#middle aged gay couple with issues

[tapetum-lucidumb]

Wdym "fantasy" and horror"? My favorite genre is weird woke chaos

[lucybellwood]

Lemme tell you a gay little story about an eagle.

Our town (~9,000 people) has a couple garages, but there's a big one on the main drag. My family has been going there for decades. I drive past it every day.

There used to be a huge pine tree on the corner of their lot, but last year it became a hazard and had to be taken down.

Shortly thereafter I drive by and see they've hired a guy to chainsaw sculpt the stump into a bald eagle.

Birds own my heart, but nationalism makes me twitchy. I withhold outright condemnation of the eagle, but I'm skeptical. (The original owner—an objectively Good Dude—sold the business to a younger couple a few years ago, and I don't have any knowledge of their whole deal.)

Then it turns out someone on staff is really into making costumes for the eagle. Every holiday. Every month. Stuffed turkey, witch costume, menorah headpiece, bunny ears. These people love to dress their bird.

The changing of the eagle suit becomes a source of joy every time I drive through town.

Until June, when the eagle is bare.

Now look, maybe I'm expecting too much asking my garage to celebrate Pride. But this is a small town. Every time I drive by that stupid eagle—this thing that has previously brought me so much joy—I feel hurt. I feel reminded that there are plenty of people in my liberal bubble who don't consider my community worthy of celebration. I drive to work, I feel bad. I drive home, I feel bad. The eagle is mocking me.

Then my A/C quits working.

So I book an appointent to bring my car in—and realize what I have to do.

I pick all this up at a thrift store for under ten bucks. I print the shirt with some weird heat-transfer fabric crayons I find in a cupboard. I loop gold elastic around the sunglasses and pray they'll fit on the eagle's head. (It is also important to draw your attention to the price of the feather boa.)

(Nice.)

My reasoning is thus: if I show up with a complete costume ready to go, someone will have to look me in the eye and say "We don't believe in that," at which point I'll be finding a new garage. But if they let me dress the eagle, then people in town get to have the joy I've been missing since the start of the month.

I listen to a lot of hype-up jams on my way over. I hate confrontation. I also don't wanna have to find another garage. I want to believe that this decision isn't actively antagonistic, but I'm not particularly hopeful.

I talk through the A/C issue with the guy at the desk, hand over my keys, then take a deep breath.

"Who's in charge of the eagle?"

"Oh, that's all Dylan. Second bay from the end."

I walk down the row of hydraulic lifts and find a disarmingly smiley middle-aged man pouring fluid through a funnel. I introduce myself and explain that, since the Pride parade is this Sunday and the eagle seems to be missing a costume, I have taken the liberty of making one myself, and can I get his blessing to go put it on?

Dylan grins this absolutely giant grin and goes

"Oh hell yeah."

So that's what's up now.

Happy Pride.

[henry7931]

Great Shift; We Didn’t Choose These Bodies…

Trevor:

I’m officially 2 months into the Great Shift and I’m about to go insane! You see before all of this craziness went down— I was a 18 year old scrawny gay boy who lived across the street. The body that seems to be now mine forever belonged to 47 year old Jason Dixon. He’s a handsome guy, works in construction, and has one son named Carson.

Now Carson, is someone I’ve known since I was young. He’s a couple years older than me and I hate to say it but he was kinda my sexual awakening. He was on the swim team and I remember seeing him in a speedo— something about it just woke me up. And now all of this time later I still get weak to the knees when I see him.

Now the hard part about all of this is that our community has chosen as a whole to “pretend” and live our lives in public as the body we are in.

Which can be hard given people have swapped with different genders, ages… it gets kinda weird. But when I’m out in public, I’m Jason. No one causes me Trevor anymore, well accept for Ben.

Ben is a guy who lived a couple blocks down from me, I really didn’t know Ben prior to the Great Shift. He was a middle aged gay guy who lived alone. And now he’s inside of Carson’s body.

We both now live under a house together that never belonged to us and are forced to pretend to be ‘father and son’ in public.

At home both of us have just really enjoyed each other’s company. We’re both gay and openly talk about guys, what we like about them, music, all kinds of stuff. The house is kind of our safe space to be ourselves.

Except him and I have one huge issue— we both are very attracted to each other’s bodies. Ben confessed to me one time while we were sitting on the couch together drinking a bottle of wine that Jason’s body is like the man of his dreams.

And I get it, Mr. Dixon is a good looking guy. I enjoy having his big muscled hairy body on a daily basis. Especially since he has a gigantic cock and a pair of sexy feet.

I guess they’re something he passed down to Carson because I can’t stop looking at them! I already had a foot fetish before this mess and I have to watch Ben strut around in his body… he never wears socks or a shirt or pants for that matter!

So what do I do in response? Well, I turned it up a notch. Not only did I strip down to less but I stopped wearing underwear around the house. I’ll free ball so he can see my sexy daddy junk flopping around as I walk. And boy did I get his attention!

He can’t take his eyes off of it!

That lead to the back and forth mirror selfies… both of sending more and more risky photos of each other.

And then came Ben placing Carson’s big smelly feet on my lap… I know he knows I have a thing for feet! He looks over at me with a very cheeky ton and says, “my feet are killing me! Could you rub them?”

And of course I said yes, I rubbed his feet for 15 minutes until I knew I couldn’t take anymore!

I hightailed it to the bathroom, locked the door, and wanked one out. I knew in that moment, I was done with games. I need to address this.

So that night, we sat on the couch after dinner watching a movie. I wrap my arm around him and he freezes up.

“Sorry need to stretch out a bit, I say to him.”

He acknowledges my excuse and leans his on me.

I start rubbing up and down his forearm softly wondering if he’s going to do something about it.

He says nothing… a few moments later, Ben puts his feet on mine and starts rubbing his toes back and forth.

I lift my head up and look at him. I kiss him on the cheek. He looks taken aback by it.

“Trev, you know we can’t.”

“And why the fuck not?”

“Because we are technically father and son…”

“That’s such a BS excuse, you flirt with me for weeks now. You and I aren’t related. Now these bodies might be but who the hell has to know?”

“Yeah but what if we get caught?”

“We won’t… now just relax.”

I grab his junk and lets out a yelp noise.

“You’ve toyed with me for too long Ben. You and I are going to explore every inch of each other starting tonight. You’re gonna come sleep in daddy‘s bed for now on do you understand?”

“Fuck…”

I pulled his pants down and fully expose him. I see his beautiful cock, really for the first time. It’s so hard and already leaking. I’ve bend my head down and gingerly lick become off of his head. I knew that been like to be dominated. We both shared our fantasies with each other. He’s always wanted some handsome hairy bearded muscular daddy to boss him around. And that’s what I’m gonna do.

“ Do you understand daddy‘s orders?,” I say to him. he knows his head. I grabbed his dick and play with the head of his cock, running my thumb back-and-forth on it.

“ I said did you understand daddy’s orders? I need to hear you.”

“Yes—“

“ yes what?”

“Yes daddy!”

“ good now let’s head to bed, daddy needs you to use that pretty mouth of yours on his massive cock.”

I pull off my shorts and out comes Jason’s massive dick that I know he’s been fantasizing for a long time now.

“ Trevor, this is so fucking hot. Thank you for doing this. I’ve been wanting the touch that body for so long. I wanna suck your cock so bad. I wanna feel up and down that hairy chest. I wanna smell those big manly feet. I want you to cuddle at night. God I’m so happy this is finally happening. Deep down since this whole swap thing happened it’s all I’ve ever wanted. Not only are you in the body of my dreams, but I really like you.”

“ fuck Ben! Way to kill the mood with that last part, I really fucking like you too. How about we just stick to role-playing and worry about our emotions later. Daddy’s worrying as fuck lol.” 

“ shit you wanna get really crazy what about if you’re sexy ass son talk to you tonight?”

“ that’s hot as shit you know I’m a bottom!”

“ yeah but you’re gonna have to tell me every now and then especially with that massive dick of yours.” 

“ well then I want a foot job. You know I like feet and you know what I like those feet. Which by the way, you’re such a dick for making rub them for like 30 minutes the other day. I literally had to run to the bathroom and jerk one out.”

“ ha ha I literally I knew it!”

“So you ready?”

“Yep!!”

[gnome-adjacent-vagabond]

Psst hey *pulls you closer* Canon middle-aged queer relationships and multiple canon queer/queer-coded characters. *lets you go* Go watch Venture Bros.

There are WAY more than these but I can't put em all up here because queer coding is up to interpretation. I say that everyone in Venture Bros is queer until proven straight but that's just me.

I wrote a whole-ass essay and then accidentally deleted it so the wording on this will probably be off, but it feels important so I'm gonna try be succinct.

Minor spoilers ahead! Skip paragraph three if you don't want those, then resume on paragraph four.

Full disclosure, this is a show that started in the early 2000s and has a LOT of issues in the first few seasons as well as a couple in the later seasons. There are transphobic and homophobic jokes, ableism, racism, and sexism. Sergeant Hatred is a walking trigger warning for about three seasons straight. It goes without saying but I'll say it anyway: DON'T watch this show if you have multiple triggers or are easily offended.

Having said that, these writers realized the problems with what they were writing and have worked to remedy those issues through commentary, retconning, and public acknowledgement of the early seasons' failings. Their opinions evolve and so does the show.

