im annoyed and a little pedantic so can i just say as a blanket statement
queerbaiting is when the promotion for a FICTIONAL STORY intentionally hints towards two characters having a romantic relationship, without any intention to follow through in the show, in order to get queer people watching without discouraging the homophobic enjoyers of the show
queerbaiting is NOT:
a celebrity who you think is queer because theyre gnc or they have a 'vibe'. that is a real person and they cannot queerbait
two friends of the same gender pretending to flirt with each other for fun. those are real people and they cannot queerbait
a show with two characters of the same gender who are canonically friends that YOU PERSONALLY think would be better in a relationship. that's not bating, that's shipping, and subject to opinion
there are more but those are the main examples of people misunderstanding what queerbaiting is and being mad at something that isn't actually a problem
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Saw a Take earlier today like "Ed stans have only 1 argument and it's accusing everyone who likes Izzy of being problematic" or something to that effect
and it made me think "Nah babe, you're not problematic. You're just wrong."
And then I thought. Huh. Why do I think that?
It's a perfectly respectable thing to read a text in a way it wasn't intended to be read. In fact, "reading against the grain", doing critical readings, shifting perspectives when engaging with a text - all of thee are important skills! You can, and should, do feminist, antiracist, postcolonial, queer, etc readings of texts that were never intended to be read that way. Hell, all fandom (often) is, is doing queer readings! Ask the text uncomfortable questions it doesn't want to answer!
However. It's pretty difficult to do a queer reading when the text already is a queer narrative. The questions you would ask the text if you did a queer reading, or a reading focused on gender roles, or similar things - those are questions the text is already actively exploring.
If you want to do a subversive reading of a text that is already quite subversive - what do you end up with?
"What's the story like from Izzy's perspective?" is a question ofmd deliberately doesn't focus too much on because Izzy's perspective is the default and ofmd wants to challenge that. There's a reason the angry white man is the antagonist in this show, and if you ask "Okay, but could he be right though?" you're missing the point.
Or rather, you're turning everything that's interesting about ofmd back around. You're asking "Okay, but why don't we focus on a white perspective that strictly adheres to oppressive power structures?" of a narrative who already asked itself this question and gave the answer "Because that's been done enough and there are other stories worth telling."
And I think people are aware of that, which is how we end up with completely bizarre takes like "Izzy has the only queer character arc". He hasn't, but he has the only arc that a queer reading can be done on - for everyone else it's text, plain and simple. Refusing to engage with that text in favour of centering Izzy is basically doing a heteronormative reading without being willing to admit it to yourself.
And no, interpreting Izzy as a queer man doesn't change that.
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Maybe this is stupid but how do you handle liking Homelander but him being like Yknow a piece of crap and the whole r wording. Cuz I have some sort of stupid attraction to him but it makes me feel all sorts of guilty and gross and maybe that’s bc I already have mental issues and worry I’ll be punished or ridiculed or something bc of it and idk. It sounds really dumb but idk how to get out of the weird funk cycle bc I don’t like using the “it’s just fiction” either bc that doesn’t make me feel any better. Feel free to ignore this I’m just having a moment 😭
aw, darling. i'm saying this gently and kindly with my whole heart: introspection. me telling you why i'm okay with loving a fictional character isn't going to help you come to terms with the fact you do, especially since "it's just fiction" IS enough for me.
Homelander does not have victims. you cannot have Homelander arrested. no one you know or will ever know has been harmed by the text and images that combine to create this non-existent figment of our collective imaginations.
it sounds to me like your guilt/shame is primarily coming from your fear of judgement. that's not surprising given how heavily influenced fandom has become by puritan ideology. people ARE extremely cruel to one another these days for their preferences in media. you have to make the choice to break away from that. connect with people you feel safe around. no one is morally superior for their preference in fiction.
and also like... i'm not comfortable with EVERYONE in my life knowing how much i like Homelander. i absolutely have friends i would be embarrassed to try and explain it to. but i don't have to! it's not their business, it's mine.
having empathy for a fictional (and very tragic!) character does not make you a bad person any more than enjoying horror movies or violent video games would. please don't let anyone convince you that it does.
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I wanted to know how do you interpret Tanya's gender. After reading chapter 58 of the manga i got the impression that she is definitely trans coded, but maybe thats just me
Very good question.
To be honest, when I think too hard about Tanya’s gender (and sexuality, for that matter) it gives me brain worms. Fun brain worms, but brain worms nonetheless. I can’t explain it. Everything she’s got going on is complicated as shit there’s way too much to think about.
Like, she was a man, but now she's a girl. But at some points she says she still sees herself as a man internally so is this MtFtM? How does that work. And if she accepts she's a woman now, is that just MtF or do we add more letters. More importantly: Was Being X being Transphobic or being the Greatest Trans Ally of All Time with the free divinely issued sex change.
Ok ok, jokes aside. Confession: I actually do not keep up with the manga, so I had to go find the chapter and read it first. Having read it now though, I see what you mean.
The conversation she has with the Salaryman/herself in that chapter really does read as essentially saying “I’ve accepted who I am now.” It’s a far cry from a much earlier part of the manga I remember where she has a breakdown about being a man/people seeing her as a girl.
