#the ableism fucking reeks holy shit

[storm-of-feathers]

I did not just see someone say jaune deserves to be PERMANENTLY DISABLED as a PUNISHMENT for the fact you don't like him

#anti rwde #HOLY ABLEISM BATMAN #teehee jaune deserves to never walk or hold a weapon again uwuuwuwuwu #why do you think being disabled is a punishment. hm. #why do you think jaune needs to be a rerun of yangs arc #which yang learned to find peace and power with herself #but moreover you seem to hate jaune. a lot. #which is fine hate who you hate #but why do you have violent fantasis about ''making'' unable to hold a sword #why do you fantasize about making a character disabled *as a punishment* #bc he kind of annoyed you. #the ableism fucking reeks holy shit

[the-whumping-hour]

Day 1 - Helpless

@febuwhump day 1!!!

CW: Mean caretaker (who is caretaking against his will), said caretaker making whumpee cry, multiple mentions of drug abuse, one mention of broken glass, one mention of broken bones, little hints of classism and ableism, annoyance at whumpee's fidgeting. 

Notes: Top ten men who break the Hippocratic oath by being fucking losers. Happy Febuwhump Day 1!!!! As this challenge continues, I may link related stories together. For those who are new, welcome to the hellscape! 

***

They’re still awake. Of course they’re still awake.

And sure, Seiah may be a medic, clinically certified and all, but hell if it means he can’t be pissed off at Felic Fucking DiMaggio.

“You got percs?” That idiot, the little whiny rat quietly digging a hole into the sofa cushion, hadn’t talked in almost fifteen minutes, which Seiah had hoped meant they’d be falling back into half-sleep soon enough. No such luck.

“No,” he snaps, hazel eyes tinged with streaks of insomnia roll up at them over his laptop. “Forty minutes and you can have more meds. I’m trying to study.”

Back to silence. Or almost— he swear he can hear threads ripping with every quiet tap of Felic’s fingernails against the seam. Just because it’s an old couch doesn’t mean anything. Just because they’re a 'friend' doesn’t mean anything. 

“Do you need a stress ball or something?” He’s trying to be nice. He really is. 

“You got one?” They still sound seconds from crying, or maybe that’s just the city drawl, thick in the back of their nose like they’ll hack it up with a hairball. They sound sick, look sick, they always look sick. Sick when they’re tweaking in meetings and sick now, bits of glass and two fractures in their leg and still they’re acting like they’re using every little scheming wrinkle in their brain to act normal. Not normal; something worse. Someone competent, or well-off, or anything other than a leech tagging along with the Rift Guard to seem like a savior.

And they reek like burning plastic.

He digs through his desk drawer. “Best I’ve got is a box of paperclips.” It leaves his hand with a rattle, a tinny sound that makes Felic twitch their head with a grimace, as the box hits their leg and falls into the cushion divot. They seem to paw it like a cat. “I can check the bedroom, but I need Gabe to rest…” he trails off.

“Nah, ‘s fine, ‘s fine.” They’ve maneuvered into some other horribly contorted position, leg still dangling off the couch like something dead. He hopes they’re content. He swears, if they’re not… but no, now it’s back to his pediatrics assignment, back to… reading this same section, again, and...

Holy fucking shit.

They’re using the paperclips. To pick at the fucking couch.

“No. No, you know what? Screw this.” Maybe it’s that stupid ugly couch, or his own lack of sleep, or how disgustingly pitiful they look in an oversized hoodie and bandages down an entire pale, skinny leg. “Done studying. Not even gonna try. Is that what you wanted? You want my attention? Gonna keep me up another three fucking hours because your tummy hurts when I don’t let you take every pill in this city?”

Maybe he should’ve thought that through more. Maybe, but it’s too late. Sue him. If this bitch wakes up Gabe, if they disrupt the final second of peace anywhere in this world at all—

They’re crying. No, no, no.

Shit, they’re crying.

