#we’re staying friends in that way queers do

[skelavender]

actually kudos to my now ex for breaking up with me the week before taylor swift releases an album that shit is gonna HIT

[palms-upturned]

.

[blushweddinggowns]

Eddie threw an arm over Steve's shoulder, bringing him into a half-hug, “So, what did you guys think?”

“It was great!” Steve said quickly, relaxing into Eddie’s side, “You guys killed it, dude!”

“He’s right,” Robin agreed, “It was awesome! Super, duper fun and we’re so glad we got to see it. But actually, we kinda got to go-”

Eddie frowned, the loose grip he had over Steve’s shoulder tightening on it’s own accord, “Go where? Don’t tell me you guys are tired already?”

For some reason, Robin didn’t look at him after he asked the question. Instead she looked to Steve, a brow raised as she waited for something. But then Steve was giving her a subtle nod, her queue to start talking again. She leaned in closer, whispering as loud as she could in the noisy environment, “So… you’re like cool, right? Steve said you were cool.”

Eddie cocked his head at her, beyond confused, “I-yes? I guess?”

“About the thing?” She pressed, jerking her head his direction, “Steve’s thing?”

“Oh!” Eddie blurted, finally catching on. But he still didn’t get what Steve being gay had to do with them ditching. He nodded quickly, “Very cool with it. Have zero issues.”

It was almost true. Whatever issues Eddie had with Steve’s sexuality involved his own bullshit more than anything else. Plus, his answer had Robin smiling. Gesturing for Eddie to lean in closer, “Good. Because we, um. Share the affliction if you catch my drift.”

“That’s fine,” Eddie said, not missing a beat. He had kind of figured that out along the way. Considering the process of elimination on who could have possibly talked Steve through his queer thoughts. Not that Eddie cared, “No problem here.”

“Good!” She said with a grin, “Then you know just how limited our options are where we live. And according to an insanely pretty girl, there is an honest to god gay bar, like a few blocks away!”

Eddie swallowed, discomfort suddenly settling in at the suggestion, “T-That’s where you guys are going?”

“Yeah!” She said excitedly, setting her sights back onto Steve, “It’s time for someone to realize that we are hot enough to flirt and be flirted with! Closets don’t matter when you’re hours away from home.”

“We share the exact same closet,” Steve groaned, “Don’t start preaching to me.”

“And tonight we can escape from it!” Robin argued, “Come on! Eddie’s going to be busy with his friends and groupies anyway. What else are we doing-”

“I’m actually not that busy,” Eddie interrupted, trying his damndest to keep his voice calm. Suddenly, he felt nauseous again. He didn’t-He knew Steve could handle himself. He did. B-But creeps were everywhere! And he wasn’t used to being around guys who only wanted one thing and Robin would be distracted with girls a-and Eddie was really struggling with this idea.

Though Steve seemed to disagree. The next thing he knew, Steve was smiling back at her. Letting out a good-natured sigh, “Fine, fine! We can go. Someone has to make sure you don’t get kidnapped.”

“Oh my god, yes!” Robin nearly squealed, bouncing a little in her seat, “This is gonna be so fun!”

Eddie’s heart squeezed uncomfortably in his his chest at the excitement, dread starting to fill him. He opened his mouth, words escaping before he could even think of it, “Sounds like you two might need a D.D. I can do it.”

It was probably the first time Eddie had ever invited himself to something he clearly wasn’t a part of. But he had to give himself some credit for how smoothly it came out. 

Robin looked up at him, clearly surprised, “Really? It’s not exactly your scene.”

Eddie shrugged, “It could be. I like George Michael.”

Steve snorted next to him, “That is the one true gay litmus test. You got us there.”

“Seriously though,” Eddie pressed, refusing to let it go, “Then you can both drink, dance, have fun. And not worry about how you’re getting back to the hotel.”

“But don’t you want to stay here?” Steve asked, “Robin wasn’t kidding about the groupies. You should have heard what some of them were saying.”

“You could definitely get laid,” Robin added. She was staring at him now, looking at Eddie in a way that seemed a little past confused. Like she was examining him. Testing him. Or maybe that was just in his head. 

Eddie held firm, “Maybe, but I’d rather hang out with you two vs playing wingman to the boys. What do you say?”

“If you really don’t mind…” Steve said, trailing off. But Eddie could tell that he was happy. He could barely keep his smile to himself as he looked to the side, biting his lip in a way that Eddie fucking knew other people would notice. How could they not? 

from the next chapter of this fic

[salmonskinrolltf]

Soulmates 2

[Here's a sequel of sorts to my previous story Soulmates (you don't need to have read it to understand this story). With thanks to @guytransformedforever, @beardobession, @tf-vigilante, @maletransformationlover, @clevertreephilosopher, @scorpionofredsand, and @maletffanatic for providing the photos used as inspiration.]

Hello, my name is Tyler. This is me:

And this is my roommate, Dylan:

Now look, I don’t have a problem with gay people. My cousin is a lesbian. And Dylan is a great roommate. Stays out of my way when we’re not gymming together, but is always down to hang when I need someone to talk to. I just wish he would be less in my face with all his gay shit. Rainbow flags everywhere, blasting Ariana Grande at all hours, constantly bringing new Grindr hookups back to the apartment but giving me side-eye when I ogle women. It’s just… too much for me.

Here’s the thing. I might actually be able to change that. I have this friend Evan, who I’ve wingmanned for on a few occasions over the past year. One night, when we were getting drunk together, he shared his secret with me. He has a magic gift. He clasped my hand and said “tomorrow, you will wake up and have this magic too.” And sure enough, the next day I could feel a tingle coursing through my veins, and I automatically had the knowledge of how to channel it.

Now I have the ability to change somebody’s future. I can’t fiddle with anything that’s innate or has already happened to them. Like, I can’t just make Dylan straight. But I can shape his future decisions or actions, and my magic will make alterations to speed the process along. Like if I made him decide to work out more, he would basically become a muscle beast within the week. Not that I’d do that. I still gotta be the alpha here. I just want to make him a little more… palatable. Someone cool to kick back with all the time, even if he sucks dick. Let’s see... I think I know what will work.

TOMORROW, DYLAN WILL BECOME OBSESSED WITH SPORTS

———————————

Hello, my name is Dylan:

Sports are my LIFE. I never cared about them much growing up, but about a month ago I felt the urge to join my local queer volleyball team and never looked back. It became my everything. It’s been great exercise, but on top of playing volleyball and getting totally jacked off of it, I’ve loved the sense of camaraderie. I love my team. So much so that I even pierced my nipples on a dare when we lost the semifinals. My teammate River also recommended I stop dyeing my hair, and I think the look is really working for me. For some reason, even though it’s only been a month, my hair has grown out significantly since then. Was the red dye stunting its growth or something? Anyway. I also feel like my roommate Tyler and I have really bonded. We’ve been watching baseball games together and I think he appreciates how into it I am. He says he’s excited to bro out while watching football together in the fall.

I love Tyler, but here’s the thing. Maybe I love him too much. I’ve always had this huge crush on him, and no matter how many random Grindr hookups I try to distract myself with, I just can’t stop hoping that one day he’ll give up women for good and decide he loves me. Especially now that we’re spending all this time together, bumping chests when our team wins and shit.

I know us getting together is never going to happen, but I have this… temptation. I was born with a gift. Or maybe I wasn’t. Something my twink friend Paul told me made me think maybe he had something to do with it. Anyway, I have the ability to reshape someone’s past. I change just one thing about their past, and everything about their present just ripples forward to reflect that change. It’s a delicate art. Changing something big can have huge effects that are totally unpredictable. It’s a major temptation to make Tyler gay, but who knows how he’d turn out. Plus, I think that’s just too invasive.

