#no but for real this is why everyone is convinced hes queer ok

[dontgofarfromme]

Omfg Fitz responding to the Fool's buckwild but clearly absolutely true claim that Bee is also his daughter by going"of all the people I could lie to, I'd always been best at lying to myself" as if to acknowledge what he's about to do and then immediately in the same paragraph lying so hard to himself that I'm pretty sure he's about to get a hernia from it A++++ I love him king of denial

[beggars-opera]

Ok, so I live in one of the more liberal areas of the country. Our governor is a lesbian and I literally did not even know until after she got elected, because it was that much of a nonissue.

Lately, I'm seeing more and more local institutions doing things for Pride. Institutions that don't necessarily have to, or do so awkwardly, but they're trying to be good allies. And, even here, I see people foaming at the mouth. This thing is ruined. Unprofessional. Political. Sexual. Boycotting, disgusted, bye.

And a part of me is like, "Why would a random store, a museum, a restaurant, do this?" Part of my mind has been so corrupted by the idea of rainbow capitalism that the thought of someone just...trying to be an imperfect ally is a cash grab.

It's not. Every bit counts, and especially as we see pushback, and see some of those corporations beginning to rethink their rainbow capitalism, the places that continue to speak up are so, so important.

I'm reminded of a rant by Illustrious Old White Man Historian Gordon Wood a few years back where he lamented how fragmented modern history is. Why do we need ANOTHER book about women, about enslaved people, about the poor? Why are we focusing on these people instead of George Mount Rushmore Washington?

And it was an interesting framing, because he insinuated that these micro histories were bad not because they existed, but because they didn't give the whole story, which in Gordon's mind was a story in which they were the side characters instead of the mains. To that end a biography of G Wash that features the bare shadow of Billy Lee in the far distance is a complete history, all that needs to be said, because one of those figures is a God Amongst Men and the other does not deserve to be fully fleshed out as a full, autonomous human being with a family and a profession and a beating heart. And a biography of William Lee, war aid, professional valet, and person closest to the first president of the United States, with the shadow of George in the background, would consequently be Bad History, because no one is saying that this man didn't exist, but his story isn't the whole story. It's backwards; he should be a footnote, and if he's not, that's bias.

But for me, as a historian, I know that the reason these microhistories exist, and are so important, is that they didn't exist before. Before someone can be truly, purposefully, tactfully inserted into the historical narrative, you need to know who they are. Not just as a name, not just as an archetype. You have to get to the point where there are so many books flooding the market about women and children and immigrants that it's no longer controversial to be talking about them, where learning about them instead of someone else is normal.

THEN you can feel good about rewriting the more general narrative. THEN you can actually have the information you need in order to put things into their proper context, to rethink the most important figure in each story, to assess what the full milieu of the time is.

And that's where we're at with Pride. We are still very much living in a time where queer people are shadow characters in the background. They are people that many will admit exist, but for god's sake, don't make them important, don't make them real, don't make them normal. And until we can shove rainbows down everyone's throats to the point where being queer is no longer seen as a thing that is Other, until we convince people that we're not going away, we will never be able to fully assimilate queerness into society.

We can't just be normal about Pride, because normal isn't loud enough to not get drowned out.

[garbbitch]

Can you write something about reader and Julien being friends forever and ignoring their mutual pining (which is obvious to everyone around them) until one day one of them finally breaks?

mutual pining

julien x reader (roomate)

fluff!

i hope yall like it

i feel like she would try to be subtle, and it would work most of the time until lucy or phoebe were around cuz they would obviously know she likes you

you would be subtle too but also would be super blushy and stuff when you guys talk.

i feel like she would call you little pet names, nothing that’s too specific like baby or honey or babe or something super specific to relationships but she def calls you princess or sugar and she always does it by accident, like it even surprises her when she says it

i can also imagine her getting you coffee in the morning on her little morning walks (as mentioned on gayotic) and you want to think that means something but you convince yourself it doesn’t

i feel like you (a character i’m constructing… go with it) would bake her stuff, cookies and brownies or something

i feel like julien wouldn’t know if your queer or not which is why she doesn’t make moves, you’re kinda femme and she hates to make assumptions but she also doesn’t wanna make you uncomfortable. i feel like the convo about you being queer would happen in a super lowkey setting and it wouldn’t be a big deal

you guys would be at a party or something like that and some random guy would hit on you, (🤮) and you would be visibly annoyed or disgusted by him (cuz he’s a man, honestly so real) and you would be looking around for anyone to ‘rescue’ from him, he wasn’t doing anything other than talking to you, but julien was watching him this whole time anyway. jealously. so your eyes would pan over the room, you would see jo and naomi and kelli all goofing off in a corner and wouldn’t be able to get any of their attention, then you’d look over to katie and lucy who were also not looking your direction and wouldn’t get see that you clearly needed someone to get him to leave you alone cuz no matter what you said he wouldn’t let up. then you’d look over at phoebe and bo who were also not paying attention to where you were and then you’d see julien who seemed to be burning holes into the back of the guy’s head. she would come over as soon as you looked at her. “hey, you ok?” she would say as she walked over to you, casually placing her hand on your waist. you would respond saying you’re ok or something and then she would try to make a joke “not your type?” i feel like she would try to make you more comfy as he walked away or something by cracking a joke. and that’s when you’d say something like “definitely not, i pretty much only like girls” and she wouldn’t react but like i feel like she would ask what your type is, and you would probably say it just depends.

also, going back to when lucy and pheobe make it obvious, i feel like it would go over your head or you wouldn’t want to think too much of what they’re saying. cuz like if they’re wrong somehow you don’t wanna mess things up with her

they’d say stupid shit like

“you look really nice in that dress, what do you think julien?” and obviously she would immediately blush and try to say something that wasn’t stupid

if the whole group were at a party i feel like lucy would dance with you to make her jealous

i feel like julien would compliment you a lot, not in a weird way, but in a cute way

it would obviously make you blush like crazy and she again wouldn’t think anything of it

pheobe would get so frustrated watching yall flirt with each other that she joked she couldn’t stand to be around the 2 of you

but omg the moment one of yall “break” it

so cute

i feel like it would be another night that you had tried to go to bed early but you were feeling restless so you got up to sit with julien while she strummed her guitar

“hey sleepyhead.” she said as she strummed the guitar softly. you would probably huff dramatically. “i am not a sleepyhead.” you would protest for the umpteenth time and she would chuckle like she always did, how could she not. “what’re you doin up so late?” she asked you as she sat the guitar down and tapped she seat next to her. “couldn’t sleep” you said back to her avoiding her eyes. “playing anything new?” you asked her a second later. “nah, just strumming. why couldn’t you sleep?” she asked as she turned to face you. “i dunno, busy mind i guess” you said, sorta lying. not that your mind wasn’t busy, you were thinking about her… again… big surprise! you were running over the little moments that you didn’t know if they meant something or not. “wanna talk about it?” she asked wanting to help if she can. “i dunno i’m overthinking stuff… it’s whatever” you say back to her still avoiding her eyes. she reached over to touch your hand as you fidgeted with your fingers. “can i ask about what?” she asked gently as she rubbed your hand softly, not wanting to make you uncomfortable. you would sit there and try to think of the correct thing to say about it, you don’t want to make things awkward or uncomfortable. “i dunno if i should say.” you say quietly as you stare at her hand on yours. “you don’t have to, but you also don’t have to worry about talking to me.” she would reassure you as she stroked your hand softly. you took a deep breath feeling a little anxious about putting it to words. "i was thinkin about you." you said softly, avoiding her eyes and trying to not get more embarassed by what you said. realization dawned on her as soon as she heard it. when she didn't say anything right away you panicked and immidiately back pedalled. "'m sorry- i shouldn't have said that. i get it if you d-" you started to ramble and she cut you off with a kiss. you immidiately shut up and didn't stop the kiss, you gently touched her face. she gently broke the kiss a moment later. she stares into your eyes as if she's looking for uncertainty. "i- wow- we should've done that sooner." you said with a soft giggle. she chuckled too. "i should've asked you out." she said softly. you blushed a little and she gently stroked your cheeks with her thumbs.

you guys have a long talk about what you guys want out of a possible relationship.

a couple days later you guys go on a cute date

she brings you to a party at lucy's house and neither of you hear the end of it from lucy and phoebe.

[my-castles-crumbling]

Cas babe, I'm royally fucked. The drama that is surrounding me rn is so fucking unreal.

So let me start from the very beginning, so I m a 16 yr old girl and i hv this really close guy friend let's call him J, so J and I have been friends since forever, like I don't even remember when I first met him. I have known him since I was born , like I have never known a life without J. And i love him like a brother.

Ok so fast forward a few years and now we're both 16, and we met this girl, Lottie she was a transfer student and we ( J , Lottie and I) had a few classes together. And slowly we develop a friendship.

Now the thing is that J has a crush on Lottie and he told me as soon as he realised it and me being the great friend that I am have subtly been wingwomaning him .

So, last week after English class (only Lottie and I have this class) , Lottie asked me out. Yeah, and I'm straight af but I'm an ally. So I was like what? But she was like i thought u were queer coz u give very strong queer vibes which is kinda true because I have a MAJOR crush on lily Rose depp and i hv always said that she could run me over with her car and I'd thank her and beg her to fuck me, (yeah I have issues.) And I also have bi friend who i jokingly call my wife bcoz when she came out ppl were being very homophobic and i thought that was the only way to support her. (i was 14 ok i don't judge me)

So back to Lottie I wa obviously s so very awkward I was like ohhh. And i told her in the politest way i could manage that I m straight af (bcoz i am) and I'm kinda flustered that she has a crush on me bcoz she is really pretty. And she got very embarassed and started apologising and I was like no no it's fine , it's totally fine. Yeah but she also kinda requested me not to tell anyone else that she's a lesbian bcoz she's not out to everyone, and I was like Of course .And now she has been trying to avoid me for the few days which anyone in her position would do tbh, so I don't blame her for that.

