#In all seriousness I head canon all of them as non binary or gender queer to a degree except for marius who hates trainsgenders | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tuiyla · 2 years

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Out of curiosity, then, how would you rank pezberry duets by queerness?

I'm so glad you asked! And so glad about your post about WSS the other day because it already gave me motivation to finally write down what I've been thinking about since November but this ask was that extra push. Answering took a couple of days because I really have been thinking about this for so long haha. Pezberry peeps? This one’s for you 😘

So as a bit of a preamble, I did originally want to take a more serious queer musicology look but writing ~proper~ things takes even more time than anticipated so this actual end result should only be taken with 48 to 56% seriousness. We’re just having fun pointing out how gay literally everything Pezberry do is. But that said, we’re still brining some queer theory into it for the funsies, which for the purposes of this post just means that we’re reading into the context and presentation of these duets to make a case for The Gays. Since Santana is canonically a lesbian, it won’t even be that much of a stretch. (Okay, but more seriously queer theory encompasses a lot, including the rejecting of binary gender and sexuality norms, fluid identities and all that good stuff. Media is a lot of fun when looked at in this way.)

Another disclaimer we get into it is a few words on diegesis because I need us to be on the same page. So Things, in this case music that exists within the actual story and is heard by characters is diegetic, whereas soundtrack that exists outside of the story’s internal narrative is non-diegetic. In or out of universe to put it simply. In Glee we have examples of both, the majority of the music, by nature of the show, being diegetic. The New Directions singing Don’t Stop Believin’ at Regionals is diegetic: they really are singing, everyone can hear them, and it’s even a plot point in this particular case. Now, this could actually be disputed because this isn’t strictly what non-diegetic means, but for simplicity’s sake in this already overcomplicated silly Pezberry duet ranking we’re gonna call fantasy sequences and songs not actually performed non-diegetic ones. So for example, Mercedes singing Bust Your Windows and vibing with the Cheerios in her imagination would be considered non-diegetic, because though it is happening on-screen and in her head, it’s not an actual performance within the show’s universe. The line between diegetic and non-diegetic gets murkier as Glee goes on but today we only care about eight songs anyway. I’ll get into why this matters to us with relevant songs.

Speaking of! Let’s finally get into it. Ranking Pezberry duets by how capital g Gay as in queer they are. To be clear, I think all can be read as at least a lil’ fruity so keep that in mind as we start at the bottom of our list. Listen, they’re all queer one way or another.

8. I Kissed a Girl

But OP! Really, the one literally about kissing a girl being so low? Well, yes. And no, it’s not my undying, pure hatred for the eponymous episode or that “it should have been a Brittana song” (Yikes) or anything. It’s that I Kissed a Girl is low-hanging fruit; so low, in fact, that it tips the scale into being “not all that gay”. The most obvious reason for this lies with the, to put it diplomatically, messy nature of the episode itself and the scene it’s in, as the whole thing is an incredibly half-assed #girlpower moment covered in the stink of the male gaze. How Glee fails miserably in this scene that was supposed to empower Santana and the girls’ support of her is a conversation for another day, but the context of the episode is not the only reason IKAG (the duet) ranks so low.

Katy Perry’s I Kissed a Girl has a... complicated history and it occupies a rather unique position within the queer community and queer readings. It’s been claimed, rejected and reclaimed time and time again and I actually encourage people to find whatever power they can in queer readings of media (queer theory hellooo) but it’s still a messy song presented in a messy context. Melina Pendulum has an interesting video on the topic that explores many aspects of the song, including the Pezberry Glee cover so I recommend checking that out.

After having rewatched bits of it I’m more inclined to cut IKAG the Pezberry cover some slack. After all, purely in-universe it is curious Rachel of all people would be the one to sing with Santana. Out of universe, we understand that they couldn’t be bothered to give her any role in The Outing, as an outspoken queer ally who probably should have decked her boyfriend had she been part of the story, so this will do. It fulfills the mandatory Lea Michele song requirement anyway so two birds one stone, zero narrative consequence or resonance - welcome to Glee season 3!

