Okay so I’m tired and sick, but I keep looking at this panel and at the risk of getting Meta, I want to explain why this panel is so important in terms of Tony Stark’s sexuality.
Tag: queer representation
I think everyone needs to talk more about how in love ACD/Granda Holmes and Watson are. I mean, for a time when it was illegal, they were quite obvious about it…. (Don’t even get me started on The Dying Detective or The Three Garidebs)
Oh, honey. I don’t stop talking about that!
The Post Return stories are the most romantic things I’ve ever read. I like to think of them as the second honeymoon stories. Before the Final Problem, the stories were a lot more carefully written. Aside from ridiculously obscene descriptions about Sticky Spearheads, and Holmes’ O face, you had to pick deeper for the coding. After the Return, though? Watson crammed as much romantic imagery into each description as possible. And the events were far more romantic. Holidays on the Cornish Coast, sharing a small seaside cottage for example.
And of course, the most flashing, big arrows pointing ‘code’ in the entire series (A series which includes private couches in bathhouses, a lot of time spent in France, and…. It includes The Blanched Soldier for crying out loud.) is the opening of The Three Students:
It was in the year ‘95 that a combination of events, into which I need not enter, caused Mr. Sherlock Holmes and myself to spend some weeks in one of our great university towns
This is it. This is my favourite piece of evidence pointing to a romantic, sexual relationship between Holmes and Watson. The Three Students takes place at the beginning of April, in 1895. Our great detective and his constant companion are not out of London for a case, and Holmes is rather irritated at not being there. The pair are staying away long enough that they need to rent furnished rooms, rather than staying in a hotel, and judging by the fact that Holmes has none of his own equipment or books with him, they had to pack in a hurry. Almost as if they were fleeing London.
What combination of events would have taken place at the beginning of April, in 1895, so well known to all of London that Watson feels he doesn’t need to remind his readers of what it was? That had queer men running from London for their own safety?
Was she going to slap you because you never in any way made him gay in the actual books, taking zero risks/doing absolutely nothing for gay characters in literature, and only announcing your “authorial intent” afterwards for a cheap shot at looking like an ~ally~
^^^
Gay people are just normal people. We are not told about any of the Hogwarts professors love lives, other than Snape, and it would be completely out of character for Dumbledore to walk around telling everyone about his sexuality.
Did you want her to make him dress in glittery platform boots, a crop top, and decorate his office in rainbow flags to make it more obvious for you? Would that be enough of a stereotype to appease you people? Or what? Please tell me. I’d like to know how you think a gay character is supposed to be portrayed.
And did you miss the Grindelwald chapters in the ‘actual books’? Or was that also not obvious enough for you? Did Dumbledore need to whisper “always” wistfully in order for you to connect that he had romantic feelings for Grindelwald? Maybe you are American and need them to gaze longingly into each others eyes with awkward close ups of their fingers almost grazing each other that Hollywood thinks means ‘true love’.
It didn’t fit into his relationship to Harry to ever say “I’m gay”, and so it was not stated explicitly (you might have noticed the book was told from Harry Potter’s perspective).
The point is though, that he is a homosexual, well respected, powerful, and very loved wizard- and his sexuality doesn’t matter because no one else thinks it matters. a.k.a. no one care that he loves men, and that is wonderful.
Yeah, but the fact still stands that people try to give JK Rowling LGBT Ally Points for it when she should be getting none.
All it would’ve taken to make this canon was one throwaway line while discussing Grindlewald with Harry, something like “I loved him.” Just casually thrown in there. Easy to miss. AND HE WOULD HAVE BEEN CANONICALLY GAY. Or hell, even have Aberforth mention something about how he thought Albus was sweet on him or something. That would have at least been better than what we got.
I’m sorry but Word of God after the fact, in the case of representation? Means absolutely fucking ZILCH to a great many queer people, myself included.
Also wow glittery platforms? Stereotypes? takealookatyourlife you should examine your url and apply it because that is a really fucking insulting paragraph and it actually makes me want to punch a wall a little bit from how asinine and bigoted it is. NO ONE was asking for stereotypes or even non-stereotyped IN YOUR FACE SEXUALITY. We’re saying that retroactively (from the POV of a reader who has not been privy to your unmentioned worldbuilding) making a character gay does NOT do anything for representation and should not earn you ally cookies.
