#you don't have to sanitize it

[sharkstruck]

Quick Tip! It is ok to say gay sex!

[necrotic-nephilim]

there is not enough femslash in batcest circles. the girls deserve to be just as weird about each other as the boys are. if BruDick gets to be weird father/son/brothers/lovers/friends/rivals/soulmates then it is only fair that Babs/Cass get to be mother/daughter/sisters/lovers too. Something about that deep intrinsic but undefinable love that is born out of trauma, especially if you consider Cass not knowing what healthy love looks like in the first place. i think it's fun and deserves just as much fandom content.

besides that, you can get even more niche with rarepairs like Helena/Steph. Huntress/Spoiler: Blunt Trauma is already a fantastic comic and even though it's their only real canon interaction it has so much potential. very comparable to TimJay in how Helena tries to get Steph to understand her morals and the corruption you could play with it.

batman: huntress/spoiler: blunt trauma (1998)

that comic also highlights on how both Steph and Helena are outcasts of the Batfamily and don't have the approval of Bruce to be doing what they do in "his city". I think there's so much Potential in Helena taking Steph under her wing because Bruce won't let her in and it becomes a weird codependent toxic sapphic mess. I think the protectiveness Helena feels over Steph from the get-go is so clear and the way she wants to look out for Steph, wants to make sure Steph understands the real world? I love them. Helena should be allowed to steal Steph, actually. I think it'd be fun.

there are a lot of other possibilities too like Babs/Steph or even getting weird with Helena Bertinelli/Helena Wayne and the existential question of "is it selfcest or not." But these two specifically live in my head rent-free, especially Helena/Steph and one day I'll convince everyone else to ship it too.

[torchickentacos]

i will always shout praises of bi4bi but given recent discourse I feel the need to say that I love bi4het too! I just love bisexuality in general in its many forms, and anyone who only likes it when it's 'queer enough' for them is biphobic. Bisexuals should be able to bring their LaMe CiShEt BoYfRiEnD to pride without being made to feel like spectators and outsiders to their own event.

[bitchthefuck1]

It's always so funny to me when people call Kaz a serial killer or a murderer bc like. boy do I have news for you about the other crows.

[oopsallmabari]

....why are the youtube comments so mad lol don't y'all like to have fun. don't we like to have fun here

[inconclusionray]

If I see one more "poor Izzy was in an abusive relationship for twenty years :'(" take I'm going to set this pirate ship on fire.

[bestworstcase]

something something "your mother said those words to me" being the cruelest retort salem can think of when ruby upsets her

ruby shatters trying to be who summer was and now she's trying to put herself back together with "i'll be who you were and i'll be even more"

salem's father punishes her for her mother's death in childbirth by imprisoning her literally in her mother's "favorite place" and treating salem herself as a proxy, an inadequate replacement for her mother with no personhood of her own.

(the way ruby's self-identity is so distorted by the reflection of summer is in itself a fractal repetition of salem's story; of course salem is both the one who "took [her] mother" and the one who cracks the mirror)

[llycaons]

the shower pee tags are extremely divisive btw

[theparadiseproject]

People that have strong emotions about Cassandra Cain or Jason Todd are not people that ever have anything of value to add to any conversation about comics.

[diabolic-wave]

that which is no longer and that which never was

[giallos]

a truly terrible idea has latched hold of my gremlin brain which is, buck and tommy do break up so that buck can pursue eddie because either tommy thinks buck is in love with eddie or buck feels like he should be with eddie because everyone else keeps suggesting there's something more there BUT buck/eddie getting together changes their dynamic so much that neither of them are enjoying themselves (and they're worrying about losing what made their friendship so special because of all the changes to the dynamic) AND buck and tommy keep hooking up [air quotes] platonically (with tommy stumbling into inconvenient feelings and pining pathetically for buck while fucking him) while buck struggles to sort out intense feelings toward eddie (which obviously have to be romantic of course) vs. his calm, more settled feelings toward tommy (they're not as intense as his feelings about eddie so they can't possibly be romantic) blah blah long story slightly less long but buck realizes he's been in love with tommy the whole time and was having trouble separating strong but platonic feelings for eddie from his romantic feelings toward tommy and then tommy's like "newsflash asshole i've been in love with you the whole goddamn time"

i'll never write it because it's irredeemably stupid and i value my peace but it IS sitting in my hindbrain tormenting me right now

[writterings]

most splatterpunk novels are like. here is the most poorly written gore scene ever. here is also the worst way to execute this concept. but i'm still gonna read it because i appreciate the idea of what the author is doing.

