#*deliberate subtext

[angelsdean]

they literally had him dance with a lamp. A LAMP. when light fixtures have been symbolically used to represent angel halos thru out the show. when they could've just had dean dance with garth or some random anonymous lady or literally any other inanimate object. i can't find the original post but the dance is based off a scene from an old film and in it i think they use a broom or mop. but for dean they chose *lamp* !!!!!!!! these are deliberate choices that mean things dude !!!!! LAMP !!!!! [screams incoherently into pillow]

#sorry just having a regularly scheduled breakdown over thee deliberate symbolism and queercoding in the cw's supernatural #because yes as much as we wanna joke that destiel was an accident and everything good abt spn wasn't intentional the truth is #at some point there WAS a shift where they started being intentional abt these things. the parallels. the symbolic choices. the subtext. #they were aware and intentional and there were writers writing *for* destiel #just bc the network censored them and a lot ended up on the cutting room floor doesn't mean there wasn't a deliberate effort #to 1.) queercode dean (and cas) but a LOT dean and 2.) make destiel explicitly canon. market research HELLO #vic.txt

[thedupshadove]

Horatio and Ophelia are never confirmed as being in a scene together, and do not share so much as a single line of dialogue.

#hamlet #ophelia #horatio #shakespeare #I think sometimes about the (lack of a) dynamic between these two characters #They're probably the two people Hamlet is closest to #He loves them both (yes he *does* love Ophelia even though he is undeniably shitty to her) #They both love him #It's not quite textually a love triangle #but knowing about Shakespeare's real-life queerness makes me more inclined to read the homoerotic subtext in his work as deliberate #Because we never see them on stage together we never see them directly compete #But we also never see them connect. Collaborate. #Commiserate about the maddening madman they love and the hardships they must witness being inflicted upon him. #Or their own troubles--the dutiful daughter always ordered about. The untitled scholar perhaps looked down upon #Think of it like this: Both Horatio and Ophelia try‚ in their ways‚ to save Hamlet #And they both fail #Could the two of them working together have altered the path of fate?

[slicedblackolives]

of the opinion that queerbaiting is a legitimate artform that can be wielded purposefully to great evocative effect (driving gay kids insane)

#there should be a good faith queerbaiting #I am not doing this to take your money while hating you I am doing this because I want to inspire longing #this is deliberate subtext because I want you to engage with my material on a deeper level. these are interlaced stories. #queerbaiting as a storytelling tool and not homophobia: AKA what royai did #them not being together is just as important to the story than them being together would be #queerbaiting to explore repression and trauma and violence !

[daisyachain]

Restorative or Transformative?: Homoerotic Subtext, The Closet, and Ciphers in Pop Culture. The nature of commercial art is that it’s sometimes bad and inconsistent. Notably it’s also misogynistic. One way in which audiences try to reconcile massive plot holes or gaps in character motivation is by reading secrets or hidden information into a plot.

Commonly, male characters are interpreted as closeted gay or bisexual to reconcile the absence of women from commercial narratives with the generally stunted and poorly-written male characters that form the focus on said texts. This reading has become especially common among a non-heterosexual milieu. Rather than transforming the original text into some radically different new form, this closeted interpretation seeks to make the original text stand on its own as a story rather than a Swiss cheese of dumb writing decisions.

This interpretation only works for a specific type of pop, usually genre fiction. Any story in which tortured male leads eschew women in favour of male-male bonds (because female characters are constantly killed off, written sparsely, or written out, because the production team keeps casting their male buddies, because actors demand to keep having scenes with their bros, whatever) can become a sounder structure if you put one of them in a closet.

The gay interpretation is the natural consequence of shoddy misogynistic writing from ventures like Supernatural, Naruto, all the biggest hits. It’s also the natural consequence of more benignly misogynistic writing like The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes or The Lord of the Rings, where women aren’t necessarily rejected but are simply absent from the worlds of the protagonists. When the emotional crux of the story falls on male-male interactions, this reads as romantic because society at large priorities (definitively heterosexual) romance as the pinnacle of human connection. Two forces are in conflict, the primacy of heterosexuality (read as: romance) and the primacy of men.

Anyway. All that is to say that the typical gay or bisexual reading of male characters in pop fiction comes from a very real place. But, in some places, that’s the default interpretation. Angst, insecurity, secrets, double lives, fatigue, disappointment, restrained passion, stunted personal growth, anyone living in the closet can tell you that it impacts and defines your whole life to know that you live in a way fundamentally incompatible with The Proper Way that life is structured around down to tax law and superstore prices (which assume a heterosexual nuclear family unit). Characters in fiction also tend to have personal problems because that makes them interesting and tasty.

