

[r1ghtwhereyouleftme]

Me: I hate [insert thing here] discourse

Also me: *gets so annoyed when people are blatantly stupid and do things thay make zero sense therefore making me go along with discourse bc I can only handle so much stupidity*

[mccoalminer]

Imagine being so far down a bigotry rabbit hole that you think people hating you must be because you're Not Part Of A Minority Group. Imagine being too self absorbed to consider the much more simple and plausible possibility that people hate you because you're... yknow... being an asshole. voldemort deluding himself into believing everyone hates him because he's straight and not because he's a white supremacist, mass murderer, literal personification of evil, etc

Girl help I'm being demonised and dehumanised for *checks notes* not being trans. Nothing to do with the hate and vitriol I'm spouting ahaha

She ain't even subtle anymore lmao

[splatoonpolls]

a really long analysis about fanon Marina and the flanderization by fandom she has gotten

fanon marina (the version created by the fans) mainly focuses on two things, her being autistic coded and her being basically confirmed to be a lesbian. And I do think this has to do with her being VERY much like a typical splatoon fan in many people’s eyes. Her being a nerdy queer neurodivergent person. This is also why other parts, especially her relationship with her being an octoling gets often locked away. Subconsciously at least

if Marina was a book, several chapters would focus on her identity as a dome octoling. Her being autistic would probably pop up here and there, but it wouldn’t be a whole chapter. But her very much gay relationship with Pearl would definitely have a few chapters. But with people focusing on those few lines and chapters rather than the whole book. People would slowly ignore the other chapters, get shocked like Adam Sandler learning Pac-Man was the bad guy in the hit movie pixels.

the splatoon fandom’s western side is mainly white Americans and Europeans. Which is one reason why the fanon Marina doesn’t focus on her identity as an octoling, but also on how many details are not really told to the player. Marina barely shows her ears, which can both be read as her having sensory issues (which is a super valid headcanon(, but also her not feeling super comfortable with her body. With her ears being a reminder of her “you are with people who still think you are only going to steal stuff”. Her tentacles may be weird, she may lack the eyeliner an inkling has. But those things can simply be a stylistic choice. Her ears can’t be one. They are too different. I also know the DLCS focuses more on her identity as a dome octoling. However many can understand how her arc as a whole can be paralleled to the real life experiences of people belonging to marginalized ethnic communities. I also want to point, while writing this. I realized (which many people probably already did). Dome octolings you see outside of the domes (splatoon 2 octolings, Marina, Acht, Paul), are all refugees. They are all characters who grew up in a society that had been shunned for decades, even centuries. That society ended up being oppressive both due to external and internal issues. They know the society they’re living in is no longer a good place to live in. So they escape. Hoping to find a place that will take them on. For agent 8, Marina, and Paul. They found a safe place. Acht wasn’t super lucky however. They were told they could find a “promised land” only to be left in even more ruin before. So not only does Marina’s character arc focus on her being a part of an ethnic minority, but a refugee at that. so why does fanon marina usually avoid that part of her? Well as a mentioned before. Marina has three things that makes her very relatable. While the more backstory focused things are less relatable to a way smaller margin of the splatoon fandom. A way smaller part of the fandom are poc in a very white country. And a very small percentage are refugees.

if we removed Marina’s backstory. We would still be left with the fanon version. A nerdy autistic lesbian who deeply loves Pearl. I love how Nintendo got a game that also isn’t afraid to show a society that cares about queer people if not is queer centric itself. Which is probably why many people cling to that part of Marina. But if we removed that part. What would we be left with? Well, we would have an octoling refugee who is a trained soldier and can create weapons of destructions (and she would still be in love with Pearl, it is an important part of her backstory). im not saying the splatoon fandom’s openness to lgbtq and neurodivergent people is a bad thing just because they boil down one of the most plot heavy characters down to those things. It is actually a really great thing to have a fandom that is open to these marginalized groups.

i just want to say, due to this love for Marina being a character you can relate to. It feels like certain parts of Marina’s character (which can also be very relatable to some) is being drifted away to the more lore centric side of the fandom. Which will lead to a sort of fandom flandarization which is very unintentional and just done due to a love of Marina as a character.

