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itsclydebitches · 3 years ago

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PFFFF The newest Witcher trailes LITERALLY throws shade! They have the 'Geralt, but you've been such lone wofl so long, what change' and deadass show JASKIER before later shoving Geralt saying 'Yennefer' like a cheap 'no homo!' excuse. I can't. xD Whoever edited it knows what's on. xD

I feel so conflicted about the Jaskier-Geralt relationship in the show because on the one hand, yeah, they're definitely leaning into this non-romance in a way that can get uncomfortable for some, how shall I put this... jaded viewers lol. We know they'll never be canon. No matter what else we might say about Netflix's inability to accurately adapt the books, Geralt/Yennefer has always and will always be endgame, so getting intimacy between Geralt and Jaskier in these particular ways (flirty jokes, bath scene, argument staged like a breakup), while not explicitly queerbaiting, can make viewers feel... icky about it all. Especially for any show-only fans who might not know that Geralt/Yennefer is endgame. Many viewers, particularly American viewers, approach shows as malleable forms of entertainment that can provide them with the representation they crave, provided the fanbase is vocal enough about wanting it. And the more talk that surfaces about major, crucial changes to the plot that reinterpret huge swaths of the books' purpose and intent, the more it can feel like they might just change Geralt's love life too! Even though they (obviously) won't. And frankly shouldn't given that this is supposed to be a faithful adaptation.

Yet on the flipside, the Netflix versions of Jaskier and Geralt don't feel intimate to me at all. Their hostile introduction, Geralt outright punching him, the continued performance of 'I'm a big strong manly man who can't admit that he cares about others,' reducing decades of their bonding to a surprising, throwaway line, that argument when Geralt blames Jaskier for all his problems... it's terrible and I've never liked this dynamic for them (even as I, somewhat hypocritically, play with it in fic). So I'm like, you're intimate enough that fans are starting to side-eye the creators' intentions and yet simultaneously not intimate in any of the ways you should be if you were actually faithful adaptations of the book. And these problems, I believe, go hand-in-hand. By ignoring the actual friendship of the books, Netflix has been forced to "prove" that they care for one another by falling back on tired buddy tropes that, historically, fans have used as evidence for a potential romantic relationship. By not writing Geralt and Jaskier as having the open, witty, philosophical, caring-but-also-taking-no-shit relationship they had in the books, Netflix has fallen back on a dynamic that isn't doing their show any favors. Fans either hate it, or love it to the point where they expect something of the show that the show can never deliver.

So it's a mess! And that mess hasn't done Yennefer any favors either. I'm really not in a position to be defending that pairing - I've never hid that I'm not a Geralt/Yen fan - but whatever the books did that made others love their relationship... I don't think Netflix is capitalizing on that either. In that other ask I brought up how in the games their relationship seems to revolve entirely around Ciri and sex. If they're not talking about their daughter (or if Yen isn't being cruel) their relationship is just about how horny they are for each other, which... isn't really a relationship to me. Or at least, not the deep, "We belong together forever, we're basically soulmates" relationship that the franchise is going for. Same with Netflix. I never liked the foundation of their relationship being an ambiguous wish that tethered them irrevocably and a quickie in the rubble as a replacement for actually getting to know one another... but Netflix takes those aspects and emphasizes them to a disappointing degree.

"You spent a lifetime alone. What changed?"

"Yennefer of Vengerberg."

Yet when it comes time for the trailer to show us what this deep, insightful relationship is that changed a man after an entire lifetime of wandering alone... it's just sex. That's literally all Netflix is able to show us because that's the only meaningful interactions Geralt and Yen have had together. Here's a clip of them falling into bed together and Geralt, without any of that emotional work shown to the viewer, professes that he loves Yennefer the way she's always wanted to be loved.

Here's a clip of the joke we got where Jaskier is gaping over them having sex on the floor post-Yen nearly killing the lot of them.

I'm like... what out of any of this is meant to be appealing to me? Besides the fact that they're both hot as hell? (The casting does make my little bi heart happy lol.) For me, Geralt and Yen are a classic case of a story insisting they're meant for each other because That's Just How Stories Work, without doing any of the actual, you know, work to show us why they like each other, or how they got there, or why these superficial things (the sex is great!) trump the huge hurdles they should be working through. The games might have their flaws, but god bless 'em for letting the characters point out, "Hey... how do we even know this love is real and not just a byproduct of the djinn's wish?"

Geralt and Jaskier, as established, absolutely have their problems in the show, but I can understand why so many fans ship them over Geralt/Yen. And no, though bigotry can play a part, we also can't demonize the entirety of its popularity with, "You just hate women/are racist/creepily obsessed with queer men/whatever the latest accusation is." Rather, the popularity exists because, whatever their faults, it feels like they actually have a relationship in the show. We see them developing together in a way we simply don't get with Yennefer/Geralt and because that development isn't largely reduced to sex scenes—the narrative trying to pass every bonding moment off as True Love, with True Love equaling physical attraction—it comes across (at least to me) as more realistic and believable, especially given Geralt's character, someone who is emotionally closed off. If Vesemir (I think it's Vesemir) asked what changed and we deliberately cut to that moment of Jaskier leaving after Geralt drove him away... I'd more easily believe that yeah, this relationship is causing Geralt to rethink things in a way he hasn't for an entire lifetime. We've seen them travel together, become (begrudging) comrades, defend one another, do favors for each other, tease each other, have a major fight that they'll inevitably make up from, Jaskier is presented as Geralt's first friend, and none of this is tied to a questionable wish, or passed off as the totality of Geralt's development.

The fact that Netflix would include those lines, cut to a legitimately heart-wrenching moment between Geralt and Jaskier, but when it comes times to show his relationship with Yennefer, the most powerful moments are her without him (smashing the mirror, undergoing her transformation, stepping out in her new body for the first time, etc.) and their moments together are just sex—one of which is used partially for comedy—well... that just illustrates the problem for me. What relationship? The one that supposedly exists simply because the story says it's there? I don't think I'll ever be a Geralt/Yen shipper, but I'm perfectly capable of separating my personal preferences from subpar writing choices. Netflix is far into the latter. The way that they're adapting the story is, imo, hurting both fans of the book material and fans who are on the fence about book material. Because so few of these changes are working well, we've lost all the good the books contained and are now stuck with so much new bad. Basically, "No one liked that."

Except, of course, for the Geralt/Jaskier shippers riding the coattails of those tropes... though many will likely be disappointed and hurt by the series' end when they're not made canonical, with others growing frustrated with how the fandom has turned on them simply for liking what they were given. It's really turning into a lose-lose for everyone involved.

#witcher #twn #twn critical

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kaypeace21 · 5 years ago

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I feel like you’re the right person to tell this to, but Mileven makes me REALLY uncomfortable. I’m an adult fan (I watch the show mostly for Winona Ryder) and I felt really gross watching the scenes of them making out, knowing that adults wrote those scenes and shot them, and how many people would’ve been there during shooting. Please tell me I’m not alone.

I agree that it makes me feel uncomfortable and gross, too. But, I actually think the Duffers wanted you to feel uncomfortable (and I think mileven was portrayed as ‘off’ and ‘too much’ for that reason). Think about it, when it comes to almost all their other cannon couples- they use kisses sparingly. Jancy has only kissed, romantically 3x (2 of those times were simple kisses- not full blown make-outs), and their first kiss (and only make-out) was quickly obscured as they closed the door.

(x)

Jopper has never kissed, and lumax had an innocent kid-kiss once (and even when back together in s3, they never kissed).

The duffers are sparing with kiss- scenes, unless they are portraying a relationship that won’t work.Most of the relationships that are cannon (with the exception of mileven) focus almost completely on how they communicate with one another- and relationships that lack this (spend most of their time just making-out). What’s the ship that has had the most kiss scenes in the whole series? In the bathroom, library, bedroom(s), garage, in a car, multiple places at school (and has probably had at least 6-7 kiss scenes or more - and who even made out on a bed to corny romance music just like mileven (pre-s3?)- Stancy. Heck, we even see Nancy lose her v**ginity to Steve- but didn’t see Jancy do-it. Because we aren’t supposed to focus on their physical relationship but their emotional one.

Stancy and mileven have had alot of parallels. The wheelers (Nancy and Karen) already made a habit of pretending they’re in love with people- because that relationship is what is deemed the most socially acceptable. Nancy rebelling with the cool-jock (Steve), trying to not be like her parents. And Karen with Ted. Nancy even says in s1 “I don’t think my parents ever loved each other. My mom was young. My dad was older… but he had a cushy job, money, came from a good family. So they bought a house at the end of the cul de sac and started their nuclear family”. Ted & Steve were paralleled to each other, having them both eat chicken as their partners (Karen/Nancy) stormed off upset (and they did nothing). And El was paralleled to Ted by sitting in Ted’s laz-boy chair. And Dustin even refers to mileven as “bullshit” just like Nancy described Stancy as “bullshit”.

(x)

So to reiterate , Mike is doing the same thing as Nancy & Karen- being with someone they don’t love. And only staying with them becuause they are the more socially acceptable/’correct’ option…because El’s a girl (unlike Will).

Also, the fact that Murray’s line to Nancy sounds more queer coded than applicable to Nancy - “ Afraid that if you’d accept yourself for who you really are (cough queer-subtext), and retreated back to… name, name? Steve. Steve! we like Steve (El) but we don’t love Steve (El).”

So, the over-top kisses were done as yet another parallel. And again s2 made fun of (kids who are) mileven shippers ( I’ll talk about that later).

But , S3 was the Duffers criticizing the adult mileven shippers- who are obsessed with mileven kissing.

Like don’t get me wrong there’s some weird byler shippers (but the majority of byler shippers focus on the emotional not physical part of their relationship).

Think about it. Look how they framed this scene of mileven kissing- making us the viewer feel like a peeping-tom, watching them through the crack in the door. Then El sees the viewer and subsequently gasps and slams the door in front of our faces. YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE!

The Duffers and their crew (like good directors) were manipulating your emotions- without you realizing how or why. They were also calling-out the adult-mileven shippers (not all of them but the ones) who are obsessed with their kiss scenes - creepy AF. The duffers never even wrote for mileven to kiss in s2- but Millie said they “had to for the fans”. And so the Duffers conceded and put in a song about a bad-breakup during the mileven kiss - and their backup-song-choice was even about a divorce. XD

So the 2 mileven make-out scenes were supposed to make you uncomfortable- because not only are they kids (who are making out on a bed , but the way they were framed).

So that 3rd and last kiss. Was 100% supposed to make you uncomfortable (but just for a different reason).

Like it or not Mike either forgot that he said he “loved her”. Or just LIED to El (despite this being the reason they broke up in the first place)- and pretends he didn’t confess to her . He has never said “ I love you’, once to her face! He even tries to take the words back (before the kiss) and says about the prior love confession “ Oh! Oh, yeah that.Man, that was so long ago. Um…” and starts to scratch his head and says everything he said at the cabin was “in the heat of the moment stuff and we were arguing… I don’t really remember. What did I say exactly?”

And , after that discussion, they frame El (before she says “I love you”), strangely. They make El look large and imposing, as she approaches the motionless Mike (who feels both physically & emotionally cornered) .You the viewer, subconsciously are feeling claustrophobic/trapped/and stuck along with Mike. Which is why you are so uncomfortable watching this scene, unfold.

(x)

When she says “I love you”, he looks genuinely confused- or just uncomfortable ( his eyebrows are still scrunched-up).

And then… cue the most awkward kiss in the history as Mike doesn’t kiss her back and keeps his eyes open the whole time… it’s just weird/awkward (sorry).

(x)

We even see El’s reaction , after the kiss (happy, smiling and giddy). But then we blur the screen to see Mike’s opposing expression. He looks confused, bewildered and even furrows his brows again.

And In s2 they insulted the young-girls who are obsessed with mileven (since they can frankly, be the most toxic of the milevens).

In the Montauk pitch (later named Stranger things) they describe the Mike and El dynamic by saying “ If Mike is the Eliot of our show,Eleven is our Et.” (AKA they’re from different planets)

And In s2 , Erica is forcing He-man and barbie to make out. Lucas angrily separates the two. And then this discussion happens.

Erica: “Hey , They’re in love!”

Lucas (livid- and standing right next to a rainbow): “No, actually, they’re not. They don’t even exist on the same planet.”

And again the Duffers have described El in multiple interviews as “similar to ET”, and “like an alien” (even after s3). And in s1, they alluded to El being like “an alien from another planet” by comparing her to ET (with the Reese’s pieces vs eggos moments, the bike-scene, and the makeover).

S3 portrayed mileven as toxic in a myriad of ways. And these other examples, might be stretches, but Mike saying to Max in s2 “How can I hate you, I don’t know you.” could also be a ‘dig’ at mileven.(Because: he knew Max for a week, just as long as El- so how could he hate or love either of them?)

And Mike saying to Dustin incredulously “ You have a bond? Just cause he likes nougat (eggos)?” Could be another subtle jab.

Especially since it’s cannon Mike isn’t the biggest fan of eggos to begin with.

Don’t even get me started at how much the st writing staff- makes fun of mileven - more details about it here. But just one example is when the ‘Stranger writers’ ( the official account of the ST writing staff ) got into a huge text-chain with ‘Stranger Things’ (the official account of the show) where they just low-key dragged mileven together.

Mileven was never meant to be end game-they planned for her to die in season 1 (which I’m glad didn’t happen). But, regardless, it was always supposed to be a simple fleeting crush … but the viewers decided to take it way too seriously. After s3, the Duffers reiterate that mileven is just that.

And the Duffers are smart guys, I bet they’re are 100% aware of how toxic the milevens are to bylers (and how they can also be creepy and harass Finn). Not to mention, as writers, who put so much effort into the show- having people hyper-fixate on mileven (which they don’t even like), instead of the plot must drive them insane.Especially when those shippers can be toxic, homophobic, and entitled. The fact people don’t realize the Duffers hate mileven- is honestly hilarious XD.

