#okay it's negative lesbian representation BUT I FORGIVE THIS ONE

[la-cocotte-de-paris]

Needless to say this scene changed my entire being's chemistry

[tht-lesbian-fangirl]

So do you like Ryan Wilder now that she’s played by a Black bisexual woman?

Okay, I legitimately can’t decipher the tone of this anon, but I’m going to give you my thoughts anyway…

No. Why would anyone’s opinion of a character change just because of a minority status added to them? Lexa isn’t a great character because she’s gay. Zari (both versions) isn’t a great character because she’s Muslim. Lexa and Zari are both fantastic characters on their own AND they’re gay/Muslim. Representation doesn’t mean creating an ill-thought-out character that most fans already had a negative response to, but then slapping minority identities on and saying “dO yOu LikE HeR nOW??!” Good representation comes when a character is first created to work well into the story. Diversity only embellishes those great characters and then allows the writing to dig deeper and adapt accordingly. That’s why Batwoman Season 1 never felt like it tokenized any character, because Mary, Sophie, Luke, etc. all had amazing development, introductions, and plot value (unlike what other shows Supergirl tend to do). And Ryan Wilder’s current character description seems to undo most, if not all, of the story.

The casual character swap is exposing how the show never cared about Kate Kane, they just cared about having a lesbian lead. For all of Caroline Dries’ talk about loving Kate, she constantly disregarded a crucial element to the comics character: her Judaism (which is something I’ve talked about before in a post and as a podcast guest). The show has always just wanted a lesbian hero and apparently it didn’t matter who. It’s crystal clear, due to how anything Jewish onscreen was an afterthought and not truly embedded into the character, despite Judaism playing a huge role in Batwoman comics.

This sends the message that lesbian characters can just be swapped out because the individual characters themselves don’t matter, just their sexuality.

It also sends the message that you can just swap out different minorities so your show can keep its diversity points. Because that’s exactly what’s happening here: they’re trading a Jewish woman for a Black woman. And why would that be okay? It wouldn’t be okay if it was the reverse, right?

In my opinion, I think one of two things should’ve happened:

Javicia cast as the new Kate Kane. This casting would keep everything that Season 1 built up and would stick to comics. Because, as we know, only Kate has ever worn the Batwoman cowl (unlike how many other DC heroes work, so using Batman as an argument is a faulty excuse). There would also be no representation lost, only gained. Black Jews are incredibly underrepresented and often dismissed by goyim and unfortunately some sects of Jews as well. It would be phenomenal to see a Black Jewish leading lady, especially if she’s also gay and a hero.

Or restructure the character of Ryan to not be so disrespectful to Kate’s legacy. Stealing the suit to kill a villain out of revenge? Right after we witnessed an entire PTSD arc for Kate having killed Cartwright? Acting antagonistically toward Luke and Mary? Repeating the same “rough around the edges, doesn’t think she’s a hero” personality arc that Kate already had before becoming a Paragon and Justice League member? And forgive my gullibility for thinking the CW would actually listen to Vanessa Morgan’s valid complaints about constantly giving Black characters drug-related backgrounds… Yeah, if the show is really running with a new character to take up the mantel, then they have to actually honor Kate Kane and give Ryan the ability to be liked by the audience. Why not have Ryan try to work with the Bat Team to look for Kate, since Dries said Kate’s disappearance would be a focal mystery of Season 2? Why not give her different positive traits that separate her from Kate-- like leading with compassion, wanting to be part of a team, literally anything that makes Ryan not seem like a rougher copy! I even saw someone on twitter throw out the idea of Ryan being a former lawyer and that would be cool! The show, audience, and Javicia deserve better.

Speaking of Javicia, even though many people are upset about the mishandling of Kate Kane and seeming erasure of a comic canon Jewish lesbian’s identity, this is an issue with the WRITING. It is our job as fans and decent humans to fully support Javicia and stand up against anyone who attacks her, especially those hiding behind “supporting Kate” as an excuse. I consider any hate directed toward her as racist. Javicia has no control over the story or writing, she’s simply an actress who earned a leading role and we cannot allow an inkling of what’s happened to Candice Patton, Anna Diop, etc. happen to her too.

