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nona-gay-simus-main · 4 years

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Top 10 Worst LGBTQ+ Tropes

It’s pride month so I’m talking about my least favorite LGBTQ+ tropes in media.

Disclaimer 1: Once again: my post my opinion. If you feel differently, do you. But I will assume you’re probably an asshole.

Disclaimer 2: In this post, I use the word Queer Interchangeably with LGBTQ+. If you’re uncomfortable with that, feel free to move along. If you tag my post with ‘q slur’, I will block you.

1. Bi/ Pan Character That ‘Doesn’t Use Labels.’

Why is it that gay/lesbian/straight people often just get to say what they are, but when it comes to bi/pan characters it becomes some type of extreme wordplay. “Ex lesbian”, “lower on the Kinsey scale”, “oh, I just like people, not gender.” (Yes, those are all real examples.)

Of course, there are people who don’t use specific labels, and of course, you can include that in your writing, but there seems to be a big disparity between multi-gender attracted characters who don’t use labels and everyone else, who weirdly enough, usually gets a specific label.

Just... say the word, pal. Bisexual. Pansexual. It’s not that hard. It’s not offensive. And I’ve never met any bi/pan person who thought that erasure was all the jazz.

2. Coming Out Stories

I’m not saying that’s there’s no value in coming stories, especially ones that are in tune with the changing times, and especially coming out stories of anyone who isn’t a cis WASPy gay man (or occasionally a cis WASPy lesbian), but also, can we please get... something else.

Like, literally anything else. Queer romcoms, lesbian mafia, bisexual vampires, gay pirates, asexual/aromantic monster-fighters, trans superheroes, nonbinary thrillers. Anything where we are allowed to just exist past our coming out and the focus isn’t how hard it is to be LGBTQ+.

It just seems like for the longest time Coming Out stories (about cis white gay people) were pretty much the only media we can exist in, and while that’s slowly starting to change in recent years, we are nowhere close to where we could be.

3. Bury Your Gays

If you have twenty characters and ten of them are queer; and if straight characters also die, then sure. I’ll let you kill a couple gays.

But if you only have one or two queers (that also happen to be a couple) and you kill them (or you kill one half of the couple), we’re gonna have a problem.

Especially if the queer character ends up sacrificing their life to save the Straights. Just represent us in media, where we don’t die or suffer, how hard is that?

4. “Blink and You’ll Miss it” Representation

Oh, so you’re a major franchise, or maybe you’re writing a popular long-running book series and you have FINALLY added a queer character to your gigantic cast?

That’s cool. I mean it sucks it took you this long, but we all have to make progress eventually. So are they a main character? How much does their sexual orientation or gender identity affect their experiences? Who’s their love interest?

Or did you just mean they only show up for one scene and have a single line that confirms their identity, and then they disappear into the nether?

Yeah, fuck you. That’s not representation. That’s you jerking yourself off for brownie points. Well, I’m not giving them to you.

5. Lesbians With Men

Sure, outlier cases exist, but... why do we gotta keep making stories about them?

If this is your lived experience and you want to explore it in a fictional medium, absolutely, by all means. But most of the time this story is made not by queer women, but... pretty much anyone else and it’s just. Exhausting.

There’s a reason it’s called a “lesbian.” And if she falls in love with a man, at the very least have the decency to make it clear that she’s exploring her sexuality, and it’s cut and dry case of “turning a lesbian.” Or better yet, don’t write it at all.

6. The Trans “Twist”

Can we stop fetishizing and discriminating against (binary) trans people in this way? Trans people are just people. There’s nothing scandalous about someone being trans, and nobody is trying to trick anyone into anything.

Stop treating being trans as this huge, insurmountable thing. Especially if your story is set in the last ten years or in an SFF context, and just portray trans folks like normal people. Please.

7. The Token Queer

There’s this group of cis allo straight friends and the one gay guy, who is also usually white, cis, middle class, etc. You know - for diversity.

Sure, maybe if they were childhood friends, or a superhero team or something (although there’s literally nothing stopping you from making at least one more person in the group queer), but I have never in my life wanted to do anything less than constantly hang out with a group of straight people.

