#genuinely can’t tell if there’s been queerbaiting going on or not???

[faramirsonofgondor]

Today has been a wild day indeed.

#911 #911 season 7 #911 speculation #911 abc #911 fox #911 spoilers #911 fandom #911 show #911 s7 #eddie diaz #edmundo eddie diaz #evan buckley #evan buck buckley #buddie #jennifer love hewitt #ryan guzman #genuinely can’t tell if there’s been queerbaiting going on or not??? #like???? #literally all of the press from 7x04 to 7x06 was teasing the possibility of buddie #and now we’re getting “its not gonna happen” and “eddie is straight” like excuse me??? what?? #don’t even get me started on ryan saying that eddie loves marisol!!!

[blognarrymybabes]

As I have said before. I am done. I can’t. I can’t watch it and I am not going to even watch season 4. It’s too heartbreaking and I have no fucking hopes for season 5. I just watched Will and Mike’s clip in the van , the Mike el forehead touch and Mike monologue and I can’t believe they can hate a character to this degree.

I feel like they had too many ideas and instead of keeping it simple and core to the main characters they tried to do too many different things from different references (remember the white board with all movie names they took their so called inspiration from) that it turned into a big flop.

To have an unrequited love is fine

To have an unrequited gay love is also fine

But in this situation with everything that we have seen so far from season 1

IT IS NOT FINE

The whole thing doesn’t make sense. Mike wheeler doesn’t make sense. His character went from the leader, the protector, the person who could tell Will was alive by just his breathing, the person who knew his mood or if he was okay is now a prop for Eleven, he didn’t even questioned why Will is crying, didn’t even noticed ???? And actually smiled when Will said El needs you. I can’t !!!! Mike’s character couldn’t be more degressed they made him into a pathetic asshole who is like a jerk to his best friend of 10 years apparently for no reason and the only problem he has is telling eleven I love you back

The whole Eleven’s development till Season 4 Vol1 flushed down the drain by getting back together with Mike because of his love for her.

And I can’t even formulate about Will, the once Main Character reduced to a gay pining selfless boy who only touches his neck when he senses vecna. He has been through so much so so much and he thinks he is a mistake 💔

This all is just lazy ass writing trying to keep your audience (mileven shippers) happy. Everything boiling down to that lousy, zero genuine Mike monologue and they called that his best acting !

They used Will’s feelings to push Mike and Eleven together. They treated Will’s character and his feelings like shit. He opened his entire heart to Mike ! Told him he is the heart of the group all so that Mike can tell Eleven I love you. I hate this. They treated his character like shit, his feelings were like device to prove mileven is endgame. It already was !!!! They both are dating for two seasons now. They made him so miserable.

And I with my own two eyes saw the swing set in vol1 I was not tripping. I mean how that painting changed

I give up. I got way too attached. My mistake.

I have never been queerbaited before this was my first time and I can’t handle it tbh.

This is homophobic and queerbaiting to the next level

I honestly believed Byler was real. Will deserves so much, I can see that he is going to sacrifice in the future. He basically did that now in season 4 for Mike to be with El

I learnt my lesson the hardest way possible

And yes it’s queerbaiting !!!

I mean the actors are telling one thing in the interviews and series is completely different

Finn was like “Mike is trying to be normal and is in to new things “ and Mike’s entire I love you monologue to Eleven was fucking forced ! So forced!

Duffers said “ he was given some hard hitting stuff. His best acting” wtf

Duffers said “the painting is important they had several drafts.” In vol1 i could see the swing set with my own two bloody eyes but it is not swing set it is something else”

Duffers said “Will’s sexuality will be addressed” I am like where?

Welcome to American media. Here they show that they're inclusive but no our main cast is obviously CIS het people. Cuz omg are you kidding me?

This morning Netflix crashed so they got the money alright

I don’t have it in me to watch stranger things anymore I think I know where they are going with this.

I am hoping and I will happy if Will turns out to be a villain

I am going to be in Byler land reading fics and just whatever happened today didn’t happened

And for the record I am straight, I just fell in love with Will’s character and then realized Byler while watching. And I have queer friends and people in my family who do think the same thing and ship Byler. [ I had made a post about how I started shipping Byler. I was hesitant to put it out. But if you’re interested in reading I will upload it ]

So no you guys here are not delusional at all. If I could see it, anyone can. It’s common sense and following the story it doesn’t have to be some kind of lens.

Either Noah and Finn are crushing over each other or Duffers are coward and chickened out. If they did, they are stupid enough to not realize the gold mine they were sitting on.

That’s it for my rant.

#Byler #my condolences #I am out #I am so fucking mad and exhausted #they did them dirty #they did Will so so dirty #I hate duffer brothers #mike wheeler #will byers #noah schnapp #finn wolfhard #netfilx

[jadegreengemini]

Before part 2 of stranger things releases I just want to put my thoughts out there as someone who has only seen pieces of the trailer and never seen them voluntarily:

Things I want to get out of the way

Steddie and Ronance aren’t going to be things.

I hate to say it guys, but it’s not even that we’re being queerbaited in that front, there’s just nothing there.

Steddie, while cute, is not gonna happen. Steve and Eddie barley talked but when they did talk it was either in a group or a one on one situation where Eddie was pushing Steve towards Nancy. Eddie is queercoded but Steve is (and it kills me to admit) painfully heterosexual. It’d be cool if they got together but it’s very… very… very unlikely.

As for Ronance, as much as I love that ship name (and I will be stealing it for an oc couple in the future), Nancy is, again, so painfully heterosexual she’s been in a love triangle three out of the four seasons of this show and Robin has a completely separate love interest literally introduced this season to be her love interest. I kinda wish I’d see more fancontent of that or even just edits of Barb and Robin because although I don’t really ship it, I think they’d be pretty cool.

Realistically I think they might have Steve and Nancy get together but there’s just as big of a chance that they might keep her and Jonathan and fix that relationship by moving the Byers back to Hawkins. It’d be cool for Robin to actually get with Vicki though.

Will is either going to be confirmed gay or just heavily queercoded.

Since we’re talking about queer character: Will Byers is so freaking gay. “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls” was the biggest clue, but people have been talking about him being queercoded as long as I’ve been watching the show (though to be fair I started after season two). Based on some interviews and how giggly everyone’s sounded talking about this I don’t think they’ll outright say anything. Chances are they’ll have Will give Mike the painting but it’ll be all “oh no it’s not cause he has a crush on Mike it’s cause they’re best friends” so they can keep on making his sexuality ambiguous so as to not alienate homophobic fans more than they already have with Robin. I think the writers are jsut queerbaiting us. That said, I’m not saying there’s not a possibility-all the interviews could’ve been red herrings but they may very well have been genuine. Only time will tell.

Character deaths in order of how likely I think they are to happen 🙃

Lucas, Robin, Hopper

They don’t have enough black or gay characters to kill Lucas or Robin and I’m pretty sure the Duffers know the of backlash they’d get if they did. Don’t worry. As for Hopper, they wouldn’t do a fake out kill only to actually kill him a season later. That’d be very stupid of them.

Jonathan and Will

Jonathan might die but I’m pretty sure Will is safe. Jonathan has a not so great relationship with his girlfriend and I could see them killing him to push Nancy towards Steve.

Characters I think could die on vibes alone:

In order of least to most likely: Nancy, Mike, Argyle.

Max

She might be safe but there is still a change Vecna’s gonna kill her. We’ve spent too much time with her this season and it just feels like the letters are gonna be really important.

Steve

One interesting thing about Steve is that we haven’t really seem too much of him as the cast of characters has expanded and i think it might be that the writers just don’t like writing for him. The writers might prefer him dead. This idea is based partially on that one Duffer Bros interview and partially on Eddie.

Steve could be passing the babysitter mantle over to Eddie. Based on the similarities we’ve seen between those two (especially their relationships with Dustin), Eddie having known Steve back when he was, to put it frankly, a dick, and some comments Eddie’s made about admiring Steve, they just might kill him off.

His death could also be a catalyst for Nancy and Jonathan getting back together: you can’t have a love triangle if one of the points dies and having Steve out of the way

All of that being said, I think they might just have Steve and Nancy kiss and then have Jonathan show up and pretty much spend season 5 repeating that trios dynamic in either season 2 or 3. I don’t think Steve’s gonna die.

Eddie is probably gonna die. I don’t want to be right but I think I am.

1)We’ve seen this pattern before: likeable side character people relate to/generally enjoy is killed off in the same season they’re introduced in. Barb, Bob, Alexi. (You could theoretically argue Billy should be on that list but I fucking hate Billy and he wasn’t introduced in the season he was killed in so o don’t want to count him. The death might be that Argayle or Russian guy too but I don’t know if anyone cares about him because I barley payed attention to the Hopper plot.)

2)Eddie doesn’t really have a way back to his normal life. The entire town thinks he’s a serial killer and his death/“disappearance” could wrap that up nice enough. If they kill Eddie they don’t have to deal with the town being ready to condem/physically murder a high schooler and therefore not have to deal with the moral implications. (Or they might go the Teen Wolf route where the town finds out about the supernatural but don’t trust the heroes. That could actually be a cool idea for season 5.)

