#putting the QUEER in queer platonic

[earlgaylatte]

Earth's Cycles-

the sun beats heavy and the ice thaws to

half moon lillies blooming in the yard; shut

me up with your hand under my shirt.

i've worked at the local art museum longer

than i've loved you, and just now i'm

realizing

that the smell of oil paint on my sweaters is

impossible to get out.

kiss me in the video room with the drums

pulsing.

i've held a gay little jumpsuit in my hands

and thought about safewords.

i've held polaroid pieces of upstate new york.

i've held tiny red threads in my fingertips

and have dragged them up to a boy's pinkie

like a dagger.

strip off the artists' black and pin me

gently onto the exhibitions.

the moon is finally coming and coming

and the freaks are back out glittering like

fairies.

do you know how it feels to lose your breath

seeing andromeda sparkle

in your other's eyes?

i want it to feel like that-

a painting of a night sky.

somewhere between the earth's cycles and

locking up museums things start slotting

into place. I want it bad because stars and

artwork both draw the prettiest gasps out of

you.

[bloggingboutburgers]

Flashback to that one moment where it felt like I'd found an aroace cheatcode on life somehow

[superbellsubways]

fictional QPR chart cuz I've never seen one for those 👍

[artemx746]

can people start obsessing over queerplatontic ships the same way they obsess over romantic ships

[cosmicredcadet]

I think i just need to express that the culture surrounding QPRs right now made me think that i couldn't have strong bonds with my friends. Society told me i cant have strong bonds with friends because that was only for romantic relationships. Then i went into aro spaces and this idea was reinforced using QPRs instead of romantic relationships. it was "You can still have strong bonds with people without romance! It can just be a QPR instead!" "QPRs are MORE than friendship so you can have STRONGER BONDS than you would with friends."

it made me think that the relationships i wanted with my friends HAD to be something other than friendship for it to be as strong as i wanted. If i wanted to be the first person in someones life i had to enter some sort of committed relationship. if I wanted someone to care about me as strongly as i did them then it would have to be a relationship that was "more" than friendship.

I thought I wanted a QPR because i was told the only way to get that care and security that I wanted was to enter into a relationship that was "more" than friendship. because friends didn't care that much. because friends didn't live together their entire lives. because friends were never the priority relationship wise. and it took me years to realize that i didn't want any partnership and i shouldn't have to be in one to want these things from a friend. these things CAN be something friends can do. but i found that out on my own. because the aro community kept saying "you want a QPR" when i just wanted a friend who finally saw me as a priority in their life.

[catgirljaneway]

Tuvok and Kathrym and the time Kathryn destroyed the timeline to get Tuvok back.

/I Swear Somewhere This Works - Trista Mateer/

[thattheater-kid]

Figuring out that I was aplatonic made so much sense.

I’ve never made a friend on my own. All the friends I’ve made approached me and made me their friend, or I met through friends. I’ve never felt a desire to have friends. Even as a child I never felt I needed them, which made adults think there was something wrong with me and peers think I was stuck up, thinking I was “too good” to be friends with them. I was seen as a mean person. Adults pulled me aside to ask me why I was by myself, and I told them I didn’t like people. I told them I didn’t want to be around people. I said there were more important things to worry about. This got me sent to school counselors, who would ask me why I pushed people away and didn’t want friends and I didn’t have a reason. I enjoy my friends’ company, but I don’t miss them when I’m away. I never understood why it mattered so much, even as a kid. I always preferred to be alone, honestly. I thought for the longest time it was related to being autistic and ADHD, and maybe it is to an extent, but I simply never liked people and never had a desire to be friends with them.

I’d already known I was aroace. I never felt a desire to have sexual or romantic relationships. I never saw a point. I felt no attraction towards anyone and had no desire to. My life was enjoyable without it. Once I learned about aromanticism and asexuality, I understood that that was what I am.

However, aroace spaces put so much emphasis on platonic love that I never felt like I really belonged in the aroace community. I felt like I was still weird and gross. I felt like a freak who was destined to be alone, someone who could never be fulfilled and would always be missing something. I felt like a freak in my own community because I felt no love. I didn’t feel platonic love or attraction and frankly didn’t want to.

I found the word “aplatonic”. Someone who feels no platonic love or attraction. Now I understand that’s who I am, and that’s not a bad thing. My life is no worse without love. I’m not missing something. I still live a fulfilling life. I’m still human.

