#like in the most recent season one of the gay characters is called queerbait as an insult. i lost my shit. it's perfection.

[pigfartsviatardis]

Was discussing queerbaiting recently with a friend because we’re watching Once Upon A Time (trash, but shockingly well written trash in the first 3 seasons) and obs we both ship swan queen. I mean. Come on.

But we noticed that from the start of s3 onwards, there was noticeably less shippy stuff between these two. There’s still a bit here and there because a) lesbian mums and b) chemistryyyy… but it felt like the writers were intentionally backing off from that pairing and putting genuine effort into the male love interests for both characters.

You might think that becalming the swan queen ship would have annoyed or disappointed my friend and myself, the shippers. But tbh we both agreed that it was actually nice to see a writing team see a popular queer fandom ship, go ‘oh whoops that’s not endgame’, and actively NOT bait it.

Obviously everyone here is aware of the Golden Age Of Queerbaiting, the late 2000s/early 2010s; even if you’re too young to have actually battled through it, it’s deep tumblr lore. We all know the repeat and egregious offenders from that time - destiel, merthur, johnlock, whatever the main one was on teen wolf - and how gleefully these shows would dangle queer rep in front of our twitching little noses.

Recently, I’ve noticed a more insidious trend: the Male Friendship Scarcity Myth. The most glaring recent examples are nandermo (WWDITS) and jayvik (arcane), both of which were popular ships after the first season(s) of their shows aired and were subsequently given increased screen time and shippy scenes/storylines. In the case of nandermo, the romantic feelings (at least from Guillermo) were textual. Both pairings were given ambiguous endings where they were together, but not confirmed as, yknow, together.

And then both showrunners, after the shows ended, decided to step up to the mic and give a heartfelt little speech along the lines of ‘men are allowed to be friends without it being sexual, and it’s actually really important that we show this, because we need more representation of close platonic brotherly male friendship in media’.

Anyone who was around during the aforementioned Golden Age Of Queerbaiting, or in fact anyone who consumes popular media at all, knows that this is horseshit.

It’s only ever close platonic brotherly male friendship. Or at least, 95% of the time. Everywhere you look, from major fandom shows to mcu movies, platonic male relationships are often front and centre. That’s nearly always the canon. How often does a major mlm ship actually go canon??? Hardly ever. Even destiel didn’t; cas’s feelings were confirmed last minute, but the official canon dynamic between him and dean is still brotherly bffs.

Are these friendships often the subject of intense fandom shipping? Yes, as literally any close relationship between any two characters of any gender always will be. People like shipping! But the official canon, and the gospel truth held up by poorly disguised homophobes in fandom, is nearly always strictly platonic bros.

Anyway. All this to say, I’ve been disillusioned recently seeing this myth pop up in every comments section on any jayvik-related content, that we have a lack of male friendship in media (we don’t, we have a lack of male friendship that isn’t queer coded to super turbo gay hell and back in media). I was even more disillusioned seeing the exact same rhetoric being spewed by those involved with WWDITS, which is ironically a show jam packed full of close male friendships THAT INVOLVE CASUAL SEX. The call was truly coming from inside the coffin on that one.

So, unexpectedly and somewhat depressingly, swan queen and OUAT have been a balm for the soul in the midst of all this. No queerbaiting (at least not where I’m up to), just good old fashioned straightwashing. At least it’s honest 🤷‍♀️

[fathercharlesoffdensen]

My instinct regarding accusations of 'queerbaiting' is if a piece of media ultimately ends with the queer characters in question in an established relationship, it is not queerbaiting.

"The Finale" of What We Do in the Shadows, in its OG or 'sacred timeline' if you will, ends with Nandor not only assuring Guillermo that he has a place with the vampires (with him) regardless of his mortal status which is in line with Nandor's established love languages; and then, he invites Guillermo to sit in his coffin with him the way a couple might occupy a two-seater sweetheart sofa, and surprises him with the secret superhero lair that nobody thought he was serious about (one of the most delightful recurring tropes of the show imo). Even more obvious is the alternate universe ending supplied helpfully by Nadja's vampire hypnosis wherein a human Guillermo and Nandor are incontrovertibly gay married and in bed together. By all accounts, Nandermo is canon and married and a couple, et cetera, ad nauseum.

Still, for all of the quiet, soft moments between them across the past six seasons + all of their homoerotic fighting and such, it surprised me that the show sort of failed to "stick the landing," as Colin Robinson offers. I doubt anyone expected the flagrant homosexual dance between Blackbeard and Steed in Our Flag Means Death to be so romantically and exquisitely realized, and perhaps this set an impossible standard, but I can't help but wonder what ultimately accounted for the decision to soft shoe Nandermo into "The Finale" vs. allowing them to finally kiss and be married and co-plan the next Staten Island vampire orgy (because somehow they'd figure out how to make it work for Guillermo to be a vampire); essentially all of the 'boring' hallmarks that the final episode intentionally catalogued through meta fourth wall-breaking and that whose absence makes the cheeky nature of said cataloging kind of feel like whomever made the call to end the show as such is laughing at vs. with the fans.

Alas, "The Finale" feels a tad mean compared to the way similar OTP ships are dealt with in Taika media, and maybe it's simply that he wasn't directly involved and Paul Simms was feeling hounded and peckish. Given how antagonistic much of fandom's one-sided parasocial relationship with media makers can be - and unfortunately, be it borne from immaturity or malice or desperation to see a much-loved concept be realized, this is a huge issue among some Shadows fen - I wouldn't blame the writer(s) for going into "The Finale" at least somewhat embittered. Even so, I can't help but read some compromise and disappointment between the lines of a recent interview with Harvey Guillen regarding how Nandermo ends up:

I think that, for the longest time, when I started playing Guillermo, that was the idea behind the character was like, "Are they, will they, does he?" And I think, because they have a little bit of Stockholm Syndrome, you start feeling a little bit of a way, because the only thing you see in front of you becomes like this person you idolize. He really does idolize Nandor, and he really does want to be a great vampire like him one day. And I think, sometimes, those lines can get blurry. So, the way that Guillermo is, I always say, I walk him on a tightrope, and it's like if he falls one way, he could be in love, and if he falls the other way, it was admiration, it was just admiration for this person. And that's a nice tight rope, because it's such a balance that people are always asking, "Will they, won't they?" I think sometimes we have to normalize two male friends being really close and not making it sexual. I think that we don't do that in society. If we saw two best friends who are female holding hands on the playground, we'd be like, "Oh, my God, they're best friends." But if we see two boys holding hands on the playground, all of a sudden, "What are you guys doing? What are you guys doing? Separate them." Because that's not normal in society, that's not "normal," but it is, and it should be normalized, that we can have close friends and not be sexual, it doesn't have to be. We could have close, same-sex friends and do everything like in a relationship, go to movies, talk about your personal beliefs, your struggles, your life, crying on each other's shoulders, and not have to make it sexual. Because I think once we cross that line, people are like, "Well, you might as well be married, why don't you marry them?" And it's like, you don't have to marry them, you could be in love and have love for someone and not have to make it sexual. I think with these characters, we've done a really great job of keeping the audience on their toes of that. Now, will something happen this season that questions that even more, or makes them one way or the other? I guess you'll have to find out.

TL;DR: Optimistically, my 'ideal' ending that I've had lodged in my head for at least three seasons was not, in fact, realized on the small screen, and thus, I shall see you all over at AO3 and/or lurking in the show's Tumblr tags!

[cowchickenbeefpork]

so. I found this article recently while trying to find a quote of Cory saying people should get their mind out of the gutter when it comes to the wake up alone thing (didn’t find it, I think it was a fake memory of mine)

I read it and…I agree with him in a way. I do think we should let art depict people who don’t have much experience with others exploring their sexuality. I do think we should allow characters to explore queerness without ending up being queer at the end of the day. People like this exist in real life, so why can’t we show situations like this in any story?

however, I do think he fundamentally doesn’t get the main reason why people called nygmobblepot queerbait. Oswald and Edward possibly not being gay isn’t a problem, the buildup to this whole arc is! Isabella comes out of nowhere with no buildup besides maybe the clone thing which she isn’t even canonically connect to. As soon as Edward and Oswald get closer and act more homosexual with one another the show makes up a woman to come in between them both. As much as I love the concept of the Isabella arc, Edward would need to be way more mentally unwell for him to even get with her in the first place. It’s rushed through completely and since this is the most serious queer dynamic in this show, it feels very suspicious.

the fact Gotham consistently does not take queer relationships seriously also ends up muddying the intended message. The closest canonical queer relationship besides from these two in the show is Barbara and Tabitha, which are also not taken as seriously! Barbara’s plotlines have consistently involved men from day one, and the show casts Tabitha as just a best friend when discussing her death in season five! Besides from this and nygmobblepot, we never really see anything close to queer relationships. We get told some characters swing both ways like Fish and Zsasz, but it’s still never important enough at the end of the day. And mind you, every queer coded character in this show is evil, adding another layer to this!

Queerness ends up becoming something unserious by these decisions. Something temporary. Something as a phase. Never do the straight relationships have this whole questioning sexuality thing; only when it is queer do they depict as something left for the viewer to interpret. I do know queerness is overall less common than being heterosexual or cissexual, but this is fiction. Why have two male characters explore their sexuality and say Edward is straight and imply Oswald might be as well if you have no serious queer relationships? How explore sexuality if queer people are not allowed to have as serious relationships than your heterosexual characters have constantly in the show?

in conclusion, I do get Robin Lord Taylor’s intention in depicting both Ed and Oswald in this fashion, but the other creative decisions made in this show undercut the intended message and twist it into something else, which is queerbait.

[different-pridemonthera]

Hello, I'm not a native English speaker, but as a part of the queer community, I'd love to write a lengthy post to express my thoughts on why I find it absurd for people to criticize an actual canon queer ship for a queerbaiting ship, especially during Pride Month.

