#this does apply to all queer identities and relationships btw

[frogayyyy]

just some ramblings on the rise of rebranded homophobia in relation to shipping and fandom etc (i watched lotr yesterday)

the way people will say "healthy friendships between men are important and we need representation!!!!" (this is true) in response to shipping as if there's an abundance of mlm relationships in media and yknow. homophobia hasn't existed??

“>:[ us men aren't allowed to be just friends anymore!!!! because of the homophobia!!!! that we created!!!!!!”

i've definitely seen this sentiment grow more again over the last few years as the number of canonical mlm relationships (often badly written or lacking any substance) increases.

before it was just a blatant "no homo" or something but it's now becoming a bit more subtle and "how dare you imply this character could be gay? do you hate men being friends?! go back to your handful of bland designated Gay Characters that we so generously gave you" from the same people who have spent years adding to the very same toxic masculinity and homophobia that stopped them from having deep and healthy friendships with other men in the first place. dare i say gaslighting?

(and just to be extra clear i am not talking about ace/aro people, or characters who are headcanoned as ace/aro, or qprs, etc. or even anyone interpreting a relationship as 'just' platonic. i'm only referring to that specific "no homo" kind of argument against shipping)

[talon-dragonbeast]

I don’t mean this to be sillt or offensive but the misceverse is different from when bigoted men use “alpha beta sigma etc etc” right? I feel like people will think I’m like that and make fun if I tell them. and does misceverse mean u think everyone fits in a place? or just people who identify with it?

i mean i havent run any polls or anything but i feel like pretty much 99% of the misce community is queer so. i dont think you need to worry about that lmao.

but now seriously; omegaverse as a concept may have originally been just about kink and nothing else (which is fine and dandy btw, nothing wrong with having kinks), but nowadays i feel like the "fandom" is incredibly diverse in terms of what people do with it and such. worldbuilding, speculative biology, theories, all of that has been discussed and elaborated on, so you have a lot you can look into! its true that outside of tumblr people might be a bit weird about it, but i dont frequent those circles so i dont really know.

and yes, misceverse is a personal identity! that means its for you and you only, so you cant force it onto others against their will. misceverse is not a method of classification, nor a belief to be followed and it doesnt apply to real world society in any way shape or form. its an identity, but mainly its a lifestyle. its for people to indulge in their more animalistic side, to explore their gender in a different way or to get a little weird (/pos) with their relationship dynamics. but most importantly, its to have fun with it! :D

[internetgiraffekid1673]

Musings on How I Experience Love

A.K.A. I learned about a queer identity, and it made me have thoughts about my own identity that are only tangentially related, and I didn't want to derail existing posts.

TL;DR at the bottom.

Introduction

Ya'll. I just learned about a thing called aplatonicism. Aplatonic. Does not experience platonic attraction. And it got me thinking.

To be clear, while I am super happy for and very supportive of all the aplatonics out there, I am not aplatonic. I have a number of friends and I feel all my feelings about my friends very strongly. Probably more strongly than most of them tbh.

Buuuuut, learning that this was a thing made me start poking at how I experience ALL my types of connection with people.

So, consider this post an exploration of my queerness and my relationships in general. If anyone has labels they'd like to introduce, please come forth. I find comfort in labels, and they're kinda fun.

BTW, this is all coming from someone who identifies as aroace and/or asexual arospec.

Familial Love:

If I had to list the most important and valued relationships in my life, all the top spots would go to family members. This is reflected in my day-to-day behavior.

My friends will have to wait hours or days before I can build up the emotional fortitude to text them back, and I find myself dreading receiving texts from them. With my family, I will initiate conversation, text them for no reason, open my phone in the hopes of having recieved texts from them, and feel immense relief when I see the text is from them and not a friend.

I can receive calls from my family without immediately panicking and spend literal hours on the phone with them, where I can barely stomach a few minutes from friends (I have phone anxiety).

I will cancel in person meetings with friends IN EXCHANGE for in person meetings or phone calls with family if I am having a bad day.

I trust my family with information I don't trust my friends with.

When I am home and I have the option to, I will spend more hours of the day being around my family than being by myself, despite being introverted. The same consideration does not apply to friends.

My family is allowed to upset me in ways that my friends are not. I still adore my family and easily forgive them after they push certain boundaries and triggers, but I won't even keep talking to a friend who does that.

Large gatherings of people I know well and consider friends are intimidating and draining. Large gatherings of people I have accepted as family, even if we haven't spoken in years and I don't know them too well, are exciting and relaxing.

All of these things combined make me inclined to conclude that I experience familial love much more strongly than platonic love. I progress from "like" to "love" much easier with family than with friends, I feel more strongly about my family than I do about any of my friends, I will choose family over friendship every time. I've developed a couple of friends over the years that I've become exceptionally close to, and I literally refer to them as "my second family" or "like my siblings."

This is. . .interesting to me, and was sparked by learning about aplatonics. I discovered aplatonicism when I stumbled across a couple aplatonic tumblr blogs, and all the ones I happened upon specified that they were "loveless," indivudiuals whi didn't experience familial love either. But, they still introduced the concept of thinking about platonic love and familial love as separate.

I'm wondering if anyone has words to describe feeling familial love really extra strongly, even if you also experience platonic attraction and are decidely not aplatonic? Oh, also, I have social anxiety, but it isn't really triggered by family members, where it is easily and frequently triggered by friends. I have been overstimulated to the point of tears at large family gatherings before, but it was only with people I literally had no memories of and did not mentally consider family.

Also, I'm not really sure how my brain classifies "family." It certainly isn't "people I've lived with," since there are at least 3 of those that don't count, and most of my extended family does. It obviously isn't "people I'm biologically related to," because of in-laws and legal guardian situations that I do count, but it also isn't "people I am/was legally related to," because a lot of legal extended family that I've never met or just don't talk to don't count in my brain, including people that I technically have a closer legal relationship with than people who count as family. It's some combination of a bunch of factors, and I can't even name most of them.

Basically, familial love is much higher and much stronger in my emotional hierarchy than any other type of love, including platonic friendship, and I find that noteworthy.

Platonic Love:

So, as mentioned in the introductory section, I think I feel my feelings about platonic love/attraction more strongly than the people on the other side of those relationships.

However, I don't think this actually has much to do with my attraction level. I think it's a symptom of allonormativity. Almost all my friends are allorose, and I think this influences the way they view friendships in general. Friendships are generally considered a less valuable, less intense, less committed kind of relationship by an allonormative society. They're like an in-between step between strangers and a romantic/sexual relationship, and people don't really consider that they can both give and take just as much as those other types of connection.

Any friendship involves an obligation. A social contract of things you do for each other. An unspoken agreement that you'll care about and put effort towards each other. They take just as much work and care to maintain as any sort of romantic/sexual relationship will. For people who experience platonic attraction, they also provide connection, safety, emotional fulfillment, enjoyment, happiness, and all the other things that are also affiliated with romantic/sexual relationships.

As an aroace person, friendships and familial connections fully provide all my emotional needs. I don't need or want a "higher" relationship. And when I look at the people in my life who are or were involved in a romantic relationship, some of them continued to put more effort towards and recieve more fulfillment from their friendships than from their romance.

So, I place a lot of importance on my platonic love and affection for my friends, especially those that edge towards that "second family" territory. For those not in that zone, though, I think they would generally consider friendships nice, but far more casual and less important and all-consuming as romantic love. Even if we do experience the same levels of attraction towards and affection for each other, they place less importance on it because they have other emotional needs that are not being met and that society values more.

