#not all queer couples need long dramatic relationship angst arcs!

[coffeecatcraze]

The fact that Vaggie knew it was a HORRIBLE idea for her to go to Heaven because there were so many things that could go wrong and so many bad memories there, but her girlfriend needed her and she couldn't say no to her cute face; the fact that the headstrong, optimistic, determined, powerful Princess of Hell knew she couldn't handle taking this huge step alone and the only one person she could imagine being by her side in that critical moment was Vaggie.

The fact that even when she felt so hurt, heartbroken, and betrayed and tried for a second to deny it, Charlie never stopped loving Vaggie, still referred to her as her girlfriend, and had full faith that she was completely succeeding in her task (getting detailed sensitive information from a weapons-dealing Overlord) while Charlie herself was struggling and failing with her own.

The fact that even with Charlie so upset that she intentionally threw a painful commentbat her (a comment with a subtle double meaning, though Charlie herself was definitely NOT thinking clearly enough to realize that implication and only meant to make a jab at the secret-keeping), Vaggie still wanted so desperately to protect Charlie out of love that she regrew angelic wings despite having been in Hell for years.

The fact that one gesture from Charlie told Vaggie everything she wanted to say to her, and that mutual understanding was so complete that she didn't hesitate to run to her knowing she would be accepted because her girlfriend still loved her and forgave her.

The support, love, and intimate understanding these two share even when things are hard and painful is so beautiful. They've been together for years; they've been through so much; and it's wonderful to have that respected and portrayed canonically instead of dipping into that easy, fan-craved trope of dramatically heavy relationship angst. I'm glad they left that angst itch to be scratched by fanworks instead, because these ladies aren't that type.

They are powerful; they are determined; they balance and complete each other; and most importantly, they are so head-over-heels and experienced in their love for each other that it took one day for Charlie to deeply consider everything and fully reconcile with Vaggie, who never doubted her even for a second. Their relationship isn't just established; it's stable, and I love to see that for a wlw couple. <3

#hazbin hotel #chaggie #vaggie #charlie morningstar #i usually caption my gifs but i am Tired and wanted to post chaggie appreciation on valentine's day #so have this before i fall asleep! <3 #not all queer couples need long dramatic relationship angst arcs! #we need more queer ships like this <3 #and don't get me wrong i love a good angst fic! #there are some really good post-s1e6 canon divergent ones on ao3!!! #but honestly this is their canon dynamic and i love that the show stayed true <3

[fencesandfrogs]

“i love you”: ambiguity in media

spoilers for she-ra. the entire show. especially the last season. but if you don’t care i’ve also added context. so it’s not mandatory watching.

spacer gif for spoilers. also cause its cute.

okay so i’m still thinking about the scene where glimmer says, “i love you,” and bow kisses her on the temple, and it’s just the cutest thing and my heart says “squee”.

i wrote something about gay media & the necessary differences in gay tales and ATM it has not been posted bc i routinely shuffle my queue but the basic thesis of it is: gay romance stories are inherently different from straight ones, because it is impossible to separate them from homophobia. and i kind of ran into a wall writing it because homophobia is really hard to ignore on earth because its omnipresent and it dramatically affects gay youth growing up.

and then i watched she-ra, which has lesbians*, in case you didn’t know, and also basically zero homophobia.

*also gays, but the titular character is a lesbian, so.

which damn, was very refreshing. like. yeah. sign me up for that.

so. adora and catra are adorable lesbians w/ shared traumatic experiences and their character arcs are interesting and wonderful and there’s a lot of great analysis of that already and here’s one that sums it up better than i ever could: 

love that. they’re adorable. i love them.

bow & glimmer are also best friends who get together at the end of the show & have a lot of parallels to catra and adora minus the trauma and also including crushing weights of responsibility.

uhh so catra & glimmer both make a mistake at one point during the show that basically irreparably wrecks the world and requires sacrifice of life to solve. adora is the intended sacrifice each time but this isn’t about adora, i just want to give context for this.

so catra has the explanation of trauma and the scared behaviors of a traumatized teen. like. she makes mistakes for an understandable reason. again. not about her. just giving context.

glimmer on the other hand basically throws a fit that her friends have other friends. i mean. glimmer has problems but her mistakes are not like, “you know if you were raised in a loving home this prob wouldn’t have happened” because she was raised in a loving home. it’s more like “you know if you didn’t become queen at age, like, 17, this probably wouldn’t have happened.”

