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phoenixdnasty · 4 years

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The Problem with Season Five

this is already going to have a lot of you in the replies yelling at me. obviously, massive SPOILERS for s5 of she ra and the princesses of power if you haven't already seen it.

okay, so She Ra is definitely a kids' show, but it has a lot of themes aimed towards an older audience: abuse, war, found family, destiny and knowing who you are. I loved She Ra because it made me feel empowered, made me feel seen. after this last season, however, I don't feel the same. I will, however, talk about what it did well.

What She-Ra s5 did RIGHT

I very much enjoyed seeing the character development for most characters come to the forefront here. For example, SW returned to her original motivations. When she lived in Mystacor with the other sorcerers, her thirst for power was borne of a desire to fight the Horde. When she was rejected, then she chose to do what she did. We see a return to that in s5, where she takes a stand against Prime by enlisting Castaspella to stop her if she tries to take any power for herself. She ends up just wanting to help, to do what she can, which was excellent. Glimmer, Bow and a bunch of other characters are given some love here as well. I especially enjoyed seeing Bow and Mermista take on leadership positions in the absence of Adora; it was an excellent look into another facet of their personalities.

Character interactions in non-serious moments were, for the most part, good. Swift Wind and Scorpia being bros was not something I knew I needed but something I want more of. Netossa basically being Batman and knowing the weaknesses of everyone around her was great and an iconic scene. Bow thinking Catra was super adorable was also an excellent moment in the season and I could watch 9 more seasons worth of that. Something that surprised me was Entrapta's "not good with people"-ness being talked about and addressed by the other characters and explained by her; I wasn't sure if that was ever gonna be talked about in the show.

Side note: thank you Crew-Ra for giving Scorpia her own musical number, it was great.

Prime was also a fascinating enemy. He's this sort of religious figure, this world destroyer who's been around for seemingly centuries, maybe much longer. He's cold, calm and calculated. I've seen it pointed out that he's everything Hordak is not. He's manipulative, knows body language and facial expressions, and has a perfect grasp on how to get exactly what we wants. My favorite aspect of this season was the hive mind control. This was a very interesting plotline to me, and I thoroughly enjoyed HiveMind!Catra as well as Wrong Hordak. I loved the idea of pitting allies against each other and the angst and emotional weight that carried.

Going to use that point to segue into one of this season's strengths: Netossa and Spinnerella. Wow! We get a chance to see what a healthy queer/wlw relationship looks like, and two background characters get major upgrades in relevance. Two diversity points for one being a big girl and for the couple being interracial (in our world anyway), but diversity is the norm is SPOP and we might have to stan forever. It was extremely heartwarming and resulted in one of my favorite scenes to ever show up in animated media (one which I'll be stealing to add to my vows if I ever get married):

It was beautiful and I will absolutely never shut up about it.

There were some beautiful moments this season!! Absolutely gorgeous. A highlight for me cinematically was episode 5, which will probably bother some people when I say what I will below. I will be honest, the new transformation sequence and the scene of Adora holding Catra as She-Ra was powerful and had my heart pounding with excitement. It was awesome.

On the other hand...

What She-Ra s5 did WRONG

I'm going to break my issues with the final season down one by one, starting with the narrative of abuse.

From the very beginning, abuse is the most prevalent theme in the show. Prime (HP) abuses Hordak, Hordak abuses SW, SW abuses both Adora and Catra, and Catra abuses Adora. I liked the Crew-Ra tackling this issue. Abused people abuse people, right?

Why was everyone redeemed in s5? (Well, except for Prime, he was blasted away by She-Ra.) Hordak was given a blank slate to start over, even though he was the reason Etheria was war torn for at least a few decades; SW was given a hero's sacrifice, where at the end of her life she finally decides to do some good; and Catra is immediately forgiven for doing one good thing and all trust in placed in her simultaneously.

Hordak and H. Prime as abusers are pretty cut and dry; at no point are they ever remorseful for their actions, except for Hordak in the case of being abusive to Entrapta. SW is much more of an interesting character to analyze, because her motivations are geared directly towards herself. This seems to change in the final season, when she returns to her original motivations from back when she was in Mystacor. Defending her home. In her pursuit of the power needed to defend Etheria from the Horde, she fell into darkness. She began to abuse Adora and Catra.

One could argue that the hero's sacrifice she was given for redemption was unneeded. SW was an individual addicted to power. She was manipulative, using fake affection as a means to control. She didn't deserve a redemption. The only evidence we have of this supposed change of heart is a line to Castaspella: "...and stop me if I try to take the power for myself." Okay... so, SW, um... what changed your mind? Was it Micah? Because at no point has he forgiven you. In fact, there should've been much more hostility between the two of you (which is a point I'll address in a moment). In all honesty, the relationship between SW and Micah reminds me of what should've happened between Catra and Glimmer, or Catra and Scorpia.

And Catra... My problem with her story is that she was kinda just... forgiven? instantly. no repercussions, no long talks about feelings, no... consequences. Catra got the girl and that was it. A small list of things she did over 4 seasons, in no certain order:

Scratched what was implied were scarring marks down Adora's back

Was the cause of Angella's "death" #angelladeservedbetter

Kidnapped both Glimmer and Bow

Opened a world-ending portal all to ensure Adora failed

Also pushed Adora into what looked like an abyss

Verbally abused Scorpia into leaving

Wanted to pit Corrupted!She-Ra against her friends (dehumanization)

Got Entrapta sent to Beast Island, a deadly place no one ever returns from

And this is just the stuff off the top of my head. We all knew Catra was going to get a redemption, but this one was completely undeserved. She apologized to Adora and Entrapta. Two very short apologies for what canonly was at minimum, months of abuse, manipulation, intent to kill (which is literally mentioned by Adora) and general disregard for anyone or anything but revenge for something that didn't even deserve it. The entire cast should've been outraged. Glimmer in particular had a very big reason not to ever forgive Catra ("I'm not losing another parent!"), but it was all glossed over.

The biggest issue with season 5 was the abuse plotline completely dropped. You can't spend 4 seasons explaining how the cycle of abuse affects you and everyone around you... and shelve it. And we know the reason why it was shelved.

Let me first preface this with the fact that I am super happy we got representation. As a queer nblw who grew up feeling alone, it's so good to see things changing in media. An onscreen wlw kiss on a kids' show is groundbreaking and I'm very happy that She-Ra broke this barrier.

But all representation is not good representation. Catra and Adora is not a good representation of a healthy relationship.

Catra is shown throughout the series to be very unstable. This is even prevalent in season 5, when Adora "chooses SW" over Catra, she runs away. This breaks Adora's heart. The last thing that Catra needs is a relationship when she hasn't even confronted the issues that she has. There's no healing done in season 5, no therapy as the fandom loved to meme about, no long talks about forgiveness and the hurt caused. There's no callback to any of the pain and anguish that Catra put Adora through. Catra may love Adora, but if there is no healing done for the both of them, their relationship will fail. They will fall into the same cycle again. Adora will do something Catra doesn't like, Catra will do what she's done for all of the show, and it will repeat until something breaks.

I'm going to talk about the implications of the ending we have now, and feel free to argue with me.

She-Ra is a kids' show. Abuse is one of the main themes. Catra is shown to be an abuser. Here's what we are teaching younger audiences:

a. if you love someone enough, maybe they'll change

b. everyone deserves a second chance

c. your abuser will change as long as you're loyal and never stop trying to love them

d. things someone does to hurt you mean nothing in the wake of forgiveness

e. if someone who hurt you changes suddenly and wants to be back in your life, you should let them back in

Character interactions for the things that mattered (plot threads from previous seasons, general personality clashes, etc) were absent this season, in the moments where they mattered the most. (The best three in my opinion were Scorpia and Perfuma, the BFS inviting Catra in, and Mermista and Entrapta.) Glimmer and Adora should've had their time to talk. Scorpia should've gotten to say her piece to Catra. SW and Micah should've interacted more. Micah and Glimmer should've gotten more than an introduction!

I'm not going to get into how the entire final season was wrapped around making Catra and Adora get together (a fundamental writing no-no; it never ends up working), or how it was bad writing. I just want everyone to think critically for one moment. There are so many other glaring issues in what was, overall, a stellar show. If there was another season, or some mini episodes where the characters talk out their problems and past transgressions against each other, then I could excuse She-Ra. But I doubt we're going to get any of that. So I won't.

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backdraft-bimbo · 3 years

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Instrospection of the Day:

Why Do I Love So Many Mlm Ships?

I've wondered why the media I care about almost always involves two (usually) white dudes pining for each other. Destiel, Merthur, Johnlock, Good Omens, etc. (And there's also some POC ones like Klance and NaruSasu, et cetera et cetera...)

But it hit me: there's not a lot of queer media that isn't just white dudes. It's not just me being drawn to them because they're white and they're dudes, but mostly because it's seen as unconventional and I often have felt like the outsider, so I relate to it. I'm not male nor am I sexually or romantically attracted to people, so why the mlm ships?

Well, I can't name many straight romances that actually make me scream in excitement when they finally go canon. The closest I can say is probably Leo and Calypso from HoO, Chloe and Lucifer from Lucifer, Jamie and Claire from Outlander, and so on...

There is such a long list of mlm relationships everyone loves, mostly because of how common it is for writers to write mlm content, like best friends, with more slowburn subtext than het relationships are usually given. The reason I can't name a straight relationship that has been theorized or wringed dry by its fandom is because there is no urgent need to. People don't pine as much for straight relationships when there is clear potential of them actually becoming canon. You don't really have to worry about marketing or backlash for heterosexual relationships onscreen. That is why conspiracy theories happen when it comes to gay pairings. Hence the discourse.

Sidenote: the reason I watch Youtubers who are close with their bros is probably because, like everything else, I long to attach myself to something that I can relate to. No matter what form it comes in. Even if you are not in my position, it should be clear that everyone wants to be understood one way or another, no matter who they are. It's just there's more straight people in the world than not, so they dominate many many things, they hold more influence in media, etc.

When I cling to another queer ship, it's not always a cute nerdy little fixation (though who's to say it can't be more than one thing?). For me it's coming from somewhere deeper, a place that has always felt misunderstood and longs to see myself be represented, and since it's typically questionably-queer white men played by straight actors, then I will take what I can get like I always have. If there were more wlw onscreen (like Bubbline, Gentleman Jack; not oversexualized for a male gaze, cough cough Blue is the Warmest Color) then I would surely be as batshit crazy when talking or theorizing about them, but the truth is that there aren't many wlw ships that match the sheer magnificence of Merthur or Destiel or Klance or a dozen other mlm ships. Those are kind of one in a million to me personally. A rarity.

I know there's the really cute Supergirl ship, and if you look on ao3 it's one of the top wlw pairings, but that platform is primarily dominated by white male relationships. And why, you ask? Because of the patriarchy, yeah, but also because that is what we've been given. I want asexuals and I want aromantics and I want women struggling with accepting their identites in a male-centric world, but the sad fact of life is that I know I am a small percentage, a minority that will likely not be the center of attention in media.

Queerbaiting is a form of capitalism, making bank off how desperate we are for some representation. And I find that revolting, but it's really all I have sometimes. I have watched literally every gay film I found worthwhile more than once. There aren't many good ones, and the ones that I truly enjoy I can recite from memory. Somehow the mlm ships that end up being queerbait do a better job at making slowburn romance than most gay films out there, and that is just astounding. So can you blame me, everyone who enjoys these ships, for clinging to them?

