#to see queer people just. being queer

[djarin]

the way they both sidled up to each other. the way they kissed under the moonlight. the way they set and respected each other's boundaries. the hand holding, the thumb war, the gentle smile, the "you won." this is the queer representation i needed. queer people being unapologetically queer in all the gentle, sweet ways we know.

[ameba-from-space]

[stiffyck]

Good luck during pride month to all the aroaces who are gonna be blasted with "love is love" everywhere

Edit:

This post includes aplatonic people, loveless aros and any other people who fall anywhere on the aro and ace spectrum.

Stop saying "but theres platonic love and familial love-"

[iliothermia]

I won't be able to finish this drawing before the convention, which will take up my next 5 days.. But I want to talk a little about him.. I've been thinking about golems and Frankenstein, and the trans body, projection and misunderstanding, villainization and death.

The concepts of Frankenstein's monster and the golem have been swimming in my head for a while, and their lore intertwining.. The tragedy of existing being seen as a monster no matter how you try,.. And the Golem, a protector of his people and a servant whose only flaw always rang a bit close to home as an an autistic person-- being too literal in execution of his orders. He's tired and struggles with a yearning for death. His havdalah candles will be out.. The first flame of the week, a spark of starting over again-- The flame brings him fear. As much as he's kept himself together he doesn't know how much longer he can keep doing it, he fears failure- but the fear of what may happen if he's gone is even more terrifying. He's lived a long life, and over time the one who formed him has sculpted him to the golem's own wishes.. From nothing to the man he is- but even with that effort, to outsiders he's still a monster. His skin is different shades of clays from varying riverbeds as his people have travelled.. Golems are unformed, imperfect.. but even as outsides can be polished the insides can still be broken

[uncanny-tranny]

Periodic reminder that unless a person specifically and clearly tells you it is okay to tell others they are trans or queer, you should err on the side of caution and assume they do not want you to tell people (especially random people!) about their transness or queerness.

You have no idea, generally, why somebody doesn't talk openly about their trans or queer status, and you have no idea, truly, how somebody might react to that information. The most progressive person out there is still capable of harbouring incredibly negative thoughts about somebody's queer status.

[clairenatural]

okay but you see sam has ALSO fallen for dean's act. sam also believes dean to be the macho, daddy's soldier, beer boobs cars guy he presents himself as. this is why sam makes fun of dean whenever he even lightly steps out of that mold and thinks it's harmless banter instead of attacking an insecurity. it's why he laughs when john talks down to dean in the early seasons and it's why he seems surprised when dean is more comfortable with himself in the later seasons. it's why he just scoffs but doesn't push it when dean puts up a front and refuses to talk about his emotions and just accepts whatever excuse he makes at face value. it's why he offers dean a strip club to make him feel better when cas dies. and this isn't his fault!! dean has spent a very long time perfecting this image in front of everyone and ESPECIALLY to sam because along with it comes safety and security and stability and the only person. who has consistently been able to see through it. is castiel

[cosmicredcadet]

A character looks straight into the camera and says "I'm not interested in romance" and people will still say "No, it's not confirmed they're aromantic!!!" "They could change their mind!!!" "it's a challenge for them to overcome!!!" "They'll have character development that makes them fall in love"

It's like they are given the most blatant answer to a character romantic orientation and they actively ignore it. all the while all it takes is subtext for people to speak as if it is fact for a character to be any other sexuality.

[noireservoir]

[fazgoo-connoiseur-1987]

Been thinking a lot recently about how William Afton definitely falls into a lot of queerphobic tropes. And how he's pretty dehumanised within the story because he does awful things. And how both of those things together feel extra icky.

I feel like Scott just gave him a bunch of things to make him feel 'creepy' and a lot of those were just him being queer or mentally ill and he's the only character who really presents that way and oh my god. He exclusivly murders CHILDREN, guys. That's TEXTBOOK gaypanic shit, guys.

[bananitryithegoatman]

[ricky-mortis]

Curtwen Week Day 6: Happy Ending

[samwinchestermydude]

I think we as Sam fans should be more annoying and loud about the fact that his crossroad demons were men twice.

(This is me being pissed off about how people will say dean is of course bi due to some dumb shit like the siren, which was his brother, and “bi lighting” or something, and then turn around and say Sam is the straightest character. Like what.)

[artigas]

I’m really happy that Black Sails is experiencing a bit of a renaissance, but (predictably) some of the takes I’m seeing online are so busted. It’s wild to me that anyone would complain about the fact that Anne Bonny kisses Jack after she’s developed this life-changing relationship with Max. It’s absolutely wild to see anyone roll their eyes or feel uncomfortable about the fact that Flint has sex with Miranda when he returns to her in season one or that Max is most likely a lesbian but actively has sex with men for pay and knows how to make that pleasurable. It’s crazy to me that some of the very audiences who claim to want queer representation feel so discomforted when they actually see the mess and seeming inconsistencies of queerness that they asked for.

The reality is that there are lesbians who have had (and will have!) meaningful, mutually-gratifying, and deeply sexual relationships with men. There are gay men who’ve enjoyed having sex with women, who are gay as the day is long and nevertheless feel sexually attracted to a woman or two and are nevertheless gay men, full stop. There are gay cis men who are happily married to trans women. There are femme dom tops and butch bottoms and there are mascs afab people who like femme boys. There are non-binary people and trans men who actively identify as lesbians. There are ace and aro people who enjoy thinking about and engaging with sex — sometimes in fiction and sometimes in real life. Queerness, in fiction and in reality, defies neat categorization. That is the beauty, power, and (perceived) unorthodoxy of queerness.

