#we don't JUST like queer stuff

[maelancoli]

i'm kind of late to this but i just finished reading the scholomance trilogy by naomi novik and i feel like it is such an underrated urban fantasy?? taking the chosen one trope and turning it on its head with a fmc who has been prophesied to bring death and destruction, who is imbued with terrible power, but cannot even properly use said power to solve any of her obstacles because it would obliterate them and her soul. it takes a tired trope and the idea of an 'overpowered mary sue' and throws it back in your face by showing how all the power and destiny in the world is useless against a system filled with corruption that has burdened you with an easy way out (evil/destructive magic) that you can't take so now you have to work twice as hard as everyone else just to do simple, constructive spells instead of flicking your wrist and being done with it.

[ineedmojoe]

when you take a step back, it really is funny because the creator of the show said, "so, i'm pretty much writing this couple's story as a romcom," and a contingent of people still decided to say, "they're clearly MISERABLE!"

[pokimoko]

Hello!! i just discovered your blog and firstly i wanna say that your art is gorgeous! <33 and secondly, if youre still taking requests could i get a lesbian/non binary cheetah? /nf

Thank you! Cheetahs be upon ye!

[jupitermelichios]

my favourite sexuality for comic book characters to be is "we made this other character canonically queer because of their relationship with them but for some reason they are still canonically straight"

like wade wilson? mostly canonically queer because of the period where he was married to cable. he was in a queer relationship, so we have to just make him canonically queer. (Yes I know it's not the only reason, I have read all his extremely camp early 00s comics, but lets be real they'd have kept insisting that was all just a joke if it wasn't for Cable and Deadpool).

cable? definitely straight. 100% straight. obviously cable is straight. his relationship with wade is only gay during the & Deadpool, in the Cable part of the book it's very straight. He stands next to a woman sometimes, that's how you can tell it's not gay.

Kitty has, finally, been allowed to come out, but for like a decade, Illyana was canon queer because she dated Kitty, but Kitty was definitely straight and would never date a woman, and no one at marvel thought there was anything weird about that.

[Image Description: a very straight character, interacting with another straight character, in a very believably straight way]

Marvel has way more of these, mostly by virtue of having more queer characters and also chris clairmont (you can never understate the impact of chris clairmont in these matters) but Tim Drake and Kon Kent spring to mind from DC.

I think you could even make a solid argument that 616 Tony and Steve are that, given Tony is out now and Steve, somehow, still isn't.

anyway you don't really get these in any other medium, because they require multiple writers who all wildly disagree with one another to all write the same characters to happen, but i love them, and as much as I want Cable and Kon to come out, I kind of hope this never stops happening in comics, it's just never not funny.

[infiniteorangethethird]

[gently holding the hands of those who mourn the loss of their dream futures after they realized they are aro] you're still allowed to do all those things you wanted. You can still find yourself a lifelong partner, you can still dedicate yourself to another person, you can still share your life with someone you deeply care about. You're allowed to date and you're allowed to be in relationships with people and you can still form those deep bonds without romantic attraction. You don't need romantic attraction to do all those fun couple-y things alloro people do. You're allowed to parttake in that fun if that's what you want to do.

You can still have your dream future. You just need someone who's willing to have it with you.

[pharawee]

(Slightly?) unpopular opinion time but I don't even need the four med princes in Fourever You. Just give me the compass cutie friend group and I'm all set for the whole 16 eps. 🥰

That being said, how well done is this show? The production values are incredible - from lighting to make-up and set design and colour grading. Just an absolute joy to watch!

I'm also not 100% sure what it is that makes Director New's Wabi Sabi shows so different from his shows for gmmtv (which aren't bad at all - it's just personal preference), I only know that they are and that I vastly prefer them.