But… Maybe I could change something small about him. Something that would make him less my type, and allow me to move on and focus on finding a boyfriend who would actually be into me. I’m into nice guys. I really love how kind and caring he is. And come on, he’s a FIREFIGHTER. So maybe I can try…

TYLER GREW UP SELFISH AND SPOILED

———————————

What’s up, I’m Tyler.

You dig the jacket? Yeah, I’m still a firefighter, I’m just off duty. But babes dig whatever look I rock, you know what I mean? I get what I want, and what I want is a lot of one night stands. I know how to get ‘em, too. I’m so glad I made the decision to grow this beard out a year ago, it’s opened so many doors for me. And opened a lot of legs.

I’m getting what I want from Dylan, too. Finally, I have a roommate who’s willing to grab brews and watch the game with me. But I think I fucked up when I changed him. Queer volleyball isn’t exactly “sports,” at least not in my book. I thought he’d come out like a linebacker or something! I mean, nipple rings were never part of the plan. The gay guys seem to really go for them, too, so he’s got an even steadier stream of Grindr hookups coming in and out of the place.

On top of that, I’m a little sick of his shit. He’s always giving me lip about stupid stuff like leaving my dishes in the sink or dropping my unwashed uniform on the bathroom floor. He says it’s unsanitary. Like his parade of twinks aren’t dying to sniff that shit anyway. He just doesn’t get it. I think his volleyball teammates are a bad influence too. They’re all so obsessed with aesthetic and anti-hetero rhetoric. I still can’t make him straight, but I can definitely make him less… annoying.

TOMORROW, DYLAN WILL START HANGING OUT WITH MORE STRAIGHT PEOPLE WHO WILL HELP HIM STOP WORRYING ABOUT STUPID SHIT AND BE LESS PRISSY, WELL-GROOMED, AND UPTIGHT

———————————

Yo, I’m Dylan.

Yeah, I cut my hair shorter than the last time you saw me. The upkeep was just getting to be too much, y’know? A couple weeks ago, about the time I dumped that lame-ass volleyball team I was on, I just got bored with shaving every day, too. I invested in a trimmer and now I rock the stubble look, and it’s working for me. I’ve gained a bit of weight since then, and it’s all for the better because I joined my local football league. Having a few extra beers with my new buds afterward just adds to my potential as a linebacker, anyway.

I thought hanging out with more straight people would make me get used to their vibe and kinda inoculate me against Tyler, but I’m still totally obsessed with him. He’s more of a bad boy now, but I’m finding that less unappealing than I used to. Plus, he’s still parading around in his uniform all the time. I can’t help it! I’ve jerked off more times that I can count to his Mr. June photos in the local firefighter calendar.

Whenever I see his mom, she’s constantly going on about how, out of all his Tonka toys growing up, the fire truck was always his favorite. She thinks that’s why he grew up to be a firefighter. Maybe I can change that core memory into something a little more… disreputable. That would definitely make him not my type anymore. I hope.

TYLER’S FAVORITE TOY GROWING UP WAS A TONKA MOTORCYCLE

———————————

Fuckin’ A, man, I’m Tyler.

God, I love my hog. She’s a beaut, ain’t she? My parents wanted me to grow up to be a doctor or a lawyer or a firefighter or some shit, but all I ever wanted to do was ride my hog. Chicks want to ride my hog too, and I let them. As long as they don’t go near my bike! Hahaha, get it? Fuck, I love life. Let me take another drag on this stogie real quick.

Where was I? Oh yeah, my roommate, Dylan. I wish I didn’t have to room with anyone, but my boss at the garage keeps refusing to promote me. I should knock him around one of these days, see if that changes his mind. Anyway, sure, Dylan isn’t so much of a priss anymore. He doesn’t give me shit if I leave my grease-stained clothes on the couch or light up when we’re watching a football game.

But I wanted him to be straight-acting, you know? I tried to train him up as my wingman but he wore a super gay shirt with all these see-through holes to the party, and all the chicks kept their eyes on him the whole time! Fucker. Why can’t he be more like his brother? I’ve seen pictures. That dude is a full on redneck slob, got a Confederate tattoo and everything. I know they had the same backwater-ass trailer trash upbringing, why can’t he be rougher around the edges? You know what… maybe he can!

TOMORROW, DYLAN WILL REALIZE HE WANTS TO EMBRACE HIS WHITE TRASH UPBRINGING

———————————

Hey y’all, I’m Dylan.

Hoo-ee, life has been good lately. I dunno why I resisted my good ol’ boy roots for so long. This goatee really makes me look rugged, dunnit? Also the chest hair. So grabbable. I decided to stop shaving my body, and poof! There it went. A full rug, within like two days I reckon. Like a sign from God. This is how I was always meant to be.

I know I was trying to push away my crush on Tyler by making him not my type, but what’s the fuckin’ point? I need someone who can handle me, and this hot as fuck biker dude I’ve created might be the only one who can handle me at this point. I ride ‘em rough and bareback, just like the horses back home, and weak city dudes just can’t handle it.

Will he be the same if he’s not straight? Maybe not. But as long as he can take my eight inches, I’ll keep him around. I vaguely remember having some sort of compunction about changing him so drastically, but I’m too horny to remember what it was.

Fuck it.

TYLER WAS BORN GAY

———————————

Uh… hi. I’m Tyler. Who are you again?

Sorry, I’m pretty forgetful. Daddy Dylan says I don’t gotta remember shit though, as long as I let him ride me as rough and as long as he likes. He’ll do all the rest for me. He tells me where to go, what to do, who to do. There are so many nice, hot guys who are willing to pay our rent if I turn a few tricks. I love it.

I’ve been like this as long as I can remember. My mom and dad kicked me out when I was 18, in my senior year of high school. I was caught sucking my English teacher’s dick behind the locker rooms. I never went to college after that, but it’s not like I was getting good grades anyway. Sucking Mr. Brentmon’s cock wasn’t for my health, you know. He had a nice juicy one, too. I still dream about it sometimes.

What was I saying? Oh yeah, I took up with this biker gang for a while after getting kicked out. I’ve always had a thing for bikers. But once they got through using my ass, they got bored. It was hard for a while, but now things are oh, so easy. I get all the dick I could ever want. I have a roof over my head, and no job to worry about. All I do is go to the gym and eat and fuck and I never have to think. Dylan said he might take me out muddin’ sometime too. I don’t know what that is, but anything Dylan does is fun. Fuck, I love the way his goatee tickles my skin when he kisses me, so rough, so manly. Way manlier than I’ve ever been. It’s so fucking hot. I love how he takes care of me.

I really have no complaints. I wouldn’t change anything about my life, even if I could remember how…

[tommykinard6]

Buddie fans, my loves, come have a seat for a moment.

I want to have a chat, from a long time Buddie lover to you, whether you’re new or have been here a long time.

It’s okay.

I’ve been in the trenches with you. I’ve been pulling for Buck and Eddie to get together for years. I haven’t given up, even as I’ve seen other fans leave because they lost hope. I don’t blame them. The Buddie section of the fandom has been powerful and beautiful and all consuming. We’ve gone seven seasons and up until this point, not one of the two men in question was even confirmed to be queer.

But we all need to take a moment and breathe. That’s it. Stop doom scrolling for a moment and breathe in.

Good. Now hold for a moment.

And breathe out.

I’m going to get real here, alright? And you might not like everything I say and that’s ok.

We need to stop being a problem. Stay with me. I’m not saying we need to stop shipping Eddie and Buck. Far from it. I will love that ship forever. I’m not saying we need to stop our fanfics or fanart or our love for these two. Our feelings are valid. Many of us have been in love with these two for a long time. The Buckley-Diaz family is a strong unit.

