Subtext - Tumblr Posts
HOMOPHOBIA TW
“The Homosexuals” is an episode of CBS Reports that was aired on March 7th, 1967. I’m currently using it as a source for a research paper, but once I noticed it was filmed at the same time as Star Trek I took a step back to reexamine the significance of many scenes in the series. (For reference, “Amok Time’’ was aired on September 15th, 1967.) I wanted to discuss the documentary here because I feel that it provides important context for the environment in which the show was made. It demonstrates the horrifying extent of anti-gay discrimination in the late sixties, and makes the parallels between Spock’s character development and the gay experience even more clear.
I created a compilation of moments from both “The Homosexuals” and Star Trek, hopefully to illustrate exactly why Spock’s story has resonated with so many gay people. Please be warned that the report is very painful to watch due to the way it treats the subject of homosexuality, so proceed with caution if that upsets you.
I couldn’t get the captions to work, so I included a transcript below!
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this episode once again stretched how far subtext could go before it becomes actual text.
cas being hurt that dean didn’t stop him from leaving. dean tearfully praying to cas that of course he forgives him and saying that his anger isn’t his fault. that hug and that conversation where cas acknowledges dean’s prayer without recognizing the unsaid feelings that clearly lurk underneath. not to mention dean in those future visions losing all hope because he lost cas (as we have actually seen happen in canon, two separate times now)….
it really is romance in all but name
I feel Dean and Cas are very much like Xena and Gabrielle, it's definetly canon but since it was mostly subtext people took a while to catch on, and some still deny it as just "subtext theory" even after cast and crew confirmed it was romantic. Lucy Lawless, Xena herself, was asked in an interview in 2003, two years after the show ended, if Xena and Gabi were just gal pals, and she said "Nope, they're married, man!", yet there's still antis that disagree to this day.
Don’t even get me started on that mess, or the no romos that even deny a het pair like Mulder/Scully to this day, it’s why I keep telling people this mythical undefined “canon” with no parameters just floating around waiting for 100% agreement is a hilarious illusion.
i hate this weird trend in fandom where subtext is seen as a Bad Thing and is only done if the creators are too cowardly to commit to showing something. i hate to break it to you but nuance and layers are what make stories interesting, if you have no subtext then you have a very flat story
I’ve watched the entire series again today in a hungover state and I CAN’T DEAL with all the parallels.
I mean, when Lucy finds out about her Dad’s true actions and origins - her whole world falls apart. She saw the vaults as safety - she looked up to her Dad more than anyone else in the world. She learns that he’s lied about who he is as a man and as her father, but also she must realise that the vault’s are hiding their own dirty secrets (especially after her experience at vault 4) and that her Dad is a part of that too. She even says to Max, after leaving vault 4, that if she destroyed a whole community to save him, he would be heartbroken: when that’s exactly what he did on an even grander and more terrible scale. Lucy’s life wasn’t even in direct danger to warrant that reaction - he’s just an insecure selfish arsehole.
At the very same time we see the flashback scene of Coop hearing Barb suggest that they drop the bombs on America. This woman that he loves and trusts and has made a family with - who he said he fell in love with because she always tries to do the right thing. Their reactions at the point of realisation - shock, inability to speak, almost dissociation - are both extremely similar. Him having gone through that betrayal before (and likely plenty of times since) is EXACTLY why he talks to Lucy how he does. He’s preparing her for the eventual heartbreak - because he has the experience that nothing could ever be as perfect as she states her life is. When he’s making ass jerky from Frank, he even tells her: there’s what people say they do and what they really do.
When you look at all of that, really, in the scheme of things, Coop - the man that she’s seen as this inhuman, cruel, murderous monster - he’s the good guy. He too thought his wife’s business with vault tec was abhorrent. Yes, he’s been warped and twisted by the wasteland and by his own trauma - but he does see this brightness in Lucy. He thought she was just naive and full of bullshit (especially being a vault dweller. Something which I’m sure triggered him considering his past with vault tec and the links to his wife) but when she proved herself by giving him the vials instead of letting him die, he’s probably amazed that there’s someone left in the world who isn’t just a liar and a terrible person. He’s so used to betrayal and violence by this point. She’s a good person - a trait that he literally said he was in love with his wife because of. She softens him.
But she also proves herself in another way - by shooting her feralled mother - showing that she’s also grown and learnt that not everything is black and white. It’s not just “good and bad” in this world. And although Coop has questionable morals, he’s honest, like her. He tells things how it is. Plus, after her Dad’s huge life changing betrayal and her time in the wasteland, she understands a little more why Coop has done all the things that she’s seen him do - I mean he did meet her pretty much day one out of the vault initially - hence why she goes with him. He has hardened her up to protect her in the wasteland.
