#people. existing. aging. being queer

[batwynn]

Listen. The moment you get an older than 45 queer romance going in media I’m thrilled and I just don’t gaf if it’s sad, ‘Bad Rep’, light and happy, plot B, not ‘serious enough’, ‘too serious’, Can’t Happen Because One of Them Only is in Love With the Other Inside a Mind Split Work Place, Not Safe For Work, etc. I don’t care. I want it to exist and I will thoroughly enjoy it.

I grew up hearing about all the friends my mom lost in the queer community. I grew up knowing that those people would never have a romance that aged with their bodies. That they’d never have these kinds of stories. That the people who did survive still face hatred and violence just for holding hands in public even after living through this shit for so many years. So, yeah. I want to see the older queer couples in love, ok? I don’t care if it’s not the Young People Aesthetic or ‘Good Representation’ or wtfever. I just don’t care. They deserve to age, and love, and be messy, and be real people, and have stories told about it.

#lgbtq+ #queer community #SAGE #queer elders #severance #mention #anyway support your queer elders and their stories #we are lucky to have those stories #we are so lucky they can be shown and shared #we are LUCKY #shout out to #fellow travelers #Our Flag Means Death #as well #just you know #people. existing. aging. being queer #tw: death #aids crisis #my brain farted out and I can’t think of the others I wanted to tag #but hey tag your favorite not 20 something queer couple #any media #go for it

[queerstudiesnatural]

seeing teenage gays out and about, holding hands and laughing and everything is SO healing. each new sighting puts a new bandaid on my inner queer child

#when i was in middle school gay was still a widely accepted slur and i didn't know a single out queer #when i was in high school i was in a privileged environment in the sense that it was a multicultural school that really put the emphasis #on tolerance #so i wasn't bullied for being queer but i was so terrified of it anyway that it took me ages to come out to myself #because my whole life i'd been taught (and by taught i mean no one talked about it but that was the underlying message) #that gay wasn't okay and that it was something that only happened to very few unlucky people #when i got my first crush on a girl (it took me months to even acknowledge that i liked her) i remember thinking #why me #i was already disabled and i was like why do i keep drawing the short straw #why do these things that only happen to some people here and there keep happening to me #now i know that being queer is a blessing but back then i felt cursed #and discussions of gender were non existent i wasn't even thinking about that #so anyway. it just warms my heart so much that only 10-15 years later kids in middle school and high school are able to express themselves #freely #and be joyful and carefree in their queerness #it makes me so emotional #rain.stuff

[ofpd]

it's very funny whenever i see ppl talk about les mis as an old fixation from years ago when they were younger bc like this just happened to me in 2023 when i was 20 years old. in some ways being into les mis as a kid/younger teenager is such a specific fun vibe but i cant imagine what it would've been like... like i wouldve been crazier in both correct and incorrect ways

#another thing is that it only recently fully occurred to me that many people have read world aint ready while being the same ages #or younger than the characters #which is crazy to me like one part of that fic that's so compelling is that it gets me reminiscing about high school #and being like i was so crazy in high school. these people are so crazy. that's how it is #like it's so endearing #txt #ok not to go off on a tags tangent but #i didnt go to prom my junior year bc no one cared about prom #and i didnt go my senior year bc covid #so one thing about war to me is that i have to suspend my disbelief about prom being a big deal. but that's ok #however i DID go to queer prom junior year. another thing i have to suspend my disbelief about with war is homophobia existing #like my high school had a queer prom.. #i got my bestie who i went to hs with to read war and she had the same commentary

[wild-at-mind]

Had a really stupid conversation via minor emotional breakdown with a queer friend about what makes an LGBTQ person 'assimilist'. From what she said I'm kind of forced to draw the conclusion 'if you say you're not assimilist, then you're not'.

