tehnakki:

becketted:

when I was a kid the actor who played my favorite character in my favorite show wanted to leave the show and I was devastated when he did

but Fox Mulder was a white dude so he got abducted by aliens instead of killed off and at least I didn’t have to see him die

now that I’m older I realize how different it would have been had he been a woman or a character of color (if Gillian Anderson had wanted to leave I have no doubt they would have killed Scully to give Mulder manpain)

so yeah, stop using the “Nicole Beharie wanted to leave!” bullshit because apart from the fact that this excuses ignores the reasons why she wanted to leave, how they mistreated her and her character, an actor wanting to leave HAS NEVER in the history of tv meant that they had to kill the character off – except when that character belongs to a minority in which case everybody is “welp! what could the showrunners have done?¿”

Or in the case of Michael Shanks wanting to leave Stargate SG-1 to pursue theater for a year. They killed him off, and brought him back as a force ghost and then when his theater career fizzled they brought him back full time and got rid of the white dude they’d brought in to hold his spot. You think Amanda Tapping would have gotten that kind of consideration and job security if she wanted to leave SG1 for another job for a year? Or Christopher Judge?

We only ended up with Daniel dying as a trope BECAUSE he was a white man and it was so unfathomable he’d actually be killed off the show.