#we all looked at those two gay men and said they were dad coded

[thetrashthatsmilesback]

Dan and Phil's audience being 99% sapphics is peak mlm/wlw solidarity

[guardianofthepeanutwrites]

Skirts and dresses Part 4

Part1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 5

Tag list: @purplefreakwolffish  @mayucerise​

This chapter is for @sarcastich​​ and @starkeraddictbaby​

Thanks to Gypsywoman13 for beta-reading!

CW: genderfluid Loki, Kinda asshole Thor

PeterParkerBingo2021: square Pet Names (card below)

Thor & Loki

Because Peter had been fairly young when he moved inside the compound, they had put his room next to Tony’s quarters since he was the one in charge of their youngest member. Then one day a door appeared in the middle of his room, connecting it to the Stark’s private quarters. They had a long discussion about boundaries: “Ask before putting doors in my bedroom” and “don’t threaten people because they hurt me” etc. Tony had argued it was easier (it was, but that was not the question) because they spend more and more time together. Which was true. 

Tony and Pepper had started to teach Peter some things about business practice. They took him to smaller meetings and introduced him as Tony’s intern; it suited Peter very much. That, plus his patrols, as well as other Avenger business, like training, and his new business classes...Peter was now even busier than he already was.

Except on Sundays. Sundays were days Peter could rest, sleep, visit his aunt May, hang with Ned and MJ, and watch movies with Bucky the other Avengers.

Every Sunday morning, before leaving their quarters, Peter and Tony would eat the most decadent brunch that Peter would let Tony buy him. From all the changes that happened in his life since he got adopted by Tony Stark, Sunday brunches were certainly Peter’s favorites. He loved those calm moments with the man that he admired so much. He also loved that he could put on whatever clothes he wanted because FRIDAY would only let people in the know enter.

That Sunday, they were finishing their meal when Steve entered. He briefly stopped at the soft pink hoodie, gray and pink plaid skirt, and long white socks Peter was wearing before dismissing it and greeting the two men.

“So, Steve, what can we do for you?” Tony asked, forgoing the pleasantries. Peter knew Tony hated being interrupted during Sunday brunches, and saw that Steve started to move from one leg to the other, a bit nervous. Peter frowned.

“Oh, I-I mean, I wanted to apologize for-” Peter tried to interrupt Steve, he had told him many times that Steve was forgiven, but the man was stubborn and didn’t let him talk. “I know, you already told me, but I- I made this for you.” Steve gave Peter a piece of paper. 

On the paper was a beautiful drawing of Peter in the purple dress that he had been wearing when Steve had discovered his secret. Peter was startled out of his stunned silence when his dad gently took the paper from his hands.

Tony simply whistled when he saw the drawing. “Aunt Peggy had told me you could draw, Rogers, but this is something else.” Steve looked at Tony, in shock.

“Au-Aunt Peggy? But you-you weren’t-” 

Tony snorted, irked. “I went to her grave later, Rogers, because there was an emergency, and if there was something Aunt Peggy could understand, it was emergencies. She was Howard’s friend, and my godmother.” Peter, who had been told the story, silently stroked his dad’s back in support as he continued. “We also fought a lot when you came back.” Steve opened his mouth to speak, but Tony didn’t let him. “Not that it’s any of your business, Capsicle, but who do you think covered the truth about Howard’s death? Who do you think had enough power for that? Peggy Carter. She let me think my father killed my mom because he was a fucking alcoholic.”

Steve looked as if he had swallowed a lemon, grimacing. “I didn’t know. I am sorry, Tony.”

Tony lifted his hand. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” He lifted the paper with Steve’s drawing on it, looking at it pensively. “You’re very talented. We should make you an art studio. There is an empty room with great lighting.” Tony turned to Peter to watch him. “What d’you think kid? Wanna design it?” 

Peter felt excited to be offered this opportunity; he nodded with way too much enthusiasm. It made Tony smile, proud.

“You’re gonna make some blueprints, and we will see with the Captain what he needs and likes. No, Cap, don’t argue, it will be good training for the kid. Now, Steve, if you don’t mind, I was having brunch with my kid.”

Peter only had 30 seconds to thank Steve for the drawing and promise him he would make the best art studio there was before Steve left. After Brunch, Peter framed the drawing and put it on his shelf with the piece of his first skirt and the picture of his dad in a dress.

--

Later that day, while Peter and Tony were looking at a movie, before heading out for a diner with Aunt May, someone crashed into their quarters through the window.

Tony was ready to fight in seconds; his watch changed into a piece of armor around his right fist, while his left arm pushed Peter behind him, only to find that it was Thor, son of Odin, that had crashed on the ground. Peter couldn’t help but find it kind of cute that his dad would try to protect Peter with his body when Peter could take the most damage.

“For fuck’s sake, Point Break, what the ever-loving fuck?” Tony let the gauntlet recede back into his watch and put his hand on his heart. “I have a heart condition, you know? And we have doors. FRI, baby, tell everyone in the compound there is no immediate emergency. Put the compound in code orange until further notice,” Tony turned to look at Peter, seeing the pink skirt, the hoodie, and the panicked glances his kid was giving, then added, “Tell them there is no need to come and lock the quarters immediately.” 

Peter relaxed some and started to play with the hem of his skirt. 

“I apologize, Man of Iron. It seems like I missed the door.” Thor stood up from where he had crashed, and he opened his arms to hug Tony. “It has been too long my friend. How are you doing?” Tony frowned, but he let the god hug him. 

After they separated, Tony started to give instructions to FRIDAY for the reparations while Thor turned to look at Peter. There were a few seconds where Thor paused to take in how Peter was dressed before he widened his eyes.

Before Peter could react, Thor bowed deeply before speaking. “Good day, Lady Peter.” 

Peter winced. Why would he be a lady? Just because he was wearing a skirt?

“I-I, no, Thor. I-I am a man.” Peter hated how his voice shivered. 

Thor righted himself, beaming at Peter as if nothing had just happened. “Good, how are you doing Man of Spiders?” 

Peter looked at the god, completely lost by what had just happened. “I-I am fine? Thank you, mister Thor,” Peter said with a small voice. 

The god nodded happily. “I am happy to hear that.” Thor promptly turned to Tony. “Man of Iron, I am in great need of a favor.” 

Tony scowled looking at the damage. “Is it more important than repairing the hole in my wall?” 

Thor’s face became serious in a blink, making Peter shiver. “I am afraid it is really important, my friend,” Thor said in a deep voice. 

--

The meeting had been going on for hours, and Peter was exhausted. 

Thor wanted their help to get some information out of his brother Loki. The Asgardians had a reason to think that Loki hadn’t been the one behind the invasion and could even have been a victim of the scepter like Barton and the others, but Loki wouldn’t talk. Thor hoped that maybe someone on Earth could help them because they had tried everything.

The news was welcomed by an uproar, led by Hawkeye and Fury, and had calmed down after Thor had explained that if his fears were correct, there was something worse coming to Earth. He also promised that they wouldn’t need to bring Loki for them to interrogate him and that there was a magic mirror they could use to talk to him.

It was decided the mirror would be locked in Tony’s lab, the most secure room at the compound.

However, they all forgot Peter had unlimited access to the room.

--

The first time Peter saw Loki, Peter was walking along the glass walls of the main lab. He could see Natasha and Maria Hill looking frustrated at a mirror. In the mirror, there was a gorgeous woman with long, raven black hair; she had piercing green eyes, green lipstick, and she was wearing a stunning, black leather dress. 

If Peter hadn’t been gay, and stupidly in love attracted to Bucky, he knew that he could have fallen for this beautiful lady.

Then his brain started to work again and realization clicked: The woman was Loki. Loki was wearing (and rocking) a dress. He looked like a woman, but how? When she/he/the God of Mischief saw Peter, they winked. Peter startled and simply walked faster to the B-Lab where Bruce was waiting for him.

--

Peter couldn’t get Loki out of his mind. The God didn’t look uncomfortable wearing a dress or looking like a woman in front of his enemies. 

After some days, Peter decided to go to the main source of information about Loki: Thor.

“Oh, yes, Loki sometimes, uhm, switches? Mother always said to respect the gender he looks like, but you know that Loki is my brother, so it was difficult at first.” Thor massaged his neck, uneasy. “But then, Loki started to play vicious pranks on the people who would call him a man when he was dressed like a woman. So, I learned to, uh, call Loki a lady when he wears a dress.”

And then Peter understood. “That's why you called me a lady the other day!” 

Thor nodded. “But luckily you don’t ask me to call you a woman.” 

Peter frowned. “Why do you say luckily? I mean, I don’t think there is anything wrong with asking someone to call you a woman if… you feel like a woman?” Thor, confused, looked at Peter and was about to reply, but Tony (since when had he been in the room?) answered first, making Peter and Thor startle.

“No, there is nothing wrong, Peter. Loki is genderfluid, which means that they don’t identify themself as having a fixed gender.” Tony, who was at the door, walked into the room and up to Peter. “We asked Loki and he said you could use the pronouns depending on what he looks like. It’s easier because Loki is a shifter, and can change depending on his moods. But if you ever meet another genderfluid person, you can just ask them what gender they identify with at that moment.” 

Peter nodded. It made sense. 

Thor looked a bit crushed when he started to speak again. “So, it’s not only Loki?” Tony simply shook his head. “Oh. I think I need to talk to my br-Loki.” With those words, the god left the room.

--

Peter did some research about genders - Tony helped - and he concluded that he was a man that liked to cross-dress and that there was nothing wrong with that. Peter had felt very loved that his dad, who was always so busy, had taken the time to explain all of those terms to Peter until they found the ones that felt right.

But Peter was a curious person, and it was what led him to be bitten by a radioactive spider in the first place... Peter wanted to talk to Loki. He wanted to talk about the dress, and about being genderfluid. He knew that the god was not a good being, but Loki was already in prison. What could go wrong?

--

“The mighty Avengers are sending me a child, now? Interesting.” Loki’s bitter words made Peter flinch. Peter silently closed the door behind him, before he entered the lab.

“No. I- I mean, I am an Avenger, but they didn’t send me.” Peter nervously played with the plaid shirt he was wearing that day.

“Then why are you here?” 

Peter lifted his head and looked directly at Loki for the first time. He noted that Loki was in a male form. 

“I learned that you are genderfluid. I- I just wanted to talk.” 

Loki’s face softened a little bit. “Oh, yes. People of Midgard have been strangely open-minded about it.” His face then hardened again. “What do you want? Do you want to see the shift? Do you want me to become a female?” 

Peter winced. 

“What? No! Only if it’s what you want. But, no, who would want you to do that? You’re not some kind of animal.” Peter was horrified, just thinking about it. Loki huffed but said nothing, watching Peter with piercing eyes. Peter took a deep breath and gathered his courage. “I-I like to wear dresses. It is called cross-dressing here.” 

Loki looked at Peter like he was analyzing Peter’s very soul. “Why are you telling me this, human?” he seemed perplexed.

“I saw you in that dress the last time, and you were gorgeous. I mean, that dress, it looked like it had been made just for you.” Peter couldn’t contain the excitement in his voice. Loki raised an eyebrow, but Peter could see that he was fighting a smile.

“That would be because it was crafted for me. I am a prince of Asgard, little one.” The reply was unexpected, and Peter felt his eyes open with shock that was rapidly replaced by glee.

“Oh yes, my da- Mr. Stark let a tailor come to the tower, and he wanted to tailor some things, but I wasn't ready yet. Mr. Stark said that the man could come back later. ” 

Loki didn’t fight his smile this time.

“And why weren’t you ready, yet, dear?”

--

Peter and Loki talked a big part of the night until Peter started to yawn too much, then Loki sent him to his room. As days went on, after his patrol and doing some homework, Peter visited every night to talk about stuff with Loki.

--

“By the Norns! Dear Spider, why would you not simply tell the man that you want him?” Loki asked, sitting against the wall of his prison.

“What? No! He doesn’t feel that way about me,” Peter answered stubbornly while painting his nails with a green nail polish that had been approved by Loki.

“You won’t know until you try, dear.” Peter shrugged and changed the subject.

--

Of course, after a visit one night, they were discovered. While Tony and Natasha (and Bucky) hadn’t been really happy about it, there was nothing they could do or say to change Peter’s mind.

--

“You what?” Peter asked, dumbfounded.

“I stabbed the mongrel,” Loki answered, way too smugly if you asked Peter.

“Because he slapped your ass? Isn’t that a bit extreme?”

“Oh my sweet, sweet, little Spider. If you let men get away with unwanted touching, they will think it is alright to do it again and again. No one should dare touch a lady like that without consequences.” Loki played with the knife that had been in his hand since they started to talk that day.

“Yes, but still, Thor is your brother.” Peter never had had a sibling, but if he had, he wouldn’t have stabbed them, for sure.

“After that, neither Thor, nor any of the savages he called ‘friends’, ever touched me without my consent.” The smile Loki sent his way made Peter shiver.

“Yeah, ok, fair.” The god did heal fast, so Peter guessed that it was okay-ish.

--

Peter had been surprised when a raven had given Peter two identical letters one morning after breakfast. He was even more surprised when the letters ended up being Loki’s complete confession. One had been addressed to ‘The Mighty Avengers’ and the other to ‘Sweet Spider’. 

Loki explained how he had fallen into Thanos’ lap after the destruction of the rainbow bridge; he mentioned the torture, the scepter, and how the beating that the Hulk gave him had helped him evade his conditioning. He also laid out Thanos' strengths and weaknesses, including how and when to beat him.

At the end, Loki wrote that he would never have written his confession if it weren’t for Peter. 

Peter then took the last page, where Loki had drawn them both and had it framed to be placed on his beloved shelf.

[repost-this-image]

Where we came from; where we’re going

(Cross-posted to Dreamwidth here.)

Stonewall Pride's 2021 theme is "Out of the darkness, into the light."  It's gotten me thinking, and I feel that I have to say this.  Forward it on, or don't.  Think on it, or don't.  I just need to get these words out of me and on the virtual page. For much of the modern era, what we are was a crime.  Sodomy laws in most of the world, mostly made and enforced by Europeans as they colonized as much of the globe as they could, made same-sex relations punishable by death.  There were a few transgender people, but they mostly stayed under the radar, as it was assumed that you couldn't change your sex by most people.  When Hitler rounded up people into death camps, there were special symbols for Jewish people, Romani, political prisoners--and homosexuals, who were given the pink triangle. In 1945 the Allies liberated the residents of the camps, except for those with pink triangles, who were sent right back into prison.  Because we were a crime. Alan Turing, who broke the Enigma code, was gay.  When this was discovered, and he was about to stand trial, he committed suicide rather than suffer the indignity of being sentenced to death for being himself. In 1969, the gay nightclub Stonewall, a known scene for drag queens, gay men, and trans women, was raided by the police.  Marsha P. Johnson, a black trans woman and sex worker, threw the first brick of the Stonewall riot.  That was the first Pride. Our parades began as riots.  We took the pink triangle and adopted it for our own.  We took slurs like "gay," "lesbian," and "queer" and wore them as badges of honor.  As someone more eloquent than I once said, "We took the bricks that were thrown at us and built houses out of them." And in all that confusion, I, as a teen in Alabama at the turn of the century, had to find my way without elder queers to help. When I was a teenager, I was homophobic.  So of course, the idea that I liked girls was ridiculous to me.  Because I liked boys.  Because "I only appreciate the aesthetics of a pretty girl; everyone does."  Because I was Catholic. At age 17, I was watching late-night TV, specifically TechTV's Wired For Sex episode about intersex people.  One intersex person's journey was described with her finally deciding to live as a lesbian woman.  At the time I was confused.  "If she gets to choose what she is, why would she pick the one that's harder?  Why not just be a straight man?"  Gets to choose.  As if gender were a prison that I was stuck inside of, but that she had been fortunate enough to escape. At age 21, I realized that I actually was sexually attracted to women as much as I was to men.  I knew I could never tell my parents.  My father had made no secret of the fact that if his child said "Dad, I'm gay," they'd be sleeping on the streets that night. When the fight for same-sex marriage became national news, I was on the right side of the fight.  Because I'd realized that everyone who wants to get married deserves that right.  That civil unions, while better than nothing, weren't the same as an outright marriage. At age 30, I watched two friends get married on the first Valentine's Day after same-sex marriage finally became legal throughout the United States.  I felt nothing but joy at seeing their love finally recognized after years. At age 34, I finally discovered that I was genderfluid.  My husband still denies it.  He has never had reason to question his identity, has never had to hide an important part of himself from his own family.  As a straight man, he's never had to think about it. Some states are trying to pass laws to prevent same-sex couples from adopting children, to shut trans people out of public restrooms, to shut trans children out of school sports, to force us all back into the closet where they never have to see us or think about us.  The "gay panic" defense for the murder of trans women is still legal in more states than not.  And queer folks still have to fight for even the basic right of survival in some countries. This Pride, let's celebrate those who have come through the other side of AIDS and COVID pandemics, through bigotry and suffering, to be here today; and honor those who didn't make it.  Let's celebrate how far we've come, while looking forward at how much farther we have to go.  Let's be people that Marsha P. Johnson would be proud to view as family.

[chaptersinprogress]

demolition lovers  |  2

King snorted, walking over and throwing himself onto the couch. "Tough luck. We both know that neither of us has a choice."

They sat together in silence. When the 10 more minutes King allowed Bohn for sulking were up, he held out his hand expectantly.

Rating: T

Warnings: swearing, alcohol

Pairings: Ram/King; Bohn/Duen

"Alright, that's enough," said King, flipping on the light switch.

Bohn scowled at him from where he had cocooned himself on the couch. When King simply stared back at him with a raised eyebrow, he petulantly shoved a spoonful of ice-cream into his mouth and turned his back toward King. The latter sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Bohn certainly wasn't planning on making this easy for him. King strode over to the couch and picked up the bottle of Baileys that was nestled between the cushions.

Tipping the bottle to catch the light, he whistled lowly. "Wow, you really put a dent into this. The bottle's almost two-thirds finished."

"If you're here to judge my life choices," grumbled Bohn, "you can just go."

King placed the bottle inside the mini-fridge and shut the door. Crossing his arms, he turned around to study his friend, "Well unluckily for both you and me, your dad sent me to make sure you got ready in time."

"'m not going," muttered Bohn around another spoonful of ice-cream.

King snorted, walking over and throwing himself onto the couch. "Tough luck. We both know that neither of us has a choice."

They sat together in silence. When the 10 more minutes King allowed Bohn for sulking were up, he held out his hand expectantly. Bohn sighed heavily before placing the half-eaten carton of ice-cream into it.

"Go shower, I'll lay out your stuff."

Bohn grunted in acknowledgement as he unfolded himself off the couch. Swaying drunkenly, he staggered into the bathroom, just barely catching the towel King tossed at him.

When Bohn walked out of the bathroom feeling slightly more human, he found King fully-dressed and standing in front of his mirror, fingers deftly tying a Windsor knot. Spotting his own suit neatly laid out on the bed, Bohn pulled on the clothes and slipped on the watch King had picked out.

"Fuck, man. You look like shit."

Bohn sighed as he draped his tie around his neck, "Yeah, thanks."

"No, seriously, you look like crap," King frowned at his best friend. "See for yourself."

Bohn walked over to the mirror and winced. The dark circles under his puffy eyes as well as his red nose were a dead giveaway for his miserable state. There was no way he could attend the fundraiser like this. He stared beseechingly at King.

"Sit," King ordered, pulling out the make-up supplies from the vanity. He applied primer and foundation to Bohn's face. "So… you going to tell me what all that was about?"

"It's nothing."

King scoffed, "Yeah, and I'm the Queen of England." He dabbed concealer under Bohn's eyes. "You were acting like you'd just got dumped."

When Bohn averted his eyes and remained silent, King almost dropped his brush. "You did get dumped!"

"Can't get dumped if you were never together," Bohn muttered under his breath.

King brushed colour-corrector on and blended it, "So it was the med kid? The one giving you flowers?"

"Yeah."

King winced sympathetically as he set the make-up, "That sucks." Stepping back to study his work, he shrugged and checked his watch. "It'll do." He kicked Bohn's foot gently. "Time to go. I'll drive, you're in no state to do so."

"Ah, if it isn't N'King and N'Bohn! It’s been a while, hasn’t it?"

King hid a grimace. They had barely stepped foot into the 2nd floor of the hall and they had already been accosted. He snagged two glasses of champagne off a passing waiter's tray and handed one to Bohn just as the middle-aged man who had called out approached them. They wai-ed as he stopped before them.

"How are you both? Studies going well?"

King offered him a courteous smile, "Ah, yes. It's tough as we're preparing for the final year, but we're managing."

The man nodded, "Excellent, excellent." He smiled, though it didn't reach his eyes. "I’m sure both of you are working very hard. But enough about school, you must be thinking plenty about it already. What about your personal lives? Do you have a faen yet? Both of you are handsome men, surely many people have asked you out."