If you’ve read this an disagreed, that is fine. Character writing is a very subjective thing

[lycandrophile]

it's silly but the biggest reason why im not into t yet is bc im so afraid of losing my hair. do you have any solutions/tips for it?

first of all, i don’t think it’s silly — it’s natural to be worried when hair loss is talked about by so many people as like…one of the worst results of aging for men. listening to my dad talk about how much he hates balding definitely did not make me feel particularly good about the knowledge that i may very well be joining him someday. i’m not saying the fear is right, because i don’t think hair loss is something awful that we should avoid at all costs, but it’s an understandable fear given the beauty standards we’re working with, and it’s one that a lot of us (myself included) feel.

one thing that’s helped me is just…paying more attention to the guys that i interact with on a daily basis. i’ve learned two things from it: 1) hair loss is super fucking common. i’d say it’s much harder to find an adult man who isn’t balding at all than it is to find one who’s completely bald. and 2) if you forget everything you’ve been told about how bad hair loss is, you’ll realize that quite frankly, every single one of those guys looks totally fucking fine. it doesn’t ruin their appearance and make them ugly, it looks totally natural and isn’t really even something you’d notice if you weren’t looking for it. we put so much weight on it but it’s really just not that big of a deal. i’ll hear my parents talk shit about men in my family who are losing their hair when i didn’t even notice a difference last time i saw them. it’s one of those things (like so many other appearance-related things) that you really only notice at all because you’ve been taught that you’re supposed to care about it.

this isn’t something i’ve done personally, but if you really want to desensitize yourself to the idea of it, embrace the time-honored queer tradition of just shaving your whole damn head! find out what you’d look like without hair, find out how you feel about it and what you can do that makes you feel good about your appearance without hair, test the waters while it’s still a temporary change and not something permanent. that way, it won’t feel like this big scary unknown, and you’ll actually have a frame of reference for your feelings about how you look without hair rather than accepting the societal assumption that you’ll inevitably hate it. if you don’t want to actually shave your head, you could also just fuck around with bald filters or photoshop and see what happens.

oh, and if you’re attracted to men, keep an eye out for guys who are bald or balding and also hot as fuck. in my experience, there’s no insecurity or potential future insecurity that being gay for other men hasn’t helped me with. just off the top of my head, i can think of a couple actors who i think are absolutely fucking gorgeous who have helped me get over my fears about losing my hair. despite what our anti-aging-obsessed world might want you to think, there is no such thing as a physical feature that automatically makes someone less attractive, and while making attractiveness less of a priority in your life is good, it can’t hurt to also give yourself some proof that actually, you might lose your hair and look hot as hell doing it.

basically, entertain the possibility that it won’t be a bad thing at all! whether that’s just because it turns out to be a neutral thing for you or because you end up actually liking it, it’s not an inherently bad thing. i’ve ended up liking a lot of things that were “supposed to” be bad effects of t — i love the weight i’ve gained and the new shape it gives my body, i get a lot of gender euphoria from the fact that my acne is now on parts of my face that i saw a lot of guys in high school get it and i’m not complaining about the scars i get from it either because i’ve always liked the added texture that acne scars give my skin, and so on. i think there’s a lot of joy to be had in the changes we’re taught to fear, once we look past that conditioning and actually explore how we feel about it.

but if it’s something you really don’t want and you just want to improve your chances of not having to deal with it, it’s not like there’s nothing you can do! products like finasteride (oral) and minoxidil (usually topical but i think there might also be oral versions) are pretty commonly used among trans guys, for the purpose of avoiding hair loss and for other reasons, and there are plenty of other anti-hair loss products out there (though i don’t know how effective any one of them might be). if it’s a big enough deal for you, you can just decide that you’ll go off of t if/when you start noticing signs of it, since no longer having higher t levels would stop the process in its tracks. and if you don’t find prevention options that work for you so it ends up happening, you can always explore different hair styles (judging by the pattern of hair loss i see in my family, i suspect that keeping my hair long would make it less obvious if i started losing mine), find your preferred method of covering it when you don’t feel good about it (personally i love a good beanie generally and would probably wear them a lot more if i didn’t have hair to worry about because my main complaint is the way they press my hair onto my neck), or just shave it all off if you don’t like the look of the partial balding but don’t mind a shaved head. the point being — you have options!

at the end of the day, whether you go on t or not, you’re going to see your body change as you age in ways that aren’t always going to be attractive to others or aesthetically pleasing to you. that’s just the reality of having a body. even if you never went on t, you’d get older and you might see your hair thin out even if you don’t bald, you’ll see your skin start to wrinkle and sag in places that used to be smooth, your metabolism might slow or your body fat might start to gather in new places; hell, you might lose your hair for a totally different reason and end up in the same place but without the benefits of having been on t that whole time. life is full of bodily changes like that. transphobes will fearmonger about the permanent changes of testosterone all day long but the truth is, there is no escaping permanent bodily changes. whether or not you go on t, your body now isn’t the same as it will be in 1 or 5 or 10 or 20 or 50 years, just like it isn’t the same as it was at any point in your life before now. our bodies are never supposed to stop growing and aging and changing throughout our lives. there’s no guaranteeing that we’ll love every single change our bodies go through, but that’s okay! there are so many things in life that are more important than the way our bodies look. even if you go on t and lose your hair and don’t like how it looks, your life won’t be ruined; plenty of other things will bring you joy and more than make up for the insecurities.

just think about the gender euphoria and relief from dysphoria that t could give you. would losing your hair be bad enough to outweigh all of that? or is it just the pressure of a society that decided balding is bad that’s making you fear one single change despite how much joy you could have if you let that fear go? only you can decide if going on t is worth the potential downsides for you, but i suspect that for most of us, the benefits of going on t far outweigh the possibility of side effects like hair loss happening down the line.

