Would You Like Some Salt With That?
May. 26th, 2017 03:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydamorehouseI've been reading a lot of people's blogs lately. I don't know if this is a product of my pen-palling, but I find myself more and more drawn to the stories of people's lives and their various takes on things. This morning I ended up reading a mini-rant someone posted about a ship war in the Tokyo Ghoul fandom, and that inspired me to write my own mini-rant about the Trials and Tribulations of Being a Queer Otaku. I don't have anything particularly brilliant to say, but, what the heck, this is what blogs are for, right?
When I posted it to Facebook, a friend of mine came on and poked at the open wound that is my relationship to the ending of Bleach. She didn't do so intentionally, she just casually mentioned that she was find with Renji ending up with Rukia at the end because, for her, "it felt right." I don't even necessarily disagree, but in going back and forth with her, I realized that I might have been a lot better with that particular pairing (which absolutely had a foundation in canon, at least on Renji's part,) IF ANY queer couples had survived in tact. Ukitake is dead, leaving his partner of hundreds of years, Kyouraku, bereft. And, Kubo-sensei was so weird about that one, too. What we get at the end of canon is nothing like the warm relationship the two had previously. In fact, Kyouraku hardly seems moved at all by his friend's death, other than chatting at his gravestone a bit, in a very light, off-handed way. Regardless, they end like classic gay relationships: with one of the dead.
Yumichika and Ikkaku are both still around, but their relationship has been undercut since the whole Keigo's sister moment in the Hueco Mundo arc. Ikkaku clearly was uninterested in Keigo's sister, but at no point was his relationship with Yumichika ever considered. Yumichika acted like he didn't care, which might have been just that--an act, but even so the non-acknowledgement of their status as a couple makes Yumichika into the sort of lover who just sits quietly on the sidelines while his lover philanders. That's also a sad sort of stereotype, and, frankly, I think Kubo-sensei was intentionally showing us an Ikkaku love interest to spray 'no homo' over two of the most OBVIOUS HOMOS IN THE HISTORY OF BLEACH, right after the ones Kubo made sure to kill one of.
If you think about other queer characters, most of them were villains and are dead. Giselle, the only trans character in Bleach, was treated fairly awfully in the way she was outed as trans (by the one suspected super-gay character, Yumichika) and Yumichika *kills* Charlotte, the other trans/cross dressing/transgressively flaming queen in the series. The psychology there is kind of stunning, especially when you think of the fact that Yumichika hides his true nature in order to do it. Wow, paging Dr. Frued, why don't you? Then you add in the fact that Kubo revived Charlotte only to let Yumichika kill her/them again? Thanks, Kubo, I get it. The only good queer is a dead queer. TWICE
Oh, and I forgot about Yoruichi.
In the end, Kubo turns this fierce poly queer woman into a sexual pun. She's literally a mindless pussy--a hybrid overly sexualize, naked cat/human who is transformed into this creature non-consentually, and is controlled by the guy who left his husband and kids at home, Urahara. Tessai, who calls Urahara 'boss' seems like obvious husbando material to me, but he is never, ever acknowledged as such and is also egregiously left out of every single fight. Yoruichi, though... deserved to be more than, at one point, to be the literal BUTT of the joke. Thanks for that, too, Kubo-sensei. You wrecked your strong queer women (which could include Unohana, too.).
So, yeah, I might be less bitter about RenRuki--which I have always supported, even in my super gay fan fic--(I always make Renji bi), if the other queer characters in Bleach had not been so poorly treated.
But no one cares about that, but me.
In other, non-fannish news, Mason is expected home late tonight. I'm looking forward to hearing all the stories of Anaheim. I did find out that their team did NOT place at the competition, but Mason had not expected them to, so he didn't seem the least bit disappointed. In fact, he kept say, "It was so much fun!" I'm super-glad that we have somehow instilled in him this attitude. It will serve him well all his life, IMHO.
We're packing to head off to LaCrosse tomorrow early. Poor Mason will land sometime around midnight and then be bundled into a car around 7 or 8 am the next morning (or same morning, if it's after midnight, eh?) But, as I told him, he can sleep in the car.
