#Is it projecting onto a character if most of the fanbase agrees? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

butmakeitgayblog · 9 months

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Hard to say but I think ADC has been trying to shake the lesbian fandom for a while and for me this puts the nail in the coffin. She's made some truly terrible choices before and I don't blame her for every thing but she's not a messy teen making these decisions. She wants to appeal to the male gaze with her modeling and her thirst traps and I'm not interested anymore. Waste of talent.

I'm genuinely saying this with kindness, I think maybe you need to take a breath and step back here. Because this is reading very parasocial relationship to me, and I don't think that's healthy for you.

She is an actress. She wants to act in wide varieties of things like most actors do rather than being typecast. She has said herself she never even expected to be in the sci-fi/horror genre to begin with, but those just so happened to be the jobs she landed at the beginning of her career. Her moving on and branching out to different kinds of roles is good for her as an actress. It's good for her career and her bank account lol.

I personally find the thirst trap comment particularly raised-eyebrow worthy because the woman barely posts on social media at all. She keeps a very defined line between her personal life and all of her fans, gay and straight alike. She posts pics of herself that she obviously thinks are pretty and chic, mixed between 47,000 pictures of her dinner and random walls. She knows her looks are a commodity in her field because I'm assuming she's not stupid, but beyond bolstering her image for modeling opportunities (none of which have been male gaze oriented at all I'm sorry but they haven't), she's explicitly said she enjoys getting dolled up and looking pretty. I don't think it's fair at all to insinuate a woman enjoying that is somehow doing something wrong or provocative. And even if she is trying to be provocative, why is a woman intentionally being sexy and confident in her looks on social media a bad thing?

As for the wanting to leave her lesbian fans behind, I really have no idea what to even say to that. I don't agree at all. What I do think is that she wants to broaden her fanbase. It makes sense that an actress wants her work to be seen by more and differing factions of people. Again, assuming she's not stupid or blind, she has to be well aware that her queer fans are ride or die (mostly), so.... overall I'm just not entirely sure what exactly it is you expect her to do to show she appreciates the support. Only ever play queer characters? Never have a male love interest on screen? Never take roles that require her to be anything other than chaste? Thank her queer fans in every interview? I don't mean that in a smartass way, I'm just genuinely perplexed by this thought process because what is she supposed to do?

Honestly and truly I'm not trying to be an ass to you here or even dismiss you. I just think that maybe you're attributing some inner feelings you have and are projecting them onto her, when all it really seems like she's doing is just being out here trying to work and live her life

#anon

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let-us-cultivate-our-garden · 9 months

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Do you think that aside from a few exceptions, most of the Owl House fandom lost its sense of humor and start taking the show too seriously?

I only joined the fandom last year and even then, I saw a lot of people going into hysterics about a section of the fandom liking the villain. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be unique to Toh, some people have brainworms and think that liking a villain=agreeing with their actions.

Also, I think taking kid shows too seriously is a staple of modern fandom: Voltron, Steven Universe, She-Ra, take your pick, they all had intense Fan Drama over something stupid (especially shipping, but that's been around forever) and I chalk that up to a significant portion of the fanbase being young and immature. It's practically a joke on social media that kid fandoms are very angst-driven while adult fandoms photoshop flower crowns on fictional murderers.

Another major component is projection: I see a lot of young fans project their own experiences and worldview onto the show and don't treat the narrative as an actual story. When someone points out a flaw in the show, they are usually met with the explanation, "that's realistic! That's how people behave after xyz!" That's not the point: realism should never be the focus of a narrative, coherent story structure and characterization should be.

And yes, people normally get emotionally attached to media but that's due to good writing/acting, not because it's "realistic."

I think The Owl House almost invites a certain level of projection because so many of its characters are #Relatable and are social outcasts in some way, or they just like conventionally nerdy things like fantasy. This means that a lot of impressionable fans will see themselves in the characters and possibly get too wrapped up in the story and retaliate against anyone who has a different perspective on the show.

Remember that your blorbos are fictional. They are not you. They are not your experiences. They are tools to tell a story.

At the end of the day, it's just a TV show. It's just a movie. None of it is real. So there's literally no use in getting into Internet drama over entertainment. But then again, the Internet thrives on drama.

#asks #the owl house #fandom shenanigans #fandom

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thewitchqueenofharrenhal · 8 months

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You know what's so funny about the Dead Beat Father Brigade and their allegations of 'performative Rhaegar hate'? It's actually the opposite in that hate for Rhaegar is not performative, but the stanning for him is. The amount of times I've seen comments that boil down to 'I didn't even care about Rhaegar but I defend him and like him now because so much of the fandom hates him OR I can't wait for R x L to be depicted as a romance in the books because it would piss off a lot of the the fanbase OR I feel need to defend Rhaegar for the sake of TaRg NaTiOn' is significant.

And it's just like......so you agree? The stanning of him is intellectually dishonest, in bad faith, and a lot of times the result of Oppositional Defiant Disorder? lmaooooo. Please spare me acting like you are in an oppressed minority group for liking a dead beat who got his chest relocated in the one and only battle that loser ever fought in his life.

Not the dead beat father brigade 🤣

You should coin that into the fandom lexicon next to the dead ladies club anon.

Literally what is performative about not vibing with a character because of their canonical decisions, like idgi do we win a prize or something?

The funny thing is the fandom doesn’t even hate him lmao, I’m pretty harsh on Rhaegar and I still acknowledge his character is pretty tragic and his character choices are still interesting. I think everyone I’ve seen comment on Rhaegar that isn’t a rabid stan acknowledges this.

R&L being perceived as a romance wouldn’t piss anyone off lol, most of the fandom expects it? - however just because it’s written as a romance doesn’t mean I’m obligated to like it ?? - GRRM mentioned calling Daenerys & Drogo’s wedding night romantic and consensual and I and most of the fandom has the ability to acknowledge that’s not a fair assessment.

“Childbrides were normalized in those times and GRRM said it’s romantic”…. Well sorry but I still think Khal Drogo was a disgusting piece of shit and Daenerys was a r*pe victim and child bride and could not consent.

Same way I think Rhaegar was a creepy weirdo for signaling out a child and later impregnating her as she could not consent. Don’t get me started on the creepy r*pe tower.

Targ Nation is a joke so I can’t even comment on that lol.

Honestly people can stan whoever they want, it’s okay to accept your fav did some questionable things lmao - a lot of my favs have? I think some of these folks just suffer from Stan brainrot where they can’t accept canon.

I also think if I’m being honest that a lot of people project Rhaegar onto Daenerys and therefore if you hate Rhaegar you hate Daenerys. Which is also pretty funny when you realize a big part of the Rhaegar - Daenerys connection is that she surpasses him in every single way and she was never meant to or expected to certainly not by him that believed he was the prince that was promised and then believed it was his son.

But that’s another conversation for another day.

#anon

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rosesfox · 2 years

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Share an unpopular opinion about anything SJM-related? Characters? Plot? SJM herself?

i think people have come to consider sjm an author who works well with more serious subjects and mental health, but no. not that she sucks, but people talk about her characters as if they are very deep and layered and i don't agree. in fact, i think she's a lazy author who almost never develops her characters to excellence. she could have done a better job with rhys and all the trauma baggage he has, could have thought better of nesta's story, she likes to put subjects like ''violence against women'' in her books but develops them so poorly that now morrigan is the villain in eris' narrative, and there are plenty of tamlin's apologists out there. (i'm aware it's not all her fault, but i just don't find her consistent. not all characters can be gray characters, not all can be rhys or this will turn into a mess.) you know, everything looks average or poorly done.

i also don't like sjm projecting herself onto the characters and putting her personal story into them. it's weird, and it gives fans scope to do the same thing. that's why there are so many people who defend acosf tooth and nail and act as if any attack on the book is something personal. in fact, her fanbase is one of the most toxic and i think that's precisely why people end up making everything very personal and dissecting everything she puts in the books, as if they were very deep and detailed things when they aren't.

