#I can't believe I am vague-posting TWO MAJOR BOOK SERIES AT THE SAME TIME | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

takaraphoenix · 1 year

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There is something that feels inexplicably... straight... in a way that’s uncomfortable, stiff and also just unenjoyable for me, personally, about the narrative of “bravery and inspiration” when it comes to coming outs.

We all - who we have been there and come out - do know that there is an angle of feeling inspired. Sure. Of course. Knowing there’s others like us out there gives us strength. That can come from a place of fiction, when you see yourself represented in media for the very first time. That can come from a place of connection, when you get to interact with another queer person for the first time.

The arc of having The Gay One Of The Main Characters have their coming out and then, down the road, have other, minor characters come out too, and have them express that they felt inspired by the bravery of the Gay Main. I hate that. I hate that so much. Urgh, that just tastes icky to me.

It tastes straight to me. Because straight people love to imagine us as brave, because they often struggle to imagine us as just existing. Our existence must be brave. Our existence must be hardships. And they are, obviously do we face those things. But this framework feels so reductive.

It reduces the coming out to bravery, when a coming out story can be about so much more. Should be about so much more. We deserve to have stories told about so much more than just our hardships and struggles, we deserve to be more than just brave.

Why do the minor queer characters need to be inspired to come out? Why do they need to be so desperately closeted, so incredibly afraid to be themselves that it takes this act of bravery? Why did the author feel the need to create a fictional world that is so oppressive, so harmful and constrictive? That’s a deliberate choice that’s being made.

And sometimes, it’s a choice that makes me feel tired, to be honest. I mean, we can accept werewolves and witches being real and all of that, and bend reality, but let’s not get too unreal, we should definitely keep the homophobia.

Even in a world where we do keep the homophobia, the act of bravery of one singular queer character... ain’t gonna actually change that. Honestly, your choice here is worse than if you just... decided to write about a world where there isn’t any homophobia?

Genuinely. I’d much rather read about a world where we say acceptance is the norm from the get-go, rather than “and all the queers lived in fear, until The Chosen Queer One finally found the bravery to come out of the closet, and every other queer character followed them out of the closet, inspired by their bravery, and... everything was just dandy, actually”.

Because - because - there isn’t any homophobia here, in the end. Everything was just fine, in the end. Nobody faced any homophobia. You just needed the queers to be afraid until the Queer Main was “brave”, so they could all come out and realize that all the straights are actually really nice.

And that’s what makes it taste real straight.

Because the straights aren’t a threat. The straights are actually real nice! There is nothing bad happening here. The queers are being oh-so brave, but they have nothing to fear from us, we’re the good straights. We wouldn’t want to write about uncomfy things like actually bad straight people and actual homophobia. No, that’s going too far, we wouldn’t want to do that.

And I’m just kind of... tired, that just existing is enough to be seen as brave, and that the straight authors still need to feel comfy enough in their little worlds to not go too far, and that we do ridiculous shit like pretending nobody was ever out before the Queer Main. I’m just tired.

#I can't believe I am vague-posting TWO MAJOR BOOK SERIES AT THE SAME TIME #Queer Stuff #Writing #Literature #Books #I am actually in tears that this happened twice #two nickels in #you know what FUCK IT I'M NOT VAGUE POSTING #Riordan Critical #Sh Critical #I... don't know if the books handled that as poorly as the show did #but I DO know I still carry bitterness about the way the show handled it #and learning this about the new RR book reminded me of the Sh nonsense #so yeah. if I had a nickel for every time this happened. two nickels

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