pilgrimkitty:

zedface:

lesbifangirl:

freifraufischer:

You know Anon, let’s pretend you didn’t just imply that I would talk about something without knowing ANYTHING about it.  Let’s pretend your ask isn’t condescending.  Because I’m sure it’s you really do think in your heart of hearts that no malice was intended.

But you see i’m a bitter old lesbian.  

Let me tell you about the first time a show runner did this to me.  I was sixteen.  The internet barely existed and I certainly wasn’t on it but I went to the local comic shop once a week and I spent far too much of my allowance on scifi magazines because I wanted to hear about what was happening next on my favorite shows.  And there in one of them was this article with quotes from an actress on one of my favorite shows and I think even the show runner about how excited they were that they were going to make her character bisexual.  Now I probably should have wondered why there wasn’t a quote from the other actress because there really was only one set up for the character involved.

And so I waited.  And I watched.  And there was sweet build up.  And then one day the episode started with this shot…

And I realized that bedroom wasn’t her quarters.  And I was … I can’t tell you how happy I was for about half an hour.  Because there I was.  I didn’t even understand my sexuality at the time but there were two women who were starting a relationship and exploring something and I was so excited.

For a good thirty minutes.  And then she died.  And not just … died but her entire personality was rewritten so that the last thing we got of her was her shouting hateful things at her lover because if she’d just died that would have been bad but let’s make it worse.

And then the next time I had a canonically gay ship the character died.

And then the next time I had a canonically gay ship the character was evil.  And then died.

And then… then dear anon I bought another scifi magazine one day.  And I opened it up and there was a story about this actress.  About how they’d had to write her out of the show (there was a divorce to another actor on the show involved but also other issues).  And I realized that when the actress and the show runner were giving that interview announcing this great new storyline for her they both already knew she was dying.  They’d known for weeks or months that she was leaving the show.

They had decided that they could make her bi right before she died and then they’d get credit for having the bi character and never have to deal with it (her lover went on to have a male love interest).  

It was 1995 and what can you expect.  After all those were the dark ages right?

Things get better.

And then 7 years later I saw Buffy do the same thing in “Seeing Red.”

But it was 2002 and things get better.

And then 5 years later I watched Battlestar Galactica do it in “Razor”.  That one gets extra special points for cruelty because the lesbian relationship was in a flashback for characters we already knew were dead.  But you know maybe I should forgive them for making the gay character a megalomaniac murderer who had her ex lover gang raped before being murdered by her because Battlestar wasn’t a show where people got happy endings and after all… she was only a temporary character and Michelle Forbes had other acting commitments.  

But it was 2007 and maybe things will eventually get better.

So 7 years after that comes along Agents of SHIELD and they bring in Saffron Burrows to play a fairly well known comic book lesbian.  Basically all the casting notices and episode reviews pointed out that you know… Victoria was a lesbian in the comics.  And she had some really cool episodes before a white fuck boy shot her in the head.

And it was 2014 and it had been almost twenty years since they broke my heart the first time and I had long since stopped thinking they wouldn’t break my heart.  Because is only so much hope you can have when it’s just going to be one more dead lesbian on the floor at the end of the day with a bullet in her head.

So comes along the 100.  A show i’m not watching but I certainly know about because I’m in femslash fandoms and we talk to each other and we get excited for each other and we commiserate with each other like old warriors who have lost so many people before.  And I started to see how happy Clexa fandom was.  Not just because they had a ship sailing but because they were being treated like a main ship.  Like they mattered.  Like this wasn’t temporary.  They had the show runner backing them and man they were in love and I … I didn’t have the heart to try and warn them off getting attached because … you know… it’s gotta change some time?  Right?  Right?  

And I watched the show runner bask in the attention he was getting and the praise from the LGBT community and he damn well knew about the trope because he was dog whistling like hell “not this time, i’m different.”  And the fandom believed him.  I watched so many particularly young fans say, “see we don’t have to be like you older queer folks and believe in subtext ships, see, it’s 2016 and things have changed.”

And tonight happened and I’m not even in the fandom and suddenly it’s 1995 again and I’m sixteen wondering if I should just kill myself because … all the reasons a gay teen thinks about killing themselves… and someone had decided to play with my emotions with the full knowledge that they were going to yank the rug out from under me.

As far as I can see the only thing that has changed is that they show a bit more skin and a bit more of the sex scene before they off the uppity dyke.

Everyone following me needs to reblog this, because this is EXACTLY my point! BTW @freifraufischer I fucking love you more than ever!

Wow.. This is just wow. This is how deep wounds like that run.

Because it’s not about The 100. Yes, that’s what we’re angry about right now, but that’s not what it’s ABOUT.

It’s about Buffy and Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica and Dark Angel and Warehouse 13 and Supernatural and Lexx and True Blood.

It’s about how in speculative fiction shows, when they decide to remind us that anyone can die, it’s the queer characters that get the short straw.

And if they’re not dying, they’re turning evil.

I’m only a couple years younger than OP, and I spent a good portion of the 90s and 2000s learning the reinforced lesson that queers don’t get to be happy. Whether it was Brokeback Mountain or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, unless a piece of media was specifically targeted to a queer audience, the queer characters didn’t get to be happy. And even in the media specifically aimed at queer audiences was likely to have a dark or angsty ending.

The 100 is just the newest iteration of a trope that has existed too long, that we’re sick of.