#ACKNOWLEDGING AND RESPECTING A CHARACTER’S CANONICAL IDENTITY SHOULDN’T BE OPTIONAL | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

itsclydebitches · 3 years

Note

(WLW anon) I really don’t like the “bad rep is better then none at all”. I hate that. We should want good rep, because bad rep has been used time and time again by homophobes as to say we shouldn’t get representation. To me it’s not “gay can have the same flaws as het”, it’s “fix the flaws in the het”. Also I know Renora being independent was a good, I was just saying in comparison BB. Also, yes, they were separated, but also didn’t stop thinking about each other. Especially bad with Yang.

Indulge me for a moment because I want to take a trip down memory lane and list some—just some—of the queer rep that has been important to me over the years:

Ellen comes out both as herself and as her character… years later, she’s a hated millionaire who is criticized for how she treats her staff

The wildly influential Buffy gives us two women entering a loving relationship… except then Tara is killed off, Willow goes evil for a time, and Buffy comes under fire for Joss Whedon’s everything

The beloved and respectable headmaster of one of the most popular book series ever published is revealed to be gay… except it doesn’t count because it wasn’t in the text and now all of Harry Potter is cancelled because JKR is transphobic

Kurt is an unambiguously gay teen in a hugely popular TV series, acting as one of the first overt representations a generation has seen… except he’s way too stereotypical and Glee is a joke now

Orange is the New Black gives us a number of queer women, including one of our first trans characters… but isn’t it problematic that they’re all criminals?

Brooklyn Nine-Nine hosts an out gay captain and gives us a bisexual coming out story that resonated with many, myself included… except now we’re supposed to hate all the characters on principle because they’re cops

Korra and Asami walk off into the spiritual sunset together… but they never kiss or anything, so that doesn’t count either

Steven Universe gives us a queer relationship and a wedding… but it’s an issue that this is just a kid’s show and, really, does it count when the rep is embodied by space rocks whose entire species only creates a single gender? Feels like a cop-out

Same with Good Omens. Yeah, Crowley and Aziraphale clearly love each other… but you never see them kiss or declare their intentions. It’s great ace rep though! Unless you want to level the criticism that asexual characters are always nonhuman

A character intended to be a minor guest becomes a show staple and eventually declares his love for one of the two main characters… except then Castiel immediately dies, Dean doesn’t respond, and they never meet on screen again

I finished Queen’s Gambit the other day and the main character had a one-night stand with a woman! … but everyone is talking about how bisexuality is used to represent her lowest point, so that’s bad too

I could go on for literal pages. Some of these arguments I agree with (Dumbledore), others I’ve pushed back against quite strongly (Crowley and Aziraphale), but all of them are valid criticisms depending on what part of the queer community you’re in and what your expectations are. My point here is that it’s all “bad rep.” I mean that seriously. If anyone reading this is scrambling for the comment section to say why [insert media title here] is actually fantastic rep, I guarantee that someone disagrees. Or if they don’t, give it some time. Just wait until the characterization becomes offensively outdated, or another part of the story ruins the relationship, or it comes out that the author did something truly horrific, or the terminology changes and it’s labeled as “problematic” now… just wait. At some point, any rep we feel is good rep now will be criticized, cancelled, and dragged through the mud. The rep that I personally haven’t seen much push-back against—like the beloved Captain Jack Harkness in Doctor Who, or Schitts Creek that just won a ton of awards—is wrapped up in the criticism, “So it’s all just about able-bodied, cis, (mostly) white dudes, huh? :/” Even the argument that queer characters need to be written by queer authors doesn’t hold up. I absolutely adored Sense8. “Wow, a gay main character in a loving relationship with another gay man, both of whom enter a loving poly relationship with a woman, another lesbian trans main character who marries the love of her life on screen, an entire cast arguably queer due to them sharing orgy scenes centered around the emotional intimacy they share, everyone survives, and this was written by two trans women! Great, right?” Well, not according to the wealth of opinions explaining how Sense8 is horrible rep, actually. Every piece of rep we’ve got is either currently flawed or will become flawed in the future.

So what do we do with that?

That’s where my “I’d rather have bad rep than no rep at all” comes in. For me, that’s not waving the white flag. That’s not an oath that I won’t expect better rep in the future (I do) or that I won’t criticize the rep we get (BOY DO I), but rather just an acknowledgement of reality. The vast majority—if not the entirety—of rep is “bad rep” in one way or another, but I’d still rather have it than nothing at all. Because I’ve lived just long enough and studied media just enough to know what nothing looked like. It was watching all queer characters meet untimely deaths. Before that it was watching queer characters be derided and treated as jokes. Before that it was nothing but coding, where queer characters didn’t exist except in our own headcanons and interpretations. Obviously “bad rep” covers a very large range of issues and “They haven’t even confirmed this relationship yet” is a bigger issue than “This queer character embodies one or two, mild stereotypes,” but ultimately I’d take any of it over nothing at all. And enjoying what we’ve currently got doesn’t mean I’m willing to settle for it indefinitely.

To use an iffy analogy, imagine there’s a factory. This factory makes plates. So. Many. Plates. Big plates, small plates, plain plates, decorative plates, plates for every possible occasion in your life—and everyone with a steak for dinner is pleased as punch. You though? You’ve got soup. You need a bowl. Your entire life you’ve been struggling to eat your soup off a plate (it doesn’t work) and listening to friends and family claim that the plate with a slightly raised edge could be a bowl if you squint (it’s not). To say it’s frustrating is an understatement.

