#simultaneously queer and homophobic

[deathbycoldopen]

I find it really hilarious how old tv and movies (and not even that old tbh) will have the QUEEREST fucking storylines and then in a panic slap some bioessentialist comphet dialogue on top like that’s going to cover up the gay

I guess the no-homo intern has a much longer, prouder history than I realized

[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 (???)

[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.

[gatheringbones]

["The entwined nature of neuronormativity and heteronormativity means that the compulsory performance of neurotypicality is never a gender-neutral performance, but instead is strongly tied to the performance of binary heteronormative gender roles. Normative performance of whichever gender one was assigned at birth is central to what it means to be "normal" in the eyes of the present dominant culture. Thus, when the enforcers of normativity demand that a child "act normal," it's ultimately a demand to either act like a "normal boy" or like a "normal girl," whether or not the demand is explicitly phrased that way.

Since normative performance is always gendered, deviations from neuronormative embodiment are also inevitably deviations from heteronormative embodiment. Whether a given deviation gets interpreted by the enforcers of normativity as a violation of neuronormativity or as a violation of heteronormativity often depends entirely on context and circumstances. In a context in which a child is known to be autistic (or neurodivergent in some other specific and culturally pathologized way), the child's non-normative usage of their hands is likely to be pathologized as a "symptom" of their neurodivergence. But in a different context, those who are policing the child's embodiment are unaware of the child's neurodivergence, the same non-normative hand movements might be flagged as gender violations: children whom adults have labeled as girls might be reprimanded for drumming on the table with their hands or running their fingers vigorously and repeatedly through their hair, on the grounds that such actions are "unladylike"; children whom adults have labeled as boys might be attacked or ridiculed for flapping their hands, on the grounds that such gestures are "gay."

Thus, there are some autistic people who were forced in childhood to suppress their natural hand movements because those hand movements were flagged as "symptoms of autism" and targeted for elimination by autistiphobic adults, and other autistic people who weren't recognized as autistic in childhood but were still forced to suppress their hand movements because those hand movements were violations of heteronormativity that got them targeted for homophobic and transphobic abuse by adults and/or peers. And of course, there are many who were targeted on both neuronormative and heteronormative grounds at different times— e.g., autistics who in their youth were abused by adults for moving their hands autistically, and by homophobic peers who read those same hand movements as queer. The professional ABA perpetrator and the homophobic schoolyard bully are ultimately in the same line of work, enforcing the same compulsory normativity from different angles.

Since distinctively autistic movements of the hands violate the rules of both neuronormative performance and heteronormative performance, to refuse to suppress such movements functions as a simultaneous queering of both neuronormativity and heteronormativity. When an autistic person chooses to allow themselves to follow some or all of the impulses toward non-normative hand movement that spontaneously arise in them, rather than suppressing those impulses in the interest of normative performance, that's a form of neuroqueering."]

nick walker, from neuroqueer heresies: notes on the neurodiversity paradigm, autistic empowerment, and postnormal possibilities, 2021

[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

[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

[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 👋🤡

[liyazaki]

in praise of complexity

it's way easier to write two types of parents of queer kids: the 100% accepting parents, and the in-your-face homophobic variety.

I've had my fingers crossed that My School President would opt for the third, more complicated kind. this show has been too nuanced and well-done for me to hop on any "Tinn's mom is probably the devil" bandwagon, anyway. in the end, they not only went the more complex route- they delivered in a big way.

when we first met Photjanee, she seemed like the stereotypical strict drama parent with sky-high expectations, thanks at least in part to her job.

we were slowly given insights into her and Tinn's relationship, and we got to see the affection and deep care they have for each other. it was heartwarming to watch, and establishing how loving their relationship was was essential to the conflict that came next.

in a little stroke of writing genius, most of Photjanee's struggle with Tinn and Gun's relationship- and with what that relationship meant for her son- were almost exclusively intended for our eyes only.

they gave us an unusually large amount of Photjanee-focused scenes (more than a few only had Tao in them), showcasing her growing suspicions and internal struggle. when she briefly interacted with someone else in these scenes- Tinn's dad, Gun's mom, Kajorn- the focus always remained on her and ended with her.

the writers easily could've given Photjanee expository dialogue during these moments- i.e. "I'm just struggling so much with xyz"- but for the most part, they didn't. they mostly opted for "show, don't tell"- another unusual but stellar move, especially for GMMTV fare.

