#another straight character being written to be involved in the gay ship

[cakebeam]

The ‘married-to-a-straight-woman’ reveal, who is also his “best friend” from high school that he loves so much, and she KNEW he was gay and struggling coming out to his parents and still said yes to marrying him is giving me major war flashbacks to another fandom ship. I am so tired of this sh*t that writers keep giving to the gay and queer audience. 

[girl4music]

Steven L. Sears has so much great commentary in these cast/crew interviews that I just want to upload everything he says. But I don’t want to be biased. Still though, he understands the show in such a way that has always been the way I’ve understood it. Especially the soulmate theme and how these two lead characters literally cannot be without each other because they are fundamentally that of the yin-yang and you cannot separate yin-yang otherwise it is no longer "yin-yang" - which is just inconceivable because everything IS yin-yang. Everything embodies The Way. If that were ever to separate - there’d be nothing at all. That's how the nature of The Way works. He seems to understand that to a degree that's clearly influenced XENA although he communicates it in a much different way to the way I do. But take what he says here for example about Xena and Gabrielle being like the Mehndi in that they run parallel to one another and then intertwine and then part ways and continuing like that for eternity...

I mean this episode sets up the course of events for the progression of their relationship for the rest of the show. They're literal soulmates. But it also highly informs all of the narrative set ups and plot arcs and the progression of X&G's relationship even before this episode was written, so Steven obviously had been conceiving this idea for a long time. Maybe even before they realized that the LGBTQ community anchored on to Xena and Gabrielle's relationship as a WLW love story because he was one of the creators that was attesting to the notion that they would most likely have a large queer female following doing what they were doing with having two lead female characters in constant one-on-one interactions together due to the circumstances of them travelling and fighting in service to the greater good together - which furthermore is high-key due to them feeling like strangers and outsiders in their society. Therefore, unintentionally depicting a very queer narrative. I mean, straight white male or not, Steven was probably the greatest push for Xena and Gabrielle to go in the direction of a WLW romance because he understood that what they were depicting was something a queer audience would anchor on to immediately having come from the background of being a creator for a TV show that had three lead male characters in much the same environmental situation as Xena and Gabrielle were in. Riptide preceded Xena and was about three men living on a boat - of which an audience of primarily queer or gay people anchored on to. So Steven had that unique experience as a creator coming into Xena.

So if there's anybody we should be praising and appreciating for how XENA became "THE WLW SHOW" and Xena and Gabrielle `"THE WLW SHIP" - it should be Steven L. Sears because he was down with it going that way from the start of his involvement with the show and the sincerity and authenticity of which he talks about Xena and Gabrielle in the context of them being lovers and soulmates has made him a beloved member of the creators/cast/crew by the fans much more so over Liz Friedman or Chris Manheim or any female creator's involvement in the show. Steven was the creator that wanted to take the soulmate theme seriously. Steven was the creator that made sure Gabrielle had just as much development as Xena did. The storytelling flowed and thrived as much as it did alongside the WLW/queer representation because Steven inextricably combined them together. He made sure that you couldn't detract from one from the other. He made sure that all of it was a natural organic progression. And like I said - you can rewatch the whole TV show back over and you'll see that you can - because of his extremely creative and insightful contributions to what 'Xena: Warrior Princess' is - interpret it as an EPIC love story without feeling like you have to make sacrifices for or manipulate the main narratives because they all wrap around X&G both as individual queer characters and a queer character dynamic.

Here Steven is basically explaining how much these lead female characters are within and without of each other for eternity in much the same way as I've explained that they're one soul in two bodies whose spiritual essences permeated into each other to the point of not being able to separate one character from the other character even though they can be distinguishable as polar opposites in their characters - which is the true non-dual nature of what 'yin-yang' is.

Steven not only understands the absolutely profound relationship that X&G have between them but he also encourages the depiction of it romantically without weakening the storytelling that's already there and already well-established within the lore of the story and that's something that I wish creators in other TV shows would do that have a fully canon WLW/queer ship but can't seem to integrate the representation of that into the storytelling and narratives without making all of it an inconsistent, frustrating and pointless mess to watch because this is what WLW/queer representation IS. It's got nothing to do with whether it's "canon" or "main text" or "explicit" or whatever. It's to do with how well you can integrate the WLW/queer representation between queer or queer-coded characters into the main focus of the TV show and tightly wrap all that storytelling, lore and development around two lead characters that happen to be of the same gender identity without making either aspect weaker or less interesting or appealing or entertaining or compelling. Just making it so that none of it suffers because it's all important to illustrate and represent and the creators of this TV show do a damn fine job of it.

They don't always get everything right. But what they do get right - by the gods does it elevate the TV show into the queer stratosphere and it makes the pitiful attempts of it today look like an amateur's play and the reason why is obviously because they don't really care about it. Not like the 'Xena: Warrior Princess' creators did. Not like Steven did. And I'm just tired of the whole stereotype of male-created and male-dominated TV art/entertainment content being thought of as a negative to queer representation because XENA proves that wrong and I've actually seen for myself some horrifically bad WLW/queer representation created by queer female creators - believe it or not - precisely because they go full-out and full-on with the representation aspect and neglect the storytelling aspect and it's just awful to watch.

[sadquickchristmassnowman]

never watched iasip but i need convincing to watch it. sell it for me.

(I hope doing that is a big enough of a distraction)

this is a great distraction thank you!!! I have many talking points so Buckle Up.

(TL;DR: watch sunny, you won’t regret it! it’s super funny and has tons of amazing elements. 10/10 recommend)

1. GAY PEOPLE

since you are a community fan on tumblr I’m assuming you like trobed. that’s just math. so! I will introduce you to The Sunny Ship™: mac and dennis

I legitimately think they will become canon, and soon. (you might not know that sunny is Not over yet, they are still making seasons. there are 16 seasons right now (169 episodes) and I believe they’re renewed for at least 2 more seasons which is awesome.) anyway, as much as I love trobed, I do not think they will be confirmed romantically in the canon. I’m not sure I trust that to be written correctly anyway. (but that’s another conversation) the point is I Genuinely Believe that this one will happen. if you want more reasons I’m glad to provide but it would include some spoilers, and I’m not sure how okay you are with that, so I’m omitting my full reasoning. you just gotta trust me on this one lmao

besides that they’re just really entertaining to watch and their dynamic is genuinely so important to me. it is very different from trobed but it makes me equally feral 👍🏻

here’s some gifs and pictures to kind of introduce you to wtf I’m talking about. (keep in mind they are pathetic men that are like 26 in season 1 and like 46 in season 16)

2. characterization

even if that’s not your vibe there’s a ton else this show has to offer. just thought I’d start off with the gay people bc what is a sitcom without 2 codependent men?

sunny genuinely has great character work. even though the entire premise of the show is that the main characters are Terrible People (one of the original working titles for the show was literally just “Jerks”) they are genuinely great characters. the classic sitcom “funny on the outside but dig a little deeper and you uncover hella trauma and depth” which is awesome I love a sitcom that does that. all of the individual and group dynamics are amazing. obviously mac & dennis tend to stand out but all 5 members of the gang have very individualized relationships with each other, and their dynamic as a whole is so funny. they’re all generally horrible to each other but they really do mean the world to each other. it’s very “found family but they’re all literally the worst people you’ve ever met.” they cannot sustain relationships with anyone outside their own little group and I think that’s beautiful (it wouldn’t be, irl, obviously, but in a tv show it is so funny and awesome)

3. continuity

this one’s pretty short, but the continuity in this show is so awesome, which is pretty important to me. throughout all 16 seasons (and 18 years!) I can only think of a couple logistical continuity mistakes. other than that, the story stays straight, all their past anecdotes line up, and they reference the old episodes all the time. I love community but, in the continuity category, sunny reigns superior

4. RCG

the guys themselves!!! RCG (rob mcelhenney, charlie day, and glenn howerton) are the team that created sunny. they created the premise, adapted it for network tv, literally play the three main guys (mac mcdonald, charlie kelly, and dennis reynolds respectively), are VERY involved in the writing, editing, directing, etc of the show, and are constantly promoting it. they embody this show and they genuinely have So Much love for it.

they’ve been best friends for decades, and their bond really takes the show to the next level. all the dialogue is really natural, they have so much control over the show (as I said, being at least involved in, and oftentimes in charge of, the writing, directing, and editing), and you really can tell that they put their entire souls into making this show.

and they’re still making it, they’re still best friends, rob met his wife (kaitlin olsen, the woman who plays dee) through the show, their family members constantly make cameos, they take experiences from their actual lives and dramatize them for arcs in the show, they literally started a whole podcast where they talk about the show (and other things too), and… ugh. this show is so solidly theirs, and you can just really feel how real and raw it is. super un-commercialized, especially in the earlier seasons. it’s such a special vibe that a lot of tv shows just don’t have, and it’s super unique and cool and ugh. I love it. I love them

(they also hired megan ganz, who wrote for community, writes for and helped create mythic quest, along with a bunch of other stuff, during season 12. and she’s awesome. she is also on the sunny podcast with the three of them)

(oh yeah. idk if you’ve seen mythic quest, but rob mcelhenney plays ian grimm on that show, and also is one of the creators. charlie day also helped create mythic quest, but he hasn’t really been involved in it other than that.)

5. danny devito

self-explanatory. danny devito is on the show (starting s2ep1). what else do you need.

