thinking abt when i was seeing ppl say that hollow knight pulled a “bury your gays” and specifically said “they make it so that you think you’re doing a wholesome quest where you deliver a flower to a woman’s wife but then it turns out you deliver it to a GRAVE and its a BETRAYAL” and its so funny bc literally the character that gives you the quest is like sobbing her eyes out when you meet her and explicitly talks abt how much she misses her dead wife and couldnt be with her and her name is fucking “grey mourner”. yeah this quest is totally gonna be wholesome

this is gonna be SO long and rambly sorry anyway i saw a post abt how babel does queer characters and it got me thinking abt why the tropes it uses would usually turn me off other stories but didn’t here

MAJOR BABEL SPOILERS //

i feel like i’d be more mad abt how robinramy ended up in babel if it marketed itself as queer lit at all or if its fans were going “WOW AMAZING QUEER REP” abt it. but no one told me any of that, so finding out they were gay was just a fun little bonus surprise to me. i get why ppl are eh abt robinramy not getting together/technically still being subtext (which i dont think is really true btw like the book literally says “robin was falling in love” but idk i guess if you were stupid you might’ve assumed that it was falling in love with oxford given how romantic some of the other language is (WHICH IS ALSO THE POINT bc i think robin’s friendship with ramy blurring into romance is why he romanticised like all his friendships/experiences in oxford BUT IM GETTING OFF-TOPIC)). i just think robin’s repression abt being gay was intrinsically tied to his attitudes on imperialism (wrt refusing to acknowledge anything that complicated his life until it was too late) and i don’t consider it a cop out or queerbait. like i genuinely don’t think robinramy could ever have gotten together without drastic alterations being made in terms of plot and character. plus i think it’s clear that kuang didn’t want to write a story with any kind of focus on romance at all, because it’s not that kind of book. there’s no successful het romance either, so it grates a lot less. the only reason romance is included at all is to show the ways in which white entitlement manifests. so the tragic way robinramy played out just made sense to me.

and i speak as someone who accidentally spoiled myself on You Know What in the middle of reading and i was like ugghh boooo dreading it the whole time expecting to roll my eyes when it happened but then when it did i was like. wow im actually not that mad LMFAO 😭😭😭 actually thematically the book sets it up so well that i believed that this was unfortunately the only way it could’ve gone. babel is about the loss and tragedy and grief that colonised people experience. it’s about the lengths people will go to to uphold empire and the lengths ppl will go to to tear it down like idk 😭 i guess it is bury your gays but it didnt bother me this time because i thought it fit thematically ❤️ i enjoy tragedy as a genre a lot and i would’ve made it gay anyway you know. thanks rf kuang for doing it for me so i didnt have to.

WHICH IS ALL TO SAY that i guess if you’re going into babel for the queer rep without appreciating that the story is fundamentally a tragedy it would feel like it’s just reusing tired tropes….. but i think the choices kuang made were rly deliberate and not in a way that feels like trauma porn or shock value. the book is fundamentally about the struggles of poc so the layer of queerness that was introduced felt like a subtle extension of the experiences of characters of colour in the book, and i enjoyed and related to it as a queer chinese person who kind of realised they had to prioritise their fight for the liberation of poc over queerness mainly because the idea of western queer liberation cannot be dissociated from imperialism and many aspects of homophobia as we know it was an export of christian european empire into our colonised countries in the first place and FUCK THIS IS A WHOLE OTHER TANGENT ABOUT HOW I THINK RAMY AS A CHARACTER IS EMBLEMATIC OF THE TENSION AND STRUGGLE THAT QUEER POC DIASPORA HAVE BETWEEN OUR IDENTITIES GODDAMNIT OK FORGET IT POST CANCELLED i just rly think babel’s handling of queer characters is fine and makes sense and i like it personally and maybe i will make a coherent analysis about it one day but that day is not today byeeeeeee

Mate i think too many people got in for the gays. Like I’ve seen discourse about it being bury your gays and I’m like? You signed up for a queer horror tragedy written by a queer person? No it’s not fucking bury your gays.

i think tma is definitely in many ways a story about love but it’s not a “love story”. the romance was never and imo should never be a focal aspect but i think it has its place as part of the story….sort of like how the x files is about mulder and scully but tries not to be “about mulder and scully”. like tma isn’t about shipping or anything that stuff is totally peripheral AS IT SHOULD BE but i think it’s definitely sort of a “it matters that the love was there” type of story

Sorry I'm not done about Vampire in the Garden. I guess most people's criticism is not just the 'bury your gays' trope (didn't happen here, there were lots of queer characters and the movie is supposed to be a tragedy). Other complains concern it feeling rushed (its a movie in 5 parts, not actually a series) and the age difference between Momo and Fine (they aren't lovers, girls being very close friends isn't lesbian erasure when the whole point is they are both lesbians mourning their lovers and searching for paradise together).

