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writer-monster · 3 years

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11 reasons why cap 4 should reintroduce Bucky Barnes as the love interest, an essay

to start this off, i am not writing this essay from a shipping place nor do i believe that this would have any influence at all over the upcoming movie. i expect nothing. this is simply something that i would personally like to see. (of course no hate to anybody who thinks differently)

here are 11 reasons why i think making Bucky into Sam Wilson's love interest in Cap 4 would be a good move for Disney.

1. on the Chinese film market - and why it's an irrelevant argument against the inclusion of homosexual themes in Cap 4

the Chinese film market is something that has been blamed for a lack of diversity in Hollywood films a lot lately. many people claim that this market with a lot of buying power has been responsible for the lack of gay and black representation in particular within Hollywood films.

and we have certainly seen Hollywood treating it as such, going so far as to cut gay scenes from movies for their Chinese releases, and vastly minimising John Boyega's (a black actor's) presence in the Chinese poster of Star Wars The Force Awakens.

[image ID: on the left is an image of the American poster for Star Wars The Force Awakens, featuring John Boyega prominently on the right-hand side. And on the right is the Chinese poster for the same movie, in which John Boyega is barely visible.]

so we know at the very least that Disney believes this through their own actions and efforts to self-censor for the different markets.

but Captain America 4 is a black-led movie, don't you forget. and Disney can't minimise Sam Wilson/Anthony Mackie in the movie or the poster because it's his movie and his poster. and no amount of creativity in the editing room can change that (thank God!).

so if by their own argument the film is already going to be either banned, panned or slammed in China... then what do they have to fear from making it a gay movie too?

2. oh, the queerbaiting

queerbaiting is an unusual cultural idea. and sometimes i find myself thinking that the term is far too easily used, but then all of a sudden i will stumble upon a movie or show that is so quintessentially cruel and overt in it's... well... queerbaiting that i will start to wonder what the hell kind of a bizarre relationship all these straight people seem to have with their friends. take Troy and Abed from Community or John and Sherlock from Sherlock as the perfect examples of this. (in which my reaction to the show's creators saying the show wasn't gay was to ask so then why did you make it so gay?!)

i felt that Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes in tfatws were getting quite close to this level of queerbaiting.

there was the field scene, the couple's counselling scene, the boat scene, the couple's counselling scene, Bucky going with Sam to face Karli when she told Sam to come alone, the couple's counselling scene, ALL the staring scenes, Sam checking out Bucky's ass here as they said goodbye, the "i would move in with him but" hidden scene, "Uncle Bucky" showing up at the cookout scene, the romantic walking off together into the sunset together ending scene, and the couple's counselling scene. did i forget anything? but i mean seriously, the couple's counselling scene!!! that thing they did with their legs and their crotches while staring deep into each other's eyes, would any straight guy willingly do that? do straight guys crotch-snuggle now?

[image ID: an image of Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes during the therapy scene with the quote, "Isn't anybody going to drag me into impromptu couple's therapy and slot my legs firmly between theirs before staring deeply into my eyes?"]

(yeah i stole this image from a buzzfeed article on the fan reactions to the couple's therapy scene. but given that they stole 80% of the content of that article from fandom tumblr, i think it's pretty even-steven.)

there's also the fact that people started talking about bisexual Bucky Barnes a lot after the tiger pictures line, and the lead writer Malcom Spellman responded to the talk of Bucky's bisexuality with "just keep watching". well we watched, Malcolm. but it's beginning to feel like you were just jerking us around.

3. the writing

seriously though, what else is Bucky Barnes doing right now in the MCU? his only remaining connection to anything going on right now is through Sam. there is literally nothing else established that's left for him to do that doesn't involve Sam. he moved to Louisiana to be closer to Sam (canonically), he hangs out with Sam's family (canonically), and Steve is presumably gone and is definitely not coming back for more adventures.

he has no villains or loose ends left. he has no other superheroes that he appears to be in contact with. he has no girlfriend or potential love interest, or even other friends or family. he is living in a tent that he has secretly set up in Sam's backyard and is mysteriously appearing from the bushes when it's time for dinner like a stray cat.

in my opinion there is no other meaningful and pre-established progression for Bucky's character that wouldn't just feel cheap.

plus, i don't think the general audience would be all that surprised if they kissed. i think a LOT of people picked up on all that tension. i think a lot of straight people picked up on all that tension too.

4. the chemistry between the actors & the chemistry between the characters

the original pitch for tfatws was essentially just this, it was the chemistry between Sebastian Stan and Anthony Mackie and their respective MCU characters of Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson.

now obviously Anthony and Sebastian are simply friends, and i wouldn't mean to imply anything more. but they are also not their characters.

Sam and Bucky's scenes together before tfatws were both limited and short, and yet audiences still fell in love with the dynamic between the two characters.

in interviews, these two actors are constantly slipping into character and flirting with each other and frankly it's adorable. plus it's really entertaining. i'd love to see that dynamic, unfiltered, in a movie.

because believe it or not the flirting is actually even more open in their interviews than it was in tfatws. and i'm leaving some links as proof.

this here is known as the "married" compilation

and here's a "lucky dip" selection of interviews - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,

and here's Anthony trying to get Seb to take his jacket off.

i'm just saying, why not let their chemistry shine? these two are so talented and so entertaining, especially when you put them in a room together. and can you imagine how absolutely hilarious and brilliant it would be to watch them navigate being a couple?

(and for those who bring up the "friends would be uncomfortable pretending to be dating" argument, i'm not here asking for a sex scene or anything. i don't think anyone would expect them to show any more intimacy (physical or emotional) while playing a couple than what they've already shown together in say... tfatws or in their own interviews. not that i actually expect anything regardless.)

5. if they were a man and a woman they would've gotten together in tfatws

i have no more to add here. just that... yeah, they would've.

6. and i'm not talking about the comics here, i'm talking about the MCU.

i understand fully that none of what i'm saying here falls in line with these characters from the comics. but the mcu itself doesn't fall much in line with the comics either, and these two characters especially are very different from their comics counterparts.

i'm not asking for these two to get together in the comics. tbh i don't think that it would work.

but the mcu Sam and Bucky are different and closer than their comics counterparts. they've got different histories, different backstories, and a very different dynamic. please rest assured that i am only talking about them in the mcu.

7. Bucky Barnes is believably bisexual. and Sam Wilson has never been proven to be straight in the mcu, nor has he had a love interest.

(now please continue to keep in mind that these points only stand for the mcu versions of Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson, and not at all for their comics counterparts.)

Sam Wilson has never had a love interest, which is crazy because have you seen that man! he has had two blink and you'll miss it moments of verbal expression of attraction to women, both in TWS. and that's the extent of it, through his entire history in the mcu.

Bucky Barnes has had a number of surface-level female love interests, but none of them even came close to the level of connection and chemistry that Bucky shares with Sam.

and i'm sorry SarahBucky fans, but i just don't think there's very much to their relationship either. i love Sarah, i really do. but it's Sam who shares all the meaningful moments and history and chemistry with Bucky. and i don't see what making her into a love interest would do for Sarah's character either, what would that add to her story?

[Picture ID: Bucky at the cookout with Sam, Sarah, Cass and AJ. Bucky and Sam are looking at each other and smiling.]

and also there is the whole tiger pictures thing... again. which does strongly suggest that Bucky is bisexual whether this was intentional on behalf of the writers or not.

8. it's representation... AND it feels natural

marvel hasn't had a lot of queer representation that's been noticeably present in the MCU at the time of writing this.

there have been a lot of failures so far, from the bisexual erasure of Valkyrie in Thor Ragnarok to the wlw erasure in Black Panther.

there was queerbaiting almost identical to the bisexual Bucky baiting for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. when asked if he had considered featuring a gay hero in gotg2, director James Gunn stated that "We might have already done that. I say, watch the movie." after the movie's release audiences were understandably confused about the lack of queer representation. To which the director followed up his comments with, "But we don't really know who's gay and who's not. It could be any of them."

there is also Loki, considered by most fans after the airing of his six episode series on Disney+ to be both a poor attempt at both genderfluid representation and bisexual representation. with both attempts being summed up fairly well by the term "blink-and-you'll-miss-it". (also it's just terribly written and Loki doesn't wear any interesting clothes! fanficcers are a Goddamn blessing in this hard time!)

and let us not forget that Andrew Garfield was apparently FIRED for pushing for a bisexual spiderman. a bisexual spiderman within an interracial mlm relationship no less.

so for all these failures, marvel, why not allow us queer fans this? two brilliant and heroic men in a loving interracial relationship. two heroes that we can look up to.

now, one of the biggest detractions from the argument for representation is the idea of "forced diversity". and some poorly written characters certainly do end up feeling forced into the narrative. take Iceman in the comics for example, with Jean Grey just straight up suddenly telling him he's gay. like, marvel, sweetie, that's not how this works! and i don't know a lot of queer people who thought much of that "representation".

but the crux of the "forced diversity" argument is almost always that it feels unnatural within the story, right? and i don't think that anyone could say that about MCU Sam and Bucky ending up together, given these characters' existing chemistry and their history. they've both played characters in gay relationships before so we know that it's not outside of either actor's wheelhouse. and y'all know that Anthony and Seb can act, people. if it's in the script i believe that they'll make it seem like the most natural thing on earth.

9. it'd be a nice change

there's been an ongoing meme lately about "Disney's first gay character", the joke being that they continually announce gay characters without really ever including gay characters in their films.

this is to the point where Disney has formed a reputation amongst queer audiences of being homophobic.

if Sam and Bucky were to become a couple, then Disney could have its first actual gay character within a gay relationship. AND have him be in the lead of his own movie, no less.

it's also worth keeping in mind that there's likely an overlap between the people who were outraged by a Sam Wilson Captain America, and the people who'd be outraged by a gay Captain America. and if they were already not seeing the film, then i don't think much is gonna change that.

queer audiences would definitely love it, and the media attention would be guaranteed to be huge. i mean, simply look at the amount of media attention mere rumours of a character's queerness gets you and multiply that by a canon confirmation of said rumours.

but i'm pretty sure that Disney already knows this.

10. and yet, in truth, it's not about the representation

in truth i've never felt that i had any trouble relating to characters of any sexual orientation, race, gender, sex, body type, etc. (although that is not to throw any shade at all on people who do wish to see themselves represented) but for me, i think it's more about the story than the packaging.

and yet, a love story is still just a story. straight or queer, monoethnic or interracial. when two characters have chemistry and history and have sacrificed for each other time and time again, and they also can't keep their hands or their eyes off each other, then i'm pretty sure that that's a love story.

straight or queer, monoethnic or interracial, it shouldn't be about these simple labels. it should be about how well written the relationship is. it should be about chemistry, and history, and sacrifice.

because i'm fucking sick of all the hollow, forced romances in media no matter the genders of the participants. i'm sick of lazily written, shallow relationships where any two people sharing the same space for any extended period of time will simply fall in love. it's boring, it's repetitive, and as a writer myself it drives me up the wall!

romance stories suck! and everyone knows that romance stories suck. between twilight, and most of the entire YA genre, and love triangles (so boring), and romance used as poorly-written throwaway subplots in Hollywood movies, the world is in agreement that the romance in western media is simply dreadful. and yet we still want love stories. it's an entire genre that sits at the heart of the human experience (<3), and yet one which so few of today's best known writers seem truly able to capture.

i don't think that i'm the only one who feels this way, either. i suspect it's actually a large part of why fandom is so romance-centred in the first place, that we're all just starving for a good love story.

(btw i think fandom has a reputation for being something that as a whole that it is not. it has this reputation for straight up demanding things and harassing people until they get their way. while unfortunately there are a few people who do this, they're fucking annoying and i swear that they're far from the majority.

in my experience fandom is mostly about writing a five thousand word story at three am while drunk off your ass because it might make someone whom you've never met smile, editing it in the cold light of day, and then posting it. expecting nothing. sometimes getting nothing. and sometimes getting someone send you kudos or a comment so heartbreakingly wonderful that it makes you smile in return.)