Our feelings are valid and we feel what we feel. But our reactions are utterly and entirely our own responsibility.

We need to stop the bullying.

Let’s face it, many Buddie fans have also been long time bullies in the fandom. Particularly in regard to the actresses who have played the female love interests in the past. Don’t get me wrong, aside from maybe Ali, I have disliked every love interest introduced. But have we not yet learned to separate actress from character? If we are going to dislike an actress, let’s do it for a valid reason. Marisol’s actress for example is problematic. But many fans have rained hell down upon any woman introduced.

I’ve noticed this issue for a long time. But now we’re dealing with the issue being even more widespread because of Buck/Tommy. Now fans are bullying each other. The fandom is divided, even in what is probably one of the better seasons we’ve gotten (in my opinion). I need you guys to stay with me here.

Buck is bi.

Let’s say that again. Evan Buckley is bisexual. A major character on a major show on a major network, previously a womanizer and still a very masculine figure, is queer.

This is monumental. This is amazing.

But so many of you are letting your feelings about Buddie get in the way of appreciating the progress we’ve made. Especially with the reintroduction of Tommy Kinard, Buck’s love interest.

Let’s clear up a couple of things, shall we? Tommy Kinard is not Sal DeLuca. He is not Captain Gerrard. While he was part of the old 118 and definitely was in the old boys club, not only is he not the major problem, but in most cases that he’s an asshole, it can be traced back to his own secret. It’s not great, sure. But let’s look at the facts. Chimney is friends and still keeps in touch with him. Hen appears to hold no animosity and was clearly comfortable with him. In Bobby Begins, they all are friends. And clearly, Tommy has undergone a massive self-growth period. You cannot try to back up your point with inaccurate facts.

People can change. People can also be forgiven. It’s the prerogative of those involved. Enough said.

“But TK6,” you may say, “Buck should be with Eddie! Tommy is a plot device!”

Let’s set aside instant gratification culture really quick and talk about storytelling. You cannot get everything you want when you want it. You also cannot have your cake and eat it too. Buck and Eddie, if both queer, were never going to come out at the same time. Do we really want that?! Because identity is messy. Self discovery is messy. Eddie has Catholic guilt. Buck has self esteem/worth issues. Life isn’t a fanfiction. The real possibility of their relationship surviving such a transition isn’t all that high. IF Eddie is canonically queer, he’s going to have a rougher path than Buck has had.

Also, everyone is a plot device. Let’s get real. If a character doesn’t move a plot along, what’s the point? YES, Tommy is there for a storyline. That doesn’t in anyway invalidate his existence or his presence in Buck’s life.

If you want an instant Buddie storyline, visit ao3! There are amazing stories on there.

Now let’s talk about Buck/Tommy, or TEvan.

I am a long time Buddie lover. I also proudly ship TEvan. Yes, those can coexist. I don’t often multiship, but it’s a beautiful thing. I want Buddie to be endgame, sure! But I’m also okay if TEvan lasts. If they end up being endgame, will I be disappointed about Buddie? Of course. I will also be thrilled because Buck and Tommy are a sweet couple and I’m here for it.

As a queer woman, I’m happy that Buck is bi. Multisexual representation is still sorely lacking. Male sexuality that lets a man keep his masculinity while being queer? Even more so. Just take a look at the ao3 tag. Buck is emasculated in many fics. That’s why I stopped reading a lot.

We have a ship here that includes two very masculine men, who are emotionally vulnerable and exploring something new. I understand ship disappointment. But the negativity is wild. We need to stop the bullying. We need to stop the cheating storylines. We need to stop making Tommy into an ab*s*r only because we apparently can’t handle a love interest being a good person.

At the end of the day, these are fictional characters. It’s a fictional show. But these are real people. All of us are sitting here behind our screens with real feelings. We need to stop.

Buddie may one day happen. And maybe they won’t. TEvan might be endgame. They might not be. Tis the way of 9-1-1. It’s exciting, isn’t it? Waiting for something new and exciting. It was starting to get a little stagnant.

As a queer person, I’m not trying to gatekeep anyone. However, we cannot sit here and say “stop queerbaiting us!!!!” (They weren’t, we’ve always had queer representation on 9-1-1) “give us more representation” and then when they give it to us say, “NO! Not that way!”

If it was about the representation, it being Eddie or Tommy would matter a lot less.

So if you are someone using representation to shield yourself, kindly just be honest with yourself and everyone else.

In the words of our Lady and Savior Taylor Swift, “You need to calm down”.

Now, back off into the world of scrolling you go, my lovelies. Remember, keep an open mind and breathe. At the end of the day, it’s a show. But I for one will happily wait for every episode because I’m loving this.

[bengiyo]

Love in the Big City Part 1: It's Gay

We’ve finally made it to the Love in the Big City TV adaptation. Despite all the drama going on around this show’s release, we got the whole show at once. We won’t get canceled midway through. Though I hoped for a global weekly release schedule, I understand the decisions that led to dropping the whole thing at once. Thankfully, Nam Yoon Su is so charismatic as Go Yeong, and I have much to say about how this show doesn’t hate BL, has great regard for the humanity of its characters, and so far is one of the better adaptations I’ve experienced in my life. 

Nam Yoon Su’s Go Yeong

I just want to state plainly that I love how queer Go Yeong feels in this show. I love his pissy little expressions. I love his frustration and anger at gross straight men. I love his gay little run. I love his dancing in the street to girl pop artists. I love him making out with men in public. 

I loved opening with Yeong in the midst of a new fling and openly having lots of sex before the military boyfriend came back home. I loved Yeong ending things before later going to a club to seek new partners. We haven’t had that in so long, with Queer as Folk being the biggest cultural memory for many. 

More than anything, I love how lonely he felt. Many others have noted it in the tag, and I think that’s the part that resonates when something feels queer for a lot of us. It was notable that they brought Yeong’s friends forward this time, which gives us insight into the shallow nature of most of his relationships. His connection to them is through the club, music, and boys. Go Yeong keeps everyone at a distance. It’s the hardest part about being queer sometimes. You try to connect with others, but something always seems to come up to prevent that closeness. 

Kim Nam-Gyu

I think casting Kwon Hyuk as Kim Nam Gyu was such an excellent decision. He previously played my man Jong Chan in The New Employee, and it feels like a nod from this production that they are not opposed to BL. BL is a drama full of romance tropes and huge optimism about relationships, and they cast the actor who played my favorite version of the ideal man in a way that showed empathy for his lonely, quiet nature. Casting Kwon Hyuk feels like a tactful way for this show to say, “We’re not BL, and we respect the work others are doing.” The New Employee was directed by a Korean gay activist, and I love this show giving K-BL a polite nod.

Nam Gyu is a quiet gay. As one myself, I get a lot of what I saw in Nam Gyu. He takes pictures of hot models because it’s a socially acceptable way for him to be close to hot men. He leaps at the chance to be with Go Yeong, and speed runs the intimacy route. He missed that he was smothering Go Yeong, and I think it’s because it’s clear he lacks friends.

I feel so sad for Nam Gyu, because it’s clear he overinvested in his relationship with Go Yeong. He was so ready to give Go Yeong everything, but it was way too much for a club gay. Despite all the ways he rushed in (like a fool), he was otherwise so safe in his life. He stayed in the lines everywhere, and it’s so tragic that he died while speeding. 

I thought a lot about the lack of Kylie in this section and the health scare, and it adds a layer to the situation with Nam Gyu as @twig-tea pointed out in one of our conversations that Go Yeong asked how he died because he might already know his status. Did Go Yeong wonder if he’d infected Nam Gyu? It also makes me wonder about the sex we didn’t see with Nam Gyu and IG guy. 

