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#I do not like cops but I do like gay ships
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For your AU with kabal and Erron leaving black dragon
Erron:(sitting with Kabal) you realize once Kano realizes we left, he'll try and have our heads.
Kabal: Yeah? I know, it's Kano.
Erron; well I'm just making sure. I mean I know how the black dragon is all you-
Kabal: Drop it. Now. I'm not getting into this right now.
Erron; All I'm saying is I know it's not easy kabal. That's all.
That's when General Blade came in with Raiden along with Subzero and Scorpion.
Raiden; this is concerning news indeed. But are we sure Kano is working to bring him back?
General Blade: The information seems credible.
Sorry English isn't my first language
Jax: Should we tell Stryker? He'd want to know
Sonya: Let's hold off for now, I'm not sure they parted on the best of terms
Raiden: What relevance does that have?
Sonya: Stryker might not be a cop anymore but he still has a gun, putting him in a room with his ex who may or may not have betrayed him to Kano seems like a bad idea
Jax: Kabal did WHAT?
Sonya: Might have, Stryker never gave me a clear answer
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benny-the-spaceman · 8 months
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ive fallen to rhe specialspacecops wayside,,
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vixscribs · 2 months
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despite benrook being a decently popular ship I can't seem to get behind a lot of fan content I see. Those are coworkers. There's no way they're snuggling and shit that's highly unprofessional.
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tvxcue · 2 years
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it is kind of. interesting. to see how many dean stans went down the cop show pipeline after moving on from spn like. come on now.
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🌈CM Pride Challenge🏳️‍⚧️
Hey everyone, I’m back with another monthly challenge! For the months of May AND June, I am formally challenging any willing writer to take a stab at writing fanfiction including LGBTQA+ PRIDE using their choice of Criminal Minds characters! Reader, Original Character, Character/Character ships, Gen/Platonic fics are allowed!Please check out the Rules below the Keep Reading.
There are a LOT of prompts below the cut, so keep going!
(**This is NOT a request list for me—this is a prompt list of other writers! Feel free to request from someone else, and be sure to let them know about the challenge!)
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General Prompts 🏳️‍🌈
Coming out is so much harder the second time
Describe Character’s first kiss with the same gender
Describe Character(s) spending a day at a Pride parade
The team realizes that A&B were more than roommates
Penelope goes a little overboard on rainbow decorations at Characters’ wedding
Character's marriage mutually comes to an end when they come out... now what?
Character comes out at the same time they announce their new relationship to the team
Character A fears it’s too late for them to live authentically, and B assures them that’s not true
Character A gifts B something colored like their pride flag because “the colors reminded me of you”
Child realizes that not every kid has two moms/two dads and they have a lot of questions about it
Queer characters have a hard time deciding what their child should call them and come up with fun ideas
Character A goes to a LGBT bar with B as a wingperson (or maybe they want them, themselves?)
Anything else you can think of!
More prompts (transgender, assorted, dialogue) below!
Transgender Prompts 🏳️‍⚧️
Character A helps B get their first tailored dress/suit
Character A helps B shave and/or put on makeup
The couple is looking for gender neutral nicknames
Character A buys B specialty gender affirming lingerie
Character is casually referred to with an appropriately gendered nickname for the first time
Characters are renewing their vows and redoing their wedding photos following a coming out
Character A walks in on B wearing a new gender-affirming outfit and surprises them with an enthusiastic compliment
The team throws Character an impromptu first birthday party following their coming out (how did they get a banner so fast?!)
Character A buys B a gender affirming but stereotypical gift (sports jersey, neon pink purse, etc.) that they would otherwise hate (but find absolutely hilarious)
Specific Prompts 💝
[Bisexual] Character gets irritated when people reduce their sexuality to their current partner
[Bisexual] Character A is in a M/F relationship with B and worries that their queer identity will become invisible dating them
[Asexual] Characters explore different forms of non-sexual intimacy
[Asexual] Characters are both asexual but too nervous to tell one another. They awkwardly attempt to have sex but end up laughing at how ridiculous they feel.
Dialogue Prompts 💐
“Are they… flirting?” “Big time.”
“I got to fall in love with you twice.”
“To be seen is to be loved." "I see you.”
“Be gay, do crimes.” “Aren’t you a cop?”
“There is no heterosexual explanation for that.”
“Life is very different once you find your people.”
“Cardinals and hydrangeas can change. Why not you?”
“You're still the person I love. Nothing will change that.”
“We both wear pants. Makes it easier to kick your ass.”
“It’s never felt like this before. I've never felt like this before.”
“I guess it makes sense now why it never worked out with my exes.”
Am I allowed to look at her like that? Could it be wrong when she's just so nice to look at? ("She" by Dodie)
“You can kiss a hundred boys in bars, shoot another shot, try to stop the feeling ... Well, good luck, babe. You'd have to stop the world just to stop the feeling.” ("Good Luck, Babe!" by Chappell Roan)
Rules ❤️🧡💚💙💜🖤🤎
The fic can be a Reader insert, an Original Character, a character/character ship, a platonic ship, or a Gen fic. It can feature any Criminal Minds character. AUs and crossovers are more than welcome.
Tag me in the fic, or send the link to me in a Direct Message. It can be already written, or you can write it for the challenge - I’m collecting both! You can also tag it “#mentioningmargins” which is a tag I track.
The fic can be any genre, but ONLY send me smut if your bio states you are 18+. I DO NOT WANT smut written by minors. Ever. At all. I will check.Platonic ships and pure, fluffy fics are 100% allowed.
Please include Content Warnings and a one-sentence Summary of the fic in your post.
Have fun!
