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army-of-mai-lovers · 3 years

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in which I get progressively angrier at the various tropes of atla fandom misogyny

tbh I think it would serve all of us to have a larger conversation about the specific ways misogyny manifests in this fandom, because I’ve seen a lot of people who characterize themselves as feminists, many of whom are women themselves, discuss the female characters of atla/lok in misogynistic ways, and people don’t talk about it enough.

disclaimer before I start: I’m not a woman, I’m an afab nonbinary person who is semi-closeted and thus often read as a woman. I’m speaking to things that I’ve seen that have made me uncomfy, but if any women (esp women existing along other axes of oppression, e.g. trans women, women of color, disabled women, etc) want to add onto this post, please do!

“This female character is a total badass but I’m not even a little bit interested in exploring her as a human being.”

I’ve seen a lot of people say of various female characters in atla/lok, “I love her! She’s such a badass!” now, this statement on its own isn’t misogynistic, but it represents a pretty pervasive form of misogyny that I’ve seen leveled in large part toward the canon female love interests of one or both of the members of a popular gay ship (*cough* zukka *cough*) I’m going to use Suki as an example of this because I see it with her most often, but it can honestly be applied to nearly every female character in atla/lok. Basically, people will say that they stan Suki, but when it comes time to engage with her as an actual character, they refuse to do it. I’ve seen meta after meta about Zuko’s redemption arc, but I so rarely see people engage with Suki on any level beyond “look at this cool fight scene!” and yeah, I love a cool Suki fight scene as much as anybody else, but I’m also interested in meta and headcanons and fics about who she is as a person, when she isn’t an accessory to Sokka’s development or doing something cool. of course, the material for this kind of engagement with Suki is scant considering she doesn’t have a canon backstory (yet) (don’t let me down Faith Erin Hicks counting on you girl) but with the way I’ve seen people in this fandom expand upon canon to flesh out male characters, I know y’all have it in you to do more with Suki, and with all the female characters, than you currently do. frankly, the most engagement I’ve seen with Suki in mainstream fandom is justifying either zukki (which again, is characterizing her in relation to male characters, one of whom she barely interacts with in canon) or one of the Suki wlw pairings. which brings me to--

“I conveniently ship this female character whose canon love interest is one of the members of my favorite non-canon ship with another female character! gay rights!”

now, I will admit, two of my favorite atla ships are yueki and mailee, and so I totally understand being interested in these characters’ dynamics, even if, as is the case with yueki, they’ve never interacted canonically. however, it becomes a problem for me when these ships are always in the background of a zukka fic. at some point, it becomes obvious that you like this ship because it gets either Zuko or Sokka’s female love interests out of the way, not because you actually think the characters would mesh well together. It’s bad form to dislike a female character because she gets in the way of your gay ship, so instead, you find another girl to pair her off with and call it a day. to be clear, I’m not saying that everybody who ships either mailee or yueki (or tysuki or maisuki or yumai or whatever other wlw rarepair involving Zuko or Sokka’s canon love interests) is nefariously trying to sideline a female character while acting publicly as if she’s is one of their faves--far from it--but it is noteworthy to me how difficult it is to find content that centers wlw ships, while it’s incredibly easy to find content that centers zukka in which mailee and/or yueki plays a background role.

also, notice how little traction wlw Katara ships gain in this fandom. when’s the last time you saw yuetara on your dash? there’s no reason for wlw Katara ships to gain traction in a fandom that is so focused on Zuko and Sokka getting together, bc she doesn’t present an immediate obstacle to that goal (at least, not an obstacle that can be overcome by pairing her up with a woman). if you are primarily interested in Zuko and Sokka’s relationship, and your queer readings of other female characters are motivated by a desire to get them out of the way for zukka, then Katara’s canon m/f relationship isn’t a threat to you, and thus, there’s no reason to read her as potentially queer. Or even, really, to think about her at all.

“Katara’s here but she’s not actually going to do anything, because deep down, I’m not interested in her as a person.”

the show has an enormous amount of textual evidence to support the claim that Sokka and Katara are integral parts of each other’s lives. so, she typically makes some kind of appearance in zukka content. sometimes, her presence in the story is as an actual character with layers and nuance, someone whom Sokka cares about and who cares about Sokka in return, but also has her own life and goals outside of her brother (or other male characters, for that matter.) sometimes, however, she’s just there because halfway through writing the author remembered that Sokka actually has a sister who’s a huge part of the show they’re writing fanfiction for, and then they proceed to show her having a meetcute with Aang or helping Sokka through an emotional problem, without expressing wants or desires outside of those characters. I’m honestly really surprised that I haven’t seen more people calling out the fact that so much of Katara’s personality in fanon revolves around her connections to men? she’s Aang’s girlfriend, she’s Sokka’s sister, she’s Zuko’s bestie. never mind that in canon she spends an enormous amount of time fighting against (anachronistic, Westernized) sexism to establish herself as a person in her own right, outside of these connections. and that in canon she has such interesting complex relationships with other female characters (e.g. Toph, Kanna, Hama, Korra if you want to write lok content) or that there are a plethora of characters with whom she could have interesting relationships with in fanon (Mai, Suki, Ty Lee, Yue, Smellerbee, and if you want to write lok content, Kya II, Lin, Asami, Senna, etc). to me, the lack of fandom material exploring Katara’s relationships with other women or with herself speak to a profound indifference to Katara as a character. I’m not saying you have to like Katara or include her in everything you write, but I am asking you to consider why you don’t find her interesting outside of her relationships with men.

“I hate Katara because she talks about her mother dying too often.”

this is something I’ve seen addressed by people far more qualified than I to address it, but I want to mention it here in part because when I asked people which fandom tropes they wanted me to talk about, this came up often, but also because I find it really disgusting that this is a thing that needs to be addressed at all. Y’all see a little girl who watched her mother be killed by the forces of an imperialist nation and say that she talks about it too much??? That is a formational, foundational event in a child’s life. Of course she’s going to talk about it. I’ve seen people say that she doesn’t talk about it that often, or that she only talks about it to connect with other victims of fn imperialism e.g. Jet and Haru, but frankly, she could speak about it every episode for no plot-significant reason whatsoever and I would still be angry to see people say she talks about it too much. And before you even bring up the Sokka comparison, people deal with grief in different ways. Sokka repressed a lot of his grief/channeled it into being the “man” of his village because he knew that they would come for Katara next if he gave them the opportunity. he probably would talk about his mother more if a) he didn’t feel massive guilt at not being able to remember what she looked like, and b) he was allowed to be a child processing the loss of his mother instead of having to become a tiny adult when Hakoda had to leave to help fight the fn. And this gets into an intersection with fandom racism, in that white fans (esp white American fans) are incapable of relating to the structural trauma that both Sokka and Katara experience and thus can’t see the ways in which structural trauma colors every single aspect of both of their characters, leading them to flatten nuance and to have some really bad takes. And you know what, speaking of bad fandom takes--

“Shitting on Mai because she gets in the way of my favorite Zuko ship is actually totally okay because she’s ~abusive~”

y’all WHAT.

ok listen, I get not liking maiko. I didn’t like it when I first got into fandom, and later I realized that while bryke cannot write romance to save their lives, fans who like maiko sure can, so I changed my tune. but if you still don’t like it, that’s fine. no skin off my back.

what IS skin off my back is taking instances in which Mai had justified anger toward Zuko, and turning it into “Mai abused Zuko.” do you not realize how ridiculous you sound? this is another thing where I get so angry about it that I don’t know how useful my analysis is actually going to be, but I’ll do my best. numerous people have noted how analysis of Mai and Zuko’s breakup in “The Beach” or Mai being justifiably angry with him at Boiling Rock or her asking for FUCKING FRUIT in “Nightmares and Daydreams” that says that all of these events were her trying to gain control over him is....ahhh...lacking in reading comprehension, but I’d like to go a step further and talk about why y’all are so intent on taking down a girl who doesn’t show emotion in normative ways. obviously, there’s a “Zuko can do no wrong” aspect to Mai criticism (which is super weird considering how his whole arc is about how he can do lots of wrong and he has to atone for the wrong that he’s done--but that’s a separate post.) But I also see slandering Mai for not expressing her emotions normatively and not putting up with Zuko’s shit and slandering Katara for “talking about her mother too often” as two sides of the same coin. In both cases, a female character expresses emotions that make you, the viewer, uncomfortable, and so instead of attempting to understand where those emotions may have come from and why they might be manifesting the way they are, y’all just throw the whole character away. this is another instance of people in the fandom being fundamentally disinterested in engaging with the female characters of atla in a real way, except instead of shallowly “stanning” Mai, y’all hate her. so we get to this point where female characters are flattened into one of two things: perfect queens who can do no wrong, or bitches. and that’s not who they are. that’s not who anyone is. but while we as a fandom are pretty good at understanding b1 Zuko’s actions as layered and multifaceted even though he’s essentially an asshole then, few are willing to lend the same grace to any female character, least of all Mai.

and what’s funny is sometimes this trope will intersect with “I conveniently ship this female character whose canon love interest is one of the members of my favorite non-canon ship with another female character! gay rights!”, so you’ll have someone actively calling Mai toxic/problematic/abusive, and at the same time ship her with Ty Lee? make it make sense! but then again, maybe that’s happening because y’all are fundamentally disinterested in Ty Lee as a character too.

“I love Ty Lee so much that I’m going to treat her like an infantilized hypersexual airhead!”

there are so many things happening in y’alls characterization of Ty Lee that I struggled to synthesize it into one quippy section header. on one hand, you have the hypersexualization, and on the other hand, you have the infantilization, which just makes the hypersexualization that much worse.