But then, one day, the factory starts producing bowls too. Hurray! Except as soon as you get your hands on one, you’re told you really shouldn’t be using it, let alone praising it. Look at the state of that bowl! It’s cracked right down the middle, ugly as hell, shoddily made all around… you’re not really going to settle for that, are you? And no, you obviously still want the factory to produce better bowls, but at the same time, this is a bowl. You’ve never gotten one before and you can finally enjoy your meal, even if the soup leaks at times. Sometimes a lot. But you’re still feeling better about your meal than you ever have before. And what you then begin to realize is that lots of the plates are a mess too. They also have cracks, they’re also ugly, many are also shoddily made. The difference is that the factory is producing so many plates at such a rapid pace that every steak eater is able to get by. One plate breaks completely? You’ve got a thousand fallbacks. Don’t like the look of this one? A thousand other options. You disagree about what “shoddily made” means? Luckily there are enough plates that everyone can find what they prefer! But the bowls… there’s only a few. Some are really expensive. Others are only available for a limited time before they suddenly disappear. Your bowl breaks and you have to wait months, years sometimes, to get another one. You’re constantly told to go buy this one obscure bowl no one else has heard about and yeah, you like it... but you’d also like to buy one of the bowls everyone is already enjoying. You find yourself looking at the plates and thinking, “I’d like that. I’d like to have so many options that the flaws, while still a problem, are much more bearable.” You’re still going to demand that the factory get its shit together, you’re still going to (rightly) complain about the awful quality of your bowl… but it’s still nice to have a bowl, period. There are still things you like about it, even if it’s a mess: the color, the size, the beauty of the shape of it. Its potential. You’re still pleased you have something to enjoy and that helps serve the need you’re looking to fill, even if that something is imperfect.

That’s “bad rep is better than no rep.” To bring this very long response back to Blake/Yang, I don’t think their problems negate their benefits. Is their relationship currently non-canonical and filled with a number of writing issues everyone has a right to be angry about? Yup. I express that anger a great deal. Are they still half of a team on a very popular show that is (presumably) set to be canonized as queer? Yup. I’d much rather live in a world where big shows like RWBY try to include queer rep and fail in a multitude of ways—with the expectation and hope that they’ll continue to improve—rather than in a world where authors a) don’t care or b) are too scared to try. Because that’s where a “good rep or no rep” stance leads. The danger isn’t homophobes because they’re, well, homophobes. It doesn’t matter if the rep is good or not, they hate it on principle. But if queer authors writing for other queer identities, or allies writing queer identities, or even queer authors writing their own experiences (like in Sense8) continually come under non-stop fire for their attempts… there’s a good chance that many people won’t ever try. We’re already seeing that here on tumblr with young authors admitting that they wouldn’t touch [insert topic here] with a ten-foot pole because just look at what happens when you get it wrong. And authors will get things wrong because authors are fallible people forever unlearning their own ignorance. So though it might sound strange coming from a blog that has turned into such a RWBY critical space, I am glad that RWBY’s queer rep exists, despite all the frustrations that I share about it. I think a RWBY with various types of “bad” queer rep is better than a RWBY with no queer rep at all, particularly when “bad” or “good” is so intensely subjective. There’s a middle ground between passively accepting whatever we’re given, and tearing into rep with such ferocity that we end up rejecting it all. There’s a space where we can be critical of rep and embrace the parts that work for us, simultaneously.

I hope and expect the het rep will get better too, but… that’s never going to happen instantly. To quote RWBY, there’s no magic wand we can wave to fix all our problems. Rather, it will take slow, plodding, meandering, lifetimes’ worth of work to see that change occur and I personally don’t want to spend the one life I have waiting for that perfect rep to show up. Because it’s unlikely that it will. While we work, I’d rather find the good in what rep we’ve already got.

#rwby #queer #mymetas #Anonymous

43 notes · View notes

justanotherdaylikeanyother-blog1 · 5 years

Note

You may have answered this one and I missed it, but, given your issues with KR, how would you have written the last book? I realized when looking through my AO3 bookmarks that I've read a number of fan fics picking up from PG that do a better job than KR, which is a little depressing.

I’ve talked about specific ways I think certain scenes or themes should or shouldn’t have been handled. But it’s true that I’ve never said ‘this is how I would have liked to see KR go from start to finish’. I could happily write it a lot of ways, tbh, if only I had the time and the motivation. And, as you say, there are several good takes on it out there already. So I’m not going to detail what I would do from start to finish, because that would be a very long fic plan for a fic I’m not even going to write, in effect.

What I will say is how I would probably have ended it.

I would have written Damen and Laurent having to lead a proper military stand to take back Ios towards the end. I felt like that was what the whole series was leading to from Damen’s PoV, and it never happened. The focus just mostly stayed on Vere and its politics even once they entered Akielos. And that’s very different than when I wrote The Veretian Flytrap and only referenced the reclamation of Akielos happening off-screen, say, because that was Laurent’s story. Canon is Damen’s story. I think KR forgets that a lot of the time.