It's nice enough out that I mowed. I have to say that--knock on wood--the yard is looking half-decent this year. Now I just have to keep it up, which is always the struggle, isn't it?
When I posted it to Facebook, a friend of mine came on and poked at the open wound that is my relationship to the ending of Bleach. She didn't do so intentionally, she just casually mentioned that she was find with Renji ending up with Rukia at the end because, for her, "it felt right." I don't even necessarily disagree, but in going back and forth with her, I realized that I might have been a lot better with that particular pairing (which absolutely had a foundation in canon, at least on Renji's part,) IF ANY queer couples had survived in tact. Ukitake is dead, leaving his partner of hundreds of years, Kyouraku, bereft. And, Kubo-sensei was so weird about that one, too. What we get at the end of canon is nothing like the warm relationship the two had previously. In fact, Kyouraku hardly seems moved at all by his friend's death, other than chatting at his gravestone a bit, in a very light, off-handed way. Regardless, they end like classic gay relationships: with one of the dead.
Yumichika and Ikkaku are both still around, but their relationship has been undercut since the whole Keigo's sister moment in the Hueco Mundo arc. Ikkaku clearly was uninterested in Keigo's sister, but at no point was his relationship with Yumichika ever considered. Yumichika acted like he didn't care, which might have been just that--an act, but even so the non-acknowledgement of their status as a couple makes Yumichika into the sort of lover who just sits quietly on the sidelines while his lover philanders. That's also a sad sort of stereotype, and, frankly, I think Kubo-sensei was intentionally showing us an Ikkaku love interest to spray 'no homo' over two of the most OBVIOUS HOMOS IN THE HISTORY OF BLEACH, right after the ones Kubo made sure to kill one of.
If you think about other queer characters, most of them were villains and are dead. Giselle, the only trans character in Bleach, was treated fairly awfully in the way she was outed as trans (by the one suspected super-gay character, Yumichika) and Yumichika *kills* Charlotte, the other trans/cross dressing/transgressively flaming queen in the series. The psychology there is kind of stunning, especially when you think of the fact that Yumichika hides his true nature in order to do it. Wow, paging Dr. Frued, why don't you? Then you add in the fact that Kubo revived Charlotte only to let Yumichika kill her/them again? Thanks, Kubo, I get it. The only good queer is a dead queer. TWICE
Oh, and I forgot about Yoruichi.
In the end, Kubo turns this fierce poly queer woman into a sexual pun. She's literally a mindless pussy--a hybrid overly sexualize, naked cat/human who is transformed into this creature non-consentually, and is controlled by the guy who left his husband and kids at home, Urahara. Tessai, who calls Urahara 'boss' seems like obvious husbando material to me, but he is never, ever acknowledged as such and is also egregiously left out of every single fight. Yoruichi, though... deserved to be more than, at one point, to be the literal BUTT of the joke. Thanks for that, too, Kubo-sensei. You wrecked your strong queer women (which could include Unohana, too.).
So, yeah, I might be less bitter about RenRuki--which I have always supported, even in my super gay fan fic--(I always make Renji bi), if the other queer characters in Bleach had not been so poorly treated.
But no one cares about that, but me.
In other, non-fannish news, Mason is expected home late tonight. I'm looking forward to hearing all the stories of Anaheim. I did find out that their team did NOT place at the competition, but Mason had not expected them to, so he didn't seem the least bit disappointed. In fact, he kept say, "It was so much fun!" I'm super-glad that we have somehow instilled in him this attitude. It will serve him well all his life, IMHO.
We're packing to head off to LaCrosse tomorrow early. Poor Mason will land sometime around midnight and then be bundled into a car around 7 or 8 am the next morning (or same morning, if it's after midnight, eh?) But, as I told him, he can sleep in the car.
It's nice enough out that I mowed. I have to say that--knock on wood--the yard is looking half-decent this year. Now I just have to keep it up, which is always the struggle, isn't it?