#and also means authorities may not take lgbtq abusive relationships as seriously or cases of stalking etc etc

[loreolympusanalysisforfunsies]

How to put this-

What are the ethics of using queer coded characters and themes in a narrative that has no explicitly queer characters?

Welp, that question can be asked of many stories in media. Like, a metric shit ton. A lot. But since Lore Olympus is the flavour of the week (month? year?) for my brain, that's what I'll be applying this question to. And right away, asap, I'm talking critically about Lore Olympus. Critically as in taking a subject and thinking about what themes are in it and what those themes mean to me as a reader, not critically as in badmouthing it. Also, I'm no expert and I've only read my favourite chapters fifty million times, the other chapters maybe three times. So there's stuff I could have missed, please feel free to correct me. Also also I will be using the word queer a lot because that's what I am and what I'm talking about.

Just wanted to make that crystal queer.

Alrighty, queer-coded characters in Lore Olympus. Hello Eros, nice to be talking about you again. He's a fan favourite for some pretty good reasons. Compelling romantic sideplot, clear adversary to the asshat, and he's just plain fun. There can be plenty of heavy content when he's around, but he's also the guy that lightens the mood. Some of the faces he makes-fucking priceless. And hoo boy does he come off as the gay best friend. Romantic advice, shopping trips, make overs, the squeeing, those are some very old tropes. But he's not the gay best friend. Or at least, so vaguely bi/pan/etc that it can be written off as none of the above. The only hint we get that he's not straight is that orgy mentioned waaay back in the beginning. After that we get his backstory with Psyche and no mention of other interests since. The gay best friend trope was made when hollywood and equivalents stopped being quite so nasty to the LGBTQ+ community, but not quite to the point of queer positivity. It took signifiers that were used maliciously in the past (feminine aspects and interests) and put a humerous spin on them. Ah look, it's a guy that can expertly apply make up, how funny and nonthreatening he is. Maybe it was that funny and nonthreatening bit that the author was going for. Both Persephone and the readers just endured some pretty awful shit, so here's a new person for her support system that isn't threatening at all and brings along some lighter atmosphere. Super flamboyant and never shown to be sexually attracted to her-that's perfect, in you go.

And honestly, seeing a man that's in a relationship with a woman whose also in touch with his emotions and feminine side, that's pretty great. But it comes in a narrative completely without queer characters. When I first saw him I was pretty sure he was a stereotype. Now that I know he isn't, I feel mixed. Straight dudes should be able to be soft. But a story with so many characters, that talks seriously about their complicated inner lives, with all these romantic relationships, all that with no queer representation? Ehhhhhhh-

Getting to the endpoint a little early there, so onto the other queer coded characters. Most notable are Athena and Artemis. Athena is very androgynous in her design. And Artemis has a very telling moment with Persephone in which she tries to push the conversation away from the danger zone of her personal feelings. A loud, embarrassed exclamation that she isn't attracted to anyone? Yeah I've seen that one before. And here's where I'd like to think somewhat positively, because this is going somewhere. It might just be a similar line as Persephone, being torn about her membership with the eternal maidens. Or Lore Olympus Artemis may very well be a lesbian or asexual as her mythic counterpart has been. There's a lot of potential in her storyline.

Heck, there's a lot of potential all over this story. Greek mythology is filled to the brim with LGBTQ+ people. Skip Zeus and Apollo, because fuck those guys. We've got Achilles and Patroclus as the most well-known, but to be fair the mortals don't heavily feature in this one. Athena was bi, Hermes was bi, Dionysus isn't born yet but again, super bi. Aphrodite and Poseidon are both in open relationships within the story, and oh hey bi the way in the myths. Just saying, the greeks were very very gay.

But even if they weren't. Guess what. When you write a story of your very own, you can make your characters be anything. Case and point with Hera. This is a very, very different version of Hera. Sure, she can be capricious and act on a whim. But this isn't the same goddess that committed cruelties against women that Zeus forced himself on. At least to our knowledge. Nerp, this author has reinterpreted her to be a very sympathetic woman, and that's without changing what she went through. Hera was always someone that endured a lot of crap from her husband, but I didn't feel bad for her when I read her stories in class because hey, she was a vindictive shrew. By changing the patriarchal perspective that has some pretty strong opinions on women scorned, to the perspective of a woman author sympathetic to the woman character who is constantly shit on by everyone around her, the author has improved on the original subject material. Change, it's a good thing.

