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nostalgicatsea · 4 years

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Common questions about and excuses for racism in fandom

I noticed that the same excuses, justifications, and questions that have come up in response to racism in fandom over the years appear in the notes for my post, so here’s a FAQ of sorts to address them. Hopefully, this will help people understand why these arguments don’t stand up to scrutiny and have something to refer to in lieu of writing a new reply every time someone says these things.

Due to the length of this post, I made a Google doc for easier reading. Please note that several points are specific to the Marvel fandom and to the post linked above and are often M/M-focused (I explain why in that post), but generally speaking, the following can be applied to any fandom and various relationships.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I can ship whatever I want. Stop being the fandom police!

Shipping isn’t activism.

Fandom is supposed to be fun. Being told what to do or not to do isn’t fun.

I put a lot of different people in my works, and I do research about the groups they’re in. For example, I have a *marginalized group here* character (e.g., disabled), and I did research to represent them accurately. It’s not fair to say that I don’t care about diversity.

I don’t think people should write about POC if they’re white, just like I wouldn’t want anyone to talk about *insert topic you’re passionate about or interest group you’re in here* (e.g., the BDSM community) if they didn’t know anything about it.

I really don’t have any knowledge about what it’s like to be a POC, though, so maybe I’m not the best person for this. If POC want to see themselves represented, they should make their own works.

I’m not comfortable with writing POC as I’m unfamiliar with the struggles they experience. I don’t want my writing to come off as inauthentic, inaccurate, or offensive. Why are you saying it’s harmful to use this as a reason for abstaining from writing POC?

It doesn’t make sense to include every single POC in my work.

What you said and the data you have don’t necessarily point to racism. It might just be individual preference. I prefer certain ships over others, and it has nothing to do with race/I don’t see color.

A big part of what informs my shipping is physical attraction or interest in the characters.

I don’t ship _____ because I see them as brothers/sisters/siblings.

Some white characters and ships are popular in the MCU fandom because people bring in canon characterization or material from the comics to the character(s)/ship. Your MCU-only examination fails to account for ships with one character from the MCU and one from comics (e.g., MCU Bucky/616 Clint or Spideypool).

Some subfandoms just have fewer POC which means there will naturally be fewer ships featuring POC. To say that the Marvel fandom is racist as a whole is disingenuous; you can see how more diversity in the cast leads to more diverse ships in fanworks.

Some of the characters and ships are popular because white characters get the lion’s share of screen time and development or they appeared in canon earlier.

Is it racist to racebend a character?

Racist language in fics is more important than fandom representation.

My fanworks tend to focus on one ship and don’t really include other characters in general. When they do, the others mostly talk about that relationship. Am I falling into the trap you mentioned?

I feel guilty about not including or writing about *character of color’s name here*.

How do I ensure that I don’t offend anyone if I include POC in my work?

What should I do to examine myself for any implicit biases?

The rest of the post is under the cut.

I can ship whatever I want. Stop being the fandom police!

As explicitly stated several times in my post, I agree that you can ship whatever you want. I’m not targeting a specific ship. I’m not telling you to stop shipping what you ship. All I’m asking is for everyone, including myself and other POC, to regularly examine ourselves for any implicit biases. If you’re a multishipper, are all of your ships in the fandom white? If you only have one ship and it’s white, are most or all of your ships in your other/previous fandoms white? Is the only media you consume predominantly or all white?

Shipping isn’t activism.

No, it isn’t and in many cases, shouldn’t be seen or treated as the same thing. However, by responding this way to POC who want to see themselves represented in fanworks more and not be ignored or written stereotypically, you’re telling us that our mere existence is a “political issue.”

Fandom is supposed to be fun. Being told what to do or not to do isn’t fun.

It should be fun for us POC too, and it’s not when we’re consistently misrepresented or we don’t exist in this fandom. By using this as an excuse to exclude POC from your works, you’re saying that only some people are allowed to have fun or that having fun is conditional. Also, no one is forcing you as an individual to do or not do anything. See two paragraphs above.

Just like you do research for those groups, you can easily do research on POC. Also, please be aware that this statement is similar to the “I’m not racist because I have a ___ friend/have a ___ person in my works” argument that many people use to prove they’re not racist, homophobic, sexist, etc. We aren’t interchangeable with other groups.

Something like BDSM is a lifestyle and preference. It is a choice. Being a POC isn’t. We can’t take off our identity every time we leave the house, the way you might keep it secret at work that you’re in the BDSM scene.

We do. Also, all of us fanwork creators make works with characters who are different from us all the time. Fandom is largely composed of people who aren’t straight cis men, yet the bulk of works on AO3 features characters who are canonically or implied to be straight cis men even if we end up changing that in our works. Most of us aren’t billionaires, but we don’t have a problem writing Tony. We don’t know what it’s like to be a WWII-soldier-turned-brainwashed-assassin who was kept in cryo for decades except when deployed on missions, but we don’t have a problem writing Bucky. The list goes on.

Your concern isn’t harmful. Reducing us to our trauma is, and you’re doing that if the reason you’re not comfortable with writing POC is that you don’t know how to write our struggles. We’re not only our pain. We’re more than that.

Not every fic has to be about the trauma of being a POC. We deserve to have fun, silly fics in addition to serious, plotty drama. We’re not thinking about our suffering 24/7 even if we do think about or are affected by it a lot. It’s not like if you write a Sam/Bucky fic, Sam is going to randomly lecture Bucky about the history of Black people in the U.S. and modern enslavement through the prison industrial complex while Bucky is trailing kisses down his neck in bed. We don’t need everyone being racist to MJ in a Pride and Prejudice AU. If you do want to include their struggles because that informs the way the characters think or act in your story, you can do so in ways that feel organic.

Additionally, this is an excuse that we hear often; you may have heard it as people in Hollywood have used it to explain why they don’t have any, or at least any major, characters from marginalized groups in their works. If we allowed this excuse, an overwhelming majority of who we see in the media would be straight, cis white men considering who has power in the film and TV industry—and we would have to say that’s okay. We would have to say that the only people allowed to write about a certain group are members of that group, e.g., only women can write women. That’s not acceptable especially considering the gatekeeping, oppression, and high barriers to entry and success that make it difficult for marginalized people to even be in the room let alone make a name for themselves.

Fandom is no different. You’re saying that you can’t relate to POC because you’re white, but none of us POC have any problems making fanworks with white characters even though we don’t know what it’s like to be white. There are straight women who write fics about gay men and don’t feel uncomfortable doing so when they don’t know a single thing about being a gay man and the struggles of gay men (M/M can include bi or pan men, fics about gay men by straight women can sometimes include problematic portrayals, and straight men, queer women, and non-binary people write M/M too, but this is just an example).

You should be more careful when writing a POC if you're not a POC. The same goes for men writing women, cis people writing trans people, straight people writing queer people, able-bodied people writing disabled people, etc. However, there ARE ways to go about it, and while I understand the fear of messing up, the truth is everyone is racist, sexist, etc. Everyone including people in marginalized groups. Being a white lesbian doesn’t mean you can’t be racist. Being an Asian man doesn’t mean you can’t be sexist. You can see that within groups themselves. POC are not exempt from racism against other POC or from internalized racism against themselves or their own group. Women aren't free from internalized misogyny. The best we can do is to not make that prevent us from making inclusive works; if you make a mistake, which may happen, all we can ask is that you try your best to be open to feedback and grow.

It doesn’t make sense to include every single POC in my work.

No one is telling you to. Choose characters who make sense for the story. Don’t choose them just so you have a POC in your work. We don’t want them to be tokenized.

This argument is identical to the “not all _____” rebuttal (“not all men,” “not all white people,” etc.) which places the blame on a few lone individuals and shifts the conversation away from an existing widespread problem. When there’s a consistent pattern and there are many examples of it both within the fandom and in other fandoms, it no longer is about individual preference.

I urge you to consider the following:

If most people say they don’t write about or include a POC in their work because it’s too difficult or they’re afraid of making that character inauthentic, but they don’t seem to have an issue with writing other characters from groups they’re not in (e.g., if you’re a straight woman who writes a lot of M/M fics despite not knowing what it’s like to be a bi, pan, or gay man), doesn’t that say something?

If most people have the same reasons you do about not being interested in POC (e.g., “they’re not fleshed out enough” while being interested in or fleshing out minor white characters who get the same or even less development as those characters) or ships with POC (e.g., saying “they’re like brothers” while being interested in a white ship with similar dynamics and tropes or seeing why other people might ship it if you don’t), doesn’t that say something?

If most people give characters of color the same roles in their works even if that makes them OOC and/or the role reduces them to a (frequently stereotypical) trope, especially if they’re never fleshed out beyond that trope (e.g., the funny sidekick, wise friend who always helps or gives advice/free therapy, or responsible, mature, and sometimes stern friend who “parents” the protagonist), isn’t that saying something?

If race truly isn’t a factor for you when it comes to liking characters and ships, then this isn’t about you and you don’t have to distract people from the conversation by announcing that. That said, we should all look at characters and ships we like anyway instead of assuming that’s the case as that’s good practice. How much of your list is white? If it’s mostly or entirely white, why is that the case and why do you feel differently about ships of color?

A big part of what informs my shipping is physical attraction or interest in the characters.

What characters and actors do you find attractive or interesting? Are they all or mostly white? If they aren’t, are you drawn to any ships that include those POC? Refer to the section above.

I don’t ship _____ because I see them as brothers/sisters/siblings.

Part of this is preference as it comes down to perceived chemistry and relationship dynamics. However, POC are often not seen as romantic leads both in fanworks and the media and are just friends or “brothers/sisters” (this is why Crazy Rich Asians was a big deal). Sometimes, people even argue against POC being or having love interests in the name of diversity. You see this a lot with WOC in the media where the explanation against a love interest is “she’s a strong, independent woman who doesn’t need a man”; yes, they don’t and sometimes the story doesn’t need a romance, but WOC deserve love too and it’s strange that while white women can get the guy and be independent, WOC can’t and it somehow belittles or reduces them if they do.

The way you can gauge whether it’s just preference at play or biases you may not have been aware of is to see how many relationships featuring a character of color fall under the “just friends/siblings” category for you, what you need to ship something, and how you feel about white ships with the same type of relationship or same lack of chemistry. For instance, you may say that there needs to be enough interaction for you to ship something and that’s why you don’t care much for Rhodey/Sam. Do you feel the same way about Clint/Coulson then, which has much less interaction (actually much less than Rhodey/Sam in this case)? If it’s about chemistry, are Steve and Sam just “brothers,” but Bruce and Thor aren’t or, if you don’t ship Bruce/Thor, you still “see it” and get why other people might be into it?

What do you ship, or what ships do you understand even if they’re not for you, and how is that different from ships that follow the same beats? Why are Steve and Bucky not brothers, but Rhodey and Tony are (there are many parallels between the two relationships—and one can argue the latter is more nuanced—than appears at first glance, and Rhodey/Tony can be just as sweet or angsty)? If you like the rivals/enemies-to-lovers or meet-ugly aspect to Steve/Tony, Sam/Bucky, Scott/Jimmy Woo, and M’Baku/T’Challa have that dynamic. You like that superior/subordinate-to-lovers dynamic that Clint/Coulson has? Coulson/Fury. Flirty meet-cutes or love/trust-at-first-sight? Steve/Sam.

I explained why I focused on the MCU here and that most of the fics that feature an MCU character and comics ’verse character tend to be heavily or entirely MCU-influenced here.

Also, characters of color exist in the comics, cartoons, and games too. By this logic, Steve/Sam and Rhodey/Tony should be juggernauts in the MCU fandom considering the depth and history of the characters and relationships. Ask yourself why people are happy to ship MCU Spideypool, to draw on the comics for that relationship and even bring a non-MCU character into the MCU and write him based on his comics history and characterization. Ask yourself why people are unhappy with MCU Clint’s terrible writing and lack of characterization and decide to give him his 616 (usually Fraction-era) characterization. And then ask yourself why people don’t do that for characters of color and then use “___ is a minor character/doesn’t have much development” as an excuse for why they’re uninteresting or not shippable with others.

There are many strong and interesting relationships in the comics, but only a few make it to the MCU fandom and almost all, if not all, of them are white.

It’s more important to see how many fanworks there are for ships of color in a fandom than how many ships of color there are in that fandom. See how few works there are for POC ships other than MJ/Peter in the MCU Spider-Man fandom despite the diversity of the cast. See how the most popular ships are white and three of them involve white characters from the Iron Man fandom (explain to me how Harley/Peter has over 1,000 works, but Ned/Peter has 436).

And sure, you can say almost all of the Black Panther ships feature a character of color so there’s “more” diversity, but see how few works there are for them and how works with a white character fare compare to POC-only ships (almost all have 100-200 or fewer fics, with many having so few that I didn’t include them in the post, while BP ships with a white character have more works despite little to no interaction between the characters).

Both of these, by the way, are critical and box office hits with characters who are clearly supposed to be the faces of the MCU now that the OG6 are gone. Black Panther is an award-winning critical and box office hit, and it is, more than any other film in MCU history, a huge cultural phenomenon with tremendous impact. It broke so many records and milestones, and it’s STILL breaking and making them. It has the most nuanced and balanced ensemble cast with side characters just as three-dimensional as the lead, a rarity in MCU films. Yet, its tag only has 3,966 works, fewer in total for the whole fandom than some of the white M/M ships on this list. Even if you account for BP fanworks that may have been tagged as MCU instead of BP, the number is paltry as you can see in this post. People simply do not want to make fanworks for characters of color (in this case, specifically Black characters) and don’t. It’s not about how diverse or successful a film is.

Some of the characters and ships are popular because white characters get the lion’s share of screen time and development or they appeared in canon earlier.

Yes, that’s true, but fandom has no problem catapulting white ships with minor characters into extreme popularity. See Clint/Coulson. See fics prioritizing Happy and having him show up more than Rhodey in Steve/Tony fics.

It’s not about chronology. Many ships of color came before white ships as a whole and before white ships with the same white character they have. See Bucky/Clint vs. Bucky/Sam.

Lastly, please don’t tell me how certain white M/M ships came to be to explain how they’re exempt or how I’m failing to consider other factors for their popularity. I’ve been in the fandom since 2012, and I’ve seen almost all of the white ships in the fandom be born or boom into popularity. Don’t try to explain, for instance, that Clint/Coulson is big because Coulson has his own show and his fans followed him from the show (this logic falls flat when you look at something like Luke Cage); that ship became huge way before that happened and way before Agents of Shield became “big.” Also, see the section above regarding screen time, development, and fame.

Is it racist to racebend a character?

People’s opinions differ on racebending—and often that comes from personal background and on the situation—so I can’t speak on anyone’s behalf. However, I think everyone can agree on the following:

Racebending a white character is not the same thing as whitewashing a POC. For example, making Tony Stark Indian vs. turning T’Challa white or as canonical examples, making Fury black in Ultimates and the MCU vs. making the Ancient One or the Maximoffs white. The latter (whitewashing T’Challa, the Ancient One, and the Maximoff twins) is racist for various reasons. There’s a long history of POC being erased and white people taking roles from POC, a huge imbalance in representation between white people and POC, the unfortunate perception by the public and media that “white = neutral/standard” (Bruce’s whiteness doesn’t define his characterization and development), and the way race plays a role in influencing the way POC feel, act, and are treated.

Racebending a POC from one ethnicity or racial group to another is also problematic as we’re not interchangeable. Hollywood often does this and goes, “But they’re still a POC! We’re being diverse!”

In general, people who racebend white characters to POC want to see more POC in canon and in the media! These aren’t mutually exclusive.

Sometimes people racebend because they’re not represented at all in their works. (This happens with other marginalized groups too; for instance, some people make cis characters trans in their fanworks as there are few to no trans characters in the canonical source.) For example, there are, as of now, no Latinx superheroes in the MCU films. Even if people wanted to, they can’t make works with an MCU Latinx superhero unless they bring one from the comics or the one Latinx superhero from Agents of Shield (if they know the comics or AoS), make a minor Latinx film character like Luis a superhero, or racebend their favorite white character and put a fresh spin on the character, drawing from their personal experience and background.

There’s a massive difference between fans racebending a character and a creator taking credit by pretending they viewed a character as non-white or didn’t see race all along when it’s clear that the character is canonically white (this is different from a creator saying they support anyone, POC or white, playing that character onscreen or onstage).