It's elder gay helping baby gay. They love each other, obviously, but I really don't think it was romantic love. Maybe is because I'm demiromantic asexual and have a general respect for split attraction model, but there is a step between platonic and romantic, there is that fuzzy space that can make a qpr, there are people who can not be romantically connected but still love each other the way Fine and Momo so clearly do.

I know I'm screaming into the void, but isn't that what we're all doing? I don't normally make posts like this and I try to enjoy media the internet culture is deeming 'problematic' but I'm so /tired/ of seeing things I like wildly misinterpreted and universally agreed upon as 'bad'.

You didn't like it because you don't like the genre and don't give a damn about QPRs and have to ship people romantically to be fulfilled. Move on.

(re: tma getting popularity as a gay romance rather than horror tragedy) I've seen someone praising jm because "the gay is not a part of the horror" (specifcally contrasting it with hannigram and other gay horror ships) and I wanted to pull my hair out, wondering how many other people thought the same way. If you want the romance to be an escape from the horror, why are you consuming horror in the first place? Just go consume romance smh.

-ace je anon (answer at your leisure)

Oof. I think it's better than saying TMA buries its gays*, at least.

...Thinking about it, maybe the author was so worried about avoiding homophobic tropes that he ended up shying away from anything remotely like them when the issue isn't the mere neutral fact of a gay relationship being unhealthy or a queer character dying; it's in the narrative framing.

What would you think if Byler didn't become canon?

I think it would be funny as all hell because then the duffers wrote the gayest show of all time, two of the gayest characters of all time, two of the most in-love with eachother characters of all time, the production, the set design, the cinematographer and the actors then also supported this gayness and this love through their work and they did it all accidentally.

That’s fucking hilarious actually. I’d probably cry because byler not being canon would suck and be HUGELY wasted potential for a show that I adore, but it’d also be funny as hell that they accidentally wrote the gayest most mutually in love characters ever or if it wasn’t an accident, they wrote those gay in love characters then didn’t make them canon which at that point is just depressing because it’s so much wasted potential and goes against the core themes of the show and would result in a show that goes against conformity still conforming in the end.

Like if Mike is straight/Mike and El are canon, that’s conforming to typical heteronormative stories. If Mike is gay but byler still doesn’t become canon/one of them dies, then that’s ALSO conformity because bury your gays/gay tragic endings have been DONE a million times before. They’re not bad and I’m not against them, but it wouldn’t align with a show like st and the way it’s presented itself and the idea of non conformity, because on the surface to the GA it presents itself as a straight show, not a queer show, so well imo there can still be fresh takes on “bury your gays/gay tragedy” in shows that are explicitly promoted as queer from the get-go, with stranger things, because of the way it’s presented itself, it would be falling into the conformist “bury your gays/gay tragedy” box the way that other non-explicitly queen shows do. I don’t want to say “non queer shows” because st IS a queer show (like it’s a show WITH queer people, it’s a show ABOUT characters who happen to be queer, which may make it seem on the surface as if it’s not a “queer show,” but imo the queerness is also intertwined into the narrative and entirety of the story in a way that DOES make it a queer show even if it hasn’t been intentionally marketed as one to the ga (which I AGREE WITH like don’t get me wrong I 100% think they made the right choice to market their show about outcasts and queer people to a largely non-queer and non outcast demographic because it’s the ultimate straightbait and imo I love it because it’s flipping the usual queer baiting on its head) )

But yeah. If byler isn’t endgame, and happy, and alive, then ST has failed its own message of non-conformity sue to the way that the show has presented itself to its mainstream audience- and like I said, that presentation is GENIUS as long as they follow through with it, stick the labeling, and continue to be nonconformist by giving two of the gay characters a happy ending.

The most anti-conformity route is the one where the gays get to be together, alive, and happy.

