dastardlydandelion - Tumblr blog

dastardlydandelion · 1 month

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a 2024 update

i keep circling back to the idea of deleting my tumblr. i’m not as active as I once was, my schedule changed (and workload intensified) in the time i began this blog to where i am now. the AI is really freaking me out but that’s not just a tumblr problem, (it’s everywhere 😱) so much less of a factor in my contemplation because i know i can't avoid it.

i’m also not the same as i was three years ago and euuugh, some of my early stuff makes me cringe so hard i want to delete just to distance myself from it!!! but like, evolution and change are just natural in the process of existing as a human being. in another three years, i’ll be even more different (albeit my pre-frontal cortex will remain fully developed so the changes will potentially be less pronounced). soo what am i gonna do, reset every three years like a robot getting a new computer chip??

this is going to get longer than i expected, so explanation continues under the cut:

nah. i may not be as active as i used to be and my opinions/interests may have shifted/evolved, but still, so many of my friends are here and there’s all this cool art, and gifsets, and what have you.

since this was and remains mainly a fandom blog, i’ll briefly summarize my major attitude shifts regarding fandom:

on the yellowjackets front, a significant decrease in hostility toward one travis martinez. like…okay I still don’t love that ben sent travis out alone hunting with nat after he pointed a gun! at her fucking face! and I still don’t love the portion of fandumb that straight up ignores that travis pointed a gun at natalie’s face, and yes it was kind of frustrating that the male characters in general got so much screen time in a show that’s supposed to be about female characters but like. none of that is travis the character’s fault— actually ykw, that’s one of my problems generally that i noticed, that i want to grow from— i keep letting fandumb (and content burnout) influence my perception of and response to characters/plot lines/ships rather than organically formulating my interpretations separate from that influence. i mean fandumb generally, not just YJ. blah blah blah, anyway, i apologize, travis martinez. you had to eat your baby brother. you sank your teeth into his freshly carved out raw heart. i want to both examine you from a more organic angle going forward and hug you now.

okay, okay, i was gonna break down my notable shifts in opinion by fandom, but going off of the aforementioned pattern that i have, maybe i should...no, no, let's keep going by fandom, i have that problem in *every* fandom, so.

ST! I FINALLY WATCHED IT. holy cannoli, okay, @lucdarling and @foxgirlontherun are buds that i remember telling for sure, but i know for sure i didn't tell all of my ST pals so i'll touch on that. watched it over the holidays with my grandma, who had been trying to get me to watch for some time and i finally caved.

1.) we get more glimpses of the demogorgon in the first season than i ever gave it credit for. myself of...however many years ago was just too damn impatient waiting to see the whole damn monster. we get a claw here, a growl there, a moving shadow, etc. its introduction was actually well done, so. years-ago me, you were WRONG. WRONG, I TELL YOU, WRONG.

2.) eleven does not have pyrokinesis. i knew she was telepathic (to a degree) and telekinetic, but for some reason, in the past i *also* believed she could set things on fire with her mind. i just thought she used that power less because fire is so destructive. well...now i know she doesn't have pyrokinesis at all!

3.) the byers do NOT live in a trailer. this i did actually learn before watching the show, i learned in 2022 when a bud sent me like, a pic of their lego byers house and i was like, oh. neat. that's not a trailer. 🙃 so that i did become aware before watching, but seeing it onscreen reminded me that i knew.

4.) billy has more canon depth than i had given him credit for, previously having just watched scenes for fic-reference out of context. i apologize, billiam (i don't attribute a shred of that depth to the duffballs, but that's a different rant). i think since i entered the fandom side of things long before watching, i got certain portions of fanon and canon confused. also-- much like with travis and some other examples i'm going to get into-- i let too much fandumb influence my response to him + impression of his role in canon.

