#neil gaiman validate me challenge

[thedreadvampy]

I think a huge amount of my issue with how people (leftoids) recieve (leftist, countercultural or similarly aligned) art online is:

a) a lot of it seems to be based on a perceived failure of the art to live up to some radical ideal of Changing The World. this is an issue to me because I don't think art is for changing the world. creating art isn't an act of direct revolutionary praxis the way like, blowing up pipelines or drafting new legislation or building mutual aid networks are. art is there to change you so you can change the world. no art whether it's Disney Film #284367 or some indie antiart installation piece is sufficiently threatening to the status quo in and of itself to Be The Revolution - revolution comes about through connection and unification and art can help us do that. or can help us believe in fucked up shit. but like. it's happening in us not in the art. getting mad bc a piece of art isn't Sufficiently Changing The World is missing the point imo. the question is does it change you?

b) the closer a piece of art is to challenging the hegemonic art institution the more critical we are of it, and I don't think that's down to corporate capture or a failure to notice the institutional issues as much as that people's reactions to institutional art is 'well what can you expect' whereas there's a much more personal betrayal from indie or countercultural art sources. a version of this might be how people have responded to shitty corporate exploitation and abuse at say CDPR vs Ubisoft, or to the value of art made by A24 vs Disney. Or like, in general the reception to artists like Neil Gaiman or Amanda Palmer or Lil Nas X or Rebecca Sugar or Contrapoints who are engaging imperfectly but nonetheless engaging with stuff like race, sexuality, gender, colonialism, capitalist power etc. Like the criticisms levelled are usually valid, it's not that they're wrong or necessarily disproportionate, it's that there much more often levelled at people who are trying to say something we broadly agree on than they are at people who aren't. you know? and I think it's a fatigue thing. like the entire mainstream arts establishment is fucked and full of people and institutions who hold awful beliefs or have done awful things and we can't get mad at all of them. but the annoying impact of that is that collectively that energy seems to land more with, you know, Taika Waititi than Mel Gibson. More with A24 than Marvel Studios. More with Contrapoints than The Quartering.

like we give more critique to artists we expect more of and that's fair enough. except a) this is the internet so it's often not really so much critique as CANCELLED CANCELLED CANCELLED NONE OF YOU ARE FREE FROM SIN but also b) idk. it feels like when we're waiting for the Perfect Piece Of Radical Art To Lead The Revolution and will accept no less from any art that tries to make any kind of critique of the world as it is, but don't hold the same expectations towards art which is fully hegemonically aligned and within the expected norms, what we've ended up with is a world where

let's say for example

a fun murder mystery about evil rich people defeated by the cleverness of a working class heroine is Bad because it criticised capitalism and racism in a broadstrokes and milquetoast liberal way that won't Change The World, and this makes it Counterrevolutionary Pro Capitalist Propaganda That Is Making You Stupid

but a Disney film about how the US military is great actually and the only problem with it is that you don't believe hard enough in yourself!!!! and in reifying that punching things will fix the world and anyone trying to enact change from the status quo is de facto evil regardless of how correct their complaints are? that's just a fun film, it's Disney, you can't expect it to be radical, just have fun!

Idk it's very wearing.

#red said

[thereallovebug]

Here’s a very good article about queer representation in Good Omens (especially season 2) and it makes many valid points.

HOWEVER, I take issue with two of the author’s statements. Here’s the first:

“Good Omens doesn’t need overt coming-out scenes or direct declarations of love. Its queerness is baked in and impossible to miss when Crowley tells Aziraphale, “I’ll give you a lift, anywhere you want to go” and “we could go off together”. (Bold emphasis mine)

Uh, I hate to break it to anyone but heteronormativity is a hell of a drug and a lot (I dare say most) str8 people absolutely need queer declarations of love spelled out for them in plain English or they will excuse what they see and hear with “They’re just best friends! It’s a buddy-bromance show!” yadda, yadda.

Some fans did challenge NG for not having any plainly spelled-out declarations of love after season 1 with his answering them like this:

So yeah, not completely obvious to everyone.

The article also said this:

“he (meaning Gaiman) has never tried to retcon queerness into his work.”

Oh, I don’t know about that:

He says this now, but I doubt when he and Terry wrote the book in 1989 they intended Aziraphale and Crowley to be one of the “love stories.” (Have y’all actually read the book?) Queer love stories were just not on the radar of most str8 authors in those days, but if it makes him feel better to say so now, go ahead Neil, pull the other one.

Don’t get me wrong - I did enjoy and agree with most of this article but those two statements did make me roll my eyes a bit! 🙄 😆

#good omens #good omens2 #good omens book #queer rep in media

[dukeofriven]

Today in The Continuing Adventures of People Saying Fucking Unhinged Shit To Neil Gaiman:

In a post already fetid with fan fiction brain rot, the sentence "Just quick reminder, in case you've forgotten: TV shows are supposed to save us from hurtful reality" is peak "art shouldn't challenge people because they're incapable of surviving it." In case you've forgotten, all I want is pablum, daddy. Only give me my baby pablum so I can smear it on my face and feel good wallowing in my watery gruel. The counter-argument to the idea of 'escapist' fiction is that 'escapist fiction' got us into this mess. We've spent the last half century burrowing into a murk of safe, bland, un-challenging comfort entertainment and while the world got worse and worse on our watch we burrowed deeper, which is how you get a group of people angry at the writer's strike because they use television shows for their 'mental health' and, thus, labour standing up for itself is well actually abelist neurotypical oppression of the neurodivergent. There's plenty of way to critique negative storytelling, discomforting plot twists, or needless narrative tragedy—the decade+ since Game of Thrones has made us endure a glut of edgy bloodsoaked snore-fests—but 'comfort fic is the only valid expression of television as a medium' is fucking unhinged.

...

.. For Christ's sake, I don't even like Good Omens...

#good omens #neil gaiman

[a-zira-fell]

Never have I galaxy-brained harder.

Aziraphale.

#good omens #crowley #disco #good omens edit #video edit #crowley good omens #dancing #disco crowley #moskau #there is simply no better song for this scene #neil gaiman validate me challenge #fanvid #david tennant #michael sheen #good omens amazon #1k #5k #10k

[celpheres]

Yes gay erasure is real, yes is fucking annoying and yes fuck every single franchise that lured us in and took away our representation at the last minute (Disney I'm looking at you) but i felt that good omens wasn't erasure or queerbating and this is not me picking a fight with you im interested in what you think, but Aziraphale and Crowley are not human, they are two supernatural entities, they do not work as we do, they dont think like we do, is it really that impossible that they love differently? Things like gender, sexuality, relationships and romantic attraction are human concepts, they are not humans (sure they pass as men because they have to blend in with humanity it's not like that can say they are angel or demon and if being a woman is challenging now i can't even imagine how it was back then ) , their relationship cannot be held with the same standard as ours, i mean sure it's fun and everything to fantasize in fanfiction but at the end of the day we don't even know If angels or demons do relationships you know? Maybe for them is a thing only for humans as for us mating dances are just for animals. But that leads me to my other point, they love each other, both Michael Sheen and Neil Gaiman have said that yes , they do love each other, good omens is a love story. Love comes in many ways and it's manifested in many more, it's kinda offensive to see that people need to touch or to be intimate or do romantic gestures for their love to be validated no one can invalidate your love because it doesn't matches their, people would always tell me that i didn't love my partners because of the lack of physical affection and romantic gestures and it always made me feel so frustrated and insulted because I did love them, i loved them so much but i had no way to " prove it" in front of them. I'm an aromantic bisexual, erasure is something I'm very familiar with. On one side all the bi erasure, people saying that you are just confused, that you are "on your way to being fully gay" or whatever that means or saying that you are just joining the trend and in a few years you will grow out of it, people saying that you are just an straight that wants "attention " it's insulting, it's condescending and i hate it. And i also hate when in media they do all their stupid show just so at the end they can say nah you thought lmao they are just friends fuck that but at the same time I'm aromantic, i love differently. I don't experience romantic attraction, yet i still love people, i love them so much and that's why it makes me so angry when people refuse to acknowledge a relationship or the love of two people just because it doesn't matches their alloromantic concept of love and it makes me sick. And no, the "right person" won't change my ability to feel romantic attraction, they will accept just the way I am. These two parts of me are often kinda conflicted when consuming media because on one side fuck you and your erasure if they were different sex they would have definitely kissed there and on the other side fuck you and your erasure that don't need to do anything to " prove" their love. To me both arguments can contradict each other and coexist at the same time i mean they are both problems that affect real people saying is more valid than the other it's kinda stupid, it's not a competition after all .

(I have no nerves for a discourse, so if anyone wants to add something, do it only if you have to.)

About the “they’re not humans” part: The entire point of the story is that they turn more and more human over time. They get used to human traditions and human understandings of things and associate themselves with it more and more. So this is not really a reason to me.

It is true what you say about love. Romantic love is not the only love wich exists, I love many people without loving them romantically. And it’s just as true what you say about asexual relationships.

And you know, it works the other way around too. Kissing / physical affection can exist without romantic relationships, why does nobody talk about that? They don’t need to be in love to hug or kiss.

The problem is not the headcanons regarding them being aro/ace.

But many (not all) people act like their relationship needs to be aro/ace to be special. They have to be a nonbinary couple to be special. Because allo gay couples aren’t special and are boring. A kiss would’ve been cringe. More touching would’ve been boring. Because it would be “NoT sPeCiAl” if they kissed or touched.

This is homophobic, and completely tunnel-sighted. Every relationship is special, every relationship is unique. No matter how much physical affection you share or don’t share.

They are an earthly angel and demon, come on. It is a special relationship in any way.

Also, why is the fandom assuming that Mr. Shadwell and Madame Tracy are in a romantic relationship? Have they ever mentioned being in love? Or what about the Them? They clearly love each other in a non-romantic way. Why would it be aro/ace erasure to show a gay couple of an angel and demon in addition? Isn’t the entire point that it shouldn’t be allowed that they’re showing affection to each other?

My point is, not all of the people who headcanon them as aro/ace are being problematic. But acting like homosexuality doesn’t exist and is something boring and not as special as an ace or nonbinary couple is not okay. They’re all special. They should all have representation. But not trough a couple wich already implements two males (as mentioned countless times in the script), who don’t come too close to each other because of a safety measure.

#good omens #aziraphale #crowley #ineffable husbands #ask #anon #meta #good omens meta

[k-s-morgan]

What would you tell someone who keeps hearing that shipping as a concept is stupid.. whether canon or not. That fan-fiction is dumb and romance is bad and fantasising unrealistic things is stupid.. I feel somehow media also wants to portray it that way, attaching negative connotations. Why do I have to love so many things in extreme privacy, like some shameful secret..

Hi! I’m very sorry to hear you’re going through this - the fact that anyone should feel ashamed of having a harmless hobby is outrageous as hell, my blood boils at the mere thought of it. Since I don’t know your specific circumstances, I’ll give a more general type of advice and I hope it’ll be able to help at least a little bit. I know it helped me in a similar situation.

Our society is shitty, there is no question there. Many people are hypocritical as hell, and whatever you say, they are unlikely to change their minds. So the most important thing is to understand that the hobbies/genres/types of fiction you love are valid and try to emanate this confidence when challenged. It can be displayed in different ways - you could provide objective facts to educate specific assholes, simply state your opinion in cold and condescending voice, or even stare someone down as if what they’ve said is so pathetic that you aren’t going to bother with replying. In RL, I used the second and the third methods, and they were always efficient. But let’s start with facts.

1) Fanfiction is a completely valid type of literature that existed for more than a hundred of years. Pastiche, for example, is treated seriously by the majority, yet it can be easily viewed as a type of fanfiction that’s being published officially. Writing is writing, skills are skills. World-famous writers like Neil Gaiman write fanfiction; more than that, fanfiction is a much more honest and lively kind of fiction. 

When you publish a book, unless you have editors, a stable base of readers, and money for marketing, you have no idea how you are doing as you’re writing. You don’t hear the readers’ opinion on each chapter, you don’t interact with them, you don’t see their theories. You are writing in void, and when you are done, chances are, you’ll be met with nit-picking, hostility, a few short generic reviews, or more silence. Many writers try to correspond to market standards: for many of them, a beloved creation turns into a business product that must have this and that element to have a better selling potential. With fanfiction, people are writing simply because they love writing. They care about the characters first and foremost, they write what feels right emotionally, and they receive feedback that encourages them and helps them grow. Fanfiction gives so many opportunities that its value just cannot be overestimated. 