Some people are going to be genuinely and deeply hurt when the very bad queerbaiting doesn’t come to fruition. Destiel 2.0. If we’re calling people gay because of a few lines of low hanging fruit then every cishet girl on the planet is gay. When Alicent doesn’t become a canon lesbian and then dies alone and abandoned by everyone, and her stans trend hashtags about the “bury your gays” trope, lesbophobia and queerbaiting, and harass the cast and the writers... Another petition is coming your way HBO, count your days 🤭

I don't doubt that some expect Rhaenicent to at least apologize to each other and mean it, but I think it's more likely that most expect these two to never reconcile properly because the underlying appeal to their relationship in the first place was that their "beautiful" relationship of Alicent essentially either/both:

"fixing"-taming Rhaenyra can never come to fruition

settle into a healthy female friendship

because the (naturally) violent men around them prevent them from being true friends and pitting them against each other. As voiced AND implied by the HotD writers and green/Alicent/Rhaenicent stans. That and because some do know the end of the Dance.

So while I do think there will be people who will storm HBO/Max for not delivering (a few even knowing how this ends, but this might just be a very small minority) on their happy ending for these two, I believe that more will write and compose arias about how tragic and terrible this tragedy was, how evil Targs are (bc Otto is somehow always left out or minimized for who's to blame for Alicent's suffering--again, Rhaenicent makes Alicen the moral superior of Rhaenyra)...

Rhaenicent was never really about lesbianism, platonic female friendship, or the blurring between the two during youth at its very core but about misogyny and accepting internalized misogyny as the justification for targeting nonconforming women. Rhaenicent is a superficial concept and has a superficial execution of its own concept and that which it claims to portray.

how Goncharov (1973), unlike its protagonist, got away with that perfect “crime”

Goncharov (1973) is finally getting the recognition it deserves! Like, this movie meant so much to a lot of people even if it wasn’t widely distributed. It was groundbreaking in so many ways... it’s super cool by today’s standards but back then it was revolutionary. 

From a historical perspective, lgbtq+ characters have been portrayed in cinema ever since its invention. But how they were portrayed was the big deal. The Hays Code, which was established in the 30s, forbade any positive portrayals of “deviancy”- which included homosexuality or nonconforming gender expression. However, some degree of this “deviancy” was allowed- as long as it reinforced that “deviant” was what it was. In other words, queer had to mean bad.

“Queercoded villain” or “negative” representation was (and still is) a common way for writers and directors to write queer characters, as villains are generally “bad” characters that the audience doesn’t empathize with. They’re terrible people who do terrible things- thus associating “evil” with “queer”. (There are plenty of cinema history videos on youtube that explain this much better than me.)

Another common way to write gay characters without getting punished by the movie industry was (and is) the “bury-your-gays” trope, (which y’all on tumblr know very very well). Any sympathetic, protagonistic queer story (which had to relegate to side stories!) had to be end in tragedy- usually death. Thus, “being queer” gets associated with “being dead.”

BUT BACK TO GONCHAROV!

I mean, with the Hays Code freshly abolished five years prior, the movie industry was really hesitant to portray openly queer relationships or characters at all, so having not one but four queer(coded) main characters was completely unheard of. Plus, on a film development timeline, this had to be in development at least two or three years prior- probably more since producers wouldn’t pick this one up so easily- so it was probably being written when the Hays Code was in place. Post-Hays, queer films were “allowed”- but usually rated in a way that would forbid any young impressionable audiences from viewing something so scandalous as- gasp- gay people!

But Gonrachov’s genius here isn’t even in its writing, or inclusion of queer characters. It’s in the use of genre to do those things.

The mafia movie is the perfect way to subvert both of these practices. Yes, the queer characters are “bad” people who do monstrous things and meet tragic, lonely fates. But so is every other character in any other mafia movie! Everyone’s villainous in mafia movies, protagonists and antagonists alike! And that rating’s going to be high- for mature audiences only- but so is literally any other serious mafia movie. It’s not getting on the Family Learning Channel, but that’s not because of the gay people, that’s because of Fucking Ice Pick Joe! 

Goncharov accomplished something that no other film had before- by creating sympathetic queer main characters who were treated the same as any other main character- all while flying under the radar!

You’ve talked more than once about homophobia in the WRITING of the books rather than the characters being homophobic. Can you explain what you mean? Specifically, how is the writing of ootp and dh homophobic towards Sirius and Albus?

Yeah, I can, absolutely.