Ok, queer themes. Again I'd like to make a point right away, and the point here is the themes I'm about to talk about don't just affect queer people. These are lived experiences for many. But being kept naive of an outside world, being unable to explore your sexuality, people trying to override you when you tell them what's best for you and your body, are all things that deeply affect the queer community. There's a very good reason this fandom has so many LGBTQ+ members. Many moments in this story are affirming to us, and that's a good thing. This story also has a lot to say about gender roles. Persephone is the most recent of women that people are looking to use for their own selfish advancement. Hera has a very powerful line about sacrificing her power and potential to make Zeus feel comfortable and happy. And boy is that a line that fits millions of women and afabs throughout history. Making people comfortable by keeping a part of yourself shoved down, whether it's your ability in a field of work or your identity. Or maybe your disability. Or your religion. Your background. Lore Olympus hits pretty hard with a very real feeling of sacrificing bits of yourself to make what people see more palatable, easier for them to deal with. Hera and Persephone have breakdowns over these forced versions of themselves, the facade that's too much to keep up.

These problems don't exist in a bubble. They are problems that weave through many different subcultures and peoples. And unfortunately, some affected people can be excluded when such problems are addressed. I don't think the author decided to be exclusive on purpose. The kindest interpretation is that this simply isn't something that affected her directly, so she either didn't think to include it or didn't feel comfortable writing from a pov she doesn't share. The less kind interpretation is that she wanted to appeal to as broad a demographic as possible, and decided this was the way to do it. I'm not inclined to think that way of her, because she's showed herself to be very empathetic and thoughtful with pretty much every other aspect. But when we become so close with a piece of media, a story that touches us so deeply, one that strives to be realistic in themes like abuse and trauma, the question comes up. What about us? Do we exist? Are our problems seen? The end result of a narrative using queer-coded characters and themes without explicitly being queer is a disconnect. A feeling of separation from a story and characters that I otherwise feel very close to. A worry that these problems are only seen by, only affecting, heterosexual and cisgendered peoples. And I realize this would be hard to cover for someone who hasn't written queer characters in this story yet, someone who may or may not be LGBTQ+ themselves. But even so, even though there would be mistakes and bad faith critics and all else, I would rather she try. I would rather be seen.

#lore olympus #lo #lgbtq+ #long post #tw abuse #lo persephone #lo hera #lo artemis #lo athena #lo apollo

[popwasabi]

Civilization is coming: “Black Sails” and when rage is justified

(SPOILERS ahead! You’ve been warned...)

There’s a moment late in the first episode of the highly underappreciated series “Black Sails” that hints not only at the troubled past of its lead character Captain Flint but also describes the larger theme of the story.

Flint has gotten himself into trouble. Along with his crewmember Billy “Bones,” in an effort to secure the financing he needs to capture the gold from the Spanish warship known as L’Urca de Lima, his recklessness has gotten Nassau’s governor shot and injured and his plans all but evaporated. Billy feels they are now in too deep and they should not only turn back but perhaps new leadership is needed for Flint’s crew. It is here that Flint reveals a bit where his true ambitions lie.

(Toby Stephens, ladies and gentlemen.)

On the first viewing, Flint ominously declaring the pending arrival of “civilization” to the new world could mean anything from simply the imperialistic tendencies of the British and Spanish empire, to the draconian rulership of the crown or just “taxes” as he makes light mention of in this speech. But as the series progresses, especially in the second season, “civilization” begins to take a darker, more personal meaning.

The story begins to reveal that the dangerous pirates of Nassau are not at least inherently dastardly, although certainly violent, but victims of their various circumstances; a former slave turned prostitute turned keeper of secrets in Max, a neglected daughter becoming the bookkeeper of the pirates with Eleanor Guthrie, another former slave turned ruthless pirate captain in the vicious Charles Vane, and an abused woman turned deadliest pirate on the island Anne Bony, and none more painfully revealing than that of Flint himself.

