#THE GAY RELATIONSHIP ISN’T SUBTEXT IT’S JUST TEXT

[sapphoismymuse]

I SEE WHAT THEY MEANT ABOUT KEEPING THE HAND SCENE IN THE MOVIE OH MY GOD

[boxboxlewis]

Daniel finds out about Max’s divorce from a Google alert.

“FORMER F1 CHAMPION NEWLY SINGLE, SEEN HITTING THE BARS IN MONACO.” Journalistic excellence from the Daily Mail, as always. But when actual newspapers start reporting on it, Daniel decides to reach out. He texts Max a cat meme. Subtext: sorry about your failed relationship, also I know you like cats. Max texts back Are you trying to cheer me up, and then 😂. It’s unclear if he’s 😂 at the cat or the notion of Daniel attempting to comfort. While Daniel is trying to figure this out a third text comes in. Stop reading stupid shit by dumb assholes who don’t know anything.

Nah it’s all good, I can’t read, Daniel replies. He hesitates, and then adds I am like. Sorry about stuff with kelly or whatever though.

Max thumbs-up reacts the message, and doesn’t reply.

Daniel figures Max’ll probably just start dating another exquisitely beautiful, exquisitely groomed woman with a disconcerting resemblance to his own mother. They’re ten a penny in Monaco, where Max still for some reason lives. 

He’s not prepared for the next tranche of articles his Google Alert brings him. “MAX VERSTAPPEN SEEN LEAVING GAY BAR.” “VERSTAPPEN REFUSES TO ADDRESS RUMOURS.” “VETTEL COMES TO VERSTAPPEN’S DEFENCE: ‘HE HAS A RIGHT TO A PRIVATE LIFE.’” Like… people go to gay bars sometimes, even if they’re straight. But do straight people let Seb Vettel defend their honour in the media?

Daniel opens his text thread with Max and types Hey, are you. You know. 

He deletes it, obviously. He’s got a lot going on in his own life. Brand ambassadorships out the ass, his film production company, his vineyard. He sends Max another dumb meme and calls it good. Max is just doing Max stuff. It’s some belated F1 champion rumspringa, probably, because when he was an actual teenager he was psychotically focussed on racing. He’ll settle down soon enough.

Daniel really isn’t expecting him to announce live on Dutch television that he has a boyfriend. The clip is in Dutch, obviously, but someone has added English captions, and Daniel watches over and over again. RIP his YouTube algorithm. It’s some daytime talk show, the kind of thing Max hates, the kind of thing he’d never do unless someone was twisting his arm about it. The host asks all sickly sweet if there’s a special someone in Max’s life. Max says, “Well yes of course there is my boyfriend.” The “of course” in Dutch sounds like naturally. Naturally, naturally. “And my family I am very close to, as well.” The camera dwells with voyeuristic glee on the talkshow host’s face as she tries and fails to pick her expression up from the floor. “Your boyfriend?” she manages. Max nods, impatient. Daniel rewinds the clip. Your boyfriend? Your boyfriend? Your boyfriend?

Daniel decides to visit Monaco. Not because of Max. It’s summer and the swing of the season is funnelling him that way, that’s all, towards the parties and the glittering people dancing on yachts, getting high, bright and beautiful, living that good life. He doesn’t have an apartment there anymore, but Max does, because Max never left: still has his custom penthouse with its views of the harbour. Unless—it’s a weird thought—unless Kelly kept it in the divorce. But when he texts Max to invite himself to stay, Max doesn’t mention anything about a new address. 

Max also doesn’t sound, like, super enthused, but that’s just how he is. It’s his natural Dutchness, most likely. Fine you can come then. You are lucky I don’t have plans is probably just the Dutch way of saying “Yeah sounds great, looking forward to reconnecting.” You are very annoying is probably how people from the Netherlands express affection. Daniel texts back Love you too my brother 🤘🤘

He gets his hair touched up before he goes, a little bit of tattooing at the roots in the front. He does a spray tan, and gets his face dermaplaned (not in that order). You can’t go to Monaco and not look good, that's all.

It always feels kind of weird, flying into Nice in a non-F1 context, first class instead of private, but Daniel fits, still: gets asked for his autograph at the airport, and then on the concourse, and when he stops to put petrol in his rental car (a sweet little Porsche, nice). He tosses his keys to the valet at Max’s building and the valet goggles. That’s right, baby: twelve-time Grand Prix winner Daniel Ricciardo is in town. Daniel winks and the valet turns gratifyingly mauve.

Max, when Daniel pushes into his apartment, is less enthusiastic. “Daniel. I really do not know why you’ve come.”

Daniel ignores him in favour of crouching down, trying to pet Jimmy or Sassy. “Hey, little guy,” he croons. “Or girl. What’s up? Do you remember Uncle Danny? Am I in town to show your daddy a good time? Yeah I am! That’s right. That’s right.” Jimmy or Sassy scowls at him and swipes with one needle-tipped paw. All right, drama queen. Daniel stands back up and grins at Max. “I mean, mostly I wanted to meet your boyfriend,” he says, for some reason. What the fuck, Ricciardo. He keeps grinning, styles it out. “Gotta give him the old shovel speech, right?”

Max is doing the blank-eyed stare Daniel remembers so well from their racing days. It’s wildly disconcerting coming from this Max, who looks. Different, that’s all. He’s thick, still fit and well-muscled but heavy with it now, t-shirt stretched over the layer of hard fat covering his abdomen, face softer. He’s a bear of a man, he could—he could do lots of things, obviously. It’s fine. It’s just that part of Daniel still expects him to be the gawky teenager Daniel loomed over.

Max says, “What do you want to say to my boyfriend about shovels,” and for a bewildering moment Daniel has no idea what he’s talking about. 

“Oh, no, it’s like—it’s a saying, or whatever, when someone starts dating someone. I mean, usually dads say it, I guess, but like—the idea is if he mistreats you I’ll…” Daniel trails off as he realises he’s not actually sure what “shovel speech” means. “Uh, hit him with a shovel? Or I guess potentially, like, use it to bury his corpse. Whiiiich is a joke! Not actually going to bury anyone.” No, weird comment, Daniel’s not actually going to bury anyone t-shirt is raising a lot of questions et cetera. Hastily, he adds “As long as he behaves!” and then stands there mentally kicking himself while Jimmy/Sassy yowls soulfully near his ankles. He's never like this, he never loses control of a conversation like this. It's agonising.

Max stares at him for a long moment, and then cracks up. “Daniel, you are still so weird,” he says. It sounds kind of affectionate. 

“You know it, baby,” Daniel says. “So, where’s the boyf?

Max’s cheeks go a little red, it looks like. Maybe Daniel’s imagining it. “Ricardo is at the gym,” he says.

Daniel has to have misheard that. “Sorry, what’s this dude’s name?”

“Ricardo,” Max says grumpily. “My boyfriend.”

“Right, yeah, of course.” Once again Daniel decides, against his better judgement, to style it out. “Uh, is he Australian, by any chance? And devastatingly charismatic?”

Max sighs, as if Daniel is being really annoying. “He is from Melbourne. And yeah, he is okay I think. Maybe you won’t like him though, because you like always to be the funniest one. Come on, I will show you to your guest room.”

Daniel manages a casual-sounding, “Haha, you got me.” They’re walking through the apartment, now, Max leading the way. For a moment Daniel just watches the sunburned back of his neck.

[thepersonperson]

omg i'm so excited to find your blog!

its genuinely hard to find someone out here in the wasteland of jjk fandom who reads the manga and also doesn't discard the queercodedness of the characters and the interpersonal relationships between them!!

I'm curious if you have any ideas on how this all might end? Gege keeps saying the manga will end by the end of 2024 but it feels like there's so many things to be addressed.

I personally think it might end in either two options: cursed energy ceases to exist altogether (all sorcerers die and humanity is left to fend of for its own curses it creates) or everyone becomes like Maki (no/minimal cursed energy but can fight curses- too optimistic). Knowing Gege there might be a secret third, forth or fifth thing as well :D

I also think Megumi will be saved for sure and he will activate the merger, but also I'm thinking there might be a small little moment something like happened between Gojo and Geto in Shibuya otherwise Yuta laying there useless is so much wasted potential.