Wilzig even says “will you still want the same things when you’re an entirely different animal together.”
My god. It’s just genius. Absolutely genius.
“You comin’?”
Edit: Can we also talk about her Coop is basically the inspiration for the vault boy - who Lucy basically looks to (physically a few times throughout the series) for inspiration to do the right thing. AND the fact that her Dad was obviously a bit obsessed with Coop and probably still was when Lucy was born, seeing as he’d been in a pod and had only just woken up retaining recent memories. So Lucy likely watched all of his films and her Dad maybe even saw him as a bit of a role model (or at least his in film characters). AND the obvious exchange of index fingers. Yup. Honestly if this relationship doesn’t become cannon, I will start dropping bombs too.
ANOTHER EDIT: Sorry one last thing but, I just want to add: nothing that post-war Coop does is personal. It’s either: to get a job done, survival, because he’s been trigger by something (understandable after what’s he been through) or, in Lucy’s case, to teach a (admittedly often harsh) lesson. He doesn’t just mindlessly kill - or particularly enjoy killing - he just has no issue with it, it’s all just means to an end. He even still remembers to pay for his tomatoes in Filly ffs haha… I imagine he’s extremely numb and devoid of all feeling - except for when it comes to his wife and little girl. That’s the only time we see more visceral reactions in either actions or dialogue from him. He’s such an intricate character and Walton did an amazing job of portraying him.
Just saw someone say, in full seriousness, 'books and novels aren't historical records or materials'
...I got covered in an awful lot of leather-rot handling books (and novels, hello first-edition moby dick which i have touched with my own two hands) when I worked in an ARCHIVE, whose primary patrons of the reading-room were HISTORIANS there specifically to see, in many cases, BOOKS, for those materials to be, allegedly, '''''not historical records'''''
What, pray tell, do you consider an 'historical record' if not something recorded at the time?
This is why I have no time for the garbage take that fanfiction without smut is somehow superior to fanfiction with it. And I most often hear this from fellow authors complaining that their fics without smut don't reach the same audience or get the same feedback as those whose fics do contain smut.
The thing is, you could write 100k words as pure as the driven snow and you've no guarantee to come anywhere near the 5k of realness I just read while the blorbos fucked nasty in the backseat of their dead daddy's car still covered in grave dirt while someone else's blood is in their mouths.
Wincest is particularly good for this, as an example. Those boys are so hopeless at expressing themselves unless it's through silence or violence that sex is the perfect medium. It's also unexplored in canon, so it can be whatever we want it to be
Sure, PWP is a real and valid thing, but smut isn't only PWP. It can be a legitimate driving force of character development and an incredible vehicle for character study. Sex is such an intimate engagement; exploring a character during and around that act is ripe with potential.
Made this for u 💝
Subtext : What We're Not Saying
Subtext in writing is everything characters don’t say. If you’ve been following me for a while you know one of my favourite things to say is “Characters never say what they mean” that’s subtext—it’s the implied, the unsaid, the hints picked up by readers, and it’s one of the most important parts of creating meaning in writing.
Let me explain. A parent and their child are talking over the phone, maybe the context is the child moved out after a particularly bad argument and this is the first time they’re speaking since it happened. The kid says, “I really miss you and the rest of the family, I’m sorry for what happened, let’s not fight anymore.”
The scene kind of falls flat. Where’s the conflict? The dynamic? The challenge? Through the child just saying exactly what they mean, we lose out on a lot of meaning—kind of ironically.
Instead, maybe they say, “They have daisies growing in the garden here, I think Clara would like them.” Better—we’re implying this kid is thinking of their sister, that they’re feeling a little homesick, or nostalgic for their old life. We’re saying they miss the family, they’re trying to connect again with Clara so they’re sorry for what happened, they’re calling because they don’t want to fight anymore.
But without saying that, the parent can reply, “She’s into roses now.” A rejection of that connection, the portrayal that whatever that old life was has been tainted forever—it can’t just come back.
That’s a very quick example, but there’s so much subtext you can create with the simplest of scenes. One of my favourite scenes I’ve ever written was two friends walking through a museum talking about the exhibits, but really they were talking about legacy, and their fear of their own mortality, all without ever saying that out loud.
People never say what they mean because saying what you mean is scary. Had the child asked outright for that connection, they would have been opening up to outright rejection. Instead, the relationship can hide behind this implication—words between words. Subtext.
Good luck!
