#it's telling us it's not queer subtext

[tadhannahj]

just as when you thought it couldn't get any gayer than hatefucking fighting in a Honda Odyssey while You're the One That I Want is playing, and holding hands while saving the world in the beat of Madonna's Like a Prayer,

Wade invites Logan to live with him while Arethra Franklin's You’re All I Need to Get By is playing in the background and the lyrics are all just:

"I took one look at you, and it was plain to see you were my destiny.", and "Darlin' in you I found strength where I was torn down. Don't know what's in store but together we can open any door.", and "I know you can make a man out of a soul that didn't have a goal."

and they live together with Wade's mother figure, and a dog, and a daughter!

[gh-0-stcup]

My thing is that I just do not trust a single person who was involved in the show. It just seems like a lot of PR to fix their image and foster sympathy/goodwill/interest.

[agreyrose]

Good morning I love blocking annoying hetlors who pounce on my posts for absolutely no fucking reason. Bye!!! 😃😙✌🏼🌈

[arodrwho]

[id: meme of eighth dr who, saying "as this is doctor who in 2024, does that mean i have to snog a bloke, now???" end id]

Saw a really stupid reactionary thumbnail today and this part in particular is so fucking funny. They clearly do not realize the irony in using this particular incarnation of the doctor to say this

[fordtato]

Alex Hirsch will imply or say through text and subtext of books about FiddAuthor and BillFord, while Dan Povenmire and Swampy Marsh will just have Perryshmirtz moments on Chibi shorts and tiktoks... and you know, sometimes I'm glad I get to live in this world. (I made this weird train of thought connection through the ending joke in Bill's interview in the book.)

SPOILERS: Look, no matter how one feels about it, Hirsch used terminology associated with romance and breakups throughout nearly every interaction between Ford and Bill. "Attracted-to," "will-they-won't-they," "were we even partners?," starting a conversation after a fight with "Can we talk?", calling Fiddleford a "third wheel," etc. - THESE ARE QUOTES.

Also, Bill uses language that is INCREDIBLY tied to abusive relationships when talking to Ford: "who else will make you feel like this?" etc.

Hell, Bill goes on a drunken bender after the breakup. Mabel calls Ford Bill's ex, and tells him to "get over" her Grunkle.

I've seen some discussion on the timeline on whether or not it's problematic to make BillFord canon and my thoughts are: this book DEPICTING an abusive pairing (or at least using language that echoes an abusive relationship), and then framing it through the lens of an unreliable abusive narrator is not the same thing as glorifying, romanticizing, or supporting the pairing. The people reading this recognize that Bill is a villain and not to be trusted, you know? It isn't even shades of grey, it's 100% depicted as the most ruinous thing in Ford's life. Hell, I think it's just very compelling writing. I love this. I think it's so interesting. Books should be able to tackle this.

And then the Fiddauthor fodder. The FIDDFODDER. He handmakes Ford two xmas presents, and makes nothing for Emma-May??? HE COMES BACK FOR FORD AFTER HIS FIGHT WITH HIS WIFE? AND THEY WERE ROOMMATES IN COLLEGE? AND FIDDS MADE 5 PROTOTYPES TO HANDKNIT FORD GLOVES??

The book also has a reference to Ford possibly being ace. Ford has nightmares about a pop quiz asking him what he's attracted to. He answers "planning and preparation." So, I have layered feelings about these tongue-in-cheek references to asexuality without just SAYING asexuality, you know? Like when it's wrapped in a joke, I think it affects how meaningful it is, but I'm not ace, so it's up to ace people to decide how they feel about this. But I do think it's interesting.

At the very least, this book adds queer undertones to the way Ford and Bill interact. Book of Bill gave more queer undertones in the TEXT, not just subtext, to how Ford interacts with others, and while that experience is translated through an abusive relationship, it's still there.

Y'all, this man is queer. I can't believe I'm not seeing everyone talking about this. Ford is queer. I don't know how to define his relationship with Bill Cipher, but it isn't straight.

[queenoflattes]

yes it fucking hurts. but as someone who was in the absolute trenches of queer shipping on this website ten years ago, relying on scraps and subtext while the actors and showrunners barely hid their distain for us even as we single-handedly kept them paid and successful

all I can think is how LUCKY we are that we get that anguished declaration of love, the angsty kiss, the creator and cast who are thrilled and honored to be telling a queer love story, who are fighting to keep telling that story and give it a happy ending.

all I can feel is grateful for how far we’ve come

[teambyler]

YES Mike eating fruit on pizza was a gay metaphor

I saw a comment saying that Bylers are delusional for finding gay subtext in the "fruit on pizza" scene. We're "overanalyzing" things, they say!