These thoughts also developed from reading about aplatonics, by the way, and their frustrations with the fact that because friendship is undervalued, people don't extend the same care towards forming and maintaining friendships as they do towards romantic and sexual relationships. People don't ask if they can be your friends as adults, and they don't really do platonic DTRs to determine how much you can reasonably expect from each other. That means an aplatonic who has no interest in being friends with people will suddenly be shoved in this box that comes with all these expectations and they DID NOT sign up for it.

I also have experienced strong queer platonic attraction towards at least one person, and I would use the aromantic term "squish" to define how I feel about this person. If I didn't know that this person is allorose and actively seeking a romantic partnership with someone, I would want to platonically date this person, and we have already acknowledged that our relationship is fully platonic but exceptionally close, and we like it that way.

Romantic Love

In my intro, you may have noticed that I identify as aromantic AND/OR arospec. This is mostly because I am relatively new to identifying myself as aromantic, and I don't have a whole lot of experience with thinking about how I feel about romance through this lens. I only discovered aromanticism was a thing like a year and a half ago, and I have only been exploring the label and identifying with it for a few months.

Before learning about aromanticism, I would hear about romance and crushes and think, "Huh, I've never felt that way. Oh well, I'm sure I will eventually." Now that I know this isn't necessarily true, I have some mixed up feelings.

I have never felt romantic attraction towards anybody. The question comes in my DESIRE for that attraction/relationship. I feel like I could happily live my entire life without a romantic relationship. But, I also wouldn't be upset if I developed romantic attraction for a close friend and entered a romantic relationship with them. That idea isn't bad for me, and I find myself enjoying the thought, even if I don't wish for it and have no desire to seek one out.

However, a lot of the things people consider part of a romantic relationship are things I would do with a QPR. I know I'm not feeling whatever it is they're feeling, and I know I wouldn't behave in the same way, but I can't exactly verbalize those behavioral differences. Just some examples:

Going on dates: I would 100% platonically date someone and actually already do. I also do familial dates. Both these things involve planning a specific time to go do stuff with a specific individual just to be with them because we both like being around each other and we want to spend time together and do things that make the other person happy. If it is a person I have established a touchy-feely relationship with, it will also involve all of the touchy things we do together. With my parents, this is up to and including pecks on the lips and holding hands. With my squish, this regularly goes up to cuddling and laying right next to or partially on top of each other.

Touching each other, even when not on dates. I am a very touchy-feely person. Touch is my love language, but how much I am comfortable touching a person depends.

My parents kiss me, but in the same way you kiss a baby or a puppy. This includes on the lips sometimes. That would feel weird with anyone else, but it feels nice, normal, and affectionate with them.

He never has, but I wouldn't be uncomfortable with my brother kissing my hair or my forehead, which is something my extended family does pretty frequently (aunts and uncles, grandparents, etc.). I don't think I would feel uncomfortable if my squish or my second family friends kissed my hair or forehead, but I'd feel pretty weird if any of my other friends did it.

I don't mind holding hands with my family, my second family, or my squish either, even if that isn't my preferred form of contact (I like something a bit more solid).

I hug everyone who is okay with it. Anybody who likes hugs and has made this known to me gets hugs from me. The same can be applied to cuddling, hair petting, etc.

While I don't tickle other people, I am very ticklish and enjoy getting tickled by people I am physically affectionate with. Anyone who gets forehead kiss privileges gets tickle privileges.

I was in scouts and speech and debate and consider sleeping in the same bed a non-intimate activity. It would feel weird if they're significantly younger or older than me and not family, but as long as we're similar in age, I'll share a bed with a total stranger. We'll probably even end out cuddling in our sleep since I'm a little heat leech when I'm sleeping.

Dancing: I'll happily do anything from formal waltz to intimate tango with family, second family, or squish. I will feel only sort of weird about doing it with friends, acquaintances, and strangers at events that are made for that kind of thing. The more formal the dance, the closer to sort of weird we get. Intimate latin tango? Kinda weird, but not awful if nobody MAKES it weird. Old timey jig? Honestly, it's pretty normal.

Buying Gifts: I don't really buy gifts for other people unless it's their birthday or Christmas, but my friends get handmade presents all the time.

Flirting. While I'd feel really put off by a stranger flirting with me, my friends and I jokingly flirt all the time. In high school, I had a friend who would greet me every day with variations of "Hey sugar lips, nice eybrows." While I have only engaged in this behavior with my straight female friends (I'm a woman), I wouldn't feel uncomfortable if my female-attracted friends of any variety did this too. It would be really, really weird if anyone did it seriously, though.

Sharing drinks/food. I already do this platonically all the time. The only reason I don't share straws with friends is because we're all the age where none of us can guarantee we don't have mono unless we've been recently tested. I do share straws with my family if none of us are currently sick.

Marriage. I would marry my QPP and/or best friend. I know I would like to raise kids if I am ever emotionally capable, and I want to do it with a partner. I would love to live with someone I'm platonically attracted to until the end of time and would appreciate the benefits of legal civil union. That opening sequence in Up called "Married Life?" Apart from the actual making out and implied sex, I would do literally all of that in a platonic relationship. I don't think I NEED it to be happy, but it certainly feels like something I WANT (as opposed to an actual romantic relationship).

So basically, I have no desire for a romantic relationship, but I am not repulsed by the idea, and a lot of the trappings of a romantic relationship are actually something I'm interested in platonically. People with labels come forth!

I also am not freaked out by other people in romances. I have no issues with my friends being lovey dovey with their partners around me, although unless they're really REALLY obvious about it, I won't be able to tell their dating without verbal confirmation. I dislike most romance plots and subplots in fiction, but I can also think of a lot that I enjoy (almost all of which lack sexual elements as well).

Sexual Love

I am very VERY ace. I have absolutely no desire or interest in sex. I have never had a desire. I can't picture myself EVER having a desire. I am disgusted by the thought of myself ever having sex by any definition of the word, including just kissing in a mildly erotic manner. I feel uncomfortable seeing people lingering kisses in front of me, including fictional people, and I skip anything in books that could be remotely classified as sexual. Multiply any squick by like a thousand if it's non-consensual.

I am, however, fine with the idea that other people have consensual sex with each other, as long as I'm not given details. My roommate could look me dead in the eyes and tell me every fictional character she desperately wants to bone, and that she and her boyfriend boned in our room last night, and I would be absolutely fine. The minute she starts describing details, I'm like, "No thanks." Fade to black fiction scenes are great. Implied/referenced sex is fine, even implied/referenced rape in works of fiction as long as it's treated with the necessary gravity (obviously, it's never okay that real people go through that).

I should also add that when spoken about in a purely biological context with clinical language, you can give me as many details as you want, and that I also find my irl horny friends funny during their horny episodes.

But yeah, no sex for me ever, thanks.

TL;DR

I read about aplatonicism, and it got me thinking about all the different types of attraction and love and how I, as an arospec asexual with social anxiety, experience them.

I experience intense and powerful familial love that is far more important to me than any other relationship can hope to get.

I experience platonic attraction, including queerplatonic attraction, but feel that the people on the other end of those relationships don't value them as much or feel they take as much effort as I do because of allonormativity.