2) Romance is a genre. A genre can’t be bad, you either are interested in it or you aren’t. Every genre has masterpieces and its group of fans, and shitting on it is the same as shitting on a chocolate ice-cream if you don’t like it and prefer a strawberry one instead. So really, if someone tries to say that romance is dumb or bad, this isn’t even worthy of a reply.

3) If someone told me that fantasizing about unrealistic things is stupid, I’d just snort and laugh out loud. Just direct such person to the closest bookshop or cinema. If someone isn’t aware of what fiction is and what it’s for, they lack some basic life education and you shouldn’t be the one to provide them with it.

4) If someone tells you that shipping is dumb, ask whether they think football, baseball, box, etc. are dumb. Like, it’s literally people watching other people play with the ball, punching each other, or trying to outrun each other. If that classifies as an acceptable hobby, why shouldn’t shipping be? Most people can relate to the idea of wanting to love and to be loved, to overcome all obstacles, and as such. Watching characters do it is fascinating. Rooting for a couple to get together is the same as rooting for a character to conquer the throne. Different plot elements, the same nature of interest. 

But in my case, I never bothered to explain all this to anyone. There were times when I felt ashamed of admitting I’m reading and writing fanfiction, so I lied when asked about it. I was one of those girls who loved Twilight even before the series got popular, and then I started to feel so ashamed that I pretended I hated it and began to ridicule it. Fortunately, my family helped me get back on track, which is when I got angry. My confidence returned, and I became fiercely protective of my hobbies - Twilight included, btw.

I just started using the ice-look on anyone promoting any kind of ignorant nonsense. Now, if anyone tells me how dumb fanfiction is, I just raise my eyebrow and drawl, “Right...” in the most condescending and derisive tone. Most people feel wrong-footed and try to offer some weak arguments. I may reply with a few mentioned facts, but usually, I just end the conversation by saying, “Maybe you should learn more about this before you embarrass yourself even more. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about and I’m not in the mood to educate you, so let’s finish this discussion.” It works every time.

I understand it might not apply to you - maybe you are surrounded by hostility that can get physical if you voice your real thoughts. If so, then I just hope that one day, you’ll move away from this toxic circle of people and surround yourself with someone worthier. Most importantly, remember that there is nothing to be ashamed of here. Love what you love, be proud of it, discuss it with like-minded people, and try to ignore the assholes. They are not worth your time. 

#fanfiction

[writingessance]

Adult Fiction Is Really Good Actually!! ~a book recommendation list~

So, I’ve seen a lot of posts recently about why not to read adult fiction. And people who don’t enjoy adult fiction are valid! But you may find yourself in a situation where you can no longer enjoy books. This may be because young adult novels are simpler! This isn’t a bad thing, in fact one of my personal dreams is to have a custom leather-bound copy of the entire Percy Jackson series all signed. But its important to challenge yourself. So, for those who don’t know where to start with adult fiction I have a few recommendations.

We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia

This book is a great for those going from YA to adult fiction. Fantasy and steampunk elements make this spy novel really shine. It’s brilliantly written with beautiful imagery and striking themes. The basic plot is that Dani is an illegal alien who’s doing everything she can to make her parents proud. Between arranged marriages, political intrigue, and a forbidden romance with her husband’s other wife you’ll be sure to be ensnared by this book.

Rest Under Cut

 Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Prachett

This book really takes the cake for being nothing like its show adaption. The show is good don’t get me wrong! But the book is very different. In reality the book takes the apocalypse day by day breaking down everything from the Antichrists birth to the four horsemen reuniting. This book is stylistically unique, if your looking for something to improve your writing skills. This is your book.

 The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Another Neil Gaiman book! This book is short and deals with themes of childhood whimsy and growing up. I can’t really explain the plot of this book because most of it is best read for yourself. What you need to know that by the end you be saying ‘wow’.

St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell

If the title doesn’t intrigue you this book won’t be good for you. This is a bit different from the others because it’s a collection of short stories. All of which follow similar themes with a hint of magic and whimsy. I suggest this book for any writer wishing to advance their style.

 Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

Now some would argue this isn’t adult fiction. I would argue it very much is and honestly you probably shouldn’t have been exposed to the podcast at age like twelve. If you DON’T know what this is or just haven’t read it I super suggest you do!!! It has some of the most interesting and creative narration of all time and it manages to still be a comedy and a horror. It spins eldritch horror in a truly unique way. And if you haven’t listened to the podcast I very much recommend it.

#book recs #book reviews #writeblr #writing #creative writing #adult fiction #genre fiction #Young adult #YA

[calimera62]

Challenge “Sous l’Océan”

Depuis toujours, l’océan et ses créatures (qu’elles soient réelles ou imaginaires) me fascinent. Ce n’est pourtant que récemment que j’ai eu l’idée d’en faire un challenge qui pourra regrouper d’autres amoureux.ses de l’océan et de son univers, ou tout simplement des curieux.ses !

🦀 Le but :

Lire des livres en rapport avec la mer, l’océan, les aquariums, les créatures aquatiques mythiques ou bien réelles, et de s’amuser ! Les films peuvent également être pris en compte.

C’est un challenge qui dure un an d’abord, pour tester et voir s’il attire du monde. Pour le moment, une année me semble raisonnable car l’océan est un vaste monde et il en faut du temps pour l’explorer !

Durée du 1er janvier 2020 au 1er janvier 2021.

Le challenge se compose des trois catégories ci-dessous.

🐙 Les catégories :

Il existe trois catégories que vous pouvez sélectionner en fonction de ce qui vous attire le plus :

🐚 Expédition marine

Si vous êtes de nature aventureuse et que vous préférez partir en voyage en mer, si vous aimez les histoires de matins ou de pirates avec leurs chasses au trésor, et que vous préférez monter dans un bateau ou dans un sous-marin.

Exemples de titres : 

L’île au trésor, RL Stevenson / 20 000 lieues sous les mers, Jules Verne / Moby Dick, Herman Melville / L’Odyssée, Homère / Les sœurs de l’océan, Lucy Clarke / Insula Serpilor : L’île des serpents, Medhi Marion / Lullaby, Le Clézio / Pirates des Caraïbes (films) / Pirates, Michael Crichton / etc 🐚 Sirènes et monstres marins

Si vous êtes curieux.ses de découvrir quel genre de créatures se cache sous l’eau mais que l’on dit mythiques ou imaginaires, si vous espérez rencontrer une sirène, le Kraken, Cthulhu, le monstre du Loch ness ou d’autres créatures mythologiques en rapport avec les fleuves, la mer ou l’océan !

Exemples de titres : 

La petite sirène, Andersen / La Sirène, Kiera Cass / L’Héritage des Syrénas, Anna Banks / Le Royaume de Lénacie, Priska Poirier / Le chant des sirènes, recueil / Sirène, Tricia Rayburn / Les Gardiens de l’Océan, Irène Salvador / La chose des profondeurs, Matthew J. Costello / Le grand serpent de mer, Andersen / Kraken, China Miéville / Kraken, Emiliano Pagani / Dans les eaux troubles du Loch Ness, Gilles Vincent / La Forme de l’Eau (film) / etc

🐚 Le Grand Bleu

Si la mer ou l’océan vous attire, que les animaux marins vous enchantent, ou que vous aimez visiter les lacs ou aquariums, sans pour autant partir en expédition maritime ou partir à la recherches de créatures imaginaires…Sont inclus des histoires criminelles, histoires de famille ou histoires d’amour sous fond marin, des études sur l’océan et sa protection, des documentaires sur les animaux marins, etc.

Exemples de titres : 

L’Odyssée (film) / Océans (film) / L’homme des vagues, Hugo Verlomme / Aquarium, David Vann / Bulle ou la voix de l’océan, René Fallet / L’océan au bout du chemin, Neil Gaiman / La fille de l’océan, Alexis Aubenque / Une vie entre deux océans, M.L. Stedman / Le vent des vaisseaux, Renée Vivien / Le prince des profondeurs, Peter Godfrey-Smith / etc

🐋 Comment ça se passe ?

Vous avez la possibilité de valider le challenge de trois façons différentes :

Nageur débutant Vous validez une catégorie complète (avec ses deux sous-menus), soit un total de deux livres (ou deux films) Comme un poisson dans l’eau Vous validez un sous-menu dans les trois catégories, ce qui fait un total de trois livres (ou de trois films)

Passionné.e de l’océan Vous validez deux catégories (4 livres), voire les trois (six livres/films)

🐬 En bonus :

Vous pouvez, si vous le désirez, partager avec l’ensemble des participants sur votre blog d’une musique ou d’une poésie liée à la mer ou l’océan ou bien parler d’une plage ou d’un aquarium que vous avez visité et adoré. Ce n’est pas obligatoire, ce n’est qu’un petit plus pour ceux et celles que ça pourrait intéresser !

🐠 Quelques informations à savoir :

→ Je prends en compte tout type de livre : romans, ebooks, bandes-dessinées, mangas, contes, poésie, beaux livres, etc.

→ Je prends également en compte les films, fiction ou documentaire, et pourquoi pas les séries tv.

→ Certains livres peuvent regrouper plusieurs des menus cités ci-dessus, si bien qu’on peut se demander où se donner de la tête. Comment y remédier ? J’avais pensé que si, admettons, vous avez déjà lu un livre sur les sirènes et que vous en lisez un autre sur les sirènes mais comprenant des monstres marins, il pourra entrer dans le sous-menu « Des monstres sous l’eau », pour citer un exemple.

Les inscriptions se font ici. Choisissez votre catégorie et votre ou vos menus et, si vous le désirez, faites un article à ce sujet sur votre blog mais ce n’est pas obligatoire.

Vous pouvez me signaler vos articles ici ou sur mon blog afin que je puisse le rajouter à la liste.

Je suis également présente sur Twitter, donc vous pouvez aussi partager vos chroniques avec le hastag #ChallengeOcean.

Bon challenge à toutes et à tous !

#challenge #challenge littéraire #upthebaguette #challenge océan #mer #océan #livres

[not-a-space-alien]

hey its me again wall of text sorry not sorry

k i saw your little treatise justifying zadr and yknow its a cartoon its not the worst thing ever of course nobody is gonna sue you for reblogging fanart or burn you at the stake or w/e and im glad you decided to open yourself up to a differing opinion but zim IS portrayed as an adult. there was even an unfinished episode where zim’s childhood and growing up training from start to finish would be shown so by the time of the pilot he is definitely a full grown developed adult by irken standards especially if hes a former member of an elite military force like the invaders. jhonen has said that the irony and sad comedy of zims character is that hes a grown ass man and a war veteran to boot who VOLUNTARILY goes to an elementary school every day and throws hands with an 11 year old boy who should be well below his notice because he’s that pathetic and desperate for validation that he’ll stoop to seeking it from a child. it also sets up a dynamic between them where dib is CHALLENGED by having to go up against an adult with way more experience than him while dib is just a child, so when he wins its more meaningful, which is a common trope in childrens fiction that an underdog young hero has to take down a powerful adult villain.

jhonen might joke a lot but he’s serious about this part of the characterization of zim and dib and he even went to great lengths to make dib look and act more like a kid in ETF (more emotional and naive, designed to look smaller/softer, going in depth with his relationship to his dad and sister and needing his dad to protect him at the end when he’s too overrun to fight alone) just to drive home the point of how young he is. it was a very deliberate move and jhonen knows what hes doing ESPECIALLY since he also left zim pretty much unchanged and also includes gags about zim’s relative maturity like animating him briefly grimacing because his joints are sore and the part where he pretty much gestures to his crotch and goes “theyre afraid to look at ALL-A THIS”. like you would not see jhonen do that sort of joke with an underage character ok. dont confuse his social awkwardness and self deprecating/trolling humor for not knowing the difference between right and wrong and not acknowledge when he means something sincerely because he doesn’t just clown on people and troll ALL THE TIME 24/7 hes a human, and times have changed with more awareness on issues such as the grooming of minors so he can go back on things he may have said in the past that he doesn’t agree with now or said by mistake. he has said enough times that zim is older than any human alive that its safe to take his word for it by now. judging by the one strip he did in JTHM about johnny murdering a pedophile who was about to prey on squee i think his stance on protecting kids is pretty clear. also i wouldnt put it past jhonen to have redesigned membrane to be more chaddy looking to divert the adult fandom’s attention away from dib and throw the fangirls a bone but thats a whole nother can of worms lol.

