#ignore this and dont take this as anti shipping or being anti canon ill just always grasp at straws for “he just like me fr” characters

[madgoat212]

no matter what jay ferin is always at least a little bit aroace in my heart. before finding out any of the characters were lgbtq when the brainrot began i was like "wouldnt it be funny if the arrow ace was aroace" and ive latched onto that in my head. i heart canonically queer characters that dont have romantic or sexual relationships in the forefront of their story but some little part of my heart is always gonna interpret her as aroace spec bc

[tigerdrop]

Cringe is dead, talk to me about the funny half-life men and their relationship

okay here is my essay. it is titled These Guys Actually Like Each Other, and Gordon Freeman Is Just Kind Of A Dick*

(disclaimer: these are just my 2 cents. dont take me too seriously! im just some guy online who has watched this shit too many times.)

first things first. these guys actually like each other. this is a key aspect of their relationship. benrey, obviously and textually, digs gordon freeman - you dont flirt that heavily with guys you arent into, and so much of what he says and does is geared around making gordon crack up. thats pretty gay.

but the counterpart to this is that gordon freemans pretty fucking gay for benrey, too. you may say, “oh, but word of god says its not requited!” and to you i will say: bull shit. gordon is uniquely obsessed with benrey compared to all the other characters. if gordon didnt like the fucking guy, he wouldnt giggle with him and share in-jokes with him and bring him up every 5 seconds when benreys not around. thats concern, bro. thats worry. thats real shit

but i cant blame people for thinking that gordon freeman genuinely doesnt like benrey. benreys partially responsible for some of the worst things that have happened to him, the Arm Thing among them. and gordons very insistent afterward that he doesnt like benrey. he even goes so far as to try to kill benrey a couple times. to this, i must argue that gordon freeman is just kind of a dick.

lets talk facts here. canon. Lore. from the moment we hop into gordons shoes, we can see that he is a jerk to every npc on his way into black mesa. this is his default: a dude who just runs his mouth and says rude shit. he calls tommy a freak within 5 minutes of meeting him. he infantilizes the guy and barely considers him a real scientist. he doubts that bubby is a real name for like no fuckin reason. in “real life”, this is because its funny, and wayne is trying to make a funny half-life stream. in a textual sense, this is because gordon “hlvrai” freeman is a dick. this is the way he acts, consistently, throughout the series.

(brief aside: this is why the whole “gordon is a nice guy and a great dad” characterization baffles me. the way he actually acts in canon is, in short, bitchy and lacking in self-awareness. and i love that for him, i really do. it makes the moments where he just tries to be a nice guy stand out. but thats the thing: his intermittent moments of decency and kindness are not the whole of his personality! this dude kind of sucks most of the time!)

the way that gordons general asshole attitude extends to benrey is complicated. in fairness, benrey makes it his job to annoy the shit out of gordon as much as possible, and that warrants a negative attitude, but gordons pretty paranoid and ends up blaming benrey for nearly everything that happens to him, regardless of if its warranted. this is a pattern he exhibits both before and after the Arm Thing. its a little bit of a dick move! especially considering that, prior to the whole “betrayal” subplot (which was not exactly planned very far in advance), benrey is no more malicious or annoying than anybody else gordons having to travel with.

(okay, this is kind of a subjective evaluation, but still. my point stands that benrey is not any more of a hindrance to his progress than anybody else in the science crew, and neither is he particularly more violent or murderous. hell, gordon freeman has probably killed more guys than benrey. benrey just tends to get.......special treatment.)

all that said, i am still convinced that gordon really fucking likes benrey. please consider with me the following: it would be remarkably easy for gordon to just ignore him and do what he has to do, but he doesnt. he could stop engaging. he could stop thinking about benrey. he could stop bringing benrey up to the rest of the crew every time benrey leaves to do his own thing for awhile. but he doesnt. and, again, yeah, the extra-textual reason for this is “two guys are doing an improv comedy thing and bouncing off of scorpy is kind of the point”, but within the text it reads to me as gordon not being about to get the dude off his mind.

and this is in addition to all the times we see gordon being genuinely nice and receptive toward benrey! its in the little things: laughing the hardest and longest at benreys jokes. only ever reciprocating that stupid underwater “BBBBB” thing with benrey. trying to catch benrey when he falls, despite his insistence moments earlier that benrey should hop in the wack ass crystal generator and get hypermurdered. fondly remarking that benreys sweet voice sounds beautiful. his sort of flustered responses to most of benreys overt flirting. none of this is the way normal people react to a guy they hate. this is all fuckin gay to me, man.

its this combination of the outward insistence that gordon hates benrey with his inner eagerness to be around him and think about him and engage with him that gives off strong “repression” vibes, to me. for whatever reason - pride, embarrassment, resentment - gordon maintains a front of hating the guy and wanting to kill him for a lot of the series, but it doesnt gel with the way he fucking giggles and plays along half the time that benrey starts fucking with him. its a game, and that game is one of the only ways gordon knows to manifest affection for him.

