#also like what is the bait if its a real person?? its not like queer people would stop liking her if she was straight

[demadogs]

gonna say it again, REAL PEOPLE CANNOT BE QUEERBAIT. QUEERBAITING IS A SHITTY WRITING TACTIC FOR FICTION. SOMEONE JUST BEING THEMSELVES IS NOT BAIT FOR ANYONE.

[mazzystar24]

Disgusting

https://x.com/deanchwita/status/1805905625890595067?s=46

The way I had no wifi when I got this and sacrificed the last of my data only to run out before I can type anything so had to write it legit in my notes app

Every day in the 911 fandom I’m terrorised by abhorrent takes on sexuality from straight people and abhorrent takes on racism from white people for real I wanna shake some people and say stick to your lane and stop talking over the actual people who experience this stuff

Twitter really is the cesspool cos I don’t have it but y’all send this stuff to me in my asks and I’m like wow a new low? who knew you can bring a shovel and dig even when you’re so low you’re in the pits of hell

As usual we all know it’s bullshit and disgusting but let’s dive into why it’s bullshit and disgusting:

“Sexuality equals attraction not necessarily being in love with the person”

Oof atp they’re making me mad mad

Be so fucking for real rn

And is attraction defined by sexual history??? Do you know how many queer people you just insulted?

Also COMP HET COMP HET COMP HET a person may think they were attracted to someone but it’s only cos they were doing what was expected of them one of my lesbian friends would actively pick a guy to have a crush on

Also michael literally had multiple children and was married to Athena for years and yall aren’t going around being like hmm he’s straight

Also what happened to bisexuality or other queer identities???

Also I’m adding this post abt why using Eddie sex life is just the most abhorrent take

But yeah to that dumb twitter user attraction and love are different things and 1. Not being able to feel one or the other toward the opposite gender is indicative of some form of queerness 2. And comp het is also a different thing 🥰

Anyways I think imma stop reiterating this stuff (unless I feel like a rant🤩) cos 1. I’ve blocked all the people with abhorrent takes on tumblr and I don’t think there is much overlap anyways so they’re not seeing this 2. They are fully rage baiting or just being stupid on purpose atp cos no way they can’t grasp basic concepts of sexuality or queer experiences

The truth is they get the queer codedness of Eddie but think denying it would discourage buddie fans and sorta boost a certain ship more

Like so many people headcanon Ravi as queer and like there is no real queer codedness to him and no one is making fucking straight Ravi edits or like longass posts abt the evidence against it BECAUSE ITS NOT A THREAT TO THEIR SHIP

anyways I just think idiots preaching abt rep or homophobia should stop being heteronormative as fuck in most of their debates and racist in the others

[girl4music]

I once heard the term “straightbaiting” in regards to ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’. As in, what we queer people get in another show where there’s queerbaiting. But with Xena it’s just with the opposite sex instead. And that’s accurate because the central relationship in ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’ is Xena and Gabrielle. The show revolves around both of them as main characters and their love relationship - be it platonic or romantic.

Every other episode in the earlier seasons they would bring in a male love interest for either one of them (later in the show they would also get female love interests as well as male love interests; Gabrielle - Najara, Thalassa, Brunhilda. Xena - M’Lila, Lao Ma and, ugh, Akemi) but none of these love interests lasted. They would either die, leave or otherwise just never show up in the show again. They were either always temporary fill ins/stand bys until the other main character returned or used as a relationship conflict between Xena and Gabrielle, basically stating and showing how unnatural it was for either of them to have any sort of love relationship going on when it’s not with each other. And whenever this happens, the show itself feels shaky and off-kilter: unbalanced.

In a sense,… not straight. It feels not straight for it to be straight. It feels fake. It feels abnormal. Wrong. Exactly the way a queer person is supposed to feel when it’s queerbaiting in a primarily straight show. Straightbaiting in Xena feels like that to a straight person because Xena is genuinely a queer show and, therefore, in that show,… Queer is right. Queer is normal. Queer is real. And even with the female love interests - it still feels that way because, again, the central and most important relationship is X and G!

So ‘straightbaiting’ is absolutely the most accurate term to describe what the experience of ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’ is rather than queerbaiting because it’s not Xena and Gabrielle that is the bait. It’s everyone else. And this is especially true with the male love interests. Except maybe Ares. But that’s a whole other topic altogether that takes understanding Rob Tapert’s mind, who is genuinely team X and G all the way but just has hang ups with X and A. I won’t go into it here.

But yes, it also boggles my mind something awful when anyone watching Xena today could call it queerbaiting. It’s honestly the entire opposite. You can’t watch episodes like ‘When Fates Collide’ and ‘Who’s Gurkhan’ and hell, even Season 2’s ‘The Quest’, without realizing that the creators are genuine with how they write Xena and Gabrielle’s relationship. It’s not a joke. It might have started out as one but pretty damn quickly they changed course and it became serious. So serious that almost every other relationship for Xena or Gabrielle feels like a joke. Feels like it is the bait that keeps straight people tuned into watching a queer show about queer characters the way straight characters acting queer are the bait for queer people to watch a straight show.

And I cannot put it anymore concisely than that. That IS ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’. It is a straightbaiting show. So much so that Lucy and Renee have laughs about it. These are two straight women taking the piss out of the show’s attempts to keep its straight audience. Laughing about how unnatural it all feels for Xena and Gabrielle to have “straight” love relationships, proving my point completely true without knowing it. And I’m emphatically saying this as a queer woman myself that headcanons Xena as bisexual. Still queer but not gay. It feels extremely wrong for Gabrielle to be doing this. But it doesn’t ever matter because it doesn’t ever last. What lasts is the central relationship. That of X & G.

So regardless whether the nature of Xena and Gabrielle’s relationship is platonic or romantic, the creators are purposefully telling and showing you all love interests or love relationships besides theirs fail in comparison. And that’s not a very “queerbait-y” thing to do, is it? That’s actually the opposite of queerbait.

[chicken-wayng]

“I need Alicent to regret all her life decisions”

Same, Alicent needs a reality check asap. Daemon kills your grandson, Rhaenyra doesn’t punish him and instead welcomes him back with open arms. You think you, Helaena and Jaehaera are safe around these people?

I know I've said it before, but Alicent reminds me of the basic religious southern woman.

Southern Christian women are raised from birth believing that a man is their savior. That a husband and children are going to be their greatest achievement. A man will provide for them. A man will tell them what's okay to say and think. If a man says gay people are nasty, gay people are nasty - if you have those thoughts you're nasty and need to ask for forgiveness to block them out. If a man says a person's skin color makes them a thief, rapist or criminal then it's best to stay away from that colored person; regardless of the fact that the man has stolen more from you and actually has raped you. Which is another thing, rape doesn't exist between a husband and wife in the southern Christian mindset, and if you're not married according to the bible all you have to do is pay off her dad and marry her but to the SC mindset you can slut shame her and make her think its her fault, and why should he be forced to marry a slut?

I'm going on a soap box so I'll back down but I know these things because I was raised this way. I was raised to believe I was nasty for liking girls, I was raised to believe brown people ("especially Puerto Ricans like your nana and dad!") were bad. I was raised in so many sickening ways I'm still having to unlearn a lot of it. However I have resources that just aren't available in Westeros.