Racist language in fics is more important than fandom representation.

We don’t have to pick our battles. Both are important! I focused on fandom representation as it’s much more quantifiable and easy to find and analyze data for than racist language on a fandom-wide scale on my own without any tools. You’re right that the latter is a problem as is racist representation in fanworks, though.

My fanworks tend to focus on one ship and don’t really include other characters in general. When they do, the others mostly talk about that relationship. Am I falling into the trap you mentioned?

If the story is about a relationship (examining that relationship and the feelings of the characters in it) and there isn’t much of a plot outside of that, then that makes sense. However, even in situations like this, consider how much time you dedicate to characters of color vs. white characters. If the story is about a ship featuring a POC, do you spend more time on the white character of that relationship? Their white friends and how they feel about that relationship? If it’s about a white ship, do white side characters appear more than side characters of color even if the latter have a closer relationship with the protagonists? For example, does Wanda show up more than Sam or play a bigger role than him in a Steve/Bucky fic? Do you have Pepper show up all the time (or even Happy), but Rhodey is chronically absent? Do only the white characters get to be more than the tropes you’re using, if you’re using any, while the POC don’t get to be nuanced? Are there any stereotypes that you’re reducing the POC to?

I feel guilty about not including or writing about *character of color’s name here*.

See “It doesn’t make sense to include every single POC in my work.” Include the character(s) who make sense for the story, perspective you’re writing/drawing from if applicable, and central group or ship if this is a ship-specific work. For example, if you’re drawing the Avengers and you include the newer Avengers, Rhodey and Sam should appear too, not just Wanda, Scott, Bucky, and/or Carol (this happens a lot). If you’re writing a Tony POV fic that includes other characters, depending on the story, it may make sense that Sam doesn’t appear much as he and Tony aren’t close whereas he would in a Steve POV fic.

How do I ensure that I don’t offend anyone if I include POC in my work?

You can’t ensure anything as POC aren’t a monolith, but you can try to be as informed as possible and avoid common pitfalls while writing. You can do research, just the way you might research anything you’re not familiar with. You can ask if anyone is willing to do a sensitivity read while you write or before you post. You can look for betas. There are a lot of resources out there, but these are good places to start if you’re looking for more information and help:

Writing with Color - resources

Writing with Color - Stereotypes and Tropes page

Reference for Writers - POC tag

What should I do to examine myself for any implicit biases?

We should all take stock of:

our feelings about different characters and relationships, both platonic and romantic, who we prioritize in our works, and how much they’re prioritized

our decision whether or not to seek or make content with characters of color. This includes content for white ships because sometimes every white character in the MCU shows up as a side character, but characters of color don’t or all of the white characters play bigger roles than the POC despite how close they are to the protagonist(s)

the way we interpret and write/draw those characters. For example, is Sam a yes-man? A figurative or literal therapist for white friends? The bro who only cracks jokes and/or gives sage advice but seems to not have any flaws, struggles, or life of his own outside of his white friends? The BFF who thinks his white best friend is being ridiculous about another white guy and wants them to get their act together already? Does the character of color talk in the way you perceive everyone of that race to talk rather than the way they personally do (e.g., does Luis randomly and awkwardly switch into Spanish when he talks just because he’s Latinx despite never speaking Spanish with Scott? Does Sam use AAVE with Steve, Bucky, and Natasha when he doesn’t do that with them?)?

Also, here’s a Google doc with more anti-racist resources.

Even well-meaning people can slip up or not be as proactive as they hoped they would be so it’s just good practice to check in with ourselves every once in a while and see if there’s anything we missed or didn’t notice.

#fandom #marvel fandom #mcu fandom #resource

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life-rewritten · 3 years

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Tharn Type 7 Years of Love; The problem with Mame

At the beginning of when TharnType the series announced it was going to get a sequel, my thought went urgh sequels. I don't do sequels; because sequels are horrible, they're not just terrible in this genre, they're awful everywhere, in western dramas, in heterosexual shows etc. This is because sequels are always made with sluggish energy like people just don't respect sequels; they're made to make more money and hound in on the fans love and loyalty and excitement. They're made because of hubris. With Bls, sequels are even worse because Bls already struggle with writing and following up and showing how couples are when they're established. So when it comes to announcements of sequels I always end up shaking my head and being afraid, I ask the question but do we need this really? Why not just create something new and original? And this is the same thought process I had with TharnType, I wanted to see them again, and revel in their love story, chemistry and plot, but I was nervous because of my past experiences with sequels.

Now, my mindset changed as I trusted my past experience with this show. I liked the writing, and I liked the structured plot, and the three-dimensional storyline and character developments. I think with Mame; her outlines are fantastic when you look at the overall picture of the plot, her themes and her ideas. But unfortunately with this sequel, I think it falls apart;

The problem with Sequels

Now there are already three reasons why this was always going to happen:

1. It has a different director. With the previous season, Tee the director helped portray the themes and the story Mame wanted to tell. He brought out the right energy, paced the storyline well, and used the right sound, edits, etc. to show us TT's story.

2. The book of TT 7 years is actually tiny in detail and plot. Basically, a tv show based on it is not going to be fully in depth because it requires fillers to make it long.

3. It had many new side couples and a lot of side couples in this genre are basically always miswritten and given no screen time, no storytelling or plot with the same energy as the main couple. So with this sequel, unfortunately, it actually ended being the opposite; it's actually the main couple who's screen time was sacrificed for the side couples.

But even with these worries, I still came into the show knowing there were things I loved about it; I loved the overall themes, the comprehensive real-life representation of long term relationship, the meta I could analyse and the characters and their mindsets as broken and flawed people which they are. From episode 1 and episode I think everyone noticed that the show wasn't going to great because of the new director. We also saw that the show's strength was put on the actors' ability to hone their characters and Mame's writing. However, by episode 3, I had fallen in love with the show again because the one thing Mame is good at is showing a love story even if other people don't agree. Her basis for what love is is what makes me hooked onto her shows. Her love stories are always more in-depth and dimensional every single time; they have more to them than just a typical generic plot.

The problem with Tharn Type 7 Years

Now one of the reasons I fell in love with this is because of the introduction to Leo and Fiat. Shocking right? But I knew that she had given the same depth, flaws and effort as she did with TT in Season 1. They were meant to mirror a version of TT, and their journey to be together was meant to be just as problematic and dramatic. As I'm going to be writing about the flaws of this show, I still want people to know; I believe in everything the subtext was showing, she has been building up scenes and clues to letting us know what the overall story was meant to be, and as much as I don't want to because it's also her fault, I think her director failed at helping her show her message as well.

So when looking at one of the overarching problems with the show, we have the story of Leo and Fiat; they have this deep, dimensional and interesting love story. They're both so in love and devoted to each other, but for some reason, they can't communicate and tell each other how they feel. And this is so important to TT 7 Years because Fiat is the villain of the show. The plot with Leo refusing to tell him how he feels is a big plotline to unveil because it's the real reason why he ends up breaking up Tharn and Type. Now Tharn and Type already needed to separate and break up because their relationship no matter how strong their love is was always going to reach a pause because they still had to deal with past internal scars. Type wasn't at the beginning fully healed from his past and his trauma, (by dealing with his boss drama, he actually ended up reaching his healing and overcoming his conflict). Because of this, he wasn't ready to cross the line and marry Tharn. However, episode 8, he has now grown and overcome his issues and so is now ready to be onboard with Tharn.

The problem with Tharn

But the thing is Tharn also had his own internal scars to heal from; he also has his own traumatic mindset that shapes his actions and his views because of season 1's villain Lhong. Now, this is where the issue with TT 7 Years starts;

It's fantastic writing, because not every BL has dimensional characters that go through character healing and development this way. The problem is this storyline is told in subtext. If you were me, then subtext is a fun way to watch a show, because it leads to the need to find clues and bring them to the surface and fit that with what the show is telling you. But if you can't see or have the patience to understand subtext, then you won't understand certain choices the writer makes. You'll end up feeling betrayed, annoyed and cheated by the story. Especially if the show is different from what you expected it to be because of watching and loving season 1.

One of the biggest problems people complain about in TT 7 Years is that the TT is not in the show. Tharn especially does not have a lot of screen time in the show at times, the show really revolved around Type's regression to season 1's mindset because of his boss, and there's a reason for why that happened. It was so he dealt with his past and came out knowing why he needed to stay with Tharn forever as we see him in episode 8 and 9 realise. He found out; he couldn't be without Tharn so we'd reached a stage where marriage would have been possible for him in episode 10. Now the problem with this, is now he's grown, and everything is starting to be sorted out, Type has gone through his issues and dealt with them, and so we're all happy and excited, everything is meant to be perfect. But there was one thing Mame forgot and messed up in her writing. Tharn.

And the sad thing is she started building this up in episode 1 to 3, but it got pushed to the side. She made Tharn stagnant, he was perfection and a supportive system to Type, but he hadn't dealt with his own issues and flaws. He hadn't grown. As much as she was showing with vigour the regression and healing of Type, we were also meant to be seeing the deterioration of Tharn into his season 1 mindset. (this is why they break up in episode 10, the reason he thinks Type would cheat with Fiat). There are still psychologically embedded scars with Tharn and whilst Type dealt with his biggest fears; coming out to the public, trusting people with his sexuality etc. Tharn did not develop the same, and it breaks my heart because I get why TharnType had lower screen time at times in this season; it's to showcase the distance between them and their desperate need to be together. It's meant to show us how separated they are. It's fine that that's why you're doing this (the whole storyline is about this separation).

Still, the thing is even if they're not together in the screen, what failed the show is that we saw Type regress and show his growth, but we didn't see Tharn have his own storyline and regression to the point in episode 10. We've been getting so much foreshadowing, so much subtext, so much build-up below the surface showing that this will happen, but we only see that outcome in episode 10. Do you get the issue? Now the reason for why Tharn is going to regress isn't going to make sense.

The problem with break ups

Let's think about the problem with Tharn thinking Type would cheat on him. One they've been together for seven years, it's frustrating because it makes sense why he would think this way if you understood the subtext and you understand his mindset that has never healed from season 1, but if you don't know the subtext it falls apart. A writer is meant to give the audience enough clues properly on the surface as well as subtext, so they understand what's going on in your story. The reason why season 1 of TT went well is because of the chemistry, intense storyline that was on the surface even then people didn't fully understand the subtext that was going on between the two, they didn't get the deep meanings of the psychological scars that they held, and how it affected their actions. All some focused on is that it was a love story of two people who were incredibly flawed but were meant to be together, but in TT 7 Years they're not given the same screen time to be together, so everyone feels cheated and frustrated when Tharn goes all of a sudden to; Type is cheating on me. When really there's no clues or evidence for you to be thinking this way.

Now the reason why this is insulting and upsetting is because when it's time to look at why they're breaking up after everything, the only reason you can say they're breaking up is because Tharn thinks Type would cheat so willingly without listening to an explanation... Really? So you're telling me that the disagreement about marriage, the conversation they've been building up about it, is not even going to be the reason for why they break up, the whole crux of the show since episode 1 -4. This has been built up this marriage dilemma, and we know that Type is finally now ready to get married and give everything to Tharn since he's realised he can't function without him, you're telling us that now that he's prepared for all that, that marriage disagreement theme isn't even the reason for why we get our most significant conflict, but Fiat is who's going to be a problem.

The marriage disagreement is pushed on the down low, and when we're finally needing it to be the reason for why these two need to separate since that's what you've been hinting at above all things, it wouldn't make any sense to the audience why you've been building this up for so long. The two reasons for why TT was always going to break up since episode 1 with foreshadowings, subtext and hints is Fiat being a villain and coming to the storyline to make Tharn think Type is cheating and because of the marriage disagreement, Tharn is going through regression of his mindset to season 1. But we didn't get to see it. We didn't get to see Tharn show emotions struggling about thinking Type could be unfaithful or that he's really struggling with some psychological breakdown about fear of being left again.

Instead, Tharn shows up out of nowhere, wants to propose to Type and sees Fiat do something to Type and thinks Type would be unfaithful. It's ridiculous to me from what I'm seeing in the trailer that he just doesn't hear Type out. And the second thing that's even more annoying about it is that it's Type who says they should separate. It makes no sense because we know from season 1 that it's a big thing for Type to say let's take a break or break up. He knows he shouldn't say that to Tharn. They made a promise to each other. It shouldn't have been Type who suggests again the break up it should have been Tharn. The emphasis of the relationship ending should have been Tharn saying I'm giving up on us. I don't feel like we're meant to be together anymore, not only is this painfully ironic because he's the one who's spent the whole season trying so hard to prevent their relationship from ending but we've just seen Type come to the realisation he can't be without Tharn so it'll hurt even more because his regression although irrational is understandable. So again the writing is messed up, and the storyline is cheap because you didn't even remember the immense impact of what breaking up means to TT and the huge meaning and clues in season 1. The audience feels cheated; it feels cheap like as if the story we've just watched was for no reason.

The problem with subtext

Now I love TharnType with my whole heart. I've been defending and still believe this is written at times amazingly, but the cheating thing doesn't sit well with me when it comes to directors choices and writing. I think we've had three episodes dealing with TT being away from each other in these two to three episodes Mame should have been putting little doubts in Tharns mind building up, so we get the final breakdown of it. We should have seen him see clues or hints that doesn't sit well with him, for example, Fiat liking all of Type's post, seeing a message on Type's phone, hearing someone mention they saw Type with Fiat etc. He questions himself. He shakes his head, but it still lingers. We should have seen Fiat bump into him alone, (since he's manipulative and meant to be a better villain) when he was around and mention something about Type that piques his interest he pushes that down with worry. Then he runs to Type, and he says something like you're never going to leave me, are you?

For foreshadowing purposes. What this does, is that it doesn't blindside the audience into thinking one kiss or interaction would make him immediately regress and think his boyfriend of 7 years would cheat on him. What this does, is that it portrays his mental breakdown and regression as he keeps seeing hints or clues that make him regress back to his season 1 self with Lhong and Tar and we see just as we watched Type break down with the boss, his own decline. In fact other than the marriage proposal, the thing we should have seen him struggle with is doubt after doubt despite fighting it that he's not good enough to keep Types attention. Not that Type would hurt him on purpose, but he's not perfect for Type.

This way, the conflict is more painful and more understandable when he shouts and accuses Type who is oblivious that he's been having doubts and that they should separate for a while. It should be Tharn that's saying let's end this irrationally. It should be him breaking down and regressing into his petty, stubborn self. That would have been hurtful and made more sense. He has many scars and trauma with people leaving him. It would have been nice that these three episodes when he was away, and Type didn't know he became vulnerable again into that mindset, it would have mirrored Types on regression into his season 1 mindset because of his boss. The two of them would be broken, need to separate for a bit, and we know and understand why and then fix their issues, miss each other, and return strong and confident in love.

All we're getting is Tharn seeing clues immediately he arrives and making up some story in his head which makes no sense because Type may not be fully always romantic and wanting to marry but Type lets him know he needs him and isn't going anywhere. That being said, we don't know the whole situation, and it could be better explained in subtext next episode, but I am disappointed at how the Fiat villainy turned out.

The problem with Leo and Fiat

After all the build-up, we should have had in episode 6 in my opinion as Fiat cried, the truth about him and Leo; a flashback to show why he's suffering and making the choices he's making. That way the audience wouldn't be so pulled away from him even in his despicable acts we'd still understand he's broken and thinking he has no other way but this.

Instead, we've gotten the same narrative repeated, and Leo says the same stuff, does the same stuff and Fiat and Leo speak about their feelings in riddles with each other. Fiat makes no sense when he cries and cries over Leo and rejects his pleas to come to him when all we see is Leo in a sad, positive light as the only person who's genuinely suffering from this unrequited love when it isn't so; it's his undoing for judging Fiat for sleeping around. Fiat sleeps around because that's all people ask of him. He says it to Type that he tried the dating thing but all people wanted from him was his body, and we even see it actually in episode 3 on his date with that randomer why he sleeps around, it's because Leo isn't there or he feels he can't have Leo.

So yes, you can slut-shame him for constantly wanting love and affection, looking for the right person for him to avoid Leo's rejections that he isn't that person. But he's just looking for a long-lasting relationship with someone who can make him feel better than Leo. Because Leo has adamantly been friend-zoning Fiat even before he started to sleep around, so that's why he doesn't believe in anything Leo says now because he's had to deal with this rejection for so long, I'm upset because Mame should have shown us on the surface not on subtext by now Fiats plight and his mindset.