Obviously, when you have a character who’s either confirmed to be queer or is coded as queer, and the narrative itself goes out of its way to say “this person is morally suspect and unstable, this person isn’t good for children to be around, this person associates with bad and disreputable people, this person might mean well but actually they’re bad”, that’s homophobic writing, and that’s very much where my textual analysis with these two starts. You can definitely have queer characters who are messy and dangerous and bad! Not every queer villain is a bigoted stereotype, not every dead gay is an example of burying the gays.

But the question has to be asked - why are certain writing decisions made? Why does the author make the choice to portray Albus and Sirius the way that she does? And that’s where I begin to see homophobia.

In the same book where Albus is revealed to have a same-sex lover, suddenly he’s also morally grey and he associated with a fascist and he’s accused of having raised Harry like a lamb for slaughter. He’s not just Albus Dumbledore the kind and wise and loving and funny character from before, he’s gay, and he’s also complicated and bad. That is not accidental. That is a conscious choice that JKR made. She purposefully wrote a situation where the only canonically queer heroic character is also a former fascist sympathizer, and handled his complexity in such a way that people are still bashing him fifteen years later. By doing this, by linking his homosexuality with his bad politics and his character flaws, and not giving him any more love interests later on, and by having him spend the rest of his life guilty and hating himself, she’s creating a situation where the story of Albus’s life is “never fall in love if you’re gay because it’ll wreck your family and it’ll destroy the lives of those you love and your lover will be a horrible person”.

That’s homophobic. Plain and simple. Yes, I love Grindeldore and I love Albus and Gellert and I will keep shipping them no matter what, but one of the biggest reasons I’m doing that is because she’s told this story that says people like me who love others of the same gender are doomed to this tragedy. I reject her characterization of Gellert as toxic and evil and manipulative because making him all of those things is in and of itself a homophobic act. No, not every queer villain is a stereotype or a bigoted caricature, but when your only queer relationship is defined by these things? I call bullshit.

Sirius’s character assassination is also in that vein. In book three he’s kind and loving to Harry and offers him a home. In book four, he’s attentive, he’s a good support, he’s communicating with Harry’s other parental figure (Dumbledore), he’s telling Harry to be smart and be careful and not to take risks. He tells the trio that good men are people that don’t treat those beneath them poorly, and he speaks out against blood purity.

And then in book five - the first book written after Wolfstar became a prominent ship and dominated fan discussion of Sirius and the Marauders - he’s shoved into his abusive home, he’s belittled for no reason by Molly, he’s punished for trying to be honest with the kids, he’s shown associating with Mundungus the petty criminal, and there’s an ongoing theme of him not being safe for Harry to be around. Molly accuses him of replacing James with Harry, which is really homophobic to say to a queercoded character, and suddenly he’s no longer being the solid, wise, reasonable adult he was less than a year ago. He starts being racist toward Kreacher out of nowhere, to the point that he’s blamed for being so racist it killed him.

Again, this was Jo’s choice. His character changes for no reason except authorial decision, but as before, why was that decision made? It’s inconsistent with who he was beforehand, and it feels very pointedly about his failure to be good enough for Molly, who’s a cishet housewife. Sure, we’re given some in-universe reasoning, but all the coding in the text says “I’ve decided this man isn’t safe for children because he’s Different and Weird and so I’m going to make him dangerous.”

That’s also homophobia. It doesn’t ultimately matter what the reasons given by other characters for things are - even if we’re accepting them, it’s like with Albus. They come into existence in the book where the coding and queer-friendly interpretation becomes most relevant. She’s associating being a bad person with being homosexual. And there are no truly good heavily queercoded characters! Remus is straightwashed and then flakes out on his family anyway! It matters that this association exists because since nobody who isn’t like this gets to be queer, we’re left with a world where everyone who is is problematic.

That’s why I say that the writing itself is homophobic. There are ways to get around this, but you can’t ignore it, and it’s the thing I find myself angriest at Jo for doing.

#SaveWarriorNun

(contains spoilers for Warrior Nun, Killing Eve, The Haunting of Bly Manor, The 100)

Well, here we are again. 

If I’m being honest, this kind of not quite unexpected disappointment is becoming really fucking tiring. 

Less than 24 hours ago, I read the news on Twitter that Warrior Nun had been cancelled by Netflix. I've already cried, a bunch of times. I've felt hopeless. And I'm angry. Fuck, I'm mad...