and the justification that zim is immature so hes essentially on dib’s level is a reversal of something lots of kids hear from either creepy or ignorant adults who tell them theyre “so mature for their age”. no matter how emotionally mature you are it wont ever compensate for the number of years youve been alive so that’s not very sound logic, and even in fic where theyre both adults it’s still pretty weird because it doesn’t erase their history where zim knew dib as a kid. that’s sort of like a grownup waiting with bated breath until a kid is “legal” so they can start dating. kinda like when jacob imprints on bella’s newborn daughter in twilight then having it handwaved away by saying he’ll wait till she’s grown up, which understandably drew a huge amount of criticism. it’s a loophole that might be mildly acceptable in some cases but the context leaves it colored with a residual ickiness that sets off some red flags for me and a lot of other people.

also you said zim is an alien and therefore the situation itself is unrealistic, but the reason invader zim’s writing resonates with people is because zim is written with very HUMAN emotions and motivations and part of the humor again is how irkens despite being aliens from another planet mirror some of humanity’s worst flaws such as being petty, gluttonous, willfully ignorant, arrogantly believing they are special and better than everyone else, easily manipulated by propaganda, all too eager to greedily colonize other societies etc making them not so different from us at all. so the premise out of context might not seem realistic but the idea of a sad burnout adult who doesn’t realize how humiliating it is to be consistently outsmarted by a kid less than half their age IS realistic and applicable to human interaction since we’ve likely all met someone like this before at one point in our lives for example a schoolteacher who has a personal vendetta against one or more of their students and has nothing better to do than antagonize them, or a really dumb parent that you fight with a lot.

another thing, i know you and other fans probably have a lot of sentimental value and nostalgia attached to zadr because you probably shipped it back when you were a kid yourself and you cant be blamed for something you liked as a kid, but youre an adult now, and you have to listen to the portion of kids in the fandom who dont like zadr and say without question that the age gap makes them uncomfortable. those kids ARE the priority. we’re grown up now and we have to put our feelings aside for them because that’s part of being responsible and mature. i feel like zim himself is a pretty good example of how not to act at our age [shrug emoji]

and anyway a lot of the same elements of zadr can be explored with zadf just as well with just as much potential for cute moments and as a bonus is it’s not creepy

You do bring up some good points, and I’m not saying you’re wrong...  But honestly I’m still not convinced.  I mean, stuff that Jhonen said, the thing is even if it’s the author saying it it’s still outside of canon, that’s the reason why Neil Gaiman got flack for Good Omens because they didn’t write an actual kiss or hug or hand-hold between Aziraphale and Crowley yet Neil Gaiman went on Twitter saying they were queer representation.  I still don’t really put much stock into what he says because the unfinished episodes and Jhonen’s commentary don’t really change the dynamic that’s actually in the show.  And again...Jhonen said if there were going to be romance in the show it would be Zim/Gaz, so he’s either a huge hypocrite or doesn’t view Zim as being incompatible with Gaz.

I do think it’s much better when Dib is an adult and it just makes more sense, and I actually do prefer zadf to zadr and if i were going to ever write fanfiction or make fanart it would probably just be zadf, just because i know this does have some stuff to think about and I totally respect that you have a different view of it, but i honestly just don’t see it that way.  The analogy with Jacob imprinting on Bella’s child in Twilight isn’t really the same thing honestly.  The author in that situation tried to make it not......that....by saying that imprinting isn’t always a romantic relationship thing, and that Jacob would be more of an older brother, but honestly that doesn’t really negate the impact of grooming that kid would have with Jacob around.  The idea that Zim would somehow be grooming Dib seems really silly to me although you’re right, I think his characterization in Into the Florpus has evolved somewhat especially with regard to Dib wanting to get his father’s approval, but again Zim has parallels with that in trying to please the Tallest.  the world-building and characterizations are inconsistent and scattershot at best.  Like no, zim isn’t waiting for him to turn legal, that’s absurd, they’re nemeses coming at each other then learning to be friends.  You’re right that that doesn’t have to be zadr but I still tag it as zadr so people can block it if they want to.

Like, I’ve seen people ship Zim with Professor Membrane instead of Dib.  That seems very weird to me.  that professor membrane would have a relationship with someone who literally goes to his son’s elementary school and who doesn’t know anything at all about human behavior and emotions.

I feel like with this discussion people don’t really understand the problem with age gaps. With age gaps, it’s not a matter of mature/immature, it’s about development.  A ten year age gap sounds like a lot right?  a 25-year-old and a 15-year old would absolutely have a predatory “relationship.”  But a 35- and a 45-year old, that’s perfectly fine.  Having a difference in age doesn’t automatically make the relationship unhealthy.  so if Dib is 25 and Zim is [whatever the hell aliens years i still don’t really take Jhonen’s word for it bc he’s not consistent], that’s doesn’t mean it has to be bad.  The thing about telling minors they’re “so mature for their age” to try and convince them that a person interested in them isn’t a pedophile is that we know a human being who is 15 isn’t developmentally at the same level as a 25-year-old regardless of their behavior.  What is Zim?  All we have to go on is how he acts, and he acts like Dib is an equal match, it’s not “he’s immature for his age,” it’s very unclear.  Raw number of years isn’t the ultimate decider, for example in DnD lore elves reach maturity at, like, 100 years old so a 25-yo human trying to get with a 50-year-old elf would be predatory to the young elf even though the “younger” one is technically twice as old as the human.  Do you see what I’m saying?

I also don’t really buy the idea that Invader Zim’s writing resonates with people because Zim is ~~so human~~.  The guy steals a bunch of kid’s organs in one episode and flies into a tantrum over the slightest inconvenience.  You have to be reading really deeply into it and dig into some old internet archives of things Jhonen Vasquez has said to paint it as realistic.  You can do some interesting things with it wrt like, Zim being defective and starting to experience human emotions but that’s mostly fanon.

Well, you’ve given me some things to think about, thanks for explaining your side to me.  I’m still going to tag things as #zadr so people can block if it can’t plausibly be categorized as zadf.  I’m not actually making any fan content for Invader Zim so the point is kind of moot, but if I ever do I’ll definitely take this into consideration.

#invader zim #zadr #submission

[the-apples-were-monitored]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Good Omens (TV) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens) Characters: Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley (Good Omens) Summary:

Aziraphale and Crowley rewritten as women, navigating history and each other. Based on a post I made that accidentally turned into this Aziraphale and Crowley Lesbian AU. Changing their genders changed a lot about this story, but mostly it remained the same. Written from the perspective of someone who read the book once 8 years ago and recently watched the Amazon series so I have kept a lot of scenes intact (and decided I liked the idea of Crowley as a redhead after Tennant's portrayal).

...

So I recently reread the book and decided that I did just fine with this lmao. Gonna be gradually reposting some of my fics on here since I’m now in quarantine (a coworker tested positive) and the only thing that distracts me from anxiety is validation lmao.

...

“So what are you doing traveling all alone? And through Samaritan country, no less?” Crowley asked, finally. “No weapons, no anything.”

“I have no use for weapons.”

“The question still stands.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“I know you can, but you clearly won’t. You didn’t even initiate violence with those scoundrels til I opened the door to it. You’re too good, angel. Too soft.”

“And you? You’re only too willing to cut a man down in cold blood, I suppose.”

“I resent the accusation,” Crowley replied, wearily. “I actually...resent quite a few things. Just because I’m a demon doesn’t mean I relish in violence. I find the whole thing quite tiresome.”

“And just because I’m an angel doesn’t mean I’m too soft to take care of myself. I’ll have you know that I do quite well on my own - no weapons needed. Got into a scrape in Mongolia recently, and though I’m not proud of it I doubt they’ll be bothering anyone ever again.”

Crowley raised her eyebrows. “Sounds serious.”

“It rather was. Drastic times, and all that…”

Another short silence fell.

“So why, then?” Crowley asked. “Why, if you’re willing to go that far, didn’t you?”

“I was nurturing the hope that rescue would come to me first. Though I do have to admit that I wasn’t counting on it being you. Was hoping for a kind passer by to take pity on a lady.”

Crowley laughed. “A kind passer by? Here? What, you were counting on a good Samaritan?”

Aziraphale laughed as well. “Does sound sort of ridiculous when you put it like that. Though you shouldn’t stereotype.”

Crowley shook her head. “A good Samaritan. There is no such animal.”

God took that as a personal challenge.

Aziraphale slowly got serious again. “But really. Why save me?”

Crowley didn’t immediately answer. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“We’re hereditary enemies,” Aziraphale reminded her.

“Still.”

“Could’ve left me to die - expect that would make things easier for you.”

“Don’t think it would, actually.”

#posting again because i'm in need of validation and acting desperate lmao #ignore me #good omens

[momo-de-avis]

Do you have any writing tips for someone that is definitely not a writer but wants to be better at writing anyway? That might be too vague so I'll say this, I have a lot of trouble getting an idea that isn't either something really small that doesn't make a narrative or something gigantic and complicated that I dont have the will to take on. No middle sliders in my life.

You have an issue my boyfriend has, he has great ideas but either believes they’re just something too small for a long narrative or so long and complex he doesn’t know how to plot them.

I can’t tell you what the right way is, because everyone is different of course, but I think there’s two ways you can go about it to try and figure out which might help you best.

First of all, take notes on every idea you have. I’m serious. However small it seems, just write it down. Even if it’s something as trivial as ‘man eats an apple while staring at a tree’, whatever. I find that, when something really tiny like that pops into my head with that thing of ‘dang, I need to write this’ but it just seems way too trivial for me to care, it’s because of how I’m visualizing it. I’ll tell you this, this one time I was having a cup of coffee near the library after a break and I saw this woman in the gardens looking at a tree, and that’s what gripped me in that moment. It was really stupid, but the thing I saw was what made me explore that for some reason. I thought she looked sad, I don’t know why, it just looked really sad, and it looked like that sad woman just casually looked up at a cypress tree like she wanted to see something pretty on a shitty day. Later on, must have been years, I was trying to write a scene where a character was supposed to compose a text for school about why she mattered and the only thing that came to mind was that woman looking up at that tree. I’m telling you this because the littlest thing can really help. If you get that unexpected pang of ‘damn, this is cool’ or ‘wow, this is really pretty’, take the chance to write down the what and why at least. Because you never know! 

Now, as for development, there’s two ways to go about it that might help you. You can explore the character-driven side of narrative, or the plot-driven. These are, I’ll be honest, two things I have a hard time distinguishing but I mostly follow character-driven.

Plot-driven stuff generally has people planning beforehand (hence why I suck at it lmao). Some people follow the 3 Act structure, or other ways to go about it with planning (this is a good place to check out a few). As the name says, the plot is the star. There is a narrative you want to develop. There’s a central plot with probably very little sub-plots, but that one plot is the main goal. Most likely, one protagonist or two, both with goals that they will achieve or not at the end.

Character-driven, though... the characters make the story. It’s really hard to explain, so I’ll explain how I do it. I essentially have to have the characters very well established. Who they are, psychologically. Once I know them, I let the story flow naturally.

This has helped me a lot because most of the times I have a premise, not a plot, and on my first draft (not even a first draft, more like preliminary exercise lmao), I just try that approach to try and understand who these characters are or what I want them to be, so that they can move the story. Eventually, what happens is I have the inciting incident settled, the lowpoint as well or just something in the middle that is a plot device, and the ending established, but as I progress, since I know the characters, new things emerge like, completely new conflicts and reactions that just occur to me as I progress. But this is my method, it’s how I work.

For me, personally, sitting down just TRYING to find a plot, or an extra for the already existing plot, is tiresome and it drains me. So I just go ahead and do something and see where it goes. I follow the character instead of the plot (ask stuff like “what would she do if a stranger bumped into her on the subway, what should do if she witnessed this or that, what would she say if someone asked her this and that”, and go from there).

Another thing is: find your voice. I mean mostly style. I find that most of the times people struggle with this because they are struggling with finding their style, because once you get your voice established it might become easier in developing your story. For example, I always loved bullshitting my way through stuff if it involves words lmao, and when it came to creating long stories, I had an issue with planning. I remember at school my teachers would have us write a detailed plan of our story before the actual story, and we were forced to turn them both in for grading, which fucking sucked, because I don’t plan.

Then I read Virginia Woolf and learned about this neat little thing called ‘stream of consciousness’ and thought, fuck you, 9th grade teacher. Stream of consciousness is essentially a style where the author focuses on one small detail, seemingly trivial, and then develops an entire fluid string of throughs that interconnect with each other however contrasting they are (why the sentence “Mrs. Dalloway thought she’d buy the flowers herself” is so remarkable, because for the WHOLE BOOK, Woolf debates about many things, seldom being flowers. Hell, one of my favourite short stories is her meditating on a fly that lands on a bowl of milk).

