#I don’t post a lot about the history of queer film & tv on this blog but its one of my interests

[wowevenmoreloveonearth]

You know what? I have become a gaylor sympathiser

This is going to be a long post, sorry! Please read the full post before even thinking about commenting.

Over the past few days I’ve seen a few posts on my dash about taylor swift and her fans that have left a bad taste in my mouth.

I know that a lot of people think that some fans of her are “trying to make her gay” and I just wanted to put the record straight and defend some people after actually looking at what’s going on. And I know I’m probably opening myself up for tumblr’s poor reading comprehension but before I start I’m going to say this:

I do not think taylor swift is a lesbian

Ok? Now let’s have a conversation.

First of all from what I’ve seen most of the fans who talk about Taylor swift and queerness do it from a point of literary analysis and learning queer history. This is a huge part of the community and lots of people have said that they never would have learnt so much about queer history without reading taylor swift’s works through a queer lens.

Adding on to that point, it seems a little hypocritical for the gay site which loves queer readings of books, tv shows, songs, musicals, films etc to be bullying a pretty small group of people who are mainly doing queer readings of lyrics. Especially when those people get near constant death threats. Instead of bullying these people (who don’t think or do what you think they think and do) why don’t you go outside and think “does this affect me? No. Do I agree with them? No. Am I going to cyber bully them because of this? No.”

Secondly, for the people who believe that any speculation on a real persons sexuality is 100% wrong. I used to think this too but I have changed my mind a bit about this recently after stopping and thinking about it properly. I’m not trying to change your mind at all I just want you to stop and think for a minute.

If you only get mad when speculation is queer in nature, then maybe think about that for a minute. Why is it totally wrong to think a person might be queer. We probably do it in our daily lives with people we know and they likely do it with us, back in the day that’s how queer people found each other-by speculating on sexuality. Would you be upset if you found out someone that you know thought you might be queer? I wouldn’t, maybe you would but if you would, why? Why is it terrible to think someone might be queer (this is NOT about hounding a person to admit to being queer like shawn mendes, this is just thinking in your head and on your small blog that the person will likely never see). Also this is literally the website where we talk about historical (real people) being gay even when they would have never said something to the equivalent.

An addition to this point before people start saying in the comments is that this is NOT the same situation as with kit connor. The issue there was people assuming that he was straight and taking that role away from a queer person. Speculating that he was queer was the opposite of what happened in that situation. So this is not an example of what happens when you speculate queerness.

Final things to say:

1) don’t believe every post you see with someone looking insane about taylor swift being gay, a lot of them are fake.

2) before anyone says “they should listen to real queer artists instead” most of them very much do. There’s a lot of fans of Hayley kiyoko, girl in red, Janelle monae, tegan and sara, zolita, kehlani etc.

3) there are some queer flags that are there. Sorry but there are. Hairpin drops, lavender, the ladder, flag colours, songs about women, friend of dorothy reference. Whether they are intentional is a different matter.

4) shipping real people is not what is happening for the majority of the people in the community. Also this comes back to queer vs straight again. Plenty of swifties ship taylor with men she’s been seen with and no one goes into their inboxes and sends death threats even when they are the ones making taylor swift all about the men she may or may not have dated.

5) taylor swift has never stated her sexuality. I know this may be hard to belive based off of how some people act, but it’s true. She has made vague statements which could have many meanings but she has never clearly stated anything. When gaylors get upset with taylor it is not because she said she is straight, it’s because they are getting death threats and doxxed and she seems to either be unaware of it (which is unlikely given how she seems to be a little terminally online) or she doesn’t care enough to tell her fans to stop.

6) if she does explicitly say she’s straight then there will probably be disappointment in her use of queer history and flags and her potential queer erasure (as we saw with lavender haze, with straight women describing their relationships as lavender) and centring herself in queer spaces (like the you need to calm down music video) but no one will be angry that she’s not gay. And a lot will probably be grateful that she actually explicitly stated for the record to absolve any confusion. The main issue would likely be other fans ramping up the death threats and bullying.

In conclusion: these people who do queer analysis of Taylor’s work are not trying to out her or make her gay etc. if you don’t understand it that’s fine it’s clearly not for you and you can go quite easily without seeing any of it. It’s not illegal to read works through a queer lens and if it means more people know about queer history then I think that’s a very good thing.

I changed my mind after looking at what a lot of people are actually saying rather than what people perceive them to be saying and maybe you will too?

Just be kinder to people online please and if you don’t like what people are saying block them and do not engage!

#taylor swift #long post #gaylor #gaylor swift #friend of dorothea #friends of dorothea #lgbtqia

[amphibious-thing]

Sometimes I see people accuse Star Trek: The Original Series of queerbaiting or wondering why they didn’t just make Kirk/Spock canon. So to put things in perspective for you the last episode aired on the 3rd of June 1969, the Stonewall Riots started 25 days later on the 28th of June 1969.

#star trek #tos #pop culture history #I don’t post a lot about the history of queer film & tv on this blog but its one of my interests

[soulvomit]

stuff with gender anguish about not fitting in with today’s current gender constructions

From another post I made: I need to talk about 20th century gender norms at some point as a living breathing 20th century fossil and how different it was. To most straight people, being gender non conforming meant gay, trans was on the far end of the gay spectrum, and gay was associated with being socially Not Normal at a time when you had to be Normal to get a white collar job. (The whole Normalhood thing im gonna talk about is VERY connected to mid-late 20th century construction of the white middle class.) Apropos of gender specifically... I’m not sure how 90s/00s genderfluid/genderqueer map to NB, or whether they do. It’s a big reason I am weird about IDing as NB - because it seems to mean something else than my particular understanding of my identity as it was formed in the 1990s. (Another thing is my social world being more people over 45 at this point and also I’m in a hetero relationship.) Part of 90s GQ stuff was that you could identify as a man part time, a woman part time, you could contain multitudes. “Woman-identified person with a male side” was a legit identity within that, so was “man-identified person with a female side.” You could be one person in the streets and another in the sheets. You could be several people in the sheets, especially if you were aligned with kinky culture. (And for a long time... I was.) There was a greater sense in the 90s and early 00s in genderqueerness culture that you could be GQ for no other reason than wanting to be and it wasn’t assumed to be bundled with physical dysphoria or even desire to change your public social identity. Some spaces - like West Coast geek culture and goth culture - had enough flexibility baked in that we didn’t really need to go to LGBTQ culture to explore our identities, and there was a whole geek queer sensibility that was evolving alongside of the broader LGBTQ culture that was definitely its own... thing.  And while people *say* that NB doesn’t mean any one particular thing or any of these things, that’s not always the message I get when visible NBs on TV/in film are almost always at present one very specific image or “type” of person, and that doesn’t resemble me. NB representation on TV amounts to presenting NB as a third gender with very specific codified behaviors (androgynous AFAB person who binds and has body dysphoria).   The message I get is that whatever my experience is, is better described some other way. Also the discourse around relationships with NBs is that a relationship with an NB is necessarily a queer relationship yet having been in relationships in and out of LGBTQ culture, I’m not really sure how to distinguish “a queer relationship.” My relationship is non-traditional in lots of ways and we’re both gender non-conforming in lots of ways though it doesn’t parse to most people because it’s along the lines of stuff that shouldn’t have ever been gendered in the first place. What my partner does not ever question however is his actual gender identity.  The thing is, actually publicly identifying as anything but a woman would create weird problems in my life in terms of social dynamics, and other stuff, and probably an unpredictable series of ripple effects downstream. But - that... just means I’m closeted, right? And closeted doesn’t mean your identity doesn’t exist or isn’t as unreal as someone who isn’t? And what if - as a “shapeshifter” - my relationship to myself within my relationship *is* part of that shapeshifting?  One of the things is that I’m in a heterosexual relationship. My relationship *is* one of my few spots where I’m happy in my skin, let alone happy in the world and I have no complaints with how I’m perceived in this relationship, and part of it is that practically every assumption about my gender is true, or has been true at some point, including the fact that I’m fine with being seen as a woman in the context of my relationship.  It’s in other spaces besides the intimate, that gender stuff makes my skin crawl. My deep interior gender identity is “pixels floating in the ether, which can assume any shape or form.” My gender identity among other people in non sexual friend spaces is “friend.” My partner identifies as a cis het man. I don’t feel like my relationship has any special quality that’s different from queer relationships I’ve been in, other than identities people have. If my partner doesn’t feel our relationship is queer then I don’t feel it is, either... though it’s not exactly *traditional.*  I don’t feel like our relationship is different from our hetero neighbors’ relationships regardless of whatever history I have. I have no way of knowing what my ostensibly-female ostensibly-heterosexual neighbors’ interior identities really are, or what their history is. And because we’re monogamous, it just never ever comes up. Our social world is about half queer and half not so nothing has changed. After decades of only dating people who had LGBTQ identities, and having a particular social world, now I’m with a cis het man from that same social world and nothing really has changed about the shape of my life.   I’ve moved between different spaces my entire life, sometimes I perceived myself as a boy in a girl’s body, but sometimes I didn’t, and don’t. And gender is one of the spaces in which I feel like a chameleon. There seem to be a ton of gender expression based communities that disappeared since the 90s that either disappeared or were erased from discourse and that makes this weirder/harder to talk about.  Another thing is that a lot of the discourse around pronouns (if pushed I’ll say I’m she/they but I am literally comfortable in anything, depending upon context) makes me really uncomfortable. Even in LGBTQ spaces it makes me uncomfortable. There’s the me that my friends know, and some of my family knows, and it’s a big enough world to contain that part of me at this point. I would rather not put my identity under a microscope in any space that matters. It’s weird but I wish I could just be “they” in the work, creative, etc, spaces, without the loading of what “they” means. I wish it meant nothing about the people who love me, or who I love, or how I love, or how I live my life, besides what pronoun I use. But it doesn’t mean nothing. That is why I hope more cis identified people will actually identify as they in the public sphere. There are plenty of spaces in the public sphere that I don’t think should be gendered at ALL. My wanting to be a “they” is in some ways more about wanting public anonymity and having formed my sense of self - at a tender time - online, than about my gender identity. Which means I’d be potentially appropriating “they” from people for whom it IS a deep identity, and yet... haven’t I spent half of my blog talking about how I’m not exactly the gender identity I advertise?? Haven’t I spent a long time up to now advocating for “they?” Isn’t feeling like a they, evidence that I’m a they?  And the thing is, this is such a YMMV issue and the problem is that EVERYONE has competing access needs with EVERYONE ELSE. Anything one queer person wants or needs seems to oppress some other queer person, and it sucks. But sometimes I wonder if I even need to just recognize how cis het passing my life is and acknowledge my privilege. The thing is though at that point... is it how much oppression we’ve experienced or are currently experiencing, that alone makes our identity? That’s as silly an idea as saying I’m less of a Jew because I haven’t personally experienced a hate crime. And yes there’s a lot to shared oppression experiences forming group identities, but I’m not talking about group identity. I’m talking about personal feelings of identity.

#My chest stopped bothering me after my reduction #like - the relief was profound and being a size where I could go toward any expression I wanted based on a change of clothes - was enough

[absolutebl]

Manner of Death - It’s A Murdery Series

Episode 1 Analysis

I’m not sure I can do my normal flippant BL tropes analysis + pop culture crit with Manner of Death. Because: 

This is not BL, it’s romantic suspense 

Different tropes for different folks 

We are also in cozy mystery city, sweetheart

Or should I say cozy mystery small town?

Anywhowhatwhenwherewhyhow... 

Romantic Suspense in a BL blog? 

This is MaxTul and I have been waiting YEARS for them to appear in something decent, so sure, here we go...  

What’s romantic suspense? 

Romantic suspense is a literary sub genre of romance fiction in which both the romance AND the suspense/mystery/thriller elements are integral parts of the plot. This means that if you remove the romance thread the story would fall apart. And/or if you remove the crime element the story falls apart. It’s primarily consumed by romance readers. 

Why do I think Manner of Death qualifies as Romantic Suspense? 

Well at first I thought we were getting a cozy mystery with a gay romance sub-plot. (Which means if the romance element is removed, the story could still occur.) But after watching episode one, I think it’s actually romantic suspense because:

So much of this episode was built using romance tropes as well as mystery tropes. 

The gaze of the filming lens was very romance-driven in terms of lingering on longing glances and shirtless Dr Bun. 

We followed Dr Bun into his bed. Suspense (even cozies) rarely follows the protag into household intimacy zones in the first episode. (Victims = yes, protags = no.) Romance almost always does. 

Finally, we have got a kiss in the first installment for Dr Bun, plus a lot of screen time spent on their meet cute, and that kind of pacing indicates romance. 

Why is it EXCITING that Manner of Death is romantic suspense? 

