#literally could not be gayer. the vibes are correct

[vallahaii]

worry not tumblr user nekopad-alpha Firenze has never had a heterosexual thought in his life

[shadowbender19]

And we’re back folks, if not a few days late. Sorry about that, I had to write a classics essay, of all things, so that held me up a tad. Despite that, here are my live thoughts and reactions for the new (and final :( ) Heartless video. Enjoy!

Alastor

“Curse of the hollow” is a vibe of a name, also I giving me Molly flashbacks

Ah yes, Genshin, something that I definitely know about (sarcastic)

Mythology vibes? We Stan

I love the attitude of, even if it gets scrapped or the comic never gets made, its fine, its fun to make. It’s a great philosopher towards creation

Yeah, he do be a vampire

Black hole/void magic is so cool. The audio it brings to mind is stunning

I love a spooky arm

The stars are plot significant

You can tell that I love the spooky arm thing, cause it is the main aesthetic of one of my D&D characters lol

Lorelei

I hate spelling her name, brain says no

I know that poster girl is a very common phrase, but for Lorelei specifically, it gives such a strong image. Those huge theatre posters that can’t fit on your wall, yeah that

Shoutout to all the people who did the black swan fanart

(Notes app tried to correct ‘fanart’ to ‘canary’ apple explain)

Ah yes, bird

Lorelei’s outfit being even slightly based on a wrestler is such a vibe. I don’t know what that vibe is, but it is indeed a vibe

Star placement is once again iconic. I feel like I’ll be saying that a lot tonight

The idea of the Lorelei fandom that almost certain exists in the Heartless universe having wild conspiricy theories about her tattoos gives me life, cause you know they would.

Diana

Cool cowboy + spy is a stunning aesthetic. That post about stealth vs. Russian stealth is strong with this one

The Eye!

As someone going through a Sandman phase, the ideas that come to mind at Diana being based on the Fates are numerous

The wld west vibes + the snakes are stunning.

So many references I don’t understand lol. Is this how my friends feel every time I speak?

Taking the two ‘heavy hitter’ characters and giving them the most ‘big brain strats’ fighting dynamic would make for such fun fights. Especially compared to other random fights that may happen in the series

Lance

The bastard boi!

Yes Alex, make it gayer. As God intended

My screen is small so I cannot see the face. Very sad

Alastor makes Lance captain for one day. He thinks, the guys literally a knight, how bad could it be? Next day Alastor revokes Lance’s position as captain

Alastor walking into a cell block, pointing at Lance and saying that one before walking out as the guards release Lance.

I don’t know why Lance is giving me the strong fan fiction ideas but here we are

He would call his sword teeth

He do be Erza

I actually did watch the video after he mentioned it in the last video. If you haven’t I highly recommend. Stunt people are icons. And nerds apparently

Eira knowing the ex-owners of Lance’s swords is great angst material.

Part of me says ‘armour cool’ Gremlin brain says ‘armour go clang when he walk’

I have not yet mentioned how much I love this specific art style from these videos so I will say so now.

Scales look amazing. That’s the comment

Shiny orange on the armour giving me NRG from ben 10 vibes

Scales on the sword handle. I love the attention to detail

Bandy

My beloved

He do be giving Mr Compress Vibes since day 1

Swap

The personality swap fits are great guys, never stop

(There’s a character in the current fairy tail manga who does something like this in a really fun way. Not relevant just came to mind)

The line between cliche and aesthetic is very thin

When he said, ‘not just normally playing cards’, my brain went straight to the idea of him having an absurd amalgamation of different card sets. Like he has a few Pokemon cards, a yugioh card, maybe something from magic the gathering. Black cards makes a lot more sense

Swap

Contract demons. terrifying

Pretty hair!

Puff go the sleeves

(Good lord my gremlin brain is taking over these comments)

I think I would prefer the banter rather than miming, but that’s just me.

I love this pose

Dock

Dock is probably the character I’ve seen the most fanart of

Right there! Love that he labeled it

Gross and scary and kind of decomposing. Now more people are going to have a crush on him

OMG, he’s an empath

Goop

We love a creepy cleric

“Pause for ADHD moment”

Another creepy arm!

Can’t wait to see this coloured (specifically talking about creepy hand)

“And also, pretty hot” - I have no words. I love

Alex paying specific mention to Dock showing his arm gives me the same vibe as that Tumblr post about the Mandelorians wrist

Love the Disney villain green on this guy

I was right, the creepy arm looked great in colour.

Final thoughts- This new style continues to impress me. I don’t know enough about art to say what’s change, but I absolutely adore it. The way it makes things glow especially sparks joy.

The curse names give me such strong DND vibes, specifically subclasses. But that may just be that bloodhunter subclasses are all order and they use curses. No more Heartless videos makes me sad, I hope that we get more content in the future. It may take some time for me to get excited at the idea of a new concept corner, but I know I will and I know I’ll love it. Heartless has been, and probably will continue to be my comfort YouTube series.

