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post canon not-so-old men yaoi

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asking sincerely. do you see a romance between jayce and viktor? do you think they ended up being something romantic at the end?

With apologies I am going to only half talk about the thing you are asking me, since I have something else on my mind and you happened to hit the button that makes me vomit it into words.

Coming at this from an aromantic perspective, I obviously don't experience the state of absurd obsessive delusion that you bizarre romantic freaks fetishize so feverishly*, but I am often annoyed by the idea that friendship and romance are either opposites or mutually exclusive. From my perspective, the boundary between the two is at best thin, and more realistically not actually a boundary at all except by cultural construction.

*i am taking an excessively hostile, crass tone for my own amusement i do not mean this seriously please be normal at me, weird allo freaks

I won't get into my full feelings about the end of Arcane, but it seems perfectly plain to me that the script, the imagery and the animation presents Jayce and Viktor as two halves of a whole, not opposing forces but alike to yin and yang: opposites which each contain the other. And at the climax of the show, the greatest peril to life and peace in the narrative is resolved by these two men literally joining their bodies and souls together, and going into eternity holding one another for comfort and strength. They are quite literally soulmates, quite literally the most important people in one another's lives.

I don't think that that kind of intimate emotional connection between men must necessarily be either romantic or sexual - I am aromantic, and plenty of ace people exist, and there is nothing in our natures excluding us from intense connections of love with other people of any gender.

I also think it is willfully ignorant (and genuinely homophobic) to act as though these deep connections are mutually exclusive with sex and romance. As though if Viktor and Jayce fucked nasty and made out sloppy style, suddenly their intimacy is less pure or valid, or tainted somehow.

"If these two men who are emotionally close to one another also fuck or get romantically involved, then friendship is dead, murdered on the floor by a dick-shaped knife; vile sexuality corrupts and debases the true, pure and virtuous love of ✨friendship✨" <- This shit is homophobic at a baseline, queerphobic in general, and frankly as an aromantic man I find it pretty fucking insulting as well.

What, are my friendships with other men just inherently more pure and divine, more meaningful and true than a gay man's can ever be, because I will never suffer the vile temptation of adding romance to my affection? Is that how I should think of myself? And is an aroace man more pure than me still, the only source of TRUE male friendship that a man can ever experience, free from the pustulant corruption of sexuality and romantic desire?

You get this pathetic defensiveness (especially from men, but other genders aren't immune) wherein sex and sexuality and romance between men is perceived as a threat to men's right and ability to experience deep connection to each other. But the emotional castration of men comes not from people imagining sex and romance as a component of our relationships - it comes from people who insist that our emotional lives must be ruled by strict binaries. Sex and romance, OR ELSE friendship. Deep romantic connection OR ELSE deep platonic connection. Pick one and do not dare to imagine both, nor act as though the boundary between them is something that we built by cultural fiat, and which can be dismantled just the same.

And yes, yes, yes, I know there are cultural forces literally illuminati-style conspiring to systemically erase the entire existence of explicitly romantic, sexual male love from media, and I know that homophobic puritanism is on the rise and there are material concerns and a real necessity for explicit representation in fiction, yes I know. Everything is more complicated than a tumblr post can cover, I am not trying to Solve Rainbow Capitalism™ over here, I am trying to express frustration as an aromantic man that this stupid fucking binary keeps getting culturally reinforced by both my enemies and my well-meaning allies, when I think the binary is what's fucking killing us in the first place.

So anyway. My position is that Viktor and Jayce can be entirely aromantic no-homo friends, and they can fuck nasty in the throes of mutual need and obsession, and I refuse to entertain the idea that there is an irresolvable contradiction between those things. Each of those can contain the other, or become the other given time and circumstance.

What the imagery, storytelling and script of Arcane makes clear is that Viktor and Jayce love each other more than life itself. To say that that love must be shoved into the box of either "platonic" or "romantic" is to miss out on almost everything that is beautiful about love. It can be both and neither! It can be a secret third, ninth or fifteenth thing that they haven't invented a tag for on Ao3 yet.

They are giving each other whatever the spiritual mind-ghost equivalent of sloppy backshots are on the ethereal plain forever, they are the most romantic lovers in the cosmos, and they are also the most chaste and platonic life-partner friends you have ever seen, effortlessly intimate and unashamedly tender. They are men who love one another, in every way that love matters.

You can pick whichever interpretation brings you joy, and resonates with what your heart needs, the text of the show is eminently and explicity open to it, and anyone who says otherwise either failed to pay attention, or refused to pay attention on purpose.

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he's complimenting

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Am I late for the party? This is one of my favourite Nosleep stories, Mr. Banana by R.K. Gorman. I just could not even. Peter Lewis, I love you! 

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POV: you’re my plate

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Hey been a while just been taking my time off on art and such. I got back and made a few Emerald concepts. In the past I stuck with her original color palettes but this time I wanted to go a bit farther away from it.

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Staff’s asleep post Bluey full episode

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I wanna draw him in all the Sailor Moon poses ✨🍀

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Underrated Openly Queer Audio Dramas

So you know The Penumbra Podcast, Welcome to Nightvale, The Bright Sessions, Alice Isn’t Dead, Ars Paradoxica, Archive81, The Two Princes, Moonbase Theta Out, Unwell, The Magnus Archives, etc. You might have heard of Mabel, Strange Case of Starship Iris, Dining in the Void, Blood Crow Stories, Caravan, Dreamboy, Love&Luck, Kaleidotrope, etc. Maybe you’ve even heard of Sidequesting, Desperado, Folxlore, Return Home, The Flame, The Beacon, Valence, other shows from Procyon Podcast Network, etc. They’re all either well known, somewhat known, or at least frequently recommended audio dramas with openly queer characterS. If you haven’t, you should! Well, here is a post of underrated audio dramas with IN YOUR FACE unapologetically queer characters. No characters in the closet or “only mildly queer coded or wait until the 3rd season to find out or there’s a blink & you’ll miss it clue” kind of queer. Like if you take away the gayness, almost the entire story is gone.

Last updated Sept 2022. As I discover more, or as stories develop, I’ll likely update this! Let me know if you have other underrated recommendations! For the time being, these are the shows I’ve personally listened to. 

Keep reading

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even more wooden overcoats … they .. 

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Hello! The new episode of wooden overcoats punched me directly in the face💙!

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just a little dagcup comic that I thought of and kept smiling and giggling at while creating it. I hope you will too.

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For any curious out there: Pyke’s face from his splash art process gif by Victor Maury

I hope this also works as a reference for the artists that might want to draw him

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07/28/17

JESSICA CHOU Has A YouTube Channel Teaching Women About Basic Vehicle Maintenance

This is quite an interesting YouTube channel concept, and it shows that … Asian chicks kick ass! JESSICA CHOU is a young Asian American woman who has a YouTube channel which basically teaches other girls and women about how to fix their car.

“I think we don’t see as many female mechanics because the industry is still so heavily dominated by men. When we think of a mechanic, we think of men. When we see ads or posters of mechanics, we see men. When we see shows about cars, we see men. It will take a long time to change all of this, but in the 10 short months that I’ve been on this journey, I’ve met so many incredible people who are out to change the game.”