Oh no main tag it man!!! I don't care I'm putting my joker make up on!!!! The main problem with Mira (Especially in fics) is that she gets sooooo Guy-fied. She becomes the suave guy who flirts a lot and is so experienced and dominant and that is WEIRDDDDDD. Especially in rumira fics. Man some rumira fics get Traumatising bc they always do rumi poor mentally ill baby that needs saving and mira as the big tough guy who's gonna save her. BLEAGH. She gets written as the one who's least in touch with her emotions and then blows up about them (BAD AND UNTRUE!!!!!!) She's also the one staying cool when zoey is hyper and silly and that is a PERSONAL offense against mira she would spit in your eyes if she read that bc she loves being silly goofy with zoey. Don't piss me off.
Ig the the really irritating part for me is that she gets the treatment butch/more masculine women get in fandom and that’s really. UGH. They get flattened into the Dominant Bad Boy character archetipe and that’s just untrueeeeee and DUMBBBBBBBB 1. Bc she's not bad dawg. She's cool and ig i can see her being more prone to blowing up and hitting the sack when she's younger, but 25 yo Mira??????? That girl reads psychology books. Go home. 2. MIRA ISN'T BUTCH!!!!!!!!!!!! SHE SLIDES FROM DIVA HIGH FEMME TO FUTCH MAX!!!! GODDDDDDD
Also. It makes me so sad bc it feels like you're believing what she says about herself!!!! She says she's aggressive and hard to deal with but she's not just that she's so caring!!!!! And loving!!!!!! Wait she has such a bad perception of herself. Ugh. :/
Anyway this isn't most of the fandom, but it is A Loooot of fics.
(Sorry for throwing up all over your ask box. Thx for letting me do this :))
nodding thoughtfully at every point. i don't read rumira fic so i can't speak for that and i'm very very picky w my polytrix fic so i've been mostly golden on that front but ☝ i have absolutely seen that brand of mira mischaracterization on tumblr. i have also definitely vented to a friend abt people discounting mira's softness and femininity bc of her flat affect, bluntness and aggression--like those aren't even cooler to see on a girl who rocks a miniskirt and heels? i love a bruiser bombshell babey! i don't intend to yuck anyone's yum--if butch mira is for you, then go for it!--but it can be quite telling when the tall one w an rbf gets masculinized by default while the one who refuses to wear anything but shorts or pants except when she's on magazine covers or literally five years old and the one who literally dresses like a teenage boy on her off days don't get their femininity questioned bc they're softer and more agreeable.
(nuance nuance on the choice of the word "questioned," you get what i mean)
sorry to focus in on Mira Gender, it's just one of those things that are constantly on my mind bc i firmly believe she's the most femme huntrix member and it jars me little when people depict her otherwise. also, her presentation is SO interesting bc she clearly cares abt looking stylish and loves cute feminine things--like her pajamas and hairbows--but she also moves with this Swagger and shamelessly sprawls out and takes up space wherever she goes. it's SUCH a good combination. love you diva.
(she also makes a fun counterpoint to zoey who'll disappear under a men's xl shirt but still sit so politely with her hands in her lap it's very cute)
also yes! that woman is so silly and so deeply in touch with her own emotions and so so willing to communicate them! the first time i watched the movie i got to the room scene and went "oh this one goes to therapy doesn't she"--because she was so articulate abt her concerns and she presented them in a way that invited conversation rather than confrontation. she only started getting combative when the situation escalated--and even then, she was so clearly just pushing out of concern. she is so full of love for her family that when rumi and zoey pump themselves up before the idol awards by invoking the expectations placed on them (for the fans) and their duty to the many (for the world), mira is the one who brings it back to the few: for us.
(mike's mic voice) she is such a good person. even when she doesn't believe it!! i'm so glad you brought up mira's own negative view of herself that doesn't entirely align w how she acts bc it's another of my favourite things they did w her character (and one of my favourite things to do w characters) and it is SO relatable. she really does read as somebody who has grown so much but still sees themselves as they were years ago, at their worst, even when their words and actions no longer reflect that image. it's like she thinks that her conscious efforts to be kind and thoughtful and open don't make her kind or thoughtful or open because it took effort instead of coming to her easily, like they would to a person who is really, genuinely all of those things. which--(extremely loud incorrect buzzer) you are the choices you make girl you gotta own it!!
(but like. i get it. oh baby i get it. esp w her. she is so defined by her wildness--as a child and even as an idol, being known to her fans as the black sheep, getting styled with spikes and knuckle-dusters and dark makeup, quite literally bursting out of the picture-perfect box she's forced into in the golden mv, so like. when you've held onto your defiance and your sharpness and your volatility for so long, first to survive and then to market yourself to millions, it can be a liiittle hard to think of yourself as anything other than that perpetually furious child who fought for every inch she got. which does not mean you believe her when she reduces herself to that!!)
wow that got long. in my defense characters like mira are some of my absolute faaaavourites. shoutout girls who know perfectly well how deeply they can cut and so do their damnedest to keep their sharp edges away from the people they love and still refuse to believe that that makes them soft. you're my favourite flavour of girls everrrr
(yes never love an achor was the song of the summer in 2020. what of it)
(again. god knows what kind of sauce they put on zoey to make her my actual favourite)
ANYWAY. it really does all boil down to fanonization obliterating all nuance. kpdh's characters--mira especially, who was at turns edgy and sweet and stylish and slouchy and cute and fierce and inexorably goofy--were SO lovable bc of how they refused to play into the same old tropes and it is genuinely maddening to see fandom force them back into those boxes. 100% valid crashout anon, thank you so much for letting me be a hater with you o7
