#born to write yaoi forced to write code...

[junipvelt]

anyone else thinking about authunity

[dekusleftsock]

My Hero Academia

How to do last minute representation the right way

A meta post that I’ve been thinking about for a while, and I think I finally have the right words.

First, let's establish the terms I will be using and how they apply to other shows.

Open representation

Open representation, in this case, is a show that from start to finish is openly queer and never tries to hide that. The first ones that come to mind are Steven Universe, Shera, Sasaki to Miyano, or the owl house. They will have queer representation throughout the show, though may hook people in first by not making the characters openly queer in the first few episodes. This is usually done through a beard of some kind. Connie for Steven, the fantasy dude for Luz, bow for adora, etc. They don't necessarily have to be important to the MC's love life at all, (like how bow is glimmers love interest or that connie and steven legitimately are love interests) they simply have to make the illusion of a non queer show to prove that the show is STILL good, with or without it.

Explicit representation

I think sasaki to miyano actually fits better here, as the thing that defines this representation is that it never tries to hide the queerness. BL usually goes here because of what the genre is born out of. Which is, usually, oppressed groups finding comfort in certain media. Not a lot of popular shows/comics are in the "explicit representation" section unless it's from an indie author. Or, on the rare occasion, published by a big manga company. The only time these works are easily published is when it's nsfw, because of the yaoi/yuri industry. These works aren't very popular most of the time because they have to appeal to a straight audience, and it's hard to do that with explicitly queer shows.

There are exceptions to the rule of course, like heart stopper or, once again sasaki to miyano, and that's because straight women are able to project and/or fetishize the characters. They will also have a token straight couple sometimes, like heart stopper, in order to appeal to the non gay audience. Or be able to fetishize the main couple because they have something that allows them to see the couple through heterosexual eyes. Like miyano and sasaki's height difference. Maybe they will add something onto them to make them more masculine to fight this, like miyano's hate for sweet things and sasaki's love of it. But ultimately people will just see this as "breaking gender norms" instead of just two gay men.

However, it was also the only reason they COULD get the show green-lit. No matter what, these shows will have to find a way to appeal to a straight audience. It's just how the world works. It sucks, but it's true.

Queer coding or coded representation

This genre of queerness usually fits shonen/shoujo anime. Think death note, hunter x hunter, madoka magica, sk8 the infinity or kakegurui. Though it also fits a lot of western cartoons like infinity train, star vs the forces of evil, and gravity falls. The thing that defines this representation is that it's never explicitly said. It's what makes this representation so frustrating, as it directly appeals to a straight audience, while still grabbing a major queer audience. The straight audience can write it off as being accidental or even say it doesn't exist. That the queer audience is "looking into it too much".

What's even more frustrating about this is that it actually had to happen in order for us to have representation at all. Gravity falls laid out the footsteps so that the owl house could actually BE A SHOW! These shows fight tooth and nail for it to be written the way they want it to be, like making marco a latina trans woman, and in the end, they were never able to make it openly queer the way they wanted it to be.

Accidental representation

On paper, this concept is hilarious, but it's also the most frustrating thing in the world. Accidental representation is honestly just a big phenomenon called "homosociality". angy-grrr explains this concept in this post (https://angy-grrr.tumblr.com/post/690891053818134528/bakudeku-in-bnha-another-case-of-the) But if you don't feel like reading that at the moment and just wanna know what this term means, I'll explain it. It is intimate social connections between the same sex, usually it's used to understand masculinity from a psychological standpoint. It's also used to understand hegemonic masculinity; the idea that there are different forms of masculinity across many cultures and points of time. Essentially, men who are in a male only space because they don't want women to "invade their space" feels inherently gay. (Edit, please look at the post right after this one on my page, I explained this a little wrong and was corrected, PLEASE READ IT GOD DONT SPREAD MISINFORMATION-)

Regardless, shonen anime usually falls into this category. Like Naruto, dragon ball z, or saiki. Sometimes western cartoons can also fit this category, like dipper being accidental trans coding, or rapunzel from tangled ever after being accidental sapphic coding.

