#queer characters can die without everything being bury your gays

[crowleysfall]

Already seeing some people calling Izzy’s death a bury your gays thing ffs Izzy dying had NOTHING to do with him being queer, y’all can be pissed but please be serious

[thatone-churro]

i was gonna make this addition to someone else’s post but it got longer than expected and i really didn’t wanna do that to them after they said they were done talking about it in regards to their own work.

i don’t know if “bugs” or “irks” are quite the right words for how i feel, but this take certainly does something of the sort to me.

i hate that the concept of “bury your gays” and its related discourses are so quickly applied to ALL queer media. it’s completely stripped of its original context/meaning and i know THAT irks me to no end.

personally, i’m of a mind that queers deserve media about them, about queers, and also about tragedy, death, murder, action and suspense, or whatever the occasion is. it can be about the queer cast while not having a happy ending, or without the cast being perfect.

“casually queer” is how i used to describe my personal project. yes, it’s blatantly and unapologetically queer, and that queerness is important, but it’s not the focus of the story. it’s not the point of the story. there’s still action, still adventure, still death, still tragedy. the cast isn’t perfect, some die, some are awful, some are “problematic,” even the queer cast. most things happen to the queer cast, because most of the major cast is queer.

i don’t understand the idea of condemning a work for “problematic queer characters” if it’s just a primarily queer work. you can’t have a queer story with no conflict or have realistic characters that are perfect. you want a queer story, but no, no, the queer characters can’t be problematic. and the problematic trait they describe is simply just. a character flaw exploited for the sake of the narrative. i don’t get it.

a queer story written for queers shouldn’t be perfect and pure. there should be “problematic” things. there should be tragedy. they shouldn’t have to be pure. they shouldn’t have to be perfect. they shouldn’t be shunned by the community they were created for because they told an otherwise typical story, except now it’s queer. queer stories, or any story, should be allowed to be complex. there should be nuance. not everything in it should be likable. that’s how a story works.

using my story as an example, again, my all-time favorite character and one of my main protagonists for a good chunk of it is a nonbinary lesbian on ace-spectrum. okay. cool. lots of rep there. but they’re heavily flawed. they kill. they have regrets. they make stupid decisions. they’re self-righteous. they’re terrified of being the bad guy yet end up the bad guy in many people’s views. they have one very violent motive. they love their family to such an extent that they’ll destroy anyone who lays a hand on them. they’re complex. they’re nuanced. they’re not always the good guy. that’s how a story is. if they were a perfect, pure, “perfect” character, there would be no story. no enjoyable story, at least.

what baffles me the most is when queer creators make these queer stories and suddenly they’re a bad queer because they killed one of their many queer characters, for instance. i’ll use my project once more for an example. say, remember that nonbinary ace lesbian from less than a paragraph ago? yeah, i ended up killing them at one point. their story was over and while it hurt me, too, it was a necessary step for the story. their story was over and i needed them to start the next chapter of the next protagonists’ story. but as a nonbinary ace lesbian myself, does that make me a “bad queer?” am i suddenly evil if i killed off my sapphic couple that got marrie in the first part because their story was over and there was no other way to move on their daughter’s story with them there? am i the asshole for killing one of my ace characters for a narrative purpose? am i not allowed to do certain things to my queer characters anymore if i don’t want to be a “bad queer?”

i guess these feelings boil down more to how strictly puritan culture and/or cancel culture and/or “problematic” culture has invaded the literary scene and how that impacts me, a queer writer. how are we supposed to tell these stories that people beg for if they are torn down and torn apart for the exact nuances they want? how are we supposed to create anything without relentless scorn or fear of being “cancelled” for thematic complexities? i don’t understand it.

in conclusion:

i realize my opinion on the subject is probably HEAVILY swayed by my own tastes and preferences and i have no idea where i’m going with this anymore and there’s not really an argument here anymore so really this whole thing can be taken with a grain of salt.

anyway, that’s my angry rant for the day. please don’t witch hunt me for it, thanks 🤞

[girl4music]

Finally got the chance to comment about this article.

First of all, I want to say that I never really realized that Nicole Haught wasn’t the only queer character to not be killed off throughout the entire show’s run. Wow.

Second of all, I want to address this part of the article.

“Why It Matters.

The point I’m trying to make in all this is that killing off queer characters isn’t necessary. There are ways to write dramatic tension that don’t involve death, and Emily Andras just proved that in spades with the most recent season of Wynonna Earp. Death, maiming, torture, and suffering as default for Dramatic Satisfaction™ and Shock and Awe™ just isn’t going to cut it anymore.

Neither is flat, overly saccharine, stakes-less storytelling that ditches true dramatic tension for predictability seemingly to avoid pissing off queer audiences. I don’t know about you, but the idea that I have to be treated like I could ‘go off’ at any second because queer characters face any kind of threat feels pandering and condescending. We deserve better than that, too.

In the end, it’s about building trust with your audience. Once Andras proved that she’s not out to kill us, we can trust her to handle WayHaught with the delicacy it deserves. We don’t have to worry that Waverly will kill Nicole, or that Nicole’s secret marriage will completely destroy their relationship. Having proven that she cares about the community and representing our characters well, audiences can lean into the tension of the narrative without fear that it means death, suffering, or a breakup.

Wynonna Earp proves this middle road can be walked. Queer female audiences now know that they don’t just have to hope for better than infantilizing or destructive stories, they can actually get better stories. We can get well-paced, well-written sexy, sexy drama that honors character growth, plot, and themes. We can see our faves and their romantic relationship survive anything and everything the plot throws at them. We can get Unkillable Queers.”

Look,… while I am fully sympathetic to the notion of how harmful the Bury your Gays trope is and how often queer female characters get killed off in particular, I do think people take this trope to the extreme when they claim it. Queer characters, female or otherwise, can be killed off in TV art/entertainment without perpetuating BYG. It just depends on HOW and WHY they’re killed off. Whether it makes sense, whether it’s the most appropriate endgame for them depending on what type of character they are and where their story goes. Xena’s death in the final episode of ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’ is highly regarded as Bury your Gays in the Xenite fandom and I 1000% disagree with that statement because of the respect to who Xena is as a character and the fact that she had all the agency in whether she should stay dead or be brought back to life. SHE’S the one saying that she has to stay dead. SHE’S the one that chooses a heroes death. To die with a sword in her hands. While I don’t like the plot for those last 2 episodes of the show because I think it’s lazy writing, I do like that the queer lead female protagonist character has all the agency in deciding and that her love has to respect her wishes in that. That is not a Bury your Gays situation to me at all. Bury your Gays, to me at least, is when a queer character gets killed off completely unawares and therefore has no chance to have any agency in what happens to them, and either during an intimate moment with their love or right after intimate relations have happened - because that comes across in the narrative as a direct punishment for being queer. Bury your Gays to me is Tara’s death, Lexa’s death, Villanelle’s death - there are many more examples…

Just killing any queer female character off at all does not immediately make it perpetuating that harmful trope. Some deaths of queer characters actually made the storytelling better or more consistent not only for all other characters but that character as well and I would say Xena is one as she does die how she wants to, and given what is set up with the soulmates AU’s, it actually makes the most sense for her to die first. The way the plot goes isn’t the best writing in the world, I do agree there. But death for her character’s endgame is not wrong and is certainly not perpetuating Bury your Gays. And I’m sure there’s other deaths of queer female characters that aren’t either. While, yes, I do understand that killing off queer female characters is a a cheap, easy and lazy way often used to build the tension and create higher stakes in the narrative or be the catalyst for evolving another character’s arc… it is not always done with malicious intention when it does look and feel like Bury your Gays and sometimes a queer character dying point blank does not look or feel like Bury your Gays at all. For example, I consider Tara’s death to be Bury your Gays because it looks and feels that way to me personally, but I can guarantee you that it was never intended that way and I could legitimately tell you that it rarely ever is any time it’s happened. It’s been claimed by the queer community and those claims are of course valid but I really do think they’re claimed too often out of anxiety and pain and not enough out of reason and logic.

It’s an extremely controversial subject to talk about and I am sympathetic to that but in all honesty I think the real problem with this harmful trope is a lack of education on it. A true understanding of what it is to kill a queer character and the tragic legacy it has led.

And lastly, I would like to say, once again, how much Emily Andras and Co have proved that to have a compelling and satisfying dramatic story in a show, you do not have to kill off any queer character at all and congratulate her and her team on how well she proved this by still putting her queer characters in life-threatening situations in deep respect to them as main or significant recurring queer characters in a supernatural/fantasy storytelling but showing that having them survive and thrive can still be satisfying and completely natural and logical in the narrative.

When it comes to my interest and engagement in TV show storytelling, i am always much more concerned about the story told and how and why it is being told than I am in how representation anxiety eclipses it. Meaning - I don’t have an issue with a female queer character being killed off so long as it’s written well and it makes the most sense both within the narrative and for that character’s own character development. I’ve always believed Xena’s death especially was the right or most appropriate endgame for her character because she had all the agency in it happening and how it happened and because it’s consistent with what was set up many seasons before it happened. There are other examples I can give where I believe this but I think I’ve made my point well with Xena.

Thematically it has some issues because it’s not a nice message to leave the show on and can be considered as glorifying suicidal ideation but it does make sense for a character like Xena to choose to die in the end regardless of how much we believe she didn’t deserve to and how much we wanted her to forgive herself. If she had had no agency - none whatsoever - then I would have had major problems with what happened.

In the final Pride Month throwback, @gnjoneswriter lays out her argument for The Unkillable Queer in fiction.

[dinitride-art]

Why Byler Would Be a Failure of a Queerbait

Queerbaiting is used to draw in an audience and usually results in a strong fandom. It’s goal is to gather a larger audience, and the audience that would not want queer characters. What I’ve noticed about it, is that it usually is comprised to two straight characters who are good friends. They then sprinkle stuff into interviews outside the media from actors. Things like, maybe she likes her? I guess you’ll just have to find out in the next season! Or saying they could see it happening. Basically anything that would draw in people who want to see a queer pairing, but keeping a reasonable amount of doubt available to those who don’t want to see a queer pairing. Also fan service when the queer bait is being directed at an audience of mostly straight women shipping two male characters. It’s a marketing tactic.

Queer baiting does sometimes result in queer characters, but not the ones that they’re marketing. Or if it is the ones their marketing, they immediately die. The Queer baiting and bury your gays combo. See, supernatural. Having canon queer characters usually isn’t what is intended. They aren’t important to the plot, and can be easily disposed of once they’ve played their part. Their part being covering up any trace of queer bait with the argument that they actually have a queer character in their show. These characters, more often than not, are one dimensional side characters and aren’t there to stay. Main characters revealed as queer, can’t be more than one, and are only revealed at the last possible moment as not to lose the part of the audience not being queer baited.

Stranger Things has two characters that are canonically queer and are relevant to the plot. Robin on her own could be seen as potential queerbait, if byelr were at that time, popular enough to warrant baiting. The queer side character backtrack comes after pressure from a queer baited audience. Not before. Prior to season four, there were more people on tumblr who shipped Mike and El, than Mike and Will. On tumblr. In fact, there were so few byler shippers, that they were in a position where they could be targeted by Mike and El shippers with no consequences. In season three there would be no reason to even think about smoothing over anger from a baited fandom. There was no fandom to be baited. The audience being baited needs to actually be present for it to work.

With one queer character introduced there is no need for another. If Robin were a side character who died in season three then that might allow for another queer character to be introduced in season four. However, Robin is very much alive in season four. She’s not going anywhere and actually has a character arc discussing both her as a person, and her experience as a lesbian in the eighties in Hawkins. That’s pushing it for queer bait. It’s really pushing it.

Will Byers is in love with Mike Wheeler. That’s canon in season four. It’s been built up to since the beginning. If Stranger Things was baiting a queer audience, this would be a weird move. Considering that Byler shippers have never been worth noting before season four, and that Will’s the character that they built the foundation of the show off of, this is a terrible option for queerbaiting. Not because it wouldn’t draw a queer audience that wasn’t to see queer characters, but because it would push away the audience that doesn’t. That is a line that they cannot cross. Will Byers would be crossing that line, and then some. This character is not one that can be thrown away without consequence. He’s important and affects almost everything that happens. I have never seen a main character be queer, and have their story represented in a genuine manner. Never would it affect a central straight relationship. They wouldn’t dare lose a single member of a heteronormative audience.

Two queer characters that are this important are not queer bait. They are not a marketing tactic, they’re integral to the story. Their experiences are integral to the story. Robin Buckley was the first straightbait I have ever witnessed. She is a queer character who was a character first, and queer after the work was put in to make the audience see her as a person. This character is enough to say that Stranger Things represented a queer character well.

