#these books are queerbaiting so bad
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bish-plz-haha · 2 years ago
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Let's talk about books!
So I started reading a series I spent a lot of time avoiding because I tried reading it in the past and I just... couldn't. Finally, after something like 7 to 10 years I've come back to it.
That series is called:
⭐⭐The Maze Runner⭐⭐
Now now, say what you want but everyone reads differently. Back when the book first came out (I'm literally talkin like 2011-2013 era because I got it at the scholastic book fair at school and I cant remember the year I got it), I tried reading it. I got MAYBE like 5 chapters in to the first book and put it down.
Recently, I've picked it back up as I previously said and let me just say:
I
Am
Loving
It
My style of reading has changed to "eh, I'll try it" and I'm glad I picked it back up because its phenomenal.
BUT onto what this post is really about.
I have never in my life read a book series that the movies are SO FAR OFF FROM.
First book was like, "eh, there's some big differences but not enough for me to be like, "I don't recognise this from the movies" (besides the Grievers rolling - which had me rolling honestly). (Yes, I watched the movies first. I didnt really think I was gonna pick the books back up so I gave into the temptation of watching.)
But I've found that each book has had drastically more differences to the movies. Like in The Scorch Trials. They are forced to go into the scorch in the book. While in the movie, it's just them trying to get away from WICKED (which is understandable). But I'm just reading the death cure now—I started the series on the 10th of May. Sue me.—and my God, I dont recognise the movie AT ALL. Which, I'll admit, is nice because the things I remember from the movie I think about and the book takes a completely different direction and throws me for a loop.
ALSO!!!!!!
You're trying to tell me that Thomas doesn't have a thing with Newt? Like, you're seriously trying to sell me on the point that Teresa is the ONLY love interest Thomas has? Really? A few examples:
"He found himself thinking of Newt, maybe the one he liked most of all of them."
"Newt gave him a suspicious look. 'Best of the best, those guys. Have to be. Everything depends on them.' Newt picked up a loose rock and tossed it, watching it absently as it bounced to a stop. 'Why arent you one?'"
"Thomas turned to see Newt there, smiling. That grin sent a wave of reassurance through Thomas, as if he were finding out the world was okay again."
"Most people call me Thomas; well, except for Newt. He calls me Tommy."
"Imagining one of the guards hurting Newt made Thomas tremble with rage."
"He was surprised at his reaction. He hadn't realised how much Newt meant to him until the declaration."
"Glad you're not bloody dead, Tommy. I'm really, really glad."
"He was genuinely concerned—Newt was one of the few people in the glade he actually liked."
"Thomas couldnt stifle his worry about what Newt was thinking. He'd opened himself up and he really liked Newt. If Newt turned on him now, Thomas didn't know if he could handle it."
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fvckw4d · 7 months ago
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The concept of queerbaiting annoys me. I was told that it refers to a work of fiction pretending to cater to a queer audience but then pulling back from it to avoid alienating homophobes, which is an incredibly specific thing. But a lot of people seem to think that it instead means "any time there's any gay subtex, metaphor, or ambiguity" or "whenever something from 1995-2012 was being a normal amount of homophobic for the era."
#I've secondhand seen the way Sherlock...was.#And yeah that's very pointedly cruel to the audience.#But not everything is that aware of its following to point by point mock them for half an hour.#And I think people forget that for a period there was a unique combination of awareness of gay people and homophobia bad#and a severe need to avoid being perceived as gay (and sometimes homophobic) at the same time#while it was ALSO very acceptable to treat the existence of gay people and homophobia or discomfort with both as a joke#so that whole wink wink nudge nudge dance was a huge thing in some of the 90s and earlier 2000s#and sometimes by doing that people accidentally made it seem even more fucking gay.#Or on purpose. People also forget that yeah gay people could exist as a joke but they couldn't be casual protags or w/e.#It wasn't really done like that.#I think what it's really proof of is that the 90s/early 2000s is long enough ago that people have become illiterate to the cultural cues.#When comedians complain 'you cant make jokes anymore' sometimes this is the exact thing they're referring to.#Gay people being on TV or in books isn't some funny joke you make anymore. Just being gay or seen as gay isn't the punchline it used to be.#People are shitty about it still but it's in a different way now. Being gay isn't as much the big embarrassment it used to be.#Gay tv shows and books are a whole market now. And stuff like Sherlock or supernatural were made right in the middle of that shift.#It's the only way you could position a strategy like this. I don't know if that cultural moment really exists anymore.#Audience backlash is also more massive and in real time.#Now instead of mockery at the idea of idk Dr house md being gay conservatives would see it as a 'culture war' thing.#And non conservatives are more vocal and more liable to criticize. TV shows are seen as keepers of culture in ways they weren't before.#I don't know how to describe it exactly. I'm not an expert and I know I'm missing some pieces or things I wanted to point out.#But yeah I just think people kind of. Forgot how people treated gayness as some kind of cootie disease you had to say#You didn't have really hard all the time. People are still sort of like that but idk the language changed.#A lot of talk about homophobia and queerness is very pseudo-academic now. The distancing happens with different signifiers.#But. Yeah.#☠️#I also think queerbaiting requires a specific kind of intent as a marketing strategy.#Instead of the more likely 'well we have an unintended gay following now so I guess we can throw in some fanservice#the network would literally never allow us to do anything with it even if we wanted to though.'
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doobydoobydoowau · 1 year ago
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i can't believe I just watched two men (metaphysical beings?) skate around their obvious love for one another for twelve hours only for them to ask each other out, kiss, and break up within five minutes and cut to credits?!? i am physically unwell. neil gaiman you better sleep with one eye open bc i'm COMING FOR YOU.
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autumnrory · 1 year ago
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i figure they’ll drop it in a few eps like they have with everything else but it would be a little funny if after all the barchie vs varchie shit that they just made beronica endgame
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nofacednerd · 6 months ago
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Remembered that chaste ass kiss from the School for Good and Evil movie and got so mad about it that I woke up at 5 in the morning
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daisywords · 2 years ago
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too many thoughts about Alya and Kirsta today
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mummer · 1 year ago
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the thing about mat wheeloftime is that he was invented for me in a lab
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forestleavescat · 2 months ago
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Moominvalley: Or Not at All
A long post about Moominvalley through the different seasons. Planning, potential, promises, and outcomes.
This won’t go super far into detail about season 4 but it will talk about a certain outcome as well as handling of characters and relationships. If you don’t want any spoilers or info on the fourth season steer clear
(I’m not the best with titles)
I watched season 4 of moominvalley last night and I was pretty dang disappointed in how certain things were handled. Don’t get me wrong. There was some nice stuff. But it still felt like it was largely missing what made me love the show so much from the start. As well as things I had been looking forward to from the books. Above all else, I feel like their handling of the fandom’s favorite pairing was bad. I can’t even begin to put into words how upset I am since gutsy and by extension moominvalley felt like a company that wouldn’t do this. I want to put my thoughts on paper so to speak. 