Because if I didn't know what was happening in subtext and I just thought Fiat was manipulative and evil and selfish then yeah I'd also be angry that Leo and Fiat keep going round and round in circles with 80% of the screen time. A lot of the reasons why Tharn and Type the show is being so negatively viewed is because of lack of energy from the director in fully helping us see the clues that Mame has left in the show. Because she's not a bad writer she structures plots and she has a bigger picture of why certain things happen but if they're not appropriately shown to the audience then yeah the show will flop and be seen in a negative light.

So yes I feel by episode 6 we should have had Fiats backstory when he was breaking down crying over Leo the first time when he said something like "all I do is for you. I need to do this for you." Then watching his fight with Leo won't just hurt but it'll make more sense and when you see both of them crying it'd hurt just the same. Leo is an idiot, but I get his own mindset about the sleeping around because he doesn't want to be a fling to Fiat so he'll never confess. But he's just as bad as Fiat. And I wish people understood that.

The problem with character development

Tharn needed more screen time even if he's not with Type. Him being seen as this perfect boyfriend every single episode only being irrational when it comes to the marriage disagreement should not have been this way. We should have been building up to his spiralling down his regression, his flaws that way when he and Type break up we really have understood why everything fell apart. The issue that I loved about this show at first is that everything is in subtext. Every clue to the plot, the character dynamics and the character mindsets; all of it is hidden in subtext and not fully fleshed out. This worked well in TT season 1 because the other plotlines joined together to form a narrative that was building up and leading us to the plot twist that Lhong was evil all along. But here it feels like every scene on the surface is a waste of screen time and writing when really the clues are just hidden. It's fun to analyse subtext, but when your storyline on the surface is filled with repetition and is going nowhere. The audience would feel cheated and unsure about what your message is. That's how I think many people are feeling seeing Tharn conclude with one clue or one day that Type cheated on him. It feels ridiculous and cheap as plotline because the build-up wasn't there.

So yeh I love TharnType, but I also am getting your frustrations with the plot. I'm also disappointed at some choices made in the show. Could it be better, yes? Is it the worst? No far from it!! But is it TT season 1? No. And so yeah we have another sequel that isn't the perfect follow up. I still think if you watch this show with season 1 together like a binge-watch, it'll be easier to see the subtext and understand the characters' actions. The way the story is being told would make more sense. And it'd be a great show still. Yeah, that's all I have to say. This is really my analysis for this week's episode. I'll just keep repeating the same things over and over again if I write another essay about the subtext. If you want to understand more about the show, you can check my previous analysis.

#tharntype #tharntype 2: 7 years of love #thai bl #bl series #bl drama #tharn and type #january #cwg #fvete

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thefeastandthefast · 4 years

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Finally done with this garbage.

*insert “IT’S DONE” Frodo gif here*

Of course it remains hot garbage all the way to the end. I’ll be honest, I skimmed through the last two episodes posted on YouTube because I just needed it to be over so I could reclaim brain space. So forgive me if I miss anything.

WARNING, SUPER LONG RANT UNDER CUT.

Of course there’s no satisfactory closure for any of the relationships that were built in the first quarter of the show. Maoze and Danshu never get a final scene together. I didn’t expect there to be one, since her character development had long ossified into Song Dynasty Stepford Wife. Maoze, too, remains completely devoted to the emperor to the end. I’m actually surprised that I wasn't more upset about the lack of resolution for my Straw Hat babies. But then again, I lost interest in what they’d do with drama!Danshu twenty episodes ago.

He’er seems to have forgiven the emperor for all the suffering he put her and her daughter through. The last thing she says is that she has finally succeeded in accompanying her 6th Prince for an entire long lifetime. Doesn’t matter that she was ready to kill herself to defend Huirou just a couple episodes ago. What is character development?

Huirou’s trauma is so great that she has permanently broken with reality and regressed back into her childhood memories. He’er is relieved of this, because it means Huirou can live in her head in a happier time.

And before we’re shown all that, we get a scene where shitstain emperor gets to explain once more to Huirou why she’s at fault for everyone’s misery and why the stability of the empire is in danger because of her willfulness. She agrees to part from Huaiji forever, for the greater good. This is filmed and presented to us as a touching father-daughter heart to heart and not as the implicitly threatening psychological abuse that it is. Throughout the conversation, he defends Sima Guang as a true patriot who just cares about the people and their needs, though that asshole has been the megaphone of Neo-Confucian hyperconservatism this whole time, shouting for Huaiji’s head and for Huirou to be punished and thrown back into her torture chamber marriage. Yet another entry in the list of shitty powerful men who are absolved of the pain and suffering they cause without remorse, as long as they’ve got a platform and big mouths to spew enough words out to convince themselves and other powerful men of their moral superiority.

And the last we see of Huaiji, is him making an obeisance to the emperor’s memory. I’d wondered why the show added in the storyline of Huaiji’s brother, when Huaiji barely had any scenes or lines to express the pain of losing his family and future or his feelings about finding his roots again. There was only one scene, as far as I can remember. The purpose of writing Huaiji’s family backstory wasn’t to give more dimension to Huaiji’s character. No, It was actually to make the emperor more sympathetic and so that he could heroically be the instrument for the brothers’ eventual reunion in the end.

So Zhao Zhen gets to die beloved by all the women he destroyed and lauded by all who once questioned and criticized him. He gets to die in Danshu’s arms as she sobs “take me with you”. The last words on the screen are ones that celebrate his legacy as a benevolent ruler, taken from the Yuan Dynasty-era History of Song.

Let’s be honest, this drama is Chinese history used as political propaganda the entire way through. Because there are splashes of period-accurate detail (like the “three white makeup” and all the Song literati cameos), it gives the entire drama an air of legitimacy and lures you into thinking that they took their research seriously. But really the period detail is just a nice, glossy coat obscuring the insidious bones of this revisionist monstrosity. And the last two episodes really peel away that coat to reveal the machinery underneath.

If I’m generous, I’ll say that the accuracy of some characterizations in this drama is highly suspect, but I suppose still debatable. Writing an Empress Cao who steadfastly and quietly loved Zhao Zhen despite his historically well-documented, decades-long suspicion of her... like, FINE, even if I think it’s illogical, sexist, bad writing, one can argue it’s fair game for creative license, given the inherently uncertain task of knowing the true feelings and motivations of people living a thousand years ago.

But then you have something like the fallout of Huirou’s marriage, Zhao Zhen’s role in that sad business, and Li Wei’s later actions, which just completely and merrily skips away from actual historical fact and leaves the most telling details of her tragic end untold. Because to depict the actual events would make Zhao Zhen and Li Wei indefensible.

Given that China is currently in the midst of an extremely concerning rise in Han nationalism, where Chinese traditional culture (everything from philosophy to art to clothing to music) is being co-opted and reframed to entrench narratives of Han superiority, it’s a problem when this Song Dynasty alternate history is presented as truth. It used to be that anything to do with Chinese traditional culture was suspect and would be in danger of destruction, especially during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). But now this destruction is a little bit more subtle. Instead of just straight-up smashing Song Dynasty tombs, just dismantle and reconfigurate them piece by piece to create a little shrine for the current ruling party. To tell this story about the struggles of governance from the perspective of the head of the ruling elite during one of the wealthiest times of imperial Chinese history- I just don't believe that was a decision made purely for creative license.

It’s a perfectly valid stance not to care how history is interpreted as long as it’s good entertainment. I’m certainly not one to let historical inaccuracy keep me from enjoying my period films and TV shows (to a degree, lol). But I also find my experience of historical fiction more illuminating and enjoyable when I try to parse out what’s supported by evidence and what isn’t. So I can try to understand the reasons behind a writer’s decisions for excluding stuff that’s supported and including stuff that isn’t. Because how and what elements of the past are used in popular fiction matter, and they shape our attitudes on so much more than just entertainment.

So, to end my last long-ass rant about this horrible drama that’s eaten up so much of my time and energy, I’m gonna pour one out for the historical figures who got short shrifted:

For the historical Empress Cao, who made it through Renzong’s reign without losing her throne, even though Renzong tried and failed several times to depose her. Who promoted highly Zhang Maoze soon after Renzong’s death despite the protests of Sima Guang and didn’t go down without a fight when they wanted her to retire as regent.

For the historical Consort Miao, who plotted with Consort Yu to try to bring down Li Wei and begged Renzong to execute Li Wei with poisoned wine, all to get her daughter out of the marriage.

For the historical Princess Fukang, who was finally allowed a divorce in early 1062, after attempting suicide multiple times. Who was then forced by Renzong to remarry Li Wei less than a year later. Who died at the age of 33 in a household with people who hated and abused her. The extent of that abuse was discovered by her nephew Emperor Shenzong after she died when he showed up for the funeral. He wept in front of his ministers describing the treatment she had received from Li Wei for the last seven years of her life: she had not been given adequate food, clothing, or medical care. Her body and bedding was infested with lice and she had burn scars on her face from trying to light her own coals. I think it’s important to acknowledge just how much this benevolent father of hers failed her after everything, even after she probably thought she had escaped, even if the show won’t.

#serenade of peaceful joy #held in the lonely castle #清平乐 #cdrama #chinese history #period drama #historical drama #my commentary

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stickykeys633 · 4 years

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Changing thing up a bit @capricornsicle, that other post was becoming unwieldy.

You think you’re on a crusade to expose fandom racism and bias in Teen Wolf, but in doing so, because TW is such a specific beast, you make assumptions and add unnecessary hyperbole to your arguments.

You’ve assumed and ran with the idea that I’m white (many do, which is strange since my icon is a black woman) and you’ve treated me a certain way because of it. But then in the same breath you’ll say there’s inherent bias against Scott McCall, a character that many people saw as white played by an actor who is white passing.

There’s also this underlying statement that any majority of people see Scott as Latinx and automatically make it a negative thing which again, isn’t true, specifically not in Teen Wolf.

I’ve found the antis like to take black racism experiences and try to fit Scott into that category, but even a small thing like colorism makes it so it’s not equitable.

that’s a general statement about fans and critics alike holding characters of color up to a higher standard than white characters. It’s not everyone, it’s certainly not an attack on anyone, but it happens a lot, across various fandoms. White characters are much more often forgiven for the things they do than characters of color who do the same things.

This doesn’t happen with the frequency you think and in the Teen Wolf fandom when it does happen it is rarely if ever in regards to Scott. Other, more evident characters of color yes.. And the wild examples that the antis present are never equitable. Even when presented with context, they often have to padd it and stretch it to make it seem like some infraction has been done. What it does is seek to absolve Scott of ANY wrong doing, when really there is fault laid at both parties.

I’ll provide a couple of examples in the moment, but the bottom like is that Stiles/Derek/Peter stans acknowledge their faults and many times love them because of it. On the show Scott was never given the chance to acknowledge his faults, the show refused to admit that he needed to grow and be redeemed of anything. This was a misstep because he became unpalatable, not as a perfect icon, but as someone whose actions didn’t hold relevant consequences.

The Donovan Incident

Now, I disagree with some key points, but overall I think this is the most important part:

They fought, like teenagers do, especially teenagers who have gone through that kind of trauma, and then, in 5x13, they’re talking outside a gas station, and they talk and get over it,

If everyone could agree that this happened, this would be a much better place. But antis will not chalk up the experience for the contrived nonsense it was and become so enraged when people blame Scott that they can’t let it be and suddenly we’re all racists.

Which, using racism as a tool to sooth butthurt is not okay and we see it time and time again. They take every seedling and think, “how can I add racism to this so I get my way?” which is pathetic, but also sullies the impact of real racism on the show.

During this time Tracey was murdered, Mason was non-existent, they killed Noah and Lucas sent Kira to the desert and left her there. But being mad at Scott for intentionally misunderstanding Stiles is what’s racist? This is why antis and SDP Stans constantly bump heads. Everyone has been in a friend group where some new interloper comes in and riles things up. Usually trying to steal someone’s man, but you know there are certain things you do when that happens and Scott made ALL the wrong moves. He knew Stiles didn’t trust Theo and openly disliked him, it should have been an immediate red flag when Theo started in with Stiles violently killing someone in cold blood. Additionally, I would have LOVED if the show made the connection to Scott still being traumatized by Nogi, but again, the show made it seem like Scott was JUST FINE! and again, a disservice was made to his character.

The point is that a not insignificant number of fans label Scott as a constant bad friend, as someone who’s always a bad influence on Stiles, and that’s really not the case.

People who label him as a constant bad friend use this as ONE example of it. I actually questioned their friendship after Motel California. I remember there were a couple of beats that made it clear they weren’t sandbox buddies, and probably met in the community little league (was it little league or soccer that they met Theo? I forget?). There have been several instances of them not being as close as they claimed.

If Stiles can be forgiven for throwing lacrosse balls at Scott (which really fucking hurt, speaking from experience) and keying some random loner kids’ car to get him beat up because Lydia kissed him

Just a side note, Stiles was havign his fun, yes, but Scott was completely complicit in these scenes and knew 100% what was going on. Stiles was helping Scott by testing his tolerance and helping him control his heartbeat and yes they did it in bonehead teenage boy ways, but there was nothing malicious or racially motivated about it. Talk about holding characters to different levels. You’ve all made the white characters irredeemable supremacists when nothing in the canon alludes to this.

a few antis forgive Stiles but condemn Scott. And that’s because of racial bias that makes those particular antis hold Scott to much higher standards than his white friends, which is a nice way of saying it’s racism.

Which again, is wrong in that you have absolutely no way of quantifying this for every viewer. There’s no such thing as special Scott centric racism. If someone is racist, they’re going to show it against anyone not white on the show, and that’s simply a) not the case and b) impossible to determine from the asks of one anon and some misinterpreted fic.

Liking Scott isn’t pro-POC, no, but it is tied to racial issues in Hollywood, popular media, and fandom. Scott being Latinx (despite the fact it never comes up, he’s played by a Latinx actor and is undoubtedly TV’s favorite “ambiguously brown”) makes him connected to racial issues.

But it doesn’t, because Teen Wolf was specifically created as a world without color so coding Scott as race-neutral meant that audiences had the choice to view him that way and many did. I mean, look at the show, he has two white Italian actors playing his parents, his last name is McCall and his mother’s maiden name was Delgado which could mean anything. Jeff had a habit of casting white women with Latinx last names they got from a gracious step-father, it’s not a leap to say this was true of Melissa. This is why I refuse to give the show any representation points. Diversity sure, they’re there, but they’re not well represented and again, this neither starts nor ends with Scott McCall.

Liking Scott is something that a lot of viewers of color end up doing

Again, not entirely true. Liking Boyd? Yes. Deaton, Morrell, Kira? Yes. Scott? Sure... the response to Scott from Latinx fans was varied in interesting ways. Some went up hard for him and while I don’t acknowledge the show’s version of Scott, I write him as half Mexican in every fic. There are some who, like you, were so excited to see someone like themselves and that’s beautiful and awesome. There were also some that started excited but then were like “oh, he’s playing a white boy” which people like to forget was VERY much a thing. There was no reason to think Scott was white and in fact when Jeff received the Alma award, it was for casting Posey and not necessarily having a Latinx character. In the beginning of Teen Wolf he was actually asked if Scott was white (the phrase they used was “All American” which...), And there were still others who hated Scott instantly and thought he was wack and did NOT see themselves in him.

So even within the Latinx community alone there were several opinions. Now spread that out to hundreds of thousands and then millions of viewers. So when you say “Liking Scott is something a lot of VOC end up doing” you’re creating a value based judgement on the idea of liking YOUR version of Scott McCall.

Which isn’t fair and isn’t correct.

YOU ended up liking Scott because YOU appreciated the interpretation. No one can take that away from you. But when you cast this net of racism, you’re gonna end up with a lot of things that don’t fit the term and a lot of people mad that they’re caught in your web of racial bias.

if it’s the burden of POC to fight for representation tooth and nail, then that’s the fight I’ll be fighting.

Part of it is that sometimes I worry that if I don’t post about them, if I don’t post gifs of them and talk about them and make them be part of the teen wolf tag on this site, no one else is going to.