A friend of mine was actually showing me stuff from more recent chapters of the manga (don’t know which chapter tragically, but I know it’s not currently translated to English) and from what I gathered of it, Being X was showing Tanya a dream of being back in her past life and in response she basically demanded to go back to being Tanya immediately. It is definitely not just you, I 100% see the trans-coding you’re talking about.
As for my personal interpretation of her gender, I touched very briefly on it once before, but I honestly think she wouldn’t want to label herself as anything. At first, this is out of hesitance and not wanting to acknowledge that anything might be ““wrong”” or ““different”” about her. Later on it turns into character growth, more along the lines of, “I don’t need the label to define me, I just am what I am/like what I like. I don’t care about it any more than that.” Yes this is 100% projection on my part. No, I won’t apologize for it lmao.
Of course, that's entirely my own headcanon. I definitely am not saying it’s the only way to interpret her, it’s just my personal thoughts. Especially since my opinion is subject to change on a dime depending on what I’m reading/working on myself. The Tanya gender is, in fact, transient, shifting like water.
Like. A transfem Tanya fic that focuses on her adapting to life in her new world and coming to discover she doesn’t actually hate her new body? I’d totally read that. I’ve seen a few fics that include that as a part of the narrative and those scenes of acceptance were among my favorite parts.
I get the feeling this is the route that the manga is going as well. It’s a bit of a shame that we don't have those aforementioned scenes in the light novel (or at least, I don't remember them), but I don’t think that Carlo Zen really intended that to be the focus/narrative in the first place. And honestly, I also think that’s a good thing because it allows for so much more room for interpretation and headcanon around Tanya’s character.
Anyway, the other direction is also compelling to me. A transmasc Tanya fic where, after feeling uncomfortable and hating how feminine he looks for years and years, he finally goes ‘Fuck this, I’m gonna go back to being a man’? I would read the fuck out of that too.
Could also be paired with him finally choosing to defect, where they think about it like, ‘Well there’s nothing to hold me back now, right? I don’t have to maintain appearances anymore. Also, since I’m defecting this would be a great way to hide myself. They’d all be looking for the wrong person. Two birds with one stone, how efficient.’ …Now we’re getting to fic ideas I won’t ever get to so it’s time to move on I think.
Semi-related to the Trans Tanya Concept, this actually brings me to a bit of a lore/headcanon/idea/question I want to present to the public for opinions. In Norden, during the inciting battle of the war, Tanya uses magic to “dope up” so she could enhance her strength and reaction time and kill pain. I took this to mean she used a formula to synthesize the narcotics/adrenaline hormone/whatever else directly into herself, right?
Can you see where I’m going with this? As long as you know which hormones to make, how they’re made up, and what quantities you need… Well, don’t you think magic HRT is completely possible? Of course, as I'm not sure it makes sense for Salaryman to have known the detailed specifics about it from the modern world, it would require a lot of in-universe research/science advancement for someone to actually do that, but theoretically...
The magic system in this universe has so much potential to be explored, I’m fascinated by what you can theoretically do with it. Although, this is long and off-topic already I think this should be the end, lol.
I think I talked too much? I’m sorry, you were probably not expecting such an answer. I told you, Tanya gives me brain worms (mental illness).
I guess the TL;DR is this: that kid definitely ain’t cishet.
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People are so fucking outrageous you take some time for yourself that you told us you were taking and now they're up in your asks demanding stuff tell them to pay you for it, sincerely someone who doesn't mind waiting for whatever you post
on god i literally spent the last few days driving hours on end and just got back yesterday, today is my first full day back home. and i've been traveling out of town for the outreach clinic i have to work at the next few weeks, and even then i've still been writing allskdjf
lmfao i don't want to shit on that anon too much, and i'm def not trying to be rude or anything, but i'm also going to hijack your ask real quick to address stuff since i do have quite a few new followers.
while some users might not mind questions regarding when someone is updating/if they have anything planned for an ongoing series, and things like that, i specifically have it in my rules to please not do that, which is why i got a little short with them even though they arguably weren't being rude or malicious (unlike a few anons in the past have when asking things like that). this one is especially annoying because it's been literally eight days since i last updated for that, and i have other series i've been working on! like even though i'm not posting for it, i've still written a couple thousand words for pet!au, and i just finished a chapter for in limbo i'll have up for early access here in a bit, and then on tumblr probably tomorrow or wednesday.
but mostly, the reason why i specifically request that people don't ask if i have plans/when i'm updating/if i'm updating something is because i literally have an irl life. i've been pretty open recently about how i've been traveling and the work i've been doing, it's not a secret or anything lmao. it just feels... tone deaf, you know? like you come into my inbox not talking about the work, or what you like about it, or otherwise engaging with it, but just to ask if i'm giving you more, like i didn't just do that a week ago. hell, even if it's been months or years that's still rude imo because if you like something enough, then you'd probably be doing more than just asking for more, ya know? at least that's how it comes across to me. and like i said before, some people really don't care, which is why i made sure to specify it in my rules, because i do care. it ruins my mood to write and create because then it feels like a chore and people are waiting on me just to consume it and then beg for more rather than tell me what they actually enjoyed about the work lmao.
anyway, no hard feelings against that anon at all, i'm sure they didn't mean anything by it, so please don't show them any hate or anything. but just use this as a reminder to read the rules of the blogs you interact with please. or at least don't be surprised when you do something that irks them and then they're annoyed at you because of it lmao.
sorry about the rant in the tags
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