#this is not to say i wouldnt critique things -- hell black sails is one of the best shows of all time and i have plenty to critique there

[variousqueerthings]

@autistic-puffin i feel like i have nothing more to say about go2, like I excised my thoughts in one go 😭 especially considering it feels like so much meta/art has already been posted

(EDIT: AND THEN I WROTE THOUGHTS)

my main thoughts are also maybe a teensy bit hot take, because I'd assumed it was going to be a bit like certain narratives that are quite popular on here, but don't really do it so such for me, because they don't ground their queerness in anything substantial or they try to, but aren't informed enough to do it well (I admire the attempt and I have nothing against these pieces, I just don't personally enjoy them) and so it's more about the shipping or the memeable moments and that's not really what I get into things for

and it being disingenuous to fold it under narratives that are willing and fun enough, but ultimately made by people who haven't done toooo much work around queer themes before and fall (in my opinion) a bit for the simple narratives of "everything ultimately has to have stakes that aren't too high and play nice and don't distress their audience too much lest fragile LGBT+ people can't handle it" <- sweet narratives, easy to follow, a tad too candyfloss and ungrounded for my taste, often unbalanced in its comedy-to-drama scales and undermining sincerity by solving things too quickly and/or with too little delving into what these things mean

neil gaiman and john finnemore have been writing queer characters and themes for some time, and david tennant/michael sheen have played queer characters before (and heck, david tennant has at least one queer kid), it's not so surprising that this narrative actually isn't as mass-appeal as was assumed it was going to be before coming out (heh, coming out)

and by mass-appeal I don't mean that it doesn't have mainstream attention, but that there's seemingly confusion about what it's doing, when if you're into stories about non-conformity vs oppression (in this case mainly through a queer lens) it's pretty obvious, and I'm assuming very rewarding on subsequent watches

it's not fluff -- fluff works better for me in fanfiction than in original works, it's not aimless -- either in direction or in theme, it's not mainstream queerness -- although nina and maggie kind of have that "LGBT-unburdened-by-reality" kind of thing that I often don't vibe with, they're a part of three narratives about connection that ultimately ground queer non-conformity in action and feeling as explicitly dangerous to oppressive systems (in this case systems grounded in Christianity, which works very well)

there's a confusion in some reviews I've seen in the mainstream about why it matters that we follow these characters through thousands of years (well, millions technically, but the main thrust happens in the thousands), and coming to the conclusion that it's just because everyone's having a bit of fun, and then they're totally blindsided by the final 15mins and unable to place it in what they've watched previously

but it makes perfect narrative sense and I can pinpoint after one watch clues and foreshadowing leading to those final minutes, and why it matters that we follow the characters the way that we do, and (while I won't go too much into this because I think I'm late to the party and plenty of others have already spoken about it) threads that have been laid out that will clearly be picked up on in s3

I quite enjoy that this is a narrative about queerness that isn't so palatable to reviewers, and isn't for that matter so palatable to viewers who are used to measuring successful queer narrative via easy-to-follow tropes, I think that's one suggestion that it's done its job right in how it was constructed

I want especially straight mainstream reviewers to have to do the translation and if they can't, then it's not for them. that's a rarity in queer narrative that's released with so much attention and that also feels like part of the magic trick of the season -- am reminded of when black sails season 2 "revealed" that flint was queer and that this was a narrative centred around queer rage as an insight into other forms of oppression (which some things were done better than others of course, but that was the purpose, and madi really is that voice at the end!)

and how some straight dudebro fans felt cheated, while many queer viewers went... well yeah, obviously flint was queer, they signposted it (here I also note that some queer viewers didn't see it until that moment because we're also used to being signposted at and then not having follow-through because queercoding language is so ubiquitous to tv and film writing nowadays that many straight people don't know what it is or that they're doing it, or they went "hey we might do something queer winkwink" and then called fans disgusting for reading characters as queer ✌)

and that feeling is somewhat similar here in a way. "we thought we were in this for a bit of silly fluff, what's all this about themes? it's confusing, we don't like it, we're going to flatten it rather than acknowledge what is actually happening in the narrative, and then we're going to interact with that flattened version that we've created instead and call it self-indulgent and harmlessly silly."

so my hot take is that... it's not silly. well it is silly and fun and even at times indulgent, but it's also quite good at being a story that is Queer in ethos, and I prefer stories to be queer in ethos and not just have some ostensibly queer characters around saying the right words without knowing why or where those words originate

it's better than it's being given credit for, in ways it's not being given credit for, because it's not made palatable for a mainstream straight crowd or softened for fear of upsetting anyone