Lokilover14

When that article about Anthony Mackie and his alleged thoughts on Sambucky was published a few months ago, a lot of the criticism that was directed at Anthony was : “How dare he talk like that about shippers…?? Doesn’t he know that shipping is about compensating the lack of LGBT+ representation?”

Around the same time I had learned that there was going to be the First Gay Character in the MCU ( Heard that one before right?), and this time it was different because the character Phastos, was a Superhero, he was married with a kid, and from the trailers, he seems to have a lot of scenes since it’s an ensemble cast. So with all those shippers who were commenting about representation in the Superhero world and condemning Anthony for his words, Phastos’ character surely would be popular in the fandom…right?

So imagine my suprise when I realized how little the hype was for Phastos’ character on Tumblr? I’m not saying there isn’t any, but when you compare it to the number of blogs who were swearing shipping was about representation, there are only a few accounts talking about his character.

There were literally hundreds of posts blaming Anthony for his phrasing about shipping, but now that there is a canon Gay character, it’s crickets? Truly a mystery for me. 

I read that some people were saying he would be a side character, but again it’s an ensemble cast. And anyway, side character or not, he’s already there so why not hype him up anyway?

Sidenote but before joining Tumblr, I never though shipping was about representation, never. There are actually many canon LGBT+ characters in other media, so I never thought focusing on non-Canon LGBT couples instead of canon ones was about comensating the lack of representation.

Yes, of cours most of the time, they are characters in TV shows, or characters in Indie movies and not Blockbusters, but still they are there, they exist. And to me it always felt more important to hype up those movies, or those characters. Rather than imagine a relationship between two characters (IF representation is what you care about. If you only care about shipping and are honest about that, then ship away). 

I’m going to sound old for this, but I was always buying the DVDs of those Indie movies, I must have like 30 or 40, I was also renting them at the local library (I know I know, renting dvds at the library…who am I 😭😭😭???) and I would go to the cinemas that were showing those movies. I didn’t really know anything about shipping, but even when I started getting into it, it never even crossed my mind that shipping was about representation. 

First of all, because I had a bad view of shipping, the first ships I ever heard of was the Winchesters brothers in Supernatul, and Thorki. Second of all, because to me it was like saying: “well I accept the lack of representation in this movie, so I’ll just imagine my own relationship between two characters, don’t change anything producers, we can accomodate with the lack of rep”. When I started getting into shipping, to me it was just about seeing characters you would like together, but nothing else.

This is my personal opinion by the way, we aren’t all supposed to share the same mind. I just feel that shipping as a response to the lack of representation is counterproductive. For representation, I shipped the canon couples (Paul and WIll Days of Our lives, Callie & Arizona in Grey’s Anatomy, Noah’s Arc, Keith/David in Six Feet Under, Titus /Mikey in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Patrick/Ritchie - Looking   Petra and Jane (Ramos) in Jane the Virgin, Carina/Maya in Station 19,  Nasir Agron, in Spartacus and so on,…). Ok some of the shows are older, and some of those characters are side characters, but it shouldn’t mean that they shouldn’t be hyped up.

In my personal opinion, it’s more useful to boost and promote actual rep, rather than sendind a message to the showrunners, that what they’re doing is fine because lgbt characters or not, you will imagine the rest if you don’t like it because then they will do absolutely nothing.  I have written about this before but while representation is important, not rewarding the lack of representation is as much important, in my opinion.

When I joined Tumblr I read some interesting posts, and I understood that for some people shipping was about representation, and I respect that. I even understand it.

I’m not saying that shipping is wrong by the way. I even understand it more in the superhero genre, because there are no canon character in those kind of blockbusters, but I rarely see MCU shippers having any LGBT canon ships outside of the MCU movies.

Either you admit that you don’t care about representation and just want to imagine two dudes together, or you really care about representation and promote the characters like Phastos, when they are introduced.

It’s not harmful to ship a couple you like, canon or not, but what is extremely harmful is shipping while pretending to care about representation when you don’t.

The people who will be shipping Ikaris and the other Games of Thrones guy in the Eternal movies together for whatever reason cannot pretend they care about LGBT+ representation. Yes of course, you’re allowed to ship them , but if you do, don’t pretend you care about LGBT+ representation. Because if you ship them while they’re in a movie with an actual gay character, what you’re telling the studios is: ”You know what… giving us two dudes with unresolved tension or whatever is more than enough for us, and we don’t need actual rep.”

You cannot have a canon gay character and then ignore him because he’s a side character, the message you are giving isn’t that you want more characters or more screentime for that character, the message you are giving is that you want less of that character…

The people who will be watching the movie anyway and then sidelining Phastos character because he’s a side character, won’t be doing any favor etirher. 

You cannot also be giving excuses about how Phastos is “a side character”, it’s the main excuse I have heard about the lack of excitement regarding his character.

This is the part where I explain why I also put Sam Wilson in my “title”.

Need I remind you that Sam Wilson was a side character too? I was introduced to Sam’s character in Captain America Civil War  and I had not even seen Captain America The Winter Soldier at the time, I wasn’t really a MCU fan or anything, I would just watch the Avengers movie whenerver they was a movie night. So to me, Sam WIlson was even more of a side character because in Civil War, his screen time was limited, but I got attached to the character, mainly because of Anthony and also because believe it or not but Civil War was actually the first time I had seen 3 Black Characters as protagonists in a major Blockbuster ( Sam, T’Challa and Rhodey).

This blog quickly started posting a lot about Stackie, because their friendship is just hilarious and also Sambucky, because it was a ship that I loved.I was making Sambucky posts, Anthony Mackie posts and barely getting any reblogs on my posts, but I kept going, and a couple years later, we got the announcement that they was going to be a solo Falcon and Winter Soldier show … 

And yes it’s mainly due to Stackie, Anthony and his great friendship with Sebastian, but it is also due to the fact that he got a fandom, and people were enjoying his interviews and tweeting about them, creating videos about them, making posts about them. And I’m not saying I had something to do with it individually because I was just a small blog posting some content, but I do feel that I contributing to it in some way or the other, because me and several other blogs, youtubers, and other Social media users were hyping him and Stackie up when Sam was “only a side character”.

I’m just a drop of water, but please insert here Cloud Atlas quote about any ocean just being a multitude of drops.

One person reblogging and tweeting won’t change anything but plenty of one persons will!!! A big fandom blog posting Phastos content is good but 1000 small blogs posting Phastos content is even greater!

Phastos being a side character now doesn’t mean anything and it’s certainly not an excuse for ignoring his character if you really care about representation. If you don’t then that’s fine, go your way and enjoy your stuff.

This post is mainly directed at people who were screaming that shipping was about representation but are silent now that there is a canon Gay character. Pick one, you cannot do both. Either you care or you don’t, but don’t pretent you do when you don’t.

The same thing that happened with Sam Wilson and other characters can happen for Phastos in the future, and if not him, his character popularity could help with the introduction of even more LGBT+ characters in the MCU. If he’s not popular, Disney/Marvel will be more than happy to use his character as an example of “why representation doesn’t work”.