#is now at 50% instead of ?queerbait?

[chicken-wayng]

Us:

[catboygirling]

you know what? big post. spoilers obviously

it was trying so, so hard to be funny that it became incredibly sad. like a standup comedian laughing at their own joke to fill the silence.

and when it wasn't doing that, it was SO BORING. every time it cut to an area 51 scene I felt a piece of my soul leaving my body. fun fact: this is the only movie I've ever gone to see more than once in theaters (thanks, @t0xic-planet) and I was trying really hard to not fall asleep the whole time. the movie was at 7pm so it wasn't like I was up past my bedtime or anything.

so many scenes just... didn't need to be there? why did Eddie rescue all those dogs? why did we need a flashback to Payne's brother getting struck by lightning?

okay enough of the tone stuff how about THE CONCEIT OF THE MOVIE DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE. like, Eddie is a wanted criminal. if he was smart, he'd hitch a ride to Guam or something where no one will care to look for him, or maybe get an unassuming job in a farm in a nowhere town in Mexico, and then we could get some wacky shenanigans about Eddie and Venom trying to hide their identities from authorities and from the locals. that sounds like fun! but instead he specifically goes back to the US? to NEW YORK? a huge city? where Eddie CONFIRMS he used to live so people would probably recognize him? he's weirdly confident about the blackmail plan when there are way better options out there.

and the bit at the casino! firstly, Eddie could have walked two blocks down the street and found a casino that doesn't give a fuck about what you wear. casinos prey on desperate people. desperate people probably can't afford tuxedos. secondly, WHY THE DANCE? I love seeing Mrs. Chen back and everything, but why did Venom transform just for a dance number? why does EDDIE need to point out that it'll just bring the murder machine right to them when VENOM should definitely know that already?

actually, what's with the music in this movie? why did the hippie family sing an entire song? was it just for "haha Eddie is uncomfortable" and "haha Venom funny" because that's already about 50% of the movie (the other 50% being dull area 51 scenes).

WHY DID IT PLAY THAT MAROON 5 SONG AT THE END. WHY DID THEY MAKE AN AMV. THIS WAS AN ATTACK ON ME SPECIFICALLY IT'S ONE OF MY LEAST FAVORITE SONGS EVER AND THEY PLAYED THE WHOLE THING

ahem. one positive thing about this movie: I did like the designs of all the new symbiotes. I liked the Big Snake. it's really weird that they introduced a whole METEOR of symbiotes crashing to earth between movies (unless I'm forgetting something here) and also they all died instantly anyway, but. I did say one positive thing

okay, last one, and the cardinal sin of this whole movie: it is simply not gay enough. the other Venom movies were stupid and goofy (I'd argue to a more funny/charmingly bad degree than this one, but still), but we all know what makes them great. the weird almost-queerbait of it. in the first movie, we have the lines about Venom choosing to save earth because of Eddie, the kiss with Anne, probably other things I'm forgetting about... and Sony understood that appeal, which is why they made the infamous romcom trailer and really pushed the queer(bait) vibes in Let There Be Carnage. you have the "break up," the rave scene, "I am out of the Eddie closet!," Venom accidentally saying he loves Eddie...

in general, I think Eddie and Venom's relationship really regressed in this one. Let There Be Carnage REALLY amped up the "toxic relationship" vibes between them, so I figured everything would be peachy with them by now. but honestly, they seem even worse off than in the last movie. with the exception of some of the hippie family scenes and the very end, they are at each other's throats constantly!

I'm not totally delusional about this. I was not expecting a kiss, or a direct love confession beyond what we had in Let There Be Carnage. I know not to get my hopes up. but there was nothing in this movie, aside from the "you would make a good dad" comment and the very end of the movie. how can we cut THAT into a romcom trailer, huh?? imagine if instead of the stupid scene where Venom dances with Mrs. Chen and nearly gets them all killed for no reason, Venom fused with HER (after all, the xenophage only detects them when he's fused with Eddie), and forced Eddie to dance along with Venom-as-Chen? it would've covered up a major act of stupidity AND offered some "ooooo was that Venom or Chen that did that" ambiguity, like the kiss in the first movie.

uh anyway please stop making venom movies we have moved past the need for more venom movies

guys please stop posting about venom 3 it's not even good. this is coming from someone who ADORES the first two. not in the mood to make a big post about it but come on 😭

[livebloggingmydescentintomadness]

now that it’s all over, i gotta say how incredible and bitterly hilarious it is that not even greed is stronger than homophobia.

like, people love misha collins. people love castiel. when they killed cas off in s7, viewership dropped by thirty percent and they had to scramble to rewrite him back into the show - and he’s only gotten more popular since then. at spn conventions, they have two costume competitions - one for castiel cosplayers, and one for everyone else. there are only a fraction of sam and dean costumes compared to cas costumes. misha is, as far as i know, the only cast member to do photo ops as his character - he puts on the suit and coat and takes pictures with fans while behaving like cas. people love it.

and people love destiel. it’s one of the biggest ships on the fucking planet. it has 90k+ fics on ao3. you can find destiel merch just about anywhere. after 15x18, destiel trended online over the presidential election. 

a ton of people tuned into the finale just on the hope that cas/misha would return, that they’d been lied to when it was said 15x18 was his last episode. if they had teased a clip of cas coming back - forget that, if they had teased a clip of a kiss? millions of people would have tuned in to see it happen. people who’d never watched the show and never would have watched the finale would have watched. sure, they would have faced some blowback from the conservative fans, but that wouldn’t have mattered after the finale.

and if they had embraced cas and embraced destiel, they could have milked that cash cow for years. they could have marketed to the entire queer community, they could have patted themselves on the back and “proven” they were never queerbaiting at all. they could have grown the fandom instead of shrinking it. the money-making opportunities on cas and destiel are practically limitless.

instead, they fucked over not only cas fans and destiel fans, but dean fans and sam fans; i’m not in w*ncest and bronly circles, but i can’t imagine even they enjoyed this, considering sam just moved on with his life after dean died and they were separated for 50 years. people are utterly furious. there’s a real chance that this fandom is going to completely implode, game of thrones style, and nobody will want to go to cons or buy spn merch anymore. it could have been cool to like spn, now it’s more embarrassing than ever before.

and all that because some dudes out there were like, i hate the idea of two men kissing more than i love piles of money. that’s fucking wild.

[chaoskirin]

Media and Mistakes

In light of the video Alex Hirsch posted about the emails with Disney Standards and Practices, I’d like to remind everyone of the following: 

Creators often have limited control about what they are able to “get away with” on screen. S&P creates problems where there are none. And instead of telling religious people to fuck off (as they should) they bow down and cater to them. 

Yes, shows created in the United States are controlled by what the most religious people in the country will think of them. This is often because if Momma Born-Again Christian doesn’t approve of two men hugging, she won’t let Junior watch the cartoon or buy any show-based merch. 

So you get things like ‘bottles will be spun’ getting shit-canned because what if kids conjure images of kissing in their heads? How will they remain chaste for their future monogamous partner? 

It’s censorship under the guise of protecting children. And while this seems innocent enough--if a bit misplaced--it’s led to further censorship on materials written and meant for adults. I’m not going to link it here because then tumblr will tank the post, but look up a Virginia judge’s decision on “A Court of Mist and Fury,” wherein she opined that the book was obscene, and so as not to be seen by children, should not be sold in book stores. 

There are several other cases of book censorship in the United States RIGHT NOW, mostly involving queer material.

And with Democrats becoming disillusioned with the current administration and either not voting or (more confusingly) voting for Republicans, this is only going to continue.

Change does not happen overnight. The GOP has been playing the long game for over 50 years and are only now seeing their goals come to fruition.

With left-leaning voters’ impatience and resistance to playing the long game, I see attacks happening at the front lines denouncing shows for “not being representative enough.” If a creator tries only to be handcuffed by their network’s standards and practices department, the entire show is thrown in the trash. I often see the term “queerbaiting” thrown around without knowledge of what it actually means.

And just last week, left-leaners had a knee-jerk reaction against Lizzo--A known ally--telling her she should have known the meaning of a certain word and to literally “do better.” 

Lizzo, upstanding as always, changed the lyric to the song. The backlash was never necessary. Yet some people on Twitter have decided that the slip was unforgivable.

(And no--not everyone knows everything about every issue. This requires a whole conversation about positive Dunning-Kruger effect that would be too long to post here.) 

With left-leaning disillusionment, the initial response is always anger and dismissal. So often when well-meaning people make mistakes, they go vehemently unforgiven, especially when there is any initial pushback or questioning. 

While pushback and defensiveness are frustrating, I’ve often seen confused allies become initially defensive, only to change their mind with more information. Unfortunately, it’s become taboo to ask questions, which means by the time these people come around, they are unceremoniously dropped, and a new champion finds themself appointed in the eye of public scrutiny. 

And this cycle perpetuates. Perfection is expected. Any deviation from perfection is unacceptable. 

I will concede that after so many years, so many deaths, so much pushback from the right... Anger is often an appropriate response to many things. But it’s important to temper that anger and use it appropriately. When queer media is discarded for a single mistake, the people involved stop trying. When queer media is discarded, it sends a message to conservative networks that that media is not wanted, and so no more media of that type is made. 

Boycotting a show for not being representative enough does not send a message to networks that they need better representation. It sends a message that they need LESS representation. 

We also run into a new effect brought on by the age of the internet wherein well-meaning people essentially dogpile creators and messages of concern and constructive criticism are lost in a sea of absolute vitriol and rage. I’ve seen queer creators and allies run off their platform for a mistake they corrected many years prior, and I’ve also seen creators disconnecting completely from their fanbase to protect themselves. 