11. so once again, it is all about the writing.

i want to see Sam and Bucky get together in the mcu, not because they would be a gay couple but because i genuinely believe that their story has potential to be an amazing love story.

and i know the mcu isn't about the romance. it's why in my personal opinion we haven't gotten a lot of good canon romances besides Peter Quill and Gamora. and i don't think that the mcu should be all about the romance either. i fucking love the action and the fighting scenes. i love the comedy. Captain America: The Winter Soldier had no romance and it was a fucking treasure, it was an amazing spy-action-thriller and it made my little gay heart dance. Thor Ragnarok had no romance, and it was an utterly brilliant comedic spectacle action film. not every movie needs romance.

but mcu Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes were doing couple's therapy and fixing a boat and walking off into the sunset together in tfatws. they were inseparable on the battlefield. they've got a dynamic. it's beautiful, it's romantic, and it's gold.

a budding relationship between them in the next movie would be a good way to explore both characters more without the narrative feeling too stilted and separate. at the end of tfatws, both Sam and Bucky fans found that their respective fave felt somewhat underutilised and that their characters were underexplored.

now, that problem would be even more difficult to remedy in a movie, because the plotline of a movie needs to be really tight to work (giggity). and we know that the central conflict of the movie is gonna be action-based (which is good), but we still need each character's personal journey and growth to tie into the main conflict. (which is another issue that some fans found with tfatws, that these characters didn't really feel connected to the action-based plot on a more personal level.)

if Sam and Bucky are already in a relationship, however, this whole dynamic changes. first, their relationship has already been set up for nicely since TWS and through tfatws and they would officially be the best-fleshed-out couple in the mcu. but most importantly, a relationship gives them a perfect vehicle to explore both of their pasts comparatively and connect them personally to the action-based plot.

do you want to establish that Sam is a little too trusting and naïve? then establish this through his relationship with Bucky, and through showing his placing his trust in Bucky. (rather than through having him sympathise with a villain who threatened to murder his sister and his nephews).

perhaps you want to show Bucky recovering from his trauma? show us how comfortable he is with Sam. they get along, they're enjoying each other's presence, we see more of Sam's life and of his family, and then let Bucky tell Sam something that's raw and dark and honest about his life as The Winter Soldier. something about a memory, one that he only just recalled. he's opening up. and maybe what he tells Sam is even something that sets up the future action-based conflict, to ground that in something real.

you want to explore that Sam has trauma too? do this through Bucky. he tells Bucky a story about his time in the military. in the form of a flashback, he shares his own story of loss to evoke before the audience the shared theme of feeling at fault even when you're simply a helpless bystander to an act of pure destruction.

then, action sequence! and it's directly connected to Bucky's time as the Winter Soldier. explore the grief of someone whose life the Winter Soldier tore apart manifesting into a villain perpetuating the cycle of pain. establish your villain.

Later, Sam is dragged into battle against this villain for protecting Bucky. But Bucky doesn't want Sam to protect him. He feels guilt for what he can't control and he doesn't want Sam getting hurt because of him. Bucky reminds Sam that he has a family, one who needs him and who loves him. He tells him to go home.

Sam reminds Bucky that he's a part of that family. And that sure Sam's a hero and his job is to protect anyone and everyone, but that he's doing it because he wants to. It's not simply to prove that he can, or to prove that he's not a bystander (this connects to Sam's trauma here), but that he's doing it to help people.

and this gets Bucky thinking about who he is and what he's doing here. is he a hero who stands by Sam's side? or is he an ordinary man who stands aside? or perhaps, does he stand alone? what does he stand for? Maybe Sam knows. But does Bucky?

Sam and Bucky fight off the villain again, and for the first time Bucky meets this adversary face to face. And Bucky recognises this villain, and has a flashback to the genuine pain that he inflicted upon them in the form of the Winter Soldier. Bucky freezes mid-fight, he almost dies, and Sam has to save him.

Sam chews Bucky out for almost getting killed because he was afraid for him. but Bucky takes this the wrong way and goes off to fight the villain alone, or perhaps to die alone, he's not quite sure.

He puts up a half-hearted fight. He apologises for what the Winter Soldier has done, and he waits for the killing blow, when Sam swoops down and he saves him. He asks Sam why he saved him and Sam calls him a moron. And then, Sam asks him what sacrificing himself would solve. He tells him that you can't choose your past but you can choose your future (connecting to his own experience of loss and guilt and grief). And that no matter what Bucky Barnes still has a future, whether that's as the Winter Soldier or the White Wolf or just some dork with a day job. And that he has a future as a part of Sam's family too.

Sam fights the villain, and it's toe to toe. He delivers a few good blows, but receives a fair few himself. And then the villain tears off his wings, first one and then the other, in a manner reminiscent of what the Winter Soldier did to him in TWS. Through Bucky's eyes there's a flashback to highlight the parallels. Sam gets back on his feet and he fights his best fight, but is now losing.

And then the heavily injured Bucky steps up and fights by Sam's side, and only together do they take down the villain.

"So... I inspired you, huh?" Sam teases with a smile, utterly exhausted. "With my heroism and-"

"You inspired me." Bucky said, equally exhausted. "Let's leave it at that."

Together, Sam and Bucky go back to the safety and warmth of their family. Sam fixes his wings. Sam goes back to being Captain America. And Bucky... he's around, but it's unclear what he's doing.

That is, until the very end. When Sam is in a fight, and suddenly Bucky shows up and helps him out.

"What are you doing here?" Sam asks.

"I've made up my mind." Bucky says. "I'm the Winter Soldier. But now I'll save lives, Sam. Now, like you, I'll be a hero."

Sam smirks. "So does this make you my sidekick, then?"

Bucky smiles. "C'mon, at least make me a partner." He says.

"How about co-workers." Sam says (in flashback, he remembers back to the death of his last on-the-job partner).

"How about friends." Bucky says, with a wry look.

"Bucky... I don't want to see you put your dumbass self in danger." Sam says.

"Oh, and it's ok for you to go running off into danger on your own all the time?" Bucky asks.

"Yes." Sam says stubbornly. "Absolutely it is."

"Why?"

"Because I'm not a dumbass?!"

"Sam, if you think I'm not gonna be watching your back for the rest of time... then you're the biggest dumbass I know. And I don't care if you need me or not, I will be there for you."

"Because Sam, you're more than Captain America. You're more than a good soldier. You're a good man. And I think sometimes, the world forgets what the difference is."

...or something like that.

(i only spent like 15 minutes on that. you know if i were actually writing this movie i would come up with something much better. and if anyone from marvel is seeing this, yes i can come work for you. i will make the time, let's do this thing right!)

finale

at the end of the day, whether or not the mcu chooses to make Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes a couple, it's their decision. and they don't owe me anything.

i'm just some random person on the internet. who thinks that Captain America 4 should #givecaptainamericaaboyfriend

#givecaptainamericaaboyfriend #meta #analysis #captain america 4 #caatws #fatws #tfatws #captain america #cap 4 #sam wilson #bucky barnes #sambucky #marvel #mcu #mcu phase 4

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thevindicativevordan · 3 years

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Why isn't Nightwing a bigger deal? He has all of Batman's skills and Superman's faith in humanity and is arguably the most beloved hero in the DCU, but most people seem to know him either as the leader of the N̶o̶t̶ ̶J̶L̶ Teen Ttians or just Robin.

Thank you for asking me about Nightwing, I've been wanting to write a piece about him for a while now. The short version is that everyone who claims Dick becoming Nightwing was him "moving out of Batman's shadow and becoming his own man" is completely wrong.

Dick Grayson is a fantastic character, someone who saved Bruce Wayne in-universe both by forcing Batman to grow up a bit, and the countless times he saved Batman's life as his partner whether as Robin or Nightwing. Dick saved Batman in the real world as well, hard to believe but Batman was actually in danger of being cancelled due to poor sales early on. Enter Robin, a young daredevil audience stand in the creators hoped would get kids interested in reading Batman. And it worked! Sales on Batman doubled once Robin showed up which is crazy to think about, but Dick Grayson has always been a popular character. Cartoons like Teen Titans, Batman: The Animated Series, and The Batman only helped grow his audience.

Character-wise, Dick Grayson really does fill a number of crucial roles in the DCU. For Batman, Dick is proof that Batman is a positive force. Meeting Batman helped change Dick for the better, helped him heal after his parents died. With Dick, Batman can take comfort in knowing that yes, he has made a difference in the world for at least one orphan boy, which is all he wanted when he lost his parents himself. To the wider DCU, Dick is a friendly face who convinces others that Batman is competent and not a complete asshole. He took this kid in, trained him to be one of the best heroes the DCU has seen, and did it all out of the kindness of his heart. That someone like Dick can confront the evils of Gotham and not break means there's still hope for that city. As Robin, Dick has led the Titans and is an icon in his own right as The Sidekick, the original, the one every other Robin is built around copying or contrasting. The one all other superhero sidekicks are drawing on as a basis. As Robin Dick Grayson is very much on Batman's level.

Just not as Nightwing. As Nightwing, Dick has been a second rate Daredevil which means he's a third rate Batman (fully prepared to get hate for this but I've read and enjoyed the Miller and Bendis DD runs so I feel entitled to my opinion). A typical Nightwing run tends to go like this: Moving to Bludhaven (which is Gotham... but WORSE!), Dick Grayson usually enrolls in a pointless job we don't care about in order to provide some meaningless soap opera drama that doesn't go anywhere. Patrolling the city as Nightwing, he fights a variety of bad guys who are usually rather lame and unthreatening, with his big bad being a Kingpin knockoff called Blockbuster. Villains are fought, long running plotlines are set up, then everything is abandoned because it's Batfamily event time, and Dick has to run back to Gotham in order to play sidekick again. Usually his involvement is completely superfluous and it would've been better if the writer had gotten to opt out. By the time we finally get back to Nightwing's solo plotlines, the audience has usually ceased to care and the run gets cut short.

That's how Nightwing has been since the New 52 at least. Anyone who thinks that's "becoming their own man" is out of their mind. Dick is so thoroughly in Batman's shadow that he got shot in the head and spent a longer time as "Ric" which everyone fucking hated and sold like shit, than he did as Agent Grayson which was extremely well-received. Reiterating: Ric went on longer than Grayson because of a fucking Batman plotpoint Tom King wanted where Bruce was sad and cut off from the Batfamily because of Dick getting shot. Not just calling out King either, how many times was Kyle Higgins Nightwing run derailed because of Scott Snyder's crossovers? Or how about that entire run getting dumped to the side because Johns wanted to out Dick during Forever Evil, a Justice League/Lex Luthor story? DC has repeatedly made their contempt for Nightwing clear, he's Batman's sidekick still in their eyes, and he serves whatever story role the Batman writer wants.

Hell his best stories tend to have been the ones where he's not Nightwing. He was Robin in a good chunk of the Wolfman/Perez New Teen Titans run. Morrison really showcased his depth as a character when they wrote him as Batman, their time with Dick under the cowl was actually one of the first Batman runs I ever read, and no Nightwing run has ever matched it in terms of quality in my humble opinion. Scott Snyder's work with DickBats also was a high point for the character, showing Dick as competent and examining his relationship with Gotham and the Gordons. King and Seeley gave him one of the best comic runs with Grayson, a series where he wasn't even a "superhero" technically! When it comes to actual pre-New 52 Nightwing runs that are highly recommended where he *is* Nightwing, there's Chuck Dixon and uhhhhhhh... Tomasi's brief run before Dick became Batman? It's not exactly an overwhelming list.

Look there has been good work done with Nightwing, I'm not claiming there hasn't been. Tim Seeley wrote a great run with Nightwing Rebirth. Seeley fleshed out Dick's Rogues Gallery with cool new ones like Raptor, he brought back old foes like Dr. Hurt (why oh why couldn't you have brought back Flamingo too?), he gave Dick's world some character it solely needed. Bludhaven under Seeley is pretty much the only time I've really felt like it lived up to being Dick's city.