(side note, i don’t know how old the characters in she-ra are. i read them as 15-17 in the beginning of the series and 18-20 by the end, and i’m just not really sure. because you know, cartoons & child soldiers do not accurate age placing make. catra and adora’s arc speaks to me ages 15-18ish because that is when i had a similar arc.

according to the wiki adora starts around 17 and ends around 20. which is w/in my own estimations i’m just commenting.)

right so glimmer apologizes to bow and is all “look you don’t have to forgive me, i don’t have a right to that, but i’m not going to stop trying to earn your forgiveness,” and bow, well, he says “okay”

and. you know. i feel that.

(more side notes: i, age 17ish, broke up w my boyfriend. for reasons. we got back together. for other reasons. repairing the bond of trust is hard. because i was not secure that he loved me, and he was not secure that i wouldn’t leave if something went wrong. so you know. i feel glimmer, here.

yes, she made a mistake and no, she does not have a right to forgiveness. but she’s also a kid, who has had one friend for her entire life, and is only just beginning to learn how to share friends, and she thinks she lost him, and that desperation and rejection is painful. she was lashing out, and she never intended this to happen.)

so glimmer & bow throughout the show have romantic tension, but in a soft way. in a, bow goes to a ball with someone else and glimmer gets jealous but it’s also directly stated she’s jealous because she’s sharing her friend way.

plus there’s a scene that definitely has some strong glimmer x adora vibes is what i’m saying

it’s not this specific scene but idk what to search for to find it & i’m not fighting w tumblr to include external images again i’ve been hurt before.

anyway.

so when glimmer says, “i love you,” my heart pounds in a new way, because what does she mean by that? does she love him?

and at some point in this adora has a fantasy future where bow and glimmer are together & it’s adorable but i’m mentioning to explicitly say that it’s not relevant because bow and glimmer r def not together before this moment.

anyway bow kisses glimmer on the forehead and my heart go “thumpthumpthumpthumpthump” real real fast and it’s cute and i text my boyfriend a bunch of hearts because that’s what i do when i see cute couples i’m a soft gay nerd.

and the thing is? i’m also thinking, “wow there is so much ambiguity” there.

and then. i realized. this is why gay romance is fundamentally different. because american culture is not very touch-y, especially across gendered lines.

& i have a very physically affectionate family. i will cuddle the homies. i will kiss them on the temple. (ok i won’t do that bc my boyfriend would not like that n i respect that it’s legit i kiss him on the temple instead. mb i’ll write about boundaries in relationships where people have different understandings of physical affection.) so like? did not occur to me before to discuss this.

but there’s a huge ambiguity in gay romance. it’s hard to write gay romance that’s explicitly gay (especially wlw since men r less affectionate & more stereotyped in media imo and that’s another discussion but there’s a reason i’m focusing on catra and adora in she-ra’s gay relationships) without slapping a huge “THEY’RE LESBIANS, HAROLD” on it, so like.

yeah. it does get a label.

& i mean. she-ra is the big gay. it could have gone hard queer baiting, but even if that was a possibility, adora and catra are too hard-coded to Love Love each other. they have a best friends to rivals (to enemies) to lovers thing going on, it’s hard to miss. there is no doubt in my mind what catra means when she tells adora she loves her.

this is from before the confession and just. look at them. they are gay.

