#we can all agree that he was queercoded right

[alarrytale]

Hi Marte. So I'm probably completely wrong here but I'm just theorizing. Harry and Louis have talked about wanting kids since they were young and Harry mentioned it again in HH promo. If they had plans to eventually CO and start a family then would they get involved with beards who stipulate in a contract that they can't CO? Would they agree to that? Harry would be digging himself into a hole by adding more and more beards and making it increasingly harder for himself. There is probably something in the contract to say that either party can't CO until 5 or 10 years after the relationship ends, or that they have to keep up with the pretense that the relationship was real. But I can't imagine Harry would agree to a contract knowing he could never CO. So there are 2 options here. That they plan on never CO or they agree to a contract knowing that they will be able to CO at some point. The only thing is that I wonder if they were to CO if there were some grounds that the other party could sue them for damage to their image but maybe they can come up with a way that does minimum damage. In Leo and Bradley's case with Gigi, I don't get the impression that Leo and Bradley want to CO so it might not matter so much to them. But I can't imagine Harry and Louis wanting to be closeted forever. If that was the case then wouldn't they shut down any speculation about their sexuality? It would be so easily to do a written interview or in depth IG post talking about how harmful the speculation has been, or they even could get fake married. On the other hand, speculation about their sexuality is good publicity for them. But I'm not sure they would welcome the speculation if they planned on never CO. Wouldn't that be like queerbaiting? What do you think?

Hi, anon!

I don't think kids are a priority for them right now. They're a celebrity gay couple, kids will basically mean the end of both their careers. I don't see either of them wanting to be the primary care taker while the other one's on tour. That wouldn't be fair either. So they will both have to be there and be present for their kids. I think they'd both want that too, in 7-10 years or so.

I don't think H or L would go into a contract willingly with a beard, stipulating that they can't come out. But all this started in 1D when they were young and impressionable, and i'm not sure if they knew the consequences of what they were forced/pressured/convinced into by Sony. Bar TS or Kendall maybe, i think H's team has been the one in power and written the contract stipulations. I don't think H would have put himself in a situation where it would be neccessary to agree to such a term. So i don't think that's what's stopping him from coming out. Bg is a bigger hindrance for them.

I agree if they never plan to come out all the queercoding, fights with management and bargaining they've done have been pretty pointless. It doesn’t make sense as a theory based on all we've observed over the years. I'm pretty sure they both would come out this second if they could. H and L have always given attention to and praised people who have come out. Like L with the rainbow apple t-shirt for tim cook and H with the michael sam football shirt. They so badly wish it was them having that opportunity.

If they never plan to come out, because they can't or because they don't want to, we would have seen a totally different behaviour from them. What on earth is the point of singing i love him i hate it if you don’t want the world to know you're gay and in a relationship, because you'll never be out? It's not queerbaiting, it's queercoding and wanting people to see beyond the stunts and lies, and see the truth. Speculation about their sexuality isn't good publicity if you have to go on twitter and shut it down, making yourself look like a right douche and a homophobe by doing it. It's harmed Louis' image and popluarity immensely, both among fans, the gp and journalists.

Since they want out, there must be a way out. Louis wouldn't be all faith in the future if there never was a way out for them. Harry wouldn't be jumping from stunt to stunt if he's in this for life. He'd find a more permanent solution. If there weren't a way out they would have given up the fight long ago. They're still fighting.

#coming out #contracts #bearding #stunting #babygate for ts #larry with kids

[mileven11forever]

“Like if you actually just watch the show and listen to what the characters say, then you'd know how Mike feels.”

That’s just it. Most Bylers have watched the show many times and genuinely found the evidence that Mike truly loves El romantically to be severely lacking. Most Bylers went into the show believing in Mileven with no agenda or reason to believe otherwise and simply came to a different conclusion by watching it

And also the monologue isn’t really strong evidence in Mileven’s favor either, even if it seems that way on the surface, cause it’s full of transparent lies and contradicts both what we see in the show and what the writers have said about not believing in love at first sight. If the monologue was genuinely romantic, disconnected from Will, and full of concrete and beautiful moments in their relationship, I’d agree with you. But that’s not what happened

And most importantly, a character dating a girl doesn’t make them straight. People can date girls and still be bi or even gay and closeted. Mike is a very queercoded character in general and how he feels HASN’T actually been clear because there’s been an emphasis on his confusion between El and Will throughout the show, and the only reason he was able to monologue to El is cause of Will’s words/painting confession.

The set up for Byler is all there, and it really won’t be difficult at all for Mike and El to breakup in S5. It’s the next natural step in the characters’ journeys and arcs. Eight episodes is almost eight hours. That’s a lot of time.

I'm just gonna quote what I've heard another Mileven say when arguing with a byler:

"That's very... interesting. I also have a story: I [a girl] dated boys, I date boys and I always will date boys. ... Sometimes people just stay straight. That also happens. Or you know, she could be his girlfriend. Who he loves. Crazy, I know, but there are straight people who love their partner and don't turn gay for their childhood best friend, no matter how much he whines or how many times they look at each other while talking"

I don't necessarily agree with everything that person said, like people don't "turn gay" obviously. But while there are people who can be bi, or closeted gay, there are also people who are just straight too.

This person also said in that argument:

"I can very much deny that Mike is 'queercoded', but go off I guess. You all act like Byler is real and valid while the only proof you can provide is made-up subtext and the denial of a straight ship that's been going on for four seasons. I'm telling you, if Mileven was gay and Byler was straight, people would be yelling 'lgbtq erasure' left and right. Also, in all seasons, Byler's relationship matches basically every sign of 'idgaf about you cause I have a goddamn girlfriend' relationship, so chill out"

Once again, I don't agree with everything they said, but I don't see how Mike is at all queercoded. So much of the evidence is just triangles, rainbows, and invented color schemes. Not everything has a deeper meaning, sometimes it is just there for no real reason, sometimes things are surface level. And Mike was not lying in his monologue, he was being honest, just like how he has said he loves El in the past. You can ship Byler and claim Mike is queercoded all you want, but that doesn't make it true.

#mileven #pro mileven #mileven is real #mileven is canon #mileven endgame #mike wheeler #straight mike #mike is straight #anti byler #byler is bones #byler is unrequited #mike x el #mike and el #eleven hopper #eleven #el hopper #el hopper byers #eleven stranger things

[eisforeidolon]

Hellers can claim that they've been queerbaited as much as they want, the fact is that it is their fault for continously listening to someone like Mooch even after the 'straight-coming-out' fiasco. It is obvious what this guy's aim was/is. He is attention and money seeking from a rather rabid fan group who can fill his needs.

Hellers also have absolutely no right to accuse the show of queerbaiting. Despite self-proclaiming themselves as 'master readers of queer text and subtext and coding', Hellers do not even know how queercoding subtext or text even work.

Dean drinking cucumber water in one scene or the so-called ''bi lighting'' or wearing ''bi colored flannels'' are not queer-coding. It's literally making stuff up your ass and calling it a day and tapping yourselves on the back for supposedly realizing the 'obvious queercoding and subtext'. These are the guys who claimed Dean dancing with a lamp was a proof that he was imagining dancing with Castiel because Castiel was supposed to be the lamp in that scene, so it was queercoding and a nod to Destiel (yeah buddy sure....). These are the guys who legit claimed and pointed to Dean's FBI jacket (with the collar covering the 'F') as "proof" that he's bisexual.

That's straight up baiting themselves. They're still doing the same thing regarding the prequel, trying to find things that are not there, deluding themselves and thinking the show is baiting them. That's just insane.

Agree completely. They want queercoding to mean "calling literally everything Dean does queer means it's totes true". No. That's not what queercoding means or how subtext works.

In their heads, finding super sneakret signals to Dean's REAL sexuality in his every action shows how totally intentional and undeniable it is! It's literally impossible for Dean to be straight with all of this proof that shows up every single second he's onscreen! Except in reality, what it actually shows? Is how obsessed they are that they're insisting literally everything is a signal of queerness and how little they care about actual representation because it all magically only counts when it's Dean. What he eats, what he drinks, what he wears, what he stands next to, how he makes eye contact, who he talks to, etc.? There is nothing they haven't tried to turn into a hint towards proving bi!Dean and D/C.

That's not about what the writers intend, nor even any kind of genuine unconscious social cues about queerness. That's entirely about their personal myopic obsession with trying to force what they want to happen in a fictional show into reality by insisting everything is about their ship because they say so.

They weren't queerbaited by anyone but themselves and Misha, and as you say, even that is pretty much on them because subtle he is not. There was literally nothing the show could do that hellers wouldn't see as proof of what they wanted to see anyway. They ignored the million times it was reiterated by all the showrunners that SPN was the story of Sam & Dean. Singer and J2 explicitly said D/C wasn't part of the canon story. Dean's orientation was clarified several times in his own words. Even having Castiel and Dean spend less screen time together was turned into batshit "negative space" meta where we could supposedly see how in lurve they were by how Castiel's presence was missing from scenes!

It is genuinely an unhealthy, unhinged obsession of their own creation, nothing more and nothing less.

#askboxery #anonymous #destihellers #Dean *exists* = OMG SO BI! #anti misha

[sweetdreamscometruth]

Rant about this Gaylor stuff

Hetlors coming onto gaylors at any given chances for their "dirty thoughts", "unrespectful behavior" and so on and so forth because "taylor swift is straight" and "to stop assuming her sexuality"; first of all "who cares" like if you don't agree with what someone think go on on your day, block them, block the topic. I'm seing too many of you going after gaylors, posting your opinions under their posts or tags. Every is free to have an opinion, everyone is free to express it. You don’t agree and you know you will never agree with it, then you leave and don’t interact with the people/subject. You all are like little soldiers coming to defend her straightness (which I may say is a bit hypocritical, because as far as I know saying she is straight is also assuming her sexuality, but I guess her being queer is such an horrible and far reaching thought that it must be taken down quickly). I need you to stop a moment, look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself what does it bring to your life to defend TS sexuality like that. To go off after people like that. Are you getting pay or something? Everyone (gaylors and hetlors) is just making speculations (based on facts, hints, etc...), but at the end of the day YOU don't know s*, I don't know shit, NOBODY knows what she identifies as except HERSELF and the people she trusts with this information.

