#whats the term? gay subtext?

[normal-nightmare]

God I am OBSESSED with this panel. The sheer amount of yearning in Jason's eyes, looking almost shy. Sneakily stealing a glance at Dick. Dick smiling a little, staring up at the ceiling, completely unaware of Jason's stare.

This feels, like, CLASSICALLY gay. This feels like a scene you'd see in a movie or show where two characters are clearly pining for each other but haven't yet confessed (but it's clearly heading that way).

Like, there is ZERO way to interpret this as platonic or as "just hero worship". Especially in the context of the entire annual. It feels like a 150k slowburn fanfic the way this annual is written. This entire thing threw me off so badly when I just joined the fandom bc this doesn't at all feel platonic.

I could talk about this annual for HOURS man

[depvotee]

I really don't think enough people get how isolating it is to be the queer kid that has absolutely 0 novels of romance for them tbh tbh

[amplexadversary]

Nor is foreshadowing, parallelism, character-building, or demonstrative worldbuilding.

And a disaster for the discussion of non-anime TV shows in fandom.

"Cool-down episodes" aren't filler.

[teambyler]

YES Mike eating fruit on pizza was a gay metaphor

I saw a comment saying that Bylers are delusional for finding gay subtext in the "fruit on pizza" scene. We're "overanalyzing" things, they say!

Thing is, that's not the only gay metaphor WITH FOOD that is in Stranger Things. Remember this?

Any LGBT+ person has to react to this the way I did: haha that's a gay joke! "You can't have two of the same thing together"!

And then Robin gave her the jar of jelly, which gave it new meaning:

Vickie was just rambling about her ex-boyfriend and holding 2 slices that were incompatible. But Vickie is compatible with ROBIN. It doesn't matter that she's also a girl, you see! Giving her the jelly and their unspoken shared look and understanding is THE moment they realize their attraction is mutual.

And they made these points about Rovickie with food. (Also see another easter egg where they used food to associate Will with Mike.)

And then Vickie's immediate next line: "I don't know what's wrong with me." She talks about her mouth moving faster than her brain, but the GAY subtext is here also. Something "wrong" about her = being gay = feeling "like a mistake." This is Vickie telling Robin "I'm kind of odd / gay, you know..."

The Stranger Things writers KNOW about gay subtext. So when Mike calls FRUIT (a derogatory term for gay men) on pizza "blasphemous" and comically is made to eat it, AND he says afterward "No, you're right. It's good"? ...

... we're just supposed to IGNORE that????? Just accept it? And if it's not that, then what was the point of the scene?

It is frankly, a pretty BLATANT hint that Mike is QUEER.

And he loves Will. This isn't some unrequited love story -- the writers know the proper way to handle that which is to resolve it quickly... they did that with Dustin's hopes for Max being introduced AND resolved within the space of a season. (Same with Steve liking Robin.) Meanwhile, Will's love for Mike has been built over FOUR seasons, and everything remains unresolved between them, the Painting Lie being one of the most important things. (Will coming out to Mike being the other.)

-teambyler

[olderthannetfic]

OTNF, do you have an example of a show or other work that actually legitimately queerbaits the audience?

Because I know what queerbaiting is, and I know that all the examples I seen thrown around are acutally examples of queer coding, queer subtext, or of a popular fandom ship simply being a ship instead of being canon, but I can't actually think of anything that actually is queerbaiting.

And I know a commenter is about to chime in with the BBC Sherlock show. So I'll preempt it by saying that that one is a fandom ship and the show itself has less queer subtext or coding than most adaptations, even if it has more dumb gay jokes.

--

In my opinion, the number of shows that did this in canon is functionally zero.

The closest real example is that Teen Wolf promotion where they joked about Sterek as though they'd make it canon if people voted for the show (in the Teen Choice Awards? something of the sort).

The entire concept is deeply flawed because it is heavily predicated on the idea that this part of the audience is huge and actively courted by mainstream media makers in the US and places like that. In reality, normie Hollywood types are usually dense as hell about the level of hoyay in their media. When it's brought to their attention, they're bemused or amused or dismissive or think it's nice if fans can see what they want in a canon. (Sometimes, this is because they're terminally straight. Sometimes, it's because they genuinely and eternally see buddy cops as Just Bros and a boring story about pursuing someone whom you will never regard as an equal or bestie as Romance, and this is often true of queer people making mainstream media.) In a few cases, they tried to make something gay, but the producer/studio/network head/Chinese government/etc. stopped them, which is still not queerbaiting. What they aren't is excited about the economic opportunities provided by pulling a bait and switch on that part of the audience.

The vast, vast, vast, vast majority of media either does not give two shits about our kind of audience or is aimed specifically at us and not others. The idea of gaining meaningful ratings or money with this kind of move is just... not how most industries work.

Related concepts are real (as you say), and people keep trying to redefine queerbaiting to cover some of them so they can pretend the term has any actual utility instead of just using the older terms for these specific other concepts. The narrow form of queerbaiting is a self-important delusion that fandom made up to torture ourselves with.

I wish all those dumbass undergrad papers I see blathering on about the subject would start their exploration by at least trying to figure out whether the practice is real in the first place and why and how the idea of it spread instead of taking it as a given.

[bakuhatsufallinlove]

"Queer-coding" is only useful for a narrow range of media and it'd be great if we could stop using it for literally everything

Here's my problem with it:

The term originated to discuss negative media depictions of cultural stereotypes for LGBTQ people in the United States. It is inherently tied to the conditions of media censorship at play in the USA during the 1900s, with the Hays Code restricting depictions of anything it deemed "immoral."