#anon ask #sjm critical #sarah j mass #acotar fandom #acotar #acomaf #acowar #acosf #feyre archeron #morrigan #rhysand #nesta archeron #eris vanserra

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cblgblog · 2 years

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Have you actually read some of the stuff people/fans have said/quoted/inferred about HA? I respect it if you’re kind of done with the conversation, just ignore me, but if you’re not, yikes. I mean on one hand, it makes me sad because of the hate towards her, and on the other hand, some of the jokes she’s made and stuff she’s quoted having said doesn’t sound great (like the Peggy could have saved grand ward when Skye couldn’t comment) and as a major steggy fan I’m kind of getting a headache. D’you think some of this stuff is taken out of context? Or can I just attribute it into yet another way tumblr is trying to make the fandom less fun for me?

Yes I’ve read some of it, more than I’d like, not all there is. In my experience most of it is either completely made up (saying she trashed POC women when there’s no evidence of that ever), or taken out of context/blown out of proportion (saying she goes out of her way to bash Staron when all she’s ever done is answer questions that FANS have posed to her, with some light jokes).

I don’t know about the Grant Ward thing specifically, I was never super deep into AoS fandom, so I can’t comment with any authority. If she did say it, I imagine that she was joking, and that, again, people who take this stuff way more literally and seriously than the actors ever will, tried to turn a teasing comment into something else. But again, I’m guessing on that specific instance.

Look, MCU actors have to talk about this stuff ad nauseum. They have pretty much all made jokes at some point about how my character could beat X character/my character is better than X character. They all have their little things they say about the fandom, because they’re required to keep talking about it, and be charming and fill interview time. Because some fans cannot fathom the idea that these people have lives and careers outside the MCU—and that most of them really do not care about it beyond how it affects their individual lives—some fans freak out.

The fact is, most of these actors do not overanalyze this stuff to death the way we do. Probably all of them don’t. They have lives, and other roles, and most of them probably don’t know half of what’s going on in the wider MCU that doesn’t immediately include them. Because again, they have lives and other roles, and also Feige is a lunatic who doesn’t tell his actors what movie they’re in half the time.

Doesn’t mean the actors don’t care about us/their performances. They clearly do. But at the end of the day, this is a job for them. They are not their characters. They are regular, flawed human beings who get asked things on the fly, constantly, and then get their responses picked to death by fans. Sometimes they aren’t going to word things correctly. Sometimes they’re going to say a thing about the material that the fanbase doesn’t agree with. That’s what human beings do, it’s just that most of us don’t have the entire Internet studying our every word.

Honestly, I can’t tell you how seriously you wanna take this stuff. That’s entirely your business. My personal opinion? 95% of the Hayley hate is utter stupidity. It’s people who can’t differentiate between a character they don’t like, and the person who plays her. My opinion? There are too many people in this fandom who project their own feelings onto characters and actors. My opinion? So many people in this fandom have no sense of boundaries or perspective.

Jeremy Renner and the allegations surrounding his personal life? Those things are actual Things that are worth getting upset about. Joss Whedon putting a rape joke into Iron Man’s mouth—or RDJ improvising it because I’m not sure there—that’s a Thing.

Hayley Atwell jokingly threatening to lock Sharon in her room over the CW kiss, after being asked about it specifically? That’s not a thing. Not to me.

#hayley atwell #that got ranty #oh well

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mimitsurugi · 2 years

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Invisibill bingo? Invisibingo?

INVISIBILL !!!!!!!

They are SO COOL LOOKING!! -

INVISIBILL’S SENSE OF STYLE IS SO COOL!!! He has such transmasc swag and it oozes from every inch of him like he’s a blueberry jelly donut. There is something about the way he dresses and inspired his sense of style on the Victorian era that SCREAMS gay trans man and it is SO fucking cool. His sense of style is UNMATCHED bro. All that time in the closet DID GOOD FOR HIM, he didn’t waste a MOMENT of time in there. Fashion icon.

Everyone is wrong about them but me -

I didn’t mark this one off because it doesn’t apply, but I wanted to talk about it because I LOVE seeing people who have a bunch of invisibill thoughts and headcanons !!! It’s so interesting for me; I’ve voluntarily chosen to digest his character through the lens of other people and their perceptions of Bill because, to me, it’s most fun to get to know him that way!! (I do have a couple HCS though; most of these are not only commonly held by other people but they’re practically already canon in the show anyway; he is a gay, trans man with ADHD ok I love him a lot)

Wasted Potential -

WE DIDNT GET ENOUGH OF INVISIBILL!!! The show wasted him; not in a bad way, but in the unintentional way where he was underutilized. He’s extremely interesting character-wise and extremely interesting ability-wise!! He should’ve been a more prominent villain I think.

They’re like a blorbo to me -

HIM. He. I don’t know what else to say but he is so round and soft and I want to hug him and also help comfort and assist him on the long, difficult road get an ADHD diagnosis because he means so much to me.

They’re deeper than they seem -

invisibill’s behavior and demeanor hints at there being something bigger going on under the surface. We don’t know anything about his childhood or his family (as far as I know I’m the show’s canon anyway), and the way he reacts to things, his personality, his flaws and his actions hint very heavily at there being something in his adolescence or previous experiences that influenced the way he is. I want to know more about it! A lot of the time these insecurities are played for a bit, which can be funny but ultimately undermines his character. I want to explore him more and know more about him so bad!!!!

I like them enough to project my own issues onto them -

I don’t know if it counts as projecting because it’s practically canon at this point, but a lot of the neurodivergent traits he exhibits in the show are things that resonate heavily with me !! There are also a lot of headcanons developed by the fanbase that match my own experiences, and so I’ve begun assigning those to him as well!!

They got done dirty by the fans -

ok, part of me agrees with this because I do believe that invisibill is severely underrated and underutilized by both the fanbase and the show; but another part of me really only marked this bingo square off because I wanted to talk about something in a similar vein. I feel like a large piece of who invisibill is was curated by the fanbase, actually!! There’s a kind-of niche part of the fanbase that creates content for him, and though I wish it was larger (hence the “got done dirty by fans” bit), a lot of the character as I know him was created by that group! So honestly, even though I agree with him being “done dirty” with how under-appreciated I sometimes feel he is, I would also argue that he was developed amazingly and well loved by fans! It can apply both ways, I think.

Didn’t get enough screen time -

Bill absolutely did NOT get enough screen time, and was underutilized in the plot (in my opinion). He can turn invisible!!! He has an interesting personal life!! His demeanor is captivating and his character is extremely lovable!! He absolutely should’ve gotten more screen time and attention in the show itself. (I feel like I could say that about a lot of the characters in WG, which I guess is probably due to the fact that there’s such a vast array of interesting, engaging characters!! I long for almost each and every single character to have been given more time to be fleshed out on-screen; but I feel that, even if wordgirl wasn’t cancelled prematurely, and no matter how long the show would have ran, I would still feel this way! I just can’t get enough of these characters; and even if Wordgirl was 100+ seasons long, I bet that I would still long for these characters to have more time on-screen.)

I want to carry them in a handbag like a tiny dog -

I think invisibill would have a blast being carried around like that in a little bag. I also think it would be fun to hear him blurt out random little things he would see as we went places.

