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Vote now for Ship of the Year by liking and reblogging your OTP here on Tumblr! Remember, notes = votes, so  be sure to show your favorite ship some love and tune into the 2016 @mtvfandom Awards on July 24th at 8/7c to see who wins!

Art by @sheep-in-clouds

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A very well written essay on the layers of homophobia hidden within the dead lesbian trope and why it matters to adress those too.

Lexa’s death and the closeting of Clarke Griffin

Javier Grillo-Marxuach, who wrote the fateful episode of The 100 that killed off Alycia Debnam-Carey’s beloved character, defended the decision storytelling-wise, but also hypothesized what went wrong.

“I don’t think that the failure here was to discuss it, the failure was to recognize the cultural impact it would have outside the show,” he said. “…And to act accordingly outside of the show.” - http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/bury-your-gays-atx-festival-901800

The failure here was not only not recognizing the cultural impact it would have outside the show, it was both not knowing the roots of the trope in stark homophobic terms (that it was policy for tv, movies, & books to never let gay people have happy endings, usually ending in death), and having a writing staff that also couldn’t recognize the full real life context into which their story was being placed and from where it was being viewed.

“The 100” not only fell headlong into the trope (or, it could be argued, jumped into it with complete disregard), it managed to write a perfect storm of homophobic tropes, while seemingly being completely unaware of the dangerous messages it was sending to both LGBT viewers and homophobic viewers alike. To start, there was the “find happiness, have gay sex, get dead” part, which it must be noted, does not have to be intentional to still reinforce the notion of “punishment for being gay”. But there are two other MAJOR parts of this which haven’t been addressed a lot in the mainstream and need to be, for the sake of understanding the width and breadth of how these tropes operate to undermine the humanity of the LGBT audience watching them take place. The second part of this is the relationship between Lexa and Titus, the man who accidentally shot her. Titus was Lexa’s advisor, who had played a huge role in raising her as a child and represents a sort of father figure for her. His target was her lover Clarke, who Titus felt had too much influence over Lexa and who he felt was turning her against the “traditional” ways of their people. Hm. Sound familiar? It’s his adherence to “traditional values” that leads him to attack Clarke, and in the chaos, accidently shoot Lexa. A father figure kills his queer daughter while trying to kill her queer lover. Nothing too lifelike about that, right? Except sometimes, parents of queer children do these things. In 2015, a man was indicted on charges of killing his lesbian daughter and her lover and leaving them behind a dumpster in Houston, Texas. Her mother says the reason was because he was angry about her “lifestyle.”   In March of this year, a gay man was found dead, his father suspected of killing him for being gay. 

In 2010, a father was indicted for the murder of his daughter’s lover. People close to the couple maintain the reason was because they were lesbians. 

I could go on and on with more examples. And that’s the point. Queer people are intimately acquainted with violence from parents and parental figures simply because of their sexual orientation (and for younger people, their inability to escape from it). Most of the time it’s not murder, sometimes it’s just physical violence, and sometimes it’s just psychological. But all of those things are real, and most queer people have experienced them, either directly or indirectly (via the experiences of partners or friends). Straight people don’t know this relationship to familial violence directly connected to their sexuality in the same intimate way. So either the writers didn’t see this connection and how impactful it would be to put this beloved queer character through the same thing, or they did, and they capitalized on it for maximum effect. Either way, the result was disastrous. What was already an intensely painful experience for LGBT viewers based sheerly on the exhaustive repetitiveness of seeing beloved queer characters they felt such deep connections to fall to the  “Dead Lesbian Trope”, had added impact due to the personal nature of the violence itself.

The third problem is the least talked about thus far, because it’s not as direct and is spread out over the remaining episodes of the season: the closeting of Clarke Griffin. Over the course of the rest of the season, Clarke speaks about Lexa to her friends in abstraction. She talks about Lexa in context of “the chip” (where Lexa’s consciousness is stored) several times, but her reactions are curiously bereft of any mention of her feelings or relationship with Lexa. The only time she shows her friends any emotions at all regarding Lexa are when an AI-controlled character tries to get a rise out of her by saying she probably got Lexa killed. She gets angry and threatens her, but again, nothing else. Moments where mutual pain and support could have been shared with other (straight) characters who had publicly spoken about and grieved similar losses were ignored completely. The only time post-Lexa’s death that Clarke ever acknowledges her feelings are when a stranger (Luna) asks if she had feelings for Lexa and she says yes. But she notes “Lexa was special” without also noting that the feelings were reciprocal. No “I was in love with her”, no “we were together.” Nothing.   So even counting that exchange, Clarke never ONCE tells anyone about their relationship. Even in the finale, after Lexa appears in the AI-based City of Light and saves her, she doesn’t tell anyone who saved her and why once she is safely back in the real world. Nor does she express her grief at losing Lexa again. The decision to keep Clarke mum about her feelings and relationship to Lexa is absolutely closeting her character. That is the very nature of the closet: being queer and being quiet about it. And one of the things that I and many other fans repeatedly stated, was that we needed Clarke to speak of her in terms of their relationship, and we needed for her to show some feelings, some grief. Something to show that her feelings and their relationship meant something. Something, anything. But it never happened. And again, this is something that could just be straight writers completely not understanding the necessity of a queer character giving voice (and thereby legitimacy) to their emotions and feelings, but it’s hard to read it as anything BUT intentional, given that everyone else (straight) who lost someone on the show is allowed to speak of their loss (even if they are not allowed much time to grieve in the middle of a war). Regardless of motive, it absolutely belies the repeated statements from showrunner Jason Rothenberg that sexuality is something that “no longer matters” in the world of “The 100.” Even if giving a generous read to the intent of the writers as just being ignorant to the layers and complexities that come with writing a queer character in a decidedly still homophobic society, it must be mentioned that the ignorance itself is absolutely a contributor to homophobia and heterocentrism.

