#posts that make me realize i should probably watch the celluloid closet

[utilitycaster]

I’m I the only one who finds it alarming that most of this fandom who ship Imogen and Laudna (especially on twitter) don’t realize the unhealthyness thats going on in their relationship? They literally see two women to are affectionate with each other and say “ENDGAME!” “GIRLFRIENDS!” “MARRIED!” “KISS KISS KISS!” Then they focus on quotes that are kinda alarming, and Imogen’s Jealousy is pretty fucking Alarming! Saying that they are in love and just haven’t realized it yet. (Don’t get me started on that one blog on here counting down the days “till imodna realizes their in love.” I find it so fucking annoying.) Loving someone and being IN love with someone is two different things. Also another thing! I HATE THAT PEOPLE CALL THEM LESBIANS! THE BOTH HAVE EXPRESSED FEELINGS FOR MALE PERSENTING PEOPLE! I dread the day when the campaign ends and they don’t end up together or during the campaign fall IN love with someone that’s not each other. Especially if it’s a male persenting person, because the Laura and Marisha will be harassed and the shippers will yell Queerbait, also the men hating/haters will be in full force. 

Hi anon,

I agree with most of this; I'm answering under a cut in the hopes that people who will be upset by an answer will be able to avoid it, without me having to explicitly discourse tag it and in doing so throw it to people who troll that tag to get mad at things. Also this is SUPER long and covers a lot of the thoughts I've had percolating on the CR fandom/shipping culture in general.

I think I and a lot of people who primarily deal in meta/analysis in this fandom have been inching ever closer to a lot of the points you've made here, and I am generally very willing to be the one who snaps and says "yeah has anyone noticed the emperor has literally no clothes on like what the fuck".

Let's start with the end and work backwards: It's happened before, it will happen again if Laura and Marisha's characters do not get together, and it's irritating, but like, I will take a good story and the consequences of a shitty segment of the fandom rather than the path of least resistance every time. I almost said something to this effect on the positive vibes ask last night, but like...there will always be people who are hateful and stupid on the internet, so you may as well stand in your own truth rather than fear their consequences. (Not that I don't respect the choice to quietly avoid harassment; I am the way I am because I know at this point I can take a pretty hard hit and shut it down, but that has not always been the case.) Anyway, people called an actual canon ship between lesbian characters queerbaiting last campaign, so it's not like those accusations hold any weight or need to be taken seriously; outside of their tiny circle, everyone thinks those people are idiots.

I do, as a bi woman, hate the tendency among hardcore shippers to erase bisexuality. They do it because a bi character's competing ships cannot be as easily dismissed as 'obviously can't happen, they're gay or lesbian', and they don't care how biphobic they look doing it. You are absolutely correct: Imogen and Laudna have both indicated interest in men or masc nb people. (Others have also pointed out that people tend to exclusively use he/him pronouns about Ashton when they are being critical of them, so they don't care how transphobic they look doing it either, apparently; also I don't think Ashton identifies as a he/they lesbian but there are in fact people who do identify as such so like...if your goal is to eliminate Ashton/Laudna as an option by saying Laudna is a lesbian, against all evidence to the contrary, you also need to make a number of presumptions about Ashton's sexuality and gender identity as well.)

This brings me to a tricky section about fandom in general but I think it's worth saying. In the real world, homophobia and transphobia are very real. They negatively impact our lives in heartbreaking and deadly ways. It is still the norm in most US media for the bulk of relationships shown to be between a cis man and a cis woman, and for protagonists to be cis and straight (note: also often able-bodied, male, white, etc but the focus of this discussion is queerness so I'm not covering all axes of oppression). However, in many fandom spaces, queer characters and ships are the fan favorites. Tumblr's userbase does skew heavily queer, and additionally, tends to skew towards women. In other words, a lot of things that are very true in real life do not hold in fandom spaces.

Which is to say: we're in a situation where an F/F ship is the massive juggernaut for the fandom right now. It does not mean that lesbians (or bi women who enter into relationships with other women) are not oppressed in the real world; it does mean that within the highly specific space of the Critical Role fandom, people are more likely to be in favor of this ship than not. It also means that a lot of the people who aren't into it are not homophobes, but are queer people - often even wlw - who are saying "I would like F/F ships! I would like them to actually be good." Like, to me, the only difference between Imogen and Laudna and every M/F canon relationship on network TV that's made me go "you're telling me they should be together, but I don't see it" is that they're both women (and I would bet a large sum that for a lot of people, this isn't about the dynamic, but purely about the gender of the people involved, ie, if Imogen were a man played by one of the men in the cast people wouldn't ship it, where as I personally can comfortably say I'd ship any of the canon ships from past campaigns regardless of character gender. This also admits that biological essentialism is fake and that Exandria is pretty gender equalthough, which some people don't want to do.)