#i love her but none of it makes any sense to me #i think i really just wanted her to see that this kind of rhetoric is no good if you're fundamentally unable to see yourself as having valu #to a community- which is where i'm still at sometimes unfortunately. #i would say that i may not be the only one since mental illness + self esteem issues + being lgbtq are not exactly unlinked #but i have basically never found anyone else who has my particular hangups...maybe online once ages ago #so in my own mind i'm the most assimilist lgbtq who ever existed- not even worthy to call myself queer #and it's nice that she thinks i am not like that and in fact am 'one of the good ones' #who is not assimilist- look i know that 'one of the good ones' usually means the opposite ok i know! it's just an impression i get #she's like telling me obviously i'm all good because i look like i do but all i can hear is #that if i didn't look like this then i'm an assimilist #i fucking hate my brain honestly no one asked me to have a mental breakdown at their house (thank god i didn't cry) #and then go home and that's when i cry because i saw a trans guy's 'this many years on t' post and i felt like shit because #i haven't done anything about transitioning in ages and i'm not even out at work :'( #like i know i'm an assimilist because my main reason for not coming out at work is not wanting to do the beaurocracy #of changing my name on my email and every fucking log in i have on everything- telling every single person i interact with #i just can't it's too much and my line manager is worse than useless #but i have 'my job is computer and doing emails all day' privilege so i don't like to talk to people about it

[uncanny-tranny]

I saw a post about an elderly lady who came out for the first time as gay and 😭😭😭

I'm so immensely happy when I see stuff like that. Old queer people exist - even if you don't know it. We have so much to learn and love about our (literal) queer elders, and I hope they know that as a young queer, they give me hope.

#gay #lesbian #bi #bisexual #trans #transgender #lgbt #lgbtq #ftm #mtf #nonbinary #queer #AND THE VIDEO WHERE THAT OLDER MAN WENT ON TESTOSTERONE 😭😭😭😭😭 #i don't have the video on-hand but i saw this trans guy who went on t and he's like... 54?? and he's like 'yeah it was worth it' and hhhh #why fear growing old when these people exist? #and i saw a trans woman say how she went on e at a much older age and she was so happy for the changes 😭😭😭😭 #i imagine there could be a sense of lost youth or lost life of not being out at a younger age... #...but at the same time. it's a blessing they are with us. it is a blessing they shared who they were and are

[crazypossumman]

There is something incredibly charming about the bitchy-older-man-who-hates-kids-develops-a-meaningful-healthy-relationship-with-a-parentless-child trope. Especially in a world where nearly every movie/novel/whatever has to have a romantic plot/subplot when there are a plethora of other options. It’s a trope that carries great weights of love, caring, and understanding without being romantic; it expresses a different kind of love that is equally important in this world. To open your heart to a child and become the friend or parental figure they not only need but deserve is such a beautiful thing, and to watch a child help an adult learn something new about the world and the way they see it is a constant reminder that people will always have room to grow and change. To see an adult learn as much from a child as the child learns from them, sometimes even more so, is the reminder that so many people need that wisdom often comes in the form of a fresh perspective.

#anyway i finally watched nimona #and what a cute little movie #yes im aware that shes a 1000+ year old creature of some sort and not exactly a child but you get my point #i'd assume that the reason she takes a younger form instinctually is that she is close to her species' equivalent in developmental age #explaining why she has a younger child form 1000ish years ago and a more teenager-esc form in the present #meaning her kind likely just ages much much slower #unless the child form is meant to be more “accepted” as children are seen as nonthreatening and that was a time she wanted to belong #and the teenage form is meant to scare others away because teenagers often don't fit in or conform to societal norms #explaining the punk aesthetic as well #but that's just my interpretation #anyway it reminds me of the no-we-are-not-getting-a-cat dad memes where they fall in love with the cat #it’s hilarious and beautiful #also by GODS did that movie do the gays justice #queer characters #and never once was sexuality mentioned #it just existed without being a big deal #fantasy worlds with no homophobia are the best fantasy worlds #and it touched on some very heavy topics like depression and suicidal ideation in a way that was serious and thoughtful #but easy for younger audiences to understand #which is so so important in a world where we want younger people to feel understood #and to feel as if they can actually talk to others about their problems #roan rambles #random #nimona #nimona movie #i have a lot of opinions and they don't all fit in the tags whoops lol

[lavendorii]

like. the problem is cognitive dissonance. young queer folk can say they think reclaiming slurs is fine all they want but more often than not they lose it when people identify as a fag or a dyke or literally whatever. I just think activism and community shouldn't be conditional

