#vld stuff

I just… I’ve been feeling kind of numb and betrayed by the show since I heard about what happened to Adam, especially in more detail - and maybe since some of you have seen it you’ll be able to say ‘it wasn’t that bad’, but I’m just over here remembering the first time I saw a gay character killed on screen (Bill from DW) and I was devastated. I’d been hoping for a beautiful reunion we never got. I count the number of m/f couples we see have so much more development or screentime vs the number we got onscreen who are allowed to be happy, and clearly queer. And not murderous. 

As far as I’ve seen: Blaytz/unnamed Galra manservant, which is a retroactive dead total of two, Ezor/Zethrid who are... they now make me uncomfortable because they were brought into the show as mixed race Galra fighting alongside Lotor, who at that point did want to make things better for the Empire and who now apparently say things such as “let’s go torture some prisoners”, which feels... wow, yikes. And Shiro/Adam, where Shiro was shown to have been tortured, has been experimented on, cloned, and actually killed before, and Adam, who... I wanted so much from, and he died.

And concerning other things - I can live with Keith/Acxa even though I’m disappointed, and I won’t be able to enjoy it - maybe if Acxa didn’t look so much like she could’ve easily passed as Keith’s sibling and they had more screentime interacting in a positive way, face to face, with conversation before S7 I’d be happier. I mean, I still wouldn’t be happy, since I’d been a Keith/Lance shipper since Day One, but I’d have been ‘okay, so my ship isn’t going to be canon, I can deal.’ As it is, all I am is disappointed.

I won’t say they queerbaited us with Keith/Lance, because they didn’t. At no point did they outright say ‘the queer rep we’re talking about will involve either of those two’. So no matter how much I want to be upset about this? It’s apparently a pure fan misread.

(What I have seen however is that although Shiro/Adam were revealed at the SDCC panel, there were a great many people who couldn’t even tell who Adam was or that they were romantically involved with only the show’s canon and no interviews to tell them; that, I’d say, is more along the lines of queerbaiting, especially since they didn’t have that reunion that fans were hoping for. It’s the assumption that something that’s the bare minimum is enough.)

But it’s really the fact that I’ve seen things saying about how Allura/Lance is going places and that… actually gave me a stronger reaction than the idea that my favourite ship wasn’t going to be canon. 

Because I’m just reminded of the several times in my own real life that I’ve had boys assume that all they needed was ‘time’ in order to be in a romantic relationship with me. And yeah, their characters developed past that, but I still feel affected in the same way. Whenever I might start watching the show over again, I won’t see a moment where it’s clear that Allura and Lance are going to end up with each other and be happy, but where he’s being a nuisance to her. 

And you know what the most upsetting thing is? It isn't even my own reactions.

It’s the fact that there’s a twitter account full of letters to the writers and producers of VLD from queer people, mainly KIDS, often in their early teens, saying that they’d been so ecstatic to hear that Shiro was just like them, was gay, a POC, and more - they were so excited. One teacher was advising two young girls to check out the series after she found out. She now feels guilt over the fact, because they’re going to find out just like the rest of us that their queer/LGBT rep is a victim of their partner being killed off, and given a tragic story.

To be honest? I don't think it matters if it ‘works within the story’, or if it’s ‘the brutal truth of war’. See what this show has done to kids. Read those letters, I dare you. Because the main message they’re giving loud and clear is that to them - the ones the show was meant for! - they’re seeing that VLD is just reinforcing the idea that if you’re gay or otherwise queer in a story, then you can’t have a happy ending. You suffer. Or you die. 

And to be honest... that’s what I find most despicable beyond any arguments about shipping.

Perhaps the writers didn’t intend to do this, and perhaps they simply screwed up in a way that was purely by accident. Maybe they felt they were doing all that they could. And the funny thing is, at this point in time I haven’t seen so many people being rude or aggressive as... I’ve seen people being righteously angry and upset, and speaking their minds, and trying to explain just how they’ve been hurt. I’ve seen people say “perhaps this was something that could have happened to anyone, but it was a writing choice, and writing choices don’t exist in a vacuum.” From more than once source. 

I’ve seen people just wanting to have an apology instead of excuses from the creative team, and it feels like all that they’re getting are the creative team supporting each other and saying “be nice”, which to be honest, has led me to unfollow most of them for at least the time being.

Shinra has the army and SOLDIER and not only that, but weapons development as well (among other things). The Garrison, however, is tied to another organisation (likely the US government) that has authority over it. 

The Garrison’s military status involves training their cadets and other officers to be able to defend themselves, and also to fly in defensible ways to avoid obstacles in space (such as an asteroid field). There might be weapons training, but whereas in Shinra that would be expected to be put to practical use, in the Garrison I’d say that it’s most likely for the sake of building discipline, the same reason anyone goes to a martial arts class. 

