#which is... u guessed it... misogynistic and hey

[hiemaldesirae]

I completely understand a crippling fear of twitter, but if you ever DO decide to make it, I'd love to hear your most behated Hazbin takes bc people do keep getting Vox so wrong lmao

ur so real for this nonny

actually since u sent this ask in i may as well

a lot of the shitty characterizations i see are all revolving around mostly twitter staticmoth/radiosilence shippers (no surprise there i guess :/) and almost always portray vox as a macho dom daddy with a superiority complex and that 50s Misogyny Grindset babyyyy or just as a straight up rapist and s/aer. which. Sigh. i can tell you right now ive not only seen that take from rdsl shippers (which, while disappointing, isnt surprising because most of the ones with shit takes are actually just alastor whump fans) but also from a staticmoth shipper???????? ive since blocked and muted their ass but whatever the fuck they were on i do NOT want to go near .

and while im AWARE that yeah sure its all just hcs l and they can do whatever the fuck they want w them (and ill do what i want x1000 intensity just to spite them all) i get SO inordinately pissed at the notion that vox is some sort of violently abusive man perpetually stuck in 50s misogynistic mindsets with an obsession for alastor OR val. he's hell's media darling, for fucks sake. he's not preaching outdated shit to people, his WHOLE FUCKING THING is UPGRADES and MOVING ON into the future. does he BELIEVE IT? maybe not. but he's not going to ever show that if he isn't, because he needs the love and support of the media.

and on that, vox is one of the most fragile cast members: his head is a fucking tv screen, for gods sake. you know how hard it is to break a flatscreen? Not very hard. and he's upgraded before: out of necessity or out of want, we won't know, but he willingly upgraded to something more fragile when he could have kept a CRT. why would he do that if he was a violent and abusive character like some people like to posit? it'd be more advantageous for him to keep the old head, but he doesn't- and that's because between vox, al and val, he's the "brain" of the bunch: his power lies in his words and his mind, not his fists or his physical might- he's not just another val with hypnotic eyes, for fucks sake, he's got a different skillset and specialty because he's not as physically violent as the other cast members. if he's hurting people it's with his words and persuasion, not like al or val.

and on the obsessions: vox Is obsessed with alastor, yeah, i won't deny that, but alastor REVELS in his obsession, and frankly, he's just as obsessed back- there was this tumblr post about stayed gone and how al was listening to vox even before he started the broadcast, and Thats certainly not something someone not happy with the attention theyre getting would do. the thing most ppl use to say vox is obsessed w val is the cameras- and . Hey. have you ever paused to consider that Maybe he's monitoring val because he's a loose cannon who LITERALLY TRIED TO GO AND ATTACK THE PRINCESS OF HELL BECAUSE HIS EMPLOYEE WAS STAYING AT HER HOTEL??????

ignoring all the other facts such as that there are cameras around to monitor his employees and velvettes studio as well and just focusing on the cameras with val (and alastor i spose but luckily i havent seen much try to tout this argument) is reductionist as all hell and literally so dumb i wonder sometimes if twitter keyboard warriors failed their highschool english classes. they teach media literacy there, did you know? you should go and see if you can sign up for one of those.

sigh okay thanks for sending this in nonny ive quelled la creaturas need to kill people

[namikiheights]

hey, asker of the web / light novel differences that was passed over to u the other day, thank u for all the things u brought up. i am curious to hear more about kiritos violence in particular bc that aspect always felt like it was missing smth which definitely checks with the information u gave. his dream sequence and battle w internalized guilt has always interested me but again it just felt like it wasnt quite all there. im also very curious about kyouji and since that seems to be ur area id love to hear u expand. i havent gotten to the phantom bullet lns cos im trying to catch up on progressive first and im a slow reader but the way hes portrayed in the anime just felt so ,,poorly written and overall bad?? like he just completely did a 180 and it never rlly made sense to me, i just assumed his character would be more coherent in the ln and they cut it out of the anime for time or whatever.

Thank you for sending the original ask, and thank you for sending this one!

The other violent thing about web novel Kirito IMO is specifically HOW he killed the Laughing Coffin members in the raid. In the web novel, he mentions that he had sort of… lost grip of what he was doing? I guess? And got really into the fight, thus actually slicing a Laughing Coffin member’s head clean off (not a stance or slash you would take or do if you were only fighting in self defense). He does say his anger and vengeance took over in the light novel, but I think the decapitation in the web novel came from another place in his heart. Perhaps the same place that led him to beat up and steal from his beta tester friend in-game.

As for Kyouji! This boy has gone through so much, changes wise. And, as a Kyouji stan, it is my duty to not hide the monster he used to be.

TW: Mentions of sexual assault, discussion of suicidal characters, suicide attempts, and suicide as a religious and literary trope

The easiest way to put it is this:

For the most part, both Kyoujis are the same. They are nerdy and runty, something that got them bullied. That led them to dropping out of high school, so they are angry of those who seem to have it better. This leads them to make Death Gun, something that both backs them into a corner and yet also gives them an opportunity to attempt shinjuu with Shino (will elaborate what this means later). Now to contrast them a little.

Web novel Kyouji:

-Mocks Sinon when she makes mistakes (laughs in her face)

-Seems to think of Shino as a doll (or, at the very least, gives Shino the idea that he thinks this way of her)

-Is so obsessed with Shino he refuses to talk about her to anyone else because that is how sacred she is to him (that he doesn’t even want her name in other peoples’ mouths!)

-Is partially sexually motivated (remember the scene where he lightly touches a picture of Sinon on his computer? In the web novel, he, uh… does the nasty to it)

-Actually killed someone (he didn’t just play the part of Death Gun in the game)

-Doesn’t feel remorse for doing so

Light novel Kyouji:

-None of that lol 😭

This is what I mean by just a few cut sentences can change a character entirely! Without him being aggressive and ruthless and misogynist and this possessive, he ends up being a good friend who is just a bit whiny sometimes. The removal of his sexuality also makes it so that his motives are entirely religious. It’s still wrong for him to force that on Shino, but I think there is a difference between a delusional boy who doesn’t realize what he’s actually doing and thinks he can save both himself and this girl he cherishes who actively thinks she’s going to Hell… and an asshole boy who is very much attracted to this girl and is using this as an opportunity to force himself on her (which he nearly does, Shino is almost entirely naked by the end of the web novel’s iteration of the scene, but she fights back and then Kirito saves the day).

Wait, hold on! Religious motivation?

Here comes the part where I explain what shinjuu is. Shinjuu means lover’s suicide, in which a couple take their own life together. The religious component is that shinjuu is specifically a Buddhist practice and, within that, a free ticket to Heaven.

Hold on! But Kyouji and Shino aren’t a couple!

They may not be, but they like each other. This is certain in the light novel, and sort of there in the web novel. Shino thinks to herself that she does like Kyouji and want to date him, but simply thinks her trauma would cause too many problems in their relationship. Kyouji knows this and accepts it.

But also probably gives him the idea that this shinjuu thing could actually work.

In Kyouji’s mind, and partially Shino’s, the two of them are fellow tormented souls (Shino with her PTSD, Kyouji just not wanting to be here anymore). With the added layer of Shino thinking she’s going to Hell for having killed someone (real line in the light novel!), shinjuu sounds perfect! And with the religious belief that there’s something after death as well as Kyouji’s own delusional mental state, the gravity of death disappears.

Okay, this sounds plausible. But the word shinjuu is only ever used in the Sachi side story! How do you know this is the intended reading of the murder suicide attempt scene?

Some more context on shinjuu now. It’s actually a trope, having its own subgenre known as shinjuumono (“love suicide story”). It was popularized in theater in the 1700s, when playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon wrote Sonezaki Shinjuu (The Love Suicides at Sonezaki). The format of shinjuumono is that there are two lovers (usually a merchant and a courtesan) who cannot be together (think Romeo and Juliet), so they decide the only way they can get their happy ending is in Heaven. A motif of the older theatrical shinjuumono is that they would have Buddhist chanting as part of the performance. Very religious indeed.

So, shinjuu is sort of a big deal in the creative world. It makes sense for an author who unabashedly pays tribute to his inspirations to include it. I’ve gone over how Kyouji and Shino’s story is particurly similar to Sonezaki Shinjuu in the past, so I won’t delve too much into it here. The point is that Kyouji’s murder suicide attempt is shinjuu.

Some smaller tidbits that point to that are the placement of Kyouji’s hands during the scene. He puts the syringe on Shino’s neck — not on her side like in the anime or manga, which pisses me off! — which is where the protagonist of the Sonezaki Shinjuu places his knife on his lover. Kyouji’s whole spiel about reincarnating into a better world is also Buddhist, and so is his reassurance that “I’ll carry you all into the mountains where nobody is, and then I’ll follow right after you. So wait for me once you’re there, okay?” The mountains are a place in the afterlife in Buddhism, and this sort of journey he speaks of is often poetically depicted and performed in shinjuumono classics.

But I digress. This is just me trying to make sense of what’s in Kyouji’s head as he does what he does. When it’s just this, without any sexual motives like in the web novel, it paints a more depressing tale rather than one of abuse and fear. But since the anime frames it in a more sexual way (as they always do) and ALSO cuts out Kyouji’s backstory (that he was bullied and extorted for money, that he isn’t doing well in cram school) and makes it seem like Shino never liked him…

Well, it’s almost like they reduced him to a shell of his web novel self instead of adapted his light novel self. He’s no longer a misguided boy in pain (who feels remorse for his actions, so much that he can’t speak at ALL, unlike his web novel counterpart who bragged about killing and only refused to talk about Shino), he’s a one dimensional creepazoid like all the others in the show. It’s a disservice, since the light novel went out of its way to take out the sexual assault whereas most of the other villains didn’t get theirs cut out (it almost seems like Kyouji specifically was edited that way… because they knew the character he COULD be, as opposed to the other villains who were too far gone).

And, man, I’m real sad about that! Because now my favorite character is just a meme, someone people barely remember anything about other than him screaming Shino’s name.

There’s a lot more I can say, but I think this covers a lot of it. I hope this helped you understand him more! If anyone wants to ask clarifying questions, please go ahead! I know it can be confusing to know which Kyouji I’m talking about sometimes, lol…

Thank you for reading!

[fuseboxspoilers]

hey everyone sorry for being mia but as you probably know there hasn’t been any leaked scripts but i decided to come on here and give my opinion on each character and if you have any questions i would be happy to answer them!

starting off with my main li this season:

alfie 💓 i love him so much but also hate him at the same time, he literally doesn’t know what or who he wants but i love him for it

kat: i like kat but she’s also a huge pain in my ass bc she loves spreading gossip a little too much

dana: i was down between dana or alfie for my first love route and i liked alfie just a little bit more but i don’t mind dana, i think she’s definitely one of the better written ones in my opinion

suresh: i fucking hate suresh i’m so sorry u guys, he is just so triggering to me and he’s so incredibly emotionally abusive i’m sorry to be that guy

eddie: he’s such a freak and definitely a misogynist but he’s cute i guess

finn: too hot for his own good, which results in bare minimum in personality

gabi: i like gabi but i can’t tell if she has any motives thatll fuck mc over, will probably play a route for her tho

arlo: i hated that they teased that she likes girls bc i would’ve gone for her if she wasn’t a crazy bitch that jumped down our throats with every glance

johnny/nicolas: i don’t even want to talk about them

pete: he’s boring to me, forgot about him tbh

meera: hate her, she loves to come off as the kind natured quiet girl but she’s literally so conniving

lulu: honestly like her way better than i expected, will probably play her route

all around i think that almost none of the characters are redeemable and i really hope fusebox gets their ducks in line and creates a better season for s6 (if they can even rally the support for that)

[umbreeonic]

why is this “"anti plaxance”“ discourse still going on oh my GOD

[likearecordbb]

about your post on the recent discourse...

it's honestly so confusing to me because like,, you say that ppl pointing out how members of this fandom will make neil very stereotypically 'feminine' is reinforcing the idea of 'masculinity' as one thing and 'femininity' as another.... and i get that we should get rid of these labels. but at the same time... the content itself that ppl are criticising (the ones that 'feminize' neil) are already doing just that. that's why they're criticising it.

i can't point out how ppl are reinforcing the idea that a relationship should have a 'man' and a 'woman', without... saying that that's what they're doing. the writer themselves already sees relationships this way and 'masculinity' and 'femininity' as two different distinct things. that's exactly *why* they're writing neil this way while keeping andrew close to canon.

there's nothing wrong with neil being stereotypically 'feminine' of course. but to act like it's somehow misogynistic for me to go to these ppl and be like 'hey, u shouldn't view mlm relationships through the lens of a hetero one! it can be very harmful' is weird to me... *especially* considering these stereotypes that ppl are pushing onto neil come from misogyny themselves. (ppl making neil much much more emotional than he is in canon while keeping andrew very stoic)

idk, like... ur simultaneously saying that we shouldn't view relationships as needing a 'man' and a 'woman'... while defending people who are doing just that and creating content which reinforces just that.

it's one thing to say 'we shouldn't view masculinity and femininity as two distinct and different things!'/'we should get rid of these labels all together cause they're meaningless'... but if i look at the content that u make/consume and it's practically, if not entirely, all andreil conforming to heternormative stereotypes... then i can't help but feel like ur not as detached from the idea of 'masculinity' and 'femininity' as u would like to believe... i trust the ppl who say these ideas are meaningless while not changing the canon characters because they seem to be sticking to their words.

people will just say that they prefer writing andreil is this heternormative way... they'll just say it what they like or what they're most comfortable writing without ever questioning *why* they prefer it this way.

and if they're projecting.. well then, *why* this couple? why pick an mlm couple to project what is often the experience of a cis woman in a relationship? why pick this mlm couple when there are others that do fit the stereotypical heternormative dynamic? idk. like,, u can do this ofc, but ppl can also call u out on ur shit.

there's an undeniable reason that neil is exclusively the one that ppl pick to make more stereotypically 'feminine'. and there's a reason this type of content is also so popular. and it's certainly not wrong to point this out.

You know, I can see all of these points that you're making. For me, the overall issue of this is very complicated. I am also super uncomfortable with the imposition of heteronormative roles onto...well, onto any relationship, regardless of the identities of the people who constitute it. I was raised smack dab in the middle of the gay community by lesbian moms (together 38 years now, jfc, can you imagine??), so that "man/woman" thing was never something that I grew up internalizing or normalizing. I can recognize that this may give me a bit too much of a sense of objectivity.

