#no seriously gay it up

[r-rook-studio]

Sometimes on Roseville Beach

People ask me how to write a Roseville Beach adventure and the book has some good suggestions, but here the quick and dirty process any GM can use on the fly:

Pick a horror or thriller movie, preferably supernatural: giallo, folk, and cosmic all work.

Forget the end. Forget the characters. Forget the original setting. Keep that monster, though. Keep that monster. Also, keep those bossy heterosexuals, weaselly villains, and bad gays. You'll need them, too. The monsters, bossy/tricksy straights, and bad gays have three hit points just like everyone else.

You ditched the setting, so now you can just replace that setting with Roseville Beach.

Now gay that shit up.

Now make it even gayer.

Throw your table's gay Scooby team right at all that nonsense and see how much gayer they make it.

[vertexline]

I have a theory

Or I might be entirely wrong and it's just blatant, directed toward everyone, homophobia :3

[ahaura]

im sure its been said already but as the election draws near more and more liberals will come out of the woodwork to shame people with a conscience to give away their vote to the democrats for free. i'm already seeing posts saying "why aren't people more concerned about a trump presidency?" you want to know why? it's because people already know he's bad. everyone already knows what he is and what he's done and what he'll do. there's nothing to discuss. he's a racist despotic worm of a man. there's nothing else to say.

biden is currently president. the genocide is happening under his watch. he's the one funding isra*l and arming them; he's sidestepped congress more than once to give them weapons. by oct. 27, the biden administration already knew that "Israel was regularly bombing buildings without solid intelligence that they were legitimate military targets." the state department/biden have engaged in atrocity propaganda, cast doubt on the legitimacy of the death toll recorded by the gaza health ministry, and so on. the united states is currently in the process of trying to pin the "war in gaza" on netanyahu (see sen. schumer's speech) after months of backing blatant genocide as a means to act as if they're "doing something" about the genocide (Instead of, say, threatening to cut off all aid to israel with the condition that all hostilities in gaza, the west bank, and occupied jerusalem are halted immediately and permanently, allowing palestinians freedom to travel, allowing aid into gaza, etc etc etc.)

the long and short of it is that liberals view their own lives as being worth more than palestinians'. that's it. they'll vote for another 4 years of the guy ushering in genocide and supporting apartheid + settler colonialism because he isn't outright attacking them (despite various laws and rulings happening both at the supreme court level and at the local level all over the country that will endanger people). they'll settle for the illusion of safety and security and shame anyone with a conscience and accuse them of "supporting the republicans" when in an actual democracy you would be able to use your vote as leverage to extract concessions from those who want to be elected. that's how it's supposed to fucking work.

democrats are not owed people's vote. if biden loses, it will be biden's fault; it will be his campaign's fault; it will be the democrats' fault. trump is bad; the republicans are bad. we already know this. this is not an endorsement of either. but if democrats are too cowardly and feckless and servile to the motivations of the american empire and never do anything for their constituents then why the fuck should anyone vote for them. you want to get mad at someone, why don't you do something useful and stop worrying about team-sports with a purely selfish basis and start hounding the people in power who are supposed to serve you, the voter.

[makorragal-312]

*Gerrard existing*

Buck: I'm gonna fucking kill this guy.

Eddie: DON'T. He's not even worth it.

*Gerrard gerrards in his general direction*

Eddie:

[spiderthread]

why don't you let yourself be gently peeled off the ground and tossed across the back of a horse like a sack of potatoes by the most handsome man in china, then maybe you'll calm down

(+ bonus:)

[roachingurcoach]

okay I don't really know how to frame this. but like. funniest way to confirm Dean is Ben's dad is

20 year-old Ben takes a genetics test for fun or whatever, and the results he gets back are just batshit insane. it's like. oh hey. my biological father is a known serial killer who's still on the FBI's most wanted list and has been found or thought dead multiple times. and my uncle. and my grandfather. and my grandmother. and my--

[sanjipussyindulgence]

i dont usually scum villain post here but i feel like i had to make this.

[mossyeyeballs]

Ok ignore the art, ik it’s bad it was my first attempt and it was months ago before I started taking rendering seriously. But I posted this art on my TikTok a while ago and since then I’ve been accused a total of 7 times of sexualizing minors. And just today it happened again. My question is how?