#like even a terrible trans person deseves the basic human decency of not being discriminated against or not being misgendered #it feels like with this age of internet poisoned gen z kids on tiktok and whatnot support has become so much. less. #like constant caveats of ''i support fellow queer people until they do something bad'' then ''i support fellow queer people until they're #unreasonable'' to ''i only support lgbt people when their identities make sense to me“ #get over yourself please other peoples existance shouldnt hinge on your own self actualization

[drewsaturday]

you'd think as someone who's knowingly been a lesbian for over 10 years i would've watched more than like, 4 lesbian movies by now, since there were more than a handful to choose from by that point and waaaaaaaaaaay more now.

and part of me thinks i should make it a new years resolution to watch more sapphic movies to experience the culture tm and feel those feelings.

but i also want to just go rewatch loving annabelle and call it a day.

#txt #like obviously representation was very important to me! and it still is! #but i think bc my baby gay journey began right when we started getting this explosion of rep... #rep almost got tainted for me bc i was on tumblr and it was this whole thing about You Need To Watch This Or You're Homophobic #or nitpicking everything slightly wrong with problematic representation etc and it became more of a chore #i appreciate representation i don't expect most i think. like k0rrasami happening? #instead of getting dragged into the show with the promise of rep it just... unfolded in something i was already interested in #i think representation has sorta unfolded in weird ways as well over the years since it's now profitable to queerbait and that #impacts how enjoyable/well written a thing is - see: why i love 90's subtext most bc of the authenticity of it #and i like to think maybe movies aren't as impacted by that when the focus is actually queer shit vs. shows needing to pull #people in for the long-term but idk. it's genuinely not something i've seen enough queer films to have a good idea of j;lksdkfj #i just want like. fun plots that happen to be gay and i think that desire kinda extinguishes the need to consume every piece #of queer media in existence even though i did very much have that pull at the start naturally #but of course. tumblr kinda ruined that for me at the time so now i'm 10 years in the future chilling surrounded by queer people #not having that sense of feeling alone and needing More #and i think it could be healing to check out those films (as Choice as they may be) but it's not a Need if that makes sense #ohhh and while i do get a hit of meaning from seeing any kind of lesbian rep bc the normalization etc #i just don't rly feel Seen in non age gap stuff? so that limits the amt of films that check all the boxes for me as opposed to #just being a 'normal' lesbian and most films automatically being a full course meal for u #so it almost feels like too much effort aj;lksldkjf #anyway. im grateful we're here now and we have so much i just have a complicated relationship with it all #and i wanna be able to just turn that off and try checking out lesbian films now that we do have so much #bc although i don't Need it necessarily it would be nice to actually explore now that i've ditched some of the toxic tumblr mindsets #(which also i now remember included being called problematic for watching the understandably problematic rep that came years before #which probs also explains why i stayed away so long from the old AND i was too poor/ill to go to theatres for the new) #so uhhh recs welcome? regardless of if there's age gaps or not lmao aj;klsdf #specifically for films not tv shows. ive fought that fight too long.

[the-one-and-only-aroace]

It makes me so jealous when people talk about knowing queer people like I can’t even imagine

#I live in the freaking bible belt #they don’t spout any queerphopbic stuff #but that’s just cuz no one talks about it #a lot of people my age know it from the internet #but like what they say is homophobic #cuz being queer is such an alien concept #that they don’t really view them as people #cuz you can call literally anything anyone does gay #and who’s that gonna hurt #no one #or that’s what they think cuz no queer people are just gonna out themselves #but like queer people existing in real life is such a foreign concept #and then people talk about things like just knowing queer people #like your cousin is bi #actually mine might be #I think one of my cousins is queer #but that could also just be dark humor #which I think it isn’t #so I know one sapphic #but that’s it #and she like me has only learned about sexuality from the internet #I’m pretty sure but we don’t talk anymore #like people can’t just do that where I live #there are two girls in all my classes that have masc haircuts #by which I mean #those that aren’t long enough to possibly be even all the way around #and no boys have hair longer than the shoulders #cis heteronormativity reigns supreme in my life #just southern things #this is the 30th tag

[mechieonu]

not to be bitter on main haha but can you imagine how disheartening it must be to have people clamour for more queer-authored media made by gays for gays and the second it exists there's immediate loud community wide pushback that goes "but not like that!!"