This leaves behind people who don’t care what you think. For example, no matter what you say, JK R*wling is never going to leave her platform. Conversely, no matter what you say, Jenna Marbles is never going to return. 

I know you’re tired. I know you’re tired of handholding. Again, I accept that the anger is righteous and oftentimes deserved, but it is SO IMPORTANT to remember that you are now a participant in a long game and you HAVE to play it. Become savvy. Learn who can be talked to and who is a lost cause. Reserve your anger for those who refuse to change. Try to give the people who mean well but made a mistake a second chance. 

I hope I was able to adequately able to convey what I wanted to say here. And I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of people whose response will be that it’s not their job to educate people. But the anger has gone so far as to be damaging, and I’m afraid what the future will bring if queer media is allowed to be censored for being obscene. 

[virginwhoredichotomy]

alright here’s the wikihow article i’ve been threatening to write on how to brainwash yourself into not entirely hating 15x20, or: castiel’s absence is a good thing, actually.

disclaimers:

- i do not claim that this is the intended interpretation

- i am watching the show with my destiel/dean coded cas girl goggles stapled on

- i do not enjoy being bitter about things i like and therefore probably jumped through a lot of hoops to arrive at this conclusion

i know there were a LOT of things people hated about the episode and this will not address all of them. my main issues with the finale were 1) the manner of dean’s death, 2) the unresolved dean/cas arc, 3) sam’s extremely emotionally hollow happy ending, and 4) cas’ complete absence. the production quality/editing/pacing was terrible as well but that’s nothing out of the ordinary on supernatural rip

1. the bad guy (spn writers room) won

my correct opinion is that this was, in fact, one of chuck’s endings (though i don’t think they made it bad on purpose). on a meta level it makes a lot of sense for this to have been chuck’s ending since he is the meta stand-in for the writers. as long as they are the ones telling this story, EVERY ending will be a chuck ending.

some supporting evidence:

from 14x20 moriah

chuck loves circular storytelling: sam and dean as cain and abel as michael and lucifer, or dean and jack as sam and john as abraham and isaac. we know that chuck’s ideal ending would have the brothers regress back to their brodependent s1 selves and then have them meet a tragic end (15x04 atomic monsters). and something that really stood out about 15x20 is the way it just... completely erased 15 years of sam and dean’s character development. someone said you could watch the pilot and then the finale and understand everything and that’s completely true and extremely frustrating to any viewer with a brain. it’s also a trademark of chuck’s writing.

if you watch it with that in mind, 15x20 is so reminiscent of season 1 that if you pulled jarpad’s hairline back across his forehead and slapped on a grunge filter it might actually be the walmart version of an alternate s1 ending:

- jenny the vampire returns

- complete absence of any characters that aren’t sam and dean

- motw, specifically working one of john’s unfinished jobs

- sam happily leaving his hunter’s life behind and living a normal picket fence life with his blurry spouse, the way he dreamed in s1 and has repeatedly stated is not what he wants for himself anymore

- dean dying as daddy’s blunt instrument

- i hate to say it but the borderline romantic framing of dean’s death scene also counts as a kripke era callback considering how many romantic tropes sam and dean played into during the earlier seasons. erotically codependet etc etc

- probably more but i watched the finale exactly once and am not planning on doing it ever again in my life

tl;dr the 15x20/s1 parallels aren’t just parallels, it’s sam and dean actually regressing to their past selves because they are once again living chuck’s story (or on a meta level: still living the writers’ story). they don’t notice it and neither does the viewer because the framing of the episode suggests that god is defeated and sam and dean are living life the way they want. and yet their endgames are anything but what they would choose for themselves.

(if you watch the back half of s15 through this lense you can also suddenly excuse dean’s character assassination in 15x17/dean failing to break the cycle and being a bad father to jack just as john was a bad father to dean. running in circles is kind of chuck's Thing. god made them do it is a god tier coping mechanism for everything i’m mad at supernatural about.)

it all comes down to what cas said: freedom is a length of rope and sam and dean hung themselves with it. imo it’s still a dissatisfying ending after fifteen years of character development but it is narratively sound. the reason the story set up all these endgames and then didn’t pull through is that the antagonist won. 15x20 is a depressing tale on the dangers of hubris.

OR IS IT.

2. castiel’s absence is a good thing, actually

alright so this is where i’m probably REALLY going against authorial intent. here’s the thing about cas: he is the only character in the show that possesses true free will, both within the story (”you never did what you were told”, god himself in 15x17 unity) and outside the story (the showrunners kept trying to kill him and he kept coming back, cas falling in love with dean despite writers, actors and network actively trying to prohibit it). so if cas as the representative of free will had been in 15x20 my whole argument would collapse because his presence would mean it either WAS the ending sam and dean chose for themselves, or that cas no longer possessed free will.

but what did cas do instead? he rebuilt heaven for them. heaven is now a paradise of his own making, a place free of chuck’s influence and it’s where sam and dean will finally get to choose their ending. off-screen. post canon. across 50 ao3 pages. dean and cas are shyly linking pinkie fingers as we speak. because the ending the characters choose for themselves is not the writer’s ending to tell.

3. on destiel

i've already talked about my feelings on deancas in dabbnatural/15x20 so i'll just link those posts:

- i think they handled dean and cas’ relationship very well given the circumstances (my post and another very good analysis)

- textual reciprocation or not, destihellers won

- supernatural = queerbait is discussed with like zero nuance on this website and it's annoying as hell

i wrote this at 2 am, i hope i've managed to make my point. again, i'm not saying that this is what the writers were going for. but i do think it's a valid interpretation for the most part and i hope it helped someone feel a little less bitter about the finale!

[all-chickens-are-trans]

I posted 9.356 times in 2021

900 posts created (10%)

8456 posts reblogged (90%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 9.4 posts.

I added 4.750 tags in 2021

#my posts - 932 posts

#dwh - 683 posts

#fanart - 603 posts

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Longest Tag: 139 characters

#sein vater ist eigentlich hsv fan und torte weiß bis dahin nicht so wirklich was von fußball und erfärt dass willi und fred st. pauli mögen

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

mutuals can kiss me to trans their gender. it's free it's easy it works 98.9% guaranteed

294 notes • Posted 2021-11-04 20:05:29 GMT

#4

a fun side effect of joining the terror fandom is that, every now and then, i'll see a pretty normal looking guy on my dash who looks vaguely, eerily familiar, but tagged with a show or movie title i don't recognize or a name i've never heard and i'm like. who is that? and then i notice a terror blog put it on my dash and it's like. ah. cold dead boy no. 47. didn't recognize you there without the face-consuming muttonchops and that look of utter despair

311 notes • Posted 2021-08-08 09:50:38 GMT

#3

anytime i see anything about that cruella movie i just think "team starkid's twisted did it better"

1563 notes • Posted 2021-05-28 14:43:48 GMT

#2

I think we should just stop asking ourselves "does good omens queerbait or not?" because it's the wrong question and all it leads to is chaos, vile attacks between various queer people, and disappointment. instead, the question we should maybe ask ourselves is "what do I personally want from this show? what kind of representation am I looking for?"

because that way, both "they should've kissed" AND "i love this nuanced portrayal of a non-sexual relationship" can be true at the same time. both "this show has canon queer and nonbinary characters" and "straight people will be able to deny that crowley and aziraphale are in love and that sucks" can be true. both "i personally wanted more physical intimacy or verbal affirmations of their love" and "i personally loved the ambiguity of their relationship" CAN BE TRUE.

good omens is good representation for some and not for others. it's unsatisfying for some and fulfilling for others. we don't need to shit on each other (or anyone involved in the project, like neil gaiman) to acknowledge that. if good omens doesn't make you happy, if it doesn't give you the representation you want, you can just step away and leave people alone who enjoy it. it's really that simple.

hope this helps

4492 notes • Posted 2021-07-02 10:03:08 GMT

#1

4554 notes • Posted 2021-03-29 14:02:05 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[bluebrine]

it’s still... odd to me that other people had such different experiences growing up with this series than i did. i had such a personal relationship with it... seeing others talk about the sequels, what they liked and disliked for the series- and it’s like, really? we had very different childhoods (...story of my life, ha).

in my elementary school, our library only had one of the books- Dealing With Dragons (the one with this delightfully cheesy cover by Tim Hildebrandt lol).

(also, please note, there is no indication here that this is the first book of a series. just..... keep that in mind.)

haha, what if 🤭 ..... i was beautiful princess, and you were a dangerously charming dragon 😜 ..... and we were both girls? 😳💦 

good god, little me LIVED for this book. i checked it out & reread it over and over again- the librarian must have got sick of me at some point but i didn’t care lol. i stayed up too late reading it with a flashlight under the covers, i read it during class beneath the desk (i was not... particularly stealthy. they kinda just let me think i was getting away with it lmao).

i know every young kid likes books with fantasy and magic to make their boring lives less lame, but the way i buried myself in this one was... 100% pure escapism. (pour one out for all the weird kids who had no friends outside of books, am i right ladies?) 

the story has a theme of just..... running away from it all, cause everyone else apparently knows so much more about what’s Right for you- what interests are Right for you, what clothes are Right for you, what boys are Right for you, everything! everything was chosen for you, no dystopian YA lit required! 