But round two of trying to put my anti-IKAG the episode bias aside, there is still a queer reading of the duet. And male gaze notwithstanding, it is Pezberry singing about at least some form of Sapphic interest and like I said I think there is space for claiming I Kissed a Girl as an actual queer song instead of the bait it is. That’s all the slack I can cut it today, though, so even do Santana and Rachel sound great and I love their cover out of context, it’s gonna have to contend with eighth place.

7. Be Okay

On a lot of days this is my favourite Pezberry duet, top 3 at least so it’s hard to put it so low. But the thing is, as fun and wonderful as it is as a performance I do think it lacks the kind of spark that makes Pezberry duets and indeed their whole dynamic so interesting to me. Looked at within the context of the story, that’s not a problem at all because Be Okay marks the end of their feud and the foundation of a new dynamic, one less explosive and perhaps more stable. It just so happens that the explosive nature of Pezberry is what makes them sexually charged in my eyes.

Still, Be Okay is not devoid of potential queerness. It is Pezberry making up after their feud, which read a lot like an actual bad breakup between bitches who never even dated. Be Okay makes their relationship less intense but it’s not only in their intensity where their fruitiness lies. The good vibes of the song and the contentedness with where they are and, given their complicated history, even the conveyed willingness to look to the future does give the idea that it’s Pezberry 2.0 (perhaps 3.0) that we’re seeing. It’s a celebration of what they have, so while not very radical or rich for convention-breaking interpretations, it is a song about them being willing to put the effort into their relationship, whatever the nature of that might be. It’s also them choosing the song and then performing it in front of all their friends, making it a public declaration of positive feelings. The lyrics aren’t too deep in terms of potential queerness or anything but they are fairly straightforward in what they’re saying: Pezberry are gonna be okay.

Overall I think the most convincing argument for Be Okay is that it does feel like making up after a bad breakup, but imo the “breakup” itself makes for a more compelling queer reading and this performance feels pretty mild by Pezberry standards. Then again, if we read it as them maturing past their differences and as a potential for a future relationship, it is pretty queer. And queer readings aren’t just about whether the characters are gay and in a relationship, because Pezberry canonically aren’t, plus Santana is a lesbian so we don’t need to make a case for her in that sense. But looking at performances through these lens is about seeing that transgressional and queer, and one (moi) could argue that there is something convention-breaking about Pezberry being even “just” friends in the first place. Anyway, moving on.

6. A Hard Day’s Night

Adorable hug aside, here’s where diegesis starts becoming relevant and the reason it’s in the bottom half. You see, this number is so low because it feels very jukebox-y. Not just in that, diegetically, the music literally is coming from a jukebox in the scene but the performance is contrived in that way. Pezberry are singing a Beatles song because the New Directions are having a Beatles week. They’re also singing waitresses now and Rachel wants to show off in front of the Funny Girl producers. Diegesis here also means that, because of these justifications in the story and them singing in-universe, it’s easier to dismiss the potential romantic/sexual and therefore queer undertones of the song.

What I mean by that is why I spent half the introduction explaining diegesis. If Santana and Rachel actually picked the song or, heaven forbid, just imagined singing it instead, we could read more into the lyrics as it would come across as more of a conscious - or subconscious! - choice. The way it is, with the jukebox nature of tribute episodes especially we just chalk all it up to the way Glee is. They’re singing this song because they’re singing this song, simple as that. And sure, the same could be said about all songs and even the one I’ll end up putting in first place, but like I said it’s that extra jukebox feel that gives me less queer vibes from A Hard Day’s Night.

Still, let’s not dismiss it entirely. Yes, Rachel is singing for unrelated reasons and Santana is singing because she’s also working there and a main character, but there’s still a queer reading to appreciate. A Hard Day’s Night as a song can be read quite suggestively and since Pezberry are actual roommates at this point in the story, lyrics like

When I'm home, everything seems to be right When I'm home feeling you holding me tight Tight, yeah!

and

But when I get home to you I find the things that you do Will make me feel alright

sure can be interpreted a certain way. The performance is capped off with the hug as seen above as well and generally marks the beginning of Pezberry’s season 5A closeness so the Vibes are there. Fun and kinda fruity and the whole “oh my god they were roommates” aspect of it can be elaborated on, but the jukebox nature does get points off from me. It feels less like Pezberry actively choosing to sing this song in particular and more like they’re just having fun, which is still valid and ground for gay vibes but it only takes A Hard’s Day Night so far.

