#2) I get it romance is stupid people who aren't queer at all and having all these stupid rules for engaging in it are especially stupid

[brionysea]

when max is depressed we know something's wrong because lucas says with his words that he knows something's wrong but when mike is depressed we don't think anything of it because will's right next to him rolling his eyes about how stupid straight people are

[crownspeaksblog]

How the hell does ofmd manage to give me everything i love about tv shows, in one show?!!

It's funny, silly, stupid but somehow at the same time it's serious, deep and well thought out!

Characters change and develop in prominent ways, characters have arcs, what they go through affects them, things aren't stagnant. (1x01 stede is a coward who's trying to hide from the English, 2x08 stede throws himself over 2 soldiers, he's brave despite the fact he's out numbered. 1x04 ed wants to quit piracy but doesn't know how, 2x08 ed quits piracy a second time with stede even when the first time doesn't work out)

It's a beautiful romance, a queer romance between two people who have insane chemistry, a love story that has ups and downs, but in the end they're right there for eachother because what they have is True Love!

The show is shot so beautifully, it doesn't look boring, so many shows I've watched (although entertaining) are shot in the most boring/basic ways possible, ofmd has so many gorgeous still shots, a couple of fun one shots! (The bar fight one shot in 2x07 deserves more attention! Mer!stede and ed looking at eachother while floating in the water is genuinely one of the most beautiful shots I've ever seen!)

The outfits characters wear changes with their arcs and it makes sense story wise and the outfits are just so fun looking, it's interesting and different and so, so not basic. (Stede going from aristocratic silly little outfits to pirate shirts with deep neck openings and leather pants!! Hot! Also can't wait to see eds s3 outfit.)

The song choice is fun, the lyrics, beautifully add another layer to the story (I'm still not over the "I've loved him since he was born" lyric!)

The women in this show, although few and not main characters, they're interesting, different and not basic "normal" women, so many shows and movies I've watched, the men get to be weird, kooky and interesting while the women are just painfully normal, but in ofmd, the few women we got are either insane, wild, weird, violent or just not fucking "normal"! (the most "normal" woman we have is probably mary who was gonna stab her husband with a skewer through the earhole!! Also the addition of archie, former snake cult member is just amazing!)

The action we get every once in a while is just so fun! I love a fight scene and for the most part, they look good, it looks well done (again the bar fight and ed killing motherfuckers left, right and center in 2x08 is just so goddamn fun to watch!)

I know so many other shows have most of these things, but the fact ofmd has all of these things, that i just fucking love in one show is amazing, it's appreciated and on top of all of this, the show just makes me happy whether I'm watching it or watching people's reactions to it or even just thinking about it! I love this show even with the criticisms i might have, i love it!

[icy-watch]

^^^^ me with Geo

So so so so so sooooooooooo

You've met GEO

My reasoning for loving him so much stems from Season 2 Part 1 so I can't fully explain

BUT

I can tell you some things that they show doesn't tell (I think):

Geo says that he's a Munch with the color of a Geckle but it's not true; he's half and half

If you didn't notice but only his left ear was pierced; a sign in the Gay community to other gays that you are gay back when being public about it was frowned upon

The man who wrote the episode "Land of Lost Things" and created Geo (I think he made the character) is gay himself! So in a way, Geo is a self-insert character

I am Aromantic. I just don't feel the need or want to have a romantic relationship. And that seems to have stepped over into the media I watch. I don't ship. I'm slightly romantic repulsed. I don't actively hate it, I just don't like it. I'm fine with canon ships like Jaya or Lumity (from Owl House (plz watch it)).

But something about Geo and Cole. Something about how they interact in Season 2 that just.........AUGHAUGHGHHAHG!!!!!!! It awoken something in me. I feel warm inside!!!! I found myself grinning ear to ear.

It could just be the fantastic writing, but it's so much more. The ship for Geo and Cole is called LostShipping and/or Geode. The fanbase kind of goes back and forth. I don't mind either.

I'm still aro, and I still cringe inside at most romance. But Geode is the one exception and the whole #savemyboycole thing is really dumb

Oh look, I did explain it all without spoiling lol

And yeah......there are ppl who are NOT happy about Geo and Cole. They're not even actually together yet some ppl on Twitter are pissy. They HAAAAATE Geo! It's stupid. First off, it's a lego. Second, it's a kids show. Calm down. It's not that bad/important. Some ppl see Cole as Gay (me) and others see him as straight. Both are fine. Both are cool. He's still the same guy.