Finally, the empty funeral hurts me to my core. This man was so decent, and no one was there to see him off. I am still thinking about how all of the breakups mirrored each other in this section.

Choi Mi Ae

I think @lurkingshan already covered Mi Ae in this adaptation very well. I’ve been thinking about her for a few days, and I’ve decided that I like that we get to see more of her outside of Yeong’s POV in the show. We can see how her circumstances rattled her, and how it was clear that she couldn’t make it on her own long term. 

I get her taking the cushy job. I get her finding a nice enough guy who didn’t want kids. I get her choosing to protect herself when cornered. The most tragic thing about her outing of Yeong is that she told the truth and it only seemed to make things worse. Jonho could never understand the solace she and Go Yeong found in each other, and he was not ready to ever hear the truth of Mi Ae’s life. 

I feel more sympathy for Mi Ae in this version because we can see that their relationship meant so much to her. Learning that he actually went on to become a writer touched her because it feels like he’ll immortalize a time in their lives that was mutually important to them. It also means that one of them may not have to settle for the choices available to them. The singing at the wedding hits so painfully here because it’s the last fun memory these two will ever have. Yeong goes back to the apartment Mi Ae left for him to eat the last of their blueberries, and that’s the last we’ll see of her.

Final Thoughts

I’m so relieved that we have book club discussion again. I’ll be reading and reblogging people’s posts, and I’m looking forward to the next part to see how Hyung fits into the show’s narrative. This adaptation has been so beautiful so far, and it’s been really great to see how the show has softened some of its edges by putting us in third person perspective. We are giving room to understand Mi Ae, Nam Gyu, and the T-aras by not seeing them exclusively through Yeong’s eyes.

[campgender]

from In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (2019)

In Dorothy Allison’s short story “Violence Against Women Begins at Home,” a group of lesbian friends gathers for a drink and they discuss a bit of community gossip: a pair of women recently broke into another woman’s house and trashed it, smashing glass and dishes and destroying her art, which they deemed pornographic. They spray-painted the story’s eponymous phrase on her wall. The friends debate police involvement and intragroup conflict mediation; but toward the end of the story, as they are parting ways, the problem crystallizes into a single, telling exchange:

“Look, do you think maybe we could hold a rent party for Jackie, get her some money to fix her place back up?”

Paula looks impatient and starts gathering up her stuff. “Oh, I don’t think we should do that. Not while they’re still in arbitration. And anyway, we have so many important things we have to raise money for this spring—community things.”

“Jackie’s a part of the community,” I hear myself say.

“Well, of course.” Paula stands up. “We all are.” The look she gives me makes me wonder if she really believes that, but she’s gone before I can say anything else.

Queer folks fail each other too. This seems like an obvious thing to say; it is not, for example, a surprise to nonwhite queers or trans queers that intracommunity loyalty goes only so far, especially when it must confront the hegemony of the state. But even within ostensibly parallel power dynamics, the desire to save face, to present a narrative of uniform morality, can defeat every other interest.

The queer community has long used the rhetoric of gender roles as a way of absolving queer women from responsibility for domestic abuse. Which is not to say that activists and academics didn’t try. When the conversation about queer domestic abuse took hold in the early 1980s, activists gave out fact sheets at conferences and festivals to dispel myths about queer abuse. [see footnote 45] Scholars distributed questionnaires to get a sense of the scope of the problem. [see footnote 46] Fierce debates were waged in the pages of queer periodicals.

But some lesbians tried to restrict the definition of abuse to men’s actions. Butches might abuse their femmes, but only because of their adopted masculinity. Abusers were using “male privilege.” (To borrow lesbian critic Andrea Long Chu’s phrase, they were guilty of “[smuggling patriarchy] into lesbian utopia.”) Some argued that consensual S&M was part of the problem. Women who were women did not abuse their girlfriends; proper lesbians would never do such a thing. [see footnote 47] There was also the narrative that it was, simply, complicated. The burden of the pressure of straight society! Lesbians abuse each other!

Many people argued that the issue needed to be handled within their own communities. Ink was spilled in the service of decentering victims, and abusers often operated with impunity. In an early lesbian domestic abuse trial, a lawyer noted the odd and unsettling detail that most of the time the jury spent behind closed doors was—contrary to what she’d been worried about—the straight jurors attempting to convince the jury’s sole lesbian member of the defendant’s guilt. When she was later questioned, the lesbian juror told the lawyer that she hadn’t “wanted to convict a [queer] sister,” as though the abused girlfriend was not herself a fellow queer woman.

Around and around they went, circling essential truths that no one wanted to look at directly, as if they were the sun: Women could abuse other women. Women have abused other women. And queers needed to take this issue seriously, because no one else would.

footnote 45: Among the myths tackled by the Santa Cruz Women’s Self Defense Teaching Cooperative: “Myth: It’s only emotional/psychological, so that doesn’t count.” “Myth: I can handle it—unlike her last three lovers.” “Myth: Staying together and working it out is most important.” “Myth: We’re in therapy, so it’ll get fixed now.”

footnote 46: Actual questionnaire language by researcher Alice J. McKinzie: “Is your abuser present at this festival? If your abuser is at this festival, is she present while you are filling this out? If your abuser is not present while you are filling this out, is she aware that you are filling out this questionnaire? If you answered NO to the question above … do you plan to tell her later?”

footnote 47: This No True Scotsman fallacy could bend these narratives in every direction conceivable; create a kind of moving goalpost that permitted an endless warping of accountability. In a firsthand account of her abuse in Gay Community News in 1988, a survivor wrote: “I had been around lesbians since I was a teenager, and although some of them had troubled relationships, I was unaware of any battering. I attached myself to the comforting myth that lesbians don’t batter. Much later, when I was ‘out’ enough to go to gay bars in a town that was liberal enough to tolerate them, I saw that some lesbians did indeed batter. However, I thought they were all of a type—drunks, sexist butches or apolitical lesbians—so I decided that feminist lesbians don’t batter.” Activist Ann Russo put it more succinctly in her book Taking Back Our Lives: “I had found it hard to name abuse in lesbian relationships as a political issue with structural roots.”

[unfinishedslurs]

bedsharing (future stobin lavender marriage) (steddie)

“Why do you have tampons in your bathroom?” Eddie asks, toweling off his hair. “Wouldn’t your mom just keep them in hers?”

“They’re Robin’s.”

He can feel Eddie’s eyes on the back of his neck, and turns around from where he’s hastily folding his clothes. He has another towel wrapped around his hips, and Steve’s gaze drifts there before snapping back up to his face. 

“What?” He asks.

“I thought you guys weren’t together.”

Steve sighs. “Just because I have tampons for when she stays over—“

“It’s just—why wouldn’t they be in the guest bathroom?”

“She stays in my room,” he says, and then realizes how that sounds. “Okay, yeah, but we’re not dating. That’s never gonna happen.”

“So you’re just hooking up?”

Steve instinctively makes a face, and Eddie’s eyebrows jut up. “No. I’m not her type, and even if I was, at this point that ball has left the court. I don’t like her like that, she definitely doesn’t like me like that, and next time Henderson tries to convince someone we’re soulmates I’m going to wring his little neck.”

“I thought you said you were soulmates.”

“Yeah, but not like that.”

“Just enough that she sleeps in your bed and has tampons in your bathroom, apparently.” Eddie bends over to wrap his hair in the towel, and Steve spends a long moment staring at the curve of his bare spine. 

“Hey, man,” he says belatedly. “We got caught off guard one time. I’m not doing that again.”

Two loads of laundry, and Robin had cried in anger and embarrassment. Steve of ‘83 would have found it disgusting. Steve of now was a little grossed out, but also had been bled on in ways much worse than a period, so he just took her out to milkshakes and stocked up on enough supplies to last for a lifetime. After that, all bets were off when it came to the few boundaries they had left. 

