Just going to be blunt - This fandom would be a very different space if it was only people over 18. But somehow a horror movie for adults ended up with a bunch of very young teens watching it who are struggling to keep up and are harassing everyone on here with dumb drama every goddamn day.
If every little thing associated with the show upsets you, STOP WATCHING. And leave everyone else alone. No one is here for your uninformed political takes.
If you don't want to watch the show anymore, no one is making you. But stop commenting in the fandom all day if you really don't care about the show anymore. No one else cares if you are watching and what your reasons for stopping are.
44 notes
·
View notes
The new Velma show seems to neatly fall into this trend of tv shows (paramount heathers, leaked powerpuff girls script) that want to seem progressive by having a diverse cast, while simultaneously wanting to preserve that same edgy, punch-down comedy style found in 'centrist' or conservative media. They want the praise for having female, queer, and characters of colour while still retaining an audience made up of mainly edgy white men laughing at how ridiculous ‘the minorities’ are behaving. It’s a punch-down comedy wolf in progressive sheep clothing.
The fundamental flaw in this logic is that show runners assume the audience that would enjoy this humour will see past that supposedly progressive façade… and that often doesn’t happen. A lot of these specific edgy types see diversity as a red flag and immediately presume some type of agenda. It’s almost like seeing a minority participate in the joke (even though they’re still very much the punchline) zaps all the humour out of it or they can’t understand that the joke is still for them if it isn’t said by someone that looks exactly like them. And because they (especially, but not only, cishet white men) recognise all the jokes from things they like, but don’t find them funny anymore, the only reasonable explanation they have is that diversity is bad and makes it unfunny, instead of realising their inherent inability to recognise and relate to any character that isn’t a white man.
Meanwhile, an audience that would appreciate a diverse cast does recognise the comedy for what it is: cheap jokes made at their expense. At most there are occasional jabs thrown in at the white and/or male characters which often don’t relate to these identities in any fundamental or even realistic way. So you have this show that constantly uses their minority characters as punchlines and only includes vaguely progressive, but ultimately pretty universally accepted, messaging hoping progressive audiences will be enamoured with the occasional ‘girlboss moment™️’, while not noticing that vast amounts of regressive ideals.
In the end neither audience feels appealed to and the show is a massive failure. While it might be satisfying to see that these conservative audiences are too blinded by, let’s be honest here, identity politics to recognise something that is clearly made for them, ultimately all that is remembered is that ‘the comedy show featuring a lot of diversity’ failed. And it becomes harder for people who actually want to make media with, and especially for, minorities have a harder time getting any funding. Shows like these are a lose lose situation when it comes to furthering diversity in the media landscape and it’s increasingly frustrating to see this happen again and again.
306 notes
·
View notes
Not to compare apples to oranges or whatever in regards to fictional characters' trauma, but Anakin wouldn't have been able to handle even 1/4 of what Obi-Wan went through.
Look, I’m an Anakin stan myself. He’s not my number one blorbo, but I do adore him and purely for the fact that he’s a goddamn fucking mess. But I can’t help but feel like some of the more extreme Anakin stans keep missing the point of the prequels/Clone Wars as a whole. That being: Darth Vader could not exist without Anakin.
I only bring up Obi-Wan because a lot of the takes I’ve seen from people trying to defend Anakin from any speck of criticism tends to almost always revolve around his trauma/shitty life experience. And, like ... he’s not unique in that aspect. If anything, Obi-Wan shares a very sad, almost mirror-like amount of experiences with him.
For example:
-Obi-Wan was a slave. A lot of characters in the Star Wars universe were slaves.
Anakin was a slave!
((Update to the above: someone asked for clarification on this point, and I made a lengthy response in my reply/reblog. If my reply is too difficult to find down the road, I can add that bit here. Otherwise, the short version of the above isn't that Obi-wan's trauma is more valid than Anakin's. Just that 1) Anakin being a slave is not unique in the world of Star Wars and 2) Obi-wan and Anakin do share similar traumas but react very differently to said traumas)).
-Obi-Wan’s father figure (Qui-Gon) died in his arms.
Anakin’s mother died in his arms!
-Obi-Wan lost the love of his life. Who also died in his arms. Who also, strangely enough, did not die because of anything he did.
Anakin lost the love of his life!
Anakin was criticized by the Jedi Order for his inability to let go of others!
-Obi-Wan was criticized by the Jedi Council and his peers for his attachments to Qui-Gon, Anakin, Ashoka, Quinlan, Satine, etc, etc. The Jedi did not condemn him (or Anakin) for forming these attachments. He learned to let go of those he loved when their time came, no matter what form that took, i.e. death or simply them choosing to take their own paths without him in their lives.
