#surely there's a more heterosexual way the writers could have come up with

[blazinghotfoggynights]

If I am basing whether I think Buddie will happen on season 7 alone, I am going to have to say no. I think a lot of the last minutes rewrites were done to accomplish quite the opposite.

My take so far:

Tim seems to be in love with the Tommy Kinard character. Maybe he was originally intended to be a plot device, but it is obvious with the rewrites and forced in scenes that Tim Minear is really invested in Tommy and wants Lou on 911 much more. I believe that season 8 will be used to cement Tommy's place as a regular and even push him to the forefront, ahead of long-time recurring characters like Karen and Ravi. I think he will even get more time than Hen and Chim. I think the only way we don't get a big push for Lou to return and be the next breakout star on the show is if the main cast members all push against it. (Tim seems to be obsessed with the characters who made the 118 a racist, misogynist hellhole. 😒Ijs. Gerrard is back when anyone with RL corporate experience knows someone like him would be blacklisted by any organization that doesn't want to be sued into oblivion. I am sure DeLuca will make an appearance as well. I will probably write a meta about that entire situation.)

From 7 x 4 onward, in interviews and in the show itself, Eddie's heterosexuality has been stressed repeatedly. Buck finding his person has been heavily hinted at. Buck is chasing Tommy shamelessly. Tommy's problematic behavior is being ignored and justified by the writer himself. It is spun as positive, which fans are eating up. This is the setup to separate Buck and Eddie for good and start building up 911 to be the BuckandTommy show.

The absolutely loony arc of Eddie chasing his dead wife's doppelganger served it's purpose. It cemented Eddie's obsession with women. It placed a focus on Eddie's obsession with being with a woman, needing a woman, and being driven by a woman.

Christopher moving back to Texas is possibly the foundation for a Ryan Guzman exit. Christopher probably becomes comfortable in Texas and Eddie, the way he loves his son, will make the decision to go where he is. Maybe Ryan goes to Lone Star. Maybe he doesn't. But it will seal the coffin on Buddie for good, force all fans to accept BuckTommy, open the door the the new power couple, and set up Tim's boost of Tommy's character and Lou's more prominent place in the cast. I can actually see if 911 gets a season 9 and beyond, Lou being pushed to the front. With Ryan gone, and as Buck's partner, Lou could easily jump over every other member of the cast to become the second main focus. I think Buck will remain the primary focus in the foreseeable future,because he is a fan favorite. However, if the Lou fandom continues surging, even Oliver could find himself playing second fiddle.

I think Oliver is completely comfortable with portraying a queer character. But is Ryan? Just because someone did something in the past doesn't mean they are willing to do it now. I think there is a lot going on behind the scenes that is never going to be revealed while the show is still on. Maybe a few years after, someone will spill the tea, but not now. I know which members of the cast I am betting on speaking out first, post show.

Why is no one in that cast, other than Lou, bringing up Tommy or his relationship with Buck? Even the other half of that relationship talks about his coming out and realization arc, his growth, and being in a relationship, but he doesn't give the relationship itself the time of day. Buck and Eddie's dynamic was still being referenced a lot even when Buck is in a whole ass relationship with another guy. That's interesting.

I know the BTS clips are short and fun, but can someone provide one where Lou isn't obviously being ignored and if he is a part of it, it isn't awkward and forced?

[physalian]

I think being an ace writer lets me write sex and romance with less of my own biases/wants/what-I-think-is-sexy getting in the way, to better incorporate these scenes into the story as a method of plot and character development instead of just gratuitous, among other things. In the same way being atheist lets me write real and fantasy religions without my own beliefs interfering, because I can respect religion academically and objectively, as a tool, not a given.

I write my characters in tons of situations that I myself would never enjoy, anything from bathing together or having kinks or even making out. I know why people enjoy these things and I’ve read enough romances to know how to write the proper buildup and the right tone to strike and all that jazz and I do enjoy reading romance.

There’s absolutely other factors at play here and I can’t speak from experience for a lot of the situations I put my characters into (nor do I write smut, I’ve tried, I’m bad at it because I’m ace) but I’ll beta read sex scenes for original authors, especially cis/het authors, and while “writing to satisfy yourself or your readers” is different than straight up just writing a story that includes romance, I seem to keep finding myself stuck with a constant stream of author wish fulfilment, a lot of newbie original authors seem… narrow-minded when it comes to sex.

Like they can only imagine what they find kinky or romantic or sexy, like the subtext is saying “this is sexy because I think it’s sexy and if you don’t think it’s sexy something’s wrong with you”. Which isn’t at all a problem in fanfic for whatever reason (probably because these authors also tend to think sex=romance thus smut=character development).

So I have a character with a medical kink, for example. I haven’t had readers gushing over him or that scene (haven’t had that many readers period, mind you), but I haven’t had any complaints, either. Heck, my protagonist in ENNS is a frustrated virgin in a vampire romance who at one point realizes “hm yeah I definitely don’t hate teeth anymore pls do it again” meanwhile I’m sitting back with my metaphorical coffee going “you have fun now, enjoy”. Maybe because it’s not just an 111k word fantasy smutfest but his self-discovery is part of his arc.

But I think the difference is, either in just skill at my craft or being on the outside looking in, is that I think “what would he think is sexy? And how would I go about writing that?” vs “what do I think is sexy? And how do I go about contorting my characters to fit that?” I spend the time making sure he’s in character, it makes sense for his character, and that he’s acting authentically.

Or at the very least, I think aceness (and possibly aro-ness we are undecided in that department) gives you a baseline of 0, clean slate, not that aces can’t enjoy the idea of sex, the idea is that sexuality is self-contained. But when your whole life is sex-favorable/allonormative I think it puts blinders up.

Or, I just keep reading heterosexual romances that leave something to be desired. Not just beta-reading, the romances in like, Maas books, for example—no kinkier or more wish-fulfilling than a fanfic with the same tags, but there’s something so cheap and artificial about those sex scenes. The first time I read… I think it was book 3 or 4 of the TOG series and I realized just how much sex there was, I legit got bored and scanned ahead until I could get back to the story—and I have sat through fanfics that surpass 100k words with as much smut and I am fine and entertained. Is it because she’s not a great author, or because she’s a cis/het author with blinders up, or some mix between the two? I have enjoyed poorly written but sincerely written smut in fanfic, so it can’t be that, either. If this was a science experiment and I’m controlling for all other variables except the sexuality of the authors and/or characters, I’d have my answer.

That’s not at all to say allonormative authors cannot write beautiful romances and hot sex scenes. There is only one (1) romantic scene in Maas's books that I used to go back specifically to reread, and it was just two characters finally tossing decorum aside to make out. She lost me completely after that.

Just in my experience, inexeperienced allonormative authors vs queer of any kind tend to be worse at making it compelling and sincere and my theory is that they can’t escape their own ideas of what sexiness is, because they've never had to, and can't get in the minds of characters and readers who don’t all think like they do.

—

Interested in a queer vampire fantasy novel? Eternal Night of the Northern Sky is out now!

[poorlittlegreenie13]

Greenie's Masterlist — Come & join the party <3

About Me:

Hi! My name is Greenie, which is a reference from David Bowie's song The Jean Genie which has the lyric "Poor little Greenie" in it.

I'm a 20-something lesbian virgo, triple earth sign, eternal-student, Donna Tartt enthusiast, 90's alt rock enthusiast, record-collector, & fic writer <3.

This blog doesn't have a specific theme... I go wherever the muses take me. Below you'll find links to & descriptions of all of my fics sorted by fandom.

Link to my AO3

Stories:

The Bear:

Rules For (fake) Dating an Italian 🇮🇹 - Sydney/Carmy. In progress.

WANTED: Female, aged 20-30, to be my date for Christmas eve dinner with my Italian family. Must be willing to eat my mom’s cooking. No physical intimacy required. No strings attached—I will drive you home after. 4pm-10pm, 12/24. Salary negotiable. Call Carmen: (773) 555-0901.

OR: The one in which Sydney just needs a job, and Carmy will die before he proves Richie right.

Yellowjackets:

Wretched Things 🔥 - Jackie/Shauna, Taissa/Van, Lottie/Natalie. Complete, WC: 260K

It’s been five years since Shauna Sadecki volunteered for Jackie Taylor at the Reaping and won the 45th Hunger Games. Now, at the second annual Quarter Quell, everyone who has been previously Reaped is eligible to be thrown back into the arena. That includes former best friends Lottie and Natalie, and former lovers Van and Taissa.

(aka, me offering up another Yellowjackets Hunger Games AU)

The Killing of a Sacred Doe 🦌 - Lottie/Natalie, Jackie/Shauna, (minor Tai/Van, minor Natalie/Shauna). In progress.

|| Inspired by The Secret History by Donna Tartt || (but can be read without having read TSH)

By every metric that matters, Natalie Scatorccio should not have been admitted to Wiskayok Conservatory for The Arts. She didn’t have the test scores, or the tuition money, or any particular talent or ambition that might have made her a promising asset for a conservatory to acquire. She did have a drinking problem, a dead father, and no other option. So sure, why not art school? It was better than rehab. Or jail. 

let the light in 🖤 - Van/Taissa. Complete, WC: 5k.

“Take me home, please, Van.”

Taissa’s words are soft. Not a question, just a destination. They have always been heading here.

(Post finale getting-back-together fic)

Six of Crows / Shadow & Bone:

angelum mortis amo 🪽 - Jesper/Wylan. Complete, WC: 45k.

Jesper and Wylan are both hitmen from rival gangs. Wylan tries to kill Jesper. It goes about as well as you might expect.

(Featuring crazy-in-love Wylan Van Eck, flirting-at-gunpoint Jesper Fahey, and mob boss Kaz Brekker).

Show Me Yours 🐦‍⬛ - Jesper/Wylan. Complete, WC: 20k.

Wylan's past abuse hovers over him like a shadow. Jesper's gambling addiction binds him like a chain. But as they grow closer, it turns out secrets can melt like ice in the right kind of warmth.

(A character study of TV show-Wylan & Jesper & the way their backstories could factor into the progression of their relationship).

Stranger Things:

Star Star ✨ - Steve/Eddie (minor Chrissy/Robin). Complete, WC: 93K.

Rock band AU in which Robin, Eddie, Jonathan, Nancy, and Chrissy play in a band, and Steve has no choice but to hang out with the most annoying frontman in the world, Eddie Munson. Things escalate when they're forced to pretend they're in a relationship.

Modern AU, fake-dating (kind of).

I Buried a Hatchet (it's coming up lavender) 🪓 - Robin/Nancy (minor Steve/Eddie). Complete, WC: 60K.

Vecna nearly killed Robin before Nancy could take him out for good. Luckily, Robin's too stubborn to die, and Nancy's too stubborn to let her. Nursing her back to health, Nancy soon begins to question the feelings that almost losing Robin awoke in her.

In which Nancy has to do everything herself, compulsory heterosexuality is a bitch, and Robin Buckley is more charming than she thinks she is.

Harry Potter / Marauders:

Burn, Pine, Perish 🎶 - James/Regulus (minor Sirius/Remus). Complete, WC: 33k.

Sirius' family has magically forbidden him from dating anyone until Regulus finds a suitable pureblood partner. The problem is, Sirius is in love with a certain werwolf, and Regulus' romantic inclinations remain a mystery.

James, a pureblood, is nothing if not eager to help a friend.

AKA - A '10 Things I Hate About You' AU in which James attempts to woo Regulus so Sirius can have a chance with Remus.

Lonely Bones 🦴 - Draco/Hermione. Incomplete, on indefinite hiatus, I'm sorry, please stop asking me when I'm going to finish it, your guess is as good as mine, final answers is... sometime, probably, maybe?

Hermione Granger can't sleep. Draco Malfoy can't walk. The war is over, but it feels like it isn't. Neither of them are happy, but maybe the times together are better than the times apart. 

Draco is cursed in the battle of Hogwarts with unhealable bone fractures. Hermione is in desperate need of money to bring her parents back from Australia, and when Narcissa offers her a job attempting to cure Draco, she has no choice but to take it.

A League of Their Own:

It's Rotten Work 💐 - Jess/Lupe. Complete. WC: 10K.

Nobody's ever taken care of Jess McCready.

Not until she met Lupe García, anyway.

(In which Jess is oblivious, Lupe is romantic, and both of them are a little bit confused.)

Devour What's Truly Yours 🏴‍☠️ written in collaboration with the lovely @somebodytoundress - Jess/Lupe. Complete, WC: 37K.

Lupe Garcia had planned to go down with her pirate ship when it was raided by Spanish soldiers one dreadful night. Bleeding out on the deck, she accepted her fate—until an infamous ghostly captain with no name and a haunting face rescued her from the burning ship and nursed her back to health. With no ship, no crew, and no fortune, the solution is clear for Lupe. She‘s going to kill this captain and take over her crew so she may return to ruling the seas. And she’s definitely not going to fall in love with her.

Simply Elegant 🚬 - Jess/Lupe. Complete, WC: 7K.

Lupe is the most popular jock in school.