When I wanted to know why brown people were bad, all I had to do was get online and read about real life testimonies from the civil war all the way up to present day. What I learned is that we can't even say America has been segregation free for 50 years! 50 fucking years ago they were lynching not only adults but babies!!! I used to use "gator bait" talking about little children, cuz that's what you do in Arkansas, only to learn the term comes from slave days when they'd throw the slave's BABIES to gators!!! How disgusting

When I wanted to know why gay people were bad, all I had to do was get online and learn about the queer people from the 1600s to now. We've existed forever, so what I feel wasn't a phase, or a sin, or anything bad, it was normal. I was raised with the Holy Bible and the biggest lesson we learn is Jesus' love for us. "Love is used over 500 times in the Bible," is what my nana said. Why would he put it in there over 500 times to turn around and tell you to hate? Well I didn't get an answer to that from church or the bible, I got it from Queer Christians (that I was taught weren't a thing.) who told me love is love.

When I want to know why something I was taught doesn't feel right I can look into it. Alicent and Rhaenyra can't. That's part of the tragedy and why they'll never be able to apologize and stop hurting each other. In this way the patriarchy has deepened the divide between them. However their own choices have also done so. Alicent doesn't need to understand bastardphobia to use it to hurt Nyra and Nyra doesn't need to understand the patriarchy to understand why Alicent has to make the choices she has to use the patriarchy to hurt her. They both know they're hurting the other and that's all they care about. The "if I can't love you, if I can't have you think of my name endearingly then I'll have you hate me. I'll have my name ring in your ears until the void takes you." Is toxic but they can't stop. They regret it, but they won't stop. The love is there, but they won't stop.

I need Alicent and Nyra to regret their choices like I regret being a horrible person for the first 15 years of my life.

[not-goldy]

The solos in your ask pretending they know what jikookers think and OF COURSE victimising their fav in the process. Never forget to victimise, otherwise you're not a true solo.

Meanwhile, actual jikookers : love the both of them equally, love that they love each other, will keep loving them even if it turns out they were just the greatest of friends who enjoyed giving each other blueballs, love Jimin's songs, love Jungkook's half naked welives, love Jimin’s cutest welives making legos, love Jungkook's songs, love love love.

I don't know about every other jikooker but you've summed up me and the jikookers who hang around my blog succinctly.

Which reminds me, someone brought up Larry and Louis complaining about how he can't break free from the rumors-

I don't expect Jikook- either of Jikook to ever come out and disrespect their bond minimize invalidate it like many fake ships do post the band phase era. Especially the ones who deliberately feed into those shipping narratives for clout.

Jikook's relationship is not founded on two people playing naughty just for shock factor. And if you've been in various shipping spaces for as long as I have you tend to pick up on these things very fast.

Performative bisexuality is real

Queer baiting is real

But some people just wanna be brazen for no reason at all.

And when you have that lens you quickly can tell which moments of Jikook is just that- two naughty boys who have no qualms feeling frisky with eachother or playing up that friskiness for the cameras.

We know all that. We see all that- but we also see beyond that, we see the thing that explains the subtext, and explains choices they make to the point we can even predict those choices before they make them and 9 out of 10 we'd be right.

Yet these people are consistently wrong about jikook. Tuktukkers are consistently wrong bout their ship because they can't tell what's real from what is a performance.

I'm gonna make one such prediction and yall mark my words:

Neither Jimin nor Jungkook will EVER deny their bond EVER.

FOR THE SIMPLE REASON ITS NOT FAKE

They will ALWAYS CHERISH their bond and speak fondly of what they share between them, honor it always in spite of whatever labels fans want to place on it.

They both mean something to eachother

THAT IS NOT FOR THE BENEFIT OF FANS

And I think what keeps them going is this baseline.

I can see them reminding themselves of this over and over that they hold on to that baseline whatever anyone says.

I think this is my second long term prediction I've made about two bts ships. Vmin and jikook.

In whatever years yall find me and remind me I told yall so.

Love is energy.

It cannot be created or destroyed but it can change form.

If a person can come out and say all these things that other ships come out to say about their ships when their ships no longer serve them, without acknowledging appreciating their actual bond then the bond was not there or strong to begin with

[itsclydebitches]

Once again putting on my weekly Teddependent tinfoil hat...

Alright, with the ever important disclaimer that no, it's not likely to happen and it's never been likely to happen and it won't in any way be queer baiting when it kinda-inevitably doesn't happen out of the way, LET'S TALK ABOUT HOW "STRAIGHT" IS A MEANINGLESS DESCRIPTOR IN THIS CONVERSATION.

It's all about the ✨context✨

First off, as numerous posts have already pointed out, Ted is technically speaking in the past tense here: "back in the early days of my coaching career" was when he was a "straight fella." This obviously doesn't eliminate the possibility that Ted is still straight, but if he has come out as queer since then, acknowledging that would defeat the whole purpose of his story. He's not looking to come out during the halftime of an important match, but rather to emphasize how "normal" he was back then and, as a result, the ways in which he got creative trying to express his individuality. If Ted had instead gone, "Back when I thought I was straight but wasn't able express that part of my identity because I hadn't realized it yet and/or had been too afraid to come out in midwestern America" that's not only an iffy way to out your protagonist in a show that has treated queer rep very delicately this season... but also totally derails his story. Both in-universe (you want to give the characters time to react to this, especially a potential love interest like Trent who is in the room) and from a writing perspective (the whole point here is for Ted's story to impart the moral of the "right idea sitting behind a couple of wrong ones") then a coming out moment is going to fit awkwardly here and detract from the anecdote's purpose.

Thinking more broadly, do we honestly believe that Ted hasn't changed since those early days? This show is all about growth, so - for me anyway - describing a young, new-to-coaching Ted doesn't imply, "That's still a descriptor that fits him" but rather begs the question "How much has he grown since then?" Notably, two-thirds of what else Ted lists about himself is no longer accurate. He's not working in middle America anymore. In a linguistic twist, he doesn't have a career in "sports," but "sport." And though we have no idea (as far as I can recall) if Ted is still afraid of tattoo needles, he certainly strikes me as the kind of person who would work to overcome that fear, whether he actually wanted a tattoo or not. The Lasso Way, by default, impacts Lasso himself. And here I'm admittedly reaching, though I find it intriguing that Ted's potential growth is couched in a 'Close, but not quite' metaphor with that comparison. Meaning, Ted's point about his goatee is that he went too far and had to pull it back into a "Foxworthy." Kinda like how, living in midwestern American with all its expectations and homophobia, he might have gone too far into a 'I'm definitely, 100%, absolutely-no-doubt-about-it straight' identity only to later pull back into 'Actually? I'm bisexual.'

Notably, this is metaphorical change comes about when his best friend - Ted's closest confidant and the man he trusts most in the world, someone who is INCREDIBLY queer-coded - tells him a hard truth about what's "not a good look" for him.

On his wedding day.

Which he then proceeds to compare to eating Bigfoot's ass.

Like I said, reaching, but given the loaded metaphors in this show (Oh hey, what does it mean to label "sport" the metaphor and then gift Trent that nickname?) I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this was later reframed as more than just a passing joke.