5.) steve is nowhere nearly as irritating in canon as i thought he was. the things that i find irritating about steve are-- once again, see above examples --not really anything that has to do with the character himself! i'm sorry, steve!

on that note, sorry hairygrove friends!! i love you guys and it's been a gift getting to know each of you over the last few years, but i was pretty damn mean to steve sometimes! i should've been nicer to steve...and maybe bill, for that matter, but i mean, i'd written so much from his POV i think it goes without saying that i've always had affection for the latter, even if i probably should've given him more credit for canon characterization and been less presumptuous.

obviously having seen the show, i have more developed thoughts on ST overall, but i think those are just...the main differentiations between opinions formulated in the early days of this blog versus where i'm at now. friends of mine who watch ST, if you want to talk about it, i'm happy to! but please DM me personally and don't send asks about it. i don't want to answer asks because those get posted on the main blog. on the main blog the algorithm reads what's posted and sends you suggestions accordingly.

certain parts of ST S4VOL2 make me *extremely* uncomfortable. i scroll past gifs, art, edits, etc, of those parts on occasion already since i have so many ST friends and the algorithm suggests related content. and it's fine...but i don't want to give the algorithm more reasons to show me even more things that make me uncomfortable, you know what i mean?

guess that's it for ST.

so let's revisit the scream franchise!

might as well go ahead and get the biggest change out of the way: i no longer hate dewey riley!

good lord, for years i was just the stabbiest damn crab at that character. 🦀🔪 opinion officially evolved, evolved BIG time. i was once so irritated with dewey i straight up celebrated when he got killed off . the glee at his demise pushed the ghostface that killed him right up to the top of my ranking.

BOOOOOOOOO. BOOOOOOOOO ME.

...okay. i. i'm sorry, dewey.

once again, here goes me with this pattern that i need to stop. me raising up my hackles at fandumb and components of the character that are not *the* character. i don't like the hero cop trope. i don't. the copaganda of it all...but. a character's mere status of falling into a category of trope or cliche shouldn't discourage thorough examination of them, their personalities, role in the story, or other traits. that's a very small way to interact with fiction, isn't it? i've since moved on from that knee-jerk dismissal.

i also was also a huge flipping grinch when it came to romance for a long ass time (will touch on this later) and so much of dewey's story is about the romance between him and gale. which is...actually a pretty solid romantic storyline, i realize after multiple earnest re-watches of the franchises. dewey has a solid arc! gale has a solid arc! their romance has a solid arc! should not have complained about this nearly as much as i did. maybe it's because of the chemistry between the performers, but all their banter throughout the movies that i once rolled my eyes at...it...it works! okay, it works, they made it work.

i no longer rejoice that dewey is killed off (albeit the scene itself is still pretty freaking cool). amber definitely *isn't* my ghostfave. she's NOT at the bottom of my list but NOT at the top. actually-- wait, no, that can wait, i'm not done with dewey yet...or am i, do i have anything else to say about dewey?

okay, he's not my favorite character, but. he's a classic and he's lovable and i won't fight it anymore because of petty irritations or my personal issues with a trope that in no way makes up the whole of his character.

since we're on scream, whoa, GHOSTFACE RANKING HAS EVOLVED 11/10!

yes, oh, that is so much different than where it was when i started this blog! also very different after recency bias + initial script + the dewey kill scene undeservedly shot amber to the top of my ranking in early 2022.

i'm not going to detail my ranking in this post. that could easily be its own post with its own thorough dissections of which ghostface takes which slot and why. but i will bring up another scream character whose opinion of mine has greatly changed over time: richie kirsch.

i was so irritated by this guy before. couldn't stand him! and you guessed it, for the wrong reasons! i was put off by a lot of the outpouring of the horny focus on him in fandom. not shaming anybody for their preferences by the way! look, i have my own villain crushes (see beth, who is at the top of my ranking again although we'll save the details for another day). it's just...it was kind of frustrating back then to want to gush about the carpenter sisters and mostly find myself surrounded by risque white male centered content instead. i hope that's understandable. so i got burned out on richie content and dismissed the whole character. i was also VERY put off by radio silence's interpretation of their ghostface duo in 2022 but that's a different conversation and again, not richie the character's fault.

richie is funny! okay, he's funny, yes, the "boner pills" line is still irritating, but now...now when i re-watch 5cream i can appreciate him more and the humor of richie *mostly* lands for me! i also think scream VI made me appreciate richie more, because his family is so underdeveloped and wayne's actor made...choices with that performance. but again, that's something i would get into more if i were to detail the evolution of my ghostface ranking.

i think that's it for the major changes in my scream feelings...what other fandoms...

okay, cobra kai? how have my opinions evolved there?

ykw, that one might be mostly the same. the show got worse. it got so bad. it's so bad now, it just bums me out. the one thing i truly wanted from that show was for tory nichols to get the screentime she deserved and for the show to deliver on her hidden depths alluded to the first three seasons. my wish was granted in sheer monkey paw fashion, because they finally did that and pretty much the rest of the show went to shit, go figure. 💩

um...hmm...SHIPPING.