However, I'm also like...I've been ruined by grad school. The "feminizing" word makes me really uncomfortable because it starts to stray for me into gender essentialism territory. It also seems to foundationally differentiate between "masculine" behaviors and "feminine" behaviors and I just really hate that? Lesbian moms, trans daughter, bi (and late-in-life trying to see where on the ace spectrum I might fall) self, I've just met so many people with so many expressions of gender and sexuality and I just... Idk, I automatically resist anything that feels like it's upholding "masculinity" and "femininity" as real (as in, not constructed) things. And then I also am like, well, I've known SO MANY gay men who behaved in the ways that the discourse constructs as "feminized" and then I start to feel like, what about these men? Are they less 'men' because of it? How would it feel for that man to read these things saying his identity expression was a problem or a bad stereotype? Do I read *Neil Josten* within that context... no, not really. I think Neil has a 'not enough emotional expression' problem way before he has a 'too much emotional expression' problem.

I'll say here what I often say to my students in complex discussions: I don't have answers. I don't think I'm right and anyone else is wrong. I just have complicated thoughts and feelings and concerns about some of the things that sometimes seem to be left uninterrogated.

So, I do 100% get the need to be vigilant about the imposition of a "man" (dominant, emotionally constipated, sexually driven, stoic) role and "woman" (emotional, needy, teary, dependent) role onto relationships with two (or more!) men or women. I would also argue that we need to get rid of that idea in hetero relationships, too, because it's super damaging. I just wish we could find a way to talk about that that didn't feel like it was accepting this idea of femininity as a given? And I definitely agree that it's problematic when the 'bottom' in a relationship is depicted as the one who's soft and silly and weepy. (Have you read TJ Klune's Tales from Verania series? A VERY fun world that does that not at all and it's great). I'm not saying these things are not worth confronting--I'm just really uncomfortable with the way the conversations are often framed around a concept of femininity/feminizing. It feels like shrapnel, I guess? Like, 'ugh stop feminizing Neil he's not weepy and uwu he's a badass' feels inherently to me like it's making femininity and badassery mutually exclusive? Maybe I'm just looking for a caveat or footnote in the argument that acknowledges that that is constructed *for women too*? And is a part of, like, a larger heteronormative patriarchal structure? And not something that we can just all obviously agree is the way the ladies (should?) behave?

One other question I've been dying to ask, though, is: where are these fics? I don't think I've ever read something where Neil is crying over Jack being mean to him or anything. Maybe if I start to see hints of that characterization, I just close the tab and never end up getting to the 'worst' of it?

Although, if what you said earlier about the "content that u make/consume and it's practically, if not entirely, all andreil conforming to heternormative stereotypes..." was referring to me, then... idk what to say to that. I don't think that's what I do. The heteronormative relationship that you're describing isn't one that I enjoy, desire for myself (or anyone else), or have any interest in reproducing.

Does this clarify what I'm trying to say? I guess it's a really long way of saying, in the old insufferable grad school tradition: well, first we have to define our terms. Because I'm not sure we're all coming up with the same thing when we use the word "feminizing" and that probably has a lot to do with why we keep having this exact same conversation over and over and over again.

If I missed any specific point you'd like to pick at in more detail, please let me know--my very sad platonic life partner (who had to put her beloved 15-year-old poodle to sleep yesterday) and her mom are waiting for me to drive them to the stores for a distraction, so I'm feeling a little time pressure.

[nikethestatue]

Hey before that i just want to say that i love your post so much like most of the things that only stay in my head are beautifully and really well written by you.

Okay i know Elain is well hated in the acotar fandom and the most reason when i see why people don’t ship Elriel is because they dont like/hate Elain. You know what that is pretty understandable and i can respect that. But it make my blood boils when they try to justify their ship by giving misogynistic arguments. Like can i have one argument from them that doesn’t result with Elain’s womb/ Elain’s worthiness of Az/ Elain’s boring/ Elain’s a bitch.

When u said that all women can make a difference.. it is true.. but this fandom only recognised fighting females are worthy for their stories to be told. They don’t want Elain to be a MC because till this day there are still people that refuse to believe that Elain could actually killed the king. Also things like Az deserve someone like Gwyn/ Az deserve better. This heavily implies that a woman like Elain have lower rank than women like Aelin/feyre/gwyn

I love Elain because at some level i could actually relate to her ( likes cooking, gardening, a softie,be a zombie post break up). Thats why i want to read a story abt a woman whom embrace femininity able to save her court and love ones/ could be with the man that everyone love/ could be seen as strong as those woman who hold swords. I WANT TO SEE A DIFFERENT KIND OF STRENGTH SO THAT PEOPLE THAT RELATES TO ELAIN COULD ALSO FEEL EMPOWERED.

Elain’s story deserves to be told.. Elain’s deserve the title kingslayer.. Elain deserve to be with Azriel

Firstly, thank you so much! This is very kind.

it is interesting, isn't it that people sort of treat Elain this way, when hers is the most relatable of all stories?!

Maybe people don't want to read about themselves? I don't really understand, but everything about Elain is completely relatable. Particularly to women.

Elain was ignored by a parent, and kind of pointlessly adored by another (it's good to be liked by a parent, but I feel like her father also kind of liked the idea of her, and didn't actually give her any kind of a foundation to stand on, which is in line with his character in general).

She was infatuated by a first love.

Dumped, brutally.

Had her autonomy and decision-making taken from her.

Probably suffers from something akin to body-dysmorphia now.

Emotionally, psychologically and physically assaulted/her body torn away from her and completely changed without her consent.

Had something completely unwanted, like a bond, thrust upon her.

And I can go on and on and on. And all females, at least to some degree, in some way have experienced very similar things. Yet, she is so hated. Because her reactions are normal. Because 99.7% of us would react the same way. If someone thinks that they'd just easily and automatically know how to grow potatoes and cabbages--please, go ahead. Grow ONE. And see how easy it is. Is everyone just always so thoughtful and kind to your siblings? Never take advantage of them? Never act selfishly? Never think only of yourself?

I think Elain is a mirror. She is the Ouroboros.

And I guess we don't like what we see.

And I think there was a reason why it was Elain who killed the king. Why that long story of Nephelle and the Nephelle philosophy was told. Don't underestimate women. Even if they seem weak and quiet. They have just as much strength in them as the strongest of men. That's why the 2 greatest Illyrians and the most powerful High Lord in history adopted the Nephelle Philosophy as theirs.

Is Aelin necessarily stronger than Yarne and Elide--I am not so sure.

I think Elain's story will surprise, and readers will appreciate her.

[menalez]

she password protected her blog after baselessly calling me a pedo AGAIN and yet the women criticising her statements are the ones being ~petty~ and ~vicious~ and her misogynistic statements are somehow fine and her guilt tripping and saying she should commit suicide over ppl criticising her lesbophobia, misogyny, and racism is somehow like. Enlightened over other women, who are petty and bad and whatever

is it that hard to say “hey im sorry for accusing u of being a pedophile over stuff u reblogged at 15 years old”? i guess so. it’s easier to threaten others with suicide like a manipulative narc (which ofc, she accused OTHERS of being that)

[princesskuragina]

Analyzing Hélène's horrible horrible costumes in BBC War and Peace in no order whatsoever

they’re just so bad

Opening scene

Okay. I’m starting off on a good note. I actually like this dress. I think it’s pretty. From a costume design standpoint, she looks elegant, and very much like a grecian statue. Antique beauty was ALL the rage in this period, the fact that she kind of looks like she’s literally wearing a chiton kind of works for her. She is this marble woman, but she’s also very young, and I like that she’s in white (both fashionable and also adds to Pierre’s romanticizing of her). Is this dress historically accurate? No. But I think this is a decent example of historical influence over absolutely strict historical accuracy. Unfortunately it’s all downhill from here.

Vassily Kuragin uses his real life daughter to play The Sims

This is giving me serious reign energy, or at best downton abbey. She wears a square neckline for once, but other than that I have nothing to say. That wimpy little cross necklace is weird, she’s not a 13 year old at horse camp.

Scarlet letter headass

I think I know what they’re going for here. Hélène wears this when she meets Dolokhov, she’s about to cheat on her husband, so she’s in this dark red, low cut gown. Draped details. Very evil. I like the color. Could be worse! However the need to modernize her cleavage is getting on my nerves. Compare to this as a possible alternative:

Jewel tones! V neck! Showing chemise/fabric meant to look like a chemise feels very suggestive and almost like a regency era illusion neckline. I just think Hélène could’ve benefited from a little less ~~modern sensibility~~

Roasting the shit out of Pierre

This costume was clearly designed with “how evil and slutty can we make this woman look” in mind. It looks like bad fashionnova lingerie. We’re veering into personal taste, but I almost think she’d be more impactful if she looked very put together, here. Pierre comes stumbling in and she’s there, all made up and elegant, ready to scold him? That’s so much better. But if u want to keep her in her underwear, you can do better than this.

Anatole enabler

I have no idea what the fuck this is. I can’t even pretend to understand this one. She looks like a loofah.

Seducing Natasha or whatever

This screencap is at 3% health and so am I because fucking hate this outfit. The weird cuffs on the spencer, the vampire collar, the INSISTENCE on a deep v, the fact that it looks like she’s not even wearing a decent modern bra much less a pair of stays but we’re supposed to believe everyone is just madly in love with her tits, the COLOR SCHEME. The one and only thing I can say to the defense of this is that she is actually wearing a “high necked purple velvet gown” in this scene in the book, and maybe that’s what they’re going for?? Basically if I were Natasha I would not be impressed.

I bet you’ll never guess what happens to the sexy woman at the end of this novel written by a dead misogynist!

She dies! Thank god am I right can’t have that evil succubus surviving. Anyways this is not her worst dress. I get why she’s in white and I like it—she looks very young and very helpless, out of her usual dark reds and purples, it’s a purity thing, as she is actively being driven to suicide for being ~impure~. This is also the reason I can maybe excuse a grown woman with her hair down, it makes her look younger. I have no idea why this is hitched up over her tits in this bit but if she pulled it down it might look like a sort of early regency, 1790s vibe. Her body is very much on display and I think that’s a smart choice, like they can all see straight through her and her weird flimsy tissue paper dress (that she’s definitely not wearing any sort of proper petticoat or stays under, but hey, that’s too much to expect). Plus just the visual interest of bright red blood against white. I get it!

The Opera

She looks nice and apparently that’s the most we can hope for.

Whatever the hell this scene is I don’t know I haven’t watched the show in a while

I think the meets boris here? In any case she’s being a Big Society Woman and she’s in this weird chiffon prom dress. Still no stays. Weirdly reminiscent of Natasha’s horrible babydoll ball gown she wears when she dances with Anatole, which I suppose might be on purpose? That’s all I can say in defense of whatever this kmart spring formal nonsense is

[incarnateirony]

i think there’s a distinction that needs to be made. i think those with power over dabb & co are the ones who are exuding more habits of queerbaiting, while dabb and co aren’t. and because those execs are more or less invisible, the blame/fault is put on dabb as he’s the perceived figurehead of everything in the show when he’s not. anything he may want to put in the show can be easily vetoed by a higher exec so

Okay so I said I wouldn’t touch related issues facing wanky-side, but while this runs the line this is such a genuine, and valid thought process it feels worth addressing.

So in short: Yes. But no. But yes. But no. But we’ll see.

What do I mean by that? I’m going to put this behind a cut. But first of all I want to thank this Nonnie for at least trying to critically think about where the problems lead to. This is FAR BETTER CRITICAL THINKING than I see in this discussion most of the time and this. More like this. Nuance, discussion, idea trade, history. Let’s do it.

Okay, so.

How can it be yes no yes no maybe eenie meenie miney mo?

Because it really depends on what part of this 15 year legacy show we’re talking about.

What I’m about to say isn’t going to be popular, but I’ve said it before, I just can’t find the ancient ass post discussing it.

We’re going to rewind. Like, a fucking lot. A lot, a lot. This is going to be a history ride, and you’re probably going to wonder how it connects to the conversation at first, but bear with me.

Ignoring any personal frustrations I have with the casting of season 4 – frankly a chapter of this FUCKING show that haunts me somewhere in the ballpark of, “If my friend wasn’t dismissed as not white enough and got the role, would we have Misha, Destiel, any of this, would the show be on, would she have been chased off as the other actresses?” – and frankly these are the things people don’t even fucking *think* about.

TLDR a bajillion years ago CW made a casting call and we got this super cute character named Anna that Dean was slated to bend over in two seconds flat, as old canon used to be before modernly growing. The actress expressed discomfort, and frankly went over with the audience about as well as wet cardboard. And like, while I agree that a lot of women were hated for misogynistic reasons in this show, she really was about as interesting as a plank of plywood to me once she got past her first performance or two.

At the same time, this handsome bastard named Misha Collins auditioned for a bit role originally intended for 3 episodes and quickly extended to 6. But, identified as lightning in a bottle and with on-fire chemistry, while Anna waffled for *several* reasons, summarily, their story ends swapped. That’s… not like *exactly* what happened but it’s *basically* what happened. Anna became the herald and contagonist instead of Cas, and Cas quite frankly took on the role of the goddess.

With Lisa already entered before Anna, there’s no evidence whatsoever she was intended as endgame. Story flip. Thank you for everything last night on earth fall by angel banishing almost like this was foreshadowed woohoo! But… don’t lend towards a relationship. No point. Given, they made a few jokes on set at that point, but it wasn’t really an idea *they thought anyone took seriously*. 

Coming from a phase where most of the leads were introduced to “slash fandom” by Wincest, which they literally used to torture and prank each other, the idea of this being anything serious really wasn’t on their radar. The one I remember most was Misha choosing to sit on Dean’s side of the bed as Cas in the famous “What were you dreaming about?” and Sgriccia being like “that’s kinda gay” “nah keep it”

I mean, is that… queerbait at that point? I don’t think it’s fair to really call it that. They respectfully tried to scrub out the leading romantic edges from what would have been Anna’s story, but ultimately, the human psyche kind of recognizes 8000 years of storytelling history subconsciously when using the Hero’s Journey narrative, so it was resonant. Nobody was crazy for seeing it. That didn’t mean it was right, that didn’t mean it’s what they were consciously leading anyone for.

Hell, Jensen didn’t even know what the fuck Destiel WAS until season 7 (”Deathstiel?”) due to the way cons, circuits, and fansites kept the conversation force-muted at that point. Anything they had floated somewhere in the area of “hah that is kinda gay I guess”, and even that there’s no evidence of being frequent.