Eddie grimaces in acknowledgment, grabbing the pair of sweatpants on the bed. Steve turns around before the towel drops, because years of locker room experience can’t possibly prepare him for seeing Eddie Munson’s naked ass. 

“So no dreams of a white wedding and gaggles of grandchildren running around?”

“I mean, we’ll probably get married at some point,” Steve says absently, fiddling with his bedspread to keep from turning around. He can have self control. He’s capable of not ogling his friends. “It’ll be safer that way.” Shit, why did he say that? He might as well hang a neon sign that says QUEER over his head. “Easier,” he corrects himself, knowing damn well it’s useless. 

There’s a thud and a groan, and Steve whirls around to see Eddie on the ground, halfway into his pants. 

“Are you okay?”

“So you’re not together, and you’re not hooking up, but you’ll get married?” Eddie demands from the floor, wiggling into his sweats. “And…what? Have a loveless, sexless marriage? Because it’s easy?”

“Just because the love isn’t romantic doesn’t mean our marriage would be loveless,” he protests, mind whirling with excuses he can’t use. Why did he open his big mouth? Why couldn’t he have just said anything else?

“That’s what you’re focusing on?”

“I don’t know what to tell you, man,” he shrugs, trying to get his heartbeat under control. “We’re already going to spend the rest of our lives together. Might as well get some legal benefits out of it.”

“Sure, sure,” Eddie laughs, disbelieving. “Getting married for legal benefits and safety. Harrington, if I didn’t know better, I’d say this sounds like—“

“Sounds like what?” Steve cuts through what Eddie was about to say. He doesn’t know what it is, but there’s a bone-deep certainty that Eddie will end up on the truth if he keeps talking. “Are you coming to bed or not, man?”

Eddie falls silent in the middle of standing up, dark eyes pinning Steve to the spot. He knows, Steve thinks, and tries not to picture what Robin would say if he got another concussion. He hasn’t confirmed anything, and Eddie seems like a good guy, maybe even their kind of guy, but if he’s wrong then he’d better grab Robin fast and get the hell out of dodge. Dustin might forgive him eventually, if he knew the reason why.

The silence is getting unbearable. 

“Yeah, alright,” Eddie finally shrugs. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch. I want the left side.”

“You asshole,” Steve hisses, pretending the relief in his chest isn’t damn near killing him. “You know that’s the side I sleep on.”

[stardustbuck]

im a multishipper. i ship buddie and bucktommy. but if im being honest one side is being incredibly more hateful and toxic than the other side. (aka the one thats been around longer) maybe i’ve taken off my rose-colored shipping glasses, but seeing ppl make hate posts abt tommy/lou gives me the ick. it makes me actually realize why oliver left twt. bitterness will get you nowhere. if buddie is meant to happen then it’ll happen. you cannot force it to happen. everything i’ve seen and read tells me buddie was more of a consideration pre-s5 than it is currently. and that fucking sucks but just because things aren’t going your way doesn’t mean you need to get on the internet and be a bully. it’s truly mind-boggling to see people so intense in their hate for a character that has righted his wrongs, who is now friends with the people he wronged, is well-liked among said characters and is now being a positive influence on buck’s newfound sexuality. their dynamic is also nothing new, pessimist/optimist ship dynamics have been around forever and it’s only a problem because it’s not eddie.

i would be happy for buddie to go canon as much as the next guy. getting buck canonically bisexual is mind-blowing enough in itself, i’m glad we’re witnessing it at all. if ryan doesn’t want to do buddie because he feels its important they stay friends then so be it. platonic friendships between a queer man and straight man are important, especially one that runs so deep like buck and eddie’s. sure, their friendship could be read as romantic throughout the show, but partly because oliver and ryan truly share a great chemistry on screen which helps lean into it but also because these shows are not written with an endgame in mind. 9-1-1 is very much a go with the flow show, and if bucktommy is where the show is flowing then that’s what is meant to be. invisible string theory isn’t because ppl think it was always planned from the beginning, it’s because it’s amazing how well buck and tommy becoming a couple comes together so perfectly out of pure coincidence.

we know buck was supposed to be made queer long ago. we also know maddie originally was brought in for eddie but was put with chimney instead. if tim minear hadn’t left after s4 i truly think buddie could have been already established by now, but unfortunately that isn’t how things work. perhaps the idea of tommy and eddie was pitched but ultimately ryan didn’t agree it would work for these character nor the story being told at the time. buck was already supposed to be queer, so turning it to tommy and buck instead makes total sense.

no one is saying you aren’t allowed to continue to ship buddie. most ships in the world are ships that have never gone canon. buddie is valid even if it’s non-canon. god knows i will continue to read and write for them and enjoy them whilst also enjoying buck and tommy together. the behavior i’ve been seeing though is just weird, especially from larger creators who i understand are very passionate for buddie, but it’s weird when you flip it into tommy/lou hate instead of just talking about buddie itself.

perhaps the theories will be true. we don’t know! maybe buck and tommy won’t last and buddie will be endgame. i’m happy either way because buck’s sexuality is so important for him and at the current state of the show eddie is absolutely not ready for anything romantic because he’s still grieving shannon to a point where he is not ready to move on romantically just yet and we’re literally shown this. even if buddie is happening, it is not happening by the season finale nor is it probably happening by the beginning of s8 considering the current storylines and where they’ll be at by the end of this season. lou probably isn’t going anywhere and from the looks of it, we’ll probably be bumped up into a semi-regular character in s8 like karen. he’s easy to write into the plot, he’s got connections to people and emergencies outside of buck that would integrate him well into the plot. their romance is supposed to be “romcom” esque, they’re taking things slow but they’re obviously happy together at the moment.

im just really tired of the nasty attitudes ive been seeing. sure theres are som toxic people on both sides, but to me its obvious which side is being the bigger bully. reality checks needs to be put in place for some people, go outside and realize you are getting way too worked up over a tv show where plotlines are out of your control. if the show is ruined for you over one relationship then stop watching it.

[wenellyb]

Eddie Diaz is a white Latino. Did people learn nothing from the Pedro Pascal discourse? And does the fandom *not* remember that episode where the funeral protestor refuses to be tended by Hen and Chim, so he asks Eddie to give him care— fully seeing he’s white— until Eddie says his last name is Diaz and his father’s Mexican, but he can channel his mother’s Swedish heritage for the man’s comfort? White people are not members of the global majority, but they do live and exist outside Western Europe and the U.S. (like Mexico).

It’s so weird how parts of the fandom are making any positive reaction to a m/m relationship in this show (that isn’t their yaoi ‘buddie’ fanfiction) into something about loving to see white men kiss. Y’all would still be getting that with canon buddie! Y’all couldn’t even support Michael and Glenn (calling them “homewreckers”). Y’all constantly ignore Hen and Karen with your complaints of “queerbaiting.” Y’all also called TK & Carlos’ (911 Lone Star) relationship “toxic” because it began with sex and because y’all fanon Carlos as some aggressive control freak. Like… c’mon!

I don’t think anyone who is supportive of Buck’s new relationship is arguing that Tommy is perfect. He’s was a fucking dick to both Hen and Chim when they joined the 118. His “delivery man” comment to Chim was wildly unacceptable. No one has forgotten this. Yet both Hen and Chim are *NOW* good friends with him…? Why? He changed. And the show shows the audience this. They show that he developed a great camaraderie with Hen and Chim. They show how he— unlike Sal and Gerrard— shifted his behavior and worldview to accept, embrace, and enjoy change.