[fxlling-slxwly]

There’s so much about Heartstopper Season 3 that I LOVE. Obviously Nick and Charlie’s relationship growth is beautiful, and Charlie’s mental health stuff is SO IMPORTANT, and I was SOBBING at Episode 4. HOWEVER. Breakdown of my favourite parts / storylines:

1. Darcy’s exploration of pronouns and gender identity. Seeing them start leaning more masc, cutting their hair, using they/them pronouns, and then coming out to Tara as non-binary?? WONDERFUL. As someone who recently came out as genderqueer (with a fairly similar path as Darcy actually) this made me so emotional and so happy for them and the representation.

2. Isaac. My baby. Everything about him is so wonderful and I just want to wrap him in the biggest hug ever. His coming out scenes (both his one to Charlie and to the Paris Gang) were beautiful. His boundaries in refusing to fill in the gaps for his friends is so admirable, as when you’re outside the ‘mainstream’ queer labels it can become such a tiresome ordeal having to explain your identity to others when they aren’t putting in the work to look it up. I’m SO GLAD he got these moments and he’s such a ray of sunshine. Him being the only one to see that something was wrong with Charlie hurt me deeply but it made me love him even more. Also seeing his cheeky side when it comes to Charlie’s sex life is peak aro/ace romance obsessed behavior.

3. Michael Holden my beloved. Darragh’s portrayal of him is everything - he’s so funny, awkward, and optimistic in every single scene and I just adore him. All of his interactions with Charlie made me fall in love with him even more, and they all just felt so RIGHT. His and Tori’s relationship is wonderful.

4. Tori being the best most beautiful big sister. She has so much love in her but she’s so afraid of letting people in and see her being vulnerable. Her love and anxiety for Charlie is so immense, but she does what she can even when her heart is breaking. I adore her and I’m so looking forward to seeing even more of her in the next season.

5. Nick interacting with Elle, Tara and Imogen on the road trip!!! I love seeing Nick integrate more with that friend group, but allowing him to have those moments of gossip and banter with the girls is beautiful, especially as he’d said previously how he didn’t talk about the deeper stuff with his other friends. Having the girls encourage him to talk - especially Elle causing chaos - was *chefs kiss*.

6. Tao and Nick hugging!!!

7. Charlie, Tao and Isaac’s friendship! I adore seeing them be super huggy and telling each other how much they love each other. Healthy friendships for the win!! No toxic masculinity here!!

8. Tao and Elle’s relationship & his utter adoration of her. The scene where he showed her the video he made of her was so emotionally raw and beautiful and UGH IM OBSESSED

9. Mr Farouk and Mr Ajayi’s soft moments UGH I LOVE THEM. Mr F is one of my fave TV teachers - the way he tells Charlie that he could help so many younger students and you can just tell how much he needed queer rep when was younger!! Ugh I adore these two so much.

[finlin000]

I have some thoughts about the nandormo ending so 6 EP 11 spoilers!!!

I think yes, it was textbook queerbaiting, AND BEFORE THE PITCHFORKS COME OUT - i saw someone say that if it was a straight ship, it would still be a bad way to treat an audience, which i wholeheartedly agree on. I'm personally just sick of investing time into queer shows that don't show ANYTHING QUEER (take this with a grain of salt because i am aware of the blatant cannon queerness). I'm not afraid to say I love the show for the characters but mostly for the Guillermo and Nandor scenes, and I feel like alot of people on here would agree - i love thr other characters but they're my favourite.

Thay being said what made me so, so sad was the "alternate" sitcom ending. Like. What?

It wasn't a sweet moment, it wasn't everything we hoped for - it was nadja (bless her heart) hypnotising the audience into their "preferred ending" it was literally "AND IT WAS ALL A DREAM!!!!" which is just so.... nothing? Yes, fantastic nandormo cannon everyone cheers but it just feels like the writers are mocking queer people and their love for queer relationships.

I'm all for queer relationships that end up ambiguous, Hannibal, for an instance was not blatantly cannon, and that's still one of my favourite shows to date - this however? This felt sloppy, rushed, boring ect. It felt like the writers slapped us in the face and went "FIIINEEE WE'LL GIVE YOU NANDORMO CRUMBS STOP COMPLAINING". I don't know, it just made me so so sad, im tired of shows being "queer" then giving us nothing, i still love wwdits to bits, the characters will forever be special to me but this was just so deeply disappointing. Open to discussion.

