#simultaneously queer and homophobic

[thateclecticbitch]

Listen, as a queer trans guy I've been on the receiving end of some bizzarely contradictory homophobia for basically my whole life, but I think the one that takes the cake was that time in middle school I asked out a boy and was called a dyke for it (???)

[lunii-vii]

I don't think enough people talk about how revolutionary Byler Churchgate would be in s5.

Like, two boys sharing their first kiss and/or declaring their love in an abandoned church (especially after a massive fight where their sexualities were the main focus) would be such a massive "Fuck You" to homophobes. Why?

Because people would be angry.

Religious people would claim that it was "religious intolerance" or that it disrespected the Bible to have two men kiss in a place of worship, even if said place of worship was literally abandoned and overtaken by a very demonic force. It would make headlines on bigoted news sites and toxic people would shout "DON'T WATCH STRANGER THINGS!" from the rooftops.

You might be thinking, "How could controversy be good?"

But the entire moral premise of Stranger Things is based around anti-conformity and the celebration of people who are different in a hateful small town. It attempts to give a voice to the "different" (through biracial couples, queer people, "nerds," etc) and take away the voices of oppressors (racists, abusers, homophobes, etc). "Disrespecting" an establishment where a large amount of this forced conformity and discrimination has occurred would be so symbolic and culturally significant, especially when coupled with the amount of internalized homophobia that both of the boys have struggled with throughout the series. It would represent both the show's defiance towards discrimination as well as Mike and Will's.

A huge portion of the fanbase is already losing the entire point of the show (with Billy stans, Stobin shippers, etc) and it's ruining the message of the show entirely. Having such a controversial scene that is in favor of the minority would be astonishing.

It would also help remind the audience that forced conformity doesn't work. Homophobia could not keep Mike and Eleven's relationship together, and religion cannot make people straight. Two queer boys can still overcome the bigotry, and they can still express their love while in a bigoted establishment.

On the other hand, it would simultaneously make the point that the church isn't inherently bad. Religion doesn't need to be oppressive, and it is okay for you to be queer and religious.

On another note, Joyce and Hopper had that dramatic make-out session in a church in s4, and I don't recall many people having any lasting qualms with it. It would be such the perfect moment to call out the homophobia and contradictions that often appear in religion- Why is it OK for straight people to kiss in a place of worship, but not for two boys to do the same thing?

Having this carefully planned opposition towards homophobia in such a mainstream show, especially one that is not specifically labeled "queer," would be so impactful. I hope I converted some of y'all to being Churchgaters. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

TLDR: Byler Churchgate is cool.

[so-i-did-this-thing]

been thinking of investing in a bass pro shop hat to simultaneously get gendered correctly and avoid being clocked as trans... I live in a pretty conservative rural area so I figure if I dress like the local cis guys they'll think I'm one of them and act accordingly.

The only issue is I'm pre everything so my voice sounds like shit. If I talk they'll either clock me or assume I'm a kid but I can just not talk unless needed, right?

Do you think this is a good idea?

In this moment in history, we need a mix of visible and invisible trans people. There are many different roles to play when fighting fascism and not all are on the front lines.

I am in a support role right now, so am pretty stealth currently. And maybe that's what you need to ask yourself -- is anyone directly depending on you and how does that influence your plans?

It's also hard to answer your question because I don't know your experiences trying to pass in public, and if your current presentation to an outsider reads as "cis female" or "some kind of queer".

With all the kindness in my heart -- don't confuse gender euphoria with the ability to pass. Get some second opinions on your cishet cosplay. Take photos at unflattering angles, from the back and sides. I'm still unsettled at how my silhouette at certain angles clocks me.

You also need to decide if there is a point where you're safer off presenting as female. What you would do if you ever reach that point and what the consequences would be.

If this will be your first time presenting as male in public, you might want to wait a bit while the current chaos of the new admin settles. Things are highly unpredictable right now.

If you do attempt to pass like this, stay out of bathrooms and try to go out only during the day, ideally with cis friends. Drive safely. Avoid doing things that require showing your ID. You want to be invisible and be mistaken for a teenager.

If you get clocked, it's very likely you'll be taken for a lesbian, as so many transphobes still forget trans men exist. Which still may not lend you much safety if they're homophobic. Rehearse how you would respond in a confrontation.

It's always a risk, trying to pass in hostile areas. Because the retribution could be even worse once transphobes learn they have been "deceived".

It has to be your call. But put a lot of thought into it and practice where it's safest.

Good luck and take care.