3)Eddie has got the right setup for a dramatic sacrifice death. I mean just think about it: he’s had various lines talking about being a coward and admiring Steve’s willingness to fight and take risks with his own well-being. Eddie could very well sacrifice himself to let the others be free, much like Bob and Billy before him. It would be cool if this time the character who does this lived because third times the charm and all…

General thoughts and predictions

Nancy and Mike

I think Nancy’s gonna have a boyfriend in the end of this and while I don’t think it should be Steve, I don’t want Nancy in a relationship right now. Nancy needs time to mature and white women are always forced into relationships like love and romance will fix everything and I hope they let her be single. Mike is probably gonna be with El but unless they have a decent conversation I don’t think it’ll last long before we see another big fight.

The Byers

Personally I don’t like Joyce and Hopper (season 3 ruined them for me) but I do think the writers might write their relationship well and it could have the added benefit of getting that family back in Hawkins. We also talk a lot about what Hopper means to El but I think in theory he could be a good father to Will and Jonathan. Speaking of, Jonathan has too fucking much on his plate right now and really deserves time to process his own trauma from this whole chaos. I like the idea of Hopper joining his family because it’ll take some pressure off of my boy who is self medicating hard core and I’m really worried about him. When it comes to Will, I think we’ve had our cute moments between him and Mike this season so we’re pretty much done with him by this point. He might be a part of the family reunion but probably not gonna play a huge role.

I am prepared to eat my words(especially on my Will and Byler points), but it might take some time because I really need to sleep tonight and I’ve got plans tomorrow so I won’t see the actual show until Friday evening/very early Saturday morning.

#stranger things 4 #stranger things #stranger things 4 predictions #stranger things 4 part 2

[thescrapbookingscientist]

Biweekly Media Roundup

- Trigun (Anime) - Still obsessing over Trigun and Knives specifically. Can’t believe how much I like this patronizing genocidal asshole. That’s good characterization baby.

- Lackadaisy (Webseries) - I don’t have anything interesting to say about this one, just that it was a very well made and pretty intro to what I remember being a pretty compelling web series. The designs of the cats and how much personality each exudes is incredible. 

- The Super Mario Bros Movie (Movie) - The reviews of this seem pretty mixed, but personally I liked it quite a bit. No, it’s not some mind blowing cinematic masterpiece, but for what it is, a kid friendly movie introducing the basic Mario story, it’s honestly much better than I was expecting-especially considering Illuminations previous output. You can tell it’s made by people who love the series, not only with the level of references but also in just the details of how the characters move or how the backgrounds and world are rendered. It’s quite pretty, with the character models looking adorable and the backgrounds full of color. Bowser was a standout of course, both in Jack Blacks vocal performance and the way they incorporated his mannerisms into the character model. I loved the brothers relationship and how affectionate they were with each other. It also had a few pretty solid jokes. I do wish it had been longer, as the scenes went by too fast for any emotional moment to take root, but again if you think of it as a set up of what’s bound to be a franchise of Galaxy, Luigi’s Mansion, or Odessy sequels, then it’s a pretty good “first episode” so to speak. 

- Bocchi the Rock (Anime) - My first venture into binging all the yuri-esque shows I missed from last year, Bocchi was indeed pretty solid. They made the protagonist uncomfortably relatable in her brand of social awkwardness which made for some emotional moments as well as big oof jokes. The cut away gags experimenting with different animation were fun, I did quite like the music and performances, and the character dynamics were pretty good, I’ll watch a 2nd season if it gets one. I’m not sure I’d go as far as calling it anime of the year, the ending didn’t really leave off like a complete story and plot wise it didn’t really have much going on, but as a nice slice of life comedy it’s definitely worth the watch. As a character Bocchi is great, but hopefully a s2 will explore a bit more of the other band members, who weren’t generic characters by any means but didn’t really get much screentime.

- Dr, Stone (Anime) - Hey we are back! New guy seems fun, I still adore Senku as a protagonist, and I’m interested to see how they plan to balance so many characters moving forward. Hope we see more flashbacks of the fantastic dad/son relationship, it’s honestly one of my favorites from any media I’ve seen. 

- Buddy Daddies (Anime) - While the ending surprised me in it’s conclusively (I did not expect a future epilogue to be canonized) overall I’d say it was a good decision. I’d say this was a solid C+, B-, it was good at being the cute little parenting comedy it wanted to be with some fun moments and solid animation but wasn’t particularly memorable in terms of plot or characters-like, I like all the leads, but I don’t see them topping any end of the year favorite lists. I will say that I’m surprised at how platonic they kept the fathers, I hadn’t expected them to get together but I did expect a lot more ship bait than we got. They work fine as a ship but the series really did focus a lot more on the child rearing aspects which came as a surprise considering how often marketing wants to tease mlm relationships for profit. I guess I appreciate it as I prefer giving visibility to more platonic relationships and unusual family structures to queerbaiting with no delivery but also there’s so few genuinely good mlm anime that it would’ve been nice for them to just have them be a couple. I did have a fun time with this, I’d recommend it if you are into the raising children genre. 

- Campfire Cooking in Another World (Anime) - Follow some people who had suggested this as a fun, relaxing little cooking anime and yeah, that checks out so far. Just a very cute and wholesome little feel good series about a man feeding his giant God level talking dog and baby slime child-As a domestic monster appreciator this is checking my boxes pretty well.  

- The Locked Tomb Series (Books) - Almost done with Gideon the Ninth, once again I’m really enjoying these characters and their dynamics, as well as the general space necromancy mystery plotline. I’m listening to the audiobook at the moment, but I’ll likely buy the physical copies as there are a lot of excellent quotes in here that I would like easier access to revisit. Anyway, Gideon and Harrow are the toxic co-dependent love hate lesbian ship I’ve needed in my life since my catradora hyperfixation. 

- Resident Evil 4 (Video Game) - Played till around chapter 6 so far with my friends and honestly, it’s really good. They keep all the fun stuff from the original but make it high res, I love seeing Leon and Ada and Luis and the Merchant again. It’s hard to get everyone together to play but I’m excited about getting to experience it again, got some great childhood memories of hanging with the girls and laughing at all the strange zombie noises they chose to include.

As usual I’m also keeping up with The Greatest Estate Developer, Land of the Lustrous, The Vampire Dies In No Time, and The S Classes that I raised.

Listening to: Nothing is Going Right by Meiyo, Eat Your Young by Hozier, Achilles Come Down cover by Annapantsu, Stalker’s Tango by Autoheart, Ship in a Bottle by fin, I Hate Everything But You and I’ve Always Never Believed in You from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, They’re Only Human from the Death Note Musical, Counting Bodies Like Sheep by A Perfect Circle, Kickback by Kenshi Yonezu, My Kind by Hilary Duff, Hallelujah cover by Pentatonix

#weekly roundup #My posts

[extasiswings]

This inevitably going to be taken the wrong way, but it’s something I’ve been mulling for awhile so I’m just going to say it:

A lot of the time, it feels like the people I see being the loudest and most hostile and quickest to throw out accusations of queerbaiting etc are young people. And I find myself…confused. Because I didn’t grow up having media with actual queer rep at my fingertips—that was rare, and it was even more rare to see not just queer characters but queer love stories. And then I lived through watching various shows that did actively queerbait audiences in the most obvious use of the term, by promoting queer ships that were never going to happen for PR attention and marketing purposes (in some cases while the people involved with the show mocked queer viewers and laughed at the idea that anyone would see their characters that way).

But that’s…not the case anymore. Young people today do have media with actual queer rep and queer love stories at their fingertips. Yes, it’s an ongoing project, and networks can certainly do better and we should always expect more, but I look around and the media landscape in that respect is very different from what I grew up with. And the shows that I was burned by and that many of my fellow queers were burned by, ended years ago.

So my confusion when I see young people being extremely vocal and harassing creators on social media etc over media choices is…where does the vitriol and hostility come from? Where does the self-righteousness and bitterness and mistrust come from? Because with one very notable exception in the category of “shows that actively queerbaited for years” that just ended, that experience is not one that we all shared in the same way because it is not something that you lived through if you weren’t watching XYZ while those shows were airing.

I’m not trying to diminish any real pain that people experience because goodness knows I’ve felt it myself and it’s a bitch, but sometimes I really can’t help feeling like…@ certain people, where do you get off? Where do you get off telling those of us who have genuinely lived through never seeing ourselves represented anywhere and who know the difference between then and now that we’re wrong when we say something has changed? Where do you get off declaring yourselves the arbiters of truth and good writing? Where do you get off justifying harassment today because of a “history of queer rep” that you only know about in the abstract?

Not to be all old woman yells at cloud about it, but sometimes I’m genuinely just…respectfully, fuck off.

#chapel for ts #salt tag #don’t reblog

[kimbapmmbapbap]

More k-dramas y'all should watch

So, at the end of 2017, I created a post going through my favourite dramas of all time. Obviously, I have watched more dramas since then so I have a few more dramas that everyone needs to watch!!

Strong Woman Do Bong Soon

This is an obvious one, so if you haven't watched it, have you been living under a rock?? When I first heard of it just before it came out, I thought it was going to be a rip off of weightlifting fairy Kim bok joo. But boy, was I wrong!! This drama has the perfect amount of romance, comedy, thriller and crime, so it is a good all rounder drama!! The whole cast (not just the leads) had amazing chemistry. The only flaw with this drama is that it does queerbait a little. I wish they either didn't add it in the story or fully went with that the main lead is Bi.