Bohn looked away and took a large gulp of his champagne. King laughed and stepped forward as if telling the elder a secret, conveniently shielding Bohn from his sight. "There are many people who ask us out, Khun." He sighed dramatically, "But we're too busy nowadays. The teachers are giving us a lot of work, we don't even have time to sleep, let alone find a faen!"

The man chuckled in response. "Ah, yes. I suppose it's a good thing that you don't concern yourself with the people in university.  Choosing the right faen is very important, especially since you both will take over important positions. I'm sure there are many suitable people you will find who run in our circles when you wish to settle down."

King merely smiled in response and took a sip of champagne, swallowing the urge to bare his teeth along with the bubbly liquid.

A warm hand curled around his bicep, "I'm sure they'll be just fine, Khun Paithoon."

The elder eyed the hand where it rested on King’s arm before studying the girl who held onto the heir so familiarly. "N'Prae, you look as beautiful as ever."

Prae laughed and replied demurely as she wai-ed, "You flatter me, Khun."

"He's right you know, you are the Star of your university," said King, leaning close to Prae, lips barely brushing her intricately styled hair.

Prae looked up at King and smiled prettily. She turned back to the Khun Paithoon, who was watching them interact approvingly, "I'm sorry Khun, but I will have to steal these two boys away now, I was sent on behalf of their fathers."

"No worries, Nong. I shall not take up any more time." They exchanged good-byes before the man walked away.

The second his back was turned, Prae's free hand shot out to grab Bohn's wrist. She strode forward, still arm-in-arm with King and dragging Bohn behind them. King let her steer them through the crowd, nodding respectfully as they passed by stakeholders, investors and other important people they were supposed to be rubbing shoulders with.

"So… did our fathers send you?" King asked, amusement clear in his voice. With Prae's assistance, he liberated Bohn's drink from him and handed the two flutes to a waiter.

Prae waved at someone in the crowd. "Of course they did. But it was more for my sake than yours. It was getting boring; fending off all those propositions on my lonesome. And seems like I arrived just in time to save the two of you from them too."

A loud bang sounded from the floor below, causing them to wince. When no screaming or other concerning events followed, Prae shrugged it off and continued herding them along the balcony overlooking the floor below, towards an empty corridor.

"You know, maybe we should have a formal announcement," King snickered. "A huge event like this one, and then we just give it to them straight."

Prae snorted, before covering it up with a cough. Spinning around, she leaned against the railing and raised an eyebrow at her friends. Bohn and King mirrored her stance. A wry grin crossed her face.

"King…" she said slowly. "You're gay, Bohn's bi, and I'm lesbian. None of us are giving anything to them straight."

King threw his head back and laughed. "I know! That's the best part!"

Bohn, who had been paying his companions’ banter no mind, cut in. "Oi, you two, there's something's going on downstairs."

King and Prae looked at each other before peering over the railing. The function hall had slowly been quietening as the crowd on the lower floor parted, leaving a distinct gap in the centre of the space.

A lone man stood in the middle, indifferent to the agitated crowd encircling him. The young heirs looked on as Bohn's and King's fathers approached the man and greeted him politely. As Bohn's father looked up, he caught the eyes of the children watching from above. He blinked slowly at them twice before glancing away.

"Fuck, " cursed King softly. "Code Red."

The other two had stiffened at the signal. With a single glance, the three came to a mutual agreement. Prae slid her arm into the crook of King's elbow and the two subtly pulled away from the balcony. Bohn fell in line beside her as they swiftly made their way to the corridor they had been aiming for earlier. Polite smiles fixed in place, they ignored all attempts at conversation from others. The instruction Bohn’s father had given was clear - get out immediately.

Passing the threshold into the darkened corridor, King shut the door securely behind them before the trio broke out into a run. They had managed to make it halfway down the length to the rear exit when a person stepped out through another door ahead.

"Bohn!"

Said man skidded to a halt. Hot on his heels, King crashed into him, sending the pair stumbling forward. Prae, who was right behind them, promptly tripped over the tangle of limbs. King barely saved her from face-planting, catching her around the waist and pulling her into his chest. The three of them eyed the figure in front of them warily, still clinging onto each other and attempting to catch their breaths.

"Duen?" Bohn panted incredulously, squinting at the individual.

The person in question stepped into a pool of light spilling in from the large windows lining the corridor, dressed in a classic black suit.

"What are you doing here?" asked Bohn. "Wait, how did you even get in this place? You're not on the guest list."

The door Duen had stepped through slammed open with a bang, startling all the four badly.

"Duen!" came the harsh call.

The medical student winced. The person who had called out approached the group, stepping into the light.

King's jaw dropped.

"You!"

[dorkylittleweirdo]

crazy shit that happened during high school

freshman year:

my favorite teacher (pe coach) ended up being a pedophile. it’s kinda scary to think about bc like,, that was my favorite teacher and i trusted him and if he tried anything with me i don’t think i would’ve stopped him and just yikes. but yeah, it was a whole thing. once the school found out they got the police involved and he fled the state. they got him in the end but i mean,, i spent a lot of time in the secretary’s office crying about it bc i really trusted that dude and i was distraught over it. that might’ve been where my trust issues started??? fun stuff

my school shut down. like i mean,, bc it was a charter school and we had to get the charter renewed. but the board at my school wasn’t using their money the way they were supposed to. it was a whole thing, like the principal left that school year bc he knew what was happening, couldn’t stop them from doing it, and didn’t want to be part of it. so they had a lot of meetings that us kids were allowed to go to so we could see what was happening and all that. i only went to one and it was A Time bc the lady who was recording everything passed tf out and of course nobody was a doctor and my pipsqueak thirteen year old ass went “i know what to do” bc i Did so i had to help her which was a trip in and of itself. but anyways, the school’s charter got denied, and everyone had to transfer, but the district promised that we could go to any school we wanted, not just the one we would have to go to by zip code

sophomore year:

i ended up going to a private christian school. big fucking mistake. absolute disaster. nothing really happened that was crazy by their standards, but it was for me

so they have a house system. think of harry potter, it’s EXACTLY like that. we have points, we have competitions, we have all that extra stuff. it was such a time, like i don’t,, i don’t even know how to explain how fucking weird that shit was

i came out in the middle of class. the principal’s daughter was our sub and she goes “okay so everyone is gonna tell us something that nobody knows about them” so when it was my turn i go “so it’s not a secret and y’all should know this but clearly y’all don’t: i’m not straight”. silence. dead silence. we could hear the class next to us it was so quiet. some girl whispers “i knew it”. another girl leans over and whispers to my friend “i’m so sorry”. principal’s daughter gives me the most threatening, condescending smile i’ve ever seen and goes “thanks for sharing”. i had to come out to my mom that same day bc i told me friends and they panicked on my behalf bc when people found out that they were gay, the principal told their parents. and i was Not about to be outed by the principal. my mom has since told me that the principal never contacted her about it so i came out for nothing but i mean i really like being out so we’re good

so instead of prom, cult school has this thing called “the ball”. sophomores, juniors, and seniors are allowed to go bc there’s less than fifty people per grade so if sophomores don’t come, there’s not enough people. so i went bc my friends were all going and i was like “yeah why not might as well”. three dance lessons. three fucking dance lessons for this stupid ball that i didn’t dance once at. i literally had three panic attacks in the span of an hour at the second one, and then i had swim practice right after. fucking exhausted. felt like i ran five marathons by the time i got home. the last lesson i didn’t do any dancing, just vibed with my friend in the corner. so at the actual ball, same friend and i vibed at the tables the whole time. we went to the bathroom for like an hour and took mirror selfies and tried to make our asses look bigger bc we’re Like That

SO AFTER THE BALL, there was apparently a massive party and there was alcohol and stuff. so my friends and i were blissfully unaware bc nobody liked us bc who tf likes the school sinners. so we walked to get ice cream after in our fucking ballgowns and suits looking like All That. so the principal thought that it was one of us who hosted the party and we were like “??? what party?”. literally almost got in trouble bc the principal thought we were LYING. i told my mom and she takes No Shit, so when the principal called her demanding to know if i went to/hosted the party, she marched her ass down to the school and was like “i know y’all have something against mexicans and people who are different from y’all, but that’s no reason to blame my daughter for something that your so called “perfect” students did”. my mom got Heated, roasted the fuck out of the principal, then LEFT. principal never fucked with my mom after that

so there was a fire like across the street from the school. the fd told us to evacuate, but noooooo the school was like “god will protect us” i’m like “okay but i’m gay and apparently your god hates that so i think we’re gonna Perish”. the fucking POWER went out and they STILL wouldn’t let us go. my mom called to sign me out so i could go wherever the fuck i wanted in the school until my friend’s dad came to pick us up bc she couldn’t get there bc of the fire. so i vibed next door to my friends’ class and i was like “heeeeey god’s trying to kill the gays” and we laughed about that until my gay ass got saved lmaoooo

okay so this is the funniest memory i have. in chemistry once, our teacher took us outside and started digging a lil hole next to the school. and keep in mind, my chem teacher used to be a hardcore atheist druggie, like fucking meth and coke and shit. took a theology course and converted. so he’s really sweet and nice but he’s also Slightly mad scientist vibes. so anyways, he puts something in this little hole, lights it on fire. i forgot why he did it, but i was standing back with him and one of the exchange students and the three of us watch in Horror as the rest of the class makes a circle around the fire and start doing some weird dance and saying something. it wasn’t like a chant, idk what to call it, but they were like counting like “and one, and two, and three, and four” and then the dance would get more intense and they’d get louder. so eventually they were screaming and going apeshit and i looked at my teacher and he’s just,, watching them do this. i’m like “and i’m satan, huh?”. like these kids really trying to summon the devil but i’m the bad one bc i like girls

junior year:

so technically this was during the summer but i’m putting it here. they have like a house party after the school year ends. i made cookies. apparently they “looked weird” so nobody ate them, two of my soon to be teachers kept insulting them. i called my mom to pick me up, took my cookies with me, got back in the car in tears. had to have a whole conversation with the principal and those two teachers so they could apologize bc i wanted to leave the school after that. dw tho, i took my cookies to the guards at my summer camp and they appreciated the hell out of them bc they were Very Good Cookies

so my ap bio teacher was an enabler. i was his favorite bc i wasn’t a religious nut and it was very obvious that i believed in science and not whatever the hell this cult was doing with their creationist bs. also he was a parasitologist and i’m super into parasitology so he had fun talking about it to someone who both understood and was extremely interested in the topic. i rolled up to class one day like “hey so i’m gonna buy hissing cockroaches from amazon, if my parents find out and don’t let me keep them do you want them??” and he’s like “yeah”. i brought them to class a few times and everyone Hated it but my teacher was like ayyyyy. and everyone thought he was either and atheist or agnostic, so when some girl asked how he thought mary conceived jesus to see what he said, he looked at me like “y’all hear somethin/hel p” and i go “parthenogenesis” and he Went With It, talking about how it was theoretically possible in humans but we ignored the fact that the baby would’ve been a girl bc the class is dumb none of them have ever heard of parthenogenesis before jesus is the true trans icon we all need

my art teacher was my favorite and she knows that i’m gay. she’s the only teacher from my school that i’m still in contact with. so every big project we did, i made it gay. and i knew, and my friends knew, and she knew, but the rest of the class had no idea. i’m like presenting my project and the class would get sus and they’re like “so are those two really good friends” and i’m like “so she has a rainbow heart on her choker and she has a lesbian symbol on her shirt”. the class was still confused and my friend yells “they’re LESBIANS”. it was iconic

my brit lit teacher was bi. she never said it, but i know she was. always talked about how much she hated men, then was like “women are very very good”. no way this woman was straight. so we read dracula and it’s got that Subtext, so one time i leaned over to my friend bc he sat next to me and i go “the Homoerotic Subtext”. and i didn’t realize that the teacher was right in front of me until she tapped my desk and goes “it gets better”, told me a page number that i flipped to, and it was Even More Gay and i was like 😏. also she assigned me a gay poet for my poetry project and i talked about that for my whole presentation in front of the class and it was the biggest paragraph in my essay and i got 100% on it even tho i choked at the beginning. also i mentioned in passing that i liked sappho and she goes “ooh i love sappho” i’m like “ma’am please leave this cult and get you a gf”

senior year:

i left the cult finally. went to the one school i actually liked. i made friends who actually like me and they were patient and they were amazing and i love them all very much even if i’ll never tell them. my classmates were great, v friendly, i had a great time. however,

so many fires. school got cancelled like five times bc of how bad the fires were

the school shooting. i don’t think i need to go further into that, it’s pretty self explanatory

covid. again, don’t need to go further into that, v self explanatory

[writtenbyhappynerds]

Fanfic 102: Unit 3, Diversity

          Hello! Welcome back. This week we’re going to talk about Diversity. Beyond how to insert diversity into your writing, the nuances, and the ways you can create a believable character. The Editor and I understand how sensitive of a subject this is, and wanted to take the time to make sure the information we are doling out is inclusive and well-written and quality. There is often a lack of diversity in media and books, and often when it is included it’s shoe-horned in for brownie points. We understand that, and we want the up-and-coming writers to be better than those before them. The two most important things to remember are the following: no diversity beats terribly-done diversity, and, the way that the character is diverse is not and should never be their whole personality. We will be discussing LGBT, ableism, and race.

          The LGBT community is a vibrant community with members of all shapes and sizes. The most important part when writing a character who is gay or trans is that this aspect is part of their identity but it is not their whole identity. When we discussed characterization in Fanfiction 101, we talked about not reducing side characters or members of the cast to one-note aspects of their personality. The same applies here, and a character’s sexuality or gender expression should not be at the forefront of every conversation. You shouldn’t create these characters with their sexual or gender identity being at the forefront of your mind, because you wouldn’t do that for a straight or cis character. You wouldn’t sit down to make a character with your first thought being ‘ok but they have to be cis,’ so it’s silly to do the same to a gay or trans or nonbinary character. Make them like you would any other character. What changes would be aspects of their identity, or values they hold near and dear to their heart or motivations. Those may be different than a straight character or a cis-gender character.

          If you’re straight or cis and writing a gay or trans character, you need to do your research to accurately portray the character in a realistic and believable way. An example we love is Todd Chavez in Bojack Horseman, who portrayed an asexual character, and Todd’s journey as he came into his own. Bojack Horseman also portrayed polyamory with Hollyhock, who was the adopted daughter of 8 dads. What we enjoyed was that Todd’s sexuality added dimension to his character. It didn’t reduce him to being the token LGBT representative, and it didn’t force him into a box where he could only focus on LGBT issues. Todd was and is so much more than that, and his sexuality is a part of his story, but it’s not the sole story.

Rick Riordan is a master of writing experiences that are not his own, and he cheated the system by basing his characters off of people he knew. This is a method that you can use. You can base your characters off of friends, public figures, etc. If you decide to not do that, googling what transgender men and women have to experience or what top surgery is isn’t enough. I would suggest looking to Youtube, where many transgender and LGBT  influencers have talked about their experiences. I would suggest looking to forums, Reddit being one of them. Yahoo Answers is also a really good source. What you want is as many experiences as you can get: ones that are similar, and ones that contrast. The goal is to combine them and make your own character in a melting pot of other experiences. You owe it to not only those who read your story but yourself to do the research. You want your characters to represent the communities you do, and the ones you don’t as best you can.

          Let’s move on to people of color (POC). The same rules we’ve discussed prior apply: A poorly written POC is worse than no POC (Looking at you Baljeet). In addition, that POC’s ethnicity should not be their entire personality, and if you are creating a character just to say that you have made a POC, then you have already failed. There are many issues we see when we find people of color in fanfiction. Among them are language barriers, naming, and a misinterpretation of cultural values and experiences.

          Putting words in a foreign language in the middle of fanfic is very, very common. You see it everywhere. In Avengers fanfic it’s Russian or Norse. In Batman fanfic, it’s any of the languages that the Batkids speak. The writers put in these conversations that sometimes go on for pages in another language, and then add an author’s note at the bottom with the translation. This is awkward, and when you read books, this is something you never see. If you want your character to speak another language, you don’t need to actually write the other language. Putting a few sentences through Google translate doesn’t make you a better or more dedicated writer than someone who adds the tag: “she was screaming now, all her words coming out in rapid French.” Tags can be used to dictate a change in language, and I encourage you to use them. Now, there are of course exceptions to this rule, and those exceptions usually lie in food, names, and things. Calling someone a name that is in another language is fine. Describing food in another language is fine, and things are generally ok. But that’s just for you. Your characters also have to speak the language.

          No one worth their salt or heritage is going to go through a moment where they start out speaking in their fluent tongue and then “forget” to switch back and forth between English and their native language. It is so incredibly unrealistic and awful and it lets the reader know someone who is not actually bilingual wrote this piece of work. When you learn two languages, here’s what really happens: you forget words. You have to stumble through words in your own language before you get to the one you need. You call things, “that thing.” You point. You sometimes say “what’s that called?” you find aspects of the second language, or even your own language stupid and you don’t want to do it. You get words mixed up and you make mistakes. That’s all okay, and that all happens, and should be written as such. One of my teachers never forgot the French word for spider because she got the shit scared out of her by one and didn’t know what to call it when she needed someone to kill it. My aunt took 3 years to learn Turkish by immersion and now can speak it fluently. You don’t even need to be fluent in every language, and many people only know a handful of words in one or a few sentences in another. That’s totally okay! If anything that’s more realistic because it’s super hard to learn a new language and speak it fluently. Don’t force your characters into a box like that. Let them make mistakes.

          Culture is a huge thing when writing POC. You have to keep in mind that culture shifts, and what may have been culturally huge for one set of characters won’t be as significant for others. You want your characters to interact with their culture in a way that is realistic, and not reductive. Kelly from the Office is a great example, as she invites the office to celebrate Diwali with her. Lara Jean from To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is another example. We see her eat Korean food at home, and in the books, she still celebrates Korean holidays. Where the shift comes into play can be seen in Never Have I Ever where Devi is not as Indian as her parents, and we see her struggle with the culture. She still goes to Hindu association things, Ganesh puja, and she wears Indian clothes. However, she’s still a normal teenager out chasing boys and worrying about colleges. In Superstore the Muslim character prays 5 times a day, and still works at the grocery giant. The big takeaway is that these people have lives that include, but aren’t limited to their cultures. They aren’t reduced to stereotypes.

          Naming characters is already rough. However, naming characters from a different background than you are even tougher. The Editor has a lot of anger towards Panju Weasley, from Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Her exact words, as they were texted to me:

**

>Like Cursed Child where Ron and Padma has a kid named Panju.

>What the fuck is a Panju?

>That’s literally the dumbest name in the world

>All she had to google was Indian names.

>There are so many fucking lists.

>I dont even think it’s an actual name. Like it might be a nickname for some people but I dont think people have actually named their child panju.

**

          As usual, the Editor is very correct. There is a simple solution to getting around what we’ll call the Panju Dilemma- a phrase which we’ll use to describe terrible naming choices of POC. In Fanfiction 101 we had an entire unit centered around naming. Nameberry.com exists, and if they don’t have it all you need to do is Google the country of origin and the sex of the OC. Sometimes you can add in the year the OC was born, to really get a feel for the time period, but that doesn’t always work. For example, in one of our stories we have a cluster of kids from Syria. When it came time to name said kids, we Googled: popular Syrian names 2003. That’s how we got our OCs: Reem, Nour, Nizar, Jano, and Stella. Naming is very important, and you owe it to your readers and your characters to do them justice, and not saddle them with a terrible name.

          The final note of diversity we want to talk about is actual ability. Ableism is often overlooked in movies, shows, or books. It is something that is shoehorned in as an extra adversary for the OC or the cast, only *gasp* This time the biggest adversary is themselves. I hate that. I want to eliminate that because as someone with a disability and someone who has worked with kids with disabilities, you can absolutely write and code characters like that in so long as, and say it with me now, it is not their entire personality.

          You can totes write a character with anxiety and/or depression, so long as you don’t snub these very real mental disorders that millions face on a daily basis. You also have a duty, especially with anxiety and depression, to not glorify, glamorize, or romanticize either. Do not romanticize self-harm. Do not romanticize anxiety. Do not romanticize depression. They are not cruel tricks of life that befall beautiful intelligent women. It is not “tragically beautiful.” Depression and anxiety and self-harm are not a paragraph for you to lament on while the OC gazes longingly out the window at her lover. Anxiety keeps some people from talking on the phone they’re so nervous. It gives girls panic attacks in mall food courts because they don’t know what’s going on anymore. Depression isn’t your OC watching the rain in a hoodie and sweats, it’s not showering for days on end because you can’t find the motivation to. It’s having insomnia because you can’t sleep. Self-harm is not an OC’s love interest holding their wrists and telling them to stop. It is deep pain and numbness and hurting yourself to try and feel something. It is rubbing Neosporin on your cuts and hoping they go away. It is forcing your friends to keep it a secret because you don’t want anyone to know because what if they take it away from you. These mental disorders are not yours to romanticize. They are yours to show the growth and power and strength of your characters. They are yours to use to show how trauma has affected your character and can represent normality behind mental health and emotion and talking about things like this. Even more so than girls, writing a male OC with anxiety or depression is more empowering because you are allowing a character to talk about their feelings when that isn’t seen as acceptable by their sex. If you feel you are able to take that plunge, and you can do the adequate research to represent the disorder well, go for it.

