#the ships that are always trending are the mlm ships. never wlw ones

[lighthouseas]

im actually never going to be over how horribly sapphic couples are treated in like 90% of media ever. like ever

[celluloidbroomcloset]

This is more general fic related, but I am curious what your take on it might be. I've enjoyed your thoughts on fanworks and this particular bugbear has been gnawing at me for years.

There's a trend in some fandoms to take a (usually) mlm relationship, both canon and fanon, and turn one party into a cisgender woman. A genderswap AU where both characters are cisgender women (or men, though I have yet to see this specific occurrence with wlw ships) or one comes out as trans are not the same thing as what I mean here. It would specifically be a cisgender woman, thereby turning a queer relationship cishet.

It was popular in the Gotham tv series fandom to turn the canonically queer Oswald Cobblepot into a straight woman and then ship her with Oswald's canon love interest, Edward Nygma*. It was also always Oswald who got this treatment, never Edward. To me, this reads as "straightwashing" a queer relationship to make it more palatable, as though they enjoy the canon dynamic but dislike the fact that it is queer. So they turn one half of the pair into a woman.

So at the end of all that explanation my question is, what do you think of this occurrence? Am I wrong in thinking it happens because someone doesn't like the queerness of some ships?

Also, I am glad to say that I have yet to see this turn up in OFMD fanworks. There are plenty of genderswaps and trans headcanons, which I welcome gladly, but thankfully I have not seen Stede as a cishet woman and Ed as her equally cishet boyfriend...yet.

*Oswald/Edward is canon, though it was only confirmed as romantic on Oswald's part, making him at least canonically queer. Edward's sexuality and the nature of his feelings for Oswald were left open to interpretation.

So I haven't seen this particular thing in action, as my fandoms are generally relegated to OFMD, The Avengers (UK) (very cis het but quite kinky couples), and a bit of Good Omens. So I'm taking this as it's offered and assuming that what is being described here is accurate.

Fandom, and especially shipping fandom, trends female and cisgender (and white, but that doesn't seem to be the thing at issue here). This varies from fandom to fandom, of course, but that's a general trend. It's often hard to really get down to demographics on who ships what and how, in part because a lot of fandom is anonymous and based on people deciding to disclose gender/race/sexuality/etc.

What is being described above does read to me like straightwashing a gay couple/ship to an author's preferences, for whatever reason. This could just be personal desires or interest in dynamics, but it does have the effect of taking a semi-canon queer couple and turning them cishet for the sake of...something. Hard not to see something at least a little problematic going on there.

I think that there may be a bit of self-insert going on, as well, and this is where we get into that problem of cis women placing themselves into gay male ships. This gets into what I would call a porn aesthetic from the perspective of a cis woman - fantasizing about being with/being part of a gay male couple. We gotta be careful there because female fans tend to get marginalized for shipping two male characters together and are often accused of fetishizing gay men, and of course this is all fantasy anyway. But while I do not at all think that the majority of fandom shipping is fetishization, there are times when it does cross over into that and should be considered and interrogated a bit more. I wouldn't apply a blanket statement to it, but consider the media itself, what is canon/what isn't canon, and what the goal is of an individual author/artist/fan. There's nothing really wrong with self-insert, but it does become something we should think about in context of the specific media involved.

(I'm very much someone who believes that fic/art is fair game and that it should not be censored in any way, but also that all fic/art can be critiqued in the same way anything else can, and indeed should be. No art can develop if we're not allowed to critique it.)

[iamafanofcartoons]

I haaaaate hate hate hate how people said Hazel's redemption arc made sense and Emerald's didn't?

I'd argue Hazel's does still make sense ofc but it's sooooo telling to me how ppl love his and hates hers.

Esp bc, imo, hers makes MORE sense?? We saw hints of it from volume THREE come on

If you want a short example, here's a screenshot by somebody on Twitter who noticed an annoying trend.

Here's the link if you're curious. https://twitter.com/spicybinch/status/1582743854477778944 Me personally?

I've noticed THIS particular issue.

Ruby Rose: Tries actively and super hard to always do the right thing and respect people’s choices.

RWBY Critics: OMG She’s so boring, come back when you have a personality.

Ruby Rose, Blake Belladonna, Robyn Hill: Makes human mistakes, proving both are complex character with flaws, capable of evolving.

EruptionFang, Vexed Viewer, their followers: OMG See? She’s not a saint, she was a horrible person all along, idk why people act like she’s a good person, she should burn in hell.

And then we have the straight white guys who are the villains in RWBY. Yes, I'm excluding Hazel for this one because Unlike Roman, Adam, and Ironwood? Hazel takes accountability for his actions, tries to make amends, and shows actual regret...so already we see that like Emerald, he is given more of a chance of redemption than the three.

Roman Torchwick and Adam Taurus : Does awful things willingly, consistently and without reason, and may make jokes about hurting people in general.

EruptionFang and The RWBY Rewrite folks: OMG he’s so funny and hot. I love bad boys/villains/bad people. They MUST be morally grey, cause they're so cool, they must have a tragic backstory justifying their actions.

James Ironwood: Has a pathetic excuse for his actions, blames it on other people, never takes accountability, and does a teeny tiny good thing (Think of it as nepotism) and throws outbursts when he doesn’t get his way.

Fandom on all 3 men: OMG, he is so sad, my poor baby, he deserves so much better, my heart is breaking for him. He is a complex character  with so many layers and he owns their horrible disgusting actions. But his actions are not his own fault. He has trauma. OMG so hot.

I mean they also scream character assassination when it comes to male antagonists, but let me ask you this.

You notice how these critics look at a robotic acting nanny for Penny Polendina by the name of Ciel Soleil, who only had 60 seconds of screentime, and whine about wasted potential?

Several things to keep in mind. 1, these people only call v1-3 "peak animation" because they put Monty on a pedestal, and because they were obsessed with yang's chest size. That's it.

