#also the characters in here argue about whether things are heteronormative or not

[wowbright]

Fic: Wedding Gifts

Fandom/pairing: Glee, Kurt/Blaine

Event: December Klaine Fanworks Challenge 2023

Words: ~2,400 words                                        

Rating: Explicit

Summary: Blaine has some unconventional wedding ideas.

Notes: This is part of my Mormon!Klaine universe. It takes place after Out of Eden, which I am still in the process of posting to AO3. It’s among the possibilities for their future. The stuff Kurt gets scandalized about is related to LDS wedding/temple ceremonies, which members are not supposed to replicate outside the temple.

* * *

“Oh my gosh, Blaine. We are not doing a presentation at the veil at our public, outdoor wedding.” Kurt spoke firmly, but how was he going to possibly win this argument? Of course Blaine would bring it up when they were naked in bed, Blaine’s legs sprawled over Kurt's thighs, his head on Kurt's chest, and Kurt an absolute pool of jelly, his brain and body spent from the things Blaine had done to him.

Let's try a new position, Blaine had said. But it hadn't just been a position. It had been a revelation: Blaine hovering over him, praising his cock and demanding things of it that Kurt wasn't sure it could deliver, not letting him come and not letting him come when Blaine was riding him past all sanity, their hands clasped together at the side of Kurt’ head and Blaine using them for leverage, pushing against them as he lifted himself up and then plunged himself back down onto Kurt's erection, over and over again, and stammering and moaning and bossy in a way that he never was outside of bed and that he had only recently begun to let himself be in it, and Kurt really did like it when Blaine got that way, because it meant that all his reservations were gone, he was afraid of nothing, and so when Blaine told him No, not yet Kurt, you can’t come yet, I still need you inside me, I need you to fuck me so slowly, I need your cock filling me up and oh stretching me and you’re oh yes you’re so big give it to me oh yes like that Kurt yeah Kurt fuck me like that give it to me give it to me I love your cock I love you oh yes— Well. It was Kurt’s pleasure to oblige.

“It's not public,” Blaine said innocently, running his thumb back and forth over Kurt’s nipple. “We sent out invitations.”

“You know what I mean. There will be non-members there. And what about the members. Are you trying to give them heart attacks?”

Blaine propped himself up on one elbow and looked down on Kurt with a seductive smile. “You mean, like I gave your member a heart attack?”

“Don't you dare bring up that mind-blowing sex when we’re talking about our relatives.”

Blaine smirked. “It was pretty mind blowing, though, wasn't it? Kurt, the things you do with your—"

“Ahem.” Kurt cleared his throat. How was he getting hard again already? When he'd orgasmed, it had felt like Blaine was pulling every last ounce of delight from the center of his body and out onto the surface, out into Blaine. But apparently his body had some secret stores Kurt didn’t know about—or, more likely, Blaine had spilled his own pleasure back into Kurt, and was doing so again now, recharging him body and soul. “You will not use orgasms as a bargaining chip in our wedding planning.”

“It wasn't just the orgasms that made it mind-blowing, though, was it?” Blaine said, and Kurt almost answered but then decided not to, because he refused to let Blaine distract him into agreeing with his cockamamie wedding ideas. He made a face at Blaine that he hoped approximated a glare.

“Oh, fine. Be that way,” Blaine said, flopping onto his back. “But who cares what they think? This wedding is for us, not them.”

“Um, technically it is for them, Blaine. Given that we're already legally married.”

“Yeah, but that was in a courthouse in front of two people we didn't even know, and this is our public declaration of love. And I want us to declare it in our own way. We said this wedding was about celebrating the roles our guests have played in our lives and inviting them to celebrate our relationship. And if people show up and they can't handle how we choose to express our love, they shouldn't come to our wedding.”

“Ah. So it's a big fuck you to your family, huh?”

“No!” Blaine pouted. “My mom would love it. She figures we're going to the celestial kingdom already. She's so bummed we can’t get sealed in the temple. But if we had a veil … and it wouldn't be the whole presentation at the veil, anyway. Just some white curtains. Lots of people have white curtains at their wedding. You have to have a canopy in case it rains, and if you have a canopy, you need to have something on the edges to keep the rain out. I'm just saying we could step through them at the start of the ceremony, instead of going down the aisle.”

In spite of himself, Kurt was becoming intrigued. He rolled on his side toward Blaine. “Together?”

“Well—” Blaine mirrored Kurt’s action. They were almost nose-to-nose. “I was thinking maybe you first, and then you could pull me through?”

Kurt almost burst out with That is not just stepping through curtains, Blaine! That's what grooms do with their brides at the veil! But Blaine looked so hopeful, and his eyes were so wide and eyelashes so long that speaking crossly would be like shooting Bambi. Kurt reached for Blaine's hand. “Are you the bride in this scenario?”

“Sort of?” Blaine said. “I don't know. It's just always the way I pictured it.”

“Always?”

“Well, since I first dreamt about it. In Germany. When I was starting to realize I was in love with you. I had a dream about you pulling me through the veil. And I couldn't explain it, but it felt so right. I guess that dream has never left me.”

“You never told me about that.”

Blaine shrugged. “It never came up. But now we have a wedding where we can do everything the way we want, the way that speaks to us? This speaks to me, Kurt.”

With the way Blaine was looking at him, that tender look that always made Kurt feel like he’d been blessed more than any other human being in the history of human beings, Kurt wanted to say yes. But if he did that, he would be ignoring his own gut. And if Blaine had taught him anything, it was that they didn't have to do that with each other. “I don't know, Blaine. I'll have to think about it. I know my relationship with the temple has changed, but it still feels … I don't know, maybe too bold? Besides, one of us pulling the other through—isn't that a little heteronormative? Just because you like to bottom doesn't make you a bride.”

“Oh, but you see, it's the opposite of heteronormative! It's reclamation. It's a challenge to narrow gender roles and the church’s myopic vision of family.” Blaine’s joyous smile turned sly. “Besides, can you really call what I just did with you bottoming?”

Kurt snickered. “You mean, because you were on top in more ways than one?

Blaine crawled over Kurt. They slotted their hands together on either side of Kurt's head. “I can take charge again for you, if you want. I know how tired you get, how you sometimes need a break from holding the reins.”

“Are you talking about sex or about wedding planning?”

Blaine smirked. “Maybe both.”

“Because next thing you're going to tell me is that you want mirrors at the wedding.”

“Well—”

“No!” Kurt protested, but it came out with a peal of giggles. “We are not doing mirrors. If you need us to stand between two mirrors so that we can see our coupledom infinitely reflected back to us, we can order that for the honeymoon suite.”

“Hmmm.” Blaine lowered himself onto Kurt, pressing the beginnings of his renewed erection onto Kurt’s belly. “That's not a bad idea.”

“You like that?” Kurt said, returning the gift by pressing his own reburgeoning arousal into Blaine’s flesh. “Besides, wouldn’t that be better? To see us naked together, joined in the flesh for eternity, me inside you and, if you want …” In spite of himself and the fact that they were already baring themselves to each other, Kurt felt himself blush. “… you inside me?”

Blaine's eyes went wide, whether from surprise or arousal, Kurt wasn't sure. “You'd want that?”

Kurt shrugged. He could be coy, too. “Only one way to find out.”

“Have you tried …?” Blaine wiggled his fingers against Kurt’s meaningfully.

Kurt wasn't sure whether to nod or shake his head. “Sort of? I mean, I did it in high school a couple times but I would get self-conscious and stop. And I’ve tried it a little when we've been apart, but I've never come from it—not because I don't think I could, but because…” Kurt felt himself flush all the way up to his hairline. “I wanted to save that for you? Which, talking about heteronormative—”

“You want me to do that, now?” Blaine said quietly, with the calm sincerity of reading a scripture verse. “You want me to finger you?”

Kurt nodded.

The initial stretch wasn't as intense as Kurt expected. Maybe that was because of the orgasm he'd had less than an hour ago, or maybe it was thanks to his occasional practice. Still, he let out a guttural moan that would have embarrassed him if it wasn't this and it wasn't with Blaine.

“You okay?” whispered Blaine.

“Yeah, yeah,” Kurt panted. “Keep—” A spark ignited deep in Kurt’s groin. “Oh!” He had liked this in high school. He’d enjoyed it in each of his practice sessions. But here, with Blaine on top of him, kissing him and moving his finger carefully inside him, it was beyond enjoyment. Because it was them—their bodies moving together, serving each other. Because with Blaine, Kurt could be himself, free and unashamed.

Blaine slid his finger in and out, whispering to him softly, asking him what he liked and what he wanted and what felt good, “because I want you to feel good, Kurt, I want you to feel so good.”

And Kurt tried to be snarky, but it came out as, “Not so—oh—not so—yes. Blaine.—not so bossy—oh God oh God oh God—not so bo—ahhhh—ssy now, a-are you?”

“You want more of that?” Blaine asked tenderly. “Another finger?”

And Kurt didn't even have to think about it, the words just came out of his mouth, pleading, “Yes. Oh, yes.”

Now Kurt was starting to feel the stretch, and he liked this, too, liked the way his body could open for and accommodate Blaine, liked that he'd been designed to experience pleasure in multiple ways, and now was not the time to analyze if he liked this better or the same or less or if it was just different, a different way to love Blaine and draw closer to him, a different way to experience his body and the goodness of his physicality and his desire.

“Do you want me to suck your cock?” Blaine asked like he was whispering a special request to Kurt at sacrament meeting.

Kurt shook his head. “Kiss me.”

They kissed, and kissed, and kissed—the way they used to on their little loveseat in Germany, back when they had rules about shirts on and buttoned and no making out in the bedroom and every touch was a sacred shock to the system, and they would kiss each other into fervors of passion that only more kissing could quench—only now Kurt was splayed on the bed, Blaine inside him and their dicks twitching against each other’s flesh, and it felt good, truly good, in Kurt's body and in his soul, and Blaine experimented with different ways of stroking and different speeds and “would you like another finger, Kurt? Do you think you can take three?” and everything went blurry but also exquisitely in focus: the thrum of Blaine’s body in time with his; the need inside Kurt, growing like life itself; the soft grunts and groans they each made, so that Kurt sometimes didn't know if he was moaning his own pleasure or in response to Blaine’s—not that it mattered, it all felt the same—and Kurt found himself thrusting back on Blaine's fingers as much as Blaine was thrusting into him, found himself delirious with the pleasure of it, found himself calling out yes yes yes yes yes yes oh Blaine yes and when Blaine asked, “Do you want to come?” Kurt couldn’t answer because he wanted to but also he didn’t want this feeling to stop and so he spread his thighs out as far as he could and took Blaine’s fingers just a fraction deeper and that—oh, that, oh, Blaine, you’re inside me Blaine, fuck me, Blaine, you’re—

“Oh, Kurt, you’re so hot, you’re so beautiful, I want you so much Kurt, oh Kurt, oh Kurt, I can’t help it, I think I’m gonna come—"

And Kurt held Blaine’s face as he came, watched his mouth drop open and his eyes go wide but never losing their focus on Kurt, making Kurt feel like he was some sort of miracle, and maybe he was, because they were, they were a miracle when they moved together like this and when they loved each other, and Blaine’s semen fell warm upon Kurt’s belly and yes, yes Blaine, I want to come, I want to come for you.

It was like an earthquake and a blessing and a thousand metaphors that Kurt would never have the language for, because Kurt never had the language to describe the level of ecstasy that Blaine kept bringing him to, for the depth of love that existed between them.

“That was okay?” Blaine said a few minutes later, when they’d caught their breath and the faculty for forming complete sentences had returned to them.

Kurt burst into laughter. “Yeah, Blaine, it was okay.”

“You want to try it again sometime?”

“If you're amenable.”

Blaine smiled and kissed Kurt's cheek. “You want me to deflower you?”

“You mean, more than you already have?”

Blaine nodded knowingly.

“I was thinking …” Again, Kurt felt the familiar heat return to his face. “Maybe on our wedding night? Or on our honeymoon?”

“Hmmmm,” Blaine said with a teasing look. “That's not too heteronormative?”

Kurt bit his lower lip as he shook his head. “Nope. It’s a wedding gift.”

“For you or me?”

Kurt rolled onto Blaine and kissed his chin, his cheek, his forehead. “That’s the beauty of it. We’ll find out together.”

[stardustizuku]

Unfortunately I came across a very strange and misinformed video about Black Butler.

It’s not good. Don’t watch it. Unless you wanna ruin your day, in which case have fun.

Despite it all, I watched it. What left me wondering, however, was how off the mark the person who made the video was on, well, everything.

From their insistence that the Book of Circus Arc theme or point is non existent, to reading Ciel’s character so badly they genuinely thought the Green Witch Arc did nothing for his character development.

While baffled, it also made me think on how someone could read Black Butler so badly.

Sure, you can say that there’s no real way to read or interpret something “in the wrong way” but interpreting The Hunger Games as a pure battle-royale action story would make you believe it’s bad.

“Why are we focusing so much on how the capitol preps them?” Or “Why isn’t Katniss winning everything?” Or “I wanna know more about the rebellion” All questions that miss the actual point of the story - which is criticizing (not solving or ignoring) the way that media distracts us from violence via spectacle.

The same thing applies here. While there is no “right” way to consume media, there’s things that the author makes clear they wanna focus when creating a story. Things that, if you understand, make the story you’re reading actually make sense.

And in Black Butler there’s three things that you have to understand to properly get what Yana is saying.

Sebastian is the protagonist

Ciel and Sebastian’s relationship IS the story.

And that relationship is, fundamentally, a positive one.

A quicker version of it would be:

Black Butler is a love story from the POV of Sebastian, and you have to ship it to get it

- but that’s not entirely true.

You can still look at it as a complex but ultimately positive rship and get in broad strokes of what it’s conveying. It doesn’t have to be romantic. Although, it helps much more than a platonic framing.

(That said, interpreting their rship as father and son, still isn’t the best way to go about it. Mostly because by its very nature of “soul consuming” their relationship is extremely sexually charged. And hey, if you’re into that I don’t judge. However, if you’re desperately trying to interpret their rship as NOT romantic to the point you fall back on heteronormative patriarchal ideals of nuclear familiar as framing device, I don’t think this interpretation bodes with you)

Now, having all that ground work:

Why do I say these are the key components to understand BB?

Okay so, first,

1. Sebastian is the Main Character. The protagonist.

There’s a lot of people who wanna argue against it, claiming he’s either the villain or the antagonist. Both wrong.

He does not function as an antagonist. Even if, and an emphasis on if, you consider Ciel to the protagonist, Sebastian isn’t a narrative antagonist.

If you wanna go back to Creative Writing 101, be my guest. An antagonist is directly defined by the protagonist. It’s the opposing force. If the protagonist wants A, the antagonist wants to stop them from getting A.

Sebastian’s catchphrase is “Yes, my Lord”. He never opposes Ciel, in fact quite the contrary. By the mere fact they’ve created contract, it means that they’ve both agreed in the inevitable outcome.

People want to frame Sebastian as the villain, because Ciel having his soul taken by a demon, would be a BAD END in the context of their moral compass. They see Ciel as a frail victim of abuse, who’s being tricked by Sebastian, who wants Ciel’s soul.

Which is an. Interpretation. A bad one. But still one.

The narrative (and whether the narrative fits your personal moral compass and lack of critical thinking is irrelevant) treats Ciel as an agent in his own destiny. The abuse he suffered was the moment in which he had no control. It’s only after he meets Sebastian that he can rid of both his guilt and his despair, and do what he wants.

In this case though, it’s revenge.

The famous “Asthma” scene shows this. If Ciel is taken back to his past, he becomes helpless. Swarmed with pain and memories that make it so that he can’t even react. Sebastian is his saving grace. If Ciel didn’t have him, and the power he wields to rebuilt what’s broken, he would crumble once more.

If Ciel has a panic attack, because of all the pain he has, Sebastian picks him up and says “you are not a helpless child anymore, you are not a victim anymore, you have the power to do anything. So, what do you wanna do?”