(of course, sexualizing or hypersexualizing ANY atla character is really not the move, considering that these are child characters in a children’s show, but then again, that’s a separate post.)

now, I understand how, from a very, very surface reading of the text, you could come to the conclusion that Ty Lee is an uncomplicated bimbo. if you grew up on Western media the way I did, you’ll know that Ty Lee has a lot of the character traits we associate with bimbos: the form-fitting pink crop top, the general conventional attractiveness, the ditzy dialogue. but if you think about it for more than three seconds, you’ll understand that Ty Lee has spent her whole life walking a tightrope, trying to please Azula and the rest of the royal family while also staying true to herself. Ty Lee and Azula’s relationship is a really complex and interesting topic that I don’t really have time to explore at the moment given how long this post is, but I’d argue that Ty Lee’s constant, vocal adulation is at least partially a product of learning to survive at court at an early age. Like Mai, she has been forced to regulate her emotions as a member of fn nobility, but unlike Mai, she also has six sisters who look exactly like her, so she has a motivation to be more peppy and more affectionate to stand out.

fandom does not do the work to understand Ty Lee. as is a theme with this post, fandom is actively disinterested in investigating female characters beyond a very surface level reading of them. Thus, fandom takes Ty Lee’s surface level qualities--her love of the color pink, her revealing standard outfit, and the fact that once she found a boy attractive and also once a lot of boys found her attractive--and they stretch this into “Ty Lee is basically Karen Smith from Mean Girls.” thus, Ty Lee is painted as a bimbo, or more specifically, as not smart, uncritically adoring of Azula (did y’all forget all the non-zukka bits of Boiling Rock?), and attractive to the point of hypersexualization. I saw somebody make a post that was like “I wish mailee was more popular but I’m also glad it isn’t because otherwise people would write it as Mai having to put up with her dumb gf” and honestly I have to agree!! this is one instance in which I’m glad that fandom doesn’t discuss one of my favorite characters that often because I hate the fanon interpretation of Ty Lee, I think it’s rooted in misogyny (particularly misogyny against East Asian women, which often takes the form of fetishizing them and viewing them only through a Western white male gaze)

(side note: here at army-of-mai-lovers, we stan bimbos. bimbos are fucking awesome. I personally don’t read Ty Lee as a bimbo, but if that’s you, that’s fucking awesome. keep doing what you’re doing, queen <3 or king or monarch, it’s 2021, anyone can be a bimbo, bitches <3)

“Toph can and will destroy everyone here with her bare hands because she’s a meathead who likes to murder people and that’s it!”

Toph is, and always has been, one of my favorite ATLA characters. My very first fic in fandom was about her, and she appears prominently in a lot of my other work as well. One thing that I am always struck by with Toph is how big a heart she has. She’s independent, yes, snarky, yes, but she cares about people--even the family that forced her to make herself smaller because they didn’t believe that their blind daughter could be powerful and strong. Her storyline is powerful and emotionally resonant, her bending is cool precisely because it’s based in a “wait and listen” approach instead of just smashing things indiscriminately, she’s great disabled rep, and overall one of the best characters in the show.

And in fandom, she gets flattened into “snarky murder child.”

So where does this come from? Well, as we all know, Toph was originally conceived of as a male character, and retained a lot of androgyny (or as the kids call it, Gender) when she was rewritten as a female character. There are a lot of cultural ideas about androgynous/butch women being violent, and people in fandom seem to connect that larger cultural narrative with some of Toph’s more violent moments in the show to create the meathead murder child trope, erasing her canon emotionality, softness, heart, and femininity in the process.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t write or characterize Toph as being violent or snarky at all ever, because yeah, Toph definitely did do Earth Rumbles a lot before joining the gaang, and yeah, Toph is definitely a sarcastic person who makes fun of her friends a lot. What I am saying is that people take these traits, sans the emotional logic, marry them to their conception of androgynous/butch women as violent/unemotional/uncaring, and thus create a caricature of Toph that is not at all up to snuff. When I see Toph as a side character in a fic (because yeah, Toph never gets to be a main character, because why would a fandom obsessed with one male character in particular ever make Toph a protagonist in her own right?) she’s making fun of people, killing people, pranking people, etc, etc. She’s never talking to people about her emotions, or palling around with her found family, or showing that she cares about her friends. Everything about her relationship with her parents, her disability, her relationship to Gender, and her love of her friends is shoved aside to focus on a version of Toph that is mean and uncaring because people have gotten it into their heads that androgynous/butch women are mean and uncaring.

again, we see a female character who does not emote normatively or in a way that makes you, the viewer, comfortable, and so you warp her character until she’s completely unrecognizable and flat. and for what?

Azula

no, I didn’t come up with a snappy name for this section, mainly because fanon interpretations of Azula and my own feelings toward the character are...complicated. I know there were some people who wanted me to write about Azula and the intersection of misogyny and ableism in fanon interpretations of her character, but I don’t think I can deliver on that because I personally am in a period of transition with how I see Azula. that is to say, while I still like her and believe that she can be redeemed, there is a lot of merit to disliking her. the whole point of this post is that the female characters of ATLA are complex people whom the fandom flattens into stereotypes that don’t hold up to scrutiny, or dislike for reasons that don’t make sense. Azula, however, is a different case. the rise of Azula defenders and Azula stans has led to this sentiment that Azula is a 14 y/o abuse victim who shouldn’t be held accountable for her actions. it seems to me that people are reacting to a long, horrible legacy of male ATLA fans armchair diagnosing Azula with various personality disorders (and suggesting that people with those personality disorders are inherently monstrous and unlovable which ahhhh....yikes) and then saying that those personality disorders make her unlovable, which is quite obviously bad. and hey, I get loving a character that everyone else hates and maybe getting so swept up in that love that you forget that your fave is complicated and has made some unsavory choices. it sucks that fanon takes these well-written, complex villains/antiheroes and turns them into monsters with no critical thought whatsoever. but the attitude among Azula stans that her redemption shouldn’t be hard, that her being a child excuses all of the bad things that she’s done, that she is owed redemption....all of that rubs me the wrong way. I might make another post about this in the future that discusses this in more depth, but as it stands now: while I understand that there is a legacy of misogynistic, ableist, unnuanced takes on Azula, the backlash to that does not take into account the people she hurt or the fact that in ATLA she does not make the choice to pursue redemption. and yes, Zuko had help in making that choice that Azula didn’t, and yes, Azula is a victim of abuse, but in a show about children who have gone through untold horrors and still work to better the lives of the people around them, that is not enough for me to uncritically stan her.

Conclusion

misogyny in this fandom runs rampant. while there are some tropes of fandom misogyny that are well-documented and have been debunked numerous times, there are other, subtler forms of misogyny that as far as I know have gone completely unchecked.

what I find so interesting about misogyny in atla fandom is that it’s clear that it’s perpetrated by people who are aware of fandom misogyny who are actively trying not to be misogynistic. when I first joined atla fandom last summer, memes about how zukka fandom was better than every other fandom because they didn’t hate the female characters who got in the way of their gay ship were extremely prevalent, and there was this sense that *this* fandom was going to model respectful, fun, feminist online fandom. not all of the topes I’ve outlined are exclusive to or even largely utilized in zukka fandom, but a lot of them are. I’ve been in and out of fandom since I was eleven years old, and most of the fandom spaces I’ve been in have been majority-female, and all of them have been incredibly misogynistic. and I always want to know why. why, in these communities created in large part by women, in large part for women, does misogyny run wild? what I realize now is that there’s never going to be a one-size fits all answer to that question. what’s true for 1D fandom on Wattpad in 2012 is absolutely not true for atla fandom on tumblr in 2021. the answers that I’ve cobbled together for previous fandoms don’t work here.

so, why is atla fandom like this? why did the dream of a feminist fandom almost entirely focused on the romantic relationship between two male characters fall apart? honestly, I think the notion that zukka fandom ever was this way was horrifically ignorant to begin with. from my very first moment in the fandom, I was seeing racism, widespread sexualization of minors, and yes, misogyny. these aspects of the fandom weren’t talked about as much as the crocverse or other, much more fun aspects. further, atla (specifically zukka) fandom misogyny often doesn’t look like the fandom misogyny we’ve become familiar with from like, Sherlock fandom or what have you. for the most part, people don’t actively hate Suki, they just “stan” without actually caring about her. they hate Mai because they believe in treating male victims of abuse equally. they’re not characterizing Toph poorly, they’re writing her as a “strong woman.” in short, people are misogynistic, and then invoke a shallow, incomplete interpretation of feminist theory to shield themselves from accusations of misogyny. it’s not unlike the way some people will invoke a shallow, incomplete interpretation of critical race theory to shield themselves from accusations of racism, or how they’ll talk about “freedom of speech” and “the suppression of women’s sexuality” to justify sexualizing minors. the performance of feminism and antiracism is what’s important, not the actual practice.

if you’ve made it this far, first off, hi, thanks so much for reading, I know this was a lot. second, I would seriously encourage you to be aware of these fandom tropes and to call them out when you see them. elevate the voices of fans who do the work of bringing the female characters of atla to life. invest in the wlw ships in this fandom. drop a kudos and a comment on a rangshi fic (please, drop a kudos and a comment on a rangshi fic). read some yuetara. let’s all be honest about where we are now, and try to do better in the future. I believe in us.

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bookofmirth · 3 years

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Can you please elaborate why it is considered problematic that SJM wrote that elain is uncomfortable around lucien? You mentioned in a previous response that it was not a good move for her to write elain being uncomfortable by a disabled POC but I’m not quite sure why that is a problem because she is not uncomfortable because of his disability or race- her discomfort has nothing to do with that.