Well, romantic suspense is a HUGELY hot genre amongst readers that has gotten VERY little attention from Hollywood. (Something like True Romance qualifies as do a few others but there isn’t much out there...) There’s also little to NO queer rep in suspense films in general (except as plot drivers and victims). 

Generally speaking, the Hollywood film industry prefers straight up suspense in which the heterosexual love story, while it can be present for the protagonist, doesn’t drive plot and usually doesn’t end happily (think Mission Impossible franchise). Or the alternate which is cozy mystery TV series, which I’ll address in a moment. 

In short? This is a massive untapped market in visual media. 

Cozy Mystery 

Cozy mysteries, AKA cozies, are a sub-genre of crime fiction in which:  

sex and violence usually occur off stage (AKA don’t be too graphic)

the detective is an amateur sleuth 

the crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community.

While I think Manner of Death is demonstrating all core elements of a cozy, I don’t think it is going to be a cozy because they wouldn’t have hired MaxTul if they weren’t going to give us some serious skinship (violating the too graphic rule above). And it has already gotten a bit violent for cozies. 

That said, it’s a REALLY smart thing to put a romantic suspense into a cozy framework because...

Cozy mysteries are SUPER popular, often times with exactly the same demographic that tends to watch BL and read romantic suspense. Which is to say: mostly straight women of a certain age. (What Hollywood calls the apple pie demographic. Don’t blame the messenger.) 

Also cozies are more popular as TV series, rather than one-off films. And what do we have with Manner of Death? A SERIES! 

So I’m calling Manner of Death as:

A gay romantic suspense series in a cozy mystery framework. 

And if they can stick to that, and have done their marketing properly, they could have a run away hit on their hands. 

There are some things to be wary of: 

The lingering gaze and romantic lens can upset mystery watchers, who are probably going to be coming to this show fresh (expecting a cozy) not understanding what it is. 

Also the captioning of the medical terminology and awkward phrasing of certainly dialogue may turn these viewers off. They are less forgiving than BL watchers. 

The director is going to have to tread a VERY thin line with romantic suspense to keep new (non-BL) viewers. As is the script - the mystery is going to need to be executed well. Finally, much as we like Dr Oak and the comedic element, that style of humor probably won’t translate well to a mystery audience, so I’m hoping they pull back a bit on that. 

Some stuff I really loved? 

The soundtrack. It’s way more mature than BL and I am really happy to hear music that doesn’t interfere with my enjoyment or beat me over the head with its mistrust of the actor’s ability to execute emotion.

The filming style, they have left off triple shots and other BL fillers. 

The lack of comedic sound effects. I have learned not to mind them in BL romantic comedies but they have no place in romantic suspense. 

Lack of product placement. Although I worry about how they are funding this baby. 

Tul’s acting. I seriously did not think he had it in him and I am really excited to see him carry this thing. I was confused as to why they gave Dr Bun to him and not Max, but now I totally get it. Tul has a soft sweetness to him that Max doesn’t and it’s perfect for this character. I am already very worried about him. That’s one of the dramatic tensions of a cozy - fish-out-of-water driven concern for the protagonist. 

My Feels?

This is going to be a wild, crazy, sexy ride. Even if it jumps the shark I’m excited to see where it fails. And I mean that lovingly. 

From a purely academic perspective it’s so cool to watch something totally new, yet based on so much trope-riddled history. 

And on that note... TROPES! 

Mystery & Suspense Tropes  We Got In Episode One 

Opening on a murder

Fridge girl (see women in refrigerators) 

Nosy reporter 

Medical evidence explained 

Female friend in danger

Amateur sleuth 

Small town sins AKA the dark underbelly  

Public argument

Zoom in on clues 

I know the victim 

Murder disguised as suicide 

Love interest is a suspect 

Romance Tropes We Got In Episode One 

Meet Cute 

Sexual tension 

Secretive brooding love interest 

You can’t go home again 

Witty banter & innuendo 

Everyone wants the protagonist 

Get his shirt off ASAP 

First kiss in under 10%

BL Tropes We Got In Episode One 

(what you thought I’d just forget my one true love?) 

Faen fatal 

Baby is a floppy drunk 

Proximity alert 

Post-it love note 

Touch my lip and think of kissing

Head touch (the ”you have something in your hair” variant) 

In conclusion Manner of Death may be the death of me, but what a way to go. 

#romantic suspence #savedroak2020 #genre fiction #suspense novels #suspense films #romance films #cozy mystery #cozies #maxtul #manner fo death #thai drama #thai bl #asian drama #asian bl #thaibl #bl tropes #bl trope #tropes in bl #literary tropes #myseter tropes #romance tropes #gay romance #romantic suspense tropes

[im-the-punk-who]

Hi! I’m new to the fandom and I’m simply curious (not trying to start a feud or anything), why don’t you like Steinberg?

Hello dear anon! And welcome to the fandom! 

Oof. That’s a question. xD 

I’m going to try and stay as uh. neutral as possible. Because I’ve already written the post I know I failed but, the intent in answering this is also not to start a feud or hurt anyone’s feelings. 

Okay, so I got fairly negative in this chilis tonight, so I want to start by saying that even in light of the opinions I’m about to express, Black Sails is one of, if not my number one, favorite TV shows of all time. Certainly in recent memory - I’ve been hyperfixating on this show for 18 months with no sign of stopping, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for everyone who worked on the show - even Steinberg. (The one exclusion is Michael Bay, he can go twist.)

AND I think Stienberg is an incredibly talented writer. Black Sails is one of my favorite shows because it does such a wonderful job of weaving stories, creating characters, and melding things in a way that is both unexpected and makes sense narratively. I have changed as a person because of the show, and they will have to pry James McGraw and Thomas Hamilton from my cold dead knives-attached-to-them hands. None of what I’m going to say is meant to detract from that.

I will also say that a lot of these issues are not particular to Steinberg and are in fact a systemic problem with American TV + Film. And I’m not leaving Robert Levine out of my criticism, it’s just that Steinberg had the biggest hand in the pot(he wrote a full half the episodes) and a lot of what I’ve heard as far as talking about the show comes from Steinberg. So, he gets the brunt. But it isn’t that I think Steinberg was the only problematic element of the show. 

Also, these are all my opinions and are colored by how I interact with my fandoms. I am not only a fandom veteran, but I work and pretty much live in the entertainment industry. I work in indie film and theatre and am surrounded by artists and creators of all walks of life, like, constantly. I know what is possible, and when I see something that can be improved, I want to note it because it is important to me to always be striving forward. Like Miranda says about Thomas, this isn’t out of malice, or out of hate. It’s because I genuinely love this show, and I love entertainment as a whole, and I think in order to get to a better, more inclusive industry we have to have hard conversations and look critically at the media we consume, and it is frustrating to me to time and again see the same faces in the room. 

But if that isn’t your cuppa, that’s fine! Fandom isn’t meant to be stressful and if all you want to do is watch a show about gay pirates that is your tomato and I applaud you. Have at it you funky motherfucker.

OH! One more. At some point I’m going to talk about Silverflint. When I do, it is NOT meant as a ‘you shouldn’t/cant ship this’ or ‘this pairing is bad’ or any negative attack on the people who ship that pairing. My criticisms in this post are exclusively about what it means for Steinberg as a writer and Black Sails’ representation of gay and mlm men. While it’s not my cuppa, this is a sail your own ship blog. 

OKAY! SO! 

My main criticisms of Steinberg & Co boil down to:

The homozygosity of the writers and directors shows a complete lack of desire to include marginalized people in the writing of a show that is about them. Which leads to:

The centering of white men while choosing a historical setting and time period that was in fact dominated by people of color and specifically a black woman, 

The gratuitous inclusion of violence against women, particularly sexual violence, and again, that the female characters are often sidelined for the central male characters. 

SO.

Black Sails is a show centered around queer, female, and black leads, and yet there were only two non white-male directors (one bi-racial man and one white woman) and only 7 female writers - one of whom was Latina. The entire rest of the major creative staff was white men. I’m not going to comment on sexualities but none of the writers or directors are out as queer according to a quick google search. 

Let me reiterate the important bit there. 

In Black Sails, where the last two seasons specifically feature around a real, actually-happened-in-history event that shaped black history in the Caribbean, there was not a single black writer on the entire show. 

This is the main difference between inclusion for inclusion’s sake, and actually centering marginalized voices. Black Sails has a ton of gay, POC, and female rep in front of the camera but practically zero representation behind it, which leads to storylines and implications that Steinberg and his writers, as white men, simply would never realize.

It’s like why Silver and Miranda never realized the true reasons James was waging war on England. They just did not have the life experiences to realize they were missing a piece of the puzzle, and so they filled in their own without even realizing they’d done so. 

Because no one in the room of Black Sails was a part of these marginalized identities, nuances get lost or mistranslated, motivations get muddled through a white man’s gaze(or a straight person’s) and implications that someone within those communities might think is obvious won’t even come up.

And again, because there were no writers or directors of color in the last two seasons (the biracial man directed episodes 2x02 and 2x04 - WHICH MAKES SENSE IMO) the entirety of the historical lore that the show bases itself on in its latter half is filtered through a white man’s lens. And so there is no discussion of how changing something changes the meaning, how leaving someone out or changing their role to be more minor might affect people for whom that is their heritage. How the entire story they’re telling might change with one simple exclusion or addition.

So, how does this relate directly to Steinberg, you ask? Well, simply, because it was his show. 

Steinberg(and Levine) were involved in every major decision about the show, from its conception, to the script, to choosing the writers and directors. They chose how they wanted the show to look, to think, what stories to tell and how they wanted to tell them. Their decisions(and the biases that formed those decisions) are woven into the show.

And look. I don’t for a second believe any of this was willful or malicious. I don’t think that John Steinberg and Robert Levine sat down one day and said ‘you know what would make the gays really angry? If we locked the only two canonically gay men up in a prison camp.’

But the decisions that were made in the show were based in ignorance in a way that shows more than just simple negligence or laziness(especially given the attention to detail in everything else). The things they leave out or change in the Maroon War plotline for instance are not small details easily missed. They are big, giant waving flags. They are things that are irreplaceable to still have the same events and stories and tell them respectfully. 

It shows an insane amount of privilege to, for instance, write a show airing during a time when the Black Lives Matter movement was at the forefront of the American conscience, include black characters and black storylines, and yet not include a single black voice on their creative team. 

In a show that centers a gay man’s love and his journey in attempting to process the horrible things done to him and his lover because of it, we are given just forty minutes of the entire show dedicated to their relationship - and just fifteen of those minutes actually feature the lover! 

(Relatedly, the entirety of the gay romantic rep is two kisses, and a forehead touch. That’s the entirety of your gay intimacy representation. And yet there are in the first two seasons alone - because that’s all I’ve clocked so far - something like twenty seven minutes of scenes involving a naked or half naked woman. Five minutes of that is explicitly wlw sex.

Again, I just want to reiterate this because it’s important in recognizing bias. 

There is fully twice as much female nudity in the first two seasons, as the entirety of the time the two gay characters have together on screen. )

Steinberg is a perfect example of how a lack of understanding why the diversity you are representing is important, matters. I dislike Steinberg because he, just like every other straight white cis man I have known, profited off of marginalized voices without including them or creating with them in mind.

Art does not exist in a vacuum. You cannot create something - especially something as back breakingly, intensely a labor of love as Black Sails - without putting several pieces of yourself into it. But those pieces color your narrative. They will expose things about you that you don’t even realize. And it’s in these places we are weakest, and why a diverse group of writers with a diverse group of experiences can help a piece be stronger. But for whatever reason, John Steinberg thought that he could make art with only people who looked and thought and experienced like him. 

The lack of representation behind the camera in Black Sails was evident in front of it and yet Steinberg is out here getting to pretend like he created the most inclusive groundbreaking show that ever existed. It is important to me, personally, to acknowledge that. And that it kind of makes my skin crawl in the way all media made by straight white (cis)men makes my skin crawl. I wish I didn’t have to feel that way about my favorite tv show just because it was created by a man of privilege, but here we are.

SO. I hope that helped? Feel free to take what you want and leave what you don’t! 

Below the cut is a more in depth look at things that I think show what I’m talking about, but that up there ^^ is the gist. <3 |D

SURPRISE!

The Maroons and the Maroon War

So the first thing I want to point out is that the Maroon War was a real thing that happened. It lasted ten years, and resulted in the most substantial victory the Maroons ever achieved against the British. Not only that, there was in fact a KICKIN’ badass female leader of the maroons named Queen Nanny, who is to this day honored as a national hero in Jamaica. While they weren’t able to drive the British out, the outcome of this war led to a mostly self-governing Maroon population in Jamaica from the mid 1700s on. This was a long term fight that had a very tangible and real outcome, even if it didn’t end in the destruction of colonialism. 