Now, for whatever reason, people are using it to refer to literally anything they see as "kind of gay."

The term begins with the premise that making the audience see the character as queer is the creator's explicit intention. The creator knows the stereotype, you know the stereotype, so they are using the stereotype to convey to you something they can't say outright.

However, you can see how this goes awry, right?

The second we cross language, cultural, or even generational lines, this gets messy.

What traits are deemed queer? What behaviors or characteristics are seen as gay? The reality is this is a huge spectrum, and every culture has a different relationship with queerness in its history. For that matter, every nation has its own unique issues with censorship. A viewer from the USA may interpret a Japanese character as exhibiting stereotypically gay characteristics, but does that mean the Japanese creator intended it to be taken that way?

But then, if we try to account for what stereotypes Japanese media might use for queer characters to ascertain what the Japanese creator might have intended, we arrive at the same dead-end: the implication that queerness is only really portrayed via (usually negative) stereotypes.

This suggests that if media does not contain enough "clues" to imply a character is queer to the broadest possible audience, a queer reading of their story is out of the question. "Queer-coding" is treated as a metric of validity, a way to "prove" queer interpretations are allowable, yet it is based in stereotypes, censorship, and presumption of authorial intent.

The way queer-coding is continually brought into discussions about art essentially creates an ultimatum: media needs to be "explicit" by using direct (usually English language) terminology, or characters need to engage in things like kissing, declaring one's love, sexual activity, etc., yet even those are dismissed at times.

This creates a dynamic where art which is intentionally subtle or multifaceted may be seen as exhibiting cowardice rather than artistic complexity. It implies that if something is not "confirmed queer," queer themes cannot be read into it, queer subtext cannot be interpreted from it, and queer people are not allowed to identify with it.

This limits art. This builds walls that diminish human connection; it creates a situation where queer people are discouraged from seeing themselves in media not explicitly designated for them. Because, obviously, queer people are a completely different species from "normal people," right? Their feelings and experiences are so alien and distinct, there's no overlap anyone else could sympathize with.

You don't need permission to see queerness in art. You don't have anything to prove. Queer interpretations are just as valid as any other, and anyone who tells you different is selling something.

As I spoke about in this post, authorial intent is not more important than audience perception, and trying to infer the creator's intentions is a fool's errand. Especially in a situation where censorship is supposedly at play, any public statement from a creator could be reasonably disregarded as dishonest, which leaves us alone with ourselves and the work.

Which, by the way, is the only real way anyone experiences art. It's not you and the creator, it's you and the work. When people try to infer authorial intent, they are not discerning real, objective truth. They are sorting available information through a filter of what they consider believable before arriving at a subjective conclusion, which they then project onto a mental image of the creator.

In literary analysis, we select a "lens" through which to view art. This means that we decide to accept certain ideas as given fact and explore what the works says once we look at it that way. For example, we could accept as fact the idea that a number of the core cast are queer in some way. It posits the question: once we dismiss heterosexuality and cisgender identity as the only options, what do we see?

This is an intellectual concept, but the reality is that everybody naturally applies their own lens to art when they view it. This lens is not nearly so rigid or clearly defined, but it is a lens nonetheless, defined by their experiences, values, and individual personality.

I would love for people to stop using the phrase "queer-coding" quite so freely. It centers a need for validation and hinges that on "what the creator intended."

If you want some ideas for different language about this, consider these:

A theme might be queer by exploring broad topics queer people often struggle with, such as secrecy, shame, or self-acceptance.

The subtext of something might be queer in that one could read a double-meaning or deeper implication to the narrative device or scenario.

A work might contain allegory, symbolism, imagery or parallels that could be interpreted with queerness.

I don't think it's interesting to try to "win" by convincing you I personally know what the creator intended. That leaves the art static, unchanging, and lifeless. I would much rather tell you how I personally see the art and why, because that dynamic allows all of us examine the work more deeply.

In the end, it is not an author's edict in some external statement that gives art meaning. It is the audience. Our feelings are what give art meaning, and connecting with other people about what it all means to us is what keeps art alive.

[gnome-adjacent-vagabond]

Psst hey *pulls you closer* Canon middle-aged queer relationships and multiple canon queer/queer-coded characters. *lets you go* Go watch Venture Bros.

There are WAY more than these but I can't put em all up here because queer coding is up to interpretation. I say that everyone in Venture Bros is queer until proven straight but that's just me.

I wrote a whole-ass essay and then accidentally deleted it so the wording on this will probably be off, but it feels important so I'm gonna try be succinct.

Minor spoilers ahead! Skip paragraph three if you don't want those, then resume on paragraph four.

Full disclosure, this is a show that started in the early 2000s and has a LOT of issues in the first few seasons as well as a couple in the later seasons. There are transphobic and homophobic jokes, ableism, racism, and sexism. Sergeant Hatred is a walking trigger warning for about three seasons straight. It goes without saying but I'll say it anyway: DON'T watch this show if you have multiple triggers or are easily offended.

Having said that, these writers realized the problems with what they were writing and have worked to remedy those issues through commentary, retconning, and public acknowledgement of the early seasons' failings. Their opinions evolve and so does the show.