The Masterlist of fics will be posted around June 30. If you finish after that, no problem - just send me the fic once you’re done and I’ll add it after-the-fact!
Feel free to message me if you want help developing a plot, have any questions, or just want to gush about your fic. I’m happy to help, and I’m happy you’re here ❤️
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🌈Happy writing! 🏳️‍⚧️
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wh0re-behavi0r · 3 months
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How to write 911 characters: Black women
since its black history month, here's how to write Athena, Hen, and Karen. I want to do this because I see really offensive things in fanfic when people write them and that usually goes unnoticed.
Athena:
✨ reference the source material (for everyone actually) ✨
Athena is a very kind and affectionate person with her friends, she's a great listener and always willing to help others out. She's stubborn when it comes to herself and taking breaks. She's a great mom and partner, though conflict has arisen when it comes to letting people in.
2. her relationship with Buck is not necessarily motherly. If you like to write her that way, it's your story but be careful you aren't falling into the mammy trope.
that would include, treating buck as though he's a child that needs protection from everyone, a cartoonish fondness and exaggerative movements, mainly as a character just to prop up Buck.
3. do not write her speaking voice different from the rest of the characters. I've seen things like: "A' course sugah!" Not only is that inaccurate, it's inappropriate.
4. Athena's relationship with being a cop, being in an interracial relationship, and being previously married to a gay black man are all very complex issues in the black community that require research before speaking on. I haven't seen people ever go in depth with this in fics but the show can only encapsulate so much about it without offending viewers so if you'd like to be more candid, please take the necessary steps.
Hen and Karen:
✨black queer love, especially wlw, isn't just to support your main ship please appreciate them ✨
hen is very driven, very caring, very intuitive. She's always been a listening ear for others, and finds comfort in her friends' advice. She's a great parent and a great partner.
Her relationship with Chimney can be silly, serious, protective, and everything you need in a best friend. They both look out for each other and aren't afraid to call out bs. Her relationship with Athena is also really great and balanced.
Hen can be a older sister to Buck, but it's a lot more light hearted. They also can be idiots together and Buck holds a lot of respect for her. Again, do not reduce her to this, that will be insensitive.
While we don't see Karen a lot, you see how much she cares about her family, how she does trust Hen but has been concerned about losing her loved ones. She's a brilliant woman and she often hangs out with Athena and has been friends with Chimney before she was with Hen.
again do not write any of their speaking voices differently. most of the time, Hen code switches and rarely uses any slang so stay away from that.
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reggieslocket · 2 years
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prepare yourselves because i'm going to give you a bunch of reasons and hints that will show you the high chance of eddie being actually gay and him and steve becoming a thing >:)
1. "freak" as a queercoded word
let's start with the scene where dustin, robin, steve and max find eddie in the house where he was hiding and particularly on the dialogue between the five of them
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there's this scene where eddie says something about how the people in town are getting ready to hunt him because they think he's guilty and he says "hunt the freak right?" and we see robin giving him an almost sad but understating look before replying "exactly" and i find it curios that they made her respond that out of everyone, i feel like it could be because she kind of relates to eddie's situation? she also would probably be considered a freak by people if they knew about her sexuality and that's why i believe the word has a queercoded meaning, if you think about it, "freak" was already used in the past seasons when bullies made fun of will, who also happens to be a queercoded character (even though we know he's coming out this season)
2. the handkerchief code
the handkerchief code gained popularity in the 70s and later on in the 80s and it was used especially by gay men to let others know their sexual preferences and fetishes. there were different and specific meanings depending on the color of your handkerchief and where you decided to put it (left pocket or right pocket)
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now if you watch closely eddie can be seen wearing a black hanky in his left pocket throughout the seven episodes and of course these little details have their own meaning, in fact the black one was used to indicate S&M (sadomasochism) and as mentioned before the fact that it is placed in his left pocket isn't casual because that placement indicated that the person wearing it was a top (the dominant one in bed) while if you put it in your right pocket it meant you were a bottom (the submissive one)
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this whole hanky thing made quite sense for me except for the fact that it was hard to believe that eddie is into sadomasochism but then rewatching the show a few days ago i noticed some handcuffs in his room and i found it weird because honestly what is a 20 year old man doing with those? he's not a cop or anything and so the fact that they are in his room is a bit strange for me... i just hope that the choice of making eddie wear the handkerchief isn't casual but a powerful move by the duffer brothers in order to hint at his sexuality
3. joe and joseph's interview
this interview really do be getting my hopes up. basically the interviewer asks joe what season one steve would think of his season four self and he replies with "surprised, approving... approval" WHILE looking and smiling at joseph who is also grinning, like there's no way they aren't hiding something and i hope it's the relationship between steve and eddie and steve's bisexuality. plus the fact that even maya is smiling while it seems like natalia is the only one able to be subtle about the whole thing lmao
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then obviously there are steddie-antis saying that he would be approving of him and nancy getting back together but like... what should he be approving of? they were already a couple in season one so it wouldn't make much sense
4. gaten ships them as well
remember: if gaten ships it then it's canon
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i love how the first couple that came to his mind is steddie and how proudly he says their names. he seemed so serious while saying it that it made me reflect on the fact that it's not that impossible seeing it happen and if not in season 4 maybe in season 5 since i read somewhere that luckily neither steve nor eddie are going to die in the last two episodes of this season (i don't know if it's true but let's hope so)
5. the chrissy-eddie thing
almost everyone who hates the fact that we headcanon eddie as gay will give the same explanation that he is clearly straight because he was flirting with chrissy and honestly i didn't see that as flirting at all, i just thought he was being really nice to her like he is to everyone. she was having a hard time and he was able to make her laugh and loosen up a little, i didn't find it as something romantic and furthermore who says that every interaction between a man a woman has to be romantic?