Thing is, that's not the only gay metaphor WITH FOOD that is in Stranger Things. Remember this?

Any LGBT+ person has to react to this the way I did: haha that's a gay joke! "You can't have two of the same thing together"!

And then Robin gave her the jar of jelly, which gave it new meaning:

Vickie was just rambling about her ex-boyfriend and holding 2 slices that were incompatible. But Vickie is compatible with ROBIN. It doesn't matter that she's also a girl, you see! Giving her the jelly and their unspoken shared look and understanding is THE moment they realize their attraction is mutual.

And they made these points about Rovickie with food. (Also see another easter egg where they used food to associate Will with Mike.)

And then Vickie's immediate next line: "I don't know what's wrong with me." She talks about her mouth moving faster than her brain, but the GAY subtext is here also. Something "wrong" about her = being gay = feeling "like a mistake." This is Vickie telling Robin "I'm kind of odd / gay, you know..."

The Stranger Things writers KNOW about gay subtext. So when Mike calls FRUIT (a derogatory term for gay men) on pizza "blasphemous" and comically is made to eat it, AND he says afterward "No, you're right. It's good"? ...

... we're just supposed to IGNORE that????? Just accept it? And if it's not that, then what was the point of the scene?

It is frankly, a pretty BLATANT hint that Mike is QUEER.

And he loves Will. This isn't some unrequited love story -- the writers know the proper way to handle that which is to resolve it quickly... they did that with Dustin's hopes for Max being introduced AND resolved within the space of a season. (Same with Steve liking Robin.) Meanwhile, Will's love for Mike has been built over FOUR seasons, and everything remains unresolved between them, the Painting Lie being one of the most important things. (Will coming out to Mike being the other.)

-teambyler

[vasquez-rocks]

i know most ppl haven’t seen it yet but wanted to write something abt how annoyed some of the critical discourse abt I Saw the TV Glow is making me. MAJOR SPOILERS below the break, be warned!!

so idk i’ve seen so many reviews of the film positing that it’s about the dangers of obsessive fandom and overidentification with fictional characters, esp vis a vis real life self-actualization/coming out. (like, essentially every review has some of this in it, from what i’ve seen.) and, like: i don’t think that’s wrong, but i also think it’s massively underselling what schoenbrun is doing here. the metaphor of the show’s bleed-over is so smart because works in both directions at once.

like, in one direction: when maddy asks owen to come into the show by burying himself alive, you can read it as her asking him to abandon his real-life responsibilities, and the material facts of his real life body, in favor of a fantasy life where everything is already fixed. she’s inviting him to skip over the hard, messy work of transitioning and to sink even deeper into the analgesic obsessions he uses to numb his dysphoria. in this interpretation, it’s, like, the equivalent of overprioritizing “transition goals” instead of actually medically/legally/socially transitioning if that’s what you want, living forever in the ideal instead of taking difficult steps to change the material. (also, uh, if you don’t think she’s literally correct about the nature of reality, she is in fact asking him to kill himself. there’s that.)

BUT! it also works the other way. when maddy tells owen that the show is real, that their lives are just the buried dreams of dying girls in another life, she terrifies him by confronting him with something he’s always known about himself: he was supposed to be a girl. what she proposes is radical, dangerous, seemingly unhinged, and based on a childish fixation: all the things scared closeted trans people worry transition is, basically. on a more figurative level, too, the feeling she’s telling owen is real – that his real life is just a dream within a dream, that his home is not his home, that he belongs somewhere else, that he is supposed to be SOMEONE else – is something so, so, so many closeted trans people have felt before, myself so much included. when he sobs in the shower, yelling “this isn’t my home!” at his dad, i felt a sense of identification stronger than i’ve almost ever gotten from art before. when maddy finally calls him isabel, it’s the gentlest thing i can imagine.

in this read – which i do love, while thinking the other one is simultaneously true – it’s less “come sink deeper into delusion with me instead of dealing with your own life” and more “it’s going to be terrifying, but that childish dream of being a girl you once held wasn’t childish, and it can be real if you’re courageous enough.” he says he runs away from the football field because he thinks maddy’s not mentally well; it takes very little analysis of subtext to figure out he’s running away because he’s afraid of how much he wants what she’s offering. and, of course, the idea of the visible world being an illusion laid atop the world in which one is one’s truest self is a classic trope of trans cinema going all the way back to the matrix. (also: while i’m pretty death-of-the-author-pilled in most media analysis, it kinda seems like schoenbrun themself has interpreted the film in this way, as they’ve spoken at length in interviews about how, to them, transition felt like asking to be buried alive.)