Oh, and there's no minifig for Geo. I think it's bc of his hair. They don't have like a set piece of it or something.....eh....just make a plushie of him (and of Cole plzzzzzzzzzz) I'd buy 500 if they did honestly

And now that you've met him.....I am safe to change my pfp to GEO!!!!!!!! (I also LOVE his outfit so much!!!! I want it)

(I almost put in a pic of him in Season 2 and was like "Oops....back it up! Can't use that!")

Geo! A blorbo! He's such a bean!

I noticed something right off the bat with him looking like a Munce and a Geckle, so when he mentioned it, it kind of confirmed what I'd thought.

I totally remember the gay ear piercing thing! My cousin and uncle were double and triple checking when they got their ears pierced that they didn't get the wrong ear. And that was in the early 2000s. It's amazing what's changed in 20 years. (Note: this is not the cousin who got married in Malaysia last year. This is his older brother, the extreme goth who hosts the Halloween Birthday Party every year. The 1 where my sister pumped me up to do this.)

Oh! I love that little bit of trivia!

*gives you a virtual hug* I will always love my aro friendlies.

It's extremely rare to see a queer couple that is Comfortable and just Exists. With Geo and Cole, it feels natural and unforced. And I'm very glad for that. It's probably why shipping them feels... nice.

Idk, I'm rambling.

I'm guessing the #savemyboycole thing is connected to chriscreator0 somehow?

A characters sexuality or gender doesn't change who they are as a person, and I wish people who criticize media for including queer characters were more willing to understand that. Just bc something about them is revealed doesn't mean they still aren't the character that they liked.

Justice for Geo! We deserve an official minifig or plush of our pretty guy! I will shake my fist at LEGO until something is done for him.

[firelxdykatara]

For literal years there was no reason, internal or external, why they couldn't/wouldn't admit to their feelings, which not only begs the question of why in the world it took a magical prison to force them to confess, but ensures that their relationship doesn't change as a result of that weight being lifted from their shoulders.

All of this post is 100% accurate, but this bit especially is why the 'confirmation' rang so hollow to me, and it's frustrating seeing this heralded as some amazing piece of queer rep when the show hasn't put any effort into making the relationship, well, a relationship, in all the years it has allegedly been planned.

(Also I just really do not believe that it was planned from the beginning, because I actually want to give the writers some credit and assume they aren't truly that incompetent. I'd buy that maybe they kicked the idea around a little in the early years, but I just don't believe anyone seriously sat down and said 'this is what's happening' until Volume 6 at least.)

It feels similar to Korrasami being made canon in the last five minutes of LoK, except that CRWBY don't have an overbearing parent company to attempt to shift the blame onto after the fact like Bryke did--it was an indie web series piggy-backing off the fame generated by their Halo fanfic series, there was nothing preventing them from confirming Blake and Yang's queerness on-screen years ago even if they wanted to waffle on actually confirming their feelings for each other.

And the fact that some of this could have been solved by actually having Blake and Yang talk to each other, rather than relying on a handful of looks, hand-holding, forehead touches, color-coding, and the fandom to fill in the blanks really grinds my gears. They haven't had a single substantive conversation since Burning the Candle back in Volume 2, despite having a lot of shit they need to have a conversation about.

They have yet to actually talk through and process Yang's abandonment issues and the way Blake triggered them by running off without a word after Volume 3. (This is abundantly obvious by their borderline codependence over the past few volumes, so no, I'm not buying 'they talked about it off-screen' as an excuse.) They have yet to talk about Yang's encounter with her mother, or anything she was feeling about those revelations. (As far as we can tell canonically, she still hasn't told anyone Raven is the Spring Maiden lmao.) They have yet to talk through and process the fact that they killed a man together. (And I don't care how much he deserved it in the moment--that shit would be traumatizing regardless! And they never discuss it! They mention it once in a conversation about something else entirely, and that just does not count.) They did not discuss anything that occurred in Volume 7, and despite Blake believing she watched Yang die at the end of Volume 8, they never talked about that either!

That's one of the things that was sorely missing from Volume 9, in fact--some actual emotion over what they just went through. Where was Yang's grief, if she spent her time alone on the island thinking she died but her sister and her friends had made it out, only to find them there? Where was Blake's anger at Yang for pulling the stupid move that got her 'killed' in the first place? (Seriously, one of the best tropes to pull in a romance where two people who haven't confessed feel forced to confront their feelings--when one of them nearly gets themselves killed, and the other gets angry at them for it, and then has to work out why, and then a Big Damn Kiss happens, which imo would've made for far better storytelling than trapping them on a bridge until they confessed for reasons that only make sense if you assume the island could see through the fourth wall and commune with the writers themselves.) Why was no one allowed to realistically react not only to their present circumstances, but to all the shit that had just happened to them that none of them even took a second to process?

