#you'd be paste

[spaciebabie]

you know the fandomscape has changed b/c now whenever a piece of media gets popular I no longer see Malk, Circletine, Gay or European, or Left Brain Right Brain animatics anymore

[front-facing-pokemon]

[yourlocalcorviddad]

Ok so some bad guy kidnaps the justice league, has them incapacitated and whatnot.

The rogue starts monologuing about how through magic they can face the people they wronged, how it’s the first torture he will put them al through.

He starts with Batman and says ‘This ritual brings back the first people you failed to save.’

(The ritual summons relms ghosts)

The bad guy was NOT PREPARED for Martha Wayne to come out of the summoning circle and do her best to beat him to death for hurting her baby. (Thomas Wayne is going around freeing the league and providing medical help. His wife has this handled)

I was not aware I had an ask! Sorry this took so long!

But yes! This just, you have so many brain filling cabinets I wanna riffle though, so many

-

Martha knew, she and Thomas felt the tug and, thanks to recent lessons put out by the yeti at the direction of their king-it took him years to get through the backlog of what was needed, so some things are still being rolled out but it's already so much better-they knew it was a summons and could tell, not clearly as a named summons but as a 'most tied ghost to the place/person' summons es being done.

Which means home, or Bruce, which honestly was the same thing. Bruce and Alfred were their home as much as Gotham was.

After the fog cleared, and she heard the sneering, grandstanding voice of someone clearly trying to harm people, she didn't even waste time.

"You've got this darlin', I've got our boy and his lil friends safe'n hand."

And that reassurance from her also-dead partner was all she needed to go after the summoner.

"So you folks are my lil bat's friends! We've heard lots about all y'all been up to since we died, we're right proud of all of it."

[imsiriuslyreading]

people are being awful so here is an inexhaustive list of 50ish of my favourite fanfictions ever in no particular order. most of them have changed my life in some way shape or form and i am eternally grateful and in awe: <3 xo

Wolfstar:

All The Young Dudes mskingbean89

Blends rvltn909

Sweater Weather lumosinlove

Dear Your Holiness mollymarymarie

The Cadence of Part Time Poets Motswolo

Honey if I'm not BrigidFaye

There's your trouble xxxnoimsiriusxxx

If You're Gonna BrigidFaye

Currents lunchbucket

Liebestrum lunchbucket

The Road Not Taken mollymarymarie

Bird Set Free mollymarymarie

Ever Thus WrappedUp

Just What the Doctor Ordered WrappedUp

wading in waist-high water colgatebluemintygel

Disarm You With A Smile five_ht

10 Reasons to Go to Michigan greyeyedmonster18

Nothing Sweeter than my baby DamageControl

Not another band AU thelovelyzee

A Black Mass Over Highway Ninety Greenvlvetcouch

Solntse lumosinlove

We Can Be Heroes youblitheringidiot

Like Real People Do Third_Crow

Beneath A Big Blue Sky Eyra

A Brief History of Dragons Eyra

The Birthday Boy greenvlvetcouch

The Killing Time (unwillingly mine) epicblueblanket

Till We Have Arrived Home Again prouvairing

The Players Secret WrappedUp

Let's Play Pretend msalexwp

Jegulus

Only The Brave Solmussa

You Signed Up For This Solmussa

Kill Your Darlings Messermoon (this counts for wolfstar and rosekiller too!)

Blue and Yellow Skies Alarainai

Drarry

What We Pretend We Can't See gyzym

Everybody Hates A Tourist wolfpants

Running on Air eleventy7

Terrible People wolfpants

Way Down We Go xiaq

Draco Malfoy and The Mirror of Ecidyrue starbrigid

Dramione

Measure of A Man inadaze22

Remain Nameless heyjude19

selfxconclusion spicyxpisces

Beginning and End mightbewriting

How to Win Friends and Influence People OlivieBlake

Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love isthisselfcare

Jily

Shelf Awareness ghostofbambi

Room Service ClaudiaWrites

MISC

A Dress With Pockets PacificRimbaud

The Audacity of Lavender Brown malpal132

Devil's Snare All The Way Down malpal132

[amanitacurses]

[doberbutts]

🎵 I'll keep a picture of you on the wall,

Of you on the wall,

And choke on the memories. 🎶

[thesulkycroissant]

I love to give Bruce crap as much as the next person, but at least he's trying. Also Dickie's face in that last panel 🥹

[jsketch12]

the carABINER ON THE SHACKLE

In Case It Wasn't Obvious Enough

[rocketbirdie]

*slips another kunsel into your pocket*

[oneluckydragon]

Thinking about how these two met. Get adopted, idiot.