Why do they look like that -

(/affectionate, /pos) HE. I’ve already talked about bill’s transmasc swagger previously in this post, but I’m going to continue to talk about it because his appearance absolutely warrants it. There are so many tiny things about him, excluding his overall theme and aesthetic, contributing to his character and his look that I just love. I adore how dinky his hair is, his dorky little middle part, and the way that the lines of his hair swoop to form it’s overall shape. I like how the shade of his hair is light brown verging on blonde, and how it matches the brown of his vest and compliments the red of his necktie (they’re all brown, so they’re all similar hues forming a common color theme in his design; but the color of his hair and his vest are more yellow-toned, unlike the necktie which is more red-toned. It makes his design cohesive as well as diverse!!). I like how the outline of his torso shares a similar swoop as his hair does, and that it’s wider on top than it is at his stomach and waist. I like how his face is slightly longer and bigger in comparison to his body and neck than it would be if it was proportionate, and how his thin, rounded nose shares a similar length in comparison to the rest of his face—I think that both of these traits contribute greatly to how he’s characterized; the uneven shape communicating his clumsiness. His torso being wider at the top and his head being a bit too big for his neck gives him a sense of imbalance, like he could tip over at any moment.—I like how his arms are rubbery, soft, and look a bit limp, and how they sometimes flail about in a way that shows his uncoordinated, all-over-the-place personality. He’s really well designed and it makes me so happy!

Im mentally ill about them -

I am sitting here writing an entire essay-length post on TUMBLR MOTHERFUCKING DOT COM about this gay little cartoon character; I think that’s enough evidence in favor of my brainrot for him. If that’s not enough, though, I spent most of one of my drivers ed classes doodling him and sneaking glances at my phone to look at a reference photo. I am very much mentally ill over this little dude.

They work best as part of a dynamic -

I crossed out the best because I didn’t want to undermine his individual character. Invisibill works just as well in a dynamic as his own individual character. Watching him in a group, a pair, and on his own is always entertaining! I also feel like his relationship and dynamic with BLHG showcases Bill and his personality just as much as the times he’s presented on his own!

They’ve never done anything wrong in their entire life -

look at him. Do you really think this man could do anything wrong? Ever?? Really?? He literally looks like how eating cookie crunch for the first time as a child feels.

Anyway sorry this took so long for me to reply to, I wanted to use this question as a prompt to doodle him a bit lol :)) here he is!! I doodled these silly little fucks in drivers Ed this week and it was SO fuckin fun :)

#wordgirl #wordgirl fandom #wordgirl pbs #invisibill #wordgirl invisibill #invisibill wordgirl #wordgirl blhg #blhg #big left hand guy

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sillyfudgemonkeys · 2 years

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I mean, I think the JP fanbase of p5 really don't like Ryuji all that much and some of them could have been trying to project themselves onto Ryuji hence the bad camera angle.

IDK, that's what I concluded considering the amount of times he's, as you put it, staring at their dance partner. or hyping up their partner.

I agree the JPN fanbase hates him to weird degree (like I have issues with his writing, I'm baffled at times, but in comparison to other chars he's.......not the most broken to say the least). It's hard to tell if the devs are leaning into the fans annoyance of him, or if the devs are being pervs as usual and using one of their more pervy chars to facilitate that. I want to say the latter cause they are.....fairly consistent between P5 post Kamo and P5D (and anime? *sobs*) with that notion (P5S on the other hand...... been awhile but iirc Ryuji would say some anti-pervy stuff in that and I would be like "I don't want to hear that from YOU of all people." felt out of character for him lkjfas;f *sobs*)

But yeah he has a lot of sit and stare off into space moments (I think P5D, and P3D?, have a lot of odd moments when it feels like one or both stop dancing for a second and it's always odd to me, maybe not ever dance partner and every dance.... but I've noticed it with the ones I've seen).

Maybe someone will make a free camera mod for P5D and then we'll know for sure. :'D

#silly asks #silly answers

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zuko-always-lies · 3 years

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Ah, a Zuko realist. Now this is refreshing.

When I first watched ATLA, Zuko was easily my least favorite of the major characters. Apart from the obvious (him hunting the savior of the world for status and personal gain), the guy was consistently selfish, rude, and pretty much acted like the Tasmanian Devil from Looney Toons…but not for the sake of comedic value. After being exposed to the fandom for a while, I kinda got sucked in to the “Zuko is an awkward turtleduck” stuff and it took me a while to realize that his fanon character has totally been perverted. And the real tragedy is that he has a ton of depth and some major redeeming qualities…the fandom has just chosen to ignore the fact that he’s morally conflicted and warped him into an infallible Traditionally Masculine Hero. It’s just a relief to see another person (there aren’t many) who seems to acknowledge that canon Zuko has totally been obliterated and replaced by something that doesn’t resemble him at all. (Any thoughts on why Zukophilia has become so rampant?)

Sorry for taking my time answering this, but I very much agree with you. Fanon Zuko has nothing to with canon Zuko. The person who I think has done the best analysis on canon Zuko and some of the less savory parts of his character and less well-written parts of his arc is @seyaryminamoto . I reblogged a ton of her posts within the last couple months and I tagged them all with "seyaryminamoto" if you're interested. In fact, I'm going to try to link all of them here: x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x. To make it clear, I don't 100% agree with seyaryminamoto on just about anything. @wingsfreedom and @eshusplayground are also people who have had some good takes on Zuko, particularly this post. And if you haven't read this post by me on "power hungry Zuko," you might find it interesting.

Now, to get into the substance of your ask a bit more, I'll be honest, the first I watched the series I just saw the narrative framing surrounding Zuko and didn't think deeply about him. Honestly, I liked him in a way I can't now, since the fanbase flanderizing him kind of poisoned his character for me. It's hard doing meta analysis of a character when you haven't finished a series, and most fans never give that level of thought to a character. Unfortunately, the way that Zuko is presented and framed leaves meta-analysis as the only way to get a good grasp of his character.

I think one of the issues with the writing of Zuko's character is that the writers couldn't decide what kind of redemption arc they were writing. I think Zuko's arc unfortunately mishes and mashes between three different types of redemption arcs:

1. Moving from being selfish and self-interested to being selfless(i.e. the Han Solo arc)

2. Escaping from a toxic family environment and forming healthy relationships arc(i.e. the Nebula--from the MCU--arc. This actually requires the character undergoing the arc to be a little selfish)

3. Rejecting the awful values you have been indoctrinated in and becoming a better person through accepting new, better values arc. If I were writing a redemption arc for Azula, this would be the focus.

When you combine aspects of these three arcs together without being careful, you can end up with some very unfortunate implications. And I think it also creates a lot of the confusion surrounding Zuko in the fanbase.

However, by far the biggest reason why people believe "Zuko is an awkward turtleduck" is because it's how the narrative frames the character. The narrative always presents Zuko in the most sympathetic and positive possible light, even though his actions run very heavily against this framing. The two most pivotal episodes for Zuko's character are "The Storm" and "Zuko Alone," and both present Zuko as an awkward, kind, moral, selfless, empathetic, and compassionate turtleduck being harmed by his evil relatives; the narrator is heavily biased in both cases but the narrative never calls attention to it. Zuko's actions in just about every other episode also contradict these traits, but the narrative also never calls attention to that.

There are also some other factors about why Zuko gets woobiefied in the fanbase to the degree he is. First, Zuko is an abuse victim in a very obvious way, so there's the tendency(like with Ursa) to woobiefy him and present him as a "perfect" victim being violently tormented by his evil father and sister, rather than deal with how his abuse and indoctrination led him to engage in toxic behavior.