“Felic.” His whisper-yells get more frantic. “Felic. Felic. Felic, hey, no, Felic, I’m sorry, I didn’t, I’m just tired, we’re all tired, Felic please,” out of his chair and onto the ground in front of them, they’re shaking like a leaf, no sounds but little sob-hiccups as their hands twist and wring themselves in their sleeves. They really are some helpless little thing, a pigeon stuck in a storm drain. “Look at me, look, I’m not mad at you. I’m not mad at you. Calm down, calm down, just, I didn’t even do anything Felic, please just do this for me please…”

A knock at the door. Gabe.

“What’s going on?” His voice is rough with sleep, hair falling in curls over his eyes. And Seiah loves him, he loves him so much, but the look on his face when he sees Felic. As if they deserve it. As if the rat deserves any of this. “Did they have a nightmare?”

“They were never asleep at all, actually, which is—“

The glare Gabe gives him shuts him up quick.

“You need to give them space.” He motions Seiah away, impatient yet calm, locking eyes with the hairball having a breakdown on the couch. 

“No, listen, everything’s fine.”

“Clearly it’s not,” he retorts, still as calm as ever. “Go get some rest, Seiah, I’ve got this.” 

“We need to talk about this later.”

“Yes. Later. Shh,” he motions, and now he’s back to Felic, and it’s like Seiah isn’t here at all. Is this what his fucking job at the Rift Guard is? Keeping the rats on a leash?

Well, there’s no reason to stay here anyways. Seiah rises to his feet, computer abandoned, boyfriend preoccupied with a little bitch. 

Whatever. It’s not even a nice couch anyways.

He shuts the door. 

#febuwhump #febuwhumpday1 #helpless #whump #whump challenge #original writing #mean caretaker #broken bones tw #bad caretaker #substance abuse tw #ableism tw #felic dimaggio #seiah lanelle #gabriel harano

[soysaucevictim]

“I started thinking about human nature...”

Summary: Janus thinks Remus started off on entirely the wrong right foot with him. This is how they became best friends since. (Sanders Sides, Gym Rat AU. One-shot. Ao3 link.)

Genres: Slice of Life, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Tragicomedy, Comedy-Drama, I Don’t Know Man

Characters: Janus and Remus centric. Roman supporting.

Relationships: Dukeceit (platonic), Creativitwins (familial), Pre-Roceit (ambiguous)

Warnings: Injuries/blood, Creativitwin angst, implicit queerphobia, implicit ableism, physical abuse, disownment, chronic illness (psoriasis), Enemies to Best Friends, Remus Being Remus, Remus Is a Little Shit, Trans Masc / Nonbinary Remus, Janus Is A Good Friend, Remus Is A Good Friend, 2e Remus (Twice Exceptional), Protective Roman, Roman Is A Good Brother, Roman Isn’t Having a Good Time, Tonal Whiplash (Seriously)

-

Janus knew Remus since they were in high school. On age difference, they easily might’ve just missed each other – 4 years. But Remus did jump a grade in elementary school, demonstrating a precocious knack for SOME arenas of academics.

He was clearly gifted, especially when it came to things of mechanical nature. But he was also just as clearly troubled. It was a crying shame that most people paid more attention to the latter part. Truly.

So they met, when Janus was a junior and Remus a freshman.

Janus was also partway into the school’s 3+3 DPT program, to speed the process up for him to get to be a physical therapist in a few years out of high school. He had his reasons for that, reasons he’d much rather disclose to very few people.

Other than the market demand, to be sure. It wasn’t because he cared about people, and he’d be obstinate about making that point clear.

-

Remus wasted no time to leave an impression on the student body, in the first month of the school year. Though, at the time, no one knew it was him.

Janus was minding his own business in chemistry class when the school’s sprinkler systems went off. But something was… wrong.

It – it smelled like AXE body spray. Janus thought it was mostly water that went through the pipes, but it was unmistakable and overwhelming. He was caught by surprise like everyone else was, but still attempted to play it cool as he shoved his belongings into the desk to try to salvage them from the deluge.

Mr. Sanders yelped, just as confused as everyone else in the room, “What in the name of-!? I-I guess it’s fire drill time. Let’s go, class. Quickly and calmly.”

-

It turned out the entire first floor of the building was set off and only that floor (this campus had two of them).

The entire floor, positively reeked of the stuff for days. No one was was able to figure out what miscreant was responsible for this. Janus would absolutely leisure in the chaos of the student body and staff smelling like they vaped canisters of body spray. But, you see, Janus’s skin took objection to the whole experience, rather quickly.