Will Byers says that Stranger Things is about queer people. He’s in love with another main character, and it’s affecting the plot. Will Byers being in love with Mike Wheeler is actively changing Mike and El’s relationship. It has been since the beginning.

You can’t queer bait an audience that isn’t there. You can’t bring in a queer character to cover your asses when no one’s accusing you of anything. This isn’t something I’ve ever seen before. Robin is introduced in preparation for Will. It’s the literally opposite of queer baiting. It’s creating a story with queer characters, about queer characters, and marketing it to a straight cisgender audience.

Queer baiting has never been done like this. Because this isn’t queer baiting. It doesn’t effectively function as queer baiting because there was no audience, and their largest audience is the one they’re testing. It is more of a problem to lose a straight audience than a queer one that barely exists.

Byler cannot be queer bait because that’s not how queer bait works. There are not two canon queer characters in a queer bait. Certainly not one of the characters the plot has been centred around since the beginning. And definitely not a character that they would lose members of their audience for writing him as gay.

Will Byers is in love with Mike Wheeler. Will’s relationship to Mike is still important to both of them even after the audience sees this. In fact, Will is affecting Mike’s decisions, and it’s stressed how much he cares for him. Mike and El’s relationship is in shambles and Will is the character they’ve chosen to get involved in that.

This doesn’t happen.

Will is in love with Mike, and he’s still someone who Mike cares about. There’s no distance put in their relationship. They actually spent an entire arc repairing and strengthening it.

Will Byers is in love with Mike Wheeler.

And he’s still alive. He’s still important. He’s still important to Mike.

I literally don’t know what to do with Mike and Will. Because it’s not queer bait. It doesn’t function as queer bait because queer bait is not an aspect of the story. It’s always marketing to an audience. Never an experience or a conversation or anything that’s significance goes further than saying there’s a queer character for the sake of having a queer character.

And it’s never a main character.

When your main character is queer, your story is queer.

They cannot use queer bait as a marketing tactic because they’ve already committed to writing a queer story. Their main audience is not queer. There’s no reason to queer bait a straight audience that doesn’t want queer characters in the first place. It doesn’t work like that. Queer baiting has never worked like this.

This isn’t queer bait. It never has been.

They’re going for it. They are actually going for it. And I can’t wait to see it.

[motownfiction]

🖊 + sam ☺️

what can i say about sam that i feel like i haven't already said? he isn't necessarily my favorite character (if i don't like lucy the best, no one will, pun intended), but he might be the most important character i have in this universe. i cannot wait for people to accuse me of having sam fulfill the "bury your gays" trope despite there being like 93 other queer characters here ... but i know his death hits hard, in large part because he's the only character we see die in the narrative.

one thing i really love about sam is how all of the main characters are very connected to him in a way they are not necessarily connected to anyone else. this isn't to say that the other characters aren't close to each other, but it's perhaps more important to define themselves in relationship to sam than it is for those other relationships. they all have uniquely special connections with him, which is both a very true memory and a very altered one. they all have special connections with each other, but after sam's death, they really put a lot of emphasis on what they had with sam -- their way of making up for the fact that they'll never get to know what would have happened next. but i do love playing with those relationships: the unique love he and will share, the way he and lucy see eye to eye in a way they don't with anyone else, his unending pull toward steph, his respect for daniel, his promise to take care of charlie, and his general everything with sadie in their twinship ... i love it all. they all come together because they all love sam. and they all come together again after they lose him because without him to hold everything together effortlessly, they will need to work twice as hard ... to keep his memory alive, but also, to keep their own connections with each other alive in all these different places. unlike what is now the majority of readers on this blog, you know where sam got started. and while the whole "he brought them together" thing was somewhat speculative in that context, i'm glad i kept it here!

there are times, as i know i've mentioned, where i really wonder if i was right to kill off sam. i mean, i decided to do it because i needed some sort of conflict in the first story in this universe i ever wrote (a 30k-word piece about daniel and charlie on christmas even in 2004), and from there, it just stuck. sometimes i feel bad about it because i know how likable he is. i know how popular he would be in a larger fandom. he's the character i get the most asks about from new readers, after all. but i think sam being born into the narrative just to die is ... kind of the point and kind of a good one at that. he was born to bring everybody together, and he dies to bring everybody together in a very new, very different way. if sam had not died, there would be no veronica. there would also be no judy or jenny armstrong (irony of ironies, considering they're his daughters born after his death!), and there would be no marriage between steph and katie. sam's death is also the best way to ensure that he never dies at all. i'm of course referring to veronica here 🥺 veronica is the hub of all of these people: she is charlie's daughter, lucy and will's granddaughter, and sadie, sam, and daniel's niece. she is the evidence that sam will always bring everybody together, and they are blood! as long as there is a veronica o'connor, there is a sam doyle because she is the culmination of everything he worked for ... everything he wanted for these people he loved so, so much.

this is also why i think sam never married or had children in his lifetime: his child would never unite the group in the same way veronica can and does. sam's kid would just be sam's kid. veronica is their kid, in so many different ways. every time i remember that they never got to meet, i cry a little. he would have loved her. she would have loved him.

i also just really love that sam is a genius. if we take into consideration the place where he started, this is extra funny. it's just really great not to have to pull back with his dialogue or act like i'm covering something up. he's just that smart, and he doesn't really care if you know it ... so long as you don't put pressure on him to do something he doesn't care about. sam is passion, and passion is sam.

i have no idea if any of this makes sense or if i've said anything new/different about sam as a character. i just know that i adore him, and i like to find ways to write scenes where he's still alive. he makes the narrative come to life.

[projectjasper]

i feel like for queerbait and bury your gays (for especially bury your gays) you have to take into account who is writing/directing the story. like if someone were to die in not me that would not be bury your gays

this is definitely not true for queerbating - not just because one of the most famous examples was literally co-produced and co-written by a gay man, but also because queerbating has everything to do with profit, and though i can see how a queer person certainly has less incentive to manipulate their own community in order to earn more money, it can still happen (and has indeed happened before).

as for bury your gays, this is up for debate and you can, of course, disagree with me, but to me the harm of bury your gays lies in the conclusion. bury your gays has consistently been a path to the infamous "queer people don't get happy endings" conclusion and that is how i determine whether a queer character being killed off fits under bury your gays or not.

i kind of see your point in a sense of "how could a queer person try to send such a devastating message with such a conclusion" (that is, if you see the harm of bury your gays the same way i do). however, "there is no happy ending for us" is, unfortunately, something we are capable of believing (i believed in it at one point myself, which is sad but true). and though it is up for debate on whether such a belief and feeling should be transformed into media for the world to see at all, regardless of the conclusion of that debate, we certainly inevitably stumble upon the fact that not every queer person is "openly" queer, and i think it is also very fair to say that most people don't know who the writers and directors of the movie/series they are watching are (and since - without that knowledge - we can't go into it thinking "this is just a queer person relating their genuine emotions about the queer experience" because we simply don't know this is made by a queer person, the effect remains the same).

so to me, bury your gays is any instance of when i finish a movie or series with the conclusion that there are no happy endings for queer people. that is:

when all queer characters in the story die by the end of it (while the cishet characters live, i am not talking about stories where everyone dies), which is bury your gays because all these queer characters are dead and we are at: yes, as a queer person, you don't get a happy ending;

i also consider any romance movies/series where there are just the two queer characters who are in love and one of them dies at the end bury your gays as well because even though one of them technically stays alive, considering the themes of the movie/series, it still leads to the ultimate: yes, as a queer person, you don't get a happy ending (whether it is because you are the gay that was buried or your lover is). this may be hypothetically defied by the ending being hopeful in some way, but so far i have never seen that executed successfully - at the end, jack is always devastatingly dead and ennis always cries over his shirt, entirely defeated. (notice, i am talking about this happening specifically at the end of the story, not in the middle or at the beginning);

now, this one is a bit more intricate, but i consider all leading queer characters dying while some background queer characters stay alive bury your gays as well, because of the dynamic between leads and background characters, as well as the history of writers shoving queer characters to the background in the first place, but this is a more complex conversation.

however, in the case of not me for example, where we (at the moment) have four canonically queer characters in the main cast, just one of them dying wouldn't be bury your gays because it in no way leads to the conclusion of queer people not getting their happy ending. say, dan dies at the end of the series. yes, he doesn't get a happy ending and it is certainly an awful and tragic moment in yok's life as well. however, we still have sean and white who are undeniably happy and together at the end of the series, and we potentially have yok, who is heartbroken, but who perseveres and goes on with hope for a happy future, surrounded by other queer characters who are his friends and support system. whichever way you go about it, you can never end up at the "queer people don't get a happy ending" conclusion - that's what makes it decidedly NOT bury your gays.

[thealexchen]

One Year On: Life is Strange 2 Critique

December 3rd, 2020 marks a year since Life is Strange 2 ended. I was inspired by @smitethepatriarchy‘s text posts (here, but there are several other answered asks worth reading) and @suhaplays’s text post (here) criticizing Life is Strange 2 to write a critique about how Life is Strange 2 handled certain themes and social issues.

(tw: gun violence, police brutality, animal death, incarceration, racism. In this essay, I use the word “queer” in a reclaimed sense, as a queer person myself. Of course, spoiler warning for all five episodes of Life is Strange 1 and 2).

A year on, my feelings about this game have soured... a lot. When the game was first announced, I was overjoyed that our new protagonists would be two Latino boys. Finally, we would have a culturally meaningful, groundbreaking video game with people of color and their experiences at the forefront! 

Then the game was met with immediate backlash and I utterly exhausted myself defending it for weeks on Reddit and Tumblr. Throughout 2019, as the episodes came out I became increasingly disillusioned, frustrated, and disappointed with where the story was going. I couldn’t figure out why I felt so damn miserable while playing this game.

Then in the summer of 2020, when Tell Me Why began rolling out pre-release material, I noticed that they posted a Q&A about transphobia, gave content warnings, and discussed at length about their collaboration with GLAAD, Checkpoint, and the Huna Heritage Foundation to make the game with sensitivity and proper research. I cannot speak for trans and gender non-conforming people on whether Dontnod succeeded at doing so with Tell Me Why. But Life is Strange 2 did… none of that.

Essentially, I realized that the reason why I was so frustrated with LiS2 is because it focuses way too heavily on a trauma narrative. This comes off as insensitive to players of color without any content warnings or extensive research.

Sean didn’t have to get kidnapped, kicked in the face, and called a racial slur by a gas station owner. Daniel did not need to watch his puppy get mauled by a mountain lion for the sake of a “difficult choice.” Sean didn’t have to lose his eye for the sake of heightened drama. Sean didn’t need to get called a racial slur and humiliated by his native language/beaten in the desert for refusing to sing. Daniel didn’t need to get shot— twice. Hell, all of “Faith” probably could’ve been cut— how is a church cult that brainwashes Daniel and beats Sean half to death relevant at all to the story?

Even if not all of the game’s violence was racially motivated, the consistent trauma that Sean and Daniel endure does not make for positive representation— or even good characterization. There is a difference between sympathetic characters and well-written characters, and trauma does not make Sean and Daniel any more complex or likable-- just more fucking traumatized.

LiS2 is more grounded in reality, but that also makes plot holes that much harder to excuse (Daniel’s powers being spotted, most of the Parting Ways ending, Sean’s prison sentence). But most of all, it grounds all of Sean and Daniel’s pain and trauma in reality. 

There is no magicking away a town-destroying storm with time travel. Sean can’t keep his dad alive by ripping up a Polaroid. After Max unlocked her powers, she was still a Blackwell student, reconnecting with Chloe, taking photos, saving lives, and uncovering a murder mystery. After Daniel unlocked his powers, the Diaz brothers lost everything. 

The game never lets you forget that Sean and Daniel are homeless, wanted, constantly in danger, and that they are never getting their old lives back. It permeates the entire game, and for players of color, just reinforces a sad, miserable, grim reality about living in the United States. It is, as @smitethepatriarchy said, potentially triggering for players of color, and it is certainly not something I needed to be reminded of.

And the representation of POC? It feels shallow and ill-researched. It would only take a Google search to find out that Dia de Muertos (a holiday to honor the dead, no less) was from October 31 to November 2 in 2016, the year the game takes place, but Daniel only talks about Halloween in episode 1. Sean and Daniel never discuss any Mexican customs, foods, or holidays. Sean doesn’t speak Spanish with his immigrant father, only during a scene when he’s traumatized (again!) by two racists, and again when talking to Mexican immigrants— in jail. Daniel doesn’t speak Spanish at all. Most of their allies throughout the game are white, including Finn and Cassidy, who appropriate Black culture with their dreadlocks.