You see Flint didn’t always go by this name, he used to be a prominent officer in the British navy named James McGraw until he met Thomas Hamilton, a wealthy proprietor tasked with solving the problem of the pirates of Nassau many years prior. Thomas had the radical idea of pardoning the entire island to bring them back into society, to avoid violence and bloodshed, and to better understand the people who would turn to piracy.

As James gets to know him more and his revolutionary philosophies of empathy and enlightenment the two unexpectedly fall in love and thus seal the fates of both their downfalls from “civilized” society.

With England unwilling to see any other way to end the pirates without exterminating all of them and looking to exploit weaknesses in Thomas to Parliament, he is outed and imprisoned. James along with Thomas’s wife Miranda, who lives in a polyamorous relationship between the two, are persona non-grata-ed and the two flee to Nassau to finish what Thomas started in an act of rebellion.

(This is seriously one of the most heart-wrenching, tragic reveals I have ever seen on TV. I totally knew it was coming at the time and I was still not prepared for how it was delivered.)

There are few things as personal as love and “Black Sails” uses this to show how far society can go to villainize people. Flint wasn’t born a monster, and he is not one for loving Thomas; he is a monster because “civilization” wanted him to be one.

As our own civilization enters a timeline that may promise great change, people who have been othered and victimized by society are finding themselves grappling with their pain and grief in the same way as Flint. People have tried peaceful reconciliation and conformity into society to avoid violence throughout history despite the labels they have been given for no other crime than being who they are, but civilization’s need for a monster always brings people down no matter how hard they try to do it the “right way.”

(Tell me if you see a justice system in this picture that looks interested in listening...)

Native Americans tried playing by the white man’s rules when America began moving west. Compromising over and over again and yet they were killed and still killed and neglected today for it.

African Americans tried becoming rich like their white counterparts in places like “Black Wallstreet” in Tulsa, Oklahoma  and were still bombed and massacred for it.

Asian and Latin Americans immigrated here to flee war and death largely caused by white imperialist countries, to survive and work jobs white Americans would not. Both are othered as foreigners, face violence from the state, and are deported everyday.

Poor working-class Americans try fruitlessly to keep their head above water as they become mired in debt, fighting a pandemic on slave wages essentially, all while our government cuts wealthy companies a fat paycheck annually with our own tax dollars. And anyone who fights back finds themselves without an income and health insurance during a recession and a pandemic.

And the LGBTQ+ community ask for the dignity to be left alone and treated normally but not only are they harassed for it but they are beaten, tortured, and killed for being different.

(Remember, Stonewall was a riot.)

Flint, himself, tries one last time, toward the end of season two, to peacefully resolve his vendetta with England and save Nassau from a war with them but instead finds himself facing the gallows anyways by the Charlestown government.

As they read out his charges, many of them real heinous things he did but also many that were fabricated, Flint stops them from proceeding any further and delivers a final act of defiance to the court.

“I have one regret,” he begins to the court of high society folks who are only interested in seeing him punished before the masses. “I regret ever coming to this place with the assumption that a reconciliation could be found. That reason could be a bridge between us. Everyone is a monster to someone. Since you are so convinced that I am yours, I will be it.”

It is at this point in the story that Flint, perhaps like other revolutionaries of the past, recognize that the system doesn’t want to reason with him, that these people aren’t looking to understand or empathize with him or even try for that matter. They wanted a monster, they made one in him, so he decides there that “civilization” as he had noted in the series first episode is not worth reconciling with and certainly not worthy of forgiveness.

And Flint spends the rest of the series in bloody war with them.

(From season 3. Again Toby Stephens, ladies and gentlemen)

“Black Sails” is about queerness, race, social politics, and the way conformity by force is used against it. It’s about the rage that boils underneath many of us as we are wronged over and over again by society, while being exploited to no end, and what happens when someone finally says “enough.”

Anyone who has experienced what it is like to be othered can find something deeply personal with the anger that Flint carries around with him in each scene of this series. We feel his pain of rejection by society, his grief for feeling ashamed of himself when he and the audience know he shouldn’t.