We talked about this with your first post. Generally I’m sympathetic, but I do take issue with your methods. Yes, I’ve seen those gif tax posts and I love the concept, but... tax is something you pay in the exchange for something that you want. I don’t see POC characters as tax and I get it’s just a clever way to name what you’re doing, but I think it makes it so negative when celebrating the POC characters should be an enjoyable and inclusive thing.

If you feel alone, it’s because you haven’t reached out to anyone. I know a lot of creators who make content for characters of color, The problem is that when you accuse people of focusing on white characters in a show FULL of white characters and cover them with a blanket of systemic bias, you’re alienating a lot of people who don’t want the drama.

Someone just released some ao3 stats of POC characters in Sterek fics verses TW fics as a whole and Kira was sadly underrepresented, showing up in just under 45% of fics. My answer to that isn’t to scream at Stereks about how racist they are against Asians. Instead, I wanna have a Kira appreciation event, but until I can, I make sure to write Kira into my fics because I love her. I repost gifsets with her in them, I comment and seek out people who create for her and support them and if you approach some creators, the’re happy to be amenable. I’ve left comments on fics asking for a certain character and sometimes they rightfully say no, but sometimes it’s not a problem and the change is awesome.

I feel like the bulk of antis have an idea in their mind and don’t give anyone else a freaking chance. And then, when anything negative is said about Scott, they go awf like SEE!!?!> RACISM!!!!!! when it’s honestly not the case. The anon doesn’t represent even the minority of the majority of stereks. Tumblr doesn’t, ao3 doesn’t, twitter doesn’t. That’s why it’s so much less stressful to find out ways to insert diversity and representation rather than browbeating others to do it out of shame.

There’s this perceived bias that worms it’s way in that simply doesn’t exist at the levels you think it does. Because not only are you assuming that people dislike the characters of color because of their color, but also that they harbor negative feelings.

But, as we’ve learned from K-pop fans, it seems white people are much more willing to enjoy and put out East Asian representation than representation of people darker than them

Kira was undoubtedly brought in to bring a more Asian audience, but again, racism isn’t a pick and choose kind of thing. People who hated Kira and love Scott do not see Scott as Latinx. And Kira has more posts by a small margin mostly because she was there and she had a family and large ties to the plot. Not because kids loves k-pop (which wasn’t even that big during her run).

And THIS:

Boyd is stereotyped as the big, buff Black guy who’s aggressive and athletic (but almost never seen as the brains of the group, despite his intelligence,xxx and comes from a poor background and answers to an assertive white man without question

Boyd was specifically not stereotypes as aggressive and athletic, and in all fanfic is usually the one who reasons and is most level headed. He came from a poor background, but so did Isaac, and he questioned Derek and Scott. This is what I mean, while I agree that it’s your interpretation, you can’t say it’s a universal interpretation and then judge others because of it.

The only time I care is when people specifically dislike Scott because of perceived affronts to Stiles and/or Derek, and I say “perceived” because I refer specifically to ones those specific anons and antis take completely out of context, blow out of proportion, or just make up.

Lol, again, your perception, because I can give you several canon based reasons to be upset with Scott, but of course you’ll find a way, no matter how tangential to twist it, because he’s your fave and canon is a mess. This is the freaking point. Let people have their stories. It’s not hurting you if you also add in yours.

I do not believe it is possible for a 16-year-old to consent to a romantic and/or sexual relationship with a 24/25-year-old, but this post isn’t about that

Please don’t believe that you’re the first person to try this argument because you’re not and also Derek was at most 23 when Stiles was 17 (and to make it more interesting he was 19 in the original unaired pilot, but they aged him up so Kate wouldn’t be full on statutory rape, good times!)

https://stickylovessterek.tumblr.com/post/151831687742/sterek-is-not-pedophilia

Now you might not like it, and that’s totally fine and valid. But age has no basis in their relationship. I’m more interested in power dynamics, which is why I didn’t like Aria/Fitz on PLL or Marrish (which I could have been on board for, but this show is trash).

with perhaps me as Stiles, you as Scott, and the anon playing Theo during his villain phase circa season 5, trying to turn two people against each other over a larger ethics debate

Well, no, clearly I’m the Stiles since I’m right (i kid, I kid), but honestly, you’re the one putting the anon in this. I’ve been ignoring their hyperbole and we’ve been telling the antis to pick and choose and be discerning with their posts. That has nothing to do with me. If we’re Scott and Stiles then it’s one of us talking and the other not listening and doing theings they’re own way and the fact that both of us have different ideas as to which is which is really part of the fun.

But it’s not racism.

#reblog #uggh #I was trying to make these shorter #I have an actual book to work on!#discourse #anon

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amillioninprizes · 5 years

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An entirely too long post on how to fix Veronica Mars

So, anyone who has followed this blog for any length of time knows: 1) What a massive Veronica Mars fan I was and 2) how distraught I’ve been over the most recent season that debuted on Hulu in July. I’ve been pretty angry about it since it dropped, but the first month after I was pretty occupied with real life stuff. Now that I’m more settled, I’ve found myself getting sadder and angrier over time with just how terrible S4 was and what an obvious fuck you to longtime fans it was. It feels dumb to be so upset over a tv show, but this show got me through a lot over the past 8 years, and I feel like it’s been taken away from me.

It’s anyone’s guess as to whether there will be a new season. Ideally it would end here with maybe an alternate ending filmed to avoid alienating fans further. On the one hand, the botched release, overwhelmingly negative response, and silence from the creators after initial interviews don’t look good for renewal chances. On the other hand, Hulu doesn’t have a lot of streaming hits, it probably did relatively decent numbers, and there are rumors floating around that its pickup chances look good. On a personal level, I hate the idea that this is where the legacy of Veronica Mars ends, while at the same time being extremely wary of what the creators have planned. I think a big part of the disappointment with S4 was that the movie and books set up what could have been some really interesting storylines and situations, all of which RT and co. squandered for cheap drama and to apparently turn the show into an entirely new vehicle; additionally I had hope that S4 would be a chance to rectify some problems the show has long had, but again, S4 exacerbated them. At this point I don’t expect anyone higher up in the creative process or at Hulu to give a fuck about the fans or making the show better as long as they hit streaming targets, but here are some suggestions:

Fire Rob Thomas

While he created the show, it’s become clear that not only has he lost touch with the audience and the original spirit of the character, he doesn’t seem too keen on putting much effort into writing the show (as I will discuss below). Then you have his clear misogyny: his views that women in relationships can’t be interesting, that what makes Veronica interesting as a character is her trauma and how much she can endure, and the fact that basically every female character in the history of the show has a history of sexual victimization. He thought that making the Mexican cartel hitmen “philosophical” was subverting expectations (which says a lot of what his expectations of Latinx characters are). Then this is the way he essentially exploited his long term fan base to earn a new season of the show, only to turn around and tell us that we don’t matter. From a business perspective alone keeping him doesn’t make sense; selling a streaming platform on your loyal fanbase and then proceeding to purposefully piss ~80% of them off would be pretty questionable to me as someone in charge. The sheer cruelty with which he treated not only the fans who have supported him for 15 years (I fucking used to liveblog iZombie y’all. iZombie!), as well as how he callously dismissed long time cast members in favor of celebrity guest stars should not be rewarded. He’s admitted in interviews that he would be ok with younger writers doing a reboot many years in the future; why not just let him have a producer credit and then hand the show over to someone who’s invested in making it good?

Put a woman in charge and diversify the writing staff

A big problem with a) Veronica’s characterization in S4 b) RT’s ideas about what makes female characters interesting c) the show’s long history of problematic treatment of sexual assault is that it comes from a man’s conception of the female experience. The Veronica showcased in S4 and that RT wants to write in the future is very much a male fantasy: hates marriage and children, traumatized, DTF, and is too cool for other women. RT stated in interviews that he wanted to show Veronica at a “crossroads” this season in a way he claimed had been shown for men but not women; many female viewers found this depiction to ring false (few women are spending their time fretting about how committing to marriage after five years in an established relationship will bar us from strange sex going forward). In addition to having RT at the helm, most of the show’s writing staff for the majority of its run has been white dudes, which doesn’t bode well for telling the story of a female PI in a diverse community in today’s political climate. Putting a woman in charge would hopefully help rectify these issues to make the character feel more true to life and put a damper on the misogynistic storytelling. The show has a natural candidate in RT’s second-in-command Diane Ruggiero-Wright (despite her problematic history, never forget #KeisterEggGate), who has admitted to not being able to watch the last episode. Jennifer Graham, who wrote both of the books, would also be a worthy addition to the writing staff; while the books had a mixed reception, most fans agree that she got Veronica’s character right. And with the show’s problematic historical treatment of minority characters, adding more POC writers going forward is also necessary.

Bring back Logan (alive)

You don’t have to be a LoVe shipper to recognize just how integral Logan has been since the inception of the show, not just as Veronica’s partner but as a character is his own right. Logan’s journey in many ways parallels Veronica’s, and shows a contrast in how different characters respond to similar trauma. The most critical plot line in the show’s history, the mystery of who killed Lilly Kane, simply doesn’t work without Logan’s importance to Veronica. RT and his defenders like to claim that Logan was holding her back from true growth, which is frankly bizarre as he is the only character to consistently challenge her, like when he tells her that she obviously isn’t happy this season. Additionally, Logan’s scenes this season were the lone highlight of what was otherwise a painful slog of a season. Of the people who have said they would watch a potential S5, a good portion are only interested because they believe that the ambiguity of the last 10 minutes of the season means he’s not really dead (despite what RT has said in interviews). Then there’s what Logan’s death does to Veronica’s character, effectively cutting off what would have been an interesting character arc and stagnating her forever. No matter how much they try to shove Leo the pedo creep and other milquetoast RT self-insert love interests on us, no one else can possible measure up to Logan’s level in terms of being able to match Veronica as a character, intellectually or as a result of shared history.

Plus, the fact that we haven’t had a Weevil/Logan interaction since S3 is a goddamn travesty and should be rectified immediately.

Bring back Veronica

As sad as I am about Logan’s death, for me the most upsetting aspect of S4 was the assassination of Veronica’s character. For many viewers (including myself), the character we saw Kristen Bell portray in S4 wasn’t Veronica Mars but a different character with the same name. Between her abusive behavior towards Logan, her general indifference to her father’s medical condition, her dismissal of Wallace, and her racism towards Latinx characters (using a kid’s lawyer to threaten deportation: not a good look!), she was lacking the marshmallow-y center that always balanced out the pricklier aspects of her character and made her compelling. This change in characterization was especially jarring given that she was not this way when we last saw her in the books, where she mused about having children and sent her half-brother Hunter to summer camp (side note, but does he even exist anymore?). Many of us who had grown up with Veronica were hoping to see her grow with us as a character; instead we got an extreme regression lower than we’ve ever seen her. It would be one thing if they were trying to depict a PTSD storyline, which would make sense given her background, but since her change in behavior is never addressed by the narrative, it just makes her look like a cruel asshole and makes it impossible to root for her. This is exacerbated by the fact that RT has made it clear he has no interest in portraying her inner life, as shown by his wanting to avoid showing her grief over Logan’s death because it would be a real downer compared to the entertaining but ultimately hollow banter and quips he wants to focus on. Veronica this season was also just plain dumb: you mean to tell me that the girl who nearly got killed by Aaron Echolls in her back seat wouldn’t think to check her backseat every time she gets in a car? (And let’s not even start with RT’s bizarre assertion in an interview that she apparently votes Republican). Not helping matters was Kristen Bell’s performance, which felt very flat for me this season compared to S1-3 and the movie; I don’t know if this was due to personal limitations or a reflection of the bad writing. Writers of future installments and KB herself would be wise to revisit S1, the movie, and the books to figure out what makes sense for Veronica’s character, leading me to my next point:

Get reacquainted with canon, develop a show bible, and hire a continuity director

This show has long had a problem with dropped plots, timelines, and continuity issues. Shelly Pomroy’s party has two happened either in the summer, or the fall. Then we have the movie paradox: Veronica graduated high school in 2006, which means her 10 year reunion should have taken place in 2016. The movie was released in 2014 and the books seem to keep to 2014 dates. Then S4 states that Keith’s movie accident took place in 2013, and mysteriously ages Veronica up to 35 when she should be 32 in 2019. Logan mentions an Aunt Naomi in S4--why didn’t she take care of him after Aaron was arrested (and what happened to Trina)? How the hell is Leo working as an FBI agent when he presided over the disappearance of the Lilly/Aaron tapes? Veronica is shown to be tentatively forgiving of Weevil taking the settlement from the sheriff’s department in Mr. Kiss and Tell, but is then shown to be extremely angry towards him for it in S4. This is just a small selection of the inconsistencies within the show. Plus there is the problem of repeated plot lines: Veronica rejects Leo in favor of Logan in S1, then rejects Leo in favor of Logan in Mr. Kiss and Tell, only for her to...reject Leo in favor of Logan in S4 (and RT says he wants to leave the high school plots behind). This sloppiness doesn’t bode well for a series that is supposed to be about mysteries, which require tight plotting. It would behove TPTB going forward to once and for all determine a timeline of Veronica’s life, keep a detailed record of past plot and character points, and have at least one person on staff who thinks to remember this stuff (RT notoriously has only a “solid, not spectacular” memory of the show, no matter what Kareem Abdul-Jabbar says).

Make an effort (and do your fucking research)

Moving on from continuity issues to more general problems with the laziness of RT’s writing. He has basically admitted that he doesn’t care much about facts or characterization when writing plots--he shoehorns details to fit the plot rather than have it evolve organically from the characters and prior canon. I know that when writing it’s often impossible to make every story detail 100% accurate, but the extent of RT’s sloppiness is alarming. This excellent Reddit thread details a lot of the problems with S4 in particular, but this has been a problem since S2. Did anyone ever understand exactly why the Fitzpatricks were invested in framing Logan for Felix’s death? In the movie, it makes no sense that if Cobb and co. wanted Carrie silenced, they would add the complication of framing Logan for her murder--given her history, it would have been a lot easier just to make it look like she had accidentally overdosed. Given his previous patterns of villain writing fans were able to guess the identity of the S4 bomber based on casting alone. The mysteries in both Mr. Kiss and Tell and S4 are both ripped from the headlines, which indicates that RT wants to turn VM into the next Law and Order. Meanwhile, he complained about how hard including Logan in the story in S4 was, while Logan arguably had the best lines and most interesting scenes this season--apparently when you put an effort into things, they work out! This laziness extends past storyline issues and into factual problems that detract from the quality of the plot. Longtime fandom pals are probably tired about hearing me go on and on about how there’s no way Aaron’s lawyers could have gotten Veronica’s medical records due to HIPAA laws. Logan’s career change from naval aviator to intelligence is highly unlikely (and unnecessary, given that they changed it only to fridge him at the end of the season). Meanwhile, I know fanfic writers who have spent hours on the phone with strangers in order to research what type of firearm would cause a specific type of bullet injury. It’s very puzzling to me that RT wants to take the show in the direction of being mystery-only when apart from that one time he is piss poor at writing mysteries and puts no effort into them. I shouldn’t have to tell television writers to, you know, do their job but this is what we’ve come to in 2019.

Know your audience

A majorly annoying thing about the promo for this season is how in every single interview Rob Thomas did he was always talking about how he wanted VM to be like other shows and movies: Fargo, True Detective, Game of Thrones, Chinatown (which is apparently the only noir movie he’s ever seen). The thing is, if I wanted to watch those shows, I would; I watched Veronica Mars specifically because I enjoyed its unique qualities, and I would say most fans agree. The general perception within the fandom is that with this season Rob Thomas seems to have been aiming to dump the old, majority female, CW fanbase in order to achieve what he perceives as a cooler prestigious male fanbase; the issue is, new people aren’t going to take up a show in its fourth season if they didn’t watch or didn’t like earlier seasons. Also, trying to write a prestigious show doesn’t make your show prestigious. Considering that based on anecdotal evidence most of the people who like S4 seem to be male, he may have succeeded in the first part of his aim. However, this majority female fanbase he was so willing to cast aside are the ones who have run fansites and rewatches during fallow times (i.e. between S3 and the movie and then between the books and S4), so drumming up interest among fans (and therefore streaming views) in the future may be a challenge. Plus, women are a better advertising demographic since they are more likely to be in charge of household purchasing decisions, so maintaining us as a fanbase makes business sense as well. He may have tricked enough people into watching S4 that S5 is given a go, but I wouldn’t be surprised if streams are weak beyond that. If the show is to succeed as a commercial endeavor, better to go with appealing to a known quantity than trying to make a generic show that very few people have expressed interest in watching.

