#bury your gays

rorykillmore:

there’s nothing profound about writing a character who’s near-suicidally devoted to taking down her enemies because she’s lost everything and then taking the last person she loves away from her and ending the show with her in anguish. there’s nothing groundbreaking about writing a character desperately struggling for agency & identity & to break away from the organization that abused her only to have her killed off in the process of destroying them, for shock value. and there’s certainly nothing new or fresh or clever about giving queer characters the tragic ending they were always “destined” to have, yet again. but whatever.

retiredhopps:

The audacity of them announcing a fucking Carolyn spin-off knowing what she’s done in the finale.

The audacity of them to host a chilling Eve party even though they know we are out for blood.

The audacity of everyone in the writer’s room thinking that this is the best ending they could pull.

rainbowinbeigeboots:

idk if it’s the alcohol that’s making me even more emotional but god the way that i would’ve been fine with an unhappy ending if they had killed both of them in a dignified/brawl with the 12 and not give such an undignified death to villanelle and basically give a big fuck you to viewers after finally giving us everything we wanted and have the cringey ass “the end” title card as the final slap. WHAT WAS EVEN THE POINT OF THE CUPID AND PSYCHE REFERENCES?????

villaneve-bridge:

Laura Neal leaving this for the last episode is my villain story i csnt breathe

rorykillmore:

i get the sense they were trying to placate fans by making the majority of the episode so….. sappy but i think they actually rly shot themselves in the foot with that. no one was accusing this show of doing bury your gays (because i think most people understood it is the type of show where People Die) until they went out of their way to have villaneve be genuinely happy together with very little other plot for 30 minutes and then just tacked on a needlessly cruel and brutal ending. like this isn’t a defense or an excuse of the show runner or the producers but i really have to wonder if they even understood what kind of wound they were opening for a lot of gay viewers by trying to “compromise” for those exact people

Hi yes Killing Eve pulled a TEXTBOOK Bury Your Gays for the finale.

Fuck I’m sick of this shit.

doks-aux:

Wait, wait, I don’t go here, but you’re telling me Killing Eve is based on a series of novels that ended with the main characters in lesbians ever after, and the show specifically chose to ignore that helpfully provided conclusion to deliberately bury the gays??

Oh my God, y’all, I am so, so sorry. I only knew your fucked-up little gals from gifsets, but I was really rooting for them.

Wait, wait, I don’t go here, but you’re telling me Killing Eve is based on a series of novels that ended with the main characters in lesbians ever after, and the show specifically chose to ignore that helpfully provided conclusion to deliberately bury the gays??

Oh my God, y’all, I am so, so sorry. I only knew your fucked-up little gals from gifsets, but I was really rooting for them.

Hey guys, quick question. Does it count as the “bury your gays” trope if they get brought back to life at the end of the story (and there are several other queer characters who don’t die at all).

Friends, myfavoritethings and I planned to release more of Entirely Too Much Blood (Episode 5.1),our TV-script sequel to You Better Be Alive, immediately after American Thanksgiving. This will be delayed until after the start of 2022. We’re sorry!

Butmyfavoritethings is a genius, and she had a sudden revelation, so she messaged me about it at 10:00PM on a Thursday because:

myfavoritethings: QUENTIN COLDWATER IS A MANIC PIXIE DREAM GIRL.

EarnestDesire: What?

myfavoritethings: MPD BOY! MPD GAY?

myfavoritethings: Think about it.

EarnestDesire: I’m thinking. But explain anyway.

myfavoritethings: He’s a complex version of the trope, for sure. He’s not Sam from “Garden State,” but he’s definitely Jack from “Titanic.”

myfavoritethings: Almost every character in The Magicians is broken, hopeless, disillusioned. After season one, every character except Quentin has become the worst version of themself. Q’s clinically depressed, but he isn’t defeatist. That’s his greatest strength, right? And who orchestrates most of the least selfish, most plot-moving plans?