So what I learned with this was: bullshitting your way out of purple prose has an academic word for it! Great! This also validated a lot my lack of planning, meaning that every time I drivelled instead of following a step-by-step plot I was actually building something worth a damn, because that exercise of developing a string of thoughts that are born from one shitty thing is something that can happen inside a novel. 

So you see, finding my style, in this case, helped me find my voice and it became very easy ever since to juggle my methods with my ideas. This is my experience, of course, and it’s worth what it’s worth, but this little thing is what helped me establish that, I might have an idea, but if I let it flow, it might grow into something.

Of course, there’s that last advice: read more, watch more TV shows and movies within the genre you’d like to explore, etc etc, but I think it always goes without saying.

And one more thing: no story, for me, is too small or too long. It has its own natural length. Sometimes, we have ideas that are naturally shorter. It just means they’re short stories, or novellas, or novelettes. When my boyfriend told me he had that same problem -- that he had ideas he just didn’t know how to develop into full books -- I told him: then they’re short stories. And that’s fantastic. 

The thing is, being a writer isn’t like something immutable, you’re not the same always, you know, you’re not always in this place, with this style, writing about this thing. You keep changing, keep finding new voices, keep exploring new angles, just continuously growing, as with any other artistic field. So maybe right now, those might be short stories, but who knows in the future? 

I was reading American Gods and Neil Gaiman apparently republished it a second time, a much longer version his former editor had told him to cut down, and at the beginning he quotes Stephen King on why he did it: cause there were small bits in it, sub-plots if you will, editors are keen on thinking they don’t add to the main plot, but they build the story as a whole, paint the colours needed for the setting, the ambience, the narrative outside the main plot, and both authors felt their concepts, their ideas, weren’t complete without them.

My first advice when someone has an idea is always this: write it down, however it is, with whatever you have. It might be one paragraph. It might be 400 pages. Whatever you have, it’s just a first draft, and the goal of a first draft is getting it down on paper, not turning it into the finished work. It’s the first step.

And if it’s gigantic? Make it gigantic. This is Miss Only Writes Gigantic Shit speaking. I mean monstrous. Especially first and second and even like, third and fourth draft (man I have a lot of drafts), it’s so brutally long I seriously have to take a step back and think “bitch, slow down”. Eventually, I chop down stuff. Scenes that don’t add anything, repeated stuff, scenes that establish what is already established -- just stuff that misses the eye. 

Just to say, let the story have its natural rhythm in the beginning stages. Writing is like baking, as I say: you need to set it aside and let it settle for a while, and then when you come back to it with a clear head, you’ll be able to compose it better. Eventually, it drives you down misery road and actually have to do the dreadful thing of leaving stuff out -- it’s sad, I won’t deny, looking at this one character and saying “goodbye, you were a good one, but I have to put you into the Unused Character Pile, maybe one day you’ll find your light, but not today, and I’m so sorry, but where you are right now, you’re useless lmao”. It’s a step that comes eventually, but it’s not needed in the early stages.

But in the end, it all comes down to motivation, I think. So first and foremost, I would say... find your motivation to write whatever you have. You could read more into the genre you’re thinking of, or you could try and write small vignettes of the story you have in mind (just pick a scene and try writing it down, just to see). You could try a challenge of sorts, like picking up a concept, a word, a sentence, and try developing it. Create a habit too -- don’t mind that “write every day” stuff, do it whenever you feel like it, whenever you get that tingle of ‘damn I feel like writing’, just answer that call. And always believe in your ideas, and I say this because I find that a lot of lack of motivation comes from ‘my idea sucks’ or ‘it’s been done before’. Your ideas are yours alone, so explore them as much as you can.

I used to have a website saved that I lost and this is the closest thing to it I found, but try this out for like a first plot, or just to generally get an outline of your idea. It has HELPED ME TREMENDOUSLY when I have a new idea that just makes me think “Great! now what the fuck do I do with it?”

I hope this helped, anon!! And sweet, sweet writing, my friend!

#Anonymous

[sabbathism]

People don’t like season 2, and here’s what they have to say :

tl;dr: I answer the web’s most vehement complaints about season 2 of American Gods. If you happen to recognize yourself in one of those, then I suggest thinking about it really really hard and, perhaps, giving the show another chance. If you recognize yourself in several of those, please drop the show. It’s not worth wasting your time and especially not ours. (I put a list of helpful cast and production related facts at the end.)

Hi, Nelle here, I’m but a humble fan who wishes to have fun seeing gods bicker and argue among mortals, complete with the craziest of situations, stellar cast and great visuals. And yet I can’t help but hear things when I start browsing this hellsite in quest of juicy fanworks.

Although I’m no Joan Of Arc, I hear voices from above and here’s what I have to shout back (lest I get burned at the stake)  :

“The pacing is all over the place ! It’s too slow !”

Is it tho ? Pacing has been “all over the place” (really meaning: different from what we avid show-viewers are accustomed to) since season 1, we’ve never gotten straight answers out of anything unless we started listening and paying attention to details. 

The book (you know, the source material) has four parts, the fourth serving as an epilogue to the whole story, season 2 is most definitely meant to close part 1 which, allegedly, had the slowest of pace to begin with. And it doesn’t even have half the new narratives the show has been creating. So no, it’s not slow. I promise you things are happening.

“It needs to follow the actual book more !!”

What’s a good adaptation ? Is it something that is 100% truthful to the source, down to every word ? Is it something that should offer something for people who don’t know the source ? Or, on the contrary, be something inseparable from it ?

American Gods as a TV show offers new things for people who have read the book and for those who haven’t, while keeping the beloved moments and aspects from the original material.

Why add or change stuff ? Well because, if you’re a book reader, you get welcomed into the state of existential dread that comes with not knowing what happen next, I promise it’s part of the fun. But also because author Neil Gaiman believes that he can do more, do better, with something that was written 20 years ago and needed the changes in a lot of places. He’s aware that he has, in fact, a show to make, and not a carbon copy of the book, as well as a fanbase that deserves to be challenged and entertained.

“Why taking the focus off Shadow ? He’s barely the protagonist anymore !”

Because there are..... characters ? who are also part of the story ? Like, actual stories need characters ? But alright, I know it can get confusing when you have a lot of those, here’s how you can still tell Shadow is the protagonist : months of advertising and the entirety of season 1 which was spent following Shadow with only minor breaks allowing other characters to breathe. Trust me they need the development too, or then we’ll really have reasons to complain.

You want a narrative focusing solely on staying in Shadow’s head ? Alright. Try the book. But here’s my take on its narrating choice, as a graduate in english literature : it’s boring. To the point where Neil Gaiman himself got sad that he couldn’t follow other characters.

“They’re not giving the POCs enough space ! Where are the coming to america segments ? At least they gave actual insights.”

Out of every piece of fiction, I truly don’t think you want to get angry at American Gods for how much room it’s giving POCs... (a 20% white cast ensemble, POCs and especially WOCs writers and directors on production, ethnically accurate casting and writing, diversity positive messages, etc) Really I’m sure there are many other places in the fictional industry were the question of diversity is more than legitimate. American Gods has yet to be one of them, by far.

As for the Coming To America stuff, well, there’s not that many in the book to begin with. There are a whole bunch for sure, but we’ve got over quite a few of them in season 1. If there’s more believers you want, we’re served with the latest episode 4, with humans worshiping both Old and New, and interacting with gods. I’m sure we can review that point again once the season is over.

“Those white directors don’t even know how to read or write POC characters !”

*cough*

here’s a list of the POC directors and writers on episodes 2 to 5 of season 2 only :

Deborah Chow (director)

Aditi Kapil (writer)

Salli Richardson (director)

Rodney Barnes (writer)

Orlando Jones (writer)

That’s half the entire director-writer team for these episodes, with Neil Gaiman being involved. You’ll have to point out to me exactly what you mean by “not writing right”.

“New Media ? 1. she’s a bitch, 2. her actress is just plain bad, 3. she’s a hurtful stereotype.” 

And here comes perhaps the trickiest one of all... I’m gonna have to bear with you, as much as you’re gonna have to bear with me :

1. Yes. 2. No. 3. Yes, and it’s a problem, but not for the reasons you think.

First of all, and let’s get it out of the way : actor =/= character nor writing. You think the writing is bad and/or that the character is annoying ? Well, it’s certainly not on the actor. You wanna know the actual level of Kahyun Kim’s acting ? Starring in an Alan Cummings play alongside him. We’ve got a lot to discuss but please keep her out of this.

Second, New Media is an absolute bitch of a character. She’s mocking, manipulative, and too ambitious for anyone’s good. A lot of people seem to love her tho and to that I say good ??? I mean, great if you like her, because she’s got as much potential as the rest of these crazy characters, I’m not here to tell you who you should hate and who you should love.

But there’s a problem you shouldn’t ignore, and that its so far she’s not well written. It’s a terrible thing to say in such a show but she’s really not : because we barely see her talking, because we barely got any scene with her (remember what I said about letting character breathe ?), and because what we’ve seen of her so far is the stereotype of the hypersexualized naive asian girl. Complete with tentacle porn scene. (Whether you felt weirded out, amused or utterly disgusted by this is your own valid opinion.)

The character has been officially described as “the goddess of global content”, “a cyberspace chameleon” and “a master of manipulation.” In recent addition to that, actor Bruce Langley (Technical Boy) has said : “New Media’s willing to be perceived as naive because if she’s being underestimated, when she does make her move, you’d never see it coming, but she knows way more than she lets on.” He then goes on to compare her to Gillian Anderson’s Media.

This proves that the way New Media comes off isn’t a problem of intent (the naive part is calculated and they want the character to be duplicitous, falsely seductive), but of handling, and it’s just as bad. Sure, Gillian’s Media also knew more than she let on for about as much screen time -I’m sure New Media will get to her four scenes in one season-, but she had been grounded in the narrative as her own character, she’s had her exposition speech and time. (See her meeting with Shadow in S01E02) We’ve yet to see that much of Kahyun’s New Media.

Because they do not give her what she needs to be more than a two dimensional character, we find ourselves with a shallow character who doesn’t give too many signs of the thought process everyone seemed to have put into crafting her beforehand, including Kahyun’s acting. This is a serious issue that needs to be handled before the season ends, or she will just stand out like a nasty spot in an overall incredible piece of fiction. Hell even Laura (another very unlikable character) manages to be a great addition to the narrative. Come on people.

You can of course argue that they could have gone for another type or personality for her, other than naive and sex-oriented, for a korean actress to play. You’re right, there’s a lot of aspect of social media that could have been put to work, but not only are we gonna need more than two scenes (at least the tentacles aren’t a regular occurrence so far), but it’s just like they could have not made the Technical Boy hang Shadow. 

The New Gods appear as the ‘general bad idea’ we promote through and associate with their element. Mr. World is gonna be the creepy looking government dude, Tech is gonna be the lanky rude geek, they’re gonna be cold, insensitive and selfish. They’re gonna be the things we don’t like. Throughout season 1, Tech Boy was in the same place we find ourselves in with New Media : he was the loud white racist teenager hating on anon on the net, he was unlikable from start to finish, and it’s only once we got inputs from his actor, the writers, and then now that they’re showing more of his story and personality well after season 1 that we see him as the fully complex and interesting character he is.

Let’s all keep our wits about us, not engulf ourselves in blind hate or love, and encourage the writers to prove us all that this character is worth the while like her actress says.

(I still won’t forgive the bitch, but at least she won’t stick out like a sore thumb.)

(if you want Kahyun’s input on her character and experience, here’s a lengthy interview)

"They don't even know how to write their own character, period !"

By all means, tell me your basis of characterization to declare that characters who didn’t even have enough screentime to have much substance in season 1 (except Shadow, but strangely no one complains about him) aren’t written right when their creator is literally hovering over the writers and actors shoulders, because he wants them to be developed and written right.

It’s not Harry Potter, Neil isn’t making up facts about them to make himself look better, maybe accept that the vision you had in your mind wasn’t entirely accurate to the truth of the characters and that’s okay ? You can still write them yourself however you want, tell the stories you want to tell, Neil has made it very clear that he doesn’t consider fan ideas less valuable than his.

“Bryan has such as specific, unique vision ! They’re just trying to copy it and they’re failing.”