Ciel’s answer is to kill them.

A proper analogy would be to say that, if Sebastian offers a gun, Ciel pulls the trigger. They are both at fault. Sebastian, strictly speaking, is not here to directly cause Ciel’s downfall, but as a tool Ciel uses to plunge into the abyss.

If, again if, you were to frame Ciel as a protagonist, Sebastian falls closer to the “Voice of reason” character. Not a literal voice of reason, but a literary one. If you have a protagonist and an antagonist exchanging ideals, the Voice of Reason serves to engage with the protagonist on their own ideals.

That said, Ciel isn’t the protagonist. The story quickly falls apart if you interpret it as such.

Things such as Ciel’s character arc being…shall I say odd?

It’s not that his character arc isn’t there, but it’s never lineal. His goals stay the same, the only thing that happens is that we start to peel back the “why”s of his goals. Throughout the series it’s never about Ciel understanding himself better, he knows who he is, he knows what he wants, he knows why he wants it. He doesn’t ever need to uncover these, but simply remember them. Because it’s always about the audience understanding Ciel.

He knows he wants revenge.

In the Circus Arc: He knows that he needs Sebastian because without him, the pain of the abuse he suffered would be too much to bear. But WE are introduced to it.

In the Book of Atlantis: He knows that with this new lease he does not want happiness and peace, he wants revenge. The one being told this is the audience.

In Green Witch Arc: He knows that their revenge isn’t for his family, the real Ciel or guilt. It’s because he wants it. He’s angry, he’s upset, and this is entirely for him. The one being told this is the audience.

Except. Not really. The one either discovering or remembering these key moments - is always Sebastian.

Sebastian is the one who reassures him that he now holds the power of a demon to override the pain. Sebastian is the one who remembers that to override that pain, Ciel wants revenge. And Sebastian is the one who discovers that that revenge isn’t built out of grief or guilt, but for himself.

We are witnessing it all, through the eyes of Sebastian.

This is why we have an extremely vague idea of who Ciel is, Sebastian does not have the whole picture.

If you haven’t been reading this manga with your eyes closed, you’ll realize we have a better grasp at Sebastian’s character than that of Ciel. We get a lot of insight on how he thinks and what he values through light hearted dialogue he has with the servants. You even see the character development in these little interactions.

Think about how when he first arrived to the mansion he magically created food with no regards to taste, but when he meets Bard he states that food is created to see whoever will eat it, smile.

That is character development, more than you will be able to see from Ciel.

Because Ciel’s character, while not static, doesn’t go from point A to point B. Mostly, cause it doesn’t need to. He went through that when he lost the real Ciel and got Sebastian. Everything we are watching is the falling out.

Now, given the fact that I’ve told you that it makes more sense for Sebastian to be the protagonist/main character, and that he 100% isn’t either a villain or antagonist in ANY of the interpretations you can get:

Do you believe me?

If you don’t, you’ll probably believe Yana herself.

This is from the first Volume, where Yana herself describes the process of making Black Butler. The primary idea behind the creation of BB was a butler as a “hero”.

If you go back to the introductory chapter, you notice that Ciel is barely mentioned. He’s simply the one to give Sebastian impossible tasks and standards that Sebastian must find how to overcome.

Ciel is properly introduced until the NEXT chapter. The second chapter has this formula too, introducing Lizzie as a problem to overcome. Although, to Sebastian the best way to “get rid of the problem” is simply to indulge her.

The issue here being that the problem isn’t as simple as a business meeting but something directly tied to Ciel and Ciel’s past. Each time that Sebastian has to solve a problem, it chips away at Ciel. While with Lizzie he shows a persona, once he’s alone with Sebastian he acknowledges the toll it took on him. It serves to build Ciel as Sebastian’s master, and how some problems aren’t as simple as discarding a tablecloth.

The third and the fourth, are a unified narrative, with a similar premise to the first chapter. Ciel gets kidnapped and Sebastian must find a way to retrieve him without raising suspicions.

If the first chapter is to set up what Sebastian must do as a butler, the third and the fourth serve to set up what he must do as a demon.

The entirety of the volume, and up to Book of Circus Arc, is about how Sebastian tries to follow the increasingly absurd orders that Ciel has - it is not about Ciel trying to solve them.

That’s how they work, we follow Sebastian for the most part, because he’s the one having to come up with the solutions.

If anything, in early Kuro, where the emphasis was more on a slice of life conflict, Ciel is the antagonist. He’s the one creating problems for Sebastian to solve.

What’s more, in the second volume, the very first chapter is one from Sebastian’s POV. So far, we hadn’t gotten an entire chapter from Ciel’s POV. In fact, I would find it hard to point to a single chapter where Ciel is the POV throughout. The reveal of real Ciel and the flashback is the closest contender.

But once we move past early Kuro, and into Book of Circus, this set up changes.

It’s fairly easy to assume that Ciel is the main character, because from this point on the conflict of the plot sorta surrounded him. We spend a lot of time with him and with his story. The enemies start being people directly tied to Ciel and Ciel’s trauma. Rarely, if at all, we get to see Sebastian before he met Ciel.The framing device for the story, is Ciel.

This is where point 2 gets intertwined.

2.- Sebastian and Ciel’s relationship IS the story.

The story begins at the point where Sebastian and Ciel met. Who Ciel was before he met Sebastian, informs why he’s the way he is when he does. You have to know all he went through to understand why he’s a brat, why he lashes out. However Sebastian’s past doesn’t matter…because Sebastian himself doesn’t care much for who he was, before he was “Sebastian”. That’s also part of the narrative.

Unlike Ciel, he doesn’t seem opposed to revealing information from before the contract. He talks about how pets from where he is from are gross, he talks about how he knows how to dance because of other places he’s been to, and alludes to the life he's lived before.

Just that, to him, they're footnotes.

He makes allusions to a very bland, uninteresting life, up to the point he meets Ciel.

That’s why we don’t know more about his past.

As for why we focus on Ciel’s story…okay maybe we need Creative Writing lessons 102

I studied Dramaturgy for about 3 to 4 years. And something you notice is how play-writing is the quintessential story telling. It’s making it work with the bare bones of a story.

Some other mediums have more finesse, more depth, or more spectacle - all amazing things that work for whatever they’re created for. But understanding a play, how and why it works, helps understand the fundamentals of any derivative story telling medium.

Particularly, conflict.

Conflict is dialogue and dialogue can take many forms. A story, in its essence, is a dialogue between two opposing ideas.

Take Batman, for example, who embodies the ideas of justice and order. On his own, he’s not a well rounded character.

If you ONLY present him, in a vaccum with nothing else, you don’t have a character. You have a list of characteristics that you’re supposed to know.

You only know who he is when you have dialogue with another character.

I say Dialogue, but it doesn’t necessarily mean spoken language at one another. Dialogue can mean fist fighting, playing tabletop games, talking to other people about the other, or even just a competition. The idea is to simply to compare and contrast both ideas.

If you want an example on how tabletop games serve as dialogue, watch the video “Well, Someone Had to Explain the Liar’s Dice Scene” by Lord Ravecraft

Another example, were we to retake Batman, you have him fight Joker. Who’s the embodiment of chaos and randomness.

In the following picture, you get far more information than the one previously shown. While the Joke fights with daggers and fake guns, Batman only uses his fists. He doesn’t use the tricks that Joker does. His serious demeanor, contrasted with Joker’s glee at the dangerous situation. The fact that Batman has a deathly grip on Joker’s shirt, while the Joker doesn’t, which shows a desperation to catch him.

You are being shown, through a dialogue, who Batman is.

It’s so much easier and much more effective to explore a character through another character.

This is the reason why Shonen has a tendency to make incredibly good gay ships. If you want to explore Naruto’s personality, and his feelings of inferiority, you HAVE to have him interact with Sasuke.

If you wanna understand Hinata’s passion for volleyball, you have him enjoy himself the most with the only other crazy motherfucker who’s as obsessed with volleyball - Kageyama.

And I think that originally, Yana had this problem.

Sebastian was the protagonist, but she had little room to develop him as a character in the confines of the manor, dealing with random enemies.

She likely tried to create Grell as someone of the same stature as Sebastian. Someone who could be this other person to engage dialogue with and show or allude to his past a bit more.

The problem being that Sebastian didn’t care for his past. Or really, engaging with anyone. He sees everyone as below him, but when confronted with Grell who isn’t below him, he doesn’t wanna talk to her.

So you’re stuck in conundrum.

How do you have dialogue with a character, that as a character trait, doesn’t really wanna have dialogue?

Well, Grell also solves the problem. Because only the moment she gets him to start any semblance of a dialogue - is questioning why he’s serving Ciel.

And this is the moment when it’s perfectly cemented that the focus of the story is their relationship.

Why is Sebastian here? Why does he stay? What did he see in Ciel that made him want this extremely convoluted contract?

THATS the dialogue.

THATS the conversation we’re having in Black Butler.

We need to know Ciel because understanding who he is, let’s us know WHY /Sebastian/ is here.

Then slowly, with the introduction with the Undertaker, we find out Sebastian’s conflict.

Which is…

He’s scared of losing Ciel. It becomes apparent with the constant imagery of the Undertaker taking away Ciel and at some point even obtaining r!Ciel’s body, that he’s worried it might happen.

But he can only be worried that Ciel might be taken away if he wants to stay near Ciel.

And that’s his character arc.

Realizing that he actually likes Ciel, cares for him and the role he plays a butler that he doesn’t want this to end.

In the first chapters, he doesn’t feel a need to protect Ciel anymore than what’s strictly necessary. Just don’t die, that’s about as deep as his involvement in chapter 4 gets.

But by the Green Witch Arc, he feels a need to protect Ciel from ANY harm.

This is why I also said

3.- Their relationship is fundamentally a positive one.

In broad strokes, Sebastian to Ciel is the person who allows him to survive. He’s not worried about giving up his soul since he’s already dead. While Ciel to Sebastian, is someone who’s making him have fun. He’s slowly becoming more and more attached to Ciel and the life he has with Ciel.

Their relationship is not that of just a predator and prey, but also of master and pet.

In the terms that Black Butler itself would call: Sebastian is a wild wolf acting like a collared dog.

Ciel is aware that the wild beast will eat him at the end of the day, but if he clings hard to leash for now, he might just be able to have Sebastian maul his abusers.

Sebastian as a dog, currently finds that he enjoys being a chained dog.

(This is demonstrated in the Green Witch arc where he quite literally says, he doesn’t wanna be a wild beast and prefers to be a butler)

And much like the actual DOG Sebastian, Ciel constantly interprets his attempts to get close and protect him, as an act of aggression.

This push and pull of Ciel’s perception of Sebastian and Sebastian’s true motives is what feeds the story.

And the briefs interludes were that isn’t the case (what other people call the “plot”, but I would refer to as the connective tissue) such as Sullivan and Wolfram, the other servant’s past, the grim reapers and the like, serve as a parallel to Ciel and Sebastian relationship. Either to signify how they care for each other, highlight their weaknesses or fears, or explore how they feel.

It’s no surprise that Sullivan and Wolfram are parallels to Ciel and Sebastian. A sheltered sickly child who seeks the protection of a cold hearted machine that only knew how to kill, but who eventually found he cared for her genuinely.

Undertaker and Claudia’s relationship being heavily paralleled with them, even though we aren’t 109% sure what they had but heavily implied it was a romantic attraction from the undead supernatural creature and a Phantomhive.

Everything is a parallel.

That’s why, like the approach of the terrible original video, is flawed.

Trying to interpret Black Butler as action scene after action scene, with mystery after mystery with the only connective tissue being the mystery of who burned down the mansion - is missing the trees for the forest.

That’s not the point.

And if you’re too much of a prude to engage with gothic horror in its gothic horror game, I see little point as to why you even bother to engage with it at all.

A lot of people, including the person who create the video, simply refuse to acknowledge Black Butler IS the story of Sebastian and Ciel as a close and positive relationship, romantically and sexually charged. The reason for it being that they’re “put off” by it.

Part of me wonders how much that is genuinely true, and how much is just performative outrage. It’s like ignoring the fact that Cersei and Jami are in an incestous relationship and try to frame it as “platonic love”, because the idea of it is THAT off putting.

But regardless of that, if you don’t like the fact that it’s as canon as canon can get, I would reccomend you don’t engage with the story at all.

As I’ve explained, the entirety of the series is about them. If you refuse to see Sebastian and Ciel as, at the very least, a duo that cares deeply for the other - you aren’t reading Black Butler.

I have no idea what you’re reading.Perhaps your own biases and subconscious stigma with British aesthetic. At that point, watch the fucking British Royalty Gossip Magazine. You’d find more substance there.

Just don’t be like the person in the video, please? Don’t play dumb. Don’t ignore the fact that Yana is a Shotacon, don’t ignore the fact Sebastian is a hero, don’t ignore the fact that the entirety of the story is based on Sebastian and Ciel’s dynamic.

Because if you do, you are ashamed. You are ashamed of what this story is about. You don’t wanna engage with the text, you want to engage with yourself. You wanna project into Ciel whatever traumas and experiences you have, for the sake a vanity project, where you come out as the morally superior.

You don’t wanna talk about Black Butler, you wanna talk about how good YOU are. How you “don’t sin” by watching it “without all the gross unholy stuff”.

Which is the exact opposite of what BB is about.

So, if you don’t want to, save us all the humiliation fetish and leave.

[ashratfox]

I yapped way too much in this post so skip to the big text if you don’t want to read all of the specific things, but in general I’m curious how people who don’t think Mike is gay/bi and think he’s a good character defend him.

Ok, so I know this is something a lot of other people have probably said, but I think if Byler isn’t canon Mike is a horrible character. Under the assumption that Byler is canon, his actions make sense. Season 3 Mike is still a dick, but I understand why, and I can kind of relate so I immediately jump to his defense whenever someone says he’s a bad character. But if Mike isn’t struggling with sexual identity and heteronormativity and all that shit, he does seem pretty poorly written. I realized this while arguing with my mother, because she hates Mike, and a lot of the GA does—because a lot of the GA doesn’t think Mike is queer.

Mike’s behavior towards both Will and El in a lot of instances is only well explained by him being queer; for instance, his inability to tell El he loves her and how he acts around Will in the beginning of season 4. He can’t say “I love you” because he doesn’t love her—not in the way that would imply, at least. I often change my mind about whether I think Mike is bi or gay, so it could be that he had a crush on her before but is in love with Will, or that he never liked her romantically at all, it doesn’t really matter. He’s still not in love with her, but he does love her (platonically), and he’s confused and feels pressured to keep up the facade that they’re a perfect happy couple. Why he’s unable to say it doesn’t make much sense otherwise. Not being able to write it in letters could be explained by how he’s watched his parents not express love to each other, but why can’t he say it when prompted? I could understand his hesitancy, but not his outright refusal, when he knows it’s what El wants to hear. The only time he says it is when El’s life is on the line and after Will encourages him, which doesn’t seem like a huge improvement.

Similarly, his treatment of Will is strange. Why can’t he hug his best friend? I know they haven’t talked in a while, but there’s really no reason for it to be so awkward. I also think Mike kind of ignoring Will in favor of doing couple stuff with El is because it’s what he thinks he’s supposed to do (heteronormativity!!), but he clearly was paying attention to Will, enough to call him out for “moping” all day. And then there’s his unnecessary emphasis on “We’re friends. We’re friends.” There’s no reason for him to clarify it. He’s defensive, because he’s considering the possibility that they could be anything other than friends, which Will did not suggest. This scene is obviously a parallel to the rain fight in s3, too, in which Mike says his iconic “it’s not my fault you don’t like girls” line. A lot of people suspect this is more projection than anything else, which could be true. Otherwise he’s being a massive asshole, because obviously he knows how it sounds, even if he didn’t intend it to reference Will’s sexuality. He knows how Will’s been bullied for it, whether it’s true or not. I’m not 100% sure about that one, but it’s interesting.

Anyway, I’m saying all of this because I’m curious how non Byler shippers defend Mike. I know a lot of the GA just hates him, but if you really love Mileven then you can’t hate one half of the ship. So.