Kripke left, the show petered, social media was new, and summarily, Sera Gamble was a dumbass and listened to the wrong crowd that seemed super big back when big accounts were a whole 10K followers and you had 50 asshats screaming as a coordinated group about Ruining The Show™. Ratings tanked, somewhere between Misha being fired and the show turning into a parody of itself with dick jokes that made it seem like Gamble was trying to target 11 year old boys for her audience, and like, that’s it, that was the season. 

Until that nosedive spiral essentially turned into a shorthand apology reversal, a panicked and roughly written script that was *SO GAY* that *EVEN MISHA FUCKING COLLINS* couldn’t seriously choke out the dialogue. It was cheap, it was out of character, and as Jensen put it, the dialogue might as well have had him petting and sobbing into Castiel’s coat while essentially being like I SLEEP WITH YOUR COAT EVERY NIGHT TO REMEMBER YOUR SCENT UWU and shit that just LITERALLY vaulted from alien fascinated staring into desperate teenage gay drama in the body of a 30 year old man.

So yeah. Did I consider it reasonable to change that? Fuck yes I did. 

Was what Sera Gamble did queerbait? Yes, actually. And she did it again in the Magicians. You see, Gamble had fucked over an audience, and then tried to exploit that audience in reverse when she realized she fucked over the *wrong* audience, but had zero intent of fulfillment.

And then magically, Sera Gamble didn’t fucking work there anymore after a whole like, year and a half as showrunner.

Now, at the same time, Dawn Ostroff was leaving the CW. Jensen’s had some pretty fierce words about Dawn Ostroff not understanding the show and how to manage it, but whatever. Bye, Dawn. Hello… MARK FUCKING PEDOWITZ. But at the same time, WELCOME BACK CARVER and most of all HOWDY DO NETFLIX, so nice to make a guaranteed deal with you (that ended as of this year due to a CBS merchandising meltdown).

When Carver came back, he said a lot of things. He… very tactfully called Gamble’s era trash by phasing it like “:) Watching the show :) since I left :) I realized :) a lot of our mythology :) has been difficult to follow :) so I went :) back to basics :) please help”, and others, like mentioning he had a three year plan on his desk. So 3. Season 8, 9, 10. He had notes for his S10 finale in mind and everything! Great stuff.

Now the fandom, at this point, generally didn’t pay attention to the network or production. In fact, the actor worship around here is some other kind of wild and I don’t know how after 15 years people haven’t figured out that it isn’t how to go about paying attention. Either way – plot switches, showrunner switches, author switches, and NETWORK LEADERSHIP SWITCHES. 

Now, this little part here is speculation – but I am 99% sure that when Carver was pulling SPN out of the cancellation toilet, he had bigger things to inform the new execs about than “btw I might make it gay.” Like “Hey, since CW just got its netflix deal, if you give us another year we can import fresh demographic while bringing back Collins’ old fanbase by setting him back as a regular.” SURE, SOUND GREAT, MAKE MONEY, THX.

Cool. Cool. Make sense so far, you still with me?

Because at this point, S8 into early S9, fandom had gotten itself into all kinds of a stir. It was about to go canon, rite nao, said a bunch of bloggers, who at that point WERE pretty much chasing wallpapers and Tshirts and making the most bizarre uncorroborated parallel interpretations like “IF U PARALLEL IT TO MOBY DICK-” WHAT WHY WHERE– ??? BUT cAS = fISH

Okay, my fucking annoyance at what counted as lit crit in those days aside, we’ll get back on track. Everybody started vibrating for this shit because, you know what, S8 did resonate pretty strong, almost like authors were toying with ideas. I’m not gonna get into stuff about Robbie, I THINK fandom knows the statements he’s made and I don’t just mean the whole Destiel being canon tweet both antis and bitters descended on him to eviscerate him about. About what? Calling it queerbait!

So here we go, the great advent. About a year after a dramatic network shift, a CW exec was like :))))))))) I’D LIKE TO LEARN ABOUT THIS FANDOM THAT IS SUDDENLY MAKING ME MONEY!! WHAT SHOULD I DO??? TO TWITTER! HASHTAG TALK TO THEM!

[logs in]

Beep boop. “Destiel?”  “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” the FUCK is a Destiel? Wait what no I don’t know what you’re talking about representation isn’t our intention with these characters. “QUEERBAIT”  “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT”

And then the network exec got so slammed he deleted twitter entirely and everybody popped confetti and felt accomplished and did NOT realize how fucking BAD that was. And frankly, anyone that did kinda didn’t want to admit it, because taking responsibility for that tire fire was… not… attractive. In fact, several folks are still around to this day, bitter blogging or making weirdass meta or accusing other people of wallpapers and Tshirts because that’s what they did so *YAY, PROJECTION!*

My own frustrated bitterness aside, I’m going to place some questions down, and not so much answer them as, now that the reader has really taken history in, let them decide:

At this point… is this queerbait?

Because this is when the queerbait yelling began. It’s when every fan with even a moderate platform or site blasted it out there. 

It’s when the fandom made DeanCas a big problem.

And it’s also literally the same time Carver left his very first recorded, known direction with a romantic tilt, “The note I got from Jeremy Carver was to play it like a jilted lover, so that’s what we played there,” on LGBT author Bobo berens’ very first episode. Everyone runs circles around that modernly, or goes “SEE??? QUEERBAIT!” without realizing what the FUCK just happened here.

So, SPN went from cancel rating line to their most successful show between 7 and 9. Suddenly corporate sees their successful product *ON FUCKING FIRE* so do you know what happens?

Fuck it this IS one line I’ll break: Corporate panicked. They changed their press packets. If you noticed a bunch of media-adjacent people and their friends suddenly get bitter as FUCK in season 10 after still surviving the S9 mess, here’s fucking why. Because now that everybody spent the last YEAR trying to burn down the product yelling about shit that corporate had been literally blindsided by, they added temporarily a new section to the packet that included sexuality. They were, at that moment, suddenly listed collectively as heterosexual men. SEE, WE AREN’T QUEERBAITING IF WE TELL YOU THEY’RE STRAIGHT *will smith pose*

Congrats fandom, you have now officially made Destiel A Huge Problem™ to the corporate behemoth behind the shiny pictures. The iron curtain dropped. This is what you could call “Protect the Product Mode” if you will. 

Now again, at this point: Is it queerbait?

Because at this point, S9-10 was rolling out. We all know it, Cain, Collette, *gestures off into infinity* But let’s fall back to Carver’s statement. 3 years. 8, 9, 10. You know what else happened season 10?

A bunch of shit, including shit Carver *wrote himself for the season 10 finale* got filmed, then cut. Coincidentally, it was all very gay shit. Things that pulled forward the Crowley/Abaddon Cas/Colette Sam/Abel parallels, arguing over who was who’s boyfriend, Rowena mentioning about them both being shattered at the Altar of Winchester (15.3 is calling), the secret admirer dream, I could go on. I mean, this shit literally would have shifted the entire storytelling arc to full-frontal taking that  parallel and addressing it right up in your face. First you’ll kill your mistress but you’ll get it done, and then you’ll kill your wife. He’s your boyfriend no he’s YOUR boyfriend. You’ve BOTH been shattered at the Altar of Winchester. Really, this is what you dream about? Your secret admirer Cas?

K? K. K?

Is it queerbait for Carver to have entered with a plan? Is it queerbait for Carver to have been interrupted on that plan despite attempting to pursue it? And is it queerbait for the network to still lock down on that plan so close after the event?

You see why this conversation gets increasingly complex.

S11 rolled around, Carver was half in half out, Dabb was stepping in, big gay heart songs, take what you will out of that entire mess, and by S12 Dabb entirely took over and we started entering the era we are in today.

So let’s address where we’re at today. 

Now :) I can’t say anything for sure :) because anybody that’s been to or worked on marketing stuff definitely has an NDA :) but let’s play for a minute. Let’s say with the stone wall up, a set of creators still wanted to actually *go somewhere* with this story. 

“But!” remembered the network, “Remember the tire fire?! And all the people that hated the gay?! What about our profit?!”

“No,” a creator might say, “Tides have changed.”

“We’ll see,” a network might say, “Take it to market testing.” At which point, one would enter a few years of polling how the general audience reacts to this.

Now, if they were seeing promising numbers, they might be given a bit of rope. Why, let’s … just pretend. Totally. Totally pretending. That Dabb pitched this idea to take up Carver’s mantle. Let’s say that started S12ish when he took over. Let’s say they ran through hiatus. And then… authors might be given a little bit of a line. “Looks good, but we’re not sure,” said a network quite fond of its split conservative/liberal demographic, “Try it out a bit and see how it goes.”

And so an author room that would be full of LGBT creators fed out good faith groundwork. They might even be like YALL ITS NEVER TOO LAAAAAATE TO START ALL OVER AGAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN and just throw their whole boy howdy cowboy into that shit and get great ratings.

What if even if the results came back positive leaning, the network ho’ed and hummed and stayed noncommital? Might the creators scale it back while still writing it lowkey just in case they got flashed a greenlight? I know I sure would, woudn’t you?! Or I guess would you prefer we drop the whole thing cold and stop writing anything vaguely in the direction?

Difficult question, in reality, isn’t it?

So in this TOTALLY HYPOTHETICAL SITUATION, this leaves the authors holding the bag, waiting for a sign, and being held with limitations. And just in case anybody thinks “BUT AUTHORS CAN DO WHATEVER THEY WANT!! AND!! OTHER SHOWS!!!”

K have we come down to reality yet? So, sure kids, try the gay, we’re interested, but you can’t like, go Full Gay Frontal with it. You gotta imply the gay. Wouldn’t want to offend conservative america! Besides! We’re totally exploiting marketing making this LGBT content for you over here! *jingles a carrot on a stick* LOOK AT HOW MUCH WE’RE FLEECING ADVERTISING PROMOTING ALL THIS GAY STUFF FOR YOU AREN’T THE RAINBOWS GREAT?

Some creator of limited LGBT content: How’s the marketing looking?

Some network: EH! We’ll see!

Some creator of limited LGBT content: K guys we’ll scale it back to not upset them but don’t drop it.maybe we can have them hold hands at the end or if we’re lucky maybe they’ll say we can do the whole thing

Some LGBT creators: K

Making sense still? STILL WITH ME?

So at this point… is this queerbait, or is this business?

Put aside the emotional reaction. Realize this really only hit scale in S9, hit front line S10, and hit potential corporate discussion in this TOTALLY theoretic universe around S11-12. We’re talking 3-4 years. Not 10. And we’re talking only a few of it really being tested.

So again I ask, history minded: Is this queerbait, or is this business?

That’s where the nuance and complication comes in, and let it be said I am in no way defending the CW. I fucking hate the network. They have literally personally screwed over real friends of mine and I hope they choke on a whole bag of dicks with their bullshit, but honestly, the shit I have seen and heard would make people stick their heads in the sand like scared and ashamed ostriches for every time they trumpet “BUT OTHER SHOWS” – you don’t know what’s going on in those shows. You don’t know how they’re getting hardballed on budget decisions, you don’t know what that show’s marketed demographic is about, you don’t know what they demand cast how, you literally don’t have a fucking idea unless you’re up in that disaster zone.

And even IF you’re in that disaster zone, unless you’re truly in the upper echelon, you only know so much.

Now let’s pretend, again, totally metaphorically, and absolutely not inspired by a real person at all, that someone worked with the crew for a while and, because they saw support inside creeping upward siiiiince mmmm gosh we’ll say season 12 since that’s our advent and totally not when anybody specific started working there and telling fandom ladder fans what they thought they saw going on, only to get sad and bitter and angry and eventually leave, and all those friends, still abiding old bitterness from S9~, now get angrier because of somebody else’s burnout on their ITK level and perspective, even if that was *probably* aggravated by other work stress conditions as well, but hey! WHO KNOWS!?!?! :)))) What a weird hypothetical though and I’m getting weirdly super specific on it aren’t I so LET’S MOVE ON.

We’re in S12-13 discussion category now.

So my question is, from this perspective… when do you call queerbait? When not swept up in misguided hysteria… at what point do you say “Yeah, you know what, yup, that’s all queerbait”?

So we’re gonna take a bit of a break here for a second and really process all of that hypothetical world, where a creator pitched going for it, and got it put into market testing, and was given enough rope to hang themselves on if the network changed its mind.

After only a few years of conscious thought on it… do you even think the network is truly consciously misguiding specifically those fans, or do they see it as giving the fans something they want while testing the idea of possibly truly giving it to them?

Because here’s what fandom misses – the corporate perspective. And again, I’m utterly not fucking justifying the CW as a whole, but people look at this from the angle of fans, and then argue what they think is representative dialogue from the angle of fans, often while missing all of this history. All that history up till S9? That’s all very real.  But looking at history in perspective… who are you going to blame for that? Is it fair to hold S4-9 to that five year stretch of queerbait when that was… pretty much fandom manufactured from blissful ignorance to begin with? I mean if you want to go yell at Sera Gamble Specifically okay (please don’t) but beyond that like– that shit? Is that anybody’s fault? Do you blame a company for actually shutting DOWN the talk of it on a press angle? Can we call that and S10 queerbait then? Was Carver’s attempt at writing through it queerbait? Was trying to continue the story in S11 after theoretic shutdown queerbait? These are all genuine questions that are not asked enough. Most people don’t even realize they need to be asked.

So back to Totally Theoretic Land, where S12ish market testing would have been going on to see if people really thought it was Gay N Shit. Like a lot of people in an overwhelming majority after the amount of apprehension the straight old dude running the network has ever since the goddamn tornado of horse shit that happened like a year after he took over. Probably not the fondest fucking memory for him either. Probably also why he dismissively called most of that demographic “casual fans”, because in Smug White Guy Brain, “tru” fans would have all known, I guess, exactly the shit I’m telling you in history backtrack so, look at the silly girls wanting the gay shit :) Ahhhh girlllllls

Okay so, my impression of douchebags aside, let’s give it 12-13 hiatus to give the first test rope lead and 13-14 hiatus for the next, only to have at best noncommital and uncertain numbers and authors, theoretically, cautiously pulling back while writing it as generally established and implicit, as if it might, I don’t know, go from BIG GAY DRAMA to DEADASS DOMESTIC all of a sudden despite ITS NEVER TOO LATE TO START ALL OVER AGAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN cuz get it, they started over, after he came in his room and played him. *elbows* You all get it right?