Shore Leave is a flamboyantly gay man who was initially intended to be a one-off joke about the G.I. Joe series and the Village People. Instead he has morphed into a three-dimensional character who presents comfortably as both masculine and feminine. He's in a loving relationship with another gay man, Al, who is flamboyant but tends to be a little less flashy. Steve Summers and Sasquatch have been a happy couple for years now--and all because the epitome of toxic masculinity, Brock Samson, helps them find a quiet cabin away from the government hunting them. Brock's mentor, Hunter Gathers, is a canonically detransitioned trans woman who struggles with her identity throughout the show (I'm still waiting for her to retransition despite the show's cancellation). Hank is perfectly at ease in a hyperfeminine strength suit, and Dean also goes through identity struggles that are never played for laughs and are heavily if not explicitly queer-coded. Vendata's queerness is understated and exists simply as a fact rather than being joked about. Sky Pilot is similar, though slightly more in Shore Leave's camp in terms of presentation. Sheila and the Monarch are self-proclaimed swingers and could be read to be in a poly relationship with Gary, their henchman. Debbie St. Simone has a rather homoerotic obsession with Sheila and is almost definitely bisexual.

The Venture Bros universe is full of queer rep, and the creators of the show write it in with intention. Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick talk about wanting it to be treated as fact rather than completely defining each of their characters--they talk about how few women are in the show and why (Johnny Quest and G.I. Joe, the inspirations for Venture Bros, are heavily malecentric and there's constant homoeroticism in them for that reason). They acknowledge the flaws and work to improve themselves and their writing. This has culminated in a surprisingly moving series about love, death, grief, trauma, and change that radiates queer subtext from any angle--especially Dean's journey.

Try the show at least up to season 4. The first three seasons are on Netflix and the rest are on Adult Swim. If you still don't like it, that's fine. Thank you for trying! Just know that it's out there and that it's an example of how human beings can change and become better people. Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick aren't perfect and neither is the Venture Bros, but for what it is it's a damn fun (shockingly so) show.

[ohnoitstbskyen]

I heard a raw line from Guilllermo Del Toro the other day about monsters being the perfect way to express human failure:

“…monsters, I believe, are patron saints of our blissful imperfection, and they allow and embody the possibility of failing.”

And i was wondering your take on this quote in relation to things like vampire and werewolf and other semi-monster subtexts. “Monstrous” humans that are ironically allowed to act more human more often than… humans. I just find the attempt to make an outlet for imperfection while still at large criticizing it fascinating.

I mean, yeah, there's a long history of interpreting monsters through queer, anti-colonial, feminist and other Outsider lenses for exactly those reasons. The monster is the Other who is vilified by the in-group, which represents all that the in-group hates. The monster must, by its nature, fail to live up to the standards and expectations of the in-group, which is why it must be destroyed. But that also means the monster is free from the standards and expectations of the in-group, including oppressive and bigoted ones.

So, as an example, if you're queer, and rhetorically treated as inhuman and monstrous and diseased anyway, or eugenically classified as a deviant mutation or sub-derivation of "real" people, there is real appeal and a real sense of resistance in claiming monsterhood, in embracing it and glorying in it.

In part, that's what the rallying cry "we're here, we're queer, get used to it!" meant and still means. It is a reclaiming of monsterhood as a source of strength and community and pride, rather than shame. Slurs are used to Other queer people, to set them apart from "real" people and mark them out as a monstrous deviation from the virtuous norm - slurs are used to call us monsters. And thus a lot of queer people find a lot of power and freedom in reclaiming them, in turning their Othering into a flag to rally around.

And I think that's still a big part of the appeal of the monster, honestly, that freedom from being what someone else thinks you ought to be.

If you're a monster, you don't have to have the perfect body, you don't have to suppress your lust or your love. You don't have to shave your body hair or dress correctly for your assigned gender, or have a white picket fence house with a spouse and 2.3 children. You don't have to sit primly at the dinner table, you don't have to repress your emotions, you don't have to hate the foreigner or despise the gays or fear the trans agenda. You don't have to have a small, straight nose or perfect cheekbones, you don't have to wait to fuck until you're married, or pretend you want to fuck at all. You don't have to want to get rich or be a CEO, you don't have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps or be on your grindset, or cheer when the cops clear out a homeless camp.

To be a monster is to be free from the inhumanity that is forced on us by white supremacy, by fatphobia, by heteronormativity, by imperialism, and by the interests of capital. To be a monster is to be human in all the ways that are inconvenient to oppression.

... but I went off on a tangent there a little bit - vampires and werewolves, right. I have no theoretical or academic basis for any of this, so this is entirely a personal hot take, but I think vampires are perhaps a bit more about "passing" as a fantasy. Not necessarily in a gender sense, but the ability to keep your true nature undetected by the "normal" folk, while the secret things that make you different also make you dangerous and powerful. Surviving by stealing sustenance from a world that hates you, on terms that are entirely yours to dictate. "I will survive even if it kills you," that kind of vibe.

Werewolves, on the other hand, feel more like a defiant, angry embrace of the monstrous. Transforming into something vast and powerful and furious, growing out of your skin, out of your form, out of your boundaries; howling your nature to the moon and mauling any motherfucker who has a problem with it. Giving in to all the beastly unnatural urges, and diving into the horrible monstrous wants and desires that boil inside you (which, remember, include things like Not Wanting To Fuck or Wanting To Hold A Girl's Hand In A Lesbian Sort Of Way). Less the "I outfoxed your social game and drank you dry" slick vampire power fantasy and more the "call me a slur one more time and I'm going to wear your entrails like a fucking scarf" power fantasy.

Again, that's just personal hot takes, everyone's understanding of the monstrous in relation to themselves is different. I've seen a number of genderfluid and nb people use monstrousness as a way to defy occupying a shape that can be gendered for example.