2. These people are not used to women characters having more complexity than a male character. They were fed a diet of media that treated female characters badly in one way or another.

3. Last but not least. ANYTHING Miles and Kerry do, or ANYTHING a RWBY fan does, people will hold under a microscope. Yet insulting the show and the fandom gets people put on a pedestal.

The next time you see somebody get mad at female characters in RWBY getting some form of redemption? Check their comment or post history and see if maybe they have some weird issue towards women...or LGBT.

You ever noticed how these critics who claim to be fine with LGBT shipping or at least wlw shipping get so upset and uncomfortable at the mere thought of mlm shipping?

[comingoutofthecauldron]

let’s talk about lesbophobia in fandom

i don’t like to use the word “lesbophobia” unironically because of all the gross radfem terfy connotations, so i will clarify right off the bat that i am neither a terf nor an aphobe and that if you are i want you off my blog like, right now. unfortunately, the meaning of lesbophobia has been so warped by alt right lesbians that seeing it in an unironic context makes me, a lesbian, uncomfortable, which speaks volumes in itself. so to clarify, lesbophobia is essentially homophobia with a pinch of sexism thrown into the mix, and it’s running rampant in supposed safe spaces and, more relevantly, fandom. 

/i’d also like to clarify that i’m not only speaking on lesbophobia, but also the general disgust and disdain for all wlw in fandom, and am using it as a sort of umbrella term/

lesbophobia and disdain for wlw has been around forever, but whilst gay positivity, mlm and mlm ships have been steadily increasing in popularity within fandom over time, wlw and wlw ships have remained perpetual underdogs. why? because lesbophobia has become a fandom within itself. both in and outside of fandom, we see instances of casual lesbophobia every single day—from aggression towards wlw to something as simple and prevalent as the complete and utter lack of sapphic ships and characters in media. hatred of lesbians and wlw is practically a trend, and it’s seeping in through the cracks of fandoms who are already facing issues with minorities and marginalized groups (i.e. racism, ableism). if you honestly think that lesbophobia isn’t prevalent as hell in fandom right now, you’re either not a wlw, you’re not all that involved in fandom, or you’re dumb as shit. 

just look at ships. in almost every single fandom, the ratio of mlm ships to sapphic ships is ridiculously unbalanced. people are quick to ship male characters who so much as smile at each other (and i don’t condemn that) but would never do the same for two women—even on the rare occasion that the ship is actually canon. i once wrote a wlw fanfic for a [predominantly straight] fandom, and received messages like this gem:

on the flip side of that, if there is a sapphic ship in canon or fanon, it is often fetishized and sexualised to a disturbing degree. there will be double the amount of nsfw art and fics, and ninety percent of it will be derogatory and fetishized as hell. having been actively involved in several fandoms over the past few years (and currently a content creator in one), i’ve seen instances of all this hundreds of times. people go crazy for mlm ships, but the second you say you ship/prefer a wlw ship, there’s always someone at the ready with, “i think all ships are great!” or “it’s not a contest” or “i prefer [insert m/m or m/f ship] actually” or “they’re my brotp!/why can’t you just let them be friends?”. not only do lesbians and wlw not get to have any rep in media, any rep that they try to create for themselves in fandom just gets attacked or ruined. this is so detrimental not only to all wlw, but especially to younger wlw who will end up being indoctrinated into this belief that their sexuality is something dirty, something that can never be tender and sweet but rather something that deserves to be preyed upon. 

building on that, let’s talk about engagement. i run an instagram account (where i have a significantly bigger following) as well as this blog for my fandom, where i post the content i create (mainly text posts). when i first started creating content, i made a lot for a relatively unpopular wlw ship, in which both girls are canonically romantically involved with a dude—though one of them is canonically pan. their canonical m/f ships are both very popular, and i noticed that my engagement was dropping every time i posted them, so i eventually just stopped. it wasn’t even a conscious decision; i merely resigned myself to the fact that the fandom didn’t want to see sapphic ships, and some people would even go as far as to condemn them. for reference, my instagram posts get an average of about 500 likes per post (popular ones usually exceeding 1k), but when i post this ship, my engagement drops to about 250 likes. similarly, my tumblr text posts have an average of about 140 notes per post (popular ones usually reaching up to 750), but my wlw content rarely surpasses 100. this just feeds the cycle of wlw never getting rep: if, like me, content creators become disincentivised by the lack of engagement with their sapphic content, they’re more likely to stop making/posting it, leading to further lack of rep—and when new content creators try to rectify that, they face the same problems. 

and then, of course, there’s the treatment of actual wlw in fandom. my best example of this is when my friend and i made an anti account on instagram (the first instagram anti account in that fandom), our bio saying something like “salty and bitter lesbians being salty and bitter”, and received an onslaught of lesbophobic insults and threats from angry stans within hours. (tw: r*pe) one commenter even went as far as to tell us that they wanted us to get r*ped. as well as this, i’ve seen so many instances of people using slurs against lesbians in arguments/in anons, often for no apparent reason other than they feel that they have the right. when i first mentioned i was a lesbian on instagram, my account only had about 200 followers, and within a day i lost 20. i also lose followers whenever i post f/f ships, not quite to that extent but enough for it to be noticeable, on top of the aforementioned engagement dips. in the face of all this adversity, i think a lot of wlw turn to mlm ships because they’re the closest thing we have to actual rep, but when we do we get accused of fetishizing them by the same people who fetishize us. there’s an endless list of double standards that non-wlw have been upholding for years, and i can firmly say that i’m really fucking sick of it. because of our sexuality, we will never be allowed to enjoy something without someone labelling it or us as dirty or otherwise problematic, when to them, the only problematic thing about us is that we aren’t pleasing men. 