oh, okay, shipping. yeah, let's talk about that. not fandom specific, just um. okay, at the time i started this blog i was never what the kids call 'antis' in that i have some moral beef with fan content of fictional characters falling in love or doing sex things. no, no, that's pretty silly. BUT what i was, was a huge grinch!!! just the mention of romance made me scrunch my face. wouldn't read/write/engage with any shippy things beyond some extremely particular F/F content.

as someone who prefers F/F because it's what i relate to, i know at some point i was just burned out on everything fandom being so heavily M/M focused and everything canon being so heavily F/M focused. i also have feelings about the way M/F is portrayed in canon media due to misogynistic tropes and storylines. but even where F/F was concerned, i was so picky. picky as a damn porcupine.

i believe a combination of things has finally let me to loosen up when it comes to shipping and romance in general.

1.) limiting my engagement with it, allowing me to recover from the burnout.

2.) getting over personal romantic issues IRL that tainted my engagement in fictional romance.

3.) YELLOWJACKETS. i have many complaints with s2 but nevertheless, YJ has given us so many complex, rich female characters with interesting dynamics. and the exploration of those dynamics is abundant, varied, and so thoughtfully explored in YJ fandom that i am hooked! i feel more invested in expanding my F/F pool and i feel less overrun by the greater amount of M/M and M/F content because these fascinating characters and the earnest effort fandom puts into depicting multilayered relationships between them just...evens the playing field, i guess, if we're gonna make a soccer pun. ⚽️

4.) watching romances + romantic subplots with women behind the camera. turns out, the less misogyny involved, the more genuinely i can enjoy an M/F ship. go figure, huh.

anyway, i'm not such a stab crab about romance anymore. i know i have many fandom friends who *are* interested in shipping and i apologize if i was ever cramping your style or bringing you down when i would express my disgruntlement. i hope you can forgive me, i promise to be less of a grinch now. 💚

🦀🔪 fandom opinions that have not changed:

1.) THE BLACK PHONE. waited a year, paid $30 to watch ethan hawke put plates on the floor for an hour! NO! i want a refund!!! WASTED POTENTIAL. GONNA HOLD THIS GRUDGE FOREVER.

2.) the CAOS finale was absolutely disgusting! it was never a great show, sarah rees brennan who wrote the tie-in novels should've been in charge of the screenplay, imo. the novels did so much, so much better, but i digress...mediocre show or not, that fourth season took bad to a whole new level. 🤢

3.) ALEX SAXON CANNOT ACT. i appreciate nancy drew (2019) presenting to me F/M ships (namely fanson) i could actually get into because of the way the dynamics were written but the nace obsessions baffles me when the acting in MTV scream was oscar-worthy compared to this man's sheer lack of ability to emote.

...unless....unless the editors of the show hated alex saxon and only used edits they knew were bad in the finalized episodes in order to sabotage his career going forward. but i have no proof, it's just a possible conspiracy theory. 🤔

non-fandom relevant blog thoughts:

i love interacting with my friends, building connections, and admiring the creativity people put out into the world in various forms. i want to be more focused on that, online and offline, than negativity. i also don't want my apprehension surrounding AI to prevent me from engaging with the digital world and the wonderful human people i've gotten to know through it.

i want to think about nature more than the things that make me so angry, so beyond my control. i want to share animal facts and pictures of forests and funnily shaped rocks. i want to spend more time making people laugh than spiraling into personal insecurities...i don't think my blog was ever a *particularly* negative place, but oh boy, i could certainly be a crab with TWO knives...

there's plenty to be afraid of and be angry about with the expansion of AI and its grip on the digital world. i guess the whole purpose of this post was just to express 'these are the things that have changed and my priorities have also changed.' with that, i really want to focus more on creative things, fun things, funny things, and share more joy than anything else.

there's only so much time. i want to spend the bulk of it cherishing the connections we make, more than anything else.

#personal #blogging #fandom #media #AI #the shift from early 20s to late 20s is so real #i am making peace with the goals i've failed to accomplish and that acceptance has helped me mellow out A LOT #edit: setting new goals has also helped a lot #accpetance of past failures is not giving up on future achievments

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