all of which is to say: i think the film IS commenting on fandom, obsession, overidentification, and the ease with which queer people can sink into art as a way to dissociate from real life. but i think it makes the film so much more cynical and so much less tender to treat it as the ONLY read of the film’s relationship with the pink opaque. art, especially the sort of slow, metaphor-laden art schoenbrun makes, is best when it is complex and productively contradictory. the pink opaque is a problem, and an escape, and a fantasy, and it’s real, and one day isabel is going to wake up.

[sheepwavehdg]

Many of HDG's loudest detractors miss the point when they describe the setting as horror. They are not wrong, but because they do not engage with the themes, subtext and metaphors at play, instead focusing on a purely literal understanding of the setting, they don't understand why they find it so offputting. They yell about humanity never reaching its full potential, or the violations of individual spirit that lie at its heart. HDG imagines a world where the kind of treatment that the severely disabled among us experience is universal.

And yeah... Fair. A factual recount of my life is actually pretty horrifying.

HDG exists in conversation with disability. It is not about being trans or queer, though there is obviously a lot of overlap. It is about imagining a world where those who have disabilities are cared for, and pulling apart the complicated feelings that authors have about the loss of control required for that to happen.

The mechanics of the specific allegories that HDG employs to examine disability frequently lean into noncon, but remember, nobody who is disabled asked to be, and we are frequently the victims of systemic abuse they the Affini are often a cathartic reclaiming of.

HDG is about a world where you go through that and emerge with a promise that you will be cared for on the other side. That you don't have to navigate systems seemingly intentionally designed for you to fall through the cracks, where you won't be expected to be able to do what everyone else is capable of.

HDG is also written by those of us who survived. Straight up, I should be dead, and it is only through the incredible support of my loved ones that I have a home at all. Those of us who can live to tell the tale of severe disability are, by definition, biased to examine caretaker and provider roles.

The moment you realize you are truly disabled, that you will never, ever live the life you have been promised, where a doctor infantalizes and criticizes you for things you never had control over, is a kind of death. The breaking of the narrative that you have the ability to fully self determine is painful. It leaves you forever changed.

This is a fact of the setting that is easily lost under the joy inherent to kink. Traumatized and broken people deserve joy, and I don't think the utopian elements of HDG don't belong, but they are not the whole picture.

Some of my examinations are happy, like Good Sensory. Others examine how hard it is to trust after being kicked for so long, like Cat and Mouse. All are messy and personal.

HDG describes a world where everyone like me survives. The life I live every day, but made safe, and comfortable, for everyone. And to some, that is one of the most scary things they can imagine.

[monstersinthecosmos]

Just stating for the record that there's a lot of confusion about what asexuality is and isn't, and whether ace people can participate in sex, and if sex has to be penetrative.

Like not that it's my job to be your sex educator lmao but

Yes asexual people can have sex; this is about a lack of attraction, not a lack of libido or sexual dysfunction.

Of course sex does not have to be penetrative.

Being celibate is not the same as being asexual.

Asexuals can be attracted to people without wanting to fuck them, they can still experience romantic attraction or desire intimacy that is not sex.

If you want to dismantle ace themes/reads in your fandom of choice, please use textual points that are, in fact, truthful about what asexuality is and isn't. A book isn't less queer if the characters don't fuck. Queer people can still experience love and romance without sex. This need to insist that a piece of media isn't ace because it's queer is saying that asexuals aren't queer, and we're not here for exclusionary radfem bullshit okay?

If we're going to preach this in the larger conversation of queer politics when it comes to, for example: trans rights, queer content in children's' libraries, existing in public--we have to be consistent. Don't tell the larger world that every facet of a queer person's life isn't about SEX but then tell ace people that they're not queer because they don't want sex, or dismiss a queer piece of media because the characters didn't fuck. Asexuality is not queer subtext, it is queer text. It is already queer.

If you're thinking about dunking on ace people in your fandom, like, listen! We know that tumblr has a radfem & conservative problem lol so like if you're just a radfem/terf/conservative/whatever I can't stop you, but if you don't associate with those folks and still want to be exlusionary, please check some resources to see if your understanding of asexuality is up to date before you make a bunch of points that don't matter. I really recommend AVEN - The Asexuality Visibility & Education Network and The Trevor Project's page about Asexuality as a starting point!