However, the real point is that Ted has changed, a theme that's at the very heart of the whole show, but has been particularly prevalent the last two episodes. Trent freaking throws himself after Ted (WHAT A DORK) in an effort to explain how all these small, incremental changes have led to a monumental outcome - notably one that explicitly allows footballers and their associated club members to feel comfortable expressing all aspects of their identity, sexuality included. The idea that Ted has remained near-static since those "early days," growing only when it comes to what we've seen on screen (therapy, coaching, divorce, etc.) feels antithetic to the show as a whole.

Which brings me to the meta-y question of, "Why now?" Why, after nearly three whole seasons have we suddenly had Ted drop the "straight" bomb? Why is this coming after an explicitly queer episode with not one, not four, but FIVE queer characters re-affirming their queerness, coming out to each other, or coming out to the audience? One of whom is an older, thought-he-was-straight man who has only recently come out after being married to a woman? That's not at ALL the backstory fans were expecting for Trent and it just feels like a mighty big coincidence to me, giving us that surprising trajectory alongside a casual claim the next week that, 'The straightest straight character to ever straight has randomly reaffirmed that he's DEFINITELY straight (but with plausible deniability).' After all, the show never needed to address Ted's sexuality - the marriage and midwestern everything implied enough - and certainly his speech about individuality didn't have to use that as an example. Given how completely unnecessary it was, I'm inclined to figure that a) the writers - who I assume are fairly knowledgeable about fandom trends and fan expectations/desires - tossed it in as a way to let us all down easy (which is totally understandable and I'm sorry it didn't work on my part lmfao) or b) ... they want to lay the groundwork for a plot about Ted's sexuality. They want that nugget of implication to either undermine the, 'He's still straight!' assumption later, or take Ted through the process of questioning his sexuality now.

"But, Clyde, we only have 5 episodes left!" Yeah, fair, but the show also has a tendency to race through some development (in still satisfying ways) while allowing other aspects to simmer. Basically a Roy and Trent vs. Jamie situation. Jamie has had a series long journey, slow and steady to the point where it sometimes shocks you just how much he's changed. In contrast, outside of a little groundwork in season one, we introduced Roy's personal hatred of Trent, the motivation for that, their conflict, reconciliation, and budding friendship all in one episode. It is possible to do a lot of important work very quickly, especially when the show is potentially laying down hints along the way. That's why to all us queer folks, Trent coming out last episode wasn't in any way a surprise: we recognized the coding that was happening in the background. If Ted/Trent did somehow happen - either as an end-game romance or Trent acknowledging an unrequited crush - we'd likewise have a wealth of analysis going, "See! This has been in the works since 'I like your glasses'!"

(Btw, none of which is even getting into Trent's absolutely FERAL adoration of Ted this episode that reads like a crush the size of Kansas)

If I'm being honest, at this point in the series I don't think Ted is going to wind up with anyone. I never came into this show expecting my (back then) teeny tiny ship to have any chance of sailing... and really, I still don't. But I am surprised by - and excited by! - the potential the show keeps giving us, in a way that doesn't feel at all malicious to me. If (when) Ted and Trent part ways as just friendly dorks, I'll have come away from the series not feeling like I was delusional, but rather that the writers were saying, "Here, this is a cool concept. We like it. We support it! It's not what we personally wanted to write, but we're going to give you the tools to keep playing with that possibility." Which, you know, is pretty much what I'm doing right now.

So if hearing Ted say he's straight produced a little nugget of disappointment, take heart! Even if I'm just talking out my ass here, it makes for good canon-compliant explanations in fic :D

[syscourse-confessions]

💙- Vent. TW suicide baiting mention, lots of cussing. Replies of any kind OK, idc just need to put this out there

We're a DID system, professionally diagnosed. And we just need to get this off our chest - The DID/OSDD is the single most toxic, hateful, exclusionary, and controlling community we've ever interacted with. That includes communities for every other demographic we occupy (queer, autistic, personality disorder, etc) and every single subculture / fandom we've been apart of as well. .

First of all, the anti-endo shit. Despite being [partially] traumagenic and heavily disordered, we're passionately supportive of endos. And oh boy you better believe that means we get excluded and harassed right away. We've been told to kill ourselves, been told we're lying about our diagnosis and trauma, been told we deserved our trauma, that they hope it happens again, etc. All for the crime of *checks notes* believing that people can determine their own subjective, internal experiences :|

Pretty much all other forms of syscourse are awful too. The fact that there's been entire blogs on here dedicated to trying to spot fakers. The fact that having too many alters or fictives, or not having enough, or not being able to afford a diagnosis, or having weird system experiences, can all get your fakeclaimed. The fact that now people are debating over whether or not OSDD-1a "counts" as a system.

The entire community is absolutely obsessed with controlling how others identify and what qualifies as being a system. They attempt to put boundaries around how severe your trauma has to be, or what age the trauma happens at. They're genuinely willing to look a trauma survivor in the face and say, "Well actually, since your trauma happened when you were 10 years old its impossible for you to be a system, teehee sorry, your own internal experiences don't matter <3".

They think that psychiatrists are the be-all-end-all of every neurodivergent experience Ever, despite how psychiatry has historically been wildly racist, sexist, queerphobic, and just generally suppresses people who don't fit into the norm.

They also try to dictate what recovery looks like for literally everyone, that you should want final fusion. Or if they're ok with functional multiplicity, that you should want to have as few alters as possible, and that they all have to be as normal as possible. Introjects are told that being close to their source is inherently anti-recovery. Every kind of system experience is treated as inherently pathological and something that should be fixed.

And yeah, I know that this obviously not applicable to everyone in the community. Some of these statements are relatively niche arguments, but they're all real ones I've actually seen people debating over. And more importantly, the community fosters these kinds of shitty awful takes because the entire community is built around control and exclusion. It keeps getting taken further and further entire more and more systems are being squeezed out, and only the few Acceptable systems remain.

Thank god we have the plural community, which obviously has it problems too, but the DID/OSDD community is so vitriolic, so vicious towards the "wrong kind" of trauma survivors, and so exclusionary that it is entirely antithetical to recovery and healing as a system. Its so fucking awful, and I hate it more than anything.

💙 - Vent

[goodflagintheshadows]

my thoughts and opinions on the wwdits season finale

i am glad guillermo is a human, and wants to be one. i think it makes entire sense that he is just not cut out for the vampire lifestyle, and i dont think its an unexpected arc in any way.

what i dont understand is how literally no one else thought of guillermos van helsing blood, making him drink human blood to finish the transformation, or killing derek in order to turn him back. i suppose it makes sense with nandor being the oldest of the vampires (aside from maybe colin robsinson), but its still surprising to see the himbo of the group figure everything out before the man who is a self-proclaimed vampire.

