#tbh i got everything i've ever read from a decent fanfic and just - i could not be happier unless they kissed onscreen

[firewindmill]

Idk who else to say this to since nobody else will answer me :( but honestly I feel so queerbaited about Sheith and those god awful antis aren’t helping. I still ship the heck out of them but like.. idk man I’m kinda heartbroken as a gay guy 😔

HOOOOO- As a fellow queer dude, lemme just say I don’t feel queerbaited in the least. Prepare for a long answer that has a lot of tangents but I promise the tangents are important because it defines my journey growing up queer and trans and having a big interest in media representation. 

It’s only queer baiting of the creators tease something and then never deliver and even mock lgbt folks for having the audacity to ask for it. It’s why fandom has formed the way it has - fans creating what the creators won’t or will ever be able to do. I was never in the Supernatural fandom but watching from afar, I pitied them. I grew up liking Harry Potter, and while Drarry just didn’t do it for me, I like the open-ended concept of Albus Potter and Scorpius being friends or more. It meant a more open canvas to work out in my brain. Harry Potter as a series is very flawed but fandom back in the day was about just doing your own thing while enjoying the core concepts of a series while ditching the ones you didn’t like, and celebrating when you were validated in seeing the message that creators intended. But I digress.

JDS & LM have promised to fight for LGBT representation, and have explicitly said what they had in mind (real representation that’s meaningful) and hadn’t (space dad and the popularity of kl). So far I’ve trusted them, re-watched the series every time a new season comes up because then I can then take future info into account in the storytelling as well as look for the foreshadowing clues that make sense if you’re a decent/good writer.

If you’ve been watching stuff coming out of Dreamworks Animation and Studio Mir for as long as I’ve studied it, then you’d recognize it like I do, just takes some time is all.

Back when I was 17-18, I got back to watching Avatar because I heard it was a good series and when I was  21-22, Korra was starting to end/ending and the fandom was freaking out but I hadn’t really had the time because I was in college. But I binged on the series during christmas vacation of 2014 and then I was reading articles that the people who worked on Korra were already working on another future project, so then I kept watch on Studio Mir and what they were dishing out, because as I was in the middle of college, I wanted to have a future in media - whether it would be storyboarding in children’s animation, audio engineering, animation or concept art. These are all skills I have and am working on strengthening. 

So now to the point of why I don’t feel like I’ve been queerbaited. I can definitively say that growing up and also being autistic (questioning why people acted the way they did), with a fun overdose of heteronormativity (buying into it), I had conflicted emotions of being afab and then frequently hanging out with friends who were also afab and then adoring them so much that I told them they were like sisters to me. In retrospect I realize I was very queer and on top of that I was coming into my self-defined male identity and that while cis men in theory are cute, I liked a lot more than that and honestly I could not be more happy with the layering of how much Keith loves Shiro.

Keith knows that if he’s going to die, Shiro has to know how much he cares, how much he unconditionally loves him, and the most pure form of love is when it’s unconditional and unending. There’s a specific layering in Keith’s words.

Shiro hasn’t stopped pushing trying to kill Keith until he hears Keith’s declaration of his love.

Even when it’s not really “Shiro”, there’s a core part of Shiro and his memories that fights to do good. Kuron up until the last stage of Project Kuron fought for control against Haggar/Honerva at every turn, but this specific declaration of Keith’s feelings for Shiro breaks through to him to cause Shiro to hesitate(a big romance trope called The Power of Love with mind-controlled loved ones),

and it’s a big indicator to what Shiro at his core thinks of Keith, clone or otherwise. “Brother”, didn’t break Kuron but “I love you” did, and it made Kuron beg for Keith to give up fighting because deep down, I don’t think Shiro/Kuron wants to kill Keith because he loves him too, but he was also specific in saying that neither of them are leaving. He says this twice actually.

I have a feeling that while he was working to remove Keith away from the fleet, there was multiple reasons mixed here when he led Keith here specifically, especially if he has faith in him to do what he wants him to do. 

1. Destroy all the other clones so Honerva doesn’t ever control another version of him again. 

2. Keith kills him if he doesn’t manage to win. Which just leaves more clones to deal with.

3. Keith dies and it’s expected that Kuron is supposed to be expendable because Honerva literally has a bunch of clones right there, so kills himself because he cannot be deprogrammed of being brainwashed and crazy. (And even possibly dying of heartbreak having to take down Keith if he hadn’t confessed at the threat of his life).

4. They all go down together - and that’s it. Honerva wins by killing off two black paladins in one go and still has a bunch of clones laying around at her behest.

