#this isn't as gay but i'm still okay with it

[sentientsky]

googling 'how long is a hyperfixation supposed to last' and then sobbing profusely into my hands

[something-about-sunflowers]

Hot take: The people who are STILL insisting that Izzy is homophobic (despite the NUMEROUS instances of the cast/crew/David himself saying that nobody on the show is being targeted for their identity and ‘it’s not “I can’t believe he’s with a guy” but “I can’t believe he’s with THAT guy”‘ ad nauseam) towards Stede, Lucius, or Ed (I don’t believe I’ve seen anyone say anything about Fang or Pete, though I could be wrong, but I’m gonna touch on that in a bit too*)? They’re, unironically, being homophobic by stereotyping the characters and reducing them to just their sexuality.

If you recognize that Stede is a multifaceted character and you recognize the ways in which he is multifaceted - He’s a man born into wealth and raised on classist, colonialist ideals. Yes, he’s also traumatized by how he was treated by his father and peers but trauma doesn’t exempt people from blame when participating in, embracing, enforcing, and benefiting from classist and colonialist ideals - you will understand that Izzy is not being homophobic towards him just because he hates him.

If you only view Stede as a gay man and ignore everything else about his character then the only motivation for Izzy to hate him MUST be because he’s a gay man and therefore Izzy MUST be homophobic.

If you recognize that Lucius is a multifaceted character and you recognize the ways in which he is multifaceted - He’s a man who likely was born into some level of the middle class, given that he can read and write (It’s also possible that he was born into a working class family and he learned to read and write there, but it’s the unlikely option by default. None of the rest of the working class crew know how to read or write save Jim who was raised by a nun and would have been taught by her.), he also avoids doing work which is necessary for the function of the ship that they live on and depend on for their livelihoods and encourages the rest of the crew to do the same with his insubordination. He’s also in an unorthodox relationship that people who have not experienced the concept of consensual non-monogamy would not understand and might interpret as cheating - you will understand that Izzy is not being homophobic towards him just because he hates him.

If you only view Lucius as a gay man and ignore everything else about his character then the only motivation for Izzy to hate him MUST be because he’s a gay man and therefore Izzy MUST be homophobic.

If you recognize that Ed is a multifaceted character and you recognize the ways in which he is multifaceted - He’s a man of color, born into a working class family who worked hard to make a name for himself, to the point where he did not have to endanger himself or his crew to earn their livelihoods. He’s also some level of neurodivergent and understimulated by the environment he’s in (because he excels at his job) which leads him to make irrational and dangerous decisions and puts the lives of himself and his crew in danger. He’s also been making increasingly out of character decisions (corroborated by Fang and Ivan) by the influence of Stede - you will understand that Izzy is not being homophobic towards him just because he’s angry about his relationship with Stede.

If you only view Ed as a gay man and ignore everything else about his character then the only motivation for Izzy to be angry about his relationship with Stede (and only Stede, because he had no qualms about Ed and Calico Jack’s involvement with one another given that he sent Jack to get Ed out of the way of the English, but that’s another post I don’t have the spoons to make) MUST be because he’s a gay man and therefore Izzy MUST be homophobic.

If you IGNORE that Izzy is a multifaceted character and you IGNORE the ways in which he is multifaceted - He’s a gay (we’re not having this argument) working class man who earned his high ranking position on an extremely respectable pirate’s crew. He’s capable and is rightfully angry when he’s looked down on because of his class. He recognizes the importance of ship maintenance and is rightfully angry when those tasks are ignored. He doesn’t understand Lucius’ relationship dynamic and thinks he can use (what he thought was) him cheating on his partner (seriously, how is ‘I’m going to tell the man you were fucking that you were fucking another man’ threatening to out him?) as a motivation to make him do the necessary ship work. He is rightfully angry when his orders are ignored because he’s the highest authority on the ship next to the captains. He is in love with Ed and is jealous because Ed is in love with Stede - you can pretend that Izzy is homophobic because of how he behaves towards the other gay men on the ship.

If you ignore that Izzy has valid reasons for his actions (which does not mean that the actions are all entirely justified) then the only motivation for them MUST be because he’s homophobic.

(* The persistent neglect of Fang and Pete in these discussions is also rooted in homophobia. Fang and Pete are the only explicitly gay men on the ship who don’t, at any point, present ‘femininely’** and therefore don’t fall so easily into the bubble of the stereotypical gay man and so they get ignored in these discussions because they aren’t suitable to push the narrative that Izzy only interacts negatively towards ‘feminine’/’gnc’** gay men.)