More human!Echo.

[angelsdean]

I need people to understand how S&P (standards and practices) works in television and how much influence they have over what gets to stay IN an episode of a show and how the big time network execs are the ones holding the purse strings and making final decisions on a show's content, not the writers / showrunners / creatives involved.

So many creators have shared S&P notes over the years of the wild and nonsensical things networks wanted them to omit / change / forbid. Most famously on tumblr, I've seen it so many times, is the notes from Gravity Falls. But here's a post compiling a bunch of particularly bad ones from various networks too. Do you see the things they're asking to be changed / cut ?

Now imagine, anything you want to get into your show and actually air has to get through S&P and the network execs. A lot of creators have had to resort to underhanded methods. A lot of creators have had to relegate things to subtext and innuendo and scenes that are "open to interpretation" instead of explicit in meaning. Things have had to be coded and symbolized. And they're relying on their audience to be good readers, good at media literacy, to notice and get it. This stuff isn't the ramblings of conspiracy theorists, it's the true practices creatives have had to use to be able to tell diverse stories for ages. The Hays Code is pretty well known, it exists because of censorship. It was a way to symbolize certain things and get past censors.

Queercoding, in particular, has been used for ages in both visual media and literature do signal to queer audiences that yes, this character is one of us, but no, we can't be explicit about it because TPTB won't allow it. It's a wink-wink, nudge-nudge to those in the know. It's the deliberate use of certain queer imagery / clothing / mannerisms / phrases / references to other queer media / subtle glances and lingering touches. Things that offer plausible deniability and can be explained away or go unnoticed by straight audiences to get past those network censors. But that queer viewers WILL (hopefully) pick up on.

Because, unfortunately, still to this day, a lot of antiquated network execs don't think queer narratives are profitable. They don't think they'll appeal to general audiences, because that's what matters, whatever appeals to most of the audience demographic so they can keep watching and keep making the network more money. The networks don't care about telling good stories! Most of them are old white cishet business men, not creatives. They don't care about character arcs and what will make fans happy. They don't care about storytelling. What they care about is profit and they're basing their ideas of what's profitable on what they believe is the predominate target demographic, usually white cis heterosexual audiences.

So, imagine a show that started airing in the early 2000s. Imagine a show where the two main characters are based on two characters from a famous Beat Generation novel, where one of the characters is queer! based on a real like bisexual man! The creator is aware of this, most definitely. And sure, it's 2005, there's no way they were thinking of making that explicit about Dean in the text because it just wouldn't fly back then to have a main character be queer. But! it's made subtext. And there are nods to that queerness placed in the text. Things that are open to interpretation. Things that are drenched in metaphor (looking at you 1x06 Skin "I know I'm a freak" "maybe this thing was born human but was different...hated. Until he learned to become someone else.") Things that are blink-and-you-miss-it and left to plausible deniability (things like seemingly spending an hour in the men's bathroom, or always reacting a little vulnerable and awkward when you're clocked instead of laughing it off and making a homophobic joke abt it)

And then, years later there's a ship! It's popular and at first the writers aren't really seriously thinking about it but they'll throw the fans a bone here and there. Then, some writers do get on the destiel train and start actively writing scenes for them that are suggestive. And only a fraction of what they write actually makes it into the text. So many lines left on the cutting room floor: i love past you. i forgive you i love you. i lost cas and it damn near broke me. spread cas's ashes alone. of course i wanted you to stay. if cas were here. -- etc. Everything cut was not cut by the writers! Why would a writer write something to then sabotage their own story and cut it? No, these are things that didn't make it past the network. Somewhere a note was made maybe "too gay" or "don't feed the shippers" or simply "no destiel."

So, "no destiel." That's pretty clearly the message we got from the CW for years. "No destiel. Destiel will alienate our general audience. Two of our main characters being queer? And in a relationship? No way." So what can the pro-destiel creatives involved do, if the network is saying no? What can the writers do if most of their explicit destiel (or queer dean) lines / moments are getting cut? Relegate things to subtext. Make jokes that straight people can wave off but queer people can read into. Make costuming and set design choices that the hardcore fans who are already looking will notice while the general audience and the out-of-touch network execs won't blink and eye at (I'm looking at you Jerry and your lamps and disappearing second nightstands and your gay flamingo bar!)

And then, when the audience asks, "is destiel real? is this proof of destiel?" what can the creatives do but deny? Yes, it hurts, to be told "No no I don't know what you're talking about. There's no destiel in supernatural" a la "there is no war in Ba Sing Se" but! if the network said "no destiel!" and you and your creative team have been working to keep putting destiel in the subtext of the narrative in a way that will get past censors, you can't just go "Yes, actually, all that subtext and symbolism you're picking up, yea it's because destiel is actually in the narrative."