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like friendship exists as well people?? and don't try and say "tHeRe cAn'T bE sO mAnY qUeEr cHaRaCtErS iN oNe sHoW, iT's nOt rEaLiStIc" like trust me it's more realistic having a group of only (or almost) queer people than one where everyone is straight and i know the show takes place in the 80s but gay people existed even then but they just couldn't openly say it so stfu
6. steve's attempts to find a girlfriend
we all know mama steve is trying his hardest to find a girlfriend but none of them really "suists" him right? what if eddie is the person that suits him? i mean it would be epic if he spent two seasons trying to find a girlfriend and then he ends up with a dude lol, i'd like to see bi steve happening so bad and i just know that robin would be super supportive of him and my boy dustin would be the happiest person on earth if his two dads got together
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you can't tell me that they aren't developing a little crush on each other or that they don't care about each other, just look at eddie's face and his loving eyes in that scene and steve staring at eddie's lips for the whole time. i swear if they are really trying to get nancy and steve back together i'll start a riot because honestly they would be so forced, it wouldn't be good for both of their character development and also my boy jonathan doesn't deserve this, they made jancy dirty this season and i'm still pissed ugh
anyway if you read the whole thing ily and thanks for coming to my ted talk :)
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olderthannetfic · 2 months
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You know what obnoxious thing I keep seeing in fandom I wish would stop? This absolute need some people seem to have for their ship to be Representation in some way. Shipping is just imagining scenarios between two characters! You don’t need it to be a Special reason or whatever? I have a ship that is popular and people make weird vague comments about how the fandom is racist because both of them are white and there are other ship options that have poc so the white ship being big is a reflection on how racist the fandom is but the thing is…
Look I’m going to be real with y’all the fandom is for the game Detroit: Become Human and let’s just say the two major black characters are basically stereotypes written by a neocon lib boomer in a story that itself is imho…let’s call it tone deaf and corny af rather than overtly racist but yeah. Black folks on twitter regularly mock this game for good reason. It is very much a boomer white man’s idea of the civil rights movement but with robots. The robots sing actual slave hymns. The main character is essentially a light-skinned Martin Luther King Jr (dubbed Markus Luthur King by blktwt lol) and the religious allegories of him as a savior figure are very on the nose. It is bad lol. It’s not that I wouldn’t want to explore the black characters but the fandom is full of young white people singing the praises of this writing while patting themselves on the back about it which is genuinely uncomfortable to be around. Just my 2 cents but the virtue signaling and insane policing around those two characters makes it unbearable to interact with their content it is deeply sanitized and you WILL get death threats if you attempt any nuance or are critical of the (kinda racist imo) way they were written in canon.
The worst part of this is that Markus has a popular ship with a character a lot of people read or interpret as a more soft or femme gay man and you know what zoomers hate? Femme gay men. So obviously this is made to be ‘problematic’ in some way because these people can’t just admit to being femmphobic/homophobic themselves.
Sometimes it’s easier to stick with the boring white characters in the background because they aren’t being closely guarded by stupid reactionary people who are used to flashing their favorite fictional poc characters as tokens of their own goodness and virtue.
--
The pinnacle of this game is that moment when the black lady lectures her son about why they need to run the robot underground railroad to Canada.
I watched some playthroughs. Unsurprisingly, I liked the buddy cops with the good development, not the cringey activism plot with too many foils and not enough development of any single relationship and not the the Women Care About Babies plot.
But if I were going to do something fannish with Markus, I'd write him having a fucked up relationship with his mentor's son post game—the surrogate son who thought the guy was great and the estranged son who knew he wasn't but who has also done a bunch of shitty stuff himself.
It's especially hilarious when tryhards think the problem is not enough people shipping Markus with North as if the slashers are going to be into 1. het and 2. yet another unnecessary traumatic sex stuff backstory for a lady.
Even worse, half the whining isn't even about that Nines fanon nonsense being more popular than Markus: it's about how Markus/Connor would be better than Hank/Connor because old people are ew.
Sorry, children, a lot of people are here to thirst for Clancy Brown and because they'll turn up for any Caves of Steel ripoff. Other Connor ships were never in the running.
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fullyinconsequential · 11 months
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Here’s a 3am Steddie rant I think every Steddie lover (and possibly hater) should hear. I have no goal to convert anyone—just to say that the ship did not actually “come from nothing.” Here’s why:
I don’t understand how there wasn’t Steddie foresight in the writer’s room.
So they play it up in season 3 like Steve just can’t get the girl and when he does she’s not the right girl and yada yada yada—cool beans. I love his character arc with Robin, their friendship, her queerness. I love their entire bathroom interaction.
Specifically: “It’s somebody that I didn’t even talk to in school. Maybe cuz Tommy H. would’ve made fun of me, or I wouldn’t be prom king…. First of all, she’s hilarious. So funny. I feel like this summer I have laughed harder than I have laughed in a really long time. And she’s smart—way smarter than me…. She’s honestly unlike anyone I’ve ever met before.”
Traits Robin Also Has that Eddie Shares:
Outcast
Band Kid
The Witty Banter
Eddie’s personality is VERY Robin. Not perfectly so, but maddeningly close.
Another point:
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This is just the same person in different gender specific fonts, A.K.A. Steve’s “love interest” versus a guy who called him “big boy” completely unprompted and interrupted a tender moment between him and his “love interest” and complimented him for an entire scene while Steve wore his clothes.
So, really, one of them’s Steve’s love interest and the other is Nancy Wheeler /hj.
