#aaaaa im so tireeeeedddddddddddddddd

[normal-thoughts-official]

God every time people characterise magnus bane as a submissive helpless useless wisp of a man who needs alec to save him I lose a fuvkin life THAT'S THE HIGH WARLOCK UR TALKING ABOUT!!!!!!!! especially when it's blatently written by someone who fancies alec

I think the main problem is that book malec stans big time infantalise alec and show malec stans infantalise magnus like how hard is it to acknowledge that they're both grown men?????? The amount of fics I've read which, depending on the source, stem from and the idea of x is smaller and therefore submissive and needs protection from big strong y like come ONNNN

lol remember when people got pissed at me for saying that the high warlock of brooklyn, son of a prince of hell, one of the most powerful warlocks alive, 400yo man with experience in training and combat, would make alec sweat in a fight

look, in general i agree with you that there is the whole "the shortest one is the fragile one in a relationship" trope and that it's annoying, but i reeealllyy can't agree that show malec stans in general infantilize magnus. i've seen my fair share of fics where magnus is infantilized and written as helpless, but they've never been anywhere near as common as the ones where it's the other way around or even where they are written as equals, tbh, and most of the time when people complain to me that magnus is being infantilized in my experience it's just that he's being written as like... human

like if magnus ever shows any vulnerability or insecurity or (god forbid) cries everyone acts as if he's being written as a shallow helpless useless creature, and that's... really not how it works. whereas alec is frequently written as the one who needs saving, who needs to be coaxed into having any conversations, who is always so insecure and afraid everyone will hate him uwu, especially the big bad brown downworlders, and half the time this is not considered as infantilizing as like, magnus having insecurities and talking to alec about it

and generally i just feel like for magnus if he is ever anything below superhumanly strong and competent (and sometimes even when he is written as that but ALSO as emotionally vulnerable) then he is shallow and useless and we gotta take into account that that's how characters of color are ALWAYS seen. brown and black characters are always seen as supposed to be superhumanly strong and competent, and never ever vulnerable or approachable in general. and if they have ever any softness or insecurity in them, people immediately lose interest. and i really feel like for a lot of people that's what goes on - the standards are SO different for magnus and alec that alec being treated as a baby and magnus being treated as human are seen as the same thing

like look, i don't know you or what you're referencing, and also i've been sick and tired of sh fic in general so recently i only read recs, so i'm not the best person to access what the general fandom tropes are, i'll admit that. but i'm just really tired of having this conversation while pretending that race is not one of the factors that is at play when we talk about the way people perceive and write alec vs magnus, when i'd argue that it's the most predominant one tbh

like if u wanna go with show fans are more likely to infantilize magnus (i still will never agree that it's as simple as "book fans infantilize alec and show fans infantilize magnus" cuz i literally hate the books and only read show fics and follow show blogs and EVEN THEN i see so much infantilized alec fic and posts i gave up on the general fandom and only read recs or stuff written by my - less than 10, only 2 of which are not in my direct circle of friends that i talk to on a daily or weekly basis, and only 4 of which are white/not black or brown - "trusted authors", but like, u can have ur opinion obviously), at least mention that in the show magnus is lighter skinned/played by an East Asian actor and not a Southeast Asian one and thus the racial stereotypes are different. (im not going to go into chinese privilege because im not sure how true that holds in the context of the US, particularly with the way china is their biggest enemy other than russia, but know that that is absolutely a thing in the asian racial context, especially when it comes to south east and south asian/brown people)

but acting like we don't live in a world where brown and black ppl are stereotyped to be strong and resilient to the point where they are literally less likely to get anesthesia in a medical procedure and that absolutely influences the way they are read and written in fiction and generally perceived by people, or where brown and black characters are always treated as emotional and physical support for white characters in fandom, is not it

like... MAGNUS IS A BROWN CHARACTER, malec is the #1 interracial ship on ao3 and the ONLY one in the current top 10 with a brown/black character other than finnpoe, can we please stop pretending that that's not a thing when we talk about fandom perceptions of him/them

#ask #anonymous #salt #aaaaa im so tireeeeedddddddddddddddd