[elpeadro]

I diagnose the Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld gang with QPR (queer-platonic relationship). It is so blatant and I love them so much.

Jentry-Michael: childhood best friends who haven't seen each other for half their lives after one of them accidentally burned down half the town (including her best friend’s home) with her magical fire powers and got sent away to Korea. Hit it off like nothing ever happened the day Jentry gets back in town. Gugu teases her about him because Jentry is not subtle at all. Protagonist girl x stereotypical love interest boy. Get to bond over being pressured to be someone they’re not by parental figures and being lied to about their powers. He dreams about her at night. (Don’t worry it’s not creepy.) She nearly kills him while he’s at work. Dating life stop-starts like 5 times because of shenanigans and poor communication and also maybe because their relationship isn’t meant to be romantic in nature.

Jentry-Kit: shapeshifter-adjacent demon who stalks, flirts with, seduces, lies to, threatens, and makes and wears a skin-suit of his mark only to fold after one (1) conversation, when she suggests he already has a soul, because he is that desperate for love and validation. Oh, and he’s working for the main villain who killed her parents, her great-aunt, and is actively trying to kill her. Protagonist girl x cool aloof bad boy love interest. Get to bond over being manipulated into fighting their authority figures’ feud/war. Lowkey is responsible for her almost killing stereotypical love interest boy. One kiss is enough to make him crash out when she rejects his advances afterwards. He falls for the oldest trick in the book, which is falling for your mark. He nearly dies distracting Cheng so that she can save the day (fuck you canon; you can’t take him away from me). He does this by wearing his Jentry skin-suit. They share the most homoerotically-charged scene in a TV-PG show while he’s building and putting on said skin-suit. Him nearly stealing her qi is so intimate and also please don’t do that without her consent sir 💀.

Michael-Kit: did you not SEE episode 5? They’re the nastiest parallels to ever parallel, to the point that their narrative energy warps reality and makes the lunch lady go on a comically direct lecture about how they need to choose for themselves what they want. This lecture is somehow about their identity issues and entire life’s course, and also about what they want for lunch. It is entirely unprompted. Kit nearly got him killed at work. They’re two-thirds of a love triangle, and a triangle can only be a triangle if it has 3 sides. (You get what I’m saying?) They were brothers-in-arms at the Alamo. They’re both incapable of not lying. Michael dreams about him the same number of times he dreams about Jentry. (Don’t worry it’s still not creepy.) They somehow avoid the stereotypical “high school love triangle drama” plot points between the two of them only because they’re busy fucking up their relationships in even bigger ways. Oh, and he prom-posed to Kit.

Michael-Stella: walking cliche of the high school “it” couple that was doomed the moment they set foot on the show. They were going to go to college together ffs. They dodge love triangle cliches regarding Jentry because they both think she’s that cool. She makes him protein bars. (Which suck, but it’s the thought that counts.) Football player x comphet lesbian. No seriously, she’s the most comphet lesbian to ever comphet lesbian.  They have cliche “romantic chemistry”, but then they break up because he lies to her about wanting to be a shitty flute player over a superstar wide receiver recruit (except it’s not really a lie, but also it is), and they move over the “awkward exes” period and are much better characters and friends. He dreams about her at night as well. (Again, still not creepy.)

Jentry-Stella: the girliest girl friend duo in the world. Stella helps her adjust to a new school in a way that is so nice and sweet that it’s one of the more unrealistic parts of the show. They have a scene in Stella’s bedroom. Their male love interests fumble them at roughly the same time, and then they do spirit week together and are having the time of their lives. She braids Jentry’s hair. They’re both so cool, but also so lame in their own ways. Also there’s no way Stella doesn’t have somewhat of a crush on her because 1) Jentry is that cool and pretty and awesome, and 2) Stella is a certified girl lover.

Kit-Stella: look they didn’t really interact in canon, but he’s on her shit list. She’s got her eye on him at all times, because Jentry may have forgiven him, but she’s watching out for her friend. She 100% gave him the shovel talk. Things get REALLY awkward if Jentry and/or Michael aren’t there, because these two are easily the weak link of the QPR.

Also all four of them are some form of queer.

[sugarcubetikki]

If you didn’t know, Christian Linke recently said that they weren’t intending to make Jayce and Viktor romantic but just to show a really close relationship between men which they believe is underrepresented in media.