[d0gbite]

how do you have the courage to be yourself? how do you not fear of their looks or their words? I just... I'm sorry if this is hard to answer.

don’t be sorry. honestly, it took me a long time to be able to not care about being judged. i used to be a super socially anxious and shy person. but recently within the last few years i’ve realized that it just… doesn’t matter what other people think of you. i know that’s so cliche. but honestly.

when i was in high school i started dressing uhhh.. let’s say a little weird. i wanted to test the waters, so to speak. i was experimenting with clothes and trying to teach myself to not be afraid of getting weird looks. because people WOULD give me weird looks, and comments, and even laugh at me. but i liked the way i looked, and my friends thought it was fun, so… what’s the big deal? how is it really affecting me, what they think about how i dress?

i got called a furry a lot in high school, and sometimes barked at. i didn’t know what a furry even was, so it didn’t bother me. i asked my friend one day, and she told me its people who dress like animals, and that i should look it up, because she thinks i’d really like it. and you know what? she was right. so i was a furry. i sometimes wore cat ears or a collar to school. and it still didn’t bother me when people tried to make fun of me for it. partially because i didn’t realize they were making fun of me (the tism) but partially because i didn’t care. *i* thought furries were cool, so i wasn’t embarrassed about them calling me one. they were right, after all 🤷‍♀️

i’m still openly a furry. i wore my fursuit to my college classes on halloween. i’m openly queer. i’m semi-openly a therian (close friends and family know, and ill tell anyone who asks). i don’t mind being weird or different, because i learned when i was a teenager to not be afraid of weird looks or being laughed at. they cant hurt you. it just doesn’t matter to me if other people think i’m cool or not, *i* think i’m cool. i made friends with other people who thought i was cool.

i was worried for a while that if i was too weird, nobody would like me and i wouldn’t have any friends. but the thing is, you won’t make friends by pretending to be someone you’re not. not real friends. i promise that *someone* will still like you. you’ll find someone like you. someone will still understand and think you’re cool no matter how weird you are. and if they don’t, i’m always here :)

LASTLY (sorry this has been so long) i’m good at being openly myself now because of how i worked on my self esteem. i used to have super low self esteem, i didn’t think highly of myself at all. but i read something online once, a few years ago, that said instead of making self-deprecating jokes/comments, to start making self-aggrandizing jokes. instead of saying “i can’t believe i got a good grade with how dumb and bad at math i am”, start saying “of course i got a good grade, im just that amazing and smart and incredible”. so i started doing that. personally, i think these kinds of jokes are WAY funnier, and also they help your self esteem. even if you don’t believe what you’re saying, it still subconsciously builds up an idea of yourself in your head. i will quite often make jokes like this, and i find this helps TREMENDOUSLY with not caring about how people think of me. who cares if they think i’m weird? i’m so pretty and smart and funny and talented 😌 i don’t need them to like me

anyway. that’s a lot of words to say sticks and stones can break your bones but words can never hurt you. but it’s true!

the fear of being judged is a (super valid to have, but) irrational fear, imo; judgement will not hurt you. so my big three tips, if you’re trying to start not caring about what people think: practice, find friends/a group who like you for who you are, and don’t think too poorly of yourself

[cosmicpoutine]

leaving a lil rant here :]

I love Tim and his ships sm. Me personally, I only really ship TimKon. Those two are perfect for eachother and have so much clear queer coding that it’s crazy, and they have dialogue that’s just. gay shaped.

I also get TimBart, I don’t ship it romantically but I get why people do!! Tim and Bart are close as well, and the balance they get between ‘depressed tired wet cat’ and ‘living breathing embodiment of adhd’ is great.

I also get TimBartKon, they’re a trio. They are always a trio, so many people like to bring up how TimKon has so much coding and one of the big examples they use is when Tim tried to clone Kon. You know who else he tried to clone? Bart.