And the looming question I ask every day: where do I go now? What should I attach myself to next to feel understood? Onto the next ship, I suppose.

Anyway, there's my garbled little self analysis for tonight.

#analysis #lgbtqia #asexual #aromantic #aroace #mine #gay #mlm #destiel #merthur #johnlock #the holy trinity :(#of THEY DESERVED BETTER ships #introspective

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lily-orchard · 4 years

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You know what? There was something interesting I managed to salvage from the mess of whatboutisms. See, in the comments Levi transcribed one of his points about how I cultivated a diverse audience, yet never told that audience that I’m only interested in serving one kind of person and leave everyone else feeling left out.

Now that particular point is a round of nonsense because I have pretty much done the same thing for 12 years now: Make content I want to see.

I write soft wlw romance because I want to see it and I wasn’t getting it anywhere else. I made videos that were unapolegetic and refused to coddle the audience because I was sick to death of Youtubers doing that. I made content that appealed to me, and the audience came in naturally.

If you build it, they will come.

Levi can claim to speak for all LGBT people, but I have a diverse LGBT audience that enjoys my work. It’s why they’re here. It’s what attracted them in the first place. I have yet to hear an actual complaint about my uneven representation. The closest thing to it is when the vultures use my particular taste to then accuse me of bigotry.

You know why I don’t write mlm romance? Don’t want to. Simple as. I just don’t want to. It’s not for adversarial purposes, I’d just rather write something else. And that’s never been a contentious statement to anyone who wasn’t acting in bad faith.

I make soft lesbian content because I can’t get it anywhere else, so I had to make it myself. You wish I made content featuring mlm pairings or ace characters? Make that content. Because chances are other people want it as well. If you build it, they will come.

And one of those people will probably be me. Because as much as I don’t like writing certain things, I love reading them. I loved reading Magical Metamorphosis, and I barely have any trans characters to my name. I like reading stories about trans women, I’d just rather it not be written by me. I’d rather it be... ya know... good.

Just because Lily Orchard isn’t making it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve to exist. I’m saying this explicitly because I know there are people trying to gaslight my audience into thinking I don’t believe they deserve representation. You do deserve representation. I’ve always strived to make my channel and blog an inclusive space for LGBT people. This is a place free of aphobia, free of transphobia, free of biphobia, free of exclusionist rhetoric of any kind and which will NEVER tolerate that rhetoric.

It’s also a place where I write self-indulgent fluff about traumatized women comforting eachother.

Those two things are not at odds with one another, no matter what someone might want to tell you in order to feel better about themselves. For whatever reason, I don’t know why, Levi is very upset that I’ve created a safe space for all LGBT people that refuses to tolerate exclusionist rhetoric, and he has now gone onto two screeds trying to destroy it.

I don’t care what Levi says about me. People say gross shit about me all the time, it only affects me when it boils past a certain point. I won’t lose sleep over the fact that this one miserable, bitter man who is clearly unhappy with his life doesn’t like me.

But I do care that he might get some people to think that I hate them for who they are. That he might get people to think that they aren’t welcome in these spaces. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I welcome people into my community to share their work with others.

I don’t write mlm relationships. I don’t write trans characters. I don’t write ace or aro characters.

But people in my Discord do. I think you might like what they have to share.

In fact, tomorrow I’m going to make all-new channels in the Discord server dedicated to people being able to share their fics and stories. Because who says that I can’t manufacture something positive out of Levi’s delusional fucking nonsense.

“Weird flex Lily, but okay.”

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paramedictk-archive · 4 years

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it’s hard to put into words how much skam france has disappointed me this year but s6 is finally over and i felt like i needed to kind of... say goodbye to this shitshow and get a few things off my chest.

s3 will always hold a special place in my heart, it came into my life when i really needed it and honestly, it was their only genuinely good season from start to finish. i will always be grateful for s3 and for eliott and lucas and for all those little moments we got to see with the grew in that season as well as in s4 and s5, when they actually acted like teenagers, when they were there for each other, when actions had consequences, when subplots weren’t abandoned just after 2 clips and when they used this show to educate teenagers and give them hope... those very few moments that actually made me feel like i was watching a skam remake.

it’s hard to make peace with the fact that this remake gave us so many good moments but also managed to completely ruin this entire experience for most of us this year. i think if skam france was genuinely, consistently trash from s1 to s6 i wouldn’t be half as angry as i am right now. but truth is, it wasn’t all bad. that’s the worst thing. we’ve seen they can do better, they just chose to be lazy and use the popularity s3 gave them to churn out mediocre and half assed plots time and time again because they knew they had devoted fans who would defend them no matter what.

when s3 was airing i actually felt like they listened to us sometimes and cared about us but something changed after s4. it no longer mattered what we wanted to see or what we thought about a scene, we were simply told what we should be feeling. and that’s a huge red flag. i don’t have to be a scriptwriter or a director to know that good storytelling isn’t about throwing excuses and explanations (and then damage control pictures) at your audience. it’s about them engaging with the content you put out and bringing their own perspective to it. otherwise, what’s the point?

and you know, this isn’t even about what’s ooc and what isn’t. it’s about the people who were supposed to finally get their representation but instead ended up being too triggered by the show to continue watching it. it’s about muslim, deaf/hoh people, people dealing with addictions or self harm or eating disorders speaking out only to be silenced by david and his fans just because their opinions weren’t always supportive and positive. it’s about us saying that they should have never used sexual or domestic abuse for shock value and then being told to shut up because a few pacifists in this fandom seem to think we’re ruining the show for them this way. it’s about david and niels flat out lying to us and promising so many things in order to get us to watch s6. it’s about being disrespected by the creators of your favourite tv show so badly that you end up having to distance yourself from it and the fandom. you obviously can’t please everyone, but the least you can do is listen to the people whose stories you’re trying to tell.

i obviously can’t tell any of this to david even though i wish i could. not because i want to rub it in or prove that i’m right, i just simply want him to know how much his childishness hurt the very people who once fought so hard to get his show renewed for him. i can’t tell him any of this because he would never read my messages since i’m not one of his certified bootlickers singing his praises all the time. because he blocked one of my insta accounts last week for a comment i posted under one of his pictures during s5. because that’s the kind of person he is. someone who would rather hide and ignore constructive criticism and let his little fans fight his battles for him. someone who stayed quiet for weeks while said fans kept sending death threats to people. and yes, you could say he’s not responsible for other people’s actions and that’s true in a way. but when you create such an unhealthy and hostile environment within your own fandom by playing favourites and silencing anyone who has a different opinion than what is considered acceptable, you do encourage that kind of behaviour.

despite all this, i still stayed and tried to put up with all the bad writing because i cared about the grew that much, maybe even more than niels himself, it seems. i don’t have a reason to stay now. the concept of having female showrunners sounds good, sure, but i know francestvslash and i know skam france. it’s the good old bait-and-switch. during the last two seasons, they kept baiting marginalized communities to earn woke points but a season that was supposed to be about arthur’s deafness entirely got turned into some cheating fest and lola’s season was pure misery porn with wlw rep thrown in there as bait.

david and niels leaving won’t solve this problem. francetvslash needs a reality check too. they used us to renew the show and then turned around and called us obsessive. they blocked my comments under the live because i asked them why wasn’t the sexual assault plot mentioned again. they joked about addictions. they don’t care, okay? not about us, not about giving people representation. the only thing they care about is money. so them suddenly hiring female directors and writers after they saw us complaining about the way this show treats women? bait. the same kind of bait niels and david used when they tried to throw all kinds of rep in s6 because they knew lgbt people want to see themselves represented so badly that they would watch it no matter what. i would love to be proven wrong, obviously. i want to believe the new showrunners have nothing but good intentions but their hands will obviously be tied by francetvslash to some extent. and i’m done being used by them and then being forced to settle for the bare minimum.

all in all, both s5 and s6 fell flat and were extremely disappointing. skamfr under david and niels will always remain a one hit wonder, nothing else. it’s a good thing they are leaving now because at least characters like max or sekou have the chance to be treated with respect by the new writers and directors. and i’m happy for all of you who decided to stay... i wish you guys the best. i honestly hope you guys will get the stories and the representation you’re looking for. i really do. i want to be proven wrong about francetvslash and the showrunners... but i don’t have the energy to dedicate so much of my life to this show again, not after them breaking my heart so many times.

and i guess i’m a petty person. the grew deserved great stories too, not just lamif. arthur deserved a great season, deaf/hoh people deserved to see themselves represented, instead they were forced to watch niels disrespect noée and camille and then act like they never existed in s6. and after everything wlw have done for this show, we deserved a great season too, not to be baited like this. maya was in 18 clips out of 83 (!!!!). if niels and david didn’t want to give the grew a chance to have a good send-off, then i’m not giving this show a chance again. why would i?

anyway. i’ll stick to rewatching s3 every now and again. and i will miss the way the grew made me feel. thanks for all the good memories and let’s hope we’ll forget the bad ones soon. this is what we’ve come to.

alt er love and all that crap i guess.

#skam france

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susiephone · 4 years

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do you have any book recs?

Do I ever! Let’s just do twelve books I tend to rec to everyone.

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Y’know, from TV? Demon and angel team up to stop the apocalypse, and they are terrible at it. Fortunately there’s also a witch, a witch-hunter, a semi-phony psychic, and four children, and there are at least three braincells between them. My all-time favorite book.

Vicious by V.E. Schwab. Two basically-amoral grad students get superpowers, and from there, Very Bad Things Happen. They go from being best friends to trying to murder each other. Complex schemes, horrible people doing horrible things, and found families, ahoy!

Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee. More superheroes, less pain. Daughter of D-list superheroes has no powers, much to her annoyance, and gets an internship where her dream girl works... an internship for the local D-list supervillains. She takes it anyway because 1) it actually pays, 2) again, dream girl, and 3) she figures, “Oh, this will be hilarious.” And it is.

The Hearts We Sold by Emily Lloyd-Jones. Not-so-distant future, demons have popped up on Earth like, “yo. We’re here, we make deals, just hand over a body part in exchange for a wish. It doesn’t matter why.” Protagonist makes a deal in exchange for... wait for it... tuition money. (Been there.) The demon rips out her heart and has her under contract for two years, and from there, things get weird.

Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend. PLEASE READ THIS I’M BEGGING YOU. A young girl cursed to die on her eleventh birthday is rescued when she’s whisked away to the magical world of Nevermoor. But the man who rescued her did so by smuggling her in... completely illegally. And if they can’t find a legal way for her to stay, she’ll be sent home. Where she’ll, ya know, die. Thus begin the Trials, where if she passes, she’ll join the Wundrous Society, and be safe. An absolutely fantastic and magical read for all ages, with one of the best heroines in children’s lit.

Warcross by Marie Lu. In the future, the world’s biggest form of entertainment is a virtual reality game called Warcross. Our heroine is a hacker who tries to breach the opening ceremonies of the Warcross Championships in a last-ditch effort to make some money, and instead accidentally hacks herself into the game. Rather than arrest her, the creator of Warcross hires her to figure out what’s wrong with his system, and find a spy among the competitors. FANTASTIC action, representation, and worldbuilding.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. You’ve probably heard of this one. Inspired by the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Our teenage protagonist is the sole witness when her best friend is shot and killed by a cop, and is forced to choose between standing up and doing what is right, and staying silent and safe. Fucking harrowing at times, but with a warm and surprisingly hilarious narrator to keep it from being too much.

Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden. A LANDMARK of LGBT lit, being one of the first novels to portray lesbians in a positive light, a must-read for any baby gay (and recommended reading for allies). 1980s New York, two teenage girls meet, become best friends in record time, and gradually realize they’re in love. Has what is still one of the best portrayals of first love I’ve ever read. My dad bought this for me after I came out. Thanks, Dad.

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson. A graphic novel! Teenage shapeshifter rolls up on the local supervillain’s lair like, “I am your biggest fan, dude. Also, I can turn into a shark. Hire me.” Shenanigans and PAIN ensue. The whole thing reads like a D&D campaign, it’s great.

Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgl. Another graphic novel, this one with a horror angle. Moody and rebellious teenager dislikes everything about her life, from her weight to her lack of social status to the fact that she’s a Russian immigrant (though she tries to hide this). This changes when she falls down a well, and meets the ghost of Emily, a young girl who died a century before. And she is happy to be her friend. Forever. REALLY spooky, with some fantastic art.

The Land by Yesterday by K.A. Reynolds. A melancholy and darker read, about how we deal -- or don’t deal -- with grief. When our heroine’s younger brother dies, partially due to her own actions, her whole world falls apart. The spirit inhabiting her house goes mad, her father is consumed by depression, and her mother follows her son into the Land of Yesterday, where all souls go after they die. Desperate to put her family back together, our heroine follows her, and tries not to become a lost soul herself.

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland. I’m currently in the middle of this, and I am in LOVE. After the Civil War, zombies happened, and now, one of the best opportunities for black teenagers, including our heroine Jane, is to enlist to be a bodyguard for rich white people against the undead fuckers. Not only are the horror and action fantastic, it is a truly fascinating take on an alternate history, and a look into the Reconstruction Era.

And I’d be remiss not to recommend Most Ardently by Susan Mesler-Evans... aka... the book I wrote. Modern-day, WLW, diverse remix of Pride and Prejudice. Feminism, family dynamics, and fuckery abound.

So. Yeah.

#booklr #bookish #book recs #book recommendations #book rec #someones-babyg

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veridium · 4 years

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fuck it, queer meta.

About a year ago I wrote one of my first and largest meta posts about why I consider Cassandra a prime example of queerbaiting despite her being a character who explicitly says she is heterosexual. This lead to quite the day of inbox hate mail from people throughout the fandom. Most were upset I used the “q slur” and left it untagged as such in the big DA meta tags. I can imagine for those folks, the substance of what I had to say mattered little as a result.

I deleted most of those messages and my responses soon afterward. They upset me greatly even as I took it all in stride. However, given that it’s been about 365 days since that fiasco, and some interesting events have happened with regards to current and former DA writers, I thought it would be “fun” to write a recap and reflection on why, generally, I still feel the way I did when I wrote that post. With some changes and growth, of course.

The gist of it is, as we have come to learn in past, recent, and ongoing discourses in fandom, that much to the chagrin of a lot of folks in this fandom: BioWare, and in this instance DA writers, are not your SJW Icons. Furthermore, they never should have been, or should be, considered as such.

The gist (part two) for me, is: for as much as diverse characters, worlds, and societies are being uplifted by Games these days, the counterbalance of bullshit is still there. And I think it survives most sturdily in the kind of logic the BioWare writing culture throughout the years. This sense of egalitarian, “of course” logic, that appears to make socially deviant identities normalized but really just falsely positions those identities as meant to be in lock-step with the norm. Representation to gaming, and most of media writ large, all-too-easily falls into the trap of “we want what the privileged have,” which it to say, we want our existence to be a no-brainer, even if it means we lost the essence of why our stories are so profound, important, and necessary to do justice.

I really can’t imagine accepting the way characters like Cassandra were written because I don’t accept the writer(s) who wrote her. Why?

Come with me, and we’ll be, in a world, of pure fuckery...but with citations...because I’m an Academic and that’s my roll.*

*Please see tags for pertinent content warnings before clicking.**

**if you reblog and tag this shit with “q slur,” I will take all the reserves of understanding I have as a DA fic writer for all of the enraged womxn in the series and express it accordingly. And, as a femslash-oriented author, I can promise you: that expression will be consumptive.

Hm, I wonder, what with the predominant writer for her character inquires on Twitter for “lesbian fanfic porn” recommendations for writing “research,” but seems to be unable to hire appropriate creatives to write, consult, etc. for the project.

Or that the writers room made, and continues to make, space for a writer who continually does Black and queer characters dirty with his mediocre-at-best work, in both game and novel form (because, plot twist, he’s a shit writer) (1) (2) (3).

Or that the writer’s room, and specifically Ga*der, attesting that the development of the Qunari was based on Arab cultures around the time of “Medieval Europe,” which is somehow his way of getting out of the thematic botching of the Qunari language, social structure, etc. from Islamic tradition.

Or, the writers who intentionally shaped the story so that Vivienne, one of the limited number of Black women characters in the entire series to have a role as an ally, to be a red herring of an distrustful and conceited antagonist, to the point where her treatment by fandom has been incredibly racist, heinous, and lazy for years.

These are a few of MANY reasons, with thorough exposition, why the veneer of “progressive inclusion” studios like BioWare claim to be authentic. Having “diverse” writers in the room -- and I’m using that word incredibly tenuously here -- didn’t change the result of any of these harmful scenarios. In fact, it created them. This, combined with the tale as old as time: toxic fandom culture with white, anglo-centric, cisheterosexual masculinist ideals at the fore, have gotten us here.

So, do I hold all of the reasons why I am angry about Cassandra’s character writing the same way now, as I did then? No. Certainly not. In fact, there are parts where I would correct myself. On the other hand, the thesis for me remains largely preserved: I revile G*ider, I revile that he gets the accolades he does by fandom for his “diversity” of characters when he exploits, erases, and uses slippery morality to get out of admitting he has shortcomings in his work. I hate that the exaltation for representation still funnels itself onto the heads of white writers and predominantly white-staffed studios.

And, underneath it all, I am mad that some of ya’ll see no problem with that. Because what does it matter, if you do not come from communities, cultures, and coalitions that get the brunt of this misrepresentation? What does it matter if it angers a lesbian fan that the writers who have a long history of misusing and conveniently copping themselves out when they write women and queer characters, seem to use that “expertise” as permission to do what they are supposedly combating?

G*ider, the hero himself, is on written record saying that it should not be second guessed as to why Cassandra is straight, just as he thinks it should not be second guessed that Dorian is gay. Yet, when he asked on Twitter if there was some moral significance to people modding character’s sexuality (in this specific instance, Dorian, actually), G*ider said that in the end, people’s mods “do not change” what he wrote, and that unless they claim their changes “supercede” canon, there’s no harm done.

So, really, I’m just over here like -- is this ya’lls hero?

Why in the fuck would someone be modding a gay character to be bisexual or heterosexual, if they didn’t somehow believe that version “supercedes” the canon rendition? Secondly, where is the attention to the fact that, in an ensemble of multiple romanceable characters, Dorian has to be the one that has to be sexually and romantically accessible to those outside of his canonical realm of attraction?

I mean, for fuck’s sake, it’s the whole virtue grounding his companion side quest, the fact that he is estranged from his Father who tried to magically change his orientation! This is a crucial part of Dorian’s entire journey to serving the Inquisition, and serving Tevinter as a dissident.

But, you know, it doesn’t change what G*ider wrote. And he’s correct, it doesn’t change what he wrote, which he got credit, money, and esteem for. It doesn’t change that if you load up the base game, Dorian’s gay. In G*ider’s head, that is the protective force: the parts where he has ties, and not the culture of the fandom, the culture the fans who helped fill his pockets from that game have to dwell within. This isn’t revolutionary, this isn’t good-faith representation. This is getting a piece of the rotten-sweet pie and saying “let bygones be bygones, you toxic, funky heteronormative assholes!”

But, where are my manners. I’m getting heated, aren’t I?

Basically, if you condemn queer fans for calling out queer bating -- or any marginalized fan for throwing up the alarm for bullshit -- and your first reaction is to side with folks like G*ider who got theirs and said screw everything else, fuck off. Literally, fuck off. I call Cassandra’s circumstance queerbaiting because she’s one example of writers getting their cake and eating it, too. If they are so aware of just how much of their fanbase is marginalized folks, they don’t get to say they don’t have fingerprints on things like queerbaiting. You don’t get to be acclaimed and excused for the shit you say you are combating, which is the source of that acclaim. And if your claim is happy ignorance, then you definitely don’t get to blithely equivocate when fans do ask you why the story happened the way it did.

I also just want to keep in mind here that there’s a deductive conclusion to be had about this, given how La*idlaw explicitly stated they endeavored to make Cassandra extremely hot, “really enticing.” That conclusion is:

(1) Either they aren’t/weren’t nearly as attuned to their queer audiences as they generally claim to be, or

(2) They were, and had no intention of developing compassion or empathy passed G*ider talking out of his ass about why Cassandra was developed as straight. Which, ultimately, does coincide with conclusion (1) more than not.

No matter what, the contour to the conclusion is: wow, a taste of nauseating objectification, in the BioWare writer’s room. Who knew!

It’s no wild accusation to make to a writer like him and his colleagues, that they don’t know how to handle sapphic, wlw, and/or queer-related storylines, especially with women. Especially when the answer seems to be, “well, it was decided before I took the lead, and in any case, why question it! You wouldn’t question a gay character’s orientation!”

But that’s just it, you complete and utter turnip. People did question Dorian’s sexuality. People do question Dorian’s sexuality. That fantasy world of equal bearings is as insincere as it is out-of-touch. And why not, when, as you said,

it doesn’t change what you got paid for.

The ethos seems to be crudely reflexive: people’s phobic interpretations and alterations of the canon do not matter, but then again, why would you even question why a character is straight? Why would you question my narrative vision, in all of its beautiful shittery?

It’s all a game of dodge, ya’ll. Dodge, dodge, dodge. With a strong and acidic dose of vanity.

So. In summation, folks: I could care less for your false equivalences. I could care less about my contribution of queer content fucking up your good time in the meta tags. Obviously you aren’t there to actually engage in creative, exploratory thought, so why bother reasoning. There is more to the possibilities of queerbaiting than stringing along a could-be, would-be, should-be queer storyline directly. There’s knowing your audience enough to exploit your good graces with them. There’s benefitting from a charade of liberal progressive clout. There’s the ability to foresee that queer people will cathect to a given character, and not only denying an experience they could have, but denying it so harshly that the character says they can’t love yours because you’re female.

And I am so, so, so sick of these people continually enriching themselves off of the “nobody’s perfect” grace. To me, that grace is the promise of good faith, and the intention to do right by people. When that isn’t there, the grace isn’t going somewhere where it’ll be appreciated, that it will be nourished by. I mean, fucking hell, people, this is rainbow capitalism: don’t you taste it?

That’s that, then. “Cassandra and Queerbaiting Rant,” one year on. An extra dose of salt, just for the haters.

