#pure queer joy right here

[thetimelcss]

I don't know if this means as much as to others but, as a lesbian, it makes me so happy that the recent four Doctor Who "main companions"—Clara Oswald, Bill Potts, Yasmin Khan, and Ruby Sunday—have all been canonically queer women. Also, there's reccuring transwoman character, Rose Noble. There's also the Doctor's wife, River Song. There's also Jenny and Vastra. It's just makes me so happy that LGBTQ women characters are being put into the spotlight for 11 years, streak!

That's seven seasons and a half of Doctor Who, with some specials here and there, with also the 13th doctor being canonically sapphic herself; just to put it into perspective.

[theatre-heathen]

Started at 2am, and just now finished up (6:30am) on Heartstopper S2 and OH MY GOD. There’s a good thing we’ve got a few days till RWRB left because I think I blacked out and need to recover. I will be rewatching every episode in excruciating detail because I’m fairly sure my first watch consisted of me flailing in queer joy too much to catch everything going on. God my face hurts from smiling so much 😭😭

[katyawriteswhump]

the freak in the penthouse

Eddie became an accidental millionaire, coming up with creative content for a video game for his techy best bud Dustin. It's great at first… but not his dream. He winds up living in a hotel room, depressed he let his music hopes slip.

Steve, meanwhile, works in the hotel, and is desperately in debt for medical bills. When his boss asks him to get a male hooker for the ‘freak in the penthouse,' he can’t really let the ‘chance’ pass. After all, the 'freak' didn't look so bad to him, and he's done this kind of thing before when he had to...

Set in the early 90s with some period-typical homophobia. Shamelessly trope-y! This will probably go up to ‘E’ rated next chapter, but ‘M’ for now as this chapter isn’t too spicy yet ;)

also here on AO3 or search the tumblr tag #thefreakinthepenthouse

Chapter one: the freak

Eddie lingered in that warm, fuzzy twilight zone between sleep and wakefulness. He didn’t want to wake up.

His dream—at least, the parts of it trickling back to him—had been hot, hot, hot. He’d been killing it live to an insane sell-out crowd at the Hollywood Bowl and…

…what the hell?

More of Eddie’s dream filtered back. The part which explained his epic boner. He’d not been thrashing out a nine-minute-long power ballad. On that dream-stage, in front of that sell-out crowd, he’d been fucking a deadly hot, deadly cute guy.

Holy shit! That’s almost as unbelievable as anybody paying to come see me play.

He began to wake up for real. A keening sound escaped his throat. On the other hand, the joys of the night hadn’t quite evaporated.

Possibly because he’d gotten his nose buried in a mass of slightly sticky hair. 

He was spooning ANOTHER GUY.

The reality of last night rushed back. Every muscle in Eddie’s body locked up. Wow, wow, wow! And also, Shiiiiiit! 

Steve. That was the guy’s name. Eddie rubbed his nose in the nape of Steve’s neck, inhaling cheap hair gel.

Steve had been good. He’d kissed like a demon and offered up that to-die-for ass like a fallen angel. Eddie recalled rutting deep into Steve’s tight, pulsating body, till sweat stung his eyes. Yup, pure carnal pleasure was a decent distraction from being rich beyond your wildest dreams and too miserable as fuck to enjoy it.

On the flip-side, Eddie had few gripes about life at this particular moment. Slowly, careful not to wake Steve, Eddie crawled an arm over him, wandering fingers through the tangle of hair on Steve’s chest.

Bleeeeeep.

Steve cried, “Wha—?” and sat bolt upright, whacking Eddie’s arm out of the way. He blinked around, raking soft curls from his eyes. Damn. Steve was even cuter with his hair all natural, no longer slicked back.

Steve glanced at his watch and silenced the bleeps. “Crap! I’m on shift for breakfast. Gotta go.”

Steve was rushing around the room already, butt naked. Eddie sighed longingly at Steve’s ass. When Steve yanked some dark blue uniform pants from his knapsack and pulled them on, Eddie sighed even harder.

His focus drifted to the enormous clock-face painted directly onto the hideous pink paisley walls. 

“It’s 6 o’clock? In the morning?” He flipped his lank-feeling hair from his brow. “Uuuuugh. I’d forgotten there were two 6 o’clocks in the day.”

“Some of us have gotta earn a living.” Steve shoved his arms into a not particularly well-pressed white shirt then fiddled with the buttons at his throat. “Talking of which… Can I have my two-hundred bucks, please?”

…

Twelve hours earlier

“Got a job for you, Harrington,” said Kline, head concierge at the Beverly Hills Yorkshire. “Try not to mess this one up.”

Steve looked up from where he was emptying ashtrays into the trash. His least-loved superior drew close and dropped his usually bark-like voice to an undertone:

“Freak in the penthouse wants a hooker. Tonight. 8pm sharp.”

“Oh. Right.” Steve humoured Kline, answering in an equally conspiratorial tone. “Do I call the usual agency?”

“Hell, no. Freaks a freak! Wants a guy. Goddamn dirty queer.” Steve was still tipping ashtrays—best to always look busy when this sleazebag was around. Unfortunately, this meant Kline stuffed a note into the waistband of Steve’s pants, forcing Steve to suppress a shudder. “Deirdre gave me some numbers to call around. Whatever the dirty dogs quote, triple the number—no, quadruple it—before you tell the freak. We can turn a fat profit here. Reckon you can handle that? Or will the figures be too much for that air-brain little head of yours?”

After Kline departed, Steve pulled out the crumpled note. He stared at the numbers and chewed his lip. Fuck, fuck, FUCK. Could he really afford to pass this over?

He wasn’t allowed to wait tables in the silver-service grill anymore—he’d gotten one too many table orders muddled up. He was really feeling the pinch without those tips.

And the ‘freak’ had to be richer than God.

Dude had been shacked up in the penthouse for nearly three weeks now. That place cost over a thousand bucks a night. On the couple of occasions Steve had taken up room service, the guy had lurked in the gloom and behind a curtain of rocker hair. A pale hand with long, slender fingers offered out a ten-dollar bill.

He had to be a rockstar, right? Thought nobody had figured out what band he was in, and guys like that only buried themselves away to drink too much, do drugs, trash stuff, and… fuck whores.

Steve crumpled Kline’s note in his fist and resigned himself to it.  His medication had doubled in price this year, and he was reduced to sleeping in one of the hotel linen closets.

An extra hundred dollars or so would help a lot.

…

Eddie wished he hadn’t answered the phone. It was goddamn Dustin, berating him as ever:

“Eddie! Do I have to stick a firework up your butt or something? Suzie and I have got all the gameplay coding sorted for ‘Vecna’s Doom Quest II’ ready to rock and roll. All we want is for you to sprinkle your magic over the creative content, and we’ll be home and dry for another monster hit.”

“There’s the rub, Henderson. I’m not feeling wildly creative right now.”

“Then get out of that doily-saturated dumpster! Travel! Meet people! Honestly, what was the point of becoming a millionaire at twenty-four if you can’t enjoy yourself. If you’re still cut up about your music, then hire yourself another studio and—”

“You need to get off my back. After your hour-long lecture about how I needed to get laid, I went and did something stupid and now—”

“You did get a date?”

“No, I… Look, this is really not a good time, Henderson.” 

Eddie hung up. 

He instantly felt bad. Jesus, he spent his whole life feeling bad about something these days. 

He knew Dustin meant well. In his own arrogant-little-shit kinda way. Eddie probably should take his advice, go to a club, meet guys he’d like to date, and he would. If the thought of simply leaving the hotel didn’t shred his nerves ragged.

And there was no way he could tell Dustin he’d gone and ordered a rent boy on room service. After a couple of way-too-early-in-the-day shots of vodka, it’d seemed like a good idea. 

Not anymore.

Eddie picked up one of his many guitars, which lay propped alongside the ornate couch. He struck a miserably dissonant chord. The shady guy who’d sold it claimed it’d once belonged to Hendrix. Eddie hadn’t really fallen for that shit then paid a dumb price for it anyhow. On the off-chance it’d inspire some of that metal magic he’d let slip.

“Magic, Munson? You always sucked balls and you know it.”

Jesus, he was talking to himself now, and he knew he was wallowing. These past three weeks, it was all he’d done. Worse, he knew he was an ungrateful dick, not appreciating the journey he’d made from his uncle’s trailer to this.

Which made him hate himself even more.

He tossed the guitar down on the couch—would’ve smashed it, if not for just the teeniest chance Jimi did once deign to touch it. Instead, he punched one of the penthouse’s many fake-marble pillars, then whimpered, blowing on his damaged knuckles.

He was about to call down for ice—and to cancel his ‘date’—when the knock sounded at the door. He considered ignoring it. Then he noticed the time.

8pm.

Rent-boy o’clock.

He’d not realised the day had slid away so fast. It sure as heck dragged till now. He was still considering ignoring the knock, when it came again.

“Mister Munson?”

Eddie dithered a moment longer then went to the grand double doors and opened one a crack. 

His jaw dropped.

The guy waiting on his doormat was good-looking, for sure. Striking was the word that sprung next into Eddie’s mind. His slicked back hair was a touch too yuppy-frat-boy for Eddie’s taste. Eddie totally dug his eyeliner, though, which set off big chocolate eyes to perfection. A vest top revealed leanly muscled arms and was also cropped at his midriff to display a swatch of trim, lick-able flesh, intersected by a trail of wispy hair. His ripped jeans were so tight they might’ve been spray-painted on, and…

…he was also slightly familiar. Eddie was so busy gawking, he genuinely jumped when the guy spoke again.

“Hey. I’m Steve. You, uh, asked for—”

“Look, I was gonna call down and cancel. This was a friend’s idea.”  Yeah, blame Henderson, you snivelling coward. “I changed my mind, okay?”

“Oh.” Steve’s shoulders slumped, although something shifted in his eyes that might’ve been relief. “I’ll be off then… Oh hey, are you okay? What happened to your hand?”

Eddie had made the mistake of pinching the bridge of his nose with his puffy red fingers. “Oh, I’m fine. I whacked myself.”

