#queercoding

I just remembered that not only was it stated that D&D promotes "sodomy", but all the way in Russia, when Hopper tried to give a man his food, the man responded with [in Russian] "I am no fairy".

They kept homophobia and motive for being closeted on our minds this season.

A lot of times, shows get called queerbait incorrectly, specifically because the audience sees potential, and they COULD take it there, but the showmakers don't take it there because that was never the plan. This includes things like BBC Sherlock and the MCU. Without the active choice to make Destiel a viable canon, this is where Supernatural would fit. Not going along with a popular ship that wasn't planned to exist in the first place is not queerbait.

Actual queerbait happens when the showmakers never intend it but act like they are gonna, promote the story as such, and then actively choose not follow through. This is where I'd put things like What We Do in the Shadows. It's a promotional stunt, done to attract viewers via the Will-They-Won't-They, knowing full well that They Won't.

Both the queerbait and not-quite-queerbait things often have an extra salt rubbed in the wound by slapping a big giant helping of Excessively Het Stuff on top at the end, juuuust to make sure we get the message that This Is Not For You. This is where you get things like Steve Rogers going back in time to marry Peggy thereby destroying 10 years & multiple movies & shows worth of character development and other character relationships. Compulsory Het additions are used just to really emphasize that yeah, they're SUPER FUCKIN STRAIGHT and SOULMATES.

As a narrative example, in the case of queerbait, excessively het endings are like that high school prank trope, where someone pretends they're gonna take the loser to prom, then shows up with their Real Date to throw eggs at them on the porch on prom night. In the case of not-quite-queerbait, the excessively het ending is where you have that popular kid that's always nice to the loser, that the loser has a crush on, but is still gonna date the other popular kid, not out of spite, but simply because they weren't interested in the first place.

But we do have a realm of Queer media that plans to be queer and follows through, like Heated Rivalry, Our Flag Means Death, Sense8, assorted movies. But there's a different flavor to media like this. It starts out and carries through as openly queer. It celebrates queerness. But often, because it is so openly queer, these get boxed in as "Queer Show" to the exclusion of all else. It's advertising focuses on that it's queer. The narratives often revolve around what it means to be queer. Narrative elements that aren't Being Queer are, very often, just a backdrop. The stories are incredibly conscious and aware of their queerness, of their queer audience. They deal with themes around identity, the closet, sexuality, family dysfunction, societal expectations, religious and authoritarian pressure, fear of rejection, grief, romance, safety, isolation — things that are deemed "the Queer experience". And these are absolutely fair themes to apply; there's a reason those resonate.

Now. Supernatural.

Supernatural didn't set out to directly be queer media. It has always held elements of it, yes, and I will argue for that forever. But it's intended audience was not out and proud queer people the way that Queer Media (tm) was. It talks about several similar themes — patriarchal pressures, grief, family dysfunction, the conflict between sacrifice for the community vs. choosing what is right for yourself. It's one of the reasons why other queer themes like the closet slot in so easily. But the characters were not intended to be out and proud and open. Often when queer media features a character in the closet, the narrative is about them coming out. It deals with their interiority around their sexuality — guilt, shame, passion, fear. At some point, they're always intended to Come Out.

Supernatural handles the closet differently. A queer reading of Supernatural deals with a character that has no intention of ever coming out. For whom the closet is still more safe than it is a trap. And, importantly, there are other concerns than if it's safe to be openly queer. Being openly queer, after all, is about fulfillment and self-actualization. But Supernatural is a war story. It's narrative revolves around survival, around sacrifice, around saving the world. And so it's themes treat self-actualization as a distant dream. Often an unachievable one. Maybe one day, when the Mission is complete, we can stop. We can have a home and love and a life. ...but the Mission will never be over, will it? That life just isn't for us, I guess.

And then there's Cas. Cas, who comes from this hyper religious background, who undergoes religious indoctrination and re-education, who is given conversion therapy to literally kill the person that he loves. His love, in the eyes of heaven, is illicit, forbidden, in every sense. Cas who chooses to escape his cult for a beautiful boy that believes in him. Who gives up everything for Dean, always drawn to him specifically, protecting him, supporting him, sacrificing for him. Cas, who misses and loves his family in spite of their rejection and abuse, who keeps fighting and begging for them to see him, to give up their prejudices and see the beauty that he sees, to be free of the prison they have made for themselves.

And Dean, for whom family is everything. Dean who is willing to sacrifice everything if it means protecting innocents. Dean who craves comfort and safety for himself, but moreover, someone that he can feel safe to drop the mask around. And then he meets Cas, who becomes his best friend. Who sees his vulnerabilities and weaknesses and doesn't judge him for them, who accepts him - all of him. Who also is willing to do the hard thing, to make the big sacrifices, to protect the innocent. Cas who is funny, and steadfast, and strong, and kind but also kind of a bitch, who loves humanity as much as Dean does.