Now, I’ll say this — do I think the straight men behind Black Sails were actively thinking deeply and insightfully about the paradoxes and fuckery of queer identity when they wrote Black Sails? No! By their own admission, Steinberg and Levine have owned up to the fact that some of the writing of the show was really hinged on their own blind spots as people who are not (to my knowledge) members of the queer community. If I want to be generous, I think that the beautiful mess of Black Sails is that, in not feeling like experts enough to designate specific identity labels to any of their characters, the writers stumbled their way into more authentic representation of lived queer experience, which is to say that the notion that James Flint was actively thinking of himself as a gay man was anachronistic. As many lesbian archivists and theories have noted, the notion of a queer identity — as in, queerness is who you are, not what you do — was patently unthinkable for most cultures in the past. In other words, the idea that Anne Bonny operates in the eighteenth century as a lesbian and thus would not willingly engage in relationships with men is not only untrue of the series, but untrue of most recorded lesbian experiences in the real world. The notion that a lesbian would operate her entire life without engaging sexually or romantically with men, for instance, is a very new privilege that some of us are very lucky to enjoy, but it is not true for the vast majority of human history — hell, it’s not even true of our present world.

This is all to say that think that there’s something really funny about how we want queer characters to fit into neatly organized boxes. This isn’t a new problem, either. When the show was still airing, the BS fandom would get itself into tizzies about wether or not Flint is gay or bisexual, wether or not Anne Bonny is a lesbian, wether or not Silver is queer when his only canonical relationship is with Madi, etc etc. We’ve been having these discourses for years and I don’t know. I get that much of it is fueled by how badly some people want to see themselves represented in media, but . . . well. The siloing of queer characters and queer narratives into neat little boxes has never felt very authentic to me and nine times out of ten, it’s also just so damn boring.

[jdorian]

gotta be real for a sec before i drop this whole discussion entirely but... i am glad we got the deleted scene and that abc continues to promote the authentic queer rep they've given us this season, but i am not very keen on it having reignited the same exact discourse we've been having since Tommy's return

just cuz you don't like a character he's not problematic and even if he was who the fuck cares? he isn't real.

the queer people in the fandom seeing all that active rancidness and hate you could keep in your dms and gcs are very real though, but that doesn't matter when big mean fictional man is fucking your woobified fictional guy instead of the other dude, now does it?

[radioactive-earthshine]

I think ultimately if DC had Pride in the 90s we would have been given some of the most bold and compelling meaningful queer stories compared to today bc DC is a simpering coward about this. I love how we're in a time period where never before we have had such diversity, but the cost is hypersanitization doubled with feeling patronized at multiple turns.

I don't like feeling talked down to in any story, even more so in stories that are supposed to celebrate Pride.

[allastoredeer]

Love your comic! Do you have any alastor whump headcanons or predictions ?

Okay, so, like I have SO many Alastor whump headcanons, predictions, and concepts, and I think about them near constantly, but the minute someones asks me about them, WHOOSH, they're gone.

I really need to start writing them down instead of cycling them through my head.

I guess one headcanon I can think of is that Alastor is way more chill about homosexual relationships than people realize, even when he was alive.

He lived in the 1900's, sure, but queer people still existed back then AND had their own spaces. Spaces that I think Alastor frequented, partly because the parties were GREAT and partly because his 'lack of wife or girlfriend' wasn't questioned there.

Back in 1900's New Orleans, the French Quarter (a place a LOT of Creole/Cajun/POC lived at the time, and was most likely where Alastor lived too) was also the core of gay life in New Orleans. They built homosexual communities there. They still had to be careful, of course, being gay wasn't an "acceptable lifestyle" but it still thrived in its own spaces.

Not only that, but Mardi Gras alone had always included gender fluidity and ambiguous sexuality during its carnival and celebrations. It was a time where people COULD be more open and flaunting those sort of things without serious repercussions.

I think Alastor was a hell of a lot more accepting of homosexual people, not just because he grew up around them, but also because he just...did not give a shit. He never really felt any attraction to men, but he also never really felt any attraction to woman. He didn't see the big deal about people of the same sex sleeping with each other. He could not give a fuck who anybody else was fucking so long as he wasn't being pressured into doing anything.

When Alastor went to Hell, he wasn't put off by people being sexual or homosexual, he was more put off that they were doing it right in front of his salad. He's trying to eat, take that somewhere else, please and thank you.

As Hell started growing and becoming more modern, people gave less and less of a shit of who was fucking who. Since Alastor never moved on from his 1900's radio-host persona, a lot of people assume that he's homophobic, and are genuinely surprised when he's actually supportive of people getting to be more open about who they love. It's one of the few things about modern times that he can actually appreciate, though he could do without people constantly fucking where he can see it--again, not because he thinks that's something that has to be kept a secret, behind closed doors, but because he's trying to have a nice stroll through the park, can you please stop grinding on each other in the bushes, it's hard to stop and smell the roses when all he can hear is moaning.

So yeah, it's not really a WHUMP headcanon, but it's an Alastor headcanon. He's a lot more tolerant and supportive of homosexual relationships than people think, and could not give a flying fuck who they're sleeping with so long as he's not getting roped into it. He gives a giant middle finger to societal norms and will be the first in line when it comes to breaking the status quo.