#*prying open window with a crowbar to scream into the night* there is no one-size-fits-all for '''good''' queer rep! there isn't! #some of y'all live under the impression that you will like all queer content by virtue of being queer #and instead of realizing thats impossible expectation you blame it on the author!! #some queer content is deeply personal! some queer content isn't! #but it wil never ever EVER exist to solely create depictions of people that only you will like #this is why i hate the concept of 'normal gay' kill it with fire!!! #i hate that palatability-to-straight-people has become a marker as for whether or not rep is 'good enough' #not every piece of queer media is going to be some poignant coming of age number one movie in america #and honestly i'd hate if that were the case! i want cheesy cringy shit! i want stupid romances! i want bad cgi! #i want everything the hets get to have w/o question and i'm sick of the ten million hoops queer people have to go through #hoops created by their OWN community #just to make stuff #tldr: this is abt qforce #& every time i see ppl on twt gatekeeping queer media for nonsensical reasons i realize we're never making it out of the closet #nonsensical tag rant over

[kdottp]

Little rant cause I had a rant similar to this in my dream I just woke up from and I wanna get it off my chest. I know the likely hood of stobotnik being cannon in movies is slim cause it’s a kids movie and that makes me so fucking upset. I wish I had queer representation in kids movies as a child it would have helped me understand and accept myself so much sooner. Queer rep doesn’t “turn kids gay” just like shoving straight media down kids throats doesn’t make them straight. Example 1: my bisexual ass

#I’ve seen so many headcanons about stone being trans do you know how amazing that would be to see? #know it will never happen but imagine #queer rep isn’t just gay men kissing too where are the wlw & non binary & age etc people #this isn’t aimed at sonic directly just kids movies in general cause queer children exist!

[ur-friendly-nbhd-cardassian]

Is it just my bi ass, or does anyone else think every aggressively straight person is secretly just closeted?

#I feel like I was the same #took ages to come out of that #maybe they fight our existence so hard so that they don't have to admit they're not “normal” themselves #kind of extending the self-chastising to other people #and I get it #I really get it #it's not easy if you grew up being told the only way to be is to be straight #especially for bi people #you feel the attraction but you find excuses #“I'm really straight! I love men. I just think women are neat.” #if you admit other people can be gay and bi and ace and... #you're admitting that you might be too #and that's just hella scary #so you put up a fight to protect your own scared little self #not everyone is brave enough to fight this #and I really mean the aggressive straights #if you're an ally you've probably thought of your own sexuality with enough honesty to know you're not queer yourself #(I came out - to myself - shortly before hitting 30y and I'm still far from comfortable)

[wild-at-mind]

If you ever see me becoming one of those transmisandry people, please fucking call me out immediately.

#it shouldn't happen though i am too triggered by MRA-lite material #i can't see that changing any time soon even though i haven't had exposure to the content for like 10 years #the transmisandry discourse on this site melts my brain it's awful it's just online stuff being argued about more online stuff #this is not the same as me saying i will never be treated badly for being transmasc i am not stupid i know that happens #and i am fully committed to fighting the patriachy which has nothing whatsoever to do with my individual manhood or anyone else's #it's a system and yes gender and how we fit into the patriachy is made extremely complicated in trans circles and that's ok! #i promise it is you don't have to design a new system that cis women and trans women are using to do oppression on specifically trans mascs #we're all being fucked over by the patriachy and how the fuck does it help to be divided #but in reality let's face it i can say this all i want but the real reason i'm never going anywhere near being a transmisandry person #is because i was exposing myself to MRA-lite content at a formative age and harming myself in the process #even if i didn't know i was a trans man guess what it would have harmed me just as much if i did have that awareness #and honestly when i see transmisandry discourse all i see is that fucking triggering stuff again #all it does is nitpick whether patriachy is real with tiny examples it doesn't talk systemicly and it doesn't help men in the slightest #it pays lipservice to marginised men but it has no interest in talking about the fact that men are usually simultaenously #oppressed and oppressor at the same time- this is not accusatory it is just factual #it's true of the queer community too and basically every community #but we can't seem to talk about it without just harming each other and blaming and not seeing each other as human #the internet makes it all so much fucking worse this stuff can't exist without it #anyway i'm super rambling but these are genuinely very triggering topics for me i have unfollowed people i LOVE becuase of this #and i still love them! unfollowing on a social media isn't a referendum on that i just can't see that stuff and i need it gone from my dash

