#i remember when there were no canon queer ships on tv or in movies | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

impostoradult · 4 years ago

Link

This is time that was allotted to these storylines by canon, offering an expectation of meaning and importance, offering what results in a promise—not time the fans imagined or made up, not something they feel nebulously entitled to, but time they spent on plots the canon gave to them. (Cas means something to Dean after all these years and a love confession. Bucky means something to Steve after all these years and a snap. Jaime’s project of growth and his meaningful relationship with Brienne is something worth investing in.) But instead of saying, yes, you spent all this time watching these scenes, feeling these moments, taking this in—you grew with this character, with these relationships (grew in many cases away from the set starting point)—here is your promised meaning, again and again, these properties snatch the rug away and then pretend blithely they cannot understand why “entitled fans” are so upset.

I’ve been meaning to write my version of this argument for a while now, and I suppose this article is just as good a reason as any.

My thesis, in short, is that lack of queer representation actually isn’t what is creating ~the problem~ here. What’s creating the problem is the overriding power of heteronormativity as a kind of ‘trump’ story logic that is allowed to steamroller everything else into oblivion. (And yes, there actually is a substantial difference between those two things)

Sub-thesis 1: Representation Actually Isn’t A Strong Argument for Destiel (or any particular ship/character)

Controversial, I know. The representation argument (while an extremely valid argument as applies to popular culture in general) is actually not a very good argument when it comes to why Dean should be explicitly queer and Destiel should have been consummated.

For one, there’s no reason -- exclusively from the standpoint that it is a moral imperative that queer people are represented in media -- why any particular character or set of characters should be that representation. The ethical cultural mandate to represent marginalized groups does not mandate that any one character or set of characters in any particular given story be that representation*. Yes, even if you as a member of that marginalized group happen to identify with that character. Even then, it isn’t OWED to you. (I think writers should take those trends of identification seriously, and think about what it means to marginalized groups, and act accordingly. But I don’t think it creates an OBLIGATION)

*I’d argue the primary caveat to this would be in stories where the character’s situation or arc is directly related to struggles experienced by that marginalized group (i.e., casting mostly white actors in stories where those characters are experiencing racial oppression)

For another, if representation of queer characters were primarily dictated by fandoms, 90% of queer characters in media would be white, conventionally attractive men. (That might be overstating it a bit, but fandoms have serious biases when it comes to shipping and what kind of characters they latch onto for queer interpretation, and that’s one of the reasons I’m grateful queer representation is not primarily linked to our tastes/preferences).

The representation argument is a very valid argument when examining popular culture as whole, and when looking at broader trends for example, within a genre, or a whole network. But no particular TV show is obligated to make particular characters within it queer just because representation is a moral imperative as a broader cultural issue.

Sub-Thesis 2: Heteronormativity Creates Stupid/Badly Constructed Stories

The actual problem here is how heteronormativity creates a kind of trump logic that overrides coherent storytelling.

I’m not upset about what happened on Supernatural because I think we missed out on representation. There is actually plenty of ~better~ representation elsewhere, and there will continue to be more as time goes on. The representation issue is peripheral at best when it comes to analyzing what went ‘wrong’ with Supernatural.

The key issue here is that stories need to make sense, not just in terms of plot (although that matters), but in terms of character growth, emotional arcs, etc. The ending of Supernatural is bad because it treated massive pieces of character growth and one of the most significant emotional arcs of the whole show as if it was ultimately inconsequential -- which is bad storytelling and doesn’t make sense.

And YES, we are ‘owed’ stories that make sense. It’s not entitled to want a story to be coherent, because coherence is what makes a story a story, and not just a series of random meaninglessly assembled plot points/fictional anecdotes.

The problem is, Hollywood writers keep writing themselves into situations where emotional coherence basically requires an explicitly queer dynamic (or at least a strongly subtextual one), and then just being like...but these characters aren’t queer so we can’t do that. Instead, let’s end Steve’s arc by sending him back in time to live a heterosexual life with Peggy, disregarding the HUGELY significant plot points related to Steve/Bucky which grounded multiple entire movies within the MCU (Winter Solider, Civil War). Let’s end Sherlock by inventing a random, long-lost Holmes sister never remotely hinted at or foreshadowed and make that incomprehensible plot point the finale, when the entire series has been grounded in John and Sherlock’s relationship.

Let’s make it canonically clear Cas’s love for Dean is the one single act of pure free will in a world with a malevolent God trying to manipulate everyone’s lives for his own amusement, and that Cas’s love for Dean is the only thing keeping the primary story-universe of Supernatural intact, because every other version of Sam and Dean in every other universe kill each other as God intended. Let’s make it clear that Cas’s betrayal of heaven due to his love for Dean is literally propping up their entire universe, but then end the story by pretending like it’s not that important after all. Castiel who?

And it’s just like...THAT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE! It doesn’t make fucking sense. It’s bad writing. So why would you do it? (I mean, I being a bit facetious here. I know exactly why. Because the precious feelings of homophobes will be hurt, and companies don’t want to lose out on their money)

It’s not entitled to want a story to make sense. It’s not entitled to want major plot points and character arcs and emotional dynamics to have resolutions that follow from what came before in the story.

And I’m sorry, but you are a ridiculous person if you watched Dean grieve Castiel’s ostensible deaths in s7 and s13 (both times becoming nearly catatonic, nihilistic, more self-destructive than usual, and borderline suicidal over losing Cas) and try to argue to me that his shrug-it-off attitude towards Cas’s death/loss in the finale makes any goddamn sense at all.

It is utterly inconsistent with everything that has happened before in Supernatural regarding Dean and Castiel’s relationship. It’s incomprehensibly incoherent and just stupid. (And that is just the absolute tip of the incoherence iceberg because to fully explain why the ending of Supernatural re: Destiel doesn’t make sense we’d have to review over 300 episode’s worth of content, and there isn’t time for that)

I’m just so sick and so tired of being asked to pretend to be stupid because you know, man, heterosexuality. They’re not gay!!1!

The exhaustion I feel, as a queer viewer, in fact is not borne out of lack of representation. The representation issue is very much on an upward trajectory and I’m not worried about the future of TV not being queer enough. I’m not.

The exhaustion and frustration and anger I feel as a queer viewer is borne of having to repeatedly watch stupid endings to good stories because the story can only make sense if you make it queer (you cowards). I’m tired of being asked to develop dumb amnesia disease in order to consume endings to stories that had to blow everything up at the end to (re)enforce a heterosexuality that can only stand on a foundation of utter incoherence and contradiction to monumental things that came before it.

I am JUST SO TIRED of being asked to sacrifice my intelligence, my basic logic and critical thinking skills, and my ability to remember basic narrative beats at the alter of almighty Heterosexuality, supreme ruler of all cultural output and destroyer of good queer things.

Heterosexuality isn’t owed my stupidity, and I’m not entitled for wanting stories to make sense. YOU are entitled for demanding my stupidity when you wrote that dumb shit and expected me to act like it wasn’t dumb simply because it was heterosexual.

No, the heterosexuality is exactly the reason it IS dumb.

#Supernatural #Sherlock #Destiel #Johnlock #Stucky #MCU

895 notes · View notes

cardentist · 3 years ago

Text

I haven’t been in the star trek fandom for very long (I’ve only just started binging the series in the last couple months), so it’s been pretty surprising to find out just how negative the perception of the reboot movies are.

this isn’t coming from the perspective of someone who grew up with the series, so it hit different for me than it might for people with a different relationship to TOS, but I thought it was genuinely clever and Respectful with how it was handled.

To quote leonard nimoy: “Well the alternative timeline gives them license to escape from canon concerns. I can’t see people saying ‘they shouldn’t do that because…’ or ‘that doesn’t tie in to such and such’ because it is a different time and place. Am I right about that?” [Link]

the entire Premise is that the original series happened as it was presented in TOS, but an event late in Spock’s life caused the creation of a parallel universe in which everyone’s lives were significantly altered through two key changes to the timeline. this gives them the freedom to Both revel in fanservice And explore different facets of the characters and their relationships.

the destruction of vulcan Vastly impacts the characters and the plot moving forward, and its a detail that a lot of people take issue with. but the emotional impact of sarek admitting Directly to spock that there is value in his humanity, that his feelings Aren’t wrong, that sarek married amanda because he Loved her cannot be understated. you can read all of these things into sarek as he was in the original series, but he Never had an open conversation about these things with spock. this creates a Believable and Rewarding change in their relationship, where we get to see a different facet of them Because of the changes made. and that’s exactly the appeal. showing us pieces of these characters that we never got in TOS that are nevertheless undeniably Them.

everyone is Different yes, but they’re also fundamentally the same people at their core and that matters.

kirk’s personality obviously takes the biggest change, with him experiencing trauma at a young age, losing his father, and having an implied abusive father figure after that point. he has a harsher personality in reaction to harsher conditions, he’s spikier and harder to love. but he’s also still fundamentally a Good person whose willing to risk everything to help people. he still has what made kirk prime a good captain and a good friend.

I’m not gonna say that it’s the most nuanced story in the world, but it explores a version of kirk that was born from even Less fortunate circumstances than kirk prime, exploring a kirk brimming with potential who learned to bite back after he was kicked down. exploring those themes of trauma and loss, of insecurity and growth, and coming to the conclusion that Fundamentally He Is Capable Of Good isn’t a Bad thing. you don’t have to like it, but his growth into a better person is The Point. they deepened his flaws (all of which were present in a less exaggerated form in TOS) To Show That Growth.

and then of course there’s his relationship with spock.

people are totally justified in not liking that they had a rough start to their relationship, I usually don’t like to see that kind of thing in reboots or hollywood adaptations either, but the way people talk about it is just unfair.

Yes kirk and spock and bones have a very strong relationship in TOS, they also already know each other by the time the show starts. to look at them having to learn to get to know and trust each other when they first meet and say that it’s Bad because they were already full on ride or die for each other in the og series is silly. TOS kirk and spock had to meet and fall in love with each other too, it didn’t just happen over night kings.

secondly, the entire point of the first movie is that Even With reality itself being altered to pull them apart they are fundamentally compatible people that are Bound to each other. they meet each other on bad terms because of circumstances outside of their control, and yet they’re still pulled into each other’s orbit and find the other slotting into place next to them as if they always belonged. one of the first things that spock prime says in the movie is “I am and always will be your friend,” spock and jim are Meant for each other and the movie goes out of its way to explain that. which is what makes it so Weird to see people complaining about how they don’t like each other.

it’s a Different relationship, but it’s absolutely no less steeped in yearning or queer subtext.

speaking of queer subtext ! some people are Very unhappy with spock’s relationship with uhura.

first thing I wanna say is that making the argument that they’re doing anything that the original series hasn’t done is just, completely untrue. kirk has fallen in love with more girls in the og series than he knew what to do with, leonard nimoy was a heartthrob in his time (and he deserves it, awooga) and spock reflects that ! Spock usually turns the women who come onto him down (or when he doesn’t it’s because a plant has literally altered his mind), but there are exceptions to even that. all of three of the main boys have plenty of romance subplots, it happens. if that takes the possibility of them being queer off the table for you (which it shouldn’t, m-spec people exist) then I’m sorry to say that TOS is not exempt.

now, I can understand why Specifically This Relationship could rub people the wrong way or being disappointed that they didn’t outright depict kirk and spock as having a relationship (if not in the first movie then in the following ones after they’ve gotten to know each other), but even in that context the way I’ve seen people talk about it comes off as insensitive.

no, the relationship did not come out of nowhere. they considered having spock and uhura date each other in the original show (and you can see signs of this in the earlier episodes, where uhura very obviously flirts with him and they spend time together in their down time) before they decided against it, and spock was originally going to kiss uhura until shatner insisted that he wanted to do it (because it was the first interracial kiss on tv). [Link 1, Link 2, Link 3]

nichelle nichols was asked about this exact thing (spock and uhura’s relationship in the movie), you can read the interview in full here [Link] but I’d like to highlight this paragraph in particular:

“Now, go back to my participation in Star Trek as Uhura and Leonard (Nimoy) as Spock. There was always a connection between Uhura and Spock. It was the early 60’s, so you couldn’t do what you can do now, but if you will remember, Uhura related to Spock. When she saw the captain lost in space out there in her mirror, it was Spock who consoled her when she went screaming out of her room. When Spock needed an expert to help save the ship, you remember that Uhura put something together and related back to him the famous words, “I don’t know if I can do this. I’m afraid.” And Uhura was the only one who could do a spoof on Spock. Remember the song (in “Charlie X”)? Those were the hints, as far as I’m concerned.”

the film makers looked at the fact there were Hints for uhura and spock, that they were Interested in exploring an interracial couple for the first time (both before and immediately after interracial couples won the right to legally get married) but Couldn’t because of the circumstances of the times and decided to Make that depiction. you don’t have to Like their relationship just because of that fact, but it’s Incredibly reductive to play down it’s significance as just a No Homo cop out. explicitly queer relationships are not the only progressive or culturally important relationships in fiction.

moreover, if you can’t imagine polyamory in the communist utopian future that’s on you.

moreover, this perception that this was a soulless cash grab is just, unfounded.

leonard nimoy returned to the role as spock for the first time in 16 years (since 1991) and this was Entirely because of the respect they had for nimoy, spock as a character, and the franchise as a whole.