Originally thought that since the season finale was coming, I wouldn't make sharp comments anymore. Just wait for Season 8. The ship war that has been bubbling with noise previously is actually quite boring, especially those who can't tell what status virtual characters really are, and insist on picking out character issues, hoping that the character will die as soon as possible. The even lower-intelligence ones are those who can't tell the difference between characters and reality, and rush to attack the actors, trying to drive the actors away. It only leaves people speechless, feeling like I am facing a group of stereotypical teenagers across the network.

Then, as soon as Pride Month rolled around again, the 911 twt community's largest fan news account stirred up controversy by including a photo of Buddie among a group of canon queer characters to celebrate Pride Month. Personally, I don't have strong feelings about it. Firstly, Pride Month is all about inclusivity and acceptance. Secondly, it's a fan account and they can post what they want. Thirdly, Buddie, being one of the hottest queerbaiting ships in the 9-1-1 fandom, would undoubtedly be featured during Pride Month. While this might have happened in previous years too, but this year was different due to a major development in season 7, Buck's bisexual awakening, along with a new canon queer ship bucktommy/tevan that's currently in development.

Firstly, I don't think that just because Buck and Tommy became canon, it means you can't still ship Buddie. Ship culture is basically about shipping anything you want.

However, I also understand why some people might have issues with celebrating Pride Month with Buddie after the Buck and Tommy canon. The reality is many people forget that Buddie is a classic example of queerbaiting (it even made it to Wikipedia's queerbaiting page as a typical case). Or, more accurately, many people don't realize that queerbaiting, as a marketing strategy, is actually harmful to the real LGBTQ+ community. From a queer perspective, queerbaiting is simply a way to attract viewers by consuming the LGBTQ+ community, and the characters involved are essentially detached from reality. In a sense, any interactions they have that seem chemically charged are meaningless. A more specific example would be in Season 7 when Buck comes out, and Oliver, the actor, immediately receives private messages from closeted firefighters thanking him. This kind of thanks would not have happened during any scene between Buck and Eddie in seasons 2-6, especially when both characters had girlfriends. There is almost no real LGBTQ+ person could truly relate to such scenes. However, the possibility implied by queerbaiting exactly hits their desire for resonance. This is why I believe canon is important, only through canon can characters connect most closely with the real LGBTQ+ community. How much can a queerbaiting ship (where Eddie doesn't even have a canon LGBTQ+ character identity) contribute to the real LGBTQ+ community? Especially when fans of this queerbaiting ship hope that a canon queer ship with a clear positive impact will bone? Now it's even starting to reject TV shows that show two men flirting with daddy issue jokes. I ship buddie for Almost 5 years, My personal reason for wanting Buddie to become canon besides the chemistry was largely because I didn't want them to continue queerbaiting: they should officially get together or clearly not be together. Now that Buck has become bi, Buddie has slowly shifted into a ship baiting nature, but it cannot be denied that Buddie was queerbaiting before.

And I've been thinking that Eddie is gay for a long time, even though some so-called "insiders" have recently revealed that the ana breakup line is a precursor to his being gay, I still don't understand the so-called queer code, can you call it a queer code when every heterosexual relationship doesn't end well? Then it seems that every scumbag is a queer code, not to mention the fact that Ryan himself explicitly mentioned the word heterosexual in his interview describing buck's coming out scene to Eddie. Do the people who think Eddie is gay really know what sexual orientation means? The point is to be sexually attracted to men and only men. Eddie has been shown enjoying heterosexual sex on more than one occasion so far, and even Michael (Athena's ex-husband) came out at the beginning of the show and then made it clear that he would never have sex with Athena again. is it okay for a gay man to have heterosexual sex? Maybe it is. But do gay people enjoy heterosexual sex? You've got to be kidding me! Eddie being a bisexual or pansexual makes a lot more sense to me than being gay. Secondly the speculation about Eddie being Demisexual, Honestly, I didn't understand the concept of Demisexual very well, but I really don't think he's very Demisexual, he and shannon got back together only by having sex when they had relationship problems, and now he and marisol are already having sex frequently without having progressed to the point where they can cohabitate, does that really fit the definition of Demisexual? I just not so sure.

And even if Eddie is gay/Demisexual doesn't mean buddie canon, another point I really want to say is that almost most buddie fans feel that the character's sexuality can only be a PLOT DEVICE in the service of buddie, which is why the atmosphere in the fanbase was still harmonious during the period after s7ep4 and before ep5, because in the interview tim mentioned that the next episode of bucktommy's date didn't go well, and everyone didn't take Tommy's character seriously, thinking that Tommy was a tool, and that he would leave soon, and then buck would go and develop buddie obediently, which is actually a very good indication that they didn't take buck's bisexuality seriously too, and then they found out that bucktommy's coffee date was thriving again in the ep5 finale, which immediately starts attacking the character tommy and the actor lou because they are in buddie canon's way. Oliver mentions that there was a bi buck plot in s4, and in the absence of any information mentioning eddie they immediately think it's buddie canon again, and that all of buck's and eddie's sexuality The correlation can only be to run to buddie, there is no possibility of the two of them each finding someone else. At the end of the day they see buck as eddiesexual and Eddie as bucksexual (in fact shannonsexual would seem to make more sense), come on it's not even a sexual orientation. It's funny how tim coming back and making buck bi but not developing buddie gets called out as well, and how some people think that everyone calling out KR before was actually wrong about KR, and how some people think that buddie is the right character and actor meeting the wrong author and writer, it's really humorous and interesting thought.

All in all, can you heterosexuals who love queerbaiting ship move aside during pride month and stop pretending to be ally while attacking a real canon queer ships? and can the queer who love queerbaiting realize the dangers of queerbaiting? ...... but at the end of the day they are all virtual characters and it's up to the writers to write them, I'd love to see them make Buddie canon, but it's not even close to that day, Let's really canon queer ship bucktommy have a good time with their first pride month please.

thank you for reading, happy pride month!🏳️‍🌈

[thestingerblog]

Loki and Queerness in the MCU

by Sam H.

Read on our site!

There’s an ongoing joke among movie fans that there have been countless “Disney’s first gay character,” which include the unnamed gay character Joe Russo played in Avengers: Endgame. Not only does this joke speak to Disney failing miserably at providing meaningful queer representation, but it also indicates how desperate queer audiences are for representation, so much so that corporations believe that handing us scraps is the equivalent of a meal. 

I will admit that I’m guilty of buying into bare minimum queer representation, but so is the majority of online queer spaces. For example, I recently found out that Maeve and Aimee from Sex Education aren’t actually a sapphic couple as people on Twitter had somehow convinced me through their fancams. I recently had a similar realization with Loki and Mobius with the release of the new season of Loki. 

Look, I know I said that I’m not the biggest fan of Loki, so it was surprising that I gave the show a second chance. The main reason why I watched the first season in the first place was more out of obligation to keep up with the MCU, but for the second season, I only watched because I heard tons of people calling Loki and Mobius “queerbait” and pointing out the codependent nature of their relationship. However, three episodes into the new season, I noticed that it seems like, somehow, compared to the first season of Loki, the queer rep is abysmally lacking. 

Part of the reason could be that the first season of Loki was directed by Kate Herron, who identifies as queer and didn’t return for the second season. But even when she was at the helm, the only moment that canonized Loki’s bisexuality was a single line in which he said that he enjoyed the company of both princesses and princes. Lines like these is where the problem with a lot of mainstream queer representation lies: the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it phenomenon, coupled with the confirmed-in-external-interviews incidents. 

This has been a common debate for queer representation in media for a very long time and across many franchises, though they all noticeably, but unsurprisingly, seemed to be linked with Disney. In Star Wars, Lando’s pansexuality was only confirmed off screen and the scene of two women kissing at the end of Episode 9 was definitely a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment. Even in other Marvel media, America Chavez’s mention of her two moms and Valkyrie’s attraction to women were barely touched upon, merely throwaway lines that almost no one will remember once they leave the theater.

The one exception to this frustrating pattern is Phastos from Eternals. A central part of his identity is his queerness, mostly exemplified through his family life with his husband and his son. However, on the account of Eternals being a primarily ensemble movie, he isn’t the main focus and thus his storyline, in countries where LGBT censorship is extreme, was completely cut out. 

The argument for blink-and-you’ll-miss-it queer representation is that queerness shouldn’t be the central focus of queer characters because queerness is only one facet of identity. While this is true, queer representation should be spelled out on screen because queer representation has already been very discreet in the past and it’s time that queer representation is visible and essential to the story. Even if queerness is only one facet of a character’s identity, queerness is an inextricable part of the character that should be part of their development and story, embedded in ways that cannot be easily erased. 

The range and inconsistency of committing to queer representation within the MCU bring in the question of whether we can really trust corporations to provide us with the representation queer audiences so desperately crave, even if they have the biggest platform to have the most impact with authentic queer representation. But this also reveals the importance independent films have within the queer media ethnography as independent films have the most capability to provide that authentic representation, even if they aren’t as popular as MCU media. Ultimately, while there’s no one correct way for queer representation to exist, it’s important to consider the intention behind queer representation, especially when it comes to the fleeting moments that corporations claim we should be satisfied enough with. 

[some-anonymity-preferred]

Way behind, doing it anyway!

1. When did you discover OFMD? A little later than everyone else. I think I started watching it after all the episodes had dropped, and people were talking about the Gay Pirates.

2. What was your first impression? I didn't quite hate it, and I wasn't sure I'd watch past the first three episodes. That was a surprise to me because I like Kiwi humor. I think the problem was I'd been hearing all about how the show was Amazingly Gay and the End of Queerbaiting and a Big Gay Romcom--and that's just not evident the first time you watch the first three episodes. Amazingly Gay gets a reasonable start, to be fair, and all of it is impossible to miss on rewatch. But the first time through, the End of Queerbaiting and a Big Gay Romcom feel like ridiculous oversells. And even with all the casually depicted queerness in the first three episodes, its amount of Amazingly Gay felt like not enough somehow? It might be partly that Stede presents as such a Camp Gay, and Thor Ragnarok made me a bit suspicious of Taika's handling of that type (in retrospect, that was almost certainly the fault of the MCU). That said, I was totally here for Taika, and he doesn't fully appear in the first three eps.

