Tilly writes...

During the meeting in “Forbidden Secrets of Civilizations Past,” both Orion and Vykin misgender Violet and use she/her pronouns. While this was annoying in of itself, I figured you (who wrote the episode) and Brandon were going to use this as an opportunity for Raquel to correct both Orion and Vykin (and thus putting an even bigger strain on the dynamic between Raquel and Orion) on Violet’s pronouns as they/them. What I did not expect was for Raquel to continue misgendering Violet throughout the whole conversation. I was actually shocked and more than a little hurt.

Violet came out as nonbinary right before her graduation in early June, so we’ll peg it as late May. This episode takes place in late August. That’s almostâ€"if not exactlyâ€"three months. Now, you might respond that maybe Raquel didn’t learn Violet was nonbinary in that amount of time. (I would hope you wouldn’t, because that’s a flimsy excuse as it is.) But you know who definitely WOULD know? Forager. Who was sitting right there and still didn’t say a word on the matter of everyone misgendering his friend and teammate. You’d think Forager (with Forager’s own Forager-pronoun shtick) would value one’s preferred pronouns, but no.

I know you guys have been getting a lot of flack for the inclusion of shallow brownie-point representation and I have been defending the show tooth and nail, trusting that your team has learned from your mistakes back in Season Three. But after today, after this episode, this scene? I was proven wrong. I was genuinely heartbroken. You and Brandon clearly did not care enough to remember that Violet uses they/them pronouns, so why should the people watching who also, continuously, misgender them?

If this an actual creative choice to purposefully misgender Violet (much like how it was you and Brandon’s creative choices to showcase over and over again that Violet/Halo could regenerate by routinely depicting them horrifically maimed and bloody back in S3), then I sincerely hope you learn that your so-called creative choices hurt the people who saw a part of themselves in Violet. I know that this isn’t the end of the world (or the worst thing this show has done to Violet), but I felt like this needed to be said. If Young Justice gets a Season Five, I truly hope you and Brandon do better.