The problem with fictional cities is you have to put in the work to give them the character of real cities. You have to make the cities feel like characters in their own right. Gotham is the best example of this, it's a character all it's own, one that tells you a lot about Batman and his cast. In contrast Bludhaven is usually one of the worst. Any place that wants to claim to be worse than the city that is built over the gate to hell and gets wrecked every other month by the Arkham freaks has to really put in the work to compete. Simply put, Bludhaven typically fails utterly. There's nothing about it that makes you really buy it's worse than Gotham, I mean does anyone really think Nightwing's Rogues wouldn't get their lunches eaten by Batman's? No, no one genuinely buys that. When Bludhaven claims to be worse, it just comes across as tryhard, an attribute that does end up telling you about Nightwing in unintentional ways.

So Seeley didn't do that. Instead he created a city built for a hero like Dick Grayson. Someone who is bright and flashy, but does have an element of darkness to him. Someone who loves the spotlight, but often uses it to obscure. Seeley turned Bludhaven into Las Vegas, and that was the fucking best concept for Bludhaven I have ever seen, it makes so much sense. Las Vegas is the "Entertainment Capital of the World" and isn't that the perfect city for a hero who got their start working in the circus? Isn't the aesthetics of the gleaming casinos, the glamorous sex appeal of the performers, and the spectacle of the shows, all being used to cover up the seediness of mob bosses meeting backstage perfect for Nightwing? It's so utterly unlike New York City, yet Las Vegas is still dangerous, it's got a crime culture all it's own. Seeley used it to great effect, as did Humphries during his brief run, and I will always be pissed that DC didn't continue to use it. That should have stuck around and been the definitive look for Bludhaven.

How Seeley's take on Bludhaven was treated feels like a small scale version of how Nightwing in general gets treated. Whenever creators pitched ideas for him, if editorial thought there was potential to break big, they asked for those ideas to be repurposed for Batman instead. Anything big or good gets repurposed for Batman or tossed to the side so Nightwing can go back to his default: having irrelevant adventures in a city that is supposedly worse than Gotham but can't live up to it. Just like how Nightwing is supposedly better than Batman but never gets to show it. Goddamn it's so frustrating seeing his potential get wasted like that.

The Nightwing book should be one of DC's most ambitious books in terms of storytelling. You can go from traditional superhero stories, to romantic soap opera, to spy stories, to crime noir, to horror, to cosmic adventures, and ALL of them would fit because Nightwing is someone who has a foot in both Gotham and Metropolis. He's got friends everywhere on every team, and has been a hero longer than most Leaguers have at this point. No reason DC should still be afraid to let him loose and insisting on hewing close to what Dixon established almost over 30 years ago is only holding him back. At the very least get him some better Rogues, why the hell didn't he get to keep Professor Pyg? That's Dick's villain not Bruce's! Bullshit that they didn't let Dick keep him. Hopefully Flamingo comes back, with a slight revamp I think he'd make a great reoccurring Nightwing Rogue.

Luckily it does look somewhat like Nightwing fans have reason to be optimistic. While Taylor isn't to my taste, DC clearly views him as a "big" writer, and that they put him on Nightwing says a lot. Taylor has been selling well so far, so hopefully he gets to tell his story, hilarious that even he lampshaded having to write Dick running over to Gotham for another tie-in after Taylor's big opening arc was all about Dick committing himself and his money to Bludhaven. Scott Snyder is apparently working on a Black Label Nightwing book which will explore how he's a different detective than Bruce. The Gotham Knights video game has him as one of the main stars, and while Titans is... controversial, it's one of the most popular streaming shows and Dick is the main character. There's a lot of content coming that features him in the starring role, and that will only help his star rise further.

For the first time in, well, ever it feels like DC may be serious about elevating him. Time will tell if it pays off, but I for one choose to be optimistic that the 2020s will be a turning point for Dick Grayson where Nightwing becomes hugely popular in his own right. Not just as Batman's sidekick.

#nightwing #dick grayson #batman #gotham knights #titans #dc comics

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angeloncewas · 2 years

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feel free to totally ignore this, but im just curious on your overall view of alllll of this. most people on my dash are either on one extreme end or the other. i dont think the situation is black and white but i also dont think dream is in the right. he's developed a track record of being very immature in response to things like this. i dont hate him though, and i dont agree with people calling for his platform to be taken away

I'm going to try to word this as carefully as I can.

I do have opinions. I always do. I believe that Dream was in the right at the beginning. The comment toward Ant was no one else's business, and he replied (as many creators have done and will continue to do) to a public qrt on his own Tweet. There's some merit to other perspectives, but I'm confident in my stance here.

This is obviously a lot more than that. The situation gets harder to follow from there. I've been juggling arguments - and stand a decent chance of discussing them more - but I don't personally have much to say about it. Because, frankly, it has very little to do with me.

I understand that as someone who's been known as a Dream blog some people expect me to answer for my support when situations like these arise. And I don't think that's wrong of you necessarily (not you you, I know you just wanted to know my thoughts and I appreciate that), but I also have to make it clear that I'm not a Dream "stan" and have never considered myself one. There have been times where I was a big fan and defender for sure, and at the end of the day I don't care what you call me, but I also have gotten a lot of hate from Dream stans for criticizing him when I felt it was apt.

Not to make it about myself too much, but I have a lot of things going on in my personal life that take up the bulk of my serious focus. The serious stream was the first stream I've watched in months and I only caught it bc I was curious. In a lot of ways my feelings on Dream haven’t changed. I'm not making a grand exit (already did that) and I think deplatforming arguments are silly because they're never going to amount to anything (not to mention the vast amount of people who factually cause much, much more harm that Dream, but I digress). I also still really like discussion and all of the opinions.

But if you're asking me for my real, deep-down feelings, I don't care. I don't know him personally. I don't give him money. Some of the people in this community who dislike him seem misguided as to what creators are like. Maybe it's because mcyt is soft around the edges, but he's no different from a lot of them for better or for worse. He's just some guy who got lucky and I'm just some person who wants to watch death shuffle on occasion. There's so much needless strawmanning. There's so much shit going on that doesn't involve people going at each other on Twitter.

I think if you hate Dream, if you just don't like him, if you believe he needs to have his platform "taken away" - then do your part. Block him. Don't watch things in which he appears. Stop giving him the attention that provides him his platform. If you love Dream, if you like him, if you just casually stop by his channel every once in a while, then do that.

I'm gonna keep doing what I want, what brings me joy and what I feel is right, and I hope everyone else does the same.

#angel answers #long post #anon #discourse #cc critical #sorry this is unnecessarily long

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bandicoot88 · 3 years

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@featherrwbyrnjr, okay, but how can you expect me to see this if you blocked me? Anyway, this is gonna be long, so strap in!

Okay, but it’s not one person, it’s several. I said a friend, but that friend interacts with many like minded folks. I’ve seen it all. I understand what’s going on. I may not be in the fandom, but I’ve witnessed from afar. I’ve seen enough to understand the basics, something you still clearly lack.

Fine, if it wasn’t you, then I take it back that on this occassion, it wasn’t you, tho I’m still doubtful with how much I’ve seen of you and how many enemies you’ve made. It’s not farfetched to assume it’s you. Point still stands tho; don’t shame content creators for making content. Just say you dislike the ship and go (which is 100% valid btw, and if people hate you for it, then those are bad eggs you avoid).

Yeah but... it’s still canon, like, pretty much... While it’s not in your face “I love you”, it’s clear what the intentions are meant to be. One of the VAs did a whole stream, and in one moment, he was asked what he wished he could’ve said that didn’t make it into the game, the line being something along the lines of “we would’ve been great together.”

Sure, VAs are not the creators of the game, but this goes in par with a statement about how the Shuake relationship is supposed to be a love story. It’s not pretty, Goro being an antagonist who is problematic, but... ships are allowed to be problematic. And he even changes and becomes a better person, because of Joker.

Sorry, but that’s false. There are plenty of multi-shippers out there who don’t just “tolerate” other ships but downright engage with it. My friend is one of them, and she even has friends who also don’t like Shuake. What do they do? They mute it and move on, and nothing else is said on the matter. If you’re seeing people that are doing otherwise, then yet again, maybe avoid them and find people who won’t shit on you, which by the way, you seem to bundling all these people in a bucket and labelling them “problematic” when they’ve done nothing wrong. There’s a reason you’re well known...

People have even tried to reach out to you to help you because this is completely not healthy, but all you’ve done is smack away any offered hands. We can only do so much...

Gatekeeping, there’s that word again. Do you not even comprehend what your actions are doing? You’re the one gatekeeping! “Don’t ship Shuake because it’s a toxic ship! Meanwhile, I’m hogging Goro all to myself.” My friend is not a gatekeeper. In fact, she fought back against gatekeepers. She’s a very open person who welcomes all ships and things. She literally doesn’t give a fuck.

Again, if you run into negative people, block them and move on. Not everyone is out to get you, and if you’d only give them a chance, who knows, you might make some friends. Hell, if you realized what you were doing, they might still welcome you, but you are hell bent on burning bridge after bridge until there’s nothing but cinders.

Actually, let me you a story. Last year, there was a BIG ruckess in another fandom I’m in, and it was ugly. Very ugly. Why? Because many of the fans considered one of the characters to be 100% gay. While I also believed he was, I could see the potential of him not being. My friend (same as the above) was also very heavily involved, because she saw him as bisexual.

There’s little evidence that he was anything but gay, but that didn’t mean he just was purely on what we saw. Of course, many did not like this, and a lot of noise happened. I ended up blocking a lot of people and also being blocked in the process, because they couldn’t handle the possibility of a character being bi, even tho it was never stated he was gay, just hinted at.

Besides, it’s fandom, and things change. Sexualities change, gender changes, all things can change. But no, they’re of the purity culture brand, and if you said something that wasn’t the popular thing, you were shunned. It made me consider leaving the fandom, but I remained.

You see... I too have dealt with such people, and there may be a lot of them. If there are, then don’t give them a second look. Seek out people who are open to discussing all and other things. They exist. If you had a bad experience, then I am sorry, okay? No one should feel that way in any fandom. Fandoms are meant to be fun. I want you to have fun. I do. I don’t want you stressing and yelling and pushing people away.

So I had heard that you use to create content for it, but I implore... do it again. Create solo Goro content. By all means, if you truly aren’t ready or don’t wish to, then don’t, but also, don’t let people win. People will welcome your solo Goro content. There’s nothing wrong with solo content of anything. He doesn’t need to be tied a ship 24/7, but he’s still going to be tied to that ship quite heavily, but it’s not 100%. Nothing will ever be 100%, because you’re allowed to hate the ship, and others do too, and that is fine!

2 years then. 2 years... That’s still a long time. Perhaps tho... these people you interacted with have moved on from the fandom, and in turn, in 2 years, many people have since joined the fandom. Perhaps you are comparing people from 2 years ago to people today. If any of those people from 2 years ago are still around, then don’t engage. They aren’t worth your time if you were polite about an opinion that you have no control over. Liking a ship is like liking a genre of music or TV show. You can’t force it.

You are allowed to want to see solo Goro content, and people do, or ship him with someone else that isn’t Joker. It exists. It won’t be as popular of course, because that’s just the nature of their relationship so of course many are going to be drawn to it, but that doesn’t mean everyone is drawn to it.

You realize you don’t have to pay people within the fandom, right? You can just... approach literally any artist/writer and go “hey, this is what I want, yadda yadda”, they create the thing, you get your thing, badda bing badda boom. However, if you did wish approach someone within the fandom, then do so... So long as they aren’t a jackass about your dislike for the ship, they will most likely create the thing you ask for. People like money, so it pays to be open minded about other ships instead of just refusing said money just because they perosnally don’t like it.

To anyone who went after you, that’s still not a reason to lash on other people for them to witness you at your worst. You’re literally not giving any of us a reason to believe you are approachable, but you’re just angry. To anyone who made you feel like shit, then fuck them, okay? FUCK. THEM. But that doesn’t mean others are going to do the same. I don’t think a single fandom is immune to toxicity of some variety. It’s never going to go away, and that’s the price you pay for being in fandoms.

I admit, my sources are not coming from the source, but from what I’ve seen from others. So give us a reason on why you aren’t the person we all think you are. All I see from you is hate, hate, hate. I don’t want you to be unhappy. In fact, I feel bad for you, scared for you even, because there’s nothing but hatred and foulness coming from you. You can’t expect people to see you and go “yeah, this person is totally approachable.” No, you’re intimidating.