It’s insanely disappointing to know that this company has been queerbaiting since day one. This show is a huge comfort to me and it was nice to watch since it helped me feel more at ease with my own sexuality. But now that feeling has been largely reversed because I know that those moments were manufactured to sell the show only for them to drop them by the end. So let’s look at things
Queer coding has existed for a long time. It’s helped creators give hints and nods to a character’s identity or hints of a relationship when times and places don’t exactly allow for it. There are many stories that have queer coding and give this beautiful subtext that those in the community can enjoy. Even though it would remain ambiguous whether a character was gay or two men or women were dating, the coding allowed it to be suggested even when it wasn’t allowed given the time period. 
Queerbaiting is almost the opposite of this. Queerbaiting comes about more from existing in a time or place where it is accepted but instead of giving genuine representation, a person uses the desire to see that representation to sell a product. Moments between characters that are clearly more than friendship only to disappear - often replaced by a hetero pairing. (Tbf the character who was implied to have feelings for someone of the same gender would still be bi or pan but it stings when the idea of something between two people of the same gender was suggested but removed) Queerbaiting has been an extremely frustrating thing to experience in fandom spaces. Series like voltron, sherlock, supernatural, etc. You get invested in these characters. There’s a possibility and every moment that suggests it could be more gets you hooked. Similar to how miraculous viewers became invested in the romance that’s hinted since day one. If you put the time and effort into using that for a story and draw people in with it only to take it away it’s bordering false advertising. It sucks because you spent time caring about it and waiting to see how it would play out. 
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I mean just look at this. The moominvalley team did this deliberately. I mean, they included that one scene in the teaser which made it seem like more snufmin. It felt like a taste of what the season would offer but in reality it was one of few crumbs. And I mean crumbs. Because compared to the other seasons there was hardly anything. Their moments didn’t have this underlying feeling that they usually did. Every other season felt like it had underlying feelings to be explored. But here it became hollow. And snufkin took a backseat to a lot of the action this season
 But they definitely knew that the fans were interested in this pairing. It’d be tough to get into the moomins without knowing about this part of the story and community. And they acknowledged this idea of moomin and snufkin multiple times in interviews and qnas. 
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And voice actors aren’t the ones who decide but there were more than just vas discussing this.
This series started off with their relationship. Episode one ended with the first mention of snufkin who’d be returning to the valley in the very next episode. That entire second episode gave a clear look into how their relationship would develop throughout the series. Moomin waiting for snufkin longingly while snufkin took his time until showing up felt right all while missing moomintroll. This episode has a sort of sense that there could be something more to them. Especially seeing as moomin is more focused on snufkin than snorkmaiden, his love interest. The following episode gives us this:
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And while moomin wants the dragon to be his loyal pet, we know that “And just promise me this, that you'll give me all your kisses Every winter, every summer, every fall”
is referring to somebody other than that. This leaned much heavier into the potential for something beyond friendship between them.
There are the usual moments that could go either way, with focus between them and close contact.
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This is more similar to other adaptations where they have a clear, close relationship. But in most of those you could come to love the pairing but you generally know they won’t do something unambiguous. Just the occasional scene that could be read as potentially romantic.
Moominvalley doesn’t strictly stick to this though. It feels similar to the original works where there is something ambiguously there. Then it further implies that there will be something important between them storywise. You get Tooticky saying that there are other lost souls waiting to be heard before the camera cuts to Snufkin leaving the valley alone.
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And this didn’t really get fulfilled in any real way. Yet it implies that the future of the series will go in a direction where moomin is the one to help snufkin in some way. That part isn’t even romantic, but it goes to show that they stopped focusing on this important connection between them.
Their relationship in season 2 continues very beautifully. Moomin immediately wants to go make sure snufkin is okay when the volcano’s gonna erupt. There’s an entire conversation that highlights their difference of perspective with loving vs possessing in regards to the ruby and the hobgoblin. Something that is linked to their relationship and things they need to figure out. Then when they have to leave the valley, moomin wonders if he’ll ever see snufkin again. On top of that, he and snorkmaiden have their break up.
Which I want to talk about their relationship a bit. A majority of the episodes that feature them as leads do it with a wedge between them. Their relationships is honestly not great going both ways. They clash and are generally unhappy. And usually moomin has to apologize for something that doesn’t exactly feel is entirely on him. Little My I get. I mean he didn’t think the note would get to mymble but this was still a genuine mess up on his part. But he ended up on a rock in the middle of the sea over the ghost episode. And snorkmaiden spends much of their time making a home together getting angry because he misses his family and hasn’t come to terms with saying goodbye to them. There are times they’re together where he’s selfish and she’s just angry at him. They don’t feel like a happy couple to cheer for. Back in 90s moomins I actually did like them. They were cute. I was a bit divided between that and snufmin because there were these moments that really did count for a lot and had such a wholesome feeling. But moominvalley honestly made me cheer for a break up. Meanwhile, he and snufkin have this relationship that they’re navigating in moominvalley. They don’t argue much even when they have different perspectives. Moomin admires snufkin and in some ways tries to emulate him. But all while still being his own moomin and figuring himself out.
The two are still given parallels in little moments such as zooming in when they take each other’s hands.
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So back to season 2 and how it handled snufmin. When moomin leaves the valley we see snufkin dealing with that absence for a change. He begins to understand how moomin feels when he’s gone. While he’s at the moomin house he seems pretty in his element for the most part. He seems happy to play along and give toffle an idea of what the moomin family was like. But in that there are scenes where he’s looking for a note. We see bits of how much he misses moomin and wants to know where his friend has gone and when he’ll be back. This is the beginning of a shift in their relationship. Because snufkin gets to feel what moomin feels like. And when he hears that the moomins are coming his face lights up the way moomintroll’s would.
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They’re often portrayed in a way that shows that they’re the most important person to the other. There’s this sort of soft undertone that seems to suggest feelings. And all while their relationships grows and changes and they become all the better for it.
Also there’s this
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Season 3!
Season 3 felt like there was a change in direction. I feel at this point that there was deliberate queerbaiting but I also know that there was a shift somewhere around season 3. We got the music cut. The voice actor for moomin changed. There were some adjustments with the writing team. But they still deliberately put in scenes with this duo. And with romantic framing. I could be convinced that season 1 and 2 were made with the idea of them as endgame in some capacity. That the queerbaiting wasn’t from day 1 and that it began here. There were really great moments with them. But it feels like they shoehorn snorkmaiden in as a romantic interest again. A lot of episodes with her here don’t exactly make it explicit but there are some that nail it in. They reunite and it almost feels like they’re back together again without a full conversation. Especially with the final episode. I feel like the narrative would’ve been richer if they hadn’t done that considering the way they’ve been building snufmin up.
But I’ll focus on moomin and snufkin for now. When snufkin sees moomin again moomin goes for the greeting he’s been used to but snufkin gives him a hug. That description alone won’t do it justice though. The music rises as it zooms in on their eyes as they make their way to each other. When snufkin hugs moomin you can see the joy from both of them. It shows how their greetings and by extension their relationship has evolved over the seasons.
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And then it cuts to snorkmaiden.