K. So maybe numbers changed. Maybe they don’t. Maybe I’m not comfortable talking in this hypothetical, maybe I don’t have access to this hypothetical AU’s current marketing data as of this year, I just don’t know! We don’t know where those cards fell.

But if, at this point, after 2-3 years of market testing, and leading authors on, and giving them enough rope to hang themselves with to get themselves accused of queerbait just for trying to lay good faith groundwork for a cohesive narrative, because fans don’t care that 2 open closet LGBT authors are on deck or that there’s totally theoretically probably and in no way fingering anyone at least one closeted author on deck, or at least publicly so, their coworkers would probably know. But I mean. That’s just. :) statistics. Right?

K whatever moving on. If at this point they’ve been boggley bounced around… you know, I gotta say. At this point… I might actually call queerbait if the network stonewalls it. At this point, they’ve had a few years to really get their shit together, and if they’ve just used it to play yo yo with LGBT creators trying to make content then yeah, go suck a whole bag of dicks.

The problem being with the lack of nuance in this conversation, you’re right, Dabb and co would catch it rather than the guilty party, which is why I HATE faux activism culture. If you’re going to be an activist pay the fuck attention to what you’re being an activist in, don’t bite the hand that’s feeding you just because it was a PBJ and not filet mignon, go after the bastard 1%’er that’s eating all the goddamn filet mignon. But nobody will. It never works like that. And then everybody wonders why this continues – be it in this show, or on other networks.

But hey. Maybe this theoretic network got enough material to change their mind. Maybe another executive got promoted that might help one of the other creators argue it to corporate with their new shiny title. Maybe they can convince someone. Convince them of what and to what level, who knows. Maybe just continue telling the established story, give them a divorce, mention marriage, divorce, dead wives, breakups every 0.2 seconds while they go through a classically framed dark point in the romance everybody with brains and eyes understands because, again, historic storytelling we literally all recognize, but pretend we don’t when stomping about personal representation lines? Or hey! Maybe it’ll go further. (Don’t hold your breath.) Throw in some other shit that even a straight guy would look at and be like “two dicks one chick that shit’s gay bro” because WE LITERALLY ALL FUCKING KNOW WHAT IT MEANS EVEN IF IT’S IMPLIED BECAUSE THE NETWORK IS A BUNCH OF PUSSIES.

…*stops, breathes*

If you can’t tell this is a very long term topic of frustration to me, because nobody, absolutely nobody, wants to introspect and think, you know, maybe it wasn’t queerbait back then, maybe we SHOULDN’T have set a corporate exec on fire about it, that might have been fucking bad.

There are other ways to be an activist than to scream queerbait into the void at whoever is unfortunate enough to cross your paths. One of the best examples I can remember is Exorcising Emily collecting demographics on fandom, and testimonials from LGBT fans about resonating with the content – no fanfic, no fanart, no attacks – and sent copies of this to several powerful creative names.

Now… if with this history… if, from season 9 to 12… one of those names became a creator. If, by some FLUKE of imagination… he still had that book around… and even gave it to his freshly joined new employees like 2 weeks after they started working there–

oh wait and i oop

The mentions would be much as you expect, antis screaming and demanding her job (QUICK, somebody tell Andrew Dabb that she’s READING ANDREW DABB’S OWN BOOKS THAT HE CHOSE TO KEEP AROUND FOR THREE YEARS).

Has Dabb’s era seemed… more plugged in? More resonant? Better and stronger in its storytelling? More hooked into fandom? 

See, that’s what well thought activism can do. Well thought activism can structure an entire movement. Poorly thought rioting thinking itself as activism can cause the literal opposite effect of what it wanted. That is how these things contrast each other. And that is something fandom needs to DEEPLY consider. 

…but is it queerbait for him to try to continue the story? Even if, say, we drop the marketing talk, because TOTALLY nobody can ACTUALLY know because AGAIN anyone that DOES would have an NDA so we DEFINITELY can’t say anybody knows anything for sure, because anyone that said jack shit would probably get sued so hard their descendents down in whatever homo superior evolution 1000 years into the future would feel it, so you know. We’ll put aside this totes theoretical shit and ask

…If he just was told no– would you prefer to just drop the storyline entirely at this point?

Again. Genuine question. And difficult. And something poorly thought queerbait screaming can actually cause, too. 

So here we are in the land of the final season. Whether you consider it network queerbait or not – again, they can choke on the whole bag of dicks at a network level for all I care for ANY number of reasons, even well beyond the domain of Supernatural, and may all their bacon burn from here into the next life – it’s a lot more complicated than fandom has ever let it on to be, because letting it on to be what it really is, in full perspective, also demands a lot of introspection and acceptance, and we all know nobody in this fandom can ever make a mistake ever and they’re all fucking perfect darlings.

It’s a complicated answer to a simple idea… and unfortunately I don’t think this fandom will ever really sit here. They’ll yell “VICTIM BLAMING” because it’s buzzy, they’ll yell “HIDING YOUR GAYS” which I mean, yeah, but let’s talk about what led us here. They’ll yell a lot of things. But they will rarely quietly think, and study, and hone down to what’s going on in the world out there beyond what they have, at this point, become obsessively hotlocked on. 

Supernatural, as of 15.7, has already taken several steps further than it ever is before. No, that’s not a signal of me saying [Your Personal Goalpost] is going to happen. But it’s a sign that if they have a line, they’re testing it with every strength they have.

Going back onto the Fateful Advent: Cain. The mentor– who was never going to stop; I can’t stop samuel; he was never going to stop; I will never stop; Rowena, the mentor, never going to stop, shattered, at the altar of Winchester. Long ago, when Cas was human, Dean sealed him away, and now, he’s doing the same to him. So Shirt Of Bad Decisions Deanmon basically karaokes with his friend like the Crowley days, REPEATING the Crowley dialogue but infinitely harder to dodge, as if some sort of calculated method of cat’s cradle of How To Write The Gay was discussed. Man, whoever wrote that kind of shit would probably even publicly thank whatever big gay mastermind helped them map out THAT level of stuff. Wouldn’t it be funny if most of that shit had been written by a gay dude that’s still around and it’s still popping back up in the show louder and harder to dodge than before? That’d be fuckin’ wild, man. Oh, fucking WAIT.

And this is why I hate the way shipping culture thinks it’s doing activism. Most of the time it’s cosplaying as an activist and at this point it’s become more of a furry convention than it has any kind of organized rights movement. Nobody’s out here fighting for the rights of these LGBT authors this year, nobody’s helping them get a voice, and in fact, often scream at them or bury what voice they’ve had as not enough.

And I want to fix it.

Desperately.

And frankly, I don’t know how anymore.

But what we’re not talking about is some 3-5 year show that came in early and started intentionally fucking at you. We’re looking at happy coincidences, so let’s check with our gay king, the father of Wayward that everybody coincidentally accepted as canon with far less because of a (meaningful) third party line DeanCas had elsewhere but hey it didn’t have antis so suddenly it counts; let’s check with him about that.

That’s my king. That’s my king that wrote the first recorded episode to be intentionally directed as jilted lovers. My king that gav eus Colette. My king that gave us the mixtape. My king that gave us the PR framed breakup. My king that gave us Cas leaving Dean. That’s my King. That’s my gay king who has been fighting his ass off, only to be hung out to dry by a fandom that doesn’t even care to look where or how to scream, or maybe consider that perhaps screaming isn’t the option.

Is he yours yet? Have I broken through to a single soul on this?

That’s my king who wrote about the necessary evils in 2003, before the youngest in this fandom were born and while many were still in diapers or kindergarten; about the unfortunate necessary evils that he loathes and acknowledges about moderate queer content gaining exponential amounts of platform compared to whatever is considered hardline aggressive at the time, about how that incrementalization is what helped our media landscape evolve to this day.

And he isn’t wrong.

And he’s getting roasted for doing just that.

And I really wish I could just psychically make everyone fucking stop.

But I will say one thing.

“It’s network queerbait!” I mean

Yeah

That

Because… realistically? like 99% of modern queer content is queerbait, even stuff with canon queer content.

ESPECIALLY on the CW.

If you’ve noticed CW panicking the last year and trying to slap rainbows and DARE TO DEFY on everything, it’s because their entire fucking ecosystem just got fucked over by CBS wanting 100% merchandising profit like it already took 100% digital profit and Netflix was basically like “miss us with your bullshit” and broke the CW contract which was *HOW PEDOWITZ BANKROLLED MOST OF HIS NETWORK*. Now? Now CW has to carve a niche. So LOOK AT ALL THE FUCKING PRIDE COLORS ON– OUR– STRAIGHT–CHARACTERS??? BUT WE HAVE GAY ONES LIKE LEGENDS OF TOMORROW AND *flips notes* THAT SIDE CHARACTER LESBIAN ON SPN. 

*gets a whisper* What they killed her? Shit. Maybe bring her back. AND THERE’S THIS PERSON OVER ON JANE THE VIRGIN oh that just got cancelled uhhh VAMPIRE DI-wait fuck. Well we’ll just make one of the chicks in this shitty charmed reboot CBS just forced down our throat and killed Wayward over, that’ll fix it *jazz hands*

TV is a business. Businesses make money. The entire LGBT battle is basically us industriously proving we can make money. It’s about rights and visibility on our end, but on their end it is *always* about money and I really don’t think anybody really groks what that really means. 

So “it’s the network! Queerbait!” 

…yeahhhhh.

…welcome to working in television. Now you just have to sit and think about how many other times this has completely missed your radar.

The network will never get a shit about you, they give a shit about your money, and that’s just the reality of capitalist america whether we like it or not. When it’s 2143 and bernie sanders’ floating head in a jar is president and andrew yang’s base income shit is in effect and we’re all a socialist country and the world has figured out how to run high cost businesses like TV on the power of unicorn farts, they might actually give a shit. But they don’t. There may be a few advocates WITHIN the company that do, but as a whole body, the network will never give a shit. They don’t care if you’re black, white, straight, gay, disabled, male, female, beyond what, explicitly, that totals to in dollar signs depending how they feed you, when and where. 

So it’s not like... *just* a queer rights issue, it’s an “Anything Trump’s America may consider offensive on their television” issue. It’s businesses weighing who they think pays their bills while making it and beyond that who they think is the safest investment to make the most money.

As a side note: Personally, I’d consider it dumb as fuck to not do it. SPN will taper within a few years down to just trekkie-esque addicts unless they find a way to get a new burst of viewership and boy howdie do I hope so, but how much Pedowitz overvalues the conservative US demographic, or certain international markets, I don’t know. I’m not in his head and I don’t have this year’s marketing numbers beyond basic live, +3 and +7 ratings, and digital calls. And just general nielsen released demo. But how he’s added that all up? Can’t say. And I sure ain’t gonna bank on him not being a dumbass, when he’s famous for it, so don’t go get your hopes up either.

[formulatrash]

Hey! I’m really new here and I understand if u don’t want to stir the pot by talking ab this but if not would u care to share the political views, blunders, and did-goods that go on with drivers in FE? I want to know just what kind of climate even the more progressive drivers are circulating in it that makes sense?

Hey anon,

I don’t think it’s really fair to pull them out on specifics - especially as these are things I know off the record, so this will be (mostly) without naming names. 

Some of them have what I would call complicated politics. Di Grassi talks about this quite openly so I feel like it’s fair to say he’s socially liberal (and economically tech bro) but extremely nationalist when it comes to Brazil, so has a recursively odd tendency to, for instance, speak out against Bolsonaro politics in terms of climate change or whatever and then also to publicly support other of his policies. In Lucas’ case, I’d say that he is not a good political communicator - and that he trips up on a lot of cultural barriers in terms of trying to present his views on the internet, something drivers have very limited experience doing. In reality, I think he’s genuinely liberal but with this intensely knotted relationship to his family’s loyalties in Brazil and his own national pride and even he hasn’t managed to fully think it all through in a coherent way.

I don’t think any of the FE drivers are homophobic, although some of them would probably say things they didn’t realise were homophobic. The kind of thing that, unless you get decent contact time with us gays, people don’t unlearn and it wouldn’t be meant with any venom. I’ve called a few of them out on it, in the past and when they’ve realised what they’ve said they’ve stopped and apologised.

Some of them would probably call each other out on it, too - FE has a lot more openly queer people in the paddock and organisations than any other motorsport I’ve ever worked in and because there’s no closed doors and shut-off motorhomes, everyone mingles. It’s almost beyond parody to say the street racing series is more metropolitan but it just is.

None of them have ever said anything misogynist to me - occasionally their banter is a little bit locker room but they’re so pathetically not-jocks it doesn’t really land with any weight behind it. Male journalists, to be honest, are much worse. 

I’d say, overall, the drivers think quite a lot harder in Formula E. I don’t know if it’s just that they’ve mostly had career knockbacks and complications or I think the open nature of the paddock does actually make a difference to how much they can be confined to a bubble. Formula E attracts different people and different crowds 

One of them did allege I was the first LGBT person he’d met awhile ago and then when I pulled him up on it in a joke a few months later he said he meant the first openly, in a paddock, which makes more sense. (I had a super aggressively gay haircut for most of Season 4)

The younger ones, in particular, are quite sweet. I know there’s some sort of ‘Mitch Evans is cancelled’ thing because he made a bitchy comment about Carmen Jorda’s racing ability when he was 18 but a) fair and b) he’s 25 now - and probably one of the smartest and more thoughtful drivers on the grid. But he is still friends with Nick Cassidy, who still makes gay jokes on Insta - I’d guess Mitch has picked his battles on that one. Most of us have a few friends where we’re like “oh god no why does Tory Dave turn up to the pub every time” but Tory Dave also did drive you to hospital when you broke your leg at 4am so you just try and avoid politics when he’s around.

I don’t think any of them are raging pinkos but they definitely try to use their wealth and influence ethically, moreso than in some other series. In general, they are quite outward-looking and care about things - some impulsively or disproportionately but they are definitely people who take on causes. 

They’re not ...hmm, how you say... woke but they are much more aware. I’m writing a feature at the minute about masculinity and enforced behaviour in motorsport, for instance and they’re open to reflecting on that. In the past, they’ve been open about talking about mental health and vulnerabilities, things you’d get savaged for speaking about in some series where everyone’s meant to be some emotionally lobotomised gladiator-god.