Ok so now bcoz Lottie is avoiding me she's also avoiding J by extension coz we both r usually hanging out together. So i already told u that J has a crush on Lottie so he was obviously not happy that she was avoiding us and i couldn't tell him why bcoz OBVIOUSLY.

And a little note abt my best friend he is extremely fucking extra , he is the biggest drama queen in the world like Sirius Black level of drama. So now his dumbass decided that he will ask Lottie out, and bcoz he is so fucking extra abt everything he is thinking of using the help of his teammates ( he's on the football team) to ask her out after the football match next Friday.

And in trying to convince him that he should not do it, but when he asks why i don't have any solid reason because it's not my place to tell him abt Lottie. So he's really planning everything to make the proposal perfect, and I'm stressing tf out.

I love J and i don't want to see him get hurt bcoz obviously Lottie is gonna say no, and on top of that it would be kinda humiliating bcoz the entire school and another school would be there. And I'm also worried that Lottie will think that I did this in purpose to embarrass her so now I'm stuck in a huge fucking dilemma.

And ngl I find this situation extremely fucking hilarious BCOZ WHAT IN THE WATTPAD LEVEL OF SHIT IS THIS? IS THIS SITUATION EVEN REAL? LIKE DOES THIS KINDA SHIT EVEN HAPPEN IRL???

pls help me bcoz I don't know what tf I'm going to do and i hv to do something before Friday or 😭😭😭.

omg I have to say- the way I was literally gasping throughout this story because...wow

So first, I want to say I think you were really sweet with Lottie. It sounds like you're a super kind person, and a wonderful ally <3

Honestly, I would probably talk to Lottie (if possible) and tell her that J is about to ask her out in front of the entire school, and ask her if it's okay for you to tell him that she's simply not interested. The reason I think this is the best option is because, either way Lottie will find out about J's feelings, so you can't really prevent that. This way, you're preventing embarrassment for both Lottie and J. Also, you're possibly protecting Lottie from attention by telling J you just "heard Lottie is not interested" because that doesn't out Lottie. AND even if J doesn't listen to you, you've helped by both preparing Lottie for what will happen and by sort of...introducing J to the idea that she's not interested.

So yeah. I think this is your best bet.

Keep me updated, I'm dying to know what happens!

(Also I am naming all the anons who write to me in case they want to write in the future, and I am using a random positive affirmation generator to do so. So I dub thee: caring anon. Enjoy your free tag!)

[tipsygnostalgy]

the vampyre by 18th century author john polidori is a self insert vampiric yuri

ok fucking hear me out on this one.

general thesis: lord byron (you might know him as the guy who wrote don juan), infamous for being a queer little hedonistic slut, pioneered gothic romantic horror by permanently changing the brain chemistry of one mary shelly + john william polidori. part one of two.

so the story starts off when byron and his doctor (polidori) fucked off to some mansion for the summer. shelly (~19 at the time)? + her husband (percy shelly, also rlly prolific poet) was convinced by one of byron's fangirls to chase him there, and somehow ended up living at the mansion. they did cocaine and drank and probably fucked in that lovely summer house, but MOST IMPORTANTLY they wrote. a lot. they were all authors/poets to some extent, they ended up swapping ideas and bouncing criticism and basically doing the 1800s equivalent of livejamming on discord. this went on for a few weeks or so.

one fateful night, all these fuckers got locked into the mansion because of a huuuuuuuge storm that took place, and naturally byron started telling them horror stories (The Burial: A Fragment, probably) that he made up on the spot. this scared the living shit out of his audience, and byron gleefully challenged them to come up with a story just as good. polidori attempted, proceeded to get humiliated live in front of the other authors by byron, and years later, out of spite, wrote:

THE VAMPYRE, one of the very first written vampire novels.

byron's influence in this novel cannot be understated. as aforementioned, byron thought polidori couldnt write to save his life, and polidori therefore had this weird idolizing love/hate relationship with him. the vampyre was, in essence, a giant "fuck you" to his old employer that he too could write a good book—even if, at the same time, he took parts of the burial from earlier to write it. in fact, the villain of vampyre is simultaneously 1) modeled after byron 2) a ruthless heartless sadistic vampire who ends up killing several perfect young girls and eventually the main protagonist 3) the world's first vampiric sexyman.

that's right. polidor's lord ruthven (who is, again, a lord byron insert) is the quintessential the reason why we perceive vampires today as suave queer homoerotic womanizing charismatic GAYS. this gets even funnier when you realize that in vampire, the protagonist (this young rich adventerous "i want to travel the world!" twink named aubrey) & ruthven have this yuri-esque homoerotic relationship involving death and murder and betrayal. see:

aubrey is enchanted by ruthven at first sight and capriciously requests to join his travels (to which ruthven AGREES);

aubrey notes over and over how horrible of a person ruthven is but only leaves once he realizes he's a vampire;

aubrey runs from ruthven across countries and cities only to have ruthven magically show up + kill off one of aubrey's love interests;

ruthven dramatically dies in his arms at one point and makes aubrey promise he'll follow these super specific instructions post-death, to which AUBREY agrees (swears an oath);

later ruthven comes back (duh) and tries to marry aubrey's sister—aubrey attempts to tell everyone but ruthven reminds him of the oath;

aubrey has a nervous breakdown and ends up dying while ruthven marries his sister, sucks her blood, and flees to the night.

gay. gay gay homoerotic gay you CANNOT tell me the vampyre was anything but a queer real person self-insert fiction about him and lord byron. polidori wrote the world's first self-insert about him and the man he was a DOCTOR to and performed PHYSICAL CHECKUPS ON.... C'MON GUYS YOU SEE WHAT I'M SEEING RIGHT. I'M NOT GOING INSANE RIGHT. FUCK

[proudsnackeezowner]

Omg hola, Manda!! I just saw your mask ask, and I've gotta ask you heliotrope right back; it's one of my favorites 💕

Heliotrope - Favorite dnp moment that makes you believe love is real.

Oh my god ser, I don't even know where to start. This is my favorite on the list too, and I don't want to ramble too much but I'm not sure I can answer this question without going off on a tangent 🥲

ok, for me, it's less of a specific moment but really just their entire relationship and dynamic that convinces me that love is possible and real. I relate a lot to dan, just in general but especially in the belief that life doesn't really have a purpose, and I don't believe in fate or destiny (and therefore, i dont believe in soulmates either). For a long time (and let's be real very often now) I have moments where I feel like love is more of a chance or convenience type of thing than something sacred and magical. Like out of all the people in the world, how is it possible that the one that is perfect for you (is there a perfect person for everyone? I dont really buy that but thats a side thing) just so happens to live near you, or that you went to the same school or that you had a mutual friend or they followed you back or that you even crossed paths on life at all? Ok all of this sounds really bleak and bad LOL but !! That is genuinely how I feel most of the time. But I cannot emphasize how much I dislike thinking that way. It is a mindset I actively have to fight to feel differently about. I literally interrogate my friends that are in relationships trying to find a better, happier or at least more hopeful answer bc I hope from the bottom of my heart that I am wrong somehow. But really, the only thing that makes me stop in my tracks and just feel like. Oh. Yeah. This is love. That is love. Is dan and phil. Which is probably a crazy thing to hear for anyone thats not a phannie but. If dan, someone who, like me has a very bleak outlook on life sometimes, and grew up feeling alone and irreparably damaged, can find someone that he feels so close to that he'd describe as a soulmate? That he can find someone that makes him feel safe for the first time since childhood? That he can build a home with, and live a life of mundaneness that is laced with beauty in security? Well that gives me so much hope. I relate to dan in many many ways, and the fact that someone like me can find someone that just feels perfectly correct for him is really just. It's super special to me. And I feel like something about seeing other queer people getting old together (together for 15 years ! Ah!) And still having the best of relationships, still being best friends, I don't know, I think that's why their audience loves them so much. It gives us hope that we can find queer love and build the life we want.

Oh but if you want specifics I like dans "I wonder how biology..." tweet and "what phil did for me" thing. Those get to me goodddd

Thanks for the ask ser 🧡 happy phasquerade happy pride and thank you for organizing this great event!!

@phanniemasquerade !!

[anandabrat]

So my oldest kid, who is eight, started Kempo a couple of weeks ago, inspired by ATLA and the videos of the real-life martial arts they based the various tribes' bending techniques on.

Her class, which is for ages seven to twelve and has about ten kids in it, is everything that martial arts should be: running around and sweating, learning to kick grown men in the head and the groin and also why she cannot do that just because they piss her off, and also a fair number of games.

Today I was watching the end of class. Her Sensei, a sixty year old Black man who is ex-military, smiles and laughs a lot, and puts up with absolutely no crap, assigns them the Crab Game. Boys vs. girls, he tells them. Go!

The Crab Game is everyone's favorite. You start on opposite side of the room and when allowed, crawl as quickly as you can in Crab stance, meaning belly to the air, arms and legs on the ground, like a very confused horse. When you meet an opponent, you try to sweep their legs out from under them. If your butt touches the ground at any point, you must lie on the ground and count to ten before you can resume playing. There's a lot of screaming, generally. It's a good time.

Sensei and I chat while they play. We notice that somehow the teams seem to be uneven. One kid has a hunted look on their face as they scuttle by. And there seems to be a lot less moving around and less screaming. But we just shrug. Sensei lines them up and finishes the class. Some breathing exercises. Dismissed.

In the car on the way home, I say to my kid, OK honey, you know I love Kempo. But as your queer mama, I need you to tell me why dividing people into boys vs. girls isn't a great idea.

Oh, she tells me, yeah, because it leaves out the they/thems. (Mental high-five for me here!)