So what’s left? Sean and Daniel’s existence as people of color is, at worst, just a narrative prop to justify everything that happens to them. They are people of color on the surface only. In a meta-sense, the game only considers the color of their skin and their last names as what is narratively important… yikes.

I don’t have anything against people who genuinely loved the game and were moved by its messages and story. But I can’t help but feel bitter that white players have the luxury of only thinking of this game as a work of fiction and not feeling any personal reliability to Sean and Daniel’s racialized trauma.

I don’t regret playing LiS2, but I do regret all the time and energy I spent defending it in the beginning. I understand now that I shouldn’t let people’s opinions get to me, nor should I feel obligated to like or defend a game for its attempts at representation. But now, I think I understand how queer fans must have felt in late 2015 when Polarized released. After following the game for 10 months, to see that Chloe’s ultimate destiny was to die and Pricefield is another ship plagued by the Bury Your Gays trope (in the ending that the devs clearly put more work into) must have been just as disillusioning and infuriating. I understand why some fans were so quick to unfollow LiS or develop mixed feelings about the series, because that’s how I feel too after following LiS2’s development from September 2018 to December 2019.

Before I end, I will admit that Life is Strange 2 arrived at a time when I needed it. I still stand by my belief that DN did a great job characterizing Sean, Daniel, and Chris without toxic masculinity, which is the best thing they could’ve done for a male-focused follow-up to a game about queer women. I love that Sean is still a canonically bisexual man of color in a major video game and that DN didn’t forget their queer audience. I love the world and characters that DN built, but I still prefer AU fanfictions of their normal lives, without all that trauma. 

So, I will continue to treasure Lyla and her 10 minutes of screentime (aka the only shred of Asian American representation I can get from this series). I still reblog LiS2 fanart to support the artists. I still support Dontnod, because as Tell Me Why has shown, they are capable of researching and writing stories with more sensitivity. And let’s be honest-- I’m still gonna be hella excited if Life is Strange 3 is announced.

But so many aspects of Life is Strange 2 were bungled that it came off as a remarkably average and forgettable experience. A year on, I don’t hate Life is Strange 2, but I am writing this to move on from it.

Thank you for reading.

[kittyprincessofcats]

I finished RWBY Volume 5!!

Loved it!! After volume 4 was (understandably) a bit slower-paced, I didn’t expect things to get intense and serious this quickly, but I’m glad they did! I have so many thoughts I wanted to write down, so here we go:

[There will be spoilers for RWBY up to Volume 5 in this post (duh). Please don’t leave spoilers for anything after Volume 5 on this post, otherwise I will block you.]

- I have to say, I definitely liked Cinder more when she wasn’t talking. During Volume 4, I kind of started feeling bad for her on some level, but then she got better and started being her old condescending, power-hungry self and I was like… nevermind, I hate you again.

- Qrow being super drunk when he first brings Oscar home was absolutely hilarious.

- Yang is SO COOL. Have I mentioned that she’s so cool? Like wow, I wish I was that cool! The bike, the new (amazing) outfit, the way she just punched that creepy guy and walked right up to her mom’s bandit camp making demands of her – she’s so cool and I’m here for it.

- Yang and Weiss’ reunion was so sweet! 😭 I was waiting for literally any of Team RWBY’s members to reunite and that got me right in the feels! (Also, I loved the whole “Wait, your mom kidnapped me?” “Wait, you kidnapped her?” exchange - brilliant 😂.)

- Ruby’s reunion with Yang and Weiss was so sweet, too! 😭 Tears were definitely shed over reunions in this volume! And it was so nice to finally have most of Team RWBY and what’s left of Team JNPR back together and see them bond and catch up with each other 😭. Found family back together! It’s what they deserve!

- Yang being so angry at Blake for leaving makes perfect sense, imo, especially considering her own abandonment issues. And even more so considering that she lost that arm while protecting Blake. Also, I don’t think it’s reading too much into it to say that Yang and Blake’s interactions and their storyline together have had romantic undertones since volume 2. (And no, I’m not just saying that because I ship Bumbleby; it’s the other way around – I ship Bumbleby because those romantic undertones were there in the first place.) So yeah, Yang always tried to help and support Blake, lost an arm protecting her from her abusive ex, and then Blake just left – I get why Yang’s hurt and angry. And that moment where she goes from complaining about how she just wants to be there for Blake, before finally admitting “What if I needed her there for me?” - that’s a really good moment for Yang, even beyond the romantic subtext. It’s nice to see Yang admit that she also wants someone else to be there for her, that she wants to receive that same love and care in return.

- I also want to point out that it’s nice to see how far Weiss has come since volume one. She really took a level in kindness and became a lot more mature, to the point where she’s now giving Yang relationship advice. It’s really nice to see.

- Ruby’s talk with Oscar about Penny and Pyrrha really got me teary eyed.

- I wasn’t that fond of Sun at first, but he had some really great moments in this volume, so he’s starting to grow on me now. I still don’t ship him with Blake, but their friendship is sweet.

- And now, let’s talk about THE standout character of the whole volume for me: ILIA!! Holy hell, I love everything about her! You know how some characters grow on you over time, and then there are those characters that you see one episode with and they just become instant favourites? That second one was Ilia for me. I watched Blake’s character short before Volume 5 and the moment I heard her backstory she jumped right to the top of my favourite character list without question AND I started shipping her and Blake right away. (Yes, I love Bumbleby and all, but I’m a multishipper. I’m perfectly capable of equally loving two ships that contradict each other.)

- It’s just – Ilia and Blake’s dynamic got me hooked! Not to compare everything to my OTP (Catra and Adora from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power), but let me quickly make this comparison: Two girls who grew up together, were both members of a certain evil organization until one of them left it and the other didn’t, now they’re on opposing sides and have to fight each other, but they still clearly care about each other. Plus, there are confirmed romantic feelings from at least one side there. I know many people (including myself) have compared Bumbleby to Catradora before – because you’ve got one blonde jock and one catgirl – but when it comes to the dynamic and the backstory, Blake and Ilia (what’s that ship called? Catmeleon, I think?) resemble Catradora even more. And it’s just the kind of dynamic I’m weak for.

(Honestly, it’s kind of funny how predictable I am both when it comes to favourite characters and favourite ships. My sister, who got me into both She-Ra and RWBY, took one look at Catra years ago and immediately predicted that I would love her. And when she first saw Ilia, she also immediately knew she’d be one of my favourites. Basically, my sister once described my “type” of favourite characters as “troubled, cute and gay” and that pretty much sums it up.)

- Speaking of troubled, cute, and gay: I’m glad RWBY finally has some CANON LGBT representation! Hell yes for that! Honestly, I interpreted Ilia’s feelings for Blake as romantic right away, but I wondered if it was just bait or my usual tendency to see romantic undertones in any interaction between two girls. But then that “I wanted you to look at me that way” line happened and… WOW. Yes. Amazing, talented, brilliant, never been done before, showstopping, incredible. I’m 100% sold on both the ship and Ilia as a character.

(One more thing before I change topics: I try to keep these posts positive and not get into discourse too much (since I’ve heard there was (is?) a lot of discourse in the RWBY fandom – but I took just one look into the tag for Volume 5 and immediately saw people arguing that Ilia’s not good representation because she’s a villain. And I just want to quickly address why that’s nonsense, in my opinion (and before you ask, yes I am a lesbian myself): First of all, she’s not even a full-blown villain. She’s clearly shown as confused and misguided from the beginning. And her feelings for Blake are never portrayed as a negative thing. She also has a redemption literally two episodes after being revealed to be queer. And in general, I don’t think queer villains are necessarily a bad thing and I’m tired of queer characters not being allowed to be flawed. How come straight characters get to just exist, but any queer character better be a shining beacon of morality or else they’re bad representation? I agree that RWBY should introduce more queer characters to balance things out a bit, but I wouldn’t say Ilia was bad representation by herself, since she’s a character I think we’re meant to have sympathy for.

- Now I just hope that future volumes of RWBY don’t pull a Bury Your Gays and kill Ilia off... I’d really hate that. (No spoilers on this post, please!)

- The entire fight at the Belladonnas’ house had me so on edge the whole time. I thought someone (most likely one or both of Blake’s parents) was going to die any second. Basically, the ending of volume 3 burned me and now I constantly expect characters to die. I’m glad it all (mostly) turned out well!

- Blake’s speech to the Faunus might have made me a bit emotional. That was a really great moment for her.

- And then there were those final episodes… WOW. Like I said, I really didn’t expect everything to go down so quickly (or for the ending to be that happy – like I said, volume 3 burned me.)

- Jaune unlocking his semblance was nice! And I’m proud of myself for having correctly predicted that he’d have some sort of healing powers. (I was waiting for him to unlock some healing semblance back when Qrow got injured in Volume 4 – I’m glad it finally happened!)

- I was worried about Weiss for a second, then I realized there’s no way she can die since I’ve already seen pictures of her outfit in later volumes. (Plus, I’m pretty sure if a main character had died, I’d have been unable to completely avoid spoilers about it. So those 4 are pretty much the only ones I’m not that worried about.)

- Raven is a really cool and interesting character, but an awful person. (I got so angry at her when she blasted Ruby after Ruby was just so nice to her*. How dare you, lady?) I love her design, though!

[*EDIT: I just rewatched it and realized that it was Cinder who blasted Ruby, Raven just created the portal. Point still stands, tough.]

- The plot twist of who the Spring Maiden really is was EPIC. Really loved that reveal! (And I honestly didn’t see it coming.) Though I have to say, I feel really bad for Vernal, and for the previous Spring Maiden.

- The Cinder VS Raven fight was absolutely epic and just stunning to watch visually. I was wondering if we’d ever get a maiden vs maiden battle, and that scene more than delivered! And while I don’t particularly like either of them, I was definitely rooting for Raven in that fight.

- I’m not sure if Cinder really died there. If so, I’m honestly not too sad about it, but I would be disappointed because I kind of expected her to become a more interesting character later on. After Volume 4, I expected at least a bit of growth there or something that would make her more interesting. And I’m not talking about a redemption, just to be clear! I just think the potential to make her more interesting as a villain was there, and if they just killed her off it’s kind of wasted now and she stayed a very flat character until the end. But I guess we’ll see.

- Raven and Yang’s confrontation was pretty intense. I liked that Raven finally had to admit that she’s afraid and doing all of this just to protect herself, and the contrast to Yang, who is also scared but still does what she thinks is right. And the fact that Raven was willing to let Yang have the relic despite the danger that would put her in – mom of the year indeed 🙄.

- Blake and the other Faunus are the real MVPs of the battle, tbh. The fact that they just completely stopped Adam and the White Fang by sheer numbers and didn’t even give them the chance to attack anyone? God tier stuff. And when Blake’s mom came in with the police? 10/10, we stan.

- Also, Blake telling Adam she’s not there for him? Hell yes, girl! I love how she’s taking power away from her abuser by showing she isn’t doing any of this for him. Really nice.

- Yang and Blake’s reunion in the last episode was super nice. I like how there was so much attention on that reunion in particular. And while I’m glad Yang wasn’t too angry at Blake and it makes for a nice happy ending, I still hope there’s a scene next volume where Blake properly apologizes to Yang for leaving and explains her side of things. And then, they should get together and live happily ever after and have lots of kittens. I mean, what?

- And finally, all of Team RWBY is back together! And they’ll have a lot to catch each other up on. Blake doesn’t even know about the maidens, the relics and Salem yet, while the rest didn’t even know about the White Fang attack. Also, I want Blake to introduce the others to Ilia and to her parents.

I really loved this volume. Lots of action, lots of really sweet moments, lots of epic fights and cool plot twists. I find it hard to rank them, but this might have been my favourite volume yet (volume 3 was also really good, though).

[chalkrevelations]

And finally, here we are, Episode 36 of Word of Honor, and I have some FEELINGS. Let me show you them.

There also will be Episode 37 here, btw, because I’m not gonna do a separate reaction for a three-minute episode, no matter how grateful I am that we got it.

(Spoilers, so if that’s not what you want right now, scroll on by and come back after you’ve watched it. Them.)

