salarta

Toxic Nostalgia, Sexism, and Havolaris

I think most people who will see this post have by now seen the awful page of Havolaris junk for an upcoming comic. I've already said some things about it, and we all know the vast majority of people flat out do not want it.

So why is it happening? Two reasons: toxic nostalgia and sexism.

To deal with this problem, we have to look back at its root. When she was introduced, Lorna was the most feminist X-Men representation for her time. Even with elements like Iceman saving her, she was still depicted as more willing to speak her mind, more willing to insist she was her own person, more willing to question presumed authority and find her own path.

That's very different from how she ended up treated like a damsel in distress supporting character for Havok and punching bag for other characters to beat up for their development.

So what happened? The bottom line is she was created at a time where comics were more sexist, and the penalty of her standing out as the most feminist female X-Men character around was tearing her down.

This COULD have been a temporary problem. But then Claremont wrote the X-Men for over a decade. And when he wrote, he decided that instead of fixing those problems, he would reinforce them. He wrapped up his time writing Lorna with her as the perpetual victim always in need of Havok to guide and save her.

That became the core for what I've referred to as toxic nostalgia. Even as 90s X-Factor and other work fixed some of the damage done by Claremont, it retained the sexist elements in which Lorna existed to be a constant victim and supporting character for Havok.

That became what people like Tom Brevoort (currently running the X-Men office) saw when looking at Lorna through their nostalgia goggles.

These people grew up with this sexism framed as some kind of grand ideal. They grew up with Havok appearing to be some cool leader they should identify with, with Lorna as the wifely "I'll do anything for my man even if it means dying as a decoy so he can get a better shot at our enemy" supporting character to his hero's journey.

They do not see Lorna's value as her own character. They don't understand the basic concept of every character having their own thoughts, feelings and motives.

These are people who make up excuses to justify their thinking Lorna is a nobody that deserves nothing, rather than spend any time at all questioning their own assumptions. Whether it's Brevoort making convoluted excuses about "genetics breeding true" to try to claim Lorna can't be Magneto's daughter (yet Siryn can be Banshee's) a decade ago, or Jordan White trying to explain away Lorna winning the X-Men fan vote as "oh she was on Gifted so people thought her winning would bring the show back."

These people don't like to think. They just want to indulge in their bad habits even when the root of those habits comes from discrimination.

In short, when we're pushing for better for Lorna, we're not JUST doing it for the character. We're also doing it for a deeper principle of wanting and expecting better out of the Marvel of today than the Marvel of its sexist past.

It's inevitable for today's Marvel to not show its sexism with Storm, Jean, etc. They're high profile enough that these people know they can't get away with sexism without losing their jobs and ruining their names. The reason they stick with it with characters like Lorna is because they think she's so low and unimportant that they can get away with it.

That's what we're dealing with when we see the Havolaris page that recently came out. And why they refuse to acknowledge Lorna as a survivor of many things, especially the Genoshan genocide.

To recognize that Lorna is a survivor of the Genoshan genocide is to recognize she has worth for herself rather than as a damsel in distress and supporting character for Havok. Recognizing that part of her means recognizing that she deserves better, and questioning mistaken assumptions held across decades since their formative years.

This is why I always note that this fight for better is going to take a long time. Could take decades. We're gradually undoing damage that got inflicted across decades, and it's always easier to destroy than to create.

Do not let bad behavior and setbacks discourage you from trying to bring positive change. It will pay off. We've seen periods where it's paid off already, and the moments like this one only happen because these reactionary assholes are afraid of the progress they see taking place. Don't give them what they want.

finnlongman

Keep thinking about that one KJ Charles interview where she's talking about the challenges of being a historical romance novelist when you sort of believe the whole aristocracy should've been executed, and the delicate balancing act of writing historically accurate and interesting characters who don't have awful politics and values. And, crucially, she challenged the typical rich love interest idea by asking, "But where does the money come from?"

Once you think about it, you can't stop thinking about it. Every historical romance I read now, I can tell whether the author has thought about it. Sometimes they've thought about it but tried not to deal with it and hoped we wouldn't notice that the rich aristocrat probably owns a plantation. Sometimes they've actually dealt with it. And sometimes they have not considered it and It Shows.