anyway, back to guillermo. when he finishes his transformation into a vampire, he immediately becomes a vampiric version of himself, the person he always thought he would become, and always aspired to be. i honestly could not watch him in this new persona, because it was not guillermo. he had been waiting for so long to become a vampire, so it makes complete sense for him to have had an idealized fantasy of vampiric life. he thought it would make him powerful, intimidating, sexy, and allow him to take control of his own life. what he failed to realize is that becoming a vampire would not change any of his personality, it would not make him into a better or worse person, all it would do is grant him eternal life and a few cool powers. and, with his real personality, theres no wonder he’s not cut out for the vampire life. after all, even before they became vampires, our three main vampires were not exactly the most sane humans. nadja, for one, burned down her school because they rejected her. nandor was a blood thirsty ruler whose entire persona is based on his killing and pillaging of all those that he comes in contact with. he was also known to not have been particularly caring to any of his tens of wives. laszlo, lastly, was known to have fathered and abandoned many children, not exactly the nicest thing to do. guillermo, however, has a modern morality. he sees the things that the vampires do to be, in the most part, wrong. probably he expected that once he got rid of his humanity, his morality would go with it. but, unable to feed on a human, he realizes that his moral code is fully in tact. we even see this when he finds that he cannot kill derek, and then goes to revive him.

im not sure if any of this made sense, but my point is that guillermo is human, and he is meant to be human. if they turn him back into a vampire, there better be some damn good story to back it up.

ps. to all of the people saying that them not confirming nandermo on screen is queerbaiting, please understand what queerbaiting is. like, please, a show in which the majority of characters is queer is not where we should be focusing on the topic of queerbaiting. are they baiting nandermo specifically? absolutely. are they queerbaiting? no fucking way. there are so many other things you can criticize about this show, please focus on those other criticisms instead.

[gadunkie]

spiderverse 2 sucked shit and was performative twitter.com fuckery. hi reddit in this rant Im going to talk about why I think the second spiderverse movie gave me a queasy uneasy feeling after I left the theater. spoiler warning and all that.

Ive been seeing a lot of praise for this movie lately and a lot of fan stuff and while that is cool I think spiderverse 2 really doesnt deserve it. to me it feels like baffling performative bullshit where they checked off certain "woke" categories and forgot about everything else. Im bad at formulating rant posts so Im just gonna randomly bring up my feelings on certain things.

ok so first of all the number one thing that pissed me off was the in-movie dialogue of people telling miles, the first black spider-man, that he was never supposed to be spider-man in the first place. that is incredibly tone deaf, especially when the first movie's message was that anyone could be a hero, regardless of who you are. you could argue that this story beat is used to reinforce that message being that miles' reaction to that line is rejection and finding his own way to become spider-man after all. but thats stupid because, again, anyone could be a hero no matter what, even if theyre not supposed to be 'canonically' a spider-man. what this tells me is that theyre going for the same fucking message, again, but this time its padded out in 2 movies rather than the one that weve already seen.

second, and this one was much more brief, there was a disabled spider-man amidst the roster of the multiverse spider-mans whose only line of dialogue was making fun of their own disability. thats some travis mcelroy bullshit, I thought we were past the point of making disabled character's only personality being their disability. to me that was also incredibly tone deaf and just completely unneeded.

third, there was an Indian spider-man by the name Pavitr Prabhakar whose only personality was that he was Indian. of course theres nothing wrong with Indian culture or just being an Indian person, but to me its like if they had a Japanese spider-man and made them only talk about katanas and sushi. theres no way that indian people act like that and constantly boost about their own nation, it just rubs me the wrong way and makes them feel less human.

fourth, that "gwen is trans" shit is utter queerbait, I cant believe anyone is fucking falling for this shit. it literally infuriates me that I see fellow queer people look at the most basic off to the side decoration in a room / police officer's uniform and jump to the conclusion that what we are seeing is trans representation. like sure she could be trans! but it can also be read as her just being an ally, same with her father. "what ally has a trans flag in there room?" are you fucking kidding me? like are you being serious? hey heres famous content creator Ludwig, who is cis and has a trans flag in his room:

fucking anyone, literally anyone could have trans iconography anywhere in their house regardless of their gender. side bonus, heres how you can have a real confirmed trans character in your art without it being bait! - have them taking transition medication in a scene - have them wear gender affirming clothing, like chest binders - have them tell another character that theyre trans - have them literally look into the camera and say "Im trans." crazy how easy it is to do all of these things and yet gwen did none of it! dont fucking search for crumbs and pretend that its a feast.

fifth, theres a character called spider-punk who goes by Hobie and his entire character is being a punk and making fun of The Establishment™ and Capitalism™. I thought he was dumb because it just reminded me that anti-capitalism is just a form of entertainment now and not a real message to start a change.

sixth, there was so much fucking nostalgia pandering and repetitive dialogue. there were many scenes showing footage of older movies, cartoons, or real life actors that were only there to be pointed at the screen by audiences. next, the dialogue was so expository that any time miles' parents were on screen they would only talk about miles and how worried they were about him. I swear to god that 70% of spider-man 2099s dialogue was about his disturbed past and wanting to capture miles. at several times throughout the movie I thought "ok I get it" and hoped that were was something new to be seen in the next 5 minutes, which wasnt the case most of the time.

seventh, evil miles was fucking stupid. you cant just reveal such an easy counterpart villain and expect me to believe that he has any bearing on the story whatsoever. that shit was so laughably bad that I can easily imagine him getting defeated in the same old hero vs villain shit in the next movie. here let me have some fun and say that miles is going to do the most predictable "Im going to fix you to become good" trope only for evil miles to deny it and fuck off forever in some weird way.

anyway this post is already too fucking long so Im just gonna add personal peeves onto it because Im on a roll. I had a hard time paying attention to several fight scenes because they were mixing with too many visual styles, like the vulture scene at the beginning of the movie was too disorienting for me. I think there shouldve been subtitles, sometimes characters were inaudible for me and the audio mixing during some scenes didnt help either, unless there was a slow moment in the film I just couldnt understand what the characters were saying.

I thought the movie sucked so bad that what they got right in certain aspects (cast diversity, parent and child struggles, etc.) felt like nothing to me after how they treated the parts that Ive listed. its like they fucking checked off a Progressive Bingo Sheet and left everything else in the dust.

I left the theater disappointed and feeling worthless because all I felt was that these movies were just trying to sell me something and didnt push for a change like the first one did. what a fucking shit show.

conclusions. if you liked the movie, awesome Im glad, and you should decide for yourself how you feel about it and what it means to you. Im simply just putting my frustrations into a little text post because that is how I feel. Im not in charge of your enjoyment and you should decide that on your own regardless of my opinions. be responsible with your enjoyment.

but I wont, if you try to argue with me on any of these topics then Im blocking you forever and if you dare type "let people enjoy things" on my post then Im killing you,

[demadogs]

hello loveliest person ever. would you consider no byler to be queerbait ?

hey bestie

if byler didnt happen i would genuinely believe that their intention was to go through with it but they dropped it or were told to drop it. because if its queerbait theyre literally doing it all wrong? the ultimate goal of baiting is to gain an audience from a selected community, in this case the queer community, by promoting the media as potential representation and yet they have done everything in their power to AVOID this with byler.

for starters the majority of queerbait is usually achieved in the marketing side of things. and yet there was ZERO joint press with noah and finn, where they could have promoted byler the most. almost all of their scenes are together but they deliberately separated them so there wasnt even a chance for spoilers about byler. that is not how you queerbait.

queerbaiting is supposed to be obvious. it shouldnt require elaborate theories, it should be thrown in our faces. this article shows a clip of a trailer from riverdale that includes a gay kiss. i think the kiss was just to distract the character, it wasnt intended to be romantic at all and yet they put it in the trailer? that was obviously for the goal of getting queer audiences more excited and more likely to watch this (absolutely fucking horrendous) show.