Tommy could have been Sal. He could have been Gerrard. He had a good working relationship with both men and both men encouraged bad behavior in the 118. Yet he didn’t. He stayed on and befriended Hen and Chim (when most of the other guys still refused). Because he chose to learn and change and open himself to people’s differences (which likely also helped him come to terms with his own “differences”).

Tommy’s arc is meant to show how someone can make amends, repair relationships, and become a better person (y’know… learn, grow, and reform himself). The general audience for this show is straight and white. They *need* to see white people changing and learning to be better. They *need* to see queer people coming into themselves. These are important story lines.

Fans like Buck and Tommy together because they like Buck and Tommy together, because they like what this means for them and what might happen going forward. That’s literally it. We’re all just overjoyed by having more queer representation, including Bi representation. That’s it.

But there are a lot of “buddie” shippers in people’s inboxes hating on Buck and Tommy together for no reason other than it stands in the way of their ideal porn fantasies (“buddie”). And they’re being weirdly queerphobic about it, too.

Hi Anon!!!! So much to unpack here. I'll post this and let anyone comment their thoughts because this is an interesting conversation.

I'll start by saying that it never occurred to me that Ryan Guzman was not White, until Bucktommy became more popular and some Buddie shippers said that Bucktommy shippers were preferring the White MM pairing and I was like "Hmm.... both Buddie and Bucktommy are White MM pairings"???? Like it never even occured to me.

I'm not here to debate Ryan Guzman's ethnicity, he knows that better than us, but as you mentionned people seem to forget that there are White latinos.

I should add that Americans will maybe have a different perspective but in Europe, there is racism, and there is also xenophobia both are bad, but not the same.

If I'm talking about someone who is White and Latino being a victim of prejudice, I would never say that they're victim of racism, I would say that he's victim of xenophobia.

Believe it or not there are a lot of Europeans are xenophobic but not racist and vice versa.

With that being said, I agree with the rest of your ask..

I love 911 Lone Star and watched 911 casually but I never got the Buddie shippers, especially the ones who said they shipped Buddie as a form of activism, or because there was a lack of Queer representation (which is true) but Henren are there, TK and Carlos are right there and it's the same franchise.

They never cared about Henren, they even erased them whenever they accused the show of Queerbaiting even thought it has several Queer characters.

I remember when they started complaining that Bucktommy had more fics that Henren after one kiss.... but never said anything about Buddie having over 20 000 fics after 6 years of nothing even thought Henren was canon.

A lot of their takes are rooted in hypocrisy, it's like they're taking all the arguments that have been thrown at them and throwing them back at Bucktommy shippers without even thinking about it.

It's very important to have discussion about fandom racism, because it's a huge issue especially in the biggest fandoms but I do feel like some of them are bringing the issue in bad faith. This discussion is so important but it needs to be had with the Bucktommy fandom AND the Buddie fandom. So far the Buddie shippers only want the Bucktommy shippers to have it.

Why don't they take a look at the mirror first and ask themselves why they never cared about a Black Lesbian couple when one of them was a Main Character. Why don't they ask themselves why a ship with 2 best friends has over 20000 fics and a canon ship that is TK and Carlos only have 7000.

And why do they find the weirdest excuses to hate on Carlos (as you said), who's clearly not White and never give him the same courtesy they give their fave White chatacters.

When Buddie shippers talk about fandom racism, all I can think is: the call is coming from inside the house.

[acre-of-wheat]

I know in this house we’re all about supporting Kit’s wrongs, but I do want to take some time to analyze another dear sword lesbian’s wrongs.

Our dearest Jade Claymore.

You’re telling me this face has done wrongs?

Sadly. Yes.

The High Aldwin

Elora disappears into the woods and Kit wants to set off to continue the mission. Jade has other feelings, and drops this statement about what they owe Elora. It’s an interesting moment, because only an episode ago it was, “where the princess goes, I go,” but Kit rides off alone.

I think Jade knows Kit well enough that she fully expected to catch up to her. To save face, Kit couldn’t turn around and go back, but she could certainly take her sweet time walking down the road.

Later on they discuss Elora’s inability to demonstrate magic, and Kit once again wants to keep moving forward to continuing the mission, and Jade has this to say.

This is just a straight up lie, girl! Sorsha’s last instruction to her is to stay with Kit, to guide her, to pull her back from the edge.

I think this is an intentional tactic from Jade though. Jade has very subtle ways that she manages to manipulate or instruct Kit. Because of their difference in station, their history together, and Kit’s stubbornness, direct conflict doesn’t really work. Jade’s weapon for influencing Kit is showing her disappointment in the princess or, in some cases, outright lying.

I think there is an important call back to this, in Children of the Wyrm, where Jade goes over the edge of the world not to save Airk, or for Elora or Sorsha, but just for Kit. Because for once love is more important than duty.

The Battle of the Slaughtered Lamb

The reveal that this relationship was orchestrated by Sorsha is a huge blow, but the last line here is the real betrayal. If Jade didn’t ever believe that Kit would be in a life or death situation, then all of Kit’s dreams, all of her plans and fantasies, were just that to Jade-- so much make believe.

I think we give Kit a lot of shit for her mistakes, but she does always apologize. It’s worth noting that there is no apology from Jade here.

Whispers of Nockmaar

Hmm, I can think of someone who could have used your backup about this about an hour ago...

The Wildwood

By far my favorite Jade wrong.

Kit is actually trying to negotiate a release-- and it probably would have worked too!-- and the typically so in control knight with her anger on a tight leash just can’t keep it together enough for it to work.

Love this for her. Get everyone killed, babe.

Prisoners of Skellin

This is not technically a wrong! But it is a type of betrayal for Kit that I think is worth discussing, because these two absolutely won’t.

The devastation.

What is most interesting about this is even though Jade is the one to bodily remove Kit from the tomb, Kit’s rage focuses solely on Elora. It’s Elora she blames for not reuniting with her father, it’s Elora she vents her frustration on.

I don’t think Kit is even capable of remaining angry at Jade, because for Kit, Jade is all she has, and she can’t risk chasing her away. When Jade tells her that she’s leaving for Galladoorn, Kit pitches a fit, but then comes to her with a kiss and a smile in the night. When Kit learns that Jade lied about her training, Kit avoids her for awhile, but all she says is, “I’m just glad you told me.”

So when Jade wraps her arms around her and drags her away from the father she’s been missing her whole life? That rage has to go somewhere else.

The Gales

We’re going all the way back to the beginning with the last one, because it is the only one I can’t defend Jade on. It’s not her accepting a place with the Shining Legion, or even picking the absolute worst time to tell her best friend that she’s leaving, it’s this.

For what, Jade? There is literally no more time left for Kit. Jade is consumed by her dedication to duty, to such an extent that she believes that extremely queer Kit should marry a man she doesn’t know, to have heirs she doesn’t want.

What are our responsibilities to those we lead? To our parents? To our loved ones? To ourselves?

Must we all give up something for what we believe in, or is love the most powerful force in the universe? What mantel from our parents is worth picking up, and which is worth running away from?

The show hasn’t answered all these questions yet, but I hope it has time to explore them, and I know that Jade will be an important part of that exploration.

[ninadove]

Well, guys, we’re finally doing it. After two years of being subscribed to the newsletter but never actually taking the time to read the god-damned e-mails, I am finally committing to reading Dracula Daily.

So I’m going to dump my thoughts here as if it were the AO3 comment section. Bear with me.

Nina reads Dracula 🦇

May 3rd

We start off very strongly with an excellent instance of food-as-a-metaphor for love:

“(Mem., get recipe for Mina.)” 🥺

From here, it only gets better:

“I did not sleep well, though my bed was comfortable enough, for I had all sorts of queer dreams (me too, Jonathan). There was a dog howling all night under my window, which may have had something to do with it; or it may have been the paprika (!!!), for I had to drink up all the water in my carafe, and was still thirsty. Towards morning I slept and was wakened by the continuous knocking at my door, so I guess I must have been sleeping soundly then.