And what is this war turned into in Black Sails? A white ‘madman’s revenge’  that is doomed to failure after six months.

That, my dear pirates, is a problem for me. (And those familiar with my brand of spiceyness know that I do not ascribe to the ‘Flint is a Madman’ trope, but that IS what Steinberg ascribes to, what he seems to have written the show thinking.) 

There was no narrative reason to include the Maroon War in the narrative of Black Sails. The Maroon War didn’t happen until a decade after the Golden Age of Piracy, and aside from Silver’s wife being a black woman there is no mention of Silver ever having contact with them. To me, this feels like the choice of a showrunner who found a cool historical event and saw a chance to up the stakes of their white male heroes while getting in some sweet sweet POC rep. 

Except that they then took the major events of the Maroon War and gave them to their white characters, Flint and Silver. 

Here’s the thing. If you’re going to take a piece of culturally important history and use it for your show, you NEED to have sensitivity writers. You need to have people who are at least familiar with those events and who care about them to do them justice. Have an expert come in and read your script or go over your ideas. Or just like. Hire a black writer. Hire ONE black writer. As a treat.

The important Maroon figures, Nanny, Cudjoe, and Quao, all get sidelined or ‘sexified’ and then used as plot points for the white characters. Nanny gets split into two women - the older mother queen and Madi, the young naive warbent visionary. Quao(Mr. Scott is the closest, or Kofi possibly) gets killed off because the writers realized they didn’t exactly have a place for him in their writing. Cudjoe(Julius) gets a few scenes and one good speech but his entire role in the war gets given to Silver. And THEN. That sexy Queen Madi figure gets used as emotional bait for Silver and then has to learn he has betrayed her and destroyed the hope and freedom she had wanted to bring to her people. 

Gross, pirates. Gross.

Anne Bonny/Max/Mary Read - a heads up, this section includes a semi in-depth discussion of both Max and Anne’s sexual assaults. If that bothers you, the paragraphs talking about that begin with a ***

COOL NOW LET’S TALK ABOUT LESBIANS. Words my 20 year old self would never have imagined coming out of my mouth. 

Specifically, I want to talk about Max, and Anne, and their backstories both involving extreme sexual trauma at the hands of men. And then Mary Read and the once again sexification of female characters.

(Actually while I’m here another criticism I have of Steinberg is that his writing does not seem to recognize how queer people existed in the past - again, likely because he didn’t have any gay historians to be like ‘actually buddy that doesn’t make sense also why is Anne not dressing as a man? If you want to fuck with anything and insert modern day terminology and ideas into this show, make her non binary and REALLY piss off the hetties.’)

(This same ficitonal gay dramaturg who is definitely not me has also questioned John Steinberg repeatedly about where Mary Read is, unsatisfied with the answer ‘well we wanted her to be hot so we made her a sex worker and then had Anne have to rescue her but then we realized it would be weird not to include her actual character so we gave her a five second cameo at the very end of the series and also made her like 13.’)

Anyway! So my main point in bringing up Anne and Max is the sexual trauma they are exposed to in the show, particularly being that they are the two primary wlw in the show, who Steinberg has said he views as being completely gay, and what THAT whole unexamined idea looks like. 

***Max. My dear Max. There was literally no reason to have her be repeatedly r*ped(and for the love of god there was even less reason to make it that gratuitous and graphic). Max being assaulted like that did not add anything to the gravity of Eleanor’s betrayal. The traumatic event was being tossed aside by Eleanor, and that could have been just as emotionally damaging without the sexual assault. And the only reason for her to be continually assaulted was to bring her and Anne together. 

***The reason imo that Max’s r*pe plot was added was because it was the only thing these white straight men could come up with that felt emotionally damaging enough to them. The act of betrayal itself wasn’t enough, the act of being thrown away, of having a lover put your life in danger because of her own ambitions wasn’t enough, they needed her to be r*ped to really drive home the point. 

***Anne, on the other hand, is never shown being sexually abused, but we are given an explicit account of her own traumatic history and how Jack saved her from this vile beast who was passing her around to his friends.

But here’s the thing pirates - that never happened. According to every account we have of Anne Bonny, she chose her husband, and married him against her father’s wishes. They were probably relatively happy until her husband started being a pirate spy and Anne started cheating on him with Jack. 

And yes, when they were found out. Her husband had her beat. That’s not fucking cool, and if they really wanted to go the damsel in distress route they still could have had Jack ‘save’ her from that. But at no point was she sexually abused by her husband(at least not in any accounts I’ve read.) 

You know who did likely sexually abuse her or at least manipulate her and Mary for his own benefit? If you guessed our Rat man Jack Rackham, you would be correct, because when he found out about Mary and Anne’s (supposed, but probably real) relationship, it’s implied he extorted both of them into fucking him to keep their secret from the crew. 

The addition of sexual abuse to Anne’s past isn’t done to be true to her character and was in fact explicitly untrue. Now of course I don’t know the reasons why they chose to do this, but I can guess. Just as with Max, the most traumatic thing a male writer can think of for a female character is for them to be sexually abused.

And the most disturbing part of this to me? The parallels it has to the real world of why straight men think lesbians exist. These characters who would be called man haters in present day are given these incredibly traumatic man-centered histories. It brings up something very uncomfortable in me about particularly wlw sexuality being viewed as a reaction to trauma at the hands of men. It’s just gross, I dont like it, and honestly there is no fucking excuse for it besides a room full of white straight men writing this bullshit. A room that Steinberg chose, because they fit his ideas.

In Fact heck, the women of Black Sails in general

***I honestly struggle to think of a single female character who I think was treated fairly in Black Sails. Miranda and Eleanor are killed for taking sides and not understanding their partners, Madi is betrayed in the worst way possible, Max is given a pseudo empowering ending but has that fucking terrible start. Idelle ends off fairly well, but tied to a man she may or may not have any actual feelings for, in what is essentially a political marriage. And Anne has her entire identity tied to a man who will be dead in two years as she is robbed of any agency whatsoever without him. (Oh, and the whole r*pe thing. And also her support for Max’s r*pe or death until she started having fee-fees. Who wrote this stuff. >_>)

Even though the characterization of each and every one of these women is PHENOMENAL - and again I will repeat that I absolutely LOVE these characters as they exist in a vacuum. I think they are well rounded, real, feeling people given motivations and drives and FEELINGS and they SHOW THEIR ANGER and i LOVE THEM. 

But the show punishes them for it. Miranda is essentially fridged to move Flint’s storyline along, and to make room for Silver. Eleanor is killed for the emotional damage it will cause Rogers. Madi is placed at the center of a conflict she explicitly says she is willing to die for and then not only is her entire cause taken from her, but when she tells Silver to fuck off he - in possibly the most predictable white man move ever - says ‘no i will stay until you change your mind. I will never leave you. I don’t care about your choice in this matter, I will wait forever for you. I’m your biggest fan. I’ll follow you until you love me. papa, - paparazzi.’ 

And I touched on this before, but I want to talk in more detail about what is possibly my hottest take to date, the sexification of Mary Read and Queen Nanny, as they are presented in the show. 

Max is to Anne what Mary Read is, historically. She is the lover that Jack Rackham discovers with Anne, and then he joins them in their bed. They form a triumvirate that upholds Jack at the expense of the women. But for some reason, Steinberg didn’t want to just include Mary Read as an actual character. For some reason he needed to make Anne’s love interest a sex worker who was in need of saving (and who, coincidentally, we never see working the brothel after she becomes lovers with Anne, because she is now a madam. :) Gross.)

And Madi. My dear sweet fucking Madi who didn’t fucking deserve any of this bullshit send tweet. 

So, historically, Queen Nanny was the Queen, spiritual advisor, and the military tactician of the Windward Maroons. She would have filled both Madi and the Queen’s character roles(and Flint’s, but who’s counting. A BLACK GAY LEAD? Inconceivable. I digress.) But, I guess, because they were wishy-washing with Silver’s sexuality or felt they needed to give him a female love interest because of Treasure Island, or because they were leaning a bit too hard into the gay shit and needed to backpedal, they took Queen Nanny and split her into a character who is for all intents and purposes powerless in the war and Madi, who is young and naive and does not have any real world experience outside of the Maroon camp.

Because that’s sexy, or something. They could have had the Maroon Queen be a fucking badass lady who works and fights alongside Flint and Silver and one ups them and teaches them shit and has her own ideas about where the British can stick it, but instead they made her into the perfect caricature of a female monarch, letting the big strong men handle the dirty work or something. Because white male power fantasies. 

Just let women be powerful and not nubile and let them have character arcs over fucking thirty and let them be CENTERED in their own. fucking. narratives. 

God damnit Steinberg.

James Flint, mlm extraordinaire

Oh, my love. My most amazing child. The light of my life. My purest cinnamon roll. 

~~And now we’ve come to the dreaded Silverflint criticism part of our programming. Please please know and remember this isn’t a criticism of people who ship Silverflint. As I said up top, Your Tomato Is Not My Tomato and that’s cool. Please don’t take this next part as an attack on Silverflint as a fandom ship.~~

My criticism of Steinberg as it relates to Flint is related to:

What a romantic/sexual relationship with Silver being the basis of the tension and plot means for Flint in particular as a gay or mostly mlm man. 

Refusing to confirm Thomas and James being alive at the end and honestly the whole finale in general but like I’ll try and focus.

The major problem I have with Silver and Flint being coded as in love with each other is the implications there in terms of gay men’s relationships to other men. 

From every corner, men are inundated with the idea that any close relationship between them must be gay. That intimacy cannot exist unless there are sexual feelings involved. That a relationship cannot be close, deep and soul shattering and life altering, unless one guy secretly(or not so secretly) wants to bone the other dude. That two men cannot value each other as partners or friends or truly know each other unless they are gay.

Seeing both of the meaningful relationships Flint forms with other men be sexually coded feels a bit the same way as Anne and Max’s sexual assault plotlines does vis-a-vis being wlw. (Even with Gates, Flint never spoke about Thomas or his plans - Silver is absolutely the closest person to Flint besides Thomas and Miranda.) And this is just as true for Silver. Having both Flint and Madi - the two people he trusts - both be people he’s in love with also just feels. I don’t know. 

It feels like a confusion between male intimacy and male love that is so so familiar to me as a gay man I could choke on it. Where they wanted these men to have a deep and really lasting connection, but could only figure out how to do it if they were in love. Friendship wouldn’t have been enough - only romantic and sexual love is enough for the gay man(or men, at all).

Just because it isn’t queerbaiting doesn’t mean it’s good rep, and I would have liked to see truly deep male friendships that did not center on sexual attraction - particularly for Flint as a confirmed mlm(and Silver too, if you’re counting him. The same arguments for why I dislike Flint being paired with Silver are also true in the reverse.) 

Even if both Flint and Silver were confirmed mlm I still would have LOVED to see a platonic relationship between them. In fact I would have loved that EVEN MORE. Men! Who fuck men! Not needing to fuck each other to be important to one another! Who made this. Very delicious. 

But because there weren’t any queer writers on the show, writers who understand this kind of struggle that gay and mlm men face, they thought ‘oh, let’s also have them be in love with each other. More gay rep is better gay rep, right?’ False. THOUGHTFUL gay rep is better gay rep.

Okay and here’s my last thing. The fact that Steinberg refuses to say whether or not the explicitly mlm men are alive at the end of the show - that the words he specifically uses are ‘up for interpretation’ is. Fuck, it’s gross, okay? It’s fucking gross. 

I have been around enough men, enough people in power, enough people with leverage who also know how to play the field, to know that when someone wants a group’s support but does not agree with them, their go to phrasing is that it is ‘up for debate’ or ‘up for interpretation.’

Say the gays are alive. Steinberg refusing to acknowledge the reality of the ending of his show to maintain his own sense of artistic integrity is what, honestly, really sets me off about him and I don’t care if this is a nuanced take.

Like yes, death of the author. I honestly don’t care if he thinks they’re dead or alive. What I care about is that he thinks he can get away with being clever and leaning hard into a story is true/untrue’ - doesn’t realize what the implications of that are, and didn’t when he was writing, and didn’t have anyone else in the room who would think about it either. 

ANYWAY. So this is....my long drawn out explanation for why I do not like Steinberg. Uhhhhh tune in next week for more of my totally unpopular opinions!

#good....fucking lord #i am so sorry #how many opinions can milo fit in one post #i mean i have more but yknow lmao #black sails #behind the black sails #milos black sails meta #long posts #my increasingly devoted attempts to find tumblrs word limit #Anonymous #john steinberg #js critical but the js is jon steinberg

[lokismusings]

Russell T Davies on straight actors and gay characters.