It's what makes the eventual reveal of his relationship with Thomas so cathartic, as we see the rage-filled guard of Flint drop as he reads Thomas’s words left for him in a book they both loved and shared.

(Again, I cannot emphasize enough how much of a gut-punch this reveal was watching this...)

"Know no shame” is so important to growth of this character and the message of this story. Civilization and those who wish to keep the status quo want those who do not fall in line with their authority and judgments to feel shame for who they are. They not only want monsters, they want you to feel like one and the reason Thomas line speaks so much to both Flint and the audience is that it reminds us there is no shame in who we are.

The country we live in is a powder keg right now experiencing the same rage that Flint feels and more specifically how he felt at the end of season 2. Though this country’s racist attitudes and subjugation of the vulnerable hardly started with this presidency it cannot be argued that it has brought all that hatred in our government and the people who support those views painfully to the surface. When people peacefully protest, peacefully assemble, and peacefully try to cast their vote and are still met with resistance, still met with hatred and violence, people have to start to wonder if operating within the system’s rules can actually affect change.

A lot has been made about the way protesters may have violently lashed out over the past three weeks, with media talking heads and privileged elites asking unironically why they couldn’t do things peacefully but more has been done as result of the rising tension than the previous 50 years combined. You can tell people to “#vote” all you want but it doesn’t change the fact that people have been trying that for decades and people are still getting quite literally killed for it.

(Again, I gotta ask, who is this protecting? Who is this serving?)

If there’s one takeaway I hope a viewer gets from “Black Sails” is that revolution, no matter how serious you are about it, should never be off the table when confronting systemic inequality. A racist, sexist, classist, and/or, in the case of Flint, homophobic power structure does not concede their power if you play to their convenience and when people are being put down, beaten, and often killed for showing their anger at this, calling for “law and order” becomes a slap in the face to the victims.

A government or system that treats you unjustly doesn’t deserve peace.

I’ll say it again.

A government or system that treats you unjustly doesn’t deserve peace.

No one wants it to get this far, I definitely don’t, and certainly not every peaceful mean has been exhausted yet in this fight perhaps but this country was literally founded on violent rebellion after being slighted all the same by out of balance power structures. I’m not advocating for violence or to take up arms against the state right now BUT no one should ever rule it out when the social contract keeps being broken and broken and broken again by those in charge who clearly don’t want to listen.

A government should always feel the threat of an uprising if it keeps wronging its people.

(See my blog post about “Do the Right Thing” if you need help understanding this quote.)

As the more fiery weeks of the protests seem to be in the rearview mirror and we find less activity and calls to action on our social media timelines, I want to remind you all to not let up with whatever you are choosing to do to help and keep fighting back out there. The people who stand to benefit from having angst of the general public leave and dissipate from our collective consciousness want us to forget how angry we are, they want us to feel fatigued and disinterested in continuing the push forward because “this is how they win” as Flint would say.

(Again, Toby Fucking Stephens, everyone.)

We have so much more power than we realize, just look at how much got done just by everyone uniting behind one marginalized group finally over the past three weeks. When we realize we are fighting essentially in the same battle for respect and dignity, justice in our society can be achieved. It can be done, and maybe just maybe we can finally change the world. Afterall who else has been as close to achieving it as we are right now?

Fight for your dignity and respect and stand in solidarity with others in their own fights as well, and always remember “know no shame.”

Raise the colors and Happy Pride, everyone! (credit: Luluxa on Tumblr)

#Black Sails #Starz #happy pride 🌈 #Pride Month #LGBTQ #LGBT #Stonewall #George Floyd #Police Brutality #BLM #Black Lives Matter #Tulsa #Black Wallstreet #Pirates #Toby Stephens #film #TV #movies #protest #protests #pride march #revolution #rage against the machine #do the right thing #Spike Lee

[alteriius]

It’s All A Fucking Joke, Right

In the few months I’ve been modding at fuckyeahasexual and touring ace Tumblr, there’s been a very. Steady. Stream of info that detail horrifically abusive situations and overall poor mental unhealth. Two a week in the inbox if I’m lucky, usually around seven-ten.