[mikeslawyer]

never fails to piss me off how this fandom made steve into this huge lgbt ally, made him out to be practically perfect, forgot every bad thing he’s done in favour of his character development and yet seems to be simultaneously hating on jonathan.

jonathan, who has been the best older brother to will, a canonically queer character throughout the entire show, no matter what

jonathan, who understood what will was telling him in that one scene in s4 and told him that he knows and it’s okay and he loves him, always will love him

jonathan, who knows that will is in love with mike and has vowed himself to protect his younger brother from getting hurt because of it

but there is so much hate on jonathan, because god forbid a TEENAGER who’s been a glass child his whole life and practically has lived in fear of losing his whole family for the past four years - god forbid he smokes weed to cope with everything he’s been through, because - obviously - when he does, then ‘his character development has gone to shit’

so we can forgive steve for calling people homophobic slurs and still see him as a gay ally because he’s changed but we draw the line at an always canonical ally when he uses weed? yeah, okay

[istanchan]

Also one more thing, I find it so funny that there are (crazy) people arguing that Jes is homophobic for drinking before filming the sex scenes with Bible.

Like??? First of all I don’t really understand the argument, because filming a sex scene in general has got to be the most nerve racking shit ever. And hell if drinking a bit helps calm the nerves, I’m all for that!!

Like think of it you are at your most vulnerable in a very intimate position with someone. And simultaneously there are multiple cameras and people watching you, recording you for thousand a to watch. I totally understand Jes and any other actor that drinks before sex scenes. Which btw so many actors have talked about how they drink before a sex scene. (Margot Robbie, Dakota Johnson, Heath Ledger to name a few)

So I just don’t get that argument at all.

Also calling Jes homophobic is insane to me.

Look, some actors do BL shows to gain popularity, and then never really acknowledge the queer community. Some even use BL as kind of a stepping stone to go into other projects usually not queer aligned projects and never look back at their roots. (Not naming name but yeah..)

However, Jes has been in the Thai media industry for years and is very successful. He didn’t need to be in 4 minutes for his career to thrive. Not only that but he didn’t even audition for 4 minutes!! He was literally asked to play the lead role by the director?!!

Furthermore, (this is starting to sound like an essay) Jes has from what I’ve seen queer figures around him. He is always super respectful and he takes jokes lightheartedly. He seems very in touch with his masculinity.

And all of that combined he said yes to 4 minutes and he played his role I think perfectly. So really in itself that should rebuke the whole argument.

[croik]

Am I an insane person or does Malevolent kind of have like. A thing with queer coded villains. Not in a positive or reclamatory way either; it genuinely reminds me of like, old Disney movies and 2000s anime where all the most evil and inhuman male characters would also be written as campy and effeminate. And it seems like Harlan has no idea that he's doing it which is... interesting...

Like. Kayne is the most obvious example ofc. He's flamboyant and flirty and gives John and Arthur pet names. And at first I really liked it but the more it became clear that Kayne was a major antagonist and not just a mysterious neutral actor the more it started to put a bad taste in my mouth. It honestly still could have been okay if Harlan had maybe leaned more into the idea of Kayne and Arthur being parallels/foils but that ended up not really being a thing at all. Atp in the podcast I just get this really strange vibe where Kayne is simultaneously an incredibly violent, deceptive and predatory individual, and he's being written as basically canonically attracted to Arthur and it just. Seems like those two things are kind of connected. Again maybe I'm seeing things that aren't there but it seems like there are some "predatory creepy gay without boundaries" stereotypes being expressed here.

Similar issue with the Butcher. He actually has the closest to any sort of textual queerness of any Malevolent character, since he "falls in love" with his victims. Ummmm I kind of thought we had progressed past the "gay/queer serial killer who has an erotic fixation on the people he murders" trope. Apparently not. Again Harlan almost does something interesting/subversive by making our Perfect Protagonist have a weird connection/companionship with the Butcher, but in the end it seems like everyone agrees that they didn't actually have that much in common, obviously Arthur is unequivocally morally better than him, and then the Butcher gets his head exploded.

It's been longer since I listened to seasons 1-3 but Larson definitely had some similar queer-coding going on with him, as well as some other minor villains (Kellin comes to mind). It just seems like a pattern of Arthur being contrasted with characters who are not just morally corrupt but also written as (subtextually sexually) predatory or creepy, especially towards Arthur. And then Arthur is disgusted by their unnatural desires and heroically defeats or evades them. I could be making something out of nothing but it just feels... icky.