Do you have theories?

The burden of proof for queer readings is really high because the default reactions to them are 1) you’re reading too much into it due to personal/shipping biases and 2) unless the creator is explicit, it’s unreasonable to assume they would include queerness on purpose.

So it’s not uncommon for those who would otherwise have these readings to overcorrect and minimize the queerness to show they aren’t biased in that way. I find that to be incredibly unfair to creators that have to be subtle because of the political landscape or laws limiting queer expression.

What makes me comfortable being so overt about queerness in Jujutsu Kaisen isn’t Gege’s personal interest in yaoi and inclusion of characters indisputably outside of the gender binary. It’s the fudging dudebros.

You have to understand. I grew up on an internet where dudebros loathed any ounce of queerness. They unilaterally hated gay ships. There’s also the entire existence of the trap meme and slur used to erase the identities of characters that are trans or genderless.

But with Jujutsu Kaisen? Even notoriously homophobic Black Twitter is posting things like this.

This is unheard of. Instead of denying the queerness in Gojo and Geto’s relationship they are arguing over who tops or bottoms. (Honestly I am fascinated by how much black people, myself included, love this series. I’ve never been in a fandom where black culture is the default for memes. Calling Sukuna The Unc? Famous music artists Usher and Megan Thee Stallion like doing cosplays. I should probably do a whole post on that.)

And it keeps happening. I keep seeing dudebros have takes that put all of tumblr degenerates to shame.

They fudging reinvented mpreg with canon compliant mechanics.

It's not just limited to Satosugu. Just look at this.

And when you look at these people’s profiles, they are straight men. Most of their timelines are powerscaling, sports, busty women, or hentai.

If the dudebros are acknowledging the queer subtext as a part of canon, it’s no longer reaching to interpret the text that way as far as I’m concerned.

For your other points…

I doubt the manga will end in 2024 because of all the unexpected health related breaks Gege has taken. That statement was made before these breaks and likely under the assumption things would meet a specific schedule.

I don’t really have theories for how the series will end. Every time I try to guess the direction of the plot it’s always wrong. The only predictions I can make with some accuracy are things with respect to character relationships and motivations. I sure hope to get more character interactions and less death though! (<The delusions of a foolish creature.)

[avelera]

Insane to me how many IWTV show watchers don’t seem to know that the books are canonically queer. This isn’t a case of the show “updating” the books for a more tolerant time and making the queer subtext into text, the books are canonically queer texts from the beginning like… if I may get a little personal here for a second, people talk about this or that in fiction “normalizing” something like a lifestyle or behavior or subculture and the reason I’ll defend the Vampire Chronicles and their canonical queerness to my death (besides it just being an actual fact) is that the the thing the Vampire Chronicles normalized for me as a 14 year old kid in a conservative household was the very idea of being queer as being just as valid a love story as a straight romance.

Like the fact that I, as a preteen in the early 00s with almost no other exposure to queer culture, was able to stand up and say, “Hey wait a minute, being gay isn’t wrong, that doesn’t make any sense if being gay is just two people who love each other who just happen to be the same gender.”

And not in the sense of “wanting gay marriage to be legalized so my ship could be canon” (lol that wasn’t even a concept then) but literally just the idea that love stories can and should and do exist between same-sex people because all that matters is that they are in love, not their gender, was a concept that could make sense to me was in very large part for me at that age owed to the fact these books had absolutely no ambiguity about how the queer love stories were central to the narrative, that the main characters were in queer relationships with one another, that Lestat/Louis (or Armand/Daniel or Lestat/Nicholas or any number of others within the text) were in love and it was not subtext. They kissed, they fucked, they declared themselves in love with their words, it was normal.

… And to this day I still have a lot of feelings about those books and their importance to me, at least, as a result. And it’s important to me for people to know definitively that these are queer books from the start, since 1973, before almost anyone else was doing so openly, at least in genre fiction.

[melrosing]

I think the arguments for bi Jaime are interesting but I have seen arguements that Jaime is homophobic based on what he says to Loras. What do you think?

I think:

I understand queer readings of Jaime and I also like them, gender and sexuality are major themes in his story so of course people are playing with that and exploring the subtext

I don’t think GRRM necessarily intended Jaime to be mlm. That doesn’t invalidate queer readings, because queering the text is often about looking beyond the author’s intention

Jaime has two lines that skew homophobic, but within the context of his broader story, this seems to be a reflection of his society rather than strongly held reservations of his own. His relationship with a gay character, Loras, paints a more complex portrait

GRRM doesn’t seem to have thought deeply about what Westeros’ attitude to homosexuality is, so there’s some carry over of negative attitudes towards it from our world, but it seems muted even compared to 20th century attitudes

So the line that usually opens this conversation is:

Jaime grabbed [Loras] with his good hand and yanked him around. "I am the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, you arrogant pup. Your commander, so long as you wear that white cloak. Now sheathe your bloody sword, or I'll take it from you and shove it up some place even Renly never found." (Jaime VII, ASOS)

The one that I think people often forget is this one, when Tywin says he’s considering marrying Cersei to Oberyn Martell:

“Oberyn Martell? The man's infamous, and not just for poisoning his sword. He has more bastards than Robert, and beds with boys as well.” (Jaime VII, ASOS)

So here Jaime’s threat deliberately references Loras’ sexuality, and he puts to his father that Oberyn’s sexuality is a point against him in terms of marrying the man to Cersei. However, I don’t really think GRRM intends either to… say much about Jaime’s attitudes?

With Loras, I think honestly GRRM writing in like…. what, the year 2000, might not have thought too hard about the remark. I think he probably meant it more as Jaime being crass more than he meant it to be a pointed jab at Loras’ sexuality.

The reason I think so is that Jaime doesn’t seem remotely fazed by Loras’ sexuality anywhere else in the text. He strongly identifies with Loras, and is never troubled by the fact that he’s identifying with a gay teenager. He is moved by Loras’ love for Renly, and actually trusts him more once he hears of it. He defends Loras from Cersei who actively worries about Loras’ potential influence over Tommen’s own ‘appetites’.

And overall, I think Jaime likes Loras: he’s prepared to dislike him on the basis that he’s an arrogant teenager, but as soon as he realises that’s really just the same as he was, he decides to be Loras’ mentor instead, esteems him and only ever speaks well of him. Loras doesn’t seem to challenge any preconceived notions Jaime has of homosexual men, because Jaime never thinks about Loras’ sexuality beyond that initial remark: this just isn’t something that bothers him.

For the comment about Oberyn: I think partly this is Jaime trying to put Tywin off the notion of marrying Cersei to Oberyn (I imagine Tywin does very much hold some opinions on homosexuality). Beyond that… I think Jaime probably has to some extent internalised the notion that a man who sleeps around with other men can’t make a good husband for a woman. Westerosi society is an extremely patriarchal one that seems to only understand sexuality and marriage in the most black and white heterosexual terms, and whilst they seem happy enough to ignore what people do behind closed doors - someone like Oberyn who openly consorts with both men and women garners a level of suspicion. So there is still a level of homophobia in Westerosi society, and so in Jaime, too, but again - I don’t think GRRM ever intends it as a strongly held belief of his, or any kind of hatred.

Ultimately I think Westeros’ whole relationship with sexuality is kind of… hazy in ASOIAF? There are a fair few canonically gay and bi characters, and no one seems be subject to hate or hate themselves for it - it’s just unspoken that you shouldn’t make a show of it, and that it… raises eyebrows?? Idk. I think GRRM unthinkingly incorporated some of the homophobia he knew in his own world, but had no desire to make it a point of suffering/hatred for his characters. It just kind of exists. I guess as a cishet guy he just wasn’t thinking too hard about it?? lol

As for bi/gay Jaime readings: I don’t think GRRM intended Jaime as mlm, but i think most people who read him that way know that. Queering the text isn’t about being able to point at a passage and know for sure that that’s what the author intended, but to recognise queer literary traditions they may have subconsciously picked up from other writers, or queer experiences they have unwittingly written about, or just being able to say - ‘that reads how this feels to me’. I think a lot of fandom analysis can be very literal, trying to work out precisely what an author meant by a particular line and what exactly it foreshadows. That kind of analysis is fine, but that’s not what all literary analysis is. A lot of it does mean looking way beyond author intent, not necessarily ‘death of the author’ in every instance, but yes, sometimes??