as i mentioned before, the lack of rep for wlw in media is appallingly consistent, and part of that stems from tokenism. in a lot of modern mainstream media, you’ll have one, maybe two lgbt characters, and nine times out of ten those characters are white cis male gays. of course, there are exceptions to this, but generally, that’s it. script writers and authors (especially cishets) seem to have this mentality of, “oh, well, we gave them one, that’s sure to be enough!”, which means that on the off chance you do get your gay rep, the likelihood of also receiving wlw or any other kind of rep becomes practically non-existant. this belief that all marginalized groups are the same and that one represents all is what leads to misrepresentation on top of lack of rep, which is what makes tokenism so dangerous. if you treat your only gay character badly, you are essentially treating every single gay person badly in that universe. so not only is lesbophobia and disdain for wlw harmful to sapphic women via their exclusion in media, it’s also harming those minorities who do get rep. when people try to defend lesbophobic source material, that’s when fandom starts to get toxic. the need for critical thinking has never been more apparent and it has also never been less appeased—and wlw are getting hit hard by it, as always.

finally, a pretty big driving factor of lesbophobia is, ironically, lesbians. my lesbian friends and i often joke that though everyone seems to hate us, no one hates lesbians more than lesbians do. though i’d say it’s most prevalent on tumblr, i see traces of it all over the internet. the growth of alt right lesbian movements is not only reinforcing hatred for lesbians, but also reinforcing hatred for bi and pan women. here you have these terrible lesbians using their platforms to express their disgust for bi/pan women, for aces and aros, for trans women/nb lesbians, and people see them and say, “gosh, lesbians are just awful.” and just like that, all of us are evil. occasionally, lesbian blogs that i follow get put on terf blocklists for no other reason than the fact that they have “lesbian” in their bio. and the lesbians that actually deserve to be on those blocklists? they’re too busy spewing misinformation about trans women and bi women to care, boosted up by their alt right friends in an ever-expanding movement. i’ve found that this heavily influences fandom on tumblr, lesbians often getting branded as “biphobic” when they hc a female character as a lesbian rather than bi or pan. this criticism of both lesbians and wlw by lesbians and non-wlw alike only ever allows lesbophobia to grow, both in and out of fandom. that said, lesbians aren’t to blame for their own discrimination; rather, many of us have been conditioned into subconsciously endorsing it after spending our entire lives hearing heterosexual platitudes about lesbians and sapphic relationships. homophobic cishets are and always have been the nexus of this oppression—the only difference is that now they can hide behind alt right lesbians.

one thing has been made apparent to me throughout my time in fandom, and that thing is that no one likes to see men “underrepresented”. people hate sapphic ships and lesbians so much because there is no room for men, and men Do Not Like That. so, like the worms that they are, they slither their way in, be it through fetishization or condemnation of wlw characters and ships, and they ruin whatever good things we have going for us. the thing about worms, though, is that they’re easy enough to crush if you’re wearing the right shoes.

so to all my bi/pan gals and lesbian pals: put on your doc martens, because we’ve got ourselves some lesbophobes to stomp on. 

[akari-hope]

Not sure why you think that wlw are more shunned, viewed as predatory, and otherwise demonized than mlm relationships, particularly enemies to lovers dynamics? Sapphics are by and large wayyyyy more well-received than mlm. Sapphics are seen as soft and harmless and lovely even when they’re fighting, while mlm are seen as dirty and emasculated and generally viewed with complete disgust.

i said that mlm are FETISHIZED more in enemies to lovers dynamics than wlw. wlw are more DEMONIZED than mlm in enemies to lovers dynamics. and i gave clear examples of dynamics that reflect this in that post, so i'm not pulling this out of my ass. neither is good. both are bad. they're just different kinds of bad. i'm pretty sure i made that clear but if i didn't, i'm restating it now - NEITHER MLM NOR WLW ARE TREATED WELL IN MEDIA REGARDLESS OF DYNAMIC. THIS IS NOT OPPRESSION OLYMPICS. DIFFERENT PROBLEMS DOES NOT EQUAL BETTER PROBLEMS.

i am, however, a lesbian, and i'm going to be able to speak more coherently and authentically to the sapphic representation and general treatment of women in media than anything else. it's my firsthand experience and it's always going to be easier and more accurate than my musings on the experiences of other groups of people. and given that i have a particular fondness for enemies to lovers dynamics, of course i'm bound to contemplate sapphic enemies to lovers dynamics specifically.

but if we must dance this dance bc you decided to take a bad faith interpretation of my words, women have to do more to be loved in media, and they have to do far less to be hated. this is a fact plain and simple, and if you can't acknowledge that we are not even remotely on the same page. You can look at ANY piece of media and see this is true. the supernatural fandom's treatment of basically any women vs. the kingdom hearts fandom's treatment of kairi vs. the naruto fandom's treatment of sakura. etc. etc. etc. i could name examples all day. these are women who, yes, have shoddy writing, but instead of getting the same treatment of a male character with shoddy writing - immediately getting fleshed out by fans - they get set aside as annoying, bitchy, mary sues, etc. even female characters with GOOD writing will get this treatment, a la lightning farron from final fantasy xiii. male characters with the SAME EXACT TRAITS are often beloved by fans. easy example, see cloud strife from final fantasy vii, who shares a hysterically huge amount of personality traits with lightning farron.

and this is BEFORE we even get into the discussion of being sapphic, or god forbid any other type of minority. traditionally beautiful white cishet women who are feminine and kind are the only women to ever pass for general audiences, and even then it's not consistent. women must be "palatable". versus white men, who are allowed to be dark, messy, gritty, murderers, even genocidal dictators and still be beloved by fans. and yes, the qualifier of white is necessary here - men of color, especially black men, do not get this same generosity from fans, and you bet your fucking ass it goes triple for women of color.

and again, this is BEFORE WE EVEN FACTOR IN BEING GAY OR MENTALLY ILL OR ANY OTHER FACTORS. THIS IS ASSUMING ALL CHARACTERS ARE CISHET AND NEUROTYPICAL.