You are absolutely not an insane person of any caliber, this is something fandom has murmured about for a long time! It is definitely a thing in the show that just about any character that encounters Arthur becomes immediately obsessed with him. When it's an ally, like Noel, Oscar, even Daniel and Alia, they are almost immediately convinced of his goodness and go to great lengths not just to help him, but to reassure him that he's A Good Man (tm). But when it's the villains? It's this invasive flirtatious thing, where they're threatening not just to kill him but to lock him up in their basement or something, intimate tortures and such. (Larson maybe less so - he seems more like Southern Gentleman approach but much less handsy than Kayne and Collins). And then there's Antoine, whooo boy. If Antoine really is meant to be gay, and thus was also gay in Arthur's prime timeline when he was a Supervillain? Yeesh I don't want to think of the connotations from CoC1.

I don't believe it's intentionally homophobic, necessarily. I think these villains all represent pretty common horror tropes from over the decades, and Malevolent just co-ops them without thinking that deeply about it. In the same way that the entrance to the Witch's home is a smelly vagina wall: vagina walls have been gross in horror movies and games forever! It's here because it's a thing that all people find gross, right?? I don't think it's any different to him than shoving Arthur full of maggots, or the guy in Deviser having his fingernails torn off. These are default things people are scared of you can plop into almost any horror plot.

But in 2025 it's not wrong to want a writer to actually think about the greater context of the "things everyone thinks is scary" they put into their work, like straight men being threatened with sexual violence, or old women living in filth. Yes horror has been here hundreds of times before. But does it need to be here again? When the sexual violence is the only overt queerness on display and half of all women on the show are old and live in filth?

And of course, the fandom is doing really deranged and kinky shit with these villains, which I 100000000% support. But I don't think he fully grasps the difference between "fans making things legit queer for their own amusement and wish fulfillment" and "the creator playing at making things queer because it's creepy."

Thanks for the ask anon <3 It's very interesting stuff to talk about, especially as a queer person who sometimes writes horror.

[starryalpacasstuff]

I'm eight months late to the party but I was finally able to watch Marahuyo Project thanks to @the-conversation-pod's praises of it and I'm sitting here with this odd feeling in my chest I can't quite describe. This is the kind of show where I'm simultaneously speechless and could go on for hours about it.

There's a lot that I could say about this show, but I'm going to settle on what spoke to me most as someone who lives in a homophobic, conservative society not unlike Marahuyo. To me, this show is a warm hug and a message that "It's okay, you're okay". It's King grabbing me by the shoulders and speaking to me.

The show tells you to have hope. To fight. That there's no way to build a better life but to be brave, to put things on the line, to go out there. But before you can feel guilty about living in the closet, following society's expectations, living quietly, it looks you in the eyes and goes hey. hey. It's okay to not be ready. It's okay to be afraid. You can take your time. You'll miss out on things in the meantime. You'll feel the pain of hiding yourself, of living with people who hate your existence. But it'll be okay, because no matter what, your people will be waiting for you when you're ready.

Marahuyo Project is raw, it's honest, and it's a message of hope. It gets queer experiences and it makes you feel seen.

[rainbowsky]

Heyy rainbowsky. I hope you're doing good. There's something that's been on my mind for a while regarding candies, esp the one regarding their social media and the ones that seem "intentional". Do you think these are directed at each other or to turtles. As a younger turtle I used to think it was for each other and would also see them as a stretch cause I couldn't see the point of putting so much effort in these if they were already together. But as I have taken a break and come back, (older and wiser i hope) and have myself found my footing in my queerness while still being largely closeted, I feel like I'm swaying more towards the latter. That they do this for the turtles, or more so for themselves and their identities. It's makes me think of how i wear a discreet rainbow bracelet as part of my everyday wear, ie, a quiet assertion of who i am to who is willing to see. What do you think about this? Also what do you think turtles represent for them? Do you also think for them, we are an escape from an otherwise homophobic and closeted world? I'd really like to know your perspective.

Hi Chaoticmoonlight! I'm getting by! I hope you're well, too! 😊

Well, these things don't have to be a case of either/or. They can serve multiple purposes at the same time. I think that when it comes to 'declarations of love', or a certain type of social media PDA in their posts (kadian, candies, etc.), it's almost always aimed at each other and at turtles simultaneously, as well as anyone else who knows them for who they are (friends, family, etc.).

If GG and DD want to send a message to each other, they can just pick up the phone. Doing so publicly or on social media inevitably involves an element of self-expression, and likely at times becomes a grander gesture because of the public nature of the message.

If a partner holds your hand at home, it's sweet. If they do it in public there's an added element of 'making a statement', of openly declaring their affection for you. This gesture can become more powerful as the risk of doing so increases.