          In addition to mental health, physical disabilities are often overlooked. I have a chronic illness. I have never seen in a book, movie, TV show, or fanfiction anyone with a chronic illness, let alone my chronic illness. That in of itself is a broad term, and I’ll let chronic illness mean anything from lupus and POTS to asthma and anemia. These disabilities make a character have to work harder, but hey, look at Captain America. The boy had every disability under the sun and he got out alright. No one is going to make changes for you. You have to be the change you want to see. If I want OCs with chronic illnesses, I have to write them and do them justice by not only my community but the communities that I don’t represent. Jeremy Scott’s The Ables is a great example of writing disability and using it as part of, but not a character’s entire identity. The main characters all have superpowers but are put in a class that doesn’t allow them to use said powers. This is because they are all disabled. The main character is blind and telekinetic, another can read minds but is in a wheelchair, another is a genius but has cerebral palsy. Their disabilities are a minor obstacle, but not the big bad, and that is a great way to write disability. People who live with physical disabilities or chronic illnesses have to deal with said limitations every day. To us, as time goes on it becomes less of the monster at the end of the story and more of an everyday beast. It becomes normal, and there are bigger things for us to worry about than just our disease. This speaks for every aspect of diversity we have covered in this chapter: The people with said note have to live with it every day. It is a common enemy, not the final boss. To treat it as such is to say that it is our biggest concern in life. I wish my chronic illness was my biggest concern, but I have other fish to fry.

          What we have done here is not an all-inclusive list of diversity. This chapter took 2 weeks to write because the Editor and I wanted to do right by our community. Not just the communities we proudly represent but the communities we don’t. There are many more nuances and aspects to diversity that are out there, and what we have presented is our best. Yet it is still incomplete. If there is something important that you feel we have left out, we sincerely apologize. We acknowledge that what we have written here is not all-encompassing for diversity. We wanted to talk about issues that are common occurrences. However, what we have covered is not the end-all of what’s out there. We apologize for the delay, and to make up for it, our next unit Writing Children will be published at the same time as this one. We sincerely apologize for the delay.

Xoxo, Gossip Girl

[nerdygaymormon]

Maybe you've answered this before, but why don't you just leave your church? Doesn't it bother you being part of something that rejects you? Don't you want love? I don't understand why gay people ever stay in that church.

I get these questions from time to time. Never sure what to make of them. I get that it’s unusual for a gay guy my age to still be part of church. I hope part of this is they like me and want me to be happier. But it also feels like they are looking down on me, idk.

I don’t have a short, simple answer, so strap in, it’s going to be a long ride.

1)   I was a teenager in the 1980’s. It is hard to be gay now, but it was so bad back then. Being gay was shameful. The 80′s was the AIDS crisis, so mostly what I heard about being gay was death. There were no legal protections, society was against us. Actively hostile, bigoted statements were common. My own dad told homophobic jokes to big laughs. Coming out looked like I’d be condemning myself to a terrible life and strip all the good things from me.

Also, with no role models, I was having to work through what it means to be gay. I also did manage to get ahold of a gay porn magazine (this is long before internet was a thing). I was crazy to think I could hide it. I shared a room with three brothers so no privacy. Despite my denials, my parents knew this was mine and they were so upset. My dad now tells me he wishes he sent me to conversion therapy once he learned I had this magazine. Can you imagine?

2)   I grew up believing in this church, which included the terrible things taught about me as a gay person. At age 19 when my bishop challenged me to pray about going on a mission, I instead prayed to know if God could possibly love me (which is really sad that a kid could grow up in church and not know that). I felt love radiate across my body as a voice in my ear said “You are not broken.” That experience sustained me for a long time

3)   I went on a mission in the 1990’s. If you haven’t been on a mission, it’s probably a surprise that it can be a relief. There’s no pressure to date. I could form close bonds with other men, and even though these are non-romantic relationships, they are intensely close.

4)   I was still in the closet when I went to the church schools in Rexburg & Provo. At the end of my first semester, my roommate came on to me and let me feel him up and stuff. I went to sleep thinking maybe the two of us could leave the church, transfer to a different school, say goodbye to my family and we could have a life together. It would be a huge sacrifice for both of us and I thought he felt the same, but the next morning he turned me in to our bishop. I thought I was going to get kicked out of school, be sent home in disgrace, maybe disciplined out of the church, but instead I was put on probation and had to stay the summer in Rexburg. I was heartbroken and swore off love and focused on school. At the end of the summer, to my surprise the bishop made me the elders quorum president.  

That first roommate, we were best friends. He is Bi and decided a life with a woman would be easier, and considering it was the 1990′s, he was correct. He left school a few days later, met a woman and got married. I hate how he ended things, but I don’t blame him for the future he chose for his life.

5)   BYU in Provo was my backup school, and reluctantly it’s where I transferred to. It turned out that I genuinely liked BYU with 2 exceptions, the severe restrictions the Honor Code placed on LGBT students (which was the same as at the Rexburg campus), and the fierceness with which the Honor Code Office sought to enforce those restrictions. Occasionally I’d hear rumors of sting operations they had done to catch gay students. There was this low-level fear always of getting caught whilst a student in Provo. My roommates also expressed their dislike of anything remotely gay. Even though I kept the rules, I didn’t dare tell anyone that I’m gay because the potential cost was high.

While at BYU I had a major faith crisis. I no longer believed a lot of the truth claims of the church, but I wasn’t about to lose all that tuition money. I stuck it out. So not only was I pretending to be straight, I also had to act as though nothing about church bothered me.

6)   The same voice that told me I am not broken would occasionally tell me that it’s okay to pursue relationships. It gave me great hope. I still get that message. Being a good Mormon, I thought this meant that somehow God was going to change the church. In the temple I’d hear that it’s not good for man to be alone and the law of chastity was presented in a way that could include me if I was married to a husband (the temple says no sex except “with your husband or wife to whom you’re legally and lawfully wedded”).

7)   After BYU, I should have come out and gotten on with life, but I didn’t. My first job was working for a Mormon boss. A landlord who is LDS gave me a deal on rent. Coming out seemed like it would disrupt my life in really negative ways. Plus YSA Wards were a source of friends and support network.

8)   In my 30’s I was no longer in YSA wards, and the world was getting better for gay people. The fight for gay marriage was in full swing, and so many of the people in my life were very opposed to it. It bothered me that the church was so opposed and fought gay marriage because in my head, it was a way for me to follow God’s promptings and pursue a relationship.

Being a Mormon is very much an identity. It’s hard to peel off. It’s my social network, it’s what much of family life revolves around, It’s a belief system and way of viewing the world. it’s a map of what one’s goals in life should be, and so on. Staying in the closet kept the rest of my world intact.

I know you’re thinking wtf, you’re a grown man, own your life!!! I grew up in an unstable family situation (we had many financial troubles and moved frequently), so I crave stability. Remaining in the closet and in the church were keys to maintaining that stability.

9)   Squashing all my romantic and sexual feelings also shuts down most other feelings. I spent most of my 20’s & 30’s feeling numb, like I was watching life but not a part of it. I spent those years wishing I was dead, that a bus would hit me or a major disease would strike. Those kinds of deaths would end my misery and also be okay for my family because they wouldn’t have to know I’m gay. I recognize now how messed up that is.

10)   The great source of happiness in those years was being an uncle. I’m the oldest of 7 children, my siblings had lots of babies born in those years. The joys of being an uncle only increased the pressure to stay in the closet and in the church because if I didn’t, my only source of happiness might be taken away.

11)   I finally reached the point where I was tired of going through the motions of having a life. I was ready to come out. Rather than make some grand announcement, I decided to be honest with anyone who asked about my life. When someone tried to set me up with their friend, I would ask if she had a brother. As these sorts of situations came up, I was coming out to people one by one.

I didn’t exactly “come out” to my family. I figured since my parents had found the gay porn mag when I was a teen, and then gay porn malware on the computer when I was college student, they probably already knew (and they did, but were in denial). Also, I thought coming out would be saying I’m not trustworthy and an awful person for having pretended to be something I wasn’t for so long (not true, but that’s how I thought of it).

12)   I’m such a late bloomer that I sometimes am embarrassed about it, especially now that so many people come out in their 20′s and even as teenagers. At the first Pride parade I attended, someone told me that we all come out when it’s right for us, and this was my time. I think that’s true.

13)   Most of my adult life in church was being pianist in Primary. Shortly after I started telling people I’m gay is when I was called to be in the stake young men presidency. My stake president says he looked over at me playing piano one day and thought, “that man has much more to offer.” I wonder if it’s because I was more confident, my identities were less in conflict than they’d been in the past, I wasn’t afraid and hiding.

As stake young men president, I made sure I knew by name and something about every youth in the stake. I wanted them to know they were seen, they were heard, they were loved. Teens go through such hard things and I wanted to be a kind, supportive person in their life. Most youth don’t know who the stake youth leaders are, but they all knew me. Several told me about hard things in their life and some even came out to me. Parents of gay teens would come speak to me and I’d let them know life in church is hard and unfair, ways they could help support their teen, and prepared them that their child’s likely path would be out of the church. I felt like I bloomed in this calling and made a difference.

14)   In 2015 marriage became legal for same-sex couples across the USA due to a Supreme Court ruling. I thought that finally the church would have to come to terms with it and accept it. But then came the November policy banning the children of gay couples from being members. It felt like a punch in the gut and I nearly walked away. I was still stake young men president and weighed whether the difference I made in this calling was worth putting up with how church clearly didn’t want me. 

15)   To help my parents buy a house, I had a bunch of their debt put into my name and I lived in the house with them. At the time it seemed a good way to avoid the loneliness of being on my own. But living with them also made walking away from the church tricky.

16)   A month later I hit the 3-year mark of serving in the stake young men’s program, I was released from that and called to be stake executive secretary. My stake president told me that anyone can make appointments, but he wanted my unique viewpoint in all the highest councils of the stake. In this calling I occasionally meet general authorities and I speak with them about being gay in the church. My stake President recently joked that he has twice been a counselor in a stake presidency and now is a stake president, and in those years he’s met many general authorities, yet I have way more impact on them than he ever has.

17)   Shortly after getting this new calling, in 2016 I started my tumblr blog. Eventually I used the blog as a way to examine, explore and record what it’s like to be gay in the LDS church. In some ways this blog is one giant pep talk to myself.

18)   In 2017 my blog exploded, one of my posts went viral. It’s almost like God got tired of waiting on me, now I was out to everyone who knows me, and many more.

All of a sudden I had so many hurting Mormon LGBT people contacting me, most were teens and twenty-something’s. I’ve tried to help them, to affirm them. In many ways it feels like the years as stake young men president working with teens, the years I spent developing a spiritual independence, the studying & thinking about how being gay can work with the gospel, the fears & worries that are part of being in the closet, all of that prepared me for this.

19)   Later in 2017 my mental health dived. I became suicidal. I started therapy. I finally had to face how harmed I’ve been by my time in church. I also had to admit I will never be enough in this church, I can never reach the goals & purpose of life as laid out by the church,. My therapist helped me see that I need another framework for what a successful life looks like and what would make for a joyful life.

In 2018 I was still in therapy and was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder, which partly explains why coming out and leaving the church were so difficult. The major driving motivation of this disorder is wanting to not disappoint people.

20)   My therapist says I feel things more deeply than most people, but because I’d pushed down my feelings so long, it’s actually a bit scary to feel so much. I also started dating and trying to get gay friends. These sorts of big changes were hard for me. The psychologist said, in an amused tone, that I fully examine a path before I’m willing to take a step down it, meaning I’m cautious and slow to get going, but am certain when I begin of where I’m going.

21)   Some of my family openly embraces me as gay and loves me no matter what. Some make their love and access to their children conditional on my being in church.

22)   I thought 2018 would be the year I leave the church. There’s a personal reason I haven’t; I feel there’s one more thing to do, a friend whom I can help. That I came ahead to pave the way for this friend.

I know this all sounds crazy, talking about a voice telling me it’s okay to have gay relationships or that I have some missions in life to accomplish. That’s part of faith, I guess.

23)   It’s unfair to say I’m still attending church for my friend. First, I don’t want him to feel any pressure. Second, it’s my decision, not his. I also am working on paying off debt so I can more easily live on my own, I’ve joined Affirmation and met a lot of LGBT Mormons/post-Mormons and feel like there’s something of a potential support group/friendships there. I’m thinking of changing jobs, even moving to a different university. In other words, I’m laying the groundwork to make any shift more smooth. Whether I take a breather from church or not, these are good things to do.

24)   I’m in my 40′s and can see that in some important ways I’ve lived a stunted life. But I’m also able to use my voice to speak up for LGBT individuals inside the church, to try to make this little corner of church kinder and more receptive.

25)   I can’t even imagine what you’re thinking of me. A hypocrite, someone who stays with an organization that contributed to my own mental health crisis. Someone too afraid to live. I can’t undo my past and all that lost time. I’ve made a lot of progress and am moving forward. I also believe and hope that things I share on this blog and things I say in my local church help LGBT members.

Maybe you can understand, maybe you can’t, why my life went so differently from yours. I’m certain you won’t agree with a number of decisions I made, but they were mine to make and they explain where I’m at now.

[punkscowardschampions]

