#without ever making one ‘right’

[centaurianthropology]

Let’s talk about THAT SCENE, shall we?  The big scene of episode 8, when both Alexander Skarsgard and David Dastmalchian acted their fucking asses off in a mess of mutual vulnerability, mutual aggression and betrayal, and mutual destruction. 

First off, I have to acknowledge the double-entendres absolutely littering this scene.  The mutual vulnerability!  The physical link-up, plugging into one another.  Digging into their most private (mental) places. The request for fucking restraint followed by an electronic blindfolding.  Shit, man, if there aren’t 18000 buck-wild Murderathin fics coming out of this one episode, the fandom is seriously dropping the very kinky ball that is this absolute shit-show of a relationship.

Anyway!  Onto more serious discussions. 

First off, we learn so much in such a short time.  This show has been a masterclass at utilizing a limited run-time well, demanding that everything on screen pull double or triple duty, layered with meanings and implications, and this scene is no different.  Through their mutual accusations, we get mutual confessions.  Murderbot uses an instance of mutual vulnerability to dig into Gurathin’s mind to try to find dirt on him, only to get lost in his thoughts.  It exposes Gurathin’s most closely-guarded secret—his unrequited love for Mensah—but also Gurathin’s belief that he is fundamentally unloveable.  And the accusation is read out in first-person, transforming it into a confession.  Because Murderbot very much sees itself as unloveable too.

And Gurathin has simultaneously dug into Murderbot, uncovering the fragmented memories of the massacre, and its actual name.  And much like Murderbot, what we see is equal parts accusation and a horrified confession.  Gurathin is in tears as he watches through the massacre footage (and kudos to the special effects folks for playing the footage over both Dastmalchian’s and Skarsgard’s eyes during the scene, showing both of them trapped in the same instant together), blurting out the revelation in third person rather than first, but following it up immediately with his accusations about being defective.  A danger to everyone around him.  One thought from something terrible.

Sounds a lot like self-loathing, doesn’t it?  And that’s what this scene is all about.  Two people who can’t help but dig and pry and hurt one another because they see themselves in the other.  And they hate themselves.  They are both terrified of being defective, of being somehow involved in terrible acts that led to deaths.  We don’t know if Gurathin killed people directly, but he almost certainly had the information he gathered used to kill people.  He was responsible, maybe.  Just like Murderbot.

And they are both terrified of falling back into that place.  It’s why they’re both terrified, more than anything, of being controlled.  Murderbot broke free of its governor module, but still works for the Company.  It still isn’t a fully independent being and never will be so long as it’s a part of this organization.  Its small pieces of full independence are its thoughts and its name, and Gurathin exposed both of those. 

Gurathin is terrified of falling back into substance abuse.  Realizing that it was medical painkillers that were the first step to getting him thoroughly addicted and compliant was awful, because it implies either a past physical trauma or—I think more likely—pain medications as part of the augmenting procedures.  You have to imagine having cybernetics laced into your brain and replacing your eyes has to be incredibly painful.  And from there it was a slide downward into addiction, likely deliberately by Gurathin’s employers.

But I also find it interesting that, despite the compulsive need to dig at one another and hurt one another, there is also another impulse at play in this scene: some degree of caregiving and weird trust.  Murderbot did NOT have to consent to plugging itself into Gurathin to try to bypass his pain receptors and act as a non-drug alternative to pain management during the surgery.  It may say that it did this because it would find Gurathin screaming to be irritating, but that seems flimsy.  And Gurathin DEFINITELY didn’t have to ask Murderbot to restrain him, or accept when it blanked out his vision as well. 

There is a weird, almost unconscious trust and care there.  I feel like this is something that is going to be more explored, and is the basis for something less destructive between them.  I also think it speaks to the impulse on both their parts to want forgiveness, care, trust, and love.  They don’t forgive themselves.  They don’t care about themselves as they should.  They don’t trust or love themselves.

But deep down, they both still want that for themselves, even if they are both completely incapable of articulating that outside of accusations at the moment.

This whole scene was just working on so many levels, and they weren’t pleasant or comfortable levels.  And I love how the show digs into that through these characters, their dumpster-fire relationship, and all the cracks in their psyches they keep exposing because of one another.

What this scene is really exposing is this mutual desperation for connection. They are afraid of loss of control, they are deeply self-loathing, but the seed of their personal growth lies in this craving for connection.

[hinamie]

green

[just-null]

Do you ever do requests? If so, do you ever plan on drawing some Yandere with the Hantengu clones? :D hope you have a good day/night!!!