The vast majority of straight people don’t make me feel safe, and I rarely have more in common with them than I do with other queer people. Also, if one person in a friend group comes out, at least two more will - this has happened to pretty much all my queer friends.

It’s far more likely to see a group of queer friends with one adopted Straight, who is a good ally, then the other way around.

8. The Awkward AroAce

There’s nothing wrong with being aromantic asexual. There’s also nothing wrong with being autistic and struggling in social situations. There’s even nothing wrong with being both of those things at the same time. And some people are indeed like that.

But why does this seem to be the only way to write aroace characters? It’s such a stereotype.

Being aroace just don’t experience romantic and sexual attraction, it doesn’t mean you can’t make friends, or that you don’t know how to behave socially. Aside from their (lack of) sexual and romantic attractions, aroace people are just people and they come in a variety of personalities.

9. Queer Villains

I actually love queer villains.

In a lot of stories the villain is the most fun and interesting character them being queer is a way of reclaiming things that have been used to hurt us in the past (and still are, in some cases).

But it’s still pretty problematic when this is the only queer character in the work - whether explicitly or just in coding.

You can have a queer villain, but make at least one of your heroes queer too.

10. The Non-Human Non-Binary

I think it makes sense that some aliens, robots and otherwise non-human entities are nonbinary. Why would a robot have a human gender? Why would an alien race have the same exact gender and sex divisions as humans do?

But can we also get nonbinary representation in humans? Please? Because I don’t think that an alien is doing much to help us be more accepted, and might, in fact, be even more alienating. (ha-ha, alienating. Get it?)

To end this, because of the time we live in:

A list of organizations dedicated to helping Black people you can support.

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labyrinthus-magici · 5 years

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🔥!!!

Was looking at my muse list to think of something that stood out but since I couldn’t pick one I’ll just go w something that affects a lot of them but anyway like

As an autistic person I personally thing the large majority of the magi/snb cast is autistic coded! The fandom as a whole (although it’s not just the magi fandom tbf it’s kind of all of them I’ve been in) ignores that a lot!

I have seen autistic Judar before which is VALID but it’s really frustrating when Judar and Morgiana are the only two you see (and Mor as an afterthought) bc they’re the ones with the more “stereotypical” traits (i.e Judar being antisocial/struggling with empathy which is probably due to trauma and not even his autism considering that. studies show that it’s allistic people who lack empathy for autistic people usually and not the other way around but I digress!) and I’ve been told that other characters who are autistic coded can’t be bc they’re like idk??? competant lmfao??? I don’t get when allistic people say a character can’t be autistic bc im like lmao good to know you know every autistic experience and trait! Maybe you can educate me on my own disorder that you don’t have bc you clearly know so much about it that you couldn’t possibly be overlooking something!

Anyway my muses that I intentionally play as autistic and some of their main traits are bellow the cut bc it’s lengthy (The others I’m probably going to accidentally autistic code bc I. am autistic and it affects my writing but ahiodfhg)

Morgiana: Mor is a pretty obvious one, although I do love her autistic coding! So like most of these characters but with Mor esp you have to keep in mind that she canonly has c-ptsd (post traumatic stress disorder but when it’s not a single traumatic event but living long term in a traumatic environment such as an abusive home or any other variation) so that affects how many of her autistic traits present themselves. I do think that she’s become very good at masking (i.e hiding autistic traits) due to them being punished and because of that she is exhausted because masking is very taxing. I think that she started to unlearn this considerably once she joined the caravan with Leila’s encouragement but it was subtle bc while she did become close with Leila and Sahsa she didn’t open up entirely.

Once she gets to Sindria though and starts opening up I think that she’ll relax a lot because she can see others with the same traits who don’t have to hide them. Masrur especially points out that it’s important for her to stim and because she’s not the only one who deos this, everyone is understanding and accommodating at times when she’s non verbal/not able to speak.

One thing that really stood out to me about Mor is her hyperempathy. Because she doesn’t talk much, it’s hard for some people to pick up on, but Morgiana often has strong feelings of empathy for others. At first this is something that she struggles with, because it’s something that others have taken advantage of and used to hurt her, and because she’s afraid of her emotions as a whole. Later though, she learns that this can be her strength. Morgiana’s most powerful moments (in my opinion) like when she rescued Nadja, when she confronts Alibaba about the consequences of what the fog troupe is doing, and many other instances, are very emotionally charged. She’s also the first to empathize with the pirates that Madaura has brainwashed, and is able to get the others to empathize with them too.