At the tail end of middle school, Janus developed a few rashes, probably from stress or perhaps as a result of a strep infection. Which he quickly learned from his family doctor to be psoriasis, which was just fantastic. So, the chemical assault aggravated the already flaring up patches on his face and hands. He could give less of a shit about what other students would say about his appearance, but holy hell did it ITCH.

He was determined to figure out who the hell was responsible, to give him a piece of his mind.

-

Things appeared to go without incident for sometime, nearly a month. Not without Janus warily scanning the classrooms and occasionally the rest of the campus for anyone that just set off any alarm bells.

He finally met eyes with him in the cafeteria. Well, he still didn’t know that at the time.

Just this kid who dressed like a hot mess and rather ambiguously gendered lounging in the corner picking their nose and looking like they were about to doze off. It was as if someone threw a punk, an emo, and a dragster in a blender. Hit frappe, topping it all off with toxic green and black coat of paint. They really stood out, yet no one dared to approached them.

Janus did read some big “FUCK OFF” energy from him. Still, he was curious, “Hey.”

This kid’s attention snapped up pretty quick, with an excessive amount of drama to it, “And who might yooou be?”

Janus decided to withhold his name, just in case, “Dee. You?”

The kid shrugged, boldly going the flirtatious route, “Whatever you want me to be.”

“… I’m not interested in that… right now. You new around here?”

“Maaaybe.”

Janus was sure it was a shot in the dark, but he was getting increasingly agitated with his face, “Were you here during the AXE incident recently?”

The kid perked up suspiciously, “Maybe I was. Maaaybe I wasn’t.”

Janus lightly rubbed the patch on his cheek before pinching his nose in exasperation, “Can you not with this evasive bullshit?”

“Oooh... feisty.”

Perhaps his patience was on the thin side, but Janus felt a building urge to slap this fool. He sighed, “Well. Let’s just say – urg-”

The itching was unbearable at this point and he started to furiously rub his offending hand through his gloves. The kid looked almost concerned, “Uh. You okay?”

Janus lied through his teeth, “I’m fine. But whoever was responsible for that body spray shit certainly won’t be…”

The kid started to crack. Torn between seeming to find pleasure in making Janus squirm and a glint of actual concern. This only made Janus more mad, if he was perfectly honest. Janus just snipped out, “I don’t know what your angle is here, but I will figure it out.”

The kid seemed insulted, placing a hand on their chest, “I have no idea what the fuck your problem is, man. You came to me with the 20 Questions!… heh.”

Janus groaned, unsure of where he should take this, his gut telling him he was looking at the perpetrator of his current bout of absolute suffering. He could only muster turning on his heels and give the kid the “I’m watching you” signal.

The kid just cackled uproariously as they parted ways.

-

Yeah, Janus was certain that kid was responsible. He just knew it.

The two of them shared a pre-calculus class and the kid was just… snoring at their desk, by the time it was almost up. Ms. Crofters didn’t appreciate the insubordination, “SANCHEZ.”

Everyone was already starting to file out of the room, since the bell rang. Morning classes were rough for everyone, but this kid looked exhausted, actually. No, Janus was determined not to pity them. Janus simply watched the exchange play out.

“Sanchez” smacked their lips blearily responding with, a simple “… what?”

The teacher sighed and softened, “You really need to take this more seriously, I know you have so much potential, to be a freshman placed in this class. You just need to-”

They grumbled and rolled their eyes, “Whatever.”

The teacher remained seated, decided she was going nowhere and started to grade some papers in the break in between classes. Sanchez took the cue to stand up with their things and leave. Not before Janus was noticed for staring at the whole situation. Sanchez was surprisingly icy, “You got a problem with me, too?”

“Plead the fifth.”

Janus was now intrigued, sensing they might be a lot sharper than they seemed. Hints at them being more capable of pulling off tampering with the sprinkler system in such a noxious fashion.

-

Janus confronted them in the hallway, fiddling through their locker, “Don’t lie to me, Sanchez.”

Sanchez rolled their eyes, still playing coy, “Whatever do you mean, Dee?”