If people pushed you out of your lane, then take it back! It’s okay to not like Shuake or any popular ship. If people are dicks about it, then call them dicks, but the others won’t care if you don’t like it. We’re allowed to like different things.

I’ve said my peace.

#persona #persona 5 #shuake #discourse #drama #dunno if she'll even see this but... i gotta try

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dingoes8myrp · 4 years

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An Examination of Joss Whedon

On February 11th, Charisma Carpenter made a post on her Instagram account detailing mistreatment she experienced on the sets of Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Carpenter worked on both shows from 1996 to 2004 and attributes this mistreatment to show creator Joss Whedon.

On the same day, I made a post on my Tumblr and my WordPress accounts regarding my stance on this topic. I felt it was important for me to post something quickly due to the large number of Buffyverse followers and mutuals on my Tumblr.

I was overwhelmed by the likes, reblogs, and comments this post received in less than twenty-four hours. I’m so glad so many people support Charisma Carpenter and others who are speaking out about their experiences.

Workplace mistreatment is insidious, and too often the systems in place to mediate these situations are designed to protect the employer rather than the person experiencing mistreatment. This happens everywhere in every industry. When people in the public eye draw attention to these issues it helps bring awareness to everyone and encourages societal change.

In today’s climate, social media moves faster than legal or internal HR systems. This means, more often than not, accusations spread, opinions form, and action is taken long before any investigation can occur. Because of this, it’s important for people to seek out the facts themselves in order to stay informed or make decisions about who in fandom they choose to support or not.

I’m going to go through various tid-bits I’ve seen over the past twenty-five years regarding Joss Whedon’s behavior, which prompted my quick response to Charisma Carpenter’s post. I feel it’s important to share this with those who may be new to the fandom, or those who doubt Charisma Carpenter’s claims and those of others.

The Bronze

Before there was Twitter, there was The Bronze.

The Bronze was the official online gathering place of Buffyverse fans. Joss Whedon and others involved with the shows occasionally popped in and posted, interacting with the fans. There was speculation about the trajectory of the show, discussion about lore, fan theories, and behind the scenes rumors.

I didn’t learn about these forums until I was in high school (from 2002 to 2006) and I never posted. I just read up on the fun factoids I could find. I wasn’t a heavy Internet user back then. We had one computer in my house and it was shared with my parents. I was only allowed on for so much time per day, yada yada.

I think Buffy the Vampire Slayer was one of the first shows – if not the first – to utilize this kind of creator/fan interaction. It wasn’t a regular thing back then.

The vibe of these forums was very laidback. When someone directly involved with Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel posted (known as a V.I.P.) it was with a very casual, unmoderated tone. There was no screenshotting every word to be saved for later. Someone from the media couldn’t grab a comment made and spread it across the Internet in real time. There were mailing lists – collections of email addresses for people who wanted updates on show spoilers or particular non-show activities of various actors. Fan letters were still a thing – actual snail mail letters you could send to actors and writers of the shows. Things moved slowly, and there wasn’t as much transparency as there is on the Internet today with sites like Instagram and Twitter.

In a series of posts made on November 6th, 2001, Joss Whedon reacted to the airing of the musical episode, “Once More with Feeling.” He called it “the biggest undertaking of my life,” but expressed his appreciation toward the UPN network, the cast, and crew – particularly Anthony Head, Amber Benson, and James Marsters. He calls Anthony Head “the golden throat” and writes of James Marsters, “And James, who always tells me to do everything I dream of, then brings that intense voice and those cheekbones along for the ride.”

All he writes about Amber Benson is, “Amber… just, you know… Amber….”

Alarmingly absent from his praise is star Sarah Michelle Gellar, who “went back and forth” over whether or not to sing in the episode. “I’m not a singer,” she told EW. She didn’t feel prepared enough and “didn’t feel confident.” As someone who broke out of her comfort zone and pulled off a wonderful leading performance, Gellar was certainly deserving of some acknowledgment.

Seemingly realizing he neglected to mention Marti Noxon, Whedon tacked on, “Do you know anyone that hot who can run a show? Do you? I don’t think so. What a voice.” At the time, alongside comments about James Marsters’ cheekbones and being “a little gay” for Anthony Head, this seemed to be an attempt at an edgy complement (though a little cringey). Marti Noxon was a new showrunner for Buffy, taking over for Joss. Referring to her as hot rather than praising her work is a little demeaning, in my opinion, particularly when it was up to him to make sure she was respected and taken seriously in filling his shoes.

On May 22nd, 2002, Whedon posted about “the gay thing” – probably not for the first time. Regarding some fan reactions to the death of Tara Maclay, Joss wrote, “I knew some people would be angry with me for destroying the only gay couple on the show, but the idea that I COULDN’T kill Tara because she was gay is as offensive to me as the idea that I DID kill her because she was gay. Willow’s story was not about being gay. It was about weakness, addiction, loss… the way life hits you in the gut right when you think you’re back on your feet.”

Keep in mind, at the time, Willow was one of the first gay main characters – if not THE first – on a major primetime show in the sci-fi/fantasy genre. Having a gay couple on a major show like this was not a regular thing, which made the shocking death of Tara and the dark turn of Willow particularly hard-hitting. While Whedon isn’t saying anything particularly inflammatory here, it does show a sort of crass attitude toward the removal of this representation from the show, which had become so important to so many fans – and still is now.

There’s not a lot of meaty information to be found that I could dig up, but I wanted to give people an idea of this landscape back in the day. I picked out those particular Joss Whedon posts because they show a very casual disregard for the women involved in the shows – an insidious and subtle thing, but it’s there.

Fighting with Buffy

Jeff Pruitt was a stunt coordinator on Buffy the Vampire Slayer from 1997 to 2000. He also happened to be romantically involved with Sarah Michelle Gellar’s stunt double, Sophia Crawford. Both would exit the show by its fifth season. According to Pruitt, it was not an amicable exit.

Pruitt claims he and Crawford were treated badly on the set, that Crawford was “one never ending injury” and she had “reached the end of her rope.” He said that they were threatened and blackballed when they made attempts to leave before the 100th episode. They got an opportunity to work on Dark Angel, but the people at Dark Angel supposedly received a phone call from “someone high up at their studio” and were told not to hire Pruitt and Crawford. He suspects this was to keep Sophia Crawford from leaving Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Their firing was unceremonious, according to Pruitt. “Sophia was told point blank that she was being fired because she knew too much about things,” he claimed. He said Joss Whedon and Jane Espenson threatened Crawford, saying if she spoke about what happened on set she’d “never work in this town again.”

Jeff Pruitt spoke about “sneaky politics” behind the scenes, saying “there was something weird going on” in the months leading up to his and Crawford’s exit. Pruitt claims Sarah Michelle Gellar was a “spoiled starlett” and that she was “out to get” him and Crawford. He attributes statements he made in private emails that were later read by Joss Whedon to his firing.

It’s worth noting that many people have stated that Sarah Michelle Gellar is undeserving of a “diva” label. When asked in 2004 what it was like working with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Julie Benz said, “She’s extremely talented and generous. Her reputation is just completely untrue. Unfortunately in Hollywood if you’re young and female and you have an opinion you get labeled a diva or something…else. Sarah’s an amazing talent, but she got labeled.”

In a 2013 interview on Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live, Alyson Hannigan answered a series of rapid-fire questions about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. When asked who was the most “annoyed” by the end of the show, she said, “Sarah,” referring to Sarah Michelle Gellar. When the audience booed, Hannigan clarified, “Well, she had a big career going, and it was a lot of work.” When asked when Gellar started to “hate” the show, Hannigan quickly said season three. In a later interview for Huffpost Live, Hannigan clarified her comments further. “[Sarah Michelle Gellar] worked her butt off,” she stated. “She worked eighteen-hour days for years.” Hannigan said she wouldn’t have classified Gellar as “annoyed,” saying, “she was super professional.”

Honestly, I’m Team Sarah on this one. I couldn’t find corroborating sources for Jeff Pruitt’s claims of her “diva” behavior, but I found several sources stating otherwise. Gellar did confirm during a cast reunion that she may have oversold her stunt experience, which ultimately would have meant more work for her stunt double and the stunt coordinator. It seems to me like this set everything on a bad foot with that team. But, the reasons Jeff Pruitt and Sophia Crawford gave for their exit had little-to-nothing to do with Gellar.

Vincent Kartheiser

Vincent Kartheiser played Connor on Angel, and he did a number of interviews talking about his experience on the show. I picked his interviews because I’ve always found him to be very candid and he doesn’t seem to shy away from uncomfortable answers to questions. A few of his answers provide a little insight into the mood on the set at times, and Charisma Carpenter’s attitude.

When Charisma Carpenter was pregnant on the show, she had a storyline that heavily involved Connor, so the two spent a lot of time working together on set. He was asked about her pregnancy and how it affected filming. In a 2003 interview for BBC Cult, Kartheiser said of Carpenter, “she was a great sport and would suck up the pain even though you could see that she was in it.”

In another interview for Angel Magazine from the same year, he said Carpenter had “an abundance of energy for a working, pregnant lady who, right in the heart of her pregnancy, they put her in so much.”

It’s worth noting Vincent Kartheiser had his own issues with the show. “What really made me interested in Angel was the idea that as a show, it changed so much and all the characters could change so much,” he told Angel Magazine. “It wasn’t that clichéd kind of ‘show up, do your thing, go home’ all the time.” Unfortunately, the potential that interested him never came to fruition for his character. “As the season went on, we never really got to deal with the relationship problems between me and David,” Kartheiser said, referring to David Boreanaz as Angel. “I never really got the opportunity to bond with any other characters.” He expressed a feeling that there was nowhere for his character to go and that Connor’s motivations seemed to change from week to week. “There were parts of the season I didn’t have the opportunity to stretch,” he explained, “that it felt like I was doing the same scene over and over.”

Vincent Kartheiser did a later interview with Giantmag.com where he reiterated some of these frustrations. For him, the character of Connor started to get stale early on. “Every week I’d show up and have a scene with Cordelia,” he said, “then Angel would show up and I’d have some sort of conflict with him. There’d be a couple of fight scenes where I’d fight with them even though I didn’t want to and then I would sulk and leave. That to me was every episode.” He felt the writers had written Connor “into a corner” and that fans responded poorly to him.

When comparing his experience on Angel to his experience playing Pete Campbell on Mad Men, Kartheiser expressed a lackluster feeling on the set of Angel. “There was a real sense on Angel that people were just doing a job,” Kartheiser said of the set. “The grips, the DP, even the directors would kind of just show up, do their job and go home.” This atmosphere is a direct contrast to what had attracted Vincent Kartheiser to the show in the first place. “On Mad Men we also have Matthew Weiner on set all the time whereas Joss [Whedon] was hardly ever on Angel,” Kartheiser explained. “I think Joss was doing Firefly at that point and was in love with his next project. I had a friend who filmed a few episodes in the first season of Angel and said everyone was invested and there was crazy energy, so maybe I just came into it late.”

Kartheiser also delved deeper into his frustrations over the direction (or lack thereof) of his character. “I let them know right off the bat that some of the choices they were making [about Conner] were wrong,” he said. “I showed up to play that character and I had a lot of ideas. And they didn’t like any of those ideas.” As a result, Kartheiser said he got “jaded” and “angry” at the show. “I felt like it wasn’t a collaboration, that the people I was working with didn’t care to take risks.”

In hindsight, he went on to say, “I was never a fan of Buffy, I’ll say it straight out. I was never a fan of Angel. I always found it hard to say Joss’ words.”

From all these comments, both from the beginning of Vincent Kartheiser’s journey as Connor, and from a few years after the show ended, it seems like he was excited for the opportunity, but ultimately disappointed with the overall experience. He also revealed how uncomfortable Charisma Carpenter had to be during filming while she was pregnant, but noted her energy and attitude were never a problem.