[hatosaur]

it's pretty implied that ellie never came out to joel in the proper sense. she lets him assume that she's into men, gives him the false satisfaction of "seeing" her "crush" on jesse, does not correct him. she's fairly confident in being gay in public for others to see and having others close to her know; so why not correct him? why dodge the topic?

was it out of fear? could it be that she never broached the topic despite being close to him in the early years because of the possibility of his reaction being negative? that she was afraid that out of all things that could force them apart (further apart after they split), him reacting badly to her being gay would be the worst?

what about at the dance? would she have been as wound up as she was if the moment hadn't been an encounter with a vicious homophobe? maybe she would've still snapped without this context, but why is she immediately on the defensive against joel after he sticks up for her?

what about the porch scene? why did she refute his question of dina being her girlfriend so insecurely, looking away, nervously and quietly stumbling over words? why isn't she mean about it? why doesn't she get defensive at the question? why did she lash out again when he expressed acceptance?

i think these scenes revolving around her queerness indicate it as such; that ellie never told joel for fear of a response, that she lets him think what he wants because that's the easiest way for it to be. then, when she's ready to face off against a homophobe, because that's the way things are, that's what she can expect, and joel defends her, she lashes out.

it's such a clear juxtaposition of support and hatred between joel and seth, and being faced with joel's acceptance is too much, makes her turn to the anger she'd been holding onto and reinforce what she thinks is true -- that she doesn't need him. and in the fallout, as her regret dawns on her, so too does the realization; he was protecting her, like always, without hesitation, over this thing she was always afraid he wouldn't accept her for.

in the porch scene, joel chooses his words wisely, and asks if dina is her girlfriend -- not "so you're gay?" or "why did you never tell me?" or "how long has this been a thing?" -- with such a casuality that it seems to throw her off. it's like ellie can hardly get the words out. she refutes the idea, fumbles for each following part of her response, is tense. she wasn't prepared for the question.

and when he finally asserts his support for her, in as explicit terms as he can, you can see ellie become emotional, touched for a moment but overcome, before she launches into the defensive again, exactly like at the dance scene -- meeting his kindness with hostility as a way to cope with her emotions.

and then, in response to her basically saying her life doesn't matter, he affirms that it does.

so he's now affirmed two things that ellie has doubted: that he accepts her being a lesbian, and that her life matters. a conflation of the two, in ellie's mind, may have come after; and after that, her olive branch.

and yeah, him affirming these things for her is fully in the context of his overwhelming parental love for her and her complex feelings about being the cure, but within a queer subtext, it means more. it's such a familiar thing to slink around loved ones and hide being gay/queer for fear of any type of response, and lying by omission in conversation just to keep that state of peace, of normalcy. ellie, with all her brutishness and bravery, falls into it like anyone else, because even while mad at him, she valued that response from him.

a lot of people seem to think that the approach to ellie's queerness is nonchalant, that it's just some unrelated thing about her, but i think that it holds more weight in the narrative that what is explicitly spelled out. it's subtle but it was a deliberate choice to place her queerness at the center of the confrontation. i think that's why ellie's relationship with dina took center stage in the story, and why so much time is devoted to just them -- because her being queer matters to her character, but in a way that perhaps only a queer person can see, analyze, and appreciate (without being blatant enough to anger certain other fans).

[loseractivities]

Ok time to yap about Billy Loomis. What is bros sexuality?

Billy is 100% gay. I also think that he’s on the aromantic/asexual spectrum, with the best label fitting him being demiaroace. In simple terms, I think the only way he feels authentic romantic/sexual attraction is when he has a very deep emotional, (whether he likes to admit that or not), bond with someone.

People often like to bring up his romantic relationship with Sidney and his sexual affairs with other women, one of which we have proof of in the later movies. Because he was dating Sidney before his mom even left, and they were known to have started off “hot and heavy”, (as Billy likes to call it), he didn’t really have any reason to be doing that. Or did he?!

It goes without being said that Billy is a conventionally attractive white male in the ‘90s. In the movie, we already see Billy’s efforts to appear as normal as possible, wearing bland clothes with little room for interpretation and speaking very little to others. Which leads to why Billyboy was sleeping with girls when he was a big fat QUEER!! …

Billy loves control! He loves it, he loves planning everything out and acting it out like it’s a movie because of his dumb special interest. He loves predictability, he loves feeling normal, and he loves having control over people. What better way to feel in control, (perhaps of his own sexuality), than by sleeping with and casually dating girls!! It makes so much sense.

How does Stu play into this?

Well firstly Stu is Billy’s only real friend. Through subtext we can tell that Billy trusts Stu a lot, considering he trusted him to 1. Call Sidney while he was in jail. 2. Be ghostface with him and have him not tell anyone. 3. Literally fucking stab him… The list goes on. People like to say that Stu didn’t know Billy’s real motive too, which is fucking stupid because why wouldn’t Billy tell him this?? One entire year between murdering Sidney’s mother and then eventually attempting to murder her and all her friends, and you’re telling me Stu wouldn’t have suspected a thing? Just for fun?? Yeah right!

Also people try to say “okay, well then why did Billy stab him so much in the kitchen if he wasn’t trying to kill him”? Firstly it was always part of the plan for Stu and Billy to be the only survivors because only one survivor is extremely suspicious. Secondly you can tell he was just not thinking clearly, he acted on his anger and lost focus of his goal (KILLING SIDNEY??NOT HIS BF??) which is something he NEVER DOES!!