EarnestDesire: Q.

myfavoritethings: Who convinces everyone around him to keep trying to better themselves? To believe in magic?

EarnestDesire: Jesus.

myfavoritethings: Who saves Alice, even when she doesn’t want him to do it? He’s OBSESSED with saving her. And later with saving Eliot. Even Margo gives up on saving El, but Quentin is very willing to kill and die for him.

EarnestDesire: You cannot fuck me up like this after 9pm.

myfavoritethings: He gives Eliot a wonderful, happy life (which El does not think he’ll ever have) and then Eliot rejects him, after everything, and Q doesn’t even argue! He just lets Eliot walk away from their 50 years together!

EarnestDesire: Because a Manic Pixie can’t make real demands on the hero. He exists just to facilitate their journeys.

myfavoritethings: You get me.

EarnestDesire: That’s fucked up.

myfavoritethings: Quentin changed very little throughout the series. He’s really the same guy at the end of S4 as he was at the start of S2.

myfavoritethings: But El is braver. Alice is trying to make amends. Julia is questioning her “magic at any cost” mentality. Then, once he’s saved Alice and Julia and Eliot and helped them into better versions of themselves?

EarnestDesire: He dies.

myfavoritethings: He dies.

myfavoritethings: “If I ever get out of here, Q, know that when I’m braver it’s because I learned it from you.”

EarnestDesire: He’s fulfilled his narrative function.

myfavoritethings: Ding ding ding! Bingo!

EarnestDesire: Wow. Okay.

(Edited for grammar and such, as requested.)

We need some time to figure out how this revelation changes our fanfic for season five, plus we have family obligations at the end of the year.

You can read our script-style rewrite of the season 4 finale right here:

You Better Be Alive (Episode 4.13)

And the first scene of season five right here:

Entirely Too Much Blood (Episode 5.1)

Thanks for your patience!

XOXO, Earnest

404dumbitch:

The most hated film of its time: Supernatural:Carry OnVampyre(1932)

After I witnessed the trainwreck that was the supernatural finale, like everybody else, I asked: Why this story? Why was their last hunt a crappy vampire nest with the lamest vampires ever? Why a nail?

I haven’t thought about it in the last two months, until yesterday when @sapphic_energy reminded me that Jenny had Supernatural’s first queer kiss. Of course, Vampires have been a metaphor for queerness from as far back as their Balkan origin. As we were musing on the fact that Dean was killed by gay monsters (you could say by its own kind) it hit me. It’s not just that Dean was killed by the hand of a vampire, he died the death of one.
Metal stake(rebar) through his chest, the way Vampires were pinned to their graves to prevent them from rising again. And for the first time, Dean was laid to permanent rest. It’s another bury your gay death.

Now, one interesting thing here is that vamps in Supernatural don’t die from a stake through the heart, you have to decapitate them. This is a whole different vampire lore. I wondered if I’ll find other real-world vampire references so I started researching. Their mythology was changed a lot by the movies that portrayed them, but one film piqued my interest. Vampyr is a German expressionist horror film, that was shot in the style of a silent-film. You could say, it’s silent vampires. Vampire mimes. Vamp-mimes!

If you are not convinced by this, for some reason, let me tell you how the movie starts:
Allan Gray is a student of the supernatural. During his travels, he visits a small french village and stays at an inn. He is awaken from nightmares by a man entering his room. This father tells Allan that his daughter is dying, and leaves him a book about vampires, with the instruction to only open it in case he dies. He leaves Allan with this book and a quest for his unfinished business of saving the girl from the vampire.

Dreyer’s source material for this film was the 1872 novelle Carmilla, a tale of a lesbian vampire told in the form of a case file from an occult detective. Both the movie and the novella are about a hunt for a female vampire who preys on young girls.

Now, this is a pretty nice similarity to how John left the Vampmimes case to his boys through his journal.