This becomes a notable pattern in season 3. It’ll give a really meaningful scene that pushes snufkin and moomin in a more romantic light only to undercut it by reminding you that snorkmaiden is here. It’s at this point where it feels like they know a ton of fans are here for snufmin. They include the pairing. But they also seem to be reminding us that snorkmaiden is here to stay and in a more romantic way. But there’s still this hope, especially if you recall everything from seasons 1 and 2 and the way that they felt. Especially if you rewatch them right before watching season 3. And the show very clearly uses that and makes it feel like there’s a chance. Makes the viewers hope and stick around to find out.
So let’s go through season 2. Moomin and snufkin make some progress on their relationship. They’ve switched positions now and have more of an idea of how the other feels when one of them leaves. And from there they communicate that. Especially moomin. This is shown to a degree in the episode with the fairgrounds. Again in lonely mountain. There are also little nods here and there about their relationship. But again. Lonely mountain is the big one. It starts with little my getting on moomin’s case for worrying over his ‘precious snufkin’
As usual moominmama also seems to act like she knows there’s something more to his relationship with snufkin. Papa remains oblivious though. There’s a parallel between the parents and snufmin too. But the most well known part is this
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look. there’s nothing remotely platonic about this. This is one of those things that someone straight and homophobic could detect. The point where they’d stop arguing ‘they’re just friends’ because there’s no way that’s all. I mean just listen to moomin’s “yes” when snufkin goes to add something. There’s so much hope and feeling in that word that I would love to get my hands on the script to find the voice direction for that. I mean come on
And better yet it ends with an interruption so we know they’ll have a whole heart to heart later. A conversation where they lay out their feelings. The feelings that were clearly present here.
Except they don’t
Anyway the season goes on. Moomin, snufkin, and obligatory third wheel sniff go on a journey to take the sun back after it was stolen. They get it back and the season ends with a beautifully queer scene that promises more to come from these two.
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Except that a few minutes prior snorkmaiden calls moomin her soulmate and they have their usual thing. And even after snorkmyden really did get some good content this season.
Look, I know that snorkmyden was probably not on their minds throughout production. There’s a difference between the way they handle snufmin and the way they handle snorkmyden. Both duos get great development in their relationships but while there are a ton of cute moments between snorkmaiden and little my, it never feels like there’s a focus on making that endgame. It feels more like snufmin did in some of the other adaptations - something with cute moments and a genuine bond that could be seen as romantic but it’s highly unlikely it won’t be. I want to say this since this series didn’t feel that way for snufmin. It felt like the first chance of it working out fully. I put a lot of scenes in here showing it but the first two season really show it in a way clips and gifs can’t. There’s just so much there and it’s beautiful and sweet. It feels hopeful for them.
Until season 4. Season 4 feels like the team shrugged off all of it. They step even further away. It’s like season 3 but without any of the scenes between them. Suddenly, you’re looking at scenes between them where they talk and have physical contact but the deeper feelings are completely gone. It’s like the anime. Where you can smile about it and think ‘aw them’ but you know it won’t happen. They heavily lean to snorkmaiden and moomin instead. This is the final season. They know people will watch to see if moomin and snufkin go anywhere romantically. And even if people don’t finish it, they’ve got people paying for memberships just to see if it happens. So it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t happen. Because they’ve secured the views and the money.
I do want to say that when I refer to it as becoming canon I don��t know if they’d call each other boyfriends or even kiss. But I would expect them to acknowledge it as there being something more. Like the series ending with them having a discussion about how much they mean to each other. Something that shows they’ll go into the future and continue to get close. Physical closeness like a hug or one putting his hand on the others or even just leaning against each other. Whatever it would be I’d expect more than this. Because they very clearly built these two to be inseparable in that one required the other to undergo their full arc. The show starts with a promise that their relationship will be close to the story. But then season 4 hardly shows snufkin at all
This is what queerbaiting is. And I never expected it to happen with this series. Not after the team talked about it with care. It’s such a gut punch after waiting for five years to see how it’d turn out. I don’t know if they always intended it to be a way to bring in customers. Maybe it was initially going to work out but they changed it between season 2 and 3. I don’t know. But this. This really is queerbaiting. We live in a time where gay relationships are more accepted. They show up in the media more. We’re finally at a time where this relationship could be made more explicit instead of having this ambiguously romantic subtext. And if someone made a new adaptation of moomins and didn’t do that, that would be perfectly and completely fair and okay. If they didn’t consistently imply that there could and even would be something more. But here they used a very old and well loved pairing to gather fans and make money only to never have it come to fruition. Season 4 of moominvalley felt like companies on july 1st. I literally can’t think of a better comparison for how it feels. The first video starts with the quote “The Spring Tune is where we say that this series is going to be different. That you’re going to have to wait and give it time and just be patient. And wait for the story to unfold.”
And so many people did. But then it turned out like this. And I don’t know if that was always the intention. Because it feels like that interview was suggesting that it would go in that direction. But heck. The whole series up until season 3 felt like it would go in that direction. And then it didn’t.
Gay representation is something that has a huge positive impact on the lgbtq community. Even more so on the world overall since it allows people to see these relationships and shows that it’s okay for people to be gay. And it would be even nicer for a series that started off with that subtext got the full representation now that we’re in more accepting times. And it felt like it would be even more meaningful with recent treatment of gay stories.
Our flag means death was cancelled, shadow and bone, the owl house had its final season drastically shortened, good omens is only getting a single episode for their finale
Many are just getting dropped and in a time where this community needs them more than ever. These are shows that make people feel seen. Shows that bring a feeling of joy and comfort and acceptance. And it’s even worse to see that there’s still queerbaiting now. This could’ve had such a beautiful ending and likely would’ve been loved for many years to come if they committed to what they’d built up all this time. How could someone take a series created by a woman who not only added subtext in her original stories but was bi, and use it to build up a romantic story just to bring in money and then toss all that development away. I don’t know what else to say other than this is queerbaiting. And the gay community deserves better. I really did believe that moominvalley would do better by us.
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damnfandomproblems · 3 months ago
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Fandom Problem #5753:
If I ever publish a book, it's going to be under a fake name and I'll never interact with the fandom, so I don't have to see fans of my book:
- Arguing about ships as if they're the most serious thing in the world and not, you know, which fictional couple has the best dynamics or most interesting backstory together.
- Arguing that the story is problematic because the bad guys did bad things. Or just reducing characters to either "100% good" or "100% bad" as if anyone can really fit into one of those categories.
- Arguing about whether or not the canonically LGBTQ+ characters are actually LGBTQ+ or if they're just headcannons. (If there's one thing Marvel fans/Gwen Stacy taught me, it's that you can literally have a character put a trans flag in their room and people will still argue that they're cis.)
- Arguing about whether or not I'm queerbaiting by writing a story with LGBTQ+ characters. (I'm closeted IRL and I know that I'd get accused of queerbaiting if I wrote a book with any LGBTQ+ characters without outing myself first. And even if I did out myself, they might argue that I'm still too "straight passing" to write this story.)
- Erasing LGBTQ+ identities that aren't "interesting" or "relatable" enough. (Bi characters become either just straight or just gay, bigender/genderfluid characters become "the third gender category" with no room for nuance in their identities, ace characters become allo and find "the right person," etc.)