Mia & Jimmy & Janis

Mia: [Computer Science project that you have to make a company/logo/business cards/spreadsheets/website/everythang you could think of so it takes a full term or whatever and you have to work with each other in every lesson] Mia: Right, I think we should do a law firm for our business Mia: because my dad is so we can actually use examples to make all our products legit Jimmy: what, like no win, no fee? 👍 can do a funny ad piss easy Mia: That is NOT the kind of lawyer my dad is Mia: funny isn't gonna get us good grades either Jimmy: 💔 Dunno who I'm gonna get to chase my 🚑 now Janis: I'm with Chuckles Janis: you're just trying to make this project most beneficial to you Janis: I don't wanna be a vulture when I grow up Janis: go generic as possible or it ain't fair Jimmy: don't reckon your dad needs the free promo any road, rich girl Jimmy: unless this is a cry for help that he can't get the prey Jimmy: 🎻🎻 Mia: Obviously I want to make it beneficial, I CARE about my grades and future Mia: but I'd love to hear your suggestions I'm sure Jimmy: you after a 🏆 or just a 👏 for trying to get an A? Mia: I get As, new boy, I don't just try Jimmy: I get it, you want 🤤😍 Jimmy: there Mia: Don't be so disgusting Mia: If you two are going to try and sabotage my grade, I WILL make my dad make Sir let me move Mia: I'm not being dragged down Jimmy: crack on, we've worked out your dad ain't busy with accidents at work Janis: Like, please try and use all daddy's clout to get that stubborn prick to do anything he's deciding he's not gonna do Janis: I already said I'd do this shit alone and no 🎲 Jimmy: don't sound like him that Jimmy: go on, rich girl, love to witness another failed flex Janis: You reckon we'd get extra points for fluffing our business expenses like your dad or what? Janis: I'll go along with it if we can convincingly hide our fake funds in a tax haven and make ourselves look LEGIT 👌 Jimmy: Me an' all Mia: You know as little about my dad as you do about your own, Janis Mia: you wish he was as crooked too but he's on the right side of the law so Janis: above the law Janis: can't do no wrong in your eyes, so I've heard Janis: but doubt new boy finds your family drama any more interesting than I do Janis: be a fucking law firm if you like, let's just split the jobs up equally and we don't have to talk until it's time to piece it all together Jimmy: I'll have the ad and the logo, tah very much Janis: you mean the fun bits Jimmy: I mean the 🎨 bits Jimmy: rich girl wants her A Janis: obliging Janis: I'll make the website and business cards, I've done it before Janis: Mia, do the data input, yeah Janis: star in Tarantino's ad, you'll love that Mia: No, no Mia: I don't feel comfortable leaving you completely to your own devices Mia: that's not a totally terrible split of the workload but I intend to oversee every step of the process Mia: we have to do a writeup at the end, you know Jimmy: it's almost like the other lass ain't as thick as you'd feel comfortable her being, funny that Mia: I literally want to do well and as far as I know, I'm the only one here who consistently gets good grades Mia: so hostile Mia: I agree that's how we should split the work but I'm not going to just assume you'll both do it well, we can all have input in every part Jimmy: could LITERALLY fill a book the size of sir's big head with all the shit you don't know about what I do well Jimmy: but alright Jimmy: watch me, if you don't get enough of it already, better uniform at work though, don't you reckon? Mia: Oh my God, brag much? Mia: hit the nail on the head with big head 🙄 Jimmy: stalk much? 🙄 Jimmy: least your dad could take my case Mia: It's HER sister that likes you, not ME Mia: get a grip and take it up with her if you're not feeling it Jimmy: I'll still give your dad a bell, chuck him that 🦴 as he's struggling Mia: As I said, he doesn't DO no win no fee, so you couldn't afford him Jimmy: 💔🎻 Janis: Now we've established it's justice only for those that can afford it Janis: and rich girls can do whatever they want Janis: what are we doing first, oh mighty project manager Jimmy: I'll do the logo in blue, sounds about right, that Janis: #bluelivesmatter is already taken for a tagline but I'll get to thinking Jimmy: 👍 Jimmy: I'll have a think if I wanna use gold for her 👑 or silver for the 🥄 Janis: 🥄 might imply a problem with amphetamines and obviously, you want everyone to know you WORKED for that 💀🦴 all by yourself, you know Mia: You'd know all about that, wouldn't you Mia: taking over the family business, yeah? Jimmy: Oi, it ain't that grim up north Mia: Grim is right Jimmy: Gutted Rosso didn't make you feel like the WAG you deserve on your last visit babes 🤞 next time you'll spot them celebs Jimmy: or you'll keep to Bijou, that glam dress code would never do you dirty Jimmy: 💕 Janis: I get it Janis: you want me to make sure you're infertile Janis: all those cheat days and binges got you feeling unsure, no problem, just ask Jimmy: lend her the 🥄 Mia: You are both SUCH freaks Mia: what does any of that even mean Jimmy: bit rude Jimmy: only a freak on the weekend, me Mia: NOT interested, new boy Mia: I HAVE a boyfriend who's a lot hotter than you, right Janis? Jimmy: makes two of us, rich girl Janis: For someone who thinks my bloodline is filth, you LOVE being surrounded by 'em, yeah Janis: bit weird but everyone likes their bit of rough Janis: how disadvantaged is your dad's newest mistress, I mean secretary? Janis: SO charitable 💙 Jimmy: might be northern, sounds like they've been there loads Mia: Are you gay, new boy? Mia: I'll have to let down Gracie for you Jimmy: only for sir Jimmy: he's well fit Jimmy: crack on with letting your bestie down though and if my mum's the one with your dad, tell her she left the oven on but I sorted it Mia: ??? Mia: What EVEN Mia: you're cracked Jimmy: brb gotta go dry my eyes Jimmy: 🐣💕 Jimmy: I do feel #seen tah for that, hun Mia: I can't even Mia: fine, you two come up with our company branding Mia: I'm going to write out all the info to put on our website when it's done Jimmy: Oi, bad blood, you wanna be the star of my ad or what? Janis: no Jimmy: alright, I'll ask sir Janis: good taste Janis: rinse her dad in a fight Jimmy: tah for the meet cute opportunity Jimmy: when he's her dad's new mr I wanna 🎥📸 the wedding Janis: awh, full ⚪ Janis: she'll look adorable in her flower girl dress Jimmy: 🤞 Gracie catches the 💐 Jimmy: she is on a lad hunt Janis: 🤞 Mia's da has a brother Mia don't also want to fuck Jimmy: don't leave us in suspense 👑 does he or what? Mia: Shut the fuck up or I'll show all this to Sir Jimmy: Go on Jimmy: he'll think I'm 😎 and I'll be well in Janis: Do it, little miss perfect Janis: the part where you shit on my dead dad's grave will be well more shocking when I open the floodgates 😭 Jimmy: ⏲ Janis: ... Jimmy: ........ Janis: guess Sir won't wanna pet you no more when he finds out a. you're a cunt b. new boy is interested in your position Jimmy: he'll do til I can get Mr Lucas Jimmy: you can have him back then Janis: LOVE a happy ending Jimmy: I'll look top in my 👰 Janis: gutted about the lack of uniform though, yeah Mia? Jimmy: What do you make your boyfriend wear? 🦺? Mia: New boy, don't even go there 'cos he could beat you down so easy if I asked him to Janis: that means she pisses on him so they know he's hers Jimmy: makes sense that'd be your kink Janis: dog eat dog world, right babes Janis: stories you was raised on come straight out of your dad's man's man motivational speaker bullshit Jimmy: Oh shit, are you my half sister, rich girl? Jimmy: brb gotta pack my shit so I'm ready to move in Janis: get a princess dress to go with that 👰 Jimmy: order my 👑 in XXL tah Janis: can share with your sister Janis: big happy family vibes xoxo Jimmy: 🤗 Janis: get in here sis Janis: finally not a lonely child Mia: Yeah, I SO want 1000s of siblings like you Jimmy: You're alright, I've only got the one brother and the one sister Jimmy: be piss easy to fit us in your palace Mia: You AREN'T invited Mia: might steal the silverware 🥄🍴 Jimmy: I'll leave you a 🥄 to stick down your throat after dinner Jimmy: got some manners, me Mia: That's lovely, isn't it Mia: eating disorders are really serious, you shouldn't make some jokes Janis: respect the 🎨 Jimmy: cleaning the 🚽 after you lot is an' all Jimmy: part of the job description btw, I get that you'd have to have one to know what that means but Janis: 😏 Janis: staff know all your dirty little secrets, babes Janis: better than a tip, like Jimmy: be 👻⚰💀 before I get a tip off her Janis: if we were all walking 'round looking as SICK as her, what would be the point of corroding away her esophagus and not-so pearly whites? Janis: gotta find your own tricks, boy Jimmy: I'll put a ❄️ in the logo for you, babes Janis: cannot escape those coke vibes omg Janis: you're a PR nightmare Jimmy: 😱😱😱 Jimmy: #whitelivesandwhitelines Janis: GREAT slogan Janis: basically done over here and you're just texting 💀💩 Janis: tsk tsk, Mimi Jimmy: tick tock or tik tok if you'd rather Jimmy: 😘 Janis: 😂 Janis: make us a law tiktok, hun Jimmy: starring your dad, OBVS Janis: share that 🤤🤤🤤 with the world, not just the local 18-35s Jimmy: 💰 on him being a 🔥🔥🔥 dancer Janis: all middle-aged white men are Jimmy: DUH Janis: POV- you're my client, I'm overcharging you Jimmy: 🤤🤤🤤😍😍😍 Mia: You're obsessed with me, I get it 🙄 Jimmy: busted Janis: If that's a crime Janis: get to spend more time with your dad than you do Janis: 💘 Jimmy: SO romantic Jimmy: 👨💕 Janis: can't wait 'til he wants a couple grams Jimmy: refill the silver 🧂 Janis: you know it Janis: sugarbowl never tasted so sweet Jimmy: 😋 Janis: careful Janis: her boyfriend WILL fuck you up Jimmy: I get it, he's obsessed with me Janis: can't blame him Mia: OMG Mia: that is soooo fucked Mia: know your family doesn't see blood relation as an issue but he'll 🤢 when I show him this Jimmy: if he's that bothered, he can come find me Jimmy: you've had my shifts memorised since I started Mia: You wish Jimmy: to give him a smack, yeah Jimmy: why not? Jimmy: sounds like a right knobhead Mia: [sends a picture of Pablo like he's a prize bull or some shit gross Mia] Mia: you reckon, do you? 😂 Jimmy: I reckon he looks like a right knobhead an' all now, since you asked Mia: You've got a deathwish like Mia: wow Janis: kindred spirits Jimmy: 'cause you reckon he looks like a knobhead an' all? that's just sense Janis: was talking about her eating disorder which is VERY serious and we MUST NOT joke about Janis: but yeah, the fuckboy radiating from that selfie must be the appeal Jimmy: Soz mate Mia: She doesn't DO boys, I'd save your breath Jimmy: weren't breathing down her neck, that's you Jimmy: I get why now though, it's a blatant crush Janis: Stalking's your kink, right babes? Janis: Or am I just that special Jimmy: [draws these gals as snowflakes holding hands but Mia is melting] Janis: That's good Janis: but horrific Jimmy: #allherkinks Jimmy: [doodles on the picture of Pablo that she sent in hilarious ways] Janis: 😂😂 Janis: Send him that, whilst you're at it, Mimi Janis: really get him 'roiding out Mia: 🖕🖕🖕 Mia: you're both jealous, both for weird freaky reasons Jimmy: Of what? Go on Mia: You're jealous because you think every girl here wants to ride you and I DON'T Mia: because my boyfriend is better looking and fitter than you 💁 Mia: and she's jealous either because she wants me or she wants her own brother Mia: either way 😷😷😷😷 Jimmy: if every girl round here wanted to crack onto me why would I give a shit if you do or don't? Jimmy: all your mates are fitter than you and they ain't close to this paddy school's top tier Jimmy: and you just said she don't do lads so why would she wanna have a go on her brother unless the steroids have fucked him up harder than advertised Mia: yeah 👌 narcissist Mia: neg me, that'll totally make me interested Jimmy: 🤞 it'll keep you well clear Jimmy: that'll do Mia: I want to be working with you as much as you do me, I've said Mia: leave me alone and this can be as painless as possible Jimmy: I get that you're fuming your boyfriend is growing bigger tits than you but that ain't my problem, my dear Mia: So immature Jimmy: still got a deeper voice than him Janis: imagine defending your man this hard when he fully cheats on you Janis: 💔 Janis: daddy all over again, am I right? Jimmy: 🎻😭🎻 Jimmy: Dunno what I'm more flattered by, that you reckon I'm gay after seeing the state of all the straight lads round here or not wanting to ride me 'cause I ain't a cheating dickhead with massive tits or in your dad's case a hair transplant Jimmy: either way, tah Janis: could donate some to the cause, new boy Janis: hair, not tits Jimmy: you could an' all Jimmy: cause a scandal Janis: #cancelling bitches is a solid hobby Jimmy: there you go Janis: can't lose my only beauty though Janis: 🎻🎻 Janis: have to keep being #problematic yourself babes, so soz Jimmy: 👍 Mia: Stop nerd flirting Mia: send me what work you've done today Jimmy: Hang on, I'll 😎🚬 Jimmy: 💕 Mia: Gross Jimmy: What, I'm only fit and mysterious if I starve myself to 💀💀💀? Alright Jimmy: [sends her the work like oh I must be a nerd then] Mia: Thank you Mia: I'll go over this and give feedback later Jimmy: Gross Mia: 🙄 Mia: I've got to do a speech in Politics and Society after this, so I need to prepare Jimmy: 🙄 Janis: 👋 Janis: pleasure as always Jimmy: bit rude if you two get to nerd flirt Janis: what's 'fuck off' in Arabic? Jimmy: تخلص من Jimmy: probably means ILY or some bollocks 'cause I google translated it Janis: beautiful Janis: love double-meaning Janis: Qué te folle un pez espada, new boy Jimmy: ? Janis: I hope you get fucked by a swordfish 💘 Jimmy: [draws their teacher, Mr Lucas, Pablo and Mia's dad all as swordfish so she can vote for who she ships him with] Jimmy: ✔ or ❌ Janis: [❌ out Pablo's eyes and Mr Lucas' junk like no] Jimmy: [IRL 😏] Janis: [does very unflattering drawing of Mia all up on her father] Jimmy: 🥇 Janis: not an A though, is it Jimmy: [makes it even more unflattering somehow like now it is and now it's also teamwork so even better] Janis: 😏 Jimmy: LOVE a #collab Janis: been waiting for a group project to come along Jimmy: rigged it to work with 👑💀 obvs Janis: duh Jimmy: SO obsessed, her dad will get me off though, he can TOTALLY relate Janis: should but it in our ad Jimmy: 🔪🔪🔪🚿 Janis: 😱😱😱 Jimmy: 💘 Janis: Sir will kill that role Jimmy: Literally Janis: ha ha 🙄 Jimmy: Chuckles is right 🤡 Janis: keep 'em coming Janis: 👑💀 might have an aneurism Jimmy: 🤞 might get an A if she dies Janis: it's what she would've wanted Jimmy: you do love a happy ending Janis: who don't Janis: be my tragic family's fault, no doubt Jimmy: so I've heard Janis: not gonna apologize, new boy Jimmy: weren't waiting for one Janis: 👍 Jimmy: 👌 Janis: please stop nerd flirting with me Jimmy: you started it Jimmy: calm YOURSELF down, mate Janis: did I fuck Jimmy: neg me, that'll totally make me interested Janis: [IRL 😏] Jimmy: [sends her a pisstake version of the logo to fully drag Mia] Janis: is it RGB #374E88 though Jimmy: what? Janis: it's called tory blue Jimmy: is it? Jimmy: [does a colour corrected version immediately] Janis: Better Janis: solid 🥇 Jimmy: Tah Janis: [the pisstake business card with the logo for her dad] Janis: we've absolutely SMASHED it Jimmy: I reckon we can go Jimmy: 😎🚬 Janis: alright Jimmy: [IRL 😘 to sir] Janis: [we're loving this so hard but gotta hide it] Jimmy: [strutting out cos bad bitch global] Janis: [when you wanna go for all the reasons but also the rumour mill would go off immediately so you're like hmm] Janis: [fuck your life amirite babe] Jimmy: [gutted we ever have to end this convo so same]

[walkingnorth]

Ooops

Sorry for the unplanned hiatus! I had a lot of things going on in real life that were very emotionally draining and I just didn’t have the energy to keep up with social media and ended up quietly and unintentionally slipping into a hiatus. And then I decided to just stay offline until I was feeling back on top of things.

I really should have made a post saying that I was hiatus-ing (especially so nobody thought I was ignoring them - I’m sorry! I wasn’t ignoring you!) but I didn’t because I’m a terrible introvert who really needs to put a more effort into communicating with people. (This is a call-out post for myself, to not do this again :P)

To those of you who sent me asks off anon - I think I’ve replied to you all, but feel free to re-send an ask if I missed you :)

To those who sent me asks on anon:

1) If you sent me a question about my next comic - I will shortly be posting about it! I’m excited! I hope that people who are not me will also be excited :D EXCITEMENT :D

2) If you sent me an  ask that didn’t have a question, you were just being a sweetheart and saying nice things, THANK YOU <333 Coming back to tumblr and reading through your messages has been so incredibly uplifting, you are so very kind. I don’t think I can reply to all the asks individually but thank you so much, you’ve honestly all made my day ; - ;

3) If you sent me an ask with a different sort of question, I will answer it under the cut :)

Anonymous said:Have you heard of the game Deus Ex? it's a dystopian look at mods

I’ve heard of it (apparently it has spectacular world-building) but haven’t played it. Unfortunately 3D video games give me headaches/vertigo/nausea which is a pity because I think I’m missing out on a bunch of really great stories/settings.

Oh well, more time to read books/manga and watch anime/cartoons? :)

Anonymous said:hi dad 

Anonymous said to alwayshumancomic:Hello Ari, could you talk about your experience as a featured creator on Line webtoon? If you don't want to that's fine. Have a wonderful day!

Hey, I’m happy to answer questions as best as I can, but this is such a broad question I don’t know how to answer it.

Um, being able to work full time on something I love is AMAZING, serializing a story is a wonderfully organic experience that I like a lot, weekly deadlines are super stressful??? Not sure what else to say.

Please feel free to ask more specific questions if you’d like :)

Anonymous said to alwayshumancomic:So mods like, change DNA with nanobots, right? If so, how can someone get a mod for pink hair when human DNA doesn’t code for pink hair?

I’m sure that a couple of hundred years in the future we’ll be able to look at pink things that do exist in nature (maybe pink feathers on birds?) and then find a way to teach the human body to create pink pigments. I haven’t a clue exactly how it would work, but it doesn’t seem that far-fetched (I believe scientists have already done a bit of experimentation with mixing non-human DNA with human DNA.)

Anonymous said to alwayshumancomic:Hello! I just have a question about how people in Always Human have babies. I remember seeing something about artificial wombs, which makes sense, but am a little confused about the rest. For example, can two gay men have a child that is genetically related to the both of them (the child has two biological fathers) without having to involve an egg or a woman? The same goes for a lesbian couple. Sorry if these questions are too weird. Can’t wait for the new webcomic 😘

It seems quite possible that science will one day allow two cis women to have a child that’s biologically related to both of them, by creating sperm from stem cells, and it seems reasonable to assume that something similar might one day allow two cis men to have biological children as well :)

Anonymous said:I know that Always Human has already ended, but I want to ask if it’s alright if we make fan characters for the comic, and maybe even make our own side comic in the Always Human universe? I love your comic though! It has a lot of diversity and the colours are eye-gasmic.

Thank you so much, this ask fills me with joy and delight <333

You are absolutely free to make fan characters and your own side comic, you are welcome play around with my ideas in any non-commercial way you want.

If you ever want to do something commercial that’s directly inspired by Always Human please talk to me, and we’ll figure it out :)

[christinaroseandrews]

Part 4

If you want to know what you missed in You Don’t Know Me, you can read Parts One, Two, and Three. Or you can just jump into the deep end and go from here. I should have said spoiler alert, but at this point who cares. However there are Trigger Alerts of Dubious Consent, Alcohol Abuse, Sexual Harassment, and a crap ton of sexist and homophobic microaggressions. Suffice it to say this is NSFW.

This is the last summary bit, I promise. I mean we only have a quarter of the book to go and the shit just hit the fan in a big way. Normally I would say that the last quarter is spent fixing the problems revealed on the way to the happy ending. But in You Don’t Know Me’s case, I would be completely wrong.

Let’s dive in, shall we?

With Alec, Rue, and Jenna all finding their own way back to the U.S. after their adventures in Ibiza, we’re left with Repentant Asshole Jack and Magically Reappearing Sean to follow around.

Sean once again proves he is too good for this world. By calling out Jack and how he’s been behaving.

Unfortunately this is literally all of the discussion that we get because the plane runs into turbulence. It turns out the turbulence is being caused by a large group of thunderstorms in the Caribbean (which most air traffic controllers try to steer around unless there is a more pressing reason not to) and everything goes to hell. Literally.

Since this is a storm, that means the water is going to be choppy which seriously impacts the ability of the pilot to land safely (my uncle pilots small craft and my cousin is a business jet pilot). Not to mention it feels like the only reason that Hopkins threw this in there was so that Jack would get a “get out of jail free” card and not have to be accountable for his actions and what he did to Rue.

The plane starts to go down and we get this.

Who here remembers the safety demonstration at the beginning of each plane flight? One of the things they stress is to not inflate the vest until you’re outside of the plane.

There’s a reason for that. It has to do with the laws of physics.  Namely, that most people aren’t strong enough swimmers to be able to dive underwater while wearing a life vest and people get trapped in the sinking plane because they are floating not walking. I even saw a TV show on this that referenced Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 and the memories of survivors who heard the life vests inflate and then saw people dying because they couldn’t get out.

Mean water.

So now that Jack and Sean are likely dead. Let’s check in with our favorite musician who we’ve yet to see do anything that warrants his celebrity, Alec.

He arrives at LAX and is immediately greeted by people exclaiming that “Yay! You’re not dead but your friends are!”

Which leaves him going “Huh?”

He dashes off to a bar and gets the news.

Alec then takes a page from the Tommy Wiseau school of acting and falls apart.

And there you have the problem. This grief feels overacted. Forced. Like Faleena has never actually lost someone she cared about and is going through the motions of grief.

We flip to Rue who has heard the news and decided that the best thing to do is to go to Jack and Sean’s house and try to comfort their grieving mother. Remember, this is the same woman whose husband cheated on her and Rue is a living reminder of that infidelity and betrayal. But sure, let’s go comfort Mrs. Stone.  That’s a great idea.

Rue goes on and on in her head about how much she loves her brothers. Despite only knowing them a week. And one of the brothers has done his level best to break her and succeeded.  Then we get this.

My parents went from Met to Engaged in literally 3 weeks. So I know it’s possible. But Rue hasn’t had the same kind of “get to know you” experiences. She’s had parties, and more parties, and that’s about it. The real problem is that the author didn’t show the bonding between any of her characters. Instead, she meandered from external plot device to external plot device without any character development. The number of times I can count Alec and Rue actually talking is non-existant. They don’t talk. They lust after each other.

Right now I am firmly on the mother’s side.

Alec shows up about a minute later and lets himself and Rue in.

When he appears, the mother reappears - drugged out - and apologizes to Rue.

We then get some of the backstory of Rue’s father and mother.

Apparently the mother left and despite telling Rue’s dad that she never wanted to see him, he still loved her. He even wrote a note to his wife telling her that he never loved her and that Rue’s mom was his soulmate. The man is a piece of work.

Not to mention, I have concerns about just how much Rue’s mom wanted the affair and how much was coercion.  Because let’s be honest, it’s a power imbalance.

After this, we travel back in time to see what happened when the plane crashed. At this point, I am firmly convinced that Jack and Sean died despite what the author claims, and this is just a huge fantasy spun by Rue as part of the bargaining phase of grief. I mean, it makes as much sense as anything else.

The plane lands and Jack and Sean and the pilots manage to get out despite the rising water.

Once out of the plane they have to swim against the waves to get to the raft with an injured co-pilot.

At this point, I’m just chanting “Nope” so much that my dogs got concerned about my sanity and started bringing me toys in the effort to break me out of my fugue-state.

I have good dogs.

Of course Jack and Sean survive to reach the raft...

How do I know they’re near Cuba? It becomes a plot point later. But you want to know what else is near Cuba? The Gulf Stream.

Look at those water temps... Hmmm It’s almost like it’s warm in the Caribbean or something.

This water is definitely warmer than ANYTHING along the California coast. (LA average water temps in November are in the low 60s. The Florida Keys average water temperatures are in the upper 70s to low 80s during the same time.)

Sorry, my Earth Science degree is screaming. I’ll stop.

While they’re drifting they have a heart to heart and Sean reveals he’s gay.

Seriously, Jack is one of the most horrible people I’ve ever encountered that was supposed to be a redeemable character. There have been villains - Loki, Vegeta, Draco Malfoy, Darth Vader, Spike - who have had better redemption arcs and been better people than Jack.

Then this happens.

I actually went back and counted, from the time traveling reboot it literally was 8 pages from the start of that chapter with the actual plane crash and them being rescued. They were in the water for only a few hours or at least that’s what it feels like. The author is not good with time.

We return to Rue and Alec in California and get this...

Yep, the President calls to tell them Jack and Sean are safe.

There’s some very painful dialogue and then Mrs. Stone wanders off.

And one of Faleena Hopkins’ issues rears its head...

From here on, I imagined the entire scene was being listened to by Obama. It wasn’t pretty.

We start in on a “I am so happy my best friends are alive I must sex you up!” which I will spare you. Then Alec and Rue have a heart to heart and they decide that they can only be friends. Because she loves her brothers and she wants to make it work with them. I can get loving Sean. Sean is awesome. Jack can go rot. Have I mentioned I hate Jack?

Next we have a party to celebrate the return of Jack and Sean and my love of Sean wanes while my hatred of Jack and Alec rises. Jack because he’s a horrible human being. Alec because he spends his time moping about how wants Rue but can’t have her.

Sean wanders away and spends the next few minutes telling everyone he talks to that he‘s gay. Which I wouldn’t have a an issue with if this wasn’t billed as a straight romance. Sean rejoins the group and we get the following “Jack is terrible” things. 

Jack stops with his harassment of Jenna and has a talk with Rue. Revealing that he too tried to commit suicide.

You know. I hear counseling is a thing. Maybe you all should look into that.

Anyway after that, he gives permission for Alec to date Rue.

Because men giving permission for people to date their female relatives is so 2015... or 1915... or 1815. One of those. This is also sexist. I know there’s a bro code, but frankly Jack has been such an ass and literally he’s known Rue for like a week, I’m skeptical.

Alec is relieved and runs off to find Rue. But she’s trying to stick to her vow of only friends.

So when she tells him no twice, he does this.

This is what Faleena Hopkins considers sexy: abuse. Naturally Rue is turned on and they run off to have sex.

Horribly horribly written sex.

Thankfully the scene is short. And by I short I mean WTF short.

The chapter ends with Alec and Rue making a promise to try to make things work. And if the story had ended there, it could kind of squeak into romance. But it doesn’t.

Instead the story ends with Rue, Jack, and Sean going on a talk show and talking about their life.

And here’s the final line.

Yep...

Honestly, Sean’s story arc was the most developed and compelling. But when a secondary character’s plot takes over the core plot of your romantic leads, there is something wrong.

Unfortunately, I am literally running out of room so I’ll sum up in another post where I talk about the most salient problems.

If you’re enjoying these reviews, you can buy us a kofi.