Second, Zuko is male, so the fanbase is much more willing to ignore it when he acts violently, gets angry, or otherwise engages in toxic behavior. Male characters get so much more slack here.

Third, Zuko is the deuteragonist of ATLA, we always see things from his point of view, and he ends up siding with(and being accepted by) the protagonists, so there's the natural tendency to soften his actions.

Fourth, the narrative ends with the implication that Zuko has become the perfect ruler and finished his growth, so the fanbase is less willing to accept he is flawed.

Finally, it seems like the fanbase is more enamored of the idea of Zuko(abused kid gets on a better path and develops healthy relationships) than they are with his actual character. Certainly, the fact that ~50% of "Zuko meta posts" are written by Azula fans suggests that Zuko fans are more interested in what they project onto Zuko than on Zuko's character as is revealed by his behavior.

#Zuko #Azula #canon vs fanon #canon zuko vs fanon zuko #fanon zuko #seyaryminamoto #ask #ATLA #Zuko is not an awkward turtleduck #issues with Zuko's redemption arc

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orionsangel86 · 4 years

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Hey Everyone,

As you have probably noticed, I have neglected this blog for a long time now. I haven’t been on any fandom related social media at all actually. But I figured since I am currently in a good mindset, I want to write a post just outlining some things which basically boils down to a goodbye letter to Supernatural fandom.

Long rambling post below the cut...

This year (and the last) has just taken it out of me in terms of general negativity online both in fandom and in the real world. At first I got tired of fandom (mostly because Twitter is a cesspool of policing and bullying) and then I got tired of everything else (the world sucks right now, and my mental health basically stopped me from being able to participate in any form of online activism – just because I’m not blogging about something, doesn’t mean I don’t support the cause ya know?). Earlier this year, right around the time of the UK lockdowns, I had surgery and a recovery period in which I spent a lot of time with family, and just reacquainted myself with the real world. I think perhaps the coronavirus pandemic made me realise that long before lockdown began I had already been isolating myself from my real life and diving further and further into an online black hole.

It was years in the making. Supernatural fandom preoccupied my thoughts for such a long period of time it got to the point where every moment of my non working time seemed to be spent either online scrolling my tumblr dash or twitter feed, or reading fanfic or doing something fandom related. I invested so much of myself into this show and fandom that I think I forgot who I was before I was a Supernatural fan completely.

After my wake up call in late 2019, which lead me to break free from an extremely nasty clique, I have tried to re-enter fandom on my own terms, as well as attempt to enjoy the source material and the fandom creations to ignite some new spark of love and interest in the show. Yet as much as I have tried, I have failed to do so.

I was thinking recently about someone I used to follow years ago before I ever created a blog. When I was still just lurking in the tumblr shadows and followed the likes of Mittens, Lizbob, and other meta writers of the period, there was a blogger whose name I can’t remember but she was the funniest blogger I had come across. But when the show killed off Charlie Bradbury, she quit. I had never even interacted with her, as I was barely getting my blog started at the time, but I’ll never forget a post she wrote about her feelings on the show. She had recently started watching something else (I think it was Sense8 but can’t recall entirely), and that this new show had given her everything she had never thought she could have from her fave before. She wrote about how her relationship with Supernatural had become abusive. That for years the writers of Supernatural continued to throw punches at fans like her – women, LGBTQ+ people, people of colour, and yet she continued to give it all her time and attention, brushing off the punches because she was so damn devoted to the characters. Then this new show had come along, and it was like she had seen the light. The killing of Charlie Bradbury was the last straw, and she dumped Supernatural’s ass and fled into the arms of her new love.

I hope she is doing fantastically today.

What she wrote has resonated with me for years. I was a fairly new Supernatural fan at the time, and therefore didn’t really understand what she meant. A TV show can’t be abusive. Can it?

Of course, we are speaking in metaphor here, and in no way are these metaphors meant to reduce or limit the truly serious situation of actual abusive relationships, but every now and then, when a new episode of Supernatural has left me feeling upset, disappointed, frustrated and grossly let down, in some cases affecting my mood for days at a time, and therefore my mental health. I have thought back to those words she wrote and quietly agreed with them in my head. Yes. This is a metaphorically abusive relationship.

When I discovered earlier this year that Castiel was most likely going to be killed off in some sort of bullshit self sacrifice before the end of the show, I was extremely distressed. When I found out that my favourite person of all time Misha Collins, supported this ending for Castiel, and may have even been the one who pushed for it, I was more than distressed, I felt betrayed by the person I cared about most. I’ll admit to you all now that in my weakest moments I have fantasized about standing in front of Misha and screaming at him exactly just what kind of affect his “ideal ending” for Castiel will have on his fanbase, on their mental health, and potentially their own safety. This fantasy has me guilt tripping him and doing everything in my power to make him feel utterly shit about the decision. I know what you are thinking – don’t blame Misha, the guy has his own problems and we all know he projects his own self esteem issues onto Cas – and yes, I know this, like I said its only a fantasy to get me through my darkest moments. I don’t hate Misha at all. But perhaps I do love him a little less nowadays than I did back at the height of my fandom life. That’s at least still a little bit more than my feelings for Jensen and Jared which now I can only describe as complete indifference.

I am admitting all of this now knowing full well it will ignite shock and anger among the more die hard fans of J2M, to explain why I need to just leave this fandom completely, or more accurately, why I have already left fandom.

Over the past 10 months of 2020, I have watched a lot of TV (there isn’t much else to do during a lockdown when you are on crutches with your foot in a cast!) and the one thought that occurred to me over and over again was “this show is so much better than Supernatural”.

I kept comparing everything I watched, from the quality of the scripts, the actors, the special effects, to the inclusiveness of the shows. Just so many beautiful and interesting stories that seem to understand their audience, and understand how to entertain and impress without resorting to cringe humour, outdated jokes, and prejudice, not to mention misogyny and queerbaiting – yup, I said it.

The thing is, I think these thoughts have been creeping over me slowly for longer than just this year, but I have been desperately batting them away the way Dean Winchester bats away his own gay thoughts. Unlike Dean though, eventually I couldn’t ignore them anymore. I cannot continue to carve out space in my own soul for this show, which incessantly beats me down regardless of my devotion. The creators, the network, the writers, and sometimes even the cast, have all shown that they don’t care about me as a fan. I’m not some gun toting dudebro living in middle America, so why should they give a damn about me? I’m clearly not their target audience, nor have I ever been.

I know many of you will vehemently deny my personal opinion of Supernatural now. That is absolutely fine. I am sorry to be admitting it, but I had to. I feel like once I finally write out these words, I have got it off my chest and can close and lock the door on Supernatural for good.

Without Supernatural, I am able to focus on my real life, I am able to find pleasure in other things, new things, interesting things, that bring me joy and joy alone – not disappointment and frustration. I found a new job this year, which has been a huge accomplishment as I was stagnating in my old one, and several new hobbies under my belt. I moved to a new flat, I have a lovely flatmate who has been a godsend throughout lockdown, and I have rekindled friendships that I was neglecting due to my Supernatural obsession.

All in all, I am finding post-Supernatural life far more rewarding and content than my life in fandom. It has taken me a while, but I am over the show. And whilst I will always hold a special place in my heart for Castiel, it will be as I know him in my own mind; as the wonderful, strong, powerful and determined angel with a soul, who loves so strongly, and who is worth so much more than his own creators give him credit for. He is up there with Aziraphale and Crowley, with The Doctor, and Buffy, as one of the greatest characters of all time.