But I also don't want historical novels where characters have modern sensibilities! I want them to feel historical... I just also want the "desirable" characters to not be, you know, involved in the slave trade or whatever, because that seriously undermines everything the book is doing to make them seem attractive. (One does not generally read this flavour of historical romance for morally grey antiheroes, and even if you did, that would be a fairly tasteless way of developing such a character, imo.)

I really enjoyed a detail in one of Cat Sebastian's books where the love interest is a Quaker, and he refuses dessert because he's boycotting sugar. It's a way of signalling to us that this character has particular values, but one that's rooted in the historical context and doesn't feel like a modern character wearing period clothing. His Quakerism also influences a few other details – his use of first names rather than titles, for example – but it's not a major plot point and he's no intense political campaigner. It's just one facet of his character, and one that made me like him more.

This sort of thing becomes a problem, too, with medieval settings and retellings and anything where you start having to deal with kings. A king of some tiny little pseudohistorical country whose major concerns revolve around not getting invaded and ensuring his people survive the winter is a very different prospect from a king intent on conquering his neighbours and expanding his glorious kingdom, of course. Still a king, though. What do you do with that, if you're someone who doesn't approve of kings?

I ran into this problem with a book I was working on a few years back, and it's one of the reasons I shelved it. I was trying to write a book about community and friendship. I was also trying to write an Arthurian retelling. And while a brotherhood of knights is a great starting point for a story about community and friendship, in order to have knights, you need to have a king for them to pledge fealty to. Problematic. My Arthur figure did not believe in hierarchy, but the story demanded that he perpetuated one anyway, because it was baked into the building blocks of story I was using to build mine. Eventually I realised I could not write that story as an Arthurian retelling without stripping it of everything recognisably Arthurian, and set it aside to be remade into something else.

I still think about this, though. I think about my Bisclavret retelling, which by necessity has a king in it. Bisclavret is a story about feudal loyalty, about oaths, about hierarchies. Take that away and you no longer have Bisclavret; it is a story that cannot exist without a king for the knight-wolf to be loyal to. Does that mean that as a story it always inherently supports a monarchist ideal, though? Or is its portrayal of kingship (a relationship that is, crucially, reciprocal) sufficiently detached from colonialist systems of monarchy to be distinct from those?

What systems and ideals form the assumptions a story is rested on? What happens once you start to question them? Can you still tell the same stories once you ask where the money comes from, or why the king is owed loyalty? Or does there come a point where you realise there are ideas woven into the very fabric of those narratives that you can't see past?

I don't have answers. I'm just thinking aloud. Thinking about having written a book with a king who isn't the bad guy, and what that means when I approve of neither kings nor hierarchies in general. Thinking about writing the past with the eyes of the present. Thinking about the unexamined assumptions in so many historical novels I've read, and how it feels as a reader not to be able to stop examining them.

(I have also read a number of contemporary romance novels where, after working my way through half an author's backlist, I've been forced to acknowledge that despite everything, the author does in fact think rich people are inherently attractive. Not sure what the solution to that one is, but it's certainly a different, if related, problem.)

movalise

ugh they're bringing back Havolaris in X-Factor

Why

It's 2024

No one wants Lorna to become dependent on Alex again (I don't remember a single comic in which their relationship was healthy)

To be fair Mark Russell didn't specify if it was a romance but I don't have high expectations

I really hope Russell proves me wrong

dmngoc1409

Just when I think Lorna may have a shot at a mini solo, they decide to shove this down my throat. While I’m not entirely pleased with the way Lorna has been portrayed in the Krakoa Era, she at least has begun to find her footing, and has been ready for a new chapter in her story. Everything fucking back to square one for Lorna is the worst.

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susandsnell

Anonymous asked:

Re anachronistic feminist characters, you are absolutely right and you should say it.

Maybe people who want to read "write women who sew" type stuff should just go do that instead of trying to make every single female character fit into their worldview. Because I don't want every character to be Eloise, I'm fine with variety, but a lot of people seem like they can't stand even one woman challenging gender norms.

No amount of faux progressive language will change the fact they sound like highschool bullies picking on girls who are too GNC or too "weird."

susandsnell answered:

Thank you so much!