I don't experience romantic attraction, but am perfectly fine with the idea of a romantic relationship, even if I don't actively seek it out. I also have a lot of confusion about if a romantic relationship would even look different than a platonic one for me, since a lot of things people DO in romantic relationships are things I do platonically, up to and including kissing and marriage.

I don't experience sexual attraction, don't want to, and am generally grossed out by sex. I'm fine if other people do it, I just don't need details and I don't ever want to think about having any kind of sex myself.

Anyone who has labels to offer is welcome!

[remythologise]

which show? 👀 (if you're comfortable sharing!)

Yeah of course! I mean that sort of thing definitely applies to shows like the SPN finale in particular, but I was talking about Tiger & Bunny an anime-original show which had a first (really tremendously tightly & well-written and very inclusive for anime) season back in 2011. It’s a superhero anime that’s SUPER cool especially for the time (heroes being sponsored by companies & run by capitalism but still really wholesome and optimistic in tone despite the darker themes unlike The Boys, lore really tight, characters SO unique and fun). Being an a) very good show and b) incredibly gay show, it was pretty popular and got a couple of movies, but only got a second season this year. HOWEVER, this second season has been basically ignored partially I think because of the ten year gap and Netflix distribution/release (really bad for anime in particular imo.)

Anyway the second season weirdly really toned down the emotional core & gay vibes between Kotetsu and Barnaby, the eponymous Tiger and Bunny, which is kind of odd because… the show isn’t homophobic at all it has queer rep* (*if again, problematic in s1/movie when they clearly didn’t really know how to write certain identities and play on problematic tropes) and actually toned UP the gay vibes between like. Literally every other character. So people feel a little let down by that for sure and as usual it feels a little like queerbaiting. But that’s not the main issue I had with it, that’s more to do with the writing...

[Spoilers & details under read more]

The writing in the second season is just bad. There’s issues with like… almost every aspect of the story, which REALLY irked me because the first season was SO good and SO tight as I mentioned before. The new characters are much weaker and the focus is totally diluted across a very roughly written plot and filler. (Contrasted to S1, where pretty much every episode had a great role to play in character development and/or plot.) It’s not terrible and it’s not unwatchable, but I did feel like the ending was a slap in the face which kind of highlighted the weaknesses of the second season generally.

So the emotional core is Tiger and Bunny’s relationship but since the arc of that kind of ‘finishes’ itself in s1-movies, I guess they kind of didn’t feel the need to do much work on their relationship or the characters themselves. (BTW, There are lots of interesting things they COULD have done with this but chose not to.)

The character arcs for Tiger and Bunny are REALLY weak in the second season - Tiger’s is like, ‘what does it mean to be a hero?’ and Bunny’s is like, ‘am I happy?’. The end of the show basically answers this with Tiger saying ‘even if I’m not a superhero, I’ll retire and help random people, maybe,’ and Bunny LITERALLY getting asked ‘are you happy?’ by a talking doll (weird and creepy.) to which he replies. ‘Maybe’.

I find the answers to both those arcs really unsatisfying. The main reasons I’m mad the ending apart from that can basically be broken down to two things:

First, the after-credits scene takes place in the future in which it shows us a plaque of Tiger and Bunny with defined end-dates to their partnership. This pretty much nixes the possibility of a continuation starring both of them (even if the second season was successful enough to merit a continuation of some kind, which I don’t think it is). This is what I was really talking about when I said you DON’T need to show a definitive character ‘life path’ to end the story, especially when it leaves on such an unsatisfying note (see above re: character arcs). It’s the ‘ungenerous’ ending people talked about with Supernatural, like let the heroes ride off into the sunset - if you know your fans love the characters together, you don’t need to show us that they retire/die if it’s unhappy and apart. Let their story continue in people’s imagination!

Secondly, the character arc endings ACTUALLY really go against everything we’ve been told about Tiger and Bunny through the show, and not really in a way that implies growth. Tiger and Bunny aren’t like, toxically codependent - but they’ve been shown to be happier around each other, PARTICULARLY Bunny. Bunny suddenly deciding he might be happy WITHOUT Tiger at his side (especially when it’s not even something he’s had time to get used to!) is absurd. Multiple times he’s said he doesn’t want to be a hero without Tiger and cried about it. ‘Maybe he’s happier’ now his buddy is retiring and he has to go on without him, and he’s randomly crippled but still somehow able to be a hero (???). Yeah. I doubt it.

And as for Tiger’s character arc, his character is such that he would ALWAYS try to be a hero no matter how little power he had - his monologue at the end was so weird, it was like ‘maybe I’ll try and help people on a smaller scale now and then, I don’t know, I’ll figure it out.’ Super vague and unsatisfying. There’s no reason he can’t find ways to be a hero a la Tony Stark if he doesn’t have powers (partially what he was doing anyway). NOT TO MENTION they literally SET UP ways for it to be possible for him to get his power back (Mattia’s science stuff) but instead have him randomly lose all his power.

There’s a lot of characterisation weirdness in the episode, not just the ending - for example, Tiger and Bunny watching someone THEY KNOW commit suicide and barely caring about it. It’s just really abnormal for Tiger to not make more of an effort and fuss in that sort of situation, no matter who it was or what they’d done. (And don’t get me started on the disservice done to that character, Yuri Petrov.)

This being the final ending (given the plaque) really sucks, the ending in 2011/movies was SO much better and really understood the spirit of the franchise, the characters, and writing an ending that makes long-time fans feel satisfied.

Would love to be proved wrong about this and have a season/movie that addresses the issues and plot holes like Ouroboros, but I doubt it 😭

Shout out to some spectacular weak writing choices this season though, like everything from ‘NEXT that has a brain that can solve everything but none of our plot holes’ to ‘whatever happened to the second league heroes? oh well!’

[mayhem24-7forever]

First off you need to deflate that giant ego inflated head of yours.

Second I am not "harassing" anyone I am calling out a serious problem in the fandom which is that a huge number of writers are ignoring the main canon couple of the show who are also gay men in order to ship themselves with those characters. It's homophobic and unacceptable and I will continue to call out everyone who does this.

If someone doesn't want to ship Vigilmaker then okay that's a little sus but not inherently homophobic...erasing Chris and Adrian's romantic relationship and their sexualities (they're literally both gay!!!! what is WRONG with you freaks???) so that horny straight bitches can ship themselves with them is straight inarguably homophobic. It's also pathetic and cringe. Reader inserts are fucking cringe! This is literally why we need to bring back bullying.

It's not about blocking or filtering tags! It's about the fact that these fics shouldn't exist in the first place! It's fucking shameful that there are so many of them and they outnumber fics about the main couple of the show! Filtering tags doesn't get rid of them problem which is that they exist and there's a lot of them.

This fandom is not for horny straight bitches! Get out! Get out of our tags get out of fandom GO AWAY!!!!! This show isn't fucking for you!!!!

To your first point: You telling me I have a big ego when you refuse to even try and argue against anyone's points is peak comedy. So if I am the kettle, you are the pot.

Secondly, as has been pointed out to you by several people you've decided to bug about this, Vigilmaker isn't canon or the "main couple" of the show and both characters have been canonically shown to be attracted to the opposite sex (which doesn't rule out that they can be bisexual or pansexual btw). So I'm a little confused as to how you think anyone is setting canon sexualities aside for anything. But in case you don't believe me here's some proof from James Gunn himself: (https://www.cbr.com/peacemaker-vigilante-shipping-james-gunn-confused/). Also here's some proof that Chris is CANONICALLY bisexual, not strictly homosexual (https://www.out.com/television/2022/2/16/how-peacemaker-became-bisexual-in-hbo-max-show-john-cena-james-gunn-dc-comics-dceu). So technically speaking, you're going against canon.