Anyway, if we want to claim Laurent and Damen are equals and have committed to an alliance despite their differences up to that point, then I’d want to have that actually play out with them having to fight a battle side-by-side in full awareness of their respective identities and ranks, and after what’s happened between them romantically. I’d want to show how they’d find a way to manage working together (including the tensions of not being able to do so easily, at least at first) when they’re both almost-Kings with their own armies rather than when they’re acting as Prince and slave or Prince and Captain in a supposedly directly hierarchical relationship. Laurent would still want to have ultimate control and the final say on things even if he was willing to rely on Damen for his experience in battle, because that setup was how it had always been between them before. But Damen wouldn’t stand for that now that he’d been acknowledged as a de facto King. I’d use all that drama, and the battle itself, as an opportunity for them to work through some important shit, because they’d have trouble winning a war if they’re in the middle of a power struggle between themselves, or if they’re just plain not coordinating well together. Eventually they’d find some middle point that worked for them, combining Laurent’s out-of-the-box random strategies that Kastor’s side couldn’t predict with Damen’s tactical experience and fighting skills (and his incredible good luck in battle).

And hell, using the looming prospect of the war, I could also address the reasons why, on the other side, people would have to have been literally willing to lay down their lives to fight for Kaster’s side against Damen, despite how Damen should have been the rightful King. We know that Kastor seemed to have followers, especially further south, who were willing to ignore the holes the size of canyons in Kastor’s revisionist story about Damen being the one to kill Theomedes. There had to be actual reasons why they would either believe it or ignore the obviousness of the lie. Simple enough to explore that when it came time for the clash and characters either changed allegiances to Damen or refused to do so. And I’d love to explore Kastor’s character and motivations more and potentially make him an actual three-dimensional character.

Most of the things I have a problem with (Jokaste’s ‘redemption’ and the baby, the Kingsmeet, the complete lack of due process inside Ios before the Regent’s execution, etc) can all be dispensed with if we acknowledge that the climax of the story could have actually been a climax, since they were all there at least partly in service of getting Laurent and Damen inside Ios. Why was that necessary? Why not draw Kastor out instead? It’s Vere, not Akielos, who stood accused of hiding in their forts. And Kastor’s fought a war before. He would have looked weak if he tried to shy away from it. (And no, I don’t think it’s a valid argument that they had to get to the Regent inside Ios as well, because I’m not a fan of him being there in the first place.)

And if it really was so thematically important that Laurent prove himself worthy of redemption/sacrifice himself for Damen/kill Kastor, isn’t all of that logically able to play out in the context of a battle? I wouldn’t write it like that, personally, but Pacat could have, if she’d insisted on it.

I’m not saying that finishing on a war wouldn’t have had its political problems in the long-term, of course, because civil war is never a good thing. But there was, in effect, civil war in the south of Vere, so it’s not unprecedented in this story for them to accept that path when there’s no other decent option. And Akielos practically was one step from that stage anyway, it would seem, even before Damen showed back up alive. So I’m not sure it would have been considerably harder to recover from it than it should have been to politically recover post-canon. And if it was massively difficult to get past it? That’s fine. Just address it in the short stories. That would have been interesting, imo.

#answers #captive prince

15 notes · View notes

stompsite · 5 years

Text

disrespecting players

So, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey has this new thing, where you can “romance” whoever you want. In the latest DLC, one playable character, Kassandra, has a baby.

People are upset about this.

Why? It’s completely understandable. Since you can “romance” (okay I hate that word and this essay is about that) anyone you want, you can play Kassandra as a lesbian. In fact, in my playtime, I don’t actually think I’ve come across a single straight romance option. So maybe that’s what you’re supposed to do canonically. But apparently in the DLC, Kassandra is framed as bi, not lesbian, and some people aren’t happy about that.

So, after about 3 hours of sleep this morning, I saw a tweet, and the tweet said, “Ubisoft sorry for shock Assassin’s Creed Odyssey DLC twist which ignores player choice.”

Now, that specific sentence stuck out to me, because it’s something I’ve seen before, and I think there’s an interesting discussion to be had there. I wasn’t focused on the Kassandra issue specifically so much as I was the idea of “when should player choice matter?”

Me being me, I replied to this with my belief that most of the time, player choice isn’t worth respecting. Now, in my thread, I got to the point, but it took me a bit because I did the me thing and worked through the logical build up to my point, because I like establishing a need and then going “so that’s why we need X,” this time, let’s get the point out up front, then work backwards. Not my preferred way to go, but it’s more important to make sense than to be comfortable.

My feeling is, I might be saying something useful, but if I’m not thoughtful about how I say things, people might end up misunderstanding. Since the thing that inspired this thought process was Eurogamer discussing “respecting player choice,” but that choice was about sexuality, it can too easily come across as saying “player sexuality shouldn’t be respected.” And that’s obvious horse shit; player sexuality must always be respected, because that’s an innate quality of the self! You should never shit on identity. But... should “player choice,” as a generalized topic, actually be respected?

So, here’s the thesis: I think the way we talk about player choice is wrong. I think that when players are expressing themselves in terms of appearance, race, gender, sexuality, or whatever other personal trait, we should be supportive of their ability to play the way they want. Ubisoft giving players the opportunity to play as a lesbian character and then, in an expansion, saying “actually you can’t be a lesbian” is a problem. But this doesn’t mean that we should cater to every player choice, and Eurogamer’s specific framing is what bothered me, because I think player choice doesn’t deserve the sanctity that it’s often given.

I think, in some games, players want to be gods, and I think this is something that encourages us to think about the world in an unhealthy way.

