#but when i was in the hardcore community fandom while it was still airing

[oysters-aint-for-me]

still thinking abt a post i saw a few days ago that was an old 2014 destiel post and it was you know all-caps enthusiastic (which is FINE) and it was comparing destiel to other “actual” tv bromances to show that destiel was NOT a bromance but a legit romance (which it WAS i know) but a couple of the example “bromances” were: troy and abed (community). turk and JD (scrubs). shawn and gus (psych). and i was like 🤔 ok…genre and ultimate canon outcomes aside…what ELSE do all three of those “bromances” have in common… 🤔🤔

[forevertrueblue]

Tony Stark fans, I feel like I've abandoned you. And I want to talk about it.

I've been a Marvel (mostly MCU) fan for roughly a decade now. First casual, then somewhere between casual and hardcore, and now it's been one of my top fandoms since around the time Black Panther and Infinity War came out. Tony/Iron Man has been the one I've called my fave for so long (since I saw Iron Man 3 in 2013; before that it was Cap) and have always stuck by that but lately I've been realizing how distant I feel from that side of the fandom and the content in general. Some of that was deliberate, because after awhile I realized I wanted to find PEACE with his MCU story rather than just complain about it, and a lot of others were still so stuck on their disappointment.

I would still read fics and stuff (still do at times!) but maybe because of the mixed feelings (projects like Endgame and some others have changed how I view certain earlier ones and find them more difficult to revisit now, both with Tony and other characters) I find myself not rewatching the content from that era a lot anymore. I did watch all 4 Avengers movies earlier this year but a few weeks ago my dad was watching Iron Man 3 on TV and I was so weirded out at how distant and almost alien it felt to me, and we're talking about the Iron Man trilogy movie I consider my favorite. I don't NOT like it, but the connection I used to feel was now more like "omg how could I have forgotten about xyz!" which made me feel like a fake fan.

So there's that and how I feel like I'm on a completely different wavelength from the rest of that side of the fandom. And I sort of know why. I've managed to make peace and move on, while a lot of them haven't. I know that's healthy, and normal for fandom, but what is kind of eating at me is that this feels different because I'm still very much in the Marvel community, just in a different way. Now, that was my plan for after Endgame, because I knew I wanted to cover this stuff "professionally" and liked the idea of being a bit more of a neutral party. (And I have been doing that, and it's been great!) But then the Loki show happened.

I won't go on about it but the Loki show did a lot of things which appealed to me specifically. (It even did some things I wanted them to do with Iron Man's story, which has given me some solace.) But man is it weird to feel more of a connection with the Loki side of the fandom right now than the Iron Man one; not like having the same mindset as the fandom because it's very divided and I know the show is a point of contention with a lot of people (believe me, as someone who was very much against a certain element of the show while it was airing and have now come around on it, I sympathize with a lot of different viewpoints), more like being more up-to-date with the goings-on and stuff. I get that it's part of my job since it's a current project, but yeah.

And I know this is the nature of fandom, and things will continue to change. (It's interesting because I can actually track my life in this way.) But this in particular feels weird because I'm still very much in the Marvel fandom, and it's interesting because after 5 years I would normally have a different "main" fandom by now (and I have had a few come, go, and come again) but thinking about it maybe I sort of do? Marvel is vast and does have a lot of subfandoms after all, so I guess I've just changed allegiances, except not really because Tony is dead and I'm just mostly focusing on more current stuff, but you know what I mean.

I guess because it really feels like I'm "betraying" the Iron Man fans, and that I "gave in" to Marvel and am still on the train when many others are not after what happened to him in the end, plus what happened in Spider-Man: No Way Home because the IronDad legacy and Spider-Man were what a lot of us were holding onto after Tony was gone. (That movie actually made me glad Tony died before the forgetting spell happened and I think that ending - even as is, without Tony forgetting - might have turned me off the MCU, at least for awhile, if I hadn't already been more attached to the Loki characters by that point.)

I'm interested (and kind of scared) to see how I'll look back on this in another 5 years. I'll probably be cringing in some way, like I do with every other fandom, or maybe even because of posts like this. Like I said in the intro, I really would love to talk about all this will people so I encourage anyone who has thoughts on any of this to message me about it!

[bestworstcase]

@lizarr7 reply on this post

When I first finished the series, and started to get into the fandom, I was disappointed to see the general consensus was that season 1 was good, s2 was fine, and s3 had some good episodes/moments, but was generally bad. One of the major reasons listed always seemed to be that Cass's character ark became weird and her villain part was contrived and had no real foundation. I was like "oh, this sucks. I liked season 3! It was my fave and I loved Cass as a villain. Was I being shallow? Was I ignoring glaring plot holes or forced "character development"? I thought it seemed pretty good for a kids show, especially one so silly." I'm glad there is another community who share my opinion in that regard. It sucks to like something and have everyone else hate on it :(

if it helps any most of the hardcore s3 + cass hate comes from 1. people who convinced themselves back in s1 that moonvarian was gonna happen and are still bitter that it didn’t, many of whom additionally brag about only watching a handful of episodes in s2, and 2. people who hated cassandra from day one and were never interested in engaging with her character in good faith to begin with lmao. just ignore ’em

dunno how long you’ve been in the fandom but cassunzel circles are generally a lot more positive wrt s3, and then there is also [clenches fist] the zhan tiri corner of the fandom we are small but mighty ghdghsksh

anyways

s3 fascinates me because it’s simultaneously...like objectively the messiest on a technical level but also my favorite seasons for a lot of reasons and regardless of the bone i have to pick with how the arc was written, ultimately cassandra’s villain arc i think did deliver on the essentials of the setup done in s1-2, and almost all the things i wanted out of the show, as much as it could within the limits of being a disney princess cartoon targeted primarily at children hgkshns

tangentially related i have got. a list of fic recs floating around somewhere but tumblr being what it is i have no idea how to find it so! short list, some good cass-centric fics, most but not all set during or after s3: 

strings by hemlock/pathygen - alt s3, complete, written while the season was airing. focused on cassandra’s journey back to corona with zhan tiri, strong lean into eldritch horror, fantastic imagery. labor by singing light is a follow up oneshot exploring rapunzel’s side of the story

destinies fulfilled by @daylightlucidity - another alt s3, also complete, also focused on cassandra’s journey back to corona with zhan tiri. a lot more canon flavor™ except it says the actual grievances out loud and zhan tiri gets to be a real character instead of a cattle prod

burn a broken effigy of me and you & the doomed knight by murphy @ancientriverbed (who also wrote some excellent fan songs which u should check out!) - the former is a trilogy of ‘missing episodes’ set in each season + a oneshot epilogue, with the third evolving into a whole canon divergent s3; the latter is a standalone winter holidayish oneshot. both are cassunzel endgame. very thinky character driven stories.

not all who wander are lost by @lemon-embalmer - post-canon cass-centric picks up from the end of s3. strikes a much more serious and grounded fantasy tone without losing the voices of any of the canon characters and also has a great cast of OCs.

@erazonpo3’s cassandra’s tangled adventure au is likewise post-canon cass-centric what happens to cass after she leaves corona. very canon-flavor. there’s a bunch of oneshots and a couple longer fics in addition to the art so that link’s just to the au tag.

bite the hand that feeds by @pancat-n-sausage is “tangled the series, but what if cass and rapunzel were both shapeshifters” and strikes a nice balance between canon flavor while also having a more serious feel and while the story itself has not gotten to the zhan tiri parts yet i am excited about her lore™ 

i don’t. read a lot of oneshots but here are a few that i like

...also i wrote the thing so reccing it feels like cheating LMAO but i really am fond of gloaming all i do is write variations on s3 and i think it’s my favorite to to date

[bookofmirth]

If you have the time/energy I would love to hear more of your thoughts about Az's persona! He's such an interesting character to me, and I feel like most of the theories I see about him centre around elain, and how his behaviour is mate behaviour (the double bond thing). Personally I think azriel has a lot of anger, isnt very open with his friends, and also feels like he has to be the one to fix everything (this comes out with elain but also all his relationships).

Can I just start this off by saying “what the fuck” at the double/true/created bond thing. I’ve seen some WILD shit out there in the fandom, wild. 

I have been writing and deleting and copy/pasting etc. this post forever and I can’t decide how to approach it, so I hope this makes sense! I didn’t pull out a ton of quotes because tbh it’s a lot of work and I’ve read these books???? So many times. And this is tumblr, not comprehensive exams.

I would agree with your characterization of Azriel! 

Anger - this comes out in really inappropriate times, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he turns his anger around on himself. We all know that Rhys described his “icy rage”, and later on his “cruel competitiveness”.

Lack of communication - yeah, when has he had a heart-to-heart with anyone in this series? When he does, it’s not about making himself feel better, or sharing his own feelings. It’s to be of service to someone else. All the IC have described trying to reach out to him in their own ways, and not being successful.

Needing to fix things - yes! I see this as his need to be of service. He’s always the first one to jump into work. It took Mor hundreds of years to get him to go to Rita’s, right? He’s a workaholic in a world with no labor laws. He always wants to be the one in charge of gathering intel, of finding people, or fixing problems. I think this is closely tied to two things: his lack of self-worth, and his anger. If he can stay busy enough and work hard enough, he can prove his worth to other people, if not to himself. This is why he loses it when Rhys or Feyre tell him that he can’t handle something. 

Funny thing, but people who have followed my blog since early 2017 know that I shipped moriel hardcore. I just loved it. I wrote so much meta and fanfic. A lot of the arguments that I see now remind me a lot of arguments people used to make about moriel - and it makes sense! Az’s behavior around both Mor and Elain are eerily similar. So I thought I’d compare his behavior towards them because that can tell us about his character!