[summergoodwife]

"If you want well-written women/queer representation/nuanced character arcs/less wish fulfillment/etc. just consume something other than shounen" completely misses the point of the original complaint. Like no, I don't just want representation. I want representation in shounen, the genre that I otherwise love but that never seems to respect people like me. And shounen can have representation. The idea that there's somehow a contradiction between those two things may come from a different place when it's shared by underrepresented people themselves, but it ultimately arrives at the exact same conclusion as anti-woke dudebros who think trans people and women existing is an assault. I have had too many other marginalized folks recite anti-representation, anti-diversification, pro-identity-based-gatekeeping arguments to me word-for-word without seeming to realize the logical end of what they're saying.

[capybaraonabicycle]

Doctor: Huh, is that who I am now?

Donna: It was never that far from the surface, mate.

Doctor: frowns Yes, it was! You know I used to be a woman. And that made people... assume all sorts of stuff. And - and pretending to be Graham's wife for five minutes was bad enough but - Byron? That was torture. Does the man ever stop talking?

Donna: Takes one to know one

Doctor: Oi! I just mean, there were all these men people assumed I would be into and I - and I just - I just wanted -

Donna: I know, darling.

Doctor: softly I just wanted Yaz.

Donna: I know. - There was one man, though, remember?

Doctor: No, there wasn't! I don't fancy the Master!

Donna: ...

Doctor: Okay, fine. But the Master isn't a man. He's like me! Flexible - uh - timelord gender and stuff.

Donna: Sure.

Doctor: So, anyway, I have always been primarily into wom-

Donna: What about Jack Harkness?

Doctor: - Jack doesn't count, everyone fancies Jack.

Donna: ...fair enough.

[anghraine]

My best friend and I moved in together with his closest friend from his MA program, and while I had met her before (the friend; my bff is a man), we hadn't spent much time together because I've never lived away from the West Coast (and only two years out of the PNW) and she's never lived outside of North Carolina and only briefly visited the PNW once, when she went to Portland last year.

It's been a delight to show her around the PNW and realize we need to explain things that are just sort of omnipresent in our lives. The bff and I were casually griping with each other about having to run an errand to Trader Joe's at an inconvenient hour, and were telling her, "it's okay, you can stay in the car and avoid the people if you want" and she was like "NO I MUST SEE IT, I'VE ONLY HEARD OF THEM" and nearly ascended to another plane when we showed her around the store.

The bff and I grew up in the same town in NW Washington (him for his first 18 years, me from 9 to 19) and he lived in Bellingham and Seattle for years before he went to NC for grad school (I went to the SF Bay Area for mine, a very different experience). Both of them are hardcore coffee aficionados, but he struggled with the different Coffee Ways of the South, so for the true PNW experience they want to tour various indie coffeeshops next.

Also, she adores Kaidan in Mass Effect and we were like, oh, is your passport up to date? We could take a trip sometime and show you your boyfriend's beloved English Bay. It's very beautiful :)

her: O_O

me: Actually, it's worth going to Vancouver BC for its own sake as well, it's truly spectacular. We used to go all the time as kids.

bff: And Victoria!

her: O_O

[fvckw4d]

The concept of queerbaiting annoys me. I was told that it refers to a work of fiction pretending to cater to a queer audience but then pulling back from it to avoid alienating homophobes, which is an incredibly specific thing. But a lot of people seem to think that it instead means "any time there's any gay subtex, metaphor, or ambiguity" or "whenever something from 1995-2012 was being a normal amount of homophobic for the era."

[theriverbeyond]

How many crafting hobbies ya got so far?

it's honestly easier to list the things I don't do (yet), which are uhhhhh metalworking or yarnmaking. what else. I have never made a shoe. Pre-COVID I used to volunteer at an art center thingy that let me take 4 free classes a year... I miss her.

I tend to cycle through which craft I'm doing the most depending on my current project, but my most active arts & crafts hobbies rn are:

Cosplay (big umbrella hobby! clay sculpting, foam stuff, painting, propmaking, sewing, wig stuff, photography/photo editing etc)

Sewing (normal clothing, mending/alterations, and also silly little guys/plush)

Bookbinding (and also typesetting)

Leatherworking (newest hobby! shoutout to the nice worker at the craft store who gave me a ton of scraps for FREE)

Doodling/drawing/painting

I have a ton of other hobbies I've done in the past but don't do rn due to lacking equipment/supplies/studio access (pottery and woodworking are the biggest, I've also dabbled in flameworking, flat glassworking, screenprinting, printmaking all of which require studio space I just don't have access to rn).