(remember “oh my god, hes got a knife!”? that was the gayest shit i ever seen in my life. tittering like a schoolgirl while benrey chases him around like “im gonna get you haha”. insanity.)

the cool thing about repression is that you can have it manifest in a lot of ways! and this is where things like “headcanons” and “my own personal affection for repressed bisexual men” come in. a lot of how i characterize their relationship is an extrapolation of a lot of things like gordons canonical insecurity issues/anxiety, gordons whole anti-bootboy thing screaming “internet wokeboy who means well but probably has a lot of repressed baggage” to me, etc.

how do you get massive amounts of sexual repression out of what you see in canon, you might ask? well. if wayne would stop having gordon talking about being jerked off by the suit, or talking about chugging a 40-gal drum of potion and having to hold his piss, or worrying about being eaten by benrey the moment he sees benrey at setscale 10, maybe i would have a higher opinion of gordon “hlvrai” freeman and whatever latent psychosexual issues hes got going on. but here we are

i havent even touched yet upon how benrey feels about gordon. this one is helpfully made a little more plain by the fact that benrey very much wants to suck his dick in canon. (i dont even have to go into details. we all know.) but IMO the best part about this ship isnt just that they dig each other, but how. benrey gets overtly flirtatious in the second half of the series, but IMO his preferred method of flirting is just fucking with gordon: chasing him with knives, shoving him around in a bathroom, trying to get scans of his feet. but all in like a slapstick, giggly, fun-and-games sense, you know? at least when it works.

a lot of the time, though, it doesnt work out that way. he clearly just likes doing it whether or not gordon responds positively. which is, you know, Weird. not very nice. but also in line with the way everybody else treats gordon freeman. gordons kind of the universes chew toy in any given universe, and the same holds true here. hes kind of helpless......subjected to 4 demons attempting to make his life as difficult as possible. in a way its cathartic.

sorry. i got sidetracked. anyway, benrey very much likes to mess with him and unnerve him and demean him and i will be perfectly frank with you: that is hot. i have problems and illnesses and one of them is that i am a masochist who goes crazy for that kind of thing. calling gordon a “dirty lil boy” and telling him to “look at the mess [he] made” is some straight up kink scene shit.

i like to imagine that a lot of this behavior isnt caused just by the guy who played him wanting to be funny and antagonistic, but by benrey as a character not really understanding what constitutes “pushing a joke too far”. hes not human, and whatever he is doesnt have a very normative way of understanding the world around him, full of people who actually get hurt for real and die for real. benrey expresses what seems to be genuine surprise and distress after the Arm Thing, as if he didnt know that his actions would have serious consequences. and it doesnt seem to fully sink in afterward, either.

it reads a lot to me like hes used to video game rules and treating people around him like NPCs. if they get hurt, its no big deal, because its not real. he likes jamming random buttons on gordons interface and seeing what comes out. its probably a lot of fun for him, the same way that seeing a streamer or a youtuber suffer for our amusement is fun. its like, you know, in my opinion, gordons very cute when hes frazzled. hes also cute when hes laughing. pushing gordons buttons has a 50/50 chance of either of these things. and this is how he ultimately flirts with gordon: by pulling his pigtails.

but at the same time, benrey does legit care about gordon and knows some boundaries. benreys the one most often shooting at enemies to protect gordon, and he spent most of the last act trying to convince gordon to turn around and not fight him because they were friends (best friends, to be specific). he just lacks a lot of the emotional intelligence it would take to express the feeling of “he digs gordon and likes seeing his face get all red and sweaty regardless of the cause”. and gordon lacks the emotional intelligence it would take to express the fact that he doesnt know if he likes or hates benrey and hes scared as hell that its the former

because, lets be real. unironic benrey-liking is a sign of problems disorder. just look at all these words ive written about it.

can you imagine? this bizarrely powerful, non-human entity that can shrug off gunfire and grow to the size of a building has decided that youre his new plaything. benreys the bored guy booting up skyrim and fucking around in the console, and gordons the hapless favorite follower that hes taken a liking to. its a really fun dynamic IMO

after all this, its safe to say my title is a little misleading. the asterisk stands for * and So Is Benrey, Actually. they are both kind of awful dudes who thrive off of teasing each other and they deserve each other. and i am crazy about it. thank u for coming to my TED talk

[elriell]

Do you ship SQ now?

I am so sorry I have no clue when this was sent as my ask box is awful at notifying me but I think I checked about… idk a week ago? So hopefully you haven’t been waiting too long. 

There is a long and a short answer, short is yes. and i have been a multi shipper for a few years now (even tho i haven’t been on tumblr in ages prior) I even made a post about it WAY back when which you may have missed, So I will copy and paste it below (bare in mind this was written years ago when I first sort of began multi-shipping) but it still relates to this day for those who might be confused as I was a 100% CS shipper back in the day, they are still my OTP for the record! 