To me, his treatment of Elain (and Mor) comes down to two things:

What his mother and Mor suffered (and he was unable to prevent), and

His lack of self-worth due to abuse 

Azriel and Mor didn’t know one another very long before she slept with Cassian and was left brutalized by her family. This happened when they were all in their late teens, which is not long after Azriel was tortured by his brothers, rarely let outside, and rarely got to see his mother. At the same time that Azriel sees his mother treated so poorly, he then feels intense guilt and rage at what happens to Mor. It’s enough to make him overreact in the future, any time that Mor (or another female) is in danger. So here are a bunch of examples of him being overprotective of Mor and Elain. But mostly Mor.

In acomaf, Azriel has the audacity to tell Mor no, that she can’t go to the human lands (chapter 41)

“I fought in the War, you will do well to remember-”

“No,” Azriel said again, refusing to break her stare. His shifting wings rasped against the back of his chair. “The would string you up and make an example of you.”

At the end of acomaf he is still highly protective of Mor

Azriel’s head lifted from where he was sprawled in his own blood, eyes full of rage and pain as he snarled at the king, “Don’t you touch her.”

Mor looked at Azriel - and there was real fear there. Fear - and something else. She didn’t stop moving until she again kneeled beside him and pressed a hand to his wound. Azriel hissed-but covered her bloody fingers with his own.

Then in acowar, of course, he explodes at the High Lord meeting after Eris says that Mor dresses like a slut:

Azriel stopped.

Eris gasped for air as those scarred hands loosened. As Azriel turned his face towards me-

The frozen rage there rooted me to the spot. 

But beneath it, I could almost see the image that haunted him: the hand Mor had yanked away, her weeping, distraught face as she had screamed at Rhys.

And now, behind us, Mor was shaking in her chair. Pale and shaking.

And of course in acowar Azriel goes with Feyre to rescue Elain. This ties together all of his issues with Mor and his mother. IMHO, Azriel sees Elain as a second chance. He saves Elain in a way he failed to save Mor, and so he begins to transfer his need to protect and serve onto her.

Azriel’s refusal to let Mor assist in dangerous situations is similar to how he says no, Elain cannot help.

Azriel stiffened, an outright sign of temper from him as he said quietly, “There is an innate darkness to the Dread Trove that Elain should not be exposed to.”

*Note that it’s an “outright sign of temper” - not an outright sign of protectiveness, or caring, or concern, or worry. 

If being protective of another character is “mate behavior” or sign of a mating bond, then Azriel and Mor would be mated. There is far more evidence of him being overprotective of her than of Elain. So while we know that mates are protective (naturally!), Azriel’s protective tendencies are coming from something else - a combination of his failures to protect his mother and Mor.

In acofas, what Cassian jokes is Az being a stickler for manners in forcing everyone to wait for Elain, Rhys explains as being related to Azriel’s mother - not Elain or Cassian.

Rhys took a bite, gesturing with his knife for me to eat. Let’s just say it hit a little close to home. At my beat of confusion, he added, There are some scars when it comes to how his mother was treated. Many scars.

Again, it seems all well and good that Az was thinking about being polite, but Rhys tells us that it’s because of Azriel’s mommy issues! Which are understandable and important, but a clear example of Azriel trying to make up for poor treatment in one woman by overreacting around another.

In the acosf POV, when Az questions why he wasn’t mated with Elain (and he can smell bonds so wouldn’t he smell his own?) it’s not so much about Elain as the fact that he feels he did everything right this time. He saved the damsel. He was of service. Elain is safe and healthy and she seems much more amenable than Mor ever has. So what did he do wrong? This is the source of his anger, combined with his loneliness and desire for a shiny lovely mating bond of his own. 

When we think about Azriel’s motivations, it comes down to service and self-worth. He sees his main value or purpose as saving others from harm, and when he was barely into adulthood he failed in that duty for the two most important women in his life. Hence his need to overcompensate around Mor, and now Elain.

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Slippin’ Mickeys

Only 3 stories by Slippin’ Mickeys ended up at Gossamer, but she’s written many more stories than that. She’s also one of the few authors who posted numerous stories during the show’s original run and then again in the revival years. I’ve recced some of my favorites of her stories here, including Last Chance Falls and Currahee. Big thanks to Slippin’ Mickeys for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

I would say that it does and doesn't surprise me. It surprises me that anyone would want to read something I wrote all those years ago, (only in that I was an actual teenager at the time, and had no chops at all -- I've grown a lot as a writer, and honestly have trouble reading my old stuff because I would have made much different creative decisions now). But the fanfiction that came out of the original run of the show -- from almost day one -- was so rich and varied and a lot of it so well written that I am not the least bit surprised that people want to read it today. I go back and read old favorites often, and am always thrilled to find something that's new-to-me, even if it's 27 years old.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

The first thing I think about when I think about my fandom experience are the friends I made along the way. The X-Files came up with the internet, and there was a whole new way of connecting with people that liked the things that you liked. To this day, I am good friends with many people that I met through the show back in 1997-98. When the revival came about, I dove back in, and made new, more recent friendships that are just as rich. I love the show, but I also love the people I met along the way.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

I first got into the show's online community on some random message board that I think I probably found through a Yahoo search one day in a computer lab on my university's campus. I connected with one woman from Greece named Fay that day, who invited me to join a group of women that chatted about the show after it aired on Monday nights. After the first time I hooked up with them, we talked almost daily via ICQ. Later, in the early aughts, I found the forums on Mighty Big TV/Television Without Pity, where some of the most intelligent discussion was going on. The forums were heavily moderated, and so they were always on topic, and it was just a smart, funny, great place to be.

Eventually, I started working for TWoP as both a writer and moderator (surprise! A lot of people don't know this because TWoP protected the identities of their mods so well, but I was the X-Files board mod after Jessica left!). It was my first paid writing gig and opened doors for me both professionally and personally. Two TWoP recappers were in my wedding!

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

Fanfiction opened my eyes to storytelling as a medium. I'd obviously gone to school and read books, but it opened my eyes to words to could do and be. It was a heady time. There were stories of every stripe. Short, long, canon-compliant, AU, experimental, you name it. We had such gifted writers, too. To this day, I'd almost rather read a piece of well written fanfic than a good book. Fanfic made me want to be a storyteller myself.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

It was the 'ship. God bless the ship. My first episode was Never Again, but I didn't watch again until I was sitting with my college roommate freshman year and she was like "sorry, but I have to watch The X-Files on Sunday nights." That first episode was Redux. The next week was Redux II, and by then it was all over for me. The lengths Mulder and Scully would go to for each other? And the relationship wasn't even sexual? Here were two people who loved each other. Really loved each other. Selflessly. I was SO IN.

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

At first, I started reading it. This was back when you could only watch the show in reruns or on those VHS tapes that were sold in three packs that had two eps on each tape (I still have the trading cards that came with them), so after I burned through the VHS options (of which there were few), and set my VCR to tape the weekly reruns on FX, I needed MORE. I found fanfic. And in fanfic, Mulder and Scully actually like, kissed and maybe even had sex! I read everything I could get my hands on. Pretty soon, I wanted to write it myself.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

Things are tough these days. It's a hard world to live in, and politics aside, it just feels like everything is falling apart around us. When I first found the show, my life was in a bit of upheaval and I dove into the fandom to distract myself. I'm doing the same thing these days. When the show ended, I left the fandom and lived without it for about 15 years. But when the revival came (and really only after finishing season 11 -- season 10 didn't do much for me), I dove back in. I have quite a few more responsibilities these days, but when I can't watch the news anymore, I log on to XF Twitter (I use my fandom account far more than my IRL account) or Tumblr and get lost for a while. And most nights find me reading or writing fanfic before bed. When the world gets better (I'm cautiously optimistic) and the show has been off the air for years and years, will I leave again? Maybe. But for now, it's once again my happy place.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

Nothing hardcore. The X-Files is my ride or die.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I do an occasional episode or movie rewatch. Not too often, but when I'm jonesing and have 45 free minutes, I'll put one on. But I'm writing fanfic again, and I get hit with inspiration at random and odd intervals, so it's safe to say I find myself thinking about Mulder and Scully probably more than is healthy.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

All the time. The old stuff, the new stuff, the good stuff. If I have five minutes and my kid is entertaining himself? I'll happy pull out an old favorite.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

I'm reluctantly abstaining from this question, as I'm still active in the fandom and I know that naming favorites will hurt some feelings.

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

Of The Eight Winds is probably my favorite. I've had a lot of fun writing AU's lately. It's a nice creative outlet, taking our favorite agents and plunking them in a totally different world.

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

Do I! I have a whole ass queue. It's frankly irresponsible.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I was writing professionally before I had a baby, and I took years off to be a stay at home mom. Once my kiddo was finally in school full time, I started writing again. With the pandemic, that's for the most part on hold, as I just don't have the bandwidth to dedicate to professional work. Fanfic is easier to play with when you only have five minutes here or there, and it's also great exercise when it comes to plotting and prose, so I'm  sticking with fic for now. When the kiddos are all back in school, maybe I can start getting paid again.

Where do you get ideas for stories?

I get a lot of prompts that I just adore. And honestly, a lot of times, I'll post a stupid picture or ridiculous prompt of my own on Twitter and get dared to write it. If the idea gets stuck in my craw, I generally have to exorcise the demon.

What's the story behind your pen name?

Bad Blood had just aired and I was obsessed with it. I wanted to pay homage to it, so took Mulder's "who slipped him the mickey?" quote and ran with it. Do I regret that? Sometimes.

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

My husband knows and is supportive. He's a working writer, so he supports my endeavors, though I know he wishes I were doing something I could monetize. But it makes me happy, and ultimately: happy wife, happy life and all that jazz.

The friends of mine that I've made through the fandom all know and are super supportive.

As for the rest, well... I have a nom de plume on purpose!

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

All my newest work is on AO3. My old stuff can be found on various archives. Like the truth... it's out there.

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

I'd leave it with: we're a blessed fandom. The show we stan (even with the real stinkers, there's always something to love) keeps giving, the fellow fans are all some of the smartest, sweetest, and most dedicated people out there... we've been blessed for 25 years, and I don't see that stopping any time soon.

(Posted by Lilydale on August 11, 2020)

[slifers-executive-writer]

A Overall Discussion About Godzilla: King of the Monsters 2019.