(CAN YOU POSSIBLY GUESS WHERE THIS IS GOING?)

i didn’t know what the concept of a lesbian was or why no one else thought it was weird that you couldn’t have interests that were Not Like Other People (the Right People), but that’s what this book meant to me. the entire core of the story was showing kids that you could pick your own hobbies, your own home, your own family & friends and it wasn’t up to the Right People to decide that for you.

fuck ‘em!!! run off to the mountains! live in exciting domestic bliss with a giant, well-read, protective dragon lady who can breathe fire and loves to eat your cherries jubilee every night (ABSOLUTELY NO METAPHORS HERE NO SIR)! back home your family is freaking out (but kinda relieved)- cause this is crazy, dragons are dangerous and ruin the women they steal away (where have i heard this before?), but also your family doesn’t... really miss you. they don’t actually want you back- as you were, anyway. once the prince sweeps you off your feet and away from the dragon’s evil clutches and properly marries you, oh sure, then you’re welcome back with open arms! (but that will never happen.)

fuck ‘em!!!!! make cool friends with other misfits and live a life full of adventure with the family you found along the way! there’s witches who live in eccentric homes with 50 cats, there’s neighborly old dragon grandpas who love chocolate pudding, there’s other girls who don’t think you’re weird and like to hang out and read magic books in the library too! you can make friends and be happy! it IS possible!

and that meant so much to me as a kid. i never fit in (i wonder why), i never seemed to like the Right stuff (I WONDER WHY), and for the things i did care about, i went about it wrong- according to the Right People, who didn’t much care about what i thought at all.

...anyway Dealing With Dragons is an allegory about the power of lesbian escapism & independence and i love it very much. i still love it, over a decade later. it’s a fun, captivating, whimsical little tale that means more than childhood nostalgia to me. i spent hours daydreaming about the story in elementary school, content with the characters and setting in a way that just... settled something in me. 

but then i read the other books.

because there were... OTHER BOOKS!? WHAT??? (again, i never knew it wasn’t a stand-alone story lol).

when i got to middle school and had a whole new library to consume, i naturally looked for my fav type of books- those with cool fantasy ladies with swords and dragons on the front (that’s a genre, right?). and, lo and behold, there were more parts to my favorite story!!! lads, i lost my goddamn mind. there were THREE MORE? WHAT??? utter batshittery. how had they kept this from me? i had to read them immediately. 

what would the stories be about? i saw Cimorene on the covers, sword-wielding and pants-wearing (’fuck yes’, said little me). what adventures would she get up to with Kazul, now that she was king of dragons? what would life in their new home be like? the new libraries and treasuries and kitchens would be massive- what secrets would they discover? what was living in dragon society like, now that they sat at the top together? what new recipes would Cimorene cook with her friend??? (that one was very important to me lol).

i checked out all of ‘em at once, and channeled deep into the obsessive focus that only a truly lonely middle school girl can attain. I was SO EXCITED for this. 

-- and got my heart ground to dust under Patricia C. Wrede’s heel.

...because, see, i hadn’t known there was an Enchanted Forest Chronicles. i hadn’t thought about what that actually meant. it, as inevitably as the tides, meant the incoming of the one thing that made me truly hate reading sometimes- romance. cause these books weren’t about Cimorene and her friends or Kazul at all. they were about a sudden love interest and the child Cimorene had with him cause of course that’s what fucking happened. what else was i expecting? what else could stories possibly be about? i read through all of the books, feeling a little more like somebody shot my dog with each chapter, and could only feel sick when she got married & pregnant at the end. i was 11 years old and i knew something was wrong but not why.

(aaand looking back now, was that baby’s first taste of queerbaiting? does it count if you do it to yourself?? ah, youth. i don’t let myself get my hopes up anymore.)

for a very long time, i hated the idea of love (...quite the oxymoron, that one). cause it always, always meant that the people i cared about changed in ways that i didn’t understand at all. what, some boy you’ve never met before shows up, and suddenly your important quest and friends and family are... an after thought? why? don’t you care about them? don’t you love them too? why does this always happen? why is there always a boy and love and babies and nothing else? (why, why, why indeed? and yes, i was one of those kids who got fucking mean when their friends started only looking at boys, how’d you know?)

anyways. i hated it. i couldn’t possibly have articulated why back then, but it always made me so mad, despite the fact that the words on the page were telling me that this was the best thing that could ever happen in life. that just made it worse, cause why am i getting so upset over this? it’s a good thing, objectively- they’re in love. they’re happy. why is it making me feel so fucking angry instead?

this series doesn’t really... deserve any of the repressed vitriol it made me feel, though. Cimorene’s love interest that appeared in book two, Mendanbar, is actually a pretty cool guy! he has an innate, natural connection to his magic forest kingdom. he’s sick of fairy-tale tropes, he has a sweet anti-wizard sword, he’s very kind and brave- and i fucking hated his guts (...lmao, sorry dude).

there’s nothing actually wrong with this series’s romances. the couples care about each other and support each other well. i’m glad for all the kids who got to see some happy romances, i truly am. but god, that wasn’t for me, and it probably wasn’t for the other lonely kids who picked up a book about running away from what the Right People wanted for them either. 

for a series about rejecting what society tells you is the Right thing to want, the characters just... end up wanting that exact same thing anyway. oh, the thought of marrying a man and spending your life with him, baring him heirs until you die, sounds unappealing? so distressing, in fact, you’d literally rather get eaten by dragons? WELL DON’T WORRY, this one particular guy is actually good! of course you’ll fall in love with him! you’ll want to be pregnant forever with his horrible frogspawn! you’ll be happy! 

...what do you mean this is what you were running away from?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

i spent... an inordinate amount of time as a child reading Dealing With Dragons. while i cannot possibly blame the author for my individual experience with their work, which WAS written as a series (the finale was written first, actually! way back in 1985), the fact remains that my interactions with them were... soured. 

in a way that was out of the author’s hands, really, but i just don’t know how to think about this series without that bittersweet hurt in my chest. i cried like, twice, writing this stupid, rambling essay thing, and i don’t actually know how to look past that. i suppose the tried-and-true method of just... rereading the first book and pretending everything’s fine always works lol.

i own a few different versions of these books. there’s a full set i was gifted later in middle school -the nice glossy ones, with Peter De Seve’s lovely cover art! -which i have never once reread. they’re in immaculate shape, really.

i also own an absolutely, completely beat-to-shit paperback copy of the same version i must have read a hundred times as a kid. its cover is creased and peeling, there’s a bunch of weird stains and rips and dogears, and i adore it. i picked it up this year at a used book place, and every time i look at it i can see some small, desperate kid who doesn’t even know they’re lonely but still curls up around that book again and again. 

[pass-the-bechdel]

The Good Place full series review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

96% (forty-eight of fifty).

What is the average percentage of female characters with names and lines for the full series?

49%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Forty-four.

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 50% female?

Twenty-eight.

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Zero.

Positive Content Status:

Good - you might even say, strong - in the sense that it’s all there, pretty much all of the big representation bells are ringing, particularly the ones for women and racial diversity. That said, the show is generally content to sit pretty and not push the envelope on inclusivity, so if you’re looking for inspiration in-text instead of just in casting, you might be disappointed. At any rate, it’s a solid feel-good time, and not likely to make you mad (average rating of 3.01).

Which season had the best representation statistics overall?

The numbers stay pretty consistent across the whole series, but if I had to call a winner, it’s season four, which has the highest percentage of female characters and the only above-average positive content rating (though that was awarded somewhat cumulatively, and so doesn’t feel particularly well-earned by that season above the others). 

Which season had the worst representation statistics overall?

It’s such a close call, but season three must be the loser here by virtue of the lowest ratio of female to male characters; it also had one of the series’ two Bechdel fails. Like I said, it’s...a really close call.

Overall Series Quality:

There’s so much about it that is fresh and original and interesting, I wish I could love it more. After a magnificent debut season, the show suffers immensely for a lack of pacing and the absence of coherently-planned plot, and at times the stagnating characterisation and pointless filler caked into the cracks in the storytelling can be frustrating and/or tedious. I’m only as disappointed as I am because the potential for greatness was so strong. That said, even at it’s worst The Good Place is still entertaining, and most of it is better than that. It’s irreverent, it’s fun, it’s surprising, and sometimes it’s even as poignant as it is remarkable. I have my gripes, in droves, but that doesn’t mean this show is not worthy.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

Imagine. Imagine a version of this show where the first season is basically the same, and the second season is...somewhat similar to how it is, but with more focus and direction, less time-wasting; a second season where figuring out that some fundamental change to their circumstances is necessary comes early, and instead of faffing about with ethical lessons in the fake neighbourhood again while Michael pretends he can get everyone to the Good Place, we get down to business with going on the run and into the Bad Place to find the judge and petition for help. Imagine this show, but the third season has none of that return to Earth crap, and instead, is the neighbourhood experiment from season four, properly fleshed out. And then season four is all about going to the Good Place and solving the problems there, addressing issues with the concept of utopia and the ineffectual bureaucracy of obsessive niceness (used for comedic effect in the actual show, but c’mon, there’s a whole untapped reservoir about morality there). Each season could have (gasp!) a properly-planned and plotted arc, dealing with a different school of ethical considerations, and I dunno, maybe the characterisation could have trajectory too, and the characters could vitally shape the storytelling, and maybe not get their personalities and experiences erased and rebooted over and over again, nullifying large swathes of the narrative which came before? Ideally, they could be reset zero (0) times, or at least have all their reboot experiences dumped back into them in the first few episodes of season two, so that they could proceed from there as whole people. Rebooting everyone’s personalities is not actually necessary to the plot in any way, and is, actually, incredibly detrimental to storytelling and especially, character development. Imagine this show, but just chilling out and actually telling a coherent story? 