Lets look at some quotes from nimoy in interviews regarding the film:

Leonard Nimoy: When I first read the script (...) I immediately contacted J.J. and said “I think it is terrific…I think you guys have done a wonderful job. There is still work to be done, but it is very clear that you and your writers know what you are doing and you know how to do this movie and know what it should be about….and I am very interested.” Then as time went by we worked things out with Paramount, but the most important things were J.J. and the script. (...) I am very pleased about that and I am very comfortable with where this is going. I think the writers have done a terrific job. They have a real sense of the characters and the heart of Star Trek and what it is really all about.

(...)

TrekMovie.com: Now in the case of the new movie you have been retired from acting for years. What was it about this one that made you want to act again and go through the make up again? What was it that made you say ‘I really want to do this?’

Leonard Nimoy: You are right, this is a special situation. First it is Star Trek and so I have to pay attention. I owe that to Star Trek. Second place is that it is J.J. Abrams who I think very highly of, he is a very talented guy. Then came the script and it was very clear that I could make a contribution here. The Spock character that I am playing, the original Spock character, is essential and important to the script. So on the basis of those three elements it was easy to make the decision. So those three things: Star Trek, J.J. Abrams, and an interesting Spock role.

[Link]

Praising the cast playing younger versions of characters from the original 1960s TV series, he [Leonard Nimoy] said: “Let me take the opportunity to say this. Everybody at this table [the cast] are very, very talented and intelligent people.”

“They found their own way to bring that talent and intelligence to this movie, and I think it shows. (...) When Karl Urban introduced himself as Leonard McCoy and shook hands with Chris Pine, I burst into tears. That performance of his is so moving, so touching and so powerful as Doctor McCoy, that I think D. Kelley would be smiling, and maybe in tears as well.”

“The makers of this film reawakened the passion in me that I had when we made the original film and series. I was put back in touch with what I cared about and liked about Star Trek, and why I enjoyed being involved with Star Trek. So, it was an easy way to come on home.”

“[In this Star Trek] they said things and showed me things, and demonstrated the sensibility that I felt very comfortable with, and I think that shows in the movie. I like it.”

[Link 1, Link 2]

again, you don’t have to like it just because leonard nimoy did, you don’t have to Agree. but the idea that nobody working on the film Cared is provably false. near everyone working on the project was already a fan of the series or were excited to be involved and did their homework. it’s genuinely a Miracle just how much of a labor of love this was, and in my opinion you can feel that through the movie itself. I’d highly recommend looking into interviews and behind the scenes details about the movies. they had a respect not just for the source material, but for leonard nimoy as a person.

there’s definitely more I Could say about this, but it’s 4 am now so I’m gonna shelve it jklfdsa

that said! it’s Fine to not like the movie, not everything is going to be suited to everyone’s taste, but the specific criticisms I’ve seen feel very off base

#star trek #kirk #spock #uhura #nichelle nichols #leonard nimoy #star trek aos #aos #star trek tos #tos #meta #long post #hello followers I write essays about star trek now

115 notes · View notes

sidecarghost · 4 years ago

Text

My Reaction to Destiel in Spn 15x18 to 15x20

Notes: this will contain spoilers for up to series finale 15x20.

I am in LGBTQ+, and this is my personal opinion on the treatment of Destiel, Dean, and Castiel in episodes 15x18-15x20. The LGBTQ+ community is complex and varied, just like any community, so I do not intend for my views to be seen as representative. I think any reaction is just as valid as mine.

Castiel’s Declaration and Dean’s Response

I personally thought Misha Collins’ performance of Castiel’s declaration of love was earnest and authentic. It was beautiful, and I loved every word of it. What bothered me about 15x18 was Dean not reciprocating. I understand that love doesn’t always work out, but this is a LGBTQ+ relationship. There are so few LGBTQ+ relationships on tv, so it’s difficult to understand why anyone would see the need to add an unfulfilled LGBTQ+ relationship that leaves the queer character unloved. LGBTQ+ are just as worthy to be loved as cishet. Before this viewers could use their imagination, but now it’s pretty final that Dean never thought of Cas as more than a friend, and that Dean is vaguely to deeply disturbed by his BFF being in love with him.

I think 15x20 tried to firmly establish Dean as cishet (retconning any prior subtextual queer coding) by having Dean show more affection to his car joining him in Heaven then he had to his LGBTQ+ friend near death. I hate that Dean is so cold to Cas during that declaration scene, and then no other insight into Dean’s feelings is ever shown. So we can only infer Dean’s feelings from that scene and the reaction reads confused, disturbed, shocked, and disbelieving. And I feel second hand crushed for Castiel. That would not be a happy moment for me at all. Just because Dean doesn’t feel any attraction to Castiel I don’t think that excuses his coldness during the declaration. This was a heartless way to react to a close queer friends admittance to an attraction, and the cold shoulder reaction seems really OOC for Dean.

Dean is typically much more sensitive about other people’s feelings. I know he is often painted as tough and unfeeling, but that’s really when his own feelings are in question. Usually he seems very in tune when someone else needs emotional support, and here he is just like mentally checking out. Dean appears to be thinking “Oh my BFF is confessing his love, I will just gawk at him like he is some kind of crazy.” Then Dean’s last words to Castiel are “Don’t do this, Cas,” because he’d like his final message to be invalidating. And then there is HUGE problem that Dean was so disturbed by Cas’s declaration that he never mentions it over the course of 15x19 and 15x20. Even though his friend gave his life for him.

Bad Representation more Harmful than No Representtion

I could be wrong, but I feel like the inclusion of Destiel this late in the game just to make it unrequited was malicious. And that’s because Destiel is a big thing for fandom and especially LGBTQ+ in fandom. Even non-Spn fandom LGBTQ+ know all about Destiel. I never dreamed the ship would go canon, and that was fine because the show could play out and I could read and write fic. Destiel was a fun ship, because the characters had wonderful development from the show, and the actors had great chemistry and were good looking and talented. Dean and Cas were complex and multi-dimensional and ready to run a coffeehouse or become pop star wannabes in a televised singing contest.

The show never told fans Dean and Cas wouldn’t love each other, so it was so easy for me to imagine they would love each other. That has changed since I watched the finale. I personally can’t ship Destiel anymore because all I remember now is the angel giving the hunter his heart, and Dean being so cold and uncaring. Dean stays so far away from Cas like he can’t stand to be close to him. When the two characters used to be in each other’s personal space all the time. It’s like the show wanted me to know how wrong I was to ever read a romance there. As though I had personally offended Dean Winchester. I always thought Dean could be bi, but now he is canon cishet to me. Because if he was going to be attracted to a guy it’d be Cas, because he is the most badass character on show. I’m okay with explanation that Dean was shell shocked in 15x18, but Dean’s continued indifference in 15x20 makes it more likely to me that the show intended for Dean to just not feel that way about Cas.

LGBTQ+ Character Erased

The show ended 10 days ago, but many LGBTQ+ spn fandom members are still reeling from Castiel’s erasure from the story as soon as he came out. There was so much hope that the show was giving LGBTQ+ fandom a ship they never expected in 15x18. The way everything seemed to signal that Dean and Cas would be brought back together in 15x20. And theories abounded on possible scenarios. My personal favorite was Dean rescuing Castiel from the Empty in 15x20 as a reverse of Castiel rescuing Dean from Hell in 4x01. This felt historic to see an actual fandom mlm ship finally get validated on the show, like LGBTQ+ were being seen and told we were just as valid as cishet by the show we loved.

But in the end, the LGBTQ+ relationship was just a tease. A queer angel declared his love and died. Then Dean died so he’d never get chance to process his feelings (if he had any). Dean and the viewers learned Cas had been saved, but Dean never bothered to pray to Cas or make any other attempt to reconnect with him. Had Cas escaped before Dean’s death? Had Cas just let Dean die? We never find out. Whether intentional or not, Castiel no longer had any significance in the life or death of the man he loved so strongly. If you related to Cas the exemption was a gut punch. I saw Cas as important and he was my voice and my story, and then 15x20 had Castiel as unimportant to the story and he was silenced.

The Bury your Gay trope

Cas had come out, and now his last scene was his death. Castiel was written out of the show, and no one seemed willing to give him more than a passing thought. The series regular and reoccurring character of 12 years was treated like he was never very important to Dean or Sam. This wasn’t historic, this is the “bury your gay” trope and a real problem for LGBTQ+ representation in movies and shows.

Negative impact of teasing LGBTQ+ romance in movies and shows

15x18 didn’t just feature Cas coming out, his coming out could have been handled just like Chuck’s in season 11 by dialogue stating he liked guys too. Castiel’s coming out was part of a declaration of love to his best friend. This teased a possible LGBTQ+ romance between two male leads with no intention of follow through. Heteronormative fans can state my perspective was invalid, but I’d like to challenge them to see LGBTQ+ as just as valid and normal as cishet romance.

If unintentional:

this was insensitive and bad representation

If intentional:

at best queer baiting (Dean was cishet so any fans that thought reciprocation was possible were wrong. Never mind all the subtextual queer coding of Dean that non-heteronormative viewers had observed.)

at worst outright homophobia (if you read Dean as a closeted bisexual that is fridged before he has chance to come out)

The Intention of C* Spn?

I have to wonder what the LGBTQ+ in Spn fandom ever did to make the show runners so mad at us. I would really like to get the perspective of the show runners, because without that, it is just too easy to believe the worst.

Perceiving the Finale Message of We don’t Belong

And the worst is heart wrenching. The marginalized members of fandom that related to the outcast angel were excluded from the Winchester’s ending. Even though we cared about them so much over the years. Many members of fandom had found families, and were validated by the reoccurring theme that family doesn’t end in blood.

But the finale retconned that message. Castiel was queer, and he was erased. He wasn’t a part of Sam and Dean’s ending. Fandom that related to Castiel could see our affection for the brothers wasn’t reciprocated. We just helped when we were useful but in the end unworthy of love. Family actually did end in blood, and we were naive for believing otherwise.

Spn queer baited LGBTQ+ one last time to drive up viewership, so the marginalized part of the audience could bear witness to Castiel’s exclusion from the Winchester’s finale. We never belonged. This wasn’t our story. This was the story of cishet white brothers, Sam and Dean, that were the product of their cishet white parents, John and Mary, that lived up the road in their Heaven. The queer angel of the lord was not going to intrude in their story any longer, despite his devotion to them over the past 12 years. We didn’t belong, because Castiel didn’t belong.

Other Views are Valid

I just want to reiterate that everything I’m saying is just my own opinion. If other LGBTQ+ thought the episodes were perfect that is also very valid. If you are not a LGBTQ+ then I appreciate your support, and ask that you check any biases before disagreeing with my opinion. Cishet will never be made to feel marginalized, inferior, or abnormal because of their sexuality or gender. And if you want to save LGBTQ+ lives you can try to change your view to see queer as normal and become a LGBTQ+ ally.

TLDR;

Misha’s performance was amazing. Bobo Beren’s writing was brilliant. After 15x18, the romance was like a puzzle that had all the pieces carefully together except the last one. Then 15x20 took that beautiful, nearly complete puzzle and dumped it in a metal trash bin, soaked it in lighter fluid, and burned it to ash. I blame the showrunners. They should never have had a LGBTQ+ come out to have his love unrequited, die, and then get erased from the story. Bad representation is worse than no representation.