women are "soft and harmless and lovely" as you put it when they fight...if they're fucking tifa lockhart. if they're feminine and sweet and cute normally, or at least perceived that way. if they look like they're out of madoka magica (and oops not even then, bc you bet your ASS there's insane demonization of miss homura akemi). and also, friendly reminder, that "soft and harmless and lovely" thing isn't a compliment. it's fucking infantilizing at best.

for sheer simplicity's sake, to compare two ships that are on a relatively equal playing field in terms of representation, i'm going to take a look at the general reception of goro akechi/ren amamiya from persona 5 (i'm using ren as his name for simplicity's sake) and madoka kaname/homura akemi from madoka magica.

some brief context for both: both are heavily queercoded, homura is initially introduced as an antagonistic character but it is later revealed to not be the case, akechi is initially introduced as a friendly character but it is later revealed to not be the case, and both homura and akechi have clear and intense struggles with trauma and other mental health issues.

judging by what i've said, from your own logic, surely homura is a widely beloved and not at all vilified character. after all, she's feminine, she's not REALLY a villain, and she's got sympathetic motivations. right? wrong. homura is widely beloved... by sapphics. but even people who LIKE THE SHOW DO NOT ALWAYS LIKE HER. homura was WIDELY hated and discoursed back when the show first aired. you still get people who hate her. and even more frustrating, despite the blatant, you-absolutely-cannot-miss-it queercoding, sapphic fans of the show still have to argue that it's not just "girls being friends". it's not even a true enemies to lovers setup, and you still cannot escape homura being called toxic and predatory.

now let's take a brief look at akechi and ren. like previously stated, akechi is revealed to be an antagonist later in the story. and when he is, he tries to shoot ren in the head and frame it as a suicide. this is, quite obviously, a lot different from homura and madoka, where homura never even directly fights madoka. surely by your logic, akechi would be widely seen as a villain, unforgivable, horrendously terrible? well he most certainly isn't. he's one of if not the most beloved characters by fans. his relationship with ren is more often than not read as romantic, and it's practically treated as canon by a large majority.

and like i previously stated, i am not saying the mlm example i've given is without issues - akechi/ren is highly sexualized and fetishized. it's just a very DIFFERENT problem from the vilification that wlw characters often receive. and i am not saying that mlm are NEVER vilified. i am simply saying the large, overarching trend in fandom is to be forgiving of men, and unforgiving of women.

i simply do NOT see mlm ships get the same treatment in this regard to wlw ships. sora/riku from kingdom hearts and catra/adora from she-ra have...practically the same narrative in many ways. childhood friends separated by a worldwide conflict, becoming enemies, fighting each other multiple times, arguably with intent to kill, eventually saving each other and finding a way to reconcile in order to emerge victorious against the true villain. riku and catra are strikingly alike, as are sora and adora. but riku is once again a fan favorite character. and catra has received backlash after backlash after backlash. i hardly even post about she-ra anymore and i STILL get people in my inbox talking about catra discourse!!

again, i'm NOT saying the script is never reversed. there's not really anything to be won by making absolute statements like that. i'm just saying that i have never seen it, and even on the odd chance that i do it's never as severe.

once again - yes mlm characters face backlash. no one is saying they do not. but it is different backlash. i am specifically discussing the fan reception of wlw characters and ships bc that is my personal experience. different problems do not equal better problems.

i'm tired of bad faith interpretations of my posts. unless you want to have a respectful and thoughtful conversation (which i AM open to), don't come at me with boldfaced accusations.

[petoskeystones]

parks & rec headcanons

leslie knope: bisexual (i LOVE the trend of mike schur main characters all accidentally being bi and having adhd. possibly will elaborate in a later post?) but didn’t realize until later in life. also has adhd, and i feel like she was diagnosed as an older teenager- like 15/16- because of similarities between me and leslie in the way we deal with adhd. probably has some form of anxiety and depression honestly

ann perkins: chris/ann is a great ship and v underrated but guys. it would have been SO GOOD for ann’s “dating a bunch of guys to find the right one for me” “dating myself because no guys are good enough” arc to end with the realization that she’s a lesbian. mr schur, it was RIGHT THERE in front of you. so, yeah, i wish leslie and ann had ended up together (or ann ended up with any girl tbh) but benslie and ann/chris are great ships too. also, rashida jones is jewish and ann is too now <3

ben wyatt: benslie is wlw/mlm solidarity. ben wyatt is ALSO bisexual (whenever i write annslie, just assume ben is dating chris)- he grew up in a small midwest town, imsgine the 18yo mayor runs the toiwn into the gorund with a failed ice skating rink AND everyone finds out he’s queer? yeah  (also some people say ben could have adhd or autism, which is 100% valid. benslie being a neurodivergent bi power couple yes please)

chris traeger: chris is pansexual (i feel like it’s in character for leslie to use “bisexual” because it’s the more mainstream, historical term while chris likes the specific distinction that it’s the person and not the gender) and also has anxiety and depression but he goes to therapy and is learning healthy coping mechanisms! good for him

andy dwyer: he’s got adhd babey!! but seriously him having adhd and ann helping him with it (and kind of coddling him) and accidentally not letting him form his own coping mechanisms... when he’s homeless and out of work he can’t afford meds... that’s why he’s so much of A Mess post-anndy and why he’s so desperate to get back with her. he’s cishet but such an enthusiastic ally he’s married to a member of the lgbtq community

april ludgate karate dwyer: the member of the lgbtq community andy’s married to. chaotic bisexual vibes (and she’s canonically poly which is cool), enough said. 