Barely a month after its second season was unceremoniously dropped onto the streaming service without so much as an ounce of promo by Netflix, any hopes for a third season have been stomped into the ground. It’s hard to believe we had to sit through a 2,5 year wait between season 1 and 2 only for this to happen… 

2022 certainly seems to be challenging 2016 for the title of ‘worst year for wlw television’. For me, the year started off with the ending of Killing Eve. Being a show that had unapologetically showcased a queer lead from its very beginning, I must admit I had quite high hopes for how they were going to wrap up this story. Admittedly, the quality of the writing had certainly slipped since its incredible first season, but still. There were so many ways in which they could have brought the storylines of Villanelle and Eve to a close, that I really thought they would’ve had it in the bag. It didn’t even have to be a ‘happy’ ending in order to provide a passionate (and largely queer) fanbase the closure they craved. 

A great example of queer tragedy being done right, to me at least, is The Haunting of Bly Manor. It portrayed the death of Dani in a way that was incredibly truthful to the overall storyline, but also to her character arc. It wasn’t there just for shock; it wasn’t a simple plot device to push another character’s storyline through. It was tragic, and it was beautiful. Moreover, I would point out that Bly never showed Dani’s actual death on screen, which to me, is another huge difference. It showed a sense of respect, not only for her as a character, but for us as the audience too. Whether that was intentional on the writers’ part or not, I definitely appreciated it. Did I still cry my eyes out for an hour after watching the finale? Yes, obviously. But it felt right. 

The writers of Killing Eve season 4, however, clearly did not have this kind of respect for their audience or characters. As someone who was part of the fight against the Bury Your Gays trope back in 2016, it felt like they watched episode 3.07 of The 100 and said, “you know what, we should do that too”. The utter carelessness with which they showed Villanelle and Eve what happiness could be like for them, only to rip it away from them (and us) mere minutes later, was disgusting. And on top of that, unbelievably unoriginal too. Lexa and Clarke, anyone? 

So that was the start of 2022 for me. Villanelle’s death left me feeling like nothing had changed over the past 6 years since Lexa, as though we were back at square one. Of course, that’s not quite the case, but the hopelessness that comes with seeing this occur over and over again is certainly quite exhausting. 

Then came along one of the most campy tv shows I have ever watched: First Kill. Did I absolutely love it? No, not really. But was it a fun watch when I wanted to shut off my brain for a second? Definitely. Besides: campy, cringey, young adult series are found all over the place, and it was great to get to have that for the lesbians too! Unfortunately, it received nearly no promotion from Netflix (hmm, anyone seeing a pattern here?) up until just before it aired. After that, people went crazy over it. Was it the best show ever? Nope, but not everything needs to be! Not that I’ve ever watched it, but how many seasons is Riverdale at again? It was silly, and weird, and over-the-top, and super super gay. Which, of course, sealed the deal for Netflix. Can’t have a successful show about a bunch of lesbians, now can ya? 

During the rest of this year, it’s felt like every other week, you’d hear about a new cancellation of shows centering sapphic, bipoc and trans* characters and storylines. I’ll admit, I haven’t watched many of them, because, well… Hard to commit to a show when you already know what to expect. 

And then, Warrior Nun came back. Oh boy, was I obsessed with this show when season 1 came out back in 2020. I was going through a rough patch (who wasn’t, this is 2020 we’re talking about) and this show was a great escape. Although I was at first doubtful because of its title, once I saw a preview, I was sold. I think I pretty much binged all 10 episodes. After that, I joined the (absolutely lovely) cast, crew, and the bunch of us viewers that had fallen in love with these characters, for the weekly WarriorNunWednesdays. Those nights, watching and live-tweeting along with everyone, certainly made it obvious just how much these people cared about the show. Interacting with the incredible actresses, writers, directors and crew was fantastic. One of the few positives about that time in my life, truly. 

Of course, there was a long wait for season 2. But I was okay with that, because holy shit, we got a season 2!! And in the end, wow, what a season 2 we got! More gorgeous locations, awesome stunts, perfectly paced character development… what’s not to love? I was super invested in the storyline and the characters, who each were fully fleshed out and lovable in their own ways. And Avatrice, oh, Avatrice… The type of quality slowburn that I generally seem to only be able to find in fanfiction. Such incredible chemistry between these women, and oh my god, the dancing scene in the very first episode?! Mindblowing. 