Just ask, before you post:

Does the asexual read hurt anybody?

Am I invalidating someone's experience by telling them that they're wrong?

Does my point balance strictly on concepts of sex, and not concepts of attraction?

Am I sure I understand what asexuality is before I start dunking on it and being exclusionary to the ace people in my fandom?

Am I regurgitating points about what sex is and isn't without remembering that asexuality is about sexual attraction, and not about whether or not someone participates in sex acts? (ie: "They do have sex, someone got a handjob" isn't really building your case the way you think it is.)

What exactly is the purpose of my post if it's not to be exclusionary and fucking rude? Do I need to examine my own biases towards ace people?

[ravenlocksentwisted]

Why do the American localizations keep trying to remove the queer relationships by adding incest?

Tell me I'm wrong, Netflix. Tell me there won't be some WEIRD VIBES because you wanted to remove the queer subtext from the 2024 adaptation of a book that was effectively used as legal evidence in the 1895 trials against the author for gross indecency (i.e., homosexual activity).

[beauspot]

Thoughts on my second watch of Good Omens 2

i heard the fly buzzing in my first watch but didn’t know why and now i know

Maggie my sweet darling angel baby i love you

Aziraphale turning their car yellow

crowleys “no more dying” in extreme scottish.

Disposable Demon i’ll save you from these awful people i promise 😭

Aziraphale’s little smile when he says “smitten” to Crowley

i wonder if crowley was especially hurt because aziraphale seemed to be able to forgive gabriel who tried to kill him but can’t seem to forgive him being a demon.(still seeing all of this as a metaphor for internalized homophobia, like aziraphale knows he’s not the perfect angel he wants to be and he’s projecting his feelings about that onto crowley)

I can’t believe we got an actual ball. like pride and prejudice, bridgerton ball.

the beautiful score that started playing when aziraphale brought the chandelier down

i didn’t even realize that when they walked in the outfits changed. mrs sandwich made me realize(also i love her)

Nina being the only one to question the weird magical shit Aziraphale and Crowley do sends me so bad.

Season 2 took everything i liked about the first season (aziracrow, queer subtext, gay people, archangels, and beelzebub) and expanded on it

The adorable smile on Aziraphales face when he asked Crowley to dance 😭 he’s so pure(i should have known something was up, everything was going too well)

Crowley saying i won’t leave you on your own and Aziraphale saying i know 🤒

why isn’t aziraphale able to miracle nina and maggie??

crowley and mrs sandwich flirting. too cute

crowley saying he’s neither nice nor a lad.

crowleys little run in heaven when he’s following muriel

maggie giving the middle finger to the demons and laughing in their face when they tried to belittle her. queen

defensive aziraphale is so badass. just because he’s soft doesn’t mean he can’t stand up for himself or the people he loves

the random guitar solo in the final episode theme is so bizarre to me. why is it there?

ahh the raining hearts symbolizing crowleys vavoom plan!

crowley’s heavenly outfit not being white but “light grey”

the relief in aziraphale’s voice when crowley came back 😀

also him mumbling about the halo like he did with the sword 😭 but he sure loves to boast about the things he’s done right to crowley

aziraphale and crowley doing magic together has the power to set off alarm bells in heaven and they barely tried, they’re just in sync

saraqael was such a good addition to the cast.

crowley smiling at aziraphale going off on the angels and demons

“where beelzebub is, is my Heaven.” 🥹

the little knowing look after crowley mentions alpha centauri

the way they just interrupted michael’s speech by leaving 😭

i think that aziraphale was about to ask crowley to move in but that’s my opinion

the look the metatron gave crowley is so strange. i don’t like that

“JUST US. NOT YOU.”

“You’re not helping, angel.”

the softness in aziraphale’s voice when he talked about making crowley an angel again? how can you hate him! he thought he was doing the right thing!

also the miscommunication these two have is completely out of hand because crowley asked aziraphale if he said no and aziraphale hadn’t given an answer AT ALL to the metatron. the metatron told him to take his time. he went back to tell crowley the news first.

crowleys confession makes my stomach hurt. the way his voice broke when he said “we’ve spent our existence pretending that we aren’t.”. the way he had to force himself past his anxiety to tell aziraphale he wanted to spend eternity with him? fuck.

the way aziraphale tells crowley to come with him. like and through all of this they are losing each other, oh my god.

