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telelsie · 9 months

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GAY SPOCK REAL OR FAKE PLEASE READ

i haven’t been an active tumblr user in about 3 years but SNW and the whole gay spock debate has been occupying enough space in my mind that i felt the need to inflict my opinion onto you all.

as a spirker myself, i’m not at all denying that the het romance arcs SNW is pushing for jim and spock are by no means my favorite. i dearly dearly wish that we would’ve gotten at least SOME queercoding from SNW this season, but i’m also not as disappointed as some of you are with the choices the SNW team has made for spock’s character. i’ve seen quite a few people begging for gay spock (bless u all) and canon spirk from SNW, which is unquestionably the ideal outcome for the series — and given the way both the writers and actors have reacted to and welcomed fan opinions and questions about where the jim/spock dynamic is heading, i don’t think it’s unreasonable at all for us to be optimistic about the show’s direction. if sybok can be in a queer relationship, then we’ve already gone miles past existing TOS canon in terms of queer rep.

admittedly, SNW has issues (ortegas show us ur girlfriend and the lesbian flag hanging in ur quarters!!! we all know it’s there!!), but i struggle to believe that the het romance arcs for jim and spock were written with the intention of convincing fans to ~let go of spirk~ or anything along those lines. in fact, i think the biggest issue that trek fans are having with SNW is wanting it to deliver on all the subtext and queercoding that existed in TOS on an implicit level explicitly and immediately. SNW is a prequel. it’s whole job is to set up and develop the relationships that appear in TOS; and it does an amazing job of this for the most part, especially in giving the female characters like una, christine, and t’pring traits other than crippling gene roddenberry syndrome. what i’m trying to say is that the SNW writers are doing a good job. yes, even (ESPECIALLY) with spock.

i get why people are protective of his character, i am too, but i don’t understand the lack of faith and, honestly, lack of viewing comprehension, that i’m seeing from self proclaimed spock fans. if you were expecting SNW to give us fully formed Nimoy-Spock within the first two seasons, then i’m sorry, but you’re a little bit of an idiot. a lot of you both don’t understand the purpose of the show (in general and in relation to spock’s development) and don’t value the importance of long form storytelling. in fact, in my ideal world, spirk wouldn’t even be together by the end of SNW. part of the value of the k/s dynamic in TOS was spock’s internal struggle with his feelings for jim, a struggle that defines his character, actions, and life throughout TOS and the movies. this is a struggle that isn’t resolved until midway through the movies, and it wouldn’t be doing justice to the canon that created spirk to have their relationship evolve into romance before the events of TOS.

spirk is, and always will be a long form story which derives its value from the fact that it is a Very Very slow burn. for the relationship to retain its value without being watered down by reinterpretation, it needs to have all the turns, pitfalls, and pining that it did in the original canon. although it’s entirely possible that the SNW writers have no plans of canonizing spirk, it’s also entirely possible that their plans are just a little more long term than what most of the community wants right now. i would far prefer a spirk that begins in 3 seasons of steadily evolving homoerotic friendship than one that jumps the gun and results in an unsatisfying and underbaked depiction of a relationship that deserves to be done justice.

TLDR: be patient!!! stop acting like SNW is actively taking spirk out behind the shed and shooting it!! SNW is already the best new trek to come out of the revival — give it a little more time and slack to build momentum and solidify its position within paramount and the fan community and you’ll be happy you waited.

#star trek #star trek snw #strange new worlds #spirk

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gay-otlc · 1 year

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Stellarlune Recap

You couldn't get your copy of Stellarlune yet? No worries, my summary will give you all of the relevant details and will definitely not be entirely focused on the gay side characters.

Diversity win! The ogre chemical thing is aromantic!

Gisela is still doing evil things but have you considered; she is very sexy while doing them. Gisela is a milf and I will die on this hill.

Amy! Amy is great. Very glad to see her again.

Obligatory scene where Sophie talks about how she's so much more comfortable when she's not wearing a dress. In a very gender confirming cishet way of course.

Fitz's reaction to Keefe running away was BULLSHIT and I do not accept it as canon. He had to care about his boyfriend- uhh, best friend- leaving and fuck Shannon for not giving us the Keefitz angst we deserved.

The Vacker accent sounds haughty :)

Glimmer is called Little Miss Neverseen now, and I think this means we need a Glimmer/Umber Little Miss Perfect songfic.

Shannon doesn't know how to spell bestie.

Linh and Wylie sibling fight??? Man instead of saying shit like that she should have just hit him with a broom like normal siblings.

Rayni is trans, for no reason other than her name reveal sounded exactly like a coming out scene.

Sophie's description of Rayni is incredibly gay, as expected.

Imagine talking about all the flaws with the matchmaking system and not even acknowledging it's messed up gay elves can't get married? Yeah, Shannon just forgot about queerness ig.

Wylie needs to stop being a council stan >:( please Wylie I know this isn't who you really are-

Pyrokinesis continues to be extremely queer coding- the pyrokinesis ban forces people to deny who they are.

Oralie has trichotillomania! Good to see BFRB rep, less good to see it immediately dismissed as a silly quirk.

Unhinged gardener Fintan! He's so weird and I adore him for it.

Pyrokinesis once again is queer coded. "I have the right to be who I am in the privacy of my own home," okay Fintan. that's gay.

Prentice! No actual thoughts. Head empty. Only Prentice.

Why does it actually sound like Kenric is flirting with Prentice though? He outright asked to be Prentice's partner, I cannot.

I will NOT make a joke about how "keeper and probe" sounds like an innuendo and Kenric called Prentice the most talented keeper while flirting with him. I am NOT. I'm better than that.

I'm extremely normal about the Endal family pre-mind break, I'm not crying, you're crying.

FORK MAN SAID THE TITLE???? You know shit gets real when a character says the title.

For many reasons, Ro deserves to be punched. One of those reasons is invalidating Sophie's trich.

Sophie has alexithymia, it's basically canon. The most honest thing she's ever said is admitting she doesn't know what she's feeling, I am blasting her with my alexithymia laser as we speak.

Also I did enjoy Sophie's "do I have a crush" on Keefe crisis. I honestly found it fascinating from an aromantic perspective.

Sophie is probably on the aro spectrum, by the way. I think allo people usually don't struggle so much with identifying whether or not their feelings are romantic.

Tiergan is "adept at misdirection" because he's closeted. Also he's not that good at misdirection, Sophie is just not very observant.

Sophie's description of Biana is so fucking gay I can't.

Marella reminds Fintan of himself?? Canon?? Time to be insane about their dynamic again.

The sweet and sour chicken monologue >>>

Tiergan has to be Sophie and Fitz's marriage counselor. Rip.

Nobody expects the Cognate Inquisition.

Seriously, why did Shannon call it that. She had to know we would all think of the Spanish Inquisition, right? Or did she... not expect that.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT LET'S GO (tiertice chapter)

Qualden will never get a happy ending. That sucks ig

Tiergan all but admitted to being in love with Prentice, they were almost cognates, and Sophie had a live slug reaction. 10/10 scene

Tiergan would rather die than hear about the Fitzphie drama. Also he still doesn't understand ship names. Iconic.

Alden... why do you know so much about the rules regarding cognates and dating... did you perhaps want to date your cognate?

Edaline wins all the mom points.

Alden and Quinlin are canonically divorced.

Tiergan canonically wants to marry Prentice.

HOW did Shannon not know what she was doing when she said cognates were like marriage??? How???

Additional training with Marella, Linh, and Maruca you say? That's gay.

Sophie has advised Wylie to fix every problem with the power of homosexuality.

Also, Sophie is trying to break the news to Wylie that his dads are gay for each other.

Dex is bad at picking up when someone is joking or exaggerating. He's neurodivergent your honor.

Keefe... why are you just taking your shirt off for Tam... he wasted NO time with that damn

I want more Keefe and Grady interactions on screen. For. Science.

Chapter 42. I enjoyed it more than I thought. The kiss was... whatever, but their dialogue was very nice and I appreciated the healthy communication. Also the touching foreheads.

Sophie is canonically polyamorous!

"Tiergan held them [Wylie and Prentice] both" I AM GOING TO BE THINKING ABOUT THIS FOR THE REST OF ETERNITY I AM SCREAMING SOBBING THROWING UP THEY LOVE EACH OTHER THEY ARE A FAMILY ETC ETC

Tiergan: Well no one in this group ever fucking listens to me so I might as well stay with my husband >:(

Prentice needs a hug. Tiergan is giving him a hug. Love wins.

Sokeefitz can still happen. I refuse to give up hope.

IT/ITs Masteress Elysian. Elysian has the gender of all time.

If my summary somehow wasn't enough for you, you can read Stellarlune for free here. I gave you all the information you need to know though.

#plot? what plot? i only know tiertice #s reads stellarlune #stellarlune spoilers #kotlc stellarlune #kotlc recap

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itsupsidedownbyers · 2 years

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Do you find it possible that Byler will definitely happen in season 5 and if so why do think that bc honestly season 4 was not what I expected to happen.

I definitely think its possible! Narrative wise, I think it makes the most sense; Mike's behavior, Milkvan's toxic dynamic, Will being in love with Mike and yet also such an important part of driving Milkvan forward were all creative choices that make sense if Byler is the ultimate destination. Is it possible we're being queer-baited? Absolutely! But I for one am over timidly hoping for queer rep*, I've decide to just go into season 5 expecting Byler to go canon, because no one would think anything of doing so if it was a straight ship. I am quite possibly setting myself up for disappointment, and I don't care.

That being said, Byler does feel different than other ships, and it is treated differently than other queer-bait ships (Destiel, cough-cough). For one, Noah talks about it like a valid ship and actively promotes it; actors have gone off script before to 'promote' non-canon ships, but Noah tells people to ship it and says they're 'building it up'. Cast members (David Harbour my beloved <3) also have made comments that its obvious if you watch the show who Will likes, so the whole cast is very aware of Byler.

I put less stock in NetflixGeeked and other social media accounts that promote Byler, but a bunch of them do promote it; to my knowledge, they didn't do that with other queer non-canon ships (Elmax or Steddie), they only promoted Byler. For some reason, Byler is much more real than other non-canon ships, queer or otherwise.