Also, racism is not an issue in prythian the way it is in real life. You have high lords such as helion and tarquin (among others) that are explicitly POC and there has never been mention of any hostility towards them because of the color of their skin. The only discrimination I can recall is between high and lesser fae which is classist not racist.

I’m just confused why it is considered ableist or racist when SJM decided to write how elain is uncomfortable around lucien when it has nothing to do with his skin color or disability.

On another note- would it have been racist if amarantha (a known rapist) was written as a WOC rather than white? I’m just trying to understand your point of view and I’m a little lost. To me, acotar is a diverse world with characters of all races and some are good, some are evil but pretty much every character has done something morally grey at at least one point in the series. And none of that is not specific to one race vs another. There are white characters that are good, morally grey and downright evil. And the same can be said for other races.

I appreciate any further elaboration you can supply!

Hello! I will try my best. I don't mind answering questions like this! I recognize that I have had a lot of education about these topics and I have learned A Lot from Black women on Twitter over the years. I hope to share it in a way that is useful. I can maybe make a reading list if anyone is interested, but people should definitely ask around so that it's not getting filtered through just one person (aka me).

So the whole thing with talking about race in the fandom is that race does not function the same way in the acotar world as it does in ours. You are correct about that. You may have seen my post that attempted to break down various ways that characters access privilege in Prythian? Either way, yes. It is not a one-to-one correspondence with our world and the book world.

However, there are issues within the acotar world that mirror issues in ours, and the way that fans engage with those issues can reveal underlying prejudices. I mentioned in this post that we don't have to intend to do these things. (Also, intent versus impact is like diversity, inclusivity, and equity training 101. It's one of the first, and most important things you will learn. Even if you didn't mean to harm someone, they still feel hurt, and it's important to acknowledge that.)

The issue with the way people talk about Lucien - and I mentioned in another post that this is perhaps just as much on Sarah for creating this scenario as it is on the fandom for hopping on that horse and riding - is that there is a history of white women being painted as the victims of Black men specifically.

I'm going to put the rest of this under the cut because I want to show you some examples.

I hope that I don't have to explain why this is disgusting. There is a real-life example of this ^^^ if you google Emmett Till and read his story. This is by far not the only example of a white woman claiming that a Black man (or boy, in his case) was harassing her in some way, and often, that has resulted in lynching.

These are clearly older examples, and also really good examples of how people of color can be dehumanized, but these problems persist. The methods are just more subtle. More recently, it could result in police brutality. When that women called the police on a Black man in NYC last summer, it played into the long history of a woman claiming that she was being threatened or victimized by a Black man. As @gimme-mor explained in her post, the concept of white womanhood is often used as a way to uphold racism and white supremacy because it shows people of color as being violent threats, giving white men (and white women) a reason to retain their privilege.

You're probably wondering now what the fuckity fuck this has to do with Acotar and Lucien. I am getting there!

Because of this historical context, there are many slurs and stereotypes used against POC that on the surface, seem innocent. However, they have a deep, dark history of oppression and violence. It's not about the "one time" that someone said one racist thing, but generational trauma. I can't speak to what this is like as a lived experience, and so I would really appreciate anyone who does want to add on!!!

For example, just to take us away from acotar for a minute, there is a problematic, sexist and often racist trope in which characters get fridged. This is a term used to refer to the way that women, women of color, or characters of color (this could include queer and disabled people as well) are killed off to further a white person's story. This happens SO OFTEN. Nehemia was killed in ToG to motivate Aelin. Sorscha was killed in HoF to hurt Dorian. In a multitude of super hero and action movies, the wife or girlfriend of the main character is killed off in order to provide either pain or motivation to the white male hero.

Individually, these events are whatever. Taken as a whole, though... it shows a trend that the girlfriend of the hero is disposable. It shows that people who are not white, straight, able-bodied males are worthless, and only function to further someone else’s plot.

So that's what is sort-of happening here. After a long, long history of white women positioning themselves (or being positioned) as the innocent victims of brutish, violent, barely-even-human men of color, there are some disturbing parallels when people try to say that Elain is a shrinking violet next to Lucien's insistent attentions.

The context is everything. It's not about this one event, but that there is a history in the real world of this trope playing out over and over, and it has even been an explicit tactic used to perpetuate white supremacy.

This context influences the way that we interact with one another in fandom. The point of that post was not to critique the acotar series itself, but to expose some problematic aspects of the fandom.

I am not going to speak for anyone else, but I think that the original intent of pointing out this parallel between Elain/Lucien and white feminism was not that we want people to stop saying that Elain feels this, or Elain feels that, or Lucien is doing this or that, etc. The reason why this has been mentioned in the past is because there are some very uncomfortable, violent historical precedents set, and while people may not realize that those exist, they may be unintentionally furthering that stereotype.

There were many, many other points made in that post that I think bear repeating and further attention. I hope that this made sense. It's hard to condense literal centuries of racism like this, and of course I am only talking about the context in the U.S. I'm sure it's different elsewhere.

The main takeaway from that post, though, is that it wasn't about the world itself. It was about the way that the fandom engages with the world, and how they utilize some problematic tools to do so. Critiquing the world itself is a completely different issue, which... I will sorta touch on now!

One last point, since you brought up Amarantha and the potential of her being a WOC and a rapist - it could be viewed as problematic and racist, due to the oversexualization of Black women in particular (again, the context throughout history supports this). However, that would not be a fandom problem! That would be an sjm problem.

BTW - I do have serious problems with the way that Illyrians are portrayed in acotar, again because of the history of POC being portrayed as uncivilized, brutish, violent, and... that word that means someone isn't religious. I am getting tired and forgot the word. When sjm says that Illyrians are that way, and when she emphasizes the fact that they are a race... yikes. It's not racist of us to point that out, but it was highly questionable that she created them to be that way in the first place.

Let me know if any of this doesn't make sense, please! To anyone reading this to the end, first off RIP! But also let me know if I've gotten something wrong or if you see something differently.

#acotar #acosf #acotar fandom #cw racism #cw racist images #ask #anon

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kaypeace21 · 3 years

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Stranger things is about mental health & trauma- deal with it!

I’ve seen a lot of people claim anyone who mentioned this topic immediately be gaslit and told they’re “just crazy” and “rudely projecting their own issues on to the characters.’ Like- no you don’t have to believe my Will DID/Lonnie theory ( I could be wrong). But to claim one of the show’s central themes isn’t about mental health/trauma (screams either complete lack of lit comprehension or denial cause you have your own negative biases towards such people). So let’s just go into what’s literal text-not subtext/symbolism. Just the super blatant stuff. RIGHT IN THE SHOW!

-We have El when she first appears on screen asked by Benny if her parents starved and hurt her and if that’s why she ran away. Benny then calls CPS to say El “may have been ab*sed or something.” After this Lucas says there is “seriously something wrong with her-wrong in the head. She’s probably from the NUT-HOUSE in curly county.penthurst” We also see El cannonically has PTSD-all of s1 she’ll see something benign (a cat, a coke commercial, a closet) and is triggered to see a traumatic flashback. That’s literally ptsd. There’s also hints throughout the seasons she’s developmentally behind in both language, telling time etc (neglect like El’s irl can cause an intellectual disability-analysis on El/that subject here).The real pethurst in pensylvannia (not the one in stranger things/ Curly county) closed in 1986- it was a facility for people and mostly kids with intellectual disabilities (it wasn’t technically a psych facility like the one in st)-but it was infamous for it’s abuse of these intellectually disabled patients kept there. We also have Brenner be a ab*sive psychiatrist.

- Hopper after suffering from the loss of his daughter. Is popping pills like candy, drinking and smoking constantly. He later says he used to hallucinate and forgot what was real -seeing and hearing sarah and says if he didn’t confront the pain he’d “fall down a black hole he couldn’t get out of.” NO... subtext here about what the void represents nope.

- Both mothers (Terry & Joyce) are dismissed as being mentally ill and simply grieving the loss of their kids . But both end up being right about the supernatural.

- “Terry pretends Jane is real. i mean it’s all make believe. you know the doctors all say it’s a coping mechanism.”

- While with Joyce the whole town pre s1 already questioned her mental health. Jonathan says “She used to have anxiety problems (pre s1).” And Jonathan, Hopper, and Lonnie all assume she’s hallucinating: talking to Will via lights, seeing a man without a face, saying Will’s body is fake -due to grief. Plus Lonnie mentions the fact Joyce’s aunt Darlene also used to hallucinate as a possible reason (terry’s aunt also had mental health issues mentioned in s2 by Becky). Lonnie even says everything Joyce is seeing is “all in her head.” Hopper and Jon both say she needs to sleep and accept reality and Lonnie says she needs to see a “shrink”. Hopper “i’m not saying that you’re crazy”. Joyce : “no, you are.” Joyce also says to Lonnie “Stop looking at me like that... like everyone else like i’m out of my damn mind.” Hopper also says about Joyce she’s “on the edge”. Callahan says in response , “she’s been on the edge for a while now” (referring to her mental health- even before Will’s dissappearance)”. While Lonnie says Jonathan is “feeding into her hallucinations ... you’re going to push her right over the edge.” In s2 Hopper says “ I think everyone is on edge- you, me, Will most of all. (when talking about Will’s ptsd/trauma)”

- in s1 They claim Will just “fell” over the edge of the quarry’s cliff. Later the only other queer coded character (Mike) jumps off the quarry cliff (where Will’s body was found) cause the homophobic troy forced him too jump. Troy even says earlier dead-Will is “flying with all the other fairies all happy and gay” (to Mike). And Troy says to Hopper El made Mike “fly” after jumping off the cliff. Friendship saved him from jumping off the edge metaphorically ( and he’ll prob eventually be happy and gay too).

s2/3

-Will is seeing a therapist . And we are told he has ptsd and will experience the anniversary effect, personality changes,nightmares, having episodes, etc. And things “will get worse before they get better”. Mike also asks if what Will is seeing is “real or like the doctors say all in your head?” And Will continues to see hallucinations of the mf/upsidedown that only he can see initially.