I think the only times I’ve seen people pushing back against the notion of bi/gay Jaime and pointing at these lines re. Loras is when they think Jaime fans want to wield bi/gay Jaime as a badge that protects him from further criticism. Only I’ve literally never seen anyone who enjoys the reading use it that way, and I think it also entirely misunderstands what queer reading is and why people employ it. Again, it’s the kind of push back that overly relies on fandom dynamics rather than just readerly approaches to a text lol

Anyway with Jaime I think there is SO much that lends itself to a queer reading and I will continue to enjoy these analyses, I think they enrich the character 👍🏻

[nancylou444]

Hi! I hope you’re having a good day/night/morning!

So, I I need to share my thoughts with someone before I burst, and you’re always posting your thoughts, current and past, on destiel, so I’m hoping you can sympathize. Of course, you’re free not to read or post if you don’t feel like it (and I know you don’t need my permission for that either 🤦‍♀️ ).

So, I’m currently watching a reactor watch Supernatural who ships destiel. I’ve almost quit a few times due to annoyance, but they are otherwise entertaining and generally try (or tried) not to bring it up too often, and it’s now on season 15, so I’m locked in until the end. They just watched the episode "Last Call" where Dean is suddenly a good singer. Of course, they mentioned "bi lighting" and "subtext" because of course Dean can’t hang out with a male friend, especially one John caught him drinking with and got "mad" without it being because he was caught doing something "gay." 🙄 Not just because it was, you know, stupid to get drunk on a hunt. Plus being hungover for a hunt isn’t exactly ideal, even if Dean was old enough (he might have been). .

Anyway, this person actually used the words "I’m winning" in reference to the episode because Jensen (not Dean) sang, Sam was hanging back with Eileen, and Dean was chilling under the "bi lighting, " apparently. All I could think was, I’ve been literally watching this destiel shipper turn into a heller before my eyes over the months. And of course, they ship Sam and Eileen and were so happy that Dean went off to give them time alone 🙄 . It’s like heller brains only have one accepted scenario, and once they get in too deep, they become a clone of the rest.

Naturally, they want the show to end with Dean and Cass off on a beach (never mind that Dean mentioned wating Sam in that scenario) and mostly out of hunting, but not to get away from Sam, no. He’s there, too. Somewhere. Teaching the new hunters with Eileen or … something. It’s so ridiculous that they think this will/should happen. 1) When has the show ever hinted at a conventionally happy, or even happy at all, ending? 2) Dean would sooner gnaw off his own arm than semi-retire with Castiel on a beach while Sam continues in the hunting world without him. 3) Dean hasn’t wanted a romantic relationship since Lisa. 4) People who think Sam would want to continue hunting, on his own, if Dean stopped or semi-retired haven’t been paying attention to the show. I even saw one of their idiot followers saying Sam was alway better at adapting to hunting while Dean has always wanted out. 👀.

Anyway, I got ready to write a reply arguing against their idiotic ideas, but then I stopped and realized there was no point. There is literally no point trying to talk sense into people who spend so much time looking for hints and parallels pointing to the things they want (less codependent brothers and destiel) that they ignore the very literal and easy to follow canon, or actual text, of the show. It was a breakthrough fir me. There. Is. No. Point.

So, I deleted my planned response and just thought to myself, "You just enjoy your 'winning" honey, while you can." Because they are going to absolutely HATE the end of the show, and I’m just petty enough to be looking forward to seeing it. Does that make me a shitty person?

I realize it’s my own fault I’m annoyed right now, but I can’t just quit watching something once I’ve gotten this far, so I’ll have to suffer through (not looking forward to Despair 🙄) until the end.

Anyway, If you took the time to read this, thank you. I just needed to share this with someone.

This was an enjoyable ask, my darling. ❤️

LMAO, yes it is amazing the way that hellers 'see' the show.

Even now, almost three years after the finale, they still think destiel became canon because of the dubs and THEY had a 'wedding'.

Please let me know how they reacted to the 'confession' and the finale. 😆

[brokenmusicboxwolfe]

I am deeply saddened to see that actor David McCallum has died. While 90 hardly a short life, when someone has mattered to you, even in the distant way of an actor playing make believe for a living, you always wish the life were longer.

I expect I am about to ramble, and not very coherently (sleep deprivation), so all of it will go under the cut.

Actually, he was about the first actor I ever remember recognizing. When I was 3 I adored an obscure tv series called The Invisible Man, where he played the title character. It bares little resemblance to the original story, instead following the adventure show of the 1970s-1980s formula. I think the fact he played a scientist, married to a scientist, and that the couple happily worked together had a lot to do with it. Reminding me of my parents was a natural thing to appeal to a preschooler.

To be honest, I only remembered fragments of the show, but I remembered him vividly. Even as a little kid if I saw him anywhere my first thought was “lt’s the invisible man!!” and a wave of affection would wash over me.

Affection is something you wouldn’t find with my favorite of his tv shows. Steel, in my beloved Sapphire and Steel, is hardly a warm character. How can I describe the show…Well, the title characters aren’t human, but beings that are sent out to deal with problems in time, or maybe you can say caused by time. Nursery rhymes, photographs, and gas stations take on a menacing quality. If these two show up you better be afraid because while they will go to extreme lengths to stop the threat, those lengths might involve sacrificing you.

Steel the cool, sharp edged, and anything but the lovable nice guy I’d adored as a tot….and I adored him here too.

I was late seeing Sapphire and Steel, but I was even later seeing The Outer Limits (original version) where he starred in two of my favorite episodes.

In one, The Sixth Finger, he played a coal miner experimented on by a scientist until he evolved far beyond a connection to his humanity. I have an action figure of that one!

The other, Forms of Things Unknown, has an obvious inspiration in a certain famous French thriller, but then in comes McCallum, a man experimenting with time. While in the other episode he played a man shedding his humanity with every mutation, here he actually is unearthly from the start, a peculiar characterization that reminds me of the madness of characters that have seen to far into the void, but also of a child lost to forces far beyond them….

TBH, I went through a period where this episode was comfort viewing. I would day dream up back story details for McCallum’s character, and even ways to connect it to Sapphire and Steel.

What? just because I was going full geeky fangirl on a single episode of a tv show made well before I was born isn’t THAT weird on here!

And here is another obscure one I’m fond of, a movie called The Ravine. It’s a movie set during WWII where he’s a German soldier sent to capture a woman that’s been acting as a sniper picking of his side like crazy. The concept, that they end up trapped together and do the enemies to lovers thing, seemed like the usual contrived thing. Still, out of mild curiosity I watched a horrible print on Youtube and I was surprised how effective it was. I was actually sold on the tragic relationship, and I’d gone into it expecting to be rolling me eyes. In fact , since it isn’t (or at least wasn’t) available on DVD in the US I got one from Europe. Good thing the acting and setting are more important than dialog, cause I don’t speak Italian!

Frankenstein: The True Story has about as much relationship to the original novel as Bram Stoker’s Dracula has to the book, but it’s actually a rather fascinating take on subject. Tumblr would approve of the gay subtext (more like text, cause how could even folks in the ‘70s miss it) McCallum’s part is supporting, but crucial being both Frankenstein’s mentor and brain donor. I’ll be honest with you, my weakness for mad scientists is showing because I swooned over even has he enthusiastically collects raw materials (ahem) for their work.

Is it weird that this is the roll he played that had me properly, classic fan girl swooning?