[vaspider]

I gotta tell y'all, it's really fucking depressing and stark being a small business in the age of 'all brands are equally evil' because of Twitter bullshit and brands trying to migrate to Tumblr or whatever.

If we pay for advertising, we're evil. If we don't pay for advertising, we might as well not exist on the major platforms (or on the web at all). Etsy is a hostile mess of a platform that we outgrew ages ago.

Anyway I guess what I'm saying is y'all say you love indie artists and companies that live the kind of values y'all love, but have like no nuance when you talk about this shit. If you want companies that start their people at $24/hr and make the kind of queer clothing and art y'all say you love to exist, please engage some nuance when talking about small businesses run by indie artists vs fucking megacorps. "Block every brand post!" Yeah, you know who can survive that? The giant brands. You know who immediately starts stressing over making payroll?

Yeah.

If you want little companies run by artists to survive, you need to engage some nuance. Hard on the internet, I know. But it's gotta happen.

[rowenablade]

Okay. I’m going to wait to do a second watch before I articulate most of my other feelings here, but I want to address one thing.

I’m seeing a lot of posts like, “I related to Izzy because I am also queer and older/disabled/depressed. By killing him off, the writers are saying that I deserve to die.”

Guys.

I’m not saying your feelings aren’t valid. I totally understand grieving a character that you relate to. But speaking as a writer, I just want to point out that trying to write with the shadow of “what is the absolute worst and most harmful way a reader can interpret this” will smother your ability to create. Twisting yourself in knots, trying to think up the worst-faith takes possible and scotch-guarding all your writing decisions against them is exhausting to the point of making you just not want to write anymore.

And we’ve seen the writers deliberately choose not to do this in Season 1. Remember all those terrible “Izzy is racist” takes that the writers and cast seemed completely blindsided by? That happened because the writers and directors and actors weren’t going over every scene with a fine tooth comb, ferreting out every shot or line of dialogue or micro expression that could possibly be interpreted as racist, and scrubbing it off. Because there comes a point where your story is what it needs to be, and you have to accept that some people will interpret it in ways you didn’t intend them to. And if you can’t accept that, you’ll never find the courage to put your work out there.

The point of diverse casts and writing teams isn’t to achieve a state of, “Nothing bad ever happens to a character from a marginalized demographic ever again.” It’s to achieve a status quo of these types of characters just being people in the world of the story. Not symbols, not representation boxes to tick, not tokens that you can point to so that you can say, “Here, we acknowledged this type of person exists, now where’s our woke points?”

OFMD is full of characters of color, queer characters, older characters, characters of differing body types. And in stories, things happen to characters. Some fall in love. Some make the same mistakes over and over. Some turn into birds. Some die.

Izzy’s character represents a lot of things, but he does not represent every older, disabled fan or fan who has struggled with suicide, any more than Jim represents all genderqueer fans, or Olu represents all black fans. That’s not how the writers were handling him. They were handling him like a character, because that’s what you have to do.

Again, I understand being sad. I am so, so fucking sad. But this idea of, “Any time something bad happens to a character I relate to means that the writer thinks I deserve these bad things to happen to me,” will poison everything you engage with eventually. Because stories are full of things happening to characters, and they won’t all be good things. And the more representation we get, the more often bad things will happen to characters we relate to.

But good things will happen too.

Queer couples get married. Disabled women run off with their favorite husbands. Middle-aged characters change careers. A multiracial polycule finds a home at sea. A fat man covered in tattoos stars in a drag show and all his friends cheer. All these things happened in the same show as Izzy’s death. This is what this world is.