tom haverford: he’s bisexual and i’ll die defending my headcanon that he dated jean-ralphio at some point. it wouldn’t be that far of a stretch to say he’s gay though... marrying wendy as his beard (they didn’t even kiss. why would he be in a years-long marriage with absolutely no benefits for him??)... comphet with the way he trested women and was ALWAYS TALKING about how hot girls are... he mentions he “never sealed the deal” with girls at the strip clubs but he had no reason not to if his marriage was a sham (he could be lying for the legitimacy but)... anyways what i’m saying is if not for lucy i’d be half-convinced he was gay and very repressed about it

donna meagle: again, headcanoning someone as bi- but donna’s private life is kept very mysterious, we only meet one of her exes (in my memory) who she eventually marries, and it’s not totally out of the realm of canon that she could have dated girls before

ron swanson: he’s an ally but he is cishet

jerry: cishet. probably an ally

(i didn’t headcanon any characters as trans because i’m cis and didn’t want to overstep my boundaries)

[pynkrp]

[this will be comming in at least 2 messages so that was pt1... sorry for that] Hey, so I've seen this board around now a few times and am really just wondering why the RP world needs a wlw world? I've been RPing for a while and for most of the time all RP boards seemed LBGT+ friendly to me, so I don't see the point of it? In all honesty, it even seems a bit heterophobic to me? Yes, I'm looking at the part of the rules where you say you'll ban hetero couples.

[pt 2 of 2] While the board is a beautiful idea, it just gives me the vibe of well... starting hate against hetero people. And yes, even while being hetero is not a reason to be bullied/have issues in life, I feel like the LGBT+ community should be a better example. Simply out of what is known how much others might suffer from being LGBT+ [Btw, I'm saying this as a bi woman, not a het-white-cis-male.]

-------

Hello and thanks for writing!

While it’s great that you have had positive experiences on standard roleplaying forums, that hasn’t been the case at all for us. Most forums anymore claim to be LGBT+ friendly, but that tends to mean we are “allowed” to play sapphic characters there-- just no one else will write with or interact with us on an IC level. Gay men have always been the next preference to het ships. And this isn’t an isolated incident, both of us have been writing in this community for years.

In that time, I myself have seen at least a good dozen+ mslash sites and never one geared towards wlw. So I decided to make one.

Just think of it this way: Are other LGBT+ spaces “heterophobic” for existing? Because they offer ONE place out of a hundred for just LGBT+ people? I can guarantee you that this one little site for WLW isn’t going to start a trend of “straight hating” within the community at large. A) There simply aren’t enough of us for that, as indicated by the difficulty in finding people to ship F/F to begin with, and B) We don’t actually hate straight people. The rule you are referring to says exactly this:

ALL CHARACTERS DO NOT HAVE TO BE SAPPHIC/WLW. While we absolutely want the emphasis to be on wlw and their stories, we also understand the importance of allowing other types of characters into this world; the husband she hasn’t left yet, the straight best friend she needs for moral support, her painfully cishet parents, etc. plus bi/pan/ace/poly relationships, and connections that defy all binaries and social norms. Please be respectful of our leniency with this (and don’t make us “ban” an “unrealistic” amount of "het" ships lol).

The last part about “banning” het ships is mostly a joke about the RP community-- a play on how other standard sites will ban things like pregnancies and twins arbitrarily for “realism.” (Or, if you’re old enough to remember, it once was totally normal to ban making female characters entirely literally to balance out the het capacity I’m not even joking). Basically it was tacked on there for a little humor in the reminder to not go wild with the straight cishet ships because that simply isn’t the point of this site.

Cishet content dominates all media. MLM content dominates fandom. Can you name anywhere that F/F content reigns supreme? Except maybe porn, but even then...

Pynk is one-of-a-kind (at least to our knowledge). One. If people think we are too exclusive, too rude, too negative, too this, or too that, they are in luck because literally every other site is available to them.

We just want one that is available to us. Suited to us. Celebratory of women and our love for them.

If the cishet community suffers because of that, I’ll stream a video of me eating my own fist.

Hopefully that answers your question and offers some clarity!xoxo Newo

[s-cornelius]

Congratulations, You Played Yourself

OR Why we shouldn’t be having this conversation about Adam

I’ve seen a lot written in the past few days about Voltron not deserving the hype it got for revealing that Shiro is queer, both on this platform and Twitter, and on geek news/opinion sites. Most arguments revolve around Shiro’s ex-boyfriend, Adam--both Adam’s brief screentime and his death--or the conversation between Shiro and Adam in the flashback in 7x01, and it not being explicit enough.

I am of the opinion that the conversation between Shiro and Adam was explicit confirmation of Shiro’s sexuality, and I treat it as such in this meta. I also won’t deal with the widely circulating idea that because Adam and Shiro don’t reconcile, the representation is bad. This just reinforces the idea that queer people are defined by their relationships (and sexual activity), rather than all of the other parts of their personality. As a queer person, seeing these criticisms is very frustrating.

So, I’m not going to focus on those things, because I think that they are more subjective. Instead, I am going to talk about the major complaints I’ve seen regarding Adam’s brief appearances in the show, as well as Adam’s role in the wider story Voltron is telling. 

The major complaints I’ve seen are that Adam is an example of queerbaiting, and/or the Bury Your Gays trope (see #VoltronLegendaryQueerbait on Twitter, for example). These complaints seem to stem from an expectation that after 7x01, Adam would play a larger role in the story, and even might be the endgame romantic partner for Shiro. Then, when that expectation was not met (because Adam barely appears in the season), the complaints of bad representation began.

In this meta, I discuss queerbaiting and the Bury Your Gays trope, and show that Adam is not a good example of either of these issues, through examining his character and his role in the story. Also, this is my take (after long conversations with @messier51) as a bisexual woman and as someone who thinks a lot about how stories are structured/executed.

What is ‘queerbaiting’?

Queerbaiting, as I’ve always understood it, is the practice of ‘promising’ LGBT+ content, but not following through on that promise. The ‘promising’ part is usually nods and winks from the show, but then the characters end up in relationships with members of the opposite gender, etc. The important assumption behind the idea of queerbaiting is that showrunners and production companies want to cash in on LGBT viewership, but don’t want to alienate the majority straight audience. Therefore, the showrunners get as close as possible to a same gender relationship, but never intend to follow through.