Take Dragon Age 2, for instance. In that game, there’s a character named Aveline. Every single romance option in Dragon Age 2 sucks. Aveline is the only good companion character in the entire game... but you cannot “romance” her. I think she’s the only person you aren’t related to that you can’t woo.

I hate using “romance” as a verb. I hate the idea that you can “romance” anyone you see in a game, because that’s not how it works in real life. If I walk up to you and flirt terribly, and you happen to not be into me, you have the ability to turn me down and not enter into a relationship with me, right?

So you cannot “romance” Aveline, which really just means “interacting with her enough that her fuck meter hits max and then you are rewarded with a terrible cutscene of your lifeless dolls dry humping each other and then she stands in your house near your bed and you can interact with her.” I hate elves, so I did everything I could to piss another character, Merill, off, but apparently maxing out your hate means she’ll move into your house and hatefuck you.

It’s so fucking gross to treat sex, in games, as a weird fucking carnival game where sex is the prize. Don’t do any of the actual work of a relationship, just, y’know, max out a meter and you’re owed sex by your subordinates. You can see how that’s… a bit troubling, right?

Now, I could level this criticism at Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. But, hey, this isn’t an essay about how bad Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is at relationships. I mean, it is, because “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey being so bad at relationships they literally invalidate player choice and it’s understandably upsetting people” is the thing that got this started, but what I’m specifically interested in is the way Eurogamer (intentionally or unintentionally) suggested that games need to respect player choice.

I think player choice only needs to be respected when it comes to expression.

I’m making a game where you are a specific person, with specific goals and beliefs. You cannot determine his appearance, gender, or sexuality. This game is a game about seeing the world through his eyes. So, if you play that game, you’re going to invariably be that guy. I like games like this. I like playing Cate Archer in No One Lives Forever. I like being in someone else’s shoes.

But then there’s a whole mess of games where you can more or less act how you want. You can pick what your character looks and acts like, how they perceive the world, and all sorts of other things. You can be yourself in the game world, or, heck, you can be someone you came up with. It’s all good.

That’s really cool! Being able to customize that experience is really awesome. In an earlier essay, I discussed how “being able to visit another world” is a huge part of why I care about games. Therefore, being able to be myself in that other world (or whoever I want to be) is super important.

But I think people conflate “being who you want” and “engaging with the world on your terms” and I don’t think they should do that.

Like I said, I personally care about going to other worlds. Implicit in this is the understanding that for a world to be… believable? For it to exist, or whatever you want to call it, the world has to have its own terms that do not revolve around me.

Take Thief, for instance. Thief is an immersive sim–a genre that’s about existing in another world–based around the idea of being a thief. One of the reasons that Thief is compelling is that… well, you’re a thief, not a warrior, so if you get into a sword fight with one guy, you might lose. If you get into a sword fight with multiple guys, you will most definitely lose. You cannot dictate that all outcomes will be favorable to you regardless of the choices you make.

Thief works because you can make choices that lead to unfavorable outcomes. If you could choose anything and have it work out in your favor every time, the fantasy of being a thief would collapse, and Thief would fail as an immersive sim.

I believe that immersive sims are games that represent worlds. For a world to be realistic, there must be scenarios in which you can make suboptimal decisions–even wrong ones. When people argue that games should always result in a favorable outcome that “respects their decisions,” these people want playgrounds, not immersive games. An immersive game is one that exists regardless of the player, not for the player.

You could say I’m establishing that there are two kinds of games. For the sake of argument, let’s call them playgrounds and simulations.

Neither one is valid, but I think a great deal of people assume all games should be playgrounds and unfairly judge games that don’t allow them to treat all games like a playground. I think immersive sims–or any game trying to let players exist in a world–are necessarily player agnostic. I think these games should acknowledge your decisions but that doesn’t mean respecting them. Sure, you built a character for stealth, but the guy you’re going up against was characterized as paranoid and has cameras everywhere; maybe that level is impossible to stealth. The game isn’t bad because it doesn’t let you play according to your build, it’s giving you a believable, interesting world.

Now, maybe you just want Ultimate Stealth Game Playground, in which case, I’d like to introduce you to Ghost Recon: Wildlands, a wonderful game I’ve put 48 hours into. That is a playground, and it’s a really good one.

I think we should respect choices when they’re about players defining themselves in games that are built around players defining themselves, like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, a game that was heavily marketed as letting you choose your sexuality. I don’t think we need to respect every single player choice because I don’t think the player should have their every whim catered to.

I feel like a lot of this ties into the idea of “power fantasy.” I think power fantasies can be great. Sometimes it’s fun to go all Hulk: Ultimate Destruction on a city and smash things, you know? But I feel that a lot of people… man, I feel like a lot of people want the game to constantly tell them how amazing they are and do anything they want and sometimes that leads to shitty scenarios where players are like “everyone should fuck me if I want them to.” I think that’s gross.

A world cannot be authentic if it can only respond positively to the player’s interactions.

If a player’s agency is absolute, then no other character has any agency, and you cannot meaningfully engage with those characters. They exist to please you and nothing else. You cannot engage with the game and treat them as equal to you; you can only see them as part of a facade. The game world cannot be believable or interesting.

A lot of bad shooters I see tend to be designed in the same way: they exist to fellate the player. They’re not satisfying because you can’t make wrong decisions; you can’t mess up. As a result, there’s no danger. Because the games are so interested in making you feel powerful and strong and good about yourself, you never feel like you earned anything. Your relationship to the world ends up turning you into that creepy kid from the Twilight Zone episode where a creepy kid has godlike powers and can make anyone do anything he wants them to or be whatever he wants.

