#i prefer gay relationships

[nyx-lyris]

i love the potential of all the hazbin ships, platonic or romantic.

the beauty and the beast feel that radiobelle has. alastor's desire to control her and manipulate her for his own ends eventually being drowned out by his caring and respect for her. realizing he cares about her more than he cares about himself.

the divorced dads who are sticking it out for their daughter feel of radioapple. the idea of them being rivals who develop a mutual respect for each other over time, eventually becoming friends, trading jokes and vehemently denying their friendship to anyone who asks. and, if we're going the romantic route, eventually realizing they feel much more for each other than they ever intended to and being frightened by it, wondering how on earth they got here.

the way royalhalo could be either long-lost sisters with a sort of tinkerbell and periwinkle vibe, or they could be partners in crime, each working tirelessly in their respective domains to prove that the hotel works and constantly cheering each other on.

connected to the above, i love the potential of charlie's angels - specifically the idea of emily falling because she dared to question the order of things and help charlie, and vaggie unexpectedly welcoming her with open arms because she knows what it feels like to be abandoned by those you loved and trusted.

though i feel they fumbled it on the show, the potential of rainbowmoth is incredible. an ex-exorcist having to deal with the guilt of what she's devoted her life to and making up for that by protecting and helping the daughter of lucifer, who is unexpectedly the kindest and most caring girl she's ever met, and doing everything she can to make her dreams a reality. the bodyguard x ward, sunshine x sunshine protector energy these two have.

i love the one-sided, unrequited love of radiostatic. the idea that vox grew up with radio hosts like alastor and dreamed of becoming someone just like them, meeting alastor in his afterlife and growing genuinely fond of him, only to be unintentionally slapped in the face when he realizes alastor doesn't feel the same, and deciding to hate him (because we all know he doesn't really hate alastor, he just makes up for the hole in his heart by acting like he does). or, if we're writing it where they do actually get together in the end, alastor rejecting vox, then having to deal with the conflicting feelings in his head - they're rivals, but he hates the idea of harm coming to vox, or vox focusing his energy on anyone but him. both of them continuously in denial until a heated situation pushes them both over the edge and they finally give in.

then there's radiodust and the strange but lovely respect and bond that could come with it. just the idea of both of them being pranksters to boot, and either starting a prank war in the hotel or working together to pull pranks on everyone else. angel cracks his usual hyper-sexual jokes, but he never pushes it too far with alastor. he greets him every day with "hiya smiles" and alastor hates to admit it, but he's grown fond of it. the idea of alastor making a deal with valentino, or conniving some scheme to release angel from val's deal. the idea of angel, who's probably tired of sex despite his hypersexual behavior, and alastor, who has never been interested in sex, and angel finding a sort of reprieve with alastor.

on the same note, huskerdust. the way their relationship exists on the show is just perfect. the idea of husk, who is immune to angel's flirting, and angel who wants someone who understands what he's going through, someone to relate to - and both of them having a hard time coming out of their shells. both of them trying so hard to maintain the fragile relationship they've created between them (think ineffable husbands). both of them being terrified when they realize they have genuine romantic feelings for each other; husk, who hasn't loved anyone in years and isn't sure he knows how, who used to be in valentino's position, who knows what it's like to have and enjoy having power over others, who is afraid that he'll mess things up if he says anything; and angel whose every relationship has gone to shit, who hasn't experienced a properly healthy relationship and is now afraid to engage with anyone in that way for fear of getting hurt again. and don't even get me started on the idea of overlord!husk x angel and how complex and interesting that dynamic could be.

the idea of radiohusk, especially now that we've seen what their canonical relationship is really like. husk grappling with his hate for alastor, realizing maybe he doesn't really hate him, and that he sees him in the same way that he sees angel - as a faker, someone who hides behind an elaborate mask so no one knows what he's really feeling. alastor refusing to admit that he actually cares about husk as a person, refusing to admit that husk is right, that he's afraid and maybe he needs to face that fear. alastor eventually letting husk go, starting a chain reaction that ends in alastor letting many of his accumulated souls go, and treating others with a bit more respect than he did before.

then, of course, radiohuskerdust - all three of them in the same shit sandwich, coming to terms with their situations and their feelings for each other. all of them with their trust issues and the masks they hold up so the world never knows what they're truly feeling. the three of them grappling with how each relates to the other - alastor, who owns hundreds if not thousands of souls, including husks, and who treats them poorly; angel, whose soul is owned by valentino, who has been abused by his owner for years (and who was likely manipulated into signing the contract under the guise of val actually caring for him); husk, who has been on both ends, giving and receiving, and understands both of them. all of them dealing with the complexity of this, realizing that they have more in common than they think. basically combining the aspects of the previous three ships.