Bring back the mystery of the week

This is a more minor thing I felt was missing from S4. I think after the criticism of S3 not having a season-long arc RT overcorrected in focusing on one mystery. However, the mystery of the week had the following benefits: 1) giving chances for the characters to interact and telling us more about them 2) helping to modulate the pace of the season-long arc. With better writing a season-long standalone mystery could maybe work, but in the case of S4 specifically the mystery was kind of dull and repetitive and could have stood to include a couple of diversions in the form of a smaller case here and there.

Re-evaluate the creators’ interpretation of the word “adult”

Much of the promo and reviews for this season noted the more “adult” content to be expected this season now that Veronica’s grown. Many fans hoped that meant seeing Veronica act like, you know, an adult with adult problems rather than a teenager less mature than the actual teenager she was. Unfortunately, the show’s interpretation of the word seems to be more in keeping with a television rating sense of the word--meaning sex, drugs, and gratuitous violence (But apparently not the word “fuck.”). Look, it was expected that as the show moved to a streaming service and given the overall dramatic scope that there would be an upgrade in some of this sort of content (and I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t looking forward to steamier LoVe moments, which were sorely overpromised), but the way it was included this season felt like RT and co. included this stuff just because they could and not to serve the storyline. For me, personally, the biggest example of this was Veronica’s drug use, which I know didn’t necessarily bother everyone. Given her history as the daughter of an alcoholic as well as someone who had been the victim of two roofie attacks, not to mention the fact that her character never seemed to be into partying, I found it very out of character (and book writer Jennifer Graham agrees). It felt like RT included this just bc they thought it would be funny to see Veronica on drugs without considering whether it made sense for her character. Also, were the beheadings strictly necessary? Plus there’s RT’s little temper tantrum over not being able to use curse words this season--they weren’t present in the original show, no one was going to miss them now, and the “cuss” thing was just annoying and reminiscent of The Good Place.

Dealing with a parent who maybe has dementia--that’s an adult storyline. Too bad RT ended it with a dumb excuse about “mixing meds” (another factual error! Pharmacy software would have caught it!) rather than actually exploring what it would mean for Veronica to see her father in decline and take over the family business (and give Rico Colantoni the exit he appears to want). This is the kind of adult content I would hope to see in future seasons.

Adult is not a synonym for “unrelentingly bleak” either. The original show, while dark, always had an element of hope that was completely removed from S4 (no matter what KB might claim). And would it have killed the writers to show Veronica wearing disguises and going undercover like she used to? There was nothing fun about this season (and no, I don’t count the multiple partying scenes as fun, more like sad).

Kill your darlings

It’s cliche, but it’s true. Another issue the show has long had is the writers keeping around characters or inserting jokes and references for their own personal amusement rather than for the story. The most notable example of this is the continued presence of Dick, a highly problematic character considering he pushed Beaver into the room with Veronica the night of Shelly Pomroy’s party, among a whole host of other racist, sexist, and generally obnoxious actions over the years. But because Ryan Hansen is so widely beloved among the cast and crew, so he stays. Then there’s the matter of the infamous Keister egg in 3x08, which the writers and KB have all expressed love for, despite the fact that said Keister egg is an example of sexual assault--which, even if the victim is a douchey fraternity president, is never funny.

Also the constant Big Lebowski references are tiring. Watch a new movie.

Improve Neptune’s gender ratio

Veronica Mars, despite having a female lead, has always been a male-dominated show; other than Veronica herself, the only consistent female character over the original show was Mac (and she didn’t even come back this season). This is unacceptable in 2019, for any show. The books introduced promising female characters in the form of Marcia Langdon and Petra Landros, but Marcia’s character was was watered down for S4 and Petra was nowhere to be found. Additionally, Veronica and Mac have always been written as “cool girls” who looked down on other women for their femininity, which isn’t a great message. Almost every other female character, even the innocuous Parker, is portrayed as somehow bad or incompetent. I would love nothing more than a season centered on the women of Neptune and their interactions with each other. While we’re at it, stop giving every woman on this show a background of sexual victimization.

Treat VM as an ensemble show, not a Kristen Bell vanity project

A major complaint from Burnt Marshmallows and S4 defenders alike was how little time was given over to the original core cast this season. While Veronica may be the protagonist, a large part of how the show became so beloved was her relationships with the other characters. Yet RT has decided that going forward VM will be a KB solo project, with her traveling town to town quipping and sleeping with strangers. This seems strange, given Kristen’s recent interviews talking about how difficult it is to shoot VM and how she never wants to be first on a call sheet ever again, not to mention how she asked for less screen time all the way back in S2, which resulted in the Weevil-Logan storyline, which was way more interesting than Veronica’s storylines during the first half of that season. (The traveling detective thing also seems weird considering that KB is pretty insistent on shooting in LA to be near her family.) Additionally, if this is truly the last season of VM with all the original characters, then no one got a proper sendoff.

I’m not sure how willing much of the cast will be to return for future iterations, given how uncomfortable many of them seemed during promo as well RT and KB’s treatment of them (insensitive at best, deliberately mean at worst) this season (shout out to Tina Majorino for recognizing what a shit show this was going to be), but bringing back all the original characters into the fold and giving them significant storylines would go a long way to mending fences with fans, improving the show from a character arc perspective, and would also give KB the break she apparently wants.

Recourt the fanbase

What has VM always been renowned for above all else? It’s incredibly loyal fandom which not only got it renewed twice during its original run but also put up their own money to get the movie made--I know many people who donated when they really couldn’t afford to. RT basically owes the last 6 years of his career to VM fans--the success of the Kickstarter arguably got him the iZombie show running gig, and the fourth season likely wouldn’t have even happened if not for it. Thus, the blatant cruelty and disregard with which RT and KB have treated fans during the promotion of S4 has been incredibly insulting and hurtful; I still can’t fathom what in the world possessed RT to think that throwing away this 15-year relationship was a good idea. It’s not a good sign when the 2 fansites most active during the post-movie period (VMHQ and VM Confessions) cease operations in the wake of S4, and when at least 3 out of 8 board members of the oldest running fan group, Neptune Rising (who were dormant during the post-movie period but played a critical role during earlier fan campaigns and in the S4 promo) resign. A fandom this loyal that was betrayed will not stand idly by if the S5 RT wants to make goes ahead; given the number of tweets the official Hulu VM account has had to delete in the wake of S4 due to the overwhelmingly negative response as well as the controversy over editing out Logan from S4 promos, I imagine that S5 will be a PR nightmare. Even if future seasons are amazing the trust can probably never be fully repaired, but it would be helpful for RT (or fingers crossed, a new show runner) and KB (as star and EP) to go overboard in reaching out to fans and at least admitting they made a misstep with the entirety of S4. Back in the day, the old Mars Investigation fansite was invited to set to conduct interviews; maybe do that again. Also someone should get KB some sort of VM fandom-fluent media trainer because I don’t think she has conducted a single interview during her entire stint on the show that didn’t anger fans (it might help if she actually bothered to watch the show).

Map out an endgame

Look, this can’t go on forever. As long as RT keeps leaving every installment open ended with the hopes of maybe getting renewed again five years down the line, the story is going to keep running into the issues the movie and S4 faced with having to shoehorn the characters into nonsensical plot lines to reconcile those endings and deal with actor availability issues. Either plot another 2-3 seasons to wrap the show up with a satisfying conclusion, or map out a greater timeline of Veronica’s life with spots where a mini series or movie here and there could fit in.

#Veronica Mars #still angry #mainly written for personal catharsis #need to stop being angry about this and focus more on studying synaptic transmission #Burnt Marshmallow #we use to be fans

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scratchybeardsweetmouth · 4 years

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TV: How child survivors of Nazis rebuilt their lives in Britain

Tim McInnerny and Iain Glen star in The Windermere Children - a dramatisation of a remarkable true story about hope in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Photo by Thomas Kretschmann BBC January 24, 2020 | By Gemma Dunn Article (everything under read more because of length):

Silence falls as the credits to The Windermere Children roll - actors and audience moved in equal measure. From screenwriter Simon Block and director Michael Samuels, the BBC Two drama tells the remarkable - and often unknown - true story of a group of young Holocaust survivors who were brought to the Calgarth Estate by Lake Windermere for a new life in the UK. With only the clothes on their back and carrying a few meagre possessions, the children bear the scars of all they have suffered at the hands of the Nazis, a regime that devastated Europe's Jewish population. And today's praise is more pertinent than ever due to the fact the crowd is dotted with the now-elderly survivors whose very stories inspired this tale. “The film was very well made and very realistic - it made me weep from time to time,” says Arek Hersh, MBE, the first survivor to stand up. “It was true story. This actually happened. You made a very good thing.” “On behalf of the survivors, I want to thank each and every one who has been involved in this project,” mirrors Ike Alterman, who, like Hersh, was one of 300 children taken by coach to the Lake District in August 1945. Commissioned by the BBC, the moving epic makes up a range of content put on to mark Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27 - and crucially the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. “Precisely how many more times will this group of people [survivors] come together in a public venue and speak together?” muses Strangers actor Tim McInnerny, 63, in a chat afterwards. “I was thinking this while we were sitting on the stage and they were in the audience, which by the way seemed like the wrong way around. It was odd.” He follows: “Listening to the survivors talk is overwhelming. I just feel very grateful; it's one of those jobs that you just feel is important and I'm glad to be a part of it in some small way.” “Not all the work that we do - if we're all honest - is as valuable, so you really appreciate when you're given the chance to do something like this,” echoes his co-star, Iain Glen, 58. “If the (survivors) are saying, which they seem to be, that they really approve of what the filmmakers made, well what more could you possibly ask for as an actor, as a director?” asks the Game of Thrones actor. “If they think it's OK, well nothing else really matters. It's a privilege.” Based on powerful first-person testimony, the one-off film follows the children as they learn English, play football, ride bikes and forge friendships. All the while haunted by nightmares and yearning for news of their loved ones. The roles of the children themselves are played by young European actors selected from Polish communities in Germany, London, Manchester and Belfast, as well as from Warsaw. While charged with looking after the youngsters is child psychologist Oscar Friedmann (Thomas Kretschmann); along with art therapist Marie Paneth (Romola Garai), philanthropist Leonard Montefiore (McInnerny) and sports coach Jock Lawrence (Glen), who have just four months to help them reclaim their lives. “Jock Lawrence was a real character - he was a retired PE teacher who was in the locale and offered to come and help when they were looking for sports therapy,” explains Glen. “Just being outside, being active in beautiful surroundings was really vital to a lot of their recovery and speeded it,” he insists. “The testimony was that he was well loved.” As for Leonard: “He went over right at the end of the war to see these children because it wasn't just the awful conditions under which they'd lived, but there was nowhere for them to go”, McInnerny says. “Something had to be done and Leonard is the kind of guy who fights until those things happen,” he recalls. “It's humbling to play somebody like that who fights so hard on behalf of others and dedicates their life to it.” Could they put themselves in the shoes of their characters - or the survivors? “It sounds almost slightly cynical, but in a way you have to forget about that,” claims McInnerny. “You have to forget that it's real in a way, because otherwise it's just too much to bear; it becomes about responsibility and that emotional weight becomes very hard to carry.” “That's right,” agrees Glen. “The problem with the holocaust, generally, is it has an incomprehensibility about it for those who had no direct contact with the future generations. It's documentary footage, of which there is a lot, but how do you find a new way of telling it?” “It's easy to get lost in despair and it would have been very tempting to go into archive footage, but they found a story and they told it in a very effective way.” As for the trauma: “We're never going to understand - that's what's so moving about hearing (the survivors),” Glen notes. “They're alive and they went on to do such extraordinary things. And they're incredibly grateful to the UK for providing a safe haven for them.” He follows: “Without getting too political, for me it resonates.” “We seem to be at a time, globally, where those that have, have a sense of keeping those that have not away, because there's a sense that their nationality, their strength is going to be weakened.” “It's a reminder of the transformative effect it can have, if you welcome people who are suffering and give them love, give them opportunity and give them hope,” he attests. “I hope this helps readdress any balance there may be (as to) whether we shouldn't be accepting refugees into this country anymore,” concurs McInnerny. “Because that's what's built this country, absolutely!” And unlike many shows that tackle the subject, it's ultimately redemptive. “This is about people who survived, as opposed to a reminder of all of those that didn't,” Glen reasons. “And I think that's what enticed (the production company) Wall to Wall and the filmmakers to take this on.” “I won't forget it,” confides McInnerny. “You hope that as an actor you do something that resonates, that makes a difference, but being there and seeing people who have been through the most awful experience, and for you to have to depict that and for them to have given you the thumbs up...” “Well it's an extraordinary experience,” he finishes. “I don't see how you could possibly forget it.” The Windermere Children, BBC Two, 9pm, Monday. (x)

#iain glen #tim mcinnerny #the windermere children #iain glen interview #interview #herald scott #the herald #i need queue by my side

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feingeister · 5 years

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How have your thoughts on the outing scene changed?

this is very long, unstructured and rambly, so i doubt anyone will want to read it, but your answer is under the cut.

(triggerwarning up here bc tumblr sucks: discussions of homophobia and transphobia)

i think initially, people hated the outing scene so much because we really, really didn’t expect it and because it was a shitty ending to a shitty episode. watching this show in real time is always a little rougher and a lot more intense and at that point it had been weeks since we last saw a smiling david (i think maybe we even had a counter for that?? lmao). to clarify, i’m not saying that anyone overreacted, but when this fandom is pissed off, it sometimes tends to go all out in ways i don’t necessarily agree with.

so basically, i moved from being angry and disappointed in the outing scene, to still not liking it but also being a little defensive over it, because i think the way some people talk about it is not entirely fair. i’ve seen a lot of people claim that david was outed for shock value and drama, just to get cis and/or straight viewers to sympathize with him. that’s a trope that’s been talked about a lot on this site and it is very rightfully criticized. i think that’s maybe why a lot of people interpreted this scene the way they did.

the whole “make lgbt people suffer in media so straight people will realize that we’re fucked and maybe have some goddamn sympathy” trope exists for a good reason, it did use to be a legitimate cry for help. nowadays, it doesn’t really work anymore because it is overdone and pretty much exclusively targeted at cishet people, when lgbt narratives should be targeted at or at least be watchable for lgbt viewers. i know that some lgbt people feel seen by that kind of content and find comfort in having their suffering reflected back at them, and while i can respect that, the trope obviously does more harm than good. what it does to most lgbt people is that they see how much their life sucks – which they already knew, they’re living it – and the message is that they’re probably gonna die unhappy or lonely or brutally murdered. there is also something very humiliating about constantly begging for other’s sympathy when you’d have every reason to despise them for letting you die by the masses and calling it a divine cleansing or whatever the fuck.

to get back to the topic at hand – the problem with lgbt narratives in media in my opinion is not that lgbt characters have to suffer through hardships, it is that they are never rewarded for their suffering and they never find happiness, the only one being rewarded is the cishet viewer who gets to feel very kind and empathetic because they cried over one of the gays™ .