I understand the annoyance and disappointment of season 4. For me, it fell short on a lot of plot points and felt unresolved. I for one never thought we were definitely getting canon Byler for S4, so I'm not very disappointed. Will is in love with Mike, that is confirmed and frankly a huge step forward for Byler; half of our ship is canon! Will knows he loves Mike, Mike just needs to get with the program. They put Will through the ringer this season, and as heartbreaking as it was to watch, it was for a purpose. Season 5 is going to largely be about Will, and I think we needed to see him at his lowest to get some valuable pay off in season 5.

Nothing we got this season was actually bad for Byler. I think we are getting canon Byler because Mike understands what Will doesn't say. Because Will puts Mike's happiness before his own, and because Mike will never stop fighting for Will. Because they are always shown paired together, Mike's pocket-arrow always points to Will, and why is Mike so hyper-aware of Will this season? If Stranger Things was a fanfic, season 4 was the angst before the comfort of season 5.

I don't really care if I'm being delusional, I am riding this train until it derails and is disassembled by Noah Schnapp himself.

*We do have queer rep on Stranger Things, her name is Robin Buckley and I love her. However, she doesn't have quite the same main-character plot and characterization of other characters. I doubt any romantic relationship Robin has in S5 will get much screen time. I would like to see more queer representation that isn't simply 'gay people pining over the straights'.

#byler #mike x will #will byers #mike wheeler is gay #st4 spoilers #milkvan #byler is endgame #I definitely left things out but this got so long and out of hand

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spite-and-waffles · 2 years

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People being like "okay but why hasn't Dick Grayson canonically come out of the closet yet" - what closet??? Boy has never been in the closet a day in his life?? They had to invent the Comics Code to stop him coming any more out of the closet. Then he invented Discowing, a gay mating call to Freddie Mercury. What dyou want him to do, wear a sign on his ass?? I'm just saying if people's heterosexual blinkers are strong enough to think Dick Grayson is straight, then God himself couldn't help them

#this is a joke post #mostly #but for real stop expecting canon for queer rep #it's great when they do it but more often than not it's just some pinkwashing bs #or score liberal points to look good in a manufactured culture war #rather than putting any effort into actually hiring diverse writers and artists #having people at the creators table is far more important than having minority characters #because without them you're just giving privileged people power over the vulnerable #and giving minorities just enough stake to manipulate us into fighting amongst each other to defend them #dick grayson #discowing #dc comics #spite waffle

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kitkatopinions · 3 years

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When I have rare pairs that I ship, or ‘barely there’ pairs that don’t interact very often or very closely, I tend to watch each and every scene and look at each and every line in the media for any shipping content. Things like exchanged glances, standing next to each other, lines that could be construed as even slightly more than platonic, slight changes in behavior... Whatever I can use to back up my ship, I file away and/or make a big deal about talking about with my sister who usually ships similar things to me.

Here’s the thing, though... Blake and Yang shippers shouldn’t have to do the same thing with their ship that I do with random ships that have no confirmation. Compilations of ‘bumblebee’ moments shouldn’t have to include every exchanged glance, every time they stand near each other, every time they touch, every word exchanged between them when nine times out of ten, they could’ve had that conversation with any of their other friends without it really changing the vibes, and those moments could easily be given to characters they’re not romantic at all with and it wouldn’t change the vibes.

Blake and Yang are a ship that we’re supposed to believe was planned from the beginning, we’re supposed to believe it’s always been intended to be end game, we’re supposed to think it’s great, amazing queer rep, and yet trying to prove that it’s romantically intended is like pulling teeth because CRWBY won’t confirm it. Fans of the ship are forced to try and defend their ship on vibes alone, because there’s no honest discussion of romantic feelings, no clearly romantic action like a kiss, and everything Blake and Yang have can be seen as sisterly by people who want to ignore the coding. And there’s no reason why this has to be the case.

In a show where Blake and Sun and Weiss and Neptune, and Weiss and Jaune, and Jaune and Pyrrha all had some form of explicit romantic attraction by the third season, and in the show where they can halt the plot to have a Renora kiss and a confession of feelings, why in the heck are fans of the ‘planned from the beginning’ promised queer rep ship supposed to get by on exchanged glances and the rare forehead nuzzle? I mean, I know the reason why, but it’s just so frustrating.

Just in case anyone’s wondering, Blake and Yang have about as much ‘confirmation’ as Mal and Evie from Descendants, or Rapunzel and Cassandra in Tangled the Series, or tons of other perfectly valid and fine ships that are nonetheless... Completely non canon. Because tender touches and especially close relationships does not make a confirmed romantic relationship, and is often presented as purely sisterly love. The fact of the matter is, CRWBY has not given us a queer relationship in the main cast and has not given us a confirmed LGBTQ+ character amongst the main cast as of yet. And despite their swearing that it was always intended, they’ve been expecting their fans to get by on scraps.

There’s nothing wrong with shipping things that aren’t confirmed, I’ve shipped way wilder stuff with way less canon indication and reasoning than Bumblebee. But my point is that whether or not I like the ship (I don’t,) what I want for bees fans is full confirmation of the ship they’ve been promised that they’ve been waiting years for. I want their ‘Blake and Yang’ moments videos to actually include a real, clear moment. I want them to stop having to argue with people who still insist that the ship is totally non-existent. I want them to be able to post gifsets of the indisputable proof. I want LGBTQ+ fans to actually be able to see themselves represented among the main cast of the show they love when they were promised that. I honestly, sincerely want the best for the bee shippers and I’m just so frustrated that CRWBY has strung them along for years without making the ship explicit despite their many opportunities to do so.

NOTE: When I say that I want the ship to be explicit, I’m not meaning to say that they need to be girlfriends or need to make out or spend every moment with each other. I would be satisfied with any form of official confirmation, which is a kiss, a date, or an explicit confession of feelings (like Jaune talking to Ren about his feelings for Weiss.) After eight seasons, the fact that neither of them have ever even mentioned having feelings for the other to any of their many friends is suspicious to say the least, especially when you compare their treatment to every opposite sex relationship in the show.

Also, Bumblebee fans, I’m really not trying to crap on your ship, I might not like it, but I love it for you. I just want it to be a better and hopefully confirmed ship.

#rwde #anti bumbleby #anti bumblebee #anti bb #anti blake x yang #anti yang x blake #anti blang #anti bmblb #anti bees #I don't feel like this is anti bb but I'm tagging it because I really DON'T want #to ruin things for anyone or make them sad while they're just trying to #enjoy their ship content

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stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale · 3 years

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I love that we as a fandom have declared the clem comic an noncanon lmao. i'm curious tho, do you believe clem will get a new love interest? do you think it will be amos or someone else?

Yeah, gotta love seeing a fandom come together to agree on something.... even though that something isn't exactly invoking happy feelings, y'know? Like yeah, the comic sucks and at this point I doubt the trilogy will be much better unless Tillie suddenly starts to understand Clementine and makes some impossibly massive improvements..... but it's nice to see all of us mostly getting along?

As for the whole love interest thing, I'm like 98% sure that Clementine's going to get a new girlfriend in the comics. That's my prediction.

During the dumb xpo thing, Tillie talked about how she's excited to explore Clementine as a queer character in the apocalypse and considering Tillie's other works, I will bet literal cash that Clementine gets a new girlfriend. I don't think Amos will be the love interest, and if he does end up being that for Clem or if Clem gets a boyfriend, then I will genuinely be shocked.

.....Y'know what, I need to get this off my chest and this seems relevant enough-

I was talking with my roommate about this the other night actually. I told her all about my predictions for Clem getting a new girlfriend and how annoying this whole comic is, but also how annoying people are being to Tillie over this and like.... everything is a mess.

My roommate, who knows that literally everything is wrong in the 12 page comic and who I told about the xpo where Tillie talked about Clem being queer is important, asked me how I would feel if she ended up getting Clementine's canon bisexuality wrong, and what if she decides to make Clementine a lesbian?

And like...... I actually stopped what I was working on because this wave of dread crashed through me at the thought of that, and I could actually imagine it happening because she already got everything else wrong and if she hasn't actually played the games and is pulling this shit out of her ass.... I can't even describe to you the feeling I felt...

I want to believe that Tillie would at least know and respect the fact that Clementine is a canon bisexual. From what I've gathered, Tillie herself is wlw and I don't believe she would erase a bisexual character. She knows that Clementine is a queer character. Clementine's bisexual.

Like obviously, if I'm right and Clementine gets a girlfriend, she'll still be bisexual. Nothing will ever change that.

But I'm going to tell all of you this right now because just thinking about it upsets me.... if for whatever reason, if Tillie Walden actually erases Clementine's bisexuality and makes her a lesbian in the graphic novel trilogy while "exploring what it means to be queer in the apocalypse," I'm done.

I will have nothing left for Tillie. I will no longer support anything she does. I won't condone harassment towards her because that makes you just as shitty, but I will absolutely call that bullshit out and then never support her again. I will never talk about the comic again because how dare you think you can get away with that and still expect me to waste brain cells on your comic? Hell, I will probably be so fucking livid that I'll drive my ass all the way to barnes and noble just to return the books I bought of hers.

Dramatic? Yeah, but y'know what? I've never really touched on this outside of a few "Clem being bisexual is important representation and we love it" but her being bisexual means so much to me. It truly does, I mean.... after the dumb "btw Javi is bi, we just wrote him straight and threw in a line of flirty dialogue with jesus so we can have our cake and eat it, too-- the straight homophobes will still buy our game and the lgbt+ community will love us, win win," I cannot explain the joy I felt when Clementine was written as a bisexual woman and that she was given two love interests that meant so much to the players.

Like.... I dunno, I never got any real bi rep in games or books or movies, especially bi girls, when I was a teen trying to figure shit out. In jr high and high school, I could never find stories that has bi women as a lead because I was too afraid to look anything up. I didn't wanna be caught reading/watching things that were lgbt+ because I had a shitty boyfriend at the time and our friend group were heavily religious and judgmental. My best friend [who I haven't spoken to for years now] was one of those people who claimed to support lgbt+ people.... but also once told me that she thought lesbians were okay but gay men were lowkey gross and probably only into other dudes because girls wouldn't date them. Oh, and I'll never forget the time she told me that bi people don't actually exist because you either like one or the other.