Let’s get to the meat of the episode right away: THE HAIRPIN. And Wen Kexing knowing Zhou Zishu would have it, because he’d definitely take it with him if he was going on a suicide mission! Y’all. I really have to yell about this for a minute: That’s how secure WKX has become in his knowledge of what he means to ZZS! After all that time angsting and hiding the truth of his identity and worrying that he’s not worthy of ZZS and that he’d be rejected if ZZS knew the truth about him! But now, WKX has finally reached a point where he understands and knows (zhiji, the one I know) he’s so important to ZZS that ZZS would never ever go off to die without taking his most precious possession, the hairpin that his husband gave him! I can’t. My heart. This is like a declaration, after all that time saying they were zhiji, that WKX finally is able to truly see ZZS as that, to know him in his bones, and all of this is also delivered in the middle of WKX in a strop, irritably chastising his husband as an evil brat for running away from home to get himself killed, with Gong Jun’s little  >:(  face in full effect, and I am so filled with love for this show and this couple at this point that I have to pause Youtube just so I can roll around on the sofa, clutching at my chest and scaring the cats with my inarticulate noises. This is so good, y’all. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted. Also, now you know how it feels, WKX, you asshole. Which I suppose is why you even confess that it will would be more painful for the one who survives when if the other dies. And you were prepared to do that to him a second time? I cannot believe you, you asshole. You get to sleep on the ice couch for a month.

And then there’s some Six Cultivation Power mind-melding and what looks to be an INCREDIBLY STUPID and HEARTBREAKING ending that would leave us Burying One of Our Gays, so it’s a good thing Episode 37 (all three minutes of it) exists. It would be nice, though, if the connective tissue from 36 to 37 made any sense. Or existed whatsoever. Just, like, throw me a bone, here, show. Some kind of explicit hand-waviness that actually gets mentioned for why Ye Baiyi apparently was not as smart as he thought he was and didn’t really know what he was talking about when he was doomsaying about how one of the pair will surely, oh surely perish. None of this “Sooooo, they managed to figure out the technique and master it?” from some random shidi who never actually gets an answer. I mean, the door was left open for fanwankery on this one, with what looks to be a very last-minute conceit of all this being a story told by grown-up Chengling to his disciples, which begs the question of how much of what he’s telling them is totally accurate, given any number of issues, including the spottiness of human recall, the possibility (based on the fact they’re still on the mountain in Ep 37) that Chengling never actually saw either of them again to get the full story, and the way Gao Xiaolian basically calls bs on the whole thing. But this is still a gossamer-thin thread on which to hang Ep 37. Ep 37 basically functions as reassurance because of the mere fact of its existence, because they’re clearly both alive, right there in front of your face, regardless of the other fact that it doesn’t actually make any sense, based on Ep 36. It ultimately doesn’t matter if there is no Step 2, because Step 3: Profit! is … right there. In evidence. Happening. On your screen. No matter how vaguely unsatisfying the lack of Step 2 may be.

I do feel like there’s an interesting meta thing going on here, in that the entire show has been about – let’s be honest, it was never really about the plot - queer-coding this couple in ways that supposedly fly just enough under the radar that people can handwave them as Just Good Friends and Brothers (I mean, I guess) with a Bury Your Gays tragic ending (ugh) for good measure. And Chengling is telling a story in-universe that seems to conform to some of this same formula. And yet, we all know well and good that these guys were husbands. (I mean, barring anything else, they’re a couple in the original source material, so checkmate, censorship.) So, are we supposed to carry the same assurance out of the show, on a meta level, that what appears to be happening at the end of Ep 36 - what we discover we’re learning through Chengling’s story-telling - isn’t really the truth? Just, look: While we’re getting the Good Friends and Brothers push, there’s stuff like obvious voice-over work that doesn’t match the much more queer version of what the actors actually said, which is apparently blazingly clear to any viewers who know Mandarin and can manage to lip-read. The show has literally put de-queered words into these characters’ mouths. You can’t trust what you hear. But apparently the show has also made this obvious enough that, if you’re a good enough speaker of the language the show is being told in, and you have a good enough eye, you can see what is actually going on. Are we being taught to trust our eyes more than our ears, are we being told that what we’re being told - by the end of Ep 36 on a meta level, by Ye Baiyi-through-Chengling’s-story on an in-universe level, and by what we learn about what happened from Chengling’s story, itself, also on an in-universe level - is inherently untrustworthy, but that if we “speak the language” of this show well enough, and have a good enough eye, we can decode it and see what “actually” happened and is later made explicit in Ep 37? Is Ep 37 canon? Does it matter, when “what is canon” is already so slippery on this show, where you can apparently lip-read something that’s different than what you’re hearing, and it functions as canon because of the mere fact of its existence, because it’s clearly … right there. In evidence. Happening. On your screen.

Anyway, just some thoughts on all that, which I guess is my own fanwankery work to join up the end of Ep 36 with Ep 37, which was, of course, delightful. No matter how much I might bemoan the lack of Step 2, I had a stupid, dopey grin on my face all the way through Ep 37 and might have even teared up a tiny bit at the very end. You can’t prove anything. Lemme tell you, though, it’s a good idea to have 37 on hand when you run into the brick wall of the end of 36, because while WKX’s willingness to sacrifice himself for love is theoretically great, it is not something I actually want to see come to fruition, given the pall it would cast over the entire joyous experience that the ZZS/WKX relationship is throughout the rest of the show. Sure, there’s always fic, but there’s a heaviness that hangs over the Bury Your Gays trope, and it’s retroactively ruined shows for me before. So THANK YOU, to those of you who hooked me up so I could immediately move on to Ep 37.

What else? Other things:

OK, so, first, I have to get this out of the way: Did we actually already see all of those “flashbacks” we get in the first part of the ep, during the conversation between Zhou Zishu and Jing Beiyuan, when all the political stuff is supposed to be finally falling together to give us the big picture? I would have to go back and scrummage through those eps to be sure, and I’m not going to spend time doing that (yet) when I still need to do some keysmashing about Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing OH MY GOD, but I do feel like some of this was new information, not just stuff that I’d glossed over because it didn’t seem important at the time? If so, not on, show. I will be keeping an eye out for that on re-watch. I am, however, perfectly willing to accept – if it turns out to be true – that you utterly distracted me with the failboats-in-love storyline, to the detriment of my focus on, you know, plot or whatever. It’s happened before. (It’s one of the reasons I need to go back and watch The Untamed again, at some point.)

OMG FAKE KEY! And as ZZS points out, this has been foreshadowed for us from early on, with WKX’s fake Glazed Armors plot. :bangs table with fist: YES. This show is going to reward re-watching SO MUCH.

Duan Pengju, oh my god, this asshole. The look on his face when the Armory didn’t open was so gratifying. Also, ha. I wondered when ZZS was finally going to be done with his shit. In fact, so much gratification in this whole scene. Xie Wang’s face when he realizes WKX double-crossed him – what, did you think you were the only tricksy one in that little alliance, Xie’er? And, holy shit – I cannot believe that Xie’er actually words this as WKX failing him, taking us back around to this theme one more time again. I would maybe feel a little worse for you if you hadn’t been a hairsbreadth away from killing him before ZZS stopped you in the last ep, Xie’er. Also if you hadn’t helped get A-Xiang killed. So I think the fail in this relationship is going both ways. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like you’re going to get the time WKX had to start untangling yourself from the ways your abuser has fucked you up and over.

It once again becomes blindingly clear why ZZS has been my ride-or-die during this whole thing: Under the grumpy, irritable, day-drinking yet somehow eminently practical exterior, he’s actually an idealistic do-gooder who just wants to make the world a better place for people and sacrifice himself for great justice. Never let it be said that I don’t have a type. Also, I mean. Zhang Zhehan’s FACE. Let’s don’t discount the power of that.

Final word: Don’t miss Ep 37. All three minutes of it. They are perhaps the most important three minutes of the entire show.

(I mean, not FINAL final word. I expect to be going back for a re-watch and posting more things, particularly on eps from before I started typing up 1000K-word reactions this first time around.)

[pocketreads]

REVIEW: The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould

Thank you to Netgalley for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

To Keep It Short: This is one of those books you have to read before you die. (A TL;DR can be found at the bottom of this review!)

Summary: Logan Ortiz-Woodley, daughter of TV’s ParaSpectors, has never been to Snakebite, Oregon before, but the moment she and her dads arrive, she knows something is wrong. Teens are disappearing, some turning up dead; the weather isn’t normal. Worst of all, all fingers seem to point to her dads.

Ashley Barton’s boyfriend was the first teen to go missing, and now that the Ortiz-Woodleys are back in town, his ghost is following her. When Ashley and Logan team up to figure out who—or what—is haunting Snakebite, their investigation reveals truths about the town, their families, and themselves that neither of them are ready for.

The Dark has been waiting for far too long, and it won’t stay hidden any longer.

Note: This book releases on 08/03/2021!

THE BOOK:

CWs: homophobia (verbal), child death, murder, claustrophobia (buried alive), drowning, slurs Release date: 8/3/2021 Publisher: Wednesday Books Page Count: 352 Genre: YA Paranormal horror/mystery Is It Queer: Yep! Bi, lesbian, and gay rep in every direction!

THE REVIEW:

Guys. Oh my god. I feel like the only thing I can say right now is wow. Wow wow wow wow. I am so in awe! I finished The Dead and the Dark with a pounding heart, utterly blown away by how incredible it was.

This is one of those books that snags you from the very first line and never lets you go. The hook all by itself is mind-blowing, and I knew right then that this was going to be one of my favorites of the year. The prose is rich, pulling you in so deep you’ll be seeing a vivid movie behind your eyes. Admittedly, I found a few lines to be a little too familiar (“She let out a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding”). And sure, for the briefest of moments, it removes you from the story. But I’m telling you here and now, Gould is such an incredibly talented storyteller that within a single heartbeat, you’re reeled right back in.

The atmosphere of this story was incredible. It felt dusty and dark and damp and cold and hot all at once (in the best possible way!) and I had a wad of excitement and anticipation lodged in my chest every second while reading. It felt like stargazing in a field at the edge of the woods by yourself only to… slowly realize… you’re perhaps not as alone as you might have thought.

That said, if you’re looking for a good scare, this might not be the best place to look. I wouldn’t say this is a horror as much as it is a suspense. Perhaps for a younger audience (think late elementary/early middle school), this might have readers squinting into the dark and cowering beneath covers, but the heart of this story rests in tension rather than true fear.

The cast of characters were all deeply relatable in their own ways, and I adored all of them from the second they were introduced. I love a somewhat pessimistic protagonist, which is what we get with Logan without being overbearing or exhausting. Ashley’s uncertainty and fear and confliction hit me right where it hurts. I wanted to wrap both of these girls up in a blanket and give them the tightest hugs they’ve ever had – I want to be best friends with them. And, of course, Alejo and Brandon… well, what’s not to love about a pair of mysterious ghost-hunting husbands? (Yes, it’s as perfect as it sounds.)

The main romance in this story is seen between Logan – an openly gay teen and the adopted daughter to the two aforementioned ghost-hunting dads – and Ashley, a girl from a small, close-minded town whose boyfriend, Tristan, has recently gone missing. Ultimately, the romance is not the primary focus of the story, but don’t get me wrong: it’s here, it’s queer, it’ll make your heart melt. It’s something of a slow burn, and it’s so worth it. Writing a relationship in which one character is not only grieving but battling her own internalized homophobia is not an easy thing, but Gould manages and handles it extraordinarily well. The romance, while still being soft and wonderful, was refreshingly raw and real. I miss them dearly already.

Remember when I casually mentioned the missing boyfriend? I think I could talk about the mystery here for paragraphs upon paragraphs, but I will once again bring it short with a holy crap. Once again: mind blown. The mystery was beautifully dark and twisted and so insanely clever. I was jotting down notes trying to work out what was going on (I did not succeed, but holy hell was it fun to try and connect the dots). Almost everything ties up so neatly… **** ** *** **** **** *** ******? But honestly, everything else was pretty concrete, so in regard to the final rating, I’m letting it slide! Nothing’s perfect, after all.

★★★★★/5 STARS

TOO LONG; DIDN'T READ:

PROS: Super rich prose, incredible atmosphere, wonderful characters & romance, top notch mystery! CONS: A couple cliche lines, a loose thread in relation to the mystery (nothing worth neglecting the story over, in my opinion)

This is easily one of my favorite reads of the year thus far! You don’t wanna miss it!

[catmaid-john]

Have some soulmate gretchella content courtesy of me (elliott) and em 👀 there was a lot of projecting as far as *ahem* character traits go, hope y’all enjoy!!!!

Summary: Gretchen has grown up with a less than ideal mindset about soulmates. How will they react when they meet their own?

Characters: Gretchen, Pamella, Marion, John, Jessique (mentioned), Vesna (mentioned), Eliza (mentioned)

Pairing(s): queer platonic gretchella

Warnings: subtle(?) homophobia and internalised homophobia, and that may be it but do read with caution as it’s pretty heavy. Let me know if I missed anything!!

Word count: 1,705

~

Gretchen was six when they asked about the red string on their finger.

“Daddy, what’s this?” they asked, holding up their pinky.