I am all the more annoyed by how things turned out on this show because I know that the four seasons were planned for, rather than being the result of cancellation; the idea that the creators sat down and ‘plotted’ (using that term loosely) to make this mess drives me a little wild. The (attempted) avoidance of the dreaded ‘stagnation’ seems obvious, and it leads to major narrative shortcuts and jumps and instances where the show spends an episode or two on what should have been a half-season’s development, minimum, and yet at other times all momentum grinds to a halt for a bizarre bottle-type episode where the characters just talk about a concept for a while or work on some unimportant romantic subplot. The various ethical concepts that the show heavily incorporated as its bread and butter in the first season start to stick out like sore thumbs in season two, seemingly wedged into one episode or another for no real reason other than just to be there, and the fact that the show lets go of the idea of moral choices in the life mattering at all in the end leaves the backbone of the show in a very strange shape. I said in the season four review that I didn’t expect the show to come up with some One True Answer about how people should live their lives, but that I was baffled by the fact that the show side-stepped that altogether; what I expected them to conclude was something in the line of ‘we recognise that life is complicated, not all situations are created equal, and it can be hard to know how to proceed ethically or even to access ethical options within one’s circumstances. Still, it is important to do your best, not only for yourself but for your community, because the more good you put into the world, the more there will be to go around and come back to you. What matters most is that you are doing your best with what you’ve got’. The fact that the show distracted itself with fixing how the afterlife rewards people within the afterlife means that it suggests no incentive to perform moral actions in life, and frankly...who gives a fuck? The real world is the place we’re all living in, and there’s no point starting a conversation about morality in real life if the conclusion is just ‘guess we’ll straighten out all the fascists and bigots and the other pieces of shit after they die, so don’t worry, everyone gets to Heaven eventually!’

Anyway, if that seems like just a reiteration of what I said in the season four review, well. I’m still baffled by it. The other thing I was going to talk about in the season four review but held for the full series instead was that one big thing that I have railed about all the time since season one, and that’s PACING. For all ye wannabe-writers out there, please understand how important pacing is. Even vital plot or character beats can seem like meaningless filler in a poorly-paced story, because your audience’s mind is hardwired to try and follow narrative cues that are being incomprehensibly muddled. Standard structure can be played with, but if you toss it out in favour of ‘stuff just happens, ok? Except when it doesn’t’, you just end up with a soup of disconnected story ideas, and nothing threading it together. Character interactions and especially developments can help to create the through-line you need to keep the story functioning despite itself, but as variously noted with The Good Place...initial characterisation? Strong, excellent. Development? Not so much, not least because they kept getting deleted and rebooted. Also, time skips kept happening, and that’s a great way to fuck over your narrative coherence even more: remove the recognisable constant we call time! It’ll be fine! As with all things, it is perfectly possible to play around with this stuff, but you have to know what you’re doing and be doing it for a good reason, and that’s not what they had going on here. This was narrative soup, and when you have a soup, the pieces all kinda meld together and lose any individual purpose, meaning, or power they may have had. The result in this case was not bad, but it really could have been so much better, and literally all it needed for that was some attention being paid to the story structure via pacing.

So. The good news is, I think I have pretty well exhausted all of my complaints by now, and that leaves us with the good stuff, of which there was no paltry amount. The show was not a hit by accident (even if I do feel that it’s success had a lot to do with people sticking around after the spectacular first season, and not because it stayed strong throughout), and even if there was a lot of soup going on, what comprised that soup was all really fun and unique, and this made for a wonderful piece of light-hearted television that could be as hilarious as it was insightful. It still had a lot of great takes on things, the commentary was strong (even if it pulled all its punches towards the end), and whether the storytelling was ebbing or flowing, it was always delightful. The show also managed to pull a miraculous finale out of its hat, and that’s a rare thing in television; however the story wobbled over the course, the ending provided enough satisfaction to forgive just about any sins, especially if you don’t happen to have been watching with a deliberately critical eye. Do I wish that Eleanor got to hook up with a chick on-screen some time instead of just making a lot of bi remarks? Yes. Do I consider the show to have queerbaited instead of providing genuine rep? No. Is the underselling of the queer content my most significant representation complaint? Yes, it is, and that's good news considering the world we live in and the dearth of quality representation that the industry has brought us to expect. 

There's an important distinction to be made there, regarding the tokenistic representation that is very common these days in tv trying for brownie points and good publicity, exactly that kind of 'political' inclusivity that conservatives are always bitching about. It should not be surprising that I support that tokenism over the alternative of having no representation at all, but it can still be quite disheartening to feel like your identity or the identities that you value are being referenced as nothing more than an opportunity for some shitty producer to perform wokeness for attention, praise, and the almighty dollar. I bring this up because - even though The Good Place never really worked up much of a boost to its content rating - one thing I felt that it did really, really right was providing representation without it feeling tokenistic at all. Eleanor's bisexuality wasn't as prominent as I might have preferred, and as noted through the course of the show, there were times I feared it was more bait than real rep, but reflecting on it at the end, the way it was included feels organic, it never gets in the way in order to ensure the audience notices and is dutifully impressed. The number of women around and the multicoloured casting plays out even better; I never once felt cynical about the gender balance I was seeing, and I've said it before but I'll say it again: the fact that the show was packed with names from across the world gives me so much life. I'm still a little salty about Chidi's Senegalese origins getting the shaft (and we won't talk about 'Australia'), but the nonchalant diversity of naming goes such a long way to embracing the idea that this is a world for everyone (and an afterlife for everyone, too). And where anything else might fall apart or lose its way, that is an affirming thing. If you want feel-good tv, it’s here. This is the Good Place.

[orionsangel86]

dude half the characters on the cw are lgbt..if destiel doesn't become canon it's not orders from above, it comes from everyone involved in the show, and especially dabb and jensen.

The network gave the go to make God bi, which risked to pi*s off several viewers. Them not making DeanCas canon makes zero sense. They probably won't make Eileen and Sam stay together. Why? Berens and a lot of the other cast and crew ppl follow acc like Super*iki. Berens even created a char just for her. He knows she loves under*ge in*est. They won't make DeanCas move out of subtext to make their friends like Super*iki happy. Don't believe me? Look at Jason F who told us all ships are the same.

.....

I have had both of these asks in the past few days and I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry about them. 

Anon no.1 - You seriously blaming Dabb and JENSEN for not making Destiel textual? ppffft bitch please. Jensen has basically admitted Dean’s feelings for Cas live on stage. This perpetual concept that floats around fandom like a bad smell in which Jensen is some anti Destiel homophobe has really got to be VANQUISHED. No matter how much we try to febreeze that bullshit out it still lingers URGH. I’m not sure whether to blame the bronlys or bitter destiellers for it tbh. Right now the lines between both are pretty blurred...

I have spoken about this extensively before. The CW is FINE with LGBTQ+ characters on it’s newer shows, where they are established as queer early on, so the audience is well prepared and willing to accept it from the start. What the execs at the CW might NOT be happy to approve, is taking their 15 year old ancient TV show with a 50/50 split republican/democrat audience, in which half the audience are straight white male republicans with a boner for guns, macho men and action scenes and watch the show purely on a surface level basis, and make the LEAD character who is known to that particular subset of the audience as being THE MOST macho dudebro, a queer character in love with the OTHER lead character who is also an angel.

Do you really not see the difference here? Making God bi? Yeah okay it was controversial, but God at the time was still a minor character in the show and it was a one off line in passing that those dudebro audience members can easily brush off. Making your lead character bi and having an entire story arc where he falls in gay love with his angelic best friend? yeah that’s gonna go down pretty differently. Besides, making Destiel textually canon isn’t gonna be something they can easily remove for the more homophobic overseas Russian and Chinese audiences. Also ask yourself this, since Chuck returned as a recurring character have they mentioned his bisexuality once? At all? Other than the line about him having a creepy obsession with Dean (which is hardly good rep for bisexuals anyway)?!? Seriously can you at least CONSIDER what I am trying to say here and use some critical thinking skills to actually understand this situation.

Anon 2 - See above re God being bi. Your ramblings have zero correlation. You are best summed up by this picture:

In case its not entirely clear, you are the guy on the left. I am the dude on the right. 

FANS DO NOT INFLUENCE THE WRITERS. SUPERWIKI DOES NOT INFLUENCE THE WRITERS.

Also Jason F is a troll who likes to joke around with the fandom. His word also means NOTHING in terms of the writers. The ONLY thing that matters is what we see on the screen, which right now is a pretty intense and heavy emotional plot between Dean and Cas that seems to be building to something pretty epic.

We can also take Jensen’s comments at the latest con into account because he let slip that Dean is into Cas, like literally slipped and confirmed it whilst making a dumb joke because the dude gets awkward when shipping is brought up even though in this case it was about Sastiel not Destiel and Jensen just went and confirmed Destiel, so thanks for that Jensen!

Seriously people just stop already. Your incessant need to come into my ask box and shut down my positivity with your ridiculous nonsensical reasoning is driving me mad. You wanna be mad at Dabb, Bobo and Jensen and scream queerbait from the top of your lungs? BE MY GUEST. I really couldn’t care less what you think. But if you really are going out of your way to put the blame on queer writers, and showrunners who are allies, and JENSEN who is a fucking actor and has no decision making abilities in the grand scheme of things, instead of blaming the corrupt greedy homophobic executives that sit at the top of the powerhouse networks, then you my friends are part of the problem. 

[kdramafeminist]

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly || the king: eternal monarch 1-4

GOOD!

-OST. Gorgeous, beautiful, will be listening on repeat.

-Directing. Strong Goblin vibes & whilst some similarities miiight be straight copying, the aesthetic was one of the best things about that show so i’ll never complain about seeing more of it.

-Jung Eun Chae. Queen. Goddess. Powerful, cunning Prime Minister & we should all bow down.

