#she's just sixteen

[ghostlampsmylove]

Okay, but imagine that Gwen dies in BTSV and that's what convinces Miguel that his theory is bullshit. Because Miles would be like, "If I'm not really Spiderman because I was never meant to be Spierman then why does she die? Why does Gwen Stacy die if she didn't fall in love with Spiderman, but with an anomaly?

[johnconstantinesdick]

I get the criticism of the Hunters of Artemis from a narrative perspective—it sucks that it essentially boots interesting female characters out of the story—but it always baffles me when people viciously hate Artemis for *checks notes* doing damage control.

Like. Thalia explicitly goes with Artemis to avoid the prophecy, and I definitely think that’s the reason Artemis tried so hard to get her to join—hell, you can view the hunters trying to recruit Annabeth as a way to get Thalia to join. And Bianca? You can’t convince me that Artemis didn’t guess there was something up there and react accordingly.

If Percy or Nico were even a little bit girl-adjacent you bet your ass she would be all over them to join. No one actually wants to risk the Great Prophecy happening, and Artemis is doing a hell of a lot more to stop it than anyone else.

[odakota-rose]

so many gems in the Doctor Who script library the BBC just released but today I'm here in 4x02, The Fires of Pompeii

[mylittleredgirl]

not surprising at all really that as soon as sumner died elizabeth weir immediately told john to pick an off-world team rather than assigning him an office or something as Expedition Military Commander. she's an experienced dog owner, she took one look at this man and went oh yeah this breed isn't suited to full-time urban living. he will make my life a living hell if i keep him inside all day. highly intelligent, great with children, top-notch guarding instincts, will 100% shred every piece of furniture in atlantis if he doesn't get enough time off leash

[wlwkiryuu]

juri is simultaneously the coolest council member and the most pathetic. she effortlessly picks up literally any skill at prodigy-level. one of her closest friends is a twelve-year-old boy. she's so confident in her identity as a lesbian that she makes the girl characters question their sexualities by just existing. despite being good at literally everything her hobbies mostly consist of long, brooding showers and projecting her insecurities onto everyone around her through cryptic speeches and stories that are sometimes so cryptic that even characters WITHIN a show as weird as rgu don't know what the hell she's talking about. she is objectively incredibly awkward (Your Ball? My Ball) but given she's surrounded by a bunch of equally pretentious teenagers she just becomes much cooler by comparison. she sees through others' bullshit by accepting her own bullshit. girl is BUILT on a card house of lies that can blow away in the wind at any moment if her own stubbornness and denial were not singlehandedly tying it down. she's just as effortlessly a sopping wet cat as she is a Cool Girl™. need more people to understand this

[demigods-posts]

I've seen a lot of discourse about Virginia Kull's portrayal of Sally Jackson in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians TV series, and I'd like to say that I loved her. Don't get me wrong. I love Sally from the original book series, and I, too, would fight the God of War on her behalf. But something that I enjoyed about Virginia's portrayal of Sally that we don't get in the books is the character depth. We don't hear much of Sally's backstory in the TV series, apart from a couple of flashbacks with younger Percy and that scene with Poseidon (Toby Stephens). However, those scenes do an excellent job of showing us that alongside being Percy's mother, Sally is also a young woman who fell in love with a man she could not be with and is enduring the natural consequences of having Percy. She struggles to communicate with him when she's frustrated, gets teary-eyed when she lies to him to prolong the inevitable, and actively sacrifices her happiness to ensure his safety. Virginia Kull's portrayal of Sally Jackson reinforces the character's humanity, imperfections, and determination, and it's everything to me.

[eddiezpaghetti]

It has come to my attention that SOME OF YOU who read my last Byler post remain UNCONVINCED. So I'm gonna tack onto it this:

I'm older than fucking God and air, and I've been out and proud since 2007. Yes, I know what homophobia is, and yes, I know what queerbaiting is. I know about Supernatural and Teen Wolf and Sherlock and blahdyblahdyblah. No new ground is being covered here. I thought I made that clear in the original post, but, clearly, I did not.

I am aware of queerbaiting and homophobia, and I'm still wholeheartedly certain in Byler being canon anyway.

Okay, so there are three types of relationship I want to discuss when it comes to queerbaiting. They're all, like, "queer relationships that could have happened, but didn't".