Then of course there is the purgatory graveyard of hobbies that I have lost interest in but sort of keep all the supplies around for bc maybe inspiration will strike someday or I can repurpose the supplies for something else (crochet, knitting, cross stitch, embroidery, felting, whittling, shrinky dink earrings), and also all the other random crafty things I've done once or twice but unsure if I can qualify it as an actual hobby (like papercraft and model making). Probably forgetting stuff but yeah

I am not necessarily good at all of these hobbies but doing art is sort of the same as being alive for me so that's kind of not the point. My biggest wishlist crafting hobby is shoemaking, because all the startup/materials and class costs for that are just really high. I REALLY want to make my own boots someday..... I think that would be a really fun and also hot thing for me to do.

[the-eclectic-wonderer]

I always think about how in multiple episodes it's basically canon that Blanche is bi but considers dating women to be more hassle (which is a whole rabbit hole to go down - does she struggle with societal homophobia when she's with women? Has she only been with fellow high maintenance femmes when shes really after a Dorothy type? Has she internalized the idea that her attraction to women isn't 'real'? Her reaction to Clayton adds to these questions). Not to mention how this goes together with her relationships with the girls; making to kiss Rose that one time (and Rose multiple times seeming very aware of Blanche's proclivities), begging Dorothy for 'relief' and being convinced she's attracted to women too.

Yes, anon! It’s really interesting to delve into Blanche’s psyche about all this stuff!

I started writing down my thoughts and ended up with a long ramble -- allow me to place it all under a cut, so I don't clog up anyone's dash, haha.

Personally, I think she has some strong mental blocks when it comes to her sexuality because of the way she was brought up. I mean, she grew up in Atlanta approx in the 1930s/1940s — I’m sure I don’t have to detail the kind of casual bigotry she must have seen around her during her formative years! Just look at the story she recounts in S1E13 A Little Romance:

“Now, you have to understand that in those days in the South a lot of things were still taboo. Certain people were not to mix. So Benjamin and I had to meet in secret. Oh, we knew if any of the bigots in town found out about us, there’d be a terrible scandal.”

And all of this because Benjamin was a yankee… can you imagine what ‘the bigots in town’ thought about homosexuality? Yeah, I’m pretty sure Blanche learned to suppress that part of herself very early on. We know she turns to denial when she’s faced with uncomfortable truths and emotions she can’t deal with, so I think she likely just refuses to acknowledge that part of herself most of the time, and it only comes out (pun intended!) when she’s not paying much attention to things, or when there’s something more important going on. See the two examples you point out: when she tries to kiss Rose she’s concerned with not being kissed at midnight, and when she propositions Dorothy she’s, well… she’s desperate to get some, if we can be frank.

When she’s in a more rational state, her reactions tend to be more measured… but not by much. She does advise Rose not to date women (S3E10 The Audit):

“Oh, no, honey, don’t do that! No job is worth having to date women!”

But she’s also really flattered at receiving lots and lots of phone calls from women, after her appearance as a ‘lesbian’ on TV (S7E15 Goodbye, Mr Gordon):

“By the way, Dorothy, if I were a lesbian, I sure would be a popular one. Look at this, 20 calls.”

And of course we can’t forget her reaction to finding out that Jean has a crush on Rose in S2E5 Isn’t It Romantic?:

“Jean has the hots for Rose? I don’t believe it, I do not believe it! […] To think Jean would prefer Rose over me? That’s ridiculous! […] Now you tell me the truth: if you had to pick between Rose and me, who would you pick? Who?”