If you’ve grown up on stories with the specific type of misogyny that can be papered over with a closeted interpretation of the male leads, carrying this interpretation over to any male character will make sense more often than not. Even a bit of angst or insecurity? Well of course that makes sense if a character is closeted.

Except that’s hurt a normal part of fiction, and sometimes the closeted interpretation takes away from the point of a character. If a male character is on another axis of marginalization, the closeted interpretation imposed by the slash reading community downplays or trivializes the effects of that marginalization in the plot by overwriting it with another type of marginalization. Alternately, sometimes a character’s heterosexuality is a part of the story. There are some sorts of critiques or investigations of misogyny or masculinity that don’t work if the character has an ‘opt out’ of the cisheteropatriarchal perspective. Not that gay/bisexual men aren’t except from misogyny, but misogyny masculinity and heterosexuality are so tightly linked that it sort of defeats the point if you interpret that character outside of heterosexuality.

All that is to say—the closet interpretation is a quick and easy spice to apply to the weaker parts of action-adventure genre fiction to make it taste better. It draws from a large enough sample of art that it’s pretty widely applicable. Because of that, it’s part of some people’s [my] default interpretation package just because the semi-dull macho show at least gets less dull if you imagine there’s a reason for there to be no girls besides simple hatred. That then forms its own problem where the interpretation that works with your average genre work gets then blanket-applied to all genre works and obscures the places where the closet interpretation doesn’t fix the work, and actually makes it less interesting.

#kelsey rambles #I’m as guilty of it as anyone. #just thinking about Johnny Storm and like. bisexual ass character. deeply bi guy. but. #what IF he’s just heterosexual. what then. wouldn’t that almost be…more interesting #if he’s Like That and not closeted? what twisty gnarled psychological torments would a good comic have to explain him #and on the other hand. that one post I saw about how miles/hobie totally misses the point that their relationship is about solidarity #spider-punk and spider-byte’s alliance with miles are the same thing and to read it as romantic erases the important part #and on a third hand. when speaking of miles’ story. the stupid fucked Bendis running joke/subtext with Ganke #to have Miles be gay would possibly take away from the messy and interesting part of his character that is being a person with nothing #to hide. a totally honest genuine straightforward kid who is forced to start a double life by an outside actor #but at the same time it’s dumb and a cop-out to throw in that much bait and that much of a genuinely charged tense friendship #and then go ‘lol jk. nothing to see here’ #the other thing is the semi joke in atsv about ‘coming out’ as spider-man #the most important thing about Miles having to hide is his relatively precarious position as a black kid. he’s not afforded the leniency #that Peter Parker would expect if he got unmasked. Miles is more cautious because he is in more danger because he’s Black #so to paint that struggle with the gay brush is to disregard the character’s raison d’être. while also #using that sort of language and structure deliberately puts a gay lens over that character and ignoring that or kicking it to the side #feels a bit cheap. to borrow the look and not the substance #way too many tags and it’s past my bedtime. thesis statement is: #miles morales is a character whose history is fraught with plenty of real gay subtext and whose character struggles are entirely divorced #from any sense of gender performance. he’s subtextually bi but that’s got so little to do with his story that it feels almost wrong to read #that into him because there is so much other interesting stuff going on with him

[windoftime]

You know how nowadays in movies, tv shows and even children's cartoons you see gay and bi characters, and you can tell they're gay and bi because they are in same sex relationships, share gay kisses, and use the words "gay" and "bi"? Back then they didn't let you do that, so you'd have to hide pride flags in the background, use metaphors, relegate anything overt to the last second.

Across The Spider-Verse isn't back then, it's right now. Trans people deserve "the curtain is blue" levels of bluntness in representation.

