RINGO

As someone from the South, I’ve also found that I have a really really good “gaydar” and can very easily guess if someone is gay or at the very least an ally to queer people. In the American South and specifically where I am from, being gay is dangerous and can quickly become life threatening in any given situation when you’re interacting with strangers. Finding out whether the people you are speaking to want you dead because of the people you love becomes imperative, because guessing wrong might just be the difference between life and death.

Now, obviously I cannot compare the conditions under which Ilya grew up with in Russia to my own experiences being a queer person in the American Deep South but I do think it is worth it in some capacity to recognize that Ilya’s ability to recognize the subtle tells or little details that imply someone is safe enough to be around or maybe even reveal something personal to. He’s even, alongside that, developed a good understanding of how men act when they are attracted to him. I think that might also go hand in hand with the gaydar, though.

I do also think, as a fellow child of parental abuse, that this also ties into Ilya’s vigilance in how people act and express emotions around him. He can notice the quieter things that others might not because of how he needed to grow up in a house where abuse was at every turn. This is also something I share with Ilya, and which I also think is a facet of how his gay Yoda nature came to be

they all live in the cottage by the stream with their insane fathers