I agree that it's also a lot like wearing a rainbow flag pin or carrying a rainbow tote bag, or all the other ways queer people express ourselves and show our colors. It's a way of being as open as possible about an important relationship, and about our identities.

I've posted about this a few times in the past. A very common misconception among most people - especially straight people, but even some queer people - is that closeted people will want to do everything in their power to hide their sexual orientation and relationship status/partner. I think this is a very misguided understanding of the closet.

People have a fundamental need to be seen, accepted and validated for who they are. It's not just a 'nice-to-have', it's something people truly need for their survival and well-being. People who don't get those needs met will generally not thrive, and will often suffer in deep and damaging ways.

A lot of people think the closet is a place where people go to stay safe, and therefore it's a 'safe space'. This is so untrue. The closet might be the best option among several bad options, but it's by no means a safe, happy place. It's often a place of loneliness, alienation, grief and pain. People don't generally stay in the closet because they're happy there - they stay there because coming out is more dangerous/scary than staying closeted.

The vast majority of people, if they knew that it was safe to come out, - that they'd be accepted, protected and respected - would do so in a heartbeat. But even from within the closet, there is still that need to be seen and known for who we are. Those needs don't go away just because someone is closeted.

Closeted people will often go out of their way to share as much as they possibly can about who they really are, right up to the line where they'd be fully outed.

Coming out is also not just a 'one and done' thing. It is a gradual process, and one that has to be repeated over and over again as the circle of 'those who know' expands over time. I talked about that in more detail here. The best way I can express it is to say,

people will be as 'out' as they are able to be at any given time.

For some people, being out among friends and family and showing some small under-the-radar expressions of Pride will be their personal safe limit. For others it might just be wearing a rainbow bracelet, or wearing their lover's scarf. That safe limit will often expand or shift over time. Sometimes it will even shrink. There's definitely such a thing as 'being thrown back/deeper into the closet'.

They might not be able to make a post sharing photos from a hiking trip they took together, but they can share enough information to ensure turtles know they took that trip (a special moment for both of them, not just turtles). They might not be able to post boasts and praise about their partner's successes and milestones, but they can in subtle ways express their joy so that those who know, know, and so their partner witnesses their praise. They might not be able to openly put their names side by side on charitable works, but turtles will do it for them.

GG and DD are in the unique position of having millions of people who believe they're a couple. While I'm sure it sometimes makes their experience of being closeted that much more terrifying (considering their relationship is being talked about so openly), I suspect that in most cases it makes their experience of being closeted much more bearable.

It's not just the gesture itself that is sweet. As I said earlier, the public nature of it - the fact that others are witnessing it - adds to the power and significance of it. GG seeing DD wearing a #29 helmet for racing practice on GG's 29th birthday no doubt made GG smile, but it likely also made him doubly happy to see us freaking out over it, and knowing that someone out there knows DD was celebrating him.

As I have said in the past, I feel like turtles probably give them strength as they deal with their day-to-day experience of being closeted and apart most of the time. This is a sentiment LRLG has often expressed, too.

Wishing you strength and support on your journey as well, chaotic-moonlight. There's no right or wrong way to be queer, and no timeline we have to meet. Being closeted in no way invalidates who we are.

Related posts:

Closeted Relationships

Coming Out

What BXG Might Mean to GGDD

About Kadian

Sun Wenjing and coming out in less than ideal circumstances

[willgrahams-dog]

yeah i’ll say it i don’t like how shipping culture encourages people to draw conclusions about media they’ve never seen or taken the time to think critically about.

this is mostly but not exclusively about what i’ve seen from parts of the house fandom. in the case of house, people will hear about the show because of hilson and start watching it while consuming hilson content based on the later seasons. this gives them preconceived notions of what certain “hilson” scenes or plotlines are about before they watch them, many of which are taken wildly out of context. what this does is creates a fandom culture that’s extremely single-minded; anyone who interprets a scene differently is a “#hilson denier” and people are quick to assume homophobia on the parts of both writers and fans.

additionally, when people go into the show expecting it to be gay, they usually come out of it with two simultaneous viewpoints: 1) that it is gay and cannot be interpreted any other way, and 2) that it’s queerbaiting. neither are true. house is queer-coded and i think people who deny that should probably examine why, but that doesn’t necessarily make “house and wilson gay” the only correct interpretation. it’s fiction. there is no correct interpretation. (i don’t feel like going into the difference between queerbaiting and queer-coding right now so for my thoughts on that see this post).