“You want me to get you some ice?”

“Uuuuuh, hookers can do that?”

Steve winced slightly. “I actually work in the hotel. I mean, as a day job. Breakfast buffet, elevator, room service, odd jobs, that kinda thing.”

“Right.” That raised more questions that it answered. Eddie opted not to pry. “Thought you looked familiar. You look different out of—”

“Out of the shitty bellboy outfit?” Steve rolled those way too pretty eyes, and dumped a bulging knapsack by the doors. “I’ll grab that ice.”

…

Steve dashed to the nearest ice-dispenser, grabbed a first-aid kit too. He rushed back to the penthouse. His heart raced, and he felt kinda flushed, despite the arctic setting on the air con.

Up close, the ‘freak’ was pretty good-looking, if slightly Goth-y and pale. And Steve had to get out of the nasty-ass habit of thinking of him as ‘the freak.’ Now he’d gotten face-to-face with the guy, it seemed mean and douchy.

One of the doors was ajar when he returned. Eddie sat on one of several luxuriant couches, his head in his hands. The place smelled faintly of weed, but nothing worse. Steve coughed, cleared his throat: “Got the ice, Mister Munson, Sir.”

“Jesus, none of that shit. It’s Eddie.”

“Wow. My favourite name.”

Eddie snorted. “Horseshit.”

Steve wrapped some ice chips in a napkin, sat down beside Eddie, who downed a glass of clear liquid that Steve suspected was vodka. Then, hesitantly, Eddie stretched out an elegant, long-fingered hand. Steve took it one of his and pressed the ice to Eddie’s swollen knuckles. Eddie appeared reluctant to look him in the eye, which made Steve feel dead awkward too.

He noticed a massive crack in one of the pillars. Had to be recent. Plaster dust sprinkled the otherwise immaculate Persian carpet beneath.

“You wanna talk about it?” he said, returning his attention to Eddie’s hand. “Did you have an argument with your girlf… boyfriend.”

“Ain’t got no one, brother. Went and ordered you, didn’t I?”

Steve felt like he’d been slapped. Yeah, he’d been ordered on room service, like a platter of meat. Okay, he’d kinda chosen this but… Choices, real choices, had been out of his league for what felt like forever.

He gritted his teeth. “You want me to bandage this, or should I just leave?”

That got Eddie looking up sharply. “Leave?”

“You said you were gonna cancel? Not in the groove for booty calls, huh?”

Steve watched Eddie’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed hard. He tugged his hand away from Steve, picked up the glass with tips of those delicious fingers and offered it to Steve. “Changed my mind. Drink?”

“I feel I should pour, right?” said Steve, nerves fizzing.

Eddie was finally looking at him again, eyes narrowed to simmering slits: “If you like.”

...

anyone here for this? <3 likes reblogs and comments much appreciated and will feed the bunnies🐰💕🐰💕🐰💕🐰💕

Chapter 2 on tumblr

Chapter 2 on AO3

I've added a hashtag #thefreakinthepenthouse for ease of finding the earlier parts. I can also tag if anybody is interested... please let me know.

zero pressure and one-off tag @sidekick-hero who kindly asked about this one in the WIP tag game and just got a surprised blurble as I'd not typed anything up then...

[andiv3r]

I'm curious, what is it about stancest that you like?

Ohhg okay, so there's A Lot. Click at your own risk, thoughts on the ship and many reasons I "like" it (find it useful as a narrative tool & fun to play with) under the cut.

I think the main appeal is that there is a formerly strained bond being repaired, and watching them grow close again in their old age is beautiful no matter how you view their relationship¹. I like to explore concepts with stancest that I can't explore with other ships², such as Bill's control and manipulation affecting what could have otherwise been a nice reunion, shared unrevealed feelings being why they both pushed one another away more than necessary in the time right before the portal incident ("for his own good," they both think), or just-through-the-portal Ford meeting a version of mullet Stan while in another dimension (also works for Portaled Stanley AUs meeting another version of Stanford), realising just how bad Stan had it, and (believing there is very little chance of him ever finding his way back home), deciding to take care of this version of his brother where he didn't for the one he knew.

If you're thinking, "Hey... some of those work just fine without making it stancest. You could keep their relationship platonic/familial and still use those concepts," then you're right! I could! Sometimes I even do! But...

I have no reason to restrict the sort of thing I write when the potential for a different dynamic between these characters, as well as being able to explore facets of my own identity through them, appeals to me³. I enjoy looking at the concept of an aromantic alloalterous demisexual and autosexual Ford and playing through how those identities would impact how he sees Stan⁴.

I am also fond of speculating about their time at sea, and what the healing of their relationship would entail. Stan's memory loss (which I think still affects him somewhat, in the form of gaps where certain memories haven't fully reformed or are hazy) would undoubtedly affect things, as would Ford's guilt for "causing" it. There's potential for Stan recovering traumatising memories and Ford both helping him work through that and learning about some of them for the first time - having to learn in the worst possible way that Stan has been through infinitely more than he thought. There is an extremely compelling dynamic here regardless of the nature of their relationship, but I'm a sucker for old queers and lifelong mutual pining that's finally come to a resolution, so putting that era of their life through a stancest filter was inevitable and brings me the most joy.

So, yeah. I dunno, there's just a lot you can do with it and a lot that's already there to build from.

¹Purely familial? Hell yeah, there's lots to work with there and that used to be my favourite way to see them! Romantic? Adds an extra layer to all the ways you could interpret their actions (and therefore all the ways you could add angst), love it lots. Secret third thing? I Am Gnawing At The Bars Of My Enclosure, You Have No Idea How Much I Love Viewing Them As Secret Third Thing. Secret Third Thing can mean so much, there is so much to work with there. It can mean "I love you more than anyone else but it's not romantic but I still feel guilty over how deeply I love you because I'm not supposed to feel like this, you're my brother." It can mean "Whenever I envisioned 'settling down' and 'starting a family' I couldn't make myself see a romantic partner... I could only ever see us out at sea." It can mean "You are my other half. I don't know what we are but I know that you complete me." It can mean so, so much.

²Fiddauthor or portalcule would suffice in some cases, but not all of them... and to be honest, I don't want to settle for something that would just suffice. If it would hit harder emotionally as stancest than it would as fiddauthor, then I'm making it a stancest and not fiddauthor.

³I like to explore ideas of gender/sexuality/romantic orientations as a way to work through how I view my own aromanticism. Stanford is a heavily aromantic-coded character, and Stanley can be viewed through an aromantic lens (which is a headcanon for him that I hold dear).

⁴How would his being autosexual affect the physical aspect of his attraction? How would being demisexual impact him, what with Stan being the person he's closest to and knows best out of anyone in the world? How would his lack of romantic attraction impact that relationship? Would it make him feel more or less guilty for his feelings? Would he even notice they weren't romantic, or would he assume romantic, sexual and alterous attraction were all the same? Would his guilt from his feelings (because god knows he'd have that guilt) stem from some place of societally ingrained morals, or would he, as he so often in canon does, shun society's ideas for how he should act... and in that case only feel guilty for having what he assumes is unwanted and unreciprocated attraction toward someone who would be disgusted at him for it? Or would he maybe ignore the guilt, his attention centred on the fact that this attraction, or these feelings, or this attachment, makes him an anomaly, a freak, just like he was always told he was for his physical differences?

[littleclosetofbyler]

I personally don’t really want Byler to hook up in season 5 purely because it doesn’t feel like something either Mike or Will would jump to doing immediately, especially not Will (though we may see a more confident side of him in season 5 that might want to especially with an “end of the world” vibe weighing on them), I could see Will wanting a more “ease into it” or “sweet romance first” type of relationship, and having both Mike and Will go from deep in the closet to immediately dtf doesn’t feel right.

But I understand why people want it especially since in season 5 they’ll be older than Nancy was in season 1 and the same age as Jonathan and Nancy in season 2, and in season 1 Nancy hooked up with Steve and in season 2 Nancy and Jonathan hooked up, so by having Byler hook up, it does equivocate them with the other older teen straight ships we’ve so far seen be romantically entangled. A lot of media, especially teen media (which ST isn’t, but the majority of the characters are young) feel the need to “purify” queer ships, so Byler not hooking up may come across as trying to do just that.

But again I personally don’t want them to hook up because I don’t feel like it makes sense right away immediately after a confession or kiss for Will and Mike specifically. If there was to be a season 6 then that’s when I’d want them to have their own implied hook up scene because I think both characters wouldn’t be able to go from repressed in the closet to immediately hooking up at the drop of a hat, they already have enough to process and come to terms with regarding their sexuality, sex itself just seems like it would be something to build up to together.

(I’m aroace though so maybe that’s affecting my personal opinion?)

Anyways I do think the Duffers will give us a kiss, I think they’ve set it up where it’ll be this incredible moment of joy and catharsis, and I don’t think the Duffers are cowards, I think they���ll push for this especially since it’s the final season. Fuck Netflix, this is the culmination of a slow burn friends to lovers romance and I think they’ll want to do it justice.

I got indeed a lot of hate for that post, and your message. Thanks for being civil.

I think the opposite, it's not about being pure, it's about it needing to be just a friends to lovers without going overboard with hypersexualization or fan service.

The thing with S1 and the teens is that we as GA at the time, never saw them as teens, because we didn't know them at the time, they were new and getting into show for it.

In S5 when the kids will be that age (20-24 actors, 16 characters) it's "okay" but it's also weird as hell because they entered the story at 11... i don't know about you but I would rather no see this kind of scene with anyone I would have meet at that age.

When I say a lot of you are young for this, I mean it in the sense that you haven't seen the fandom act; the same happened with Harry Potter in 2001 when we didn't even know how to stories would end, everyone was insane for it.

Then the infamous scene in that last part happened and... everyone was weirded out.

Media is a weird format, and a lot of fans are weird, doesn't matter which side we are from.

And people just leave a comment, I don't go well with asks, I don't even know how they work, i am here for the theories.