Subtext : What We're Not Saying
Subtext in writing is everything characters don’t say. If you’ve been following me for a while you know one of my favourite things to say is “Characters never say what they mean” that’s subtext—it’s the implied, the unsaid, the hints picked up by readers, and it’s one of the most important parts of creating meaning in writing.
Let me explain. A parent and their child are talking over the phone, maybe the context is the child moved out after a particularly bad argument and this is the first time they’re speaking since it happened. The kid says, “I really miss you and the rest of the family, I’m sorry for what happened, let’s not fight anymore.”
The scene kind of falls flat. Where’s the conflict? The dynamic? The challenge? Through the child just saying exactly what they mean, we lose out on a lot of meaning—kind of ironically.
Instead, maybe they say, “They have daisies growing in the garden here, I think Clara would like them.” Better—we’re implying this kid is thinking of their sister, that they’re feeling a little homesick, or nostalgic for their old life. We’re saying they miss the family, they’re trying to connect again with Clara so they’re sorry for what happened, they’re calling because they don’t want to fight anymore.
But without saying that, the parent can reply, “She’s into roses now.” A rejection of that connection, the portrayal that whatever that old life was has been tainted forever—it can’t just come back.
That’s a very quick example, but there’s so much subtext you can create with the simplest of scenes. One of my favourite scenes I’ve ever written was two friends walking through a museum talking about the exhibits, but really they were talking about legacy, and their fear of their own mortality, all without ever saying that out loud.
People never say what they mean because saying what you mean is scary. Had the child asked outright for that connection, they would have been opening up to outright rejection. Instead, the relationship can hide behind this implication—words between words. Subtext.
Good luck!
Brenner and the Mindflayer: Milton's Paradise Lost?
Is it possible if Brenner is stuck in the Upside Down, he is Satan and the Mindflayer is Sin, who springs to life from his head as his daughter? Or maybe the Mindflayer is a hybrid of both Sin and Death?
The Upside Down is Brenner's Pandemonium after he is cast out of Heaven (Hawkins/Earth)?
http://darknessvisible.christs.cam.ac.uk/characters/satan.html
http://darknessvisible.christs.cam.ac.uk/characters/sin_and_death.html
Thisthisthisthisthiiiis!
Addressing the “You’re reading too much into it - that’s not how they intended you to see it” claim.
I would like to preface this post by making clear that none of what I’m about to say has anything to do with TPTB’s intentions to make the romantic elements of Dean and Cas’ relationship explicitly canon, and is more about the intent behind the subtext that often exists in their scenes.
Last summer I had some big exams, and for 2 months I had to do basically 18 hour study days. Sometimes I’d put Misha’s con panels on in the background to stay awake, because they were entertaining but since a lot of the stories etc. are the same in most of them - it wasn’t something I really had to pay attention to. I remembered hearing Misha talk about this topic but I had forgotten when and where. I logged into my old youtube account, that I use for my study playlists, today and it was the first video on the “recommended for you” list. I mean I’m sure other people have talked about this before but I haven’t seen any posts on it since I’ve been here so I just thought I’d mention it. Ok irrelevant backstory over.
I know there’s always a lot of discussion about whether the subtext between Dean and Cas is intentional or whether some people give it more meaning than the writers originally intended.
Well I posit to you Misha’s account of the scene in 4x03 when Cas is sitting on Dean’s bed waiting for him to wake up:
So uh 2 things:
1. The writers/producers/directors etc are well aware of how something comes across on screen. In the grand scheme of subtext heavy Dean and Cas scenes, this is actually a relatively tame one. I really don’t think there was any intention of miring them in a decade spanning love story at this point, and yet still, even three episodes in, they already knew exactly how that scene would look. It’s then kind of hard to believe they’ve accidentally or unintentionally included the subtext of the later seasons, which is actually much more obvious and pretty close to textual at times - mixtape anyone?
2. In the final cut of the episode? They went with the version of the scene that was supposedly “too gay.”
This bar from 10x02 is covered in flamingos, a symbol of gay pride. Jerry Wanek, I see you. And I love you so much.
“Happily for flamingo fans, the ‘70s were a carnival of schlock, and by the early part of the decade, the pink flamingo had become so un-cool, it was cool again—this time as a self-conscious symbol of rebellion, outrageousness and all things Bad Taste. By the time John Waters’ movie, Pink Flamingos, hit theaters in 1972, the bird had fully transitioned to the realm of ironic kitsch. Gay bars used them as mascots, transvestites sported them on earrings and platform pumps, and in 1979, students from the University of Wisconsin-Madison planted 1,008 of the two-legged creatures in the grass in front of the dean’s office, earning them—and the bird—a place in Wisconsin’s State Historical Society.” - (x)
Just some shit I cooked up