Morgiana was my first favorite magi character (the reason I even got into magi in the first place tbh) bc it was so empowering to see someone with many of my traits in an empowering role of a hero because of those traits and not just with them as an afterthought!

Masrur: I’m going to focus on snb just because that’s what I’m more familiar with as I haven’t read the parts of magi that Masrur is spotlighted in in a long time although honestly all of this stuff applies to Masrur later but it presents itself differently because whilst autistic people never grow out of their traits, just like anything in a person, it changes and becomes more nuanced as a person gets older and gets more experience.

But Masrur is another autistic coded character! A lot of his traits can technically be explained away by canon/plot details however in this house we don’t think that because there’s technically an argument against autistic headcanons that it’s at all valid so ANYWAY

To start we have the way he sees himself as different from others, the way he goes to sit by himself because he feels like he can’t fit in with everyone, how he’s not like them, how he’s just a monster with a single purpose that’s already been fulfilled. Normally, I wouldn’t count this exactly as an autistic trait however Hinahoho is the one that comes to talk to him because he can relate to this experience which is autistic coded so! One thing that’s a common experience in autistic people is feeling quite literally inhuman, usually in the form of an alien, fairy, or fictional character (as it was in my case). This is becuase of the isolation that we normally face in childhood. For Masrur, he feels different from the others, like who he is isn’t someone that would be wanted and that’s something that I can relate to quite strongly. It’s not until he comes to the Sindria trading company, a place full of Neurodivergent coded characters (the ones that aren’t autistic coded are coded as other disorders as well such as ADHD and BPD among others I don’t think there’s actually one person there who’s neurotypical considering that. The entire theme of the Sindria trading company is that they take in people who are outcasts and in need of help and usually those people tend to be ND.) that he comes to realize that he does belong and that he is valued.

In addition to that we do see him stimming or doing stim like behaviors at times, he sometimes is talkative and others seems mostly or entirely non verbal, he tends to misunderstand social queues, struggles with subjects that he’s not interested in, etc.

I think it’s super important to take into account Masrur’s autistic coding because Masrur gets to be HAPPY. Like, yes, he does experience a lot of traumatizing things, but by the end of Magi he still has his family, he’s happilly married and a good father. These are things that people think autistic people can’t have or don’t deserve, and we never get to experience this things in character’s that are canonly autistic. So for me seeing an autistic coded character with such a positive development was something really positive, it’s the same way for a lot of these characters, seeing so many autistic coded characters getting the development that the deserved was what drew me to magi inittially if I’m perfectly honest. I didn’t know it at the time bc I had no idea I was autistic until last year (coincidentally from autistic friends also from this fandom!) but it really was what drew me in.

Hinahoho: Oh God where do I even START with autistic icon Hinahoho? I think, out of any snb characters Hinahoho is the most heavily autistic coded. Like there is literally no other explanation for his character I can think of whenever I see him I get so happy bc I’m like!!! Yes!!!! Autistic dad!!! I love him!!!

His backstory first and foremost focuses on his separation from the rest of the people in his tribe because he has unconventional interests (art!!) and that he isn’t able to pass the test and become and adult at the proper time. To start, being a “late bloomer” in things (or alternatively doing things too soon in some cases) is a common autistic experience. A lot of us due to many reasons (mostly due to ableism and lack of accommodations) we aren’t able to do the things that our peers do at the same times like drive, attend college, or move out of the house etc. This isn’t a lack of competence just that we aren’t able to go about things in a way that we are able to thrive in, and this is exactly what Hinahoho’s development highlights! He never does pass the warrior’s test in the way that is most traditional, instead Sinbad (whose an Adhd ND icon if you ask me but I haven’t added him to my muse list yet so aidofhg more on him and the other adhd icons in this series later ahidofhg) mentions how there’s multiple ways to be strong, how he doesn’t have to do things the same way as everyone else to be worth something.