All of these are (likely) intended to be jokes about her vanity and her libertine nature (in the same way as Rose’s observations are), but considering a lot of the writers of this show were queer themselves, it wouldn’t seem strange to me if they were intentionally peppered in to suggest that Blanche might be a bisexual in denial. It certainly fits her character!

I haven’t spoken about her reaction to Clayton’s coming out yet, but that’s immensely interesting too, of course. I think Blanche has the same attitude towards homosexuality that I see in a lot of (mostly older) people in my Country nowadays: it’s fine as a general concept, but when it comes to her family (or, God forbid, herself) then the problems come out. See for example what she says about Jean:

“Well, I’ll never understand what Jean doesn’t see in the opposite sex, but if that makes her happy, that’s fine by me!”

Which isn’t a homophobic attitude at all! If anything, if you take her upbringing into account, it’s pretty accepting. But then, when Clayton comes out to her (S4E9 Scared Straight) and tells her he wants to get married (S6E14 Sister Of The Bride), this is what she says:

“Oh, Clayton, please be serious. You're just saying that so I won't set you up with any more women. […] Well, then you're saying it 'cause you're trying to get back at me for something. Clay, I know you too well for this. After all, I know it can't be true. You're my brother. […] Clayton Hollingsworth. You look me in the face and tell me you really are… what you just said you are.”

“I'm having a little trouble putting this all together. Clayton, I just feel like I don't know you anymore.”

“[…] Dorothy, that's different. We're talking about going out in public. Oh, what are people gonna say?”

“Will you tell me why you want to put yourself and Doug through this? You know how people can be.”

“Oh, look, I can accept the fact that he's gay, but why does he have to slip a ring on this guy's finger so the whole world will know?”

Quite the difference from her attitude towards Jean, wouldn’t you say? I think there’s three elements at play here.

1) When Clayton comes out to Blanche, she feels disoriented because this is life-changing information Clayton has never shared with her before. While her reaction as a whole isn’t ideal, personally I think it’s understandable. Clayton is her baby brother; she’s known him as straight all his life, he’s been married to a woman for years before his divorce, and she recounts an episode from their adolescence when he was on a date with a woman and very clearly implicated having a physical encounter with her. He's done everything in his power to pass as straight until this point in time -- I don't find it strange that Blanche would be shocked at his coming out, especially given her upbringing (and the fact that this is set in the 80s! We can't expect modern sensibilities from the characters!). Once again, her reaction isn't the best (she can't even bring herself to say the word 'gay' at first...), but the shock per se isn't that surprising, imho.

2) Blanche is scared because of societal implications above all. She doesn't necessarily see being queer as something wrong, but she's been taught it's not socially acceptable and acts accordingly. Notice how she's worried about what people are going to say, and she struggles to accept that Clayton wants the whole world to know about his relationship with Doug.

Societal expectations in general are a big theme for Blanche's character, and often drive her development; another big example of this is her attitude towards Rebecca's decision to get artificially inseminated, but it's a bit of a baseline issue for her, I feel. She has this whole thing about her beauty and her (supposed) youth and her attractiveness that has some inherent elements, but it's mostly an issue of how other people perceive her, I think, and her response to her brother's coming out is easy to relate to this theme. I mean, she even says it to Rose in S7E15:

"Well, I don't mind being labeled a lesbian, honey, but since I'm not, you just ruined my social life."

So yeah. I think it's safe to say her main concern is societal disapproval of queerness: she wants to be accepted and celebrated by the people around her, and she thinks that being openly queer will destroy her place in her social circle (and she's worried about the same happening to Clayton too, of course).

3) This is sort of related to point 2, but it felt distinct enough to treat it separately. I think she might have reacted so badly to Clayton's coming out (and especially to his showing up with a partner) because he's open about his sexuality, and she's not ready to face what that means for her. My lovely mutual @\hecatesbroom recently published her latest amazing work the odd one(s) out, on the relationship between Dorothy and her brother Phil and how Phil's open queerness might have impacted Dorothy; I think a similar situation might have occurred between Blanche and Clayton after his coming out.