The only Tim ship I don’t get is TimBern, or any ship involving those two. When Bernard first appears, he’s Tim’s bully. He actively makes fun of tim and puts him down and then that character is forgotten about until Tim comes out as bi, then they just rework his character and go “haha guys this is his boyfriend not bully ygs are crazy” and just forget about all the bad stuff Bernard did? Reworking a character is great and all but, it just feels a bit weird and out of place for me. There’s always going to be that certain toxicity for TimBern, at least for me.

homie... bully??? im flabbergasted- im speechless- im jason todd (dead)

okay, im gonna start off by saying you have all the right to not ship them, and im not here to defend timbern as a ship. im here to defend BERNARD DOWD.

first thing bernard does is give tim advice about teachers, and he clearly says they're gonna be good friends.

if bernard was a bully, tim wouldn't hang around him so much. besides, i hate it when people place tim as a helpless little boy who would get bullied. he has put himself in situations where he looks weak on purpose to keep his identity safe, but he's not a victim at all. tim is a social butterfly because he's really good at masking and reading people.

not to mention, both bernard and darla push tim a lot because they're trying to get him to open up and be closer to them, but he keeps pushing them away. tim is a professional liar.

and when tim has to quit robin and start hanging out with normal people, he invites bernard over.

and bernard is acting relatively normal, and he wants to play video games and talk about how hot tim's stepmom is.

bernard is a normal teenager who has no idea one of his friends is the hero he's so obsessed with. he even shows concern for robin dying and makes up an entire conspiracy theory about batman havin a robin orphanage. you can tell he's afraid of robin being gone for real because at this point they haven't seen robin in months bc tim retired.

i dont know what about all of these interactions gave you the vibe that he's a bully because all i see is a normal teenager teasing his friends and being jealous tim gets more bitches.

im not saying that bernard was never mean or weird around tim, but he definitely wasn't actively bullying tim.

bernard is obnoxious and cocky, yes. but thats just because they wrote him as a real person. he's the school's chameleon, maybe even a little bit of a loser, too. he knows everyone but keeps a safe distance so that he doesn't get pushed into a box. im not sure if, at this point, he was already in a cult or being indoctrinated, but when we see his parents and the dowd home in tim drake: robin that just doesn't look right.

also homie talk about "forgetting all the bad things bernard did" (which in my opinion is none but okay lets follow that logic) everyone forget about all the bad things batman did to tim, he was not a kind and loving mentor, he was cruel to both tim and steph. we forget that batman was kind of an asshole to damien in the beginning. all those things are forgotten for the sake of the batfam.

in conclusion: we're just so used to the idea that superheroes can only ever form strong friendship bonds by having near death experiences together that we forget that the secret identifies exist and that the people who know them by their legal name also means a lot to them. after all, these people are the reason why they're heroes.

[our-queer-experience]

Trans man vent rant incoming but its bothering the fuck out of me and I don't have anyone else to say this to.

I am so very very tired of being told to protect cis women. Don't make them uncomfortable in the bathroom or the locker room thats a "safe space," don't talk about how reproductive rights being stripped affects us too because "its a women's movement, don't derail," don't talk about how we are also victims of violence from cis men because "You're men, that doesn't happen to you, don't forget your privilege."

I'm so tired of it. Because you know what, I have been protecting cis women my entire life. I was that friend! I was the friend who stood up to cis men that made them uncomfortable, I'm the one they went to when they didn't feel safe, I was the one who slapped and punched and screamed at and reported every single fucking creep that made cis women uncomfortable and afraid. I was that person. And whether it was my masculine energy and look, or the fact that I'm ugly or the fact that I'm on the heavier side, you can blame it on whatever you want, but I was the person that cis women friends, classmates, and coworkers came to when they were uncomfortable. I was the person protecting them! Me!

But now that I'm a man? Now that I'm no longer a masculine women? Now that I've stepped over the smallest fucking line by daring to call myself a different word (I don't pass, before you get your panties in a bunch. Not you op, people in general) now suddenly I'm so scary?

When is it my fucking turn to be protected? Okay? When is it my turn? Because this has bothered me since I was a girl! Since I was that butch that everyone flocked to to stand up to cis men. When do I get to be protected? Because it is fucking radio silence from cis women. Now that I'm not a girl, what I don't matter anymore? Now that I'm the one who needs protecting LIKE IVE ALWAYS NEEDED no one is going to stand up for me? None of them.

When is it my turn to be afraid? When is it my turn to be comforted? When is it my turn to be protected? Why do they never, ever care?

I love my queer siblings, my trans siblings, and they've been nothing but wonderful, but it is still something I see even within the queer community, people that have done no or minimal work deconstructing gender, they are so quick to turn coat on trans men for the crime of being men. I'm so tired of being a man only when I've done something wrong, to have them call me a man as an insult. To project all their anger at cis men at me, who, surprise surprise is also treated like shit by cis het men. I'm a gay trans man. My passing goal is to be called a faggot instead of a tranny, so fuck, even passing isn't going to get me into their good graces.

Im just so tired. Cis women. Cis HET women especially, God, fucking do better.

(And yes I'm making generalizations based on my own experience, fucking sue me, I'm upset)

it reallly does seem like the terf and general rad fem movement is more concerned with feeling comfortable within the bounds of gender as they know it than our safety. it always seems to come second- a weird mix of “we’re not harming you, we’re defending ourselves” and “well, you deserve it for being a gender traitor”.