I write a lot, and as someone who both writes and consumes an abhorrent amount of media, whoever wrote this down, casted and costumed this way, and allowed for the interactions between Steve and Eddie to be as nuanced as they were (EX: the scene in which Eddie steps forward like he has more to say to Steve before he goes off and kills himself) had to have known what was going to happen. There is simply no way of not seeing it.
And if they didn’t want people shipping Steddie at the scale which they do, here’s what went wrong:
First: defaulting to Steve wanting his ex back is just plain shitty writing. It means you don’t know where to go with the character anymore, and since you’re certain he’s done all the growing he can do, he’s just gonna double back to the conflict he was in in the FIRST SEASON.
Are you serious right now, bro?
Steve’s arc as a character has been absolutely heartwarming to watch. If anything, he’d have been better off given the “I need to figure out how to be happy on my own” narrative. Throwing him back at Nancy is a cop out, a big one.
Second: Eddie. Throwing Eddie in the mix was absolutely a WILD decision, because he looks like Nancy, he banters like Robin, and GENDER IS NO LONGER A PLAUSIBLE REASON FOR AN AUDIENCE TO DENY CHEMISTRY, OR EXPLAIN IT AWAY. Not in the year of our lord 2023, no sir. Not unless you’re going to explicitly state in some way to an audience that these characters are DEFINITIVELY STRAIGHT. And with Eddie, they went as far off that course as possible.
The outcast stuff. The D&D stuff. The hatred of the system. The mysteriously living with his uncle and not his parents. THE HANKERCHIEF IN HIS BACK POCKET.
So essentially, this is what they did:
They took a beloved character, flubbed over his character arc because they weren’t sure what to do with it.
Then, they created a SECOND beloved character, made him likable, lovable, even, and relatable. Then they gave him half and half personality and looks of Steve’s last two love interests. Then they gave us scenes of them together where they showed chemistry, genuineness, and playfulness.
Then they EXPECTED that we as an audience had enough heteronormativity left as a society to say—oh, those two guys aren’t flirting with each other even a little bit because they’re two guys and obviously that doesn’t happen.
WHEN IN THE SAME SEASON WE WATCHED WILL AND ROBIN GO GAY PANIC AND DESPAIR LIKE?????
Pick a side pick a side, are your characters fucking gay or is your audience fucking blind?
Point being, I have some friends IRL who don’t really get this. They think Steve and Eddie hardly interacted enough for there to be romance at all, but I think it’s less about how much they interacted and more about the (unintentional) set up they were given by the writers.
Steve’s a truly beloved character and I don’t know on ST fan that wants to see him just end up back with Nancy Wheeler like his entire character arc was just to “get the girl” and “have six kids.” Which he already has by the way.
Anyway, that’s just my two cents. I’m not advocating for anyone to ship them, I’m just saying it’s honestly a perfectly logical conclusion to make, especially if you CARE about Steve as a character, you know? We want him to be with someone genuine, someone who challenges him to be better, to be different than he was. Nancy couldn’t handle doing that. Robin could, but they’re platonic af.
So why wouldn’t it be Eddie?
Rest in peace, by the way. You would’ve loved this text post.
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bonefall · 7 months
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Since you mentioned only cats and a few other distant animals are sentient, does this mean foxes are getting their sentience removed? Midnight can talk to foxes in the books and even convinces some foxes to leave a patrol of cats alone (the foxes are WEIRDLY violent and talk about eating the cats too lmaoo).
I assume Hollyleaf's changes mean the Fox Cub Incident is either being moved or just removed entirely, I always found that small plot point interesting in face of all those "Non-cat in clan" AUs. Seems like something that could be interesting if an "us vs them" argument was formed from it, especially if it was targeted against Midnight and calling her unholy yknow?
Yeah, that sapience is gone completely. In this universe, language is limited only to humans, cats, and some distant animals that are far outside the range of Albion (elephants, bottlenoses, some parrots, etc)
And Hollyleaf's story especially. Ngl to you, I don't like that fox idea. Or anything about Hollyleaf's Story. I think it was the worst possible route to take.
"Hollyleaf will be a mother to this evil creature to learn what it's like to love something that hates you. It is so sad to be your mom Leafpool (Squirrel-who?). Don't you feel like a shitty daughter now, Holly? Let's not ask any questions about the code btw, or how you were already filled with crushing shame from it. Or how it made you so disgusted about the idea of pregnant nuns that you flipped your shit and ruined the lives of your entire family. No, what really mattered about this situation was maternal empathy. Also here take the nearest male character we can find to ship you with, we accidentally made Cinderheart too gay when she was upset about your death lmao"
But, digressing, putting my distaste of that novella aside,
WC is profoundly xenophobic already with just the cats, and I think it was a CATASTROPHIC mistake to make it so every animal is secretly intelligent but speaks animal language. Now every conflict between cats and their predators is an ethnic dispute! You're chasing out groups of people perfectly capable of reasoning if you bridged the language barrier, but they're also ACTUAL PREDATORS.
AT BEST; It's the same uncomfortable situations that Zootopia and Lion King ends up tripping over. In Zootopia, predators are used as an allegory for oppressed groups... but predators are MADE to eat prey. A rabbit is RIGHT to be terrified of a fox, twice its size with a jaw made for catching bunnies. In Lion King, lions have divine authority to rule over their dinner/subjects, and chase out any animal based on their personal ideology... which just so happens to only be leveraged against rival predator species.
(Nerd preemption: yes i know about lion guard. I do not think diverse Lion Cops were the solution you think it is.)