What this representation is defined by is the author simply making a lapse in judgement for their own show. They accidentally make the rivals to friends a little too queer because they will show an intimacy the main character can not share with his female love interest, and instead give it to his rival. This is often born out of ignorance; when a straight person creates a show and instead of sharing intimate friendships, it shows intimate relationships. They will try to fight toxic masculinity by showing they can hug and be vulnerable with their male friends and rivals. Essentially, a "romantic scene" is not actually romantic because there are two male characters. That is the only thing that separates his rival/best friend from his love interest.

It boils down to men not being allowed to have intimate relationships and women can be as intimate as they want to be to practice for boys.

The gender binary is so interesting isn't it?

Last minute representation

FINALLY, we're here. Last minute representation. Last minute representation is honestly the most common one. Gravity falls, madoka, adventure time, shera, dead end paranormal park and many many more have last minute representation. This is because of two factors. One, that shows IN GENERAL have their characters get together at the end, a very common aspect in story telling. The "happily ever after" part. Of course happily ever after doesn't exist, there's always another day after the end of a story. This is just a general writing pet peeve, but making a kids show with yet ANOTHER "happily ever after" is kinda stupid as it doesn't properly teach children that relationships take work and are complicated. It shows a small portion into what goes into a relationship, the confession. It's part of the reason why I want to create my own children's show, but anyway, that's not really the point.

The other reason shows often have last minute representation is because a show can no longer be canceled. For example, SU was actually gonna have a whole other season after season 5, but because the show aired the first ever gay marriage on TV for children, cartoon network was banned from hosting the show in a lot of countries. That's why the ending arc feels so rushed; because it was. That's why shows leave it to the very last minute, so that they can finish their story while still adding the LGBTQ rep they wanted to add into the show.

How does this relate to My Hero Academia?

Simple, my hero is going to do last minute representation correctly for once. The problem with last minute rep is that it entirely is dictated by pandering to the company who publishes your work, along with attracting an audience it doesn't necessarily need.

MHA did create a beard character for their main character, yes, but it did so in a way that completely erases the idea of shonen. Shonen is inherently pandering to the male gaze, the heterosexual society around it, yet it has always tried to stand out against other shonens.

What makes My Hero unique, is the fact that it never tried to be anything it wasn't.

It always showed you the love interest of the story, it never once lied to your face. The entirety of izuku and Katsuki's characters have always been gay.

Obsessed with someone

The other half of them

Everything they ever wished to be is what the other person is

They envied everything that they stood for

It was always in your face, we just chose to ignore it.

Not only that but Katsuki and Izuku have acted like a troubled married couple FROM THE START! Their relationship has always been about nuance and learning to be better. They have always acted like they were in a relationship, and that's why they're such a popular ship.

Horikoshi has enough of an audience that if shonen jump didn’t let him publish the two of them being gay, he would just do it without a publishing company. He’s got the money, fans, and the show. Plus, shonen jump would just lose money. It would be a lose lose situation.

They stood as the "male couple that ended up having more chemistry than the love interest" AND as the "they might be canon" couple.

Horikoshi was able to show that men can be intimate by not fighting homosociality.

[gothriotgrrl]

Can we just for a second talk about how amazing of a character Hiei from Yu Yu Hakusho is? Especially since his character has not only been misinterpreted a lot over the years, but been reduced to wank fodder for yaoi fan girls.

When I say he's been misinterpreted, one of the most common things I hear about him, as a character, is how much people love his journey from the hiding in the shadows, wears all black, kidnaps the hero's girlfriend, cartoon villain to an emotionally secure, empathetic person. But here's the thing about Hiei; he was always that emotionally secure, empathetic person. He doesn't have a character journey, he has a character reveal. And just like the protagonist at the beginning of the show, viewers/readers wrote him off.