[dwobbitfromtheshire]

Personal Lies

A/N: Like I said, getting into the hellcheer headspace. Had to make a quick one-shot. Based on my past internal conflict from when I was figuring things out. I called myself many things: straight, lesbian, nothing at all. . .I still don't have it all figured out, and things could always change, but I'm a bisexual. Here's to the other bisexuals who have sometimes not felt quite queer enough because you're dating the opposite sex. . .whether it's because of how other people made you feel or how you made yourself feel.

Eddie sighed as he watched her dance with El. It wasn't possible. And yet. . .He watched Chrissy dance with pure joy and enthusiasm, not caring how she looked for once. She was going absolutely mad to the beat of the music, letting out her frustrations with El, showing her how to do it herself. They were all gathered at Steve's house for a movie, but the tape they were supposed to watch somehow got ruined. It ended up turning into a dance party. Chrissy was absolutely beautiful.

"There's no way," he muttered underneath his breath.

He watched the way Chrissy's strawberry blonde hair flew around her, her smile lighting up the room as her skirt slapped against her legs. Her denim skirt. . .the way it moved with her. . .it went well with her pink top. Pink looked good on her, maybe because it was her favorite color, and she always seemed happier when she was wearing it. Eddie shouldn't like this. And yet. . .

"You ever going to tell her?" Steve asked, startling him out of his thoughts.

"Tell who what?" Eddie asked.

"Chrissy, man. It's so obvious that you like her," Steve said.

"What? No, I don't," Eddie scoffed. "Maybe you like her."

"No, I don't, man," Steve laughed. "I mean, maybe in another life. You've got your eyes locked on her. You never stop talking about her, and you're always in each other's orbit."

"I could say the same thing about you and Robin," Eddie said.

"You could, but you know that's different," Steve said.

"Why are you so interested in my love life?" Eddie asked, with a scowl.

"You meddled in mine. It's only fair that I return the favor," he replied.

"Look, man, I can't like Chrissy. It's just not possible," he said.

"Why? Because she's a cheerleader?" Steve asked.

"That has nothing to do with it. I'm not so judgemental about it anymore," Eddie said.

"So, why can't you like her?" Steve asked.

"Because I'm gay, Steve," Eddie replied.

Steve stared at him in surprise, his eyes blinking rapidly at him. He wasn't moving away from him, though.

"Well," Steve said thoughtfully. "I totally appreciate you telling me that, but you know it's possible to like - "

"You know what?! I think I'm going to go dance!" Eddie grinned and bounced away.

He wasn't about to let Steve Harrington tell him who he was, despite the fact that they were practically best friends now. Eddie knew who he was. . .right? Chrissy turned on him as soon as he stepped out on the dance floor. Shit, this might have been a bad idea. She beamed at the sight of him, her cheeks flushed and her hair a mess. It was doing something to his heart. Maybe it was time to see a doctor. It didn't appear as though he had much choice as Chrissy pulled him into dancing with her. He didn't put up a fight at all.

"Fuck."

A couple of weeks later, Eddie bent over the hood of the van, trying to figure out what was wrong with her. He knew what was wrong with her. She was a piece of junk, and that hadn't changed since his dad had given him the van. They had enough money now, he could get a new van. Eddie wasn't sure why he was trying to save her, but he could guess that it was the stupid part of himself that was still trying to hang on to his asshole of a father.

"Eddie?" A familiar sweet voice called out.

Eddie cursed as he banged his head on the hood of the van. He turned around around to find Chrissy standing there, looking beautiful as always. Jesus, can she stop looking like an angel for five fucking seconds? It's not fair, and it certainly wasn't fair that the sun happened to cast that beam of light over them right at that moment. Goddamnit, the sun was an asshole. That same funny feeling was back in his chest again, the same feeling he first felt when they had their moment at the picnic table. He wanted it to go away.

"Hey, Chrissy," Eddie groaned as he clutched the back of his head.

"Are you okay?" She asked in concern as she moved closer.

Eddie stepped back, away from her and the van. In his peripheral, he could see Max looking at him from her porch steps. When they were both offered new places to live, it was a no-brainer for both of them to continue living across from each other. It had become like a habit. The truth was that they imprinted on each other like baby ducks after the spring break break from hell. It was an unspoken agreement that they thought of each other like brother and sister. Much like Max thought of Steve, Nancy, Robin, and even Jonathan as well as Argyle. Although, the last one. . .she still wasn't sure what to think of him. It was still an adjustment for both Eddie and Max to go back to living in a house again. Eddie gave Max a thumbs up, and she turned back to her comic book, pushing her glasses back up her face.

"Yeah, I'm bitching," Eddie grinned. "What brings Lady Cunningham here today?"

"Well, I was hoping to see you," Chrissy said and crossed her arms. "I feel like you've been ignoring me."

"Just been busy, is all," Eddie said, turning away from her.

"Did I do something wrong?" Chrissy asked.

Eddie whirled around, his eyes wide.

"Of course not!" Eddie yelled.

"Well, you've been trying hard not to look at me, and every time I try to get closer to you," Chrissy said and walked over to him, causing him to back away. "You pull away. If I'm being too much, just tell me. I can handle it."

Eddie cursed himself as Chrissy stuck her bottom lip out in a pout, her eyes growing wider than usual. He moved closer to her and gently grabbed her arms.

"Chrissy Cunningham, you can never be too much," Eddie said.

"Then what's the problem?" She asked softly.

"I like you," he whispered, feeling like he was betraying himself. "A lot more than I should."

Chrissy beamed, and he could practically feel his skin burn as though she really was the sun. He was going to need sunscreen around her.

"I like you, too," she whispered.

Chrissy wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly. Eddie sighed and melted into her arms. He buried his face into her shoulder, breathing in her scent and her perfume. God, she was intoxicating. Chrissy didn't let go of him, but she did pull her head back. Her face was inches away from his, and he could feel her breath on his lips. She moved to kiss him, and he moved without thinking, inching closer to her lips. That's when he remembered. Eddie jerked back and stumbled out of her arms.

"Eddie?"

"I'm sorry! Nope!" Eddie yelped.

"I thought you said you liked me," Chrissy said and he hated how hurt she looked.

"I did say that! I do! I shouldn't!" He panicked.

"Why shouldn't you? Are you really still bothered by me being a jock?" She asked. "I can't change who I am nor do I want to. I did that enough with my mother, and I am not going to do that with you, Eddie Munson!"

"That's not - I don't have a problem with it anymore!" Eddie yelled. "I swear."

"I don't believe you," Chrissy sniffled, tears welling up in her eyes. "Don't you want to kiss me?"

"I don't!" Eddie yelled in frustration.

"But you like me?" She asked.

"Yes!"

"So then kiss me!" Chrissy yelled.

"I can't!"

"Call me when you figure things out!" She screamed in frustration and stormed off towards her car.

Eddie watched her drive away, running his hands through his hair and yanking on it as he did so. His eyes caught sight of Max. At some point, she had gone inside to grab a bag of chips.

"You're a dingus!" Max yelled.

"Stop hanging out with Robin!" Eddie shrieked and stormed inside.

Later that evening, Steve and Robin walked into his living room to find him sitting on the couch crying and eating ice cream while watching a movie.

"You know he doesn't have to be with her just because she's a woman!" Eddie yelled at the screen. "Emilio Estevez is right there!"

"Well, you don't look good, buddy," Robin frowned.

"Aren't you lactose intolerant?" Steve asked.

"Why are you here?" Eddie asked with a heavy sigh.

Eddie was pretty sure he already knew what he looked like. Dressed in ratty pajamas, his hair a mess, and chocolate ice cream staining his mouth. . .He was definitely a mess.

"Well, Max called us and said you were in distress," Steve said.

"Then Chrissy called and said you being a dick," Robin said.

"Chrissy called me a dick?" Eddie asked quietly, looking at her with his wide brown doe eyes.

"No, I added that part. The word she used was confusing," Robin said. "She is hurt, though."

"I didn't mean to hurt her, I swear!" Eddie exclaimed and burst into tears.

"It's that time again, isn't it?" Steve asked sympathetically.

Eddie collapsed on the couch and curled up into a ball.

"Stupid bat bites," Eddie muttered.

"One of these days, you two are going to have it at the same time, and I'll be conveniently out of town," Robin said.

Steve and Robin sat down next to the couch.

"I didn't tell her what you told me, by the way," Steve said.

"Why not?" Eddie asked.

"Because it wasn't for me to say," Steve replied.

"I can't like Chrissy," Eddie said.

"Why?" Robin asked.

"Because I'm gay," Eddie said.

"Oh," Robin said in surprised. "Well, uh, thank you for telling me. Steve, I think this might be your department."

"Aren't you the lesbian in this relationship?" Eddie asked, confused.

"Dingus," Robin said and plopped down on her butt.

"I just - ," Eddie sighed. "I have been with women, but I never really liked them the way that I wanted to. Well, I thought I wanted to. I'm not sure the first one counts because she slept with me on a dare. But Paige, I only ever saw her as my way out of here. I think she actually liked me, but she was using me too, which is why I told myself that it was okay to treat her like she was a plane ticket. It wasn't okay to treat her like that even if I was hurting, and Chrissy doesn't deserve that. She deserves someone who's interested in her, not someone who's trying to force themselves to."

"Is that what you think?" Steve asked.

"It's what I know, man," Eddie sniffled. "I always preach about forced conformity, but I can't even accept that I'm gay. I feel like I have to like women because that's what guys are supposed to do, right? I spent so much time pretending that I like women, and I started to believe the lie."

"You ever masturbated to the image of a naked woman?" Steve asked.

"Steve!" Robin exclaimed.

"I mean, yeah, but that's only because her ass was hanging out. As you very well know, I am an ass man," Eddie sniffled.

"Yeah, I know," Steve muttered. "Look, Eddie, if you didn't have to think about her as a man, then you were probably attracted to her."

"I know who am I," he muttered.

"I'm not trying to tell you who you are. I'm trying to give you advice, and that it's okay," Steve said and stroked Eddie's hair. "I will tell you who I am. I'm bisexual."