Some people have superiority complex because they are hetlors or because they got a/multiples notice from TS herself or TN, well you're not her friend, you are just a fan and at the end of the day, you just know what she wants you to believe. She is a celebrity but she is also a human. She has an public image and the person she is in her personal life. Just because you can get a glimpse of the latter, that doesn't mean that YOU KNOW HER

Going back on assuming someone sexuality. Truth is that it might be not morally okay to do it, but you do it anyway consciously or not. Not to get into cliché but you see a guy with long painted nails, make up and idk heels, you think (even for 1 second) "oh he's gay". You assumed his sexuality. Maybe you're right, maybe not. Queer people tend to "recognise" themselves through signs or references. There are wordings, imagery, and many stuffs used in the queer community. So when someone tells you "well you know as queer I do recognise or I relate to some of TS actions or lyrics, so maybe she is queer too" and you first reaction is to insult, dox, or tell the person to k word, you are a disgusting human (I'm staying polite). If there are queer people upset about YNTCD video and if lesbians are upset about her using the term lavender (which is FACTUALLY a historical lesbian term, you can put it in any way you want but it is what it is) well they have the right to be upset about the fact that a *publicly* straight cisgender rich white woman is using/appropriating/hetwashing queer/lesbian things

Also did some of you ever study? Because I'm sorry but if you take her discography and you study her lyrics in depth, it can be interpretated as pretty queercoded whether you like it or not. As someone who is having some LGBTQ (and I can go as far a feminism) classes, it sometimes does feel like these women writers/ poets/ or even random people back in these old century who through hidden messages were expressing their sexuality and whose messages are now analysed as queercoded. It is also a fact.

I won't go into what I think TS should or shouldn't do. It is not my life. I don't know her. I don't know her situation and it is HER life. I couldn't care less if she is straight (althought I will admit that I would feel a bit upset) or if she is straight (even if I will admit that a celebrity of her status coming out would be huge). It is not something that keeps me up at night. What I think is MY opinion, I know at the end of the day that I know NOTHING.

Side note: even if we are in 2022, the entertainment industry is still an industry. Practices like closeting, PR relationships, lavender marriage are still actual. It is not because the LGBTQ+ community seems more accepted than before that it actually is. Practice are still used to keep some things hidden from the public. So if (big if) TS is queer and in the closet maybe it is because of the industry, maybe it is because she doesn't want to be out. Who knows.

I will finish by saying that I believe that Taylor Swift has really mastered the art of keeping both her straight and queer side of the fandom active. Enough references and lyrics to satisfy the hetlors while keeping the queer speculations alive.

#gaylor #so while I do feel it is pretty pointless to argue with hetlors #i do feel better after that rant #as I said in the post #at the end of the day nobody knows nothing #so go on on your day and let people think what they want to think #for people who love to say that Taylor notices everything #hetlors are tone deaf the moment that involve anything leading to a possible TS queerness

[frogboyandzombieface]

Hey !!! I heard your bored , so am I :) I have a few questions for you , you can answer them if you want <3 ( I‘ll only ask stranger things questions I hope that’s ok )

Favorite season ?

Favorite characters ?

A scene you want to see in season 4 ?

Is Mike gay or Bi ( or straight ) ?

What season 4 storyline are you most excited to see ?

Favorite ships ?

Favorite quote?

Least favorite character ?

Least favorite ship ?

I can’t think of more questions right now lol sorry 🙈. Have a great day and stay safe!! 💗

HIII OH YM GOD THANK YOU!??? I LOVE YOU???? DHDHDHS 😭i did NOT expect to get this many ... yes of course it's totally fine non !! (that's my nickname for anons lolol) THANK UUU ok here we go

favourite season?

SEASON TWOOO BAYBEEEE i just LOVE THAT motherfucker . it's got the BEST 80's vibes and awesome soundtrack and THE BYLER!!!!😭😭😭😭and also MAX AND STEVE AND ALSO I LOVE PUNK EL I KNOW THAT THAT PART OF THE STORYLINE IS CONTROVERSIAL AND I AGREE IT HAS SOME ISSUES BUT I LOVE PUNK EL OKAY and i love her exploring her darker side and using her powers to get revenge but she too much of a sweetie to be like kali. she's an angel. i love el . adore her <3333 and the colour palettes and the scenes and GAH!! i just love season 2 okay. though season 1 is SUUUPER close because holy fuck that one is so beautiful and emotional especially with joyce and will being missing and learning about hoppers past and GOD !!!! just fuckign great. And I LOVE THE LITTLE KIDS THEYRE SO CUTE ! AND SO MUCH FUN!!! god i love it . season 2's my fav but s1 is So So close by like a sliver ...

favourite characters?

MAX . ROBIN. UHH WILL. DUSTIN. MIKE. uM .... csnt fucking decide oKAY 3)33&28/8922 i love them all!!! they're all my blorbos and i adore them with every bit of my tiny little pathetic gay heart !!!?2! THOUGH.... my fav FAVs are max will and robin. im not gonna chose they're all at the same level i love em thoigh robin maybe just a tiny bit less because we don't know as much about her yet , i get more attached the more we learn though i guarantee that when season 4 comes out and we get a bit more robin stuff (hopefully)... she will definitely be with max and will. I just love them. though I LOVE DUSTIN AND MIKE TOOO!!!! dustin is such a great character he's been such an awesome staple and the show definitely would be bad as hell without him. and i love mike because i LOVE HIS FUCKING STORY AND HIS CHARACYER ARc he's just my pathetic little sad gay repressed homosexual. this is probably not making sense im so sorry😭

a scene you want to see in season 4?

GOD. anything. i just want to see A SCENE . i am so desperate for content that i will literally take anYYYTHINGZZZ ... though we have gotten some new shit lately in the lead up to s4 but it's been like what?? 3 years since we've had new stuff ? or is it 4? no it's gotta be 3 .. im terrible ag maths. but tbh i reALLY REALLY want to see ronance content , el discovering herself and like finding more things she's happy about specifically a hobby, i really want her to have an interest in something because she's had like . literally NOTHING except like all her trauma or just interest in like . mike. lIKE WHAT DOES SHE LOVE OTHER THAN THAT?? can she paint? will she write ? like give me a hobby pls!!! 💀as max says there's more to life than stupid boys please let her flourish as an individual . but like dude .. there as so many scenes i wanna see and this is So long already and i think i will leave it there before i go on an incomprehensible annoying ass tangent thank u

is mike gay bi or straight ?

ohhhkay so this discourse i been seeing a lot lately . ummm ima be dead honest he seems to be more queercoded as gay rather than bisexual like .. he throws himself into a relationship with el and like yes he does show genuine interest at first and like im going off the top of my head but basically just read @beepboop358 's byler proof google slides. that will summarise my whole opinion on the whole thing tbh. BUT !! im not opposed to him being bi!!! we have no idea at this standpoint guys rememebr that ! mike has a long way to go in terms of accepting himself and coming to terms and discovery etc let's just see what the duffers are gonna do with it !!! :)) so im gonna say it can be either one but i am leaning slightly towards gay because of all the subtext .

what season 4 storyline r u most excited to see ?

ALL OF THEM !!!! literally all of them. god im so so fuckimg exicted we're gonna get CONTENT BAYBEEEE i been watching the same 3 seasons for what feels like a goddamn lifetime like PLS.. ima be a bit basic and say the pizza gang mainly because i wanna see byler develop (and it looks like they're really leaning into it now !! HOLY SHIT FHDHDJDJB!!!!! i been shipping them since 2017 and ppl thought it was like a crack ship my god we've come so far .. ) though also very excited to see the older teens storyline especially with eddie seeing what kinda character he is !!

favourite ships ?

ummm obviously byler 😭😭😭😭and also elmax GOD elmax ... and also lumax !!! fucking love them. but also ronance and stoncy and also byclair and henclair .... like so much. i love em all. AND HENDERHOP very cute <3 and hopclair!!! i just love them ALL and also steveddie even though we barely have any content yet but i have a feeling it's gonna be really fun :))

favourite quote ?

mmm this is a good question honestly !!! i really like jonathan's quote "you shouldn't like things just cause people tell you you're supposed to" i love that honestly . makes me very happy :)) but like .. also hoppers letter at the end of s3??? it just gets to my heart in a way i can't explain... like damn. i remembr first time i watched it i CRIED my eyes out like jesus but also. half the quotes from season 1 i love 'em . so many iconic bits in that season

least favourite character ?

lonnie and brenner . those cunts can go rot in hell 🥰

least favourite ship?

umm i don't know to be honest. i don't have a ship that i hate , well actually h*rringrove i DESPISE they can fuck off .. hate the billy / karen thing years are taken off my life ever time im forced to see it..

i don't like j*pper very much (but only season 3, im not about to get into it rn i cant be fucked though i don't hate it) j*ncy is eh and m*leven . i don't hate melvin but i don't think they right for each other same with j*ncy. but otherwise idk i don't hate that many ships .. there's not that many that get under my skin except i don't prefer it if they don't really have chemistry or have issues though not saying relationships can't ever have issues that's unrealistic ,

and ITS OKAY THATS PLENTLY OF QUESTIONS FJDJDJ and i hope u like my annoying long ass answers becaude i have so much shit to say !!! I HOPE YOU HAGE A GREAT DAY/NIGHT TOO ANON THANK U I LOVE U <3333

#it's 12:50am for me rn #shhhh #well axtually nearly 1am #😳 #im a night owl #ive been trna get my schedule better but it's HARD #stranger things #byeler #byler #asks #anon

[asexual-juliet]

rob thomas doesn’t know cassidy casablancas was queer but he absolutely was

#cassidy casablancas #we can all agree that he was queercoded right #veronica mars #vmars #vm #like pre-not pictured he was absolutely 100% queer #i took one look at that soft boy and said “he’s ace!!” #if you din’t take the last fifteen minutes of not pictured into account he was absolutely ace #the sex repulsion??? the breaking up with mac because she wanted to have sex with him??? my little ace heart saw that and said 😍💕💜🥺🥰 #due to personal reasons cassidy as the rapist never actually happened #so in my heart he is still ace but in-canon he’s definitely not #both because of shelley pomroy’s party and because the negative stereotypes surrounding asexuality and psychopathy are not something i want #cmckxkjzchxjxk i miss the days when i could guiltlessly enjoy ace cassidy #fuck rob thomas for killing all his gays #and/or making them into shitty people #the cassidy who lives in my head would fuckign NEVER #veronica mars spoilers #vmars spoilers #vm spoilers

[absynthe--minded]

If you don’t mind because I love to hear it, what editorial choices did Christopher Tolkien make that really frustrate you?