3. First OFMD pic in gallery

Nah, I'm not going all the way back for that. Here's the most recent still OFMD pic I've reblogged:

4. Reasons you like OFMD I love OFMD for all the reasons I thought I wouldn't make it past episode 3. 😂

I love the pervasive, matter-of-fact presentation of queerness in all its rich variety. I love the Big Gay Romance, and all the other supporting queer romances. I love the Revenge family. I love their deep, multifarious, matter-of-fact diversity. I love that these characters exist within and sometimes rub up against a world that, like the one we know, is deeply antagonistic to them. I love that OFMD handles racism with the same gently brutal realism as it does anti-queerness. Those two elements of the show break me so hard, in such a good way. I also love the hard switch Rhys gives Stede between Bumbling Bumbler and Daddy in Charge, and I love how he adapts it as the situation calls for. (It's literally the biggest thing that convinced me to keep watching despite my misgivings. It takes 20 minutes into S1E1 to first see it, and then, damn.) I love Ed's wet cat energy. I love Stede's hair. I love Ed's hair. I love the Revenge. I love the shifting flashbacks and dream/story sequences. I love Izzy as an antagonist, and the painfully realistic toxic relationship between him and Ed that fuels the antagonism. And I love how Izzy constantly shoots himself in the foot. I love all the supporting male characters of color: Frenchie and Olu and Fang and Roach and Ivan, and how most of them are big guys and are so sexy and I just....yeah.

5. Favorite main character

Ed. I am Ed coded to the absolute max. And he's sexy AF, in all his guises.

6. Favorite supporting character(s)

I am both glad and not to see that "(s)." Could I choose just one? No. Since I am allowed to choose multiple, is it going to look like I'm naming the whole cast? Yep!

Top of the top: Frenchie.

Followed closely by Olu, Mary, Lucius, and Fang.

Honorable mentions: Roach, Nana, the Swede, Buttons, Evelyn, and Alma.

I also love the native community on shipwreck island, Hornberry, and Mister "We Could Have Made Magic." (Jim is too past-me coded for me to love, and Jackie doesn't rate for me yet; I suspect both will change with season 2.)

7. Songs that remind you of your fav characters

Halsey's The Lighthouse is my Stede abandons Ed at the dock theme. Elza Soares' Coracao do mar and Phoebe Bridgers' Motion Sickness also remind me of Ed. White Flag by Joseph for Stede. Here's my OFMD playlist:

8. Underrated character

Frenchie. Frenchie does not get his due in this fandom, and it's a damn shame.

9. Character you resonate most with

Ed, hands down.

10. Character you hated at first but grew to love

Buttons

11. Favorite duo

Frenchie and Olu

12. Scene that made you laugh

Frenchie naming the Pyramid Scheme

13. Scene that made you cry

The bathtub confession

14. Favorite episode

S1E5, The Best Revenge is Dressing Well

15. Favorite quote

"Have you ever been sketched?" --Lucius

16: Favorite line delivery

"Your face." --Roach

[nocturnal-impala]

I recently found out that FakirxAhiru is supposedly not "canon" because they didn't end with a confession of love or a kiss, and many consider their relationship just friendship or even brother and sister, which surprised me a lot… Since to me it was so OBVIOUSLY canon, every action and interaction between them was sweet and romantic <3, that just because it's not "specified" isn't considered "canon" anymore, it looks silly. I mean, do fans really think that Ahiru admitting that she wasn't in love with Mitho while she kept having moments with Fakir was it a fluke by the creators? And the "I'll always be with you no matter what happens"?? THAT'S A MARRIAGE PROPOSAL NO WAY YOU SEE IT

(Sorry if I sound aggressive, it's just that they frustrate me)

((And yes, I am aware that romance between human and duck is bestiality, I simply imagine their relationship as a asexual relationship, simply enjoying what they have as human and duck…))

(((WHICH IS VERY LITTLE, for which I am so grateful to Zwei<3<3<3<3)))

I mean, I'm super in favor of giving importance to platonic relationships of just friendship, but I didn't get that impression with Fakir and Ahiru<3 (And least siblings lol). I also saw a video of a girl who ship Rue with Ahiru, which is not bad, but ironically I did see those two only as friends (Or just rivals from the few interactions they had in the anime), as LGBT person I love LGBT relationships, but I like that they make more sense and that they don't just ship characters because they look cute together (But yes, my headcanon is that Ahiru is bisexual XD (And maybe Fakir too, all those scenes between him and Mitho they are very queerbaiting LOL))

Ironically, I like Mitho, but it is true that it is very poorly written or could have been developed better, over the years I have seen a huge number of "unemotional" characters that manage to show individual characteristics or make you understand why others characters would give so much for them, but Mitho is simple and purely flat lol, although I have grown fond of how easily he gets into fights when everything is avoided if he listened to Fakir to stay in his room LMAO

P.S: By the way, if you want to make the conversation public, I don't mind

Technically fakiru is not canon as their love is not confirmed. But it's heavily implied so you could call it semi-canon. If the supposed 3rd season happened, I'm positive they would had ended up together. People see things differently. I think Ahiru and Mytho have sibling-vibes more than romance-vibes.

Most ships are fan made and not canon. Fans want something to happen, so they see ”evidence” of that in everywhere (even when it's not there).

I don't concider Fakir's words as a marriage proposal. Like neko-sensei, he could had just said will you marry me if he wanted to propose. Given their age and friend zone status, it sounds out of place too. I see it more as a promise to not leave Ahirur alone even if she's a duck: she doesn't need to stay as a human for him to care for her. Ahiru is afraid of abandoment because ”she's just a duck” no one would pay attention to.

In anime, bestiality is highly controversial. We see all kinds of romantic matches in media, including vampires, werevolves, demons, youkai, mazoku, devils, angels, zombies, spirits, deities, dead people, witches, wizards, people who turn into animals or other forms, monsters, aliens and so on. That's just the way it is. If someone wants to complain about the ”unrealistics” don't pay attention to them. There's no point in arguing with someone whose mind is set to reasoning fiction with the laws of nature.

I'm not into LGBT stuff and sometimes I'm confused why people go back to old series and start giving sexual orientations to the characters. I don't see sexuality as a topic you need to bring up so much. Everyone can love each other, but most of the time gay ships are just fantasies made up by the fans and queerbaites are exactly that; baites to lure you think there's something when there really isn't. It's part of the fanservice, and if people find joy in it then why not.

Mytho can be sweet or annoying. He's the gary-stu and everything is resolved around him. But he's so plain and neutral you can't really hate him. When anyone of the cast starts to take distance to Mytho they actually become more interesting and individual. As the fullfledges prince he's much more interesting.

[zippers]

can we take a moment to appreciate how real this is? (from littlekenny episode 5)

(i know that out of context this sounds dismissive and offensive but in context, i promise it's sincere and relatable—and if youre on the spectrum (and/or have adhd) i highly recommend watching letterkenny because it is the first show I've ever felt actually represented by/like i am the target demographic)

[thranduel]

just a reminder!

- leaks mean nothing and they’re coming from people who hate will/byler which says a lot

- the timing of all the leaks this season is really suspicious because we never saw anything like this for other mike and el scenes for previous seasons, it only seemed to start happening when byler became so popular… interesting. and it’s funny how it seems to be really big plot points. also why are the other leaks very simple with no detail of dialogue but the only thing that *apparently* has dialogue is mike saying “i love you”? of all things, how did they discover THAT? pretty strange especially because they know that everyone has been arguing about mike’s monologue and what it’s about

- even IF the leaks are true, there’s no context and there are so many different possibilities. you don’t actually know what’s going on in certain scenes or what characters mean when they say something. you also don’t know what could happen after those scenes. hearing tiny little leaks does not determine the end of the show or who will be endgame or anything like that

- and even if certain scenes don’t go our way and it doesn’t look too good for byler, it is NOT final. things can change in the story at any point and i highly doubt they’re going to keep a couple together for an entire show without allowing them to properly grow individually away from each other and/or explore how they would be in other relationships (season 3 “i dump your ass” doesn’t even count because they got back together several episodes later)

- every other character in the show has either fully broken up with their partner and grown on their own or broken up and found a new love interest or something like that, but mike and el have only been with each other, and as we’ve seen, it’s not exactly good for them or the people around them

- there was NO point in getting will involved in this “love triangle” by making him have a crush on his best friend after everything he’s been through just to have him get rejected. they would never let a young gay character suffer again because that would be absolutely horrible and cruel and they’ll get so much backlash, especially because byler has been teased and hinted at too much recently that it would be considered queerbaiting at this point. i also don’t see why they would ruin the most beautiful relationship in the show and make it awkward between them if one of them gets rejected. it doesn’t make sense and they’re not doing that

- there’s an entire other season left. do you really think mike and el are gonna make up this season and confess their love (which would be so boring and forced AND a repeat of every other season) and then be completely fine and lovey dovey for all of season 5? or they’re gonna have some sort of drama AGAIN? they can’t do something so repetitive. their relationship has been going on for long enough and they become so consumed with each other that OTHER CHARACTERS literally call them out for it. like i’ve said, no one else in the show has actually said anything positive about them being in a romantic relationship and it’s clear that it’s not helping them as individual characters. there’s no doubt they love each other so much and they have very beautiful scenes, but i just don’t think they belong together romantically and i know so many people agree. and i don’t even know why people think that’s an insult… their relationship would be beautiful and strong if it’s platonic (in fact, i think it would be even stronger) and it would be better for both of them because it’s clear they’re not giving each other what the other person wants and it’s not fair for either of them. i also think it would be powerful if they mutually made the decision to break up. because in the rare times that they’re not together, they get separated because they have no choice. but if they’re able to make that choice themselves, it would be such a big thing for both of them and help them grow as characters individually

- there’s also going to be a time skip when they’re older and i just can’t imagine mike and el still being together, even if season 4 ends with them together. mike hasn’t grown or had any character development at all, and him being with el just proves that everything he’s done and the way he treated his friends (especially will) was all for nothing and any sort of character development would be thrown down the drain. it just makes no sense and it wouldn’t explain why he was so awkward with his best friend and why he was nodding when will was talking about how it’s hard to confess your feelings to someone you care about because they might not like the truth (plus MANY other things this season)