Jess is a burnout weed dealer.

Lupe goes to Jess to buy weed for a party, and things progress from there.

Bein' Good Isn't Always Easy ⛪️ - Jess/Lupe. Complete. WC: 32K.

The hottest part of summer, working in a guitar shop in the heart of Texas, Jess has the worst sunburn of her life. And she has the hots for the preacher’s daughter. She’s not sure which is worse.

Sing Me to Sleep 🌃 - Jess/Lupe. Complete. WC: 5K.

Lupe's past comes back to haunt her on the anniversary of an important date.

Jess tries to understand. They fall a bit deeper in love.

Slice of life.

Keep Your Electric Eye on Me, Babe ⚡️- Jess/Lupe. Complete. WC: 4K.

Five times Jess caught Lupe's eye when she shouldn't have + one time Lupe did something about it.

Fever With Thy Flaming Youth 🌡️ - Jess/Lupe. Complete. WC: 2.5K.

Estí gets the flu. Jess & Lupe take care of her.

FAQs

Can I translate your fic?

Please ask first! We can discuss details.

Can I bind/print your fic?

As long as it's legal and no one is profiting off of it, go wild, send pictures when you're done!

Why haven't you updated (insert fic)?

Either I lost interest in it for some reason, or I got really excited about something else & intend to return to it, or I have something personal going on & can't write as much. Sorry!

Can I make fan art of your fic?

PLEASE make fan art of my fic. Please send it to me when you're done so I can share it!!!!

[giantkillerjack]

To give credit to the last of us for its queer rep, it’s not just queer characters who have tragic/bittersweet endings. Literally everyone (siblings, parent and child, heterosexual) queer or not, has tragic endings. The older queer couple gets the best one out of all of them.

I guess? I mean, it is certainly much better than if they were the only characters to die in the storyline. But people were on tumblr talking about how theirs was a happy queer story. And I think it is the misleading discussion around these characters that bothers me even more than the writing. Like if I had watched that episode instead of looking up the plot summary, I would have had a meltdown at the end when they both died because I truly had gotten the impression that it was going to be a happy story.

But now that I've mentioned the writing:

It's nice that they live till their 70s. It's nice that they get 20 beautiful years together. And it's a bit fucked that the writers felt the need to end those 20 long years on-screen with a terminal illness and suicide in the same episode they are introduced. It would have been incredibly easy to just say that those men get to live on past the end of the episode. There are a million reasons those men could have continued living in the story.

But that's the thing about a show like this. I think there is a distinct possibility that this show is actually incapable of writing a satisfying happy ending.

Craig Maizin, the show's writer, gained acclaim recently with Chernobyl, proving that he is apparently excellent at writing a long, horrifying tragedy in which character struggle only to find there is no way out.

(His other main credits are The Hangover sequels and the Scary Movie sequels, most of which I haven't personally seen, so make of that what you will.)

But more than the writer's background, the show itself troubles me. It has this repeated mantra in it that goes, "when you're lost in the darkness, look for the light." Which is a cool phrase.

But I have reason to suspect that this writer genuinely doesn't know how to write the light. I have no reason to believe he does. I hope I am wrong.

But when you write episode after episode after episode that is an endless inescapable slog of tragedy and desperation - and then advertise it to me, a sick queer person actually living through a pandemic and trying to escape disease and poverty - well.

I think a better writer would include moments of light and hope beyond just trauma bonding. Moments that don't end in death.

When my wife writes about characters in awful situations, there are still these moments of genuine loveliness and fun and joy between the characters; these moments remind the reader what is worth actually fighting for, living for. Imagine! Entire chapters in a post-apocalyptic novel in which characters don't undergo a "hacking someone to death with a cleaver" level of trauma!

But the fact that Bill and Frank still had to die even after an earnest attempt to tell a beautiful love story....

I fear that the light the story ends with - if there is any - will be as dim and desaturated as the show itself. And personally, I am at a point in my life where I don't care to see a story like that.

It's fine if you do like it. It doesn't matter to me if you find beauty in a tragic queer love story. There are places for that in this world. But it is tragic. I am sure of that. And I wish I hadn't been seeing posts saying otherwise, ya know?

And I hope I am wrong about the writer. But I see cracks in the premise. Like in Stranger Things. There was always a promise of light that kept me watching, but it never seemed to come. Instead, the misery and trauma continued to stack and compound for the lead characters, like in TLOU. But... does the writer know how to make that worth it, for us, for the audience - for me? I don't think he does.

I think it very possible that the light isn't really coming for Ellie and Joel in a way that provides catharsis because I have noticed that on shows with no intermittent joy and hope, this is too often the case.

But I do hope I'm wrong. Because if I am right, then a lot of mentally ill fans will leave the experience more depressed than if they hadn't watched it at all.

But for my own part, I'll just continue to skim through the show for monster design ideas. And also I'll say that everyone should watch Infinity Train - ESPECIALLY season 2 of Infinity Train, if they'd like to see a story in which people actually DO find a light that makes the whole journey feel worth it.

[nanamiscocksleeve]

Hey Ray, how are you? I've read about your flu recently. I'm very sorry and I hope you get better soon. Have a fast recovery, ok?

Regarding confessions, I have nothing much to say. I think other anons already mentioned lots of valid points. Sure- porn fics are obv exaggerated, characters get mischaracterized and ships get pushed down out throats all the time but hey, that's just an average fandom experience, right?

So I'm trying to ignore/filter all the negativity and allow only good, quality content on my dash. Unfortunately, the content is few and not many appreciate writers and artists here on Tumblr. So it's for the best if they'd just change platforms and try their luck somewhere else that offers more positive interaction/involvement. I miss Tumblr reblog culture and nice feedback on dif stories/art. Nothing is the same anymore...

Regarding mischaracterization- it's not a problem to headcanon things, in fact, to each their own. But it's a problem when people openly accept headcanon as canon and unapologetically fight others over inaccurate opinions. It's so beyond me. And the funniest thing- it's mostly minors. Can we get rid of the minors in for-them-inappropriate fandom spaces pls? Tumblr staff where you at?

I noticed that fans of less popular characters are more fun. I'm not that big into Choso you see, but his fans made the whole fandom experience so much more enjoyable. And I don't think that Mahito fans are weird if you compare Toji smut fics (I'm not calling out people but I'm calling out people). Sukuna fans I'm looking at you too...

I'm forever grateful for Nanami, Higuruma, Kusakabe and Shiu quartet. Gege, thank you for feeding us while it lasted. The fics are divine and I understand why Shoko didn't see the appeal in stsg, like girl I get you.

I'll come out and say it- stsg is overrated. And jjk girls deserve more content that isn't ship-oriented.

I think Gege needs to make up his mind because Yuta and Yuji can't exist as two mains at once. Everyone is taking away Yuji's spotlight, but they're dying and dying until nobody's left except Yuji... I don't know how jjk will end.

I miss Yuki and Todo's dynamic and all the funny stuff, I wish jjk was a comedy fr... Gege is writing an idol manga after this one so I can't wait for the things he has in store for us!

Hello! Thank you for your concern about my cold. Honestly, with all of you wishing me to get better, I'm recovering a little faster! 💜💜💜

I agree with mischaracterization, but imo, unless a mangaka explicitly states something, then a fictional character is always subject to having HC's being formed about them depending on the writer. What gets problematic though, is when fans of a writer start looking at those HC's as an actual canon, and now they're picking fights/sending hate to other creators who have different opinions.

Fans of less popular characters tend to be more chill from what I've seen. They just want to talk about their faves and have a good time, and are less bothered with what could be canon or not. They have their HC's and are open to hearing different ones too.

I feel like JJK gave us this genre of 'tired men in suits' which is very appealing, even to us older girlies who are in the same age range as these men.

Stsg being overrated...imo I don't feel that way. I think they had great potential as a couple and I'm filled with sadness at the thought that they didn't catch Suguru's spiral when it happened. I can see them with heterosexual partners too, but I love the concept of Stsg.

The JJK women definitely need content not surrounding ships or smut. Something more action-related or just let her shine in her own right in a fic.

IDK what'll happen going forward...The story is supposed to center on Yuji but it feels like he's constantly being pushed aside. I hope things resolve soon but it looks like Sukuna might win after all this. I'm just sad thinking about it.

I miss the slice of life feel to the story as well but what can ya do...Gege is the mangaka, so he'll do what he wants. But if he brings back Nanami I ain't complaining lol.

Thank you for your confession!

[transmascwillbyers]

Honestly, my biggest question for season 5 isn't even "is Mike queer?" anymore, it's "will byler be canon?" Because the thing is, no matter what happens in s5, Mike is queer. I don't care whether it's explicitly canon or not, there's been so much subtext across all four seasons that you cannot convince me he was not intentionally written to be a queer character. Otherwise, what was the reason for the airport hug? The blatant lies in his love confession to El? That one time when his girlfriend kissed him and he did not move and his eyes stayed open, all in front of an open closet?

Of course, he could just be straight and badly written, but I just can't believe that's a possibility at all at this point. The show has flaws, sure, but the writers are still smart. They get, y'know, paid to do their jobs. They've studied stuff like this for years of their lives. There's no way in hell that an entire team of trained professionals are going to screw up so badly, they make their lead character's arc entirely incomprehensible and ruin his character for no apparent reason. It just makes no fucking sense, and I stand by that.

So, sure, there's maybe like a 0.2% chance that milkvan is really going to be endgame in s5. But if it is- and let me be clear- I don't care. Mike has still been written to be obviously queer, imo, and if milkvan is endgame, well, that doesn't change that. He's still at least bi, because anything else literally does not make sense in the actual context of the show. Even if the writers have to come out and publicly clarify that Mike is straight, then yeah, we'd be wrong, but we wouldn't be crazy at all. Because if the writers of one of the most popular shows in the world right now have to explicitly state, "oops, our lead character isn't gay folks, we just wrote all these extremely platonic heterosexual scenes between two dudebros for giggles," someone has screwed up. And it isn't us.

So, sure. There is a very, very tiny chance that milkvan endgame will happen in s5. That being said, I also don't care anymore if that happens, because Mike is still an undeniably queer character to me. And it would be a sad outcome of his arc, and I'd hope that he and Will would eventually enter a relationship post-s5, but Mike ending up with El doesn't make him straight, it makes him a repressed queer kid from the 80s dealing with internalized homophobia. Because, stacked up against all our evidence, what seems more important? Who Mike is dating at the end of the series, or four, soon to be five, seasons worth of absolutely relentless queercoding?

In conclusion, I honestly don't care as much about what happens in s5 as I used to, because, when you look objectively at Mike's character, you'll realize we don't need an explicitly queer conclusion to his arc to validate our thoughts. There's no way that all of the coding surrounding him is accidental, and if is was, then somebody done goofed, and Stranger Things would be a show that isn't worth our time anyways. I know what Mike Wheeler is, and literally nothing can change my mind after two years in this fandom. Not one fucking thing.

[mikkythehamster]

GOOD OMENS 2 SPOILER RANT

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED by church crowley ! (ALSO JFC PEOPLE THE SHOW CAME NOT EVEN A WEEK AGO AND UR FILLING THE INTERNET WITH SPOILERS LET PEOPLE SEE THINGS AT THEIR OWN PACE I HATE YOU ALL)

I can't stand people saying the "breakup" between crowley and azi was out of nowhere or that is was badly done. BITCH they are the living proof that gays be having breakups without even dating. I LOVE IT! i think it's perfect, neither of them have expressed directly what they want and sure you can say "what about the kiss", well crowley only kissed azi when he was surely to depart, that seems like a desperate declaration rather than a good hearted developed confession and discussion about love. It would have been very cheap if they just solved all their issues with one kiss.

Besides come on, you have been swallowing heterosexual misunderstanding/breakup stories for years and now the gays do it and it's suddenly wrong? shut up. Besides clearly metaton had something to do with azi's mood change, many people have pointed out that metaton can influence people's minds, control and also AZI DOESN'T DRINK COFFEE! and you could say he accepted due to fear of metaton but what if he was counting on that and put something in his coffee? in the scene before the elevator we hear a miracle queue sound and suddenly azi's face change. Other theories point out to OMELAS (oat meal latter with almond syrup) "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas"  is a 1973 short work of philosophical fiction by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin. With deliberately both vague and vivid descriptions, the narrator depicts a summer festival in the utopian city of Omelas, whose prosperity depends on the perpetual misery of a single child. <-. tho i must admit this was very obscure lmao

Azi was heavily promoted with TEA! i feel it was a weird thing he just accepted coffee like that and how much emphasis they put on the coffee

So idk i feel it was all too in the nose to be just a coincidence personally. BESIDES neil said that this was always had planned to be more than just 2 seasons so honestly if it ended here it would have been shit, like oh just a kiss and its done? NO FUCK THAT. we didn't watch centuries of mutual pinning for it to just suddenly get together like that NO SIR. that would be boring as shit, there is so much more to develop and i am happy with how things ended, i am a sucker for hurt comfort so the next season will truly reveal if i am happy with the story or not cuz so far i am very happy.

idk why you all mad idk man you want fiction to be boring and predictable or characters to not have growth. CROWLEY finally did the first step now they need to develop that romanticism , that human love. they must otherwise its just cheap and easy. Azi didn't say "you move too fast for me crowley" for you to want him marrying him after 1 desperate kiss god damn. anyway i love aziraphale stop slandering him, why do you think this was out of character for him? THIS IS SO IC FOR HIM! (i am only a series watcher i haven't read the book so i will base him off that only). Aziraphale has always had issues verbalizing feelings,needs and understanding underlying wants. What me and my friend call the angelic autism of aziraphale. He won't sit there and take a "there is no nightingales" as a sign that he hurt crowleys feelings and neither can he say i love you too so instead he says i forgive you. It was perfectly in character for him to do and react the way he did. I love them i am very happy personally i am just sad we have to wait so long for another season because ofc you must respect the writers and actors strike and production takes long anyway.