6. comedy gold

this might go without saying, as it is a sitcom, but this show is SO funny. all of the actors are so talented, the jokes are so well written, the deliveries are golden, the physical comedy is great, and so much more. I’m going to put some screencaps of popular memes you might have seen around that originated from this show to give you some idea of its comedic impact

there’s obviously hundreds of other amazing lines but I can’t very well list Everything right here right now, but. the point is there’s a lot of really good stuff.

7. neurodivergent-coded

another sitcom staple! except this one is pretty special, in that RCG are all neurodivergent. we don’t know rob and charlie’s specific diagnoses, but we know that glenn has adhd (recently diagnosed), and has talked about mania and depression before. rob recently said he has “been diagnosed with multiple neurodevelopmental disorders” but hasn’t clarified yet. charlie has just casually mentioned being neurodivergent. but, anyway. I’m not sure their projected neurodivergence onto the show is noticable to the untrained (neurotypical) eye, but as an autistic person I can definitely see it lmao. also, a lot of the fans agree that dennis and charlie are both on the spectrum, with a lot of other fans headcannoning the entire gang as autistic, which is awesome. dennis has also canonically been diagnosed with BPD.

if you’re interested, here’s a silly youtube video with a bunch of autistic coded moments from the show lmao. it’s kind of long but it’s very entertaining to me

final thoughts & disclaimers

but yeah! hope you enjoyed this unnecessarily long post. I did want to say a couple more things real quick:

1. if you want to give the show a shot without fully committing, I suggest you start with season 5. this is a rob mcelhenney-approved gateway, it’s a really great season, s5ep1 is a great episode to start off with, and it works relatively well out of context.

2. season 1 is my second to least favorite season. it is only 7 episodes long, but just keep that in mind. it’s general regarded as one of the worse seasons. if you want to start with season 1 that’s fine, it’s still good and I do genuinely enjoy it, but just keep that in mind. it only gets better

3. this is a very explicit show! it is rated tv-ma and is significantly more risque than community. there are also a lot of really offensive jokes (s3ep9 is basically unwatchable for me) but this goes along with the premise that the characters are genuinely bad people. the comedy theoretically comes from the ridiculousness of how out of touch the characters are, and I think it really does land about 95% of the time. some of the topics they joke about probably could have been approached with a bit more grace than RCG granted them, (there are five episodes that were removed from hulu because of use of blackface. yikes) but the show is meant to be blunt, extremely unserious, and somewhat cynical. it gets better with this stuff as it goes on, and it did start in 2005, so yeah. there’s just some stuff you have to take with a grain of salt I guess. RCG have grown a lot since 2005.

anyway! I genuiely love this show more and more each time I watch it. it just gets funnier and funnier, and listening to the sunny podcast, and watching the special features on the dvds my dad got me for my birthday (lmao), has just been so much fun. a ton of fuel for a great hyperfixation.

if you have any other questions let me know! I’m always down to talk, my dms are open etc etc. sorry for the literal essay but this has been a great distraction from the end-of-semester Bad Feelings, so thank you!

if you do end up watching let me know what you think! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do, if you decide to watch. have a great one and thanks for reading 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[starmo]

hey! Big fan of your BTTF fics! I only recently got (back) into BTTF, but it seems you’ve been here for a few years, plus you’re an nsfw author in this fandom, so I was wondering if you might have some insight on why Mammett is practically the only ship with lots of nsfw material? The only straight ships I’ve seen is Marty/Lorraine or Marty/OC. Why no Marty/Jennifer, or George/Lorraine, or even Doc/Clara? I want some nsfw Marty/Jennifer so bad and can’t find it anywhere! Did it ever exist? Was it deleted? Hope you don’t mind the random horny. Just curious and want someone to ask/rant to, one BTTF fan to another :)

Hey there! Thanks for your inquiry! I am so glad to hear that you're a fan of my work! 😄

I actually haven't any clue as to why mammett recieves more attention from NSFW creators. Believe it or not, this surprisingly comes as a shock to me!

Though my allegiance is sworn to mammett (😂), I had been under the impression that it was the least popular of the ships typically associated w/ BTTF, on account of it's... divisiveness? For lack of a better term.

Though, if I were to reckon a guess as to why it's so beloved by degenerates (jk) like myself, I'd say it has just as much to do with the taboo nature of their relationship as hating mammett for it is!

Which is exactly why it doesn't surprise me that one of the only heteronormative ships from BTTF that recieves an abundance of attention is Lorraine x Marty.

Like mammett, Lorraine x Marty involves two individuals whose sexual/romantic relationship would be met with disapproval (because, y'know, incest), which just makes for a fun jaunt when it comes to writing smut fic. The juicier and more depraved, the better!

Aside from that, though there are many other reasons as to why I (and likely many others) are attached to Doc x Marty--I think a major contributing factor to the abundant creation of NSFW mammett fic is the fact that much of what we see of their on-screen interactions (of the physical variety, especially) is interlaced w/ homoerotic subtext, albeit (likely) unintentionally.

That and taking their age gap into account, and the time in which BTTF is set, when homosexuality was still HIGHLY frowned upon, it kind of makes for a deliciously provocative "torrid love affair" type deal.

And, I (personally) am also very much attracted to both Christopher Lloyd and Michael J Fox (hence why I've so many rarepairs involving their characters 😂) which only adds fuel to the "I want to see them bang" fire.

In summary, Doc and Marty tick off all the boxes for somebody like me (in both a "omg, my otp, I wanna cry, I love them so much!!" type way, and a "I want to see Doc absolutely DESTROY Marty" type way). I imagine people must feel similarly about ships like Lorraine x Marty, George x Marty, etc.

I guess the more canon-typical ships like Jennifer x Marty and Clara x Doc haven't as much allure to NSFW writers on account of the fact that they'e likely considered to be "vanilla"? Though I can only speculate on that.

As for your frustrations in this regard, I completely understand. Scouring the tags on ao3 or similar websites in search of at least just one fic involving a ship you're invested in, only to come up short, is one of the most infuriating things in the world.

I take similar issue w/ trans Marty vs cis Marty fics.

I am one of very few mammett fic writers who solely portray Marty as being trans, and that is largely due to the fact that as a trans man myself, I wanted to see more pre-op trans representation in smut fics; something which was virtually non-existent in the fandom prior to my contributions.

I also like to write smut fic for a wide variety of niche audiences; though some of the things I've written about and or plan to write about in the future aren't necessarily kinks of my own, I still want to offer something else to the fandom aside from the repetative "Doc and Marty have flowery prose gay sex in the garage" fics (not that there's anything wrong w/ those fics, but admittedly after reading about 6 or 7 of them I tend to go "but where's the pizazz??" ..."pizazz" being the nastiest shit you can conceive of, of course, lmao).

To this day one of my all-time favorite fics I've aided in the creation of is the one where Marty is a gas-station attendant and he and Doc end up banging by the dumpster in the back alleyway behind Marty's workplace.

Not only is it deliciously, viscerally filthy, but they (being Doc and Marty) are also still very much themselves; their affection and fondness for one another knows no bounds, and thus doesn't feel out of place even in a fic involving watersports, armpit licking and non-con kink.

Perhaps now that I know there is an audience for it, in the form of, at least, you, I could try my hand at writing some Jennifer x Marty or Clara x Doc fics!

I've only two WIPS as of right now that involve a Jennifer x Marty sex scene (sorta...); that being a fic in which Jennifer is present when an experiment involving some chemicals (of the horny variety) goes awry and Doc is in dire need of uh... relief--and a sequel fic to Nocturnal Emissions that immediately begins with Jennifer eating Marty out.

These are two fics that I hope to complete and upload at some point, but in the meantime, if you're curious (and/or would like to talk more about mammett/BTTF in general) feel free to DM me and I'd be more than happy to share what I've written for these fics w/ you! 😄

[obstinaterixatrix]

so there’s the obvious angle of bl as primarily a genre directed to an audience of straight women and the imposition of heterosexist schemas/narratives as a natural consequence of that context (possibly consciously but mostly subconsciously), but another angle I’ve been toying around with is the idea of some of the standard semi-miserable dynamics/tropes as—on a metanarrative level—some shade of psychosexual revenge fantasy. I’m going to sound insane for a second

caveat that this language is gonna be very binary because I’m going by really broad categories and also I’m gonna basically be talking about porn so like, nsfw text. also this is specifically about manga, romance novels/webnovels are its own category and I don’t know shit about videos.

anyway, something that’s kind of interesting is the broad dynamics of straight smut for straight men have a somewhat equal level of pleasure for male and female characters (excluding subtypes that are explicitly dub/noncon-focused). meanwhile, straight smut for straight women has a significant emphasis on sex being more pleasurable for the ‘top’ and more taxing for the ‘bottom’; there’s a split between the romantic fantasy of ‘being prioritized and everything feeling amazing’ vs ‘wild passionate affair that tends to lean into dubcon dynamics’ (because of the complicated relationship a vast majority of women have with sexuality and therefore part of the romantic fantasy involves some kind of force involved) (yknow bodice rippers etc). I feel like the split is still pretty heavily skewed towards the latter rather than the former. anyway, other than the ‘romantic fantasy’ element, it’s somewhat interesting to consider the broad dynamics of m/f smut for straight men vs straight women in terms of: yeah there’s a lot of women that talk about unsatisfying sexual encounters with men and not having a partner that was aware of her needs. so on a different level, these two different romantic fantasies for these two different audiences kind of mirror the… collective cultural experience, to some extent.

