#it's unfortunately very common and most mean well and don't even realise they're doing it

[gottagobackintime]

I find it fascinating to witness the straight audience of any media not being able to pick up what the makers of the movie/show puts down.

It’s like when people reacted to the “You wear fine things well” scene in Our Flag Means Death with “aw, they’re such good friends” whereas the queer audience went “omg, this is happening”. We all had access to the same scene, we’d all watched the build up to that scene but the straight audience wrongly read it as friends/straight whereas the queer audience had suspected they were building up to a romance but this was the confirmation. Even the creator of the show was baffled that people were surprised that Ed and Stede fell in love. Because he thought they had made it obvious.

And as I said, we, the queer audience picked up on it. And I feel like the same thing is happening with Ted Lasso. Do I know that Ted and Trent will get together? No, I am unfortunately not a writer on Ted Lasso. But you can’t deny that there are clues pointing to it. But the straight audience barely pick up the fact that Ted and Trent like each other, be that in a platonic way or romantic way. I’ve seen several reactions to the last episode of season 2 and ONE of them included the scene where Ted reacts to Trent not being in the press room. All of them severely cut down the scene in the parking lot. One of the scenes most of us Ted/Trent truthers point to as a huge piece of evidence for it going canon. The parallel of them meeting in an empty parking lot, just like Ted and his ex-wife and Roy and Keeley. But because Ted and Trent are both men it couldn’t possibly mean anything. And Ted has an ex-wife and a kid so he can’t possibly be into men, as if there is no such thing as being bisexual. “But I’m pretty sure Trent has a family, he has a kid right?” So? He could be divorced, we also have no idea if his daughter has another dad or a mum. And the same thing applies to him, it doesn’t mean he can’t be into men (take also into account all of James Lance’s interviews, and his choice of shirt in one of them, friend of Dorothy anyone? He's the captain of this ship, we're just along for the ride tbh.)

Then we have the wonderful “I’m so not homophobic, in fact, you are homophobic because you think Ted is gay just because he likes musicals and has ‘feminine’ traits” um no… it’s the fact that he kind of acts in a way that an ally wouldn't. Yeah, he called himself an ally in that one episode. But every single person who is now out as queer who at one point considered themselves an ally because "I’m not one of them but I sure think they're neat" raise a hand 🖐️ (been there, done that. Was very into queer things before I realised I myself am one of them). What it always comes down to is "it's pandering", "it's tokenism" (having the main character on the show be queer wouldn't be fucking tokenism), "not everything has to be gay", "why can't men just be friends, there is a severe lack of male friendships on tv". And like the last one makes me go??? There are a MILLION friendships between men on TV. There are even multiple friendships between men in Ted Lasso. Beard and Ted, Ted and Higgins, Ted and Roy, the himbos and so on. Having Ted and Trent become a couple wouldn't really change anything because there are still friendships between men. They also claim that Ted is needed as the "straight without toxic masculinity" representation. As if Beard isn't right there. The man who has no problem going to an immersive show about the menstrual cycle. Has no problem with shrieking when he's surprised and so on.

I also like that if we'd get Ted and Trent together, we'd get two middle aged queer dads. Which isn't that common. It's not even super common to see people realising they're queer late in life on TV, and yet it happens every day. Because let's face it, most queer men on TV kind of look like Colin, and I don't mean that as a bad thing. And I'm looking forward to his storyline. But it's also nice seeing middle aged or old people finding themselves and being allowed to be who they are (see Ed and Stede from OFMD). Also would enjoy seeing people lose their minds when they realise they've been fooled this entire time. It'll be like Black Sails all over again.

I do not have any doubts about the fact that, had Trent or Ted been a woman and they saw Trent give up his career because of Ted's influence, they sure as hell wouldn't protest people thinking they'd become a couple. But because it's two men it's just delusional for some reason (homophobia).

What I'm saying is, it's clear that the straight audience has a hard time picking up subtext and clues that the makers are planting. Because they've never had to do that. Because they are always clearly represented. They don't have to look for minor side characters and hope that they might be queer. Because the main character is straight and most of the supporting cast too. When you've grown up with a lack of representation or with representation that is meant to be subtext, you'll learn to pick up on it. And you do look at media differently. I just wish that the straight audience could listen to us for once, without getting defensive and dancing around the fact that they are uncomfortable relating to a character that turned out to be queer.

[onewomancitadel]

Love triangles

I loathe love triangles with all of my being. They are singularly one of my most hated tropes in romance and spoil the well for me almost every single time - which is a dead shame because it is unfortunately a rather common conceit.