That’s not an interesting relationship to the experience. It’s not really one I want to have.

So. Yeah. You should be able to define your character. That’s good. You should not be able to determine how the world responds to you, though.

The Ubisoft situation really only refers to the former: you should be able to define your character, and they chose not to respect that. They fucked up. But I feel like a lot of people are using this as a springboard to say that all decisions no matter what should be respected, whereas I think only certain ones (like the decision to define Kassandra’s sexuality) should be respected. I think there are plenty of decisions that should not. I think games are interesting when they’re somewhat player agnostic.

I think you should be who you want, in games that present that opportunity, and I think Ubisoft fucked up by retroactively invalidating choice.

I’m just... feeling like I’m seeing people around this discussion arguing that all games should allow all decisions all the time, the player’s position within games is sacred, games should never ever under any circumstances present players with bad choices, and I’m uncomfortable with that ‘cause I think it leads to weird situations like the one with “Aveline owes me sex in Dragon Age 2 because I want to have it with her” which is weird and gross.

3 notes · View notes

sarahreeese · 6 years

Text

The diversity issue One Chicago isn’t fixing any time soon

6 years on TV 15 seasons of all the One Chicago shows combined. 94 regular and recurring characters 2 specifically stated LGBTQ+ characters that were on for more than an episode. One who died due to man pain, and the other a manipulative awful girlfriend of said dead woman.

That’s about 2% of the characters on all of the shows.

Their only significant gay character died in 2014. That’s nearly 4 years without any kind of representation. When One Chicago was criticized for having a lack of racial diversity on their shows, they made Med, whose cast is nearly half people of color. (Though they don’t all get equal air time or story quality but that’s another post.) Justice took it one step further and had more people of color than white people. So they can take criticism and change tactics, they’ve shown that. So why not change this? They’ve had time, characters, and 2 shows to correct this glaring problem. Why haven’t they?

It wasn’t planned from the beginning/The characters haven’t shown any signs of being gay. Sexuality isn’t something that needs to be revealed right away, there are so many storylines especially in the field that these characters work in that would make for great drama AND great representation. Give me a fire fighter or a cop who is gay, and hides it from the team because they don’t want to be seen differently by their team. Or a new character who had a horrible experience with their old team or house or whatever, and decides to come out only after they trust people. Or we could just have a great storyline where someone is out and proud and everyone deals with it respectfully. As for trans characters, all of the above apply, but they could also have a doctor transitioning, and we see the medical storyline play out as well as the emotional one with the doctors. People discover these things about them later on in life, there is no reason any character couldn’t be made to have these thoughts and feelings. These storylines write themselves and are incredibly easy to weave into the shows naturally. You’re just being lazy One Chicago.

It doesn’t have network appeal/wouldn’t play well with the demo. There are currently about 36 regulars/recurring characters active in the One Chicago Universe. No one is being threatened by putting any LGBTQ+ characters into the storyline. Also if people aren’t exposed to this in television, how will they be introduced to these ideas if they don’t know anyone personally. Also queer people exist and watch this show. We want representation too. And 18-49 is definitely going to have some of us in it.

They’d have to bring in new characters in order to have LGBTQ+ ones. No, they wouldn’t. See the first mock question. But also in the past 2 seasons they have introduced about 7 recurring or main characters. All of them straight.

You don’t know if they’re straight, you’re assuming. Yeah, because that’s the intention that the shows are going for. In order for representation to exist there needs to be some sort of explicit statement or act to show it. Otherwise it doesn’t count.

It’s not realistic to the type of jobs. Really... There are no gay cops or firefighters, or doctors?

These shows are about the jobs not the personal lives. Sexuality and gender expression ARE NOT PERSONAL LIFE THINGS. It’s who someone is, and that’s One Chicago’s specialty. The characters stop them from being just like every other procedural on every other network. And if you have time to show us scenes of every other heterosexual couple you have time to show us queer ones.

Stop watching the show if you don’t like it. No. I love these characters and that’s why I want these shows to do better, and be better. I’d also love consistent writing, which I’m not going to get either, but I can still ask for it.

Now here’s a list of characters who could easily be either read as queer or could discover they were queer. (Also PS, I’ll be using gay in the colloquial manner as in Make this Character Gay, which also means like make them queer or any kind of LGBTQ)

Starting with the newest regular characters.

Ava Bekker: Definitely brought in to be the new lady Connor fucks, but hey you could make her Bi or Pan. She made a comment about liking dangerous men, does that mean she doesn’t like dangerous women? Make her gay 2K18. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see her not wooed by Connor’s charms and become Zanetti 2.0? She could use a great girlfriend, or non binary friend. Maybe a sweet smart bundle of anxiety who is a second year psychiatry resident? You could show possible anxiety she might have about coming out when she’s in line for a competitive position.

Hailey Upton: Possibly had an affair with that dude. Alright. Make her bi then. Or if she didn’t have that affair, make her gay. There’d probably be very positive feedback, and her character might be better received if it didn’t look like she was taking Erin’s place completely. She’s cool, and calm, and doesn’t do a million illegal things an episode like some other characters. Gay Icon 2K18. Make it happen PD.

Stella Kidd: She’s got a thing going with Severide. That’s great, you can be Bi and in a relationship with a dude. That’s what bi means. Have her talk about an ex who is not a dude. Or if you’re going to make Kelly find himself for the umpteenth time instead of getting them together, have Kidd find a nice not cis-guy to date.