- finn said that mike is growing and discovering a lot about himself and his relationships, and that he’s trying so hard to be “normal” (forced conforming… pretending to be someone he’s not in order to fit in) but he’s going to try “new things”. noah was asked if will’s crush on mike has been planned from the start and he said yes, and he also said that byler is at its peak right now and has been building up. also, when finn was asked if byler was a possibility, he didn’t say no. he was trying so hard not to spoil anything but he said “we’re pretty early into it” which i’m assuming means they’re still early in leading up to actually exploring it and confirming it. because obviously we all know there’s been subtext and build up from the start, but casual viewers don’t see it that way and only think mike and el have had romantic build up. but this season it’s started to change a lot so we’re heading towards making byler more obvious to everyone so they can be canon

- shawn said that nothing we see is an accident and details matter when he was specifically asked a question about will’s sexuality and if we’ll explore that more

- if there was no chance of byler then the cast and writers would’ve shut down people’s theories a long time ago and said it wasn’t happening. they can’t encourage people to keep shipping a queer ship and then end up teasing fans about it themselves. they’ve hyped it up a lot and done so much in the story already that it would be considered queerbaiting at this point and that’s so harmful and cruel. they would gain absolutely nothing from queerbaiting except backlash so if they wanted to keep mike and el endgame they would’ve made it very clear that no other ships were happening

- also remember noah said will’s character has been planned from the start when asked about his sexuality and crush on mike (and we know this isn’t a lie because his character description says he has sexual identity issues, and this was written before the show even got accepted by netflix. it didn’t specifically mention byler but i think it’s safe to assume that they were planning them from the start as well or at least considering the possibility of them becoming a couple at some point, especially with how they’ve focused on mike and will’s closeness from the very first episode). and anyone that tries to say “mike and el were planned from the start, they’re endgame” is completely wrong because el wasn’t supposed to return after season 1. they also knew each other for 6 episodes that season, so no, they haven’t been together since the start either. they only technically started dating in season 3

- the cast, writers, producers and official netflix accounts have all been teasing byler and hyping it up. they wouldn’t do this for a ship that had no chance, ESPECIALLY a queer ship, because like i said, that would be queerbaiting especially after all the scenes we got in volume 1. they’ve done too much to go back and it’s clear they’re hyping it up and promoting it for a reason. they’re probably trying to prepare casual viewers and show that it’s not “coming out of nowhere” as well. i think that’s also why it was important that noah mentioned everything has been planned from the start so that no one complains about it being rushed or not making sense. also if anyone is concerned that they’re mentioning it too much, jopper has been teased and hyped up since the start of the show, especially by david who loves that ship and spoils a lot lol. and now we obviously know jopper is finally happening. and what else did david get excited about?? that’s right, when he was talking about will having a crush on mike and being “very interested” in him. finn’s smile as well said it all. they wouldn’t be acting like that if it was going to be unrequited

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales Comics: Spies Like Us and Dime after Dime or Weblena: The Preschool Days (Lena Retrospective) (Comissioned by WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to Shadow Into Light, My Lena Retrospective, which fittingly has now come to Women’s History Month! I sadly do not have anything besides this arc prepared for the month. This month is pretty packed for me with two shows a week to cover, as while there’s only two weeks of Ducktales left final space starts up right after to take it’s spot, two arcs to cover, and two time specific movie reviews: animal crossing the movie and the 1990 TMNT film. I will try to get more than the currently planned top 12 superheroines list out there... but this month is very tight as is, so if I do not I deeply apologize.

Now that’s out of the way, it’s appropriate we start Women’s history month on some likely lesser known parts of Lena’s history, with some comics stories focusing on our faviorite emo lesbian duck and her 87 counterpart. Before I get started on that though Kev my patreon pointed out something intresting a few weeks back i’ve been forgetting to get to and since we’re looking into Minima, I felt this was the perfect time to do so: Lena’s Concept art. 

There’s quite a few things to gleam from this. For starters as pointed out in the reddit thread I got the image as a whole from this was made in 2015, meaning Lena was one of the first new characters designed for the series and was part of it from the VERY early stages, as evidenced by the fact that despite clearly having their new personalities established, Beakly and Webby still had the old designs. 

The other notable change is that her first design was way more like both Magica nad Minima, a bit more modern, but clearly far more obvious who she was related to. She also had all black feathers making the shadow twist a bit more obvious and was likely done away with both to avoid giving that twist away, the same reason for the fake lestrange name, and to avoid accidently black coding her, as while Lena being black would’ve been intersting, it also would’ve invited a firestorm of controversy given that their one black character in season 1.. woul’dve started off as a homeless, manipulative antagonist, and none of that would play well nor was it something the progressive crew of this show couldn’t spot from a mile away.  And even this early on they have an almost final design ready, simply changing the shirt to fit her personality more, and her hair to be pink because it honestly looked better She also had green eyes throughout, but for whatever reason they phased them out. That part I don’t quite get as they look nice but probably they were hard to translate to the reboot style once they settled on their own. Her purple eyeshadow and haircut though have stuck since and were good calls. 

One last VERY obvious note.. Webby was gay for Lena from minute one. While Dana helped it is now VERY obvious they gay coded this relationship from the design phase, and the crew was entirely aware the whole time and I gave them less credit than I should have. They clearly had this in mind, and it’s very likely ONLY subtext because Disney, while making more and more progress, is very reluctant to have queer characters as Owl House was a struggle and since they have a tighter leash on properites based on the sensational 6, that means Frank knew they had the same odds of making Webby or Della queer in anything but subtext that a pig has of suviving in a slaughterhouse. I bring this up because I fear the series getting accused of queerbaiting somewhere down the road instead of doing what they could with a bad hand and hoping they could make the show as gay as they could. Penny is as out as they posisbly could get her, and Violet and Lena’s dad’s got a full apperance, if no speaking role that made it obvious beyond a shadow of a doubt their gay and did it in a plot important episode. So they did their best and I want them to get credit for that. 

But while this is all intresting stuff, join me under the cut for the meat of today’s review as I dig into Lena’s only apperance in the tie-in comic that was never punished here, and the only apperance of her protoype Minima.

Spies Like Us:  As I mentioned this comic was never published here which is doubly weird to me because of how I knew this story existed. Since I follow comics weekly and buy trades reguarly, I read the solicits companies put out eveyr month to see what new series are coming, what the ones i’m currently reading are doing, and what trades are coming out. That sort of thing, and it’s something I love. I know their basically adds.. but their well put together adds that really pull you into the books you like. The big two and the indies are all very good at it and sometimes i’ts the only way to know a comic is coming if the company dosen’t make a press release for it ahead of time. 

So naturally given there are several comics I follow at idw, paticuarlly the TMNT comics, I read those solicits and found they were going to do an issue with Webby and Lena becoming spies, and was excited about it. I ended up forgetting about it and never really followed the Ducktales comic as it came out, and upon reading an issue or two recently, one for another comission by kev as one story, happy happy valley, was particularly terrible. For those who haven’t read the story or my review, it involved the family getting stranded on an island where their forced to partake in activites and smile..that somehow turned into an aseop about Louie wanting to be rich. It ended with this

Yes.. really. That actually happened. But even with this, I fully planned to cover the issue when I covered Lena, and brought it up to Kev when he commissioned the retrospective. He gave me the discord equilvent of a blank stare and had never heard of it. I soon found out why: the story was replaced as, and fair play to disney, it spoiled Beakly’s past from the agent 23 episode which wasn’t going to air in time.  What dosen’t work is they never reprinted the story in The US.. didn’t put it in a future issue and just swap it’s place didn’t put it in the nothing. And the story was fully complete as we’ll see, with a cover and everything so they had no excuse whatsoever to NEVER use it, even with what happened to Lena in the season finale, this clearly took place before that and it was weird to just shelve it because of that. But thankfully when a bunch of the stories were reprinted overseas, this and another one, also webby centric got published overseas. But not in english.

Lucky for me, I was able to find an english translation of an english story which you can read RIGHT HERE. It was translated by @neopuff and I thank them for it as without them this review would not be possible and want to give them all the credit. So was it worth all their hard work translating it? Well let’s take a look. 

We begin at the Manor where Lena is skulking around suspiciously.. though it turns out she and Webby are just playing hide and seek. Though Lena accuses cheating. The dialouge here is pretty flat though that’s not Neopuff’s fault at all. As I can attest from reading other stories a lot of the early IDW comics are just this flat in dialoguge no matter the writer as they were likely given character descriptions and basic info about the show they likely had written up for merchandising and Frank and Co were given no involvement and likely weren’t made avaliable to consult on the comics to help them be a bit more fleshed out. It’s very obvious to me Disney just tried to get these pumped out so they’d have a series in stores to tie in without carring about qualities and given Scrooge debuted in comics, their lack of care toward that side of things in general, but especially in the first american published original duck comics in a while, bothers me a lot. It’s inexcusable. 

That being said the story isn’t half bad nor is the setup as the two hear a beeping and find it’s Beakly’s phone going off with a mysterious message from Q, Webby thinks she’s been reactivated, and is encouraged by Lena to go look after her while she stays along. While Webby says in response

It just feels grossly out of character for both. Lena is far more subtle about manipulation as shown five minutes ago and Webby blindly trusts her. Because she has a massive crush on her and is naïve about how the world works. It just seems very odd of her to get suspicious as she never does on screen, and again it comes off as Disney having barely given the writers any materials on them when i’m sure Frank or Matt would’ve been happy to write up a thing for them to help outside of the usual press materials they were given. 

Though hte last line isn’t all that out of character and has an obvious answer as within a jumpcut Launchpad’s taking them to London and is told to blend in.. which he does with an australian flag and accent.. good gag. 