“I KNOW you fucking did it.”

“Did what?”

“I don’t know, not the surprise assault on the senses, weeks into the year!?”

“… your rash is looking pretty angry.”

“NAH. YOU THINK SO?!”

Sanchez finally began to placate a little, “Okay, I’m… I’m sorry.”

Janus was taken aback, not expecting the apology so easily, “What was that?”

“Hahaha… a few other kids wound up in the hospital thanks to that stunt I pulled. Asthma and shit like that. Almost got in a little bit of hot water.”

Staff still refused to state who perpetrated the mess, maybe this kid was far more brilliant than Janus could imagine.

“I didn’t take you for the kind of person who would give a damn about that sort of stuff.”

Sanchez simply shrugged in response.

Janus found himself staring into Sanchez’s locker, at random parts of electronics and diagrams haphazardly piled into it. “… what’s in there?”

“I dunno. Projects?”

“How helpfully vague.”

“Look, I just like keeping my hands busy, you know, fuck around and find out.”, Sanchez snorted at their own choice of words.

“Why… why did you put AXE in the system, in the first place?”

Sanchez threw up their arms and just said, “I dunno. One moment, it just started off as a ‘you know what would be fucking hilarious’ thought and the next I was going at the preaction sprinkler valve with a wrench, a bunch of cans of Provoke, and a soldering iron.”

“Aaand no part of you went, ‘why don’t we sleep on it’?”

“SLEEP!? Sleep is for the weak, amigo.”

Janus gave them a withering glare, personally greatly appreciating a good snooze himself, “I guess impulse control really isn’t your forte?”

They were overly chipper, “NOPE.”

For some reason, Janus couldn’t stay mad at this point. There was just something strangely endearing about them.

-

The two of them wound up hanging out together more.

Up until that point, Janus just migrated from friend group to friend group, making himself kind of a chameleon to any ne’er-do-wells who might’ve wanted to get a rise out of him. He was good at not taking shit from people and he was usually left alone for it.

Sanchez eventually told Janus that he wanted to be called Remus. That he was actually a guy… mostly. Sort of. Good enough, as far as Janus was concerned.

Janus returned the favor of trust, telling him his actual name. Still choosing not to explain anything, but glad that Remus didn’t make any potshots about how it sounded. Remus was fast warming up to him.

Mutually, they surprised each other about their own predilections for anarchy, and they really hit things off in that department. Janus just had two stipulations: not being the collateral damage again… and maybe Remus should show a little more concern for his own well-being and safety.

(To this day, Janus wasn’t particular successful about the latter part.)

-

One of the next most notable/notorious stunts perpetrated by Remus, neared the end of his freshman year.

A voice blared into the intercom system, ran through some distortion filters to make it less obvious to most people. Several octaves lower and static-y, “Goood morning, bitches, bastards, and everyone else! Thank you for listening to KRAX radio! I’m your host for today, The Duke of Butts himself. Ready for some garbage?! No?! Well, too bad!”

Janus, was split between cracking up and pretending to be just as alarmed as everyone else.

An obnoxious record scratch was heard through the building before an unholy remix of the likes of “Never Gonna Give You Up”, “All-Star”, and “Gangnam Style” started playing. It was the most beautiful and awful thing Janus had ever heard, it brought a tear to his eyes.

His fellow students eventually broke down laughing – in fact several neighboring classrooms worth were cheering and booing.

The teacher was far less amused, angrily dialing for the school administrators probably to report his disdain. It was in vain, since he was drowned out by the classroom and the broadcast.

Silence on the intercom.

The students went “awww” about it.

The teacher tried again, getting though, “You heard that right!? Yeah. Okay. Make sure to catch whosoever responsible for whatever the hell tomfoolery that was!”

Things seemed to quieted down.

That is until the first lunch period, “Goood afternoon, it’s me again! Bet y’all missed me! Huh!? Anyways, time for another plate full of Shitcago.”

Janus snorted as the scratch sample lead into yet another audible travesty. “Sandstorm”, “Shooting Stars”… and “Peanut Butter Jelly Time”.

There was a lot of gasping in awe at the shear audacity, Janus felt a sense of pride. Remus outdid himself, this time.