Also, I'm wondering if your feelings on this applies to other changes to canon made by fan fic authors? Do you only read things tagged with "canon compliant" and believe that making them in any sort of AU is reprehensible to canon? Because apparently it is "homophobic" for me to not ship two characters who are canonically straight or at most bisexual/pansexual but if I were to write a fic where everyone was a pirate instead of their canon jobs, that's something you're gonna allow. Just curious how we're drawing the lines of what is and isn't acceptable for fanfiction.

The thing that annoys me the most about this isn't just that you refuse to even try and defend your argument with anything except repeating the same points that have already been refuted and proved incorrect and childish insults about being "cringe" etc. What really gets me is that you are straight up assuming everyone who writes these fics must be horny straight cis women because apparently in your eyes you are either gay or straight and there's no inbetween. Newsflash: Bisexuals, Pansexuals, and other Queer identities exist.

To your complaints about self insert/reader fics being cringe or disgusting, that's your opinion. It's something you're not into in fanfiction and that's alright, we all have our preferences. Personally, I don't like to read fics with unhappy endings but you don't see me going in the ask boxes of angst writers to complain. You're apparent beef with self insert writers isn't some moral mission to stop homophobia, because there's no homophobia going on (except from your biphobic ass). I'm not going to do you the disservice of assuming your gender or sexuality as you have done for me and my friends but no matter your gender or sexuality, you don't get to be the ruler of all fanfic who determines what is and is okay.

Yeah, it would be a valid problem/concern if James Gunn were to come out and say that Chris and Adrian are now 100% homosexual and in love and that their past references to having heterosexual sex no longer apply as they've changed and are now super duper gay and people were to make them straight for fics. But that's not what's happening so I don't know where you got this stick up your ass from. Stop policing or gatekeeping fandom, no one died and made you head ceo of the Peacemaker/DC fandom so stop acting like it.

TLDR; L + you don't know how to argue + you're biphobic + you're an asshole + you're straight up wrong <3

[ouyangzizhensdad]

Please please do write the post about wwx not being dumb/oblivious. Those posts were just funny at first but somehow it's now become accepted fact. Meanwhile whether cql or mdzs wwx is a very competent, savvy protagonist who's actually pretty observant! It's getting pretty tiring to see him reduced to genki oblivous magical girl (not that I don't like those, it's just wwx is not one).

Hey anon! 

I do plan on writing a more elaborate meta post exploring what arguments there are in the novel to support my wwx is not dumb/oblivious agenda.

But for now I just want to address one factor I think plays a big part in shaping the fandom’s perception of wwx as oblivious/dumb, regardless of how wwx was actually written in the novel. That is, the creative liberties taken by (or forced onto) the cql production team, which have had in my opinion two consequences: 1) cql does not manage to establish how quick-witted and savvy wwx is, which is compounded by the fact that it chose to play the troublemaker persona straight  2) the fact that wwx and lwj’s relationship is entirely subtext actually ends up making wwx look oblivious (at least to people applying a queer reading/bl-danmei reading to their interactions--people who are obvious to or choose to ignore the subtext certainly wouldn’t come to the same conclusions). 

So, the first issue. In the novel, wwx’s intelligence is more of a focal point in the narrative because it is a crucial part of the dramatic irony/tragedy of his death: as a result it cannot help being more important to the themes of the novel. After all, he is ultimately hunted down because of and killed by his inventions. The man created an entirely new field of cultivation! In cql, this is somewhat lost due to the fact that he does not invent modao nor does he create the yin hufu, and his death is more of a suicide than a sacrifice (i am still not over the fact that he throws the yin hufu at the crowd to let them wage war over it? that’s the complete thematic opposite of his death in the novel...). 

The novel, as well, is better at establishing that wwx’s antics are generally not because he’s just being a troublemaker, but that they are a way in which he garners information, gets people to act the way he needs them to or misdirect them. For instance, in cql, when lwj destroys wwx’s (well, nhs’s) spring book in the library, wwx looks genuinely pained and affronted--in the novel, it is clearly shown that, when wwx realized lwj intended to bring the spring book to lqr, he intentionally made him angry so that he would destroy the evidence himself. the point of the prank was also to not only get a reaction out of lwj, but also (reading btw the lines) wwx’s way of trying to leave a lasting impression on lwj now that his punishment was over. Differently put, while wwx can do directionless pranks,  more often than not, they have an underlying meaning/goal instead of just being for Attention(TM) in general. In contrast, the web series is full of missed opportunities in terms of characterisation, and is so from the very beginning (I find extremely disappointing how they decided to adapt the mo mansion and dafan mountain arcs because of how important they are to establishing wwx’s character for the readers/viewers. Through these arcs, we get acquainted with the way he thinks and deduces information, and how he uses people’s perceptions of him and others to his advantage. If you can only read English, @pumpkinpaix‘s translation of the first few chapters might help get a better sense of the nuances). 

I’m not saying that wwx is portrayed as dumb in cql: but that his characterization is a lot more fuzzy and inconsistent, and that his intelligence is utilized mostly when wwx goes into his detective mode. As a result, I do feel like it undermines how analytical wwx is in all aspects of his life, making it easy to see him as, you know, someone who’s, like, half-smart, half-super-dumb. 

As for issue #2, part of it boils down to the fact that most of the obstacles to wangxian’s relationship had to be erased due to censorship. There no longer is homophobia/internalized homophobia to motivate moments of denial or internal conflict; there is no longer the phoenix mountain kiss to explain lwj’s reluctance to respond to wwx’s flirting after his rebirth (as I explored in one of my other meta post); there is no longer lwj’s failed confession and lwj’s mistaken belief that wwx knows of his feelings, etc. These vectors of tension help contextualise and explain why it takes so long for wwx to realize lwj’s feelings towards him (but let’s not forget that he does: after jinlintai, he starts to realize that lwj treats him especially well, which becomes a certainty after the second siege). the cql production team had no choice but to take these elements away. 

that being said, by adding new or by changing moments to support the subtext and to please (bl-danmei) fans, the show actually takes away even more vectors of tension/misunderstanding between wwx and lwj, and makes wwx’s crush seem even more obvious and straight-forward. Take for instance the mo mansion arc. In the novel, wwx sees the Lan disciples’ white robes and has this moment of reflection that he recognizes the robes, and sees danger in the fact that the Lan sect is involved, thinking he should leave but knowing he can’t until he resolves the curse. in cql, we get a slow-pan flash-back of wwx’s first encounter with lwj, leaving him clearly emotional. The novel sets up the association as: white robes -> Lan Sect (subtext, Lan Zhan) -> orthodox/sticklers to rules/people i’ve met in my previous life who disapproved of modao -> danger! In cql, we have instead: whites robes -> Lan Zhan -> emotional reaction/I miss him. That fact is further driven home when wwx starts playing wuji on a blade of grass, ending with a soulfully whispered “lan zhan”. In terms of subtext, it sure lays it on thick: wwx does look like he has a big crush on lwj! But that destroys a big source of tension between them at the beginning: when wwx is summoned into mxy’s body, he thinks lwj hates him and disapproves of his methods and wants to bring him to gusu to punish him. That’s why he wants to run away at first, why he doesn’t disclose his identity to him and why it takes him a moment to understand lwj’s intentions. cql does not do a great job of setting that up. And the changes they make to the events of wwx’s first life, including changes to the timeline through which we are introduced to what happened in the past, makes it even more difficult to see how wwx could have misunderstood lwj’s intentions or his own feelings (again, in a queer or danmei-bl reading of the subtext). They go on a mission together! Spend a lot of time working together toward a similar goal!Lwj calls him his zhiji (”soulmate” as is often translated)! Lwj literally tries to save him from dying! The last thing wwx would remember when he wakes up in mxy’s body would be lwj holding onto his hand and screaming his name when he let go! Again, it does great for the subtext--but it makes it really difficult to understand why wwx would misunderstand lwj’s intentions and feelings, and it makes his own feelings toward lwj seem quite obvious. 