-- edit

if there is one complain i have is that i wanted to see more of beelzebub and gabriel i hope s3 gives us more of them because that i felt it was too quickly resolved i need more.

[felicereviews]

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) 109 minutes, Rated X

This movie was grand in the best way. Pretty boys and girls, crazy people, a big reveal at the end with some of the ultra violence. If I had to guess why I never thought to watch this before it would be because I always found Valley of the Dolls kind of sad and sometimes I hate sequels. But Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is not a sequel, it's not sad, and it's so zany that I watched it two times in a row.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls shows up in both of my cult movie books that I have been working through - '100 Cult Films' and 'TCM Underground'. Also, John Waters does an interview on the Criterion release blu-ray that is full of accolades for the director and producer, Russ Meyer. He even gives a nod to the writer saying 'this is the best thing that Roger Ebert ever did'. I looked back at Ebert's film credits and yes - for sure - there's nothing better in Ebert's filmography than Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

The story is about a chick rock band and their manager and what happens to them when they decide to come to Hollywood. They meet my absolute favourite character in any of these cult films so far, Z-Man, Ronnie Barzell, played by John Lazar. For real, Johnny Lazar could have just left his name alone - but I loved Z-Man and his Shakespearean dialog, lavish parties, succubus friends, and bold choices of evening wear.

The girls gain some success as musicians. The music is actually great in this picture. I'd love to have the soundtrack. The success brings changes and lovers and drama. There are two separate scenes where two different pairs of lovers run through a grassy meadow. I wondered, how come they are not falling? Oh - John Waters showed how he copied one of those running in the grass scenes with Divine and Tab Hunter in Polyester. It's a tribute more than a copy. He loved Russ Meyer movies.

All in all - I loved this picture and I think it's time you watched or re-watched it. Oh - don't ask me why it's rated X. John Waters' guess was the reveal at the end - which I won't give away. Roger Ebert said it was because in the early days of the rating system an X rating did not discredit a movie. It was a rating given to movies for adults and not relegated to hardcore pornography like it morphed into. There are plenty of homosexual and heterosexual sexy scenarios, there is plenty of drug use, and there is some good violence but an X rating? Nah.

Please watch it and tell me what you think. I don't want to be the only one humming 'Find It' at work tomorrow.

[organchordsandlightning]

7, 12, 17 (with lighthouse!), and 27 for the weird writer asks?

from the Weird Questions for Writers (aaaaa thank you for asking Jay and hope you're feeling better!)

7. What is your deepest joy about writing?

There's always this point, especially during the climax of a longfic, where everything feels like it's reaching a breaking point? Like where all the little threads are coming together and a character realizes what the narrative has been pushing them towards this whole time (see also: the villain revealing their big evil plan , a tragic protagonist realizing there's no other way this can go, etc etc). I always love writing that scene the most because it's just me hopping up and down and shouting THIS IS IT THIS IS WHAT IT'S ALL BEEN ABOUT THIS IS WHY I'VE CALLED YOU ALL HERE TODAY (with 'You' also including myself'.

12. If a genie offered you three writing wishes, what would they be? Btw if you wish for more wishes the genie turns all your current WIPs into Lorem Ipsum, I don’t make the rules

(1.) time oh god more time to write please just let me write i could do so much with more time

(2) would love, like, a Google catered specifically to fic writers. Like, it does me very little to know when the telephone was invented, I need to know when the majority of people had telephones in their homes/how having a telephone was considered socially/what the cultural zeitgeist around telephones were. preferably in pdf form

(3) I'd love, like, a 'finish chapter now' button. i wouldn't abuse it. i'd use it once per fic, max. but sometimes i've been through things SO MUCH in my own head that getting them on paper is THE WORST

27. Who is the most stressful character you’ve ever written? Why?

(Discounting every OC, who is stressful in the sense that I am looking them in their eyeballs and asking WHO ARE YOU --) I'd probably have to say Harrier Du Bois, from the Disco Elysium series.

In short, he's an amnesiac alcoholic (recovering?) drug addict (recovering?) cop (alas not recovering) whose train of thought has 24 distinct voices. His sense of humor is spontaneous and it's so easy to lurch forward into the pit of 'random' humor (and so easy to make him less than a garbage fire than he really is). That he's also part of a game that lets you take a lot of distinct personality pathways also makes it tricky.

(Second place goes to Data from Star Trek, who canonically cannot use contractions and had me magnifying-glass my WIP trying to look for lost 'can'ts' and 'won'ts'.)

17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.

JAY I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED I RAMBLED FAR TOO LONG AS PER USUAL AND PUT ALL OF MY LIGHTHOUSE SERIES TRIVIA UNDER A CUT

hello everyone welcome to my playground. most of the trivia is character specific, so I've divided it by character and limited myself to MAX five bullet points Parker - I don't really have a specific sexuality in mind for most of the characters (Arthur + John are *handwaves* vaguely aspec but they're mostly just trying to get by, y'know) except for Parker being a gay man.

That does come up later, but there's some backstory stuff that I never found a good place to put in:

Parker never really had romantic feelings towards Arthur (though he does admit Arthur cleans up nice). Him becoming Arthur's BFF was as much a surprise to him as it was to Arthur. (I have a lot of feelings about gay men having very close platonic male friends)

Parker has had a few casual encounters up in Boston when casework takes him there. Occasionally he's tried for a more serious relationship, but (a) Boston's a little far, (b) the same casework woes that affect heterosexual detectives also affect homosexual ones, and (c) there's at least one very angry man in Boston who ardently believes Parker is an adulterer.

Arthur doesn't know and never knew. Parker's pretty sure he would be fine with it (though he wouldn't lie and say that bringing Arthur along to a gay club in Boston for case-stuff wasn't a litmus test), but anytime the conversation turned interpersonal and/or heavy, Arthur shut off like an unpaid electric bill.

Parker's family does know that he's gay (though they don't know he's alive, because he hasn't actually told them).

Parker never would have agreed to go up to Boston with Arthur and John during Lighthouse. He wasn't totally convinced that John wasn't some leech/vampire/demon until he saw John clutching Arthur's body in the 2nd fic, upon which he thought, oh shit, that's a whole-ass guy.

The most scared Parker has ever been was when he was on the boat after John jumped ship with Faroe. Parker can take danger and life/death situations; in a pinch, he can even take spooky occult shit, just don't make him take spooky occult shit alone.

John -

John uses a cane: partially for pain issues with his knees, mostly for balance. Trying to balance on his own causes more pain. John ignores this fact frequently.

The reason why John first felt terror when he looked at Faroe was because that was also Arthur's first feeling when he looked at Faroe, and John absorbed it during his time in Arthur's head.

John didn't totally believe that Parker was Parker when they first met until he came face-to-face with Kayne. He trusted Arthur was making the right decision.

Kayne -

Just. So much that I ended up cutting about the mechanics of the Dark World that will undoubtedly be rendered un-canon in a few months. In short - Kayne is the quote unquote "leader" of the Dark World, but it's not really fulfilling its intended purpose. He mostly uses it as a sandbox and lets the rest get overgrown. Everything he's built for the Scooby Gang is intentional.

Kayne can read everyone's thoughts while they're in the Dark World.

The only thing Kayne can't control are the black stars.

Kayne did control Arthur's body for a hot two weeks and went to Boston (he's always wanted to see!). Arthur is saved from police suspicion because Kayne took one look at Arthur's decimated body and went 'yuck' and fixed it up (only to be undone when he returned to the Dark World, for the same reason that Parker woke up in the office where he died and not Innsmouth).

I have a few askance thoughts for what Kayne did during those two weeks: Kayne had a nice steak dinner, Kayne stabbed someone to death in an alley, Kayne met a nice lady at a bar and had sex with her in the bathroom, Kayne got a suit fitted. There were other acts of incredible violence in Boston that week; however, due to how different they were, the police never put it together that it was One Guy.

Arthur -

Arthur will likely never know the two things that, if he discovered, would absolutely wreck him: that he unintentionally transformed a ship full of WWI sailors into cultists and led them to their deaths [after the events of the second fic, they'll crash their ship along a shallow reef] and Kayne's Sex/Violence Party While Wearing his Face.

Arthur's last conversation before he entered the Dark World was with the taxi driver he paid a fiver to guide him to his overgrown parents' house.

General/Themes -

Suffocation is a really strong through-line in the fic: by drowning [on blood or water], by strangling, by hanging. How much is too much is basically the subtitle of the series.

Artistry is also in question - people are constantly mistaking John for an artist, Kayne knows how to make clever chords but mocks the meaning of art, [REDACTED] is introduced through discordant flutes and drums, Parker can't technically play piano but jumps at the chance to murder the ivories with Arthur, Bella wanted to be a garment maker more than she wanted to be a mother, Faroe is first shown drawing shapes in flour on the boat.

Mayhaps the church with the glowing yellow stained glass window in the Dark World can be our lighthouse

[semimedieval]

the beach part 8: much like early 10s hitmaker bruno mars, quartz does is gay

i'm eating the most crazy delicious leftovers maybe ever. my fan is on my window is open. i don't want to work but i maybe have another hour of little menial/argumentative tasks left in me before fullscale Weekend Indulgence. but this post isn't about any of that. this post is about quartz and spark going into town.

Last time we saw Quartz, she was in the middle of a plot significant/emotional development significant conversation with Rim for the second time, and casually fucked off from that conversation, also for the second time. It's funny how much the storyline ebb and flow of this roleplay depends on Who's Online – there's no point in having Quartz linger indefinitely next to Rim if it's Jack who's online, not Moopy. Or at least so the logic goes – but there is no reason not to creatively stretch these limitations, to have Obsidian talk to Spark, to have Lupus talk to Ky (as they haven't meaningfully done for ages, not since breaking up and getting back together. there's a lot to unpack there but god forbid actions have consequences!!!)

Anyway the good news is that 15 year old Katia was bare-minimum competent enough to fuse those two Quartz/Rim conversations into one – a conversation that comes before the dragon, which threw me off a little because my dominant memory of events is the one in 2.0. They also, of course, put a Compulsory Heterosexuality spin onto this classic line:

Quartz had put on a pair of shorts a few hours ago. "What's up, Spark?" she asked her friend. "Nothing much." she stood up. "I'm going back into town! Sound good?" "Sure, I'll come too. I need to get away...from all the people..." she paused, aware of how odd that sounded coming from her mouth. It was Obsidian who was the misanthrope. Not her. Definitely not her. "let's go!" she said, taking her hand.

I'll give my 2012 self this: the level of 'constantly having a gay crisis' that Quartz was written as in this roleplay, apparently completely by accident, is fucking incredible. Her dogged avoidance of Rim every time it seems like things are getting too intimate between them. Her gravitation towards Spark. These weird floating moments of sadness, to which young Katia does not assign a source – as a writer, they themself seem only partially aware of what the source even is, but they know the sadness is there. Everyone should read their own writing from when they were a clueless child. Nobody's writing should be clueless on purpose, but clueless writing is fascinating and revelatory.

We get a little bit of what passes in this RP for detailed worldbuilding, which is fun.

Even though it was night, the town was still active and alive. Quartz looked around. "It's so different from Goatville," she murmured. "Back home, everyone was asleep at this time. There were no posh shops, and any sweets you could buy were cheap. The food was different in general." Sadness touched her eyes at the memory of the fire.

It's interesting – the thought of Quartz as a very outgoing and vivid personality who finds herself growing more melancholic with age is a compelling one, but it's nonsense, structurally, to insist that that process is a product of the roleplay's events. The most traumatic events in Quartz's life happen in the narrative's prologue and in its first major venture in the outside world – Silva's death and what follows, then the Goatville fire. That conclusion is kind of evident from the way I'm writing Quartz in 3.0, and the root of that is reflected in the source material – it's not a progression from perky to melancholic, it's that those two modes of seeing the world are always present in Quartz. If anything, her journey in 3.0 is defined by her relationships to people and to magic, how those relationships change, the new fears and new opportunities that they open.

In any case, Spark is too busy coming up with ice cream-related heist ideas to entertain Quartz's new contemplative mode.

