Magic Thomas: Special needs teen hugs Disney hunks, celebrates Pride. With Pratt, Pascal, Peter Pan, and some dudes with autism.

Link to the n*de dudes

I was interested in the Instagram recommendation Magic with Thomas because of the film of a very flamboyant Peter Pan hugging a fan.  A gay actor would work for a profile...

Turns out that Thomas is not Peter Pan, but the guy he's hugging: a 19 year old special needs teen with autism, whose Dad curates his Instagram page with 500,000 followers, Tiktok with 1.2 million, and Facebook with 325,000.  

In 2026, he was named #6 in the Top 100 Autistic Influencers.

As a "Disney superfan," he gets hugs and plushies from every Disneyland character you can imagine, from Shaggy (Scooby-Doo) to Alberto (Luca). And they know his name!

The Evil Queen is a favorite. A video of the two strolling through the park, while she yells "Make way for royalty," got 2.2 million views.

Notice the pride t-shirt.  Thomas also wears a "Love is Love."

Hanging with Guardians of the Galaxy Star-Lord Peter Quill.  

To get my beefcake quota, here's Chris Pratt, who plays the Star-Lord in the Guardian of the Galaxy movies (n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

With Mr. Fantastic from The Fantastic Four.  Dad says that Thomas doesn't care about the characters, just the actors.  He likes those who provide a positive interaction, talk to him and treat him as an equal.

More after the break

Gabriel Avellar: Brazilian child actor plays two queer-coded boys, Loki, a puppy, and a fruit. And performs as Elton John. With two co-star d*cks and getting down

  

Link to the n*de dudes

Another guy I never heard of before: Gabriel Avellar, a Brazilian child actor who suddenly topped the Teen Idols List.  He seemed a little young for a profile, but out or curiosity, I checked his Instagram.  

A few queer-coded photos: hugging adult hunks, swishing it up as gay icon Elton John...wait, he posts a clip from one of his tv shows depicting a remarkable gay subtext scene.  Time to take a closer look.  

Gabriel's first acting role listed on the IMDB is in the  children's telenovela A Caverna Encantada (The Enchanted Cave, 2024), which seems to be about a boarding school with dark secrets (as dark as a show for preteens can go). 

 Felipe (Gabriel) is a garoto-problema, always getting into trouble, pretending that he doesn't care about anyone or anything, not even his queer-coded femme buddy Rui  (Théo Radicchi, right)-- until his façade falls.  

Gabriel (or his parent) tells us: "Felipe brings the reality of so many children who are not understood. Those who only saw the tantrums, did not see the suffering..of this character so rich and beloved"

  In later episodes Felipe joins a secret society, Os Luises, and helps uncover the secrets of the school.  

In the gay-subtext scene, quiet, shy Moises (Diego Laumar) is very angry with Felipe, yells at him, and starts crying (I completed the Duolinguo Portuguese course, but I still can't understand what he's saying).  Felipe tentatively approaches, and they hug. 

Gabriel comments: "In the end Felipe surrenders: Too exciting!"  Surrenders to what?  His romantic feelings?  Was Moises upset because Felipe rejected him?

He also posts a photo of Felipe heart-to-hearting with Professor Gabriel (Miguel Coelho), and comments: "Student and teacher, master and disciple, but primarily friends! He is the only one who believes in Felipe, and supports his transformation.  And scenes like these always provide strong emotions!"  Transformation to good guy, or recognizing that he is gay?

Miguel Coelho is a versatile actor (d*ck on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

Next Gabriel appeared in the animated movie Abá e Sua Banda (2024), about "a kingdom of fruits." (Okay...) Abá (Filipe Bragança, right), the young Pineapple Prince, wants to start a band and play at the Music Festival, but instead he is drawn into the fight against the evil Prime Minister Coconut,  In the end he establishes a democracy in the Tutti-Frutti Kingdom (Okay....), a place "where fruits of all colors and flavours will fit."  Maybe it's not as gay in Portuguese.

Gabriel plays his friend Coquinho, named after the fruit of the jelly palm.

More after the break

Spider-Man: Brand New Day: Spidey flexes, visits a bathhouse, and brings a guy flowers. But it's not what you think.

 

Link to the n*de photos

 Marvel Cinematic Universe movies are not great at LGBT representation, and for some reason Spider-man movies are the worst of the lot: "Like all stories, and I mean every single story that has ever been told from Gilgamesh on to the present, including Death in Venice, The City and the Pillar, Call Me By Your Name, and Heartstopper, this story is about a boy and a girl."   So I went into Spider-Man: Brand New Day expecting to hear "feminine smiles are the meaning of life!" every few minutes.

I wasn't wrong.

There are three plotlines that actually could be three separate movies.