#da meta #cassandra and queerbaiting rant #one year reflection?#yeah #so #queerbaiting #cassandra pentaghast #bioware critical #bioware bullshit #cw: lesbophobia #cw: homophobia #cw: queerphobia #cw: discussion of Dorian's experiences with his family

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storyofmychoices · 3 years

Note

Endless summer, Passport to romance and Wishful thinking for the ask game <3

Endless Summer: What book have you replayed the most?

It’s probably a toss-up between Blades and Red Carpet Diaries 2.

Blades is epic from start to finish and no matter how many times I play it, I love it.

RCD2 is probably my favorite of the trilogy. If PB invented a skip chapter option, I would probably replay it more than I do. The second half of the book is my favorite because I just love every single scene with Thomas Hunt and was so happy that they decided to make him a LI at the end of the book. That last chapter is just amazing.

Passport to Romance: What’s your least favorite book and why?

hmm... there are a lot of books that just don’t appeal to me so I usually skip them, so I feel like it’s unfair to call them out.

Of the books/series I’ve played, OH3 has been the biggest disappointment so far. I can't bring myself to play it but based on the screenshots I’ve been reading, everyone is OOC and/or missing. I really wanted to have that as a comfort book when it came back, but it’s not the same.

Witness probably wins overall, I made it a few chapters and couldn’t do it anymore lol. I keep meaning to diamond mine it but I haven’t gotten there yet. lol

Wishful Thinking: What kind of representation would you like to see PB address in future books?

Obviously, Choices has a LOT of areas to improve here. I think they need more wlw, MC gender choices, race representation and sensitivity, but I also think they need more body-positive MCs and characters. I feel this is one area they haven’t attempted to address much. I find it refreshing when characters don’t have abs or a perfect figure, but we don’t get that a lot.

Thanks so much for the ask 💖💖💖

[Choices Ask Game]

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greatchaosgentlemen · 4 years

Text

I think that its great to enjoy the characters and the stories that are told within the Skamverse. Discovered the OG in 2017 and was like whoah this shit is really cool. Coming from the UK we already had the tales of Skins (great show check it out for British teenage life) but Skam is like life Monday-Friday and then Skins is more like the intense crazy weekend experience. Sorry if no one gets that analogy.

But basically I just think sure it is fine to comment on the shows and say what your liking and what you most definitely don't. It’s all art and I feel like we should all expect and accept that. But just don't stress out too much guys, sometimes I see so much anger and like i don't know if you guys are actually that angry irl but I don't know i hope not because that shit must be so bad. Skamverse is great but hey remember that these are just fictional characters and we shouldn't be loosing ourselves to them and forget to live our own lives. and of course some versions are better than others with their storytelling, acting, cinematography, score, representation etc. and some are just cringy af. Don't know if that to do with translations (shoutout to all the translators out there, Skam is one big reason that I've gotten in other language films and tv, you all do such an amazing job so thanks). But i just want to say I hope that we all remember that we can be the change and work towards creating the right dialogue in which any tom, dick and harry can feel happy and discover an art form (film, tv, book, poem etc) where they feel represented.

just basically im just like saying A LOT MORE RESPECT NEEDS TO BE GIVEN PARTICUARLY TO THE ACTORS because some of y’all are T-H-I-R-S-T-Y and it ain’t cute. and like there's a difference being critiquing and being annoyed or being angry and expressing that normally; whereas some of you are just really dam rude to people.

basically i think we all should just be happy that such a good show exists, and take all the positive and negatives that come from living at such a time where the Skamverse exists ( albeit this time is weird because CORONA !!!! Hope that everyone is safe and is practicing social distancing. We will eventually defeat this). We are all so talented and no matter what I want to reinforce that belief that truly you are loved no matter what your race, skin colour, sexuality, belief in religion, whether you forgot when your uni assignment was due and thought you had a weekend but actually it was due on the Friday so you had to spend 12 hours in the library (whoops just me ?!), thoughts on climate change (im just saying that to be inclusive because the science is there and if you don't believe that well im sorry your being ridiculous and i think you should be concerned about mother nature and that we should be fighting the 1% who truly control everything, your academic prowess and a million more things that frankly i can't be bothered to write down but the intention is there

and heck if you want to vent your frustrations just let them out of course because they shouldn't be bottled in, in my opinion. go and talk to someone irl and say how ridiculous you think this thing is that you think happen. or if you don't feel like you have one then hell message me because i LOVE to talk and in particular at this point in the world i got all the time in the world. personally i also like making my own retellings and writings of the Skam stories where i make it better (hahah ;)) and if you want to do that then heck do that and ill be more than happy to read it

basically those are just some thoughts i had and because my fingers are beginning to hurt im just going to list what im feeling about the shows

sidenote - i think capitalism sucks and that money and views have to be taken into account by companies etc because i really think all of the four og stories should just be told automatically by all versions. let them stories and actors shine babyyyy

skam usa - bro like being a fellow english speaker yours is the one i can follow obviously the easiest so why are you just so kinda i don't know different and blah. is skam really just an european thing ? i don't know but i think an argument could be made

skam og - nei vilde. what a ride and what a vibe. your basically iron man and have spewed the Skamverse. in my opinion great actors and great stories, in particular for me my first introduction to someone who follows Islam. also your soundtrack is smashing. though who is perfect ya know and obviously would have loved for you to have continue up to graduation

skam france - oooo la la la. i do like the french language so its cool to help me learn and stuff but i really feel like you guys have got hit with a lot of bts drama and rules and order so i just don't know. your original seasons i don't know yet. still its only a story so i mean it is what it is. but like also people around this cast need to be a hella more respective of the actors *sips tea*

skam espana- hola amigos. you the edgy one that got everyone on their toes. I like that and i tip my hat to you. just i don't know sometimes i feel it sometimes i don't. shout out for so far being the only wlw representation (don't know if that's the right acronym, so please don't hate me. but i hope that women found some positives there) and with norando i like totally get it with the story told there but still i love to love and just like sad to miss out on the on screen growth of the relationship but still its cool

skam italia - ciao bella - some of you is hot some of you is not. i think the story is good but i don't know i just want more italian flavour. still thats from a foreigner view and in fact maybe it is very italian. hopefully your season 4 will be good, exciting with all this Netflix additions ooooo

druck - danke- you cool bro just going powering on through. like your a bit of juggernaut really and im like whoah. actually do like a lot of your vibe and stylistic choices. its tres cool. also very exciting about this new season etc that has broken, really vibing a possible skins similarity with the set up. fingers crossed

skam nl - eskild you crossover legend - ticking all my boxes just so sad for your premature closure. didn't know much about netherlands so cool to experience language and culture. maybe you'll come back to the skamverse again like Hawkeye as he buggered off for first of infinity war. sending you good vibes

wtfock- yes yes yes. not going to lie so far you are my favourite.overall good vibes and everything. hopefully its good vibes and the proper belgian kids like it. just good stuff and so innovative to discuss lockdown and everything. exciting times and exciting for season 4 when it drops

basically all of this came from one beer so yolo, still out here living my best life and one day hoping that the UK gets a Skam version. so many ideas so many possibilities

and like if ive offended anyone then i am sorry wasn't my intention. just writing down my thoughts and im sure you will get over it because were all amazing. Just keep it chill and honestly like i wont give any negative stuff the time of day anyway so don't waste your time heheh *sips tea*

also most importantly i am very sorry for my grammar and punctuation and everything. honestly i am just being lazy and cannot be bothered to go over and rectify it. also sorry for making a very confusing message that probably really doesn't make sense at all. haha

still alt er love everyone

*renegades away from the computer*

#skam #skamverse #skam france #skam italia #skam nl #skam españa #druck #wtfock #skam og #skam austin

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incarnateirony · 5 years

Text

Terms and Conditioning and Meanings

Okay, so it’s something a lot of people heard me bang on about several times over the last few years, but recently I found a thread (x) by yet another lit professor -- this one in another fandom.

I’m sure some people will choose to reactively and malignly pick at parts of what they say without reading the heart of their body of work, in a blazing display of self-blind irony, but well-- I went off on my usual tear I go on ‘round these parts and unsurprisingly they went through and liked every single one while QTing other Typical Fandom Asshats to shoot them down, so let’s roll here.

I’ll start with the TLDR edition but then break down the actual content behind a cut -- because this? This is something this fandom DESPERATELY NEEDS TO UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCES OF, and how they DO and DON’T relate.

CODING = CONSCIOUS CHOICE OF CONSTRUCTION BY AUTHOR SUBTEXT = THEMATIC RESONANCE THROUGH MOST OF OR THE ENTIRE WORK THAT EMBOLDENS THE TALE INTERPRETATION = LITERALLY WHATEVER YOU WANT BUT STRONGER IF YOU KNOW WHAT THE OTHER 2 ARE AND WHERE THEY ARE. THANKS KIDS DEATH OF THE AUTHOR = NOT AN EXCUSE FOR EIGHTH-ASSED READINGS CANON = WHAT EXISTS WITHIN A WORK, OR AN AGREED UPON BODY OF ACCEPTED WORKS (episodes, books, etc not part of the ecclesiastical body) NO, it is not a MAGIC WORD for “NOW THEY KISSED” and there are MANY FORMS OF WHAT IS CANON WITHIN AN ACCEPTED BODY OF WORK. QUEERBAIT = VERY FEW OF THESE THINGS AND YET CAN BE ALL OF THESE THINGS AND THIS IS THE MOST BUSTED WORD Y’ALL HAVE FUCKING RUINED.

(Edit: I saw someone reblog this with “really aggressive in an offputting way” before a tag of “but I agree” so I’ma put this out here: Yeah. It fucking is. Because this fandom is fucking exhausting. And I am tired. Of having to fucking repeat things. That are literal common sense. In a fandom that insists on flushing common sense. Of otherwise intelligent people sending themselves into destructive spirals. Of even friends losing friends to people sliding off into bitter pits these problems lead to. So if you’re someone that favors common sense, maybe you actually should feel this frustration in your soul. The lit folks reblogging this with commentary so far seem to.)

To quote the linked OP and give credit where credit is due for resparking this conversation in my mind and realizing I haven’t said this for a long time and new followers may not know, even if this is familiar to like 90% of people who follow me -- but I feel they touched aptly on parts I haven’t even really done more than brush over.

queer-coding is quite sinister in a lot of ways (though can be employed subversively to great effect) but also very interesting! studies have shown that children who like or identify with queer-coded villains are more likely to be lgbt, even if they don't realise what's going on.

during the hays era it was mostly a way to show that a villain was bad (because gay = evil), but it could also be a way for closeted queer creators to sneak lgbt representation into their work, which is why so many queer-coded villains are so damn *likeable*.

what's also interesting is that lgbt creators would sometimes explicitly *straight-code* their villains - gaston from disney's beauty and the beast is a great example of this. highly recommend that you read up on the story of his creation!

all of which is to say: queer-coding has a meaning, it's not the same as queer-*baiting*, and it DEFINITELY isn't the same as "I'm gonna read this character as gay because I wanna imagine him as gay" - the name for that is fanon, and some trek fans

there are lots of academic works on the history of queer-coding if you want to spend an afternoon down a google scholar rabbit hole! just, you know. terms have meanings.

that's the thing. coding literally is intentional. what you're talking about is an alternate or resistant reading, or a world-context-centred critical approach.

you're right that it's got nothing to do with representation, but unlike semiotics, which is text-centred but may or may not rely on reading into intentional authorial choices, queer-coding refers specifically to an authorial choice. it's a defined term.