to go into pretty baseless psychoanalytical speculation, that’s why I think one element of bl dynamics is some subconscious/subtextual revenge by having a male character in the ‘bottom’ role—this has him play out the role of a ‘woman’. (not in a specifically homophobic way, although a heterosexist society is inherently homophobic). like I think readers get some kind of satisfaction seeing sex suck for men in a way it sucks for women (narratively and culturally). I don’t think it’s necessarily the main reason, but I feel like it contextualizes some audience engagement. and it’s been really interesting to see the shift in genre over the years, as society has become… marginally less homophobic, and there has been an increase of bl written to be more mindful/complex about incorporating ‘Gay People Exist In The Real World And Not Just As A Narrative Proxy’ (the yaoi -> bl transition, though it’s impossible to fully separate them as distinct categories). actually that reminds me, akiko mizoguchi has a thesis in english I’ve been meaning to read—there was an actual for real museum exhibit in japan about BL that was really thorough and I think mizoguchi wrote a full ass book but it’s only in japanese 😔 I think there was data from someone who’s been cataloguing statistic on every ship that shows up in doujin events or something crazy like that? goddamn. anyway this also doesn’t incorporate bl as a genre that initially had primarily queer women as creators but that’s out of scope and actually I forgot where I was going with this and I wanna go do something else now bye

[kwamiwayzz]

lol so I was looking through me and my friend’s dms as a #throwback or something and thought about how even got myself into liking co09 in the first place

Funny story, I came across a post on Twitter talking about how the (implied) gay couples in hoyoverse games were all bait (that’s a discussion for another day). And while I wasn’t a fan of how the post was diminishing how China tries to get past censorship through heavy themes, symbolism, intertwining characters, etc. they also used the post to bring the “Hella Yuri” library on Steam Curator. While it’s nice to prop up more games that have yuri/GL in them, I was disappointed in the plethora of VNs that took up most of the curator. There weren’t enough “traditional” games in that list for me to consider, and the only one that was worth looking into was Signalis (which I still haven’t played yet).

Then for some reason, I got really interested in trying out VNs due to a super lazy period where I couldn’t play any game that involved walking. It might’ve also been due to gaining some interest in trying out the old well-known VNs like Fate/Stay Night. VNs are an interesting medium for me to engage with because most of the time you’re really just playing a “pick-your-own-adventure” without actively moving the character. I ended up going back to the Hella Yuri library to see which yuri VNs I could try out again.

There were a few that I liked. I think there was one that I thought had some nice voice acting and art called “Without a Voice” which was published by Studio Elan. But there was still some itch that couldn’t be scratched, and I ended up considering dedicating time to play through long VNs like Higurashi, Stein;s Gate, and the Fate series.

I kept asking my friend in the screenshot above what yuri meets my “requirements”. To be honest, I think I was just looking for something like JWQS but in VN form (but one can dream lmao). I’m horrendously picky when it comes to things I end up really liking, but then I decided one day, “Okay, let’s try that one edgy game with the okay-ish anime art to see what the fuss is about.”

I found out two voice actors from Genshin were in it, and that was enough for me to try it. I watched one out of context video for Class of ‘09 and I thought…wow the voice acting is really good here.

I’m gonna be really honest, but I actually don’t even know how I got to heavily shipping Jeckole??? Because the out of context videos did nothing for me aside from find the characters and interactions funny 😭. I think the “Jecka and Nicole being a chaotic duo for 8 minutes” on YouTube sort of made me lean into it more but I was still kinda neutral to it.

Actually, wait.

I think I do remember lol. It was these:

Then I just went down the rabbit hole, and then I just straight up forgot about the rest of the Hella Yuri library on Steam Curator…

I’m way too picky when it comes to things I like and my brain just picks the most random things sometimes. I will say, I do think getting that ending (above) as my first playthrough made me see Class of ‘09 below the surface level, and it also made me really warm up to and start to enjoy (be obsessed) with Jecka and Nicole as a pairing. I’ve already written like x number of brainrot posts on why I like them, so I’ll skip over that part (just dig through my other #jeckole posts lol). Shitty creator aside, I think that ending really reminded me so much of things from that time period that I didn’t realize I was blocking out and it was sort of interesting, comforting(?) that I didn’t just “throw out” the version of me from when I was teenager.

I liked the humor, I liked the dialogue, but I think what’s keeping me invested in a VN like this, is Nicole (specifically from the Suicide Ending). Jecka comes at a close second when taking parts of her home life into account. Basically, some Twitter post meant to be propping up “actual yuri” when talking about Hoyoverse gay couples ended up doing the opposite of what it’s supposed to do lmaooo 😂

[absolutehomosexuals]

I don't need professional help and I don't think you're being genuine at all. I'm not sure how any of my asks could possibly indicate I'm *so* upset and insecure. You a just a blog I found a few days ago and chose to engage in. You said yourself (or selves) that your gay Astarion headcanon and belief that ppl romancing Astarion with female characters is disrespectful are two opinions that coexists together. Maybe you misspoke and didn't actually mean that and if that's the case, why not just say that?

I'm not the mod you were arguing with, so if she wants to add something to this answer she will in another moment.

Your asks indicate you're pressed about the content of this blog enough to engage in a long discussion about the fact that we may or may not judge the people who give Astarion a female partner. That's why you've been asked to reflect on why the fact that two people (us mods) disagree with this choice, especially while we're in a fandom that is largely on your side, is so important to you.

We both have been very careful with our arguments and our phrasing every time we posted our opinions, since we know how sensitive this fandom can be. I'll say it one more time: we interpret his character as gay because of how his character himself is written, because everything in his story perfectly matches that experience. You can romance him as a female Tav, we're not going to bully you (like we never bullied anyone that posts about their straight ships involving Astarion), but we can and will still think that this choice doesn't match his character. And we will still say it in this blog.

-mod Shadowzel

[cavegirlpoems]

in which i unpack my thoughts on netflix’s sandman.

So like, I read the sandman comics at a, uh, formative age. There was stuff in there that was, with hindsight, perhaps not great for a twelve-year-old to be reading but other bits were Big and Important and Shaped Who I Ended Up Being. Like with thirty years of hindsight we can find issues with how Wanda is treated, but for eggy twelve-year-old me, she was the first time I’d seen a trans person depicted as anything but a punchline or monster, and the last sympathetic trans woman I’d see in fiction for another decade or so. So that was a big deal. And like, there are characters in there who were a big fucking deal to me. Rose Walker and Thessaly and Lyta Hall were just... these were images of femininity that I could see myself in. They shaped me and my view on what gender *can be* and that influence has had knock on effects on the woman I ended up as. Also Merv is just fucking cool. Look at him.  So I was a fan from a young age, and have remained a fan for a long time.  This, I hope, should establish my credentials as an actual fan, since that seems to be a thing nerdy women need to do in order to be taken seriously when talking about Nerd Shit. Anyway.  It’s my personal opinion that adaptations of things you love mostly suck. What makes it work in one medium will fail in another, and seeing the work you love distorted and contorted by the needs of the new medium will just make you see all the ways the adaptation fails. There have, in my experience, been very few cases where something I’m into has been adapted successfully. The first silent hill film was actually pretty good. The comic of Coraline by p craig russel is another, as was the stop-motion film, more or less. The first and third lord of the rings films. But these are exceptions. Often you can’t jam a book-shaped peg into a film-shaped hole, or what have you. So the fact that The Sandman - something that had been kinda formative for me - never got adapted - was considered ‘unfilmable’ even - that was comforting to me. I’d never be there being all ‘see how they butchered my baby’ with it like I was with the His Dark Materials film. And then it turns out that they were going to adapt it, and I got very very scared that they were gonna slice all of the queerness and angry feminity and pain - all of the stuff that made me care about it - out of it. So seeing that the casting etc was super fucking queer, and that Neil was afaict directly involved with stuff? That they GOT IT? That was comforting. Like I was sceptical, but hey, maybe it’ll be good? I don’t know, yet. I’ve seen netflix’s track record when it comes to finishing series it starts, and I don’t trust them. Once it’s complete, I’ll watch it, because starting watching something with that much personal emotional weight to it only to have it just stop in mid-flow isn’t something I’m willing to do to myself. But I’m confident! It looks good! I’m excited! Oh, but the fandom. The fandom response has been, I dunno. What I expected, but not what I’d have wanted. There’s shipping, of course. This is the first time I’ve been exposed to Fandom Culture interacting with something *I* cared deeply about. It’s a weird feeling.  I mean it was inevitable. Morpheus is a skinny and angsty white boy who dresses weird. (except for the various times he’s not, but I don’t think those have come up yet from what I can tell). So, of course, one of the biggest fandom responses I’ve seen has been the desire to ship him with a man. For some reason, we just gotta get this twink a boyfriend. It’s not that there’s no gay characters to yaoi-fy in the sandman. The text is fucking crawling with gay stuff. It’s really incredibly gay.  And like, I dunno how to explain this, but Morpheus is written... pretty het. Like, ‘Dream keeps falling in love with women and then treating them horribly’ is... it’s like one of the main plot threads. It’s not a side thing, it’s a centrel pillar of Why The Plot Ends Up That Way. These (universally tragic) straight romances are kinda central to his arc. *Speaking as a gay person*, not everything needs to be made gay, sometimes you can just enjoy a straight story for what it is. I quite like Love Is War, for example, despite the fact that kaguya is straight. i digress. And then the other character that seems to have really taken off is The Corinthian. Again, I suppose it was inevitable. He’s another skinny white boy, and this time he’s Dark and Scary and does Crimes. At least this one is actually textually gay. Still. Entirely predictable, and the fandom fizz is catering to an audience that I don’t share tastes with. They find men hot, for example. Not everybody is lesbians, though, I guess, and that’s not their fault. Death is a pretty fucking central character and her casting is *perfect* everything I’ve seen of her makes me go YES THEY GET IT. and I want to roll around in gifs of her being kind and cool and humane and just... nada. All the shit that *mattered* to me? That made me *care* about the sandman as a series? Well, most of those characters are women, and most of the ones that aren’t (Fiddler’s Green, Merv, and Lucifer) are fat, working class, and played-by-a-woman-in-the-adaptation respectively, so no yaoi for them.  Like I was *shocked* not to see The Fandom Discussion about Lucifer. Turns out there was an unexpected but obvious reason why not. I suspect this is a relief. I’d hate to see Merv get Sans Undertale-ified. Please, for the love of all that is holy, don’t make Merv a sex symbol. It’d only go to his head. (obviously the fash are very angry that the adaptation has queers and non-white people and yucky girls in it, and whilst it’s very funny to see them angrily demand that it should stay faithful to the source material by not having gay stuff forced in, honestly who fucking cares what the fash think. they’ll get angry at a fucking yoghurt commercial. fuck ‘em. this isn’t for them, it never was, and they can choke on it and die angry) I dunno, though. The Sandman, as a series, is fucking full of female characters that are well-written and nuanced and explore different facets of femininity (particularly queer femininity), and I just... kinda don’t see that discussed as much. Maybe when (or if) netflix gets to volumes like A Game Of You and The Kindly Ones, we’ll see more of it. I don’t see much discussion of the cool weird mythological stuff, or the stuff with Lucifer and my Bad Bitch Mazikeen either. Fuck, I love Mazikeen. She is, so far, the only canon character in anything ever that I’ve done cosplay for. Her casting is perfect. I want mazikeen to step on me. I digress again. It’s just... weird, I guess. Having this series that’s been so personal to me and has so far flown so far under the radar of pop-nerd-culture suddenly be the topic of conversation. I’m part of A Fandom now, whether I want to be or not. And that’s... an unsettling feeling. I feel strangely alienated from something that I found formative. And like, I don’t wanna gatekeep, or say that the people discussing it aren’t Real Fans. That’s a shitty thing to do, and I’m pretty sure a good chunk of the people posting about the sandman are, like me, people who were invested in it years ago and are just taking the chance to talk about it now it’s in the zeitgeist.  Go read the comics, they’re amazing. Order the whole lot to your local library, or buy ‘em if you’re rich. But in the past, the sandman was something that a tiny slice of queer nerdy art-crowd-kids were into. It was the Bauhaus of comics, y’know? And it suddenly blowing up and going mainstream is... It’s a lot to adjust to, I guess.  So that’s what this post is, I suppose. Me vomiting all that out into a stream of consciousness weird-ass blogpost about my feelings about this. Fandom’s weird, y’all. I’m still excited to watch it. And if you haven’t read the comics, OH BOY OH GOLLY are you in for a treat. Just wait until they film The Kindly Ones and you’ll have rose’s little monologue about love and it’ll break your fucking heart. I hope it doesn’t get cancelled until we get that scene, and also the really touching scene where dream his big sister’s hand. 

