Ge smak daun, gyon op nodotaim.
You all took this trikru motto and embodied it in the most amazing way possible. I’ve only been writing about TV on the internet for a few years, but I’ve been a fangirl my whole life. I was in Buffy chatrooms on AOL when I was like ten years old. But I have never, ever, ever seen anything like this.
In the past year alone, way too many queer female characters died. We mourned, we moved on. We lamented the trope, but what could we do?
Well, Lexa was the last straw. The queer internet revolted. They used the tools at their disposal to reach out to creators, to trend things on Twitter like “Lexa deserved better,” to get the attention of major media outlets like Variety. And what’s more, in a move that ensured that this movement would never be shrugged off as “fan outcry” or “emotional backlash,” over $110,000 was raised for The Trevor Project in Lexa’s name. OVER 100 THOUSAND DOLLARS in less than a month.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been reading and learning a lot about the behind-the-scenes stuff I didn’t know before, I’ve been watching this revolution—because that’s what it is, really, it’s a revolution; things will never be the same after this—grow and not lose steam despite the passage of time. And I’ve been so inspired.
You are saving lives. You are saving the lives of future queer fictional characters that showrunners who had never heard of the trope before this will reconsider killing. And more importantly, you are saving the lives of real life LGBT people. You have given hope to the hopeless, and it’s a beautiful thing.
When Lexa died, I felt defeated. “Not again,” I cried, but cry is all I had the energy to do. But not you. While I flopped down on my bed in despair, you gathered up your kindest and smartest words and set out to make a difference. I’m up now. There are tears in my eyes, but there’s a fire in my heart. It will take time, but I believe we’re on the way to ending this trope, to demanding better representation, to getting our happy endings.
So keep being your badass selves. I’m honored to fight by your side. I hope you continue to make this positive change, educating the people who need to be educated, giving hope to the hopeless. History has its eyes on you. And so far, it likes what it sees.
I know some of you won’t agree with this decision, and I fully support that, but I’m going to continue to recap the rest of the season. The creators have been responding to the pushback in a respectful way (well, they’re trying to…some of them still just fundamentally don’t understand, but I do believe they’re trying) and I think they’re learning from their mistakes. But they can’t do anything about the rest of this season; it’s already written. This episode was rough because it included the slaughter of children and the murder of a person of color, which are two more epic mistakes, but essentially it’s the same mistake as killing Lexa. They failed their responsibility; they ruined their good representation by swinging the pendulum too far and forgetting the social implications of their actions, forgetting that the real world doesn’t lack the racism and homophobia their fictional world does.
I’ve tweeted this before, but I’ll say it again: We fell in love with an Icarus, and it flew too close to the sun. Oceans rise, empire’s fall.
But, back to my point, despite all of this, I’m going to continue to recap for the rest of the season, because Clarke is still one of the best examples of bisexual representation we have on TV right now, and it would go against everything we stand for to dismiss that. So I’m here for Clarke as a queer woman, I’m here for Octavia and Abby and Raven and Indra as a feminist. I’m not ready to give up on those ladies yet.
So, if you’re still with me, let’s go forward. If not, I’ll see you on the battlefield, where I will continue to fight with you and for you.