What I realised when I was thinking about it yesterday - and this is an interesting point from a structural perspective - is that in order to develop the relationships (even if you are guaranteed to only be committing to one), you are effectively halving the development of each relationship in respect to the other in terms of narrative space.

That makes for a very difficult task and I feel like almost no one writing a love triangle (sincerely, with feelings for both sides or at least equal consideration given to each, because there IS one caveat where I'm down for a love triangle) realises that this is something you need to be really careful about and, other than my true love soulmates forever inner crybaby demon complaining about competing love interests, is probably the reason it so often ends up falling flat.

Of course it depends on what your expectations are for romance. If, 'Character A has feelings for Character B' constitutes appropriate and believable development then of course a love triangle is not asking you to suspend your disbelief. For me, I do not Fucking Buy It, and when it comes to romance I want to see genuine development of the romance and feelings involved, which means at least one of the relationships is going to be more poorly developed... so why do it?

Love triangles inject ambiguity into a story, which is why they're a common trope and easy shortcut to tension; they divide fanbases into shipping wars which is, from a rather cynical perspective, an easy way to cultivate fan engagement and name for your brand (Team Edward/Team Jacob might be one of the most culturally relevant products of Twilight, despite the fact the presence of the love triangle doesn't make any sense at all and was clearly a cheese on the author's or publisher's part to pad out the series).

If you are doing love triangles for other reasons (e.g. thematic ones: a common YA trope is that the love triangle represents the protagonist's choice between two ideas she must reconcile with, e.g. peace and war (Peeta or Gale)), it is obviously a little more justified but I think that if you want to thematically augment and imbue one of the romances to convey what you mean to convey, it means one of the romances will suffer or be obviously completely out of the competition and inappropriate. So even if it's ostensibly thematically justified, it doesn't make it interesting. Further, I think there's an issue here in that if, say, fans generally expect childhood friends-to-lovers, they're not exactly going to get the thematic message that a character like Gale should be sending, and would be upset about the culmination of his character as a way to forcibly 'end' the romance; obviously controlling fan reaction is not something you should ever try to do, but I don't think the love triangle manages to convey the themes more effectively than not. That's the crucial point.

So if love triangles firstly reduce total romance development (think about the usual space afforded to a traditional romance to make it believable and moving!), and secondly are not necessarily superior vehicles for conveying thematic ideas, then I think the reason they are enduring tropes is because of that artificial ambiguity. We KNOW the character stuck in the middle will end up with one or the other or alone (or all three at different parts of the story), which means it can feel wishy-washy if they work at it back and forth, or ultimately the ambiguity is not worth very much, or the story can feel unfair because sometimes storytellers will value the 'less likely' option e.g. the more poorly developed one, just for the sake of shock value. That is partly why I hate love triangles, because they can feel like a joke on the audience.

I hesitate to say this so declaratively but I feel like love triangles are often a product of lazy storytelling. Not just lazy storytelling but paint-by-numbers romance which doesn't care about romance CONCEPTUALLY. Not just romance as a means to an end but romance as a fully lived-in visceral experience of the characters that isn't just 'who will end up with whom'. I'm not about to criticise it from an unrealistic perspective (who even ends up in that many love triangles!?!!?) but from a perspective of emotional verisimilitude, I find it hard to believe in a story where love is centred and valued that it could be reduced to something that feels oddly transactional or even gameified - Character C cultivated enough Romance Points with Character A so he wins. It just has a tacky feeling in the mouth.

I still feel critically that the sacrifice of romantic development for the sake of two potential romances is the critical flaw, and that's the most interesting takeaway; it doesn't mean they can't be done but it's something to be cognisant of (and I've never seen this criticism before but forgive me if someone's already said it, it felt novel to me lol). It's not just concrete development that has to be split but emotional narrative space (what the character is thinking and doing) and thematic narrative space (which with some examples can be mitigated but nevertheless in this case, one romance will automatically be 'stronger' than the other), which can get messy and exhausting really quickly.

I'm sure there are ways it can be done properly - I think this is true of anything in storytelling, it's almost universally fixable (the one caveat where I tolerate it, if not love it, is when it's only a misunderstood love triangle, and there really is no such one) - but very particular to love triangles, they represent boring and overdone trends in romantic storytelling that thinks competition is more important than actual development and treats them as almost requisite, and love triangles are not a small enough trope to be potentially overlooked because they are a major structural consideration in the story but are treated too casually.

I want to see the full development of a romance, not half.

[monstermonstre]

this is your reminder to not out your trans friends, even to your close friends, even to your parents, or coworkers you think won't ever meet them

no matter how confident your friend seems in their identity, if they haven't given you explicit consent to do so just keep your mouth shut

why do you feel the need to share that anyway? what are you getting out of it?