-Hopper also agrees with owens mentioning how he knew guys with ptsd . joyce : “it’s not like he’s describing a nightmare. He talks about them like they’re real.” Hopper: “Yeah, because they’re not nightmares they’re flashbacks.I think he’s right about trauma.I think everyone is on edge (bringing that s1 ref back), Me you, Will, most of all.Nothing’s gonna go back to the way that it was. But it’ll get better.In time.”

-Nancy suffers from survivor’s guilt and drunkingly says she killed Barb. Jonathan says like Nancy he has “a weight that you that carry all the time . i feel it too.” (cough depression). He also says he tries to be there for Will but says about Will “he’s not the same. maybe things can’t go back to the way they were. (mirroring Hopper’s words earlier that season)”

-Jonathan said in s1 Joyce had “anxiety issues” than Nancy says in s3 “you really are your mother’s son... you worry too much.” Then we see him look worried after the comment.

- in s2, Axel & a scientist both call El and Will “schizos” because of their powers. In s3 mrs driscoll isn’t believed about the supernatural cause she’s schizophrenic-but like Joyce/Terry was right.

- Kali saves a woman named Dottie (a british slang term for crazy) from a mental hospital and then compares herself and El to dottie. saying her non-powered gang is “Like us ...outsiders... society discarded them.” In graphitti we even see the title “obedlam” a british poem about discarding the mentally ill and leaving them homeless. El before this sees a mentally ill man screaming “we’re all dead!” Kali’s friend says to El, after this encounter they were “dead all of us” until kali “saved them here” (points to head) “and here” (points to heart). Pointing to the theme of love and friendship helping those with such issues. Similar to the cliff analogy.

-The cycle of ab*se. Max in s2 says she’s afraid of becoming like Billy (her ab*ser). We see Billy mimic his ab*ser neil and inflict pain on max. In s3 we see the roots of his behavior are linked to mimicking Neil- Neil in a flashback says about baseball “what are you scared?” “ did i raise a p*ssy for a son”. So young Billy later in a fight says to a boy “ what are you scared to fight me? fight me p*ssy. (as he beats the boy)” Deflecting his anger of his father on to someone else. In s3, We see as a kid he used to say to Neil “don’t hurt her” (his mom)-specifically after Neil backhand slaps her -but we later see possessed Billy backhand slap Max (just like neil). The resentment to his mother leaving - festered into how he views women and max negatively . And his attraction to mrs wheeler prob is linked to him subconsciously missing his mother. Max in s2 even says he can’t take it out on her mother so he does so to her instead (we even have Billy hallucinate hurting mrs wheeler).We see in s2 the cycle of abuse is there- Billy mimics Neil, and then Max mimics Billy. Billy harrasses Max and yells “SAY IT!” (mimicking Neil). Max like Billy later yells “SAY IT” and uses a bat /violence to stand up for herself against Billy- which earlier she said she was trying to combat … explaining she can be angry like Billy sometimes but she never wants to be like him (her nickname symbolizing this: aka ‘mad max’). Billy’s last dying words were an apology to Max- for becoming her neil. And we hopefully will see Max break this cycle.

- Will says his now memories (that he describes like dreams) are “growing “, “spreading “,and “killing”. While Kali says they need to face their father and (as Brenner) says El has to confront her “wound” or else it’ll “grow”, “spread” and “eventually it’ll kill her.” Kali says she used to be like El . She used to bottle her pain away and it “spread.” But she then says “I confronted my pain and I finally began to heal (from those wounds).” We also see with jonathan and nancy when describing “shared trauma” zoom in onto the scars on their hands. The wound heeled into a scar so to speak.

S2 & 3 ENDINGS

both have Hopper do a speech that delves into dealing with trauma/depression but still finding good along the way.

-s2 Hopper outside the snowball: “how are you holding up? Yeah, that feeling never goes away. It is true what they say, you know. Everyday it does get easier.”

-s3 Hopper monolouge : “ Feelings jesus. For so long, i’d forgotten what those even were. I’ve been stuck in one place,in a cave you might say , a deep dark cave (cough s2 supernatural cave). For the first time in a long time, i started to feel things again. I started to feel happy. Life... yeah sometimes it’s painful .sometimes it’s sad, and sometimes it’s suprising... happy.. And when life hurts you, because it will .remember the hurt . The hurt is good. It means you’re out of that cave.”

BUT YES- St has nothing to do with mental health/trauma, we’re just “crazy” and “projecting”. It’s not like some of ya’ll act pompous when you just have a bias and get pissy at the idea of relating to characters you “other” as “crazy” or “damaged” irl or anything (so attack people for pointing it out). Or (benefit of the doubt) you are just like.... oblivious... or just a kid who doesn’t know better XD

#stranger things #el hopper #will byers #jim hopper #joyce byers #max mayfield #billy hargrove #kali prasad #mike wheeler #jonathan byers #nancy wheeler

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geekynichelle · 3 years

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So, I saw this tweet, and it started a conversation about the appeal of Harley Quinn, and I wrote this because I was possessed. It’s long so I put it below the cut. All opinions are my own.

Is Harleen Quinzel overrated? Honestly, I don’t know. Nor do I really care. Plenty of people love characters that others find overdone, and that shouldn’t have any bearing on whether or not they are liked on a personal level. You could equally say that Loki or Deadpool are overrated, and while I do believe race plays a role in why all three of these chaos agents are popular, gender is obviously why more people are vocal about finding Harley played out.

Getting that out of the way, let’s dive into the nitty gritty. What the hell is appealing about this clown to a Black, queer and neurodivergent woman? To start I want to bring into play the idea that what Black women do and don’t enjoy is often put in a narrow box. Growing up I knew my mother liked action movies (even more so than my step-dad- huzzah for breaking gender stereotypes), and in her own words the reason for that is that she likes to see “people who deserve it get their ass kicked”. In our real life, society rarely dishes out justice for Black people the way we deserve, and while the action genre is made up of mostly white dudes, who is good and who is bad are clear cut, and we can always root for someone who punches out racists and misogynists. As a result I should have been less surprised that my mother would like Deadpool, but it still amuses me to this day.

Deadpool, in his sequel film, has a moment when he with no hesitation shoots a man who he knows to be a child abuser, because unlike a traditional heroic figure there’s no question in his mind that that was the right thing to do. Whether this would be good in the real world or not is irrelevant because the catharsis comes from the fact that to Deadpool the child harmed mattered way more than anything other factors in that scenario.

This is the appeal of those types of characters in general. Translating this to Harley Quinn in that way is easy. Evil deeds aside, her initial/general backstory is that she was a doctor (of psychology) that fresh out of grad school was sent to talk to the Joker, who in turn manipulated her compassion and convinced her to free him/join him. In the 90s animated series, which is where she first appears, the episode Mad Love shows us that not only was Harley taken advantage of, but also that she is extremely capable on her own. Batman point blank tells the Joker (after he’s hit her/tossed her out a window) that Harley is the only person that’s come that close to killing him. The Joker (who was initially going to leave her for good) realizes that he’s unleashed someone arguably better than him into the world, and like any abuser decides to get back on her good side to maintain control over her chaos rather than let her realize her worth.

The new animated series dedicated just to Quinn, explores that notion further, and at some point during the second season sees Harley realize that she isn’t a hero or a villain, but rather a reactionary. She seems to have a soft spot for other abuse victims and in the series draws the line at over excessive killing, especially of innocent people. Ivy even states that while Harley is a criminal she is (at least in Ivy’s eyes) a good person. She has after all genuinely helped Ivy, and on occasion has helped save the day of her own free will.

Obviously, like with any comic book character, how she is characterized depends on the writer, but it’s fair to say based on the media I’ve personally consumed putting Harley in a morality box is a wasted effort. What makes her special is that she resides in those grey areas. As I mentioned earlier her ability to reside there and remain popular of course relates to her whiteness, however I do think it’s important to remember that Harley Quinn is also Jewish and is therefore not a complete stranger to concepts of oppression. She is also in recent years officially considered Bisexual, and while all Batman villains are vaguely mental ill, she does fill up that category as well.

I came across a tweet earlier today that suggested her whiteness is why many of her fans have turned her into a girlboss and downplayed her violence. I can certainly see where that person was coming from, but on a personal note, based on the above information that is certainly not the case for me. I know that I would enjoy Harley just as much (if not more) if she was a non-white woman, and that her violence and moral ambiguity are apart of what makes her a fun character. I’d never downplay her evil deeds. Granted, what I consider canon has a lot to do with the stories I’ve consumed (i.e I’ve never read anything about her involvement in the Jason Todd storyline therefore to me it doesn’t really exist), but ultimately Harley is no girlboss. She is a mess, and to quote Marie Kondo, “I love mess.”

To put this further in perspective, when I was a kid I didn’t even know Bisexuality was a thing, but I did know that I liked when Harley and Ivy were together, and now as an adult who is out, seeing them officially canon affected me a bit more than I thought it would. They might not be good people, but I don’t think representation needs to always be about being squeaky clean. And ultimately that’s the rub isn’t it? Harley isn’t exactly like me and I’m not exactly like her, but she represents a level of chaos that yeah, as a marginalized person I’m not allowed to express. She can be a good person, but she can also be extremely outrageous. She shows that being the victim of abuse isn’t about how smart you are and that it can happen to anyone. She also shows that you can leave that behind and get stronger mentally and physically. In the case of the new animated series she does this without motherhood/babies thrust upon her, but through good friends who love her.