(there is also the problem that a lot of these narratives center around suffering when they really don’t have to, but i don’t think you can necessarily blame well written stories with a darker tone for that problem.)

i can’t tell anyone that david wasn’t outed for drama – of course he was, it’s a tv show – and that it wasn’t at least partially targeted at straight/cis people but this experience is a pretty central part to his narrative, he gets to properly deal with it and he ends up very, very happy with his boyfriend and his new friends, not only in the last episode of his season but in all of season four as well.

i’ve talked about david’s story arc a lot already and how i think it’s pretty centered around his (unhealthy) coping mechanism. first, we see david isolate and hide himself away, then we think he’s opening up but he’s only really opening up to matteo because he’s romanticizing the whole “you and me against the world“ thing. when he gets outed we truly realize that he really hasn’t let go of his run&hide approach (which makes it difficult for him to form, maintain and value connections to other people) during a catastrophe, because we see the catastrophe happen and it triggers that response. it retroactively becomes clear to the viewer that even if it seemed like david was doing better (and in a lot of ways he was! i don’t want to trivialize or downplay the fact that he came out to matteo on his own terms), he has some problems that romance can’t solve.

i’m not saying that this couldn’t have happened any other way or that the outing was ~absolutely necessary~, but you all know that i loooove the second pool scene and what it means for davids story. even if i don’t like the outing scene i can acknowledge that it does serve the narrative pretty solidly, which is why i don’t agree with the “only for drama” argument. in his talk with matteo, david finally makes the choice to rely on the support system that he has and it’s his step towards recovery. and it’s – again - a very solid narrative, it’s not “well you went through some shit and survived and now you’re badass”, its “your trauma doesn’t define you and even if you go through some shit, there are people who will love and support you and in loving them back you will find happiness, growth and recovery”.

ultimately, david’s arc doesn’t leave anyone feeling like life sucks and you just have to deal with it, it leaves with the message that even if things do suck, you can survive and be happy. so there, to me, lies the difference between the trope i talked about earlier and this storyline. instead of just showing a trans individual suffering to benefit cis people, this narrative acknowledges the suffering that trans people do face but it gives their character a happy ending, so anyone who might see themselves in david’s struggles, can also see themselves in his happy end, even if the latter is not (yet) a reality for them.

some other things i appreciate: david isn’t outed to us in that scene, his identity isn’t used as shock value, it’s not overly cruel and it’s very clear that outing someone, even if some people sympathize and no one outwardly attacks him, is a horrible and violent experience. but you know… is the bar really low enough for me to praise that?

all that being said, i’m absolutely not telling anyone how to feel, i don’t have the authority to do that and i don’t want to do that either. i really do understand why many people have an issue with this storyline and there are definitely things you can criticize about the scene. even if it was perfectly written, no one should have to justify not liking the scene and/or feeling hurt by it.

looking back, i don’t necessarily think that it doesn’t fit the tone of the show, but at the time we as a fandom didn’t really expect it and when these narratives come out of nowhere, they’re especially hurtful. and the whole thing did seem overdramatic – who filmed that exchange with mr. neuhaus? why are they only posting it now? why are they posting it at all? why did everyone immediately go and look at it and why is this all (in-)conveniently happening just as matteo is about to pick david up from school? and why is episode eight in general so shitty and weird?

aaaand lastly i just want to mention that i do realize how showing characters grow through things that are done to them can be a bit of a problematic narrative, because it could romanticize these experiences and give off a bit of a “you should be happy that you suffered because it made you stronger!! 😊” vibe, which is shitty, because trauma is trauma, no one deserves to go through it and no one should have to go through it just to “grow”. but you know, at least david never thanked anyone for outing him so we at least have that!

that’s it, you can come for me now.

#ask #druck #me @ myself: get to the point

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cometcrystal · 5 years

Text

super kids pair dynamics

note that when i say “pair” i dont mean Ship Pairing its just every possible duo in this group, minus jack jack, because everyone other than vi and dash’s dynamic w him is “you are baby”

just so this has some semblance of organization, it’s gonna go in alphabetical order. so chance > dash > gigi > rose > tony > victor > violet. i’d do minny but i think i’ll leave that to ramon and em to decide since she’s their character and they’d know her better than i do!

chance & dash - obvious but theyre Boyfriends once theyre older. at present in canon they just have baby crushes on each other but neither has realized it yet. they share a brain cell, and i mean that in both the Dumbass way and in the “their minds are so in sync its crazy” way. they name their children by mashing their own names together. that’s their wavelength

chance & gigi - they get along pretty well i think. gigi uses some of his morphs as inspiration for new gadgets, like lizard-esque wall climbing gloves & shoes. he likes to sit and watch her work sometimes

chance & rose - barely know each other. their super suits are both green i guess

chance & tony - while chance is chaos enough for dash, he’s also got a more reserved side, and it comes out when he talks with his in-law-in-law tony. they are both dating a parr and that says enough. they probably watch the same tv shows

chance & victor - doesn’t really like the guy. he eventually slightly warms up to him but he’s the one victor targeted in the first place, so he’s always gonna be on the defense around him. for a while, anyway. victor proves himself eventually and the two are never exactly close, but chance knows victor’s upbringing was Bad

chance & violet - they have kind of a sarcastic relationship. he is able to safely snark to her without getting called a wiseass. when he’s in-morph she’ll tease him by being like “prove you’re chance do a trick”. best siblings-in-law ever

dash & gigi - they get on each other’s nerves just a little bit but not too bad. he’s always willing to be the guinea pig for when she needs to test smth and she both respects and fears his gusto. she teaches him some judo moves upon request

dash & rose - they don’t know each other very well either. i dont think rose and the younger kids are very close at all

dash & tony - dash instantly thinks tony is the coolest person in the world the moment tony calls him “buddy” and he will butt in during his sister’s dates to be like “hey tony hows your day been”. tony thinks dash is a funny kid and humors him but also tries to end the convo quickly so he and vi wont try and kill each other. once dash finds out tony’s an empath hes constantly like “hey what number am i thinking of”

dash & victor - is one of the first people, along with gigi, to be on the side of “let’s give victor a chance”, surprisingly. he hasn’t forgotten what he pulled on chance but he’s also like “his dad was killed by syndrome. that can’t be easy” and kinda sorta feels a connection to how victor lashed out. victor doesn’t take dash seriously at first but seeing dash in battle one (1) time turned him around bc dangit the kid’s clever

dash & violet - chaos siblings supreme. ive already talked at length before about how much these two love each other and how they’d die for each other in an instant so i won’t get too deep into it, but they know each other better than anyone else does. they share the same trauma and they work together in hero work near-seamlessly, despite how much they bicker in their everyday life

gigi & rose - softd for each other. rose needs someone who’s super understanding (lol) about the super thing, since she’s so skittish and defensive about it, and gigi’s had a toe in the super world her whole life bc of lucius. they have nice quiet convos while doing diff stuff in the same room and also theyre girlfriends. the only time the phrase “soft uwu wlw” is allowed

gigi & tony - “the only people violet parr is soft for” squad unite. they have a two-person book club where they #stan jane eyre and they also share turtlenecks bc theyre the same size. they try and pair up as partners in science class whenever possible

gigi & victor - supported victor’s second chance early on, partly because she had almost no hand in what he did other than being kidnapped. she’s sympathetic to him mostly on a hunch. she might invite him to her and tony’s book club later and introduce him to gothic literature. he thinks she’s suspiciously nice to him and is slightly defensive around her at first

gigi & violet - the definition of wlw solidarity. ride or fucking die. see the adventures of violet and dash book 2 for the love jewelry they made for each other. when vi’s not fighting crime with her usual partner dash, she almost always teams up w gigi

rose & tony - they have drama class together and have a light-hearted friendship. one day during an improv exercise in class one of them messed a sentence up and started laughing and the other joined and the teacher had to intervene bc they couldnt stop giggling. when she gets anxious and tony senses it he puts a hand on her shoulder and she appreciates it

rose & victor - these two have an unlikely bond because of their weird and stressful family situations. in general, she opens up a little bit before he does, and sorta relates to his closed-off-ness. so it’s either her or gigi that usually offers him an extra cookie or w/e at first

rose & violet - had a crush on her when they first met bc shes a fuckin lesbian. violet was immediately rose’s wingwoman when she met gigi tho. they probably have philosophical debates when they hang out, which is usually taking a walk through the park or going to the zoo

tony & victor - tony’s actually ends up being victor’s closest friend. since he’s an empath he can tell that victor’s being sincere when he eventually says he’s sorry to the others, and besides rose, tony’s the one that’s the furthest removed from what happens in the books. so he’s kind to victor, and victor’s not as defensive around him cause he figures his kid’s a wimp and couldn’t lie about trying to get me arrested if he tried. but yeah this is probably the person victor gets along best with

tony & violet - this is another dynamic i’ve talked about at length before but the TLDR is that he’s constantly amazed by her even before he finds out she’s a super, and him being the most “normal” one out of all the kids is comforting to violet. i hesitate to be like “she likes feeling normal” but she does like feeling grounded and loved by someone she can just relax and take a break from Super Stuff with. they’re each other’s superheroes

violet & victor - she’s the most Sus of him when he comes back, and he’s not exactly keen on her either. she only agrees to give him a second chance because of what tony says in his favor. but after working with each other for a long time, they both respect and trust each other. like when theyre adults, if you asked either of them about the other, theyd be like “i’d defend them in battle, and i know they’d do the same for me”

#the incredibles #incredibles 2 #violet parr #dash parr #tony rydinger #gigi best #chance diaz #victor lebeau #rose carson #incredimeta #long post #sorry if ur on mobile. not sorry

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pepperony3000-archive · 5 years

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Wait Endgame is your second favorite? That's surprising! No judgement though, but now I want to know how you rank all of them

Oh goodness… that is TWENTY-THREE MOVIES to rank! That’s hard! This might get very jumbly at around the midway point…

1) Iron Man 3 - Everything about it is so perfect. The Iron Fam being chaotic but also 100% supportive of each other? Tony being the first superhero in history to deal with mental disorders blatantly!!! onscreen!!! The action is top notch. The final battle needs to be taught in film school because it’s literally a metaphor for Tony’s main personal theme of feeling like he’s nothing without his armor, but then at the end he’s able to leap from one to the other because it’s not the armor itself that makes him powerful, it’s that he has the powerbravery/will to leap from one to the other.

2) Avengers: Endgame - Y’all are looking at it wrong. Pretend the Infinity Saga is a TV show and it just ended, and now the rest of the MCU is a spinoff show featuring some of the newer/recently introduced characters, but without the core group of the original show.Suddenly the most important characters getting to leave with a bang isn’t as frustrating.But I also love it because it got my two favorite characters so beautifully right! Tony and Natasha, because they are the two who are deemed worthy enough to be turned into the big talking points of the movies, got to end their TV show finale with a huge glorious heroic sacrifice that will make them remembered forever!The time travel is also REALLY clever. And this is coming from someone who has watched a LOT of time travel shows/movies. There is literally only one movie I’ve ever seen that handled time travel better, and that was Arrival. They did away with the time travel paradox by having every past even just create an alternate timeline. And really? They only asked for suspension of disbelief in service of a joke that was not even that funny and I sort of hated and because they wanted the old Steve scene to have a particular emotional resonance, and having him come back through the portal old… wouldn’t have done that.

3) Iron Man - I firmly believe that this is the best movie in the entirety of the MCU. It was the first, and yet it has never been topped. (and yet it’s #3 on my list rofl)It gave us a very complex lead character with a supporting cast that had a lot more depth in their first outing than some of the OG6 had after four movies (*cough*Clint*cough*Thor*cough* - Thor only got good development after Ragnarok). There was also subtlety to the story that it seems hollywood writers in general (and MCU specifically) is incapable of anymore.

4) The Avengers - the very first time in history we get a massive teamup of superheroes? sign me the FUCK up!Loki was a fantastic villain, the characterization of all of them (except for Clint… sorry, pal) was absolutely amazing, and it’s just pure unadulterated fun. Not much more to say than that.

5) Black Panther - Live Action Lion King (2019) WHOMST? There was a live action Lion King in 2018 and it was called Black Panther!I have a few issues with it fuck YOU vibranium! but it’s SUCH a good movie. T’Challa is quite possibly the noblest MCU character/lead, and the supporting cast are all incredible. I also loved the idea that the villain was… actually… right? Oh he was wrong a FUCK in deciding that the way to go about getting it was through violence, but his end goal was correct.Which is actually very subtle (and again… one of the very few MCU movies to do that) and very important message - because so often people seem to think that violence is the answer. Because the cause is “right” and “just”, excessive violence or threats of violence are considered the proper course of action. But as Killmonger proved, that wasn’t the way. Instead we all need to be like Nakia - who wanted the same thing, but worked for it through kindness, sacrificing her own desires, and making the first tiny hole in the dam.

6) Captain America: The Winter Soldier - I firmly hold that this is one of the most overrated MCU movies, and it’s what started Steve Rogers down his path to… the character he ended up becoming… but it is an excellent movie!Natasha gets amazing development, Sam Wilson is better in this movie than he has been since, and the emotional stakes are very high and very well thought out. Also I’m sorry but the bold political statement of “nazis torturing people is bad” is… not all that subtle? or bold? I don’t know why people are saying that this is the movie that addresses difficult political questions because… it doesn’t?

7) Spiderman: Far From Home - I’m sorry y’all, but I love my boy Peter Parker and if you don’t like this movie then I might just fight you.It was a terrific followup to Endgame, and Peter’s trauma was dealt with in a very realistic and unbearably painful way. Mysterio was the perfect villain for Peter to face, because he forces him to confront his trauma… even though he forces it by first torturing Peter with it, but Peter is forced to find a way to cope with his fears, his grief, and his feelings of inadequacy. Also Peter/MJ is the literal cutest and I love them so much.

8) Avengers: Infinity War - ngl this was a VERY tough battle between this and FFH, but FFH won by just a hair.Thanos is the greatest villain of our generation, quite possibly of the past 2-3 generations. The characters they chose to pair up together worked extremely well - I didn’t know how much I needed the Thor/tree/rabbit teamup until it happened. And then that ending… never before has the world held its breath together in such shared anguish as when we watched Spiderman all the characters we love so much fade away into dust. And there was a great cry in all the world, such as never has been or ever shall be again!

9) Captain America: The First Avenger - Steve Rogers has never been better than he was in this film. Unfortunately it was all downhill after that, but it’s because of this film that he was my second favorite character for a good five years. There is a gentleness to this Steve that is utterly lacking starting in The Winter Soldier, where he becomes this machismo who obsesses far too much over anything he has one (1) emotion about because he doesn’t know how to handle it.This Steve Rogers is emotionally very intelligent, and is genuinely willing to do whatever it takes to do what is right.And I will say, I can understand why he made the decision he made in Endgame, because Peggy is such a brilliant and dynamic and interesting person, I don’t think anybody could have resisted staying with her (if she agreed to have him). @Marvel please bring back Agent Carter, because I need more Peggy.

10) Captain America: Civil War - This movie did a lot of studio mandated things, and because of that was weaker than it might have been, but I hold that it is a very good and very solid movie. Unfortunately, a big fault of the movie is that I don’t think Chris Evans believed in what he was performing, and so couldn’t give it the complexity that it needed (particularly as the Russo’s take input of their cast into consideration when making their movies… actors get to choose a lot of their own character beats unless it’s a plot-mandated beat). And unfortunately, Steve Rogers suffered for this.If The Winter Soldier is the one where he began obsessing over anything that gave him one (1) emotion, this is the movie where that tendency grew two extra heads and turned into a monster. Steve sees this argument the way a soldier who is used to following orders during wartime would, whereas Tony sees this argument the way a strategist during peacetime might. Steve thinks Tony is “trying to win a war before it starts”, while Tony thinks he’s deescalating rising tensions. And unfortunately, Steve is too blinded by his one (1) emotion to see the complexities in the situation.Which, while it frustrates me how poorly this movie did Steve’s personality, those dynamics are very interesting to watch play out onscreen. Plus, the dialogue is sharp and witty, and the emotional beats - particularly everything that has to do with Tony, is some of the most beautifully written and performed drama I’ve seen in a while.

11) Spiderman: Homecoming - This movie did such a good job of giving us a teenaged Peter Parker. All the other movies, Peter didn’t feel like a teenager. He felt like a grownup. This Pete is definitely a teenager - he’s a young kid in a big world trying to be a superhero, and because of that trying to take on problems that he is not experienced enough to take on.The journey he takes on this movie is to learn just exactly that, and by the end he probably is experienced enough now to take on those bigger threats, but he makes the mature decision not to do that quite yet - proving exactly the kind of man he will eventually grow up to be.

12) Thor: Ragnarok - Finally Thor gets developed. Hemsworth really shows off his acting chops in this movie. He’s always been very charming as Thor, but this is the movie where we learned that he’s not just charming, but also a very talented actor. I personally found some of the clumsiness/slapstick around his character a bit much, but Hemsworth performed it perfectly.This is a movie where the story doesn’t actually matter. Honestly… who even remembers the story? The important thing about this movie are the characters, and they are all done incredibly well, except possibly Loki, and even he got some good development at the very end of it. Thor is finally an interesting character, Hela is an amazing villain, Bruce got some fun development, and Valkyrie should have been introduced five movies ago (@Marvel give me a Valkyrie movie! Why the FUCK are we reportedly getting Thor 4 when you could have had Thor stay behind as king of Asgard and giving Val her own movie instead? Especially since all of Thor’s important relationships are dead or in the gotg movie, so he has nowhere to move on to! If we don’t have good characters/dynamics, Thor 4 will suck! It will also suck because the heart of his movies have been his relationship with his brother, and that’s gone now).