Carelessly adding sapience to "natural systems" often ends up accidentally justifying bigotry. Bigotry doesn't MAKE SENSE, it's bullshit we made up and perpetuate through culture, but food webs are completely logical. The rabbit fears the fox because the fox eats rabbits. The lion hates the hyena because they compete for the same food. Gazelles don't happily submit to an overlord who is divinely capable of deciding who should live and who should die, it's just nature.
But it gets even worse-- because it's actually WORST CASE; the Erins saw that complicated moral problem and went, "don't worry! They're actually born evil! Foxes just talk about food and killing things :)"
like... my brother in cats, YOU gave them language in the first place! What was the fucking point if they were just going to be evil barbarians anyway?!? For ONE scene where Midnight could show off her Duolingo streak???
So to summarize,
It was an awful idea to start with
It was executed in the worst possible way
In a series that is already plagued with xenophobic sentiment, this somehow made it even worse and more direct
If it was completely nuked it from the story, the series would be immediately better with minimal change. Holly caring for what is essentially the clan cat-equivalent of an exotic animal like a chimp or a tiger cub would have done the same thing
There is not even a glimmer of an idea here that justifies the poison that full sapience does to the wider implications of the series.
Don't even get me started on the Badger Debaucle in TNP, which is actually in my top 5 for most vile things in WC
So if I don't explicitly say that a species in BB is capable of true language, assume it is non-sapient. Talking animals like Midnight and Rat Leader are magical individuals-- gods, curses, etc.
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For decades slash fandom made art and fic about masc cishet characters in gay relationships and begged on their hands and fucking knees for a gay character and then the second they got a real fag they immediately accused him of being an interloper, made excuses as to why he would be against kink or call the cops on drag queens in a modern au or whatever bullshit they think, did olympic level mental gymnastics to explain why he's actually a man's man despite canonical dialogue to the contrary and the entire narrative of the show he's in hinging on the fact that he can't even fake it, and shipped his leatherman boyfriend (who they also character assassinated, this time for racist reasons as well as homophobic ones) with the nearest subtexually gay homophobic masc4masc (in a show where everyone is gay mind you) they could fucking find despite the fact that said boyfriend doesn't even like the guy and I'm never gonna let yall live it down as long as I fucking live. Here I was thinking you actually gave a fuck about gay men instead of just getting your rocks off to the idea of two hetties making out. If you wanted to do the subtext puzzle forever you should have never left the supernatural fandom. Go ship those fucking metalheads from stranger things and leave us alone.
Just, it has become abundantly clear to me that there was always a reason you fuckers were into Hamilton instead of Rent, and did the most to turn Captain America: Winter Soldier into a tragic romance between Steve and Buckey instead of a superhero action movie but never fucking bothered to watch Moonlight. It's because you don't actually like gay men. This is the reason that Destiel is still the top ship on AO3 to this fucking day. It's because none of you can handle real gays.
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blubushie · 2 months
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Are there some things you dislike about fans' interpretation of the other mercs?
Yeah uh. This is long so it's under the cut. Whole TF2 fandom boutta be like 2Fort on my arse.
I hate how people make Medic "evil". He's fun and goofy and likes doing experiments and he'll betray the people paying him for the sake of his long-time coworkers who he's mates with. He's not evil, he's not manipulative, outsmarting the LITERAL DEVIL doesn't make you a bad person. There is literally nothing in canon to point to Medic being evil except MAYBE stealing a bloke's spine (coulda been dark humour for all we know) and turning a criminal into a sentient pumpkin, which is something that Engie HELPED HIM DO but no one goes around calling him evil. Medic is chaotic good or chaotic neutral, he is not evil.
The amount of people who are downright racist about Demo, or the amount of people who reduce his addiction to the butt of a joke. There's a lot of shit that I notice. They act like Demo isn't fiercely loyal—look at his relationship to his mum). They act like he's lazy because he's an alcoholic—HE HAS 3 JOBS AND WANTS MORE, HE WASN'T LAZY IN THE COMICS HE WAS DEPRESSED BECAUSE HE LOST ALL HIS MATES. On the other end of the coin, you have people insisting that Demo's alcoholism isn't as bad as it actually is, as if substance abuse is a fucking moral failing and they can't have their blorbo be a bad person by just letting him be the alcoholic he's shown to be in canon.
As an intersex man: do not get me fucking started on the amount of intersex+NB headcanons I've seen of Pyro. People need to realise that like the rest of the human population, most intersex people are cis, that gender is not equivalent to sex, and that EVERY intersex character being non-binary promotes a harmful stereotype. Actually I'll be honest—I side-eye EVERY intersex Pyro headcanon what's made by a perisex person. Most the time they give off massive virtue signal vibes and I really don't like how the second you can't clearly determine someone's gender people immediately go "ah, intersex" like we're all visually androgynous. I also don't like how the person MOST OTHERED ON THE TEAM is always given the intersex headcanon. It doesn't make me feel represented, it makes me feel like everyone already seems me as an other and that's all I'll ever be.
People who act like the pronoun police and insist Pyro's pronouns are they/them. Canonically Pyro is always and consistently referred to as he/him except when he's being dehumanised by his own team and called it. It's cool if you headcanon Pyro as using they/them, just remember it ISN'T CANON and you shouldn't be getting on people's arse about non-canon pronouns. What are you a cop?
On a similar vein, the amount of people who infantilise Pyro. Pyro was literally the CEO OF A COMPANY who was responsible for RECORD PROFITS OF THAT COMPANY. Pyro is an adult. People assume that because Pyro hallucinates or enjoys "childish" things that it means Pyro's a child. Please be fucking normal about mental illness, my god.