[bonkybornes]

The Road So Far: Pilot Pt.2

Sam pulls his big, blue duffel out of the top of his and Jay's shared closet, the very same duffel he packed in all those years ago when he left his family had now returned to find them. As he pulled a knife out of the bedside table and stuck in in the side pocket, Jay spoke up. "You're taking off?" He asks, not quite sure what exactly went down between the brothers. "Is this about your dad? Is he alright?" Sam's boyfriend asked with a sense of urgency in his voice.

"Yeah, you know, just a little family drama." Sam tried to play it off as if it were nothing.

"Your brother said he was on some kind of hunting trip." The hazel eyed boy stated with wonder in his voice. Sam paused before chuckling under his breath.

"Oh yeah, he's just deer hunting up at the cabin. Probably got Jim, Jack, and Jose with him. I've just gotta bring him back." He lies easily, pulling clothes out of his closet and putting them in the duffel, remembering the last time he packed this bag.

"What about the interview?" He asked, sitting on the edge of the bed they shared.

"I'll make the interview." Sam said, packing his laptop and charger, "This is only for a few days."

Jay sighs, "Sam, please. I mean you won't even talk about your family and now you're going off to spend a weekend with them?" Worry was thick in his voice as he hugged Sam from behind, "Just- are you sure you're okay?" He asks, planting a kiss just below his boyfriend's ear. With a smile, Sam spins around in his arms, hooking his hands behind Jay's neck.

"Hey, I'm okay, everything will be okay. I'll be back in time." Sam whispers, sharing a sweet kiss with his boyfriend, not realizing dean had been standing in the doorway. As they pulled away Sam realized his brother had been watching, making his brain panic slightly. He cleared his throat, "Oh, um Dean. I- I didn't-" Dean cut him off with a small smile and a wave of his hand.

"It's fine, Sammy." Dean said, knowing that Sam knew that was code for ' I'm okay with it.'. Sam untangled himself from Jay with a small smile and zipped up his bag before walking towards the door.

"Wait," He turned to face Jay, "At least tell me where you're going."

~

A soft rock ballad plays in the background as Troy talked with his girlfriend, "Amy, I can't come over tonight...Because I've got work in the morning, that's why...Yeah, okay I miss it and dad's gonna have my ass!" He sees a woman dressed in a white dress on the side of the road, seemingly looking for a ride, "Hey, ah, Amy. Let me call you back." Troy tells her before hanging up the phone and pulling over next to the woman, trying to turn off the flickering radio. "Car trouble or something?" He asks politely, wondering where her car was.

"Take me home?" She asks through a breath. Troy considers it for a second, "Sure, get in." He tells the woman, still not knowing what her name is. She climbs in the passenger seat, "So, where do you live?"

"At the end of Breckenridge Road." The woman replies shortly as Troy wonders what exactly happened to her. Her dress looks like it had been torn in a few places and was full of dirt. He notices that her dress is quite...low-cut.

"You coming from a Halloween party or something?" He asks, trying to focus on the road instead of her chest, "You know a girl like you shouldn't be out here all alone." He tells her after a long pause. She lifts the hem of her dress up to her thigh.

"Do you think I'm pretty?" She wonders bluntly. His eyes are still, despite his best efforts, stuck on the woman's chest. He stutters for a moment. "Come home with me?" She asks seductively.

"Um- Yes! Hell yes!" He exclaims, putting the car into drive and driving to her house.

A few minutes later they pull up to an old abandoned house, Troy laughs a bit, "Come on, you don't actually live here." He says, getting a bit scared. She looks up at the house sadly.

"I can never go home." She whispers. He glances up at the house.

"What are you talking about? Nobody even lives here! Where do you live?" He sputters before realizing she wasn't sitting next to him anymore. Looking around the car, he can't seem to find her, "Okay," He shouts warily, "Joke's over. You want me to leave?" He asks, unsure of what just happened. Despite his offer to leave, he walks into the house. Turning to the left, he sees a picture of a woman and two children, not getting a good glance before something flew into his face. Troy screams and falls backwards before realizing it was only a bird. Leaping up, he decides that this whole situation is way too creepy for him and gets back in his car, driving to work.

As he nears Centennial highway, Troy glances in the mirror, fear making a pang in his chest when he sees the woman in the white dress in the backseat, failing to see the sign saying that the bridge was out. He skids to a stop, breath heavy as she makes her way towards him.

~

Dean walks out of the gas station, snacks in hand, "Breakfast?" He shouts to his brother. Sam scoffs, how has this idiot survived on this? He asks himself, looking at Dean's cassette tapes.

"No, thanks." He answers, "So, how'd you pay for that? You and dad still running credit car scams?" Sam shakes his head disapprovingly. Dean puts the gas nozzle back on the pump.

"Well, hunting ain't exactly a ball pro career. Besides, all we do is apply. It's not our fault they send us cards." The younger brother bit his lip before speaking.

"And what names did you write on the applications this time?"  

"Um, Burt Aframian." He answers, getting into the drivers seat, "And his son, Hector. Scored two cards out of the deal." Glancing over at Sam, he realizes he's been looking through his cassette tapes. God I hope he doesn't find the- , "Sounds about right." Sam cut off his train of thought, "Dude, you have got to update your cassette tape collection."

"What? Why?"

"Well for one, they're cassette tapes. Black Sabbath, Motorhead, Metallica?" Dean takes the Metallica tape, "It's the best hits of mullet rock." The older brother rolled his eyes.

"House rules Sammy," He throws the tape back into the box, "Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole!"

"You know, 'Sammy' is a chubby twelve year old," Sam begins, Back in black playing in the background, "It's Sam, Okay?" Dean gives a fake look of confusion.

"Sorry, I can't hear you. The music's too loud." He shouts over the radio as Sam rolls his eyes, pulling out of the Gas-N-Sip.

~

"Thank you for your time." Sam politely tells the officers with a small smile. Dean makes sure they're out of sight before smacking his brother on the side of his head, "Ow! What was that for?"

"Why'd you have to step on my foot?" Dean asks, narrowing his eyes.

"Why'd you have to talk to the police like that?" Sam retaliates as he stops walking to listen to whatever Dean's about to spew out of his mouth.

"Come on, they don't really know what's going on. We're all alone on this! I mean, if we're gonna find dad we've got to get to the bottom of this thing ourselves." Sam clears his throat, noticing the two F.B.I. agents and the officer looking at them.

"Can I help you boys?" The officer asks.

"No sir, we were just leaving." Dean smiles back. As the agents walk past Dean gives them each a nod, "Agent Mulder, agent Scully." Sam shakes his head before getting into the passenger seat.

After a moment of silence as the two drive down the road, Dean speaks. "So, Jay?" He casts a glance at a nervous looking Sam.

"Yeah. Jay." Sam had been dreading this conversation from the moment dean showed up. Thoughts raced through his mind at a hundred miles a minute, "What about him?"

"I just- How does this all," He makes a big hand gesture, "Work. I guess." They both shift in their seats, obviously quite uncomfortable.

"I mean, it's not really that hard to understand." Sam begins, "I like men like you like women." Dean nods, trying not to make his brother too uncomfortable but still trying to wrap his head around the concept.

"So, do you like men and women, or just men?" He asks.

"You mean am I gay or bisexual?" Dean gives a short nod, "Gay. Definitely." There's an awkward pause for a few moments as Dean starts to understand.

"You know, you didn't deserve what dad said to you. That day, I mean. Or ever, actually." Sam smiled and looked down a bit.

"Thanks Dean." He gets just a little teary, hoping his brother doesn't notice.

"Hey," Dean starts, "No chick-flick moments." He laughs.

"Jerk."

"Bitch."

~

In the library, Sam watches over Dean's shoulder as he struggles to find the right search words. "Okay, let me try." He says, reaching out for the keyboard as Dean swats his hand away.

"I got it." Sam sighs and pushes Dean's chair a few inches to the side before taking control of the keys, "Dude!" The older brother hits Sam's shoulder, "You are such a control freak."

"So angry spirits are born out of violent deaths, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, maybe it's not murder." Sam trails off, replacing the word 'murder' in the search bar with 'suicide', bringing up an article named 'Suicide on Centennial Highway'. "This was 1984, Constance Welch, twenty-four years old, jumps off Sylvania bridge, drowns in the river."

"Does it say why she did it?" Dean asks.

"Yeah, she called 911 an hour before she died. Apparently her two little kids were in the bathtub, she leaves for a minute and when she comes back neither are breathing. Both die." Dean raises his eyebrows, looking at the picture of the bridge in the article.

"That bridge look familiar to you?" He asks, "Let's go check it out." They close everything on the computer and head out to the car.

"Do you think dad would've been here?" Sam asks his brother.

"Well, he's chasing this story and we're chasing him." He answers.

"So now what?"

"Now we keep digging, might take a while." Dean says.

"Dean, I told you, I've gotta get back by Monday-"

"Right, the interview." Dean finishes for him, his voice sounding slightly disappointed, "You're serious about this, aren't you? What, you're gonna become a lawyer, marry your man?"

"I mean why not?" Sam answers. Dean sighs, trying to find the words.

"Have you even told Jay the truth about you? Does he even know what you've done?" At this point he's borderline yelling.

"No, and he won't ever know!" Sam matches his tone.

"Oh that's healthy, sooner or later, you're going to have to face who you really are! One of us!"

"No." Sam's voice drops, "I will never be one of you!"

"You have a responsibility!"

"To who? Dad? Mom?" He wonders, "If it weren't for pictures, I wouldn't even know what she looked like! And what if we do find the thing that killed her? She's still gone, Dean!" He grunts as Dean pins him up against the railing of the bridge.

"Don't you dare talk about her like that!" He whispers, much like when his father drops his voice, it's more menacing than if he were to yell. Before the argument can go any further, they spot someone out of the corners of their eyes. Constance. The woman's ghost steps off of the edge before the impala's engine starts, the headlights shining on them. "What the-"

"Who's driving your car?" Sam asks in fear. Dean pulls the keys out of his pocket, eyes still on the car.

~

"That bitch scratched my car!" Dean yells. The two had taken care of the case and were now headed back to Stanford. Sam chuckles at his anger, "I'm serious! She dented the freaking hood!"

"Dean, it's just a car." Sam laughs, feeding the fire that is Dean's love for his car.

"Just a car? Just a car! Baby's been here forever! Baby is family Sammy!" They shoot each other a sad smile as they pull up to Sam's apartment.

"Hey, call me if you find him?" Sam asks, "And maybe we can meet up later." Dean lets out a smile.

"Yeah," He takes a pause, "We made a hell of a team back there." Sam smiles and watches his brother drive away, this goodbye much sweeter than the last.

"Jay, you home?" He yells into his apartment. A plate of chocolate chip cookies lays on the counter with a note: 'Missed you! Love you! xxx'. He smiles, picking one up and taking a bite before heading to their room to unpack, the shower in their bathroom running. Sam lays on the bed with his eyes closed, finishing off his cookie. A drop of something falls on his fore head, making him flinch. Opening his eyes, he sees what he had had nightmares about. His beautiful, sweet boyfriend, pinned on the ceiling bleeding from his stomach. He barely had time to yell before Jay burst into flames. Sam was paralyzed in fear, only moving when his brother kicked down the door.

"Sammy we gotta go!" He yelled over the fire, grabbing Sam and dragging him out of the house, almost like the first time, but with more fight from his little brother.

~

Firemen work to put out the fire as Sam slumps against Baby, tears cascading down his face. He takes a moment to collect himself before heading to the trunk and unloading the shotgun they had used earlier that day. Dean sets a hand on his shoulder, silently asking if he was okay. Sam nods and throws the shotgun into the small arsenal.

"We got work to do."

[otnesse]

Been banned by ****IrisHatersSay simply for disagreeing with her on May and Misty, but will still reply to her points anyways, merely out of obligation.

“Oh my God.  You really don’t know when to stop talking, do you?”

Well, gee, considering the entire point of a discussion is to continue talking, yeah, I don’t know WHEN to stop.

“Okay, I guess we’re back to equating skill development with character development.  And the Johto stretch just wasn’t good.”

The Johto stretch may have been excessive, but at least THAT had actual lasting results that carried over into the next saga, such as Ash beating Gary, not to mention advancing to top 8, which even if we don’t count his win at the Orange Islands is still a major improvement compared to in Kanto where he barely made Top 16 (and for circumstances beyond his control, namely Team Rocket abducting him). AG, on the other hand, literally had by its end May being replaced with a girl who shared the EXACT same goal as her, rendering her arc pointless in the end, had Ash winning Top 8 AGAIN, and even when Ash did end up gaining the one actual accomplishment for that saga, beating the Frontier Brains, not to mention beating Brandon’s Regice with Pikachu single-handedly, the whole accomplishment got treated as a joke by Gary (who beat Pikachu with Electivire despite Gary pretty much being retired from training by that point), not to mention Paul twice (and both times with explicitly rookie Pokemon).

“Nah, the kindergarten teacher argument is still dumb.  Pokémon trainers are more like parents to their Pokémon.  They raise Pokémon.  And May was still not an abuser.”

If a parent outright ends up HATING the profession of child-raising and child-rearing, they aren’t fit to be a parent, period. Doesn’t matter if they’re abusers or not. Though that being said, it does tend to outright lead into abuse if they hate the child. Just look at Lois Griffin, hated Meg her eldest daughter, and was very abusive towards her.

“Okay, so you didn’t watch AG.  Let me pull out my meme.”

Just because I didn’t watch AG doesn’t mean I didn’t look up various stuff like episode summaries/synopses and getting a gauge on the episodes via trivia sections and or other things. I usually use those as compensation for when I don’t watch a series myself. Second-hand knowledge, if you will. Besides, just because you’ve watched something directly doesn’t mean you’re actually right. Thomas Jefferson personally witnessed the events of what would become known later on as Bastille Day while acting as the American Ambassador to France, and he ended up being completely wrong in his assessment of the French Revolution, singing praises for the Jacobin murderers (ironically, John Adams, who never actually set foot in France at all during that time, had a far more accurate assessment of what that event would result in, being ahead of the curve compared to even his fellow Founding Fathers’ assessments, let alone Jefferson).

“Also, reacting differently to stressors in your environment is true.  Everyone does not have the same DNA code.  I’m pretty sure psychologists are aware of this, genius.”

Of course people don’t have the same DNA code (well, barring maybe identical siblings, but even there, there’s slight variances), but that doesn’t mean people can’t have similar reactions. As far as psychologists, considering psychologists literally convinced my cousin that she was gay just because she had slight trouble with men (something which my mom, who actually HAD psychologist training from trying to train for nursing, was aghast at), I have zero reason to trust them at their word regarding that bit. Besides, even if that were true, it doesn’t change the fact that she outright hated the Pokemon Training profession at the start, which is STILL inexcusable.

“Suffering is not a competition.  This is not the Suffering Olympics.  And for the record, May and Norman’s relationship did appear to have quite a bit of emotional distance and strain in it.  If you actually watched AG, you’d probably know that.”

At least Norman’s actually IN her life, and not as a deadbeat dad, and at least she HAS an actual loving family to go to, unlike Misty and Brock, who were abandoned by their parents and in the case of Brock pretty much was forced to act as the closest thing they had to a parent until Flint came home, and had to endure fairly abusive siblings in Misty’s case. No matter how much emotional strain there might have been between May and Norman, it’s still nothing compared to outright abandonment (and not even “abandonment to protect your child and/or not deal with bad memories of a rape” kind of abandonment, but more “screw you kid, I’m not dealing with you anymore” kind of abandonment due to Misty and Brock regarding the Gym’s difficulties), to say little about outright abuse, and you know it. Now, if Norman and Caroline treated her like Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia Dursley did to Harry Potter by barely feeding scraps from the table, forcing him to sleep in a cupboard under the stairs up until his first year in Hogwarts (and even THEN, only out of a failed attempt at preventing the Owls from delivering Harry’s acceptance letter), and even doing stuff like outright starving him or locking him up for various reasons, heck, even deeply considering feeding him to Dementors, THEN you might have a point regarding how May’s interactions with her parents were a lot worse than Misty and Brock’s were, not to mention actually warranted.

“Liking a certain type of female character does not mean you are not a misogynist.  A lot of sexist dude bros like certain female characters.  Doesn’t mean they’re not misogynists.”

The literal definition of misogyny is “hatred of women”. I’m pretty sure true misogynists would outright HATE a woman simply for BEING a woman at all, not caring about her personality or character. Want a real misogynist? Look at General Blue from Dragon Ball: https://youtu.be/_wyt1Aq6hm8 Also Chi Fu from Mulan. THAT’S what an actual misogynist acts like, where they can’t so much as even STOMACH being six feet from a girl, being revulsed by them (not fearful of them, just disgusted with them).

“And May did receive good development.  A narrative direction you don’t like ≠ bad writing.”

Actually, it is bad writing, and I would have said it was bad writing even if I DID like the narrative direction/character. I said the same thing about Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and Beast’s development earlier, and in case you’ve forgotten, unlike May, I actually LIKED Beast as a character. 

“Nope, the Bible was still written by men.  God was not sitting up in Heaven with a typewriter and poof it down to Earth.  And yeah, let’s glorify how Christians committed genocide in order to convert people.”

We didn’t commit genocide in order to convert people. As far as the Bible, it was written by God, and handed down to us. It was certainly not written by men. Use your head, if it were written by men, and had biases from fallable people like men, don’t you think Jesus Christ, the Son of God, would have made sure to, I don’t know, outright destroy any passages that tarnish God’s view on things, and do so in a very public manner I ought to add?

“Also, Sodom and Gomorrah is NOT about homosexuality.  It’s about hospitality.  If you weren’t an awful person, you’d know that.  And while we’re on this topic, homosexuality is not a sin.  Comparing references to homosexuality in the Bible and what we think of being LGBT in modern times is like comparing apples and oranges.  First of all, you are blatantly ignoring historical context.  The homosexuality referenced in the Bible is outlawed because of its connection to pagan rituals.  There is nothing to even suggest that two people of the same gender who happen to be in love is bad.  Being trans is also fine.   Trans men are men, and trans women are women.”

1. Regarding the first part, those mob of men who came over to Lot’s house to interact with the two men who arrived (actually angels of God) certainly were acting very “hospitable” to them, considering they were trying to make them sleep with them. Or maybe I should quote the specific passage for you just so you realize that hospitality was far from the reason for its destruction: “The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. 2 “My lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.”“No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.”3 But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. 4 Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. 5 They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”6 Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him 7 and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. 8 Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”9 “Get out of our way,” they replied. “This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.” They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door.10 But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door. 11 Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door.12 The two men said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here—sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, 13 because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the Lord against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.”14 So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry[a] his daughters. He said, “Hurry and get out of this place, because the Lord is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.” Genesis 19:1-14. Does that REALLY sound like they were inhospitable to you?

2. Homosexuality IS a sin, actually. Aside from Sodom and Gomorrah as listed above, not to mention Leviticus 18:22, even the likes of Jesus’ apostles, with Jesus’s own blessing mind you, outright said that homosexuals are among those who are barred from heaven. And what’s in the past affects the present, since God’s law does NOT change (well, save for maybe dietary restrictions and/or mixed fabrics).

3. Actually, being trans IS bad. In fact, Deuteronomy 22:5 even explicitly states it’s outlawed to a man to wear a woman’s outfit and a woman to wear a man’s outfit.

“Also, there’s plenty of misogyny in the Bible.  And the Bible condones slavery, too.  Do you think that’s alright, too?”

The Bible’s reference to slavery actually referred to indentured servants or, you know, people holding jobs. If anything, God also didn’t like the kind of slavery you alluded to since... well, the Book of Exodus made that much very clear.

“Homosexuality is not a choice.  This has been proven before, you’re just a bigot.”

Homosexuality IS a choice, and even if it wasn’t, it’s a mental disorder, which means it needs to be cured. And that “proof” was homosexuals outright intimidating the APA into removing it from the list of disorders. It’s like saying psychopathy is not a problem just because it got removed from the DSM book while disregarding that it only got removed because psychopaths actually intimidated the guys writing the book into removing it. There’s even a term for it, “zapping the shrinks”, and in fact, the guy most instrumental in getting it removed,  Frank Kameny, outright admitted they got it removed due to outright intimidating them, or to quote him, “ At that point they were afraid to say no to us. So they said yes. “.

“Also, people often later discover they’re not the gender or sexuality they thought they were, so jot that down.  That’s not “choosing”, that’s self-discovery.  And please, characters are hardly ever confirmed as straight.  You just think they are because it’s the norm.”