[commander-diomika]

[Image ID: Screenshot of a tumblr reply from user @weareallfromearth ​​ saying “Holy shit I would V much like to know what you’d do with ZolfWilde.” End ID]

This was in response to me tag rambling that if Alex “I don’t Actually Have That Much Experience in Courtship” Newall and Ben “I just Realised I’m Too Straight For This” Meredith don’t know what to do with Zolf/Wilde, they should hand the ship over to me. 

*rubs my gay little hands together.*

I initially characterized them offhandedly as Enemies-to-Lovers but that’s not quite it, is it? On reflection I would say it’s more of an Opposites Attract situation.

Oscar Wilde, as re-imagined in the RQG universe, is a homme fatale; a dangerous, attractive man, skilled in encouraging people to underestimate him, wearing different masks, never quite being able to trust or be trusted by anyone.

There is NO personal/professional line for Wilde. He lives his work, and his work is subterfuge and interpersonal manipulation. (whether or not he started this way in his field as a journalist, or was forced to become this way by the changes in his world, is another post.) He is a person who either cares very deeply what people think of him, or is has decided that manipulating what people think of him is the way to get what he wants, and from the outside it makes no difference.

Zolf Smith does not care what people think of him. He isn’t even skilled at being kind and empathetic to people he cares about; he has no time for emotional manipulation or genuine charm. He doesn’t even have a fantastic grasp on his OWN feelings, let alone other people’s. He’s grounded, disinterested in frippery or appearances. Which is why Zolf and Wilde started out so deeply at odds with one another.

Despite the differences in the interpersonal approaches, they have plenty of common ground.

They are both deeply dedicated to a cause. They care about their work to the exclusion of all else. They are both pragmatists who have their own internal moral code, and are willing to bend or break other people’s rules in order to get the job done. They are fundamentally good people. Despite their rocky beginnings, they can respect each other because of these things.

And they might have maintained their mutually disdainful, begrudgingly respectful working relationship and that could have been the sum total... Except then the world fell apart. The Meritocratic organisation was initially compromised, then disintegrated. The blue vein plague isolated everyone and made it even harder to trust supposed allies. The Cult of Hades was on everyone’s ass making their life difficult, the other PCs disappeared off the face of the planet. Zolf and Wilde ended up in a situation where they had no one else they could trust.

Familiarity breeds contempt, but maybe if the contempt is already there, it builds Something Else. Wilde was stripped of his magic in a way that made it much harder for him to keep people at a distance and (pardon the pun) project the illusion of the debonair playboy. Zolf would have had the chance to see through Wilde’s masks, and get a better understanding of what parts of Wilde were a calculated tactic, and what was his genuine self.

Whatever betrayal transpired that gave Wilde his scar and hardened him, Zolf was privy to. He was either there and saw it happen, or he was close enough in the aftermath to see Wilde properly vulnerable for the first time in their friendship. Hell, maybe Zolf was the one who rescued him and patched him up. That was a chance for Zolf to realise that this insufferable man is a friend who he cares about deeply. At this point, he’s cared for awhile, but has been too wrapped up with his own spiritual difficulties to have space to admit that to himself.

And Wilde, oh Wilde, he’s desperate to be seen and known and loved, but he’s never allowed himself. He’s never felt SAFE to. He doesn’t let people get close, treats every conversation as a battle to be won. His safety and his power lies in being admired, but never loved. So even as trust and fondness for Zolf blossoms within him, he won’t for a second allow himself to hope that the fondness is reciprocated

With all that out of the way, this is my version of events.  

Wilde is a slut (affectionate), and Zolf is gray-ace, so if there’s any bridging of that gap in terms of physical intimacy, it has to be from Zolf’s side. Giving canon a tender massage into place, that first instance of Zolf grabbing Wilde by the collar changes. (This happens on the Vengeance after Zolf has taught Wilde to steer the ship). Zolf drags Wilde down to say “I’m glad to see you perked up.” That moment now involves a whiskery kiss on Wilde’s cheek, and the man would be absolutely FLOORED by it.

I’m talking slow-mo glittering lights as Zolf stomps off blushing, unsure what just came over him; Wilde touches his cheek in bewilderment for a stretched moment before realising he’s completely agog, and he let go of the wheel for a dangerous length of time. Every interaction, every moment they’ve spent together over the last two years is flashing before Wilde’s eyes and a new context is being applied rapid fire. I’m talking the italacised oh kind of moment.

(on top of Zolf being witness to The Betrayal, throw some other moments of almost-intimacy into said flashbacks. I’m talking late nights, Zolf doing his gruff-yet-kind caretaker thing, cooking for Wilde, maybe sharing quiet and rare downtime with Zolf reading a Campbell novel on a couch in Wilde’s office)

Wilde is realising, “Oh this is allowed, oh this is reciprocated, this is possible.”

And of course they don’t talk about it, because what’s a slowburn if they immediately go and TALK about their feelings? No, the kiss goes completely unremarked upon, and Wilde continues to needle and tease and get under Zolf’s skin, except now with an added warmth in his eyes because he finally gets it. He finally understands that Zolf cares, that Zolf loves him, he’s just not the kind of dwarf that knows how to express it.

And Zolf, frustrated by feelings he can’t express but is beginning to understand, can hear the undertone of “haha, you looooove me,” shining through Wilde’s deliberate antagonism. They continue their time on the Vengeance just a little easier and closer to one another.

And we continue on to the death/resurrection arc, and Wilde’s spirit pushes for Zolf to open up about his feelings, because if not when he’s literally past death’s door, then when? When Zolf finally manages his “I need you,” it’s like a dam has broken for both of them. The second collar-grab and “We’ll go on a holiday or somethin’,” is now followed by a full kiss on the lips, not particularly erotic but passionate, (it’s the epitome of kissing someone to shut them up) and Wilde makes a surprised and delighted squeak that he would be glad he can’t quite remember when he returns to land of the living.

Once returned, Wilde might not remember everything that his spirit said or did, but he remembers the kiss. The comfort and ease that the two of them share in 179 (Eat Drink and Be Merry) is there, only instead of the two characters still being in a place of questioning their feelings for one another, it’s been answered.