It has been awhile since I wrote an original piece on my blog, and while I’ve stated this is mostly for my writing and anime fandom, I cannot help but include one of my other passions. That is of course the movies. One topic that has been going around the internet lately is the potential flop that is Godzilla:KOTM 2019. I will put it out there right now, that while this movie isn’t doing as good as I would like, I’m sure it will make its money back and I certainly don’t think it is a flop. But my main reason for writing this particular discussion is to clear the air about where this film stands. I’ve been hearing a lot of reviews both top critical and various Youtubers complain about this thing and my overall observation is a lot of them claim to ‘like’ Godzilla and yet clearly don’t understand a goddamn thing.

A very similar thing happened with Detective Pikachu. Both movies not scoring that great on Rotten Tomatoes and overall critic/Youtuber reception being very mixed, yet the general audience seemed to enjoy both summer blockbusters. Both films suffered from a lot of ‘reviewers’ not doing even the smallest amount of research on source material before opening their big angry mouths and complaining why certain characters or concepts weren’t included.  

And example complaint on these films were:

Detective Pikachu: wHeRe Is TeAm RoCkeT?

Godzilla KOTM: wHy ArEn’T tHeRe OtHeR tOhO mOnStErS?

Yes these were real complaints.

Now in all honesty, I know neither of these movies are masterpieces as in terms of depth of plot or character arcs. If I had to choose one, I would definitely say it terms of the human elements, Detective Pikachu was a much better film. So I am fully aware that these flicks are complete nostalgia pandering hunks of cheese. 

And yet I still found myself enjoying both films to the point where I clapped at the end. The same way almost everyone and their grandmother did for the Avengers. So what is it about this hot garbage making so many people flock to the theaters multiple times to see them?

It’s the simple fact that we have had these Japanese properties in our lives for several decades. Pokemon (1998) & Godzilla (1954). If anyone grew up on either of these or both (such as myself) then we know that as long as these Americanized films are a loads of fun, we can forgive the lazy messy plots. But perhaps that is why these movies aren’t what we all wish they could be...because they are created on American soil. 

You see unfortunately, Hollywood has been in one of the most non-creative/reboot mayhem crisis I’ve ever witnessed. Big corporate studios have to pump out as many safe reboot/non original IPs as possible and it seems to have lost most it’s writing talent as well. If certain directors and producers aren’t behind a project, then the adapted movie (such those inspired by anime and other foreign film franchises) probably won’t have much substance. Not to mention Western filmmakers and our critics don’t seem to fully understand the culture shock of the growing popularity in these Japanese properties. Nor do they understand the appeal of these features, hence all the negative/angry reviews. We have seen this time and time again. And it is nothing new.

Now let’s get back to Godzilla: KOTM. It was a fun ride no doubt. The CGI was incredible, and with certain recent Marvel and DC films, this is a mark a lot of those films miss. So thank Godzilla that our beloved kaijus and other effects looked gorgeous. The cinematography for the monsters was also done very well. There are plenty of moments where we truly understand the grand size of these creatures. Overall the fights were awesome and mind numbing. And the music, oh my god the scoring was incredible. Done by Bear McCreary, who did the recent God of War installation did our Kaiju King a great service. Paying homage to classic Godzilla themes was the perfect icing on the cake. So what was the big complaint? 

Lol These dumbasses. The people in any robot/kaiju/creature feature seem to be the hardest thing directors cannot figure out no matter how hard they try. But let us admit that we as viewers are pretty hypocritical in this argument. On one hand we ask for a shit ton of monster brawls and on the other hand, we complain their are too many explosions and that the effect wears off after a while. We want human stories and then we complain that they are in the movie at all. Godzilla KOTM by no means has a good human story. Some moments with the military and Ken Watanabe were fine, but the idiots in the images above this movie did not need...like at all. I especially hated the father and mother figures. Like yeah Eleven (Milly Bobby Brown), I would run the fuck away too. I’m not excusing the writers for the shitty human plot, I’m just explaining as to why we still suffer from this problem. However, if you are a fan of the Godzilla franchise, you know for a majority of the films, the human plot is not much better than what we see here. Maybe that was Michael Dougherty’s point. He claimed that this was the ultimate film for Godzilla fans and quite frankly, maybe he is right.

Aside from the very first film (Gojira 1954), the human elements of these films were always lack luster, silly, and even forced. Yet so many people are quick to judge our American filmmakers for ruining what ‘only the Japanese can do right’ and in all honesty I’ve never heard such a false statement. The image above is from one of my favorites, Godzilla 2000. Japan’s fuck you to the terrible 1998 film. But when watching this, did you really care about this guy, his daughter, and his dumbass girlfriend. Or the scientists and their anime-esque villain. The answer is probably no. In any of these kaiju films, very rarely do we ‘really’ care about the people. We just want to see the action. The plots are always, cliche, predictable, and stuffing in some bullshit environmental awareness message. Nukes are bad and people suck. But we love Godzilla (practically a walking nuke) anyway. 

Godzilla KOTM, is the same shit we’ve seen before only with American styled editing and tropes. So lots of quick cuts and a focus on the family unit. But hey the special effects are so much better than anything we have seen previously. I don’t have to laugh when I see wires and crappy green screen, or using the same footage from a previous movie. Nope. All our favorite kaijus are in beautiful IMAX quality and are ready to wreck cities worldwide. This is the film fans asked for and we got it. Oh and before the next person complains that the Japanese can only do it better, here is what was done before this.

We got Evangelion Goji with AIDs and CG Tree Goji with Ramen Noddles Ghidorah. While Shin Godzilla was a masterpiece over seas, if you didn’t understand the political subtext, then this film was an angsty destructive ride by a guy who can’t even finish his own art thesis of an anime. (I totally don’t have mixed feelings over Evangelion lol). I didn’t hate Shin Godzilla. It had its moments, but I didn’t think it held the same power of the film it was trying to emulate. Not to mention the CGI and sound design at points were just dreadful. As for the Netflix anime Godzilla trilogy...just wow. Aside from loving the physical design of this new Goji and his new powers, this story was worse than awful, it was downright boring. Even hardcore Godzilla fans had a hard time defending this mess of bad CG. With a promise of multiple featured kaiju and Mecha Godzilla, we get a hunk of nano metal and the only other kaiju actually featured looking like a pack of Maruchan coming down to like ...basically have a staring contest with Godzilla and then evaporate. What a fight for the ages...

In conclusion, I’m not sure if and when either Japan or American will ever truly get it right. We may like certain aspects of one film but hate the rest of it and the cycle will continue on and on. But as far as KOTM goes, I’m happy it exists and hope it does well enough for Legendary to renew its licenses with Toho. I and many others just want Godzilla in the roster and to continue the legacy. Something for future generations of children and adults to enjoy the romping monsters and hear their iconic roars. We can’t let this current toxic and hating Internet culture bitch and complain about concepts and niche cultures it doesn’t fully understand. Like the anime community, the Godzilla fandom is a unique one and has a niche audience. But perhaps like what the Marvel movies have done for comic book fans, the exclusion will lessen over time and become more mainstream. But for now, Godzilla KOTM is meant for a particular group of people and it seems for that bunch, it has made them plenty happy. Myself included. 

So what are your thoughts on this movie and others like?

Feel free to share your comments, reblogs, and however else you would like to respond down below. 

[tigerlover16-uk]

What do you say when detractors of Super complain that modern Dragon Ball content is ruining the franchises reputation?

“Nice historical revisionism there, pal”

Here’s a little history lesson for you, anon. A lot of people like to forget this, or at least pretend it never happened, either because they didn’t discuss the show outside of Dragon Ball’s hardcore fandom and didn’t pay much mind to the backlash, or because they dismissed it as not that many people in the long run. 

But between around the time Dragon Ball Z finished airing in America and other western countries and about the start of the new decade, Dragon Ball Z was an internet LAUGHING STOCK among many circles

Hype backlash for the show set in hard, and it was frequently held up as “The epitome of everything wrong with Shonen anime”, a badly paced, no-depth, generic run of the mill show that was all about screaming and power levels. A relic of the past that had long been surpassed by dozens of other series that did all of it’s tropes better, but it was still to blame for all the other problems shonen anime had after it.

You couldn’t go into a lot of hardcore anime fan circles and say Dragon Ball Z was your favourite anime without being met with a lot of mockery and people assuming you had no taste. The show was looked down on as some lowest common denominator trash that had aged poorly and that mostly nostalgic dude-bros were into. Nothing a sophisticated fan of Japanese Animation would waste their time on.

We still see the effects of this backlash to this day, reflected in how a lot of people try to write off serious discussions and analysis of the franchise, insisting “It ain’t that deep!”

It’s this mindset that’s a big part of the reason why TFS memes took over the fandom to the extent that they did, since it became so socially acceptable to mock the series and the Abridged series was built on what was meant to be light-hearted riffing on the series and old fandom interpretations and memes but people thought they were seriously mocking the series, a lot of Dragon Ball fans over time just started going with the flow and treating Dragon Ball as a critically bad series that they still enjoyed. 

Basically, instead of actually trying to defend the series and actually making an effort to think critically about it, a lot of people just went “Yeah it’s trash, but it’s our trash! :)”

This sort of thing was mostly a Western thing mind, particularly an American reaction, in Japan Dragon Ball has always continued to be well regarded, same in Latin America and some other countries. But yeah, for much of the American-Euro centric internet for the latter half of last decade, Dragon Ball Z was just some overrated joke that wasn’t meant to be taken seriously because of all it’s well documented flaws.

You want to know what started a change from this?

Dragon Ball Kai. Arguably the thing that helped start off the modern era of Dragon Ball content along with the Yo! special.

Dragon Ball Kai addressed a lot of the series most infamous complaints. It cut out the majority of filler, leading to much quicker pacing and a more focused narrative, and had a much better, more faithful dub than either Z or Dragon Ball had. 