But, she continues, want to know what happened today? One of the kids in my class is a they. So when we divided up into boys vs girls, they started convincing all the boys to join our team. Everybody but one boy did it so then it was all of us against him!

Friends. Imagine you're that one cis boy who's insecure or dogged enough to insist on staying on 'the boy's team.' Your entire class turns into a unified crab army. The shes, the theys, and the hes who understand that the binary is bullshit.

You scuttle away. They surround you. You fall to the ground.

And they wait, patiently, while you count to ten, so they can nail your ass back to the ground.

The glory of this next generation, my friends. The upcoming glory of it all.

[hildegardladyofbones]

1 am braintot let's gooooo

Okay not gonna give context, because my brain is doing the zoomies and I need to catch up

It is hinted throughout the show that there might be romance between mo and Yuko, but that is WRONG. It is simply lesbian gay solidarity. Like, Mia X Yuko is practically canon???

And you CANNOT tell ma that Yuko doesn't look like a butch and that Mia isn't a feminine lesbian. I'm sorry there are no straight people in this show (except maybe Raynor, but he's an ally, ok?).

And how can I talk about Mia and me without talking about the gayness that is Simo.

In the wiki it is said that Mo didn't like Simo at first, as he was "jealous". Newsflash, he was just in DENIAL.

(I have not watched the show in a while, but I will update if I find any evidence)

Prince Mo is simply gay, there is no other way around it. I have nothing to add, the proof is in the pudding or something like that.

Because the show is aimed at young girls, there are naturally a lot of female characters. Which means all of them are lesbians. You canNOT convince me that Panthea didn't have some sort of deranged love for Gargona. She had always showed some sort of curiosity towards her (I read between the lines there). Perhaps the reason why Gargona doesn't just leave us because she loves Panthea and after her death (oh yeah they totally murder Panthea, brutally I might add) she doesn't leave centopia because she's too attached to the few memories she has of Panthea. Sure, she tried to leave, but the waves are symbollical. If she tries to leave, she'll feel small without her, without staying in the known.

To this day, I have no idea what gender is Rixel supposed to be. I watched the local dub and my language doesn't have gendered pronouns. So, I am going to refer to them as they. They are a non binary icon if I've ever seen one. They have an eccentric persona, which is reflected by their bold clothes; they are out and proud.

The artists were not very subtle with Dax.

He is a male dominatrix of I've ever seen one. He Is like a walking stereotype, it's hard to miss his obvious queerness.

Okay, so I wanna talk about Onchao. The character who doesn't even speak the least (surprising, considering his species), but has more character development than idk, a character with a lot of development?

I originally thought that one of his best friends (flair) was a boy, but she's female, so whoops. But I do get panromantic vibes from him. He has big time daddy issues and is the perfect character for best friends to lovers, hurt/comfort, fluff. I relayed to him a lot as a kid, but do even more so now. If we put him in the context of a fic, there are two routes it could go. Either Lyria Is an accepting mother, or homophobic. The latter is not impossible.

The more I think about him, the more I feel like he he would come out as non binary in the future, whuch opens up possibilities for even more angst.

Mia seems a lot gayer in centopia, which makes sense considering the name and the themse of the show. The name is Mis and me, implying that Mia is someone else than me, the me part referring obviously to Mia in Centopia. And that sounds like being in the closet to me. Not being able to be your true self in the real world and escaping to fantasies. And people back in the 19th century called women with short hair and gay women "fairies" (that's where the pixie cut comes from).

In conclusion, everyone is gay.

If you made it this far, I must applaud you for bearing my 1:53am rambles about an obscure cartoon.

[byronictrash]

so I was thinking about the whole hbo supernatural thing and all I could think was how it would fit in my major spn interpretation which is TRANSFEM SAM WINCHESTER!!!!

• changed her name to samantha for pure praticity

• is a lesbian, so all the romantic part is pretty similar to the canon, monsterfucking and all

• in which dean got a little confused about the distinction of gender ≠ sexuality at first like “wait but why did you become a girl if you like girls?” (he doesn’t know a lot of queer people, give him some time)

• AND SPEAKING OF DEAN! the biggest ally of all times. at first he doesn’t understand lots of stuff that seems obvious to sam (“why are you putting on a suit?” “dean we’re going to a small town, the case will be way harder if everyone is staring at me”), asks indiscrety questions (“can i ask you something?” “it depends” “you wanna chop your dick off?” “NO YOU CANT ASK IT”) but over time he starts to get it more naturally

• despite his numerous hook-ups, dean has never spent so much time in his life in a company of a woman so even the smallest things are extraterrestrial to him (“hey whats that bowl in the microwave?” “depilatory wax” “OH CMON SAMMY I WAS GOING TO HEAT UP MY DINNER THERE”)

• of course, there would be a scene where they met some hunter friend of john who says shit about sam, misgender her etc and dean goes FERAL, fist fighting with the guy and stuff. later sam yells at dean, saying she doesn't need dean to protect her and the argument would escalate to all the times that dean treated her in a condescending way, dean yelling back that dad said it was his job to take care of her and sam yelling even louder that dad would probably dead by now (in this moment all the lamps in their room (and in the street) simply explode, but they ignore. it was probably some short circuit…. right?)

• ok lets talk about john. still the same asshole, still gave a gun to kid who was afraid of the boogeyman, still tried to summon azazel when his son was in comma in 02X01 BUT now he also has a whole series of microaggressions with sam. she’s not stupid, she know the dad she has so doesn’t come out until she’s in stanford, SO john finds out sam is trans in 01X16 when john see sam after two years wearing a skirt and holding a .45 gun. he looks at her up and down and doesn’t say anything however, suddenly stops calling sam sam and starts calling her strictly samuel.

• it got worse after s1 season finale with the whole azazel possessed john > sam had the opportunity of killing azazel/her dad > couldn’t do it > azazel escaped > the winchesters get hit by a truck. when sam questions her father about being worried about the colt while his own son is dying, john explodes with her “you know samuel this is all your fault, once again you couldn’t just man up and pull the fucking trigger, kill the thing, you had to be same old sissy and chicken off, if your brother dies its his blood in your hands”

• aaaaaanyway, lets go back to our girl :D

• her style is kinda a mess. makeup done in a hurry, most of her clothes are mid skirts, hoodies and long dresses but now and then she spends a week wearing baggy jeans and band t-shirts, like dean’s, and no makeup at all. when he asks her “where is the whole angry teen outfit?” sam would simply respond its “because of the praticity, it’s tough to fight with a vampire in a dress lol” dean knows its because sometimes sam’s internalized transphobia ft repression gets loud

• her music taste is mostly grunge, punk and some alt bands she discover in stanford but dean call all of it emo “oh fuck off sammy, i let you drive once and you already put this emo shit” “dean this is literally nirvana, you cant call everything made after the 80’s emo”

• when she came out to bobby his reaction was literally “so now you’re a girl?” “uh… yeah” “gonna change your name or something?” “now is samantha but sam is still fine” “okay, now look this sigil... (and went back to the lore they were searching)”

• sam’s catholicism being more portrained on screen and how the dilemma of being a Christian and queer filled sam with religious guilty

• her paranormal powers also showed up sooner and since the beginning she knew something was wrong. her throat felt sore every time she recited the rituale romanus and holy water made her skin itchy. the older she got, the harder those “symptoms” became and with her denial, desire to be normal combined with religious guilt, it was easier to just convince herself that all this was just god punishing her for living in sin.

• surprisingly, all the demons and angels (and most of the monsters) even being assholes treats sam with the right pronouns

• which make sam and cas fist encounter even more interesting because cas literally turns to dean and go “is this your sister, samantha winchester?” “yeah” “ABOMINATION”’

• samruby second (cause the real first was ruby killing the seven deadly sins and stuff) encounter on the other side was a little more like "why are you following me?” “because youre tall and tall women are sexy as fuck” (then sam’s brain was short circuited for a sec because her height make usually makes her dysphoric)

• between s3-s4, dean still in hell, there would be a scene of one of the first times that sam drank blood to exorcise a demon with her mind. so here they are, demon tied in a chair and trapped in a trap, sam with blood all over her chin and ruby looking at her all heart eyes. Sam tries to do the exorcism but it doesnt work so ruby says sam needs more blood. Sam responds that shes nauseous and if takes any more shes gonna puke (cause you know voluntary vampirism came too natural in canon and that disturbs me) so the demon, who's wearing a cheerleader as a vessel, laughs and says "you know sammy, for real women blood tends to be a natural thing". ruby kills her on the spot.

• speaking of the catholicism (and the blood drinking) again, sam prays every single time before/after drinking demon blood, ruby mocks her for it but she doesnt care. its a weird feeling because even thinking that what shes doing is right, that she needs to get strong to kill lilith, it still feels bad, unholy in some sense.

• of course lucifer tempted her in s5 not only appearing as jess but also saying things like "why samantha, after all, are you willing to sacrifice yourself for a society that treats you like scum, that looks at you like a freak?"

• no need to say that in 05x04 "The End" episode when dean faces lucifer using sam as his vessel, she's wearing an outfit way cooler than that abbey-road-john-lennon-white-suit (to know what i mean search amanda seyfried 2018 met gala look THATS WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT!!!!!)

• even after being clean of blood drinking, sam still has some of her paranormal powers. she can't do exorcises with her mind anymore but she can move small objects with telekinesis (she doesn't do it in front of dean cause she knows it would scares the fuck out of him)

i also had a list of some episodes rewritten in this au but this list is already long, guess i'll post later

[bookofmirth]

ok so this might come off as a bit rambly so please bear with me lol

i've noticed that the acotar fandom has this incessant need to be right when it comes to canon and it really sucks out the funness of fandom. shipping is supposed to be fun but when it comes to this fandom, it's almost like a competition to see who will be more right when the books come out. engaging with theories/predictions about characters and the plot is supposed to be exciting but when it comes to this fandom, some of the theories/predictions are problematic at worst and nonsensical at best. like how can you say with your full chest that you're so confident about where the series is heading in the future because of this or that theory when you're stuck in the past and refuse to see what all of the text is telling you in the present. it doesn't make sense. the selective reading is so strong that it has me looking sideways sometimes lol

i guess my question is why do you think the fandom is so divided when it comes to ships right now? i've seen people say this wasn't the case for feysand and nessian, so what's the difference here?