#spn #Destiel #my spn thoughts #spn ending #spn 15x18 #spn 15x20 #spn season 15 #supernatural #deancas #Andrew Dabb

38 notes · View notes

panharmonium · 4 years ago

Note

Hey, do you ship merthur? I have conflicted feelings about it because Merlin does love Arthur but also their relationship is kinda shitty.

short answer: i do not

longer answer: i might not be the right person to ask about this, because i don’t really “ship” anything? it’s not how i engage with fandom. (disclaimer: this is not a value judgment of folks who do engage with fandom that way. just an explanation of how my own brain works.)

extra long answer: under the cut, because i suppose it was only a matter of time before someone asked me about merlin/arthur, and i might as well put my entire response in one place so that next time, i can just link to it.

questions like this are a little tough for me to answer, because i am completely uninterested in romance as a premise. if it’s not there, i don’t care. if it is there, i often wish it weren’t, because it’s almost never developed in a way that lives up to my standards. i don’t always mind if something contains romantic relationships (provided they’re written well), but i don’t want them to be the point of a story. i honestly cannot think of anything less interesting to me than a story that has as its main plotline “x character falls in love with y character.” for me, in my brain, it’s like, “okay...that’s it? do you have anything else to say?” there is literally nothing about that that i care about.

this can be a little difficult to navigate in fandom, because one of the oft-heard commendations of “fandom” is ‘gosh, fandom is so wonderful, we can watch the same two characters fall in love again and again and again in a million different scenarios!’ which is true, for the people who care about that sort of thing, but that’s not actually ‘fandom.’ that’s shipping. and there’s nothing wrong with shipping, but shipping and fandom are not the same thing, and they’ve become so conflated that it can be very difficult to engage in the latter without being absolutely swamped by the former.

many times, for me, fandom can feel synonymous with shipping. there was a post i reblogged recently whose tags described shipping as often feeling like a prerequisite to engaging with fandom, and that is often what it feels like to me, particularly in fandoms where one ship is so ubiquitous that any and all other material is utterly dwarfed by it in scale. (for me, my last two major fandoms have been merlin and teen wolf, so - i’m sure you see my dilemma, heh.)

all of that said, in terms of arthur and merlin specifically...

disclaimer: everything i say here is relevant to me only. these are my own feelings. i am making this post on my own blog, in my own space, in response to a question about my own thoughts. i do not want, expect, or need anyone else to share these thoughts. any commentary i make about fandom trends is not equivalent to condemnations of individual people’s opinions or shipping habits. i do not mind or take issue with folks who ship these two characters. i am glad you are having fun. please do not @ me about something you disagree with. i promise you it is not necessary.

okay. with that out of the way.

part of me is reluctant to expound further on this question, because my personal philosophy is that merlin and arthur as a ship have had more than enough time and space devoted to them in this fandom (way more than their share, frankly) and i generally prefer to focus on merlin and the other people in his life, as a deliberate counter to that. but, since you asked, and because i have been experiencing the “i’m tired of romance” bug more strongly lately, here is the long-form version.

the number one reason why i don’t ship arthur and merlin is what i already outlined above: i don’t really “ship” anything. i have never looked at two characters who were not already together/on an obvious potential path to being together and said “i want them to fall in love.” that has just never happened to me. (again - it’s not a BAD thing to have this happen, it’s just not something that’s ever happened to me. i can’t relate to the experience.)

therefore, when i do appreciate a romantic relationship, it’s pretty much always because canon has shown me something romantic (or clearly pre-romantic) that i find to be well-written and compelling. (it’s rare - as i outlined before, i would usually rather not deal with romance at all - but it happens.)

arthur and merlin, then, never had that effect on me, because arthur and merlin, as depicted in the canon, are not in love.

[to anybody reading this who just snatched up their keyboard and started furiously typing, i beg you - please go back and re-read my disclaimer.]

they’re not in love. the truth about these two is that if i had watched this show without having grown up in fandom as a culture (and without knowing exactly what kind of ships fandom immediately sees EVERYWHERE) the idea of anybody shipping these two together would never have even entered my mind.

(and like. because i DID grow up in fandom, and i DO know exactly what kind of ships fandom sees everywhere, i knew before i even started this show that arthur/merlin was going to be an inescapable thing. but that would not have been the case, if i had watched the series in a world where i didn’t know what fandom was.)

arthur and merlin, in canon, are not in love. the show never does anything to give me an inkling that either of them are harboring romantic feelings for each other. that is never what is happening onscreen. literally the last thing on merlin’s agenda is romantic attachment, ever, and arthur is never, ever shown to be in love with anyone who isn’t gwen. the show, onscreen, never tricks me, teases me, or leads me on. i was never under the impression that merlin and arthur were in love with each other, because they weren’t.

but that DOES NOT MEAN their relationship matters less. just because they aren’t IN love with each other doesn’t mean they don’t love each other, and one of those things is not bigger or better or more powerful than the other.

i struggle a lot in fandom (all fandom, not just merlin) with the persistent idea that romantic attachment is the peak, the natural endpoint on a scale of “how deep is your love?” i am constantly running up against posts where the commonly accepted structure is to cite a moment of devotion or caring or some instance of basic connection between two characters, and then add a caption or tag saying ‘because they are JUST FRIENDS, right?’ or ‘^^totally platonic interaction between characters who are not at all in love, sure jan.’

and honestly? i hate that. that is one of my least favorite things about fandom. it makes me so tired.

i am completely disconnected from this idea that there are like...things you can do that are too caring to count as friendship. like - that there is too much devotion you can show, and if you go over the limit, then it’s laughable that you would do those things for “just” a friend. that’s so unpleasant to me.

(and i do think [when it comes to non-canon queer ships, anyway - straight ships unfortunately have no excuse, sorry y’all] that part of this probably has its roots in pushback at the tendency of people who try to “gal pal” actual queer ships (or literal real life relationships), so this, at least, is something i can understand. i’m queer myself; i get that. and that is why i will never like - attach myself to someone’s post and start complaining. people can vent however they want.)

it doesn’t change my own feelings, though. i hate seeing every meaningful friendship i’ve ever been invested in talked about like it’s just a romance in disguise.

other things: i am uninterested in romance as a motivator.

truly, from the bottom of my heart, i don’t care.

we are, at least in my corner of the world, oversaturated with romance, to the point where any piece of media that doesn’t include it in some fashion is shockingly bizarre. it is EVERYWHERE. it is in EVERYTHING. i cannot pick up a book without running into a romantic plotline. i cannot watch a movie or a tv show without being forced into multiple romances that i don’t care about. (rare exceptions apply, as always, but i’m speaking generally.)

this oversaturation, for me, means that romance as a storyline no longer holds any meaning for me. i see it EVERYWHERE. it is in literally EVERYTHING. making merlin into a “love story,” for me, makes the show so much less interesting, because there are billions of love stories out there. love stories are practically the only kind of story our media remembers how to tell! why would i take a story that is so unique in its exploration of deep friendship (that isn’t even quite friendship, because it’s not real, but merlin wants it to be real, but making it real would also destroy it) and loyalty (that isn’t necessarily deserved, but is still offered, but is damaging to the person offering it) and love (that exists in spite of arthur’s position as the oppressor, but still cannot erase merlin’s oppression, and is patently not a magical fix for the very real problems merlin is facing), and then want to water it down to “and then they fell in love”???

merlin bbc has so much to say about the transformative, redemptive power of love (not just romance), and the bonds we form with each other despite the fact that we don’t always deserve each other, and what we can do to make ourselves better, and how do we make amends for the ways in which we hurt the people we care about, and it is so complicated and there is so much beauty there and i adore it specifically because it is one of the rare pieces of media out there that doesn’t prop up romantic love as the most important and powerful force in the universe. romantic love is not what moves the story. merlin’s love for the people around him is based on compassion. it’s bigger than the familiar and overused ‘i am desperately in love with this one individual person and that’s what drives my actions,” which is a premise all of us know has been done to death. merlin’s love is not about romantic attachment. it’s a deep, abiding love for humanity. it’s based on hope, and faith, and the inherent belief that everybody matters, even in their worst moments.

condensing that kind of story into “and then they fell in love” erases its meaning for me. it makes it trite. uninteresting. i have seen “and then they fell in love” fully sixty thousand times. “and then they fell in love” has been done so often that it is utterly devoid of power for me. boring. i literally do not care.

other people might feel differently, and find a romantic love story compelling. i don’t.

i’m guessing the message that prompted this essay is asking me to evaluate how i feel about the “goodness” of the merlin/arthur ship, aka whether it’s worthwhile to ship it or not based on how healthy/unhealthy it is, which i definitely can’t answer, because i don’t think whether it’s “good” or not really matters. i am definitely too old to be riding the newer wave of, uh...idk, purity culture type stuff that is so oft-debated on here, lately.

but you’re absolutely right, anon - merlin and arthur’s relationship IS kinda shitty! it 100% is. it doesn’t mean you can’t ship them, though, if you want; otherwise i wouldn’t be invested in any aspect of their friendship, either.

the fact that merlin and arthur’s relationship is kinda shitty is an essential element of the show; it’s the microcosmic representation of the macrocosmic problem merlin is trying to solve, and even with that being the case, we can see clearly that this also doesn’t preclude them from having real moments of connection and care and love. this is the contradiction i have to keep in mind whenever i engage with them in the friendship sense - merlin has been wronged by arthur in so many ways, and yet he still loves him and believes arthur can do better, and yet his dedication to arthur really does destroy his life piece by piece, and you really have to walk a line between those extremes and be thinking: in what ways was this a noble, honorable path for merlin to take and in what ways was this damaging, and was it all worth it in the end?

we probably wouldn’t still be watching this show if we didn’t ultimately think the answer to that last question was yes. but there are also equally valid ways in which the answer is, truthfully, no, and i think really the only important thing when dealing with merlin and arthur’s relationship (in whatever capacity you prefer) is to keep that dissonance in mind.

so, to more directly address your question, when it comes to my interaction with the source material, i don’t ship merlin and arthur romantically because i don’t see romance when they interact in canon, and i don’t think their relationship could be improved or made more interesting/more meaningful by adding extra-canonical romance into the mix. that’s really it.

but the other side of things is this: even if i were granted someone else’s ship-goggles to somehow see romance between these two (eg, once, in the distant past i read a harry potter fic that was so well-constructed it sold me on a relationship i didn’t [and still don’t] actually see in canon), i still wouldn’t choose to ship merlin and arthur, and it’s not because they’re a “bad” ship (no such thing, folks - tag your stuff and let people live their lives, thank you), it’s because this fandom has already been swallowed by them and i cannot bring myself to make that imbalance worse.

trying to be in the merlin fandom without shipping merlin and arthur is just...a little bit difficult sometimes. i think probably even people who do ship merlin/arthur are aware of that. sometimes it can feel like merlin/arthur is a given in this fandom, not one of many options - as if you’re not in the merlin fandom, but rather the merthur fandom, and you know you really, really do not belong there.

and it’s not even a canonical ship! it’s not even real. and yet if you like this show, and you want to engage in the fandom, your experience is, without exception, going to be chock full of merlin/arthur content by default.

essentially, my struggle with the merlin/arthur dynamic in fandom is two-fold:

1) the strikingly imbalanced content distribution

the merlin fandom, in terms of content distribution, is a pretty accurate mirror of merlin’s own existence, to be honest, in that pretty much every aspect of it is eventually taken over by arthur pendragon, and in that there’s a reasonable debate to be had about whether or not that’s a good thing.

(spoiler alert: it’s not.)

even so, it is what it is, and as i said before, me commenting on fandom trends is not meant as a condemnation of individual preferences. people like what they like! that’s just how things are. shipping arthur and merlin isn’t a Bad thing to do, by any means, and the fact that so many people do is just, you know, bad luck for me, lol. but at the same time, the wildly unbalanced distribution of content does make it more difficult for folks who don’t ship merlin/arthur to engage in fandom with quite the same level of ease, and even though it’s nobody’s fault, it is still perfectly reasonable for people who don’t ship merlin/arthur to be frustrated about that.

fanfic is a pretty good case study for how this plays out. i saw a post a while back that was titled something like ‘merlin bbc gothic,’ and the first bullet point was “canon ships are rarepairs,” and HOO BOY, that is true. stats-wise, merlin/arthur makes up ⅔ of the merlin fic on AO3. ~25,000 fics. the next most popular tag after merlin/arthur is arthur/gwen, but arthur/gwen have ~2,900 fics in their tag. and when you remember to exclude any instance of merlin/arthur from the arthur/gwen tag, that number drops by another thousand, to ~1,940.

that’s buckwild. come on. merlin/arthur has twenty-three THOUSAND more fics than the next most popular (and CANONICAL, i might add) ship? and every other ship’s numbers are even lower than that?*

and if you don’t want to read shippy stuff in the first place, like me - the merlin “gen” tag has less than 8000 fics in it, by comparison, and then you STILL have to filter merlin/arthur out of the gen fics, leaving you with about 6300 - which number has to be filtered down further to remove OTHER ships that still make it past the gen filter.

in comparison to 25,000.

like. i’ve been in fandom long enough that i’m not surprised - mean, i came into merlin directly off a teen wolf phase, and boy, that’s a whole other bowl of noodles right there, with added squick factors that are irrelevant here - but i’m still just...man.

it still makes my head spin. and it is still frustrating, every time.

*(there is a lot more to be said about how gwen fits into all of this, and i know it has been discussed more thoroughly in other places, but yes, another reason i am leery of arthur/merlin as a thing is that i’m just...not super comfortable with what that implies for gwen and her position in the story. even if i personally am slightly more compelled by gwen/lancelot, technically - i still don’t quite feel comfortable taking gwen out of her canonical place. she belongs at the top. she deserves to be the love interest and she deserves to be the queen. and like - people can say that her relationship with arthur isn’t “developed” or “convincing” enough to warrant retaining in fic, and i get it, the show really did fail gwen in S5 - but i still don’t buy that argument. people literally INVENTED a romantic relationship for themselves and put 25,000 fics worth of effort into building it up; there is no reason why an “underdeveloped” canon romance couldn’t have gotten the same treatment. except, of course, for the fact that one [Black, female] character was being shoved aside to make way for yet another two white dudes.)