& meanwhile glimmer and bow have the soft affection, the feelings which could be read either way.

objectively the same hold, but he’s saving her life. catra leaps into adora’s arms, bow catches her. (after he just caught her before:

& it does not escape my attention that bow was the one who caught her from the void of space, not the stronger & arguably better adora/she-ra.

okay so bow & glimmer = adorable, and i’m v happy they got together. but it was an interesting application of tropes in that i don’t think you could tell this romance in a very different context. it just. it doesn’t work right. 

i think glimmer & bow end up a will they/won’t they couple in a different context. and that works, yeah, but that’s the point. gay tropes r just...different.

and it’s really hard to switch them because you kind of need a fantasy world where physical affection is much more common and we don’t have the baggage of gender in friendships.

just for fun, here’s one last couple. mermista and seahawk. i’m not gonna spend a long time on them i just wanted to say maybe i’m gay but it took me until season five to realize they’re together and i think they’ve been together the whole show. 

& i think that’s because she-ra does a really good job at depicting the post-homophobia, post-sexism universe. (sexism plays a big part in all this ik i didn’t talk about it but some other time)

so you get the opportunity to have these fantastic stories of relationships through new lenses. & i appreciate that. i appreciate getting to have a “he’s my friend” (i love him) “he’s mine” character moment with a new kind of angst. (glimmer: the gay, who loves her best friend but also loves her best friend, vs glimmer: the hypothetical straight, who loves her best friend, and her best friend loves her. the difference is subtle but it’s there.)

anyway yeah a lot of words. forehead kisses kill me because i have a weak, gay, heart. uhhhh media & tropes & telling explicitly gay romances requires us to be able to shake around what role friendship plays in the relationship arc, and something we’re not entirely up for yet, as a culture.

i leave u with this bc no one has made a gif of their actual kiss

#glimbow #she ra #she-ra #media analysis #romance #q #mine #txt #13th #December #2020 #December 13th 2020 #rant #essay

[icekitten]

Magicians (and how slash ships are treated) rant...

I’ve watched shows where...

A slash ship finally expressed their love for each other and heavily indicated the relationship would be consummated only for one half to be murdered by the end of the episode.

The audience was mercilessly queer-baited for years only for the characters to be put in straight relationships or for the love to be one-sided or unrequited, with no satisfying conclusion. And all because stringing along the fans with homoerotic scenes, flirtatious banter and innuendo keeps the viewership steady without actually having to pull the trigger on a same-sex romance and of course they wouldn’t want to alienate the homophobic portion of the audience. Apparently heterosexuality and pandering to bigots will always trump chemistry, connection and sense. 

One half of the couple dies tragically in the others arms, usually from murder or an incurable ailment.

The gay character never gets a love interest at all, even when the show runs for years. Or they do get a love interest, but are barely allowed to kiss unless it’s in dim lighting.

Multiple gay characters are added for the sake of inclusion only for them to get no significant screen time, or they’re killed off, never receiving a meaningful story arc or romance. And the excuse made for never pairing any of them together is that they don’t want to create couples simply based on the fact they’re both gay. So who exactly can they be paired with? The sexually ambiguous male lead? Ha! Keep dreaming!

One half of the pairing is murdered by the other. And you’d think that nothing could be more devastating than that...

The Magicians season 4 finale was worse than any of the above, because they promised us something within their own narrative (”If I ever get out of here Q, know that when I’m braver it’s because I learned it from you.”) and not only didn’t deliver, they destroyed it in the cruelest way possible. They relished the critical praise of episodes like A Life in The Day and Escape from the Happy Place, they presented the audience with a male/male ship that was mutually requited and had the potential to be a groundbreaking power couple for the ages and they not only took it away but spat in our faces. They filled the final 3 episodes of season 4 with heterosexual love stories and gave them meaningful moments together before the tragic death of their bisexual lead and they couldn’t even spare a look between Quentin and Eliot, not even a one sentence exchange. And for what? Shock value? To give Eliot more man-pain going into season 5? For the sake of tragedy and realism in a fantasy show about MAGIC?! Why is it realistic for the straight couples to get final moments together but not the same-sex pairing? And why would you center an entire season around Quentin’s unwavering mission to free Eliot from the monster only to have Eliot finally come back (in an extremely anticlimactic way I might add) and not even have these characters speak to or look at each other during said scene or later in the episode? And Eliot awoke from his season long imprisonment in his own mind to the news that his best friend, brother of the heart and soulmate is dead and he’ll never get the chance to tell him he loves him, which was the motivating thought that kept him fighting for his freedom from the monster. It’s absolutely baffling from a writing perspective, as if the writers of the second half of the season had no concept of what propelled the first.

