#not doing lit anymore

[ilynpilled]

I think one of the biggest things I enjoy about your particular theories is that you're almost always bringing contextual evidence to back it up. You're referencing the themes, referencing the patterns, referencing the book itself to prove your ideas. It's like if someone has in an AP English club, like writing papers for fun, and that's what really elevates this shit.

thank you this is extremely sweet. it is just how i was taught so i cant do it in any other way. it was hammered into my head pretty hard, and i do notice fandom not really following the “rules” of literary analysis, which is fine. but like i feel a need to structure my analysis and use quotes the way i do, also i do like to focus on literary devices + always look at the text holistically. i am insufferably lit brained sadly it was my fave class in high school. i also just love finding and dissecting patterns so so much and george is obsessed with writing them so

[earthbovndmisfit]

jonawagons marcianitos 🌌🛸💕

(og base/reference by @/lilalienz4ever on twt!!)

[heynhay]

i love everybody because i love you

[malinaa]

MOCKINGJAY, CHAPTER 19

[calo-wav]

fuck it *brokebacks your kl*

i also deal redblue yaoi in prose form

[howifeltabouthim]

. . . I was completely alone. I didn't have the energy to make someone else love me. I was inert.

Lisa Taddeo, from Animal

[usefulquotes7]

You’re not a kid anymore. You have the right to choose your own life. You can start again. If you want a cat, all you have to do is choose a life in which you can have a cat. It’s simple. It’s your right. Unknown

[redwayfarers]

Belle, n’aie peur de cela, Partout où sera ta demeure, Mon ciel, jusqu’à tant que je meure, Et mon paradis sera là. - Baiser, Joachim du Bellay (1542)

one year of nikartoirel <3

[dykerightsmp3]

I actually think about the amount of times I saw people flippantly refer to Kaz and Inej Six of Crows asexual all the time. That was so haunting. They are textually not asexual. they actually do textually experience sexual desire and are still not touching because they’re traumatized. They cannot touch. Physically. She is a survivor of sex trafficking. Are you listening? You’re not listening. Trauma does not actually lead to the Identity of asexuality it leads to being traumatized. Did you know that traumatized people still sometimes experience desire in significantly more complicated ways? Did you know that desire can persist even where inability exists? Is anyone listening to me

[blossoms-phan]

fuck tiktok the sun is still out and im fuckinh sobbing over a 2012 dnp edit

[theia-eos]

Seeing something about a Fire Emblem class being offered at college. I would never want a class about Fire Emblem, I wouldn't survive hearing anything discourse about it by modern college students IRL.

But it is reminding me of the time I delivered a senior thesis on the evolution of the hidden/overt LGBT representation in video games using Ike as an example back before Awakening was released.

[ofstarsandmoonlightt]

YALL LOOK

THATS SELWYN KANE ASSFFGHJKKLLL

[franken-loser]

Sorry for not doing any clervalstein stuff lately, I'm currently fixated on two gay little mormon boys at the moment (Kevin Price and Connor McKinley) so😥😥

[projectdivaar]

I am nthn but h8 but I am also so so boring . I'm like the worst guy bc I am literally nthn goin on . nthn 2 luv nthn 2 h8 I'm like totally neutral in a way that's annoying . what happened . where did I go . who took me . didn't I used 2 b fun, didnt I used 2 b interesting. u used 2 b able 2 talk 2 me an I culd talk back . I used 2 b able 2 help u if u were down . what happened . I want him back. I want the old me back. pls. pls js let everythin go back. js a few mnths is all I need

[howifeltabouthim]

'Wherever we might have been heading, I can't anymore.'

Chris Whitaker, from All the Colors of the Dark

[elipheleh]

The truth is every queer person has the right to come out on their own terms, and on their own timeline. They also have the right to choose not to come out at all. The forced conformity of the closet can not be answered with the forced conformity in coming out of it.