[castielsprostate]

VENOM 3 SPOILERS AHEAD!!! and veryyyy unorganized thoughts below the cuttt!!!

first of all. OH MY GOD. genuinely this was a beautifully executed storyline, with the most bitter, heartwrenching ending. tom hardy when i fucking GET YOU!!!!!!!!!!

okay. im in actual, real life tears over this movie. venom saved eddie's life within, what? 3 days of knowing him? a week tops? and venom brought eddie back from the fucking dead!!!!!!! DESPITE KNOWING!!!!!!!!! WHAT WOULD HAPPEN!!!!!! despite knowing he would trigger the codex, venom still saved eddie's fucking life! which is especially interesting considering the symbiote in mulligan, which i am assuming was in him for a WHILE, left him to die (fair!) at the end of the second movie! venom saved eddie's life. without a second thought.

also this definitely was a love story between eddie and venom. they literally had their break up arc in the second movie(!) and this tied a beautiful, bitter end to their very tragic story. venom saying, to eddie, what martin said. "until we meet again", genuine tears in my eyes. it showed venom's humanity, everything he learned, from eddie and others. to me, personally, venom is still with eddie. they're living symbiotically, with eddie on one side of the door and venom on the other. nierka(??? i totally butchered that lmao). eddie saying i will never forget you buddy while looking at lady liberty. GOD. eddie isn't alone anymore! eddie won't EVER be alone!!!!!!!!!! despite what everyone told him!!!!!!!!! eddie has venom, maybe not physically right now, but he still has a part of him!!!!!!!! they're both free. they're both. GAH.

also there still is a bit of venom left. in a tiny test tube, at the bottom of area 55. don't think i forgot about that!!!!! he's still there, they never showed us that it actually got destroyed. and EYE believe that venom found eddie, after they blew up. and it somehow, in some marvel magic sparkles way reset the codex. they still have each other, until the end!!!!! TILL DEATH DO THEY PART!!!!!!!!!!!!!

genuinely, the writers cared. tom hardy cared!!!!!!! i don't know how many people he had to keep under gunshot to get this, but he gave us a beautiful trilogy about love and friendship and humanity and finding each other. the queerness of it all, the found family (except the chickens. how DARE eddie give the chickens away. for that alone he should've died).

eddie saying he was born with it [the weird arms] also just. god it added another layer didn't it? also what actually happened to that guy. like. he got his bar destroyed, and then he got fucking tazed lmao??? what did they do to him????? also the WAY that in the "sacred timeline" the bartender looked all cleaned up and put together despite the fucking snap 💀💀💀💀 and how the bar was nicer. the disney filter!!!!!!!!!

that also left a very veryyy clear way for them to bring eddie!venom back but in the MCU, because they didn't show the TVA resetting the timeline! venom saying eddie would've made a great father. well. you had carnage and i think it's best you don't try again huh.

i missed anne, but i think that her not being there was. good? it was good. she and eddie truly loved each other as friends and whilst i hoped they'd at least have a phone call or a singular scene together, i do get why they didn't! she moved on with her life, and it was time for eddie to move on with his. her telling venom to keep him safe at the end of the second movie. and he did! he gave his own life for eddie's, he kept his promise. i just. GOD. venom keeping eddie alive as the symbiotehunters kept coming and coming and coming. keeping eddie from looking back, and healing him one. last. time. HE DIDN'T EVEN NEED TO SAY I LOVE YOU!!!!! EDDIE JUST KNEW!!!!!!! EDDIE!!!!!! KNEW!!!!!!!!!!!

eddie saying "but i need him". it had me bawling. BAWLING. but i need him. oh eddie. EDDIE. 😭😭😭😭😭 anne said he was too afraid of commitment and yet. AND YET. he was willing to DIE for an alien!!!!!! and to then say he needs him. god.

was the movie a bit retconn-y? maybe. did they use this as a segway for more movies with different characters? absolutely lmao. was it an ad for crocs? yes that too. but i think that this was a good end. they won't drag it out, they won't destroy a good comic for more money (for now). the song choices were also OUTSTANDING. the symbiotes coming together to save eddie and venom, because they knew!!!!! THEY KNEW!!!!!!!! eddie nor venom sparing a second look at sexy ladies!!!!!!!!!!! the dancing with mrs chen!!!!!!!! GAH

to me, right now, eddie and venom are sitting on a beach, toes in the sand, finally sipping the bloody mary that venom didn't get to drink at the beginning with miss chen on one side, anne and dan enjoying the ocean, and agent mulligan on the other side. alive, happy, together. and the bartender. he's there too. for funsies.