I’ve always been skeptical of the whole notion of queerbaiting, to be honest. I think in order to make an argument about queerbaiting, you have to know the motivations and intentions by the showrunners/writers/directors/cast. You also have to assume bad faith; the showrunners are thinking more about ‘tricking’ their fanbase, than trying to tell a coherent story. (sidenote: I think the bigger issue at hand is that queerness is still not normalized in fiction, and consequently, characters are straight until proven otherwise. Therefore, close same gender relationships that never become romantic are more of an issue of lack of imagination, than an willing attempt to hurt people.)

So, let’s think logically for a moment: If queerbaiting is hinting at a relationship between same gender characters, but never intending to follow through, Voltron does not qualify as queerbaiting. If the showrunners of Voltron intended to queerbait, they would not have fought for the dialogue between Shiro and Adam that makes their romantic relationship explicit. Similarly, Bex Taylor-Klaus, a queer person themself, championed explicit, in-text confirmation that Shiro was in said relationship, and then was proud of the fact that that confirmation was included.  Are those things not the opposite of queerbaiting?

Voltron promised, metatexually (i.e. showrunners in interviews, at conventions, etc.), to include LGBT+ representation. In 7x01, Shiro was revealed to be mlm, and had a mlm boyfriend. Therefore, Voltron is not an example of queerbaiting.

What about ‘Bury Your Gays’?

Bury Your Gays is a trope in fiction where queer characters are not allowed to have happy endings. Historically, this trope has referred to the practice of killing of wlw (which is why it was called Dean Lesbian Syndrome before Bury Your Gays gained prominence) going back to pulp wlw novels in the mid-twentieth century. Bury Your Gays was a staple of stories about queer people because homosexuality was (and still is by some) considered to be immoral; characters cannot be rewarded with a happy ending, because in doing so, queerness is being rewarded.

This trope has been in the zeitgeist in recent years, following the death of the wlw character Lexa on the show The 100. The anger and frustration in 2016 stemmed from the deaths of queer female characters. GLAAD notes in its annual Where We Are on TV Report:

“Since the beginning of 2016, more than 25 queer female characters have died on scripted television and streaming series. Most of these deaths served no other purpose than to further the narrative of a more central (and often straight, cisgender) character.”

This is not to say that the death of queer male character can’t be an example of Bury Your Gays, but that this trope historically refers to dead wlw in books and film, and in recent years, outrage with the this trope has concerned dead wlw on television. 

So, where does Adam from Voltron fit in? Well, he is a dead queer character, but whether or not he qualifies as an example of Bury Your Gays is questionable. He didn’t die to further the narrative of a more central cis, straight character. He also wasn’t a well-established character, and he died in a scene where many other characters also died. For these reasons, I’m hesitant to claim that Adam is an instance of Bury Your Gays.

Just because a queer character dies does not mean that it is an example of Bury Your Gays. In an article from SYFYwire, the author argues that: “as the criticism moves forward, consistently reducing our stories into binary tallies of whether we live or die does a complete disservice to the potential for three-dimensional, nuanced characters within genre storytelling that we yearn to see more of ourselves in. “

I understand that the death of any queer character on TV is upsetting to some fans, because there are so few queer characters overall. However, as we get more queer characters (and GLAAD has shown increasing numbers of queer characters in the past few years--up to 6.4% of regular characters in 2017), it’s important to question whether good representation is just a matter of a living or dead character, and if the death of an LGBT+ character is just that character’s demise, or part of a bigger trend (see 2016 and wlw deaths). 

Therefore, I think we have to evaluate whether or not the trope is in effect depends on the context of the death. I think to really decide whether or not a death of a queer character is Bury Your Gays or not, it’s important to answer the following questions: What is the purpose of this character’s death? What are the genre conventions? Are there other queer characters and what happens to them? Are queer characters dying on other shows in large numbers?

In the next section, I will discuss Adam’s role in the story, and try to answer these questions.

Adam, the character?

Before addressing these questions, I think it’s important to discuss who Adam is as a character, and his role in the overall story.

All told, Adam appears in two short scenes, totaling no more than a few minutes of screentime. While on screen, we learn that a) he was Shiro’s boyfriend, b) he broke up with Shiro due to a culmination of issues in their relationship, c) he was a pilot, and d) he died in a Galra attack. As far as characterizations go, it’s pretty skimpy, but ultimately who he was as a character is unimportant. Adam does not exist on the show to explore any big ideas about gender and sexuality; Adam is a plot device, and he serves two purposes:

Adam confirms that Shiro is mlm. By showing Adam and Shiro’s breakup in a flashback, the show is telling us that Shiro is mlm, without having Shiro say “I am gay.” (sidenote: This is called good storytelling, by the way. Shiro’s story is not a coming out story, so if everyone in canon knows that he’s gay, why would Shiro tell anyone his orientation? Since we have no reason to think that other characters don’t know he’s gay, introducing Adam does the work of confirming Shiro’s sexuality to the audience in lieu of Shiro stating his orientation in dialogue.)

Adam puts a face on the casualties of war during the first attack by the Galra. By killing off Adam in this scene, the stakes have been raised. Volton (both the show and the robot) kills faceless, nameless characters in space battles. I know that the paladins mow down robots all the time, but when Voltron destroys a Galra cruiser or the like, I find it hard to believe that there are only robots on board. But since we, the audience, and they, the paladins of Voltron, don’t know who those people are on board those ships, it’s hard to get emotionally attached to their deaths. The same is true when we see the Galra attack Earth: there is no emotional attachment when the Galra raze major cities, but there is narrative weight to Adam’s death. Now, it’s not just the case that the Galra have killed humans, but that they have specifically killed a human that was important to one of the main characters. The same effect is achieved with Hunk’s family in the work camp.

Ok, so back to those questions: What is the purpose of this character’s death? What are the genre conventions? Are there other queer characters and what happens to them? Are queer characters dying on other shows in large numbers?