Isidore Latham: Sure he had that mean sex worker trick him at the conference he went to with Connor, but we don’t know any indications of who he is interested in. Why not make him queer?

Looking at characters who have been around for a few seasons.

Sarah Reese: She comes from the east coast with a very wealthy mother and absent father. Her mother was never home, and we are shown her numerous confidence issues. If she was bi or pan, she would probably not express it because she wants to stay in the shadows. We can see that in the pastel neutral colors that she dresses in, and her over all demeanor. Show me a Sarah who falls for someone who she thinks she shouldn’t, and have her wrestle with those feelings and come out ahead of them. Then we can see her date a super intelligent and confident heart surgeon from South Africa. Sarah is also young and has super liberal leanings, making her the most obvious choice in Med.

Maggie Lockwood: We know next to nothing about Maggie. She’s an open book and has no restrictions put on her by previous statements. She’d be an excellent lesbian who is proud of her sexuality and is one of the most respected people in the ED.

Noah Sexton: Give me something that would make me stand Noah as a character. Show him dealing with his identity as a latino man from a religious background. It would be interesting and much better than his sexual harassment storyline we’re going with in this season.

April Sexton: Very similar to Noah with regards to being latina with a religious household, but she also has very strong desires to please her parents, and falling in love with someone who isn’t a man would be a challenge for her to over come.

Kelly Severide: I mean who says he hasn’t slept with someone who wasn’t a woman before. Again, he can be with Kidd or whoever else they want to put him with, and mention an ex-boyfriend. Or maybe he doesn’t mention it and it comes out and we see a respected queer lieutenant. And who wouldn’t want to see Taylor Kinney maybe make out with a dude?

Connor Rhodes: Bad boy who bucks familial conventions by being bi. It’s one of the reasons he ran off when he graduated school. Now he’s back in Chicago and is juggling his identity with the expectations of his family, name and this fellowship. Ava finds out he’s bi too, and they become ONLY friends. But good friends.

Kevin Atwater: You’ve given him 0 romantic options in the show in 5 seasons, while Ruzek has had 2 engagements...(different post...) Maybe it’s because he’s gay. He and Peter Stone had excellent chemistry on the Justice crossover, delve into that. Show this badass strong and sensitive guy with a great boyfriend.

Sylvie Brett: Maybe she ran away from her wedding for more than just cold feet about missing out on the world. Maybe she never acknowledged those feelings inside her and she wants to date someone other than a guy? I don’t know. Possibilities are open.

This is just a small amount of options. You could write a scenario for nearly every character in this universe. So why don’t they?

PS: I’m horrible at coming up with Trans and Ace/Aro head canons so if you have any please reblog and put them. I want to read them very badly. ALSO if you have any head canons about this reblog and put them. Let’s get diversity in fanon if we’ll never have it in canon.

Special shoutout to @lesbianhaileyupton, and @xelmanrique318 for bringing this up in the tags and causing me to get pissed enough about it to write this whole thing out. I reblogged their posts, and they’re 100% worth a read.

#chicago med #chicago pd #chicago fire #lgbtq #one chicago #all the characters #there's too many to tag

70 notes · View notes

jurrasicparkislove-blog · 7 years

Text

FA335 CREATIVE PROJECT

Hello Dino Lovers! Welcome to our blog!

What is Fan Fiction?

Fandoms provide interesting and inclusive opportunities for individuals to acknowledge and interact with movies, television shows, art, music, celebrities and so on. A particular outlet of fan interaction is fan fiction—fiction written about characters and settings from an original piece, created by followers and supporters rather than the creator themselves. Malin Isaksson describes fan fiction as:

“A creative and free text-type, open to possibilities of developing a story in directions not foreseen by the canon’s creators and for pairing characters who do not form couples in the canon, for example creating slash/femslash. However, the general rule in fan fiction is that writers respect the logic of that canon regarding plot, style and the characters personalities“ (Isaksson).

Within fan fiction, slash and femslash fiction—fiction written about same sex relations between characters—has grown into a popular sub-genre of fan literature. In this blog post, we will examine what slash and femslash fiction is, its history, and whom it is written by and for. We will explore this subject using the Jurassic Park franchise. Then, we will take a stab at writing slash and femslash fiction ourselves.

Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park and Jurassic World provide intensely interactive plots, fascinating character development and enchanting cinematography. It is apart of an enterprise that has inspired numerous sequels, adaptions, merchandise, amusement and even slash fiction. In fact, over the past 20 years its fan base has continuously grown into a thriving and inclusive fandom. As childhood fans of the original film, our love for Jurassic Park was reinvigorated with the 2015 release of Jurassic World.

So, lets explore fiction, fan-fiction and slash-fan fiction, shall we?

Why Fiction in General:

Before we begin, lets closely analyze human beings’ fascination with fiction more generally. Tooby and Cosmides (2001) argue that our involvement in fictional and imagined worlds appears to be “a human universal” (Salmon and Symon 94). In fact, they argue two possible explanations as to why humans create and consume fictional representations. First, “human engagement in fictional experience is a functionless byproduct of psychological adaptions that were designed by natural selection to serve other functions.” In other words, our engagement in fictional experience is not something we were designed to do, but rather something we are susceptible to doing (Salmon and Symon 95). The second explanation is “that human engagement in fictional experience is in itself an adaption; that is something we are designed to do” (Salmon and Symon 95). Whatever argument you may find more convincing, there is no doubt that human beings love interacting with fiction!