5. We Found Love

These mid-range ones are quite interchangeable and coming to realize the ranking itself doesn’t matter as much as the reasonings, methinks, but anyway. We Found Love is curious in that I think this is the most random one to be a Pezberry duet. My counterargument for A Hard Day’s Night was that it’s a jukebox number performed by the two because they were the ones there, but the opposite is true for this one. The whole Glee Club was available and in the swimming pool to provide the soundtrack for Wemma’s engagement so, even though this wasn’t their first duet, it feel random to have Rachel and Santana sing it.

Normally when we think of ND group numbers that are actually just duets, it tends to be Finchel ones. Think the Pilot Don’t Stop Believin’ or Keep Holding On, among others. Rachel and Santana were part of the “help Will find a proposal song” project, yes, but only part of it. I suppose ignoring Tina and Mercedes is nothing new but there were other characters like Artie actively involved too and it’s not like Kevin McHale wouldn’t have also sounded great on the track. I mean, we can make it make sense from Doylist lens of course: Lea was just getting her usual singing feature fill and Naya was at this point on her way to becoming the second most prominent female voice of the season, and both characters were part of the storyline as previously mentioned so really just why not. I feel like that was the reasoning behind a lot of GCVs.

But pondering about the reasons aside, we do reach the diegesis point again where, if Rachel and Santana weren’t just singing this so their teacher could propose we could make more of a queer reading point. If they chose to sing a song with a repetitive lyrics that mostly just goes “we found love in a hopeless place” as a ~proper~ duet in, say season 5, or heck in place of Be Okay, we’d be having a different conversation. The way it is, We Found Love falls into the bottom half for that easy to dismiss quality. It primarily reads as a Wemma song rather than a Pezberry one. Rachel and Santana barely even appear in the same shot for the performance.

But you know, it’s still fifth because there’s a case to be made that Pezberry chose it themselves, or at least were chosen in-universe by Will/ND to sing it. The lyrics, taken out of the Wemma context do fit a romantic Pezberry AU and imo We Found Love overall has a stronger argument for being significant to them as characters than A Hard Day’s Night. But honestly I might change my mind about that by the time we get to end of this, like I said the ranking itself isn’t set in stone.

4. A Boy Like That/I Have a Love

When I clicked the answer button I didn’t realize this was going to be so high, as I believe I actually said it was mid-tier in reply to your post. Coming to think of it now, yeah it’s more like solid top half. What immediately strikes me about A Boy Like That is all the layers: the acting layer of Santana and Rachel playing Anita and Maria, the context of the many versions of West Side Story and how we could borrow from any number of these to make a case for a queer reading. So in my four months of thinking about this I wanted to but didn’t end up researching whether queer takes on the original text (and in this case, be that the musical or either of the movies) of West Side Story exist. I’m just going to assume there’s at least one queer theorist out there who looked at Maria and Anita’s dynamic through these lens.

Within Glee, we don’t see them to the entirety of West Side Story but crucially we do get this duet. And it’s a narratively important one, too, though not for Pezberry reasons. In the episode the performance is divided into two and first intercut in a signature Glee subtlety way with Sebastian’s introduction. A boy like that, be careful with a boy like that, get it? Good job Glee, good job. The Riverdale guy wrote this episode in case you were wondering. And then the second half is again intercut but with Tina counterarguing against the rest of the girls who are trying to convince Rachel not to sleep with Finn. I have more thoughts on the scene itself and Santana’s role but for the purposes of this already long ask, we’ll just consider Rachel’s dilemma a parallel to Maria’s undying love for Tony.