Milevens, what makes Mike Wheeler a good, well written character and not a shitty, poorly written asshole?

(p.s.: let’s all respect each other’s opinions on ships because we’re all just here to have fun!! obviously I’m a byler but I love you milevens!!)

[dykefever]

wolfstar tumblr has started again to claim that we shouldn’t describe sirius as short and feminine because it’s “heteronormative”, that we shouldn’t describe remus as tall and masculine because it’s, you know, un-canon (a terf’s?). it feels like terfs are coming to the fandom and we are going back to the time back then when popular writers who turned out terfs were dominating the fandom. seems the fandom is adopting the old terfs’ claims again and even shamelessly applauding it. how are you bearing these days, laura. as for me as a trans person who hates jkr and her holy “canon”, it’s horrible. feel like everything the few good people (such as you) in the fandom had tried was vain. sorry for disturbing you.

well it's been about three or so months since i last made a post about this stuff so sounds about right that more terfy posts are coming out all surrounding height discourse. it's a cycle in the r/s fandom and im afraid these terfs and transphobes aren't coming to the fandom they've all probably been here a while because this fandom is rife with them due to the source material and general politics of the people that write the fic (liberals who are so totally for gender neutral bathrooms but transwomen make them obviously uncomfortable irl)

i've already talked a bit about how harmful and also dumb this line of thinking is re: short and fem s so i'll link this post on gender essentialism i made but i'll say again it's just so tedious how it's often the same people who don't seem to inspect where their assumptions are coming from. people stick terfs dni in their bio and perhaps disagree with the openly transphobic lawmakers but that doesn't mean their biases against trans people don't exist. transphobia is far more insidious than that!

like people seem to go: short s -> s is "whiny" and "annoying" -> he's feminine (whether he actually is or not) -> thus he's being written like he's a girl and that's bad because that's heteronormative

the media heuristic that exists that "whiny" and "weaker" men (ie. complaining, relying on their boyfriend/partner for things, idk being the fucking little spoon) are women-coded does not mean you shouldn't make any character whiny or annoying or whatever because then you are essentially making them a woman and that's Bad -- the response is to unpack the very idea that there are certain traits connected to men and women and when applied to people of the opposite or other genders somehow still has a connection to an innate gender of 'man' or 'woman'.

also, s characterisation is varied but not as prolifically dramatic and bad as people seem to say. they're latching on to the 'feminine short s characterisation' where he acts dramatic as if i have not ready many a fic where he is tall and stereotypical masculine with similar personality traits. however, these traits are viewed differently when packaged differently. the difference is s wearing a skirt or being perceived as feminine in a way that they do not view as aligned with their perception of how gender should operate.

whether intentionally transphobic or not, the shorthand people use in these discussion always ties in with this belief that there are innate gendered characterisitics that if acted out in certain relationships makes them heteronormative. i am afraid that's not how queer relationships work! they are still gay even if one of them is short and the other tall and one is fem and the other masc like? you can dislike certain relationship dynamics but that doesn't make them inherently problematic or homophobic or anything. i avoid plenty of r/s fic because it's not how i personally view them. i don't try and morally justify my dislike because i don't like how they wrote r i just click out. as for saying one thing is canon and another is not like idgaf whatever!! most of canon is quite horrible and problematic and of course we are all engaging with it to some degree but to use it to argue something as meaningless as height should be adhered to. well i'm scrolling away frankly.

idk people are always telling on themselves in these discussions and you can pretty much always track one degree of separation between them and a pretty outward terf. i block and unfollow a lot of people but at the end of the day i engage with far less content than i used to because it sucks seeing so much transphobic and often anti-queer discussion. it's exhausting and it's why so many trans people especially transfem people leave this fandom. people can slap anti-jkr in their bio as much as they want, a terf is still a fucking terf.

[sugarcubetikki]

Also I think another part of the argument about El’s s1 appearance is specifically that she was described to look like Will. They thought she could possibly have been him with shaved hair. So that’s another thing that I’ve seen bylers use to be like hm…. Interesting

Yes! A lot of us do perceive El resembling Will to be interesting byler proof.

However, I don’t really see it in the way you’re referring to.

I don’t think El resembling Will is what contributed to Mike falling in love/projecting his feelings for Will onto El. I think it serves greater narrative meaning than that.

This amazing post talks about El and Will being linked as foils. And it’s something you can see as important according to the larger storyline as well as how it relates to Mike’s relationship and his conflicting feelings for both of them.

In that way I think El seeming to resemble Will is indication of this idea of them being foils. And in reference to their relationship with Mike, he’s constantly switching between the two, he’s with one whilst apart from the other whether it’s physically or emotionally or both. It conveys a conflicting nature in his feelings for both of them.

However, I don’t see El and Will to be on equal footing to Mike romantically. I believe he’s strongly influenced by heteronormative standards and is somewhat projecting his romantic feelings for Will onto El due to the way Margaret Thatcher has been built up.

When he first met El, he was focused on finding Will, the reason why he was in those woods in the first place because he was desperate and snuck out to find his best friend.

When he found El, she was scared and lost (like Will probably was then and you can’t tell me Mike wasn’t stressing over that) so he took her under his wing. All the parallels and comparisons that could be made between Will and her were all to perfect: in terms of appearance, their passive personalities during the time and on a deeper level certain traumatic events they faced in the past.

I’d argue that I think as El has grown and developed as a character she deeply became separate from who she was in S1 but Mike has become very disconnected from who she’s grown into. As most of her character development happened when she was away from Mike (S2 and 4 physically whereas 3 emotionally she grew as a character with Max) and he never got to know who she’s become (they spent most of S3 making out and fighting then when El moved they did send each other letters but El was lying in most of them so I can’t blame Mike for this).

Their relationship in S1 was also greatly driven by Mike relying on El and her powers to find Will (he lashed out on her at the quarry when Will’s “body” was pulled out only to soften later on when she manipulates the radio or walkie talkie audio to Will singing).

It’s also interesting how many characters show strong concern over Mike’s emotional state due to Will going missing: Karen’s conversation with him whilst El is in the closet, Karen to Joyce when Mike misses school, Nancy to Mike later on - the same isn’t done with Lucas or Dustin to this extent. I understand there’s supposed to be a dual meaning here because a lot of Mike’s behaviour was to do with him hiding El but it makes you think…really think…how it’s pointed out in the show that everyone expected Mike to be acting weird because of Will but then it’s supposedly revealed it’s because of El’s presence. I think things aren’t what they necessarily seem here especially because everything relationship with El relates to Will in a way. He found some sort of comfort in El when Will was absent because let’s be frank here if El hadn’t stepped into Mike’s life he’d be worrying over Will every second onscreen.

El entering his life gave him someone to care for in Will’s absence, I’m not saying El was a stand-in for Will but she was if you consider Mike and Will’s dynamic in S2 - it mirrors Mike and El’s S1 dynamic. I know a lot of people love to say that Mike was projecting missing El onto Will but I’m sorry this is their dynamic and their closeness has been implied before the series started by every other character and the “it was a seven” on its own. If anything, it’s the other way around and it makes the most sense. Even now, in S4, Mike uses El to conceal his worries over Will (it just felt like I lost you and maybe I was worrying over El too much/Mike venting his frustrations of Will not speaking to him in the roller rink using him being a douche to El as an excuse).

Taking care of El seemed to be a coping mechanism for Mike in Will’s absence (when both El and Will are not there, may I remind you he tries to jump off a cliff?) and he seemed to be projecting a lot of his worries over Will onto that too. If you consider heteronormativity and the fact that El was a girl, Mike could be with her the way he could never be with Will. He felt like he fell in love with her then but the question is did he really when we get 3 more seasons of the show where their relationship seems to be a mess and the byler coding grows stronger?

His life started in those woods? Because it felt like it ended when he lost Will and finding El and “falling in love with her” got him through that pain.

But El is not the same girl from S1 anymore. Mike has to realise that she’s grown and developed into her own person whereas sort through his own feelings and how he’s been projecting all of his feelings for Will onto El throughout the series and how messy it has become.

Just to make it clear I don’t think Mike actively realises he’s projecting, it seems to be more of a subconscious experience that makes the most sense according to the narrative in my eyes at least. Unlike Will, he definitely hasn’t unpacked his gayness yet.

[psychewritesbs]

Confession: I saw you talking about jjk ships and giiiirl I started to feel bad lol. I used to really enjoy various jjk ships but after unpleasant experiences and among other things I saw out there, this whole thing just left a bad taste in me. It become very common to attack people's reading comprehension or even call them homophobic in discussions about canon, but the thing is if it's not explicitly in the story or said by Gege, then people are arguing about personal interpretations based on personal perspectives or personal preferences.

I love stsg. I think it's a canon romantic couple? No. I think their relationship is at least ambiguous? No, (but at this point I am judging from my own experience, I have a best friend and she's the person who understands me best but I can assure you that there are no romantic feelings). If I put on my shipper glasses, I think stsg can be more than best friends? Yeah. If I look for it and I find it . Also, based on my personal preferences, they have what it takes for me to like a ship lol.

The same with itafushi, I love this pair, and it hurts me that it is not appreciated enough (if you want to talk about them I will read it with pleasure). Of course I don't think there's anything romantic there, even if Megumi's answer to Aoi's question raised doubts after Aoi clarified that it doesn't matter if Megumi prefers boys or something. The desire to save each other from the beginning and the mutual understanding even if they have only known each other for a short time is wonderful. Sukuna even adds more flavor to this ship.

Anyway, discussions about whether a ship is canon or not are useless because the only canon ships can be counted on the fingers of one hand and they aren't even the popular ones. Also Gege said that he didn't think there was romance for any character except maybe Miwa with Mechamaru and we already know how it ended.

Nooooo wait 😭. Why did you feel bad tho?

I have to agree tho. One of the reasons I don't talk about jjk ships is BECAUSE of past experiences that were very unpleasant. I have also seen moots get bullied over talking about their ships.

It's almost like talking about ANY ship in jjk means you are opening yourself up for others to come shit on what you love. It doesn't matter who you ship either!

"You like yutamaki? Well I hate your guts because I'm team nobamaki!"

"How dare you?! yutarika is the only correct answer!"

"You like stsg? Well you're a delusional fujo!"

"If you like gjhm you are stupid, homophobic and support heteronormativity!"

So noisy...

But like... THIS:

"people are arguing about personal interpretations based on personal perspectives or personal preferences"

More under the cut...

I'm going to go ahead and quote Jung because, similar to what you said "we don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are" 💯.

Also, everything else you said here 👏.

After second angry anon's ask came through, I wondered whether I should take the anon option off, but the rest of your ask is GOLD, and I know that people (in general) can't say what you said without suffering the consequences of having made such a statement. So anon option stays 👍.

To that point, I never saw anything remotely romantic until I read a really good fan fiction about stsg. That's why I don't care to get involved in an "are they canon" conversation. It doesn't matter because, if I put on the pink-colored fujo glasses, I can see it and that's enough for me.

I am also not interested in going to a stsg fan and telling them their interpretation is delusional because obviously they see something I don't see without the pink-colored fujo glasses. I am not interested in negating their experience either.

The thing I didn't say in my answer to baity anon is that baity anon is not prepared to have a conversation about how "the show really... acknowledges that fans like various relationships so it feeds them these irrelevant crumbs" also includes stsg according to other people.

SO WHO OWNS THE TRUTH?!

If Gege himself said the only canon romantic pairing is mechamiwa, the question is, who owns the truth about any of the other pairings and the subtext involved?

And why does someone get to be the authority on what is and isn't authorial intent if Gege has not made an explicit comment about it--to the point that they insult others' intelligence and reading comprehension?

As you said...

"people are arguing about personal interpretations based on personal perspectives or personal preferences"

The problem is that people think that their interpretations are the ultimate truth, and that anyone who doesn't agree with them is wrong.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!

[sixohsixoheightfourtwo]

“yaoi” and “gei” (gay) manga are different genres specifically bc actual mlm in japan didnt feel represented by yaoi (since… you know… its made primarily by and for non-mlm, mostly het women) so they had to make their own Gay Manga LOL. personally i’d say yaoi being inherently from a fetishistic perspective makes it Problematic but that’s just me!

right, but (assuming this is re the stuff I put in the tags of that one post) the mangaka this person recommended as 'mlm' was Nojiko Hayakawa who is 1. female (according to mangaupdates.com) 2. has 'I draw BL' in her twitter bio 3. again, according to mangaupdates.com, mostly draws BL manga that gets published in BL-specific magazines.

I get the point you're making but this specific instance was not someone talking about gay manga made by & for gay men but someone trying VERY hard not to call something by the name it was written and published under. I am not wild about the term BL but it's the generally accepted international term for the genre so that's what i would tag it as u know.

I do want to say a couple of other things, one of which is that there's plenty of popular gay mangaka who are totally bonkers fetishistic - As Is Their Right! - eg gengoroh tagame (him MOST of all), jiraiya .... some of the things yaoi gets criticised for are def present in gay manga, certainly in gengoroh tagame's work - eg misogyny and erasure of women, characters who don't consider themselves gay, absolutely WILD consent issues. (years ago people used to post old scanlated gengoroh tagame on tumblr. INDESCRIBAble frankly.) But this is art from 25 years ago and gay manga has I'm sure moved on. I don't know enough about it! practically none has been licensed / published in english. (I thought of 'my brother's husband' btw but turns out it was published in a seinen magazine)

And the other is that BL media has developed and continues to change; the content is changing and the audience - certainly the audience today - is not just comprised of cis het women, it just IS a bit more complicated, partly because it's become so international: I absolutely am not an expert here (i have read some fumi yoshinaga. I have seen some thai dramas) but i'm writing this having just got through about half of this literally 2.5 hr long seminar 'The History and Transformation of BL in Asia' and a couple of things stood out to me (I took notes because i take notes for everything) :

one of the academics, Akiko Mizoguchi, says that as a child she read Moto Hagio, Keiko Takemiya etc, the 'beautiful boy' manga of the 70s: the characters didn't necessarily grow up to be gay in the comics but it was possible to imagine them doing so; this helped her realise her own homosexuality

she says recent BL has transformed somewhat from the old-school extreme seme-uke, 'not gay', heteronormative stuff to a genre where protagonists who identify as gay 'engage in realistic episodes' eg about coming out, in a way that's 'more advanced' than the reality in Japan - ie not exactly realistic - but it can function as a model for overcoming homophobia - she refers to this as 'transformed' and 'transformative' BL, and argues it has activist potential.

BL in Thailand is popular with and written by BOTH women AND same sex attracted men ... the academic Thomas Baudinette breaks down the fandom as 21% male, 78% female - far from an even split but this is really quite a lot of men. Thailand has (unlike most countries) hung on to the term 'yaoi' - they talk about y-novels, y-series, y-comics etc.

He's also done research into BL in Japan and found - controversially - that there ARE japanese men who read and enjoy BL manga, though he doesn't give stats. He argues that whether we see something as BL or as gay depends on who is consuming the text, not on who the creator is.

listen anon this is way too long already and it's late where i am but tbh I think what i'm really saying is that the picture is complicated and these genres are capable of doing many things. I also think we tend to be really focused on analysing bl media and tend to under-report fetishism in mainstream media: there's jarringly gratuitious stuff in mainstream shounen manga and anime.... but most of all i DOOOO really recommend the video of the talk i mentioned . genuinely REALLY interesting and touches on all these issues And more.