Farewell Cordelia

Prior to Charisma Carpenter’s official exit from Angel, her character arc had taken a very strange turn and Cordelia had been ominously left in a coma. Concern grew when Charisma Carpenter was not included in the cast of season 5. In a 2003 interview with TV Guide Online, Joss Whedon stated, “The Angel/Cordelia [love story] had gone pretty much as far as we wanted to take it” and that it wasn’t popular with the fans. “It just seemed like a good time for certain people to move on,” he continued. “Not completely, obviously. I’m hoping that we’ll get Charisma to do some episodes as Cordelia sometime during the year.”

TV Guide asked, “Isn’t that a disservice to fans who invested all those years in the character and her redemption? It seems an odd thing to do to the show’s leading lady.” Whedon responded, “That’s a fluctuating concept, the leading lady thing. And it is a little odd. Some choices are ultimately kind of controversial about who stays and who goes and who we focus on. But obviously, we had to have her out of a bunch of episodes toward the end of the year because she was having a baby… so what we had [leading] up to it wasn’t a dynamic I wanted to play out that much.” When asked if things were left on good terms with Charisma Carpenter, Joss Whedon stated he wouldn’t discuss that in an interview.

From Charisma Carpenter’s perspective, she was uncomfortable with Cordelia’s storyline prior to her coma and her death. “It was creepy,” she said of Cordelia’s relationship with Connor. “Connor was Angel’s son and half my age.” Carpenter stated it was important for her to return to wrap up the character’s storyline. “We didn’t want to just leave Cordelia in a coma,” she stated. “Whatever happens after this, I’m open. But it’s just best this story be [resolved] now. Otherwise, it’s a disservice to the fans of our show.” When pressed regarding whether or not she’d return to the show, Carpenter replied, “I don’t think it’ll be necessary. You never say never. However, at this point in time, I don’t see a future for her.” She continued with, “I feel like Joss feels – the Cordelia stories have been told. There were no other directions to go with her.”

Carpenter’s final appearance as Cordelia was an emotional experience. “We’ve been crying for the last two days,” she said in a behind-the-scenes interview. “I’m so physically drained.” She wasn’t the only one affected, either. “The director was crying, the crew was crying, we were crying,” she said. She called it a sad goodbye personally, professionally, and story-wise.

Working with Joss Whedon

Over the years, Joss Whedon gained a reputation for being unconventional to work with. Many actors from the Buffyverse have said they were unhappy with their characters’ creative paths. Sarah Michelle Gellar felt season six “betrayed” who Buffy was, saying she had to be “talked off a ledge” a number of times during filming.

Nicholas Brendon felt the character of Xander was “underrated,” particularly during season seven. “Joss did have a talk with Sarah and I because he was kind of contemplating the idea of Xander and Buffy ending up together at the end of season seven,” Brendon told AV Club. “We were both for it, but then that never came to fruition and I lost my eye.”

On an episode of Michael Rosenbaum’s Inside of You podcast, James Marsters said he was “terrified” of Joss Whedon. “I wasn’t designed to be a romantic character,” he explained. “The audience reacted that way to it. And I remember [Joss Whedon] backed me up against a wall one day, and he was just like, ‘I don’t care how popular you are, kid. You’re dead! You hear me? You’re dead! Dead!” Rosenbaum asked, “Was he kidding around?” and Marsters replied, “No. Hell, no.” Marsters also said he had “open wounds” on his scalp from over-using bleach on his roots every eight days to keep the roots from growing out.

Multiple actors from Angel have talked about Whedon’s habit of making actors squirm. David Boreanaz spoke about how he learned about the Angel spinoff during a twentieth anniversary cast reunion. “I got a phone call that Joss wanted to talk to me,” Boreanaz recalled. “The only thing he said was, ‘I want you to come into my office tomorrow,’ and I’m like, ‘I’m fired.’” He described having a night of “angst” and spent the following day working on some flashback scenes. When he finally met with Whedon at lunch it took some time for Whedon to tell him his character was getting a spin-off. Alexis Denisof expressed a similar knee-jerk feeling of “uh-oh,” but had an idea the spin-off was filming. However, Amy Acker had a similar story to what Boreanaz experienced when she was told about her character Fred’s transformation into Illyria. “It seems to be an echo of, like, ‘Hey, can you meet me for coffee tomorrow?’ and I’m like, ‘Ohh, they’re firing me!’ And we sat down to coffee and he said, ‘I just wanted you to know I’m killing Fred.’ And he waited, like, really a long time.” Charisma Carpenter chimed in, “He likes to do that!” Acker was then informed she would still be on the show as Illyria.

Charisma Carpenter and Marti Noxon have shared their own stories about Joss’s “You’re fired, just kidding” stories. Seth Green quipped “He did that to me too, but it took.”

Whedon’s View of Women

While Joss Whedon considers his writing to be feminist, his portrayal of women as well as other statements he’s made contradict this. In 2013, he gave a speech for Equality Now about his dislike of the word “feminist.” While this speech earned him some acclaim, it also earned him some backlash from the feminist community. This was mainly because he claimed it’s natural for people to be equal, and to add “-ist” to the end of the word “feminist” implies that people’s natural state is to be unequal. This stance was seen as disrespectful to Feminism as a movement, for some.

Joss Whedon received wide criticism for his portrayal of women in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. One critic, Scott Mendelson, talked about Whedon’s portrayal of Scarlet Witch and Black Widow in Avengers: Age of Ultron. “Scarlet Witch eventually has to be coaxed into bravery by one of the male heroes,” Mendelson writes of Elizabeth’s Olson’s character. Mendelson was even less thrilled with Scarlet Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff. “Maybe I shouldn’t be annoyed that the only major female character’s primary arc is a theoretically unrequited pining for a nice guy with major anger issues,” he writes, “or that said character briefly gets captured by the villain in the second act and tossed in a cage for no reason other than to be rescued by her male compatriots.” Backlash over this film caused Whedon to quit Twitter. In an article for Gizmodo, writers Meredith Woerner and Katharine Trendacosta point out that Joss Whedon teased a “killer” backstory for Natasha Romanoff. “Instead of an assassin constantly struggling with finding moral lines she didn’t know existed, we got a woman who feels incomplete because she cannot have babies,” Woerner and Trendacosta concluded.

In 2017, Whedon’s ex-wife Kai Cole wrote a blog for The Wrap stating, “he used his relationship with me as a shield, both during and after our marriage, so no one would question his relationships with other women or scrutinize his writing as anything other than feminist.”

Cole alleges Whedon wrote her a letter in which he said, “When I was running ‘Buffy,’ I was surrounded by beautiful, needy, aggressive young women… As a guilty man I knew the only way to hide was to act as though I were righteous… In many ways I was the HEIGHT of normal, in this culture. We’re taught to be providers and companions and at the same time, to conquer and acquire — specifically sexually — and I was pulling off both!” At the end of her essay, Cole wrote, “I want the people who worship him to know he is human, and the organizations giving him awards for his feminist work, to think twice in the future about honoring a man who does not practice what he preaches.”

In response to Kai Cole’s letter, Laura M. Browning wrote in an AV Club article, “I was sad, but not shocked—maybe a little embarrassed I hadn’t looked more closely at some very clear problems in his work… His work has plenty of male gaze and women in refrigerators and some narratively pointless rape scenes—it’s all right there, in hundreds of hours of television and film—but boy, it sure is a lot more comfortable to listen to a guy tell you he’s a feminist than listen to a lot of women telling you he’s not.”

Whedon’s veneer of feminism has been cracking for several years.

Recent Allegations

Actor Ray Fisher claimed Joss Whedon behaved inappropriately on the set of Justice League, tweeting, “Joss Wheadon’s on-set treatment of the cast and crew of Justice League was gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable.” Fisher also accused Geoff Johns and Jon Berg of enabling Whedon’s behavior. An investigation was done by Warner Brothers and co-stars Jason Mamoa and Kiersey Clemons publicly supported Fisher. Ultimately, the investigation concluded and “remedial action” was taken. The action taken has not been specified.

Shortly after, Joss Whedon exited the HBO series The Nevers, which Fisher attributes to his own claims.

Team Charisma

Those who have shown support to Charisma Carpenter include: Sarah Michelle Gellar Ray Fisher J. August Richards Michelle Trachtenberg Amber Benson Eliza Dushku Jose Molina Marti Noxon Emma Caulfield James Marsters Anthony Head Clare Kramer James C. Leary Sophia Crawford David Boreanaz Amy Acker Julie Benz Danny Strong Adam Busch Tom Lenk Nicholas Brendon Jeff Mariotte

Others who have written about Joss Whedon or come out to support those coming forward:

Courtney Enlow Nell Scovell Glen Mazzara

My Conclusion

As I stated in my previous post on this topic, I stand with Team Charisma. It is not okay for a person in a position of power over others in the workplace to misuse that power in an inappropriate or abusive manner. No matter how talented that person may be and how beloved the work may be.

#buffy the vampire slayer #btvs #angel the series #joss whedon #charisma carpenter

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aot-snk-4238 · 3 years

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AOT No Requiem Fanfic Review Part 2

Disclaimer: I am not a supporter of ANR myself, so I knew that I probably wouldn't like most of what this fanfiction is putting out there. That being said, I decided to check it out anyway because I was interested in seeing what changes these people were planning on making. This review is not meant to bash the work or the team of artists and writers behind it. These are just my own personal opinions, and I will try to express them as professionally as I can without coming across as aggressive or rude, as that is not my intention.

After a four month hiatus, it looks like the popular fan fiction Attack On Titan No Requiem is back in action. I'm glad to hear that their creator is doing okay. Since this fan fiction covers the final three chapters, I'm splitting my review into three parts. The first one can be found here so if you haven't read it, you can check that out first. I kept it short and to the point and I intend to try and do that with the rest of these as well, so without further ado, here are my thoughts on the second installment of this short series:

This chapter opens up where the previous one left off, with a clash between Eren and Armin's ideologies, their discussion getting more heated by the minute. Armin still believes in a more peaceful way out of the situation that involves more talking and less bloodshed, whereas Eren sees no other options other than the path he is currently on. Fuming with anger now, Armin grabs Eren by the shirt and this is where the scene transitions to the rest of Eren and Historia's conversation from chapter 130. I still can't believe we were deprived of this in the canon universe, so I was interested to see if any of it would play out in a way that I wasn't already expecting. As it turns out, it did not. I was fully prepared for them to confirm or at least imply that Eren is the father of Historia's baby considering what theory this whole thing is based off of and that's exactly what happened. To their credit, they didn't make it as cheesy and overly-romantic as I was afraid they might, but it still could have used a bit more exposition and time to develop. I didn't care for what appeared to be a brief elopement scene in the woods, though. And was that supposed to be Floch officiating it? That's...just too weird for me. Sorry, but a secret wedding in the woods with Floch as the priest felt more like a joke to me rather than a serious event. I remember when most fans used to hate him, but that changed at some point and now he's quite popular. I can't tell if it's for the sake of memes or if people really had a change of heart. And just to be clear I have no issues with people liking him, I'm just a little confused as to how it came about. As for the whole pregnancy subplot in general, I don't think there's anything that can done to make me like it at this point. It came out of nowhere and it led to nowhere. It looks pretty clear to me that making Eren the baby father is the only solution that people can come up with to have it actually mean something and have relevance, which only serves as further proof to me that it never should have happened in the first place. Even if this team has something clever up their sleeve, I feel like there's only so much they can do to make it better, especially considering that they're only changing the last three chapters. To me, a much better handling of Historia post time-skip by Isayama would have involved giving her a chance to actually be queen and exploring her thoughts on Eren's actions and whether she would have allowed the Yeagerists to take over the island. We saw in the end that she did let them take over, but we're not clearly shown why. We also never found out why Eren was able to change her mind so suddenly regarding his plan and what made her decide to have a child. Not to mention that not once did we get to see her interact with the rest of the cast, which it doesn't look like will happen in this fan ending either. It was just her in that stupid chair and then the baby is born and that's it. I appreciate the AOTNR team's attempt to breathe some life back into her, but it still doesn't make up for all the missing screentime she had from chapter 90 onwards.