Tao Sarocha took us on Photjanee's journey with mainly facial expressions, tone of voice, pauses and where her gaze lingered. we didn't need to be told this was a mother who loved her child dearly, while simultaneously struggling with revelations about who he is. we could see it for ourselves.

Photjanee wants Tinn to be happy and free, but she's afraid for him. she doesn't want him to feel rejected, but she doesn't know how (at first) to reconcile herself to a future she never imagined for him.

she didn't start as an open-arms ally, nor was she a bigot. she's an adoring, terrified mom adapting to change as best as she can. not a moment of her journey was rushed- these things can take time (sometimes a lot of it), and the writers gave that to her...to us.

Photjanee wasn't perfect- she was real (she sure as hell felt like it, anyway). and it made the beautiful, beautiful ending all the more meaningful.

[leixinyus]

It is so wild to see the revival of the Namsoon/Heungsoo feels among people, but it be caused by Saint/Shin and High School Frenemy, a show that I'm not watching and whose viewers maybe haven't watched the original. Like, if you were there for School 2013, you know how subtly yet intimately queer Namsoon and Heungsoo's story felt, and that too at a time when South Korea had yet to include actual queer characters in pretty much any shows! From what I can remember – it's been over a decade since I watched School 2013, so I may be misremembering – Namsoon and Heungsoo's friendship never seemed like it was written with queerness or the LGBTQIA+ community in mind (not in a homophobic way, though! Just the feeling I got back then). Like, these were just two high school guys whose platonic love toward each other was so intimate and heart-aching that their friendship seemed to transcend all of the dynamics that male friendships in Korean dramas hitherto had had, without ever seeming to be intentionally written as such.

These characters were played by two incredible actors who brought so much rawness and depth to their characters and the story, and throughout the show, Namsoon and Heungsoo's friendship seemed so... accepting? and gentle with its depiction of a close male friendship, yet it simultaneously felt so open to and understanding of possible interpretations of the more romantic kind. And seeing as how, even today, close male friendships easily end up as targets of the shipping culture, Namsoon and Heungsoo's friendship just seemed(/seems) so refreshing and almost ahead of its time in a way.

There is so much that I'd want to say about how significant Namsoon and Heungsoo's friendship felt to me in the K-drama landscape of the time, but, alas, my memories of the show and their story have become blurry with time and currently only exist within me as feelings of immense warmth and gratitude to the writers (Lee Hyun Joo and Go Jung Won) and the actors (Lee Jong Suk and Kim Woo Bin), and thus I can't fully express myself by actually providing concrete examples to justify my feels, or by giving proper references to that time of K-dramas and portrayals of friendships, same-sex friendships in particular. Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is, thank you to High School Frenemy for introducing the story of this friendship to a totally new audience in a totally new country and also an arguably much different drama landscape (here I'm referring specifically to the abundance of QL stories in Thailand).

TL;DR: I hope everyone new to the Namsoon/Heungsoo (Saint/Shin) story – assuming their dynamic is the same in this remake – are as insane about their arc as I was back in 2013, lmao. And to those who were there for School 2013 and are now watching High School Frenemy, how are you? Are you okay?

[ecoterrorist-katara]

Idk about you, but there was a period of ATLA fans trying their damn hardest to convince me that Katara didn't get any hate. And then when I counted that yes, she did (I didn't make up all of 2020 and 2021 ffs), they told me to calm down?? Like, am I the only one who's experienced this?

The people who are so "neutral" in this fandom are actually the worst ones istg

IT’S SO WEIRD! It’s not even just revisionist history, it literally still happens today. Reddit is overrun with “haha Katara dead mom” jokes. Redditors really show their asses with their simultaneous contempt for Katara and their fervent defense of Ka/taang.

On Tumblr I blame the Zu/kka shippers lmao (who also tend to be the ones who claim to be neutral multishippers, as if multishipping wasn’t the norm in this fandom, yes even amongst the ZKs). Some m/m shippers really want to get rid of the female character in the way of their m/m ship. Which, hey, shipping is supposed to be fun, and if you put Katara with Aang or Azula or Haru or Suki or whoever with zero development for the purpose of your Zu/kka, there’s nothing wrong with that! They do that with Mai and Ty Lee, no drama, bc Mai is not so well developed as a character.