Anakin had anger issues that made it difficult for him to form proper relationships!
-Obi-Wan had horrendous anger issues. Qui-Gon initially refused to taken him on as a padawan specifically because he had a horrifc temper. He learned to control his anger so that it would no longer control him.
Anakin was being targeted and tempted by a Sith!
-Obi-Wan was directly targeted by multiple Sith at multiple instances throughout his life. They all at one point or another tried to force him into using the Dark Side (Maul, in particular), or tried to convince him to leave the Jedi Order and become a Sith (Count Dooku, mostly, but also Asajj). He didn’t.
Palpatine manipulated Anakin!
-Obi-Wan was also manipulated by Palpatine. Everyone in the fucking galaxy was manipulated by Palpatine. Anakin is not special.
I could go on and on and on. This is just a small list of one to one comparisons, but like ... this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the absolute amount of horrendous shit that Obi-Wan has gone through, even prior to Order 66. I’m not saying that Anakin’s trauma isn’t valid, nor am I trying to say that Obi-Wan is a better character than Anakin because of how much more he has gone through in comparison.
My point is this: At no point, did Obi-Wan give into the Dark Side or become a Sith. Despite the actual living hell that his life was, he never ever ever turned to the Dark Side. A lot of people like to say he came close when he faced off against Maul during the episode “Revival,” and I can definitely see where people are coming from. But he didn’t.
In the grand scheme of things, Anakin does not have a fucking excuse for becoming a Sith Lord. Not that he (or any other Sith for that matter) ever had a valid excuse to begin with. But holy fuck, my guy. If someone like Obi-Wan, who literally has not known a single day of peace, can still somehow manage to keep themselves from giving into the temptation of becoming the emobiement of all things evil, especially in response to great emotional pain ... like, my guy, there really is no fucking excuse.
96 notes
·
View notes
there’s one version of an f/m/m triangle that crops up so often I’m surprised there isn’t at least a tvtropes/vernacular name for it. Miyokichi/Kiku/Shin. Molly/Fitz/Fool. Asuka/Shinji/Kaworu. Futaba/Taichi/Touma. not-really-but-you-could-shove-it-in-here Luthien/Beren/Finrod. Utena/Touga/Saionji is a twisted spun-on-its-head version of it. Specifically comprising:
masculine male character A: either is the protagonist or a character on to which male viewers can project.
female character B: a secondary character and A’s official love interest, often kept apart from A by story/circumstance/gender roles. Shows some resentment of the trials she’s put through by the story in being A’s lover such as being shoved to the side, cut out of his life, or put in danger.
less masculine male character C: another major character, A’s devoted sidekick, feminine and/or conspicuously cold toward women or sexuality, somewhat ill-used by A but not resentful about it, as a contrast to B.
The dynamic is used pretty equally by female and male creators, though probably with different purposes. Outside the story, there’s a clear explanation for how the roles are divided: men are main, women are peripheral. Obviously the female love interest has to be on the margins of the story. Obviously the male main character has to have an ally in-story who can bounce dialogue back. Any human person has to have a best friend (for men, has to be male) and a lover (for men, has to be female). The major character male bestie and the minor character female gf is the minimum character dynamic you need to sustain the main character as a believable construction.
Except within the story, the dynamic begs far too many questions. On B’s part: her other half and love interest uses her for sex once every few chapters and dumps her to go off on another plot-relevant adventure. She’s kept in the dark, talked down to, pushed away, and distrusted. Her place at her sweetie’s side is occupied by Some Dude and no matter how much she puts into their relationship, she’s always going to be a prize for after the mission. Why does she stay with him? What could possibly attract her about this bestubbled grunt machine whose passion for the sword outmatches anything she’s given him?
On C’s part: he gets used as an emotional support crutch, designed to service his best friend’s every need at the expense of his own goals or story. He’s a housewife, he’s a domestic, he does every thankless story task with a smile because he has to provide the exposition/set up the plot/set the plan in action that carries the main male character to victory. He doesn’t have a love interest of his own, meanwhile the most important person in his life is obsessed with a woman he barely speaks to. Why should he care so much about someone who only takes? Why is he committed to this one-way friendship? What does he think of taking the backseat, providing support, submerging his own will for the sake of a person instead of an ideology?