By then everyone was wondering when this entertainer would show up again.

A few minutes before school was to be dismissed, there was one final broadcast, “Goood evening, fuckers! Have a parting gift from me, before y’all head off to the shitty places you call home!”

Janus winced at the concerning subtext.

Next, Remus outright said, “Record Scratch!?”, for the segue. And what played next… was just “Chemical Bomb” by the Aquabats. Not quite the same level of aural hell as the previous sets… but that did get the school staff REALLY squirrely.

-

Remus didn’t actually talk much about his home life.

Janus came to learn that he had a brother and that his parents just weren’t in the picture anymore. Beyond that?

Whenever Janus gently prodded that hornet’s nest, Remus deflected constantly. Janus desisted after awhile, growing to respect this quirky kid’s boundaries. But that didn’t stop Janus from speculating that something volatile was brewing, Remus getting more and more agitated.

That didn’t stop the two of them from occasionally orchestrating some more dramatic pranks on the school over the next year. Janus helping him with being more discretionary. Remus also did well to shore up Janus’s own vaguely threatening reputation to the school.

(The fact he was going into the care industry, notwithstanding and completely irrelevant.)

It was a small miracle Remus managed to never get caught for his bigger stunts. But he did get more and more disciplinary action against him as Remus cared less and less about this school.

-

Janus was on track and since graduated with surprisingly little incident. Swearing Remus would see him out with a bang, at this point. Janus went straight to a local college, him coming by a family inheritance was a real boon for him to focus on himself.

But, they still kept in touch. Halfway into Remus’s senior year, Remus started a worrisome text conversation with him.

“Hey, can I stay at your place tonight?”

“Sure? Something happen?”

“Uh. I may’ve fucked up. Badly.”

“Listening.”

“I’d rather talk about it in person.”

“Ok? Need ride?”

“I maaay already be halfway to your place. Also, I’m taking my brother over...”

“Pls don’t tell me you’re txting while you drive. Wait – brother?”

A pause, Janus almost imagined Remus sighing, “… I’ll explain later.”

-

Remus arrived at Janus’s doorstep looking like even more of a mess than usual.

There was a bright red hand print on Remus’s face, and clear evidence that he had been crying heavily. The makeup he usually wore washed down his cheeks. Which felt like a twist of a knife in Janus’s chest, this was the opposite of the unflappable goblin of a friend he grew accustomed to.

Remus only mentioned his brother in passing a few times. Part of the whole “I refuse to talk about my family” thing. But Janus was observant enough to note that there was a ghost of a smile whenever he talked about Roman, more than anyone else.

Janus had missed the chance to really get to see him thanks to their age difference and the fact Roman barely kept up with his age grade (compared to Remus). He wasn’t informed why.

Roman was certainly in worse shape, physically. Remus had him to his side, arm over the shoulder for support. Roman’s nose and mouth dribbled with blood, he had a black eye showing, and the arm that wasn’t around Remus hung limply. Roman was woozy, but noticed he was getting stared at, “You just… going to... let me bleed all over your porch or-?”

Asking why the hell these two weren’t in the hospital was a foregone conclusion, so Janus ushered them in.

-

When they all filed into Janus’s living room. One thing was becoming clear. Roman’s arm was wrenched out of socket and Janus bit his lips, “I’m pretty sure that needs a closed reduction. But, I’ve only really done one of those yet, in my training. That is, if nothing is actually broken.”

Remus’s eyes were blown wide, “Well?”

Janus inhaled sharply through his teeth, “It’s not like this is totally a proper a clinic… I can’t exactly give him much to make putting his arm back in socket… Bearable.”

Roman looked like he couldn’t focus on anything other than all the pain, and stayed quiet.

Janus knew he was being unusually pensive, but now’s not the time to unpack that, “Can I see that arm? Just. Just so I have a better idea of what to do about it?”

Roman simply grunted and nodded.

Janus sidled next to him and looked at the injury and gently prodded the area to get a better physical sense of what was wrong here. He didn’t exactly have imaging to go off of, nor a licensed care team, or really anything. This was… so messed up.

Roman winced a little as Janus touched some bruises and aggravated nerves, but let him continue to attend it. Janus, while looking at it still, gulped and asked them, “Um… care to tell me what the hell happened?”