[whatiwillsay]

everything has changed - the first swiftgron song

i haven’t been giving this number her due but in terms of proof it’s up there with babe and wonderland imo so she’s going to get her own masterpost!  every gaylor and their mom has done one but now it’s my turn!

part 1 - the timeline

the first thing about everything has changed that’s so delightfully evidence filled is the great timeline disallowing for a proper public male muse.

thanks to tweets we know ed and taylor were working on the song on may 15th, 2012:

this is after taylor’s first fling with harry is over (which supposedly ended april 22, 2012) but before she meets conor kennedy (as far as we know they met over july 4th weekend 2012).  at this point in time conor is a junior in high school and 17.  i’ve got plenty of posts on why i don’t think either of these boys are proper muses (x, x, x) and how their timelines don’t add up but they really don’t add up for everything has changed.

now you might say, “oh maybe ed and taylor were working on a different song.” but taylor tells on herself later in interviews for red, confirming that a couple weeks after they met (so a week or two after these tweets) she debuted the “i just wanna know you better now” pre chorus to him, confirming that indeed they were working on ehc in may (or perhaps early june at the latest) not fitting timeline for harry or conor:

the only thing that could work is that she started writing this song for harry before they broke up the first time but she later attributes this song very obviously to conor.  you might argue that she didn’t want a falling in love song to go to harry on the red album since they had had a rocky little break up in late april but she attributes treacherous to him and harry’s thought to be the muse for come back... be here as well.

part 2 - green eyes, your freckles, and the rain (among other things)

there are a lot of delightful little clues that point back to dianna in this song.  she, of course, has green eyes as mentioned in the song.  

the newest addition to the evidence pile i have for y’all is that dianna does have proper freckles.  they’re a pale dusting across her cheeks that appear to usually be covered up by makeup but you can see them in scenes of movies where she doesn’t wear a lot of makeup and when natural lighting hits her such as hollow in the land and bare:

yes they’re hard to see but they’re there!

it also rained (a rare occurrence in LA!) during the first swiftgron hang out (that we know of) possibly harkening back to the lyric “all i know is pouring rain and everything has changed”:

it didn’t rain in LA when taylor spent the first week of april with harry there, nor did it rain in nyc when they were supposedly there together.  it also didn’t rain in hyannis port during the first week or july when she met conor (and the song was written before that!). it rained in la on the 13th of april but taylor was in nashville, and then it rained on the night of the 25th, after haylor 1.0 was over.

now of course the rain could be a metaphor or simply a vibe, but if you want to make it literal, you can for dianna.  

the butterflies referenced in the song could be a reference back to dianna’s tattoo she got for the book “hope for flowers” which is about a butterfly and a caterpillar that she got removed after swiftgron supposedly broke up:

furthermore taylor brings back the pouring rain, the dust, and the butterflies back for clean.  taylor has only used butterflies twice in a song- ehc and then clean.  would make sense if they’re about the same muse but according to taylor ehc is about conor and clean is about harry!

the lyric “meet me there tonight” is of note as well since the night taylor first wrote with ed, may 15th, she did go have dinner with dianna that very night!

part 3 - the songs gayer than we give it credit for

what changed taylor? what do you know now that you didn’t before? insights on dianna’s sexuality/feelings for you perhaps? insights on your own sexuality?  and why are you so worried it might all be in your mind?  as usual it could all just be a vibe situation but it feels as thought something sort of profound and nerve wracking is going on here.  that doesn’t inherently prove gayness but it certainly fits.

part 4 - where the fuck is hyiannis port?

so taylor dedicates the song to conor kennedy with the liner note hyannis port (supposedly where she met him) except she spells it wrong!  she adds an i and spells it “hyiannis” which appears to mimic part of the spelling of dianna’s name:

if this was a typo taylor (who is a renowned control freak) never had it corrected in subsequent printings of the liner notes.

the placement of “i”s right after line breaks also mimics the way taylor places the i in dianna’s name in the 22 liner notes:

part 5 - furthermore

dianna tweeted about the song:

kind of interesting since it feels like all too well or perhaps the last time would be more in dianna’s music taste imo, even more interesting that she didn’t tweet about 22 which, you know, is officially dedicated to her.

another closing thought would be- if conor inspired such soft and intense falling in love music, why didn’t he inspire any breakup songs (as far as we know)?

taylor actually came back and gave an interview where she (or her publicist) said the conor situation was casual, just a youthful fling.  but ehc doesn’t sound casual, it sounds pretty intense and profound!

[grittyreadsfic]

the gritty vibe is just seeing a new d.star and going “is anyone going to ship this guy with tyler seguin” and not waiting for an answer ajkshdfjdh

(extremely valid tho I mean BUCKY AND CAPTAIN???)

asfgskdh LISTEN it’s not my fault tyler seguin is Like That i am a simple gritty

in my defense for both raff and scott is that they did come from my teams (rip to the devils goaltending scott u could have saved us i miss u king)

i do maintain that raff and tyler have very fun energies for a ship and that tyler and scott are literally high school besties so narratively it’s great i’m fun and correct okay

they’re also mini bernedoodles and adorable and i just think that tyler and scott and their combined 5 dogs would make a fun premise!!!! also what is gayer than naming your dogs captain and bucky am i right?