People who make Scout transfem for the sole purpose of shipping Scout with Pauling, worse even if they outright make it so that Scout transitioned SPECIFICALLY to hook up with Pauling. You realise that you're enforcing TERF "all transfems are predatory and transition just to get chicks/transfem lesbians are just straight men" rhetoric right? Please tell me you're aware. People who make Scout transfem for reasons beside this (ie you just like transfem Scout) and still hook her up with Pauling for fun, I love you and this post is not about you. <3
People who ignore Medic's likely bisexuality in favour of writing him as a strictly gay male. Bi erasure is fucking real lads. If you have the view that Demo was talking out his arse and didn't actually shag Medic's wife cuz he's not even married, cool ok. I'm talking about the people who insist Medic's wife was his beard.
People who act like the ship police with Pauling's sexuality when her being a lesbian was something mentioned in one tweet on Twitter by Jay, not approved by Valve, and never referenced in the source material (outside of MAYBE how she stared at Zhanna while she was fighting robots, but that facial expression could also be interpreted as impressed or "so horrified she can't look away". Especially when she outright agreed to go on a second date with Scout in Expiration Date. If you headcanon her as a lesbian, cool! Just don't enforce it on other people and give them flak for shipping her with non-women characters. This applies to people aggressively enforcing Medic's sexuality as well. What are you a cop?
How the character people trans the most is the white skinny twink, white skinny otter, or white wolf. Why not Demo? Trans people of colour exist too. I can count the trans Demo headcanons I've seen on one hand. Why not Heavy? Why not Heavy? You know fat trans people exist too right?
My family is southern and half the time people don't know what the fuck goes on down south. Tell me you've never been to a cookout without telling me you've never been to a cookout. They either write him as too northern/coasty and only enforce the "stereotype" southern aspects of him, or they write him as racist/homophobic/transphobic/etc because he's southern. Luckily the latter gets a LOT of pushback on Tumblr so I haven't seen it much, but it's more prevalent on Twitter and fanfic sites.
People conveniently ignoring how Heavy's father was killed and his family was imprisoned by the USSR so they can call him a communist. Lol what. I get that you hate capitalism but you realise there's more options than just capitalism vs communism vs socialism right? That you can hate/dislike communism without also being a capitalist? Heavy would not support communism after what the USSR did to his family in the name of communism because his father was a counter-revolutionary. Also people ignoring WHY Heavy's father was killed, and how his father having different politics got his whole family, including innocent children chucked to a GULAG IN SIBERIA where they were starved and constantly abused by the guards, and how even after their escape the government continued to hunt them with the intent of killing them. He would not be a communist. He probably sees a hammer and sickle in his fucken nightmares.
Spy being evil and an arsehole. You know his schtick is the suave gentleman right? He's cool but he also has to be cringefail. And arsehole is a far cry from a gentleman.
People making Soldier a bigot. Har har I know it's funny to joke about the bloke obsessed with America being a bigot, but do you honestly think he cares enough? He's xenophobic at worst. Everyone is assumed to be American and his best mate is a black Scottish cyclops. Half the time I'm convinced you people want Soldier to be a bigot so you can write bigoted shit and not cop shit cuz it's coming out of his mouth.
Carrying on from prev, the amount of people I've seen use the time setting as an excuse to be bigoted towards the characters. This is ESPECIALLY prevalent where it seems like every story-focussed fic of Demo has a scene where someone is being racist to him and he Heroically Sticks Up For Himself or someone else sticks up for him to show How Much They Don't Care About Being Seen With A Black Man (usually it's Soldier, sometimes it's Sniper). You realise everyone knows racism is bad, right? That that's really not necessary? It wouldn't be an issue if it wasn't in EVERY FIC but it's like the author always needs to proudly claim themselves Not Racist while writing REALLY RACIST SHIT directed at the ONE CONFIRMABLE MAN OF COLOUR on the team just so they can yell "RACISM BAD but here's me jumping at the opportunity to call a man of colour a racial slur".
Well, reckon that about covers her...
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mejomonster · 5 months
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Modu by priest was truly such a good read. If you like romance? It has a sweeping romance, with a well done bisexual and gay lead (and straight best friend) all written in ways that manage to feel realistic, it's got features people likely found it for when looking for a danmei - rich manipulative younger man, older investigator who's got a hero streak, and yet those categories don't really do justice to them (and of course tao ran is the more grounded detective story lead who keeps his theories to himself and worries about dragging others into his mess).
They're so much more... Fei Du is a traumatized young man who's worried he's as monstrous as the people who scarred him, who is preparing to take the leap and cross the line to become an even more terrifying version of himself if it will destroy the corruption poisoning this city and harming so many, Luo Wenzhou is a cop that used to want to be a hero and learned he will fail people and be unable to save people and holds onto Fei Du as someone who reminds him he DOES fail but also reminds him why he wants so hard to keep Trying to help people even when it seems impossible... why trying and putting in effort to care and help Even when its too late to fix things is Worthwhile. Tao Ran is a contrast to them both, Fei Du living in a world where there's only monsters and victims and Luo Wenzhou desperately trying to force the world to be a place where justice CAN prevail and win even as he sees it fail over and over, trying so hard to believe all people have the capacity for everything and are worth trying to save. Even though Fei Du doesm't believe that, being around Luo Wenzhou makes him want to consider it. Tao Ran, their contrast? Believing the world can go either way, and its up to people like him to create any justice at all, any structure at all, or else everything is just meaningless suffering chaos. As characters, the three of them serve to explore how the world works and views on it in terms of a detective murder mystery encompassing the whole city, the small scale version of the world. Modu is a romance, but its also fully commited to being a murder mystery that wants to tackle the kind of themes that come up in the setting it's created. Its characters are so much more than Insert Character Ship types here. These characters were made this way to explore these ideas (just as the villains are all made to parallel and contrast Fei Du to explord these ideas in comparison to our point of view Fei Du moments, our impressions of Fei Du from Luo Wenzhou and Tao Rans varied perspectives, all of them are different lenses to view humanity and how it works, if the world is just or if we have to make it good, if we can be inherently good and if good people will reach out to us if we just keep treading water to survive, if its luck and chaos, and how much... and much more frankly).