"What?" Eddie asked, confused.

"I like men, I like women," Steve said. "I never knew that until Nancy Wheeler came along. I didn't think women were for me, either."

"All those girls. . .," Eddie said in shock.

"Rumors that made it easy to pretend like they were true," Steve said. "I didn't sleep with other women until things ended with Nancy."

"Are you trying to tell me that I'm not gay?" Eddie asked and then muttered. "I didn't even know you could do that."

"I'm not trying to tell you anything except that what you decide. . .it's okay. . .it's okay if you like more than one gender. It's okay to like women and like men," Steve said. "It's okay to like whatever you like. . .I mean, within reason. Liking women as well as men doesn't make you any less queer."

Eddie let out a sob and nudged his head further into his hand.

"I think I knew that," Eddie whispered. "I don't know why I was so hard on myself."

"Because forced conformity can be scary, the idea that anyone can force you to be anyone other than yourself and it can, like, scare you so much that you end up doing it to yourself," Steve said. "A lot times, our own worst enemy is ourselves."

"I still don't know," Eddie mumbled.

"Well, just because we're technically legally adults, it doesn't mean we have to have it all figured it out right now," Stege said. "I still don't know what I want to do career wise."

"Thanks, Steve," Eddie sniffled.

"But you should be honest with Chrissy and tell her you don't know how you feel. You don't have to tell her everything but you should tell her that, at least. You both deserve it," Robin said.

"Yeah, I will," Eddie sniffled. "Thanks, you guys."

"Do you need me to pick up something bloody?" Steve asked as he continued to stroke his hair.

"I've got a steak defrosting," Eddie replied.

"Ew. Gross," Robin said, scrunching up her nose.

"You'd think she'd sympathize," Eddie scowled.

"Yeah, well, she made the mistake of watching me down a raw steak when it was my time," Steve said.

"It was disgusting," Robin said, and Eddie snorted with laughter.

"Freaks," Robin said affectionately.

Eddie decided to wait until his time of the month was over with to talk with Chrissy. A decision both Robin and Steve thought was wise. Over the last few days, his thoughts wirled around in his head like a category five hurricane. That's the worst one, right? His wrestling thoughts resulted in him acting even more erratic than usual. Not even Wayne could untangle his thoughts. It didn't come to a head until the night before he decided to talk to Chrissy. He had tossed and turned that night, his thoughts just as restless. Finally, Eddie managed to fall asleep, hoping he didn't loose Chrissy forever.

"CHRISSY! CHRISSY, WAKE UP! I DON'T LIKE THIS!"

Eddie was in the woods, the very woods where Chrissy had come to buy drugs from him. Chrissy was sitting at the table like usual. Across from her, however, was not Eddie but Jason Carver. Chrissy looked over her shoulder at him.

"I got tired of waiting for you, Eddie," Chrissy said.

"You think you actually love her?" Jason asked, spitting at him. "You're just using her. What makes you any different than anyone else in her life?"

The sky above them turned a dark red, and lightening flashed angrily. Eddie looked back to find that both of them were gone.

"Freak!" He heard Jason's voice yell.

"Chrissy, this is for you."

They were in the Upside Down version of the gym, and Jason had just thrown a ball into the broken hoop. Except that it wasn't a ball. It was Eddie's decapitated head. The worst part was that Chrissy was on the sidelines, cheering Jason on. Eddie tried to scream, but no sound came out. Suddenly, Eddie was sitting on the catwalk in the theater room, above the stage, and watching as Chrissy dangled from it.

"EDDIE!"

Eddie tried to grab her, but it was like her hand wasn't really there. Suddenly, Chrissy was falling, and then she disappeared into the darkness. Suddenly, it was Eddie pinning Jason up against the lockers while Chrissy tried to pull him off of him. No, that's not how that happened. It was Jason and his friends who had attacked him. . .it was Chrissy who begged for them to stop. Fake Eddie's eyes were red and dripping with blood.

"FREAK!" Chrissy screamed.

Suddenly, they were back in Eddie's trailer. Chrissy was being pinned to the ceiling again, and he was watching as her body was crushed, her eyes bursting. . .just like the illusion that Vecna had shown him. Eddie was screaming. Suddenly, he was in complete darkness. There was nothing. No Chrissy, no trailer. . .nothing. . . .Eddie was utterly alone.

"CHRISSY!"

Eddie sat up in bed with a gasp. His legs were being strangled, and he yelped as he tried to escape the creature's gasp. He pulled himself free, falling face first off the bed. Oh, it wasn't a monster. The things that had him were his sheets. He laid there for a moment as the memory of the illusion that Henry had planted in his mind over spring break imprinted itself behind his eyelids, and then he remembered the darkness from the nightmare. . .Chrissy was dead. No, she wasn't. She was alive, and she was here. All of the memories of their time together flooded his mind. . .and suddenly, it was all falling into place. Oh, God. He was in love with Chrissy. Suddenly, Wayne burst into the room.

"I heard you fall, you okay, son?" Wayne asked, breathing heavily.

"Yeah, more than okay," Eddie laughed.

The next day, Eddie wore the outfit that he knew Chrissy loved on him and picked up her favorite flowers. Potted, of course. Eddie drove slow for once, his heart pounding with each mile. Finally, though, he pulled up to Chrissy's new house. She now lived with her cousin, Vickie, who also happened to be Robin's girlfriend. Eddie smoothed his hair down and straightened his vest. He grabbed the flowers and jumped out of the van. He walked up to the door and knocked. Vickie answered. She smiled at him. Boy, she does not have a mean bone in her body. Shouldn't she be mad at him?

"Hi, Eddie," Vickie said brightly. "Chrissy! Eddie's here!"

It took a while for Chrissy to come to the door, something Eddie was sure she had done on purpose. He didn't blame her. Vickie took the flowers for Chrissy and disappeared when she finally came to the door.

"Hi," Chrissy said.

"Hi."

"Are you just going to stand there and stare at me?" Chrissy asked.

"I'm an idiot," Eddie blurted out. "Although, Robin pointed out that I was more clueless than an idiot. I don't know what the difference is."

"Well, one sounds nicer," Chrissy said.

"Yeah, I suppose. Can we go for a walk?" Eddie asked. "I don't want to be overheard."

Chrissy nodded and closed the front door behind her. They walked off down the sidewalk. It was silent for a while as Eddie tried to gather his thoughts. Chrissy was about to open her mouth to say something when Eddie beat her to it. It started to come out all at once. Everything he had been feeling, all the confusing thoughts he's had about others and himself. He was saying it all at such Robin and Vickie like speed that he felt like he had surpassed them. They would be proud.

" - and it turns out that I'm a fucking bicycle and I know that's no excuse but I'm so fucking sorry," Eddie gasped for breath.

Chrissy stared at him, her mouth open as she blinked rapidly. Her hand was on her chest, looking at him like he had vomited all over her, which he practically did.

"I'm sorry, you're a bicycle?!" She asked.

"What? No? Where are you getting bicycle?" Eddie asked.

"You said that you're a fucking bicycle!" Chrissy exclaimed, trying not to laugh.

"No, I didn't!"

"You did!"

"Did not!"

"Eddie!"

"I'm a bisexual," he sighed. "That's what I meant."

"Okay, it all makes sense now," Chrissy said, laughing, and she cupped his face. "Thank you so much for telling me, Eddie."

"Thank you for listening," Eddie said.

"I totally forgive you," Chrissy said, smiling in sympathy. You must have been giving yourself a lot of hell."

"Just a little bit," Eddie said and flashed his dimples. "I feel pretty great about myself."

"Well, it always feels great when you finally accept all of you," Chrissy said. "Trust me, I know a thing or two about lying to myself."

"You do?" He asked.

"You said it yourself, Eddie," she replied. "I'm a freak. . .just like you."

"Yeah?" Eddie asked with raised eyebrows.

"Yeah," Chrissy beamed again, and once more, it was like his face was on fire. She was the goddamn sun.

Eddie moved closer to her, ready to kiss her this time. However, he was surprised when Chrissy jumped back.

"What?"

"Sorry! Nope!"

Eddie blinked rapidly and then he realized what she was doing.

"Cunningham!"

"Sorry," she laughed. "I couldn't resist."

"I deserved that," Eddie said.

Chrissy launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her lips against his. Eddie grinned as he kissed her back. Yeah, this felt right. Chrissy deepened the kiss, gripping the back of his neck. Suddenly, she was climbing him like he was a tree. She definitely wanted to kiss him for a while now. She wrapped her legs around him and then her arms. She was harsh but soft, and she tasted like strawberries. Eddie eagerly kissed her, more enthusiastic than any of the two girls he had kissed, but just as much as the one boy in his freshman year. Eddie gripped her thighs, holding onto her tightly as she held on just the same. They broke the kiss with a gasp, Chrissy leaning her forehead against his.

"That nightmare sounded awful," Chrissy muttered.

"It was," Eddie said, and his voice got choked up. "I never want to see that again - I'm just - I'm absolutely in love with you."

"I'm in love with you, too, Eddie," Chrissy replied.

"I'm sorry about all of it, I swear," he whispered.

"Oh, Eddie, you really couldn't help it, you were in the closet - hm, I'm sorry, it's just usually it's the other way around with that," Chrissy said and Eddie laughed.

"Well, I'm an odd - well, you know the word," Eddie said, blanching. "Okay, I'm officially your chariot. Where would you like to go, milady? Preferably somewhere within walking distant."

"Ooh, there's a nice little pond not too far from here," Chrissy said and jumped out of his arms. "Let me get a blanket!"

Chrissy scurried off back to the house. She came back just as quick with a blanket stuffed in her arms. She took Eddie's hand and led him towards the pond, crossing a line of trees to get there. It was almost magical this place that Chrissy had brought him to. Surrounded by trees, the pond was small but glittered from the light coming through the gap in the said trees. Eddie could almost imagine gems at the bottom of the pond. Chrissy, as usual, looked beautiful underneath the sunlight. God, it really was like she was the sun, and he was the moon. It shouldn't make sense that they were together. Yet, here they were. Chrissy Cunningham loved him, and now he could freely admit that he loved her, too. He was no longer lying to himself. Eddie happily helped her unravel the blanket, and he stretched out next to her.