#byler #byeler #anti mileven

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akechicrimes · 5 years ago

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when i was reading "emma" by jane austen in undergrad, one of my professors pointed out it's one of the best examples of a very common plotline: a willful child sets out as some sort of aberration from the status quo, and by the time they grow up at the end of the book, they've wound up reincorporated into the status quo.

in the case of emma, she believes that she knows romance better than society around her. she plays matchmaker according to what she believes is right. we are, at best, supposed to find her humorously wrong; at worst, she's a petulant child. her attempts at matchmaking go terribly, while she utterly and totally forgets to notice a man courting her throughout most of the plot. by the end of the book she's wound up marrying a good man of equivalent social standing, who courted her in socially acceptable ways, and is presumably going to settle down and become the good wife and mother that she was always meant to be.

persona 3 wasn't quite so interested in people who didn't fit in with the status quo, but persona 4 and 5 seemed to think they were hot shit for tackling the subject, while everyone and their grandmother pointed out that persona 4 and 5 started off with storylines that called society out on its bullshit, and then mysteriously rolled back its arguments in the later parts of the game. and i'm not trying to say that P4 and P5 didn't have doylist explanations for why they've got weird shit happening in the character arcs, but the more i think about it, the more it just sounds like emma woodhouse.

akira kurusu is wronged by the justice system, and comes to the conclusion that he must rebel against society. by the end of the game, it turns out that the justice system can be fair if you just work really really really really hard, so maybe we should all just work harder, and really you just need a good lawyer. akira is absolved of his charges through conventional status quo means.

yukiko amagi struggles with having her whole life decided for her. while she wonders whether or not she wants to stay in inaba, she ultimately comes to the conclusion that she will stay and run the inn, mysteriously and coincidentally choosing the societally-acceptable answer after all.

ann takamaki struggles with a society that simultaneously sexualizes her and shames her for exercising any sexuality. after ending kamoshida's whole career and making a resolve to embrace her own sexuality as an empowerment thing, she then decides to go into... modeling, in which she sells images of her body to be sexualized by an entire industry set up around sexualizing teenage girls. by surprising coincidence, it seems that she has decided to express her new openness to her own sexuality in a way that makes her extremely palatable to men like kamoshida.

kanji tatsumi winds up with a crush on a guy and struggles with being rejected for his sexuality. but then we are led to believe that really he just struggles with being rejected in general. and maybe he just doesn't like girls because they bully him. and maybe it's not really about him being gay, maybe it's about him being confused. also coincidentally, naoto is revealed to be a "girl," and kanji theoretically has had a crush on a "girl" all along, rendering the entire thing just a series of silly mistakes and coincidentally bringing kanji back into a semblance of heterosexuality.

goro akechi points out the innate corruption of the government, justice system, and extreme prejudice in japanese society that drives someone like him to the point of where he was, but his heel-face turn involves him deciding to submit himself to the very corrupt justice system that he disagreed with in the first place, pitching his cooperation with the status quo as a positive change.

naoto shirogane presents as a boy and goes out of his way to have others refer to him as a boy, but also by pure coincidence, we are led to believe that naoto was just going through some shit and was using gender identity/presentation as a weird coping mechanism, and "actually naoto was cis all along."

and these are all narratives that occur in conjunction with, like jane austen's emma, the typical coming-of-age story. an aberrant child doesn't fit in. an aberrant child grows up. an aberrant child winds up being reincorporated into the existing status quo after all, as they demonstrate to the reader hey, perhaps the status quo was right all alone, and i was the one who should have been fitting in.

the narrative of a "coming of age" story pitches adults as people who've adjusted to society and have been changed by society, rather than agents who change society around them; a "coming of age" story relies on a general consensus that children, teenagers, and minors in general have opinions and thoughts that are amusingly incorrect at best and completely invalid at worst, and it is the job of adults to tell children how to "be correct."

that works for some cases like, say, shinya from persona 5, who's a literal bully playing violent video games because his mom doesn't pay enough attention to him and picks on other children and steals their lunch money like shinya's personal day job is to be a tiny powerhouse of cliches. shinya could stand to learn that yes, he's fucking wrong, and no, you can't beat up other kids.

but the same logic—that kids are misguided and need to be corrected (or "rehabilitated," to use P5's words)—that same logic is what implies to us that akira's phantom thief rebellion is ultimately a phase that he'll grow out of as he reincorporates himself back into society, because it was "morally skeevy" (read: defined as morally skeevy by the law, which has no interest in anything but itself and its own power). the same logic of "kids are misguided and need to be rehabilitated" is what tries to tell us that kanji was just confused about himself and naoto's gender presentation, and that naoto was just going through a phase that “she'll” grow out of. "kids are misguided and need to be rehabilitated" is what allows yukiko the room to doubt whether or not she wants to take over the inn, but ultimately pressures her to accept the socially-acceptable option she was always meant to.

there's a lot of other characters that i could point to as examples of the "emma" trend. by the same virtue, there's a lot of character arcs that don't always quite fit the trend perfectly. but in general, the trend happens with alarming consistency in P4 and P5, as if the storylines are trying convince us that people and behaviors that do not fit with the assigned social script will ultimately "see the light" and realize that they should fit in with society after all. and if you see yourself in these characters, perhaps you too should think along the lines of these characters as they "grow up" into "good adults."

by allowing people to voice their discontents with the status quo, and then ultimately come around to embrace the status quo in the end, the characters are essentially used as strawmen to be conquered and brought back into the normative fold. and in theory, these strawmen will bring with them anyone who found themselves agreeing with yukiko's discontents, or kanji's queerness, or akira's anger at society. you had your teenage rebellion, the games seem to say. but now it's time to give it up, give in, and grow up.

#meta #mine #ok i wrote this in a new writing program so we'll see if this formats right

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irrevocably-delicious · 6 years ago

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A Brief History of LGBT+ Characters and Why the Death of Adam in Voltron is Worth Being Upset About

So uh.... Good morning.

So I think it’s pretty obvious by now that the reception to season 7 has been less than... good. The fan base has been shattered. People are upset, angry, and abandoning this series in droves (I’ve lost over 50 followers as I write this, just from people no longer wanting anything to do with this show) and have been incredibly vocal as to the reason why.

They killed Adam.

After two weeks of receiving praise for the relationship that was revealed at San Diego Comic Con, fans discovered on Friday night that Adam’s existence would be short lived, further contributing to this popular “Bury Your Gays” trope.

And I’ve seen people confused at this outcry. They don’t understand why people are so upset at this tiny side character’s death. What’s the big deal, right? It’s war! There’s supposed to be casualties!

And to that kind of response I have to narrow my eyes and go:

“Oh.... maybe you understand the history of this.”

Because it is a history. A rich one. “Bury your gays” isn’t a trope in the same why that “Fake dating” is a trope. It’s not popular out of coincidence and I feel like many people are ignorant of that, which is FAIR! Because most voltron fans are young, most tumblr users are young, so I don’t expect you to be watching documentaries on LGBT+ cinema in between studying for your chemistry exams.

So that’s where I come in. Buckle in children as I take you on a journey on why the “Bury your gays” trope exists, and the harmful ramifications that it has had on the LGBT+ community since its inception.

So lets go back. Way back to the 1920′s when homosexuality, or at least homosexuality adjacent themes were seen on screen.

A time where a bro could kiss his bro, and it was seen as heart wrenching and realistic (Wings, 1927). A time where Marlene Dietrich could wear a suit better than a man, and flirt and kiss a lady just because she fucking could (Morocco, 1930). A time where gender roles were a bit looser, and there wouldn’t be an outcry over such imagery.

But as the great depression continued, and film producers became desperate to get butts in seats at the cinema, these LGBT+ themes became outright explicit. Raunchy even. Used for titillation and shock value.

“Have you seen that new picture, Doris? The one where the roman emperor has the hot male sex slave?? Mmmmm scandalous!”

But with this rise of LGBT+ characters and interactions used for shock value, also came the rise of public outcry. The catholic church (those debbie downers) started boycotting films. This lead to the formation of the PRODUCTION CODE, which is a fancy way to say THE CODE THAT WILL NOW CENSOR THE SHIT OUT OF YOUR FILMS in 1934.

Backed by catholic activists, the code made it impossible for LGBT+ representation to exist on film.

But did they?? See, this is actually were we start to see the development of “Queer coding”. Where actors and directors got savvy, and let you know a character was gay, whilst never explicitly stating so. It was subtle enough that it got past censors, but clear enough that audience members, especially LGBT+ people, got clued in.

Yeah Peter Lorre, you put that phallus shaped object next to your mouth a lot. They’ll get what your implying, don’t you worry.

Oh, I’m sorry.... did i say you couldn’t have LGBT+ characters?? My mistake, you totally fucking could. Explicitly even.... if they were the villain. Religious people were totally cool if the villain in your film was LGBT+, because to them, that’s what LGBT+ people were.... villains.

Film’s like Rebecca, Dracula’s Daughter, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope all centre around truly horrifying and despicable villains... who are all gay. LGBT+ villains became such a staple in horror films during this time that it lead to a whole near character archetype! We have the damsel in distress, the heroic soldier, the wise old man, now welcome the rise of the:

PSYCHO QUEER.

Yikes.

But why I’m talking about this so much is because this popularity in LGBT+ villains is what creates the “Bury your Gays” trope.

Because the villains.... always die.

It’s their comeuppance. Their karma. Of course bad people will die and the heroes will go one to live a happy life! But what crime are we punishing these villains for?

The message these movies gets across to their audiences is that “If you are gay, you are a bad person... and bad people deserve to die”. Because Gay and villain were so synonymous with each other, they become one in the same, and as we all know by now REPRESENTATION MATTERS.

This influences how society views LGBT+ people, so that in 1952, when the PRODUCTION CODE of YOU BETTER NOT CONDONE ANYTHING SINFUL IN HERE BECAUSE JESUS DOESN’T LIKE THAT is torn down, things still don’t get much better for LGBT+ representation.

LGBT+ characters no longer have to be villains, but society is still not super cool with LGBT+ people, so now we get a new archetype: The self hating tragic gay character. And often? These characters kill themselves, such as in 1961′s The Children’s Hour. Because this is palatable to audiences who do not condone homosexuality in any way, but watching an LGBT+ struggle with themselves? Watching them become overwhelmed by guilt and hatred until they decide that death is the only way out? How tragic! How cursed they are! How pitiful! How... marketable.

But to see LGBT+ characters end up happy? Audiences at this time would not have stomached it, because to them, being LGBT was immoral and these characters were not deserving of happiness. A good analogy might be how modern audiences would view a film with a drug addict character in it. The addict either succumbs to their addiction and dies tragically, or they “Go straight” and have a happy ending. For these audiences in the 50s and 60s the only happy ending was a straight ending.

Then in 1969 we get the Stonewall Riots, and in the 1970s things actually look alright.

That is until the 1980s and society finds a new reason to hate, fear and vilify LGBT+ people. The AIDS crisis wipes out lives and almost all positive representation in the media. This fear is echoed in film as LGBT+ people become villains again. Sleepaway Camp and Cruising are such examples.

The 90′s are better. Whilst mainstream cinema is still vilifying LGBT+ in the 80s, more positive independent films still exist, and the success of the 1991 documentary Paris is Burning prompts Hollywood to go “Hey... maybe we can get some money if we pander to these LGBT+ folks”.

There is a brief period in the 90s where gay comedies like The Birdcage, In and Out, and To Wong Foo are allowed to exist. They’re comedies. The stereotypes are played for laughs, but there is a level of joy and care with these movies where even though these characters are making us laugh... for once we’re not laughing at them. We love these characters. We want them to succeed. No. One. Dies.

It smells like progress. Finally.

Or at least it would. Because these films also exist in the same decade that Philadelphia wins Oscars and the musical Rent is winning Tonys. Both of these deal with the tragedy of the AIDS crisis and have main characters die from the disease. Am I going to point out that Rent has four characters suffering from AIDS, but the only one to die is the Trans-coded poc gay man? Yes. Yes I am. Meanwhile the heterosexual couple suffering from AIDS gets a happy ending.

Interesting.

I hate you Rent. I hate you so goddamned much.

Also the 90s sees a good return to queer-coding villains. It’s always been there. It’s never really gone away, but I need to talk about the queer coding of 90′s villains because I’m sure all of you will actually recognise them.

Ah. There They are. Queer coding and Disney have a very rich history, which MANY articles have been written on. One might even say that it’s a... tale as old as time.

Mmmm no thank you.

But why it is so rampant, particularly in animated films, is because the films have a limited run time.

“We need to convince the audience that these characters are villains IMMEDIATELY. We don’t really have the time to waste on developing them and showing all their evil actions. We need audiences to believe when we tell them that these characters are bad. how do we do that?”

“.... make them kinda gay??”

That’s not actually how the conversation went in the board room, I’m sure, but it’s a very reduced down version. Because of the history of LGBT+ villains in the early years of cinema, animation relies on the stereotypes of villainous characters... well unfortunately those villains of old were LGBT+, so now we have LGBT+ stereotypes being passed on to new villains.

Anyway, my point is that almost all Disney villains die. Sorry that’s where I was going with this. Most of them die. The “Bury your Gays” trope is repeated here because of the villain’s queer coding. It’s not obvious, but the subtext is “Hey, if you’re a bit effeminate or do things outside of your strict gender role? Mmmmmm you deserve to die.”

“Bury your Gays” continues in modern media. Despite the importance of Brokeback Mountain, which explicitly shows a romance and intimacy between two men... Jake Gyllenhaal’s character still dies, and it’s implied that it may be due to a hate crime.

We see it in television. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Downton Abbey, Arrow, there was a massive outcry over the trope in The 100 when a female character, after just entering an intimate relationship with another female character, is killed off seemingly senselessly.

The LGBT+ community is tired of only seeing themselves killed for shock value, character growth, or tragedy. Even Ru Paul’s Drag Race has come under fire in recent years for seemingly exploiting its contestants traumatic histories for ratings.

This is why this year’s Love, Simon was so important. The film portrays an adolescent gay character as he struggles with being open with his sexuality and finding a meaningful relationship. Simon is portrayed as a sympathetic character. He’s the hero.

And he gets a happy ending.

This is why Korrasami, a same-sex relationship in children’s media, is so important. It shows two girls achieving their happy ending together.

It’s why in the same year that Steven Universe portrays a same sex wedding, Adam’s death feels like such a step backwards.

The producers have stated that Adam’s death was supposed to raise the stakes of the season, it was supposed to make viewers realise the severity of the situation and overcome them with a feeling of loss, but Adam’s death doesn’t just fail the LGBT+ fans... it fails to effect viewers emotionally.

Because audiences can’t mourn a character that they have no connection with.

Most of Adam’s character was developed in interviews and not in the show, where he only spoke for one scene. The creators talked about the deep relationship between Adam and Shiro, but none of that is actually visible in the series. Taking the season at face value, Adam is just some guy who’s connected to Shiro that is killed off unceremoniously. He wasn’t even given the dignity of hero’s death, taking out even one enemy before he died. That’s what hurts the most.

His death is meaningless. It does nothing. It’s pointless.

But of course “There’s still Shiro, right?”, which is true. Shiro still exists and is confirmed a mlm, which is important, but it’s understandable why fans may not be satisfied with this. Let’s take a closer look at Shiro.