The CW (and all of TV) could use a ton more Black leads, especially LGBT women who represent that demo on screen and off. That’s why part of me is so happy to see people celebrating the casting on social media. But please understand that the other part, the part of me that grew up clinging to Kate Kane’s comics when I felt so alone during my coming out years, is extremely sad about how we’re losing that Jewish lesbian representation and no one really seems to be talking about it.

[crayfish-critical]

I'm honestly super glad your blog isn't purely SU critical tbh, because at least blogs like this don't have an obvious bias towards one show and they act completely stricter on one show compared to the other. While I personally casually enjoy Voltron and BNHA (I do agree there's issues with how both treat some of their characters), and love SU, your points are extremely valid and you give good reasoning behind them besides reaching for subtext that can be interpreted in many different ways.

Aw gosh thank you anon, this honestly means a lot to me!  My goal is to be fair to most of the media I criticize.  To be honest, I probably criticize Voltron about as much as SU (and then BNHA more since I have such strong opinions on pedophilia) and I really think both of them are good shows.  I just like to scream, but I also like being fair about it!

Criticism whose goal isn’t to positively influence the original media’s creator or positively influence others is ultimately worthless imho; like hey, free country, you can say what you want about it.  As an aspiring cartoon/kids show creator, I learn from criticizing the shows of others and put their mistakes as something I can learn from.  I’ve honestly learned a lot about pacing, story structure, and character building from my problems with both SU and Voltron, and they’ve helped me sort out what does and doesn’t make a good story since some parts of them are so good and other parts aren’t.  Honestly it’s kinda embarrassing to look back on my original story now, having learned everything from SU and Voltron - but hey, that’s alright!  I’m far, far from above the writers of either of those shows, yknow?  I don’t think they’re bad people or bad writers; at worse they have a skill level similar to me.

I’ve also first-handedly put the pieces together of a show that became a mess for seemingly no reason, realizing that there was a reason and it was basically unavoidable.  There was a sitcom I watched that’s overarching love triangle bullshit became an absolute goddamn nightmare of a mess (sprinkled in between with various weak episodes that didn’t even reference the drama).  But, when you put together that a major reoccurring character would have likely been part of that plot since the beginning (as opposed to just being in the very end), whose actor got into a serious accident around the time when the episodes would’ve been filmed, the original intention of the arc makes a lot more sense.  Like seriously, once you watch the episodes with that knowledge, the pieces fit in perfectly.  The show was a horrible victim of circumstance and I just hope all the actors and writers have a good rest of their lives.

Point being, you never know what’s going on behind the scenes of a show, so I think it’s unfair to act like minor plot holes and weird pacing are some moral failing of the writers.  Yes, it’s their job to write a good story, and yes, you have a right to dislike their writing.  But it shouldn’t be seen as such a crime??

The crewniverse has made mistakes, like the Concrete incident, but they’ve tried to fix issues that they’ve caused.  Quite frankly, racism is the only argument in SU that I can’t defend them against; not only is it not my place, but it’s hardly revolutionary like their LGBT representation.  As a dumbass white person, I can tell you that Rebecca and her clue is probably more clueless than the SU critical community realizes (if you don’t live in SoCal, you don’t know how sheltered us middle-class white folks are) but that doesn’t make it okay.