So our heroines do some heroic breaking and entering and look for the package, but soon find while hiding it’s already in transit.. and had obvious bows on int. Whoops. Our heroes trie the old follow tha tcar bit and refreshingly, it dosen’t pan out as the guy stops and tells them to get out. A nice twist. Unable to follow, our heroes instead find launchpad lost, as his map is upside down

So Lena dares him if he can follow that plane, a nice bit of character for both. I will give Joe credit. While the dialouge’s a bit flat and there was that out of character moment.. for the most part he does nail the actual character down and does use it decently enough. He’s just not given enough page room or actual details to work  with is all. 

So while our heroes follow they end up having to crash as they run out of fuel.. lucky their with the expert but end up near home where the package is delivered to. Turns out this wasn’t a spy thing, this was just a thing with her aunt. That’s fine and a nice gag.. it’s just ruined by just sorta.. ending. Lena leaves disapointed and Beakly scolds webby for “playing spy” and she’s sad. That’s it that’s how it ends. Which dosen’t fit the characters, as while Beakly would defintely scold her, it just dosen’t FIT that she’d be that tearse or not appricate the effort or give her an actual lecture and it feels like Joe had no idea how to end this after the gag and just.. ended it. 

Final Thoughts for Spies Likes Us: This was okay.  It is a bit of a disappointment as for the only story not available.. i’ts just okay and not really above an average Ducktales comics story, with some nice character bits but feeling a bit weak overall, as do at least the first half of the idw comics. I haven’t read the later stuff to see if it got better. It’s worth a read if you like Webby and Lena as characters and it’s not BAD, it’s just not anything impressive and is a simple hyjinks filled misunderstanding story. 

Dime After Dime:

So now  we go back a bit to the original. I didn’t do these in chronological order because frankly, Dime after Dime is the better story of the two and the bigger one at that, so I have more to work with here. But the original also had comics and honestly from the few i’ve read much BETTER comics. I chalk this up to two things: The Ducktales 87 comics seem to have come out AFTER the series was already a hit, and since Ducktales is pretty close to the original uncle scrooge comics minus it’s own tweaks here and there, it’s easy enough to just write the stories like you would a regular uncle scrooge story, just with Webby and Launchpad added, whereas the idw writers were staffed with writing for all new versions of the characters with noticable differences without much to go on.  It’s why to me with tie in comics you have two options: Wait long enough so you can put your story inbtween the episodes like the Steven Universe and Regular Show comics did or just make your own continuity entirely like the Adventure Time Comics and the Archie TMNT Adventures series did. The ONLY time i’ve seen a comic work like this is the Bravest Warriors comic, which had a talented writer and fit well enough in the margins until it sadly ended.. and honestly is BETTER in some cases than the series. I might get to it someday. The point is this comic shows why you need to have a deft hand adapting something instead of just falling your arms about and hoping it’ll work. 

So today’s comic was part of some Disney Series called cartoon tales, which clearly repackaged comic stories from wherever, and put them together. I don’t know much about it and the only other issue avaliable collects the disney adventures adaptation of “Just Us Justice Ducks”, which I might cover at some point. This book does have two other stories which i’d be happy to do on comission or on my own at some point, one involving gladstone the other gizmoduck, but for now, i’m just sticking to the title story and the reason you all came here. 

So we open with Magica gazing into her crystal ball from her Mt. Vesuvies base saying that Scrooge will never know what hit him I know exactly what and who wiil hit him thank you very much. 

Scrooge is seeing Webby off to her first day of day camp, getting all teary eyed which is touching. Beakly apparently goes with her as the story never SAYS Sshe does but she’s not also not around when the story moves on, as Launchpad says it looks like rain. Scrooge dismisses him, though Launchpad turns out to be right. Scrooge had good reason for once though, instead of just being a dick good on you comic for making me not want to punch him in the face, trust me that is a high bar to clear with the scrooge comics, as the weather was fine just a minute ago. Naturally it was Magica All Along! Nothing scrooge can do now that eveyrthing has gone wrong! Her entrance though is sadly not a catchy earwormy tune, but .. this confusing line

I think your thinking of Gladstone. And he’s still single so.. have at that but no Scrooge is the one who values hard work over anything else and brags about THAT or being rich. I .. I don’t get this line and frankly I don’t want to. Even in stories where the dime is supernaturally lucky and the source of his wealth he dosen’t boast about it because he’s not stupid and dosen’t want everyone knowing how to bankrupt him instantly. This line will baffle me until I die, presumably, given my life’s tragetctory, after reviewing an episode of mighty ducks and slipping on some a jerky wrapper. 

Scrooge asks what she wants... 

No this isn’t that kind of story sadly. Her plan is to.. zap the bin with lightning and take the dime. Really just went with your first draft didn’t you magica? But as stupid as this plan is Scrooge has prepared for it. He installed a lightning rod on the bin to save on power, and to power his new super soaker traps. So all Magica did was save him money. She flies off and nothing is acomplished. 

So we get back to Webby at the Teenie Weenie Day Camp.. and just so you don’t think that was a terrible joke on my part...

My theory for how this name got approved at all is the editor KNEW how that sounded and just wanted to see if Disney would actually print a comic with the phrase Teenie Weenie without getting what it means in slang or how hilariously inapproriate it is to namme a children’s camp after it. 

Your probably wondering who that grown woman calling Webby a dweeb is. Well story wise, she’s SUPPOSED to be another kid at the camp around Webby’s age. In practice, she looks like THIS in closeup

So it looks and plays like a 30 year old woman snuck into the day camp and no one’s noticed she’s not actually a children. Or their just humoring her because she had a week to live. I don’t know. I do know she doesn’t get to judge on names. 

Snippy Von Glitz, proof rich people really do hate their kids and this this comic is trying personally to give me material. Snippy is your average alpha bitch, taking a chair from Minma and being obnoxious and classist and all that jazz. Minima gets hers back by making the chair bouncy then returning it to normal so Snippy gets in trouble when she makes up things about the chair, with the lady in charge getting ready to call her Dad. You cannot convince me that her “Dad” is just what she calls her husband, this is how they both get off, and that the lady at the preschool only tolerates it because they pay her a lot and so far the kids haven’t noticed Snippy is 30. Webby likes minima finding her name pretty, proving that the ho yay is alive no matter the webby and magica relative, and Minma returns the favor by saving her from a block. 

Minma is reluctant to make an actual friend, finding they aren’t worth anything and given most of the kids here apparently pick on her and her aunt is well.. Magica, it’s understandable why she’d be so cold. But Webby presses on and says something from Scrooge about friends. Which given Ducktales scrooge has none goes weird but it gets Minma to find out she knows and lives with Scrooge, so she cons webby into taking the dime for show and tell, showing that she can manipulate them with her powers, and that he won’t notice it’s missing, getting her with “I thought you wanted to be friends” 

So let’s pause for a second and compare and contrast the two: Both are the niece, or at least sorta in Lena’s case, of Magica, both manipulate webby, and both are her first real friend: The 87 boys are little monsters and I don’t consider them friends or even brothers, while the 2017 ones are just that: brothers. Their her siblings in all but blood, not friends and have hteir own long complicated history. 

But otherwise the two are vastly different. Lena is a far more complex character as she’s been abused her whole life, is a rebel because Magica hardly gave her agency, and while she starts wooing webby out of self interest it’s clear even as far as the first episode she cares. Lena would gladly be part of the world if she could and this whole scheme is to gain that choice. 

Minma is still sympathetic but very different: She walls herself off because the other kids laugh and mock her for being herself and lashes out at them.. not unreasonably mind , but still feeling she needs no one else.. but as we’ll learn later she’s only helping Magica to finally feel accepted, to get all the fancy clothes and stuff that will make her popular instead of that grown woman masquerading as a kid for disturbing reasons. Minma is at her heart just a hurt kid desperate to fit in. And while Lena shares the desire for a place to belong.. it’s at it’s core much sadder. Lena.. wants a family. Someone to love her and to care about her and actually look after her. Minma has that she just wants to be loved. it’s similar but very diffrent and I can see why Lena evolved into what she did, as Frank and Matt ended up going in a far darker but ultimately more interesting direction. Minima is not a bad character at all though and without her I don’t think we would’ve had Lena, but at the end of the day the 87verse is just not that complicated, so the reboot needed something more and that more evolved into who we have now. 

Both kids excitedly talk about their new friends, with their respective guardians being distracted. Scrooge is distracted by the fact his car is a bit bumpy and Launchpad offers to fix it up for free with some parts from a buddy, which given the sentence “This won’t cost you anything” makes him erect, Scrooge agrees. Magica meanwhile, whose watching Minima while her mom is away which raises a LOT of questions we don’t have time for like who she is, is she’s poes wife or does Magica have other siblings... it’s a lot of questions we’re never going to get answers to. 

The next day Webby got the dime easy as Scrooge was distracted. so Minima swaps them while she’s distracted. But while swiping it was easy, which to be fair Webby is likely approved in his security so it woudln’t match her.. or the story just needed to progress. You make the call. 

Magica does the logical thing and goes and get sthe dime and the story ends there.. and i’m shitting you, she of course brags to scrooge, reveals minima as her spy, and offers to RACE him for it shortly after he realizes he has a fake.

The only major flaw in this story is Magica’s overconfdience, which isn’t BAD persay, but here has gotten to dumbass proportions. She just can’t plan for anything and a CHILD has a better plan than her that only dosen’t work for reasons we’ll get to. And that plan is almost ruined by Magica taunting scrooge!

So a race is on but Launchpad has transformed Scrooge’s old Model T into this

Damn that’s cool. Scrooge of course dosen’t like it, but honestly you get what you paid for. Oh that’s right you paid nothing for something you NEED to use every day for transportation. 

