#Lowkey fetishizes lesbians or being queer in general

[bugstung]

Never open up to a white cishet woman who thinks she's better and a good ally because she's a" feminist"

[the-bjd-community-confess]

Bro, I'm gonna be real with you. No one cares that you're a trans man, and that your initial comment was /allegedly/ about the cishet women specifically in your personal circle. Which you only specified after people called you out on your first confession where you basically complained about How dare cishet women have gay dolls, and present them in ways they want to. Your original comment, and the follow-up you did was just a wide sweeping gesture talking shit about gay and trans dolls/characters, then tacking on "owned by cishet women," in a way that several LGBTQA/Queer people found to sound homophobic and transphobic as fuck, and Misogynistic to boot. You made a shitty comment about femme, or androgynous male characters/dolls. You had a stupid rant about how "they can never know how we LGBT people feel" and even after being called out by exactly that, US OTHER LGBTA/QUEER folks, you still stick your heels in and get mad we called you out.

Then you say that "trans people using that trope don't bother you" as if other trans persons needs you to validate them? You tried to gatekeep creating a trans doll because it upsets you personally, not because you actually care about the feelings of other trans people. (Otherwise you would have taken the hint after several trans individuals in the comments made a statement refuting your stance) Additionally it's just a gross way to basically lowkey demand that trans people must publicly proclaim their trans status, because you use that as a way to "OK" someone having a trans character. And then you shift the goalpost crying out how you "I’ve yet to see any cis person diversify their lgbt dolls unless it’s a fantasy character, like nonbinary or trans women or having a butch/femme lesbian couple etc, it’s always guy dolls." Where you go back to not only shitting on cishet women, but now it includes Cis-LGBA/Queers, and trying to make it a diversity problem, even though your initial rant wasn't even about that at all. Nor do you even know that, considering how you don't seem to give two shits about other LGBTA/Queer people's thoughts and feelings. Your use of the word fetish is also super gross, and doesn't make you sound any better, you just sound like a virtue signalling asshole, by implying something has to be a FETISH because they have dolls that aren't exactly like them. You think you did something, but you're just an asshole, and when a large amount of LGBTA/Queer people called you out, instead of taking the L, you just try to make everyone else the villain for your shitty comments. Just because you then reveal yourself as a trans man doesn't make the initial comment any less homo or transphobic, or misogynistic to people who read it.

And before you start that stupid "It's just my opinion!" Yeah, and it fucking sucks, and tons of people have told you why. You ain't making it fucking better by keeping this going, especially since this all started by you trying to speak for several groups who just don't need you, a single individual, to speak for them, and then back-pedal claiming it was /only/ about your own experience, when in the original confession it's a clearly a general statement about your beef with cishet women having male dolls and what they do with them. Newsflash, even a LGBTQA/Queer person can make -phobic statements, and when a bunch of LGBTQA/Queer call you out on it, maybe take the hint that you did say something shitty.

~Anonymous

[rose-tico]

I want to hear your opinion on m/m vs f/f relationships in Cog! And male vs female characters in general. What I noticed about relationships is that nominally, we do have wlw prominent characters - as in, they exist and all - but the focus is never on them. And female characters' plot is often a function of male pain/angst. I did love Cordelia, though, and I thought James was more bearable than other Herondale men.

my opinion is essentially what you described: there are definitely wlw characters in the shadowhunter books, they exist, (helen blackthorn, aline penhallow, and anna lightwood), but they are never allotted the same kind of focus that the mlm characters have. the wlw characters’ internal thoughts, dialogue, and arcs take up less pages than the mlm characters’. they’re usually operating as supporting characters to the main characters’ storylines. not even like second-level supporting characters like how ty, dru, livvy, and kit were supporting characters to emma, julian, mark, and christina’s stories, where they had their own arcs that directly tied with the main cast, but didn’t nearly take up as much page time or were the emotional center of the books. but like third or fourth-level supporting characters where they showed up to fulfill one or two narrative purposes and then were never to be seen again. they might have a few pov sections within chapters here and there that allows the reader to get a small glimpse into their minds and their feelings, but they don’t have any real significant arc or as big of an impact on the story compared to both the mlm characters and presumably straight characters. yes, i’m talking about aline and helen and yes, i’ll always be bitter they didn’t show up until the end of the second book in the tda trilogy. and yes, i’ll always be bitter that when they did have any page time in qooad, they were very short. and no, i don’t think aline and helen being older authority figures aka “adults” thereby necessitating that they be sidelined so they don’t take over the stories and fix the problems of the young adults/teens is a reasonable excuse to erase them to the extent that they were.