John sighed, closing his book he’d been reading in the study. “It’s a sign that you have a soulmate.”

“What’s a soulmate?”

“Someone meant for you. Like Vesna and I. We were soulmates, but didn’t let that define us.”

Gretchen tilted their head to the side. “What’chu mean?”

“Don’t let the world fool you. Everyone says soulmates are the most important part of life. They’re all wrong. You should focus on things like work and school, not some frivolous nonsense such as one person in all the world meant to be with you. Do you understand?”

Gretchen crossed their arms. “Okay, Daddy. Can we go fly kites today?”

“No, not right now. I have work to do. Maybe later.”

John hadn’t been doing work when Gretchen walked in.

They were ten the first time they saw a pair of soulmates first meet.

They were both boys. The red string that held them together turned white and they hugged.

Could Gretchen’s soulmate be a girl?

“Daddy?” they began as John drove them home from school that day. “I saw two boy soulmates today.”

John’s grip on the steering wheel tightened a bit. “I see.”

“Could my soulmate be a girl?”

“I’m not sure. I should hope not.”

Gretchen furrowed their brows. “How come?”

“Same sex soulmates have a higher mortality rate due to disapproval and lack of acceptance from peers. Not to mention they’re prone to… well, frankly, divorce.”

“But you and Mommy divorced.”

John’s grip tightened further, and Gretchen could see the marking on his pinky finger where his string once was.

“Yes, straight soulmates do divorce sometimes, but it’s higher in same sex soulmates.”

“Why? And what's morality?”

“Mortality. What I meant is that same sex soulmates more often die young and are even murdered. I don’t want that for you.”

Gretchen was suddenly scared. “What if my soulmate is a girl?”

“Don’t worry about that for now. It doesn’t matter.”

The conversation dissipated from there.

Gretchen was thirteen when they decided they didn’t want a soulmate anymore.

The odds of their soulmate being a girl were far too high. They didn’t want to end up like the dead soulmates their dad was talking about.

They took a pair of scissors and tried cutting their string. The scissors broke and clattered to the ground.

What? This had worked for John when he didn’t want a soulmate anymore. Were they doing it wrong?

They took a knife from the kitchen and sawed it across the string. The knife became ground down and dull.

They tried to untie the string but couldn’t find the knot. This soon became a game of finding the most slippery substance to help them slip out of the string.

Nothing worked. It was hopeless.

There was a chance that Gretchen was doomed to die young and there was nothing they could do about it.

Please let my soulmate be a boy, they thought. I wanna live.

They were seventeen when they stopped caring about what their father thought.

They also started using they/them pronouns alongside their step-sibling, Marion. John had married a woman named Eliza, who he claimed he met at a “gathering” for people who abandoned the soulmate life. Her kids were Marion and Jessique, who Gretchen liked much more than Eliza. Their dad had bad taste.

Gretchen was walking home from school when they felt a tug from their string. They usually felt an occasional pull from it but this was much stronger than that. It just about knocked them off their feet.

Before they could question it further, they were being pulled into the middle of the road. Luckily no one was driving, but Gretchen was still not having any of this today.

“Let me go!” they called uselessly.

It hurt to pull against the string but they really didn’t know what else to do. It was a little while before they suddenly collided with someone and was finally able to stop. Unfortunately the two of them crashed to the ground.

“I’m so sorry!” the stranger yelped.

Gretchen put a hand to their forehead, which had bumped into the stranger’s. “No, it’s all good. No harm done.”

“I should have paid more attention but my string was pulling me away and I—”

Gretchen finally took a look at the stranger in question. Bright orange hair overtook every feature and it was radiant as the morning sun. Eyes like drops of chocolate, enticingly sweet. She was too perfect.

Gretchen looked down at their string. It was white.

“Hi,” the stranger murmured. “I’m Pamella. I guess we’re—”

Gretchen got up and ran.

They were in tears when they came to terms with what happened.

They stood in the bathroom sobbing in front of the mirror. John’s voice echoed in their head.

Same sex soulmates have a higher mortality rate due to disapproval and lack of acceptance from peers.

They shook their head to rid themself of their thoughts. They didn’t care what their dad thought. They didn’t.

Same sex soulmates more often die and are even murdered. I don’t want that for you.

No. It was all stigma. It was all lies. Shut up.

You should focus on things like work and school, not some frivolous nonsense such as one person in all the world meant to be with you.

Shut up!

Gretchen was on the verge of screaming but kept as quiet as possible. They didn’t want to worry their siblings.

They didn’t care what their dad thought. They didn’t.

Even still they couldn’t accept what they have faced.

Gretchen was eighteen when they met their soulmate for a second time.

Perhaps not entirely true, given that they had spotted Pamella at school a few times since their run-in. This, however, was their first proper encounter since Gretchen ran.

“Uh, excuse me!” Pamella’s voice called out, catching Gretchen’s attention. They realised who it was and tried to walk away faster.

Go away, go away, go away—

“Hey!” Pamella caught up with them, standing in front of them with a shy smile. “So… I, uh… wanted to give you time to process everything, but I’ve seen you avoiding me like crazy. I just… wanted to know why? At first I thought maybe you were upset about me knocking you over, but I don’t know. Man, I feel like an asshole.” She chuckled awkwardly.

Gretchen blinked. “Sorry,” they said on instinct. “Uh… it’s not you, it’s me, I gotta go.”

They walked away without another word.

Gretchen was home alone with Marion when they confessed to what had been going on.

“Wow,” Marion murmured. “I mean, obviously I knew you’d met your soulmate, I just thought… well, I don’t know. Why’d you run?”

Gretchen buried their face in their hands. “It’s complicated.”

“C’mon, talk to me, bestie.”

Gretchen sighed and sat up. “My dad scared me as a kid telling me I was gonna die if my soulmate was a girl.”

Marion paused, their expression never changing. “The fuck?”

“He was talking about, like, mortality rates of gay soulmates and divorce and shit, so… ten year old me took it to heart for some reason.”

“Huh. So when you realised your soulmate is a girl… aw, Gretch.”

“I know, it’s stupid.”

“No it’s not. I promise you, it’s not stupid. Your dad is a piece of shit.”

Gretchen snorted. “Yup, sounds right.”

“Don’t let him ruin your experience with your soulmate. I promise you, if you let your parent try to run your life, it’ll just hurt. Trust me.”

Gretchen glanced over at Marion. They couldn’t help but smile. “Thanks, Mari.”

“You gonna go after your soulmate?”

“I might have to.”

The next day at school, Gretchen was the one to approach Pamella.

“Hi,” they murmured shyly.

“Hey,” Pamella replied with hesitation.

“I, uh… I know I’ve been a dick… but… I wanna… try this whole thing again. You deserve better from your… soulmate.”

Pamella was clearly shocked, and Gretchen gave her time to process what they had said. She took a deep breath and finally spoke.

“Hi. I’m Pamella. He/him pronouns.”

Gretchen blinked. That was unexpected.

“Oh. Uh, Gretchen. They/them pronouns.”

Pamella smiled. “Nice to meet you, Gretchen. I’m sure you’re a bit surprised that I’m… ya know, trans. I’m not out to my parents, so that makes it a bit hard to transition, not to mention I’m scared to get my hair cut.”

“I mean, you don’t need a haircut to be trans, though. Being trans makes you trans. I mean, I’m still feminine and nonbinary as fuck, they’re not mutually exclusive.”

Pamella blushed. “Thanks. I’m glad you get it.”

Gretchen grinned. Maybe having a soulmate wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Gretchen and Pam were twenty when they decided to label themselves as platonic soulmates.

They weren’t romantically involved and they were okay with that. Gretchen was aromantic and Pam didn’t care about relationships. He really just wanted to be with Gretchen in a platonic way. They were all he needed.

They had tried to make it work as romantic soulmates, which didn’t last long.

The one thing they continued to do in their platonic relationship was cuddle.

Gretchen laid on top of Pam, who laid on his back and ran his hand up and down their back. Gretchen was having a difficult day and all they needed was cuddles on the couch with a movie on the TV.

Gretchen looked up at Pam, his new haircut still ravishing in their eyes. Gretchen had been tempted to shave their head but decided against it since they liked how they dyed it. Black on one side, their natural brown on the other.

“Pam?” they murmured.

Pam glanced down at them. “Yeah?”

“Do you think we’re soulmates because we just understand each other so much?”

Pam smiled. “I think we’re soulmates because we complete each other in a way no one else gets.”

Gretchen smiled back. They laid their head back down and closed their eyes, Pam running a hand through their hair.

“I’m glad we crashed into each other.”

Pam chuckled. “Me too, love.”

@nachosforfree

[sidecarghost]

My Reaction to Destiel in Spn 15x18 to 15x20

Notes: this will contain spoilers for up to series finale 15x20.

I am in LGBTQ+, and this is my personal opinion on the treatment of Destiel, Dean, and Castiel in episodes 15x18-15x20. The LGBTQ+ community is complex and varied, just like any community, so I do not intend for my views to be seen as representative. I think any reaction is just as valid as mine.

Castiel’s Declaration and Dean’s Response

I personally thought Misha Collins’ performance of Castiel’s declaration of love was earnest and authentic. It was beautiful, and I loved every word of it. What bothered me about 15x18 was Dean not reciprocating. I understand that love doesn’t always work out, but this is a LGBTQ+ relationship. There are so few LGBTQ+ relationships on tv, so it’s difficult to understand why anyone would see the need to add an unfulfilled LGBTQ+ relationship that leaves the queer character unloved. LGBTQ+ are just as worthy to be loved as cishet. Before this viewers could use their imagination, but now it’s pretty final that Dean never thought of Cas as more than a friend, and that Dean is vaguely to deeply disturbed by his BFF being in love with him.

I think 15x20 tried to firmly establish Dean as cishet (retconning any prior subtextual queer coding) by having Dean show more affection to his car joining him in Heaven then he had to his LGBTQ+ friend near death. I hate that Dean is so cold to Cas during that declaration scene, and then no other insight into Dean’s feelings is ever shown. So we can only infer Dean’s feelings from that scene and the reaction reads confused, disturbed, shocked, and disbelieving. And I feel second hand crushed for Castiel. That would not be a happy moment for me at all. Just because Dean doesn’t feel any attraction to Castiel I don’t think that excuses his coldness during the declaration. This was a heartless way to react to a close queer friends admittance to an attraction, and the cold shoulder reaction seems really OOC for Dean.

Dean is typically much more sensitive about other people’s feelings. I know he is often painted as tough and unfeeling, but that’s really when his own feelings are in question. Usually he seems very in tune when someone else needs emotional support, and here he is just like mentally checking out. Dean appears to be thinking “Oh my BFF is confessing his love, I will just gawk at him like he is some kind of crazy.” Then Dean’s last words to Castiel are “Don’t do this, Cas,” because he’d like his final message to be invalidating. And then there is HUGE problem that Dean was so disturbed by Cas’s declaration that he never mentions it over the course of 15x19 and 15x20. Even though his friend gave his life for him.

Bad Representation more Harmful than No Representtion

I could be wrong, but I feel like the inclusion of Destiel this late in the game just to make it unrequited was malicious. And that’s because Destiel is a big thing for fandom and especially LGBTQ+ in fandom. Even non-Spn fandom LGBTQ+ know all about Destiel. I never dreamed the ship would go canon, and that was fine because the show could play out and I could read and write fic. Destiel was a fun ship, because the characters had wonderful development from the show, and the actors had great chemistry and were good looking and talented. Dean and Cas were complex and multi-dimensional and ready to run a coffeehouse or become pop star wannabes in a televised singing contest.

The show never told fans Dean and Cas wouldn’t love each other, so it was so easy for me to imagine they would love each other. That has changed since I watched the finale. I personally can’t ship Destiel anymore because all I remember now is the angel giving the hunter his heart, and Dean being so cold and uncaring. Dean stays so far away from Cas like he can’t stand to be close to him. When the two characters used to be in each other’s personal space all the time. It’s like the show wanted me to know how wrong I was to ever read a romance there. As though I had personally offended Dean Winchester. I always thought Dean could be bi, but now he is canon cishet to me. Because if he was going to be attracted to a guy it’d be Cas, because he is the most badass character on show. I’m okay with explanation that Dean was shell shocked in 15x18, but Dean’s continued indifference in 15x20 makes it more likely to me that the show intended for Dean to just not feel that way about Cas.

