#queer subtext

[sugarcubetikki]

I still think about how Mike isn’t able to go run to Will like Joyce because they made the choice to have him physically restrained by a military officer.

This is just after they got caught in the bathroom representing Dick btw.

[judblanc]

worst person you know makes a good point etc

[eeriesilkworm]

Stranger Things is all about opening closed doors. 🚪

It's the same exact metaphor over and over again, repeated throughout the series, in different contexts and storylines.

Mr Clarke's metaphorical curiosity door. ("Once you open up that curiosity door, anything is possible!")

The gates are doorways into a hidden dimension, and offer yonic imagery (rebirth, transition between life-states). When you cross the theshold of this doorway, you are moving between a hidden and exposed state.

The Russians even explain them using a doorway and key metaphor.

Murray's metaphorical curtain is a doorway to hidden, controversial truths that threaten convention.

The one-way window at Hawkins Lab is door imagery, too. You're called to look inside it. Max opens it (and look who's there). This metaphor is about introspection (taking a "look" inside oneself).

El is seen behind shut doors in claustrophobic spaces on numerous occasions: solitary confinement, Mike's closet, the closet at Rink-O-Mania. She's always placed there against her will, or out of necessity. This indicates that she is trapped.

Mike and El are kissing in her room and Hopper yells at them to open the door. Before this, Hopper is watching Magnum P.I. and the dialogue we get is, "Work the lock. Work the lock." Magnum is attempting to unlock a door.

Mike, Will, Lucas, and Max sneak into an unrated movie through a secret door. Perhaps a metaphor for teenaged curiosity regarding societal taboos.

Mike opens the men's locker room door. Notice that Will is the only one who looks to the sign. Maybe it's because he already knows what he likes, and isn't conflicted or confused about it. ("A day free of girls!")

Mike opens the door to the men's sauna (gay subtext referencing bathouses) and is told to shut it. He's been told repeatedly to open doors, but now he's being told the opposite. He is confused, conflicted, and judging by his face, disturbed at what he's found. In contrast, Lucas averts his gaze completely, and Will is flustered.

During the Sauna Test, Billy (previously referred to as a f*g by his father) is trapped in the sauna behind a locked door. He breaks the fourth wall while repeatedly shouting to open the door.

The Creel mansion door is a recurring symbol in season 4, and it likely represents the skeletons in Henry's closet. It's locked, and Robin uses a brick as the key.

Max's three metaphorical doors about what options someone has before them when they are trapped: kill themselves, remain where they are, or come out.

In season 5, we've yet to see this shot of a lone door in a field. Could it be Holly's dimension door? Or a Vecna-induced hallucination? I'm curious to see what's inside.

El's new sensory deprivation tub contains a door. She's never needed a closure over her tubs before, because she can wear a blindfold. Is this foreshadowing that she will discover a hidden truth while piggybacking into someone's subconscious?

These are all metaphors for the closet. 🚪🌈

Stranger Things does not only irrefutably contain gay subtext, it is gay subtext.

It seems the entire premise of the show is hinged on whether someone is going to open the door.

Whether they will cross the boundary from falsehood, confinement, and concealement, into truth, freedom, and exposure.

[na-na-namine]

As someone who used to play a lot of visual novels, and at the risk of generalizing too much, about half of gacha games out there are essentially serialized VNs with some gameplay tacked on.

Games like Arknights, Reverse:1999, Path to Nowhere, and Nikke are perhaps the most obvious examples of this. Higher budget gachas like Honkai Impact 3rd, ZZZ, and PGR style their cutscenes like VNs but with 3D animated character portraits. Fate Grand Order and Heaven Burns Red are both, at least partially, written by two of the most famous VN authors of all time.

What all of these gachas have in common are putting out novel length stories about gay women and men on a near monthly basis. Especially Chinese gachas where queerphobic CCP laws mean writers need to get more creative and subtle about queer subtext.

The primary demographic upon which these games glean their revenue from, the typical dudebro gacha gamer rolling for their waifus, don’t realize they’re playing a VN because they’re often skipping or blitzing through the dialogue. And if i said this is usually a gendered divide then it wouldn’t be far from the truth, especially with a casual look at gacha Youtubers, social media, forums, subreddits, etc.

It’s because of this why arguments about yuri subtext pandering to straight men or the misassumption held by some women/queer/progressive players that those chuds are in a position of good faith is giving them too much credit.

I’m not saying this is an absolute certainty, but "man who rolls for their wife and only watches character build breakdowns" is the classic gacha game demographic. It’s why mihoyo was able to get away with writing kiamei and bronseele for well over a decade - this demographic doesn’t care about reading into things too deeply.

Lately, you can tell it’s always the same demographic because it’s always queer shipping and theorycrafting SPECIFICALLY that gets their jimmies riled up. And it’s these same chuds that complain about "yuri slop tourists" even when it’s yuri fans that have been around from the start or are involved in the art/writing team. I’ve been noticing Umamusume’s been going through this right now and it’s just really visible. The same homophobic and queerphobic arguments being made again and again to quash shipping culture and literary fan analysis.

As a reminder to my fellow girls and gays, himejoshis, fujoshis, and yumejoshis : They don’t engage with the text. They don’t read between the lines. Guys like them are surface level and do not possess any complex interiority. What you think is the bare minimum is still more than they can handle.

[fatfatgaybitch]

How do they end v1 with such a powerful message to queer people and then end v2 with telling them:

“you need to understand that it will be much harder for someone to love you though”

I’m not giving up hope yet

[frayed-wind]

[loonylupin2]

It’s very plausible that ACD based Sherlock Holmes' mannerisms on Oscar Wilde (genuinely, if you read some of Oscar’s quotes or how people described his speech and movements, they are very similar), which I find hilarious.

Because how could ACD have known that after 1895, Oscar Wilde's personality would become the definition of the “gay stereotype”

Since “A Study in Scarlet,” “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,” “The Sign of the Four,” and “The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes” all came out pre-Oscar’s very public trial in 1895, where not only was Oscar’s homosexuality thrown out into the Victorian public, but the entire gay community in general and how they communicate.

IF ACD had met Oscar, knew he was gay, and purposefully based Holmes off him to be subtle queer coding (again, theory), and then Oscar gets publicly outed as being Gay, now it’s no longer just a “subtle nod”

But what is more likely is that ACD used Oscar as a reference for Holmes, not really thinking much about sexuality and then BOOM the trial happens, and now everything similar to Oscar is labelled as “gay”, so now ACD has “accidentally” made Sherlock gay

[sapphicpiratebish]

I was rewatching old ST trailers to see how they handled Byler scenes in the promos and if they tried to mislead us or not, And this parts interesting…

They clipped Mikes bedroom heart to heart to Will audio into just a general: “we’re a team… friends” — While overlaying clips of the whole squad

and then showed the small bit where Mike is looking up and away saying “Its gonna be up to us again” to make it look like everyone else is in the room and he’s talking to them (not a 1 on 1 with Will scene…) hrmmmmm 🧐🤔🤨