then there's radiorose, the platonically married couple. the idea that they got married for tax benefits and to appease the standards of their time period is absolutely golden. but also, if you wanted to go the romantic route with them - rosie being completely respectful of alastor's boundaries, despite her feelings for him, and alastor realizing she's the only person in his life (other than, perhaps, his mother) who really knows him, the only person he can really talk to without fear of judgment. just the idea of these two being a power couple, whether platonically or romantically.

or, on the more niche end of the spectrum, spidermoth and radiomoth. just the idea (going the romantic route) of vaggie and angel realizing that maybe they aren't as exclusively into girls or guys, respectively, as they thought, and growing on each other more and more. the banter between the two of them, both of them understanding what it means to be betrayed by someone you thought cared about you and had your back, their mutual mistrust of others and their intentions (which could also of course be a point of conflict in their relationship). or the idea of vaggie developing actual feelings for alastor and hating it the entire time, being even more hostile towards him than usual - and alastor finding her hatred of him entertaining, which eventually develops into genuine fondness. alastor teasing her more and more, her reacting even more explosively each time, until finally she can't take it anymore and shuts him up with a kiss. both of them being utterly surprised and refusing to talk about it for weeks. or, on the platonic side, alastor unwittingly proving himself to vaggie as an ally of the hotel and charlie, earning her begrudging respect over time. eventually, his constant teasing of her becomes something she enjoys, and she'll even poke back now and again.

idk just... hazbin ships, ya know?

[hualianisms]

i love how fanghua are so danmei coded. fang duobing as the protective nianxia ml whose life was so monumentally changed and shaped by a shifu he met only once when he was younger but whose small act of kindness moved him so deeply that he spent most of his life trying to get stronger, working hard to finally be able to catch up to and be worthy of that glorious shifu that he so admired.

except he finally meets that shifu again years later as an adult and he's finally caught up to him but now their positions are reversed - li lianhua is now the sickly one, and fallen from grace; fdb is now the (physically) stronger one, the young hero, and he becomes friends with and falls for llh who he now no. longer wants to be the disciple of. instead, he now wants to protect and care for li lianhua like one protects and cares for a lover.

[alchemiclee]

I hate that whenever there's a gay ship, people immediately het-ify it. people are so obsessed with making one the "man" and one the "woman" when that's completely unnecessary, because they are both the man or the woman. It's extremely annoying. these people will completely mischaracterize a character to fit into their stupid little het roles they force on them.

for example, you don't need to make one man the "wife" and feminized him to the extreme and fit him in a traditional "woman" role so the other man can be the big strong masculine manly man. they can both be masculine or both be feminine or both be both at the same time! they do NOT need to be gendered opposites to fit het roles. crazy, I know! it's like no one considers it a possibility! or sees how good it can be to have them be equals without gendered nonsense.

when there's a gay relationship, you have the perfect opportunity for the couple to stand on equal ground. they get to be equals who are just as strong and just as soft as each other. there's no faulty power dynamics where one is above the other (because let's face it, society unfortunately deems masculinity > femininity). one doesn't need to protect the other. they can protect themsleves, fight aide by side as equals. one doesn't do all the housework. they share that duty equally. one isn't weak and pretty, while they other strong and manly. they both are strong and pretty, or masculine and weak at the same time.

equal relationships are amazing and need to be explored more and appreciated. there can be more understanding and working together. i'm bad at explaining what I mean, but I prefer these equal relationships over forcing them into opposite roles to mirror het relationships, which are usually extremely unbalanced and unequal. especially because these not het relationships! so why must they look like one? they can and should look different! so why does literally every shipper and writer out there make them so het coded?

I don't understand why people do this. do they actually believe all romantic relationships must mimic het ones to exist and thrive and purposely force that on them? or have they genuinely just not fathamed that they can be different and dont need to follow the expected het standards?

I wonder, it feels like no one actually knows how non-het relationships are meant to be and how they could work, since het ones are always forced down our throats since birth. it becomes The Standard that everyone thinks they must follow. maybe it's all people know since they don't see any other possibilities. their preferred dynamics for their ships are what we are taught and nothing different, because they don't know it can be different. i also think people might be obsessed with that whole "opposites attract" trope. but that opposite doesn't have to be the traditional het-fueld feminine vs masculine or wife vs husband characteristics. it can be other personality things like one is loud and one is quiet, one is dumb and one is overly smart, one is rich and one poor, etc. it doesn't have to be masculine vs feminine!