Plot #1: In the last movie, Spidey, aka Peter Parker (Tom Holland), zapped the memories of his True Love MJ and buddy Ned to "keep them safe."  Now he's living as a full-time superhero, ignoring the advice of his supervisor and the superhero Black Widow that he should get a girlfriend. 

Suddenly his powers start accelerating, giving him Hulk-style Roid Rage, but his web things fail to work at the most awkward moments.  He needs a device to inhibit some of his spider DNA while allowing the rest of it to keep giving him superpowers.  So he seeks out Incredible Hulk Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends), who teaches at Empire State University.

Hulky has lost his True Love.

Cliche alert: The Advanced Physics class is held in a giant lecture hall, like all college classes in movies.

Plot #2: 

After interrogating the various people who helped the Supervillain Scorpion (Michael Mando) escape, Spidey realizes that they're dealing with a being who can jump from mind to mind, peering into their memories and controlling their actions.  They're interested in getting access to a secret vault at the Damage Control headquarters (where they clean up the damage caused by superhero fights, including a lot of superpower-enhancing detritus).  

Eventually the being occupies the mind of Spidey's True Love MJ, and threatens to drop her off a building her unless he helps with their goal.  But some of the stuff at Damage Control could hurt millions of people, so Spidey refuses.   

More after the break, with a spoiler and a d*ck.

"Agatha All Along": Gay teen and witch trapped in a bad-tv show world. With bonus nekkid guys

 

Link to the nude photos

Agatha All Along appeared without warning on my Disney Plus page, showing two elderly women and a teenager on a dark wilderness road.  The teenager is Joe Locke, who played a gay character in Heartstopper, and came out in real life twice, at age 12 and 15, so no doubt he plays a gay character here.  I'm not even going to bother with preliminary research.

Scene 1: An elderly woman, maybe Agatha, driving to a crime scene: she's a small town cop suspended for punching a suspect,  but called back for a case only she can work on -- a woman has been found dead in the woods.  Why is it always a woman, never a man?  

Crushed by a heavy object, no id except for one of those old library check-out cards. 

Scene 2: Wait -- her name is Agnes, not Agatha, so who is "all along"?  

She goes to the library, where there's a long line to check out books. Have you been to a library lately?   She cuts -- "Only suckers wait their turn" -- to ask the sarcastic librarian Miss Jones about the check-out card found on the victim.

Miss Jones: "Ooh, is she dead?"

Agnes: "Why do you assume it was a woman?"  Because it's always a woman, nitwit.

Miss Jones: "It's more tit-ilating." Boob joke, har har.

They don't use old-fashioned check-out cards anymore.  The book -- Dialogue and Rhetoric: Known History of Learning & Debate, was marked stolen three years ago.  But there are lots of other copies in Natural Sciences.  Not in English?.

Agnes hits the stacks, and there were indeed a dozen copies -- all burnt up. "There was a fire," a mysterious man whispers.  Odd that Miss Jones didn't know that.

Scene 3: At the station, the Chief is played by David Lengel, who looks like Ross from Friends with a porn stash.  

The body shows traces of "a particular microbial sediment found only in Eastern Europe."  That makes no sense.  The woman was killed across the ocean and transported to their quiet New England town. 

Scene 4: In other news, Agnes has to work with the snarky Federal Agent Vidal, whom she hates.  To be fair, Agnes hates everyone.  They may be ex-lovers: Agnes thinks that she requested the assignment just so they could get back together.

Ex-Lover notes that there are no drag marks on the soil, nothing disturbed: the body just got zapped there, as if by magic! 

Agnes scoffs. "In stories about small-town murders, it's always about the hidden secrets of the townsfolk, so let's investigate those."

Scene 5: Norm the pawn shop guy,  played by Asif Ali,  is examining a cameo locket that Agnes brought in: New England, late 17th century, with a lock of hair inside.  He offers $200. 

She just wanted an expert opinion so she could sell it on ebay, har har.  Agnes is rather a jerk, isn't she?

Scene 6: Late at night, Agnes is fiddling around at the station.  She discovers that the first letters of the book's title spell DARKH.   So?

Later, in her huge "TV middle class" house, Agnes goes into a child's bedroom with a teddy bear on the bed and drawings on the table, and music awards: "Nicholas Scratch, First Place." Dead kid?  But Nick and Scratch are both names for the Devil.

Scene 7: Knock on the door: It's the Ex-Girlfriend, with pizza!  Isn't it, like, the middle of the night?

Agnes has a lead: car crash in the town of Eastview an hour before the body was found. Ex-Girlfriend wants to know if she's ever been to Eastview.  "Sure, I'm a world traveler."  Wait...it dawns on Agnes that she's never actually left town.  How is that possible?  

Next Ex-Girlfriend asks "Do you remember why you hate me?"  "No."  It's like it was written into the script, with no back story.  Something is wrong here.