I think the only two things I’d even consider REMOTELY “sexual” are her not wearing a bra and her just being in her underwear. Which both I think are stupid considering what actual 17 year olds do in comparison. I’m not saying that if my drawing is sexual that there’s worse things; by which erasing the severity if I was doing that, but what I AM saying is I don’t think these things are sexual. Her just EXISTING in her underwear shouldn’t be considered sexual imo. “You took time to draw it out!” Yeah and I also took time to draw her eyes being red, Nicole having brown hair unlike the fandom saying it’s black, Jeckas cute heart patterned shorts, and the smoke in the background? I took time on the entire thing, that’s why I posted it? I didn’t even shade the underwear because I forgot to, that’s how LITTLE I was focused on it. Her simply wearing underwear isn’t sexual. It’d be different if I drew her in a sexual pose or with a seductive face but she’s literally just sitting there and gossiping at a sleepover. And the bra thing I won’t even entertain cause you can’t even tell unless you look SUPER closely, which if you’re looking that close I don’t think I’m the creep in the situation. I guess what I’m asking is if it IS sexual and I just genuinely can’t tell (which I can’t) then how and please explain? I fear the only comment I got explaining why it was weird don’t respond to me when I brought up the previous points.

(Seriously help, what’s wrong with it. I’ve literally gotten called a pdf file over this drawing 3 times now.)

[atsukunaritai]

and then the show proceeds to cut to the next scene where they've changed clothes

[monkeybebop]

POV: Lacho approach you at the bar.

[eddiezpaghetti]

It has come to my attention that SOME OF YOU who read my last Byler post remain UNCONVINCED. So I'm gonna tack onto it this:

I'm older than fucking God and air, and I've been out and proud since 2007. Yes, I know what homophobia is, and yes, I know what queerbaiting is. I know about Supernatural and Teen Wolf and Sherlock and blahdyblahdyblah. No new ground is being covered here. I thought I made that clear in the original post, but, clearly, I did not.

I am aware of queerbaiting and homophobia, and I'm still wholeheartedly certain in Byler being canon anyway.

Okay, so there are three types of relationship I want to discuss when it comes to queerbaiting. They're all, like, "queer relationships that could have happened, but didn't".

First off, queer-coding. This isn't really a thing so much anymore, but it still crops up every once in a while. I'd argue it probably happens most with male-male relationships in family shows these days. First example that comes to mind is Mr. Smiley and Mr. Frowny from Steven Universe. You can't make a relationship canon because some shitty overhead bastard overhead said no, so you get as close as you can without compromising the show. Can't make someone gay? Well, now their comedy routine is a blatant allegory for a romantic relationship. Boom-shaka-laka. This is something I don't see being a problem with regards to Stranger Things, but I want it to be there as contrast, a demonstration of one of many things queerbaiting is not. However, one could argue that, thus far, Will Byers is, canonically, queer-coded. It's pretty fucking heavily implied in the show, and the creators have confirmed it, and you're gonna be able to see it if you're not FUCKING BLIND, but word of god is not technically canon which means that interviews don't technically make something canon, blahdyblahdyblahdyblah, technicalities, Robin has been explicitly stated in the text to be queer while Will has, thus far, not, outside of good ol' Show-Don't-Tell. Of course, anyone with two brain cells to rub together can tell that that's going to change by the end of Season 5, but, hey, for what it's worth, I'm throwing this out there.

Alrighty, Thingamajingama Number Two: "Oops, I accidentally made the greatest love story known to man." AKA, a genuine, honest-to-goodness mistake. Unfortunately, we do live in a heteronormative society. Sometimes people who don't think about being gay much write a friendship that's incredibly compelling and don't even consider the possibility that it could have been read as romantic. Something something Top Gun something. This is, again, not queerbaiting. This is Steddie, this is Ronance, this is Elmax, this is your favorite flavor of non-canon ship this week, this is not Byler. The creators know DAMN well what they're doing. They've talked about it. We know this. Nothing new here.

Which brings us to the topic of discussion here. Actual queerbaiting. This usually starts out as an "accidental greatest love story", and then reacts to fan response. And when I say "reacts", I mean like a goddamn chemical reaction. Like bleach and ammonia, bitch. It's noxious and it's gonna kick your fucking ass without mercy. This is when a creator is like, "Hey, let's get our queer audience invested, but we're not actually going to give them what they want because our straight audience isn't here for that/we personally think it's gross/we don't give enough of a shit to want to research a goddamn thing to write a real gay character," blah blah blah whatever excuse they want to come up with this time.

And when you think "queerbaiting", I want you to think "bullying". Because that's what it is. It's lucrative bullying, like beating us up and taking our lunch money, but it's bullying all the same. And it's a real goddamn thing, even if people misuse the word a lot, often when they mean one of the two above, sometimes when they mean "bury your gays", which is another homophobic thing entirely that I'm not going to get into here. Queerbaiting is the thing we're focused on, and it's real, and it's bullying. And here's the reason I want you to think of it as bullying:

They

Think

It's

Funny.

They are actively making fun of us.