At  the rickity thickity bridge, Steve Buschemi’s worst roll and her minion ask Webby to roll with them and Minima mistakes this for betrayal planning to soak them all.. only for Webby to DEFEND HER, pointing out minma’s her friend, how she dresses is fine and she loves her no matter what.. the last part’s implied. The 30-year old asshole and her minon leave Webby and Minma is genuinely touched, as no one’s done that for her before. She put up so many walls... she didn’t realize someone could ACTUALLY care about her, so obessed with thinking she had to be like that soccer mom in preschoolers clothing, she just had to be herself: kinda werid but in that fun adams family way. Webby says she knows Minma would do the same.. so while she prepares to let’s get back to the race. Magica realizes Launchpad’s roadster is actually gaining and spreads some tacks, but Scrooge counters with some money.. because of course he has a lot of money in the trunk. But Magica takes out the bridge and while scrooge awesomely JUMPS IT... he’s still too late. 

As you probably guess though, Minima had a change of heart, and gave Webby the real dime back, and Scrooge confirms it. Minima TRIES to tell Magica, and Magica is horrified her niece is a goody goody “I”ll never hear the end of it at my astral aerobics class”.. I.. I want to see that. Let’s raise those spirit ladies and kick kick that soul, doge that shadow king punch them in the soul. Yes! Now eat it eat it and absorb it’s power!

We end on a button joke as Webby apologizes for taking the dime., Scrooge accepts it and Webby tells them magica learned to carpet and they gulp for some reason. 

Final Thoughts on Dime after Dime: This story was decent. It has problems, some jokes don’t land and Magica is made horribly incompetent, but minima’s character arc is endearing, and Webby herself is precious as always and her winning Minima over feels genuine. And Scrooge is in prime adoring uncle mode with her and i’ts just so cute. And the roadster race is pretty awesome to watch honestly. It’s an exceptional and enjoyable tie in story.. and not the last ducktales 87 story we’ll be covering here. Wink wonk. 

Next Time: Things get DARK as Lena and Webby head into the depths of Scrooge’s hidden bin and Lena heads into the depths of her own soul. 

Tommorow: Woo-Ooo mofos as we go back to the very beginning of the reboot! A family restored, a lost city to explore, and a glomgold rises! Be here or be square. 

[remythologise]

Hello! I found your blog via you amazingly summarizing all that's going on with the spn drama. Due to my schedules, rl stuff, some of the arcs that didn't vibe with me, my availability to find a place to watch...the rollercoaster I was used to with this fandom was more me binging it in a weekend to going months to over a year without watching it. I still haven't watched the last season(but with a fandom this big it's pretty impossible not be spoiled so I more or less know what happened) BUT oh great one I ask of thee for more information if you have it...other than being busy and whatnot, I'm not really one to keep up with the actors as well. So could you also maybe do a summary of all the stans? I'im seeing terms I haven't seen before. Who is Kelios(sp?)? Hellions?? probably messed it up but like...I guess what are the name of each legion? Who do they have alliance towards? What was their desires? Que paso?!?!?!?

Hi there! 'Some of the arcs that didn't vibe with me' me emotionally quitting Supernatural in Season 7 after they killed Castiel 😂 Anyway I totally get it, I went through the same culture shock mid-last year when I got back into SPN and tried to find where fandom was at! There's really a LOT of lore and content after 15 years though so I'll just do the broad brushstrokes based on my impressions and personal stereotypes PLEASE remember this is oversimplifying groups and individuals to tendencies and I'm very biased! Also important that there are sub-factions within sub-factions - again, I'm simplifying here!

I've also linked to the 'Super-wiki' in terms of some definitions because the Super-wiki has pages for them where the Fandom-wiki does not. Great introduction actually - only in the Supernatural fandom. There are two Supernatural wikis. One, through curation and twitter activity, supports BiBro/Wincest factions and does not support Destiel users. One is more neutral or Destiel-friendly (I don't know that the Fandom wiki has a personality/social media presence per se). You cannot make this up. There is a factional war... within use of fandom wikis.

Destiel faction

People who primarily ship Dean/Cas, love Castiel and (often, although not always) Jack, and the 'found family' of Supernatural as well as the brothers, and like the post s3 seasons too. Hated 15.19 and 15.20 for killing Dean and ignoring the other characters/narrative arc of the show. Nicknamed 'Destihellers' by the Wincest faction as a derogatory term, 'reclaimed' and shortened as 'Hellers', a nickname they use affectionately to describe each other. See more info on nicknames here.

Sometimes also ship ‘Cockles’ (the ship between Misha Collins and Jensen Ackles) although generally speaking they're more respectful of the wives of the actors than J2 shippers, who are notoriously responsible for... a vast series of insane-fan misdemeanours. Historically most were also good at keeping RPF to themselves and not harassing celebrities with it directly, although recently, particularly with younger twitter fans, that has not been the case.

Sub-factions:

The ‘Desticule’ or ‘Destiel tumblr’ - general grouping of Destiel-shipping tumblr users around 20-30 years old, usually LGBT+, most who came back to the show post-15.18 after leaving it for various reasons including getting sick of the queerbaiting. Funniest bitches alive etc. and responsible for the best text posts you’ve ever seen. Can also start stupid discourse and in-group drama when they’re bored.

'POLOL' - People of Lots of Letters, a discord group (of tumblr and twitter users) that ran on the assumption Andrew Dabb was playing a hugely intricate game of 3D chess to do with gnostic symbolism among other things, and would make Destiel canon. Have since had their own factional sub-wars and fallen apart a bit. Some of their meta was and is good and interesting! Some of it was wildly off the mark. Now generally insist that Dabb/the writers were all pushing for Destiel canon and the network is entirely to blame.

Twitter fans (TikTok edition) - younger fans around 18 and younger who (FOR REASONS BEYOND ME) started watching the show around 2018-2020. Definition of 'stans'. Tend to be very loud and aggressive on twitter when Events Happen, which like. I do get, because they've grown up in a completely different media environment and this kind of Dinosaur Politicking around LGBT+ issues is beyond them. Fancam central. Anyway stream #CASTIEL for clear skin!

Twitter fans (AO3 edition) - older fans around 30+ who kept going with the show but either don't have a large tumblr presence or just prefer twitter. A lot of fic writers, GISH-ers, and BNFs in this group. Some of them are very cool and reasonable in their opinions, some of them act like the younger stans. Some of them too accepting of what happened wrt 15.19-20 in my opinion, because, in contrast to the younger twitter stans, they grew up expecting Destiel to NEVER be canon or respected. 'Can't believe we got this far' etc.

Multiship faction

Multishippers or shippers of things not as large as the two main behemoths . Sub-factions based on shipping, e.g. Megstiel and Sastiel. I don't think these groups are very large though, and seem to have very little influence in the Discourse.

Wincest faction

LARGE overlap with the 'BiBro' faction and their opinions, which I'll get to. Ship Sam and Dean romantically. Often pretend to be BiBros on places like twitter and reddit in order for outside groups to take their opinions more seriously. 'Wincesties' etc. are derogatory nicknames given by the Destiel faction.

Sub-factions:

Multiship fans - ship Sam and Dean but respect Castiel/the 'found family'. Politically overlap with the faction of multishippers, I think. I don't have a lot of insight on this group of people honestly, but I know they exist.

Bronlies - the typical BiBro and 'Wincest' shippers most people think of, twitter user 'Kelios' is one of the would-be ringleaders of this faction - typically tend to be older white midwestern women. Historically have been pretty nasty on twitter (leading to Robert Berens, writer who made Destiel canon, occasionally subtweeting Kelios). Also tend to ship 'J2' - and take it very seriously as a legitimate thing that is really real. This is called 'tinhatting'.

BiBro faction

People who think the show should JUST be about the brothers, love Supernatural s1-3 and everything after it should have been just like Supernatural s1-3. Hate Castiel, Jack, and the 'found family'. Largely loved 15.20. Go to literally any comments section on any Supernatural article and You Will Find Them complaining about how the show should just be about the Brothers. Tend to be older, straighter, and more conservative/Republican (and male) fans. (I am aware that the definition of 'BiBro' used to refer to people who just liked the brothers but there's no definitional difference now in the discourse.) The Wincest and BiBro faction are generally much more wealthy than the Destiel faction (they being younger and more diverse/queer/left-leaning in general) and would be the biggest revenue generators at conventions etc.

Sub-factions:

Reddit bros - literally anyone who visits r/supernatural. Well, that's not fair - there are people who post reasonable opinions on there, but it's pretty rare and they get downvoted a lot. Like to talk about 'toxic Destiel fans' 'ruining the show' and how Dean is a straight man who is straight and could never possibly be gay. Might even think the confession was platonic despite all evidence to the contrary. I'm Not Homophobic I Have Gay Friends, But No Gays on MY Show!

Old Guard - group of older fans who overlap strongly with the Wincest faction, but might not necessarily ship Wincest.

GA faction

'General Audience' - These are the group of audience members that aren't 'online' so to speak; most watch the show on TV as a Casual Viewing Experience (are therefore also sometimes referred to as 'casuals'. Mostly their opinions tend towards BiBros, but they have a vast range of baffling views thanks to being Not Online and usually Not caring about Supernatural that much or thinking that deeply about it.

Sub-factions:

People who simply watch Supernatural on TV and then don't think about it very much after that.

I said they weren't 'online' but that's not entirely true; I'd probably classify people on Supernatural Facebook Groups as GA, along with friends of friends who post statuses about how 15.20 was a neat finale that wrapped up the series.

Conclusion

Supernatural is famously the show that appeals to both Republicans and Democrats, literally All Orientations, so there's a WIDE range of factions. However, most warring online boils down to Destiel vs. Wincest/BiBro - the war that started in Season 4 and has simply never ended. In terms of the 'actors' and their stans, in general, Wincest/BiBro fans love Jared, like Jensen, and dislike Misha. Destiel fans love Misha, like Jensen, and dislike Jared. Of course as with everything, there are variations and this is just a generalisation. But that's the summary of it, from my perspective!

This didn't even get into Sam girls, Dean girls and Cas girls. God. Anyway.

Hope that answered your question, anon!