I decided to put this here because I post a lot of Hilson stuff. As an actor, this article hit a nerve. However, as a defender of free speech, Davies is allowed to have his opinion without me thinking of him as insensitive. Just like I am allowed to have my own opinion and argument, and ask questions without being labeled “homophobic, intolerant” etc. (that would just make me laugh because have you SEEN my blog? Anyway, I’ve seen a few other websites covering this article. I am also very skeptical of everything I read, including the sources, and I try not to blindly believe everything. That being said, I felt like posting this to get other opinions and ask honest question to help my understanding. If this has already been covered on Tumblr, please feel free to send me the conversations! Some background on me: I graduated with a BA in Theatre and have worked both on and off the stage since I was twelve years old. I have directed plays and an audio play. Given my experience and dedication to my craft, I think my opinion is worth something.

Also, for the sake of this argument, I am leaving trans-actors out because that’s a whole different post. Here is the article:

https://news.sky.com/story/russell-t-davies-straight-actors-should-not-play-gay-characters-12185652

Okay, so first things first, let’s talk about this: “Speaking to the Radio Times, Davies compared a straight actor playing a gay character to black face.” Something that irks me is when one person tries to speak for a whole community and doesn’t reference people from said community who might disagree: whether it’s the LGBTQ+ community, a religious community, medical community, etc. The list goes on. Here, Davies is speaking on behalf of, or speaking for, both the LGBTQ+ community and the black community, is he not? I am genuinely asking because I would like to be more educated on this kind of speech. 

Then Davies says, "I'm not being woke about this... but I feel strongly that if I cast someone in a story, I am casting them to act as a lover, or an enemy, or someone on drugs or a criminal or a saint... they are NOT there to 'act gay' because 'acting gay' is a bunch of codes for a performance.” Does that not discredit his whole statement? If any actor does a caricature version of anything and doesn’t take it seriously or really works to get into the role and the mindset of a character, they’re not a good actor. At least, they’re not an actor that I’d want to hire. Second, by the logic that a straight person shouldn’t play a gay character, should someone without a criminal record not be able to play a criminal character? Before you go off and say “it’s about identity and sexuality, and playing a criminal is about the choice to break the law” or other arguments, I hear you. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the experience. How can an actor who has never committed a crime play a criminal character authentically? They do their research: reading, interviewing, etc. I’m not saying that an actor with a few minor marks on his record shouldn’t be considered for the same role. I’m saying that in an audition setting, if both of these actors were auditing for the role and the non-criminal-record actor just happened to do a better job and fit what the director and/or writer wanted, is that a mark against the criminal-record-actor? Maybe personally because we don’t know what the director is thinking. But chances are, it’s not a mark against the other actor. The other one just happened to have a better audition. Or, a major factor when considering casting, said actor was easy to work with--I’ve seen a lot of talented actors lose a lot of roles because of their inability to take criticism or notes. 

Plus, the whole “Breaking Bad” series?? I highly doubt the main actors were meth-making drug-lords. Or, a better example, “The Wire?” In that show, we see the constant battle and deals between drug-lords and cops. 

Another point I’d like to make:  “...is a bunch of codes for a performance.” That’s exactly right. The audience doesn’t want to know an actor is “performing.” We know that going in, with what is called “suspension of disbelief.” We know the whole show is a performance, but we also expect the actors to be truthful (unless it’s a comedy/farce, but again, that’s a different argument). 

Was it bad that, before 2020, some main characters in TV shows were portrayed as straight but the writers ended up “queer-baiting?” I am referring, of course, to House, M.D. (If you follow this blog, you’ll understand.) But I am also referring to the BBC Sherlock Holmes series. Yes, both pairs of characters (House and Wilson; Holmes and Watson) are assumed to be straight. However, some episodes allude that there could also be something more there. Even the actors have said in various interviews that they aren’t sure if it’s a true romance that the characters are afraid to face, or just a strong bond between best friends that blurs the line between platonic and romantic. I’m paraphrasing, but you get the picture. Therefore, should these characters have only been played by straight actors who are questioning their sexuality or feelings for a best friend? Would it have been disrespectful to gay people if these characters ended up becoming romantically involved? (If we ask the Hilson and Johnlock community, I’m guessing that’s a resounding “NO WAY! IT WOULD BE A DREAM COME TRUE!” xD <3) 

“It's about authenticity, the taste of 2020.” *Cinema Sins sigh*

"You wouldn't cast someone able-bodied and put them in a wheelchair...” Again I say, directors and casting directors need to ALWAYS search for someone who is in a wheelchair, or deaf, or HOH, etc. before looking for an able-bodied actor to play a character with that disability (I’m iffy on the whole term “disability because of its negative connotations, but I’m using that word in order to keep this post as long as possible). But I give you the example of Rainman with Dustin Hoffman. Or A Beautiful Mind with Russell Crowe. Or the play and movie Proof, where the father had a mental illness?  Anthony Hopkins was diagnosed late in life with Asperger’s Syndrome, but the father in Proof was written to allude more to schizophrenia. And yet, Anthony Hopkins did a tremendous job in that role. Or Even Forrest Gump with Tom Hanks. Many people today love Tom Hanks and laud him as a “woke” celebrity. But if he were to portray the role of Forrest Gump today, how many people would try to “cancel” him or at least have very strong words for the director not casting an actor with autism, due to the character’s autistic tendencies? A whole lot of people on the internet and Twitter, I’ll bet. As someone who struggles with anxiety and panic disorder, would I be upset if someone without that mental illness got cast in a role of a character struggling with that? Sure I would. But if they did an authentic job and approached the role respectfully, it would be hard to stay irritated. Besides, there are always more roles created practically everyday. 

To continue on with Davies’ quote: “...you wouldn't black someone up.” Yikes. I’m sure he didn’t mean this in a cast-off kind of way, but that’s how it comes across. I can see now why he said he wasn’t “being woke about this,” because a more “woke” way of putting that would be...what, exactly? “You wouldn’t cast a non-black person in a black role.” That sounds better and less harsh. Or even “a white person in a minority role.” Which should be common sense, and I agree with both statements. 

And then “Authenticity is leading us to joyous places." Oh! Look at that! There’s that word that I’ve been using and emphasizing throughout this whole post! Authenticity is one major brick in the foundation of good, credible acting. 

“High-profile examples of straight performers playing LGBTQ+ characters include Rami Malek's Oscar-winning portrayal of Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, and Taron Egerton's Golden Globe-winning turn as Sir Elton John in Rocketman.”

I haven’t seen Rocketman, but I saw Bohemian Rhapsody and it was great! Why am I high-lighting this movie? Because it’s the perfect example of a straight actor playing a gay character and playing it authentically, while also looking a lot like the real person they’re portraying. If a look-a-like had been cast who also happened to be gay, but couldn’t act to save their life or couldn’t bring as much as Rami brought to the role, wouldn’t that kind of put a damper on the film? And yet, Rami Maleck both looked the part and brought an authenticity to the role that many Queen fans loved and appreciated. Even the remaining Queen band members said that he did an incredible job and Freddy would be proud. I wonder if Freddy would care that Rami wasn’t gay? I doubt it, but no one can know for certain. 

Then there’s the whole term “gay face.” I personally don’t think this is the right term to use because it could possibly diminish the whole meaning and importance of “black face.” Even if Corden appeared to be mocking gay people (I never watched The Prom so I have no idea what his performance was like), calling it “gay face” takes away from and inadvertently belittles the whole dark history of “black face.” Black face’s whole history comes out of an even darker history of racist times filled with hatred and ignorance. I’m not saying that gay people haven’t had their own experiences with hate and intolerance, but isn’t kind of “un-woke” and “insensitive” to compare the hundreds of years of blatant, public racism against an entire race of people to the intolerance of homosexuals? (Again, I’m asking this genuinely because I want to learn and get other people’s opinions. I’m not trying to speak for any community, and I recognize that my personal opinion on this matter is just that: my opinion. And I could be better informed.)

Along the lines of the above paragraph, is it wrong to say or think that casting a non-minority actor in a minority role is a lot different from casting a straight actor in a gay role? Sexuality comes in all shapes, sizes, and colors; that is to say, every race has people with different sexualities. But I think it would be pretty cringe if a Caucasian actress was cast in a role meant for an Asian or African-American woman. 

Director Joe Mantello told Sky News the casting was not intentional, but rather a "very fortunate series of events".

He continued: "That being said, I think having an out gay cast really did inform the work and it took on a particular kind of tone because of that, which is not to say that's the only way to approach this material. But for this particular group, it did something that I think is very, very special. There's a chemistry that they have."

And this man summed up my entire argument! He also put into simpler terms what I have been trying to express about the beauty of theatre: there will always be special casts, especially when there’s a great chemistry from a shared experience. A "very fortunate series of events,” indeed. “The casting was not intentional...” leads me to believe that the director didn’t set out to have an all out-gay-cast, but rather, each actor brought great performances to their auditions and were considered by the director to be perfect for the roles. These actors also just happened to be gay.

If you’re still here after all of that, let me take a moment to sincerely thank you for reading the whole thing! I know it’s a lot, but I’m very passionate about acting and giving each and every actor a fair chance. Let me know what you think, and please be respectful!

#russell t davies #straight actors and gay characters #opinion #article #actor #theatre #film #television #hilson #johnlock #bbc series sherlock holmes #the prom #bohemian rhapsody #forrest gump #tom hanks #rocketman #this took way longer than i expected and i'm not even going to submit this anywhere #i feel like i'm back in college writing an argumentative essay #woke #woke culture #wokeness

[thewatsonbeekeepers]

Chapter 1 – A Mental Mindfuck Can Be Nice – an introduction to EMP theory

I amused myself whilst writing this meta by coming up with referential chapter titles – the song to title this chapter can be found here! (X)

I’m not the first person to propose EMP [extended mind palace] theory and I certainly can’t claim to take the credit for it! After TFP (well, after Apple Tree Yard aired really) I left the fandom, and only rejoined tjlc this year during lockdown and discovered the theory that the entirety of S4 takes place in Sherlock’s Mind Palace, not just TAB, and that even more crucially, the EMP section of the narrative doesn’t happen because of Sherlock’s overdose but rather after Mary shoots him in HLV. Other people have elaborated as to why this is in greater detail and I certainly don’t want to steal their thunder – you can find some of my favourite metas on this here! X X X The original founders’ post is here and great X – it should be noted that the concept of EMP theory appeared way before the superficial shitshow that was series 4, so it was not invented as a fix-it – far from it! 

As well as that, tweets from Arwel Wyn Jones (production designer) and Douglas MacKinnon (TAB director) here X X suggest that a lot of the inconsistencies that make HLV onwards quite dreamlike are absolutely deliberate, which has never been explained in the context of the show. In fact, Douglas MacKinnon specifically suggests that the plane could be in Sherlock’s mind, which has no bearing on the superficial plot unless you buy into EMP theory. We’ve also already been shown that the modern day, particularly when it’s fucky, can be in a mind palace illusion in TAB, and we can read that as a kind of rehearsal for the proper fucky mind palace stuff in S4, a clue that everything is not as it seems – much like the Mayfly Man’s murder rehearsal in TSoT.

It's worth pointing out that there are several different versions of EMP theory – I personally subscribe to the idea that this is Sherlock’s mind palace after being shot by Mary, but there are plenty of popular theories on John’s ‘Mind Bungalow’, blog theory, which I don’t want to dismiss out of hand. However, I think the obsession with the figure of Sherlock Holmes and who that might be throughout the fourth series is thematically consistent with it being from Sherlock’s perspective, as is the precedent from TAB.

The other thing I want to lay on the table as foundational to this theory is the fandom’s obsession with TPLoSH [1970 Billy Wilder queer Holmes adaptation, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes]. Mofftiss have long stated their love for TPLoSH and even that it is the adaptation that has most inspired them, and I don’t know a single tjlcer who doesn’t have this quotation from Wilder emblazoned onto their memory.

I should have been more daring. I have this theory. I wanted to have Holmes homosexual and not admitting it to anyone, including maybe even himself. The burden of keeping it secret was the reason he took dope. X

What I’m proposing here is that whilst we’ve thought about this quote quite a lot, we’ve always focused on the first half – that Sherlock Holmes is a homosexual – and not the second, which is that that’s the reason he’s on dope. We talk a bit about Sherlock being upset in HLV about John’s marriage and that being why he turns back to drugs, and likewise when TAB first aired a lot of people (myself included) thought he was ODing because he wasn’t going to see John again. I now think – and will provide evidence through the meta! – that it isn’t his feelings of (seemingly) unrequited love which are sending him to drugs, nor that the EMP is a place where he’s discovering his feelings – my meta here X is not the first to point out that Sherlock almost definitely deduces his own feelings for John in TSoT, in a case of the worst timing in television history. Instead, much like Wilder’s Holmes, I think our Sherlock is dealing with a huge amount of shame and internalised homophobia, which has metafictionally* been building up since Conan Doyle started writing – hence the trip back to 1895 in TAB.  S4 is about breaking through over a century of Holmes adaptations which have formed Sherlock’s own version of himself, so that he can break out of them into a ‘Private Life’ outside of established canon.