Mentioning an unfamiliar name

yes!! I love yanderes.. and these guys.. these guys are such good material...... nods nods..

I'm not sure about requests..I assume you mean drawing requests? I suppose if it REALLY catches my interest enough, I'd do it, but it'd probably just be line art/sketches.

[mrmeepsmadmind]

this photo fucking kills me bcs it's smoke swearing in his mind

' if this goddamn pig shirks us or pulls up with armed whites, i'm raining hellfire in five seconds.' Always on Edge

&& then there's stack thinking

'im rollin THE BEST cigarette 😸😸😸 !!'

(says that abt all the cigs he gets to roll for smoke and or anyone, for that matter)

[once-more-with-anxiety]

it has been nearly 20 years and I Don't Dance is still THE most sexually tense homoerotic scene in the history of cinema.

just...

yeah. homos.

[thenamesapollo]

state of deltarune theories is so so bad cuz they all try to connect back to the theme of escapism without noticing that that theme isn't even in deltarune.

[sysig]

Justify away (Patreon)

[katsdynam1ght]

every time i see an endeavor hate post my spite gets stronger and i begin another draft about him finding happiness

[echos-gal]

Listen. We never heard Tech laugh. We never saw him with his goggles off. And he's the only brother who did not hug Omega.

Three perfectly good reasons for Lucasfilm to bring him back. These need to be addressed immediately.

[confusedmothboy]

i think it's insanity that some of the characters in yellowjackets don't have last names and i think i've seen people give them some but i can't remember what they were so i would like to bring my own headcanons to the table

laura lee baker

melissa bennet

akilah mcmorrow

jennifer (gen/jen) garson

brittany (britt) tucker

roberta (robin) spane

[eddiezpaghetti]

It has come to my attention that SOME OF YOU who read my last Byler post remain UNCONVINCED. So I'm gonna tack onto it this:

I'm older than fucking God and air, and I've been out and proud since 2007. Yes, I know what homophobia is, and yes, I know what queerbaiting is. I know about Supernatural and Teen Wolf and Sherlock and blahdyblahdyblah. No new ground is being covered here. I thought I made that clear in the original post, but, clearly, I did not.

I am aware of queerbaiting and homophobia, and I'm still wholeheartedly certain in Byler being canon anyway.

Okay, so there are three types of relationship I want to discuss when it comes to queerbaiting. They're all, like, "queer relationships that could have happened, but didn't".

First off, queer-coding. This isn't really a thing so much anymore, but it still crops up every once in a while. I'd argue it probably happens most with male-male relationships in family shows these days. First example that comes to mind is Mr. Smiley and Mr. Frowny from Steven Universe. You can't make a relationship canon because some shitty overhead bastard overhead said no, so you get as close as you can without compromising the show. Can't make someone gay? Well, now their comedy routine is a blatant allegory for a romantic relationship. Boom-shaka-laka. This is something I don't see being a problem with regards to Stranger Things, but I want it to be there as contrast, a demonstration of one of many things queerbaiting is not. However, one could argue that, thus far, Will Byers is, canonically, queer-coded. It's pretty fucking heavily implied in the show, and the creators have confirmed it, and you're gonna be able to see it if you're not FUCKING BLIND, but word of god is not technically canon which means that interviews don't technically make something canon, blahdyblahdyblahdyblah, technicalities, Robin has been explicitly stated in the text to be queer while Will has, thus far, not, outside of good ol' Show-Don't-Tell. Of course, anyone with two brain cells to rub together can tell that that's going to change by the end of Season 5, but, hey, for what it's worth, I'm throwing this out there.

Alrighty, Thingamajingama Number Two: "Oops, I accidentally made the greatest love story known to man." AKA, a genuine, honest-to-goodness mistake. Unfortunately, we do live in a heteronormative society. Sometimes people who don't think about being gay much write a friendship that's incredibly compelling and don't even consider the possibility that it could have been read as romantic. Something something Top Gun something. This is, again, not queerbaiting. This is Steddie, this is Ronance, this is Elmax, this is your favorite flavor of non-canon ship this week, this is not Byler. The creators know DAMN well what they're doing. They've talked about it. We know this. Nothing new here.

Which brings us to the topic of discussion here. Actual queerbaiting. This usually starts out as an "accidental greatest love story", and then reacts to fan response. And when I say "reacts", I mean like a goddamn chemical reaction. Like bleach and ammonia, bitch. It's noxious and it's gonna kick your fucking ass without mercy. This is when a creator is like, "Hey, let's get our queer audience invested, but we're not actually going to give them what they want because our straight audience isn't here for that/we personally think it's gross/we don't give enough of a shit to want to research a goddamn thing to write a real gay character," blah blah blah whatever excuse they want to come up with this time.

