Starlight on Earth

She/her, whatever I'm currently watching that will be my obsession for the next month

[sprklejumpropequeen]

when Daemon took out dark sister and handed it over to Rhaenyra to cut Otto’s head off……that was hot

[buttholy]

I've been thinking a lot about half man as a queer man and I think that there is such a draw for us in both the character of ruben and his relationship with niall.

he is this ultramasculine, straight passing, aggressive lad - one of the boys really, not mimicking masculinity but effortlessly exuding it (a far cry from the pale mimicry that a lot of queer men feel is the only thing they can muster, no matter how masc or butch they present themselves as.)

and yet this presence is completely warped around niall. he is a protector, he comes when he is called, he performs for niall the explosive violence that niall himself is incapable or unwilling of. he is imminently desirable and initiates niall sexually.

this is such a seductive fantasy for so many queer men. especially those who struggled with loneliness and bullying growing up. the handsome, masculine figure who will protect and take care of you, and also desire and have sex with you.

the intoxicating rush that you - through your appearance or demeanor or some invisible quality - managed to wrap this bastion of heterosexuality around your finger. and throughout it all he desires no other man but you. he might fool around with girls (you might like it if he does so; it only makes him manlier and, in the end, they are only props in your fantasy), but he is not emasculated by a homosexual desire beyond the bounds of your relationship. and he comes back to you, always. there is something you can give him.

not to be too vulnerable but since this is a richard gadd show, I can admit that this is a fantasy I indulged in often as a teen, and it has colored both the kind of men I'm attracted to, and created many toxic expecations in how I'd like an ideal relationship to look like. as a young man I was so scared and alone, so viciously bullied for being both fat and feminine, and in my daydreams I pictured a character like ruben so clearly that gadd might as well have plucked him from my brain.

i wonder how much of this is intentional. by gadd's own admission his sexual discovery came later in life. when he was niall's age, he considered himself wholly heterosexual and free of any homosexual desires or urges. how much of this was born in retrospection, or is simply part of the paradigm of masculinity and the pain that comes with yearning for it?

[woke2]

Richard gadd pioneering a genre of gay tv previously unseen outside of my dead dove ao3 bookmarks just wasn't something i ever considered could happen

[apricustar]

insane production design choice to put a 1984 poster on niall’s bedroom door, because the immediate shorthand of the novel is obviously ‘big brother is always watching’—this idea of an omnipresent authority that continues governing your behavior even in moments of physical absence—which feels inextricable from the way ruben operates within the show. but what makes 1984 so genuinely horrifying is the psychological consequence of prolonged domination: the erosion of a private self, the way fear and control become so thoroughly internalized that the watcher no longer needs to stand in the room because he has already taken up residence inside you, rewriting how you understand love, loyalty, safety—and what you believe you deserve from all three.

that is exactly what ruben’s violence has done. even in his absence, everyone continues organizing themselves around him—anticipating him, contracting around wounds he opened years earlier, the past remaining not behind them but invasively, insistently present. he’s a specter lingering over everything.

which makes the placement on niall’s door so devastating, because this episode is about niall reaching—toward autonomy, toward a life expansive enough to finally contain honesty and desire. just away—far enough to exhale, far enough to start anew. and yet gadd frames his most private space with a novel about what total surveillance does to a person’s interiority and selfhood.

niall is trying to become someone. the poster is gadd telling you, in the most precise way possible, that big brother already got there first.

because in the end, winston smith—the protagonist of 1984—doesn’t just submit to big brother. he loves him.

[haggravated-lassault]

[starliteonearth]

ruben's line of "if i wasn't family, i'd be up under those skirts" in episode 1 is so good because they are both actively playing into and maintaining this charade of being brothers even though they're not related in the slightest because it allows to remain so close while simultaneously keeping them at bay from what they really want

[starliteonearth]

when the brand is a smart quiet bullied boy and the protective fighter jock he becomes codependent with

[starliteonearth]

i don't think people grasp just how much of a nightmare blunt rotation nolan is as a partner because how are you simultaneously a mass murderer, a cheater, and a child beater??? top worst three things a man can possibly be and he's ALL THREE 😭😭

[starliteonearth]

am i crazy or wouldn't the simplest solution to the viltrumites hiding on earth would be to remove mark from the planet, release the virus, and then come back in a few months when it's all clear?

[starliteonearth]

viltrum being destroyed is a generational loss viltrumites will NEVER recover from but also karmatic justice for all the planets they've conquered and colonized and destroyed

[starliteonearth]

finally caught up on the last two episodes of invincible and no one will ever understand the absolutely incredible comedic timing of me watching episode 7 and making a joke about needing a deathstar to take out viltrum, only for nolan, mark, and thaddeus to function as exactly that and blow viltrum to smithereens

[starliteonearth]

i do find it funny when i see people trying to put sieun in a wattpad-esque ya type love triangle between suho and seongje with suho as the typical good boy best friend and seongje as the bad boy new guy when ironically their personalities are quite similar (laidback, cocky, confident, cool) and the biggest difference between them mainly being that suho is more controlled and composed whereas seongje is more chaotic and wild.

[sheisraging]

Ilya trying to keep a doped up Shane from airing all their laundry is so special to me.

[unlikelychildchaos]

My headcanon of the day is that Ilya is not used to getting calls from family members unless they need something from him. Nobody ever calls him (maybe apart from Shane) to just simply check up on him. So the first time David calls him on a random day of the week, asks him about his day, hands the phone to Yuna to do the same—Ilya is a little confused as to why these people are just randomly calling him. He even texts David after they've hung up to confirm if they needed something and have just forgotten to mention it. When David texts back "no son we just wanted to check up on you" Ilya sits and stares at that text until he feels his throat close up and there's an odd sting in his eyes.

[madrasaur]

hard launch

[flyora]

someone once said that Irina might told young Ilya those words before and I could not help but make this little scene

The quote from 1x06 «The Cottage»

[covenlesswitches]

“he should be at the club” well he’s at the club and he wants to fucking kill himself