Definitely. No really, you’re right, I’m a big fan of Bryan’s work, I lost my mind like everyone else when he said he wasn’t giving up on Hannibal season 4.

But you know who else has a unique vision ? The seven directors who took over (four of those are women) and the show-runner who had already worked with him beforehand. They’re not trying to copy his style, they’re trying to make a smooth transition so fans like you don’t have a hard time mourning the terrible loss of Bryan and Michael. And for every person who noticed the changes, there were just as many who haven’t even paid attention to it.

Concept : some people may watch shows/movies for the story and the characters, not just for who’s behind the camera. (As far as I’m concerned, I actually like the image better. Everything was killer in season 1, and I think it’s even nicer in season 2.)

“Bryan gave us Salim and the Jinn, and now they’re just gonna be cast aside because those directors lack the LGBT+ sensibility Bryan has !”

Alright, yup, sure. As a member of the community myself, I totally recognize that someone who’s also part of it will know firsthand of the subtleties and details to give the best representation possible on screen. The example of Salim and the Jinn is perfectly fine, since the entire segment was indeed beautifully made. But if we cannot allow people from outside to ponder and think about our lives through writing (which is probably the best way for them to start understanding and broadening their mindset), how can we expect wide representation to improve in any meaningful way ? Especially considering that the show has been casting LGBT+ actors, in an environment where the cast is listened to and solicited on their opinions. 

And especially when Bryan was not the one who gave you Salim and the Jinn. (Because I’ve seen people genuinely believe it.) Neil Gaiman did. He wrote a gay muslim couple in his book 20 years ago, way before it was considered a political statement. He’s also the one who gave strict and specific directions as to how these very characters should be handled. Because if he expanded Salim and his fire boyfriend Jinn’s story from a one-shot to a full story integrated into his entire narration, then it’s certainly not to pull a “bury your gays” or make them miserable. No need to be LGBT+ to be a decent writer and human being.

“Production was a mess anyway, I knew it’d turn out like this. It sucks without Bryan.” 

Define “mess”. Because all the incendiary reports we got throughout early production had been utter bullshit.

Showrunners being “fired” ? Bullshit. “Disastrous” organization ? Bullshit. “Screaming matches” between directors and actors ? Bullshit. Actors “refusing” to come back ? Bullshit.

Every report that wasn’t made through direct input of the cast or production team was not only wildly exaggerated, but also fake ? But please, hear it from Neil himself :

It was weirder for me to read some of the stuff online that said, “Oh, my god, American Gods, behind the scenes, is all falling apart.” I was going, “But they just shot four episodes, and everything is fine. They’re doing some re-shoots, but they’re doing less re-shoots than they did in Season 1.” [...]

I was reading Steven Bochco’s biography on the tube, going into work on Good Omens, every morning, and learning about what went down on Hill Street Blues, and then on NYPD Blue. That was worse, by a factor of thousands, than anything that happened on American Gods. A showrunner came, and a showrunner left. That’s not even an unusual thing. [...] The weirdest thing for me was putting out a thing on Twitter on Season 2, and having a bunch of people go, “We thought this was canceled.” No, it’s not canceled. In its own mad way, it’s on schedule.  

(Source)

The show was never in any danger, much less in jeopardy. It's overreactions to false rumors and dramatic assumptions that can kill a show faster than a showrunner leaving. You want to be critical of a production ? Go ahead, and check your sources and facts. Please. I promise most of the time it’s not worth the worry, much less losing all hope.

“Bryan cared, they’re just ruining what he’s built.”

I dare you to watch any cast interview and tell me these people don’t care about the show, and that they do not value the work everyone else (from hair department to makeup artists, producers, writers, directors and costume team) puts into it as well.

I’ve watched my fair share of shows, I’m curious about production and behind-the-scenes material in general, and I’ve never seen a group of people being so genuinely happy and passionate about what they do and create together.

Neil took time out of preparing Good Omens (which he was showrunning himself) to be more active because he knew things would be different between season 1 and 2. Ricky Whittle (Shadow) had his contract reviewed to better accommodate shooting and planning. Orlando Jones (Nancy) contributed to writing episodes (especially regarding Black history and representation) and brought inputs on characterization. Ian Mcshane (Mr. Wednesday) participated in directing when he explicitly said during season 1 that he wasn’t interested in working as a director on this kind of show.

And that’s for the well-known names only. Go on the American Gods hashtag on instagram, you’ll find all the various artists who participated in crafting all the details found in new episodes. They’re out there talking about how excited they were to work on it all, how they did it, the love they have for the show and crew. They’re active and positive in every way you can be, please tell me how much they don’t care.

Production made the choice of taking its time making this season rather than rushing it when it’s been very clear that delaying can cause massive loss of viewers, because they care more about how the show comes out than what people actually think. They took in stride whatever problem a show of this magnitude could naturally encounter (again guys, no disaster happened) and worked to solve it the best way they could because they were perfectly aware that we fans care. And somehow that’s what made some of yall disappointed ??

If you seriously think Bryan (and Michael, some people forget about him smh) cared more about American Gods than these people -when he, in fact, cared just as much-, then by all means, leave right with him.

(Also uhm, idk if you noticed, but they’re both still credited in the fucking opening. Because, you know, they’re going by the bases they’ve settled.)

Some (hopefully) helpful facts :

+ Bryan and Michael weren’t fired, they walked out of the show after mutual understanding with the rest of the production that they weren’t agreeing on budget and realization. They concluded that pushing it would just be harmful to the show.

+ Likewise, Jesse Alexander (second showrunner) wasn’t evicted but stepped out once disagreements rose as to how to handle the end of the season. Again, they found a solution fairly quickly.

+ Gillian Anderson had only signed for season 1. Whether her character will ever be seen again (probably in flashbacks) is entirely up in the air. No promises, no impossibilities.

+ Both Kristin Chenoweth (Ostara) and Chris Obi (Anubis) have not been able to contribute to season 2 due to conflicts in their schedules.

+ Neil Gaiman has been much more involved in the production of season 2 as he had finished shooting Good Omens, something which took up most of his time when season 1 was produced.

+ Taking time producing a show =/= production being a disaster.

+ Always go for the reports/articles involving interviews and/or inputs of the persons actually working on the project (cast members, producers, writers, directors). Those are the most reliable sources you can fight. (Just remember that there’s always a possibility for fake news/drama online !)

#please do message me if you want clarification/to discuss #summary + facts in the tl;dr and at the very end #american gods #starz #freemantle media #american gods season 2 #neil gaiman #bryan fuller #michael green #ricky whittle #new media #gillian anderson #kahyun kim #rant #my writing #bitch this is so long

[trulycertain]

All right, so I’ve had a couple of people come to me asking if I can beta for them, which is one part terrifying to one part flattering, and I’ve had several conversations this week with followers about writing stuff. And about writing improvement.

I think I have some Thoughts.

Look, in my opinion, I'm quite often a terrible writer. I’m self-taught, I’ve picked up some bad habits, and my grammar is... um. Let’s just ignore my grammar. I need to refresh several things. (Where the hell does a semi-colon go in a list? Please. Help. Also, I need someone to surgically extract about half my adverbs.)

But I see so many people ripping into new ficwriters with that old-school LJ "sporking" mindset and crying "MARY SUE!!!" and... honestly?

That's not criticism, that's... shiticism. Excuse my French.

Yes, sometimes someone has a bit of an ego on them, especially if they’re new to a skill. That might grate on you. Fair enough. But if they’re not hurting anyone or forcing you to read, ripping into a new writer teaches them nothing except to shut up and be afraid. If someone's actually willing to learn and put the effort in and this matters to them, why crap on something they've put their heart into? Especially if one doesn't have to read it or pay for it.

I see so many self-conscious ficwriters who either don't dare write anything or define themselves entirely by "Look! I'm so much better than those self-insert/Sue/[whatever's out of vogue now] writers!" and... that doesn't always teach you to get out of negative patterns. Often it just inculcates you into different negative patterns, and a crab-bucket mentality where you and your feedbackers are so busy panicking and dragging each other down you don't get anything written.

I'll be honest, overpowered OCs are usually not my cup of tea as a reader. But I'm not going to wander in and tear someone's fic apart, and if someone comes to me for help, I am certainly not going to take that trust and hurt them with it.  I see a lot of nicely done OCs because of being in RPG fandoms. I love watching people build protags with distinct voices and backstories they've put a lot of heart into. And statistically, yeah, sometimes you get stuff old-school fandom would call Sue-ish, but I don't think a beginner story where someone feels out the ropes and is proud of themselves for writing is going to ruin my day or destroy the world. Why bother being a jerk about it? And how does that ever teach someone to write?

Five times now, from different followers, I’ve heard things like, "A commenter tore my story apart, and I still remember it, and I cried but it was such good constructive criticism." And it might just have been a bad day, but if someone made you cry? That’s... probably not constructive criticism.

If people had treated me when I started drawing the way a lot of people treat new writers in fandom - 

Actually, no, scratch that. Some people in real life did treat me like that when I picked up a pencil. That meant I put it down again pretty fast as a kid and didn't even try to draw until adulthood, when I was scared stiff and fought the impulse to hide everything I was working on. And I didn’t start again because of tough love, I started because people encouraged me.

Everyone goes, "Those poor kids!" but I don't really care if a writer's six or sixty, the principle of "be a decent teacher" applies.

Silencing is not teaching. If someone’s left scared and despairing and stops writing, you have taught them nothing. You’ve failed.

Random anecdote:

When I was looking at going semi-pro (long time ago, and bluntly put, I wasn’t brave enough at that point), I used to be on a writing forum. They prided themselves on their merciless criticism and their “I’m just being honest!” 

And you know what happened? Crab bucket.

No-one ever tried to get anything published or optioned, no-one ever went to go and try and find an agent, because they were all too busy tearing each other's stuff down to feel better. They might have had some good points, once, but it got buried in the echo chamber and the self-importance.

I went in expecting pros to be brutal, to have to gird myself all the time. And they... weren't. Because I'd learned to write partly in crab buckets. And the pros, the real pros, know well enough not to do that. Because they’ve got less to prove, and a lot of them are readers themselves, or were fans themselves once. They want new stuff in the field, not to scare someone off writing forever, because then they'll have no new colleagues and nothing to read. 

The worst that'll happen is the slush pile, and that just means hearing nothing or a form letter. (Very few pub houses do bit-by-bit critique rejection letters these days, and if they do, the good side of it is you've caught an editor or an intern's attention and they cared enough to go through it. And they may remember your name next time.) I got rejected by Clarkesworld. And I had the shakes sending my stuff in, but when I got the rejection? It actually... didn't hurt. Because I was so proud of myself for even trying and being brave enough to do it, and hell, getting seen by a slush pile intern in the same magazine that published Alastair Reynolds and Neil Gaiman. Because it was proof I'd tried and once I'd done the big scary thing, I could do all the smaller magazines and the anon stuff.

"Tearing someone's fic apart" is not criticism, it's fuckwittedness, and if someone knows how to be a decent beta, they don’t do it. A good reader recognises their own bias and realises that they’re coming in with subjective thoughts and skewed views of their own, and doesn’t represent themself as the only authority. 

If you’re here for actual writing advice and not just a rant (I am so sorry), here’s some advice I’ve given a couple of mutuals. This is what works for me, and it might not work for everyone else. I tried?

I had to stop associating feedback/concrit with personal validation, because that made writing an emotionally fraught activity rather than something safe. So I never have friends beta read or edit my work, because I want a professional boundary or a common goal there. I let myself make mistakes and grin at "This is awesome!" comments with fic, because it's a practice ground where I'm just doing my best, rather than trying to ask for money with it or make a career out of it. It lets me relax. I definitely don't mind concrit and rather like it; it's not the thing itself, it's having a pseudonymous boundary. For that reason, I still don't have friends beta read me. Strangers, fine, friends, no.

A lot of people tell me "bloody hell you're prolific." Well, that one's partly unemployment, can't lie. But before that, when I was working and studying...  Learning to write aimlessly changed everything. Doesn't have to be big, doesn't have to be your next novel or a completed short story. I drabbled, focused on 4/500-word snippets and just capturing a mood/place/concept or building the start of a character, whatever took my fancy. Hell, for six months I took phrases I'd read on billboards as daily prompts. Basically, the aim is to start associating writing with fun and relaxation rather than pressure, and to get into the habit of sitting and doing it. 

I tend to write longhand (for original, not for fic; it's how I keep the mental lines drawn). That sounds like a helluva lot of work, I know, but it also lets you see your progress so it's not just some... theoretical thing in cyberspace that you can’t quantify. (God, now I sound like I'm from 1995.)