To answer the first question: Adam’s death is representative of the end of an era. Adam represents the past: both Shiro’s past with the end of a relationship, and the Garrison’s past with his death as the result of old Garrison defense tactics. His death marks the end of that time in Shiro’s life, and for Earth pre-Galra attack. As mentioned above, Adam’s death also raises the stakes of the Galra attack. Once a character the audience knows dies, that signals that other characters could die too. After Veronica doesn’t get back on the train, the audience genuinely thinks she died. This doesn’t work if the only characters who have died so far are faces on a screen or in background explosions.

To address the second question: Voltron’s genre is part action-adventure comedy, and part war story. The second half of this season feels more like a war story than any part of the previous seasons, despite the fact that Voltron (and the Coalition) has been at war against the Galra since the first episode. In a war story, anyone can die, so it’s not terribly surprising that characters we know end up dying. For example, the Blades of Marmora have had four named characters die (before the timeskip): Ulaz, Thace, Antok, and Regris.

As for the third question: Adam was not the only queer character on Voltron. In explicit text, we have Shiro, one of the main characters, is an Asian mlm with mental and physical disabilities. In less explicit text, we have Pidge, who at the very least could be considered gender non-conforming, and Zethrid and Ezor, who’s relationship appeared to lean romantic.

And the fourth question: LGBT+ representation is really making strides in shows aimed at children and teens. However, there is definitely still a place for questioning whether TV more broadly has a Bury Your Gays problem. In this respect alone--that deaths of queer characters is a trend--could Adam’s death be considered problematic. It’s unfortunate that a queer character was killed in a general media landscape full of dead queer characters, but in the next section, I discuss why I am not so upset by his death.

So what?

What conclusions can be drawn from the context of Adam’s role and his death? Adam is a emotional connection to the toll of the war, both for the audience, and for our mlm main character, Shiro. I do not consider Adam’s death an example of Bury Your Gays, and I don’t think we’d be having this conversation if a heterosexual character had filled Adam’s role in the story. Ultimately, Adam is not the LGBT+ representation fans have been clamoring for, and the showrunners promised to provide--Shiro is.

So, why doesn’t Adam get a happy ending? Because it does not matter if he gets a happy ending or not; it has no impact on main characters or overall storyline. The showrunners could have introduced a different character from the Garrison that we (the audience) cared about, and then kill them in that first battle, but using Adam streamlines this process.

I know a lot of people wanted Adam and Shiro to reunite, and they’d be each other’s happy ending, but this would be Bad Storytelling. Shiro and Adam’s break up is at least 2 years in the past for Shiro. During those years, he has not pined for Adam, regretted his decision, etc. that would indicate that their relationship is not 100% over. In the lead up to season 7, Lauren Montgomery said: “until Shiro made the unfortunate decision [to leave], and they drifted apart and that was the end … for their relationship.”

As I mentioned before, Adam represents the past for Shiro. Shiro has been through so much since their break up, and we have no idea how Adam would have even reacted to the Shiro that makes it back to Earth. If Shiro does get a happy ending in the form of a romantic relationship, it does not make any narrative sense that he would go back to his old boyfriend. Shiro has grown and changed and matured, so a satisfying end to that arc is not going back to where he came from, but forging ahead with a partner who has witnessed that growth and change (if Shiro does get a love interest).

At the end of the show, it will matter if Shiro lives or dies, and whether his ending is happy or not, because he is our explicit LGBT+ representation, the one that was promised to us. But I honestly have complete faith in Voltron. Time and time again, the showrunners, writers, directors, VAs, etc. have shown their commitment to a diverse cast of characters, and representing diverse experiences. There has never been any indication of bad faith on the part of TPTB; they want to make the best possible show for us, and give us representation not found in other television shows.

So, Who Should We be Talking About?

Shiro.

I do think it is important to discuss how harmful tropes manifest in media and why queer characters keep ending up dead. However, I don’t think the solution to this problem is immortal, flawless gay characters who get happy endings just because they’re gay. The best thing we can do is normalize queer characters, and normalizing means creating characters who show the full gamut human experiences. Queer characters can be good and bad people, and have good and bad relationships, so (as long as we don’t get one version of queer people), I think there’s room for a wide variety of queer characters, who have a wide variety of ends to their stories.

So, then there’s Shiro, a heroic leading character the likes of which we haven’t seen before. Shiro is a main character on a non-queer-focused show Asian mlm with mental and physical disabilities, and his presence is normalizing queer characters for a whole new generation of fans.

Shiro is groundbreaking representation, and not just on a show aimed at younger audiences. As GLAAD notes in their report:

“The LGBTQ characters who make it to TV screens tend to be white gay men, who outnumber all other parts of our community in representation on screen ... It’s long past time for television to introduce more diverse LGBTQ characters on multiple levels: more queer people of color (who have long been and remain underrepresented), characters living with disabilities, stories of lesbians and bisexual women, trans characters, characters of various religious backgrounds, and characters who are shaped by existing at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities.”

Shiro is that intersection of multiple marginalized identities, and a main character. By showing experiences of queerness and disability and the intersection of the two, and not relegating him to a supporting role, Voltron is telling Shiro’s story, not someone else’s story with Shiro along for the ride. 

We should be asking of our media “whose stories get to be told?” On most shows, the answer is white cis-men and women, and maybe a token minority, if you’re lucky. Voltron is telling the stories of people who usually don’t get their stories told--women of all kinds, people of different ethnic backgrounds, queer characters, and intersections of these categories. Voltron has not settled for tokenization, but rather given us multi-faceted representation, crossing these intersecting issues.

[b-i-t-c-h-y-m-u-g-g-l-e]

I'm a bisexual woman and I like writing a lot stuff. Fucked up stuff, fluffy stuff, whatever. I like having a fiction spice rack when it comes to genres in my writing, however...

Since I'm a woman I'll admit that I prefer writing and reading wlw over mlm and somehow this offends other women so fucking much instead of non-straight men who understand my stance on this.

