#one silly thing about me is my stories are treated like snapshots of characters lives and I always extend beyond that for funsies | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

utilitycaster · 1 year

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I can't speak for anyone else but the thing about the Mighty Nein depiction criticisms is that, in and of itself, this is tiny and inconsequential and it is on some level very silly it's a hot topic of discussion. But it also manages to hit nearly everything that frustrates me in fandom.

It's about the belief that fanon is better simply because it is fanon. It's about people saying "haha, I rub my grubby hands on the canon" and then become furious when people look at what they've made - something sticky, sweaty, jam-covered, and crumpled - and choose to walk past it.

It's about how people will claim that fix-it-fics are always better, actually, because isn't it always better when they recover? And then when a show actually shows recovery, in far more depth than most depictions have room to offer, and it's realistic, which is to say, nonlinear and messy, detailed and unglamorous, they hate it.

It's about how Fjord and Jester's dying plants mean unhappiness (and a specific type of unhappiness no less) but Beau, Yasha, and Caleb's thriving plants don't mean happiness. It's about being able to fabricate paragraphs in favor of what you always wanted from a single blink, a glance, a word, the cast's physical appearance in an episode they did not explicitly dress up for; but when the story says in blunt, direct terms that the color of this character's hair is a direct reflection of the state of their mind, rejecting it for the aesthetic. It's about complaining that it's not that deep when the depth says something you don't like, and then turning around and digging as far as you personally need to support a pre-existing belief.

It's about how when Caduceus was shown with his pink hair fading, there was an almost gleefully morbid speculation of "is he dying? oh god I hope he both is and isn't dying, I want the thrill of unresolved angst but if he actually dies I will throw a fit." And then the answer was actually both deeply mundane and also fascinating with regards to his character arc, and suddenly no one wanted to talk about it. It's about a detestation for showing the incremental yet fractal nature of life. It's about wanting everything to be a tentpole blockbuster Save-The-Cat just-the-hits carbon copy formula while simultaneously claiming it would be more original and interesting to do so.

It's about thinking of media not as entertainment or even meaning, but simply as a vehicle of representation and how the show you already watch must become all things to you. Sure! Would be cool to have more US Southern Accents in fantasy! But that isn't Fjord's story, and indeed, the banality of the accent is the point. It's okay to want a southern accent; but there is this irrational demand in fandom that whatever you're already watching provide everything, instead of taking the frankly very minimal effort to branch out and find something else that does.

It's about how so many people don't want a story; they want a snapshot. They want one single moment in time, one where the people in their ship kiss; where their favorite character receives a frozen instant of catharsis; the inhale just before the life-altering decision, endlessly teetering on the precipice of corruption. But there's no understanding of how to make the story that is actually happening reach that point, and no understanding of what happens when the characters pull away from the kiss, wipe away their tears, make the choice, and keep moving forward.

It's about simultaneously treating characters as real people: that death is never justified, that tragedy is always terrible; and then turning around and screaming at the characters when they act as though, within the story, they have agency. They can live - they must live - but only if they dance on your command. It's about the complete reverse and scornful rejection of how one must see characters if you want to actually say anything worth saying in fiction, as tools of a narrative and yet also rich and real and able to move on their own even when you're not looking.

It's about wanting mirrors and never windows; it's about a profound inability to surrender control and actually listen to what someone who is not exactly you has to say, yet telling yourself this is diversity; it's about potential energy that never once becomes kinetic; it's about style with no substance; it's glossy, and it's hollow, and I am so tired of all of it.

#this is a rant that i have had within me a long time #that sort of coalesced #and I could frankly go on #you know how i've said the calamity wrap up brennan lines all basically echo in my head?#the you love when people hurt you hate when things stand tall line is INDELIBLY imprinted as a watermark in front of all meta i read #cr discourse #critical role spoilers

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