This movie uses much older lore, one yet untouched by Hollywood. In it, Vampires are much more spiritual in nature. They are the damned spirits of the gluttonous sinners, who gave into earthly cravings. They prey on the young. Their bite is like possession, their lust infects the victims who will suffer from blood-thirst while their soul suffers from the repulsion they feel towards their cravings. Thus the vampire slowly drives them to suicide, a sin that will damn their soul to hell. The only way to stop this undead (and exorcising them from the victim) is to find their burial and pin them to their grave with a metal stake so they could not rise again. Lust, cravings, shame. The film’s inspiration from its lesbian vampire source material is undeniable.

TW: Dean’s death. 

A lot of us were heartbroken to see Dean give up so easily and die from what was essentially assisted suicide, so I hate to see the parallel between the two films, but it’s there. We can’t get more burry your gays than this I’m afraid.

So how do these vampires compare to the final’s vampires?
The Vamp-mimes felt different to me even on my first watch. They fit with the non-supernatural lore nicely. Their horrible(and seemingly unnecessary) skull masks make them symbolically more undead, they kidnap young children, the father had to open the door for them(invite them in), we see them exclusively at night and their leader is a lesbian vampire, Jenny.

So let’s say I accidentally stumbled upon the inspiration of this horrible episode. The question is still, WHY? There are two very good reasons why Dabb might have referenced this film.

The protagonist is a man who in his obsession of the supernatural lost sight of what’s real and what is fantasy. Dreyer with his esoteric approach managed to create a dream-like metaphysical experience. The line between dream and reality is not blurred but invisible. It’s visuals create a ghostly world of dancing shadows and ethereal visitations. With its odd pacing and no basic structural logic, the film keeps viewers confused. It’s unsettling compositions, at times leaving the viewer to wonder what exactly is real and what isn’t. At one point Allan’s spirit leaves his body and witnesses his own burial. Oh! And the german title of the film? The dream of Allan Grey.
The whole film is an “it’s all a dream” trope basically.

BUT this would be a reference not to the plot, but to how the viewers see the film. So how about a reference to how the viewers felt about the film? Let me copy-paste Wikipedia:

“At this premiere, the audience booed the film which led to Dreyer cutting several scenes out of the film after the first showing. At a showing of the film in Vienna, audiences demanded their money back. When this was denied, a riot broke out that led to police having to restore order with nightsticks. When the film premiered in Copenhagen, Denmark in March 1933, Dreyer did not attend. In the USA, the film premiered with English subtitles under the title Not Against The Flesh; an English-dubbed version, edited severely. Dreyer soon had a nervous breakdown and went to a mental hospital in France. The film was a financial failure.”

Truth Or Dare - A Killing Eve Fix-It Comic

credit: art and story by Eva García

IG: @evgar_psd / TW: @fruitydamie

(minor killing eve spoilers)

I gotta say, while I did enjoy Killing Eve it was not AT ALL what I was expecting/imagining it to be from all the stuff I’d seen about it on social media and was (slightly) disappointed especially with how it ended.

Those last three minutes were unnecessary and I’ll just pretend they didn’t happen.

telltaletypist:

telltaletypist:

i get that for most people tragedy is just always gonna feel Bad to read and that informs a lot of bury your gays discourse but we must not forget that a lot of people sincerely enjoy writing and reading tragedy and queer audiences still deserve to have good tragedies written by and for them imo

like i hope i don’t have to explain that there’s a difference between a lovingly crafted tragic romance by a queer author featuring characters that represent them and a shitty tv show introducing a single gay character for brownie points then immediately killing them off for shock value

The Old Guard saw the “action movies need a male lead”-stereotype, and just decided to say “Fuck that. Charlize Theron and KiKi Layne kick ass.”

The Old Guard saw the “people won’t watch movies if the main cast isn’t white or American”-stereotype, and just decided to say “Fuck that. The 6 main actors are South African, American, Belgian, Dutch, Italian and British.”