Shore Leave is a flamboyantly gay man who was initially intended to be a one-off joke about the G.I. Joe series and the Village People. Instead he has morphed into a three-dimensional character who presents comfortably as both masculine and feminine. He's in a loving relationship with another gay man, Al, who is flamboyant but tends to be a little less flashy. Steve Summers and Sasquatch have been a happy couple for years now--and all because the epitome of toxic masculinity, Brock Samson, helps them find a quiet cabin away from the government hunting them. Brock's mentor, Hunter Gathers, is a canonically detransitioned trans woman who struggles with her identity throughout the show (I'm still waiting for her to retransition despite the show's cancellation). Hank is perfectly at ease in a hyperfeminine strength suit, and Dean also goes through identity struggles that are never played for laughs and are heavily if not explicitly queer-coded. Vendata's queerness is understated and exists simply as a fact rather than being joked about. Sky Pilot is similar, though slightly more in Shore Leave's camp in terms of presentation. Sheila and the Monarch are self-proclaimed swingers and could be read to be in a poly relationship with Gary, their henchman. Debbie St. Simone has a rather homoerotic obsession with Sheila and is almost definitely bisexual.

The Venture Bros universe is full of queer rep, and the creators of the show write it in with intention. Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick talk about wanting it to be treated as fact rather than completely defining each of their characters--they talk about how few women are in the show and why (Johnny Quest and G.I. Joe, the inspirations for Venture Bros, are heavily malecentric and there's constant homoeroticism in them for that reason). They acknowledge the flaws and work to improve themselves and their writing. This has culminated in a surprisingly moving series about love, death, grief, trauma, and change that radiates queer subtext from any angle--especially Dean's journey.

Try the show at least up to season 4. The first three seasons are on Netflix and the rest are on Adult Swim. If you still don't like it, that's fine. Thank you for trying! Just know that it's out there and that it's an example of how human beings can change and become better people. Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick aren't perfect and neither is the Venture Bros, but for what it is it's a damn fun (shockingly so) show.

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - We Are Surprised

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top.

May 2024 Wk 2

Ongoing Series - Thai

Wandee Godday (Sat YT) ep 2 of 12 - Oh it’s fucking great. It could all go horribly south, of course. But it’s awesome at the moment. Messy gay and one of them is already pining? Got to love it. Including the negotiation.

I’d love a good sex negotiation, it’s almost as good as linguistic negotiation. This show makes me happy. All that said, it’s moving awfully quickly for a 12 episode run. Not sure what’s gonna happen on the backend. 

My Stand-In (Thai Fri iQIYI) ep 3 of 12 eps - I’m still enjoying it but I’m ready for him to die again now. 

We Are (Weds iQIYI) ep 5-6 of 16 - Toey is going after the Namgoong Award for Best Wingman this year, I see. And in exchange, literally all the rest of the friends are going to be his wingmen. It’s adorable. I also like that Phuwin got to be the aggressor for the first kiss. I like that this is mostly just boys flirting, and not really any prescribed seme/uke stuff. In general, I think these last two episodes I improved the show in my regard a lot. But then middles are always GMMTV's strong point, it’s whether they can stick the landing that’s an issue.

Two Worlds (Thurs iQIYI) ep 9 of 10 - Apparently we have the Frodo walking into Mordor episode. Also the sides were cute. In Thailand (like Taiwan) all gangsters are gay, apparently. 

Only Boo! (Sun YouTube) ep 5 of 12 - It’s cute but very cringe and dorky. Silly singing. Terrible pickup lines. Still, that was a ridiculously charming confession.

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Unknown (Taiwan Tues YouTube & Viki) ep 12fin - Oh so good. Very few shows that feature one-sided long-term pining of this kind can resolve the unevenness of that power dynamic into a more stable and equal footing with such class. We really got to see the object of the desire turn completely around and become equally besotted. An age gap, stepbrothers trope like this one is hard enough but at this length? Very well acted boys! Unknown managed to show the older brother softening in a believable way that’s pretty unusual in narratives of this type.

All in all?

Unknown is a wonderful BL with a pitch perfect portrayal of long term pining, age gap, and the stepbrothers trope. The acting and chemistry are ON POINT (especially from the leads) which made the resulting characters very believable. When it dwells in intimate family drama, it's stunning. It's slightly less successful when it leaves the home and goes gritty. It's few flaws are the result of curtailed length. It could have used more breathing room to deal with side plots, characters, and companion character development. The editing was occasionally choppy and packed with flashbacks that broke the emotional tension. Still, those are mere quibbles. This is an excellent show that I know I'm going to be recommending a lot. 9/10

Finally Taiwan hits another one out of the park.

About.

Damn.

Time.

Blue Boys (Korea Sat YouTube) 4 of ? - Oh it’s so good, and they are so tortured and it’s just charming and I can’t EVEN. I just love it. I love that Korea is giving us this right now. You’re an idiot if you’re not watching this show, it’s truly spectacular.

At 25:00 in Akasaka AKA 25 Ji Akasaka de (Japan Thurs Gaga) ep 4 of 10 - Well well well Japan. I see how you kneed. I enjoyed this episode better than the first two, and I am way into our Bad Boy second lead. I can already feel myself succumbing  to the syndrome. Next week = the obligatory onsen ep! 

Living With Him AKA Kare no Iru Seikatsu (Japan Thurs Gaga) ep 5 of 10 - Omg most adorbs failed linguistic negotiation. 

Boys Be Brave AKA Roommates (Korea Thurs Viki) ep 5-6 of 8 - I love the side couple. It’s a shame we’re finally getting some truly great class conflict and it’s relegated to crumbs.

Love is like a Cat (Korea Mon Viki) eps 11-12fin - Well that was a waste of time. There was no connection (of any kind) between the leads. The language thing was hella weird and likely added to that. The past history of the Korean character was necessary to know from the start, its lack throughout, meant there was no depth to his character. They tried to tackle all the interesting stuff in the final 2 eps. AND they even killed the dog. I never thought I'd type this sentance, but Peach of Time is better.

I don’t know. 5/10 I guess

All in all:

A disappointing lackluster and barely cohesive BL about a jerk Thai actor (speaking Thai) who has to work for a Korean animal rescue cafe as a publicity stunt. It's difficult to believe the leads like each other, let alone fall in love. The acting is stiff, the characters lack motivation and cohesion, and there's not much to recommend this show beyond some pretty visuals. Also, they kill the dog. All in all, a disappointing and unsuccessful joint venture that mostly highlighted that between Thailand and Korea the style of BL, narrative approach, language cadence, and acting techniques all clash.

It's airing but...

Lady Boy Friends (Thai WeTV grey) 16 eps - reminds me a bit too much of Diary of Tootsies only high school. Not my thing. DNF unless it turns a corner and is truly amazing.

You Made My Day (Thai YT) ep 1 of 5 - mini series staring the I Will Knock You couple Tar & Bom, started but I couldn't find it. I also didn't try very hard.

A Balloon's Landing (Taiwan movie) trailer - A frustrated Hong Kong writer, Tian Yu, meets a Taipei street gangster, Xiang (Fandy Fan from HIStory2: Crossing the Line), and the two of them embark on a journey to find the Bay of Vanishing Whales. Along the way, they discover unexpected twists and turns and close bonds, which brings out the message that "there is always someone like you in this world who is waiting for you. This released to cinemas in Taiwan, no word on international release.

Memory in the Letter (Thai WeTV) - it's done, tell me if I should bother?

Fan's Only Corner

Someone asked in a comment (which tumblr promptly ate) about group sleepovers in BLs. It's happened a few times but the only one I can recall being noted and particularly lovely (and VERY college) was in Nitiman. There's also one in Lovesick.

Next Week Looks Like This:

5/16 Blossom Campus (Korea Thurs Gaga & iQIYI) ep 1 of 6 - Strongberry doing classic uni BL! Weeee!

5/19 OMG Vampire (Thai Sun ????) ep 1 of 10 - LeeFrank are back - not unlike the undead (as it were). But how do we feel about it? Unsure given their track record.

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

May Releases

VBL (Taiwan) is releasing 4 'Special Episode' epilogues to their 4 2023 shows every Friday this month on Gagaoolala, Viki & Viu. Not sure on search terms or how to find these. (Or, frankly, if we need them.)

5/10 – You Are Mine

5/17 – VIP Only

5/24 – Stay By My Side

5/31 – Anti Reset

5/25 The Time of Fever AKA Unintentional Love Story 2 (Korea movie) trailer - HoTae & DongHee are back but unfortunately not in a cinema near me. Side couple from Unintentional Love Story, same actors, same character names. I love them. I NEED TO SEE THIS.

5/28 My Biker 2 (Thai movie YT?) - trailer

5/31 The Time of Huannan (Taiwan movie) - May not be BL

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

LOVE a smile kiss. Love it. Two killer kisses from PondPhuwin. Elegantly done, boys. Thank you very much.

I love them a lot all of a sudden. (All We Are)

It's hard to give MaxTul a run on their crown as best bodies in BL, but boy these two are giving it their, erm, best. (Wandee Goodday)

(Last week)

Streaming services are listed by how I (usually) watch, which is with a USA based IP, and often offset by a day because time zones are a pain.

The tag BLigade: @doorajar @solitaryandwandering @my-rose-tinted-glasses @babymbbatinygirl @babymbbatinygirl @isisanna-blog @mmastertheone @pickletrip @aliceisathome @urikawa-miyuki @tokillamonger @rocketturtle4 @blglplus @anythinggoesintheshire @everlightly @renafire

If ya wanna be tagged each week leave a comment and I will add you to the template. Easy peesy.

[qqueenofhades]

For the history questions, what historical period has given you the most inspiration for your writing/muses?