Actually to give them full credit, some of them are openly left wing - Alex Sims, in particular, springs to mind. (He supported Labour in the last UK election)

So basically: for fairly oblivious dudes who occupy a conservative world, they are extremely thoughtful and progressive. They will totally fuck up, though, because most of them are still taking baby steps. 

A couple of them are just straight-up right wing but that it’s only a couple is quite a statement about the series.

[traincat]

I’m honestly super excited over the prospect of a very well done f4 movie and like idk... seeing merch everywhere I look? But I’m mildly terrified of the fandom becoming huge. Bc huge attracts the crazy lol (I.e. m*u fandom) Since you are my official unofficial Queen of The Fantastic Four and have been rocking them forever... do you have any thoughts on this?

I guess my feelings on the subject right now boil down to “resigned.” I’m not thrilled about the whole Disney-Fox acquisitions deal from a big picture perspective and honestly as much as I love the Fantastic Four, I’m not comfortable viewing getting what’ll probably be a competently made, possibly fandom popular Fantastic Four movie as anywhere near an even trade for Disney’s global media takeover. It’s kind of like going “yeah Nestle’s chocolate syrup explosion contaminated 80% of the reservoirs but hey, more chocolate milk.” But whatever, the deal went through, and at least this means I don’t have to worry about execs throwing a fit about film rights and banishing my favorite team from the stands for years again. I’m not saying I won’t be excited later when more concrete plans for a Fantastic Four live action piece are in play, but right now there’s nothing concrete on the table as far as has been revealed to fans and I’m feeling pretty bleak about the consequences for the industry on the whole. But basically a Fantastic Four movie is one of the only properties left that would make me excited about seeing an MCU movie in theaters again. Is it going to be well done? I think that depends on some things.

Okay, I think an MCU Fantastic Four movie would be far more competently done then its predecessors, although that’s not exactly a high bar to clear. The MCU has a formula and that formula works very well for them, and I can’t see them breaking it for the Fantastic Four because it probably would actually be a fairly good fit for them. I think it is very suspicious that Captain Marvel is the only MCU movie receiving a lot of criticism for the MCU being formulaic in nature, because well -- they have been for a long time. It’s just that this is a formula that most audiences like, so nobody thought to complain about it until the lady movie, I guess. But yeah: formulaic. Big time. But this is one of those cases where I think it could work -- give a Fantastic Four movie a snappy script with some good jokes, a fun color palate, a found family theme, and plenty of bought reviews from critics (sorry, I don’t like Disney and I don’t like Disney’s well-documented practices) and I think an MCU Fantastic Four movie could really be a hit. Also, a well-written Johnny Storm would provide plenty of room for one of the MCU’s Egregious Car Scenes, considering Johnny’s a prodigy with automechanics, a car aficionado, and occasionally a professional racecar car. That being said: I am apprehensive about the Fantastic Four in the MCU, albeit mainly from a content perspective.

First off, I hope they let the Fantastic Four be the Fantastic Four and don’t shackle them to another established MCU property, like Spider-Man was. This is already difficult because, well, in a lot of ways, Avengers (2012), the movie that cemented the Avengers as the MCU’s premier superhero team, is a Fantastic Four movie with the Avengers MCU origin pasted on, and I mean this two ways. First, huge amounts of the plot elements featured in Avengers (2012) were lifted straight from an Ultimate Fantastic Four arc called God War (Ultimate Fantastic Four #33-38). How huge? God War features Thanos, Ronan the Accuser, alien whale spaceships, a similar mindcontrol plot to the Hawkeye and Black Widow one but featuring Ben and Johnny, the cosmic cube, and a character who is literally named Tesseract. It’s not an exact duplicate of the plot, but the similarities are heavy enough that I don’t think that can be ignored. The second is that the emotional heft and the consequences of Avengers (2012) -- a hostile alien presence threatens to destroy New York and then the whole world, a small group of heroes emerging victorious and getting thrust into center of things, greater awareness of super-threats and threats from outerspace -- is to the MCU exactly what the Galactus Trilogy (Fantastic Four #48-50) was to 616. So you couldn’t do an adaptation of the Galactus Trilogy now that would have the same heft and gravitas, not in the same way, and the only way they could position the Fantastic Four as the central group of superheroes is if Endgame does what everyone keeps whispering about and really does kill the majority of the Avengers -- which wouldn’t be great for a new Fantastic Four, actually, because it would incite fan hostility against them. Like you said: bigger fandoms, more problems. So either the MCU likely loses their role as the Beyonce of superheroes in the world’s eye, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but I DO think the in-universe fame is a big part of the Fantastic Four formula, or you start off the track with a bunch of fans already mad at them. (This is all speculation, mind. I have no idea what the mouse has planned. I’m just spitballing a couple years worth of frustration over MCU Fantastic Four takes.)

All that being said -- the idea of there being a bigger fandom for the Fantastic Four and the MCU bringing in more fans for the Fantastic Four, while it would have it drawbacks because all bigger fandoms have drawbacks (so do smaller fandoms, too), also would have some perks. A lot of people who initially got into the MCU later got into comics, and I would love there to be more Fantastic Four comic fans and more content creators for Fantastic Four fandom. I think Johnny Storm has all the potential to be a total fandom darling, if the cards are played right and they stick to his comics personality, especially his 60s comics portrayal. If the MCU cuts the borderline misogynistic horndog playboy schtick popularized by Chris Evans’ performance in the 2005/07 movies and goes along with the wavy-haired boybander levels of nonthreatening pretty boy team baby and frequent fainter of the comics? The fic. Think of the fic. I love Spideytorch, but I wish there was more Johnny-centric fic in fandom. He’s made for whump. (Granted, people will probably just make him Peter Parker’s conveniently located cardboard cutout boyfriend more, but that already happens, so I’m resigned.)

I don’t know. I’ll probably be more invested, either positively or negatively, as we learn more about what the actual MCU plans for the Fantastic Four are. But the above are my thoughts for right now. I’m still not happy about this deal in terms of having more a creative selection of movies in the future, and in the interests of Disney not owning everything.

[itsthenerdwonder]

Captain Marvel

So I was pretty blind going into this movie. 

Things I knew about comics!Captain Marvel: originally Mar-Vell, she got her powers from him and took his name, but she was Miss Marvel instead of Captain Marvel for...unknown reasons, she went into a coma when Rogue hugged the life out of her (giving Rogue super strength and flight) and...yeah, I think that’s about it. 

Things I knew about Captain Marvel The Movie: Fury and Coulson would be here, Goose scratched Fury’s eye, Carol and Mara...Miranda...Marinara (god, what is her name? *googles* MARIA) were an item even if the movie didn’t say so and I think something about the Kree/Skrull War.

Oh, and the women are saying men are misogynistic for hating this movie. So...I guess we’re back here. With having a movie being called a masterpiece as the only viable option because flame wars. Love it. 

So I brought a notebook into the theater to scribble out some thoughts and I’ll put those in the cut before reblogging and saying what I thought of the movie, as a whole. Maybe I shouldn’t but whatever.

First of all, my theater had 1 old guy, a dad with 2 kids (a girl about 5 and a boy about 7 [the girl was antsy a lot of the movie and wasn’t engaged while I could tell the boy was engaged because he wouldn’t shut up! You want to say something, fine, whisper it to your dad. Don’t talk at normal levels. You’re 7, you should know this]), a black couple (the only non-whites in the whole theater) with a two year old infant (who was better behaved than the 7 year old!) and another guy who’s old enough to be a dad but didn’t bring kids.

We had 4 trailers: New Godzilla monster movie with Mothra and a Hydra and whatever, Dark Phoenix, Spoilers for Endgame--a.k.a. Spider-Man: Far From Home, and Frozen 2 which was the only time the girl was engaged.

So the intro logo rolls and it’s Stan Lee and I’m crying and they say “For Stan” before the movie begins. Also, no MARVEL STUD10S, just regular MARVEL STUDIOS.

And now it’s barely coherent, have fun.

blue blood & in medias res

Hala looks like a normal city

geez, she’s only getting her butt kicked. I can tell she’s trained, but she’s not skilled enough to take what’s-his-name down

he’s not completely wrong. u can’t just tank ur way through everything. strategy is important.

wait, she gets her powers from a chip?

hey, it’s that guy from Gaurdians 1

that water CGI looks good. I don’t believe that any of this scene is a set, just a bunch of green screen and maybe green blocks for landscaping, but at least the water looks good for being super fake

the kids are confused by the Skrulls

BCGIB!

higher further faster, baby.

...she’s blue...? *pays attention* oh okay, the Skrulls are playing with her mind. them doing this gives us some help about who Carol is and what’s going on, but I’m still confused.

I’m liking this action scene best, with her fighting the Skrulls on their ship with her hands covered up so she can’t blast her way out. she’s witty and tough and actually taking bad guys out rather than getting beat repeatedly by that guy

oops, little 2 strong

...the way she’s crash landing on Earth and that suit...i feel like I’m watching Green Lantern origins. like, that first scene of the green lantern movie after Parallax kicks the snot out of what’s-his-face. 

COULSON!

Hey Fury.

and that’s how she knew granny was a skrull

Stan Lee cameo!

fighting on top of a train cliche DING!

Fury seriously needs to learn how 2 drive

NOT COULSON! How dare those Skrulls impersonate Coulson

hey! u killed one! good job, Fury.

wow. internet cafes.

Pierce? ik he’s a skrull, but still, is that the bad guy from winter soldier?

i love getting 2 know more about fury

“noble warrior heroes” I hate that line

...he did pick his badge back up, right? he didn’t just leave it on the desk?

little boy likes the cat. (every time the cat was onscreen he’d coo, but this was the first time it was onscreen, so I noted it)

Wait, the guy isn’t Mar Vell, the old lady is? Then who’s the guy? Did we ever get his name? I know sniper girl is Minerva, that’s it.

“We have orders to bring the girl and Fury in, dead or alive.” “Dead or alive?!?!” Coulson, ur smarter than this

...she’s running all the checks. I guess she goes know how to fly this jet with hyperboost...what kinda planes were you flying?

WHY R U SHOOTING @ THE BROADSIDE OF A PLANE?

hey Ronan. where’s ur black makeup?

did we just go all Mummy on the Skrull?

and carol’s blood is red. ok

“we just want a home” I don’t believe you

So his name is Yonrag or however you spell it. g2k

now that’s Captain Marvel

“is it in front of all that nothing or behind it?” “de-cloaking activated” in front apparently

why is the tessaract here? didn’t Howard fish it out of the ocean? how did it end up on a Kree spaceship?

“no matter how many times I get hit, I always get back up” --Spider-man Carol Danvers

oh Captain, my Captain! HECK YEAH!

HOLY SHIT!

so that’s a flergin

CGI fist fight is cool

♪ Now I'm free (Free fallin', now I'm Free fallin', now I'm) Free fallin' (Free fallin', now I'm Free fallin', now I'm)♪

*Mara blasts Minerva and flies through* YES!

hi, Ronan

dude, she just took down a barrage of missiles and battle cruiser without breaking a sweat. don’t even try.

now kiss

Hi, Coulson!

ah, Avengers theme

pretty end credits, but kinda basic

hey Cap. Nat. Everyone alive...we just got a clip of Thursday’s movie, didn’t we? lame.

me & dad w/o kids only 1 for schwarma scene

I’d wash that Infinity stone first...gross

And now for the edited thoughts, the reason you guys came here in the first place.

[minblush]

k-armys are spreading a tweet namjoon made in 2013 about korean independence where he says 'There is no future for people who have forgotten history' which shows he probably won't agree with working with a japanese imperialist, hopefully he still has this attitude in 2018 twitter(.)com/BTS_twt/status/367906282012831744

yeah i have seen them doing that ;; and fancafe and all the official tweets since then have been flooded with people talking about these things too, but bighit is playing dead fish so far :(

microwavehater said:Am i the only one who never believed that bts has ~creative freedom~ (anymore) ? If they (still) had, they’d use their influence to spread msgs like baepsae, not just love urself uwu (considering yoongi made political pre-debut releases &interview stuff) Also, their newer releases (LY her onwards) are v much lacking in the hiphop department which (i assume) was a marketing choice. Hiphop just doesn’t sell as well to a female audience (along w the fact that vocalists are the face of BTS).

i think they still have creative input but creative freedom definitely not, but it’s debatable if they ever had it anyway? idk.. and them moving on from hip-hop was definitely both trying to change things up as well as appeal to a broader audience, love yourself era overall was an attempt to basically touch as many people as possible, i don’t mind them changing their musical direction but what has bothered me was the loss of their involvement (because it is less)

Anonymous said:I totally agree with you about BTS losing their originality. I’m almost starting to get annoyed of them. Now bc they know people love their music for its topics such as mental health, etc I almost feel like they’re thinking that they’re obliged to constantly write music that only has a “social” message. I did not like Idol at all. It was pretty tacky and the idea of loving yourself seemed so forced in the lyrics. I want them to make songs about whatever they want at that moment. (1/?)

Anonymous said:Also every fan keeps saying the same thing about them being unfiltered when actually they’ve become SO filtered now. They’ve almost created this illusion of being super open with us when actually we barely know anything about them. I don’t mind that but I hate how they’re touting that as something that applies to them. Honestly most fans now are the bandwagon type and the fandom is starting to feel more like a cult versus a community like it used to. (2/2)

i don’t know if i ever talked about them losing their originality? because originality is debatable in this case too, if you mean their original intention then yes i agree with that, and i agree they definitely created the illusion, once i got out of the bts bubble a bit and also thought back to the old days, i realized how closed off and filtered everything is comparison to the past and even to other kpop groups nowadays that are way more direct, i feel like even exo is more outspoken these days and direct with their fans which i thought could never happen??? i used to stan them and it was hell hah.. and these days.. wowza..