Suddenly a lot of people mocking Dragon Ball Z gave the franchise another chance and, seeing the story closer to what was intended with the manga, a lot of people started to look at the series in a more positive light again. And casual fans who hadn’t gotten to watch Z for a few years gained a better appreciation for it. And of course, it helped bring in a new generation of younger fans, both kids and teenagers who missed out on Z when it was airing.

Then we got Battle of Gods, which had a few detractors but in general was very well received. And then Resurrection F happened, and then Super’s announcement suddenly started up the hype train big time. 

And while Super floundered a bit at the start due to it’s poor production, over the course of it’s original arcs it started to gain more positive attention, bringing in new fans and bringing back a flood of casuals who had drifted off from the franchise for years. 

Dragon Ball became Toei’s number one most profitable franchise through merchandise revenue, to the point it’s now making them more than three times as much as One Piece. It got consistently good ratings for it’s timeslot besides that, and the dub gets good ratings by late night modern Toonami standards. And now the upcoming movie is generating so much hype that in Japan alone it’s advanced ticket sales are already more than double that of Resurrection F.

This isn’t even touching on how video games like Xenoverse and ESPECIALLY FighterZ, which is a huge hit among the fighting game community, have helped attract a lot of new fans who previously didn’t give Dragon Ball the time of day.

This and nostalgic appreciation kicking in has meant that over the course of this decade, Dragon Ball’s reputation has improved and a lot of the backlash to the series faded enough that it’s once more socially acceptable among much of the internet to gush about how much you love the series again and how it’s one of the best and most influential anime ever.

I mean, we aren’t at the point we were when Z first caught on in the West. Super is a popular series, but it’s not really as big as Z was, and there are still snobs who hate the franchise in general and problems in the fandom. Dear God, are there problems in the fandom. But frankly, Dragon Ball hasn’t been in as good standing as it currently is for years.

So to say that Super and other modern works have “Ruined” Dragon Ball’s reputation is a downright lie. Everything from Kai to where we are now with the franchise has been working to restore Dragon Ball’s popularity and brand.

Yeah, among the hardcore fandom modern Dragon Ball works have a lot of critics. But honestly, the people you see constantly harping on Super and the like online and calling it a franchise ruining abomination are a vocal minority at best.

Twitter Polls from Japanese viewers showed that the majority of fans liked almost every episode of Super that came out. Dragon Ball merchandise revenue is through the roof. And again, it got solid ratings and the movie is already on it’s way to be a big success.

As much as hardcore fandom loves to complain about every little detail of everything in the West, casual fans are routinely pretty positive about Super. The majority of people I talk to who like Dragon Ball but don’t have it as their primary fandom or people that only watched Kai when it was airing enjoy Super and think it’s fun. Super has plenty of it’s own fans who have only gotten into Dragon Ball recently, and plenty of longtime fans like me who love and defend it. I know people who’ve said that Super is what got them to start taking Dragon Ball seriously when it was previously just another series they sometimes watched.

And the last several episodes of Super were treated like a huge event throughout Latin America. It was aired in pubs and all kinds of public venues, including stadiums, in multiple Latin American countries, many of these gathering having crowds numbering in the THOUSANDS to watch the episodes, which were enormous hits. News channels were talking about the show and reporting on them, including discussing spoilers and plot synopsis. It was advertised like a high-profile sporting event.

That many people don’t get that hyped and go to that kind of trouble for a show they don’t enjoy.

Opinions about Dragon Ball aren’t unanimously positive. but I think hardcore fans who’re used to being waist-deep into the discourse around Super need to step back from the fandom now and again, because in general… modern Dragon Ball is regarded well enough, and Dragon Ball is all-around a well beloved staple of pop culture, even if it’s not as big and all over the place as in it’s heyday.

Things could always be better, yes. Hopefully the next Dragon Ball show has a good production so it turns out even better than Super, and maybe that’ll kick the hype for the series even further into overdrive. But as things stand, Dragon Ball’s reputation is safe.

It’s fine for people to not like Super and other modern Dragon Ball works, but there’s no need to go spreading a “The franchise is ruined! Dragon Ball is a joke now!” Narrative when that’s clearly not the case. 

[rainbowserenity]

Hi! Really interested in #6! Care to share?

but of course, since I tend to hardcore ship things in most fandoms I’m in, ohohoho~

6. List your OTP from each fandom you’ve been involved in.

Pokemon - even though I stopped watching the anime around the time the Hoenn arc started, I’m a hardcore Pokeshipper for life. It’s actually one of the reasons the 2nd movie is my favorite…because of all those Ash/Misty hints in the English version ahaha

Fushigi Yuugi - fuck me up with that Tasuki/Miaka, although when I recently reread the manga, Taskui just gives off really strong gay vibes now. LOL But the fic for the ship was glorious, and there’s actually some I’m still hoping will someday update, even a decade later

Danny Phantom - I was obsessed with Danny/Sam. like if any of you ever find my deviantART page, so much of the old stuff is basically bad fanart of them. I recorded almost all the episodes on VHS (oh god I feel old) and I actually almost ruined the tape I had the episode ‘Fanning the Flames’ on because I rewatched it so often. The series finale aired during a weekend when I was in Orlando, and I stayed behind in the hotel to watch it while everybody else went out to dinner, which was nice because I could scream about them ACTUALLY ENDING UP TOGETHER in peace!!!!1

Kingdom Hearts - honestly can’t choose between AkuRoku or Riku/Sora. They’re both glorious in their own ways (Nomura, just let Riku be gay. and don’t change his outfit so he can continue to show his bellybutton. PLEASE)

FFVII - Clack. Clack Clack Clack CLAAAAAACKI actually have a lot of VII ships, but Clack is the #1. I used to RP him on LJ, and I pretty much refused to play in a community if the Cloud player wasn’t at least open to it :x plus, the Clack fics…so much Claaaack…gahhh I love them so much and my heart is just ;alksdjf;liwejf;lij

FFXIII - are you new here

Teen Wolf - STEREK. It took bff like two years to get me to watch the show in the first place, and I was not disappointed :D (the disappointment came later, after the writers screwed up lmao)

Mystic Messenger - Zen/MC/Jaehee is my OT3, because they’re (we’re?) flawless together~ This is honestly the only (non-RP) OT3 I’ve ever really seriously shipped, and it desperately needs more fic. I might have to write it all…..

Yuri on Ice - okay granted, I’m not very involved with this fandom, but I spent an hour looking at Victuuri fanart last night and my chest still physically hurts

Life is Strange - PRICEFIELD!!!!1 even after BtS, it’s still #1 in my heart. bae before bay for life ;;

I think that’s all the fandoms I’ve been actively involved in?? Some - namely TW and YOI - I haven’t really written anything for, but I’ve RPed them with bff and I’m heavily involved in watching the fandoms from afar, so vOv

as long as it gets me fangirling, that’s all that matters

[daxiia]

TAG!

RULES: Always post the rules. Answer the questions asked, then write 11 new ones. Tag 11 people to answer your questions, as well as the person who tagged you.

Tagged by the wonderful @ladywiltshire Thank you love! :D

1. Do you remember your first time watching or reading Fullmetal Alchemist? What was your first impression?

Yes! Soooo many years ago when 03 was airing on tv. My first reaction was, “Why does that robot sound like a little kid?”

2. Tell us about The Fave™.

GREED!!! FIRST GREED!!!! LOVE OF MY LIFE, KNIGHT WITH SHINING CLAWS, I LOVE HIM!! I WANT HIM TO CRUSH ME WITH TH00SE ARMS !!! Imean Have you SEEN those TEETH ,, o m G 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻 goshh

3. Do you have a favorite fan work? Fanfics Comics?

I’m sure everyone feels the same about this one but Siruoa’s Emperors New Clothes video. Talk about my most viewed youtube video.

4. Hit me with an analysis/opinion you have on the series or characters!

I don’t really do analysis. Is it a passing grade if I just say “my analysis is that Greed is hot”?

5. Tell us about a project you have going on! Or if you don’t have one, maybe something you’ve always wanted to write or draw?

I’ve always wanted to make a lyric video of Greed to Disturbs song Avarice. I promise i’ll do it one day when I get motivation lol

6. Favorite opening/ending number and why?

My favorite opening is fmab 3rd one Golden Time Lover! I find it SUPER catchy plus the scenes used in that op are so amazing!!! Just go watch it and pay attention to the transitions between characters and camera angles. I can’t praise it enough.

My favorite ending is actually fma 03’s first ending!! It gives me such a rush of nostalgia, also the song itself is great. And the art style is beautiful, i adore the use of solid black for shading. Plus the little hand to hand combat scene with Ed and Al. It also has little still images from parts from the story. Its beautiful, i love it so much. Also I think endings in general don’t get enough love so go watch them all if you haven’t!

7. Tell me about a scene that really touched you or made you realize something about yourself.

Gosh… I’ve actually been asked the question a lot and I try not to use the same scene but I CAN’T HELP IT!!

The scene when Ed and Al go home to Winry. Idc how many times I’ve watch fmab, I will always cry from that scene. As soon as I hear the music in that scene and see Winry slowly walking to the door I start to tear up. Then when she hUGS THEM I JUST- I get chills just thinking about it. That entire journey trying to get their bodies back and they finally did it, and they get to go home and- Ed’s promise about the tears of joy i just- I CAN’T 8. OTPs! Who are they? Why are you WEAK FOR THEM??

This might be a shock but… My OTP is GreedxLing. I know right, me? Who would’ve thought.

But yeah I ship this ship so hard is makes me sick. I adore shipping them romantically like I LOVE YOU kinda stuff but honestly I am so thirsty I will take anything. There isn’t enough content for that ship and it DEPRESSES ME. Also I hardly ever see art of First Greed and Ling. :/ it’s always Ling and Greedling. Even tho thats literally still LING. I mean I’ll take it but whatever LOL

I also love Edling but that’s always on my blog so no surprise there either. Aside from those two ships I don’t actively search for any other fma ship anymore. I used to hardcore ship KimbleexMiles (even tho it’s totally wrong ik) but ran outta content and fell into a pit of despair. Rip me 9. Funniest headcanon you’ve ever seen. Go!