I didn't just take AP and honours english. I *taught* AP and honours english. for y e a r s.

--by @jaythenerdkid who I just accidentally found the tumblr of by preparing to make a twitter link but I checked and it’s the same person.

-------------

Okay so let’s pick through this a little bit before people start spinning this up in their heads.

TO START: QUEER CODING

I’ve seen people say “This character has villain attributes or dark attributes ergo he is queer coded.” That is absolutely not the way to apply this history, this works in reverse. As handled here, villains were either malignly codified to make queer characters evil and/or were then used as a slip-in of representation. A villain being a villain is not in fact itself an actual queer coding point. A dark history is not itself a queer coding point. Addiction stories are not themselves a queer coding point. In fact, trying to apply itself in this order is like BLAZINGLY homophobic and gross as hell and if you’re doing this, you should stop now. Yes, I’ve seen this.

I fucking promise you Gaston wasn’t consciously “queer coded” in being a villain, being a villain does not give him a Magic Gay Point.

Are we good on that point? Have we figured out the direction these Magic Gay Points fly in and don’t? Cool. If the author consciously added elements that will harmonize with a straight audience as queer to make them seem bad, that’s malignant queer coding; if an author consciously added elements that will harmonize with a queer audience to make them somehow familiar or likable, that is subversive queer coding.

An example of subversive queer coding: In the Legend of Korra, the creators had limitations on what the network would allow them to do. Later, they confirmed their intent was a WLW couple being portrayed at the end, but it hovers in the area of a hand hold that people can unfortunately choose to negotiate away into bestest friends despite all the other story flags for them along the way.

People have/can/will call queerbait about this. In this case, this is not queerbait. This is attempted representation to bypass restrictions and is not malign, but are authors doing their best to give their queer audience something, anything, in the case of it. Yes, it was post-air acknowledgment but it was what they were goddamn trying to give us gays out here. It’s not hiding their gays on the creator’s part -- it’s hiding their gays on the network’s part -- WHICH IS A STEP A LOT OF PEOPLE GET VERY CONFUSED ABOUT.

Hell, just because *one* show or property on a specific channel even allows X Amount Of Gay in it doesn’t even mean they’ll allow their other properties that amount of gay every time, and can and WILL step in and block creators. It happens even on premium networks like HBO or Starz. Because they have their ideas of what the demographic they dump a bunch of marketing money into is okay with, half-educated and half massive fiery balls of projection from whatever old white dude is reviewing the data. So no, never just bank on “well X network made the Gay Bar exactly This Tall To Ride here so all their other shows can be Exactly This Gay.” -- you do that, you’re gonna set yourself up for a FUCKTON of disappointment.

Hell, LGBT aren’t even treated equally to other LGBT. Bi men have like 1/3 the representation of bi women because media is held in a largely male gaze corporately and well, bi women are sexy to straight guys, give them some of that lesbian action. But oh, nono, don’t put the bi dudes near their network, no homo. If you drape a rainbow boa on this lamp post though we’ll let you have a gay guy run around that is there to make other characters uncomfortable as a stereotype, that’s fine. LITERALLY do *NOT* simply assume for *ANY REASON* that because one kind of LGBT person cleared on one show that others will too, there’s so many ways that drops through the floor.

That small aside about network bullshittery handled, let’s get back to the terms.

Negative queer coding I can think of with things like, I dunno. Jafar. Honestly very few LGBT people will actively associate with most of these attributes because a great wealth of them are attributes in the eyes of straight creators villainizing gay people, rather than gay people making gay people that just happen to be villains, and this distinction *DOES MATTER.* The long, snaky body -- the coy, venomous tone, embellished gestures; I mean sure, some people are like that, and that’s fine, you be you, but it’s a stereotype most try to shed rather than play into. It’s not the sum of who we are but put into the wrong creator’s hands, they *make* that the perceivable sum of who we are, + villainy.

But queer coding CAN be suggestively used to paint positive role models in situations they can’t necessarily be written as Overtly Gay, and the list of those reasons is unfortunately Very Long. But they are always things that are active choice, and your interpretation of what is Active Choice is not the same as Proven Active Choice.

For example: “The wallpaper was green and blue in this scene so Dean is thinking of Castiel even if he isn’t saying it.” Okay. We’re gonna go to Subtext and Interpretation later, but summarily: no. Hell, maybe it even is, but that’s a huge vault you actually have to exorbitantly prove and you can’t just say “but movie lighting theory” because I promise Dean = Green Cas = Blue isn’t general lighting theory.

An alternate example: “Bobo Berens, the first LGBT author on Supernatural, affirmed that Castiel was written in place of Colette, Cain’s wife, in Dean’s mirrored life; this is recurring symbolism and reflects often in Beren’s work, wherein his first episode showrunner Carver opted them to act as jilted lovers, and made a vast wash of content involving bold partnership ideals such as ‘at the altar’, ‘secret admirer’, and more that mysteriously hit the cutting room floor, but resonates very loudly through several directly connected seasons and all future work by Berens such as classic romantic partnership gifts and ideas [mixtape, heart connect, etc].”

This is simultaneously coding and subtext. We could frankly make 200 page dissertations about this chain of text -- and most of us already have -- that doesn’t require loudly extrapolating interpretation of external elements or single unrelated lines.

“But subtext is just QUEERBAIT. It’s JUST SUBTEXT, it’s NOT CANON.”

Okay honey let me stop you right there. This is like the most common bad hot take in this fucking fandom. Like every part of it is bad but everybody kind of strings it together into one big Ball of Bad.

Subtext is, summarily, a hidden body of text that is felt in the work. Beyond Who You Want To Be Gay, subtext is a lot of things. Subtext is the value of humanity above all powers and principalities, in Supernatural. And there’s all kinds of other subtext. Whenever you see someone blink and have black eyes in SPN without them saying “I’m a demon” and you know they’re a demon, that’s... kind of subtext too. I mean, we know textually demons have black eyes, but nothing ever said only demons have black eyes. So what if I wanted to say it’s the ghost of big bird? It’s MY INTERPRETATION and MY INTERPRETATION IS VALID TOO.

Shit you can even cobble together half assed unrelated extrapolations--some demons have yellow eyes and Jack had yellow eyes so he wasn’t a demon so clearly not all black eyes are demons and uh... the angel blade kills lots of things, that black eyed thing still wasn’t a demon.

See how easy it is to absolutely BULLSHIT around it with decontextualized BULLSHIT? It almost passes at a glance until held up to the smallest bit of scrutiny and following episodes.

Okay, so look, “It’s my interpretation, and my interpretation is valid” is only as far as it holds up soundly to *you.* As long as it is truly valid to *you.* And that doesn’t mean big brave faces you put on For The Twitter Stan Wars because you don’t want to lose digital clout when the newest episode falls through and blows your entire house of cards out of the water because you weren’t reading the actual subtext being hewn into the story by the authors -- or even forming a resilient resistant read of your own subtext that can hold -- but once that interpretation leaves your mouth to try to bounce off of other people’s viewpoints, you’re now indirectly challenging their viewpoint with theirs. If you stay in your cabal where you think the spirit of big bird has black eyes, and never subtweet or @ or whatever anybody else about this Hot Take, that’s fine, just don’t be surprised when you’re left defending that to whatever followers you pulled into the Big Bird Cabal.

Or you all sit in angry silence with each other and then start helicopter swinging at the writers for ruining The Spirit Of Big Bird that was never fucking there. Because you’re trying to apply patchy, unstable, and generally very piss poorly founded readings to a still released work.

So THAT lead in shoved off to the side about interpretation and keeping your interpretation to yourself if you don’t want to be challenged by far more solid interpretations, Because that’s how content discussion works,

SUBTEXT IS OFTEN A FORMULATIVE PART OF CANON, ESPECIALLY IF IT IS CODED, WHETHER WE ARE TALKING QUEER CODING OR ANY OTHER KIND OF CODING.

Subtext is a thematic undercurrent. Subtext is the unspoken soul of a piece, what lies in the blank space between the lines, but not just whatever you take the lines to be. If you sit down and write a lit paper, you’re gonna have to explain where you pulled your subtext out of.

You can either go the “Death of the Author” route where you summarily erase any commentary ever made and build your own, but you still need to be able to read the sum of the text and present what it all is. And most importantly you can’t just present what it’s not. If your entire reading of a work is trying to explain away common sense bullshit and it ends up reading like All Work No Play Makes Johnny Dull Boy because you had to build 82 nonlinear explanations around what you don’t want, and those all lead to nowhere, that professor is going to flunk the shit out of you. And if you use Death of an Author DEFINITELY don’t simultaneously try to appeal to authority with other quotes convenient to you.

Not Wanting something to Be So and going completely over the river and through the woods in completely disjointed intentionally maladapted readings of refusal doesn’t mean you’ve found subtext, it means you’ve chosen to make a reading -- an interpretation -- that is not really thematically sound with the body of work but for whatever reason, you’ve chosen to make that the meaning it has to *you.* And that’s fine. Unless you’re trying to impress a professor. Or jousting your opinion off of somebody else that isn’t doing cartwheels around the content to avoid the parts they don’t like (and get mad about it later.)

Removing all genuine thematic subtext and disregarding it from any part of the canon discussion of a piece is, however, devastating and essentially rips out the foundation of a piece. This has become all the more common as junk TV gets junkier and continues to appeal to the lowest common denominator that need to be reminded that 2+2=4 every three episodes before they accept that 2+2=4 in their respective canon universe, because otherwise they’ll claim it’s just subtext or someone else’s opinion that it equals 4.

And that’s not what these words mean and I am left eternally climbing up walls, because in this fandom, like... subtext, interpretation, coding, queerbait have all become one amorphous blob that just gets hurled around like four stuck together balls of Gak at a grade school party and just seeing where they splatter.

It is entirely possible for content to be subtextual and canon, if it is thematically resonant with the piece and a loud and fundamental part of its storytelling that it can not operate without acknowledging. Discussion of queer content aside, there’s a lot of shit this applies to. There’s a certain sense of good faith most authors put in their readers/viewers/whatever that people will have an fundamental understanding of the spirit of a work they’re conveying. This good faith amount varies depending on their projected demographic, but let me assure you, if your respective creator essentially has the characters stop and do “today I learned” narratives, or interruption explanation inserts over everything, there’s one of two reasons: 1. It’s a literal parody/comedy 2. It’s either geared for kids or they think you’re all fucking idiots.

As I don’t tend to watch parody, comedy, or kid shows, I tend to favor shows that don’t feel the need to handhold me through every instance of the show. Because I am not nor do I appreciate being treated like an idiot.

Subtext is a valuable part of canon as long as we are talking by virtue of “coding” not “random unfounded interpretation.”

Now, to the topic of queer coding, is it fundamentally gratifying to our primitive lizard brain survival instinct if we see characters kiss or whatever your personal landmark for gratification is? I mean, sure. Does the romance leading up to the kiss absolutely not matter at all until the kiss, or was that early state of subtext, dance, and non-consummation itself a valid romantic journey?

Because honestly this is something I feel current LGBT dialogue is missing. We’re so wounded from being caught in the subtext veil that we want confirmation, but everybody wants to skip the journey to the sweet stuff. I’m not saying every story needs to be a years long slow burn, but y’all. You know how we talk about het romance being boring as fuck because it’s like “dude/chick look at each other and they fuck and now they’re insufferable, hahahah is this what het culture is like is this what they call romance what kind of standards--”? Yeah, we’re rapidly snowplowing towards that.