- "This would have been better if it was written by AI." (I actually saw someone say this online and part of me shriveled up and died.)
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elliewilliamscoded · 3 months ago
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i know the wednesday novel is most likely queerbaiting, and it’s not fair - but that’s not gonna stop me reading it. i know that they probably won’t end up together, because this always happens. but in my brain they will.
i don’t understand why they’d hire a transgender author who is known for writing queer stories if that’s not what they were going for. people are acting as if netflix and MGM had nothing to do with the making of the novel. when the book is literally licensed by them, meaning they’ve GOT to know what’s in it.
wednesday in the novel is clearly experiencing less-than-platonic feelings for enid, and yes, this may be queerbaiting, but i’m still gonna enjoy it. it’s closer than we’re ever gonna get in the show. (i wanna believe that im wrong, but idk - i feel like they’d be too scared to, especially with a franchise such as the addams family. you know how people react when media ‘turns’ things gay. its bad publicity, and they won’t wanna risk it)
obviously i have no idea what’ll happen in the show, and we get no say over the final decision. i believe having both of them figure themselves out is a great opportunity for character development. imagine enid, whose parents (mainly mother, but her father doesn’t exactly stand up for her) express their disappointment, and enid figuring herself out is an excellent way for her to see that she’s more than her parents judgement. (plus, i think the whole ‘conversion therapy for werewolves’ was a metaphor. and the fact that girly wears the lesbian flag in jumper form) and wednesday, who’s so adamant that she’s unfeeling and will never fall in love - only for her to come to the crushing realisation that not only is she very much capable of feeling things, she’s falling in love with her roommate. someone who’s the complete opposite of her. i feel like it’s such a good opportunity for them to explore the experiences of queer youth, how it feels to recognise these feelings, and the anxieties that come with them.
idk, i can’t see them doing it - they aren’t that brave. i think it’d be good if they did, but i think they care too much about how the show is perceived rather than the characters (the main reason being including wednesday in a love triangle, when girly very obviously wouldn’t find herself in a love triangle - in any universe).
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floatingcatacombs · 18 hours ago
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The Normal Author’s Girlfriend’s List Of Bad Yuri Anime
12 Days of Aniblogging 2024, Day 11
So you’ve seen some good yuri anime: Revolutionary Girl Utena (and the movie, if you want), Bloom Into You, Puella Magi Madoka Magica (plus, of course, Rebellion, which is essential), Bocchi: The Rock!, Girls Last Tour. You know HaruMichi and Farcille and poor sweet Tomoyo Daidouji and Quanxi’s whole deal. You’ve been queerbaited by Kyoani, or maybe you got lucky and watched Dragon Maid which was actually gay; you no longer get weirded out by incest; you wanted more Utena and got The Witch from Mercury S1 (good) or Revue Starlight (bad); maybe you’ve even gone back to Oniisama e and discovered Ryoko Ikeda’s incredible butch-for-butch technologies.
You’ve seen some good yuri and that’s been great. It’s just… there isn’t that much of it. Well, you could start reading manga, or books, or talking to actual women, but you want more yuri anime specifically.
To you, dear reader, I offer up this solution:
Bad Yuri.
Floating Catacombs 2025 Presents:
A Normal Author’s Girlfriend Production
The Normal Author’s Girlfriend’s List Of Bad Yuri Anime
Before we get started, let’s define our terms. First: Bad Yuri must not be in good taste. Second, let us consider some ‘ungood’ yuri, that we might understand what we aren’t looking for:
Case 1: Liz and the Blue Bird.
Boring and forgettable. Bad Yuri must be watchable.
Case 2: Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight.
Yeah the butchfemme was good but I spent this entire show waiting for KuroMaya and they only got half an episode. I don’t fucking care about ‘childhood friends’. Bad Yuri must be enjoyable.
Case 3: Hibike Euphonium
It has to be gay. Come on. This is like the most basic requirement.
Case 4: MagiRevo, Undead Murder Farce
Being gay is not enough. You have to have actual characters.
In sum: Bad Yuri must be in bad taste; it must be watchable on a minute-to-minute basis; it must not leave the watcher with a bad taste in her mouth; it must actually be gay; and it must have some semblance of characterization. In practice it is basically always violent and horny. We’re talking like Kill La Kill levels, although if you ever want to watch that you should just go see Promare instead. Also, I reserve the right to break any and all of these rules whenever I feel like it. Without further ado:
Cross Ange
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Content Warnings: Blood, Violence, Death, Sexual Assault, Ryona, Incest, Bad Taste, Needlessly Edgy, It’s Just Porn At This Point, Incredibly Stupid Plot Twists, Pretty Much Every Fetish
Princess Ange’s traitorous older brother exiles her to an island full of lesbians, where she must pilot a mech to fight dragons in incredibly revealing clothing.
This is Code Geass if it was about a girl and also worse (sorry Roze of the Recapture). This show starts with a baby being arrested. They put the baby in a special little baby jail cage in the back of a police car. The first episode ends with lesbian rape under the justification of a strip search. The weak girls on Pussy Fight Island pull knives on each other at the slightest provocation; the stronger girls pull guns; the strongest girls just use their hands.
It’s got all the subtlety of villainess manga. It’s got girls pissing themselves. It’s got a girl named Riza, short for Lizardia, because she is secretly a DRAGON. Forget ‘Lesbian soldier hopelessly in love with her commander’ – it’s got that too but it has I kid you not a lesbian harem where the top dies in combat so one of the four harem girlies has to turn into a top like a clownfish undergoing sequential hermaphroditism and take over. And then she dies too and the next one in line has to take over and then it happens again and then when it’s down to two one of them leaves because she can tell the current top’s heart isn’t in it and defects to Akio Ohtori’s side, because at least he’s willing to fuck her (lesbian cuckold count: 1) And everybody’s ass is out at all times.
It’s also got a surprising amount of Gundam intertextuality? The comparisons to Iron-Blooded Orphans are obvious; Kira Yamato is there, for some reason; her mecha is the Zeta Gundam but if it was the Strike Freedom with the TR-6 Woundwort’s Psyco Blade Goddess Antenna from Mobile Suit Gundam: Advance of Zeta: The Flag of Titans; the girls in Ange’s squadron each map perfectly to Shaddiq Zenelli’s Grassley girls.
But that’s not what you’re here for. You’re here for the scene where Hilda confesses that she’s in love with Ange but understands that Ange can never love her back, because Ange is already in love with Kira Yamato, and also with Salamandinay, a DRAGON princess from the True Earth who arrived through a dimensional rift to free Aura, the first DRAGON and the source of all magic, before Ange grabs her and gives her a full kiss while telling her that the world she’s fighting to create will have all kinds of relationships.
God Jill is so hot.
Shlock: Maximum
Lesbian: Yes, somehow, and bisexual as well. It is a male gaze thing but that’s going to be a constant with this microgenre. The vast majority of people who like women are men statistically and sometimes thank god they produce something like this
Watchability: High, if you have covid
Quality: Awful.