-Woo Do Hwan. Aka the duality of man. Still hot. Still got the best smile ever.

-Kim Kyung Nam. First time watching him! Instantly love him & also love his character. Upright & long-suffering with an edge. Gold.

-Kim Go Eun. I don’t always like her projects & (selfishly) wish she’d pick things more up my alley, but I can’t deny that she is one seriously, seriously talented actress. No matter who she plays, they always feel so real even if they don’t make sense. I love her.

BAD :/

-Lee Minho. My guy playing the same character again for the millionth time. Worse it’s one of my least favourite character types. (Literally what are the king’s flaws apart from being arrogant. Anyone?)

-Plot?? It was mostly just... look pretty... things happen... look pretty. Apart from the very beginning of ep.1 and the very end of ep.4 - no plot in sight.

-Nothing feels real. Idk how to explain this very well but I feel like I’m watching a show. As in, I don’t feel invested in these people and their lives and what will happen to them in the future.

-Nobody talks like a real person. It’s obvious & grating.

UGLY -.-

-No f/f relationships :( (Tae Eul & her rich cafe owner friend don’t count when they’ve shared all of like 2 scenes).

-Bitchy PM in power. The narrative’s trying really hard to push the Prime Minister as some terrible schemer we should hate. I can see you trying and I refuse to buy it. 

-Queerbaiting? Boo! Just make Jo Young x Lee Gon lovers instead imagine how much better...

-Jo Young x fangirl romance? Are they trying to make it a thing? Thanks I hate it.

BONUS ROUND: INTRIGUING...

-The villain. Lee Rim is still pretty mysterious even whilst his motives are pretty transparent. Which is to say, I’m interested to see how the political intrigue plays out. Love me some political intrigue.

-Lee Gon’s parallel world, living, not-mum. I think the angst of that meeting will be entertaining.

-Detective Kang Shin Jae. Are they showing how righteous he is early so we’re extra shocked when he flips to the dark side? Ik this is a wild theory I just enjoy it.

----------

I’m a solid 50/50 on this drama so I’ll keep watching for now and hope it tips into the good more than the bad! And also just jettison that entire “ugly” category pls.

[midshipmank]

*I don't know what The Untamed is and at this point I'm too afraid to ask* (would you mind giving me a quick overview/telling me what you like about it?) ((also you doing Howl's Moving Castle with your class is like the best thing since sliced bread))

Oh my gosh, yes! I’m sorry it took me a few days to get to this! I did try to keep this short. (And I’m so flattered you think my lesson plans are cool! Thank you!)

Okay, so in the simplest terms The Untamed* is a Chinese drama based on the novel Mo Dao Zu Shi (MDZS) by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. I’m not that familiar with the novel, but as I understand it, it was originally a web novel, but may now have been traditionally published in China (and possibly censored? I’m really uncertain about this). “Mo Dao Zu Shi” is usually translated as “The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation.” The novel and all of its adaptations** are Xianxia, which is a genre of Chinese fantasy that incorporates a lot of elements from Taoism, Buddhism, Chinese mythology, traditional Chinese medicine, etc. 

For the plot, I’m gonna stick to The Untamed since it’s what I know! It’s about two cultivators who meet when they’re teenagers. Wei Wuxian (the titular Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation) is the first disciple of the Yunmeng Jiang Sect--he’s considered to be a genius, but he’s also a mischievous troublemaker. He was adopted into the Jiang family as a child and would 1000% die for his siblings and it kills me. Lan Wangji is the Second Young Master (Er-gonzi) of the Gusu Lan Sect, and is known for being one of the “Twin Jades” of the Lan Sect (along with his older brother). He follows all 3000 of the Lan Sect’s rules to the letter and he’s also an excellent cultivator and super repressed (at first!). They meet, fall in love (though, yes, it’s all subtext because of censorship), there’s a war, Wei Wuxian kind of goes to the dark side for Reasons, then dies, and comes back to life 16*** years later. The first two episodes of the show actually take place in the future/present when Wei Wuxian is resurrected, then there’s a 30-episode flashback. The pacing is 100% ridiculous and I 100% love it.  

As for what I like about it....there’s a lot. I’m gonna try to stick to the main things.

1. The romance is so well done. Even though the creators of every single version of MDZS have to contend with censorship, the subtext is there and purposeful, and I am just going to steal this quote from this excellent Vox article because I can’t put it any better: 

“Their bond — which Netflix translates as “lifelong confidantes,” but which alternate translations usually interpret as “soulmates” — becomes transcendent, a chaste but heady yearning holding them together across time and tragedy. Wangji exudes soul-spilling longing, which Wang Yibo conveys primarily through mesmerizing infinitesimal facial adjustments that somehow contain Grand Canyons of emotional depth that will leave you clawing the floor. It’s like watching an inflamed Victorian melodrama, except instead of North and South it’s 50 hours of Wangji pledging eternal love to Wei Wuxian with the smallest curve of his mouth.” 

As someone whose formative years were full of shows that were all queerbaiting, watching a show full of subtext that actually means what it’s implying is some seriously addictive wish fulfillment. 

2. The Untamed absolutely bulldozed me where I’m weakest, and I will never recover--aka, the adopted family content makes me lose my entire mind. For some reason, adopted families (in which I do include found families, but by which I especially mean families that involve adoptive parents and children) are one of those things that get me right under the ribs without trying. The Untamed has so much adopted family content--Wei Wuxian’s relationship with the Jiang family (please don’t touch me) is the largest part of it, but there’s also some quality angst between Lan Wangji and his uncle (who was his primary parental figure), and [SPOILERS] Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji also have a child that they adopt together. Kind of. Almost. Listen, it’s complicated, and I’m going to keel over just thinking about it.

3. The way it tackles themes of morality is astoundingly well done. There is so much complexity, so much grey space, and so much angst--I have seriously never been so delighted to have my heart ripped out of my chest and mashed to pulp. I love complex villains, I especially love anti-heroes. This show delivered in all fronts, and I feel almost spoiled to be honest. As I understand it, the novel is even more brutal in this regard, and that is the biggest temptation to me to read it (it’s currently only available in English through fan translations).

So, those are the top 3 things I love about it! I could go on. I’m not gonna lie, there was a steep learning curve at first, and I would not have made it without the character/sect/Mandarin honorifics guide my twin made for me, but it was so worth it. I have not watched (or read, or listened to) something so escapist and delightful and angsty in years, and it’s definitely my go-to distraction in These Dark Times. 

*It’s Chinese title is Chen Qing Ling, which is why some people call it CQL. As far as I know, Chen Qing Ling does not translate to “The Untamed” at all. 

**There’s also a graphic novel that closely follows the novel + has an official English translation, a donghua/animated show (unfinished) that follows the novel more closely than The Untamed, and an audiodrama that I know very little about. I’m forever fascinated by how many adaptations have been made in such a short period of time. 

***So it could actually be 12-13 years? The timeline of The Untamed is not exactly the same as the timeline of the novel, and seems to collapse almost everything in the past into a single year, whereas in the novel WWX and LWJ knew each other for several years before WWX’s death. It’s much less clear in The Untamed. 

[dalek-in-heels]

Hi hello, I have Feelings about some (not all!) of the ways I’ve seen bisexuality and polyamory discussed in Magicians fandom recently, mainly in the context of how queerness is represented in the show / speculating about what’s next. Queerness and polyam are two things that are near and dear to my own lived experiences, so I want to put my voice out there. This turned into a 2k word jumble, but as always I am open to discussion around any of it! My opinions/experiences, not law, I like hearing other viewpoints, etc etc. <3

tl;dr 1) I think it makes narrative sense why Quentin hasn’t explicitly confessed his love for Eliot to his friends yet.

2) I think it’s canon that Quentin and Eliot are each unique representations of people whose bisexuality/queerness/no-label-sexual-fluidity manifests in different ways.

3) I think it’s canon that there is polyamory in A Life in the Day.

—

First, I want to make clear that, after literally decades in fandoms that queerbait (or not even that), I feel passionately about the writers finally giving us more explicit queer love stories. Like, viscerally anxiously needing some emotional resolution for Queliot. I’m not sure I’ve ever been this invested in a ship before tbh.

That said, I won’t be mad about how Quentin & Eliot’s arc has been represented so far, as long as it does continue to develop going forward. Like, if it’s not explicitly addressed at all the rest of this season? That’s an issue. But if it’s only addressed again, like, tonight or even just in the finale, and leaves open the potential for more development in season five while Eliot is actually not possessed? I can see narrative reasons for why that works better.

In large part because of Quentin’s motivations this season. This is key: They are telling a story about a man who has been suppressing his feelings for the man he loves, who he thinks doesn’t love him back, and who is currently possessed by a monster. Quentin’s cautious. He’s depressed. He’s not going around making declarations, precisely because this is a very different love story than the ones we’ve seen between any of the other couples. Not only because they’re two men, but in large part because one of those men is possessed.

Don’t get me wrong (ha)—I am 100% in the camp of people who want Quentin to make some sort of confession despite all of this, and I definitely daydream about there being some sort of extra footage from their 50 years that we’ve never seen. But also? Story-wise? I get why it hasn’t happened yet: The more things that are out there in the open for the Monster to use against Quentin—and against Eliot’s body—the more damage can be done.

I think that’s one of the things that’s so powerful about that scene in 4x06, when the Monster asks, Why do you care about him so much? and Quentin simply says, Because I do. Yes, we know from Eliot’s memory that it’s because Quentin loves him, but like can you imagine Quentin admitting that to the Monster? What shit the Monster would pull with that knowledge?? It’d be horrible. Quentin knows better. He’s keeping details as close to the chest as possible for a damn reason.