There are couple of adaptations that are notable for me. There is that adaptation of Kidnapped he was in. I got it on DVD for my father because the sequel to Kidnapped was a childhood favorite of his, and this was the rare version to use that book (TBH, Pop had a fanboy crush on the girl in that book, from the way he talk! LOL) Unfortunately Pop died before seeing it, so it colors my thoughts on it. And there was an adaptation of Our Mutual Friend, one of my favorite Dickens novels, but I watched it in a “see all the adaptations” kick so it’s a blur of compare and contrast.

I will end this with the most peculiar way a part he played connected with me.

It started unexpectedly, with me watching The Man from UNCLE on a DVD set my father had gotten for Christmas. My parents had liked the show, but like a lot of shows from before I was born I’d heard a lot about it before I’d seen it.

To be honest I wasn’t particularly impressed. Oh, it was fine, and I did like the warm dynamic of the main two characters. **It’s just sort plain potato chip tv, tasty but forgettable. Plus it was sooo of it’s time that the sexism irritated me no end. I have watched, and loved, a lot of 1960s tv, so maybe I just expected more. I enjoyed it, but if you asked me to rank my faves of the “ Sixties lets do the Spy Thing” tv shows I would pick Wild, Wild, West or The Avengers or Danger Man or Get Smart*** even before it.

So it was fine, I enjoyed it while we watched, and then didn’t really think about it anymore.

And then my father got sick.

My father’s illness, and eventual death, hit me hard. Very hard. I was alone dealing with it. I had no friends, and wasn’t even on Tumblr yet. I couldn’t weigh my parents down with my emotions when they had so much of their own. And with my father’s chemo and such I was often actually alone. Obviously not as much as now, but so many days completely alone was new to me then.

So there I was, on the verge of being an emotional but holding it together, desperately aching for someone, anyone, I could turn to….

And then I started dreaming.

Of course I always had dreamed, but this was different. This was nightly dreaming. Serial dreaming. Stories that continued on for days or weeks. And fictional characters started creeping in. Up until then the characters in dreams had always been my OCs, but now suddenly tv shows, books, movies, comics…they were all fodder for the stories helping me escape.

The part may be one of his most famous roles, but it still came as a huge surprise when I found myself dreaming about Illya.

Actually, the first dream was a general Man from UNCLE dream. It was fun, even if it seemed weird to be dreaming about the show. But then the next one had Illya only.

And so it started, an epic series of dreams, chapter after chapter, night after night. Adventures with Illya.

Well, and aliens and time travel and so on. It was, after all, my subconscious spinning the story, not screenwriters. Gotta get time travel and/or alternate universes in there somewhere if it comes out of mushed up brain.

After a while the dreams had bigger gaps between them, but the dreams with Illya still came. In fact over months they dominated my dreaming. Illya was there all the time.

It got so I spent time when I was awake, thinking about the dreams and the character. What would Illya think of this? What would Illya listen to? What would Illya say? What if Illya were in that situation? What if…

Now, I admit, the Illya I was imagining is only inspired by the one David McCallum played. It looked like him. It sounded like him. I even found myself replaying select episodes to remind myself of his “voice” so my brain could make him seem more authentic. But the truth was he was my interpretation of Illya, my head-cannon, my quirks, my obsessions..

Actually I guess it was my need. I needed someone. My dreams even created characters to be my avatars for interacting with him. I those dreams I could talk to him, laugh with him, cry in front of him, save him or be saved by him, and be his friend.

And in a weird way, that is what my brain was doing. It was giving me an imaginary friend while I slept. Someone smart and kind and brave, to save the world…just like the imaginary friend I’d had when I was little.****

I’d given myself an imaginary friend that looked and sounded like Illya!

Well, in dreams. I wasn’t so far gone I talked to him when I was awake!

But it was comforting. I found myself thinking about those dreams, almost cuddling up to them in those painful dark days. I confess I worried that if I ever were in a delirium or under anesthetic or something might call out to him and have some very embarressing questions asked.

Eventually the dreams stopped. Time moves on. Maybe I didn’t need them anymore, or maybe my subconscious got bored.

TBH I kinda wish I still had dreams about him, or some other characters. Any dreams with a repeated cast or continuing story would be beyond welcome. I could REALLY use their company now.

And now, writing this, I realize just why I actually gasped when I saw David McCallum had died. Yes, as an actor he had played many parts I enjoyed, but other actors have done that without the shock of their death knocking the breath from me. But the fact is no other actor has had their performance gift me with something that felt like a friend when I needed one most.

So that’s why I am sad. It isn’t just a list of parts he played that I loved or that he had been a familiar face as long as I can remember. He got stored in a special part of my mind, the strange area of the imagination where strangers and friends get blurred and fiction protect a fracturing heart.

I am eternally grateful he lived. Even if I didn’t have a list of credits I enjoyed ******, as long as I had those dreams he helped inspire when I needed them most I’d mourn his passing.

Condolences to all that loved him, be they friends, family, or fans.

**Though I would end up in fandom exile for seeing them as like brothers or little boy best friends instead of shipping them. Good on you if you do. I think it’s beautiful every character everywhere gets shipped with someone, but dang, what is with the hate for the non-shipping fans?)

*** The Prisoner, possibly my fave tv show ever, isn’t really in this category to my mind, but a lots of folks would disagree.

****My childhood imaginary friend was the ghost of a little boy murdered by his uncle during the American Revolution. Still, the smart, kind, brave, save the world stuff was there too.

*****I didn’t mention something he did that I enjoyed. For instance, Mother Love, a wonderful bit of tv that criminally isn’t on DVD, because it’s Diana Riggs’ showcase. But then I’ve also never seen any of the six billion years of NCIS (I think those are the letters). Who knows how many other of his work I never saw.

[otometrashqueen]

So in keeping with my Doctor Strange, Batch obsession, I decided to start watching Sherlock

Aaaaaaaannnd, I have many thoughts, I just finished season 2, sorry this will be a long one, be warned there are probably some unpopular opinions below 👇

I really WANT to like this show, it’s super popular, and maybe Batch in all his British voice glory really makes the whole thing, but I find that what I dislike about the show outweighs what I like thus far…

I just can’t get over the fact that thus far in the show there isn’t a single likable female character, except for Mrs. Hudson and even she is characterized as the ‘crazy little old land lady’ ( but I do love her to pieces don’t get me wrong)

It seems the show goes out of its way to make the females the villains or weak, Sherlock has an antagonistic relationship with every single female that he comes across

Molly for example, she deserves so much better, Sherlock constantly steam rolls her and berates her, he apologizes sometimes, but it doesn’t ever really feel genuine bc he continues to do it, her uses her for her access to the morgue and the lab! She had to make him say thank you for it but that wasn’t genuine either, he like didn’t understand

Molly really should have slapped him that one time he embarrassed her at Christmas and then Kissed her cheek! The nerve of the man, like that made everything ok

Molly and Sherlock had a little moment at the season two finale that I thought was promising but she essentially said ‘ I know you don’t love me and you love John but I would still do anything for you,’ gag, but I also understand that sentiment, having experienced unrequited love a few times myself and then he ended up asking for her help! which still seemed like manipulation more than genuine interest in her friendship :/

Also it broke my heart that after that whole exchange with Molly and asking for her help, she wasn’t listed as one of his friends to Moriarty, only John, Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson :/

Irene Adler, who I loved the idea of , still ended up having to get saved by Sherlock, she sold him out to Moriarty, and then he ignored her texts bc he likes her or something?! I didn’t get that

You can also talk about the female Sargent Donovan, has had it out for Sherlock day 1 and she was the one to suggest that Sherlock was a fraud to Lestrade

In the season 2 finale they focus on the female jury member when Jim explains how he threatened all the jurors

Then when they were tracking the kidnapped kids it was the BOY that loved spy novels and painted his shoes in black light paint, the BoY was the clever one, not the girl

The girl screamed at Sherlock making Donovan think Sherlock had something to do with it when that was probably Moriartys set up 🙄

That female reporter from that crooked newspaper in the finale also antagonized Sherlock and stupidly bought Moriartys story 🙄

Sherlock even berates all of John’s girlfriends and dates whether out of jealousy or just shit writing it was kind of funny at first and by now to me is a tired cycle, yes we get you want his d and your jealous as shit

I’m sure there are probably more examples, but its TIRING to me, all the negativity toward women and it makes me not want to continue watching

And it’s disappointing bc I saw Moffat was a cocreator and I really liked some of the women that he created in Doctor Who, it’s just really surprises me that THIS is what he helped make?!