I often joke with my friends that Voltron should be renamed Shiro Suffers: The Series, because out of all the characters in the show, Shiro has definitely endured and been subjected to the worst (you could argue that Allura has, but Shiro has the joy of being tortured emotionally and physically, so I feel he wins).

The writers have tried to kill him numerous times, with only toy sales saving him. He’s been beaten, tortured, terminally ill, killed, revived, possessed and used... it’s a lot. In the old days, I used to ship shallura, not really out of feeling a real romantic connection between the characters, but just because I wanted Shiro to have someone. Someone to help support him. Someone he could open up about his struggles with. The paladins mean a lot to Shiro, but because he is their surrogate guardian, he cannot open up to them like this. He cannot show the paladins weakness, and we see this in how he keeps his disease a secret from Keith, because he does not want to burden Keith with his struggle.

The introduction of Adam wasn’t just exciting because of the potential of seeing a caring LGBT+ relationship, but because it gave fans hope that Shiro would have someone. There was the potential that Shiro might finally gain some kind of supportive relationship outside of his strict roles of “leader” and “guardian”.

Adam’s death removes that possibility. Despite how caring, generous, strong, intelligent, kind, patient and capable Shiro is written... his life is fucking awful. It’s very telling that in the final scene of the season, when every other paladin is in the hospital surrounded by their family and loved ones, Shiro is alone. He’s on a stage, giving a rousing speech to a crowd, still trapped in this role as an inspirational leader.

God, they don’t even let Shiro mourn Adam. Does he feel guilty that he was the one who supposed to die, whilst Adam lived, but now their roles are reversed?We’ll never know. Adam’s death doesn’t even give some insight into Shiro’s character. It’s truly pointless.

Season 7 of Voltron has made it clear that this is not a kids show. This is a serious show with dark themes. The writers want it to be taken more seriously.

Then I will critique it more seriously.

While I strongly doubt it was intentional, season 7 perpetuates the age old message “If you are LGBT+, you will not achieve a happy ending.” The “Bury your Gays” trope is steeped in a history of oppression, censorship, and vilification. When Adam dies, you’re not just seeing a character die, but you’re seeing the series make a conscious decision to participate in this oppressive trope. And it stings even more because the series sets two heterosexual relationships to potentially end in happiness, whilst the LGBT+ relationships have already ended in tragedy.

Why Adam? Why not literally anyone else? We had no connection to him, so it’s not like they could have used a handful of other characters for the same effect. (Kill James. Fuck that guy. And he’s young so it really would have hurt.)

And that’s what you have to question. This is why fans are upset.

I’m not writing this to convince anyone to boycott the show, or plead with you to stop watching. That’s up to you and your own belief system. I definitely do not condone harassing the writers or voice actors.

I just want people to understand why fans are so upset over season 7, and that they have every right to be. To state that the outcry is just because “fans didn’t see their ships become canon” is dismissive and cruel. Adam and Shiro’s relationship was heavily used in marketing by Netflix, so much so that you could call it queer-baiting. It was hyped at SDCC and explained as this deep and meaningful relationship, whilst the producers knew what Adam’s fate would be the whole time.

I know producers have to answer to higher ups. I know the crew were largely on edge about what would get approved and what would not.

But the point remains... they still made this conscious choice. Fans don’t have to be happy about it. They shouldn’t be.

I have no idea what season 8 will bring, and at this point I feel like it might be a mess. But I encourage fans to support each other and be vocal about why you’re upset. You can’t change this show, but there’s hope that another series could learn from this.

History repeats. Until we don’t let it.

#voltron #vld #voltron spoilers #adashi #shadam #discourse #negativity #q slur #takashi shirogane #this took a while

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eiirisworkshop · 4 years ago

Text

Untitled O Human Star fic

For Good Intentions WIP Fest, details of which can be found @goodintentionswipfest

I read the first chapter of O Human Star for a class on comics and graphic narratives, loved it, and read all the rest of what was already posted--then I started writing a fic because that’s who I am as a person. O Human Star was, itself, a work in progress at the time, and I felt like I needed to see where the story went before I went further with my fic. O Human Star has now finished, and it’s beautiful, but the plan I had for my fic now feels out of place, and I just don’t feel like doing the retooling it would need for me to continue.

***

Sulla needed to find a book—she knew what book, and where it was supposed to be, just, actually getting it was a bit slow going since she was trying and failing to stare at the purple haired synthetic curled up in a beanbag in the corner. He—she assumed he, definitely human shaped and flat chested under the baggy graphic tanktop, sharp jawline, black and white flannel tired around narrow hips, so he had a book propped in one knee, chewing his lip while he read, and a braided cord running from an outlet in wall next to the nearest shelf to plug in at the nape of his neck, parting his sleek bobbed hair.

He looked up and looked her dead in the eye. Sulla squeaked in embarrassed surprise and hid behind a shelf. When she peered out around it, he was still looking and he raised one lilac-tinted hand in a little wave. She waved back sheepishly. “Hi.”

“Hi,” the purple-haired, purple-eyed, just overall purple synthetic said with a touch of a smile playing at his lips.

“I didn't mean to stare, I just—” Sulla stammered, stepping fully around the shelf, “—you don't usually see people just kinda plugged in to charge out in public, you know? Or I don't. I haven't.”

“Uhuh.” He plinked placidly.

“Sorry. I, uh, I'm Sulla.”

“Aytrin.” He closed his book around one finger and held the other hand out to her. “Nice to meet you.”

She hesitated slightly, grinned, tucked her books under one arm, and stepped forward to shake his hand. “So,” she sank to her knees next to his beanbag, “you plug in. Do you not have a respiratory engine, or…?”

“No.” Aytrin's cheeks glowed faintly blue. “I was a hobby build and I'm old enough there was no way most hobbyists could afford that kind of thing.”

“Oh! That makes sense. I'm a hobby build too—well, sort of. And my, uh, my dad's a roboticist, so it's a little different, I guess.”

“A little, yeah,” Aytrin chuckled. “I'm guessing by that stack of books you're not just at the library to meet strangers, though.”

“Oh,” Sulla glanced down at her books, “no. I—sorry…. I didn't mean to bother you.”

“You're okay, I'm just, like, two pages from the end of a chapter.”

“I have one more book I need, so I'll go get that. Yeah. I—can I leave these here?”

Aytrin smiled. “Sure.”

Sulla neatened her little stack then ran off to find her last book. When she got back, Aytrin had set his book aside—it had a shirtless man with a sword in a cave on the cover—and had grabbed one of her books to read the back. He glanced up at her as she approached and dropped the book back on the stack. “[INSERT TECHNOBABBLE HERE] Unless these are for your dad, looks like you're the roboticist here.”

Sulla smiled shyly and set her new book on top of the others. “I'm homeschooled and my dad lets my study whatever I'm interested in so...yeah. What're you reading?”

Aytrin cast a sidelong look at his discarded novel. “Oldest queer robot romance I could find. Was pretty good until about about a chapter ago.”

“What happened a chapter ago?”

“Author lost the plot. I was hoping it would get back on track but it only seems to be getting worse. I've given up.” He moved to stretch, arms over his head, and knocked his charge cord out in the process. “Ah, crap.” He grabbed the end of his cord, cheeks lighting blue again, and he looked at Sulla. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Do you need me to plug you back in?” She reached for the cord.

“No, I can do it, but sometimes when I plug in, something shorts out or something, I go limp and I can't move.”

“That's not good,” Sulla said, mentally running through and discarding guesses as to what could cause that kind of failure mode.

“If that happens can you unplug me?”

“Yeah, of course..”

Aytrin held his hair aside with one hand and carefully fitted the connector to the port at the nape of his neck with the other. For a tense moment he was still, then he looked at Sulla and flashed a smile. “All good.”

Sulla sighed, relieved. “Good. I can't think what would cause that, but only some of the time. It's dangerous for you to plug in if you're alone, isn't it?”

“Yeah. If I overcharge I overheat, too. It's a problem.”

“You're not here by yourself, are you?” Sulla looked around. There was no one else in the section.

“No, I'm here with my boyfriend. He's over—” Aytrin gestured to one of the mezanine levels, “—over, he's over, over in—he's over in, in the, he's over in the, over in—over in the, in the—”

“Are you okay?” Sulla asked cautiously.

Aytrin held up a finger. “He's over in the, in the law section. He's over in the law section. Sorry.”

“Are you okay?” Sulla asked again.

“I get stuck sometimes and have trouble—I have trouble finishing sentiences.”

Sulla frowned. “You're kinda glitchy, huh?”

Aytrin shrugged. “Like I said, I'm an old hobby build. It's fine.”

“It's not fine if it's hurting you.”

“I don't hurt,” Aytrin said simply, cheeks glowing.

“Causing you problems, then,” Sulla insisted. “You could go to one of those debug shops on—”

Aytrin laughed once, coldly. “Do you have any idea how much it costs to actually get anything done at those shops?”

“Don't they do free diagnostics…?”

“Free or a dollar diagnostics, yeah.” He folded his arms. “To fix any of the problems they find, though, the costs start adding up so, so fast. I'm worth less sold as parts than they'd charge to fix me.”

Sulla blinked. “I never thought about that.”

“I have plenty of 'glitches' I wouldn't want fixed, anyway, because to me they're not problems they're quirks, but even the ones I would want fixed I can't afford to do anything about. Between me and Kash we don't make enough to cover rent in the city, let alone enough to drop a few hundred or thousand on maintenance, for me or him.”

“Kash is your boyfriend?” Sulla hugged her knees.

“Yeah.”

“And he's synthetic too?”

“No, he's human.”

She tilted her head, hair slipping over her shoulder. “Then what do you mean by maintenance for him?”

“Going to the dentist, things like that.”

“Oh.” Sulla looked askance and fiddled with the corner of the top book in her pile—a coding manual. “I can't help with dentists and stuff, but maybe I could help you? I could call it a school project.”

“I'd appreciate that.” Aytrin smiled warmly, cheeks aglow. His eyes flicked up behind Sulla and his smiled widened into a grin. “Hey, Kash.”

Sulla almost fell over herself turning to see a dark skinned young man with a shock of wavy, blond-tipped hair walking up from behind her, a laptop bag slung over one shoulder. He nodded a greeting. “Who's this, Ay?”

“Sulla,” Aytrin said brightly. “Um, Sulla, what pronouns do you use?”

“She,” Sulla said a little more sharply than she meant to.

Kash chuckled. “Don't be offended by him, he sucks at gender. Ay, we've been over this, boobs and long hair is usually a girl.”

Aytrin held up his hands. “I'd rather ask than guess wrong. Anyway, she's offered to fix some of my glitches. Her dad's a roboticist and she's studying it.”

“Yeah.” Sulla stood. “I can ask my dad if it's okay for you to come over sometime. Or, I'd have to bring stuff with me, but I guess I could come to you if you don't live to far. Aytrin mentioned you don't live in the city.”

Kash looked intensely down at Aytrin, who shrugged. “All I said was that we can't afford rent here.”

Kash sighed. “You're very kind, Sulla, but we'd have to come to you.”

“That's okay, I just have to ask my dad.”

“Of course,” Kash agreed. He poked Aytrin gently with his foot. “You got enough juice to get you to class with me tomorrow?”

Aytrin pressed the crook of his wrist, his cheeks lit along with a series of three dots on his inner arm. “Not quite.”

“Well,” Kash jammed his hands into pockets, “I need food, so I'm going to go grab myself dinner—you charge.”

“Okay,” Aytrin agreed, drooping slightly. “I think Burger King is doing that thing again where if you order on the app from next to a McDonalds you get a Whopper for a nickel.”

“I'll try that.” Kash stooped to kiss Aytrin quickly. “I'll be back.”

Sulla and Aytrin watched him walk away. Sulla ran her thumbnail under one of her fingernails. “Money's really tight for you guys, isn't it?”

Aytrin nodded. “Law school's expensive.”

Sulla lowered herself back down to the floor. “Kash doesn't like to talk about it, does he?”

“Nope.”

Sulla looked him over and pressed her lips together. “You can't charge at home.”

“We live in his car,” Aytrin said shortly.

Sulla's eyes widened.

Aytrin shrugged. “His school fees cover a parking pass for the campus deck so that's where we stay. We usually manage a little better than right now but the semester just started so all his, all his books, the semester just started so all his books and start of term expenses have sunk our budget.”

“That...makes sense. I don't think he'd want you to tell me that, though.”

“You were most of the way to figuring it out yourself.”

~*~

The front door banged open, announcing Sulla's return home.

“Brendan!”

“Up here, sweetheart,” Brendan called through his open office door without pausing in typing the email he was working on.

Sulla zoomed up the stairs and touched down lightly just as she came through the door. “Can I have some friends over for a project?”

“Which friends? Titus and everyone?”

“Um, no. New friends.”

“New friends?” Brendan hit send and swiveled his chair to face his daughter. “Do I know these friends?”

“Well, no….” Sulla rocked on her toes, hands folded behind her. “I just met them.”

“You just met them, and you want them to come over.”

“Yes.”

Brendan rubbed his temple. “Sulla.”

“One of them's synthetic and he's a hobby build and I don't think he's been updated at all—I know he's hardly had any maintenance—and he's got some really nasty glitches he can't afford to get fixed, but I can fix them!”

“Sulla….”

“Their names are Aytrin and Kash. They're really cool and Kash is a law student and they're dating and they're homeless because rent and school and everything costs so much. We're really lucky we have a house and money and all the stuff it takes for you to do maintenance on me and Al, and I'm really lucky I've always been able to count on you for that. They can't count on anybody for it and it's not fair, but I can help!”

Brendan settled back in his chair, looking at Sulla. Her hands had balled into determined fists at her sides. Law student meant mid twenties at least, and he was pretty sure he didn't like the idea of Sulla befriending random men, but apparently that's what he got for letting her go into town alone. And now she had her mind set on something.

With a sigh, Brendan turned back to his computer. “Let me make sure there's nothing too worrisome about these guys online. What did you say their names were?”

“Aytrin and Kash.” Sulla leaned on the back of his chair. “Aytrin doesn't have a last name but Kash's is MacAodha. Here, I've got his Insta.”

~*~

Al just about spat out his synth tea. “And you're letting her?!”

Brendan crossed his arms. “She's as stubborn as you and, honestly, I'm not inclined to talk her out of doing a good deed.”

Sulla wooshed through the living room, dropping her laptop on the couch as she passed. It bounced lightly on the cushion.