The story surrounds a girl with superhuman strength who wants to be a video game designer. She has always hid her strength due to fear if hurting others and losing her power. She in a unrequited love with her childhood friend who is now a police officer. She then crosses the path of a CEO of a video game company and her starts to become more chaotic. With a serial killer on the loose, Do Bong Soon needs to decide if she will keep a low profile or use her powers for the better good while also falling in love on the way.

While You Were Sleeping

Again, an obvious one, but it has to be watched!! Like strong woman, I was a little apprehensive of this one. Mainly because I hadn't heard good things about Suzy's acting before this came out. But it really surprised me and I really loved it! I'm a sucker for anything crime related, so with a really cute love story as well, it was amazing!! It has really good chemistry and likable characters. The second male lead is also amazing!! I usually don't get second male lead syndrome, but damn I felt it even though I also really loved the main lead. I can't really find any faults with it.

The story surrounds two people who can see the future through dreaming. This includes good and bad things. When the female reporter about dying while on the job, she quite her job to try and changes her fate. A prosecuter move across the street from her, initially they do not get on and their bond starts to grow. Together, they use both of their skills and their power to help change the future and solve crimes along the way. They also soon realise that this is not the first time they have crossed paths.

Psychopath Diary

I cannot recommend this drama enough!! Honestly, it is so underrated!!! Yoon Shi Yoon's performance is incredible, he really embodies the role here. It is so funny, and sweet. You also see a serial killer low key but high key fall in love with the male lead, so there is major gay vibes. The only issue I have with it is, I wish there was a little romance involved. But it is a not a major want.

The story surrounds a pushover who is working at a stocks company. After a major issue arises, he becomes the Scapegoat of the company and is being blamed for it, even though he tried to prevent it. Due to this, he decides that he will end his life. On the way to do this, he witnesses a murder and accidentally picks up the serial killer's diary. While trying to escape, he gets hit by a car and gets amnesia. When he wakes up and reads the diary, he believes that he is the serial killer.

Honestly, please watch this drama, it is so so so funny, the chemistry of the whole cast is incredible. It also possibly has one of my favourite villians in any drama.

Your Honor / Dear Judge

Yes, I am a simp Yoon Shi Yoon. He is just so good and thus role just confirms it! His acting is incredible, king of the double roles! He plays twins and you really tell when either pop up on screen which one he is. This is a really wholesome drama that makes you cry. It has some really sweet moments in it, the leads have such good chemistry. This only issues with this one is that the ending felt rushed. I hate that the TV company changed it from 20 eps to 16 eps.

The story follows a set of twins. Twin A is a top judge in Korea, who is incredibly smart and is living a rich life. Twin B is a criminal who has been screwed over multiple times by the justice system and Twin A. Their mother always sides with A and will tell B not to bother him. When A goes missing, B goes undercover and takes his brothers place. He soon learns about the corrupt world of the court system and his brother. B meets a law student who is meant to be shadowing A. Like B, she has also been affected by the corrupt system and is wanting to be a judge to convict those who have wronged her. Together they fight the system while also falling in love.

Because This is Our First Life

This is a slice of life drama so will have some heavy moments in it. But on the whole, it is just so lovely and cute. The acting is incredible, they really take on the role. It also has one of the best female friendships which is not toxic, they all genuinely care for eachother and want eachother to achieve their dreams. It also has some true badass moments in it as well! I feel like all slice of life dramas have this, but it does have some frustrating moments where the characters are almost purposely making their life's difficult

The story focuses on a woman who is a drama script writer. Due to her patriarchal family who always favour her brother and being let down by her crush, she wants to move out. She ends up moving in with a friend of a friend of a friend. It is to her surprise that the person who she is moving in with is a man who is very much stuck in his own ways and likes to stick to routine. Due to their own desires to be on their own, they decide to get married to relieve the pressure that their families are giving them. This (of course) causes issues and both have to learn about their new feelings for eachother while trying to get through the struggles of life.

Thirty but Seventeen

This drama is the definition of wholesome and cute. I feel that while I was watching it, it went by so quickly and I always had a smile on my face. The romance is so cute and lovely and you could tell they really cared about eachother. The side characters were also amazing and sweet. Honestly, the acting is incredible. The female lead does an amazing job.

The story follows woman who as a child was involved in a bus accident and fell into a coma. She wakes up over ten years later and learns that her family have stopped coming to see her. While on the search for her family, she resides with a man and his brother who are now living in her old family home. The two soon learn that there are more connected than they thought. With the man trying to push her away, the more his feelings grow for her.

Introverted Boss

This is a revenge to love story. It on the whole is a really cute drama where you get to see the leads grow for the better. The acting is incredible and you really fall in love with the leads and the support cast (except for the second lead). It is not a perfect drama, but it is a really easy watch with an interesting story.

The female lead is a stage actress who quits her job to work at a marketing firm. This firm happens to be where her sister used to work. She is out to get revenge against the CEO of the company who she blames for her sister's death. She learns that the CEO is extremely introverted and becomes confused by how he was responsible for her sister's death. As the story goes by, she becomes more intrigued by him and focuses less on revenge and more on helping him open up.

Vincenzo

Ahhhhh, how do express my love for this one!! It is just amazing!! The story was so well thought out and the actors did a fantastic job. It was so satisfying to watch, I wanted to be a member of the mafia lol. The villians were also incredible, like I just love this drama so much. Like Your Honor, the only issue with this one is that the ending felt rushed.

The story surrounds a Korean man who was adopted into an Italian family and became the consiglerie of the mafia. After an issue with his adoptive family, he travels back to Korea in search an insane amount of gold bars which happens to be underneath an unsuspecting block of flats. He then gets involved with a major legal court case with a pharmaceutical company. As he delves deeper into the case, dark secrets start to get revealed.

#strong woman do bong soon #while you were sleeping #Psychopath Diary #your honor #dear judge #30 but 17 #thirty but seventeen #because this is my first life #introverted boss #vincenzo #kdrama #korea #k-drama #k drama #kpop #song jong ki #yoon shi yoon #lee jong suk #suzy

[dreamygeorgenap-archive]

so we all know ur name truthing down pretty well and cringe at dream calling george dude so often in old videos, but do you think dream loved george at that point? like obviously he loved him because hes mushy, but do you think dream still had a crush on george when he called him dude? or do you think those feelings only came around the time he started using his name more?

Hello, you sent this several days ago but I kinda wanted to think about it and also I got distracted lol 

Yes, I do think Dream loved George at that point because if we know Dream as one thing, he’s a very loving person. The people he loves he loves them fiercely and has no embarrassment of expressing it. Do I think he was in love with George at that point? I mean they’re soulmates, bound to meet across time and space, have a bond so strong that you feel it. Are you always in love with your soulmate - platonically or romantically - even when you first meet? Is it ‘instalove’? I don’t know, but I do think it’s bound to happen. That bond is so intense that you can’t fight against it and why would you want to? 

But I don’t think they were as close as they are now then, you know? One of those reasons is because Dream had a girlfriend. Another reason is because Dream said himself that YouTube made his friendships with George and Sapnap grow stronger because now they do everything together. Another reason is I think when they go through people calling them queerbaiters or whatever it only makes Dream and George grow stronger together. I’m sure there’s other reasons as well. But on the other hand, Dream did say for George to come with him. 

I’ve also said for a long time that I think Dream really values George, for a ton of reasons, but one major reason is that George helped him so much in the beginning. Dream said he would pay George to code some of his plugins that they used and that effectively, along with their friendship of course, launched Dream’s career as a YouTuber. And also effectively made George his right hand man, it also worked out perfectly that the audience loves their dynamic so much. Cause again, soulmate type ish. 

I will tell you I’ve been rewatching a lot of old videos recently and what I will say is yes Dream calls George ‘dude’ a lot but he also just calls him ‘George’ a lot. More then I remember. There were some people name truthing in the comments before I even coined the term lol like people would count how many times Dream said George’s name and put it in the comments and this was from videos back in 2019. So yes, Dream called him ‘dude’/’bro’ a lot and certainly a lot more then he does now, but he also just said ‘George’ a lot, too. 

What is mostly different about those older videos is that even though they were all three best friends, they clearly weren’t as close as they are now. George and Dream especially, this was clearly an era or two before the sleep calls you know what I mean? Also there was just so much pandering. The way Dream would add romantic music and stand in a roses to flirt with George, albeit cute, was extremely baity and clearly pandering. He knew what he would get from the audience when he did that and it worked. Now, the flirting seems much more real and genuine so much so that sometimes it feel so intimate that it feels like we shouldn’t be watching. Sometimes even when they are not flirting, they’re just talking, it feels so intimate and full of tension. I do think there are times they pander to the audience but those times are becoming more and more rare and what’s taking over is the real flirting. So I don’t think it’s as much about the name truthing, I just think it’s them growing closer and allowing themselves to have fun and flirt and for the real in love behavior to begin. 