Whether or not this relationship is sexual in nature is kind of up to you and what kind of fan works you like to read/write. I think there are wonderful scenes to be written an explored in many directions.

Wilde allowing himself to enjoy sex for intimacy and closeness instead of using it as a tool/ Zolf not being one for sex but Wilde’s never slept more soundly than when he’s being held in Zolf’s arms/ Zolf realising that the unfamiliar feeling he’s been struggling to express is the desire to rail Wilde til he cries/ Wilde realising that if his partner doesn’t want it from him, he’s actually quite content without sex/ The two of them being mean, antagonistic bastards to each other while fucking but Make It Kink (of the trusting and RACK kind). There really isn’t a single bad interpretation.  

So really, I’m not doing anything different with them other than reading between the lines, giving canon a little nudge, and sticking the landing. This isn’t to disparage the concept of queer platonic partners. (I’ve got one!) or to talk shit about Ben or Alex (I DO respect their craft).

It’s just to say I find these two characters , and everything they’ve been through, PAINFULLY romantic, tropey, and delightful. I’m looking forward both to how Ben and Alex play the QPP, the fanworks I’m gonna read and hopefully write, and the inevitable tragedy that you KNOW Alex is gearing up for.

[msookyspooky]

Ngl I don't personally ship Stu and Billy together cause canonically they are meant to be straight and I'm not the sharing type, but THIS STORY IS AMAZING. I'm a sucker for slow burn romances and I'm lowkey picky when it comes to fics sooo this is the first one in a LONG TIME that I've been so excited about.

I would rather lose A WHOLE LIMB than let anything happen to Seth or Dewey 😭 You don't present Stu as some innocent guy who just killed for Billy, no, you show that he was gonna kill REGARDLESS of Billy's influence and it's so refreshing cause it was hinted Stu always was messed up in the film. I can't help but cringe everytime someone tries to argue that Stu was in love with Billy and THAT was why he killed. I respect the opinion, but the dolls hanging in Stu's attic go completely against that theory. This man was ripping dolls apart bc he was imagining doing it to people 😭 and it was hidden in the attic where his parents probably never go.

Another thing too is that we don't ACTUALLY know what Stu's feelings for Billy were in the film. They were explicitly written to only be friends and tbh that's how I interpret them. However, they clearly weren't even true friends if Billy was ready to sell him out. Stu even implied that he was going to blame Billy if they got caught with the whole "peer pressure" thing. It's so nice to see an author be realistic about how selfish these two really are 👏

I love how our character is actually flawed and how you don't sugarcoat that Billy and Stu are terrible people. I love soft Billy and Stu, but I can only take so much fluff 🤣 The fact that you made me simp for MEEKS even tho I never simped for him before? An impressive feat.

I'm hyped for the next chapter lol I'm ready for my dinner date with our hunk of a man named Ray 😏 why do I have a funny feeling Gale is gonna interrupt it? Ik Dewey's gonna be there. I'm so excited to see Mark too. I'm ready to get a free ride in the police car with my shades on. I'll be the Olivia Benson to his Elliot Stabler 🤣🤣

Billy and Stu's dynamic is canonlically confusing, chaotic and dark. That I will 100% agree with.

Whether they were always friends or not is debatable. Did Billy know of Stu and knew he was a lil wacked and thought 'this guys perfect' or were they always two kind of screwed up individuals that were always friends and Stu kind of followed Billy around and shared common interests and Billy took a chance? I think they were friends bc even if Stu was used as a sell out in case shit went south; Billy would not trust just anyone with a murder plot.

I respectfully disagree with the straight thing only bc the writter himself eluded to basing both characters off of two closeted gay teen murderers even though he left the idea of them being together up to the audience to this day; he still was influenced by these two murderers when writting Billy and Stu. Neve confirmed she thought it was plausible they were. Matthew Lilard himself headcanons it joking or not the idea is there. And it was so homoerotic that Scary Movie made fun of it with Bobby and Ray. Randy himself called Billy a homorepressed mamas boy. That's way too many ppl and big names IMO noticing the homoerotic vibes included those involved for them to be 100% straight. Yes they were presented as straight but I think the only reason they weren't at least canonly bisexual was the same reason they cut out Amber and Tara being a couple; Censors wouldn't allow it and the movie would have tanked. One lesbian is the limit apparently... People were bitching about the gay couple in IT part 2 for fucksakes. I was in the theater with ppl booing and throwing popcorn at the screen and then cheering when the one died. It's sick but we are not as progressed as much as the chronically online internet world wants to think we are. Let alone in the 90s when Scream first came out. Wes had to limit the gore just to get the movie to pass let alone if they had two repressed teen boys together.

I don't write them as strictly homosexual OBVIOUSLY (At least not from what we see with Stu definitely into girls and Billy having sex with Sidney and Christy. We could argue its confincating but whatever). And maybe that's just my bi ass headcanoning and tired of bisexuality being erased constantly?

Ppl hc them as straight, bi/pan, ace or gay and honestly I'm fine with it as long as no one gets hateful. I just wanted to clarify why I personally don't consider them hetero in my writing. Not an attack on you or anything babe just claryfying my own headcanons! 🖤🖤🖤

I respect it if you don't ship them bc I don't ship them romantically either not bc I don't like it but bc I can't see them willing to be healthy and romantically together tbh. Fool around? For sure. But I sadly don't know if Matt's idea of them being a queer couple killing on the weekends and rescuing dogs is possible lolol

And trust me, just last year I never shipped poly anything especially with a self insert...Now? Ngl it hits different. @polyghostfacehours showed me the light lmfao

As for my writing; I greatly appreciate the compliment!! I'm sick of ppl painting Stu as an innocent meow meow too and Billy's lapdog. And I love fluffy writing but slowburns and angst is where it's at for me. Shit hits perfectly and I will probably never stop no matter how frustrating it is watching characters fumble and fuck it up ☠️🖤

[cosmicjoke]

Hey! First of all, I really enjoy your analysis on Levi. Second of all, I'm kinda new to the Fandom, I've been a fan of aot for a long time but didn't really engage with the Fandom that much.

Now that I'm more aware of it, I'm actually kind of sad to see so many people use levi as nothing more but a ship tool. Don't get me wrong, ships can be great fun but I've noticed that in this Fandom shippers tend to spread more false information to make thier ship more "canon". Someone on tiktok tried to convince me that Levi is gay and how he in love with erwin blah blah blah but I just didn't see levi being involved romantically with anyone while watching aot. Sure the trust and respect that he has for Erwin isn't to be undetermined but I feel like some people make this a bigger deal than it is. They often forget that Levi doesn't have to care about his comrades romantically to not want them to die and that Erwin was his commander just like he was to Hange or Miche.

Now about that promise that people make only about Erwin, it generally doesn't make any sense that they see it that way. Levi never once remembered another scout without the others being there. I think they honestly just want thier ship to be true which makes them ignore just how good written thier canon bond is.

Sorry this turned into a whole rant, lol.

Hi there, and thank you! I'm in full agreement, that a large sect of this fandom seems to only care about Levi as a shipping tool, or they're primarily concerned with Levi in terms of how he relates to whatever ship they're pushing. The oddest thing about this is, is that Levi isn't canonically WITH anyone, lol. He isn't with Erwin. He isn't with Hange. He certainly isn't with Eren, lol. Not romantically. He's instead a friend and comrade to all of these people, and the bonds of that type of relationship can, in a lot of ways, be a more powerful one than one based in romantic, sexual attraction. Levi's relationships with all of these people are incredibly nuanced, but because of this sometimes obsessive need to "prove" that he's canonically involved with them romantically, all that nuance and complexity goes out the window, and people in each of these respective fandom ships instead zero in on some small instant or moment which they can potentially twist and interpret in such a way as to prove their ship is canon, while the others are not, and then it just devolves into a bunch of discussion about why "my ship" is real and "yours isn't". Meanwhile, Levi, who's such an amazing, wonderful character, gets trapped in the middle, and his importance to the overall story essentially ignored. I'll often see people only post about Levi in relation to one of these ships, with seemingly little to no interest in the actual story of AoT or Levi's character and role within it. And yes, that's a great point, that Levi doesn't have to be romantically interested or involved with any of his comrades in order for him to care about them, or in order for him to want to protect their lives. And there's zero evidence that Levi is gay, or straight, or any specific sexuality. His sexuality has never come up once, and isn't relevant to his character either way. With that said, I will say that Levi is, imo, one of the most masculine, manly characters I've ever seen. That doesn't necessarily mean he's straight, but with the way people often write him with Erwin, for example, a lot of the time they strip him of that masculinity, which is so strange to me. It's part of what makes Levi so attractive. He's a strong man. Not just physically, but mentally and emotionally.

With that said, I have no problem with Levi being shipped with anyone, though shipping him with Eren is always a bit odd. I'll read fanfic of Levi paired with just about any of these characters as long as its well written. That doesn't mean I think he's actually, in canon, with any of them, and I don't feel the need to prove that he is when there's nothing in the story to truly support it. I'm fine with Levi being single.

[zairas-realm-gateway]

Straight as Silly String

So, it’s only been within the last year and a half or so that I’ve started to realize I am both gray-romantic and Bisexual. I’ve always either been in denial or just had no fucking clue because queer terms are still things I’m learning.

Anyway, on this journey, I’ve noticed something that’s really starting to piss me off. And just what is that?

Well, it’s the notion hammered into us that the character cast of any given media source is Straight until proven Queer. and it pisses me the hell off!