Overall, the changes in the themes, genre, events, narrative timeline, characterisation and much more in adapting mdzs into cql have been an important influence explaining why the fandom has this vision of wwx as dumb/oblivious. It reminds me of the way some people on tumblr like to talk about Mr. Darcy as “shy” and “awkward” based on the movie pride and prejudice 2005, which totally misses the point of Mr Darcy and his character as portrayed by Jane Austen--but, if people have only or mainly engaged with this specific adaptation, it is not necessarily surprising that they hold this frankly misguided interpretation due to the choices made by the film production team. 

In contrast, in the novel, we are shown a lot to help us understand why wwx comes to the wrong conclusions or might not understand his own feelings and reactions. But that’s for all for another post!

[demolover]

ive seen ur posts mentioning u have thoughts on queer perspective towards death and how mcr fit into it so. if u ever decide to share other ideas on the topic id love to read it! (i think ur really good at getting your thoughts accross) (u dont have to answer btw i just wasnt sure abt shooting a dm abt this)

it’s been so long i’m so sorry um i have a lot of thoughts idk if u still want them here’s an attempt at a short version... 

edit: changing this to under a cut cuz it’s insanely long. if u don’t feel like reading almost 1.5k words probably don’t read it.

basically i think that mortality and death are very common things for all humans to think about and make art about because we’re kinda... obsessed with and extremely afraid of death. which (i think) stems from how death is one of the few things we know is going to happen to us, and yet we can’t understand it really. we know it is the end but we cannot know anything about it because it is the end. so that intrigues us (and makes us afraid) and then u can add in how we see other people in our life die before we do... basically it all adds up to us being obsessed with understanding and defying our own mortality somehow.

we can see this theme in mcr a lot, the interplay between mortality and defiance and hope... i call it hope vs inevitability and i think it’s especially noticeable in bullets and danger days, because in the other two they’re not really fighting so much as existing side by side... i wrote in notes once that in those albums, the hope is in the inevitable...

in black parade it’s pretty much totally like this; after you die you join the black parade, and your memory will carry on. there is fear going into it, but it very much feels like an album accepting and even embracing the end, not fighting it. accepting it and embracing it with this crazy tone... come one come all to this tragic affair. wipe off that makeup, what’s in is despair... (note: i used to think that line was what sin is despair and i still wonder if that was on purpose). revenge is a bit more complex but i have always thought that beyond the hope of getting the girl back, of bringing her back to life (against the end, against death and mortality) there must also be some relief in death for the guy demo lover... if you would kill a thousand men to get your lover back from the dead, would you die to meet them there? <- maybe i’m wrong; there is still hope vs inevitability here.

in danger days and bullets, though, is where i feel like we see those things ultimately fight; in bullets we have this desperate desire to be immortal and mean something, coupled with the strong feeling that you will die with nothing. that you will die. (i have a post on this theme in the song demolition lovers). then, in danger days we see this theme come with this absolute denial of mortality (killjoys never die) coupled with this intense fear of death and being remembered wrong or not at all. and of course this culminates in them dying. (here is my post on this theme in danger days it’s kinda a mess but so is this post so whatever).

right so we’ve established mcr (and humanity in general) is obsessed with mortality we already knew that though. what does it have to do with queerness.

basically there’s a couple things.

1. the connection of both otherness and love with death (note: this also applies to a lot of minorities but queerness is what’s really applicable to mcr specifically). the extent to which mcr intertwines narratives of love and otherness with death and violence is.... a lot. we see it in every album, i believe; it’s most noticeable in bullets in drowning lessons and demo lovers, in revenge in so many songs i’m not going to try to list them, in black parade in cancer, wttbp and my way home is through you, and in danger days in save yourself, only hope for me, and scarecrow. this was just off the top of my head; there’s probably more songs with examples of this.

this is very queer (at least when done by mcr; as most of mcr is white the issues that come with things like the history of interracial marriage, etc. don’t really apply) because of how for queer people our identities and love can be deadly to us... the history of queer love and identity is obviously marked with violence against the people displaying that love and identity.

straight cis white guys don’t usually talk about death with the connection with love at the forefront, at least not that i’ve seen. every once in awhile they do, i guess, if they’re talking about grief, but otherwise, no. demo lovers is my favorite example of the connection of love with death; especially in the first couple verses, the two seem so linked. the first 2 mentions of death or the end in the song are immediately followed by “with you”... “i’d end my days with you in a hail of bullets,” and “i would drive on to the end with you.”

in the whole demo lovers arc, through bullets and revenge, the themes of death and love are so intertwined it’s impossible to untangle them. if i tried to make a post of all the times in revenge death and love are talked about in the same lyric, as if one thing, i would be screenshotting lyrics all night. of course, if we bring in gwgt theory, and start thinking about how the girl and guy demo lovers are a metaphor for gerard’s relationship with his gender, we can go way further with this too. the simultaneous love story involving these parts of himself, and intertwined violence and death. the fear present... the lyrics that talk at the same time about hurting yourself and being hurt by others... but that’s a different post, really. i’m gonna try to stay more surface level. no speculating on metaphors (today).

in black parade i think we see the connection of otherness with death a lot more than the connection with love, although they’re both still present... in danger days the concept of otherness when associated with death is super clear: killjoys defy the city and become something “other,” which is scorned and hated by BLI/nd, and they get killed for it. love is also a pretty common theme in danger days songs, often intertwined with death, though less obviously than in revenge.

2. just... the extent to which this idea of mortality and death and immortality and memory is talked about is interesting in itself i think. this obsession with our legacy and our mortality is present in a lot of stuff, not just queer stuff, but it’s just everywhere in mcr’s discography (and a lot of the subsequent groups of music related to/associated with mcr, which are also often known for being queer). they constantly talk about how they’ll die, and how they’ll die sooner rather than later, and can they live forever anyway, what does immortality mean after all, will they be remembered, what will their legacy be... etc.

memory and legacy is something i haven’t really talked about, but i think it’s also essential to the conversation. for obvious reasons queer people (and people of a lot of other minorities but i’m only talking about the queer part cuz it’s the most/the only applicable thing here) have a more complicated relationship with how we’ll be remembered and whether we’ll be remembered than cishet people do. how mcr talks about this reminds me a lot of the sappho fragment tumblr passes around ever so often... “someone will remember us / i say / even in another time.” (comparison/parallels post of mcr lyrics and that quote by @milfygerard (and added onto by me) here.)

and that brings us back around to the theme of hope vs inevitability... as i mentioned earlier, this theme isn’t necessarily totally queer on it’s own, but as with talking about memory and legacy the way mcr does, if you talk about it so much that it becomes a core theme in all of your albums it ends up feeling a lot more queer than before. hope vs inevitability in mcr’s work connects to love and death and both at once and is just everywhere. and it ends up connecting to the way a lot of queer people think about our death and our mortality and our hope. and how the future and the past are thought about in connection to these themes i think is kind of queer too — when your history is barely spoken and your present is in hiding, of course you look to the future. despite that that means looking towards the ending. and maybe you embrace that ending, because what else is there to do?

i’m very sorry. this was not short. if you have questions, or want to tell me how i’m wrong, or have your own thoughts, do not be afraid to dm me or send me asks please... fascinating topic.