However, everything else I find to be rather shit.  As a fat person, Steven becoming “thinner” isn’t fatphobia; the art style changed.  Rebecca is a BISEXUAL NONBINARY WOMAN, and I will literally never forgive the SU critical community for their insistence that her nonbinary rep is enbyphobic (bc they “present as women” and “go by she/her pronouns” and “sure stevonnie goes by they/them but they act like nonbinary is just male + female and its not” and “either way they don’t call themselves nonbinary in the canon” even though nonbinary people can present and go by whatever pronouns they want, bigender people exist, and the only valid point is the last one but its still fucking stupidly insignificant.  Like Korra and Asami didn’t call themselves bisexual [ok scratch that korra called herself “buy-curious”] but they’re still bisexual.).  And yeah, “lgbt people can fetishize other parts of the lgbt community” but do you know how hard it is for a bisexual woman to fetishize lesbians?  It’s.  Pretty fucking hard, considering she’s a wlw.  She can be lesbophobic but when you have one (1) “predatory lesbian stereotype” out of a cast of different types of lesbians, maybe you should uhhh stop policing how lgbt people are allowed to act?  There’s a big difference between a predatory lesbian stereotype and a lesbian who happens to be predatory (and pearl isn’t a predator anyways, she’s an abuse victim - that doesn’t excuse her behavior but I digress)

god I dunno, there’s just so much stupid shit that goes on in SU critical, which is a shame because it’s an idea with a lot of promise.  Really, the SU critical community developed because fans didn’t like having negativity towards something they cared about on their dash.  But since it became an isolated pocket of everything negative towards SU, it just festered and festered and what started as simple criticisms has turned into outright hatred and malice.

Personally, I hope that SU’s portrayal of LGBT people becomes outdated some day - it’s really not that bad and I think even if we make great strives in the next decades, it’ll still be able to hold its own, but as an lgbt person I think Rebecca would agree with me that only good things can come from kids shows being better than SU.  But for now, it’s far far ahead of anything else in its time, showing LGBT people as real people (or….aliens), as flawed individuals.  It doesn’t make them particularly evil nor does it make them particularly good.  They’re characters who happen to be their sexuality, and that’s alright, and that’s normal.  And that should be celebrated.  People should be allowed to celebrate what SU has done so far, and I hate how SU critical likes to shit on fans minding their own goddamn business.

I feel bad for SU critical too, because keeping yourself in that kind of environment becomes very toxic.  I’ve been trying to keep my own opinions under control (actually, that’s part of the reason I made this blog) because I can become very angry and opinionated while typing and I know that that can hurt other people.  But it’s just exhausting and toxic for me at this point to keep doing it too much, so I just write what I can but also try to embrace the positive so I don’t die of a heart attack lmao.  I can’t imagine what running an SU critical blog 24/7 must be like, it sounds absolutely exhausting and immensely unhealthy.

You have the freedom to choose to do that, but as someone who shares some of your opinions and mindsets I advise you to take a break and have things you DO like in the things you critique.  Point out things you like alongside things you dislike.  It’ll make the world so much better for you.

Overall though sorry for rambling anon haha, but thank you for the kind words!

[shippingk8]

RWBY Rundown, Episode 8 Volume 5

Anonymous

If you have seen it: What's your opinion on v5e8? We see that Yang have revealed more on the depth of her feeling for Blake but also Weiss initiating a more proactive role in helping Yang recover. I appreciate Weiss's canon frankness, but I will admit I'd enjoy it more if we got a hint of that jealous dere-dere like your Weiss from recovery.

Jacevi

Hello, it's me again :) Because I love your way of thinking and the way you write, I was curious if you would have some spare time to give us your opinion on the newest episode? Also really really curious what they wanted to represent with the close up on Weiss's fist clenching in that moment?

Ohhoho, so very many opinions and thoughts, to be honest. So without further ado, here is the rundown.

Weiss and Yang talk

Okay, wow. Let’s just get the giddiness from the sheer amount of Freezerburn moments in the last 4 episodes out of the way. Like YOWZA! (I think I’m gonna need to make another theory post just from everything that has happened in the last 3 episodes alone!) *rolls eyes* That said, I know that Freezerburn is still really unlikely to happen, so I will save the rest of my fan freak out for another post.

Weiss was such a major and important character this episode. It has been awesome to see Weiss shown as such an influential and rounded character this season. From the two dimensional ice queen of Volume 1 to the heart that is trying to keep their ‘family’ together in Volume 5 it has been really cool to see her character develop. I am very interested to see if this same level of help gets extended to all of her team members, or if there is something a little special about Yang in particular. On those opening comments let me elaborate.