[binaryvamp]

plz ramble about queer symbolism in idolish I wanna hear it lol

Though if I get to all the queer symbolism, I will probably exceed the character limit if there even is one... but I'll eventually get to all of it in a google doc if you guys ever want me to release it lol. Even if not necessarily aiming towards the main story, we know that id7 isn't afraid of queer people... lol. one of the biggest queer symbolisms that I will point out is Binary Vampire with Re:Vale...

though i feel like the fandom mostly focuses on "oh dark vampire romance au that's so hot" and sure it's their vampire romance au or whatever but no one realizes like OH MY GOD this is one of the biggest pieces which contains the hidden queer symbolism that i have LONGED for especially with a quite literal couple like Re:Vale... all that in the big ol '24 too. Vampirism has existed as a way to display queer relationships for YEARS, one of the first pieces of vampire literature being the famous piece "Carmilla" a lesbian vampire love story. Vampires reflect the secrecy and isolation that queer people have to live through, especially during the victorian era where being queer was obviously stigmatized and frowned upon, & like i said earlier, a lot of vampire literature contained hidden queer symbolism and portrayed the anxieties of queer people. Even now in modern vampire literature and even just within the writing community, there are MANY if not ALMOST ALL fandoms which always have that one vampire AU fanfic with a gay/lesbian ship, and I just think it's beautiful. Knowing idolish7, it feels like one fanfic at this point, and I really love the hidden symbolism within Binary Vampire for those reasons. Now to move on to the actual Bvamp story (any tls which i state belong to hunieday on twt), the pictures sort of display in a style or rather story form that was pretty common in vampiric illustrations especially again... those of queer people. In the very last sentence, "no one knows whether it is a curse or salvation" is basically equivalent to "are they truly meant to be together forever?" and the fact the man came back to give the vampire blood every night was a rather detail that's seen in most of these little queer novels and shit and I just think a lot of these little things are truly cool to point out, especially with the fact that i7 sometimes will treat their events/aus and stuff like fanfics, and I think it's funny, especially because they really aren't afraid of going out with them and even adding symbolism. Now that I mention re:vale, theyre WALKING queer symbolism, no wonder theyre marked canon on the shipping wiki. Green and Pink are extremely common and compatible colors... and you know what it's common in? Blooming flowers

I love this because blooming flowers also symbolize queer people in ways. Still waiting for Yuki to wear green carnations on one of his costumes or something, but yeah. Re:Vale feel like SUCH a fever dream to me, and it's just... sobs. but yk maybe im just delusional and trying to spread the agenda that re:vale are my favorite and my most fixated couple ever... also if i get anything wrong please please please do tell me or if you want to add on please feel free to but this is all just my own interpretation of it and if you dont agree just scroll lol. "fanservice!" my ass have you seen how they act alone

[autisticlee]

I hate when people tell me "friendships don't last/will change over time and fade away" and say I need to get used to/accept it. maybe that's easy for YOU. but most of these people also have committed partners that they expect to stick with for life. why can't I want that too? as an aroace person that needs to rely on platonic relationships to get the support and connection I need to thrive in life, and as an autistic and disabled person that needs consistency and routine and security and constant support to feel safe and comfortable to thrive in this society, telling me "people come and go/friendships aren't forever" REALLY HURTS. it feels awful. it makes me feel hopeless and even more alone. makes me feel like i'll always be drifting through life with no support and alone forever until I can't survive anymore because I *need* help and support and consistent companionship to live a healthy and stable life!

being aroace, I don't have the benefit of getting a partner to fill the gaps a lack of friendship leaves. I have no one to turn to when my friends disappear from my life or betray me. I have to rely on these unstable/inconsistent/short-lived relationships. it's not sustainable and makes my life extremely hard and scary and hopeless. so telling me it's "normal" and I should "get used to it" doesn't do anything for me when I need it to last for more reasons than everyone else uses friends for.

I know it's unfair/wrong to "trap" someone into a committed platonic relationship that makes them feel like i'm "trying to date them" (ive had this accusation thrown at me before, then the person ghosts me after) but I really do think I need a committed platonic relationship. one that lasts and one that's two way and secure and consistent. no one wants to offer that though. they save it for their romantic partners only. the sad reality is, romantic relationships are always going to be placed above, and even replace platonic ones. leaving me, an aroace who needs those discarded platonic bonds, out of luck and left out. forever alone, as the old tumblr meme once went (which i'm sure 99% of those people who used the meme are now i'm committed relationships and/or have at least dated a few times)