I feel like it's a cop-out if I say "hmm, all of them," and this will end up just being a long recap of all my various projects over the years, but a) fuck it, this is my blog, I can talk about my own stuff if I want to, and b) there have indeed been Many, both fic and original. I usually pick settings for historical/historical fantasy AUs that I already know and want to write about, so:

The Lightbearers (Once Upon a Time) and Starlight & Strange Magic (Timeless) are both 19th-century Victorian England/Europe/steampunk, one in the 1850s and the other in the 1880s, with lots of magic and misadventure and so forth. You can tell that I was really into steampunk around 10 years ago (it was Formative, okay) and there were plenty of opportunities to do fun things with the historical setting and real-life personalities (the scene of Flynn breaking into Buckingham Palace to spy on Queen Victoria and William Gladstone remains a favorite). There is also my massive The Swan and Crossbones series (OUAT/Black Sails, two fics, 800k words), which is set in the 18th-century Caribbean, Golden Age of Piracy, and pre-Revolutionary America and is a retelling of Treasure Island + family saga + multi-generational/multi-character/multi-source material historical fiction, wherein I both wrote 800k words and did a shitton of extra research in the middle of getting a PhD. Don't ask me why I did this either, but I still re-read them, especially The Rose and Thorn (the second installment in the series) for my own pleasure.

My All Souls Timeless trilogy, following the source material, involved general historian/academia shenanigans and time travel to Elizabethan England, which was lots of fun to research and write about, even if I otherwise tend to think that the Tudors are often overdone. One of my most popular fics and best shorter-form (only 65k words...) historical/period pieces is deo volente (lux aeterna) for The Old Guard, which takes the crusades as its general starting point and thematic thread to explore religion, faith, immortality, power, war, violence, love, queerness, and other such things. Another popular fic of mine that spanned 600 years of history (starting in the 14th century) and explored various periods in detail is my Sandman fic and in the waking world we wait and want, with a particular emphasis on queer history. (You will find that crops up often in my stuff, regardless of the setting.) We also have why draw me to that promised land (Shadow and Bone), set in the 1980s Soviet Union (my boast for the accuracy of this fic, based on my previous studies in Russian/Soviet history, is that someone told me they learned more from this fic than an entire semester of a university class, which is not entirely good because I then had many questions about their professor, but there you have it).

When it comes to original novels, I started off also 10+ years ago with medieval England, with the The Lion and the Rose series and others. I am fond of this one because it was what got me into medieval history in the first place and because even now, it still sells fairly steadily and gives me a couple bucks in royalties every month. My newest book, The Empire of Bones, is based (loosely) on my fic The Key of Solomon and basically has everything I possibly wanted to cram into a fantasy historical setting, from anywhere and any time at all. Thus we have the Christian-era Roman Empire, an Islamic Carthage, the Byzantines, Imperial China, Russian Jews and Ukrainian Cossacks, the Mali Empire, Celtic Britain, so forth and etcetera, etcetera. So as noted, if it looks interesting, I will find a way to throw it and the kitchen sink in somewhere, and I have the issue that whenever I read a book about a new place or period, I go "hmm, I should figure out how to write something gay about this." Alas.

[myimaginarywonderland]

I truly think some of you don't understand relationships.

In the first stage of getting to know each other there will be awkwardness. There will be instances where you aren't maybe sure how comfortable you are with certain things, where you will be hesitating on how to act around friends especially if you are in the same friend group because you don't want someone to feel bad.

There will be times where you can't fully meet each others expectations because you maybe have issues with somethings that you haven't talked about you or are not quiet comfortable with something your partner wants but don't want to overstep.

There will be times where you rush things because someone makes you feel so good that you forget that you wanted to take things slow. There will be times when you can't be there for each other because you have a life outside of the relationship and need to fit said relationship into your life, make place for it.

There will be times when people might tease your relationship especially if it's friends of your partner that maybe aren't things you expect because you don't quiet know each others friends or how to interact with them.

The beginning of a relationship is all about figuring out how and where you fit in each other lives. What is okay and what isn't.

It will never fully be 100% smooth because that is just not real life.

But so far we have already seen Buck coming out, going out of his way to meet Tommy, reaching out himself after their failed first date and inviting Tommy into his life. We have seen Buck being comfortable with him in his space, we have seen Buck wanting to spend as much time as possible with Tommy.

And we have seen Tommy reassuring Buck, giving Buck the space to figure himself out, waiting for Buck to reach out because he knows it's Buck's step to take. We have seen Tommy show up for Buck, we have seen Tommy be there even when it conflicted with other things in his life because Tommy really likes Buck. And Buck really likes Tommy.

And that's what a good relationship is about. It's two people meeting each other, clicking and deciding to give it a chance. It's two people putting in the effort to be there, to fit into each others life while trying to understand, to get to know one another.

And if you can not see the beauty of a relationship like this progressing I am truly sorry that you are missing out on such a beautiful storyline that is clearly done with the outmost care of everyone involved because for once a showrunner just wants us to have a normal middle aged gay couple that is having the normal trouble of a relationship.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

aita/wibta for NOT breaking up with my bf ?

i'm not sure if the title is phrased weirdly, bare with me. my bf and i are both 18, he is cis M & i am FTM (relevant).

My bf and i are both currently in first year uni, both living at home due to high cost of living in our country (also everywhere else lol). We met about halfway through highschool, and were friends for a while before getting together. we are coming up on two years together in a couple months, and have not really had any major bumps in our relationship. we see eachother i would say 1-2x per week, with both of us living at home and being broke it gets a little challenging sometimes but we call most nights and generally we make it work. Also worth noting that I am my bf's first everything, down to his first kiss, while he is not really this for me. this is the longest relationship i have been in (probably because i'm 18 lol), but not at all the first. however, the only "serious" relationship i have had outside of of him, aside from just casual stuff, was very abusive & toxic, so i do sort of see us on equal footing as neither of us has ever been in a normal, functional relationship before.

Now, the issue: while we are both currently living at home, i see this as a very temporary arrangement and something i am counting down the days until i can get out of. while living with my family is not abusive or anything, it is just very straining as i am not very close with them, and also cannot transition while living at home. as previously mentioned i am ftm, and while my mom is tolerant it would just put even more stress on the relationship if i were to start changing physically while living at home or even asking her to use different pronouns for me and is just something i prefer to leave until i'm not 100% reliant on her. that being said my dysphoria causes me very intense depression and without getting too detailed, i don't know how much longer i can take living here and putting off any sort of meaningful transition outside of close/online friends calling me he.

my bf, however, plans to live at home at least until he graduates, which is six years away. i understand that this is a very normal thing, especially culturally (he is middle eastern + muslim, i am white + agnostic), but the issue is that his mother is, among many other things, extremely homophobic. she already hates me for reasons i'm not really sure of (my bf refuses to go into detail, i think to protect me, but i have seen extremely graphic and nasty texts about me by name on his phone and have been told by him that he doesn't even mention me around the house or else she gets extremely upset, though she is always extremely nice to me the few times we have interacted), but anyways, me transitioning while he is still living at home would be essentially putting him in legitimate danger.

my bf does not like to think about this, which i understand. it's hard enough dealing with what i get from my family, and that is absolutely nothing compared to the fact that everyone he knows from his culture/religion beleives he should be dead just because he is gay (i know, as does he, that there are queer muslims. but they do not exist openly in his personal community). but the problem is that anytime i adress to him that the idea of waiting until we are in our mid-twenties for me to even think about transitioning is a really big issue for me he basically refuses to talk about it and just says that "it will work out". on top of the transitioning thing i just generally don't want to be twenty-five (the age he has told me is when he plans to move out) and still having to cancel dates last minute because my boyfriend's mom was in a bad mood and decided he's not allowed to go out tonight. i know this is how life is for many people and they learn to deal with it! and i respect them very much! but it is genuinely my nightmare. i understand why he cannot/does not want to cut himself off from his family, especially since his dad lives overseas and is extremely wealthy so therefore paying his entire tuition out of pocket. i'm just saying it's not a lifestyle that meshes well with my future plans.

this is where the asshole part comes in: my bf genuinely thinks that we are going to spend the rest of our lives together. this started with small comments, things like alluding to the idea of our potential future kids (i love kids and raising my own is genuinely my end goal in life, something he knows just because i am very open about it), or talking about our future apartment/house, but now is basically just a constant conversation in our relationship. i try not to feed into it, but i also feel badly responding to his sweet comment when i point out a house i like on the street about how we'll buy it one day with something about how i don't ever see that happening. i generally just respond neutrally, but i will admit i get caught up in the fantasy sometimes and contribute to it as well.

he is such a lovely guy with a beautiful heart and i do really adore him, and it's not a situation where i don't want to spend the rest of my life with him. to be honest, that's the dream. i love him with everything i have and i would literally do anything for him. the problem is just that when he talks about this future together all i can picture is all the million ways our relationship is doomed to implode.

but we are happy right now, because me moving out of my family home is not something that is going to be possible for another 1-2 years, so none of those issues are something that are going to come up right now. i just forsee them being pretty much impossible obstacles between us and spending the rest of our lives together down the line. but i have this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that even though i want more than anything to be with him forever, the fact that i don't remotely beleive it's something that will actually work out still constitutes as leading him on.

so, am i the asshole for staying with him, because we are happy right now and these issues are not going to be relevant for another 1-2 years, and a solution might somehow present itself in that time? or is the right thing to do to just leave now, and rip off the bandaid?

What are these acronyms?

[endcant]

Crossposted from my Tumblr Community: The Trans South

--

The Trans South Monthly Bulletin Board

. * ❄ . ❅ * { Our pinned post for January 2025. } * ❅ . ❄ * .

in this issue: direct mutual aid opportunities, LGBTQ+ good news, southern events, job board, fun links, resources

comment anything you want to add, and i'll add what fits in this month's post. i'll be making a new post each month, so you may need to resubmit any links that are applicable for multiple months. check the comments for anything i missed!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Direct Mutual Aid Opportunities:

Actually help a trans southerner today!