BREAK OUT OF THE HET NORMS!!!!! TEAR DOWN HETERONORMATIVITY!!!!!!!!! FREE THE GAYS

(disclaimer, not saying masculine vs feminine ships are all bad/shouldn't be done ever. but it doesn't need to be 100% of the time either 😅 can't think of one ship people dont do this with lol)

[spilled-ink-n-blood]

how do you guys get a boyfriend?

[sonknuxadow]

okay sorry for having opinions on sonic shipping but . the more popular a ship is the more likely i am to be annoyed by it so its probably for the best that my favorite ship is one of the not as popular ones . but also the way sonknux gets talked about (or not talked about) as a result of it being less popular drives me up the wall . what do you mean it doesnt make sense. hes literally not staring at the moon and thinking about him💔

[divinekangaroo]

Was thinking a bit deeper on @deadendtracks query https://www.tumblr.com/divinekangaroo/740003125539307520/i-clipped-this-from-your-post-because-its-easier?source=share

Snipped for sex talk, and also to spare any disinterested parties my naiveity on complex matters such as: subaltern/Orientalism/exoticism/Othering/ethnic talk etc

In hindsight I think I answered that query as a ‘possible authorial intent’ - speculatively, to subvert the usual gangster trope by displaying macho-ish behaviours (sex! whores!) but flipping motivation and outcome.

But there's also something else that's been churning away at the back of my head, the term subaltern. "the most powerless people living within the socio-economic confines of imperialism" -- and this imperialist overlay that often assigns the devious, deviant, dark, scheming/conniving/machavellian/feminine characteristics to the subaltern man, too, because it is exotic.

I haven't properly structured an argument around this; I feel a lot of T's approach to sex has that almost woman-coded thing to it, as signifiers of an even-further-disadvantaged man. It nags at me and feels that this also ties into this subaltern, semi-'Orientalist' / exotic layer he has as 'lower than the lowest class' / 'actually so low class he's outside of class' Romani character -> less of a stereotype, more of a conscious consideration of "if you have nothing, you will use everything you can, and sometimes that includes your own body, and guess what here's the bind: that kinda puts you even *lower* in the hierarchy, because women are lower than men and only women use their bodies that way!"

Gut instinct, barely unpacked: there's an imperialist/cultural/ethnic trauma that feels like it can't be detached from Tommy's sexuality/approach to sex any more than the hints of childhood trauma or abuse can be, either. Especially when you consider childhood as his closest time still connected to the living Romani culture, as opposed to by the time we see him on screen when his interactions with his culture are static and based on childhood/broken memories. I was initially put off by the Romani layer because it felt like a stereotype - gangs followed ethnic lines so let's just apply an ethnicity that's ~exotic~ - but the later series re-frame the earlier approach into something that shows it was almost never intended to be a representation of the culture but rather, more like Tommy's particular (distorted, damaged) view.

----

But then also answering the personal side of the question RE: Tommy's character. What does it mean for a person/individual to be so transactional and detached from sex yet participatory towards it?

This gets a little more headcanon-y:

T started having sex or being sexualised (seeing/experiencing sex) really young in a less than affectionate way - more like, here is a thing that must be done for some other action to happen (or be diverted).

Because of this, I can’t ever see him permitting himself to perform that ‘hungry to totally surrender his control and desires to someone else’ role so frequently given to him in fanon. What happened with Tatiana was an exception, not a rule. It’s nice to read for various reasons, but I'm unlikely to personally lean into this take. Not to say he's dominating or must be fully in control during sex, either, just that I think he'd avoid leaning into surrender because it'd be like losing total control of a transaction and becoming far too vulnerable.

Despite that I do feel he has an urge for connection/intimacy, I think he struggles with actually connecting deeply with people, reading sexual cues/flirtation or the like. In some ways, he connects too deeply and therefore holds back? I did have thoughts along the asexual line. He likes certain people, and he mostly enjoys the physical act of sex, and these two things can overlap to ‘I would like sex with this certain person’, but there’s a big gap between the two. Deep connection is unrelated to sex. Can't read flirt cues to the point he leapfrogs straight to the 'do you want to fuck?' almost as an abstraction because he can never decode the in-between steps?

Notwithstanding any deep connection, sex is still considered/framed as duty and obligation. His approach with Lizzie in S6 as case in point; he is conscious of his role and considers it a thing that must be performed to satisfy that role. Even S5, it feels like a 'seal the deal' sex exchange; he knows she likes it, she just told him so and that it's important to her, so all right, he's going to let loose.