That's a great thing to here from the best friend you've know since you were an infant after you've realized that you aren't only attracted to boys.

But now I'm out of that environment and I haven't talked to anyone from high school since I graduated, and I've felt more free to intake all the things I wish I could've before...

I just.... Clementine is important to me for a lot of reasons. I've played these games forever, I've gotten to watch her grow for years, and she's just so well-written and amazing in tfs, and the fact that the writers wanted to write her as a bisexual woman means so much, I just.... even though it's not canon, I can't help but take this disaster of a comic personally. Just from those 12 pages, everything about Clementine is destroyed and it sucks. It hurts..... but I'm still not holding anything against Tillie herself. Her comic is bad, but that doesn't mean she's bad..... however, erasing Clem's bisexuality would be the last straw for me.

.....This turned into a rant. Sorry about that. You asked a simple question and I dumped my life story on you but I dunno, I needed to get that off my chest because it's been bothering the back of my mind.

I do wanna add once more that I don't think Tillie's actually going to do that... she should know that both Louis and Violet are canon love interests, plus Clementine canonically had a crush on Gabe in ANF. I think if she's going to get anything right, it'll be the fact that Clem is bi.... I'm just expressing a major fear I have and what it would do to me, and others, if it happened..... y'know?

#asks #twdg clementine #twdg louis #twdg violet

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blackgirlsuperherorants · 3 years

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With more articulation, I'm ready to talk about why the push for Lokius simply bothers me, and this can be said for other m/m or w/w ships that fans push to be canon so hard just because they ship it.

It's the framing. The framing that if Marvel doesn't do it (or whatever the brand is), it's because homophobia, and if other fans don't like it/ship it, it's because homophobia (even if they ship other queer ships and are queer themselves.) And the biggest problem with that is that it overshadows the REAL issue of lack of queer representation on screen in mainstream nerd media, especially from big things under the Disney umbrella (Marvel and Lucasfilm/Star Wars, especially.)

It makes it bad that your ship isn't canon instead of bad that there haven't been any queer romances on screen in the MCU.

And like, as a writer myself, I find myself dissecting the stories of other media all the time. I can watch an MCU movie or series and pretty much assess what direction the story is going in by the narrative points they're hitting. I knew Sylki was basically gonna happen (even if just a kiss) because narratively, that's what the show was doing as soon as they had that "what is love" conversation on Lamentis-1. It didn't mean I liked it. But I knew it was happening.

Similarly, there's no romantic undertones to Loki and Mobius. None. For Marvel to make them a couple, it would mean they'd be doing it simply because the two present as men and it would make stans happy. And while there's something to be said for fan service, it would be annoying to watch them cram two guys together who aren't romantic in the slightest. I'd much rather see Loki meet some guy and have the same type of undertones they were giving to Sylvie and form a real bond to where the kiss feels earned and warranted. Not just put him with the nearest man because "he gay lol."

And how you guys are claiming it's being queer that makes you want this is beyond me. It's not being queer that makes you want this. I don't want queer characters that fuck everyone of whatever gender(s) they're attracted to even when it doesn't make sense for them to. I want real love stories. I mean, yeah, sometimes we can have a slut character, because that's fun, too, but that's not even what y'all think Lokius is. You seem to want them to be in love. But why? Because he's the first friend Loki made that isn't through Thor?

I hate that, too, because I hate this idea that queer people cannot have friends of their same gender without wanting to fuck them. IDK how y'all are, maybe y'all are like that, but I almost never have wanted to fuck any of my friends. The only few exceptions have been when I tried to befriend someone I had a crush on (in which case, usually the friendship can't work, really, because I have a crush on them.) I also think it's okay if you can have casual sex with friends, or if you have a friendship that develops into romance, but Jesus, do you people not have friends that you don't want to fuck? I am bi, maybe more pan (gender kind of doesn't matter to me, I guess) and I'm friends with people of all kinds of gender identities and like... I love them as people, which is why they're my friends, but I DO NOT want to fuck them. Especially my closest friend. I talked about her, before, here, but she's like my sister. The thought of fucking her is gross, to me. Not because she's gross, but because it feels incestuous.

Loki shouldn't want to fuck Mobius just because they developed a friendship. And that's very much how it's written on the series. They almost dislike each other (or Mobius is at least indifferent to Loki) and then they become friends.

That's not to mention the power dynamic that exists, there. And I know some of y'all are subs, but yeah, it's a bit gross to imply a sexual relationship with Loki's captor.

But on to Sylki. It sucks that I feel like most of y'all hate Sylki because Sylvie is a girl, and not just because it's bad in other ways. Like, the reasons Sylki is bad have less to do with "it should have been Mobius" and more to do with it being a lazy 1980s action movie plot that should have never happened. I'm not as creeped out by the selfcest (as many of you wouldn't have been if she was a he, I'm almost positive), but what's bad about it is that they couldn't have a strong female lead character without her being the love interest of the main guy. She didn't need to be, especially because she was a Loki variant, anyway. There was no need for it to have romantic undertones, and there was no need for them to kiss. It was sexist more than it was homophobic (and I can't help feeling like y'all are kind of being biphobic in this case. Maybe I'll talk about that, later, but yeah.) It was sexist bullshit. And there's valid criticism that Sylvie is underdeveloped. She's just angry and something for Loki to project affection onto.

I was also hoping they'd do a "found family" type of thing with Sylvie and Loki and let her be like the sister he never knew he needed, but no, they had to go trope and make her the love interest. It was lazy and bad and basically went "If Loki girl, main Loki want bone!"

Basically, having the main character fall for a character just because of their proximity and gender is bad and I hate it (and it would have been bad with Mobius, too, but yeah.)

Both the Mobius and the Sylvie thing also feel kind of racist, to me, because the show has prominent Black women who aren't even presented as desirable to Loki. And y'all, of course, ship him with anyone but the Women of Color. Y'all can pull true love with Mobius out of your ass, but he couldn't possibly fall for the Black women. lol.

Anyway. Not every show needs ships, and this show shouldn't have had any. I hate it. It's bad.

I guess on the biphobia front, I have heard some takes that it's not biphobic because Loki being queer in the MCU which hasn't shown any queer relationships, and Loki being the first openly queer character means they shouldn't have shown him with a woman presenting character. Which, I guess I get where you're coming from... but I have also been in fandoms for a long time and I see mostly girls saying this shit, which is what leads me to feel like it's simply jealousy. It happens all the time when a long-beloved single male character/celebrity suddenly starts dating a woman. Everyone hates it. And like, we haven't seen Loki be with ANYONE in the MCU, because mostly he's been doing villainy and his dating life hasn't been relevant. If the demigod says he's bi, he can kiss a woman. Especially a woman version of himself. Like I said, I hate it for other reasons, but pretending it's because he should have kissed Mobius is utterly delusional. He probably shouldn't have kissed anyone. Not in this series. There was no reason for any canon romance, especially because the show has a season 2 and we'll have time to see Loki develop earned, deserved romance with someone.

I'd much rather see them create a character just to be his boyfriend than have y'all push Marvel into making Lokius canon, which is a nonsense ship that only happened because Mobius is the only prominent male-presenting character before we meet the other Lokis.

My sincere wish is for people to remember that their ships are just ships and to enjoy them without getting all self-righteous about it. I TOLD y'all that Lokius wasn't gonna be canon like 4 episodes back, and here y'all are acting shocked and like Marvel took something from you. NOBODY expected y'all to ship Lokius. It's not even queerbait.

You can make clear arguments as to why Sambucky was queerbait. It's there in undertones in the actual series.

You cannot watch Loki and tell me you thought it was queerbait, unless you think men can't have conversations or hug goodbye without being romantically involved. Which means, in my opinion, that you need to learn about healthy masculinity.

Again, this is not a defense of Marvel. They DO need to let characters be queer, for real, and not just by saying " A bit of both". Like, let Loki be queer. Let Deadpool be queer. Let these queer characters be queer on screen. Yes.

But please stop making it about your ship. I'd rather see a flashback of Loki dating a guy and see him kiss someone he loved back on Asgard than watch y'all force Lokius. Because my queer rep is not about your crackship. It really isn't. And the fact that y'all keep calling us homophobic for not liking your ship REALLY needs to be addressed.

Like, when will y'all stop? I got on Stucky shippers about this shit in the past. All of us gay as hell, too, we just don't like YOUR ship. A lot of us like other queer ships. A lot of us like queer ships in other fandoms, too, and even have queer OCs. YOUR ship just ain't it. Stop forcing it. Literally, most of the ship wars between MCU fans have been queer ship vs queer ship, not really queer ship vs straight ship. Like, the number one Stucky rival ship was Stony. Not Steggy. People are not homophobic for not wanting your ship.

Sometimes it's because they ship something else.

And sometimes, like me, it's because they want something to make sense narratively and not happen for the sake of it happening. It's always better writing to have a character meetcute a new love interest than to magically turn a platonic friendship into a romantic relationship. Like, even when the characters are straight. Like, when Moesha dated Hakeem. It was just weird, even if he was kind of a great boyfriend. He was just supposed to be her friend, and people didn't really like it because it didn't fit narratively.

And that's why ships for the most part should be left to fanfiction, with the exception of a few where fans are right to call out the writers for not making it canon because it's clearly bait (like what happened to Destiel shippers. To see Lokius shippers compare themselves to THAT was so ridiculous. Destiel shippers had a decade of evidence only to be let down by a criminally unfair ending. Lokius shippers saw two men have a deep conversation once and lost their minds.)

Anyway, I'm not saying don't ship Lokius. I don't even hate it, really. I just think it obviously shouldn't be canon, and fans pretending like they were robbed of it is ridiculous. Literally, Ao3 exists for this reason. I will never see Steve fuck Sam Wilson, so I wrote it into my fanfic. I am not mad that they didn't actually date in the main MCU storyline.

