Yup, bards be fabulous by default :)

I have seen flame and its variants used derogatorily as well. Moreso back in the late eighties and early nineties back when there were a lot of gay men trying to avoid attention and criticising the more visible people in the overall gay community. But it still gets used that way sometimes nowadays. Back in my younger years, flaming was usually followed by the other f-word connected to gay folks when used as an insult. Sometimes even when used affectionately, though that was rarer.

Myself, I've always enjoyed the company of the brighter burning flames. There's just something so delightful in someone being exuberant and joyful as their primary way of moving through life. Even the drama some flames bring along is worth it lol.

I'm in old man mode again, but I can still remember my first night working as a bouncer at the drag club. All these people coming in, most of the customers dressed to the nines, happy and dancing, and letting go of all the camouflage they had to wear at work or whatever. All those flames burning bright and free.

The guy on the door with me performed as well and was in a dress and had his makeup on (but not the shoes lol), and I asked him if it was always like this, and he just laughed and said "Oh, honey child, this is a slow night." And it was! Some Saturdays, it was like what I imagine dropping acid to be.

Gods, I miss that part of the job lol.

If this is the context, I believe it has nothing to do with gays or twinks.

Just a sad anime image meant to convey an emotional response, according to Tineye, first seen around 2016, on pages no longer reachable.

First memetized around 2017, with the following image :

Translated labels from left to right : "Your new 'waifu of the season'", "you", "Your waifu, to whom you'd vowed eternal love". At this stage, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree: The meme is still aimed at the weeb community that saw its birth, and still makes use of the context implyed by the image.

But to interpret what comes next, you must take into account the rise of "cringe" culture in the early 2020s. Former memes, deemed "cringe", saw a new birth under several layers of irony to highlight their absurd nature. Here is another meme that underwent the same fate : https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/im-fine

This era also saw the appearance of the words "pog", "poggers" and "pogchamp", all of which quickly became cringe. The above meme can therefore be interpreted as a pile of cringe meant to be absurd.

What about burgers? The burger also has a place in meme culture.

Declaring one's taste for a trash food or another belongs to another memetic trop, that of appearing relatable and whimsical. Most old memes using this trope appear cringe by today's standard. The image may be a meta-meme about itself, describing the memer's transition from pre-cringe to post-cringe culture, from "burgers" to "poggers", and burying the image macros under countless layers of irony.

That, is not what I expected.

Otters would be bears, but they're twinks.

Bears and otters both share being fairly hairy to some degree. Bears is usually applied to bigger men, and also typically to masculine presenting men as well as being past the mid twenties in age.

Otters may or may not be bigger, but are typically much more feminine presenting. You will sometimes see it applied more to small, hairy men, but that goes back to slang being variable by default.

Now, to complicate matters, there are also cubs. Cubs are just young bears. This means that they may well be smaller and less hairy than most bears, and will get lumped in with otters despite otters being feminine presenting as the standard usage of the term.

Skinny hairy dudes.