I just started enjoying other areas of the fandom too. If you dont care for the long answer no worries I’ll leave it under the (read more) bar and just ignore it, but if you do want to know a little about my experience and feeling with all the toxicity within the f OUAT fandom back then, then go ahead and give it whirl and come back and we can chat

Hellooooo. *blows out breath* Where to begin…

I made a post months ago about fandom negativity and how over time it got to me, I’m going to copy parts of it over here and add some more, newer thoughts since that post…And hopefully if you have the patience to sit through it you’ll understand a little better by the end.

*

I am a Captain Swan shipper (along with many other ships), I have been a member of the CS family for years and have loved it, I have made so many lifelong friends that I talk to outside of tumblr daily, however, there is something I have been…struggling, for lack of a better word, with for a little while.

Negativity. Fandom negativity to be specific.

(I also want to preface this by saying I am not calling anyone out at all, people who are discussing and standing up for their characters and/or actors. People who are having debates, wording discussions in way I never could articulate so beautifully, are awesome. I enjoy these posts and reblog them often. This is not directed anyone in the slightest.)

But there has been a lot of negativity surrounding certain areas of the fandom, there is no reason to beat around the bush, I am talking about anti-sq/anti-regina stuff. I see it on my dash from a few shippers, I see it in the “OUAT Spoilers” tag and on twitter and everywhere. There is literally this dark energy everywhere. This hostile feeling, and maybe I am the only who feels it but I am just going to honest and straight up say, it got to me.

It crept up in a way I can’t even explain…

I am the biggest believer in ship and let ship, shipping is supposed to be fun! It shouldn’t matter what is canon and what’s not, it’s about enjoying characters that you think have potential. It’s about discussing it with your friends and making fanart, and just enjoying. And yet at some point during my time in the fandom something in me changed.

I let the bad apples get to me, I let the hateful people get to me and twist my views on an entire fandom. When I thought of the Swan Queen fandom all I saw was the bad, and became so bad that I’d see a gifset or anything in relation to them and feel physically ill. Like a pit in my stomach, like a uncomfortable twist every time they came up.

I realise this sounds melodramatic, I mean how can seeing a gifset actually cause such a strong reaction? Such strong negative emotions… I suppose it was the accumulation of so much anger and bitterness towards the bad apples  (and also seeing my dash constantly with negativity, it is like being in a bubble) that I forgot that they aren’t a entire fandom, that I became hyper sensitive to everything surrounding SQ. It was confusing, I absolutely love ships between women, if anything 8/10 i prefer them, being a bisexual women i’ve learned take/appreciate representation where we can get it or possibly get it. [sidenote: it f* sucks that there isn’t more out there and i could rant about that for daaays] but anyways in this one show something just didn’t click originally.

I get so upset when I see posts about how the CS fandom is the most hateful fandom because there are so many amazing people who have become my family and who literally are like literal sunshine and I think to myself “How can you (sq’rs) judge a entire fandom by a handful of bad?”

But then I know what you’re now thinking… Isn’t that what you’ve been doing, Morgan? Yes, yes it is.

I don’t want to argue about which fandom has done the most wrong, or which is more guilty of hate, I just want to move forward. I want to watch the show again and have fun doing so. I want to watch OUAT and not feel annoyed every time Regina is on screen with Emma (because there is no reason for it). I want to watch OUAT with a lighter heart, like I use too back in season 3.

“I don’t know how, but I’ve simply decided to let go of all my hostile emotions, lets call it my new years resolution. At the very least I am trying to and you know what, I think I am getting somewhere good, I felt a lot better lately, my mood is up. You might have noticed a slight increase of Regina on my blog, I saw a gif of Regina looking at Emma (from 4x12) and thought “oh, you know I can see what you mean about the way she looks at her sometimes…” (tbh she looks at a lot of folks that way), it’s simply Lana’s acting.  But my point is, that physical negative reaction is gone.

And I am so fucking happy about that.”

-A quote from my months old post

That feeling has only gotten better and stronger in the months ahead, I have followed a few multi shippers and begun to interact outside of my usual circles, and its going good. There are always days were anti’s irritate me but I think that is normal, overall I am happier.

I am so sorry if this feels fake to some of my friends on tumblr, who I have openly talked negatively about characters/ships with, I don’t take back my beliefs on  some of their actions or our discussions, I’ve simply chosen to try and move past it. And look at it from a wider lens…

I don’t know if I have properly articulated myself during this post but I really just wanted to get this out in the open because I love and adore the CS fandom but I also want to open up a little more, I know that although I few of my friends on here wont agree with my opinions on trying to be more regina/sq friendly I am sure you’ll support me because you always have, and thats what friendship is.

HOWEVER, back to the main purpose of this swan-queeen side-blog I understand and acknowledge that this is my change, and my choice. A lot of people don’t have to follow me in it and don’t want it on their dash, I have a little under 5k on my main and I know that they followed for a specific set of content. With that in mind I am putting this kind of content on a separate platform, if you want to join me I’d love that, if not I understand everyone has a right to their feelings/opinions.

Anyways I have so much more to say but I’ll stop here or you will be falling asleep, I am always here to chat and discuss things so feel free to hit up my ask/messenger/etc…