Why Harley Quinn? Well, for me my current answer is because she’s complex. If you asked me as a child though, I’d probably say it’s because she was goofy and fun, and I wanted better for her than the Joker. Either way she’s currently being written by a Black, Disabled, Queer writer and as a long time fan, I absolutely look forward to the nuisances that’ll be added to the character as a result.

#Harley Quinn #Harleen Quinzel #character analysis #kinda #at least analysis of the characters appeal to me #long post #I only looked over this twice and I've got ADHD so hopefully it's readable

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whyqueerbaitingisbad · 3 years

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movies & shows

cracks knuckles* alright this is going to be more of a rant than an analysis because i’m basing this on both my research, but also how it felt to personally be baited by these shows. there are obviously more pieces of bad (almost every horror movie) and good ones but these are the ones i’ve watched.

please keep in mind that i am but one queer and everyone has different opinions.

Supernatural (CW) 2005

This show is 15 years old and just ended. From season 5 till 15, there has been tension between two of the lead characters. They were constantly shipped together and not only did the entire fandom know about this ship but so did almost all of Tumblr. On top of that, the actors and show runners knew about it as well. Which is why it makes it ridiculous that it was constantly pushed aside while the romantic coding kept happening, even after show runners dismissed it as being intentional. The Destiel (Dean x Cas) case has been going on for years, and as the show came to its end, many fans had hope. But N O P E. Instead, we got a love confession from Cas where Dean looked like he was near constipated and the Cas was killed and sent into a fiery place that was not hell but s u p e r h e l l.

… w hy.

Sherlock (BBC) 2010

Just like Supernatural, this show was renown on Tumblr for not only how good it was, but its hinting at a potential relationship between Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. But again, like Supernatural, the intentional tension between the two characters was denied by producers. This caused an uproar within the fandom, and even left some people believing that, after the last season aired, it had been a joke and the producers were hiding a “secret, unaired season” because they had felt so robbed by this show that had implied something and denied it.

The 100 (CW) 2014

We got lesbians. We got background gays. We were happy. Then, all of a sudden, one of them is killed for no reason. Did it advance the plot? No. Was she fighting and died in battle? lol no. She was doing literally nothing and got shot and died. And then the producers kept bringing her back once a season in the form of a ghost or illusion because why? Because she was a fan favourite queer character. ✨bury your gays and sparingly bring them back for profit anyone?✨

Voltron: Legendary Defender (Netflix) 2016

*deep breathe* This one is a special disaster. Not only was there romantic tension and romantically coded scenes for 7 seasons, but producers, voice actors and artists working on the show repeatedly said “don’t worry klance (Keith x Lance) shippers, you’ll be happy”

. … w h e r e??? You code one of their scenes with a sunset in the background while they talk about love and then one of them goes on a date with someone who has declined his advances for 7 seasons but now in season 8 decides to do a full 180. Not only that, but you announce at a Comic Con (a convention) that a character is gay and has a fiancé, only to kill off the fiancé and never make it explicit in the show except at the last second of the last episode where he marries a no name character.

Personally, i’d like to say a big fuck you to the show that strung me along for 2 years and never stopped saying we’d be happy to then pull the rug out from under us and call us crazy for thinking anything from the past 8 seasons was intentional.

Scooby-Doo (2002)

While not being outwardly queerbaiting, this movie’s filmmaker has just revealed some shocking news, which wasn’t at all shocking to the gays who had watched this movie over the years. In July of 2020, James Gunn, the filmmaker of Scooby-Doo, revealed in a podcast that, initially, Velma was explicitly gay in his script, but then the studio watered it down until it became nothing. This isn’t an example of baiting as much as it is changing a character’s initial design to “better fit an audience”. The worst part of all this is that with Velma’s character having been written with a l i t t l e queer subtext, people had been theorizing about if since the movie came out, but were always yelled at by the internet for “imagining something that isn’t there”. But now, even with it being said that the initial point was for her to be gay, people have no objections to still refusing to accept it. Why?? So we can’t get the subtext gays OR the confirmed gays?? Make it make sense.

Brooklyn 99 (NBC) 2013

To have the queer characters firstly introduced without mentioning their sexualities and have it brought up naturally was so goddamn nice to see, because no one does a big deal about it unless they ask for that. This show is amazing in general but the way they show their queer characters is *chefs kiss*.

She-ra and the Princesses of Power (Netflix) 2018

This. Show. My heart SOARS. It's just a remake of an old show so absolutely nothing was ever expected, but then it was sprinkled in and ENDED WITH A BANG. And it was so beautiful and real to see the struggle of two friends who care for each other and want to be together but have different visions of the world fall in love. And they also had characters with disabilities, a non-binary character and jUST SUCH A GOOD SHOW.

Kipo and The Age of Wonderbeasts (Netflix) 2020

This is a case where you go into it not expecting anything and are BLOWN AWAY by the bare minimum. And not because it’s bad!! It's mind blowing because this is the simple representation we need!! Not something over the top, but an every day relationship. It’s just two boys falling in love and going on dates and being nervous around each other, yet i was so stunned. Because it’s not shown enough. I should not be this excited over something that should be this normal. 10/10 though this show is so good for all kinds of representation.

Steven Universe (Cartoon Network) 2013

This show did so much for queer representation with its general message of loving everyone and loving who you want. Especially since it was aired on Cartoon Network, a channel for kids, it was able to help normalize something so looked down upon in some circles. It made it easy to watch for s o m e people because it's a cartoon but it's so beautiful to see these ladies so in love with each other, both platonically and romantically and we see them have a family dynamic that isn’t a “nuclear family”. Rebecca Sugar (creator) really said “lemme just break all stereotypes real quick”.

Adventure Time (Cartoon Network) 2010

It's the “knowing a fanbase shipped something so hard that the creators made it canon” for me. This relationship had been theorized by fans for years, but it had never been explicit in the show. When the finale episode came out and the two shared a kiss, it was a moment of celebration. The producer of the show said that it had not really been planned but when the episode was being made, the choice of what happened was given to one of the artists (bless your soul Hanna K. Nyströmthe). And as the show releases little bonus episodes, its latest was centered around Marceline and Bubblegum and their relationship. AND WE LOVE TO SEE OUR DOMESTIC LESBIANS BEING HAPPY AND IN LOVE.

Yuri on Ice!!! (anime) 2016

The fact that an A N I M E gave us a love story between two men is mind boggling and it makes me so happy!! Especially because it's a Japanese show and they’re very conservative about these things just makes it more emotional. The creators said they wanted to make the anime take place in a world where gay/straight isn’t a thing, it’s just love (ladies, you’re going to make me cry). So as the weekly episodes came out and fans start speculating, THEY GAVE US THE LAST FEW EPISODES FULL OF ROMANCE AND EMOTIONAL SCENES BETWEEN THE TWO AND THEN THEY GET R I N GS?!???!! You watch for the figure skating, you stay for the figure skaters that are in love.

Shadowhunters (Freeform) 2016

*insert me being frustrated that the actors are straight so we can move on from that disappointment*

This show really said “let’s name a whole episode after this couple because they deserve it”. But seriously, they gave us two characters whose entire plot does not center around their sexualities while still showing us the differences in a relationship between someone experienced and someone new at this. They were both powerful and amazing characters apart from each other, with their own story lines and goals but they loved each other so much omgs. SO MUCH.

It was so great to watch.

Love, Simon (2018)

There’s a lot of disagreement on whether this movie is good representation or not. However, we need to take into consideration that this was Hollywood’s first movie with a main character that was gay, where the story’s focus was on Simon’s love story. The biggest problem, for me at least, was that the actor playing Simon is a straight man and not queer. My problem is not with him, but the fact that there are other actors that are gay and that could have played Simon just as well. (the love interested was however played by a queer actor so ✨progress✨)

All in all, this movie does represent what a lot of queer kids have to go through: being outed at school, how they then come out, the bullying and doubt they go through.

The book is also really good.

Call Me By Your Name (2018)

This movie is so aesthetically pleasing and was able to capture the confusion and heartbreak felt by a boy who’s struggling with his own feelings towards a man. His inner conflict and joy and l o v e he feels but doesn’t know how to deal with is so well communicated through the screen and just breaks your heart because it feels so real.

But again, they could’ve gotten gay actors to play gay characters…

through having this list here, i want to show you that it’s not hard for creators to give good queer representation. the LGBTQ+ community isn’t asking for much, we just want to be well represented on screen as just a regular character, not some token queer kid there for the diversity points. having been exposed to so much queerbaiting and just not seeing any representation on screen, i always get over-excited when i see a queer character, and that’s not how it should be. it should be a normal thing, something you can find in most pieces of media, just like there’s a straight white cisgender person in everything.

and they seriously need to start casting queer actors for queer characters...

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grimmradiance · 3 years

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The dreamers? 👀

Okay so here’s hoping there isn’t a secret character limit on ask responses because Hoo Boy, I Have Lost Control Of This Ask.

Monomon

A. realistic

Monomon is super hyperempathetic--that’s part of the reason the Foggy Canyon is the way it is. She’s surrounded by other creatures that prefer to simply exist, who are fine with being left alone, but also don’t mind if she or that odd heavy bug she adopted gives them a little pat on the way past. That’s also the reason Quirrel is so good with a nail--Monomon could channel the powers of lightning and/or explosions that other jelly creatures seem to have, but emotionally? imagine the toll.

B. not realistic but hilarious

She has NO sense of scale whatsoever. None. Most bugs in Hallownest measure things against their height, since a bug’s shell is rigid and generally about the same length all the time, but since Monomon is 70% jelly by volume, she tends to measure herself like a cat or a mouse would, by the amount of space she needs to fit into places. This makes Quirrel’s life...unusual, to say the least. She gets stuck places sometimes.