Spark walked into an ice-cream store. She put her hands on her hips in indignation. "How expensive!" Spark walked over to the counter and put on her sweet girl face. Quartz held back a giggle; Spark's angelic look was quite a sight to see. She herself turned her toes inward, looked up, and put her hands behind her back.

What follows is a pretty dumb scene where Spark flirts her way into a free ice cream, does not share any with Quartz, and declares that this approach for acquiring goods and services "Works every time!" Rim catches this on surveillance cameras, which is funny because Quartz and Spark did not really commit a crime – if anybody would be getting in trouble it would be the poor kid at the cash register.

Ice cream acquired, the two of them walk back from town, and Rim hits them with "I saw all of it!" What a weirdo. Quartz reacts to it with a Draco Rizlak level of aggressiveness / throws her best friend under the bus, so I guess she is written to have a crush on Rim now.

Spark started blushing. "Wh-what?" Quartz's eyes widened unnecessarily and she clenched her fists. "Spark has rather odd...methods," she said finally. "What?" she made a show of raising her hands in the air. "I'm broke!" He grinned. "Uhuh, lucky for you a few minutes of video feed was mysteriously deleted. You had almost three cameras pointing at you" Quartz blinked. "Thanks, I suppose." He shrugged. "It's fine, I just guessed you didn't want people to be watching the entire scene."

Then it's his turn to fuck off abruptly and bother Lorcan. I'm not going to recap that because I do not care about Lorcan, but I did giggle about this.

Spark nudged Quartz. "You have a crush on him or something?" (No one should hear that but Quartz XD) "Why would I?" Quartz said in a steely voice. Then seeing Spark's look of hurt, she smiled at her friend and said, "Sorry. Let's go do something. Or something. Else." Spark laughed. "I see how it is. What SHOULD we do?" "Mmm..." she sat down on the sand and hugged her knees. "I honestly have no idea."

I'm still in the Dragon RP School Of OC Romances With Internet Strangers, which is to say "even if you're interested in writing a subplot like that, you have to play it cool by reacting to the possibility with the most aggression possible." I don't think this is in character for Quartz, and that I handle it better (though stupider in other ways) in 2.0, where Quartz's answer is something more "Yes. No. I don't know!"

There is so much Bruno Mars on this playlist, by the way.

Lorcan, Rim, and Ky scale some cliffs, Ky expresses some extremely PE-class-experience vibe thoughts about liking individual exercises but not team sports, and then they explore some caves, one of which has bones in it, a fact that goes more or less unremarked after Lorcan notices it. Spark commits to building a sandcastle, and Quartz helps. It's pretty adorable.

"What's that?" Quartz asked curiously as she built turrets. "Main structure." she cleared out the inside and drew little windows on the sides. Quartz nodded, smiling. Picking up a sharp, pointy rock, she used it to carve a brick pattern into the sand. Spark made turrets higher up on the main bulding. She then made little sand people and carefully placed them inside. "Quartz! Give them light!" Grinning, Quartz, carefully inserted her hand into the castle and snapped her finges. Merry little lights became visible through Spark's windows, lighting up the night.

Then we break the boundaries of magic a little bit, committing to the bit if the bit is 'nonsense.' We even get some continuity with That Damn Squirrel.

Spark made a bridge. A mischievous glint appeared in her eyes. "How about you give the sand people light hearts?" Quartz's eyes widened. "Is that possible?" "Ky brought that squirrel back to life. Just give it a try!" She shrugged and touched the sand person. He waved up at her and blew a raspberry. "Haha! Cool!" One got up and walked around, taking the crown. Lupus walked up behind them. "Now you've got a proper castle. You need a coronation." Spark observed the tiny people."Looks like they're forming a kingdom." A king and Queen sat at the head of the castle, with servants running around. Lupus knelt down before the one with the crown. "I crown thee king," he said in a formal voice. The sand person looked up at him and straightened his crown, bowing. Quartz laughed.

I do not think I'm keeping this but 15-year-old me was right to spin it out into a labored metaphor, even though they fumbled the execution. It's asking to be a labored metaphor. Spark and Quartz and Lupus build a kingdom, with the rules and reference points they know structuring the way the kingdom looks. But in the end it cannot stay. Doomed to be washed away by the tide and the wind.

22 works less well as a throwback song. I have definitely heard that song in non-2013 contexts.

Crucially, Quartz and Spark walk alongside the beach. Quartz is still being written as if she is desperately in love with her best friend and close to opening those floodgates at all times, which is awesome.

Quartz took one last look at the castle, already bustling with activity. She then followed Spark. Spark walked along the beach, letting the water wash up on her bare feet. "Spark?" Quartz asked suddenly. "Hmmm?" she looked up at Quartz. "What is it?" "What's.... important to you?" she asked, looking down. "An odd question, that's for sure." "That's easy. My friends. Definitely. And you?" she asked. "Yeah, my friends, I suppose. And Obsidian. And, well. Light, in a way. Does that even make sense?"

I love Spark's confidence in contrast with Quartz's hesitation, and I love that, as the beach adventure progresses, the POV focus of 'who's the character with interiority, who's the accessory' shifts pretty neatly from Obsidian to Quartz. The problem with this, of course, is that they should both have interiority and that I miss hearing from Obsidian and to a lesser extent from Leander. The good news is that we get these iconic Quartz moments with Spark and Rim, which will set the stage for this character's stranglehold on my psyche.

Anyway, the two of them do the whole silly 'ah if only we were normal.... instead, we have, Powers....' thing that this roleplay loves to backtrack to when it doesn't have any better ideas.

"Yah. I mean, what would we be without the elements?" Spark gave a knowing look. "We'd be people. And with them we're Extranei. Outsiders." "Oh,god. Still stuck on that? We SAVE the people. That makes us heros. True, most of them fear us. HAve you ever....just....just..wanted to be normal?" ";No, not really. I was just saying. I don't really want much else... But I sort of miss the days when Silva was alive and I lived in Goatville. Sometimes." "What is the one thing you miss the most?" "I don't know," she shrugged, sitting down in the sand. "Anyway, it's fine."

that said, the narrative does go from there to somewhere pretty interesting: for what might be the actual first time, Quartz deigns to remember that Sylva was her friend too, that she misses the life she had even if she wouldn't trade it away. It's a belated but necessary character touchpoint, tangible evidence that I spent that whole summer teaching myself how to write with the unmatched power of Websites.

The bad news is that it doesn't go anywhere; the good news is that I take it into some productive, if still flawed, directions by the time that 2.0 rolls around. In this particular lull between moments of action and plot-moving, the outcomes are a lot more memorable and compelling than they were the first time, which is why almost nothing from the first time made it into 2.0 (2015–2016 Katia knew how to cut some stuff.) But the time for quiet contemplation has passed us by, because Augustine is back online for good. It's time to lose a surrogate sister and gain a future husband, Spark. Everyone else... do whatever.

[tailsrevane]

[tv review] tng 5x17 “the outcast” (1992)

yeah, i have kind of a lot to say about this one.

so, if you’re watching this for the first time sometime in the 2020s, you’re probably thinking something like, “um, wow? this is shockingly good trans representation for something that was made 30 years ago? like, yeah, there’s some rather irritating gender essentialism on display, and it’s kind of ironic that the bad guys are basically enbies before it was widely understood that enbies were a thing, but still!” and you would be right if this was supposed to be about transgender people, but actually what actually happened is much sadder and much more hilarious.

you know that thing where misogyny was so ingrained into every aspect of victorian society that men and women were kind of forced into almost exclusively homosocial friendships, and consequently a lot of victorian literature now accidentally reads as hella gay? this is like that, but it’s so homophobic it accidentally reads as a shockingly modern depiction of a transgender character.

i’m gonna get into all the reasons why this sucks, and it really does suck, but i do want to pause for a second and enjoy the fact that bigotry is so unnatural and so governed by context that it can literally have trouble surviving in static artifacts of media because society is evolving around it. i know there’s plenty of counterexamples, but i just want to enjoy this one for a second.

so, yeah. what actually happened here is tng was trying to finally make good on gene roddenberry’s broken promise to feature gay characters and stories on the show. apparently they had been receiving fanmail pretty regularly about how awkwardly obvious this omission was by this point in the franchise’s history. if you’ve read my article about blood and fire, the fact that they didn’t just… straightforwardly present a character as gay probably comes as no surprise.

what they ended up doing instead was having a planet where everyone is functionally nonbinary and asexual (though, again, those being legitimate identities people can have wasn’t really a well-understood fact at the time, and i find it almost impossible that anyone in the writers room was approaching it that way) and, omg, what if heterosexual people with binary gender were the ones being discriminated against???

star trek can be really infuriatingly gutless and liberal sometimes, guys.

there is one good guy in this situation, though, and that’s jonathan frakes. apparently he strongly lobbied behind the scenes for them to at least have his romantic interest in the episode be played by a man instead of a woman, but rick berman was having none of it. and to frakes’ further credit, he also went public with his criticisms, saying, “i didn’t think they were gutsy enough to take it where they should have. soren should have been more obviously male. we’ve gotten a lot of mail on this episode, but i’m not sure it was as good as it could have been – if they were trying to do what they call a gay episode.” riker is increasingly becoming one of my favorite star trek characters thanks to how awesome jonathan frakes is, y’all. this is just the year of me finally realizing that riker is the fucking best.

anyway, the episode is about commander riker falling in love with a member of an androgynoous species called the j’naii. aside from my aforementioned frustrations, i find it really frustrating that stories like this often locate other forms of gender expression within an individual species where that’s just kind of… their entire deal? like, basically every species should have whatever kind of dominant gender narrative they have, and then all kinds of variations on that gender narrative. that’s really something that not even nutrek is really living up to in my opinion, and it’s probably the biggest thing i’d like to see change going forward.

the reason i still have this episode ranked so highly in spite of my obvious frustrations is that it’s actually just a damn good tragic love story? i usually cry when i watch it, but this time i rather intentionally distracted myself at key moments to try to keep myself emotionally insulated from it, and it did actually work unlike when we watched “the offspring.” but, yeah. there’s also a ton of nice little touches like riker seeking counselor troi’s blessing to embark on the relationship, and worf barging into riker’s rescue mission and demanding to help. everything really does frame this as a very important relationship for riker, and it would’ve been honestly terrific if they had just had it be an actual gay relationship instead of this weird tangled allegorical web. even captain picard, who initially warns riker that he can only protect him so far, is a consummate bro at the end of the episode when he asks riker if their business with the j’naii is concluded before proceeding on their next mission.

so, yeah, i have some pretty profound frustrations with this episode but it’s still kind of impossible to say that it isn’t a good episode. it’s not one i’m necessarily going to go to bat for if i see people (understandably) hating on it, but on the whole i actually do think it’s a pretty good episode in spite of all the things working against it.

b-rank

[c-is-for-circinate]

For a long, large part of my life, being queer in a media landscape--finding queerness in a media landscape--has meant theft.

I'm a Fandom Old, somehow, these days, older than most and younger than some, in that way that's grown associated with grumpy crotchetyness and shotguns on porches and back in my day, we had to wade through our Yahoo Groups mailing lists uphill both ways, boring and irrelevant anecdotes from Back In Those Days when homophobia clearly worked differently than it does now, probably because we weren't trying hard enough. I've seen a lot of stories through the years. I've read a lot of fanfic. (More days than not, for the past twenty years. I've read a lot of fanfic.)

When people my age start groaning and sighing at conversations about representation and queerbaiting, when we roll our eyes and drag all the old war stories out again in the face of AO3 is terrible and Not Good Enough, so often what we say is: you Young Folks Today have no idea how hard, how scary, how limiting it was to be queer anywhere Back In Those Days. Including online, maybe especially online, including in a media landscape that hated us so much more than any one you've ever known. And that is true. Always and everywhere, again and again, it's true, we remember, it's true.

We don't talk so much about the joy of it.

Online fan spaces were my very first queer communities, ever. I was thirteen, I was fourteen, I was fifteen--I was a lonely, over-precocious "gifted kid" two years too young for my grade level in an all-girls' Catholic school in the suburbs--I lived in a world where gay people were a rumor and an insult and a news story about murder. I was straight, of course, obviously, because real people were straight and anyway I was weird enough already--I couldn't be two things strange, couldn't be gay too, but--well, I could read the stories. I could feel things about that. I would have those stories to help me, a few years later, when I knew I couldn't call myself straight any more.

And those stories were theft. There was never any doubt about that. We wrote disclaimers at the top of every fic, with the specter of Anne Rice's lawyers around every corner. We hid in back-corners of the internet, places you could only find through a link from a link from a link on somebody else's recs page, being grateful for the tiny single-fandom archives when you found them, grateful for the webrings where they existed. It was theft, all of it, the stories about characters we did not own, the videotaped episodes on your best friend's VHS player, one single episode pulled off of Limewire over the course of three days.

It was theft, we knew, to even try and find ourselves in these stories to begin with. How many fics did I read in those days about two men who'd always been straight, except for each other, in this one case, when love was stronger than sexual orientation? We stole our characters away from the heterosexual lives they were destined to have. We stole them away from writers and producers and TV networks who work overtime to shower them in Babes of the Week, to pretend that queerness was never even an option. This wasn't given to us. This wasn't meant for us. This wasn't ours to have, ever, ever in the first place. But we took it anyway.