And when you think "queerbaiting", I want you to think "bullying". Because that's what it is. It's lucrative bullying, like beating us up and taking our lunch money, but it's bullying all the same. And it's a real goddamn thing, even if people misuse the word a lot, often when they mean one of the two above, sometimes when they mean "bury your gays", which is another homophobic thing entirely that I'm not going to get into here. Queerbaiting is the thing we're focused on, and it's real, and it's bullying. And here's the reason I want you to think of it as bullying:

They

Think

It's

Funny.

They are actively making fun of us.

That's why Dean had the "Cas, get out of my ass," line in Supernatural. It's why the "Do you like boys?" line happened in Teen Wolf. It's why "Lie with me, Watson," happened in the RDJ Sherlock Holmes movies. Because "It's just a joke, mate." "It was just a prank, bro." "You didn't really think it would happen, did you?" "You should see your face."

So here's probably the biggest reason I don't think it's specifically queerbaiting in this specific instance of Will Byers and Mike Wheeler.

Stranger Things has never, not once, made a gay joke. Ever.

Every single time queerness comes up, it's dead serious.

Lonnie calls Will a fag, and the show is not at all reluctant to show what a goddamn horrible person he is. And when Hopper latches onto that, it's not as "Hahah, is he gay, though?" It's because he's trying to determine a potential motive for Will's disappearance, and even if someone had interpreted it as a joke, Joyce immediately has a line that functions as snapping her fingers in front of the audience's face and yelling "FOCUS" when she says "He's MISSING." Basically outright saying "This isn't funny!"

Troy calls him a fairy, along with targeting Lucas and Dustin for their skin color and disability respectively, and Mike gets damn near murderous. Troy is portrayed as a goddamn monster and the show portrays it as justice when El makes him piss his pants and later breaks his arm.

Steve calls Jonathan "queer" as a slur and gets the shit beat out of him for it.

Billy's father is revealed to be homophobic and abusive in the same breath.

Mike says "It's not my fault you don't like girls!" and we're shown how devastated Will is and Mike immediately follows him to beg for forgiveness.

There is a joke in Robin's coming-out scene, but it's not at Robin's expense. It's at Steve's. Specifically for being heteronormative.

Jonathan has multiple scenes where he's trying so hard to tell Will that he's always going to love him as he is, whether he's gay or not, without pressuring him to come out before he's ready.

Even when there's a little bit of ribbing at Robin's expense, it's always because she's an awkward nerd who's nervous around pretty girls, just the same as Lucas and Dustin are teased when they both first develop crushes on Max, and even then, even then, it always comes as a package deal where they make fun of Steve's girl problems at the same time.

Stranger Things is an emphatically pro-gay show. It may not be the core point of the show the way it is in, say, Our Flag Means Death, but there is nothing less than respect for its queer characters. Its queer characters are always taken completely seriously. No one is making fun of us. They never have. That's why I have serious doubts that this is queerbaiting. It would come completely out of left field for the bullying to start in Stranger Things' final season.

So it's not at all likely to be queerbaiting because queerness is taken completely seriously. The creators have talked about Will's queerness, at least, so it's not an accident. And queer-coding would be silly to expect from this show when it's already on its final season. Like, what is Netflix gonna do? Cancel it? Not to mention all the explicit queerness that's in there already. And no one's gonna "What about the children?" a show that's had sex scenes in it since the first season.

There's no fakeout here. It's gonna happen. Breathe.

[quadrantadvisor]

This post reminded me of the time I got entranced by the idea of in-universe rpf and wrote an "excerpt" of a hypothetical accidental selfcest fanfic.

The Lore tm is that in a universe where Bernard never met Tim, he became a prolific Capes RPF writer as well as conspiracy theorist, and that the popularity of the Bruce Wayne/Batman ship gave him the fun idea of pairing up the Wayne kids with Batclan counterparts, which lined up surprisingly well! Tim, who frequents the Gotham Capes RPF tag for normal reasons (as a kid he wrote a surpisingly popular series of gen fics where his self insert oc got adopted by Batman, he was like 11 don't judge him) sees this fic and finds certain details, such as, y'know, shipping his family members with themselves, highly suspicious. He must investigate this person and find out how much they know.

-

[...]