Requests in this section are submitted by TTS members.

Cecilpedia needs to eat!

Catgirl-smash needs help getting somewhere safe!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

the bright side:

the fact that you're alive is good news to me!

Good-enough news for LGBTQ+ Southerners.

The First Trans Community Center Opens in Arkansas | "'We declare that Arkansas Can’t Erase Trans People!' said Rumba Yambú, founder and director of Intransitive. 'We are here to stay, and we will keep fighting for our rights to ensure Trans people can build a future in Arkansas'."

Nashville Notary Battles Marriage Discrimination by Marrying Queer Couples | "Huff says... 'If you don’t have a family that’s gonna support you, there are so many other people that will. It’s really inspired me to keep the love going.'"

"Zebra Youth is expanding its short-term housing for LGBTQ+ youth" | "ORLANDO | Zebra Youth, a local nonprofit focused on providing services to LGBTQ+ youth, is expanding its short-term housing for queer youth this month thanks to a grant from the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida through its Brighter Days initiative."

"An Alabama city banned an LGBTQ+ Pride float from its Christmas parade. It marched anyways " | "Prattville Pride was able to march in the city's Christmas parade despite being banned the day prior after swift action from a federal judge."

[Bitter-sweet] Plans for Pulse Nightclub Memorial Move Forward | "ORLANDO | The Pulse nightclub building will be torn down as part of the future memorial design, the Pulse Memorial advisory committee said during its meeting Dec. 12."

More News

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

[NEW SECTION!] southern events:

no affiliation, just interesting finds

Virtual. January 9. Beyond the Ballot: LGBTQ+ Equality and Legislative Trends for 2025 | A public event by Funders for LGBTQ issues: Attend for an overview on policy expectations for 2025.

Are you a member of The Trans South and you want me to find events in your area? DM me and tell me what you need me to know, so I can focus on the neighborhoods and budget ranges of people within our community <3

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

[NEW SECTION!] opportunities:

Work, Volunteer, and Make Change in the South!

Disabled Artists, Tennessee due January 15, unpaid Submit Your Work for Breaking Ground Arts Issue | The Tennessee Council on Developmental Disabilities is hoping to display works by diverse disabled people to celebrate creativity. Previously published works ok. No AI.

Black & Latino Gay & Bisexual Men Age 18-35, Middle Tennessee due ASAP, earn $375 Southern TENNacity | "We are a team of Yale-affiliated LGBTQ+ scholars of color... We are now currently recruiting for the TENNacity trial, a 11-week group therapy treatment created by and for Black and Latino/x gay, bisexual, and queer men (inclusive of cisgender men, trans men, and nonbinary individuals assigned male at birth)."

Regularatory Activism, National due Jan 17 Comment on Fair Standards Labor Act Changes | The Department of Labor plans to phase out certificates allowing businesses to pay workers with disabilities sub-minimum wages. This decision is currently open for comment.

Subject Matter Experts, National due Jan 11 You Can Make a Difference by Serving on an HHS National Advisory Board/Committees | There's always the chance somebody reading this has the expertise and capacity to get their hands dirty and be the trans voice in the room when decisions are made for the whole country.

Experienced Marketers, Texas and Georgia due date unknown Lambda Legal is Hiring Remotely for Director of Integrated Marketing Position | "PLambda Legal is a national advocacy organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights for the LGBTQ+ community and everyone living with HIV through impact litigation, education, and public policy work."

Are you a member of The Trans South and you want me to find opportunities in your area? DM me and tell me what you need me to know, so I can focus on the neighborhoods and goals of people within our community <3

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

fun links:

media, literature, and games keeping me going this month

Read "Love Letter From A Poet Under Empire" by Mónica Teresa Ortiz | "The South isn't just a site of burials... but also of refusals: a list of those speaking out against the brutality that the state imposes."

Watch Black in Appalachia on PBS.org | Black in Appalachia explores the roots of African-American influence on the history and culture of Appalachia through documentaries, research, local narratives, public engagement and exhibition.

CSS Diner | Learn about CSS with this diner-themed game. Knowing CSS can help you learn to publish indie websites outside of social media!

More Fun

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

useful links:

interesting resources and organizations you should know about

Repro Legal Defense Fund | The Repro Legal Defense Fund provides financial support for people investigated or fighting charges related to their pregnancy or abortion.

Trans in the South: A Directory of Trans-Affirming Health & Legal Service Providers | "Trans in the South is dedicated to every trans Southerner who persists in growing in this rocky clay soil."

More Resources

--

If you're an adult trans person in the U.S. South, join my Tumblr Community: The Trans South.

If you're a teen trans person in the U.S. South and you create a youth community for trans southerners, let me know and I'll link to it in The Trans South.

[strawbrygashez]

Andre hcs bc he’s underrated 🗣

•While he will listen to Cals grunge & borderline emo music and finds himself enjoying it here and there, he loves aggressive music a lot more. Anything u could mosh too really. His favorite genres are industrial metal & nu-metal.

•If he was a little more confident in himself and wasn’t worried about being picked on for yet another thing, he’d dress a lot more metalhead-y if he could. I imagine his style would be a mix between mallgoth, metalhead, and some military aesthetics thrown in there. (I shared a hc that cal was talking about working at hot topic before and this kinda ties into that lol. I think andre really wanted him to get the job so he could have a excuse as to why his wardrobe was getting more alternative. Yknow? Like since Cals working there and he goes to visit him when he can, why not browse around a little?)

•He self harms mostly when he’s angry. He’ll hit himself/his head when frustrated, punches stuff, picks his skin, and burns himself occasionally. He also cuts too but not as much as Cal does. He makes sure his cuts actually look like cat scratches that Mel could have gave him.

•(somewhat not really a hc/basically canon) He has a couple mental disorders but his parents kinda have no idea. He keeps things going on in his head to himself. Even Cal didn’t realize how bad off Andre was until Andre began to really trust him. Seeing that Cal obviously had his own issues (the sh scars) made it a lot easier for Andre to share his problems. As emo/stereotypical as it sounds, he really didn’t think anyone would ever get him in the same way Cal does.

•Andre is just full on GAY. He kept that note that girl gave him ages ago because it just made him feel happy and flattered. When he burns it, he only does so because he feels like he needs to fully rid himself of anyone but Cal. (Bc let’s be honest, there really wasn’t any point of him burning it otherwise? They wanted to get rid of things like CDs, books, and games so the media couldn’t blame what they did on stuff like that. I don’t get how the media could have tied the little love note to what they did.)

•He really thought he’d be a dog person until he met a actual dog as a kid. He didn’t like how hyper the dog was & that it kept jumping on him. That’s why when his parents saw it seemed like Andre was becoming lonely sometime in middle school, they got Mel. He bonded super quickly with her.

That’s not to say he won’t give a dog attention & play around with it. He just prefers cats over dogs any day of the week.

•He likes going on walks a lot. Especially if cal comes with. He likes finding places that seems like no one else knows about. I think he’d be SO thrilled if they found a abandoned old tree house. He repairs it up a little bit, adds some things inside and then declares it the army of twos meeting place. (even if they actually rarely meet there lol. They r more likely to be at each others houses but they spend some nights, share secrets, plan things and whatnot up there.)

•He’s not shy really when speaking but words do get caught in his throat and he can be kinda awkward & can’t really read the room when he’s with a big group of people.

Yknow that “he asked for no pickles” meme? That’s Cal saying that with Andre behind him to me.. Andre just prefers not to speak unless it’s absolutely necessary (with people other than Cal) or if someone pissing him off.

•He can take just about anything apart and put it back together again. He fixes Cals siblings toys all the time. He even fixes their bikes too. But he can do more complex things like taking apart a computer and all that.

•He doesn’t have many memories from when he was in Germany. He remembers some relatives and just random odd things here and there but he mostly only has childhood memories from his time in the US.

•He cusses, shit talks under his breath, calls Cal both sweet and mean names all in german.

-He doesn’t do it as much as a older teen but when he would forget the word for something in English he’d say it in German.

-The first time he said I love you to Cal was in German since he knew Cal probably didn’t know what he was saying. Like I said he also calls him names too which Cal and Rachel would try to figure the translation for later online. If it’s something romantic, Cal always would go “Haha yeah this definitely wasn’t what he said.”

•He looks up to Cal so much and is jealous of him. He loves that Cal lets himself be more vulnerable & all cheeky/boyish. Andre for some reason or another feels the need to come off as the strong, more masculine and mature one of the two around others. He likes that Cal expresses himself through sappy shit like poems & music. Andre has it in his head that he always needs to bottle everything up which results in him being quick to get angry and lash out.

That last part is why he was always so annoyed by Rachel. He couldn’t find it in himself to even tell Cal that he doesn’t want him spending time with anyone else though it’s honestly pretty obvious lol.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter

The media is normalizing Trump's victory by “blaming Democratic elites” and criticizing the Democratic campaign.

The defining feature of Trump's campaign was its appeal to racism, misogyny, and white supremacy. He pushed those themes despite pleas from his advisers to focus on the economy. Having campaigned on themes of hate and division, he won decisively. The most compelling inference from those facts is that Trump's campaign themes appealed to a broad swath of the voters who supported him.

But the media is (again) sane-washing Trump's depravity. Rather than acknowledge—or even mention—his dominant campaign themes in analyzing his victory, the media insists that Trump won because Democrats are “elitists” who somehow “alienated” major portions of the electorate or that Democrats lost because Kamala Harris and her advisors refused to run her campaign in the manner demanded by the legacy media.