Also, what I find problematic with Dumbledore being the character she chose to make gay is that he has one relationship, one romance, and his life goes to shit. His lover turns out to be evil, his sister dies, and Dumbledore goes, “woah, shit, okay, CELIBATE FOREVER IS THE ANSWER.” So any positive is vastly outweighed by the negative of Dumbledore being punished and punishing himself for his entire life for falling in love with a boy when he was young. The message queer kids take away from the story of Dumbledore is one of internalised homophobia, self-censorship and heartache, not that of a role model who became the most powerful wizard and was also queer. To become that powerful person, it’s heavily implied that Dumbledore’s chance at a relationship, love and companionship had to be sacrificed. Dumbledore is not a positive gay role model, because to make him gay, JKR had to castrate him, and then, only show him through the eyes of others – the friend who loved him, unrequitedly, from afar, and the tabloid press, who burned him in effigy.
Oh, and further, I have seen a comment floating around that she thought about making Dean/Seamus canon but ‘thought it would detract from the main characters/story’. No. It wouldn’t. A line about them going to the ball together. A kiss when they reunite in the Room of Requirement. A sentence about them standing on Platform 9 ¾ with Junior Thomas-Finnegan, waving him off to school. Any of these things would have taken a few sentences at most, but would have given queer kids representation, and couple of characters they had grown to know and love that they could now identify with. What JKR means when she says ‘detract’ is that she chose, deliberately to a) practice erasure and b) conform to heteronormative standards as to how we portray children before they are of sexual majority, to which I say fuck you.
a comic done by christianne benedict, posted on the womanthology art forum. brilliant!
YES. Jesus, thank you.
I cannot tell you how many times I have had to point out what the audience at conventions actually LOOKS like to people in the industry. They can do signings in a booth full of every kind of person all day long, every color, every size, every orientation and more, and STILL go online and talk about how only white straight males read comics.
IT IS PROFOUNDLY UNTRUE AND INSULTINGLY IGNORANT.
As a queer person of color, I have been told all my life that I will never play the romantic lead, and that’s fucked up. When they say that, what they’re actually telling you is that your love story doesn’t exist.
Dylan Marron, SDCC 2014 (via ivory-spirals)
someone please be awake and laugh about this with me
daja falls for a girl who turns out to be straight and briar’s having a douche day and laughs at her and so she just decks him and gives him a black eye and rosethorn visits the next day and is like ‘HOW DID YOU GET HURT TELL ME AND I’LL SKIN THEM UNLESS IT WAS YOUR FAULT’ and he tells her and she just laughs at him for 25 minutes without stopping and gives daja the emelan equivalent of a fistbump when she walks in and blatantly refuses to give him any of her bruise cream which he wasn’t even going to ask for because he can make his own, thank you, but jeez, rosethorn, thanks for letting me know how much you care when i’m in pain, and she just stops laughing at him never
daja meets a lady friend because she’s one of briar’s ~*~midnight paramours~*~ and she gets to know daja the morning after over a strong cup of trader tea (the girl’s done business with them before and loves its flavor so they bond) and is like, sorry briar, i met someone, and he’s like, WHO, and she’s like, your roommate, and he’s like DAJA THAT’S NOT FAIR YOU NEED TO STOP BEING SO HOT and she’s like, all’s fair in love and war buddy, and takes the girl by the elbow to have a lovely stroll through the market and talk about magic and their lives and make out adorably
and rosethorn finds out because briar is sulking in the garden and making the plants upset and she laughs even harder this time because she’s probably been at least one of the female components of this equation before and so she knows how it works and of course she tells lark who thinks it’s the greatest story she’s ever heard and they both give daja the emelan equivalent of a fistbump the next time they see her
the end
The awkward moment when you’re trying to tell your parents that you’re a super hero but you come out instead
#FAV#A FAV BECAUSE THEY’RE ACTUALLY GAY#SO ITS NOT A ”HAHA GAY” JOKE OF STRAIGHT PEOPLE BEING MISTAKEN AS GAY
My favorite part of this is that Billy is like, “?!” but Teddy is just like, “Hell yes, eggs!”
knitting in the dark 