[faelapis]

i know some of you guys will probably instinctively wince because you got caught up in gamergate during your youth and only reformed/grew out of it later... but i think many would really benefit from watching the feminist frequency tropes vs women series (yes, it's been review bombed to hell and back by anti-sjw types.)

i was a huge fan of it back in the day, watched all the videos - but unlike current discourse, which is (and i’ve also been guilty of this) hyperfocusing on the perceived flaws of a single intellectual property, it took the broader approach that we ought to be critical of just how common these tropes are.

it really helps you look at media with a bird’s eye view, if you’re new to that kind of analysis. seeing your fave there doesn’t mean they’re “bad,” it means that they’re a part of a broader pattern that maybe shouldn’t be so widespread. you can always make justifications for why a certain trope exists within the context of (your favorite media), but the point is the broader discussion, NOT individual examples.

this is part of why it’s so frustrating how many “response” videos will pause the video at a split frame showing an example to mock - trying to “disprove” problematic aspects by arguing about the very particular examples - rather than understanding it as a critique of the tropes themselves. like. guys. the point isn’t whether mario is problematic. the point is how integral damsel in distress narratives and heteronormativity are in video games right up to present day.

this, i think, is also useful when judging the "base intentions" or "base politics" of a piece of media. a huge part of what initially appealed to my feminist sensibilities about steven universe was how it avoided many of the problematic tropes that plague most animation even today.

outside of representation, it also intentionally challenged the notion of hierarchy itself, by making its "heroes" thoroughly flawed and dressing down the notion of the perfect leader. a lot of media will challenge authority, but then just install a "good" king to replace the "evil" one. SU future is super important here, as it challenges the notion of steven as the "good" diamond/leader to replace the "bad" ones. you can't just replace the leaders, you gotta dismantle that unfair hierarchy. good intentions can lead to bad outcomes when someone thinks of themselves as a hero or savior, and hence "above" others. hence, a degree of empathy for everyone in that system is key. you're not better than them, and they're not better than you.

that's also a big reason why the criticism it eventually got was so frustrating to me. there seemed to be little awareness in the fandom how it was still better and had more progressive sensibilities than 99% of the media out there. it was like they thought steven universe was the first cartoon since the 40s to ever have blind spots, rather than that being the norm.

so, yes, there is also individualistic appeal to understanding the commonality of tropes as they relate to underlying systemic issues. when (non-youtube 🙃) critics call something “progressive” or “refreshing,” it’s usually not because they have lower standards than you or can’t see the problematic nitpicks - it’s because they’re able to put it in the context of what most media is actually like. they haven’t hitched their wagon to hating or loving one piece of media. they can't; they have to look at A LOT of media.

i’m far from the first to say this, but this kind of systemic approach is also applicable to things like the bechdel test. the point was never that passing or not made an individual intellectual property “good” or “bad” - it was how. fucking. common. it was for media to center men and male perspectives. it was pointing out that most movies don’t have several female characters who are able to have dialogue about something other than men. yes, trash like showgirls passes. nobody thinks that makes it good.

~drama about individual pieces of media tends to get more clicks and views, and that is occasionally important! i’m not saying individual pieces of media or its fanbases can never be questioned or, inversely, defended (otherwise, how could i justify spending so much time defending steven universe from that big overblown hypocritical backlash?)... but it also makes me sad.

like. i’m 25. i’m not that old, but in fandom spaces i feel fucking ancient. i feel like i'm from a different time in terms of media consumption and analysis - one where me and my fellow lefties knew that all media was in some way problematic.

maybe it was just more "in your face" then, so it was easier to spot... but whatever the reason, i felt like a huge part of leftist analysis was the acknowledgment that everything, even the media you love, is a product of a broader, unfair system. just like people are shaped by that system, too - and that's "the enemy," not individuals or individual works of art (almost like SU had a point about that). the unfairness in society at large will be reflected in the products that culture creates and consumes. so intentions and caring does, actually, matter.

[thechangeling]

Ok so a conversation @littlx-songbxrd and I were having made me remember something I was ranting about to a friend of mine once.

Brace yourselves this is going to be long. I'm sorry.

The sexism, homophobia and racism of the shadoworld straight up doesn't make sense and here's why. So if we start chronologically with the infernal devices. There is sexism towards Charlotte right? People don't want her running the institute and they don't want her becoming the consul because she is a woman. But the Clave has no problem letting women train and fight. This doesn't really make sense in my opinion.

Now you could argue that it's because they believe woman can be string capable fighters just not rational thinkers. Which is weird because in my experience you don't meet a lot of people who are "partially sexist" in that way. Like if a man believes a woman can't do high profile, high paying jobs then they usually also don't want them in the military. Anyways moving on, there aren't any mentions of homophobia in TID, mostly because they're arent any queer characters except Magnus and Woolsey.

But something interesting to point out is that none of the characters who know about Magnus and Woolsey ever comment on it really. And following this point, none of the mains display any signs of misogyny either really. (Except for what Will says to Tessa at the end of CA but that was because of the "curse.") You could argue that this is because they're the protagonists so they are supposed to be better then that. But accidental microaggressions are pretty common especially during that time period. More on that later.

Moving onto racism, this is the interesting part. Jem says to Tessa that shadowhunters believe that you are a shadowhunter first and your nationality or eace second. Actually Jem doesnt mention race but he says this while talking about being half Chinese so it's kinda relevant. Shadowhunters rarely tall about race throughout the books in general except for a few instances. When Jessamine criticizes Jem to Tessa, she calls him a foreigner and says some other racist shit that I can't really remember. Something about the yin fin and calling him lazy. That directly contradicts Jem's statement about them all being shadowhunters first. Also Will and Jem actually constantly talk about being Welsh and Chinese in the books so that statement is kinda bogus in general.

And if CC didn't want her mains being sexist or homophobic to show them as good people then why was it ok for both Jesse and Gabriel to say questionable shit about Jem? Anyways moving on to TLH. Sexism is still running rampid with their cultural customs and people being shitty about Charlotte being consul. Bots have to ask the girls to dance, girls cannot have sex before marriage or else they will be ruined or whatever you know the drill. But again, they let the girls fight. Cordelia is allowed to carry around a giant ass sword but she can't get some????

IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE CASSANDRA!!!!!

Sorry I'm losing it. Anyways. Regarding racism. Alastair and Cordelia have experienced micro aggressions from the mains (Matthew and Anna) but it's never addressed. I'm pretty sure if memory serves, the inquisitor makes a nasty comment under his breath about persians when the Carstairs family sans Elias arrive. And then we have the whitewashing of Ariadne/Kamala by her parents.

But none of this stuff ever gets brought up really. Exceot for Kamala talking about her past and who she was before and sharing her original name, but she still doesn't talk about how it effects her potential coming out. Alastair doesnt mention race when he talks about the bullying he went through at the academy and none of the white characters ever stop to think about how Kamala and Alastsir's races play a part in their crappy situations.

There's probably more I could discuss with this but I'm moving on to homophobia. It's a thing in terms of the heteronormativity and people's judgement of Anna but it's not illegal like in mundane societies at this time. But all of the mains are totally cool with it which brings me to, I'm sorry but fucking bullshit! There is no way every single adult would be totally fine with it in this time period. Like I'm not saying outright homophobia but maybe some questionable comments you know? (CC is perpetuating this idea that good people never commit microaggressions which is untrue and harmful.)

I don't think there's any mention of whether or not gay marriage is allowed in the shadowhunter world at this point. Because the issues surrounding Magnus and Alec getting married were about Magnus being a warlock right? Because Helen and Aline got married before them in TFTSA because she was only half fae. So that brings me to when was gay marriage legalized in the shadow world?????

Is there any mention of this because I don't think there is? Anyways moving onto TMI. This is where everything goes to absolute shit in terms of world building with the standards for these things. Misogyny isn't really a problem in tmi anymore from what I remember. Nobody has issues with Jia as consul (from what I remember,) and that's that. But homophobia is still rambid throughout shadowhunter society so much so that Alec is terrified to come out because he believes that he can't be gay and be a shadowhunter in peoples eyes. Also there is pressure to "carry on the family name" which doesn't make sense because if the sexism has died out then women can have babies with whoever and not even be married and carry on their family line. And not everyone needs to have children, ergo there is less pressure on the sons to carry on the family name or whatever. This also doesn't make sense because homophobia literally cannot exist without sexism!!!!

This is because of colonial gender roles being forced on society. And men being with men and women being with woman totally smashes the whole gender roles, "woman do this and men do that" idea. There's more that I could say on that but this is already so freaking long so please just look it up. And speaking of gender roles it's literally mentioned that Maryse didn't teach Izzy to cook because she didn't want her to be forced into a housewife role like she was (although there's no evidence to suggest she was?) But then Maryse is lowkey homophobic?

It doesn't make sense Cassandra!!!!!

CC doesn't get that you literally don't have homophobia or transphobia without sexism. Indigenous societies pre-colonization didn't care about any of that stuff. Literally two spirit people were revered and respected and no one gave a fuck about gender until my ancestors literally came along and ruined everything. (I'm so sorry.)

But anyways there's no mentions of racism amongst the shadowhunters in tmi. Just Maia talking about her experiences with mundane society as a black girl. When Clary confronts Valentine and basically calls him a n*zi, he laughs at her and basically says that shadowhunters don't see race the way mundanes do which yikes @ CC. Granted this was 2007. This kind of sounds like what Jem said in TID. Only it clearly wasnt true.

Anyways I'm just super confused at this point. In TDA there was basically nothing in terms of all the isms and phobias. (Oh we arent even discussing ableism because my fucking head will explode!) But we do discuss transphobia a bit with Diana. But again it doesn't make fucking sense because transphobia exists because of sexism and clear gender roles (and homophobia.)

Society is still shown to be pretty heteronormative though which I guess makes sense but the Blackthorns have multiple queers in their family! You would think that they would be less so. When Livvy mentions all the reasons that Annabel could have a forbidden love she doesnt even think to mention that it could be a lesbian relationship. When Mark finds out that Jaime was in Dru's room he freaks out but I guarentee you, he wouldn't have if Jaime was a girl. I mean you could argue that it's an age thing and not a gender thing but idk. That scene always bothered the fuck out of me. Because Mark is literally half fae like why is he caught up on bullshit "boys and girls can't just be friends" hetero bullshit.

In QOAAD we see Dane Larksoear being sexist so randomly for no reason. Like it's so strange because CC literally created a caricature of a sexist villian with him. And it makes no sense because no one else seems to feel the way he does. Like Zara is basically the leader of the cohort right? And nobody gives a fuck. It makes no damn sense Cassandra!

And finally, why is the faerie world sexist with gender roles WHEN EVERYONE IS LITERALLY BISEXUAL AND THEY'RE FAERIES CASSANDRA!!!???? THEY'RE LITERALLY FAERIES WHY IS THERE A CONCEPT OF GENDER AT ALL CASSANDRA????!!!!

Ok lol now I'm done. Sorry this is so long. But yeah I'm so confused.

Tldr: CC's world building in regards to sexism, homophobia, racism and transphobia is very inconsistent and contradictory and it makes no damn sense.

[roublardise]

my "Crowley isn't attracted to women" take

for @spnprideweek - day 2 - mlm

cw: dicussion of homophobia & transphobia all in all I wanted to highlight how canon gay Crowley is bc I love him 💕 thank u spn for Crowley even tho he deserved better

in the last weeks I've realized there's a huuge consensus in the fandom for pansexual Crowley. if you're pan or not and wanna hc Crowley as pan, power to you! but what's bothering me is the non-discussion of it all. the way it seems obvious for everyone. whereas, to me, Crowley has been canonically gay all this time.....

disclaimer: I'm aware Mark Sheppard alledgely said he saw Crowley as pansexual, however I can't even take these words for canon without context. Especially not when a year later he'd say Crowley's sexuality didn't matter. The way Mark Sheppard talks about characters' sexuality is more a "why are people making a big deal let them be" than "the character doesn't care." Moreover, actors pov can't be taken as canon imo. Jensen Ackles thought Dean straight for so long when Dean's been bi all this time as well. Sometimes actors are biased by their own experiences & stereotypes!

disclaimer #2: on god I don't wanna start discourse lmao. I just wanna share my silly thoughts about a tv show & question the way Crowley's sexuality is written in this silly homophobic tv show. don't @ me about what's making you think Crowley is indisputably pansexual bc I assure you I already know your points

That being said, here's why I think Crowley is a bear, a gay man, a trans gay man actually, a homosexual, who isn't attracted to women & some food for thoughts about why the unquestioned consensus towards pan Crowley could have roots in both homophobia & panphobia.

I don't think we can think of Crowley as your usual demon. We know too much about Crowley's life as a human, and the numerous ways in which he acts un-demony, almost humanly after. Considering him simply like a demon with no concept of gender preference who would be pan “by default” wouldn’t be right with his character. But we also can't question his sexuality in the exact same way we would a human's.

It also can't be thought in the same way as angels': as once-humans demons do have a concept of gender. Crowley especially cares a lot about his gender presentation and the way he's addressed. Not only does he literally sell his soul for a bigger d*ck as a human ; as a demon he uses the same vessel where other demons are shown to move once they had to leave one ; and for the few hours Crowley's possessing a woman, he clearly states he should still be referred to as king.

This will all be used for homophobic & transphobic jokes in the show, but I'll get back to that later on. Gender does matter to Crowley's identity, and I think it could be extended to his sexuality.

I've seen numerous descriptions of it all saying Crowley's sexuality was "ambiguous" and I guess it is, as he never explicitly used any label. However "ambiguous" doesn't mean bi or pan. It doesn't mean anything besides the fact we can't draw a clear-cut conclusion of his sexuality.

Imo we can actually draw a clear-cut conclusion of Crowley's sexuality but yeh, I'm getting there.

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Let's take a look at canon events around Crowley & sexuality!

His character introduction is him enjoying making a homophobe man kiss him for a deal

It is rumoured that he was a demon's lover (Lilith's)

He heavily flirts with Bobby

He french kisses Bobby for a deal and takes a pic

He never kisses a woman on screen (tell me if I forgot anyone!)

He flirts with every single man he sees, and even more strongly when it's making the other uncomfortable

The other parent of Crowley's son is never mentioned nor even brought up

He has two orgies that we know of

He has sex with a demon who's possessing a woman (Lola) when he was addicted to human blood

He dates, has sex with, and asks Dean to rule Hell with him. He's in love with Dean

On late spn he drinks fruity drinks

He flirts with and implies he had sex with an angel (Naomi)

He flirts with Death (Billie)

He's into BDSM

I'm not gonna go into details with all the sexual stuff he says bc there's a lot.... But it's always about gay sex. (once again, if I'm forgetting smth pls tell me nicely)

Now, with all that I'd like to question specifically the elements people use to say Crowley is canonically attracted to women.

He has two orgies that we know of

There’s the one Crowley has while he’s himself possessing a woman ; iirc it’s a foursome with two other men and one woman. Crowley still counts as a King, as the show makes sure we know, admitedly this dialogue implies we should still think of him as a not-very-manly-man.

Honestly, if one is convinced Crowley is attracted to women based on this scene.. okay. Personally I don’t see it because the orgy is unplanned, it’s an opportunity Crowley takes. Is he even attracted to the two other men?? Who knows. We don’t even know if Crowley even touches the other woman, there’re so many ways to have group sex. Even if he did, having sex with one woman doesn’t make it impossible for him to be homosexual.

The second orgy is with Dean. Crowley describes it then: “We've done extraordinary things to triplets.” It’s interesting how before I went to check, I thought it was clear the triplets were women. But not at all! I’ve been tricked by heteronormativity myself. So this is up to interpretation. Even though the way the show doesn’t make sure we know the triplets were women is pretty telling (as I’ll talk about later).

It is rumoured that he was Lilith's lover

Well, this is a rumour. In this relationship Crowley would know Lilith as a demon possessing a woman, and Lilith would know Crowley as a demon possessing a man as well. Who's even to say they met in their vessels to sleep together. That's the kind of cases in which the ambiguity of Crowley human/demon situation makes it impossible to draw any kind of conclusion towards Crowley's attraction to women. Also if anything Lilith is clearly a lesbian lmao.

He has sex with Lola when he was addicted to human blood

Same thing here, the relationship is one of demon/demon. Though we do now they do meet in their vessels to sleep together. Besides that, the sex happens while Crowley is at a low point. She's the one bringing him human blood, which makes the sex more of a transaction than anything. It does fit a very grey area of consent which would be fair to question.