"You know, now that I'm no longer lying to myself, now that I'm here with you, I feel like there's nothing that can bring me down. I have nothing to fear or feel anxious - " Eddie froze and looked Chrissy in horror. "Chrissy. . .what usually goes in ponds?"

"Well, I mean, there's - oh, Eddie! I'm sorry, I completely forgot. If we hurry, we can leave before they come back!" Chrissy exclaimed.

QUACK!

"It's too late," Eddie swallowed. "It's right behind me, isn't it?"

Chrissy nodded, and Eddie looked over his shoulder.

"It's a duck," Chrissy whispered.

"It's brought friends," he whimpered.

Well, okay, so he's got one thing he needs to work on. Chrissy grabbed his hand, squeezing it supportively.

"If you want to run, I'll run with you," Chrissy whispered.

Eddie pulled her up. Together, they ran, leaving the ducks and the blankets behind.

[graciegoeskrazy]

Hey i was wondering if you could do a matty fic where his daughter comes out as trans to him and the boys? Or if you are not comfortable writing for trans people like just coming out as gay?

figure my heart out

Matty Healy + Queer!Teen!Daughter!reader

Warnings: coming out, a lil yelling

A/N: Hi!!! Okay so I was writing something similar but then I put it down but then I saw this request and RAN TO MY COMPUTER AS FAST AS POSSIBLE ASNCONTINUED WRITING BCUZ I GOT EXCITED. A sorry and thank you to the anon who requested this! I felt like I wouldn’t do it justice if I did it with transreader and as a bisexual with a similar coming out experience this was easy peasy lol. None the less i love and appreciate you and I hope u enjoy! I really really really really really like this one and I’m proud of how it turned out. Enjoy!

The epitome of a perfect night. Driving in your girlfriends new convertible with the top down while blasting Lana Del Ray and giggling and smiling like nothing else in the world matters became a wonderful feeling of pure bliss. You wish you could stay in that moment forever. Endless talking about the things the people who piss you off in school talk about, or airing out your problems to her because sometimes it feels as if she is the only one who listens. There was no one word for that feeling. All you knew is that you craved it. You needed it like a an IV through your arm, supplying nothing but joy and love into your life. You didnt just need her but she needed you too.

Yes it was a secret, but it was a beautiful one, Sure, sometimes you wanted nothing more than to parade through town with your hands intertwined and boat to everyone around you that she was your girlfriend, but this secret needed to stay hidden. Not just for her, but for you too. You were n stranger to the things your father has said online. He was Matty Healy, if the guy wasnt known for his music, he was for sure known as the man who makes homophobic jokes on stage everynight to a sold out crowd. The man has been cancelled and apoloized more times than you could count. Even though everytime he says he’s not against anything of the sort - ad you whole heartidly believed that - would it be different because you were his daughter? Some days that thought was just a quiet whisper in your head, and some days that voice grew louder until it grew loud enough to keep you up at night. But you always came to the same conclusion. He would love you no matter what…right?

Any and all thoughts surrounding it came nowhere near crossing your mind while you were at your girlfriends. After singing your hearts out and getting lost but not caring at all on the drive, you both decided to head back to her place since her tank was running low. It was there you fell asleep in her arms. Not thinking. Not caring. Not paying attention to anyone else in the world but her. And most definitely not thinking about you 11 pm curfew.

To June’s parents, you were just a friend sleeping over. A best buddy who helped their daughter get through her high school years. Nothing more than a nice, kind, good girl with good morals. And that was true. They just didn't know about the part where you make out with their daughter every time you’re under their roof. Same with you dad. They were downstairs, absolutely clueless of what was happening above them when a loud flush they made woke you up. You jolted awake and as a result of sleeping so close to your girlfriend, woke her up too. The blaring light on your phone read 1:07.

“Fuck.”

You scrambled out of bed and started packing up your bag without saying a word to June.

“What’s happening?” She said, still half asleep.

You turned to her, suddenly becoming more gentle. “Go back to bed. I missed my curfew, my dad doesn’t know I’m here. If I don’t leave he’s gonna get suspicious as to why slept over during a study session.”

She smiled at you, pulling you in for a kiss. “You’re just a very determined student.”

You fell into the kiss, and let go with a smile. “Bye.” You said. She winked and watched you walk out the door. “Text me when you get home please.”

You turned back and winked, shutting the door.

The drive to your house was uneventful. Yeah sure, you missed your curfew, but it wasn't like your dad was the type of helicopter parent to make sure you were home exactly by 11. You hadn't even received a call or message asking you where you were. If anything he was probably fast asleep along with the other members of the band. Or at least that’s what you told yourself.

When you walked into the flat you shared with your dad and your uncles, it was dead silent. You could hear the silent snores coming from Mayhem on the dog bed in the living room and the crickets outside. You were in the clear. You walked very carefully heading up to your room. Before you could even make it to the 2nd step. You heard a voice. Stern and loud.

“Y/n Healy.”

It was your father. Of fucking-course. As you slowly turned around you were met with him standing in the dining-kitchen area. A light turned on and revealed his full frame along with Ross, George, Adam, Carly, and Jamie. All sitting down at the table except for your dad, standing above them all. He slowly walked towards you as you stood still staring at him. You closed your eyes and let out a shaky breath, followed by a “Shit.”

“Where were you?” Your dad asked sternly. To which you replied, “Nowhere.” It was clear he was PISSED. He only spoke twice and it was evident you were in for something. He never spoke this way. Never to you at least. Until now. He raised his eyebrows, giving you a second chance. You sighed again, looking down and toying with your fingers. “I was with June.” You said shyly.

“Tell me the truth.” He said. His tone softened just a hair.

“That is the truth-“

“Tell me the whole truth.”

You dad knew you like the back of his hand. You were him. A literal miniature version of Matty Healy. Therefore he knew when you were lying. Not that you did it often, you were a very trustworthy kid. Never lied, never got grounded. (Ok so maybe not a literal miniature Matty)

You shrugged, “I was just with June.”

He raised his voice again, “Stop lying to me, y/n.”

“I’m not lying!” You raised your voice this time.

“Your hand twitches every time you lie.”

You were taken aback. Shit, I thought I grew out of that. You just scoffed. “No, it doesn’t.”

Adam spoke up and pointed to your hand and it’s movements. “Boom. Twitch.” You gave him a look.

Matty ignored him and stayed locked in on you. “In all of your years of existence on this earth, you’ve never lied to me.” He said, a little more gentler this time.

“And, I’m still not. I’m telling the truth-”

“But you’re not telling me the full truth.” He was very good at this whole parenting thing. He put his hands on your shoulders. You didn’t reply, just sighed and looked down. After a moment, he continued. “You’re grounded.” You head shot up. He walked back to the kitchen and started refilling his drink. You followed in suite.

“What! For what?”

“For lying.”

“I’m not lying! I’ve never even been grounded in my life.”

He shrugged, “There’s a first time for everything.”

You could not believe what you were hearing. “C'mon Dad! George, help me out.”

George was ethier high of drunk or both because he seemed to be enjoying this little argument way to much. “I’m on his side for this one, babe.” He said.

“What?! You guys, I'm not lying.” You said, gesturing to the group.

“You’ll be ungrounded when you tell me where you were.” Your dad said from the kitchen.

“I was with June! How many times do I have to say that?!”

“Doing what?”

Your eyes widened and you stuttered a bit. The group must have noticed because that to them was a giveaway that something more was going on than you cared to share for. “Nothing! We were just hanging out!”

“Your hand twitched again.” Adam yelled.

You turned to fully face him again. “I’m about to murder you.” You said.

You dad came back around and with a solum look, but a hand over your shoulder. “Look, I’m not gonna get mad. Whatever you’re hiding, it’s not worth getting grounded over. Tell me what’s going on - the truth - and all let you go. Okay?”

You couldn’t do it. There were so many possibilities of what could happen from this moment on. None of which you wanted to explore. You rolled your eyes and headed back to the stairs, whispering a faint, “Whatever.”

Your father followed behind. “Y/n Healy, tell me NOW-“

“I was on a date with June!” You yelled.

“We went on a date! Ok? We went on a date then went back to her place and watched TikToks for an hour before watching New Girl reruns and having awesome sex. I lost track of time, I tried to sneak in so none of you would find out, and so my secret would stay secret.”

The room was quiet. Only the sounds of Mayhem and the crickets like you heard before. Tears were falling out of your eyes and you were heaving pretty heavily.

“Is my hand shaking now?!”

Everybody remained quiet and still, not daring to move. “Jesus.” You said as a final goodbye, before walking up the stairs to your room as fast as you could.

A few minutes after they heard the door slam, Ross spoke up. “You fucked up bro.”

Matty shook his head. “It’s not my fault.” He said in defense

“Mate, you just forced your daughter to come out to you.” George yelled.

Marty liked back at the stairs. A single tear falling from his face as he does so. “Shit.”

[enbycrip]

ID: a black and white photo and caption from a newspaper showing a young white trans man with light hair wearing a tweed jacket and high collar smiling at a young white woman in a pale dress as he brushes her mid-length dark hair. She is smiling at him from the slightly complex angle as he brushes her hair. The photo is faded and not great quality but their faces are clear.

The headline over the photo is “Here’s How I Used To Do It!”

The caption below reads “An expert at women's coiffures although not a hairdresser, Zdenek Koubek proves himself as he combs the locks of Cinda Glenn, New York night club beauty. Koubek knows all about coiffures from experience, since they were of concern to him when he was the foremost girl athlete of Czechoslovakia, prior to a sex-change.”

Zdenek Koubek was born in Paskov, Czechoslovakia (at the time) in December 1913, one of eight siblings, and competed as an athlete. With minimal formal training, he began running at age 17, decided to pursue it formally aged 19, and broke two world records at the 1934 world olympics.