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the-fallen-blue · 3 years

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This came up again recently cuz of Suicide Squad, so digging an old one out of my drafts:

Ok, for context, since it’s been a minute: this was about how Harley originally bounced back and forth between these two abusive relationships, Joker and Ivy, over and over again. Ivy was emotionally abusive, though mostly because she herself is a broken, antisocial person who doesn't know how to have a relationship. Whereas the Joker physically and mentally tormented Harley for fun, because it entertains him to be intentionally cruel to a vulnerable person. So Ivy was better for Harley, but more in the way that being shot in the leg is better than being shot in the chest than like, actually good for her. The current (comics) dynamic is very different: Harley has just permanently left the Joker and is in a committed relationship with Ivy, and they’re both super supportive of each other and happy and healthy at all times.

So I have two connected issues with modern Harley and Ivy. One, that their relationship is all fluffy rainbows now; two, that outside the bounds of the relationship, they’ve also been pushed more and more into harmless antiheroes who only hurt bad people and actually frequently help good people and are not in any meaningful way an actual menace to society anymore. Both are annoying, in and of themselves and because of what it means that they’re linked together.

I mean, first and foremost, there is real value in portraying toxic relationships. It pushes back against the meme that “abuse isn’t love”, which is both irritatingly popular and fucking dangerous, frankly, and it gives the gift of familiarity to people who are themselves unhealthy and prone to unhealthy choices. It’s normal to go from a very abusive relationship right into a slightly less abusive relationship, or to be someone who’s smart and aware and Knows Better and still fall repeatedly into that trap. People who live that should get to see their stories too. There’s value in the ability to see that in literature and therefore notice it in your own life, value in seeing it in popular myth and realizing that it isn’t just you, you’re not uniquely dumb and fucked up.

Meanwhile, I would argue that there is anti-value in portraying toxic people in un-toxic relationships. Broken people who can’t relate properly to the world also can’t relate properly to each other. How deeply ingrained in our culture is the fucked-up concept of “this shithead who’s mean to everyone is nice to me, that means I’m special and he really loves me”? It’s a fantasy. If he’s a shithead to other people he’s gonna be a shithead to you. If Ivy’s default response to some dude annoying her is to feed him to a carnivorous flower, if that’s her baseline for fair retaliation, then her brain is not even wired to have an actually appropriate reaction. Pretending that she could have that as her mindset with some subset of actual humans and still be wise, calm, and mature when Harley annoys her is deluded at best, dangerous at worst, and the same goes for Harley herself, who is an equally terrible person and who we’d thus expect to be equally terrible to Ivy.

Of course, that rolls into the general fluffening of them both - “Blue, they’re not that toxic to other people anymore!” Listen that does not make it better! I mean who’s even left as a female bad guy in the Batverse these days? Talia wasn’t a particularly good bad guy from the start, and is even less so in the Damian era. Selina, ditto. Take Harley and Ivy out of the running and we’re left with. fkcung. Shiva? Ventriloquist II? Who has anyone heard of who hasn’t been semi-redeemed by now? Meanwhile, what male Bat rogue ever has, at least and had it stick like this? Like, maybe it’s not that deep and I’m just a salty nostalgia brat who doesn’t like change, but it sure smells like a trend, y’know? Also like. Bad guys are fun. Stop taking them away from us.

And as suspect and irritating as it is that every female Bat rogue is an antihero now, it’s even more suspect and irritating that the Sirens in particular are overwhelmingly also the queer representation in the Bat universe. Like, while there’s arguably something pretty bullshit about making the first Big Canon Femslash a supervillain pairing, it’s frankly even more bullshit to decide that that means you’ve gotta make them some kind of healthy great couple. DC prides itself on being on ossified mess of masturbatory nostalgia where people don’t get to grow or evolve or move on, but we make this one exception by distorting a couple of bad guys instead of giving Diana a girlfriend or letting Babs and Dinah finally hook up? It’s safe and cowardly in the same way as giving a female hero a rape backstory: here’s your rep, look how positive it is, and if a homophobe doesn’t like it, we have the safety valve of their past to make it not actually scary to him. As an alternative, how about we just let them be a couple of broken toxic shitheels, and actually give us enough other queer rep that that’s okay, instead, maybe.

#detective comics comics #ask box #technically #anonymous

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horrorhare · 4 years

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I think it’s about time I collect myself and put in my own 2 cents on the RWBY V7 E12 situation.

I started watching RWBY when I was in like, 7th grade. I’ve been here since the Red Trailer. I’ve gone through this show and watched it evolve and devolve, take turns and twists and upset people over and over again. It is not the perfect show and it never was.

But there’s a huge difference between that and what happened today. This wasn’t just a little flaw, but a colossal mistake on CRWBY’s part. Very rarely do I come across media that have solid MLM rep. Sometimes it’s just “subtle”, never worked upon even if there’s obvious romance within the show. Other times it’s fetishy, stereotypical, and unrealistic. So much media treats being a gay man like it’s a problem, a sin, a mistake, a secret. I thought finally, FINALLY, a show that I really enjoy that I’ve been following since the very beginning of my own journey towards figuring out who I am, would have that representation.

I’d also like to mention that I am a storyteller, I’m majoring in Animation so I’m able to tell stories, write and design characters, develop a world and it’s people. As someone who’s studying film and media and cartoons, picking things apart to figure out what’s right and what doesn’t work, it’s incredibly frustrating to see something with so much potential be put to waste.

Why go through the trouble to design a character who’s obvious purpose was to compliment, bring up, and develop another character and then throw that all away for something “dramatic”? Stuff like in E12 isn’t “showing your true colors”, it’s blatantly written out of character. To make something like that work, you have to signal and clarify that not all is as it seems. Working up towards that “big moment” felt wasted because it never had buildup in the first place. So many people today have said it felt wrong, it felt out of place, like it wasn’t real. Well? It’s because it didn’t work.

Why did Penny’s death work? Because Metal vs Polarity was an obvious set up, Cinder could be seen insinuating she was planning something with Penny, there was obvious build up.

Why did Pyrrha’s death work? Simple, Achilles heel. Who she was based upon made it clear something was up, such a strong chadacyer had to have a weakness. From the start with the crushes and romance, team building, to the maidens and destiny to her final moments, it all made sense. Yes, it hurt, it hurt a lot to watch Pyrrha die, but it didn’t make me want to stop watching the show because it worked.

So what exactly made Clover’s death not work? Well, for one, you shoe horned him into one damn volume. Yes, Lionheart was in one volume, but he was set up to be weak and hated, he was a traitor who was hurting the cast rather than helping. Clover was set up as a perfect foil to Qrow, expected to have great character interactions with him since it was constantly teased at.

As someone who writes, who develops characters, and knows their way around animation, I saw things that I expected were going to be built upon. A professor of mine taught us to have every frame, every composition, every set up to mean something. From the way they smile, to the way they look at a character, to the dialogue, down to even the smallest bit of body language. CRWBY seemingly wrote Qrow, a broken character who was recovering, to have an intentionally complimentary queer-coded foil, only to lose all that great development and buildup to one poorly written episode.

There’s one crucial thing I’ve been taught by multiple professors, and that is the writing technique of establish and resolve.

What CRWBY established was a clearly deep connection between Qrow and Clover, a connection built upon flirtatious gestures and phrases, along with clear and exciting growth.

What CRWBY didn’t do was resolve. They did the flip opposite of resolve. Instead of taking the time to develop on an interesting conflict between characters, they took the cop out route and killed off one of them swift in order to give it “angst”. I mean, for real, it played out like I was reading something fan made, like the people who wrote it didn’t know the characters.

Why would Qrow team up with Tyrian, a serial killer whom he does not trust who has fought him, attempted to kill him, and attempted to kidnap his niece? Why would Clover, a man “loyal to his kingdom”, suddenly blindly follow Ironwood’s actions to abandon his kingdom, after being paired up with a character clearly close linked with rebellion? I’m not blind, people. The utter potential to write interesting scenes between these two is near limitless and instead they go for something completely out of no where.

Specifically, like I mentioned before, Pyrrha’s death hurt me. But I continued to watch. I wanted to keep watching because after lying down her life to protect Beacon, her friends moved forward in order to continue spreading peace to Remnant. They kept moving forward.

Why is Clover’s death so upsetting? Because after moving so far forward for so long, Qrow is going to start moving back. This show, since day one, no matter the conflict, was about pushing through and moving forward. And from what I’m seeing, Qrow has been set up to relapse. Something incredibly horrid to see after a character has made such progress.

It’s not enjoyable to watch, it’s not exciting, it’s not alluring. It’s agonizing and hurtful.

And yes, the big red cherry on top is the fact that out of all I just said, they took away the chance to have an amazing badass MLM couple that wasn’t just “a secret”, that wasn’t just “a fetish”, but something that had weight. Something that had meaning. Something that made people feel happy and represented.

This was never about our ship not becoming canon, this was about poor writing, poor development, and yet another queerbaiting scenario after decades of other shows doing the same exact thing.

All I have to say at this point, after taking a whole Saturday to grieve over this damn episode, is that I’m extremely disappointed. Volume 7 from episodes 1 to 11 have been my favorite, but it hurts to watch all that progress be completely done in by one poorly written episode.

#lu yells #fair game #rwby7 #sorry fellas but i jusf had to get it all out #this shit is still so frustrating i dont undersfand how they could fuck it up so badly

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sapphicambitions · 4 years

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like when I say I think Luke Castellan is gay I don’t mean it as a cutesy “don’t u wish ur fave was gay” kind of way I mean textually and seriously I believe he was gay.

I could cite the petty stuff like “he only had female friends growing up” and “he clearly never showed interest in women even though many women were interested in him” or “he is one of the few people in the series who didn’t actually have a serious love interest / partner” or whatever but i feel like it’s actually much deeper than that. Luke was a young person who had a difficult and strained relationship with his parents. He saw how flawed the system was and how it was treating people like him, and sought to change the system, give power to people like him, and start it all over. (Yeah, he fell victim to people who influenced him to the dark side but that had nothing to do with his gayness, imo.) He just reminds me a lot of characters like Nico and Catra from She-Ra: repressed gay with a strained relationship with parental figures, angry and willing to take down the world. In this essay I will-

.......like no but seriously

Luke had a very troubled childhood because of his mother’s damaged mind, and the fact that she was constantly having fits and telling him how terrible things were going to be for him. When Luke is (angrily) describing his childhood to Hermes he says: “You could’ve helped me when she was having one of her fits, shaking me and saying crazy things about my fate. When I used to hide in the closet so she wouldn’t find me with those glowing eyes,” like!!! he even mentions hiding in a closet (let me find the subtext where i want it) but seriously, you know what’s one of the first things my mother said to me when I came out to her? “You know how much harder your life is going to be, don’t you?” So then Luke ran away from his home and found a new family, one that looked out for each other and loved each other more than their blood family ever did. This is a queer narrative!!