No disrespect to the people working on the movie because they're the greatest artists of our generation, but at the same time... JUST DO IT, COWARDS

#I've seen people calling the trans gwen intepretation absolutely obvious and deliberate and like - it's not. that's the issue #you know they'll distort reality to erase queer people from existence - least you can do is make their representation in media irrefutable #across the spider verse #spiderverse #gwen stacy #tl;dr some people use subtext - those people are COWARDS

[pocket-mobster]

i see, like, exactly one (1) merit for the idea that there should be something in place to balance the needs of urban and rural citizens, but there's like 20 different somethings in place—several of which being racism under various levels of obfuscation—and now the cities that subsidize the rest of the state can't get funding for basic utilities

#ipj speaks #bottoms up and the devil laughs etc etc #this post was supposed to just be about state govts being deliberately placed in the middle of nowhere... #...but now its about All Of It i guess #the subtext here is that PA should split in half along the Susquehanna and merge with the closest state to the west/east #and then Ohio-PA should merge with WV and NJ-PA should take Delmarva cuz fuck ur tax haven lmao

[mysteryhack]

not my friend convinced that Cave Johnson and Carolyn were in a relationship and somehow that means Chell and GLaDOS wouldn’t be in love 🫣

#all mine #he’s straight can you tell #he thought I was being deliberately stupid when I said that Chell and GLaDOS were in love #sorry sir but if you can’t see their relationship as a sad breakup then idk what to tell you #the subtext is right there

[vamptastic]

the black parade is about how being yourself can make you good as dead to the world and that hurts and it's hard and awful but you gotta look death straight in the face and stop being afraid to be a ghost. to me.

#it's very very gay. transgender as well. and i do think that's somewhat deliberate #it is very much about actual death and loss as well. but i do think the metaphor is purposefully #there is this strong theme of like. embracing your own death. and obviously that can also be a metaphorical death #but obviously there are things other than being lgbt that make you dead to people #recovery comes to mind especially #it's just my personal interpretation i think it is mostly meant to be about literal death and the subtext is just subtext #but who knows! ask gerard i guess #mcr

[bylertruther-moved]

another reason why i can't make sense of people that came out of season four thinking millyrock were stronger than ever is the simple fact that mike and will were on a character poster together just like jopper n lumax were (which is important for obvious reasons but it also points out how they're the stand out / most important relationships in each of these groups) AND they were both facing each other on one of the ensemble posters. and when the artist behind those was asked why they got paired up he said something about how they get told what relationships to focus on once the season is finished and they just do it based on that (essentially that it's not their personal choice, it comes from the people above them) and it's just like.... it all points... to byler. and still there are people that refuse to see it.... #sad #couldnotbeme

#like its such a little thing but its also such a BIG thing #like. Everything points to byler EVERYTHING points to them making deliberate choices that draw attention to them time and time #again at every single turn like 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 #if u don't see it it's bc u don't want to at this point tbh. #we were told this in the show + the rampant subtext + the music choices + the wardobe choices + the fact that they spent a long time #getting all the angles right for certain scenes + the lighting like EVERYTHING POINTS TO BYLER #ITS ALL A SERIES OF DELIBERATE CHOICES BEING MADE BY EVERYONE FROM BEHIND THE SCENES TO ON CAMERA AND IM TIRED OF PEOPLE #ACTING LIKE ITS INSANE TO BELIEVE WHAT WE'RE SEEING !!!!!!!! #being made insane by the reality which is canon byler tbh #not even a month has passed and we've been fed so much 😭😭😭 #i will NOT survive season five!!

[hardygalwrites]

Originally posted to FFN a little after the 10th of April, 2017

Simply archiving a writing challenge I did back in 2016 up to 2017 and featuring my favourite writing pieces from each week of the challenge here on Tumblr :]

← Week 34 (BB) – Week 36 (BB) →

Cartoon: Transformers Prime / Robots in Disguise 2015

Characters: Smokescreen, Knock Out, and Bumblebee, with appearances from numerous other characters (even ones not featured in the cartoons)

Synopsis: An Autobot Elite Guard rookie, a Decepticon medic turned Autobot, and an Autobot scout turned warrior turned street cop - three very different bots with a wide range of stories to tell. And we are going to spend the next year exploring said stories through daily-written drabbles, be they angsty, humorous, gut-punching, or just plain odd! Who doesn’t love a challenge? (2016 to 2017)

—

Knowing

Yet another bot from yet another returning ship smiled and waved. "Hey, Bumblebee!"

The mech spoken to responded in kind. "Hey!"

Smokescreen watched as the returning bot left the landing pad, before turning to Bumblebee. "Wow. You seem to know a lotta bots. Or, vice versa. Or both."

"Yeah, well, a lot of them helped raise me, and when I got older, a lot of them became my teammates." Bumblebee chuckled. "War aside, those were good times."

"That's cool. I mean, knowing all those guys and knowing that all of them got your back. Must be nice."

"Yeah. I guess it is."