The Executioner And Her Way Of Life
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Content Warnings: Death, Ryona, Incest, Bad Taste, Needlessly Edgy, Incredibly Stupid Plot Twist
Menou is a priestess in Isekai World whose job is to hunt down and kill Isekai Boys before they start causing problems with their Isekai Boy Powers. But this latest Isekai Boy Target… is a Girl With Enormous Tatas who she can’t kill because she auto-rewinds time to erase any wounds.
What really does it here for me is Menou’s relationship with her mentor, Flare, who groomed trained her from a young age to cut off all her emotions in order to make her a better executioner. I’m not immune to Empty Spaces/Combat Dolls/Signalis. What if Christianity wasn’t about raising girls as lambs to the slaughter but was instead about raising girls to use knives to kill people? A seductive premise for those with my particular flavor of religious trauma. Akari is fine, although I feel like Smith (Bravern) did Homura better.
I also like Momo, although I have a weakness for lesbian cuckolds (more on that later, possibly).
Shlock: High
Lesbian: Lesbian
Watchability: Moderate
Quality: Mid
Kakegurui
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Content Warnings: Bad Taste, Needlessly Edgy, Boy Protagonist before the story thankfully gets bored of him, It’s Just Porn At This Point
Yumeko Jabami transfers into Gambling Academy, where everybody gambles and failing to pay your debts means being forced into petplay slavery. Luckily for her and unluckily for everyone else she is the world’s most perfect gambler because it turns her on.
Maybe the highest exposure show on this list? It’s got gambling, and sexual gambling, and a girl who can only orgasm if she’s actively taking place in a gamble where she could die. At one point she whacks off in a bathroom playing solo Russian Roulette. It’s got a Netflix original season 2 villain who was a girl forced to dress as a boy for years in ways that drove her sexually insane. It’s got The Tower of Doors, which is the most woman game that any woman has ever played.
My favorite bit character is probably the early villain who collects fingernails from everybody she beats because that’s her fetish, or the hopelessly-devoted Student Council Secretary who wants only to lay her face on the chair where her beloved Student Council President sits (lesbian cuckold count 3; 4 if you count Midori). She asks to gamble with her life and Yumeko says that that’s boring, and that there are things she values more – and that they’ll gamble with one life vs her relationship to the Student Council President instead.
Watch the opening for this one – it’s very clear about what it is, and if it doesn’t hook you it isn’t the show for you.
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Shlock: Very High
Lesbian: Surprisingly
Watchability: Very high
Quality: Fine
Akuma No Riddle
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Content Warnings: Violence, Sexual Assault, Death, Ryona, Bad Taste, Needlessly Edgy, Fanservice, Various Fetishes
Bishonen girl assassin Tokaku Azuma has received her first assignment: attend the Black Class at Killing People Murder High School and kill sweet and innocent-seeming Haru Ichinose, who she immediately falls in love with. Unfortunately the other eleven members of the Black Class are also there to kill Haru.
And they’re all lesbian or bisexual. And they’re all freaks.
They’re constantly pulling guns and knives on each other. Like every conversation a weapon will come out – possibly two. There’s a lesbian serial killer who really likes using scissors on girls. Sexually. The Student Council President is sexually devoted to the school principal. There’s a twenty-year-old spoiled rich girl with a boy’s name because she was named after her mom, who was a gay man. Her dad was also a gay man. If you dare say anything homophobic about this she will kill you. Two of these girls locked eyes right as they transferred in and immediately dropped everything to engage in a 24/7 ageplay dynamic. The other spoiled rich girl is secretly a cyborg and in love with the multiple personality girl, who wants to kill her as well.
This is by the author of infamous shotacon BL manga Loveless, so I guess all that is to be expected.
Also… Akiko Morishima got really into making doujinshi for this one? Sure.
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Shlock: High
Lesbian: Yeah
Watchability: Pretty decent
Quality: Sure
Yuri Kuma Arashi
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Content Warnings: Sexual Assault, Bad Taste, It’s Basically Just Porn At This Point, Bears
Lesbian Bear Storm.
For my money, the best Ikuhara post-Utena work is Sarazanmai, but Yurikuma Arashi absolutely earns its spot on this list. The pieces of a story about how lesbian desire is used to titillate a male audience but never fulfilled, how desire is regulated and rendered hideous, and how girls enforce heteropatriarchy by manufacturing consensus completely independent of men are in there somewhere under the moaning naked girls licking honey off precisely-positioned lilies. I think? It’s well-directed, at least.
Shlock: Ikuni
Lesbian: Ikunirappa
Watchability: Ikunichauda
Quality: Ikunigomamonaka
(the first half of) Birdie Wing: Girls Golf Story
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Content Warnings: Violence, Bad Taste, Incest but not really, Golf, The Threat of Having To Resort To Survival Sex Work Underlying This Stupid Golf Show
Birdie Wing is the story of a girl who hates golf and a girl who loves golf. Season two fails to make par because it loves golf too much; season one, with the baffling metaverse vr episode, the underground mafia roguelike golf-to-the-death course, the woman who golfs so hard her robotic arm explodes, and the inexplicable Bandai property references, is the way to go.
I hate golf in the way only an eldest daughter forced into golf lessons hates golf. When Birdie Wing hates golf – when Eve swaggers onto the course in her stupid outfits, refusing to adhere to any etiquette, uses only three clubs and slaps a ball directly into the flag to drop it straight down? I love that. When she lifts her driver and points it and says she’ll kill somebody with it? I love that.
Also like when Aoi says she’ll get her attention with this and pulls her extra long driver out and holds it like a strap. And then her beleaguered caddie talks about how Aoi pierces everyone through with an innocent smile. That was good.
The thing that stuck with me the most wasn’t actually any of the golf shenanigans – it was the way that Eve effectively shoots Aoi down when they discover that they shared a father and were therefore half-sisters. Well, it’s yuri – incest is just something you get used to. Except then it gets revealed that that was a fakeout, because Aoi’s dad was actually her dad’s best friend and her parents were in a throuple that the dad who raised her left behind to secretly raise Eve. Also her dad is Amuro Reiya and also Char Aznable is in this one? And the HG Turn A Gundam? Don’t forget to increment the Lesbian Cuckold clock up to five – Aoi herself and her poor caddy, who didn’t deserve a mysterious blonde swooping in like that.
Oh god I didn’t even mention Vipere, the slutty snake-themed bisexual underground mafia golfer (you know, for the underground golf mafia) who uses pheromones to control her opponents, gets outgolfed, and then shonen-rival style sticks around to help out whenever somebody needs a car (as the girls are too young to drive).
Shlock: Absolutely
Lesbian: Somehow
Watchability: High
Quality: Better than it had any right to be
Maria Holic
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Content Warnings: Transphobia, Bad Taste, Fanservice
Kanako Miyamae is a hopeless hapless lesbian excited to attend Lily Yuri Girls Only Academy. She falls in love with a beautiful blonde girl, the queen of the school – and discovers her ideal gf is actually a boy crossdressing to attend the academy who wants nothing more than to torment her sexually.