—

Which brings me to Quentin’s bisexuality: I don’t think him not talking openly about his feelings for Eliot erases his bisexuality. Yes, arguably he could have a conversation with Julia or Alice or whomever about it, but what purpose would that serve? Him just feeling even worse admitting out loud that he’s trying to save the person he loves who doesn’t even love him back? Much easier to contain if you don’t say it out loud.

One of the things I’ve really loved about Quentin actually is that his bisexuality is a version that’s relatable to me on a personal level. Quentin is a queer man who has mostly dated women (as far as we can tell in canon). I’m a cis woman who has, largely due to circumstance, mostly dated men, despite coming out as bi 17 years ago. There were also long stretches of time where I didn’t date anyone. None of this has made me less queer/bisexual. My sexuality is an undeniable aspect of me, but also, I pass as straight. A lot. Which is frustrating because I never want to pass as straight in straight spaces or queer spaces, but it’s a super common experience for a lot of us. I’ve known so many women who pass, many of us because we date men, and therefore people don’t see our sexuality as valid since it’s ~ not in practice. It is a part of us; it doesn’t matter what we practice or not.

Quentin is bisexual—or whatever label we as fans want to put on it, but he is not straight. He has had queer experiences and expressed queer feelings. That is canon. Honestly, one of the reasons why I’m drawn to him as a queer character is because he hasn’t put a label on it in canon. They are telling the story of a character whose sexuality is not heterosexual, and it is not the most important thing about him. That is valid. That is the underrepresented experience of many of us, and it is satisfying to see someone represented on television who has experiences with people of different and similar genders, and that is not the core of the relationship conflict. He knows who he is. As Jason has put it before, it’s the one thing Quentin isn’t anxious about. I feel that.

But okay, back to trusting if the writers will represent Queliot or not going forward? I think it’s important to remember that this show has always been pretty fluid sexually, so the writers driving down this route with two of their male leads is, while new ground, not an absurd expectation. On a less queer show, I’d be less trusting of how they’ll handle it, but I feel like out of any writers I’ve loved, these might be the ones who get it on some level? Yes, there are still majority heteronormative things going on, but this is not the first queer relationship we’ve seen on the show: We’ve seen Eliot with randos, we’ve seen Eliot with Mike, with Idri—and with Quentin.

Which, while we’re on that—Eliot’s queerness? Should also not be erased. He is not gay. He is somewhere on a fluid queer spectrum. That’s literally canon, so any hand-waving away of that is erasing it. Sexuality is just so much more complex than that, and I think it’s simplistic to say otherwise. There are people who see themselves in Eliot’s version of queerness (mostly men, sometimes women), just the same way so many people see themselves in Quentin’s version of queerness (mostly women, sometimes men). We deserve more explicit text of their past relationship and Quentin’s current feelings, eventually, but tbh I still think how it’s being portrayed is valid and has made sense within the larger narrative so far.

—

Okay, now I really need to talk about how polyamory is portrayed on the show.

I’m not sure how many people active in this fandom are polyamorous or not (please feel free to give me a shout if you are? I’d love to make more polyam friends here), so extremely bare bones crash course here, since it is an often misunderstood, underrepresented, and stigmatized relationship model:

Polyamory is a relationship model that can take many forms (not necessarily marriage, not necessarily hierarchical), and is always rooted in consent, open communication, and building trust between all partners and metamours (your partner’s partners) in a polycule. All polyamorous arrangements and other versions of non-monogamy are consensual—if they’re not, then quite frankly it’s not polyamory; it’s cheating or, at the very least, pretty dang toxic.

For many of us, polyamory tends to be an alternative to the monogamous “relationship escalator”—instead of every relationship we form having the expectation that it’ll lead to marriage (and/or moving in together, having kids, etc), we choose to explore all the different types of relationships that can form organically in our lives: maybe a long-term partner or two, more partners who are casual but no less cared for and respected, etc. Or there’s solo polyamory, where your primary commitment is to yourself, but you have open consensual relationships with multiple other people, short-term or long-term. There are literally endless other possibilities.

As for how this relates to Quentin & Eliot’s time at the Mosaic: I’ve seen the argument that it couldn’t have been a happy polyamorous thing if only Quentin had two partners. I don’t buy that. Sure, it’s common for there to be relationships where two people each have another partner or multiple partners, but that is not the one right way that polyamory is done or that people who practice it can be happy with.

I personally have been practicing polyamory for several years, and there have been long stretches of time where I simply haven’t wanted to be with anyone else besides my primary partner, even when he has had other partners, and vice versa, and I have still lived my damn life with love. Yes there has been jealousy and insecurity to varying degrees, but there is a lot of support to identify their roots and actively work through them, and face fears. “Love isn’t zero sum” is a phrase thrown around a lot in polyamory literature, but it’s true: The partner who’s only with one person isn’t somehow getting less love. They have their partnership, they have a rich, full life outside of any romantic/sexual relationships, and they have the freedom to be open to other relationships should the opportunities come along.

So, anyway, back to the Magicians: Do I care if the writers intended to show a version of polyamory on the screen in 3x05? Not really. Because what happened anyway, is they did.

I don’t think the writers would or even could get away with representing an explicitly polyamorous relationship, mainly because that is still pretty damn stigmatized and rarely out in mainstream culture. But I do think that they did what they could to make Quentin and Eliot be able to build a family together, which I think was a key part of their narrative. How else would they have shown Quentin and Eliot having a kid in that context? In the space of a highlights montage? I’m not saying Arielle was a fully formed character either, or that she wasn’t a pawn of some sort, but I don’t think she was a pawn to somehow prove Quentin and Eliot had any less real of a relationship. I think if she was a pawn, it was so that they could raise a kid together and have a family. (Which isn’t great, but that’s a whole other issue, not a queer erasure issue.)

My personal headcanon for the 3x05 timeline is that Quentin, Eliot, and Arielle had a polycule that was basically Quentin/Arielle and Quentin/Eliot, with Eliot and Arielle as metamours, who also have some level of romance and maybe the occasional sexual relationship. In my headcanon, they were all happy together, raising a kid together, growing up and out of the insecurities and fears that Quentin & Eliot had back in the present-day timeline. Like, I can’t picture a 25 year old having the exact same hang-ups as a 35 to 75 year old, you know? People grow up. They settle into themselves.

I think that kind of happiness is inherent in how Quentin and Eliot talk about it when they come back: it was sort of beautiful, we worked, who gets that kind of proof of concept. So why would Eliot turn down Quentin when they get back, if that life was so good? I think it’s because wow that is a lot to live up to, when he knows they are not the same people now as who they’d turned into in that timeline. They have those memories and some of that wisdom, sure, but also they are the same people they were back in the future. Eliot doesn’t trust Quentin would choose him in this context, so he runs from things he’s afraid of fucking up or not living up to.

Whatever they are or will become now, I really think that the polyamory in that other timeline was real though. Even though nobody was boning or making out, there was a family of people raising a child together. There were people spending their lives together. It’s not as much representation as we (queer people, polyamorous people) deserve, but it’s not erased either. We focus a lot on the fact that Eliot, upon return, brought up You had a wife. But quickly following that was And we had a family. That’s not nothing.

I think I’ll just end on that note. This is already so long. Let’s see what happens tonight!! [screams into the void]

[queerbloodyangel]

Hi! I haven’t seen the magicians and probably won’t but I’m interested in the drama/what’s going on?

oof sorry this has taken me so long anon, i havent been home much today and am just now getting time to sit down! i hope you don’t mind that i’m writing out a long thing, because quite a few people have asked me about it and tbh i just want to get it all down :)

so, little bit of backstory here: quentin coldwater is the main character of the magicians. the first episode of the show has him being released from a mental facility after he had checked himself in because he was “getting bad again”. after the doctor expressed concern for his well-being and said she wasnt sure he should be checking himself out so soon. he told her the only way she could stop him was if he said he had any plans of hurting others or himself, which, he didnt.

throughout the course of the show, the writers did an amazing job of showing quentin actually dealing with and talking about his depression. we saw him at his highs, and we saw him at his lows, and for a lot of people who have never seen depression depicted in such a real and non-romanticized way onscreen, it was revolutionary. i mean, it still is, some of the discussions he had with his friends about it were so fucking real that they had me in tears because yeah thats it.

anyway, along with that, quentin also was proven to be sexually fluid first in season 1 by having a threesome with two of his best friends margo and eliot. he also dated a woman (alice) for a while, though that relationship went up in spectacular flames lmao

in season 3, quentin and eliot get stuck in an alternate timeline together for 50 years. during that time quentin met a woman and had a child with her, but shortly after she died, and quentin and eliot raised the kid together, and stayed together until eliot died. time got reversed then, but because Magic, they both remembered what happened shortly after, in a quiet scene with just the two of them, because the taste of ‘peaches and plums’ reminded them, because they had lived near a peach and plum orchard in the alternate timeline. nothing more was said about it after that, though quentin and eliot remained extremely affectionate with each other.

at the end of season 3, and going into season 4, eliot gets possessed by a monster thats more powerful than any of the gods on the show, and completely unkillable. the monster also has an incredibly childlike mentality, so at one point quentin asks it if eliot’s still alive, and the monster says no. since up until that point the monster has been truthful to a fault, quentin believes it. 

episode 5 happens, and quentin and his ex, alice, are figuring out a way to kill the monster. during this period of time, quentin makes it very clear to alice that he has absolutely no desire to get back together with her, and with all of the shit going on with the monster/eliot, he doesnt even have the space to even think about them. meanwhile, eliots trapped inside his own mind, going through all of his worst memories trying to figure out a way to get out long enough to tell his friends that he is alive, and needs help. he goes through a ton of bad memories, including ones about his childhood growing up in a homophobic small town in indiana, ones involving betraying his friends, and basically anything else he can come up with. 