There’s also the ableism that he faces from others in his tribe. In addition to judging him for not having become a warrior yet, he is bullied by others and treated like a child when he shouldn’t be. The others are so unkind to him for being “different” and “weird” and having “a personality like a fish left to dry” (WHATEVER THAT’S EVEN SUPPOSED TO MEAN LMAO I STILL DONT GET IT) that in his introduction he starts sobbing bc Sinbad said thank you to him like. Like God can I relate to this, honestly his experiences though not exactly the same as my own deeply resemble how I was before I found out that I’m autistic.

Then, after he learns to love and accept himself and marries Rurumu (Oh!! That’s another thing, people acted like he was unlovable but Rurumu always loved him. He never had to change who he was or mask his autistic traits and that’s SO important because honestly I can’t even imagine someone who isn’t also autistic wanting me romantically especially when I see shit about people taking autistic people to homecoming and calling it “inspiring” and “selfless” and a “learning experience”) he then turns around and teaches others to do the same. I noticed that he becomes very close to both Drakon and Masrur who are both autistic coded and he helps teach them to love themselves like??? LIKE???? and with Masrur he literally points out that he can empathize so points for hyperempathy again. I’m loving how many magi characters have hyperempathy that is ultimately good. Bc it’s usually a weakness in character’s that have it.

Drakon: Honestly once again idek where to start when his entire development is deeply autistic coded but we’ll start with his backstory. So to start there’s the power imbalance between him and his (neurotypical) siblings. Whilst he is the youngest, I think that the reason that he’s unfavored in the family and is the one always catching shit is because he’s autistic. This is something that happens so often is that when an autistic child has allistic siblings the allistic one is favored or if not favored they definetely get treated better because autistic children are particularly vulnerable and easy to manipulate. With Drakon’s childhood, although again the circumstances in my case aren’t exactly the same, I really am seeing my past self.

He was from a young age branded as a prodigy, told he was already basically an adult even though he was still a child, and this is so common with autistic children who show a semblance of talent in something. However, he isn’t praised for this in a healthy encouraging way, instead he’s given the responsibilities and expectations of an adult already. In addition to that, he is conditioned to mask his autistic traits, in addition to being taught to devote his entire self to his cause. The fact that he internalized everything so deeply that he had a breakdown when he realized that he wasn’t wanting to die for his cause, that he thought he had to follow everything to the letter all the way down to his deepest feelings, is in my opinion an autistic trait as I showed exactly the same traits for other matters, internalizing things at the same intensity. He social scripts quite a bit, meaning that he has a strong sense of “this is how things SHOULD be so if they AREN’T this way then everything is in RUINS and we have to fix it IMMEDIATELY” he has the roles he’s been given and he strongly believes that everyone else has a role. This does become far more healthy once he’s unlearned the toxic things that he was taught but he still does it, but in a healthy way. Everyone has a role to fulfill, and he’s strict about this, when people aren’t doing what they’re supposed to be becomes irritable and struggles to keep functioning as normal.

Then there’s the fact that his entire development is learning as a teenager that he’s become a monster, literally in this case, learning that he is hated so much that he resolves to leave his humanity behind, only to gain love and acceptance and learn to love himself in the form that he takes. While I don’t think every monster is autistic coded (as that would be problematic for obvious reasons) developments like this resemble our experiences so well? It’s a perfect metaphor for what it’s like, honestly.

One reason I think that it’s important for me personally to acknowledge Drakon’s autistic coding is because he’s a strong leader and people think that autistic people cannot be leaders, that we’re incompetent. So to see a character with my traits be someone noble, to become king even, and to thrive is something super positive for me because again it’s something that people think we cannot do that we cannot have but we really can.

Leila, Sahsa, & Nadja: With these three it’s mostly projecting just because we don’t see enough of them for them to really be that autistic coded HOWEVER tis my blog and you get to hear all my hcs asdfgh. I like to hc these three as autistic 1. bc Leila and Sahsa’s relationship is beautiful, and to contextualize that as a romance between two autistic women is really nice for me who as I mentioned before struggles to ever see myself having a love like that. 2. Leila and Sahsa take to Morgiana and encourage growth in her and I like the idea of them helping her to relax a little on hiding her autistic traits. 3. Because as an autistic person it’s difficult for me to interpret characters as not autistic (where not autistic is other’s defaults for me autistic is the default, so it would be more accurate for me to say I have some allistic headcanons rather than autistic ones lmao) I actually started headcanoning Leila as autistic by accident because I wrote a fic where she had a shutdown (which is when there’s too much stimulants i.e sound or sights etc. and we have to go lay down and rest and shut out the stimulants that are bothering giving us sensory overload.) and was like oh!! Time to make both her and Sahsa autistic bc who’s gonna stop me lmao.