Maria Holic works like this: Mariya wants something from Kanako, and wears a sexual little outfit/exposes his feet/blows her a kiss/strips his maid’s top off to control her through her sexuality or just because he feels like it and she falls over of anime nosebleed disorder before she remembers “oh right Mariya is a boy” and starts eating her own organs Pearl Steven Universe style. Occasionally a girl who calls herself god will say something uninteresting. Kanako has a little pervert fantasy about one of her classmates. The cast has a reference-heavy Studio Shaft Conversation. Kanako can’t get Mariya out of her head. God I had to retype every ‘him’ up there from a ‘her’ because there is no way that little bitch is anything but a girl – it just doesn’t stick in my head. They don’t make boys like that. Torturing a girl like that is a female trait.
If you don’t want to watch a lesbian get relentlessly edged by a brat this show may not be for you. In all honesty even with Studio Shaft direction I found this almost completely unwatchable but it does earn its slot here. If you want a good Studio Shaft yuri show? Go watch Madoka Magica or Hidasketch.
It does have an excellent opening though.
Shlock: High
Lesbian: Well it has at least one
Watchability: No
Quality: No
Re: Cutie Honey
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Content Warnings: It’s Basically Just Porn At This Point. but god. Natsuko Aki
“Honey Flash!” yeah she sure does huh
Transforming android Honey Kisaragi fights against evil organization Panther Claw, with the reluctant help of her annoyed cop eventual bestie Na-chan. This is good, actually. Go watch it.
Seriously. The animation is so fun and vibrant! They do the super-cost-saving stills being moved thing in a very high-energy way that comes across as a reference to the original manga format and then every so often they’ll pull out absolutely incredible action sequences.
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Look at this!!! Her triangular stompy steps! The super low line count on her as she slowly advances with the gun flying toward her hand! Her Go Nagai snarl!!!!! It’s a real treat for the eyes even without the naked women. There’s only so much “saving your best friend by the power of being naked and kissing” you can do before it stops being bait and starts just being They Are In Love.
Shlock: Absolutely
Lesbian: NATSUKO AKI
Watchability: High
Quality: Yeah
Akiba Maid War
Content Warnings: Genre-Typical, No Spoilers Don’t Worry About it
Go watch this right now.
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Shlock: Less than you’d think
Lesbian: Yes
Watchability: Extreme
Quality: Genuine
A Very Specific Set Of Monogatari Arcs
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Content Warnings: yeah that guy is sexually harassing that 11 year old and also that tiny little vampire and also both of his little sisters.
Show beloved by pretentious internet perverts.
Alright. You are going to watch Episodes 1-8 of Bakemonogatari Season 1, (skipping 3-5 depending on your tolerance for watching small girls getting sexually harassed) and then you are going to watch the five episodes of standalone arc Hanamonogatari, halfway through Season 2. If you really like Hanekawa, who is bisexual, watch 11-15, Neko Black and Neko White. If you really like animation, watch Kizu. Do not be tricked into thinking more of this show will be gay because Hanekawa and Senjougahara had sex in a shower once. If your goggles are really on tight, enjoy Nadeko Draw but you’ll have to sit through the previous Nadeko and Yotsugi arcs to get there and I can’t in good conscience recommend you do that.
Shlock: Less than you'd think
Lesbian: One
Watchability: SHAFT
Quality: Yes
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youurelovely · 6 days ago
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WWDITS SPOILERS
When I decided to watch wwdits it was because I had heard enough about it and seen the way it was marketed and I believed that it was a slow burn romance between Guillermo and Nandor. I really think the show as a whole is a failure without that center relationship because it used EXTREMELY INTENTIONAL framing to make it seem like that was the direction of the show.
It was queerbaiting. This is the definition of queerbaiting.
They lied. I don’t care what was “implied” because they had fucking vagina shaped bushes!!! I’m sorry but did this show even have a straight audience???? If a show had vagina shaped bushes they could have had a textual, on screen, main gay relationship. This is fucking ridiculous.
There are so many parts of this show I think fondly of but I genuinely don’t think I will ever watch a show before there is a on screen gay kiss and confession and a full season without either of them dying. I am going to die one day and I’m not going to be spending my time on bullshit. There are so many lesbian fantasy/sci fi books that are on my tbr list and in those books they are fucking or kissing or both and this show has a fraction of the satisfaction that you can get from reading from queer authors.
I’m aromantic but reading that the producers were talking about the importance of male friendships makes me feel crazy. THAT WASN’T THE STORY. YOU DID A BAD JOB TRYING TO MAKE A SHOW ABOUT FRIENDSHIP. NO ONE THOUGHT THAT!!! I genuinely cannot be convinced that they didn’t intend for people to read it as romantic because they STILL ended the show with the barest reference to a possible romantic relationship.
I could not recommend a show less. At least in something like House MD you know they aren’t going to be canonically romantic. And House MD ended with genuinely a MORE canonical romance between house and Wilson then the fucking “gay” vampire show.
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tevanbuckley · 3 months ago
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Hey, there’s something I’ve been wondering for a while now. Why is it so important for (some of the) the bddie enthusiasts to show that their ship is secretly already canon?
I got into the show this year, after it got a lot of attention here on Tumblr, so I arguably joined the fandom at a strange time and might be missing some context/history. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen fans of a show (a good one or a bad one) have such a difficult relationship with the canonical before.
In my experience fandom and fan works have always been about supplementing the show (or book or whatever) itself. Whether that is rewriting parts of the story in ways that feel more satisfying to you, or speculating about how characters would act in a situation or relationship that we haven’t seen yet, or filling in the blanks in creative ways. (Or seeing two good-looking actors and thinking it would be hot to see their characters get it on, that’s fair too.) The show and the canonical events of the show are a starting point, but surely from there on out anything goes?
For a ship especially, I don’t think it needs to be canon to be compelling. I don’t think bddie needs to be justified through advanced exegesis to be enjoyable or valid.
So why does it seem weirdly personal to people? I understand really wanting the show to go in a direction that you find compelling, especially if it’s a ship you’ve been engaged in for a while and where you’ve read so many ways in which it could happen and how it would be like. But there’s a difference between hoping for something with all your heart, and divining it as an absolute prothetic truth read in the entrails of the show…
Why are some 911 fans struggling so much with this?
Something you need to understand about bddie stans is that a lot of them don't see it as "just" a fanon ship, and haven't for a really long time. I remember during earlier seasons i'd see posts defending the show from queerbait accusations essentially because "bddie isn't like all those other ships, they're actually gonna do it! we just have to be patient." And if that's your pov I can see why bi!buck would feel like the smoking gun that proves you were right all along.
Except that's obviously not what happened, by the end of s7 there was absolutely no indication bddie canon was on the cards, and the clearer that became the more they had to twist the evidence to match their theories. So you end up in this ridiculous paradox where the only way to satisfy their craving for the "status" of canon is to wilfully disregard what's actually happening on screen.
And ftr I don't think there's any one true/correct interpretation of canon, but "omg, buck and eddie experienced emotions in front of each other! bddie canon guys!" is not exactly compelling analysis imo.