Part of why I've been so frustrated is that, at least from my perspective, the overwhelming majority of hate and harassment I've seen within the fandom in Campaign 3 - and in Campaign 2 - has been from people who have shipped Marisha and Laura's characters. There has, in fact, been pretty considerable hate as well as measured criticism levied towards M/F ships (we're seeing some with Ashton/Laudna here, but both Fjord/Jester and Caleb/Jester, the latter of which I actively dislike and have openly criticized, received pretty vehement hate last campaign and most of it came from people who shipped Jester with Beau) and M/M ships (less harassment per se but people who shipped Caleb with Jester said some truly awful things about Caleb/Essek; also while I have not, you know, harassed people, I have said essentially the same things about how Taliesin and Liam's characters are shipped every campaign despite often having little connection as I have about Marisha and Laura's. I just don't talk about it as much because while I think and have said that Ashton/Orym is basically nothing - and that Widomauk, which most people vaguely classify as M/M, and for that matter, Percy/Vax, all are basically nothing - no one who ships those has called me a cunt or reblogged my posts in an abusive manner or called me out for the grave sin of preferring canon to fanon, so I respect the ship and let ship of it all.) For that matter, the bulk of hate towards Beauyasha came from people who shipped Beau and Jester. Like...I am confident there are people who dislike this ship specifically because it's between two women, and they are homophobic, but that is not the quarter where I think most of the criticism on Tumblr or Twitter is coming from.

So let's get to the last point. Why do people ship two women simply because they're standing next to each other? Why do they ignore countless red flags - and I am specifically talking about treating Imogen and Laudna's relationship as healthy and loving; not about shipping it in general. I cannot stress enough that if you treat Imogen/Laudna as some kind of toxic Briarwoods situation and are into that, I support that entirely.

There are a few reasons. First and foremost, I think a lot of people project onto characters rather than letting the characters provide them with differing perspectives. I find this deeply sad. It's not that you can't draw parallels between your own life and that of fictional characters or see yourself in them - you're supposed to! But it says something depressing about your empathy if your qualifications for which characters speak to you are only those who match your demographics. Like, I've said before, but my favorite characters from past campaigns are Vex and Fjord, and they have a lot in common! If you relate to one based on their themes of Who You Are In The Dark and the mask you present to the world over a face you don't particularly like, you will probably relate to the other! But also...I am a cis bi woman, I am not a person of color as both those characters are often considered coded to be (though am an ethnic minority), nor did I personally experience extensive emotional abuse and poverty as a child. I think there's value in wanting to see people like you! But also...representation is not just "I want to see people like me"; it's also "I want to humanize people who are not like me". If you cannot relate to someone simply because they don't match your gender or sexuality, then that's a really shallow and cold way to interact with the world. And, specifically in relation to queerness within Critical Role: this is a world that has consistently been depicted as not having homophobia or transphobia. I understand wanting to explore these themes and seeing characters who have experienced them, but like...this is not the media that will reasonably have a one-to-one portrayal of homophobia or transphobia, and you often will need to bend over backwards and project a lot of stuff that simply isn't in the canon to read that into them because the worldbuilding simply doesn't support it. And, to be clear, you can do that; but at that point you're applying a lens that only you can obtain, so you shouldn't be surprised if few people come along with you. (I also think it's kind of dumb to watch a show with 5 cis men on it, four of whom are married to women, and be mad that the story has men in it and that those men sometimes are attracted to women; unpacking this would easily double the length of this already incredibly long post though.)

So: this sets a stage for people coming into the show saying "who looks like me, or can I make to look like me" rather than engaging with what's actually going on. Part of why I've been hesitant on Imogen and Laudna the whole time, though started out much more open to it, is in fact that it was heavily shipped from quite literally the moment that Laura and Marisha were indicated to be playing two women who knew each other from before. We knew nothing about their dynamic other than "existing friendship". So I think a lot of people put the cart before the horse and started shipping, and I do think - and I could be entirely wrong - a lot of them, deep down in their hearts, know that they are twisting their interpretations to match an idea of these two characters that has increasingly been proven not to be true onscreen. Like, I think a lot of people kind of realize that Imogen is putting Laudna in a horrible position here; I think a lot of people realize that their so-called 'unconditional' love that transcends words means there's no room to resolve or even express conflict. Perhaps they don't, but like, I'd like to give people the benefit of the doubt. It's just...I think that because this ship is so all-consuming within the fandom, and because so many people have staked their identities within the fandom on it, they don't know how to leave it and are scared of retaliation if they do.