Saturday brought a new spate of such articles—many of which were forwarded to me by readers who seemed to agree with the “I told you so” tone of the articles.

Okay. I’ll play that game. Let’s assume that Democrats made mistakes in the execution of Harris’s nearly flawless campaign. Let’s assume that despite the dozens of policies designed to help the working and middle classes, Democrats are not connecting with those voters. Even accepting those assumptions, the story of what happened on Tuesday is not that Democrats deserve a tongue-lashing by professional scolds.

The story is that America elected a convicted felon for the first time its history. It is that America elected an adjudicated sexual abuser as its president. It is that America elected a man who attempted a coup and incited an insurrection the last time he was president. It is that America elected a president who declares that those Americans who oppose him are “enemies from within.” It is that the man the media is currently lionizing has threatened to shut down CBS, ABC, the New York Times, Google, and other outlets that have accurately reported the truth about Donald Trump. It is that he has promised to fire the prosecutor who is pursuing two indictments issued by grand juries of his peers.

Here's the point: Choosing to write stories that “blame elitist Democrats” ignores the real story of what happened on Tuesday. That distraction normalizes the grotesque, existential threat of Trump's electoral victory. Trump could not buy more favorable and helpful coverage if he paid for those stories with Elon Musk’s billions.

The media again fails to comprehend the moment, much less rise to it. It is like reporting on the sinking of the Titanic by criticizing the viscosity of the oil in Engine Number Two. While the Titanic’s engineers might have used underweight oil, ignoring the iceberg’s role in the Titanic’s sinking is unforgivable.

The failure of the media is even more unforgivable because Trump represents an ongoing threat to democracy. Such petty, “inside baseball” reporting is fatuous under normal circumstances. It is journalistic malpractice in this perilous moment.

It is also insulting to the millions of Democrats who worked their ***** off to help elect Kamala Harris. While it is true that the Democratic Party has high-paid consultants and political insiders, they are the tiniest fraction of the party. The real Democratic Party includes Black women who staffed nearly every polling station in the South. It includes young, first-time voters who believe fervently in the promise of America. It includes retirees living on Social Security walking precincts despite aching knees and anxious hearts. It includes young married couples, straight and gay, who are desperately hoping for a better future for their children. It includes the out-of-work middle-aged mechanic with a pre-existing condition who worries about not qualifying for health insurance on the open market.

So, when clueless but know-it-all wags criticize the “elitist Democrats,” that is who they are criticizing. In fact, those who choose to criticize “Democratic elites” are revealing their profound ignorance of who makes up the backbone of the Democratic Party.

It is especially offensive to exhibit glee while chastising “Democratic elites” when most everyone in the party is experiencing raw emotions of bewilderment and despair over the fact that America would elect a convicted felon-sexual abuser-insurrectionist as our president. So, please desist.

There will be a time and a place to discuss how Democrats governed under Biden and how they campaigned under Harris. But rubbing people’s faces in grudge-settling op-eds by smug journalists is counterproductive, graceless, and offensive. Exhibit some empathy and humanity. Rather than explaining why you believe Democrats lost, consider asking someone whose heart is broken how they are doing after giving their all in the hope that Kamala would win and that Trump would lose.

I sometimes receive criticism from readers saying that my comments are “over the top” or intemperate. That may be true. However, Rebecca Solnit (of The Guardian) feels even more passionate about this subject than I do. For those of you who know Solnit, she is one of the finest writers of our generation. See her Facebook post, link here: Rebecca Solnit – F*ck the media explanations that Trump won because of the economy . . . . For those of you who do not have a Facebook account, I have excerpted the posting in a Google Doc, accessible to all here: Rebecca Solnit Facebook Doc.

Democrats tried to stop Trump. They lost because Trump’s feral instincts knew that a substantial portion of the electorate would respond to his racist, sexist, white supremacist platform. Sadly, he turned out to be correct—for now. But he is wrong about who the American people are. When more of them vote, his dark vision of America will be repudiated, and the arc of the moral universe will once again bend toward justice.

[justgottafinishthischapter]

Writing Worlds: Homosexuality in Historical Settings

As someone who loves period romances and craves romantic relationships between queer men, it’s very alluring to write queer romances set against the backdrop of historical settings and time periods. But, due to the treatment of homosexuality for a lot of our world’s history, it can make it tricky to know the best way to handle this topic. Consider this to be a sister post to go along with my Writing Romance: Courting post. The two go hand-in-hand.

ESCAPISM VS REALISM

The first hurdle is to decide whether your story is an escapist fantasy or favors realism. In an escapist historical queer romance, the queerness is simply not an issue. The prince can flat out tell his parents to arrange his marriage to male suitors, and the only real reaction is his mother immediately listing off good matches for him. The conflict has nothing to do with the fact that the relationship is between two same-sex characters, and would work just as well for a heterosexual romance story. With an escapist fantasy, you can show the Count of Yorkshire navigating the hardships of courting by having multiple young men vying for his hand, or the whirlwind romance as he catches the eye of the Duke of Orleans. And this romance can be just as open and public as any straight relationship. This option would fall under Historical Romanticism, the term used for when historical settings are made to be more idyllic and favorable than they likely were in real life. The only media where this approach tends to show up often is Fantasy, in worlds where homophobia simply never really existed. The Elder Scrolls is one such setting where male gods are married to one another, other gods change genders and pronouns as they like, and your player character is free to romance anyone of any gender as well as adopt without anyone making biggotted remarks.

On the other hand, Realism in a Historical Queer Romance is going to come prepackaged with a lot of tension and angst, as it’s automatically a forbidden romance. Because homophobia is a real issue that real queer people deal with, having queer characters deal with these issues can help your queer audience feel seen as these fictional characters can relate to their own life experiences. It’s also just more historically accurate to have queer lovers needing to tiptoe around behind people’s backs and hoping they don’t get caught. However, due to this prejudice, it’s also very easy for such settings and stories to come off as depressing, and can perpetuate unpleasant tropes in queer media, such as Bury Your Gays, Unhappily Ever After, and downer Nomance endings. Because their relationship isn’t “appropriate” for public eyes, it makes it hard for the couple to have a truly happy ending. For someone who’s tired of dealing with homophobia in their own life, or it just being present in almost all queer media, it can be tedious for those who want an escape to enjoy two guys smooching while looking dapper in period costumes.

Homosexuality and Religion

As a medieval historian, I actually did a full research paper on homosexuality in the middle ages as a part of my final for one of my medieval history classes. I still have the paper saved, so let me share an abridged version. Pagan cultures might have had some issues with homosexuality, such as the Norse favoring the “tops” over the “bottoms”, a sentiment shared by both the Greeks and Romans. However compared to later eras of history, these Pre-Christian cultures had little problems with same-sex relationships. Every Greek God but Ares, Hephaestus, and Hades had at least 1 male lover, Emperor Hadrian had his boy-toy Antinous deified after he drowned in the Nile, and the Sacred Band of Thebes was made up entirely of same-sex lovers. The idea that homosexuality was wrong only emerged with Christianity. Just... not as soon as you’d think. Christianity became a wide-spread faith across Europe around about 300 AD, mostly spread by Constantine’s deathbed conversion to Christianity. However, it would not be until the 12th century that homosexuality as a sin would emerge. This shift first started during what is known as the Medieval Renaissance when Christian theologians like St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Jerome altered the theological discourse on sin and virtue. Prior to the Medieval Renaissance, the mindset was that simply being Christian and accepting Christ as one’s savior was all it took to get into Heaven. After the Medieval Renaissance, the focus shifted to individual sin and the worthiness of the individual soul. They came to view Earth as sort of a testing grounds or waiting room, and any temporary Earthly pleasure was a wicked temptation sent by Satan to lead men astray. How you did on the test impacted whether you passed or failed. One thing that was declared a sin was fornication without the prospect of procreation. And this went for everyone. Any sexual act that would not result in childbirth was a sin, because you were doing it for the pleasure, not for the purposes of making a baby. Furthermore, any position except Missionary was also sinful, again in an attempt to limit pleasure. Since cis-gendered homosexuals cannot procreate, any homosexual acts were universally labeled as a sin by happenstance. Later in 1179, Peter Comestor proposed to the Third Lateran Council a link between the biblical condemnation of sodomy with explicitly condemning homosexuals, and not just anal fornication as a whole, even stating that clerks found guilty of this act should be removed from office, and laymen should be excommunicated from the church. It is Peter Comestor and his stance on homosexuality that truly caused homosexuality to be labeled as a sin on principal, and is why so many modern Christians still believe homosexual relationships are sinful by nature. However, it’s worth pointing out that the time from when Christianity was a widespread faith in Europe (approx. 300 AD) to the Third Lateran Council (1179) is a span of 879 years. As of this point in 2023, the time between Comestor’s condemnation of homosexuality and the present is only 844 years. Meaning that Christianity has a longer history of tolerating homosexuality than it has condemning it. I say all of this because in any setting where Christianity is not a part of the worldbuilding, there is no reason to have homophobia, unless you replace Christianity with a similarly homophobic fictional religion, as George RR Martin does with the Faith of the Seven in A Song of Ice and Fire. As for Judaism and Islam, I’m at a loss there. My studies didn’t really lead me to those topics, and I can’t offer much insight there.