First off, queer-coding. This isn't really a thing so much anymore, but it still crops up every once in a while. I'd argue it probably happens most with male-male relationships in family shows these days. First example that comes to mind is Mr. Smiley and Mr. Frowny from Steven Universe. You can't make a relationship canon because some shitty overhead bastard overhead said no, so you get as close as you can without compromising the show. Can't make someone gay? Well, now their comedy routine is a blatant allegory for a romantic relationship. Boom-shaka-laka. This is something I don't see being a problem with regards to Stranger Things, but I want it to be there as contrast, a demonstration of one of many things queerbaiting is not. However, one could argue that, thus far, Will Byers is, canonically, queer-coded. It's pretty fucking heavily implied in the show, and the creators have confirmed it, and you're gonna be able to see it if you're not FUCKING BLIND, but word of god is not technically canon which means that interviews don't technically make something canon, blahdyblahdyblahdyblah, technicalities, Robin has been explicitly stated in the text to be queer while Will has, thus far, not, outside of good ol' Show-Don't-Tell. Of course, anyone with two brain cells to rub together can tell that that's going to change by the end of Season 5, but, hey, for what it's worth, I'm throwing this out there.

Alrighty, Thingamajingama Number Two: "Oops, I accidentally made the greatest love story known to man." AKA, a genuine, honest-to-goodness mistake. Unfortunately, we do live in a heteronormative society. Sometimes people who don't think about being gay much write a friendship that's incredibly compelling and don't even consider the possibility that it could have been read as romantic. Something something Top Gun something. This is, again, not queerbaiting. This is Steddie, this is Ronance, this is Elmax, this is your favorite flavor of non-canon ship this week, this is not Byler. The creators know DAMN well what they're doing. They've talked about it. We know this. Nothing new here.

Which brings us to the topic of discussion here. Actual queerbaiting. This usually starts out as an "accidental greatest love story", and then reacts to fan response. And when I say "reacts", I mean like a goddamn chemical reaction. Like bleach and ammonia, bitch. It's noxious and it's gonna kick your fucking ass without mercy. This is when a creator is like, "Hey, let's get our queer audience invested, but we're not actually going to give them what they want because our straight audience isn't here for that/we personally think it's gross/we don't give enough of a shit to want to research a goddamn thing to write a real gay character," blah blah blah whatever excuse they want to come up with this time.

And when you think "queerbaiting", I want you to think "bullying". Because that's what it is. It's lucrative bullying, like beating us up and taking our lunch money, but it's bullying all the same. And it's a real goddamn thing, even if people misuse the word a lot, often when they mean one of the two above, sometimes when they mean "bury your gays", which is another homophobic thing entirely that I'm not going to get into here. Queerbaiting is the thing we're focused on, and it's real, and it's bullying. And here's the reason I want you to think of it as bullying:

They

Think

It's

Funny.

They are actively making fun of us.

That's why Dean had the "Cas, get out of my ass," line in Supernatural. It's why the "Do you like boys?" line happened in Teen Wolf. It's why "Lie with me, Watson," happened in the RDJ Sherlock Holmes movies. Because "It's just a joke, mate." "It was just a prank, bro." "You didn't really think it would happen, did you?" "You should see your face."

So here's probably the biggest reason I don't think it's specifically queerbaiting in this specific instance of Will Byers and Mike Wheeler.

Stranger Things has never, not once, made a gay joke. Ever.

Every single time queerness comes up, it's dead serious.

Lonnie calls Will a fag, and the show is not at all reluctant to show what a goddamn horrible person he is. And when Hopper latches onto that, it's not as "Hahah, is he gay, though?" It's because he's trying to determine a potential motive for Will's disappearance, and even if someone had interpreted it as a joke, Joyce immediately has a line that functions as snapping her fingers in front of the audience's face and yelling "FOCUS" when she says "He's MISSING." Basically outright saying "This isn't funny!"

Troy calls him a fairy, along with targeting Lucas and Dustin for their skin color and disability respectively, and Mike gets damn near murderous. Troy is portrayed as a goddamn monster and the show portrays it as justice when El makes him piss his pants and later breaks his arm.

Steve calls Jonathan "queer" as a slur and gets the shit beat out of him for it.

Billy's father is revealed to be homophobic and abusive in the same breath.

Mike says "It's not my fault you don't like girls!" and we're shown how devastated Will is and Mike immediately follows him to beg for forgiveness.

There is a joke in Robin's coming-out scene, but it's not at Robin's expense. It's at Steve's. Specifically for being heteronormative.