(also i was gonna say it was just those two but i’ve also definitely lost it about mcdavid and tyler on here before so never mind this is truly just the way i am i think)

[a-little-slice-of-fandom]

unpopular opinion: lgbtq coding or actors/writers/producers/whoever else works on a movie i don't know enough about film saying that a character is lgbtq doesn't make it canon. if that's how they view the character (especially writers or producers) then they can fucking put it in the script. it's essentially queerbaiting while pandering to conservative audiences

Okay I’m assuming you’re talking about birds of prey and not Six (which also has queercoded characters), and I have some thoughts.

Firstly, Birds of Prey DID put canon queer characters in the script. Harley is confirmed to be bisexual within the first five minutes of the film, with Poison Ivy (or someone who looks suspiciously like her) appearing in that slot machine bit where Harley talks about her previous relationships. As a bisexual women who never really sees myself represented in blockbuster films (especially superhero films), I was so glad that BOP carried over Harley’s bisexuality from the comics. And we have to remember, this isn’t some throwaway character...this is Harley fucking Quinn, one of the most popular DCEU characters to date. And she’s queer and it’s not treated as a big deal! It’s just a part of her character. (Plus, Margot Robbie herself and Cathy Yan want to introduce poison Ivy into the DCEU soon and get that queer relationship going which would be absolutely fantastic and I for one cannot wait). And that’s not even mentioning Renee Montoya, was confirmed to be a lesbian within the script and whose sexuality directly impacts the plot via her ex wife. That was literally in the script.

I’m not going to get in to the whole thing surrounding Black Mask and Zsasz because I don’t feel qualified to discuss that and I understand why some people dislike how they portrayed them, but what I can get in to is Huntress and Black Canary’s relationship. Because I have a lot of feelings.

Do these characters specifically say that they’re part of the LGBT community within the script? No. They don’t. But there was no point in the script where it would have come up naturally. Huntress spent 90 percent of the script being awkward and fighting people. At what point would she bring up her sexuality? Same with Dinah. They had shit to do and honestly in their situations I don’t see why they would need to bring up that they’re gay. Contrary to some people’s beliefs...gay people don’t go around announcing that they’re gay every four seconds. Why would these characters do that?

But what Birds of Prey did do was show some small moments of chemistry between those two characters, specifically the diner scene at the end where Dinah keeps complimenting Helena and correcting Renee on Helena’s behalf. When I first saw that scene, I definitely got some vibes there...and then I find this interview a few weeks later where the actresses confirmed that that’s what they were actively going for!

But here’s the thing: I don’t personally see any of what birds of prey did queerbaiting. Why? Because the film never really flaunted it’s gay characters or tried to gain brownie points with the LGBT community by saying that it was some cornerstone of representation. There was a little bit of coverage on Harley being confirmed to be bi, but Margot Robbie (who also produced the film) was very casual about the whole thing. She didn’t see it as a big deal, didn’t act as if she was some amazing person for putting it in, she just treated it as a normal, everyday thing that she wanted to carry over from the comic books. Compare that to another comic book oriented series of films that keeps saying they have queer representation and keep acting as if they’re doing something amazing for the queer community by having these characters exist but the actual scenes that would back these claims up are mysteriously nowhere to be seen. Or how about teen wolf? Remember that video of two of the actors hinting that their characters would be in a relationship in the upcoming but they actually weren’t. Or fuck it, how about Supergirl? They keep teasing the audience that maybe Kara and Lena will get into a relationship but refuse to go anywhere with it or commit to it. These series draw in LGBT people with the hints that these characters are maybe possibly part of the community but never want to take the dive and fully commit.

But Birds of prey didn’t tease anyone. It didn’t try and draw LGBT people in by flaunting their characters. Birds of Prey simply showed us a handful of confirmed queer characters, and also showed some characters who either have great chemistry (Dinah and Helena) or hint towards their relationships in a different way (for example Black Mask and Zsasz wearing each other’s clothes) and then confirmed beyond the film that, yeah, that’s what they were going for. It doesn’t mean that these characters are 100 canonically gay, but feels a hell of a lot more genuine than other studios or other films.

And pander to a conservative audience? I’m pretty sure all conservatives hated this film for its stance on patriarchal structures and misogyny. Birds of Prey did a lot of things...pandering wasn’t one of them.

Could the film have been gayer? Yeah...a lot of it is blink and you’ll miss it moments and I would have loved for characters like Poison Ivy to actually show up. But,,, damn it I respect the film for a) putting it all in there and b) never treating any of it like a big deal or trying to act as if they did something amazing for representation. And, just like I said in my last post, I feel like there’s a big difference in having one vaguely queer coded character versus having 2 definitely confirmed ones and 4 coded ones. And if we want more openly and explicitly gay characters or more LGBT romances (such as Harley and Ivy) then we need to show support for a film that, while it wasn’t perfect in the representation department, was at least trying to give audiences queer characters.

As always feel free to disagree with me on this or continue to discuss it. I can only speak from my personal experiences with my sexuality, but I (for the most part) enjoyed how BoP added LGBT characters into the film without trying to act as if it was revolutionary.