So we could easily use the “they’re acting” argument to dismiss this, just as we can dismiss A Hard Day’s Night as a jukebox performance and We Found Love as a Wemma set piece. But there are reasons why I’m ranking it relatively high, and I’ll be honest, one of them is just how Naya plays Santana playing Anita. There’s a genuine feeling of Santana/Anita not wanting Rachel/Maria to get with her guy, and because of that combination with the Glee girls scene there is a case to be made here, like in your post rachelberyy, that Santana doesn’t want Rachel to be with Finn. Yes, okay, again the characters are acting in a musical but that doesn’t mean it can’t be a reflection of how they actually feel - hello intercutting A Boy Like That with Sebastian’s intro what’s up. And this is very much a reading into things post and I’ve barely gone off the rails yet so I think it’s time. Santana was begging Rachel not to be with Finn 2k22.

No but really, it’s that West Side Story layer that simultaneously makes a case for a queer reading here but also makes it harder to argue for it, since they are just rehearsing for the school musical. I think this could have been more meaningful had Glee made Santana’s role as Anita a bigger part of the WSS episodes but other casting choices had drama and there was no question about Anita so I guess it makes sense they wouldn’t focus on it much. Without that deeper compare and contrast of the Glee characters with the WSS ones the queer case for A Boy Like That becomes weaker but by no means impossible. And again the layers of it make it more intriguing for me than previous ones where there’s less to play around with.

3. So Emotional

Went back and forth on the ranking of this but, despite being diegetic which we’ll get to, there’s tension here. The beginning of that juicy Pezberry spark that makes them so interesting to people in the first place. So Emotional is one with arguments and counterarguments. First, looking at diegesis and points that could be deducted, it is a song performed by the two of them for Glee Club. It’s also a tribute episode song like A Hard Day’s Night but I actually think this one stands on more solid grounds because Pezberry are still students themselves doing an assignment, instead of oh so randomly choosing the Beatles the same week ND are covering them.

Because of the context of an assignment and of Rachel and Santana clearly singing to their respective partners during the song, the relationship vibes are weakened but not entirely. In-universe, they still presumably decided on the song together and could have easily gone with any other Whitney Houston song, so choosing one that’s so charged is certainly, well, a Choice. Looking outside of the performance itself for this one as well, So Emotional also canonically marks the true beginning of a Pezberry friendship and is referred to as such. Although it’s chronologically their fourth duet, in many ways it’s threated as their first because it’s the first time Rachel and Santana sing together because they want to sing together. Not because of a musical, or a group number, or whatever IKAG really was in-universe, but because there’s a tribute week and they chose to do a song together.

In light of that, though we can acknowledge they direct the sexual/romantic feelings of the song towards their partners and perform as part of the club we can still use that information. Once again, it’s a Choice to go with So Emotional and there are lyrics in there that we could easily apply to their later dynamic; very charged, very emotional one could say. Far be it from me to say it was thinking ahead on the creators’ part and that wouldn’t matter, anyway, because authorial intent, as I’ll get to very soon, doesn’t matter to us when assessing just how gay Pezberry are during their duets. And So Emotional is just one of those where yes, we can recognize they’re not canoncially singing about each other but it still has the Vibes and still exists within the context of them growing closer.

If I want to be honest I should put it lower if we really were looking through a more academic queer lens because I think some performances I ranked lower would have better arguments. So Emotional doesn’t do much to challenge notions of heterosexuality, not outright and most of what it does is further establish, through the way the performance is filmed, that Brittana are the queer couple together here. But again why not go off the rails and suppose there were underlying feelings for each other here with Pezberry. There’s not much to support that in canon but it does establish a new dynamic between the two, much like Be Okay, and does so while being fruitier in my eyes. It’s that spark again which I’ll just take at face value for this and justify So Emotional in third place with it. Phew this is getting a bit messy let’s move on to the top two before I lose every reader who’s made it thus far lol.

2. Brave

Alright almost there, second place. So Brave is actually one of those Glee moments, like much of seasons 5 and 6 tbh, that I haven’t fully processed yet. Maybe I was too scarred by the feud that followed immediately after, but whatever it was I’d need to rewatch this whole storyline to be able to do this song justice. One day I will, and until then I’ll cut this section relatively short - that’s probably for the best lol.

