#uncloseted lmao

[quathxr]

Life update. I asked my family to use my pronouns! They already knew I was trans, but this was still a huge step forward. Just wanted to celebrate the little steps. It’s gonna take some time for them all to come around, especially my dad. But I know they love me, and we’ll be ok <3

[not-poignant]

I think one of my (many) favorite things about Stain is that it can be both embarrassing for Alex but also really comforting to be Sebastian's house cleaner. Like it reinforces what everyone else thinks about him and what he thinks about himself in a painful/humiliating way (like when he turned around while cleaning the oven to see Sebastian working at his fancy computer setup and felt low class/self conscious) but is also really enjoyable to him. At least that's how it seems. It's like simultaneous hurt and comfort. The two are complementary and intertwined. It creates really complex feelings in me that I really love.

Now that I've written this I'm realizing that I might be describing something really obvious. But whatever, my point is that the writing is really good!! Good job!! Thank you!

Yesssss, you nailed that kind of back and forth between Alex both loving this new job but also being kind of...confronted with a lot of his internal issues in this new job.

Like, he's in a house that's very nice, living with someone who's very ambitious, and Alex never defined new dreams for himself, he gave up on himself. He's in a house cleaning for an uncloseted gay man, and he himself is closeted. He was a school bully and Sebastian now holds all this power over him. It's definitely a position to force a lot of different kinds of confrontation, not just external, but also internal. I definitely think Alex is ready for a change in his life even if he doesn't know that yet. (Let alone like... working for someone he's been pining for, for years.)

I think it helps a lot that even with Haley's and Harvey's concern, this is a job Alex really wants and is actually excited for. It's been the first time we've seen him excited for work of any kind at all, and that excitement held steady despite his doubts and his fears and his feelings of humiliation.

It helps that he feels competent in the job, and that he has a kind of lived experience that makes him suited to it. And he needs like...all of this confidence in the job and general excitement to get him through the challenging and confrontational components.

This version of Alex is also really aesthetic, he just likes being in nice places. I've noticed he interfaces with the world through how aesthetic things are, he notices like... the chrome and the floorboards, he describes the frog pond as beautifully designed, and he thinks about how pretty different seasons can be. Working in a place that's visually appealing to him is like...automatically something he responds to. (It helps that there's just eye candy living there, lmao).

I'm so glad you enjoy the story! Thanks for letting me ramble about it :D :D

[orchres]

I hate to say it but gay assimilationists have really consumed and diminished the radical way of life that queerness is. There's not so much an "acceptance" of LGBT people as there is an effort to make queer identity legible, consumable and marketable which is how you have swathes of uncloseted LGBT fascists occupying positions of power in governments, and how you have this constant harassment of queers of colour rightfully pointing out the baked in racism and imperialism present in the dominant narratives of LGBT life. I was telling one of my friends yesterday how the need for "representation" in media as it is today is probably because people are so disconnected from real community that supports them. gay assimilationists loooove the representation angle. That's progress to them, as opposed to seeing communities comprised of both cishet and LGBT people thrive and support all its members which is actually what we should all be pursuing. And it's not just in the west, specifically in my context as a queer person in the 3rd world I have noticed how NGO gays are more concerned with repealing sections of the penal code and having gigantic "love is love" bilboards all over the city as opposed to actually supporting queer people and working to bridge the gap between a society that has been brainwashed into thinking queerness is "unafrican" and the queer people who have existed since the beginning of time before africanness was even an identity to begin with. The white donors imagine that everywhere across the continent can be another South Africa forgetting or not caring that it has some of the highest rates of hatecrimes towards LGBT people especially queer and trans women. I'm just frustrated by it all. My therapist calls these NGOs crime organizations lmao and she's not wrong. But yeah the cooption is strong and we all need to get weirder and more disruptive and not be content with useless gestures

[remythologise]

Re: Benny- I feel like a uncloseted Dean could have a really healthy FWB arrangement with Benny. Like I don’t see them ending up together long term in any universe but I think they could happily hook up for a while and then stop hooking up but still stay friends. Cas would be wildly jealous but not do anything about it because he knows Dean wouldn’t ever cheat on him. He likes Deans other exes just not Benny

This is literally what happened in canon except without the sex. So, yeah. Also Castiel DOES NOT like Dean’s other exes at ALL lmao. I mean he would let Dean be with Lisa bc he thinks it’s what Dean needs and he can’t be that for him, but I think he would still strongly dislike Lisa for it. If Anna/Dean was a long term thing Cas would be like EVEN MORE bitchy about it. AMARA??? AbsolUTELY not.  the only ex he REMOTELY gets along with is Crowley because they’re both in friend-zoned hell together at one point. So yeah in this hypothetical world where the characters are all comfortable with their sexualities and actually fuck (which is already getting OOC), Cas and Crowley would have a messy hookup situation going on where both were disgusted by it but also know nobody else understands what they are feeling.