(and i’m not saying that everyone is doing this deliberately or maliciously. but we all know this is a cross-fandom trend. there is literally no reason for the gap in content to be THAT wide. a canon relationship with twenty-three thousand fewer fics than an invented ship? just...that is a stat that bears thinking about. it doesn’t mean that merlin/arthur is a “bad” ship, or that you can’t prefer lancelot/gwen, but it IS still important to recognize these patterns where they occur, across fandoms, and to really think about what they mean.)

2) the arthur-goggles

my second struggle with merlin/arthur in fandom is the ubiquitousness of the arthur-goggles, aka: the tendency in fandom, as in canon, to make everything in merlin’s life about arthur, and everything in the show about merthur.

this one specifically really gets to me. i am very committed to the idea that merlin is a complete individual, whether arthur is there or not. i write a LOT of meta about merlin being a whole person, specifically pushing back on the idea that merlin was “born” for arthur’s benefit - my motto is basically that “merlin’s life does not revolve around arthur pendragon,” and the way his life begins to revolve around arthur pendragon in later seasons is not in fact touching or romantic or beautiful; it’s a tragedy. merlin does not exist only in the context of his relationship with arthur; he possesses worth outside of his mission to save the prince of camelot, and he was already a complete person before he ever met the prince of camelot, and one of the many issues we have to think about when dealing with arthur and merlin in any capacity is how merlin is told from the get-go that he is supposed to devote his whole life to arthur, but arthur is never given any such reciprocal responsibility.

merlin and arthur’s relationship, just like the distribution of content in this fandom, is wildly imbalanced. merlin spends all of his spare time thinking about arthur’s life; he ties himself in knots trying to help arthur develop as a person. he is constantly working to keep arthur safe and happy. but arthur, at the end of a long day, doesn’t spend his nights agonizing over how he can improve merlin’s life. he just goes home and goes to bed. he never once thinks, ‘my purpose on this earth is to serve and support my friend merlin.’ he is never told his life isn’t his own, that he is supposed to be one half of some two-sided coin. only merlin is told that his entire existence is earmarked for someone else, that his life’s purpose is to be someone else’s better half. only merlin is expected to devote his entire being to someone else’s betterment. only merlin is expected to say demeaning, self-abnegating things like “i was born to serve you.”

arthur, by contrast, is allowed to have a life of his own. he is allowed to exist on his own terms. he is never told that his worth is dependent on how well he can prop someone else up. and while fic might like to imagine merlin being the most important thing in arthur’s life, in canon that is just not the case.

merlin exists on his own merits, and the idea that he does everything he does just because “he’s in love with arthur” will never sit right with me, because it’s simply not true. merlin and arthur’s relationship is important to both of them, yes, and of course it is undergirded by deep love and care, but it is also way more complicated than that. merlin’s investment in arthur’s life - and his grief at arthur’s death - are NOT solely driven by his love for arthur as an individual; they are inextricably bound up with a sense of obligation and duty and self-worth and, eventually, failure, because he’s been told that protecting arthur is a) the only thing that matters about his own life and b) the only way to free his people and save an entire kingdom. and i think ignoring this very real complexity in favor of “merlin does what he does and feels what he feels because he’s in love with arthur” cheapens the depth of the story and flattens merlin’s character.

arthur-goggles automatically make everything about merlin/arthur, though. so the difficulty, for me, with merlin/arthur as a ship, is that it can be hard to make/find things about merlin that people don’t instantly, always try to link back to arthur in some way. merlin is not allowed to have things that are just his, and he can’t exist in a state where arthur doesn’t somehow factor in - no matter how unrelated to arthur something is, or how non-shippy it’s meant to be - there’s someone out there who’s going to loop it back to merthur in some way.

just like - scattered examples of things I’ve encountered:

all of merlin’s non-arthur love interests on AO3 having massive chunks of their ship tags actually being merthur fics, with the non-arthur ship serving solely as a stepping stone on the way to getting merlin and arthur together

readers, on fics that are specifically designated as focusing on merlin+someone else and in which arthur does not appear, leaving comments asking “so how long until arthur shows up,” “can’t wait to see arthur,” etc

meta about how ‘merlin’s time in camelot was actually really bad for him as a person’ being reblogged and modified by someone else with an addition like “but merlin doesn’t regret a second of it because he wouldn’t have known arthur if he were anywhere else,” and the OP having to reblog their own post and explain that this is literally the exact problem they were trying to critique

in fic, merlin’s friends being utilized only as vessels with whom he can have discussions about his developing relationship with arthur

etc etc

it’s not always huge egregious things, but wearing arthur-goggles means EVERYTHING comes back to merthur in some way, which for me is just...really insulting to other characters, and really limiting in terms of story analysis.

so, for example - this is a VERY specific example that few will relate to, because i am probably the only person on here who has ever tried to search the tag for merlin’s friend will from ealdor (a niche fave of mine) - but with him, especially, it is very hard to avoid bumping into a lot of people wearing arthur-goggles, because everybody seems to imagine him as merlin’s ex, who is only upset about what’s going on in 1.10 because he’s jealous about arthur appearing alongside merlin, never mind that will and merlin have known each other since birth and have a relationship that LITERALLY predates arthur by two decades.

so with him, as an example - the other day, i saw some post in the tag that was like “will gets teary when arthur makes his inspirational speech in ealdor because he finally understands what merlin sees in arthur and he can’t be mad anymore”

and that is just patently untrue. it is not even remotely close to a legitimate interpretation of what is happening in that scene. will hasn’t come around to arthur’s way of thinking yet; he literally still packs his things and leaves after this happens, and he is - i mean, first of all, he’s not crying, lol, and he stalks out of that scene weary, angry, and fed up, because he thinks the village is delusional and all of his neighbors are going to get killed in the morning. his arc - his dissatisfaction with what is going on, his anger at the ignorance arthur wields as a nobleman with all of that wealth and privilege, his resistance to the big “let’s fight kanen’s men with sticks” plan - that is about him and his history and who he is. it is not about an (imaginary) merlin/arthur love story.

but when the arthur-goggles are on, all roads lead to merthur. even when the other characters in question (*coughWILLIAMcough*) would be beyond mortified to have merthur, of all things, assigned as their motivation.

SO. now that i’ve gone over both the canon and fandom aspects of my reasoning, the succinct summary in response to your question is just that no, i don’t personally ship merlin/arthur. because:

a) i don’t see it b) the fandom is already trying to drown me with it and i choose to center other characters out of spite c) i just think merlin deserves better lol

however, as i said in my disclaimer - that doesn’t mean other people shouldn’t ship and enjoy it! merlin/arthur is very much not my cup of tea, but that’s no reason why other folks can’t have fun with it. i think the best portrayals of it, probably, will be those that keep in mind exactly what you said - that merlin and arthur’s relationship is “kinda shitty” - but this is fandom, so if what folks really want to write is just lots of happy AU’s with no issues, then they should go for it! the point of fandom is to have fun connecting with people over a shared love of something, so i am happy to let others have fun doing their thing, and i will just be over here doing mine. 🙂

#thanks for the question!#hope this is helpful #fyi to everyone else; this is the most space i will EVER devote to this subject so #wave goodbye as it flies past!#XD #the once and future slowburn #meta #(sort of? fandom analysis? idk)

67 notes · View notes

scarletwelly-boots · 5 years ago

Text

In honor of Pride, I’m sharing my LGBT Disney headcanon identities. Some have maybe one detail in their narratives that I took and ran with, and some are more commonly considered queer or queer-coded (or at least have more signs that I picked up on). Happy Pride!

Mulan: Genderfluid. I know that canonically she had reasons to pretend to be a man and that after she was discovered she dressed more typically feminine, but I have read some truly fantastic Genderfluid!Mulan fics, and as a genderfluid person who has grown up fascinated by Mulan, I like to view her as like me.

Shang: Bisexual. C’mon, did you not see his face when Mulan kicked him over that first time?! Boy was in love with her before she was outed.

Ling/Yao/Chien Po: Poly. Yes, I know they have a whole song about girls and in the sequel they marry a bunch of princesses, but they were super close friends and had really good chemistry, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they all got together.

Sebastian: Gay. That blue crab in the Under the Sea number is his boyfriend. And my name is Bastien and I’m gay, so Sebastian is also gay. I don’t make the rules.

Ursula: Trans. Listen. This is the epitome of queer-coded villains. She was designed after a drag queen. I’m not saying all drag queens are trans, but a lot of historically labeled drag queens have since turned out to actually probably be trans. And there isn’t a point where she’s not presenting as a woman, so she’s likely not just in drag.

Melody/Henry (Prince Charming): trans. OH MY GOD. This is my most bonkers Disney conspiracy theory. I’m sorry in advance for the long story with this one. So a year or two ago I fell down a YouTube rabbit hole about Disney theories and crossover theories. One theory was that there was (albeit conspiracy-esque) evidence to suggest Ariel is Prince Charming AKA Henry’s mom. The main reason I remember is that both are ginger, but I know there were other details. So the video creator was trying to figure out what happened to Melody between Little Mermaid II and Cinderella, but never thought Melody and Henry might be the same person. My theory based on this: Henry IS Melody. After LM2 he realized he was trans. It fits with the crossover theory without needing to explain why Melody was not at her potential-brother’s wedding. I know there’s a lot of conditions for this to work, but I think it makes more sense than the Melody and Charming are siblings but Melody is inexplicably MIA theory.

Lumiere and Cogsworth: Gay. Come on. Obviously. I will also accept that Lumiere is bi/pan and in a relationship with Cogsworth and Babette or w/e her name is. Doesn’t work as well with the live action BatB, but maybe Cogsworth is married and Lumiere is dating the feather duster and they’re also dating each other?

LeFou: Gay. Like even before the live action this much was obvious. Gaston should’ve A.) treated him way better, and B.) opened his goddamn eyes and stopped chasing Belle. (I’m on the fence about Gaston’s possible queerness though.)

Hades: Gay. I recently heard that James Woods, Hades’s VA, is homophobic. So now I’m headcanoning this out of spite in addition to, I’m sorry MF-er, but you played this guy ridiculously queer-coded. He’s gay. Deal, Woods.

Timon/Pumbaa: Do I even have to say it? They raised TWO kids together!!! Gay!!!!

Scar: Gay. That lion was queer-coded to hell and back. I know there’s issues with villains being queer-coded, but if he’s gay, I’m counting him.

Terk: Lesbian. Duhhh. She’s voiced by Rosie O’Donnell, of course she’s gay! Also all of her friends are guys, which I’m not saying makes you gay, but makes her butch-ness pretty damn overt.

Shere Khan: Gay. Sorry, I might ship him a leeetle bit with Scar.

Baloo/Bagheera: These two were Timon and Pumbaa before Timon and Pumbaa. They’re gay. No, I will not take constructive criticism.

Jafar: Gay. Man, there is a huge problem with queer-coding villains in Disney. I know he sexually harasses Jasmine, but there could be a few reasons for this (other than the fact that he’s a jackass and needs to STOP): performative heterosexuality or bi. Or power-hungry AF and not caring what he has to do to get it. I’m leaning toward that one.

Genie: Pan or Ace. I could see him going either way. I think he gets a girlfriend in the tv show, so likely either pan or panromantic asexual.

Elsa: Queer. Obviously.

Side note: I ship Elsa and Cinderella in the Wreck-It Ralph 2!verse. The bedroom eyes they give each other in the loungewear scene?! My gay ass felt that.

Merida: Ace. C’mon. She’s literally an arrow ace! Isn’t this a thing? “I’ll be shooting for my own hand”???? Girl is ace AF.

Buzz/ Woody: Do I have to say gay? Is it not obvious? Get out of here with that Jessie/ Bo Peep shit. I can play in the poly sandbox just like with Lumiere and Cogsworth. And we do not acknowledge TS4 in this house. That movie was a disgrace.

Jessie: Lesbian. I’ll take bi or pan if you want to insist she’s in a relationship with Buzz. She’s a cowgirl though.

7 Dwarves: Are they brothers? Or just roommates/coworkers? If they’re brothers, absolutely disregard because I’m not an incest shipper (okay, with the exception of Thorki). Otherwise, poly.

Donald Duck: genderfluid. Have you not seen that post going around of all the times Donald wears a dress and it’s not as a punchline? Donald is genderqueer in some capacity.

Live action BatB Stanley: genderfluid or bigender. He seems pretty chill about wearing typical men’s clothes, but when Madame de Garderobe gives him a dress he’s fucking thrilled. Stanley is me when I put on a binder. Genderfluid.

Kuzco: Pan and bigender. He’s very queer, both gender- and sexuality-related. Like he dresses as a woman in a whole scene and I don’t remember him putting up much of a fight about doing it? I could be wrong.

Feel free to add your own.

#lgbtq #gay disney #pride month

37 notes · View notes

artellip · 5 years ago

Text

Representation Matters?