“I looked these kids up,” Brendan continued. “There's just about nothing online about the synthetic one besides the public record of his emancipation in 2020 and a few pictures on the other one's Instagram; that one, though, the organic one, Kash—he's in law school, he works for a nonprofit that provides legal aid to displaced women and youth. I was hesitant, but these really seem to be good guys in a tough spot. Sulla just wants to help.”

Sulla flew through the other way and dropped a tool case next to her laptop.

“You've had three days to tell me this is happening,” Al grumbled.

“I didn't know until this morning.” Brendan shrugged. “Apparently Aytrin had to get his work schedule before they knew when they could come.”

“You at least could have told me people might be coming over.”

“It's my house, Al—”

“I know that.”

“—and you've been nose to the soldering iron all week. Even if I had told you, you'd've given a monosyllabic answer, forgotten I said anything, and we'd still be having this same conversation.”

Al glowered at him and sipped his tea. “How long til they get here?”

Brendan opened his mouth, paused, and turned to call, “Sulla, when are we expecting your friends?”

“Umm,” Sulla popped over the railing of the stairs, checking her phone, “in, like, five minutes.”

~*~

Kash's car was an old Honda minivan, still in good shape but showing its age in the outlines of old bumperstickers left in varying degrees of less-sunbleached than the rest of the paint. It pulled up, parked in front of the garage, and the old converted engine cut with a descending whine. The driver's side door opened and Kash got out. His door closed with a hollow thunk just as Aytrin got out of the passenger side wearing the same black and white flannel he'd had tied around his waist at the library, carrying Kash's laptop bag. Aytrin hipchecked his door shut, the headlights flashed once as Kash locked it, the two young men looked at each other then up at the house.

Aytrin took Kash's hand, then a step toward the door—which Sulla then burst through.

“Hi!”

“Hi, Sulla,” Aytrin returned brightly as her feet touched down in front of him.

“Is it weird if I hug you or…?”

“Not weird.”

She hugged Aytrin, pulled back, held out a questioning arm to Kash, then hugged him, too, when he shrugged.

“Come in,” Sulla beckoned, trotting up the front steps. She held open the door and the boys stepped over the threshold.

Brendan was waiting just inside with a fresh mug of tea cradled to his chest. “Hello, there.”

“Good afternoon, sir,” Kash said politely, then turned sharply to Sulla. “This is your dad?”

“Yup.” Sulla bounced energetically.

“You didn't mention your dad is is Brendan Pinsky.”

“Well, no,” Sulla admitted, “but he is.”

Aytrin cocked his head toward Kash. “She did say her dad does robotics.”

“A lot of people do robotics, not a lot of people are CEOs of the foremost company in robotics—it's a pleasure to meet you, sir,” Kash segued abruptly. He held out a hand. “Kash MacAodha.”

#fanfic #o human star #good intentions wip fest

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ghostmartyr · 5 years ago

Note

Is there any proof Reiner is queer outside of that conversation he had with Ymir in Utgard Castle? It looked like that was said in jest, and he’s constantly been referenced to care for Historia and admiring Annie’s ass (as the female Titan). If it wasn’t for Ymir’s comment, I’d assume he’s definitely heterosexual.

His birthday’s on Yaoi Day.

You know, Reiner not being one of my faves, it isn’t something I consider often. After a while fandom’s unified conclusions start sounding like fact no matter where the ideas come from. Bringing him up just in case someone complained? No, I would never I am a blogger with integrity how dare.

That being said, in the entire series, I believe there are two distinct references to sexuality. The first is the conversation in Utgard. The second comes from the NPC molester during the coup.

For the sake of glossing over that one as quickly as possible, that commentary results from a situation already involving crossdressing. It’s not good commentary, but it has a direct cause that brings it up.

On the other hand, Ymir and Reiner are in their own bubble. The allusion to sexuality is actively opted into.

I’ll say flat out that I think Reiner falls short of my usual standards for considering a character canonically queer; I prefer more to it as a personal preference.

However, as you pointed out, if not for that one comment, Reiner radiates nothing but heterosexual frat bro as far as his sexuality. Making the fact that someone within the manga ever thought to comment that he seems gay an interesting statement about his character.

It’s arguably done because hey, it’s time for Ymir and Kristoria’s super gay gayining, but you don’t need to suggest that Ymir is gay for her and Historia to be blatantly gay for each other. Historia’s just as in love with her and there’s never been a whisper about her exact preferences. Gay jokes and discussions of sexuality really aren’t a thing in this manga.

So you have the Obviously Gay one calling the Obviously Straight one gay just so he can say she’s gay. When nothing about Reiner, from his limited scenes of crushing on Krista and talking about the Female Titan’s ass, suggests that he’s remotely gay. Calling him a pervert would feel like the more natural jab.

Planting the seed for wondering, because why bring it up?

And once you start wondering, you have Reiner crushing on a girl who isn’t even real. A girl who notices him so little that she reacts to him betraying everyone they know by asking for her girlfriend back. You have Reiner talking about the ass of a girl he knows would rather beat him up than tolerate his presence. You have Reiner constantly enforcing gender tropes when he does bring up romance; which he does more than any other character despite not having a romantic arc of his own.

You have someone whose mind has fractured from putting on a front of what he’s supposed to be, whose only healthy relationship with a female character is with his younger cousin, and who has a series of very fraught, intimate relationships with male characters.

Reiner’s sexuality being one more thing he’s overcompensating for works very well.

The conversation in Utgard could easily be a throwaway line, and I don’t particularly fault people who take it that way, but then you have the author doing a wink-wink-nudge with his official birth date, and how desperately Reiner is always trying to force himself to be what he thinks he should be instead of what he is–

It’s an interpretation, not quite hard canon fact, but it’s an interpretation that comes from a suggestion voiced within the canon. A suggestion that honestly seems to have no basis at first glance, doubly when Ymir’s whole shtick is twisting the knife on things that matter to people. Except the story decides to include it. The story chooses to plant that one little seed.

I’m not a Reiner expert by any means, but I think at the very least, canon suggests that Reiner has some seriously entrenched issues with heteronormativity. For the fans who do want to look deeper, that suggestion has some incredibly sturdy legs.

But I totally mostly included him because I do not like getting yelled at.

#attack on asks #Reiner Braun #tl;dr

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moths-wc-aus · 5 years ago

Text

Warrior Cat Asks - Responses

hey!!! a heads up---- there's a lot of spoilers in this post! i also curse several times, so if you're uncomfortable with that, feel free to skip over this post!!

When/how you got into Warrior Cats

Uhhh i don't remember when or how?? it was a long, long while ago, and i don't have the greatest memory.

Favourite clan

oooo! i like skyclan the best, but windclan and riverclan are close behind!

Least favourite clan

uhhhh probably shadowclan? i actually don't really dislike any clans, and i think they all have their strengths and weaknesses, but the majority of characters that i dislike end up being from shadowclan.

Favourite arc

either prophecies begin or dawn of the clans! both feel like the most put together of the series, and they both feel like something... new and different.

Least favourite arc

omen of the stars. the whole arc felt like the erins sat on a google doc writting their own versions of the story and only glancing at the other versions. the amount of continuity errors is infuriating, which is a shame, because the plot is so interesting.

Favourite protangonist

honestly??? i gotta go with firestar. he's the og and my baby. i adore him so much 💕💕💕

Least favourite protagonist

probably bramblestar. he wasn't so bad at first, but as the series went on, i liked him less and less. by the time i finished bramblestar's storm, i had a general distaste for the guy. squirrelflight deserves a husband that actually cares about her feelings, and that's that on that.

Favourite antagonist

mapleshade!!!!! i LOVE her!!! she's a darling!!!!!!!!!

Least favourite antagonist

ashfur. he's a bastard (pardon my language) and didn't deserve starclan. "his only fault was that he loved too much" yeah, that and he tried to kill three people :/

Favourite side character

mothwing!!! i love my lorge med cat lesbian ❤❤❤

i also h*cking adore fuzzball!! fuzzy bab heart heart

Least favourite side character

i don't wanna pick ashfur again, but uhhh i can't think of any other side character i dislike more.

Favourite leader

probably leafstar? from what i've read, she has yet to do anything overly problematic, and i stan unproblematic queens.

Least favourite leader

seeing as i don't wanna pick bramblestar again, i'll have to go with clear sky. the man doesn't treat his family very well throughout the entire arc, and it's aggravating.

A character that you used to love but now you hate them

i suppose that'd have to be yellowfang. her character really went downhill agter she died, and i can't get over the fact that she lied to squirrelflight's face and said she'd never have kits. yellowfang had her own painful experience with kits, and i can't believe she would've done that during her lifetime.

A character that you used to hate but now you love them

uhhhh i don't... have one? this sort of thing can be a tad difficult in warriors, because often, the issues i have with characters is sort of.... brushed aside. the closest i can get, i suppose, would be hollyleaf. i didn't hate her, i just.. had a couple issues with her. and i don't love her now, but i like her character a lot better since she's had the time to reflect on the things she's done and the problems she caused. i like that what she did was acknowledged, and it wasn't resolved immediately with 100% forgiveness by everyone.

Favourite pairing

ooo, i got loads of these!!!! i got a whole-ass list, here:

Leafpool x Cody

Leafpool x Mothwing

Leafpool x Sorreltail (LISTEN man leafpool attracts the tops, ALRIGHT???)

Bluestar x Rosetail (hnnnn bluerose)

Bluestar x Thrushpelt

Jake x Tallstar

Ravenpaw x Barley

Stormfur x Brambleclaw

Sandstorm x Silverstream

Sandstorm x Firestar

Sandstorm x Princess

Greystripe x Silverstream

Leafstar x Echosong

Leafstar x Billystorm

Evil!Spottedleaf x Mapleshade

Least favourite pairing

uhhh probably squirrelflight x ashfur. i'm not a fan of squirrelflight and bramblestar, either. i've seen someone say they ship ravenpaw and tigerstar I before, which almost made me burst into tears, so... there's that too, i guess

Favourite friendship

firestar, greystripe, ravenpaw! the og's! firestar, greystripe, and sandstorm are also absolutely fantastic 👏 👏

Overrated character

hm... probably brokenstar? idk, he's just not as.... villain-y as later antagonists.

Underrated character

mudfur!!!! the man loses his mate and three of his kits, dotes on leopardstar, who is his only surviving child, then decides he'd rather become a medicine cat and save lives than destroy them.

Best battle/fight

uhhh i think probably the battle where onestar and darktail drowned each other. it was a wild thing to read, and it left me in utter shock when i first read it.

Best moment

uhhhhh when tallstar's getting his nine lives and he gets one for love or smthn and immediately thinks for like,,,, 2 paragraphs about jake

Best/saddest death

saddest death goes to ravenpaw :(((( i almost cried in class when i read ravenpaw's farewell

best death goes to tigerstar I! it was the first warriors death that genuinely horrified me!

Something you would change if you could

hmm.... i'd probably include more queer characters and less drawn-out "will they won't they" cross-clan relationships. forbidden romances are great, but the more they're used, the more exhausting they get. and warriors should have more queer characters- there's only been four so far, they were all guys, and only two of them actually ended up together. this is within 70+ books! where are the lesbians? the trans cats? the nonbinary cats? i like how many cats there are that don’t see the interest in having mates and kits, but there's been less and less of them as the series goes on.

#warriors #warrior cats #mod ramblings #wc #warriors ask #cw cursing #cw spoilers #long post

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norahastuff · 6 years ago

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Just some thoughts about my utter befuddlement as to how people react to low key reveals about sexuality on tv and the damned if you do, damned if you don’t reactions to this approach (especially if the reveal in question is about a male character’s sexuality). Is it even possible to satisfy the burden of proof vs “out of nowhere” thing? Under a cut because this is basically just me thinking out loud, or whatever the written equivalent to that is.

(Spn and Arrow discussion below)

It’s only recently that I’ve started discussing tv shows online. I’d looked up a couple of sites before but I never really felt the need to join. What I really like about tumblr is that you get to really tailor your experience, so that you control the kind of posts you see and interact with. I mean this is supposed to be for fun and entertainment, so being able to avoid bitterness and other things that annoy me, is great. But it also means I’m somewhat sheltered from some of the reactions out there.

I’d fallen behind on Arrow so I decided to catch up on it. There’s another site that has the discussion arranged by episode so I decided to just read those after I was done with the season 7 premiere, because I thought it was amazing and was curious about how other people felt about it. There was a ton of positivity so I thought hmm that’s cool, I might check out what they’re saying about 7x02 as well.

(I’m not going to name the site, it’s not even about this site in particular, there are similar comments on every site - this just happens to be the one I checked out. This post is more about general attitudes.)

In Arrow, the titular character Oliver, has a son, William who is currently 12 years old. 7x02 shows a flash forward to 10 years into the future, where during a conversation, William has a casual line where he mentions ‘’my ex-boyfriend’’. That’s all it is, just one line. The person he’s speaking to doesn’t dwell on it, the storyline currently isn’t focusing on William’s romantic life, and they go back to discussing the whatever it is they were talking about before. All that happens is, we the audience now know that William is into dudes. I think later in the season we get more on it, but I’m not caught up yet.

I personally thought it was a nice realistic way for the show to convey that William isn’t straight. Apparently not. There were a bunch of comments about how the CW is just, and I quote ‘’all about sexual orientation’’ and all of Hollywood is just too into, and again I quote, “their social agenda’’. By the way, this is a show where there is only one other series regular who is explicitly portrayed as not being straight. But apparently two gay characters in a main cast of around 8ish, depending on the season, is too much and is pushing an agenda.

There were also people complaining that there had not been any build up to it and that it was coming out of nowhere. This is the one that gets me. So we’re supposed to a expect 12 year old boy who’s been on the show for around three years (so 9-12 years old) to telegraph his sexuality to the audience during that time? He’s also never shown any attraction to the opposite sex, so if he’d mentioned an ex girlfriend in that scene, would that be coming out of nowhere? Sighs.

I think William eventually in a few eps does say he’s gay, but it really does highlight the insane burdens any character faces if they’re not straight and don’t have a coming out arc. And for some reason, there is always more complaining/resistance if it’s a guy....hmm who’dda thunk it?

There’s actually an easy way to test that theory. This season on the Flash, the titular character Barry’s daughter from the future is also queer. There’s no explicit mention of it, but only once has Nora, ever shown any romantic interest in someone and it’s been a woman. It’s again a very casual reveal, there’s no dwelling on it and the story moves along. I can’t bring myself to check the site again, but I have a feeling if I did, and this may be a crazy theory, there wouldn’t be half as many people who had a problem with it as there were with William.