The trend of Weiss and Yang ending up spending time together has been quite interesting to me, not just as a freezerburn shipper, but as writer. They are both so opposite, yet extremely similar, and I loved that about this episode. Yang doesn’t see how Weiss could possibly relate to her and yet Weiss explains just that.

She shares that just because she has a nuclear family, that doesn’t mean it is a good family. And it is because of that, that her team/friends have become her surrogate family. I thought this was awesome for multiple reasons. 1) It makes Weiss more real and multi-dimensional. 2) It helps fill in with more detail as to why she was an ice queen to start. 3) It was relatable as hell. Coming from a very similar family situation I just felt for Weiss and understood that need to make family when your own isn’t great. 4) You can see that telling Yang this wasn’t easy, but Weiss did it anyhow because she knew that it was what Yang needed to hear.

Now that said I did find a couple of things to be odd or interesting choices on the writers’ part. I thought it was a little curious that Weiss was the one to have this talk with Yang and not Ruby (more on that below). And it was a bit weird that Weiss said that she and Yang weren’t close, I am attributing this to her own insecurities, but (in my opinion) given how often the have been paired together in the past as well as the fact that she literally glomped Yang when she saw her again makes that sort of a weird thing to say. @toomuchfreetyme2 disagrees, as my editor says that Weiss is comparatively the least close with Yang of the group, ie Ruby is her sister and Weiss is her battle partner. Buuuuut I don’t like that argument, so I’m choosing to ignoring it. (Lol, I’m so getting yelled at later for that comment. Worth it~) And lastly, the hand gesture while Weiss is talking about Blake was an interesting and super confusing choice.

In my opinion that gesture was pretty really vague, and could have been interpreted a ton of ways. For instance, (in order from most to least likely) it could have been her secretly being mad at Blake for leaving too, but not saying it out loud because she didn’t think that was what Yang needed to hear right then. It could have been her worried about how things will go when Blake does come back. It could have been interpreted as her knowing that the closeness that she shares with Yang will be gone when Blake comes back. It could have been her knowing that she will have to be the bigger person, and put her feeling for Yang aside when Blake comes back. It could even have been interpreted as her having secret feelings for Blake. (Seriously if that is true then the show will have fallen into becoming an anime about Blake’s harem.)

Given just how vague and secretive this show can be I felt extra frustrated about the ambiguity of that gesture, because it was intentionally animated (meaning it was important) but also very unclear as to what it actually meant. I am hoping that it meant that she was holding onto some anger at Blake, because otherwise I feel like it is odd for her to be soooo supportive of Blake running away and leaving them. Especially considering that she got mad at Blake for not trusting or leaving the team more than once before The Fall. I also felt that it did undercut the validity of Yang’s feelings of being abandon a bit to not have Weiss at least acknowledge that she does have the right to feel hurt. *shrug* Overall props to the Weiss scene, it gave me the feels.

Ruby

I think it is significant that it was Weiss that talked to Yang and not Ruby. Of everyone, Ruby got to see more than anyone how much Yang was effected by The Fall. In my opinion I think it shows Ruby’s lack of experience as a lead and still prevalent immaturity. She has yet to acknowledge that Yang isn’t okay, whereas Weiss has on three distinct occasions. (In the bandit camp, when she speaks for Yang during the conversation with Oscar/Oz, and when she talks to Yang in this episode)

At this point it seems that team RNJR is happy accepting that Yang is fine. Which I could forgive from Nora, Jaune, and Ren, but not from Ruby. It is her sister, she felt that distance that was put between them from everything that happened to Yang, and she saw just how broken Yang became before she left. I get that they all just want to have a fun at ease night once they are all back together, but it is troubling to me that Ruby hasn’t reached out to her sister or at the very least been shown through body language or context to know that Yang ISN’T okay.