So once again this is why I went on about diegesis. Because we don’t have the Wemma or assignment excuse here, this is a full on fantasy. Based on the camera work, though it is a duet we can infer it’s only happening in Santana’s mind. And that gives us so, so much more room to play with interpretations because fantasy songs like these are meant to very clearly reflect a character’s state of mind or complicated feelings they can’t express through regular dialogue. Should be, anyway. This is Glee season 5 so I’m a bit doubtful super extra care went into picking out each and every song but that’s not out problem, all we have is the end result. And the end result is what I can only describe as super gay.

First of all, Sara Bareilles herself has said this song was a love letter to a friend struggling with their coming out journey, so we already have the original song with a confirmed queer reading. In the Glee context, what I think they were going for is Santana’s complex feelings on her own disappointing career and watching Rachel thrive in the meantime, whom she’s grown to care for but has complex feelings about. But if they wanted to set up her audition and version of DROMP then I’m sorry, this scene just does not set the mood for it.

What it does set is the context that something queer this way comes. So you’re telling me Santana imagines singing this “it’s okay to come out, I wanna see you be brave” song with Rachel? Santana, the canon lesbian who’s had her own harsh struggles with her sexuality and coming out? And, in her mind, Rachel sings it with her? I’m sorry, what am I supposed to make of this again? It’s Santana trying to be brave about her career I guess but who even remembers what Funny Girl is when they have this whole sequence with a coming out (sorta) song.

Like I said, I don’t think I ever fully processed it but I hope I’m getting across how sus this is. Even if we consider that it’s actually only Santana, the already canon lesbian singing it, it’s still curious that she’d think of this of all songs as their fantasy duet. And even if she’s the only one with queer feelings here, that’s still a queer reading. And unlike with So Emotional, there’s no Brittany here for the feelings to be directed at. Yes, Santana is dating Dani here but let’s be honest Dani was barely more than a Demi Lovato cardboard cutout and Santana had a much more intense dynamic with Rachel. So yes, Brave is fertile ground for a queer reading and general gay vibes, and a good example of why non-diegetic songs can be read into much, much more.

1. Every Breath You Take

After all that talk about diegesis it just had to be, right? Every Breath You Take had to be number one, don’t wanna upset @amazonworrier. No but for real, this is the not so well hidden reason I’ve been wanting to write about their duets for a while. If there ever was a crown jewel of lowkey, or in Pezberry’s case highkey queercoded duets then Every Breath You Take has to be it.

Where to even start. What is this performance even? I can only assume it’s a shared fever dream induced by totally-not-a-breakup angst because surely they’re not actually singing their hearts out while rehearsing Funny Girl. And I can only assume, guess really, that the Glee peeps’ intention was to convey how pissed Rachel and Santana were and how they were keeping an eye on each other in the battle for Fanny. I guess. But did they really have to do the stalker song to establish that they’re feuding?

How it actually comes across to me is that here we have two people who really need to get a room but sadly they just stopped being roommates so now they’re living out elaborate and charged fantasies on a Broadway stage. Well not living out, I guess? Still. Sure, the fact they��re pissed and paranoid comes across but so does a level of sheer Gay that I can’t believe the producers didn’t notice. And I really don’t think it was intentional, I think they were purely going for a catfight here but because of everything prior and just the whole way this is filmed, it sure comes across as bitter exes still wanting to bang. Look at me finally getting to that point after 4,000 words of trying to find counterarguments to how gay Pezberry are in their duets.

Sure, you can have them sing

Every move you make And every vow you break Every smile you fake Every claim you stake I'll be watching you

and I’ll buy that they’re pissed at each other. But then you also have

Since you've gone, I've been lost without a trace I dream at night, I can only see your face I look around, but it's you I can't replace I feel so cold, and I long for your embrace I keep crying baby, baby, please

and now I’m wondering if this really is a bad breakup for bitches who never even dated - or did they? Watching this performance you’d think so.

And once again I want to emphasize that there’s no loophole for this one. Out of universe, sure I guess they wanted the stalker song and already had the rights since they were gonna use it in season 3 anyway. But this is supposed to be a reflection of how they feel, how they both feel, with no counterarguments against the lyrics like “oh it’s XY week” or “oh it’s someone else’s proposal”. No no, they fully had a shared fever dream where they sang all that and glared at each other and were in general peak Pezberry Extra™.