Modu is like. If you want a story about a corrupt city and its victims, symbolizing a corrupt world and all of us at its mercy, and you want to see the heart of the people doing something about it. First the main trio, but also every victim Fei Du recruits to help, every murderer recruited to the corruption, all the people in the cases swayed to some side. Thats what Modu is about.
The romance is just one facet of exploring that, the personal debate about what these things mean about the world as told through two people who view this world incredibly differently. Yet find some way to exist in the same space, same mutual world, when together. It hooks you in and doesn't let you go and youre wondering right there with them, left to draw your own meaning in the end. Hopefully that its worth trying, that doing something is worth trying even when its just the trying you can do and not the succeeding, at least thats what I got from it (at least in regards to Fei Du and Luo Wenzhou meeting each other, unable to live up to the pillar they put each other on but trying anyway, is what I felt from them).
Then like? Modu gives you THAT story, which in its own right is enough to make you contemplate.
And if you're like me and care about people, about characters? Well it gives you, like I said, those big themes and a city's nightmares symbolizing the world, and brings them down to an individual level. You read from the mind of the little girl who grew up in this (one of my favorite scenes and when I felt this novel was going to not shy away from dark psychological moments and bringing them to you). You read from the mind of Fei Du when he knows himself, when he doesn't. You read from the minds of all kinds of people, and the heart of much of the investigation is peoples motives and things they'd gone through and how that shaped what they'd do next. Why they'd do it. Leaving you to wonder who's right. Jaded idealist Luo Wenzhou who wants to believe in the goodness of the people he loves, but also is willing to risk that strangers may have good intent? Fei Du who thinks theres only victims and perpetrators and everyone is going to fall into one in the right circumstance? Tao Ran, who feels the world is too messy to dare declare predictable, who thinks even your closest can betray you and even you can accidentally hurt them, nevermind strangers, and the only thing you can control and rely on is your own choices? Some mix? None of them? The side characters as they come up, grow and evolve, do they understand the world better or worse, and is the world they experience different than anothers and justify why their worldview is likewise different? Modu gives you that up close and personal, over and over. Im still thinking about it. And the way its done, they all get to feel like lived in people. Not structures to tell the themes only. But on their own, there's a personal struggle between Fei Du feeling like a monster who'll destroy Lup Wenzhou if he loves him, like his dad destroyed his mom, and Luo Wenzhou carrying the guilt he could never save Fei Du and desperate to believe in Fei Du (and keep trying to save him in that way if only that way) as person who can do good despite not being saved and despite Fei Du's fears. You could cut the entire city's plot away, all of the crimes and make the city calm, and still that core of their plot would be carrying a Lot of weight. Theyre playing a game of "enemies" to lovers sure, or whatever romance story structures they fit into. But they're also made to be deeply rooted into each other, their personal beliefs tied into the outcome of what they hope or fear happens if they are close together. Modu made me care about that. Its like the fears many people might have, abiut theur own flaws, about getting close to others, about trusting and being unsure if that trust is safe to give. Its that and magnified into bigger form, in this landscape of a fucked up city and the tragedy of Fei Du and Luo Wenzhou's meeting and former lives.
Its like. Id love to to read another danmei (Ive got a lot on my to read list). But what's going to give me roo
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rupertgayes · 2 months
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How would you pitch watching Due South to someone who doesn't know it?
THE PREMISE: mountie from the northern reaches of canada goes to chicago to avenge dead dad (also a mountie), gets into buddy-cop shenanigans with a detective. said detective leaves the show in season 3 and gets replaced by another detective, shenanigans continue to ensue. there's also a dog. he's very cute.
THE PITCH: honestly, after being in the spn fandom and having most of popular culture awash with prestige shows (that are not spn, but like spn are typically dark and gritty and like killing characters off too) and having most of the popular media landscape try to cover their collective asses by having an aloof, 'you-can't-make-fun-of-this-because-we're-not-taking-it-seriously-ourselves' air, it was truly refreshing to sit down with a close friend of mine and check out this show.
i'm being completely serious when i say there's a certain je ne sais quoi about this show. is it because it's from the 90s? perhaps. is it because it's canadian? maybe. i wasn't even alive when this show first started airing and i'm not a media analyst. it basically takes the premise of the dudeley do-right cartoon and asks 'okay, but what if that was like, a real guy?' and fucking runs with it to the wildest heights. it's a comedy, but it's also so bizarre in some ways that it makes it a truly unique treat to watch. i love psych and brooklyn 99 for having a comedic procedural aspect, and neither of them are comparable in whatever it is that due south is doing.
there's honestly a lot of heart and soul in the entire show, and it has the ability to shift from just being comedic to having drama, mystery, and moments that pull at your heartstrings. it's a show that you can enjoy on the surface as a fun episodic show with fun characters and fun moments, but it also lends itself quite well to extrapolating on the characters, their motivations, etc. (and by etc i'm also including any shipping you might want to do).
i won't say it's a paragon of DEI, but again, i think it has a level of earnestness which makes any slip-ups it does have something i can kinda view with indulgence, versus shows that are making the same (or worse) mistakes 20+ years after this show already ended. these characters are treated with a level of dignity and respect, and i think overall the characterization is pretty consistent - there are some shifts happening between seasons 1-2 and 3-4, but i feel like it has more to do with budgets, a change in creative team, etc., versus writers not 'getting' certain characters.