(As a sidenote, in the 7x01 discussion people were jokingly making comments about how since both Nora and William were both from the future and kids of superheroes, they were probably dating. They were fine with assuming both of these characters were straight without any proof or build up, but when it turns out neither of them are, welll...)

What I really hope is that this is mostly a “people who discuss the show on that site” thing. That there are a lot of casual viewers out there that don’t give this kind of thing much thought. That the people who complained about Korrasami being too out of the blue and there not being any build up, are outnumbered by the amount of people who didn’t pick up on Korrasami but, when it happened, just thought, ok cool! (Actually Korrasami is a good example of how w/w do face these challenges with acceptance too.)

Before I found tumblr, I did come across a “why do people think Dean and Cas are anything other than totes str8 bros?” post on this same site I mentioned before (and yes according to the discussion, Cas is straight too because although he’s been in both male and female bodies, is indifferent to sexual orientation and doesn’t even have a gender in the same way humans do, he’s only kissed women on the show so that makes him straight...which I don’t even know how to react to.)

A couple of people did try to respond sensibly and thoughtfully about all the subtext and some of the stories between Dean and Cas that led them to think this way, to which the response was basically, yeah well that’s all just friend stuff to me, none of that proves they are romantic.

When they were then asked, ok so if they did explicitly reveal they were romantic, through a declaration or hand holding or whatever, would you be alright with it then?

And (this exchange still gives me a headache) they said, no they wouldn’t be ok with it, because it would be coming out of nowhere.

So if I have this right, years of pining, romantic tropes and subtext is too subtle and not accepted as a build up to any kind of romance storyline, even if there are many many people who do see it that way...but if they explicitly address it, it’s too out of the blue and wouldn’t make any sense?

This is when I call bullshit. This is when I say for people who make claims like the one above, it’s not about the story not making sense. It’s not about being out of character or there being no warning. It’s about you being uncomfortable with the idea that you spent time enjoying a story or looking up to/relating to a character, that wasn’t explicitly revealed as not being straight from the beginning of the story. And for some reason, that bothers you.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not saying that anyone who doesn’t/hasn’t picked up on subtext or see the queer coding of certain characters or relationships has this problem. Just the ones who dismiss any and all signs of it and then claim there’s no build up if it does happen. They were going to have a problem with it, no matter how it played out. Because sexuality is completely rigid, it’s straight or gay, mostly straight, and if it’s gay it has to be obvious from day 1 so they can see this character as gay first and foremost, before they form any other opinions or attachments to them. And hey, they may still love the character, but they know from the beginning they’re gay, so they can allot them that label and have them classified as such.

Apparently even fictional depictions of any kind of fluidity in sexuality are terrifying.

#what makes a story work?#representation #audience reactions #canon destiel #destiel #not really #but i guess for blacklisting #what's bi is bi

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raeynbowboi · 6 years ago

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My Opinions of She-Ra Ships

So, I just finished watching season 1 of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. It was definitely very very very queer, and overall I’d say I liked it. With that said, as with any new fanbase, a new slew of ships have popped up, and I figured I would give my personal opinion on the main ones I saw.

Catradora/Catadora

I really like the realtionship between these two characters. I really don’t mind if they date or remain frenemies, I think they work wonderfully off one another. I wouldn’t be opposed to them becoming a couple toward the end of the series when Catra and Adora make up. But, if they never get together, I wouldn’t feel cheated. Though you do have to admit, there is some heavy flirty undertones to their dynamic, but part of that does come from being best friends. Out of all of Adora’s possible ships, this one feels the most likely to me.

Glimmadora/Glimadora

I’m okay with this as a ship. A big problem I find when it comes to lesbian ships is that women are a lot more physically intimate and affectionate with their friends, so it can be a bit harder to tell flirtation and romance from just a really strong platonic bond. So far, while I’ve seen some romantic undertones, it hasn’t felt like there was anything direct enough to say that I fully ship it or that I see it as a likely outcome. However, since she’s Adora’s second closest female companion, she certainly has a lot of seasons to get out of the friend zone.

Perfumadora

So far, the only character to show direct, outright attraction, or at least admiration for She-Ra/Adora. It’s difficult to say at the moment if she’s attracted to Adora or only to She-Ra, but there was definitely some crush elements done when she saw She-Ra for the first time. Only time will tell whether this lesbian (or at least, girl loving) character will win the protagonist’s heart. Another potentially interesting element of this ship is that if Perfuma was actually more attracted to She-Ra than Adora, I could see this ship being used to explore lessons of finding someone who loves you for who you really are, not some idealized version of yourself, or some other lesson like that, which is always a good lesson to teach kids. Plus, out of all the Princesses of Power, she has the most Princess Classic archetypal aesthetic, so she creates the Knight and Damsel trope with Adora better than the other princesses. So, if Catradora was not the endgame ship, and if this relationship wasn’t toxic, I think this would be my second favorite shipping option for Adora.

Glimbow

Well, just so long as it’s as a BrOTP or a Friend!Ship, I don’t mind this pairing, but the instant I saw Bow I could tell he was coded gay. No doubt in my mind. So the idea of these two becoming a couple just feels wrong and off-putting. Besides, boys and girls should be allowed to be close best friends without any romantic tension needing to exist between them. But that’s also my reading of the character, so the fact that I read him as gay does color my opinion of him being shipped with female characters.

Seamista/Merhawk

To be honest, I’m just not much of a fan. While one could draw a parallel to Kiribaku with the happy dope pining after the grumpy aloof person, Mermista really lacks Bakugou’s depth and redeeming features, coming off as just a rather one-note sourball. Meanwhile, Seahawk lacks the endearing charm of Kirishima that makes Kiribaku work so well, making him come off more as annoying and intrusive, unlike Kirishima, whose invasion of Bakugou’s bubble feels more like a natural extension of his friendly nature. So it just feels like a clash of two tropes thrown together more as a comedic bit rather than a proper ship. There’s also the fact that since i read Bow as gay, and there’s only like... 6 male characters with names, and one is a horse and another is the main bad guy, any pairing that robs Bow of a potential male love interest is not going to catch my interest.

Bowhawk/Seabow

Speaking of, this is my primary OTP for the series on the grounds that... there’s not really any other option if I want a cute gay couple. Plus they do have chemistry, it’s not just me scrounging for whatever scraps I can manage to find. There is something there which points to flirtatious elements to their dynamic. Considering they’re the only two male characters who are both humanoid and not part of the Horde, it’s safe to bet that unless Bow is planned to end up with Kyle that this is the most likely gay pairing.

Byle/Boyle (Bow x Kyle)

Out of all the other Horde characters, Kyle screams turncoat character the most. Especially considering I don’t think any of the other cadets even had their names said, and he had his said multiple times, which sort of boosts his relevancy within the story. So, there was some romantic coding between these two toward the end of season 1, and I suppose if Kyle did betray the Horde, he might make for a decent match with Bow, but that’s really going to depend on their relationship and how it builds from here. Right now, I’m still more on the Bowhawk train, but I’m open to this ship so long as it’s well-written. And hey, if this ship becomes canon, I won’t care as much about Mermista and Seahawk being a thing. I just want some guy on guy romance. I also lean toward Byle for the ship name, simply because Boyle is an actual surname and will muddy search results.

Scorpcatra

The relationship between Catra and Scorpio is definitely interesting. I could see them becoming best friends, I could see her just being Catra’s funny sidekick, or I could see Catra forming an emotional attachment to her and wanting to protect her. This is another pairing where if it became canon, I wouldn’t complain, but I’d also react the same way if it didn’t happen. Granted, it’s only been one season, we’ll have to see where the romantic arcs take us.

Encatra

Honestly, you could tell me that Entrapa and Catra become a BrOTP, an OTP, an OT3 with Scorpia, or a BrOT3, and I’d believe any of those claims. She doesn’t seem to be particularly interested in relationships, but we haven’t seen much of her yet either. Only time will really tell if Entrapa even feels romantic or sexual attraction, but no matter how her relationship with Catra and Scorpia evolves, I’d be okay with any end result.

Spinetossa

So far, this is the only ship with any solid credibility thus far. I mean, they’re practically hanging off each other 24/7. If they aren’t wives already, they’re clearly at least dating. I’d be surprised if they ended up just being sisters, but they’re the only ship thusfar with canonical backing as far as I can see. Everything else is pretty much still speculative at this point.

Kygelio (Kyle x Rogelio)

If you were unaware of this ship, I don’t blame you. I only learned of its existence while making this post. The lizard guy’s name was never even given, that I know of. However, Rogelio is shown taking care of, carrying, and supporting Kyle a lot in the background. Considering Kyle’s weak will and seemingly low self-esteem and self-worth, it’s hard to tell if this is just a very close, supportive, and protective friendship or if there’s a romantic element. Considering I don’t even think Rogelio spoke at all this season, it’s hard to say. However, considering they’re 2 of the only 6 named male characters, I wouldn’t dream of ignoring the shipping potential in them.

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yoshimickster · 6 years ago

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What I feel would’ve improved StarVS(part two of a few)

Hey, its Mick again, how hangs it? Its weird that I’m both criticizing a show I still somewhat like, as WELL as giving off a list of things that I feel would improve it BEFORE its finale, but I feel its still worth talking about. Today I’m gonna talk about the forgotten Los Angeles suburb that we all miss-

-Echo Creek, settled on the battlefield of a massive opossum war, this charming town is composed of several gi-GANTIC hills that people thought putting houses on was a good idea because its Los Angeles. With that, I’m going to point out all the forgotten characters in the show, and how they could’ve EASILY stayed in the show, or how they could’ve been improved while they were still there.

FIRST OFF-

-Ferguson and Alphonso. Many wondered where the HELL they went in season 2 after having prominent roles as side characters in season 1. The answer is that they were BANISHED due to the creators being able to write more of the original story they WANTED to write, that never featured them. As you may or may not know, Alphonso and Ferguson were never meant to be a part of the show, Disney made the writers squeeze them in because they wanted Marco to have male best friends as for whatever dumb reason they thought a show with a female-centric cast wouldn’t sell as much. SPOILER ALERT-it totally sold as much, and once they got the season 2 order Alphonso and Ferguson were PRETTY much out.

How they could’ve been improved: Now once again I understand WHY they were written out, but the fact of the matter is that while the writers hated them, the fans didn’t, hell in one of the comics-

-they were even ADVERSTISED to be in it! They were THAT much of a draw. Ultimately, what I feel would’ve improved their characters if the show straight up ACKNOWLEDGED that they weren’t supposed to be in the story, like maybe have them gone for only half or a quarter of the season, and then explain that Omnitraxis took them out of the space time continuum as they never truly belonged. Either that or just...keep them in normal style and develop them beyond the role of “Funny fat friend” and “Funny foreign friend” respectively, but what do I know?

How they could’ve stayed: The EASY answer is having them be squires to Star as well, allowing them to become just as kick ass as their best pal Marco...buuuuuuuuuuuut there’s a better answer: LET MARCO VISIT HIS FREAKING FRIENDS! Remember in “Marco Jr” how the Diazes gave him crap for not visiting as much? THAT-was a valid ass point considering oh I don’t know-HE OWNS MAGICAL SCISSORS(another reason to hate the original “Neverzone” deal because him getting his own scissors wasn’t NEEDED). He could’ve visited home at ANY time, caught up with his besties, solve a mystery or something, but NO-the bulk of Marco’s arcs in seasons 3 and 4 are pri-MARILY romance based. I would’ve taken like ONE episode of him catching up with his friends, ALL I need, BUT because the writers washed their hands of Echo Creek we’ll never get that chance.

NEXT UP-two characters that are...dis-TURBINGLY the same.

BRITTNEY Wong, the spoiled mean girl head cheerleader in literally every high school story that’s EVER existed because status quo-

-and Jeremy Birnbaum, Marco’s pint-sized karate rival.

How they could’ve been improved: Literally ANYTHING that would the two of them past basic bitch bullies. Now Jeremy had a LITTLE bit of development in “All Belts are Off” in explaining the reason he even HAS a black belt is because his parents practically bribe Sensei Brantley...much like how Brittney’s father bribed the school to make her...head cheerleader-DEAR GOD-they’re both the exact same character if you think about it! Honestly, just have Brittney and/or Jeremy bond with their rival Star and/or Marco in some way or fashion that either quells or AMPLIFIES the rivalry. Hell, I’m amazed Jeremy never tried to TRULY get back at Marco after “Monster Arm”, give the kid some credit for only enacting petty pranks.

How they could’ve stayed: Okay with Brittney the answer isn’t so much obvious as it is HILARIOUS. You know how Rich Pigeon’s family became royal SOLELY because their insanely rich? Same thing, just have her dad straight up BUY a kingdom and she becomes a princess. Don’t lie, that’d be hilarious. And with Jeremy, I think he should’ve gone full on kung fu rival after realizing EVERY accomplishment he ever had was because his parents bought it for him. He can’t handle that he’s not special, and because of that turns to the DARK side! Plenty of ways to go with him.

NEXT UP-

OSKAR GREASON(thought it was Gleason for years)-the boring love interest of Star Butterfly whom she BARELY bonded with in seasons 1 and 2, and was only there to exist!

How he could’ve improved: You know how Marco and Jackie slowly bonded over seasons 1 and 2, how they developed as an actual couple, RIGHT up to the very end? THAT-but with Oskar. Have her go on like, a FEW dates with him, HELL-have them double date making Star realize how little she actually cares for him and have THAT be the point where she realizes she likes Marco! GRAH-freaking waste of a love interest, as well as a generally amusing character.

How he could’ve stayed: Musical apprentice to Ruberiot, easy. Have it be really awkward since Star used to crush on him, yadda yadda, writes itself.

NEXTAH-

Sensei (Brantley) Marco’s dimwitted but lovable sensei!

How he could’ve improved: HONESTLY-he personally as a character needs to improve the least from a story standpoint, he had a pretty funny mini-arc in being a fraud of a karate teacher, somehow getting away with every lesson BEFORE the red belt, it works. A concept that SHOULD’VE been more explored was his friendship with Marco, maybe have the two improve their martial arts together to become CHAMPIONS of justice!

How he could’ve stayed: Become a squire with Marco, easy. No more to say there.

NEEEEEEEEEEEERXT-

MISS MARGARET SKULLNICK-the strict, yet caring school teacher to Star Butterfly and her other classmates! She’s a bad ass troll school teacher, what MORE do you want?!

How she could’ve been improved: Nothing, because she was fucking awesome and underrated.