The Old Guard saw the “men aren’t supposed to talk about their feelings”-stereotype, and just decided to say “Fuck that. All main male characters have scenes talking about their feelings and emotions, which are relevant to the plot and the character’s motivations.”

Hell, The Old Guard saw all the stereotypical gay tropes, and just said “Fuck ‘em all.”

“Bury your gays”-trope? Fuck that. Immortal gays.

“Gay men are fragile”-trope? Fuck that. The gays kick ass.

“The film will loose money if a character is explicitly gay, so it will just be implied through subtext”-stupidity? Fuck that. They flirt, they kiss, there is an entire monologue dedicated to the love these gays have for each other.

And on top of all of that, The Old Guard has a great and clever plot, amazing action scenes, good pacing, great music, emotional beats that don’t drag the story down, and a well-executed setup for a sequel.

The Old Guard is a fantastic movie, and it is a great example of diversity that isn’t “forced”, but feels natural and makes a lot of sense in the story. This is diversity done right.

the supernatural writers:

The Magnus Archives took “bury your gays” in some wildly different directions

First. Obviously they did quite literally BURY a gay

Secondly though they were like “these gays get a happy ending”

But they ALSO were like “we aren’t gonna kill them….. We’re banishing them to a secret realm where they may or may not exist”

mommyhorror:

doks-aux:

Wait, wait, I don’t go here, but you’re telling me Killing Eve is based on a series of novels that ended with the main characters in lesbians ever after, and the show specifically chose to ignore that helpfully provided conclusion to deliberately bury the gays??

Oh my God, y’all, I am so, so sorry. I only knew your fucked-up little gals from gifsets, but I was really rooting for them.

WTF!!!

:(

can anyone recommend media where the Gays live happily ever after? I don’t think I know of any.

Imagine though, Holby City having set the bar for future “buried your gays… Haha got ya!” trope. Reader, I cannot.

Bury Your Gays Trope: Uggy, get it out of my face.

Resurrect Your Gays: Good. Give me the ghost Lesbians so they can live forever and be happy in their haunted house forever

spiders-hth-is-an-outlier:

OKAY, LIKE, you gays remember the 1989 hit horror-comedy film Heathers, right? And you remember that our heroes attend the funeral of a dude they murdered, which they get away with by staging his death to look like a gay suicide? (If you haven’t seen it, it’s a great movie, perhaps my favorite of all time! But of course you’ve seen it, you’re cool.)

So they’re at the funeral of this dim-bulb jock, and his meat-headed dad makes a somewhat meat-headed but impassioned speech about his family’s loss that ends with him bellowing I LOVE MY DEAD GAY SON! And our villain-hero cynically whispers “How do you think he’d feel if his son had a limp wrist with a pulse?” and our hero-hero laughs at first, then immediately realizes that the whole thing is insane and sociopathic, that she has so fully dehumanized everyone involved as a defense mechanism that she’s now able to hold herself smugly superior to the bereaved family of the dude she literally murdered. (Seriously, it’s a great movie!)

The point is, she does laugh at first, out of the recognition that JD is quite probably right: that Kurt is granted as a dead gay person a kind of heartfelt, vocal generosity that he would not have received from his family and community if he had legitimately tried to come out as a young man in love with his football teammate, asking people to support his happiness and his future.

And to me that scene sums up so powerfully why Bury Your Gays is insidious. It’s not that I want to wrap all queer characters in cotton bunting and never have bad things happen to them ever. It’s that edge of bitter laughter that’s always there when I think about how much easier it is for people to like a safely buried gay than one who might continue to exist, making uncomfortable demands.

It’s that 30 years after I first saw the 1989 hit horror-comedy film Heathers, it’s relevant that so many shows are so willing to assert their love and tolerance at a funeral, when they’re still so timid about extending either one when it comes to a limp wrist with a pulse.

I mean, there is something funny about it. I laugh every time, just like Veronica does. I suppose that’s my defense mechanism.