*Metafictionality is the defining idea around my version of EMP theory, so for anybody who’s not familiar I’m going to do a quick run down. The idea behind metafictionality is that Sherlock is aware of itself as being a work of fiction and deliberately plays with that – in this case, I’m arguing that the character Sherlock is subconsciously aware of the history of book/film/tv adaptations of Sherlock Holmes, and his existence outside Sherlock builds up to create his internalised homophobia. Sounds mad? Maybe. But stick with me here. The reason it’s taking so long for Sherlock to process his sexuality is not just because he’s repressed, but because he’s dealing with the weight of other Holmes adaptations – which is the reason arguably that a modern audience would also take so long to accept it, longer than were this character not such a huge part of the Western psyche.

My aims from this meta:

1.       To prove that tjlc remains endgame (eh, if there’s a series 5)

2.      To show that s4 is about Sherlock trying to break out of his MP coma after being shot by Mary

3.      That s4 engages with the history of Sherlock Holmes adaptations through the character of Sherlock investigating his psyche

4.      That in the real (non-MP) world, John is suicidal, and Sherlock has to wake up to save him.

Chapter 1 – A Mental Mindfuck Can Be Nice: a quick summary of EMP theory

Chapter 2 – Look up here, I’m in Heaven: the height metaphor

Chapter 3 – Death Cannot Stop True Love [HLV 1/1]

Chapter 4 – It is always 1895 [TAB 1/1]

Chapter 5 – Hey, Soul Sister: Who is Eurus?

Chapter 6 – So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish [TST 1/2]

Chapter 7 – There’s Something About Mary [TST 2/2]

Chapter 8 – Dream a Little Dream of Me: parallels with Doctor Who

Chapter 9 – Rock’n’roll Suicide [TLD 1/2]

Chapter 10 – Oh No Love, You’re Not Alone [TLD 2/2]

Chapter 11 – The Importance of Being Earnest [TFP 1/3]

Chapter 12 – Three Men in a Boat [TFP 2/3]

Chapter 13 – Out of My Dreams [TFP 3/3]

I’ll (ideally) be uploading a chapter a day for the next 13 days. Some of these chapters will contain links to later chapters; if that chapter isn’t uploaded yet, I’ll add in the link retrospectively, so that might be why the links don’t all work on first read. With chapters that have an episode in parentheses beside, I strongly recommend either watching the episode before reading the meta, or even better to do a simultaneous read and watch through with your finger on the pause button. The only episode which doesn’t do a play by play is TLD 1/2 , purely for time reasons (my college term starts very soon and I really needed this meta put to bed for the sake of my degree!).

The other thing worth saying is that if you want this meta as a word document for some reason, drop me a message – I’m more than happy to share it that way as well. It is a cool 50k so takes some reading. This chapter has been a bit of a nothing, but I hope it lays the groundwork for what to expect from the next 12 – I’ll see you over the next 12 days!

#emp theory #thewatsonbeekeepers #my meta #chapter one #mine #introduction #then I get the fun job of working out how to actually organise my tumblr so people can actually find the shit i write

[king-of-the-issues]

🏳️‍🌈Happy pride everyone 🏳️‍🌈

I thought I’d make a ‘little’ (sorry, it’s going to be a long one and it’s going to be a bit of a mess) post about my own story and journey within the LGBTQIA+ community. Hopefully it can help educate some, maybe others will be able to relate, or you’ll just find out a little more about me.

I grew up in a fairly liberal family and area - although the area was technically conservative until very recently, I’ve been lucky enough to not have known anyone majorly homophobic or discriminatory (my grandad is a little stuck in his ways though). I’ve always been told that being ‘different’ is good and normal and there’s nothing wrong with liking someone of the same gender. Although we were never really taught anything about same-sex relationships and being the late 00s, sex education was very heteronormative. We were never told that being gay was wrong and we knew of gay teachers in the school and kids with two mums or two dads and it was never really a big thing.

I first started questioning my sexuality in my early teens, I wasn’t very ‘girly’ and I didn’t really have any crushes on boys at school. So I figured I must be gay, or at least bi. Looking back at this I can see that although I thought I was well educated, I was not. And though I may have been right in the long run, my justification and understanding of why it was so was definitely built on a lot of gender stereotypes and I wasn’t fully aware of what it meant to be gay or what my true feelings were. But I still wasn’t sure, so I just assumed that I was straight, I’d never had feelings for a girl, so why would I be gay?

I finally started to better educate myself when I joined tumblr in 2013 as a ‘Wholock’ fan blog. I started following other fan accounts who just happened to be part of the LGBTQ+ community and so would post things about themselves and their community. Through this I definitely learnt a lot more about sexuality. There wasn’t just an L,G and B, but there was a P and an A and a Q and so much more. I started watching more LGBTQ+ you tubers, tv and movies and educating myself further.

At this point I was doing my GCSEs (16 years old), I’d never been in a relationship hetero or otherwise. I hadn’t even had my first kiss and I still hadn’t really had any crushes. A boy hadn’t paid any attention to me in anything other than a platonic way in about 4 years. Some of my friends were in relationships and getting male attention, so I was still thinking, was there something wrong with me? If I’m not gay, do people think I’m gay and that’s why they don’t pay me any attention? So I started dressing more feminine and wearing more makeup in the hope that something would change. It didn’t.

When I started Sixth form in 2014 (17) I saw a film in the cinema that truly opened my eyes and I think I can say that seeing that film was the turning point and the moment I started to educate and question myself further. That film was ‘Pride’, the true story of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners. Something about this film really got me, like many other films and tv shows I fell in live with the movie and it’s characters. Only this time they weren’t just characters, they were real people, who played a huge part in LGBTQ+ history. So I learnt more about these people and their stories. I posted about it a lot on tumblr and found other lovers of the film and they taught me more about their lives. This film was also my first major introduction to pride, London Pride in particular. I had missed the parade that year, but was hoping to attend the next year. This was also the year that same-sex marriage was legalised in England and Wales. There was a lot of things in the news and on tv about the history and struggle of the LGBTQ+ community, including ‘Our Gay Wedding the Musical’. As a lover of musicals, I wasn’t going to miss this, but not only was it an excellent musical, but I learnt so much more about the history and ‘legal side’ of being part of the LGBTQ+ community. It also introduced me to a lot of LGBTQ+ musical artists, personalities and songs.

In both AS and A2 Level art, I completed projects focused on sexuality and gender identity. I explored a range of artists, historical figures and other influential people within the LGBTQ+ community. I was able to better understand the many different identities that existed and the work that has been made to get where we are now as well as questioning my own identity.

For A Levels I had picked Art as one of my subjects. I have always loved art and at this point it was the direction I was planning on taking my life and career. I was still very much continuing to educate myself about the LGBTQ+ community and was discovering LGBTQ+ art and artists. This was also the time that Grayson Perry’s second tv series ‘Who are you?’ was airing, which looked at various aspects that affect a person, including gender and sexuality. With Grayson discussing his own relationship with gender and sexuality. At this point in time, A Levels were all split into ASs (year 12) and A2s (year 13). Which at the end of both would be an exam in all the subjects you took (4 for AS, 3 for A2). In art we were given a selection of titles and had to pick one to work from. From this we would have to create research pieces and supporting work, leading up to a final piece, which we would complete in a 5 hour exam. At this point I had been looking for a way to represent the LGBTQ+ community in my work and when ‘Community’ was given as one of the possible exam titles, I knew what I was doing.

I began with studies of people I had learnt about through general media, Pride and Our Gay Wedding the Musical. On a side note, this was when I developed my love for graphite portraits, my first of which was of Nathan Taylor and Benjamin Till the couple who both created and were married in OGWtM. I continued my general research into artists and styles, when one of my teachers introduced me to the work of Paul Harfleet. Paul created the Pansy Project, where he would plant a pansy (historically a derogative term for a gay man) in a location of homophobic abuse (verbal or physical). He would also edit photos to put Pansy’s into the mouths of famous people who were homophobic or used homophobic language. I used this idea as my inspiration and my final exam piece featured well known people who have used such language or hold such views, with handmade pansies in their mouths, with Oscar Wilde in the middle, who was imprisoned for being gay, holding a bunch of pansies as if he’d put them there. My research for this piece had introduced me further to the political movements, fights and protests, the work that had been made and was still being made to help people just simply live their lives as themselves. When I finished my AS Level, I was hoping to carry this theme onto my work in my A2s.

Because I was hoping to do this I decided that I now had to go to Pride as it would be a great opportunity to take reference photos. I intended to go with some friends, but they all bailed, so I ended up going with my mum. My mum has always been reasonably liberal, but she never really had the knowledge to educate myself and siblings on the different types of relationships, gender and sexuality. By going to Pride, it definitely opened her eyes and she has since become a huge advocate for equal rights for all and as a childcare provider is trying her best to educate the children she looks after and make her environment inclusive. I absolutely loved Pride and collected so many great photos and saw so many inspirational people. Including the cast of the Pride movie and originators of LGSM.

In A2 art, we were required to complete coursework that would feature various pieces and research that would accompany an illustrated essay. In order to continue my focus on the LGBTQ+ community, the title I created was ‘How has art reflected society’s attitudes towards sexuality and gender’. I continued to look at the work of Grayson Perry as well as the story of Lily Elbe. During Pride I had taken a picture of a drag queen dressed as the Queen and used this as a reference for a painting. From this I edited picture of well known people to be the opposite gender. Looking back at this, I do regret doing this, as well as other aspects of my following work. I feel that although my intention was to show gender as fluid and present some ‘what if..’ questions, I feel that the way I went about it could have been insensitive and seen as mocking those with gender dysphoria and identity issues. Continuing from my queen portrait I decided to look specifically at the royal family and at monarchs and members of the family throughout history who are believed to be part of the LGBTQ+ community and how that has been ‘covered up’ or ignored. I also looked at drag artists and how the royal family who, though are typically seen as being very conservative and modest, have in fact historically been very flamboyant in the way they dress and present themselves, with the line between feminine and masculine clothing once being very thin. Again, although my intentions were good and the questions I was presenting were important, I don’t feel I went about it the right way. Although I did try to justify it at the time, I feel I shouldn’t have been presenting these people who may or may not have been LGBTQ+ as so, especially when suggesting that some monarchs who may have cross-dressed, could have in fact been transgender.

Aside from the artistic side my research greater deepened my understanding of the range and fluidity of gender and sexuality. Including gender non-conformation, gender-fluidity, gender-queer, demisexuality, polysexuality and being queer. At this point I was still confused about my own sexuality, but would tell people that I was just a straight ally. I remember being asked by both a classmate and university interviewer whether I identified myself as within the LGBTQ+ community and both times I answered no. Looking back, I wish I had said that I wasn’t sure, that I was confused. Because it is okay to not be sure and be confused, no matter your age.

After leaving school I was starting to look more at asexuality and wonder if I was on the ace spectrum. I didn’t think I was 100% asexual because I do want to be in a relationship, but maybe I just haven’t had the opportunity to explore that yet. I have been subscribed to Evan Edinger for about 5 years now and he has spoken openly about his own experiences and as someone who is on the asexual spectrum, specifically being demisexual. I started to consider that I could maybe be demisexual and watched more of Evan’s videos as well as reading about others who identified as demi. I felt comfortable with this label, it felt like it answered a lot of questions and gave an explanation for why I hadn’t experienced crushes like my friends for many years.

I then began to realise that if I was to imagine myself in a relationships, it could be with a guy or a girl, it didn’t really matter and maybe I was bisexual, or at least biromantic. This was something that I had considered in the past but I was only just accepting as a true part of myself.

I was able to go to my second London Pride in 2019, this time with my mum, sister and a couple of friends. We had a great time and I met and spoke to some incredible people. This further made me consider my sexuality and made me feel even more comfortable.

So, on New Year’s Eve of that year I came out as demi and bi to my friends, who were all very accepting and supportive. I am yet to come out to my family and I don’t really intend to, not because I’m ashamed or I don’t think they’d be supportive, in fact quite the opposite. Since going to pride, my mum has been very vocal in her support of the LGBTQ+ community and I feel that if I were to come out to her, she would make quite a big deal out of it, which as someone with anxiety who likes to live a reasonably quiet life, I don’t really want. I also never really talk to my family about my ‘love life’ and relationships, existent or not, so I don’t really feel the need to tell them this. If I was in a relationship with a girl, then yes we’d probably talk about it, but until them, I don’t intend on telling them.