Oh boy Brielle, I have some thoughts on this. It's complex.

To be clear, I am not saying that this applies to literally every single person who ships a certain way. This is a commentary on the fandom as a whole, and there are always exceptions.

This got really, really long, so I'm putting it under the cut.

I think that one of the main draws of this series, and of sjm's writing in general, is her ships. I think that people get very, very attached to their ships.

I also think that sjm does NOT fully think through some of the choices that she makes when writing. See: the way that she takes from all these different cultures and mashes them together, which could be seen as disrespectful of their origin. She has retconned things, like Mor being queer and Lucien being Helion's son. I think that she thoroughly thinks about some of the aspects of her books, like Rhys's reaction to sleeping with Feyre for the first time, but then really half-asses other aspects of her books, like Mor coming out.

Then, we have your good old misogyny and homophobia - people in the fandom don't like Mor because she hurt the poor bat boy's feelings when she didn't sleep with him, and they don't have a mating bond, but she's never really told Azriel "no", and so every single moment of pain that Azriel has felt in 500 years is Morrigan's fault. And Mor's experience as a closeted queer woman who feels unsafe around the people she should trust the most is completely disregarded by the fandom.

Finally, I think that a combination of these factors has created the monster we know as e*riel, and that the fandom is perpetuating its own mythology.

What all of this comes down to, and the real reason I think that the fandom is behaving this way right now, is that e*riel is dead. It's never happened, it's not going to happen, but because we don't have the clear closure we got with moriel (where people would be accused of homophobia for continuing to ship it), people are still trying to figure out any possible way for e*riel to become canon, though every single sign points to it being a non-issue.

This weird thing where people have to be "right" all the time, and the way that "right" = "canon" is a relatively new development. It's as if everyone in this fandom forgot that they are in fact in a fandom, which inherently diverges from canon.

However, I think that the need to cling to canon is because the alternative would be to admit defeat and say "well, even if it doesn't happen I will still ship e*riel, it's fine, I will live with that." But they don't want to do that. In response, they look at canon so hard that they are reading the white space between the letters to create their theories, which as you noted as largely nonsensical and often fail to take into account who the characters are as individuals, how they are connected to other characters, and why it would or wouldn't be appropriate for them to be involved in various plots.

People could say, as eluciens having been saying since day one, "I really ship this thing but I can see that it might not become canon". But they don't say that. They literally refuse to see any other possibility than e*riel becoming canon.

You pointed out that people are stuck in the past - absolutely. The number of reimaginings I have seen of scenes where either Azriel or Elain has literally zero to do with the scene, but people try to shove one or both of them in there. And this from books ago. People are stuck on the Truthteller scene, and refuse to acknowledge that neither of them have acted on their feelings, whatever those might be, for years. And they ignore the fact that once Elain and Az do act, it goes horribly wrong.

Here are the facts as of right now:

ACOSF is the most recent book. In that book, sans extra chapter, those two had no interaction other than looking at one another.

If we include his POV, then he said it was wrong, we got confirmation that nothing has ever happened between them, she returned his necklace. Elain was aroused, but that does not mean she was ready to even have sex. "Yes" to a kiss is not "yes" to every single sexual act Az can think of. They parted on awkward, bad terms after a scene in which it seemed like they were about to start something. Yikes. Unlike Wings and Embers, they did not end that chapter still thinking of one another. After they part ways, the omniscient narrator does not mention Elain, or Az thinking about Elain, again.

His POV occurs months before the end of the book. They do not interact after that.

Elain has a mate she has not rejected, nor accepted.

So anyway, your question was why are people like this. lol. I think the fandom created a monster, and that monster is clinging to life. It can't accept the idea of morphing into a non-canon ship, though it never was canon in the first place. It had just convinced itself that it was.

There are other aspects to this, that have to do with gwynriel and elucien.

Gwynriel is a new ship, it's almost guaranteed to happen, people are super excited to ship it and give Gwyn all their love. I'm sure they would rather create content for that ship than argue about whether or not it's going to be canon, but they are in constant defense mode. Some people honestly didn't like e*riel before because they don't like Elain, or because they don't like Azriel, and those are valid reasons for not liking it. Why people ship gwynriel doesn't matter. The tone of the discussion is, unfortunately, being shaped elsewhere, which I will mention below.

Elucien is an old ship, older than e*riel. I can speak from this perspective - personally, I have been holding my tongue for 4.5 years. I have been letting people live, and just talking about the things I like. Then when acosf came out, it was like I could finally say all the things I had been thinking about Azriel, because I now had proof that the things I thought about his character (and because of that, about e*riel) now had solid canon foundation. This is 4.5 years of me holding in a lot of shit and finally being able to say it. Sometimes yes, I might take joy in having been right.

I think that a few people are clinging to canon, and that sets the tone for the discourse in the fandom. Someone says "according to page whatever, blah blah blah" and people feel the need to respond, and then it turns into and "I'm right" contest instead of... a fandom... A lot of us like debating. To me, it's fun. But when Person A starts a conversation that's about canon and it actually ignores canon, it's hard to let that conversation go by and just keep creating whatever we want to create. Instead, we respond, and so the tone of the conversation is shaped by what Person A decided to say.

I also think that there is a lack of distinction between theories (what will happen in the future) and meta (analysis of what we have now).

There is also a lack of "I" statements. Opinions are being stated as fact.

idk if there is a way to make it better, other than to just go back to ignoring one another. This whole situation makes me want to throw out every single canon ship I like and create exclusively non-canon content, just for spite. Except I really like doing meta, and so I don't want to. I guess for my point, I'll just keep doing meta, keep creating different content, and keep reminding people that they aren't here to continue perpetuating canon, but to play with it.

[littlewetbeast]

hey rosa :) hope it's okay if i ask this. i'm kind of new to cockles things so i've been doing some "research" lol. i'm kind of asking around the fandom for opinions. do you actually think it's real? what convinced you? thanks and hope you are doing ok!

hey anon!! of course it is!! you’re welcome to send me as many asks as you’d like. putting this under a readmore because it got kinda long.

so - this is kind of awkward i guess, but i’ll get right into it. i have always steered clear of any form of rpf and tinhatting. this stuff is still... a little bit weird to me. the whole “i don’t do rpf but why are jensen and misha like That” is a running joke in the cockles fandom for a reason and i’m 100% part of that crowd. this is the only instance i have engaged in this type of fandom content. i don’t even really “ship” them, i just enjoy gifs, videos and some fandom discussion, i guess? not saying this gives me some moral high ground, i just want to give some perspective. i only very, very recently started watching cons and like. i guess i just never realised how insanely well they got along? the energy is just off the charts. i figured they were like this with everyone but it was quickly clear that this was a Them thing, which is - kind of sweet. i’d kind of scoffed before at people suggesting jensen had a crush on misha but i thought it was embarrassingly obvious after watching their interactions.  what i will say, from my own pov, is that even if certain suspicions are correct -  that jensen and misha ARE indeed in an open, loving, poly relationship - it is very unlikely they will ever publicly confirm this. THAT, to me, would be needed to confirm that it’s “real”. and that’s never going to happen, because #society. so i always try to keep myself grounded in that i am kind of making some observations about some celebrities and trying to consume what they give us in a respectful way, and just enjoying seeing how lovely they are with one another. so i will say - rather than arguing whether it is “real” or not - that i instead consider that there are things they have done/things i’ve seen which simply make more sense if they are in a relationship. it doesn’t really bother me if i’m mistaken, because they’re still providing me with some sweet, sweet serotonin in these difficult times. win/win either way. THAT SAID... i’ll tell you what i struggle to find bff-only explanations for.

i’ll just start off by sending you some stuff in case you want to look it up. i think a good place to start is @livebloggingmydescentintomadness‘s cockles manifesto here. NOW... i will say there is a lot of evidence (in my opinion) such as the ‘near kisses’, clothes swapping, performative flirting, etc. that i felt maaaaybe could suggest something, but it didn’t convince me. if you’re insane, you can browse the j2 tinhatting theories and compare - a lot of friendly behaviour jensen does is something he does with his close friends in general. so it often felt too circumstantial and could be explained away. so i’ll start with that, so you know where i am at.

the thing that made me really raise my eyebrows the first time was, after watching misha and jensen interact like They Do, seeing how jared reacted to them. he loves innuendo and does the gay chicken/fratboy gay humour all the time. but there are numerous cases where his face is SO exasperated when jensen openly gushes about misha and where he makes slight jabs at jensen regarding misha. the first time i saw it i was like - oh, that’s how i tease my friends in a relationship. okay.

one thing that stands out to me is his look of contained panic at someone mentioning photos jensen has of misha and asking to ‘release them’, and then the VISIBLE ‘oh thank fuck’ when they clarify. LIKE WHAT. WHY. why is he reacting like this if they’re just?? you know?

if you watch jibcon 2019, after the straddlegate incident, he WILL NOT stop making gay jokes towards misha and jensen - to the point where they get extremely uncomfortable, i have some Feelings about this that i may elaborate on later. like. he just will not stop. it just goes waaay beyond his typical fratboy gay jokes.

there are other things too, to be honest, but i think eventually it just became the sum of a lot of things. the fact that jensen and misha have extremely explicit queer inside jokes? that jensen got a boner from being straddled by him? i mean. sigh. it’s either bi4bi best friends with-intimate-knowledge-of-each-other’s-sex-lives OR it’s. you know. something more than that.

those are probably the things that have swayed me the most. there are a lot of other things that added to this, and if you slide some cockles goggles on you start to see a lot of behaviour that make you go, ‘huh, if they are in a relationship it sure would explain [this] and [this] and [this]’. that’s all i’ll say.