What could have been a bold, groundbreaking and historic moment in the television landscape became a living nightmare of undoing everything the show did right. And boy, did we believe wholeheartedly in this little cult scifi show. We all thought that this one was different. Surely they wouldn’t be like all the others, not when they wrote Quentin and Eliot’s relationship with such nuance, meaning and beauty... but in the end they acted with the same spinelessness, heartlessness and disregard for their most loyal supporters as all the rest, and they were downright savage in their delivery of the final blow. They not only killed a unique, relatable, and brave character and a ship that never reached it’s full potential, they killed the show entirely. Our trust was betrayed, our faith evaporated with Quentin, and our love for The Magicians was utterly snuffed out. And the true tragedy is The Magicians won’t be remembered for the magical, daring, layered, funny, deep, poignant and beloved show it once was, but for the gutless mess it became in the final episodes of season 4.

Should we just accept that slash ships will inevitably end in tragedy, or never be requited, that one half must die, that they should be treated as less than their hetero counterparts? Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t want all same-sex tv couples to live a tragedy free existence. I love angst and drama and the masochist in me is a sucker for a star-crossed love story. All I ask is for these potential couples to exist outside the realm of subtext whether it ends in a happily ever after or heartbreaking devastation. Give them a chance to flourish, instead of crushing all potential before the story has begun.

Why should fictional gay couples and main characters only be relegated to soap operas, fluffy comedies, and shows that are specifically geared towards a gay audience? Why are gay and bi characters always secondary on scripted dramas? Visibility matters but so does treating LGBT characters with the same respect and dignity as their straight peers. Including gay characters within a series just for the sake of inclusion is not progressive if you never do anything consequential with them. Can we not have one mainstream dramatic series where the male lead falls in love with another man (before the final episode and not in flashback form)? Would the show be ripped off the air? Would the ratings plummet? Do producers not realize how hungry we are for something like this? How many times we’ve been burned and hurt by television series in the past? If a show were to go boldly into this uncharted territory it would be hailed as a cultural phenomenon and we would spread the word like wildfire! Or is queer-baiting, the “bury your gays” trope, and minimal inclusion so alluring that artistic integrity be damned? Would these shows rather appeal to the narrow-minded than the open-hearted?

And why should we be treated so abhorrently? The members of the slash fandom are the ones who love these shows with all our hearts, re-watch episodes incessantly, create gifs, art, fics, tribute videos, cosplay, meta, the ones who tweet and promote and recommend the show to others, not because we’re paid to but because we’re devoted and passionate. We are the ones who keep the spirit of shows alive long after they’re off the air waves. We’re the ones who find inspiration in the characters and worlds these series create and expand upon these wonderful creations into works of our own making. And all we ask in return is just once for a pairing we ship to get a chance at love. To not be baited, fooled, played and ultimately heartbroken, hopeless and disillusioned.

This long-running and unfortunate queer-baiting phenomenon is unacceptable and the practice needs to be eradicated now. The lack of ethics and creative principle from showrunners and network execs is the epitome of cowardice. Why is fear stronger than love and reason? I guarantee if they had a male lead character fall in love with a man (not on a whim, but because it made sense within the canon text of the show and because of the chemistry between the two characters) they would receive mountains of praise from critics and fans. It would breathe new life into a stale state of sameness within network drama. Slash fans would tune-in in droves to witness such a valiant television landmark and historic precedent. They would be the trailblazing show that did what no other had the honesty and moral fiber to do. And to think it could have been you, The Magicians.

It’s 2019. Please do better.

#The Magicians #Queliot #Quentin Coldwater #Eliot Waugh #I've never seen a show fuck up this bad