It's just... so, so frustrating, to keep watching this show and see them come so close to genuinely good story beats or character moments, and then watch them sidestep around anything that might bring actual catharsis or feel narratively earned. I feel like the proverbial donkey constantly chasing after that carrot on a stick, always dangling just out of reach but promising something delicious if I just stick it out for long enough.

I think one of the things that bothers me most about the way RWBY has handled the whole b/umbleby thing is the fact that volume 9 kind of puts paid to the idea that their relationship was a 'slow burn'.

If it were a slow burn, if their relationship had been steadily growing and changing over the past few volumes and according to their experiences, then that burn ultimately resolving and becoming explicit and them getting together would have been a significant milestone that changed things between them so completely they could never go back to how things were before.

But... nothing changed. If you took out the confession and the kiss and Ruby's (understandable) anger... you'd never be able to tell anything had changed between them. They have the same level of physical affection and tenderness they've had since volume 6. They don't talk to each other any differently. There's been no change in their behavior, no evidence they are now a couple in a way that they were not before except their one single kiss. And that's just deeply unsatisfying to me.

This criticism popped up after the episode aired and I came across a couple of posts that, with lesser and greater respect, pushed back against it. One in particular was rather snide, asking what RWDE folks expected to change: for them to be kissing non-stop? Declaring their undying love at ten-minute intervals? Pulling out a ring for marriage? People are still themselves while dating, you know. Besides, they're a little busy at the moment!

Now, I personally believe that yes, there should be changes to their behavior. I likewise believe that this could have easily been accomplished if a) Blake and Yang hadn't already gone through the physical displays of affection that RWBY uses to confirm a romantic relationship (primarily hand-holding) and b) if they hadn't jumped straight to "I love you." Removing the numerous moments of hand-holding since Volume 6 would have left that as an easy, visual indicator of the change in their relationship (rather than the confusing "So are they canonical or not??" we got for three years). Likewise, having them admit to having a crush could have opened the door to actually dating which in turn could have eventually led to the big "I love you" moment. That's how you do a slow-burn post-confession: breaking up all those relationship milestones and thus making time for the characters to run into obstacles and celebrate the success of each step forward. The way bumblebee has been written, it simultaneously feels far too slow (why did it take 4+ years for them to admit they like each other?) and simultaneously way too fast (they don't actually admit that they like each other, but that they're IN LOVE).

Beyond what all might have been added though, I think it's worth considering what might have been lost in a better written romance. Slow-burns, as mentioned above, thrive on obstacles. There has to be a reason why the characters don't get together, whether that's internal ("I'm too afraid of commitment to date them") or external ("Our families will lose their shit if we date"). Seriously, this is like writing 101, yet Bumblebee gave us NOTHING. For literal years there was no reason, internal or external, why they couldn't/wouldn't admit to their feelings, which not only begs the question of why in the world it took a magical prison to force them to confess, but ensures that their relationship doesn't change as a result of that weight being lifted from their shoulders. If Blake was scared of what it would mean for her to love a human, or if Yang was scared to commit after losing so much else in life, or if there was homophobia to deal with in Remnant, or if they both wanted to wait until the Salem fight was over, or if they honestly didn't realize they had romantic feelings, or if one of them needed to come to terms with being queer first, or if there was a literal curse at play that hindered the relationship somehow... there are a HUNDRED ways to provide obstacles and the removal of any one of them would have changed both the character(s) and their relationship with each other.

Not to continually bring up my blorbo Trent Crimm, but Ted Lasso does this beautifully. With the removal of his obstacle (inability to admit that he's gay) Trent becomes a radically different person from who he was in Season One; a more authentic person. His style changes, he smiles more, his conversation becomes more "dorky," and his relationships with the rest of the cast likewise develops. What would Yang look like if she went on a journey of coming out as queer? What would Blake look like if she kept her activist roots by fighting for the right to date a human? How would they both act post-kiss if they'd been afraid, for whatever reason, to show that level of affection in public before? Something like holding hands could have been a radical act -- it IS for real queer people!! -- rather than a generic, cutsey detail we've been getting for years now.