Anonymous said:Fuck yesss we need new yoongi mixtape and i agree abt what you said i wish bts could read that and be like okay guys i think they are right we have done some questionable things and shit has to be addressed whether we like it or not and just fucking do so. Some fans will drop but some would drop anyway bc it is getting out of hand i would never want to call bts problematic bc shit i cannot imagine that being true but them supporting problematic people is kind of making them ones

i just feel like nothing will change because bang pd is too greedy.. he really is eyeing like building a global empire with all the business deals he has been making.. also bts have done plenty “problematic” things themselves, though not to that extent, but some of their actions have hurt a lot of people too, but it depends on what bothers you, i find colorism and things like that a problem, but ofc definitely different thing than pedophilia and such, i just meant to say that nobody is perfect

Anonymous said:Do you ever just wanna randomly bump into bts and be like “hey lets talk!” And then tell them about all these issues and fandom drama and just tell them to wake the hell up? Cos I do haha

well even if we bumped into them, most of them wouldn’t talk to you so dkajsdka

Anonymous said:i agree with everything you have said but what bothers me is he is a co produce of produce 48 and nobody really complained about it even though he is know for sexualizing minors... or did i miss something?? also i feel sorry for you getting hate you were just saying your opinion and people should start to accept some facts! it's not the first time bighit did something questionable ://

oh but actually when that was announced there was backlash? i remember seeing complaints about the producer as well as some of the trainees due to their supposed right wing associations, there were also complaints about women’s rights cause of the oversexualization of some of the girls back in japan and the producer’s lyrics, i think this backlash seems bigger or more visible to you because it’s happening in your fandom ;; that season of produce even ended up having the lowest rankings and voting participation so :/

Anonymous said:I have three words to describe the part of the fandom that blindly accepts all the things, even the problematic ones, BTS do. 'Situationally woke cult'.

that fits perfectly

Anonymous said:i rly appreciate sou voicing your thoughts even if they r not in essay form or refined for days. I agree with you on many things but at the same time it's not as disappointing to me bc I guess I never held them to high standards. like in the beginning I could kinda imagine that they were somewhat sincere (but still remained sceptical) but the more they got famous the more I accepted that that sincerity and authenticity would stop bc that's just the kind of business that kpop is... (♤)

Anonymous said:like it's an inherently dishonest industry. they sell an image just like everyone else, and at best(!!) they were as real as possible with us in the beginning. no doubt they wanted to be different from everyone else and it was easier as long as not that many people gave a fuck about them. but as soon as they started to this chance was over. so i guess what I'm saying is that my view didn't change and I'm not surprised, because I never really bought what they were trying to sell...(♤)

Anonymous said:I still love them, theyre likeable & adorable boys. but theyre not changing the world. they're not in the right kind of industry for that. they love their luxury expensive stuff & the glamour of it all & that's okay. I just take every concept the whip out w/ a grain of salt & a knowing smile & enjoy the entertainment. that's just my own two cents that nobody in the fandom wants to hear so I'm bothering u. & its not an analysis or anything just what is on top of my mind while watching TV lol (♤)

Anonymous said:(♤) oh ps. except for that whole controversial stuff with that misogynist jpn songwriter and supreme boy and what not. I take that seriously , I wont act as if that's just a cute quirk. but they're men so I didn't expect much lmaoo. I knew that those kind of disappointments are just part of the deal ever since I learned that jimin (a whole cutie pie and my ultimate bias) stans chris brown. definitely would kick jm in the shin for that if I ever got to meet him. at least keep it to yourself lol.

haha i wish you didn’t start this with a backhanded compliment but dkajsd yeah overall i see your point and agree... i understand like if you didn’t buy into that whole spiel, then of course you can just keep on going and stanning them as idols and all that comes with that, but many people and me included sincerely thought that they were different, i have stopped stanning kpop groups for a while and got drawn back in with bts because i felt they were so fresh and unique, genuine and open with fans in comparison to other groups i have stanned.. but ofc that image crumbled as time went on.. things have changed as well... and i agree, it’s fine to enjoy it for just the entertainment and like the boys as people, accepting they are just as any other idol.. and maybe i will continue with that perspective myself!! but i honestly find it difficult having believed in it and also bighit continually selling this image to their fans despite evidence of the contrary, i can deal with idol business but like continually being blatantly lied to and then being in a fandom where most of the rhetoric is build around blindly believing it and eating anything the boys and bighit sells? it’s honestly emotionally exhausting sometimes.. but yeah.. you’re honestly right.. even with the last point lol... they are men, and korean men at that sigh.. that’s why i’m burying myself in girl groups nowadays adkjsd to heal my soul

Anonymous said:Hope you have a wonderful day filled with only good things ❤ - the cutest person in the world

thank you so so so so much! you have a wonderful day too ♥ cutie

Anonymous said:simple question, not loaded at all, no wrong answer, the honest answer is the right answer- yaddah yaddah you get it -what do you think bangtan is lying about and what exactly are you saying overall? i just need the language simplified for my 3 braincells :) if i do get what you're saying - whether the actual members of bts are real or not, their message is. "dont let anyone tell you what to do" "live your own life and not a borrowed dream" "life is a marathon, not a race - go your own pace"etc

you can read this post as well as the tags to it to see some of the examples, i mean i have been saying lots of things so i don’t know what exactly you want me to clarify? i think their message is compromised when their actions contradict it, whether it’s their actions or bighit’s is up to debate, like i was talking about in the post though, you can’t have things both ways, can’t hail the boys as woke independent kings while propagating the idea that they are just the company’s pawns at the same time, if you accept their authenticity isn’t there then ofc it’s a different argument, and the things you have listed there may be true, but isn’t is soured knowing they are just things that are said in order to sell bangtan as a product to you? to me they are

Anonymous said:I'm not gonna disagree but I like to see all the sides of a story. Bang pd is their boss, bts made a contract with him, he will ALWAYS have the last word on, well, everything they put out. We like to think that bc bts has creative freedom they can do whatever they want, well obviously they can't. Even if bts wanted to talk more about issues and not work w bad ppl, bang pd wants them to succeed, he wants to make money bc it's his business and bts is the only thing bringing money to it.

i get this argument a lot and to that i will answer again this and this, i don’t understand what your point is exactly though, so you are saying bts are pawns that have to do as they ceo says, yes and? i am criticizing the decision he has made? i’m criticizing that what he cares about the most is money? that he will stop at nothing to widen his wealth and influence? i will not support bts cooperating with vile people just because it wasn’t -completely their decision-, i’m sorry i’m really struggling to see what your point is about the other side of the story, it’s a shitty situation and if they all go through with it, it be greatly disappointing

[girlbetweenryosuke]

“Rogue and Reigning” -- Chapter I

Chapter I: The Rogue Prince

Note: Hello! Ok so u might be thinking oh my god she’s making another story she aint gon finish bUT wait ok i swear im going to finish this. ALSO yes i didn’t put a watermark on the title thing bc it kind of ruins it?? I quite like it like really simple ya kno idk but anyway those aren’t my photos so ofc there’s no need for my watermark hAHAHAH

Teaser: (I don’t really have a good teaser so this is an excerpt from the second chapter)

“I’m someone who wants to step up, and you are someone who wants to step down. But quite surprisingly, we are both outcasts. I want the throne, and yet I am not given it. You want to be a commoner, and yet you are forced to wear a crown. I guess it’s natural that we envy each other... But maybe that’s why somehow, we complete each other. Opposites attract,

and I am well over attracted to you.”

“No.”

The word this young princess feared to hear the most. That’s especially when that was the answer to a request that she had built up an abundance of courage for. She was sitting on a cushioned seat, hands on her lap, ankles crossed and to the side as she sat up straight. She followed all the rules, she had all the manners, she was deemed as a perfect princess—and this was the only time she was willing to go against that title.

“Father, please.”, she begged as the king sat on his seat behind the desk. His arms on each armrest and legs apart as he huffed. “I cannot allow you to be the crowned queen.”, he said as Y/N looked down, tears welling up in her eyes. “But father,”, she looked up, scared to look him in the eyes. “I am the first-born child. I can be a good leader. I have been studying every single detail about our country’s history, politics, and economy since I have been a toddler. I am very much prepared!”, she continued.

The king leaned forward, sitting up from leaning on his chair as he looked her in her eyes. “Y/N, my dear, you have been studying our history, am I correct?”, he asked, and Y/N nodded, “Yes.”. “Then you must know that throughout our family’s 449-year reign, no woman has been appointed as a queen.”, he said the words that annoyed Y/N the most. “Goodness, even your mother wasn’t a queen. Women in this monarchy are only princesses. They cannot hold such power a king can have.”, he said.

Y/N huffed, looking away and shaking her head. “Well then, I suggest that there be a change.”, she looked him back in the eye as she regained confidence. This. This was the thing that drove Y/N to want to rule as queen. She wanted to prove that a woman can be leader-material. What a man can do, a woman can do too. Aside from that, she had planned for ages on what she wanted to change in her country of Seina.

Seina is an archipelago off the east coast of Japan. Since they were so near Japan, it was once part of it during the Heian period to around half of the Edo period. After they were separated from the country back in 1569, they were colonized by Europe and their first language of Japanese was mixed with English, creating their now first language, Seinese; their now second language, Japanese. The monarchy began with their first king, King Morita. He wrote in his will that his crown must be passed to a man, not a woman, and no one really understood why, but that is why kings must always have sons, no matter what. Y/N’s great-grandfather was the last child of 12 siblings, all of them being girls, which explains how grave they take his will.

And Y/N wants to know why.

She loved her country, that’s why she wanted to fix it. Poverty rates were rising, the economy was on the brink of collapsing, riots were forming here and there, and there was no escaping from the reality that her father’s reign was one of the worst. On top of that, the idea of misogynism was evident in the country taking from its beliefs that men and women aren’t equal beings. She went to charity works, she’d immersed with the crowd to study what wasn’t included in history books. She knew what had to be done, and she knew she had to do it now.

“There’s no need for a change when you have a little brother who is an heir to the throne.”, he replied. “Father, he is 6-years-old.”, she said with pity for her sibling who will soon be holding the burden of the crown. “In a year, once you’ve stepped down, Hiro will only be 7. He’s merely a child!”, she ranted. His forehead puckered, seemingly beginning to be annoyed at her words.

“Don’t paint be as a bad man when I am only following traditions.”, he urged. “Next year will be my 50th year of reign, and you know what that means, right?”, he asked as she gulped and nodded. “Every 50 years, we have to appoint the heir of the throne as king. In a year, I will teach him everything that Hiro needs to know.”, he said. “I will begin with manners, but apparently you need a brush up on your manners too.”, he said, setting Y/N aback as she silently scoffed to herself. “Do not be late for your flight to Japan, you must learn more about our history with them before you create these unrealistic ambitions for yourself. You are dismissed.”, he flicked his hand away, gesturing her to leave. She bit the inside of her cheek, standing up and bowing deeply, her right hand hesitantly on her left chest, “Excuse me.”. She left the room with fire in her chest, feeling anger in her veins.

She had more than one reason for wanting to be a queen. She loved her country, she loved to serve, she wanted to break the foolish traditions and on top of that—

“Y/N…”, her brother approached her, tugging on the sleeves of her dress. She turned around to see Hiro, teary-eyed, and pouting. She pouted, squatting down to hug her brother, petting the back of his head. “Did he say yes?”, he faltered. Y/N looked down as tears started to drip down her cheek, “No.”, she hesitantly answered as the little boy’s breath hitched. He then began to wail, face red, strings of saliva appeared when he opened his mouth and his face wet with tears. She rubbed his small back as she comforted him. “I don’t want to be the king. I don’t want to be the king.”, he cried.

On top of that, Y/N loved her little brother.

 In her room, she let her body fall on her bed, feeling tired from putting a brave front to confront her father. “If it meant to rule a country, I wish I was a man.”, she said to herself, arms on her forehead as she stared at the ceiling. Then, there was a knock on the door. “Come in.”, she said as she heard the door open and close. “Princess Y/N, someone wishes to have an audience with you.”, her trusted maid, Kiera, said. “Who is that someone?”, Y/N asked as Kiera cleared her throat. “He wishes for me to not reveal his name.”, she repressed a smile.

Then, Y/N, sprang up, knowing exactly who “he” was. She slipped on a robe and ran out into the corridor, Kiera frantically trying to catch up to her. Y/N quickly ran downstairs and out into the front courtyard to find the most dashing man in her eyes, Riinen. Riinen is her best friend, a son of a cabinet member. His caramel-colored hair was always slicked back, he had gray-blue eyes and thick brows. He always looked neat, not a strand of hair out of place, not a wrinkle on his shirt, neither a spot on his shoes unpolished. She loved him—well to be fair, everyone did. He was a truly perfect man.

But the thing Y/N wishes she could see, was the true him. She’d never seen him cry, despite the many times he had seen her cry. She’d never seen him tired or sweat, he always looked like some Ken doll. She’d never seen him in his casual clothing, he’s always in a white long-sleeved polo, and black slacks and black polished shoes. She wanted to see more of him. She wanted to fall more in love with him, but he was acting like a prince that doesn’t break walls to let people in. She hated that—well to be fair, everyone did.

She jumped to him, wrapping her arms around him as she kissed his cheek as he carried her. “I missed you!”, she pulled away and he laughed, “Not as much as I missed you, Your Highness.”. She let go of him, letting her feet touch the ground again. She gestured for them to walk together to which he nodded. Her maid followed along, out of hearing-range so that they could privately talk. “So how was Canada?”, she asked, “It was extremely cold!”, he complained, a smile on his face as he rubbed his shoulders, pretending to shiver.

“Colder than Mt. Sundire?”, she asked, pertaining to the coldest mountain in Seina. “Colder than Mt. Sundire.”, he nodded, and she shivered. “Was it fun, though?”, she asked, looking up at him. “Oh, for sure it was. Mary and I had a great time sight-seeing and such.”, he smiled. She looked down at the thought that he was having fun with another girl. “Hey, don’t be so sad.”, he lightly turned her shoulders to turn to him. She looked into his dreamy eyes as she gulped. “Mary is just a girl, so don’t be so jealous.”, he smiled.

She blushed remembering that Riinen did in fact know that Y/N loves him. He’s already accepted it, and even teases her for it. Although he has never been clear with his feelings, he does show his affection to her, making Y/N both confused and happy at the same time. As she looked into his eyes, she noticed how cold looking they were, beautiful, but unwelcoming. They say a person’s eyes were the windows to one’s soul, and yet she couldn’t see anything in them. His eyes were empty. “Would you like to go out with me? Have a little drink?”, he asked her, and she pursed her lips and hesitantly shakes her head. “I’m sorry. I have to fly to Japan today, I have an official meeting with the Emperor’s grandchildren.”, she pouted.

That was a lie. No, the official meeting was not the lie, but the true reason behind Y/N visiting Japan is not for her to meet the Emperor’s grandchildren. The real reason as to why she was going there was to research more about why Seina was separated from Japan. She needed an explanation as to why there were so many misogynistic traditions in their culture. And, she desperately needed an answer as to why the first king, King Morita, did not want women to lead the country.