[wangxiandecoded]

Episode 9

Previous Episode | Next Episode

(Spoilers for the whole show ahead!)

Lan Zhan remembers what Wei Ying had mentioned about the puppets the first night at Cloud Recesses showing he remembers quite a lot about him, he just doesn’t let on.

NHS is a big mood in this scene, an absolutely useless gay depending on two warrior gays to save his life. But he’s hindering their flawless team work so Lan Zhan uses the silencing spell on him.

This dialogue is so uncalled for and delivered in a way that makes you think Wei Ying just wants to see Lan Zhan have an outburst, kick back and admire how hot that is.

Wei Ying’s “you can go ahead and blame me for everything that is wrong with this world but my man has done nothing wrong in his life ever” smile.

You didn’t have to expose him like that but thank you, Jiang Cheng.

Wei Ying’s “sorry I accidentally did a hetero thing, let us please not remember this for the sake of my clean conscience” smile.

Yet Another Plot Device To Show Off Wangxian’s Chemistry

The Dire Owl subplot is one of the dreamiest scenes on the show and a fight sequence that proves Wangxian own the patent for words like soulmates, symmetry, equilibrium, balance, yin and yang, mirrors and their derivatives.

Here’s something that’s bothered me : Wei Ying calls for Lan Zhan twice and he doesn’t answer him the first time even though he looks searchingly in his direction. It is only when they knock into each other the second time that he explains the fog is a hallucination caused by the Dire Owl. (But of course Lan Zhan doesn’t need to answer him, the red string of fate will inevitably help them find the other.) 

Clear-headed as he is, did he for a second believe that the Dire Owl was making him hallucinate Wei Ying’s voice the first time, and is that why he ignored him? Because Lan Zhan’s mind could be the spotless sea of tranquillity it is, but Wei Ying has now become the shrillest thought that breaks through and demands his attention. He doesn’t respond though, so he must have been sure Wei Ying is safe.

For Lan Zhan, Wei Ying will do even the impossible. He’ll try his best to seal off all his senses and mute his head that’s forever brimming with thoughts. 

Ok, pause. I cried when I watched this for the first time and let me tell you why. The implications of this fight scene are astounding. We all know Wangxian are soulmates who can confront anything together but did we know that they could feel and find their way to each other even when their senses are completely shut? I mean, how attuned to someone’s existence do you have to be to achieve that? They are hyper focusing on nothing but the Dire Owl and yet moving perfectly with eyes closed in an outrageously impressive synchrony. They can feel the other’s presence and have utmost trust in each other to shield their direction. They move as if they’ve spent infinite lifetimes by the other’s side mastering this skill; they leap, spin and swerve like they think with the same mind. The way they fit together is to die for, nearly impossible and the legendary stuff from stories that we all wish we could have with someone in this existence. If I was whatever that stood in Wangxian’s way, I’d be terrified and call it a day. They are not just soulmates, they are The Original Formidable Soulmates™. 

Wangxian Are Here To Kick Queerbaiters In The Ass

This fantastic display of battle prowess by the two heroes fighting back-to-back is one of the many things that convinced me The Untamed is not like the other stories out there. Simply because every stop of their journey is too romantic and the others don’t come close enough. It is an injustice to compare or group their relationship with the ‘dude bro, no homo’ chemistry that bromances usually sell. Lan Zhan and Wei Ying are two people who are so passionately devoted to and absolutely belong with each other, they are soulmates not just in the minds of the audience or because the creators were afraid to make them something more, but soulmates by their own admission. There are other factors that strengthen their already supergay case like the absence of a female love interest in their lives and their flirty interactions being genuinely adorable as heck, as opposed to just isolated instances of b(romance). And it really, really, helps our case that the novel is canonically gay but it is also remarkable that a show that’s teeming with gay subtext can exist at all and go on to become one that is widely embraced by everyone, casual watchers and shippers alike. 

Lan Zhan and Wei Ying's chemistry gives all the Western superheroes a run for their money. We no longer have to wonder what it looks like when two queer heroes who are in love get to kick ass together. See, this is what happens when you have the guts to invest in a gay romance. This show looked censorship in the eye and said gay rights anyway. (I’m going to digress from this show for a sec and just plainly weep for all the queer pairings on mainstream media that we shipped but couldn’t see the light of day because of the homophobic people behind them. It is great that the truth still lives in our hearts and the millions of words on ao3. But life feels a lot sweeter to know with certainty that our heroes are in love this time and celebrate the fact that the people who made this show knew and honoured that very well, that they honoured the audience. In my eyes, CQL is the unparalleled forefather of gay romance from now on. Because reading these epic queer stories is one thing but watching Wangxian’s story unfold along with the entire world means believing in the power of gay love. And seeing our favorite heroes in action makes the characters we look up to so much more real.)

Lan Zhan comes flying like the Prince Charming he is to break the shackles of heteronormativity trying to kill his soulmate! Hell yeah, king! Save us from that straight trope that’s been choking us since time immemorial.

We did not just see Wei Ying pretend to be dead so he can outsmart the bird and simultaneously get Lan Zhan to save him just because he likes that sort of thing. Nope, totally didn’t happen. 

Oh, hello Ah Yuan! Details like this prove the show is well worth multiple rewatches.

There is nothing more uniquely Wangxian than the million thoughts they share with each other through mere glances, the frequency of which steadily increases. Who knew you could speak with zero articulation? Not having a soulmate sure sucks for the rest of us mortals. I doubt the audience can truly grasp the depth of their communication but I’m pretty sure it goes like this most of the time. 

Wei Ying teasing Lan Zhan that the Goddess Statue tried to kill him because she had a crush on him is all kinds of hilarious. Lan Zhan looks somewhere in between “Wei Ying, we’re talking about the fate of the universe, stop being gay for 2 seconds please,” and "STFU, just because I can find my way to you blind doesn't mean I will hesitate to Silence you again."

Wei Ying Is Crumbling All Of Lan Zhan’s Walls

Most people maintain their distance from Hanguang-Jun, the Noblest Of Them All, he whose robes command respect and inspire fear. There is hence something very sweetly domestic about Wei Ying latching on to his silk tassel while subtext-whining, "Where are you going Lan Zhan, I refuse to live without you", and "Ugh Lan Zhan, you're so lost without me, ok fine, I'll help you.” It’s like he granted himself the lifetime entitlement of being Lan Zhan’s nuisance-companion the night they met, and thank goodness for that because Lan Zhan wasn’t going to let anyone into his life. Wei Ying is the exception who managed to charm his way into his heart and dissolve his barriers.

Notice Wei Ying even turns down free alcohol for Lan Zhan. And the sheer undisguised panic on his face that Lan Zhan is going to leave him alone after all the bonding activities he made sure they went through is endearing comedy at its peak. 

We see Lan Zhan no longer believes resolutely in His Ways and lets Wei Ying persuade him to believe there is a better one. This is a great 𝙙𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙡𝙤𝙥𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 for them because they’re communicating.

Lan Zhan doesn’t fight him anymore, period. 

The Yin Iron starts acting up and Wei Ying is immediately there for Lan Zhan, gently grounding him. He can feel the horror and pain Lan Zhan has seen in the vision because of course he can. But does Lan Zhan see how much Wei Ying loves him and hurts for him? He has to. In moments like this, Wei Ying’s presence shows how wrong Lan Zhan is in wanting to do everything alone. We all need a friend in life. And it was destiny that led them to each other because their lives would’ve evidently been a lot lonelier without the other in it. 

Episode 9 shows Lan Zhan warming up to Wei Ying some more : he has stopped being antagonistic altogether, lets Wei Ying pull him around, freely accepts his help, shares many glances with him and is ready to blast anything that lays a finger on Wei Ying sky high. (Of course we see that Wei Ying exaggerates needing his help most of the time. He plays the “I’m a frail man desperately in need of Hanguang-Jun’s protection” card because swooning into the arms of his lover is one of his favorite things. And not even Lan Zhan calls him out for it. They’re just so whipped for each other.)

[zandracourt]

I’ve been reflecting a lot on Cas’ recent confession of love and the responses I’ve been seeing across tumblr and Twitter. As a Destiel fic writer, I am thrilled to see this become canon and as a queer woman, also really touched to see how much Misha has embraced this as a really significant thing. I already ordered my Only Love merch. So I’m content with it all as much as it is. SPN has never made queer representation its issue. SPN *has* responded to its fanbase, who have both pushed the importance of representation and also brought the actors into a realm of growth over queer issues that they may never have come to without this show and this fandom. For that reason, I don’t think it’s helpful to be mad at Jensen or the Showrunners for Destiel not being perfect. You don’t have to celebrate them as allies, but the anger and vitriol just doesn’t help, in my opinion.

BUT...where my thoughts have been going is around what it means to be an actor in a ‘ship and what the impact of the story has on the actors, the fandom, and the constant dance of who controls the story because I think this has been something that even with straight characters has had serious impacts on how fans feel about an ending.

My first fandom, Starsky & Hutch, was mostly written by a gay man who wrote “straight” characters because that was what they had to be in 1974. The characters and show plots were such that the actors felt the love underneath the words and acted accordingly. Back then, it wasn’t so much queer baiting as queer coding. I find it amazing that my parents never thought for a minute Starsky and Hutch were gay, but even as a 7 year old, I knew they were in love and saw them that way. And anyone who watches the show now, it’s so clear that it’s almost laughable. When their show won the Peopel’s Choice award in 1977, David Soul said in his acceptance speech that the best part of being on this show was that people saw two men who “could be anything”. He knew that queer folk read their characters as gay and that straight folks saw them as straight and he was happy for both to be true. While the show never had an explicitly romantic declaration, the characters held hands, hugged, and in the final episode, their final scene is Hutch crawling into Starsky’s hospital bed with him, something done with amusement, but was completely coded to mean something else. It was never “canon”, but the ‘ship has lasted 46 years with new fic being written even now.

