spotto

Whilst sleep deprived and wracked with indigestion, thoughts began swirling in my head.

I just realized the innate problems of including a minority character in media, in particular someone who may be LGBT. See more often than not, said character who is about to discover oneself runs into a plethora of problems, of bullying, of conflict, of "religious injustice" but depicting the drama of such issues in media while is a good way to spread awareness to those who do not experience such things, is not what most I believe, people who are actually gay or what have you even want to watch.

For a lot of people or at least me, media and storytelling is a place of fantasy. A place where things that are not true, are true. We see it as an escape from reality. Unless it's some sort of terrible satire about the realistic bastardization that is life, usually fiction is more idealistic than our side of the universe. So I would think and I DO think as I am one, watching a show where say two characters of the same sex who end up as a couple and run into ZERO PROBLEMS regarding their partner of choice would be most desired. That is what we want after all. A fantasy where who we are is not questioned and is the norm! But almost every single time this comes up in media it must involve some sort of internalized issue with society because even in fictionland there are the intolerable bastards that we try to avoid every single day in real life!

In other words in mainstream media, a story about a gay guy coming out is really intended for straight audiences. Because a homosexual is exotic and different and a movie or book can be used to illustrate their rough walks of life to those who never have to walk in their shoes. ("But Spotto! Minor character 1 and minor character 2 are a gay couple in that one show! WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT!?" Well, that is still for a straight audience because they're minor/side characters! Everybody has that gay friend or whatever, but god forbid YOU YOURSELF differentiate from the norm!) Why am I thinking about this? Well today is a new RWBY episode, presumably about a prom or ball or dance taking place in fantasy high school that is so generic that it has proms and balls like high schools of reality. I hate high school! I don't want to watch this shit! And now our female protagonists are presumably straight or possibly bi (but people are never bi in media, so unless they outright say this it's safe to say they're straight) asking guys out for dates. No, not Team JNPR who each have a partner of the opposite gender and such explorations of their potential relationships would actually be interesting, the main four girls.

Since they are all girls, we need some other dudes outside of the school to work with, otherwise we have teachers and taken guys. So let's introduce a whole team of dudes who don't get developed much except for that leader who showed up in season one and then suddenly pair them with the girls because THERE IS A PROM!!!! OH MY GOD! Since RWBY is such a hotspot for gay ships (what media form isn't? seriously what isn't!?) there is a sizable LGBT minority that wish to see some actually become canon. The issue is it isn't our story, so if we see absolutely zero gay ships welp, we'll just have to deal. We'll just have to deal like with every single thing we've ever watched or read. Or anything. However, the creator of RWBY has actually ended one of this animations with a yuri ship and has addressed the community's desire in an interview.

But he mentions how it'll take a long time to come to fruition because a character needs to discover themselves and realize they might be gay or they don't like being the gender they were assigned or something. Either this implies Ruby, the youngest character in the series, is going to be gay, or they're going to take their time and go through the whole annoying issue of intolerance and hatred that comes from the outside before said character will accept themselves. In other words it's another LGBT character written for a straight audience! (Obviously no writer is doing this consciously or intentionally, but we all like to write for ourselves and think of what we ourselves would enjoy, so not having a same-sex relationship in the forefront of a story is not an issue to a lot of people) RWBY is already a fantasy, but I suppose with the despicable treatment of faunus we can't expect people to be chill about liking someone of the same gender either.

So today's episode likely has Weiss in the middle of this stupid horrible love chain where Pyrrha (the coolest girl in the whole school, why does she BEGIN this triangle!? ALL THE BOYS AND EVEN SOME GIRLS SHOULD BE ASKING HER!) likes Jaune for some reason (WHY? I don't know! If the guy wasn't so oblivious and was more like a lovable goof, sure why not, but this dude is obscenely annoying and thickheaded!) who likes Weiss of all people (in what world does Jaune and Weiss seem compatible? Weiss is coldhearted and generally hates people it seems, and you want HER!? How about someone more fitting to your personality, Jaune? HOW ABOUT SOMEONE WHO HASN'T TURNED YOU DOWN MULTIPLE TIMES!?) and Weiss likes Neptune, a guy we just met this season and know nothing about aside from being a K-Pop star and being generally dorky like literally every other boy in this show. You barely know him. You took like ten episodes to be friends with Ruby. WHAT. IS. THIS. MADNESS!? Finally Neptune supposedly likes Yang...despite hitting on every girl he saw, including Weiss, but apparently will pick Yang. Now unless Yang adds more to this horrible dramafest of a goddamn cliche high school trope, it ends here.

Of course this is the same Yang who has mentioned the hot boys in her dorm in season one episode three, encouraged Jaune in season one episode four, season two episode three, and season two episode five to keep trying for Weiss, and doesn't seem to express her no-nonsense independent attitude nearly as often as she appeared to in the trailer, so I'm not entirely sure at all what to expect from Yang Xiao Long. How do you predict her? She has little development so far and also little consistency. I do want to like her. She's technically my second favourite, but like 90% of that is due to fandom. ~~GODDAMNIT YANG. DO SOMETHING. And please not a romance thing. Gah.~~ SHE DID SOMETHING! AND IT WAS EPIC! REJOICE!!! YANG XIAO LONG FOR PRESIDENT!

You can see my distress here.

Usually my compromise is no romance at all. My favourite characters in Negima were all uninvolved with the harem. (Aside from one, but she was sane/naive enough to fall for an older version of the protagonist, so while tragic at least she isn't crushing on a goddamn ten-year-old boy) Romance is entirely absent from Touhou and while rampant in fandom, due to the female population dangerously reaching 100% levels, it's all delicious, delicious yuri. And finally my last example is complete and utter spoilers, but I give up on keeping it tight-lipped. Most of you will never play Dangan Ronpa, and even if you do this one tidbit isn't going to ruin the story or anything, just a few characters if you're that testy with spoilers (which I MYSELF AM, but I give up) SO LOOK AWAY NOW IF YOU WISH TO BE UNSPOILED.

-IN WHAT WORLD DID I THINK SPOILING PEOPLE OF MY FAVOURITE CHARACTER IN SDR2 WAS A GREAT IDEA GODDAMN THIS HAS BEEN SNIPPED FOR YOUR OWN GOOD-

Sure I can fantasize about AUs all I want for any of that to work, but that's fandom stuff. That's why there's a ridiculous amount of shipping and gay fanfiction and all that crap because where else can we find a nice domestic story about two guys or two girls together struggling to make ends meet or something like that, without having stupid prejudice issues the real world already has constantly butting in? In fanfiction my favourite character will not be called a slur or punched in the face or looked down upon for their sexual orientation. In fanfiction my favourite character will not spend eight hundred chapters figuring out why they don't care for the opposite gender. IN FANFICTION ALL OF IT IS THE NORM AND NONE OF THAT EXISTS.

THAT IS WHY SHIPPING IS SO RAMPANT. THAT IS WHY SHIPPING IS PREDOMINANTLY SLASH OR YURI.

This has been Spotto. Fuck proms, fuck canon, fuck high school.