Handwaving Escapist Diversity

Let’s be real, we can’t even cast People of Color in fantasy stories without racists crapping their pants, so unfortunately, we’re going to face similar problems having queer couples openly courting each other in a historical setting. But, there are a few ways around this where we can have our cake and eat it too without the homophobes being able to hide behind “historic accuracy” as a reason to have a problem with queer romances in historical periods. It’s all about the genre. Let’s look at some of the genres we can use.

Historical Fiction: This is the base form. Any period piece is going to be historical fiction. However, Historical Fiction comes in a wide array. Historical Romanticism is the lighter approach, simply putting make-up on the era to make it more palatable and appealing. Think of Bridgerton where the dresses are shaped historically and the characters behave historically, but the Queen is a woman of color, and the dress materials are far more colorful and bright than they would have been at the time. It’s still the Regency era, just with a bit of rouge. On the other hand, there’s Alternate History. Historical settings where a major deviation has occurred in the timeline. Whether the Roman Empire never fell, the British crushed the American Revolution and took over the entire world, Christianity never caught on and the Roman Pantheon is the most widespread belief system, or the industrial revolution exploded even harder, resulting in a more Steampunk vibe. A major upheaval has altered the face of history, and your queer romance is set in an utterly changed world with a different timeline.

Steampunk: As I just touched on, your world can be more technologically advanced, however, Steampunk can also be a genre for completely fictional worlds, giving you a great way to have a story set in an era with an 1880s - 1910s aesthetic, but easily exist as it own world with its own history and values where homosexual relationships aren’t a problem. Steampunk is also the most optimistic and aesthetically oriented of the science-fiction -Punk genres, compared to the much bleaker and more cynical outlooks of Cyberpunk, Diesel Punk, and Gothic Punk.

Gaslamp Fantasy: Basically, Steampunk but with fantastical elements. It keeps that late Victorian - Edwardian aesthetic, but adds magic, faeries, dragons, vampires, etc. Now, Steampunk leans more Sci-fi, while Gaslamp Fantasy is more well.... Fantasy, so Gaslamp Fantasy does tend to lose some of the technological aspects of Steampunk, but it can also overlap with Magitech, a subgenre where machinery is powered and propelled by magical energy. So, you can very well have a Steampunk Gaslamp Fantasy where all of the steam and gears and machinery is powered by magic. It’ still Steampunk, so long as that train is powered by shoveling magic energy crystals into the furnace, instead of coal. Howl’s Moving Castle is a good example of how the two can coexist. There are normal trains as we see in Sophie’s town, but we also see Howl’s castle which can move because of Calcipher, a fire demon that needs to constantly eat a fuel source of one kind or another. The world is full of witches, magic, and curses, but there’s also muskets, trains, airplanes, zeppelins, and a castle that spews steam and smoke as it wanders the countryside.  

Paranormal Romance: Especially common with Vampires, but the fallout of Twilight and Alpha/Beta/Omegas in pop culture has also led to a rising interest in Werewolf stories, and a recent trend has also swept Faeries into the pop culture spotlight as well. All three offer stories where one or both of your characters is an immortal (or very long-lived) individual. Perhaps their world is homophobic now, but when they met and fell in love, it was perfectly acceptable. Perhaps being alive for 800 years piqued the main character’s curiosity and they decided to give it a try. The long history of homosexuals being demonized has led to a large percentage of queer people identifying with the monsters and villains of media, causing them to see themselves in the hated monsters, demons, and vampires that threaten the heterosexual heroes of old.

Historical Fantasy: For everything else that’s not within that Victorian-Edwardian window, Historical Fantasy has you covered. From Cyclopes and Sirens in Ancient Greece to Dragons and Goblins in Medieval France, or a mermaid ending up in an Americana freak show, this pretty much covers ever kind of fantasy romance in a historical setting that’s not covered by Paranormal Romance or Gaslamp Fantasy.

Renaissance Punk: It’s like Steampunk, but the world’s technology resembles the contraptions of Leonardo Da Vinci, as opposed to the clockwork, gears, and steam aesthetic plastered onto the turn of the 20th century that Steampunk offers. Also called Da Vinci Punk.

Space Punk: If you’re wanting to lean more Sci-fi, you can do Space Punk. Think Treasure Planet, though I could also call that Sail Punk. It has a very Victorian clothing and technological aesthetic, but then space is full of a breathable Ethereum, and even Doctor Doppler’s “space suit” looks closer to an old-timey diver’s suit. But the ship has solar sails, the mast charges up with a power source that propels the ship into space, lockets project holograms of still photographs, cybernetic prosthetics are technologically advanced, and aliens are a common sight, even for the poorest commoner.

Same-Sex Courting for Escapist Romance

I touched on this in my Writing Romance: Courting post, but I’ll cover it again because it’s especially applicable here. The rules of courting in the 1800s relied heavily on gender roles. So, how does one make sense of courting rules when the couple are the same sex? The basic rule of thumb is that whoever is higher in status is the one to be chased, while the one of lower class does the chasing. If a Duke is looking for a husband, does the Duke chase Viscounts or do Viscounts chase the Duke? Always, the Viscounts chase the Duke. A Duke is a valuable husband, a prize catch those Viscounts would want to have. What if the romance is between two men of equal class? Two Dukes falling in love? The one who would take the more passive role is likely to be whichever is higher in the line of succession. During the courting phase, an elligible queer bachelor is likely to recieve many gentlemen callers. They would come to the bachelor’s house where his family could keep an eye on him, and judge his prospects. They would bring gifts and trinkets, and sit in the tea room, sewing room, drawing room, or whatever room is used to entertain guests. Gentlemen callers would then talk with the bachelor, recite poetry, play the piano, or whatever else they could to impress the bachelor and his family. Again, as I said before, the one being visited by gentlemen callers is whoever is higher up in the chain of nobility. The Duke’s family is going to scrutinize every gentleman who calls on their son, while the Baron’s family is going to urge him to call on every queer man who outranks him. The other thing to keep in mind is inheritance. The first-born son inherits everything, so a second-born son or third-born son will get nothing from his father, or best case scenario, he will get a small fraction of the family fortune from his father or older brother. In order for these younger sons to stay in the lifestyle they were raised in, they will have to marry someone who is coming into his fortune. In a setting where women can inherit her father’s entire estate, a lesbian would function the exact same as a gay man. Ergo, any queer romantic lead who is not inheriting his father’s full estate must seek a first-born son who will inherit his father’s estate. Meanwhile, if your protagonist is a first-born son, he is far more likely to be chased by the younger sons of distinguished families. Finally, when it comes to the social season and courting at dances, queer nobles would likely wear something to distinguish themselves from the heterosexual nobles at the party. Something to let the other guests know their preference in dance partner. That way, gentlemen know not to ask the Baroness of Agincourt to dance, but that the Duke of Orleans is all too eager to receive male attention.

Lavender Marriages in Realist Romances

A lavender marriage is when a queer person marries someone of the opposite sex to disguise their homosexual dalliances, such as Renly Baratheon marrying Margaery Tyrell, or Laenor Valyrian marrying Rhaenyra Targaryen. In these instances, the woman knew her husband was queer and was willing to work with him to keep the secret. However, sometimes the wife wouldn’t know, and the husband was keeping his sexuality a secret from everybody. However, it was usually hard for a noble to keep his dalliances completely hidden from the court, as in both of these cases, both Renly and Laenor were well-known around court to be fanciful of male attention. Everyone typically knows the wedding is a sham, but tend to turn a blind eye to it regardless. I know I’ve been using male examples this whole post, but this does also work with lesbian romances. I believe the term is still lavender marriage with a lesbian, but I could be mistaken.

Actual Homosexuality in Historical Time Periods

Scholars debate the exact nature of their relationship, but in Arthurian Myth, King Galehaut is conquering his way across Arthur’s Kingdom when he challenges Arthur to a duel for the throne of Camelot. However, upon seeing Sir Lancelot, Galehaut offers to concede to Arthur if he’ll introduce him to Lancelot. From then on, Galehaut and Lancelot became Very Close Special Guy Friends, and it’s suspected that the pair might be lovers, or at least that Galehaut is in love with Lancelot.

Leonardo Da Vinci was involved with one of his male models, Pietri Bandielli, who Da Vinci used as a model for Jesus. Which also means, If you pray to the white version of Jesus with the little beard and long brown hair, congratulations! You’re worshiping a gay Italian male model that used to have sex with Leonardo Da Vinci.

Hans Christian Andersen fell in love with the son of his financier, Edvard Collins. But, when Collins became engaged and later married to Henriette Tybjerg, a heartbroken Andersen wrote the story of The Little Mermaid as an allegory for his unrequited love. Collins was the handsome prince who didn’t return the mermaid’s feelings, Henriette was the Temple Girl who stole the mermaid’s love, and Andersen himself was the mermaid, unable to verbalize her true feelings, and suffering great pain just to be near the one she loves.

It’s mostly speculation, but it’s believed that Richard I of England had a clandestine homosexual relationship with Phillip II of France. The majority of evidence comes from one particular courtier’s writings who described them as eating from the same dish and not being separated by their beds at night. However, it’s hard to say if this is evidence of a homosexual relationship, or just the flowery prose writing of the time describing a very close bromance.

Edward II of England had little interest in war. Hoping to toughen up his son, Edward’s father assigned a squire to Edward that excelled in tournaments, Piers Gaveston. However, this backfired spectacularly, as Edward fell in love with Piers. Gaveston flaunted his sway over the king, being so bold as to wear royal purple and the queen’s jewelry during Edward’s coronation. Gaveston was hunted down and beheaded by a group of barons, and Edward himself was killed with a red-hot poker shoved up his backside.