My top one would be Turin’s character assaination.

I do not mind being asked!! this is an incomplete list but I hope it gets the point across

Túrin’s character assassination is astonishing, you’re right, for me it’s specifically everything in Nargothrond as well as the minimizing of Saeros (and sometimes Daeron) harassing him for racist and xenophobic reasons. This is really well-known so I’m not going to spend a lot of time on it unless people want me to? it’s probably best encapsulated in another post lol.

WHERE ARE THE WOMEN, CHRISTOPHER, WHERE ARE THEY. Haleth’s all-woman bodyguards get cut out! Míriel being the inventor of sewing gets cut out! Indis and Nerdanel having a friendship gets cut out! Andreth gets cut out, with not even a mention of the Athrabeth! Morwen and Niënor lose all their character traits! Finduilas is a ghost of her former self! Idril’s character gets cut down to nothing!

Findis and Lalwen not existing. I’m actually going to give them their own bullet point because Lalwen goes to Beleriand with her brother Fingolfin. That’s an entire extra Finwëan princess to talk about!

cutting the Wanderings of Húrin from the Silmarillion was a Bad Choice because it robs Húrin of his status as like. almost a warning of divine punishment. With the Wanderings, and specifically his travels to Gondolin and Menegroth, you can make the argument that Doriath falling and Gondolin falling were in large part because they failed to look after innocents and refugees, and that’s a really neat angle

Gil-galad Son Of Fingon. Gil-galad’s parentage changed so many damn times. I am all for Gil-galad the adopted son of Findekáno and also kind of Maitimo? but Gil-galad the biological son of Fingon has caused so many fandom problems. Leaving his parentage ambiguous would have been the right choice, and Christopher himself agrees with me here.

Beren and Lúthien being directly involved with killing the dwarves who killed Thingol. Christopher also admits in HoME that having Guy Gavriel Kay help with ghostwriting that Silm chapter was a mistake, and that he probably could have succeeded in creating a coherent narrative from his father’s later work (specifically the draft where Celegorm and Curufin kill the dwarves, assuming they have the Silmaril, but Melian actually took it and went to Lúthien)

I’m still doing research on this so I can’t actually speak authoritatively on it yet but what inspired my original frustrated post was the fact that as far as I can tell, the bits in the Silm chapter “Of Maeglin” about Maeglin’s desire to marry Idril being seen as incestuous and twisted and disgusting? Entirely absent from the drafts. All I’ve found in HoME and TFOG so far indicates that J.R.R. Tolkien never wrote anything close to that - Maeglin wanted to marry her, sure, but in the Book of Lost Tales, their marriage is frowned upon because Turgon thought that his nephew was clout-chasing rather than genuinely in love with his daughter. And the other HoME volumes usually have some variation on “Maeglin wanted to marry her, and Turgon loved and trusted him, but she married Tuor instead”, if they mention him at all. All the stuff about how he loved without hope, and how she saw him as terrifyingly warped? I’m willing to say that there’s a very good chance he invented that. Maeglin’s characterization in JRRT’s writing is very different from how he is in the Silm.

Amrod surviving at Losgar. I feel like this is a pretty agreed-upon fandom thing? We all sort of just accept that he died. But it still annoys me that Chris decided not to follow that path.

Argon not existing at all. Argon’s death mirrors Amrod’s death - both Fëanor and Fingolfin have to lose a son before they can begin life in exile, and one dies in fire and the other dies in freezing cold. It also sets up an interesting relationship since Argon died defending his family and his people and Amrod died because of someone else’s selfish and misguided attempt to defend his family.

the removal of a lot of the more queercoded/queer-subtext moments. Túrin and Beleg kiss in front of the Gaurwaith in the Lay of the Children of Húrin, and in that version and the Book of Lost Tales version of the story, Túrin kisses Beleg after he dies. The green Elessar that Galadriel gives to Aragorn is mentioned to be a betrothal gift in Laws and Customs among the Eldar, and there’s one version of the story where that same green stone was given to Fingon by Maedhros.

downplaying the presence of Taliska in the narrative and stripping out a lot of Edainic cultural worldbuilding. Taliska, one of the Edainic languages (or an Edainic language with several distinct dialects) hasn’t had any publicly released information about grammar and construction. We never find out in the published Silm that the Atani - the mortal Men - call themselves the Seekers, the way the elves call themselves the Quendi. We don’t learn that nothlir is the Taliska word for “folk” or “people”, so nothlir Haletha means “folk of Haleth”. All the lengthy discussion of Edainic philosophy from the Athrabeth is gone, and Chris’s decimation of the Narn i Chin Húrin means we don’t know anything in the Silm chapter about life in Dor-lómin under Húrin and Morwen’s leadership.

I hope that answers your question? sorry, this turned out to be long.

#replies #anon replies #absynthe's meta #tolkien

[descent-into-the-rift]

What if Will Byers is bisexual

Mike turning out to be gay and Will turning out to be the one that’s bisexual is a very funny twist and all but, what if it did happen.

Maybe someone has talked about this before, and if so I’m sorry and I’d love to read it xx And please, don’t take this as a straight-up rejection of Will being gay, I still think it’s very plausible that he’s actually gay and not bisexual, (and of course, everybody has the right to their own view of it) but I really wanted to talk about this cause I actually think it’s interesting and I honestly really like the headcanon of it.

Will is the only character in the party who’s verbally queercoded, called “queer”, “gay”, “f*g” and “fairy”. He also did things such as a project of Alan Turing, claiming a day “free of girls” and so on. But actually, can we talk about something for a second?

I’ve seen it mentioned that the scene where the boys are playing Dragon’s Lair in the Arcade in 2x01 and Dustin and Lucas’ conversation is foreshadowing for Max. I agree with that, and in addition to that here’s a thing, Will is genuinely hyping Dustin up as he’s playing, Mike is too but he remains a step behind, while Will and Lucas are at Dustin’s sides.

And when Dustin loses, while Mike looks unaffected the entire time, when Lucas says “- Until then, Princess Daphne is still mine” Will grins, seemingly more interested than Mike.

There’s a palpable difference between the rest of the party’s interest in Max - and Mike’s, this is something everyone knows. And Will looks just as interested in her as Dustin and Lucas. And I may be crazy but when Dustin says "And plus, she skateboards so she’s pretty awesome” it does seem like Will’s nodding and smiling (like Lucas) even.

A reason he doesn’t straight up fancy her is he’s already in love with someone else (Mike), regardless of whether he is aware of it or not at that point, and nothing changes that. I know that he could just be impressed by the fact that she’s Madmax but, they make it a point to show you that, unlike Mike, Will is also willingly looking at her distinctly amazed, running to her crumpled paper and looking abashed (as Dustin and Lucas) when she calls them out. Mike is the only one that, unbothered, finds her note amusing.

Fine, could be a stretch, but it doesn’t end there. If I'm not entirely wrong, inside the show, Jonathan happens to compare Will to a singer that was bisexual; David Bowie.

This is probably a straight-up reach but from what I have understood, Spring Awakening (the musical Stranger Things Writers on Twitter chose to describe Will) is a musical that includes an mlm couple, in which one of them (Hänschen) is bisexual. I’m not saying just because said boy is bisexual in Spring Awakening it means in Stranger Things one of the two has to be, but if it was; Mike’s shown a lot of signs of not being attracted to girls at all, so that would leave Will.

That doesn’t necessarily have to mean anything though, but yeah.

I’m just saying if I’m not wrong, Will has never shown actual signs of not being attracted to girls, he’s shown signs of being attracted to boys; signs such as The Cure’s poster and the Alan Turing project on whose their hero - and liking Mike specifically; an endless number of signs.

Him claiming a day free of girls is not a general rejection of girls, it’s claiming a day that Mike isn’t spending with Eleven, and Lucas isn’t spending with Max, back when he didn’t feel like he was being pushed aside for the sake of their girlfriends. When he didn’t feel like Mike was pulling away from him to spend every hour with Eleven.

His comments about girls such as “Girls don’t play video games” and “Girls go to science camp?” are pretty general, a lot of teenage boys thought those things, especially back then.

His reaction to Mike’s comment “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls” could actually just be how hard it hits him that, after everything that’s happened, Mike would ever say this to him. Something like what Troy, James, and his own father used to say to him, coming from Mike.

His smile being hinted as fake when he’s dancing with the girl at the snowball is not the girl herself, it’s that it’s Mike he wants to dance with. Even the script mentions that Will is thinking about someone else entirely (Mike) rather than the girl he's dancing with.

I’m not gonna mention Jennifer Hayes because having a number of girls like you doesn’t necessarily mean you like them back.

Well, I’m not saying all this is unarguable, for sure, I’m just saying it actually could be a thing. And “Mike turning out to be gay and Will bisexual” seems less and less crazy the more you think of it. At the end of the day, Will and Mike are in love, regardless of anything else, so I just think, additionally, this possibility is really cool.

