ARTEMIS THE QUEERBALL

So, I’ve seen people be… confused? indignant? dubious? I guess about how super duper gay Artemis is easily read as being.

SO LET ME EXPLAIN IT TO YOU.

I’ve already discussed how the show never sufficiently established attraction to Wally from Artemis so we’ll set that aside and instead focus on:

SECRETS aka The Gayest Episode of Young Justice

When Artemis first showed up in Infiltrator, beside bickering with Wally (and a bit with M’gann before they immediately put it behind them), she took the time to note that she found Conner hot.

Then… they barely ever interacted again, not only that but literally their only significant interaction was Artemis protectively and vocally taking M’gann’s side when M’gann was pissed at Conner for coddling her/being condescending.

We arrive at Secrets, Artemis discovers that M’gann and Conner are romantically (and lol lbr: SEXUALLY) involved. This information is so upsetting to her, so distressing, that not only does she need to completely remove herself from their presence, but she needs to go find some shit to fight.

Let me state this another way: after multiple episodes establishing her friendship with M’gann her defending M’gann, being supportive of M’gann, taking M’gann’s side, and generally having a bond with her AND one single instance of her expressing attraction for Conner that was never followed up on or referenced again in any way while she and Conner persisted in having literally no relationship to speak of… how logical is it to believe that Artemis’s reaction, that intense distress, was about Conner?

Spoiler alert: not really logical at all.

Then there’s the issue of coding.

Let’s review the facts again: Artemis finds out that M’gann and Conner are dating. This upsets her so deeply that she needs to run off to the city with Zatanna to work out her feelings. Feelings that cause Harm to comment on Artemis’s inner turmoil and the fact that she’s fighting with herself. Feelings so intense that Zatanna can never once in the entire episode actually get Artemis to articulate what she’s bothered about.

Recall, Artemis’s one instance of expressing attraction to Conner? Recall that she did this over the team’s telepathic link, DELIBERATELY, aware and unashamed, even SMUG, about the fact that they could all hear her.*

Does that seem like a girl who, upon discovering that he was involved elsewhere, would be utterly and completely unwilling to articulate in any way that she was into him and so was annoyed that he was into someone else?

Or would that imply that maybe there was SOMETHING ELSE, something that would have Artemis more fraught and conflicted, upsetting her. SOMETHING. YOU KNOW.  In an episode called SECRETS that is explicitly about ~things that cannot be said~.

Or should I say THINGS THAT DARE NOT SPEAK THEIR NAME???

I was going to go into a whole thing here about how Artemis’s antagonism with Wally could also be interpreted as primarily based on perceiving him as a rival for M’gann’s affections, but, well, there’s not more to say than that really.

ARTEMIS IS A GAYWAD. The end.

*And let me just say that, given everything else, the “Mmmm, that boy” comment presents much more as meta-level plausible deniability than it does absolutely anything else.

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