UMMM… Greed being a super dorky bookworm if his avarice extended to wanting to KNOW everything too. And him just schooling everyone all the time, or just saying random facts out of nowhere.

10. What spurred you to join the fandom?

My sister wanted me to rewatch fmab with her since I hadn’t watched it in a long time. I fell in love with Greed and slowly started devoting my tumblr to him till I became a part of the fandom lol I was actually an Osomatsu-san blog before this. I someone managed to smoothly transition to fma tho

11. Definitely the same question… have a fandom meltdown here and tell me why you love your fandom or show/comic so much!

Fma is probably the most well crafted, interesting, and heartwarming series ever created. I mean there is no pointless filler episodes, everything happens for a reason. And every character serves a purpose while still being able to stand out among the huge cast of characters.

Basically it’s a work of art that makes you care for the characters and stay interested in the plot from day 1. Also, out of all the fandoms I’ve ever been apart of, fma has the nicest, warmest community of people. I’m so glad to be a part of it and to have been able to meet and talk to so many of yall. This is getting a bit gay but I love this fandom, and I love yall! People I tag: @grey-ling | @romip89 | @corporategreed-fma | @allfullmetal | @hi-im-secretly-satan | @followthechick | @greedoda

I literally can’t think of 11 off the top of my head. Also feel free to ignore this tag. And here’s my questions for yall! (All are FMA btw)

1. Who do you think has the best character development in the series?

2. Tell me about your FAVORITE character and your LEAST favorite character? Why do you love/hate them?

3. If you could change one thing in the entire series what would it be?

4. QUICK! Give me a really cute headcanon about your OTP/fave?

5. What is your favorite arc and why?

6. What character do you think is under appreciated?

7. What is your sin?

8. If you (and someone close to you) were in Ed and Al’s place, would you be okay with using the stone? Why or why not?

9. Is there any villain you feel sympathy for and can fully understand their motives? Do you think what they did was justified?

10. Which would you rather eat, Winry’s apple pie or Gracia’s quiche?

11. And finally, what is your FAVORITE moment in the entire series?

[buggeredson-a]

This isn't a meme but what's your opinion on the show being renewed for a 13th season?

Mun-Directed Questions About Roleplaying!

Post-Writing Edit: I won’t put this under a cut. I’m going to be honest. And it’s a hurtful kind of honesty. You might want to consider passing on.

[ I’m just gonna link the meme anyway, since it’s kinda what I’m guessing prompted this question. ;)

I actually have really mixed feelings about going into S13. Part of me wants to see more of S12 before I make a call on it–I’m only up to E3–but the other part of me…kinda knows what call I’m gonna make already, because it’s the same call I made for S8. And S9. And S10. And S11. And S12.

Why is this show still on-air?

Now, I don’t mean that as insult: I mean that as a genuine question. I know I’m not one of the people keeping ratings up. I have maybe two people out of everyone I know who are only maybe, maybe, playing into those ratings. So who is still watching? The show hasn’t been fresh in a while. The formula is still the same.

Last Season ends on a major event, either character death, disappearance, or game-changing revelation; New Season picks up with whoever out of the Boys wasn’t involved in the Last Season event trying to correct the situation; partial resolution by Episode 4 AT THE OUTSIDE, when the Boys are all together again in some way, shape, or form; major event is mostly dealt with by the beginning of Episode 9 and New Event is brewing to end the New Season; every fucking moment of this event will be very painfully drawn out by the same unoriginal trope of the Boys not communicating fully with one another and acting more like teenaged edgelord piss-babies than fucking 40-year old men, which they are even canonically at this point.

Where I am in S12, Dean’s just said he’s 37. He and Sam and certainly Cas are too old to keep getting jerked along by the same plot devices used in subpar Pre-/Adolescent Fiction. It was cute for a season–now we’ve had at least seven, going on eight seasons of it.

But here’s the thing. I’m not willing to condemn Season 13 just yet.

Not because I expect the writing to turn around and give us a plot that doesn’t rely on more bullshit lies, half-truths, and miscommunications, but because I’ve seen the trend in other areas. Frankly, the Boys are fucked. They’ve been fucked for several seasons by now. They’re not going to get the same kind of character development they used to get, like when Cas had to decide if humanity meant enough to him to disobey Heaven and protect the Winchesters and Earth, or when Sam had to decide FOR THE FIRST TIME–the impactful time–if his life was worth the lives of everyone on the planet, or when Dean had to learn–for the first time again, for the only time it felt meaningful–that sometimes winning the war can mean losing a piece of yourself. No, they’re going to get more hissy fits, more manpain, more angst, and maybe, hopefully, something smaller and cool and meaningful that the fans can give proper weight to–like LuciCase, like Sam finally realizing that he’s okay with hunting, like Deanmon.

I stopped watching the show for the Boys a long time ago.

But do you know what this show does better than anything else, what I’m willing to give Season 13 a chance on again, what I’m waiting to see develop?

Those secondary characters. Bobby. Crowley. Jo. Ellen. Jody. Kevin. Linda. Charlie. Donna. Claire. Krissy. Billie. The recurring characters, the ones who came back episode after episode, who were fun and funny and well-written. Five of those are dead and will hopefully remain so–because I think we can all agree that ghost!Bobby was as unnecessary as it was hurtful, and that it disrespected a character we all loved. At least one of those has fallen into the same awful hole as the Boys, where all the character development has run together and given up and become horrible and repetitive and wishy-washy and just keeps happening, no matter how often “a lesson is learned” and they express–verbally–that they won’t fall into the same trap again.

You know what I want? I want a new secondary character. I want a woman. I want her to be a badass and I don’t want her to have a romance with any of the Big Four. I don’t want her to have a romance at all, but I’ll settle for her having a romance with someone off-screen or unrelated to the show’s events. I want her to be witty. I want her to be a badass. But above all, I want her to be unique, and if she must die, I want her death to be about her, not about the Boys.I want her to be reluctant, like Kevin.I want her to call the Boys out on their bullshit, like Bobby.I want her to be hardcore, like Krissy, but soft, like Jody.

I’m not going to get her. I wouldn’t get her even if she was a he instead.

But I know I’m going to get SOMEone, someone beyond my wildest dreams, someone WONDERFUL, and that someone is going to be the whole reason Season 13 is watchable, enjoyable, pleasant.

So there’s my two cents on the hot-button topic. To say I’m critical is fair–to say I’m hypocritical, on some level, is also fair. But in reality: I’m passionate. And I’m pissed-off because I was promised better going into the show, I was promised better with every season of this show, and even when things didn’t get better, I hell, THE WHOLE FANDOM, deserves better. ]

[theconservativebrief]

Tumblr announced Monday that it would be banning many categories of adult content across its platform, including “photos, videos, or GIFs” displaying explicit material, as well as “illustrations that [depict] sex acts.”

The controversial change will take effect on December 17; existing posts flagged by Tumblr’s censors as violating the new policy will be automatically set to private, meaning that no one will be able to see them other than the blog’s creator.

Debate is raging about what Tumblr’s userbase will even look like at that point, given how much of the community involves erotica and the use of explicit imagery. Discussion of the ban consumed social media throughout Monday evening, and Tumblr users responded with a mixture of outrage, worry, and hilarious memes.

On the one hand, it’s easy to see why Tumblr, now in its 11th year as a social media platform known for “reblogs” and image-heavy content, made this move: it seems very likely that its hand was probably forced by Apple. In November, Apple banned Tumblr’s official app from the IOS store because of reported child pornography on the platform. This led to a sitewide crackdown on pornography that left many users complaining that their NSFW blogs had been unfairly purged in the sweep.

Yet despite last month’s initial purge, the app has still not been restored to the IOS store, in what seems to be a clear ‘fix this or else’ ultimatum from Apple that has almost certainly prompted the current crisis. As Motherboard wrote on Monday in its breakdown of the Tumblr situation, “Apple has repeatedly leveraged its unprecedented power over millions of smartphones to sanitize the apps that are available on iPhones.”

In an email response, a Tumblr spokesperson directed Vox back to the staff announcement, including the staff’s acknowledgment that “filtering this type of content versus say, a political protest with nudity or the statue of David, is not simple at scale. We’re relying on automated tools to identify adult content and humans to help train and keep our systems in check. We know there will be mistakes, but we’ve done our best to create and enforce a policy that acknowledges the breadth of expression we see in the community.”

But on the other hand, many users are outraged over what they see as an attempt to disrupt the entire culture of Tumblr and its community, where erotica and NSFW artwork and storytelling have thrived and flourished — and where marginalized communities who have built safe spaces may now be newly vulnerable.

“According to marginalized and vulnerable people, this change in policy will directly hurt them,” wrote geek icon and power user Wil Wheaton, in a reblog of an inappropriately flagged post which featured nothing more offensive than shirtless men kissing. “And that’s indefensible.”

What’s at issue is not only the question of whether Tumblr can survive its own purge — it’s the question of who Tumblr’s core users are, and what will motivate them to continue building their communities on a platform that seems to be devaluing them and their vital contributions to building Tumblr culture.

Though Tumblr was born alongside most other modern social networks, it’s long been associated with a certain countercultural deviance. Founder David Karp launched it in 2007 when he was just 20, and his much-vaunted hoodie-wearing ethos helped give the site a permanently youthful attitude — even an air of “millennial narcissism.”

Tumblr’s younger, digital-savvy denizens made Tumblr into a center of internet culture, churning out memes and cultivating subcultures from fandoms to study bloggers to digital art collectives. But despite all this, the site has long been plagued by an unfairly dismissive cultural reputation that reduces the entire vibrant platform to a vast repository of porn, and not much else.

The association of Tumblr with porn is part of a longstanding media narrative that has perpetually dismissed the site and its userbase for its relative youth, its progressive politics, its fandom leanings, and its predominantly queer and feminist userbase.

“Every time I make the mistake of opening Tumblr at work I end up seeing a stray boob,” Akila Hughes joked in Splinter News.