A lot of people I know who weren't familiar with the story before they watched/read it, or the fact that Hiei would eventually become part of the main group, either never expected to see him in the show again, or thought he would be the main, "big bad". Which is one of the greatest bits of storytelling I've ever seen because, he's been written off by everyone in his life. It's such a common occurrence for him that even the viewers/readers, who weren't already familiar with the story, did it.

And this constant writing off/misinterpreting becomes a theme with his character. When we see him again, he's appears to be either cynical and harsh, or completely apathetic. He rolls his eyes at heroic proclamations, he appears cruel to his enemies, and at any given time, you expect him to betray everyone, and throw their trust of him in their face.

But as the story continues, you realize he was never cynical or apathetic; he's had a hard life, and his experiences have made him a realist. He's not being harsh for the sake of hurting people, he's being that way for the sake of trying to keep them from being hurt; he doesn't want a sugar coat things because people might not take it as seriously. He's not apathetic, he just keeps a cool head and is guarded during dangerous situations. And as far as the cruelty is concerned, it's usually, either in response to other's cruelty, or because he was abandoned/betrayed. (He only attacks, and kidnaps, Keiko after Kurama abandons their plan, and he's left alone to deal with Yusuke. Something that is made clear he views as a betrayal from someone he trusted.)

In fact, as the story continues, it's revealed that he has a very strict code of NOT being pointlessly cruel, and abusing people who are weaker than him. This is especially telling because he's telepathic. He can both read, and control the minds of individuals weaker than him. While he does the latter when we first meet him, once again after he's been abandoned/betrayed and is a little desperate, he doesn't hurt any of the people he controls. And we never see him do it again.

This makes sense when we learn about his past. While it is the kind of past that would be considered "tragic", (his mother was forced to pretend to kill/abandon him as a baby because he was a fire demon born to an ice demon, and viewed as dangerous, he was raised by a group of bandits in the woods, he has a twin sister he never got to know, and he has undergone torturous magical surgeries to make himself stronger), it's not really presented as tragic, nor is there any proof that he views it as tragic. Most of the characters don't come from great circumstances, and while his might be the worst of all of them, he reacts to his past trauma in a very realistic way; he tries to become powerful enough so that other people, and their decisions, can no longer have power over his life. He doesn't try to rule the world, or destroy it for hurting him, he just doesn't want to be on the bottom rung anymore. And since he's so familiar with being on the bottom rung, he's incredibly empathetic. It's why he doesn't use his powers to abuse those who are weaker, he knows what it's like to be in that situation. And while he doesn't like the idea of being weak himself, or aligning himself with weak people, he makes it clear that he understands that his society has power imbalances, and a big part of the reason he's on the lower rungs is because of the people on the higher rungs abusing their power. Because of this, he doesn't lash out pointlessly, at the people on his level or below.

And then there's the fact that he's probably the gayest character I've ever seen in any story. And when I say that I don't mean he's gay because of some kind of villain-based queer coding, I mean he is so obviously not sexually or romantically interested in the females around him, and is only interested in the males. And once again the way he reacts is realistic. He's a teenage guy who either gets blushy and awkward around the people he's attracted to (Yusuke) or is familiar enough with them that he openly flirts with them (Kurama). In other words, he acts like a romantically awkward teenage guy; which is exactly what he is. And it's never hidden or written off by the other characters, Hiei is gay, simple as that. And when he does blush or get awkward around the other guys, none of them get offended.

In fact, there are no negative stereotypes attached to his homosexuality, and homoromanticism. He is not written with any gay stereotypes that are inherently homophobic, toxically masculine, or misogynistic. I'm almost certain Hiei being a gay character is supposed to be a "f*ck you" to the common queer coding of the 90s. Especially since many of the characters who fall into those stereotypes in the story are shown to be either straight or bisexual. He is just a black clothes wearing, bluntly realistic, secretly empathetic, awkward, gay teenager. He's animes original goth. Let's all show some respect and love for him.