[emblazons]

a bunch of people think st does a very poor job at acknowledging the characters' trauma and all the things they went through. what do you think of this?

anon here with the tough questions! lmao

Honestly—and this is just an opinion (though I have evidence for why I think these things, as always)—I would say that the criticism of not addressing trauma (or even queerness) openly is probably one of the most valid criticisms of Stranger Things I've seen leveled at the show....though I personally don't think it's because The Duffers are incapable or "don't want to." Let me see if I can explain.

cut because a text wall about networks, capitalism & america

From the get, the Duffers had to contend with the fact that they wanted to do a number of things many networks wouldn't let them—Netflix was like, network 15+ they pitched to, and while Netflix allowed them to retain some element of creative control (writing and directing their own story), there are obviously still points of contention that come up between network and creator that show a difference in desired intent / storytelling and network sensibility. One I remember clearly was the criticism they got for showing people smoking, and how the show after S1 completely removed the cigarettes from any and all character narratives (think back to Joyce talking about needing "a pack of camel's," along with Hopper and even Steve smoking in S1...only for that to never come up again).

Now...the cigarette thing is a bit minor, but still shows that there is a LOT of weight Netflix still holds over The Duffers and their creative sensibilities—and when I think about how this show has moved SO readily out of the "Duffer's intended audience" space and into "Netflix cash cow / cultural zeitgeist" space, it becomes clear why Netflix's love of money and their need to "keep the show palatable to as many audiences as possible" (😒) would mean they would keep The Duffers from pressing deeply into topics that would mean talking about and showing beloved 12-18 year old characters having explicit conversations about/reactions to their trauma, whether that be tied to abuse, psychological torture, kidnapping, CSA, racism or even queerness.

—I do think The Duffers have tried to accommodate this "stifling" of their creative vision with an wide array of very creative and sometimes absolutely hysterical subtext, but...as we've seen many a time in fandom, a lot of people are either not satisfied with subtextual reasoning or just miss it entirely, which leads to people saying things like "you should have made it clearer because the average person won't see that" (should sound familiar)...which is kind of the point. If you can build plausible deniability into the things you're doing, you can get away with them in front of audiences that aren't trained to pick up on them...and considering all of the stories that influenced M&R / their interviews, I think they're relying on subtext to shove their less delicate sensibilities into the "Netflix version" of their tale.

Basically: what you see is The Duffers vision filtered through the sensibilities of Netflix's desire to get as many people as possible to watch the show—and given that this includes both bigots and children...we're stuck in many ways with a "sanitized" version of the story The Duffers had to tell. The fact that they're cagey as hell about their slightly "freer" ending AND are finishing ST with Netflix and then moving all of their darker shows to their own production company makes me believe this even more, too—especially given that wanted to make this show on HBO...and we all know the sensibility difference between HBO and Netflix. That says enough about the "content filtering" aspect for me to believe its at least partially true.

All that being said: I do think they could have done a LOT more to show their positions on things like racism in Lucas and Erica's storylines, and do hold a lot of frustration about the fact that Netflix is asking them relegate queer character development to subtext—though anyone who saw the sociological changes in America and media after what we went through in 2016-2022 especially KNOWS why you would do something like that. It's been a deeply troubling and brutal time in the country Stranger Things is both set and created in...and given that capitalism still wants money from bigots, this is where we're a little bit stuck.

So, to finally answer your question, I guess: Yes. I agree they should have done more to make trauma clearer across the board in this show, and wish they would have in many ways, because it would have made the story stronger. That said...I understand almost entirely why they couldn't/didn't, and don't want to say Stranger Things having more subtext in several areas over explicitly stated makes the story less exciting to explore.

I do hope their caginess moving into the shows ending means we're gonna get the "darker stuff" explored more clearly though—and that, once we're done with the story, Matt and Ross get a chance to elaborate more on what they wanted without the filtering that network popularity placed on them.

Thanks for the ask!

[essektheylyss]

Not gonna lie, both vindicating but also deeply sad that every single literary magazine I've looked at recently, having visited those site in the past, has edited their submission requirements to specify that AI work will not be considered.

And at the same time, I'm extremely fearful of how many writers are going to give up writing when it becomes impossible to tell AI from real anymore, and markets are utterly saturated with content to the point that getting anything published is nearly impossible as scammers try to make some quick change.

I imagine it wouldn't be worth it in the long run as a scam, because it doesn't exactly pay to write these days even prior to this, so it may then die out within a couple of years, though that might be optimistic given the plagiarism that makes it into the Amazon self-publishing realm. But even still, I do worry that in the meantime it's going to push writers out and force already struggling lit mags to shut down, and I'm so, so worried about it.

[revenant-dumpster-fire]

One of my friends got a warning from EA for their name being "Shit Grass, Eat Ass". (I had the duo name "Skate Fast, Smoke Grass" which was apparently fine.)

Either they managed to kill a developer or someone reported them specifically, because I have seen astronomically worse names in the kill feed on a regular basis, and personally I love the things people come up with.

Legitimately I don't even know why they care when the ESRB reliquinshes the company of all liability the moment the player goes online. It's not like there's a slur in there or anything. Why can't people be silly?

All this to say,

God forbid Apex Legends players do anything and have fun with it.

Anyways don't think to hard about this post, I just found humor in it.

[vespertine-legacy]

it's okay, I'm normal about the Minister's post-class story letter to the Agent (and all "former Imperial Intelligence personnel") about Duty