[coffeeteaitsallfine]

what is a good entry point to convince a very obtuse, but dear, friend about tjlc? he loves the series and agreed there was something wrong with s4, but this is where his brain stop, help?

great question. "agreed there was something wrong with s4" eh? well, that's where you start...almost. is he open to interpreting canon this way or no? i think on an individual level there are certain things that have to be slowly introduced before they can be explained or argued in detail. like does he recognize any homoeroticism or does he thinks they're best buds and there's--hang on what's queerbaiting? or does he actually think it's at best queerbaiting? these are important questions to ask yourself.

now across the board though I would recommend one very specific starting point. I never used to know where but kira @ferm-acid changed my perspective fairly recently :>

start with explaining the Game/Great Game/Sherlockian game whatever you want to call it. it's important to stress that this has been a tradition among holmes enthusiasts for over a century and we're not just willfully "reading into it." There are multiple instances of Watson lying or saying that he is lying or telling the reader that he is at least leaving out important names, dates, etc. anything that could be sensitive information. He is an unreliable narrator. Question what he is telling you--holmes scholars have been doing that with the stories for a long time and it was a good excuse to play to detective, using holmes own philosophies and methods to solve an unsolvable puzzle.

CAM starts out this way and the writers also agree it's a convenient lie that Watson essentially told the reader at the beginning. Luckily, Series 4 starts out the exact same way. By "doctoring" footage from hlv to present a different story to the public. Sherlock: "that's not what happened." Mycroft/Mark Gatiss aka literal writer of the show and that very episode: "It is now."

I think explaining how we know Series 4 is a version that is being presented to the public and we the audience are being asked to use what we learned in the first three seasons to solve the mystery-the final problem if you will. and in order to do that you have to really understand and find the clues in S1-3. Next, it's probably pretty important to emphasize that both in canon and in the show, John has to fabricate or heavily edit events because he is "suicidal, alone, and strapped for cash." not to mention the drinking problem oh boy but I can't go into that now, but it's all there in all 3 seasons, most obviously in s4.

Then, you can explain blog theory. After that if you know john is the writer it's not a far leap to understanding he'd insert characters that look and/or act like him in some way representing how he is currently feeling about himself and recent events in his life. Then assuming your friend needs a little more convincing you can introduce brechtian techniques and absurdism which is really the only simple explanation for the final problem. TFP is truly the culmination of everything everyone has been getting wrong about sherlock the man the myth the legend in the stories and in the show. It ends in the most 'this is what you wanted right?' way ever and guess what it sucks doesn't it!? "Jesus grandpa what did you read me this thing for." All of this is the HOW which people usually think they want to know first and then you can really get into the WHY.

WHY isn't all this more obvious in canon? Why would the writers think that is the correct way to tell a sherlock holmes story? (tplosh, garridebs...) Why modernize it? Why wouldn't they just tell a different holmes story from the start? Why make it puzzle (aside from 'because it's fun')?

Personally I think it's important to emphasize the big picture ideas first rather than jump into the small, finer examples like "girlfriend boyfriend?" "unattached like me?" "i'm not gay! well i am look at us both" or HE leFT the wedding EARLY!? these examples are great but too easily explained away without context. which yeah...s4 can be 'explained away' as bad writing but a lot of that comes from people being bitter and hopeless in my humble opinion. this show and theory is not for faint of heart. it has a very specific target audience of like 100 people

[forestlingincorporated]

Bernard Dowd

DC made me do it. Fandom made me do it. So here it is, the character retrospective I never thought I’d ever write. 

Bernard Dowd was introduced on December 17th, 2003, in Robin #121. Tim has recently transferred to Louis E. Grieve Memorial High School, his fourth school since his introduction when he was 13; Tim is 16 now, and was recently forced to drop out of Brentwood due to his father’s bad investments loosing them their upper class status. Jack and Dana Drake are still alive. 

Bernard Dowd is the first person Tim meets when transferring to this new school. Bernard picks him out of the crowd as new, and immediate tries to determine what Tim’s clique is, only to determine, as we all know, Tim is pretty much impossible to cleanly box. 

Bernard thinks very highly of himself. He views himself as also being above cliques, and wants to give Tim the impression that he’s “runs the school.” He thinks of himself as a cool guy, and he doesn’t like to be called “Bernie.” 

His attempts to befriend Tim are rather presumptive in a way that comes off as rude. He treats Tim like a lost little lamb in need of guidance. 

So, Tim ends up casual friends with Bernard. In fact, at this point in time, Tim says he’s his only friend at school. 

Bernard has a crush on fellow classmate and lowkey daughter of a crime boss, Darla Aquista. (Yes, that Darla Aquista, of TimSteph relationship drama fame.) He is the one to introduce Tim to Darla, and Tim embarrasses him by calling his bluff over whether or not he’d actually ask her out if her jock friends were removed from the picture. This is when you start to get the feeling Bernard might be all talk and bravado. He’s not the cool, confident, popular guy he makes himself out to be. 

After Tim looses Robin, he invites Bernard over for dinner with his family. His and Tim’s relationship seems... complicated. On the one hand, Tim likes him enough to invite him over to his house, and he’s probably Tim’s closest friend during a period of time when his other relationships are distant (friends at other schools) or cut entirely (the hero community). That said, Bernard is CLEARLY depicted as... skeezy, and skeezy about people in Tim’s life, in a way Tim doesn’t appreciate. 

Months later, if the passing of seasons is to be believed, Bernard is the person to inform Tim that there’s a new Robin. Tim seems to have a larger friend group at Louis E. Grieve, he’s worked out a friendship with Darla even though she still seems to have a slight crush on him, and seems to be friends with several of the footballers, but he still has time for Bernard. 

Bernard believes wild conspiracies that Batman works for a shadow government and owns secret orphanages full of Robins that only last for about three days before they die and get buried in secret government graveyards. 

We don’t see Bernard for a while after this. Darla Aquista is shot at school, dying in Tim’s arms. Stephanie Brown’s death is faked. Tim’s father dies, and his stepmother is in such mentally bad shape she has to be checked into a special clinic in Bludhaven, so Tim transfers to John Wayne High School, his fifth school since he was 13. 

A lot of shit goes down between the school shooting and the next (and last) time we see Bernard in Robin #140. He’s meeting up with a girl named Linda, when his vehicle is destroyed by none other than Darla Aquista, back from the dead as Warlock’s Daughter, who is looking for Tim. 

After she scares the shit out of him, they go to Gotham Grille for age-appropriate drinks, and Bernard tells her that the high school closed down after the shooting and all the students’ families received settlement money. With that money, Bernard attended an unnamed private school. 

He offers to help her become a superhero, which she turns down. While he’s pretty rude to Linda over the phone, he’s depicted softer here, He seems earnest in his desire to help Darla, even if he still has an underlying bit a selfishness. I personally feel like he comes off a little less like the Annoying Try Hard he started out as, and has a bit more Booster Gold-esque charm to him. 

But, we never see him again, after he helps her track down Tim’s new address with his Fake Uncle, so he was lost to the pile of Tim’s former normal boy friends to be forgotten. 

UNTIL BATMAN: URBAN LEGENDS! 

Right now, everyone is excited because Batman: Urban Legends #4′s been released and Tim Drake has some strong Might End Up Coming Out As MLM Soon? vibes. He’s got this Discovering New Things About Himself arc in this comic that’s framed in a very Gay Coded way. Focusing on a gay male couple with the dialog box “like me” over it, Barbara talking about how he’s afraid looking too deeply at himself might “change” him, stuttering over how his old friend “looks,” and of course this pseudo date he’s goes on with Bernard. 

I cannot actually analyze the whole comic in depth, because I don’t own it; I ordered the trade, so I won’t be receiving it until December. This is what I’ve gathered from screen shots of this comic alone. I don’t think Urban Legends is technically in the main canon, but I would not be surprised if this was a test to see how audiences respond - like Joker shooting Barbara Gordon in The Killing Joke (which isn’t canon) resulting in Barbara Gordon’s very canon paralysis. 

There’s some speculation at the moment that Bernard himself might actually be evil, or working for the bad guys. I think it’s equally possible he might be targeted by the bad guys, and not necessarily evil himself. But neither scenario would particularly surprise me, it seems unlikely he would be reintroduced as solely a potential love interest for Tim, if that is indeed the route they’re going down. Consider old flames of Bruce’s that get reintroduced, they’re often connected to the plot in some way. 

I... have not exactly sugar coated that I don’t like Bernard. Honestly, I AM trying to be fair. THIS Bernard seems lovely, from the screen caps, but my most recent experience with Bernard was a recent reread of the Robin series, and I just don’t find him historically likable. Some people may disagree, but I personally think some of those some people are maybe going back after reading THIS comic and rereading him with rose-tinted glasses he hasn’t quite earned. 

So, I personally am not going to start shipping this, at least not right now, though I am putting on my clown make up getting my hopes up that Tim might come out as gay or bi. I’m personally hoping he’s gay, but that’s just me seeing a lot of myself in Tim, and projecting my own experience with compulsory heterosexuality onto him, and I think it would be interesting to explore that with an established character. I would still be happy with bi/pan Tim Drake, and I think that would probably make the most people happy - fans of Tim’s opposite-sex ships get to win, and fans of Tim’s queer ships get to win, and bi/pan people would get a big name character as representation. What would make the most people angry, is if this ends up as a queerbait during Pride Month of all things. 

I... have no hope they might make him demisexual, I don’t know if DC even knows what that word means. 

[thesquirrelqueer]

What Is and What Should Never Be

AKA for some reason my professor let me write about supernatural for class so here's that if anyone is interested

How does a show about two brothers who hunt monsters turn into a 4th wall shattering queer love story? It all starts with the show’s creator, Eric Kripke, and the intense amount of meta that was built into Supernatural. Kripke’s original vision for the show was to create a series for “manly” men, who wanted to watch a show about red-blooded Americans doing red-blooded American things, like drinking beer and being gunslingers. However, with “death of the author” and a lot of tiny accidents along the way, it turned into a 15 year-long fever dream involving angels, demons, and characters fighting against their own creator.

Kripke has always been interested in horror, the book The House With a Clock in Its Walls igniting his passion for the genre when he was a kid. Growing up in Toledo, Ohio, he would create amateur horror movies with his friends. This love of filmmaking and a fascination with urban legends eventually led him to create the show Supernatural. Kripke only thought the series would run for a maximum of five seasons. It ran for fifteen.