Man,, the whole final act is my favorite, because it really shows both Billy and Stu coming apart and quite literally COMING OUT as the killers. Come on guys. Media. Fucking. Literacy. They literally penetrate each other right in front of Billy’s girlfriend, and that shit was freaky as fuck.

ANYway I’m going off on a tangent. I do wanna talk about why Billy didn’t explicitly say anything about being gay when he so very obviously is. Billy, in all areas, is much less obvious than Stu.

He’s closed off, secretive, keeps up a pretty believable facade to everyone until the finally is able to drop the act. It makes sense he isn’t as physically or verbally affectionate with Stu, and for this reason people are more inclined to believe Stu is gay and in love with Billy more than Billy is gay and in love with him. Well, in order to get a good sense of Billy’s relationship with Stu, you have to look deeper. Let’s start with some things from the script, since there are very few scenes with the two interacting.

Stu and Billy, in the script, are best friends, have known each other since kindergarten, and are partners in crime. Billy obviously is capable of forming strong bonds and connections with very specific people. Even unhealthily so, and we see this in the relationship he has with his mother. He idolizes her, victimizes her, makes her more than she was as a coping mechanism and never officially comes to terms with the fact his mom probably wasn’t as great as he remembers. And when his mom leaves, he breaks, needs control (as stated previously) because his life is suddenly unstable and who does he turn to? Stu!

Also I just wanna say when Stu drapes over his back Billy leans into him okay thanks. Body language in this movie means SO FUCKING MUCH TO ME these actors did amazing. When Billy follows Sidney inside the look of CONTEMPT ON HIS FACE!! The way he looks through his eyelashes. The acting is impeccable Skeety, I love you!!!! 😐😐 Also the way Billy looks at Stu before stabbing himmm…He;s in love I promise. In whatever way he knows how

Lastly the boy has autism

Passionate interests, he loves horror movies and constantly references them throughout the film. Even at unconventional times, like when his girlfriend is venting about her dead mother. Eye contact and too much staring. Meltdowns when overstimulated. The whole last act was just him stimming and destroying shit because stuff didn’t go his way. Bad reactions when plans are interrupted. At the staircase when Sid runs away he punches himself in frustration. Talks with hands in Sidney’s room about The Exorcist. Favorite person/people (his mom and Stu). Extremely overdramatic. When he got fake stabbed. When he falls down the fucking stairs for no reason. Finally, just socially awkward. Any word out of his mouth makes people uneasy. Ez

…Finally for Billy I js wanna say he arches it a lot and I think only someone who takes it like a good boy wpu;ld do that Ok im done by.e

LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE BANGERS LIKE THIS ONE

[1shirt2shirtredshirtdeadshirt]

Today on popping the corn and feeding the children, what do you folks think of this discussion? :)

I'm always curious to hear what other Trek fans, especially queer Trek fans, think about our place in Trek history and how we fare as the queer participants within our fandom. What have your experiences been like?

Overwhelmingly I've found a great reception and a welcoming attitude, but I admit that has increased considerably since the 90s. However, there are still some Trek fans who seem to be vehemently in denial about queer history in Star Trek, or the fact that anyone who has worked on Trek has pro-LGBT attitudes. This always surprises me considering some of the blatant queer content we have already seen in Star Trek such as the Jadzia Dax and Lenara Kahn kiss.

Anyway, I enjoyed the discussion that followed and seeing the overwhelming outpouring of support coming from Star Trek fans in response to this thread.

Here was my two cents contribution:

"No, what they said was factual.

Have you forgotten Nichelle Nichols was indeed an African American woman in the core seven bridge crew back in 1966?

Or the fact that Gene Roddenberry went out of his way to write The Motion Picture Novel, creating the term "T'hy'la: friend, brother, lover" so that fans could choose which interpretations of Kirk and Spock they saw fit? He also embraced K/S fans and hired a number of them to write the earliest Star Trek novels, including the very first official one (The New Voyages Vol. 1 & 2) which included slash fiction as well as Gene's approval/forward in the books.

In case anyone has forgotten, here's a little bit of background on Gene Roddenberry and his perspectives on queerness in Star Trek.

He admitted that in his early life he was very affected by how society and culture treated the LGBT community, and that he too found himself subjugating and judging others for that lifestyle because it was what people did at that time. As he got older and had more life experience, he began working with a number of queer artists in Hollywood -- and through TOS, a number of queer individuals began asking questions about Kirk and Spock.

Instead of vehemently shutting down this perspective, Roddenberry was intrigued, and saw potential to tap into a large audience (LGBT) that most others didn't want to go near or acknowledge publicity-wise. He saw it as an opportunity to expand the fanbase while also pushing yet another envelope.

But with the heat already on the show for what they'd already pushed, he found he was often stuck between what he'd like to do and what production would let him get away with. There are a number of Kirk and Spock scenes in scripts that got cut out for leaning a little too obviously romantic. Tiny trickles of that content still made it in were infamous moments like the backrub scene in Shore Leave. Even the 2009 movie had a K/S moment while Spock Prime and Kelvin Spock talked that was written and filmed that was cut out of the final product.

Queer subtext and coding has always been relentlessly weeded away at with an excuse ready to go for why they always try to cut us out, but we all know it's because they are scared of the homophobic backlash and ratings hits. Look how violently homophobes went after the gay romance episode of The Last of Us **just this year**. This has always been our reality, so for someone like Roddenberry to make efforts in the 70s? That was massive.

