#sorry i realized i didnt actually answer much of ur question re: neil but its because i truly think

[dayurno]

What is the thing you disagree with in most fanon portrayals of Neil?

i used to think it was because neil was shoehorned into 'feminine' roles (whatever i thought that may be, looking back) and ultimately changed as a character to fit whatever the narrative required of him, but now that i am older and (?!) wiser i do believe my original feelings towards the ever mythicized ooc feminine neil were born from a place of rejection for gender non-conforming people, and an overall aversion to the idea of femininity (arguably one of the most important aspects of who i am, true then and true now) being tied in any way with sexual expression and preference.

i will say this. i think the knee-jerk rejection of saying 'not all gay men are feminine bottoms!' to content where one of them is, in fact, a feminine bottom, is not unlike lesbians in my own community who protest to the idea that all lesbians are man-hating hairy dykes (and try not to swoon just at the mention!). we reject gender non-confomity; we don't want it to represent our communities. we want to be one of the good ones. i'm a lesbian, but i'm not like those masculine dykes. i'm a gay man, but i'm nothing like those hyperfem sissies. fandom had come to a point where we genuinely thought conformist gender expressions were somehow lacking representation; we sincerely believed the idea that a couple made up of two masculine, gender-conforming men were somehow closer to the real deal than a couple where one of them was either feminine-presenting or had traits that can be associated with femininity.

i lived with this idea for a long time, until i started frequenting queer spaces in my area and realized that actually, in the material world, where i live, where you live, effeminate gay men do not have it easier than their masculine counterparts. the idea that they can be 'over-represented in media' is null. my feminine male friends don't allow themselves to be seen out on the street in so much as a crop top. one of the most common dealbreakers in dating apps for gay and bisexual men is gender non-conformity. a lot of arguments against feminine men who prefer to bottom in media is that 'no gay people are like this', but that is just patently untrue; my best friend in the whole world is a feminine-presenting gay man with a strict preference for being in the bottom. a girl i bought a beer for was a stone top, hyper-masculine, touch-me-not butch. for queer people, gender presentation and sexual activity cannot always be cleanly separated.

i guess (and sorry for how long this is clearly i have Thoughts) my ultimate point here is that i let my own personal disagreement with how neil is portrayed to convince me that there is something wrong with him (and, at large, any male character) being portrayed as someone who is feminine, or has strong sexual preferences, or has personality traits traditionally associated to femininity. i think that is never, ever, ever a solution for anything. there is never going to be a time where we would be right to shun and scoff at content written about gender non-conforming characters, even if they are not canonically gnc. do i still think neil is written in ways that go directly against how his personality is portrayed in canon? yes, but that is a personal opinion, and not something i should try and rationalize in social justice terms, if you get my point. i can just not like it. and i don't. no hard feelings involved :)