Because queer and gender-diverse history is complex, I’m genuinely unsure if Zdenek was intersex. He seems to have been pretty gender-nonconforming when read as a woman in his early life and seems to have retired from athletics because he was harassed by people wanting him to undergo invasive “gender checks” after his gold medals at the 1934 Olympics.

Apparently the current obsession with “defining gender in sport” has roots back to the 1930s. Athletes competing in female athletics have been forced to undergo a variety of examinations for the purpose of declaring them “female enough”. They seem to have never been pleasant, appropriate, or anything other than invasive and dehumanising, and they seem to have always focused on a) defining gender by physicality b) defined that physicality in fairly arbitrary ways that are actually incredibly difficult to relate to anything objective, despite a veneer of scientific objectivity.

I can entirely see why the threat of such harassment would have caused Zdenek to decide an athletic or adjacent career wasn’t worth undergoing it, whether he personally believed himself to be intersex or whether we would recognise him as such today. The term “intersex” has many definitions, and is often challenged by medical professionals if it could potentially cover too many people - e.g. medical professionals have repeatedly challenged the term when used by AFAB people with PCOS, which can cause fertility issues, hirstutism etc, purely on the grounds of “that would make around 10% of women intersex”. Zdenek simply publicly stated “I was wrongly assigned as female at birth” without giving any other details - as he had *every* right to. Some historians have characterised him as intersex based on this, and others simply as trans; he appears, very reasonably, to have preferred to preserve his privacy on the details.

Zdenek went on a lecture tour of the US talking about his life and transitioned in 1936. At the time of this photo, he was pursuing a career in cabaret in the US. He seems to have been reasonably successful but never settled there, returning home and marrying a cis woman with whom he lived happily for the rest of his life, dying in Prague aged 72 in 1986.

He joined a local rugby team along with his brother Jaroslov after WWII and seems to have been an enthusiastic amateur player. I hope he got a lot of joy out of it, which he does seem to have.

Like so many queer and trans histories, Zdenek’s is somewhat obscured because so much of what has been written about him is always skewed by the writer’s own perspectives about gender and transness. Including the drive to impose a false binary on trans experience - which I as a nonbinary person know is certainly not universally present.

There are, of course, *absolutely* trans people who always have a strong feeling of gender equating to “knowing they are a boy/girl from an early age”, and I in no way wish to erase them or their experiences, but it must also be noted and acknowledged there are plenty of us with different experiences. There are people like me who feel “wrong” in our assigned gender from pretty early in life, all the way down to having quite strong dysphoria in puberty and afterwards, but don’t strongly ID as the “opposite” binary gender either. There are people who rub along fine in their assigned gender, or who have many issues with it but don’t know what they equate to, until they have some experience presenting otherwise and suddenly experience strong gender euphoria for the first time in their lives. There are people who never feel anything much at all about gender and only ever do any identifying purely as a matter of convenience because a very binary society requires it.

Cis people seem to find the “always knew/born in the wrong body” narrative the easiest to relate to, and I can only assume that is because it is the narrative that allows them to challenge our society’s gender-essentialist, binarist worldview the *least*. It is considerably easier, and requires much less thought and critical attention, to say “I guess sometimes the occasional person is just mistakenly assigned to the wrong category” than to question those categories, why they exist, what they actually are, how they are imposed, and whether they actually mean anything at all in an objective sense.

I have no idea where Zdenek fell on any of this, or if his experience was very different in another way.

I posted this to, as ever, note that we are not a new phenomenon. Trans people are part of human history. We have always existed. We have always contributed. The way the society we lived in perceived us *and* how the societies our stories have passed through perceived us affect how our stories are told today, and those things can make it complex to uncover the lived experience of the trans person behind all of that. Queer and trans history must always be about acknowledging those facts and uncertainties while doing our best to find out as much as possible about the actual lived experiences of our siblings in the past.

[trailingoff]

The first season of Good Omens brought me immense joy, so bright and pure that it burned out gradually over a few years, all through the pandemic and a big difficult thing happening in my life. So I watched the second season hoping for more joy. The fact it wasn’t forthcoming isn’t a flaw in the show or a failing on Neil’s part, and I think the story is brilliant, funny, engaging and heartbreaking. It still hurt because for me all the joy had been sucked away.

Yesterday I felt silly for ever believing there could be a canonical queer couple who met my admittedly very high standards. Cishets don’t have to yearn for representations of not only healthy relationships but idealised, near-perfect relationships as well -- they get those in bucketloads -- while I can’t think of another story, outside of fanfic, that gave me what GO season one did.

But then I remembered Margaret Atwood’s very short story ‘Happy Endings’. Here’s a link to the only copy I could find online. It concludes:

“You'll have to face it, the endings are the same however you slice it. Don't be deluded by any other endings, they're all fake, either deliberately fake, with malicious intent to deceive, or just motivated by excessive optimism if not by downright sentimentality. The only authentic ending is the one provided here: John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die.

So much for endings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since it's the hardest to do anything with. That's about all that can be said for plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what and a what and a what. Now try How and Why.”

Neil has pointed out that Aziraphale and Crowley have faced similar relationship crises before. Season one could have cut off right after the bandstand break-up. Over six thousand years, how many times have they broken up forever and got back together in a relatively short time? For them, that could be a few hundred years. This seems to be the first time they’ve kissed -- well, some of what they said at the bandstand was probably a first for them too.

We aren’t at the end of their story. Hopefully we’ll never get to Atwood’s authentic ending. I’m holding out for an even heftier dose of excessive optimism and downright sentimentality.

[kittenintheden]

okay listen I'm so tired lol

I am a fandom old. I've been around the freaking block like eight dozen times. I'm at the point in my life where I enjoy media because it's FUN and ENRICHING for me personally, rather than something I base my identity on. I adore the community that happens in fan spaces (mostly).

here is why I never trust an anon that's clearly just being a dick: I've been in way to many scenarios where people who aren't even invested in the thing just think it's so fucking funny to watch segments of a community fight with each other. it tickles some part of their lizard brain. their mom never taught them not to be an asshole to strangers. idk.

there's a political term that you may or may not be familiar with called astroturfing. it's frequently used in marketing and politics to falsely create the image of vast public support for something that doesn't actually have all that much natural support. for example, people who don't especially have strong feelings about trans issues being encouraged/paid/instructed to respond to any and all trans support a certain way. responding to blogs, sending letters to the editor, posting on message boards, etc. their goal is to create a broad public perception that most people are anti-trans (untrue).

and it works. entire fucking laws and legislation and protests and fearmongering come out of that shit. people make up FAKE PROBLEMS (cis men dressing up like women to go be pervy in public bathrooms???) and spread the word via bad actors and controlling the public discourse. the media conglomerate that gamed Facebook to disproportionately support asshole authoritarian alt-right clowns and got them elected was EXCELLENT at it.

a similar thing can happen in fandom, ESPECIALLY when that fandom is a haven for women, POC, queer folk, and other minorities. you guys might remember GamerGate and SadPuppies? yeah all those fuckers are still active and still purposely being shitty at every given opportunity because they think it's funny to make the "libs" fight amongst themselves.

look up #yourslipisshowing if you're not familiar. it was a movement by Black Twitter (specifically Black WOMAN Twitter) to expose bad actors who would create accounts posing as Black woman activists, learn the surface-level terminology, and just purposely cause discord in leftist spaces under the ever-familiar activist method of "being morally pure is a thing that can exist."

anyway: any time I get an ask or comment without a name attached that is very obviously intended to poke me in a sore spot, I delete that shit and assume it's some fucker trying to start fan drama for kicks. even if I'm wrong, I still don't need to feed into that shit. this is my fun, happy space. I'm an activist and do activist shit and get angry at the world in real life, I don't need it in my little fandom corner of the internet too.

which is not to say that shitty fans and shitty fandom takes don't really exist. they very much do. but I don't give them much air unless there's an actual name attached. and even THEN it can be hit or miss because people can and do create fake accounts if they're especially dedicated to being a shithead.

so: if you're minding your business and some goober comes into your ask box with shit that's clearly intended to push a button, give it like 24 hours to cool down and decide if it's actually worth it to respond. for me, most of the time I determine that it's not.

don't get me wrong. calling out bad behavior in fandom IS IMPORTANT and SHOULD BE DONE. I just also think it's important to try and find the joy and camaraderie in these spaces as much as possible and that people who try to disrupt that for jollies suck real bad and give a disproportionate perception of "what X fans are like."

in summary, my philosophy is be the best person you can be, be as kind as is warranted, focus on the parts of your fandom that make you happiest, and carry a big stick for when the jerks won't take a hint.

also like. shitting on other characters to prop up your fave is such a freaking middle school move. are you in middle school? if so, I'm sorry. if not, I'm still sorry, but for a different reason.

[isobug]

Greypunk / Graypunk ( or Greyqueer / Grayqueer )

Greypunk / Greyqueer is a punk / queer term (similar to Genderpunk/Genderfuck, Voidpunk, and many other queer terms) which focuses on those in the "Grey area(s)" of identity- including but not limited to Greygender/Grey agender people, Greyromantics/Greyaros, Greysexuals/Greyaces, Greyplatonics/Greyapls, and anyone else who feels nebulous/"in-between"/vague/undefinable or similar (especially Neurodivergent, Intersex, Androgynous, and GNC folk).

I use "Grey Area" here with the definition of "not readily conforming to a single category or to an existing set of rules" so I don't have to type that out every time. (You don’t have to use that exact wording for your own identity btw)

This concept is intentionally broad and... grey! I will not gatekeep this term to any specific group(s) or label(s) and I think doing so would be antithetical to it's purpose. So please don't do that and if you want to use it go ahead.

Greypunk / Greyqueer is about community, solidarity, and defending your (and others) right to exist in the "Grey area" while also labeling your gender/attraction/etc. in a way that is the most comfortable/true to yourself/your experiences.

It's about rejecting those who try to draw strict lines around your identity and going "fuck you" when they tell you should (or make assumptions about you).

It's about finding joy and comfort your in your identity, respecting that everything isn't "black and white" (or binary/trinary, however you want to phrase it).