And oh, my friends, it was glorious.

We took it. We stole. And again and again, for years and years and years, we turned that theft into an art. We looked for every opening, every crack in every sidewalk where a little sprout of queerness might grow, and we claimed it for our own and we grew whole gardens. We grew so sly and so skilled with it, learning to spot the hints of oh, this could be slashy in every new show and movie to come our way. Do you see how they left these character dynamics here, unattended on the table? How ripe they are for the pocketing. Here, I'll help you carry them. We'll make off with these so-called straight boys, and we only have to look back if somebody sets out another scene we want for our own.

We were thieves, all of us, and that was fine and that was fair, because to exist as queer in the world was theft to begin with. Stolen time, stolen moments--grand larceny of the institution of marriage, breaking and entering to rob my mother's hopes for grandchildren. Every shoplifted glance at the wrong person in the locker room (and it didn't matter if we never peeked, never dared, they called us out on it anyway). Every character in every fic whose queerness became a crime against this ex-wife, that new love interest. Every time we dared steal ourselves away from the good straight partners we didn't want to date.

And: we built ourselves a den, we thieves, wallpapered in stolen images and filled to the brim with all the words we'd written ourselves. We built ourselves a home, and we filled it with joy. Every vid and art and fic, every ship, every squee. Over and over, every straight boy protagonist who abandoned all womankind for just this one exception with his straight boy protagonist partner found gay orgasms and true love at the end.

Over and over, we said: this isn't ours, this isn't meant to be ours, you did not give this to us--but we are taking it anyway. We will burglarize you for building blocks and build ourselves a palace. These stories and this place in the world is not for us, but we exist, and you can't stop us. It's ours now, full of color and noise, a thousand peoples' ideas mosaic'ed together in celebration. We made this, and it will never be just yours again. You won't ever truly get it back, no matter how many lawyers you send, not completely. We keep what we steal.

.

Things shifted over time, of course. That's good. That's to be celebrated. Nobody should have to steal to survive. It should not be a crime, should not feel like a crime, to find yourself and your space in the world.

There were always content creators who could slip a little wink in when they laid out their wares, oh what's this over here, silly me leaving this unattended where anybody could grab it, of course there might be more over by the side door if you come around the alleyway (but if anybody asks, you didn't get this from ME). We all watched Xena marry Gabrielle, in body language and between the lines. We sat around and traded theories and rumors about whether the people writing Due South knew what they were doing when they sent their buddy cops off into the frozen north alone together at the end of the show, if they'd done it on purpose, if they knew. But over the years, slowly, thankfully, the winks became less sly.

A teenage boy put his hand on another teenage boy's hand and said, you move me, and they kissed on network TV, in a prime-time show, on FOX, and the world didn't burn down. Here and there, where they wanted to, where they could without getting caught by their bosses and managers, content creators stopped subtly nudging people around the back door and started saying, "Here. This is on offer here too, on purpose. You get to have this, too."

And of course, of course that came with a whole host of problems too. Slide around to the back door but you didn't get this from me turned into it's an item on our special menu, totally legit, you've just got to ask because the boss throws a fit if we put it out front. Shopkeepers and content creators started advertising on the sly, come buy your fix here!, hiding the fine print that says you still have to take what you've purchased home and rebuild it with your semi-legal IKEA hacks. Maybe they'll consider listing that Destiel or Sterek as a full-service menu item next year. Is that Crowley/Aziraphale the real thing or is it lite?

And those problems are real and the conversations are worth having, and it's absolutely fair to be frustrated that you can't find the ship you want on sale in anything like your color and size in a vast media landscape packed full of discount hetships and fast-fashion m/f. It's fair to be angry. It's fair to be frustrated. Queerbait is a word that exists for a reason.

There's a part of me that hurts, though, every time the topic comes up. It's a confusing, bad-mannered part of me, but it's still very real. And it's not because I'm fawning for crumbs, trying to be the Good, Non-Threatening Gay. It's not that I'm scared and traumatized by the thought of what might happen if we dare raise our voices and ask for attention. (Well. Not mostly. I'll always remember being quiet and scared and fifteen, but it's been a long two decades since then. I know how to ask for a hell of a lot more now.)

It's because I remember that cozy, plush-wallpapered den of joyful thieves. I remember you keep what you steal.

Every single time--every time--when a story I love sets a couple of characters out on a low, unguarded table, perfectly placed to be pilfered on the sly and taken home and smushed together like a couple of dolls, my very first thought is always, always joy. Always, that instinct says, yay! Says, this is ours now. As soon as I go home and crawl into that pillow-fort den, my instincts say, I will surely find people already at work combing through spoils and finding new ways to combine them, new ways to make them our own. I know there's fic for that. I've already seen fic for that, and I wasn't really interested last time, but the new store display's got my brain churning, and I can't wait to see what the crew back at the hideout does with this.

Every time, that's where my brain goes. And oh, when I realize the display's put out on purpose, that somebody snuck in a legitimate special menu item, when the proprietor gives me the nod and wink and says, you don't have to come around the side, I know it's not much but here--there is so much joy and relief and hope in me from that! Oh, what we can make with these beautiful building blocks. Oh what a story we can craft from the pieces. Oh, the things we can cobble together. Look at that, this one's a little skimpy on parts but we can supplement it, this one's got a whole outline we can fill in however we want. This one technically comes semi-preassembled, and that's boring as shit and a pain to take back apart, but that's fine, we'll manage. We're artists and thieves. I bet someone's pulling out the AU saw to cut it to pieces already.

And then I get back to our den, which has moved addresses a dozen times over the years and mostly hangs out on Tumblr now (and the roof leaks and the landlord's sketchy as fuck but at least they don't charge rent, and we've made worse places our own). And I show up, ready for joy--ready for a dozen other people who saw that low-hanging fruit on that unguarded table, who got the nod and wink about the special menu item, who're ready to get so excited about this newest haul. Did you see what we picked up? The theft was so easy, practically begging to be stolen. The last owner was an idiot with no idea what to do with it. The last owner knew exactly what it could become, bless their heart, under a craftsman with more time on their hands, so they looked away on purpose at just the right time to let me take it home. I show up every time ready for our space, the place that fed me on joy and self-confidence when I was fifteen and starving. The place that taught me, yes, we are thieves, because it is RIGHT to take what we need, and the beautiful things we create are their own justification. We are thieves, and that's wonderful, because nothing is handed to us and that means we get to build our own palaces. We get to keep everything we steal.

I go home, and even knowing the world is different, my instincts and heart are waiting for that. And I walk in the door, and I look at my dash, and I glance over at twitter, and--

And people are angry, again. Angry at the slim pickings from the hidden special menu. So, so tired and angry, at once again having to steal.

And they're right to be! Sometimes (often, maybe) I think they're angry at the wrong people--more angry with the shopkeeper who offers the bite-sized sampler platter of side characters or sneaks their queer content in on the special menu than the ones who don't include it at all. But it's not wrong to be mad that Disney's once again advertising their First Gay Character only to find out it's a tiny sprinkle of a one-line extra on an otherwise straight sundae. It's not wrong to be furious at the world because you've spent your whole life needing to be a thief to survive. It's far from wrong. I'm angry about it too.

But this was my den of thieves, my chop shop, my makerspace. Growing up in fandom, I learned to pick the locks on stories and crack the safes of subtext at the very same time I learned to create. They were the same thing, the same art. We are thieves, my heart says, we are thieves, and that's what makes us better than the people we steal from. We deconstruct every time we create. We build better things out of the pieces.

And people are angry that the pre-fab materials are too hard to find, the pickings too slim, the items on sale too limited? Yes, of course they are, of course they should be--but my heart. Oh, my heart. Every single time, just a little bit, it breaks.

Of course the stories are terrible (they have always been terrible). Of course they are, but we are thieves. We steal the best parts and cobble them back together and what we make is better than it was before. The craftsman's eye that cases a story for weak points, for blank spaces, for anywhere we can fit a crowbar and pry apart this casing--that's skill and art and joy. Of course we shouldn't have to, of course we shouldn't have to, but I still love it. I still want it, crave it. I still thrill every time I see it, a story with hairline cracks that we can work open with clever hands to let the queer in.

That used to be cause for celebration, around here. I ask him to go back to the ruins of Aeor with me, two men together alone on an expedition in the frozen north, it feels like a gift. And I understand why some people take it as an insult. I understand not good enough. I understand how something can feel like a few drops of water to someone dying of thirst, like a slap in the face. If it was so easy to sneak it hidden onto the special menu, to place it on the unguarded side table for someone else to run off to, why not let it sit out front and center in the first place? I know it's frustrating. It should be. We should fight. We should always fight. I know why.

But my heart, oh, my heart. My heart only knows what it's been taught. My heart sees, this thing right here, the proprietor left it there for you with a nod and a wink because they Get It. It's not put together yet, but it's better that way anyway. It's so full of pieces to pull apart and reassemble. I bet they've got a whole mosaic wall going up at home already. We can bring it home and make it OURS, more than it was ever theirs, forget half of what it came from and grow a new garden in what remains.

And I go home to find anger, and my heart breaks instead.

[marley-manson]

i was chatting about my headcanons on hawkeye and his relationship to bisexuality with a friend the other day and now I wanna go into my thoughts more here bc i always take advantage of excuses to talk about my gay mash headcanons lol.

so i think one of the biggest reasons i love hawkeye so much is that he’s so easy to headcanon as not just bi, but self-aware and out and engaged with it, and compared to the seas of characters you kinda have to headcanon as repressed bc they’re written as straight but with an intense homoerotic friendship, or, these days, a lot of canon gay/bi characters in coming out narratives or genre shows with little to no sense of cultural context, i find it surprisingly refreshing to even have the option, and I love that fandom often leans into it. but like, it makes a ton of sense.

like first of all it’s virtually impossible to read him as sexually repressed as far as i’m concerned, it’s unfathomnable to me. either he’s genuinely just a straight dude who makes a fuckton of jokes and flirts with men all the time, or he’s bi, self aware, and secure. i cannot begin to envision a dude in his thirties, a dude as self-reflective and in touch with his feelings and sexual desires as hawkeye, making that many gay jokes because it’s the repression coming out.

secondly so many of his jokes reference gay culture in a way that sure, a straight writer in hollywood in the 70s would presumably be aware of, but a dude from a small town in the 50s would probably have to go out of his way to learn. from referencing gay writers and celebrities, to jokes about gay bars/cruising spots (”I don’t want anyone to know I was in this place,” from The Price eg), to slang both likely deliberate on the parts of the writers (eg ”is that ad or bc?” “i don’t know, I never could tell with Henry,” from Aid Station) and accidental but fitting (eg ”Klinger - love your beads,” from Officer of the Day), to easily adopting the flamboyant stereotypes when it suits him (the last is probably the most heterosexually accessible lol, but still).

then there's the way he's essentially the worldly, knowledgeable counter-culture rep of the show. he’s pretty much the only one who really makes these types of references. he has an extensive knowledge of banned media. i think it’s implied that he’s been to europe/possibly a regular traveler, based on his wanting to go to europe and sleep there for a year line in the interview. he’s always up for referencing obscure (by 50s standards) kinks. he’s canonically able to locate hidden dens of iniquity in Tokyo lol. if he’s bi and aware of it then it just logically follows from the type of character he’s pointedly portrayed as being that he’s been around the block a few times too. like I can’t imagine him finding “unlisted geishas” but not visiting the Tokyo gay bars if we’re headcanoning him as bi.

and the way he’s borderline hypersexual - and not just as a warzone thing, based on a bunch of jokes and references to his pre-war sexual exploits. sure we only see the het side because the bi take wasn’t intended, but again, it logically follows that if he’s bi he’d be just as keen to throw himself into the gay sex side of things and explore it as much as possible. it’s so easy for me to imagine him hooking up at the gay bar, going to the gay parties, having a bunch of friends and fuckbuddies in the scene, etc.

finally there’s a ready-made, obvious excuse for why we only see the het side of things other than, yk, hawkeye being an ostensibly heterosexual dude in a 70s tv show: he’s trapped in the army, where there’s very little privacy and getting caught has life-destroying consequences. it makes perfect sense that he’d mostly stick with nurses during the run of the show whatever his preferences are - plus he’s already canonically making due based on his “any woman out of any uniform” answer to “what do you miss the most” in Our Finest Hour. hell, in the states he could’ve been 90/10 in favour of men and spending every weekend cruising the boston gay scene and it would still make sense that he’d switch to mainly women while in korea. that’s not my headcanon personally lol but yk, it’s a pretty fair (and frankly, thematically relevant) take if that’s what you want to imagine. the show taking place solely in korea leaves the rest of his life pretty wide open for possibilities here, give or take the few canon details we know, and that’s pretty handy.

so I love when fandom takes advantage of it and writes him as involved in the gay scene back home. it’s so rare that the kind of subtext and homoeroticism that fandom seizes upon lends itself to this type of characterization, which sucks because i adore it, honestly. i really wish there were more classic fandoms that made it easy to headcanon characters as gay/bi and out in the community as opposed to repressed/closeted (or at least more that I’ve been into). i’ve personally always loved when fanfic adds that sense of connection to gay culture and identity and it’s one of the things that got me into this fandom in particular.