They make each other want to be better. They challenge each other. They accept each other and support each other, even when they fail. They help each other up, dust them off, and say let's try again. We'll do better this time. They fight the good fight, but they also protect each other's right to rest, to have things for themselves for once.

Is it any wonder that the audience looked at this and said oh. Obviously they're in love.

But they didn't start out that way. Cas wasn't supposed to be there. He was meant to die three episodes in. A minor throwaway character, there to serve a quick purpose, and be discarded.

But the energy just felt... interesting. Lightning in a bottle, they called it. The way Cas and Dean clicked onscreen, the way they reacted to each other. And so the showrunners reworked the plan. And they kept reworking it. And kept reworking it. Every season, every new showrunner, every new writer, adding on. Misha and Jensen, adding their spin.

It wasn't planned. Not initially. But it worked, and it made the story better, made it more interesting. Cas & Dean's dynamic was interesting, and it made each of their characters as individuals better. Offered complexity and complication and subtlety.

It would have been so, so easy for them to leave it at that. No one would have been surprised if they left it at that. I'm sure many would have cried queerbait — they already were. And others would have been very smug and triumphant with yet another win over the gays, I'm sure. Because fuck us and our exhausting wish to feel seen and accepted, right?

But they didn't. They chose to go there. Cas confessed, and it was explicitly romantic, explicitly and openly queer. and it mattered. It mattered SO MUCH because it wasn't originally planned. Because the writers and showrunners of Supernatural, for all their flaws, were willing to follow through on an element of the story that developed over time, instead of chickening out, or forcing it to fit a heteronormative mold. They let the characters develop and change and grow according to what clicked in the narrative, according to what made the story more interesting. One of Supernatural's strengths is that, in spite of it's formulaic plot structuring, in spite of all the negative influences against it, they managed to coax out characters that feel True and Real. Not always, and sometimes they have setbacks, but when they nail it, it's because they let the characters develop instead of fighting it. Cas's confession was so, so earned. Taking something that had been implicit, that had underlaid the entire show if you knew what to look for, and bringing it into the open where everyone can see it. And that was something they excelled with from the start with Cas — they saw character & story potential and they used it.

The love is explicit. It is canon. The queerness is there, openly, verbally, on screen. It's there, and it's ours, and it is true. And it validates everything that Destiel fans had been seeing and arguing for for years.

I completely agree with Cat, and their response actually made me want to do a rundown & analysis of most of the supplemental material we’ve gotten regarding spamtenna, and how it’s not really subtle in the slightest compared to the in-game content we have so far. So this is that analysis!

First, of course, there’s the Spamton Sweepstakes, which were such a goldmine for Deltarune lore in general, and in retrospect, is where a lot of spamtenna evidence and lore came from, almost 3 years before ch3's release. Some people were able to figure out that Tenna was Spamton's ex pretty much immediately from the "Damn You Tenna" page (although the majority of the wider Deltarune fandom still thought the TV character was going to be Mike until closer to ch3's release, from what I could tell).

Highlights from the Sweepstakes include the iconic MLM "business-loving-businessman" tweet clearly referring to Tenna, Spamton being confirmed as bi/pan, the South of the Border!! connection to the Tropic of Love, Spamton crossing out Tenna with a red marker as described on the throuple cutting board page, the Spamton engraved wedding ring being the page that links to "Damn You Tenna," divorce references, and a bunch of other little things that ended up being connected to spamtenna. I really wish there could be another event like this with a ton of hidden lore, it was a genius move to make something like that and have it benefit charity at the same time.

(sorry for the low quality mess that is this image, hopefully tumblr doesn’t make it impossible to read)

And, of course, there are the spamtenna plushes... The Tenna plush was first released for preorder at the end of July, and a new batch of the Spamton plush was made available to preorder as a bundle with him. Personally, I can't get over the fact that Tenna's proportions were specifically made to match with Spamton's proportions!! They are the only 2 plushes to have this unique body type. They also both include a pipis hidden in their heads, and of course, were posed very cuddly, and advertised as a pair on the front page of Fangamer.

You could argue that they were advertised like this solely to draw in spamtenna shippers for more sales, but Toby is extremely specific about the merch Fangamer makes (such as no lightner plushes being a big rule) and making sure all merch "improves the game." He's helped to design certain items himself before, such as him ensuring that Big Shot Spamton's suit on the air freshener from the Specil Fun Pak matched with Tenna's suit, several years before Tenna's design was officially revealed in ch3.

I think Toby had to have been consulted on the plushes being designed and advertised like this, if he didn't request it himself - and I have to say that if spamtenna weren't actually meant to be a couple, and weren't going to end up together again in at least one route of Deltarune, I honestly think it would be a cruel and unprofessional decision to tease fans like this for the sole purpose of making more money, which seems extremely unlike Toby to do. Clearly, explicitly advertising Spamton and Tenna as a set and a romantic pairing is something that improves Deltarune in his eyes. Add onto this that Toby actually brought more attention to it via tweet, and it's clear that spamtenna is intentionally being used as one of the draws to Deltarune.