I'm kinda tired now, but hear me out.

Growing up, I've always been surrounded by books. Movies. Narratives. Stories. And while they took me to far-off worlds and show me unrealistic but kind of cute relationships between characters, I've known, or felt, that there was always something missing even though I didn't know what it was. I had only realized it when I watched a sports anime back in high school and started wondering about how intricate and deep these two characters' relationship were and imagined what if there was something more? Of course this started the shipping phase, seeing the potential of relationships going a level deeper, more complicated. At first platonically, and then romantically. Because both were delicate and very much valid. But this was different, because I was wondering about two boys, rather than a girl and a boy, which I very much grew up with.

And then I started reading fanfiction, ones that had two canonically platonic, even queerplatonic, same sex characters getting together or realizing how much they meant to each other that they couldn't really stay as friends, because they were in love . Those kind. I started reading BL and GL Manga because they had that kind of dynamic I was starting to look for. But almost all of them were romance focused, there was always sex, and had all that love story shenanigans, even the problematic ones. At this point I was getting tired of romance centered plotlines, but I devoured them because I was searching for that one thing I never knew I needed: queer stories. Why?

At first, I thought it was because by then I had already talked to queer people, heard their stories; their struggles. By the time I entered college, I started fighting for them, with them. I wanted queer stories for the LGBTQ+ community because they deserved to be represented and heard. It was my only reason for some time, until it just wasn't.

I searched for queer stories because I was in the closet.

I was in the midst of an identity crisis, and I guess, subconsciously, I was looking for comfort, perhaps solace, a pat on the back, some words of encouragement.. not just for them, but for me.

But I realized there was not much to see especially in TV series and books. I realized I'd have to spend my time searching for queer stories that weren't so sexualized, mocked or even made fun of. And in the midst of all that, I realized those stories weren't so much told because they were considered taboo and abnormal in the real world. And it hurt. It hurt because I realized I was queer, and our existence didn't matter so much that it wouldn't warrant any good representation, and even if there were, there were only scraps of it, buried deep into ink blotted papers of forgotten books or even passing dialogues in television series and movies. And there were so little I was even already happy with mere passing comments of actors and directors and authors confirming queer coded characters and plot lines.

And then, I came to know queerbaiting. It was different from shipping characters together, at least for me. It gave me false hopes, and then it made me feel bad about it because I tried to see past the platonic due to the subtext. Don't get me wrong. I love platonic and queerplatonic relationships, even moreso between a girl and a boy (more on that matter some time) but I always feel robbed despite it because I've always been surrounded by that kind of relationship especially between two girls or two boys. Merlin and Arthur? John and Sherlock? Spock and Kirk? Hell, animes are full of them. Naruto and Sasuke, most sports anime (really, all those tension? You expect me not to ship them as more than friends?). They were lovely platonic and queerplatonic ships that I cared so much about. But was it too much to ask for some romantic queer relationships that were built on trust and friendship? I guess it was.

(I'd always wanted to point out that romantic ships between two men or women don't invalidate platonic and even queerplatonic ships, especially canon ones, and hoping a romantic one over a platonic one doesn't necessarily mean one is inferior over the other, and I know that it applies vice versa as well.)

Then Yuri On Ice came, and I thought it was just another queerbaited sports anime, but it proved me wrong. I remember crying in the bathroom after one scene that confirmed queerness and a queer romantic relationship which wasn't even sexualized or mocked. It felt like as if my heart would burst because after all those years, i felt so validated. I felt so alive. I realized how ashamed I was for who I am, and someone, something, telling me in the most profound way that I existed, that I mattered enough to be represented, that I matter , was a defining moment of my growth: I am queer and I am here.

Books with queer characters made its way to my local bookstore (Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda, the Proxy series, The Red Queen Series, The Song of Achilles, there were so many I was moved when I saw them in the stands, not hidden, but there for the world to see). It became clear to me just how much I was deprived. More and more TV series came forward with their own queer characters and stories . Person of Interest's, Root and Shaw was one of my favorites. Connor and Oliver from How to Get Away with Murder, Grey's Anatomy handling of queer characters, Korra and Asami from Legend of Korra, even Steven Universe and games like Stardew Valley where we can make our own narrative. I even watch Thai BL now. There were so much content now that my younger self would have loved and accepted, and I know, from my soul, they would have felt like they belonged.

For the first time in a long time, I am a bit hopeful, even just a little bit.

There's still prejudice, homophobia and fear lurking in the storytelling industry - whether that be books, games, movies, comics, or series. I doubt that would even go away. Hell, I still see some people invalidate romantic ships when it's canonically platonic. I still see queerbaiting. I still feel hopeless in terms of representation. Sometimes I still even invalidate myself. It's hard, to be frank. It's a heavy thing to carry. Wanting to feel alive, wanting to be reminded that I am valid despite my own queerness and in spite of it, wanting for at least a little comfort, for a little representation.

I'm into Supernatural now. And while the meta writers have spent years trying to predict or at least understand the text and subtext between Cas and Dean, and then seeing that maybe, just maybe, there was a chance it might be different this time, that perhaps they can be endgame after all, I'm 99% sure that probably won't happen. Perhaps platonically it will soar, and it will be added to the long list of deep platonic relationships with genius subtext. And while I'll be glad with it, I'll even probably devour it, I know a part of me will be disappointed, a sinking feeling rising in my gut as my lips move and Ill say, "Oh. It was an almost".

I'm used to being deprived, and the worst part of it? It isn't fine, but I have to suck up and be okay with it.

But perhaps, one day I'll stop apologizing for wanting a bit more good representation and respect.

Perhaps one day I'll stop apologizing for who I am.

And maybe, just maybe, one day, we wouldn't have to debate whether we should exist or not

- in creative spaces, narratives and other alternate worlds that stemmed from our ability to recreate stories and mirror human life.

Maybe one day we'll even be able to exist without question.

Maybe one day.

47 notes · View notes

simonjadis · 5 years ago

Photo

Anon I’m ASSUMING that these are from the same person; apologies if they are not

I would say that my feelings are similar to yours, but not quite identical ...

Disney’s handling has been imperfect, and some of the mistakes have been made the highest level (I know that people give Kathleen Kennedy a hard time, but if rumor is to be believed, some of the interference that made IX kind of weird came from higher than that)

for example, Kennedy said in an interview that she tries to find people who just make big, successful movies to make sure that these are also big, successful movies. I can understand that as being a safe bet from a business stand point, but that’s not the same thing as finding someone passionate about very specifically telling good, new Star Wars stories, which we did not really get in the Sequel Trilogy

(one of the most common theories that I saw from TLJ apologists was that people didn’t like that it was new/different than what they were expecting, which was really not the issue for me or my friends. Also it was just a speedrun of parts of Episodes V and VI)

I think that I’m “too close” to Star Wars to see it as a financial asset rather than a beloved universe full of characters and stories that I adore, but I don’t think that “literally just rehash the Original Trilogy for two movies and barely acknowledge any other part of Star Wars until IX” was a good idea

Rey deserved her own story. and Luke deserved to not be retroactively robbed of his

as for George Lucas, I do think that years of backlash over the Prequels sucked the fun out of it for him. Also, who doesn’t want four billion dollars? it was a sweetheart deal for Disney, of course

the sad thing is that this meant the end of Clone Wars, because Disney took one look at Lucasfilm’s budget and was like “OH NO YOU CANNOT SPEND THAT KIND OF MONEY ON A CARTOON” which is why Season 6 was paid for by Netflix and why Maul: Son of Dathomir was a comic

I love Star Wars Rebels and I’m not trying to knock the show at all, but the budgetary difference was palpable. Clone Wars did have it a little easier because of the Clone Troopers (all having the same face), but on Rebels, you notice that 90% of the Imperials are the same guy wearing a hat with his visor obscuring most of his face. market scenes show just a few people (but plenty of Storm Troopers)

the designs of the main characters -- Ezra, Hera, Sabine, Zeb, Kallus, Thrawn, Kanan, etc -- are great and loving and detailed and most of those change a little over time, but there’s a reason that we only see so many planets on Rebels. look at the huge armies and crowds in Rebels. my friend @drunkkenobi is the first who pointed out to me that in Clone Wars, you sometimes see lines of ships (Space Traffic) and each ship in line will be unique, distinct from the others

it’s not Rebels’ fault that they didn’t have that kind of budget. that’s also why their space battles (and space ships) never quite look right. meanwhile, for Clone Wars, if they wanted a particular scene or ship that went over their planned budget, all that they had to do was ask Uncle George

eccentric billionaires funding expensive media isn’t necessarily the most sustainable model for storytelling, but it sure worked out well for Clone Wars and for The Expanse

(Jeff Bezos personally called up the head of Amazon Prime programming, who had already been considering acquiring the extremely good but expensive show, and was like “hey the cast from this show is at a thing where I am, I’d love to just tell them that their show is saved, give me it?” and we saw as many new locations in Season 4 as we did in the first three seasons)

but streaming -- where you actually get money directly from customers who then, through their activity on your platform, show you exactly what they want to see aka what is keeping them on your platform -- offers a new opportunity for high quality genre media. remember, scifi and fantasy were EVERYWHERE in the ‘90s and the early aughts, and then because too expensive for regular TV unless they had huge audiences. only through streaming do we have these new Star Treks, The Witcher, and the real possibility of a new Stargate series

why do I bring up streaming? because

The Mandalorian goes to show that Disney can 100% do good Star Wars. Rebels was good, despite its budget, but can you imagine how much better it would have been if it had aired on Disney+

as with the DC movies (three of which are good and I’m also excited for Birds of Prey), the solution to the our-movies-made-a-lot-of-money-but-aren’t-strictly-speaking-good is literally just “let the people who do the cartoons make the movies”

and now we’re getting a final, seventh (half) season of Clone Wars! twelve episodes looking better than the show has ever looked!!

if you’re like me, you probably thought to yourself “gee, only 12?” and, cynically, you figured that it’s a trick -- announced at ComicCon in 2018 to build up the first wave of hype for Disney+

and it is ... but it 100% worked on me, I signed up for Disney+ and will pay anything for Clone War

my HOPE is that this is a test run to see if people really like high-quality animated Star Wars stories enough to continue with it. there’s only so much clone wars that one can cover (my suspicion is that we will see Ahsoka fake her death during Order 66 in these eps, so yep, that’s the end of the Clone Wars right there)

imagine a well-written series with everything that Clone Wars had in terms of content and visual quality, but it’s set after Episode IX. to my frustration, IX ends with effectively the same worldstate as VI which essentially means that nothing much happened in the Sequel Trilogy. but imagine a series set after IX. we could see a new set of (Force-wielding) characters. we could see Rey, Finn, Poe, and Rose during some episodes. Rose could finally get to do something that’s not an insulting fool’s errand (she deserves so much better!!!!!)

we don’t need a new Big Scary Empire/First Order thing, just organized crime and pirates and Hutts and bounty hunters and individual planet systems going to war as the characters try to assemble a NEW New Republic (gods I hate the unchanged worldstate)

now, I know that Star Wars Resistance is not ... reassuring. this is the only screencap that I have from it because I couldn’t get into it. it’s not the animation (I enjoyed Tron Uprising and Iron Man: Armored Adventures and this is the same kind of deal), but three things:

-I watch Star Wars for the Force primarily; other stuff can be cool but I need the Force

-I will never care about ships racing and really I don’t care about an individual ship flying; I’m a Command Ship kind of space nerd

-apparently the writing doesn’t improve much during the first season. people tell the main character to not do something, then he does it, and disaster ensues. that’s ... it’s fine, it’s fine to exist as a show, it’s just not for me

obviously, not all Star Wars media is for me, but when something -- like TLJ or the Sequel Series as a whole (even though VII and IX are enjoyable) or Resistance -- disappoints me, I would never accuse it of “ruining Star Wars”

Star Wars is a whole franchise. the breadth of canon isn’t all wiped away by some disappointments. was the MCU ruined by Age of Ultron? no. it was a bad movie but from the same franchise that gave us The Winter Soldier and Thor Ragnarok. hell, Dawn of Justice doesn’t “ruin” Wonder Woman or Aquaman or Shazam. bad movies aren’t contagious

for the past several years, the Entitled Dude crowd has felt empowered. they were radicalized in the altright/redpill/MGTOW/meninist/nazi/gamergate/comicsgate/etc spheres of the internet and now they just have a reflex where they see any sort of representation and decry it as “SJW,” which they also seem to think is a bad thing

in the same way that well-meaning people on tumblr can get radicalized into being antis/puriteens, people with certain vulnerabilities on reddit or youtube can get sucked into a world that tells them that they are the default and that other people existing is “political” in media and in real life, and that people being upset by outright cruelty towards them is both funny and means that the cruel person is the victor. they need therapy and studios need to not listen to them

unfortunately, sometimes there are movies that are bad despite having things like solid representation. Ghostbusters 2016 was a delight, but my friends and I with whom I saw TLJ (all of us queer feminists) left the theater angry. we’ve bitten our tongues a lot (even if it seems otherwise) because publicly criticizing the film too often leads some incel monster to chime in with agreement, and we’re just like

the redpillgate crowed et all is a natural ally of conservative white evangelicals, even though the former group is generally made up of New Atheists (the short version is atheists who hold socially conservative views because racism/misogyny/transphobia benefit them without using christianity as an excuse). it’s kind of like how terfs will side with conservative hate groups because, though they’re natural enemies, they both despite trans people just for existing

unfortunately, when you’re looking at who went to see a movie or who hated it, not everyone posts with an ID card saying exactly their demographic. which is only going to make studios like Disney even more nervous about including queer content in Star Wars and in the MCU (I mean real queer content with characters whose names don’t have to be searched on a wiki)

that was a bit of a tangent, but yeah. sorry if I missed anything

#star wars #clone wars #anon #ask #anon ask

14 notes · View notes

incomprehensiblelentils · 5 years ago

Text

I did not get around to this yesterday but, a short selection of fictional things that meant a lot to me over the last decade! ...it is going under a cut bc it is Too Long sorry lmao.