I’m also not saying quick confirmation is bad either. There’s shows and stories where even pre-confirmed LGBT couples are GREAT to see, just existing in the population. Not every story needs to be THE grand romance, or THE great coming out adventure, some can have already had their adventures just like the Totally Het Neighbors Next Door and that’s... fine. That’s great, even.

But we are approaching Absolute Bottom Barrel Trash Content at terminal velocity, mostly just being exploited and monetized by corporations that are virtue signaling us to give at best sub-par turnout. The amount of currently airing shows with quality queer content can probably be counted on your two hands.QED there’s hundreds of shows, thousands depending on which networks you’re counting in your numbers. Off the top of my head, Legends of Tomorrow has a fabulously queer cast that Just Is without being defined only by having a partner nor being a rainbow lamp with a sticky note of plot directions.

But we are also signaling creators that it’s no longer safe *to* give us gradual, slow burns, or genuine romance either. And we’re ALSO signaling creators -- INCLUDING QUEER CREATORS -- that it is no longer safe to make subtextual or coded content.

“Well good!” you probably say.

NO, THIS IS BAD, THIS IS REALLY, REALLY BAD.

Because while you may live in a fantasy universe where X Network had Y show exactly This Gay To Ride, it’s in blatant disregard of inconsistent landmarks and limbo sticks different shows, creators, and products have to go through, and some people in some shows are trying REALLY REALLY HARD to give you resonant queer content and you’re just shitting all over them and yelling that it’s queerbait.

I mean, queerbait is the idea that someone is giving queer content without intent to follow through and generally to exploit a queer audience. The problem is, all queerbait accusations are launched in default bad faith. Some of that bad faith is earned. Some of it is not. Sometimes there’s a lesbian with a network executive breathing down her neck that just wants to let her girls be together so she has them hold hands, even if she knows The Straights will talk it away as best friends, no matter how many canonically romantic storylines they’ve wedged into the subtext through loudly recognizable tropes.

Queerbait is a VERY DANGEROUS CARD and MUST BE USED WITH EXTREME CAUTION. Because depending on the longevity of what you’re crowing about, without understanding of what’s going on beyond the production veil, you can very easily even get creatives and creators hard shut down on a network level for wanting to protect the product. I’m sure you think “make it gay!” is the one answer to that, but no, it isn’t always, not depending on what the old white guy network exec I mentioned a while ago has in his papers about what or who he interprets pulls his income and what they like via demographics or inconsistent marketing test groups.

That’s not to say never call out queerbait, but the internet desperately needs to be more conscious about when and where they fling it around. What if Korra fans started horrifically screeching about queerbait and blasting it all over the internet and @’ing production or even network people and making devoted articles to make it a shitshow that even hit GA impact zones? Do you really think Nickelodeon would look at their demographic paperwork and throw it in the air and go “Oh! Well we make it gay then.”

Or do you think they’d have left a hard feedback note to further divide those characters with a strong warning about limits and restrictions.

We are slowly moving out of the area of things like queer coded villains and have more migrated into an area of subversive queer coding, but a great deal of subversive queer coding has people lose their SHIT because Some Idiot On The Internet With A Shitty Take And Quarter Assed Interpretation told them “it’s just subtext so it’s not valid until they kiss”, setting out this roving goalpost everybody keeps running after like a goddamn donkey chasing a carrot on a stick, and in some cases completely unable to be reached, despite the LITERAL BEST INTENTION of the authors.

I’ve heard “well if they can’t Bring It All The Way, they shouldn’t at all.” What the FUCK? What kind of UNBEARABLY STRAIGHT WASHED WORLD do you want to live in? What kind of world do you think we’re living in right now? I regret to inform you, Trump got elected to office somehow and reversed a lot of LGBT protections somehow and it’s not just “because Russia,” it’s because there’s still a SHITTON of assholes out there that make corporations that bankroll TV SHITTONS of money and whether we like it or not, TV is a BUSINESS and we’re all DOLLAR SIGNS.

Stripping subversive queer coding, especially from the hands of queer authors, sets us back into a weird offset of primitive ages and extremized content, where the latter becomes poorly packaged lesbians dropped as a marketing plan to upsell Trendy New Teen Show without daring to rattle the middle aged demographic of a split political demographic in another show. No. Absolutely fucking not. Use some responsibility and apply some critical thinking before yelling queerbait and figure out where a problem is in any given situation, that’s all I fucking ask.

Hell for all you know those queer creators could be pitching it again and again behind the scenes, or baited on that side with maybes, or being stalled out by being told to wait for test marketing groups, and generally tugged around on their own leash where corporate is summarily watching the feedback to the blatant but subtextual and coded queer content.

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Now, ALL OF THIS becomes a fucking mess in discussion when people don’t box off these definitions and issues.

If people don’t realize the value of subtext to canon,

And people don’t understand the difference between coding and interpretation,

And people confuse queerbait with any of this,

You end up with some giant VAT of literally EVERYBODY sounding like dipshits because Anti A told Shipper B who loves queer author C and relationship D that It’s Just Subtext, and then Shipper B turns around and yells ITS NOT CANON YOU’RE IDIOTS FOR LOVING IT in their pained bitterness, but then Anti A brings Anti B back and they decide they optically prefer relationship Z that has no actual coding or subtext, but they’ve strapped together their own interpretation, but they confuse interpretation and subtext, and break out all interpretations are equal even if they are not in the body of the actual canon work, but now everybody is yelling it’s not canon because nobody even fucking knows what any of these words mean anymore, and then Shippers A-Z turn around and start yelling queerbait at a gay author just trying to write his little gay heart out-- you see the problem, right?

On the other hand, there’s fandoms where people confuse these same points and think their uncorroborated interpretation is subtext simply because they chose to interpret it that way, and with enough voices drawn into it in the vat of “all interpretations are equal”, turn around and yell queerbait at authors who are scratching their heads going “the fuck are you on about”

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Other bad takes: The opinions of actors really don’t fucking matter. I don’t care if they’re pro-relationship or anti-relationship or just pro/anti any idea other than a relationship. This is like taking the opinion of some dude who played Hamlet an eternity ago for Shakespeare while Shakespeare was still alive and writing about what Shakespeare’s writing meant. His opinion may be meaningful to him, but it is his own interpretation. If Shakespeare wrote Hamlet The Sequel the actor could turn out entirely wrong about what he was babbling about.

Actors are just interpreting the art to screen like you are. Acting is an interpretive art. They’re just. Interpreting. Just like you. So stop whipping out statements of actors against each other. You might as well be quoting jared-uwu-cest.tumblr dot com as an authority for your bad fucking take. Stop it. If actors on the same set have conflicting opinions and are just talking about their opinion, their opinion doesn’t mean shit more than any other fan of the source content, unless they are hand delivering statements, cited, from specific authors they’ve communicated with about the work they’re interpreting from (coming to mind, the time Jensen Ackles went to showrunner Jeremy Carver confused about the romance with Amara feeling right, only to tell us that Jeremy Carver told us that Amara wasn’t his romance, she was his kryptonite).

Now if you’re choosing death of the author NONE of this is relevant, obviously, because you shouldn’t be citing ANY of this, because then you’re just playing to discussion points for convenience. But if you are looking for actual intent, the actor’s interpretation is only as valid as any other dedicated interpretation, albeit possibly more or less sounded in awareness of the text, but is otherwise only as valuable for how direct of a voice box they are being for what authors said about specific scenes. Hell, most things are filmed out of order and many actors don’t watch the whole piece. It already consumes their work life, it won’t consume their home life, no matter how much they love it, they haven’t reviewed the full body of the piece externally as a finished product, just processed emotions out of sequence.

THERE WAS A NEW AVENGER THAT DIDNT EVEN REALIZE HE WAS ACTING A NEW AVENGER UNTIL HE TOOK HIS KIDS TO THE MOVIES AND WAS LIKE “OH SHIT I’M AN AVENGER.” Stop BANKING on actor statements.

This also gets more complicated in group writing projects such as TV shows with multiple authors. And MORE complicated explaining that complication to fandom when they get positive statements from the creator of a show who is the *only* author and then turn around and yell “WHY DIDN’T [OTHER FANDOM]” do that when like, IDK, 6/40 authors have over the course of however long it’s been written on, most have been radio silent and one other had a different opinion and then you just expect some group borg rising of everybody who’s ever written on the show to come and hand deliver you individual hand-fed statements about what they meant.

This entire thing also foregoes the import of directors and how they work with their set dressers as part of the creative process; they’re what manifest the text into a visual medium of the story, which may or may not be identical to the author’s intent. Again, to hearken back to Supernatural as my root fandom here, it’s been mentioned Sgriccia knew how to work with everyone and get what they were meaning to convey with how long he worked on set, so generally, authors and Sgriccia cooperated really well in a full art. Whereas that nightmare of an episode Don’t Go In The Woods was directed by a VFX guy as his first directing experience and we could see he barely knew how to work with actors much less the spirit of the text; he just had great understanding of environment.

These things, these opinions, these takes also matter. Because TV is a different form. I generally don’t see people arguing Pride & Prejudice on twitter, it’s usually TV/movies. Lit theory is incredibly valid for understanding the pace and flow of a body of work but you also have to understand what authors are deeply plugged into that, what directors are deeply plugged in, who’s an experimental folly they’ll patch up the work of afterward, it’s not the same as just reading a novel by one author or, at most, a few co authors in immediate harmony.

Like I don’t know if people think I did my Crazy Pagan Magic to come up with the season 14 ending like I had a pages-long rant reel of direct quotes and shots that literally predicted that Jack was going to lose his soul, become faux-god, and Dean was going to be given an ultimatum of shooting him, probably after killing Mary, because getting the yellow eyed thing was the point right--but that the true scarlet letterman wasn’t their lost child, but the absent father. The Great Father who left all questions--the god of control. But dad told you to put a bullet in me, and you didn’t.

Like, anyone remember me spouting literally all of these things across different posts? It’s not magic. So while Christians in fandom are turning themselves into pretzels making shitbrained theories trying to explain why it Wasn’t Really Chuck Or Chuck Isn’t Really God, I’ve got a few hundred pages of thesises here talking about this being exactly where they were going because of SUBTEXT. Because it’s PART OF THE CANON AND BUILDING THE FUNDAMENTAL STORY.

If it comes to a textual head like Chuck, great. But people have to recognize whatever landmark they set for what they consider a textual head is entirely subject to the creators or, worse, a network. The same way in season 11 they got told they couldn’t kill God, here we go on take 2, maybe the network changed it’s mind, we’ll find out.

These things all interplay VERY IMPORTANTLY with each other and also, this issue goes WELL BEYOND Supernatural fandom. At some point in history a bunch of people in multiple fandoms started slinging these words around without understanding them and bounced them off of more people that don’t understand them and it turns into a goddamn hot mess because nobody’s using words like they mean anymore, just vaguely beating each over the head with it, and it’s driving me i n s a n e. Hell, y’all are undermining YOURSELVES half the time by the way people have taught you to misuse words.