C. heart-wrenching

If she’s hyperempathetic, imagine how she fucking feels about Quirrel and the Hollow Knight. I can’t even go off on a three paragraph rant on this one it just makes me HURT. Quirrel being sent to the Howling Cliffs for No Thoughts Crystalline Memories Empty treatment was probably her best attempt at mercy. God. I’m never gonna be over these sad fucking bugs.

D. it’s my canon and I choose what parts of it matter

Monomon is a very, very clever conversationalist. She knows how to talk in just such a way that you feel like you’re being heard and understood, until you suddenly realized you’ve said something aloud you really shouldn’t, and Monomon says “don’t worry, I won’t tell a soul.”

And then, of course, she tells Quirrel, because what is knowledge for if not to be shared? The two of them could totally take down the structure of the White Palace if they were on the same page about how to go about it.

Herrah

A. realistic

This is more about Deepnest in general, but the Weavers prefer to be left to their own devices, and leave other groups of insects to theirs. I mean, look at the Weaverlings from the Weaver’s Song charm. They’re the only companion charm that doesn’t actively target enemy bugs, they just sort of...wibble around. And they’re a relic of the Weavers as they moved towards the heart of Deepnest. The dangerous, heavily-trapped and hypervigilant Deepnest we see is a product of outside interference, presumably the Pale King being salty that the Weavers didn’t accept his rule.

B. not realistic but hilarious

Herrah didn’t just teach Hornet to be a persnickety little anarchist terror in the White Palace, oh no. She tried to teach Quirrel to be a feral little gremlin too. I mean, most of it didn’t stick, but she tried.

C. heart-wrenching

You know that one Tumblr post that’s basically “sorry, all the nice queers are gone, you killed them, so now it’s just us pissed-off cockroach motherfuckers left”? That’s what happened to Deepnest. What kind of peaceful or uninvolved society would need anything fucking like the Midwife or the Devouts? Well, they’re perfectly good to have around if peace is no longer an option. Every once in a while I just lose it thinking about all the culture the Weavers probably had preserved through their tapestries, and how much of it must have gotten destroyed along the way.

Also bonus round for Sad And/Or Horrifying Implications regarding Hornet: most spiders lay hundreds or thousands of eggs at a time. I don’t have the time to even START unpacking Hornet’s distinct lack of siblings (as in specifically not half-siblings).

D. it’s my canon and I choose what parts of it matter

slaps my little hands on the table. Even as everything was going to shit, Vespa and Herrah were still good friends, and sent letters to each other over the Stagways. She got to know a number of Vespa’s subjects very well, including the Hive Knight. Silksong better give us more lore on them.

Lurien

A. realistic

The Pale King loved having Lurien around because Lurien was half of TPK’s charisma. TPK very much seems the type to get wound up in his own thoughts and image, constantly micromanaging it to get the best response from specific people. (Unrelated, but I think only the Hollow Knight knows what TPK is really like, since if TPK really did believe Hollow had no mind and no voice, why would he bother? People make that exact assumption all the time with disabled people anyways, I am sick of my peers realizing I have a disability and changing the way they act around me send tweet This is a whole other post, maybe I’ll write it another time.) So who better is there to have around than someone whose hobby and greatest skill is watching a situation and analyzing it? Once the Dreamers were sealed, TPK’s public image was fucked, no doubt about it.

B. not realistic but hilarious

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned Autistic Lurien before but he is in my head, so branching off of my own experiences: this guy is the KING of Relatable Lapses Of Insight. This man has drunk paint water before on accident. This man has tried to sit on a stack of tablets and knocked himself over. This man will spend three minutes explaining how light reflection works to try and convey the word he’s forgetting. (The word he’s forgetting is “mirror.”) I care him so much.

C. heart-wrenching

I cannot overexaggerate how fucking brilliant of a meta-narrative choice the existence of Lurien’s butler is. I *cannot.* I am perpetually in awe of how good Hollow Knight is with environmental storytelling, and how much material it leaves for people who love to dig way too far into things.

Why do I bring this up here? Lurien’s butler is a parallel to Hornet and Quirrel, who are, to Herrah and Monomon, their only concrete link to the present that isn’t at least partially painted over in the Pale King’s propaganda. And he’s been Light-ridden for gods only know how long. The popular fanon about Lurien having it bad for the Pale King always gets me thinking about this, because we have Lurien’s journal as our only source on him. A scarce few lines: his sleep is in service to King and kingdom.

I can’t help but wonder if Lurien chose those words especially deliberately, knowing they would be his last. “Though my gaze falls no longer on this city, I will act forever in its protection,” in a journal carefully hidden in a private building of the City of Tears. Why hide something like that with so much care, unless there was something to be gleaned from it? Well, whatever information we need to know about Lurien to contextualize anything outside of context clues and the King’s image of him would have been with someone who was loyal and trustworthy enough to watch over him. Someone who was loyal and trustworthy enough that that would be all that remained in their mind, even under the Light’s influence.

Basically, what I’m getting at here: I know for a fact there is something we don’t know about Lurien, and whatever that secret is, it died with his butler.

D. it’s my canon and I choose what parts of it matter

Lurien travels! He is very good at making up academic or political excuses for it, but we all know why he’s really leaving the city: to paint. He isn’t quite as skilled with natural features as the regular shapes you see in a city, but he enjoys himself so that’s what matters.

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sextonsharpwinhalstead · 4 years

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Okay, so I’m a slut for medical dramas but I also get frustrated when there’s a lack of diversity or when queer/PoC/disabled etc characters exist solely to suffer at the hands of writers. Could you rank the current medical dramas from best to worst in terms of diversity?

HO’S UNITE!

I completely understand. Not only in the lack of diversity but also a lack of the KIND of diversity. I have a weird theory about television and often movie casts. Of course this ranking is only of the shows I watch. Worst to Best.

The Resident

The Good:

The show begins with the audience following Devon Pravesh, a Gujarati and South Asian man. He’s on of the most realistic characters considering most medical shows seem to gloss over the fact that most people in medical school as well as working practitioners look an awful lot like Devon and less like Conrad. They have the shoot-for-excellence-at-all-times Nigerian immigrant surgeon and all around bad-ass Mina Okafor, and of course The Raptor, AJ Austin who was adopted by a Chinese man and a Black American woman. The newest edition of Dr. Barrett Cain adds another bit of chocolate goodness to look at too.

The Bad:

Aside from Mina’s poorly cast mother Lynne Whitfield and the introduction of Devon’s parents the show hasn’t figured out how to weave in the different ethnicity's and backgrounds of their characters of color. No one speaks in their mother-tongue, celebrates any holidays or traditions tied to their respective cultures and religions and of course the most obvious. EVERYONE here is straight and able-bodied. And there are only TWO female leads, with most of the other recurring female characters being sent away or killed off.

The Good Doctor

The Good:

Although not the first medical drama to introduce a character with Autism it is the first to have one as the lead and his autism is a focus of the show. In the beginning there was the English born Dr. Jared Kalu, we know he comes from money and is assumed to be Asian, the actor is actually Nigerian and white, after he left the show Dr. Park was introduced. The Good Doctor has had the most Asian representation on a medical show I believe EVER in the history of prime-time television. Allegra Aoki, Dr. Aurdrey Lim, and Dr. Jackson Han round the out the Asian representation on the show. Carly Lever, Dr. Claire Browne, and Dr. Marcus Andrews are represented as black or mixed-race Black Americans. Dr. Neil Melendez is the only Latino or Hispanic character he really doesn’t lean into it. Dr. Glassman and his wife are both Jewish.

The Bad:

The Good Doctor is doing something different having an autistic character as the lead, and although Freddie Highmore is a talented actor, he isn’t autistic. Also it would’ve been even better if Shaun could’ve been Shauna. A chance was missed here by taking a look at the often under diagnosed sect of girls and women who are autistic. The show has a lot of women on it both recurring and regular but ALL of them, just like the men,are straight. And a missed opportunity too considering the actress who plays Carly has been married to a woman since 2013. Also, Carly and Claire can pass the paper bag test, NO ONE is bilingual, and if they are they don’t show it or any of the other aspects of their cultural differences it’s very “American.

Chicago Med

The Good:

Out of all the One Chicago Shows, Med has the most racially diverse cast as well as diverse recurring characters. They have four black women on the cast. April Sexton whose real surname is Suassuna is Afro-Brazilian, who speaks both Spanish and Portuguese, attends family functions based on her heritage and has even shared a few anecdotes and beliefs from her culture which also include her brother Dr. Noah Sexton. Ditto for the recurring character Dr. Isidore Latham. He has Asperger’s, is Jewish, and observes all aspects of Judaism including wearing a kippah, and sharing some Jewish based jokes. Dr. Ethan Choi is believed to be Korean and Iranian born Dominic Rains has been added to the cast as Dr. Crockett Marcel rounding out the leads of Asian descent.

The Bad:

Ethan’s ethnicity and race has only been brought up when it was being demeaned. Other than that the show leans heavily on his military background to give him depth but gives zero basis for any customs or cultural traits he probably had growing up. Nary a mention is given about Crockett’s race only his southern New Orleans heritage leaving us as an audience wondering if he’s Creole? Spicy White? No idea. Also April is Brazilian but almost exclusively speaks Spanish when not speaking English to her brother which is by far the strangest considering I have never met anyone who chooses English if they are raised in a multicultural household, and definitely not in conversation with their family members. But never Portuguese. All of these shows fail at representing Black American cultural, which leaves Maggie and Sharon with very little to share. And of course the most obvious. There are no LGBT characters on the show. None are leads and it doesn’t appear as though they are adding any or thinking about opening any new doors within the characters.