Books

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng: this book came out in September 2017 and I have read it four times already. It’s the kind of book I want to write but I’m not sure I’m clever enough to: every event and every character is so purposeful and you won’t catch everything the first time through. Every time I reread it I find something new to marvel at. I hope the Hulu series is half as good

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng: this was the first piece of fiction I ever found with a family with a Chinese father and a white mother. This family is a lot less functional than my family, but I've read this three times because that means the world to me.

Ash by Malinda Lo: I discovered this in 2011 and it was the first f/f novel I ever read, and as I would later learn, one of a handful with a happy ending at the time, particularly in YA fiction. For a long time, I reread it every time I felt hopeless. I just reread it again last month and it is still as beautiful and meaningful to me as in 2011.

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan: This is an Asian-inspired fantasy (becoming more common now, but still irritatingly rare) written by a queer Asian woman, with f/f. I think it is only the second one of these, after Ash? It is frustratingly rare, anyway. The worldbuilding is incredible also.

The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan: We are getting more stories about biracial Asians, but they are still pretty rare and I treasure every one. This one felt so real to me.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth: The first half of this book captures so beautifully what it’s like growing up queer in a religious environment when you don’t even have the words or self-awareness to know what you’re feeling. This was another one I read over and over again when I was feeling low.

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater: this is just a book for horse girls. I don’t know how else to describe this lol. I also feel like the romance is super downplayed until the very end, and honestly barely feels like a romance to me, so that’s refreshing!

Movies:

Pacific Rim (2013): I remember having this weird feeling when asked to give my top 3 movies once in high school, like maybe my favorite movie hadn’t come out yet so I couldn’t answer properly. I was right; this is the movie I was waiting for. This is my favorite movie. The feelings this movie gives me is the standard I hold all movies to.

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019): but Megan, didn’t this just come out? Yes, and it’s my other favorite movie now. I love (almost) every second of this movie. This movie made me feel a way that I thought maybe I might never feel again, after a certain other franchise movie this year took a dump on my heart. I don’t care that we’re never getting a sequel, we got this and that’s enough for me.

Thor (2011): Those of you who have been around awhile know that I really love this movie. I loved it before we all jumped on the Thor train after Ragnarok and I will continue to love it probably my whole life. It just makes me happy.

Aquaman (2018): This is Thor but underwater and with a biracial hero. It made me cry in the theater and I do not want to hear any negative opinions about it, I find them personally wounding.

Belle (2013): The fact that Gugu Mbatha-Raw isn’t a superstar is tragic, and this movie is gorgeous and lovely and made me feel a lot of things as a biracial person.

Mad Max Fury Road (2015): I remember seeing the trailer for this in the theater and going “yikes that looks like a thing I would never watch.” Joke’s on you, past me!!!! I find this a deeply stressful but glorious film that I can only watch like, once or twice a year.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010): I do not need or want to hear about how this movie is Problematic, I know all of its issues, and yet. It brings me joy and it was one of the first movies I saw when I was just starting to break out of my religious upbringing and I laugh until I cry every time I watch it.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015): I am starting to realize that I am not and never really was a Star Wars Fan, which is to say that like...I love this movie specifically, I love the characters, I love the interactions, I love the stuff that happens. I do not so much love Star Wars as a whole? I like it fine! But this movie is the only part of the franchise to really make me go “oh, I get it.”

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017): This was a weird little movie that nobody saw and nobody talked about, but I adore it because it’s so gentle and romantic. I don’t know how accurate it is to history and frankly I do not really care.

Big Hero 6 (2014): are you tired of me mentioning I’m biracial yet? This movie has biracial protagonists and a cute squishy robot and no romance and superhero stuff and I love it so much.

F8: The Fate of the Furious (2017): I went to go see this on a whim with my wife and it was one of the most joyous theater experiences of my life. I don’t know, I just love everything about it.

TV shows:

Community: This only kind of counts because it started in 2009 but I started it mid-s2 so eh. Seasons 1-3 of this show are written on my heart, I can quote a ridiculous amount of dialogue from them and these characters will stay with me forever. Warts and all, this is my show.

Dollhouse: Another technicality but like, I met my wife because we both loved Bennett Halverson so I gotta put this on here. It’s pretty significantly affected my life! Also I find that it holds up fairly well, if you’re down for the admittedly iffy premise and an ending that’s a bit of a mess narratively due to sudden cancellation.

Agents of SHIELD: I would never claim that this show is “good” but I do think that it has mostly figured out what the hell it’s doing. And it has been a pretty significant part of my fandom life for the last 6 years, so to leave it off this list would feel wrong. It gave me Daisy Johnson, first canon biracial superhero as played by a biracial actor, and for that i will always be grateful.

Warehouse 13: I could not tell you why I fell so deeply in love with this dumb, badly written show that shit the bed in the final episode more spectacularly than I could have imagined, and yet I did! I think probably it is because I love found family so much, and also I find goofy camp charming more often than not. And of course, there is Bering and Wells, the femslash ship that fandom forgot. I will never be over how no one knows what we have suffered!!!!!

Runaways: wow was this a surprise! The Runaways comic is my favorite comic besides Marjorie Liu’s X-23 run, and this show has basically nothing to do with it, and normally that would piss me off but they got my kids’ personalities down so well and all of the actors are so perfect that I really can’t complain. And also, this show has canon f/f and neither of them die at the end! Which is...better than some other shows I could mention!

Doctor Who series 1 and 5: I had a very intense Doctor Who phase in college, and after all was said and done and I quit the show for a time, I realized that although I love a lot of the characters, and Thirteen’s run is pretty good so far, what I really loved was Nine’s run and Eleven’s first season. That is the show at its best to me. Eccleston is my Doctor and Amy is my favorite companion.

Legends of Tomorrow: Look, I am as shocked as anyone that this, the scrappy underdog of the DCTV lineup, is the one that’s most emotionally competent and has the best character arcs! But here we are. Season 4 was some of my favorite TV I’ve seen, uh, ever.

Albums

Dirty Computer by Janelle Monae: I listened to this for basically a year straight after it came out. It’s just ridiculously good.

Something Fierce by Marian Call: This was my on-repeat album in college. i drew a lot of strength from it, and I think that it’s still the best album to recommend to people who ask me about her.

Standing Stones by Marian Call: I heard most of these songs live at concerts before they were quite done yet, so it was really special to get to hear them all collected together like this. I’m going to get a tattoo with a lyric from one of these songs because no one’s quite been able to put my basic philosophy into words quite like Marian.

Heartthrob by Tegan and Sara: Hot Take, I know, because a lot of people hate this album, but it was so affirming to go out and buy A Lesbian Album from A Lesbian Band in 2013.

The Rent movie soundtrack: I know, I KNOW, but in my defense, my parents got me this for my birthday my first year of college and I needed it so desperately. I can definitely still do “La Vie Boheme” from the beginning and probably most of the other songs too.

In the Heights OBCR: I can only listen to this when I want to cry, but it’s my favorite musical. I got to see the show in 2018 and it was incredible. I think it’s better than Hamilton and I can’t wait for the movie to come out.

Trouble by Natalia Kills: this album is really great and also it says fuck a lot, which I used to be very nervous about hearing or saying, and this helped immensely!

#me

9 notes · View notes

olderthannetfic · 9 months ago

Note

@marzipanandminutiae mentioned at least one canon that totally was catnip for fanworks fandom.

Wynonna Earp's big ship starts with Waverly getting beer all over herself and getting caught in her shirt. Deputy Hotass Haught helps her with it and Waverly is all "Ahaha. This would be super awkward if you were a man..." as Nicole oggles her.

I absolutely shipped it. I just didn't get back into the show after first season and so never talked about it much on here. I made a pimp vid of all the different things I shipped on that show after S1 to try to get other fans into it, but that was about the extent of my participation. Dolls was my favorite though, so that soured the show for me later.

I'm not usually into canon pairings, which is tricky because a lot of the really good stuff for female characters is canon f/f ships, often ones with a very different vibe from the m/m that gets big in fandom and that I tend to prefer.

What I appreciated about the setup at the beginning of Wynonna Earp is that one of them was all "I'm straight! OH NO!" in a more comedic than self-hating way. (Catnip!) The other one leered at her and gave off horny vibes. (Catnip!) Both actresses were super hot to me, which is just about never true on TV. And it's an urban fantasy trash show full of stupid monster of the week shit and other things I like, not a prestige drama that I'll never care about fanfic of because the canon writing is what I'm drawn to.

Would I have written f/f fic for it if I'd stuck around? Hard to say. My output is pretty minimal at the best of times. I might have been satisfied with canon. I'd probably have read some fic and made a couple more vids.

(At 6k+, that ship is in the top 250 or so on AO3 if you go by tag search. It's just not top for new works in 2023. Only half of them are otp:true, but that's still more fic for this ship than most fandoms have total.)

My big exception to not liking canon ships is that I like a fair amount of BL, indie "m/m romance", etc. I've pondered why that is, and I think it's a number of specific vibe things that I find regularly there. There's a disconnect where this stuff isn't literal representation by and for the same group. Even when the author is possibly a cis man, there's still that assumed audience. In the ones I like, the ships often have a fucked up element even if the ending is happy. Some of them are goofy comedy and it's comedy that works for me, which is always so subjective. I recently finally got around to Scum Villain, and I loved the meta shit and humor, but it was really LBH being such an obsessed little creep that sold me on it. Clueless senior + stalkertastic junior is my catnip.

When I've tried indie f/f fiction, it has often been extremely serious, featured rather blandly wholesome ships, and put lesbian identity front and center. But checking or not checking those tickyboxes isn't the issue: it's a vibe thing. I was looking forward to Gideon the Ninth since it sounded a lot more interesting and messy, but I ended up getting distracted before it came out. (This happens often. I still haven't seen KinnPorsche on the m/m side of things. If I find out about it too long before release, I often never end up getting the canon.)

The most recent queer female character I can remember making me go "Ooh!" is the protagonist of Knife+Heart. She's a violent creep and a total mess, and the movie is a bloody art film horror nobody saw outside of film festivals. It's about a lesbian director of m/m porno movies in the 70s trying to track down a serial killer who is preying on her actors. There is constant meta in her increasingly artsy porn films and in the narrative overall. There are 57 layers of identity bullshit going on at all times, but none of them are just about orientation qua orientation. They're about the closet and violence and parents and fans and voyeurs and projection. I don't know if I'm really rooting for Anne to get back with her ex. She's so terrible and the ex deserves better. But it's apparently possible to write a lesbian character I am all over... if you're a dude who makes gay art films.

Of course, just asking for f/f that is exactly like the m/m I enjoy is silly. I'm always going to have slightly different standards for what bugs me in a sex scene or what hits to close to home and all of that.

What I want is f/f that makes me feel like the m/m I enjoy does.

And I've virtually never found that. I've found canon m/m and f/f Western live action media that I like and that give me similar feelings, and I'll vid those ships but not usually write them. I have not found female buddy or enemy relationships with the subtext I like that would inspire me to write fic. Well... Xena. If it were on now and I were watching it for the first time now, Xena would probably inspire me like this.

This started with people finding an older post where I spent months hand-compiling shipping stats for FFN and Wattpad to show how het they are and coming away with the idea that m/m is the problem.

And I'm not saying it was TERFy because it was a stupid response. I'm saying it was radfemmy in that I got reblogs from open radfems who had worse shit to say than "fandom hates women" within one or two reblogs down that chain. There's a certain "It is the duty of all queer women to support the movement by ___" vibe that pops up constantly on posts like these. Whether you agree that the subtext is there, it attracts accounts with blatant radfem stuff in their headers and then a wave of nonsense hits my inbox. That's just the practical reality.