This difficulty with 'is this connection? not sure?' is one reason why I think he is mostly about family (he can take connection for granted and has had a really really long time to build it). He also has a surprisingly large *respectful* but superficial network (he knows the right behaviours but rarely gets personal), very few close friends (honestly is this just Alfie? Maybe, once, Freddie and Barney? even Johnny Dogs and Uncle Charlie are subordinate). Which lends itself very effectively to leadership, to be honest, but also loneliness: again it feels like he's performing connection.

I really struggle with picturing him feeling much physical attraction without consciously focusing on it. He seems to spark for people (or maybe situations/dynamics - classy women?) not their physical, and when I’m in headcanon mode, it’s familiarity that builds his fondness for certain aspects of a person's physicality, rather than their physicality attracting him initially. So either he wants sex (release) and it's not really relevant who with, or he wants the person and sex is acceptable/better with that person. And there's a conscious switch in his head like, "ok now paying attention to physical attraction because must have sex" or "switch it off not important right now"

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

I like to hurt EVERYONE’s feelings so here’s a really old note from Moth Work that would’ve led to the originally planned ending (which granted, is very similar to the actual ending). I’ve organized it so you can see who’s saying what:

H: Should I have come here? (Beat) What you [and Eliza] have I’ll never get. It’s something different. You move like you’ve known each other for years. Do you love her?

L: I’ve known her for a week.

H: But do you love her?

L: I feel like I’ve loved her for a long time. (Beat.) Did you love him? (Lonan asks referring to Jeremiah.) The man you left.

H: (Harrison shakes his head.) I couldn’t have, I was thinking about you.

And now I point you to when Lonan canonically goes “I’ve loved you for a long time” as noted above BUT IT’S TO HARRISON rather than Eliza (TEA):

Lonan takes hold of the guardian angel, and gingerly, like it’s fragile enough to crumple, brings it to his mouth and kisses it. His lip glints, just as the angel does, in the moonlight. He lets the angel fall, swaying like a pendulum, and pulls his hand back slowly. Quietly, he says, “I think I’ve loved you for a long time.”

AND Harrison in BODY BACK sticks to the script lol UNFORTUNATELY:

In the dark motel room, Harrison looks up at Jeremiah. He’s a good guy. A good friend. Looks even younger when asleep and even less aware.

“I love you,” Harrison whispers to the still air. He doesn’t even mean it. “I love you.”

One day, he hopes he’s nothing but a story Jeremiah tells. Someone to laugh at over mimosas, to curse while knee-to-knee with an improved lover. Jeremiah, this world doesn’t know what it has. Jeremiah, hold yourself dearly. Jeremiah, I’m not coming back. Jeremiah, forgive me when you’re older.

[charlieswebb]

for a show about vampires there sure aren’t a lot of stakes

[nonegenderleftpain]

So I see so many people coddling cis people's feelings about their partners transitioning, and I'm normally very polite about it because attraction is complicated. But honestly, cis people?

Do better.

My partner is the straightest fucking cis man I have ever met in my life. When I came out, it was very hard for him. But I did not know that at first, because he did not make it my problem. He dealt with the initial shock on his own, rather than push it on me when I was most vulnerable, and then later, we worked through it as a team. Because he loves me and our relationship is important to him. He's not attracted to men. At all. Repulsed, actually. But he is still with me, and is attracted to *me.* I have a full fucking beard and ass hair, and we have made it work.

Normally I would add a "I know it can't work for everyone and that's okay" disclaimer, but I'm not doing that today. Do better. Do better for your partners, who you say you love so much. Put your money where your mouth is. If my autistic, laser straight partner can do it after he'd been with me as a woman for five years, so can you.

[calibrationneeded]

There are two wolves inside of you: gay dean and bi dean. They are fighting to the death

[northlt]

When is it my turn to stargaze with someone and say that they stars are beautiful only for them to not even look at the stars and only stare at me and say “yeah, they are” ??????

[gaygayaurel]

fundamentally exploding whenever i see onesided bruabba its like..... no you dont get it bruno is just as whiped stupid, hes just as gay hes just as stupid in love,,,,,,,

[neuromantis]

it's ridiculous to me that bi people who date the opposite sex are getting hate. like. i am a bi person who decided through absolutely horrible trauma that i only want to date my own sex. am i to be celebrated then? like, how is that any different? that's still "bi with a preference", how does it invalidate being bi for them or for me?

[gibbearish]

maybe this was common knowledge and ive been severely out of the loop but the fact that russel t davies is gay is kind of rocking my world rn?

[chronically-ill-psionipath]

What do you think of Gay people?

:0

THE QUEERS?? I'm dating Alvar- >:D Of course I support LGBTQ+!

[mormorando]

female leg hair is genuinely so pretty i have no idea how men ever managed to convince so many people it's like. not inherently pretty and fitting for where it grows.