I know it was back in 2010 and I’m not mad about the gay subtext, I love it! I’m a bisexual person, bring on all the gay drama. Actually I find it frustrating that Sherlock and John just don’t accept their feelings and get it on already! You can do a slow burn gay love story and not women hate or shit on women in the process :/

Honestly if they had kept Sherlock asexual I think that would have made it more interesting and hilarious, but he is obviously in love with John and even has his flirtation with Moriarty all good stuff but again I flinch when a new female comes on screen bc it’s like ‘ what bad thing is she going to do now’ 🙄 what nasty thing is Sherlock going to say to her or ‘deduce’ about her, it makes me cringe

I’ve heard season 3 and 4 aren’t much better and I’d really like to finish the series and I probably will but I’ll probably be ranting about it on here again 😆

Honestly, it other people’s fanfics on here that are saving this show for me, so thank you fan creators 🥺🙏🏻

I’m really only in it for HIM 👀

[transkholins]

okay. episode six thoughts.

EGWENE.

look. the only wot book i’ve read in full since 2018-2019 was the eye of the world. when i think of wot i tend to think more of late-series wot. coincidentally, while early-series wot shows you first hand how awful the seanchan are, late-series wot veers hard into apologia/“negotiating and making concessions for the greater good.” i forgot how hard the egwene povs in the great hunt were to get through. this episode reminded me. in graphic detail.

madeleine madden did a fucking fantastic job and i cannot wait to see her in later seasons as egwene grows and develops as a character. her scenes were so tough to watch. she deserves an award.

i do love how the show is portraying the seanchan. all of the suroth and renna scenes were deeply uncomfortable and upsetting, which is really how the seanchan ought to make viewers feel. (right, brandon sanderson? right?). using loial’s treesinging like a party trick. the flowy/frilly da’covale outfits. renna saying “oh, i’m nicer than other sul’dam, i want to be your friend” but trying to break egwene down. ugh.

there’s also something in here about “southern hospitality” and the us’s history of slavery and rj being from the south but it’s too late at night for me to get into that.

also, like, not to be matbrained, but the sheer delicacy/fanciness of the da’covale clothing makes me very afraid for the extended tylin-tuon plotline. i’m sure that if the show does it they’ll do it well (the show has already done a lot of course-correcting), so it’s not that kind of afraid, but more I Know What’s Coming afraid.

every time they mention The Seanchan Empress i get filled with a little bit more dread. god, i hope they handle tuon’s Everything well.

and siuan’s back!! finally!! i’m hoping they don’t sideline her in these last few episodes, because god knows they’ve done her dirty this season.

i really love ishamael and lanfear’s clothing. like, ishamael’s looks have been so faux-corporate, and i’m obsessed with lanfear’s leather and lace-up boots. it really does feel like an extended/future version of modern (first age?) fashion. i like what they’ve done with the age of legends’s aesthetic in general.

knowing which characters turn out to be darkfriends makes literally everything funnier.

if we must have gawyn and galad in the show. i need them to have the same vibes as barthanes. golden boys who are so so so punchable. sycophantic, even.

mat and min friendship truthers, we continue to lose. i’m hopeful that they’ll get to be friends again eventually.

ugh. mat telling rand he’ll come with him because he needs someone to keep him from becoming an arrogant prick. through the lens of wotshow i catch glimpses of hit amol chapter older, more weathered.

if i had a nickel for every time this season they’ve had a shot in a character’s dream or vision of mat lying dead with his left eye cut out, i would have two nickels. which isn’t a lot but it’s kind of weird that it’s happened twice. evil smile.

rand monologuing about how he thought him going away would protect people at mat, who is generally acknowledged as the king of the whole "being away from rand will protect me" line of reasoning. i have to laugh.

“if you love him, stay away” “[mat stays away]” i hate it when the wheel of time on amazon prime makes me feel nostalgic for the period of time where i was super invested in cauthor. like, circa 2018-2019. do you guys remember when there were only two fics and they were both from like 2013. there are now (i just checked) one hundred and sixty-one. it is such a shame i don’t ship them anymore because it’s genuinely kind of fun to have gay subtext in the gay actual-text show.

but also like. a true testament to the power of casting homoerotic besties as two white men. a loss for me (draws them both as men of color).

relatedly, i am so pleased that the top relationship tag for both the books and the show is siuaraine. quite possibly the only time i’ve ever seen a series that isn’t near-exclusively female characters (madoka magica, the locked tomb, etc.) have an f/f ship at the top. and they’re even canon… i cannot wait to see them next week.

what can i say about the wondergirls that has not already been said. i love nynaeve forever and ever. i love elayne being super into ter’angreal. i love that they both love egwene. i love that they bicker with each other. wondergirls 5ever.

also like… nynaeve getting to hang out with a yellow sister a little bit… delightful.

i’ve said this before but i’m trying to put everything in one place. i think ryma and basan’s actress and actor did an excellent job. but it’s really disappointing that the show continues to veer into anti-Blackness and colorism in its casting. it’s a pattern in both seasons and it isn’t good.

anyways. the wheel of time. i don’t think i have anything more to say right now.

[allamericansbitch]

Listen my dude I took my adhd meds twice by accident today and I have a Taylor swift thought vomit so now that’s your problem. Sorry.

I’m not really a gaylor but I’m sort of in the “yeah sure maybe I guess some facets of this make sense” zone with that entire thing. I think it’s annoying how much of a thing it is? But I ended up on gaylor tiktok because I am a lesbian that listens to Taylor swift, and also anthropologically it’s kind of fascinating. And I keep seeing people talk about how like, people shouldn’t have to come out as queer the way people shouldn’t have to come out as straight, and she doesn’t talk about her relationships publicly in general with regards to songs. Which is true! But it feels like a really weird 2012 lgbt talking point to weaponize in favor of wanting Taylor swift to be gay, right?

And like lyrically I’d say there’s a lot of like “hairpin drop” type stuff, but she’s also exactly the kind of way-too-into-English-class type of girl to go buck wild with the emily dickinson and stuff for regular old trying to seem smart reasons, you know? And it’s not like it’s ever undeniable. And also maybe we don’t need to be acting like the lyrics of a (very talented and smart) pop star should get the same kind of treatment as religious texts? I was raised evangelical and the kind of reaches between what Bible verses say and what we were taught they actually meant are not wholly a different vibe from some of the gaylor stuff, or even the way people try to decipher what happened in any of her straight relationships from them.

But I keep seeing this overall tone of like, “the gays know Taylor swift is gay but she hasn’t told the straights yet.” Which would be so funny if it was true! But the subtext is so often that she couldn’t come out, and I think we’ve seen through the whole re-recording thing and starting her own label that she is pretty aware she’s powerful and famous enough to do whatever she wants. And I’m sure there’d be some backlash, but for the most part average people are less weird about it than they used to be, at least in the US. I will say that the constant speculation that she’s dating literally anyone she stands next to would be incredibly worse if she came out as bi or whatever, but she’s still already used to that. And maybe she just doesn’t want to, I don’t know?

But it’s weird compared to the complaining I used to see about harry styles sort of aiming for androgyny while not actually doing much useful or helpful, and other actual queer artists were being way cooler. And he was arguably living as Schrödinger’s non-binary bisexual to appeal to queer fans or whatever. Also I don’t care about his music so I have no idea what happened with that, sorry if he like turned out gay or something idk.