I still am absolute shite at outlining when it's for fic. I'm too relaxed, but I try my best. What got me learning to do it for original and completely changed my process was Scrivener. (Also very good for essays!)

Relatedly, the final thing that made me get into a consistent writing habit was NaNoWriMo. It forced me into it because bluntly, I really wanted half-price Scrivener. And it never wore off. Three years later, I'm here. You might be too busy, too ill or too tired for it, and just not be into it, and that's OK, but a challenge like that can be fun.

If concrit and idea exchange are important to you, it may seriously be worth looking into writing groups, in real life and online. Absolutewrite, for instance, is very publishing-focused and a really good group.

And, most importantly of all:

Don’t give up. It gets easier.

#tru talks #writing #trulycertain talks bollocks #fanfiction #a little kindness can go a long way #i blame watching a lot of sam johnson on youtube #and thinking 'there needs to be more of that sort of thing for writing rather than singing'

[dontgobreakingmyart]

Fanfiction: Why Is It So Popular?

As someone on tumblr, you probably know what fanfiction is and know why it is popular. My AP Literature teacher, however, wasn’t so informed. 

My senior year, we were required to write a research paper about a trend. Some people did the rate of divorce, others did the increase of body modification and someone even did the death of Pokemon Go. 

Our teacher recommended that we chose a topic that we were familiar with, and my first 2 thoughts were fanfiction and anime. I had already had a friend that had done anime the year the before, so I thought “why not?”

And thus, my senior paper was born:

March , 2018

Fanfiction: Why Is It So Popular?

INTRODUCTION:

Generally, the word “fanfiction” conjures an image of lonely hermits, obsessive fans, or even dangerous flirtation with copyrights, but lately, fanfiction has been given a new face―a face of validity, expression, and even publication. Since January 2012, the amount of fanfiction for just one fandom (a collection of fans supporting a certain medium) has increased an astonishing 1,154% (Pellegrini). Objectively, fanfiction is a fan-made story that contains strong elements of the original work, generally using the same characters, themes, and other various components. For example, there are numerous works based off Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, continuing on the story of Mr. and Mrs. Darcy; in fact, there has been a recent increase of published novels based on Pride and Prejudice of 32% since 2015 (“List of Literary Adaptations of Pride and Prejudice”). Why? Because fans were not satisfied with the original content; they wanted to see more of Elizabeth and Darcy’s relationship or they wondered what the characters would do in a zombie apocalypse or any other variation of “what if?” Fanfiction allows “amateur writers” to express their love for a book, tv show, game, etc., and whether it’s because of the lack of LGBT themes in most published works or the increasing ease of sharing their fiction, fanfiction writers are not likely to stop any time soon (Knorr).

BACKGROUND / HISTORY:

Although it might seem very unbelievable, fanfiction did not just start recently, or a couple decades ago, or in the 70s with that one Star Trek fanfiction. In fact, a good amount of older literature is fanfiction. If fanfiction is being defined as “any work of fiction that borrows major elements of another work of fiction,” then works such as Shakespeare’s Hamlet could technically count as fanfiction; Hamlet was originally an “ancient Scandinavian folk tale . . .[known as] ‘Vita Amlethi’ (‘The Life of Amleth’)” that Shakespeare not only re-wrote as a play, but inserted his own, personal experiences (Clark). The Iliad, The Odyssey, Oedipus Rex were all orally-told, Greek myths that someone decided needed to be written down. The only reason theses works are not recognized as “fanfiction” was because copyright was not as strict in that time and practically did not exist; after all, no one knows for sure who the real Shakespeare was because he did not officially claim his work. 

Fanfiction didn’t really become a label until Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes in the 1880s and with the birth of the internet, the famous Star Trek fanfiction. Officially, “the actual term ‘fanfiction’ was coined in 1939” and was used as an insult towards crudely written sci-fi fiction (Reich). In the late 90s and early 00s, rather than the “all-purpose” fanfiction cites today, “fans carved out their own little homes on the burgeoning internet. Star Trek fans here, X-Files fans there, Frasier fans somewhere else” (Hill). Most of those sites, however, have since died and have been replaced with the “all-purpose” ones like fanfiction.net. One of the most infamous modern fanfictions is E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey. Although it is technically a published novel, James has admitted that her novel was simply a Twilight fanfiction that she had written and aftered so that she wouldn’t break the copyright (Morrison). The largest development to the world of fanfiction, however, was the birth of Archiveofourown.org in 2007, a fanfiction website that “promised stronger resistance to legal challenges” to fanfiction writers unlike other, previous websites such as fanfiction.net (Burt). With the creation of this site, older ones have begun to die out just like the fandom-centric ones of the past.

#1 REASON:

Over the years, fanfiction has morphed from a shameful pass time to a socially acceptable medium of expression. Published authors have been, in fact, recommending fanfiction as a positive way to start writing. The author of the Princess Diaries Meg Cabot came out about her fanfiction writing, saying, “I myself used to write Star Wars fan fiction when I was tween. I think writing fanfiction is a good way for new writers to learn to tell a story” (Romano). And many other famous authors have made a contribution to the fanfiction community: Cassandra Clare, author of Mortal Instrument Series; Orson Scott Card, author of Ender’s Game; S. E. Hinton, author of The Outsiders; Neil Gaiman, author of The Sandman Series, and so many others (O’Brien, Kovach). 

While visiting a Writing Workshop, the published author hosting it, Pamela Thibodeaux, encouraged me to begin writing and posting fanfiction in order to start a healthy fanbase, so that when I go to get a book published, the transition is much smoother. Writing fanfiction is just as stimulating as writing an original novel. In a CNN article about fanfiction, they explicitly stated that “even if the subject matter is a little blue [writing fanfiction] is a positive form of self-expression,” compelling parents to “encourage writing” (Knorr). In fact, the main difference between the two is that writing fanfiction “takes the pressure of world-building off” which allows the writer to explore their writing style without getting tangled up in creating something from scratch (McQuien). In a way, fanfiction is the box of cake mix in the literature world―it helps amateurs to take the first step of baking without getting too overwhelmed, but in the end, it can taste just as good.

#2 REASON:

As the overall acceptance and validity of fanfiction has increased, fanfiction has found its way into the publishing world, being branded as actual literature. Time-honored novels such as Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice have several published, fan-made additions and recreations of the original tale like Pride and Prejudice II: The Sequel by Victoria Park and Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which was turned into a filmed phenomena in 2016 (“List of Literary Adaptations of Pride and Prejudice”). Although there have been many literary adaptations of this novel spanning as far back as 1932, there has been a 32% increase of published fanfictions just for this fandom (“List of Literary Adaptations of Pride and Prejudice”).

 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has also witnessed this movement with his iconic Sherlock Holmes series, especially with the popular television series Sherlock, a “modernization” (or modern au [alternate universe] in fanfiction jargon) of the classic cases between Sherlock Holmes and John Watson (“8 unconventional Sherlock Holmes adaptations”). These published fanfictions have been able to keep the trademarked names of their beloved characters, but many novels had to undergo extensive editing to cross the line of “fanfiction” into “literature.” 

One of the most famous, or rather infamous, examples of this is how E. L. James’ 50 Shades of Grey was originally a Twilight fanfiction (Morrison). Another, perhaps not as well known, is L. Stoddard Hancock’s Cruel and Beautiful World, which was heavily based off of J. K. Rowling’s beloved Harry Potter; in fact, her novel indulges the ship [romantic pairing] of Hermione and Draco, fondly known as “Dramione” in the Harry Potter fandom (Sarner). While some fanfictions have to undergo a facelift in order to be published, their true identity still remains intact: they are still devoted extensions to the esteemed works of another author.

#3 REASON:

Fanfiction has evolved greatly throughout history, and how to post fanfictions and share them with the world is just getting easier and easier. As mentioned prior, the creation of Archive of Our Own revolutionized the world of fanfiction with its promise of legal support, but how? In 2002, there was a great purging of fanfictions on the original fanfiction posting website, fanfiction.net, shaking the fanfiction community and dissuading writers from posting their fanfics (Silver). It was this sort of mass-banning on works that encouraged the creation of Archive of Our Own and its legal branch the “Organization of Transformative works” where they “clarify the legality of fanfiction, champion fan-created works whenever they were legally challenged, and provide fans with legal resources in case they were targeted by copyright claims” (Silver). In short, Archive of Our Own gave fanfic writers a safe place to share their fanfictions. 

Because of this difference with websites, despite the age difference and advantage Fanfiction.net may have with it, the increase of Harry Potter fanfictions on Archive of Our Own, for example, have increased 795% more than those on Fanfiction.net since 2010 (Pellegrini). Not only that, but Archive of Our Own has many other unique features that makes both writing fanfictions and reading fanfictions much more convenient such as tagging (Romano). Speaking from personal experience as a user of both Fanfiction.net and Archive of Our Own, although the first is not a bad place to read fanfiction, it is not nearly as user-friendly. For example, if I wanted to read a Harry Potter fanfiction, I could easily do so on both sites, but if I wanted to read a Harry Potter fanfiction that had the ship “Dramione” or had “zombies” or where Fred didn’t die, I can only specify those tags on Archive of Our Own to find that perfect fanfiction. And fanfiction sites are still continuing to expand, to shape, to mold themselves in order to fit the preferences of the ever-evolving writers that post on them.

#4 REASON:

The world of literature is a diverse melting pot of ideas and people, but even with this diversity, there are many minorities that are pushed to the side such as the LGBT community―in the world of fanfiction, however, they are the majority. Seeing LGBT often connotes inaccurate concepts, especially in literature, where one thinks “gay” when they see LGBT and then “the label of ‘gay’ often overshadows the important elements of the story/author, often tarnish[ing] the book before it can be read” (Guy). The LGBT community is so much more than just “gay,” and those different branches are very rarely explored in published literature, but in fanfiction, they florrish. 

Although majority of fanfiction does involve romance and a good amount of it involves couples of the same sex, that is not the only layer as is with most “gay” literature. In fanfiction, everyone is represented―if you want to read a fanfiction where the main character is asexual, where the main character is genderfluid, where there’s a polyromantic relationship, where someone is aromantic, bisexual; no matter what it is you want, I can almost guarantee it’s out there somewhere. The fanfiction website Archive of Our Own found that only 38% of their users were heterosexual, meaning that at least 62% belong to the LGBT community and more people identified as genderqueer than as male (Hu). Everyone wants to be represented in media, to have someone to relate to. 

The little gay literature that is there, is only just now being reprinted, falling out of print since the 80’s, and a good amount of it is being banned (Healey). For example, Amazon refused to sell a gay Victorian novel, claiming it was “pornagraphic,” yet they have an entire section for “erotic” fiction such as 50 Shades of Grey (Healey). With fanfiction, writers don’t have to worry about labels, whether a couple is straight or homosexual or genderqueer or whatever. Writers care about the stories, the chemistry between the characters that make them a dynamic duo, and with fanfiction, writers can share that.

CONCLUSION:

Fanfiction has existed for centuries with Sophocles's Oedipus Rex and Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Star Trek and it shows no sign of stopping now. In fact, the amount of fanfiction hasn’t just increased because of its acceptance or its publication or the ease of posting, but because of new and continuous material. 

Before the release of BBC’s show Sherlock, there were fanfictions based on the original book, and the addition of the show allowed Sherlock Holmes and John Watson to become more familiar, and thus, more fanfictions to be added to the overall fandom. The same occured with the Harry Potter fandom. When Jack Thorne’s play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (a published fanfiction continuing J.K. Rowling’s original series Harry Potter), fanfiction writers exploded with new material, new ideas, and new fanfictions; a total of 1,682 fanfictions concerning Harry Potter and the Cursed Child have been posted on Archive of Our Own since the play’s release date in 2016 (Search Results for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child). Due to the recent release of Voltron: Legendary Defender in 2016, there has been a staggering 5,054% increase of fanfiction for the show originally from the 80’s (Search Results for Voltron). 

With every reinstatement of a show, a new generation of potential fanfiction writers are exposed to it, adding on to the classic mediums other fanfiction writers wrote about before them such as Star Trek or Sex in the City, where there are still significant increases of 8,600% since 2005 and the show ended in 2004 (Kneale). Fanfiction increases because more and more people are being exposed to that world. Just as there will always be incoming literature and TV shows and movies, new fanfictions will be trailing in afterwards like a relentless shadow.