Blanche has a sort of advantage on Dorothy because of her bisexuality, in the sense that she has 'passing privilege' (I really dislike this concept, but allow me to use it to make a point): it's painfully clear that she loved her late husband with all her heart, and she's obviously attracted to men as well, so she can pretend not to like women without too much of a hassle (whereas, if you believe Dorothy to be a repressed lesbian, her situation is much more complicated).

The issue with this is that this 'advantage' is a double-edged sword: she might have the comfort of being socially acceptable, but she's had to suffocate a big part of herself to obtain that comfort. And so, what happens when Clayton -- her baby brother Clayton, the one who's always been just like her, who's grown up with her same environment and influences -- begins openly living as a gay man? I'm sure the situation must have had a strong impact on her, even if just on a subconscious level; I've always found it curious that she seems to have a harder time accepting Clayton in S6E14 than she does in S4E9 (she even calls his sexuality a phase), and while a part of it may be attributed to the higher social exposure Clayton's commitment to Doug brings, I think this may be a result of her inner conflict, provoked by watching her brother live openly while she's been suppressing a part of herself all her life.

Here I'm assuming she's never acted upon her attraction to women before, but there's some space to believe she has done so and has decided it's too much of a hassle, as you say -- likely because she'd for sure do it in secret, given her fear of societal condemnation. If she has been with women before, and decided to give up on it, I still think she'd be greatly impacted by Clayton's coming out: it means her baby brother is a) braver than she is, and b) going to openly face (and likely suffer because of) the same social issues she's run away from. In this lens, I find it interesting that she cautions him about how people can be, almost as if they've both experienced it.

Whew. Wow, this was a lot more than I'd originally meant to write, haha! Seems you sparked a big train of thought, anon! I think all of the Girls (with the possible exception of Sophia) are really fascinating to analyze with a queer lens, and Blanche is always interesting to me, of course. As a final note, I'd like to point out that she does come around to Clayton's sexuality and his relationship, in the end: as often happens, she just needs the Girls' help to put things back in perspective, understand she's hurting someone she loves, and correct her actions. I'd like to think living with the Girls might lead to her becoming more accepting of herself, too.

[wingsofhcpe]

Every few years the tumblr queer community decides that we clearly don't have enough problems as is with real bigots, and they pick a sub-category of other queer people to convince us that "actually these are the True Oppressors, Guys, I Promise, they're too loud and privileged and stealing our rights as we speak!" while also mostly using recycled terf rhetoric but Woke This Time to support these accusations. At some point it was bi people (especially bi sapphics), then ace and aro people. Now it seems it's the turn of trans men & transmasc people in general.

And of course, if you as a member of the targeted demographic try to speak up, you're labelled as proof of the accusations. "See? They're loud and annoying and are oppressing us by not letting us target them, instead of shutting up and taking it like good little victims!".

And I, for one, I'm not having it.

[summer-sapphic]

Hi I'm mad

[snailchimera]

If you're refusing to vote for the sake of sending a political message to a party you already know and expressly state doesn't actually care, you have written off a vast number of people you claim to support as acceptable losses. You are willing to let those people die for the political equivalent of a junk mail flyer that goes directly to recycling without being read. Or, you're willing to let them die because inaction just feels better to you.

So how exactly do you expect those people to believe you'll stand with them when there are actual consequences for doing so, like getting arrested or shot or having your whole family targeted by modern day brownshirts? You've already demonstrated exactly how much you think their lives are worth.

[falderaletcetera]

come to think of it another reason I'm biased towards nine might be because we never reach such beautiful casual queer vibes as the doctor + rose + jack situation again, at least not as far as I've watched. like I'm honestly not that much of a shipper but that kiss scene DOES things to me. and part of that is how loosely defined the relationship seems to be, at least maybe from jack's perspective. I can't rightly say it was wholly romantic in canon, but it sure was something - yes, rose flirted with jack way more than the doctor did when they first met, but the doctor even just being chill about jack kissing him feels significant - and I do love a quasi-romantic loosely-defined Something.