And with Hermes, it was all sorts of fucked up. His father kept him at a distance. Made Luke feel like there was something wrong with him, like he didn’t love him. His dad made it very clear to him what his expectations were of him, tried to encourage him to be a great hero, like all the heroes before him (when he was talking to him about sending him on a quest and Hermes said “You will get a change to be a great hero before…”) but Luke didn’t want to be the person his father expected him to be. He wanted to be something new, something true to himself. Luke was always burdened down with the weight of his parent’s expectations, both the expectation that he should strive to be a perfect hero and the knowledge that his future was doomed.

So one time i was at a bar with friends and me and the only other queer person there were talking and he was like “gay men and their dads, you know what i mean?” and I was like “yeah also gay women and their moms” and we had a whole discussion about growing up with a certain set of expectations of who you’ll be from your parents and the gendered expectations they have for you and having to crush all of that when you come out to them and navigating the difficulties that come with that when you want to be your own person so like there’s your real world comparison / evidence for that argument

ALSO Luke ran away from home but then kind of immediately went to Camp Half-Blood where he was shoved into the Hermes cabin with all of his siblings and undetermined kids and then still expected to scrape part of his food in the fire and be thankful to his deadbeat dad. That would suck! He was already harboring all of this rage inside of him, and then he went on his quest. Saw the world. Was exposed to other schools of thought. He understood that he was just being used as a pawn. He came back a different person, he didn’t quite fit in at camp anymore now that he’d seen the world. Kind of like when I went off to be gay at college and then came back to my childhood home and had to be straight around all my high school friends. just saying.

Luke saw the flaws in the system, the way the gods ruled the world. The way the gods treated their children and how much it hurt them. He felt so betrayed and hurt and abandoned by his dad and all the gods, so instead of sitting with it, he thought “I can do better.” Luke sought to rebuild the world, scrap it all and start new. Start with new leaders who took better care of everyone, who did things completely differently than the way it was done before, and raze anything before it. We’re going to ignore the fact that he was influenced to the dark side for a moment because it’s not related to this essay, but I also feel like this is a very queer narrative. (how many times can i say that phrase in this essay) Seeing the flaws in the way the world is treating people like you and wanting to do better. Luke said (this not an actual book quote more of a dramatic sentiment): “I won’t be used and I won’t be who you want me to be. I will become my own person and there’s nothing you can fucking do to stop me. I will make a new world, better than before, without you, for people like me, and I will tear down the walls of the previous world if I fucking have to” and i just think that’s very gay rights of him.

A thing that I’m a big fan of is seeing specific character types and relating them to each other. For example: our fave Nico di Angelo and Catra from She-Ra. (If you haven’t seen She-Ra, she’s the DEFINITION of an angry repressing gay) We can see from Nico’s narrative and from Catra’s narrative and also just straight up my own personal narrative that sometimes when you’re gay and repressing and afraid of becoming the person you are warned against, while also knowing that you were meant for more but maybe not quite understanding what that more is yet, and overall just want to feel accepted and loved as who you truly are but not receiving that, it can tend to make one lash out in angry and irresponsible ways. It can make one isolate themselves from those they previously were close to. It can lead to irrational and impulsive choices for all the wrong reasons because you don’t feel right and you don’t know why. Not at all saying this is the same across the board for queer people, it’s just something that honestly happens to some people and I can relate to when i see it in characters.

I see that in Luke. He is weighed down by everything his parents want him to be, both good and bad, and is trying to scrap the world and make a new one for people like him. He wants to take his turn, pushing aside anyone who’s hurt him. Luke was someone who was constantly being torn apart by the world and just wanted to feel safe and secure in who he was and the world he was in. He was acting in anger and fear and hurt and revenge for his childhood and because he still felt like there wasn’t a place in the world for him. He lashed out against his father and his family and his friends and pushed them all away. Sure, he had some friends at Camp Half-Blood, but Annabeth’s devotion to him was not enough to make up for like, all of his childhood trauma. First everything with his mom and then being on the run for so long and then meeting his dad and then losing Thalia (which also fueled his anger and hatred of the gods but like we knew that) and his quest and just everything. He was dealt a cruel hand and he didn’t handle it well. Not that that has anything to do with him being gay but I’m just lamenting over the tragedy of his life. Anyway.

Also not to quote the Lighting Thief because it’s not technically in Rick’s canon but i still think they perfectly understood the characters so I’m including it, but the idea that Luke has tried to be a good kid, he’s tried to do what was expected of him, he’s done everything they ever asked of him, but it didn’t pay off. It didn’t matter. It still wasn’t a world he belonged in. “you know this world will never be ours as long as our parents rule over the stars” and “it’s time to make the world our own” strikes me very much to the tune of LGBT activism. once again ringing in that idea of “if you won’t make the world better than i will do it with my bare hands” he also sings “the gods were never on our side, so i think it’s time we watched them fall” which gets to me every time because like he was just a kid! he was just a kid who had so much hurt and anger inside of him and he went about everything the wrong way but he was just a fucking kid!

also YES to be petty and shallow but while Annabeth and Thalia refer to luke romantically, he never mentioned the same for him. Kelli the sexy monster hits on him during Battle of the Labyrinth and was clearly interested in him and he pushes her away without any hesitation. IN FACT the only demigods referenced on Luke’s ship are Chris and Ethan (why we didn’t see any of that trio, I’ll never understand), with Ethan working much closer with Luke and being a major player in the Titan War. (also I think Ethan is queer too but that’s a battle for another day.) And Rick LOVES romances. pretty much every character gets paired up with someone in the original series (percy and annabeth, grover and juniper, even Clarisse and Chris) which is fab thank u rick for my percabeth rights but Luke is the only character who does not get a girlfriend!! because he’s a homosexual!!!! you know what other character didn’t get paired off in the original series??? NICO, a known homo!!! i do think that luke is a case of “accidentally written homo” because this was before rick saved the world and gave us nico’s coming out and really started pushing for queer rep in the books (thank u again rick!!!!), so I’m allowed to find my gay subtext in the original series, thank u very much!

listen all im saying is that my favorite character narrative is “angry gay coded villain who is repressing and lashing out at the world because of it” and i truly believe luke fits into that narrative and I stand by my argument.

Thank u for attending my TED Talk

#lesbianlaynie #i spent like three hours writing this #luke castellan #percy jackson #percy jackson and the olympians #reckless tagging im so sorry #annabeth chase #the lightning thief musical #tltm #the lightning thief #the battle of the labyrinth #the last olympian #pjo #laynie's pjo essays

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kingofterrors · 3 years

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I was tagged in this ask by @inktog - thank you!

I’m not great at tagging other folk, but if you see this and you fancy doing it, consider yourself tagged! Also, by the way, if anyone seeing this really likes being tagged in these kind of things, let me know! I will tag you in future!

This was hard. At first I was like, “I’m not sure I can even name ten relationships I ship”, and then had far too many as soon as I thought about it for more than ten seconds. So here we are. :)

First, list your top 10 ships without reading the questions below.

1. Luz Noceda / Amity Blight – The Owl House

2. Harrowhark Nonagesimus / Gideon Nav – The Locked Tomb Series

3. Sabran / Eadaz du Zāla uq-Nāra – The Priory of the Orange Tree

4. Caleb Widogast / Essek Theyless – Critical Role Campaign 2

5. Beauregard Lionett / Jester Lavorre – Critical Role Campaign 2

6. Harrowhark Nonagesimus / Ianthe Tridentarius – The Locked Tomb Series

7. Kara Danvers / Lena Luthor – Supergirl

8. Amity Blight / Boscha – The Owl House

9. Korra / Asami – The Legend of Korra

10. Percy / Vexahlia – Critical Role Campaign 1

Then answer the questions.

Do you remember the episode/scene/chapter that you first started shipping 6?

I’m going to be honest, it was from the very beginning of Harrow the Ninth – the Prologue, where we get that amazing moment of Ianthe kneeling down and taking Harrow by the chin. I’m going to quote, because this scene just marched up to my house, kicked my door down and stole my entire mind.

You were shocked into opening your eyes when you felt the girl opposite cup your chin in her hands – her fingers febrile compared to the chilly shock of her gilded metacarpal – and put her meat thumb at the corner of your jaw. For a moment you assumed that you were hallucinating, but that assumption was startled away by the cool nearness of her, of Ianthe Tridentarius on her knees before you in unmistakable supplication. Her pallid hair fell around her face like a veil, and her stolen eyes looked at you with half-beseeching, half-contemptuous despair: blue eyes with deep splotches of light brown, like agate.

Looking deep into the eyes of the cavalier she murdered, you realised, not for the first time, and not willingly, that Ianthe Tridenatrius was beautiful.

Dude.

Have you ever read a fic about 2?

Yup! More than one! I don’t generally seek out smut for my ships, for whatever reason, but I freely admit that I sought out smut for these two. And found it. Found it with quality in spades. Praise be. Is this a good spot for recs? If so:

Sleepless by pugoata

Like a Lullaby by SweetScentences

Has a picture of 4 ever been your screensaver/profile pic/tumblr?

Nope. I tend not to change my pics very much, and they tend to focus on single characters rather than ships, again for whatever reason.

If 7 were to suddenly break up today, what would your reaction be?

Yeah… Well of course they’re not together in canon. I ship supercorp foolishly, helplessly, knowing all the while that the chances of it becoming reality are vanishingly small. That said, we don’t ship purely for canon, do we? So if Kara and Lena were together and then were to break up I’d be disappointed, but I suspect they’d find their way back to each other. These two have a history of being separated, then rediscovering their love and coming back together. I give it a couple of weeks. :)

Why is 1 so important?

