Ok ok someone’s going to be pissed off about this but I’m gonna say it anyway.
Can the world have some realistic portrayal of queer relationships?
And I don’t just mean the fact that the only vaguely canonical queer ships in this fandom are super unhealthy, I mean straight up can we, as fans, start writing realistically, just sometimes?
I know we all want a world where find out you’re Pan or Trans or Gay or Bi or literally any form of queer is as simple as going ‘oh- I never realised’ but we don’t live in that world, and the characters we’re so excitedly shipping together don’t live in that world either, since that world is based off this one.
I dunno, it really bothers me- supposedly on twitter or something JKR said that ‘wizards are more accepting of homosexuality etc’, but that??? Doesn’t make any sense, logically. We’re shown again and again that wizards live in a world that we consider completely back-asswards, I mean these idiots still write with quills and on parchment(which is plain wasteful tbh), they still use torches and lanterns(do they even have gas lighting??? Probably not!). It’s shown rather subtly and repeatedly to us that Wizards don’t really have a concept of mental health, which is something that has been a part of humanity for literally the entirety of its existence, so why on earth would they be more open to queerness? The idea that JKR thinks her fans are just going to go along with the idea that purebloods especially(who, being essentially ‘nobility class’ and very focused on continuing family lines) would be more okay if their daughter wanted to marry another girl and never bear a child than others is completely preposterous to me.
So I get that it’s supposedly ‘canon’(if you can call JKR’s twitter posts canon), but fandoms have collectively said “I refuse to believe that, it’s unrealistic” before, and here’s the primary reason I believe this particular ‘canon’ should be refused by us, as fans:
Saying ‘oh yeah, wizards are totally great with sexuality’ is lazy, because now if JKR ever bothers to throw some actual, healthy queer representation our way, she doesn’t have to bother thinking about the sort of struggles queer folks go through. She doesn’t have to put one iota of thought into the fact that yes, a lot of us struggle with out identities, a lot of us are hurt because of who we are. Because magically, everyone is fine with it!
Because of this concept, we are literally never going to get a wholly realistic queer character if she ever does bother to give us the representation. Any character she decides to drop on our upturned faces is going to feel flat, because they won’t actually represent us- they’ll represent the ideal of us. They will not represent our hurts, our suffering, they will be a happy little paper bag with ‘queer’ written on the outside, and nothing in it.
And I can’t believe that so many fans, so many writers just go along with that.
With Fantastic Beasts in particular, I’ve seen the particularly gross habit of only including the struggles of a character with their sexuality when it’s convenient to add extra angst to a plot that is literally ‘how much can I hurt this character’(nothing against folk who enjoy that genre, but only including struggles with queerness in that? messed up, yo).
In any other fic I’ve found that addresses sexuality at all, it’s just ‘So-and-so finds out they’re gay! So-and-so helps!’ and it’s just generic shippy fluff that has nothing to do??? With actually coming to terms with the fact that half the world hates what you are and I just.
Look, I’m not saying that everything with a queer character in it has to deal with queer rights or anything, but seriously- people in the nineteen-twenties aren’t just gonna be hunky-dory with being queer! It was considered awful and if my memory serves it was actually still illegal at that point in the muggle world??
Like. It’s really nice to read about characters who get to just accept who they are, but there just needs to be a balance, I think.
I realise this has been a little all over the place, but thanks to anyone who bothered to read this, its’ been bothering me for a while and I finally had to put it down in text.
As much as I do agree with this (because I really, really do) I do feel like it has to be said that there’s the important factor of who writes the relationship.
A straight person writing a queer relationship constantly like this is just not done. Sorry not sorry, it’s just like that. They don’t get the struggles that come with queer relationships, and it’s just lazy to pretend they’re not there because it’s easier.
But when I look at my own writing, I also often portray queer characters like this. And that’s not laziness or carelessness. It’s comfort.
I -and I doubt I’m the only one- haven’t come to terms with my sexuality yet. Not to the point that I can write about the struggles that come with it without feeling like I’m overdoing it and annoying everyone else with those struggles. Not to the point that I can write about them without feeling uncomfortable.
And I’ve found that by writing about queer characters being comfortable with who they are, it makes me more confident. Because if they can do that, why not me? And I don’t think I’m the only one.
Don’t get me wrong please, I really do agree with all that you said, but I do think this is something that needs to be taken into account.
Well that’s sort of what I meant by saying not everything has to be about this, it’s definitely cathartic and soothing to write about characters who’re already just okay with who they are, and like. Obviously queer people who’ve already accepted themselves existed in every time period, and like. I’m definitely not saying it isn’t ok to write that.
I’m more trying to make the point that how fandom reacts and writes does affect how authors and creatures portray queerness. When we just accept and eat up the lazy straight author’s ideal ‘everything is fine’ portrayal that it encourages the laziness. Like if there isn’t at least some dialogue in fandom then they seem more likely to think it’s okay.
And I also think it’s very easy to tell when someone’s writing a queer person who’s accepted themselves verses someone who’s ignoring queer struggles to get their ~inclusiveness bonus~ or because it’s just ~hawt~, and I was more trying to address the latter than the former, because there’s so much of it.
Part of me wants to ramble more on the differences between lazy writing of queer characters versus the writing of queer characters that are comfortable with who they are(there’s so many subtleties and nuances ugh) but also I doubt you wanna hear all that and I don’t have the brain power to write another mini-essay. XD
So bottom line I’m definitely not saying YOU HAVE TO WRITE ABOUT THIS I’m just saying it’s not cool to be lazy & it’s not cool to let authors get away with being lazy either.
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