ALSO WRT “CANON”

Most of the above covers what canon is within the way it’s abused in fandom, but I’ve seen some people take the idea of it being accepted into a body of work by the authors as meaning like, every reading of the material needs to be acknowledged by the authors. I already detailed what it means. It’s absolutely not that. 100%. I don’t give a shit how you choose to interpret that. Because there is literally no way on planet earth an author has made a full statement confirming every detail about every part of their book and that goalpost doesn’t just magically manifest when we’re talking about, say, gay shit. Or powers you don’t like. If it’s thematically there, it’s thematically there, you can’t hackjob it out of canon just because This Specific Idea doesn’t have a Canon For Dummies statement attached to it, or worse, one attached to it specifically to your liking, since people like interpreting away ones based on their preferences rather than reason.

Similarly it doesn’t mean there’s a magic goalpost of a vagueblogged percentage of people that must accept the content for it to be canon. Hell, like half the fandom still tricked themselves into thinking there was a reaper retcon in season 9 (x) that NEVER FUCKING EXISTED IN ANY DAMN CAPACITY. Large groups of people choosing to miss the point doesn’t mean the canon didn’t hold the point, simply that they chose to draw another point out of it. Generally, in a still releasing work, that also leaves them disappointed and confused later (such as when someone claimed they retconned the nonexistent reaper retcon, because I heard you like retcons.)

There is no magic percent, no magic statement. These things are nice, but they aren’t what makes canon. Canon is the actual accepted body of work such as seasons, episodes, books, movies, or whatever else as part of the universe. (Eg: Supernatural’s novels are officially noncanonical and not part of discussion of canon content. They are not accepted into canon. That’s what this means.)

Also if you’re talking about canon quantify it. You can be as tired as you want about bad rep, but bad rep quality has nothing to do with the canon source content. You can be as tired about lowkey gayness as you want but are you saying the canon material isn’t romantic at all, or are you saying the characters aren’t consummated yet. If the canon material isn’t canonically romantic why are you yelling queerbait; or acknowledge the value of queer unconsummated canon romances even if you aspire for more, but don’t bounce that goalpost around for convenience, fuck sake.

DID U KNOW that things can be CANONICALLY ROMANTIC without being CANONICALLY CONSUMMATED? Or that even a queer author’s idea of what reads as consummated canon may not be the same as yours? Did you know that a MLM LGBT author in his 40s may have very different ideas of how to express an MLM romance than a bunch of WLW LGBT women of any age, because there’s intersectionality at play? If you don’t want bi men determining how lesbians should be represented we need to apply that all around, kids.

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So sure, your interpretation can be valid, for you. But once you joust others, or pin your interpretation on the show without careful exploration of the actual intentful themes, you’re gonna probably be disappointed as it releases and uproots your ideas. Now the question is if you are willing to hold mature intelligent discourse about other people’s potential interpretations and readings, or if you’re going to grapple onto your old, broken interpretation like Gollum with the Ring because it’s your precious and you’ll let it send you crawling into a moldy cave hissing at anyone happily walking by.

Is Your Interpretation worth your anger when it falls through Do you even WANT to like the show? Do you literally prefer staying angry over reviewing your take compared to people who are still happy with it? Why AREN’T you willing to figure out where you went left of canon?

And furthermore, is your anger and broken interpretation/expectations worth holding onto a damn ring/show that clearly isn’t what you thought it was, or can you toss your fiery stan rage into Mordor before you turn into a twitter goblin and find a place you can interpret differently that makes you happy?

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Lesson: Stop being fandom goblins

Also @tinkdw

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aromoji · 4 years

Text

So I’m finally getting around to do that aspec Q & A that @ace-and-aro-wlw-positivity posted, and I have quite a few aspec ocs so this could get rather lengthy but here we go

1. What was your inspiration for your character(s)? Are they modeled on yourself, a person that you know, or a character that’s already been established?

My first aspec oc, Abby Scott, was based on myself when I thought I was a biromantic ace girl. So she takes a lot after me.

Theo Yamada, on the other hand, was a completely new character. I don’t exactly remember why I made him alloarospec, and I’ve been flipping from one arospec identity to the other, but no matter what he always remained alloaro.

Mina Nicholson was my first character that I had predetermined to be alloaro from the start. She’s based on an old tumblr post about some super hero series idea called “Aces and Arrows.” I obviously didn’t make Mina into some superhero, but her guitar skills make her come pretty close :D.

Brittany Olajobi is also based on an old tumblr post. Remember the “All or Nothing” idea thing that was floating around here?(Yes, I’m aware it turned into a scam, but I thought the premise was cute). Since no one actually made anything out of that I decided to make the characters my own. The asexual and pansexual girls were roomates....but also girlfriends. That idea kinda evolved into one of my newer series called “Play the Rainbow”, but that’s gonna take a while to explain.

Queenie Brooks...is based on a crude caricature someone made of an ace person (the “artist” has probably never talked to an ace person outside of tumblr but whatever), so I took that character and fleshed her out. She’s an aroace trans girl who’s evry big in activist circles, especialy the sex worker industry

2. How much, if any, has your character(s) changed since they were first created? What caused this change?

Abby and Brittany haven’t changed much besides in their appearance, Queenie and Mina underwent drastic appearance changes since they were created, and Theo’s kinda been going back and forth on the aromantic spectrum, from strictly aro to demiromantic to aroflux. I’ve finally settled one greyromantic, which coinicdentially is what I identify as.

4. Do you intend on publishing your story one day? Why, or why not?

Probably not. I’m closeted in real life and likely to stay that way as long as I’m financially dependent on my parents.

7. Time to get serious for a bit. There’s been heavy debate on having non-human characters identify as ace, aro, non-binary, etc., but never actual humans. As someone who’s aspec, how would you explain to someone who’s allo why this can be and is seen as hurtful?

Ace and Aro people have been seen as inhuman and robotic for not feeling attraction, especially not in the same way that people who aren’t aro or ace do. Please reconsider making that animal/robot/alien oc aspec unless all or most of your characters aren’t human as well.

8. It’s a sad reality that many stories in mainstream media don’t have characters that are aspec, not to mention without resorting to harmful stereotypes. Besides there being nothing wrong with IDing as aspec, why did you choose to have your character ID as such? What would you tell other authors who’re interested in writing characters that are aspec, but are afraid of offending the community?

I make my characters aspec because. I’m aspec. Also there aren’t a lot of aspec representation (the little we get lol) that isn’t white or cis or yes, heteromantic./heterosexual. Considering the fact that I’m none of those things, all of my aspec ocs are poc like me, some even trans as well. To authours who want to write aspec characters but don’t want to offend the community, PLEASE ask around. Ask more than one person of that specific demographic. Their opinion should not be the only one that shapes yours! Also, if you’re writing an alloaro character, don’t ask someone who’s alloace or aroace. Similarly, don’t ask an alloaro person about writing alloace/aroace characters. Aspec people are not a monolith, our experiences are not the same

9. If you’re comfortable with sharing, what is your characters’ identity? Do they use any microlabels? Does theirs reflect your own?

Abby is a biromantic ace, Theo is a greyromantic bisexual, Mina is an alloaro bisexual, Brit is an ace lesbian, and Queenie is an oriented aroace trans woman.

11. Why do you think that not just representation is important, but GOOD representation? Can you offer any examples?

Fiction affects reality. Therefore, how people see us in the media affects how they see us in real life.

14. What’s a brief biography of your character? Is their history, personality, and/or looks similar to your own?

Uh I don’t necessarily have biographies for them but I have an oc carrd with their details

15. What are the themes of your story? Is it a lighthearted adventure, or are we talking deep, ocean-sized levels of angst? Why, or why not, did you choose them?

It’s a mix of light hearted fun and lots of angst. But everyone (who deserves it) gets a happy ending so it’s all good.

16. How long have you been writing? Has your style changed from when you first began to now? What are some tips you’d give to those who’re interested in writing a story of their own, be it professionally or as a hobby?

I’ve been writing since I was 8. I once won an honorable mention in a writing competition in the third grade believe it or not lol. My writing has definetely changed a lot, and that’s partially thanks to my English teachers I had along the way. My advice to people interested in writing a story on their own is to invest in a laptop/notebook and find time to write. Any time at all.

17. What’s your process for writing? Do you plan your story out first, write whatever you want then edit later, or both? How might this help others?

Planning? Ha! I write as I go. Sometimes I go back and edit entire scenes before publishing tho.

18. Your book’s become quite popular, easily reaching the New York Times Bookseller list, and now, you’ve been picked to lead a writing workshop. It goes swimmingly, and afterward, someone comes and tells you that your book not only inspired them to write a story of their own, but also helped them discover and accept their identity. What’s your reaction?

I’m...not good with compliments.

20. Just for fun, write down a paragraph of your most recent writing. It can be an action-packed scene, some witty dialogue, or a colorful description that you really enjoyed. (Be sure to properly tag any possible triggers!)

Here’s what I’ve started working on:

Theo smooths out the wrinkles on his blue uniform, giving himself a once over in the mirror. All his belongings of 5 long years were packed and ready to board on the ship the higher-ups would issue to him He turns and takes down one last poster and rolls it up, placing it in his duffel bag. Perfect. Now all he had to do was go through the graduation ceremony and he’d get his first assignment. His hard work being at the top of his class was finally going to pay off.

“Heyyyy, my older twin’s looking sharp tonight!” Trent exclaims, leaning in the doorway with his own uniform in red. He whirls into the room, flopping on the now barren bed. “Ahh, this bed has so many memories. Come on, sit with me!”

“Trent, the ceremony’s so soon.”

“Theooooo,” he pouts. “This may be the last time we see this room, because we’ll be in space!”

He wiggles his fingers in Theo’s face for dramatic effect. The older twin chuckles, taking a seat on the bed.

“Let’s see,” Theo muses, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “I remember when we first got here. We were 10 years old, tiny, adorable and innocent little creatures. You were so terrified because they had put us in separate rooms.”

“I was not!” Trent argues. “It was just…a bit of a shock considering I always slept with someone else in my room instead of…all by myself.’

“Whatever. You crept into my room in the middle of the night, poked me awake and gave me the whole puppy-dog-eyes-and-quivering-bottom-lip routine to get me to beg me to let you sleep in my bed that night.”

“And you pretty much told me to go play in traffic,” he laughs. “And I still got in your bed anyway and slept there the whole night!”

“And you kept doing it until you turned 12!” Theo finishes with a playful shove.

#✨.txt #text #aro awareness week #aro #acetag #long post #arospec awareness week

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skylights422 · 4 years

Text

@ace-and-aro-wlw-positivity created a Q&A for aspec authors/writers, and as an aspec author, I am excited to participate and answer as many of their questions as I can. Under a cut since it became really outrageously long.

1. What was your inspiration for your character(s)? Are they modeled on yourself, a person that you know, or a character that’s already been established?

Typically I’d say my characters are a mix of general inspiration from other stories/characters and then bits and pieces taken from myself. I try not to make any of them like a clone of myself or another character, try to mix it up, possibly with mixed success but that is the goal.