I had for breakfast MORE PAPRIKA —”

King of not learning from his mistakes!!! Love this for him!!! Also, excellent taste.

I had for breakfast more paprika, and a sort of porridge of maize flour which they said was "mamaliga," and egg-plant stuffed with forcemeat, a very excellent dish, which they call "impletata." (Mem., get recipe for this also.

AU in which Jonathan runs a culinary blog and weird paranormal stuff keeps making its way into his posts 🍝👻

My Friend.--Welcome to the Carpathians. I am anxiously expecting you. Sleep well to-night. At three to-morrow the diligence will start for Bukovina; a place on it is kept for you. At the Borgo Pass my carriage will await you and will bring you to me. I trust that your journey from London has been a happy one, and that you will enjoy your stay in my beautiful land.

Your friend,

DRACULA.

Such a friendly gentleman 🥰 You know you can trust him from the way he declares his friendship twice in the same note 🥰 Which is a thing friends do 🥰

I absolutely love that the note starts and ends with these declarations. It feels like a trap… but surely our good friend Dracula could never…

Sleep well tonight… 🦇

Next >

[zootopiathingz]

If you really think about it, the ship where Alastor would be involved in that would most likely be canon so far would be Charlastor.

I mean, he despises Lucifer and sees Vox as not worth his time, so he's not gonna be throwing himself all over them anytime soon. Nearly everyone he interacts with besides the three women he's friends with, he's either indifferent, respectable or hostile to, but towards Charlie? This man has allowed her to touch him without permission, stated multiple times that he has faith in her beliefs and even handed her his source of power. Twice.

I'm aware he's doing all this with some underlying motive, but you can't deny he won't do all this for just anyone. I really can't imagine him all comfortably curled up in Angel's bed or getting handsy with Lucifer (He wipes his hands after touching him, man really doesn't like him at all). I support all ships with Alastor but if we're looking at this at a canon perspective, Alastor interacts with Charlie the most and will continue to interact with her as the show goes on, it's more possible to happen in a sense with Alastor.

Plus with all the romantic cues the show has (Unintentionally?) given so far, with the part where both Charlie and Alastor are laying on the heart shaped pillow but Charlie falls off the bed while Alastor remains on top off it, it seems that there could be a very small possibility that there might be an unrequited crush on Alastor's part.

Yeah, it's a stretch, but hey, he didn't have to lay in that bed. He could have stayed standing, looming over Charlie to show that he might be helping her but he still sees himself as above her and in control of the situation. But! Someone still animated him on that bed! They still animated him on that heart shaped pillow right beside Charlie! They didn't have to, but they still did and my minds still reeling after that fact.

No because you’re absolutely correct here.

Out of any of the characters in the series for Alastor to end up with, if he were to have a romantic subplot of any kind, it would be Charlie. They have the most potential together as a pairing and there have been so many little hints and visual cues that I’m honestly shocked that a romance plot isn’t where their relationship is going.

I genuinely cannot see Alastor ever engaging in anything romantic or physical with Vox or Lucifer in any way. And whenever I say that people like to excuse me of hating gay ships (which I clearly don’t. I am queer, and I love seeing queer ships that actually make sense and have good chemistry, and not just because they’re gay). It’s because he canonly hates men and is much kinder towards women—except for Vaggie lol. Yes, ship Alastor with whoever you want. It’s not my place to tell you if your ship is bad or not. I honestly don’t care because it’s your opinion and as long as you’re having fun with it, that’s all that matters!

But like anon is saying here, if we’re looking at it from a canon viewpoint, let’s think about it. Again, Alastor clearly doesn’t like men and can’t even be bothered to shake Lucifer’s hand without being disgusted. There have been three women who could be potential love interests. First is Mimzy, which I can see there may have been some flirtation here and there in the past, or even an unrequited crush on her part. But with her basically using him to get her out of trouble all the time, I can’t see them going beyond their on-and-off friendship. Then there’s Rosie, who he’s obviously very comfortable around and lets her touch and grab him as she pleases—which he wouldn’t let slide with any male characters in the show. And the Radiorose ship is cute I admit, but to me they’re a pair of gossip buddies who would maybe pretend to be in a relationship if needed, but otherwise their feelings don’t go any further than platonic.

And so that leaves us with Charlie. When I first watched the pilot I absolutely assumed they were going to have some kind of slow burn, not only because the idea of the princess of Hell and this feared Radio Demon falling for each other is so intriguing, but generally just the way they acted with each other. In like a span of eight minutes they were happily dancing together, with Alastor calling her one of a kind, tossing her around and making improvements to her dream hotel.

You can imagine how surprised I was when I found out they weren’t canon and weren’t going to be in the actual show. Like, I was legit going “🤨🤨🤨” and this was before I was even in the fandom lmao

And thank you so much for mentioning that scene in her bedroom because…

What is this. What do you mean the mfs making this show drew out this scene, carefully looked at every detail for the final product, and went “yup👍” if there wasn’t supposed to be something more going on here???

Like seriously if you’ve never watched this episode and you saw these two frames, what exactly would you assume is going on here? Be honest with me

But ya know, charlastor “isn’t canon” (so they say🙄) so the animators here were def trolling us lol

[butchhazard]

my trans to radfem story. started off as a response to another post i saw but i kind of just kept rambling and now it’s its own thing lol. i was always a bit nervous to share my personal experience out of fear of being judged but i think a lot of people will be able to relate to my perspective. or keep sending me hate if you want it’s all the same to me atp 👯

in the same vein of always seeking out arguments against my own views i frequently look at trans blogs and the amount of projection they do about “TERFs” is astounding. especially claiming that radical feminists have no sense of “kinship” with other women and that we think being a woman is all about suffering and hating yourself. they literally only believe this last part because we’re the only group of people who are honest about misogyny. the “kinship” thing is especially crazy because i WAS trans for *8 years* and during that time almost every single one of my friends was trans as well. i had zero solidarity or kinship with other women and believed them to be completely unrelatable because i was “different”.

the one time i felt brave enough to confide in my closest friend of 10+ years (who later dumped me like trash for becoming a feminist) that i was uncomfortable with penises and only wanted to be with “people with vaginas” she looked at me like i was crazy and told me, “that’s weird. I don’t feel that way. You probably shouldn’t say that.”

eventually i did cave into the pressure of being “inclusive” and put myself in many dangerous situations where men were able to take advantage of me and abuse me. at one point i truly believed i had more in common with TIMs than with “queer cis women” and had come to the conclusion that cis women were dangerous. did this MRA rhetoric serve to strengthen my female friendships like TRAs are somehow claiming it did or did it just make me the perfect victim??? (being male-identified in this way made me a horrible friend not only to other women but to myself as well.)

meanwhile i peaked as a radfem towards the end of 2021, when i was 22. i was staying at a women’s college w/ my ex. for 2 weeks we both felt completely insane and like we had just stepped into another reality. suddenly our lives became so much clearer. we were sobbing constantly just reflecting how misogyny and male violence had affected not only our lives, but the lives of our mothers, sisters, and friends. i was horrified to speak to any of my trans friends about feminism because of the “TERFs are nazis” shit we had been conditioned into believing, but i literally believed that i owed them the truth as a friend who cared and was concerned for their safety. i also naively believed that since *i* realized the TERF propaganda was a complete lie and that radical feminism was not only empowering but life-giving, they would feel the same. nope! they called my ideas brilliant and “galaxy brained” to my face and then turned around and told everyone else i was now dangerous. everyone cut me off from their life as punishment for daring to think differently. i was completely devastated. the friendships that i held so close to my heart for years and years meant nothing to them. this hurt especially because i was starting to realize just how easily they would forgive their male friends for worse, including things like disrespecting them in public or physically assaulting a woman. these were lesser crimes than being a female-identified woman.