Moving on to the last part of this chapter, we see that after learning Eren's secret, Armin has had enough. He calls Eren a hypocrite for hiding what he did with Historia from everyone and how things could have been better if he just trusted them, but Eren is still unfazed. Armin asks Eren why he was brought back into Paths if it wasn't actually going to fix anything, and this is how the rest of the chapter plays out:

I like the way this cliffhanger is depicted. It shows Eren and Armin both as children this time facing each other, each with a determined look on their face while their adult faces shine in the background. It serves as a good visual representation of just how much things have changed between them since their early years and prepares the audience for a huge face-off outside of PATHS where everyone else is still trying to fight off Ymir's horde of ancient titans. Speaking of that, these two fan-made chapters have not given much focus to what's been going on on the outside, unlike Isayama's chapter 138. It looks like their three biggest priorities here are giving us Eren's POV, which we didn't get until the very end, Historia's POV, which we never got at all, and a final boost of character development for Armin. As a result, other important plot points are put on hold, such as what's next for Zeke and the rest of Eren's friends. This, paired with a lack of action sequences, causes the pacing to feel slow. Seeing where we are now, though, I'm assuming that it will pick up next chapter. And now that they've given Historia some much needed attention, I'm interested in seeing if they have any plans for Mikasa. There are a lot of people who strongly dislike her, so changing that perspective into something more positive looks like it's going to be a big challenge and I'll be very impressed if they pull it off. Overall, I thought this chapter was okay. It's very good for a fanfiction, though, and I'm glad that other people are enjoying it. I'll be grateful if it brings at least some level of peace to this fandom in the end, so until next time, thanks for reading ✌.

#snk #attack on titan #attack on titan no requiem #snk fanfiction #eren jaeger #armin arlert #historia reiss

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sunfoxfic · 3 years

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Okay so I have a come across a lot of stuff in the last half and hour and I just want to about it

I came across a lot people being tired of people vague posting about them, and some even leaving the fandom.

Now, I will be frank here. I have vague posted before. I haven't dropped names (which makes me uncomfortable because Idc about WHO says it, WHAT they say is what makes me mad and vaguepost).

This is just my opinion and maybe it is wrong, but I think as long as we are not going into who posted the thing, or just saying "X person is stupid for saying this!" And point at a particular person, vague posting can be relieving. Of course, when you are at the recieving end of it, it is anything but relieving and it makes you upset, but on the other hand it is somewhat better than going and arguing with the person who is definitely not going to change your or their mind.

Or if you are like me - I hate arguements. I come here to have a good time and vibe, not to debate about stuff. Of course, critical thinking is mandatory, and I know to spot problematic elements. But I don't like getting involved in the, "Was this a good writing decision?" Sort of debates because 1. I don't know anything about writing, I lack experience and I can't judge, and 2. I just don't really...care?

In this sort of cases, I'd just rather vaguepost about the post which made me super mad and let it all out. And usually I even delete it before anyone else sees it.

Fandom is a place to have fun. People are going to have different opinions than me, and they may disagree with me. And when someone disagrees so much, it comes off as defensive, but they may just have thought about the counter argument for ages. Maybe they just coincidentally posted it after I posted your post. That doesn't make it vague posting.

Sure, vague posting maybe isn't something I would call nice. But sometimes it becomes stop hard to keep it all in. Sometimes it starts affecting you. Letting it out actually makes it easier to forget.

It's just that I saw people being too upset about the fandom being so "defensive" and basically saying: Vague posting is BAD! But it sometimes helps me and I just...what are your thoughts on this?

Let's ignore for a moment that I maintain a not-unsizeable vaguepost tag myself. A couple weeks ago, a blog I follow and I were in conversation on a Discord server, and I said something. Less than an hour later, they vagueposted about the same topic of the thing I'd said, complaining about not-really what I'd said but kinda what I'd said. It was clearly not a coincidence.

You wanna know what I did?

I DM'd them. I said, "Hey, was this thing about me? I'm sorry if what I said upset you. I understand why you interpreted my words that way but I agree with you and I'll try not to make it sound that way next time." And we handled it civilly. I agreed with this person, and now I'm going to be more careful with my words on the subject, because I didn't realize how upsetting what I said could be, and I was wrong. They explained that it wasn't really about me, that what I said reminded them of someone else who they really didn't like, and that they were glad I was considering their words.

I maintain a consistent vaguepost tag on here because I make vagueposts all the time and I know people may want to filter them out of their dash.

In the past (less so this month than months prior, but that's the exception, not the rule) I've been really loud about ML fandom salt. And sometimes that means vagueposting about certain blogs or certain creators. Because I'm not going to speak up about (random fanartist living off of Patreon) or (fan writer who has a day job as a receptionist) the same way I'm going to speak up about Astruc, or Zag, or one of the actors on the show, or whoever. It's not the same and I refuse to callout someone so blatantly.

And yeah, anon, I think that fandom should be a place to have fun, and the assumption that if you aren't constantly kicking and screaming and arguing against the terrible horrible things that go on in canon and the fandom is a super bad faith assumption. You don't have to constantly talk about being a good person to be a big person. And I drafted a post which I won't be posting until next month because I'm not posting fandom salt this month (with the exception of asks, of course) but the gist of it was: "There are way too many people in this fandom who will salt the show then turn around and maintain the status quo of a canon that they hate, and that's fucking hypocritical."

If you're going to complain about how racist it was for Marinette to be designed with blue eyes, then stop drawing/describing her with blue eyes! Which, you know, is a thing that people do, but the vast majority of people who do it don't draw attention to the way they do it. Or if you're going to complain about lack of LGBTQ representation, and how Marcnath and Julerose were done so dirty? Then you better be creating Marcnath and Julerose content, because if you're not, then you're complaining about canon while doing the exact same thing as canon.

Some people will die on the hill that canon is horrible terrible no good very bad and that if you don't constantly talk about it you're just as horrible, and then they'll.... make fanworks that are just as bad as canon for the same reasons, but it's okay that according to their own logic it's sexist/racist/homophobic/etc. because they're just copying canon.

So yeah, I fully believe that you don't have to be constantly debating, loudly, about the merits of every piece of canon and fanwork that you see, and in general, I find that the people who are loudest about that are typically not the people who are actually challenging the way they use canon in their fanworks. And yeah, I'm vagueing some people by saying that; what are they gonna do, cry about it?

If anyone tells you that you shouldn't vaguepost, then just block them and move on. Maybe unfollow the person who put that post on your dash, or see if it was tagged in any particular way that you can filter out. Because constantly involving yourself in discourse doesn't make you a better person, and you have nothing to prove to strangers online.

(Though, I will say that there's something to be said about keeping your venting about strangers online private. There's one fuckwad in this fandom that my non-ML friends all know about because I've complained about him so goddamn much to them. Keeping negativity out of the fandom is a valid thing to strive for, and I'm not saying you shouldn't vaguepost on any moral ground, but I am saying that this month has forced me multiple times to post positivity in lieu of negativity, and I don't think that's a terrible mindset to have, especially when it comes to how you're spreading negativity to other people.)

#asks answered #anonymous #ml fandom salt #longpost

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spoopy-moose · 4 years

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There’s something I like to call the supernatural paradox, dubbed so after supernatural the cw dumpster fire. It is when the main plot of a series has effectively ended but the show itself continues on, due to demands of fans or the passion of its creators, it ends up being something that doesn’t know what to do with itself, so it meanders and characters revert and stagger and everything happens but actually nothing is changed.

That’s DSMP season 2.

Because the plot has already ended, we come with a series and actually is just confused with itself. I feel like so much is promised here and it delivers but none of them have the same building of emotional impact that series one has, it’s just a mess that seems like it’s doing everything but does nothing with its everything. I saw a good post that said that season 2 is basically just them backstabbing each other constantly and it’s tiring. They have been doing that in the two months since nov 16th, just constantly without break. I get why, it’s fun role playing backstabbing your friends. But all of this betrayal has no weight to it. Nothing about the series is fundemntally changed by their betrayal. The first betrayal by c!Eret was good because it shifts the status quo, the second betrayal by c!Wilbur was good because he spent time building up to it. What character/world/narrative impact does Techno’s second betrayal hold? What long lasting impact does Tubbo exiling Tommy has other than to beat it into our heads that Dream is unequivocally the bad guy and Tommy the poor manipulated teen? And what good is betrayal if betrayal is not juxtaposed by kindness? Isn’t betrayal more painful by having the characters care about each other than what it is now, an endless charade of back and forth and back and force and back and forth.

Speaking of Tommy, what has he actually learnt in the course of the 2 months, hell, the course of the plot itself. Because at the beginning, he was attached to the discs and we see a willingness, slow willingness to give up his things for his friends or the greater good. So his character arc should be mainly about his selfishness and his selflessness. But it isn’t? Or that’s not the direction they’re going with with him? I like to say an unpopular opinion but I think I’m voicing a pretty popular one when I say that I’m sick to death of the discs. Majority viewers of the dream smp didn’t join until Wilbur started his lmanburg, they don’t know what significance the discs hold. Hell, I don’t know what significance the discs hold. The discs may be something the character is attached to, but it’s an item that the audience is not. In contrast, the audience has seen the rise and fall and rise again of lmanburg, they’re much more attached to it than they are to the discs. It isn’t enough now that the character is attached to a thing, it needs to be written in a way that the audience is attached to the same thing. If tommy randomly points to a piece of coal and said that it was plot relavent and was now the more important thing in the smp, would we care? Probably not. Some said they’re a symbol of his friendship to Tubbo, I don’t think so. Based on his whole thing in the community house the day before doomsday, Tommy thinks that the discs and Tubbo are wholely seperate things. He’s willing to put them aside to fight Dream, but for how long? Doesn’t he immediately fall back to them a second later? A Doomsday later?

Here I’m going to evoke supernatural again, I fucking hate that series but I will allude it to critique DSMP because it’s a fantastic case study in plot structure. After season 5, we can see that it does the same thing over and over again, the brothers betraying each other, finding out, getting mad and then making up then it happens in a circle again. Nothing is learnt, no character growth, no build up, no changes to the status quo. And it just goes round and round in a circle until they finally announce the series’s end. I think if the writers don’t do something new or plant a second string of overarching plot, supernatural s6-15 is the way that DSMP is going to go, just constant betrayal and backstabbing when nothing is actually happening and nothing is changing. I’m not saying that Dream or Tommy can’t be good writers, I’m just saying that they cannot head towards the same direction as season 1 with no end goal in sight because it just doesn’t work.

That being said I think there are some merits and some things that season 2 does well. In season 1, many of the minor streamers are sidelined in order to focus on the few central characters, which wouldn’t be a problem if it were a TV show but it isn’t, viewership is based on how involved everyone is with the plot and if you’re just some minor character then, well, no one is going to watch you. I think season 2 gave people a lot of time to shine and previously sidelined characters a chance to join the plot. The crimson egg side plot is interesting too and I think it would be used as a sort of Big Threat At The End sort of like the night king in game of thrones which makes everyone stop fighting each other and start fighting the supernatural or other threat. That would be fun, it would be an overarching plot with the end goal being for everyone to see that their fighting is pointless and stupid.

All in all, season 2 has potential but the potential is never used to further something greater. I think that the writers of season 2 tries really hard to emulate the feel of season 1, but season 1 can’t be replicated because there is not e condition for it. They need to derive from the original premise and come up with something new instead of the same plot but in new skins. Every character in itself is interesting, but characters can’t be interesting and stay the same forever, things need to change, characters needs to change and the plot needs to change. Season 2 has to be different to be interesting, it can’t be the same.

/rp

#enjoy my essay I wrote on my phone #this is just my personal view on this don’t take my word for it #dream smp #dsmp #mcyt #tommyinnit #Wilbur soot #dreamwastaken #tubbo #Technoblade #philza minecraft #supernatural is bad but it also is good as a framework for analysing media

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gamebunny-advance · 3 years

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The Thrilling Continuation~

@kujo-supernova

As to not clog the dashes with increasingly long posts of anyone who has to put up with this, I started a new post~

[Original response here]

K, I agree with 95% of what you said, so I don't feel the need to go over it point by point. Even the stuff I don't agree with I’m not going to really address because it's irrelevant to the argument I’m trying to make. This isn't even an argument about each other's opinions anymore so much as I'm just commenting on the fandom at large now. So basically everything I'm about to say is not really directed at you (except for the last part), and is more directed at this fictional straw man of the fandom that probably doesn't exist, but I'm gonna attack anyway because it helps illustrate my thought process.