Shinra’s science division is openly feared by other employees, and makes SOLDIERs and other staff members uncomfortable. The head of this department is someone who sees people as potential projects and experiments, and once they are, they are no longer people. Regardless of whether or not Sephiroth actually is Hojo’s son, Hojo still abused him in this way, and did not give the kid any love or support, and did not allow the boy to grow up in a loving, supportive atmosphere. Hollander, another leading scientist, has a very similar attitude. These experiments are kept from the rest of the company barring the President, and when subjects escape, they are hunted down with extreme prejudice. 

The Galaxy Garrison’s scientific minds are a part of the infrastructure of the Garrison, and highly regarded by pretty much everyone. One of the leading scientists is someone who has a family - one that loves and respects him, and his children are highly defensive of him, ready to go to great lengths to get him back. Just as important is the fact that - despite Katie’s own negative experience with it - the Garrison has a school which openly teaches about the newest developments, keeping the youth educated. Katie also shows that she is able to be proud of the developments that her family are a part of discovering. 

When someone disappeared from Shinra’s employ, we have various examples of how people reacted to this news. The first two disappearances less relevant to the third; with Zack’s disappearance we have Luxiere and Kunsel sending emails saying how they would help - Luxiere saying that Zack should ‘let himself be captured’ so that Luxiere could use a potential higher rank to get him out, and Kunsel offering to help in any way that he could. The rest of Shinra itself had to either work against itself (the Turks) due to this technically being a case of acting against orders, or... well, the army literally gunned Zack down. It’s as simple as that. And we don’t know what happened to Kunsel.

When confronted with the disappearance of Shiro, Matt, and Sam, the Garrison... well, instead of an impersonal email saying ‘killed in action: name here’, there was a TV broadcast which allowed everyone to know an admittedly edited version of the truth that was acceptable for the general public to know. Which clearly wasn’t acceptable to everyone, since we then see Katie breaking and entering into Iverson’s office, and yet... Iverson lets her go with a warning, a slap on the wrist for bad behaviour. What’s more, the Garrison isn’t at fault for the disappearance of their people, and when one of them - Shiro - reappears, they take safety measures to ensure that someone who is clearly in a state of panic doesn't injure them, but also that Shiro doesn’t injure himself. 

Important to note: the worst things that Lance, Hunk, and Pidge are afraid of when assaulting the Garrison camp that’s been put up to investigate Shiro’s crashed Galran fighter, is that they’re going to get into trouble. At seeing their actual teachers out there and racing after them, they are afraid of being caught, but they do certainly not seem afraid of being killed. If the Garrison was a front for an ‘evil’ organisation that was going to experiment on any alien tech they could get their hands on, then the kids would have noticed something more going on than ‘why aren’t they hearing [Shiro] out’ and ‘aw man, I think that was Prof. Montgomery’. This show is not that subtle when it comes to pointing out when something suspicious is going on. Also, when they get away, the next thing we know of the Garrison is... Iverson and someone else being confused at the ‘Flying Blue Lion, sir.’ Which is both humanising and also indicative of ‘these are not the kind of people who are going to shoot it down to examine it.’

Something else we’ve talked about in chats is how compared to both the Garrison and the Galra Empire, Shinra’s tactic of draining the Planet in order to get power is far more like Zarkon’s approach of harvesting quintessence than the Garrison... literally just going out places to be excited and nerd out over new science. That’s literally the first thing that we see Garrison scientists do. Sam and Matt Holt being excited to explore and gain new knowledge.

So... I’d say that even though it’s not great all of the time, FFVII does a decent job of portraying how, through the average employee, the general workings of Shinra are suspect and that it is not a safe place to work, and that it’s not a safe world to inhabit because Shinra is in control. People are afraid of the scientists, the people we see as heroes are seen questioning their loyalty to the company (Zack, in the first chapter of Crisis Core) while still working for it, and those who talk or act against the company are dispatched and killed rather than talked to (CC, VII, BC).

The Garrison on the other hand encourages learning, the upper ranks are seen as human and not people to be afraid of unless you give them good reason to be angry (Lance’s team in the first episode not working as a team, the future Paladins stealing away someone who should have been in quarantine), their memories of being back on Earth and thinking of the Garrison are fond, and good. Sneaking out does not seem to have major consequences, and if it does, none of Lance, Hunk, or Pidge are all that bothered by them. Keith, who is expelled from the Garrison, is not hunted down, and does not seem to be afraid when coming face to face with Garrison scientists and a full camp of assorted others. The Garrison is often shown in warm lights, associated with good memories, and we have not in five entire whole seasons even heard of a single person protesting at the Garrison’s gates. Which, I’m sure we’d have had someone mention if that was a thing people did, if there was anyone who thought the Garrison was doing anything inhumane or non-ethical.

Basically... we have examples, actual examples of what it’s like when a military-scientific organisation does unethical things, and how that affects the protagonists, as well as everyday people. For VLD, this is... not one of those cases. We never see any of those signs or symptoms of something being wrong in the system. VLD is also not that subtle, and it’s easy to pick out when something is going wrong.