I know, i'll be told I need a "queer platonic relationship" but that's not as simple as going shopping and picking one out. I dont even know how you get one! that's as much of an enigma to me as dating and making friends! getting a platonic friend to commit to you're friendship for life and be your life partner and not drop you for no reason, as soon as they make a new best friend, or as soon as they start dating? sounds more impossible than simply making casual friends I can convince to play a video game with me once a month (im lucky if they give me time once a year.....or 3)

i've tried establishing with certain people I feel comfortable with and get along with well that I want and need this type of "qpr" but they either mistake it for asking them to date, are afraid of commitment and ghost me immediately, or slowly start to push me away and decide their new friends are better. so it's not something I can just "get" from any friendship i'm finding. i'm not even sure exactly what it would look like. the best I can use to describe it is the found/chosen family trope where a two or more people come together to form a family where they help and protect each other and live together for life. they don't date. they are more than friends. they are a family and need each other and rely on each other and it stays like that. but that often feels like it can only happen in fiction. real humans aren't like that.

however, i'm told by other chosen families/best friends/people in qpr that it is possible. so then comes the dreaded "one day" they all tell me about. (I don't want it one day I want it NOW. i'm living in the present not the future!) so I have a vague idea of what I want/need, but not what it actually looks like, how to find it, where to look, or how to cope without it. I need more than a couple friends I see and talk to once i'm a while. I need more than a group chat. I need more than someone I get coffee with every weekend. I need a roommate, a forever bond. someone I live with and have separate lives from, but also share our lives together at the same time. the perspn who supports me when i need it, the person I support at all times. but someone who doesn't expect romance and sex. someone who isn't looking for "something better" and using me as temporary filler until they get better friends or a partner. someone who doesn't give up and run away from commitment. someone who wants to stay in my life for the rest of life. someone who puts me first and is committed to me as I am to them.

a life partner, or small family group.

but so far I've just been stuck on my own and I dont have the patience or energy to keep waiting 30+ more years for this "one day" to come and I don't have any options to make it come faster....RIGHT NOW is more important and i'm struggling in the present.

sometimes being aroace really sucks....

[faorism]

(really in my feels about the ot3 because of the @powerpolyculeshowdown so here's some propaganda)

parker and hardison allow eliot to be sillier. more ridiculous. outragous, even. eliot sings the stupid ditties hardison writes special for him, and he rolls his eyes at parkers pokes and prods and the occasional "accidental" face slap, and eliot can express himself for what actually bothers him no matter how nitpicky, versus having to calculate what he should say. (he still argues with hardison that throwing in on a brewpub was a stupid plan given its risk, no matter how many times hardison claims it was always a gift for him.) eliot laughs more. real laughs; you can tell because his smiles look more and more like grimaces: the way his ma perked her mouth which his dad always teased her about (though it was his favorite thing about her), rather than the wide toothy grins eliot learned because he knows, tactically, they are best for charming. parker and hardison let him not feel like he's a monster. or... parker tells him she always thought the big bad wolf had a bad rap, and hardison says some stupid shit about monsterfucking being the hip thing the kids are into these days, anyway.

hardison and eliot allow parker to feel deep. it's food that tastes like a hug and it's gadgets made just for her and it's loving and being loved and it's being one another's real families. she doessn't want to run away, anymore. or... she wants to run but with her friends beside her. or... running cons is all she's ever wanted to do, and all she did, for so long. parker is good at it. she loves it. she loves that hardison and eliot love it too. but... feeling deep is also being deep. she's no longer just her piles of money because she is no longer afraid of herself. her past. the memories that hurt. the habits she thought she needed to grow out of but always missed. these habits, like bleeping sounds that arent words and hands move move moving. hands that were once made to stay now can fly because hardison buys her fidgets and designs some just for her and keeps locks in lucille for when parker feels like infinity and needs the vibrations of ticktickticks to bring her back to herself. and eliot lets her braid and unbraid his hair; he won't let her blow dry it, not yet, but... he lets her pet his hair while it's still hot, now. it frizzes his hair a little, and parker feels her pulse rush throughout the day knowing she did that to him. eliot and hardison kiss her knuckles when they burn.

parker and eliot allow hardison to be mean. vindictive. he is nicer than he needs to be. wants to be... what he needs to be is nonthreatening, for the most part, in many places. he knows what it means to be him: tall and black and queer and gaining muscle and too smart for his own damn good and so very, very tenderhearted. hardison loves so damn deep, and he cares so damn much, but part of caring (the other side of a coin) is not giving a fuck. it's the boiling point of rage and betrayal. the i need to walk away from this fight because you are dead wrong and imma about to say something imma regret, so go fix yourself. the im not gonna forget, im not going to forgive, and im going to get my revenge. parker and eliot would not have questioned hardison's joy at securing the capture of the men that put him in that damn coffin; they hold space for him to be fully himself with all his ugly parts and his petty parts and the parts that do bring hardison shame if he thinks about it for too long. they know he's not perfect, and that? that feels like safety and love and forever to hardison.