(** The insistence that Stede, Lucius, and Ed are in any way, at any point, LEGITIMATELY presenting ‘femininely’ or are ‘gender non-conforming’ is ALSO rooted in homophobia - and I’d argue a touch of racism via Ed’s hair and beard as they relate to his indigenous roots. The assumption/association with those three being considered feminine comes from their identity as gay men. That is homophobia.

Stede wears men’s clothes. He wears RICH men’s clothes. Bright, colorful, patterned fabrics are worn by RICH men in the 1700s - if you want to argue that, say, king George presented femininely or was gnc because of the way he dressed be my guest but you won’t because he doesn’t and he isn’t. Lucius wears men’s clothes. His clothes are perfectly at place amongst the rest of the crew’s clothes. Ed wears men’s clothes. His leather is in direct relation to gay leather-men which is a hyper-masculine aesthetic in the same way drag is - typically - a hyper-feminine aesthetic. His appreciation for Stede’s clothes comes from the wealth and privilege that centers around the easy possession of those types and quantities of fabrics.

None of them behave in ways that are stereotypically feminine. Having and expressing emotions is not a uniquely or inherently feminine trait. Caring for and maintaining your appearance is not a uniquely or inherently feminine trait. Even if they were, Izzy also does those things. Izzy frequently expresses his emotions - yes, anger, a stereotypically ‘masculine’ emotion, but others as well. He also puts a great deal of care into his appearance, aside from the materials, the only difference between his and Stede’s outfits are the type of shoes and the presence of a jacket. If those traits are to be considered inherently feminine then it is disingenuous to not apply that label to Izzy as well.)

[mommyashtoreth]

Do you think if goomens the book had been published juuuust a little bit later, Crowley would have been on the CD train instead of cassettes? CDs started to pick up a bit later in the 90s, and they stayed popular for like 20 years. I think people still tend to depict showcrowley as favoring cassettes, but I'm not sure that's in line with how he's characterized, at least in My head. If he WERE the type of person to be like Retro in a Cool way, it's all about vinyl now. Aziraphale would still use cassettes because they're shit

[stairset]

Controversial opinion probably but some of y’all really gotta be nicer to “Boring Normie” Gays. Like I know a lot of you have a Preset Checklist Of Stereotypical Gay Interests and you expect every gay guy to check off a certain number of boxes to prove that they’re Queer Enough According To Your Standards but I promise you that just because a gay guy is like conventionally masculine doesn’t automatically mean he has internalized homophobia or that he thinks he’s Better Than Other Gays or that he’s trying to “assimilate” or whatever the fuck, it just means that gay men aren’t a fucking hive mind and are in fact individual human beings who often have different personalities and interests just like literally any other group of people.

[piplupod]

that question is sparked by me seeing a very obnoxious (i.e. eyestrain to the point of inducing a headache) dni banner that lists "bi lesbians" on it and I look at the person's carrd and they have "anti-neopronoun/xenogender/mogai" listed right underneath "bi lesbians/lesboys/etc and supporters"

and i am just. feeling a little crazy. because i genuinely do not understand this fsdjkl i feel like... if you are supportive of xenogenders then you should understand gender is complex and doesn't line up nicely with sexuality labels sometimes so you have to twist things to make them fit right for you and your internal experience... this is why we have cool labels like cloudgender and stargender and all that fun stuff!! these labels are cool! they are good! so why suddenly are we saying that lesbians and gays who do not fit the traditional "i am solely a woman attracted solely to other only-ever-women" box are wrong and bad ?

i dont want to be saying horrible things bc im misunderstanding or straight up not seeing the issue though, so genuinely if anyone has insight please tell me because im so beyond confused at this point

[neverendingford]

.

[remyfire]

so if a ficcer had a lot of stories with beejhawk but they also wrote idk peg/female OC would you not read anything from them yet? jw because I’ve nvr heard of your method b4!

I don't even know if I'd call it a method, so that's probably why hksdfsd more just a really hungry desire to build up my characterization of them in a way that can maybe be unique to me!

Also that's a very good question, and I wouldn't know until I gave them and/or their summaries a look to see if they're up my alley :D

[lesbian-in-leather]

Top 5 Books and Top 5 lesbian characters from any media.

Top five books/book series (because I can't choose):

Carmilla

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Discworld series

The Handmaid's Tale

The Great Gatsby

Top five lesbian/sapphic characters:

Greta (A League of Their Own)

Catra (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power)

Grace Berk (Why Women Kill)

Amity Blight (Owl House)

Mor (A Court of Thorns and Roses)

Ask me my "top five" anything!

