#and so weird

[fandomsandfeminism]

Yall wanna hear a kinda funny, kinda sad story about my grandmother and hetero-normativity?

Ok, so... when my grandmother was in her 50s (I was an infant), she met a woman at the Unitarian Church. And, as can happen when you meet your soul mate, this event made it impossible for her to deny parts of herself that she had fiercely hidden her whole life.

All the drama- their affair being found out, the divorce with my grandfather, the court battle over who got the house, happened while I was a baby. Even in my earliest memories, it's just Mama Jo and Oma, and my grandfather lived elsewhere (first his own apartment, then a nursing home, then with us.)

But here's the thing- no one ever explained any of this to me. No one ever sat down and was like "hey, Rosie, so do you know what a lesbian is?" It was the 90s. It was Texas. I think my mom was still kinda processing all this, and just assumed that like... I was gonna figure it out. Don't mention it, let it just be normal. Like I think my mom thought that if she explained the situation, she would be making it weird? I dunno.

But like. In the 90s, in all the movies I had seen and books I had read, do you know how many same sex couples I had seen? Like. 0. Do you know how many "platonic best friend/roommates" I had seen? A lot. I had no context, is what I'm saying.

I literally thought this was a Golden Girls, roommates, besties situation until I was like...I dunno, 11? 12?

It was actually their parrot, an African Grey named Spike, imitating my grandmothers voice saying "Johanna, honey, it's getting late", that triggered the MIND BLOWN moment as I realized that *there's only one master bedroom and it only has 1 waterbed* when all the pieces finally clicked.

Anyway. I think it's a real important thing for kids to know queer people exist, for a lot of reasons, but also because kids can be clueless and it's embarrassing to have your grandmother be outted by a parrot because everyone just thought you'd figure it out on your own.

Anyway, here is my grandma and her wife, my Oma, after they moved to Albuquerque to be artsy gay cowboys and live their best life. They helped run a "Lesbian Dude Ranch" out there (basically just with funding and financial support. As Oma has explained "traditionally, most lesbians don't have a lot of money" so they wrote the checks and let the younger ladies actually run the ranch.)

[softlyspector]

so many mutuals i would like to talk to and yet

[katebeckets]

thunderstorm!

[formulaforza]

Ooh let’s go caroling please

I’m going to give you a whole slew of drivers, you pick which one strikes your fancy or fits the prompt best - Carlos/Danny/Seb/Nyck

Concept - “no, I’m not threatened by my girlfriend being an actual genius, I actually think that makes her even hotter”

I don't think you realize how off the wall and specific this was for a playlist??? like wtf. anyways. this is the best I could do.

1. national anthem - lana del rey 2. les - childish gambino 3. buzzcut season - lorde 4. lust for life - lana del rey & the weeknd 5. god is a woman - ariana grande

[durn3h]

Ok, I had another person unfollow me and unlike all of my stuff today. What the fuck is going on? Are my gangstalkers just fucking with me or something?

[edoro]

Triple threat ask for you:

Hunter 🧠

Willow 🧠

Luz 🧠

🧠 Pick a character, and I’ll tell you my favorite headcanon for them.

Hunter - (glances at my blog) aside from the obvious, i really love specbio grimwalker biology stuff. i'm especially fond of ones where he's kinda creepy/unsettling - weirdly glowing eyes, stops breathing in his sleep, etc.

Willow - i really love trans girl Willow! such a cute idea. Good For Her.

Luz - Luz is 100% definitely nonbinary and this is practically a canon fact to me.

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

I'm obsessed with the latest popcast episode about Harry Styles. Jon Caramanica talks about Lindsay Zoladz in the first half about Harry's music and then Kaitlyn Tiffany come on and they all three talk about fandom (and their experiences of 1D concerts) and everything about it fascinates me.

I always love Jon Caramanica's takes on Harry Styles, from the legendary "Liking Harry Styles music is a symptom of liking Harry Styles". To his very on-brand plot twist that he actually likes Harry's House (and Cinema in particular - although he thinks it should have been about Cinnamon). And he upped that, when he was read the Sony leak powerpoint about the 1D members 'Beautiful, Cheeky and Adorably Slow' he said 'well that person deserves a raise, because they nailed 2022 Harry's persona'. But his takes were only the bonus.

What was endless fascinating to me, is how they kept returning tothe gap they very clearly identified. Lindsay Zoladz was about how much he wants to please and hold up his female listeners and says that she loses a sense of his perspective, and Jon Caramanica says it's the totality of his perspective and she replies "I feel like there has to be more there." And there was this massive space where the elephant may or not be and it was just left there.