(Note that this being the fastest selling Fangamer product of all time, over any other game franchise's merch, including any of their Undertale merch, is pretty damn impressive.)

Edit May 2026 to add another merch-related update:

On the Mr. Tenna Figurine product page on Fangamer, there’s a 3D render; if you look closely, there’s a very obvious indent on Tenna’s ring finger. As far as I’m aware, this is not a rendering error, because it wouldn’t be on both sides of the finger, or just be on one specific finger. Someone likely intentionally added a wedding ring indent, and it’s quite possible that this is an actual Easter egg/hint about something that may be relevant in the game at some point in the future. We’ll have to wait and see on this one.

Regarding the Nintendo Dream interview question Toby answered about spamtenna (l recommend checking out this full translation, btw; there's more Tenna-related questions and tons of interesting little tidbits from the translator) it's especially significant because it sounds like Toby answered fan-submitted questions to the magazine, and he chose to answer this one about spamtenna, even if it was in a very coy manner. Most people at the time thought this answer meant Toby was trying to leave their relationship ambiguous and up to players' interpretation (the thread of the Deltarune Unofficial Message Boards I found the linked translation on seemed to view it this way, for sure), but even when it happened, I thought it was possibly meant to tease that we would find out more eventually (and we already have with the winter newsletter scene!) — otherwise I don't think Toby would have even answered this one in the first place, or playfully made it clear that he was "so, so happy we want to know."

(the rest is under the cut so I don’t completely destroy people’s dash)

One of my favorite master Harry Potter theories, which I've found the most useful when looking at the series as a whole, is what I call the Three Year Summer Shift. Between Book 4 and Book 5, we see a lot of subtle (...and less subtle...) changes to style, characterization, worldbuilding. The way spells work change slightly, backstories are retconned, the structure of the books gets more complex, the writing style is noticeably different.

Some of these changes are JKR being influenced by the films, sure. But I think the weight of that is usually overstated, and the more important thing is that JKR is doing a lot to genre-shift her series into young adult (or even just adult) books, in order to keep the interest of her audience. Like, look at these two covers side by side:

One of these is clearly being marketed to a much younger audience.

So: I do agree that Remus and Dumbledore fall into that celibate, tragic, can't have relationships, represses what they want (queer coded) archetype. But... only after the Three Year Summer Shift.

Focusing on Remus, he's not nearly as beaten down and miserable in Book 3 as he will become later. He's not as standoffish, he's funnier, he's better in a fight, he mentors and checks in on Harry - like making him tea after he doesn't get to go to Hogsmeade, Lupin initiated that, and I don't think he would have in Book 5. Our only hint of the self-hating streak which will become one of his prime character traits moving forward is the monolog at the end, where he talks about feeling guilty for not telling Dumbledore about Sirius... which is there, not for reasons of queercoding, but for making the mystery/plot work.

(this has been another very useful trick for me - when I hit a characterization or worldbuilding detail that seems odd, like why would you make that choice... very often it's there to make a specific clue work, since Books 1-4 *are* structured like mysteries, and that is really core to their identity.)

Lupin isn't in Book 4, apart from a handful of mentions of "Lupin, what a great teacher." Then when he shows up in Book 5, he's kind of a mess. Honestly, I would believe that JKR didn't realize she'd written a queer-coded character until Alfonso Cuarón started interpreting Lupin that way, and then hit him and Dumbledore with the queer-coded brush in one swoop.

(I absolutely do think Dumbledore was deliberately queer-coded, but I am not at all sure that decision was made pre Three Year Summer Shift.)

I think that Remus in Book 3 is very specifically supposed to be Ryan White, a kid infected with HIV via blood transfusion when he was two who became an important symbol for AIDS activism. Remus was bitten really young, and the werewolf that bit him isn't important or named (that comes later, when he gets more queer-coded.) There's also a lot of focus on him maybe not being able to go to school, which was a big Ryan White thing.

So, that's my Remus analysis. And giving him children is part of JKR's campaign to give all (all) her good guys children. Even the gay ones.

hey guys, just finished that rewatch of BIAC where i wrote down all my Byler parallels and managed to find 14, 6 of which i’ll post now, and 8 later due to limited image numbers

would like to thank @desperatelousewife for pointing a few of these out to me (specifically 2, 3, & 6)

WARNING: long post

🏀

If you keep staring at that, it’s not going to change.

#piningfromafar #jealousy #mikedosomething #makeyourfirstmove #playthegame #takeaction

Mike crumples up the letter.

#lettergate #brokenheartedmike #givingup #toolate #isit?

It banks off the wall, misses.

#materialgirlgate #sufferingahit #impact #backfiring #loser!mike #loser!chance #mistakes #failedattempts #imissyou

Will […] drops it in for him —

#truelove #backtogether #theyllcomeback #iknowtheywill

[Will] waits for his friend [Mike]. Giving him time.

#latebloomers #queerjourney #goatyourownpace #comingout

And sure enough, Mike starts to open up…

🚪🔓🗃️