It’s just that…instead of admitting they want to get rid of Katara so that they can enjoy their Zu/kka, they emphasize how she’s so mean to their woobie Zuko, or to their woobie Sokka. Then you get absolutely wild mental gymnastics that are just Katara slander with more steps, like the baffling “homophobic Katara” headcanon (as if Katara, who allowed a fortuneteller to dictate her breakfast and spent the entire show waffling over whether she likes a boy, is any less likely to be queer). People on Tumblr don’t hate on Katara directly anymore because they know it’s misogynistic, so instead we are subjected to a wide variety of random ass takes. The latest form of Katara slander is “just let her be a kid” and assigning her qualities to Sokka, which I categorically refuse to read, because it pisses me off. People are so weird about Katara.

I think this must be something specific to Zu/kka, not m/m ships in general. My first major ship was Klaine and female character slander was not an issue at all. Anyway I ship all variations of Fire Sib x Water Sib (except the incest ones, which apparently requires clarifying nowadays), but Zu/kka is becoming my least fave of the bunch due to fandom shenanigans.

[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.

[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.

[eddiediazismyhusband]

These people will never experience the pain hearing from the causal viewers and THE SR that we who view those characters as queer, are delusional. We were told, it’s in “our heads” and what you see “is your interpretation” NOT what’s on the script. OH CANT FORGET MY FAVORITE, “go write your own SHOW”. Imagine for 6 years viewing buck as queer coded and told you were dumb and “it’s never gonna happen”. For 6 YEARS!!!! It literally took them ONE EPISODE AND MOVING TO A NEW NETWORK for bibuck to happen. And these people think this couple who ONLY HAD 3 dates (1 of them a failed one), and 2 kisses is endgame? 💀💀💀imagine your ship not having any depth to where they stopped caring about them after making buck bi💀💀💀. Where are their scenes? Oh it’s “enjoy it while it lasts”. It’s them having barely 20 minutes of screen while the “non ship” has x2 has much in 10 episodes. Did they forget their fav said this💀💀💀💀

💯no notes agree with everything you said 👏👏👏

and also even that lfj quote pissed me off when it came out bc i was like “how are you gonna stand here and tell me to be grateful for a relationship that came out of left field with no chemistry?” like even if it does lead to buddie i will still hate that whole arc because it could have been handled SO much better and without bringing back a racist character, played by a problematic person, ON TOP of causing the biggest shipping controversy to ever hit this fandom… that man has given me the ick since day one of s7 and when the cameos started and he started encouraging his fans and egging on the bullshit i was done w him.

it pisses me off bc they act like buck has to go through some sort of “queer bootcamp” before he can date eddie and im like…. no he doesn’t?? he doesn’t need some sort of “gay yoda” or whatever they called t-rex in the beginning bc there is no rulebook to being queer… so the whole notion of “working out the kinks” (which is an extra level of icky coming from someone like lfj, and looking back after the daddy joke in 7x10) never sat right with me… and the whole “what if buck got with eddie and didn’t like it?” if he meant that literally as “what if buck didn’t like it” my brother in christ theses are fictional characters, they’re not sims, the writers have full control over literally everything that happens… why would they write them if buck “wasn’t gonna like it” (which is bullshit bc we all know he 1000% fold immediately if eddie kissed him)… if he meant “what if the fandom didn’t like it” (which is an odd way to word that question if this is what he meant) WDYM IF THE FANDOM DOESNT LIKE IT EVEN HALF THE BT SHIPPERS HAVE BEEN SHIPPING BUDDIE FOR ALMOST SIX YEARS????

the whole situation drives me up s wall bc not only have we simultaneously gotten so close yet so far to getting buddie, we also now have to deal with these wack-ass fans policing people, calling queer people homophobic, sending death threats and violent hate speech to people who don’t like their ship, actively talking bad about oliver bc he clearly isn’t a fan of lfj or the way this storyline was handled, on top of having to deal with the show’s retconning of typhoid’s character and trying to brush his shit under a rug using queerness as an “excuse” and thus enabling these people to use the “homophobia” rhetoric when someone doesn’t want a boring ass rewash basic ship.

[kinardsboy]

Find it really ironic how the people screaming “we arent homophobic” are actively being more homophobic than the people who are mad at “buck suddenly being gay” or “wokeness infecting tv”

because yeah, some of the GA is homophobic, but the things they’re saying? Run of the mill shit. Homophobia still yes, but it’s nothing compared to the vile and deliberate homophobia perpetrated by Tommy haters. They are deliberately using homophobic stereotypes to justify their hatred of this man, stereotypes that are used in real life to make violence against queer men “okay.”

I don’t care that Tommy is fictional. The queer men in this fandom arent. We see your words and your actions and how you willfully misinterpret every single thing he does to make him out to be a “predator.” While simultaneously claiming that you want representation for queer men, gay men especially now that Bi Buck is canon.