13/14) Ant Man and the Wasp/Ant Man - Honestly these movies can just be grouped together, because they’re very very similar, and all I would have to say about one I’d say about the other.

The Antman movies are very light hearted and comical, and the important thing here (like Ragnarok) is not the story, but the characters. The family relationships explored here honestly feel like real families - they just happen to live in a world with superheroes. I think AMaTW is the better of the two, but only by a little bit.

15) Iron Man 2 - This is another movie that was made lesser than it could have been due to executive meddling. Honestly, if you re-cut the movie and just take out all of Coulson’s scenes it becomes a much better movie (and would have gone higher on the list).As it is, Coulson dumps expositional world building that doesn’t really work in the context of the movie.What does work is the chaotic-yet-supportive Iron Fam (once again), and the introduction of Black Widow. I think Natasha might have had the best introduction in the MCU, because the audience was who she was fooling. Her job is to manipulate people and fool them into thinking she’s what she wants us to think she is, and only reveals the truth when she’s ready for it. And that is exactly how we were introduced to her. The underlying plot of Tony struggling with his imminent death was also incredibly well done. He wanted so desperately to not be dying, but there wasn’t anything that he could do. And when he ran out of options, he behaved in such a way to make things worse for him (health wise), because nothing was worse than sitting back and waiting for death to come. Better for it to come quickly and for the agony of just waiting for it to pass. Unfortunately Coulson takes away some of the gravitas of that by forgetting Tony was dying and threatening to taze him…All in all, a weak story but fleshed out by some of the best characters the MCU has ever created and introduced.

16) Doctor Strange - A decent movie with decent characters. There is nothing particularly memorable about it, but also nothing particularly bad about it either (beyond casting a non-Asian actress as the Ancient One).

17) Thor - Sort of like Doctor Strange, a decent movie with a charming lead but mostly terrible supporting cast. I will hold that none of the human characters are actually very good. At all. The best thing Ragnarok did was drop them all like the movie ruining load that they are.Once again, Loki is a good villain and an interesting character, and while Thor is underdeveloped he’s incredibly charming and likable in spite of that.

18) Captain Marvel - Yes I am a woman. Yes I disliked Captain Marvel. Can we move on from that please.If Thor is a decent movie with a charming lead, Captain Marvel is a decent movie with a terrible lead. I do not find Carol to be particularly interesting, and will hold that Brie Larson was incredibly miscast in the role. (if you want to hear why, you can peruse this). In general, it’s also a movie that relies a little bit too much on 90s nostalgia, and as somebody who personally hates when a movie relies on nostalgia to be considered “good”, all of that rubbed me the wrong way. The same applies to Ragnarok tbh, but I didn’t mention it up there because I wanted to rant about wanting a Valkyrie movie. (@Marvel please)Unfortunately, this movie is also not one bit subtle with it’s message. And as a woman, I do not relate to a woman whose only personality trait is “stand up to men”. Every other female character in the MCU is quite capable of standing up to men, and they all have a lot of character outside of that. And I will stop there because even saying that much risks me getting blocked right off of this hellsite…

19) Guardians of the Galaxy - I am definitely in the minority for this one, but I never liked this movie. If the 90s nostalgia in Captain Marvel rubbed me the wrong way, the 80s nostalgia in this movie was rubbing me the wrong way. with sandpaper.But my biggest problem with this movie is that Quill is not interesting enough (in my opinion) to be the central character. These characters all feel like sidekicks, and without a strong central lead for them to be sidekicks to, everything just feels very underdeveloped. I also find the humor in these movies to be very cheap and childish.However, I love that the team very much became a family. I believe in their relationships with each other even if each person as an individual character feels very weak.

20) Guardians of the Galaxy 2 - If you took GOTG1 and flipped it on it’s head, you’d get GOTG2. This is quite possibly the worst MCU movie ever, except that… somehow… it has some of the most heartfelt and meaningful emotional beats out of all of them.I felt every single emotional beat, and the fact that the characters were all sidekicks… actually worked well for this movie. They didn’t need to be more than sidekicks, because the “kick” part of sidekick stands for “kick ass”.However, the story was atrociously bad, and one of the worst the MCU has ever done, which is why it’s below GOTG1. But only slightly.

21) The Incredible Hulk - Does anybody even remember this movie? It was boring, uneventful, had the wrong guy playing Bruce Banner, and was just poorly written throughout.

22) Thor: The Dark World - This movie is a boring, dreary, horribly written, badly directed mess. Some of the stuff up on Asgard was decent except for the fact that they fridged Frigga for no goddamn reason, and everything that happened on earth was goddamn awful, verging on embarrassing. And don’t even get me started on the dark elves. They were rightfully dropped from the MCU and never mentioned again because they are just That. Bad.

23) The Avengers: Age of Ultron - the movie where Joss Whedon fucked up Natasha’s backstory for the sake of his self-insert ship, infantilized Wanda Maximoff by insisting the woman with cleverly displayed cleavage who was clearly in her 20s was actually only 15, did not solidify the team as a family (THIS IS THE MOVIE WHERE THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN GODDAMMIT), and disrespected literally every movie that came before (including his own goddamn flick).Wow I just realized that most of the awful shit he did was done to the female characters. Can you believe this disgusting asshole has the audacity to call himself a feminist? Fucking disgraceful…Fuck Whedon. He doesn’t deserve to come within a thousand yards of a woman.

#ranking mcu movies #Anonymous #Ask me a question #long post

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mermaidsirennikita · 5 years

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I need to start new period dramas. Can you list your favs like which you recommend most? (Ive seen Reign) Thanks!

Sure!

Spartacus--set in Ancient Rome, obvious during the Third Servile War. This is actually one of my top... five? three? favorite shows of all time. It deserves INTENSE trigger warnings for basically everything--gore, sexual violence, torture. I will say that a lot of the general gladiatorial violence is purposefully over the top--originally because the show couldn’t afford realistic effects and they were like “fuck it, let’s go OTT and embrace it” and later because it basically was the Aesthetic. Lots of slo mo and AAAARGGGGGHHHHs!!!! Also a surprising amount of sensitivity towards the trauma the characters endure. Like. This is one of the only shows that I feel deals with trauma correctly for the majority of the characters. They never really... “heal” in that unrealistic soft way. But they do live. It’s also surprisingly diverse, and the female characters are EXCELLENT, both the heroines and the villains. The villains are so well-done too. Well-developed without being portrayed as justified or excused.

Rome--set during the rules of the First and Second Triumvirates. Definitely a “must watch” period piece. It really set the tone for many that have followed, and few have matched or surpassed it. It’s great drama, has one of the best female villains on TV of all time. I do really, really dislike its version of Cleopatra. As a whole. But I loooove its portrayal of Octavian and Antony, so--what’re you gonna do?

Vikings (season 1-2............................................ maybe season 3 in some spots though that’s still gotta fuck ton of issues)--set in early medieval Scandinavia. Not a good show now, but I really loved it for the first couple of seasons and I think that those seasons, especially the first two, are still worth watching. Really, the ending of season 2 is quite final in a lot of ways. So you could watch it like that? Vikings was an extremely odd and trippy show in the first couple of seasons as well, which I enjoy seeing blended with its period piece setting. It also has some really cool fight scenes and music.

Medici: The Magnificent--set in early-to-high Renaissance Florence. Okay, so technically this is season 2 of Medici (the first season is called Medici: Masters of Florence) but season 1 frankly... sucks. And season 2 has only one or two hold-over actors, and it’s set a couple of decades after season 1 ends. It is, for all intents and purposes, a whole new show. I love it. This is a soapy show, and not every actor is greeeeat but Daniel Sharman is FANTASTIC in it, and so are the villains. I really can’t emphasize how much I love Daniel Sharman in this role--and not just because he’s hot. It’s also lovely to look at for the most part. I really love the men’s costumes on this show too? And the Pazzi Conspiracy is pretty well done.

The Borgias--set in High Renaissance Rome. Oh, this show. I loved it SO HARD once. And I don’t anymore. It’s very flawed. But it’s fucking BEAUTIFUL in some scenes, and while it’s not the way I want the story of the Borgia family to be told, it does have some great moments, and some great performances for that matter. (They should have let Francois Arnaud go Full Evil with Cesare, but whatever.) It’s soapy. There is an actual canonical incest pairing, and it’s played as totally romantic. So heads up on that. But this show did shape a part of me, so I can’t totally complain.

The Tudors--set in Renaissance/Reformation/post-Reformation England. This show is so bad in some parts? I still refuse to say that Jonathan Rhys Myers is putting on a good performance as Henry VIII. Because I don’t think it’s good acting. But it’s like. Entertaining. There’s a scene where he’s like, trying to pole vault over a pond or something and he’s like “watch me lads this’ll be rad” and he just... ends up in the pond. I think he gets sick and ends up screaming. He does a lot of screaming. But the women are very good in this!!! Maria Doyle Kennedy and Natalie Dormer kill it in the first two seasons, and Tamzin Merchant is so good at playing up more than just the sexy lil thing role that this show wanted to give Katherine Howard. She put a lot into fleshing her out. I would say that the first two seasons are like, fun soapy shenanigans with a few genuinely good beats, and the last two are kinda dull except for when they relate to the downfall of Thomas Cromwell (who is very well played in this show) and Katherine Howard.

The White Queen/The White Princess--set during medieval England. Do I recommend? No. No I do not. Is it kind of incredibadly watchable at times? Yes. These loosely related minseries monstrosities are like, horrible feminism, horrible costuming, and occasionally really fucking good performances. It’s about the Wars of the Roses (TWQ) and the early reign of Fuckboi In Leather Pants and A Pirate Shirt Henry VII. Also, Richard III is a goth in this series. There will be another installment, The Spanish Princess, once again with a whole new cast, very soon. It will be about Catherine of Aragon. Supposedly.

Versailles--set in 18th century France. This does for Louis XIV what The Tudors did for Henry VIII. But it’s marginally better because George Blagden is a better actor than JRM, and Louis XIV actually seems like he has a brain sometimes, and is generally an evil plotting cocker spaniel with his gay brother. A typical episode of Versailles is basically Louis XIV having Somewhat Awkward Sexual Tension with said brother as they snipe at each other, until they agree to be friends and rule the French court through psychological manipulation. Louis gives somewhat an absolutely withering glance. They commit suicide before him. Everyone is wearing a mask. I mean, I have fun with it. Though there is a VERY CRINGE STORYLINE in the beginning that is based on a VERY CRINGE LEGEND that always makes me hesitate to recommend it.

Alias Grace--set in 19th century Canada. Essentially, this is a thriller and a period piece. A doctor learns through a series of interviews about the heinous murders that Grace committed while a servant in a rich man’s house. I really like this show’s exploration of class divides and women’s relationships with each other. It’s preeeetty dark.

North and South--set in industrial England. I always describe this as like... Pride and Prejudice if Darcy had a more sexual vibe and was more working class, and if Elizabeth was tbh.............................. a bit dumber, if well-intentioned. I love it. The smoldering gazes. The secretive glances. The classic “woman rejects man’s marriage proposal, man is a broken husk” scene. It’s great.

The Crown--set in twentieth century England-present. This is one of the GREATEST DRAMAS EVER, frankly. Like. This show takes objectively petty arguments and turns them into something super epic and intense. It’s all about the strength of the acting and the writing. There is only one episode in the two (so far) seasons that disappointed me. Plus, this show looks intensely expensive.

Peaky Blinders--set in Post WWI Birmingham. First two seasons ONLY. But oh, they were great seasons of TV. This show is about a crime family, and I absolutely love crime family dramas. It also features Grace Burgess, one of my favorite characters ever. She is a lady cop who sets out to seduce the main character, head of aforementioned crime family. For The Law. That is all.

Hopefully, this is a good starting point--ngl, most period pieces drop in quality after a couple seasons, so it’s hard to give a wholehearted recommendation.

#Anonymous

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luna-rainbow · 5 years

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2019 spring jdrama (2)

Watashi, teiji de kaerimasu | I'm getting off work on time (Rating 9.5) Cast: Yoshitaka Yuriko, Mukai Osamu I went into this with low expectations, and it's turned out to be one of the only 2 dramas I'm sticking with. A big chunk of it is owing to Yoshitaka being so damn cute, as always, without being nauseating. Like Gakki's disappointing KemoNare, it is about Japan's toxic workplace culture, but with a more optimistic tone. The main character, Higashiyama, is a much more likeable character than Gakki's - she's efficient enough to finish her work on time, sensitive enough to navigate the complexities of workplace collegiality, but also strong enough to draw a bottom line about her work-life balance and hold her ground. Her relationship with her boyfriend (Nakamaru's character) is the cutest thing, and as much as I like Mukai Osamu and his character, I actually don't want her to break up and go back to him. It will resonate for anyone who's worked in a culture where unpaid overtime is banned in the company policy but secretly encouraged, and where you are held to unreasonable unspoken rules just because previous generations of workers have had to tolerate them. Strawberry Night Saga (Rating 7.8) Cast: Nikaido Fumi, Kamenashi Kazuya When is Fuji TV going to learn that reboots of classics don't work, especially when the original wasn't that long ago? Look at the bombs that were HanaKimi and HanaHare. I have not seen Nikaido Fumi in anything I could recall, though I have heard good things about her acting. That said, even though I hadn't finished watching the original Strawberry Night, Nikaido loses by a mile compared to Takeuchi. Takeuchi's Himekawa really was "hime"-like - she was sharp and tense and fragile, like a fine blade, and it was easy to believe why her men rallied around this chief who was both headstrong yet vulnerable. Nikaido is too young and green, and it shows. She couldn't hold the scenes where she's supposed to be the leader her men look to for direction. As much as I adored Nishijima's portrayal of Kikuchi, Strawberry Night really hinged on the charisma of its female lead - Himekawa's fierce capability as a police officer, and behind that a victim still trying to walk away from the trauma of a sexual assault. It was a perfect balance of angry strength and vulnerability that Takeuchi managed to hit, and maybe it does take someone older to understand how strength can arise from previous pain. Shuudan Sasen | Group Demotion (Rating 13.8) Cast: Fukuyama Masaharu, Kagawa Teruyuki This is supposed to be the career saving drama for Fukuyama, whose popularity tanked after he got married at the ripe age of 50 - which just shows the sad state of what fans expect from their idols. It's a...bizarre role for him. It's as though the character is written for someone who should be half his age, all full of brashness and single-minded gullibility. I had to skip half of it because it was so grating that the bank manager seemed to have no idea of the operations or sense of responsibility to the stakeholders. Funnily enough, none of the other employees treated him like the manager either? I mean, even if I didn't agree with a business decision, I would not yell at my boss and say it was his fault? I checked this out because I wanted to see what Kagawa's role might be, but he barely showed his face in the first episode and I really can't bear to sit through more.

#jdrama #jdorama #strawberry night saga #kamenashi kazuya #yoshitaka yuriko #watashi teiji de kaerimasu #shuudan sasen #fukuyama masaharu

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andrewuttaro · 5 years

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Spiderman: Far Frome Home - Film Review (SPOILERS)

<<<SPOILERS>>>

It’s time for a rare movie review on what is otherwise a sports blog! Yes, I like other stuff; especially movies. I consider myself an amateur film buff and watcher of the TV and Film Industries in general. Sometimes I like to not just be a consumer and give some thoughts back. I’m no expert critic, I’m very much a sucker. I’m a sucker for a good redemption story, a sucker for a good romance, good comedic vision and for a handful of actors. We all have our tastes.

I have been a fan of Spiderman the character for as far back as I can remember. I never read comic books; my entry point was the original Sam Remi Spiderman trilogy. Again: I’m a sucker. I know those films haven’t aged well but they established my feelings about movies. Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker was the first movie character I related to on a personal level. Forgive me because as an adult I now understand what awful casting that was. Kirsten Dunst’s Mary Jane was the first movie character I was attracted to. Spiderman 3 was the first time I realized movies could be bad and, even worse, movies I like can be ruined. The train scene in Spiderman 2 when he almost dies was the first time I cried about a movie.