But thanks for reading anyway if you do~

I don't take issue with the fandom because I'm trying to defend Kliff or say that anyone else is 100% in the wrong here. This is a story about flawed individuals that make bad decisions. It's multi-layered and complex, and that's why I love this game so much.

My issue is largely with how the fandom in general is hypocritical in the way they treat Kliff because they see him as *more* "wrong" than he actually is, but my goal is not to prove that he was in the “right”.

Yeah, B2J (mostly Mayday) did get to learn from the experience that they were wrong because they're the protagonists: the purpose of their story is to learn that lesson. Kliff exists to be Mayday's "shadow". He represents an extreme that Mayday could have become had she not realized that taking over NSR isn't the solution to her problem. But as the true antagonist, Kliff literally *can't* come to that same realization: it would be redundant. And that's fine. For the purposes of the story that it wanted to tell, Kliff getting a resolution was not necessary, even if it leaves him in a bad spot with the other characters.

But that story is done and now fandom gets to write new ones. He still has a lot of character that can be explored: Now that rock is back in the city, what will he do? Why is rock specifically so important to him? Why does he know so much about every artist in the city? Why does he look so much younger than he actually is? *cough*becausehe'savampire*cough*

But largely the fandom doesn't seem interested in exploring any of that and more than just a handful of people seem to outwardly reject the idea of writing him as even *capable* of the kind of growth that B2J went through.

I brought up DJSS specifically as a counterargument to Kliff because he is THE scummiest person in the cast for all the reasons you said and more, but he is still one of the most popular characters because he has a cool design and a sexy voice, and maybe some people see him as a "sad boi" and want to coddle him. I am also one of those people for all 3 1/2 of those reasons, but I don't believe that you need to think that a character is a good person to justify liking them. There's a lot of reasons to like a morally gray or even morally black character, and agreeing with their actions/opinions doesn't need to be one of them.

I just think it's hypocritical to excuse one character for their flaws and not another with similar ones. Like there's some nuance to it that can change what makes something okay in one context and not okay in another, but I think the comparison between DJSS and Kliff is apt.

In my opinion their shared flaw is being egocentric. They are both willing to sacrifice the health and happiness of others for their own agendas. They express it in different ways, but it all comes from the same place: They think that what they're trying to achieve is more important than the feelings/condition of others.

DJSS seriously does not give a damn about anyone other than himself and he doesn't even have the courtesy to try and hide it. Even after his district is restored, he's still the same asshole he always was. He STILL calls B2J "Plutonians" (and I don't count him saying that "they aren't so bad after all" as "change", because even as a professor he was capable of expressing backhanded gratitude) and his reason for playing music is STILL "self-importance". He is in the same place that he started and will probably continue to abuse his district over his sense of ego unless Tatiana or someone else finally forces him not to. And everyone either accepts that or disregards it because that's just who he is. And again, that's fine, but I find it hypocritical.

Like I feel like many people's problems with Kliff is that they're not interested in exploring his character beyond what has been presented in the text. And that's fine too. It is perfectly valid to enjoy the game as it is and not want to explore it beyond that, but if having such a small scope of a game's themes and characters causes you to get "bugged" when someone presents a different interpretation, then it might be beneficial to look at another reading.

For example, let's go back to the satellite argument. My point about the satellite being "symbolic" was to disprove "murderous intent". His motivations for dropping it are totally separate. You say that you still think his motivation is being fueled by bitterness over Tatiana leaving rock. Your exact words: "I still think part of it was done out of spiteness for Tatiana leaving rock", but I feel like that's a very surface level reading.

In my opinion, rock is just the window dressing to the core of his actual problem: he feels like he's not getting back what he gave. He drops the satellite after her response to this question: "Did my loyalty mean nothing to you?" Which was, "I don't give a damn about you. I owe you nothing." which I think is far from a trivial response.

In any relationship, even a non-romantic one like this, it hurts knowing that the other person isn't as invested in it as you are. Even more so if they were to flat out say, "I don't give a damn about you." Like, can you imagine being told by your favorite content creator that they hated you to your face after you've done everything you could do to support them as a fan? Would most people react calmly to that in the heat of the moment?

Like we don't know the extent that Kliff was involved in Tatiana's life, but Tatiana never implies that he's lying about supporting her after the Goolings disbanded. Their relationship couldn't have been completely parasocial because she immediately recognizes him and addresses him by name when she sees him, and her being Kul Fyra isn't common or easy to obtain knowledge, so he must have been close to her to even know that. We know what he may have been willing to do for her given how much he helps B2J, and had Tatiana been upfront about her feelings with Kliff in the past, then I don't think he would have even bothered to give his sob story because he would have known that she wouldn't be receptive to it.

What I'm getting at is that "abandoning rock" isn't the actual reason he felt hurt enough to want to retaliate. It was likely more about "abandoning him" than it is a loyalty to any particular genre.

Even with this reading of his motivation, I don't think he was justified in doing what he did. Tatiana was totally right in calling him out, even if she was harsh about it, because in the end it doesn't matter how much he might have done for her if she didn't want it to begin with. He should have just walked away and accepted that she wasn't the person he thought she was, but people don't always do the right or rational thing, especially if they're caught up in the heat of their emotions and I think that's a relatable emotion worthy of discussion and dissection, even if it's not positive.

Will reading any of that change your mind? Probably not, but it's another perspective, and that's really all I want to offer.

Saying you're okay with someone liking something that you don't, isn't the same as understanding it, and that's what I want to change. I don't need anyone to agree with me, I wouldn’t start these discussions with strangers if I did. My end goal is to get you to understand where I'm coming from, and I think you're just *barely* missing my point. Hopefully I’m understanding your points too, but maybe I’m wrong about you’re getting at as well. UoU

#text #i dunno if i want this in the main tags #it's gonna show up in NSR regardless #but i do want to be mindful of anyone blacklisting this stuff #nsr

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fmdjoosungarchive · 3 years

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restructuring task 1

+5 tracker points

1. assuming your muse has changed in some way, be it internally or as a result of a change of the external factors around them, how is your muse different? these can be as small as an opinion on a song they hadn’t released previously or as big as a major change in their background.

wc: 365

idk if i’ve said this on dash yet, but i’m treating new famed more or less like an au. in sung’s au, the defining change is that he was let go from gold star when he had his injury as a trainee. it was always my headcanon that they truly were close to cutting him loose anyway, so this is just the other side of that. he had his injury, got plastic surgery to try to appease them into keeping him, and they still let him go. when he went home his parents said alright u tried that now join the fam business n sung freaked bc he realized he doesnt want that for himself so he went to do smth he also hated, and joined the military. while there he still worked on his dance and vocals whenever he had a moment to do so, so that when he was discharged and started auditioning again, he wasn’t so rusty

he is a year younger in this world, just bc of quantum’s age range, not for any other reason. makes him a little less of a cradle robber in his relationship lol which, another change is that daisuke wouldn’t have been his first kiss, just first everything else

quantum is very different from old element and new element, but it’s very in line with what i liked about quicksilver (& has models from that) and he’s a leader! this is an idea ive toyed with a lot over the last three years tbh. at first i didn’t think sung suited a leader position, but he came to show me he’s just a different kind of leader. i liken him to jinki often in this regard. rather than lassoing members in, he supports them being however they are, and takes an intimate/emotional path to gaining their trust and leading them. and while he wasn’t suited for the full business life, what he learned from his father’s teachings helps him in dealing with the company as the group’s representative there (& he loves a good powerpoint presentation)

other timeline stuff for big events in his life are likely to shift but i’m not sure on specifics yet

2. what does your muse think of their company and their group?

wc: 260

as the child of a businessman, he’s never under the illusion that as a company entity, their first priority is their wellbeing. he knows that they are products, and that they’re treated as such. it’s a bit heavier with dimensions than gold star, since gold star makes a more active effort to pretend they care. however, once having accepted that, sung thinks himself and dimensions work well together. he does feel that for a company, they allow himself and his members to be a part of the creative process, as says their motto. he feels much more encouraged to write songs and choreograph under dimensions than he did under gold star, where it felt like he was constantly on his knees begging for the company to take him seriously

as for quantum, sung really loves what they’re about. he’s not a big fan of all (or most) of their songs, though he’s more loving towards a song written by another member even if it’s the same sound he dislikes, but he absolutely loves being focused on performance and concepts. his creative mind works very much on the basis of story and emotion that comes with it, and he feels like quantum’s concepts sometimes to often lean into his tastes. he’s always been a dancer first and foremost (god am i so glad to have his main dancer title back i MISSED u) so focusing on performance is v much up his alley, and his preferred style of dance is through storytelling. he feels the heart of dance is in that

3. is your muse on their first contract or their second? if they’ve renewed, what were their feelings around that at the time and what were their hopes for their second contract? if they haven’t renewed, what are their current thoughts on the end of their eventual first contract?

wc: 281

quantum’s on their first contract still, up for renewal in 2024. at the current moment, he would like to re-sign. however, unlike my others, his re-signing depends more heavily on the other members. if they were unhappy and wanted to leave, sung would want to follow suit, not because he can’t make his own decisions, but because if the reason the members want to leave is because of the company, not quantum, he’d want to try to help quantum continue to live. if that means all of the members leaving in order to rebrand under another company, so be it. he’d like to avoid lineup changes however he can, and ideally would like to be an idol for as long as possible

he himself feels alright about his treatment. he feels creatively stimulated, and appreciated for talents further than his face. if he were to try to negotiate different terms at their contract renewal, part of it would likely be wanting to give members a higher share of profits, especially on releases they’re creatively involved in. sung personally has no use for excessive money, but not all of his members have his background, and he feels more than just the money, it’s what’s fair. he’d also prefer to allow for more creative freedom. as a 7/8 year group by then, he’d think they should be allowed to take the reigns more heavily. and on his personal side of things, he would want dimensions to be more mindful of his schedule. sung enjoys working, but he’s only one person, who doesn’t want to be overworked. these are all just his current thoughts, though, and will probably change before contract renewal comes up

4. what are your muse’s goals and motivations?

wc: 294

his motivations to be ‘successful’ and/or achieve his goals are his family, namely being someone his nephew and niece can be proud of, and someone his parents can feel was worth letting go of. he feels closer to the latter than he did in old famed. his members motivate him to be a good leader, his desire to grow as a creator motivates him to write and choreograph

specific goals could be bigger like his desire for more public recognition. while quantum has a lot more recognition both in korea and abroad than element or quicksilver, sung wants the best for his group. he’d be happy if they stayed where they are with their loyal fandom, but he still aims for more

sung also wants to get better at standing up for himself. he’s best at standing up for others, because he can slap on a bit of bravado in order to help them out, but when it comes to himself, especially with his parents, he’s pretty awful at it

he’d also like to create more for quantum, and others. i/he have a goal for him to write a whole album for someone, so if anyone reads this far and could want sung writing for their muse, hit me up!

he’d like to get married and have children one day. that’s always been a dream of his, and while he knows his career doesn’t allow for that soon, it’s still on his docket

he wants to spend more time with his family, especially his nephew and niece. they’re so new to the world and learning everything, and sung wants to be a part of that. he doesnt want his part in their early lives to be ‘i don’t really remember seeing him back then’

5. what is one conflict, internal or external, that your muse is currently dealing with, has recently dealt with, or will need to deal with in the future?