Ideally, you’d have feminist characters more representative of the feminist or proto-feminist views of their era where the work is going for historical accuracy to honour the different points of where we were in history and also acknowledge the flaws of the movement at different points in time (1994’s Little Women versus the hilariously bad 2019 version comes to mind), and certainly there’s an element of repetitiveness in this character type, but this is seldom if ever the criticism I see. The truth of the matter is that in fact many early feminists did denigrate work designated as feminine, but we can acknowledge this as misdirected anger at having one option deemed valid.

Instead, we’ve somehow arrived at “wanting to be treated with human dignity is internalized misogyny because it really cramps my ability to romanticize the past”. As you say, nothing wrong with valuing the labour more frequently done by women, but the fact of the matter is you can do that and show that there were always many people who resisted or did not fit into the tight boxes that society forced them into. Instead of, you know, ridiculing them for wanting to break the boxes while enjoying the fruits of having to fit into fewer boxes than our predecessors precisely because of women who loudmouthed and fought back and didn’t fit into certain people’s fantasy of being a submissive little princess. The kind of girls you made fun of and ostracized in high school, one might say.

To address a particular point you raise that I think is the most important in this entire ongoing discussion:

No amount of faux progressive language will change the fact they sound like highschool bullies picking on girls who are too GNC or too “weird.”

I keep saying it, but a certain type of liberal feminist are now using “NLOG” the way it was socially acceptable 10-15 years ago to call someone a lesbian/homophobic or transphobic slurs because they didn’t wear makeup or want a boyfriend. It is absolutely high school bullying mentality and has gone from an imperfect attempt at addressing internalized misogyny to active misogyny and latent/often overt homophobia and transphobia.

This is what the numbskulls making video essay after video essay about the apparent ‘NLOG crisis’ fail to grasp. The Heathers and the Plastics are not 'demonized for being feminine’, they are accurate representations of how under patriarchy, social capital is gained through strict, obsessive adherence to white, Western beauty standards (which corporations can profit off of endlessly by manufacturing infinite insecurities, so bonus to the rich girls) and excelling at heterosexuality and pleasing others, and this system self-reinforces by the 'winners’ bullying those who do not conform as easily. Jo March, queercoded dynamo that she was, took nothing away from the sisters who were happier with more traditional lifestyles because she wanted better for herself and the girls of the future, and represents so many women who fought for just that. You’re not actually an intellectual for thinking Daphne Bridgerton has more value than Eloise because she was designated the season’s Diamond, a literal in-universe (and true to life) Prize For Being Correctly Female, and unquestioningly accepts being paraded around like an ornament and smiling at being auctioned off to the highest bidder while Eloise fought back, criticized, and wanted an education more than any boy u~~ntil they forced heterosexuality upon her~~. You are in fact a vanguard of the very patriarchal system the franchise even presents as backwards, because you don’t want anyone raining on your arranged marriage fantasies.

There is nothing, and I mean nothing feminist, about snarking girls who do not like or for whatever reason, cannot or will not perform conventional femininity.

There is a certain sour-grapes defensiveness that comes from beig ostracized and punished for Failing At Your Gender if you weren’t good at what was expected of you/resisted it. Femininity is derided, but it is also imposed (the two work in tandem to oppress women); and if you fail at its imposition, it’s natural to try and gain protection by participating in the derision. Hell, I theorize that people who proclaimed themselves “not like other girls” in the contemporary age often did so out of resistance at the fact that we’re supposed to perform (cisheteronormative) sexiness from the time we hit our teens, and of course the panopticon self-reinforcement that is how Other Girls treat you if you, an adolescent girl, shirk performance of femininity in any way. Certainly, I’ve also read much about GNC girls (of various identities) and neurodivergent girls equally having turned to this, which makes sense, as they’re frequently targets for such bullying.

I do also think - and have personally experienced - it was an often imperfect articulation of queerness in many cases. The societal ideal of women under a patriarchy is cisheteronormativity; our value is derived from our appeal to men, and from the time we start maturing, sexual availability and appeal to men is the highest virtue. Therefore, women whose sexuality is not limited to men - or heaven forbid, doesn’t include them at all - 'fail’ gender, and accordingly often feel a sense of alienation and ostracism from other girls when they don’t get as excited about dating boys. Also, in many cases (anecdotal I admit from people I know, but still significant), people who had a phase of asserting they “weren’t like other girls” were in the process of discovering that they weren’t girls at all!