Every Breath You Take “wins”, in this sense, because I’d struggle to find a reading that isn’t at least a little bit queer. One that doesn’t imply greater feelings, greater hurt, greater longing. Oh, I’m sorry, was this supposed to be about how the hate each other now? Because their previous duets were already pretty gay but this one is just off the charts.

So. In conclusion.

Once again the ranking itself could change pretty easily. I’m not set on it as much as I wanted to highlight some queer readings of Pezberry songs and rant about Every Breath You Take as the ultimate winner of this imaginary competition. If you or anyone else made it this far, I hope you enjoyed this brain rot lol and got your Pezberry fill. Actually, doing this made me realize I could go more in-depth with each song’s lyrics and twisting it until we get fruity Pezberry so hmu lmao

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queercapwriting · 7 years

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Important reminders about identities in our communities and our fiction from @purplesaline (edited by me slightly, where indicated, to take out the personal context from which these are drawn).

“Lee made some really good points... I’d also like to understand why [someone’s] identity grants [them] the right to be the arbiter of how a character should be portrayed but someone who is also non-binary and gay isn’t allowed. In many... posts that I’ve read regarding this subject it consistently comes across as... being dismissive of Cap’s identity and othering them from the community. Additionally I’d like to know why [people] seem to think that if an autistic person asks for very specific things in a fic that is representative of their own lived experience it qualifies as bad representation because [someone else doesn’t] relate to it as an autistic person. Is it purely because the person doing the writing is neurotypical (or assumed to be)? I might be able to give more credit to that logic if they had done it of their own volition but they were essentially acting as a ghost writer. It’s sounding an awful lot like [people] are allowed to demand people represent an identity [they] inhabit in a way that [they] relate to but that other people who share the same identity but have a different lived experience than [others] aren’t allowed to ask for that shared identity to mirror them. [People in our communities sometimes] say that these other representations are harmful and problematic because they don’t fall in line with [everyone’s] lived experiences but in disclaiming those representations [it is] harming people. There is no single way to be any identity whether it’s a gender identity or a sexual orientation or neurodiversity or any other identity out there and because of that you’re going to find honest representations of that identity that can read as stereotypical because sometimes a persons lived experience of their identity falls in line with the stereotypes. It is unfair to invalidate their lived experience of their identity, it is harmful to invalidate their lived experience of their identity. What is problematic is not that that example of an identity exists but that there is not a more diverse sampling of the different ways people can inhabit the same identity. And as a final point I have a HUGE problem with [people] deciding that just because characters have been portrayed as having sex in canon that it negates any chance of them being portrayed as Ace forever after. Having had sex doesn’t not disqualify someone from being Asexual. There are many reasons why someone who is asexual might have sex, not least of which is that they hadn’t come to the realization that they were asexual. I think [people’s] arguments would hold more water if this was a discussion about the representation on the show itself rather than fan service fiction and would hold more water if the fanfic world was lacking in the very representation [some of us] claiming to be the ‘correct’ one but even if we just look at the microcosm of QCW’s fic library alone there are multiple fics representing each of a wide variety of identities. How [someone] can claim Identity Erasure when there are ten fics representing the canon identity to every one fic representing an alternate identity i really don’t understand. One of the biggest draws for people about fanfic is the ability to change canon in a way that allows them to relate more completely to the characters and/or the show and to me that’s one of the best things about it. To try to police that? You come across as an elitist gatekeeper deciding who is or is not worthy of gaining entrance to the VIP club. Doesn’t the LGBTQIA2+ community deserve better than that? We’ve already got far too many cishet people telling us that we’re not worthy of being in mainstream society, let’s not mirror their actions in our own community. While [people in our communities’] criticism of representation that [people] find harmful to [their] lived experience of [their] identity is certainly allowed, [the] policing of the way other people express and represent their own lived experiences of their identities (even if that is through a proxy) is unacceptable...”

and

“Okay so, first of all? Queer and Dyke? Some of us have gained a lot of empowerment from those words. I get that they are still being used as slurs and that they are really harmful to a lot of people still but this then becomes a case of “please don’t use that term in reference to me” and that’s cool but [people] don’t get to police how I, or anyone else, chooses to label themselves (or their incarnations of fictional characters). Sure [one] can point out that it’s possibly problematic because of the negativity still associated with it but it’s not a simple issue and a “You’re a bad person for using it how dare you” isn’t gonna cut it...