Of course, as expected, antis have taken this as a way to shut down gay interpretations and bring up how “romanticising a relationship that is meant to be brotherly demeans it”. It is definitely important to have relationships that depict multiple forms of love and yes at its core we can all agree that Jayce and Viktor are two men who love each other.

I believe that despite what Christian Linke says, the way one chooses to interpret that love ultimately falls on the viewer, as their relationship/love can resonate with people in many different ways.

I personally view Jayvik to be partners, friends and lovers because it resonates with me as a queer fan. I personally see a lot of queercoding in the way they were written and that makes it hard for me to perceive them as not having a romantic love.

For example:

Viktor being shown to take Mel’s place in many scenes like Jayce hallucinating him with after Mel and he’s wearing her black eyeshadow.

Mel x Jayce sex scene overlaps with the scene of Viktor becoming entwined with the Hexcore in a way that it makes it difficult for you to even focus on Mel and Jayce.

Amanda mentioning that Viktor was projecting his relationship with Jayce onto Sky this season - the whole science-y bond.

Viktor making the “this is not the bedroom” joke when Mel catches him and Jayce trying to sneak into the lab.

This all resonates with me as queer comphet and their love for each other being superior to that of their romantic interests also feels very queer for me.

And I have the right to interpret them in that way. I respect the way Christian Link interprets them and has shown to depict them but I personally do not see their relationship in the same way and I believe characters are just as much as the audience’s as they are the creators so my interpretation is also valid.

(Also, creators genuinely don’t always agree with each other and they differ in opinions when it comes to interpretations of characters/relations whilst Christian Linke may not see their love as romantic. I believe there might be other creators who do which could explain some of the ambiguity in their scenes).

Also, to the antis, queer love is also a valid form of love, it can exist with/without physical intimacy and still be queer.

Perceiving Jayvik as queer does not demean their love for each other at all. Perceiving them as having a platonic or brotherly bond isn’t wrong either. All forms of love are pure. Queer or not. Jayce and Viktor’s love for each other is pure and can be seen no matter how you interpret it.

The beauty of a story or a piece of art is enabling the perceived to interpret it in a way it resonates with them and it may not be what the creator intended and it may not be what resonates with you but it is still a valid interpretation.

That is to say I also respect platonic readings of their relationship despite not personally seeing it because you have the right to interpret them in the way you want to. And I am asking you to do the same for me and give me the right to interpret them in the way I want to.

[ghostlylexie]

woah doodle page from like two weeks ago

i showed some of these doodles but most I have not

[vignirek]

Wukong + Macaque headcanons (part 2) (edit: part one)

Wukong:

- Wukong's drawing style is akin to classic paintings, while Macaque's drawing style is anime + cartoony

- his body temperature permanently became warmer from the furnace and he became less susceptible to diseases bc the heat kills the bacteria before it can do anything + he has developed an immunity to most diseases due to his stacked levels of immortality (though maybe there's still a small percentage where he can get sick somehow)

- never saw the need to learn how to cook food bc fruits were available all the time (and he can also use his hair transformation + duplication powers whenever he wants, so he never lacks food)

- his clones are pretty much direct copies of him and function like a monkey hivemind in a sense

- whenever he feels really lonely, he rolls up a blanket and curls up next to it while he sleeps (and pretends it's Macaque bc in those moments he really misses him + they used to hug each other often in the past and he misses that as well)

- dancing was his and Macaque's mutual favorite activity (it's also the only thing he was able to do without stage fright getting in the way bc Macaque was there to keep him grounded); secretly he really wants to do it again but doesn't know how to approach Macaque with everything that happened

- Wukong is an extravert, while Macaque is more like an ambivert (basically an in-between or a combination of traits from both sides-)

- has kept Macaque's personal belongings from the past in very good condition to this day and still looks after them (in spite of how angry he is at Macaque, he can't even fathom the thought of throwing them away, so he just keeps them tucked away in safety instead)

- Wukong was pretty much Macaque's dance partner in the past very often, so consequently, Macaque frequently joined in to draw with him (and even posed for paintings on occasion)

- besides his standard outfit, he typically wears gender neutral clothes (and occasionally wears skirts) (monkeys have much less of a gender difference than humans so I doubt he'd care about which clothes he wears due to growing up with his monkeys)