He smiled and tilted his head, then pouting, “I guess I’ll have to drink alone again, Your Highness.”. “Hey, don’t drunk text me again, alright?”, she smiled, lightly pushing his chest as he laughed. “Princess Y/N.”, Kiera bowed with her hand on her chest and called her. Y/N turned to her and nodded, “It is time to leave. Your luggage is all packed and placed in the vehicle and is waiting for your arrival.”, she said as Y/N pursed her lips and nodded. “Alright.”. “I guess I’ll be going now.”, she smiled and patted Riinen’s chest. “See you!”. “See you, Your Highness!”.

After Y/N changed into her proper clothes, she rode a limousine to the airport, and from there, she rode an airplane to Japan. It only took an hour until she was already stepping on the Japanese grounds. She was greeted by various politicians, performers, and had to pass and greet different people before she was able to be in her own private space in a car.

“Are you alright, Princess Y/N?”, Kiera asked, sitting in the front seat next to the driver. “I’m perfectly fine, thank you.”, she replied, sighing and looking out the window. She examined the environment, finding everything beautiful and amazing how color coded-like the city was. The streets were clean, and very seldom would you see a piece of trash on the ground. It was very much different from Seina where the streets of the rural areas would have trash and homeless people. She wishes to fix that—very soon.

They arrived at the palace, Y/N noticing 3 women of her age lined up with a little boy in the middle. The driver opened the door for her, and she stepped out as the four of them bowed to her, “Good afternoon, Princess Y/N.”, they said in unison. Y/N smiled and returned the bow, with her hand on her left chest, “Good afternoon, Princess Chihiro, Princess Misaki, Prince Mamoru, and Princess Airi.”. It was a mouthful to say all of their names, just imagine if there were more.

She was then led into the palace with smiles as they toured her around. She noticed how Chihiro held Mamoru’s hand, and how young he truly is. “Prince Mamoru is the heir to the throne, isn’t he?”, Y/N said, and they nodded, Mamoru showing a wide smile on his face. “I hear your baby brother is too?”, Misaki asked, and Y/N hesitantly nodded. “Tentatively.”, she added as they nodded. “Mamoru is still young and has a long way to go. He wouldn’t be the heir if someone shaped himself up.”, Airi added, and the three siblings hushed her as she lightly bowed. “Someone?”, Y/N asked. “No one. I’m sorry, let’s continue the tour.”.

Throughout the whole day, Y/N had meals with the grandchildren, did some entertaining activities, and during dinner, there was a performance by some local artists. She barely had enough time to sneak around, neither did she know where to go in the first place. She was thinking that maybe the library would have some texts, but she didn’t know where it was located.

It’s now nighttime, Y/N was lying down on her bed, wearing her long, white, satin nightgown as she twisted her hair around her finger, staring at the ceiling. She was waiting for everyone to fall quiet and asleep so that maybe she could look for the library then, but throughout Y/N’s stay in the palace, she’s been hearing whispers here and there. No, it wasn’t some ghostly whisper, rather they were gossips from the maids and stewards. She could hear them talk in the hallways from her room.

She sat up from her bed and walked over to the door to press her ear on it to hear what they were talking about. “He hasn’t been home in a week!”. “I hear he’s doing it again.”. “Oh goodness, when will he stop?”. “He’s such a disgrace.”. “He really lives up to his title as the rogue prince, huh.”.

Y/N began to become curious. Curious to know what they were talking about and curious to know who this rogue prince was. Then suddenly, chattering stopped, and frantic footsteps filled the hallways. Y/N slowly opened the door, peeking to see maids running around as if there was an emergency. Then, she let her whole-body slip through as each maid that passed by bowed to her.

Then, she spotted Kiera calmly walking by with a glass of milk for Y/N. “Kiera,”, she summoned a maid as she bowed to her. “Yes, Princess Y/N.”. “What is with all the maids panicking?”, she asked, as the maid looked down, “I’m deeply sorry, Princess Y/N, did they disturb you?”. “No, no. Not at all. I am just a little bit curious.”, she said. “Oh, well, I’m not quite sure as to why there is such a ruckus, but I have heard something about a rogue prince.”, she informed her.

Y/N’s eyes widened as she quickly ran back in to slip on a robe and run back out into the hallways. “Princess Y/N!!”, Kiera placed the glass of milk down on a table and frantically ran after her. “Who is he? Who is he? Who is he?”, it repeated in her mind as she made her way to the indoor balcony, overlooking the entrance of the palace. She leaned on the polished wooden railing and looked down at the doorway. As the maids quickly turned to walk away from the entrance, a man entered, shuffling sluggishly like he had either a few drinks, or he was tired. Or maybe both.

He was wearing a sweatshirt, his hands in his outerwear’s pocket. He was wearing sweatpants, sneakers, and his hair was dark brown and ruffled. Then at that split moment, he looked up, showing his face, as their eyes met. They were these beautiful dark brown orbs; his eyes were gorgeous. They were warm, they were welcoming, they were open—she saw through them. His nose was tall, his lips looked soft and pink, his skin looked flawless aside from the bags under his eyes and some dirt and dust on either of his cheeks. He looked… handsome.

Suddenly, all the different sounds surrounding them fell mute in their ears. They couldn’t hear a single footstep, not a single clock ticking, nor a door creaking; nothing. To them, it felt like all they could hear were each other’s heartbeats. Synchronized, fast, and thumping hard. One couldn’t explain what was happening, but they were certainly amazed. The corner of her lips started to curve into a light smile.

“So this… is the Rogue Prince?”

[chocopalustre]

are U interested in reading my final paper for a course on Queer Literature and Theory? do u like lesbians? are u curious about lesbian sexuality in pornography? do u need a good sassy laugh?

look no further than right under this cut!!!

Content Warning: This essay contains sensitive content discussing sexually explicit material.

Tribadism: Lesbian Bump and Grinding. (Definition courtesy of Urban Dictionary)

“Hey, Kylee, how do lesbians have sex?” I pause for a moment, trying desperately not to roll my eyes. With a deadpan expression, I hold up two victory signs with my fingers and mash them together. “We scissor each other, of course.” I let a few seconds pass, taking in their look of bewilderment, before I crack a sardonic smile. I was joking of course. Every good lesbian knows that scissoring isn’t actually a real thing. Scissoring is what straight men think they see women doing in lesbian porn, opening their legs and criss-crossing them together in a cutting motion. Fake lesbians scissor. Sophisticated lesbians trib.

Of course, it took me a while to learn this. Like many other queer youth, I struggled to squeeze out any information in regard to lesbian sex out of the public sex education system. What choice did I have but to stumble across some poorly-made erotic content on the Internet? (Many choices, in fact, but I didn’t know that then.) Much of my knowledge about how two women have sex together without a man initially came from this exploration, shortsighted and misrepresented as it was. But now that I am a Real Adult Lesbian, I am interested in Real Adult Lesbian Sex. As such, I want to move beyond the question of what lesbian sex is and instead examine how pornographic sex represents the lesbian community. What better way to explore this idea than to return to my original Sapphic-inclined childhood investigation… porn on the Internet!

I was a naïve child, so of course I didn’t know that the lesbian porn I was viewing has a specific name: Ersatz porn. Ersatz porn is the term used to describe “girl-on-girl” pornography made by the straight man, for the straight man. And it is this porn that inflames the hearts of indignant female feminists everywhere, including my own. So imagine my surprise upon discovering that sometimes these fake lezzys fueled a fire in my loins as well. How was I supposed to reconcile this?

The 3 P’s: Penetration, Pleasure, and Pussy Shots

Everything I hate about lesbian porn made for men’s consumption comes to the tip of my tongue instantly- pun not intended. First, there are the fingernails. Every performer has an obscenely long, pointed, hot pink $40 set of acrylics. If you buy into the longstanding and dodgy myth of nail length indicating whether a woman is gay, then the 1-inch kitty claws on the screen in front of you are a dead giveaway: She isn’t a lesbian, and the girl she’s fucking isn’t enjoying it. I myself have a love-hate relationship with the nail clipper, often keeping my nails longer (a reasonable length, of course), but I can definitively say that the prospect of somebody scratching up my vulva with those talons, pretending it’s pleasurable… Needless to say, not my kind of thing. Unfortunately, these pricey manicures are least of our worries.

Ersatz porn has only one audience in mind: Men. And every straight man knows that women, lesbian or not, just want a dick. This isn’t about her pleasure, it’s about his. And by involving aggressive sucking and fucking with a strap-on, the male viewer can identify with the woman wearing it on screen. Her purpose is to simply act as a placeholder for a male body. For some odd reason, men still seem to think that women easily get off on penetration alone, so it’s not surprising that there is little clitoral stimulation in girl-on-girl porn. These poor guys don’t know any better. But us lesbians know the truth: The clit is the shit. Dildos and vibes all have their place in the bedroom for dykes, but the end-goal of it all is arousal and orgasm, not a penis. Unfortunately, the sole attention on penetration means that the best these pseudo-lesbians can get are pseudo-orgasms (not that many viewers would be able to tell the difference).

I was happy to discover that I am not the only one curious about other queer women’s take on “lesbian” porn; in an exploratory experiment performed by Todd Morrison and Dani Tallack, a small group of lesbian and bisexual women were interviewed after viewing scenes from both Ersatz porn and lesbian-created lesbian porn. They discussed what they saw the films representing in terms of lesbian identity. Viewers noted that the women having sex in the girl-on-girl scenes didn’t appear to enjoy it at all; there was no genuine emotion nor any interest in pleasing one another. One viewer remarked, “Yeah, this didn’t look very physical … She could have been reading the paper while the girl was banging her.” When one girl fingers or goes down on her partner, she rarely looks up to make eye contact. It’s all very detached, and the pained expressions on their faces accompanied by high pitched whines seem less like the result of a good fucking and more of a “God when the hell is this gonna be over” response.

The male gaze is all about those close-up shots of the genitalia, which is sort of confusing to me because as much as they want to see it, they don’t seem to worship our labia as much as their local dyke does. The objectification and exploitation of the female body is at work, a key instrument in the misogynistic toolbox designed specifically for mainstream heteronormative pornographic orgasms. Let’s pull out the hammer then, shall we? Our good friend penetration makes yet another appearance, often combining hardcore fucking with restraint practices—whether it’s steel handcuffs or a rough pair of hands clenched tightly around wrists. In and out, in and out, we see the pink dildo pounding into a pussy, and rarely does the camera stray from this scene to her face, essentially detaching female pleasure from the action of penetration. She is reduced to an object in which the only use is a hole to be fucked. The penetrator then forces the body below her to slobber and choke all over the dildo, hissing out abusive and demeaning remarks: “Your dirty little fucking pussy likes to take this big fucking cock, doesn’t it? Dirty little slut.”

Pornhub gratuitously offers up tons of content like this. Just look at “TSA Agents Engage in Lesbian BDSM! (Part 2).” (Don’t worry, I took the liberty of analyzing the scene to pull out its most ridiculous parts so you don’t have to.) Here we have a busty blonde TSA agent watching two naked women sixty-nine on a table with a bright light shining down on them… very reminiscent of a visit to the doctor’s office—minus the sex.[1] The blonde doesn’t engage in any physical contact while the other two are going at it and instead looks on with a forced smile of pleasure. Then we have the painfully slow zoom in on the JUICY WET PUSSY. There was also a gun involved, just in case you forgot this was porn made for men; nothing screams heterosexual masculinity like pointing an armed weapon at a woman’s head while you fuck her. And finally, how could we forget the infamous double dildo scene? It’s very important to show that every hole is filled by a phallus. If we zoom our male gaze out a bit to take in the whole body, I fear what we see is not much better than these money shots.

Being Butch and BDSM

Let me just lay this on the table now: I am a hyper-feminine queer woman. I am all too familiar with comments like, “But you’re so pretty?!” or “I never would have guessed…” when a straight person finds out that, yes, I am in fact queer as fuck. My love for glitter, killer eyeliner, and an overall hatred of pants puts me at the unwanted mercy of male attention. Even among the queer community, I feel the need to loudly announce my presence; I’m here, I’m queer, and you can shove your misguided compliments on my “straight” appearance right up your ass. One would think then that I enjoy the performers in mainstream porn, that I would laud them for actively combating femme invisibility. The problem is that a) because of this “representation” men think feminine-appearing lesbians are really just college chicks experimenting and having threesomes before running into the muscular arms of someone with a real penis and b) it simply doesn’t turn me on. Where are the butch ladies? Perhaps my biggest beef with Ersatz porn is that I feel it actually does a disservice to representing lesbians, even my fellow femmes. Representation is only good if it is appropriately and accurately diverse, and Ersatz porn is decidedly not. Sure, the hair color may change and maybe one of them has double Ds while the other has Cs, but other than that… Femmes aren’t flat and they’re certainly not fat.

Returning to the interviews, the participants noted that the bodies in Ersatz porn reflected society’s expectation for straight women, even if they were supposed to be lesbians. Even more unsettling, the performers look less like women and more like girls. Straight men seem to think that college freshmen have the time, energy, and money to maintain a perfectly hairless physique. To loosely quote the response of a previous professor of mine to a male partner who wanted her pubic hair shaved: “Why? Do you like to fuck little girls?” Proportionally, their appearances are reminiscent of the old school Barbie doll: slim waist, young face, and huge boobs. Women, lesbian or otherwise, come in all different shapes and sizes, but it seems that these straight male viewers have yet to catch on to that. Difficult enough is it to accept that two women can get sexual satisfaction without a man, they’ll be damned if she’s fat or has short cropped hair! The performers’ bodies appear to be the biggest difference between mainstream lesbian porn and porn produced and made specifically for queer women.

There is one specific butch body that comes to mind within the mainstream sphere, however: Lily Cade. Now, I have my own gripes with Cosmopolitan magazine. Their advice essentially boils down to “here’s why you’re single and sad, so let us show you how to be sexy in order to catch a man and fulfill your meaning in life!” Any articles that mention identities outside the normative are riddled with misinformation and operate only as a way to clickbait intersectional feminists into reading them. Needless to say, my initial reaction to their article titled “What It’s Really Like to Be a Lesbian Porn Star” was dismissive at best. However, upon looking at the photo of the petite, jean jacket-wearing woman with choppy ginger hair and heavily lined eyes underneath the title, I knew I recognized her and couldn’t resist giving the article a read. (Like I said, fucking clickbait.) Cosmo names Lily Cade the exception to the rule that most girl-on-girl porn stars are actually straight. Before her career really kicked off, Cade described herself as a butchy lesbian with a little bit of baby fat. She struggled to convince directors to give her a chance because her appearance didn’t fit what mainstream porn was selling. Cade then lost 40 pounds, got a tan, and revamped her sexy lingerie in order to break through the business. So how does a real dyke feel producing Ersatz porn?