And look, I get that [people in our communities are] upset about what [they] see as stereotyping identities but the fact of the matter is that there are people who relate to those portrayals and by saying that it’s wrong to be portraying characters that way [people] are invalidating their experiences the same way [they] are feeling [their] own invalidated. The solution here isn’t a reductive one, but additive. Taking away representation because [not everyone] relate[s] to it is harmful to those who do relate to it. It’s definitely important to point out where representation is missing and that the experience portrayed isn’t indicative of everyone with that identity but instead of tearing someone down for trying and, if the comments left on these stories is any indication, succeeding in representing the experience for at least some, maybe try the approach of either a) asking for a representation that differs from what was already written or b) write [one’s] own. We need to avoid building ourselves up by tearing others down.

Now as for [people’s] point of a writer changing a canon lesbian into another identity if they don’t claim that identity themselves. That’s a complicated one. On one hand Cap is essentially acting as a proxy for a lot of people who want to see their head canon in writing and for various reasons can’t write it themselves and I see nothing wrong with that. These people trust Cap with their vision and from what I’ve seen most appreciate the results.

Changing the identity of a marginalized character is a bit trickier for sure. On one hand yah there aren’t enough canon lesbians on tv or in media in general but I don’t think fan service fiction is necessarily the place to be policing that. If for no other reason than [one] run[s] the risk of trampling over someone’s attempt to learn more about themselves through exploring these identities in fiction. I’m not trans and I’m not nb but I did go through a period in my life where I was seriously questioning my gender identity and writing about it was one of the ways I explored that about myself.

I think maybe the line there is the same one we tread with cultural appropriation. Changing a canon lesbian into a straight woman is blatantly problematic but changing them into an identity that is even more marginalized and has even less representation is maybe not as much of an issue. It’s human nature to want to take the thing we can most relate to and then change it so it reflects our experiences even more, which is why [we] see the gay characters being head canoned into ace characters etc.

Which isn’t to say that it’s not also problematic but I think that more than being problematic it’s just scary to see already slim representation being appropriated no matter who is doing it. I would honestly rather give someone who has no representation a portion of mine, however small mine may be, than them not having any at all especially knowing how much harder they would have to fight to claw anything away from the ‘mainstream’ than I would.

So yah, it’s not clear cut and there is no easy answer to that one but I’m certainly falling on the side of letting the even more marginalized appropriating canon lesbian characters and that it’s acceptable for someone to write outside their own identity especially if it’s fan service.

As for the pulse fic? Cap said they realized it was problematic and removed it which I think shows a great deal of character. Their intent for writing it in the first place though? Not off base. It’s natural for us to process grief through fiction, we do it all the time. Using a traumatic event in a story isn’t necessarily trivializing it, in fact it cam be incredibly helpful and healing for many people, author and readers alike. I read the fic in question and I didn’t see anything that stood out as being disrespectful. Obviously [people] saw differently and that dichotomy is going to echo on a larger scale as well and I think that this is another instance I prefer to err on the side of 'if it helps people then it’s acceptable’ and for those who would be harmed by it them we take the same action we would in other situations where content can be harmful like content or trigger warnings.”

#posting because i've been asked to by a person i love very much #i depersonalized it because i think it speaks to a larger trend in our communities to hurt each other and i think this can help us think #about ways to talk to each other about our differences and different needs and triggers #also damn your writing is beautiful #also i'm extending lots of love to everyone who's been part of this conversation but honestly right now i'm coping with a lot of family #things and i'm done responding to/posting to all this albeit important stuff because i've said what i want to say and this says things #better than i could anyway #sending love and respect to everyone #i will do better #thank you

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