Works Cited

“Archive of Our Own Beta.” Archive of Our Own, www.archiveofourown.org/works/search?utf8=✓&work_search[query]=Harry potter and the cursed child.

“Archive of Our Own Beta.” Archive of Our Own, www.archiveofourown.org/works/search?utf8=✓&work_search[query]=Voltron.

Burt, Stephanie. “The Promise and Potential of Fan Fiction.” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 23 Aug. 2017, www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-promise-and-potential-of-fan-fiction.

Clark, Cassandra. “‘Hamlet’ Origins: The Legend of Amleth.” Shake It Up, 28 June 2017, sfshakes.wordpress.com/2017/06/28/hamlet-origins-the-legend-of-amleth/.

“Eight Unconventional Sherlock Holmes Adaptations.” The Week - All You Need to Know about Everything That Matters, 29 Feb. 2012, theweek.com/articles/477729/8-unconventional-sherlock-holmes-adaptations.

Guy, Lauren. “What's the Point of LGBT Literature?” The University Times, 16 Oct. 2016, www.universitytimes.ie/2016/10/whats-the-point-of-lgbt-literature/.

Healey, Trebor. “Early Gay Literature Rediscovered.” Huffington Post, www.huffingtonpost.com/trebor-healey/early-gay-literature-redi_b_5373869.html .

Hill, Mark. “The Forgotten Early History of Fanfiction.” Motherboard, 3 July 2016, motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/4xa4wq/the-forgotten-early-history-of-fanfiction.

Hu, Jane. “The Revolutionary Power Of Fanfiction For Queer Youth.” The Establishment, The Establishment, 16 May 2016, theestablishment.co/the-importance-of-fanfiction-for-queer-youth-4ec3e85d7519.

Kneale, Heidi. “Final Staff.” The Appeal of Fanfiction, July 2005, www.irosf.com/q/zine/article/10165.

Knorr, Caroline. “Inside the Racy, Nerdy World of Fanfiction.” CNN, Cable News Network, 5 July 2017, www.cnn.com/2017/07/05/health/kids-teens-fanfiction-partner/index.html.

Kovach, Catherine. “7 Authors Who Wrote Fanfiction.” Bustle, Bustle, 20 Mar. 2018, www.bustle.com/articles/160939-7-authors-who-wrote-fanfiction-because-its-actually-the-best.

“List of Literary Adaptations of Pride and Prejudice.” List of Literary Adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/List_of_literary_adaptations_of_Pride_and_Prejudice.html.

McQuein, Josin L. “My Bloggish Blog Thing.” Novels vs. Fanfiction, 18 Apr. 2012, 12:53 PM, josinlmcquein.blogspot.com/2012/04/novels-vs-fanfiction.html.

Morrison, Ewan. “In the Beginning, There Was Fan Fiction: from the Four Gospels to Fifty Shades.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 13 Aug. 2012, www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/13/fan-fiction-fifty-shades-grey.

OBrien, David. “Famous Authors Who Began in Fan Fiction.” AUTHORS.me, 27 Oct. 2016, www.authors.me/famous-authors-began-fan-fiction/.

Pellegrini, Nicole. “FanFiction.Net vs. Archive of Our Own.” HobbyLark, HobbyLark, 15 Feb. 2017, letterpile.com/writing/fanfictionnet-vs-archive-of-our-own.

Pellegrini, Nicole. “FanFiction.Net vs. Archive of Our Own.” HobbyLark, HobbyLark, 15 Feb. 2017, letterpile.com/writing/fanfictionnet-vs-archive-of-our-own.

Romano, Aja. “10 Famous Authors Who Write Fanfiction.” The Daily Dot, 9 Mar. 2017, www.dailydot.com/parsec/10-famous-authors-fanfiction/.

Romano, Aja. “Is It Possible to Quantify Fandom? Here's One Statistician Who's Crunching the Numbers |.” The Daily Dot, 24 Feb. 2017, www.dailydot.com/parsec/toastystats-ao3-fandom-statistics/.

Sarner, Lauren. “This 'Harry Potter' Fan Fiction Author Adapated Dramione Into A Novel.” Inverse, 18 July 2016, www.inverse.com/article/15572-dramione-fandom-harry-potter-fan-fiction-romance-l-stoddard-hancock-broken-wings.

Silver, Farasha. “How Archive of Our Own Revolutionized Fandom.” FAN/FIC Magazine, 26 Mar. 2017, fanslashfic.com/2015/11/01/how-archive-of-our-own-revolutionized-fandom/.

Times, J.E. Reich Tech. “Fanspeak: The Brief Origins Of Fanfiction.” Tech Times, MENU$(".Topsearchbutton").Click(Function(){ $(".Srcframe").Toggle(); }); $('Input[Type="Search"]').Keypress(Function() { $("#Srcform").Submit(); });TechScienceHealthCultureReviewsFeatures, 25 July 2015, www.techtimes.com/articles/70108/20150723/fan-fiction-star-trek-harry-potter-history-of-fan-fiction-shakespeare-roman-mythology-greek-mythology-sherlock-holmes.htm.

#senior paper #fanfiction essay #yes i wrote an essay about fanfiction #educational #informative paper #pls dont judge me

[neighbours-kid]

A Very Whovian February

Here we go again, another month over already. To nobody’s surprise whatsoever, I have continued watching way too many movies and tv show episodes in February as well. There weren’t as much as in January because university started again, but there were some. It totals in at 3 movies, 1 musical, and 116 episodes of tv. I was a bit heavy on the shows this month, less so on the movies, as you can see.

February is always a….peculiar month, if you will. It’s short, it’s half holiday and half university, it’s sort of winter but not anymore, and just really weird. What was particularly strange about this month however, was that even though I sort of committed myself to binging through Money Heist once more—and managed three episodes—I quickly went back on that decision and made another, rather bigger commitment: I decided to re-watch and finally catch up on Doctor Who. No one was more surprised at this decision than me, I believe.

I used to love this show, I used to talk about little else. Doctor Who dominated big parts of my interests for a few years. Through a combination of my brother watching the show and me discovering tumblr, I started watching it in 2012. That was right at the end of ninth grade and the beginning of grammar school. I was 16. I was awful. I talked about it constantly, and especially after I “converted” a friend and she ended up watching it too, it was a constant stream of talking about Doctor Who, always, all the time, everywhere. Which I now understand is annoying as hell. However, back then? People being annoyed with it and sort of shaming me for it? That—and the show losing what made me love it mostly through Moffat taking over—made me stop watching it. At some point I just—stopped. I didn’t talk about it, didn’t think about it much anymore, unfollowed a lot of blogs on tumblr who posted about it, and turned my interests elsewhere. I abandoned it.

For a while there it was also just a thing that I didn’t wanna touch. I watched it in a part of my life where I was awful and toxic and just not a really fun human being to be around, I think. At least I don’t look back at this time all too fondly. It was just part of a person who I wasn’t anymore, who I grew out of, grew up from, and largely also moved on from. It was a strange time. But it was always sort of at the back of my mind as something that I loved, something that brought me great joy and parts of which I really missed deep down. Once I got a Netflix account and it kept appearing in my suggestions, my resolve to not go back to it started to crumble and I ultimately decided that I could learn to love this show again and maybe be better about it this time around. And I also just really wanted to give Peter and Jodie a chance, because no matter how good or bad the stories are, taking on a role like the Doctor is a feat, and I want to give them the opportunity to impress me and make me like them.

Watching that very first episode of Chris Eccleston’s arc at the beginning of this month felt very similar to when I completely re-read all of Naruto last Spring. It felt like coming home, like re-discovering a long lost love. And I am loving it. I am enjoying this tremendously. The monsters are ridiculous, the CGI is hilariously bad, the masks and make-up are insanely cool, the stories are simple and honest and lovely and I just adore it so much. Russel T. Davis was such a wonderful show runner, his vision for the show was so….lovely and simple and human. There were so many brilliant moments in the first four seasons, the companions were fascinating and conflicting and challenging and the Doctor was fantastic and brilliant. And even now that I have already binged through most of Matt’s arc as well, I still appreciate this show. The first time around, I think, I wasn’t too fond of Matt as the Doctor because I really loved David and his take on it, but this time, I am really enjoying Matt’s way of navigating that sort of dichotomy of darkness and ridiculousness that the Doctor has. Matt is fun. David is still my absolute favourite, but I am enjoying Matt tremendously as well. The CGI might have gotten better, the stories bigger and bolder, and, what I felt the first time around, maybe lost a bit of it’s simple and human aspects, but it is still a show that makes you keep thinking, what if?

If you know me you know that I often say the words “ugh I hate people”. I hold the opinion on most days that we, humans, are the worst and we’re being for the most part terrible to ourselves, our environment, and that Earth would be better off if we all just died. However, on odd days in between, I am also like insanely fascinated by humans and by what we can do and who we are and all that. Watching nearly seven seasons of Doctor Who in one month and seeing the world and humans through the Doctor’s eyes, raised those odd days in between to a level able to compete with my humans-suck days. It’s basically 50/50 now, to be honest. If you boil my entire life down to a single conflict it’s that of HUMANS SUCK WE’RE THE WORST and HUMANS MY DUDE HUMANS WE HAVE SO MUCH POTENTIAL. Basically. Combine this binge-watch with the Opportunity Rover dying and you have me sobbing in a corner filled with hope for humanity and the need to change the world, because we could.

Oh.

Well.

Look at that. This is supposed to be a recap slash diary entry about this month and I have already spent all this time talking about Doctor Who. Can you imagine how annoying I was when I watched it the first time? Yeeeaaaah.

Anyway.

Watching Doctor Who was not actually the only thing I did in this month. I did a lot of procrastinating on a paper about witchcraft in Dutch art which I then finally finished the day before I had to hand it in, started university back up again in the middle of it, helped some friends on their moving day, hung out with other friends, went to a birthday, and, y’know, did things human beings do.

But—and I’m going back to Doctor Who again, sort of, I am so sorry—I also read a book. And not just some book. It was Good Omens by the two amazing gentlemen Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. Watching four seasons of David Tennant being amazing on Doctor Who also made me re-discover my adoration for him. Not that I didn’t already know that, I mean I did just watch him in Broadchurch. He is just great and I love watching him in things. And then he started a podcast (David Tennant Does A Podcast With…, it’s amazing, you should all listen to it) and he’s on radio shows promoting it and he is just ever present. And there was press and information and stuff going around for the tv adaption of Good Omens in which David plays Crowley, so he was just constantly on my mind. So I said to myself, hell yes, you need to re-read Good Omens before the show comes out in May, so why not do that now. And I did. And it was fantastic. And because I am me, and I am weird, I forced myself to stretch the last 100 pages of the book over an entire week, so I could walk into every first session of classes at university reading this book (four of which being theology classes, which was very important for me to be reading this book in). I needed to mark my place as resident weirdo, because who else could it be?

So, in summary, I guess my month could also be called “David Tennant February”. I watch Doctor Who nearly every evening, listen to David’s podcast every Tuesday, think about Good Omens every day—yeah, February was very heavy on the David Tennant content. I am not complaining.

To end this on a less David Tennant-y note, and a more “these things actually happened this month” bit, February has also been a month of, I don’t know, resurrection? Is that a good word? Anyway—February has brought out (or back) more of who I truly am again. Most of it is the weather (thanks climate change, I’m sorry the planet is dying), the sun being out, the temperatures already clocking in above 10 degrees celsius. I am enjoying it tremendously. I am convinced that I might be half-plant because the sun just revitalises me so strongly. Seasonal depression just goes down the gutter once the sun is out and I can feel the warmth of Spring on my skin. I am alive. Another thing is that I stopped, just really stopped giving a shit at university about other people and what they think. I am using all the bathrooms, no matter what. I am going by Alex even in German classes. I don’t apologise for anything or justify my actions. I don’t care anymore. What I do care about, is that I finally got a date for my consultation with a psychiatrist here in the city. I am partially excited and happy about it, however I also, as soon as I opened the envelope, felt completely numb and detached because the date is in June and that’s still so far off, which I guess I knew would be the case, but having confirmation for it, was just a bit…much, I think. Knowing that my future is in the hands of other people is not a thought I like very much and having to wait for other people to have time for me in that perspective is just not a fun thing. But we’ll get there. Eventually.

I don’t know guys, this post is just full on stream of consciousness, just me blabbing on and on about things that I don’t think anybody really cares about. But like I said last time, this is supposed to be a sort of diary entry for my garbage brain to remember what I did in my life, so y’know, this is valid.