and don’t get me wrong, i love hilson! but i don’t agree with much of the fandom’s portrayal of them. the gay jokes, for example, don’t “prove” anything to me except that house and wilson are friends. anyone who’s been around straight guys for more than 0.5 seconds can attest to the fact that gay jokes are a sort of.. bonding ritual. i’ve seen people argue that wilson’s “that smugness of yours is an attractive quality” line is proof hilson is canon, even though i think it’s pretty clearly sarcastic both in and out of context. and i recognize that most of the active fandom— especially on tumblr— is neurodivergent tweens who might have a harder time picking up on jokes like that. there’s nothing wrong with that! but when those misunderstandings become widespread, yeah, it’s a problem. media literacy is a necessary skill to learn and recognizing sarcasm is (as tedious as it can be) a part of that.

what does suggest a queer relationship between house and wilson for me isn’t their words, it’s their actions. house lies. wilson lies. it’s illogical to apply that to every interaction between them except their jokes. but house’s reaction to figuring out amber was “female him”? house almost killing himself to save amber because wilson loved her? house wanting to choose death over wilson hating him? the direct parallel between cuddy’s cancer scare (during which house relapses on vicodin) and wilson’s diagnosis (during which house gives up the last of it)? house metaphorically killing himself to have a few more months with wilson? THOSE are “hilson moments.”

also, i think it’s worth noting how tv and queer representation (or lack thereof) has changed since the early naughts when house was first airing. my mom, who is queer and was a fan of house while it was airing, doesn’t think hilson exists either textually or subtextually. i don’t agree with her, but i also come from a different generation and i view media differently.

idk. this was rambly and i didn’t get my point across like i’d intended but this is my piece.

tldr: there are plenty of reasons to ship hilson outside of the show’s homophobic jokes and media literacy is vital to creating a healthy fandom ecosystem. it’s okay to interpret a ship differently but it’s not okay to accuse writers or fans of unfounded homophobia.

disclaimer: i think shipping culture is an important part of fandom and this is not a denunciation of hilson or anyone who ships it, merely a critique of a vocal minority of fans.

further reading: this post on subtext in fandom and this post on The Hilson Jokes™ with a focus on house’s brokeback mountain reference

[txttletale]

youve mentioned offhand ur issues with thirsty sword lesbians, have u talked at length abt this somewhere before and if not do u want to? i want to hear ur thoughts hehe

now before i get into this i want to clarify: i like thirsty sword lesbians, overall! i think it takes some of the best stuff from monster hearts and refines it -- i think it does great and exciting things with pbta playbooks -- i think anyone making a pbta game should check it out because it's full of valuable ideas -- and i've had a lot of fun playing it!

however, i think it's just as flawed as it is brilliant. there's a few different flaws but the biggest one for me is a catastrophic clash between two things the game is trying to be. one on hand, it wants to be a catradora rpg. there's no shame in that, i love games that wear their influences on their sleeves--TSL¹ wants to be a game about kissing your rival after you've both been disarmed, about having a fraught and complicated relationship with your girl best friend who abandoned you to serve the dark lord, about having homoerotic sword duels where your blades lock and you stare into each other's eyes for just one second too long before one of you kicks the other in the chest. i think that's an admirable goal for an RPG and one that TSL hits a lot of the notes of--the fact that the move to "Figure Someone Out" has special questions you can only ask someone when you're duelling them is incredible design. the Strings system, adapted from Monsterhearts, the ability to fluster your enemies when you use the Entice move, the constant focus on what characters desire and how their actions conflict with those desires--so much of the game is working towards that!

unfortunately, the game also wants to be about queer resistance to homophobia and capitalist/imperialist hegemony. this is clear in its sample settings, with their eyerollingly on-the-nose conflicts like defending 'queertopia' and fighting the evil sorceress 'repressia'. but much more importantly, it's clear in the game. several of the playbooks are defined by their relationship to sexual hegemony--the beast is about someone who is othered and monsterised for expressing their existence and the seeker is about someone sheltered and prejudiced moving past that and discovering themselvs and others. like, it's not subtle--

and to be clear, there's nothing wrong with that, either. just as i like a lot of TSL's swashbuckling girl-romancing flirting-at-swordpoint mechanics, i really appreciated how (although the game's outlook on what these forces are is predicably liberal and its tonal approach to these things is one that i personally find teeth-grindingly insufferable) these things are actually integrated into its mechanics. playbooks like the beast and the seeker (and the rest!) imply something about the world the game is set in and its sexual politics. this game is meaningfully queer in the way something like dream askew is, in that its mechanics ask you to actually explore your character's queerness specifically. this is good, and it's something that elevates it above about 90% of ttrpg stuff that sells itself as queer.