Greypunk / Greyqueer was inspired by my anger at many things, but mainly by the attempted exclusion of Greyaros/Greyaces from the terms Aro/Ace/Aroace or even from calling themselves "bi/gay/[insert orientation] aroace" (on the basis that they aren't "strictly"/"pure" Aros/Aces/Aroaces).

See this blog post on "umbrella crunching" here, this summary post with links, this post, this post, this post, this Arocalypse comment, this post, and this other blogpost (with even more links!) for discussion by people more eloquent than me on the above issues.

It was also inspired by the pushback against that exclusionism that I've seen (shoutout to the r/orientedaroaces subreddit!) as well as my experiences as an Aroace Androgynous Intersex person who's fed up with people defining my experiences for me.

The flag uses the same layout as Genderpunk and a few other -punk terms. I choose it for unity and also I think it just looks good. The colors are taken from the different "Grey-" flags. The dark grey to light grey stands for the "grey area", green is for Greyaros as well as Greyapls, the blue is for Greygender people as well as Greyaroaces, and the purple is for Greyaces as well as GNC, Intersex, and androgynous folks.

( Editing this to include Greyqueer as an alternative term for those who prefer it to the -punk suffix. )

Taglist - @revenant-coining

[scintillatingshortgirl19]

ok so i decided to stop making individual posts and just put all my thoughts here (short version: i am filled with joy)

I love Higgins so much

oh my god is. is Ted about to do drugs.

Jamie is so goddamn CUTE I'm losing my mind

Forearm grab :D :D :D

"If you're being enough of a prick, which I was ;)" jamie STOP I can't take this 😭😭

Seriously that was adorable but also SO FLIRTY I'm losing my shit!!!

YEAH GO IN THAT GAY CLUB BABY BOY!!!

oh baby boy :'(((

"I must have a good reason for that, mustn't i?" ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

OH MY GOD FUCKIN KEELEY

god I forgot Hannah has such a beautiful voice. i am so gay

ROY 🥺

sitting here alone in my room watching this bike montage GRINNING LIKE A FUCKING LUNATIC

TRENT AND COLIN HAVING THE QUEER CONVERSATION OF MY FUCKING DREAMS THIS ISN'T REAL HOW IS THIS REAL!!?!??

dude. i have not been this emotional about a ted lasso moment since jamie cried in roy's arms onscreen.

seriously Colin talking about his two lives and not wanting to be a spokesperson and just wanting to kiss his boyfriend after a match like the other guys kiss their girlfriends . . . fuck. FUCK. this is so beautiful and so, so real.

legit can't tell if Ted drank the tea or not

Oh I think that's a yes

So much has happened and we've still got 25 minutes left! What an episode this is!

WHOA. James. Fucking. Tartt. *shakes fist*

JAMIE DOESN'T REMEMBER IF IT WAS TRAUMATIZING

(Baby that means it was :/// )

Omfggg Ted's at the American restaurant XD

What is Ted even ON

ok my only criticism of this episode is that this triangle sequence is going on way too long lmao

IT'S. IT'S THE MOTHERFUCKING PILLOW FIGHTTTTTTTTTTTT

GO HIGGINS GO TRENT AND COLIN god there's so much JOY in this EPISODE!!!

BEARD

"They invited me for a threesome" the SOUND i just made

TED THE STRATEGIZER IM SO PROUD (but also he wasn't even high? Asgdhfjg I'm concerned??)

anyway. this episode was a thing of pure unadulterated beauty and i feel so happy right now

[cecebookworm]

I finished Unraveled a few hours ago and here are my intial thoughts. Spoilers obviously:

⚠️⚠️⚠️

SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT

⚠️⚠️⚠️

- I really loved it. Keefe’s internal monologue was surprisingly not obnoxious (I love him but he can be low key exhausting) and I was impressed by the more overall mature tone of the book.

- The twists were insane in a way that felt like they should have been obvious. I’m not including the Alvar reveal considering we all more or less figured the guy in the cover was either Alvar or Gethen, but the twists involving him were intriguing.

- I feel like Shannon is setting him up to be redeemed in the sense that he’ll die in some heroic death saving Fitz in the final book. He comments so many times in this how much he loves Keefe but hates Fitz and I just don’t believe it.

- I was sick reading this book and the vibes of the book were so immaculately cozy it made me feel better whenever I read it.

- There were TWO QUEER CHARACTERS (a gay man who helps Keefe in London and a sapphic women in Australia who help trick Keefe and Alvar [Good for her]) and apparently that was enough for people to be furious about “liberal propaganda”??????? Bruh, just say your feelings some feelings you don’t want to talk about. 🙄

- Though the notable thing about this is that the way that Keefe and Alvar talk about it implies that homosexuality has not happened publicly in the Lost Cities because of matchmaking (which makes a whole lot of sense because matchmaking is basically eugenics.) I wonder if Shannon will bring this up when the matchmaking system inevitably topples in the final book. (Marelinh 👉👈?)

- The twist with Lord Cassius had me face palming to myself. Tell me why my dumbass heard Cass and my first thought was, “Is Keefe gonna meet an old granny and actually feels some parental love? 🥹” Um no, Shannon Messenger can not let him be happy for two minutes.

- I really loved all the discussions about mental health in this book. The way Keefe had to navigate the complicated feelings about his mother, his life, what has happened to him because he finally HAD the time to deal with it was really well done.

*though I’m unconvinced that Alvar didn’t get a therapy license while in the Forbidden Cities.

- SPEAKING OF ALVAR’S TIME IN THE FORBIDDEN CITIES; I don’t know how, but I guessed he was in Seoul by the way Keefe talked about the library where they met. I thought the description matched a library I’ve seen on Instagram a lot and low and behold when Alvar talked about hotteoks I realized he had in fact been in South Korea! Oh the joys of spending a lot of time obsessing about leaving the country and finding landmarks from it.

- Eleanor’s story is stressing me OUT. WHO showed up at your door after your father’s death?!?!?! (My bet is on Kenric and Prentice. Zero evidence, pure gut feeling) WHAT are you hiding?!?!?! (Please God let it be extra crystals.) WILL YOU BE RETURNING?!?! (Come on girly, we both know you can’t resist getting back at Gisela for being a psycho.)

- Anyway, all of this book explained Keefe’s odd behavior in Stellarlune so I find that interesting. Honestly, after rereading a few of the last chapters I don’t think this was a cash grab. Shannon REALLY couldn’t have conveyed a lot of this from Keefe just telling a story back to Sophie. She did the right thing.

- This book has officially become my emotional crush until May.

[grandhotelabyss]

Thoughts on NrX? Do you agree that they basically reverse enginered marxism, but are too emberasssed to admit it do to their surface level dislike and signaling to anti-comunists?

NRx is Marxist in narrative structure but with a different protagonist: the owner rather than the worker. But since the actual protagonist of Marxism turns out to be the intellectual-bureaucrat rather than the worker, I don't see as big of an ethical difference as you might expect. NRx, too, might end up having a secret protagonist. I should quote the peroration of Reality Spammer's essay cited in my last response:

Nick Land at this point must certainly have earned the title of the most important philosopher of the past half-century. Everyone now is thinking in relation to accelerationism. In the context of the growth of acceleration, neoreaction, the dissident right, is Elon like the Stalin to Nick Land’s Marx? Elon of course almost certainly does not know who Land is. But they share the same triad of objects of zeal — a sense that the industrial process must intensify in an uninterrupted way, racism, and a joy in spreading irreverence as far as possible. Racism, this all-too-human passion as old as man, becomes the weapon to dismantle the human plane, by accelerating its internal differences until it breaks. The emergence of this pure demonic theater of simulacra where the formality of a public sphere once lingered is its shattering into entropic fragments as it splits apart, a spiral into radio static and catatonic schizophrenia.

On this account, NRx uses race the way Marxism uses class: to start "a war inside society" (per Boris Groys) that they hope to win. I'm not entirely sure this is how it's going to work, though, even as NRx seems more and more poised to get its way with the rise of a figure like Milei and the potential or even likely return of Trump amid the atmosphere of Elon's X. Is the left really so terminally depressed, so self-immolationist, that it now understands "irreverence" and "racism" as inextricably synonymous? Did Bakhtin laugh in vain?

The peroration of Land's own epochal "Dark Enlightenment" manifesto derives its indeed right-Marxist vision of our immanent self-transcendence via self-conscious speciation from a series of novels by Octavia Butler that I admittedly haven't read. (I browsed through them. I like Butler—Kindred and "Bloodchild" in particular, and I did find those two texts sort of reactionary—but the Xenogenesis books Land cites seemed a little pulpier than I wanted to deal with. I suspect such subject matter might require a prose style akin to Bradbury's, Delany's, or Ballard's, more visionary and iridescent. Dick and Herbert, whom I also admire among science fictionists, have the same plain-prose problem.)[*]

Is the famously racist NRx then an Afrofuturism, given that I claimed 10 years ago that it was also a queer theory? (Consider also the gender accelerationist blackpaper, which renders NRx a trans theory.) Why assume that dismantling the "human plane" must lead by logic to racism? Maybe it will lead to the disarticulation of race, as surely as it's led to the disarticulation of gender. (When I was in grad school, everybody blamed humanism for creating racism!)

This isn't an endorsement of NRx, and I don't dispute the personal racism of some of the people involved, but I'm not persuaded by the equation between tech accelerationism and white supremacism. There's as much reason to think it could go the other way. Here the specifically racist libertarians mirror the Afropessimists as well as the Marxists. But it's not necessarily how the resolutely optimistic Frederick Douglass, for example, would have thought about it when he saw technological development as part and parcel of individual equality: the camera disclosing the soul in every skin.

(I know my critics think I am too cavalier on the subject of race. I just think it's going to disappear. I don't think it stands a chance. Reality Spammer says, "There is a sense in which 'everyone is racist' is simply an analytic a priori." And there's a sense in which it's not. NRx's biological racism won't work, not only because race is a construct, but because biology is too. Science waits upon art and magic; leave Steve Sailer to his golf course. From Melville's repeated image of the oceangoing vessel as Anacharsis Cloots delegation of universal humanity to Morrison's concluding vision of the Black Madonna onshore awaiting such ships of holy fools to dock in Paradise, this is an American prophecy.)