We can't know for sure whether the demon possessing the woman was a woman as well, but let's say she was: 1/ Crowley having sex once or twice with a woman doesn't prevent him from being homosexual. 2/ What is he seeing if not a demon's true form? 3/ Wasn't he in a self-destructive mental state?

It's a stretch, imo, to assume Crowley was attracted to her.

He flirts with and had sex with Naomi / flirts with Billie

This one is so ridiculous to me bc Naomi is an angel and as a demon, Crowley sees her true form. We don't even know who was her vessel when they had sex.

The flirt thing is interesting however, bc iirc Naomi and Billie are the only "women" we see Crowley actually flirt with. During the orgies or the demon sex there's no flirt involved. It's interesting bc, as Cas would say: "Naomi's vessel is a woman. Naomi is an angel."

Same case for Billie who's a reaper then Death. Spn is pretty unclear about how the whole thing works but we know reapers are kind of angels. In any case, I won't go as far as saying Billie has any connection to gender.

Moreover, the way Crowley flirts with them is pretty light next to everything else Crowley says to men. It's pretty personal, I'm aware, but I do relate a lot with the way Crowley flirts with them VS how I flirt with men just because (and I'm a lesbian).

Anyway! Both Naomi and Billie are supernatural creatures, which brings the count of women Crowley flirts with to... zero.

-> What I take from all that is that Crowley is attracted to men for sure ; to angels and demons ; and doesn't care about the genitalia involved in the sex he has. We have nothing about the kind of relationships he had as a human. His gender presentation matters a lot to him. The only long-term commitment he has is with Dean. I wouldn't even say he had a committed relationship with Gavin's other parent bc we don't know anything about them.

----------------

But what's my deal with homosexual Crowley? One can wonder, if Crowley doesn't care about bodies, doesn't that mean he can still be written as pan?

No! First because sexual attraction isn't about genitalia (even if transphobes would argue the contrary but they're transphobic so...). And second, well....

I would refer to this point as "how do I know Crowley isn't attracted to women? bc Dean is"

I'm convinced that if the show wanted to write Crowley as anything other than a gay man, it would have been way more obvious.

This is a show who wrote Dean catcalling a faceless woman on the street, for no other reason than to remind the viewers Dean was attracted to women & to balance it with the following homoerotic scene.

One could say spn doesn't have lots of women characters to begin with, but that's my point exactly: when spn wants to show attraction towards women, they do find women for people to be attracted to. Hell, they even give Gavin some girlfriend but never ever bring up the topic of Gavin's other parent. Even though an entire episode is dedicated to learning about Crowley's past.

What's important to understand Crowley's sexuality isn't the people he slept with ; it's the people he doesn't show interest in.

The absence of something is the presence of the thing, blablabla. It's a way to look at homosexuality that heteronormativity makes hard to see because, unconciously, we don't tend to question attraction towards the expected gender. One would ask for a 10 pages essay on why a character is gay, but one would need only a 2 sec kiss to assure a character's heterosexuality or attraction towards the expected gender.

----------------

In Crowley's case, his attraction to men is a huge part of his character right from the beginning (thanks god, at least no one's questioning that). Spn as a show that hears what the fans are saying and twists writing accordingly, is perfectly aware of that. Yet rather than pushing women at him along the course of the show to remind everyone how Not Gay Crowley is - the opposite happens.

Yeh, Lola, Naomi, Billie, they all happen in the later seasons. But even then, the show somehow can't write Crowley as attracted to a human woman.

What happens then is: not only does Crowley fall for Dean ; he engages in some BDSM play with Lucifer : and he switches from drinking only the finest Scotch to fruity cocktails.

The BDSM thing as well as the drink thing are choices rooted in stereotypes, that's how spn is! But it does canonize Crowley's homosexuality. They're depriving him of his "masculinity" as the show goes on, because they purposely write him as homosexual. I don't think spn would have ever written a bi or pan character that way.

We learned a few days ago that Crowley died in a gutter. He died in a gutter for a bigger d*ck. I'm just gonna refer to Oscar Wilde & Mika on this : "some of us in the gutter are looking up at the stars."

The "referred to as king" scene isn't about Crowley being a demon and so not caring about gender - it's the opposite. Other demons are the ones poiting out Crowley's vessel. This is a transphobic joke. It's the demon edition of the "gay boy in a dress" transmisogynistic trope.

Viewers aren't supposed to be on Crowley's side ; we're supposed to be giggling with the other demons while Crowley is being emasculated. Crowley gets a woman vessel because he's a not-very-manly-man, because he's a trans man, because he's homosexual.

And I know that bc Dean is written as bi, and all they're doing is reaffirming the way he does like women while being extra subtle with his love for men.

Meanwhile Crowley is losing influence and power, loses his authority as he loses his throne in Hell, gets humiliated by Lucifer, until all his character revolves around is his love for Dean. The way Crowley is then protrayed as some lovesick ex who can't move on is, imo, a straight man fantasy. Crowley's love is both used as predatory and as a tool to validate Dean's Peak Masculinity.

Spn has been burying their gays all along, and Crowley was right there being punished for not only being in love with Dean but for not being attracted to women. For never being able to be a "normal" guy. For never being able to be seen as a "normal" guy. For checking every homophobic stereotypes in the books. Crowley as a human dies because he's a trans man. Crowley as a demon dies because he's homosexual.

----------------

That's what leads me to be uncomfortable with the way the fandom seems to have a consensus towards pansexual Crowley. (Once again: idc about people's personal hc of Crowley as pan, I just want to think critically about the way no one thinks twice about it & accepts it as canon so easily. Hell, just bc I dared to ask what started the pan Crowley confirmation I got accused of erasing his pansexuality. All I did was ask a question.)

To me, it feels like erasing everything his character went through because he was gay. And it seems to be taken from a reasoning which is going to assume Crowley is attracted to women.

I mean: the reasoning would go "oh, Crowley clearly has a non-straight sexuality -> he's attracted to men -> he's pan" His attraction to women being accepted by default, without needing any backup. And when I look at the canon I see nothing implying he'd be attracted to women. Taking Crowley's attraction to women for granted is following an heteronormative thinking.

Being into people isn't all about who one sleeps with. It's about love. And when we look at what spn shows about Crowley's close relationships, the only meaningful one he got is with Dean. When Rowena wants payback for Crowley making her kill Oskar, she goes for his son.

And it's SO interesting to me because if angels can't be in love because they don't have a soul - can demons? as they're beings with a destroyed soul? And if so, how powerful of Crowley to still fall in love with Dean Winchester.... the power of gay love :) (Crowley 🤝 Cas)

----------------

To conclude all this with some more stuff to think about if, like me, you love questioning everything:

While it's not wrong per se to hc Crowley as pan, it can be worth questioning what's making us so sure we collectively just vibe with it? To me there's a few things: - As I was saying: heteronormative bias - Crowley being a non-fully-human character - Crowley being masculine (despite the show's attempts to erase that) - Crowley being into BDSM - Crowley flirting and making sexual remarks in every context

These, unconsciously, gives a vibe of a character who's "outside" of the gender norm, not making big deal of their sexuality, not even questioning it. This creates this idea of "ambiguity" around Crowley's sexuality. The way Crowley particularly seems to be really chill about sex, is a demon (so what does he know about gender?), and heavily flirty, ... is what most people will link to pansexuality. That doesn't mean thinking of Crowley as pan is being problematic™ ; this means in western medias that's what fills the "pansexual character" imagery (like basically: the Jack Harkness type).

However, when we look at it like that, none of these elements are defining of pansexuality. None of them are excluding him from homosexuality. If not stereotypes.

That's where it gets personal ; but it does make me feel like the huge consensus towards a pansexual Crowley (when there is no clear-cut evidence of it) is erasing the complexity of homosexual experiences. As I said at the begining: I'm happy if pansexual people can relate to Crowley ; everone's free to headcanon. But saying Crowley is canonically pansexual is a stretch - and a take rooted in homophobic stereotypes.

Imo Crowley may have been created with all these traits pushing towards a pan reading of his character. However, as the show went, he was clearly written as a homosexual man. The changes in his portrayal took a turn to be specifically homophobic. He gets imagery that only strictly homosexual characters got (such as drinking fruity cocktails like Aaron. Meanwhile Dean, on the same scene, is allowed beer & whiskey.)

We're used to taking spn's homophobic rep and jokes to make it our own. Yet it seems, when it comes to Crowley, the fandom doesn't see it.

Sometimes people aren't attracted to the gender heteronormativity expects them to be attracted to.......... sometimes people are gay and it's not an umbrella term.

[voxofthevoid]

Taking It Up The Ass Isn’t Character Growth - A Rant

So, in response to an ask a while back, I said I had a rant brewing on fandom and sex positions, and well, a lot of you wanted to see it, so here you go. You literally asked for it.

Disclaimer: This is going to talk a lot about top/bottom roles in slash fic and fandom attitude towards them and is heavily filtered through the lens of my own tastes and experiences with fandom. I’d also like to be upfront that I am 100% in favor of people writing whatever fictional content they want, and it’s not what fandom does with characters that bothers me but rather how that translates into attitudes towards real, live people. Also, this is the essay version of a slow burn AU because I regurgitate my entire fandom history before getting to the point. Beware.

I discovered fan-fiction around a decade ago, had no clue what the hell it was, got hooked and dived deeper. I started participating in fandom circa 2013, and I was fairly young and also completely inexperienced both sexually and romantically. The fandom in question was Hannibal and my ship of choice was Hannibal/Will. It was/is a very chill fandom in general, but we had our drama. And chief among the contentious topics was—you guessed it—the top/bottom debate. I can’t actually remember any other topic that was discussed and argued for so ardently in that fandom, at least in those days. Even after I drifted away, I came across a few posts on the matter.

Generally, you had two camps—people who supported strict roles and those who were in favor of switching*. And because we’re a society plagued by illogical assumptions, the strict role camp mostly had people who thought Mr. Big Bad Cannibal in the Fancy Suits wouldn’t take it up the ass because he’s older, more experienced, more mentally stable, and of course, more ‘dominant’ in personality. Yes, that sentence is chock full of problematic shit. I am aware. Lots of people were aware and argued strongly against attributing top/bottom roles to personality. I don’t remember anyone arguing as enthusiastically for Top Will, but those voices were also there. But the general idea was that assigning strict top/bottom roles to a male/male couple was casting them in a heterosexual mold and thus, the progressive option was to make them switch. Strict roles also garnered comparisons to “yaoi” and uke/seme stereotypes, which was of course bad and fetishizing and we, the Western media fans, of course had to do better. Stealth racism is fun to untangle.

Anyway, I lapped up the woke juice. Partly because I was a baby queer from Buttfuck Nowhere, Asia, who had zero exposure to LGBT+ communities and what queer folks did with each other. Partly because it was the stance taken by most of my favorite writers so it seemed like a good position to emulate.

Emulate it I did. Most discussions I had about this happened in private with the handful of close friends I had in fandom. Where it really showed was in my writing. I made sure to write switching—maybe not in every fic, but then I alternated between fics. Thing is though, I did have a preference. I liked Top Will. I created and consumed a ton of Top Hannibal, and sometimes it was okay, sometimes it was not, but I couldn’t pinpoint why it made me uncomfortable. Back then, I thought I was a cis questioning/bi girl and once again, the impression I got was that not being MLM, having a preference was automatic fetishization. So I tried my best to justify my preferences, to my friends at least. I think what I said was that fandom was skewed towards Top Hannibal, and I liked the opposite because I’m a contrary fuck. Which I am, to be fair, but this was just me desperately trying to figure shit out without being offensive.

That’s the line I touted all the way until 2018, which was when I fucked off to grad school in A City, finally freed of Buttfuck Nowhere and able to actually date. At this point, I was settled in my sexuality (girls only) and questioning my gender (non-binary or trans guy). I had also tentatively figured out during undergrad that I’m an exclusive top and a Dom. Actual attempts at dating cemented that, yes, those are my preferences, about as flexible as a steel rod. Cue motherfucking epiphany over my fanfic tastes.

And see, over these years, I was engaging intermittently with fandom. I dutifully wrote switch couples. I also continued to have rigid tastes and continued to explain it away as being a contrary fuck—to be fair, until Steve/Bucky, my preference did seem to be the opposite of the larger fandom preference. But correlation, as we know, isn’t causation. Until Steve/Bucky, I continued to write versatile couples because I honestly didn’t have the guts to just say I liked it just one way. I do now but even then, I feel compelled to add that it’s because I want to see my own taste reflected in fic, so I write/read the character I relate to as a top, it's not that deep etc. Would I be as forthright if I didn’t have that reason? Would I have such strict preferences in fic if I didn’t have strict preferences IRL? The latter’s a mystery, but the former isn’t—I wouldn’t be because fandom is still entrenched in the same ideas that got me to this point to begin with.

In every fandom I’ve been in, I’ve seen some version of this debate go around. Sometimes, it’s one party saying “why would you write Character X as a bottom, he’s so Reason A” and a reblog chain that insults the OP and/or extols the virtues of switching. Sometimes, it’s a general-ish message that says they don’t understand why people have strict preferences when we all know real gay couples switch. Sometimes, it’s blanket statements that accuse anyone with preferences of fetishizing. Sometimes, it’s the same reasoning that gets you “Character Y is a top because of Reason B” transposed on versatile couples except this takes the form of “they switch because they’re equals.”

Ya’ll, I’m fucking tired.

I have long since lost count of the number of stories I’ve seen where an exclusive top learning bottom and liking it is character growth. Where a character who prefers to bottom taking a turn on top is empowering.

Isolated, these are fine. But I’ve seen enough of such stories that it’s distinctly discomfiting and a major squick. Sometimes a trigger, if I'm too immersed in the story. I’m not going to try and burn an author at the stake because they pissed me off. I am just going to close that window and quietly handle my shit. People can write whatever they want. But this one theme hits too close to home, as you can see from this 1.6k rant.

My friend (also my ex-girlfriend) and I had an all-out bitching session about this the other day. Both of us are kinky fuckers who have rigid, complementary roles we prefer and we have both had our grueling days of struggling to reconcile our sexual tastes with our ideologies precisely because of how these things are frowned upon in conservative and progressive circles. Seeing that in fandom, of all places, is both insulting and exhausting. Topping and bottoming aren’t personality traits. Neither is D/s. It’s sexual preference and power play. It really does not have to be that deep. I am not exorcising childhood trauma using the bodies of women. My partners, former and current, have not been brainwashed by the patriarchy. We will not become better, more complete individuals once I magically stop being a stone top and my partners embrace the joys of a strap-on.

I have, with my own two eyes, seen someone say that in a really committed relationship, of course the couple will switch.

Bullshit.

It’s transparent bullshit. This does not get attributed to cisgender M/F couples. Even when the automatic assumptions of woman = bottom and man = top get addressed, switching isn't presented as the default. No one’s saying “oh, if you really love your husband, you’ll peg him”. I do know butch/femme sapphic couples get their own share of shit. Because it’s all heteronormativity, right? Can’t have any other reason for top/bottom roles.

You have two extremes with “so who’s the woman” on one end and “it’s woke only if they switch” on the other, and as far as I’m concerned, they’re equally damaging. There shouldn’t be a pressure, however subtle, to conform your taste in fiction to some arbitrary idea of progressiveness. People are going to like whatever they want anyway; all this does is create an atmosphere where those likes can’t always be freely expressed without a lot of mental gymnastics. We’re seeing so many versions of this in the pushback against so-called problematic content, but smaller, subtler versions exist too.

Fictional characters aren’t real. They can be whatever you want them to be. And yes, other people will often want them to be the exact opposite of your ideas, but that’s just how things work. Meanwhile, the people behind these usernames? They’re real. No one should be throwing real people under the bus to ‘protect’ characters that don’t exist. Hannibal Lecter doesn’t care whether he gets fucked or dismembered in Author B’s fanfiction, but the discourse that surrounds the dick up his ass? That does affect flesh and blood people.