Although I have come out, I still wouldn’t say that I am 100% sure my exact labels, but I think that’s okay. If I am asked I normally say that I am Queer as I find it sums up that I don’t identify as heterosexual without going into too much detail.

I think the main thing to take from my story is, it’s okay to not be sure about your identity. There is no age that you should have had your first kiss etc by. You do what is right to for you, maybe you’ll have the answer soon, maybe it’ll be a while, but that’s okay.

#pride #lgbtq #bi #demisexual #pride film #c4 cucumber #e4 banana #lgsm #art #grayson perry #pansy project

[intersex-ionality]

Hey you mentioned MLP in a blog post. I haven’t watched in a season or two. Who are your favourite characters and ships? Also do you have any favourite cartoons or recent favs? I love cartoons.

Okay, so, I’m one of those Absolute Shitbags who legitimately thinks anything after Season 2 (and quite a bit of S2 itself) is Cursed and shouldn’t exist, so please take every single thing I say here with not merely a grain, but a full on block of salt.

The series finale was shameless pandering, and I absolutely worked on me. AppleDash grow old on a farm together? Pinkie Pie finally gets to be the head of a giant party family just like she always wanted? Rarity is a sexy widow who wears giant feather boas? Fluttercord!!!?!?!?!!! I cried during that final song and I’m not afraid to admit it.

That said, the last two seasons were... messy. Mostly unfortunate, with the occasional gem.

The movie, however, is fucking spectacular. I loved every second of it, and I hope that the upcoming capstone film is even half as beautiful. Capper Dapperpaws is the greatest fursona in human or pony history so I also hope he shows up again.

In terms of shipping, I was always more into Twilestia and Lunestia than any of the more common ships. The Alien And Immutable Goddesses Who Have Only Eachother thing was always appealing. And I mean, you know, hot for teacher is such a classic trope. Neither of those ships makes sense past about S2, however, so since then I’ve been more arbitrary. I go where the fics go, rather than deciding on fics based on the attendant ships.

Except for Starlight/Trixie. That ship is eternal and I will die before you take it from me. Evil Communism Pony literally put Shitty Thieving Con Pony in charge of the emotional health and wellness of her students so that they could work together as BFFs 5 ever, and shitty con pony stepped up and took care of those kids so hard, that’s so much character growth for everyone involved.

In terms of current favourite toons, I am a strong believer in the dragon prince. If you don’t find the whole Destined Child Leader Who Is Morally Righteous And Should Be The True King angle off putting. I know that’s a major criticism that a lot of people have.

Hazbin Hotel and the associated Helluva Boss are also really good, if you’re okay with adult animation rather than children’s animation. They’re vibrant, witty, unapologetically queer, and just a ton of fun.

The next instalment in Tales of Arcadia is coming out soon, and while I was definitely more of a 3 Below fan than a TrollHunters fan, I’m extremely hype for it.

To be honest, as much as I love western animation, I haven’t got many recommendations right now. I don’t have regular TV, and web-released shows aren’t usually.... great.... and they have weird fucky schedules. It’s hard to stay invested.

#Anonymous

[stretchjournalemerson]

Turn and Face the Strange: Academia’s Failure to Account For Changes in Current LGBT+ Culture

By Matt Pifko 

In the world of academic writing, there is no dearth of queer writing. Whether coming from authors belonging to the LGBT community or focusing on the community itself (such pieces often inhabit both spaces), this sort of academic discourse is prevalent. Countless journals are entirely dedicated to sexuality, queer communities, queer texts, and the general study of queer culture. Despite all of this writing, I see a gap in the academic sphere. I see a blank space, a disparity between the world I see every day and the world represented in these journals. There are essential modern queer texts almost entirely absent from the conversation, iconic figures that have yet to be mentioned by slothlike academia, and important features of the community mentioned only by non-scholarly pop culture magazines and niche community websites. In other words, these academic journals that proclaim to deep dive into queer communities with authority and accuracy appear to fail to illuminate and investigate the vibrant, ever-evolving community.

To explain the gap I perceive, I must first explain the other half of the equation. In other words, I must explain the life experiences I have had over the course of the past year. After graduating from my small, homogenized, exceedingly white and conservative high school, I was thrust into that age-old, all too familiar cliche - a wacky arts school in a major city. Emerson College, despite its notorious lack of racial diversity, was a culture shock to me, mostly due to its famous inclusive and vibrant queer community. Here, I was introduced to people of all kinds of sexualities, genders, philosophies, and nationalities. It was here that I was educated in a new language - that of queer culture.

I had been familiar with the LGBT community’s most beloved celebrities and most popular terminology, thanks to the internet and the widespread appropriation of this terminology (which is an entirely different and important discussion best saved for another occasion), but Emerson gave me a whole new vantage point. Here, I could watch other queer people discuss celebrities, films, TV shows, literature, and all varieties of pop culture that they valued. Thus, when I entered the academic sphere, which seemingly includes so many queer voices, I was perplexed to find very few voices discussing the same “icons” I had heard about in person at Emerson.

To understand this relationship between the current LGBT culture I perceive and the culture discussed in academic journals, we must first establish the context in which this relationship exists. The context, in this case, would be LGBT culture of the past, and the general concept of this culture. This culture is both incredibly storied and often hidden/undocumented, a result of the stigma around homosexuality and other “deviant” sexualities in almost every historical society. Given that LGBT individuals existed throughout history in every time period and every region, there has been a lot of lost culture.

It is most useful to examine LGBT culture in the last few decades, in that it is the most similar to the culture of today’s community, and additionally, most information available pertains to this period. LGBT “culture” is not merely a underground collection of gay-themed media, but rather, more like a vast web of mainstream media that is selectively chosen and incorporated into the community, combined with certain works that directly deal with LGBT

themes. Historically, music has been particularly important to the community. In his extensively researched article about gay and lesbian music tastes in the Belgium queer community, Alexander Dhoest (and his assistant researchers) gives some background, explaining that “music contributed to the evolution of lesbian and gay cultures on several levels... it not only provided means to meet other lesbians and gays, whether belonging to a community and the construction of lesbian and gay identities” (e.g. Chauncey, 1994; Taylor, 2012)” (Dhoest et al., 208).

Furthermore, Dhoest notes that lesbian and gay tastes can vary from one another, but there are certainly overlapping artists and sensibilities. Particularly important to the LGBT community is “camp”, a style connected to gay culture that can be described, in the briefest, simplest terms, as a heightened parody of the feminine and “tasteful” society. Such culture is showcased in drag queens and the worship of pop divas. Dhoest elaborates, claiming “In a musical context, camp can be identified not only at the level of the performer and their stage performance; it is also audible through lyrics and musical execution.” Examples of such campy divas include Judy Garland, Madonna, and Whitney Houston (Dhoest et al., 209). LGBT culture is vast and dense, and campy pop singers constitute a small fraction of the bigger picture. Other genres can fall under the lens of camp, such as punk and disco. Additionally, from observations and life experience, I have noted there is a historical admiration in the community for female performers in all musical genres, such as Bjork, Blondie (Debby Harry), and Fleetwood Mac (Stevie Nicks). Historically, camp has also existed in the world of film, in everything from What Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) to the more overtly queer John Waters “Trash Trilogy” (Pink Flamingoes) (1972), Female Trouble (1974), and Desperate Living (1977) (Snider).

So, where has queer culture gone since the 20th century? In an age where the community has been increasingly more accepted and visible, especially in western culture, what content has emerged? In Lauren McInroy and Shelley Craig’s article “Perspectives of LGBTQ Emerging Adults on the Depiction and Impact of LGBTQ Media Representation,” a valuable cross-section of early 2010s LGBT culture is illuminated. As the title suggests, the researchers interviewed various self-identifying members of the community whose ages ranged from 18 to 22 (all located in a Canadian city where McInroy works as a professor) on the subject of LGBT representation in media, particularly TV and film.

In terms of representative shows, the researchers found the following to be the most commonly mentioned/popular among LGBT interviewees: Queer As Folk, The L Word, Degrassi, and Glee. Movies included Brokeback Mountain (2005), Boys Don’t Cry (1999), A Single Man (2009), and Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001) (mistitled “Hedwig and the Angry Itch” in the article). Already, it is clear that LGBT culture in the 2000s and early 2010s revolved much more around properties with actual LGBT characters in the narratives. Moreover, the musicians the community supported more openly supported the community in return, as is the case with musician Lady Gaga. Gaga was a favorite due to her larger-than-life media persona and biting wit, but she affirmed the community in return, notably premiering the LGBT pride centered track “Born This Way” in 2011. In these interviews, the LGBT emerging adults (who, it

must be said, were overwhelmingly white and LGB) noted the improved media representation but struggled to name a character or show/film they consumed that displayed queer people in a completely accurate light. Many of the emerging adults preferred new media, i.e. blogs and social media, for LGBTQ representation, because on these platforms the community can represent itself authentically and not be forced to appeal to mass audiences (McInroy). Unfortunately, the 2016 article fails to mention specific new media or new media celebrities, leaving the reader to guess at what exactly the subjects consume.

Regardless of in which era LGBT individuals consumed media, what they consumed, or why they consumed it, it is very clear that this media has an enormous impact, especially when it features some kind of direct representation. In a 2011 study at the Austin Pride Festival, an overwhelming amount of GLB individuals identified media figures as instrumental in their coming-out process (Gomillion et al.). In other words, through these storylines and characters, members of the community can see their own stories, which in turn legitimized and clarified their own hidden experiences and emotions. In a community like the LGBT community, where members typically grow up isolated in heteronormative households/communities, media representation is absolutely essential - for many, including myself, it is a bridge to understanding and acceptance.

Thus, the discrepancy I see between the current LGBT youth culture and the academic sphere does not have anything to do with this underlying understanding. Academic writers understand and have proven through empirical research that media is important to the LGBT community - it’s just that they fail to keep up with, or rather, fail to process this constantly evolving culture in meaningful ways. Each of the academic pieces I have cited contain valuable information, and yet, they all have significant shortcomings. Namely, they are out of date. To a degree, this cannot be helped, as the articles were published in 2015, 2016, and 2011, respectively. That said, the articles do not reference any representative films that were released post-2009, and the most recent TV show referenced began in 2010. Furthermore, these articles are some of the only LGBT-centered academic writing I could locate that deals with the actual community. After scouring the internet and using all the means provided to be as a student at a well-funded communications college, I found that almost all the well-researched, quantitative data on LGBT media and its impact on the community dated back to 2016 or earlier.

To a degree, this is not so much an issue specific to queer academic writing as much as it is emblematic of the faults of the academic genre as a whole. The peer-reviewed, extensively examined processing of academic papers serves as quality assurance, but it also ignores factors such as urgency or influence. This is not to say that academic writing is completely ineffectual in its antiquity and specificity - rather, I believe academic writing is incredibly important, and that the haste with which new material and new research is released should reflect that. In the case of research on LGBT narratives and their effects on the community, perhaps these articles need to be released more expeditiously and become more readily available to the LGBT youth who are

concerned with such matters. Articles like “Radical Love in a time of Heteronormativity: Glee, Gaga, and Getting Better” simply lose relevance in only a few years time.

Therefore, when the cultural items that are examined are no longer essential topics of conversation in the LGBT community, much of the research loses its teeth, and conclusions reached about the community itself can seem inaccurate or outdated. This is not to say that the history of the community cannot be documented, nor are older cultural items like “Glee” unimportant to the visibility of the community. Rather, these simply do not reflect the current values and shared culture of the community, especially for LGBT youths who joined the community long after Madonna and Glee had phased out of popularity. Even in the academic world, timing must be considered. Research regarding an evolving world has to evolve with it and remain relevant, or else the authority of academia will wane further.

Moreover, in the world of academic writing, specifically that which was available to me through my liberal arts style institution, I see two misguided avenues which queer academia often heads down. The first is that of the misguided research. If academic research is to illuminate the influences of media on LGBT individuals, it is essential that the researchers actually interact with LGBT individuals. It is not enough for the researchers to be queer themselves (as is the case with many of the aforementioned articles) - the subjects must be as well. In the piece “Sexuality and Teen Television: Emerging Adults Respond to Representations of Queer Identity on Glee” by Michaela D.E. Meyer and Megan M. Wood, an empirical study is conducted by interviewing various students at a college about their experiences with the TV show Glee. In their opening statement, the authors stress that while previous research has established that queer media can have an impact on emerging adults, they wanted to focus on how these adults are impacted, and in what ways their identities can benefit. This is a valuable vein of research that has yet to be touched, and yet, the researchers miss the mark by solely interviewing straight-identifying individuals. In a study about LGBTQ representation in a show famously important to the community, the researchers allowed for their 97 fans of Glee to be unanimously heterosexual. While the data itself is well organized and analyzed, this oversight renders the data useless in terms of LGBT impact. When the world of academic writing is already so exclusive and, for lack of a better term, narrow, a journal like “Sexuality & Culture: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly” in which this study was published should be providing more accurate and insightful data.