But, there's a BIG difference between actively putting queer themes and subtext into the narrative and then saying it's not there (but it is! and the audience sees it!) versus NOT putting any queer content into the text but SAYING it is there to entice queer fans to continue watching. The latter, is textbook queerbaiting. The former? Is not. The former is the tactics so many creatives have had to use for years, decades, centuries, to get past censorship and signal to those in the know that yea, characters like you are here, they exist in this story.

Were the spn writers perfect? No, absolutely not. And I don't think every instance of queer content was a secret signal. Some stuff, depending on the writer, might've been a period-typical gay joke. These writers are flawed. But it's no secret that there were pro-destiel writers in the writing room throughout the years, and that efforts were made to make it explicitly canon (the market research!)

So no, the writers weren't ever perfect or a homogeneous entity. But they definitely were fighting an uphill battle constantly for 15 yrs against S&P and network execs with antiquated ideas of what's profitable / appealing.

Spn even called out the networks before, on the show, using a silly example of complaints abt the lighting of the show and how dark the early seasons were. Brightening the later seasons wasn't a creative choice, but a network choice. And if the networks can complain abt and change something as trivial as the lighting of a show, they definitely are having a hand in influencing the content of the show, especially queer content.

Even in s15, (seasons fifteen!!!) Misha has said he worried Castiel's confession would not air. In 2020!!! And Jensen recorded that scene on his personal phone! Why? Sure, for the memories. But also, I do not doubt for a second that part of it was for insurance, should the scene mysteriously disappear completely. We've seen the finale script. We've seen the omitted omitted omitted scenes. We all saw how they hacked the confession scene to bits. The weird cuts and close-ups. That's not the writers doing. That's likely not even the editors (willingly). That's orders from on high. All of the fuckery we saw in s15 reeks of network interference. Writers are not trying to sabotage their own stories, believe me.

Anyways, TLDR: Networks have a lot more power than many think and they get final say in what makes it to air. And for years creative teams have had to find ways to get past network censorship if they want "banned" or "unapproved" "unprofitable" "unwanted" content to make it into the show. That means relying on techniques like symbolism, subtext, and queercoding, and then shutting up about it. Denying its there, saying it's all "open to interpretation" all while they continue to put that open to interpretation content into the show. And that's not queerbaiting, as frustrating as it might be for queer audiences to be told that what they're seeing isn't there, it's still not queerbaiting. Queerbaiting is a marketing technique to draw in queer fans by baiting them with the promise of queer content and then having no queer content in said media. But if you are picking up on queer themes / subtext / symbolism / coding that is in front of your face IN the text, that's not queerbaiting. It's there, covertly, for you, because someone higher up didn't want it to be there explicitly or at all.

[fiftysevenacademics]

I thought this might interest some of you. This little restaurant is a big slice of history. Recent research proved it's probably the oldest Chinese restaurant in the US, and to tell its story, you have to tell the story of the Chinese Exclusion Act, "paper sons," and the hardworking family that persevered.

[megpricephotography]

Flynn in a field of flowers...

[vermiciousyidreborn]

Every time an American Leftist opens their mouth about the I/P conflict, I can't help but think "Didn't you used to be against family separation?"

They said it was cruel, correctly. They said it would scar kids for life, correctly. But now they defend Hamas. Maybe it's that I'm a parent, but even beyond the other "big name" hostages like Noa Argamani (who, I want to add, should never have been a big name, she should have gotten to just live her life, but her story and her mother hoping to see her again went viral), my thoughts are always with Kfir Bibas.

Kfir was 9 months old on October 7th. If he's even still alive, he's approaching half of his life spent as a Hamas hostage. His family is begging for his return, along with the rest of his family, and we have some evidence that some of them are still alive, and also that the family has been separated.

So, again I ask "Didn't you used to be against family separation?" Why is it ok if Hamas does it? What did a 9 month old do to deserve this, for you to gleefully call for the deaths of the hostages, or for Hamas to equip them with suicide belts to prevent their rescue?

And what has gone so horribly wrong with your morality that it condemns a 9 month old (now 17 month old) to this sort of hell?

[dovalore]

the radiance's fluffy defence

[canisalbus]

When Machete became a cardinal, did his parents ever recognize him?

Machete's home village was on the other side of Italy (and separated by the sea no less) and it was small, relatively rural and remote. It's very unlikely many news about Holy See's happenings made their way there. I don't think his parents had any reason to expect to ever hear about him again, he seemed to be somewhat of a lost cause when they dropped him off.