So the Supernatural writers and creators can take whatever ending they have decided upon, and shove it up their asses. I am sorry to say that Sam and Dean Winchester are also lost to me. Any love I had for them was destroyed by their later season depictions. Castiel alone is the only character worthy of that space in my heart now. If in time he longs for a companion, I will find one for him, but it won’t be the Dean Winchester of the canon show. Canon Dean hasn’t been deserving of Cas for a long time now.

Perhaps I am still a little bitter about the ending. Perhaps the finale won’t be the disaster I expect it to be, perhaps Dabb will somehow turn it all around last minute following whatever travesty Bucklemming have given us in 15x19. Either way, I won’t be watching.

So this is me saying goodbye to this blog, at least until I have decided what else to do with it. It certainly won’t be a Supernatural fandom blog anymore. It wasn’t all wasted though. I did get a wonderful friendship group out of this fandom, and I have certainly expanded my knowledge of film and television analysis, as well as having enjoyed a great many memes.

I guess in the end, my internal war with my inner bitter Cas girl finished with her winning, and writing this post. Once it is posted however, I will put her to sleep with thoughts of a happy Castiel, who has swapped his wings for a beating human heart, and is living on a beach somewhere beautiful, refurbishing an old Victorian house, and greeting his kindly elderly neighbours. There’s a gay bar on the main strip, and the bartender is quite a dish. Green eyes and light brown hair with a killer smile. Castiel thinks he looks familiar, like a memory from a past life, but they’ve definitely never met, because this man is kind.

Now that she is asleep, there is nothing left for me here. Goodbye everyone. Whether you manage to enjoy the finale or not, I truly hope you too, find your peace.

#personal #a goodbye message to fandom

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pochapal · 3 years

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You don't gotta answer this publicly, but what on earth happened/is happening RE: Dogpiling?

this is long but there’s a lot to cover and i don’t know how much information is pre-known going into this.

basically breadtuber sarah z made a 2 hour fandom postmortem video on homestuck. instead of being a genuine look into what made the comic and the fandom so massive and so relevant for so long, she kind of glosses over all that in the first thirty minutes, then spends the rest of the video discussing homestuck’s two major controversies in the least tactful way imaginable.

the first one she talks about is the hiveswap development hell fiasco, which on paper is an interesting thing to bring up in relation to a lack of content contributing to fandom decline, but sarah’s primary source for all this is a pseudo-anonymous blog run by giovan_h, someone who is notorious for treating dangerous and baseless accusation as fact and for obsessively stalking current and former whatpumpkin staff members to obtain information for said blog. she supposedly tries to bring a balanced argument on what exactly happened in the three year dark period between hiveswap’s supposed release date and when act 1 actually came out by pitting ipgd’s tumblr post (the one that made the odd gentlemen embezzlement claims vis a vis king’s quest) against giovan’s blog (claiming through anonymous and unverified sources that hussie deliberately dicked around and failed to meet a single deadline, then broke contract terms by using the kickstarter money to commission the odd gentlemen to animate act 7 instead of working on hiveswap. there are a lot of other unsavoury claims about hussie and certain other wp members among these blog posts, but that’s the primary relevant gist).

neither account can actually be verified (ipgd’s post claims their information is spotty because they’re talking around a pretty strict settlement nda and giovan’s sources and accounts are deliberately vague and unverifiable to “protect various parties from retaliation from hussie/wp”) but sarah ultimately comes down and says that she’s inclined to take giovan’s blog as more truthful for. reasons. this is obviously bad because within minutes of the video dropping several wp team members reveal sarah never once tried to get in contact with them, which has led to attacks on the team members because a lot of zealous people looking for an excuse to keep being mad at homestuck in the wake of hs^2′s semi-permanent hiatus were emboldened by a video essayist treating the ugliest speculation as hard fact. as of right now, the hiveswap kickstarter has released a statement clarifying the development situation as best they can (from what i’ve read it does point to them legally being unable to point to/discuss certain things) which has had all the impact of dropping a match onto an oil spill. the anti homestuck zealots firmly believe every word of that post to be bullshit and are accusing the wp team of covering for hussie and his super heinous evil crimes (keep in mind we are still not privy to the internal workings of wp because why the fuck would we be) so the wp team in turn are putting these people on blast for this dangerous harassment (it doesn’t need to be said that as a professional being publicly accused of covering up fraud is a very bad thing) and then as a counter counter response the angry fans are now accusing the wp staff of abusing their power to direct mass harassment towards specific individuals (this amounting to people getting into wp members’ private discord servers and publicly posting mean things they have said about giovan et al which imo only serves to bolster the stalking claims) and the whole thing went very ugly very fast.

the second controversy that sarah brings up is everything involved in post canon homestuck (epilogues, pesterquest, hs^2). here she reverts to more of a passively pro-fandom stance, asserting time and time again how horrible and evil the epilogues and everything else were because of how they took the characters and stories everyone knows and loves and warped them into something unrecognisably terrible, that post-canon homestuck was universally reviled. in a very bad and awkward placement of information she then segues into a kind of hand-wavey discussion of the intense backlash towards certain post-canon trans interpretations (of vriska, june, and roxy) in a very I Am A Cis Woman So I’m Not Qualified To Make Any Statements Here Other Than Transphobes Fuck Off <3 But Also This Is Indicative Of A Growing Fandom Resentment way, which honestly begs the question of why she needed to include this at all. another bad thing here is how she super glosses over the “controversies” surrounding “the advocates for june egbert” and “the writer for vriska’s pesterquest route” - she is obviously referring to former creative director kate here (she kind of confirms this on twitter by saying she didn’t want to mention kate by name in order to not stir up further drama which uh... yeah) and the inexcusably terrible chain of events which led to every single out trans woman working on homestuck to resign to protect themselves from further mass harassment and dogpiling from the fandom.

she instead, for some reason decides to focus on how post-canon homestuck has been a total commercial and creative failure, that homestuck^2 basically shouldn’t have even happened after the fandom’s distaste for the epilogues and that it was not only controversial but also was a low quality mess everyone agreed sucked. she then goes on to compare the hs^2 team to the wp hiveswap dev team, and passively applies the same giovan-esque assertions to the internal workings of hs^2, kind of but not really implying the reasons given for the shutting down of hs^2 were bullshit. this is super bad for the fact that the post canon homestuck team is the most openly marginalised group of people working for hs is in an official capacity, and we have seen time and time again what drawing undue, speculative negative attention towards these people has done. again, reminder sarah did not reach out to a single person who worked/is working on homestuck for what is essentially a drama video disguised as a fandom postmortem. the upshot here is that her post-canon section served to embolden yet another wp-hostile section of the fanbase - those who adamantly believe that only the fandom itself can create worthwhile homestuck projects, and that all writers are evil people who want their queer fans dead (only a partial exaggeration) and produce spite projects which are driven by the steadfast belief that their work is inherently superior to official content by virtue of their fan status. among this group were a lot of people who latched onto any accusation against a team member as fuel to push them out of “ruining” such a beloved franchise so sarah’s video serves as proof that all the hs^2 writers were morally corrupt monsters ruining a fandom space that was meant for minors and queer people (this is all very anti/anti-anti carousel of bullshit nonsense that i have no time for) and thus they’re confident to once again tear down the remaining public facing staff members, ignoring how all this crusade has done so far is drive a handful of trans women and people of colour off of official homestuck projects for their own safety.

then she ends the video with a “oh btw this video is proudly sponsored by audible <3″ bit and it’s just. beyond unbelievably awfully stupid that she deliberately reignited this aggression which has caused untold material harm on marginalised people (that happened less than a year ago!!!) just for the sake of quick clicks and ad revenue. she consolidated the most dogshit takes as fact within the general fandom consensus, sided with some of the worst people to engage with homestuck, potentially detonated the last shreds of stability of this independent marginalised media project, and wrapped it all up with a sponsorship from an amazon subsidiary company of all fucking things. this is obviously a case of an incredibly short sighted decision to cash in on a very complicated and unwieldy fandom history but still the potential consequences here are unfathomable.