Example? Well, have you ever written a fic or draw a pic of a same-sex ship and someone comments something like “How can you ship that?! There’s no canon evidence they’re gay!”

I always just agreed or don’t respond because I don’t have the mental energy to fight it. But what I always want to say is “Well, there’s no canon evidence they’re straight either!” when a character doesn’t have a canon relationship. Or if they do have a canon relationship, I find myself wanting to say “well, you don’t know that they’re not not Bi!”.

Why is it that every character has to be explicitly straight until there’s canon evidence of being queer?

Why can’t characters with unspecified orientations be whatever the fan wants them to be until their orientation is given (or even when an orientation is given. tastes change, after all)?

Want another example? Let’s use Team Fortress 2 for this but it applies to all fandoms.

You have two teams of 9 mercs. 8 of which are proven to be men with the 9th (Pyro) left ambiguous of gender. Together, two teams of 9 mercs make for a total of 18 mercs trapped and isolated in a tiny, geographic location for a minimum of 6 years. 

Now only 2 out of 9 mercs, Spy and Scout, canonly have relationships where they are in love with women. Before you say anything, yes it is mentioned that Medic has/had a wife. But it’s the late 60′s/early 70′s. At that time, just because two people were in a heterosexual marriage did not automatically mean that every married couple was straight. Lots of marriages were gay/bi men marrying lesbians/bi women in order to keep up a hetero-normative front so they weren’t the outcasts of society. In Medic’s case, he was already close enough to being on the fringes of society. Given how he is obviously queer-coded, he would have to be careful about being anything other than straight if he wanted to work and have a livelihood before Mann Co. 

Anyway, you’re trying to tell me that statistically out of 18 mercs, no one’s queer? That sounds like bullshit to me!

There is no way that you can convince me that 18 dudes (I’m Californian, “dude” is gender neutral) away from the prying eyes of social norms aren’t gonna start forming queer or queer-platonic relationships of some kind. 

*Spoilers for the TF2 comics ahead, derp*

I’ll use a classic example of a fan favorite: Heavy/Medic

Two middle-age mercs who are basically the mom and dad of the team. They canonly have a deep “friendship” that can be seen both in the comics and the game. These two spend a lot of time together, they work well together, and they sort of complete each other. They are protective of each other and neither can be properly happy without the other. 

In game, when one player dominates another, their character will tease and taunt the other player’s character. And yet, Heavy and Medic don’t have dominations lines towards each other.

Medic is one of the most fucked-up, sadistic mercs out of the bunch. Seems suspicious to me that he of all people wouldn’t want the pleasure of dominating and jeering someone as strong as Heavy. But, if Medic is romantically involved with Heavy, he’d be much less inclined to jeer his lover’s doppleganger.

And then there’s Heavy. He’s a sensitive man with a big heart despite his honestly frightening love of combat. But he’s softest towards family. His devotion to those that he loves is total. In the comic, the devastation he feels after Medic is murdered is total as well.

This man literally does not want to live without his Medic.

Bringing back the picture from earlier:

Their reunion is heartfelt. Moving on, Heavy immediately praises Medic ingenuity, just as he always does. And lets be real, I have never seen a person pour so much high praise on their platonic friend as constantly as Heavy praises Medic. Heavy can’t go like two minutes without saying how much he loves Medic, or how smart Medic is, or how skilled Medic is. There is just like a never ending stream of adoration that Heavy has for his precious German.

Also, at this point Medic has spent the past several comics being constantly verbally abused by the enemy, Classic!Heavy. Most of the time resulting in Medic being uncharacteristically docile and submissive. But around TF2!Heavy, Medic regains his cold, cruel ingenuity and confidence; becoming the force to be reckoned with that he’s known for.

The two complete each other both emotionally and in combat.

THERE NO WAY IN HELL YOU CAN CONVINCE ME THESE TWO AREN’T GAY AS FUCK!

The mercs are social outcasts. But working for Mann Co. allows them to be themselves away from the judging eyes of normal society. It only makes sense that most if not all of them would be queer, especially in a place where they could be safe in their identities.

So, why should we as a fandom have to believe that they’re all straight just because they don’t have canon queer labels? Especially when a canonly queer character exists in universe.

May I present Ms. Pauling! She’s the boys’ boss. She takes good care of them and she is very clearly gay.

You can see this clearly when Soldier and Zhanna are running around naked and covered in honey. Meanwhile, Ms. Pauling looks like this as she watches them.

It is confirmed several times over that Ms. Pauling is extremely tired of seeing Soldier naked. That means that she is clearly being entranced by the vision of Zhanna naked. 

No straight woman has ever looked at another woman like this. 

Ms. Pauling is definitely gay.

So, yeah, if one character is obviously queer but not explicitly labeled as such, then why can’t all the characters be queer? And why can’t characters be queer without an obviously queer character in canon? Why must all characters be straight unless proven otherwise?

It’s a stupid and toxic narrative that only contributes to shipping wars.

Why should a narrative that’s not even canon be allowed to overpower our personal headcanons?

We need to start allowing people to headcanon sexual orientations for fictional characters.

[shadowfiredemonwolf]

one of the arguments I hate is the lgbt rep defense where people try to go but there is a lack of lgbt rep if you are against bb or say it shouldnt have happened you are a homophobe bs. also the implications we are calling bb forced because of the genders involved comes off as projection since I have seen them claim blacksun was forced on the viewers going there are plenty of possible same sex ships they should do one of those instead. the lgbt rep card isnt a valid shield from criticism.   good writing is the most important part for shipping and the chemistry involved caring about the lgbt community or being part of it doesnt mean you have to ship a same sex ship over a het ship in ship war it doesnt mean you have to support a same sex ship like bb  being teased when you feel it was badly written.  I have seen people go there are plenty of shows with het ship canon ( as if we only liked blacksun over bb because it was a het ship  we arent mad that the het ship didnt happen we are mad that years of buildup were thrown away for a ship that just had popularity . blacksun shippers have more reason to be upset then bb shippers would if say they hadn't thrown away the years of buildup for blacksun and  had a scene where blake goes I love you you are like a sister to me  or another scene which emphasized that blake and yang were just friends.

something I was citing : 

I think my initial disdain for the way Sun and Neptune are written came from how sick and tired I am of straight ships being forced on the audience when lots of us are in the lgbta community. Part of it was because my gay ships were sinking I’ll admit but honestly I’m just sick of forced straight ships especially in one of the only shows with enough well written female characters to /actually/ have believable gay ships. I don’t think I hate Sun and Neptune but I do hate how forced the ships are.

I think this is all the explanation needed(and all you need to dismiss people trying to take moral superiority over liking Bumblebee). Something the toxic side of the fandom loves to do is project and project hard. They cannot understand why someone would not think like them or like the things they do unless there’s something wrong with them or they contextualize it through what they themselves would do.And that’s one of them accidentally explaining how that relates to Bumblebee: wasps like it because it’s a gay ship. They thought Black Sun was forced/bad because it was not a gay ship. Therefore, since everyone must either think like them or be defective, clearly you think Bumblebee is forced because it’s not a straight ship. You don’t like it because it’s gay.“

basically they are just calling blacksun forced because it was a straight ship if sun was a girl they wouldnt make that claim so I cant take anytime I hear someone try to pull the you would ship bb if it was a m/f pairing  or wouldnt be calling it forced if it was a m/f pairing for if sun was a woman and yang a man they wouldnt be shipping bb and would call bb forced

if whether you ship  a ship or not  is determined by genders involved  like say if two ships were paired against the other and what causes you to ship one over the other  the pairing  is genders involved  it is a shallow reason   representation isnt more important then good writing

to the person that there were enough female characters for beliavable gay ships blacksun being canon wouldnt have taken away that possibility there are plenty of possible same sex ships like white rose or freezerburn or heck elderburn (the w/w ships  dont need to stick to relationships inside the team

team rwby dont have to all get into relationships with each other just because arkos and renora were things   just because team jnpr a team with an even split with males and females being partner ended up ship teased doesnt mean white rose and bb had to be things   there is nothing wrong with the idea that say yang ends up in a relationship outside of the team with a chick

heck say in the possibility that they all end up in het ships  there is nothing wrong with that  promising lgbt rep doesnt say that team rwby will be lgbt ( I still remember arryn referring to blake as the straight friend  which adds to my statement ) 

and no the fact that the song include yellow beauty and black the beast isnt evidence besides the fact the  songs  as crwby stated arent meaningful to show ( paraphrased) 

they outright stated that they werent looking to replicate the stories there are multiple people who can fit the role of yellow beauty

look at  adam he referenced the beast but ended up being an antagonist relationship

you can say  bb as a platonic relationship 

with blacksun fitting the beauty and the beast ( for sun helped with blakes development which is what the beauty did for the beast ) 

and blake  showed actual romantic interest in sun while she didnt show it to yang ( and yang didnt show romantic interest in blake sorry but winking at blake isnt flirty  yang asking for a dance isnt romantic coded ( not helped by how we only saw a piece of it before  sun takes the dance which yang had no problem with ) 

adam going  I will destroy everything you loves  includes friends and family  yang then appeared he saw her reaction then went starting with her  for she was nearby. that isnt evidence of romance also there was no reason for sun to lose the arm but there was plenty for yang ( getting injured isnt ship tease) 

blacksun got years of teasing , mutual attraction and development

( undoubtedly if sun was a woman and yang a man the people who shipped bb just because of lgbt rep would be mad and say it was queerbaiting they would be angrier than blacksun shippers were

blacksun got actual teasing it actually could be called queerbaiting in the above scenario unlike the situation where if bb didnt become canon ( for claims of queerbaiting would just be people who shipped a popular ship  and saw evidence where there was none misusing it  just because a ship is popular doesnt  mean it has actual evidence bb was just popular in the fandom because it involved 2 hot girls there was a reason why appeal to popularity is a fallacy there is a reason those people got angry at sun because blacksun was given so much while  bb hasnt gotten anything   the only way they could find anything is by wearing shipping goggles and twisting facts  