How she could’ve stayed: FREAKING TUTOR TO STAR AND MARCO! I KNOW the writers think all the magical Mewni nonsense trumps the school aspect but...WHEN THE HELL ARE ANY OF THE KIDS GOING TO SCHOOL ANY MORE?! They could’ve EASILY had an ep where like, Star misses school or something, and then gets her math checked up on by Miss Skullnick, I don’t know I just miss the bad ass troll lady!

TXEN-

Starfan13, the whacky Star Butterfly fangirl who is also voiced by show creator Daron Nefcy!

How she could’ve been improved: The biggest problem with her is that outside of Star being shown to be bi in season 4, most representations of queer rep in the show are of nameless background characters. THE EXCEPTION-Starfan13, who has a DEFINITE crush on Star. The problem is obvious, said crush is only mentioned once throughout the series, and is never brought up again. Maybe have Starfan13 try to get over Star with another crush, but ultimately that fails because she becomes Janicefan13, basically absorbing the supposed persona of her obsession. Have her go through a real personal arc realizing that before she can obsess about others, she should become obsessed with her-SELF...I worded that horribly, LOVE herself. Also, do we know her ACTUAL first name? Four seasons and we only know her social media handle, what’s up with that?

How she could’ve stayed: Pretty much the same “Getting over Star and learning to love herself” story-BUT-where she somehow follows Star to Mewni and is still as obsessed with her. Honestly, isn’t it STRANGE that the writers never thought about that with her? She’s the most fan-girly fangirl of ALL time, you think the physical borders between realities would stop HER?! Just unrealistic.

FRAAAAAAAAAAAAAH-

Principal Edwin Bonner-Skeeves, easily bribed public servant of Echo Creek.

How he could’ve been improved: Go to jail. Look this guy got bribed canonically TWICE in the show, whose to say he wasn’t bribed several other times? Then he gets replaced by...Miss...Heinous-OH DEAR GOD-that is what should’ve happened! YES-the best development for Skeeves is to get replaced, EASILY!

How he could’ve stayed:...ya got me, he’s like the ONE character I can’t see on Mewni.

SHRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH-

Rafael and Angie Diaz, the loving but in-CREDIBLY irresponsible parents to Marco Diaz.

How they could’ve been improved: Honestly not by much, they were pretty fun in season 1 and 2-BUT-the one thing that always bugged me about them was in “Heinous” how they FINALLY acknowledged how little they knew about their son and would keep more of an eye him...said subject is CLEARLY forgotten as they just FULL ON allow their son to move to the dangerous hellscape that is Mewni. I know they joke about “Star stealing their son” but-NO-dammit, they could’v said NO , they could’ve tried to be actual parents and showed some FREAKING backbone! ALSO-not have them name their second born after their first born, that is WEIRD!

How they could’ve stayed: Now they actually didn’t have to MOVE to Mewni, but they should’ve been to Marco what Moon and River were to Star in seasons 1 and 2, where Marco would regularly talk to them via magic mirror. If you’ve seen my previous post, you can see how turning Marco into the Star(pun intended) of Mewni was a good idea in theory, but wasn’t well done in practice. They only appeared ONCE in season 3, and only had a passing mention in one of TEN episodes into season 4. River and Moon weren’t abandoned as characters, why were the Earth parents?

And finally-HA-THE BIG ONE!

Jackie Lynn Thomas, Marco’s former crush and former girlfriend.

How she could’ve stayed: Yeah I skipped improved on purpose, she was great and she should’ve stayed. I don’t know WHY TV shows keep doing this, be it StarVs or New Girl, but sometimes REGARDLESS of how interesting they are they’ll just write out love interests completely once the romance ends. A person doesn’t disappear when you break up with them, they continue to exist and live on their life. Maybe Marco could’ve had a Mewni day and have her moving on with a new guy, to which Marco gets jealous or something. Point is, waste of a character and I hope she at least has ONE cameo in the final season.

And that’s part 2, hoped you liked it, after this I think I’m going to end it with the personal arcs of the title characters. With that, I’m Yoshimickster a.k.a. Mick the nerd, and hope you have a kickin’ time.

#star vs #starvs #star vs the forces of evil #marco diaz #miss skullnick #principal skeeves #oskar greason #jackie lynn thomas #brittney wong #jeremy birnbaum #ferguson and alphonso #rafael diaz #angie diaz #star butterfly #starfan13 #sensei brantley #disney #disney xd

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itsclydebitches · 5 years ago

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RWBY Recaps: “Spark”

What’s the current mood? I would sell all future RWBY seasons for one episode of The Mandalorian.

Okay, I exaggerate. Overall this episode had some really great moments, just (per usual) tied up in a lot of awful implications. Which frankly is a step up from last week’s more overt nonsense, so I’ll take it. I’ve just got Space Dad Fever like the rest of the internet so whenever RWBY does something stupid my brain goes, “Why can’t you be more like Baby Yoda? With non-forced cuteness and consistent writing?”

Okay, okay I’m focused on the correct fandom. I swear.

This episode opens with Penny waking the group up extra early. Yang wants to know what time it is. “Time to be huntresses, of course!” Really, the contrast between, ‘I love my job’ and ‘But my job makes me get up at an ungodly hour’ is easily the most relatable thing RWBY has done this season. I was also just greatly amused by the animation choices with in-world implications. Like that Weiss sleeps with her giant braid in. Or that the group owns nothing except for the new clothes on their backs. I wondered after the Volume Six’s train scene if most of their luggage had been up front with JNR, or if they’d lost it all during the crash itself. We only see three bags as they make their way to the farm.

Did Oscar re-pack everything before they had to hightail it out of that burning, grimm-infested place? I don’t remember and I’m way too lazy to go check. Yang then loses her motorcycle. Who knows, if they did have stuff, whether it got onto the stolen airship. Doubtful. I mean, Weiss showed up with a massive amount of luggage, but that’s for hiding grandmas. Basically, what I’m saying is that I think the group showed up in Atlas, exhausted, and had to tell Penny they don’t have PJs anymore. Cue standard issue t-shirts and strange thermal-ish pants.

We then begin a montage of their different work. It starts out not with the missions they signed up for last episode but anything and everything connected to Amity Arena. Keep clearing out the mines. Protect resource transports. Fill in for the missing soldiers in Mantle, etc. On the whole I legitimately loved these moments showing the various relationships and life as a huntress in Atlas, with the exception of two scenes. The first is during the section where we see Blake and Yang working with Marrow, who makes the mistake of saying a) that they should consider partnering with other people sometime and b) pointing out that he’s not sure their styles are complimentary.

Look, I get it. A few hours after the episode dropped and tumblr is already exploding with GIF-sets of this scene, celebrating how Blake and Yang are so in love they can’t even stand Marrow suggesting that they might spend some time apart. From a shipping perspective it looks like gold and as someone who also ships them I’d normally be inclined to celebrate too. Except that this is a really unhealthy pattern of behavior. Marrow is right. The group should practice partnering with other people for the simple reason that this is a job and they may not always get to decide who they’re going to work with. It’s a job with endless risks and they may not always be able to control who they end up fighting beside, because when was the last time a plan actually worked right? The advice of ‘Hey. Don’t stagnant by only fighting with the same person 24/7’ is sound, especially in an episode already focused on training and progress. As is the innocent observation that their styles don’t seem to compliment each other. Marrow isn’t being cruel here. He’s not trying to insist he knows better and separate them based on that. He’s just making casual conversation---and gets this in response.

This scene would read completely differently if Blake and Yang were playfully smug after that attack combo. Then it becomes a moment of bonding where they’re correcting Marrow through a bit of teasing. Instead they’re legitimately mad. Mad enough that Yang’s semblance briefly activates. I’ve mentioned before that Yang has a tendency to think the worst of people and act violently towards them on instinct (Ozpin, bot in the street) and that Blake has a tendency to go wherever she leads, even when that makes no sense for her own characterization (siding with Yang’s anger over her own experiences as an abuse survivor). This is another example of that. Marrow gives them good advice and makes a casual comment? Immediate fury from Yang. Yang’s pissed off? Well I’m gonna be pissed off too. I try not to bring shipping too much into these recaps, but I do think it’s worth mentioning here. Big Blake/Yang fans have a tendency to paint everything they do as the most Romantic Thing Ever ™; anti-Blake/Yang fans have a tendency to make blanket statements about how their relationship is inherently unhealthy. But as usual the truth lies somewhere in between. They’re fantastic together, I think Rooster Teeth is setting up a relationship, and there are also aspects that are unhealthy. Not because it’s queer (which is the basis for most antis’ anger), but because the writing has them enabling their flaws in the name of “support.” Sorry, but if you can’t deal with someone making a comment as innocent as Marrow’s without beating up a grimm in fury about it... then you either need to work out that relationship insecurity or work on general anger management. Because Marrow didn’t deserve those cold looks and these two weren’t justified in receiving his panicked backpedaling. It’s one of those little things that presumably means nothing on its own, but combined with Blake and Yang’s entire development speaks volumes. Let them talk through Adam. Let someone call Yang out on her judgments. It’s ‘fine’ in situations like this; not fine in situations like Volumes 5-6.

The other part of the montage that didn’t sit well was another ‘joke.’ Just like I’m not inclined to view Yang and Blake’s anger as cutesy romance stuff here, I’m not comfortable brushing off Jaune’s interaction with the kids’ moms as a bit of humor. Yeah, maybe I’m “sensitive,” but was no one else creeped out by that? Jaune might technically be an adult, but he’s, what? Nineteen? So a junior in college. Maybe a sophomore. A young adult is what I’m saying. Is it possible all these women are also eighteen to early twenties (it’s so hard to tell ages with RWBY) and they just had their kids early? Sure. It is possible that these women all decided to become single moms, or divorced their partners, or are open to polyamory? Also sure. But let’s be real here, that’s not the joke. The joke is that a group of older, presumably married women are thirsting over the young, hot huntsmen. People would be more willing to admit that it’s not a great humor choice if RWBY had done that to one of the girls, but when a guy is the target it’s seen as a funny victory. Look at Jaune getting all that older, adulterous attention! As Nora herself says, “It’s totally the haircut.” (Even though that haircut remains atrocious, sorry.) The message is basically that if a guy is hot enough it doesn’t matter that he’s just trying to do his job, that he’s probably far younger than you, that you’re probably married... go gawk at him and give him gifts that clearly make him uncomfortable.

Again, I realize I’m being “sensitive.” It’s just a web series, just a stupid scene meant to generate a laugh, etc. But I’ve reached a point in my life where I simply don’t find that sort of stuff humorous. As a woman who has had much older men hit on me while I’m trying to do my job, I look at the same thing happening to Jaune and ask, “Why was this supposed to be funny again?”

But anyway, enough about all that. Other moments in the montage include Ruby and Yang fighting grimm together (presumably in their downtime. Nerds), Winter pretending to be unimpressed with Weiss’ summoning, and Ironwood telling Oscar that maybe they can “jog [Ozpin] loose” with a bit of training.

Yeah, remember how excited we all were that, based on the Volume’s opening, we would at least see Oscar training with Ironwood? Remember how we all thought that this would provide him with some much needed character development? That maybe this would be the moment when he struggled with and potentially decided to come clean about their lies? Or he tries to talk to Ozpin while sparing with an incredibly difficult opponent? You know, since Ironwood himself brought up jogging Ozpin loose, we might actually get some interaction with Ozpin?

Boy were we optimistic! What we actually get is them charging each other for one hit before we cut back to others training. Namely Jaune. And this right here is the problem with this entire episode: for however cute and wonderful these moments might seem, they’re all flat out ignoring the primary conflicts of the show. The ones the writing keeps refusing to grapple with. Who knows how much time this montage is supposed to cover, but it’s substantial. We get multiple flashes of different days, see the group working on different missions, a couple different moments taking place in the early morning, so I’d wager at least another week has passed. Combine that with however long it took Pietro to make their weapons and you’ve got the group fully entrenched in their lies. No one is questioning Ruby. Ruby isn’t making headway towards trusting Ironwood. Everyone is just kicking their heels, happy with the status quo until something forces them to finally make a decision. They now, officially, have no right to judge Ozpin for the time he took to trust people. We see them doing the exact same thing here and they’re all happy about it. With the exception of those two quick flashbacks in “Ace Operatives,” we’ve seen no evidence that the rest of the group is struggling with their own hypocrisy. I---like many---had hoped that Oscar’s training session would finally acknowledge and expand on the rest of the team’s initial hesitation. But no.

(In which Jaune’s expression is me.)

Jumping ahead just a bit, we see this same issue when Ruby, Penny, Qrow, and Ironwood are out driving the supplies. Ruby and Penny finally have some time to themselves! Will they discuss her murder and resurrection? Nope. Ruby vaguely references it with, “You know...” but there’s no actual depth to their conversation (and if you can’t even say ‘When you died’ that implies that maybe there are some lingering feelings about all this). Instead Ruby is interested in whether Penny has made new friends and she says that Ironwood claims she has no time for friends. Slot that in next to the Ace Ops’ ridiculous, “We’re not friends.”

Second, we have this moment between Qrow and Clover where they reiterate the huge gap between age and experience here. Clover is hoping that “another generation” will do right by Remnant after we’re gone. Namely Ruby and the others. Continuing with that age theme, he reassures Qrow that “those kids wouldn’t be where they are without you” which is all well and good, but is anyone going to tell THEM that? The adults don’t need to know that they’re doing good work---even if it is nice for Qrow to get some validation for once---rather, the whole “we don’t need adults” fiasco came about because the teens refused to acknowledge that work. We don’t need someone telling Qrow that he’s helped keep them safe. Overlooking some insecurities (which RWBY isn’t tackling anyway), he knows that. We as the audience don’t need to hear it because we saw it all happen on screen. Rather, Clover should be put into a position where he reminds Ruby of all that her uncle has done for her. Just like Qrow talking to Ruby about her motivations for moving forward against Salem doesn’t accomplish anything, Clover telling Qrow, as one adult to another, that they’re worth something doesn’t accomplish anything either. These parties know all this already.

As a side note, this is why you should mix things up. Not just so that Blake and Yang can practice fighting beside other people, but so that people who don’t already agree can be challenged for once. Put Yang with Qrow and have him comment on her anger, continuing Tai’s work. Put Ruby with Clover and let him talk to her about what adults have done to get her here. All these moments of potential development are lost by maintaining the expectation that the original partners have to be the priority. Rooster Teeth had an easy way of throwing new people together by assigning them various missions and they didn’t take it. Yang is still with Blake. Ren is still with Nora. Of course Qrow is with the one other guy his age who we have to pair him with. Reinforcing these relationships is great, but so is pausing them too.

And then there’s the drinking.