In the new SW films, actor Oscar Isaac was not at all quiet about his feelings that his character, Poe Dameron, was in love with Finn. He stated he played him that way (and was not directed otherwise) and he even explicitly asked for that ship to be made canon. He was told no and that is not how the story ended. The romance plot was instead focused on two other characters. Some fans liked that. Many didn’t. In general, though, the story is open-ended enough that shippers could have Stormpilot be their ship and there is nothing that really contradicts that. In that scenario, Oscar had his sense of who this character was and felt strongly about that, but in the end, it wasn’t his story, so the ending was what it was.

Hawai’i Five-0 ended its 10 year run last spring. Actor Scott Caan said in an interview during the show’s 5-year mark that he wanted to see his charcter have a romantic story line with his other lead, Steve McGarrett. And while Scott did not go so far as Oscar Isaac did to say he made his acting choices based on that, watching him and Alex play their characters, there was definitely some intention to show their characters as loving one another. Actor Alex O’Loughlin voiced a few times over the years that he felt his character would not get back together with Catherine, a woman his character was on-again, off-again with, because he felt Steve had reached his limit with what Catherine had done to him. The series made a decision to end with Steve leaving Hawai’i behind and flying away with Catherine. Neither actor has commented much about the show’s ending, but clearly it went against what both actors had publicly expressed in the past. Again, they don’t control the story, but they do understand their characters after playing them for so many years and they are invested in that. In that sense, the actor’s subsequent silence about how the show ended says quite a bit. And McDanno fans were very unsatisfied with the show’s ending, myself included.

So we come to Destiel. Over the years, this ship has been very controversial in part because one actor (Misha) has clearly been OK with his character being perceived as being in love with Dean, while the other actor (Jensen) has not. At times he has been very negative about it, and that has been taken by some fans to imply how Jensen feels about homosexuality in general. I’m not convinced it does, but I understand why people feel that way. Over the 12 years since Cas’ introduction on the show, there clearly has been a shift from the writers and showrunners avoiding the topic entirely, to talking about it, and now to having Cas confess his feelings of love to Dean in canon. In the days since, Misha has been unequivocal in saying Cas is romantically in love with Dean and that he has played him that way, at least for this season and likely longer. Misha is proud that he was able to advocate for Cas to be gay and he clearly understands why it is important for the show to have made this choice. For Jensen’s part, however, he has stated he has not played Dean that way and from video clips of him talking about the show’s ending, it appears that he needed some convincing to accept this as the story. To his credit though, once he was convinced that this was something show creator (Eric Kripke) could envision as part of Dean’s character arc, he was on-board with this ending and feels statisfied with it. And I think some of the frustration folks feel stems from both in how the actors portrayed their characters and in which takes were chosen to be in the final cuts of episodes. In that way, the show has fed this ship, whether the actors realized it or not, and that is why Destiel has felt particularly painful at times. The fanbase has been gaslighted for seeing it at all (from actors and showrunners) while the directors have seemed to go out of their way to choose shots where the actor’s choices were more tender and affectionate and write lines where characters make explicit statements about Dean and Cas as romantic. I can’t help but wonder if Jensen really didn’t see Dean as being in love with Cas, but that we saw Jensen’s own affinity for Misha bleed through in their incredible chemsitry together or if Jensen has just been in denial of this ‘ship having teeth for his own personal reasons. I don’t know and so far, he hasn’t been willing to talk about that. Maybe he will once it’s over. Maybe he won’t and I’m not going to be angry with him for it. He’s an incredible actor and he’s lived this character for 15 years, so he has a right to who he believed Dean is and isn’t.

The issues of representation continue to be pressing and what I see happening with Destiel and these other ‘ships is exciting because it shows growth on all sides. We have audiences able to voice not only how they perceive characters without shame but can express a desire for characters to be together. None of that is new for straight characters, but it is for queer characters. We have actors who not only can see these same things, but feel enough ownership of their characters to expresss what they believe their characters would do or feel. And we have showrunners who are going to make their story, sometimes in response to feedback from their fans and actors, and sometimes in spite of it.

What Destiel becoming canon gives me hope for is that as new shows come into being, characters that take off, actors who have unexpected chemistry, and ‘ships that gain a life of their own, will lead to shows that are less inclined to care if those ships are queer or not and just go with what fans respond to. That it will normalize that people can (and do) come out an all different times of life, even after being het-married, having kids, or presenting as straight to everyone else for 40 years. That it will reflect that sometimes, it’s not about having been queer or straight from the beginning, but be about that ONE relationship that just is different, special, or grows into a deep love regardless of the genders of the people. I hope we can get to a place where deep intimacy between same-gender characters doesn’t have to be a war over romance vs. platonic and the story can just develop without the pressure of representation because queer characters will be so prevalent that we don’t have to feel like we must cling so tightly to every one we get. I hope we can come to a place where sometimes relationships don’t go romantic because one person (regardless of gender) just doesn’t feel that way, because that is very fucking true in real life. I want to watch shows where the sexual identity of any character doesn’t have to be etched in stone from the word go, never to change ever because that’s boring and limiting, and honestly, not real life.

I am deeply grateful for actors like Isaac, Caan, and Collins who are willing to see characters outside the heteronormative lens and to advocate for queer romantic arcs. I’m thankful to showrunners who are making shows with greater queer representation than ever before. And I’m grateful to actors like Ackles, who while it wasn’t who he thought his character was, was able to expand his view enough to go where the story was going to go. The arc of the universe does bend towards justice, and we will get there. Until then, there’s fic. And thank God for that.

[sophiamcdougall]

EXPLAINING SANREMO

(PART TWO) I am back. I have barely eaten or slept and Tumblr has tried to murder me and this post multiple times, but I have survived. Thank you for your patience.

Part One of my attempt to explain the seismic experience that is 2020 Sanremo Festival of Italian Song is here. 

Ready? I assure you, you are not, but let’s proceed. So Sanremo rages pitilessly on.  Now everyone knows what’s at stake, and everyone, including your humble recapper, is exhausted, but doing the gay/chaotic best they can.

As the final battle to save Amadeus, Rancore, Italy and THE WORLD approaches, Achille Lauro has a last message for the troops. And I’m not deducing this, he literally said it on Twitter. 

...Hold me I’m scared.

Meanwhile (sort of) (go with it) (time isn’t real at Sanremo)  a minor drama  has occurred offstage. Singer Tiziano Ferro made an ill-advised joke about Fiorello’s interminable comedy bits, some idiots on Twitter ran away with it, and poor Fiorello was upset! This is minuscule in Sanremo terms. But consider the flapping of a butterfly’s wings. Consider hurricanes. But who is Tiziano Ferro?

Hold on. We’ll get to it. For now ...

Fiorello is dancing seductively for an absolutely delighted Amadeus while dressed as a rabbit. And wearing a blonde wig. Is there a rational explanation for this? I mean, sort of. But also no.

And then he worries Amadeus might give him herpes, which causes Amadeus to freaking snap.

“No, no!” yells the mercurial Fiorello. Amadeus isn’t worthy of his kisses yet. He ricochets out of Amadeus’s arms and into the audience and “passes on” the kiss to a guy in the front row. 

“Incredible things are going to happen tonight!” yells Amadeus, who has no fucking idea. ”Beautiful things,” corrects Fiorello. 

But just because Fiorello is a mayhem elemental on a mission of love doesn’t mean he hasn’t got feelings. 

Enter Italy’s sweetheart, Tiziano Ferro.

Actually, Tiziano’s been there all along. He’s the specialest of special guests, singing through basically his entire back catalogue every night. Which why it really was unfair of him to pick on Fiorello --   it’s not his fault he’s literally got to stand there and babble nonsense for aeons on end, Tiziano! He’s just serving the hungry chthonic entity that is Sanremo, same as you.  

While the gay mayhem (the gayhem, if you will) surges around him, Tiziano  has been fighting the good gay fight in his own steadfast way, so far untouched. His mere presence is a message of hope in itself, he knows this, and is determined to make it count. Ten years ago he was closeted, convinced coming out would end his career, and suicidal. Now happily married and gloriously successful, he is here to demonstrate that “it gets better”. He radiates such wholesome joy and resilience that everyone loves him.

So anyway, Tiziano didn’t mean to hurt anybody because he would never, and now he wants to make things right. So will Fiorello forgive him?

Ah, what better gesture of reconciliation than to goofily sing a  love song written by Fiorello himself. Of course Fiorello forgives Tiziano, because Fiorello loves everyone, good and bad, (after all he loves Amadeus the most). But he is also a chaos being, and he is working harder than anyone else to channel the divine madness of this deranged Sanremo Festival into anyone who gets close. Tiziano, watch out!

Seems TIziano naively thought he could lean in for a staged, nearly kiss, but  Fiorello’s very soul is antithetical to “nearly” anything.

“My husband’s going to divorce me!”  wails poor Tiziano, but Fiorello has never felt so alive. This is Sanremo, bitches. Rules like “sixty-year-old men can’t be danger twinks, Fiorello,” have ceased to apply. He is an apostle of Achille Lauro, he has accepted the sermon of Benigni into his heart: it is time for PHYSICAL LOVE. While not quite ready (yet) to fuck everyone in the orchestra pit, he is throbbing with readiness, to frolic all over the theatre giving all the guys he can get his hands on THE KISSES OF HIS MOUTH.

Naturally this sparks further firestorms of chaos. “Do it again!” begs grizzled rocker and high-ranking competitor Piero Pelù. Electrified by the touch of Fiorello’s lips, he is later to be found running shirtless through the auditorium where he steals a handbag.