Anyway, thank you for reading all of that if you did. Regardless of that, I hope the best for you xx

#stranger things theory #will byers #byler

[variousqueerthings]

Daniel LaRusso: A Queer Feminine Fairytale Analysis Part Two of Three

Part 1

Part 3

6. Sexual Awakenings part 1: Love, Obsession, & Size Differences

[Insert that post talking about the creators making sure that Daniel’s antagonists were much bigger than him so that the audience would sympathise, spawning 10000 size kink fics]

I’m sure this won’t awaken anything in Daniel

Corporate wants you to find the difference between these two pictures

The hallmark of feminine fairytales tends to be growing into womanhood, with all those symbolic sexual under/overtones, searching for a prince, encountering monsters (or evil stepmothers), on the surface tending to be quite passive/reactive, but actually being about young girls and women getting out of their environment and choosing to tussle with those deep, dark desires – monsters. They’ve got to function within the limitations of power that they have – escaping an abusive situation through marriage, chasing forbidden desires under the guise of duress, asking questions about sexuality through things like symbolic plucking (flowers) or consumption (fruit) or pricking (needles), etc.

Daniel isn’t striking out to find his fortune or win a girl or a kingdom Like A Man, he’s not a threat to Silver, who – like Jareth in Labyrinth – is in control for almost the whole of the narrative, he’s not actually able to do much more than react until he makes the decision to stop training, and even then he’s immediately ganged up on and assaulted, needing to be saved by Miyagi while he stands and watches, bloodied and bruised. 

Daniel’s journey in the third movie is to be forced into an impossible situation, seduced by Silver, and then prove that whatever violence Silver did to him isn’t enough to destroy him. It is incredibly similar to Sarah’s in Labyrinth, who by the end declares: “you have no power over me,” and that’s her winning moment. Not strength, not wits, not a direct fight, (although Daniel does fight Barnes and gets beat up again – only winning in in the end by taking him by surprise, unlike in TKK1 or TKK2 where you could argue that he proves himself to be a capable physical opponent to Johnny and Chozen), but by declaring that whatever power was held over her is now void.

Daniel’s narrative isn’t satisfying in the same way, because the dynamic of Silver and Daniel only accidentally emulates this - it’s not an intention on the side of the film-makers.

When Miyagi tells Daniel that he has strong roots, when he tells him not to lose to fear and Daniel wins over Barnes (in an almost fairytale-esque set of events), on paper he’s defeated whatever hold Terry Silver has over him. In the film itself though, Daniel never defeats Silver (which will likely be confirmed once he returns in Season Four). Daniel cannot simply say “you have no power over me,” and see Silver shattered into glass shards. 

The film is a contradiction: It wants to be a masculine sports film, but it exists in the same realm as Goblin Kings seducing young girls with the promise of: “Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave.” Unlike Sarah, Daniel doesn’t claim the power that’s been promised to him on his own terms. His subtextually sexual awakening is so corrupted that all he can do is pretend it never happened.

Still, Daniel proves in the film that his strength is not in his fists. It’s in his praying to the bonsai tree that’s healed despite a violent boy brutally tearing it in two.

These looks on Daniel and Silver though?

So why does Silver become obsessed with him? What’s up with all those red outfits (that he doesn’t wear in Cobra Kai)? What does the temptation reveal about Daniel? How does it recontextualise TKK1 and TKK2? Is Daniel bisexual? (yes).

Ah, beach-Daniel, in your red hoodie and your cut-off jorts. Iconic hot-girl summer vibes. 

If you didn’t want me over-analysing this, you shouldn’t have put him in so many red outfits and then have this man leering at him like he wants to eat him alive.

Surface-level it’s not hard to read into a Dude Story: Masculine power fantasies are about strength in a very direct way. Fighting, control, suaveness – and if you’re not the most traditionally masculine of guys, asserting dominance through being a good lover or intelligent or overcoming that unmanliness in some way through beating the bully or convincing the hot girl to go out with you, levelling up in coolness. Being A Man. It’s not too dissimilar from Daniel’s arc in the first movie, if you watch it without taking later events into account, although Daniel is never interested in proving himself as a man, and more in making Miyagi proud. Still, he does win and gain respect, and arguably “get the girl,” although Ali’s interest in him was never dependent on the fight.

7. Sexual Awakenings Part 2: Sexual Assault, Liberation, and Queerness

Feminine power fantasies are often about sex. Metaphorically. More accurately it’s “owning sexuality.” Even more accurately: “Freedom.” They also inhabit a fluid space in which empowerment through monstrous desires and non-consent can happen at the same time. And on top of that, many of these “fantasies” are actually being written by men, so whose fantasy is it really? A lot of them are based in oral traditions so presumably they were originally from the mouths of women, even if modern iterations (starting with Grimm’s collections) are filtered through cis men’s perspectives.

All of that being acknowledged: In Angela Carter’s “The Company Of Wolves,” Red Riding Hood unambiguously sleeps with the wolf. Belle discovers her freedom from expectations and unsuitable suitors (and in some versions, evil stepsisters) by falling in love with a Beast (the original novel was written by a woman, the 18th century Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve). Jareth informs Sarah of his obsessive devotion to her in Labyrinth. To lean into horror for a moment – Buffy is stalked and eventually has relationships with both Angel and Spike, Lucy in Coppola’s Dracula (which I have mixed feelings about) is raped by the werewolf and Mina is stalked by Dracula, The Creature Of The Black Lagoon kidnaps Kay (the lead’s girlfriend) – subverted in both The Shape Of Water in which Eliza forms a consensual relationship with the amphibious sea-god and in the short-lived horror series Swamp Thing, in which the connection is purposefully framed as seductive…

and in The Karate Kid Part Three Daniel LaRusso punches a board until his hands bleed because an attractive, older man tells him to and in this moment he gives in to what he (thinks he) wants.

Not all of those examples are equal. Some are consensual, some are hinted as abusive and/or stalkery, all of them have large age gaps, and a few are outright non-consensual.

But they’re all fantasies.

They’re all power-fantasies.

Except for Daniel, because he’s a man and the idea that being obsessed (lusted) over by an older man who keeps you in his thrall, specifically because you tickle his fancy for whatever reason, because you’re beautiful, breakable, different – could in any way be considered empowering is a difficult concept to wrap your head around. It doesn’t contain that “but I’m a good girl, I’d never go off the path and pluck flowers if a bad wolf told me to, honest,” societal context or the social context of rape culture. It’s closest comparison is closeted (perhaps even unknown until that point) queer identity.

There have recently been some comparisons of Daniel LaRusso to Bruce Bechdel in Funhome (and everyone who says that Ralph Macchio ought to play him in the upcoming movie: you’re right and I’m just not going to enjoy it as much without him). I’ve written a post about Sam being the heir to his legacy and trauma, specifically as a queercoded man. It’s not dissimilar to the plot of Funhome in a lot of ways.

The other interesting source that’s been going around in connection with Daniel is the essay “The Rape of James Bond,” which discusses the use of sexual assault as a plot device for women and not for men: “About one in every 33 men [in the US] is raped. … [your statistically average, real life man] … doesn’t have a horde of enemies explicitly dedicated to destroying him. He doesn’t routinely get abducted, and tied up. Facing a megalomaniac psychopath gloating over causing him pain […] is not the average man’s average day at the office.” That last bit is just a descriptor of Terry Silver, (although I take issue at the blasé use of psychopath).

The two part youtube essay  Sexual Assault of Men Played for Laughs posits that there is nothing more de-masculinising than the threat of sexual assault and therefore any narrative that features this “rightfully” must mock any man who has been a victim or who fears being a victim of sexual assault. It is feminising. There is nothing more humiliating – and therefore unheroic – than a man dealing with sexual assault.

So what do we feel when we see an attractive young man being put into a vulnerable position by an older man? A trope associated with female characters, a trope that is considered unpalatable for men (see reactions that happened when the hint of sexual assault was introduced in Skyfall).

Was it the fact that he was being threatened, or the fact that James’ next line is: “what makes you think this is my first time?”

Some thoughts added by @mimsyaf​ are around the idea of safety in how a lot of cis women might relate to this narrative through Daniel’s eyes. He’s not a woman, he has – societally – more power than a girl or woman would have, which makes this a different watch to, say, if Danielle were to go through the same narrative. Daniel doesn’t carry that baggage of rape culture, or of the male gaze that you might find in a similar scenario of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Christine in Phantom of the Opera (and once more the age differences between these characters and the men who love/lust over them are substantial), which makes the narrative “safer” to engage with.

I agree with that, although as a transmasc person I also come at it differently. I specifically like to headcanon Daniel as a trans guy and find his fraught interactions with masculinity through his own non-toxic lens relatable, as well as the way other boys and men react to it – also I think Terry Silver is hot. I know there are people who write Terry Silver with female OCs, which is also a form of empowerment.

On the flipside putting Daniel in this space runs a risk of fetishising him as a queer youth who is either Innocent and Pure, or a bisexual stereotype that deserves to be assaulted for not being a real man. After all, Real Straight Men don’t run the risk of sexual assault.

 Alas, the road to empowerment never did run smooth. 

The comparisons between the way Daniel is treated by the text and how female characters are often treated in texts are undoubtedly there. Through Ralph Macchio and TIG’s casting and the direction and acting, but also within the text itself. 

It might not be with the same purpose as Neo’s symbolically trans journey, but it puts the whole narrative that Daniel’s going through from TKK1 under a different light than if there had only been one movie that ended on a triumphant sports win and a girlfriend.

Johnny’s masculinity and the use of tears as liberation, now that’s a whole other analysis….

#daniel larusso #terry silver #the karate kid part three #the karate kid #cobra kai #ck #cobra kai meta #part two of three #we're going into labyrinth and james bond in this one fellas #(non-gendered fellas)

[thekatebridgerton]

The only thing I care about Sophie's casting is that when she gets announced she receives more love messages than hate ones, I'm sure a lot of people will be upset about her BEING A WOMAN! I'm sure Benedict's storyline in S2 will upset the people who believe he should end up with a man even if they said since the beginning that all the couples will end with their canon couples

Okay I've been debating how to answer this for a while and I guess it's all in how you see it Anon.