New Amsterdam

The Good

New Amsterdam does a lot of things right. My dear Vijay Kapoor who’s Indian identity is very wrapped in who he is, from his accent, to his prayers, mannerisms, and discussions of his past he isn’t just a token he’s a full character. Although the show has yet to address it Dr. Helen Sharpe who is obviously black is played by Freema Agyeman who is not so obviously half Iranian on her mothers side. But she is English and her disposition, her language and slang are represented in that regard. Lauren Bloom is a neurodivergent character with ADHD and a struggling addict. Dr. Floyd Reynolds is Black American who has Sunday dinners at his mothers. And Dr. Iggy Frome is a gay married man with 50 bajillion Pakistani children and aiming for one more. Recurring characters, Dr. Valentina Castro, Dora, and Casey are all Latino and Evie Floyd is mixed race, white and Black American. Not to mention this show has plethora of diverse peripheral characters, little people, hijabs, turbans, kippahs,everywhere, you name it you’ve probably seen it. The show has to be diverse because it’s in New York and it’s supposed to be an international hospital. The place is MASSIVE.

The Bad:

All that diversity, all the difference, cultural richness, ripe stories running amok and the entire show is centered on a cis-het white man. Not mention Casey and Dora don’t even have last names. Maybe that’s why the actress isn’t on the show anymore and is now on Emergence, New Amsterdam’s rival at that time slot.

Grey’s Anatomy

The Good

Where do you start with the longest running medical drama on television.

They’ve had it all and still do. They constantly have LGBT characters, who are shown to get hot and heavy the same as their het-counterparts. Where other shows have two men bird-kissing like they don’t even want to touch, Levi and Nico are rolling around in ambulances and hooking up in on-call rooms. Ditto for the women, I stan Callie x Arizona especially their golden years. Nothing will ever touch the way Arizona used to say “Calliope” when they first started dated, it still makes me smile thinking about it. They’ve had addicts, alcoholics, neurodivigent characters, every race you could think of, Muslim, Christian,Jewish,and atheists. All kinds of socio-economic backgrounds. If you can think it they’ve had it and there really isn’t much reason or room to list all the characters both recurring and regular who have checked damn near every box.

The Bad:

It’s time for more brown Asians. And a regular neurodivergent character although there is more than enough room to diagnose a few of the characters if they wanted to. I’d be happy with a deaf doctor too. Also Carina DeLuca is currently the only Bi-character and she’s been kind of only used as a bed warmer which is...well, yikes.

#ask sextonsharpwinhalstead #The Good Doctor #new amsterdam #chicago med #grey's anatomy #the resident #the resident on fox

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dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram · 5 years

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Just out of genuine curiosity, what about Harry’s quote on society being divisive is inane and inaccurate? x

Hi anon,

So there’s two main problems with that statement - one factual and the other more fundamental (there’s also a gramatical problem in that I don’t think society itself can be divisive - but I’m assuming he meant divided - obviously we all often say things slightly inaccurately and that’s fine)

He said ‘society has never been so divisive’ - and that’s just obviously and absurdly untrue. I know we have to assume that Harry doesn’t know anything about the 1980s in order to be here in the first place, but they weren’t that long ago. They were a time of huge oppression and repression and large scale resistance. Lets start with the Miners’ strike - where there were 150,000 miners on strike and millions of people supporting them to some level. They were opposed by the police, who locked down communities and attacked people gathering and were called ‘the enemy within’.

But that’s just the start. When the Prime Minister gets up and says that children were being cheated because they were taught they had an inalienable right to be gay and then passes a law silencing and pathologising any mention of queerness - that’s a divided society. And perhaps more importantly - the reason she gave that speech was because queer people were organising to be recognised and found instiutional support within the Greater London Council. And more than 20,000 people came out in Manchester in oppposition.

To say that there was a deeply racist and violence police force is to suggest that that’s either notable or changed, but there were successive riots and uprisings against the police all across the country. More riots helped stop a government attempt to make poor people pay a higher proportion of tax than rich people. 96 people were crushed to death and blamed for their own murder. Families and entire city still haven’t stopped fighting for justice. And I haven’t even got to the actual civil war yet. You want to know a divided society? It’s when people joke that the guy who set a bomb off that almost killed the Prime Minister is the most hated man in Britain - because half the country hated him for setting the bomb and the other half for missing.

And he was talking to Timothée Chalamet in America. Is he really suggesting that America is more divided now than when Jim Crow laws were being fought? Or when they were fully functional? Or during slavery?

And that is why what Harry is saying is not just wrong, but in itself upholds existing power structures. He was born into a society that was fundamentally divided by race and class. Through most of his childhood the government and press were developing new ways of whipping up hatred, particularly against muslims and working-class kids. His whole adult life the government has been attacking disabled people and making their lives unliveable. Harry didn’t experience this as a society divided - it’s easy not to if you’re not the target.

Capitalist society, built as it is on colonialism, is always divided - it was designed that way. The question is how much resistance there is to those divisions. At times society can not feel divided for the people on the lucky side, but that doesn’t make the divisions any less real. What was notable to me about Harry’s framing is that he doesn’t seem to have any sense of the limits of his perception or awareness - he presents them as fact.

#My plan for today is to chill in the cool and answer asks #so we may be going back a bit #and I can't guarantee that this will be the only ask that I will interpret as 'please tell me about the history of 1980s Britain'#but I do pasionately believe everything here #both the importance of that history #and then also that suggesting that something is 'divided' or 'divisive' is notable or a negative thing #only serves to uphold power structures #Anonymous

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motherstone · 5 years

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Can you tell us more about your OCs? How are the OG cast their ancestors? Are Gabi and Sandra happy together now? Married yet? Your OCs are so rad and I love their story

!! AaaaAA thank you!! 😄😄😭😭💟💗💞💘💓💕💘💝 that’s is so rad of you op!!! And I’ll try my best to tell them a bit of their story:

Lemlin is born with a birth defect (underdeveloped elf ears), which makes him unable to receive vibrations (I hc the tip of elf ears are used to detect so) and hear things properly. He doesn’t really want implants and is actually perfectly fine with his disability, so he wears hearing aids instead and elf ears prosthetics just in battle. He had a full-blooded elf brother, Jaqes, who was the son of a wealthy nobleman before the Nobility class was dissolved a long time ago. They have a close and amiable relationship with one another, but Jaqes didn’t know he’s a member of the covert Auxiliary, much less a sharpshooter (which is ironic, because he’s the head of the Central Intelligence Division in there, a mix of CIA and FBI). Lemlin has a variety of friend including both humans, elves, and halflings. He’s really interested in theater, which is actually pretty suitable with his disability (deaf people are incredibly expressive while signing so yea!), and often goes on shows (Gigas goes with him on ocassion. They sorta have a father-son relationship haha). He’s the elf equivalent of 16 (no one knows. They thought he’s 22, it also doesn’t help he has his helmet on all the time). Lemlin is pan-ace. He lives in Milre, Gulfen.

Ian has a very strained relationship with his father (hc is that nearly all who is part of the Elf army are abusive fathers because they didn’t get the treatment they needed at the time), who is at odds with his homosexuality. He doesn’t care though, although at first he inherited his racism. That is, until his sister (Mako) had teenage sex with a human (who broke up with her when she got pregnant), and thus giving birth to a halfling, much to his anger. He’s even more furious with humans over this, but eventually realize his anger was bullshit, especially when his nephew was born. Now he has human friends, a human BESTfriend (Sandra), and is now seatching for a boyfriend (he’s working on it. If they can’t handle his personality they gotta go). Ian is passive-aggressive and sarcastic at times, especially on the field, so it causes great friction among the group, he is also prideful and assured with his great skills and technicality. However for all of his ego, he is a good leader when Gabi is not around and gets the job done, and is incredibly competent at what he do (he’s based on a few teachers and a classmate of mine haha). He’s the elf equivalent of 26, with kinfe skills, mechanic skills, pilot skills, and tactic skills, only second to Gabi (but the gap is still wide). He’s gay. He lives in Gorbon, Windsor.

Gigas! Big and friendly Gigas. He used to live in Ganon’s Gate, and had a halfling bestfriend, that is until said friend was lynched, to his great horror. It leads him to killing someone who went after him, which landed him in jail. Thankfully, Gulfen’s prison system is revised thanks to the King (Trellis. It’s similar to how prisoners are treated in Norway), so his actions are recognized as self-defense. While in prison, someone from the Auxiliary sees potential in him (it helps that he’s huuuuge. Like, 6"10’ huge. I decided that 7 feet is too tall), and thus offers to recruit him once his term is finished. By then, he’s a changed man, learning from experience, books, and stories from the inmates helped him develop a kinder and helpful personality (still cheerful tho. He’s always a joyous and passionate man). He gets into the Auxiliary and was assigned to Lufen, Coco, where he met his wife. It was a celebratio for the end of the great war, and the city was holding a huge banquet (similar to the fiesta of the Philippines where the food is laid out on a huuuuge table), and that’s where he met his future wife, whom he loudly comolimented her cooking (he’s a cook himself). There’s a lot more to his story besides this but I’ll cut it off. He’s the elven equivalent of 36, and is an incredibly strong guy, but lacks any sort of outstanding ability besides that. His personality acts as a great mediator amongst the group, and as a guiding and kind voice to all, and is very friendly towards Theorn. He’s straight. He lives in Coco, Lufen with his son and wife.