-Alex, Red White & Royal Blue (2023)

i want to talk about this quote. full disclosure, it’s because i keep seeing some really frustrating takes (some of which veer into queerphobia) and i am getting a bit annoyed with people and rather than directly addressing it with them & appear to be picking a fight im going to make an analysis post in my space. (tbf. its mostly on twitter and i have a priv account so that limits me)

disclaimer; this is my interpretation, im not saying its the only interpretation just something to consider. i am queer & cognitively disabled - don’t assume malice and dont be cruel. i will ignore and block freely.

tl;dr/very simplified summary: it doesn’t mean “dont ever speculate about other people’s sexuality” but rather that ‘coming out’ in the way society understands it shouldn’t be a necessity for queer people to exist openly as queer. full context under the cut & self-exploration questions at the end.

so lets start with the context. alex is talking at a point in time when the world has read their emails and so knows both are queer (bi & gay, specifically), but neither alex/the white house or henry/the palace have commented. so more simply - alex and henry are known to be queer, but have not come out. alex uses the speech to come out as bi, and as being in love with henry. he also uses it to imply that he & henry should have the right to choose not to do this formal coming out alex is doing.

—

okay. lets get into the quote analysis.

The truth is every queer person has the right to come out on their own terms, and on their own timeline.

reasonably self explanatory. each queer person gets to decide their own timing for coming out, and the way that they want to address their sexuality.

They also have the right to choose not to come out at all.

this is where problems with interpretation have started to appear. fundamentally yes, this means people are allowed to not be openly queer/‘out’ if that is what their decision is. but it also means that they can be visibly queer - for example being in a visibly queer relationship; signalling with their aesthetic (e.g. someone being butch, someone who wears only ‘girl’ clothes despite that being at odds to their assigned gender); casually posting about queer things on social media etc - without addressing their own sexuality to others.

it does not mean that you should assume everyone is straight until they explicitly tell you otherwise. and quite frankly insisting that it does mean that is veering into homo-/bi-/queer-phobia because you are insinuating that being not-straight is a negative thing.

The forced conformity of the closet can not be answered with the forced conformity in coming out of it.

some people seem to be interpreting this as ‘you shouldnt force people out of the closet’ and i don’t think thats quite to the nuance of what it means. yes, i do think that is part of it - in much the same way as the previous sentence - but it is not really the whole of it. in my opinion this is actually addressing - at least to some degree - the concept of ‘we should assume people are straight until they explicitly say otherwise’.

the ‘forced conformity of coming out’ addresses the idea that to be “out” you have to follow these steps; that you have to make a public statement that ‘this is my sexuality and i am [queer/bi/gay/pan/ace/etc]’. you are conforming to this precedent of “how to come out” that countless queer people have followed. there’s nothing inherently wrong with doing so, but actually there are different ways to be queer - and even being “out” as queer - that don’t involve following that playbook.

here’s a hypothetical to demonstrate my point. two men, who have never dated any women, live together & spend basically all their time together over 5-10 years. they holiday with each other’s family, they’re always together at events (e.g. weddings of non-mutual friends), but they’ve never told you/the public that they’re queer and/or dating each other. at what point does one start to assume they’re together? and does the answer change if its a man & a woman rather than two men? if a man & a woman did that, people would assume pretty early on they’re probably dating. but yet when it’s two men suddenly it’s invasive to speculate. this is where this concept of the forced conformity of coming out comes in - along with the veering into homophobia i referenced earlier - why must they say the words “i am gay” for it to then be ‘okay’ to consider that they’re together? (the homophobia comes into play because if you think being gay is morally neutral (which it is) then you shouldn’t have any issue with the speculation about people being together regardless of their genders.) the idea that straight is the default is where this forced conformity starts to really kick in.

—

i guess the main things i want people to ask themselves are these (and i have been asking myself these questions, there is no judgement or censure just self examination):

1. do you think people can be openly queer publicly without explicitly sharing that they are queer? (by this i mean in an announcement or in casual conversation. can you be openly queer without ever addressing it explicitly?)

2. if you do, why do you think that talking about the possibility someone is queer is something that should be hushed up? is it because there is an internalised concept that being queer is something abnormal and/or negative? if it was a straight couple would you feel the same way?

3. what does “coming out” mean to you? why does it mean that, what have you internalised to get to that conclusion & is it something that always works or are there other ways to be openly queer (or ‘out’ if you prefer)?

4. is it possible that there are queer people living openly and happily as themselves without explicitly addressing their sexuality to the wider world, who don’t want to address it publicly? does this make them closeted or ‘less’ queer to you? if so, what makes you think that?