Instead, as you say, anon, literally nothing changes. I am 99.9% convinced that Ruby wouldn't even know Yang was now dating Blake if they hadn't exited the storm still kissing because them sitting close and occasionally holding hands has been their norm since VOLUME SIX. Nothing changes because RT didn't do any of the work to write an actual, romantic relationship. They wrote a couple of years worth of implied queerbaiting and then confirmed it when it looked like RWBY would be cancelled. We don't know anything about them in regards to romance and/or sexuality. When did Yang realize she likes girls when she started the series only appreciating guys? Is Blake expected to marry anyone in particular given her status as the pseudo-princess of Menagerie? Have either of them ever been in a relationship before? Do they have any idea what they want out of a relationship? Does the fact that they're on a supposedly doomed quest with their world hanging in the balance have any bearing on their long-term plans? There are fictional couples who avoid admitting feelings because of the presumed hopelessness of their plot and there are those that grab at a relationship and hold on with both hands because they're determined to live and love for whatever time they have left. Bumblee offers none of this. Their love exists only between the two of them, primarily off-screen, separate from both the plot and the rest of the cast.

The fact that Yang never once talks to Ruby about her feelings and then the Volume drops Ruby's annoyance really says it all. Of course nothing changes. RT doesn't want to write a Blake/Yang subplot. They just want to have a queer couple among the main team to bring in viewers and sell merch. The fandom has done ALL the work to make Bumblebee a nuanced, heart-felt love story. It literally, barely exists on screen and what little we have gotten often makes no sense. They hide their feelings when they have no reason to. Yang is worried about a fight with Blake that never happened. They both say they love things about the other that sound like a list of generic Good Characteristics, rather than traits that actually align with these characters. They're caught kissing thanks to the magical world they're in and the characters treat this as a given, giving the story an excuse not to engage with their reactions because again, the story isn't interested in that. One reaction is tossed in for the drama? Don't worry, the tree will cure Ruby of her understandable anger that Yang is more concerned with holding Blake's hand than her sister's tragedy-inducing depression. Everything is only canon in the moment.

Outside of the kiss checkbox there's no romance here and, thus, no reason to show its development. All RT needed was to get one kiss on screen and then boom, their merch sells out and (they hope) Volume 10 is greenlit. Don't get me wrong, I'm still pleased it's actually confirmed now, but it's nevertheless the fans who are doing all the work to make this an epic love story, not the writers.

[impostoradult]

So I've got to ask, because I stopped watching SPN at the end of season 4 (because Kripke said it'd end at the end of season 5 and I didn't want it to end, but then it didn't and a friend of mine just said that it turned into crap and I wanted to keep it good in my mind so... Well I didn't watch the seasons after that) but I'm kind of wondering if I should watch it? Is it... Good? I'm thinking about character developpement mostly, the story in general... And the finale: will I want to forget about it or... ?

Second ask which is totally non related: as for Jensen Ackles, what is it about people saying he is homophobic? Every interview I've seen... The guy seems pretty charming ? But I haven't been following him much so maybe I'm mistaking ?

Whew! You have asked 2 questions about which whole books could be written.

Q1

Here's what I'll say re: is Supernatural Good/Worth Watching all the way through. Seasons 4 & 5 are the peak of the show in terms of general story-telling quality. The entire show post season 5 is VERY hit or miss from episode to episode, and from season to season.

However, there's also a TON of great stuff that comes after season 5, particularly interesting character development stuff with all the leads at various points. And there are some awesome side characters that get introduced like Charlie and Rowena and Kevin, who are really fun and add a lot in their occasional appearances. Also there are some truly stand-out episodes and arcs in those later seasons. The problem is, you have to wade through a fair amount of eye-rolling, repetitive, and sometimes just plain lazy or ill-conceived nonsense to get to the good stuff. You DO have to slog. And you have to be willing to put up with some TRULY stupid writing choices along the way. Do I think it's worth it?

Ultimately, my answer is yes. But BARELY. Just barely.

I'll also say, while the incorporation of Castiel varies a lot in both amount and quality from season to season after S5, overall the Dean/Castiel storyline within the show is incredibly compelling. As a long-form slow-burn romance, it is one of the most gripping pieces of romantic storytelling I've ever seen (and I'm including hetero pairings in that statement as well). So if that is something you are invested in (or think you might be), Supernatural becomes A LOT more worth watching.