When previous seasons or comics or what have you depicted the characters as actually dating, heck, even marrying the opposite sex without any indication of NOT being attracted to them, it’s pretty obvious they were in fact straight. “Self-discovery” is a stupid excuse to force a character to change. And for the record, the only reason my cousin became a lesbian was because a psychologist outright said that she was that just because she had some trouble with dating men, and my own mom was upset at the whole thing when she learned of it. And just as an FYI, it’s actually pretty common for homosexuals to become homosexual due to being molested by a sexual predator. It happened with George Takei, and it happened with the guy who founded the so-called “LGBT rights”, Karl Ulrichs. They even admit it, though aren’t willing to confront that they were in fact molested.

“And “ex-homosexuals”??? Either a) they found out they weren’t gay, or b) were victim to conversion therapy.  For the record, conversion therapy is abhorrent and should be outlawed.”

I am of the opposite view, that homoseuxality needs to ultimately be cured. Besides, considering the lifestyle has several maladies associated with it, not just STDs, but even being more prone to infections, it’s pretty clear it’s ultimately for their sake to do conversion therapy on them. Besides, what makes you think that the gay person DOESN’T want conversion therapy? What if said gay person actually REQUESTS conversion therapy? Should you refuse him?

“As for that CDC bullshit, homophobic studies don’t count.  And it’s literally well-documented that the healthcare issues LGBTQ people face is because of homophobia and transphobia.  You can even google this.”

Considering Google has been busted for trying to manipulate search results recently, I don’t think that telling me to do so is really good enough proof. Besides, I’m going by actual medical statistics posted by the CDC.

“Also, you can’t use the d slur if you are not a lesbian yourself.  If you do, you’re a lesbophobe.”

N-word priviledges, eh? Well, I never bought that. My idea is, if it’s bad for one to use that word, it’s bad for ALL people to use it, yes, even lesbians. And quite frankly, God already made it clear that homosexuality is a sin, multiple times, including in the New Testament, so whether I am a lesbophobe (that’s a new one) or not is ultimately irrelevant.

“And for the record, I’m not left-wing, and I certainly don’t support communism.”

Really? Because you sure are sounding like you do. And for the record, most leftists DO support homosexuality. Just ask Sartre and Foucault.

"You realize there are other choices between communism and capitalism, right?”

No, actually, there are not. Even Socialism is the same as Communism.

“And I don’t support misogynists, even if they aren’t conservative.”

It’s pointless since you probably won’t read this anyways, but prove it. Walk the walk instead of just talk the talk, to borrow an old cliche. Actually condemn the examples I listed of leftists doing that.

“And Pro-Life does NOT mean you’re not a misogynist. You literally don’t think women can do what they want with their own bodies.  And you apparently think a women should have to carry her rapist’s baby, so yeah, you’re a misogynist.”

First of all, Pro-life means defending the baby’s life, which is the most defenseless individual out there. When you’re literally advocating for abortion, you’re advocating for child murder, and what does that make you? Besides, rapists also can demand an abortion just to get rid of any evidence to their rape, so it’s actually disingenous to claim that rapists would want to keep the baby alive. Besides, there’s a little thing called “adoption”. Just because the baby is carried to term doesn’t mean the mother must raise that baby if it was conceived by rape. If she doesn’t want to deal with the fact that she was raped, she can always place the baby into adoption. In fact, NCIS actually dealt with that bit with the character Jack Sloane (and despite the name, Jack’s a woman, a biological woman at that. Jack stands for Jacqueline in this case.). She was raped in college while drunk, yet she still carried the baby to term, and despite clearly loving her newborn daughter, nevertheless put her into adoption largely because she really couldn’t deal with the painful memories of the rape. Ayame from Dead or Alive was a similar case, genuinely loving her daughter Ayane, despite the fact that she existed because Raidou raped her one night. Didn’t have an abortion, but put her into adoption largely thanks to her husband Shiden. And what if the woman DOESN’T want the abortion at all? Besides, the Suffragettes such as Susan B. Anthony were also against abortions, and if anything, they specifically stated that men would use abortions to keep women dependent on men.

“And “let autism define you”…I’m autistic.  And upapologetically so.  So, apparently you just have some internalized ableism.”

Yeah, I have autism as well, and unapologetically as well. But I don’t use it as a crutch (in fact, rarely see the need to reference it specifically to avoid using it as an excuse), so no, I don’t have internalized ableism.

“That’s not what a Pokémon Stylist is.  Serena was a Pokémon Performer.   Pokémon Stylists got their own episode in DP.  See, this is why you shouldn’t try to complain about shows you don’t watch.”

Fine, I stand corrected there. However, after looking it up on Bulbapedia after you mentioned that it’s not the same as Pokemon Performers, it nevertheless made it VERY clear from various characters such as Paris and Hermione that they were similar to Pokemon Coordinators, and in fact, Paris even specifically stated it was a subset of Pokemon Coordinators, so my point about their similarities still stands right there.

“Lmfao, did you really just play the whole “you’re the real bigot” card??? I’m not a bigot for having no tolerance for intolerance.  There is NO REASON I should tolerate intolerance.  YOU are still the bigot.  A bigot is someone who holds prejudice against other groups, such as LGBTQ people, women, people of color, people with disabilities, etc.  YOU fit that bill, especially considering your hatred of LGBTQ people.”

Oh really? Because you seem to be intolerant towards straight people, christians, and all of those types of people, or any traditionally minded women as well. Like an SJW in other words. And for the record, it doesn’t matter what I myself think, what matters is what God thinks since He is in charge of everything. Besides, according to the dictionary, a Bigot is “obstinate and unreasoning attachment to one’s own beliefs and opinions, with intolerance of beliefs opposed to them; also acts or beliefs ensuing from such a condition”, which if anything describes you to a T. At least I make sure to take into account any mistakes I made and admit I’ve made some mistakes in my prior analysis when you point them out (case in point, the bit about Serena having a Stylist goal).

“And people can learn things from another person in ways that don’t involve giving pointers, genius.”

The entire POINT of learning involves being given pointers. That’s even why School exists, not to mention why parents tend to teach their kids life skills.

“I really hope you wake up someday and become a better person, but I doubt you will.”

What you’re acting like is not what God defines as a better person.

“Have fun being an awful and hate-filled person.”

Seriously? I’m the one who at least gave you a chance to talk, and even corrected bits of my analysis that were mistaken. You refused to correct yourself for anything like that. Not to mention you tended to rely on insults and SJW talking points. If anything, you’re the awful and hate-filled person. Nice projection, BTW. And fine, was getting tired of you anyway.

[i-am-very-very-tired]

‘What makes me so sad about Lee’s killing himself is that there are so few people with that kind of talent mixed with that fury of originality. Now we have one less of the few who are amazing. Why did he have to go and do that?” wondered Sam Taylor-Wood, the British artist. She was throwing out the big question that has consumed the fashion world since the suicide of her buddy and sometime subject Alexander McQueen, the 40-year-old designer, known to his friends by his given first name, Lee. His body—a physique that he’d worried over and tried to sculpt at the gym—was found at 10:30 a.m., February 11, hanging in his wardrobe, by his housekeeper in the apartment he’d been renting in London’s Mayfair, a far cry (and six or so miles) from the working-class East End neighborhood where he’d grown up. The tragedy was compounded in that it came just a week after the death of his beloved mother, Joyce, who at 75 had succumbed to an undisclosed illness. But even though McQueen’s brutal act of self-annihilation ultimately did not surprise those who knew him best, and were aware of his dark moods and inner agonies, plenty about his death didn’t add up.

After all, he’d been busy preparing for his autumn-winter ready-to-wear show in the days just before the tragedy. He’d been tweeting and texting his nearest and dearest, and apart from his obvious sadness about his mum, there wasn’t anything particularly unusual about his actions or his messages. In retrospect, some of his pals say they see portents in how loving his greetings were, but even they caution that they may be reading too much into this. The photographer Steven Klein, who was close to the designer for years, found him to be in good shape at the lunch they had in London at Christmas. “He was very together, in great form,” says Klein. “We made plans to do several new projects together.”

McQueen had even put in a surprise appearance at a dinner for Tom Ford, given by *Vanity Fair’*s editor, Graydon Carter, at Harry’s Bar in London on February 1. McQueen, who lived nearby, popped in uninvited; he sat at the bar, had a drink, chatted with Ford, and split. Ford had initiated the purchase of a majority stake in McQueen’s label in 2000 when Ford was the guiding force at the Gucci Group, owned by the French luxury-brands company PPR, and thus was McQueen’s old boss. So there was plenty of symbolism in this encounter. But then again, symbolism is everywhere in this story, as it was in the presentations of McQueen’s collections.

At their best, these shows were feats of magic, drama, and the sheer beauty of high fashion. McQueen was a traditionalist and an avant-gardist both. He liked to provoke with his ideas and shock with his ability to create unforgettable, original, sometimes extremist, often breathtaking clothes. He designed for both sexes, and in between, but soared highest with the women. His signatures were strong shoulders, strong tailoring, and a love of the corset. His collections were so specific, so true to himself, and so visceral that they are easy to remember. It helps, too, that they earned nicknames nearly as evocative as the clothes themselves—“the Shipwreck Collection” (spring-summer 2003), “the Chess Collection” (spring-summer 2005), “the Hitchcock Collection” (autumn-winter 2005). Among the most memorable was the now iconic “Highland Rape Collection,” from autumn-winter 1995 (one of his earliest shows, when he was starting out with his then-shoestring label), which mixed flesh-baring see-through material with eruptions of tartan, the clashes and juxtapositions intended as condemnation of England’s historic bullying of Scotland. (The folklore: one model hit the catwalk with a visibly dangling tampon string. To this day McQueen’s intimates aren’t sure whether that was accidental or intentional.) The rawness may have been polished as time went on, but it never went away. “The They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? Collection” (spring-summer 2004) was presented as if in a Depression-era dance-hall, a marathon where the models had to dance till they dropped in dresses that started out as perfect specimens and ended up in tatters. “The Wolves Collection” (autumn-winter 2002) was shown at the Conciergerie, in Paris, where Marie Antoinette had been held before she was sent to the guillotine. The opening model came out in a lavender hooded leather cape, walking a couple of trained wolves on leashes. (I think I only imagined their howling.) McQueen was the king of metaphor.

The immediate reaction to his death reinforced the notion that his wasn’t just another name on a label. Beyond the front-page stories and worldwide headlines, beyond the reports of his clothes’ selling out in department stores, there were Diana-like tributes. Students, artists, and fans left farewell notes and bunches of flowers outside his boutiques in London, Milan, Los Angeles, and New York, all of which were shuttered after the news broke. (The designer Diane von Furstenberg was spotted adding a bouquet to the ones that had already been dropped off at his shop on 14th Street in New York’s Meatpacking District.) McQueen’s death also coincided with the opening of New York Fashion Week, and there were nods to him in a number of the shows, including the beautifully elegiac opening of the Marc Jacobs presentation. No question: Alexander McQueen had become a name for the ages, the James Dean of fashion.

To call someone an artist in this milieu is tricky, because that can connote pretense, a rarefied air, a certain self-conscious preciousness—all things that were not true of McQueen. But fashion has produced genuine artists, designers with deeply iconoclastic visions such as Charles James and the painter and sculptor Lucio Fontana, who made clothes and jewelry for a short while. Although McQueen was very much a fashion person, working with a fashion vocabulary, his clothes and presentations had a true art streak. He even behaved like an old-fashioned artist, never letting the fact that he worked for giant, powerful fashion corporations—first for LVMH, where he was installed in 1996 as the designer of Givenchy, and then for PPR—curb his creativity or freedom. This wasn’t someone who’d suck up to the bosses or important editors or celebrities. Elton John, who befriended the designer and respected his talent, says, “McQueen was never anybody’s boy. He was never going to bow down and kiss ass to anyone, which made him rare in that world.” He was freakish in terms of his natural abilities too. Mark Lee, the highly respected former president of Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent (also owned by PPR), remembers, “Besides his eccentric vision, he really knew how to make and cut clothes. All the seamstresses, technicians, and product-development people who were around from the Gucci Group would talk about it all the time. He would just take a bolt of fabric and, in front of their eyes, would cut the pattern for his clothes. People said it was like watching Edward Scissorhands. There are not many designers around who can do that.” Similarly, McQueen often displayed a fearless, tour-de-force way with materials. There was nothing too fine or too common for him: neoprene, plastic, crocodile, paper, rose petals, antique lace, lamé … there was no stopping him. The finale of his autumn-winter 2006 collection, a pale-gray organza spiral ruffle dress, worn by Kate Moss, was as dreamy as it gets. That was highbrow McQueen; for lowbrow, look to his witty “bumster” pants from 1993—a feat of anatomical engineering described by one aficionada as “as low as you could go without having your trousers fall right down.”

McQueen used to call himself an East End bloke, which was code for saying he was not born into the world of caviar, champagne, and fine cloth. On a couple of occasions I had what he called “a proper English lunch” with him (I remember picking out the kidney in my steak-and-kidney pie), and each time he wanted to discuss the painter Francis Bacon. The combinations of gruesomeness and beauty, of raw flesh, homoerotic desire, and highly sophisticated execution that Bacon brought to his painting are not so far away from the concerns and approaches of McQueen’s work. There are personal parallels, too. I think of Bacon’s predilection for sex with men who were streetwise and of his finding refuge in the old London gay subculture. I think of the fact that his lover took his own life in 1971, on the eve of the opening of Bacon’s big retrospective in Paris, at the Grand Palais. (Camping it up, Bacon is supposed to have said, “Oh my dear, she’s gone and committed Susan-cide.”) For McQueen, too, a vociferously open gay man, there was an unforgettable combination of tough and fragile that was intrinsic to his emotional makeup. By all accounts, the designer’s childhood, growing up in the 1970s and early 80s, was like something out of Billy Elliot. His dad, Ronald, a taxi driver, reportedly had plans for his youngest child to become an electrician. (The designer had three sisters and two brothers.) McQueen, though, had fashion dreams, and as if that didn’t already make him a misfit in his environment, he had to put up with early torture about his sexuality; in his later life he often spoke about having been taunted with the nickname “McQueer” when he was young. Throughout, his mother was his shield, his advocate, the parent who eventually turned up at his shows, believing in his talent and adoring him unconditionally. Their bond was unbreachable from beginning to end.

McQueen���s formal education and professional rise are now part of fashion lore: the old-school tailoring training on Savile Row, where, as he later admitted and denied in equal measure, he had scrawled a punk-style slur—i am a cunt—inside the lining of a jacket being made for Prince Charles; the graduate fashion-school training at Central Saint Martins College; the meteoric trajectory of his career as a designer, which saw him going from overnight sensation after his last student collection to taking the reins for his bumpy five-year tenure at Givenchy, to finally having a house of his own, as Virginia Woolf might say, and really stretching his wings as a designer, to the sad, sad end.

The search for an answer as to why McQueen decided he’d had enough is really a struggle to find meaning in an act of nihilism. But as an old friend of his said to me, McQueen’s life was like an onion, and you have to peel away the layers to get to the center; it’s a process that can sting and bring tears. There was the loneliness, no doubt made all the more visceral by his mother’s death. Despite the surrogate family that McQueen created with a tiny clutch of fiercely close and protective friends—including Shaun Leane, the jewelry designer; Philip Treacy, the milliner; Daphne Guinness, the heiress, editor, and most daring dresser in fashion; Annabelle Neilson, a sort of sidekick; and Sam Gainsbury, who produced nearly all of McQueen’s shows—he had no long-term Mr. It. People remember how he’d say he was unlucky in love: he’d had a failed marriage to George Forsyth (Kate Moss was a bridesmaid at the 2000 wedding), and in the last years he seems to have had on-and-off liaisons with men, some of whom he met online. (Word is there was at least one porn star, a so-called Mr. Stag. There was also an older East End gangster he had a longer romance with.) Then there was his well-known history with drugs, especially cocaine. He was open about his substance abuse, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the autopsy told the same story when the results are released.

But it is my belief that all these traits were symptoms of something else. McQueen loved and collected art, and it is no coincidence that one of his favorite photographers was Joel-Peter Witkin, whose bleached and scratched images of masked figures, transsexuals, hermaphrodites, and corpses occupy a sometimes grim, sometimes joyous netherworld. The more one talks to those who knew McQueen, on and off the record, the deeper one goes, the clearer it becomes that what friends refer to as his “darkness” is where the truth of his death lies. Virginia Woolf and her struggle with depression is a kind of specter here. Sam Taylor-Wood says, “Lee would just sometimes go into this void, and we’d wait for him to resurface.”

He was not the only one in his circle to have terrible bouts with deep depression. Isabella Blow, his over-the-top, born-to-the-manor-but-without-a-pot-to-piss-in pal, who had an unlimited clothing allowance at his company and was often credited with discovering McQueen when he was in art school, also committed suicide, with weed poison, on her third attempt.

When Blow died, in May 2007, McQueen dedicated his next show to her, but some say he was angry at her for taking her own life. The rub is that he leaves behind a similar sense of frustration. There was a suicide note—what McQueen wrote hasn’t yet been disclosed—but it’s likely no one will ever know his whole story. Some have speculated that he may have felt he was done in fashion, sure of his legacy, and that his suicide was a kind of deliberate statement to that effect. Or was it something more uncontrollable? Sam Gainsbury says, “I appreciate that some people who were close to him think it was purposeful. But I think Lee got to a really dark place and could not get out of it. It was in that instance on that night. On another day maybe he would have gone to sleep and gotten out of it.”

People have commented on how, as the years went on, McQueen would disappear with lightning speed after his shows, rather than sticking around for the ritual backstage congratulations. “It always made me think of J. D. Salinger,” says Kerry Youmans, one of McQueen’s publicists. His suicide is perhaps the ultimate version of that impulse to withdraw. But PPR has announced that the McQueen business will continue. Fashion insiders have raised their carefully shaped eyebrows at the notion of replacing someone with so strong and individual a voice. McQueen’s friends remember his infectious laugh, and I wonder, could he be out there somewhere laughing now—maybe at the prospect of what will surely be a hard, hard search to fill his shoes? Or maybe in happiness that the line will go on?

I’m reminded of a show that McQueen did for autumn-winter 2007. It was known colloquially as “the Witches Collection” and was inspired by the fact that his mother, a genealogist, had discovered a relative who’d been a victim of the Salem witch trials. Like so many of McQueen’s presentations, this one had a high element of performance art to it—and a theme of death. The venue was very dark, people had difficulty finding their seats, the show started very late, it was raining outside, and there was an all-around bad mood in the air. Editors, who normally worshipped at McQueen’s feet, were yelling, “Who the fuck does he think he is? How dare he keep us all waiting like this?” The way people feel today, they’d be happy to wait for a much longer time to see one of his spectacles again, and they’d probably pay almost anything for his clothes.

[its-a-queer-thing]

The Gallavich family facing homophobia

Ian and Mickey had been married for 9, almost 10 years. Yevgeny was already 13 years old and in middle school. About five years ago they adopted a beautiful little girl from a family down the street who was ready to send her to foster care. The family named her Abigail, but Ian and Mickey called her Abbi. Now 8 years old, Ian and Mickey were ironically just discussing how seamlessly she had integrated into their family when she came bursting through the door and ran to her room slamming the door behind her. Ian looked to Mickey who was staring after her, confused.

“What the fuck was that about?” Mickey wondered. Abigail was usually a level headed child and was anything but a drama queen. This display was beyond out of character and appalling to both of her fathers.

“Should we—Should we go and ask her what's wrong?” Ian stammered. They knew this day would come when the men would have trouble delving into the feminine mind of their daughter, but they had hardly considered the enigma of the female brain would confound them when she was as young as 8 years old!

“Don't ask me, I only have one sister and I never knew what the fuck she wanted.” Mickey replied. They sat there another moment in silence, thinking. Yevgeny walked through the front door throwing his backpack to the floor and making his way to the kitchen when he caught Mickey's disapproving look. Yev deflated and walked back to his backpack to hang it where Ian had installed hooks by the door just for this purpose.

“Yevgeny, what the fuck is up with your sister?” Mickey asked as Yev rummaged through the fridge.

“Umm...” He pulled his torso out of the fridge and looked at his fathers with an uncomfortable expression. “I don't think you want to know...”

“Why? Is she okay?” Ian asked.

“Well... Yes and no.” Yev replied, ever the orator like his biological father.

“Son—” Mickey warned.

“Well, after parent-teacher night last week some kids from the bus recognized the four of us leaving the school and realized you both were our dads.”

“Yeah? Fucking and?” Mickey demanded.

“Dad, we're dealing with rich yuppy private school rejects. They are homophobic as—”

“Consider your next word, son.” Ian warned. Yev smiled and closed the fridge door, apparently having lost his appetite.

“What do you mean homophobic? They are making fun of her because of Ian and me?” Mickey asked incredulously.

“Well—yeah. I mean, kids have been giving me a hard time about it for a long time, I just ignore it.”

“Why the fuck does it matter?” Mickey wondered out loud, thoroughly enraged.