Everyone is kissing everyone, age and orientation be damned. Summoned by the gay sorcery unfolding, 65-year-old queer rock goddess Gianna Nanini manifests and is kissed worshipfully on the lips by 36-year-old duet partner Coez.

There’s also some kind of song competition going on I guess. 

This happens:

That’s Ghali, GUYS, IT’S NOT WORKING, rappers ARE DROPPING LIKE FLIES ALL OVER THIS STAGE, WE’VE GOT TO DO SOMETHING.

(...  it isn’t really Ghali and don’t worry. This is a gag? Which I still don’t really get? And nor does sweet anarchist cherub Fiorello whom we will later discover is currently being physically restrained from rushing onstage to tend to the fallen rapper’s wounds.)

The real Ghali raps in Arabic which among other things is a big old “me ne frego” of his own to Italian Trump-tribute act and failed wannabe prime minister Matteo Salvini. Then he gets close to Fiorello, which can only end one way.

All the boys are crazy for Fiorello’s kisses but Amadeus still can’t have any

It’s already a difficult night for Amadeus.  TV presenter Antonella Clerici enters and far from standing a step beside him, righteously rips the piss out of him, which to be fair he accepts with grace.

And as for Achille Lauro ... ...No.  Patience. The time to bear witness to the last stand of Achille Lauro is not yet come. There are other forces stirring at Sanremo.

Chaos has its dark side.

The gun on stage is cocked and loaded. This is it. ENTER MORGAN.

... and enter Bugo,  who trails in behind Morgan, looking dazed and haunted. But whatever, it’s a million o’clock in the morning, aren’t we all. 

They start to play.  Italian Tumblr dozes fitfully on its sofa, idly crackshipping Amadeus and Fiorello. Utterly unprepared.

So most of us don’t notice what’s happening ...

... until the music just stops.

No one’s paid attention to the Morgan and Bugo in days. As far as I’m concerned Fabrizio Moro has already been avenged and my bloodlust is slaked.  The song - apparently written wholly by Bugo - honestly, isn’t bad, but Morgan’s been tuneless throughout and their duet/cover last night was cringeable. There have been some major reversals in the rankings but at this point there’s almost no way they’re going to be one of them.  And Morgan is not happy.

So Morgan changed the lyrics (and this isn’t even last-minute improv, he fucking printed it) to attack the one person who still had faith in him, blaming Bugo and Bugo alone for their poor performance so far. On live TV. In front of millions. After screaming at Bugo backstage just minutes ago. And he expects Bugo to just stand there and take it.

"Me ne frego to that shit,” thinks Bugo, and becomes the unexpected self-care hero of Sanremo as he vanishes into the night.

And that’s how I learned the Italian word for pandemonium. 

Morgan has the absolute nerve to ask what’s going on. Amadeus breaks out in visible cold sweat. Fiorello is thrown bodily onstage to DO SOMETHING, ANYTHING, OH MY GOD.

It’s long past midnight and a bunch of worried middle-aged men in sparkly jackets are scampering around yelping “Bugo? Bugo! BUGO? BUGO!!!” and that, I am here to tell you, when you are already delirious from exhaustion and shitposting-induced hysteria, is more than enough to tip you right over the edge.

Italian Tumblr resigns itself to never sleeping again.The memes aren’t going to make themselves. 

Translation: ”Is Bugo there?” “What’s happening?” “Where’s Bugo gone?” “I have to go and see where Bugo is.” “Bugo left.” “BUGO!”

Morgan wants vengeance. Fiorello, adorably indifferent to the fact that he was shoved on stage to, you know, entertain the audience, wants to find the missing waif, wrap him in a blanket and feed him soup. So they both rush offstage and Amadeus is left alone in a living anxiety dream.

The audience are booing.  The 70th fucking Sanremo Festival of Italian Song is falling to pieces on his watch. For all he knows murder is going on backstage and he picked known powder-keg and scoundrel Morgan for the Festival. The buck stops with him. And he has no lines, no back-up, no idea what to do about it.

And then Fiorello, angel of misrule, avatar of lawlessness and love, strolls back onstage. He looks confident and relaxed, like a man with all the answers.  Which he is.

“Have you got Bugo?” Amadeus inquires desperately.

NO RULES, NO MASTERS, NO SPONSORSHIP MONEY. ME NE FREGO.

Everything is broken. And somehow everything is OK.

Everyone, Amadeus included, bursts into hysterical, cathartic laughter.

“Is this my fault?” Amadeus asks. “YES!” crows Fiorello, lovingly forcing Amadeus to face his sins and his nightmares in a healing atmosphere of radical acceptance and mass psychosis.

And that’s how Amadeus learned that the real Sanremo was inside us all along.  And what he needs in this glorious maelstrom was never a beautiful woman standing a step behind him. It’s a chaos pixie dream boy at his side.

It’s time to cast out toxic masculinity and become a better man.

So Amadeus wraps up the show as best he can and then out of pure human compassion, he and Fiorello personally wander the streets of Sanremo looking for Bugo until four in the morning.

Bugo and Morgan are automatically disqualified

And now let us witness the final passion of Achille Lauro. Who is this Achlle Lauro kid anyway? How intentional is all this? Is he the Messiah, or a very naughty boy?

SO YEAH. Anyway, everyone’s wondering what the fuck Achille and his producer/guitarist Boss Doms (yes, really) are going to do, and BE, next. Achille’s first three looks were inspired by St Francis of Assisi, David Bowie, and Marchesa Luisa Casati. 

So ... Freddie Mercury, maybe? Elizabeth I? Jesus Christ?  And after the flurry of kissing Fiorello whipped up .. 

Will they ... can they ... dare they...

Do you even need to ask?

I have no idea how the crazy bastards who guessed “Elizabeth I” did it. 

Achille thrusts his hips against Boss’s backside. Drops to his knees before him and lets the shape of the microphone speak for itself. Briefly chokes him. And throughout they are tender, elegant, and utterly, regally dignified.

And then, at last.

A  joyous chorus of maenad-like shrieks rings out across Europe. If you’re in the Greater London area and your ears are still sore, I’m sorry. That was me. 

That’s it. Achille Lauro and Boss Doms ascend into heaven and pass into history. 

Not even they can give more to Sanremo.

The dust settles. 

The dawn breaks.

WE FUCKING DID IT! RANCORE LIVES! WOUNDED (as are we all) BUT SMILING AT A WORLD TRANSFORMED! (Not only that but, after starting at the bottom of the leaderboard he’s been catapulted up into the top ten and wins the special prize for Best Lyrics!)

And Amadeus?

Well, let’s hear from him in his own words.

Because Fiorello asked him to, Amadeus is wearing a blonde wig to look like legendary TV host Maria de Filippi. Amadeus doesn’t normally sing, but because Fiorello asks him to, he joins him in song.“A WORLD OF LOVE! LOVE! LOVE!” they chorus. It’s the hymn of the new day. 

“He can make me do anything!” Amadeus sighs to the audience. So Fiorello asks him to slow-dance.  And they do.

The prophecy has been fulfilled. Amadeus has let love into his heart. He has surrendered to the holy power of gay chaos. He is a man reborn. 

He didn’t find Bugo on that long, gruelling dark night of the soul, because incredibly,  poor Bugo never left the theatre and spent the night literally hiding in a cupboard.

But he found something else. 

As Sanremo finally, mercifully approaches its end, Fiorello grapples him close and, all teasing cast aside, whispers fiercely in his ear:

And somehow it was.

And toxic masculinity?

To find out why don’t we - and I am sorry about this - check in on Matteo Salvini who would normally be rage-tweeting up a Trump-style storm by now. He loves bitching about Sanremo for being “rigged by the left”  or occasionally letting a non-lily-white performer win, and this year he even tried to organise a boycott. Let’s see how that’s going.

This, the gayest-ever Sanremo in history, is the most-watched Sanremo in 18 years, with an incredible 60% audience share.

“Me Ne Frego” flies to the top of the Spotify charts.  (And though the judges are still cowards and traitors who left Achille in 8th place, there is no doubt across the media who the real star of the festival was. ) And Salvini’s “boycott” just meant he effectively banned himself from making a peep about it.

So who won the festival?

ALL OF US.

Oh, you meant literally.

This guy. His name is Diodato and his song is called “Fai Rumore” (Make a Sound.) It’s fine.

And that was Sanremo. It wasn’t a dream, it was a place. And you, and you, and you were there.

[lokiondisneyplus]

Sasha Lane always plays the rebel. “Somebody make me a f***ing fairy princess, please,” says the actor, sighing with exasperation. “I promise I won’t say f***.” She is the type of plucky young star you imagine can do anything but, until now, Lane has excelled at playing the daring renegade, whether it’s as a teenage runaway in American Honey, the dazzling coming-of-age film that made her name in 2016, as a spliff-smoking “bad kid” in The Miseducation of Cameron Post, or, this month, as a violent fugitive in Amazon Prime’s Utopia.

The 25-year-old puts these sorts of roles down to her 20 tattoos and her dreadlocks. “I’m immediately seen as dirty and dark,” she says, recalling when she attended the illustrious Met Gala event in 2018, wearing a white lace dress. “I had diamonds in my hair – diamonds,” she says, with faux indignation. “Somebody was like, ‘She's so grungy.’ I was like, ‘What about this outfit says: ‘I'm gonna do a head bang and burn a town down?’ No. I'm sipping with my pinkie up and feeling very graceful and I wish you would just let me have my moment.”

Lane is just as captivating to watch on Zoom as she is in her films. She plays with her distinctive dreads – piling them atop her head, sweeping them over her shoulder – and her hands spiral around each other as she talks in a rhythmic southern drawl. When we speak, Lane has just got off a video call with her one-year-old daughter. She's currently in Atlanta, where she’s rumoured to be shooting the new Thor-spin off series, Loki, with Tom Hiddleston. “I'm just gonna skip over that one,” she says, laughing, when asked about it.