Roman just looked down, unable to talk. Remus started stammering, “T-tío Esteban. Found out about everything and lost his patience with-”

Janus unfortunately couldn’t fully unpack what Remus meant there, he had a few ideas, but still grimaced. That said, Janus’s memory from training was getting jogged, looking at his brother. “Roman, was it? Let’s check to see how much your arm is working now? Get a better sense of the damage here…”

Janus ran through the actions to test how good his nerves and blood supply were, thankfully Roman was remaining conscious and showing some hopeful signs. Janus then left and did as he said, “I’m going to grab a sling, before we do anything else…”

When he came back, “Care to lie on your belly with your left arm hanging off the couch? I’m – I’m only going to try this once. Because I don’t have shit like lidocaine to give you. If it’s not going to work, I don’t want to-”

The brothers sighed, as if they both knew and dreaded what Janus meant. Roman flopped into position on the couch, without another word. Except for some short gasps of pain, probably brushing bruises Janus couldn’t see and aggravating the offending shoulder.

Remus was uncharacteristically timid, glancing at Roman and then at Janus, “He-he stood up for me. The dumb ass. He-he didn’t need to out himself too and-”

Roman hushed Remus.

Janus nodded as he started manipulating Roman’s shoulder blade in a subtle and gentle fashion. This seemed to surprise Roman, “This… isn’t anything like the movies, huh?”

“Well, there are more… forceful techniques. But I’d rather not resort to that.”

Roman mumbled, “… sorry to burden you.”

Janus just sighed, not wanting to address what was buried in that statement either.

Soon enough, Roman sighed in relief once Janus put his shoulder back in place and put that sling on him. Janus did stress he should still get that looked at, totally uncharacteristically prepared to open his wallet for the costs, if need be.

-

For the longest time, it was a shame that Roman didn’t remember very much of what happened, that night. Maybe it was too much trauma for him to access, maybe Roman just wanted to distance himself from it, but Janus wasn’t going to be that kind of “doctor”. When they later rediscovered each other in the gym, years later, it was like they were simply acquaintances. Which hurt… a little.

But Remus certainly remembered. And reminded him how grateful he was, fairly often.

It equally hurt seeing Remus being so hesitant, “Can you… can you help us… you know? He doesn’t want us back home, after-”

“Not even a question, dear.”

#spilled musing #sanders sides #janus sanders #remus sanders #roman sanders #gymrat au #(okay... time to refocus on the iZ!AU~) #(despite remus winding up in adv placement courses... he's still an understimulated underacheiver by conventional measures) #(/unconventionally/ extra af tho)

[autismserenity]

ZOMFG. I found a mix tape that @rivergst​ recorded off the radio in the summer of 1997. We’re listening to it, and suddenly they bust out with this song, which I think we had both forgotten even existed.

So many thoughts.

1. Johnny could be bi (based on her examples) and still be queer, but she very clearly means “are you gay.” Bi erasure!

2. Which just reminds me of my smol lesbian feminist friend at the time -- who turned out to be a bi trans guy -- who was against the word “queer” because word on the lesfem streets, at the time, was that gay men had taken over the term, especially in “queer studies” and stuff, and so it wasn’t inclusive like it was supposed to be

3. feel like everyone’s more or less moved on from THAT at least, which is great. although now i wonder if the terf/radfem push against “queer” for its inclusivity just went from “it’s bad for us bc gay men” to their current “it’s bad for us bc it prioritizes everyone except lesbians”

4. apparently this song was not only played on the radio all the time (which I do remember), but was playing in the prom scene of the movie Valley Girl?!?!

5. one of the comments is like “imagine if this song was played at a prom today???” and one of the replies is basically that gay people would not allow it because of the backlash against the term

6. don’t read the comments, they reek of ableism, mostly aimed at the autistic-coded guy in the video.