[bondsmagii]

as an eye avatar also, the only thing that's ever made me regret Seeing was the details of the Toybox Killer. it has to go that far before im like "i want to close my eyes forever actually", and i eat up zoophile arrests for fun, most fucked up killer i've ever heard of and theres a well-made doc on him by youtuber Night Docs. this is both a warning and recommendation, it's very interesting but the man was EVIL

this is going to make me sound like an absolute edgelord but shit like that doesn't really get to me. obviously I find killers like that deranged and I come out of the information thinking "jesus there are some wholesale freaks out there" but I've never been overly horrified by stuff like that. like, it's fucked up, but it's so... human? I don't know how to adequately word this. humans can be so depraved and they're capable of horrific acts, but they're also limited by the fact they're human. there's only so much they can do. they can think of pretty unique ways to torment and torture somebody, but there's method to it, and there are limitations, because some things humans cannot physically do. I used to be obsessed with true crime and I've done the real deep dive, not just the well-known killers but a lot of the lesser known ones as well, and once you read enough you truly realise that it gets repetitive. this doesn't mean that the crimes are less horrific, or even that I'm desensitised -- it just highlights, to me, how limited humans are on the grand scale of things. I can appreciate why their acts were horrific for their victims, and for their victim's families, but it ranks very low on my personal fears. I would look at the killers and I'd just... I don't know. feel kind of bad? not out of any sympathy for them; it was a weird kind of feeling. I guess I just thought it was a terrible waste. these people were commiting horrific acts, all to be feared or respected or seem intimidating or have control or satisfy something as base as a sexual perversion, but in the grand scheme of things, in the face of everything out there, their efforts were kind of pathetic. it was just such a terrible fucking waste.

I understand that I am not a very good control subject here, because to be quite honest with you I'm a straight up freak and my capacity for horrific information is endless and my talent for emotional distance is impressive -- I look these things up to learn, not to feel. and all I've learned from serial killers is that there's a small group of people on this planet so caught up in their own petty problems and wants that they feel it's their right to torture and kill whoever takes their fancy. it's fucked up, but it's just human selfishness, and that's... just how it is, and this kind of selfishness has its fingerprints on damn near every horrific thing in this world. from serial killing to child abuse to war to COVID deniers, it's all selfish people thinking they can act how they want because their wants and needs are the only thing that matters on the planet. I find that infuriating, and embarrassing, and pathetic, but unfortunately not disturbing. it's too common for that.

[hawksugarbaby]

Kirishima x reader- Freezer burn

Fluff

Quirk info: you have fire breath, you're always too warm because there's literally fire inside of our body. It also means when people are close to you they're really warm to, you're pretty much a radiator.

"Bro... (y/n) is eating a popsicle" Kaminari muttered to Kirishima who was unable to peel his eyes away from you no matter hoe hard he tried. "I know bro" is it wrong to be looking at her like this, I can't look away she was just perfect and- *crunch*

The boys watched in horror as you bit off the top of the popsicle and there was a very audible screech from the middle of the courtyard you and your classmates were in. you thought someone was hurt so you instinctively whipped your head around to see where the noise came from but instead, you saw sero and kaminari dragging Kirishima away to the door with bakugo holding the door open and signalling like a marshaller to hurry up and get him out of the courtyard. You shrugged and continued to much on your popsicle and made a mental note to ask Kirishima about it later.

Kaminari sat him on the couch and sat down next to him and handed him a water bottle. Bakugo knew something needed to be done, he wouldn't sit there and let his friend suffer, he stormed up to the boys and stood in front of them "OI, you need to fucking get it together shitty hair. You might as well just ask her to suck your dick dude" Kirishima choked on his water, most of it landing on his vest "BRO! I- I don't want that I just want her to... be my girlfriend and stuff you know" he said rubbing behind his neck in embarrassment "hey if it makes you feel better, think of how todoroki feels, midoriya's wearing leggings and I'm pretty sure he deepthroated that popsicle" he said though not really helping the conversation. "Why can't I just be normal around her?" he asked burying his head in his hands "just fucking go back outside and be yourself" bakugo reasoned, this time with some much better advice.

While this conversation went on inside the house you realised it was getting hotter, originally you had come outside in a white bodysuit and (f/c) shorts and a hoodie. to begin with, you had sandles on, but you had to take those off, your hoodie was who knows where and you were standing in the fountain as if it was a waterfall accepting the fact that you were being drenched with cold water, but you were still too hot. You had been through at least 4 popsicles so far, todoroki had already tried to help as much as he could but to no avail and as the sun climbed higher into the sky the temperature went up also.