on the flip side!! theres also straight bait and again, aaaaalll in the marketing.

i cant even believe these are real lmao.

they did this for s3 too. theres a flash of this in the s3 trailer, which had lots of mlvn shippers thinking this was the season of nothing but love for them and yet el broke up with him in the second episode. we also get audio of mike saying “we’re not kids anymore” but no visuals that showed he was talking to will and definitely not the “its not my fault you dont like girls” line, which would have been such a clear opportunity to queerbait.

and s4 was very gay and they could have so easily grabbed a LOT of peoples attention and curiosity by adding some byler scenes in the trailer but there was nothing.

could you imagine if they showed one of these in the trailer?? they had such a clear opportunity to queerbait and they didnt.

the only thing they did include was this and i didnt even notice will the first time i watched it.

the only things we’ve seen in the marketing that relate to byler are from netflix accounts in other countries that loosely imply that they ship byler but thats literally it. and these accounts dont actually have any access to the writers room. theyre not implying or confirming anything theyre just trying to be relatable and a lot of people would relate to the post if they mention byler.

aside from them just avoiding the topic in the promotion for the show, theres also the fact that byler has inspired loads of in depth theories and analyses based on how they portray them in the show. the point of queerbaiting is to throw it in your face. “look a gay kiss! watch our show to see gay people!” the fact that we’re reading into shit like lighting, colors, music, framing, all this stuff that the ga doesnt read into is a big sign that their goal isnt queerbait. one time i got an anon that summed it up perfectly, “why would they queerbait only to gay film nerds?” and its so true.

queerbaiting should not have people thinking too hard. like the kiss in riverdale, its supposed to be shoved in our faces in order to actually achieve what theyre trying to do. not everybody has time or cares enough to read entire analyses on specific film choices, and because of that, they would be completely failing to bait people. the goal is to gain their audience and no one has been baited for this because it doesnt seem obvious that its actually going to happen.

because of all this if byler didnt happen i dont think queerbait would be the right word. itd be a whole different thing entirely and i would genuinely believe they were forced to not go through with it if it didnt happen. but i highly highly doubt that would ever happen. its netflix’s biggest show and they trust the duffers and its the last season so even if people dont like it its not like theyd lose money because people would stop watching. by then theyd already finished the whole show.

[tomyo]

Hbomberguy has unfortunately taught me that if I find myself really not gelling with someone it's probably because they're a shitty person.

Like I'm no Cassandra but all this time I remember I would just watch his videos and think "hmmm yeah, I can place my finger on it but I don't like the way he talks about these things." And then I ignored it because I thought I was just going out of my comfort zone.

I can't remember everything I beefed on him with but I definitely hated when he started to take on anime or Asian media. Overall I just think a lot of times westerners tend to assume their values and ways issues are dealt with are universal and he was just another lukewarm dive into the medium. Like its personal to me but I still stand by that Yuri on Ice isn't gay in the sense it isn't made for gay people, it's voyeuristic and pairing stories of incestuous feelings within it's short run time was a horrible choice they could have skipped. It comes to mind because I think he brought it up in one of his recent videos (I've been bedridden all week so my watch later queque has been playing on in the bg between lucidity) and it ticked me off. I hate the way he was dismissive of Heart Stopper for being twee and the whole rant about how it's not just him but other gay men too who think this! Honestly! For real guys! And for minutes I was just there like Alice Oseman is aroace! When he finally gets there it became infuriating how he diminished it's importance. Authors are allowed to let their experience effect their writing! She's not responsible to cater to you. The beauty of Heartstopper is it's release has lived through a rapid change in lgbtq acceptance and is the perfect opportunity to show that romantic and sexual inclination also exist on a sliding scale because that's something we are now widely teaching!! To write modern teen characters, you have to empathize with modern teens. They're not you!! Which is mostly good given the history of our community. It's good to get to see queer teen boys take it maybe infuriatingly slow because they don't have to be pressured for more.

James to me was always just a bit pessimistic and not really good at empathizing which given how much he stole makes sense why what he said and how he acted just felt off. It makes sense when everyone else in "breadtube" started promoting each other's works how it never seemed to happen with him. I don't remember him saying he was the only person really doing this but that's fucking bizarre to hear when the list of people who does what he pretended to was endless. Before I even watched the whole video I already brought up Matt Baume who like Hbomberguy said feels the exact opposite to James. Matt talks forward about progress, genuinely made me realize how we were always here, and the path lead forward to us getting there. Maybe it's not great to admit but there's YouTubers I watch that I know I have to psych myself up to watch, sometimes I don't like their running joke, sometimes they talk too fast multitasking, sometimes they have a habit that gets to me and I just need mental prep. James was like, "sigh here we go" that you'd feel before you were about to talk with that one friend who makes every convo abrasive and combative, I'm coming out a little annoyed and tired by the end of it. With Matt I remember it being a case of getting ready to sit down to hear a part of obscure history knowledge from that one friend who reads a book every two days. Possibly the biggest difference between the two is how much you believe Matt is committed to the material he's making because 1. It also focuses on sitcoms and old Hollywood queerness hence an well carved niche 2. It isn't as easy to churn out material. I've heard a million videos on owl house's queerness or Sherlock queer baiting but fuck all did I ever know how Tab Hunter was. There were so many "weird little funny guy" actors that I could make assumptions were gay but Matt actually gave me their stories and has made my heart cry for how hard they had it even thought I always could have figured that. And maybe that's what sucked, James as a queer man just never seemed to emotionally resonate.

Fuck, man I'm just rambling with all of this but the sheer validation of feeling off all these years paying of is wonderful. I don't really want to celebrate his downfall to much, not worth the energy, and I don't want to put another YouTuber on a pedestal because we have a bad habit of doing that only to have things turn out wrong. The thing is I watched illuminauti and Internet historian too but in the same way where I knew I was getting junk food. I wasn't looking for anything fancy and their sections did not surprise me and if anything maybe just make me feel embarrassed how comfortable I am eating badly made media. But god maybe worse is how happy I am to have someone tell me that it's alright that I don't like one gay dudes well produced videos.

[decolonize-the-everything]

god yeah about the exclusionism post and asking the queer community to hold itself accountable...

like, i'm young. im only 18. so i wasn't super around for the vast majority of the height of aphobic bigotry in this community.... but i've been around for most of the anti-bilesbian, anti-xenogender, anti-mogai stuff, and it has hurt so so much.

im a xenogender, genderqueer aroace bi lesbian. all of these things mean so so much to me. because they taught me to know and love all parts of myself, which has taught me my love of radical love and kindness. the queer community is what has transformed me into being a radical, queer-anarchist, anti-racist, anti-bigotry, and those things are so fucking critical to who i am. i wouldn't be who i am without the queer community and what its members have taught me about equity and compassion... and yet, it has also traumatized me to the point that it's hard to think about getting involved in irl queer events which breaks my heart.

in 2021, 11,000 people signed a petition telling me specifically to end my life for being part of the campaign that had the lgbta wiki support bi lesbians. i had a message board on there, and everytime i went on there, there were 10 new messages with different descriptions of how i should end my life. it got so bad that i couldn't sleep. i was shaking and crying ALL THE TIME. and despite that wiki being the one place i could be open about my queerness, i was forced off of it because if i stayed, i would be continually threatened and my mental health couldn't take it.