Was I pissed at the lack of promo from Netflix? The fact that it was left completely up to the fans and the cast to take up that work? … I think you can imagine my answer to that by now. But we did great! Let that be very clear, and allow yourself to be proud of that: we supported this show beautifully. And did y’all see those ‘hours watched’ for each week?! All the awesome reviews, and the audience score?! We. did. great. 

Unfortunately, and I think it’s pretty clear by now, Netflix probably never had any intention to renew Warrior Nun for a third season. They don’t care about these delicately told stories, these awesome queer women leads. They have no interest in gorgeous cinematography, or insane stunt sequences. And they certainly don’t give a damn about passionate fans. It sucks that the likes of Netflix hold so much power in this industry, when all that should be important is quality creative storytelling. Fuck you, capitalism… 

It’s sad, and sometimes infuriating, that it never feels like you can fully enjoy a show because of the constant threat of cancellation. But we fought well. And if there’s any chance left, we won’t stop fighting, I know that. This show, and these people, deserve nothing less. I’ll repeat that which we were all saying back in 2016: we deserve better. Don’t forget that. 

If you’ve gotten this far, thank you for sticking with my rant. Know that we can and will bring change to this tv landscape. There are so many of us, so many who care. Seek out community, take care of yourself and others. Let yourself feel all the feelings that come up. Cherish what you love, keep being creative. It will get better. Yeah, cliché, I know, but it will. 

To quote Emily Andras: “Everyone’s happy ending is unique. Don’t settle until you get yours.” 

In this life or the next…

I honestly probably wouldn’t have any problems at all with Hugh Culber dying and coming back if the same story (kinda) wasn’t repeated with Grey. I know they probably didn’t mean it this way, but having the two most prominent queer relationships be ‘Oh, and this one dies/is dead’ does kinda seem a bit bury-your-gays-y, even if the plot for both storylines ends(?) with unburying the gays.

On its own, I think it’d come across better. Tragedy is a thing and can be handled well, and not every instance of a queer character dying is bury your gays) and as I said, they get unburied. But both of them seems like a pattern, or the beginnings of one, anyway.

And, if anything, it's made worse by how the same sort of thing, minus the unburying, happened off-screen with the Unnamed Wife of Jet Reno. Part of me is waiting for Series 5's Brand New Queer Character With A Dead Partner.

it's sooooo funny because like. bikke's senpai is obviously supposed to be a homage to the heart of thomas as well. and it hits the superficial points really well— on the surface it resembles the heart of thomas much more than birdmen does. visually the character designs are much more similar and the whole "someone resembling protagonist's dead beloved" thing you know. but the thing is. bikke kind of missed the point of the heart of thomas imo. like they didn't seem to understand the significance that religion played in the story, and so in their contemporary response, they were missing a good 40% of the meaning of the original.

you can kind of see where they were coming from. in senpai, while the plot structure is largely the same as in the heart of thomas, there are a couple of notable differences: the eponymous senpai is killed in a car accident, whereas the eponymous thomas commits suicide, instead. and I can understand that from the sentiment of "ohhh burying your gays is problematic etc. etc." and consequently removing that in your contemporary adaptation of the tale. But I think the resulting work just feels kind of sanitized because of the removal— the element of tragedy through death is now just a chance happening, instead of a real consequence of a real choice. This story is now happening in the uncanny valley replica of the real world where all those romcom hallmark movies happen.

I like what tanabe did instead (to nobody's surprise I'm soooo impartial about birdmen)— she pushes suicide out of the limelight, but keeps it there at the edges to haunt the story. It avoids the trap of sensationalizing suicide, but it keeps the story grounded. The world the characters are living in becomes more complex. More tangible.

I think what makes the suicides in Birdmen and The Heart of Thomas work is the fact that they're a conduit for something more than just a suicide. In this post I wax poetic about how the suicide puts things into perspective and shows just how close to choosing death Karasuma might be, in order to give his choice to live meaning. In the Heart of Thomas, Thomas's suicide is his way of condemning himself to hell, in order to give Juli his wings, so he might ascend to heaven in Thomas's stead. I suspect Bikke couldn't work out a way to give suicide meaning in their work, and opted to remove it altogether.

Another thing that Bikke changed in Senpai was that they chose to make the nature of Misumi (Thomas parallel) and Kou (Juli parallel)'s very explicit. (In the sense of it being clearly defined, not in the sense of being sexually explicit.) They were dating. And then they broke up, and on the same day Misumi got into a car accident.