While it's true that Benedict's character is 100% queercoded (and Eloise to a lesser extent) and deserves a chance to explore all that can of worms on screen for all the glory of the LGBTQ community to enjoy. The reaction to Sophie being a woman would also have a lot to do with WHEN the audience started liking Bridgerton. For book fans who have been in this for ages and have gotten used to the idea of a Sophie for years, having Benedict's ultimate love interest turn out to be a man would feel incredibly like betrayal. Because the character in a way has aged with the readers who are looking forward to Benedict's relationship with Sophie.

But if people were only introduced to Benedict in the show, where Benedict is way more queercoded than in the books his character development in season 1 would feel too much like queerbaiting. And fandoms are usually very very passionate in their dislike of this particular type of 'almost' LGBTQ representation. They would be right to be angry. It sucks when a show just uses a character's sexual orientation to lure in viewers without giving them the pay off.

But at the same time should Benedict turn out to be either Bisexual (or Pansexual). And still end up with Sophie, then it should be treated in the show as bluntly as possible. Because Bisexuals are notoriously misinterpreted in media and if they're going to do it, do it right!! So that his storyline feels less like queerbaiting and more like character development.

I am personally hoping their relationship progresses as organically as possible with Ben's bisexuality coming into play in a natural way. (Not in a forced representation sort of way.)

All in all I do prefer Sophie as a woman, I grew up with the Bridgerton books and would love to see my beloved character Sophie Beckett be played on screen by a great actress and be given the love she deserves. But if she isn't and Benedict's storyline ends up being super gay, and instead of Sophie we get a Solomon then that's okay too.

I've got a ton of romantic white Hetero oriented media I can enjoy. If I want a Cinderella story with X and Y characteristics, I can have my pick. Because it's all the media that's been allowed to exist since the founding of Hollywood. The LGBTQ community doesn't have that. They don't have a large pool of options that show the spectrum of their representation. And they're allowed to demand it.

Does this mean a Benedict gay storyline would be more interesting for me and that I won't feel sad if Sophie is erased from the storyline? No! I'll still get sad and I'll still be mad about it. I'm human and I love that character.

The difference is that I just won't go into people's internet safe places and rant about it. I'm not a jerk. If I don't like things I don't try to make those who like it feel bad. That's not okay. And those who do that need to seriously re-evaluate themselves.

I think this is something that needs to change in fandom culture. The whole thing about shaming others for liking what they like. It's not something I agree on. Especially because it just makes the fandom more toxic and unwelcoming.

And there are people who do it on both sides of the argument so this needs to be addressed

#this took a turn #but i'm serious #I love Sophie #but if she's not in Bridgerton #I'll still continue to love her

[alarrytale]

It's another way to closet him without having to rely so much on spinning stories about him with women. Old queer stereotypes still work on the general public unfortunatly. By presenting a more straight stereotypical image, he doesn't have to stunt as much. Maybe that's what we see happening here. //

How much I believe clothes have no sexuality so I also believe specific sport also doesn’t have sexuality (you can wear basic clothes without any queercoding and still be very gay and so you can be pro boxer and still be gay as fck), if this is how to proove gp that H is indeed straight because old fashioned stereotypes then I will take it anytime rather than seeing him stunting with woman. But unfortunately he’s currently officially in relationship so there’s no way for him to hint he’s gay.

But btw him doing sport is so complex, like we know he’s also into pilates, doing meditations (at least I want to believe it) and he has purple belt in jiu jitsu. So there’s much more than manly boxing and heavy weight lifting but bare anyone know.

Hi, anon!

I agree. I'd also take straight image Harry if that means less stunting. Even if he's in a public relationship (we haven't seen them together in a good while...) this new look could mean less appearances together for Harry. Harry being in a public relationship hasn't stopped him from queercoding, acting super gay and hint he's gay before. Doing double communication is both H and L's specialty. So i don't think he's adopted this straighter look because he's currently in a public relationship with a woman.

My biggest issue with this new straight(er) look is that larries who think he's willingly closeted will take this as an argument to not talk publicly about larry and give H and L P-word around their relationship. They will probably ignore the fact that Louis is still out there singing 7, bringing attention to larry in the media and inviting Dylan to his festival.

Harry loves all kinds of sports and work outs. I think he's tried it all. We used to get pics of him and get fan stories of him doing bikram yoga, coming out of S*ulCycle and running. Right know it's focused on football, golf, boxing and weight-lifting. There is a narrative shift here for me. But i don't know why and where it's leading.

#harry image #privacy #closeting #stunting #hussell for ts

[lais-a-ramos]

On Lovecraft Country and the way the narrative presents queerness

"No masters or kings when the ritual begins

There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin

In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene

Only then I am human

Only then I am clean"

Hozier, Take Me to Church

oh, boy...

i knew some of these deaths could happen in the finale, but i definetely wasn't prepared for any of this, wow.

i guess that, with the events of the finale, including atticus' death, there really is no point in getting the show renewed for a season 2, as as i hoped and wished before, because all of the conflicts that were set up were resolved. i mean, there's always the possibility of using time-travel to do a retcon and bring all the dead characters back, or, at least, two of the protagonists and the villain, but, maybe it would take too many alterations in the narrative, because it seems like the whole thing was planned for a mini-series.

so, now, all we have left is to do a breakdown of what worked and what didn't in lovecraft country's limited series run.

i think that, overall, the message of black ppl taking back the power of ancestry that was stripped from them by white supremacy and structural racism was well-done, and the symbolism was very well-crafted in the final takedown of the season's main villain, which was a representation of how the racism based on indifference born out of white privilege is almost as bad as the racism based on pure hate and despise, which is a valid message, considering the former is a bystander to the abuses and rise to power of the latter.

although i still find the timing was poorly chosen because, well, as of now, all over the world, it's not white ppl who dub themselves "liberal" or "progressive" and claim themselves to not be racist but refuse to act anti-racist that present an actual threat to our human rights, but literal, actual fascists and neo nazis...there are bigger fish to fry now...

but i digress...

on the final score, i guess that when it comes to queer/LGBTQ+ representation, the show fell actually felt real short for a product that crafted so well the race issues, proving that there is still a lot to go before we get to see intersecting identities being portrayed in media the same compex way they exist in the real world.

no, lovecraft country is not guilty of queerbaiting, unlike some of the same ppl in fandom that are the firsts to either erase the half of a couple that is a BIPOC or to deny a canon cis het biracial ship to hype up a fanon white wlw ship and other problematic stuff plenty of times in LGBTQ+ fandom spaces might say.

but that doesn't mean that the treatment of LGBTQ+ issues was satisfying or can be considered good rep, and it actually repeats some of the same tired tropes about queerness and blackness.

while we can say that the show did a relatively good job with montrose as an individual, the same can't be said of the other characters and the final messages.

like, for example, introducing a trans/non-binary indigenous, the Arawak two-spirt Yahima, only to kill them on the next episode was insensitive, to say the least.

while it's true that misha green apologized for the mistake, and said she and the writers tried to make a point that even oppressed groups are capable of oppression, the final score was that a trans/non-binary character was introduced as a plot-device and brutally murdered before having even a chance to properly develop.

in other words, used as a prop.

in a world in which trans ppl are brutally murdered at alarming rates, and most of the victims are BIPOC trans ppl, that is something that we can't let it slide just because the general message of the show was good for cis het black ppl.

the same can be said on the treatment of sammy in the narrative.

while it's true that montrose being aggressive and acting the way he did, pushing ppl he cared about away and shunning every chance of vulnerability due to internalized homophobia, toxic masculinity and misogyny, as this very interesting critique by amani marie hamed of nerdist pointed out, his characterization nonetheless falls into the same old stereotype in american culture of accusing black ppl of falling behind when it comes to queer acceptance and associating black masculinity with homophobia.

also, the author of the article says it better, but, overall, sammy's existence ends up being just another plot device, serving to say to the audience that the producers and writers know that queer ppl existed in the 50's, but, at the same time, repeating some of the same tropes as usual, like associating being queer with being clandestine and deviant instead of showing it as a natural thing that was perceived as deviant at the time, as we can see by that scene of sammy having a sexual encounter in the alley behind his bar.

the author even mentions that queer ppl overall had houses, and most of the encounters actually happened there, and that scene reinforces the idea that queerness is inherently animalistic.

the article also points out how sammy is mostly there just to be shutted out, first by montrose and latter even atticus, and, ends up being another prop to lift montrose to deuteragonist status, being rejected and abused by montrose solely to highlight tic's father journey with his personal issues that apparently he simply wrapped up in a span of 2 episodes.

the fact that sammy was a also a more feminine gay man, even participating in ball culture as a drag queen, and yet most of his appearences involved him being degraded or shut out or overall mistreated by montrose, even tic, and that scene in which atticus forgives montrose after he revealed he never acted on his homosexuality and cheated on tic's mom, even though it's implied she did cheat on him with his brother george, just reinforces the idea it's ok for black and brown men to be gay, as long as they are not THAT GAY™️.

the introduction of thomas in episode 1x09 only to be murdered in the riots is another example of how queerness seem to come with a price in this show if you act on it.

once again, a gay character was introduced in the narrative to further montrose's pain and trauma.

and his introduction was absolutely not necessary, because being a survivor of a massacre like the tulsa riots and a survivor of parental physical abuse is already was already enough for making tic and the audience begin to emphatize with montrose's pain, there was no need to kill another queer character just for that.

not to say we should agree with everything the nerdist article says, of course.

at times, it felt like the author was saying that addressing these issues in the black community is a problem on itself, and that is definetely not the solution.

but, when we consider the setting of a limited series with a plot-driven approach to the scripts, the way the topic is addressed ends up being superficial and rushed, and what could have been a delicate approach to a complicated man discovering his sexuality if the show was an on-going series, ends up being just a narrative built to put montrose in the spotlight in an attempt of getting a few emmy nominations for outstanding performances, and that's about it.

now, what really serves to cement the LGBTQ+/queer representation in lovecrat country as a disservice is the treatment of ruby, christina and their relationship.