he realizes eventually what his worst memory is, and we go back to the scene from season 3 where he and quentin remember the alternate timeline. quentin asks eliot if they can give them a shot, because ‘we work. 50 years, who gets proof of concept like that?’ and memory!eliot turns him down. the real eliot apologizes to memory!quentin, kisses him, and he’s able to take control of his body long enough to tell quentin (eliot: 50 years, who gets proof of concept like that?

quentin: what?

eliot: peaches and plums, motherfucker, i’m alive in here)

quentin then jumps in front of eliot so alice’s attempt to kill his body misses, and the monster comes back. 

from that point on, quentin’s sole focus is getting eliot back. he sleeps once on screen, for a total of 15 minutes. he’s jumpy, on edge, exhausted, and clearly spiraling as it becomes more and more apparent there might not be a way for him to save eliot. up until episode 10, not a scene goes by without quentin reiterating that they have to save eliot, no matter what.

episodes 11 & 12 happen, and (if memory serves me correctly) quentin says eliots name once, maybe twice. he gets back with alice, and suddenly, is no longer spiraling (????) its as if eliot doesnt even exist.

episode 13 happens, they manage to get the monster out of eliot, and quentin doesn’t even spare a glance towards eliot, who’s lying on the ground bleeding out and need to be rushed to the hospital. quentin and alice have found a way to trap the monster in a rip in the universe, and take off to do that. things happen that make 0 sense, and winds up jumping into this rip in the universe along with the monster, and dies.

after his death, he winds up in the underworld, talking to someone, where he asks, “did i do that to save my friends, or did i finally find a way to kill myself?”

the person takes him back to earth, so quentin can watch his friends mourn him. instead of letting his friends actually talk about him, the writers had them sing a song as they threw their mementos of quentin into a fire, and that?? somehow shows quentin that his death was okay.

the writers (sera gamble and john mcnamara) are acting like they deserve an award or something because they killed off the ‘white male lead’, which, apparently is progressive or something. as if tv show writers haven’t been killing off mentally ill, queer characters for decades already. 

the writers didn’t tell the rest of the cast what was happening, until two days before the finale aired. the actor who played quentin (jason ralph) was under a gag order for a year, and they filmed a dummy scene at the end that had the gang realizing there was a way for quentin to be saved.

the actor who played eliot (hale appleman), an openly queer man, spent the last several weeks reassuring fans over and over that quentin and eliot’s story wasn’t over, to have faith, only to find out that he’d unwillingly been a part in this whole fiasco.

they killed off the character that honestly, probably 90% of the fanbase saw themselves in, and had latched onto with their whole hearts because of that. for a lot of us, it felt like watching a bit of ourselves die, and along with it, a love story that deserved to be told, that a lot of us believed would be told. i, personally have watched so many shows where the writers absolutely refused to make the ‘popular gay ship’ canon, and have even been part of fanbases that have been mocked for it. but this just. this shit is on a different level and i dont know what to even call it except for some bizarre take on queerbaiting that’s somehow 10000000x worse than that word can even describe.

again, i’m sorry this is so godawful long but i’m truly devastated over losing quentin coldwater. queer people deserve better, mentally ill people deserve better, and god fucking damn it so do i.

[freedom-of-fanfic]

Is queerbaiting a real thing? Before the klanti movement really got going it seemed like it existed, but they completely delegitimized the term for me. If I saw someone in another fandom try to claim queerbaiting, I would be more likely to question their shipping habits than the creators intention (bc i assume the creators HAVE no intention honestly).

It’s definitely a real thing, but I’ve seen less and less of it lately. 

Queerbait was a major issue in the gap of time where LGBTQ+ equality was making massive visibility & legal breakthroughs irl, but mainstream media representation was still lagging behind for various reasons (such as fear of pissing off the queerphobic straight/cis majority that made up most of their viewership.)

please note that the below account isn’t from a ton of research - mostly just fandom osmosis. anyone who has more information to add or use to correct this is invited to do so.

In a weird way, the disparity between media representation and queer visibility was (is) highlighted by online transformative fandom, where queering straight media, particularly by ‘shipping’ male main characters with each other instead of with their designated (female) love interests, was (and is) common enough to draw attention.* as transformative fandom visibility increased online, so did creator awareness of how transformative fandom was queering its characters. and in the space of time between high, positive visibility and low representation, queerbait was the result.

(*the popularity of ‘slash’ / mlm in transformative fandom is greatly exaggerated. however, it is comparatively common for a variety of complicated reasons, ranging from ‘it’s hot af’ to ‘this is how i realized i was a trans man’. )

In Western world/English-based media circles, real queerbaiting has traditionally looked something like this:

popular mainstream media series revolves around two or three reasonably handsome* white dudes who are either buddies or frenemies. director/producer/actor (usually a straight, cis (white) guy or guys)has/have never considered the possibility these reasonably handsome white dudes are anything other than cis & straight.

transformative fandom does its thing and a huge number of fanworks feature the reasonably handsome white dudes in romantic/sexual relationships with each other.

popular mainstream media director(s)/producer(s)/actor(s) get wind of transformative fandom making their straight, cis characters gay for each other. Cue ‘wtf??’ reaction, mainly expressed in uncomfortable ‘lmao aren’t girls** weird??’ jokes to interviewers / convention audiences.

popular mainstream media team realizes that the people creating all these super gay fanfics are also doling out tons of money for merch/conventions/etc. between this & increased LGBTQ+ visibility irl, it’s potentially profitable (and good press) to at least pretend to be down with queer ships.

with dollar signs in their eyes that directly conflict with their discomfort of how transformative fandom has queered their straight cis characters, the powers that be add references to the popular gay ships in future show seasons, teasing the fandom with hints of canon viability.

however, the director(s)/producer(s) never intend to make the gay ship canon, which usually becomes clear by the in-show references themselves, giving the characters straight love interests once their fun is over, and/or how tptb talk about the ship when appearing in news coverage.

(*Bandersnatch Cucumber is a mystery to me, I admit.)

(**transformative fandom being majority not-(cis)men, no matter what the percentage of women in it, it would likely appear to be ‘all girls’ to people who are socialized to think of a room that’s 30% women as 50/50 male/female. (as usual, and unfortunately, nonbinary identities are not really accounted for in these studies or discussions.)) 

 the two most well-known instances of such queerbaiting that I can think of are

Supernatural, where the creators & actors were hyperaware of their transformative fanbase from early on. before castiel appeared they made jokes & in-show references to wincest, and after castiel appeared the popularity of destiel led to multiple instances of ship teasing followed by intense mockery, both in-universe and irl.

BBC Sherlock, where the creators & actors made derogatory references to the popularity of the JohnLock ship. it had some mild referencing/teasing in-show, iirc. (at least Moffat was open about it never being canon.)

I’m sure there’s other instances, but this is what I can think of off the top of my head.

I think this slow disappearance of queerbaiting corresponds to a couple of things:

increasing industry exposure to transformative fandom (which has a lot of LGBTQ+ participants) by social media shifts, increased accessibility to creators, & more transformative fandom members being in mainstream media industries

the LGBTQ+ community & its concerns/desire for mainstream media representation being taken more and more seriously (and consequently happening more and more often).

time, exposure, and a slow invasion of transformative fandom participants gradually accustomed straight, cis mainstream media creators to their media being queered, and also made it safer for queer/lgbt+ creators to be open about their identity and creating content that acknowledges their orientation/identity. there was also a short-lived time where criticizing the interests of women was socially unpopular, and this courtesy was extended to transformative fandom as a space with many women in it. (telling anyone that isn’t a cis man that their interests are terrible and bad is making a comeback now.)

but even more importantly: media representation has slowly (far too slowly, tbh) increased, with more and more characters being introduced as not straight*. The idea of a queer ship becoming canon is no longer borderline absurd and sensitivity to the importance of that media representation continues to broaden and increase. in consequence, the kind of people who might have once deliberately queerbaited their audience with canon shipteasing and nods to the ship fans would no longer have many excuses to hide behind if they didn’t follow through in canon. 

basically: queerbaiting is out of vogue because the people that usually engage in queerbaiting are more likely than before to be punished for it in the public eye. it’s far from 100% the case, but it’s had a little bit of chilling effect on queerbaiters.

(*but hardly ever trans. unless the whole point of the show/movie is what a tragedy their life was because of being trans. and then they’re played by a cis person. (I’m very tired, y’all.))

up until this SDCC 2018, klantis were agitating that:

because the executive voltron team has mentioned several times that they were hoping very much to have canon LGBT+/queer presence in the show, and

with all the obvious canon hints* that kl4nce was going to be canon,

anything but kl4nce endgame would be ‘queerbaiting’.

but I hope the difference between what is being called ‘queerbaiting’ in this situation and what queerbaiting actually has been in the past is immediately evident:

the creators/showrunners were straightforward in stating a wish for lgbt+/queer rep in their show, and also in their uncertainty that they would get the okay from DW to make it explicit in canon. they have also never brought it up on their own unless asked, because the intent was never to trick anybody into watching vld by shipteasing non-straight ships as canon-but-not-really.

when asked about kl4nce’s fandom popularity, JDS & LaurM admitted that they never saw it coming - which suggests that early on, at least, there were never any intentional hints that kl would be canon endgame. if they had expected kl to be popular, that would point more to intentional direction to tease kl endgame.

in short: it’s pretty clear the creators did not intend to trick anybody into thinking kl was going to be canon king with the intention of yanking the rug out from under them, so ... not queerbaiting.