so if both these things are good, what's the problem? well, it's that they're two great (or at least--interesting) tastes that go fucking horribly together. the fundamental problem that i have with TSL and one that i think takes a lot of work to get around in your own campaigns is that it simultaneously wants you to be fighting (on the individual level) a lot of antiheroic ultimately sympathetic hot girls you can flirt with and kiss--a lot of 'i can fix her's or 'she can make me worse's--and on the broader narrative wants you to be fighting institutional queerphobia (and often, although this is nowhere near as actually supported by mechanics, a more generalized 'imperialism' or 'capitalism' or 'bigotry'). so you end up fighting 'those stupid sexy homophobes'--people who are according to the text (not just 'lore', but the rules text, the mechanics you're playing with!) simultaneously the violent enforcers of cisheteropatriarchy and a bunch of fuckable lesbians with sympathetic backstories.

& i just think those things are fundamentally at odds. the result is a game that if you try and play it at face value works at cross purposes with itself, attempting to do two perfectly valid things without considering what happens when the streams cross.

it also has a few other flaws--like many other PBTA games, its balance falls apart if you play any long campaign (my group and i had to figure out special alternative level-up rewards!) but it comes with no inbuilt way to neatly conclude a campaign or character. its tone is something that, as i often mention, i absolutely cannot fucking stand--it has a certain sense of humour that feels profoundly dated to me and was never my cup of tea when it was in vogue. this is something i try not to hold against the game bc it is very much a personal taste-level 'cringe' reaction but the game lays it on pretty fucking thick.

more to its detriment, it is profoundly, gratingly liberal in the exact way people who deploy that tone usually are. its understanding of anything outside queerphobia specifically is just a purely aesthetic & thoughtless 'imperialism is bad!'. it manages a more nuanced understanding of homophobia, but it only manages it on the individual level--for a game about queerness and about fighting systems of cisheteronormativity, it has no systemic or material understanding of these systems and no interest in establishing one.

and finally--and this is just one paragraph but it's so fucking awful i feel the need to complain about it here because i think about it often as an example of something i never want to write:

this sucks! real bad! so deeply fucking silly to reassure people in your game that you called Thirsty Sword Lesbians that it's okay if you want to be cishet. like, it would be one thing to make a game where you can neatly extract the lesbianism and have the same game, a surface-level aesthetically queer game with no actual interest in queerness except as a marketing term. it would fucking suck but this paragraph would at least describe such a game. but TSL isn't that!!! . 'thirsty sword cishets' would be a very different and much worse game! awful and self-defeating paragraph. deeply silly concern to address and give airtime to. i didn't buy a game called 'thirsty sword lesbians' to be told 'its okay to be heterosexual i pwommy'

so yea just to reiterate: i like the game overall, i think there's a lot of good valuable stuff in there designwise despite all this. but i'm very ambivalent about it--ironically, i feel a love-hate relationship with this game about love-hate relationships. i admire it and yet i despise it! i long to put it at the tip of my sword and slowly tilt its cover up so that the pages look up at me coquettishly but with burning anger in their page numbers. if this book was a person id hatefuck it, is the joke, thats the joke im making, here, in this post. thanks

¹ i call it TSL whenever i can because the name 'Thirsty Sword Lesbians' makes me cringe out of my fucking skin. genuinely horrible name. i'm sure it's funny the first time you hear it, i got a mild chuckle the first time i heard it to, but it's such an obnoxious thing ot have to say repeatedly when seriously discussing it. should have stayed a placeholder name amiguitas

[adhara2034]

Arcane season two is both simultaneously so queer and homophobic.

[madlori]

I would just like to say that the reason people get triggered when bucktommy shippers are so insistent about eddie's "canon straightness" is because his character actually was kept in the closet by network interference. His character is literally a victim of homophobia and it gets perpetuated when people are so insistent that every single piece of proof that he was going to come out in season 5, and then in season 7, is meaningless. Lou ferrigno jr. was literally brought in for Eddie's coming out. He said so himself. You don't bring in an actor for a character's coming out on a random whim. That in itself is proof enough about the writer's intentions with Eddie (if again, the writing is too complex for you. His breakup with Ana was supposed to end with a gay realization. There is so much proof for all of this and you guys just downplaying all of it does feel like you are just perpetuating the homophobia that has kept eddie's character in the closet for this long.

Nobody has to be insistent on Eddie's canonical straightness. He is canonically straight. On screen, and according to the actor who plays him.

It's pretty hilarious to cry homophobia over a plot line that had a different male character come out as queer, while simultaneously leveling homophobic attacks at a canonically gay character because he isn't the Correct Gay for you. Seems like homophobia only counts if it's Eddie?