This reputation further reduces the community that gave us “Tumblr activism” — the disruptive but progressive political force that grew into a loud generation of real-world activists — down to that of a bunch of women who are only there for porn.

And even the porn itself gets mischaracterized. The fact is that the erotic and NSFW imagery on Tumblr includes everything from fanart to sex education, and is a vibrant and much-valued part of the community. And while data analysts have uncovered that, yes, there is a lot of porn on Tumblr, it’s coming from only a tiny fraction — about a tenth of one percent — of the site’s creators.

And the producers of this pornography are not active members of the Tumblr community. Most of the producers of pornography on Tumblr are pornbots, automated accounts set up to specifically generate NSFW content, much of it designed to lure users to third-party paid content sites.

Still, because pornbots don’t always stay in their lane, it’s easy for users reading random “normal” tags to be exposed to them. The site has tried multiple times to deal with porn in its midst. Users have even tried to help, organizing spontaneous organic pornbot-banning campaigns. But the site’s efforts haven’t been enough to keep it from running into trouble with third parties — most notably, Apple, which, in its ban of anything “overtly sexual,” is not attuned to the blurry lines between porn, erotica, and other types of racy content.

Tumblr has long sagged under the weight of doubt regarding its longterm sustainability. The site plateaued its growth in 2016 at just 23 million users, less than half that of Twitter at the time and a third that of Instagram, which has since ballooned exponentially.

Since the exit last year of its longtime chief David Karp, and the sale of the site to Verizon, rumblings that Tumblr is finally finished have abounded. Meanwhile, Tumblr users have been increasingly at odds with Tumblr’s corporate side, as the business tries to balance potential money-making opportunities with its unruly yet thriving corner of internet culture. Unfortunately, the short-term solution seems to be a pivot away from that grassroots culture towards more rigidly controlled content — which opens the door to a whole new set of problems.

One of the biggest questions on the minds of Tumblr users is whether Tumblr can effectively carry out this policy without nuking everything in its path. The consensus so far, based on both past experience with Tumblr as well as other algorithmic censorship attempts, as well as the abundant reports of posts that are already being inappropriately flagged under the new change: not a chance.

Welp, my Tumblr blog is marked NSFW, bc I curse like a sailor and occasionally I reblog fanart, fine art, and protest art that contains nudity. (Yes, including FEMALE-PRESENTING NIPPLES.) So I guess my Tumblr blog will be on the chopping block too.

So where we goin’ next, y’all?

— N. K. Jemisin (@nkjemisin) December 3, 2018

It’s important to note that Tumblr is attempting to explicitly draw a dividing line between its users’ creative content and the more hardcore stuff. Tumblr’s new policy defines “adult content” as “primarily includ[ing] photos, videos, or GIFs that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples, and any content—including photos, videos, GIFs and illustrations—that depicts sex acts.” That doesn’t necessarily include many types of erotica, which may be sexual and evocative without explicitly depicting sex. And Tumblr is only banning “photos, videos, or GIFs,” not text-based erotica or artwork — except when that artwork portrays sexual acts.

The platform is also trying to differentiate between explicit porn and non-sexual nudity — a tricky bit of semantics that led the site to go with language banning “female-presenting nipples” while protecting “exposed female-presenting nipples in connection with breastfeeding,” among other things. The new policy also specifies that nudity for the purposes of sexual education and other contexts is okay. That should be comforting to the thriving community around sex work on Tumblr, as well as to those who are concerned about its increasingly important role as a de facto sex education site for millions of its users.

But all of these attempts to separate the wheat from the porny chaff raise the question of whether Tumblr will be able to accurately police along these dividing lines without committing overreach and becoming censorship-happy, thus silencing many vital blogs and users.

In the wake of the passage of FOSTA, the anti-sex trafficking bill that has raised internet-wide concerns about censorship, many Tumblr users have spoken out about their anxiety that Tumblr will become a platform of broad and ill-defined censorship which will silence some of the most important parts of Tumblr. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time; in 2013, Tumblr attempted to ban NSFW tags and wound up censoring queer content before backtracking.

And how does anyone, let alone Tumblr’s automatic censors, draw the line between illustrations that depict sex acts and illustrations that simply “feature” nudity?

These questions have alarmed many Tumblr users. Many fanartists and original artists create explicit art alongside non-explicit art as a matter of course; some, like the well-known artist Siij, whose NSFW blog was banned in the November purge, have already been targets of Tumblr censors.

In addition, some users have reported that entire tags are currently being scrubbed of content and hidden from Tumblr’s search; for example, searching for the NSFW tag no longer generates any content. And users who’ve already started receiving emails about their flagged content under the new policy are reporting that their content is being flagged incorrectly.

One Twitter thread compiling reports of incorrectly flagged Tumblr posts collected everything from benign art and fanart to cave photos, safe-for-work vintage photos of black women, and even a reblog of Tumblr’s own announcement:

On a superficial level, this is all hilarious — and, to many of us, hilariously familiar. (More on that in a moment.) But on a deeper level, the giant outcry over this decision reflects a larger anxiety from users — a fear that Tumblr is cracking down, not just on porn, but on the very essence of Tumblr culture: unruly, unsanctioned, and in many ways, united by the very spirit of deviance that Tumblr is trying to kill.

“The reality is that for a lot of the LGTBQ+ community, particularly younger members still discovering themselves and members in extremely homophobic environments where most media sites were banned (but Tumblr wasn’t even considered important enough to be), this was a bastion of information and self-expression,” wrote one Tumblr user in a widely reblogged post. “For a lot of artists too, this was a great place to come and post NSFW work and get traction that became Patreon pages that became honest jobs.”

What’s frequently lost in the reductive equating of Tumblr with porn is that, as on LiveJournal before it, much of the platform’s erotica is community oriented — and essential to the vibrancy of that community.

For instance, entire fanart traditions have sprung up around cheeky erotic illustrations and the frequently NSFW artists who produce them. Tumblr also birthed the phenomenon of popular fandom blogs featuring porn stars who look like various fictional characters, peddling erotic content specifically through the lens of shipping. Modern-day Tumblr artists have entirely revived the long-dormant tradition of professional-quality fanzines, many featuring subversive queer content and explicit content.

Then there are the many, many queer and genderqueer and marginalized users who found in Tumblr a positive, identity-affirming community space that simply doesn’t exist on most other social media platforms. As Tumblr users grappled with the news, many spoke out about the degree to which the banning of explicit content could impact untold numbers of individuals who lack the ability to safely explore their identities and their sexualities, on other websites or in real life.

“This is a mistake,” wrote Tumblr user caitercates in a widely-distributed response to the Tumblr staff post. “You say you’re all about “sex positivity” while banning all adult content of any kind? … You are actively deleting a majority of your account base. … your solution is to bleach your site until it’s unrecognizable.”

Not to mention the countless artists and writers who are about to lose their viewer/readership. I understand erotica will still be allowed – but what about the relationships that are fostered between artists and writers? There are so many of us who make fanart of our favorite fics, and a lot of the time that involves smut. This ISN’T A PROBLEM. This is creativity at work, and sex positivity, like you claim to support.

Change this.

EDIT your site. Make positive changes that we as the community have asked for – don’t blanket-ban the content that, tbh, most of us are here for at least in part.

It’s extremely significant that Tumblr users are fighting for Tumblr to walk back this change, because Tumblr has traditionally had a primarily harmonious relationship to its userbase, despite its users increasing distrust of its motives and interests. With the exception of Reddit, which is mainly community-run, Tumblr has given its users more freedom than any other platform in shaping and making the site into what it is.

This is partly due to the fact that Tumblr was never intended to be a grassroots haven for the misfits of the rest of the internet. But that characteristic is part of what has made Tumblr uniquely quirky and offbeat among social media spaces — and it may be the trait that saves it.

There’s a legitimate argument to be made — and one that I, as a longtime Tumblr user, would admittedly like to be true — that people who think banning porn on Tumblr will kill Tumblr really don’t know that much about Tumblr’s core users. Despite the mainstream media narrative, Tumblr has never, ever, been about porn.

Tumblr was built around community, around fandom, around viral absurdist meme blogs and street fashion bloggers. What other social media platform annually sends amateur bloggers to Fashion Week? It was grown from arty hipster landscape photos whose wistful aesthetics were deposited straight onto the collected works of the Chainsmokers. Tumblr has given us feminist art galleries and digital art collectives pushing online art movements like vaporwave, seapunk, and glitch art while showing off, bar none, the best GIF artistry on the planet.

Tumblr’s deliberately hyperbolic language fueled everything from “all the feels” to the rise of One Direction. It’s been called the progenitor of Neo-Dadaism, the wellspring of a vast amount of absurdist millennial humor that’s pushed out of its niche Tumblr basement to hit the mainstream corridors of the internet. Mic shamelessly built its brand by exploiting Tumblr’s politics while Buzzfeed shamelessly built its brand by piggy-backing off Tumblr’s content. It’s the place where angry feminist clapbacks and “your fave is problematic” exist alongside hungover owls and “Mmm Whatcha Say?” — that is, it’s as marvelous, and marvelously frustrating, and deeply surprising, as the internet itself.

It’s tempting to argue that while core Tumblr users will grumble about the site-wide crackdown on porn, they’ll recognize that while they can get the porn from other sites, it will be impossible to replace everything else that makes Tumblr what it is.

That said, the very quirky nonconformity of Tumblr’s users may, in fact, push them to leave. Some users see the site’s push to ban adult content as echoing the downward spiral of LiveJournal, the once-popular early blogging platform which was highly admired for its open-source ethos, its laidback moderation style, and its positive sense of community.

In an infamous pair of 2007 incidents that became known as “Strikethrough” and “Boldthrough,” LiveJournal famously destroyed the trust of its userbase overnight when its own attempt to ban certain types of explicit content resulted in a ban on fanart and other innocent and creative types of content.