i did a few metas explaining christina's and ruby's characterizations, including one i posted before the finale started explaining why ruby was so important to queer black and feminine-aligned nbs being a dark-skinned fat black queer woman discovering her sexuality and figuring out there was more to life than the social roles that were pushed into her, and how the parallels between her and christina, two different women separated by race and class but with the common feeling of being interrupted by social restraints that binded them, were a way for a character like ruby to be treated by the narrative the same way white women get to be treated in fantasy stories, as someone worthy of being courted and romanced as a light-skinned and thin black woman like her sister leti.

but with that finale, and the way the whole thing played out, with not only christina and ruby dead, but also with christina killing ruby, felt, ironically, like the very same trope that's been the norm for queer characters for a long time.

if we consider the tropes of the genre the show and the source material draw inspiration from, pulp fiction magazines, a medium that was very popular until the rise of the cinema and TV in the 50's and 60's that also served as an inspiration for them, then we know that in this medium some of the harmful tropes about queerness that exist until this day were particularly prevalent, including that of the queercoded villains.

to talk about this, i'm going to refer to this amazing article by tricia ennis on the history of queercoding for syfy wire.

first, a definition:

"queer coding, much as the name suggests, refers to a process by which characters in a piece of fictional media seem — or code — queer. this is usually determined by a series of characteristics that are traditionally associated with queerness, such as more effeminate presentations by male characters or more masculine ones from female characters. these characters seem somehow less than straight, and so we associate those characters with queerness — even if their sexual orientation is never a part of their story."

between the hays code in cinema going from 1934 to 1968, the comics code authority in the comics industry from 1954 to the early 21st century (with dc comics and archie comics being the last to break with it in 2011, mind you), the code of practices for television broadcasting from 1952 to 1983 and its predecessor for radio NAB code of ethics, the authors all over mass media couldn't approach the topic of queerness and portray openly and proud queer characters under the risk of being persecuted by the censors, and so, begin to hide queer chracters under the disguise of subtext.

and given the content creators couldn't show any form of positive queer/LGBTQ+ representation under the risk of being punished by the censors, the alternative they found was to portray the queer characters as the villains or antagonists or degenerates, and punish them with death.

the syfy wire article says it better than i ever could:

"even dangerous LGBTQ tropes rose out of this time period, as the depictions of pulp noir femme fatales and other deadly women rose in popularity. these women were usually written as promiscuous and sexually devious, both with men and sometimes with women. they were also evil and usually met their end as a result of their sins. While depictions of LGBTQ characters were frowned upon, depictions of them in this specifically negative light were not. you were not endorsing an “alternative lifestyle” if your gay characters always met an untimely demise. Instead, they were merely paying for their poor choices. this trope would eventually give way to what we now refer to as 'Bury Your Gays.' "

and the thing is, all those censorship laws are over by now, but the tropes/clichés that arised on that era are still prevalent in pop culture 'till this day, consumed by the audiences and reproduced by content creators, in the industry or in fan spaces, whether they are aware of said trope/clichés or not.

now, that is where ruby, christina and their affair on the show enter.

to explain how problematic and harmful the way these characters have been portrayed is, and what kind of message it sends about black queerness, i first have to explain christina's function on the story.

christina, as a character, was basically the texbook pulp noir femme-fatale, checking most of the boxes of the tv tropes description of the trope, from the "red equals evil and sin" imagery to being a wild card, that character who changes sides according to their own desires and individualistic goals.

in her specific case, helping the white supremacists and the black heroes alike in her pursue for unlimited power to protect herself from the oppression that comes with being a white woman, particularly a wealthy one, in which the very same presumption of innocence that gives them privilege over BIPOC is used to infantilize them and strip them from their agency, putting their bodies and choices under the tutelage of cis het white men.

so, her function on the show was basically to manipulate the characters on the two sides alike.

and that is where the problems in queer representation come in, because, to manipulate them, she acts as a sensual seductress.

and what does the script uses to highlight that this is a character willing to go to the most immoral places to achieve her goals? it makes christina a sexually fluid and gender fluid character.

that is basically playing a move straight from the hays code era.

not only does the show plays christina's sexual and gender fluidity as her being "freaky" and a proof of her deviant nature, but it makes her seduction of ruby as a central part of the scheme that positions her as the main villain of the show.

this portrayal of christina as a textbook femme-fatale with a touch of white feminism is already very problematic on its own, especially when we consider her death and how brutal it was, because, yes, while it's true she is privileged because she is white and wealthy, she is still a woman and a queer one at that, and giving her the same traditional treatment for femme-fatales in pulp fiction ends up reinforcing harmful stereotypes about gender and sexuality.

but, when we consider what it means for ruby as a character, it gets WAY worse.

ruby is a character that's been shown to feel very frustrated about the ways in which societal structures of power interfere in her life, not only on a professional level, but even on a personal level as well, making her feel "interrupted".

dealing with the same issues that all black women and feminine-aligned nbs who don't fit into the eurocentric standards of femininity and of beauty do, and not matching the criteria for being hypersexualized by society as the black women considered conventionally pretty -- with thin bodies like the white women or hourglass body frames, being light-skinned and so on --, ruby has her humanity stripped from her because everyone expects her to be stronger than it's humanly possible.

everyone seems to expect something of her at home, her younger sister took advantage of her money for years, and not only all of her goals in the professional realm seem to be frustrated by social structures of oppression, but even her relationship goals as well, given that most of the men that she gets involved with, whether they are black or white, seem to believe they have the right to abandon her and treat her like trash because she doesn't feel a thing and is "strong" enough.

ruby feels frustrated and tired, and she has every single right to do so, because, as what happens to most black women and feminine-aligned nbs, she is disrespected and disregarded by everyone, white and black alike.

so, when christina comes in with an offer of improving ruby's life with magic, of course she takes the opportunity.

and it seemed like the show was willing to deal with the moral complexities of christina's shapeshifting potion and validating ruby's feelings, or at least, sort of validating.

but, by killing her at the end, it just played out as if ruby's feelings meant she was merely a traitor to the race, and not a woman who was tired of feeling frustrated with all of these impossible obstacles society sets for black women and feminine-aligned nbs, especially dark-skinned and fat ones like her, and justified in her anger and frustration.

she did everything right and accomplished nothing, and, when she finally decided to rebel and focus on herself for a change, she met her demise.

but that is just the tip of iceberg, really.

what makes this situation with ruby so frustrating is the fact that, when the show presented christina's queerness as another sign she was "on the wrong side of the tracks" and a villian that should be defeated by the black heroes, which consist in a family, the narrative is implying that a person has to choose between their queerness, on one side, and their blackness and community on the other.

of course, one might argue that the fact montrose was turned into a gay man himself in the adaptation prevents this from happening. but, when we consider montrose was forgiven by tic only after reinforcing he never did cheated on dora and acted on his queerness and lived his gayness, when he really had every single right to do so, especially because it's implied dora slept with his brother george and the three of them knew she was just montrose's beard, then we have the message that it's ok to be queer as long as you don't act on your queerness at all.

there is a part in the review for nerdist that i mentioned above, in which the author says that one of the book's best qualities was that "the source material also illustrates the importance of family and community ties between Black protagonists", and that the TV show ruins it when it "introduces abuse, alcoholism, and family dysfunction, and strips Black characters of their own magic."

that is a part of the article, published in october 14 2020, that now no longer makes sense after the finale, because that message is there.

but, the actual problem is that the ideas of family and community shouldn't be taken for granted bc they are always under political dispute, and are oftenly used to reinforce backward messages when it comes to gender and sexuality, serving as a tool for the control of the bodies and authonomy of ppl of various marginalized groups and intersecctions, including women, BIPOC and queer ppl alike.

while these things are not inherently good or bad, and they are also part of the culture and identity for plenty of BIPOC ethnical identities, the concepts of family and community are usually weaponized by conservatives and used to justify things like queerphobia and the restrictions over reproductive rights.

queer ppl in all walks of life and skin colors all over the world have to deal with plenty of conflicts about coming out because, by deciding to live their own truth, they can never know for sure whether coming out will put them at odds with their families and community until they dare to do so.

so, ruby's dillemma for not knowing what to choose, her family or a life with christina, plays out as the type of experience queer ppl have to deal on a daily basis, and when we consider the intersection with race/ethnicity, it gets even more cruel because our gender identities and sexual/romantic/aesthetic orientations, that are natural parts of us, make us being invisibilized and silenced in our own cultures and feel like we have to give up on our own communities in order to be able to live our queerness.

there are few things more gut-wrenching than that feeling of fear that you might be disowned by your family and relatives and your community -- whether is it a neighbourhood, a village, a small town etc -- because a part of yourself is considered at odds with your heritage.

and when we consider all the christian imagery in the show, the final result is a really troubling one.

while it's true that being christian and believing in god doesn't authomatically makes anyone a bigot (i actually still retain some of the beliefs i was raised into as a catholic latin-american), it's also true that now, more than ever, we can't ignore science, including history.

the entire way in which they referred to magic as a devil's work was very troubling and evocates the same discriminative rethoric that white european colonizers used to justify the destruction of the ancient old religions and beliefs of BIPOC in their own homeland, the ancient culture of our ancestors, and also the oppression of peasant women in europe.

while we can't generalize, given each culture had its own particularities, there's an agreement in the scientific community that, overall, the cultures of the first nations and indigenous folks from the american continent, the african continent, the asian continent and oceania/pacific islands were far more accepting of different manifestations of queerness.

that means that queerphobia was part of the colonial project, once the traditional family values of christianity were used as a tool for the white colonizers to regulate the bodies and sexuality of the colonized and keep them under control.

and that is why the association of these ideals of family and community as inherent to blackness ends up being problematic, because we can't discuss racism without discussing colonization, and we can't discuss colonization without considering the ways in which queerphobia and religion were used as tools of colonial oppression.

the worst part is that, when it comes to ruby, the producers and writers really didn't need to do kill her at all.

and while the show did right in not showing how christina killed ruby, sparing the audience from watching another black body being brutalized, it's also true they didn't have to kill the character to get her out of the way from the final confrontation between christina and tic's family.

