I just feel like this is something that ought to be shared. For WOT in particular but for a lot of other stories as well.
I know my feelings are still very chaotic about the whole thing in 3x08. A lot of people, myself included, have entirely valid trauma (and no I'm not exaggerating by using that word!) related to multiple things that came up in that episode. You can't help what your triggers are, you can only control how you act in response.
I will say, most of the counterpoints I've seen here aren't trying to invalidate the feelings of people who are upset about certain things in the episode, but some of them feel invalidating anyway. It feels like you're saying, "why are you even upset, there's [mitigating factors]".
And it's true that not a single one of the issues happened to a tokenized character, nobody is the only person who looks like them, who loves like them, in the show. There are other women of colour, there are other *queer* women of colour even, right there.
But when you've seen a pattern play out a dozen times, when the very same writer was a writer on the show that may have even given you that initial trauma,* and was hailed by the showrunner of this show as the premiere writer for these two particular characters especially... People who remember all that, consciously or just in their bones, were always going to be upset, even if we weren't just here for the Siuaraine of it all.
I'm not threatening to quit the show or anything over this. I'm not suggesting anyone else should or shouldn't keep watching. It's something every individual will have to decide for themselves: they've got other queer characters and ships to sail, but there have been an awful lot of dead beloved characters of colour this season. Colorism isn't an automatic argument-winning word the way some people on Xitter treated it last week, but it is a problem the show has struggled with.
I'm just asking for a little compassion for those of us who are working through a lot, y'know? Like, this is where a lot of us are coming from. It may very well lead to a better story, I've seen plenty of very convincing arguments, but that doesn't stop my heart from hurting in an echo back along all the queer characters I've lost along the way so that their partners could go on being main characters. It doesn't stop me from feeling how similar this could be to those, even if it doesn't end up being the same at all. I think all sides of these discussions could use a little more nuance and thought and a little less reflexive responding (hence my posting this the day after, to make sure I'm not jumping the gun or making an ass of myself), but that goes for everything, always.
Bonus * note: The 100 wasn't my first buried gay, but not only was JJG writing on it in the very season the Clexa controversy went down (though not the same episode), that show's showrunner had also been overpromoting the queer relationship between Clarke and Lexa, had been hyping them up in interviews and promotional stuff, all season leading up to Lexa's tragic pointless death so the actress could go work on another show. I WAS THERE, GANDALF! I don't think it's overblown or exaggerating to say a lot of people are having extremely large feelings right now over this, especially if they were in that fandom in 2016, especially if they're a little younger than I am and were that little bit more impressionable at the time. We are feeling a lot of parallels and it fucking sucks, to put it lightly.
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