I have male mutuals who are not straight and we've discussed this privately and we're perfectly fine with each other. They admit that they don't care much for writing/reading m/f or wlw but prefer mlm just like I prefer wlw and m/f.

It's our sexual orientations that fit our fictional tastes in pairings. We're not obligated to write stuff to feed everyone's sexual preference kinks at all.

So yeah, I do have a lot of fujoshi that like my dark or fluffy fiction original or fanmade and they always leave reviews asking about "yaoi" and when I say I'm not into it, I'm suddenly called a "homophobe" by some butthurt hormonal cishet.

Seriously? Cut the bullshit. I've written erotic mlm, even professionally in the past, but even then I wasn't into it. It was a job that I got out of because it has become a toxic genre because it's mostly dominated by women now. I saw I was part of that trend and I wanted out to write what I want which is what I already mentioned. M/F and wlw.

Chill tf, just cos I've written one mlm short fics for my fave otp (which I ship more for dynamics instead of "hawtness") doesn't mean I'll be open to all your shitty ships. I only write what I want and what I fucking feel like writing, not what you think I should write. Idgaf about what other people want or those policing fiction.

Currently I'm doing a collab with NO pairings or sex whatsoever... Will I be called a sexphobe or relationshipphobe now too? Go fuck yourself. If you don't like me not giving into your demands, find some other writer that gives a fuck about popularity. I never gave a rat's ass about that, so tough shit.

Can't believe I got this shit from someone that claims to be 23. The only people who have called me homophobic for this are women, lol. I'm just lmfaooooo. (I do have an OC mlm ship but y'all don't pay attention to it cos it's a consensual relationship but sure, knock yourselves out. If it was rapey you'd probably be kissing all up my Puerto Rican ass)

[antthonystark]

hey mavra! no pressure if you're not feeling up to it, but could you maybe talk about how malec is a good and healthy couple for a minute? i won't go into it too much but i saw someone make a post about how it was bad bc of the age gap and it just. made me feel a little bad. and i don't want to ever feel bad for shipping it bc?? as a young lgbt person (wlw rather than mlm, but still) it just means a lot to me as a ship. again, only if you want to! ilu, have an awesome day

yes yes of course i’m always here for some positivity! 

first quick thing, about the age gap - like, when you bring immortality into the picture, it becomes a lot more difficult to deal with “age gaps”. immortality isn’t something that we as humans have dealt with in a relationship context, so it’s much more difficult to say what should be considered healthy wrt immortality, since it’s not really something that we as a society have had to think about. especially given that i think immortality doesn’t equate to old age, but rather to a certain kind of agelessness that is difficult to fathom into normal human terms, since there is no finite “end point”. (plus, it’s not like alec isn’t a consenting adult. if he were, say, 17, it would be iffy.)

but that notwithstanding, how isn’t malec a good and healthy couple? it’s all about communication and understanding and mutual respect, and malec has that in spades. i mean, most of the bad things that anyone (usually book fans tbh) have said about malec in the show just doesn’t hold up to scrutiny at all. 

like in season one, okay, they meet and they’re both clearly attracted to each other. magnus flirts with him a bit in 1x04 in front of everyone, and then comes to realize how deeply closeted he is and never does it again, and assures him, “there’s nothing to be ashamed of” but doesn’t push the issue because alec clearly doesn’t want to talk about it. like, that’s the first episode in which they meet?? already #relationshipgoals and they’ve known each other for like 2 minutes tbh 

and later in the season when alec is basically like, “hey i can’t do this” magnus never pushes him or anything like that. in 1x09, he basically says “okay bye then” and doesn’t see alec again until alec seeks him out for help in 1x11. and the only thing he says to alec is that he’s going to be miserable if he follows through with the arranged marriage. he’s not even saying “hey, be with me”, he’s just like “hey, this is going to fucking suck for you and i’m not too chuffed about it either” yknow? but every single time, he gives alec the choice, and responds to whatever alec’s choice is (1x09, alec says nah, magnus is like “goodbye alexander”; 1x12, he says “i’ll leave if alec asks me to”). so it’s just a very, very respectful pre-relationship in my opinion. 

and just!!! magnus is SO understanding of alec that i just love it?? like at almost every point where alec is struggling to speak or get words out he either says “i understand” or gently helps him come to his point. and that’s just in dialogue but i think it speaks to a deeper understanding that magnus has of alec (and one that’s developing vice versa) and i find it really really really really lovely tbh. 

and that’s just talking about magnus. something i love about what they’ve done with alec is that they never never made alec demanding of magnus in any capacity like many other characters are - he helps magnus in 1x06 and gives him his strength, and in 1x11 he’s basically like “hey i wanted to ask for your help but like you probably cant give it sorry to bother you okay bye then” like it’s so cute?? but also it again speaks to something deeper, where there’s this fundamental respect for one another. and this trend continues into season 2, where we see alec giving magnus gifts, and sort of not forcing anything from magnus? like it’s abundantly clear that this giant precious boy just loves magnus for who he is, and not what magnus is able to do for him. 

and also, they’re not always perfectly lovely to each other, but when there’s fighting or tension, it’s always always resolved with such good communication that it’s not unhealthy, but rather just realistic. like 2x01 is such a brilliant example of this, which is the only time alec is demanding and rude to magnus, and right after that happens, alec apologizes and not only that, demonstrates that he understands why what he said was wrong, and it’s not brushed under the rug that he said something that wasn’t appropriate - it was acknowledged, forgiven, and then they got something out of that - “don’t push me away next time you’re worried or stressed - we have to be here for each other” type of thing. so it really is just remarkable. 

i mean i could go on and on and analyze every single one of their interactions and moments and dialogues and movements because everything about this ship is absolutely perfect, but i think that would be a little bit much even for you.

so i’ll conclude this spiel by telling everyone to VOTE FOR MALEC BECAUSE THEY’RE AMAZING!!!!