They're interrupted by a clattering -- an intruder in her bedroom, going through her stuff!  She chases him out onto the roof, down a gutter, and through the deserted streets, until Debra Jo Rupp, Grandma Kitty on That 90s Show, accidentally hits him.

Scene 8: The perp is a teenager, played by Joe Locke.  He's sarcastic and insulting, leading Agnes to kick him -- that's what got you suspended, Girl.  Finally he admits that he broke in to look for the Road. 

Agnes thinks he means the road to the murder site, so he's a suspect!  "What you were doing last night between 1 and 3 am?"  "Asleep in bed." "Loser!"  Wait -- being asleep in the middle of the night makes you a loser? 

She pulls out pictures of the murdered woman to confront him with, but suddenly they turn into pictures of flowers on someone's front lawn!   He starts chanting in Latin....and now her Ex-Girlfriend has vanished!  There never was a murder, so of course she would not have been called in.

Scene 9: Agnes visits the coroner's office  -- no body.  Until one appears, with a check-out card instead of a toe-tag, and the last person who checked the book out was Wanda Maximoff!  Agnes is shocked!

Who the heck is Wanda Maximoff?  Answers and nekkid men after the break

Ahhhh! The Horrible, Heteronormative, Offensive, Disgusting, No-Good End of the Marvel Cinematic Universe

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a huge series of movies starring Marvel superheroes, who all know each other, interact with each other, and refer to events and situations from previous movies, so you have to watch all of them in order to understand what the heck is going on.  Every origin-story movie involves a superhero meeting, losing, and winning his True Love.

1. Iron-Man, aka Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), head of the giant corporation that provides technological stuff, falls in love with his former assistant Pepper.  They retire, move to a farm, and have a kid.

2. Captain America, aka Steve Rogers (Chris Evans, top photo), a World War II soldier turned into an Axis-fighting machine, falls in love with Peggy, one of the scientists working on him.  He's trapped in an iceberg for 70 years, leaving Peggy to grow old. But when he emerges, he still hangs out with her.  

3. Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) falls in love with Hope, daughter of the scientist who invented his shrinking suit. He has a daughter from another relationship, I think.

4. Hawkeye, aka Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner, left), retired from the superhero business to move to a farm, get married, and have some kids.

5. Peter Quill (Chris Pratt, below), leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy crime-fighting team, falls in love with his coworker Zamora.  

6. The Hulk, aka Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), had a True Love in one move, another in a second, and then fell in love with fellow superhero The Black Widow.

7. Superhero Scarlet Witch, aka Wanda Maximoff, fell in love with  the android Vision (Paul Bettany), but he was killed.

There are lots more, but I'm getting tired. 

After the origin story, the True Loves are barely mentioned, especially in the ensemble movies titled the Avengers.  But apparently they were always there, forming the basic motive for each superhero's life and work, and at the end of the movie series they come roaring back like the Second Coming of Christ.

An ongoing plot arc is an attempt to track down all of the Infinity Stones, like Tolkien's Rings of Power but much more powerful, because an evil demagogue named Thanos wants to use them to wipe out 50% of all sentient life in the universe (that's right, I said the universe).  The team tries to keep him from getting the stones, then tries to stop him, but in Avengers: Infinity War (2018), he succeeds.  Snap!  Half of the sentients in the universe crumble into dust, including a lot of superheroes and their True Loves, but never both.

Imagine the chaos!  We're so interconnected that civilization would definitely collapse.  But here the economies and governments of the world seem fine; survivors are traumatized, but they manage to put up memorials to their lost True Loves and go back to high school classes, museums, pop music, and restaurants. There's actually a scene in a group therapy session, where a guy talks about his first date since the Snap -- with another guy, making him the first and only identifiable gay person in any Marvel Universe movie.

In Avengers: End Game (2020), the surviving superheroes figure out how to go back in time and prevent Thanos from getting the Infinity Stones, thus bringing everyone back.  There are lots of tracking each other down and "we need to work together" scenes, and a long, long, loooo-ng battle.  The Snap is reversed, everyone returns, and the long, long, looo-ng batle continues, involving everyone who has ever appeared in any movie fighting with swords, monsters, and energy blasts. 

I fell asleep.  When I awoke, the battle was over, Thanos was dead, and about 20  superheroes are sitting by a lake, saying "I miss her" about True Loves who died before the Snap or during the battle (a slight exaggeration, but I did count five "I miss her" statements). 

But the movie isn't over: we have another 45 minutes depicting 2,000 other superheroes reuniting with their True Loves and setting up heterosexual nuclear families. Again and again and again!

Just when you think everyone is paired off or missing "her," Captain America has to go back in time to return the Infinity Stones to their proper place, so the whole thing doesn't happen again.  Except he comes back as an old man.  He explains that he decided to stay in 1947, reunite with his True Love, and live the next 80 years with her.  We close to the two in their 1940s Levittown tract house, dancing and gazing into each other's eyes.  