[astrxealis]

i will continue gbf msq (rambles in tags) ^___^

[plinkcat-gif]

i think the thing that made language appropriation click for me is when this linguist described it as "language creates a sense of belonging (this example was the word 'slay' specifically) in a community, and is made mainstream by white people (straight white women in this case)"

like. oh yeah. it does suck when you can't even have your own language to define your group. it's just everyone else's now. cool.

[nerdykeppie]

Okay, y'all.

I'm gonna be really up front with everybody in a way that I'm usually not:

This year so far has been really rough, in a way that kinda has me worried. Bear with me, and there will be dog pictures along the way and pictures of new swag at the end, ok?

Running a small business is always rough, and with everything going on - with me being down-and-out struggling to get my hysterectomy approved, with everything going on financially & politically, with Jake moving out here - we knew that this year probably wouldn't be a banner year, but...

... when I pulled reports at the end of May, I was kinda shocked and gutted because at the start of June, we were actually down a considerable amount year over year. I knew the year wouldn't be great, but like, oof.

Pride is usually where we make our money for the year - we call it "gay Christmas," because where other retailers count on their holiday season, we count on Pride to make sure that our employees get paid during January of the following year.

Pause for Ser Davos Seawoof:

This Pride has started ... slowly. Not terribly, but a little more slowly than I'm comfortable with, and slowly enough that I'm nervous. We invested a lot of money in new stock and equipment, and that's got to pay off. Right?

So here's the pitch:

We need to make at least $60K in sales this month to make sure that we're in good shape for the upcoming year. We are currently at $8100, and we have a two-day event coming up in Seattle at the end of the month, but that still gives us an awful lot of ground to make up.

If we hit our sales goal for this month, NerdyKeppie will donate 1% of our net profit for June to @queerliblib.

Just hitting that goal would both make it possible for us to know we can make it through the year & even if we have the worst profit margins this month, it'd be a minimum $250 donation.

We just added Express delivery as a shipping upgrade on most of our t-shirts (limited color and size options on that, which isn't under our control) so if you need something quick, we've got you, and everything from our Portland HQ collection ships usually within 2 business days.

Everything in our Bottoms & Tops collection is Buy 2, Get a 3rd 69% off with code TOP2BOTTOM until midnight tonight:

And as always, NerdyKeppie is 100% trans-owned and queer-run. We start all of our employees at a minimum of $25/hr, and all eligible employees are IWW members. We have no investors, and we have no shareholders to please. Big box corporations screw over small artists and drop Pride the minute it gets hard or controversial, but this is our life.

We're here for the long run. Help us stay and help us build resources for today & tomorrow, and get some cool-ass swag while you do.

💗🏳️‍🌈

[artemismatchalatte]

Why is it so hard to date women??? I am one too. This shouldn't be so hard. And yet it really is.

I can get a man without even wanting to or meaning to (it happened unintentionally every time that way when I still dated men now I realized looking back on it). I could do that again but I never really enjoyed it before so I doubt I would like it any better now.

You're supposed to actually enjoy dating, right?

It's not supposed to be like pulling teeth, RIGHT??? :')

(I am trying to stay positive but WOW, this sucks OMG!)

[thelogicalghost]

I'm sure Nate isn't homophobic - the show makes it pretty clear that all his catholic guilt is directed firmly inwards and we never see even a hint of disapproval over others' personal lives - but he's still an older white guy and definitely defaults to cishet assumptions.

Which makes me desperately want, like, a 5+ type fic of gay flirting for the con where Nate progressively gets his mind blown.

Because Sophie flirting with a woman might throw him for a beat or two, but she's a world class grifter and an actress, of course she can flirt with anyone

And then Parker had to be taught how to flirt in the first place and she's Parker so sure, she's completely faking it either way, she has no internal biases, okay

The first time a man chats up Hardison and the hacker reacts exactly the same way he does when he tries to flirt with women, Nate is so glad Sophie takes over the comms to give flirting advice because it takes him half a minute to recalibrate and edit his expectations

But then Sophie's failing to hook a mark and Elliot steps in without missing a beat, flashing his farm boy smile, and Nate is finally like, "how is it that I'm the only one here who's surprised by any of this?" and the team just shrugs and goes "idk that sounds like a you problem"

The +1 is the only time Nate attempts it and they all agree to never try that again because it was awkward and embarrassing for everyone involved

[neverendingford]

.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

UPDATE What's up, it's the proposal guy. You said you wanted to know how this turned out, so I figured I'd tell you. First some context though, because I'm mean and I wanna keep you in suspense longer.

1- I don't wanna doxx us so I'm not telling you where we live, but suffice to say, neither of us are American, and gay marriage has been legal here for less than five years. For both of us, this is the first relationship we've had where marriage was even an OPTION, and I think that's where we've been getting some of that whole 'this has to be a REAL proposal with EVERYTHING' idea.