Yeah, this is all sappy stupid exposition, but it helps to know the reviewer, eh? If you couldn’t tell I am a little bit of an apologist for that original Spiderman Trilogy. I didn’t go to see the two Amazing Spiderman films out of protest. Yeah, I had some strong feelings at that time. I have since become an adult and given the Tom Holland Spiderman films a chance, but I still haven’t made the time to watch that Andrew Garfield crap… well I don’t know it’s crap because I haven’t seen that incarnation. Either way this isn’t about those films. While Spiderman into the Spiderverse is pretty clearly the best Spiderman film ever made in my opinion, I’m putting that aside for a moment in this review looking at live action Spiderman movies exclusively. Moreover, this is a review of Spiderman: Far From Home. So let me start by saying that in my heart Spiderman Far From Home is going to be right up near the top with Sam Remi Spiderman 1 and 2. That’s high praise for me. Let’s talk about it.

Sequels and Stakes

A good sequel heightens the stakes and adds complexity to the characters. This is often done by deepening the relationships between characters. That is certainly true in this movie. The best sequels in cinema history did this: Terminator 2, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and the like. Far From Home is difficult to think of this way because it’s a part of a rare property that has successfully executed a shared cinematic universe. I’m not going to go into depth about the MCU, better critics can do that. However I am going to consider how this Spiderman has grown as a result of other films he’s been in. I’m going to talk about the other films in the MCU Spiderman is in for building up this movie while also referencing Spiderman movies not in this universe. Let’s call this version of Spiderman Tom Holland Spiderman or TH Spiderman for clarity’s sake.

TH Spiderman has now appeared in five films, the most of any version of Spiderman. His first appearance in Captain America Civil War wasn’t about him but introduced us to his relationship with Tony Stark and the idea that this Spiderman would be teenage Spiderman. Let’s just all agree that TH Spiderman is a better Peter Parker than Tobey Maguire was if for no other reason than that youthfulness is a priority and a plot point. I think that is a pretty common opinion. Yes, Tom Holland actually looks like a teenager which Tobey Maguire never did; but I’m going deeper than that. TH Spiderman’s youthfulness is important to the plot and his character growth unlike any other cinematic incarnation. That’s all I really have to say about his role in Civil War. It was a fun reveal and it made me happy.

Spiderman Homecoming was revelatory. That movie did all the things you want from a Spiderman movie on the superficial levels: the suits, the action set pieces, the teen dramas and for the first time since William Dafoe’s Green Goblin, a fantastic very Spiderman villain. The reveal Peter Parker’s homecoming date is the daughter of the guy trying to kill him was next level stuff. Moreover, Homecoming set the bar high for TH Spiderman. This Spiderman is going to have a complex dad relationship with Tony Stark that proves to be unhealthy later and this Spiderman is going to trigger guttural emotions. When he’s trapped in the rubble crying out for help there is something so human and visceral in that moment that it still sticks with me. All this said, and this is a piping hot take: Homecoming isn’t better than Spiderman 3 for me. Calm down, I’ll circle back around to that.

TH Spiderman’s appearances in both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Both are not really about him and rightfully so. However both those films advance his character by upping the stakes for his personal story dramatically. Tony Stark tries to protect Peter Parker at every turn and only includes him when circumstances force him to. When TH Spiderman turns to dust it’s much more a character moment for Iron Man than it is for him; but the trauma of that is felt in Endgame when the resurrected Spiderman needs to be pulled off of dying Tony Stark. I’ve never had to watch someone die thank God, but that event is felt very sincerely for Spiderman when we reach Far From Home now.

What we go to movies for

Spiderman Far From Home is one of those sequels that is better than the original. Far From Home is better than Homecoming. While Homecoming had real great popcorn moments, none of them elevated the film beyond the plot of Spiderman 3. Yeah, we’re back to that. Spiderman 3 is not a great film. I am willing to admit that. However, the way TM Spiderman (Tobey Maguire) continues to grow by way of the Daily Bugle conflicts and his relationship with James Franco’s Harry Osborne is real as fuck even if it wasn’t executed well. His relationship with Mary Jane was real shit that real adults have to deal with in their real adult relationships… well most of us don’t have to deal with getting kidnapped several times I suppose. Homecoming was about a teenager with daddy issues. To be fair, I’ve already stated youthfulness is important to the making of TH Spiderman, but I am not a comic book reader. For me you have to develop relationships better to be a worthwhile film and TH Spiderman is really the only three-dimensional character not named Tony Stark in Homecoming. Glad we got that out of the way.

Spiderman Far From Home is elevated above Spiderman 3 and maybe even the very first TM Spiderman film for me because all the characters around TH Spiderman are fleshed out far better in this movie and Peter Parker himself grows dramatically from start to finish. What TH Spiderman accomplishes in this film is bigger than what TM Spiderman has to overcome and accomplish in at least two out of three of the Sam Remi Spiderman films. I think that is true in both the execution of the plot itself and the character growth. TH Spiderman gets over his daddy issues when Happy Hogan explains to him even Tony Stark couldn’t really be Iron Man. Acknowledging your biggest role model had flaws is an incredibly deep coming-of-age theme. More than just that, Parker is overcoming survivors guilt he has about the whole blip thing and the events of the last two movies he was in. Through all of that he truly “finds himself” in this movie and decides he’s confident enough in the identity he just discovered to really trust himself, and another human being at that, in a romantic relationship. This movie was the moment when TH Spiderman and MJ surpassed TM Spiderman and MJ for me. In this movie their romance felt so real and very much earned. TM Spiderman earned the MJ relationship too but not like this. This is next level.

I came home to my wife after seeing this movie the first time and told her it reminded me of when I fell in love with her! I’m a sappy sucker, I admit it, but this is why we go to the movies! We go to the movies to feel shit! Let me repeat that: WE GO TO THE MOVIES TO FEEL FEELINGS! Video Games make me feel stuff too, but the narrative structure of movies is designed specifically to make you feel. I felt so much during the course of this film. The way Zendaya Coleman’s Mary Jane awkwardly responds to Peter Parker awkwardly trying to get with her brought me back to being in High School feeling those same feels. When their relationship works out, I felt that so hard! No kiss in a movie has affected me so much since… well shit, when Kirsten Dunst kissed the masked Spiderman all the way back in the Sam Remi films. Chills people, chills! Do go a step deeper: vulnerability is what makes the film work.

TH Spiderman is vulnerable with Jake Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio because he thinks he needs another father figure. When Parker hands Mysterio the EDITH glasses it is his weakest, most vulnerable moment and Mysterio knows it. Mysterio (Quinten Beck) by the way is an effects artist. His specialty is literally covering up the truth and it makes so much sense because he’s a deeply pissed off character who hates that he was taken advantage of by Tony Stark. MJ pushes people away because she doesn’t want to be vulnerable. Her getting over that fear is the origin of the trust needed to make her relationship with Peter work. Frigging Happy Hogan is struggling to be totally vulnerable with Peter about his complicated (?) relationship with Aunt May. Nick Fury is pissed off the whole movie because he feels vulnerable not knowing shit anymore. That specific plot point is explained in the post-credits scene with the skrulls in a fun way. Everyone who was blipped or not blipped kind of feels vulnerable because of that giant nightmare. This film is fundamentally about finding yourself by accepting and understanding your vulnerabilities and turning them into points of confidence.

That is the essence of why Spiderman in general is such a great character. The vulnerability of youth. The vulnerability of being somewhat working class. The vulnerability of “With great power comes great responsibility”. To that end, Spiderman Far From Home is probably the best live action Spiderman film I’ve ever watched. It does Spiderman the teenage boy near perfectly. So let’s get to what you came here for: the grade.

The Grade

What I haven’t mentioned is the cinematography, script and general story is also very good. We’ve come to expect that level of quality from MCU films haven’t we? I’ve heard criticism the first half is too slow, but I disagree in that it establishes all the vulnerability stuff I mentioned and all the teen drama subplots I loved in this movie. The last time I did one of these reviews it was an A to F scale. That’s not helpful. It’s all going to be subjective and fundamentally arbitrary anyway so how about we do this: a Five-star system. Five Stars is a top film of all time, go see it immediately. Four Stars is an instant classic worth your money in theaters. Three Stars is a middling film that is enjoyable but don’t strain yourself to see it in theaters. Two Stars is just ok, don’t waste your money on it and wait for streaming. One Star is garbage that maybe worth a drinking game. Zero Stars is hot garbage you simply should not watch.

Spiderman Far From Home is a Four-Star film for me. It’s an instant classic I will try to get on DVD after seeing at least a couple times in theaters. It’s a top 5 Marvel film for me but that is a super competitive bracket. Very few films will be Five-Star for me, and I got to really think if there is a film that good in the MCU. Again, this shit is all arbitrary as all reviews of art forms are. Don’t @ me about the grade, @ me about my Spiderman takes you don’t like. I love talking movies so make a kind discussion out of it, no need to be an asshole. As Spiderman Far From Home has taught us: vulnerability is a good thing not to be afraid of.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. If you want more movie reviews I can do that. You just need to let me know in numbers if you know what I mean.

#spider-man far from home #spiderman #latest movies #movie review #film #Marvel #MCU #Peter Parker

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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How Wynonna Earp is Busting the Moonlighting Curse

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The following contains spoilers for Wynonna Earp season 4.

While we wait for Wynonna Earp to return from its COVID-instigated midseason hiatus, it seems like the perfect time to dig into one of the show’s most complicated and rich topics: The layered relationship between Wynonna Earp and Doc Holliday, and the ways in which the show has committed to telling a love story that goes beyond whether a particular pairing will get together in the end.

Far too many TV series – genre or otherwise – waste far too much screen time delaying the organic progression of their two leads’ romantic relationship. As a result, from pilot to series finale, the redundant “will they/won’t they” relationship question dominates a significant portion of the plot, as marquee couples are inevitably pulled together and pushed apart by circumstance, and the story spins its wheels, afraid to let the would-be couple take “the next step,” usually right up until the series’ final set of episodes.

This happens so often that there’s even a name for it – it’s known as the Moonlighting Curse. The name references the (honestly, incredibly incorrect) assumption that the 1980s comedy-drama Moonlighting suddenly became both boring and bad because it finally paired off its will they/won’t they leads, played by Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd after years of mining the sexual tension between the pair.

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Though the true culprit was actually bad writing, the show’s subsequent collapse in terms of both ratings and quality was ultimately blamed by many network higher-ups on the decision to finally pay off the series’ love story well before the end of the show (the characters consummated their relationship at the end of Season 3, and the series ran for two more seasons). And in the many years since, something of a cottage industry of shows has sprung up that seem to exist solely to string along the fans who invest in romance, creating an endless stream of obstacles for their marquee pairings centered around the questions of whether they will “get together” yet afraid to fully confront the idea of what writing a real, complicated relationship might look like.

Thankfully, Wynonna Earp has never been the sort of show that’s afraid of anything.

When Will Wynonna Earp Season 4 Return?

By Kayti Burt

Wynonna Earp Season 4 Belongs to Nicole Haught

By Delia Harrington

In the world of this series, the question of whether Wynonna and Doc love one another isn’t really even worth asking anymore. It’s just a simple fact. Through fights and betrayals, trips to hell, the Garden of Eden, and back again, one of the only true constants of Wynonna Earp has been that, no matter what, Doc and Wynonna are in love.

Even when one – or both – of them was romantically involved (or at least sleeping with) other people for whatever reason, their epic attachment was always bubbling in the background. Everyone in Purgatory knows what this pair means to one another, even when both have done their best to avoid the reality. Granted, neither of them is a particularly easy person to be in a relationship with, which is perhaps why they keep failing to truly get together in a lasting, healthy way despite the complete obviousness of their feelings for one another. And man is it fun to watch, proof that the “will they/won’t they” narrative structure isn’t the only or even best way to tell a love story.

Yes, the two often appear chronically incapable of even really admitting – let alone realistically talking about – their feelings for one another. But Wynonna Earp smartly doesn’t pretend those emotions don’t exist, or that they’re not driving the behavior of both characters. Instead, the show allows their relationship to become a primary driving force of the plot. The fact of their love for one another is not only taken as read, it’s used as a tool by which to further explore who they both are as individuals, in a way that will ultimately allow them to be better both for and with one another.

Both Wynonna and Doc are deeply broken people, who’ve suffered unimaginable loss and pain in their lives. Mutually riddled with trust issues, neither seems to believe they will ever find anything as normal as peace, or that they’re worthy of those they care about most. This low-key self-loathing leads both to make selfish decisions and bad choices, the kind that generally end up hurting themselves more often than they end up helping anyone else.

Because of this, Wynonna tries to drive Doc away, convinced that she doesn’t deserve real love. For his part, Doc behaves recklessly, attempting to prove he’s the monster he’s always feared becoming. (Even allowing himself to be turned into a literal monster at one point.) They argue, they make choices the other doesn’t agree with, they purposefully hurt one another when they’re angry, and they push each other away.

Yet, at no point is any of this behavior meant to make viewers wonder about the reality of their feelings for one another or whether they’ll ultimately be together or not. (No television show is ever going to abandon a couple with this kind of sexual chemistry, and we all know it.) Instead, the issues in their romance are meant to illuminate the things that Wynonna and Doc struggle with individually, and every step they each take toward figuring themselves out is also presented as a step (back) toward one another.

If that’s not incredibly romantic, I’m not sure what is.

Often, the duo have what once again feels like cosmically unfortunate timing – we’re talking like John-and-Aeryn-on-Farscape levels of bad – in which neither of them can seem to get on the same page at the same time. Season 4 is the most heartrending example of this, as their fragile reconnection is shattered when Wynonna decides to shoot Holt Clanton in the back rather than trust the tenuous peace Doc negotiates between their families.

But – again, also like the central love story of Farscape – Wynonna Earp doesn’t act as though these issues are insurmountable, or a potential death knell for the pair fans love. In fact, despite the difficulties the two are sure to face next season, it feels equally obvious that they’ll still find their way back together and work things out in the end. But only once they deal with some of their own issues first. Because I mean, let’s be real, if Doc literally becoming a vampire didn’t faze these two for longer than a handful of episodes, this isn’t likely to do so either.

Yet, the latest rift between the two still makes for supremely compelling television – not because it overtly threatens their love, but because it stems from interior character issues that have nothing to do with their relationship and that can’t be healed by a romance. Whether these two want to be together isn’t the issue here – they clearly do – it’s whether they can be right now in light of the choices they’ve both made that have nothing to do with their feelings for each other.

Wynonna’s reasons for deciding to kill Holt are understandable – if perhaps decidedly unheroic – as is Doc’s conviction that her choice is not only cowardly but will surely escalate the same blood feud that he himself now regrets starting back in Tombstone. But despite the fact that the midseason finale ends with both characters moving away from one another, physically and emotionally speaking, both are still on similar narrative journeys, questioning who they are if their previously established identities as the Earp heir and the fastest gunslinger in the West no longer apply.

Wynonna and Doc’s relationship has taken something of a backseat in Season 4 thus far, allowing Wynonna Earp to center WayHaught’s story and explore Nicole’s lingering trauma from the eighteen months in which she had to survive in Purgatory on her own. But the pairing still feels as necessary and relevant to the story the show is telling as they ever have been. And, despite their current situation, it seems more obvious than ever that their paths will ultimately not only lead back to one another but to better versions of them both. This isn’t a will they/won’t they question so much as a matter of how and when.

Wyndoc is the grand and (thus far) tragic love story of the Ghost River Triangle, a star-crossed pair who share a child, a complicated family entanglement going back hundreds of years, and a love of continual self-sacrifice in the name of others. (And also, they hunt demons!) But Wynonna Earp isn’t content to simply throw up unnecessary narrative obstacles in their path for the sake of dragging out a happily ever after. Instead, the show acknowledges Doc and Wynonna’s obvious feelings, while simultaneously asking why they can apparently do anything together but figure out how to love one another the way they both deserve.

This sort of romantic introspection – and acknowledgment that love really doesn’t instantly conquer all – is an important and often ignored part of a couple’s story, and can be just as compelling as the will they/won’t they dance that many other pairings before Wyndoc have been forced to engage in. It takes work – on yourself and on your relationship – to build something that really lasts, and Wynonna Earp’s decision to show us that that can be something really ugly and uncomfortable is as important as the happily ever after part we fantasize about. Wynonna and Doc will absolutely find their way back together again – but this time they’ll be stronger for it when they do.

The post How Wynonna Earp is Busting the Moonlighting Curse appeared first on Den of Geek.

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