And I'm not like 'critics responses to Harry's music proves he's closeted'. But what I do think it proves (to paraphrase Jon Caramanica in a different context) is that what we are noticing is real, that doesn't mean we're right - but it does mean we are responding to something that actually exists.

Although they also compared him to Shawn Mendes and Lil Nas X - and part of me was just like: "Oh come on! Can you acknowledge the spade when you're actively digging with it" (which of course they can't and they absolutely shouldn't - but it shows the impossible bind of the closet).

Jon Caramanica's comparison to Lil Nas X was fascinating - he said that both Harry and Lil Nas X were very good at being a celebrity, but there was something missing in their music which was the pretence of them being celebrities. And Lil Nas X was trying too hard, and Harry wasn't trying hard enough. Which I thought was a fascinating commentary on both queerness as spectacle, and the way queer artists are understood.

**************

And then they brought on Kaitlyn Tiffany and things got even more interesting. I'm not going to go into great detail about Kaitlyn Tiffany's understanding of 1D and the line she seems to walk when presenting herself as a fan and fandom to people she sees as grownups.

What absolutely blew my mind about the episode was that Jon Caramanica asked Kaitlyn Tiffany: "Did fans forsee Harry's interest in fashion and his gender presentation, and if they did did they help make that happen by their interest?"

And her reply was: "The fashion thing did come as a surprise, because 1D dressed quite bad"

I've no idea what was going on for her there. Was she telling the truth, and within the fandom she knew nobody was noticing the nail polish that had been cleaned off, or the signs of exploration in 2014 and 2015? Was she deliberately prevaricating and avoiding the question, because she can't acknowledge what that would mean about fandom dynamics.

I was struck again about how incomprehensible 1D and its fandom are, unless you have some curiosity about Larries. Kaitlyn Tiffany is quite extreme in her investment in presenting Larries as illegitimate. But that perspective has permeated wider discourse about 1D. And it's worth noting that the idea that a group of fans are illegitimate and therefore curiosity is not appropriate is very odd within wider pop culture discourse. And I think it's worth thinking about both the cause and affect of that.

[dudefrommywesterns]

i love queerbaiting clickbait

[wizardpotions]

Christmas as a cultural icon is starting to get really dystopian in a climate sense, december has historically been a time of year in which there would be snow in a significant portion of europe and north america, and the fact that its not even icy this time of year and all the christmas songs and decorations reference a time of year that will likely never exist in the same way again in my life time is so strange.

[tothechaos]

this is what every tiktok screenshot looks like to me

[opiumvampire]

fuck w me

[nouverx]

"I want to eat you" is their love language and you can't change my mind

[ratbastarddotfuck]

is this nonbinary person actually "male presenting", or did you just decide that based on your arbitrary idea of maleness?

is this nonbinary person actually "female presenting", or did you just decide that based on your arbitrary idea of femaleness?

perhaps they're just "presenting" as themselves and your binary biases are clouding your judgement?

[ukulelekatie]

I just revived my old iPod touch that I haven’t used since ~2013 after believing it to be dead dead for years and oh my god it’s like opening up an old time capsule. There are photos of me and my friends that I haven’t seen in years, taken in an old high school building that doesn’t exist anymore. I have games that are no longer downloadable on the app store. It’s running iOS 5 with the original skeuomorphism app icons. I still have the youtube app. My contacts app is full of maiden names and deadnames. The music app has songs I haven’t heard in almost a decade but still remember all the lyrics to. A daily alarm set for 5:30 AM (god I can’t believe I had to wake up that early in high school) and another set to 11:11 PM to remind me to make a wish. Reminders to finish homework assignments, or to write my application essay for the university I ended up attending, and one marking the release date for the final episode of Cabin Pressure. The last thing I googled was “how to draw people hugging”.

Possibly the strangest thing is that the tumblr app still opens, but it’s stuck in a permanent snapshot of 2013 where it won’t show me any new posts no matter how many times I refresh. My dash is full of old BBC Sherlock posts from long-lost mutuals who have either since deactivated or got unfollowed or changed urls so many times that I don’t even recognize them. Lady Gaga and Game of Thrones are the top trends. My profile shows my previous url and icon, with only 43 followers. I feel like a time traveler

[hundredsofsmallbirds]

attention joann's shoppers. there is a freak in the yarn aisle buildinf a nest

[dandelyle]

this AITA is killing me