The relationship between the site and a userbase that had, until then, been ride-or-die, never fully recovered. In the wake of LiveJournal’s steady overtaking by Russia, many of those users migrated to Tumblr, where they joined the much-larger stream of millennial and Gen Y and Z users who have relied on the site’s user-friendliness and openness to many types of erotica as they built their communities.

A side effect of the ban involved a renewed appreciation for the Archive of Our Own, (AO3), a nonprofit, censorship-free website run by fans which is explicitly set up to archive fanworks in the event of major content crackdowns like this one. Among the other more serious responses to the ban has been a litany of fandom history and advice posts being shared for the benefit of younger Tumblr users and others for whom the overnight implosion of their digital home was a new experience. Especially prominent have been recommendations for alternative sites to Tumblr.

Many users, desperate to recapture the deep sense of community that once existed on LiveJournal, have been advocating for a retreat to a new social platform called Pillowfort, a site which very overtly attempts to combine the best characteristics of LiveJournal and Tumblr with a more laidback old-school approach to fandom and content moderation. That platform, which is currently in beta, is currently down for planned security upgrades. On its Tumblr in response to the news about the Tumblr ban, Pillowfort stated that it plans to “allow NSFW content with very few restrictions.”

Still others looked to Dreamwidth, a blogging platform built on LiveJournal’s open-source code that was originally built in 2008 in response to LiveJournal’s demise. Its owners, too, were ready to welcome the Tumblr diaspora with open arms, just as it welcomed the LJ diaspora a decade ago. Other sites like MeWe also responded to the news by welcoming potential Tumblr refugees.

For many Tumblr users and onlookers, however, the simplest solution seems to be a return to the spirit that built Tumblr culture: when all else fails, make memes.

It was inevitable, for example, that there’d be at least one reference to DashCon, the notorious 2014 Tumblr fan convention that turned into a viral disaster, typified by this famous forlorn image of the “DashCon ball pit:”

At the top of the list of agenda items was the phrase “female presenting nipples,” which received the lion’s share of hilarity from Tumblr users.

free the female presenting nipples. robbieross/Tumblr

Of course, all of this won’t really help answer the larger question of what’s next for Tumblr. But ironically, in response to the news, Tumblr’s userbase has reminded us all exactly what a valuable and irreplaceable role Tumblr has played in the evolution of modern internet culture.

All of the wry humor, the trenchant memes, the progressive social commentary mixed with genuine care for Tumblr’s marginalized communities that Tumblr users have deployed in response to the adult content ban — all of that is a unique combination that’s grown out of Tumblr culture. When it’s gone, there’s no guarantee it will return on another website in the same form. And it definitely won’t be accompanied by the same fabulous GIFs and fanart.

Still, there’s no guarantee that Tumblr’s profit-driven side will prioritize keeping that culture sustainable, even if it does somehow manage to ban adult content and retain its core membership. If that’s the case, then it’s a loss not just for Tumblr users, but for the entire internet. Like Vine before it, another irreplaceable cornerstone of our online world that should have been better appreciated all along, Tumblr might be fated to be loved best only after it’s gone.

Original Source -> Why Tumblr’s adult content ban is about so much more than porn

via The Conservative Brief

[recentanimenews]

The Must-See Anime That Inspired Countless Creators

  1991’s Otaku no Video is a two-part OVA that serves multiple purposes. It’s a wildly fictionalized parallel to the history of anime studio Gainax, a loving but harsh portrait of what it means to be an otaku, and a severe cautionary tale to those who walk the thin line between normal citizen and all-out maniac. It also sits firmly on the Itano Circus ground zero of a bunch of heavyweight careers, from Hideaki Anno to film director Shinji Higuchi. The former had just wrapped Gunbuster a few years prior, was smack dab in the middle of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, and just four years away from sending ripples throughout the otaku community with Neon Genesis Evangelion.

  It is in large part because of its roots in anime history and the white-hot time in which it launched that Otaku no Video manages to remain so relevant and exciting today. Sure, it’s still very much a product of its time, and its references aren’t exactly up-to-date for most modern fans, but there’s no denying its power to inspire. It’s both a love letter and a diss track; the type only true fans could compose, and the type that has no doubt inspired countless careers well beyond those of its core staff.

    Animating Obsession

Otaku no Video is one of those rare fantasy-histories that’s both welcoming to newcomers and full of enough references and insider information to delight even the most hardened of veterans. Its core story centers around Ken Kubo, who lives a fairly decent life with his girlfriend Yoshiko. He’s even a member of his college’s tennis team, which makes his day-to-day activities a far cry from those of his former friend Tanaka. Tanaka, you see, is a hardcore otaku. Kubo quickly learns this when he bumps into him out of the blue, and it doesn’t take long until the lure of nostalgia drags him into the depths of fandom with its thick, relentless tendrils.

  As anyone who has ever taken a deep-dive into obsession knows, it all spirals deliriously out of control from there. Gainax, being composed of a full-on brigade of professional nerds, knows precisely how to bring the birth of an otaku to life in animated form. There’s the camaraderie that comes along with shared interests. The oh-so-intangible feeling of discovering something new. The timeline-altering possibilities of pursuing your dreams.

  Most of all, Gainax shows a true mastery at depicting fandom at its most grassroots level. Anime fans huddle over their VCRs to record the latest episodes as they air, and the truly dedicated lie sprawled across the floor after pulling yet another all-nighter. They watch series over and over again to isolate those perfectly animated moments and key emotional beats that make anime special. Doujinshi and cosplay eventually pave the way for greater ambitions, but it all stems from the sheer love of it all, legs toasted to perfection beneath a well-weathered and instant-ramen-strewn kotatsu.

  In the case of Otaku no Video the aforementioned dream comes to fruition in the form of Grand Prix, a company focused on licensing and mass-producing garage kit models based on a number of properties. Gainax doesn’t try to be too coy about the connection between itself and GP, which would later be taken over, forcing its founders to form another company even closer to the anime studio’s own. Kubo’s transformation from nicely-groomed Guy Normal to half-shaven maniac may seem like a rapid-fire switcheroo, but it illustrates just how quickly one could potentially slide down the “Oh, hey, I remember this show from when I was a kid!” rabbit hole.

    The Minds Behind the Mania

Vandread and Gunsmith Cats director Takeshi Mori is at the helm for Otaku no Video, but the beating heart behind it all is the “Otaking” himself, Gainax co-founder Toshio Okada. Hot on the heels of Gunbuster came a script for Otaku no Video that could only be written by someone who lived that life to the fullest. Kubo may end up being the OVA’s self-proclaimed Otaking, but the fact that his friend Tanaka looks an awful lot like Okada is no coincidence. He’s the real firestarter here, just as Okada helped kindle the flames that would eventually become one of the biggest anime production houses of the years that followed.

  A large portion of the staff roll is a virtual who’s who of anime legends. Character designs come from Kenichi Sonoda, known most prominently as the creator of the Gunsmith Cats and Riding Bean manga and the character designer of Bubblegum Crisis. Art director Hitoshi Nagao pulled the same duties over the years on everything from the infamous(ly awesome) Baoh OVA—based on the manga by JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure creator Hirohiko Araki—to an episode of Dirty Pair and a ridiculous amount of Suncoast-bound hentai like Countdown, F3, and Urotsukidoji II: Legend of the Demon Womb. Sure, he may not be the most high-profile creator who worked on Otaku no Video, but who would pass up the opportunity to mention both Baoh and Urotsukidoji in the same sentence?

  Film director Shinji Higuchi storyboarded the OVA along with plenty of other Gainax projects, including Evangelion, Gunbuster, and the Khara-produced Rebuild of Evangelion films. Despite his impressive anime résumé, Higuchi is just as well-known for the live-action projects that followed. He most recently teamed up with Hideaki Anno on Shin Godzilla in 2016, and helmed the pair of live-action Attack on Titan films that kicked off in 2015. Without diving into each individual career, the list of animators is a doozy, too, including the likes of Keiji Ishihara (Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Madoka Magica movies), Hidenori Matsubara (Patlabor: The Movie, Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo), and Takehiro Nakayama (Golden Boy, InuYasha), among others.

  Many of the references in Otaku no Video fold in upon themselves, especially the sequence in which Tanaka shows Kubo clips of amazing animation from an unnamed series. The footage in question comes from Gainax’s own Daicon opening projects, which featured the work of Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise director Hiroyuki Yamaga and assistant director Takami Akai, as well as Hideaki Anno. You can see later takes on the formula in Daicon III and Daicon IV, electrifying shorts that introduced talent such as Mahiro Maeda (director of Blue Submarine No. 6 and Gankutsuou) and Ichiro Itano (Megazone 23 Part II, Angel Cop).

  If Otaku no Video is a feast of visual references to other anime and manga titles, Daicon IV is a Fat Boys all-you-can-eat Golden Corral buffet. Godzilla stomps around while the bunny costume-adorned lead beats up on Ultraman villains and duels with Darth Vader himself. Xenomorphs rage, Dyna Robo attempts to smash, way more copyrights are recklessly violated, and we zip and zoom through the sky atop the Stormbringer sword to the triumphant tune of ELO’s “Twilight.” Gainax wouldn’t be what it became without the Daicon films, so it’s fitting that they made their way into Otaku no Video, even if but for a fleeting moment.

    Portrait of an Otaku

  In what may be Otaku no Video‘s greatest self-referential dig and deepest cut, the OVA goes back and forth between animated segments and live-action interviews with “real life” otaku. Titled “Portrait of an Otaku,” these brief profiles cover people—faces blurred and voices altered for the sake of anonymity, of course—ranging from obsessive video tape recorders and hardcore military otaku to porn-obsessed shut-ins and even the obligatory ex-pat who reveres the Japanese way of life. In actuality, these segments consist of a mix of friends and employees of Gainax, which may be exactly why it hits a little too close for home.

  The interviews are all extremely exaggerated and hammily acted, and it seems as if the obscured subjects are about one take away from busting out laughing. With Shinji Higuchi behind the camera and Hideaki Anno handling the absurdly nerdy sets, the authenticity of each segment is both hilarious and slightly alarming. Previous home video releases of Otaku no Video came with the option to watch the animated portions separately, but there’s something special about seeing it all woven together into a truly bizarre tapestry.