Hold up one second. I need to grab a bit of writing from my Volume 6 finale recap. Think back to Qrow and Ruby’s interaction in the airship:

And then Qrow lowers his bottle which… what? Alcoholism doesn’t work like that. Much more importantly, no one has tackled his drinking this season. Or the reasons he was drinking in the first place. Literally, Qrow’s semblance, his place in the war, Ozpin’s secret, none of it has been addressed. He has no reason to suddenly put aside his flask like he’s actually learned something. Does RT think we’re going to just imagine scenes that never actually happened?

After I posted this a couple of people pointed out that it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. We’ve seen other times where Qrow goes to take a drink and then thinks better of it, so it’s a reach to assume he’s magically given up drinking now. Which, fair. Now though it looks like that’s precisely what we got. Sometime between being found passed out on the front steps of the Argus house and reaching Atlas, Qrow just decided he was done with drinking and thus far we’ve seen no evidence that he’s struggling with that. Meaning, it’s not a conflict he’s working through. That doesn’t seem to be his arc this volume.

Yet he’s an alcoholic. Qrow’s drinking may have functioned as a joke for most of Volumes 1-3, but Volume 6 made it abundantly clear that this problem is incapacitating for him, especially after learning about Ozpin and Salem. So what happened? What changed? Even if I choose to overlook Qrow just deciding not to engage with his addiction anymore without help or backslides that we know of (doesn’t work like that...), I can’t ignore the fact that there was no catalyst for this. If the show wanted us to work under the assumption that Qrow stopped drinking because it endangered his family then they should have had him stop after the farm. You know, when he was almost killed by Apathy and had to be dragged out by his nieces. As it is, his drinking continues on throughout their whole time at Argus. He’s not picking up his scroll. He’s passed out on the steps. He’s brushing past Ruby to go get a drink instead of helping them figure out a way past Cordovin. Then a day later they make it to Atlas. So what precisely in that 24 hour period happened to change one of Qrow’s defining characteristics? Or, if this is supposed to be an arc wherein Qrow attempts to get sober and struggles with it, why haven’t we seen that? Again, they’ve been in Atlas for weeks now. This isn’t a one day sober Qrow with a naively optimistic outlook. He’s apparently been managing this for a while now with no downsides, no difficulties, no regrets.

Blake and Yang getting mad at Marrow instead of acknowledging their trauma. Oscar taking one hit at Ironwood instead of grappling with their secrets. Ruby talking about new friends instead of the relationship she already has with Penny. Clover telling Qrow adults are important instead of anyone telling the teens that. Qrow revealing that he’s just not drinking anymore. For reasons. It’s amazing just how much space this episode provides for the characters to start working through their conflicts and we bypass every opportunity. This is RWBY’s primary problem. Beyond the pro-protagonist perspective is the issue that, especially since Volume 5, the show has made a habit of introducing intriguing problems and then either twisting them so they have simplistic ‘solutions’ (we don’t need to tackle Ruby’s hypocrisy. She’s just “different” from Ozpin) or ignores them completely. We don’t need a new friendship vs. professional relationship conflict. We don’t need a new luck vs. bad luck semblance conflict. Not yet anyway. Not until we work through the conflicts that have already been introduced. Let Ruby talk to Penny about their own relationship. Let Clover help Qrow get sober. RWBY is like me when I’m writing fic. Why would I finish the thing I started when there’s this shiny new idea over here? Except I’m engaging in a low-key hobby whereas they’re writing for their livelihood. For the love of everything, please solve the problems we already have before chucking in new ones. You can give us all the same moments and relationships, just tailor them so they acknowledge the things the viewers have been waiting for you to tackle. I don’t need to know why Ruby and her team are Super Special because they’re BFFs when everyone else in Atlas apparently rejects friendship like the plague. I do need to know why a guy who was introduced downing a glass of whiskey apparently got over his alcoholism off screen.

Ugh. You know what we need? Penguins. Everyone look at the penguins for at least five seconds and allow them to cleanse your soul.

Heading backwards, before the transport scene we get a training fight between JNR + Oscar and Neon’s group. I honestly wonder how a team like theirs feels about them getting their licenses. After all, they fought at the Battle of Beacon too. The only reason why RWBYJNR got into extra, life-threatening situations is because they stupidly went off on their own. I realize that duh, as a story we can’t just have our protagonists twiddling their thumbs, but from an in-world perspective Ruby snuck out of the house to hunt down a woman who would absolutely have killed her and 100% would have been kidnapped if Qrow hadn’t followed to keep her safe. Everything else stems out of that. So not exactly a classically heroic basis for special treatment. All of which Neon and Flynt presumably don’t even know about because it touches on all those secrets. I suppose they just heard something along the lines of, “I, Ironwood, am giving two Beacon teams early licenses because they survived a horrendous battle. You, my actual students, don’t get them even though you did the same work.” It could have been really interesting to have some tension over this and for the group to see another complication of their secret keeping. Here they have to keep Cinder, the Maidens, the Relic, etc. quiet... but because of that it leads to some pretty awful miscommunication between friends. There are repercussions to your secrets and not all of them are things you can plan for or fix.

We don’t have anything like that though. Obviously. Instead we just get a generic fight with a side of weird Nora/Ren stuff. Meaning, Neon calls him Nora’s boyfriend and asks, “Where’s that energy when he’s around you?” Later Nora asks if they’ll still get sandwiches before work and Ren heaves out an annoyed sigh.

That moment struck me simply because it doesn’t come across like one of his normal, happily indulgent sighs. Ren seemed legitimately annoyed. Which is even stranger when we consider that Nora isn’t being over the top here. Sure, she pops up behind him in a sort of silly manner, but really all she’s doing is expressing that she’s hungry after an intense battle. Can we please make sure we grab something before heading off to work? That’s a more than reasonable request.

Ren shutting her down over his hair. Seeming to ignore her when she fiddles with it while on patrol. Neon’s comment about his lack of energy around her. Nora getting mad enough about it to give her a black eye (RWBY so rarely shows injuries). Ren seemingly put out by her theatrics. They’re all little things that only seem to paint a picture when put together, but of what exactly? It’s like I said last time, if the show wants to introduce some sort of arc for Nora and Ren this volume it had better do it soon. Really soon. Details that may or may not be setup can only take you so far.

During this battle Ironwood smiles down at all their progress, which could be endearing or creepy, depending on whether you think he’s hiding something (more on that in a bit). Neon actually acknowledges Oscar’s existence and draws a blush out of him, so thank you for that, Neon.

I thought for just a moment that Jaune might compliment Oscar too, but he just compliments the other team instead. At least they’re letting him train with him. After last week’s episode I’ll take this small step forward.

Back past the talk between Qrow and Clover, we finally get to meet the infamous Robyn Hill. She blocks the road to Amity Arena with one of her Happy Huntresses, the same faunus who was spying on the project last episode. And who I forgot to mention in my recap. Whoops. I love Hill already though precisely because she’s able to do what our protagonists couldn’t last Volume: stand down when a plan fails.

Hill takes her shot by putting up the roadblock and asking Clover to be straight with her, but when that doesn’t work and it looks like they’re about to come to blows, she admits defeat and lets them through. That’s how you handle a tenuous ally. Keep the peace and regroup with a different idea. Show them basic respect so that they might help you in the future. Clover’s “good luck” regarding the election speaks volumes about how everyone does want to help each other, they just need to figure out a way to do it. Hill could have attacked the group and stood her ground purely because she believes she’s right---just as Ruby did with Cordovin---but she demonstrates her maturity instead. She didn’t risk lives for the sake of getting what she wanted right here, right now. Despite the fact that what she wants likewise involves the safety of the people. Take note, Ruby.

Speaking of, everyone catch that guilty look when Ruby learns that Ironwood’s project is taking resources directly from the city that most needs it? Yeah, what did you think was going to happen? At the very least the group saw that they were taking manpower away. Ironwood needs them to help protect Mantle because most of his men are off in the middle of nowhere, so the group is well aware that their actions are causing a negative impact. I highly doubt that the eight of them (including Qrow) can make up for however many people Ironwood is pulling out, to say nothing of the fact that many of them (like Ruby here) are also on Amity duty. They’re allowing Ironwood to put people, money, supplies, and time towards an endeavor that they know is bound to fail. Sure, it would be nice to have communication across Remnant without fear of losing that to the grimm again, but we all know Ironwood is primarily doing this because of the Salem situation. If he knew about her immortality he’d probably go, “Hmm. Well, the first part of the idea is still nice, but I probably shouldn’t pour this much into just a regular communications tower. Defeating Salem potentially justifies me hurting the people to get this done. But not anything else.” I’ll say it again: Ozpin’s secrets didn’t endanger anyone. Everyone from Pyrrha to Yang agreed to put their lives on the line for reasons entirely separate from Salem. Their lives were in danger from the start and, given their choices, always would be in danger. Ruby is the one whose secret is not just threatening all of Remnant in the future, but actively hurting people now too. She has the ability to stop this and she chooses not to.

Or rather, she chooses to keep putting off the decision. We’ll tell Ironwood when we’re ready. Yeah right. I still want someone to challenge Ruby on what this magical ‘He’s trustworthy!’ moment looks like. They’ve spent weeks with this man, fighting for him, training with him, accepting gifts in the form of weaponry, armor, facilities... so what exactly is it going to take, Ruby? I’m not saying Ironwood is trustworthy, I’m saying you can never know until the day they betray you. If that day comes. So when is Ruby going to acknowledge that? That she will never get that magical moment and that she’s just like Ozpin, putting off telling someone because the information weighs so heavily and there’s just too much to risk?

Hill thematically acknowledges the last two Volumes with, “It doesn’t have to be difficult. Just tell me,” while we all know it’s not that simple. Even if people would like it to be. Clover refuses, Penny spots two invisible huntresses closing in (nice), and as said, Robyn backs down.

We then end this episode with a long bonding session between Winter and Weiss. We see them fighting with their summonings and Winter comments about how, “You’ve grown up a bit, haven’t you?” We get it. You’re not subtle. Weiss has grown up. “Make no mistake. School is over.” They’re adults now! If only we saw that more than we heard it. Weiss at least is a character who has had legitimate, excellent development over the last couple of volumes. I’m admittedly a bit confused though regarding how that development aligns with the old Weiss. Meaning, we learned early on that she wanted to become a huntress to redeem the Schnee name. Now Winter is talking about how separating herself from the Schnees was the best thing to happen to her and Weiss seems to agree. So is that it now? Is Weiss just concerned with being her own person, or is she still invested in being a Schnee? Just a Schnee who embodies what her family used to stand for? It’s unclear based on the conversation.

Then. Ugh. They discuss Ironwood’s choices and Weiss snidely comments that, “Everyone thinks what they’re doing is right, but really they’re just looking out for themselves... and their secrets.” Yeah, Weiss. INCLUDING YOU. Are they really so dense that they don’t see how lying about how Ozpin disappeared was looking out for themselves, namely by making sure that Ironwood continued to embrace them with open arms instead of getting pissed? After all, it’s less likely that the group would have gotten a nice place to live, awesome weaponry, high-tech places to train, and early licenses if they’d admitted to their sins last volume. They’re also protecting their own secrets by spending these weeks nice and quiet, just ignoring the Ironwood problem completely. Weiss is protecting their secrets right now by encouraging Winter to question Ironwood’s intentions---subtly casting him and Ozpin in a bad light---while she herself is keeping secrets from Winter. I mentioned before that Ironwood’s smile could potentially be a bad omen if we follow the writing rule of, “If a character insists someone isn’t keeping anything from them... they’re definitely keeping something from them.” Winter’s belief that Ironwood doesn’t keep secrets from her sets up the expectation for the audience that he probably is. But we don’t actually know that yet. Weiss thinks Ironwood might be keeping secrets. Weiss knows for sure she and the rest of her friends are keeping secrets. Only one party is definitively guilty here, so I’m not sure why she feels entitled to act like she still has the high ground.

With Ironwood’s honor in question, Winter takes Weiss to see the Winter Maiden. We really don’t get to learn much about her except that she still looks young-ish (again: RWBY ages are hard) and seems to like to paint.

No one else can visit her---and thus we don’t hear the conversation---because Ironwood wants Winter to inherit the power. Okay. So that leaves us with a couple options now:

Older woman can inherit and Ozpin made a very iffy call in trying to foster that responsibility off on a First Year. Which is probably down to more writing concerns than Ozpin’s characterization. Meaning, you want to keep the conflict among the main cast, not bring in a random new character to do the volume’s Important Thing. So you set up Pyrrha as the Fall Maiden, even though in-world that looks like a sketchy decision. To say nothing of the fact that Rooster Teeth isn’t very good at setting down hard rules. What functioned as a limitation during Volume 3 can easily be wiped away in Volume 7. In the same way that we went from Qrow’s semblance being totally passive and range-based to “sometimes I can’t control it.”

Ironwood and Winter are assuming that Winter can inherit, but she’s actually too old now. They’ll be blindsided by this when the power unexpectedly goes to someone else.

Ironwood has convinced Winter that she can inherit but actually has some sort of other plan up his sleeve.

Really, my biggest takeaway is Winter’s speech about how she is choosing this. Regardless of whether fate forced her into a situation with only bad options. Regardless of whether others also want her to make this decision. It’s still her choice. 95% of the fandom needs to listen to that speech and then chuck Pyrrha into Winter’s place. Having only tough choices isn’t the same thing as having no choice. The fact that your choice coincides with what others want doesn’t lessen it. They both chose to take on this power and it’s wrong for others to trivialize that by claiming that the men in their life---Ozpin and Ironwood---manipulated them. It’s implying that they can’t make their own decisions. That making this terribly difficult choice doesn’t come down to their own strength. They know it’s dangerous, regardless of whether they understand every detail of that danger, and actively choose to take on that responsibility anyway. Because they want to do some good in the world. The fandom has worked its butt off to take that away from Pyrrha and I really hope they don’t do the same to Winter.

Although... the death flags. Yeesh but Winter looks like a particularly enticing target for the end of this Volume. What with talk of destiny and all... I really hope the series doesn’t go the route of giving every Team RWBY member one of the Maiden powers, what with Winter in a position to think about Weiss if she dies with the power, Raven in a position to think about Yang, and Cinder obsessed with Ruby literally all the time... yeah. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m personally more invested in ‘normal’ people managing the impossible through hard work, belief in themselves and each other, all that jazz. Not already overpowered people (at least in Ruby’s case) getting literal magic to solve their problems with. There’s so much more you can do with that.

Finally, Jacques comes online to spew a bunch of BS about how everything ever is Ironwood’s fault and he’s totally suffering just like everyone in Mantle.

Right.