Which leads me to the ending, which in truth, I never watched. I stopped watching at 15x19. I know enough about what happened in 15x20 to know I don't need to see it. At this point, I'm also fairly certain they are gonna do a sequel/reboot and retcon it, so it doesn't really matter anyway. Jensen Ackles is bound and determined to bring it back at some point, so I'm 95% sure that ending isn't going to stand, no matter what. (Which I am more than fine with. Although I don't enjoy beating dead-horse media franchises in general, he is right to want to retcon it, IMO, and I support him in this endeavor).

And speaking of Jensen Ackles...

Q2

The question around his homophobia (or lack thereof) is also super complex. In my personal opinion, no, I don't think he is (though I understand why that idea persists among some fans)

He did demonstrate resistance to the idea of Destiel or queer interpretations of Dean in earlier eras of Supernatural's run, often in the context of Supernatural Fan Conventions when he was speaking off the cuff to questions directly posed to him by fans. And sometimes he wasn't super tactful in how he expressed himself.

But I get the feeling a lot of those incidences were a product of a variety of different things that aren't reducible to personal homophobia on his part:

In the context of those conventions, the actors are acting as PR extensions of the show. And The CW company line for basically ALL of Supernatural's run has been Dean's straight and Destiel is just fan shipping. Jensen Ackles, as a representative of the show, wasn't in a position to disagree publicly with the company line, regardless of how he felt privately. It would have caused a huge shit-storm of blow back if he'd done that. One of my big frustrations with the SPN fandom is the lack of awareness that actors are not allowed to just freely share their thoughts and feelings about the show's content, particularly when they might disagree or disapprove of it. It makes you look unprofessional, as an actor, when you do that. Its like going in front of an audience to announce publicly that you disagree with your boss and think they should have handled something very differently. That's OBVIOUSLY unprofessional, even if/when you are right. These actors have never been in a position to share how they really feel or think about this publicly because of the nature of entertainment PR. Again, I think Jensen hasn't always been tactful in how he handled those situations, but I also don't take ANY of those statements all that seriously because in those moments Jensen was acting primarily as a spokesperson for the "brand"/entity of Supernatural, regardless of his actual thoughts/feelings about anything.

I also think he's probably evolved a lot on this issue over the years, both in terms of his personal politics AND his attitudes about the content of Supernatural. Now this gets into sticky territory because I am now 'reading' Jensen and his life as a public figure. And there is so much more that is hidden versus what is visible. So what follows is HIGHLY speculative on my part and should be understood as such. But, my personal interpretation of his queer politics is he grew up in Texas in the 80s & 90s in a fairly conservative and overtly Christian household (which he has spoken about publicly more than once). And while I doubt he was ever overtly hateful towards queer people, I do suspect he was raised with a lot of the general biases that come with that kind of background. I also think as a result of working in Hollywood for so many years, becoming such deeply close friends with Misha Collins (who, for all his whatever around this, is a polyamorous ultra-lefty hippie), and having the fandom that Supernatural has (which is at a conservative guess 80% queer people), he has probably come a long way from where he started about this. I ALSO think his ideas about queer Dean and Destiel have evolved a lot, though he's never said it explicitly in so many words (because again, I don't think he's ever really been at liberty to). BUT, it was incredibly clear in his very loud silence on the SPN 'finale' he really disliked what they chose to do in 15x20. It was also incredibly clear he was very emotional about 15x18. He had a cast member shoot a private video of the Castiel confession scene for him to keep on his phone. We also know they conducted formal market research on the idea of making the romance between Dean and Cas even more explicitly canon in final seasons. That didn't happen, for reasons we may never know. But it's pretty clear to me that at the start of season 13, they seemed to be setting up that romantic arc pretty heavily. And I think Jensen knew that and maybe even got attached to the idea before the powers that be shut it down for whatever reasons they did.

Again, all of this is my personal understanding which is based on real events and statements and such, but is still an inference based on all of those disparate pieces of data.

But in sum, no I don't think Jensen Ackles is homophobic. Yes, I think he has said a few insensitive things in the past, but I think there was a PR aspect to a lot of it, and I also think he's shown a lot of growth in the right direction over time.

I also think there's like a solid 35% chance he'll retcon the ending of SPN and give Dean and Cas a proper (romantic) ending, out of spite if nothing else. I think there's like a 95% chance he's gonna reboot it. He cannot shut up about it. Whether or not the reboot will do right by the Destiel storyline is far less certain for me. I'm not CONVINCED of the so-called "Jackles long-con" conspiracy theory. But I think there's a solid 1 in 3 chance its real, which is enough possibility that I'm not willing to wash my hands of this yet.