This is backed up by the slow shift I've described - Imodna started out with "they're already girlfriends" or "they're already in love but just haven't said it" or "what could ever happen other than they become ever closer and eventually kiss" (as witnessed by these questions) to "they realized they were in love during the campaign" to "Imogen is in love with Laudna but Laudna isn't aware" to "god remember how they used to talk, I'd give anything for it" to "I guess a QPR is okay" (which is itself bizarre, like, the issues I see in their relationship are still just as much issues in a nonsexual partnership as a sexual one; honestly, it's not a healthy friendship though it is an interesting one and the problem's I have are not going to be fixed by kissing.) Like, it's not the normal evolution of feelings one might have about a ship as the show goes on and more information is revealed, or rather, it's a ship that's becoming less and less confident as time goes on which is the opposite of how canon ships tend to go. (Which, I need to stress, does not discount that it could not be canon; it's just that I think it would require a pretty profound shakeup and conflict to do so). The signs and signals are becoming more and more tenuous and the shippers keep lowering and lowering the bar.

Since I've already brought up past campaigns and ships, let's do it again for the sake of illustration; this feels like how people who shipped Caleb and Jester went from ENDGAME to "Caleb is pushing away Jester to protect her" to "I think Laura is biting her lip when she's looking at Liam! This is a SIGN" even in episodes where Jester was like, actively making out with Fjord, to, and I am not making this up, posting pictures of the CR shop showing Laura in Caleb merch as evidence. Or how the bulk of Vex/Keyleth shipping in TLOVM rested on a scene in the trailer where Keyleth was staring dreamily and drunkenly into space while Vex was across the table only for the show to reveal Keyleth was staring at Vax. Like, all shipping does require a certain degree of cherrypicking, but there is a point where you are focused only on subtext and never text, and while that was how one had to interact with queer stories in the past, it's ridiculous to be doing it on a show where Marisha has openly RP-ed Beau eating Yasha out. Like, if they wanted to show two women being romantically involved, they will. (There's been a lot of Xena comparisons thrown around, and like...not that Xena isn't an important part of the history of depicting F/F relationships in media, but it is also a syndicated show from the 90s and couldn't show an explicitly lesbian relationship, and Critical Role very much can and has.)

I do think there are a subset of people who don't realize how unhealthy this is. Like...this is a whole psychological thing that I am unequipped to unpack, but I do think there are people for whatever reasons genuinely do believe that love means never having to say you're sorry. I am hoping this is because of youth and inexperience, because being able to communicate and advocate for yourself is a crucial part of relationships, as is the ability to express and resolve conflict. As you've noticed, the people who ship this have all said "well, obviously, Imogen won't betray Laudna" - but we don't know that. Honestly I think it could go either way. But they have to make that assumption to keep shipping it, because if Imogen might betray Laudna, then that does mean that there would have been more meaning and value in Laudna speaking up and that conversation was deeply flawed.

I also think some of this comes from unconditional love being an unreasonable expectation foisted upon us all at large. There are always conditions, or rather, you might always in some way love someone, but there are conditions under which you'd leave or boundaries you will draw. You can love someone who (for example) is dealing with an addiction but still refuse to let them drive while intoxicated or steal your stuff to pay for drugs. You can love someone who cheats on you but still want to end that relationship. I mean, while fear, self-doubt, and resources/logistics are all factors in people leaving abusive relationships, it's also true that a lot of people have some affection for the good times and that is a factor as well. Love is not a simple on/off switch. You can feel multiple things at once - honestly, that's what Ashton basically says this past episode, that they both love and hate the party! I think Imogen and Laudna do genuinely love each other, though I don't interpret it as romantic; I just also think that there's a lot of stuff they don't like about each other but are unable to express, and which will only become more and more of a threat to a potential romantic (or queerplatonic) relationship if left to fester unresolve. And, to be honest, I suspect real-world homophobia and fandom purity issues are part of why people are so unwilling to discuss why Imogen and Laudna's relationship is unhealthy; because it means admitting that queer relationships can have most of the same problems as straight ones, and possibly admitting that you still find an unhealthy relationship interesting and want to see it played out.