LGBTQ+ Character Erased

The show ended 10 days ago, but many LGBTQ+ spn fandom members are still reeling from Castiel’s erasure from the story as soon as he came out. There was so much hope that the show was giving LGBTQ+ fandom a ship they never expected in 15x18. The way everything seemed to signal that Dean and Cas would be brought back together in 15x20. And theories abounded on possible scenarios. My personal favorite was Dean rescuing Castiel from the Empty in 15x20 as a reverse of Castiel rescuing Dean from Hell in 4x01. This felt historic to see an actual fandom mlm ship finally get validated on the show, like LGBTQ+ were being seen and told we were just as valid as cishet by the show we loved.

But in the end, the LGBTQ+ relationship was just a tease. A queer angel declared his love and died. Then Dean died so he’d never get chance to process his feelings (if he had any). Dean and the viewers learned Cas had been saved, but Dean never bothered to pray to Cas or make any other attempt to reconnect with him. Had Cas escaped before Dean’s death? Had Cas just let Dean die? We never find out. Whether intentional or not, Castiel no longer had any significance in the life or death of the man he loved so strongly. If you related to Cas the exemption was a gut punch. I saw Cas as important and he was my voice and my story, and then 15x20 had Castiel as unimportant to the story and he was silenced.

The Bury your Gay trope

Cas had come out, and now his last scene was his death. Castiel was written out of the show, and no one seemed willing to give him more than a passing thought. The series regular and reoccurring character of 12 years was treated like he was never very important to Dean or Sam. This wasn’t historic, this is the “bury your gay” trope and a real problem for LGBTQ+ representation in movies and shows.

Negative impact of teasing LGBTQ+ romance in movies and shows

15x18 didn’t just feature Cas coming out, his coming out could have been handled just like Chuck’s in season 11 by dialogue stating he liked guys too. Castiel’s coming out was part of a declaration of love to his best friend. This teased a possible LGBTQ+ romance between two male leads with no intention of follow through. Heteronormative fans can state my perspective was invalid, but I’d like to challenge them to see LGBTQ+ as just as valid and normal as cishet romance.

If unintentional:

this was insensitive and bad representation

If intentional:

at best queer baiting (Dean was cishet so any fans that thought reciprocation was possible were wrong. Never mind all the subtextual queer coding of Dean that non-heteronormative viewers had observed.)

at worst outright homophobia (if you read Dean as a closeted bisexual that is fridged before he has chance to come out)

The Intention of C* Spn?

I have to wonder what the LGBTQ+ in Spn fandom ever did to make the show runners so mad at us. I would really like to get the perspective of the show runners, because without that, it is just too easy to believe the worst.

Perceiving the Finale Message of We don’t Belong

And the worst is heart wrenching. The marginalized members of fandom that related to the outcast angel were excluded from the Winchester’s ending. Even though we cared about them so much over the years. Many members of fandom had found families, and were validated by the reoccurring theme that family doesn’t end in blood.

But the finale retconned that message. Castiel was queer, and he was erased. He wasn’t a part of Sam and Dean’s ending. Fandom that related to Castiel could see our affection for the brothers wasn’t reciprocated. We just helped when we were useful but in the end unworthy of love. Family actually did end in blood, and we were naive for believing otherwise.

Spn queer baited LGBTQ+ one last time to drive up viewership, so the marginalized part of the audience could bear witness to Castiel’s exclusion from the Winchester’s finale. We never belonged. This wasn’t our story. This was the story of cishet white brothers, Sam and Dean, that were the product of their cishet white parents, John and Mary, that lived up the road in their Heaven. The queer angel of the lord was not going to intrude in their story any longer, despite his devotion to them over the past 12 years. We didn’t belong, because Castiel didn’t belong.

Other Views are Valid

I just want to reiterate that everything I’m saying is just my own opinion. If other LGBTQ+ thought the episodes were perfect that is also very valid. If you are not a LGBTQ+ then I appreciate your support, and ask that you check any biases before disagreeing with my opinion. Cishet will never be made to feel marginalized, inferior, or abnormal because of their sexuality or gender. And if you want to save LGBTQ+ lives you can try to change your view to see queer as normal and become a LGBTQ+ ally.

TLDR;

Misha’s performance was amazing. Bobo Beren’s writing was brilliant. After 15x18, the romance was like a puzzle that had all the pieces carefully together except the last one. Then 15x20 took that beautiful, nearly complete puzzle and dumped it in a metal trash bin, soaked it in lighter fluid, and burned it to ash. I blame the showrunners. They should never have had a LGBTQ+ come out to have his love unrequited, die, and then get erased from the story. Bad representation is worse than no representation.

[phynali]

more spn discussions, just skip this post y’all

 @queerbluebird​ thanks so much for engaging with my post/reply! i really enjoyed reading your response and i have a long reply here.

i’m responding to your post/reply here rather than reblogging it because honestly that thread is - so long. so very long. 

so first - 

i agree there is a difference between entitlement and what i would call, not promise, but instead “narrative follow-through”. A story that completely lacks narrative follow-through does end up feeling disappointing, or frustrating, or rage-inducing, depending on what’s happened. to me there’s a fundamental difference between critiquing a story based on follow-through and bad storytelling (which your post aims to do), versus say, creating hashtag campaigns about a character being silenced because and spreading conspiracy theories about a bad dub (among other things honestly).

and also - queerbaiting totally sucks, we definitely do agree on that.

where we disagree, i think are these two core points:

i do not see the narrative build-up that demands a follow-through. i do not see supernatural as having built up to the story that many destiel shippers seem to think was there, and no one has ever been able to point out to me any actual textual reasons that do craft that narrative build-up  

i fundamentally do not believe that destiel was ever a queerbait. queerbait involves active intent on the part of creators to tease a ship or queer representation in order to draw in $ from queer audiences without ever making it canon, so as not to alienate straight audiences. so, refering to point 1., i do not see the canon text as having laid the groundwork for a queerbait and those romantic tropes, at least not at any point in the past 7 years. and beyond the canon, the writers and producers and jensen ackles all indicated dean was straight, and that they were not writing a romance. if anyone queerbaited the fans, it was misha collins who kept teasing the possibility, and personally i would argue that was irresponsible of him. but that’s a different discussion altogether and tends to piss people off when it’s framed as such, because misha means a lot to them and it hurts to see the man who validated their feelings get criticized for the manner in which he validated them. so i’m gonna leave that aside.

beyond that, I want to engage with some of your specific quotes:

Supernatural loves to say “wait for it.” And I don’t think it’s entitled to feel betrayed if an author uses their story to say “wait for it” in order to convince you to stick with their story and then delivers the opposite after you do.

May i ask, where was the “wait for it” with destiel? this ties in directly to the queerbaiting. i indicated in my post/reply that while i see it from cas, there’s been little to no hint of any reciprocation of feelings from dean, and if anything the past 7 or so years have driven the point home that it isn’t happening. i personally am not able to see the “Wait for it” and that was the point of my question. without the “Wait for it”, i also can’t see the queerbait. 

I asked for specifics and while i totally get not having the spoons, you provided a few:

(off the top of my head for Dean though, the mixtape, his response to Cas’ death at the end of 12, subsequent grief arc, and reaction to Cas’ return in the front half of 13 rank highly. His reaction to Lucifer’s prank call in 15x19 might rate, but maybe just because it’s so recent.)

not trying to be unkind here, but i quite genuinely don’t see any of these examples as framing cas and dean in a romantic light, or as hinting at a “what if”. the mixtape is like.... okay, maybe. i had read that as being symbolic of something else, but i can see wanting to read it from a shipping lens. (i don’t however think i’d read it as baiting or “what if” - it was quite textually not framed that way. shipping, 100%, but canon build-up, not for me).

for the other examples -- grieving for someone you consider family? and being happy when they come back? that’s not shippy to me. i mean - contrast the grief he showed over cas’s death compared to his grief over, say, mary? or, less extreme, charlie? and nothing compared to how off the rails he goes when sam is dead or he thinks sam is. so i -- i just can’t see those as creating a narrative that demands a follow-through. and when your friend who is dead calls your phone? of course you hop to the door - i don’t know what is romantic about that. sam would’ve hopped just as quick if “cass” had called his phone instead.

and look - i see what is fun to ship about all that. if i shipped it, i’d be happily collecting these moments with a smile and grinning to myself about how cute they are and much they mean. but shipping it vs. it being romantically framed in the canon are two fundamentally different things. shipping doesn’t imply narrative buy-in or deliberation from the creator.

moving on, you also spoke at length about 15x18:

15x18 made the sort of statement that drew back even people who did exactly what OP said they should do, turning off the TV years ago. It wasn’t a quiet “if you’re still watching, keep waiting,” so much as a shouted “hey we’re gonna do this thing, watch this!”

i guess destiel fans vs. those of us who don’t ship it really see this as fundamentally different. because you discuss that moment as one which requires follow-through, and say that if this were heteronormative m/f love declaration, there would be that expectation of follow-through. not necessarily reciprocity, but more - more conversation, more acknowledgment, more something.

(i mean - if there was more, but that more was “hey i love you too but only platonically, sorry man” would that be better?)

but no - i actually just... disagree with your point on that front. i can see why you feel the way you do and i acknowledge that it can be read as the start of a conversation. to me though -- and clearly, now that the finale is out, how the writers saw it -- that was actually the end of a conversation. the end of, like you pointed out, 12 years. a 12-year conversation that ends in a gorgeous declaration of love, and specifically how love isn’t about being together, it’s simply about being - it’s about the fact that you love someone, and that feeling alone is the most beautiful thing in existence.

to me, that declaration can only be written and interpreted as an ending.  a sacrifice, a declaration, and a goodbye. so - while i kind of expected seeing more people in episode 20 and realize that didn’t happen largely due to covid - i’m not disappointed we didn’t see cas, because that culmination of his narrative (and then knowing he was with jack, after, rebuilding the heaven that he rebelled against and finally completing his narrative circle by fixing all the problems with it alongside the good god he sought to find all along) is kind of perfect. 

and i genuinely don’t think if cas was in a female vessel this entire time that that would change. maybe some audience members would feel differently, but i think many of us would see it for the end it was nonetheless. there’s plenty of stories with m/f ships that are one-sided and that character sacrifices themselves for the person they love, so i don’t see why this would be any different (except the bury your gays issue, but that’s a whole other and very real conversation about media tropes).

moving on to the series finale.

As many people have pointed out in praise of 15x20, Sam is the absolute most important thing in Dean’s life, his priority above anything and everything… And yet there, at the actual end of the world, Dean ignores Sam’s call and instead cries over the loss of Castiel. Dean’s loss of Castiel plays in tandem with the loss of literally the whole world. But we’re not to take that as a promise that Castiel means more to this story, or to Dean, than a couple seconds of wistfulness after the dust settles?

I... yeah. i don’t see what this even is arguing. that dean taking a minute to himself to grieve his best friend, who just died in part because dean decided to go hunt down billie (who was literally dying anyway). he’s hurting. there’s nothing about this that’s a promise - it’s an end. it’s grief. it’s the horror of losing someone you care about, and the silence that comes after. it’s fundamentally human in it’s pain. and we, the audience, are invited to grieve with dean.

so I mean - of course cas means more to this story. of course he’s meant more than a few seconds of grief, after 12 years. but just because that’s the last time we see him on screen doesn’t mean we don’t value his story, and celebrate how it too came full circle.

You mention cas as a sort of avatar for a different potential ending for the brothers, and highlight him representing:

An ending where higher powers stop yanking them around and they get to actually live in the life they’ve built for themselves.

So while i never considered cas an avatar for that, i do think we all wanted the brothers to have their freedom. “finally free.” so we can agree on wanting that end. but we disagree on whether it was delivered, i guess? because i feel it was.

you also talk about what you and many other fans conceivably wanted a happier ending to look like. can i -- i’m going to be totally honest. i have not seen a single person who’s critiquing the end saying “i just wanted sam and dean to grow old hunting together with their dog until they retire together and die of old age.”

would that be satisfying to those who are mad about the end? i personally don’t think so, but maybe my opinion is being coloured by the most vitriolic fans i’ve seen. if sam and dean got to have the life they wanted free of chuck, and dean didn’t die, and they kept going (or retired and opened a bar together!). maybe sam still had a kid, but again because romance wasn’t the point, the wife wasn’t important and they left her blurry still so we could interpret ourselves if she was a wife or a co-parent or a surrogate or what. maybe dean has a kid too, with a similar question-mark-wife. maybe we get a few images of them having a holiday with jodie and the girls. and then getting to heaven together in old age, greeting bobby with a beer, and going for a drive.

would that be an end that wouldn’t cause fandom uproar? i would enjoy it, soft an slightly discordant as it would be to me. i prefer the ending we got, bittersweet and heartbreaking though it was, but i wouldn’t be taking to social media to yell about it if we got a softer epilogue, so to speak.

on the other hand... would that still not be enough, at least not for so many of the angry fans? i’m genuinely unsure. it seems to me that so much of the ire is about destiel itself, even if people are pretending it’s about more and other things than that. not everyone, but like, a big portion of them. which leads me to believe that nothing short of dean and cas at least interpretable as together is what they wanted. if every other single thing about the existing finale was the same except that cas was the one to greet dean instead of bobby, and even with the same basic dialogue, without discussing the confession, but they have a lingering smile, and dean leaves to drive and wait for sam with the promise he’ll see cas later - 

if everything else stayed the same except who greeted dean, i genuinely don’t believe i’d be seeing almost any critique of the finale on my dash. maybe i’m cynical, but that’s where i’m at.

which is part of why i really struggle to believe that people are engaging in good faith when they critique the finale. because i feel like if it offered them either a) everything they’re purportedly asking for but still no cas and zero hint of destiel, vs. b) every other thing they claim to hate stays the same except there’s a wink and nod to destiel - i believe they would take the wink and nod. 