as a result, i lost contact with most of my online queer friends. i was so fucking angry all the time. everytime i saw any form of exclusionist rhetoric, i would become so anxious that i would spiral. i've been baited, threatened, relentlessly bullied, forced out of a queer 'safe' space, and treated like absolute fucking shit. all because i put the words 'bi' and 'lesbian' next to each other in a bio about me.

i can't put words to describe the kind of shit this has done to my mental health. i already had personality disorders from Emotional Trauma that made anger hard to deal with- so getting involved on Tumblr after the wiki went away, where exclusionism was sadly rampant, was hard because I felt like I had to choose- be an online part of the community that has made me who i am, but suffer bullying and self hatred in the process, or give up that community entirely. i don't think people truly comprehend how traumatizing it is for anyone, but especially a TEENAGER, to have to make a decision like that.

it's been almost two years now, and still, everytime i see exclusionism, everytime i get a death threat (sadly still a somewhat frequent occurrence), i spiral because it takes me right back to the height of my harassment two years ago. and part of my brain still genuinely believes i deserved it.

that's just me. that's just one person influenced by this. and yet it's not just me. the same stuff that's happened to me, has happened to thousands. and thousands more. and i don't think people truly understand that, just because it's online stuff and didn't really happen irl, doesn't mean it's some small little thing that we should stop complaining about because there's REAL problems for REAL queer people to worry about.

so, very long story short, coming from someone who has been hugely impacted by exclusionism, and i may be unique in this position, but every person who was once an exclusionist like that and has grown and apologized, seriously means the world to me. because i know that there's no excuse for it, and yet i understand the reasons why so many people struggle with it. out of all the self hatred exclusionism has caued me, how can i turn around and blame the exclusionists who were acting out of the same exact insecurities i was?

there is no excuse for bigotry. but you are not a bad person. thank you for growing. seeing your post actually gave me so much hope because i've had several people come to me personally and say that me being open about my identity has helped them grow out of their exclusionist mindsets and grown as a person, so seeing people grow like this just warms my heart because we all have the capacity for both good and bad- taking the opportunity to learn to be better is a prime example of the good and it fills me with hope that other people can learn too.

i also wanted to comment on something else from your post. you were talking about the generational trauma you've experienced, and how you perceived the concept of 'aphobia' as disrespectful to the victims of horrible systemic oppression irl, and while yes, that is not what aphobia as a concept is, you don't need to apologize for being angry because yes, you perceived something the incorrect way in that moment, but your anger was 100% justified. as a white queer person, i fully believe that inclusionism still needs room to acknowledge intersecting oppressions and that comparing intracommunity exclusionism to centuries of genocidal colonialism, is absolutely appalling. your actions were unjustified- your anger was not. i want you to know that you do not need to feel guilty for being angry like that. anger is an important emotion, so i hope you can truly internalize that you had every right to be angry, even if your actions were wrong.

again, thank you for being awesome and making that post. i'm very sorry if my super long ramble was unsolicited, and if you don't want to respond i completely understand! please please take care and have a wonderful time zone <3

🖤🖤🖤

[furymint]

❤️ - How did your muse come to realize their romantic and sexual orientations? Was it difficult to accept? Are they proud of who they are?

Miscellaneous Symbol Headcanons

(Elliot figured it out quickly but not before he irrevocably damaged his understanding of love with unrealistic expectations and few boundaries. He's constantly chagrined by society + his own self hatred but has a decent amount of compromises in place to protect himself. and nolanel is not normal. nolanel will never be normal about anything in his life, least of all sex)

but oh MAN this is a good question and one i think abt all the time. the answers are v detailed and a bit nsfw so it's all going under a cut

elliot was young when he figured it out. his childhood was lonely and studious--and that was partly his doing. josseloux treated him almost like an adult, allowing him to make his own decisions abt where to go and what to do, and elliot invariably pursued learning over play. he was snobbish, oversensitive, and peculiarly observant and analytical--which hasn't rly changed.

he was obsessed with quixotic male heroes, would find his eye drawn for hours to the ideal male figures in statues, and wanted nothing to do with the coarse or unintelligent (read: not like him) boys around him. josseloux wasn't unaware, and stuffed a few books in his shelves to bait his son. something like edward carpenter's anthology of friendship Absolutely ruined elliot's understanding of what a relationship w another man should be: something full of devout loyalty, intellectual greatness, unerring inspiration, and nothing like what he observed in real life. he was Different and he wanted Better.

women were Better but they didn't do it Right. they had the grace, kindness, and beauty that he wanted--except they were women, and women were inconvenient bc of societal structure/expectations and ☆misogyny☆. he intuited what sex was between the lines of his dad's books and decided it was not for him. then a teenage boy stopped an 8yo eli in the hall, bent to fix elliot’s tie, and spiraled him into understanding.

his imagination became more in depth once he knew what he wanted to see but wasn't seeing it. as he grew older, his queerness became more prominent in contrast w the dominant culture, and he began to resent the way people treated him as a curiosity. it was in his sense of beauty, his voice, the carry of his body, his values, and he knew that he would feel humiliated abt it for the rest of his life. he doubled down on himself and allowed ppl who wanted to dislike him to do so; he would weaponize gossip against them eventually.

he's still self-conscious. self-hatred is part of it, but most of that hatred is towards other parts of himself. at this point, he's thrown himself so far into fretting about his socks  that bigger matters feel smaller. almost every salon, house, lodge, and backroom where queer talk happens has also heard elliot's laugh. his experience w relationships before nol are unexpectedly fleeting and shallow, too: 6 months mightve been the longest because he always knew smth isnt clicking completely and it's all hot & quick sparks before they stop talking.

his first approach to nol was intellectual before anything else, then sexual, and when neither of those made nol open up, he regarded their interactions as platonic until he actually learned what nolanel's suppressed af tells were. then he kissed the dope and entered the 'Oh. So Nolanel Like-Likes Me. He's Also Terrified Of Me. Please God Tell Me I Can Fix This' phase. it got worse before it got better. its a miracle he didnt drop nol then and there but i never claimed elliot was smart.

anyway. nols insanity aside its a huge effort for elliot to have to juggle his big silly personality & professionalism with smth (possibly) undesirable that ppl clock in him the minute he's in view. by n large tho, he likes being gay n celebrates it. he just gets in trouble bc his gay feelings are too big for him to handle.

nolanel is just. jfc. so practically everything in the world terrifies nol. romance and sex are no different. part of that is just his own brain, and the other half is taught or cultural. he grew up knowing the how and why of sex bc of how crucial it was to the operation of the ranch. simultaneously, the only love he had towards a person was ephemie, so he just assumed one day he'd marry her and figure the rest out. he kissed her when he was 10 and both of them were like. uh yeah No.

his only other exposure to love was at community dances in the lowlands, where he danced and tried to convince himself of feelings but just couldn't sympathize with the couples secreted away and groping at each other. it didnt seem fun or worth breaking rules for. halone would be mad.

moving to the brume when he was 14 woke him up. the culture around sex was more open, which was distressing and confusing and thrilling. then the military compounded the jumble with peer pressure, the live-before-you-die mentality, and ohhhhhhh god oh no no no men everywhere why are men hot too. sex seemed embedded in everything down to their uniforms. perhaps he would learn to live w this. :)

absolutely fucking not. the ppl who ply sex horrify him by reminding him of his own desires (which halone says are bad). the most nol's done is make out w rando ladies but the minute they touch him past that he nopes out. this got even worse when his body was burned. dont look at him dont touch him (please look at him please touch him). he wants to be in love and have sex but any exp fills him w dread to the point it makes him sick. also, war makes him scared and sick. he is now doubly scared and sick. he starts telling himself its a waste and a distraction while knowing its not bc he cant. stop. thinking abt it.