[the-ghost-of-jason-todd]

“using non-binary as a label is the easy way out because afab wlw can’t accept their own womanhood--”

bruh.  you may have a point in that it can be hard to come to terms with your own sexuality and/or relate to loving women separate from the persistent male-gaze but calling any trans label ‘the easy way out’ is incredibly backwards and i Do Not Care For That Shit.

it’s like a nightmare combination of ‘special snowflake uwu’ accusations and ‘gay men think they’re trans women because they’re doing mental contortion to be heterosexual’ arguments (that’s the original transmedical argument, btw.  that homosexuality could be ‘cured’ by gay men becoming women.  this is how it came to be that gay men like alan turing were chemically castrated with feminizing hormones.  it’s also tied into the medicalization of female sexuality, both cis and trans.  just like.  as a heads up).  

listen, i’ll be the first to admit that gender and sexuality is a hard intersection to think about, especially because we’re limited to whatever common language is in use at the moment.  but man... trans people already fight so hard against a slew of accusations that come at them at every waking moment, from every possible angle, that suggesting they haven’t thought hard enough about Who They Fucking Are is rude at best and damaging/silencing at worst.  i will always encourage people to think deeply about their identity and their existence in conjunction with that identity, but to phrase it as if choosing a trans label is somehow EASIER than choosing a non-het label?  nah.  fucking nah.  not in the western world that i inhabit.

the closet for trans people is a hell of a lot smaller than it is for gay people.  hiding who you kiss vs HOW YOUR FACE LOOKS?  your partner’s pronouns vs your pronouns?  the culture and behavior of gays/lesbians in public spaces vs every single indicator of gender/sex characteristics that every stranger pings fifty times per conversation and feels like they have a RIGHT to know?  yeah, MISS me with that ‘oh boo non-binary is just a way to get around your sexuality and not think too hard about it’ because being non-binary makes me 200% more visible than liking girls ever did.  i had to think VERY FUCKING HARD about being trans.

i just... you cannot possibly think that it’s easy to be trans/nb.  who gets public support?  gay people.  gay men specifically.  most ‘queer’ movies are about gay men.  not bi, not trans, not ace.  trans people are much more likely to be physically hurt just EXISTING.  every month a trans woman walks into a parking lot and gets beat to death like--TRANS=/=EASY.  IN ANY CAPACITY.  i have to explain my transition to EVERYONE.  cishet people, gay people, other trans people.  saying ‘i like girls’ is NOTHING like trying to say ‘i am a boy’.

and honestly... why do you guys like to hate so much?  you hate when kids are questioning and insist they don’t have a space in the community.  yet you hate when they pick a label because oooh what if it’s the WRONG label?  what if they didn’t have the same label journey that YOU had?  obviously they did it wrong!  

you hate the kids who can’t articulate their feelings on their identity, you hate the kids who are just now learning what ‘transgender’ even means, you hate on the kids who come to you asking basic queer theory questions because you’ve somehow forgotten that 90% of our society DOESN’T HAVE AN ANSWER FOR THEM THAT ISN’T “WE DON’T TALK ABOUT THAT, IT’S BAD”

i DO NOT care if an afab lesbian is using a non-binary label.  i DO NOT care if an afab lesbian takes twenty years to unlearn internalized homophobia and can finally call herself a cis-lesbian.  i’m going to support her when she uses non-binary labels and i’m going to support her when she decides that she was just using them as a cover for her true feelings on wlw relationships.  because i TRUST that she had a good reason to sit under the trans umbrella and because i KNOW that gender/sexuality is fluid and no one else needs to answer to me about why they feel the way they do.

like jesus christ, guys.  NOTHING queer is easy.  is it easier to be nb instead of lesbian?  NOT FUCKING LIKELY.  the transphobia and gatekeeping from within the community alone testify to the fact that being nb is hard.  it’s hard even in a designated queer space.  we can talk about how it’s normalized for women to aspire to be a man and adopt masculinity, even in lesbian spaces, and how misogyny and femininity intersect, but that conversation does not cover what it’s like to actually live your life as a trans individual.  nor does it actually cover what makes a lesbian a lesbian!  being ANY type of queer means trying to define a nebulous cloud of a hundred different facets of You and it’s not easy getting to any label!

at the bottom of this whole thing... i do not get the weird trans man vs lesbian narrative people are pushing.  honestly it’s blowing my mind thinking about it all because i’m seeing people fighting over what someone ELSE should identify as and???  there being one more trans man in the world doesn’t somehow take credibility away from lesbians.  same goes the other way.  it isn’t ‘switching sides’ if someone picks one label over the other.  it isn’t ‘faking it’ if someone changes their mind.  there is no false advertising, or transtrending, or whatever the hell.  

we’re all fucking people.  marginalized people, at that.

TL;DR: if you don’t understand why people take up the non-binary label, then stop fucking talking about it because the discussion is not for you and your strange desire to apply your own mental journey onto other people.  go ahead and talk about how you came to your labels, and how internalized homophobia shaped your path, but don’t--don’t.  imply that there are inferior labels or that non-binary identities have no weight.

[drivingsideways]

Could you eleborate on your tags in this post? I really like your metas! If it's not too much trouble! /post/163702439009/do-you-think-flint-enjoys-violence

Hi anon! Well, I’m going to try and keep this short, but it’s about Flint. SO. :D 

I think @sidewaystime did a wonderful job of talking about how Flint’s relationship to violence is a complicated thing. What I was responding to was a post series Discourse that seems to be divided at the moment along whether Silver was ‘right’ to do what he did to stop the war or not. A lot of the argument for the “yes” side of that argument seems to rely on painting Flint as someone whose anger was entirely (a) born of reasons personal and (b) completely out of control. 

So let’s address (b) first. There are examples where Flint’s rage *is * out of control: Charlestown comes to mind, the Maria Aleyne, post Charlestown murders. In fact, post Charlestown and until the Maroon Island [i.e. until he resolves something within himself with the help of Dream-Miranda] is the closest I see him as being completely batshit insane with rage/sorrow/despair. But as I see it: at no point during this time is he unaware of the consequences of what he is feeling/ doing either to himself or other people. I bring this up because I think there’s a tendency to read Flint as unaware of his own True Motives. Some of this comes from the Miranda/Flint fight in 2.05  What she says (yells!), is that he hasn’t been “clear” about his goals TO OTHER PEOPLE. A corollary to that is that he hasn’t been open about what led him to this goal. And this is absolutely true. Flint discusses his grand plans with exactly two people before that- Gates and Eleanor, both of whom remain unaware of the tragedy that drove Flint to Nassau. Miranda is saying that without communication he is closing every door to achieving his goal except the one that leads to more violence. And this is where she says -paraphrased- [you are fighting for the sake of fighting, because that’s the only state you can function in]. And I think people have taken that and run with it as though it was an Eternal, Unchanging Truth about James. Although the very next thing that happens in the plot is that he listens to her and chooses a less violent path. 