#extrarabbitsauce #didn't intend on this being public but i saved as draft and now my only choice is to publicly post this. whatever #got called a terf for liking homestuck^2 whatever pigshit this post potentially attracts will be nothing

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galaxyshine24-7 · 3 years

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Things I didn't like about Stranger Things Season 3

Now don't get me wrong I love Stranger Things. Its been such a fun ride and inspired me with its 80's feel and DnD vibe. I adored it and still do, I'm so excited for season 4 and can't wait to see the gang again. However when season 3 came out and I watched it certain things didn't sit well with me. So I guess I'm just getting them off my chest. Now reminder these are my opinions if you think something different that is completely fine. I'm just venting at this point and might view things differently from others. So read on if you want.

Spoilers Ahead

Relationships

My biggest struggle watching this season was how they handled relationships. Either how they where handled, or how they weren't handled, or things I see people overlook when it comes to them that should be addressed. So I shall go down the line on what I didn't like and analyze them.

Nancy and Johnathan

Over the seasons I have fallen in love with Nancy's character. I like how the show played into stereotypical 80's tropes. Nancy was the mean older sister, but soon turned into a badass sharp shooter. In this season her character wavered for me a bit. I still love her don't get me wrong, but I was upset a bit how she handled her and Johnathan's situation at the job.

I felt like neither Nancy or Johnathan really talked about how the other made them feel or really get that they understood anyone's plight with the dialogue we where given.

With Nancy is wanting to get on the case and find out what is happening. She wanted to shut up those rude assholes in her office and I applaud her for that. However during that time I don't think she was truly listening to Johnathan's concerns. Now say what you want about Johnathan, I do feel like at the end of the day that he loves and cares for Nancy and will back her up when he can, but in this case we the audience see him become frustrated when he gets fired from a job he really needs to support his family. Now mind you Johnathan had a bad time at the job too, but him being made fun of is something he has grown a thick skin too has seen in previous seasons. He explains to Nancy that his family doesn't come from much money. Honestly him and Will have the lowest income in the friend group compared to the other kids and to me watching them struggle through the seasons compared to the other kids homes. With Nancy she was going off to college and wouldn't need this job for long with how accomplished she is between the high schoolers we know she is probably the only one with plans on going to college. I was a bit upset she didn't consider Johnathan's emotions and situation beforehand discovering what was going one with the rats.

Now Johnathan isn't innocent either he should have been more compassionate with her problems since this was something she wasn't used too getting in a work place. He should have talked to her more and communicated, heck maybe try to find a different job together. With Nancy she admits to her mom how she was unfair to Johnathan. When she then meets him again they didn't have that dialogue with each other at all, instead a few quick lines that left me in a weird place. It felt unfinished and I was not convinced either really talked through it. It felt unfinished and left a weird taste in my mouth in regards with the two. All and all I just wish it was handled better, but I can say that about most things on this list.

Max and Eleven

Now when these two started hanging out I was excited I think their cute and I'm glade El got a friend who is a girl. Its fun to see them talk to each other and bond going on adventures, however I started to raise a brow at Max's behavior and advice. Now side note I know they are children and they are not going to be right about things like relationships all the time. I get that I really do, however I'm still pissed she gave El terrible advice, and I don't think she was fully held accountable for her and El spying on people which is not okay powers or not. I'm glade they started to find about about Billy, but they weren't looking for that and stumbled upon it from spying on others. Its just something they shouldn't do in general to be honest.

Max supports and cares about El I just believe she wasn't the greatest of friends in terms of relationship advice and how she acted towards Mike and the others. Max was projecting her experience with relationships onto El's and Mike's and it did not end well at all. It was up to El at the end of the day to make her own decisions and speak to Mike to fully understand the situation and talk to each other. I understand why people praise and love the relationship, but also don't see its faults or the problems it had. When I found out Max and Lucas break up every other week I was like "are you serious, and you went around giving El advice, and didn't see anything wrong with that?!" I don't think Max ever talked to El about it or El talk to Max more about it, and then there's the whole thing with Mike that I can talk about later.

I just feel like Max wasn't solely positive in her and El's relationship, and I wished El tried to find answers on her own instead of listening to everyone.

(P.S. When Max showed El Wonder Women which is nice. Max makes a comment when El points out Wonder Women and she said. "This is why you can't hang out with Mike all the time." I first I was like okay, showing El a female superhero is cool. However I got to thinking Wonder Women and El don't have much in common besides being women. Mike gave her Grand Master Yoda and he has more in common with El then Wonder Women does. In terms of powers and such Yoda fits more with El, and El is the wisest and level headed out of most of the kids in my opinion. I'm upset at the writers when they seem to forgot Mike gave her a hero more like her in what she can do and who she is. They should've chose someone like Jean Grey who uses her mind and is a red head like Max, it would've made more sense. She appeared in 1963 so Jean would have fit. Also maybe Mike showed her Yoda and thought more about what he does and says that reminds him of El then thinking about what gender she was. Just a thought I guess.)

The Friends Group

Now with age I understand relationships change and mature esxpecliy through friends. This is shown with Lucas and Mike wanting to hang out girlfriends and Dustin having his own thing with Steve. I can see why the writers did this to have different storylines going on but it was weird. You would think after all they been through, they wouldn't get has distanced as they did. It didn't feel like the group was whole and then at the end of the day Will moves. Mike and Lucas where distracted by their own relationships which I can understand, but the whole argument with Mike and Will was strange. You have these kids who fought tooth and nail to get Will back and they can barely give him the time of day?! I get you have girlfriends and such, but come on. It seemed out of character for this group after so much they went through together and to get Will back. The argument with Will and Mike was heartfelt and you could feel Will's plight and Mike's, I guess I was just upset out how distant it was, and how the kids just brushed each other off for their own drama when we've seen many times that they don't do that to this degree.

Characters

There where many characters I either had problems with how they where written or felt like there could've been more.

Mike

Mike's character I feel like was shit on a lot in this season from characters and some of the fanbase. Now I will say upfront that I like Mike, heck I like most of the characters in this show. They got faults and positives that I can see and understand. This season with Mike I feel like his character didn't get the understanding from the other seasons. He's either the bad guy, or the grumpy kid who brushes off all his friends for El. Mike is shown growing his relationship with El and trying his best to be a good boyfriend and protect her. It upsets me when people don't look at the all aspects of a character and see their flaws and good traits. With Mike we have seen this kid put his fucking life on the line for his friends and become distraught when he loses El someone he loves dearly. Its understandable why he is a grumpy mess during the last season, he sat and tried to reach out to El for 353 days when she left. He lost her for a whole year and never stopped trying to see if she was out there, just like for Will he never gave up.

It doesn't surprise me that Mike wanted to do all he can to protect El no matter what so he doesn't loose her again. However when Max starts accusing him of wanting to control her, basically saying he is trying to treat El like property it made my blood boil. We has the audience saw him fight for El and protect El, and never stop looking for El. Then getting this whole "women are a different species," narrative between him and Lucas. How the writers went about that was weird to me seemed a bit forced. For two guys we know fought along along side El and saw her has equal and feel for her, too oh women are a different species we can't understand them at all didn't make the much sense by how hard they where pushing it.