What is Slash Fiction?

At the surface, it is fan fiction written about characters of the same sex. Slash fiction originated in the 1970s. To be considered true slash fiction, “lovers must be an expropriated media paring, such as Captain Kirk and Spock” (Salmon and Symon 94). The term “slash” arose “from the convention of using the slash punctuation mark to unite the lovers’ names or initials” (Salmon and Symon 94). Interestingly, it is almost exclusively written by and for women (Salmon and Symon 94). Throughout slash fiction’s growth in popularity, nearly every cop, spy, adventure and science fiction TV series featuring male cast members were “slashed” (Salmon and Symon 94). In part, slash fiction’s growth in popularity was because of the creation of the Internet (Salmon and Symon 94). Lastly, Slash fiction arose spontaneously at the same time in the US, the UK, Germany, Australia, and Canada (Salmon and Symon 94). There is no doubt that slash-fiction is popular, specifically amongst female audiences, but the question remains why?

Why is Slash-Fiction so Popular amongst Women?

There are a number of theories that argue why slash fiction is so popular amongst female audiences. Ika Willis has said,

“Through my involvement in slash, I have developed terms and practices which enable me to live more comfortably in my body and with a sense of my own gendered identification(s), which works for me. In fact, slash has worked both to sustain my lifelong boy-identification and to solidify and strengthen my (in some ways more precarious) identification as a woman” (Willis 292).

Therefore, slash fiction provides an opportunity for individuals to explore sex, sexuality and gender, and the complicated intersection of these identities. In addition, Willis argues that we have a corporal body and felt body. The corporal refers to our literal and physical body and the felt body is metaphorical—whether you feel more masculine or feminine, or perhaps neither. Therefore, “an individual—cis or trans—may, in practice, experience a gendered disjunction” between these two bodies. (Willis 303). This disjunction can be explored within slash fiction and can help “strengthen” ones identification.

What is Femslash?

Femslash is a subgenre of slash fiction—fan creations written about lesbian relationships. It has gained increasing popularity amongst fan communities. Femslash as a phenomenon occurred later than slash fiction. While fans were slashing Kirk and Spock together since the 70s, female slashing became popular a few decades after. Malin Isaksson argues that femslash really grew in popularity in part because Buffy the Vampire Slayer portrayed such strong female characters. More generally, as women received stronger lead roles in Hollywood movies and TV shows, there was a greater opportunity to slash them together (Isaksson 3). Interestingly like slash fiction, the general authorship of femslash is also women. While we now know what slash and femslash fiction is, and that it is primarily written by women, the question still remains why? More importantly, why is there a stigma surrounding male authorship of slash and femslash fiction?

Who can Write Slash/Femslash Fiction?

Want the short answer? Anyone. But for some reason, there remains such an impermeable stigma around men who write slash/femslash fiction. But why? Sexuality and gender is non-binary; it is fluid, individual and intrinsically apart of our identities. For example, Alfred Kinsey understands sexuality on a spectrum and that the majority of humans are neither exclusively homosexual nor exclusively heterosexual. Instead, the majority of us are somewhere in between (Weinrich, 1). We work so hard to avoid boxes and labels—the options are no longer dichotomous. It is no longer just male or female, it is no longer just straight or gay. So, why does it matter who is creating a piece and whom is reading it? There shouldn’t really be stigma surrounding this. It is just fans taking part in fandoms in their own way. That’s why we are challenging this stigma, by writing a fan fiction that contains both slash and femslash fiction! Take a read:

The following fan fiction was written and created by us. We then edited our piece to include femslash as well.

Claire

Zara

Note: This Femslash takes place one year following the events of Jurassic World Lightening struck again waking Claire from a horrible nightmare. The constant routine of waking abruptly with flashes of dinosaurs ripping apart human flesh had become so familiar to her. She immediately rolled over in her bed expecting to beside the love of her life.

She was alone.

Thinking back, she could not remember a time where she slept through the night without waking up in a panic. She got out of bed and walked down the hallway, giving up any hope of more sleep. For some reason tonight her house felt more empty than usual. Everything was silent and lonely. Her constant need to clean and keep a perfect looking home made it seem lonelier. She had trapped herself in isolation when she moved away from everyone she knew. She found a house in Fairbanks, Alaska. This winter was especially cold.

She hadn’t seen Owen since the events took place. She feared that he would be upset with her for leaving without telling anyone. However, she could not go on lying to everyone after the horrible incident. More importantly, she regretted never having the chance to tell him about Zara.

Although Owen Always thought they were meant for each other, Claire knew he could never fulfill her need for connection the way that Zara did. Zara was the most beautiful woman Claire had ever seen. When she first began working for her she knew there was chemistry… and not just the kind that made dinosaurs come back to life.

Zara had the type of confidence that captured the room. It was as if all work in the office halted once she walked in; all eyes slowly wandering down her long legs. When Claire first saw Zara, she knew she had to have her. She was immediately drawn in. Her brown hair was perfect. Everything about her seemed too perfect to be true. It was in these first looks that Claire felt something she never had before; something she never thought she would ever feel with a woman.

Claire put the kettle on and prepared a cup of tea. She then grabbed her housecoat and decided to brave the cold winter night. Immediately she was surprised to see the beautiful Northern Lights illuminating the sky. She sipped her tea looking at splashes of glowing green across the sky. She thought it might be the most amazing thing she had ever seen. Then immediately she began to remember when Zara and her first spoke.