“I don't know Pop, it just does. We're poor people going to a rich school district and the rich kids wanted to get into a fancy school but weren't smart enough so they pick on whoever they can to make themselves feel better.”

“Why did you never tell us?” Ian asked Yev who shrugged.

“I just didn't really pay attention, I guess.” Yev replied.

“Yev, come here.” Mickey demanded. Yev looked nervous. Mickey was a strict father figure though never abusive. But for some reason Yev always seemed nervous around Mickey, especially when he adopted the tone. Ian suspected that Svetlana was too forthcoming when describing Mickey's past as well as Terry's parenting style which she probably thought influenced Mickey. The truth though, Ian was always blown away by the nurturing side of Mickey despite his overall strict style.

“You see people picking on your sister, you need to defend her, got it? She's not Milkovich by blood, she doesn't have that steel defense we have.”

“I'm not there all of the time, Pop.” Yev argued gently. Mickey considered this.

“Know any people who know karate? Tae-kwon-do?” Yev nods. “Ask them if they will teach your sister and if they don't seem to want to, ask what it'll take.” Yev nods again and looks to Ian.

“I'd defend her if I could—” Yev starts.

“No, it's not your fault, son.” Ian assures. “She needs to know to stand up for herself. You just keep having her back like we know you already do.” Yev nods again and exhales deeply. He looks to his biological father, looking to be excused. Mickey pats him on the shoulder and Yev sags with a grin. Ian never understood what it was about Yev that made him nervous about affection with Mickey but he always seemed happier with distant and subtle displays rather than the blatant hugs Ian tried to give him.

“I've got a thing—”

“Yeah, yeah.” Mickey rolled his eyes. “Go on.” Yev laughed and went to give Ian a pat on the shoulder to match the one he received from his father. Ian let him go and sat still, staring at Mickey.

“You know there's nothing we can do, Mick. If we bring attention to it at the school—”

“I know, I know it'll put a target on her back. Like asking for more.” Mickey rubbed his eyes and stared at the ceiling.

“Let's at least talk to her.” Ian insisted. Mickey nodded, gathered himself, and followed Ian to Abbi's door. Ian knocked in a rhythm Abbi had come up with when she was 6. 'Abbi-code' she'd called it after watching a movie with her Dad that had a reference to morse code.

“What?” Her miserable mumble echoed through the door. Ian and Mickey's eyes met, their hearts simultaneously breaking.

“May we come in, sweetheart?” Ian called. She was silent for a moment, probably considering. They heard her sniffle, and then heard footsteps as she approached the door, opening it just a crack. Ian went ahead and pushed through slowly. Mickey would have waited for the invite, but not Ian. Ian's concern was too high a priority.

“Tell us what's wrong, Abbi.” Ian requested. She leaned against the foot of her bed, eyes downcast and still sniffling. Mickey leaned against her dresser, willing to wait until she answered.

“I heard Yev tell you. You already know.” She replied after a while.

“Well, we have his side, but not why you are upset.” Ian explained. She sighed and turned to face her redheaded father. One look at him though made her lips tremble again. Ian held his arms out to her and she raced into them. He wrapped her in a hug and pulled her into his lap where she continued to cry. Mickey's fists tightened until the tips of his knuckles bleached white. He looked absolutely murderous. He and Ian made eye contact and Mickey forced himself to breathe.

“What other kids think doesn't matter, Abbi, you know that.” Mickey said as gently as he could.

“But why do they hate you two so much when they don't even know you?” She wailed. “They said I'm a freak and that you and Daddy are going to hell, and I'm going to go to hell because I'll grow up gay and... I just didn't know what to say!”

Ian hugged her tighter and let her cry. Mickey sighed and rubbed at his eyes with the tips of his fingers.

“Look, Abbi. Those people can say whatever the fuck they want about your Dad and me. It's not going to change what we have going on here. Are you happy here?” Abbi peeked up from Ian's chest and nodded. “You know you're loved and looked after?” She nodded again. “Then that's all that matters. These kids are probably just pissed about whatever is going on in their shitty lives so to make themselves feel better they pick on someone smaller and who they think is an easy target. So you know what you've gotta do?” She just stared at him. “You've gotta prove that you aren't an easy target. Yevgeny is going to get someone at school to teach you some self-defense so if anyone tries to hurt you, all you've got to do is lay 'em down.”

“Don't go starting fights,” Ian interjected, “but you can definitely finish them.” She nodded.

“But what if they say—”

“Say what? It doesn't matter.” Mickey shrugged.

“It still hurts...” Abbi replied looking at her lap. Ian sighed.

“It can hurt, sure. But you just have to remind yourself that they don't know you, they don't know us so everything they are saying is coming out of hate and ignorance. You can't fix stupid, Abbi, you can only ignore it and prove to them that their stupidity isn't going to get you down.” Ian said. Mickey nodded and crouched in front of her.

“Don't give them the satisfaction. You know we are happy, we love you, and that those people are just pissed off about something they don't understand. Just... let it roll off. But like I said, if anyone tries to physically hurt you, you lay their asses down! No child of mine is going to be a fuckin' doormat.” Mickey smiled at her, trying to get her to return the expression. Naturally, she did and she wrapped her arms around Mickey's neck. Mickey in turn wrapped his arms around her little torso and cradled her to him. He and Ian made eye contact and smiled at each other. They hated how mean kids could be, but they had known long ago that this was a possibility and had prepared to strengthen their young ones up to face the harsh realities of an unforgiving world.

“You okay now?” Ian asked, rubbing her back. She looked down.

“It still hurts, but I know you're right. I just can't stand when they say mean things about you when they don't know you.”

“It's understandable that it hurts, you just can't let it show to anyone else or they will walk all over you. If you are ever mad about it just wait until you're home and we can talk about it some more, okay?” Ian  explained. She nodded. She released her grip around Mickey's neck and gave Ian one more quick hug before settling on her bed.

“Want to come out into the living room, or do you want to be by yourself?” Mickey asked. She grinned, grabbed her backpack and settled at the dining room table.

 One of the most delightful things about their little family was how normal it was despite the circumstances. Abbi loved school and she loved working on her homework with her dads nearby to help if she had a question. Mickey was terrible at school so mostly Ian helped with schoolwork, but Mickey had developed a knack for cooking (beyond just pizza-bites and other frozen foods, mind you) and so he usually made dinner, tossing in some humor if Abbi ever got frustrated or needed a quick break. Yevgeny was usually in his room all night doing god knew what, but tonight he came out to be with his family. While Mickey cooked, Yevgeny actually shared his day with his father. Mickey was always shocked when Yev acted so attached to him because the sentiment came and went so much he could never tell how his son felt about him that day. He listened though, really listened and engaged. It was still hard for Mickey to attach to Yevgeny who was a constant reminder of that horrible day Terry walked in on him and Ian. It wasn’t fair, but there it was. He worked every day to ignore those memories and focus on the human being before him, and though it was rough he could say with certainty that he and his son had a relationship--and he was proud to say it.

Ian wished desperately they could somehow take a snapshot of this picture: Mickey cooking, Yevgeny hanging out with his father, Ian and Abbi working together on her fractions. There'd be something to show the haters: look you assholes, a loving family doing the same shit you guys do but with two men instead of only one. And look, our kids are fucking happy! Put that in your judgement pipes and smoke it! Of course that wasn't possible, but Ian was satisfied by the mental image anyway.

That night as Ian put Abbi to bed he made her promise not to ever take a negative word from a stranger to heart and to think of this night if anyone was ever getting her down.

“The truth,” he said, “will keep you afloat when people try to drown you in negativity. Just remember who we are and what we do and remember that if they don't know shit... then their opinion is irrelevant.”

Abbi considered this for a moment, grinned, and nodded.

“Okay, dad. I love you.” She said.

“I love you, too.” He replied and kissed her gently on the forehead. “Good night.” Mickey was standing at the door, watching the whole thing.

“I love you, daddy!” She called at Mickey. He smirked and crossed to her bed, kissing her lightly on the forehead right where Ian had.

“I love you too, kid.” She closed her eyes contentedly and snuggled under the covers, easing off into sleep.

Mickey had never dreamed he and Ian would have a life like this. But at moments like this he was so grateful they did. They both knew their kids would be subjected to more hatred, because that was the human way--to hate things they don’t understand. But the hatred would just make their kids stronger and feel more secure in the family they had. 

As the couple prepared for their own nighttime routine, Mickey and Ian both felt satisfied that despite the assholes, they were definitely living the life together they had never dared to dream.

[amorremanet]

top 5 movies? and why? no no TOP FIVE BOOKS

oh gosh, both of these are hard and my answers for them are probably so boring (they also come with the, “this is just how I feel right now because ugh, I am the worst at picking any all-time faves for broad categories”) — but!!

top “five” movies:

The Prince of Egypt — has some of the most beautiful art that I’ve ever seen, anywhere, and music that sticks with you, and it really shows the human drama and human stakes of such a classic story in ways that a lot of adaptations of Biblical mythology are afraid to do

Deadpool — because I’m garbage, the characters are great, the script is pretty good, and the movie makes me laugh. It’s not really a deconstruction (in the way that some people make it out to be, by way of justifying why they like it), and it’s not super-intellectual, and in a lot of ways, it’s like a giant #SorryNotSorry that makes fun of superhero movie tropes while continuing to use them (and there are some subtle ways it plays with some of said tropes and twists them around, but it largely doesn’t) — but it’s fun

But I’m A Cheerleader — is far from perfect, and I maintain that it’s actually much more depressing than the ending leads us to believe (I mean, Meghan/Graham and Dolph/Clayton get together and escape from True Directions and homophobic parents, and Meghan’s Mom and Dad at least try to do better by their daughter, but things don’t work out that well for anybody else), but it’ll always have a special place in my heart because it was one of the only lesbian movies that I had access to as a little gay baby

Female Trouble — I wouldn’t say that it’s the best thing that John Waters has ever done, just the one that I personally like the best, and I’ll admit that it’s probably an acquired taste…… but I love how it takes on celebrity culture in the story Dawn Davenport, and it gave us great lines like, “The world of heterosexual is a sick and boring life” and, “I wouldn’t suck your lousy dick if I was suffocating and there was oxygen in your balls!” It also has a special place in my heart as one of my favorite, “gay AND weird” movies

—which probably makes sense, given that it was written and directed by the trash king of being gay and weird

……like, seriously. My (best friend who I call my) brother once asked me, “So is John Waters gay or is he just really weird?” and the only thing I could think of to say to that was, “Yes, both.”

the “Three Flavours Cornetto” trilogy — which is totally cheating, to put three in here, but I couldn’t pick between them. I do think that Hot Fuzz and The World’s End are more fully actualized than Shaun of the Dead, but I love all of them, and the reason is pretty much just, “Because they’re good mixes of being hilarious and making me FEEL things” (……less so in The World’s End, for several reasons; it’s a lot heavier on the feels, to the point that you sometimes feel bad for laughing at the jokes, but still)

and books:

Good Omens (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman) — This book was my introduction to both PTerry and GNeil, after I found a cheap copy in an airport bookstore when I was about twelve and immediately fell in love. It’s funny, the characters are vibrant and engaging, and it played right into my love of screwing around with Biblical mythology.

I’m periodically tempted to list different books for both of those men (with PTerry’s probably being one of the Granny Weatherwax books, or Faust Eric, and GNeil’s being either American Gods or one of his Sandman books — because yeah, he’s done other good stuff, but I’m more sentimentally attached to AG and Sandman. Also, Preludes and Nocturnes has some of the only non-movie or TV horror that has genuinely terrified me, so)

—buuuut then I never do, because Good Omens was my first book from either of them, and remains my sentimental fave, even though I admit that they’ve both written other books that are, “better” or, “stronger,” or whatever

Dry (Augusten Burroughs) — There’s a lot of fair criticism to be made of Augusten Burroughs, and he’s been one of the writers at the center of the debates about truthfulness or lack thereof in popular memoirs (like, how much an author is allowed to condense things before it stops counting as a, “real story,” and how an author remembers things happening vs. how other people remember them), but Dry nevertheless means a lot to me.

Like, I enjoyed Running with Scissors and his novel, Sellevision (which were the other Big Deals in his collected works, at the time I originally read Dry), but Dry fucked me up a LOT when I first read it. It has continued to fuck me up ever since.

There are passages in this book that I can’t even be jealous of, as another writer, because they’re so good that they skip right the fuck past, “I’m angry and jealous that I didn’t write this myself” and into, “Holy shit, THIS is why I write, the ability to do THIS KIND OF THING EXACTLY with words, I need to go write something right now”

Also, it means a lot to me for sentimental, “I read this book for the first time when I was in high school, and it made me feel less lonely and sad and scared” reasons

Dynamic Characters (Nancy Kress) — This is by no means the be-all and end-all of, “how to writer better” books, but it’s a personal favorite of mine, for two reasons: 1. there are some things that Kress doesn’t cover about creating characters and doing better by them in your writing, but she’s still pretty comprehensive and offers some solid illustrative examples, multiple perspectives on this part of writing (not as many as she could, but to be fair, she only has so many pages to work with), and a good mix of “tough love” advice and gentler, more reassuring advice;

and 2. …it was the first, “how to writer better” book that I ever got my hands on. I picked it out specifically because I’d posted a completely ridiculous crack fic that was a crossover between Harry Potter and Sailor Moon, with a first-person protagonist narrator who was a hot nonsense self-insert power fantasy Mary Sue with no flaws and no nuance because, hey, I was 11.

And someone actually commented to go, “Hey, look, you have talent, but you could do better and one place to start is maybe with learning to build better realized characters” — so I picked out the Nancy Kress book and it seems like a really silly thing to call a turning point? But it was big a turning point for me

Death, Disability, and the Superhero: The Silver Age and Beyond (José Alaniz) — okay, time for me to be a loser and cite an academic book. I’m also probably a cheating loser, since I just read this book for the first time recently…… but with that said? I’ve read a LOT of critical treatments of the superhero genre, some pretty good, others pretty bad (for example, I remain Perpetually Tired of Slavoj Žižek’s heavy metal Communist, Bane in Leather Pants bullshit reading of The Dark Knight Returns), and most of it somewhere in the middle

—but there’s this trend among people who write critically about superhero junk, whether they’re academics of not, wherein we act like we have to act like superhero comics are The Most Progressive Ever and oversell their sociopolitical impact in order to make them look like ~*True Art*~ That Must Be Taken Seriously (—and like, I’m not saying that they have NO impact on people at all, because that’s objectively false. But you also can’t try to claim that Superman, Wonder Woman, and Captain America comics are why the Allies won World War II)

(this is a pointless aside to note that I deliberately left the Goddamn Batman off that list, because while Supes, Diana, and Steve were all off punching Nazis, Golden Age Bruce and white boy!Dick were running around on the home-front, rounding up Japanese Americans and putting them in internment camps. So… y’know. There’s that.)

……or we have to take legitimate criticisms of problems in the superhero genre, both historical and current, and use them to go, “Therefore, the entire genre is pointless garbage that has no redeeming qualities at all and could never ever EVER be used to tell any stories that are worth telling, and frankly, you are all terrible, horrible people for enjoying it, how very dare you enjoy that X-Men movie or that Red Hood And The Outlaws comic, you’re basically a fascist now”

—which is hilarious, to me, because the people who write that sort of criticism almost always cite Fredric Wertham’s book, The Seduction of the Innocent (aka: the book that led to so much moral outrage over the allegedly very gay and fascistic, child-corrupting content of comicbooks that the Comics Code Authority was created), and they always go, “Well, obviously Wertham was OTT and totally full of shit, buuuut…… *argument that would not have been out of place in his book*”

So, one of the big reasons I loved Professor Alaniz’s book is that is does neither of these things. It offers some incisive, and occasionally kinda damning, critique of the superhero genre and its handling of disability and mortality, but he does so from a place of love and enjoyment, and never pretends to hate the genre, nor argues for throwing the whole thing out because it has problems.

Like, his underlying mindset is very much, “Yes, the superhero genre has a LOT of problems, but people could, in theory, fix them and try to get closer to realizing the full potential of what these characters and stories can do” — while never skimping on a detailed analysis of the trends and case studies that he presents.

Sometimes, I think he’s kinda reaching (and I, personally, never want to hear anything about Doctor Doom’s Oedipus complex ever again so long as I live, though it was validating to hear that my theatre kids AU version of him — who is a ridiculous mess, obsessed with taking selfies, and perpetually acting like he totally gets everything while missing some crucial detail, which is how he ends up thinking that Loki is dating Tony Stank [a suggestion that makes both of them want to puke] — is actually a valid interpretation of his character, based on some parts of canon)

Overall, though, my biggest problem with Professor Alaniz’s book is that he can be kind of a hipster and it can get a little bit annoying. Not enough to ruin the whole book, but enough that it does stand out.

Like, his chapter on Daredevil specifically analyzes an infamous Silver Age story that basically everyone hated — the one where Matt Murdock tells Karen and Foggy that he isn’t the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, but he has some heretofore unknown identical twin brother named Mike, who is not blind but *IS* actually that aforementioned costumed hero, and carries on a charade of pretending to be his nonexistent twin brother — and okay, we get some pretty neat discussion of how passing can work or might not with disabled people

…but you can still walk away feeling like his biggest reason for analyzing that story arc was less about its value to any part of his discussion, and more about going, “Other Daredevil stories are too mainstream, I care most about this one that was so infamously ridiculous that people have said even soap operas wouldn’t have done this plot”

Likewise, I’m not saying that there aren’t very fair criticisms to be made of the X-Men and how their stories handle disability in particular… but at some points in his chapter on the Silver Age Doom Patrol comics, Professor Alaniz seems to be less, “using the pre-Claremont Silver Age X-Men stories as an illustrative foil to the Doom Patrol, especially with regard to how Charles’s paraplegia is treated vs. how The Chief’s paraplegia is treated” and more, “using this discussion as a free excuse to bash on the X-Men for being popular”

To his credit, Professor Alaniz does kinda discuss some of the ways that the X-Men’s popularity might have been affected by the fact that things like their ableist handling of Charles make them feel, “safer” and, “less sociopolitically threatening” than he makes the Doom Patrol out to be (with a pretty convincing argument, actually)

He just doesn’t do it enough for me to feel like his “criticism” of the X-Men isn’t at least partially grounded in going, “Well, it’s popular, therefore it sucks” (—as opposed to my approach to them, which is, “It’s popular, and has a mixed bag of things that it does well vs. things it does that suck, but it does not suck BECAUSE it is popular”)

Anyway, good book, and it’s written in a refreshingly accessible way (it’s still an academic book and harder to get into than, say, Good Omens, but Professor Alaniz doesn’t make a lot of the more common mistakes that leave a lot of academic writing effectively incomprehensible)

and last but not least…… Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire (we all know who wrote this, okay, come on) — because I’d be lying if I didn’t include at least one HP book on this list, considering how important those books and that fandom have been to the course of my life and to my development as a writer, and it was either gonna be this one or POA, but this one won over the other because I’m garbage

[postculturemag-blog]

What’s Better Than This? Guys Being Dudes

Read on Post Culture

The End of the Movie

Despite being a child of the 90s I consider myself a super fan when it comes to 80s movies. Every month my local Alamo Drafthouse movie theater holds viewings for older movies and I always try to make at least once a month. Last month it was Nick Castle’s The Last Starfighter.

The first 80s movie I remember falling in love with was the Spielberg classic Stand by Me. Stand by Me was a coming-of-age story about a group of friends who go in search of a rumored dead body. Along the way they meet a host of characters and challenges that send them on individual journeys of self-discovery.

Even back then I couldn’t help but draw comparisons to another childhood-best-friends coming-of-age movie I’d seen: Now and Then. Now and Then was billed to me as Stand by Me, but for Girls. Instead of a group of boy friends going on an epic journal of self-discovery to find a dead body, the audience was treated to snapshots of summer spent with a group of girls who just wanted to buy a treehouse together and maybe put a disturbed spirit or two to rest, too.

Both films share themes that are integral to all coming-of-age films, most importantly growth and independence. At the end of Now and Then once the girls have secured enough money to buy their treehouse Samantha comments that “The tree house was supposed to bring us more independence. But what the summer actually brought was independence from each other.” The idea is sweet and profound, made even more so by the opening reunion between the friends, now all grown-up, and the promise they make to each other at the end to visit together more often.

The end of Stand by Me is noticeably different. After our brave heroes overcome trials and the perils of pubertal self-discovery and find the dead body, the adventure, and summer, are over. A flashforward narrated by Gordie tells us that the boys drifted apart with age. Teddy and Vern became passing figures in Gordie’s life. He remained close with Chris through college until he went off to university—then died breaking up a fight at a restaurant. This prompts Gordie to write the famously heartstring-pulling line: “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve.”