But is Taylor swift not also doing that? I think queerbaiting is a weird word to use about a real human person whose personal life is intensely monitored like this, but she has to know at least some of her arguably gay hints looked like gay hints. Especially in the context of how she does Easter eggs for her albums and stuff. Like I straight up do not care whether Taylor swift is gay or not, it’s just that now I’m annoyed she’s out here hinting enough for some people but not enough for actual consequences, you know? It’s weird! I don’t know whether I’d say she makes money off of the non-queerbaiting weirdness, but if not it’s such a weird vibe! Why! Also she has a whole team of people managing her social media presence and a ton of people see all her songs on the way through. All of them are just…good with the hinting?

In conclusion, this entire thing really really annoys me. I’m annoyed at Taylor swift herself, for either being straight but living in plausible deniability land for fun and profit and staying in the papers, or for hinting everywhere but not coming out if she isn’t straight. Maybe that isn’t fair! But if I were in her position I would feel like I had a duty to come out by this point, you know? That would be kind of undeniably huge for worldwide acceptance. And then obviously I’m annoyed by the people that search for all these clues and act like they all are undeniable proof when someone is clearly fucking with them on purpose some of the time.

And also like! In general, please can we just enjoy her music without picking apart every hidden meaning we can make up? It actually kind of reminds me of Oscar wilde’s trial when they tried to prove he was doing gay shit with his writings or whatever. But also despite popular opinions on here, he irritated the shit out of me too.

This entire thing is just so annoying! Who has this much time on their hands!

That preface killed me thank you for the warning lol.

You talked about a lot of stuff that I either agree with or don’t really have anything to add, but I will say I don’t think Taylor is consciously hinting queer things and her songs and just riding the line and ‘queerbaiting’. She seems generally like a pretty ignorant person and I doubt she’s sitting at home measuring what’s a good hint towards queer people while also being inconspicuous enough for others or to realize it.

It’s also no one’s ‘duty’ to come out to others, no matter what condition they’re in. That’s a personal thing that is only up to the individual and no one else.

Overall this is why reading into Taylor’s songs and thinking it’s some kind of bible (great comparison btw) that only can apply to her life and only viewing Taylor’s music in the context of her is wildly dangerous and damaging to her art. It causes speculation and wild conspiracy theories, when in reality it should just mean something to the listener and their personal experience.

[steveyockey]

by making destiel canon they completely relitigated the lines of curatorial fandom and transformative fandom like BECAUSE fans engaged in a transformative fandom practice that ultimately made its way explicitly into the text from a curatorial perspective the only reading of show supported by the show is that cas was is and always will be in love with dean !! you can only now watch supernatural and have that be the conclusion and ALSO the impetus textually !!

[paintingformike]

the reason people think its so impossible and crazy for byler to happen is because you lot make it seem more complicated than it actually is when really its so SIMPLE if you take out the heteronormative lens and understand how plotlines are usually written

it’s literally just BASIC STORYTELLING, person A undergoes relationship problems with his partner, we’re explicitly shown them trying to communicate with each other but to no avail because it ends in an argument where gaslighting and lying to each other occurs, and how they don’t actually understand each other (el literally says exactly this to mike, that he’ll never understand her struggles even if he’s also been bullied his entire life). we’re shown that they can’t communicate well with each other. for the rest of the show, person A then runs to person B, the other potential love interest, to seek comfort and open up to him about his problems and insecurities. they show us how person B is able to comfort person A well and person A can actually express himself to him and be vulnerable with his feelings in a way that he’s never shown to be with his actual partner. they can communicate well with each other, showing their compability and how they’re able to connect and understand each other well (i didn’t say it/you didn’t have to). person A then attempts to fix things with his partner with a love confession, but it fails because it was prompted entirely by person B who was the one behind the sentiments that made person A feel loved and needed enough to deliver said love confession. to make matters worse, person A based his love confession and words of encouragement off of the feelings he was made to falsely believe were his partner’s, when those were actually person B’s and they’re two different characters with different experiences and feelings that don’t exactly match up and diverge from each other. a relationship can’t work well if one of the people in it has to be constantly coached through taking the initiative to do something about it by a third party, and especially if this third party is the other love interest and has actually been the one to relieve him of his insecurities and fears in the relationship and not his actual partner, who he should be the one directly communicating with and working things through together.

two whole days after person A’s grand declaration of love, him and his partner still haven’t spoken to each other about their relationship and his partner has only had one off-screen conversation with him about her huge loss. said partner seems to be pointedly distant from him again, but person B does have another private conversation with him where they end up reassuring each other about their fears. once person A finds out that the sentiments of a painting that made him feel all sorts of things and convinced him into finally saying ily to his partner were actually all from person B, with his actual partner having 0 involvement in it, everything will come crashing down then finally falling into place. it’s all right there in PLAIN TEXT, we don’t actually need deep analyses and theories to prove byler endgame because its basically ingrained in the writing. the cinematography, lighting, easter eggs, parallels from movie references, subtext etc etc are just an added bonus of proof!!

byler isn’t this impossibly too-good-to-be-true gay relationship because they’re actually being given the SAME TREATMENT as the straight couples in the show in terms of how they’re being developed to romance territory. they start out as friends and are slowly able to connect with each other more personally (and not actually falling in love at first sight 😙), heart to hearts where the two people involved in the relationship are made to be vulnerable about their feelings and expressing their deep thoughts with each other, getting interrupted and startled out of staring at each other after a lot of their conversations together (they literally only do this with canon couples NEVER ONCE with pairings that are supposed to be just platonic), heck, they basically copy pasted the season 1-2 steve/nancy/jonathan love triangle plot to the season 3-4 el/mike/will love triangle plot where mike/nancy start dating el/steve then they’re accused of being jerks and neglecting their friends and slowly becoming people they’re not to impress their partners, they’re constantly shown to make out and don’t really have meaningful, deeper conversations with each other, most of their scenes are portrayed very unserious/lighthearted unless theyre fighting, the next season they can’t say ily to their partners then they open up to the byers brothers about it on top of a car, jonathan and nancy went to a road trip together just as mike and will were trapped next to each other in the same van for an entire season it’s literally the exact same format like be fucking fr 😭 ITS NOT AS COMPLICATED AS PEOPLE MAKE IT OUT TO BE CAUSE ALL THE DUFFERS HAVE BEEN DOING IS APPLYING THE SAME TROPES AND NARRATIVE STRUCTURES THEY’VE BEEN USING WITH THE STRAIGHT COUPLES IN THE SHOW TO A GAY RELATIONSHIP.

like really just sit and think about how clear the narrative actually is, and if they really wanted to make mileven this endgame main couple that people seem to be so convinced they are, they wouldn't have:

emphasized will’s pain and suffering in all of their moments together. it removes the intimacy in their scenes and inherently drenches them in a negative viewpoint no matter how you look at it

purposefully separated them for an entire season right after the “fight that they couldn’t come back from”, leaving no room for actual communication between them, and then making mike spend the majority of the time with will 💀 (this is a piece of fiction and they’re not REAL PEOPLE btw, they made a conscious choice to write these characters in a way where they literally couldn’t have a single time to talk things through about their conflict, its not just because el “happened” to be busy having her own self discovery arc along with the nina project, they would let them have atleast one uninterrupted moment to communicate with each other if they wanted to (which they seemed to not want since the surfer boy pizza conversation was cut short before it could get to serious territory!)

made will’s words and feelings be the one to make mike feel secure and loved rather than his own girlfriend’s

made the deliberate writing choice of will being the one to push mike to even say anything to el before she could die in vecna’s grasp

not let mileven have a single private moment together except for their fight. they never get to just be alone together like at all!! (and maybe it wouldn’t have been that bad if not for the fact that it’s a stark contrast to how they let will, the other love interest, have like 5 different intimate/private moments with mike 😭)

if this still isn’t enough for you to believe byler could actually be endgame then you’re just being dense on purpose 🫶

[fandomshatepeopleofcolor]

Hi I’m the anon! Thank you I’ll send the submission later with the fake email like you suggested! It’s taking me a bit since it’s a lot