“i need you!” god aziraphale punch me in the face next time why don’t you?

i feel like in all this anger towards aziraphale a lot of people are ignoring that he put himself out there too. he was telling crowley he needed him just like crowley was

“no nightingales.” FUCK YOU GAIMAN

the way aziraphale touched his lips after. dear GOD. someone get michael sheen an emmy

seeing aziraphale struggle against his wanting to kiss crowley back and his fear and wanting him to come back to heaven further supports my internalized homophobia analogy

also even knowing the kiss was going to happen because of the spoiler it still didn’t quell my shock. nor did it ruin the scene, i think it actually surprised me more because it did not happen how i thought it would.

side note i saw some people saying they thought the kiss was going to be a cop out in some way. like a body swap or as a joke and i don’t really know why?

it just occurred to me that both aziraphale and crowley thought the other one was just doing that thing they do where they say they won’t help, or they’re on their own but they eventually come back not knowing that the other was completely set on these plans they had. this wasn’t like armageddon or saving gabriel.

the second coming…of jesus…

crowley cutting off “a nightingale sang in berkeley square”...i’m gonna jump

this being the ending for the next 3-4 years. oh.

[bargarean]

can i say something absolutely insane. that will make you want to forcefully remove me from the kitchen. i think the jokes about cocaine usage are directly related to the subtextual presence of queerness in deadpool & wolverine

unless i'm missing more, there are two jokes about cocaine usage being forbidden in the movie. one, where it's said that it's the One Thing they're forbidden from doing, that They know all the slang terms for it so they can't slip through the cracks, and that wade wants to do it but isn't allowed. the next is when they meet johnny, wade says to chris evans, "fair warning, gorgeous, you’ll encounter some indelicate language, a smidge of assplay, but we’ve been PROHIBITED from using cocaine. (on camera)." okay? okay.

i don't think any good comedy is actually just a comedy, and if i'm good at anything it's stripping away the jokes and trying to make out what the writers are saying between all of the lines. in the case of deadpool & wolverine, i think it's about the relationship between the studio and the story, and the somewhat inherent tragedy of being a character that belongs to disney especially. this thing takes every chance it can to make fun of the mcu. one of its antagonists is a representation of the higherups, who choose to save the profitable stories, leave the rest to die, and then old yeller the profitable ones when they become too much trouble. the other antagonist is a story who was left to die. and all of this comes together to become a movie about a character who in real life had major elements of his character, his queerness, stripped and left to die when he became disney IP, finding out that his reality is about to be left to die and fighting to protect it.

i note his queerness there not only because it's the basis of this whole post but because the movie wants us to. this is, by far, the queerest deadpool movie so far. but you know what's interesting? there are people who watched it and came out thinking it was a Based breath of fresh air in this Woke Economy. we saw the allusions to sex scene tropes in the honda odyssey fight. they just saw a hypermasculine fight. because, ultimately, the queerness in this movie isn't profitable, so it's being muted and stripped and turned into jokes. god knows disney isn't going to let two of their most popular characters fuck nasty on the big screen. they're going to greenlight a deadpool movie and tell the writers that they can do whatever they want but to keep the queerness at arms length to avoid scaring away half the viewership. but we're telling a story about characters being left to die for not being profitable. so that really won't do. instead, we'll fill it with subtext and layer on jabs upon jabs at the studios who seek profit over a genuine story. and then we'll literally have our not-so-explicitly queer main character save his reality from being old yellered by holding hands with a shirtless man

tldr: it's the one thing they can't do! On camera.

[ambriel-angstwitch]

Tim Drake Pride Thoughts Part 2

Link to Part 1 for those interested

I love Tim’s internal monologue and how it’s visualized on the page. The way he’s in the Robin costume even though he’s not actually and then it fades away.

Gosh his identity issues. His need to save people and self destructive tendencies. I love him.

Then Tim beats the crap out of the unsuspecting cultist and steals their stuff like a boss but it wasn’t shown we just cut to the cult after the reveal of the multiple “chaos gods”

I love that he says what would Batman do like it’s what would Jesus do. He even acronynmed it earlier. I used to have those bracelets.

Tim’s always trying to fill a role and that’s so fascinating. Robin was just a role that needed filling that he just happened to be able to do but now that there’s another person in that spot he’s trying to emulate Batman since he’s working alone and Batman’s his idol.

Oh also the fact that it was Bernard who was about to be sacrificed is interesting. Like he’s one of the most recent kidnappings so it’s interesting that they’d choose him

Also the fact that Tim is taking the Tim to judge them when his friend/crush is literally about to be sacrificed. Can’t stop being a hater I guess.