- he and Macaque liked to give each other small gifts: Wukong would gift bird feathers and Macaque would gift flowers (Wukong preserved most of those flowers in tree resin, while Macaque made the feathers into necklaces or head accessories)

Macaque:

- knows how to play multiple musical instruments but his preferred picks are dizi (horizontally held flute) and erhu (two-stringed bowed instrument), though he hasn't gotten a chance to practice much in the present; he also sometimes practices his singing in private

(yes he typically gets headcanoned to have a love for theater- but I wanted to do something different bc technically Macaque never touches anything theater related ever again since "Shadowplay" in canon)

(also bc I like to imagine Macaque singing Alejandro Saab's covers of songs for silly purposes) (also i just like to think that he has a good sense of rhythm even without his ears)

- likes to watch anime in his free time (his artstyle is canonically anime-like so I think he'd like anime too- idk which series he'd like though)

- forced himself to learn how to prepare food during the years of not living on FFM (it's at least implied that post-resurrection he was absent from the mountain for some time and only came back there sometime before season 4); eventually picked up a more varied diet bc he couldn't afford to be picky and only eat fruits like he used to

- much more likely to get sick than Wukong due to him being more "mortal"

- his clones overall have distinct personalities to them, but Rumble and Savage gradually developed more than the rest and gained their own personalities and thoughts overtime (they just happen to look like shadow copies of Macaque) (though maybe they chose to shapeshift at some point and changed their own looks to suit their preferences)

- optional headcanon (a.k.a. one i like but not fully sure about): self-enforced (and a pretty bad) habit of covering/hiding injuries out of his need for independence (and possible trust issues)

- struggles with sleeping after all the things that happened since season 3 (and the events of S5 indirectly made his insomnia worse)

- optional headcanon 2: typically a confident person but his insecurities get to him during particularly bad days, he's often very quiet and prefers to hide under blankets during those times

- he usually goes through the day with his sensitive hearing just fine but can still get overstimulated in some cases

- would probably have a massive playlist of songs he likes if he knew how to use music apps

- usually prefers practical clothing, but he does like to wear accessories (scarves, bracelets, necklaces, etc.)

- Wukong gifted Macaque a few paintings during the time they were still close and Macaque has kept them to this day (like Wukong, he can't convince himself to get rid of them because they're still precious to him, no matter how bad their current relationship is)

[read-write-thrive]

platonic and romantic are not some sort of binary that relationships have to be divided into. they’re not even two ends of a linear spectrum. they’re fully just abstract concepts made up of culturally-dependant social behaviour and expectations that are continually forced upon people to reinforce religious, legal, and broader societal/cultural norms, often and repeatedly to the detriment of non-normative groups including, but not limited to, the queer community. and I am sick and tired of those norms being replicated in fucking fandom discourse, of all places

[skitastc]

Good Omens but its Ink and Error

Transcript:

Error: Right, what's the problem?

Ink: Problem? Who said there was a problem?

Error: Something's changed (Tone of voice...)

Ink: Oh its a new cologne. A friend suggested-

Error: No- I know what you smell like.

Error: You have three reasons for coming here: you're bored, you need to tell someone something crazy just happened before you pop or something's wrong. This was your "something's wrong" voice.

Ink: (Was I really that obvious?)

[butchtwelfthdoctor]

they're just. yeagh. the doctors so pleased with himself. they're so. hnnng

heres the whole book on internet archive also

[mitamicah]

Three days ago I received my summer exchange gift from @harmaanoita being this most adorable fanfic - I don't lie when I say I was turning into a school girl giggling, grinning and kicking my feet in the air at midnight reading these three adorable little interactions that you wrote for our boys :'D (also the author's note alone made me very emotional, thank you :'3 <3)

This scene of Jere putting on Bojan's make up spoke to me so I had to draw it 👀if for nothing else then to satisfy my own silly brain so it could release even more dopamin making me into a silly teenage girl yet again putting this on paper (or .... you know what I mean, tablet x'D)

So to quote Bojan from this exact scene in the story:

"I love it" 🥰

Thank you so much again and I hope you enjoy this little piece of fanart too to go with your story :'3

[catgirljaneway]

Tuvok and Kathryn and the time Kathryn destroyed the timeline get Tuvok back.

/I Swear Somewhere This Works - Trista Mateer/