Network hesitation kept BUCK in the closet, not Eddie. Buck's queerness was the one discussed and floated in earlier seasons and nixed. Y'all act like there were scripts written and scenes shot and then the network banhammer said NO QUEER EDDIE when that just isn't it. Nobody has ever said that a queer arc for Eddie was discussed in earlier seasons. This Ana breakup thing is just speculation. You can read the situation like that, sure, but that doesn't make it true, and even if it is, it didn't happen.

[youraveragebtsstan]

Call Me Psychic, Cause I Called It: Lets Discuss 911 S7E6

First of all, what an amazing episode. I like that it was very Chimney centered for change and we got a little more insight on Kevin- which was long over due. I also enjoyed the little peak into Chimney's mind seeing as to how Doug acted as the little devil on his shoulder this episode, unexpected yet so fitting.

The bachelor party was absolutely nuts! Buck and Eddie need to be supervised at all times, I swear. The fact that they couldn't agree on who was Crockett and who was Tubbs is actually insane. And whoever in the wardrobe department decided to have Eddie walking around shirtless for the first few minutes deserves a raise.

Now on to the main event (of my heart, that is)- Buck and Tommy.

Buck telling Tommy to "be safe" when going to start his shift is so tooth rotteningly sweet. Their domestic already and I LOVE it. Plus, that kiss in the hospital entrance GAGGED THE FUCK OUT OF ME. I was half ass joking when I said I really wanted Tommy to show up to the wedding looking absolutely amazing and Buck thirsting over him hard but this...THIS WAS PERFECTION.

I mean it was everything: Tommy walking through the hospital doors covered in soot and smelling like smoke, yet Buck just couldn't help himself. He needed a taste- and a taste is what he was served... When I tell y'all I SCREAMED, bitch I yelped.

Tim Minear continues to raise the bar for ABC, while simultaneously gagging the FOX girlies and homophobes. I stan a queen who's knows her worth, I do.

By the way...

Homophobes, are you there? I'm curious, how does it feel watching us girls, gays and queers continuously win?

Anyway, until next time! BYE 👋🤡

[deramin2]

Tonight I got to show my boyfriend Big Eden (2000). I love that movie so much. It's sappy and cheesy but no one had EVER made a gay romcom like like that. No queer movie had existed with that softness and living acceptance. It's 5 years older than the homophobic misery porn of Brokeback Mountain being held up as representation we should be grateful for. Big Eden broke as many barriers as Philadelphia (1993) or The Boys in the Band (1970).

Queer romcoms are only now becoming common 20 years later. Bros (2022) would have no queer Hallheart movies to simultaneously mock and long for without Big Eden. No The Way He Looks (2014), no Cloudburst (2011), no Fire Island (2022), no Spoiler Alert (2022), no Booksmart (2019), and no countless other films.

They exist because Thomas Bezucha said we deserve these stories, too. We deserve gentleness and love and small town crushes held onto for decades and someone who pours all their feelings into cooking for you and pretends it's not him because he's too shy. He deserve a Greek Chorus of old men who do nothing all day getting roped into it and hardware store lesbians and an old busybody playing matchmaker that realizes her errors. We deserve silly love triangles with gentle endings for everyone. We deserve the fantasy of it all. We deserve no queer people dying or being pressured by their family or corrected by anyone. Just love. Sappy, soft, gentle, healing, protective love. We deserve our own take on old tropes. And that's still something special.

[murdertrashbabyrat]

DO NOT CLOG A SHIP TAG WITH SHIP HATE

I know this has happened before and will happen again but I am once again endlessly fascinated that people are getting on tumblr dot com and announcing that they don’t “see a certain ship” like they “don’t see it as romantic” and then further insinuate clearly we are reaching and only they have the correct view of romance and queer relationships or something like WHO CARES?! Literally you are on THE shipping site on THE FANDOM SITE what a wild opinion to decide to post here especially under the ship tag.

It’s like yeah okay and? I don’t think most creators intend the fandom to do what it does with their characters. It very much feels like both a stifling of creativity and imagination, no what ifs allowed without credible proof sort of thing, and also talking down to the people who do see themselves and their loved ones in these characters and relationships.

And yes this is inspired most recently by Deadpool and Wolverine but it applies to too many other ships and yes it has for awhile but for some reason there’s a group of people who have been getting SO uppity about Poolverine and acting like Tumblr fandom is weird for seeing queer coding and running wild with it. Like this is literally one of the first times I’ve been absolutely incredulous to see people actually getting worked up about how much romantic tension was actually between two characters AS IF THAT IS OBJECTIVE AND SOMETHING YOU CAN MEASURE while simultaneously still actually being pro gay and pro shipping. Like more often than not loud ship deniers are homophobic.