Love that Bernard is a fanboy just like Tim was.

Also Tim’s little gay panic there. He holds a boys hand and is immediately like “Is it supposed to be this warm?”

Love how Bernard immediately notices that Tim’s acting different it could be due to his Robin obsession but I also just think it’s cool how easily he understands him.

Bernard really just almost got sacrificed and pops up ready to fight. He’s probably been waiting to fight alongside Robin for a long time since he is a fanboy

Oh Timmy Batman isn’t alone and you don’t have to be either. You have the Batfam. I find it silly that this idea is coming from Mr. “Batman needs a robin” himself.

Though perhaps he doesn’t mean physically alone. Because the Batfam isn’t keen to share their problems. They tend to try to be islands. Each individually dealing with their issues and hurts rather than opening up and leaning on eachother. They’ve learned their poor emotional communication from the best.

Close enough welcome back Arthur Pendragon!

I have talked to friends and I have confirmed that I’m not the only one who thinks that first panel looks like Arthur (Come to think of it Tim looks kind of like Merlin too. Reincarnation au?)

Anyways I promise I had an actual thought regarding this interaction too. I love how Bernard is telling his crush to tell his crush that he wished they’d finished their date. Tim is just internalizing this and probably with that last word realizing what they could be.

Like I said Tim’s having realizations.

Also I just love this page layout. The different sizes and shapes to represent the chaotic-ness of a fight. Bernard being the focus of the biggest moment to visually show the lightbulb moment and Tim’s fixation of him. Both of them just being flashes of certain moments almost like we’re Tim or Bernard glancing at the other to see what their doing. Ahhh! I love it!

More Tim tech lingo! I love the focus on Tim being Techie and how that can cause him to think differently like he’s also just a computer with simple problems to fix. His realization that he’s different. That sure he didn’t realize he was Bi before but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t

I know that the whole Batfam not choosing being vigilantes is a thinly veiled metaphor for Tim’s being queer (which is kind of funny because I feel like that almost implies that the rest of the Batfam is queer or maybe it’s just the inherent queer subtext of hidden identities), but also I do think that the police has a point in them not really choosing the vigilante life I mean sure they theoretically could have not been vigilantes, but it’s just a fundamental part of who they are so even if the law tells them not to they’re not going to turn back now. I don’t think any of them at the beginning could have seen the pain and problems that they did and not tried to fix it.

Also the I want over Bernard and how the next page is going to be him.

And that’s the adorable conclusion. I love them! The way their figuring it out together! They’re both new to this. I love when couples don’t have to have it figured out. There’s no one right way to have a relationship

[neyafromfrance95]

i ship everyone with everyone in fallout but mainly lucy x cooper bc it's deliciously freaky and max x dane bc it's deliciously queer.

it's not that i dislike lucy x max, they're cute and endearing, i found myself genuinely smiling at a few of their interactions, so lucy x max is one of my ships. i just really wanted them to be my primarily ship since they are the canon couple, but the show doesn't let the audiences to gradually and organically come to ship them, instead it *tells* us that they are the canon romance the moment they meet by presenting them as this standard "a girl meets a boy" dynamic and that's why i can't fully get into this ship. tbh, i think i'd ship them more if it didn't feel like the show was forcing this pairing down my throat.

both of these mains could benefit from the relationships with the characters that'd enrich each's character development. the ghoul and dane are the characters that could do that for lucy and max respectively, imo.

lucy x the ghoul is this deliciously twisted dynamic that has a multilayered subtext. it's as hot as it's wrong. as a viewer i was more invested in their interactions. the intriguing nature of their relationahip and the tension in their scenes made for a better chemistry as well. even shipping aside, they are this unlikely duo of two complicated individuals linked by destiny that's immensely engaging and fun to observe.

max x dane is another gem. other than the believability of their relationship, it's a good representation. and they definitely had a great chemistry. i hope to see more of their interactions, backstory and their relationship deepen in the next season(s) bc their relationship has a potential to be refreshing.

the potential "enemies to lovers" of lucy x cooper and "friends to lovers" of max x dane simply seems more gripping than "the lovers" of lucy x max, at least to me. tough, maybe they will make lucy x max more interesting in the next season(s)? we'll see.

in the end of the day, i hope that there is going to be "ship and let ship" mentality in this fandom with no dumb ship wars or dramas.

[dyke-will-graham]

Lemme tell you as someone who is writing their dissertation of queer subtext and using supernatural as a main example these new developments coming in from each panel with Jensen and MISHA is practically hand feeding me my points