they literally went and changed her background from her book counterpart and made the woman a musician, and a blueswoman at that.

all they needed was to have her share a goodbye scene with christina the same way she had with leti, saying that she wanted to be with christina but couldn't fight her family and friends like that, grab a copy from the safe travel negro guide and set off in a bus to travel all over the U.S., singing very sad blues songs about falling in love with a white devil once.

that's all the producers and writers needed, to use the "sent in a bus" trope.

but the choice was to portray ruby as a character facing the consequences of following her desires , which ends up feeling like a punishment for a dark-skinned and fat queer black woman for daring to question the position society has placed her because of who she is.

this is in no way an attempt to "cancel" the producers or the writers, because a) their work is still important as a team of mostly black creators and b) canceling doesn't seem to have significant consequences, and seems to lead only to more social media wars than anything else.

but now that it finally seems diversity is getting more space in media, this type of discussion gets more important.

there is a slow increase on more representation of queer/LGBTQ+ characters in media and more productions involving queer/LGBTQ+ creatives, but, most of the time, the characters and are white, or, when there are biracial couples, the characters of color are just token minorities, and the same happens with the creatives involved in the production.

there is a slow increase in BIPOC characters representation in media and more productions involving BIPOC as creatives, but, most of the time, the characters are cis heterosexual, and the same happens with the creatives involved in the production.

but, for pop culture and media to be truly diverse, there has to be more space for the narratives of ppl that exist and belong to the two groups to raise our voices and be heard, whether is it in the entertainment industry, society at large or even in fandom spaces.

because she shouldn't be forced to pick between one identity over the other.

our existences shouldn't be interrupted just because society doesn't know how to deal with them.

and if that make us sinners, then so be it.

#lovecraft country #ruby baptiste #christina braithwhite #ruby x christina #rubtina #rutina #montrose freeman #lgbtqiap+ #lgbtq representation #queer representation #poc representation #woc representation #moc representation #black women representation #representation in media #representation in fiction #tv representation #it's ok for non-BIPOC queer folks to reblog #and it's ok for non-queer BIPOC folks to reblog

[autisticandroids]

i was reading ur alt s6 stuff and i think they fumbled the heaven and angels plots so badly in s6 and the following seasons so much because they simply didn't care about heaven at all. they wrote it because they needed cas to be Away and Busy. partly because of the superpowered character thing and partly bc of the dean thing. so instead of actually thinking anything through they would set up and knock down angels plots so cas would always be off chasing something 1/3

pi KNOW they were worried about having such an overpowered character with suddenly no qualms about being loyal entirely to them, but the solution to that is to simply make him human. there is so much to explore there and he wouldn't be useless - his knowledge alone would be incredibly useful, not to mention his connections. he would be the anya (from buffy) of spn - has a bunch of comic relief moments but also bc he's new at humanity & played as autistic he can cut through the bullshit by 2/3

simply questioning things that are taken for granted. which would help both boys question their status quo's and continue to grow instead of falling back into the same brother drama over and over and over again. anyway this all started because i was commenting on how the spn writers had zero interest in heaven but i guess i ended up opposite of where u are and i propose getting rid of heaven politics altogether and bring cas down to earth lmao. but anyway i love reading ur alt s6 stuff! 3/3

okay so, i have my own theories on the specifics of why the angel shit happened the way it did, but yeah you’re mostly right. basically: i think s6, specifically, suffered more from “sera gamble is a bronly” disease than “we need to get rid of cas for uhhhhhhhhhh reasons” disease. 

i actually wouldn’t mind if s6 was a jeremy carver style “we need to get rid of cas for uhhhhhhhhh reasons” plot, that’s actually basically what my season six au is! like my au is in many ways “what if season six, but carver style (but good because carver is incompetent as a writer and showrunner)?” like, i think fundamentally the problem with the angel bullshit in carvernatural is threefold. first, carver’s seasons were just, like, bad, because carver was a bad showrunner. like, he was a heller, he loved cas, he intentionally queercoded dean so hard that i’m shocked he didn’t get shut down by the network, but he was a bad writer and showrunner. reason number two is that he was always trying to separate cas from the bros but never for like..... reasons that made sense. it was all kind of manufactured conflict, or a lot of it was. plus i feel like once cas has lost his wings it makes more sense for him to actively try and stick w the bros, vs before that it does make sense that he’d be off doing his own shit. and then the third, biggest reason why the carver seasons angel bullshit didn’t work was fucking! because godstiel was SO critical to all the angel bullshit but sera gamble didn’t give a shit and made a hash of the worldbuilding!

like, i actually really like angel stuff because i am, in my heart, a star trek fan, i love stories about governments and bureaucracies and diplomacy and politics and espionage and institutions. and the only real place for that on spn is heaven. hell, that’s actually why a lot of the heaven stuff feels out of place: the basic vibe of spn requires that governments not exist. this is something i’ve always found kind of galling about spn, actually, BECAUSE i love stories about governments. but heaven politics can be that, so in my spn it will be because i think it’s sexy.

but like, no, the problem with season six specifically is first and foremost that sera gamble is a bronly, and only cares about cas insofar as he affects or illuminates the brothers, which is CRAZY given that he was the one having the character arc in season six.

but also i do agree with you. if i was allowed to cause the show to go totally au after or mid s4? i would completely be like..... keep angels as fucked up and mysterious and inhuman as possible and just nerf cas and then keep him fucking nerfed. i actually made a post about this a million years ago where i said if i could make like, a couple things about spn good good instead of like, spn good, then one of those things would be angels and keeping them big and scary and other. and the best way to do this is never have them play too big a role and to keep cas fucking nerfed.

also, i LOVE the concept of cas as the anya of spn fkjgneirjgneign

#cxnyonmoon #spn #asks #good s6 au

[dgcatanisiri]

For the love of...

Look. Let’s address the obvious first off: Fandom has problems with women. We all know this. We also know that “has problems” is putting matters rather mildly.

That is a fine premise. Plenty to go on from there.

What is NOT a fine follow up is defending the idea that “fandom hates women” by pointing to the reaction to R*ylow. Because that entire ship? That is a dumpster fire in its own right even before getting to the whole dust up where, because of him making a harmless joke about sex, specifically his character in Star Wars and Rey, another fictional character in Star Wars, having sex, there’s a movement within that group to discredit and tear down John Boyega. 

Like, we’ll get to that business in a bit. But let’s address the fact that the majority of R*ylows are shipping CHARACTERS THAT ARE NOT SHOWN. 

The whole business of this ship is to use Rey to “redeem” “Ben Solo,” a character who metaphorically killed himself in TFA through the literal killing of his father. The two meetings of Rey and Kylo Ren in TFA were first him rendering her unconscious and kidnapping her, and then her attempting to kill him for his murder of Han Solo and attack of Finn - killing her mentor and attacking her friend.

But those who ship this transplant the characteristics that defined Finn onto Kylo Ren, who they refer to as Ben Solo, a name he rejects until about the last hour of the most recent movie. They make him into a tortured character who is tragically torn between the light and the dark, has not made a decision on where he stands and needs to be pulled back. EXCEPT Kylo Ren was introduced ordering the slaughter of an innocent village - a slaughter that Finn refused to participate in. 

All of this is, let’s not mince words, based off the fact that Kylo Ren is a white man and Finn is a black man. Because we saw, back before TFA released, a heaping TON of abuse hurled towards him purely for BEING a black man - I remember vividly all the anti-blackness going around when we had no more than a trailer for the sequel trilogy. 

I am not - let me repeat this NOT - shaming anyone, male, woman, enby, whatever you identify as, for wanting the narrative of “saving the monster.” As a queer person, yeah, I get that, considering that a lot of my narratives growing up that I can identify with have all kinds of queercoding throughout them, even when involving straight pairings. But the defining difference has always been that in those stories, the monster wanted to be accepted as a person. TFA gave us a monster who chose to be monstrous.

And TLJ only added into this narrative - Rey refused to join Kylo. ONCE AGAIN, he spurned her offers of coming back to the light, choosing to take the leadership of the First Order. We also saw in flashback that he chose to respond to Luke briefly flirting with the idea of killing him by BURNING THE ACADEMY TO THE GROUND. Whatever you want to say about Luke’s moment of weakness, that is definitely overreacting, that is taking out your pain on innocent others.

TRoS even brings this to a conclusion, a similar one to the redemption of Anakin Skywalker, being unable to live in the world that he saved, that no act he could do could balance the scales to allow him to be a part of that world, considering the deaths and pain at his hands in specific.

So that - THAT - is who Kylo Ren was on screen.

The R*ylow version of him, however, is some scared teenager/young adult, who has been ignored, emotionally neglected by his parents, nearly murdered by his uncle, and drowning in the darkness, in need of a rope.

The canon version of him, to sum up, is a roughly thirty-ish adult man, raised by loving parents who had a galaxy to rebuild and couldn’t devote every second to him, his uncle had a moment of weakness where he pointed a weapon at who he perceived as a threat (I can give this, or I would, had Kylo stayed and even TRIED to get answers, but the indications are that he ran and proceeded to destroy the academy), and at every turn gave in to the darkness until his mother gives her life to drag him back to the light side.

I don’t care what your fantasy is, what bothers me is the ignoring and VERY HIGHLY SELECTIVE reinterpreting of the on screen material to justify this idea of Kylo Ren being a broken and abused bird in need of kindness. Because on screen, he spurns all the kindness he gets until Leia sacrifices herself. And THAT I only accept because of the filming limitations of Carrie Fisher’s last content.

And then we return to the issue of this backlash to John Boyega’s tweets. All of this is because he made a joke about sex, implicitly his character and Rey - the character that R*ylows have designated “belongs” to Kylo - having sex. And this has led to him being harassed (and not for the first time, because TFA did seem to be building to something between Rey and Finn), and by these same people.

We led with “fandom has problems with women.” This? This is “fandom hates black people.” And “fandom REALLY hates interracial couples.”