And in some cases - again, I’ve mentioned that I was an Eloise for all the handwringing about how girls of that era wouldn’t say that or do that and it would never occur to want more than what they had (…okay, so why are things different now?) - it’s a frustration from the outspoken feminists and reformers at not being able to get other girls on board with us, because deviation from expectation will make you the weirdo who gets punished and rejected because ugh, annoying! As one historical costuming youtuber I won’t name so charmingly puts it in her godawful video essay, “the women who made a big show of fighting back were freaks.” (Way to convince us you care about feminism…)

All this to say the anti-NLOG brigade have utterly worn out my patience, and at best seem ignorant of the battles that have won us the freedoms we have today because it’s not fun to consider how your escapist fantasy might be problematic (understandable, you don’t always have to reflect on this to be aware), and at worst? They’re getting the chance to be the mean girl in high school again/that they never got to be, they’re just dressing it up in the bastardized language of feminism.

monsamborabutterfly

Unpopular opinion incoming and I feel like I don't really know how to explain it but I feel people who are calling Eloise a bully and saying she's not a girl's girl are dismissing the world bridgerton plays in.

Of course wanting to get married, having children and enjoying girly things like embroidery is totally valid but Eloise is living in a world where that's all that women are allowed to be. So her only way of fighting this is having an "I'm not like other girls attitude" cause really what else can she do?

She hates that she can't choose to be different cause of the societal pressure women of that time were under.

I think most women who fought for change throughout history had to have her attitude in order to challenge those norms every now and again.

I think she's rather lonely and could use a friend who's having the same principles as her. It must be so difficult to constantly be surrounded by women who seem to be content with what's going on or at least don't feel the need to change things. She's probably feeling a little hopeless and that is what makes her behave the way she does. It's not perfect and not always right but I totally get it

dmngoc1409

I don’t think this is an unpopular take. Many women nowadays take things for granted and forget about the forerunners who have gotten us here.

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jaydick-week

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wolfscarr-deactivated20241231

Dragonball Super: Regarding Beerus and Cheelai.

wolfscarr

Funny how this is my 1st post regarding the Dragonball Franchise, when I’m a fan of it. Heh, but anyway.

You know I’ve seen some odd takes about this couple. Personally I’m all for it, mainly because I feel like we need something more for Beerus as a character, rather than just someone who…enjoys food and sleeps a whole lot. Sure I get that he’s powerful, we clearly do see instances of that….but that’s not exactly anything new with all the other characters we have in this series. The way his character is now, with just sleeping or eating just is going to wear really thin, if not already people being bored with it.

I feel like we need something more to Beerus as a character, to make him appreciate an actual lifeform that brings out another side of his character. Now sure you can say Goku and company brought out a side of Beerus that is more tolerant and chill with them, but at the same time he’s not going out of his way to actually help them out and in some cases actually become a determent to what they were trying to do. Example with destroying Bulma’s time machine and resources, like he didn’t care about Future Trunks or his timeline.

So introducing Cheelai to being a potential love interest for Beerus, someone who he can care about, someone who can bring about a more protective side, I feel would just further expand upon him as a character. Recall that Beerus has lived basically a long time folks, we’ve barely actually seen his life…compared to what were seeing now of him? We’re seeing like a fraction of a fraction of his lifespan, the guy has lived for eons it seems.

Then….in comes Cheelai and for the first time in his life(that we see), his very, very long life. We see that….he can have a heart, that he can do more than just think about destroying things or sleeping or eating. We can see that he can genuinely care for someone, rather than just look down upon them.

This can also be a way to expand upon Cheelai more with her interaction with Beerus, seeing as he offered her and Lemo to stay on his planet. Which by the way he was first adamant about before seeing her.

Of course we’re gonna have to see what later happens and how this all plays out, see how Cheelai responds with regards to any further advancement from Beerus. But these are just my thoughts on these 2 and the potential that can come from it.

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givelightningherharem

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dmngoc1409

Lightning in the year 2024 🥰🥰🥰

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