[shititbe]

Anyway, HSM2 is about internalized homophobia, and no one can tell me otherwise.

High School Musical is one of the most beloved franchises in the world. Teenagers all over the world grew up watching Troy and Gabriella harmonize together. Three movies, and nearly a decade later it’s still beloved by all. The first film easily forgotten in the ashes of the early 2000’s, the third film stuck in a purgatorial limbo of the rather unfortunate late 2000’s. The second film on the other hand sticks out between the ruckus. 

The second High School Musical film takes place at Sharpay and Ryan’s family country club, during the summer between junior and senior year. The Wildcats are working summer jobs on the country club, often forced to the beck and call of Ryan and Sharpay themselves. Sharpay uses all her prestige to help Troy with college instead of starting at the bottom ( or rather, in the kitchen washing dishes) with his friends. In the time she’s helping Troy, she is also pushing her brother away; replacing him with Troy in their musical number for the talent show, and refusing to hang out with him in preference for Troy. Ryan becomes vengeful to his twin and starts hanging around the Wildcats in the kitchen. At first, he was met with some distasteful looks and words (most of which from Chad). With the help of Kelsey, and her neutral party, Ryan fits in smoothly with the other teenagers, eventually giving the WildCats all dance lessons.

 Throughout the movie, the main conflict continues to be the internal conflict of Troy Bolton. He debates over and over again if he should go through with Sharpay’s shenanigans, or if he wants to “listen to my own heart.”  This of course involves Gabriella, as she is Troy’s love interest. She’s not in the second film except for the beginning, then, where she leaves in the middle of the film - in order to create angst for Troy - then when she shows up again in the finally to sing/rejoin Troy. 

The conflict in the second film  is the combining of Troy’s two worlds. His first - his main world in the first movie, that hence became his secondary world - which is represented by Chad. Then his secondary world - which becomes his main world in this movie - which is represented by Ryan. Chad represents Troy’s masculinity, or his more idealized version of himself. Ryan represents Troy’s femininity or his current version of reality. These two worlds collide in the iconic song “I don’t dance”.  

Since this movie - and hence this scene - came out in the early 2000’s, a lot of the innuendoes went over people's heads. Luckily, as the children who watched this movie grew older and more experienced, and the world became more accepting, we’re able to see this song for what it is. 

Before getting into the lore and symbolism of the iconic “I Don’t Dance” sequence, context is needed. For most of human history, homosexuality was seen as a sin in all places except ancient times (see: Greece and Japan). The modern age is the most accepting on all fronts, such as sexual orientation, race, and religion. In the early 2000’s, High School Musical director Kenny Ortega was not publicialy out yet. He wouldn’t be till 2014. 

Originally, while writing this, my first thought was  that Kenny - the director - would be using Troy as a y/n type character to project his insecurities and struggles with masculinity, and what that means in defining his orientation and societal views that would be placed upon him. Then, it came to me later that this is in fact not the case, Troy (and Gabriella - who is in fact a y/n character for the female audience) is more of a character for a man of his time, confused with his own ideals of masculinity and the views of society because, “oh god, I can’t like theater/drama because only queer people and girls like it!” The second point is pushed further with the Troy and Sharpay sub-plot. Sharpay tries to further Troy’s career as a basketball player, though that’s not what he wants anymore, and Troy is no longer sure if that is what he ever wanted to begin with (enter the song “Bet on it” and the hilarious meme “no dad, I’m giving up on your dream”). 

Keeping these things in mind - Kenney’s queerness, and Troy’s struggle to realize you can in fact sing and be a heterosexual, wow, revolutionary - it became clear to me that Kenney’s y/n characters were Ryan and Chad. 

For those who aren’t into the arts, or find them too difficult after a singular attempt thinking they could write a world class novel on the first go, let me be the first to tell you every author has a y/n character. First, for those who don’t know what y/n stands for, it’s a popular fanfiction trope where a writer will write a story about a character dating, being friends, and so on, with the reader. The y/n stands for “your name” so anyone can be the main character in this story at any time. For a writer of mainstream fictional work, such as High School Musical, Game Of Thrones, Lord Of The Rings, Pride and Prejudice, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, even most comics. Now, most writers or directors aren’t going to be as obvious as having a character not named (or named y/n) or even named Jane (looking at you Jane Austin), the y/n character of many mainstream authors/directors/comic artists and so on is usually the character they feel or have given the most attributes similar to themselves. 

It’s the same reason people have favourite characters. You see a fictional character and you either 1. Want to Bob the Builder them, 2. Some sort of weird sex thing, or 3. See more/the most of yourself in this character. Number three - thankfully - is usually the main reason. Some people just create their own favourite characters. An even easier way to think about this, is just projection baby, that’s psych 101.   

Before I went off on a small tangent of fictional works and how human emotion plays into creating them (except anything Disney has made in the past decade, and no you can’t change my mind on that) I mentioned that Chad and Ryan are Kenney’s y/n characters. As a queer person myself, it’s clear for me to see the different struggles each of these characters face and how these reflect the queer experience. 

So, let’s finally get into it. 

Ryan, without it being explicitly said is clearly a character of what people in the early 2000s think a gay man is. He is effeminate, wearing bright coloured outfits with lots of accessories - namely his signature hats - he is also in the theater department doing musicals, and passive/subservient to any of his twin sisters' wills. Yes, now we know gay men aren’t just feminized men, but in the early 2000’s a gay man who can do "masculine" things like change their car oil, like sports, and so on, break the "effeminate" stereotype thus confused many cishet people. Sharpay is painted as more confident - or, for sake of comparability - masculine to her twin in the first movie, and most of the second movie. Making Ryan a bit of her dog who would do anything to get by - painting Ryan as lesser than human, once more, playing into the homophobia of the early 2000's.     

Despite the clear stereotypes playing into his character, Ryan is consistently one of the most confident characters in the movie. The other, being his sister of course. This confidence in himself is what gravitates the other characters towards him, either by being intimidated (Troy, thinking Ryan and Gabriella were a thing), or admiration (Chad, by the end of “I don’t dance”). 

Chad, on the other hand, is a whole different ball game. While he is confident in the first movie, and the first portion of the second movie, he begins to break more and more when Ryan becomes a more integral part of the Wildcat group. To keep in mind, Chad is also the most vocal about his distaste for Troy’s artistic past-time. When the other Wildcats join Ryan and begin learning how to dance for the talent show at the end of the movie, Chad is also the most vocal about his distaste. The baseball game where “I don’t dance” takes place, is the climax of Chad’s arc and his turn towards acceptance to Ryan/Troy’s hobbies. 

Of course, there is more to the “I don’t dance” sequence than just Chad’s realization - the exact one Troy comes to terms with in the second movie as well - of “oh my god I don’t have to be gay to enjoy stereotypical ‘feminine’ things.” That is the main part of the song though, that and all the sexual tension. 

Going back to what I’ve stated previously, Chad and Ryan are Kenney’s projection or y/n characters. Let me do a small recap before we get into the nitty gritty of the famous “I don’t dance” video. 

Thinking back to the first few paragraphs, I stated that Kenney wasn’t publicly out till 2014, about 7 years after the second movie came out. This could be due to the fact that a) it’s the early 2000’s and everyones still very homophobic, or b) self-doubt that comes with the queer experience. The most likely reason is a mixture of both of these. Because of this, Ryan is the more self-assured version, or idealized version of Kenney that he wants to be. Ryan is confident, never being swayed about his lifestyle (could be read as: sexuality) even though Chad - and most of the wildcats in the first movie - put him through relentless “teasing” and humiliation. He’s confident, almost to a fault, he’s sure of himself, and yet still reaches out a hand to Chad and the other wildcats to show them that they’re just being, kinda dick-ish. 

Every queer person wants to be Ryan. Despite his heavily stereotyped characterization, I personally believe he is one of the stronger written characters in the movies, mainly due to Kenney putting the time in to really make Ryan feel like a real person, to give himself some sort of relief of his own anxieties, a chance to see the world through a person who truly has no fear. Unlike Kenney himself. 

This is where Chad comes in. 

Chad is seen as “confident” in the first movie, the second Troy “leaves” basketball though, all that confidence comes crashing down. His best friend has another hobby - one he thinks is “not right” (it’s okay, you can say gay), - they wont be spending all their time together (first, can you say dependent relationship much, yikes).Chad’s defining characteristic up until their fight that instigate act three of the second movie, is being Troy’s best friend. I’m going to take this as if this were truly the case, and not a decently written character arch. Some people base themselves around their friends and their whole identity on being a friend, that they lose sight of themselves, this mainly in high school of course, when your whole world is really nothing but school, and friends. Newly developed independence is there, but that’s scary, so instead of worrying about the future, cling to something that’s reliable. I’ve seen this happen, mainly at the end of high school, when the “real world” is coming a bit too close for comfort. This could generally be the case if a person is lonely, but for timeline sake I’m going to say Chad has got some anxiety about graduating (considering the second movie takes place the summer of junior year). 

His lashing out at Troy’s hobbies and at Troy’s neglectful friendship, make more sense with that background, and are seen more in the second movie where Troy begins spending all his spare time with Sharpay (trying to collect that BAG!). Chad - and others (read: father) - insists that music is not a feasible career option, and Troy should just stick with basketball (like...that is a feasible career option). The tension Chad creates in the studio only grows when the other wildcats decide to take up Ryan’s offer for dance lessons and move from the kitchen, to helping out with the talent show. (Next essay idea: how high school musical two was really about class all along, cause Jesus). 

 Chad is the less obvious option for a y/n character. Though again, the 2000’s were not as cool people like to pretend they are. Chad - for Kenney - represents what he actually feels, this fear of being rejected for how he is and how he chooses to live his life/lifestyle, so he sticks to something reliable. Ryan is new, and exciting, and confident in a way that Kenney/Chad wish they could be, but in order for that to happen they need to understand that maybe people are complex creatures, and can enjoy multiple hobbies (aka: the same lesson Troy is teaching the viewers, but far less boring). But, for Kenney/Chad facing that thought and that realization is scary, and thus, they lash out at anyone (read this paragraph as: Chad mad jealous of Ryan cause Ryan bomb as fuck). 

All this build up, finally comes ahead in the employee baseball match 

                                                       ******

The baseball game is probably the most memorable scene in the whole High School Musical franchise (minus Sharpay’s “Fabulous” solo, but that’s also from the same movie, and it’s kinda rude to give what’s already the best more points); the tension in the scene, and what it implies makes it the best written segment of all three movies, let alone the most entertaining. 

Some things to keep in mind from our background information: Chad is missing his bestie and struggling with what being “masculine” really means for him and others. Ryan of course makes this confusing, because the traditional method is being thrown out the window. In short, Chad has internalized homophobia, and Ryan being open - or as open as Disney would let him - is causing all sorts of problems. 

Despite the song, “I don’t dance” being logged into our collective skulls for all eternity (you’re probably humming it right now, sorry about that), the very brief interaction of Ryan and Chad before the game is lost on the public consciousness. The two are clearly comfortable with each other, though the distaste seems to be on Chad’s side more than Ryans. So, the two start playfully jabbing at each other before deciding to do a bat toss to see who will be in the outfield first. 

Before they begin the bat toss, Ryan says “You don’t think dancing takes some game?” Chad then very clearly checks him out, doing a simple but effective ‘drag-your-eyes-over-them-top-to-bottom-then-smile’ and says “you got game?” (Seen in gif below) 

I don’t know how much you know about sex metaphors and how many of those baseball has in it (seriously though, it’s a lot), but with the bat toss, Ryan’s hand ended up on top, and Chad’s under Ryan’s. Let’s ignore this for now, it’ll be implied again later. Ryan’s team starts out in the outfield because he won the bat toss, and hence, the song officially starts. 

The first lyrics (ignoring the chores of “hey batter batter, hey batter batter, swing”) is 

I'll show you that it's one and the same

Baseball, dancing, same game

It's easy

Step up to the place, start swingin  

This part is sung by Ryan, who is taunting Chad out in the outfield. Before the game, as stated, Chad was taunting Ryan about his lack of “game” (both sexual and not sexual metaphor are implied), and now, Ryan has turned those tables around. Baseball - is seen as more masculine than dancing, not as masculine as football or basketball, but it’s up there. Chad is someone who cares about his masculinity, enough to the point that Ryan playing baseball makes him loose his mind. Makes him question his own personal definition of masculinity, if you will. 

Ryan says, “baseball, dancing, same game,” impyling that, to him, baseball and dancing are one and the same. That is baffling to Chad, cause well, how can something meant for girls even be close to something meant for boys. 

