#wow i haven't yelled about asp like this in years

[frazzledsoul]

So I've been writing and deleting this over and over for the past few days. I didn't want to upset anybody or come off too strongly but I kept thinking and thinking about it, and I needed to get it off my chest or I'd just keep obsessing over it. I guess it's something I still feel strongly about.

The idea that an original content creator should have any influence or input over whether one continues to create or consume fanworks is borderline offensive to me. The idea that one should consider that person's intentions or should refrain from continuing the story in our own way if it upsets the creator's sensibilities is really, really offensive to me. As a practical matter, they cannot look at our work (creators are encouraged if not legally compelled to stay away for plagiarism reasons) and as long as we are not making a profit off of it and are not breaking any laws, we are free to continue the story in any way that we wish. This is why AO3 exists, because there is a long history of capricious creators targeting fans for fanworks. The site is there to protect us because it is not the creator's sphere. It is ours. We do not need their permission to create and they do not need ours. We don't need to respect or even like the creator to continue the story and we certainly don't need to like the story itself. In fact, most fanworks come into being because we hated at least part of it, and wanted to try to make something better.

When it comes to the matter of Amy Sherman Palladino, we certainly do not need to respect her value system, to the extent that she has one. I decided a long time ago that I won't let that woman have any power over any enjoyment I got out of her work or the ways in which I sought better means of writing or enjoying the way other people write her story. I do not believe what she believes.

The story is over, and for the most part fans haven't like most of what she's written since 2006, and yet they keep begging and pleasing for her to come back and write an ending that they'll sure will make them happy. The series ended with a positive future for almost everyone involved and fans said it wasn't good enough. Fans asked for years for her to come back and write the real ending, because only Amy can write an ending that satisfies us. We'll respect anything you give us, Amy. Then we got AYITL and almost everyone hates it. She took away the youth and promise of almost all the characters and robbed them if the futures we wanted for them and undercut the premise of her series with that ending. And yet fans still beg and plead for more. Surely when she writes the second revival, she'll finally give us what we want! We'll respect anything you give us, Amy! It's a destructive cycle that never ends.

This woman has done more than enough damage to these characters over the years. She does not need to write for them again. We certainly don't need her permission to want better futures for them, or to only imagine those futures because it's what she wanted. She doesn't want them to be happy, and she doesn't want the fans to be happy. Her intentions should not ever be something that HAS to control the ways in which we retell her story.

As to why I rejected that woman's value system, it's because the show often felt like it was cribbed from my life before it was written, and once I did find comfort in the values I thought it expressed. I thought it was a story that valued compassion, integrity, loyalty hard work, sacrifice, and general human decency. By the end of season six, it was made clear that ASP found most of those things deeply embarrassing if not downright ludicrous. Her universe was proved to be full of moral rot: the only thing she valued at that point was narcissism, money, and emotional destruction. By the end of that season, Lorelai and Rory used the values that the men in their life held dear against them because it made them feel vindicated in hurting them. Luke dared to prioritize someone other than Lorelai and Lorelai used his loyalty and devotion to his family against him, knowing it would cripple him to know she chose Christopher, but choosing to do so anyway because Christopher would never, ever prioritize his daughters over her. Rory used both Jess and Logan's love for her in order to try to use one against the other: she knew that trampled over Jess's boundaries and beliefs in doing so, and yet she attempted it anyway. And ASP defended this as a moral good because Logan deserved to be hurt! (Rory expresses zero remorse about trying to hurt HIM). At least Rory felt bad about it and acknowledged Jess's worth as a person in doing wrong, but the morality of her actions never comes into play. And as for Lorelai? I would love for her to be one of those flawed characters who actually accepts responsibility for her actions, but she almost never is that person when ASP is writing her. The most important lesson ASP had to convey is that nothing in the world matters as much as what makes Lorelai Gilmore feel better, and the people that she hurts certainly never matter as much as her feelings do.

And apart from all that bullshit, I can't help remembering that Lorelai and Rory rejected the decent, dependable, loyal men in the story for the rich, charming Lotharios with a recent history of betraying them. That rejection may have been necessary in Jess's case (because Milo didn't want to participate in this charade anymore), but it does seem that ASP was arguing that Luke and Jess and all of their goodness didn't mean as much as money and charm. They were never, ever going to be good enough. And you know what? Lorelai and Rory hurt the people they chose, too. I feel ASP is as immune to the consequences of that as she was the the overall classist message she was sending here. Money and charm are to overrule all. Well, what if they don't?

So, yeah. I reject that belief system and the way she told me that everything I hold sacred in the world is essentially meaningless and not worth honoring. I've spent a lot of time in my adult life living out the consequences of the emotional destruction that Lorelai and Rory wrought so easily and in Lorelai's case, without shame or remorse (I don't think ASP would have ever let her apologize for what she did). I've spent a very, very long time cleaning up the mess that gets left behind. So no. I do not respect the message that this kind of shit is in any way justifiable.

So any attempt I make in my piddling fanfiction career, or all the shit I write on this hellsite, or even the stories I seek out, always is going to be a repudiation of the story as it was originally told. I am not interested in that story and I have zero interest in letting its implications control the one I prefer.

Gilmore Girls is not a comfort show for me. However, its fanworks are. It is important to me that they are not the same thing.

#wow i haven't yelled about asp like this in years #anyway just my opinion #gilmore girls #meta #i think even in media one has a goid relationship with the spheres shoukd akways be seperate