Also one headcanon I have for Nadja (in addition to her joining Leila and Sahsa’s caravan with her family) is that after Morgiana rescued her she developed a special interest in adventure and heroism which is really cute on one hand bc she always wants to learn stories of heroes from the locals of the places they visit and her parents are like aw she’s talkative sometimes! She’s making friends!!! But on the other hand she tags along on Leila and Sahsa’s “oops lmao just fought an entire band of thieves again” adventures and is that “Let me see what you have!” “A KNIFE!!” “NO!!!” vine so ahidfohg be careful u fuckin superb lil baby.

Myron: Hers is a bit shorter since we don’t have a whole lot of her in canon, but her strict following of perceived social standards and social scripting makes me headcanon her as autistic. I also like the idea of her being autistic because so often people think that we can’t be proper or socially conscious but more often than not we overcompensate, the deal is that we struggle to understand neurotypical social cues not that we hate socializing.

Titus: Oh man I shouldn’t have put him so far down on my muse list bc this one is going to be lengthy. There’s a reason whenever I info dump about my son to people that I always call him Autistic Gay Icon Titus Alexius.

I’ll start with the fact that he struggles in social settings, i.e Sphintus thinking he’s so fuckin awkward at first. (Even tho I hc Sphintus as autistic too but like I said autistic is the default for me ahidfg) He has a special interest in magic, evidently, and is very info dumpy about it as times (though not as much as notable autistic icons Yamuraiha and Ugo). Also his best friends are Sphintus and autistic adhd icon Aladdin so like. Convenient. that the three most autistic coded kids at school becomes besties. asdfgh. Also none of the 4 magi are allistic tbh.

ANYWAY that aside and glossing over the whole separation he feels from the others (which I could go into length but it’s similar to Drakon and Masrur’s and Hinahoho’s deal and this is getting so long already oof) can we just talk about how fucking POSITIVE his Hyper-Empathy is for his character and the story?

Okay so like. Let’s start with the 5th district, how after just a little while there he immediately jumped into action with LMAO TIME TO BLOW A HOLE IN THE SKY IM BUSTING EVERYONE OUT LADS. Like. Was it dumb? Yes. Was it noble and valid? YES! And he STILL SHOWED UP TO CLASS READY TO FIGHT THE NEXT DAY. He also tried to call out Mogamett how many times? And still stood his ground with the 5th district, even when Mogamett tried to manipulate him by saying he only cared out of his selfish desire to befriend Marga, he immediately analyzed himself critically and came to the conclusion that no, he really just wanted everyone there to be safe and happy.

Then, when he goes to Reim and Just. Hhhhhh HE’S SO GOOD. AND HE HAS SO MUCH EMPATHY. The fact that he immediately begins changing things, is firm in that, but his main motivation is that he so desperately wants everyone to be safe and to live happily, the fact that his people’s problems are by extension his own because he feels real pain when others feel it. That’s hyper empathy and though it’s something that can be manipulated he doesn’t let that happen, he uses it for good!

When he gives his speech about why they need to abolish slavery in Reim asap, he begins to cry and exclaims that any one of them could die tomorrow, that they need to priooritize the people that are in the now who are suffering that they have the power to help their people and to liberate their country and appeals to everyone’s emotions that way and breaks through. Also the other changes he makes?? Like making the Colosseum into a LARPing spot? That’s so fucking good? What a nerd? I love him????

I can go into more detail with Titus but for time reasons I won’t but. We stan Autistic Gay Icon Titus Alexius here.

If you read all of this I love you sm thank you for reading this rambly mess. ahdiogfg

#Outside Of Destiny《OOC》#this is so LONG #though none of the stuff under the cut is negative or a rant #it's just me rambling abt how valid all my autistic muses are #ahdifoghdfg #but anyway yes Im an autism if u don't like that like #sucks to be you I guess lmfao #saeiqas

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