Chad comes back with: 

 I wanna play ball now, and that's all

This is what I do

It ain't no dance that you can show me, yeah

This only proves my previous point. 

I had a conversation with myself about this, and I’ve decided not to include it in this essay, but a second essay may or may not be possible. Basically the premise - the dancing/”musical” moments of High School Musical are conjured up images by those meant to see them (ie: like a visual hallucination, but, not really) but this scene kinda poo-poos that idea. 

Now, the thing I am talking about is Ryan and Chad’s  peacocking at each other during the time they sing these lyrics. The movements they’re making could be mistaken for dancing - as we automatically assume it is because of the title and themes of the movie - or it could be them just getting ready for the baseball game. Ryan swings his leg over the pitcher's mound, tossing the ball up and down into his glove, making wavy hand gestures, etc. Chad brushes off his gloves, swings his legs, hits the bat on each foot, and so on. 

For the peacocking, Chad makes a mock of the ballerina foot stance before strutting over to the home plate. Ryan laughs at this, which earns quite the smirk from Chad himself (see gif below). 

This is when it becomes a conversation.   

You'll never know - R

Oh I know - Ch

If you never try - R

There's just one little thing - Ch

That stops me every time, yeah - Ch

Come on - Ch

When Chad says “Come on” it’s when Ryan throws the baseball at him, starting the game, and giving Chad’s team their first strike of the game (get it, it’s funny). Now, obviously we need to talk about the “there’s just one little thing that stops me every time.” As a queer person, I assure you, two of the things that kept me from living my Best Life were 1) my own ignorance of what asexuality was and 2) the fear that everyone I love would hate me for who I am, and what I have no control over. 

Sorry to get deep like that on main, but, can any other queer person say different? Obviously, your first point may differ, but my point still stands. In the video/scene there is a very short moment (to which I have condensed into a gif for you all, you’re welcome, and I’m sorry about the quality in advance), of the camera moving over to Chad’s team (or his friends in this case since it’s an employee baseball game) as he says this line (gif below). 

I will not be explaining the use of subtly in this essay, but I’m sure you get the metaphor Kenney is trying to use. If not, let me spell it out for you in very simple words. This song has a lot of sexual innuendos (as mentioned pervious with the baseball bat scene and still, more to come), with that in mind, and clearly queer themes at play (as mentioned before, again), this scene only shows Chad isn’t as straight as he leads on. His fear/phobia of Ryan/the arts come from a much deeper place. 

In shorter, and much simpler terms: Chad queer. 

But, let’s get back to the boy's conversation. 

I don't dance - Ch

I know you can - R 

Not a chance, no - Ch 

If I could do this, well, you could do that - R 

Translation: “If I can do this weird, sweaty, dirty, Male thing without blowing a fuse, you can and should be able to dance just fine.” 

But I don't dance - Ch 

Hit it out of the park - Both 

I don't dance - Ch

I say you can - R

There's not a chance, oh - Ch

Slide home, you score, swingin on the dance floor - Both

I don't dance, no - Ch  (This is just the chores, you’ll see it multiple times throughout the essay, I just figured if the song is going to be in your head, go all the way right). 

Two-steppin, now you're up to bat - R

Bases loaded, do your dance - R 

Here we are with the baseball metaphors you’ve all been waiting for ladies and gentlemen. Girls, gays, and non-binary pals. For those who have somehow managed a sheltered existence with access to the internet, lemme help you. Ryan is talking about “loaded bases” both in the context of the game (where it shows each base has one person from Chad’s team on them) and in the term of sex. While you go out there dating - while it’s mostly douche bags and people using it ironically - your nosey friends may ask you how far you got. 

“First, second, or third base?” They may ask. Or something like, “oh wow, did you get to home plate/base?” These are simply the rankings of the stages of a sexual relationship. First - kissing, sometimes just handholding, Second - making out, some light groping, Third - full on groping, no clothes come off, but it gets close. While each person has different boundaries, these are the general accepted definitions for the bases. 

Home base is obviously full blown sexual intercourse. Since Chad has his “bases loaded” it means he’s done all these things before, just never gone completely to sexual intercourse with someone - in the terms of the song and the history we’ve already established, it’s most likely a male character. This is only proven by Chad’s uncomfortable nature towards Ryan (internalized Homophobia, thank you, returning theme) but his easy, and cocky personality towards everyone else. “bUt thAt DoEsnT pRovE” hush, that’s the final cherry on top. Remember this conversation. 

It's easy - R  

Again. Previous points have been made.  

Take your best shot, just hit it - Ch 

I've got what it takes, playin my game - Ch

So you better spin that pitch - Ch 

You're gonna throw me, yeah - Ch 

I'll show you how I swing - Ch

Ah, the famous “I’ll show you how i swing” a very strong baseball metaphor for everyone. Keeps queer people from defining themselves to dangerous (straight) people, and, well, that’s it actually. This term is mostly used by bi/pan people, though if you want to stay in the closet or are in a dangerous place, it is also used to subtly tell other queer people you are in fact, not straight. My favourite is when this term came into play when President Buchanan got elected in 1856 (for those that don’t know, he’s the first and only gay president). 

You'll never know - R

Oh I know - Ch

If you never try - R 

There's just one little thing - Ch

That stops me every time, yeah - Ch 

This is again, the same lyric as before it doesn’t pan, and the tone is much different. The camera stays on Chad as he says this line, meaning he’s reflecting, he is now his own problem, the person that is keeping him back. His friends are not on his mind anymore, which is good, Ryan’s Gay Propaganda has been working. 

Come on - Ch

I don't dance - Ch

I know you can - R

Not a chance, no, no - Ch

If I could do this, well, you could do that - R

But I don't dance - Ch

Hit it out of the park - R

I don't dance - Ch

I say you can - R

There's not a chance, oh no - Ch

Slide home, you score, swingin on the dance floor - Both 

I don't dance, no - Ch

Lean back, tuck it in, take a chance - R

Swing it out, spin around, do the dance - R

I wanna play ball, not dance hall - Ch

I'm makin a triple, not a curtain cal - Chl

I can prove it to you til you know it's true - R

'Cause I can swing it, I can bring it to the diamond too - R

You're talkin a lot, show me what you got - Ch

Again, like the beginning of this song, this is a heavy base for flirting and sexual tension, which this song is drowning in. 

Stop swinging - both

Hey - both

This is the part where they all start a flash mob in the middle of the baseball diamond. Again, alluding to the conversation I had to myself earlier, this only proves my own theory as no one takes notice of this. But, that’s not this essay, this is where I mention how close Chad and Ryan are at the end of the group dance.  

Come on, swing it like this - both

Oh, swing - both

Jitterbug, just like that - both

That's what I mean, that's how you swing - both

You make a good pitch but I don't believe - both 

Here is yet another (and the final) sexual innuendo. This is actually a rather quick one. Pitching in queer culture is considered the person who tops (because queer people even had to straight-ify their sex lives to “top” and “bottom”), this is the person who is giving, if you know what I’m saying. 

I say you can - R

I know I can't - Ch

I don't dance - Ch

You can do it - R

I don't dance, no - Ch 

 Here is where that mosh pit ends, and how they get a little too close to comfort. 

Nothing to it, atta boy, atta boy, yeah - both

The rest of this song is simply a mash-up of the baseball game being finished, and this lovely gem. 

Now, clearly, Chad’s self conscious nature towards his sexuality is gone, he’s sitting close - if not squishing - Ryan, and talking to him like they’ve been friends forever. Take note of the change of close, most likely due to all the tension at the end of the song, and maybe a little of Chad’s own natural human curiosity built in. Now, I leave you with this note: 

If there is anything that confirms all this more, its Chad’s girlfriend wearing the pride colours. 

Also note: this could also be seen as a friend helping his bro discover his sexuality and fighting internalized homophobia, but, that’s ignoring the sexual tension, so go off I guess. 

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.  

Watch the full thing here

[takaraphoenix]

Ship game!! What about Nico and Will?? It’s pretty popular, but I don’t think I’ve seen you write much of it…

That's an interesting one in that I have vocalized my reasons for disliking it way back when it first became popular but instead of just linking that, it has been years so I think it's time for an updated version.

Firstly: This post is gonna be properly tagged and not crosstagged so if any shipper comes across it and feels the need to bitch about it, just don't; your lack of curating your own tumblr experience is not my problem! ;D

Now, there are three key factors that play into my dislike of this ship: How it was written, what it represents, how the fandom around it acts.

1. It’s rushed and uncomfortable

In BoO, it was incredibly rushed. They had literally five sentences of interactions before they walked into the literal sunset together. Five. It was just entirely born from Riordan's Noah's Ark Complex, where he just can't let people be single. The series was ending and he needed Nico to have an endgame so he rushed into some random romance with zero build-up.

The way their interactions went down was also severely uncomfortable for me. Will was acting so offended by Nico not wanting to go to camp and be friends in an entitled way that he had no right to be, he downright guilt-tripped Nico about how he had wanted to be friends. Nico has been just so severely traumatized at such a young age and his coping mechanism, as unhealthy as it was, was to run away and hide. Will acted like Nico not wanting to form attachments to people who could potentially leave him again was somehow just an Edgy Emo Decision and not a direct reaction to his trauma. His entire approach to Nico was basically all these hippie posts of "Don't have depression!! Just go out into the sun and stop being depressed!", which is already a bad take with non-medical people but he's supposed to be a doctor (and let's not get into the shadiness of him technically being Nico's doctor).

There is also an inherent "I can fix him" angle to this ship and to me, only few ship dynamics are more uncomfortable than that. If you want to fundamentally change a person's behavior and personality, you... don't actually want to be with this person.

Now, here's where my points overlap, because the following parts of their writing that bothers me also stand for what this ship fundamentally represents.

2. Solangelo is a queer ship written by and for straights

I'm a queer woman and as a queer woman, I want queer wish-fulfillment, not what straights want out of queerness. I'm kind of tired of that, I've been sitting through it for enough decades now. That's, of course, not to say that no straight writer can give proper queer representation, but far too often do straight writers - even the most well-meaning ones - project straight desires of queerness into their queer representation.

Let me explain that closer through this ship.

Nico's been in love with Percy for years and I'm going to do my best to not hijack this post with some Percico agenda; that's not what this his about, this isn't some "my ship is better than your ship" ship-war nonsense. It's simply a canonical fact that Nico has had romantic feelings for another character for years.

A character who, in this medium, is heterosexual. And if you're queer, you've been there. In love with your straight best friend. It's a cliche, but it's a cliche for a reason.

We have also all been well-meaningly rejected by said straight friend.

And here's the straight desires for you: The queer person who was in love with a straight person just immediately stops having those feelings and will then as quickly as possible fall in love with the next queer person they meet to be happy and no longer uncomfortably in love with a straight person, because that thought makes the straights uncomfortable.

Queer wish-fulfillment would be for Percy to return those feelings, for the queer character to get his first love, to not be rejected. That thing queer teens always dreamed about for themselves.

Aside from the wish-fulfillment angle, the pacing is another problem. Let me repeat, Nico was in love for years. But a five sentence conversation with Will once causes a crush on Will and we see him physically turn away from Percy and toward Will just immediately to rebound and actually fall out of love with Percy and in love with Will. Anyone who's ever been unlucky in love will attest to just how unrealistic and ridiculous the pacing here is.

It's also straight queerness in another respect; Nico has been the first ever queer character we meet in that world. He loves a straight guy - and to get over that, we introduce the second queer character. Because heaven forbid there are multiple queers to pick from. No, in straight-written queer romances, there is always that one main queer and then they introduce a second one and the two just immediately hit it off and develop a romance like all a queer person needs to form attraction to someone is the confirmation that the other person shares your sexuality.

Also the notable gay guy on gay guy ship here, whereas the more queer-wish-fulfillment option would have also included more nuance to the queer experience, because Percy doesn't have to be heterosexual just because he has only been with girls so far. It's a very old-fashioned - think 90s and early 2000s - kind of straight-written queerness that there are only exactly two homosexuals and that those two homosexuals then pair up.

And, listen, I'm not immune to these outdated straight-written queers entirely, I have many such ships that I grew up with that I am still fond of because they were groundbreaking at that time and they weren't outdated yet back when they happened in said 90s and early 2000s. I am however a grown woman now and just like I have grown, so has queer rep so I am not as easily baited into falling onto my knees in gratitude for canon rep. You have to go with the times. And this ship, by all that is given to us, is just entirely outdated straight-written rep.

Which, I mention earlier that even straight-written rep can be good. If the author tries. Riordan doesn't really try though; he does the bare minimum when he writes any of his rep - and there have been many, many more qualified voices being very vocal about his depiction of people of color and, as a woman, I've been vocal about his depiction of women. I don't want to derail this post with all of that, but I do think that it bears mentioning that Riordan doing rep but only doing a bare minimum and not putting in the necessary work to deepen the representation he wants to give is a repeating pattern that has been pointed out many times by now.