Cade admits that sparking chemistry on set with the straight women she performs with is one of the most difficult parts of her job. Interestingly enough, Cade criticizes girl-on-girl porn because it’s not meant for female viewers, that the overall the performance is “fake on every level.” Although she weaseled her way into the business by adjusting her look, she doesn’t necessarily think that she performs the way that everybody else in Ersatz porn does. Cade strives for authenticity; she makes an effort to connect with the women so that they can perform a real sex scene. Cade comments, “You don’t have to make love to me, you don’t have to even touch me. Just let me fuck you, and I’ll get you off, and you’ll like it.” But how is it that a lesbian performer can engage in the content she criticizes? Indeed, this is a point of contention for many people involved in queer porn. Lily Cade has come to acquire the label of “sell-out” among the queer underbelly of the mainstream. The changes Cade made that brought her success in the mainstream industry only resulted in derision in the realm of queer pornography. Already a sort of niche business, Indie queer pornographers could have used another butch body to represent and pleasure us lesbians out here. To turn your back on your community and play pretend for the straight team? Unthinkable. Worse yet is the fact that, of all venues, her outlet for public exposure was Cosmo magazine.

But who are we to say that Cade isn’t having authentic sex? After all, she is still a lesbian. And her attitude toward her work certainly seems gay to me; she maintains a high level of enthusiasm and a devotion to performing sex with her female colleagues. For the lesbians that do stumble across her work within the mainstream sphere, Cade is putting out content that is more accessible and relatable for them. Her apparent conformity does not mean she is suddenly no longer a queer woman. In response to criticisms, Cade says that she’s “chosen to create a look that is accessible to a more mainstream audience, but is undeniably a lesbian look… I don’t see myself as a sell-out; I see myself as subversive.” And to all of the straight male viewers of her work, Lily Cade has a message: “I’m showing them how a real dyke does it.”

When the butches do come out to play, they star disproportionately in the BDSM genre, especially in mainstream porn. So even though I want to see the bodies I’m attracted to, I’m caught in a catch-22 situation: Yes, the butches exist, but often only in circumstances involving extreme violence and submission. That isn’t to say that BDSM isn’t arousing. In fact, BDSM relies on domination, bondage, sadism, and masochism as a turn-on for viewers. What I’ve found, though, is that in mainstream porn BDSM is performed in a male heterosexual context rather than a lesbian context. Another Pornhub gem, “Strapon Women Who Fuck Better Than Men – 5,” exemplifies this concept. The video is a thirty-minute compilation of strap-on fucking with butch women doing most of the labor. The content and title combined appear to give us lesbians the recognition we deserve. However, it opens with a quote: “By far, one of the most popular fantasies women have is being the man for one night, literally. That’s right, I’m referring to a strap on penis.” In wearing this sex toy, a lesbian is suddenly transformed into a heterosexual man; it’s clear that the butch body still acts less as a queer woman and more as the placeholder for the male viewer.

Abuse and objectification of the female body also is heightened to suit the male gaze. Hair is pulled violently back as she extends one of her legs straight in the air so that our view of the dick is not obscured. It does not matter that these inorganic, acrobatic positions are not pleasurable nor conducive to sex; penetration and the role of the penis is the primary focus. There is little clitoral stimulation involved, the scenes are rough and more demanding than pleasurable, and the strap-on is glorified as the Sub is made to perform a blowjob for the Dom.[2] Finally, one of my personal favorite scenes—a long-haired femme being pounded against a weight rack, her tennis shoes still on. How did she get her clothes off without taking those bulky sneakers off? It doesn’t matter, these women are making gains at the gym, appealing to the Frat boy’s favorite pasttime. In the end, it seems you have two options to choose from when it comes to Ersatz porn: Watch a threesome between Sorority girls experimenting with lesbian sex for the first time through a hazing ritual, or watch a (still pretty feminine) butch relentlessly subjugate a dubiously consenting hyper-feminine girl and not even pretend to enjoy it.

Advertising and Authentic Arousal

Obviously, then, queer porn is much better at depicting authentic lesbian relationships than Ersatz porn… Or is it? My knee-jerk response would be to let out a loud, defiant YES! OF COURSE IT IS! It’s far easier to find what you are into when perusing the realm of queer porn—even if getting access to it is much more difficult in the first place. Unlike mainstream lesbian porn, which you can find in abundance uploaded on sites like Pornhub or xHamster, queer-produced porn often does not find its way out beyond access to those who pay for it. But when you do find it, you’ve hit the Sapphic jackpot. Performers vary from the familiar femmes to chubby dykes, from chapsticks to stone butches and trans women. The scenes are often more believable because of the bodies in them; they are diverse and range in size, echoing many a lady-lover’s desire to appreciate all parts of all women. The women in Morrison’s study noted that the performers were often much older, “not like they had pubic hair a week ago,” and that “they had marks on their bodies, like stretch marks and stuff. They weren’t perfect.” Not only do the bodies reflect a diverse array of lesbians in terms of style and age, they are also more realistic because of their “imperfections.” These are the same flaws that are quickly airbrushed and implanted away in the mainstream sphere. However, nail length still seemed to be an issue, and what the women lacked in a perfect figure they made up for with the heavy use of makeup, accessories, and perfect hairdos. It seems that no matter who it’s for, pornography still has a certain aesthetic of ideal beauty to maintain.[3]

Bodies aside, what about content? When a butch straps on a dildo and fucks her hot femme girlfriend, are the underlying themes really so different from Ersatz porn? Even in queer porn, it appears that the strict gender binary has its place. Unfortunately, no matter how exclusive the lesbian club may be, societal expectations of gender roles and expression still exert themselves full force on our bodies. Yet somehow, as queer women, we proclaim that this is still what real lesbian sex is. Whether or not it resembles heterosexual sex is not the point or purpose; the fact of the matter is that these are queer bodies performing queer sex. Theoretically, it does not rely on misogyny the way that porn for heterosexual men does. The performers engage in a subversive and empowering scene where they reclaim their right to their bodies and their sex lives. They are performing with their fellow lesbians in mind, not acting for a male gaze.

When examining how porn produced by lesbian women is advertised for consumers, one thing becomes very clear: We want real sex. In order to draw in their demographic, many queer pornography sites capitalize on the idea of authenticity. A few catchphrases used by CyberDyke.net include: “We depict the sex the way people really have it.” “real fantasies / real orgasms / real lust / real butches / real bodies / real sex.” Well fuck, the site has me sold! I would take CyberDyke’s “porn aimed at real women and lesbians” over Lesbian Cheerleader Squad 2 any day. How do I know that those lesbians are fake? Well, I don’t, really, but I’ve never seen porn aimed at straight men claim that the women are Real Lesbians. Mainstream pornography doesn’t need to affirm the sexualities of their performers because men don’t really care about authentic representation. A title with “TWO HOT WOMEN” in it is just enough and the Kleenex are out. Women wouldn’t be watching their porn, anyways, so what does it matter? Perhaps queer porn is not showing us reality, but rather performing “a fantasy of authenticity.” Pornography is essentially a visual fantasy, and we lesbians dream about a world in which our identities are valid, every woman loves us back, and men aren’t around to fuck it up and exploit our desires. It is that illusion of authenticity which gives queer lesbian porn its allure.

It may come as a surprise to learn that not all lesbians necessarily agree that queer porn is the better porn. Authenticity, it seems, has to do with much more than just a body. In a different set of interviews conducted by Valerie Webber, non-heterosexual women who performed lesbian porn made for men were asked to discuss how their performance related to their sexual orientation. It turns out that many did not believe that they were performing “fake” sex, rather simply adjusting their actions to capture and create what the audience needed. Performing with a woman who was also lesbian-identified did not immediately make the scene the performer’s real sex life, and most agreed that the line between their work and authentic sex was not so clearly defined.

Despite the many quarrels we have with Ersatz porn, lesbian-created lesbian pornography cannot escape our critical eye either. Emotional intimacy makes sex appear authentic; when both women are clearly into each other (not giving weird sultry looks in the male viewer’s camera’s direction), I’m much more likely to be aroused. But intimacy quickly strays into mushy romance in lesbian-created porn. The stereotype that women are more sensual and emotive and thus lesbian relationships would maximize on romantic, loving sexual activity is a key point of criticism in queer porn. I, for one, resent the assumption that any sex I have will be vanilla by default. Some viewers admitted to preferring scenes from Ersatz porn; one remarked that the lesbian-created scene “was completely… boring in every way. The music was boring, the women were boring, the scene was boring, the colors were boring, the film was boring, the camera stayed stationary for Christ’s sake. It was boring.”[4] Another admitted, “Um, you guys are going to think I’m a bad lesbian, but I really like the penetration. It’s hot.” Bad Lesbian Club rejoice! Her guilt echoed my own anxiety at my arousal by certain girl-on-girl porn scenes. But clearly not every dyke is into the same thing, and even content produced by queer creators can fall prey to harmful stereotypes.

Not all lesbian porn is quite so corny, of course. Vanilla can be a pleasant no doubt, but as one viewer noted, “Let’s get it really raunchy sometime.” When some of us come out of the closet, we bring along some of our more hardcore desires—whips, sturdy ropes, ball gags, and leather collars. BDSM has long played a role in the lesbian community, and its prominence in lesbian-created pornography adds to the supposed authenticity of the performance. However, as Julie Levin Russo points out in her article, “’The Real Thing’: Reframing Queer Pornography for Virtual Spaces,” it is the “mobilization of recognizable markers of dyke subculture (e.g. butch bodies, tattoos and piercings, fetish attire)” that feed into stereotypes about what being a lesbian is really like. Needless to say, not all queer women participate in or identify with these things. Although butch bodies help clue viewers into what porn is made for them, their representation is still almost exclusively present in the realm of BDSM. Themes of dominance are associated with masculinity, thus reflected in butch-heavy scenes of punishment and orgasm denial. After assessing my pleasure at certain penetration scenes in girl-on-girl porn, now I must question why I can so easily accept porn as made for my fellow lesbians through the mere presence of a butch body. It may seem more authentic to me, but for other queer women, perhaps the message they’re receiving is that certain characteristics—both in your relationship and your physical appearance—must be present in order to be real lesbian.

Reaching the Climax

Some would say that the question of authenticity is irrelevant because the purpose of pornography is to reflect viewers’ fantasies. How necessary is it to be real lesbians having sex? Why does it matter if most people can’t do the splits while they’re being eaten out? But without giving genuine thought to the performers and scenes you show, you run the risk of spreading misinformation about lesbians. Our existence cannot be denied, and failing to consider the impact of homogeneity in porn does a disservice to our very real livelihoods. The ruling is not decisive among women, queer or otherwise, as to which type of pornography is better or worse. My idea of what good porn is does not always match the reality of many queer women in the world; everybody has a different dynamic within their relationship, after all. Ultimately, though, there are definitely some things I could live without. (I’m glaring back at you, male gaze.)

[1] Doctor settings are actually quite a common scene in mainstream porn; straight men seem to have this idea that going to the gynecologist is hot. Because having my OBGYN shove a speculum up my vaginal canal is totally a turn-on, right?

[2] I’m still not sure how either party would get any personal pleasure out of choking on a silicone cock… but then again, butches are really just women who want to be men, remember?

[3] It’s not like we sweat during sex or accidentally choke on our girlfriend’s perfectly curled hair or anything.

[4] A 70-minute sex film set to classical music with zero dialogue wouldn’t be particular titillating for me, either.

Works Cited

Morrison, Todd G. and Dani Tallack. “Lesbian and Bisexual Women’s Interpretations of Lesbian and Ersatz Lesbian Pornography.” Sexuality & Culture, vol. 9, no. 2, Spring2005, pp. 3-30.

Russo, Julie Levin. “‘The Real Thing’: Reframing Queer Pornography for Virtual Spaces.” In Jacobs, Katrien & Janssen, Marije & Pasquinelli, Matteo. “C’Lick Me: A Netporn Studies Reader.” Jan. 2007.

“Strapon Women Who Fuck Better Than Men – 5.” Pornhub, 2016, https://www.pornhub.com/view_video.php?viewkey=ph577e65b319a02.

“TSA Agents Engage in Lesbian BDSM! (Part 2).” Pornhub, October 2017, https://www.pornhub.com/view_video.php?viewkey=ph59ccece3078ca.

Webber, Valerie. “Shades of Gay: Performance of Girl-On-Girl Pornography and Mobile Authenticities.” Sexualities, vol. 16, no. 1/2, Jan. 2013, pp. 217-235.

Wischhover, Cheryl. “What It’s Really Like to Be a Lesbian Porn Star.” Cosmopolitan. 2 Mar. 2016.

[anti-hinata]

omg i love how ur spending ur day hating on a character u mustn't have anythign better to do x

omg, and i love how you spend your day stalking a quite clearly labelled ‘anti’ blog and actively choosing to hide behind a cowardice anonymous option just for the childish satisfaction of sending someone (with simply a different opinion regarding a fictional series’ intricacies, for good grief 🙄) a bitchy little message. 😘

i mean, let’s not even get into the transparency of you failing to fabricate any form of a counter argument against said “hate”, so ironically playing the “oh, how sad” card in defeat, after you yourself has too found the time to go through various posts & reblogs on a blog which – contrary to your little remark – is barely active all that much. but, hey, that’s a basic perception if you actually looked at the time-frame between any of my posts, rather than just getting offended by – what, may i ask – my most recent meme? 🤔 meaning that i’m hardly “spending my day(s)”, unlike yourself, honey – getting oh-so enraged at someone “insulting” your favourite drawing by crediting canon facts against them and, you know, predominantly just criticising a misogynistic studio & industry on a whole…↳ like, a simple look beyond my url (which, as stated before, was merely chosen because [1] it wasn’t taken, and [2] served as a pre-warning to the content of this blog for pestering lurkers like you) would actually detail that i am mostly against said sexist studio/industry and thus use this space to analyse and critique the underlying social issues involved in such; an actual academic practice, as i’ve stated many freakin’ times before (that it’s getting ridiculously boring repeating at this point 😒)… so, yeah, a university degree which partly entails a pretty much identical custom is, i guess, that “something better” to do, huh? 🤗