I am not claiming that this is the only attitude in fandom. Middlegrounds do exist. Plenty of people abide by fic and let fic and there are folks who pipe up to say not every RL queer couple switches. But it’s often the extremes that reach most people. That was certainly my experience, and I’m not the only one.

I don’t really know how to end this post. It is 100% a rant and one that’s been building up for a while. Bottom line is that people’s sexual behavior varies wildly and whenever you attack sexual tastes in fanfic by saying it’s unrealistic - or worse because let’s be real, that’s a very tame word choice - please remember that there’s likely someone out there who practices it.

* I’m using switch and versatile synonymously in this post. It’s mostly concerned with top/bottom debates. A lot of what I’m saying is also echoed in portrayals of and discussions surrounding D/s dynamics, but I’m not addressing that as much for now.  

[phynali]

more spn discussions, just skip this post y’all

 @queerbluebird​ thanks so much for engaging with my post/reply! i really enjoyed reading your response and i have a long reply here.

i’m responding to your post/reply here rather than reblogging it because honestly that thread is - so long. so very long. 

so first - 

i agree there is a difference between entitlement and what i would call, not promise, but instead “narrative follow-through”. A story that completely lacks narrative follow-through does end up feeling disappointing, or frustrating, or rage-inducing, depending on what’s happened. to me there’s a fundamental difference between critiquing a story based on follow-through and bad storytelling (which your post aims to do), versus say, creating hashtag campaigns about a character being silenced because and spreading conspiracy theories about a bad dub (among other things honestly).

and also - queerbaiting totally sucks, we definitely do agree on that.

where we disagree, i think are these two core points:

i do not see the narrative build-up that demands a follow-through. i do not see supernatural as having built up to the story that many destiel shippers seem to think was there, and no one has ever been able to point out to me any actual textual reasons that do craft that narrative build-up  

i fundamentally do not believe that destiel was ever a queerbait. queerbait involves active intent on the part of creators to tease a ship or queer representation in order to draw in $ from queer audiences without ever making it canon, so as not to alienate straight audiences. so, refering to point 1., i do not see the canon text as having laid the groundwork for a queerbait and those romantic tropes, at least not at any point in the past 7 years. and beyond the canon, the writers and producers and jensen ackles all indicated dean was straight, and that they were not writing a romance. if anyone queerbaited the fans, it was misha collins who kept teasing the possibility, and personally i would argue that was irresponsible of him. but that’s a different discussion altogether and tends to piss people off when it’s framed as such, because misha means a lot to them and it hurts to see the man who validated their feelings get criticized for the manner in which he validated them. so i’m gonna leave that aside.

beyond that, I want to engage with some of your specific quotes:

Supernatural loves to say “wait for it.” And I don’t think it’s entitled to feel betrayed if an author uses their story to say “wait for it” in order to convince you to stick with their story and then delivers the opposite after you do.

May i ask, where was the “wait for it” with destiel? this ties in directly to the queerbaiting. i indicated in my post/reply that while i see it from cas, there’s been little to no hint of any reciprocation of feelings from dean, and if anything the past 7 or so years have driven the point home that it isn’t happening. i personally am not able to see the “Wait for it” and that was the point of my question. without the “Wait for it”, i also can’t see the queerbait. 

I asked for specifics and while i totally get not having the spoons, you provided a few:

(off the top of my head for Dean though, the mixtape, his response to Cas’ death at the end of 12, subsequent grief arc, and reaction to Cas’ return in the front half of 13 rank highly. His reaction to Lucifer’s prank call in 15x19 might rate, but maybe just because it’s so recent.)

not trying to be unkind here, but i quite genuinely don’t see any of these examples as framing cas and dean in a romantic light, or as hinting at a “what if”. the mixtape is like.... okay, maybe. i had read that as being symbolic of something else, but i can see wanting to read it from a shipping lens. (i don’t however think i’d read it as baiting or “what if” - it was quite textually not framed that way. shipping, 100%, but canon build-up, not for me).

for the other examples -- grieving for someone you consider family? and being happy when they come back? that’s not shippy to me. i mean - contrast the grief he showed over cas’s death compared to his grief over, say, mary? or, less extreme, charlie? and nothing compared to how off the rails he goes when sam is dead or he thinks sam is. so i -- i just can’t see those as creating a narrative that demands a follow-through. and when your friend who is dead calls your phone? of course you hop to the door - i don’t know what is romantic about that. sam would’ve hopped just as quick if “cass” had called his phone instead.

and look - i see what is fun to ship about all that. if i shipped it, i’d be happily collecting these moments with a smile and grinning to myself about how cute they are and much they mean. but shipping it vs. it being romantically framed in the canon are two fundamentally different things. shipping doesn’t imply narrative buy-in or deliberation from the creator.

moving on, you also spoke at length about 15x18:

15x18 made the sort of statement that drew back even people who did exactly what OP said they should do, turning off the TV years ago. It wasn’t a quiet “if you’re still watching, keep waiting,” so much as a shouted “hey we’re gonna do this thing, watch this!”

i guess destiel fans vs. those of us who don’t ship it really see this as fundamentally different. because you discuss that moment as one which requires follow-through, and say that if this were heteronormative m/f love declaration, there would be that expectation of follow-through. not necessarily reciprocity, but more - more conversation, more acknowledgment, more something.

(i mean - if there was more, but that more was “hey i love you too but only platonically, sorry man” would that be better?)

but no - i actually just... disagree with your point on that front. i can see why you feel the way you do and i acknowledge that it can be read as the start of a conversation. to me though -- and clearly, now that the finale is out, how the writers saw it -- that was actually the end of a conversation. the end of, like you pointed out, 12 years. a 12-year conversation that ends in a gorgeous declaration of love, and specifically how love isn’t about being together, it’s simply about being - it’s about the fact that you love someone, and that feeling alone is the most beautiful thing in existence.

to me, that declaration can only be written and interpreted as an ending.  a sacrifice, a declaration, and a goodbye. so - while i kind of expected seeing more people in episode 20 and realize that didn’t happen largely due to covid - i’m not disappointed we didn’t see cas, because that culmination of his narrative (and then knowing he was with jack, after, rebuilding the heaven that he rebelled against and finally completing his narrative circle by fixing all the problems with it alongside the good god he sought to find all along) is kind of perfect. 

and i genuinely don’t think if cas was in a female vessel this entire time that that would change. maybe some audience members would feel differently, but i think many of us would see it for the end it was nonetheless. there’s plenty of stories with m/f ships that are one-sided and that character sacrifices themselves for the person they love, so i don’t see why this would be any different (except the bury your gays issue, but that’s a whole other and very real conversation about media tropes).

moving on to the series finale.

As many people have pointed out in praise of 15x20, Sam is the absolute most important thing in Dean’s life, his priority above anything and everything… And yet there, at the actual end of the world, Dean ignores Sam’s call and instead cries over the loss of Castiel. Dean’s loss of Castiel plays in tandem with the loss of literally the whole world. But we’re not to take that as a promise that Castiel means more to this story, or to Dean, than a couple seconds of wistfulness after the dust settles?

I... yeah. i don’t see what this even is arguing. that dean taking a minute to himself to grieve his best friend, who just died in part because dean decided to go hunt down billie (who was literally dying anyway). he’s hurting. there’s nothing about this that’s a promise - it’s an end. it’s grief. it’s the horror of losing someone you care about, and the silence that comes after. it’s fundamentally human in it’s pain. and we, the audience, are invited to grieve with dean.

so I mean - of course cas means more to this story. of course he’s meant more than a few seconds of grief, after 12 years. but just because that’s the last time we see him on screen doesn’t mean we don’t value his story, and celebrate how it too came full circle.

You mention cas as a sort of avatar for a different potential ending for the brothers, and highlight him representing:

An ending where higher powers stop yanking them around and they get to actually live in the life they’ve built for themselves.

So while i never considered cas an avatar for that, i do think we all wanted the brothers to have their freedom. “finally free.” so we can agree on wanting that end. but we disagree on whether it was delivered, i guess? because i feel it was.

you also talk about what you and many other fans conceivably wanted a happier ending to look like. can i -- i’m going to be totally honest. i have not seen a single person who’s critiquing the end saying “i just wanted sam and dean to grow old hunting together with their dog until they retire together and die of old age.”

would that be satisfying to those who are mad about the end? i personally don’t think so, but maybe my opinion is being coloured by the most vitriolic fans i’ve seen. if sam and dean got to have the life they wanted free of chuck, and dean didn’t die, and they kept going (or retired and opened a bar together!). maybe sam still had a kid, but again because romance wasn’t the point, the wife wasn’t important and they left her blurry still so we could interpret ourselves if she was a wife or a co-parent or a surrogate or what. maybe dean has a kid too, with a similar question-mark-wife. maybe we get a few images of them having a holiday with jodie and the girls. and then getting to heaven together in old age, greeting bobby with a beer, and going for a drive.

would that be an end that wouldn’t cause fandom uproar? i would enjoy it, soft an slightly discordant as it would be to me. i prefer the ending we got, bittersweet and heartbreaking though it was, but i wouldn’t be taking to social media to yell about it if we got a softer epilogue, so to speak.

on the other hand... would that still not be enough, at least not for so many of the angry fans? i’m genuinely unsure. it seems to me that so much of the ire is about destiel itself, even if people are pretending it’s about more and other things than that. not everyone, but like, a big portion of them. which leads me to believe that nothing short of dean and cas at least interpretable as together is what they wanted. if every other single thing about the existing finale was the same except that cas was the one to greet dean instead of bobby, and even with the same basic dialogue, without discussing the confession, but they have a lingering smile, and dean leaves to drive and wait for sam with the promise he’ll see cas later - 

if everything else stayed the same except who greeted dean, i genuinely don’t believe i’d be seeing almost any critique of the finale on my dash. maybe i’m cynical, but that’s where i’m at.

which is part of why i really struggle to believe that people are engaging in good faith when they critique the finale. because i feel like if it offered them either a) everything they’re purportedly asking for but still no cas and zero hint of destiel, vs. b) every other thing they claim to hate stays the same except there’s a wink and nod to destiel - i believe they would take the wink and nod. 

   On to some other things you raised:

But how can you know to walk away from a tragedy if the tragedy says “the end won’t be a tragedy, keep watching” right up until it ends in tragedy?

Oh i Get this. I hate thinking i’m consuming fun media only for it to rip my heart out at the end. i’ve literally - well, i’ve had a very unpleasant and distressing experience of this, actually. so i get it. also the opposite: i sometimes feel disappointed when i’m consuming media that is gripping and intense and painful, but then the end is too easy, too soft and happy?

BUT - supernatural never pretended it would have a happy end? the end was so. much. happier. than i ever expected. the Swan Song end was going to have Sam in hell being tortured by lucifer for eternity. according to something i read which i am fundamentally too lazy to link because who knows if it would have turned out this way but -- kripke was apparently going to have Dean jump in the cage with him at that end, if the series ended on S5? the ‘horror’ ending. completely devastating sacrifice for mankind (sam), and completely devastating sacrifice for his brother (dean). just -- oof. even if that wasn’t the plan and the series would’ve ended as the episode did - sam was still in the cage and cas was off waging war in heaven and dean was living every day knowing he was alive and his brother was being tortured.

i’m sorry if you thought you were watching a happier show. i know how much that hurts. that doesn’t mean the story was actually that happy though. sometimes, it’s on us as consumers to acknowledge we were misreading the media. i’ve had to do this. it’s hard, it hurts, but it helps you consume things healthier. i’ve had to do this growing recently, and i’m better off for it.

regarding the specific manner of dean’s death - that’s really not what my post was about and i’m not gonna address it here. i’ve talked about it elsewhere and so have others, and @lovetincture‘s original post spelled it out beautifully, in how human it was. i have feelings on how and why i loved dean’s death, and why it was the absolute opposite of what Chuck’s ending was and what he wanted (no blaze of glory), but i’ll leave those for another time.

They cast aside all the relationships they’ve built. [...] They lost/walked away from the life and home they built in the bunker. Dean got a season 1 death. Sam got a season 1 life.

I feel that there is a very huge difference between regression and progression when it comes to cyclical storytelling. And that difference seems to be missing from the ongoing discussions i’ve seen about this in fandom.

Coming full circle to season 1 does not at all mean that the development is ‘undone’ or that the story has regressed or that anything has been lost or destroyed. It can mean that, if the storyteller doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing, but in this case i don’t (personally) feel it’s a fair critique.

Dean’s death might parallel his s1 not-quite death from Faith, but the s15 result of that death is night and day. Dean is no longer alone. Dean does not go up to a lonely heaven filled with bittersweet memories, where even his canonical soulmate and him have wide gulfs between the memories they fill their shared heaven with. Dean dies a hunter, but he dies a hunter who literally saved earth and changed heaven and gets to spend eternity with his brother, side-by-side and together without all the pain and miscommunication, and he gets to see his family and loved ones too. he died having literally made the world so much better.

even without that though?

his story comes full circle, but dean’s character development isn’t about his death, it’s about the fact that in the first several seasons dean could hardly admit he cared without acting like his teeth were being pulled. he was too afraid of abandonment to ask for someone to be by his side. he was too afraid of rejection to let anyone in. and in the end? he asks sam to stay. he tells him that he loves him. he pours his heart out and says all the things that 15 years ago were stoppered in his throat, words trying and failing to claw their way free but his hurt and fears were too deep.

dean is free.

the point of dean’s story coming full circle to season 1 parallels was specifically to highlight this incredible development, not to undermine it. he is different. he is free. 

god it makes me tear up just thinking about how happy i am for him despite how gutted i was by that scene??

(i could write a similar analysis for sam, about how he left for stanford to escape his life and how his finale life montage bits were the opposite of that, but honestly this post is long enough already).

Destiel is loosely a part of that promise in the sense that Castiel is a part of that promise. The symbol of free will

You make a super interesting argument about Cas being a symbol of free will. I don’t have much to say about it, because I’m gonna mull it over, because I think it’s kinda cool and I’ve never thought about it.

That’s - all i’ve got. thanks again for engaging. i’m happy to continue the convo if you have questions or want to reblog/reply 

(though my followers might hate me omg, i’ve been spamming long spn meta posts for weeks now, it’s just been so confronting to see the ongoing fan reaction on twitter and how divided it is...)

[freedom-in-the-dark]

James Flint Is Gay: A Meta Post

[slides into the Black Sails fandom late with Starbucks]

Hey! What’s up! Here’s a post no one asked for but I wrote mostly for me. Before we get into it, I’ve got some big notices to put on the top here.

DISCLAIMER: If you interpret James as bi, and you prefer that, I am not trying to say you can’t do that or to convince you otherwise! 

You do you! If you’re not cool with seeing him as gay, please do us both a favor and keep scrolling past this post! I’m mildly aware that this fandom has a history of rough discourse surrounding this topic, but I cannot emphasize enough that I am new here, and this post is not an attack. Please do me the courtesy of not attacking me or blocking me or whatnot because I’m not trying to start drama lol. And for what it’s worth, I myself am bi (well, bi ace), so I’d like to think I’m being objective.

This post exists simply because I like to write meta out with my arguments / evidence lined up in a row; it gets things out of my head and onto a screen, and I find it satisfying. And if I’m doing it anyway, I might as well share.

So if you see James as gay, or have an open mind to that interpretation… please allow me to take you on this adventure under the cut. I’m sure it’s obvious, but this contains spoilers? Lol.

Here we go!

Compulsory Heterosexuality vs “Bi Erasure”

Firstly… to address some stuff I’ve seen in my limited Black Sails fandom travels right out of the gate: I’ve seen people imply that interpreting James as gay is “bi erasure,” or they ask “Why are you erasing that James was attracted to Miranda and had an affair with her?”

But to that I say: it’s far more complicated than that.

Gay people can have sexual relationships with people of the opposite sex, especially until / or before they identify as gay. This is how so many gay people can be married to the opposite sex and have biological kids, and then later realize their truth and come out to themselves and their families. Having those experiences or even some variation of actionable attraction to people of other sexes in the past doesn’t negate their ability to later identify as gay, once they stop burying those parts of themselves and/or experience something that “brings that part of them into the light.”