Shiro - the black lion was thankfully 5. Which is when Keith mercifully cut off Kuron’s arm, was willing to die with him, and was saved by Shiro who could never have seen any hope of him living a life again. He probably accepted he’d be there in the astral plane for eternity, and who knows if souls fade away there. There’s no telling if Keith’s connection hadn’t been strong enough, he might’ve faded, heck, forgotten what he looked like without a body when you’re just essence floating around. But we got lucky, and considering the lost weight of his right arm, he chose to fall against Keith’s chest, and people wonder if Shiro knows Keith loves him, but I think he does, especially if he had to watch that fight, and also having let Kuron pilot if it meant getting close to Keith again even for a moment. It’s core to Shiro’s being as it is to Keith’s being that they love each other, they are brother’s in arms, Shiro changed Keith’s life and shaped him into the man he is and nothing will change how much they love each other. The layering of my brother and my love only strengthens that love declaration in my honest opinion. Think of it as an art or writing piece. You start with your base, then work in the details that pull it together. My brother is the base. I love you is what holds it together.

Edit: I wanted to add that there is a difference between queer baiting and cryptoqueer romance, which is where the author intends to write a queer romance but is disallowed by censorship, corporate oversight, or other such things and it should be kept in mind because capitalism is a tricky evil thing at times. (I’m grateful that it kept Shiro alive but...I don’t always expect things like getting representation).

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

Okay, but Tempus Fugit/Max and the birthday arc 🥺

What’s your thoughts about “I didn’t know it was your birthday” and then two seconds later “oh, here’s a gift I wrapped especially for you that just happens to be in my pocket.”? Think it’s along the same lines as “I stole these flowers from the guy down the hall” when he actually came flying through the front doors clutching them for dear life?

Also, Mulder grinning with that straw between his teeth should be illegal. He looks like an impish kid I can’t even 🤣

HDNZBZJZNSJS Tempus Fugit/Max my beloved- i don't usually have as much fondness for the mytharc as I do for the rest of the show overall, but the season 4 mytharc is absolutely my favorite. there's just *something* about it that I'm obsessed with (which is a whole other rant lol). and I love that you call it the birthday arc 🥺 can I steal that?

ok but I have gone off about the "I got you something :D" scene so many times in tags on gifsets and such actually. like it's SUCH a cute scene and Scully's awkward expressions are super relatable but at the same time there's this very very deep bittersweetness to it all bc it is, of course, smack in the middle of the cancer arc.

tbh I'm decently certain that Mulder has always (or at least since around s2) known when Scully's birthday is but just. they never make a big deal out of it?? like that kind of thing... isn't their kind of thing (this entire opinion is prob influenced by the various fanfics I've read lol, but I kinda adopted the meta as well). but he DOES know when her birthday is, he just doesn't bring attention/celebrate it for her, ya know?

until 19-heckin-97. until she is dying. until, and this seems very typical of them in general, it's her last birthday. and no, that doesn't mean he's accepted that she Is Going To Die, but it means- there's more weight to it. and if worst does come to worst no matter how hard he fights it, he doesn't want to let her die thinking he didn't care enough to remember her birthday. so: Tempus Fugit/Max. a Snowball with a sparkler instead of a candle, and a dorky little gift. it all means a lot more than it seems to anyone else tbh and that just GETS ME

(as you can tell since I'm waxing poetic about it right now 😂)

also that bit you mentioned from Memento Mori — aahnfndjxnxdjsns it's SO ADORABLE and so bittersweet and so THEM. I've said it a few times in tags about that scene: he makes a point to try to make her laugh, and she does, and he forces a smile too. if they can smile for each other, there's a chance everything can be okay. and I may be looking too hard but I think I can reasonably say that like- okay Mulder is ALWAYS trying to make Scully smile, he's just like that. but I think he tries especially hard during this arc; they're both Struggling, it's hard, they can't figure out how to balance what's happening with their partnership and relationship, but he continually tries SO HARD to make her smile or laugh — and when she does, he absolutely lights up. it's adorable

SHZJDNDKSK and YEAH his big dorky grin with that straw in his mouth, like yeah there's the angst in the background and yes both of them are very aware that there is a Reason he's finally gotten her a gift this year (Scully's comment about alien implants strikes me as her way of backhandedly calling him out for it; she never wants him to treat her any differently bc of her cancer, except for like. I mean on some level she DOES but not always in the way it ends up, if that makes sense) but!! he's celebrating his absolute favorite person in the world and just for a minute everything is okay, she makes awkward faces when everybody sings the birthday song (Mulder singing "special agent Dana Scully" instead of just "happy birthday dear Dana" is like. there's always That One Person at every birthday party, right?) and for a minute it's about as normal as they could ever pull off — he loves her, and he is happy to be with her. same principle as the way he looks at her in Unruhe, actually--

......also the lighting of that scene is v good, I kinda love it