(mod ali here just pasting their submission to their ask to keep everything tidy)

the sterek fandom has been racist For those that don’t know, sterek is the name of the ship between Stiles Stilinski and derek hale from the show Teen Wolf, which ran from 2011-2017. A sequel movie was announced last year and is scheduled to release soon (and with the announcement, brought back a dormant fandom). For context, the ship itself is controversial and problematic due to 99% of the scenes (and all of the ship fodder) between the characters taking place when Stiles is 15/16 and derek is 22/23 (shippers will argue that his age in the original draft of the script was listed as 19 (which is still an adult) but it’s irrelevant since his age was changed to 22/23 by the time the character was cast) making Stiles underage while derek is an adult. It’s made even more disturbing when you consider that one of derek’s traumas has to do with being molested by an adult when he was 15/16. There is always a lot of fandom discourse over underage/pedophilic ships but ultimately the problematic nature of the ship itself has little to do with the racism and misogyny of the fandom. To start with, the show itself has very few POC characters in the cast, 2 to be exact. The first is the main character Scott McCall (played by Tyler Posey who is half-Mexican and a MOC) and the other is Danny Mahealani (played by Keahu Kahuanui who is Hawaiian and a MOC). Danny is also the only gay character at the beginning of the series. From the start, Scott was sidelined by the fandom who, as always happens in fandom, ignored him in favor of zeroing in on the two white guys (which happens all the time like for example when FATWS came out early last year, Sam was often sidelined by fans in favor of Bucky, zemo (who is a villain), or even Steve (who wasn’t even in the show) when the show was about Sam’s journey). The sterek fandom would even try to argue that Scott wasn’t the main character of the show and say that they’re all the main character (ignoring that the show is about Scott and his story) or insisting that the show should have centered on the Stiles and derek instead.

The show also got accused of queerbait which isn’t inaccurate but if you watch the show itself, the baiting and subtext was actually between Stiles and Danny. Stiles repeatedly asks Danny if he finds him attractive and is grateful when Danny offers to sleep with him (and then disappointed when Danny reveals he’s joking). There is actual text and subtext between them but for some reason the fandom either ignores it, considers it a joke, or uses Stiles canon interaction to Danny as a form of “proof” that he is or will be attracted to derek

The relationship between Stiles and derek doesn’t have anything that suggest any romantic tension or subtext (and a lot of newer fans that watch the show talked about being confused by what made people ship it in the first place) and actually consists of Stiles being scared of derek and derek being annoyed by stiles. Their relationship slowly progresses to where by the end of the series they are somewhat friends but they each still have a lot more people they care about way more: one of them being Scott, who once again gets pushed aside and has his relationships with both characters diminished and ignored. there was also the added misogyny with characters playing canon love interests getting a lot of hate. in particular, Braeden and her actress Meagan Tandy got a lot of hate, facing both misogyny and racism. fans would at best hide their misogyny behind claims of wanting her to be a “badass independent woman” (as though a woman can’t be that and be in a relationship simultaneously) or at worst use blatant attacks her and her actress (including claiming that Meagan was “obsessed” with Tyler since she shipped Braeden and derek (something tyler said he shipped as well)). To top it all off, sterek fans have relentlessly harassed the actors and fans with their hate being targeted specifically towards Tyler Posey (who has publicly voiced his dislike for the ship) and their hate knows no boundaries with attacks even going as far as bringing up his past addiction issues, his looks, his sexuality (constantly trying to invalidate his sexuality when he came out as sexually fluid but at the same time insisting tyler h and Dylan, whove never suggested they were anything but straight, are secretly in a relationship), or even his mother (who had passed away from cancer a few years ago).

For example this account, that has page after page harassing Tyler over sterek and also page after page supporting Dylan O’Brien. but then being revealed as a conservative who supports trump and was one of the people rioting on January 6th and when someone brought up that Dylan would hate them, they claimed they hate Dylan too but support him constantly because they’re “curious” about his personal life.

Sterek fans either ignore people or are just like them. When teen wolf was called out and faced backlash for not paying Arden Cho (the only WOC in the main cast) the same amount as the other actresses in the movie, stereks either made it entirely about Dylan (who liked one tweet about the situation (the same tweet colton liked) and otherwise said nothing) or made it about her, Dylan, and tyler H “taking down” jeff and Tyler Posey. The irony here being that tyler h was a producer in the movie and had an active behind the scenes role. Making a Arden’s mistreatment and the gross racism she faced all about a white man or being gleeful that it’s a take down against Tyler Posey is latest in a long line of racist bullshit the sterek fandom has put out.

The sterek fandom and ship has in recent years been called out and hated on for the gross nature of the ship but fans should also keep in mind that it is also full of racism and misogyny and has been since the very beginning.

[lilyginnyblackv2]

Still thinking about this one dude on Twitter that left a comment on my post about how Buddy Daddies isn’t a gay anime, but a queer one because Rei and Kazuki willingly chose to live and raise a kid together, so it goes against societal expectations and heteronormativity....

And they were like, “It’s sad how neither of them can have a real family because of their line of work.” :( 

....??? Hello? They are a family. They are a found family. Like...??? I responded back as such (a bit more eloquently worded), but like...??? The OP for the series even states that this is a FAMILY STORY:

The part that I circled in red says: Family Story of Two Killers and a Girl.

FAMILY STORY.

Some dudebros out there are pretty desperate and insistent on not acknowledging the family aspect of Rei and Kazuki’s situation. They’ll just be like, “It’s just two friends co-parenting a kid together.” Literally like this meme:

The meme image is of the dog with the ball in its mouth. In the first panel, the dog looks pleading. The text above it (which I put in myself) is a question: “Two men living & raising a child together?”

The next panel is of the dog with the ball in its mouth. It looks angry this time and a human arm and hand is in the panel. It’s trying to take the ball. Above the image is the text (which I put in myself) that says, “No queer.”

The last panel is just of the angry dog with the ball in its mouth, and it says, “Only friends.” (Text was added by me). 

Basically, not acknowledging that they are a family. They always hone in on how they are friends. And not in the same way that fellow aspec people like myself do, in the sense of something like a queerplatonic relationship or platonic life partnership, but in a very “they are JUST friends” kinda way. Not a family. Nothing queer. Still straight, kinda way.

It’s eye-roll worthy for sure, but also rather interesting to see the reactions too. Since Buddy Daddies has, so far anyway, gone for a normalization approach to this situation. Not the usual “gay or queer subtext that stays subtext and is meant to tantalize the audience” kinda way that we often see in anime. And usually these dudebro guys would just poo-poo away these kinds of series as “fujobait” and these sorts of readings as “yaoi fangirl delusions,” and the like.

But Buddy Daddies is putting it out there - normalizing - this fact that Kazuki and Rei are partners in this (regardless of eithers sexual orientation, that really doesn’t matter here), that Miri is their daughter, and that they are being viewed as a family, and I am living for it! 

It’s causing these type of anime fans to flounder.

[kajaono]

You all allways say how awesome the queer representation in Black Sails is

What i was expecting: Well written queer relationships. Queer people who survive the show and are potrayed as strong independent characters.

What I got: A whole ass story arc about homosexuality being considered a sin. Flint, the literal main characters, the king of all pirates, the epidom of masculinaty, being thrown out of his hometown simply because of him being gay. For no other reason. And his boyfriend being thrown into hospital to “be cured”. And Flint actually does want to see London burn and becomes a pirate simply because he is gay and society couldn’t accept that. And to achieve the dreams of his boyfriend. And the wife of his boyfriend telling Flint that it isn’t shameful to be gay.

All of that is fucking TEXT! Not subtext. It is discussed on screen. Everything. Homosexuality a sin, Thomas in hospital, “your love for Thomas”, just... everything.

The whole fucking story tricks you into thinking it is a simple pirate show and it turns out to be a story about gay people taking revenge for society dismissing them because of their sexuality

Like.. you wouldn’t guess but I am still speechless

[ethernetchord]

lets talk: popular iwwv criticism

(disclaimer: i know criticism is subjective and thats why im doing this, i wanna look at some common points made against iwwv and dissect them just a little bit in the opposite direction. also none of this is directed at any individual- it’s all based on the general talking points i’ve seen surrounding the book.)