King James I of England was a well-known bisexual, even having a secret passageway linking his bedchambers with that of George Villiers. James’ male lovers experienced royal favoritism and protection, as James absolved one male lover for poisoning a political rival, and twice protecting Villiers from impeachment for incompetency. Following James’ death, Villiers was struck through by a sword.

Anne Lister was a noblewoman who often dressed in masculine clothing and kept a coded diary which recounted her many and varied lesbian affairs over her lifetime. Lister even earned the nickname Gentleman Jack, and is often regarded as the First Modern Lesbian.

Pirate ships were one of the few places where gay marriage was legitimate. Pirate captains could perform marriage ceremonies, and marriages between male crewmates was not uncommon, even having rules about sharing property and distrubution of goods among crew members with a married couple on-board. As well as the distribution of property following the death of a same-sex spouse.

While we know that brothels and prostitution has existed since Ancient Greece, in the 1700s, it was possible to find a Molly House. A house which featured male prostitutes who catered to male clients.

Women were not believed to have sex drives, so when two women loved each other, they were often called “bosom buddies”, and two women living together without a man in the house was called a Boston Marriage.

In the medieval era, it was believed that a woman’s womb was naturally cold and had to be kept warm with regular activity. If the woman was unmarried, the womb was to be kept warm by hand. But since using her own hands would be sinful, it often fell to the woman’s female servants to do the deed.

Men and women often existed in entirely disconnected social spheres. For a man, he would go to work where he would only work with men, after work he would go to a local bar or club that was exclusively for gentlemen, and following dinner, he would often retire to a private room in his home or another man’s home to sit, smoke, and talk with his male colleagues. Even within a single house, men would retire to the gentlemen’s lounge to smoke, while women would depart to the sewing room, tea room, or drawing room to have afternoon tea with the other ladies. As men would spend their entire days solely in the company of men, and the same for women, many men and women only spent time together in public spaces, during meals, and when going to bed. Even then, it was not uncommon to see households where the man and woman had separate bedchambers, and the woman would only sleep in the man’s bedroom when he desired sexual congress. Even the Palace of Versailles had separate chambers for the king and queen. This gave queer couples plenty of time to sneak around without anyone being the wiser.

This to Keep in Mind

One of the biggest issues behind the AIDS epidemic was the promiscuous nature of gay lovers in the 1970s. Because gay men had to be discreet, they would often have anonymous relations in public spaces like bathhouses and bars. This combination of unsafe sex practices and anonymous lovers caused STDs to run rampant through the community, and allowed the AIDS epidemic to have a devastating impact on the queer community.

In Victorian great houses, the footmen were effectively the “face” of the manor’s servants, so height and attractiveness was favored when hiring them. As such, footmen make for excellent romantic interests in a historical time period, since they’re required to be attractive to be hired.

The mafia has a long history of working with and supporting the LGBT community. In the 1920s, nightclubs in the black districts of Harlem would host drag balls, these events being known as Harlem Nights. The mafia helped these groups to meet without police interference for a kickback fee. Even the Stonewall Inn had Mafia protection. In a world where homosexuality is still seen as a sin, think about what groups are willing to turn a blind eye in the interest of profit.

Homosexuals were among those rounded up the Nazi Party during the Holocaust. Just as Jews were forced to wear the Star of David on their clothes, so too were homosexuals marked with a pink triangle. The Nazi Party also destroyed research on gender and sexuality, which destroyed a lot of evidence that had been gathered of queer existence up to that point in time. Today, the Pink Triangle is among the reclaimed symbols used by the queer community.

Queer people found ways to signal to one another. At different points in time, the visual cues have included wearing green ties, having a red carnation in their lapels, and in the 1970s, a bandana in the back pocket was a common way of indicating someone was a homosexual, and the color would even further indicate what they were looking for. Many modern slang words even started out as gay code words so that gay people could talk in public without drawing attention to themselves. Codes like “buns” for butt are still in use today, but got their start as codewords to keep gay conversations undercover.

While we often remember the Red Scare of the 1950s, we often don’t mention that there was also a Lavender Scare at the same time, which hunted down homosexuals just as the Red Scare hunted for communists. It was the belief that homosexuals would be more likely to undermine American policies or spread information to enemy nations, and thus had to be kept down.

Rich men often kept “actresses”, paying for apartments for them, paying for their food, drink, fun, costumes, and whatever else. If they really were an actress or otherwise a struggling entertainer, it was not unheard of for the wealthy benefactor to pay to get the actress roles, pay for tutors and lessons, or even buying them an entire theater. It’s not so hard to believe that a wealthy gentleman could keep a male model, actor, or artist in good stead, especially because artists in particular flourished in periods where rich people would sponsor and commission artists to paint for them. And this can work for either type of story, as a husband or wife would be equally annoyed to learn that the Duke of Orleans is keeping a young actor on the south side.

Gif Sourcing:

1. Bridgerton (2020 - present) 2. Game of Thrones (2011-2019) 3. Mary, Queen of Scots (2018) 4. Downton Abbey (2010-2015) 5. Victoria (2016) 6. Cloud Atlas (2012) 7. A Place to Call Home (2013-2018) 8. Mary Shelley (2017) 9. Brokeback Mountain (2005)

[lurafita]

Small Town Diner Malec AU Background Info

Alec comes from money, but broke with his family when his parents tried to push an engagement with the Branwell's daugther for Business reasons. He was like "This isn't the middle ages, I'm gay, sayonara."

He packed, got in his car and drove in a random direction until he ran out of gas. Which happened to be in the parking lot of the diner. He got to know the elderly couple who ran it, they got close, he started working and living with them. When they died two years later, they left him everything. Since losing the old couple, he has been tentatively trying to reconnect with his family. Things between him and his parents are still tense. Izzy is supportive, but there are some untesolved issues with her as well. Max comes over during school breaks sometimes. It's all a work in progress.

Magnus was a highly decorated detective in Brooklyn, got together with Camille, she got pregnant with Madzie. Magnus has always known he was sterile, and that Camille cheated on him, but never denied being Madzie’s father. When things with Camille broke off, because she decided motherhood didn’t suit her after all, Magnus fought for sole guardianship. Magnus himself is the son of a New York stationed crime Boss, Asmodeus. The familial connection had always worked against him in the police department, but the latest case he worked went south. When that case was later connected to Asmodeus, his superiors questioned his loyalties, and he quit the force. Thanks to his friend Catarina, who is the local doc in a small town, he heard about a free deputy position there, and packed up him and Madzie and moved them over there for a new beginning.

To the Master post: https://www.tumblr.com/lurafita/744483785225224193/small-town-diner-malec-au?source=share

[imsparky2002]

Barbie as the Island Princess: First Thoughts

The intro gives me Little Mermaid vibes for some reason.

Man I know this is only five years from Rapunzel, but they really improved in the cgi! The designs look really pleasant!

Ok, the dolphins look a bit plasticy but still!

I’m glad they also have enough confidence to let the tale stand on it’s own without having to establish this is Barbie telling a story to her little sister.

Is it wrong that I’m shipping the peacock and panda? They feel like a middle aged/eldery gay couple and I love it.

Aww! Weeby was right! They totally are Barbie’s gay dads!

Yeesh… I do NOT like the elephant’s design. Why can I see her realistic human teeth? And those eyes!

Overall a very pleasant opening musical number that shows off the island.

Pleasant scene of Ro comforting Tikka during a nightmare.

This goodnight song is making my brain feel weepy.

I love how this is a male love interest who is full of life and isn’t afraid to be in touch with his feminine side. Love the bow on his ponytail.

I love how Antonio’s first instinct when approached by a crocodile is to risk reaching for a branch to put in its mouth.

OMIGOD SHE KNOWS THE ALLIGATORS NAMES!

I love how they go "aww" because they're sad they can't munch on him.

Wait a minute... one of the crocodiles is called Fang. Holy crap, this is the origin story of Jagged Stone’s pet!

I love how Azul found out he’s a prince and is immediately like “fuck this island, come on Sagi, let’s take Tikka and live it up!”

I'm loving the lyrics in this song about Ro being befuddled by Antonio's tech and clothes.

Gerard is a zaddy, not gonna lie.

I’m giggling like a fool at hearing Azul ranting and raving in peacockese.

I wonder if Barbie will try speaking to any of the land’s animals.

WTF is that thing the queen is holding? Is that a monkey or a very unfortunate looking baby?

The king looks pretty young, more like his late 20s instead of 40s. Honestly though, he’s really hot.

Aww, the royal monkey has a posh accent!

Queen Ariana is honestly not that bad looking at all. If I wasn’t gay, I’d find her kinda cute.

It’s nice that the rival love interest is actually a sweet girl. A good subversion of expectations.

The vocals of the villain song reminds me of ABBA. Which is always a good sign.

Great contrast between Ariana’s powerful belting and Luciana’s quiet tone.

Omigod I am loving Ariana’s lyrics in this song, diabolical and hilarious.

LOL AND HER RATS ARE DOING BACKUP CHOREOGRAPHY

Aww, the girls dressed Tikka up!

They really captured the awkward yet respectful dialogue between enforced couples with Antonio and Luciana.

The backing score for the ballroom dance is divine.

Get yourself a man who would abdicate from the throne just to be with you.

Ah, I see Tikka hid the letter, I assume due to attachment issues.

I feel like the Cheese song is kinda unneccessary. A few lines of dialogue would have got the message across.

I do find it kinda ridiculous that nobody can pick up on Ariana’s evil vibe.

Seems that traumatic events are the key to regaining Ro’s memories.

Dolphin ex Machina has arrived.

So this new queen is obviously Ro’s mom, right?

I feel like Ariana would’ve been smarter to not attempt poisoning Antonio and his family so that she can remain in her daughter’s good graces.