"Fuck this" you shouted and ran back into the dorm not realising that your white bodysuit was pretty much see-through by now. You sprinted past the boys on the couch to the kitchen and there it was your lord and saviour... the freezer. You wandered round to the commons and asked, "hey who wants to help me get in the freezer?" they looked at you with confusion and 3/4 boys looked in the other direction while Kirishima turned the colour of his hair "d-do you want t-to change your t-shirt first?" he asked and you looked down realizing everyone could see what was underneath your top "oh no I'm wearing a bra how unfortunate, Kiri help me get in the freezer!" you said pulling him up from the couch and dragging him to the kitchen "(y/n), no I mean if your shirt's wet and you're in the freezer you'll get hypothermia" he pointed out, even though that certainly wasn't what he meant but he didn't want to be rude.

You stopped realizing he had a good point "then I'll just take it off?" you said and walked towards the closest bathroom "NO (Y/N) THAT'S NOT MUCH BETTER" he shouted after you making you stop again, he looked around for a better idea and suddenly a small lightbulb appeared above his head (in his mind) "here take my vest" he said pulling it over his head and handing it to you, he had no issue showing his abs off. Your face lit up red at the sight of his gorgeous body and you took the vest and sped toward the bathroom.

You came back with his vest on which covered your shorts since you were a fair bit shorter than him and... another popsicle? "Where did you even get that!" Kirishima asked questioning how you could have got a popsicle "hun I keep popsicles all over the dorms, I'm not going to suffer if it's a hot day" you said continuing to suck on the (f/f) popsicle not realising what it looked like to him. "Um (y/n), d-did you take your bra off?" he asked noticing there was no band showing at the back of the vest (y' know how you get those vests with the really deep backs?) "well yeah that was wet too so it just made sense," you said, making a good point 'okay Kirishima calm down. Your crush is wearing your vest, without a bra, and eating a popsicle... I wonder how far- NO'

The brilliant thing about the freezers in your dorm was how big and empty they were, you were teenagers, after all, you weren't going to put very much effort into making food so that freezer was never more than a quarter full. "So what's our gameplan here?" he asked looking in the freezer and putting down a blanket to make it slightly more comfortable for you "lift me up, and put me in the freezer, but leave the top open so I can breathe," you told him the plan and he nodded "okay 3, 2, 1, go," you said and clutched to your boxes of popsicles. he picked you up by the waist and placed you in the freezer and you sat down taking in the cold air, he looked over the side and smiled "care to join me kiri?" you asked patting the spot next to you, he thought for the second and his conclusion was, what's the worst that could happen? He vaulted over the side and landed like a gymnast in the freezer and sat down next to you.

You both sighed and shut your eyes letting the cool air surround you. The good part was that neither of you would absolutely freeze because you yourself were always too hot anyway, and you kept Kirishima warm also.

"why did you get dragged out of the courtyard earlier?" you asked checking off your mental note to ask about it and sitting in the freezer together seemed like the perfect time to ask about it "o-oh um there was- there was a wasp" he said lying through his pointy teeth. you unwrapped another popsicle and shook your head "the manly red riot is scared of wasps?" you asked offering him a popsicle that he pushed away, the way you said his hero name sounded so much better than the way he did "uh, yeah just. Don't like them. Too buzzy" "but you're fine with bees?" he looked at you with surprise, how did you know he liked bees? "I never said I liked bees" he pointed out and you laughed "Kiri yesterday you went out into the courtyard specifically to, and I quote 'water the flowers so the bees are happy'" you said remembering him walking around in a short-sleeved flannel with a silver watering can "how do you know what I said?"

you didn't feel like telling him you got distracted from your studying because he was taking care of the bees so instead you changed the subject slightly "it's the popsicle isn't it," you asked pointing to him with the frozen goodness in your hand "w-what gives you that idea?" he asked looking away "hm just something about how you keep looking at me when I eat one and you grimace every time I bite it?" you point out looking at him even though he wouldn't look back, no answer "if you want me to suck your dick just ask dude" "WHAT" you laughed at his response and it took you a minute to calm down "I'm kidding I'm kidding," you told him and he let out a sigh of relief.

"Yeah it's the popsicle," he said folding his arms across his chest "you could've just told me how you felt dummy. You know that right" you said poking his cheek with the newest popsicle stick "well (y/n)... I like you like I really like you like I want you to be my girlfriend kind of like you" he said confidently. "I like you too, and I will happily be your girlfriend," you told him and leaned your head on his shoulder "you're really hot" "why thank you" you laughed knowing that wasn't exactly what he meant but the compliment still stood.

BONUS CONTENT

"So how far down can you-" "KIRI!" a silence fell between you "...Full thing" and he looked at you with surprise "wanna see?" "YES"

Part 2 here