And that’s the kind of thing I feel gets missed out: all the times he doesn’t choose a violent option even though it exists. Btw, that is a thing he has done from the first episode. Yes, he kills Singleton brutally, but hey, remember the literal first dialogue that we hear from him in the entire series is him putting a stop to his crew murdering someone? He listens to Eleanor, agrees to a dialogue with Vane in S2. He listens to Miranda about Ashe. Eleanor, again, in S4, in the middle of the freaking war, he allows himself to be taken hostage if it means there may be a chance to win the war without excessive bloodshed, even when that decision is hotly contested by his own people. 

This is not a man who is incapable of not choosing violence, it is a man who deploys violence strategically. This is a man capable of swallowing his pride and anger, if he sees a way to achieve his goal without violence. Is the Peaceful Way his first instinct? NO. But is he incapable of taking that path? NO. 

Here’s Flint in 3.10 telling his back story to Silver: 

Flint: Madness is such a hard thing to define, which makes it such an easy label to affix to one’s enemies. Once it had been applied to Thomas, once our relationship had been exposed, defiled, scandalized… everything ended. There were times that I was persuaded to sue for peace since then, but that was the day that on some level I knew… that England was broken… and that sooner or later a good man must resist it. [emphasis mine]

Ok, let’s back up a bit. Earlier in S3, Flint has a chance to end a war before it even starts, an offer he absolutely refuses.  Why does he? 

3.07, On the beach with Governor Rogers: 

Woodes Rogers: Lord Thomas Hamilton. I didn’t know him, but I understand you did. Miss Guthrie tells me you were part of the first effort with Lord Hamilton and Peter Ashe to introduce the pardon to Nassau. As with most things, the men first into the breach bear the heaviest casualties. But in the hindsight of victory, they were the ones whose sacrifice made it possible. Without Lord Hamilton’s efforts, your efforts, it’s likely I wouldn’t have been successful in my efforts to finally secure the pardon. All I have done here is finish what you began. I am now what you were then. And without you, there would be no me.

Flint: Clever.

Woodes Rogers:  Thank you.

Flint: So that’s what this is. We’re all reasonable men, we all want the same thing. You offer me a pardon, I accept it, this all ends? 

Woodes Rogers: Maybe. The pardons are on the table. No one is being hanged. No one’s even being tried. They’ve all been forgiven, just as you wanted. Just as Thomas Hamilton wanted. So what is it that you’re fighting for that I’m not already offering?

Flint: Thomas Hamilton fought to introduce the pardons to make a point. To seek to change England. And he was killed for it. His wife and I went to Charles Town to argue for the pardons, to make peace with England, and she was killed for it.England has shown herself to me. Gnarled and gray… and spiteful of anyone who would find happiness under her rule. [emphasis mine]

So here we go: Flint listens to Woodes Rogers’ proposal- which sounds exactly like what they were working toward just a few months ago?? But this time he refuses it. Because he sees right through it, and he recognizes that there is no possibility of reconciliation that does not include absolute surrender to England’s [”civilization’s”] Rules. The Rules that include continued slavery. That include men like him being condemned and ostracized. Woodes Rogers’ proposal sounds exactly like Thomas Hamilton’s- except that the intent was completely different- Thomas wanted to change the status quo and Rogers intends to preserve it. 

And you know what? He’s fucking right. Because literally the next fucking thing that happens when Flint refuses, is that Woodes Rogers ceases being “reasonable” and  ALSO tries the oldest trick in the book: gaslighting. 

Woodes Rogers: “ Then let us be very clear about something. I am reasonable in seeking peace. But if you insist upon making me your villain, I’ll play the part. So let us assume that, as of this moment, the unqualified pardon is no more. From this moment on, any man participating in the act of high seas piracy will be presumed to be one of your men, an enemy of the state. I will hunt him, I will catch him, and I will hang him. And while I am aware of your feelings on the subject, I am no backwater magistrate cowering in fear of you. You know where to find me. [emphasis mine]

Right: because somehow demanding freedom from slavery is “making [you] a villain”. 

What I mean to say in the above is that: Flint’s refusal to arrive at a compromise with England is not because he’s “out of control”, it’s because he is clear sighted about how systems of power work. He’s cut through all the bs that is “civilization” as per a colonial power and has found it to be rotten to the core. And that is what he pitches to the Maroon Queen: the absolute truth, not just about England (which she knows already) but also about the consequences. There is no certainty about anything- but trying is better than not. 

And now coming back to (a) which is that Flint’s anger is entirely personal. To which my answer is: of course it is. There are people who can devote themselves to larger causes and fight oppressions that they do not themselves experience personally, and I think those kind of people have amazing empathy, and may we all be more like them.

 But the sad truth is a large number of us do not wake up to systemic injustice until we experience it personally. And then what? Are we supposed to sit on our hands and say, ok, this anger of mine is really selfish because it has its beginnings in something awful that happened to me, and now that i recognize it doesn’t just happen to me, it happens to a whole lot of people both like and unlike me, but I’m not going to do anything about it-because maybe I’m playing out my own issues? 

But (i hear you say), this isn’t just about filing a petition on change.org, it’s literally starting a war. 

Ok, first off: I’ve said it before- the war is already on. Slavery is an act of war. Imprisonment of  “sexual deviants” is an act of war by the State on the individual (and larger queer community). Flint and Madi were attempting to change the terms of it. And secondly, let’s give rest to the idea that it was Flint alone who wanted a war. 

Mr.Scott to Madi: 

Mr.Scott: “ I wish you and I had not been so separate all those years.I wish I could have found a way to be a better father to you. But over time, I was determined to leave you something behind, to give you the one thing that no one could ever take away and that would make you strong enough to understand their world, interact with their world, wage war on their world. But if their identity lies in their stories, I wanted you to know them so that when we are ready to call them enemies, you would be ready for it.”  [emphasis mine]

This is an absolute recognition of what I was saying before: the war was ongoing. Mr.Scott and the Maroon Queen have spent a lifetime to prepare Madi to respond to the war on their people. In Flint, the Maroons had finally found an ally that could actually help them get somewhere. 

And as for Flint, the discovery of the Maroon Island led to another realization: and that was he no longer has to wage war alone. That there is solidarity to be had.  And that came at the end of the period where he was at his most self-destructively lonely. And having found himself on relatively stable ground again, he’s able to both articulate the effect and the use of rage/hatred. 

Here’s a conversation with Silver, in 3.09 about the punishment meted to Dobbs (over attacking one of the Maroon Crew)

Flint: That’s not why you did it.

Silver: Really? Would you like to tell me why I did it, then? 

Flint: Well, I wasn’t there, but, um, I’d hazard the guess that you learned of what had happened, told him how fucking stupid he was, and in that moment, he gave you a look that amounted to something less than contrite. And in that moment, you felt it. 

Silver: Felt what? 

Flint: Darkness. Hate. Showing indifference to the authority that you sacrificed so much to acquire, disdain for refusing to acknowledge that his actions, had you not intervened, would have led to an outcome that he would have held you responsible for reversing. Pride. Questioning what kind of man you are if you don’t seek retribution for the offense.

Silver:  So what are you saying? You saying I went too far with him?