On the other hand, academic writing can miss the mark by focusing too much on the thematic analysis of queer media. After finding article after article about the state of the community written in 2015 or earlier, I began to look for specific articles about current LGBT cultural items of which I knew, those that I had heard in conversations with actual LGBT emerging adults. Researching these items, I found some peer-reviewed entries (there were significantly more entries on queer film/TV as opposed to queer music, despite music’s aforementioned important role in the community), and yet, these were almost always a thematic analysis of the text. Specifically, “Beating Hearts: Compassion and Self-Discovery in Call Me By Your Name” by Joanna Di Mattia and “Call Me By Your Name: Not Pedophilia, Still Problematic” by Renee Sorrentino and Jack Turban are examples of such analytical articles about a relevant LGBT cultural item. Call Me By Your Name, a 2017 film based on the book of the same name, has been immensely popular due to its sensitive and visually splendorous take on gay romance, and therefore, would be a fantastic artifact to conduct research on. That said, these authors, despite writing for publications such as “Screen Education” and “Psychiatric Times,” offer up little more than their review of the material through slightly different lenses. The articles vary in their opinion on the quality of the representation, but each neglects to investigate the actual effects of the material on the represented people. “Beating Hearts” almost purely focuses on the technical and narrative elements of CMBYN, while Sorrentino and Turban’s article makes a surface level connection between modern LGBT youths who use hookup apps and the main character of the film’s experiences. Thematic analysis and opinion based evaluation is not without merit, but there are plenty of conversations on film analysis and queer themes already going on outside of the academic sphere. In order for academia to be necessary and essential in today’s world, it must differentiate itself by providing the kind of empirical data and findings that art journalism cannot cover.

If the goal of the academic sphere is to educate other academics, then researchers must make an effort to reach out of the academic world and learn about things outside of their domain. If the goal of the academic sphere is to educate students my age, then research that is genuinely reflective of the world in which we live must be made available to us. Many of these articles are valuable in certain respects, and on the whole, this body of research constitutes a wealth of useful information when cross-referenced with one another to fill in the gaps. Nonetheless, we, as a community and as young people with a thirst for information, deserve better. Ultimately, the most crucial oversight in the queer academic community is simple - there is a lack of new voices with new information. Whether in the form of impactful texts or influential figures within the community, these perspectives must be addressed and must be heard. Meaningful research must be done that intimately involves these voices in the process itself. It is not easy to change gears within the academic community, to ask a sloth to move faster, but valuable change is never easy. Strong academics do not teach and communicate because it is easy, but rather, because they understand that knowledge and perspective is unimpeachably important. Perhaps, academics can understand that communicating with the current culture themselves is the first step towards communicating this knowledge to others.

Works Cited

Bingman, Andrew. Influence of Media on Gay and Bisexual Identity Formation. 2016.

EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsbas&AN=edsbas.D7683790&site= eds-live.

Boyer, Sabrina, and Erin Brownlee Dell. € ̃Pop Culture Is Our Religionâ€TM: Paulo Freire, LGBTQ Rights and Radical Love. 2015. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsbas&AN=edsbas.EED4E14&site=e ds-live.

Dhoest, Alexander, et al. “Into the Groove: Exploring Lesbian and Gay Musical Preferences and ‘LGB Music’ in Flanders.” Observatorio (OBS*), no. 2, 2015, p. 207. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edssci&AN=edssci.S1646.595420150 00200011&site=eds-live.

Di Mattia, Joanna. “BEATING HEARTS: Compassion and Self-Discovery in Call Me by Your Name.” Screen Education, no. 91, 2018, p. 8. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsgao&AN=edsgcl.576220095&sit =eds-live.

Kies, Bridget, and Thomas J. West, III. "Queer nostalgia and queer histories in uncertain times."

Queer Studies in Media & Pop Culture, vol. 2, no. 2, 2017, p. 161+. Contemporary Women's Issues, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A496450962/CWI?u=ecl_main&sid=CWI&xid=b2c 1e0b. Accessed 8 Apr. 2019.

Meyer, Michaela D. E., and Megan M. Wood. “Sexuality and Teen Television: Emerging Adults Respond to Representations of Queer Identity on Glee.” Sexuality & Culture, vol. 17, no. 3, 1 Sept. 2013, pp. 434–448. PsycINFO, Emerson College, doi:10.1007/s12119-013-9185-2.

Mcinroy, Lauren B., and Shelley L. Craig. “Perspectives of LGBTQ Emerging Adults on the Depiction and Impact of LGBTQ Media Representation.”

Journal of Youth Studies, vol. 20, no. 1, 19 May 2016, pp. 32–46. Taylor & Francis Online, Emerson College, doi:10.1080/13676261.2016.1184243.

Snider, Sarah. “The John Waters Trash Trilogy.” Culture Wars, 19 June 2007,

www.culturewars.org.uk/2007-06/trash.htm. Sorrentino, Renee, and Jack

#academia #lgbtq #research #matthew pifko #stretch2019

[floralmotif]

Better Together (SPN Speculation)

This took longer than I anticipated. I’m still not sure if I’ve covered everything I wanted to cover and I had to add some stuff since 12.21, but I’m posting it so it gets posted before the finale. It is a massive info dump, and I’m sorry for all the technical stuff, I promise it gets explained in there. I couldn’t figure out how to truncate it without outlining it like a novel. I wish I had time for that, but I barely have time to outline my specs atm. I lso don’t want to say that everything I say here is absolutely definitive, it’s just based on what I’ve observed and the patterns I’ve noticed. There are a lot of other factors that feed into this one that are also worth exploring but I don’t really know how to include them without over complicating everything, so this is the main set that I’m personally focusing on.

I dunno if anyone remembers this, but back when I metad about 12.12, I said I wished I could have done it in video form because the information better lent itself to a visual medium. Yeah, this is another one of those times. Someday I may modify this into a script and do that, but the season finale is basically today, so here goes.

Some of you may have seen a post go around where @k-vichan, @drsilverfish and @angelswatchingover​ discuss what Alicia is and the questions surrounding her current state. (I can’t get it to route to one of their blogs, but check them out)

@k-vichan​ mentioned something that this series has reminded me of since S5, and had themes which have prevailed through the show for a long time.(S7 on, especially.) I went back to watch it after I saw the post, to confirm with myself what I remembered. It had been a long time since I saw the movie, and I wanted to be sure before I wrote about it.

Of all the other works that exist, no other that I know of more closely seems to resemble the themes and message of Supernatural more than the 1995 film Ghost in the Shell.

I have no idea if this is on purpose or if they just both came across the same progression on their own (inspired by the Hegel dialectic) but they both share some common philosophies that have shaped my view of SPN since I’ve watched it, and especially this season. Even without having seen the movie in a long time, these thought processes and progressions seemed to prevail. If there is some real influence between them, what would it mean?

The below place contains spoilers for the ending of Ghost in the Shell, They’re further down though. I’ll mark them. Sadly, they’re kind of important for my speculation, but you can skip them if you want.

But first, let’s talk about (a vastly simplified version of) Hegel (in relation to narrative mostly), theming and message.

For those of you who don’t know who Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is, for my purposes, he was a German Philosopher and a man who looked like several instances of Jacob Marley. He had several ideas about how history and social constructs work. His ideas have been adapted over the years to suit fictional storytelling and they do an extremely good job of it. The great wiki creature sums up the work of Hegel thusly:

Hegel's principal achievement is his development of a distinctive articulation of idealism sometimes termed "absolute idealism",[16]in which the dualisms of, for instance, mind and nature and subject and object are overcome. His philosophy of spirit conceptually integrates psychology, the state, history, art, religion, and philosophy. His account of the master–slave dialectic has been highly influential, especially in 20th-century France.[17] Of special importance is his concept of spirit (Geist: sometimes also translated as "mind") as the historical manifestation of the logical concept and the "sublation" (Aufhebung: integration without elimination or reduction) of seemingly contradictory or opposing factors; examples include the apparent opposition between nature and freedom and between immanence and transcendence. Hegel has been seen in the 20th century as the originator of the thesis, antithesis, synthesis triad;[18] however, as an explicit phrase, this originated with Johann Gottlieb Fichte.[19]

Already seeing some parallels? Good. (it’s ok if you don’t. Wikipedia likes to word everything like a scientific abstract.)

I know it says the triad name was attributed to a different dude, and that’s true, but in terms of our usage, we’re gonna keep dragging Hegel around with us on this journey because he’s associated with the philosophy behind it. So come, Hegel, you’re not getting out of this so easily.

The definitions for each of these instances are thus:

The thesis is an intellectual proposition.The antithesis is a critical perspective on the thesis.The synthesis solves the conflict between the thesis and antithesis by reconciling their common truths, and forming a new proposition

Sound a bit like SPN’s s1-5, s6-11 and ... now? Yeah, there might be a reason for that. Not sure if it’s on purpose, but considering how everywhere the dialectic is in writing, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was come across and adopted at some point. At least to an extent. (also just freaking read that description of them there, that’s so pointed, it pangs at my fingers when typing).

One the people who brought the Hegel dialectic into mainstream use in media was Blake Snyder, most notably in his book Save the Cat. The Book has been fairly influential since its publishing and it’s been used as a basis for many films and tv shows. I don’t know if the book influenced SPN, but it may have (the book was released in 2005). Whether the book was a direct influence or not, there are certainly similarities. The show may be taking influence from Hegel directly, it may have evolved on its own as part of the human approach to storytelling or, it may have came from another work influenced by Hegel… like Ghost in the Shell.

The longer something exists the more it has to explain itself. This isn’t true of all media, but it’s generally true of anything that wants to have a consistent, ongoing, story.

This is why shorts are allowed to be weird as hell and they get away with it, and it’s why SPN has been deconstructing itself for the last several years. It’s also probably why everything is people.. Other than because budget. If this whole thought process is true, this season will mark the beginning of act 3, the beginning of the synthesis part of the arc, and if my speculation is correct, the beginning of sublation or aufhebung as Hegel used it.

For our purposes, and as it's generally used in media, sublation here means “assimilate.” To merge two opposing factors into a single entity, the two factors may not be even in scope. From what I can gather, the message of the entire series is “humanity must learn to accept the aspects of itself that it runs from, that it others and demonizes as part of itself.” That may sound long, but messages in works are often sentences like that.

Reconciling the old to embrace the new” has been what myself and some others have been calling the theme of this season. This fits into the message I’ve derived from the show by giving the characters the incentive to try new ideas and to learn from what they’ve experienced instead of relying entirely on past rhetoric. Not everything about the past is bad, but weeding out what’s preventing positive progress and merging it to new ideas which better accept the real world is a step in progressing towards a culmination of the message. In order to do that, you have to dance the destiel a little. Cas is literally the ideals of the Winchester brothers, of “humanity” as represented by them. That’s his character role. He’s also a supernatural being, linking him to the idea that “the ideas that progress are within what we have deemed other”. This aspect of his character is enforced throughout the series and is come into direct text on multiple occasions. Dean is in love with a supernatural being that represents new ideals of progress and acceptance. To me this is what destiel ultimately is, or will be. Humanity (Dean) accepting that which it was taught to other (the Supernatural (queer) love of Cas, ie new ideals) as part of itself in order to progress as a person (species) to a better future. If one aspect of humanity (Dean) accepts it (culminates his love somehow), then the other (Sam), will be forced to accept it in turn because Dean loving Cas would give Sam a visual representation of reality being different than his upbringing and experiences had previously presented. Even in that paragraph, you can see elements of the Hegel loop poking through. You can also see some reflection on the show itself and its audience…

So, what does all this mean for the rest of the series? Obviously add sadness and pain where necessary. This is SPN after all, but as long as nothing directly opposes this narrative, this seems to be the direction they’re going here. Eileen’s death was really idiotic and broke a lot of narrative rules, but it doesn’t directly refute anything. It’s a single instance and it may not even be true (it probably is, but man, either Bucklemming eated more purple berries than usual, they really shared the wealth, their entire purpose on the writing team is to sew misdirection, or something’s up here… possibly involving that last one.)