wc: 291

at some point, this bitch is gonna have to admit he’s a homiesexual. in his previous version, it was a lot easier for him to ‘i pretend i do not see it’ when it came to that. sung’s very ignorant when it comes to the queer community in korea, so he’s not even really aware of terms beyond gay, maybe trans. but, terms aside, he always thought he was someone who liked women, and daisuke and a couple of others were just outliers. they were the Special ones outside of his jurisdiction that were just too good for him to not notice. aka he believed he was bi. and now, he still does, but i have less faith he’ll be able to hold that up until he dies like i did before, because he’s actually dated at least one woman before in this world. considering the plot has yet to be picked up, i don’t know the specifics, but i do think it’s harder to run away from when the way he treated a relationship with a woman and a relationship with a man were lightyears away from one another. it’s still possible for him to run away from the truth of the situation, but it’s also very possible that one day, his thoughts on it will shake, and everything will click into place (messily,, probably the messiest clicking ever) it would be a difficult thing for him to come to terms with, though i think it’s better for him in the longterm to truly know who he is, and why he acts the way he does, why he feels the way he does about women vs men. it’s also nice just to not live a lie, even if only privately

6. if your muse has established career claims, what are their thoughts on their career so far? if they do not, how do they feel about not having individual activities yet? what would they like to do in the future, if anything? if they don’t have ambitions for individual activities, explain why.

wc: 523

sung has a pretty filled history of individual activities. most are points claims with a focus on modelling, his radio, and music, though he’s dipped into pretty much ever facet of idoldom, some with more success than others. his ecp expenditures flesh that out a little more, and add a bit more realism, and/or make sense of the group changes. he had a one year modelling contract with the north face, and while official claims aren’t possible, i was inspired by a couple of things rowoon did with them. there was more of a push on an eco-friendly side of things, and there was a bit of dancing. playing into his group position with dancing i feel is fitting, but the eco friendly part i also feel could round out his image more as a good, kind boy who also can be sexy, whereas before, his earlier modelling claims focused a lot more on the sexy aspect, because it fit element and his trajectory there better. here, it makes him more dual sided from the beginning. north face is also just a nice, strong brand that i think is fitting for a pretty boi. i set it a bit after a year out from debut because i feel like that’s the most realistic, especially for a group like quantum that grew audience with each comeback

part of that first year being focusing only on the group ties into his creative claims as well! his first creative claim was with the bside love, lalala on the eternity ep. the nicest part of creative claims being unattached to positions is that all of sung’s claims are the songs in the discography most Him. so love lalala is very jazzy and smooth, and would have served as his first introduction to songwriting, as well as what made him interested in songwriting. then he was a choreographer on error, which is heavily story based, and about the members being a unit, and making beautiful pictures together. i hope to snag intro long journey and outro long journey from the beginning and end of the ateez sector, because they’re beautiful compositions that fit sung’s style, but also having him on both makes him feel like he’s a part of the concept’s creation in an intimate way, which fits with dms. then there’s aurora, which sung partially composed and partially choreographed. the choreography has contemporary flair to it, and the song is a flowing sound that matches that. then there’s partial production on sunrise, which i just love the robotic ass experimental production there, and comp for with u, which i believe ties back into sung’s rediscovering his love of piano. choreo for valkyrie is most similar to error in it’s pretty pictures way, and also has a bit of complex footwork, especially as its point dance, which is also p sung to want to include. and finally, some comp on stand by, which is like a mix of the appeal of aurora and with u methinks? listening to all of his written songs together i feel like really makes a picture of sung’s songwriting so i love that

#famedrstask1 #and the last q was me trying to keep it brief....... lol

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aclosetfan · 3 years

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For the Salty asks: 1, 3, 5 and 6?

Thanks so much for playing along! Ima be real with you 2 out of the 4 questions you asked really opened up a can of worms for me, and I’m so sorry. I put the less stressful ones first, and the other two are under the cut! Anyway, these were super fun to answer, but plz don’t hate me for it!! 😂😂

for anyone wondering, here’s the ask list: Salty Asks List

3. Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion?

lmao yeah. It’s petty, but honestly, people’s personal morals really bleed through into their fandom opinions, and I’m not willing to put up with any unnecessary hate, especially in environments that are supposed to be fun. I’ve even blocked a few people. In the ppg fandom specifically, I’ve blocked a person who, I guess, thought it was necessary to try to gate-keep with racist/sexist/etc. terminology and ideologies, and I truly don’t have time for that 🤷‍♀️ (a lot of people probs know who I’m vaguing, but if you don’t, you’re lucky)

I can’t say I’ve ever unfollowed anyone for any innocent/not-in-conflict-with-my-morals fandom opinions. Usually, if I don’t agree with something, I just keep scrolling because lol whatever. Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion.

but ngl I have unfollowed people who just get annoying 😬😬 lol

6. Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?*

I went into this fandom without having too many preferences, so I didn’t have a pairing that I’ve previously hated!

I guess I could say that while I never really hated them, the color-mixing and color-clashing ships weren’t ever on my radar until I came across the fandom content. Now, I really like them! Particularly, Brick and Bubbles!

1. What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?*

Before anyone gets pissed off at me, before you get into my answer for this question, I’d like to really stress that you’ve got to go into it with absolutely zero fanon context. Like, erase all your headcanons from your mind. I’m dead serious. Because I literally DO NOT get why ANY rrbxppg ship would realistically work ever.

Okay, canonically, these six little funky science experiments were dead set on ending each other. The boys were absolutely horrible to the girls. And the girls literally KILL the boys. I know in fairytale romances, nothing stops love, but bruh, it’s hard to come back from murder 😂 And yeah, I know Clipsville showed the girls and the boys together as older teenagers, and they weren’t trying to kill each other, but that was an obvious gag. In the documentary, it was revealed that that particular “clip” was made because a bunch of people wanted the boys and girls to interact again, and CN gave into the demand. (also, lol I know it super embarrassing, but I did watch the documentary. I just really like Craig McCracken) I just don’t think that realistically a canon pairing between the two sets of triplets would ever be considered a healthy relationship.

Also, ethically, I just—okay listen, I go back and forth with this allllll the time, but the ppgxrrb ships make me confront the “Would I sleep with my clone?” question way too often. Depending on my self-esteem, the answer changes each time. Like sometimes I’m like fuck yeah I would! Other times I’m like, ew, no, I’d have to consider my clone as a twin! I know counterparts aren’t technically clones, BUT the boys really do come across as identical to the girls in the show. The only difference really is their moral alignment (I’m nixing any gender argument). So, I’m like, omg, can I honestly pair these six together in any way??? Are they too close to each other genetically in some sense for this to be morally right??? Like if you ship Brick and Buttercup together, would that just essentially be shipping Brick and Butch/Blossom and Buttercup together in some messed up way??? Is Brick just Blossom, and Blossom just Brick?? Is it better just to ship color-matching instead of mixing???

On top of all of that, wouldn’t the boys and girls be pseudo cousins since Mojo was the Professor’s lab monkey? Technically, in canon, Mojo ends up being both sets of triplets “creator,” so could the rrb and the ppg be considered siblings of some sort? Some of you are probably like, wow, calm down. Stop thinking about it. They’re science experiments. It’s not so deep. Which I get, but I can’t stop, so let me hit you with something ten times worse: should the girls (or the boys) actually be considered biological siblings? Does sugar, spice, and everything nice make you genetically related? Nothing put in the stirring pot was organic—just a bunch of chemicals. If you ship the boys and girls together this could be a good thing! BUT, but, could some sick fuck use this information to somehow justify shipping siblings (ppgxppg or rrbxrrb) together??? This is a literal nightmare to think about!!

All in all, I can’t think about these pairings too much without getting caught up in the logistics of their existence even if they’re fictional lmaoooo! If it wasn’t for the fandom, I wouldn’t ship them together at all. I just think it’s amazing that the ships took off like they did lol, because their literal (fictional) existence is just one giant mind fuck for me. Anyway, I ship them at the end of the day, but tbh I do it with a bit of a guilty conscience. Is it morally correct to ship clone-like counterparts? Or should counterparts be treated like twins? Does it even fucking matter at the end of the day, it’s just fiction? I don’t know the right answer. But I do know the pairings don’t make sense.

Aside from the ppgxrrb, I don’t think there are many other BIG fandom wide pairings. Still, I just want to say that I don’t get why people ship Ace and Buttercup together. The pairing sounds off a few major alarms in my head for obvious reasons. There’s also a bunch of crack ships that involve crossovers with other cartoons. Generally, I don’t mind them, but it seems popular to ship Aku (from Samurai Jack) and Blossom together. And I’m real sorry to those devoted shippers, but again I do NOT get it. I see a lot of romantic fan art depicting romantic situations with Blossom still drawn as a child, and like I get Aku is an immortal demon, so “age is just a number,” but again, BIG ALARMS go off in my head.

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?*

🙃 🙃 Kind of don’t want to answer this, but I will anyway because only a few people actually read my blog lolol, so lol, yep! And it’s the reds. Don’t shoot me lol. When I was in middle school, I got into this fandom, forgot about it, and then came back when I was hit by a round of nostalgia. I’m finishing up college now, and I can confidentially say that the fanon content for the reds hasn’t changed one bit. Or the demand for it.

I tended to find that a lot of red content follows many archetypes that I’m just not into. Their stories can get a real cringey, real fast. Blossom is always written like this “perfect, except she’s not (but she really is)” character. Like she’s the girl you WISH you could be, but she’s also going through a shit ton of stuff that no person IRL would be able to handle without having a mental breakdown. And sometimes, in some stories, Blossom does have a mental breakdown, but in a sexy way, so she’s still perfect. Generally, there’s still something problematic about Blossom that makes it easy for a reader to relate to her on some level, unlike the way people write Bubbles. And then there’s Brick, who’s broody, hyper-possessive or jealous, and hot figuratively and literally (gotta love the fire/ice trope). He’s the only boy—no! Wait!—the only person who could ever possibly outwit Blossom, and he is just so undeniably attracted to Blossom. They’re the smart power couple that should honestly just hook-up in Chapter One to save everybody time, but they don’t. Nah, they’ve got to survive at least two love triangles before they even consider admitting they’re attracted to each other.

And don’t get me wrong, none of that’s bad, but there are a million fanfics that go through the same song and dance with these two. And it’s kind of easy to tell when someone’s hardcore projecting onto Blossom because the type of person they’re personally attracted to is the way they write Brick. And I’m not knocking anyone self-projecting onto characters, sometimes people got to do that to give themselves a fun mental break, but bro, I don’t want to read about it. For one, smart broody assholes aren’t my type. Maybe when I was in middle school, but not anymore. And two, it’s just not interesting to me, which is a real shame since the reds are a majority of the fanon content.

Maybe if I found more red stories where the plot isn’t character-driven but plot-driven, so I see the romance between these two characters in a context where it’s not the main focus of the story, it would solve my issue with the pairing. I haven’t found many fics like that, though.

I can’t really think of any reds fic where I’m like ey, this aint bad unless it has a “major character death” tag attached to it lmao (which are always plot driven stories). However, in all honesty, since I’ve stayed away from red content for a while now, I don’t know the current state of things. Maybe there’s been a load more development for these two, or people have broken away from the same plotlines, but I’m too busy to check. I do browse people’s fic rec lists from time to time, but it sort of feels like everyone just puts the same fics on their lists and moves on.

And before someone’s like, “well, you can say all this about the greens or the blues,” just know I’m fully aware. The greens make me cringe too because there’s a shit ton of possessive and abusive storylines filling their story tags. And what makes me super uncomfortable is how people make Buttercup hit Butch or call him derogatory names, oftentimes unprompted. I don’t know why people make Buttercup such an unlikeable and overly aggressive person. I also don’t get why they make Butch some perverted idiot, but to each their own, I guess? Still, I see these green-character patterns most often in red-focused stories, which is another reason why I avoid them. I’ve found a lot of green-focused content that strays from the abusive tropes I try to avoid. Considerably less than I’d like, but the greens are typically the b-plot pairing, so that’s to be expected. Personally, I’d really like to see more content with the greens finding some kind of inner peace, and recently, I’ve seen a few fics that have tried to tackle this concept.

And lol, if you’ve read some of my posts before, you already know that I think the blues are an underdeveloped fanon pairing. The fandom can’t ruin that pairing for me because it never does anything substantial with it.

Anyway, at the end of the day, I’m just personally not into the way the reds are popularly written, but I get why people are and that’s good with me.

#salty ask game #lisathefan #an ethical debate in MY ppg post??? It's more likely then you think!#long post #ppg pairings #and all my issues with them #also im a firm believer in the block button being your friend!

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