Why've they become so fixated on canon? I think part of it is in the grand scheme of fanon slash ships, this feels like the closest anyone's gotten to "winning", and to a certain degree i get that desire. But at the end of the day, that's not really on tim minear. It's frankly insane to lay the task of making up for every shitty piece of queerbait at the feet of the guy who already took a massive swing by making one of his main characters bi seven seasons in.
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pluckyredhead · 1 year ago
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so what did you not like about worlds finest teen titans? There were a lot of dropped plot threads and bits I expected Waid to develop more (Roy and Ollie conflict, Roy, Garth and Wally never resolved their sleepover argument, Karen's reaction at the con to nearly being unmasked, Wally's parents, ect) and also the queerbaiting with garth (and his eyes changing colour halfway through???) was annoying. I thought it was cute overall but maybe I'm not familiar enough with some of the characters?
I held on to this ask because I was going to reread the miniseries to answer you more accurately, and then I decided to not put myself through that, so...hopefully my memory is accurate lol.
(I should note before I get into it that none of my quibbles are with Emanuela Lupacchino's art. She's a treasure and we're thrilled that she's here.)
But yeah, you've put the nail on the head with a lot of it. It was just terribly paced, like Waid didn't know how many issues he had or something. Aside from all the dropped threads you mentioned, it felt like the main bad guys were...pretty much hastily introduced, or at least assembled, in #5? There didn't seem to be any kind of...well, point to this miniseries. There was no theme. There was nothing Waid was trying to say, as far as I could tell, except "Fuck Roy Harper." (Oh, we'll get to that.) It wasn't an origin story for the team. It wasn't about adolescence or coming of age or learning who you are, except maybe a little bit for Garth. It was just...there.
And I want to be clear here: Mark Waid is one of my favorite comic book writers of all time. When he hits, he hits. The regular World's Finest book and his Shazam are wonderful. I just think this wasn't the right match of writer/characters, because he didn't handle these very well. Taking them one by one:
Dick: DC is fully in their "Dick the unbearable Mary Sue" era and this book is no exception. If I never see another comic where a whole team of experienced superheroes with major league powers and training stands around like incompetent jackasses until a Bat comes along and tells them what to do, it'll be too soon. I'm here to read about an ensemble book where everyone is a three-dimensional character, not The World's Most Perfect Boy and his loser sidekicks. Not only is it unfair to everyone else in the cast, it's doing a disservice to Dick, who is a much more interesting character than this book (or Tom Taylor, ahem) gives him credit for.
(There's also something very weird and inconsistent Waid is doing across his books with Dick - WF, WFTT, and BvR - where sometimes he's throwing a tantrum because he doesn't get to be a circus star with everyone looking at him all the time, and sometimes he's screaming at Roy for filming them, and both feel utterly arbitrary to me as well as contradictory.)
Donna: Donna's characterization in this was just...bizarre. I was a little worried about how Waid would handle her, since he has a tendency to turn more quote unquote "wholesome" female characters into the Mom Friend (see: his Champions run, where he tries to get away with it by having Kamala announce that she's not going to be the Mom Friend because she's the only girl on the team...and then immediately becoming the Mom Friend), and Donna's already very much a Mom Friend, and I didn't know what Mom Friend Squared would look like. But instead he went for this...Manic Pixie Nightmare Girl approach? Where she's really into bungee jumping and monster trucks? I'm not offended by it, it's just so utterly random. This isn't who Donna is? It's never been who she is? Baffling.
I am offended (I mean, mildly, but still) by the fact that she and Garth are shoehorned together in this. He's the only boy on the team she's never been romantically linked to, even in dreams/hallucinations/whatever, so completing the set feels very much like Donna's only narrative worth is in being a love interest, which...gross.
Garth: Garth probably got the best treatment of the bunch, to be honest. He was in character as the shy little weirdo he was in the Silver Age and in pretty much every flashback we've ever seen. He's smart and perceptive and bad at saying what he wants and generous towards those who have hurt him, all of which is very Garth. I have no complaints about him except the weird queerbaiting, and I'm not blaming Waid for that because from what I understand, solicits are written by editorial working off of a pitch, potentially before the comic is even written, so who knows what happened there? It might have been a stupid joke that didn't land, it might have been a story that was pitched and then a higher up vetoed it, it might have been a story Waid was going to write and then changed his mind. I'm not going to say it's his fault when I have no idea if that's true. Otherwise, I think he handled Garth well.
Wally: Wally was another one where I was just like ??? the whole time. He didn't feel like Wally, he felt like Bart. But, like, fanon's innocent child version of Bart and not the actual canon character, who has a lot more backbone. Why is he hero worshipping Dick like that? Why is he so docile? What was up with that weird line where Dick's like "you're the youngest?" Yes, historically Dick had already dropped out of college while Wally was still in high school, but otherwise they've always been portrayed as the same age. And if it's a reference to debut year, Donna's the youngest. It's such a random throwaway line dumped in at the very end for...why? Confusing me personally?
The worst, though, was whatever the hell was going on with Wally's parents. Wally's parents are not an idyllic suburban couple! They are not the Kents! Rudy West is only not classified as a supervillain because he doesn't have a costume! Even if he hadn't tried to kill Mary, sold the Earth out to alien robots, faked his own death, or run a deadly labor camp for children at this point in the timeline, he definitely hit Wally and, uh, poisoned Wally's Little League coach. I don't think Mary is as bad as some of fandom does, but she's certainly a difficult person. Wally was desperately unhappy at home as a child, which is why he latched on so hard to Barry and Iris. And Waid knows this, because he wrote a lot of that canon. If it's a retcon, it's such a strange, pointless one that makes all of them a lot less interesting. Just baffling.
Karen: I think it was a very smart choice to add Karen to the founding roster and make the team slightly more gender-balanced and not all-white. It's kind of a wasted choice, though, when she's so aggressively sidelined. All she does in this book is hang around with Mal and the support staff. She isn't looped into any of the major emotional conflicts - Garth and Donna, Dick and Roy, Roy and Wally and Garth. She's not treated as a headliner in the same way the others are, and that really sucks.
Roy: Hoo boy.
When Waid was announced as the writer of Batman vs. Robin, I was worried, because I had a feeling he didn't like Damian. I couldn't put my finger on why, it was just a feeling I had. And boy howdy, was I proved right! Damian is treated like shit in that book.
I had the same feeling with this book and Roy, and...let's just say I'm two for two, okay?
Here's the thing. I'm okay with Roy being written as kind of shitty, especially during his period of his life. Teen Titans: Year One writes him as an utter fuckboy, and I love that comic. The Mal and Karen issue of The Other History of the DC Universe retells the Bronze Age Titans era from their perspective, and it pulls absolutely no punches regarding Roy being, well, kind of an asshole...and it's right to do so, because it's drawing very directly from those 1970s comics, and he was often awful in those.
But Waid writes him as a generic 80s movie villain. He's a human popped collar. He's a stereotype of a bully. My problem isn't that I need him to never do anything wrong, it's that nothing in this book is specific to Roy, his history, or his established personality.