It kind of sucks to hear people hate Mike. Like if you do that's fine, its all good. I just feel like his character doesn't get a fair review at times. Will gets brought up a lot from what I seen. I agree that Mike was being insensitive and like I said before doesn't make sense to brush off Will like that after all they went through. People like to talk about the whole "Its not my fault you don't like girls." Side note I don't believe Will is gay. If you do go for it, I just see the situation a bit different. Will just came out of a very traumatic event and just wants to go back to normal just like the old times with his friends and the hurt he experiences with them all moving on and being not what he remembered. They where not what they used to be. With Mike he is growing up and moving on and in a fit of anger he tells Will its not his fault he doesn't like the relationships him and the others are forming. Like he saying its not his fault Will isn't growing up, and moving on. insensitive yes, but I can understand where both are coming from and dealing with different problems.

Mike isn't a prefect character, and he makes mistakes. I just felt like towards the beginning of the season till some of the end he wasn't treated the best writing wise.

Max

When I first met Max she was such a fun character I love them bringing her into the group. She is fiery and compassionate and I think she brings something new to the group of kids. I think she still does. In the third season I just had a lot of problems with her and her attitudes.

I have already explained her part in El and her relationship. I guess her attitudes towards Mike and Lucas I was upset about.

Lucas and Max didn't get lots of screen time to showcase there relationship more, but by the whole they break up every week detail and attitudes towards each other I don't think its that solely positive to be honest with the scenes we got.

Her attitudes towards Mike made me pissed off a bit. Yes, Mike should not have lied and Max is right to call it out, but to go to say he is controlling El and these other terrible things. To the audience we know that is not true seeing Mike goes to the ends of the Earth for El and Max knows how deeply her disappearance effected him. Mike stood in front of her and his friends from Max's abusive brother Billy. However in the third season she gets a whiff of him lying its like she has nothing to give him the benefit of the doubt on. When in fact she does. She reduces him to a controlling and lying boyfriend, and yes pushes that idea onto El and it just rubs me in the wrong way. I was very upset with Max and how the writers where treating some moments like something to praise. El dumping Mike was sad and upsetting I didn't find it very funny, but hey that's just me. She had El spy on people esxpecliy the boys and I feel she really doesn't get many consequences for it. However Mike is treated like a monster after getting threatened by Hooper and lying about it. He should not have lied of course, I just don't feel like they got equal treatment for their actions, and yes I know there kids they are stupid at times. I can still call out bad behavior and warning flags.

Billy Hargrove

Billy was wasted potential on the writers part. His character is a very known presence in the last two seasons. When you find out about his past and El reaching out to him, I feel like him sacrificing himself for the group and living could have been such a good example of character growth and getting better, and I feel like his story was cut to short for how much time and effort was put into his character. He was bad yes very bad, but with this latest season you got to see little sparks of his character come out more, his good sides. Billy Hargrove was wasted potential and I really hope they hold the dad accountable for his abuse in the next season, and also the mom. She was a victim yes, but she should not have left her son with to be emotionally and I believe physically damaged by his dad. His death should have consequences that all parties need to hear and see. If they really brush him under the rug I'll be pretty upset.

Alexi

I love his character and I just miss him is all.

That is just some of my thoughts on the third season I hear people say is one of the poorly written seasons of Stranger Things. Has much as I love the things in it. It has some writing issues and characterization where I would have to agree.

Welp those are just some of my thoughts. Love them or hate them its is what it is at the end of the day. I hope whoever is reading this has a nice day. Peace

#stranger things #my thoughts #opinons

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ratnco · 3 years

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How to Kill a Great Film in 2021

Good Films die every day in Hollywood. Contracts are written and thrown away, writers can be hired and fired as fast as old drafts can be thrown away and rewrites can be made days before production. And when that doesn’t stop a project from being a success, Producers can cut funding at the second to final lap around the track, locations can change, or in more recent cases, the entire world can change.

But let’s pretend this pandemic isn’t currently still in effect and fast forward to 2023, when cinemas are open again (sadly not for the Cinerama Dome) and a new movie is released once a week and regardless of how much we enjoy it, we get to talk about it. In this fantasy land, let’s talk about the 5 ways you can kill a good movie before, while, or after Production…

Relationship between Director and Producer

Whenever the release of a certain cut of a film that isn’t what the Director intended on releasing makes its way to Theatres, the thing that comes to most people’s minds is ‘Studio Interference’. If you’re an aspiring filmmaker, writer or just a fan of Cinema in general, you’ve heard all of your favourite Filmmakers talk about how much they hate their Producers, you hear horror stories about the un creative old rich man trying to be creative, forcing their bad ideas onto a project and thinking they have creative control because they’re funding it. And a lot of those stories are true, but is that really all? Are Studios really that mean? Even so, there was still a moment where the Producer sat down with the Director and said ‘I like your project, let’s make it.’ So they can’t be that terrible.

The truth to this problem lies at that meeting. Whatever the problem is that the studio, Director or Crew will find themselves knee deep in down the road, its source will be born on the desk where that meeting takes place. The Producer may have bad, unoriginal ideas and is just out to make bank on your project, and you may be an unknown indie-filmmaker just trying to find an outlet for your talented voice, but as different as these two forces are, they need each other to survive. A Producer needs a film to be successful in every theatre in the country in order to keep their business alive, and the Filmmaker needs to successfully capture their vision onto screen so they can share it with audiences around the globe, and that won’t happen without Studio Funding, and the Film won’t be made without a Filmmaker.

So what happens if you don’t get along, if the Producer changes their mind on the casting for the main character, or the third act of the script? Do you just say ‘Yes’ or ‘Fuck off!’? It’s up to the Filmmaker, but either answer won’t produce a good Film.

Another thing you’ll probably find in common with any Director whose movies have suffered a great deal of box office failure to what they claim is Studio interference, is that they hate producers, they say mean things about them during interviews and they establish bad relationships with Hollywood, and more often than not, their line up of upcoming projects grows thinner and thinner as the years go by.

A Filmmaker shouldn’t be surprised when they have a hard time getting their films made when this is how they treat the people funding them. As attached as you are to the movie you’re making, getting your film properly released involves your key role in a game that must be played, and played extremely well. If you have a disagreement with somebody, is the most wise next step to scream in their face? No. If you’d like somebody to see your point of view, it’s done only by a genuine back and forth dialogue, allowing both parties to level with one another, acknowledging each other’s perspectives and reaching a common goal they can both agree on.

A Filmmaker can still receive these requests and still say no and still have a great relationship with their Producers, it all comes down to the trust you establish with your collaborators, and yes, they are collaborators.

Not Getting Final Cut

Reason number two is exclusively caused by reason number 1; Getting the Final Cut for your film means that you alone have creative control over what the version of the movie you’ll one day be showing to audiences will look like. If you’re passionate about how you're going to eventually show your story to an audience, this is pretty important, as failure to do so will result in a version of your film reaching audiences that you did not play much of a role in.

Nobody wants somebody to take something they’ve made and turn it into something else entirely. If you’d like to see a prime example of this, watch Natural Born Killers. One of the most talked about Tarantino films isn’t even really a Tarantino film. ‘You don’t fuck with my material’, Quentin Tarantino told Oliver Stone when handing over his original script, to which Oliver and his team responded by taking his characters and plot and flipping it on its head, creating a new film that doesn’t even come close to resembling what Tarantino originally wrote, to which Tarantino responded by requesting his name be taken off of the writer’s credits.