Meanwhile BIRDMEN and The Heart of Thomas remain extremely vague about the nature of Takayama/Thomas's relationship to Karasuma/Juli. Once again I find myself circling back to what Kitsoa said about agape, about the love of God for man and vice versa. I find it deeply applicable to both pairs of characters, but even more so than that, I think the opening to The Heart of Thomas sums what I'm trying to say up perfectly.

The way its described as asexual and inexplicable REALLY screams queer to me. The way it refuses to put a firm label on Thomas's feelings, the way nothing is clean cut, the way relationships and feelings are messy the way they are in real life... I really genuinely believe that this is one of Heart of Thomas's and BIRDMEN's greatest strengths. The relationship between the protagonist and deuteragonist is whatever the reader interprets it to be. There are no labels. Only what is there.

This, of course, extends to the endings for all three series. I'm sure the ending of Heart of Thomas ground a lot of gears in how inconclusive it felt. And of course it would feel inconclusive, if you were viewing it as a romance. Juli doesn't end up with Eric. He becomes a priest, instead. It is not a shortcoming; in fact I would argue that there's no other way for the story to end, but I'm sure it felt like a shortcoming to Bikke; in Senpai, the story concludes with Kou getting together with Saki. Despite the conflicts, they are able to sort out their issues and start dating. And yet for Karasuma and Takayama, we are only really left with Karasuma's platonic confession in ch. 77, followed by Takayama dropping a crab off at Karasuma's place, which is an equally or even more ambiguous ending than Heart of Thomas's.

and see that's where bikke really missed. the heart of thomas was NOT about getting Juli together with Eric!! It was about Juli's internal conflict with himself!! It's about absolving Juli of his sin!! About how he deserves love despite the fact he so deeply believes he cannot be saved!!!!!! and in a similar way, birdmen isn't about karasuma getting together with takayama either. it's not!! it's about finding and defending your community!! anyways this isn't a serious meta essay but I wrote it and I suppose I'll add it to my meta masterpost anyways lol

So that dest!el vs Huntlow poll is about to finish out and all I can think about is a) the tragedy that was SPN and dest!el just ending in absolute crap. I was there for it too and my reaction was to be mad that I got burnt by the queerbait-iest? bury your gays moment of forever lol. So I'm really glad it's losing tbh. I wasted like. Nine, eleven years or whatever. I'm glad others think it's crap in hindsight too. Or just crap enough that the kids are winning lol. And b) I'm actually so happy that Huntlow is winning. I ship it in the way that it is canon so it's there but also I genuinely love Willow so I'm very happy that such a sweetheart really digs her lol. I don't have too, too deep of thoughts on this ship, I think its valuable though and I'm glad it's beating out one of the original founding pillars of Tumblr lmao. I think that's pretty hilarious lol

So yeah. Congrats on the Huntlow sweep, TOH fans 💛💚

*deep breath*

JUST LET SANDMAN BE A TRAGEDY IT'S NOT EDGELORD BULLSHIT TO NEED DARK STORIES WHY ARE YOU ALL SO AFRAID OF FEELING NEGATIVE EMOTIONS THAT YOU DEMAND THE TEETH BE TAKEN OUT OF EVERYTHING YOU CARE ABOUT FOR THE LOVE OF THE GODS IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE A CHARACTER YOU LIKE DYING MAYBE DON'T FUCKING WATCH A SHOW YOU KNOW WILL END THAT WAY BUT SOME OF US FUCKING NEED THE FUCKING TRAGEDY YOU HAVE SO MUCH HAPPY ENDING BULLSHIT JUST LET THOSE OF US WHO NEED IT KEEP OUR TRAGEDIES GO WATCH FUCKING CARTOONS IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE IT FOR THE LOVE OF FUCK

ok I think I'm better

wait

ALSO DREAMLING ISNT CANON AND ISN'T GOING TO BE SO NO ITS NOT ~BURY YOUR GAYS~ THAT DREAM DIES THE FACT THAT YOU KIN HIM DOES NOT MEAN IT'S ~PROBLEMATIC~ THAT HE KILLS HIMSELF I PROMISE YOU THERE ARE STORIES WHERE THE GAYS GET HAPPY ENDINGS BUT DREAM OF THE ENDLESS DOES NOT AND SOME OF US NEED THAT CATHARSIS MORE THAN WE NEED FALSE REASSURANCE OF THE SUPPOSED RIGHTNESS OF A MEANINGLESS WORLD

ok *now* I'm done