Luiciana saving Ro and proving her mother’s the criminal warms my heart.

Ok, I’m happy Ro and Antonio are together, but isn’t marriage rather quick?

Huh… the sudden reveal of Rosella being a princess all along kinda ruins the message of “Love doesn’t care about status”.

Overall, a massive step up from the previous films. The first two were decent flicks, but this one takes time to flesh out each and every character. Also the score was wonderful and I found the animation to be a pleasant upgrade. The ending was a bit of an ass-pull but a enjoyable film nonetheless. @artzychic27 @msweebyness @nerd-chocolate

[lycanpunk666]

From the prompt of @nosuchthingasdeadlanguages … All the DCAS characters and my headcanons for them. For the sake of ease, in order: Gender and sexuality headcanons (Tis the season and also tumblr marked this post as mature for some fucking reason), general headcanons, and post-canon.

Repost since tumblr genuinely appears to be acting strange about it.

Jake: Cis gay guy. I think he’s into pop punk, and I think that he went to therapy once the show’s over. Possibly more than that depending on how the season ends. Christ this guy needs it.

Alec: Cis Aro ace-spec guy. To elaborate on this, I think that it took him awhile to find out since he kind of just thought that he had something mentally wrong with him and got together with his ex wife because of societal pressures. They were good friends, it’s just that everyone kept saying how they should be a couple, so one day he asked her out. He still isn’t sure how to feel about finding out he’s aromantic, especially since he’s not fully asexual. But he’s working through his issues. Post-canon, he and Connor become close friends and briefly live together.

Fiore: She’s 8, too early to tell anything. I think her family’s Catholic, as implied by the nature of some of the things they’ve allegedly said to her, and the fact that she was sent to a boarding school with nuns pre-All Stars. Post-canon, she probably goes back to that boarding school and just seethes. I feel like she’s gonna grow into a very unhappy teenager and an even unhappier woman. But she IS going to be absolutely terrifying and incredibly skilled in whatever job she picks.

Ashley: Cishet ally. She’s musclier than her sprite shows. No way she’s a farmer and she’s THAT skinny, that woman has abs that could shatter steel. Post-canon she works on putting up some better boundaries with Jake and also becomes friends with Tess.

Tom: Cis gay guy. He’s a really dorky dancer and really likes 80s pop. Also, he’s entirely driven by a gnawing desire to do good for the world, or at least know that he’s helping people directly. It’s not just a need, it’s genuinely a calling, and he’s doing what he believes is best for himself and for the world. Also, he was a skilled prodigy with a bunch of practical skills it took for spy work, which had to do with why he was out in the field at such a young age. Post-canon, he tries and fails to join the FBI (due to his terrible reputation it’s really hard to get hired for anything but cop stuff). He might eventually get to be a detective, though. Hopefully.

Ellie: Cis bisexual but uses any pronouns. She’s punk, and her favorite artist is Joan Jett. Post-canon she kind of has a really dismal future, so I think they live with Gabby as they manage to scrape by with her help and go to fashion school.

Gabby: Trans lesbian! In season 1, she was in the middle of getting a job as a forest ranger. By all stars, she got the job. Post-canon, she lives with Ellie, but their relationship is slightly strained.

Miriam: Cishet ally. She’s Jewish, indicated mostly by her name being a common Hebrew name, but honestly I just really like thinking about it. Post-canon she still has Jake living with her and has not worked up the courage to tell him to get his own damn apartment.

Grett: Cis bisexual. It took her ages to figure it out, though, and she’s still working through some internalized homophobia and biphobia. She’s definitely not perfectly okay but she’s doing better than she was. Also, she can play multiple instruments, including the piano, violin, and flute. Post-canon she continues working on that professional self-help stuff that was mentioned in All Stars.

Tess: Cis polyamorous bisexual. She’s a burnt out gifted kid- like legitimately went to a school for gifted students in her early years due to her talents in reading, writing, linguistics, and art. Post-canon, she dates Ally. They’ve got loads of chemistry, it works.

Ally: Trans polyamorous bisexual. Idk she’s got tgirl energy yknow? This is based on nothing. Anyway she’s got crazy good analytical skills, she was the top of her class in math and literature. She tends to apply it with video games but she’s really good at applying her knowledge. Also she’s autistic. Post-canon, she and Tess date, AND Ally goes to therapy so she can work on her terror around how people perceive her!

Hunter: Cis polyamorous bisexual. He’s not a very good student but he IS very smart. He LOVES puzzles, his favorite kind are 3D ones like wooden puzzles or rubix cubes. Awful social skills though. Post-canon he doesn’t really go to therapy but he does genuinely try to put in more effort into listening and understanding other people.

Yul: Cis and bi-curious. Or “Is there any way to be bisexual without being a part of the lgbt community. Because I don’t want to be a part of it.” God this dude has so many issues, I just wish he had more depth. Not necessarily to make him sympathetic, I just wish he was more than a bigoted bowling pin to knock down. So I think he’s just very squeamish. He goes out of his way to avoid things if they make him even a little bit uncomfortable (which goes poorly considering he’s on Disventure camp). Cough hack cough also DC’s writing for his homophobia was clumsy and not well thought out.

Connor: Cishet ally. But I feel like a reading of him being transhet is a wonderful take that has a fun direction for his worries about growing old. I think he grew up somewhere similar to Hollywood, or generally somewhere where your prime years are glorified and you’re told your life is essentially over once you grow old. He and Alec live together for a bit as I said post-canon, and Connor adopts a kid. He sort of wants a wife still, but he’s accepted the possibility that that might not happen.

Riya: Cishet, but I don’t think she’s homophobic actually (unless I’m misremembering something or missed something). She’s just a dick lmfao she doesn’t care if you’re gay. I feel like she actually really likes American food but doesn’t eat it often because it’s often greasy, and ruins her pores. Post-canon I have… no clue what she’s doing. Ngl i doubt her career was affected by what she’s done in All Stars, it might even have been enhanced by it.

Lake: Cis lesbian. I really really like her but I don’t know how season 2 ends yet, but I do think that she gets a bit wild with the wigs she gets (in terms of styles and colors). She gets really creative with them. Post-canon I’m not quite sure, she just continues to make serious bank with her books since she’s already a popular author.

James: Cis gay or bisexual, I’m not sure which so I might actually say he’s Achillean. He was very skilled academically, and he’s done with college and has a degree in business. I’m not actually sure what he’d do with it, he makes decent money being an influencer. (Why,,, tiktok though. James my beloved you can do better) Post-canon I have no idea, I need to see more of season 2 to say for sure but I do know that he and Aiden are endgame.

Aiden: Trans gay guy. He’s pretty average ngl I have nothing much to say about him. But I do think that he’s almost always trying to do the right thing, but “the right thing” is just what he perceives as such. Not necessarily what’s actually good for everyone else. He can get so stuck in his own beliefs that it can cause him to make snap perceptions of others and I think that this specific idea can get real complex quick. Black and white morality. Because when things get GREY then it gets COMPLICATED and DIFFICULT. It’s so much easier to see someone do something bad and just accept that they’re a bad person. He could be so interesting if you think about it like this guys I do not understand why the DC fandom loves him so much as is. Post-canon he lives with James. Idk what else he’d do.

[scarlet--wiccan]

On the Avengers Academy infinity comic I really feel like they need to switch up the marketing for it or something bc I genuinely thought it was for kids like it was a kids comic with it having child characters, the whole school setting and it being an infinity comic but then it turns out there’s almost fully explicit nudity & sex in it and the author said on twitter that bc it’s him ppl should’ve expected that ???

That's kind of a weird thing for him to say. At least as far as Marvel comics go, I think this is actually some of the most explicit content I've ever seen from Oliveira. And I'm not saying that's necessarily a problem, but most of the characters involved are like... 18? And several of their castmates are approximately 12? And the overall branding and presentation of the series definitely makes it seem like it's for young readers? I think some of the gratuitous sexuality could have been dialed back juuuuuuuust a little. And to be clear, I don't think there's anything wrong with sex in media, but I do think it's important to be able to recognize when sexuality is gratuitous. I don't have a problem with that, either, but as a matter of taste, I think it should be limited when it comes to very young and/or underaged characters.

If I can't say with confidence that Aaron is old enough to legally drink, then I don't necessarily want to be treated to sexy splash pages of him hooking up. If I can't say for sure that Justin is out of high school, then I don't necessarily want to treated to sexy splash pages of him coming out of the shower in a towel that barely covers his junk. And the comic doesn't need to go to that place or take that tone every time.

I promise I'm not trying to be some kind of prude. I'm old enough to remember when gay couples kissing on-page was an achievement, especially younger characters, and I love that this storyline involves a character who is HIV+ and has a healthy, active sex life. Plus, I think there's something really cool and interesting about having two people-- Justin and Aaron-- who are close in age but have different levels of experience, and seeing how that informs the way they approach sex and relationships. Those disparities are very common, especially in gay people at that age, but seeing it represented in a superhero comic feels quite novel. Honestly, it's one of the most compelling storylines I've ever seen in an Unlimited comic-- but when I remember that these characters are barely legal and sharing page space with middle schoolers, I have to wonder if maybe things could be a little more temperate. Or maybe I really am just getting thrown off by the fact that the premise and presentation imply something more kid-friendly, and that tonal whiplash is making me question how I should be showing up to this book. But that, unto itself, is a formal issue that ought to be addressed.

TL:DR: I love what's happening, but it feels like the intent and delivery are disjointed in a way that makes me slightly uncomfortable, and I think that could be avoided with a little more thoughtfulness.