(I’d also like to point out that no, it is not just the ship and not just the listed instances that make it straight-written rep for straights. It’s Nico’s entire queer arc, starting with his forced coming out. A severely traumatizing event that is completely brushed over because the straight author doesn’t understand the impact this has on queer people. Not to mention the framework; Nico’s coming out isn’t Nico’s story, it happens in Jason’s POV, it is given to us through the POV of the straight bystander who gets to be Best Ally by assuring Nico that being gay is okay. This kind of coming out is not a queer wish-fulfillment, it’s a straight wish-fulfillment of getting to be the straight savior, the ally to show the gay the light of acceptance. And, additional to the ridiculous pacing of how fast Nico gets over his love for Percy, Nico also gets over years of internalized homophobia just because of, I don’t know, Jason’s few encouraging words and the fact that Will paid attention to him? For a gay kid who was in the closet all his life, the nonchalant way in which he publicly confessed his crush to Percy at the end made absolutely no sense and was written as basically a joke, finished off with Nico literally high-fiving Percy’s girlfriend despite those two never having seen eye to eye before but this is straight wish-fulfillment so all straights are Super Allies, because that’s the way straights want to see themselves, even though Annabeth has shown before just how jealous she can be and she most definitely wouldn’t go around high-fiving people who confess to her boyfriend. Nothing about Nico’s queer arc in HoO felt natural or queer or satisfying.)

Sure, Solangelo on a surface level is big because it's a canon queer couple in a YA book-series and kudos for that and yay for the kids who get to grow up seeing queers in YA books, but I actually do think that kids growing up with books written in the 2010s shouldn't grow up with 1990s levels of representation, because the 2010s overall are actually at a far more nuanced and better level of representation when it comes to queerness. And I do reserve the right to quit on too straight-written and too outdated queer rep in a landscape where I can get more satisfying representation elsewhere; we don’t live in times anymore where you necessarily have to love every bit of rep because it’s the only one you get.

Now that we've gone through my first two gripes, let's wrap this up with the final point, because it also directly ties into this.

3. The new wave of antis hiding behind this ship

A huge part of the fandom is so busy kissing Riordan's ass solely for giving them queer rep at all they think that both the author and the ship are beyond flawless and that kind of attitude is not good. Just because an author includes rep doesn't make either perfect. Absolutely no one is beyond critique - especially not when said critique comes from the very people the author is representing. And even beyond any "valid" critique on the ship, quite frankly, someone should also be allowed to just not like it, without any reasons given at all.

But there is a certain... protective obsessiveness about this ship that doesn't allow a not liking. Very similar to how PJO bore this mindset around Perc/abeth already. It's okay to have OTPs, even OTPs that you have a blindspot for and just don't want to see any flaws in. It is however not okay to then go around attacking people who don't like the thing and mind their own business.

Solangelo's bred a new generation of antis in this fandom. And, particularly with the fact that this post too receives an "anti" tag, I feel like there needs to be a clarification (because tumblr likes to forget what actually makes an anti). Not liking something doesn't make you an anti, venting in properly tagged posts doesn't either; it's the people who harass others, who seek out the content they dislike to then complain that it even exists and who actively try to make others stop creating for it - those are antis.

And with Solangelo's popularity, there was a high rise in Percico antis, who sought it out, were unnecessarily nasty about it, harrassed creators and tried to enforce some kind of "Solangelo supremacy" that won't allow other ships for the characters.

I've been in fandom long enough to be perfectly aware that not all Solangelo shippers count into this category and that there are completely normal and nice Solangelo shippers, but this is a Venn diagram where the overlap between Solangelo shippers and antis is too large to not widely associate the nasty people with the ship itself. (I've been there myself, shipping the very ship behind which a fandom's antis all hid. The second-hand embarrassment of having these people give the ship a bad name is horrendous and I do feel bad for all the normal Solangelo shippers.)

The more often I encountered these people, who made Percico bad (sometimes in wildly ridiculous manners that bent and deliberately misinterpreted canon) and who in the same breath praised Solangelo high, the more tired I grew of that ship. It's a simple game of association, really. You see that linked to the gross and nasty behavior and you start associating the ship itself with that gross and nasty behavior - and with all the things I said before that already weighed into my dislike of the ship, this just was the final tipping point, really.

And that's it. That sums up why I dislike Solangelo. It was hastily rushed, uncomfortable in its execution, it is outdated rep that very much feels as straight-written as it factually is and it does not feel aimed at me as a queer person but rather at the straight audience and it has gathered a cult following of quite uncomfortable people who on their own would be reason enough to avoid it so you can avoid them.

Send me a ship and I will explain why I do or don't ship it

[katierosefun]

hey uh 8 months ago u posted: "i might compile a list of kdramas that either have very cool queer-coded characters, are explicitly queer, or just have a very queer vibe just to fuck around again so".. did u by chance ever post it? if u havent, no worries, but if u have the time, i would love to get ur recs- especially those w/ queer-coded characters or just a queer vibe (im researching q-coding for something im working)

aaah, thank you for reminding me of that list! i've actually got some time to kill (more like i'm procrastinating going to sleep), so actually, here's a list now!:

beyond evil

this show just immediately becomes number one on my list when it comes to queerness, queer coding, or almost explicitly a queer story in ways that i really just . . . have not stopped thinking about ever since watching this show. basically, this show is about lee dong sik (shin ha kyun) who, twenty years ago, was accused of kidnapping and possibly murdering his twin sister. now, hot shot new detective han joo won (yeo jin goo) starts working in dong sik's small town. when the murders start up again, these two go down a long path in finding out the truth of what happened those twenty years ago. the acting is just phenomenal: yeo jin goo and shin ha kyun are truly an acting match made in heaven, just because both are insanely talented.

what makes this story incredibly queer, i think, is just the relationship between han joo won and lee dong sik. neither are very much so interested in a heterosexual romance, which is interesting, because there are def. female characters that could have been their love interests, but not once is that ever enforced or even implied? i also have a post here somewhere about how dong sik in particular is pretty queer or expresses queer-coded traits (ie. his relationship with religion, his relationship with past male colleagues, his tendency to flirt exclusively with men), and han joo won expresses similarities (ie. unwillingness to engage in romantic relationships with women in particular). but more than that, these two share just such a deep relationship that it's incredibly difficult not to see them as romantic--it's also worth noting that the writer, director, and cast members themselves have very much so worked this story into something that's much more romantic. (ie. the writer and director noting that these two have a relationship that has very much evolved into love, yeo jin goo talking about how he thinks han joo won probably moved in with dong sik, shin ha kyun and yeo jin goo heavily improvising some of the most . . . romantic scenes in the show).

there's a lot of shows that i've been told are queer, only to be very sorely disappointed because i realize those particular recs take a very long stretch, but beyond evil is one of those few shows that i think. genuinely. is queer. i promise you won't be disappointed.

school 2013

and yet another show that i think is perhaps one of the queerest stories out in kdrama history. i'm pretty sure this was both lee jong suk and kim woo bin's debuts as actors too, which is such an iconic move on their part. but basically, this series is about the difficulties high school students go through in the korean education system. while this story is very much an ensemble story, jong suk's character go nam soon is, i think, the main character. he's not very academically inclined, doesn't have too much of a dream...and i think he genuinely is depressed because he hurt and separated himself from his best friend park heung soo (kim woo bin). things become very complicated when his best friend transfers to nam soon's new school, only now, these two are something between enemies/rivals/ex-friends-who-still-care-about-each-other-but-still-hold-a-lot-of-resentment-and-etc. so you can imagine all the angst.

there's some genuinely lovely scenes between the two of them. also worth noting that kim woo bin actually kissed lee jong suk (yes, there are photos) behind the scenes for one of the most dramatic scenes of the show. there's another rather queer pairing in this show (more like a queer . . . trio?), but the story between heung soo and nam soon is just such a key component of the story that i had to mention it first. this show def. has its cheesy moments, but nam soon and heung soo sleeping next to each other time and time again over the course of the series and also very slowly getting over their own hurts is just . . . this is very much so a love story, and i think when this show was airing, a lot of people were speculating the same. (also worth noting that jang na ra, who played the iconic teacher jung in jae in this series, explained in an interview that she genuinely things heung soo and nam soon love each other . . . so--)

sungkyunkwan scandal

ah, yes, but if we're getting a teensy bit past queer-coded-ness and instead moving into explicitly queer characters, i just have to mention this saeguk classic, sungkyunkwan scandal. this show is about an intelligent young woman named kim yoon hee (park min young) who, for the sake of money, pretends to be a man to enter the nation's most prestigious (and still one of the most prestigious universities today!) university, sungkyunkwan university. in the process, she meets her roommates--the stiff son of a government official lee sun joon (park yoo chun) and the wild horse of a student moon jae shin (yoo ah in). along the way, she also meets moon jae shin's best friend, the flirty son of a merchant goo yong ha (song joong ki).

what i really love about this kdrama is that unfortunately, a lot of kdramas will take the whole "gender bending" trope and have the main male love interest(s) go through this whole existential crisis of "oh my god aM i gAy? tHis iS aWfuL", which, of course, leaves a pretty bad taste in your mouth when you're, y'know, a queer viewer. but what i love about this drama is that while it def. starts with that reaction (understandable, given the era), it actually goes into a wonderfully progressive direction? even though the protagonist is a woman, the main male love interest very much so decides "okay, fine. then i'm gay." but it doesn't stop there?

there's a lot of characters who point out in this show that it's not a crime to love someone of the same sex. in one specific moment, goo yong ha confesses to lee sun joon that he has romantic feelings for his best friend moon jae shin--and jae shin and yong ha's relationship is very much so . . . queer. a very genuine gem.

while you were sleeping

okay . . . so full disclosure, this is probably one of those that are more of a stretch, but so many people ship all three leads together, so that's why i'm including them. also, i really do think they're all bisexual and in love with each other, so it works.

basically, this show is about three extraordinary individuals: nam hong joo (bae suzy), jung jae chan (lee jong suk), and han woo tak (jung hae in). these three can see snippets of the future in their dreams. by fate, all of their lives get entangled together, and what's really lovely about this show is that while the two male leads are in love with the main female lead, there's never . . . a real sense of a love triangle? these three work incredibly harmoniously together. (also, some of jung jae chan's scenes with han woo tak can very . . . easily be interpreted as ohhhh, he's got a crush. also, these three characters just radiate so many parts of the bisexual spectrum. hong joo and woo tak are on the very competent, distinguished bisexual side of the spectrum, while jae chan . . . jae chan's on the chaotic side. which is why i love them all.)

nevertheless

okay, so another full disclosure with this one: nevertheless is one of those shows that i just wish was better and also a show that i skipped about like 95% of the scenes, because the show is actually about the art student na bi (han so hee) dating the mYstEriOus student park jae eon (song kang). (spoiler alert: park jae eon is the walking example of a red flag.)

but ANYWAYS, if we look over their scenes (i love han so hee and song kang, they really are both lovely actors . . . and i think to be fair, they both said in interviews that people like park jae eon suck), we can find the genuinely touching coming-of-age queer romance between yoon sol (lee ho jung) and seo ji wan (yoon seo ah). these two are canonically in love with each other, and it's really genuinely lovely. i feel like wlw relationships in kdrama are specifically hard to come by, but this one, for its little screen time, was still so genuinely heartfelt and authentic that (okay, maybe i'm oversharing a bit) i felt as though i was really reading a page out of my own diary? like, the tentativeness and fear of potentially ruining a perfectly good friendship is so real in this show--but they really are quite sweet. :'))

shows i haven't watched, but i've heard very good things in terms of queerness/are now on my watch list because i've heard it's . . . got some queer-coded characters/queer stories:

the devil judge

okay, so i'm planning to watch this soon, so i don't have real thoughts on it so far, but as far as i can tell, it's about a dystopian korea where the legal system is especially fucked up. the chief judge and his . . . clerk? co-judge? share a very . . . . . . interesting bond. that's it. but i do know there's been some parallels drawn to beyond evil, which i still think is the peak of queerness in korean drama, so i suppose that must mean something!

move to heaven

so, while move to heaven isn't literally about a gay couple, this show is about a young man and his . . . uncle (? or friend? idk, i've only watched the first episode of this show) who basically clean out the apartments of those who have passed away, thereby giving some sense of healing to their loved ones. there's one episode about a gay couple, and i've heard it's incredibly beautiful. it's sad that there's obviously going to be death, but i've also heard that it's done with so much genuine respect and love and compassion for gay couples in korea.

unfortunately--and i end with this show on this rec list for this very reason, gay couples are still very much discriminated against in south korea. the discrimination is brutal. same-sex couples aren't allowed to register as a family unit, which interferes with matters regarding medical insurance and adoption, should any of these couples want children. and of course, there's everyday discrimination in the workplace, in school, etc. while i think people have slowly been getting better about queerness in korea, they're still incredibly conservative with queerness. so to have a story that so lovingly depicts a queer relationship means a lot--and i hope that in the future, there'll be more explicitly queer love stories. of course, i think there's a lot of power in queer-coding, esp. within the limited confines of mainstream korean television, but you know, times are changing, and i hope that shows like move to heaven and others will continue to push the envelope in queer representation in korea and beyond.