Jonathan has multiple scenes where he's trying so hard to tell Will that he's always going to love him as he is, whether he's gay or not, without pressuring him to come out before he's ready.

Even when there's a little bit of ribbing at Robin's expense, it's always because she's an awkward nerd who's nervous around pretty girls, just the same as Lucas and Dustin are teased when they both first develop crushes on Max, and even then, even then, it always comes as a package deal where they make fun of Steve's girl problems at the same time.

Stranger Things is an emphatically pro-gay show. It may not be the core point of the show the way it is in, say, Our Flag Means Death, but there is nothing less than respect for its queer characters. Its queer characters are always taken completely seriously. No one is making fun of us. They never have. That's why I have serious doubts that this is queerbaiting. It would come completely out of left field for the bullying to start in Stranger Things' final season.

So it's not at all likely to be queerbaiting because queerness is taken completely seriously. The creators have talked about Will's queerness, at least, so it's not an accident. And queer-coding would be silly to expect from this show when it's already on its final season. Like, what is Netflix gonna do? Cancel it? Not to mention all the explicit queerness that's in there already. And no one's gonna "What about the children?" a show that's had sex scenes in it since the first season.

There's no fakeout here. It's gonna happen. Breathe.

[autoraton]

Excerpt from Childhood is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

[mayasaura]

Depending on how Harrow perceived time while sleeping in the Tomb, it may still be the third day after Gideon's death to her. Gideon's been dead for over a year, and Harrow is still buffering.

[snakesandstone]

Oh to have even a tenth of the self-confidence Odin had when he decided to ask the objectively more powerful than him god of death who he took from her family and threw into niflheim as a child to bring his son back from the dead, offered nothing in return and sent one of his most irrelevant sons as a messenger boy instead of showing up in person

[visenyaism]

thinking about how dany would feel finding out she's not a natural targaryen child (i have a few ideas about how this would go, but for arguments sake let's say blackfyre) so secret blackfyre and how that would come in to play with faegon and the potential that maybe he IS aegon and the conflict of heritage versus dragons BUT ALSO her rationality when it comes to ruling, prophecy, and ego..............................the bells. joncon. the death of dragons book. speak to me on this.

who is going to call the only person in the world with dragons illegitimate. she literally has the targaryen mandate of heaven with that. came into all of this power that her ancestors used as a blank check to conquer and build a kingdom and decided to use it to try and liberate the enslaved instead. her problem is that she is constantly putting others needs above herself because she is so stressed out about being a perfect symbol of a ruler for the thousands of people relying on her to please any of them it’s not that she has a big ego

honestly her name is also holding her back because her whole thing is what she REALLY wants is to have a home for herself and to liberate the oppressed and BECAUSE she’s a targaryen and also has terrible self interested advisors she thinks the only way to do those things is to go to westeros and take the throne. if for whatever reason she thought she wasn’t a real targaryen it would immediately unlock the option of just building a better society she is at home in in essos. I feel like in that hypothetical. She has an identity crisis and then realizes she doesn’t want to go to that nasty continent full of stupid political drama when she can just build a city with red doors on the ashes of volantis

[recurring-polynya]

if I made a Bleach videogame, I would make it so if you tried to play as Byakuya, like, nine different gauges would come up, like "Bored", "Pissed Off", "Thinking about his Pride," "Late for his Dentist Appointment", etc, and the only move you would be able to use was Sokatsui unless you could get the various gauges high enough to convince him to use any of his better moves. No, this would not be fun. You're the one who chose to play as Byakuya.

[moonsidesong]

i feel like everybody else's interpretations of dedf1sh makes them so cool and aloof and punk and i'm jusg sitting here like. hello this is ahato she's my little thingy. she is slightly scared but she is loving and doing her best to find the good in every day. she loves cake and smoothies and her best friends

[jaggedwolf]

kamala khan is so powerful that she's going to start the mcu young avengers despite (A) not even being part of the young avengers in the comics (B) all the other young avengers being older than her

[cedarw00div]

Astarion(ascended) and Gortash are fighting over who's the worst character in my canon

meanwhile Raphael is standing in the background with a metal pipe

[chainsawprophecy]

what's crazy as fuck to me is that the bad kids literally went through kipperlily's therapy notes and everyone's falling over backwards to justify that but god fucking forbid someone who lost her best and only friend in the world has anger issues. you bitches would not have survived the vriska trenches.