But Gene as well as the queer/slash Trek community managed to accomplish some things in the 70s which I'm surprised more folks don't talk about or give much credit.

In the same TMP novel which features "T'hy'la" and the famous footnote, Gene cleverly wrote Kirk with a bisexual/pansexual lens: Kirk describes himself as *preferring* women but being open to "physical love in **any** of its many Earthly, alien, and mixed forms." (Direct quote from Genes book). Basically, Captain Kirk was DTF with whoever if there was a connection, which was a very progressive take for a character in a novel written in 1979, but made sense for the future which would have a lot less hang ups about sex and love compared to our current rather puritan/conservative society.

I also prefer women, but I married a man. Shout out to Gene Roddenberry for giving us a seat at the table back in the 70's when folks *still* try to insist there is no place for K/S or queer concepts in Trek, because he made efforts -- however small -- to employ queer people and show queer perspectives. According to David Gerrold, LGBT+ representation was a big thing that Gene personally pushed for in TNG and wanted various depictions of love/couples in the Risa scenes, to name one example.

In the 70s, fanzines led to meetings and swapped fanmade magazines, which got so big that they needed hotel centers, then convention centers, then one day the TOS cast came to one and what we know as modern fan conventions were born -- inspiring even George Lucas who attended Trek conventions in the 70s and saw how popular Trek was in syndication; it was a great climate to launch his Space Opera. Star Wars then became so huge that we got TMP.

But none of that would have happened without the level of organization, passion, and creativity that those fans poured into Star Trek and their characters after it got cancelled and went into syndication.

Without queer folks we wouldn't have George Takei, Theodore Sturgeon who gave us Tribbles, Bill Theiss and his amazing TOS costumes, Mike Minor's art direction, Merritt Butrick, David Gerrold (writer for TOS, TAS, TNG) to name a few of many queer contributors to Trek that Roddenberry respected and tried to go to bat for wherever he could in a climate that was absolutely impossible to gain an inch in.

At a time during the 70s and 80s when so many people resented and feared the queer community and wanted us to disappear, especially in the 80s during the AIDS epidemic which many homophobes claimed was "God's punishment to the gay community" or "Gods's answer" to our "hedonism", thinking we'd gotten our just desserts and should just disappear . . .

During that time, Gene Roddenberry gave us queer folks a place to say: "You know what? Sure. Write your stories. TV says you guys shouldn't exist, they pull books with queer people off the shelves and burn them. Laws exist specifically to forbid you guys from loving each other, and call you mentally ill. You can't even hold hands in public. But I'm going to validate you guys and invite you to write novels or work for me, try to see what we can get by production, and allow you to see yourselves in my characters if you want to. There's a place for you in our fandom."

He gave us bi/pan Kirk, he gave us K/S is open to interpretation. In Phase 2 Kirk's surviving nephew Peter, son of his brother Sam from Operation: Annihilate!, was going to be written as gay and living on the Enterprise with his partner -- that also got chopped and reworked into a script that wouldn't get used until decades later. That was huge at a time that being queer was officially listed as a mental illness, and villainized due to the AIDS crisis.

So before you try to dismiss or tell K/S + queer Trek fans whether or not they deserve a seat at the table, remember that Gene Roddenberry was among the **first** to pull that seat out for us in a climate that was ruthlessly against LGBT+ folks." -- 1Shirt2ShirtRedShirtDeadShirt

P.S: Have some cute bisexual/pansexual K/S pride gifs. :) Pride month is a hop, skip and a jump away.

LLAP!🖖💚

[starnana7]

every time I remember that the hit show supernatural made God, the literal God from the Bible, canonically bisexual but couldn’t do the same with a random guy who hunts monsters it actually makes me feel physically ill.. like blasphemy is okay but we draw the line at making the main character a little bit queer because it would “upset the heterosexuals men”? okay ig… and it’s so funny to me that they tried SO bad to make dean like really really straight and macho and a manly womanizer (I mean dude has literal porn brain and is obsessed with cars and is a film nerd) And still is the number 1 bissexual boy.. I mean no one that into cowboys is 100% straight 🙄 and if they actually wanted him to be that much of a cishet guy WHY would they make him have a codependent homosexual friendship with his best friend for more than a decade ?? and we have so much subtext to corroborates it that it’s actually insane.