The unsubtle message it sends to LGBT people is that our relationships are doomed to end in violence, that our families will not accept us (and might even be the ones to kill us), and that unlike our heterosexual counterparts, our silence about ourselves and our loves is required, even when grieving the loss of a lover to death. And the message it sends to homophobes and virulently anti-gay types is one of validation, reinforcing their beliefs that our punishment for loving should be death and our silence is mandatory.

These shows do not take place in a vacuum. We invite them into our lives (literally into our homes) and we see our culture both reflected and influenced by what goes on in them. It’s the job of writers to understand exactly what it is they are saying with their writing, to understand the historical and social context when they bring in characters who belong to marginalized groups, and to ask themselves if there are messages they are sending that they missed entirely because they didn’t bother to check their stories with anyone (or listen, because believe me, we were telling them long before this happened) who belong to those groups. Javier’s not wrong in this statement (and I give him a lot of credit for listening and learning to queer fans in the days following Lexa’s death). Still, it’s important that he and those who come after understand not just that Lexa’s death was problematic. They need to truly grasp that how it happened and what came after it not only drove the knife in deeper for LGBT fans, but also undermined the argument that the roots of it were benevolent storytelling. Avoiding these tropes in the future means not only understanding how the death part of the trope works, but understanding the other subtle layers of homophobia that still lurk beneath the surface in the minds of even the best-intentioned people. The social conditioning that feeds it will continue to be reproduced culturally until those who create culture stop repeating it.

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It has a giant freaking candle lit at the center, if that isn't the ultimate symbol of hope than I don't know what is.. Jason must have been terribly confused.

I watched the inside to the last ep and jrot said something along the lines that Polis was never a place of hope and it just made me feel really empty.

Consider this next time, don’t watch the videos at all. Why would we give them views? Save the time and send a few emails to their sponsors instead~

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It’s been two months without lexa. When will it get any easier? I wrote this last night in an attempt to get some thoughts on paper. Soon the lines blurred and I realized I was writing from Clarke’s experience as well..

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Time and space are dimensions only in the mortal existence. Some believe that the soul doesn’t reincarnate chronologically throughout history, but chooses different time periods before being born again. Some believe that in the experience of the soul every lifetime, every moment happens at the same time, but while in this existence, we view it through the scope of time. Some believe in parallel universes, where for every choice we make a different path has been chosen leading to different experiences. Some believe there are different universes than ours, with different laws of nature governing all of life.

Who says it can’t be all of the above? A soul moving beyond this universe, entering parallels or even completely different universes from ours? For all we know there is a parallel universe where Jason manned the f*ck up and fulfilled his promise, signing ADC on the show and the Clexa fandom over there never even set out on collectively creating Elyza Lex. Although it saddens me to think they’d never have that representation, aren’t all our fix it fics a possibility for a parallel universe in a sense? Just like a complete rewrite of the series from the first troublesome point: the start.. Choosing the narrative from the invader/colonialist perspective was asking for trouble in the first place.

The possibilities are infinite..

Lexark takes place in 2016

Clexa takes place in 2151-52

Clexa is not a past life. It’s a alternative universe. And they exist in many universes, the one dread is one of them. You could even say lexark is a past life but they exist long before clexa. Stopcallingclexapastlife2016

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At least it has less plotholes than the actual series..

omg that was such a short season rip 😩😩

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This does reflect the difference between the two shows quite well though. I mean where Game of Thrones is the big boom in the business, the loo just barely is more than a regular signal fire..

The 100 3.13 | Game of Thrones 2.09 for a change!!!

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If that nuclear radiation can scorche the leg hair off, than I might just ‘fuck it’ too!

break your own news + the 100 (1/?)

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wlw reblog this and tag the first actress/model/singer that you saw and went “holy shit”

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This is so not okay. People, where is your brain?