“What are you doing here, Nightwing?” Officer Grayson sighed. He looked tired, the hero noted. He understood that. A city like this could make a man tired in his soul. “The case is over. There's no reason to see eachother anymore.”

It didn't take long for Nightwing to find a reason. “There's no Batman in Bludhaven,” he said. “I need to take allies where I can get them, and you… I think you're in the same boat.” He remembered the photos of young, pretty Richie Grayson, smiling in the tabloids,  and thought about how the force could beat down someone like that. “I know you want to make Bludhaven a better place. We can keep helping eachother, working together. We need eachother.” That was all true. But none of it was why Nightwing had come to the officer's apartment balcony.

Grayson rubbed a hand over his face. “I don't think you understand how much trouble I could be in. If the other officers found out I was slipping information to a vigilante…” He frowned, the dark circles beneath his eyes even more pronounced with the expression. “They don't trust you.”

“Do you?” Nightwing couldn't help but ask.

Grayson clenched his jaw, and his gaze on Nightwing became piercing. Looking at him, the vigilante knew—he had been beaten down, but not broken. His free spirit compressed into something stronger, harder. There was fire in his eyes. “I don't know,” the officer said, “should I?”

In some ways, the display of dominance was adorable, and Nightwing couldn't help flashing his signature sharp grin. “You can,” he promised. “It's up to you. But I could show you.” He hopped onto the balcony's railing with his inhuman grace, and held out his hand. “If you put your trust in me, I'll make it worth your while.”

The man looked dubious, gaze flicking from Nightwing's shielded eyes to his outstretched hand. “How?”

“You used to be an acrobat, didn't you, officer?” the hero asked.

Grayson looked away. “That was a long time ago.’”

“Well,” said Nightwing, still grinning that wicked grin, teeth flashing in the dim light, “how would you like to really fly?”

The officer's eyes went wide, and for a moment, Nightwing worried he would close the door, shut him out, and it would all be over. Then a determined look swept over him, and he stepped forward, reaching out.

Grayson's hand slipped into his, and Nightwing took the leap.

[...]

End notes:

😭 why did you have to become a cop richie how am i meant to acab like this????

like yes cops are Bastard but like. Richie Grayson was an outlier and should not have been counted. he's perfect your honor. he's never done anything wrong in his whole life. no one tell me otherwise pls

also nightwing is some kind of fae creature but don't worry about that

[aeliem]

variations on dust

trying to get back into drawing after artfight, so have some random doodles in the meantime

[ph7soy]

── ⋆⋅ ♰ ⋅⋆ ──

“when will you learn that it isn’t about you and your problems? this is about my name–the prescott name.”

“nathan is everybody’s favorite voodoo doll–kill the rich kid!”

“yes, he takes serious meds–but that’s not his fault, his family treats him like a total freak!”

“i prefer the term ‘manipulated’–i became a sort of father figure to nathan.”

“i think about him chilling out on the grass in the other timeline–i hate what he did, but i can’t hate him.”

“…my life is hell.”

[myrkulitescourge]

imo karlach’s soul coin usage seems like it should have been a little more significant than it was.

she only ever really stops to consider the magnitude of burning through a person’s soul for power during an origin playthrough—otherwise she rationalizes to the player that they’re doomed anyway, and if using them gives her an edge in combat, why not use them for good instead of leaving them to be used by evil? the dialogue with lann tarv in act 2, where he tells the story of each soul he's handing over to her, tries to humanize each soul coin, and still she doesn’t really budge and disapproves pretty heavily if she's told no in regards to using them.

it just seems like something that could have caused some kind of conflict between her and wyll, given he sold his soul to a devil in dire circumstances and takes issue with the player for sleeping with mizora, because she 1) is mizora, and 2) similarly expends tormented souls during her romance scene, even if for a different purpose. but it just... never really comes up?

i love karlach. but that seems like it should have gone Somewhere, from a writing standpoint? karlach values wyll as a person but is willing to use currency forged from souls like his for the sake of a temporary power up. she knows the soul is consumed when she uses them. that whole exchange with lann tarv is there to emphasize that every soul coin she destroys was a person once. but it all kind of loses narrative purpose if this combination of factors doesn't mean anything? karlach doesn't change at all in her willingness to use soul coins, no matter what the player says or how much she cares for wyll.

idk. missed opportunity that wyll doesn't have any dialogue about this, of all things.

[spookythesillyfella]

ominous and threatening sketchy ... sniffle ...

★ some extra stuff under cut :

some concept drawingz i made for the little guyz of an unfinished fic of mine

and headshotz that i redrew digitally