7. (i think they wanted to do something like “the reason she wouldn’t know for sure is if he was super awkward and COULD be ace” and this was how they demonstrated that without knowing the terms they were looking for)

8. which is another example of when people are queer-coded, and you can’t tell which type of queer, and it explicitly is drawn to include the possibility that they’re “not into that” with anybody... like jughead... and then people are like “no the only possibility is that they’re gay or straight, and they’re clearly not straight so they’re being gay-coded”

9. how the fuck did we get from “Johnny Are You Queer?” on the radio, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy on TV and putting out their own books, etc., to LGBT people treating it like this is a super-offensive fringe term that the community has never embraced and used casually?

10. Apparently this was first released in 1982, became a hit single, and also, to be fair, pissed a lot of people even in the gay community off. The Advocate and the Village Voice and the religious right all hated it at the time, although a lot of LGBTQIPA+ people loved it. (Not only did it become a hit single, but apparently it made it to #2 on the CANADIAN charts?!)

11. But alternative rock stations like Live 105, and I think college stations and the like, were playing it really heavily in the 90s. I used to hear it all the time. And she played Pride parades in the 2000s, in LA and San Francisco.

12. Josie Cotton re-released it on a new album in 2010, and said,

“Originally it was half of a punk-rock song that was written and performed by a band called Fear, who was really hardcore. You really were frightened when you saw that band. They had a song—it was basically just that line, but it was screamed really angrily over and over.

“My [ subsequent ] producers reworked it into a pop kind of medium and pretty much rewrote the entire song except for that one line, which seemed to have a huge reaction in the crowd it was circulating [ through ] in Los Angeles.

“I was offered record deals if I dropped the song. At the time, IRS Records was a really great label to be on; the Police were on there and the Go-Go's. They knew about the song. They knew I'd recorded it. They just insisted I not do it and that was a turning point in my career. Of course, you always wonder about those things—about roads not taken. I just thought it was a really lousy way to start my career—compromising something that I thought was really funny shit.”

When asked, “It seems like half the gay community loved you for the song and the other half hated you for it. Why do you think there were such diverse reactions?” she said,

“I've thought about this at length and the best that I can come up with is that this song; it combined a tremendous amount of elements that, until that point, had not been put together.

“One of the elements was comedy and it took people off-guard to hear that word, which was pretty much an obscene word at the time except in the gay community. [emphasis mine]

“It's a very brutally honest question in pretty much a story of unrequited love. So, it's pretty much all of those elements together, people were taken back.

“They really didn't know what had hit them. Most people I knew laughed, including the gay people I knew and truck drivers and every walk of life; they didn't know how to react and laughter happened.

“It was a very liberating kind of feeling. You didn't know what had hit you. I think that some people didn't understand the intent of the song or just the pure, innocence of this character singing it. It was fascinating to observe.“

13. omg she did another interview that told more of the story behind this song. The whole thing is amazing: the right wing decided she was a trans woman, which in their eyes meant “actually a gay man trying to convert unsuspecting straight men to my homosexual lifestyle.”

14. Holy shit. Not only did Fear have their song with the line “You’re a fuckin’ queer boy” in that same sing-song (they didn’t have any “Johnny” in the song), but then apparently these straight guys, the Paine brothers, who ”were freakily dead-on when it came to predicting musical trends,” discovered the Go-Go’s... rewrote the song into “Johnny, Are You Queer?”... had the FUCKING GO-GO’s perform it, as a punk band at the time, at a live show... It became their big song....

....the Paines had a fight with the Go-Go’s over them touring with a band called Madness.... they parted ways and the Paines took their song back and forbade the Go-Go’s from performing it anymore.... Josie Cotton heard it, loved it, happened to meet Larson Paine in a bank line in Hollywood around when the brothers were looking for a new voice for the song.... and the rest is history? what the fuck am i reading

14. somebody who is better at pop culture studies than I am could probably do a whole dissertation on how, maybe, the internet simultaneously made community more accessibly to queer youth, and divided up mainstream media so much, that a lot of people became isolated from things like Autostraddle and the Advocate and everyone else who casually uses “queer”??

anyway

rb if you remember or love this song

like if you are baffled by its very existence :D

#tumblr pride #80s music #queer history #queer culture #gay history #LGBT history #lgbtqipa history #wall of words #i was painting my nails and then i stopped to post this video and then i got sucked in to all the fun facts about it #i still have to pee and now it's an hour later and my nails aren't done #send help