Man, I don’t know! It snuck up on me! I think there’s something here about firstly, the context for Lumity. Amity’s crush on Luz was just presented as normal, as something fine and good and natural, and that meant so much to me. There’s a softness here that I love so much. I also heavily empathise with Amity – the trying to live up to expectations and feeling that you have to hide yourself behind emotional walls – and the thought of her finding love with someone like Luz who is so open and emotionally giving does my heart good. I want Amity to find acceptance and openness with Luz. I want Luz to find herself seen and valued for exactly who she is by Amity. I want to see them finding strength and security in each other. I just love them, you guys.

There’s a bit in this wonderful YouTube video essay, which I recommend to the moon and back – watch it if you haven’t! (“The Owl House is Great and Here’s Why, by Film Freak”) Where the essayist concludes their section on Lumity by saying: “I don’t know if Disney will chicken out in the future with regards to Lumity or any other queer rep, but for now I’m cautiously optimistic. Maybe I just have rose-tinted goggles for how soft this ship is, but whatever, let me stan just once.”

And… yeah. That.

Which one has the strongest bond?

Wow, tough one. Probably Sabran and Ead. They’ve gone through everything together, and are prepared to wait for each other in the end. Their bond is strong enough to take that and more.

Which ship has lasted the longest?

For me or the ship itself? For me of all of these probably Korra / Asami. Shipped ‘em first time I saw LoK, and haven’t stopped.

How many times, if ever, has 6 broken up?

Have they ever gotten together? If they ever did get together they’d break up every couple of days. These two are a mess, and their relationship is a toxic trainwreck. Still ship ‘em though. Can’t help it. Sometimes ships are just fascinating. If this was real life I’d want them to not come within shouting distance of each other. In fiction I’m riveted.

If the world was suddenly thrust into a zombie apocalypse, which ship would make it out alive: 2 or 8?

Definitely Harrow and Gideon. Those two have fought through apocalyptic situations before, and my money would be on them to do it again. Plus they are the quintessential battle couple. Can you imagine Harrow’s bone magic and Gideon’s martial expertise being unleashed on zombies? Those two would save the whole damn world.

Amity and Boscha would put up a good fight, I think, but I can see them disagreeing on key decisions which might hurt their chances.

Did 7 ever have to hide their relationship for any reason?

Given that Kara is a whole secret identity, we could say they are continually hiding their relationship when Kara is out there as Supergirl? I could also see them hiding their relationship at Lena’s insistence to protect Kara from Lex before she realised Kara was actually Supergirl. She might even want to do that afterwards as well, on reflection. Lena is very protective of Kara, ironically enough. :)

Is 4 still together?

Right now? This is another non-canon ship. That said, this is one I’m genuinely hoping for a canon appearance from. Their relationship might be put under strain from the fact that they’re both mages, and mages tend to get selfish and power hungry (or at least these two claim that’s how it goes). I think they’d work through it though. These two talk big about their own selfishness a lot, and then in practice are very caring and protective of others. I can see that extending to each other. Just kiss already.

Is 10 canon?

Yup! My token het ship are still very much together, growing old and having babies.Good for them. :)

If all 10 ships were put into a couple’s Hunger Games, which couple would win?

This is an invitation to go into huge depth, but my initial feeling is that Harrow and Gideon would again have it hands down. Those two are world-endingly powerful. Although that said, Kara and Lena might give them a run for their money. Pure power ranking? Let’s see…

1. Harrow / Gideon

2. Kara / Lena

3. Korra / Asami

4. Beau / Jester

5. Caleb / Essek

6. Percy / Vex

7. Harrow / Ianthe

8. Sabran / Ead

9. Amity / Luz (no shade, but these guys are literal children. Grown up they’d put up a better showing, I’d bet)

10. Amity / Boscha

Has anyone ever tried to sabotage 5?

I mean… Fjord? I wonder sometimes what would have happened if Beau had genuinely put in a play for Jester, rather than stepping back to let Fjord make his move. She very obviously decided that Fjord should have a free shot, and I wonder how it would have worked if she actually decided to compete. Would Fjord have stepped back to let Beau make a try for Jester if he was aware of her feelings? I don’t know. A genuine competition would have been heartbreaking but oh so interesting to see.

Do you spend hours a day going through 3’s tumblr tag?

Not hours, but I have put some good time into finding fanart for these two. There is some good work out there!

If an evil witch descended from the sky and told you that you had to pick one of the ten ships to break up forever or else she’d break them all up, which ship would you SINK?

Amity / Boscha. Sorry you two! I wrote myself into shipping Amity and Boscha, when I fell in love with Boscha and decided she could actually be good for Amity in a snarky, take no shit kind of a way. I would still love to see more of them. (Halfway through that one-shot btw.) But if it was them or everyone else? Sorry guys. :(

#ask games #shipping asks #this was fun!#thanks for tagging me!#long post

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angrycowboys · 3 years

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you know what, i don’t care anymore. deancas being canon apparently means i don’t give a single fuck about dumb people’s bullshit anymore.

i don’t wanna be like “it’s different because it’s spn/deancas” but like...it is. this show started 15 years ago, in 2005. back then, no one’s queer ships were canon. we made do with fanfic and believing there was something more because that’s what shipping is. we didn’t need it to be canon. i didn’t need deancas to be canon last night. or ever. the fact that it actually sort of counts as canon queer rep. is mind-blowing to me. because as lots of people point out, spn was a very straight show in a time when there wasn’t a lot of queer characters on tv much less lead characters. it’s a show about two straight white dudes. there was nothing wrong with that and that’s the reality. but obviously times have changed and spn’s changed and maybe it’s not become ‘perfect’ at representation but perfect rep. doesn’t exist. i really never imagined we’d get anything close to this, and i was fine with that, because spn’s from a different time and it’s not a show about that but i knew there was a real love story there all along. and maybe it was accidental or maybe it was deliberately written, but either way it meant something to lots of people and still does. even without the confession, it still would.

i’ve said a million times that spn’s from a different time. so don’t expect too much. it’s not gonna be explicitly canon. i honestly kinda wished the writers would’ve just come out years ago and plainly said it’s not the way they view the relationship but it’s fine for fans to interpret it however they want, just to stop entitled people harassing them constantly. but they didn’t. obviously for a reason. and i’ve never been more happy to be wrong. and it’s not ‘fanservice’; anyone who’s watched the show can tell you how important their relationship is and has been. even when it was purely platonic.

the confession was fine, it made a lot of sense for cas, and dean’s reaction was in-character. if you don’t think he was absolutely fucking devasted, then you’re just being deliberately obtuse. i like the way it happened personally. it would be great if cas came back but if not, that’s what fix-it fic is for. i’m not gonna abuse the writers and actors because i’m a decent human being and being an asshole to people about fictional shit is immature and dumb.

most of the people ‘criticising’ it i.e. making unoriginal, unfunny memes are not doing it in good faith and they don’t watch or care about the show at all. so their opinions are worthless. most of the people who are mad now are never going to be satisfied and don’t actually care about ‘representation’; they just like being loud to get attention and they want woke points by shitting on spn because it’s cool and they have nothing better to do with their lives. if they really cared about representation, they would move on with their lives and talk about shows they actually like that have what they consider ‘good’ representation, but that’s not gonna get them likes so. it’s become a cool thing to tear down things that other people love, that are totally harmless, just because it doesn’t conform to their ‘ideals.’ but they don’t speak for everyone. ignore them.

also, calling the writers/actors ‘homophobic’ for no reason other than you don’t personally like how a tv show went is disgusting. is claiming that people are homophobic when you don’t actually know them a joke now? because that’s fucked-up and the internet is a literal cesspool. block all those people, seriously. their ‘opinions’ have zero worth.

people can keep making their shitty ‘jokes.’ no one’s gonna remember them soon enough. they’ll move on to being assholes about something else soon because that’s that they do. but we’ll remember. because it means something to us, whether or not it was ‘perfect.’ it’s not about just being satisfied with crumbs the way some people might say. we’ve watched this story unfold. we know what it is. and we don’t need other people to tell us we ‘deserve better’ or how to feel. feel whatever you want. because it’s canon and they can’t take this away from us.

#spn #deancas #destiel

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kob131 · 4 years

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https://rwdestuffs.tumblr.com/post/625278536172879872/done-dirty-shipping

Maybe it’s because I’m still not over how the writers just up and offed Clover and are trying to use the ship he had with Qrow for marketing purposes, but still.- If they hadn’t done that, maybe there wouldn’t be as much backlash for what they did?

*looks behind Dudeblade to see all the Arkos shippers still trying to burn RT to the ground for sinking their ship.*

I highly doubt that.

They promoted Qrover (And that’s the name I’ll be using to avoid getting into the proper ship tags) for the sake of merchandise. They do the same with Blang (The name I’ll be using for the Blake x Yang ship to avoid getting into their tags as well), it simply seems as if these ships are just there to keep an audience invested in the show for the hope that their ship will become canon before the final episode of the series.

Ah huh-

Let’s check RT’s merch store shall we?

https://store.roosterteeth.com/collections/rwby

This is the store showcasing RWBY merch by the ‘Featured’ selection. Notice something...unusual?

Yeah, the front page of their ‘featured’ section (which would tell you how they market the show) has three pieces of possible shipping merch...and it’s Renora and White Rose. NOT Bumbleby OR Fair Game. And I do mean ‘possible’ because one could debate that since Ren and Nora are always paired together and considering White Rose is so ignored by the fandom equally ‘shippy’ moments are widely ignored- it’s not inherently romantic.

In fact, none of the three given pages have Bumbleby merch. The closest is the Yang Vs. Adam hoodie...which excludes BLAKE. SO it’s closer to Yang X Adam merch.

But maybe that’s not enough for you. Let’s switch to the ‘Best Selling’ selection. Of that we have...one shippy piece of merch. The same Renora piece from before. Odd, considering if they’re using shipping to sell the show: Why isn’t the merch, the open support of the show, flooded with shipping merch? Why is both the stuff they are pushing people to buy AND the stuff people are buying NOT showing up?