As the series progressed, Kripke would often receive messages from people from his youth, asking him why he wrote such twisted stories. Even his own sister would call him once a month saying, “What the hell is wrong with you?”, to which Kripke laughs at. Many people assume that his stories stem from some sort of traumatic experience, but in the end he is just naturally a really messed up guy. Kripke abandoned Supernatural after its 5th season, but by then, the seeds for the meta-narrative had already been sprouting. He has worked on multiple shows since then, such as Timeless, Revolution, and more recently, The Boys, in which Kripke’s perverted imagination really gets to have fun.

Kripke’s baby, Supernatural, is the child born because their parent’s birth control doesn’t work. Most of it was accidental. For the first three seasons, Kripke’s vision was to create a show that centered around the Winchester brothers, Sam and Dean, as they encountered various ghosts and monsters while driving across the midwest in their father’s ‘67 Chevy Impala. However, near the end of the third season, a writer’s strike caused the show to drive off course, shortening the season from 22 episodes to only 16. With the season finale involving Dean being killed by hellhounds and sent to hell, Kripke needed a way to quickly save Dean. Thus angels were introduced to the show, after Kripke had said they never would. This is where the meta-narrative begins.

In the episode “The Monster At The End of This Book”, Supernatural introduces the idea that Sam, Dean, and their new angel friend Castiel, are all characters in a book series that exists within the world of Supernatural. The writer of the Supernatural book series, Chuck Shurley, AKA G-d, becomes a stand-in for the writers and creators of the show, specifically Kripke himself. This same episode introduces the idea that characters cannot stray from the path on which they are written, yet Dean and Castiel are able to do just that. This establishes that Dean and Castiel have free will within the story, though this ability presents unique challenges. This is the first and certainly not the last shattered fourth wall the show presents. Many of these fourth wall breaks revolved around Dean and Castiel’s relationship, making it seem as if the two men were in love with each other but couldn’t be together because the writers/Chuck wouldn’t allow it.

It is at this point that Kripke’s characters slip through his fingers. Dean Winchester was never meant to be queer. However, through years and years of queerbaiting, queercoding, and accidents, Kripke’s manly womanzier became the love interest for a gay angel. However, as fans struggled to find closure on the relationship and were forced to suffer through 12 years of queerbaiting, Supernatural itself turned into a monster that would not die, much like the ones in the show. Part of the reason why the show’s fanbase refused to die, even after the series’ disaster of a finale, was that it had ingrained the idea of “death of the author'' into so many aspects of the show.

“Death of the author”, the concept that when a piece is published, the author no longer controls how that work is interpreted, is one of the core elements of Supernatural. Within the show itself, there are multiple deaths of the authors, including Eric Kripke himself being killed off in the episode “The French Mistake”. This literal death of the author is also present when Chuck, the stand-in for the writers, gets killed off. The series even goes as far as to have an interaction between Dean and a fan of the in-show book series where he tells her “ I have my version, and you have yours”. Supernatural is supposed to be up for interpretation, like any other form of art.

When Kripke created Supernatural, he definitely never expected that its fans would run with it the way that they did. He also probably didn’t expect for his show to have such an active online fanbase of mostly queer women, who interpreted the show through a queers lens. Fans have taken his story and turned it into their own. To fans of the show, it has become so fourth wall breaking that the characters feel more real than the writer.

[thehollowprince]

I have truly grown to hate shipping. Between every fandom having at least one ship that ruins it for everyone, to people fetishizing mlm relationships, to queerbating, which is a serious issue when it happens, being turned into a buzz word thrown around for whenever two straight (usually white) men don't bang when they want them to, it's just become a shit show. It's no longer a fun fandom thing. It's entitled fans, that throw temper tantrums, and sometimes even send death threats, because they didn't get what they want. I hate it.

Oh, you're preaching to the choir!

I've said this multiple times over the last few years, but shipping culture is ruining fandom for so many people. Far more often than not anymore, if you were to enter a fandom space for a show or book or movie, because you thought the premise was interesting or you loved the story, only to find that all the majority of that fandom space cares about is the ships... be they canon or not. That's all anyone seems to care about anymore.

Take The Falcon and The Winter Soldier as a recent example. The storyline was good (if a little heavy on the propaganda) but if you were to go through the fandom tags, most of what you'd see is people gushing about Sambucky and how they were so in love over and over and over again. Now, I know not everyone was doing this in a malicious way, or even trying to make that the center of what the show was about - we were just working with what we were given - but the amount of people intent on ignoring the relationship that Sam and Bucky had on screen in order to prop up the one created by the fandom was still a lot. Hell, it even got to a point by the second episode where many fans were accusing Marvel of "queerbaiting" them, tossing out the word as a means to invoke an emotional response and get people to side with them on this issue that wasn't an issue.

I even made a post about how it wasn't queerbaiting and how tossing that word out whenever fandom was inconvenienced was doing more harm that good.

They did the same thing with Stucky, focusing more on the fanon relationship than anything that actually happened on screen between the two of them. They took that one line "I'm with you til the end of the line" and made it their catchphrase, repeating it so much that I wanted to scream.

The thing that made it all the more frustrating was the fact that I liked those ships. I liked what was there between Sam and Bucky, or Steve and Bucky, or even Steve and Sam, but I couldn't go into a fandom space to talk about those characters without the conversation quickly being diverted to the ships themselves. I could make a post right now about Sam's arc in TFATWS and how he went from rejecting the shield and mantle of Captain America to embracing it and actively taking both by the end, and it would quickly be taken over by the thought of how instrumental Bucky was to all of that and how he motivated Sam and so on and so forth.

And that's not to say that those things aren't true, but sometimes I just want to talk about a singular character without bringing shipping nonsense into it.

Same thing happened with the Buddie (and to a lesser extent, Tarlos) fandom. I like both Buck and Eddie on 9-1-1, but whenever you mention either character, all the fandom does is scream about how they're queerbaited because these two are going at it on screen. Oliver Stark, the actor who plays Buck, recently deleted his entire Twitter because of the shippers that were tweeting at him and in his DMs, talking about how Buddie had better be canon by the end of the season.

That's not healthy!

Let's talk about Teen Wolf for a minute, as I usually do when this topic comes up. For years, even to this day, people are convinced they were queerbaited with this show when it came to the ship of Sterek. A ship created between two characters that hardly shared any screentime in the first season (and even less when you take Scott out of the picture) that somehow took over the fandom. It took over the fandom to the extent that they started making things up, either scenarios that happened "off screen" (Stiles helping Derek look for Boyd and Erica/Stiles hanging out with Peter playing chess) or even assassinating characters ("Scott is a bad friend") all in order to make their ship more palatable, especially for the "fans" who relied on blogs for this content and never actually watched the show.

Hell, I saw this...

... today, not even two hours ago, almost four years after the show ended, and six years after one half of this ship left rhe show. The shipping got so bad, consumed the fandom to such a degree, that they have utterly convinced themselves that they were the victims of this whole thing, all because a ship that they made up didn't happen on screen. The way they throw around the word queerbaiting, completely ignorant of its meaning and how harmful it is when it's actually done, all while ignoring the canon gay characters of this show is just further proof how how shipping has changed fandom.

Its no longer about just liking a thing, it's become this whole thing that some people have made into their entire personality.

It's why I always hesitate to call myself a shipper, or to say that I ship something, because the immediate connotation when someone says that is that that's the only reason why they're here.

Shipping Culture is the Death of Fandom.

[idgaf-what-you-call-me]

Destiel 5x03/5x04 & 15x18

The fact that in 5x03 Dean uses his "best line" on Cas, asks Cas if he's a virgin, asks Cas if he's been with a woman (sexuality check - trust me I'm part of the rainbow mafia and saw that right away), makes two gay references, fixes Cas's tie and collar, and says "haven't laughed like that in years" and "I am happier with you", and people habe the audacity to say that he is 100% straight Still?! Excuse me but make Dean a lady and we all know they'd be together by the following episode right after Dean seconds Cas calling Raphael his "little bitch"

But this was an aside to the fact the Cas and Dean are both happier with each other. Because destiel is cannon and has been long before the obvious subtext.

As a bisexual with a lowry of baggage somewhat parallelling Dean's, I can say that at times in my life I repressed and ignored the writing on the wall. I think bisexuals are fairly misunderstood. My own sexuality I have recently found out is not understood by my partner of over 11 years. Its incredibly confusing to be attracted to two genders. Overwhelming really when you first come to terms with it. *Cue me giving my clearly not asked for opinion on Dean from Seasons 5-15.*

I suspect Cas is the first person that forces Dean to confront his sexuality. This challenge alone could make Dean clam up as we see. I would wager that either in Purgatory or at the confession Dean has begun to acknowledge there are feelings there. Just as he is confronting and potentially accepting those desires, he loses Cas. Now coping with both the significant and traumatic loss of a loved one but also the revelation of Castiel's truth (and potentially his own) he can offer nothing more than a pleading "please dont do this, Cas."

I've kept up with the Yo, a ti recanonization of Destiel and my little queer heart jumps for joy at it, but that is not the point of what Cas is saying. Cas knows that having Dean alive and thriving is what matters most. Cas is not looking to have reciprocation and tosses Dean out of the way to ensure that he is not a casualty of his confession.

This moment of Cas confessing his love and therefore being at his happiest, is significant because it mirrors a scene from Season 5 - Free to be You and Me. When Dean pronounces that he is happier with Cas than with Sam. Then Cas disappears. This is a long established part of Deans experience with Cas. He makes Dean happiest, and Cas, to save Dean, was the one to reciprocate this moment from 10 seasons earlier. (and if thats not queerbaiting and an extremely slow burn that could beat any Edwardian novel then I dont know what is!)

I wish that they would have had Misha in the Finale. He plays a character loved deeply by fans that left the show with a storyline completely unresolved. I hope one day that thet release the original 15x19 & 15x20 scripts. The idea that Cas would not appear in one of these episodes is honestly very strange.