Sandra! She’s the physical incarnation of Dumb Bitch Energy (aaaa bit of a self-insert ahah). But by God is she agile and fast. She has 4 siblings (a couple are adopted) and she’s the oldest, her family owning a farm in Lufen. She used to be assigned in Gulfen to detect and neutralize landmines with her dog, until her legs got blown off along with her companion. It devastated her so much, she uses sex to cope (she’s hypersexual, but dw she is working on it). Sandra can a bit slow and dim-witted at times, but has a treasure trove of street smarts with instincts to match and is a friendly person to anyone regardless. She is on ocassion sorta oblivious to the atmosphere, which makes her make a situation worse, but if you direct her on the field, she uses her creativity to do her job efficiently. She’s bffs with Ian, often spending time with one another to the point of a qpr (queer-platonic relationship. THAT close). She’s 23. She’s bi/pan. She lives in a developing town of Lufen.

Theorn, an expert swordsman who is the only person left from the Redbeard warrior clan. He’s still using Leon’s sword, still at good shape, at the age of repulsor and stonekeeper tech (which is impractical but he’s still good fighter so they don’t stop him). He was orphaned at a young age, but developed a strong moral code regardless and became a police officer in Kanalis as a result. He got tangled in with the Auxiliary when he gets out during a lockdown (upon which all citizens goes underground for safety) to help people when the city is attacked by a rogue mountain giant, and sees Gabi slaying the thing and encountering Ian (who is in a different squad from Gabi. This is so long ok), which he is not meant to do or see, as the Auxiliary’s existence must be kept secret. He and Ian fights but they were toe to toe when it comes to close combat, they knock him out and takes him to the Hexagon (Auxiliary HQ) with the intent to wipe his memory of the event, to which he simply pleads to join, feeling he’ll be able to contribute more. Now he’s in a squad of the weirdest, egoistic people he’s met, and although looking serious, is absolutely at a loss of words at the Auxiliary’s odd happnings and morbid humor (heard soldiers develop nihilistic and fatalistic sense of humour once), but deep respect at the fights and sacrifices that they do. His lawful, goody-good personality is often at odds with the group (he’s kind of the prim and proper guy while these dudes… Can be wacky at times), to his great frustration, with Gigas the only person taking him seriously. He is at most odds with Ian (haha sexual tension everyone?) and with Gabi’s chaotic neutral/good personality. He is still good friends with them tho and cares about their sakes. Theorn is still a reliable and the most trustworthy guy of the group, and although his skills are nowhere near outstanding outside parkour, hand-to-hand combat and swordplay, he is strong, fast, and agile in his own way. He’s 24. Theorn is bi/pan.He lives in Kanalis, Windsor.

Gabi. Hot-headed, incredibly petty, batshit strong and skilled Gabi. She follows her own moral code, and is often at odds with the authority at Auxiliary and her own squad until she realizes her toxic attitude aint shit and changed. Now she’s the most serious of the group, but at least reasonable. Has a very fucked up sense of humour and hates Theorn’s personality (cop-convict anyone?), but ultimately came to resoect him for insisitng on doing good in a shitty world. Has a serious crush on a developing artist, who was pretty nice and her cheerful and lax personality helps her feel safe and comfortable, helping her develop social awareness and skills. She is in fact, not in a relationship with Sandra (not her type). Her crush used to have a crush on someone, but eventually stops and slowly has a crush on her (not that she knew. She was p much resigned to unreqruited love). But like her, her cursh has a deep set of mental issues, leading her to fall into depression and neglect, making her unable to work on her recruitment piece for Gulfen’s Institution (which offers free tuiton to its students should they oass and it’s a great school). Gabi then often breaks out of the Auxiliary without permission and during vacation months to take care of her recovery (it started when her mother beat her up in her OWN home, an small dilapilating apartment, making her feel paranoid and unsafe. It ignited old self-loathing and unwavering sadness yet again). She eventually gets better, and gets accepted, to the duo’s happiness. At a celebration party, she takes Gabi as her plus one. As they dance, Gabi finally confesses her feelings, which her crush actually reciprocates. They then starts a happy and healthy relationship. She the elven equivalent of 25. She’s a butch lesbian and lives in an unspecified part of Gulfen. Did I mention Gabilan is her pops

Ravis. He, him/they, them. They think idealistically on ocassion, even ny Theorn’s standards so the squad is kind of exasperated with him. It doesn’t help he is more naive and inexperience in comparison to them (yes, even Lemlin), with a good childhood to boot (in comparison to theirs) so it took quite a long while for them to warm up the guy. Ravis used to have a happy and healthy childhood in Lucien with his mother, and his father working abroad in Gulfen, but visits them very feequently. It all changes when the King suddenly (tw: suicide) committed suicide (?) (they never found the body), plunging the Elf nation into chaos and government shutdown affecting their lives outside Gulfen. They continue on regardless, with their mother ending up as a widow, and they studied to become one of the leading pioneers of Alchemy, under their mother’s tutelage. They then studied combat under three teachers during their teen years, and in nearing the end of their third term, theur mother is afflicted with an unprecedented terminal illness, and dies. Even though they are of age, they quietly move into the North East of Gulfen, in a remote village where they work as a healer. Needing his intelligence, the squad was sent over to recruit and escort them, in order to investigate a chemical used when an attack on the Border Guard occurs, leading to a breach and thus ending the 500 years of the Gate being infallible. They nevertheless have a compassionate and empathetic nature, driven to help others especially those in need. He is quite well-spoken and intelligent, and has good social skills. Oddly enough, he doesn’t really have friends until the squad. They’re the elven equivalent of 20, and is a certified doctor.

#ok that is enough #thank u for asking and apolohies for the ling post #thank u for asking

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wildzinkyu · 6 years

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(long post, VLD season 7 spoilers, I'm on mobile so I can't really do a page break I'm sorry about that guy's!) (art is mine btw) I'm honestly getting really tired of hearing how Adam dying in season 7 is a bury your gays trope, and condemning VLD as this aweful thing for allowing it. Yes, Adam was mlm, and yes, he did die. And maybe yeah, they could have chosen to kill someone else, but in the end, it isn't going to change the narrative to do so. Adam's death was included to show how high the stakes were in the war against the Galra. He was used because he was a familiar face, so we would connect with what was happening. Adam's character wasn't all that important in the larger narrative of the show, either. He was included for several reasons. First, to show in an organic was that Shiro, a main character, was mlm. Second, to contrast his relationship specifically with Keith- almost all of Adam's lines are directly echoed by Keith, Adam saying he won't stay with Shiro if he leaves for Kerberos, vs Keith saying he refuses to give up on Shiro no matter what. And third, as already mentioned, to give us a familiar face in the first assault against the Galra to show how high the stakes were. Adam isn't the only character to die, he dies with his entire squad, and showed JUST how underprepared Earth was for the Galra. On top of this, so much focus on a character who got less than a minute of screen time, starts to overshadow why Adam was even thought of as a character in the first place: to show Shiro was mlm. Shiro, who is a MAIN character in an action adventure series. They did not have to make Shiro gay. And let's really talk about Shiro, OK? Shiro is not only one of the main characters. He's a character who has gone through so much, and keeps going. He's Asian, disabled, mentally ill (ptsd) and mlm, and he's also strong, a leader, someone who cares about and supports his friends, a talented leader, and he keeps going. He's literally DIED, and been dragged back to a living body by the love of another member of his team (Keith). Shiro is a gay man who belongs to an Earth military organization and allowed to be out and gay (this is so important considering don't ask don't tell). Shiro is amazing. Shiro is so wonderful as lgbt+ rep, and it makes me so sad and so tired to see him overshadowed by Adam. And to say that Adam's death means that Shiro now has no one to come home to on earth... Well, Adam LEFT Shiro before Shiro left on the Kerberos mission, prior to the start of the show. Even if Adam were alive, they weren't going to get together again. The showrunners have been very clear about that. Adam being alive wasn't going to give Shiro a 'happy ending'. Shiro's 'happy ending' doesn't have to hing on him being in a relationship. Right now, he already has the start of his happy ending- he's been shown to have achieved his goals and more, and now has a found family in the Voltron team around him who love and support him. I am certain that season 8 is going to be good for Shiro! And we know the VLD showrunners had to fight to make Shiro gay. They've told us they wanted the flashbacks in S7 to happen back in S2, but weren't allowed to. We know that DW made them record alternate lines for the flashback with Adam, casting him as a roommate best friend, and not as a romantic partner. Knowing they had to do that, fight and convince their executives that yes, they should make Shiro gay, really does make a difference, and shows how much they do care about their fan base. And yes, it would be awesome to see Shiro end up with someone in S8. But this is an action adventure show, where romance is NOT the focus. And as a fan and as a queer person, I appreciate that Shiro is allowed to just BE gay, that it's just one part of him. And if Adam was alive, I don't think I'd want to see him get back together- not only did they break up prior to the series start, but Adam is someone we know next to nothing about. If Shiro DOES end up with someone, I could only hope that it's someone we already know in the series, and that we've been allowed to see have development with Shiro. But even if Shiro remains single... Shiro is still amazing rep. Again, he's disabled, mentally ill, Asian, and gay, and still strong, still GOING... Him being gay doesn't doesn't hinge on him being WITH someone. And all of this outrage over Adam, who again, had less than a minute of screen time, is really starting g to overshadow the fact that we now have a gay main character, and that the showrunners had to fight for that. I'm glad they did. I love Shiro. I love that HE'S our lgbt+ rep. And I want to thank the VLD staff for doing that. I want to add as well that, I'm not saying people can't be upset about Adam, but just that I hope people consider everything involved, and that they just be aware that this seems to be getting more traction than the fact that we now have a main character in an action adventure series who is gay and who isn't cast as some kind of stereotype. Who is strong, a leader, and surrounded by a found family who genuinely care for him.

#Vld #Voltron #Adam discourse #takashi shirogane #Shiro #Pls I am so tired and about as salty as Shiro looks in my art up there

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