   On to some other things you raised:

But how can you know to walk away from a tragedy if the tragedy says “the end won’t be a tragedy, keep watching” right up until it ends in tragedy?

Oh i Get this. I hate thinking i’m consuming fun media only for it to rip my heart out at the end. i’ve literally - well, i’ve had a very unpleasant and distressing experience of this, actually. so i get it. also the opposite: i sometimes feel disappointed when i’m consuming media that is gripping and intense and painful, but then the end is too easy, too soft and happy?

BUT - supernatural never pretended it would have a happy end? the end was so. much. happier. than i ever expected. the Swan Song end was going to have Sam in hell being tortured by lucifer for eternity. according to something i read which i am fundamentally too lazy to link because who knows if it would have turned out this way but -- kripke was apparently going to have Dean jump in the cage with him at that end, if the series ended on S5? the ‘horror’ ending. completely devastating sacrifice for mankind (sam), and completely devastating sacrifice for his brother (dean). just -- oof. even if that wasn’t the plan and the series would’ve ended as the episode did - sam was still in the cage and cas was off waging war in heaven and dean was living every day knowing he was alive and his brother was being tortured.

i’m sorry if you thought you were watching a happier show. i know how much that hurts. that doesn’t mean the story was actually that happy though. sometimes, it’s on us as consumers to acknowledge we were misreading the media. i’ve had to do this. it’s hard, it hurts, but it helps you consume things healthier. i’ve had to do this growing recently, and i’m better off for it.

regarding the specific manner of dean’s death - that’s really not what my post was about and i’m not gonna address it here. i’ve talked about it elsewhere and so have others, and @lovetincture‘s original post spelled it out beautifully, in how human it was. i have feelings on how and why i loved dean’s death, and why it was the absolute opposite of what Chuck’s ending was and what he wanted (no blaze of glory), but i’ll leave those for another time.

They cast aside all the relationships they’ve built. [...] They lost/walked away from the life and home they built in the bunker. Dean got a season 1 death. Sam got a season 1 life.

I feel that there is a very huge difference between regression and progression when it comes to cyclical storytelling. And that difference seems to be missing from the ongoing discussions i’ve seen about this in fandom.

Coming full circle to season 1 does not at all mean that the development is ‘undone’ or that the story has regressed or that anything has been lost or destroyed. It can mean that, if the storyteller doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing, but in this case i don’t (personally) feel it’s a fair critique.

Dean’s death might parallel his s1 not-quite death from Faith, but the s15 result of that death is night and day. Dean is no longer alone. Dean does not go up to a lonely heaven filled with bittersweet memories, where even his canonical soulmate and him have wide gulfs between the memories they fill their shared heaven with. Dean dies a hunter, but he dies a hunter who literally saved earth and changed heaven and gets to spend eternity with his brother, side-by-side and together without all the pain and miscommunication, and he gets to see his family and loved ones too. he died having literally made the world so much better.

even without that though?

his story comes full circle, but dean’s character development isn’t about his death, it’s about the fact that in the first several seasons dean could hardly admit he cared without acting like his teeth were being pulled. he was too afraid of abandonment to ask for someone to be by his side. he was too afraid of rejection to let anyone in. and in the end? he asks sam to stay. he tells him that he loves him. he pours his heart out and says all the things that 15 years ago were stoppered in his throat, words trying and failing to claw their way free but his hurt and fears were too deep.

dean is free.

the point of dean’s story coming full circle to season 1 parallels was specifically to highlight this incredible development, not to undermine it. he is different. he is free. 

god it makes me tear up just thinking about how happy i am for him despite how gutted i was by that scene??

(i could write a similar analysis for sam, about how he left for stanford to escape his life and how his finale life montage bits were the opposite of that, but honestly this post is long enough already).

Destiel is loosely a part of that promise in the sense that Castiel is a part of that promise. The symbol of free will

You make a super interesting argument about Cas being a symbol of free will. I don’t have much to say about it, because I’m gonna mull it over, because I think it’s kinda cool and I’ve never thought about it.

That’s - all i’ve got. thanks again for engaging. i’m happy to continue the convo if you have questions or want to reblog/reply 

(though my followers might hate me omg, i’ve been spamming long spn meta posts for weeks now, it’s just been so confronting to see the ongoing fan reaction on twitter and how divided it is...)

[qqueenofhades]

(1/2) Honestly, Hilary, you are a blessing. I want to scream about your amazing Fic, how I love Immortal Husbands and the whole Immortal Family and how I had more fun learning history from your writing than in my whole damn school. But I also want to appreciate your TOG answers and meta. All the more because my friends outside the internet saw TOG as some boring movie with shitty plot and I'm just here in the corner, wanting to scream at someone who will understand about FINALLY seeing...

"(2/2) ...some GOOD queer representation, without throwing stereotypes in our faces, and I can't even begin with the found family trope because THE FEELS. Anyway, what I was trying to say with this rambling: thank you. <3"

....I’m sorry what. Who. Who is saying this. Straight people? I feel like the answer is definitely straight people. Because they have had EIGHTY FUCKING THOUSAND shitty action movies with the Boring White Man Hero, the disposable Muslim-coded (or actually Muslim) villains, the equally disposable eye-candy female love interest who either gets fridged or is secretly evil, Grimdark Everyone Is Secretly Bad And Nothing Matters crap philosophy, Moral Hand Wringing Over Superhero Violence, on and on. So of course they can moan and whine about “iT’s nOt OrIGinAL” and apparently not sufficiently Grimdark and Amoral, and how the dynamics of the team are completely reshuffled in a way that actually doesn’t prioritize THEM, and like.... this is why I never trust media only beloved by straight people, and only ever watch anything after it’s been recommended to me by a trusted queer friend. Because sometimes I remember the difference, and WHOOF.

Because: the gays and people of color DESERVE formulaic action/superhero movies as much as the Generic White Bro (in fact, we can all agree, far more than the Generic White Bro). This is the trap where every piece of media that’s not made by a Mediocre White Man has to be the best all-time of its genre, apparently, rather than using some of the same well-loved storytelling tropes but recoding them and re-deploying them for a more diverse audience. Instead of the Hard Bitten White Man Action Hero, we have Andy and Nile (two women, and Nile as a young Black woman who literally cannot be shot to death, in the year 2020, is fucking revolutionary on its own don’t @ me). As I said in my first meta, even Booker, who comes closest to fulfilling that trope, is made the closest thing to a “villain” there is on the team and even then for entirely sympathetic motives that rest on him having teary-eyed conversations with Nile about how he misses his family and feels like he failed them. His emotions help drive the story in an actually GOOD and useful way, rather than sacrificing everyone else to coddle him through his feeble heterosexual manchildness (why yes, I AM staring directly at the Abomination without blinking). Nobody in the story is EVER penalized or made a fool of for loving their found family (itself an intensely queer trope, even before the queerness of the individual characters) or trying to do the right thing even in the middle of the horrors, and frankly, I just want to consume more media with that as the main message. I’M SO FREAKING TIRED OF GRIMDARK. GOD. IF I WANTED THAT I COULD JUST TURN ON THE NEWS.

And of course, my BELOVED Joe and Nicky: an interracial, interreligious gay couple that has been wildly in love for literal CENTURIES and gives me the opportunity to do things like write the most self-indulgent historical romance backstory fic ever with DVLA. They met in the embodiment of religious conflict and have transcended that, there are never any cruel jokes or expectation for you to congratulate the narrative for being so beneficent as to give you “an exclusively gay moment” (fuck you Disney!). Joe and Nicky’s love story is central both to who they are as characters, doesn’t revolve around them being suffering or being Tormented over being gay (when the cops pull them apart for kissing, they beat the cops the fuck up, WE STAN), gets to unfold naturally in the background of the story with these beautiful little beats of casual intimacy (the SPOONING /clutches heart) and since THEY LITERALLY CANNOT DIE, no chance of the “burying your gays” bullshit. Even when they’re captured first by the bad guys, and I briefly, upon first viewing, worried that they were going the Gay Pain route just for cheap emotional points, they remain constantly united and fighting together and able to do stupid things like flirt when they’re strapped to gurneys by a mad scientist. Then the rest of the team ends up right there with them, so it’s not something that happens to them alone, and Nile comes in to save everyone’s asses, and Joe and Nicky get ANOTHER beautiful moment of fighting the bad guys and being worried about each other and tender even in the middle of this chaos and GOD! MY HEART! MY WHOLE ASS HEART! I LOVE THEM!

And just the fact that it’s not the Evul Mooslim Turrorists or Boilerplate Scary Eastern Europeans or whoever else who are the bad guys, but Big Pharma, nasty white men with too much money and not enough ethics, the CIA (at least tangentially; they could have pushed a lot harder on that but I’ll give Copley individually a pass), and the very forces that want to stop the Old Guard and discount what they do (helping the little people) as worthless... GOD. That is fucking POWERFUL. They literally take the time to explain with Copley’s Conspiracy Wall that even the little things the team does, when they can’t see it themselves, spiral out through centuries and have positive effects down the line. And it’s NOT just in the Western world (no scene in the movie takes place in America, none of the main four characters/heroes are American, and they only go to England when the English villains capture them). They’re in Africa, in Asia, in South America, in all these places where the Western/imperial world order has harmed people the most and in a way that Euro/American audience often gets to forget. On the surface this might be an action movie with Charlize Theron beating up men (which I mean, that alone is fine if you ask me) but there are SO MANY WAYS in which it achieves these deeper moments of meaning and subversion of the narrative that we are so often fed and the ways it could have done this (i.e. the same old Mediocre White Man ways).

I love the fact that the team unabashedly LOVES each other as their family members (I will never get over them all liking to sleep in one room even in their safe house in France), even when they struggle, and that they continue trying to make it right and never consider leaving Booker behind, because he screwed up but they still love him (and he them). I LOVE LOVE LOVE that this movie gave me not just Joe and Nicky but Andy and Quynh: two completely badass queer couples who kick tons of ass and have romance and Drama and rich and well-realized lives outside being used as emotional manipulation or suffering porn for straight people. (I realise it’s only been two weeks since the first one released, but where is my sequel, I have Needs. Especially Andy/Quynh and Quynh/Joe/Nicky needs). I was disappointed that they’d gotten rid of Quynh in a Bad Medieval Way to cause pain for Andy and then shocked and DELIGHTED when she turned up alive in Booker’s apartment at the end of the film. I LOVE that this movie gave me Nile Freeman and everything that she represents in the middle of this hellish year. I even love Booker! BOOKER! When he’s usually the character type I can’t stand and have the least patience with!

So yes. I have watched it three times already. I am sure I am going to watch it several times more. It just makes me so happy.

[eolewyn1010]

3 seasons of Charité - upsides and downsides

Includes spoilers for all three seasons!

What I like about Charité, season 1:

- Ida is a relatable and stubborn woman, and while I think the protagonists of the newer two seasons are written better and more interestingly, she makes for a good central character

- Behring is great to watch, complex, enthusiastic, arrogant, passionate, desperately forlorn, sweetly encouraging, irascible, honest, and I’m always torn between loving and hating him with all my heart

- he also stands in for how badly society was suited to handle people with psychological issues back in the day

-  actually, none of the characters are simple or one-sided; expectations are often subverted – Behring is not heartless, but he can’t just be “saved” either, neither Koch nor Virchow are as benign as they seem at first, Tischendorf is not the sweet young Prince Charming who’ll give Ida the dream life she deserves, Hedwig is not a brainless little floozie with no deeper thoughts or feelings, neither Therese nor Martha are all the strict boss ladies they want to be, Edith is not just a snotty bitch etc.