#Anonymous #dreamy asks #long post #if this makes no sense i'm really tired lol

[neversetyoufree]

I read the vanitas manga it's feels like queer bait to me, so many straight kisses but no gay ones? Vanitas & noe dancing is just more bait, Luna is a genderless vampire (non human) and that's it, everything else is bait just like the creator's last work

I've seen other blogs getting similar asks, so to be honest, I suspect that this isn't being sent in good faith. However, on the off-chance that this is a genuine question, or that anyone reading this has similar concerns, I'll try my best to answer this properly.

1. VnC is still a work in progress. Literally anything could happen before the ending, including canon queer people, and given the subtext we've seen so far, there's a part of me that's hopeful for it. If there were ever a shonen manga with a chance to give us legitimate rep among major characters, I feel this could be the one. I'm not going to say that just because a series so far hasn't had any explicit queer relationships, it never will.

I mean hell, just look at the show Hannibal. It's a gay love story, but the main characters spend the first season and a half getting romantically involved with a woman. One of them even gets straight married. These things happen, y'know? And even if we never see a kiss or anything, that doesn't mean something can't still be rep in a meaningful way.

2. As I've said before, even if we never do get more explicit representation than we have right now, this series will still be a very welcoming one to queer people in a way that I think is important. There is a lot of casual, subtle homophobia in the world of fiction, and VnC has had every opportunity to fall into those tropes, but it never does, and I think that's worth something in itself.

I think it’s valuable that we get to see a woman flirting with other women, and the joke isn’t “haha gay girls, that’s weird.” The only joke is how flustered the girls she flirts with get, because Domi is charming and forward. I think it’s valuable that we can see a couple of dudes dancing together, and nobody makes a thing out of it. There’s no commentary about how it looks gay. Neither guy is uncomfortable. They just. ballroom dance, and it’s fine. This may be hard to articulate well, but even if we never get Vanoé romance, and there’s nothing gay about that scene, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still feel queer. I think the more we get to see that kind of casual same sex intimacy, whether it ends up romantic or platonic, the more welcoming the world becomes to actual gay people, because it does a lot to normalize that kind of interaction. So while you may disagree, I think that scene has a lot of worth.

3. I don’t know where you’re from, anon, but personally, I am pretty uncomfortable accusing MochiJun of queerbaiting, because I come from a wildly different cultural context. I am a whole-ass American, and though there are some especially obvious cases that I’ve joked about in the past, I am not qualified to try and have an actual educated discussion about queerbaiting in Japanese media. I’m not educated enough about gay rights and culture there. I don’t know what actual Japanese queer people would and would not consider good rep. I don’t know what issues people there are concerned with.

Plus, like, queerbaiting is a marketing tactic more than anything else. The issue comes from when you try to lure in an audience by signaling that your work is queer, then double back on that promise. It is entirely possible, though rare, perhaps, for an author to write something full of goddamn subtext without fully intending to do that. For a famous example, just look at the original Sherlock Holmes (the books, not the BBC show). A lot of people have read queerness in Sherlock and his relationship with Watson over the years (and funnily enough, Noé and Vani were conceived of as a Holmes and Watson relationship), but I’m not about to accuse Arthur Conan Doyle of queerbaiting, y’know? I’m not convinced that Mochijun has ever tried to hook people in under a false promise/suggestion of rep, which is what the real issue would be.

So like, without a better knowledge of Japanese queer culture/representation and a closer understanding of Mochijun’s own intentions with this series, “bait” is not an accusation I feel either of us should be making, anon.

4. It’s been a while since I last read the series, so perhaps I’m forgetting something, but I am legitimately racking my brain trying to figure out what in Pandora Hearts you’d consider queerbait, and I am coming up empty. The series doesn’t really have any representation in it, but it never tried to suggest that that wouldn’t be the case, and I cannot remember anything that ever toed the line of getting gay. If you’d like to tell me what exactly you mean when you say “just like the creator’s last work,” please feel free, because I am genuinely rather confused.

And if this was, in fact, a bad-faith ask rather than someone legitimately concerned or confused, then it is at this point I’d like to ask you to politely fuck off and please stop messaging people. As I said, I’ve seen at least one other person get a very similar message to this, which makes me suspect that you, anon, might be the same asker, which is honestly quite sad. Do you genuinely have nothing better to do with your time than try to make random strangers on the internet feel bad about the things they like? Is making ill-informed accusations of queerbaiting fun for you? Get a hobby bud.

#ask #anon #vnc #the case study of vanitas #vanitas no carte #this blog is less than a week old #and i've already got my first weird anon! #what fun this is #meta #the gay agenda #long post

[sidecarghost]

Kripke: Family (as a source of trauma)

Sam and Dean’s brotherhood and the dichotomy of loving your brother while also disagreeing with him on almost everything at a fundamental level.

Azazel fostering a group of special children to serve in his holy war, and John raising Sam and Dean as soldiers for his holy war.

Filial piety taken to the extreme where any agency is given up. Meg’s blind faith in Azazel and then Lucifer, and Michael’s blind faith in following through with God’s plan for the end.

John Winchester’s legacy of hate and revenge being passed down to his children, Sam and Dean.

Dean, Cas, and Micheal and the consequences of absentee fathers and their sons hopelessly trying to gain approval from them.

Found family that helps emotionally support each other with team free will Sam, Dean, Bobby, and Cas vs the toxicity of the family you are born to. Similar parallel to fate vs free will.

Gamble: Identity (roles we assume vs our authentic self)

Souls as the fundamental particle that establishes our internal compass, but also capable of being lost or weaponized.

Assuming a role at the cost of being authentic:

Dean and Lisa where Dean tries to be a better father to Ben than John was to him

Cas as God where Cas tries to be a better God than the father he never met

Sam as soulless where Sam tries to be a better hunter than John, Dean, or the Campbells ever had been

And Leviathan becoming better capitalists than humans (authentic chameleons that live their best life by assuming whatever form let’s them be the most effective predator)

Carver: Oppression (being a hero to some makes you a villain to everyone else & the only force strong enough to cure oppression is love or total annihilation of the oppressors)

Abuse of power at all levels: Hell, Heaven, Earth

Monsters are shown to be morally complex and an oppressed population

The MoL is a defunct organization of humans that oppressed monsters.

Sam and Dean as the inheritors of the MoL legacy of oppression. They are never redeemed and carry on killing monsters until the end of the series.

Cain saves his brother Abel from damnation, but the cost doomed millions. His only escape was conquering the mark because of the love of one woman.

Naomi overriding the free will of angels by reprogramming them to keep them kowtowed to her agenda for heaven. Cas is able to conquer Naomi’s reprogramming because of the love of one man.

Metatron ejects the angels of Heaven forcing them to live among the people heaven has oppressed in the name of God. The show frames Metatron as a hero and a villain because good and evil can be subjective.

Rowena as the narcissistic mother that sees Crowley as a failure because of her own failings, and attempts to emotionally manipulate and influence his role as king of hell. Eventually Rowena is redeemed by developing genuine love for her son and team free will.

Styne family as a dynasty of white supremacists trying to make a race of superior humans. Their reign of oppression ends with their annihilation by Dean.

Sam clings to faith and hope in a righteous God even though he has suffered his whole life. Sam’s relationship to faith is never resolved through the end of the series.

Light oppressing the Darkness. God’s only sister was kept entombed by her only brother. Love for each other was the only force strong enough to stop their suffering.

Dabb: Fuck if I know???? (Cw: racism, suicide ideation, rape, incest) Dabb era is the most racist era of a very racist show. Other eras were problematic, but at least they attempted to tell a story based on an interesting theme. I cannot, for the life of me, come up with a theme for Dabb that the season wide plots feed into (calling it plot is a misnomer because there really is none in s12-s15, that shit cannot be consumed serially).

Destiel is shamelessly queerbaited, because Dabb has found that the queer and queer ally portion of fandom responds favorably to these crumbs.

BMoL as oppressive but now also British, and a new bunch of white people are added to the cast, because in the Spn universe Britain is solely populated by white people.

Lucifer keeps appearing to antagonize the protagonists, even though his relevance as a legitimate antagonist ended 7+ seasons ago.

Lucifer rapes a woman by posing as her lover. This results in the birth of the Messiah and death of the woman. No one ever seeks justice for Kelly, instead they endlessly obsess over her fetus.

The actor cast as Jack, the Messiah, is yet another white person in a cast full of white people.

Alternate universes are found that are like the main universe but way more boring.

Crowley is killed because Dabb is out of ideas for the character.

Sam and Dean are only interested in finding a way back to the apocalypse universe because their mom got stuck there. They express no desire to find a way back to help the universe where humans are being exterminated. They have completely given up on altruism and are living it up as privileged white people in their bunker mansion.

Black archangel Michael is villainized and loses any of the moral complexity that white archangel Michael exhibits.

Kevin Tran (one of the few recurring PoC), reappears in the Apocalypse universe just to blow himself up as a suicide bomber.

Archangel Gabriel was being kept imprisoned by Colonel Sanders who moonlights as a prince of hell. Does any of this mini arc impact the overall narrative? No. Just more white men added to the story because Dabb can’t figure out where to take the franchise.

Mary Winchester is fridged, yet again, by another yellow eyed supernatural being, so a singular family member can go into a vindictive rage about it.

Canon bisexual God is villainized. I would say for plot reasons, but I have yet to discover anything in s15 resembling a plot.