So many other insane fan conspiracy theories about Supernatural have turned out to be right. And this one has more evidence than a decent number of the others.

I hope this insanely long response helps!

[girlonfilmmovies]

Welcome to Friend Island: "Love Island US Season 3" and the Gaping Sores of America

So I foolishly thought that in the new year of 2021, the world would be in a better place than it was the previous year. After all, we were coming out of the "worst" of the most horrifying pandemic of the past century, a middling presidency that at that point served only a wealth of TV soundbites and less actual damage to the political system, and we were looking forward to a brighter future and a return to what some hoped would be "normal". The past was the past, and this was going to be a new moment.

Oh how naïve we all were.

As of this writing Covid-19 cases are hitting staggering new highs in the southern US, with Florida (of course) somehow hitting a record amount despite vaccines being easily available in the country for months. The death rates are at almost the same as last year. The middling disaster of the 45th president had one more trick up its sleeve, a firebomb brewing for dozens of years that went off in one of the most embarrassing fiascos of American political history. Misinformation has already implanted itself so thoroughly among half the country that people would rather die than admit they were wrong; the spread of such chaos being happily spat out through the algorithms of corporations only intent on raking in dollar signs. All the potential benefits that could have come from this once-in-a-lifetime moment are being briskly swept away: offices demanding their employees come back, no respect given to science and healthcare workers, the country's clearly weak infrastructure forced right back into action as if we didn't just see its gaping holes. The earth is dying and the people who actually have the resources do something about it instead have kickstarted a capitalist space race.

2021 has gone to show that old, toxic habits die hard.

Sigh.

Yeah, I watched Love Island again.

Despite my... let's say mixed feelings regarding last year's shitshow, I couldn't help but admit that it was the closest thing that I've had to appointment viewing TV that I've had in a long time. In an era of streaming and DVR boxes, it's a bit of an actual feat to get someone who works a fulltime job (especially one with erratic scheduling) to go out of their way to watch something the second it premieres. Love Island brings the family together, so they can engage in our favorite pastime: pointing and laughing at young, dumb, fame hungry cis-hets.

Plus, the second season had offered a fascinating glance at how to contend with a pandemic while also trying to stage a typical dumb reality show. The tropical island villa was swapped for a luxurious hotel rooftop in Las Vegas -- a literal ivory tower of ignorant hedonism looking down upon a plagued nation. You could feel the sexual tension of the hot, hyper-sexual adults forced without physical contact for months finally allowed to relieve themselves the only way they know how: toxic relationships. It was trying so hard to be an oasis in a desert yearning for frivolous content, but the façade was clearly visible to the point of satire. It was a wonderful thing to experience firsthand as what I originally thought as merely me dipping my toes into the genre.

Season 2 was the show that we deserved at the time, a funhouse mirror reflecting all the callous stupidity that had led us to this moment in world history. It attempted to offer a happy ending, a look towards the future: a black couple finally winning a reality show, a first for such a mainstream program (both of them actually kind of turned out to suck, but shhhh...).

It also allowed America to completely break the hearts of people while watching them fall apart live on TV. It was cruel, it was stupid, but most of all, it was fun as hell.

Season 3 is not about torturing the competitors. It's about torturing us.

In all fairness, there were a couple of lovely positive developments for the series this season. While still struggling with racial diversity a little bit, as evidenced by them casting only one very specific kind of black man like five times, strides are being taken elsewhere in the lane of body diversity. Alana makes her debut as literally the first woman on this show who isn't a size 0-2, looking absolutely gorgeous in every single shot.

The almost aggressively heteronormative nature of the show is slowly being shaken by a more openly queer cast than previously expected -- multiple bisexual/pansexual contestants participated, even though there wasn't any overtly queer romance shown (also almost all of them were women, with them describing their sexualities being confined to streaming exclusive episodes, which isn't... great). It's certainly a step in the right direction for a show that unceremoniously shuffled off the only queer member of the Season 2 cast overnight once the internet found his gay porn shoot. Ironically, they also ended up booting off the most openly queer member of this cast too, the purple haired proudly pansexual TikTok-er Leslie, but for the more legal reason of smuggling weed into the villa.

