Sexualized Saturdays: Spotlight on Bisexual Characters

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In honor of Bisexual Awareness Week and Bi Visibility Day, today I would like to talk about my favorite canon bi characters. Unfortunately, bi characters are so difficult to find, and even when you do, most of them fall under the same harmful stereotypes, not to mention that the word bisexual isn’t even used in the vast majority of cases, making it harder for people find and identify or identify with the characters. So, with that in mind, I also want to share some of my dreams for better bi representation.

Trailer Tuesdays: DC’s Legends of Tomorrow

The Flash’s second season is only three episodes in, and already it’s just about everything I’ve hoped it would be. The Arrowverse is something I’ve most definitely grown to adore. Not only is it expansive, it provides us with some much needed representation. And now, it’s getting yet another spin off show, Legends of Tomorrow, and well, take a look:

Be still my heart, I think I may be in love.

Fanfiction Fridays: To Deliver Grief by nire

Arrow’s treatment of Sara’s death has been one of my bigger criticisms for the show this season. I didn’t like the ableist way Laurel handled it by refusing to tell Quentin—though that’s at least changed these past few episodes—but the bigger issue that a lot of people have pointed out is that Sara was an established bisexual character. She was complex and intriguing, and good bisexual representation is really hard to come by in our media.

Her lover, Nyssa al Ghul, swears revenge on Sara’s killer. Unfortunately for Nyssa, Oliver Queen decides to take the blame for what happened. To Deliver Grief is a oneshot that takes place after Oliver’s duel with Ra’s. Nyssa, knowing Felicity’s feelings for Oliver, and feeling a bit of kinship with her because of both their losses, decides to go back to Starling City to tell Felicity the truth about what happened to Oliver.

In Brightest Day: Arrow and Ableist Excuses

A few weeks ago, Arrow’s third season began with an incredibly shocking first episode. And now, four episodes later, all the characters are still dealing with the tragedy. This tragedy—a major character death—was completely unexpected. I didn’t mind what happened, despite how much I adored said character, but dealing with the death of a loved one seems to be a recurring trend with Laurel’s character. In the first season, she was still coming to terms with her sister’s death. In the second season, she turned to drugs and alcohol after Tommy died. And now, in the third season, she is using another death as an excuse to engage in some truly ableist behavior.

Spoilers for Arrow Season 3 up ahead.

Trailer Tuesdays: Arrow Season 3

Arrow comes back tomorrow, so I will be the first to admit I’m cutting this trailer review a little close. That said, I’ll also be the first to admit that I’m psyched as hell for Arrow Season 3.

Breaking Out Of The Fridge: Subverting Women’s Victimization in Pop Culture

My dismembered girlfriend?! That’s an awful surprise!

Several years ago, comics writer Gail Simone introduced the term “women in refrigerators” as a way to describe women in comics who have been hurt or killed as a way to further a man’s pain. Since then, it’s entered the general geek vernacular as a way to describe any woman who ends up dead for manpain’s sake, and while more and more people are likely to call out The Powers That Be for writing women this way, it does remain an often-used trope. The whole premise of Supernatural revolves around two fridged women, Mary Winchester and Sam’s girlfriend Jess, and women regularly are hurt or die to make its leading men sad. (A short list: Anna, Sarah Blake, Pamela, Meg, Amy Pond, Jo, and Ellen, just to start us off.) Barry Allen’s origin story in the upcoming Flash series centers around his mother’s death. Rachel’s death in The Dark Knight was purest fridging, and so were Allison’s death in Teen Wolf, Frigga’s death in Thor: The Dark World, and Spock’s mom Amanda’s death in Star Trek XI.

The problem with this trope is that it reduces women from people with agency into objects that are acted upon; they go from characters who make choices to tools whose purpose is to make someone else sad or angry or motivated, and that propagates the idea that objectifying women is a legitimate storytelling technique. One interesting thing about this trope, though, is that it’s become so expected that writers have started to use it in a subversive and surprising way.

Spoilers for Arrow Season 2, Elementary Season 1, and How To Train Your Dragon 2 below the jump.

Was Arrow Season 2 on Target?

It’s been something like six weeks since the final episode of Arrow’s Season 2 aired, and this is no longer remotely timely, but here, finally, is my review thereof. My review of the first half of Season 2 was pretty complimentary, and I stand by my opinion: the show has been doing way way better this season both from a writing and from a feminist perspective. There were definitely some ugly moments toward the end of the season, though. Let’s get right into it.

Spoilers for everything below the jump.