Main universe Kevin Tran (who sacrificed everything to devote his short life to helping Sam and Dean) reveals that God sent him to Hell all those years ago. Kevin is then doomed to wander Earth as a ghost until he goes insane. At which point, white guy Sam is probably going to kill him sending him back to suffer for eternity in Hell.

Billie, a black woman, becomes Death, a primordial entity and a stronger force than God (will reap God in the end). She is villainized and killed by white men for being committed to keeping the universe in balance and adhering to the natural order. No one seeks justice for her.

W*ncest is shamelessly baited because Dabb has found the portion of fandom that prefers bros as soulmates responds favorably to these crumbs.

Romanticizing suicide in a meta attempt to inform viewers that this show has lived past its useful shelf life and keeping it alive is a punishment to be endured.

Spn Prequel: ??? Not to jinx the prequel but at least it should not be worse than Dabb era.

#Spn in a nutshell #eric kripke #sera gamble #jeremy carver #andrew dabb #bob singer #robbie thompson #jensen ackles #Spn prequel #anti andrew dabb

[rebel-in-white]

On the Road to Healthy: Bucky Barnes Analysis

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, so far, has been incredible. I love episode 2- there’s SO much to unpack, and I wanted to tackle some of those topics. This post: Bucky needs Sam to continue healing.

During the iconic moment of Sam and Bucky rolling in the flowers (LOL), it’s interesting that Bucky is the one who lands on top. Some fans are thinking that this scene is pure queerbaiting and fanservice, but that’s not completely true. The producers probably did this on purpose to show that Bucky doesn’t pull away from Sam. He even leans in slightly (ever so slightly) to say, “Could have used that shield.” His hand is on Sam’s waist, they are literally crotch to crotch, but Sam has to tell Bucky to get off.

Yet, Sam stretches out his hand and lets it rest on Bucky’s metallic arm. A comforting move that confused me until the therapy scene.

In that scene, Bucky becomes surprised when Sam moves so close to him (their thighs are interlocked). Sam responds with: “What you wanted, right?” At first, I thought that Sam was just teasing Bucky with that line.

But then I saw Bucky’s almost guilty, frustrated expression. He even looks away and doesn’t retort. 

Then, it hits me. Sam is right. Bucky wants to be close to Sam, he just doesn’t know how to go about it. I don’t mean sexually or romantically (but you ship what you want, lol!), but he wants to have someone in his life like he had Steve. 

At this point, Bucky is very isolated. He’s alone in an empty apartment, which reflects the status of his mental, emotional health. He keeps lying to his therapist, makes an emotional connection to a former victim of his (which causes him to feel even more pain and guilt), and can’t go on a full date with someone. But he follows Sam when he hears that he’s investigating something dangerous because he “doesn’t trust Redwing.” He touches Sam for longer than necessary, he reveals something to him that he never told Steve, and he believes desperately that Sam should have the shield.

His relationship with Sam is necessary for him to continue to heal and form healthy relationships to other people. And his therapist knows this. I thought it was strange that she senses this strange tension between them and immediately thought, oh, they need couple’s counseling. Let me do an emergency session with the two of them. You might think this was pure fanservice, or just a way for them to discuss the shield, but Bucky’s therapist knows that Sam is Bucky’s healthy connection to the world. And Sam is a good man who genuinely cares about Bucky’s well being.

Bucky’s therapist indicated this during the first episode when she reprimands him for isolating himself:

She wants to preserve this relationship, so when she senses a tension, her first thought is to nip this in the bud (fix it right now). She knows that Bucky needs help in forming healthy attachments and to adjust to being a person, not a weapon. An important step towards that goal is to keep your sole friend, and the one person who accepts and empathizes with all you’ve gone through. (I know Steve is still alive somewhere, but his contact with them is limited.)

Moving forward, Bucky will hopefully make healthy connections to other people, besides Sam, but he needs that relationship as an anchor. In episode 2, during the therapy scene, he projected some of his own issues onto Sam, proving that he’s trying too hard to connect Sam, Steve, and himself. Because of this, he wasn’t listening to Sam or trying to understand why he gave up the shield. He gets his mistake by the end of the episode when he mets up with Sam outside: “I feel awful,” he confesses, and I think he was about to apologize when Walker shows up. 

Despite their bickering, Sam and Bucky care about each other deeply. They’re both grieving Steve, adjusting to the world post Blip, and understand each other on a level that few people in their lives can fathom. We can see the care and respect they have for each other when they stop fighting in front of “outsiders” (i.e. Walker) and present a united front. Bucky needs Sam, and by the end of the series, I think we’ll see how Sam needs Bucky, too.

Edit: I just realized something, and I wanted to share. It's about Raynor, Bucky's therapist. The first time, she'd met Sam was at the prison to release Bucky.

She says something along the lines of "I've heard so much about you." Meaning, the positive impression she's had of Sam, to the point of her reprimanding Bucky for ignoring his texts and demanding an emergency session between her client and Sam when she notices their tension, all came from Bucky Barnes. Maybe, she's researched Sam or heard about him, but the majority of what she knows about him came from Bucky himself. This shows the high regard Bucky has for Sam and reinforces why Raynor would be concerned if he were at odds with Sam.

I hope this all made sense!

#tfawts #sam and bucky #the falcon and the winter soldier spoilers #bucky barnes #sam wilson #meta #essay #tfatws meta #the falcon and the winter soldier

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

I discovered your blog through the 1D relationships post (which I loved, and feel is 100% spot on somehow, even though I have no basis to confirm this). ♥️ I feel like these past few weeks have been tough in terms of stunts and now Billy Porter’s comments (which are 100% justified, of course). I’m just wondering what is going to happen with My Policeman promo — I feel like all signs since forever (or at least since 2010) as well as his own signaling point to H being queer. But lately I’m wondering, am I a clown? Are we all? Is there a chance we’ve all misunderstood or maybe he experimented at one point but not anymore and he secretly is straight? As a queer person, my own inability to always understand his closet frustrates me. If he is straight, it would be devastating—because you can certainly wave flags and and be the best ally there is as a global artist, but if he’s straight, I wish he’d just say he’s an ally. My partner thinks there’s no way he’d ever confirm that he’s straight now due to the backlash and confirmation of “queerbaiting” (and I get that humans can’t queerbait, but HS ™️ is also a brand). I get not wanting to come out as queer due to his fan base, but at a certain point, isn’t he choosing profit over being who he is? I just can’t decide if his “Who cares? I just think sexuality is something that’s fun” mean that he can’t say he’s queer and doesn’t want to lie about it OR he’s straight and just trying to be vague because why should it matter (if he’s straight)? (I feel like this is a mess of thoughts, sorry! I just find myself wanting to believe in his queerness and doubting.)

Lovely to hear from you anon - and I'm glad you enjoyed that post -I really enjoyed writing about how I imagined their relationship.

I'm sorry you've had a rough week anon. Fandom can hit us emotionally in all sorts of ways - and I am going to push back a little bit against some of the assumptions I see in what's here - but I want to be clear that that's not pushing back against any of the the things that you're feeling. I think that the messy feelings that come with fandom are mostly about us - and often it allows space for things we're maybe not able to feel directly. But I do think it's useful to push back against some of the framing around those feelings. (To give an example which is common in fandom that you are not showing anon. Lots of people who feel upset and angry when Harry pretends to date someone deal with those feelings by spewing misogynist bile at the person he's pretending to date for months. The feeling is not hte problem - the stories they're telling to avoid really dealing with their feelings are).

So my first question is - why would it be devastating if Harry Styles was straight? And I don't mean that in a snarky way - I genuinely think it's worth articulating. Fandom puts a lot of emphasis on being right, and treats the idea that we might be wrong in the story we tell about a celebrity as invalidating in some way. But it's totally OK to tell stories about a celebrity that turn out to be wrong - I once loved Joss Whedon.

To get really specific about that example - things Joss Whedon wrote about misogyny and power and survival really spoke to me and helped me get through really difficult times. When I discovered that he was in fact a misogynist who used his power to make women's lives worse, I told myself that everything that I had gotten out of his art was valid and important. I have never gone back to his art (except in one very weird night sort of by accident, just before the pandemic), but I'm very greatful for everything that I got out of it. And Joss Whedon was abusive to his wife, and sexually harassed women in his employment. That's much worse than Harry just not being hte person you thought he was.

I don't think that things you see in art, or even in the performance of celebrity, need to be intentional to be interesting, meaningful or valid. If Harry's straight that doesn't undo anything you've seen or felt.

**********

You say that you don't fully understand Harry's closet - can I suggest what that probably means is that you're telling a story about him that doesn't entirely fit with what you're seeing? What are you expecting to understand that you don't?

Reading this, I thought about My Policeman. We see the lead up to Tom and Marion getting married from Patrick's point of view. There's a scene where Tom told Patrick that he was called into his boss's office and asked when he's going to get married, told that single men often don't do well in the police force. When Patrick met Marion he thinks:

The truth is I'm a little afraid that her red hair and assured manner have turned his head. That she can offer him something I cannot. Security, for a start, Respectability (she has that in spades, although she may not be aware of it). And perhaps a promotion.