Like, take a stroll through AO3. How often do you see interracial M/F couples in the top of the listing of pairings? About the only serious example I can come up with off the top of my head is Sleepy Hollow and Ichabod/Abbie, which ended up never being canon. Because of the white showrunners and producers getting cold feet about it and deciding to repeatedly throw white women at Ichabod while continually sidelining Abbie until her actress finally decided to leave - given that she hadn’t even been invited to be part of the special features for the season two DVDs, and the fact that she’d already gotten reduced to the sidekick on a show where she should have been the lead.

Or even on a show where a non-white man is the lead - let’s look at Teen Wolf for another fine example. The show’s lead was a Latino teenager. The favored fandom pairing involves two white guys who, the initial episodes featuring them interacting showed, didn’t particularly care for one another. This led to the fandom turning that dynamic into “they secretly want to fuck,” and, as we see with Finn and Kylo, transplanted characterization and dynamics onto the other characters to prop up their ship.

I repeat myself above. I am not judging fantasy. Hell, I’m not even against writing alternate universe variations where the good guys are bad guys and vice versa. The problem I am seeing here, the reason that I cannot abide R*ylow, the reason that I see that specifically as a toxic fandom element, is because it actively diminishes the black man involved in matters - MANY fics will either downplay or completely trash Finn’s canon character in the name of making him the villain who Kylo must defeat to claim Rey.

These people claim to love “Kylo and Rey,” but frequently they are treating her as his redemptive sexy lamp, her purpose is to be his reward for reaching the bar that is basic human decency, having no interest in her beyond her being there to reward him for finally rejecting the darkness, when she has no canonical romantic interest in Kylo and only knows Ben as an idea. Even when the canon has her trying to reach to him, she is NOT doing it because of her intense love - love is not a switch, it is not some snap decision. It comes about because of knowing a person. Lust is instant. Attraction is instant. Love? That requires time. The ideal of Ben as a person could be attractive. But Kylo is not who Rey is or would be attracted to. 

All of this is still secondary to the fact that, because of an actor making a joke about his character and another character - a character who repeatedly has an inherently far kinder dynamic with his - having sex, there is a group of this fandom who has decided that this was an attack on them, and they must respond in kind. 

Whether or not you agree with ANY of what I have said of the interactions of Kylo and Rey, PLEASE tell me that you agree that THAT behavior is unacceptable. And THAT is the group that people are referring to when they speak so derisively about R*ylows. 

Because that is the group that speaks loudest. They’re who come to mind when the topic turns to this ship. You may not be part of it, but guilt by association comes into effect, because this group is hostile to anyone who doesn’t implicitly agree with them. And when you get this hostility from what comes across - whether it’s fact or perception - as a massive wing of total strangers, strangers who decide that, because you disagree with them, you are The Enemy, and you must be destroyed... Yeah, your reflex becomes “That group is trash, do not listen to them, do not engage with them, and god, aren’t they pathetic for devoting themselves to this ridiculous thing of made up characters.”

You want to go after the issue here? Root out the bad behavior that is the cause. Not the symptom. The symptom might be hating on women. But the cause is still the racism that started all of this.

You want to talk about how fandom hates women? Fine. Go right ahead. But don’t use a topic that came about because of racism to do it.

#dg gets pissed #dg rants #'pissed' barely covers it really...

[kittyprincessofcats]

I know I’m about to open a can of worms here, but... Can someone explain to me how the mind of a Loki-hater works? I just don’t understand? I mean, if someone just doesn’t like him or doesn’t care... fine, whatever, we all find different characters appealing. But what I don’t understand is the people who genuinely call him “a priviledged white murderboy” or compare him to characters like Kylo Ren (who is a priviledged white murderboy, just to be clear on that).

How can someone watch Thor 1, The Avengers, and Thor TDW and somehow come to the conclusion that Loki is a priviledged, sheltered, rich kid who never had problems and kills people for the lulz. HOW? Did they watch the movies with both eyes and ears closed? Did they only watch The Avengers and skip through half of Thor 1? Is it the misogyny (most of Loki’s fans are women so obviously they must only like him for his looks, “dumb fangirls” etc.)? Seriously, how do you watch these movies and miss out on:

- Odin being a dictator and colonizer who kidnapped Loki from his home country as a baby, changed his appearance with a spell to make him “pass” as Asgardian, stripped him of his birth culture and even raised him to consider his birth country evil

- Loki being neglected and not taken seriously his whole life, having his “feminine” interests mocked in Asgard’s partiachic society, constantly being made fun of by Thor’s friends, his own brother - who he adores more than anything - putting him down all the time, his father never acknowleding him

- Loki (who never wanted the throne in the first place) having to suddenly run a kingdom when his brother gets himself banished and his father falls into the Odinsleep, having to suddenly manage a war he didn’t start, dealing with Thor’s friends commiting treason, dealing with the revelation of his heritage and the feeling that he has to prove himself to Odin now. (Okay, to be fair, I think Frigga handing him control and telling him to make his father proud was a deleted scene, so the actual movie might make it look like he took the throne and planned all of this, but he didn’t. Think about it for one second: There’s no way he could have predicted the Odinsleep or Thor’s banishment. He looks shocked when both happen.)

- Loki trying to destroy his birth realm in a desperate attempt to prove that he’s “not like them”, Loki being so desperate that he commits suicide when Odin doesn’t approve.

- No one in Asgard (except for Frigga) mourning Loki at all. Loki asking Thor “Did you mourn?” in The Avengers, because he knows they didn’t and he’s right.

- Loki being tortured by Thanos and forced to attack New York. How is that something people miss? Did everyone take their bathroom break during that scene where The Other threatens Loki? Did they conveniently ignore the after-credits scene?

- Odin telling Loki “Your birthright was to die” and acting like Loki should be grateful Odin didn’t murder him as a baby. Just in case you forgot: This was their first interaction after Loki’s suicide attempt. Odin found out his son - whom he drove to try and commit suicide - was alive, and the first thing Odin did was telling him he should have died and that he would have executed him for his crimes if it wasn’t for Frigga.

- Just to put this into perspective: When Thor started a war and killed hundreds of Frost Giants, Odin banished him to Earth without his powers for three days. When Loki tried to commit suicide, got tortured and attacked Earth and killed people because Thanos forced him to, Odin wanted to execute him, only agreed not to because of Frigga, then locked Loki up in solitary confinement for the rest of his life and didn’t allow Frigga to see him.

- Loki wasn’t even allowed to go to his mother’s funeral. Thor never even asks him why he attacked Earth, only visits Loki when he needs his help, refuses to comfort him about Frigga’s death and promises to lock Loki up again if he does help him. And people are blaming Loki for not telling Thor he was alive? Would you have told the man who promised to lock you up for the rest of eternity that you’re alive? I kinda doubt it.

- And even after all of that, Loki was merciful enough to only banish Odin to a care-home on Earth instead of killing him. (Friendly reminder that Kylo Ren murdered his father while his father was offering him a second chance. Odin never offered Loki any chances, straight-up wanted to kill him, and Loki still showed mercy. But sure, tell me more about how your comparison is totally appropriate.)

How do people watch ALL OF THAT, and somehow not end up at least admitting that Loki was treated unfairly? How do people watch these movies and say that he’s selfish when all he’s ever been doing is sacrificing himself for his family over and over again and getting nothing in return? HOW??? Someone explain this to me, because it blows my mind.

And sidenote - the whole “straight white murderboy” thing is such complete BS it makes me want to slam my head against my desk. 1) Loki’s not straight. He’s canonically bi/pan in the comics and queercoded in all of this movies. 2) Not even the “boy” part is true - Loki is genderfluid. 3) The “white” part is what really blows my mind when people use it as a reason to hate this character. Because first of all Loki’s entire story is about being a different race than the rest of his family and being treated like shit because of it. (Yes, I realize it’s “fantasy blue people racism”, not real-world racism, but it’s still an aspect of the character that - in the fantasy context - makes him the opposite of priviledged.) And secondly... all of the Avengers in A1 are also white? 5/6 of them are straight white guys? So who are we supposed to root for, according to these Loki-haters? In Star Wars, there’s POC heroes who get ignored by the fandom and I understand the frustration of everyone loving the white villain instead - but in the first(!) Avengers everyone is white? So who does tumblr think is a more deserving fave here??? I just don’t understand this logic even in theory??

(Seriously, someone explain this to me? Is is because of the Hitler comparison in The Avengers? Because that honestly should be blamed on Joss Whedon being a shitty writer who can’t get a ‘character is evil’ message accross differently. Narratively, this comparison doesn’t fit at all. Or is it because people took the ‘Loki keeps betraying Thor’ line from Ragnarok and took it seriously instead of judging the movies by what actually happened? I tried to read posts where people explain why they hate Loki, and whenever they list all the “horrible things he’s done” half of them are things that never even happened? Like... “repeatedly betrayed his brother who trusts him” - NOT TRUE, “tried to commit genocide on earth” - NO HE DIDN’T??, “killed more people than anyone else” - FACTUALLY WRONG, “always fakes his death” - HE LITERALLY NEVER DID, “betrayed Asgard” - BITCH WHEN?, “only did one selfless thing in his life” - which one of them are you talking about, just wondering?, “freed Hela” - are we just making shit up at this point? he didn’t even know about Hela!, “caused Odin’s death” - why is anyone acting like that’s a bad thing and Odin didn’t deserve to die?, “facist dictator” - again: WHERE? Do any of you stupid Americans even know what facism is? Stop throwing around big words if you don’t know how to use them.)

Or is it just that people don’t actually know the movies, see a villain who has huge female fanbase and come to the “obvious” conclusion that it must be because those women are stupid and “like making excuses for bad boys”? Do people take Tom Hiddelston more seriously when he talks about Loki’s motivations and says he’s just misunderstood and not evil? Because this time it’s a man saying it?

#Loki #MCU #Loki Meta #Thor movies #Loki's resistance #Loki Friggason #long post #this just honestly baffles me #I get that not eveyone spent the same amount of time reading Loki-meta but... this is some really obvious stuff?