2- I gotta figure out how to explain this properly. So, I'm pretty used to being the GUY guy in relationships? I was always the one who did the nice gestures, not the one they got done for. Before I met my dream guy, I didn't really notice or care that it was such a thing, I just assumed that's how shit worked. Also, I promised I wouldn't talk a lot about his stuff here, but his last boyfriend before me SUCKED. Anyway point here is, it turns out we both REALLY like feeling swept off our feet sometimes, and a big part of finding each other has been getting to feel special for once? That's a stupid sappy way of putting it the point here is I think all that's what morphed into "I need to be the one getting proposed to, also it has to be completely perfect", and then our Petty & Extra genes got involved.

So I'm sitting in bed thinking about all that up there, and watching all the comments coming in basically being like "Dude, you are BLOWING this" on repeat, and telling me to compromise, and I look up and see him flossing in the bathroom and making all these doofy faces at the mirror, and it's like a switch just flips in my brain, and I'm like "Oh, I'd rather he gets to have his perfect proposal than we both have an okay one". I'm gonna do it.

Morning rolls around, and while I'm 'out for my jog like normal' I hit up a pawn shop for a temp ring (the ring pop thing is cute but NOT HIM). I found one I was at least confident wouldn't get ruined the first time he got his hands greasy (he fixes old machines as a hobby it's hot as hell), got back home, and hid the box in the toe of my nasty ass workout shoes in the bedroom closet, since I figured he'd check there last.

He was still asleep, because he stays up late no matter what and then is SHOCKED he's tired the next day, so I called and booked a table at our usual anniversary spot. (Side note about the 'he picks bad restaurants' thing. This isn't an 'I like Greek, you like Chinese' situation, dude's just BAD at finding places. He either assumes pricey is tasty and I get to eat some overrated gourmet bullshit, or he'll try and find something hip and underground and risk giving us food poisoning again, and he REFUSES to give up and pick somewhere we've been before when it's his turn to plan date night. I'm obsessed with him <3.) Date was set, I'd propose on the 21st.

Some of you might have noticed this, but fun fact! It's currently the 16th.

Last night I'm doing dishes and he's been sent to our room for mug collection duty, and he's taking FOREVER, so I go check just in case he found the ring, because the man's a gift tracking BLOODHOUND. Turns out he hasn't, he's found my Angry Box.

I assume other people have an Angry Box? Basically, we had this huge messy fight right when we first moved in together, and I never wanna let it get that bad again, so I have this shoebox where I keep a bunch of our stuff I can look at if we're fighting and hopefully cool off. There's one of those photo booth roll things, letters we wrote when he moved back with his parents for COVID, the wine cork from our first date, shit like that. Anyway, he's just sitting on the floor staring at it, and I explain about the Angry Box, and then he! Proposes!!! Kind of.

He definitely didn't have anything prepared, because by 'propose' I mean 'ugly cried & rambled at me for several minutes before I figured out it WAS a proposal', but once I got on the same page it was amazing. I said yes, and he had to admit he didn't have a ring for me because he was CONVINCED he'd win and I'd do it, so I grabbed mine because, yeah, he was right. He was like "this is the ugliest ring I've ever seen" and I was like yeah well the plan is to replace it later and he went "No. You can pry this off my cold dead fingers. After I'm buried with it." So I guess it's not a temporary ring anymore.

I'm just gonna go ahead and skip to this morning. I pointed out we still have the reservation, and he said I should propose there anyway because "We can get a free dessert. They have those creme brulee shot glasses you like. And for love, or something" and I said ok deal, but that means you gotta get me a ring to keep it fair, and his eyes LIT UP. When I swung by his work for lunch he was still on the phone with a jeweler and he had a whole page of notes on three other ones. Pray for me.

OH PS: I was RIGHT that he'd been the one behind the cat biting me, but it wasn't about the proposal stuff, it's because I paid my baby sister three dollars to shout 'fuck you' every single time he enters a room she's in for (if you ask me, he should be madder at my sister for charging so little), and he did it by giving her a bunch of treats for biting his hands too, so now neither of us can pet our baby girl without oven mitts on. HOLY SHIT I love this man.

Oh my goddddddd I love everything about this <333 I awwww'd out loud on a voice call, like, six times while reading. You two are friggin perfect for each other and so obviously smitten with each other and I wish y'all all the happiness in the world

PS Are y'all planning to have a big wedding? If so oh boy I can't WAIT to get that one in the inbox

Original post

[thedarklyblue]

he's so all or nothing jesus fuck