Then, a few days, later Patrick left work and went to Tom's police box. Tom said that he was supposed to be working and Patrick said he was too 'That's complete different. You can break the rules. I can't' As he said this, he hung his head a little, like a sulky boy' Then, as Patrick started undressing Tom this follows:

Then he took my fingers from his lips and, pressing them against his groin, he asked, 'Can you share?'

'Share?'

'Can you share me?'

I felt him harden, and I nodded. 'If that's what it takes. Yes. I can share.'

And then I was on my knees before him.

That scene took my breath away, because of how similar Tom is to how I imagine Harry. Harry wants it all. And his all isn't security, respectability and perhaps a promotion, as well as his man. His all is arenas full of people, and a movie career, and expressing some parts of his identity, and his man. And why shouldn't he? He knows the dangers. He's chosen to play someone whose attempt to have everything ended in huge amounts of pain.

The most insightful thing ever written about 1D comes from Karl Marx, when he said (I'm paraphrasing): Harry Styles makes his own history, but not in circumstances of his own choosing.

I'm also wondering what's going to happen with My Policeman promo. Harry must have known when he took this role that it would be challenging to maintain his current level of ambiguity while promoting it. He knows that some people see him as a straight man and will have opinions about him taking this role. But he did it anyway, because he wanted to tell this story of a gay man who wanted to have respectability and his lover. I cannot wait to see how he plays Tom. I also cannot wait to see how he makes his own history while promoting this movie, under these circumstances he did not choose.

There are many ways of understanding and relating to Harry - and you need to find what works for you. But I do find it useful, while following artists who I think are closeted, to be interested in how they navigate their closet, rather than upset and repulsed by it.

#I think someone who says #can you share me #is a huge part of who Tom is #And it might be useful #to understand Harry Styles that way #this is who he is #not him profitting rather than him being who he is

[littlewetbeast]

so this is coming from your tags on a post about s8 and 9. as someone who only joined the fandom after nov 5, I'm always curious about what the fandom was like when the show was airing. can you talk about that a little bit more? maybe elaborate on your tags? thanks a lot <3

i can only really tell you what it was like from my perspective back in the day, and what i can say is that there was SO. MUCH. HYPE. when season 8 was coming out. people were pointing to the source material and going, wait! that shit isn’t just a gay sex joke, that shit is like - textual romance! and that’s what made people begin to argue that this time, it wasn’t bait, but a narrative that they surely wouldn’t drop the ball on. of course, now, in hindsight, we all know spn is the baitiest of bait and supreme trashfire, but at the time it truly did seem like things were headed in a new direction - and we had the textual evidence to back us up on that. i mean, i was there watching it all live throughout season 6, 7 and 8 - most of my close friends watched it, and the destiel tumblr community was on fire by the time season 8 rolled around. i wish i could find some of the old meta posts, but essentially, season 8 truly got so many people thinking that this time, the tides were changing. charlie and kevin were now part of the main cast, and there was undoubtable intent in season 8, not just from cas' side, but from dean's as well. people went bonkers over the aaron scene. this was a time where queerbaiting was at a an all-time high amongst so many popular tv shows, but there was simply no one that went the length that supernatural did. and it wasn’t just the undoubtably gay shit - it was the introduction of kevin and charlie, that incremental effort to include more characters outside of a white, male cast, which bolstered the argument that spn was finally headed in a new direction. i mean, they’d done the same shit over and over for years, surely this was a sign that they knew they had to switch things up. i remember being so genuinely hyped, along with my other queer friends, because we started to believe that perhaps spn truly was going to follow through on this. it was literally all there, in the text! one of dean’s closest friends was a lesbian. dean was in a love triangle with two men. dean got romantically flustered when a gay guy hit on him. dean hallucinated cas and altered his memory to cope with him leaving. dean was on his knees telling cas he needed him, and it broke the connection. there was just so much. anyway. having had that experience, the unfolding of spn’s ending and cas’ confession literally felt like a ‘classic spn’ moment for so many of us. we’d already been burned before by having the naïve expectation that spn could... you know, actually be normal about queer people, and write fulfilling narratives for them. throughout season 9 through 10, a huge amount of things that season 8 set up were undone - kevin was killed, charlie was killed, cas and dean were separated and no homo-ed repeatedly. there wasn’t an outrage that i could see on my dash, but myself and all my close friends just... stopped watching. there were crickets on my dash, maybe a few gifs here and there. the interest completely plummeted. there was a silent deflation and quiet acceptance from those of us that had actually gotten our hopes up that spn really was that show. when i discovered they’d killed off both kevin and charlie, that cemented the knowledge that supernatural was never going to give us what we wanted. i can’t even fully describe how fundamentally that experience changed me, but my attitude towards media and queer representation was completely altered as a result. spn has refused to move with the times, but they had already demonstrated before that they were never going to make that leap. they were in the stranglehold of the network, and the desire to retain their conservative viewership overrode every attempt to move beyond the gun-slinging sam-and-dean bro show.  so yeah, in the end, i have such sympathy for newer fans that got burned so badly by the finale, but as an older fan, i looked at it as it was all unfolding and just went - yup, been there, done that. it’s a classic spn move. i stopped giving credit to those who were throwing out crumbs of representation, when what we actually deserve is to feast. anyway, in summary, spn has expertly burned its queer fanbase for almost a decade. in response, i reject many parts of the canon and simply enjoy the fanon content, because it’s stupid and i do what i want. 

#rosa answers #long post #sorry #know herstory i guess #funnily enough the experience with spn's baiting made watching yuri on ice an incredible experience #queerbaiting is rife in anime as well and i'd also... pretty much stopped anime as well at that point #but made an exception for yuri on ice #i was literally sat there going 'no way they're gonna follow through on this' #and then they DID #anyway. spn fundamentally alters your brain chemistry i guess

[incarnateirony]

Someone dropped this in my submission box instead of ask box, “So I’m trying to genuinely understand what you’re saying is you understand corporate execs at the CW had a hand in the ending of supernatural? I’m not judging not attacking I swear I’m just trying to make sense of it because I had no idea about any of this up till now because I had stayed out of online fandom because well for years it felt big but anyways am I getting this right?”

---

The CW has a hand in everything. Here’s how this generally works.

The authors have ~relative~ freedom on a show. That is to say, the execs really don’t sit there splitting the nuances of the storytelling the fandom is receiving. They generally don’t even identify major markers that any of us would know (see: not even recognizing what the Roadhouse is.) -- we all knew the original ending had TFW at the Roadhouse as framed and spoiled by 15.04 among other details, and the whole “heaven/mental bar” theme from DSOTM, Nihilism, and Last Call all amplified this as an inevitability--but when you ask about “hey, is there a bar in heaven?” and get a “no?” that tells you they don’t even understand *ancient* plot beats like the Roadhouse, much less the ramifications of what it’s supposed to entail. Oh look at that, the roadhouse was just in fucking heaven like we said, but you identified it as a “cabin” because of filming locations and your basic notes.

Corporate has very basic compliance demands. They expect X, Y, and Z. What X Y and Z are across different shows vary depending on their markets. As long as the authors operate within X Y and Z, the corporate face essentially works off of synopsis of pitches and ideas.

This is also why I’ve talked about queer writing history and people being careful what they call queerbait: you don’t know what their X Y and Z are. The WB for example does not really CARE about representation. I’ve blogged about this often. We’re dollar signs. If they can package a new product to market it explicitly as LGBTQ fare, then they’ll turn you into a revenue machine by feeding you that particular fodder. When it comes to legacy shows--which is funny, because when the suit went off in my DM about this, they used the exact same phrasing as me--they’re going to play it safe, especially if they don’t truly understand the returns from the demographics they’re observing.

The space between X Y and Z is where the authors have liberty to push and, the longer and harder they push, the louder the content is allowed to get.

Here! I’ll even quote them directly, somewhat truncated because they ranted for fucking PARAGRAPHS.

“In reference to the media landscape, on a corporate level we do not distinguish fandoms. [...] That said, legacy shows such at Arrow, Supernatural, and even Flash are relics and we never really endeavored to reinvent the wheel on a corporate level, we are more focused on shows that are newer and still in our pipeline to premiere. [...] As for social media like all businesses and brands the engagement itself is key, but the content of the engagement is mostly irrelevant, though every show does have certain keywords that are often used in conjunction with harsher interactions blacklisted.”

The funny part is, they thought they were preaching to me like this was new information, but those of you that have been around my blog will PROBABLY RECOGNIZE this is almost VERBATIM exactly what I have told everybody over the years. Enough I half-suspect some trolls out there will think i wrote it myself and made it up and lob that accusation around. But there’s about 50 people that watched this conversation as it unfolded.

If you guys get mad? You’re still giving them PR. If you engage the content? You’re giving them PR. If you guys get bitchy ENOUGH? They completely blacklist a certain kind of engagement. I have literally been telling you all of this for years.

They don’t care who you are or what you want, just if you’re watching and what they at-best roughly estimate your demographic as desiring. So for example, Supernatural reading as a largely non-urban white demographic in its viewership, especially with a heavier lean in red states than most shows on the network, they presume to cater to what they perceive that demographic wants, rather than individualizing the understanding of the content, because they do not distinguish the shows or fandoms. “Oh, heavier republican white non-urban demographic” is where their understanding ends at, which is why they’re going to be utterly mystified why even my trump-voting republican neighbor from rural Alabama looked at the end result and went “what the fuck?” -- they weren’t expecting a big gay confession, but they were expecting a different sort of final tone.