SPOILER WARNING !!

lack of exploration into james and oliver (+ gay characters feel performative)

i’ve seen loads of people say that oliver and james’ relationship felt very performative, a way of including the queer romnce which clearly is very important to the plot but not actually giving it any space in the novel, nor developing it to the same extent which meredith/oliver was.

oliver and meredith had a very strictly physical relationship and while he did love her, he wasn’t in love with her the way he was with james. the juxtaposition in the way that oliver/james is delivered and the way meredith/oliver is delivered is, i believe, far too repetitive to not be intentional. i actually realised upon re-reading how much focus there really is on meredith’s sexuality, even in subtleties in the book. meredith and oliver get more blatant sex scenes, get more physical parts because oliver was (to an extent) using his attraction to meredith to distract himself from his infatuation with james.

we also have to remember that oliver and james didn’t get their real moment of honesty about their relationship till extremely late into the book. i’d honestly see it as more ‘performative’ to then after or in the middle of kind lear throwing in some wild sex scene between the two. it wouldn't have fit.

“why didn’t james and oliver get together earlier then >:(((“ because the slow burn between them, the subtext, the subtle-ness, the yearning, they were all crucial to the decision which oliver made at the end. the fact that they burned so bright for each other but (oliver particularly) were so desperately repressed, that was what made this such a tragic romance. yes its tiring to read stories about queer people being repressed, yes its tiring to see the bury your gays trope. but like oliver says, it goes beyond gender.

if oliver’s second love interest was a girl, and treated this way, we’d be a lot more on board with these tropes- but the fact that james is a man, and this therefor becomes a queer relationship, makes it feel performative. i can’t convince you of anything- but i like to believe that their relationship being treated like this not only makes it so much more “heart wrenching because why! why couldn’t it work out, why couldn’t it be better!” - not because its a queer relationship but because they were soulmates.

alexander wasn’t performative. not in the slightest, rio just didn’t make being gay his entire identity. same goes for colin. just because they’re queer doesn’t mean it needs to be the only thing about them. this isn’t a lgbt novel- characters dont have to be gay just for plot. they can just be gay.

i’ve also seen people complain about not just making oliver bisexual. guys. did you read the book? he was bisexual. he was emotionally and physically attracted to both meredith and james. guys that’s literally what bisexual means.

i'm totally on board with the coming out scenes! and realisation of feelings and all that stuff- but again, not an lgbt centric novel and also- these were things oliver probably did and realised far before this book. remember that its set in 4th year, at an art school. he knew he was fruity ok. not every queer character in every queer book have to have these grandious coming out scenes or realisations. the lack there of doesn’t equal performance.

the ending was rushed and bad

believe what you will, but i don’t think james is dead. there’s a little too much ambiguity in that ending, in the extract he leaves oliver, in the “his body was never found.” so if your main quarrel with the ending is that “bury your gays” situation- please know there’s a chance- and that giving it that chance opens up so much more discussion and reader response.

yes, the ending is sad. but it’s not rushed. “but that is how a tragedy like ours or king lears breaks your heart- by making you believe the ending might still be happy until the very last second.” doing king lear, doing macbeth, doing romeo and juliet, the plays are chosen not only for reader convenience (they’re plays readers will most likely be familiar with) but also because they all, so very deeply, foreshadow a “bad” ending. killing james, makes sense. as much as people don’t want to hear it, from an authorial perspective- from the reader’s perspective and as a human being it makes sense. why do keep arguing that he “should’ve stayed alive for oliver” or that “if he really loved oliver he wouldn’t have done it” - why are we limiting a character’s entire existence down to their love interest. yes, they were best friends, yes they were set up as lovers but that doesn’t mean that that would be enough to keep james around. james was a fragile character- he was always checking with oliver if he had upset him, he was always worried, overthinking, james wasn’t strong minded- and he was suffering. the only person he had left to depend on was in prison, he was plagued with the guilt of causing the death of a classmate and letting oliver take the blame, if he did kill himself, it sure as hell doesn’t have any reason to sound forced.

“its not nearly as good as the secret history!!!!”

to be honest here buds, why the fuck do we keep comparing them so insistently. they are not the same book. iwwv wasn’t trying to be tsh 2.0, yes there are similarities because hey! guess what! books in similar genres tend to do that! always comparing it tsh when they have different motives, different plots and vastly different execution makes no sense. the only reason that they are compared is because tumblrtm dark academics like to group the two together. and yea- makes sense, but stop trying to belittle iwwv because it isn't as grandiose as tsh, because it’s a little more literal, because it’s not as intertextual as tsh. half the people saying iwwv isn’t as good as tsh are practically just subtly going “shakespeare isn’t as complicated as ancient greek huehue” stop forcing the two together and let them be separately appreciated.

the characters were flat/archetypes/etc

sigh. okay.

these characters are actors. this book shows us their transition from themselves entirely into a conjunction of the roles they’ve played and the stereotypes they’ve portrayed.

“we were so easily manipulated - confusion made a masterpiece of us.”

“for us, everything was a performance”

“imagine having all your own thoughts and feelings tangled up with all the thoughts and feelings of a whole other person. it can be hard, sometimes, to sort out which is which.”

“far too many times i had asked myself whether art was imitating life or if it was the other way around”

“it’s easier now to be romeo, or macbeth, or brutus, or edmund. someone else.”

are you seeing it now? this focus on their archetypes, this focus on the character they are; the way they see themselves not merely as human but as a walking concoction of every character they have turned into and out of. they depend on their archetypes to give them meaning. rio uses these archetypes to remind us of the submersion of her characters. they weren’t flat, their intentional lack of dimension due to their pasts is what makes them so intricate. furthermore, there's an evident subversion- the tyrant becomes a victim, the hero becomes a villain (they all become villains really), the ingenue becomes corrupted. like mentioned before, i think we forget ourselves easily reading this book but there is a great deal of emphasis on this being their last year- which is so important. the damage has been done and a lot of the issues people have with the content (or lack thereof) in this book has to do with the fact that it’s all things that would have occurred in books focusing on previous years at delletcher.

“it didn't live up to expectation” (also leading on from read tsh to this and being ‘disappointed’)

i cant argue this because its entirely subjective. whatever expectation was created for you, i cannot know that and appropriately respond however- if you liked the secret history and understood the secret history then there's a good chance you also liked and understood this book- even if not to the same extent but you must be able to recognize the authorial approach and its significance. i think a lot of ppl read iwwv (and a lot of “dark academia” texts and films) and hope to be able to romanticize the aesthetic or the concepts and then are disappointed when they are presented with mildly unlikeable and overwhelmingly human characters who aren’t easy to romanticize.

a great majority of these books are criticisms of the very culture you’re trying to romanticize, and the only time you’re willing to admit that is when boasting about the ‘self-awareness’ of the people indulging in them, and then a moment later complain about those same qualities because they don’t serve this idealized expectation.

bad rep for arts/liberal arts/ humanities students as being pretentious/cultish

as a humanities student with a great love for eng lit- all of these things are indeed pretentious and cultish. not all the time and not always and not every person- but it is a common theme. academia is overwhelmingly obsessive and extremely white-washed. people become so fast to believe that they are indulging in finer arts and are therefore a higher standard of person. academia is problematic. and the recent influx of people interested in it is good, very good because hopefully, we’ll be more diverse, more open-minded, more accepting. that's what i hope at least. if you know, as an individual, that you’re not a pretentious academic who places themselves above non-academics then that's wonderful- but there are dangers and negative sides to academia that need to be understood so that we can see to not perpetuating them.

i cant refute all points, mostly because there's a lot of good and well-explained criticism because no book is perfect. and my intentions are not to belittle anyone's opinion. these are merely opposing arguments, food for thought and to be fair- a critical look into why not everything is always going to be what we expect of it and why every ‘problem’ can be assessed.