Why being a manip artist for certain fandoms SUCK (a visual explanation)

So, you start shipping a pair. Everything is good and nice. You start reading the fanfiction, following the popular tumblrs. If you are lucky enough, you have some skill for making manips, so you think, hey, maybe I can start making manips for this ship? People would be so grateful, we all get to see our favourite girls being in love, and break all the tropes that usually bring us down in mainstream media. Yeah fuck the system!.  You start publishing your manips, all shy and hopefull and filled with joy, So this happen: 

Everyone loves it, you get reblogs, Some people repost it without credit, you don’t like it, but hey, what you gonna do.

Then you find these kind of things: 

I mean, I stg I don’t get why these people TAKE THE FUCKING HARD WORK to blur everything so neatly. If you have photoshop skills pal, DO YOUR OWN fucking manips right? Well, no.  So I complain, i don’t think people would change their minds but at least, I get it off my chest right? Well No. what do I get when I complain? 

to these people, all I say is FUCK YOU pal. F U C K you hard in the ass. You don’t deserve it, but I’ll school you anyway: 

so this is my freaking truth bomb. Being a manip artist for certain fandoms is the most unfulfilling motherfucking hobby on this planet and all I am getting currently from spending countless hours and skill are 15-year olds being ungrateful little assholes, belittling me and making me feel like useless disposable crap.   If you wonder, this particular image is all over fucking twitter and instagram with my sig blurred now, of course.

It literally costs 0 dollars and it takes 0 seconds to proper credit artists even if all you want is stupid shallow likes on your social media. 

So if you wonder, why won’t I post manips in a while, (for this particular fandom at minium) this is your explanation,

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“The gentle friction of your hand on my thigh is enough to strike a match inside me. I lean into your lips and the fire blossoms and spreads. “

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Not to mention that by saying 'blood must have blood' she practically reduces lexa ' s character once again to the evil villain. Just when you think they can't drop any lower after that remark that reduced alie to a mere AI. I'm not sure if 'death is not the end' would have been much better in that regard with the parallel from jaha/alie, but at least she believed genuinely in reincarnation. And I was sorely disappointed they wrote the scene as it was.

i would have given literally everything for clarke to guess "death is not the end" instead of "blood must have blood" when they were trying to figure out what the phrase was to activate the chip. it's like they intentionally made clarke forget about what was actually important to lexa. "death is not the end" would have held so much weight considering all clarke's going through in terms of her emotional state currently. it would have been endlessly better.

god forbid they let clarke’s character make sense anymore. have to break her down to make bellini look good 

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PLEASE BOOST

http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Police-Investigating-Kidnapping-of-17-Year-Old-Girl-376867311.html?_osource=SocialFlowFB_DFWBrand

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This is great!

A Pledge to the LGBTQ Fandom

Over the last few weeks, the LGBT Fans Deserve Better movement has been advocating to achieve real change in the quality of LGBTQ representation in the media, giving hope to the LGBTQ community everywhere –that our stories matter and our lives are important. 

In an attempt to create such a change and to improve the representation of the LGBTQ community in the media, the writers and producers of the CTV Network show Saving Hope co-created a pledge to the LGBTQ Fandom. 

Sonia Hosko and Noelle Carbone were in the writers room when the ‘bury your gays tropes’ discussion had reached a focal point on Social Media. The Saving Hope crew were incredibly supportive, wonderful, open minded people who were really willing to listen and understand the problem and get behind a solution. After sitting down and taking into consideration what LGBTQ fans wanted to see in terms of change in representation, as well as things which were clearly unacceptable and needed to be voiced, all the creators of the pledge came together to put together to put together a list of 7 points which we believe will allow change as well as prevention in future writing of LGBTQ characters. 

The entire Saving Hope writers room set precedent as the first to sign the pledge, showing the LGBTQ community that they are ready to take this journey with us and most importantly we have been heard. 

LGBTQ representation is a complex issue that requires multi-layered solutions. Change is not an easy task. But with continued coverage, what started as backlash over Commander Lexa’s mishandled, trope-ridden on-screen death, has the potential to grow into a culture-shifting power: This movement has gone beyond the realms of fandom and into mainstream media, a vital step that has added strength and legitimacy to young LGBTQ voices.

lgbtfansdeservebetter.com  is honored to have been given the opportunity to collaborate with its creators to present to you the Pledge to the LGBTQ Fandom, an important step towards achieving this goal.

www.lgbtfansdeservebetter.com/pledge

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And not just any vampires, let me tell you! The gay af vampire that sparkles in sunlight from diamond skin! The kind that has crazy hidden talents all in the name of teasing sin.. 

At least a bullet won’t kill them now! But perhaps they are more in danger than ever to combust in flames from all the teasing. They perhaps should leave a bucket filled with icy water nearby..

Kindly consider Clexa as immortals who fuck in all the tourist spots around the world. They always take at least one picture (before, during, and/or after) and they stick it in an album that they like to look back on.

I’ve been toying with an idea of Immortal Clexa for a while now… I might have been thinking of them as vampires, as well. It’s all @yesternightscribe fault, really.

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Hallelujah!

A dutch company owner just got fined for refusing an intern on the basis of his sexual orientation!

Freedom of religion doesn’t hold precedence over law..