#this is just my initial reaction to seeing someone try to explain a qpr and thinking the way they did it was odd | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

joi-in-the-tardis · 5 years

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It’s my experience with any emotional issue I have that resolving it is 75% figuring what on earth it even is that I’m upset about (which usually requires going to the pain of actually talking it through with someone; hello I’m an extroverted feeler) and 25% actually working on the problem. In other words: figuring it out is the hard part. Actually, a lot of the stress and angst evaporates once I pin down the problem.

That doesn’t mean it’s all resolved just from understanding myself a little better. There’s still work to do. But clarity brings a lot of peace, you know?

Good Omens was released a tiny bit more than two months ago. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long... and also hard to believe it’s only been that long. I watched it all in one day because I wanted that first viewing to be mine- I didn’t want to share it. I knew, even then, that I was going to be a bit... touchy... about the shipping of the main characters. Not because I felt that anyone was wrong to ship them, but because they’re a pair I ship very specifically. (Which is not something I do overly much, I tend to be pretty open about my ships. Not just in a ship-and-let-ship way, but in the way that I multi-ship, myself. Tenth doctor, for example, I ship with four different characters. Even though the main one I blog about is Rose. I have two anti-ships, but only one of those actually bothers me to the extent that I have the tags blocked- and that’s more because the other character disgusts me than an overt problem with the ship itself.)

And, not just that, I ship them as being a similar kind of queer to my own. So, they’re dear to my heart. I see them as ace, as I am myself. I see them as nonbinary, like me. As beings somewhere outside the human realm, I don’t think they have to follow human friend/romance rules, and that’s a relief to me. Because I have an incredibly difficult time understanding where all those lines are.

I have a lot of myself tied up in these characters, okay? I related to The Doctor, yes. I’ve related to a lot of characters. But... not like this.

And I have felt, predominantly, unwelcome in the fandom. In the fandom’s defense, a lot of my emotional reaction was from the initial round of “you either ship them or you’re homophobic” that was aimed at not just other members of the fandom, but the author of the story himself. But, in doing so, people alienated aces, aros, and nonbinary folks. It’s not just me. I do understand that this was not everyone’s opinion, and that even if it was it wasn’t intended this way... But, it was a loud enough message that I shut every related tag down for over a month, and still have them filtered. I’m one that’s pretty stable in my identity, but I felt banished for it. I felt I wasn’t queer enough for a space that I wanted to occupy- one that was supposed a queer space, itself.

And, I let it fester.

That festering bled over in to my tumblr home fandom: David Tennant. I dunno if anyone noticed, but I haven’t celebrated Tennant Tuesday in weeks. I mean, a lot of it was tied in with GO, anyway, and I was trying to avoid that. But, the constant barrage of how slutty he and all his characters are... just grated me to the point that I wanted to find a hole. That hole was pulling out of it almost entirely. I’m trying to rally, it’s just taking time.

But still, there was more to it... I was getting increasingly frustrated with myself because of how upset I was. And how much that upset was spreading in to other fandom areas that I love. I didn’t understand it as I have always been a “don’t like, keep scrolling” or blacklist kind of person. And, my goodness, I do want fluff from this pairing! But every time I put my toe in the GO fandom sandbox it was akin to being lit on fire. And not in a slow burn, this is fun suffering kind of way.

It occurred to me a week or so ago what it was that was bothering me: I am assumed to be courting whoever I’m friends with. Sure, laugh it up, but I’m serious. I’m assumed to be in a romantic relationship with my married best friend nearly every time we have a day out. From clerks in stores to kids on the street to waiters at restaurants. I’m not insulted by the insinuation. My best friend is my best friend for a reason- she’s a phenomenal person and I’m very lucky to have her in my life. We don’t even correct them most of the time, anymore. That doesn’t make it any less exhausting sometimes. It doesn’t do anything to make me less paranoid about, not just our friendship, but every friendship I have. In my first years at my workplace I was assumed to be sleeping with multiple married women. How people came to that conclusion, to this day, perplexes me. Here I was going home to tea and TV and I was supposedly out dallying with these women behind their husband’s backs! Even now, I’m hyper aware of some of my friendships with married friends... Because their SOs have made comments... maybe joking, maybe not... that nice things I’ve done for them is me coming on to them. Please, I’m just a genuinely nice person who likes doting on people I care about.

It really fucking sucks that my friendships are misread. I have spent a large portion of my life just not understanding romance. Not knowing how to engage in it. Not knowing where the lines are. Not understanding what might be expected of me- worrying about that. I haven’t really had those kinds of connections, guys. I’ve been in love, yes, a couple of times. But, it’s never been more than a confession that’s either rejected outright or... a slow dissolution of what used to be a cherished friendship. I feel an enormous amount of love for the people in my life, but when it comes to expressing it in any kind of romantic way... I am just at a loss. I’ve always kind of chalked this up to being queer and having a late start, but sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever figure it out.

But if there’s one thing I know, I know how to love my friends. Or, at least, I think I do. And my friends don’t seem to mind. It’s the way that it’s labeled from the outside that bothers me.

And, that brings me full circle to my point: the thing that bothered me was that I saw these two romantically challenged ace/enby characters and I thought “omg that’s me!” Then I saw people shipping them sexually and that was okay! Ship whatever you want. But, then I saw that if you didn’t ship them that way it was homophobic. It was wrong. How could you see it anyway but gay? Yes, QPRs have their place, but this isn’t it (something I actually saw in someone’s tags!).

I was gutted. I understand why now. People ship me and my close friends together all the time, friends. It makes people really happy to do so. They’re getting rep in public. They think it’s sweet. It makes them smile. It makes them engage socially with us when they might not otherwise. It gets us nice tables at restaurants so we “can see one another better.”

But we’re not romantically involved. No matter how much the public may enjoy imagining us being so. We have always been and will always be the best of friends.

Am I right to be mad at the whole fandom for how much this hurt? No. Absolutely not. And I have not, at any time, been mad at everyone. I can separate my own feelings from the situation. To be honest, I don’t even remember who made some of the comments that hurt me to begin with and I’ll never try to find out. I’m not in any of this to start arguments or sling mud. I’m in the fandom life for fun, to escape from real life for a bit, and to make friends if I can.

I say all of this mostly for my own mental health: I want to share it. I want to be understood. And, if there’s anyone out there who feels like me: I want them to know I understand them, too. It’s not just you. You’re not alone.

And I also want to explain that coming to these conclusions and talking about them has made it a bit easier to pat at the sand in the Good Omens sandbox. I’ve been poking and prodding as I feel like I can. So, you’ll likely see some GO stuff on my blog. I’ve still got everything filtered at the moment because I’m letting it in, as I said, as I feel like I can. All at once feels like it might squash me again and I don’t want to ruin the progress I’ve already made.

I guess I’ll end this by saying that I loved GO the book. I loved the series. I’m eternally grateful for Neil Gaiman and how he’s continually put his foot down that we can all make of it what we like: that’s the fandom’s toybox. The only things that are cannon are the words in black and white and that’s all he’ll comment on. They can continue to be your romantic gay ship. They can continue to be my ace/enby QPR. We can all play in this massive sandbox together. Just... pardon my bandaged wounds and my being a bit shy. It’s taken me a while to get up the nerve to be here.

#joi rambles #fandom life #good omens #asexuality #romance #i really don't know how else to tag this!#just... please be kind

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