Lmao Haven't Been Here In A Long While Today I Offer: Howl's Moving Castle Redraws

As we all know. The Trojans are living in a sports anime, the Foxes are in Riverdale (enjoying the triumphs and defeats, the epic highs and lows of collegiate exy), and Jean Moreau is y/n in a My mom sold me to One Direction fanfic

I am a Gen Xer, and I've been having some conversations about photography and selfies lately, and I want to share a little bit, because I think younger queer people don't quite understand what things used to be like.

I have no snapshots of the era of my life in which I was smootching girls behind the tilt-a-whirl at a shitty traveling carnival in a dusty empty lot. In fact, I have no pictures of any of my friends from that era aside from yearbook pictures of the friends who were in my school. I was a little goth teenager and many of my friends were also punk queers. We could not take pictures of each other.

Why? Because pictures were taken on film. And film needed to go somewhere to be developed. And if there were pictures of people "being gay" then sometimes your whole roll would disappear at the photo processor. Or your 36 exposure roll would return only 32 pictures to you. Because the processor would censor it. And aside from that, you had to be cautious about whether a photograph would somehow be seen by parents, who could kick your friend out of their house. Just because someone was holding hands in the background of a photo.

Snapshots were for kids who did sports and wholesome activities.

A little later, I had a friend who took photography and had access to the school photo lab (the art teacher didn't care as long as no one was developing nudity), and there were some photographers who hung out with the skater kids. But prior to that, there was a whole era of my life, people who were super important to me for a time, that I just don't have pictures of. At all. Because it wasn't safe.

I found myself recently explaining this to a younger coworker and another colleague in the meeting, a gay man about my age, was nodding along. This was an important facet of life if you were a queer teen in the 80s. You didn't have pictures of your people until you knew someone with use of a darkroom.

what the Trojans expected: violent dangerous giant ex raven 👹🔪

what they got:

what the Foxes expected: traumatized poor baby angel runaway 🥺😇

what they got:

Now who’s staring?

neil josten ignoring death threats from the fucking mafia just so he can keep playing stickball with his deranged friends

show me a more perfect cast.

raven andreil in tracksuits because the fandom needs more raven andreil 🔥🫡

No one is dying today.

every time i start to feel cringe for being too deep in the hyperfixation i remember the intense depression i have waded through and have to remind myself that enjoyment is fleeting (so grab it with both hands), and life is for loving (so hold that love close), and if anyone thinks i’m cringe they must not be having a very good time (and i hope they can find a good time soon).

🌟Sankta Alina🌟