No one could have foreseen that Lane would end up here, though she is easily one of the most intriguing actors of the moment. She’d never planned on acting, let alone liked it, and thought she’d join the Peace Corps after college. But in 2014 her life changed forever when, aged 19, she was spotted on a Miami beach by Andrea Arnold. The director had just lost her lead actor for American Honey, the dizzying, sun-soaked Cannes Jury Prize-winner about a girl who decides to cut and run with a band of misfits. Among the tens of thousands of students getting wasted on spring break, Lane stood out.

“It was a crazy trip,” says Lane. “Me and my friends had been kicked out of a hotel and we ended up on this beach. I had no care in the world and that's when Andrea saw me.” Arnold told Lane she was making a film and later that night, while two of her friends were passed out from partying on her hotel bed, Lane improvised scenes in the lobby. “I had definitely been drinking that day, but I can hold my own,” she says now.

The next day over breakfast, Arnold asked Lane to stick around for another week. Lane was cautious. “I was like, ‘Alright, well if you turn out to be a murderer this is not gonna go well for you. I know s***. You're gonna have to really hack up my body if we're gonna do this.’ Which is weird to say to someone, but I did,” says Lane. She stayed, and by the end of the week she’d been cast in the film opposite Shia LaBeouf. She dropped out of college and flew out to Oklahoma to start shooting.

Her resulting performance as Star, a teenager from a broken home who hits the road with a travelling, partying sales crew in the midwest, was magnetic. With no professional experience, Lane managed to delicately balance her character’s mixture of vulnerability and grit.

Lane, like Star, left her life behind to go on the road with the film’s cast and crew. “I didn't know how to act,” she says. “So I didn't know what to do other than pull stuff from my own mind. I got to the point where I’d be crying to Andrea, saying, ‘I can't tell the difference between who I am and who Star is.’ We were in a bubble and had no visitors. We slept in s****y motels together, we were in the van for hours. There was no escaping American Honey.”

Star’s love interest in the film is the crew’s wild, hyperactive “business manager” Jake, a rat-tailed LaBeouf who Lane was reportedly dating off-screen. LaBeouf was intense on set. In one instance, Star was supposed to be angry with Jake, but Lane was struggling to conjure the emotion. “I was just laughing,” she says. “So Shia started telling me, ‘You're ruining this scene. You're f***ing ruining the whole movie.’ I knew what he was doing but it hurt and it was pissing me off. I just snapped and then they started filming and it was like, ‘Oh right, I see what you did there. You f***er.’ It was smart.”

The kids in the film, who are from forgotten, midwestern towns, are in a demographic that Donald Trump claims to be the voice of. Our interview is a week ahead of the 2020 election, and Lane is not convinced. “He's had his time and he has nothing to show for it,” she says. “He didn't deliver. I understood, especially back then, why certain people voted for him. They just wanted to believe that he would put money in and give us jobs, but it didn't work out that way.”

Like Star, Houston-born Lane moved around a lot as a child, between Texas, Florida and Dallas, and helped raise her little sisters. “I don't really like to talk about my family but my mom was gone a lot,” she says. “I played this role of being the glue, trying to keep everyone together. I grew up really, really young. Bad things happened to me as a kid but I had this feeling that it made me a better person. I have empathy and perspective.” As a result, she continues, she “internalised a lot because I never wanted people to feel my pain. I wanted to appear strong and light and be able to take care of everyone. Meanwhile, I would sit in my closet, give myself like 10 seconds to cry, then I would suck it up and be like, ‘OK, move forward, time to go get my sisters some food and act like everything's OK.’ I got really good at pretending things were OK.”

When Lane went to college, she started to crack. “I ended up getting diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder,” she says. “There are voices in your head, things are really dark. It's hard to explain to people who care about you that you can't sleep and you're hearing voices all day and you're sad and you're just tired. By the time I was a teenager, I was so tired.”

In the weeks before Lane met Arnold in 2014, the voices were “saying something nice for the first time”. “They told me, ‘Hold on, something’s coming that will allow you to fill your purpose and let you breathe,’” she says. “People ask me all the time, ‘If American Honey didn't happen, what would you be doing?’ Truly, I don't think I'd be here. I think it saved my life.”

There is a serendipity to Lane’s acting career. First, American Honey came out of the blue. Then, in 2018, she starred in Desiree Akhavan’s gay conversion drama The Miseducation of Cameron Post as a girl raised in a hippy commune. The part resonated with Lane as someone who refuses to put a label on her sexuality and whose brother had a difficult time growing up gay and black in Houston. “I've never seen myself as someone who's like, ‘Hey, I'm queer, I'm bisexual, I'm this,’” says Lane. “I just have a very broad and open and unique way of loving. I can literally fall in love with a f***ing squirrel. Anyone.”

Her brother, she says, “always prayed he’d be normal”, much like the characters in Cameron Post try to “pray away the gay”. She says the film moved some elderly conservative viewers to tears and has helped to change people’s minds.

After that, Lane landed roles in the warm indie drama Hearts Beat Loud and the horror Daniel Isn’t Real, and her latest project is the US remake of Dennis Kelly’s Utopia, about a gang of bright youngsters who are in possession of a cult graphic novel that seems to predict disastrous real-world epidemics, making them the target of a shadowy deep state organisation. Lane plays yet another woman on the run, Jessica Hyde, who has been evading The Network all her life and who helps the young group survive.

Lane studied feral cats to get into the character’s mindset. “For them, everything is survival mode,” she says. “You're terrified someone's gonna capture you. You don't hang in packs because you're a loner. That's Jessica Hyde.”  

She may be stuck playing the rebel but, through playing misunderstood outliers like Jessica Hyde and Star, Lane wants her work to bring people together and help us to understand each other. “I’m not the biggest public speaker,” she says, “but if I can make films that touch hearts and connect people, that's beautiful. Of course I want to be a part of that.”

[blackstarlight6]

Ok so, here come Pennywise lgbtq+ headcanons because I'm laying in bed at 3 am with no desire to go to sleep and it's pride month and I want to being a queer person myself so sue me /lh

𒊹︎︎︎𒊹︎︎︎𒊹︎︎︎𒊹︎︎︎𒊹︎︎︎𒊹︎︎︎𒊹︎︎︎𒊹︎︎︎𒊹︎︎︎𒊹︎︎︎𒊹︎︎︎

No one, and I repeat, NO ONE is as gender fluid as Penny. He mainly goes with He/Him pronouns because his favorite forms consists in him playing a male human that is a clown, but doesn't call himself a male and feels totally comfortable in any skin and shape, also because he doesn't apply social constructs and refuses to understand them being a "superior being" and only uses them to better interact with his preys. Also there are some periods of time when Penny will eventually use She/Her pronouns, especially when being more close to her original spider form or treating delicate topics like pregnancy (Penny was supposedly pregnant but it was cut out the movies so draw your own conclusions). Ultimately tho when in a more... Serious context, while being confronted by the Losers or in general when it gets royally pissed or shows his demonic alien solemn side Penny would pass on to It/Its pronouns, also to feel a bit more intimidating if that makes sense

Penny may seem homophobic and would probably say slurs and do hate crimes or make others commit it, but all for the sake of grotesque depictions of disgust, terror and visual fear of an LGBT person and to better fuel the sense of danger in Derry. I in fact see him as being either pansexual or maybe Bi with a preference or multiple ones if he ever finds himself being attracted physically or romantically to a human

He genuinely ships Reddie and is fully aware it's Canon... That's why he killed Eddie, he fully knew it would've been effective to destroy Richie's spirit. But seeing as how he somehow grew fond of the Losers in a twisted way there was a little piece of his mind that went on to imagine how their relationship could've evolved

It is said that Pennywise always simulated emotions, and only ever felt amusement during his life, but then when the Losers came along and defied him he felt fear and anger for the first time. Having this much trouble processing real emotions I feel he would be strictly monogamous (I am myself and I see it this way)

Then again him being not human and being out of the whole social construct thing he would be really open to polyamorous relationships, and making sure every party in it is cool with it and doesn't screw around. Both are possible in my opinion, pick your favorite one, they're both valid

If you happen to be Bi, Pan, Omni or Polysexual he will most likely use his shape-shifting abilities to surprise you from time to time so that you don't expect it everyday. One day being your boyfriend, one day being your girlfriend... You never know if you're getting the standard pack clown boyfriend or clown girl with mommy milkers in the package

If you introduce him to the whole Pride thing he will get ecstatic over it. He may also do his make-up accordingly because of all the different meanings and pretty colors.

Would also probably mawl to death those heavily problematic creators that made the lgbtq community look bad or caused internal problems

Penny would totally like drag, I mean he looks like a walking drag artist himself, or at least a person with a high capability of doing so. I just think he would be fascinated with all those aspects of human eccentric culture he always ignored but somehow reflects him

He would be dumbfounded at the discrimination aro and ace people get, not being able to comprehend how the fuck it is possible to be such a caveman and backwards and only fueling his hatred towards humanity-

Ops I'm projecting a little bit there, carrying on

Would totally perform at a pride, MAYBE under disguise if you convince him not to alarm the government so that he doesn't get obliterated by area 51, using his dancing and contorsionist abilities to make it unforgettable and steal the spotlight to everyone else being an egocentric little bitch

This is all I had for now. I'm gonna do more random stuff eventually but this is all I could think of for now... Which I mean, it's no tragedy considering I'm sure no one will see this. And with this I tune out to sleep... Which is probably time I did so

TL;DR: I'm going on a delirium on what I think lgbtq headcanons for Pennywise from IT would be because it's pride month, where I am it's too hot to sleep and I'm also on my period and getting sentimental over a fictional killer clown.