It's not terribly surprising that both Alana and Leslie garnered a lot of positive attention both inside and outside of the villa -- they stand out so much against the otherwise predictable casting that we've come to expect from this show and white American media in general. Alana is a woman with actual curves who looks stunningly gorgeous in comparison to the monotonous supermodel figures of everyone else. Leslie almost falls into a stereotype from the way she appears: dyed purple hair, tattooed all over, obviously queer, vaping weed constantly, exuding the kind of chaotic yet weirdly fun energy that only a former stripper can. Yet she obviously grabbed the attention of the contestants because while people like her abound in real life, in the fantasy land of reality TV she's an absolute rarity, a far cry from the sanitized beauty pageant-esque standards that they seem to pluck girls from. The men are still dumb, bland, boneheaded idiots in this show, but by offering some actual variety, they get to actually pursue people they aren't "traditionally" supposed to, while an outsider audience member like me gets to see women like herself be offered up for titillation in the same way "conventionally attractive" women are.

It's kind of cool, even if it is just playing into the icky sexualization of everyone, but hey...progress?

In an odd "two steps forward, one step back" kind of situation, the show has somewhat dialed down the outrageously toxic relationships of last year into a more relatively subdued level of toxicity. Gaslighting/cheating is at least kept to a relative low in this season compared to the nightmare that was last year, although this year's ratio depends on how much of that corresponds with sexy Columbian boy Will's obviously flimsy grasp of the intricacies of the English language. He continued to be plagued by the cliquey-ness of the cast until the very end but his genuinely sweet couple with Kyra still did enough to sneak into the final two.

The actual main problem this year was an almost unbearably long love triangle between Cash, Trina, and Cinco that refused to solve itself for nearly a month. Cash and Cinco perennially kept flip-flopping in their feelings for each other, bouncing between failed partnerships despite so obviously being into each other. Trina ended up roped in as Cinco's partner for a while, a constant victim of his own lack of courage to make up his damn mind. Cash, freshly single and in horny jail (aka Casa Amor), coupled up with the handsome and mysterious Charlie.

Now we need to discuss how bizarre Charlie as a cast member. Not only is he the only member who is, looks, and acts like an actual adult, but he also seems to show no adherence to the rules of reality TV: he's very relaxed and unassuming, seems genuinely uninterested in the "game" aspects of the show, and only perks up during rare moments of actual romantic potential. He's a fascinating spanner to throw into the machine of Love Island, and once Cinco was eliminated in the competition, Charlie had to sit there while Cash only continued to openly and aggressively pine for a man who isn't even her current partner. Proving once again to be an anomaly in the cast, he actually decided to do something about this: he unceremoniously dumped fan favorite Cash like a sack of bricks, sending her home while hooking up with the previously mentioned Alana. This smart decision was met derisively by viewers, despite him being the only person there who actually acted like a fucking adult for once. Ironically, this got him and Alana into the finals, where they finished in last place with the same trademark lack of enthusiasm that we've come to expect from him.

I suppose now we need to uncork the problem of the season and by extension the franchise as a whole. You might have read that previous situation and thought, "gee, a fan favorite got tossed aside while a guy that everyone hated ended up making it into the final four? That seems weird."

But by that point it really wasn't at all.

See, the problem with the voting is that you don't usually get to pick who goes; the audience only gets to pick who to prevent getting kicked. At that point, the audience control is out of our hands and now into the contestants', and if there's one thing we all learned in high school it's that cliques are very much a thing. The contestants seemed dead set on booting anybody who was new the second they had the chance, so many potentially exciting people were so quickly thrown out. Instead of the exciting potential we could have seen, we got a love triangle sucking anyone nearby into doom, with everyone else being a relatively stable couple or part of the Jeremy/Korey wishy-washy railway. Casa Amor was an absolute bust, with people making half-assed couplings despite still being in love with somebody else (it speaks a lot to the weakness of the Casa Amor men that Olivia literally preferred to come back single than with any of those planks of wood).

Part of the problem did rely on factors that nobody could control at all though. "Romance novel come to life" Slade seemed like a threat with his rugged handsomeness, twangy accent, and classic southern charm, but had to quickly leave due to ambiguous family troubles. Similarly, the nearly perfect Josh and Shannon, who seemed like an obvious shoo-in winner by virtue of being probably the only actual relationship on the show, had to depart in the middle of the night due to the tragic death of Josh's sister. Aforementioned chaotic pansexual Leslie was unceremoniously removed in the middle of the night once they had realized that her classic vape pen was actually full of weed, an especially tragic circumstance considering she basically had Cinco wrapped around her finger and was about to bring that love triangle crashing down (also tragic because she has gone on record saying that she was fully crushing on Genny while they were both in there, robbing us of any potential of a queer couple).