ENTER BRUCEMONT. who loves sniffing out a weakness. he drills those feelings deeper into nols head while loudly contradicting them in his own life. he'll sit there and give explicit details abt the woman he bedded the night before so nol gets blueballed and furious. its hook line and sinker every time. truly embarrassing. brucemont loves his job. also, elliot is a political pest Needs To Go.

so this uber ridiculous religious, occupational, and personal shame cocktail is rly not helpful to nols state of mind. he Literally throws up after elliot kisses him for the first time bc he's so violently scared. his internalized homophobia acts up at the worst times, he's deathly ashamed of loving elliot at all for a while, and it takes forever for him learn that privacy is not secrecy and vice versa. the last thing i wrote is all about this.

honest to god if he just let himself enjoy something instead of analyzing the moral properties of kissing the man he's been pining after for 4 yrs, he'd have a better time of life. nol please go get laid im crying. and then he can't be normal abt that either bc hes i like uhhhh yeahhhhh im not rly interested in taking any of my clothes off the first time

i think if he fell in love w a woman he'd feel a lot more comfortable about it. anyone but elliot (and bruce. i know i joke abt it but GOD its possible its terrifying) would also do him good. nol has a v servile personality that adapts to the needs of the person he likes, but he and eli have such wildly different needs that they have to beat each other's brains like laundry for several years before they're compatible. none of this helps nol view his sexuality as smth hes remotely okay with for a v long time

[charcubed]

I really liked your "Dean is Bisexual" post and also your Chuck Meta. I think you're pretty cool. Do you think you'll ever compile a post about how spn is queercoding, and not baiting? No worries if not or anything I just like your thoughts and that topic really gets me fired up lol

(Anon's referencing this Dean post [I assume] and of course this meta monstrosity)

Thank you so much!! :') I can't tell you how much I appreciate the fact that you read my stuff and took the time to send these kind words! <3 Honored to know you like my thoughts!

Re: that topic firing you up, oh boy do I relate lmaaaooo. The existence of the word "queerbaiting" pisses me off as a general rule and I want it abolished, and it extra pisses me off when it's used in SPN context.

I've written about how subtext and queercoding are inherent methods of canonicity in this article about Black Sails (no spoilers for the show), and I quote the evergreen passages when they're relevant–probably insufferably. But I've been thinking recently I need to pull those paragraphs and adapt them to a separate post or Tweet thread to get more eyes and brains thinking about the subject at large, because devaluing subtext/queercoding and perpetuating these bullshit discussions has become so pervasive.

Generally speaking though, I think chapter 2 of part 7 of the Chuck Won meta–aka the Destiel manifesto section lmfao–is the most directly I've talked about it in a context specifically and solely tailored to SPN's situation. I'm sure you read it... but I get what you mean in terms of maybe there being a need for a standalone post about it. Hm.

I think part of the reason I've only gone past the tip of that iceberg (so far) when already within that wider meta context is that the censorship argument and evidence feels paramount, y'know? The baseline problem at the end of the day is people saying subtext and queercoding aren't "good enough" and calling it bait, right? And that's both a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of those tools and a complete unawareness or disregard for their necessity. So by and large, people have been so conditioned to ascribe malice to writers–and to the SPN writers specifically–that censorship doesn't even occur to them as the real "big bad," if you will. "We're in 2022, why can't you just make it gay," etc. is the rallying cry with no acknowledgement of that fact that sometimes creators can't.

And like, forget about all of the many bitter strangers who don't know shit about fuck and are just parroting pervasive myths about SPN they see online; I wish they were reachable but most probably just aren't, though that doesn't stop me from trying to get to them lol. But there are people in this fandom who loudly say all over God's green Internet that SPN is queerbaiting, and for some bizarre reason they get very personally offended if they see anyone saying otherwise and angrily shade people accordingly. (Like me.) I've got a couple of short threads on Twitter where I posted about "queerbaiting" as a term here and here, and those posts were directly inspired by that sort of discourse.

So it's this weird situation where not only are the mocking strangers throwing the word "queerbaiting" around but also so are the SPN fans, simply because they need an easy way to label or summarize their anger and hurt. And then those fans feel ~their emotions are being invalidated~ when they're told "SPN isn't queerbaiting" as they disparage or call into question the remarkable narrative we were given. In the name of not wanting to feel "invalidated" themselves, they invalidate the story. They've bought into the lie that its queer content is not "good enough" to count or to defend as staunch truth because of years of baggage from conflicting outside messages (which I am sympathetic to, don't get me wrong).

All of it is bonkers bananas. We need more unfuckable stubborn bastard energy in this house, in my opinion. Construct an argument! Trust your eyes and your brain! Know your shit and know it's correct until/unless someone can present better evidence from the text itself! Andrew Dabb himself could look me in the eye and say Dean isn't bisexual and I'd call bullshit and unfurl a scroll of my evidence! Fuck it!

And ultimately sometimes I just want to hold up Cas' love confession and wave it in front of people's eyes like "THE SHIP IS LITERALLY CANON AND YOU'RE STILL CALLING IT 'BAIT'? HELLO??? THE ANGEL SAID A VERY GAY I LOVE YOU. I THINK THAT COUNTS SIGNIFICANTLY. IF YOU'RE A FAN IGNORING THIS THEN THE ERASURE IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE"

CASTIEL DIDN'T DIE FOR THIS. Unironically he literally died so that this debate could be put to rest as much as possible!

But anyway. ANYWAY.

Sorry, this TOTALLY got away from me because this topic drives me insane ajkfndsjdfnkajnf

Buuuuuutttttt I'm gonna ruminate on your question! Will I compile a post? Should I compile a post? Hell, maybe the solution is for me to pull chunks of that meta chapter and just tweak it to be standalone on social media. I dunno.

We'll see! If I get any louder about this, it'll potentially be made into a new ground zero of fandom fuckery... but when's that ever stopped me before, right? Half the time my motto ends up being "someone's gotta say it and it might as well be me."

Whew okay apologies for how deranged this is and thank you again!!!! <333

[kermit-the-hag]

Okay so I'm going to preface this with saying that I understand it's not a good thing to be assuming anyone's sexuality. But considering the topic I need to mention it because I think it's important.

You said you're not saying Joe is homophobic just that he seems uncomfortable with the ship questions and with Steddie more than Hellcheer. I totally agree. I don't think he's homophobic at all but I can also see it on his face he's uncomfortable. I just wanted to offer a perspective I've not seen anyone touch on that maybe more people pushing these ship questions need to think about. First and foremost I think Joe gets so uncomfortable with the ship questions because he's worried about saying the wrong thing when there is the potential for Eddie to come back. He seems just as uncomfortable as he does whenever he's asked if Eddie is really dead.