Seems rather counter intuitive ...unless they AREN’T doing that.

This post was made about a month after the finale. If miles pulls the same thing that LoK did with the LGBT+ characters in his show, not only is that hypocritical (As he would be doing the exact same thing that LoK did), but it would also be significantly worse.

Actually he fundamentally can’t. Because Miles wrote in at least three LGBT characters already into the show. So he’s being better by your standards.

Not only was LoK screwed by the network numerous times in regards to their budget, but they were also forced to not make the relationship between Korra and Asami as overt as they would have liked.

And so was RWBY screwed with budget AND resources by Gray. Andd yet no word from you on that...

And again- Already showed at least three characters being lesbians, if not five since Scarlet and Nolan are gay in Before The Dawn, a book written under Miles and Kerry’s supervision.

What network is keeping the writers from doing the same thing with stuff like Blang, Qrover, or whatever the ship name is for Terra and Saphron? Why do they only get hand holding, soft looks™, and confirmation outside of the canon show?

Bumbleby- Canonical status unconfirmed.

Fair Game- Never intended to be a ship. It was just a reference to the waitress back in Volume 4 along with the usual shipping exaggeration.

Terra X Saphron- They literally have a fucking child together.

Other shows like She-Ra, Steven Universe, and Black Lightning managed to have LGBT+ Representation in their shows despite the networks trying to reign them in. So a show that has no such restrictions can’t do it because…?

They have. You’re choosing to ignore it.

To say nothing of the quality of these since Steven Universe is the only respected one and is rather unique in comparison.

Nora and Pyrrha can forcibly kiss Ren and Jaune respectively, but Same-Sex couples have to settle for elementary-school crush stuff?

Terra and Saphron have a fucking kid. And two of your examples are bullshit.

Meanwhile, how are those ships fairing again? ... One is permenantly sunk and wasn’t even confirmed considering Jaune’s feelings for Pyrrha are not confirmed to be romantic and the other is having massive issues that could sink any romantic connections?

And how do people like you react to any kind of strife regarding same sex stuff? ... Called Illa a psycho lesbian despite being significantly more stable, regretful and safer than her straight counterpart Adam?

Yeah, why don’t YOU tell me why a fanbase known for being abusive towards the creators and hounded them for YEARS about this shit isn’t being fed?

Also, this is a dick move. $16.00 for a sunk ship? Not only that, it’s a sunk mlm ship. A kind of representation that hasn’t gotten any real representation outside of Scarlet? And even then, that was confirmed in a different book.

More like a set of pins that can be used for cosplay.

TBH, mlm shippers have every right to be upset about this.

Straight shippers have had the biggest ship sunk and permanently in limbo (Arkos) and the second one is going through a massive rough patch (Renora) while the third and fourth are regularly decried as pedophilia (Lancaster and Rose Garden) if not outright abuse (Tauradonna).

The others get confirmed ships but not the ones they wanted. Boo fucking hoo.

Whether the writers intended to or not, Qrover was coded, and they queerbaited.

Queerbaiting is a marketing technique for fiction and entertainment[6] in which creators hint at, but then do not actually depict, same-sex romance or other LGBTQ representation.[7] They do so to attract ("bait") a queer or straight ally audience with the suggestion of relationships or characters that appeal to them,[8] while at the same time attempting to avoid alienating other consumers.[6][9]

They literally CANNOT do that by definition. There are same sex relationships AND characters to connect to. If you try promoting this vague and broad definition of queerbaiting-

Well, what’s to stop the Snowbird shippers from claiming they were straight baited with Winter and Qrow or Blake and Sun?

Do you REALLY want to cross that threshold?

P.S. ‘Coding’ effectively means ‘I see stereotypes’ so you’re kind of being a douchebag here.

Let’s also remember that Pyrrha’s entire existence literally revolved around Jaune and she was meant to die to further his development. Jaune x Pyrrha was literally made to develop Jaune and pretty much only Jaune, with the other characters’ reaction to her death being an afterthought.

*cough* Ruby has gotten more development from Pyrrha’s death than Jaune *cough*

Then there was also that one Blang bag that cost like… $60.00. The writers are using these popular ships for merchandising usage and to try and reel in fans who are wlw or mlm with these ships.

Which is why they...don’t...show...up on...the...merch store...

Fun Fact: Dudeblade never shows the so called 60 dollar bag despite CLEARLY being able to screen shot images. So we’re expected to take his word for it despite not being honest in this very video.

They didn’t even have enough self-awareness to feel bad about it.

So how exactly are we supposed to trust them when they don’t realize what they did to the community?

He says as he ignores aspects of LGBT rep in RWBY, outright called a lesbian a psycho for daring to be an antagonist despite a much more unstable person to compare to and ignores the LGBT rep in other RT shows, including Camp Camp which has two heroic gay married men in the show.

Whether you ship Qrover or not, this was a massively dick move to pull. And these idiots have a lot of things to make up for it. If they choose to do it at all.

You know, that dick move you forced onto them.

And yet you doing worse (’Hey when is Miles gonna die so he can be replaced?’) deserves no making up?

Where were the guys who said that revealing that Pilot Boi was gay before offing him was a bad idea? Why did the writers not realize that this sort of stuff was going to come off as queerbaiting?

Probably because Eddy did it himself and didn’t know about this.

But really… Way to go RT. Your dumbass decision has now turned off members of the LGBT Community and caused some of them to cancel their subscriptions.

Hope that shock value was worth it.

Just like with Pyrrha, something you yourself even said before.

I fail to see how this is RT’s fault outside ‘you dared to exercise free will!’ considering that your logic would dictate changing the show the minute an LGBT ship becomes popular.

Even as you’ve spoken out against this kind of thing with Death Battle (accusations of sexism).

Way to go with the hypocrisy Dudeblade.

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koryuoftheriverflow · 5 years

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Cap’s always been a gay icon. I wish Endgame had remembered that.

After the movie I couldn’t help but feel betrayed by that ending, for various reasons: chief among them was the blatant disregard for the subtext present in the 3 cap movies.

Cap’s character has been interpreted as bisexual for a very long time now (first in the comics and then in the MCU), and for a reason.

We all knew nothing was gonna happen between Steve and Bucky, but we also didn’t suspect that we were going to be given a healty dose of no homo. Because that’s ultimately what poor Peggy was reduced to.

I can only assume it was done to put the nail in the gay coffin once and for all, after the debate that happened in the last couple of years about Steve’s relationship with Bucky in the movies and also in the comics. We all remember the reviews after The Winter Soldier and Civil War, the #givecapaboyfriend thing on twitter and the 180 Marvel pulled on Planet Hulk, going as far as to change an actual panel because Steve and Bucky were holding hands in victory in it. Like, the straights are wild.

So, I wasn’t expecting much from the announcement that we were getting a gay character in Endgame: I already suspected they were going to be minor. But, in light of that ending, I think Joe Russo’s character was only there to avoid accusations of homophobia. And it’s honestly disheartening because that scene could have been great!

Let me explain.

Again, I’m not delusional enough to believe that they would make Steve canonically bisexual: I know the world we live in and the company that owns the MCU. But! Captain America has been a gay icon for decades and it would have been nice to see him at least show support, or acknowledge in some way that he understood the man’s struggle.

I say this, because everytime gay rep is brought up in relation to Cap, I remember one of my favourite issues from the comics.

In Volume 1 #296, Cap is trying to save his childhood friend Arnie Roth (MCU!Bucky is a mix of the Bucky from the comics and Arnie, in this regard) who’s been kidnapped by Baron Zemo and Mother Superior. In a previous issue Arnie’s boyfriend Michael had been abducted as well.

Cap goes to the rescue!

When Cap finds Arnie, he is under some kind of mind control and gives a speech about how being gay is something shameful; he says that the nazis were right to lock them away in the camps and that their love isn’t real and natural. He then accuses Steve of being homosexual as well. Why would he still be his friend otherwise? At this point, Arnie manages to overcome the brainwashing (I wonder who else fought being mind controlled for Steve...)

Cap finally breaks down the barrier put in place by Zemo and Mother Superior to stop him from rescuing his friend. Arnie is drained and collapses in front of him.

Now here comes my favourite part.

Captain America gently cradles his friend in his arms and tells him that his love for Michael is pure and exactly the same as his love for Bernie (Cap’s girlfriend at the time). It is the people who don’t accept him the ones who should be ashamed. Steve’s mind then goes immediately to Bucky who, like Michael (unfortunately dead) is another victim in his “private little war”. It’s not explicitly spelled out, obviously, but it’s very telling that Cap, who’s been accused in the previous panel of being “one of us” immediately thinks about his long lost friend in relation to a gay couple. Just saying...

Now, shipping goggles aside, I think it is very interesting that Cap defines homophobes as a disease. The choice of words isn’t casual at all.

This issue is from August 1984. Let that sink in.

We’re in the middle of the AIDS epidemic, at a time when Reagan was happy to let the gay community die and this disease was still called GRID. And yet! Captain America, symbol of the nation, was fighting tooth and nail to save his openly gay friend from the clutches of Nazi monsters who didn’t accept him or his love for another man.

Steve not only defends his friend, but draws a perfect parallel between Arnie’s gay relationship with Michael and his love story with a woman, effectively equating these two types of bond, no differences at all between the two.

So you understand now why I am genuinly upset that in the year of our Lord 2019 we got this sorry excuse of representation, and a regression of Steve’s character that ignores all the subtext built up in his 3 solo movies for the sake of a heterosexual relationship that was over before even starting.

When a comic book from 35 years ago, from what has been one of the darkest moments in queer history, treats the gay community with a compassion and respect that are totally lacking in a movie filmed in the allegedly modern days of meaningful representation, well... you know that something’s rotten.

#endgame spoilers #endgame #a4 spoilers #stucky #captain america #comics #forever bitter about this #my stuff #meta #marvel meta #marvel #bucky barnes #arnie roth #cap and politics #bi!steve

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incarnateirony · 5 years

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Thoughts.

So I finally watched Good Omens. First of all I know some people were waiting for me to like, do breakdowns on the use of lore, sigils and whatnot -- I’m sure I’ll poke at it eventually, but so much of it reads of typicality, alongside strong artistic liberty, that when it comes to actual sigils there’s very few and I’ll need a good screen of them.