)

to be treated equally to het ships means that same sex ships are just as open to criticism for bad writing.   you can care about/be part of  lgbt community

 and still call out bad writing when it comes to a same sex ship and say that it shouldnt have happened.

its not like there wont be other chances for a same sex ship  in other shows ( reference to what  I saw someone said to korrasami shipper in an argument )

it really doesnt matter that there arent many shows with canon same sex ship  good writing is more important then that if a ship is forced/bad writing they deserve criticism like the last minute retcon korrasami which required korra to be ooc in the last two min and was something bryke only thought of when the finale was being made  ( korra and asami are incompatible ) and the narrative pointed to show ending with korra single with a hint to makorra getting back together  given they had overcame the flaws that led to the b2 breakup ( and figured out proper conflict resolution arguing is not the problem it was handling of it ) neither of them were ready for  a relationship  with anyone.    korra and asami were barely friends they barely interacted  (censorship explains a lack of say a kiss etc not lack of interactions in general ) asami showed in remembrances she couldnt support korra the way she needed to while mako showed he could when facing zaheer.

asami showed she was the one most likely to just view her as the avatar  ( which was korras  problem ) while tenzin proceeded to help korra by talking about her growth as a person while mako got a speech about what korra meant to him and how she inspired him a talk about korra the person .  

or direction change bb

people can be against bb and korrasami while still being lgbt  / non homophobic/ supportive with the idea of lgbt rep. just because you support lgbt community/ arent homophobic doesnt mean you have to be okay with every same sex ship 

its not like people supported every het ship

[kyliafanfiction]

Hello! How are you? Kind of random but I somehow stumbled across an older post of yours about your head canon sexualities for BtVS and AtS characters, and I was wondering if they still held or if they had changed over the years? A lot of them made sense to me but perceptions can shift over time so I was curious if you still felt the same.

Okay, so 1) If you're going to respond to a specific post of mine, I would appreciate you including links or Post #s or something. In this case, I do remember making a big sexuality masterpost and mostly what was on it, but I can't find the post in question despite spending the last few hours looking for it on and off between customers. So if I didn't remember that post fairly well, you'd be SOL in getting an answer to your question.

2). No They haven't. Because the canon hasn't changed. My views on the characters orientations in that sense is "this is what I interpret to be the case in the canon" (except in the case of Amy, more or less). I don't do headcanons like a lot of people on tumblr do, where they'll just throw sexualities, gender identities and neurodivergencies they like at characters they like just because. (This is... not entirely fair, but really, sure how it looks like sometimes).

This isn't to say I don't sometimes go 'oh, there's an interesting prospect for a story' when it involves say, Buffy and Tara as a ship. I've read a few interesting looking Buffy/Tara fics, despite reading Buffy as straight. Hell, I even read Xander/Tara fic despite Tara being super duper gay in canon. Most don't work for me, but they arent all bad per se. I've even written oneshots or the like for Buffy and Cordelia as a ship, despite thinking both are straight.

I've even written longer works that do this. One is just shameless smut and isn't meant to be taken too seriously (The Nymph's Kiss) in which both Buffy and Cordelia are bi for the purposes of the fic I want to do there. Another (Next Year's Girl) has Cordelia be bi because I wanted to write a fic where Xander got bodyswapped with Faith and then stuck in her body, but I'm also a diehard Xandelia shipper so. (I also have three other fics in partial stages of planning that feature Xandelia as a ship but with a Bi Cordelia because Xander is genderbent in some form. This is a premise I quite like, when done right, and have for a long time, I've only relatively recently been willing to actually write it because I've reached the 'fuck it, write the idfic' stage)

But ultimately I still think Cordelia's canon orientation, the orientation of the character that we see on the screen, is heterosexual. When we're talking about the baseline, canon, common to us all Cordelia, I think she's straight. Same with Buffy. Same with Xander (though I'm unlikely to write a fic where Xander likes guys because I'm just not generally interested in m/m fic)

In the context of specific fics or Aus or Whatever, then yeah, go crazy and I'm never gonna dictate other people's HCs, but I tend to go with what's onscreen or what's justifiable from the provided evidence and work from there (and I tend to be conservative - small c, not in a political sense - with how much I read into things, whereas some people will read a lot into things. Generally, if a character doesn't show any specific signs they're not straight, I assume they are)

So no. They haven't changed. And why would they? Canon is still what it is.

[vidavalor]

SamBucky people... a balm for the broken-hearted here...

About what the producers/directors, etc are saying...

I’m not going to say that their approach to this does any service to anybody-- *including* the studio morons who can’t see that they could make $ by having more LGBTQIA characters in their stories (and that seems to be their primary motivation so...) 

The thing is, once the people involved in the show define a character’s sexuality, they are also doing something else-- they are also specifically saying what a character *isn’t*. If the producers say that Bucky is bisexual, then there are fans out there who are going to feel betrayed. I’m fairly certain there are maybe like I dunno five? fans who actually think that Bucky is straight (lol) but fans tend to ascribe whatever their wishes for a character are onto that character. They project far, far more than what a show’s canon actually suggests. Think about how, as SamBucky shippers, if the producers said in an interview tomorrow that Sam is asexual, you’d be disappointed because then it would feel in violation of canon to ship SamBucky in the way you already were. (BTW, if a show doesn’t make *some* character asexual at some point soon.... grr.) Would it still be a great show? Of course! Would we still love Sam? I would hope so because Sam is awesome! But you can see my point which is that confirming one thing eliminates something else. Producers don’t want to do that because they don’t want to alienate fanbases. They want as many people as possible to watch their stuff so they traffic in vagueness with most characters, with only cishet ships really getting any daylight as canon because that is still how the majority of people identify. Is this good? God, no...

Marvel is also really the worst with it. The comics, often written decades earlier, were often more progressive than the MCU is. But this doesn’t mean that there is a lack of *intent* in how something is made. As a writer, I can tell you that TFATWS is written with romance beats-- not the story beats even of a buddy cop drama. That could maybe get you through the first two episodes. Past that, it’s a romance. More than that, it’s a damn *Hallmark* romance, minus a Christmas tree. TFATWS is one cookie baking scene away from Sam & Bucky having made out under a gazebo at the Delacroix Dancing Reindeer Festival or something. The actors are clearly acting with intent-- this isn’t just Stan & Mackie’s “natural chemistry” or what have you. There is no universe on earth in which the actors, the director, the producers, the *studio*, looked at the dailies (early rough cut of filmed scenes) for the boat scene where Bucky reaches for Sam’s hips and went “oh, this will definitely come across as Bucky isn’t the slightest bit interested in men”. There is no way that a scene of two guys rolling in a flower field was not meant to contain a heaping dose of homoeroticism. And those are just two of the examples-- if I went on and got into actual subtle ones, I’d be recapping *every single Sam and Bucky scene* in TFATWS and you all saw it.

For an example of how this attitude can exist and not be kind of toxic to a fandom, anyone who hasn’t seen it already should go check out Good Omens. If you think SamBucky is a love story, wait until you watch an actual enemies-to-friends-to-married couple that includes a 6,000 year slow burn and is one of the most romantic stories ever filmed (all while being insanely smart and funny at the same time.) There’s no overt declaration of love, no kiss but there is also absolutely, positively zero doubt that this angel and this demon (who are each a little of both, really) are over the moon crazy in love with one another. When this is put to the co-writer of the novel & producer of the series, Neil Gaiman, he affirms that it is a love story-- that Crowley and Aziraphale love one another. Even though the vast-- and I mean vast-- majority of people watching it will see it as a romantic love, the Good Omens fanbase has people who see different things in the relationship. There are a lot of fans who are into the potential asexuality of the characters. (Personally, I don’t think this works-- not because I have an issue with asexuality because I don’t but because there’s some fairly overt examples of sexual attraction between the two. Anyone who has seen it or will see it... Aziraphale in the Bastille. Enough said.) Anyway, the point is that there are fans whose interpretation differs from the others and, in a spirit of a state of being supportive of the freedom to be who you are which is really a major Good Omens theme anyway, the producers will simply say that it is a love story and that the two male-presenting leads love one another. Sound familiar? 

It’s what Marvel is trying to do with TFATWS and SamBucky. The difference is the tone. Good Omens is a community full of positive LGBTQIA representation and love for all people and everyone involved with the writing of the novel and the production of the show really reflects that attitude. Marvel.... doesn’t have the best track record with this stuff. Granted, these are not comparable things. Good Omens is the ultimate in niche-y stuff-- it’s a long-running and large fanbase but compared to Marvel, it’d fill a thimble. Marvel is trying for a big tent approach to its movies and tv shows-- to have something for everyone eventually-- but the problem with this is that it doesn’t really give anyone much of anything that is well-defined... and that’s kind of their goal. They want you to be able to see what you see in things. It doesn’t mean that they aren’t actively trying to create things for you to see but it does mean that most of the stuff they make that is not a cishet relationship could have an entire romantic arc for characters-- and TFATWS does-- but it’s also going to leave open doors all over the place to try to attract the most viewers. 