Secondly you said "(lowkey he seems so uncomfortable to the point its almost like he thinks he's being called gay or something" and tbh, I think that's exactly what's happening. I'm not saying he's homophobic, I'm saying the opposite. There is the potential for Joe to be something other than straight. So when he's answering Steddie questions or he's put on the spot about how he played Eddie in regards to Steve, there is a very real possibility that he is worried about outing himself. If he was to admit that he 'played Eddie as gay' it could raise questions about whether or not he was really acting or if he just let some of his own personality seep into Eddie. If I was him, I wouldn't touch anything that threatened to open that can of worms. I wouldn't want people asking more questions or overanalysing every little thing I did to try and figure out my real sexuality based on how I played a character.

Point is I don't think people even consider this shit quietly in their head when they push him on the scenes that they consider to be canonically 'gay'. It shouldn't matter what the actors think or how they intended to play the character. It shouldn't even matter what we know in canon. For God's sake Eddie is DEAD and every single person in this fandom is just blatantly ignoring that fact to write their little fix it smut fics. So why can't we ignore actors opinions to be happy writing our little fics?

first of all, thanks for such an interesting take on something a lot of people may not have considered. as someone who is not straight, i make a point of not assuming anyone’s sexuality until stated otherwise. there are so many examples of shit where that has backfired. just take a look at the shit that happened to kit connor, the poor kid was harassed into coming out as bisexual before he was happy and confident enough to do it on his terms because fans saw him with a friend who was a female and started saying he was queer baiting. sadly kit wasn’t the first and probably won’t be the last one bullied out of the closet.

that being said, i don’t know whether this would apply to joseph as kit was playing a bisexual character. most steddie shippers i interact with identify as queer though because they find something relatable in those characters. i think joe’s feelings on the ship and the awkwardness that comes across is a pretty common reaction from straight men when they worry about coming across as something other than straight. pretty much most media and fans have witnessed and reported pretty heteronormative behaviour. HOWEVER that isn’t indicative of someone’s sexuality, we also are not privy to his personal life. and no fan will know his personal life (unless theyre a proper stalker or something) NOONE is welcome to any personal business and private life of any person in the public eye. Joseph’s job is to act and anything else fans get to interact with is his choice.

your point on whether he knows something about the next season is also pretty interesting, and would definitely warrant him being careful on what he says in public.

like you said though, eddie is dead, fuck it and let people ship what they want. Some actors like to interact with fandom space and others don’t, both are fine. i dont really watch josephs interviews too often and i’m a bit more of a joe girl because i’ve loved his music for ages lol I love the whole cast though and they are all talented as fuck.

final note: dont ship actors irl, dont invade actors personal lives, dont harass fans with different ships, and people relate to the characters in different ways to the actors.

[system-of-a-feather]

Honestly, I think the best thing the Riku-Data combo has ever said is that "This is probably going to be one of the hardest periods in our life save for any unexpected disaster, death, or massive illness" cause like, yeah damn right it is and we are more than ready for shit shit cause literally it's the silver lining to our trauma and abuse actually put into play. Like our trauma didn't "benefit us more than harm us" and I'm not gonna be like "This is what our trauma trained us for uwu" cause fuck that shit

But quite frankly since we survived the brunt of the trauma and the first 5-7 years of healing enough to restitch ourselves together pretty strongly, the side effect of having this adulthood shit pushed on us and having a (unhealthy but moderated) sense of extreme adulthood and budgetting skills and sense of having no support paired with the fact we kept a highly strict and minimalist life to set ourselves up with a good foundation of money and in a good place like...

We're good honestly. Like we're 22 and honestly having divorced the fucking stupidity that is Capitalism (not @ people still in it, its brain washing, Capitalism is stupid not victims in it) and it's fucking bait of chronic self torture, having a fucking amazing fiance, making great progress in whatever our transitioning goal is, having a number of hobbies and joys in life, having a decently set career and stable income with no plans for children because this world sucks, too queer for kids, and having kids in this economy is impossible - so as long as we know how to care for ourselves, manage money, and slowly upgrade shit towards the number of plans between Riku and I until we can have a mostly self sustaining life style save for a few things that aren't worth it - save any unexpected disaster we honestly have shit in the bag.

The thing that is a far out ideal if we play this "end game content" well enough would be to literally just buy a plot of land and transfer whatever we do for our personal life on there and either move friends and shit onto there to have a cheap sustainable life and/or leave it an open resource wherever we live for homeless and people in need to get shit like for real.

I really don't fucking get this need and desire people have to like idk take a vacation to Baja to sunbathe and buy some arbitrary keep sake that just shows off your wealth when you could just invest into having a fucking nice and peaceful life you can vibe in.

Like yeah I want some nice guitars and some nice clothes and shit but like I really don't get these stupid vices of wanting to live in a Mansion *sparkle* and have Gucchi *sparkle* like cool live in an empty mansion where you have to call your family on a phone to talk to cause thats fun and not isolating at all.

Fuck Capitalistic Materialistic "I'm Rich Look at Me" goals like literally they're stupid and just empty beyond the immediate joy of it. The real deal is just getting shit you can have to enjoy the world better and improving crap like.... for real I'm a self centered person but its really not about being "uwu selfless think about others" just like why

I still really don't fucking get why people don't just make shit better. Its not a moralistic thing is just you could buy a yacht youll use like once a month tops or you can actually just work to solve a problem that will have a longer pay out of both entertainment and enrichment while also building good terms with others

Like why

Why buy such stupid lavish things you probably will never use

It's really not a moralistic thing here for me. It really isn't. It's just so much more fucking entertaining, sensical and overall a fucking better decision to try to build a more sustainable way of living that is cheaper for people and thus help address some of the largest issues and problems plaguing society than idk, buying a yacht or a mansion that I'd only use like 3 rooms of regularly.

Like yeah I'd buy a stupid expensive guitar and leather and good clothes because you cant expect anyone to just sit here and be 100% giving 100% of the time and never treat themselves without burning out + this ISN'T A MORALISTIC THING AND JUST A HOBBY / PROJECT but that shit is all shit I *would regularly use*

Just like... why.

WHY.

WHY BUY SHIT YOU ONLY WILL GET JOY FROM WHEN YOU BUY IT AND USE IT ONCE A MILLENIA WHEN YOU COULD INVEST IT INTO A PRODUCTIVE PROJECT

Like isn't the WHOLE thing about Capitalism is investing into Capital??? Then why do all the Rich People Buy Stupid Shit. Like JESUS christ it pisses me off how fucking stupid and brain dead American Capitalism is and how they fucking trap people in this fucking STUPID circle of suffering. Like in it's own fucking fundamentals it doesn't FUCKING make sense

Like fuck man as a part I was grilled to be a capitalistic war machine before I looked at that and said FUCK that so I GET how capitalism works which makes me look at this crap and Im like YOU GUYS AREN'T EVEN INVESTING INTO CAPITAL WHY WHAT DOES THIS SHIT SERVE YOU

Anyways fuck man, I was trying to reflect on how we are doing good and it just (de?)evolved into a capitalistic rant #SorryNotSorryMan

-XIV