We're Here For You

Strongarm's anxiety came to a head when Bumblebee asked her who was sorting the recently retrieved stasis pods. Strongarm started heavily berating herself, and as she went on and on, it sounded as though she were about to cry, which she eventually did.

Bumblebee was a little alarmed, but he'd been anticipating a breakdown for some time, and attempted to comfort the distressed cadet.

"Look, Strongarm... I don't know exactly what's going on right now, but don't think you have to deal with it by yourself. We're a family, remember? And we look out for each other."

Strongarm vented shakily, and nodded. "Thanks, Bumblebee."

Take 'em Down Hard, No Mercy!

"Bumblebee!" Ironhide pulled the smaller bot back, restraining him firmly. "Get a hold of yourself!"

The captive Decepticon, restrained by both the stasis cuffs and the Twins, spat out a bit of energon and laughed. "Aw, c'mon, can't we talk this out? Oh, wait! You can't talk, can you?"

Voice box buzzing furiously, Bumblebee activated his blaster and fought to escape Ironhide's grip.

The old warrior, unfazed, only tightened his grip. "Bumblebee, enough!"

Bumblebee was too angry to form any coherent words. He finally tore himself away from Ironhide grasp, but instead of attacking the 'Con again, he turned and stormed away.

#posting from THE ARCHIVES #365 drabbles challenge #i have a very particular fondness for 'Knowing' #i remember writing it and being very deliberate with the dialogue trying to have a bit of subtext to it #also yes i would once again like to reiterate i love strongarm very much she is my daughter #bumblebee #tfp bumblebee #rid2015 bumblebee #smokescreen #tfp smokescreen #strongarm #rid2015 strongarm #ironhide #wfc ironhide #transformers #transformers prime #robots in disguise 2015 #transformers war for cybertron #HardyGal writes stuff #HardyGal writes fanfiction

[shmreduplication]

One thing i appreciate about Company and Hadestown is they picked One Cliche to say verbatim which makes it feel extremely intentional that the other related cliches were left out. The presence of "Three's company" and "to hell and back" makes me look for "misery loves company" and "the road to hell is paved with good intentions", and they're never said but they're unsaid extremely loudly, they still pervade the musicals.

Especially Hadestown because the road is not paved, it has rails, it's a railroad. And also every character that makes the trip definitely had good intentions so it's subverted in the literal meaning but played straight for the metaphor. And also "underground railroad" is never said but gets played straight, twice. There's a literal railroad that takes you literally underground, but into slavery, and Orpheus's path is a long arduous walking path that brings you out of slavery so it's more similar to the historical Underground Railroad even tho it literally takes you above ground

#this was supposed to just be about that i love when cliches are left as extremely deliberate subtext #and then turned into me gushing about Hadestown #it's v good! #definitely benefits from listening to it on repeat for a few days because of the layers #you could even call it.... deep

[jesuschristo]

i love to watch a show and then open tumblr and read some awful AWFUL opinions about it

#it was never about the gay rep was it. you just want to see the boys kiss #stranger things #if even my mum can pick up on gay subtext then it's not bad writing. it's deliberate #clowns. all of you #it wasnt perfect but it wasnt nearly as bad as people are saying

[soulvomit]

In thinking about writing my character who’s all but stated to be autistic in-text, the thing I’m remembering is that prior to reading autism coding into older works, or deliberately writing autism into characters... many characters we now read as autist, are just oldschool badasses. 

#I am deliberately analyzing the autism subtext of the Golden Age Space Hero with my character

[thesoundofmadness]

I will defend gay kanji against anything idc

#the subtext for kanji being gay is so in your face you'd have to he deliberately ignoring it NOT to notice jt #the docs

[faelapis]

on a more positive note, the trans subtext with gwen is definitely intentional.

not just because of the “protect trans kids” thing in her room btw. there’s a few other moments like that as well. apparently the dad has a trans badge, i didn’t even see that part and i still caught the subtext.

but also, that shot you probably saw on twitter, where the trans colors are everywhere and the trans flag colors overlays in her hair?

yeah that’s deliberate. i was skeptical but i’m convinced now. there’s no other shot like that in the movie. there’s no other time her hair is overlaid in an multicolored gradient like that. this movie plays with color a lot, but in every other shot, her hair looks normal and is just one color (plus the tips). this was very obviously deliberate as a shot to STAND OUT and display those colors. the dialogue in the moment is about her feeling like she has to hide who she is.

that’s beyond coding. that’s done with purpose. that’s done to be as obvious as they could get away with.

#across the spiderverse #not su /