2. How much, if any, has your character(s) changed since they were first created? What caused this change?

Oh wow, okay I have characters I still use from grade school and middle school, and those characters have changed/grown a lot. Most notoriously (to me) though are my two fellas Euphranor and Kadri. I created them while daydreaming in middle school while watching those science videos in class about how I could make a more parody-like version of said videos, Kadri being the energetic and comically sadistic teacher and Euphranor being the constantly irritated and foul-tempered student. The core of their designs and personalities haven’t totally changed (Euph is still a hot-head and Kadri still likes to troll him), but they’ve become far more nuanced as characters as their story become more involved and serious. They’ve also become softer characters, with Euph having a Heart of Gold and Kadri being a bit morally grey but generally compassionate and friendly. I think the cause of this change and others comes from a mix of things, for one I simply got older and what I wanted out my characters changed a bit. But also I think it’s because I spent so much time with those characters in my head that I couldn’t help but develop them more fully, which in turn made me want to give them a good story. Also, everyone is definitely more queer now then how they started, largely because I became more aware and comfortable with my own queer identity and spent more time in queer spaces (though with Euph I actually just realized he had to be gay because I every het relationship I envisioned for him fell totally flat and yet imagining him as having crushes on guys just seemed to work better/make more sense, and that was an earlier decision).

4. Do you intend on publishing your story one day? Why, or why not?

I definitely do! I have many, many stories I want to publish, as books or comics or tv shows or films. I’ve always wanted to publish some of writing since it’s one of my main passions and have always taken inspiration from the stories I consumed. I just love writing and would want to be able to do it as my main career, the key will just be figuring out how to focus on one project long enough to finish it. xD

5. Surprise fact! Give a random fact about your character(s), whether it’s their favorite color, food, or even song!

Euphranor loves to sing! He hums to calm himself down and even full on sings to vent his feelings sometimes. Kadri loves literature and video games, and blackberry pie is his favorite food.

6. Admit it, you have a folder on your computer of the various types of picrews you’ve created for your character(s). Would you mind posting a few (or five)?

*VIBRATES* MY TIME HAS COME. I absolutely have way too many picrews of my fellas so I won’t post them all, just two each for the core four of my main novel project. First, Euphranor:

(yes he is a Hufflepuff)

Kadri:

(also since I dragged the Hogwarts houses into this Kadri is Ravenclaw)

Ena:

(I put her in Gryffindor)

And finally, Fiera:

(Right now I have her in Slytherin. She could also be in Ravenclaw though)

I mean, as a sci-fi fan I definitely love if the non-human characters are queer coded, but it’s definitely important to include human representation as well, and I think there are a few simple reasons for that. One is that queer people are, in fact, humans, and therefore our stories deserve to be told as they are in reality as well as how they could be in fiction. The other is only writing us as inhuman implies you consider our identities as fictitious or too strange for a human to have, and queer people already have to deal with other forms of erasure and invalidation in real life. (Also, not everyone is a fan of sci-fi/fantasy, and they should still be able to read stories where they can see themselves)

I have a huge list of aspec characters, which definitely started happening more once I was aware of my own asexuality (and later, aromanticism), since I realized that I could make my own aro and ace characters and then just went wild with it lol. It’s also easier for me to write since I can actually draw from personal experience somewhat for it. Beyond representation having aro and ace characters also allows you to explore more facets of human emotions/the human experience, so that’s always fun.

As for how I would advise allies looking to write a-spec characters, my main advice would be to remember that we are an incredibly diverse group of people, and so while no one a-spec character will resonate with every a-spec reader, an a-spec character written in good faith will definitely speak to some of us. Write them as an character first, and when it comes to things like how their attraction does or doesn’t work and what they want out of relationships, figure out what works best for them. Really, if you’re concerned your character would be offensive in some way you can always make a post asking about it, many of us are happy to offer constructive advice and appreciate that someone is wanting to put in the effort to write about our experiences. Reading or listening to anecdotes from an array of a-spec people is also a good way of getting ideas of how to portray us, and there are various resources for that (the tags, AUREA collects anecdotes from arospec individuals, and probably more than I can think of offhand)

9. If you’re comfortable with sharing, what is your characters’ identity? Do they use any microlabels? Does theirs reflect your own?

Unsurprisingly I have many characters who are aroace (Fiera is one of them), and Ena is bisexual and gray-aromantic. Kadri was originally supposed to just be bi/pan but has become increasingly aspec, will they end up gray-aro as well as grey-ace? Will they end up as a pan oriented aroace? I don’t know yet, but they sure are a pan a-spec. My most recent project has exclusively aro-spec protagonists, Valentine is aroace, Cedar is demiromantic, Raelene is cupioromantic, and then Clematis and Hadyn are presently just Aro and might stay that way. My aroace characters are often styled after my own aroace experiences, while other a-spec characters aren’t as much.

11. Why do you think that not just representation is important, but GOOD representation? Can you offer any examples?

Well, I think there are a few ways to make ‘good rep’. There is the ‘this character helps bring awareness/educate about the community’ and then there’s ‘this character just resonates with certain a-spec people a lot’, and the main reason I think it’s important is because rep should be for the people they’re representing. So if rep hurts the community or totally fails to be relatable to anyone who’s actually a-spec, then it missed the whole point and is doing just as much to leave the community feeling left in the dust as no rep. Of course things do get complicated when the community is divided on whether the rep is good or not, which I imagine will be a common occurrence, and many examples of rep probably fall into the grey area between Good and Bad, but generally people should aim to tell stories that will help more than hinder the people you are telling your story about. (Although I also think that the long term end goal is to get to the point where there is enough representation that it doesn’t matter if some of it is ‘bad’ or not, since I feel like that is the true state of normalization, but that is sadly not yet the case)

12. What’s the genre of your most recent story? Do you always write in this genre? If so, what other works do you have? If not, why did you pick it?

My most recent story (with Valentine) is fantasy, inspired by shoujo style anime series like Cardcaptor Sakura, while Euph’s story is more dystopian urban fantasy? His exact genre has shifted around a lot and will probably continue to do so. In general, most of my works are fantasy in some way or another. A few are more sci-fi or horror based, but definitely the majority are fantasy whether that be magical girl type stories, urban fantasy, superheroes, or dark fantasy.

14. What’s a brief biography of your character? Is their history, personality, and/or looks similar to your own?

I’m going to go with Fiera here. The short version of her backstory is that she and her older brother were born to neglectful parents, and while their grandmother was attentive emotionally she also lived far away. Her brother discovered magic, long thought forgotten, but killed himself shortly after, leaving Fiera alone and confused. She then made a point to dedicate herself to studying the theory and history of magic in the hope that she may someday understand why her brother would take his own life so suddenly like that. She has a down to earth personality and is very observant, and has a great deal of ambition and focus for tasks. She naturally has a more lighthearted and curious personality, but has become more somber since the death of her brother. While she always struggled with sustaining personal relationships, it’s only recently she started using her power of observation to be more manipulative and always keep a cool, pleasant demeanor. She has a love for fashion and sewing, as well as an interest in chemistry.

She isn’t really based on me at all backstory or appearance wise, and only slightly takes after me personality wise. Our main similarity is that we both can be quietly observant and don’t tend to get outwardly angry very often, and that we are both aroace. But I am nowhere near as focused as her, am terrible at lies/manipulation, and have different interests. I’m also way more prone to energetic rants and blunt statements than she is.

15. What are the themes of your story? Is it a lighthearted adventure, or are we talking deep, ocean-sized levels of angst? Why, or why not, did you choose them?

The tone of Euph’s story is kind of all over the place due to how often I’ve tweaked it, but there are certainly oceans of angst for all the protagonists. There’s just also decided remnants of the wacky humor from when the story was predominantly a comedy, and a lot more scenes of the characters just relaxing or goofing off than might be typical in a high tension drama adventure. My story with Valentine is generally much more lighthearted, though there will be some deeper moments for character development (and also because I want it to have a slightly gothic vibe, just Because)

I’ve been writing in some capacity just about as long as I can remember, and so my style has definitely taken various shifts depending on how old I was and what I was taking as my main inspiration at the time. Sometimes I went for more sarcastic and whimsical narration regardless of the events happening of the story, sometimes I went for a more quick modern-ish style, sometimes I would focus more or less on descriptions or dialogue. I don’t really know where I’m at right now though.

What I would advise to anyone wanting to sit down and write is to be patient and kind with yourself. Nine times out of ten what sounds epic in your head will come out at first as clunky and all over the place. But that is pretty much the whole purpose of first drafts; the clunky first draft crawls so the second draft may walk so the third draft may walk a little faster so the final draft may run. The other thing I would advise is to absolutely experiment, and see what works best for you. There is every kind of writing advice out there imaginable, much of it contradictory, so really you just have to mess around with styles and perspective and dialogue and see what happens, which stuff you liked and which stuff you didn’t.

17. What’s your process for writing? Do you plan your story out first, write whatever you want then edit later, or both? How might this help others?

My writing process is pretty much a mishmash of writing whatever comes to me, then planning, then writing, then using a bunch of character building exercises to have fun but make no progress in the plot, then neglect the project for months, then write some more or maybe plan. I don’t know how much this would help others, though I have found when I set goals with deadlines and some external pressure (nanowrimo, reward system implanted by friends, etc) I am far more productive, so perhaps that is something others could try if they struggle with staying on track?

Mostly I would just be flabbergasted, but also extremely pleased and honored to have been able to provide any kind of help or assistance to my readers.And I would feel very happy for the person, since that sort of inspiration is great to come by.

19. Are there any published stories out there that feature aspec characters that you also read? Do you have any suggestions?

Unfortunately not that I can think of! I am peripherally aware of some ace characters, but they aren’t in stories I personally consume. I hope to find more though!

Well, my most recent finished work would be the clunky first draft of my novel. So, here’s a silly conversation that entertained me to write:

Once they had bought the food, they went back to the park to eat.

“You know, Fiera, I have come to a realization.” Kadri said.

“Oh? What’s that?” Fiera asked.

“Store snacks are not as filling as restaurant food, nor as refined, but they are decidedly addictive.” he said, munching on Twizzlers.

“Yep. That’s what makes them store snacks. Plus, I couldn’t get any really nice stuff. I’m not made of money.” Fiera explained.

“Which brings me to my next question, how exactly are you financing our meals? You don’t seem to work a job of any kind.” Kadri said. Fiera was almost surprised that he knew about jobs, but decided not to ask about it.

“You’re right, I don’t. But my parents leave me about sixty bucks a week so that they can do what they want without me starving to death in their absence. After yesterday and just now, I’m down to like eight bucks, and the next payment comes in three days, so after this stash goes it's dollar store snacks only.” Fiera explained.

“I see. Fascinating. And these drinks you bought us, why are they vitamin drinks?” Kadri said,looking over a vitamin water curiously.

“Because we definitely aren’t going to get any vitamins from chips and candy.” Fiera said simply.

“There is logic to that, I suppose.” he said. There was silence for a few moments.

“Um… Kadri?” Fiera said after a while.

“Yes, Fiera?” Kadri said.

“You know you can’t eat a whole bag of Twizzlers in one go, right?” Fiera said.

“I don’t see why not. If it is not going to give me the nutrients I need, it may as well provide me with the maximum level of pleasure it is capable of.” Kadri said.

“Yeah, but you’ll get sick. And we have limited supplies.” Fiera countered. Kadri looked at the bag of Twizzlers in alarm.

“These are poisonous in large doses!?” he exclaimed.

“What? No, not poisonous, they just make you sick because they’re candy. All candy does that if you keep eating it.” Fiera said.

“Commoners lead dangerous lives, it would seem. I shall never forget this betrayal.” He said to the bag of Twizzlers, putting it down and taking the vitamin water instead.

#Arospec Awareness Week #aromantic #writing #non-fandom #asaw2020

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