there's also a lot of memorable episodes, scenes, bits. i think the latter seasons are more campy (my favorite) and some eps from s1 and 2 make for legitimately some great television. even the more mid episodes have something worthwhile, too. some of my fave moments in no order:
fraser (the mountie) saving and talking to? a rat in a strip club
also him going to a leather club
twice
and meeting a mountie in a latex version of his red serge uniform
using a tarp as a parachute
mafia egg conspiracy
aliens??
due south but make it silence of the lambs a little bit
performance arsonist
lake pirates? ghost ship?
also why are most of the major bad guys here doing some form of environmental crime? get your captain planet on ig, i'm into it
also fellow cops can also be bad guys. acab ig??
sick muscle cars eric kripke himself would've enjoyed. sometimes they get set on fire tho
due south but make it to wong foo thanks for everything
fraser running away from women so he doesn't have to kiss or interact with them
way too much time in closets, in general.
fellas is it gay to ask your new partner of one week maybe to pretend he's a woman so he can decide if he finds you attractive
there are red ships and green ships but no ships like partnerships :)
and to reiterate about the dog: there's a dog who's half wolf and all deaf and fraser can talk to him 'because he (the dog) reads lips'
his dead dad shows up too sometimes
anyway, it was really nice to watch this show for the first time, there are still moment i scream-laugh at because they're just so ridiculous and i'd never catch any other moments like that in any other show. i definitely see why there's still active fans for it thirty years later. there's also some wild shipping fodder here, which is at least partially why there are still fics getting written for these guys today. destiel if the cw weren't cowards etc etc. when i watched the finale, i cried tears of joy because while i'd miss the characters, they got an ending that actually seemed to fit, instead of it being a rush job, which is not unique to spn but, you know.
also you can watch it for free on youtube rn.
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“Will doesn’t need a relationship to be happy”.
This is something I’ve seen people throw out there as to why Byler shouldn’t have to end up together for Will to have a happy ending and that anyone who says otherwise is reducing Will’s character to his sexuality. I think it needs to be addressed why that view is simply ignorant.
First off, I don't care that Will is gay. Will Byers became my favourite character back in the first season when he had a total of like fourteen minutes of screen time. I enjoyed watching the cast's reactions to his absence, and the goodness of his character shown in the flashbacks we see. I remember thinking "how impactful he must've been on these characters' lives for his absence to drive the story for an entire season," and the more I got to know him in subsequent seasons, the more I liked him. So, when it was teased, implied and ultimately confirmed that Will was gay, I couldn't care less. His sexuality didn't change how I felt about him in any way, but it did change how his narrative could be perceived.
Will being gay is a core part of his identity. If Mike and Will were not the intended endgame couple, the duffers wrote themselves into a corner by how they handled Will's sexuality, because of the message they are giving by committing to that representation. Will being gay is not the problem. Will being gay, canonically in love with Mike, and willing to sacrifice his own feelings for a heterosexual relationship is the problem.
I, personally, am a big fan of "don't need to be in a relationship to be happy" endings. In fact, it's what I'm hoping for with El, and if season four had been handled differently, I would like it for Will too, but the fact of the matter is, that's not what happened. They built up Will's feelings for Mike over several seasons, even despite the distance (both figuratively and literally) between them in between seasons, and now they have to commit because the truth of the matter is, gay people do not have the same representation straight people have in media.
A heterosexual character could go through the exact same romantic arc as Will and still not end up in a relationship without it feeling like a cop-out simply because there is a lot more positive heterosexual representation than there is gay representation. It is essential to understand that there is a difference in the message being sent simply because of the character's sexuality. Whereas the heterosexual character's journey's message would end up being "sometimes it doesn't work out, but that doesn't make the love felt any less profound," the gay character's journey's message would instead come across as "a same-sex romance is not as profound as an opposite-sex romance." Will, especially, in the van scene, where he used his own feelings to promote El, would be telling the story of how the best a gay character could offer would be to sacrifice their own feelings.
Now, I'm not gay. Despite being ace (♠/♢), I don't even consider myself to be a member of the LGBT+ community (not that there's anything wrong with identifying as LGBT+ if you do share my sexual identity). But I understand the importance of good, and positive, representation of LGBT+ characters in media, as well as the damage bad representation, whether intentional or otherwise, could cause.
And ignorance is not a sin. I wouldn't disparage someone for not understanding the implications, but willful ignorance on the other hand is different. You don't have to ship Byler, but you should understand why the ship is important and why it not being endgame would be so devastating even after it's been explained to you.
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bengiyo · 4 months
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Hmm Ayan and Akk in the Eclipse. They are not one of my favorite pairs, but they compel me. So I would really like your thoughts on them.
Disclaimer: I am talking about Akk and Ayan as characters. FK girlies don't tense up.
Let's start at the most important thing: Akk is a cop.
Ayan may fall for him and try to put the effort into starting the process of rehabilitation with him, but Akk is a cop who terrorized other gay people. He tried to hit them with a car. Even in the special he's still battling with the cop in his brain that wants people to comply with what he understands norms to be.
I like The Eclipse because it presents the way structural homophobia torments people in the closet from multiple angles, but Akk is a cop and Ayan is a keyboard warrior. He is never present when other people are doing the work. He's hanging out with Akk or talking shit on Twitter with Thua.
Khaotung and First are really compelling together. I think these two do a great job playing out the attraction between their characters, but I wouldn't vibe with them if they showed up at a queer event.
Send Me a Ship and I'll Share My Thoughts
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