That's why Dean had the "Cas, get out of my ass," line in Supernatural. It's why the "Do you like boys?" line happened in Teen Wolf. It's why "Lie with me, Watson," happened in the RDJ Sherlock Holmes movies. Because "It's just a joke, mate." "It was just a prank, bro." "You didn't really think it would happen, did you?" "You should see your face."

So here's probably the biggest reason I don't think it's specifically queerbaiting in this specific instance of Will Byers and Mike Wheeler.

Stranger Things has never, not once, made a gay joke. Ever.

Every single time queerness comes up, it's dead serious.

Lonnie calls Will a fag, and the show is not at all reluctant to show what a goddamn horrible person he is. And when Hopper latches onto that, it's not as "Hahah, is he gay, though?" It's because he's trying to determine a potential motive for Will's disappearance, and even if someone had interpreted it as a joke, Joyce immediately has a line that functions as snapping her fingers in front of the audience's face and yelling "FOCUS" when she says "He's MISSING." Basically outright saying "This isn't funny!"

Troy calls him a fairy, along with targeting Lucas and Dustin for their skin color and disability respectively, and Mike gets damn near murderous. Troy is portrayed as a goddamn monster and the show portrays it as justice when El makes him piss his pants and later breaks his arm.

Steve calls Jonathan "queer" as a slur and gets the shit beat out of him for it.

Billy's father is revealed to be homophobic and abusive in the same breath.

Mike says "It's not my fault you don't like girls!" and we're shown how devastated Will is and Mike immediately follows him to beg for forgiveness.

There is a joke in Robin's coming-out scene, but it's not at Robin's expense. It's at Steve's. Specifically for being heteronormative.

Jonathan has multiple scenes where he's trying so hard to tell Will that he's always going to love him as he is, whether he's gay or not, without pressuring him to come out before he's ready.

Even when there's a little bit of ribbing at Robin's expense, it's always because she's an awkward nerd who's nervous around pretty girls, just the same as Lucas and Dustin are teased when they both first develop crushes on Max, and even then, even then, it always comes as a package deal where they make fun of Steve's girl problems at the same time.

Stranger Things is an emphatically pro-gay show. It may not be the core point of the show the way it is in, say, Our Flag Means Death, but there is nothing less than respect for its queer characters. Its queer characters are always taken completely seriously. No one is making fun of us. They never have. That's why I have serious doubts that this is queerbaiting. It would come completely out of left field for the bullying to start in Stranger Things' final season.

So it's not at all likely to be queerbaiting because queerness is taken completely seriously. The creators have talked about Will's queerness, at least, so it's not an accident. And queer-coding would be silly to expect from this show when it's already on its final season. Like, what is Netflix gonna do? Cancel it? Not to mention all the explicit queerness that's in there already. And no one's gonna "What about the children?" a show that's had sex scenes in it since the first season.

There's no fakeout here. It's gonna happen. Breathe.

[platossoulmates]

my favorite thing about advanced gay is jeff’s reaction to pierce’s switch up on gay people like how are you to tell me that is not EXACTLY how a closeted person who knows they’re closeted (im looking at you troy barnes) would react in that situation. everyone else just thinks it’s a little silly and fun to be momentarily involved in gay culture but he is offended because he gets it 😭 there is literally no way to watch advanced gay and not come out of it knowing that is the most bisexual character ever presented on television

[sweeterthansucrose]

Gay people can't flirt properly. It's always something like:

'Punch me in the face.'

'Punch you?'

'Yes, punch me, in the face, didn't you hear me?'

[etrevil]

Gotta love it when Chuuya's character letter starts of with him mentioning Dazai despite how he's unrelated to this 🤣

[stagefoureddiediaz]

THEYRE GOING TO SHOW US EDDIE SHAVING OFF HIS MUSTACHE ON SCREEN BECAUSE ITS SYMBOLIC!!!

[conanssummerchild]

imo byler should have a slow kiss at first like theyre both leaning in, blushing thinking 'oh my god i cant believe this is happening', theyre both nervous and they kiss briefly but like not too briefly, a good solid kiss to let it sink in, and then we should get to see mikes face and he looks almost surprised and he has an 'oh, this is how its suposed to feel' moment and will's nervous bcs mike's just staring at him with his mouth open so he asks "was that... okay?" and then mike gets the biggest grin on his face and he nearly knocks will over with the enthusiasm of the next kiss, or maybe he does knock him over bcs theyre silly like that and they laugh bcs theyre best friends first and should get to act like it and then they get to make out sloppy style on the floor bcs they deserve it and its passionate and not watered down because we're not actually in the 80's and two gay characters should get to make out just like the straight ones have throughout the whole show anyway blink if u agree