Reality Spammer is right, I suppose, about the vulgarity of Ye, Elon, etc., but, leaving aside the eloquence of the vulgar (as if "beautiful big titty butt-naked women" played no role at the root of the human imagination), there is a world elsewhere, even in right-wing world. The queer-femme wing of the new right is reading Gone with the Wind, sure—I've never read it myself—but they're also promoting Pamela, the first novel to sentimentalize, aestheticize, and universalize bourgeois hegemony, and so the secular type and pattern of all future individual liberation narratives, not excluding Douglass's. This is something like what I had in mind 10 years ago when I said we'd know if there was anything to neoreaction if it went from black to pink, aesthetically speaking, from Gothic to sentimental, from Lovecraft to Joyce. Another recent favorite of this group, Poor Things, a socialist novel written by a Scottish nationalist, was converted for the atopic-utopic purposes of global cinema into a post-woke porno-libertarian fable. It ends in the multiracial queer paradise of a walled garden, secured in part with the earnings of sex work to refuel the professionalization of a new cadre of techno-experts symbolized by Bella's journey from one type of working girl to another.

The "human" is not a self-evident category, even if I'd prefer to travel under its banner myself. The neoreactionaries, like their soixante-huitard precursors, were only anti-humanists insofar as the human was a Hegelian synonym for the state (and antonym therefore both of the individual and of empire, a word Blake, Shelley, and Whitman used without negative connotation to signify a post-national world-polity). What the human might become in an age of accelerated techno-capital is unclear—if such acceleration even works; if we don't regress all the way back to the forest, the desert, and the cave in the conflagration of the rules-based international order, victims at last of Enlightenment's dialectic—but why should we forfeit our species's name at the very hour of the potential triumph of our species-being as the aesthetic angel-animal who is both subject and object of its own thought? As the first review of my latest novel tells us, "the 21st century isn’t likely to become any less weird."

"There are no sides," the defeated white witch admonishes her successor of imperial realpolitik at the end of Dune Part Two. (How's that for a reversal of the moralistic speech concluding The Two Towers? Herbert's Cold War realism portends no less of a Republican victory than did the reanimation of Tolkien's World War II moralism two decades ago, but how different are today's Republicans?) I am personally ready for anything. Or at least I'm trying to put on a brave face. I have read Arendt and Adorno, not to mention Ruskin and Thoreau, and have every single fear about these developments everybody else does. Still, NRx might turn out to be a humanism after all, and therefore neither especially new nor meaningfully reactionary.

We see, now, events forced on which seem to retard or retrograde the civility of ages. But the world-spirit is a good swimmer, and storms and waves cannot drown him. He snaps his finger at laws: and so, throughout history, heaven seems to affect low and poor means. Through the years and the centuries, through evil agents, through toys and atoms, a great and beneficent tendency irresistibly streams.

____________________

[*] In Land's Compact articles on the English canon, he was so magnanimous as to promote Butler, alongside some nameless "Jews and Scots," into a DEI English "para-canon." Seeking to establish the paradox of a people-who-are-not-a-people, the maritime liberalism-imperialism of an "out-breeder culture," he identifies the central revolutionary dialectic within English literature, which can be described ethnically as Anglo vs. Norman, politically as left vs. right, religiously as Nonconformist vs. Anglo-Catholic, or aesthetically as Romantic vs. Classical, with the latter side relegated always to the role of ineffectual (indeed sabotaged) brake on history's runaway train. As I hinted in my most recent Invisible College lecture, you can use even Jane Austen to stage a global revolution. To this revolution are we "Jews and Scots" summoned, those of us who have spiritually interbred with this literature which was not the literature of our forefathers—my forefathers had no literature, you see, and so I had no choice—whether we are the Pole Conrad, the Dutch-American Melville, the African-American Butler, or the Italian-American Pistelli.

[long-suffering-little-spoon]

I JUST REALIZED THAT YOU WATCHED THE OFMD FINALE

H-

How are you feeling 🥲🥲🥲

Pahaha not swimmingly, I'll just say. First I have been doing a bit of the ol' menstruating which means everything is immediately more extreme lol. I've been very conflicted and I'm still not 100% sure how I feel about *THE THING* especially, but this is where I stand right here right now at like 11PM lmao

Under the cut cos this ended up being exponentially longer than I thought it could ever be sorry

Overall I've loved season 2!! It has been so much fun to interact with the community and convert everyone to the Izzy hands cult engage with the fandom week by week. We've had some incredibly beautiful high moments and some lovely refreshing queer joy. I adore the new characters and the developments of our existing ones. I know my negative thoughts here are much more substantial than my positives but this doesn't mean I didn't like it!! I just don't feel the need to describe the positives because I feel like they're pretty obvious and universally recognised, agreed upon and beloved, y'know? (if you want a purely positive thoughts autistic happy flappy hands rant™, i can oblige dw)

Izzy's death is not the only reason I have mixed feelings on the finale. Obviously the episode cuts were a result of HBO'S meddling and isn't the fault of the crew, but the pacing still felt off and everything that happened just kinda washed over me like white noise (haha will wo-). The loose ends were tied up in wholesome ways and if we don't get a season 3 this would be a mostly decent way to end our characters' journeys, if a bit rushed. But then...

Izzy's death. A lot of people feel very very betrayed and hurt by Izzy being killed off, some people don't feel the comfort they used to from this show because of it and no longer want to engage. I don't wanna discount these people's views, more power to them; I cannot stop them from feeling what they feel and doing what they choose. I haven't given up hope on this show but Izzy's death just felt pretty unsatisfying to me?? Putting my bias towards him aside, I get the "killing off mentor at end of second act" trope but I just feel and wish way more could've been done with Izzy. I wanted to see more of him being happy and secure in himself and his found family and his queerness and his disability!! But now I don't get that and it very much stings. I think I could've come to terms more with his death if there had been more time to dwell on it all and get to see the individual characters mourn, but again episode cuts, thanks HBO!! /s. And I know they had the funeral but it still feels like we didn't really get a chance to mourn or treat Izzy's death with the weight it warranted. And I am far too tired especially right now to engage in "is this/is this not bury your gays/disabled character" but I will say I've seen pretty compelling arguments on both sides. As an able-bodied disabled person I don't feel it's fully my place to dictate, but I am upset Izzy was killed right after some big moments in his healing process and being a disabled person and in general just enjoying his life.

Personally I'm not giving up on the show as a whole because the finale left a sour taste in my mouth. I still very much like this show and I'm willing to stick around for a potential season 3 and on future rewatches I'll be able to see the stuff I loved separate from the stuff I didn't. But since looking back now, the latter is most recent, it kind of casts an unpleasant shadow on a very enjoyable season of television.

RIP Izzy Hands you deserved better sweetie, you would've loved Drag Race. And also shoutout to Con O'Neill for a fucking phenomenal performance last season, but especially this one. Izzy was absolutely iconic and a fan favourite for a very good reason, even if imo the writers did him dirty. He was hilarious and a petty little bitch man but then deeply broken and compelling and a genuinely beautiful character with a beautiful journey despite an unfortunate and unjust end?? He slayed.

Wow this was a lot!! Sorry if you were expecting silly goofiness lmfao I got very analysi-ish and a bit melancholic. Thank you so much for the ask JJ, it was a good opportunity to try and express all my thoughts and squish them into something cohesive for both you and me. (And thanks to my friend who I was discussing this with earlier; they helped me get a new perspective by sharing some of his thoughts. Dude, if you're reading this you know who you are, thanks a bunch!!!!)

[castironnbitch]

Hi, uh, this may seem like a super weird question (and please feel free to ignore it), but do you have any advice on how to get into kink? Like, I'm pretty sure it's something I would enjoy but I find it super difficult to find an "in", if that makes any sense? Are there, like, parties that you just show up to, or do you connect with people online, or how else do you find a community? I'm a bit okay, a lot socially anxious and the idea of just marching up to strangers does NOT fill me with joy lmao... Again, so sorry if this is a weird thing to ask, I just don't know anyone irl to talk to about this and you seem quite knowledgeable XD

Hey! This isn’t weird at all! Breaking into the kink scene is super anxiety-inducing, especially if you already have a tendency toward anxiety (myself included). But there are lots of ways to do so.

I personally got involved with my local community through a local rope studio (since that is a primary kink of mine). They host weekly events and I just started attending them. It was scary, I didn’t know anyone, but over time some people took me under their wing, and I started to really enjoy my time there. But it took time and a fair bit of discomfort to get to that point.

I know a lot of people who got into the local scene through munches (gatherings for kinky people that are purely social and not at all about actually doing kinky things). I personally haven’t been to these kinds of events, but I hear good things. Best way to find them is on event listings on Fetlife.com (but beware: fetlife is a fucking cesspool, and I hate it for all things except finding events and staying in touch with my non-local kink people).

Instagram and discord have also been great resources for finding local parties/events. Most kink spaces/organizers will have an account with one or both of these platforms. Sometimes looking into events/spaces/organizers on the internet first is nice, so you can see if it fits your vibe. I’m really lucky to live in an area with tons of queer kink organizers and events, so I use these platforms frequently to find events and meet new people.

I think, overall though, breaking into the kink scene involves a fair bit of discomfort and anxiety. Not just because you’re going into new spaces but because you’re putting yourself out there in a really vulnerable way, just by the nature of exploring kink itself. My best advice to you is, no matter how you choose to find spaces/events/people, stick with it through the discomfort. It will take time (like MONTHS) of awkwardly showing up to things where you don’t know anyone. But it will be very rewarding when you find the people and the spaces that feel right for you.

I hope this helps. Please don’t hesitate to reach out again, anonymously or via messaging, whatever you’re comfortable with. I’m happy to share experiences, give advice, etc. No shame and no judgement here. All kinky people are weirdos, and we love that for us 🩵