For instance, all of his bragging about how much money he has? He comes off like a kid who was born into wealth and has never known anything else, but that isn't true. He was at best middle class before Ollie, probably more likely working class given the economic situation on most reservations - but there's no indication that he's responding specifically to that shift in circumstances. He's just, like, Draco Malfoy with arrows. Also, Dick has a nearly identical history but none of the same issues. He even says "Roy and I have the same background but he sucks." Why is one of them a perfect angel untouched by filthy lucre, and the other is Bradley Uppercrust III?
And then there's the subplot with Ollie neglecting Roy, which fizzled out to a real wet fart of a resolution. But honestly, at no point did I know where Waid was going with that, because...well, if you know Roy's history, you know Ollie neglecting him is what leads directly to Roy getting into drugs. And like...first of all, the timeline here is off, because historically Ollie didn't ditch Roy until after he lost his money, and he still has it here. (How interesting would it have been to have Roy pretending he was still rich in addition to pretending Ollie was around?) But also, this comic ends on an "and now everything is fine!" note, but it isn't! It really, really isn't. So Ollie showing up at the end and being like "I'm here for you, buddy" doesn't ring true, because he is demonstrably not in this very comic, and we also know he won't be in the future. And Roy getting what he wants doesn't feel like a satisfying resolution either because we don't actually get to see changed behavior from him, and again, we know this won't last. (Again, TT:YO handles this dynamic very well, where we see that Ollie is an affectionate but negligent guardian who Roy is learning some very bad habits from.)
And to top it off, constantly contrasting Terrible Roy to Virtuous Dick and simultaneously pretending that Ollie was at this point a responsible guardian has the (I hope unintentional) effect of implying that Roy will eventually become an addict because he's just a bad and weak person, instead of a struggling teen who needed support and didn't get it. I would have actually preferred a story that hinted at the beginning of Roy's addiction and how he hides it from the Titans, because we've never had that story told in comics, but I don't think Waid's the one to write it. Instead we get a conflict that's out of character for Roy, a resolution that doesn't feel at all earned, and the looming threat of Roy's immediate future which Waid refuses to address.
In conclusion, this book was a mess, and you should all read Teen Titans: Year One instead.
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worstqueerbaittournament · 2 years ago
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Submission message for Sophie and Agatha: sophie and agatha of woods beyond lmao ekjfhlwe they were these characters from this book series called the school for good and evil and one of them wears all black and one of them wears all pink and the goth one is the secret hero and the pink one is the secret villain except she is redeemed through her friendship with the goth one via a KISS ON THE MOUTH..... A TRUE LOVE'S KISS BC THEY LIVE IN A FAIRYTALE'S-ARE-REAL UNIVERSE... AND THE MAGIC IS LIKE EXPLICITLY DRIVEN BY THE GOTH ONE'S LOVE FOR THE SUBJECT.... LITERALLY I FORGET THE EXACT QUOTE BUT AT ONE POINT THEY SAY SOMETHING LIKE "youre not a monster, youre human." "only with you."????? THE FIRST BOOK ENDS WITH THEM KISSING ON THE MOUTH AND DISAPPEARING IN A BALL OF LIGHT. AND THEN IN THE NEXT BOOK THE PINK ONE REFERS TO THE GOTH ONE AS HER PRINCE?????? AND EMBROIDERS THE TWO OF THEM ON A PILLOW WHERE THE GOTH ONE IS DEPICTED AS A PRINCE???? AND ALSO THERE'S LIKE A POTION THAT CAN LIKE VISUALLY CHANGE YOUR SEX CHARACTERISTICS AND THE GOTH ONE KIND OF LIKE CHECKS OUT BOY!PINK???? AND THEN IN THE THIRD BOOK IT IS REVEALED THAT THEY ARE SISTERS.. NOT EVEN BY WAY OF BIOLOGY BUT BECAUSE OF SOME WEIRD SOUL MAGIC.... BUT DEFINITELY NOT SOULMATES OF SOME SORT...... LIKE???? YOU DID ALL THIS FOR WHAT??????????? AUTHOR AND SUBSET OF FANS CONTINUE TO JUSTIFY IT TO THIS DAY LIKE I THINK IT'S LIKE A MINOR DISCOURSE TOPIC NOW LIAWHDLOQIDHLAFHJK. AND IF I GOT ANY MINORS DETAILS WRONG IT'S BECAUSE I HAVEN'T READ THE BOOKS IN YEARS BUT THIS CONTINUES TO HAUNT ME. SORRY FOR THE RANT IN YOUR ASKS
Submission message for Keith and Lance: howdy, would like to submit keith and lance from voltron (lmao)
Additional propaganda: Now Keith and Lance on the other hand was a whole fucking mess that they then shoehorned in an hetero romance to try and "fix it" but by lord it was bad, everything about voltron is so fucking bad
Anyway this is my Klance propaganda : They were actually bait
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drakaripykiros130ac · 1 year ago
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Bc of your last post, I remembered I saw this tiktok edit SHIPPING book rhae and Alicent https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRcaSpgF/
And I'm ???? So y'all can hate on shipping Daemon and Rhaenyra (whom who have had several tender moments and Daemon died for her) but ship Alicent (a abuser who called rhae a whore and wished she died in childbirth) Rhaenyra because you fell for the bait ship of Rhaenicnt or however you spell it, hook like and sinker???? Make it make sense, please.
I despise the show runners for ruining the intended rivalry between these two women for the sake of queerbaiting. Milly Alcock and Emily Carey themselves admitted that this is exactly what they were instructed to do when filming their scenes together.
I actually had a very unpleasant conversation with a rheanicent “shipper” whose only defense was “But Daemyra is toxic! It’s abusive” bla bla bla.
Daemyra is a real thing. It’s a relationship. It’s not perfect. It’s not lovey dovey, but it’s real. And I don’t give a rat’s ass about the showrunners’ decision at an attempt to make Daemon look bad by doing a non-canon thing and choke Rhaenyra (regardless the reason). Emma D’Arcy and Matt Smith were both shocked that they were forced to do this.
It’s pretty evident that the writing suddenly took a drastic turn and the motive is obvious: they wanted to invent some reason to show that the Blacks are just as bad as the Greens, something that is not true at all.
Daemon loves Rhaenyra. He has always loved her, always chose her. She was on his mind even when he was married to Laena. He defended her, protected her, and did a lot more for her than her own father, Viserys, ever did. She was the love of his life.
And in the final moments of his life, when she doubted his love for her, he went off on a suicide mission to prove himself. If he had actually survived the fall after killing Aemond above God’s Eye, he would have undoubtedly returned to Rhaenyra with proof of his love and devotion, securing her throne by killing the Greens’ biggest advantage: Vhagar (Aemond was nothing without her).
So I don’t want to hear anymore of this bullshit of how Rhaenyra Targaryen is pushed by some idiotic fans to be with a woman who seduced her father, took her mother’s crown and used it against her, stalked her, abused her and her children, undermined her at her own wedding and at that Council meeting, and stole her throne. It’s sick. These “fans” don’t give a damn about Rhaenyra’s wellbeing. They just think it’s hot for these two women to bang. Superficial, twisted and sick.
Rhaenyra Targaryen’s one true love is and has always been Daemon Targaryen and vice versa.
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