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/746553097204203521/the-fandom-hates-women-response-to-lack-of-ff

The "fandom hates women" part of it comes from the fact that fandom as an entity just doesn't watch the kind of media that draws femslash, even if it ticks all of the boxes of things those very same people say they like. There are so many times I've watched a show that I've seen mega-popular Tumblr posts wishing existed, and then the fandom is so, so small comparatively and often in general. There have been superheroes, vampire/supernatural shows, fantasy shows, movies, books, the list goes on, that feel like they were generated out of Tumblr's desires for ideal fandom media, and everyone knows they're never going to attract anywhere near the same attention for fandom and fanworks because the common denominator just tends to be that if there isn't a full ensemble of attractive men to ship either with each other or with the women, fandom's not interested.

So it's not about prioritizing women in that sense, it's about people witnessing hypocrisy over and over again the second a show doesn't have a mostly-male ensemble. The people who are in these fandoms are frustrated that good faith attempts to get people interested are met with every excuse in the book that all eventually boils down to "I don't like watching stuff with women in it as much as I like watching stuff with men in it." And if that's how people feel about it... sometimes the conclusions are going to turn into the more uncharitable take of "fandom hates women."

Maybe, but whenever I see a "fandom hates women" reblog of my stuff, one or two reblogs further down the chain I get an overt TERF. I just had to go block several people today, in fact.

The first person to reblog with a comment like that is usually subtle, but their friends and friends of friends are not. The rhetoric that very quickly starts is the fandom equivalent of that "All the butches are becoming trans men! We're losing lesbians!" stuff.

Here's the thing: I've been in ten billion fandoms that were so awesome and fit fandom's supposed tastes to a T and yet no amount of promoting them could get anyone to try the canon. This goes for canons that are all men or all white men or all majority ethnicity men or whatever else.

The default state of media is to not engender a big fic fandom.

I agree that the rare outliers mostly follow certain patterns, but we extrapolate too far when we say that a lack of those patterns is why a fandom is small.

A fandom is small because that's the near-universal default.

Yes, a small slice of fandom consists of guilt-ridden queer fujoshi who say they want more f/f but don't make much of a move to make that happen. I tend to run into that a lot because of my own tastes and having friends who share those tastes.

Far more of fandom is people talking generally about how representation matters without saying they would personally join these fandoms if they existed.

Neither group is large enough to be the real reason some woman-heavy canon fails to take off to HP levels.

The real reason is not hypocrisy but the fact that most things don't take off like that. Most things without massive, massive audiences especially don't take off like that. And the very few things that do are flukes and don't actually predict that another similar thing will take off in the future.

Go to AO3's tag search. Search for all canonical fandom tags. Sort by uses and descending order.

Right now, I get 64,390 tags.

The first page, 50 tags, goes from HP with 497,845 works to the Thor movies with 59,266 works. By page 6, we're below 10 thousand works.

By the end of page 10, we're down to Labyrinth with 3,906.

Somewhere in the top 500 AO3 fandom tags (many of which are just franchise metatags for each other), we go all the way from megafandoms to medium size and down to relatively modest ones.

That's not a lot of room for a big f/f-heavy fandom given the trends in mainstream media and that mainstream media is where most really big fandoms come from.

I also notice that you're conflating a lack of desire to watch something that's primarily about women with a lack of desire to watch something that includes women.

There are tons of fans who want something more like The Mummy with a leading man and leading woman they love.

Granted, that's not me and that's not a lot of my fujoshi/slasher audience, but it's extraordinarily common. I know plenty of people who don't like canons that are only dudes, but since they also don't like canons that are only ladies and they don't ship f/f, this gets spun into "fandom hates women".

Let me be clear:

Conflating "lesbians" and "women" is a radfem position.

395 notes · View notes

chimcharstar · 5 years ago

Note

1 THROUGH 55 AND 1 THROUGH 30 GO GO GO

LETS FUCKIN GO

tumblr please actually make this a keep reading

55 interesting questions you should drop in someone’s inbox

1. If you didn’t have to sleep, what would you do with the extra time?

I ALREADY WATCH NETFLIX AND AGONIZE OVER MY STORY

2. What’s your favorite piece of clothing you’ve own/owned?

MY JACKETS. ANY CHEST OBSCURING, BROAD SHOULDERED, COZY JACKET

3. What hobbies would you get into if time and money wasn’t an issue?

DANCING, ID NEED TO GO TO CLASSES OR SOMETHING

4. What would your perfect room look like?

IM ACTUALLY PRETTY HAPPY WITH MY ROOM BUT IVE ALWAYS WANTED A LAVA LAMP, AND 1800 MORE PLANTS COULDNT HURT

5. Do you play sports?

6. What fiction place would you love to go to?

SINNOH REGION

7. What Job would you be terrible at?

DEBT COLLECTION. I WOULD BE GIVING SHIT TO PEOPLE FOR FREE. I COULDNT BEAR BEING ENCOURAGED TO FORCE PEOPLE WHO CANT PAY FOR SOMETHING TO PAY MORE

8. If you could turn any activity into an Olympic sport, what would it be?

SERVING. HOW MANY PLATES CAN YOU CARRY AT ONCE

9. What’s the most annoy habit other people have?

WALKING IN MY SPACE BUBBLE WHEN MY SENSES ARE OVERLOADED

10. What skill would you like to master?

A SECOND LANGUAGE

11. What would be the most amazing adventure to go on?

THE ONE FROM MY DREAM WHERE I KISSED A GIRL DYED MY HAIR BLUE AND WE ELOPED TO BRAZIL TO RAISE SHEEP

12. What’s your favorite drink ?

THAT CHRISTMAS SHIT. PEPPERMINT MOCHA AT STARBUCKS. A FRIEND GOT IT FOR ME ONCE. NOW I ORDER IT A BILLION TIMES.

13. What state or country would you never like to go back to?

I HAVE NOT TRAVELLED MUCH EVER

14. What songs do you have completely memorized?

I DONT REMEMBER LYRICS SO MUCH, BUT I COULD PROBABLY REMEMBER HOW MANY SONGS GO COMPLETELY

15. Are you usually early or late?

LATE. IM GETTING BETTER THOUGH

16. What takes up too much of your time?

GETTING OUT OF BED

17. What do you wish you knew more about?

SWORDS

18. What are some small things that make your day better?

COFFEE. SOMEONE SAYING SOMETHING NICE TO ME.

19. What TV channel doesn’t exist but really should?

QUEER EYE BUT BY TRANS PEOPLE FOR TRANS PEOPLE

20. Who has impressed you the most with what they’ve accomplished?

YOU. AND ME. ITS GROWTH

21. What age do you wish you can permanently be?

21, SO I HAVE TIME TO FIGURE OUT WHAT THE FUCKS GOING ON

22. What TV show or movie do you refuse to watch?

13 REASONS, THE BOOK WAS TRIGGERING SO I WONT RISK IT

23. What would be your ideal way to spend you weekend?

TAKING A WALK, HAVING COFFEE, WATERING PLANTS… IM HAPPY

24. What’s something in your life that’s considered a luxury?

I HAVE PERFUME...

25. Is there anything you’re too young/old for?

TO YOUNG TO NEVER DRINK. TOO OLD FOR POKEMON

26. What’s your favorite genre book or movie?

I DONT HAVE THE ATTENTION SPAN FOR EITHER BUT I SEEM TO LIKE URBAN FANTASY A LOT

27. How often do you people watch?

I THINK IM SO POLITE BUT HONESTLY, I QUIETLY SCRUTINIZE SO MANY PEOPLE ON THE TRAIN EVERY DAY AND GUESS AT THEIR PERSONAL HABITS AND SELF IMAGE.

28. What’s the best single day on the calendar?

MY BIRTHDAY, SAGITTARIUS SEASON RULES BABY

29. What are you interested in that most people haven’t heard of?

I DONT KNOW ABOUT ANYTHING PPL HAVENT HEARD OF BUT IM INTERESTED IN BLACK HOLES

30. Do you relax after a hard day?

FOOD. NETFLIX. DECOMPOSING ON TUMBLR

31. What’s the best book or series you’ve ever read?

I HAVENT READ A BOOK I REALLY LOVE IN AGES. HARRY POTTER AND ARTEMIS FOWL WERE MY FAVOURITES GROWING UP, BUT CORNELIA FUNKES BOOKS SLAPPED AND HIS DARK MATERIALS WAS GORGEOUS

32. Where’s the farthest you’ve ever been from home?

IDAHO?

33. What’s the most heart warming thing you’ve ever seen?

LUCIFER WAS LIKE YOU DESERVE SOMEONE WHO CARES ABOUT YOUR BORING MIDDLE NAME JANE AND KNOWS THAT EVERY MURDER BREAKS YOUR HEART AND YOU SIMPLY DESERVE BETTER SO NO MORE MOMENTS WHILE THEYRE HAVING A MOMENT AND CHLOE IS WATCHING THIS FUCKING IDIOT AND IVE WATCHED THIS BEFORE SO I KNOW SHES GONNA KISS HIM AND THEN THEY KISS

34. What’s the most annoying question that people ask you?

ANY SMALL TALK QUESTIONS

35. Would you give a 40 minute presentation with no preparation?

YES. ID MAKE THAT SHIT RIGHT UP. SKILLS

36. What’s something you think everyone should do at least once in their lives?

GIVE ME A HUG AND SOME CHOCOLATE

37. Would you rather go Hand Gliding or Whitewater rafting?

HANG GLIDING

38. Dream car?

SOMETHING I DONT HAVE TO WORRY WILL FALL INTO PIECES AT ANY MOMENT

39. What’s something so many people are obsessed with and you just don’t understand why?

STRAIGHT LOVE SONGS

40. What are you most looking forward to in 10 years from now?

HAVING A CAT

41. What’s something you’ve been meaning to try but haven’t gotten to it?

DECORATING THE DOLLHOUSE I RESCUED FROM THE BATHROOM

42. What’s the best thing that’s happened to you all week?

IM NOT VERY FAR THROUGH THE WEEK AND I HAVENT ENJOYED MOST OF IT BUT PEOPLE SAYING ADORABLE THINGS

43. How different was your life one year ago?

NOT A LOT DIFFERENT, IM JUST LONELY IN THE CITY NOW, MINUS A TOXIC RELATIONSHIP, ONE YEAR ON T

44. What/who would you rate 10/10?

MY CACTUS JAKEN. I DROPPED HIM SO MANY TIMES AN ENTIRE HALF OF HIS SPIKES ARE FLAT SCARS. AND LOOK AT HIM. THRIVING

45. What kind of art do you enjoy the most?

GENUINELY MADE ART

46. What do you hope never changes?

MY T PRESCRIPTION

47. What movie title best describes your life?

I LOOKED THROUGH NETFLIX AND I PICK TWILIGHT

48. What website do you visit most often?

TUMBLR

49. What’s something you’re looking forward to this year?

MY BIRTHDAY

50. What’s something you’d like to unlearn?

FINDING A REASON TO CANCEL EVERY SINGLE LITTLE THING

51. Where would you spend all your time if you could?

WALKING BY SOME RUNNING WATER

52. What age would you like to live to?

80. THATS MY MENTAL HEALTH ANSWER

53. What’s something you’re most likely to become famous for?

SOMETHING CREATIVE WOULD BE AWESOME

54. What’s something you’re most likely to be arrested for?

CRIMES

55. What’s something you really want but can’t afford?

A CAT

Lgbt+ ask game

What do you identify as and what are your pronouns?

I’m even a little shaken by a questioning state right now but for a while I’ve felt the best fit is the androgynous label -- I read a description of it being the purple on a pink to blue scale, both at once but not specifically either one, and something else by itself. I’m also happy with a cryptic masculine grey area. My pronouns are he/him.

How did you discover your sexuality, tell your story?

During the Puberty 1.0 nightmare, I was basically living someone else’s life, and any attraction I felt wasn’t in relation to myself. I felt disconnected from my body and gender and everything too, and I felt a lot of social pressure to experience a certain type of attraction, fit into a certain role, et cetera, and none of these feelings existed in me at all, so I used to identify as ace. When I realized I was trans, I was too caught up in the, transition safely, my life is a lie, stopping dysphoria drama to focus on this, but I had an idea I might be a gay guy judging from my gay creative writing until I caught feelings for a girl and realized this wasn’t the first time that had happened. Some bi positivity and nonbinary rage later, I am reminded that gender is a joke.

Have you experienced being misgendered? What happened and how did you overcome it?

Yes of course A LOT. Starting with my parents, who do it aggressively and maliciously. And plenty from strangers and customers, mostly after hearing my voice pre-transition. It used to hurt terribly because I was dealing with so much other stuff at the time, and one little thing could be the last straw, so I used to react strongly and harshly, to people you express yourself to anyway. On T, I’ve been so much more chill and confident, and it’s less painful to accept that some people just don’t know any better, although that doesn’t change its effect.

Who was the first person you told, how did they react?

I don’t remember, I think it was a high school friend. I vaguely remember texting someone in a bathroom during a crying session at work. My high school friends were all warm and supportive.