But that isn’t about that. This is actually about Good Omens and the audience response to queer content and queer coded content. I’m going to warn you, some of this shit is going to incense the fuck out of woke tumblr. It’s going to be a lot of hard pills to swallow, mostly in regards to parts of the LGBT community -- of which I’m a part -- moving around our own goal posts, inconsistencies in the placements of our goalposts, and the impacts of het culture. If you come into my mentions screaming away at me expect an ignore or a block.

No, this isn’t anti-Azri/Crow. It’s very pro Azri/Crow. And yes, I’m going to drag other fandoms I’m in, into it. But I’m also gonna drag general discussion into it.

First I’m going to source a link to a recent set of tweets someone made that I consider very insightful (x) and then highlight a bulk of it.

“When we call something queerbaiting, we're essentially saying: "source material X doesn't count as real or valid queer representation." Here is a thread on why we need to be cognizant about which real-life queer people & stories we're erasing when we expand our use of that term. First: actual queerbaiting, in which art-creators hint at queer representation in order to attract viewers and then insist their art was 100% hetero all along, sucks a lot. I am not advocating getting rid of the term. Nor am I saying it's not valid to feel jerked around when a show uses the promise of a specific queer relationship on their publicity circuit, and then doesn't follow through on it in the actual source. (Or follows through only to write out a character, a la #TheMagicians) However: when we narrow our definition of "real and valid queer representation" until the ONLY thing that counts as queer rep is on-screen queer *romance* or on-screen queer *sex*, we are telling a significant portion of the real-life queer community that they don't count. When we use the "queerbaiting" label to describe a millennia-long, loving asexual same-gender relationship (aka #GoodOmens) we are telling asexuals in loving life-long relationships that they don't count as queer. We are also telling sexual queers whose primary, life-organizing relationships are queerplatonic (me, this is me) that their queerness is defined only by who they fuck, not by who they choose to build a life with. I want a space where ALL kinds of queer stories get told: romances yes, but also stories of queer friendship; queer mentorship; queer animosity; queer competition and cooperation; queer found family; queer provocation and queer mistakes. None of that happens if we tell everyone whose queer content doesn't fit into the narrow box "Lead A & Lead B kiss and/or fuck onscreen" (even if A&B make a life together; even if A&B kiss & fuck other same-sex people) that their art is exploitative & doesn't count as queer rep. “

Why am I choosing to highlight this while implicatively mentioning my adjacent fandoms? Well, because blogs I follow that either haphazardly dismiss, say, Destiel as valid until (personally met goalpost, generally when arguing with the hetnorm or anti community wanting a kiss) are all on the Azriphale-Crowley bandwagon.

And let me say, I adore the Azriphale-Crowley bandwagon. I’m ON that bandwagon. Holy shit am I on that wagon, but we need to inspect our dialogue for people who are on one but not the other.

We can say, for example, “Well, Neil Gaiman and the actors have been supportive! So THAT’S why it’s fine!” I mean -- aren’t people always banging on about post-affirmation not being enough, or just vague support being enough, or this-or-that not being enough? Like people don’t flame Rowling over that? I mean, even if we handwave away that Neil Gaiman had literally uncontested authorship instead of 203492 hands in the author and ownership pot top-to-bottom which the average show doesn’t have -- which gives the liberty to say whatever the fuck he wants because it is wholly his product and under his contract and design -- do you notice that it’s actually a very, very small audience crowing about that? And rarely if ever the same ones that do about other pairings that could be considered similar? Like we haven’t gotten those moments from authors in other shows (Robbie Thompson “Destiel isn’t canon?” comes to mind) that we yell queerbait at then and decide isn’t enough. Because someone else moved a goalpost out.

Ah-- but they’re... confirmed asexual and agender and immortal! Okay... and... so is, for example, if we’re going to tilt this way, Castiel. And ace people can have queer relationships with bi or yes, even straight people. Mindblowing, I know, but that’s it, that’s reality.

So why on gods green earth am I seeing this disparity between blogs about the same content, banging on at different volumes of what we expect?

It’s something I’ve written about before, the loudest example being my Problem With DreamHunter post. Before any DreamHunter fans pick up the pitchforks, don’t worry. It, also, is in support of DreamHunter, but simply addresses the cultural problem in there not being a problem with DreamHunter. The blend of intersectional issue disparity between MLM and WLW, and also the simple fact that the fandom wasn’t positioned to have antis or rival ships screaming at it: het culture and shipping culture.

I’ve banged on about this before: in our race for representation, we often trample over content that’s perfectly good and valid and great in many ways, because we want to be able to win an argument against an asshole, we want to be able to bludgeon the gay so inarguably into somebody’s brain that they yield to the might of it, or at least, we imagine it reaches that point. Anti-shipping culture can be so loud that even slow burn het pairings that kiss will have antis explaining their way around it (eg, Mulder and Scully, off the top of my head). Anti queer culture will talk down men or women even making out on screen as experimentation. This cycle will continue.

So again, let me state: Good Omens is a masterpiece. I am utterly enthralled by it, but it does leave me sitting flummoxed about the uneven bars we put out there as marker posts based on trying to race to the finish of arguments.

I’m sure some hack job that doesn’t know how to rub brain cells together beyond “it’s straight” and, beneath the surface, “I don’t like it so I’m going to piss and moan about more expansive methods of thought than hard niching the complexity of human relations” is going to roll in here, thinking yelling “Jensen Ackles thinks it’s straight!” in supreme reductionism of things like authorship, be it intent OR death of the author, or whatever else is out there in this medium -- I’m sure they’ll show up, make the same repetitive ass of themselves as always, and roll on, completely missing the point that I’m not obligated to your arbitrary bullshit, and that nobody is.

I don’t HAVE to point out every single time a dickhat on a loop yells that, that Jensen Ackles himself spoke of the intangibility of the deepness of their connection with Castiel as an angel, and that a cishet dude from texas probably doesn’t understand the finest details of LGBT identity complexity despite being an ally while fumbling over talking about the difficulty of putting a label on it. I don’t have to explain that the actor doesn’t actually get to determine that. Viewership or author, take your pick. I don’t have to explain the “it’s never happening and wasn’t intended” never came from the authors every time some bumblefuck says it -- that it came from one account with a blurb that said he doesn’t speak for that writing room whatsoever. I don’t have to review the times that Jensen Ackles has almost verbatim mirrored the Good Omens creatives about the beauty of it being you being able to make your own interpretation even if it wasn’t his, and encouraging that. I don’t fucking have to, you entitled sniveling shits.

And no, it’s by no means about, say, Dean and Cas. It’s just about the dialogues I’m tired of seeing tilt unevenly even between typically well grounded and centered people.

So anyway Azriphale and Crowley are EternityMates and that’s the fucking tea. Call it queerplat or call it queerromantic I can see either, even if I do tilt towards the former. Destiel is queerromantic and you can fight me. Come at me. Except nobody really will over Good Omens, just Supernatural, because like magic, Good Omens isn’t geared for a fuckton of other bloated ships or antis who hate either of them by structure alone. And that, itself, is a point to be made, too.

And before some doodlefuck trolls along, no, there’s no such thing as incestromantic. Spare us the time and block me now if your knee jerk counter-troll is going to be subtextually along those lines, because I promise you’ll just get blocked when you try to roll into town with it. Since the Supernatural fandom seems to house corners of douchebags that don’t know how to control their primitive douchebag impulses and they do come into address in this post.

Moral of the story: Stop listening to homophobes, antis, or people with agendas. Listen to the content and what has actually been said. On all sides.

If you consider, for example,

the Ineffible Husbands canon with no admission of anything beyond friendship, with the hets loudly banging one scene over with “well the others are ace or whatever” as your reason (fair), a few lunches, basic dedication and a few well placed songs, and a few supportive notes from the general creatives,

But the Hunter Husbands not canon with talked-around love yous and need yous, intentional deletion of Castiel’s agender ace aspects, in spite of there being no evident banging or kissing in the show that hasn’t been a highlight of a problem since like season what six?; talk arounds of their meals together, infinite longer and classic romantic crafted dedication, innumerable well placed songs and yes, a few supportive notes from the creatives that are buried by yourself or others beneath intentionally obfuscated arguments and spun context,

You are, whether you want to gullet it or not, part of the moving goalpost problem. Whether it’s you running to meet a phobe or an anti, or just being coded into it by the screaming around you, there is no world in which one is representation and the other is not. It’s just fuckin’ not.

It’s not.

I don’t care what you yell and scream because it’s popular in your circles. It’s fuckin’ not.

It’s not.

Either both are rep or neither are rep. Personally, I adore both of them, and anyone that has a problem with that can eat me.

Good Omens is not a goddamn motherfucking breakthrough in representation. It’s the same very valid very real form of queer coding half this site screams at because someone got loud enough to scream about it early on, generally inspired by antis riding their ass, just it’s the first and second lead instead of second and third lead, and there’s no ‘rival’ in first and second leads as being intentionally dragged into vaguery. It’s. Fucking. Not. It’s literally. The same. Fucking. Level.

Now, I HAVE been banging on that it’s the level our content SHOULD be acceptable at (well, almost; frankly I’d consider Destiel better, as the show’s overall intimacy threshold is far lower while Good Omens has parallel overtness to the coupling in the actual canon, meaning Good Omens’ playing field, for fair treatment, would be indebted to matching volume -- not saying sex since ace but louder admissions and engagements that are just as clear.)

Unpopular? Good, I don’t care. I’m tired of people screaming about completely conflicting crap.

It’s where we SHOULD be taking ownership of our content. So if there’s any breakthrough, it’s the LGBT community themselves having some sort of spark of awareness that they can and should be able to own content at that volume, largely because the fandom isn’t swamped by asshats on the other side all yelling for their own crappy agendas clogging up your heads. There’s a few queerbait shouters. And you laugh them off, by and large, and accept it as canon and rep. Funny how that works without antis up your ass.

Sincerely,

A tired queer and newborn Crowley stan.

#not spn #but kinda spn #definitely good omens #but more lgbt commentary

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