Of course they’re never going to take that on for themselves and go “wow, we’re giant blazing dumbasses that understand nothing about the show!” -- they’ll, for example, claim they don’t leave network notes, when they’re still the ones passing material along about demographics and expectations etc etc. Their notes are *basic*. They do not leave *extensive* notes. Because extensive notes require extensive understanding of the content.

So for example: Berens spent since S9 slowly gaying up our show. Since they do not pay attention to the fine details of the story contents (lol no bar in heaven lolololol just a cabin lololol), he never got a note to *stop*. But it was not within the original structure plans and didn’t technically fit the demographic notes. The show continued to get aggressively gayed up, and Berens never really signed a note like “hey, I’m gaying it the fuck up” so even fandom reporters were going “THERE’S NO INTENT THERE!!!!!” -- berens operated in his very basic X, Y, Z landmarks to expand content within a story the suits literally do not pay the fuck attention to.

Corporate’s understanding is basic: dudes stabbing monsters and brothers against the world. Play in that box and keep these demographic notes in mind. You’re good.

They’ll NEVER mention blacklisting issues directly beyond what they admitted in the above quote but I DO remind you I have ranted ON AND ON AND ON how much Destiel fandom shot themselves in the goddamn foot with a fucking bazooka with the Chad Kennedy incident years ago. Others like Emily handled it intelligently to inform the *authors*. No, the network will never tell you if they blacklisted Destiel, but I informed you pretty heavily years ago that odds are, yeah, they probably fucking blacklisted Destiel.

Add in paying attention to the things Berens himself liked (if you don’t believe, scroll to Nov 5 on his tl)

Like, listen. berens knows exactly what he did and did the best he could do in the situations that were set up for him. And, frankly, I had been talking about this season as a writer room rebellion all year--just like corporate DID leave them a note in S11 that they couldn’t kill god. But if they couldn’t kill him or cage him, they would find another way. In 17 we said goodbye to Meredith and, in a way, to a MAJOR portion of Dean’s substantial story. In 18, we said goodbye to Bobo, and frankly all the parts that grew into queer Castiel that came with it. 19 and 20 became residual notes of hitting expected plot beats on the head on a rhythm, tying off godforces, and then just sliding into the Dabb subversion of them having learned to grieve, let go, and process emotions-- just the surrounding delivery left the feeling of more ~wanting~ on that front which is understandable.

But these are the kind of things people don’t even ~think~ about. This is WHY I’ve turned myself into a bulletshield protecting Berens’ work for YEARS while people yelled about queerbait not understanding the years of process he used in his unbabysat space to make something unable to dodge.

More posts he liked:

This isn’t a solo story. At the same SDCC he leaned over to my friend and grinned, whispering, “I hope you like what I did this year.” -- he knew. He knew and he fought his ass off but there was an end of the line.

That end of the line having an extra note or two to drop in the finale--never a big gay confirmation, just a “everyone’s there together, assume what you want” --is its own thing. As it is, Jensen even remarked how much of his dialogue got cut in final draft out of 18, and if the brazil dubbing footage leak tells me anything, they got the raw version before it was cut. And before they ADR’ed Dean’s sniffling collapsed against the wall. They had everything right, beyond the fact that there was supposed to be more dialogue from Dean along the lines of, “You can’t go”, or “you can’t leave” (difficult to determine what a ESL person seeing an english draft then yelling in portuguese then translated back to english meant, specifically, but something in that ballpark -- just like “don’t do this” came as “no it’s not” through the translation pipeline), and other similar minor bartering about this. And we’re not even gonna get into Dean’s hilariously loudly ADRed sniffling on the wall. Here, Jensen, breathe IMMEDIATELY into this microphone.

But they’re never going to tell you this. Of course they’re not. 

Summarily, corporate had half a year of having to re-manage scheduling everybody’s flights and planners during covid rewrites to stare directly into the huge gay abyss and fuck things up. 

It’s all about the unmonitored space vs the monitored space. Of COURSE they’re never going to fucking tell you these things. 

FRANKLY I am DYING to see the Portuguese dub of the show to see what the fuck they do with it, all things considered. I’m pretty sure the suit in my inbox that’s trying to vagueblog around things sideways now never accounted for the fact that there’s copies of the raw available in some parts of the world. I’m... pretty sure they thought they were my only leak source in fact. 

Either way--it’s not that corporate micromanages and passes constant notes. It’s that they gloss over vague summaries and plans, drop a few base expectations and performance boxes. It’s up to the authors how to kick up dust inside those boxes. 

[sherokutakari]

Things I don't like about Slyki:

It feels rushed

I think Loki and Sylvie work better as siblings with the way they act, both combativly and friendly

Saying they're bi but still giving them a romance the hets could overlook bc it "passes" annoys me (and before anyone screams biphobia, I'm happy to break down my feeling about this in a similar context of why sexy clothes can be liberating for irl people, but still sexist as hell and not empowering at all in fiction bc it's still a writer's choice to portray them that way,)

Loki's arc is supposed to be about learning to love himself and grow, not learning to love an iteration of himself from another timeline and still not learn things about himself bc of it

The actors' chemistry is just straight up not there for me in a romantic sense. The Lemantis scene literally made me go "oh god please don't. Okay thank you yes comfort without romance, thank u bbs." and Loki's thing right before he was pruned didn't feel genuine. Whether bc it was a trick or just, again, a chemistry thing, idk, but it felt very Not Good to me.

Not 100% a Lokius shipper (why does everything HAVE to have romance?) but the way Loki and Mobius play off each other feels more flirty and like it could go somewhere than Loki and Sylvie

Again: Why does everything have to have romance???

Reasons I will still absolutely fight you if you try and say Sylki is a "bad ship":

"It's incest!" Literally how. They are the same person from entirely different timelines, and entirely different individuals bc of it. Like that's the whole point. Look me in the eyes and tell me Croki is also the same person and therefore "basically siblings." Also I know y'all still shipping Thorki. Y'all ain't slick. (And I'd argue that's not incest either but I digress,)

"It's selfcest!!" ... yeah? Why is that bad? Go read some opinions about Loki x Jotun Loki that have been floating around since 2011 and get back to me. That's like a Whole Thing. Plus Idek why selfcest would be bad bc it hurts literally no one, but go off I guess

"It's queerbaiting!!" Look okay I get it, and as said above, I'm not a fan of how they're handling Loki's queerness bc the ship is total Het Comfort Food, but a bi person being in a relationship with someone of the opposite gender does not suddenly make them straight. Also Loki is canon genderqueer, even in the MCU now. His relationships can't be anything BUT queer. Die mad about it.

"It's not gay like in thought it was gonna be, so it's bad!!!" ?????¿¿? Get over yourself??? I'm a little disappointed too, but how about we don't fetishize queer/mlm relationships so much, hmm? Take a deep breath and go outside for half an hour. Let a bee land on you. Bc guess what. Even if it was Lokius/Loki² with another male presenting Loki, it wouldn't be a "gay" ship any more than Sylki is "straight" . The boi isn't cishet.

Anyway I have a lot of feelings about this ship (that I don't even like??) and I love Sylvie so fucking fight me

#Loki #Sylvie #Lokie Laufeyson #Sylvie Laufeydottir #Loki 2021 #this is very rambly #and somehow i am on both sides of the 'he's bi regardless of partner' fence #depending on context and intent #but people being assholes over fictional characters #and sending horrible messages to the cast and crew #boutsta catch these hands #Shut up Christi #anyway Im at work bye #Spoilers #Loki Spoilers #requested tag: #anti-sylki

[literaphobe]

Two questions:

1. What do you feel about CorpsexSykunno ship?

I feel like it's MarkiplierxJacksepticeye all over again, starts out innocent and turns uncomfortable.

(Also I think real people shipping is gross in general)

2. Dream smp makes me so nervous, not necessarily because of any of the members but due to (1) the history of online teams dominated (and lead) by male influencers, (2) minecraft youtube's general history of exploiting fans. I feel like it's going to end badly. You seem to be enjoying it tho, and it's definitely up my alley, should I get into it?

1. Corpse and Sykkuno are not comfortable being shipped! Neither of them are okay with being shipped with ANY of their friends in general, so like, don’t do it, or if u do like. i guess just don’t say anything about it? it’s really not hard to just enjoy their friendship. like it’s an endearing friendship n there’s nothing wrong w liking it. but. nothing more u know. plus both of them have made it clear on several occasions that they’re both straight and my gaydar agrees JFKDKDK like they’re just. Friends. Who care about each other :)

I definitely think it’s not like the markiplier x jacksepticeye situation, because for one u have jack himself telling people not to ship etc etc and also BECAUSE of that u have people actively policing any form of shipping. it’s honestly gotten to the point where it’s annoying but i genuinely don’t think it’s that big a problem, plus the rising popularity of the amigops puts less pressure on one-on-one corpse + sykkuno interactions, since people now wanna see all four of them play games together n not just corpse n sykkuno!