and it’s also rlly funny to me that sam would be the most obvious choice for a queer storyline. like i’m not sure this is true but i heard somewhere that he actually was supposed to like be lgbt and that it’s implied in the show he’s pan bc he basically have sex w/ everyone and doesn’t care (like monsters and stuff). i wholeheartedly disagree bc sure he hited a demon and a werewolf and a kitsune and God knows what more But it still were just women and for me he’s still just straight 💀 we do have gabriel however and i would say that’s a valid argument but i don’t actually like them together because of the whole torturing-sam-every-tuesday-over-and-over-again but it’s still a good take ig. again this is just my opinion But anyways doesn’t matter my point Is that sam always felt like a freak and wanted to be normal and like was more open minded and “less-macho-toxic-behavior” than dean. he was a theater kid and talked about his feelings and all. STILL THO dean went and become The bissexual icon (Not Sam, Dean!!). and the fact that he was more manly actually only emphasized to his sexuality (and him being closeted) and sam being the straight one, and bare with me here. as sam winchester once wisely said “well you are kind of butch they probably think you're compinsating.” (to dean asking why people always assumed they were gay) and like this is so true, sam always felt comfortable in himself and like his nerdier and less cool strong man personality. But dean, oh, dean, no, no, no. and it could all be linked to john. we know how much dean wanted to gain his father approval and respect, all he ever wanted was for john to be proud of him. so he’d listen to the same music as john, same clothes… and so on. but when we really see a glance of him, we realize he’s actually much more “““girly””” (sorry for the term i lacked a better one) than he shows, Especially when compared to sam—who’s supposed to be the more girly one (again sorry for the term lol) or whatever. dean canonically likes taylor swift, chick flick films, actually liked when a woman made him wear underwear, the bailarinas shoe were “speaking to him” in that one ep of cursed objects, and so on. and every time he makes fun of sam for doing something not-manly-enough (like drinking lemon water or drinking from tiny coups) he eventually goes and do the same thing 😭 and i’m 100% sure that the writers just thought “haha funny scene this really straight deadly man does something not so convencional/more feminine(?) haha comedy relief time!!” but it actually just made him have a whole perfect queer background developed in the series. specially with the fact that He Does Overcompensate. why is he always flirting with women, why is he so butch and scary, always talking about straight sex and so on? because he’s really just deep in the closet. and it makes so much sense with john being his father, with him having to hunt two lesbians nuns in his 17 bday, always having to be strong and macho and cool and perfect—and therefore straight. even without cas, dean really does immaculate the bissexual experience and i’m so sorry but this is just true.

and now pointing to the subtext that i mentioned in the first paragraph (lol i can’t believe i’m making a whole rant as to why dean winchester is a confirmed bisexual), that whole confession to that priest where he says he wants experience new feelings, new people, FOR THE FIRST TIME. that always that the show mentioned a gay couple it ALWAYS focused on dean—not sam, DEAN. the gay hunters, the gay couple on the bar that the cupid “made”, the two cosplayers partners… the fact that every time that dean liked something it was borderline fangirl (gay) obsessive (the dr. sexy episode, that wrestler fighter). he Had a gay thing—and was all flustered about it. he flirted with a guy throughout charlie. THE MALE SIREN. the male siren like after that ep i was 100% convinced that man was not straight. he had a hot demon sumer with crowley?!!! and it’s so funny to me that not one of these things involves castiel, so if they really wanted to make dean be that straight why would they do that?? and only to dean, not even once to sam. Like. and not to mention all the homoeretic tension with benny??? sam never had a male best friend like that.. all of that and i didn’t even entered on destiel. Because this then really just confirms that he is Not straight. even if he wasn’t In Love with cas, they had something going on and the fact that if cas was a girl it would 100% be canon and filmed and Everyone would ship—and I really mean everyone—it just makes me go fucking insane. they could’ve had it all. the fanfic episodes, the parallels between dean and cas and “real couples”, ruby and cas duality and the fact that sam indeed had a relationship w/ her. Anyway i’m a # bi dean truth believer and i know this bc same boy # happy pride month to my fav bissexual boy in the whole world

also to anyone that says that “destiel” was unrequited love yes it kinda of was but only bc dean was so deep in the closet, he did love cas. he was indeed a bissexual man. i’ll die on that hill.

[dotthings]

Behold, a master tightrope walker at work. While being clear how deep the love goes. That part isn't danced around. Yet this was vague and open-ended as Jensen could manage as to the exact nature of the love from Dean's end.

No amount of shouting from whatever stans will turn this into definitive slamming of a door. Jensen's still threading that needle about Dean, while he said that Cas's confession being romantic is "clear text" not "subtext."

None of this surprises me. It's been self-evident for a while (except to grudgewanking arbitrary naysayers) that Jensen is 100% in support of gay Cas in love with Dean. Jensen's just opening the faucet more letting those views pour out.

"Dean was sitting there on the floor and realized that he -- he had not only lost a brother-in-arms but had also lost one of his closest -- the closest people to him. And I -- you know I've said that when you find your people it doesn't matter who or what or where or why or when they are, you find your people. And they found each other"

The annotated Jensen Ackles:

(1) "brother-in-arms" -- even if someone wants to try and forcibly limit Dean and Cas to that term, brother-in-arms, as has been pointed out many times, has connotations not limited to platonic meanings, in ancient epics, in modern media, in music, in actual historical figures. But limiting to that term isn't even what happened here, since Jensen says "not only lost a brother-in-arms but..." There is no way out of this. Master stroke. He boxed the naysayers in but good. Let them spin in place.

(2) "had also lost one of his closest -- the closest people to him" -- Jensen stopped himself and changed what was likely "friends" to "people" and I'm not insisting on anything as to why but it sure is fascinating that he swerved and went with a less definitive word. Dean and Cas are best friends, that's canon, but if that's the limit, why swerve from saying friends? They are friends. That's true no matter what. This therefore appears to be about keeping things open ended. For now, Jensen doesn't want to tip his hand too far.

(3) "when you find your people it doesn't matter who or what or where or why" oh that's open-ended af. Thank you Jensen. Keeping the doors open wide enough to drive a semi truck through.