meanwhile, around the same time, rumors of our cancelation had been going around the college and another feminist actually reached out to us. she called us her sisters and introduced us to other likeminded women who were so intelligent, supportive, gnc but proudly female. we were all the same yet so different, and different viewpoints were encouraged instead of suppressed. i was learning more about the world and my place in it every single day. for the first time in my life, i felt purpose. every since i was a little girl i had this foreboding sense that other people knew something i didn’t and that i was always “missing a piece of the puzzle”. that feeling disappeared after i became a radical feminist. 

since then, almost every feminist woman I’ve met has been such an inspiration to me, regardless of whether i like her or not. it’s actually funny that TRAs claim we have no sense of “kinship” as if women’s lands and festivals aren’t the ultimate expression of friendship and solidarity lol. i’m constantly floored especially by how kind and generous older women are to me, and how easily women my age accept me if i just allow them to. i love being a woman, i love other women, and i know that other women love me.

women in general do have a solidarity/kinship problem but this is simply not true of lesbian feminists and other radical feminists as a community. other women are our strength and lifeblood. after my ex and i broke up (it was messy girl) i wanted so badly to hate her but i literally couldn’t because i still loved her as a woman even if i didn’t love her as a partner anymore. to this day i would probably struggle to come up with a woman i actually “hate” bc it’s just not in my nature any more. my anons literally can’t relate lol 

yes radfems as a group aren’t perfect and we are generally “angry” but so are TRAs. the main difference is we direct our anger outwards rather than inwards. when i was 23 i submitted a letter to Lesbian Connection that included this paragraph that still sums up my views of being a TIF vs radfem completely:

“Realizing that my femaleness was the only thing that determined my gender– that I was born a woman and would die a woman despite not conforming to made up standards created by and for men, liberated me from the chains of believing I had been “born in the wrong body” and needed plastic surgery to fix myself. I was never born wrong and the fault never lay with me– it lay with the patriarchal society we all live in which forces females and males into incredibly limiting boxes.”

[simonexhaled]

ok so it seems like we have moved on from erik’s pov as his rumour has been revealed and dealt with and we’re now focusing on mathias and his rumour, and i have a few theories/opinions already.

mathias & erik — i’m not trying to defend erik here, but i do feel like his behaviour makes sense. he clearly liked what he had with mathias and to me the way he’s trying to reconnect and talk about the kiss shows that he doesn’t have an issue with mathias being a guy, and it was mathias that put distance between them in the first place while in the meantime erik, who doesn’t have many friends to begin with, ended up spending more time with felix. so, after all the trouble he went through when he last stood up for someone, how difficult it was to fit in and also the consequences of mathias ghosting him, he’d rather not take anyone’s side for now and stay away from trouble. that being said, even if may not be erik’s intention, his behaviour will inevitably hurt and perhaps confuse mathias, so when in ep 5 erik will confront him to maybe fix things, i think it may be mathias that will push him away once again.

mathias & felix — i always suspected that felix had feelings for his (ex) best friend, and that “what does he have that i don’t?” from last season solidified it for me and it actually surprises me that no one else seems to agree. if im right then we’re getting the usual homophobic bully is actually queer storyline (eyeroll), and since mathias chose erik over him, he’ll take out his anger on mathias while also putting more distance between him and erik. again, assuming my theory is correct, i wonder if in ep 7 thea will ask felix about mathias and that will be what’ll make him snap.

mathias & olivia — since mathias will basically end up alone, olivia will become his only friend and confidant. they’ll probably rely on each other a lot considering the shit they’ll both go through and the fact that they’ll live together BUT there’ll be a rift between the two in ep 10 (the synopsis kinda makes it sound like she’ll out him to his mum and i’d hate that) and mathias will end up even more heartbroken when his only friend will sleep with the guy he’s into.

so basically mathias will suffer throughout the entire fucking season :) i do have hope tho and if the show will get a s4 i expect mathias to get his happy ending then. after all, considering the type of show rykter is it just wouldn’t make sense for them to give us what we want immediately with no drama whatsoever.

[anonymous-dentist]

Quite frankly some of y’all are getting too parasocial again, especially with the ‘LGBTQSMP’ stuff. By y’all, I mean the fandom at large, but don’t think I haven’t seen some weird stuff on here too.

Last night on Quackity’s stream, one of the first donos called him a “fruit loop”. And like okay, whatever, that’s bad, but then I managed to find the dono’s twitter literally by accident going through my twitter feed and here’s their reason why they did it:

And that’s really fucking weird! You all see why this is weird, right? And all of the replies to the clip of the dono I found (where I found this person) were all in agreement that this was a funny and totally normal thing to do. But, as I’m sure everyone is aware, this is not, in fact, normal. It’s parasocial as fuck, and it’s weird at best and harassment at worst.

Donation etiquette posts are something that go around the fandom every couple of days, and for good reason. Some people are too goddamn parasocial. You don’t know these people, and they don’t know you. It’s like if you walk up to the cashier at McDonalds and call them a “fruit loop” because you saw her talking to another girl earlier. That’s fucked up. At best, it’s fucking weird to do. At worst, it’s outing/harassment. (Not that I think Quackity is queer or anything, that’s none of my business, and it’s not anyone else’s.)

I’ve seen some weird stuff on Twitter recently. Truthing, really, and that’s something parts of this fandom have struggled with for a really long time. But take this tweet by the same person as above as an example:

There’s a difference between jokes about “haha the qsmp is just a gay dating show and jaiden”, but some people are taking that way too literally. I’ve seen truthing on both the English side and Spanish side of the community recently, and you know that I’m not searching it out for the sake of drama because I don’t speak Spanish. I’ve seen multiple Spanish accounts on Twitter telling people to stop being weird in chat because it’s gotten to the point there that the mods are getting involved (I was watching Roier’s stream last night, and I’m pretty sure I saw this myself in chat.)

Jokes are fine. Fandom jokes are fine. But that’s where the jokes should stay- in the fandom. Yes, Quackity made a joke on day one stumbling over his words and “accidentally” calling everyone his boyfriends. Yes, the Spanish creators are a lot more chill with shipping content than the English ones. That doesn’t mean anything irl. Calling it the first bisexual smp is fine as a fandom joke, but people seem to be considering it truth when, as far as I’m aware, there’s only one actual bisexual on the server, and there’s, I believe, only two LGBTQ+ members. While the default shouldn’t be straight, it isn’t cool to just assume people’s identities, and especially not from what they do in minecraft roleplay. That’s called acting, not real life.

Truthing is dangerous. Anyone older than 16 probably remembers the way Markiplier and Jacksepticeye stopped interacting online entirely, and it’s because truthing and shipping actively damaged their friendship. Dan and Phil struggled with this, too, with them actually being gay but being unable to come out until years after they were popular because of all the truthing going on with them.

It’s dangerous! It’s weird as hell! Not everyone is dnf. Even if their boundaries don’t mention it specifically, it should be common sense not to openly speculate on a cc’s sexuality. It should be even more common sense not to call them a literal slur in their text-to-speech donos because you think it’s “telling the truth”. For a straight person, it’s just uncomfortable. For a queer person not out, it could be dangerous.

As a whole, the fandom has been behaving. We’re just under a week in as of today when I’m writing this, so I guess we’ll have to see what happens next. But please remember to be normal. These people aren’t your friends. You don’t know them. You barely even know their characters right now. So calm down and touch some grass before someone actually gets hurt.