No idgaf if you like it or see it even, like literally all fan opinions can exist. What I don’t get is why that’s really even a valid criticism to make against an entire fandom of shippers and something that is worth contributing to the community. Like. Listen to yourself.

“I don’t see the romantic tension, I don’t see the ship potential, therefore it’s a bad ship or could never happen and/or y’all are seeing things that aren’t there” like have you considered that’s a shitty thing to say in a space where we are all already playing with dolls we didn’t make? Posting in the tags dedicated to people who DO see and like that ship?

Respect the artists and writers and the fans in general who love and contribute to being a part of fandom by not being dismissive towards the parts you don’t personally get. (At the very least it’s literally common courtesy to not clog a ship tag with ship hate like where did fandom etiquette go)

Also cannot express enough this is not directed at people who respect the ship but choose a platonic translation of the relationship in the piece of media. I love platonic translations as much as the next what I can’t stand is someone entirely dismissing a romance they simply don’t happen to see.

[hesbianspock]

“The (Dublin Castle Scandal of 1884) took on overtones of English immorality versus Irish morality. … Hyde argues that the scandal, and belief that homosexuality was rampant in official circles in Ireland, did much to discredit the British government of the day. Irish Nationalists, especially conservative Catholics, would have been left with the image of British officials, regarded as imperialist occupiers of their island, as immoral and dissolute perverts, sexually preying on young men in Dublin” (Aldrich, Colonialism and Homosexuality).

so, upon reading this, my first thought was obviously fucking outlander.

outlander simultaneously utilizes the traditional homophobic trope of the homosexually-inclined predator and the politically useful historical impression of homosexuality as a symptom of the immoral and dissolute presence of colonizing english perverts while also plainly taking pleasure from this homosexual imperialism, from the opportunity to be voyeur to this predation and physical abuse of Virtuous Celtic Boys while denying them the chance to explore their own sexuality in the wake of such trauma at the price of an englishwoman’s temporary sexual dissatisfaction — an opportunity well-afforded to englishmen enduring the sort of homoerotic abuse and discipline rampant in the english army that undoubtedly contributed to randall’s unseen development into the character known to us.

the audience is intended not only to take voyeuristic sexual pleasure from jamie’s repeated sexual harassment and assault — gabaldon has said as much herself — but also to believe that such sexually charged punishment as jamie takes throughout his life (and metes out, once, to claire) is necessary and justifiable. jamie’s descriptions of his repeated childhood beatings at the hands of his older male relatives are not criticized nor are they even questioned by claire, who laughs at her husband’s humorous descriptions of the abuse that, when meted upon her own english body, she threatens to kill him over. randall reaches orgasmic pleasure at the lash ripping jamie’s primitive and colonized skin, claire laughs at stories of a switch bruising his virtuous body, and the audience is to thrill at the thought of both.

upon learning that randall propositioned jamie prior to these floggings, claire’s expressed horror is not at the fact that randall is a sadistic rapist — in fairness to her, she has been made well aware of that fact already — but that randall is engages in homosexual behavior. she gives no comment on jamie’s apparently relaxed attitude to homosexuality in general (“i considered it” “my father wouldn’t have given the sodomy a care”), but this can hardly be described as the result of an enlightened attitude. she describes frank — a character immediately queered by his profession as historian/antiquarian, a field traditionally viewed as the realm of the homosexual — as having “hands white and hairless as a girl’s,” an unfavorable and gay-coded comparison with jamie’s undeniable traditional masculinity. her reaction to jamie’s repeated torture and rape is one of selfishness — she is concerned for him, but her concern primarily expresses itself in relation to his resulting inability or unwillingness to re-engage her in their marriage bed. out of this desire to have him retake this traditional heterosexual role, to bend to her will as his english wife, claire deliberately triggers him with details of his rape he had confided to her. his role as the virtuous scottish youth preyed upon by the deviant english homosexual is to provide for claire, the englishwoman’s, voyeuristic and maternal pleasure — when his lasting trauma from being the subject of imperial violence interferes with her sexual desires, she chooses to revictimize him in pursuit of her own pleasure. both she and randall utilize the colony of scotland as a frontier within which to enact sexual desires considered deviant and forbidden in england on the bodies of a subjugated populace.

in conclusion outlander is not self aware about any of this and is just breathtakingly imperialist, anti-scottish, AND homophobic all at once.