As Winter says though, the lies are just enough of a “spark” to ignite an already pissed off populace. We close on an angry mob beginning to tear the streets apart. Guess we’ll find out next week how the group tackles that nasty problem.

Until then! 💜

Minor Things of Note

What was that sandwich gag? RWBY is really pushing the humor in iffy directions this volume.

I enjoyed Qrow and Clover playing cards though. What a mess with their semblances.

Also, I made us a poster:

#rwby #rwby volume 7 #rwby volume 7 spoilers #mymetas #rwby recaps

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thesuesyndicate · 6 years ago

Text

A Treatise on the Finer Points of Riku Gay

I thought I would write a little fic about a common issue I see in fandom elitists: internalized homophobia and how that translates into how they behave in fandom. Also, me, Antares, Orion and a currently unnamed agent have been playing Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance lately, switching off at every drop, so that’s been on our minds.

It was a fine day in the Debate Void. The sky and ground were as pure white as ever, and the ornate table with its matching set of chairs was, as well, with that pleasant dusting of soft, light grey-blue defining their edges. Despite the lack of any sun or moon to speak of, the Debate Void maintained a comfortably chilly temperature, warmed by some unknown aura. It was certainly sun-adjacent, that’s likely how one would describe it to someone who had never set foot in the Void.

And there sat the lovely Meridiana, head of The Sue Syndicate, her black legs crossed where she sat, pouring a cold glass of water for her guest, a comparatively modestly-dressed girl in a black t-shirt and jeans. A simple, clean look.

If the girl wasn’t an agent of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum, Meri had to assume she was at least the sort of person who supported the PPC’s endeavors.

You see, they had been in the middle of a rather long, rambling, disjointed conversation - as most conversations with Meridiana tend to be - jumping from topic to topic, and their latest topic was this.

The girl took a sip, then a gulp of water, and said, “Look - that’s the thing about these fangirls. If they’re not out here sexually harassing every fictional guy they can get their hands on, their assuming every guy who exchanges eye contact with another is gay or something.”

“I think that’s an unfair stereotype,” Meri said, rolling her eyes affectionately, “It’s a talking point someone came up with, but never bothered to delve into the reasons why such a thing, if it happens at all, would be happening.”

“Oh, no— I mean it literally happens. All the time. Like- any two guys in anything, I guarantee the fangirls ship them. Like... Ed and Roy in FMA.”

“I certainly hope not,” said Meri, eyes closed as she took a drink of water, knowing full well that EdxRoy was real, “That would make Colonel Mustang a disgusting monster of a man. Poor Edward, only 16...”

“Right?! And like, Frodo and Sam in Lord of the Rings,” said the girl, chuckling. “Like, have these people ever heard of friends?”

“I once wrote a paper on their relationship from a queer theory perspective in college,” Meri hummed, “I got an A - clearly a professor of fiction analysis thought my argument was sound.”

“What?” The girl snorted, rolling her eyes, “That’s fake, you totally just made that up. College professors don’t support yaoi fangirls, they would shut that shit down right away. They’re professionals - they’re respectable, they’ve gone to school for this stuff themselves.”

“Nope, it happened. I just can’t show you, the submission was electronic and the online space for that class isn’t on my Canvas page anymore - but, rest assured, I even spoke to her beforehand about it and she said she felt there was strong merit to a gay interpretation of the, ah... Friendship between Frodo and Sam. That’s why I did it in the first place, because she encouraged that sort of analysis.”

“I mean... Alright, I guess that makes sense, but you can’t really think Tolkien intended for us to read it that way, do you?”

Meri nearly choked on her water, and said, holding back laughter, “Tolkien has been dead for over 40 years, love.”

At this, the girl frowned. “So... What, that means he doesn’t have any say over how people interpret the work he poured his heart and soul into?”

“That’s precisely what it means.” Meri tilted her neck to one side, cracking it, and then the other. “If you put something out there into the world, it’s inevitable that people will read whatever they want to read into it.”

“Well... I don’t think that’s fair,” said the girl, looking away. “I think you’re disrespecting his memory and violating his canon.”

Meri seemed offended by this wording. Wincing, she retorted, “It’s a series of books, not a human being. It’s a wonderful series of books I enjoyed very much, that very much changed me as a writer and a reader, don’t get me wrong - but it is ink printed onto paper. Be careful of assigning too much personhood - and your preferred kind of personhood, at that, your preferred opinions, and morals, and boundaries - to ink on paper. I don’t think page 42 of The Two Towers feels particularly violated by anything, especially not someone thinking the love between Frodo and Sam is romantic rather than platonic.”

“Well...” It seemed that the girl was at least somewhat convinced. “I guess? But what about stories where the creators are still alive to see all the weird stuff people make? How do you think, like... Hashimoto and Nomura feel, with all the work they’ve put into developing the friendship between Sora and Riku, seeing a bunch of fangirls act like that makes Sora and Riku gay?”

“I would have simply asked why they made Sora and Riku so gay,” Meri said, chuckling before taking a sip of water.

“What?! Oh— pfft, come on, they are not gay! They’re just friends! What is with you people and friendship?! Why can’t two guys just be friends anymore, why do they always have to be gay, all the time?”

“Again, I think you’re using a common talking point to avoid asking why, if that even happens at all, it happens. Why do you suppose ‘fangirls’ read gayer themes into male friendships?”

“Like... I dunno, I always just assumed it was because they think two boys kissing is ‘hawt’.” The girl shrugged.

“That’s sometimes part of it,” Meri muttered, resting her cheek in her hand, “But do you think maybe... The way straight romances are written may have something to do with it? What sort of bonding do you see Sora and Kairi go through? What tension do they ever have to work through? What adventures have they shared? What deep, cerebral conversations about their bond do they ever have?”

The girl was silent, so Meri went on. “Or do they just grin at each other, hug and become separated again, only for Sora to mention her once or twice during his adventure, the narrative telling us rather than showing us that he’s pining for her? I think Kingdom Hearts 2 wasn’t so bad about this, it actually managed to sell me on the idea that Sora really does love Kairi, but after that, it’s sort of all flown out the window. Do you think that’s what romantic love is? Hugs and then separation, with lukewarm pining?”

“Now that you make it sound like that, I hope there’s more to love than that,” the girl said with a grimace.

“You can’t tell me that ‘fangirls’ are so wrong and twisted to read romance into Sora’s bond with Riku, then. Not when their dynamic is so much more... Well, dynamic.” Meri smiled. “They’re not yaoi-obsessed, I think they’re just smarter regarding romance than Hashimoto and Nomura give their audiences credit for being!”

“Alright, alright, I guess that makes sense,” said the girl, before stopping for a second. “... Or... Would make sense, if most of their fics weren’t so god-awful. Are you gonna defend bad grammar, characterization and plot at me too?”

Her smile growing slightly strained, Meri said, “Now you’re talking about a very specific genre of fandom. You’ll have to be patient with middle schoolers, my friend. You were one once, i was too - and I don’t think either of us would look kindly on our writing ability at that age.”

The girl lightened up a bit, feeling some common ground with Meri, “See, that’s what my side is trying to help with, though. We critique fics constructively so the authors will improve.”

“Tell me again about how lampooning the fanfiction of tweens, insulting their headcanons, portraying their original characters as dangerous sexual harassers violating their fictional crushes and turning them into the joke of the week helps them improve as authors. Come on, do it. Right here, to my face.” Meri’s smile was unwavering.

... Well, it was tough to argue with that, now that it was worded like that.

“Good,” said Meri. “I didn’t want to smack you, you’ve been so civil so far. What I’ve learned as an artist and writer is that the difference between critique and bullying is consent. When someone asks to be critiqued, they are an artist or writer wanting to improve their craft. When you take a tween daring to post her OCxLegolas fanfiction as inherent request for ‘critique’, and then ‘critique’ her like this, well...”

“... I guess that’s. Kinda assholish,” the girl conceded.

“Oh, it’s very assholish,” Meri snapped. “Very, very fucking assholish. It’s things like that I have no tolerance at all for, so don’t act like you’re some innocent helper if all you’re doing is bullying people.”

There was a moment of silence, as the two drank their water.

Deciding to break the ice that Meri had re-frozen over, the girl said, a little awkwardly, “Well... How do you think Riku himself feels?”

“... What, about SoraxRiku fanfiction?”

“Well - yeah. I’ve run into canon Riku now and again in my work, and I don’t think he would feel comfortable with all these ship fics.”

“... You’re asking how I think a fictional character feels about a fictional ship?”

The girl sighed and said, “Come on - you know they feel and think just like we do! And I can prove to you, that he’s super freaked out by all the yaoi, and that should be reason enough to shut down all the fangirl nonsense.”

With that, the girl simply reached out to her side, a dark hole materializing, from which she rather roughly pulled out a wrist, an arm - an entire person, looking very confused in his pajamas.

Meri blinked, wide-eyed. She didn’t think her guest was going to start yanking canon characters out here, and yet here he was - Riku Kingdom Hearts, in the flesh.

“Uh— hey,” said Meri, waving gently. Awkwardly. “You—you sleep alright, champ?”

“No,” said Riku, who was too tired to come up with a lie or joke.

“Yeah, that’s fair, I wouldn’t— either— uh—“ Meri simply glanced over at the girl, curious what she was about to do.

“Riku,” the girl started, brows furrowing a bit. “How does it make you feel that people think you and Sora are gay?”

... Riku just seemed confused, blinking the way he was, to which Meri said, “Well, for goodness’ fucking sake, give him a second to wake up before drilling him on his sexuality.” She, ever the polite host, was already pouring a glass of water for the young man standing in front of her table, and, with a snap, there was a third chair for him. “He seems confused enough about that canonically to begin with.”

“Aw, come on, no he doesn’t, you know Hashimoto and Nomura didn’t make him like, for-real gay,” said the girl, which only confused Riku even further.

“I didn’t say they intentionally made him gay, I’m saying there’s a reason every gay person I know and their lesbian grandma, including myself, identifies with him on the level of being a confused, angry kid.”

“Okay, okay- what is going on?” Asked Riku in a raspy voice, rubbing his eyes and seeming altogether too sleepy for this bullshit.

The girl looked to Riku and rephrased her initial question, “Riku, are you gay?”

“Huh-? Wha— no, I’m not anything like that,” Riku replied, suddenly a bit uncomfortable, “Why are you asking me all that?”

Meri rolled her eyes and said, “No closeted kid I knew would ever say ‘yes’ to a question like that. Just, ‘are you gay’, totally point-blank.”

“Okay, then how do you suggest I ask him?” Asked the girl, crossing her arms.

“What matters isn’t how gay is canonically is or isn’t, what matters is this - Riku, what do you think of the fact that people think you and Sora are gay?”

“... Uh... But it’s not... We’re just friends?” Riku and Meri were in a similar boat, not 100% liking the idea of two adult women asking a teenager such pointed questions, but Meri took a deep breath through her nose and resolved to be as non-creepy as possible.

“I believe you, that’s your call to make. But we have people like this one over here, bashing gay teens over the head for identifying with your struggle to accept your - platonic, even - feelings for Sora, and thinking your relationship with him is human and relatable.”

“I— I’m not bashing gay teens!” Cried out the girl, “It’s fangirls who are the problem!”

“At that age, you wouldn’t have known the difference in someone like me or my friends,” said Meri slyly. “Believe me, most of these ‘shallow fangirls’ are people working out some inner truths of their own.”

... Something about that phrasing - a struggle to accept his own feelings for Sora... Made Riku’s stomach turn in a way he didn’t understand, didn’t want to understand, but knew better by now than to turn away from.

Very meekly, Riku looked down and asked, “I mean. Am I gay? It’s not weird for two guys to care about each other like that.”

“Of course it’s not weird,” said Meri. “Your relationships are what they are, and they don’t have to follow any rules that hurt or restrict you. But being gay isn’t weird - and I think this is a question your canon hasn’t allowed you to ask yourself.”

“Hasn’t... Allowed?” Riku glanced over at the girl, who simply shrugged, just as lost as he was.

“That’s right. Can a story lacking in gay themes altogether accurately allow its characters to explore their sexualities?”

“Of course it can,” said the girl, scrunching up her nose a bit, “It just means no one in it is gay.”

“No one in it is gay?” Meri asked, squinting. “Not the main character? No one the main character knows? None of the side characters? None of the shopkeepers? None of the random people the characters talk to? Absolutely everyone is 100% heterosexual?”

“... Alright, I guess that’s. Improbable. But not every story has to be all about gay stuff!” Replied the girl, rolling her eyes.

“Not every? Or not any?” Meri frowned, furrowing her brows. “That’s not fair of you, to paint gay and bisexual people like me, as greedy little gremlins who demand the world, when all they’re asking for is to exist in fiction and be depicted as human beings.”

Glancing back over at Riku, she went on, “That’s what I’m saying. A theme your story doesn’t cover isn’t a theme you can claim to fully understand, when you haven’t even delved into it. I’m not saying you are — required to be gay, for my benefit - I gain nothing from your canon changing other than a sense of gladness that people like me exist and kids can grow up seeing positive gay figures in their favorite stories. I am saying you, Riku, deserve space to question and explore your identity even if canon doesn’t allow it. That sort of thing is what many of these fic authors are depicting... Sure, it’s not always perfectly graceful works of literary genius, but that’s the spirit of transformative fandom as opposed to curatorial fandom. Expanding canon and making it better.”

The girl gasped. “You think you can do Kingdom Hearts better?!

“I think I could do Kingdom Hearts better in my sleep, given the inherently restrictive nature of canon, and I would love to see what a good, healthy fandom would do with any story I write given all this,” said Meri, grinning. “Don’t get your panties in a twist over it. Transformative fans do it better, it’s the whole idea of what we are, and it’s the basis of the conflict between my Sue Syndicate and groups like the PPC.”

Riku, though a bit confused, felt a bit more at peace with himself.

“While canon can never give you the space you deserve, I’m afraid,” Meri went on, “That’s what fanfics about you and Sora kissing are often for. That make sense?”

He paused for a moment, but Riku eventually said, “That’s... Fine by me, then.” He stood, stretching his back, turning away from the women and said, “I gotta get up early tomorrow. Me and Sora have our Mark of Mastery exams - I’m gonna head back to my world now and get some sleep.”

It was a strange way of thanking the women for their perspectives, but it was essentially what he was trying to get across, and Meri understood that. The girl just thought he was being a bit rude, as he stepped out through the portal he was pulled in through.

Once he was gone, Meri leaned across the table, grinning at the girl.

“That all make sense?”

And, much to the girl’s chagrin, it almost did.

#the sue syndicate #cringe culture is dead #fics #meridiana t

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