How the Director Controls a Set.

When a Film is made, hundreds of people are involved other than the Filmmakers, Producers and their cast, there’s also a massive crew who must be considered. If you’re a Director, all of these people are working for you, which means you’re also responsible for feeding them, managing how fast or how slow they work, and their overall mindsets while making a movie and if you at any point assume that these decisions play a key role in the result of the final product, just walk into any retail store and see what happens when a Staff is treated poorly by its managers.

I’m glad I brought up Quentin Tarantino, because the Writer/Director has a very interesting rule on all of his sets: No Cellphones. At the door of a Tarantino set, a ‘Checkpoint Charlie’ will retrieve your device and give it back to you at the end of the day or in case of emergency. On Top of that, there are speakers planted on set, blasting music, chosen by Tarantino for the cast and crew to listen to while working. What results is a very chatty cast and crew, forced to engage each other in between takes or set ups, rehearsing lines and enjoying and embracing the atmosphere rather than trying to escape it. QT also has another very interesting rule: No Sleeping. But breaking this rule won’t result in death, only something worse… Floating around the internet is a photo of Brad Pitt and other Cast members of past Tarantino Films with a giant purple Dildo held against their sleeping faces on set. Morale is key.

Marketing

When shooting's wrapped, editing is almost complete, and everyone involved is very excited and thrilled that the release of their movie has met and maybe even exceeded expectations, now it’s time to release it. But to make sure that goes smoothly, you’ll need to advertise it so that people will know about it.

Which means it’s time to make your trailer. Making a trailer involves just as much writing as the birth of the Final Draft of your Screenplay.. The Filmmaker has a chance here to control how the future audience of their movie will perceive their story, how they absorb it and how they will use that information to make a decision on whether or not they’ll leave their house to go see it.

Here’s another place where studio interference may come into play. Say you’ve got a 3 hour long Western Drama that you’re trying to advertise, but the studio says that since this is a slightly more niche genre of cinema, and given the runtime it would be more wise to make the trailer feel rather fast paced and action packed, containing loud and fast music and sounds of gunshots and screaming! That way when people at home view it, they’ll feel excited, their hearts are racing because you've tapped into a very common human emotion that everybody on the planet could respond to: excitement.

Sure, this approach may sell a lot of seats on opening night, but what will the rest of opening weekend look like? Chances are, pretty blique. Because your Western Drama may indeed be a beautifully executed masterpiece filled with tension and tear jerkers, but the problem you’ll now face is that all of the people who went to see your movie left their houses because they’re big fans of high octane action films and that’s exactly what they were expecting when they came to see your movie. But that’s not what they got, so now they’re upset.

One thing that a lot of Producers today won’t admit is that a Film may not be for everybody, and that’s okay. Because rather than marketing to a broad selection of people who may or may not like your movie, your Audience will do a better job at championing your Film if you chose to only Market to the people who will want to go see it. Even if these numbers are fewer, if those people really enjoy your movie, they’ll do the rest of the marketing for you, which will get you an even bigger fanbase, which can maybe even turn into a cult following. The long term success of what you release will have a major effect on your ability to control future releases. The battles you fight now will win you the war of your career as a filmmaker.

As frustrating, controlling and sometimes crazy Hollywood can be to its Talent, at the end of the day, it's only an outlet for voices looking to speak out, it’s a malleable mechanism used by all of us, and without us it wouldn’t survive and vise versa, so we coexist. Any Film can be a great Film, but aspiring talent may not like to hear that talent will only put words on a page or a subject in frame, the true impact of what you create comes down to something as simple as knowing how to talk to people who aren’t like you, a method also referred to as ‘empathy.’

By Ezra Crittenden

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loopy777 · 3 years

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I actually don’t think they know what they want to do with Azula in canon altogether. If there was an endgame for her, it should have at least been hinted at in Legacy of the Fire Nation. It wasn’t. If they had any idea of where she was in LOK (be it dead, exiled, alone, thriving, whatever), we would have seen hints at one point or another.

But there’s two sides of the fanbase: the ones who love her, and the ones who love to hate her. And while there’s a lot of us in the first category. So, if you write a story where Azula is redeemed when the majority of the fanbase either dislikes her, dismisses her as crazy or just doesn’t care for her, you risk alienating people who will get up in arms because they’re convinced she didn’t deserve redemption. If you write a story where Azula is NOT redeemed, her fans will rage for eons but wait eagerly for the next installments because MAYBE it’ll happen in the next one! But, from a business standpoint, what do they stand to gain more from? Pleasing the group of Azula fans and angering the majority of the people consuming their content, or pleasing the bulk of the fandom while Azula fans continue to hate-consume their content for any breadcrumbs that might indicate Azula isn’t a completely lost case?

... Yes, this is fatalistic as shit. I know it is. But why else does Kuvira get a redemption arc in THREE COMIC ISSUES, whereas Azula only gets worse after two whole trilogies? Kuvira has a lot of haters too, but LOK has ended up becoming a slightly more niche fandom than ATLA’s larger one, and they didn’t risk alienating as much of the fandom by redeeming Kuvira (I mean as far as I know, by now the LOK fandom is basically just Korrasami fans who will buy all the content they’re given as long as they get more Korrasami).

Most Azula "antis" are people project onto her real life experience. "Give up on toxic family members. Azula is kind of people who should be removed from society". At least, that would be a sort of message and closure the haters want, then the writers writers Azula off the story. trying to give abuse victims power fantasy.

So, an Azula redemption story can be compelling but people need to change their mind about Azula which they won't. They want their abuse victims power fantasy where Azula is "removed from the society"

...is there that big a contingent of Azula-haters? I’ve certainly seen the stans, and I’m sure there’s a hatedom for pretty much every character in popular media, but I don’t think I’ve seen an organized contingent who consider Azula a stain to be removed. Even the most extreme 'affirmative’ fans I’ve encountered have talked about the nuance of Azula’s character.

Besides, the Mike and the Bryan don’t mind directly insulting Zutara shippers, who are the single largest faction of the Avatar fandom, so I doubt they’re that worried about ticking off Azula-haters. Or the stans. They’d probably consider it fun.

So yeah, I think that if there’s any reluctance to further Azula’s story and not just keep in a villain in denial, it’s more about being wary of the creative challenge rather than worries about a fandom civil war. I agree that there’s probably no plan for her, or at least there wasn’t before Avatar Studios went active, because the comic continuations didn’t seem to have any planning beyond selling the next book. If anything, though, Azula’s lack of mention in either ‘Legacy of the Fire Nation’ or LoK is a good sign; they don’t want to hem themselves in creatively with a throwaway reference.

As for why Kuvira got a redemption arc in the comics, I think it’s for the same reason Ursa’s story was told: it was a major dangling plot thread in the cartoon that was teased in the last few minutes of the last episode, so they wanted to deliver on it. Kuvira had a last minute turn to the side of good after literally being a genocidal tyrant, with hints of a backstory that the audience is supposed to be interested in, and I suspect the Mike wanted to complete that story. Azula, by contrast, does have a complete story; we as fans want more of her, and there’s room to provide that without a creative compromise, but there’s no need for it as far as the story goes. She was defeated by the major protagonists, brought low by the flaws that were set up in her first episode, illustrating the contrast between the Goodies and the Baddies. That’s a complete story for an antagonist.

Honestly, I think there are much bigger things to worry about regarding any possibility of Azula getting more story. Like what if Marjorie Liu is too busy to write it? Then what do we do?

#Anonymous

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