Below are a what seems to be where this is going in some form or another using the Hegel Loop as a means for the message:

1) Dean and Sam must face and reconcile with their pasts on all sides. Their past with themselves, their past with each other, their past with the important people in their life, their concept of family and how it has affected their lives and so on. Since everything must support the themes of a work if it wants to follow the rules, this idea has to prevail with every force in the current canon. Thus: Supernatural(Angels) vs Humanity(SamnDean), BMoL vs Hunters (Also mirror each other). Similar to their “force concepts”, Sam doesn’t really understand Dean, just like the BMoLs don’t really understand hunters. They think they do, they’re very efficient and rely on heavy research and technology, but their intel sucks. Similar also to Dean, the hunters aren’t generally so keen on lending themselves to the BMoLs. They believe they have reason not to, and so too does Dean believe he has reason to keep Sam from knowing his true self.

2) The two ideals of the show must also be addressed and reconciled/embraced. I said before and earlier that Cas = the ideals on the show. And yeah, he does from what I’ve gathered. From s4 on, he has always mirrored the way the Winchester's and thus “humanity” operate on a thematic level as time as gone on.(Especially Dean, the “heart of humanity’) This is because he’s the show’s “Love interest”. That’s what the Love Interest does but boy, does he take it to new and interesting levels! Like Dean and Sam, he still has self worth issues, he still has issues with his understanding of family and where he belongs, what he can be trusted with, what he’s for. If you look closely, you can see him mirroring a lot of decisions on the sides of both brothers. As of now, they both are starting to embrace a new way of looking at things, and in turn, Cas is experiencing situations that challenge his beliefs and combine both perspectives into a single progression to “better ways”.

Mary on the other hand, holds the old ideals of the show. She is basically s4 Cas and because she wasn’t around to experience all the changes, she carries the old show with her. She is what Cas could have been without the influence of the Winchesters. Still headstrong and rebellious, but falling back on old ideas and operations. Dean and Sam have truly changed Cas, and Mary is a testament to that. Like Cas as well, when she was sent back to Earth from heaven, she rebelled, and we’re seeing her s4 and 5. Most likely she won’t last any longer because the show won’t need her to prove a point anymore, but what she represents is pretty clear to me. Mary’s mirror of Cas is twisted. It has a flipped perspective with the Winchester’s being the original family and the BMoLs (Angels) being where she originally puts her faith because they share her ideals. Technically the Winchester’s held Cas’ too. His feelings of heart and freedom were found with them, but because of Mary’s situation and old ideals, she runs to the BMoLs instead.

Add Mick and some nigh omnipresent Cas references and you have a season about Cas, a season about ideals where Dean, Cas and Sam try to confront themselves, each other and the concept of family and duty that they were all fed stringently throughout their lives and times being with each other.

Those above concepts there are the thesis and the antithesis incarnate. They are the current state of affairs bumping against the old ways. This is their sticking point, they are coming to a head and they must. The pics and promos from the finale seem to enforce the idea that they will deal with the confrontation of a sort of reality, just as they have been slowly recognizing the need to confront their own hidden, unspoken realities.

3) At some point Cas, Dean and Sam will have to “embrace” each other in however they plan on doing that. They will not leave all of their past selves but they will all move forward to something better and new.

4) Dean will probably tell Cas he loves him or some other gesture by the end of the season. Gotta visualize/solidify those themes, m’boy! Your medium says so. In turn, Sam will be forced to learn to understand a side of Dean he wanted to believe didn’t exist and that he may have been actively hiding from because it would mean some things in his past would take on a new color with some possibly saddening meanings for him.

*coughs* I will always be a little devilishly amused at the character roles in this season and how they relate to the show and fandom directly…

5) Most likely Rowena and Crowley will reconcile at some point as well, but it’s hard to tell. They may resolve their issues by the end of the season in some form or another. Crowley mirrors a lot of characters and Rowena is sort of dark Mary, so their resolution will likely follow a similar trajectory + Crowley and Gavin feels or something. Mary’s probably gonna ascend like Gavin did. 12.21 and some general themes with Crowley overall have lead me to suspect that he’s holding the cards to this new reality. He does kind of mirror a lot of people with Rowena filling in the gaps, so him being the one to reveal something would make sense.

6) The BMoLs and the hunters will probably merge in some way. There’s likely a reason we felt there should be more names on that table. We will soon see Dean and Sam act as generals of the hunters… if that ends how I think it will, we will end with more names on that table and a defended legacy/Bunker. They will take the good of the BMoLs and incorporate it into the hunting world. Kind of a new Bobby network but with more stuff.

So then what does the finale entail?

That’s where Ghost in the Shell and Alicia may give us a clue.

If you have not already seen this movie, I highly recommend it. Its influence is seen in all sorts of places. A recent example is Westworld. It is a bit gory, so if that’s really not your cup of tea, fair enough. The following contains spoilers for the movie and it will affect how I address what happened with Alicia and how I think it may reflect on the ending of the season. You are free to skip it, but it may be a bit confusing after. If you want to skip this section, press CTRL or Command + F and search “spoilers over” in the box.

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Ghost in the Shell involves Major Motoko Kusanagi, a cyborg who has feelings of limitation by her perspective. She believes that there is more to the world and she wants to experience and understand it.

Kusanagi: “There are countless ingredients that make up the human body and mind, like all the components that make up me as an individual with my own personality. Sure I have a face and voice to distinguish myself from others, but my thoughts and memories are unique only to me, and I carry a sense of my own destiny. Each of those things are just a small part of it. I collect information to use in my own way. All of that blends to create a mixture that forms me and gives rise to my conscience. I feel confined, only free to expand myself within boundaries.”

She is part of a Black Ops unit that investigates a hacker called The Puppetmaster who has been controlling people through their “ghosts” to do its bidding. “Ghosts” are basically brains or minds. In this world, cybernetics and biological aspects are fairly integrated but are not considered their own beings. They’re more augmentations for the humans rather than individuals.. In most cases. The people who are controlled by the Puppet Master are given false memories. They have no idea who they are or what their goals really are.

Over the course of the film, The Major and her companions investigate several ghost hacked people and the concept of identity. Eventually they learn that The Puppetmaster is actually a program created by an intelligence branch called Section 6.

The Major learns that The Puppetmaster has gained its own intelligence and has sought her out to merge with her and complete its perspective. It lacks the things a biological being has and has the vast knowledge of the internet. At the end of the movie, the two achieve sublation and combine into a single being, neither The Major, nor the Puppetmaster.

Before the merge, Kusanagi is hesitant. She fears losing herself to the merge and wants to remain an individual.

Kusanagi: You talk about redefining my identity. I want a guarantee that I can still be myself.

Puppet Master: There isn't one. Why would you wish to? All things change in a dynamic environment. Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you.

This and their inevitable merge may sound like just a narrative decision, but really it seems like a decision based on philosophy of the work and its themes. The issue of stagnation. Ghost in the Shell argues that humanity would inbreed stagnation if it stayed the same (sound familiar?) and only change can save it, even if it stops being human as we know it. An interesting thing to me about the above is that it sorta addresses something directly stated in text in SPN:

Gah, there’s no transcript for 12.19 yet. Paraphrase time!

“Something something he’ll lose what makes him special”

If there is an influence in Ghost in the Shell, no he won’t. I know there are some people that want Cas to stay an angel, and I get that. It’s a fundamental part of him to many people, but depending on how they culminate Cas’ “sublation” with the Winchesters, he may become human as part of that metaphor. Just as the show may change form, but still be itself. According to GitS, he can’t fear change to preserve “what makes him special” When Kelly is talking about the Nephilim, there’s a decent chance she’s really talking about Cas… and his birth.. As a human. She’s afraid something that is integral to him will be lost, but from what Alicia showed us, he will still be the same Cas.. just sans powers… and maybe + some emotions.

So what does this mean for SPN? Alicia gave us a possible clue. She became a “ghost in the shell” when her heart was placed into the twig doll, but she retained her caring nature and her memories. As far as anyone would need to know, Alicia is Alicia. It’s possible she could be controlled, but since the ring is what controls her, I doubt Max would ever utilize it. We will probably never see them again, because they have given us what they were meant to narratively and them staying longer would mean they would have to explain themselves beyond that point. If we see them again, expect some weirdness.

Even when Alicia was placed into the doll, she still looked out for Max’s well being. Even when Cas was influenced by the Nephilim, he was still concerned with Dean’s well being. In a way, Cas has been a “ghost in the shell” for quite some time, with the question about vessels. With Alicia’s gesture, I’d say it’s pretty safe to say Cas’ body is his and Alicia’s is hers even if they can be controlled. Even if they can lose their free will, it’s not lost entirely. Even when she her body, she kept being herself in an entirely different body… made from fundamentally “lesser” materials, she retained her heart and what made her, her. Adding heart and humanity to a vessel, still retains the heart of that person. Even if Cas is no longer an angel, he will retain that heart he has. Even if the show takes a new form, if it retains its heart, it will remain the show.

Cas is currently further possessed by the nephilim, but he’s still in there. And the nature of the apparent themes means it has to release him eventually.

On that note, if 12.21 gave me anything(other than deep confusion regarding what the hell is happening and several conspiracy theories), it’s further evidence of a possible GitS influence with Mary being brainwashed to do the bidding of the BMoLs to do their bidding and slowly remove her memories in favor of memories that suit them. In GitS terms, she’s been Ghost Hacked.

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Spoilers over. Below are what I think all of this means for the ending of season regarding Cas and Dean since they seem to be the focus of assimilation. It depends on what the show thinks about the nature of Hegel, but each of the following scenarios is possible based on what I’ve been able to figure out:

Cas and Dean will occupy the same body: As a possibility to save Dean’s muffins from burning in the finale like Gadreel did for Sam in s9? Sure. As a permanence? Doubt it.

Cas becomes human but gets a new vessel. This is mostly just unlikely because people would hate it. Again, possible if temporary but TPTB, I do not recommend stretching this over a long period. Alicia looking exactly like herself makes this pretty unlikely.

Cas and the Nephilim won’t stay merged.. That’s redundant. He can’t “merge with humanity” while merged with a half luci humanoid… no. The kid is symbolic of Cas, Sam and possibly Eve. Because of Cas’ current nature and the nature of the supernatural and humanity and their sort of “forbidden” merging. Cas and the Nephilim are one atm, because their stories are. Which gives further credence to some sort of change. The kid is basically “past present and future” incarnate. It contains all of those elements at the moment, but future is its focus, same with Cas and the themes surrounding him from what I’ve gathered. Its relation to Sam is pretty obvious, since he’s been related to “a potential” evil demon child for much of the series. It not being evil makes sense for his character arc.

I have no idea what will happen to the kid. There’s evidence for a lot of things. Some I like better than others. They’re mostly personal preferences at this point.

Cas remains as he is and voices that he is himself. If GitS or Hegel in general are an influence and the showrunners like this philosophy, this probably won’t be what happens. I know there are a lot of people who want Cas to stay an angel for various reasons, and they can believe that if they want, but it just doesn't’ seem to be the way the story is going. I could be totally wrong and may have missed something, but the nature of stories is change. Cas can’t go back to being full angel, not permanently anyway. Also, if the show’s message is as I’ve deduced, he’ll have to be human in order to fully be accepted as part of humanity. If he powers up, expect him to power all the way down. Cas is a character and characters serve the story and vise versa, they are locked in an inseparable state with their themes. Cas is the themes in this story, he can’t be a weird penguin forever. That’s not climactic enough for the medium he exists in. If it were a book, it would be more likely, but it’s unlikely in a filmed work. The show can’t be a weird penguin forever either, especially if the GitS influences are correct(the non-reductable part is a factor, but if the message is thus, everything is humans). Again, I could be wrong, and I don’t want to discourage other interpretations, this just seems to cover the most bases from what I’ve observed.

I’m still operating under the idea that 12.12 is a microcosm of the season and possibly the series up to this point, so we’ll see how that plays out. I expect Crowley to save the day somehow, some dramatic declarations, Cas injury and probably Mary injury, some fiddling with anachronistic presentation/perspective on reality and a prince of hell. For this particular exercise, I was more interested in what happens, rather than how we get to the happening.

Whatever way Cas ends up physically, I think it’s safe to say the show thinks Cas and Dean better together, even if the culmination isn’t permanent at first.

#spn meta #my meta #spn speculation #narrative direction #narrative integrity #spn and reality #character roles #the themes they carried #the parabolic lens #film theory #s12 speculation #finale speculation #12.23 #12.21 #12.19 #12.10 #12.20 #12.12 #visual storytelling #hegel dialectic #hegel loop #its time for humanity to embrace those aspects of itself it's afraid of #assimilate! #thesis antithesis synthesis #synthesis stage #welcome to act 3 #my theory of everything #mostly #there's probably something missing from here #i'm really tired