(4) "you find your people. And they found each other" -- somebody hold me that's beautiful. I have not much analytical to say except that sounds like another instance of keeping definitions of the relationship open-ended. But mostly I wanted to have another nervous breakdown again. Jensen said Cas is Dean's people. And they found each other. *UGLY SOBBING*

[lezarus]

whatever not a massive issue but it does annoy me how frequently ppl misuse the term queerbait. i can think of like 4 actual cases of queerbaiting and by queerbaiting i mean like shamelessly leaning into gay subtext as a marketing technique whilst never intending to make it text. that is what queerbaiting means. it is actually pretty rare. its not queerbaiting if a gay couple who are textually shown to be attracted and interested in each other do not get together in the end. that is antithetical to what queerbaiting actually is bc if u give the game away and actually make them gay you lose! you arent queerbaiting anymore. and it basically never happens bc the sort of shows that need random gay teenagers to be obsessed with them in order to keep making money kind of just dont exist in the same way in 2024. i feel like the mainstream use of queerbaiting as a shorthand for an accusation of homophobia is kind of sorry for being dramatic but its kind of bad for like art in general

[nataliescatorccioapologist]

What I think each Yellowjackets character’s Letterboxd top 4 would be

*I’m including movies past the 90s even though some of these characters didn’t live long enough to see them*

Natalie

I think Nat is a huge horror movie fan (specifically 80s slasher and demonic possession) and loves edgy gothic vibes. I also think she would love some artsy indie movies about sex and challenging gender roles (and just some cool action movies with hot badass women).

Honorable mentions go to The Craft and Kill Bill

Misty

We all know Misty is a theater kid. She loves musicals and I think girlie is definitely singing Sweeney Todd and Phantom of the Opera songs to herself 24/7. And I feel like I don’t even need to explain the Steel Magnolias inclusion, she had that monologue memorized like it was imprinted on her soul.

Honorable mentions go to Hairspray and Hamilton

Jackie

I know Jackie loves a good chick flick, particularly those with homoerotic subtexts. I think, if she had gotten to live long enough to start coming to terms with her sexuality, But I’m a Cheerleader would definitely be her gay awakening. And then Bottoms once she’s tip-toed out of the closet a little bit more (RIP Jackie Taylor you would have LOVED Bottoms). And of course, I had to add Beaches because of the “Are you quoting Beaches at me right now?” line, and also because I think Jackie would watch it and shed a secret tear because it makes her think of her and Shauna.

Honorable mentions go to Uptown Girls and Heathers

Van

Van would definitely refuse to watch anything past the 90s. She loves comedy classics and queer staples. I know Van quotes The Godfather in the full Italian accent constantly (especially around Nat to piss her off) and she’s watched The Princess Bride an ungodly amount of times and knows pretty much every line (Buttercup was her queer awakening).

Shauna

Like Jackie, Shauna love movies about intense (homoerotic) friendships. I know she relates to Needy in Jennifer’s Body living in Jennifer’s (Jackie’s) shadow and resenting her for it but also being so obsessed and intertwined with her; and she also just loves the visuals and its satire on female exploitation. Shauna maybe relates to and roots for Pearl a little too much, she loves a movie about a woman desperate for recognition and teetering on the edge of insanity while maintaining a sweet and innocent facade. Also I can see adult Shauna in particular just being charmed by Little Women (partly because of the love triangle but mostly because of the womanhood and female friendship themes).

Honorable mentions go to Juno and Scream

Also side note: I feel like Shauna would love Daria, but it’s a TV show so I didn’t include it.

Laura Lee

Laura Lee loves uplifting and wholesome movies. I can see her shamelessly liking kid’s movies well into adulthood. She likes movies centered around helping people in need like The Rescuers or going through hardship and discovering faith like Soul Surfer. Girl is religious-religious so her favorites are definitely going to be centered around faith and Christianity. But she also just likes a simple feel-good film; the cheesiest, sappiest movies you can imagine.

Lottie

Okay Lottie was hard to pinpoint but I’m pretty sure she would like angsty, artsy shit. Like, in high school, she would pretend to love chick flicks like the rest of her classmates but when she gets home she’s putting on the darkest and most depressing weird girl movie you’ve ever seen. I think she likes Suspiria for the occult themes, the otherworldly feeling of it, and eccentricities of the main character who never knows what’s real and what’s not, which she relates to. I think she likes some mental illness movies like Donnie Darko because of her diagnosis and upbringing and The Virgin Suicides because she’s lonely and feels overly-controlled by her parents. And Amelie because she once again relates to the loneliness and likes that the main character discovers her gift for helping people. I think Lottie would prioritize good cinematography and visuals in movies, too.

I don’t think Lottie would really watch movies as an adult because she would be too busy running a cult and disconnecting from society, which is why these picks are centered around Teen Lottie.

-

I couldn’t think of what Tai would like! She is a mystery to me. I can see her maybe liking something like Whiplash because she is super driven and ambitious and kind of tortures herself for success? But idk. Please comment or repost with what you think her’s would be!

[charlotte-buff]

The term “queerbaiting” has lost all meaning

I’ve been scrolling through the Buddy Daddies tag again for hours on end, as one does, and while this is thankfully a minority opinion I still saw it crop up often enough that it’s starting to piss me off.

The insinuation that two men living together for 14 years, caring for each other, Kazuki selflessly bathing Rei, cooking for him, and cleaning his apartment at the lowest point of both their lives, adopting and raising a child together, Rei sleeping comfortably for the first time in his life when it’s in the same bed with his partner and daughter, literally taking on a massive crime syndicate on their own to protect their found family, Rei permanently disabling himself by shooting his own dominant arm point blank just so he can leave his old life behind and stay with Kazuki and Miri, with whom he shares a bond that is – and I quote – stronger than blood...

That all of that is supposed to add up to nothing more than “bait” or “gay subtext”, it honestly makes me angry. This is one of the queerest fucking stories that has ever come out of the anime industry but somehow it’s not “gay enough” for some people just because there was no on-screen kissing.

What do you people actually want!?