Once their eyes locked, it felt as if the whole world had become weightless. As they discussed their work she noticed she could not stop smiling. Claire and Zara’s eyes kept meeting and she noticed that Zara kept looking at her lips. Once she realized this was happening Claire blushed. She had never felt butterflies this strong with anyone before. However, she was too nervous and embarrassed to make a move.

Claire decided it was too cold and moved back inside to turn on the fireplace. Although she was lonely, her home in Fairbanks gave a sense of independence and sanctuary. She needed a simple life after living through the horrible deaths and fears at Jurassic World. Every article and news story across the world covered the story of the hundreds of injured and killed people in Jurassic World.

She checked her phone and noticed a missed call: Owen. It had been three months since the last time Owen had tried to call her. She began to cry. She never realized how much she missed human contact till this moment. The fire finally began to heat the house and she curled up on the couch. Through the frosted window she noticed the snow begin to fall.

The first time Zara kissed Claire her heart began to beat through her chest. Her arms wrapped around her body and held her close. She had never been so nervous. “Don’t be nervous” Zara whispered to her.

FIN

Grant

Malcolm

Note: This Slash Fiction takes place one year following the events of Jurassic Park Lightening struck again waking Grant from a horrible nightmare. The constant routine of waking abruptly with flashes of dinosaurs ripping apart human flesh had become so familiar to him. He immediately rolled over in his bed expecting to beside the love of his life.

He was alone.

Thinking back, he could not remember a time where he slept through the night without waking up in a panic. He got out of bed and walked down the hallway, giving up any hope of more sleep. For some reason tonight his house felt more empty than usual. Everything was silent and lonely. His constant need to clean and keep a perfect looking home made it seem lonelier. He had trapped himself in isolation when he moved away from everyone he knew. He found a house in Fairbanks, Alaska. This winter was especially cold.

He hadn’t seen Ellie since the events took place. He feared that she would be upset with him for leaving her without telling anyone. However, he could not go on lying to everyone after the horrible incident. More importantly, he regretted never having the chance to tell her about Malcolm.

Although Ellie always thought they were meant for each other, Grant knew she could never fulfill his need for connection the way that Malcolm did. Malcolm was the most beautiful man Grant had ever seen. When he first began working with him he knew there was chemistry… and not just the kind that made dinosaurs come back to life.

Malcolm had the type of confidence that captured the room. It was as if all work in the office halted once he walked in; all eyes slowly wandering down to his chest. When Grant first saw Malcolm, he knew he had to have him. He was immediately drawn in. His brown hair was perfect. Everything about him seemed too perfect to be true. It was in these first looks that Grant felt something he never had before; something he never thought he would ever feel with a man.

Grant put the kettle on and prepared a cup of tea. He then grabbed his housecoat and decided to brave the cold winter night. Immediately he was surprised to see the beautiful Northern Lights illuminating the sky. He sipped his tea looking at splashes of glowing green across the sky. He thought it might be the most amazing thing he had ever seen. Then immediately he began to remember when Malcolm and him first spoke.

Once their eyes locked, it felt as if the whole world had become weightless. As they discussed their work he noticed she could not stop smiling. Grant and Malcolm’s eyes kept meeting and he noticed that Malcolm kept looking at his lips. Once he realized this was happening Grant blushed. He had never felt butterflies this strong with anyone before. However, he was too nervous and embarrassed to make a move.

Grant decided it was too cold and moved back inside to turn on the fireplace. Although he was lonely, his home in Fairbanks gave a sense of independence and sanctuary. He needed a simple life after living through the horrible deaths and fears at Jurassic Park. Every article and news story across the world covered the story of the incident at Jurassic Park.

He checked his phone and noticed a missed call: Ellie. It had been three months since the last time Ellie had tried to call him. He began to cry. He never realized how much he missed human contact till this moment. The fire finally began to heat the house and he curled up on the couch. Through the frosted window he noticed the snow begin to fall.

The first time Malcolm kissed Grant his heart began to beat through his chest. His arms wrapped around his body and he held him close. He had never been so nervous. “Don’t be nervous” Malcolm whispered to him.

FIN

THANKS FOR READING

Works Cited

Griffin H. SOAP SLASH: GAY MEN REWRITE THE WORLD OF DAYTIME TELEVISION DRAMA. The Spectator. 2005;25(1):23-34. http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/docview/1496062665?accountid=14846.

Isaksson, Malin. "Buffy/Faith Adult Femslash: Queer Porn With a Plot." Slayage: The Online, International Journal of Buffy Studies 7 (2009): Web. http://davidlavery.net/Slayage/PDF/Isaksson .pdf

Salmon, Catherine, and Don Symons. "Slash fiction and human mating psychology." Journal of Sex Research 41.1 (2004): 94-100.

Willis, Ika. "Writing the Fables of Sexual Difference: Slash Fiction as Technology of Gender." Parallax, vol. 22, no. 3, 2016, pp. 290-311, doi:10.1080/13534645.2016.1201920.

Weinrich, James D. "Notes on the Kinsey Scale." Journal of Bisexuality, vol. 14, no. 3-4, 2014, pp. 333-340, doi:10.1080/15299716.2014.951139.

#jurassicpark #femslash #slashfiction #jurassicworld

2 notes · View notes