I’ll talk to y’all in a month. Be good out there, guys. Be good.

Bye.

#february #blog post #text post #diary #recap #monthly blog #doctor who #good omens #david tennant #writing #trans

[thegingerlikes]

Literal brOTP

My new favorite thing, especially in Marvel films, is family relationships. My favorite part of GotG2 is the Nebula-Gamora dynamic, my fave part of Spiderman: Homecoming is Dad!Tony and his Spiderson, and my favorite part of ANY Thor movie is the Thor-Loki sibling rivalry. I’m going to focus on the latter in this squeal-essay.

I have really enjoyed Loki and Thor’s development over the films, both separately and together.

Thor is my favorite Avenger now because he has gradually shed his brawn-heavy approach and become more of a strategist. That, coupled with his loyalty and his newfound selflessness, make him a great role model and a perfect foil for Loki.

In the first Thor film, Loki progresses from a restless little brother to a man obsessed with simultaneously proving himself to and defeating his adoptive father and brother. At the core, this validation is all he really wants, even more than dominion over others (though he might settle for widespread fame and adoration). In Thor: The Dark World Loki experiences the ACTUAL loss of one of his “false” family, and is actually affected by it. This surprises even him. This causes, I believe, for Loki to stop trying to kill Thor and Odin. In Thor: Ragnarok, Loki realizes he not only doesn’t want Thor dead, but he wants to be a family with him. I’ll delve into why later on.

As Thor and Loki evolve over the span of the films, so too does their relationship with each other. To me, this is the most interesting part of either of their characters: Thor isn’t as compelling without Loki, Loki is just another trickster without Thor. 

Even in his initial jerk form, Thor is loving toward his little brother. Even when he finds out they aren’t related, he’s still loyal and believes the best of Loki. Pre-first film, I like to think this was a point of pride for Loki. He’s able to do whatever he wants and still retains the love of Thor. But since Loki is a trickster, he may think Thor only loves the mask of the dutiful brother he puts on. For a while this is partially true, and prevents Loki from truly connecting with his brother.

Loki’s family history is truly tragic. He was thrown away as a nuisance, picked up as a boon, and deceived his whole life. He has such low self-esteem that his first reaction to his Jotenheim heritage is to completely eradicate it. When a reformed Thor denounces the genocide, Loki is confused: didn’t Thor want war with Jotunheim before being banished? Then he realizes his brother has changed. What’s worse, he’s changed for the better, and Loki had no hand in it (this is why Loki is so bitter about Jane in Thor. Not because his brother was in love, but because Jane had accomplished in days what Loki couldn’t in years. Though, in reality, Jane didn’t do much to humble Thor). In his eyes, he’s not only lost his adoptive father to the Odin sleep, but he no longer knows his brother.

Thor, conversely, doesn’t ever consider Loki not his sibling, even after learning that Loki is a frost giant. But he also holds onto the brother he knew like a totem, not considering that Loki might have changed or, even worse, had always been different than the way Thor saw him. This blind love produces blind loyalty in Thor. Thor’s loyalty infuriates Loki. He wants to be the victim, wants to be completely justified in the horrible acts he commits. Thor’s love for him prevents that, in the eyes of others and even himself. So he denies Thor’s feelings as illegitimate, while simultaneously striving to make Thor hate him to kill off the last scrap of connection he has to his adoptive family.

Over the movies, he succeeds, to an extent. Thor holds out hope for Loki all through the murders he commits during the Chitari invasion, continuing to fall for Loki’s tricks because he still trusts him. Then Loki kills Coleson. After that, Thor accepts that Loki’s darkest side has consumed him: Loki is selfish, murderous, and without remorse. Still, he doesn’t hate him, doesn’t kill him. He never even comes close.

And Loki doesn’t, either. Upon rewatching Avengers recently, I noticed Loki’s hidden blade he stabs Thor with was very small. It would have been easy for Loki to carry a longer knife (heck, maybe he did), but his goal was to hurt Thor, but not kill him. Loki might tell himself he spared Thor because he wants his brother to witness his success, but really, he values his blond counterpart. 

Loki’s dependence on Thor for validation becomes more obvious in Thor: The Dark World. This movie is a mess, but it does accurately depict how the Attack on New York would affect on the brothers. Loki has begun to realize his limits, and Thor has realized how dark and demented his brother is. At the beginning of the movie, both men are content to despise each other for all time. Then, Frigga dies.

Frigga’s death greatly impacts how each son treats the other. Thor’s opinion of Loki changes very little, but he does want to be reasonable with Loki, so as to honor their mother’s memory. Loki, on the other hand, gains a stronger appreciation for his family after experiencing how profoundly his mother’s death affected him. The viewer can see him wrestle with this during the film, as he wants Thor to trust and pay attention to him, but also does whatever he can to rattle Thor’s cage. And in a hilarious turn of events, Thor accidentally encourages this behavior by pulling tricks on Loki.

My favorite parts in any Thor movie are when Thor gets one over on Loki, because not only is it funny, but most of the time you can tell Loki loves it. Before, Loki played a one-sided, cat and mouse game Thor didn’t even know about. Now Thor is in on it, and Loki is surprised to find he likes the challenge. It also feeds into Loki’s pretty obvious masochism, but I won’t get into that here.

One of the obstacles to Loki trusting Thor is Thor’s blind faith in Loki. It’s not until Thor begins distrusting Loki and anticipating his schemes that Loki believes his brother could actually love the true him. The tables have turned: now that Loki has finally attained his goal of making Thor disillusioned towards him, he now he wants Thor’s esteem. We have to give the trickster some credit: he knows his brother, and he knows what works for him. But instead of playing the long game and slowly regaining Thor’s trust, he fakes his own death, banking on the moral benefit of dying for another, and the “absence makes the heart grow fonder” principle.

And that death scene. Oh boy. I acknowledge Loki’s main motivation in faking his death was to escape prison and be venerated as a hero on Asgard, but he put in the extra effort to be Thor’s hero specifically. He says he’s sorry (for what? It could be for “not listening”, it could be for all his sins in the past), then he admits he died for Thor, not Odin. When recounting Loki’s heroism, Thor would have left this out, and Loki knows this. He wants to show Thor his hope in him wasn’t unfounded. Thor, his loyalty for his brother renewed, accepts his death (again), not believing even Loki could pull off such a deception.

But of course, he does, and even succeeds to peacefully and deftly usurp Odin in the process. Then, in the last scene of Thor: The Dark World, Loki as Odin talks to Thor. He gives a very self-aware speech about being proud of Thor, which I know is mostly for the audience’s benefit, and Loki could have only said what he thought Odin would say. What caught my imagination was that Loki!Odin didn’t send Thor on some long mission, or banish him, or suggest he wasn’t ready to rule. In addition, Loki couldn’t have been sure Thor would reject the throne, so what if Thor hadn’t? I believe Loki would have relished being Thor’s mentor, of ruling Asgard with him. This ambition definitely comes across in the next film.

Thor: Ragnarok is the culmination and resolution of all the past development between the brothers. Thor, bless him, figures out Loki’s deception pretty fast because, as Neil Gaiman writes in Norse Mythology, “when something goes wrong, the first thing [Thor] always thinks is, it is Loki’s fault. It saves a lot of time.” Even though he thought Loki was dead.

So Loki is almost back to square one as far as Thor is concerned. Thor distrusts him, and is angry with him for hexing and sending away their father. However, Loki doesn’t comprehend how badly he’s screwed up until Odin dies and Thor get murdery-eyed on the Norwegian plain. In that split-second, Loki knows that Thor is dangerously close to hating him. Curiously, he doesn’t prepare for a fight, but looks as if he’s going to beg for his life. Who knows what would have happened if Hela hadn’t shown up.

To his credit, Loki doesn’t attempt to join her side at any time in the film. Loki continues to act like Loki, though, putting his best interests first and his brother’s second. But Thor is his second. On Sakaar, Loki immediately invites Thor to be his co-conspirator in a coup d’état, again showing his willingness to rule alongside his brother (even if Loki is first-partner).

However, this is all too soon for Thor, who still sees his brother as an adversary, not an ally, and he rejects Loki’s offer. During the famous elevator scene, Thor tells Loki he agrees they shouldn’t even keep up the pretense of being a family. While Loki is obviously conflicted about this, Thor’s speech also isn’t all that seems. In a role reversal, Thor how Loki thinks, and he knows Loki thinks he’s stupid, too stupid to manipulate him, or to know when he’s being manipulated. He carefully constructs his speech and responses in the elevator to push all of Loki’s little brother buttons (this coming from an older sibling with experience in this area).

Thor begins by telling Loki flattering truth: that he idolized him and thought they’d be together forever. This inflates Loki’s ego, as he always wanted Thor to recognize him as an equal or superior. In the same moment, he realizes this is no longer the case due to his actions. Thor then alleviates some of the burden, inferring with “you’re you and I’m me” that their separation was inevitable. This and the paths diverging statement are both beliefs Loki has held, but never wanted Thor to have. He’s used to his brother chasing him. In order to reinstate this status quo, Loki says “it’s probably for the best that we never see each other again.” He expects Thor to protest here. After all, Thor has crossed galaxies, fought armies, risked death to be with his delinquent brother. Thor doesn’t deny or affirm Loki’s statement, but responds with the piece de resistance: “It’s what you’ve always wanted.”

This is the ultimate challenge to Loki. First of all, Thor is presuming to know what he wants, which Loki doesn’t think Thor can know about him, which makes Loki rethink what he actually wants. His gut reaction is to rebel, to say “don’t tell me what I want!” but that would mean he actually wants to stay with his brother, to be a family. Is that what he wants? Maybe. Now that Thor accepts the idea of their separation, maybe being a constant thorn in his side isn’t a bad prospect. All this, of course, ends up being a distraction so Thor can put the shocker on Loki’s back, but that it distracted Loki at all is telling. In reality, Thor didn’t agree they should become strangers, but he knew framing it that way would make Loki consider becoming his brother again. And that’s sibling love right there.

Immediately after this heart to heart, Loki pulls another Loki and tries to betray Thor. Thor doesn’t even hold it against him anymore: he just thwarts his brother and carries on. Perhaps he knows Loki will show up when he’s most needed later.

He’s right, of course. And when he does show up on Asgard, he does so in typical Loki fashion: in a cry for attention. But that’s who Loki is: selfish, murderous, short-sighted, but sensitive and seeking acceptance. Thor has now accepted Loki for who he is, and Loki isn’t about to lose that. Not only does he go along with Thor’s plan for Asgard (and revels in his brother’s recklessness), but he recognizes Thor’s kingship for the first time. That moment when Loki looks up from the final battle to see Thor embracing his true power, and that pride on his face… oh, my heart!

If I were writing the continuation of Thor and Loki’s relationship, I would never give Loki a redemption arc. Loki is the god of mischief. Instead, I would make him a part-time ally, but only with Thor. He doesn’t do anything selfless unless he knows Thor would be disappointed if he didn’t. He still plays tricks on his brother and the Avengers, but he no longer commits major crimes in their jurisdiction. Loki is at his mildest when bantering with Thor, and at his fiercest when Thor’s life is threatened. This is all selfish, though: without Thor, no one would accept him or be his equal. Thor knows all this, and is resigned and secretly flattered. He takes their relationship from day to day, enjoying fighting side-by-side again.

After Infinity War, though, (God willing they both survive) I think Loki would strike out on his own for a little while, in search of what would make him “more than a god of mischief.” Because he sees his brother’s progression, and like a little brother, he wants to keep up.

PS I know I focused a lot on Loki in this essay. This was unintentional, but happened because Loki’s development as a character is more dependent on Thor than Thor’s is on Loki. Thor’s changes center more around Odin, Frigga, and Jane, and the loss of said people. However, I wasn’t writing about their separate development in this essay, but the progression of their brotherly relationship. I hope I succeeded.

PPS In lieu of the new “news” about Loki being on Thanos’s team, I have heard multiple theories, and here’s what I like:

Anything involving Loki being mind-controlled. It prevents the whole “Loki, again?!” reaction, and provides lots of nice conflict.

Loki being forced against his will in some other way.

I will say this: they better not kill Loki off, because that’s also cliche at this point. They should kill Thor, and have Loki go ballistic. And then bring Thor back in some later film. Because, once again, Loki isn’t himself without Thor, and Thor isn’t a hero without Loki.

#thor #loki #thor odinson #loki laufeyson #thor: ragnarok #thor: the dark world #marvel #infinity war #character development #opinion #essay