And there’s been so many, I can officially categorize all 500+ of these kinds of asks and submissions into an extensive bulletlist of Why Asexual Exclusionary Radicalism Is Incredibly Toxic And Shitty;

Coming Out To Family, Friends, And Employers

“My parents keep telling me that I’m something else, and it’s making me doubt my sense of judgement, not just about my sexual identity, but also about everything in general.”

“My family, friends, and co-workers keep referring to me as an inanimate object in a manner that’s clearly meant to humiliate and devastate me. Nothing I say will get them to stop.”

“My parents vocally/bodily forced me to undergo medical examinations, some of them concerning my sexual organs, many of them concerning blood tests and other trauma-centric procedures.”

“My family is intervening with my private life by changing my schedule to include exercise, socialization, friend influences, and whatever they think can ‘change’ me.”

“My friends/co-workers no longer respect my bodily boundaries when I came out to them, because they no longer see me as someone who should be respected. They regularly touch, fondle, grope, and prod me without permission, and/or verbally harass me, and don’t take my objections seriously.”

“My family, friends, and co-workers no longer just harass me, but also anyone I’m currently dating because they view my significant other as pathetic, underserved, or even being abused.”

First Few Days Of Dating

“My date got irrationally angry and confrontational when I came out to them, in a manner that made me fearful.” (SO many of these.)

“My date immediately lost any respect they had for my boundaries, no longer asked for consent, and {tried to} force themselves upon me.” (A lot of these, too)

“My date tried to verbally circumvent any boundaries and issues I confessed to, and it made me feel like I was in danger.”

“I didn’t come out to my date at first, and when they found out, they radically changed their behavior in an attempt to control and manipulate our new relationship to their benefit.”

Long-Term Relationships

“My partner has forcefully and radically changed our long-term relationship after finding out about my asexuality, and I’m now trapped and controlled in a way that I wasn’t before.”

“My partner broke up with me/is fighting with me because of my asexuality, and trying to make it seem like I’m hurting them. It’s made me doubt myself and my ability to trust my own intentions.”

“My partner is slowly changing from what was once supportive of my asexuality, and I’m wondering when I have the right to be worried and when I’d be overreacting. I’m aware of the worst case scenario, but I also worry that I’m being selfish and childish - which are things I’ve been told all throughout my asexual experience.”

Self-Care And Self Development

“I don’t trust my ability to say either yes or no in sexual situations, and this has extended to my life in general. I don’t feel comfortable in my ability to self-determinate.”

“The lack of authority, definition, and schooling of the concept of asexuality has made me very uncomfortable with what I think I am, and that uncertainty haunts me every waking moment.”

“I think it’s too late/too early to tell if I’m asexual, but the longer I hesitate, the worse my mental health and emotional wellbeing gets. I’m effectively stuck.”

“I see no benefit in coming out, or even identifying as asexual. There’s no positivity, role models, or supportive community for what I consider a big and scary part of my overall identity.”

“I think this was sexual abuse, but I’m wondering if I’m just being selfish and childish.”

“I think I was treated badly by my parents/friends/partner, but I’m wondering if I’m just being selfish and childish.”

“I want to believe that I’m deserving of equal freedom and human respect paid to other, not asexual people, but people tell me I’m being selfish and childish.”

“No one encourages this part of me. And that makes me feel forgotten and abandoned in general.”

Shut the fuck up about your petty beef with tumblr bloggers and youtubers and Archie comics or whatever. I literally do not care, I can’t care. I see these messages every goddamn day - this post was written and drafted a month ago, and I very easily compiled most of this bulletpoint list from scratch, just by eyeing what I see in the askbox and what comes across my dash. 

‘Ace discourse’ anger is empty and so meaningless. This is what I see by being part of this one 17k follow asexual ask blog for maybe half a year. I am so Done with all the faux rage posts and all the false positivity about how it’s ok to NOT be ace and all the acephobia that falls perfectly in line with the gaslighting typical of acephobia-101 while also having the audacity to claim it not so.

This is what’s real and I want to bleed it into your goddamn eyes.

#important shit #asexual #acephobia // #long post // #thank you