(*I don’t ship kl4nce & rivalships have never done much for me, so if you wish to read up on a kl4nce fan’s take on canon evidence that their ship will be endgame, you might want to check out the ‘klible’. it’s very, VERY long, & if it will only make you angry I would encourage you to not read it, but it will give you a feel for how kl4nce shippers who are sure kl4nce will be canon watch vld.)

You wrote this question before SDCC 2018/the news that Shiro is canonically attracted to men and was in at least one long-term relationship with a man in Kerberos was dropped. I wrote most of this before this news was dropped as well. 

it’s still not obvious that kl4nce will be canon or even that lance will turn out to be canon bi; if kl4nce isn’t endgame, I’m not sure what klantis will accuse the creators of. (probably still queerbaiting, tbh.) but to be clear: voltron has delivered on the only thing that the creators had said they were hoping to give us - queer representation, which has come in the form of Shiro being a (currently single but still valid af) dude who gets romantically involved with other men. whether Shiro ends up with anyone at the end of the show or not, or anyone else in the show ends up being canon non-straight/non-cis, he’s still queer and he’s still important af.

to be completely honest, at this point i would be surprised if romantic sk wasn’t the intended endgame of the writers/showrunners. I don’t know if that will be allowed to be explicitly shown, however. and even if it wasn’t the intention of the showrunners to make sheith romantic canon, I still wouldnt’ call it queerbait. No matter what Shiro’s romantic prospects are at the end of voltron, he will still be canon queer, headcanoned as gay(as in mlm-exclusive) by the creators, and have had a long-term, loving relationship with another man that was explicitly shown to have existed in a kid’s cartoon. 

the LGBT+/queer community has everything in the world to celebrate in Takashi Shirogane. :)

[uncontinuous]

i think sonam kapoor got typecast. i found her charming as hell in sawariya but when it seems lile she became second fiddle to deepika at her debut time like imran did to ranbir, she wasnt prime roles to hone her craft. like she was fresh faced and just getting in acting but i wish her career took of like alia's. but nonetheless i am so glad she is doing this. like good lgbt movies in bollywood are rare. fawad , manoji , shabana and a few others like rahul bose have done it right. which is sad

I think it’s a 50-50 with Sonam. Her career trajectory shares a lot of similarities with Abishek and Kareena.

Kareena had an okayish start before she rose to where she is now. But acting wise she’s just a tad better than mediocre, it’s just that we give star kids too much credit.

On the other hand, I personally find Abhishek a much better actor, (still mediocre but better) but he had to live up to being Amitabh’s son in the public eye. (Who let’s be honest, Amitabh was a mediocre actor in his day with a one typecast pony, but got leaps and bounds better as he became older and took on a variety of roles. And I say this as someone who grew up watching Amitabh movies with my grandmother.) And hence Abhishek is not as popular.

Sonam sort of falls in the middle. She got dealt the dirtier hand of being a star kid, because her entry into the business coincided with others from outside the industry, like Deepika and Anushka. So, while all star kids who are also equally mediocre are enjoying a shit tonne of fame for showing some basic acting and dancing skills, she didn’t. I mean the best example is to look at her own cousins. They’re all mediocre and Jhanvi seems wooden but everyone is creaming themselves over her because she’s Sridevi’s kid. (Also I love her, but Sonam’s voice can be annoying to the ears at times, and that certainly hasn’t worked in her favour.)

But thanks to all of this, Sonam has also been put in that unique position where she can take on these kinds of roles. Because honestly can you see Deepika or Anushka or Aalia or Katrina doing these roles? They’re too big names to risk tanking their careers. Or fuck even someone like Kangana? Who’s the controversy darling?

Nah Sonam can do bullshit like this because she’s taking full advantage of her star family backing and also now that she’s married to a rich guy. She can pull a Sridevi or Madhuri and she knows it, and she’s using it to full advantage.

And I’m selfish enough to be happy because we fucking need content like this. I’ve waited for years for a big budget romcom like this. I’ve waited for big name actors to put their money where their mouths are and deliver instead of talking about being progressive.

No indie movie which can be brushed aside. No “foreign” director which can be brushed aside. No evil queer people. No fakeout queerbaiting. None of that Dostana nonsense Karan Johar pulled.

No this is your typical Bollywood flair, dare I say it, 90s nostalgia romcom where the biggest obstacle is always the parents not approving. It’s set here. It’s cutesy. It’ll hurt in all the right places Bollywood movies target. And I’m so ready for this.

[ottitty]

Ok ok so I haven't gotten super far into this book but its enough to give a brief idea of what it is

So, basically, despite as advertised in both the title and synopsis where the book is about knights, the first chapter actually takes place on the Red Sea. It follows a Sicilian pirate named Camini and the Lord Reynald who hires him and essentially partners up with him to sail on the warship around the Mediterranean (for reasons not yet revealed).

This book was first printed and published in the US in 1971 (although republished later in the 80s), which, for historical context, was fresh out of the Lavender Scare (a form of "second-wave McCarthyism" that targeted queer people, specifically gay men and lesbians) and two years after the Stonewall riot. During this time, various methods that are now used for queerbaiting ("an attempt by advertisers or canon creators to draw in a queer audience... by implying or hinting at a gay relationship that will never actually be depicted") was kind of a common practice in LGBTQ+ literature, but not necessarily in the way we think of it.

Despite common definitions and examples we know of queerbaiting today, the historical context definitely changes how it's viewed. Queerbaiting, as we know it today, is used in various forms of media to imply that a character, song, movie, story, or person is queer but either not explicitly say so or sometimes kill the queer character instead. This happens often in popular shows like The 100 or Supernatural.

However, those same "bury your gays" tropes actually have their history in literature by queer authors. While its origins take place long before the 20th century, these same methods queercoding and baiting that's now used by these large corporations were often used in times of unrest and violence against queer folk.

So in times like the Lavender Scare when LGBTQ+ identities were largely frowned upon and often illegal, queer writers would often imply those queer identities or relationships without explicitly saying so in a way that would allow them to write about their own experience but still be published without the risk of being outed.

So, from this arises the unique genre of infamously strange books in America, starting from the late 50s to 60s and running all the way up until even the 80s where you'd find characters that were heavily coded as queer, even if on paper they were said to be "just friends." Within that time, the book I'm now reading was written and published.

So, back to the book:

The first chapter starts just after Camini's ship was attacked. They had lost many of their men, most of their fleet, and now are making a quiet escape. This is where Camini is first introduced.

Reynald is introduced not long after that, and their first interaction in the book is.. tense:

...when [Reynald] slept, he enjoyed the tranquility of mind that comes to a man who has done his work well. Yet he slept in the shallows and as Camini advanced in silence toward the prow he came awake and twisted to a crouch.

'You,' he snarled, 'don't you play the dancer with me.' He made a sharp sideways movement with the knife, then pointed it at the pirate's [missing hand], 'Creep up on me like that again and you'll hold your wine mug with your feet.'

So, okay, they're enemies of some sort.

However, the book goes on to describe them as a team, and while it doesn't seem to touch the full extent of their origins as a pair, it does establish that Reynald did hire him and bring Camini and his ship all the way from Sicily for whatever they're doing.

Beyond that, they also seem to have nicknames for each other? And while admittedly I'm not the most amazing with social cues, it does come across as somewhat affectionate. Reynald is a prince of some sort, yes, Camini seems to use Prince as more of a nickname rather than a title, and in turn, Reynald calls him Sicilian.

When the port had been taken the two men had disagreed over some trifling detail and Reynald had used his sword pommel to club in three of Camini's teeth. Since then the Sicilian had limited his observations to nautical matters and Reynald had left him alone.

And now it's established again that they are not friends, but by god with my own willpower and the VERY queer history of pirateers, I am DETERMINED to make this as gay as possible.

Now the pirate held up his good hand, gestured for [Reynald] to hold his temper and said, 'We are well clear, Prince.' He whistled through the gaps in his teeth and it amused him to see Reynald smile.

When he killed the Lord of Kerak, as he had promised himself he would, he hoped to devise a way of death that would also make Reynald whistle.

...I don't know about you, but I'm sensing a real plot twist in their life is about to happen soon (enemies-to-lovers arc). Camini is PINING for this man and I will die on this hill. I mean, shit, he'd kill a guy just to see Reynald happy??? That's... pretty gay, bro, ngl.

Then the ship is attacked, more weirdly amicable disagreements between the two and bits and pieces of background, but beyond that, I haven't gotten that far in the book. I just really wanted to talk a bit about it, which... I'll probably be posting and rambling about it more at the end.

But, all in all, I still have no idea how this ends. If they end up together? I'll sleep happily. If they don't? ...you'll probably see me writing Camini x Reynald fanfiction. I kind of love their dynamic.

All in all, while it's far from something I'd normally pick off the shelves, I actually really like this book. It's definitely strange in some ways- mainly with its mix of French and Arabic into the dialect used for the narration, not a lot, but just enough to stand out from the odd French, Japanese or Italian word that Americans like to sprinkle into their vernacular for some reason (the amount of "proudly german" whitebread Americans I've seen use "Ciao" in both media and in my life is... strange)- but it's actually written really beautifully so far, which exceeded my expectations considering how oddly written romance novels in general tend to be, in my opinion.

Of course, with the queer history given in this post, my knowledge is limited, especially to the country I live in. So please do take my word with a grain of salt as opposed to the word of more qualified historians (in short: please do your own research if you want to know more about this topic). This post is merely my own theorizing, and I am but a freelance projector of my own queerness onto characters.