another thing: there are simply more mlm characters than wlw characters in the shadowhunter books. this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because we always need more mlm representation. but if you compare the amount of mlm characters compared to the amount of wlw characters, there’s a clear inequality and dare i say, preference for mlm characters. and this fact makes me uncomfortable being that cassie is a woman and this clear preference is riddled with heterosexism. the first mlm relationship in the shadowhunter books was magnus and alec, right? and the first wlw relationship was aline and helen, right? okay, we have one of each, but arguably magnus and alec were more important characters in the tmi series. skipping over tid because there really were no new queer characters in that trilogy. magnus was there, but he’s not a new character. moving on to tda: we have mark, kieran, kit, and ty. four new queer characters in the shadowhunter books: all of them are mlm. again, we can’t discredit the presence of aline and helen in the tda trilogy, but let’s be real, mark, kieran, kit and ty were part of the main story and aline and helen were not. and this is where the argument of leaving aline and helen at wrangel island for most of the trilogy makes me uncomfortable. mark and helen are twins, aka they are the same age! you can’t argue that sidelining aline and helen was necessary for the narrative because of the whole ‘authority figure meddling with the kids’ stories’ issue, when mark and helen are the goddamn same age! the idea to bring back mark early on and not helen just reeks of heterosexism. you . could argue that cassie simply was more interested in mark as a character and that as a writer, she should have the creative freedom to write about what she wants. but when you deliberately create a wlw character who is the same age as her mlm brother, kindling that hope in readers’ hearts that they’re finally gonna get wlw rep, but then suddenly prop up the mlm character at the expense of the wlw character, then there’s a problem. it would have hurt less if these characters were not related and the same age, but they are. 

and now lastly, the tlh trilogy. we have matthew who’s bi, alastair who’s gay, charles who’s gay, thomas who’s presumably gay, anna who’s a lesbian, and ariadne who’s presumably a lesbian as well. (cordelia gives me bi vibes, but that might just be cassie’s writing through her perspective and describing every person regardless of gender with very beautiful descriptors, who knows). we have a whole slew of new queer characters which is amazing. i’m thrilled and happy that cassie made this decision and is willing to be inclusive, more than she has before. but the ratio of mlm characters compared to wlw characters is still skewed. cassie had the chance to create more wlw characters, fix the mistake of not having as many wlw characters in her previous books, and even out the numbers a little, but instead she choose to create even more mlm characters. idk...as much as i love the mlm characters in chain of gold, like i adore alastair, thomas, and matthew, i can’t help but feel frustrated at the lack of page time for anna and ariadne. when i heard anna was gonna be part of the main supporting cast and saw that she was on the drawing of all the characters in the first edition of chain of gold, i was so excited! finally, a wlw main supporting character. i was crushed to later find out she’s actually a few years older than them, and her only big narrative impact is when she’s helping them at the hell ruelle. anna has a few pages and moments where it’s all about her and her relationship with ariadne, but it’s not enough. speaking of ariadne, of course the only other wlw character was poisoned and bedridden for most of the book! because we simply cannot have more than one wlw character in the main narrative at the same time! 

this is already super long, so i’ll end my thoughts here with this: all of this erasure and sidelining of wlw characters reveals that there’s a clear preference for, and honestly...fetishization of mlm characters in cassie’s books and heteromisogyny towards wlw characters. i don’t know if it’s actually okay that cassie prefers and is more comfortable writing mlm characters, especially considering she’s presumably a straight woman. i lowkey feel like there’s an assumption that most of her fans prefer mlm characters and thus, there are more of them in her books. why do you think male characters in cassie’s books are lauded as heroes and leaders more than the female characters are? there’s an assumption that the target audience of the shadowhunter books consists of mostly straight young women, therefore the characters that get the main focus and emotional weight and struggle in her books are male characters, with the male herondales being a prime example. it’s all really frustrating.