Anyway. I know emotions are running high and I’ll probably get blocked or unfollowed by a few people for this. But I’m just trying to find my peace where I can, and if anyone else finds this useful, cheers.

#our flag means death #ofmd #ofmd s2 spoilers #izzy hands

[demontobee]

Good Omens is queering TV/storytelling - part 1: GAZE

I would argue that part of why Good Omens is so refreshingly queer is because it does not cater to the male gaze (which centers around the preferences - aesthetic, romantic, sexual, visual, logical, emotional, political ... - of mainly white men in positions of power):

no oversexualization of groups or types of people: Women or characters that could be read as female presenting are not overly sexualized. In fact, some of them are shown to be grimy, slimy and not sexual at all. All of them are real characters and not just cardboard-cutout on-screen versions of male misogynistic fantasies. They portray real people with real people problems. They are human, or exempt from our categories when portraying angels or demons. There are no overly sexualized bodies in general (as has so far also often been the case with young gay men, PoC, etc.), no fetishization of power imbalances, and not exclusively youthful depiction of love and desire.

sex or sexual behavior is not shown directly (yet): All imagery and symbolism of sex and sexuality is used not to entice the audience but is very intimately played out between characters, which makes it almost uncomfortable to watch (e.g., Aziraphale being tempted to eat meat, Crowley watching Aziraphale eat, the whole gun imagery).

flaunting heteronormativity: Throughout GO but especially GO2, there is very little depiction of heterosexual/romantic couples; most couples are very diverse and no one is making a fuss about it. There is no fetishization of bodies or identities. Just people (and angels and demons) being their beautiful selves (or trying to).

age: Even though Neil Gaiman explained that Crowley and Aziraphale are middle-aged because the actors are, I think it is also queering the idea of romance, love and desire existing mainly within youthful contexts. Male gaze has taught us that young people falling and being in love is what we have to want to see, and any depiction of love that involves people being not exactly young anymore is either part of a fetishized power imbalance (often with an older dude using his power to prey on younger folx) or presents us with marital problems, loss of desire, etc. – all with undertones of decay and patronizing sympathy. Here, however, we get a beautifully crafted, slow-burn, and somehow super realistic love story that centers around beings older than time and presenting as humans in their 50s figuring out how to deal with love. It makes them both innocent and experienced, in a way that is refreshing and heartbreaking and unusual and real.

does not (exclusively) center around romantic/sexual love: I don’t know if this is a gaze point exactly but I feel like male gaze and resulting expectations of what a love story should look like are heavily responsible for our preoccupation with romantic/sexual love in fiction – the “boy gets girl” type of story. And even though, technically, GO seems to focus on a romantic love story in the end, it is also possible to read this relationship but also the whole show as centering around a kind of love that goes beyond the narrow confines of our conditioned boxed-in thinking. It seems to depict a love of humanity and the world and the universe and just the ineffability of existence as a whole.

disability as beautiful and innate to existence: Disability is represented amongst angels by the extremely cool Saraqael and by diversely disabled unnamed angels in the Job minisode. Representation of disability is obviously super important in its own right, but is also queers what we perceive as aesthetically and ontologically "normal". Male gaze teaches us that youth and (physical and mental) health are the desirable standard and everything else is to be seen as a deviance, a mistake. By including disability among the angels, beings that have existed before time and space, the show clearly states that disability is a beautiful and innate part of existence.

gender is optional/obsolete: Characters like Crowley, Muriel and others really undermine the (visual and aesthetic) boundaries of gender and the black-and-white thinking about gender that informs male gaze. Characters cannot be identfied simply as (binary) men or women anymore just by looking at them or by interpreting their personalities or behaviors. Most characters in GO, and especially the more genderqueer ones, display a balance of feminine and masculine traits as well as indiosyncracies that dissolve the gender binary.

Feel free to add your own thoughts on this in the comments or tags!

#good omens s2 #good omens #good omens 2 #go2 #good omens meta #ineffable husbands #crowley #aziraphale #queer #queer TV #male gaze #thank you neil gaiman for cranking up the queer #neil gaiman #thank you neil gaiman