Flint:  Maybe you went too far. Maybe you didn’t go far enough. Maybe you did it just right. The point is that while you were doing it, you heard a voice telling you that disciplining him would prevent him from repeating the offense, a voice that sounded like reason, and there was reason to it, as the most compelling lies are comprised almost entirely of the truth. But that’s what it does. Cloaks itself in whatever it must to move you to action. And the more you deny its presence, the more powerful it gets, and the more likely it is to consume you entirely without you ever even knowing it was there. Now, if you and I are to lead these men together, you must learn to know its presence well so that you may use it… Rather than it use you.  [emphasis mine]

Silver: You have some experience with this, I imagine, living in fear of such a thing within you? 

Flint: Yeah, I do.

Silver:  I can’t tell if this was a warning or a welcome.

To repeat: this is not a man who is wandering around in blind, selfish rage that’s indiscriminately targeted and can only be quenched by blood. This is a man who’s been through hell and come out on the other side, and then says “I cannot believe we’re as poorly made as that”. Which makes me want to burst into tears, even as I type this. 

 OK WOW. I NEED TO STOP. I’m not sure if this is what you wanted to hear, anon. :) 

[habibialkaysani]

okay, let me preface this with a little note about my identity. I am a queer, mentally ill muslim british cis woman of colour. specifically, I was born in britain and my parents both hail from bangladesh. I am not white or black or latinx. so my opinions will - understandably, I hope - be from the perspective I am offering based on the intersecting parts of my identity.

so, let’s start with that. as a nonblack woc, I think it’s pretty patronising to be told that you don’t have to be black to be a person of colour. I know that. I don’t need that explained to me when I am literally not even black to start with. nowhere in my post did I say a mixed race pairing requires a black person. of course it would be interracial if someone was latinx. rene/thea is interracial. so is cisco/caitlin, and amy/jake, and those are just off the top of my head. pairings involving asian people are also interracial - wally/linda, for instance, and lena/jack. and while not latinx myself, I am aware of the issues latinx people face, enough for me to know that of course they are people of colour. I never said that latinx people face the exact same struggles as black people. I know they don’t, although they do overlap at least insofar that they’re groups that deserve far better.

my focus on black people in this post, btw, was partly to address the antiblackness I see in my own racial community. but also, me making the focus on antiblackness in my post does nothing in and of itself to dismiss other poc or, as you’ve suggested, throw other poc under the bus.

and that brings me to my main point. as far as I was aware, for a character to be considered racial representation and thus a person of colour onscreen, I thought the person portraying that character had to be, at the very, very least, a person of colour also and preferably also at least the same race as the character purports to be.

let me put this another way. as a desi woman, I would not have considered jack spheer to be desi if he was portrayed by a white actor who’s a bit tanned, calls himself bengali onscreen and calls his mother “amma” and, idk, eats rice and curry every day, and thus I would not consider him bengali representation because he was whitewashed. I was under the impression that a similar logic could be applied here, because, yes, maggie calls herself nonwhite and andrew kreisberg called her latina and she spoke spanish to her father, but floriana lima is still white. if you personally feel like whitewashed representation counts as representation, fine. but to me, sanvers is just another white wlw ship that the racist white non straight fandom flocked to because god forbid they give an interracial ship, irrespective of genders, a chance. I listed it because I was trying to make that very point - and, absolutely, if maggie were portrayed by an actual latinx actress, I would never suggest that sanvers is the same representation wise as clexa, wayhaught, cophine, avalance, etc., because there would be a person of colour who could potentially make the pairing important and groundbreaking and different. but she’s not. floriana is white. chyler is white.

now, I don’t know a lot of latinx people on here, so I’m not sure what the general consensus is on this. but I have seen latinx people speak out against maggie being whitewashed. at the same time, I fully acknowledge that I am not latinx myself, so if you think that representation that is so watered down and in your own words flawed is still adequate, fine. but put simply, me slighting maggie sawyer or sanvers with regards to racial representation isn’t me slighting latinx people at all. because maggie, to me, at least, and to a fair few others, isn’t truly latinx when she is portrayed by a tanned white actress. just like an ~exotic-looking white woman does not desi representation make. *coughamyjacksoncough*

I feel like poc should be in solidarity with each other. and if I said anything against samantha arias, rosa diaz, amy santiago, cisco ramon, rene ramirez or any of the other latinx characters on tv who are genuinely portrayed by actual latinxs, I do apologise. but in this instance, I can’t in good conscience consider maggie a woman of colour when the actress portraying her is white and she is clearly whitewashed, and therefore, I don’t see sanvers as a truly interracial relationship when they clearly are not in reality.

fandom racism is a huge problem, I agree. but you pointing this out doesn’t help. in this instance, I’m pretty sure it was supergirl and floriana lima who whitewashed a character who was meant to be a woc, not the fandom. the fandom whitewashing actual poc played by poc is what you should be calling out - zari tomaz, for instance, is often whitewashed in edits, and people assume sameen shaw is white even though she’s persian. people lauding chyler leigh and caity lotz, two straight white women, for being lgbt ~allies when maisie richardson sellers and keiynan lonsdale, two non-straight black people, are right there being as straight and white as a rainbow, is fandom racism. the 100 fandom practically starting a riot over a fridged white lesbian who wore brownface and a bindi and then staying radio silent or, worse, defending poussey washington’s death is what you call fandom racism.

I get that you mean well, but I did not say anywhere in my post that I felt nonblack poc were in any way less important than black people. me focusing on one race of people in no way diminishes the importance of other (nonwhite) races. if you truly consider maggie sawyer a woman of colour, good for you. I don’t, and I won’t until they decide to recast her with an actual latinx person (which is highly unlikely). so please don’t assume all other poc share your view, and don’t label my behaviour as ignorant or careless. 

- same anon as before, that's understanable. and i'm sorry for the racism that you do get. i'm glad you're able to just ignore it, and that most people respect you. (and for the a*dena,l*xa,s*ra thing) that makes sense. i like them all as characters. but the fandom saying that l*xa is wearing the helm of awe? (not sure if that's what they call it, but it is a bindi, that's just awful. s*ra being shipped with only white women, makes sense. i haven't watched lot for awhile. - p1

p2. but i did hear about the fandom shipping her with “new” character called a*ya? ev*? i’m not sure. and i was a bit confused, if they had like 5 lines together. (if ev*) now that i think about it, she is white right?

yeah, her name is ava, and they’re clearly building up to it and that’s - whatever, but just. five white women and one fleeting poc (leonard) and one woc who isn’t even mentioned by name this season does not diversity make. 

it’s sad that that more subtle racism exists, but what’s sadder is that fandoms on the whole don’t want to admit that it’s a thing and that we’re complicit in that racism. and I say “we” because I’m guilty of it too. I remember when I was watching poi and I was for some reason reluctant to ship carter with reese. just like how I was initially reluctant to ship sara with jax romantically. even tho in both cases the ships had wonderful dynamics. I’m not saying that everyone who brotps them is racist. but this refusal to view black people as love interests for white people is definitely a worrying trend - look at finn in star wars, for example, or even iris west with barry allen and to some extent amaya jiwe with nate heywood. it’s this less blatant racism that most if not the vast majority of us are guilty of to some degree that I think we need to recognise in ourselves and try to do better with. and that doesn’t mean you can’t ship sara with ava, or kara with lena or cat, or, hell, even maggie with alex, but I just think we also have to recognise that that racist bias exists and is a real thing, and, I don’t know, just try to do better by taking a step back and seeing where that racism inherent in all of us is manifesting itself.