2. I get why Dream SMP would make u nervous. An interesting thing I realized when I started finding out more about people on that server is that there’s marginally more poc on it than I previously thought and also A LOTTTTT more lgbt+ people than i previously thought. Like genuinely why are so many of u so gay. And like that affects the stories being told obviously. Like. I don’t think it’s perfect n I don’t follow EVERY person on the SMP, just like i obviously don’t know everything about every minecraft YouTuber like fkdkdkdk i would say the only people i watch are dream, george, quackity (and even then i haven’t seen most of quackity’s YouTube videos) and like I’ve seen a couple of tommyinnit’s videos Fjdjdjdj and sapnap obviously but he has like 10 videos and i watch Karl’s streams if certain people are on it. yeah i think that’s about it like i do like the feral boys (dream george karl quackity sapnap) and i have seen maybe one or two skeppy videos

Anyway I get ur concerns about online circles dominated by male influencers too. but quite frankly compared to past circles ive seen its genuinely not that bad and also. In terms of holding them accountable, I think mcyttwt makes VERY sure of that (which honestly has devolved into a problem. because privileged haters will dig up stuff on creators that either a. has been addressed properly or b. is just. several years old and i don’t like how minorities are being weaponized. also i cannot stress how little i care that some minecraft YouTuber said the r slur 10 years ago when they literally never do it now. like. i worry so much because so many of these stans who think they’re ‘educating’ are just wearing themselves out n burning themselves out. so many of them are minors too)

but like. the people i am kept up w definitely do take responsibility and accountability. like dream especially gets accused of stuff that’s either fake/not him or something that’s just like out of this world (e.g. accused of queerbaiting. w george. interestingly no one ever accuses george directly of doing this) and no matter what he like addresses it properly and accordingly. like looking at his journey as a creator over the past year he’s grown a LOT and changed so much and matured a lot and i think like. looking at how much he’s blowing up and how much more of a following he’ll gain. I feel much better that it’s him who has this following as compared to. Certain people. And like. It’s upsetting to see how a lot of people have this impression of him that’s objectively false? Due to all the fake stuff that gets spread by haters (most often white for some reason???)? Because genuinely he’s not the creator we need to be so worried about?

Anyway in terms of getting into mcyts in the dream smp. I knew who Dream was because he’s played among us w the amigops a lot n they all like him because he’s just a good natured amicable person. I vaguely knew who george was because of dnf n also people putting his stupid face on my tl all the time. I thought he was pretty n hated that I thought that. I don’t care anymore tho. Like what’s wrong w looking at pretty people. I deserve it. Anyway! I got into their videos through GEORGE first, funnily. I think Minecraft, But I’m Not Colorblind Anymore was the first one I watched and it’s very very good. It’s endearing because it’s George trying out colorblind glasses for the first time n he’s nervous but Dream is there with him to make him feel more comfortable. And also Dream is so happy n emotional (he talks about tearing up at the thought of George being able to see colors properly) and their friendship is just very endearing. The video starts w george taking a colorblind test and we find out he has protan colorblindness (severity: STRONG which makes them crack jokes about how George is SO strong 😤)

anyway these losers. Decide to test the colorblind glasses on colors in MINECRAFT because of course that’s the whole video and it’s really heartwarming to see George learn how colors look like again n Dream just being excited about it the whole time n then George taking the colorblind test again at the end but with the glasses on... n then u go on to watch more george videos but it’s the ANIMAL CHALLENGES. like George Speedruns Minecraft But His Friend Is (Insert Animal, This Animal Is Always Dream) and like...... yeah so I watched a bunch of George’s videos n I went onto dream’s channel out of curiosity

And i was like. What the fuck. These videos are so WEIRDLY named. What the fuck is Finale, Finale Rematch, Grand Finale???? But dream has adhd too and in hindsight I absolutely would’ve titled the videos in a similarly confusing way. Anyway dreams manhunt videos are...... a work of art. I swear to god like even if u don’t know jackshit about minecraft they are very entertaining and weirdly impressive.

Basically in Minecraft Manhunt: Dream has to beat the game, but his friends are there trying to kill him. If they kill him even ONCE, they win n the video ends. He’s allowed to kill them repeatedly though. Manhunt started with one hunter (George, to one’s surprise), then two hunters (Sapnap and George), three (Sapnap, George, BadBoyHalo), and now four (Sapnap, George, BadBoyHalo, Antfrost). The next stage is possibly 5 hunters but idk who is the fifth yet. Anyway the thing that’s so entertaining about minecraft manhunt is:

1) Dream’s Parkour & PVP skills, which he developed and trained over such a short period of time n got REALLY good, it’s satisfying to watch him do risky maneuvers n succeed, the ways he’ll jump from a high place but clutch w either water, blocks, horses, boats, scaffolding, etc, to escape from the hunters

2) Dream’s TRAPS, like he actually does research for possible plans n traps he could do to counter the hunters, since there’s so many of them and only one of him, and he can’t just fight them in combat exclusively, since he’ll lose eventually if he gets ganged up on. I won’t spoil any of his traps, but they’re very good and also very dramatic. It’s amazing

3) The banter and taunting!! The lies and tricks!! They’re all really close so it’s easy for them to crack jokes during a lull where neither party is engaged in a fight, they’re all on the same VC so they can potentially say stuff to trick each other, or they can hear the other team say stuff that gives them an edge

4) The editing. Like the pacing is incredible, and all the bgm used is SO good at setting the atmosphere n making things more tense n exciting etc. like “dream’s manhunt music” is honestly a meme at this point but he actually unironically uses it and it unironically makes the videos better. Also dream edits all the manhunt videos by himself!! he doesn’t hire editors to do it for him or anything

idk what else to say but yeah I watch most of dream n george’s YouTube videos and they’re in most of each other’s videos and I like their dynamic a lot!! Especially since they still have not met in real life but already know they want to like live together (forever, according to George), and it like reminds me of the friendships I have because most of my close friendships have been made online. And like. They remind me that online friendships aren’t actually inferior. That’s it :) sorry this is so long

#ask #mcyt #dnf #dream smp #amigops #corpse husband #sykkuno #dreamnotfound #georgenotfound #dreamwastaken #sorry so sorry I just #never have that many ppportunies to talk about this #n I realized I had the energy to answer this ask apparently #fjdjdjdjd #askplus

[mollrat101]

I’m curious to ask the Hacks fandom, especially people who ship or like the idea of Deborah and Ava as a romantic couple because the overwhelming sense I’m getting from most of the fandom is that while people like the idea, most people don’t think it would actually become canon. Please tell me if this interpretation is wrong, that’s just the sense I’m getting. 

While I’ve been re-watching the show, I just can’t help but think, “But it doesn’t seem to make much sense if it’s not romantic”. There just seems to be too many romantic coded things between them for it to be an accident. I can admit I might have my shipper goggles on, but I’m genuinely puzzled by this. 

I don’t like to use the term queerbaiting lightly and I don’t really want to believe that this beautiful show would do that considering they have no problem portraying queer characters and I don’t want to believe it’s for an ageist reason (but this could be the most likely culprit, if it’s true). 

I admit that I like to ship characters of the same gender together sometimes even if I know they’re not likely to become canon, but that’s just it: I know the narrative is not writing them up to be a couple. But for Deborah and Ava? The show MADE me ship them. I just find it hard to believe that wasn’t the intention. 

I just feel disheartened because I feel like them ending up together actually does make a lot of narrative sense, but people seem too afraid to get their hopes up. Which I sympathize with (I’ve been in the Supernatural and Sherlock fandom), but I feel like I don’t want to dismiss a valid reading just because of fear and prejudice in the real world. Maybe I’m being naïve, but I want to believe this beautiful love story they created was intentional. 

But I admit I’m struggling to understand this story through a non-romantic lens, so I’m curious to hear other people’s interpretation.

I’m really curious to hear from anybody else, why do you think Deborah and Ava becoming a couple isn’t possible or isn’t likely? 

Or if you think Ava and Deborah are going to be canon, I’d love to hear from you as well! 

After seeing some replies: 

Okay, so let’s phrase the question a different way: Most people seem to think Deborah and Ava are in love, but they won’t end up together.

Why not? If they love each other, want each other, and make each other better...then what in the narrative says these two shouldn’t be together? That being together would be a bad idea?

My reading of Hacks is that it’s a very hopeful show. It’s not blindly sentimental, but it does seem to believe that people can work through their insecurities and their traumas through connections with others, honest self-awareness and facing their fears.

My problem is that the show suggests that they can give each other what they’ve been missing in their lives and, for Deborah especially, a romantic connection is one of those things.

Is this a show about a love that can never be realized? If so, why?

Because that, to me, reads as a very hopeless interpretation.

Deb and Ava are so flawed and the world would never accept their love so they can’t be together? Is that the takeaway?

It just doesn’t seem to flow with the tone of the show.

Especially on Deborah’s end, what does that say about her? She clearly desires a romantic partner...and then the show introduces us to Ava. Deborah has been romantically betrayed and that’s a wound that hasn’t healed.

Narratively speaking, that can only be healed by a romantic relationship that is healthy and works out for Deborah.

Who is the person Deborah is the most emotionally intimate with? Who helps move Deborah’s character arc forward? Ava. Why is the show saying Ava isn’t the solution to Deborah’s problem?

That’s what I don’t understand.

#hacks hbo #hbo hacks #deborah vance #ava daniels #deborah x ava #ava x deborah #hacks thoughts