This is why the phrase compulsory heterosexuality exists. The phrase was originally coined by Adrienne Rich in a 1980 essay titled “Compulsory Heterosexuality and the Lesbian Experience.” So yes, let me make this clear: this term originated in reference to lesbians and feminist theory, and then the idea was later expanded upon to include discussions of gay men by other academics in the early 2000s. I’m not gonna dive too deeply into it here, but in essence–as the name implies–this is the idea that patriarchal and heteronormative societies are viewed as the default, so individuals are assumed (by themselves and otherwise) to be heterosexual until “proven” otherwise. Through these standards that are seen as “normal,” people are also taught from a young age–whether explicitly or subconsciously through society–that anything that deviates from those ~straight norms~ leads to negative consequences. And so, society encourages people to avoid sexual exploration, because having experiences with someone of the same sex is what can often bring their gay identity into focus.

In the case of Black Sails, this is all very much emphasized at the forefront because it’s a historical drama. Aside from racism/slavery, patriarchy and heteronormativity are what the characters are actively going to war against.

So, the point in me defining all of this? No one—or at least, not me—is saying that James didn’t have a sexual relationship with Miranda. That’s not in question. But that doesn’t necessarily make him bi, and it doesn’t mean the narrative isn’t structured in various ways that indicate otherwise.

Just keep this in the back of your brain, because I’m going to circle back around to it.

Anne, Flint, & Gay Rage

In the wise words of an old pirate captain: “Fruit, fruit. Tits, tits.” This show thrives on parallels, and gives us lines / scenes that apply to more than one character; it’s partially why the themes are so consistent, and if you ignore that, you can miss a lot of the nuance. Our resident angry gay gingers are one of the paralleled sets of characters.

This is not a meta about Anne… but talking about parts of Anne’s story can help to highlight some things about James’ story.

I tweeted this once: “Flint and Anne’s sexualities paralleled to show struggles with compulsive heterosexuality, fighting for the sake of fighting, bringing parts of themselves into the light, wrestling with being told they’re monsters and their distorted senses of self, etc.” and really, now I’m just here to elaborate.

-----

The word “monster” is a recurring theme in this show. It’s tied mostly to Flint and how he is told he is monstrous for loving a man, fears being “the villain” or “monster” in everyone’s stories, and eventually embraces that monstrous portrayal in service of his goals–even as the violence is slowly devastating to him. But the other character the word “monster” is used in reference to? Anne.

A quote by Max:

“Idelle, how would you feel if the one man you thought would never betray you did? If he purchased for himself a future through that betrayal? If you were told by a world full of men that that betrayal confirmed for them that they were right to see you as a monster to be shunned? She's not mad. She is adrift.”

In some ways, this quote is also the story of what has happened to James in his life, over and over. (Not to say this is what Jack intended to do to Anne, but the parallels inherent in Max’s line itself cannot be denied.) 

James is repeatedly betrayed by those he trusts: Admiral Hennessey; Peter Ashe; Hal Gates. All of them try to get him to conform to heteronormative society–including Gates, because even if he didn’t know it, that’s what he was doing by trying to get James to take a pardon. That’s why James reacts with such instinctual panic and kills him; the idea of being forced to apologize to and assimilate back into heteronormative society puts him at a breaking point. (It can even be argued that Miranda “betrays” James in this way too by trying to get him to take a pardon and go to Boston–which is where his “and they called me a monster” speech comes in–and that also contributed to how James later panics and kills Gates for trying to force him to do the same. Miranda tried in a well-meaning way to get James to move on, because she isn’t fully understanding what James wrestles with; but I’ll go back to that.)

Again, these parallels are deliberate. Anne and Flint are the two main gay characters who wrestle with their supposed “monstrosity” in the eyes of everyone else, because they don’t fit in. They are “othered.” It’s not simply about their violence; for these characters, it’s about what their violence is in service of achieving, which is tied to their sexuality.

Anne is seen as a “monster” for slaughtering the men who abused Max, who is not only a fellow woman but also a fellow lesbian, in a way that Anne is undeniably drawn to even before she lets herself acknowledge the feeling. We as viewers are meant to see this and understand this, and we do. Anne is ostracized for violence that was motivated by her sexuality, which is partially why Max tells her that she understands her violence and will protect her–because Max is not only also a woman in a patriarchal society, but she is gay too.

Flint is seen as a “monster” first and foremost by England, for his sexuality… and then, later, by everyone else for the actions he takes because of his sexuality. Again: the violence he commits cannot be divorced from his sexuality because it is the reason for it. It’s what informs it.

I tweeted about this once too, but in many ways Anne and Flint’s kindred displays of brutality and anger and “fighting for the sake of fighting” (a quote by Miranda which applies to them both) are informed by their desire/need for gay tenderness. The world has too often denied them that tenderness and their expressions of their sexualities, or demonized them for wanting it, and their violence is the result. 

Here’s a quote from Deborah Tolman with regards to how compulsory heterosexuality affects men, which she calls “hegemonic masculinity”:

"These norms demand that men deny most emotions, save for anger; be hard at all times and in all ways; engage in objectification of women and sex itself; and participate in the continuum of violence against women."

The anger and hardness is a huge part of the personas both Flint and Anne have to put on for survival. I include Anne in this because she uniquely lives her life in a “male” role to survive the male-dominated world of piracy, and she’s clearly not immune from these unspoken masculine guidelines: she refers to Max as “the whore” half the time as a defense mechanism. Flint and Anne lash out, they’re hard and angry and violent for the sake of their personas, and it’s all because... inside, they just want to be soft and gay with who they love.

Anne, Flint, & Compulsory Heterosexuality (Not Bi Erasure)

In Black Sails, we are shown the story of a gay person who has a consistent sexual relationship with someone of the opposite sex, but is running from internal truths about themselves in some ways in the process. That person is Anne.

Struggling with compulsory heterosexuality is explicitly Anne Bonny’s prime storyline in the show and that is not up for debate (and I’ve rarely seen people disagree); but I argue that it is also part of James’ storyline, and he is paralleled significantly with Anne to make that clear. It’s just overall more subtle because it’s not the prime focus of James’ story the way it is for Anne, because James’ realizations happened largely in the past and we’re seeing the aftermath of it. The parallels are there, and I’ll be breaking some of them down.

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From episode one, we are told that Anne has a sexual relationship with Jack…. But later on, she tells Jack that she “can’t be [his] wife,” even though they’ll be partners forever. Why? What changed? The answer is that she’s been with Max and realized that she’s gay. It doesn’t mean Anne didn’t have sex with a man in the past and even enjoy it on some level, but it does mean that she knows now that she was using that sex partially to distract from things about herself that she was doing her best to ignore.

Multiple lines by Max (to Anne) tell us this:

3x03: “When you and I began you did not choose me. Something that lives inside you beyond choice made it so.”

2x01: “But perhaps there is something else underlying it. Something hiding in a place not even you can see. Perhaps… we would do well to bring it into the light.”

Before I continue, let me remind you of something: when writers decide to show viewers something on screen, that is done with intent, especially in a show like Black Sails where not a single moment is wasted. Remember this. What they show us, and what they don’t show us, are both deliberate choices.

So what are we shown about Anne’s sexual relationship with Jack? We get exactly one scene of her having sex with him. We are shown Anne riding Jack in a way where neither party was particularly enthused. Does this mean they definitely never had sex in the past that they both enjoyed on some level? No. But they showed us this one scene on purpose: to emphasize the stark difference when Anne has enjoyable sex with Max, an experience that forever changes her.

So what are we shown about James’ sexual relationship with Miranda? We get exactly one scene of him having sex with her. It is the most depressing sex scene of all time, James is just lying there to try to be helpful for her to chase her own pleasure, and he doesn’t even touch her. Does this mean they never had sex in the past that they both enjoyed, especially back during their affair in London? No. But we are never shown any of that. We never see them have sex in London before James’ relationship with Thomas; we never see them having good sex with each other after it all goes to hell. And that is a deliberate choice.

Why? Because all of the above info about Anne and her compulsory heterosexuality journey also applies to James McGraw, and his relationships with Miranda and Thomas.

“They paint the world full of shadows... and then tell their children to stay close to the light. Their light. Their reasons, their judgments. Because in the darkness, there be dragons. But it isn't true. We can prove that it isn't true. In the dark, there is discovery, there is possibility, there is freedom in the dark once someone has illuminated it.”

The realizations James came to about his sexuality (just like Anne did) inform much of his tangled story with the Hamiltons, and much of the tragedy of Miranda and James’ situation after the loss of Thomas. We are shown the way James and Miranda are no longer perfectly aligned after that loss, and grief is undeniably a part of it… but it goes beyond that. It’s more complicated than that. 

That sad sex scene is not solely about grief; remember, that scene takes place ten years after they lose Thomas. It takes place during a time where Miranda is already thinking about and will soon actively try to tell James that they need to move on, without understanding why the loss of Thomas affects him in a profoundly different way than it affects her. I am not minimizing her loss or her grief whatsoever; but it is undeniably more complicated for James, and it’s why he can’t move on.

In episode 1x07:

James: “Have you no memory of how we got here? What they took from us?”

Miranda: “What does it matter now? What does it matter? What does it matter what happened then if we have no life now?”

James is, of course, appalled by this. I’ll talk about why momentarily.

The next time James is in Nassau (2x03), he goes to see Miranda and tries to apologize that night, but she’s otherwise engaged. So he stands outside of her window looking in, surrounded by darkness, while she’s playing the clavichord with children in the light. It is symbolically the domestic version of a heterosexual ideal. He is “othered” by the camera angles / framing, and the dark / light aspects. James is relegated to being an outsider literally because as Flint he’s a pirate, but metaphorically because he’s gay; the reason we as viewers are given that scene is to underscore that he feels he has no place in that display.

Ultimately, James is misaligned with Miranda after the loss of Thomas (shown in both the sad sex scene and arguments) in a way that goes beyond grief. The implication is that things cannot ever be the same for him again since the loss of “his truest love” and the truths he learned about himself.

If James and Miranda were simply at odds with one another because of grief, it would be far less of a “tragedy” in some ways. But James cannot heal the way Miranda slowly finds the way to over ten years, because Thomas signifies things for James that Miranda cannot relate to. In London, when Thomas is taken from them, Miranda even yells to James, “He is my husband!” Her grief and rage are shown as equal to James at the start and have extreme validity; the two of them are partners in the plan to kill Alfred Hamilton for revenge; but then she is able to somewhat move on, whereas James is not.

Why? Because, for James, Thomas was not just his (truest) love; Thomas was the awakening of his fullest self as a gay man.

In the same way that Anne can’t be Jack’s “wife” after she’s been with Max and realizes she’s gay, James cannot content himself with fulfilling the role of Miranda’s “husband” after he’s been with Thomas and realizes he’s gay. Neither of these facts minimize Anne’s love and devotion to Jack, or James’ love and devotion to Miranda; they are undeniably two sets of partners. But Anne and James are forever altered by their experiences with same sex lovers, and the truths about themselves that were brought into the light as a result.

----

Another part of the tragedy of James and Miranda is what happens right when we see Miranda grasp the significance of all of the above. Whether or not she grasped it before in the past, we are shown it only once on screen, and that’s in Charlestown. 

Peter Ashe says this in 2x09:

“You will tell them about the affair with Thomas. You will tell them how it ended. You will explain to them what it drove you to do. You will reveal everything. And when you do, Captain Flint will be unmasked, the monster slain. And in his place will stand before all the world a flawed man, a man that England can relate to and offer its forgiveness.”

This is James’ worst nightmare; we know as such from what he told Miranda back in 1x07, and from when he killed Gates. And yet, here and now in 2x09, he is exhausted from pushing back against heteronormative society, all he wants is to retire the mantle of Flint born of gay rage, and he actually contemplates playing by their rules and giving into their judgements of his sexuality... until Miranda comes to his defense.

In season 1, Miranda didn’t seem to fully understand James’ thoughts on this, but here–in combination with her realizations about Peter Ashe’s betrayals–she finally does. And she’s not having it.

“What forgiveness are you entitled to while you stand back in the shadows pushing James out in front of the world to be laid bear for the sake of the truth? Tell me, sir, when does the truth about your sins come to light?”

And the moment she is yelling in rage on behalf of James, and their combined loss, and how Peter would dare to force James to experience shame about his sexuality again–she is instantly shot for it. A woman who’s yelling on behalf of a gay man? In a patriarchal heteronormative society? It has no place. England makes that clear.

It all further underlines James’ sense of “otherness”... and now he decides to embrace it, even at his own emotional detriment. He will no longer try to fit in or reason with them; he will no longer accept their halfway measures of pardons. He can’t, because in the eyes of England, all that he is as a gay man is abhorrent.

2x10: “Everyone is a monster to someone. Since you are so convinced that I am yours, I will be it.”

3x05, to the Maroon Queen: “...England takes whatever, whenever, however it wants. Lives. Loves. Labor. Spirits. Homes. It has taken them from me. I imagine that it has taken it from you.”

The Way James Views Miranda

And here is where I simply give you more food for thought–or further “evidence” of James being gay, if you will.

All of Flint’s lines about how he views Miranda are worded very, very deliberately.

Here’s a minor one, from 1x05:

“So you can probably guess it isn't as much fun to tell stories about how your captain makes a home with a nice Puritan woman who shares his love of books.”

There is nothing overtly romantic or sexual about this. It’s said in a one-on-one conversation with Billy, where Flint neither has to make the relationship sound like something it isn’t nor refuse to give any info whatsoever. So he goes with what is the seemingly-mild truth.

But 3x01, convincing the men to forego pardons:

“But what price surrender? To beg forgiveness from a thing that took my woman from me? My friend?”

“My woman” is what Flint says for the benefit of the men… these men who are part of the heteronormative world they all live in, and still value sexual relationships with women above all else. It’s about hegemonic masculinity, remember? (“Objectification of women and sex itself.”) He’s doing his best to speak their language. 

But “my friend” is a secondary line that was not needed for the purposes of this speech, but James could not keep himself from adding it in a quieter tone–because that’s who Miranda was to him. His friend. Not his woman, which drips sexism and sexual undertones. Not his wife. Not even his “love,” which he could’ve used if he wanted to be ambiguous and sneak a Thomas reference in; he said “my woman” to appeal to the men, and then he added “my friend” because in the face of her memory he couldn’t help it.

And lastly, in 3x03, we begin to hear from “ghost Miranda.” 

But what is ghost Miranda? She’s a voice from James’ traumatized mind. Everything she says to him is about truths he already knows and/or things he is hiding from himself. So what “she” says here is a voice from James’ mind; it’s about how James sees her, and subtly elaborates on his sexuality in the process.

“When I first met you, you were so... Unformed. And then I spoke and bade you cast aside your shame, and Captain Flint was born into the world... the part of you that always existed yet never were you willing to allow into the light of day. I was mistress to you when you needed love. I was wife to you when you needed understanding. But first and before all... I was mother. I have known you like no other. So I love you like no other. I will guide you through it, but at its end is where you must leave me. At its end is where you will find the peace that eludes you, and at its end lies the answer you refuse to see.”

This does not diminish Miranda’s importance to James in the least! In fact, it emphasizes it, and it is all part of why he is so ruined over her! But it is also, in the oddest way, an elaboration upon how he isn’t bi: Miranda was his partner in many things, including shared grief and revenge and some semblance of life for ten long years; and she was also was instrumental to his formation of himself as a person (“mother”), and his acceptance of himself as a gay man (“love” and “understanding”). This is how he sees her. Mistress and wife were roles she filled in his life, but above all, she contributed to the birth of Captain Flint–the personification of James’ gay rage.

Of course, the “answer” that ghost Miranda (the depths of James’ brain) alludes to here as well as her later words of “you are not alone” are all about James needing to recognize that Silver is a newfound partner and love for him… but that’s a whole other meta entirely.