- medical history of that time, a blunt look on methods and circumstances

- the rivalry between the doctors; it’s fun to watch them passive-aggressively piss on each other

- the staging of the Tuberculin scandal was really effective, with all the hyping, the downfall and the consequences

- we get sweethearts! Stine is a sweetheart, Else is a sweetheart, Therese is a sweetheart, Dr. Kitasato is a sweetheart, and most of all Dr. Ehrlich. I like kind people, ok? Especially in a setting where so many people are asses

- the music is atmospheric and quite nice

- despite two options of marriage, the female protagonist remains single and gets to focus on her career, even in a time and setting that’s not supportive

- I’m having a blast with Minckwitz – he’s such a bitch, I love it

What I hate:

- the lesbian dies for no good reason

- did our main character really have to be a tragic, left-all-alone orphan in debts? Would you like some cheese with that whine?

- the big, hammy speeches get on my nerves after a while

- my sweet lesbian Therese dies, awfully, of frickin’ tuberculosis

- say what you will, Ida and Behring could have made it work; I think they would have been good for each other. Kinda disappointed

- Else Spinola deserved better

- poor Therese dies, thinking that God punishes her for being in love with Ida

- those weird slo-mo shots between scenes don’t serve any purpose

- what’s with the random fortuneteller scene? What was that good for?

- THERESE DIES! We go with f***king Bury Your Gays??? F*** YOU!

_________________________________

What I like about Charité, season 2:

- Anni and Dr. Sauerbruch – different than with Ida, we get two focal characters who aren’t presented as doubtlessly morally good. On the contrary, Anni starts out as quite the happy-go-lucky little Nazi follower – and then we get all the character development; hell yeah!

- Anni chooses to keep and raise her disabled baby herself, come hell or high water; damn, she fights for that kid. And Martin is positive disabled representation, too – thanks for giving me a handicapped veteran who’s not a bitter, drunk wreck just whining about what a cripple he is! He’s got a grip on his life, and the leg only ever comes up on three occasions; it doesn’t define him

- Otto, Martin, Doc Jung, Margot, Maria Fritsch and Kolbe are more clearly positive characters, but they aren’t one-sided, either – like, Otto plays that bright sunshine, but there’s so much seething in him. My sweet baby boy

- same for the negative characters, because they aren’t flat either; Artur, de Crinis and Christel are super interesting, all different levels between quiet, only semi-aware compliance and full-on, not-so-blind fanaticism. Gawd, those shitheads, but they’re fascinating to watch

- all them relationships – Margot-Ferdinand, Otto-Martin, Otto-Anni, Artur-Anni, Margot-Doc Jung, Ferdinand-Doc Jung, Anni-de Crinis, Bessau-Artur, Martin-Christel, Otto-Christel, Anni-Martin… there are so many interplays, so many dynamics that influence each other! SO many layers!

- the acting is better, I think; the characters altogether feel less wooden, much more human than the first time around – perhaps because it’s not 19th century manners anymore now, I dunno; I’m getting really emotional over shit, and I love it

- incorporation of the political and social situation into the hospital setting – much more than in the first season, the state ideology influences the way the doctors can do their work, and many of them do their best to still hold onto their duty when everything around them falls apart, which is beautiful

- power struggles between the characters in charge and ideological / political nuances are more subtle; nothing is black and white

- but there’s nothing subtle about the presentation of Nazi crimes and how many people actually just went along willingly – that cold bluntness is just what that subject needs

- interactions with patients are better this time; they’re more now than passive, pitiable creatures who quietly die their way, they’re characters with their own minds and drives (Lohmann, Magda Goebbels, Hans von Dohnanyi, even Emil)

- the music is even better than the first time around, I love it – so gentle most of the time, but it can also really help to build the tension

- we get a very sweet, functioning queer romance between characters who consist of more than “well, they’re gay and it troubles them”, and they both live – THANK YOU for learning your lesson; there was no good reason to have the gay character die, so Otto and Martin get a happy end. Was that so difficult?

What I hate:

- Yrsa von Leistner is so effing random. Who the hell wrote this? If you can’t incorporate a character properly, why bother including them in the first place?

- the passivity and anonymity of the disabled children – why didn’t Artur or Anni ever get to perceive one of them as a person? That girl Traudel for example, Anni could have talked to her

- there’s a slight tendency to “I’ll just tell the character next to me” exposition – Artur when he and Anni wake up together that one morning (why wouldn’t Anni know yet what he’s working on? That long-winded explaining sentence just came off as awkward), Peter Sauerbruch to Margot about the Dohnanyis and Bonhoeffers

_________________________________

What I like about Charité, season 3:

- I’m all pro ProPro! Honestly, that man is a treat, both how the character is written and how the actor carries the situations and interactions he’s in. He’s arrogant and narcissistic, but he’s also principled, insightful and caring, unpolitical in a smart way and honest in a quiet way, and he gets how people are, and his mentorship of Ella, how he supports and encourages her and also bluntly gives her the dressing-down she needs, is a thing of beauty. And that she has to earn his attention first

- I have a personal soft spot for the scene where ProPro is doing his sports and going jogging while talking with Ella, and then just has her run along. That man’s hilarious, I love him

- Ella’s spirited, and while I don’t love the protagonists of this season as much as those of the second, she’s still great in her own right – the dedication to her research, the strength with which she handles the shit that’s thrown at her

- everyone’s so snarky!

- the wider focus on medical history and research; we see a lot past surgery now

- everyone’s taking shit in stride – staff is running off to the West? Ok; rest gets double shifts. We don’t have a senior doctor on the ward this morning anymore? We do shit ourselves. An illness we’re not prepared to treat anymore because, actually, there should be vaccination enough? We’ll make do. I love that spirit

- positive disabled representation! Rapoport’s daughter actually interacts with people, is presented as a person, has dreams and strengths and can handle her issues – yes, please!

- we get an intersex character, not for long and the story isn’t treated with the care and attention it should have, but props for the effort, I guess

- the setting allows for Ella to focus fully on her work and passion, not really giving much on romance and marriage without that seeming out of place – Ida’s conversations most often revolved around a man, Anni was considered a Nazi role model for being married and a mother, but Ella, while the relationship with Kurt is an option, never prioritizes this and never needs it

- personally, I’m smelling threesome subtext between Ella, Kurt and Alex Nowack – that may just be me, but I like it

- how everyone handles situations, how the changes happening in the country are incorporated into the world the characters live in, how they are able to cope with stuff and make decisions, in the end even without shifting blame

- even more so than in season 2, I really like how human the patients and their relatives are, that interacting with them in the right way is made an important part of the doctors’ work, even when some of the patients are asses

What I hate:

- people are mumbling – it’s not dialects, it’s not accents; they’re mumbling. They never were in the first two seasons

- the cancer stories were really no favorite of mine; what’s with the teary melodrama and the sudden gory shock value? Come on, Charité, you can do better. Presenting the human side of everything has always been the strength of this series, so why going so overboard now?

- I dunno, the crime cases ProPro investigates don’t seem to be incorporated that well? I suppose they’re there to establish his main field of pathology, but they spend a lot of time on that “Biter” case, and I’m not sure why

- would have been nice if Inge Rapoport had gotten to interact a bit with important characters other than her husband, Arianna and Kraatz – she’s a lovable, strong female character; why keep her so one-sided?

- what’s with the black’n’white painting? You showed us how conflicted and nuanced people under the Nazi regime could be; why now the clear line between “those people are good” and “that one sold his soul to the Party”?

- you show us an intersex person, introduce her as a character, make us sympathize, show us her hindrances and possibilities – and then she’s just gone? What about her treatment? Positive development? Making Kraatz’ interactions with her a counterpoint to his interactions with Doc Rapoport? What WAS that?

[tea-at-221]

It's a sad world when every single time queer fans see one of their same-sex ships do something that should seemingly make the ship canon, they have to take a STANCE and DECIDE what the intention was there, because it's never either: a.) Irrefutable or b.) Minus the bury-your-gays trope.

Everything is always done in such a way that the cis het viewers aren't made to feel too freaking squicked.

EVERYONE should be pissed off at anything less than an EXPLICITLY HAPPY, CANON GAY ENDING to these stories until it's the NORM.

Yeah gay characters should have hardships and emotional arcs like any other characters. But not EVERY TIME. Not the MAJORITY OF THE TIME.

So until our happiness is just as important as that of the straight audience, I would love to see us all unite and say HAPPY ENDINGS ONLY.

This is how we show the world we're normal. That we *deserve* happy endings. That THEIR stories are not *more important.* Because when their stories end happily and ours don't, that's the message. It's not even subliminal.

A queer character's death shouldn't be even *hinted* to be the "moral of the story."

It shouldn't be that a canon M/M relationship on screen was fine, cause at least one of the gay characters is dead and the story is done with.

It shouldn't be okay a character was queer *only in light of the fact* that you almost felt bad for them due to all the trauma and tragedy they ultimately suffered.

It's NOT okay that things were left "open to interpretation, so you can ship it if you want but that gay stuff isn't my thing and can't you shut up about it because you're ruining the fandom for everyone/can't two men ever just be friends without you people reading into it". 🤬

That isn't PROGRESS. It's *2020.* Where ARE we?

Taking a look around, it's easy to see we're stuck in stagnation. *No one's* rights are moving forward at a measurable pace. We're always all being held back to keep the hateful comfortable. Because *those* people, I guess, are the ones who deserve to see more of themselves reflected in the world at large.

It's not okay for a queer writer to sneak in canonization wherever they can, possibly unintentionally (but only with the best intentions in mind) contributing to queerbaiting just because that's the best they can do. Bless the writer, but no. It's not okay because THOSE ABOVE THEM STOPPING THEM FROM WRITING A FULLY-FLESHED-OUT, HAPPY QUEER STORY ONLY HAVE PROFIT IN MIND AND ARE AFRAID OF LOSING THEIR STRAIGHT AUDIENCES. The writer shouldn't have to settle for working under those conditions!

It's not true that queer writers *can't* queerbait or wouldn't wish to. Many of these writers are older and grew up oppressed and probably even have nostalgia for the stories they grew up with where everything was *aching* and *implied* and *subtext* because that was the best they got, and it was close enough to the surface to make them feel seen and hopeful. Those sorts of writers are capable of keeping that low standard ball rolling, not even actively *meaning* to do harm. It's not that they're vindictive or evil--though stubbornness and a refusal to reflect on the messages they're sending can make, and in some cases certainly HAS made, them out to look like they *mean* to hurt us and will continue to do so out of SPITE because now it's their right to do so since we said something and tried to "stifle their creativity" with political correctness.

Then we get a nice freefall of infighting and suppression, both real and imagined.

But if we treat it like this is okay, like we're happy with this, like we've gotten what we wanted when really all we've actually gotten are the barest table scraps, then it's Stockholm Syndrome!

Raise your hand if you're a queer person and you're okay with Sherlock and John implying there's more to be said between them, and then never explaining what they meant by it. If you're okay with them making gay "jokes" all the time, with serious expressions and tears in their eyes.

Raise your hand if you're LGBTQIA+ and you're over the moon about the fact that Castiel looked at Dean, said he loved him, got no confirmation of reciprocation, and was sent immediately to hell. Thumbs up if you're super hoping that doesn't get reversed somehow. If you don't care if it does get reversed only for Cas and Dean to then act like they're Totally Close Bros.

Raise your hand if Quentin Coldwater's "artistic" suicide (oh ahem, "noble sacrifice") and Eliot's subsequent, uncomfortably forced "relationship" with Charlton was your idea of the sort of happy ending you've always pined for. Let's hear it for how our mental health was boosted by watching a canonically bisexual, clinically depressed dreamer do the "right thing" by all of his friends by ending his life despite the literal existence of real magic, meaning that even in a world where the impossible is possible, a character like that *cannot be saved.*

Is this really, REALLY, what we want to settle for?

And do we really, REALLY want to keep fighting with *each other* about what it means and why it should all be okay?

Do we really want to say that huge strides are being made because one or two shows with LGBTQIA+ couples (though in actuality, LG and maybe A couples if you're informed enough to identify them) have had happy couples/endings? Are we actually gonna die on this hill?

Or don't we all collectively know that actually, this is not enough and we shouldn't be trying to shame each other into accepting it merely because it makes the crappiness of it all easier to bear if we've personally managed to justify the disappointment of story A or B to ourselves and it would really help if all the other exhausted people just got on board? Can't we agree we're tired of the need to bludgeon each other with "but"s and "consider this though"s in the name of being able to keep heart at the end of the day?

The way forward in this case can only be paved by standing still and making a concrete happy space HERE, 100 miles wide smack dab in the middle of the heterosexual desert.

Hey, I look forward to the day when someone can be progressive by breaking that annoying HAPPY GAY COUPLE TROPE. Don't you????