I get it; the sole purpose of being a superhero is to provide men and women with an opportunity to gaze into other's eyes forever.  This is the meaning of life, our sole reason for existing.  Gay people absolutely do not exist. Do you have to rub it in, over and over and over and over and over?

To be fair, Thor doesn't settle down on a farm with his True Love or miss Her.  He joins the Guardians of the Galaxy, fighting intergalactic crime with Peter Quill and Drax the Destroyer (both of whom miss Her).  

"The Eternals": The First Gay Character in a Marvel Movie, Plus Conversations in Ancient Babylonian

 

I have seen The Eternals (2021), the first movie in the Marvel Universe to depict a gay character (although the comic books have been doing it for years).  It is a very plot-heavy movie, with characters not given enough time to distinguish and lots of unjustified squabbles.  Maybe a trilogy would have been more appropriate.

The premise: A Celestial (God) creates a group of Eternals (immortal superheroes) and gives them the task of saving humans from Deviants (monsters). I found the name Deviant disturbing, since it actually refers to someone who breaks a social norm, especially a sexual norm, and historically it has usually been applied to gay people.  

So the Eternals appear in Neolitic Mesopotamia and save villagers from some monsters by zapping and pushing them out of the way. I'm not sure who has what power, or if they all have everything.  When the monsters are all toast, an Eternal gives a Neolitic boy (Zain Al Rafeea)  an ornate knife, which one expects to become important, but the plotline is dropped.

Too bad -- 18-year old Zain Al Rafeea has an interesting biography.  A Syrian refugee, he was discovered on the streets of Beirut by director Nadine Labaki.  He was cast as the star of Capernaim (2018), for which he won five "best actor" or "breakout actor" awards. He and his family have since settled in Norway.  The Eterrnals is only his second movie role.

On through the centuries, with Eternals zapping monsters but not allowed to do anything else to help humanity.  Really, how many people could be killed by a handful of monsters, compared to drought, disease, earthquakes, wars, and general evil?  They chafe at their limitations, and finally, at the fall of Tenochtitlan in 1521, they split up.  Or else their god tells them that the coast is clear, they've killed all the monsters.

Sersei (sounds like Circe) and Ikarus (the boy who flew too close to the sun)(Richard Maden, top photo) live as romantic partners for several generations, before Ikarus leaves the planet.  Sersei becomes a biologist working at the British Museum, and dates a mortal named Dane (Kit Harrington, left).  She also "adopts" Sprite, who is a perpetual child, but sometimes can appear in adult form or something.

I don't know what Ajak does.  (Sounds like Ajax, but a girl).

Kingo (Kumali Nanjiani, below right) becomes a Bollywood star.  So he was created as South Asian in 7000 BC, long before the Indo-Aryans settled in South Asia?  He is flamboyantly feminine, so I figured he was gay, and actually he doesn't display any heterosexual interest.

Phastos (Bryan Tyree Henry) settles in America, where he gets married, buys a house, and starts a family, the whole heterosexist American dream, except that he has a husband. not a wife.  It's not hidden: they have two scenes together, and kiss.  Nothing like the extensive groping, grabbing, and tongue-swallowing of Ikarus and Sersei, but 100 times more than anything Marvel has shown on screen before.

Makkari, who is deaf, hangs out in a Dom in the ruins of a Babylonian city.  Why create a superhero with a disability?

Druig (Barry Keoghan, left) has a strong Irish accent, even though he was created thousands of years before there were Irish accents, or Druids.  He settles in the Amazon to help the descendants of the Aztecs.  Wait -- wrong continent.

Gilgamesh (Ma Dong-seok) settles in the Australian outback with another Eternal, maybe Thena (Athena, get it?), who suffers from an Eternal-only mental disorder.

In the present, things start to go terribly wrong.  Deviants return, only now they're sentient. Some of the Eternals go to the Dark Side.  Others have to be convinced to come out of retirement and join the team (this happens in virtually every Marvel movie).  Old rivalries that we didn't know about surface again.  Unrequited crushes that we didn't know about surface again.  Their God is not what he seems.  

And the writers keep confusing "millions" and "billions." 

It's all very confusing, but at least there are fun references to other Marvel characters and events.  

And there is an extended scene set in ancient Babylonia, where conversations take place in Babylonian (actually Akkadian, but why quibble?).  they hired an Akkadian expert to translate, which turned out to be problematic. We have many legal and religious documents in the dead language, but nothing colloquial.  They probably used a phrase similar to "May I help you?", but they never wrote it down.  See this interesting article in "The Conversation."

My Grade: A for the gay character and ancient Akkadian, D for the convoluted plot.