Closing Thoughts

Look, did I consult a couple of specific scenes and look up transcripts to put quotes in this? Yes. But have I still only seen the show in its entirety once? Also yes. My point in mentioning this is that, if I did a full rewatch, there might even be more evidence I haven’t mentioned here. This isn’t meant to be comprehensive, but I do feel that it... certainly conveys the gist of the mood.

You may still agree to disagree if you prefer to see James Flint as bi; I’m not here to fight you on it and what queer characters mean to you personally. 

But for me, when surveying all available evidence, the narrative screams that he’s gay. In that sense, my thoughts on this matter are similar to my thoughts on the ending; sure, you can interpret it one way if you look at certain details, but if you take in all the evidence and the big picture as a whole… there’s a specific conclusion to be drawn.

Last thing I’ll say is this: Steinberg himself has said that Flint is gay, which I found out way after watching the show and forming this interpretation. And like... not that if I wanted to hardcore argue he was bi I wouldn’t disregard Steinberg’s words, because in my experience the narrative speaking for itself is always more important than than creators’ words, but... in this instance (as in all Black Sails instances I’ve come across), his words just underscore what the well-crafted narrative is already telling us, because the creators wrote this show with intent. They knew what they were doing.

And thus, I will quote him (from these GIFs) below.

“When we were trying to build the story, we wanted whatever this thing was that made [Flint] feel alienated to be so deeply tied into who he was that there was no way he was every going to dismiss this thing that happened to him. We wanted to make sure we understood what the reality was in England in terms of how homosexuality was perceived. In some ways it was more tolerated, in some ways it was significantly less tolerated. I think in terms of Flint being gay, it’s about the fact that it is a tool that is used politically when convenient to make somebody be a monster… and it isn’t even really about the relationship.”

(If you buy the series on iTunes, you get an “inside” look at every episode, including this one from 2x05.)

EDIT: I had no idea Toby Stephens basically confirmed my thoughts that James' relationship with Thomas was his actualization as a gay man, so excuse me as I lose my mind for a moment:

“I think his relationship to Thomas Hamilton, the initial friendship and then becoming lovers is sort of like the realization of himself. I think he became himself with Thomas Hamilton. His potential was unleashed with Hamilton.”

And just for fun, since I’m here anyway, here’s a piece of a Steinberg quote about Anne from the Fathoms Deep podcast.

“In terms of Rackham and Bonny, I think that was another thing that I assumed for a long time could never go away. That they were essentially, you know, that they were married. You know not legally, but they were functionally married. And then this story happened in Season 2 with Bonny, that I think with like with a gun to my head of things that I’m proud of with the show, probably at the top is this story of this woman coming out and understanding that she’s gay. . . And so when we got to a point where it was like, I think she’s gay? Like I don’t think this is something we want to be wishy-washy about. It required getting over that hump with Rackham of, ‘Well like what am I going to do with this relationship? I don’t want to split them up?’ And I think it became something way more interesting.”

Thanks for coming to my TED talk. I love James Flint and his gay rage, I love you if you read all of this, and I love my friend @sunbardy who dealt with me yelling about this in DMs and then proofread the doc.

Hit me up on Twitter @gaypiracy if you want, where I do most of my Black Sails related yelling. And shitposting. Because I contain multitudes.

Know No Shame, my friends.

[torturedpoetemotions]

I think the thing that really frustrates me re: Destiel is that...well, there has never been any significant speculation/argument about whether or not Castiel had feelings for Dean.

At least, not any that was consistent or loud enough to be a big or dominant part of fandom discourse.

(Putting in a read more here because there are just a lot of Feelings I have about this nonsense that are nowhere near coherent)

The argument has always been about whether Dean could possibly have a romantic and/or sexual attraction toward Castiel. Whether it “makes sense” that Dean, a man who likes beer and classic cars and 70s-80s rock music and weapons and sex with women can also be a man who has romantic and/or sexual feelings about his best friend, who is (or appears to be) a man.

This disparity between how Dean’s feelings are viewed versus how Cas’s feelings are viewed has just become stronger in recent years, not only because the writers have given strong textual support for Cas’s feelings since season six, but also because Cas’s actor has been very vocally supportive of the ship, whereas Dean’s actor has been mostly very negative towards it, when he spoke about it at all.

And I’m not here to debate how actors’ feelings do or should affect fanon or canon. But the fact that one actor says “we know what’s going on” while the other says “it’s not real” absolutely has had an affect on how fandom talks about the ship, and absolutely affects what is needed for the ship to be acknowledged by the show as canon.

These arguments and this disparity have always been frustrating for me, primarily because the idea that this needs to be argued at all is 100% a product of heteronormativity and biphobia. Dean’s interests and appearance scream “Red-Blooded American Male,” and the idea that the red-blooded American male could ever be in love with another man upsets some people. Yes, even some people who would not consider themselves homophobic, biphobic, or heteronormative.

Castiel, as a genderless being merely inhabiting a male body--and who we have seen inhabit a female body twice throughout the show’s run--doesn’t grate against a binary understanding of gender and sexuality as much, partly because he’s already visibly transgressing the gender binary from the moment we meet him. As counterintuitive as that seems, I’ve constantly seen it in fandom and in real life as well: the person who is obviously flouting the “rules” of heteronormativity being queer surprises no one. The person who appears to follow those rules only to buck them later incites a specific kind of anger: the anger of people who feel lied to.

Dean, who exists firmly on one side of the gender binary from the word go, makes audiences more uncomfortable when he is queered by fandom because when you look at the show with heteronormativity goggles, there are no “signs” to clue you in. And sadly, many fans still, in the year 2020, want to believe they can “tell” if someone is queer just by looking at them.

For those of us who are bisexual who see ourselves in Dean, and have seen ourselves in Dean since the beginning, this is endlessly frustrating. I want to both scream to the rooftops that there is no one way that bisexual people look, and at the same time scream “what are you talking about? It’s right there, how can you not see it?” It’s certainly an...interesting dimension of erasure, to have someone look at a character so much like you and say they can’t possibly see you there, because X thing (that also applies to you) is fundamentally at odds with the possibility of you being there.

Did that sentence hurt your brain? Welcome to my life.

There’s also been a not-insignificant camp of people in the fandom who separate Destiel from bi!Dean headcanon, insisting Destiel wouldn’t matter if they just made Dean canonically bisexual. This argument is something I might have been able to get behind. In seasons four and five, or maybe seasons nine and ten.

But not in season fifteen. Not when the only significant relationship Dean has had, consistently, with someone other than his brother, throughout most of the show’s history, has been with Castiel. Not when 95% of the textual and subtextual evidence for Dean’s bisexuality is in relation to Cas, and not when there’s no time left in the story to explore Dean’s attraction further than simply pointing backward at what came before.

Not when the in-show queerbaiting is all in relation to Dean’s relationship with Cas.

Not when the question since season 9 at least has not been “will they/won’t they” but “when will Dean get a clue and make it clear to his life partner that he matters and their bond is reciprocal?”

The only way the writers have left to textually avoid solidifying the show as the longest case of queerbaiting in television history is to have Dean acknowledge and return Cas’s feelings before the final episode ends. That’s it. That’s all. Castiel’s confession on its own is not enough, and is arguably just a slap in the face to fans who have known for years that Castiel was in love with Dean, who have only been waiting for Dean to acknowledge that he is also in love with Castiel. That he is capable of loving Castiel back.

So if that love confession is all there is? That’s low. That’s worse, in my opinion, than if they had never acknowledged anything at all. That’s the kind of slap-in-the-face bullshit writers pull when they want to punish the audience for wanting something.

And yes, it is queerbaiting. It is wildly queerphobic writing. And it’s just a shitty, shitty thing to do to fans after all this time.

[atamascolily]

let’s talk about the Bene Gesserit

When Paul meets Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohamian of the Bene Gesserit, he identifies the order’s purpose right away: “Politics.” The Reverend Mother is surprised, and gives Jessica the side-eye to see if Jessica has spilled secrets, but Jessica denies it. I don’t know whether to believe Jessica or not here because Jessica has told Paul all kinds of things, but I’m going to assume Jessica is telling the truth here, and this is supposed to be yet another sign Paul is super-smart, super-observant, the Chosen One, etc, etc.

But I want to know: what does the rest of the galaxy think the Bene Gesserit do?

Pretty much every female character in Dune who’s not Fremen is Bene Gesserit, or at least has some degree of training from them. All of them are linked to powerful men: Jessica is a ducal concubine and mother of his heir; Margot is wife to Count Fenring (and presumably only allowed to marry him and be a Lady in her own right because the Count is a “eunuch” and can’t bear children); Irulan is a princess and the Emperor’s daughter. Even the Reverend Mother, once the superintendent of the Bene Gesserit school on Wallach IX, is now the Emperor’s Truthsayer. And the narrative goes out of its way to mention that Thufir Hawat specifically purchased Jessica for Duke Leto, and cleared her for the Atreides household.

So, are the Bene Gesserit seen as a religious order? A finishing school for ladies of the ruling class? Are they the futuristic equivalent of medieval nunneries, except with less embroidery and more manners? All of the above?

In reality, the Bene Gesserit are all-female order on a self-directed mission to provide “a thread of continuity in human affairs”. They do this by a secret breeding program, separating humans from “animals” by means of various tests (one of which Paul undergoes in the novel’s opening scene). The Bene Gesserit schools are filled with the (presumably female) offspring of this breeding program, as well as any other genetic lines they’re interested in manipulating. Many, like Jessica, are kept ignorant of their heritage by the higher-ups so they can secretly breed back into the line (ironically, a standard technique in animal breeding!). Apparently, the BG have found out the hard way that outright incest is a hard sell, so they keep the participants in the dark, which is... horrifying. The BG’s stated goal is to create a Kwisatz Haderach, a man who can look into the void that no BG [female] Truthsayer can see, “into both feminine and masculine pasts”.

Leaving aside the irony of an all-female organization seeking to create a man more powerful than they are, I don’t understand why the Kwisatz Haderach has to be male; it seems like a female Kwisatz Haderach who can see into both her male and female ancestral lines ought to be equally possible. Even if you argue that those male ancestral memories are inextricably linked to a Y chromosome or some other vaguely scientific rationale, it’s a) never explained anywhere in the book that I can recall, and b) Paul’s sister Alia will have this ability--and in fact will be haunted by at least one male ancestor to her extreme detriment. Maybe the BG are trying to create a male Kwisatz Haderach because they think men are easier to manipulate and control? Or do they not know what they’re talking about?

The Emperor knows the BG are useful; that’s why he has a Truthsayer and presumably was okay with them training his daughter, but he doesn’t seem to know the BG are manipulating his wife and concubines to make sure he has only daughters, so they can marry said daughters to a match of their choice. The BG orders Jessica to do the same thing, and she defies them because Duke Leto really, really wants a son. Does that mean the BG are always supposed to bear female children to keep the order going, or did Jessica and Irulan’s mother receive special orders on account of their positions? I don’t think this is ever made clear, and it bugs me.

I also don’t understand why the BG don’t... do something (anything!) when Jessica defies them and has Paul instead. Granted, Paul is the duke’s heir, he’s protected from assassins in general, but it seems like the BG might have had some way of influencing/punishing Jessica for her disobedience and they... don’t. At all. And I don’t get it. If Jessica’s act is so courageous--as Irulan later assess that it is in her history--what are the consequences?

The Reverend Mother sarcastically says Jessica defied the orders and had a son because she was arrogant enough to think she could produce the Kwisatz Haderach at last. Jessica says she suspected the possibility, but what made her think that? She doesn’t even know who her parents are! She hasn’t passed the final tests to be a Reverend Mother (and her defiance presumably knocked her off that track because the BG can’t trust her with that level of power), so why would she think HER SON would be the Chosen One? I don’t get it. Is Jessica being sarcastic here, too?

The Reverend Mother says Jessica did it because she loved Leto and didn’t want to disappoint him, which Jessica admits to. The Reverend Mother’s mostly angry because her plan was to wed an Atreides daughter to the Harkonnen heir and maybe put a stop to all the infighting between the two families (or compound it further? or for other reasons that only make sense when you learn who Jessica’s father really is?) Now with Paul as the heir, that’s not possible--because marriage is all about biological progeny, property, and heteronormativity in this book--and the Reverend Mother is annoyed mainly because the BG might lose both bloodlines in all the forthcoming violence.

I guess this begs the question of to what extent a BG agent is their own operative, and to what extent they are controlled/under the influence of the order as a whole? The Reverend Mother seems sympathetic to Jessica, saying, “Each of us must make her own path,” which implies some degree of independent agency. She also sees that Jessica has been teaching Paul the BG Way, and “I’d have done the same thing in your shoes and devil take the Rules”. And she encourages Jessica to train him in the Voice, because she thinks that’s the only way Paul’s going to survive the Harkonnen treachery to come (which she knows about because she’s presumably privy to much of the Emperor’s behind-the-scenes scheming with the Harkonnens).

And then the Reverend Mother walks out “with not another backward glance” and we don’t see her again until the final scene. “The room and its occupants already were shut from her thoughts.” And Jessica is freaked out by the fact the  Reverend Mother is crying as she walks away.

Why is she crying? Does she genuinely love Jessica as her “own daughter” as she claims, and she regrets that Jessica is either going to die or be a fugitive with a price on her head once the Harkonnen trap is sprung? Is she upset about what could have been, and wasn’t? Is she regretful of all the genetic material and possibilities, thousands of years of careful work and preparation obliterated by forces she has no intention of stopping? All of the above??

I don’t know why the Reverend Mother shows up to test Paul’s humanity at the beginning. Is it because she’s curious? Or does she have no choice given Paul’s lineage, and her suspicions/Jessica’s assertions that Paul really might be the Kwisatz Haderach? Did Jessica ask for it, because she knows Paul needs this test in order to move to the next level in his training and she’s not emotionally equipped to administer it? All of the above?

And the Reverend Mother looks straight at Paul, saying outright that she sees the possibility/potential for him to become the Kwisatz Haderach and walks away... why??

Conclusion: The Watsonian explanation is that the BG talk a mean game, but they’re not as smart as they think they are. The Doylist explanation is that Frank Herbert wanted to set up his plot just so and didn’t care if the BG looked stupid in the process.

But this got even weirder when I realized there was an appendix in my edition (which I had never read before) claiming to be an in-universe “Report on Bene Gesserit Motives and Purposes” written for Lady Jessica “immediately after the Arrakis Affair,” which comes to the exact same conclusions.

The report does clarify that the BG expected the child of Jessica and Leto’s daughter and Feyd-Ruatha Harkonnen to have a high probability of being the Kwisatz Haderach. So Jessica’s decision to skip ahead on the program a generation wasn’t such a long-shot after all.

Except: “For reasons she confesses have never been completely clear to her, the concubine Lady Jessica defied her orders and bore a son”. So Jessica herself doesn’t even know why she did it...!! But she must have known some of this, because why else would she train/test Paul the way she did, or admit to the Reverend Mother she thought it was possible in the first place?

The writer goes on to note that BG knew teenage Paul had prescient dreams, the Reverend Mother failed to mention that his humanity test had broken records in her report (not mentioned in the book itself!!);  that the BG knew that spice could amplify psychic powers... and did nothing to stop Jessica and Paul from going there and eating a fuckton of spice; and didn’t make the connection that the rumors of a guerilla prophet leader born of a Bene Gesserit mother and destined to be the savior might have some connection to the two people who had disappeared shortly beforehand (!!!); plus some stuff about their dealings with the Spacers’ Guild and the complications of a higher-order nexus they couldn’t see past, which ought to have alerted them that someone more powerful than they were was messing around with the future.

“In the face of these facts, one is led to the inescapable conclusion that the inefficient Bene Gesserit behavior in this affair was a product of an even higher plan of which they were completely unaware!”

And on that note, the report ends and I just... cannot believe that Herbert deliberately lampshades the BG’s incompetence--and then concludes that “God [aka the author] did it”. Because unless I missed something important and Paul meddles with the past somehow, I don’t know how else to interpret this...

I suppose this report might be written by an unreliable narrator--like every other in-universe document in this book--but then what is even the point if we never get any answers..?