But part of the pain as always has to do with how the producers control everything no matter what: what we see, what we hear, who gets the villain edit and who gets the hero edit. It's why they seem to play Jeremy as dumb hot surfer bro instead of the actual funny and charming guy he is. It's why Trina was treated as a bitch and Cash as a woeful victim despite the roles more often than not lining up the other way around. And most embarrassingly, it's how the biggest joke couple of the show ended up winning it all.

Now, look at this picture right here: the poses, the awkward hand holding, the very strange smiles between those two. No, this is not a picture of two teenagers going to prom together who just met only five minutes ago and are taking pictures on their parents' front lawn; these two are the winners of season 3, the supposedly "strongest" couple on the show. This is Olivia and Korey.

Korey is a charming boyish sweetheart by way of an absolute fucking dumbass. He's sort of like last year's beloved and wonderfully stupid Carrington: a very sweet and nice teenager who seems to have "13 Going on 30"-ed his way into an adult body. He's childish in a way that's very cute and friendly but also woefully unattractive to anyone who's an adult. Just like Carrington, he notched up a staggering amount of dates with pretty much every single beautiful woman that came into the villa, all seemingly very interested in him. Carrington, for as dumb and childish as he is, could bag anyone because he was outrageously confident too. Korey on the other hand seems incapable of making any decision, following any girl who pays him the time of day like a little puppy, constantly looking up to her with his big puppy dog eyes. It's very telling that for all the dates he had, almost none of them actually went anywhere because it's just not that appealing to anyone. If you're looking to win, he's not someone who can scheme and play the game. If you're looking for love, he's not going to cut it because he can't seem to even understand the concept of romance. If you're looking for a friend, he's probably the best damn one you'll get in that villa -- but as constantly established by everyone, this show isn't called Friend Island.

Olivia is a bit of a thornier subject. She habitually couples up with people that you can kind of tell she's not at all into. She started the first half relatively unassuming and not particularly interested in the men that she was supposedly attracted to. But you could basically see her panties drop when Slade walked in, ready for him to pull her up into the saddle and ride away into the sunset. But his sudden departure only left her more empty, desperately grasping onto whatever random attraction she could. She went off to Casa Amor single and had the gall to come back without coupling up with any of them (although once again, they really dropped the ball with the men compared to the stunning Casa Amor women). And somehow in the midst of all this wishy washy mess, she finally settled on the one single man who she hadn't coupled up with and supposedly suddenly had feelings for: lonely, little Korey.

As a watcher of two seasons of this shit, I've seen a lot of fake relationships, but this one is just ridiculous. The chemistry is really nonexistent; she seems more annoyed or at best partially amused whenever he tries to say anything genuinely sweet to her. She reacts like how you would when a little kid tries to tell you they have a crush on you, an adult: you just kind of go, "aw, cute, thank you!" and walk away chuckling. It's genuinely comedic in how tragic it is, a boy who thinks he's finally found someone when all she's found is a trip to the bank.

And what did the editors do? They tried their very best to sell this as genuine, as actual romance. We know what romance is -- we basically saw it with Shannon and Josh, and to a lesser extent Will and Kyra. And yet they whipped out that expert level edit to say, "wow, look at these two lovebirds, huh?" It's ridiculous, especially since only in the final episode did they suddenly remember that Jeremy and the stunning Bailey (aka the combination of Gal Godot and Ashley Judd circa-2001) were an actual couple and even they looked more real than the winning couple.

Love Island is, if nothing else, a reflection of America.

It's an outdated tradition desperately grasping to what's left of the typical western idea of romance. No matter how many beauty pageant contestants they pick, men like women who aren't size 2s, or with natural hair/skin, or with family-friendly occupations. Women are probably tired of the big muscle bound hunks they usually put on here, the nearly identical men that they seem to cast every single season who have all the looks but zero of the confidence or personality.

It's an example of how our choices are an illusion, how our influence can be easily overwritten by those in charge. Votes that don't matter when they change the rules on the fly, ripping out the actual choice of the people in favor of letting them decide what stays and what goes.

It's a testament that even in the face of a viral pandemic that's quickly turning into part two, as the lives of millions are being further destroyed across the world, there will always be some asshole who has more than you and looks better than you, vacationing on a tropical island stolen from its people, ignorant of everything else that's happening around them.

Love Island hates everyone. It hates it's contestants. It hates the viewers. It hates change. It hates me.

But I do still kind of love it.