  Beyond all of the careers launched and all of the nooks and crannies of fandom mocked, the most remarkable aspect of Otaku no Video is… it’s true. No, not necessarily in regards to the exact history of Gainax, or to the stars-spanning vision of otaku nirvana, but the depiction of fandom itself. Sometimes it’s ugly, sometimes it’s ridiculous, and sometimes it’s beautiful and inspiring. As a result of its depiction of enterprising spirits and sky-high ambitions, Otaku no Video rarely falls too far outside of being relatable to American fandom. If you have a nerdy bone in your body—and chances are high that you do if you’ve read this far—you owe it to yourself to visit (or revisit) this unique time capsule of anime history.

Watch Otaku no Video on VRV!

  -------

Joseph Luster is the Games and Web editor at Otaku USA Magazine. You can read his webcomic, BIG DUMB FIGHTING IDIOTS at subhumanzoids. Follow him on Twitter @Moldilox.

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[wingskribes-blog]

WING FIXES THE UNIVERSE! 1. STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI

The Last Jedi, is probably the most contentious of the nine Star Wars films released so far. Some seem to love it. Others say it’s undeserving to hold its place in the series. Both camps seem to span the cross-sectional gamut of casual and hardcore fandom. So too are there are those—maybe even a majority—who will work up what little enthusiasm they can find to tell you, “It was okay. Not great, but okay, I guess.”

Well let me be the first to say, ALL of you are right. Star Wars: The Last Jedi is as GOOD as it is BAD. And on the whole, it’s kind of just ‘inoffensively, meh’. But this is not a Kribes’ Review you’re reading. No, this is a Wing Fixes the Universe! No ratings here, Dear Reader. No, here we get into what Last Jedi should have done to be a truly fantastic film. Here we fix EVERYTHING. So let’s begin!

(Of course … there will be spoilers.)

  The PROBLEMS

1)      TONE: Star Wars has never shied from a joke (“Shut him up or shut him down!”), but the jokes, quips and gags have usually managed to hold themselves ‘in universe’. That is to say they are played to the situation, or to one character or another, not to the audience. They are not slipped in just to keep the audience laughing. And when they are, it rarely goes well. Then we get Jar Jar bumbling his way through a platoon of tanks. We get Obi wan and Anakin trapped in a force-field with saying, “How did this happen? We’re smarter than this!”

Well, perhaps The Last Jedi isn’t quite as dense as say, The Phantom Menace, with these class-clownish winks to the audience (though it’s close) but it takes them much further than the franchise has ever allowed before. We get Poe’s crank call to Hux, Luke milking that alien’s testicle-boobs, the crying-eyed porg staring up at Chewie, and so many little moments that just don’t feel like Star Wars. We will fix this.

2)      PACING: Battles are great but they slow things down. Too many and they tend to blend together; they become boring. Character arcs are vital but you must move your characters through these arcs! You can’t just linger and show them banging their heads again and again against the same wall! (As we get with Rey on the island.)

3)      STAKES: When every sequence is offered up like a climax, you stop caring by the third one. Build your tension so we care whether the heroes win or lose in the end.

  The FIX

1)      THE TONE: We’re going to have to re-script everything. I don’t mean a major overhaul here (yet), just stripping and replacing the wallpaper. No more pandering to the audience. No crank calls. No alien milking, or space-nun near misses. e.g. you can keep the porgs but they can’t just be there to be cute and silly. Give them a tiny sub-arc with Chewbacca. 1) Stepping off the Falcon he sees them immediately. They scatter at the sight of him. 2) They chirp in the night and Chewie has trouble sleeping. He covers his ears and grumbles. 3) He finds they’ve infested the Falcon and he gets legitimately angry. 4) After destroying the First Order’s air support on the crystal planet, the Falcon is forced into a crash landing (which would just be a better way for Rey to arrive) and the poison gas mentioned in Force Awakens is about to flood the ship. Chewie grabs a handful of porgs before running out then puts them down on the ground outside. Yes, it’s still corny. But corny is fine in a Star Wars. (e.g. R2 launched through the air by a swamp lizard.) But at least they have a place in the story now; they’re not just there to be cute and sell toys.

2)      THE OPENING: If you’re going to start with a big battle, make it mean something. Don’t just tell me some jokes, show a few explosions and then kill a Red Shirt I’ve never seen before but am supposed to care about for some reason. What you should do is make this sequence its own miniature movie starring Rose’s sister. Poe shouldn’t even be in it (except on the communicator telling them to ignore retreat orders). Start with the sisters saying goodbye. (This grounds the one sister’s sacrifice and gives us reason to care when she dies. Simultaneously, it helps us to care about Rose later on, and makes her sudden importance as a main character much less jarring.) Now you can give all the turns and tension of the battle to this plucky, determined bombardier. There’s plenty of story and emotion to be dug up here. Find it Don’t give us the opening battle from Revenge of the Sith. Give us the first twenty minutes of UP.

And when it’s done, let’s see Rose in the background, mourning her sister as everyone else celebrates. Only Leia sees this. Then it’s Admiral Holdo who berates Poe for disobeying orders. (Moving up her introduction to reduce how jarring her sudden importance is.)

3)      THE ISLAND (A): Rey’s time on the island needs to be WAY shorter. And less silly. When Luke comically chucks his lightsaber over his shoulder it undercuts Rey’s entire Episode VII story arc, reducing it to a three-second, not-terribly-funny sight-gag. Have him look at it instead, then look at her and walk past without touching it or saying a word. Then we get the short montage of her following him around as he does his day-to-days but he refuses to talk to her. NO MILKING. We see time pass in shots of her sitting outside his door at night, eating food she brought from the Falcon. Each time there’s less food in her pack. Until there’s none. Then Luke steps out, glares at her, and places a bowl of stew in front of her. As he turns away, she begs him to tell her why he won’t help and seems to have turned his back on the Force. He appears as if he’s going to answer but before he does, we cut away to…

4)      THE CHASE: The First Order chasing the Resistance’s ships is so boring you only really showed it in the background of other events. So obviously, it needs to change. What if they’re hiding instead. In a nebula or something. Poe wants to take a flight of X-Wings out and see if he can cut a hole in the First Order fleet for them to escape through, but Holdo says he has to stay and protect the cruiser. Instead of mutinying, he highjacks some fighters and goes out anyway. The cruiser’s attacked and he barely makes it back on time. He expects to berated by Holdo but finds out that Leia’s woken up while he was out and that’s when she slaps him.

5)      THE ISLAND (B): Rey begins communing with Kylo. We get TWO scenes of Luke showing Rey what the force is and isn’t (no more). No Dark Cave. And TWO scenes of communing. No Kylo’s version of what happened with Luke. We still get Luke’s version. Luke and Rey fight when she tells him she’s going to Kylo. She leaves him with words that are a callback to his “I must face Vader” speech in Return of the Jedi. He is left to ponder his choices.

6)      SNOKE/REY/KYLO: a) Forget Rey’s parentage! If her parents weren’t important, there’s NO REASON the characters would be talking about them. Just because it’s a mystery to the audience, doesn’t mean it is to them! At least change Kylo’s line to, “I know where your parents are.” b) Give us something about Snoke’s background. I mean, who the fuck is this guy all of a sudden, anyway? Maybe he was Sidious’ rival but lost out to becoming the previous Sith Lord’s apprentice. A single line is all it would take. 3) Cut the fight with the New Imperial Guards to no more than ten seconds. It added nothing. It wasn’t exciting. And even if they’re the best fighters in the army, I just didn’t believe they’d last that long.

7)      CASINO: There’s so much wrong here. Too much. Fixing it would require major structural changes more significant for a small article could fit. Let’s just say, the following issues need to be dealt with:

For starters, it just doesn’t fit. Allowing Fin and Rose to leave the chase and then come back to it without anyone noticing is an odd choice. If escape pods are so hard to track, why doesn’t everyone just get into them to get away? Even if I missed something and they gave a reasonable explanation for this, why would they call Maz? How does Fin even know how to reach her when he’s been unconscious since the last film? And then we get them walking around Casino World gawking and judging as if they’ve completely forgotten their friends are currently dying in large numbers. We’re shown more urgency in the escape of the horse-aliens than in the near-total destruction of the Resistance.

Plus Benicio Del Toro’s character, another important character who jarringly appears out of nowhere, not only adds nothing to the story, but is dull to watch too. And could Captain Phasma at least be fighting them to get to the last shuttle before the ship explodes? Instead of just because she’s a villain? And could we see Gwendoline Christie’s whole face, while she’s alive?!

8)      YODA: Cut this whole scene. Yoda looked terrible and didn’t act or speak like any Yoda we’ve seen before. It added nothing to plot or character that we didn’t already get, and could as easily be accomplished the Return of the Jedi callback from Rey (as suggested above).

9)      THE LAST STAND: This was actually mostly quite good. The Luke stuff was great. Just a few changes. Why are Fin and Rose flying salt-speeders? Neither of them are pilots. Find something else for them to do. And as I mentioned before, crash the Millennium Falcon. Have Rey try to take out the Battering Cannon and make it seem like she’s going to take it out. But then she gets hit by a ground turret and is forced down. It’s a much better entrance for Rey. Beyond that, the sequence is good.

10)   BOY WITH BROOM: This scene is the only reason I didn’t suggest cutting the Casino Planet altogether. Having the film end with a seed of hope is both a great throw to Episode IX, and a powerful moment in its own right. That being said, it wasn’t done particularly well. The Casino Kids were a pretty small facet of the Casino Planet arc (which is kind of fucked up if you think about it). So their impact in this scene is not as strong as it should be. When you sit down and rework the Casino arc (as prescribed above), make sure the kids are more relevant to its development.

 And THAT dear reader, is how you will fix this most mediocre addition to the Star Wars franchise. Follow my council and I promise, your work will be better. Your work will be everything it should be. Your work will be FIXED.