By that definition, TFATWS is shockingly gay. There are an enormous amount of tells built into the story to lead the viewer in that direction. Bucky didn’t want to go on the one date he went on with a woman and ran out of it in the middle, after talking about guy profiles on dating sites. Sam has been in 89 pieces of canon and other than a howyoudoin? at Black Widow that goes nowhere-- in front of another guy who was from the 1940s-- Sam hasn’t blinked at a woman. Neither of them get actual love interests in TFATWS but for one another. They spend the entire series proving themselves to themselves so they can prove themselves to one another. The list is endless. 

No matter what they’re saying Bucky’s sexuality is or isn’t or what Sam and Bucky’s romance is or isn’t, they’re just dancing around things to try to keep from becoming “the gay Marvel show” in the media and keep viewership numbers up because, sadly, there are still too many people who won’t watch a show about hot, gay superheroes for some reason I do not understand...

So if you’re feeling a little faint of heart, just keep in mind that you can believe your own eyes and these two are in love, no matter what crazy verbal gymnastics the people who made this show for you are doing to try to pretend they didn’t just write you a six-hour long gay superhero Hallmark movie. 

[glass-rose-paperweight]

The Mysterious Case of Queerbaiting

BBC Sherlock

There’s one thing about BBC Sherlock that has never made sense to me. As I’m sure many of you are aware (and something I’ve talked about before), BBC Sherlock has been accused of Queerbaiting, of intentionally setting up John and Sherlock as being attracted to each other but never following through with that or even intending to do it. And it’s one of those things that has just always baffled me; I can’t make it make sense. A lot has already been said about the way things are portrayed in the show and what the subtext behind a million different things could mean (seriously, I love that I am part of a fandom with so many perceptive and intelligent people; watching the show is only half the fun) and how none of it makes sense. Today, I would like to use my powers of deduction get to the bottom of this mystery.

The way I see it, there are 3 possible explanations.

1. The Producers of the Show Queerbaited

I have to admit, this seems unlikely given that one of them is literally a gay man. Why would a gay man knowingly and intentionally engage in something like this? Why would a gay man write a script that constantly pokes at Watson’s sexuality if the only point was to make it into a joke? To say ‘oh, no, the poor straight guy is constantly mistaken as gay. Look at how defensive he is getting, hahaha, what a funny joke’. That just makes no sense. It makes no sense for Mark Gatiss to have gone to the lengths he has gone to within the show, from whatever direction he gave the actors so that they portray an obvious chemistry between Sherlock and John to having a jealousy trope at John and Mary’s wedding except it’s Sherlock getting Jealous over John’s ex commander to this interesting thing about the best man speech to Mary saying ‘neither one of us were his first’ or ‘the man we both love’ or ‘I know what the two of you could become’ to Sherlock putting John Watson face on The Ideal Man to all the gay artwork in TBB (I could not for the life of me find this meta even though I know I saved it, and I am so distressed) to a thousand other things that the fandom has discussed over and over and over again. Who puts that much effort into queerbaiting? Especially when you would have a vested interest representation? So, it just doesn’t make sense for those directly involved with the show the be the reason.

2. Higher Ups at BBC Told Them No

This seems much more plausible to me, however I still doubt it. I can’t say I know just a whole lot about BBC, but I do know they have tended to be on the more progressive side of things, and I just really can’t see any of the higher ups just flat out refusing to allow the writers to make Johnlock canon. The first season gets a pass because I’m pretty sure that openly same sex couples weren’t allowed in media at the time (I think it was allowed in 2011, but I’m honestly not sure. I’m in the US, not the UK, so if I’ve gotten this detail wrong, please correct me). But they had 3 other seasons and another 7 years to make it happen, and I just don’t think that the higher ups at BBC would have just flatly said ‘no’. So, that leaves the last explanation.

3. Someone Other Than Those Involved With The Show Stopped Them

The majority of the Sherlock Holmes stories are in public domain. Copyright expired in 1980 in Canada and in 2000 for the UK (X). This would seem to make it a pretty cut and dry case: in the UK, you can do pretty much whatever you want with the Sherlock Holmes stories. But it’s no quite so simple. The US works a little different because copywrite law isn’t the same (isn’t he US just great?). As it stands, there are still 6 stories today that the Conan Doyle Estate still has the exclusive rights to in the US. If I understand how the copywrite law works correctly, that would have been 14 stories back in 2010. But, that shouldn’t have affected anything going on in the UK, right? Theoretically, no. The Conan Doyle Estate wouldn’t have had any legal rights to coveting the characters and the stories in the UK. However, that doesn’t mean that those involved with the show wouldn’t have been extremely apprehensive of the power that the Estate wielded, especially considering the previous decade of legal battles. Only 3 cases are listed here, but the Conan Doyle Estate is very protective of its copyright of the work (as evident by the fact that they are literally trying to sue Netflix, among others, for portraying characters in a way they supposedly weren’t portrayed until later books). There were other court cases after 2010, however. A decisive court case in 2013 declared once and for all that the stories written prior to 1923 were completely in public domain and that a license wasn’t needed to create things based on any of the stories prior to those dates (something the Estate had convinced BBC of when they first created BBC Sherlock). However, an appeal by the Estate was later made, stating “Sherlock Holmes is a ‘complex’ character, that his background and attributes had been created over time, and that to deny copyright on the whole Sherlock Holmes character would be tantamount to giving the famous detective ‘multiple personalities.’” The appeal was, thankfully, thrown out. But it’s the attempt that matters. 

Oh, and here’s a fun little tidbit, the 2 stories that have, perhaps, the strongest evidence of there being more than just friendship (this quote, this quote, and this quote (which was said after Holmes stated that, if he had hypothetically loved someone, he would kill the person that killed the person he loved)) come from the stories The Problem of Thor Bridge (the first quote) and The Adventure of the Three Garridebs (the last 2), which both belonged to the Estate in the US until after the final season of the show.

So, let’s get into the minds of BBC, for a moment. Someone has decided they want to reimage Sherlock in a new and unique way: modern day. The Holmes Estate has been fighting legal battles in America for the past decade and has won all of them, and has also issued the verdict that to make stories, you need a license. You say ‘okay’ and go along with it because you’re a big corporation that can afford to do such a thing. When the first season of the show airs, it isn’t legal to have openly gay characters, so everything has to be regulated to subtext. You outright state that being gay is okay because you want to let people know you are in full support of homosexuality, even if it isn’t legal yet. The writers and producers of the show are huge ACD fanboys and BIG fans of The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, so, yeah, there’s some gay subtext. By the second season, hey! Homosexuality is legal! Except the 2 stories with the biggest indication of Sherlock and John’s attraction towards each other are still very much in the hands of the Estate, who has spent the past decade fighting legal battles. You may be able to pay for a license, but a lawsuit really isn’t something you’d like to go through. Whether the Estate has any legal standing to do such a thing or not, a lawsuit would be a long, messy battle. By the third season, a court case in America has decided that anything written prior to 1923 doesn’t need a license (damn, that’s 2 seasons of being successfully intimidated into a license). However, the two stories with greatest evidence still belong to the Estate, and the Estate tried to weasel their way into owning more of Sherlock than they should by arguing about his character. They probably wouldn’t take well to an openly gay Sherlock, would they? By season 4, the same problem still exists. Cut to 2020. Both of the stories with those quotes have entered public domain. But, uh oh, a month, a month before the 10th anniversary of your show, the news breaks that the Estate is filing yet another lawsuit, this time against multiple different parties, one of them being the mega corporation of Netflix (god, that’s some balls right there) that what they did broke copyright law because it portrayed characters in a way they supposedly weren’t portrayed until later stories, stories the Estate still owns (that is some balls right there). So you might feel the need to cover your ass a bit. Despite the past decade of saying that they characters you have portrayed are nothing but platonic, the fans don’t seem to buy it, and, in hindsight, there’s a lot of reasons not to. Maybe something needs to be created that subtly tells fans that they really are just looking too far into it. And, what great luck, a YouTube channel is asking you to make something for the 10th anniversary. 

Is this what happened? I don’t really know. I have nothing more than circumstantial evidence and guesswork here to go off of. I’m not privy to the private thoughts of Mark Gatiss or Steven Moffat or any of the head honchos at BBC. I don’t know what kind of executive decisions are made in the best interest of the company. All I know is that the Conan Doyle Estate is hanging on to whatever copyrights they can possibly manage, that they are willing to level lawsuits on, quite frankly, ridiculous terms, and that having a lawsuit put against you is no laughing matter and that those whose work revolves around Sherlock Holmes and creating stories about him would want to tread carefully. This explanation is, admittedly, far fetched. But it’s the only one that really makes sense. It’s the only one that would explain why a gay man and a generally progressive company would have a show that has layer upon layer upon layer saying that there is more between John and Sherlock than just friendship, as well as a rabid fanbase that they know ship it, and still not deliver, even attempt to squash such mindsets. 

There is, however, one final note I would like to end this on. I have talked before about how I think there will be another season, if the stars align and schedules allow such a thing. The best estimates of when another season might come out is 2022 or 2023, and I’m inclined to think the later year (god, that seems so far away). The year that the last story will become completely open to the public and the entirety of Sherlock Holmes will be public domain is 2023. So, maybe there is hope.