Describe what it was like coming out, what did you feel?

It was scary as hell. I’m sure coming out (with your gender specifically) is scary by nature because it’s a huge truth to be telling that can really change how the people you love perceive you, for better or for worse, but for me, I’m also thinking with the dread and certainty that my family would be too conservative and potentially dangerous. Coming out to my family was one of the worst, most painful things I’ve ever been through -- being kicked out and laughed at, a lot of drama, confrontations, Bible readings and being ganged up on at odd hours, trying to comfort my mom who took it as her personal failure -- I was shaking with adrenaline 24/7. I think of the “I’ll suffer through anything as long as it has meaning” comment that was about angsty fanfics, but knowing the truth about myself was a source of unshakable strength and it felt refreshing and even triumphant to say, like I was giving myself permission to exist for the first time. I came out a bunch of times, though...

If you’re out, how did your parents/guardians/friends react?

My family reacted mostly badly, my sister is a little confused but has the spirit, and my friends have been wonderful.

What is one question you hate people asking about your sexuality?

It’s more of a gender thing, but I hate it when people imply that I shouldn’t be on T or are subtly trying to talk me out of it with their questions. After all the disrespectful as fuck bullshit I heard from my parents, I’m tired of this.

Describe the style of clothing that you most often wear.

Zombie apocalypse denim? Gay Layers

Who are your favourite lgbt+ ships?

I’m not really emotionally invested in these “ships” you cool kids are talking about. I like canon, age-appropriate ones.

What does makeup mean to you? Do you wear any?

I’ve never really worn makeup. I brazenly never bothered to growing up, and if it had an effect on me socially, I was too tuned out to care. My sister always wanted to do my hair and makeup, but I wasn’t interested and wouldn’t let her, much to her frustration. I wore some for a musical once though, and I had no idea what I was doing and it was extremely uncomfortable. I felt what I know now is dysphoria and ended up using the lipstick to draw. Another aspect to this is my family forbade it (or my dad made the decision for everyone), not that it made my sister feel less pressured to wear it, so maybe it was some female presentation I could easily get out of. For that reason, I don’t have super strong feelings about it. Not understanding it probably resulted in me feeling left out a lot among my peers.

Do you experience dysphoria? If so, how does that affect you?

Yes. Before my realization, it was a numb horror I wasn’t consciously aware of, ruining nice things growing up to the point where I feel like I missed out on being a teenager. I remember it as feeling nauseous while sitting in a corner, feeling like none of my clothes ever fit for some mysterious reason. Living with my family in the closet, it defined my life, and I was obsessed with my presentation. These days, it does not bother me on that level at all, except a minor freakout now and then if I get really wild and wear feminine clothes. Or I still feel it in more subtle ways, when I default to customer service voice, or when guys my age are twice my height and I look aaaall the way up at them and wonder what gender they see me as.

What is the stupidest thing you’ve heard said about the lgbt+ community?

Trust me, I have heard truck loads of dumb shit and the winner is the Gay Agenda is R****a’s propaganda to weaken the integrity of North America. Considering what is happening over there, it was enragingly stupid.

What’s your favourite thing about the lgbt+ community?

I feel like I can be myself around lgbt+ people. I don’t feel like I have to hide stuff or put on a show, and I’m not afraid because it’s familiar territory.

What’s your least favourite thing about the lgbt+ community?

Aside from obvious problems like TERFs, ace discourse. Ace people are part of the community if they want to be and that’s enough on that, my skin is already breaking out.

Have you ever been to your cities pride event? Why or why not?

I finally went to a Pride event this year! I was surprised it was the first one I’d been to, then remembered my parents discouraged me from going anywhere, never mind to a gay where.

Who is your favourite lgbt+ Icon/Advocate/Celebrity?

I can’t think of many people right now, but Leslie Feinberg seems awesome, and some quotes from Stone Butch Blues are very validating.

Have you been in a relationship and how did you meet?

No. Technically I have been in one, but it was shitty and ridiculous, and basically platonic, and I don’t want it to count.

What is your favourite lgbt+ book?

I barely read… I read Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe in high school and it was honestly so precious.

Have you ever faced discrimination? What happened?

Yes. I got kicked out (but then kicked back in again), had my stuff stolen and damaged, was verbally harassed… and I was indirectly fired by an employer, but We Will Never Know Why...

Your Favorite lgbt+ movie or show?

Queer Eye! I don’t know of many though, and some important ones, I just haven’t watched.

Who are some of your favourite lgbt+ bloggers?

My mutuals :D

Which lgbt+ slur do you want to reclaim?

I’m okay calling myself queer.

Have you ever gone to a gay bar, or a drag show, how was it?

No, but I did see some drag performances at the one (1) Pride event I went to, and they were jaw-dropping.

How do you self-identify your gender, and what does that mean to you?

I’m not sure what this question means, but I decide what fits right by what makes me feel the most alive and emotionally real and in the moment. What makes me feel the most attractive to be honest. There’s a post about dysphoria I saw going around, the things on it are basically what I use to figure things out.

Are you interested in having children? Why or why not?

I am actually! Not anytime soon, but I’m the responsible type for sure, and judging by the way I love growing plants and being around animals, I’m probably a nurturing person. I actually like kids too, lol, they’re just so high-energy.

What identity advice would you give your younger self?

You’re a boy. Go!

What do you think of gender roles in relationships?

I think people are going to have different ways of expressing themselves that make them happy, but… I don’t think they should infringe on basic human decency. When I hear “role” I think of acting a certain way because someone told you to, something I want to disagree with on the spot.

Anything else you want to share about your experience with gender?

People move out of my way on the sidewalk and take me seriously now. Privilege or self-confidence… I never want to forget what it used to be like, or get too entitled.

What is something you wish people know about being lgbt+?

That it’s simply living one’s reality. I think that trips up a lot of straight people -- that some people just come like this, and they don’t have to make it fit into their personal identity.

Why are proud to be lgbt+?

Because I worked hard to be alive and happy right now. I’m proud of choosing to get through those rough patches, take care of myself, heal, take walks, cook breakfast, learn healthy coping mechanisms, that was out of love for myself and a defiant conviction that I have a place in this world.

#chatty tag

1 note · View note

starkerdayss · 6 years ago

Text

SHIPPING Q&A

Pick your top 10 ships without reading the questions. [or if you’re a one ship dedicated blog, feel free to answer all of them for just that one, or do all the ships from one fandom, this is just for fun]

Guys, these are not in any specific way.

1. Starker

2. Destiel (Dean and Castiel from Supernatural)

3. Malec (Magnus and Alec from Shadow Hunters)

4. Stucky

5. Delena (Damon and Elena from Vampire Diaries)

6. Drarry (Harry and Draco from Harry Potter)

7. Marvey (Mike and Harvey from Suits)

8. Deckerstar (Lucifer Morningstar and Chloe Decker from Lucifer)

9. Coliver (Connor and Oliver from How to get away with murder)

10. Britin (Justin and Brian from Queer as Folk)

Now answer the questions fo your followers can learn a bit more about your ships

————————

Do you remember the episode/chapter/scene where you first started shipping 6? - [Drarry] - I think it was actually because I ended up reading a fanfiction about them where they had very filthy sex and after that I just couldn’t unsee it. Either book or movie, they’re just... together in my head lol.

What’s your favourite fanfiction for 4? - [Stucky] - I can’t remember the name but it was one where Steve was a prince and he had a harem of sexual partners and Bucky was one but he had been sent as a spy for the bad guy and his name was Winter but obviously they end up falling in love and Winter tells everything to Steve and they end up together and the harem I think is disolved because Bucky’s the main bitch now.

What’s your favourite fan art/picture for 2? - [Destiel] - God, there are just too many. Destiel is an incredibly famous ship and it has been going around for ten years now. I just- everything made for Destiel is my fav. Specially one where they draw them as two women, so they’re a lesbian couple.

What’s your favourite headcanon for 1? - [Starker] - High School AU’s will always be the reason of my sluttyness.

What do you like most about the dynamic between the people of 7? - [Marvey] - They complete each other because they’re complete opposites. I also like the fact that they not only protect each other, but leave aside their differences and their fights to go save the other if needed. Always have the other’s back, and Mike’s just a child that Harvey needs. Am I right, @infinity-worried

When 9 have sex is it more giggly or more serious? - [Coliver] - I think it goes on both ways. Connor is very serious and sexy, and then Oliver is very shy and giggly and probably self-consious and ashamed so they go from being blushy and cute to Connor pushing Oliver against the wall and telling him the games are over.

Out of all the ships who do you think have the best chemistry? - I think probably Britin or Deckerstar. They’re both cannon as fuck, so their chemistry is very shown on TV. I don’t know, Britin has to be the very first ship I started shipping, and Deckerstar is one of the few straight ships that I’ve managed to follow. they’re cute help.

Which ship has the strongest bond? - I’m pretty sure the answer to that is Malec. But beyond the sex, they’re just really bonded through magic and the entirety of their world.

Which ship to you spend the most time reading fanfiction for/talking/writing about? - Starker and Britin.

Which one was your first ship? - Britin, definitely. Probably started it out when I was 13. The show was only on YouTube, I remember everything perfectly.

If 6 were to break up, how would it happen? - [Drarry] - It would be in the most childish way. Probably Draco would say something horrible and Harry would be done with his shit once and for all and he’d break up with him and then Draco would be following him everywhere because that boy’s pride left his natural body the moment Harry took his hand for the first time. His boyfriend is just way too valuable to be a dick about it.

Between 3 and 8, who would last the longest if they were in a zombie apocalypse? - [Malec, Deckerstar] - I would put my hands in the fire for Deckerstar. I mean, Malec has magic, and Alec is a nephilim and Magnus a warlock, but... Lucifer is the devil.

Does 7 hide their relationship, and if so, why? - [Marvey] - At first, yes. It starts off as a sexual thing and you know that you can’t be sleeping around with your boss, so it’s necessarily a secret, but then, they start falling in love with each other and Mike starts to believe that Harvey will never love him and he becomes distant and feels disposable and Harvey knows he has to put an end to it so he just... announces it to literally everybody.

What is 9′s favourite date to go on? - [Coliver] - Probably really nerdy stuff. Connor has gone through some shit and one of the things that makes him the happiest in this world is seeing Oliver happy, and sci-fi makes Oli happy and probably just science fairs, really geeky movies and all.

What’s your favourite canon moment between 10? - [Britin] - I mean. Fuck. Probably the first I love you, or when after the prom situation, Brian takes Justin to the scene of the crime to make him try to remember something of his abuser and he whispers (because he’s telling the story): “and that’s when I understood why they called you sunshine”)

What do 5 argue most about? - [Delena] - Damon has a real trouble being a good person (vampire?) and Elena is just- she has a good heart (that’s how the tv show makes it look anyway) and she struggles to mantain Damon as a caring individual.

If you had to pick an OTP which would you chose? - Britin. Fuck, I hate myself for that because Starker is now my main on everything, but Britin is really special to me, and it opened the doors to the gay world in my eyes. That’s the first representation I was ever familiar with.

What’s the biggest kink that 1 shares? - [Starker] - Femenization. God, Peter in a skirt, lashes, lipstick, high-thighs and heels? Fuck me the fuck up.

Do 8 want children? - [Deckerstar] - I don’t know. Chloe already has a kid and she could potentially want another one but then again, Lucifer is the devil and I don’t think he’s allowed to have children with humans, especially considering the fact that they haven’t discussed Chloe dying (she’s mortal)

Between 10 and 4, which would you rather became canon? - [Britin and Stucky] - Britin is cannon, so please just give Stucky a go.

Does 2 do much PDA? And does it annoy their friends? - [Destiel] - Not really, mostly because they don’t have time. Sometimes Castiel kisses Dean’s cheek or something and every once in a while Dean says some corny shit that he didn’t want to say but usually, they keep to themselves (or under the table), and no, it doesn’t bother Sam. Sam’s the biggest Destiel shipper among us.

Which of the ships would you say is the most romantic with each other? - Deckerstar. Lucifer probably would do some hell things that nobody considers romantic mostly because they’re satanic, but the gesture is what counts. Plus, imagine Lucifer just bringing a vase of human eyes bc that’s romantic in hell and he’s with his grin... I would take it honestly.

How would the proposal between 5 go? - [Delena] - I don’t think marriage is an option. They’re both inmortal (towards the end of the show) and they have all their lives. They don’t need a piece of paper that tells them how much their relationship is worth, specially if they’re going to trascend that.

Who cooks more often in 3? - [Malec] - Magnus. Without a shadow of a doubt. He makes potions all the time, and Alec is always working on the institute. I think Magnus would be more than happy to cook (or summon) a meal for his boyfriend.

——————

Now tag!!

@im-a-goner-foryou @insatiable-spider @starker1975 @starker-garbage @peterscherry @peterparkerisaslut-x

Consider yourself tagged if you want to do this! Also, sorry for the lenght of this. I got a bit carried away.

22 notes · View notes