I remember casually asking my dad at the end of Now and Then why the boys didn’t stay together like the girls. His response? “They’re boys.” Like that explained everything. At the time, it actually kind of did. There was a reason the men in the movies I saw didn’t hug or talk about their feelings like the women did. In fact, attempts at intimacy or emotional connection between male characters were either played for laughs or shown as a cautionary tale.

“They’re boys” was the simple answer to a complex problem, but like most moviegoers, I was content to leave it at that.

But now that I’m older I have to ask why? Why are boys expected to sever ties with the people they care about when they grow older? What kind of Wormer Brothers-level havoc does puberty wreak on boys that it seemingly spares girls?

The answer is a lot less mystical than dead bodies or resurrected spirit.

Dude, Where’s My Emotional Intimacy?

Gordie’s line about never having friends like the ones he had when he was twelve isn’t isolated fiction. Boys tend to form closer bonds with other boys in childhood and almost seem to “lose” the ability to later. Sociologist Lisa Wade theorizes that around the ages of fifteen and sixteen teenage boys start learning what it means to “be a real man,” and the feminine-coded traits of friendship do not fall into that ideal.

In her book Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection psychologist Niobe Way followed boys of varying ages over four years to chronicle their views on friendship. Wade highlights a particularly devastating part of her research in which a 15-year-old boy named Justin was asked to describe his feelings towards his best friend at two different parts of his life:

[My best friend and I] love each other… that’s it… you have this thing that is deep, so deep, it’s within you, you can’t explain it. It’s just a thing that you know that person is that person… I guess in life, sometimes two people can really, really understand each other and really have a trust, respect and love for each other.

By his senior year, however, this is what he had to say about friendship:

[My friend and I] we mostly joke around. It’s not like really anything serious or whatever… I don’t talk to nobody about serious stuff… I don’t talk to nobody. I don’t share my feelings really. Not that kind of person or whatever… It’s just something that I don’t do.

Niobe’s interviews with boys are both eye-opening and heartbreaking. At one point she interviewed a freshman named Jason who touted the merits of friendship as having someone to turn to. Three years later she asked Jason if he had any close friends and he “said no and immediately [added] that while he nothing against gay people, he himself [was] not gay.”

Despite popular belief, men actually desire (and need) emotional intimacy just as much as women do. In fact, not having those emotional connections contribute greatly to men’s health problems.

So if men want it, and the lack of it might actually kill them, why can’t they have it?

Heterosexual men are taught that the romantic and sexual relationships they have with women are the only acceptable source of intimacy and closeness they’re allowed to have. That’s often why straight men feel the need to caveat any positive, slightly friendly interaction with another male with “No homo.” Popular belief is that if a guy is showing affection to a person he must want to date or have sex with that person. Hence the word bromance. Know what the female equivalent of a bromance is? A friendship.

Friendship between men is such a delicate walk between ‘just-guys-being-dudes’ and ‘full-on-homo’ that its become almost regulated. Telegraph’s Chris Moss posted a handy guide titled “A fine bromance: the 12 rules of male friendship” that featured such ‘rules’ as this:

Never openly verbalise that you value the friendship. Most men avoid literalness. There’s something vulgar about declaring “how important you are to me”. But there is also a kind of mysticism in never quite affirming that this might just be the second, or even the, central love in your life. Sometimes stating the obvious makes the obvious deteriorate or vanish. So respect the given; you can always weep openly at a friend’s funeral.

Even with the wink-wink-nudge-nudge aspect, it is still depressing to think that men have to edit their feelings in an effort to not make the people they care about uncomfortable. The other day on Twitter a virtual (female) stranger told me she loved me. In line at the checkout at Walgreens, I overheard a man say to his (male) companion “That’s a nice shirt, man. No homo.”

The restrictive range of what’s considered “acceptable” emotions men are allowed to feel are just some of the ways the patriarchy takes a toll on men, and it has real-life harmful effects. Misogyny and homophobia are core driving factors to this epidemic, and what’s worse is that it’s become normalized. One way society is both chronicles and reinforces these unwritten rules of masculinity? Movies.

It’s important to remember that things haven’t always been this way for men. Silver screen blockbusters show us that at some point in time a fella could hug another fella after a shootout without  anyone feeling the need to qualify it with a “No homo.”

So where did it all begin to turn?

Blow Your Wig

Because platonic intimacy between men wasn’t vilified in early years, depictions of strong bonds between men were actively depicted in cinema. In fact, the first same-sex kiss on screen in the 1927 silent film Wings was an entirely platonic kiss between two male infantrymen (Buddy Rogers and Richard Arlen).

Audiences didn’t so much as bat an eye at the kiss. It went on to become a critical success and won the first ever Academy Award for Best Picture.

Another early 20th-century film that highlighted male friendships was the bad boy classic Rebel Without a Cause (1955). Let’s be honest here for a second, folks: James Dean wasn’t that great of an actor, he was just handsome (don’t @ me). That mug put butts in the seats for his performance as Jim Stark, the film’s troubled teenage protagonist just trying to make it. Aside from James Dean’s bad boy good looks the most memorable aspect of the film is Jim’s friendship with even more troubled outcast Plato (Sal Mineo). Jim’s feelings toward Plato take on a paternal tone, helping them both make up for something they lack. For Plato, it’s a stable, loving family. For Jim, it’s a sense of what it means to be a real man. Unusual as their dynamic was people were touched by love and care they shared. That’s further complicated when you look a little harder, but that’s a conversation for another time.

What’s Your Damage?

The 1980s and 1990s gave rise to the timeless buddies trope. Buddy comedies were defined by their “odd couple” approach to hyper-masculine films. Movies like 1988’s Midnight Run took the tried and true formula and flips it on its head, but still stays true to the hyper-masculine-odd-couple trope.

The most popular of this genre is the buddy cop film. The Lethal Weapon franchise (1987) is often credited with starting the movement in films, and sure enough, helped define other films in the genre. You take one by-the-book veteran cop, mix in a younger, more hair-trigger partner, throw in a few explosions and shootouts for maximum masculinity, and bam, you’ve got yourself a buddy cop film.

Because the men themselves were in a profession defined by its hard-shelled masculine nature the characters were allowed—in small doses—a degree of intimacy between one another. You wouldn’t catch Martin cathartically kissing Robert Thelma & Louise-style after one of their many near-death experiences, but the average heterosexual man wouldn’t feel too weirded out over an affectionate clap on the back or mildly fond poses in marketing materials.

The late 80s and early 90s also gave birth to a peculiar kind of cinematic take on male friendships I like to call Feelings Are Gay and Bad.

Unlike the buddy movies of the same decade, these films wielded homoeroticism like an Aesop’s Fable in 35mm. Rather than depict male friendships as the begrudged act of two hardened, red-blooded American males, these films opted to show brutal, all-consuming homoerotic unholy unions that eventually came to screeching—and often deadly—halt. A character who placed his love and care with another man would come to rue it by the film’s end or would learn a valuable lesson about vulnerability.

In Reservoir Dogs the audience watches as Mr. White lovingly cradles a wounded and terrified Mr. Orange in his arms. In between horrifying, blood-soaked scenes in the present we’re privy to Mr. Orange’s secret: he’s an undercover cop working to bust White’s crime ring from the inside. Blissfully ignorant, White soothes and protects him. He even goes so far as to pull a gun on the man in charge for threatening to kill him. After the infamous Mexican stand-off, White crawls over to Orange’s body as the police close in, only to be told Orange is actually a cop. The movie closes in on White’s anguish as the police surround them.

Kathryn Bigelow’s  Point Break (1991) introduced the world to Special Agent Johnny Utah (birth name Heterosexual McManlyman), former football star and current by-the-book FBI agent who goes undercover in a group of adrenaline junkie surfers and becomes dude-smitten with their charismatic leader, Bodhi. The explosions, killer surfing scenes, and the fact that Special Agent Johnny Utahis a former Rose-bowl winner and current gun-wielding badass makes it okay for male audience members to laugh at lines like “We gonna jump or jerk off?”

Nick Schager of The Daily Beast referred to Point Break as “A Homoerotic Classic.” Whether Point Break is a cautionary tale about getting too close or an intentionally subversive homoerotic film a female director remains a hotly contested.

The film adaption of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire (1994) and David Fincher’s take on the Chuck Palahniuk classic Fight Club (1996) both use their source materials’ explicit homoeroticism to make the story darker and grittier. In Fight Club’s case, this was used in conjunction with what many feminists consider a critique of hypermasculinity, made with the intent to draw straight men to watch and leave rattled. For Interview with the Vampire, while Anne Rice’s intent was clear, some parts had to be altered considerably for consumption.

During this decade films of this kind also started to utilize the Deranged Homosexual trope. Poor, unfortunate heterosexual men would offer their friendship and find themselves in the grips another, obsessed and subtextually sexual man. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), another novel-to-film adaptation, takes the time to build up the dynamic between Tom and Dickie from budding friendship to growing obsession until Dickie’s ultimate death at Tom’s hands.

The 80s and 90s weren’t the purgatories of male friendships, though. For every Cable Guy(1996) there was a Sandlot (1993) after all. Still, the trend in media portrayals of male intimacy in films during this era set a particular tone that went virtually unchallenged until the following decade.

Isn’t It Bromantic?

The 2000s were the start of the “exclusively comedy” buddy films. In contrast with buddy films of the 80s that were action films that sometimes featured comedy, the male friendship movies of the 2000s were comedies that sometimes featured action.

The 2000s also saw a rise in the use of the term bromance or bromantic comedy to describe close male friendships. Even the word bromance evokes a mocking callback to romance, self-deprecatingly lampshading the connotations of two men being emotionally intimate. ‘Bromance’ takes the idea that men are emotionally illiterate and incapable of showing care without sexual or romantic inclinations and applies it homosocial relationships. In other words, the word ‘bromance’ pretty much plays itself. So started the attempt to strike a balance between “Fuck yeah, friendship!” and dudebro-ish mocking.

And mock they did. It was as if the homosocially-propelled films of this decade were constantly at war with their desire to show the close bonds men can foster with each other, and their need to assure the men watching it that yes, they know how “gay” the idea sounds.

I call this the “No Homo!™” movement.

When The 40-Year-Old Virgin premiered in 2005 it marketed itself as a raunchy, stupid, over-the-top sex comedy for men. Steve Carell plays Andy Stitzer, the eponymous forty-year-old virgin. After it’s revealed to his friends that he’s never had sex he’s put on a quest to lose his virginity as quickly as possible. This devolves into a series of cheap laughs, dubious sexual situations and, of course, rampant transphobia and homophobia.

The movie focuses on Andy’s quest (spoiler alert: the real loss of virginity was the self-discovery he had along the way!) but the B-plot belongs to two of his friends/bullies: Seth Rogen’s Cal and Paul Rudd’s David. The two spend most of the money bickering and insulting each other by making jabs at who’s “gayest” (“You wanna know how I know you’re gay? You like Coldplay.”) The jokes are cheap and unfunny but are sure-fire ways to get a chuckle out of your standard insecure bro-type.

At the end of the film after Jay apologizes to Andy for pressuring him into losing his virginity the two hug and embrace. In a call back to Cal and David’s game Haziz, their manage, comments snidely:

Haziz: Do you know how I know you guys are gay? You’re holding each other ever so gently.

This allows the film to reassure the audience that despite the lovey-dovey shit that’s just happened this is still a dude film.

Some praised The 40-Year-Old Virgin for “deconstructing the bromance formula,” but when compared to other films in its decade we can see its done nothing of the sort.

After the commercial success of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, we were treated to another Apatow-Rogen bromance film with Superbad (2007). Superbad brought Jonah Hill and Michael Cera together as Seth and Evan (named after writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg), two high school seniors desperate to lose their virginity before college. Despite the classic pitfalls—Seth Rogen himself later said jokes in the movie were “blatantly homophobic”—the movie handled the friendship between Seth and Evan with surprising care. During a quiet scene, Seth (drunkenly) confronts Evan about rooming with their mutual friend in college. Evan apologizes and admits he’s afraid to live alone. The two make up and say they love each other, then wonder aloud why they’ve never said they loved each other before.

Evan: I love you. It’s like, why can’t we say that every day? Why can’t we say it more often?

Seth: I just love you. I just wanna go on the rooftops and scream “I love my best friend Evan.”

Sure, they’re drunk and it’s comedic, but the comedy is more about their drunkenness than their love for each other.

At the end of the film the two friends meet up with their respective love interests at a mall and go their separate ways. This reminded me of the end of Stand by Me (and that is the first and last time you’ll hear me compare Stephen King and Rob Reiner to Seth Rogen and Greg Mottola): boys with a fierce bond drifting apart as evidence of their maturity and growth. As if the moment they spent telling each other they loved one another the night before was meaningless.

Seth Rogen, you sonofabitch.

Riding off the rise of Seth Rogen’s bromance comedies came I Love You, Man (2009) which tried to brand itself as the “bromance” movie. The movie set out to answer one question: Why don’t men have friends? The answer was a resounding “Uhhh?”

Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd) goes in search of a best guy friend after realizing he has no one to be his best man at his upcoming wedding. After going on a misfortune of “friend dates” he runs into and befriends smooth con man Sydney Fife (Jason Segal). I Love You, Man starts off as Feelings Are Gay and Bad and ends up a lukewarm reunion that skirts clumsily around the subject of real emotion like Jason Segal on a moped.

The only reason I rip on I Love You, Man is because it truly could have been groundbreaking. At the time it was considered groundbreaking because for once the premise of the movie was about male friendship. Not friendship plus virginity and booze, just friendship. It went even further to prove its progressive cred by introducing Paul’s But-Not-Too-Gay brother Robbie (Andy Samberg) as a shining example of sports-and-meat-loving masculinity. Still, despite its failure to truly commit, I Love You, Man managed to make a bromance film that didn’t rely heavily on sex and slapstick to validate itself as a “guy’s” movie.

Other notable bromance films of this decade like Dude, Where’s My Car? (2000), Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle (2004), and The Hangover (2009) also used similar tactics of highlighting friendship and neutralizing the discomfort of seeing intimate male friendships via homophobic language, slapstick comedy, objectification, and more. The self-deprecating overcompensation that defined the movies of his decade was a reflection and reinforcer of America’s evolving feelings towards male intimacy. It was no longer “Don’t be intimate with your male friends” but “Don’t be too intimate with your male friends.”

Men Have Feelings, Too (And That’s Okay)

Things began to subtly shift for bromance movies in the 2010s. Slapstick and Seth Rogen still reign supreme, but now there was a softer and more forgiving edge to it all. Conversations on hypermasculinity and homophobia were propelled into the mainstream to start a national dialogue. The idea of what it means to be a man and what masculinity really means started to change as did their portrayals in film.

“Your average dudebro” is the very demographic that needs to see these kinds of relationships normalized in the first place.

You could argue that Seth Rogen is the kind of bro comedies. He’s produced such nerdboy-testosterone, weed-filled slapsticks as Pineapple Express, Superbad, This is the End, and Game Over, Man! Whether as an actor, director, producer, or writer, Seth Rogen’s name has become synonymous with the kind of obnoxious bro-rock marketing execs don’t even consider women a demographic for.

But I would argue that much of the normalization of intimate male friendships comes from your average Seth Rogen film. Most of the time these are “dumb fun” comedies. That’s not to say other films by other people don’t portray male friendships just as well, but while movies like Magic Mike XXL (2015) are heartwarming examples of the kind of power platonic male intimacy can have they’re not as likely to be watched by your average dudebro. “Your average dudebro” is the very demographic that needs to see these kinds of relationships normalized in the first place.

The 2011 comedy-drama 50/50 cast Seth Rogen as Kyle Hirons, a man watching his best friend Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) undergo chemotherapy. Even though he doesn’t possess the necessary bedside manner he plants himself as Adam’s rock (and wingman) through his treatment. When Adam’s girlfriend cheats on him he angrily confronts her to defend his honor.

The film is at times tone-deaf and crude as any movie starring Seth Rogen and directed by Jonathan Levine is wont to be, but the message at its core is sweet and powerful.

In the controversial Netflix film The Interview (2014), Seth Rogen balances crude humor and James Franco-ness with an almost careful tenderness between the two male leads. During the penultimate scene where Dave and Aaron are preparing to walk to their deaths in order to save North Korea, the two share a quiet, intimate moment together discussing Dave’s hypothetical biography.

Dave: As the two best friends stared into each other in the eyes, they knew that this might be the end of a long road. But they also knew how much they meant to each other. And even though neither one could say it out loud, they were both thinking…

Aaron and Dave: [whispers] I love you.

What shocked me about this scene wasn’t just that two men had said they loved each other in an action-comedy, it was that the scene was played straight. No jokes, no thrown in “No homo!” It didn’t make up for the rest of the film, but it furthered my appreciation for Seth Rogen.

Another unexpected gem in the same vein are the 21 Jump Street movies, specifically its sequel 22 Jump Street. In 22 Jump Street we’re re-introduced to Jenko and Schmidt, who are assigned to go undercover at a college to find out what student has been dealing the drug WHY-PHY. Jenko gets close to a suspect in the investigation–the popular, athletic Rooster–and starts to blow off Schmidt, much to the latter’s dismay.

While Schmidt does spend a not insignificant portion of the film playing a comical version of a scorned lover for audiences to point and laugh it, you can’t knock 22 for trying to tackle a virtually undiscussed issue in male friendships: jealousy. This is pleasantly resolved near the end of the film with Jenko assures Schmidt that he lifts him up—while they’re dangling from a helicopter, but still.

There are plenty of other films from the 2010s that truly flip the script on your standard movie bromance (Due Date [2010], The Green Hornet [2011], and even This is the End [2013] if you’re in the camp of thinking they did rape jokes the right way) but I’d like to wrap up with one that’s dear to me: Seth Rogen’s Neighbors (2014).

On premise alone Neighbors sounds like your run-of-the-mill ignorant bro comedy. Mac and Kelly Radner (Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne) get into a prank war with the Delta Psi Beta fraternity that’s moved next door, headed by Teddy (Zac Efron) and Pete (Dave Franco). The humor is slapstick and borders on gross at times but is absent the casual bigotry that early Rogen/Goldberg films weren’t shy about including. Of note is Pete and Teddy’s relationship. It’s revealed that Pete slept with Teddy’s girlfriend, and even though this causes bad blood between the two Teddy still sacrifices himself when the police show up to spare Pete’s bright future.

Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (2016), though, by far takes the cake for the best of the two. It opens on the old Delta Psi brothers assisting Pete’s boyfriend Darren in a Jason Mraz-inspired proposal. Having peaked in college, Teddy lives on Pete and his boyfriend’s couch. This comes to an end after the proposal and the two friends having a falling out, prompting Teddy to leave in search of a place to feel wanted. When crashing with the Radners doesn’t work out he moves on to a struggling sorority.

The decision to make Pete bisexual (or gay) was a conscious one suggested by writer Evan Goldberg and reporter asking director Nicholas Stoller why he’s never had gay characters in his films.

At the end of the film, Teddy and Pete make up in time for Teddy to plan and be the best man at his wedding. Before walking Pete down the aisle Teddy stops to give him a pep talk:

Teddy: You all right? You seem really nervous.

Pete: I’m having a little bit of a meltdown.

Teddy: Just remember, man, Darren loves you more than anyone in the entire world- Darren cherishes his friendship with you. Darren can’t imagine his life without you. And Darren is proud to call you his best friend.

Pete: You’re not talking about Darren, are you?

Teddy: No, not really.

The humor stays intact and without the expense of losing intimacy. Teddy is even allowed to tear up with pride and happiness for his best friend in full view of the camera before the scene is over.

And you still get a poop joke.

A movie that utilizes Seth Rogen, Zac Efron, and Dave Franco and a plethora and copy-and-paste frat bros to chastise against using misogynistic slurs (“Don’t call them hoes. That’s not cool anymore.”) and normalize gay love is a feat in and of itself. You could argue that the movie tries a little too hard to seem progressive and open-minded (at one point Teddy helps the sorority throw a Feminist Icon Party that features three different Hillary Clinton costumes) but the effort is genuine and appreciated. The film doesn’t equate masculinity with misogyny and homophobia. It allows their funny frat bros to show vulnerability and care for one another in a way that promotes laughter but doesn’t mock.

The expected bro humor isn’t sacrificed in favor of these progressive elements either. There are women in bikinis, babies holding sex toys, and unnecessary dick and poop comedy. All the elements that define a sleazy bro comedy but without the sleaze.

These movies are important to show that men being vulnerable and caring about one another doesn’t have to be something shameful, or something that comes with rules, or something that should be laughed at. Looking back on the up-and-down progression of these portrayals is at times hilarious, but are mostly sobering and sad. We should promote and support portrayals intimate male friendships in media to normalize the concept of platonic male intimacy.

So, straight men, go. Re-watch Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle or The Shawshank Redemption and consider telling a friend they’re important to you. You might never have friends like the ones you had when you were twelve but it’s never too late to find that kind of bond again.