This mixed with all that we have learned about Ozpin makes me question if Ruby really is ready or supposed to be a leader, or if she was just put in the position because she is “special,” like her mother. Now, don’t get me wrong, I do think Ruby can become a great leader. She already has that paragon/inspirational touch, but I think she is still too young to have the wisdom to lead her team emotionally and does lack a level of maturity needed to be a good leader. Ruby has always been the one to go off and take care of things herself, being a rogue agent isn’t really a good quality for leadership. From what I have seem in volume 4 and 5 I think that that will be where Ruby’s character arc will grow next. Her maturing, gaining some more confidence, and figuring out how to be a true leader.

Blake and Illia

Sigh… If Illia is the only queer character on the show I am going to be epically pissed. Not even kidding a little bit.

Not because she is a bad character, but because her storyline got botched. The premise of her character was pretty solid to start. She was in the White Fang because her parents were dead and no one cared because they were faunus. She did seemed a tiny bit too willing to sacrifice everything for the cause, but I blame that feeling on a lack of a more fleshed out back story. I’m sure there are lots of other little stories and instances that got her to where she is right now, but it really sucks that we don’t/didn’t get any of that.

She was an interesting and important character, because she was the most relatable member of the White Fang  and she was still struggling with the morality of taking her actions all the way. Which was good and very important for building empathy with the audience and throwing doubt in that ‘no one is completely evil’ sort of way.

But then they went and messed things up on sooooo many levels. First off, because of how and when Illia confessed her feelings most people are going to think that she is only acting like such a sacrificing member of the White Fang, ‘because she is in love with Blake.’ Which ends up obliterating the relevance of her back story and her actions being based on the fact that her family is dead. Second, *shakes fist in anger* could you stop with the vengeful unrequited lesbian trope! I know that wasn’t what they were going for, but that is what most people are going to see. And I can not tell you how unbelievably fed up with the shit writing that gets thrown at the gay community. It is like your options for a gay character are either to be a psycho, killed off after getting together, or be a psycho and killed off. Negative representation is not good representation!

(Deep breaths~)

Okay, moving on!

Blake

I was going to write something about Blake and her development, but I think I will save that for another time.

Blake and Adam

This is going to sound weird, but it would make for a better story if it was revealed that Blake and Adam didn’t actually have a relationship.

Here is why:

1) It is a really lame, extra psycho, and terrible message to send if Adam only wants to hurt Blake because she broke up with him. First off, and most important, we do not, I repeat, DO NOT need to be sending men (or anyone) the message that if someone breaks up with you you should go psychotic on them. Second, if Adam’s only motivation for going after Blake on a murder spree is because she broke up with him then that makes his character really lame, ultra one dimensional, and frankly boring. Sure it helps you hate the guy, but if he is going to stick around for more than a volume you should really add some depth and complexity to the situation and by extension the character.

2) If they weren’t actually ever together then it makes Blake look way better. The fact that Adam has turned out to be so violent and unstable has called into question Blake’s judgment in a big way, but if she held back because there was just something that didn’t feel quite right then that would give her character a lot of credit and make her more empathetic and relatable. That sort of hero worship scenario where someone turns out not to be quite who you thought they were has happened to almost everyone. And lastly Blake already has WAY too many love interests. I think it actually gives her character power back if she is the one that is able to say, “No, I choose not to be with you.”

3) It opens his ‘revenge’ story line to be a lot richer if they didn’t date. If it is established that they dated then the vast majority of people will simplify the entire thing to be all about him going crazy for being left. Anything significant that happened between them or any other very real and valid reasons for him wanting to get back at her will then become essentially a moot point for most people. Because, again, most people latch on the the biggest most easy to swallow thing first. For example a great element that could be introduced would be that Adam didn’t actually care that much for Blake emotionally, but wanted to be with her for the recognition that she brought. Adam obviously wanted to be leader of the White Fang, what better leverage than dating and having the support of the daughter of the previous White Fang leader.

Overall I actually did really like the episode, but I do wish that the Illia thing were handled differently. Now my thoughts on Episode 9 are a whole other post and I am really behind, so it will have to wait for after the new chapter gets posted on “Recovery.”