On A’s part: if he’s a red-blooded heterosexual male character who pursues a woman as is acceptable, why does he dig himself so deep in with his designated ally? Through dialogue and because he has to in order to show the audience, he exposes his heart and soul to C and keeps him in his pocket for as long as we are watching, so why then does he cast him aside so easily? He invests the most time and energy into his relationship with C, cultivating love and loyalty there, but he draws the line so firmly in the sand that the audience is sure he’ll never, ever step aside for one minute to follow the friend. Why does he choose a man for his emotional battery? Why doesn’t he communicate with his supposed partner? Why does he choose to use B and C for sex and solace respectively, and why don’t they ever mix?
The gender dynamics wrap around to simple: women aren’t up to being equal partners to a cool guy, so you need a male wife to do everything for you and appreciate the protagonist’s sick abilities. romance with a man is perverse and impossible, so you need a female love interest to prove that the protagonist isn’t gay and fulfil the audience’s needs. But in-between all of that you could ask some interesting questions of the spoke character, A, the male protagonist whose actions are taken as normal. the question being: bro. what’s wrong with you
17 notes
·
View notes
Not going to put this directly on the long discussion chain that prompted it because it's somewhat topic adjacent at best and I have no intention of derailing a discussion of fandom racism, but - while reading some of the "Izzy critical" responses that @bromelads got - I did see mention of one thing that I have both passionate feelings about and a near constant desire to elaborate some oft ignored context for. So.
One of the things mentioned as a source of discomfort in fandom for "Izzy critical" poc was posts rejecting that Edward was growing or healing in 1x09 and 1x10, suggesting that it mostly serves to empathize with Izzy over Ed and to make Izzy's actions look better at the expense of Ed's character / softness. The same person who gave this example later agreed that there's some truth in the idea that Izzy crits' misinterpretation of Izzy fan meta has something to do with the (very baffling) perception that we all don't like Ed or think he's the simplified villain of Izzy's story or something, which I just want to a) appreciate for a second because I do actually adore Edward so much, and b) mention specifically because I think the whole Ed healing debate is a great example of that.
I'm not going to argue why I am staunchly in the "Ed wasn't healing" / "Kraken was inevitable" camp because I've done it before, but I do want to point out some related thoughts around that argument that I've picked up on each time it loops back around.
I feel like a lot of the people who strongly disagree with or get mad about that take frame it as though we are minimizing or rejecting the existence of Edward's softness entirely. It's like... Ok, so there is a distinct sequence of moments where Edward is displaying emotional vulnerability or a draw toward fine things that fans noticed, and then they interpreted the pink robe Ed's "healing" as all that starting to pay off in his character development (before being interrupted by an external obstacle: Izzy). A very straightforward A -> B. Only when I push back against B and say "hold on I don't see any healing in 1x10," then I feel like people hear me rejecting that all the moments of A meant anything at all. If I see the shadow of the Kraken as an internally motivated obstacle being built in earlier episodes, then I must think that's the dark and violent payoff, and the evidence of softness was a diversion or manipulation or just not going anywhere significant in character terms.
Which is very frustrating to me because Edward is a romcom protagonist.
Yes, this is very obvious to everyone. But it matters in this debate because protagonist status comes with very significant guarantees - namely, Edward is going to grow / heal / get his happy ending, etc. We've even got Stede's S1 arc (which remember is still unfinished too) as a good example of structure and focus on internalized character flaws framed by plot hurdles. There is no version of this story arc where Edward ends as the Kraken, and I have never seen anybody suggest he's not currently on a character arc toward growth and healing and a circle of true companions in Stede's crew who love him for who he is.
So when I or anyone else says he's not there yet, it's almost exclusively because we are arguing about where he is on this character arc in 1x10. Of course the appreciation for fancy clothes and slow mornings with overly sugared tea is going to pay off! Of course he's going to become friends with the crew (I'm rooting for Frenchie S2 bonding)! Of course he's going to get to beat back that self loathing he's carried since his dad! But people get defensive and angry like you are personally targeting them and declaring their blorbo an irredeemable asshole because you suggest character development major enough to drive a character driven show probably takes more than a few weeks of easygoing vacation to reach final form. That's not what I'm saying at all!
Interpretations upsetting or offending people even when written with a complete lack of malice is nothing new, but it really seems like making up a whole army of guys to get mad at for takes is happening more and more. (And I'll admit I'm probably getting more and more guilty of this myself as my understanding of what exactly people are arguing in different fandom city states gets more and more fractured. Meta builds off of meta, and if you randomly see one post by one blog you already disagree with, you might be missing a lot of context to clarify what they actually mean vs "of course that's the awful take you would have".)
48 notes
·
View notes