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gffa · 3 years ago

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I know I've brought this up before, but how much of the fandom reception of the prequels do you think stemmed from the genre dissonance? That the prequels, genre-wise, are closer to high fantasy, while the OT is more an adventure/space western/underdog triumph story.

The prequels also have elements more reminiscent of a romantic period/court drama/Shakespearean tragedy, while if you consider the underdog angle of the OT, the OT also seems kinda similar to some of those inspirational movies about sports teams or something, or a shonen anime with the "Power of Friendship".

I'm just saying, these are rather disparate genres that tend to attract different demographics of people.

And not many people tend to be... great about understanding why they don't like something, much less putting it into words, or understanding that they can dislike something without that something being actually bad. (For example, instead of "I just don't really like [thing]," the usual statement is something along the lines of "[thing] absolutely sucks.")

So the usual response is trying to find (and gather) solidarity while putting down or being condescending towards any dissent, and trying to justify their own dislike. (*gestures vaguely towards pineapple on pizza*)

And historically, it's not uncommon for people to... react strongly towards things they find... different or abnormal, which they judge based on themselves, their emotional response to something, and what they're used to.

Looking at kids, this behavior is... fairly normal. "You're weird," "ew, why do you like that, that's gross," "that's stupid," and so on. A lot of kids/teens/young adults also get defensive really easily. And let's face it--adults are basically just older, taller kids who've had to deal with more of life.

(To be honest, I also get defensive really easily. A lot of people do, and it's... it's normal. The defensive reaction can be lashing out, denial, or just being passive-aggressive or staying silent and tuning it out or mentally rolling your eyes at it. But I'm trying to work on it, because just because it's normal doesn't mean it's a good reaction.)

So, what I'm wondering is whether some fans dislike the prequels simply because it's a different genre...

...but instead of realizing that, they try to defend and justify their dislike by pointing fingers and criticizing whatever stood out or looked different from the OT or cherry-picking details/taking things out of context or making negative conflations (that can be refuted).

Because it's not about logic, it's about how they feel. And people want to feel justified and validated, and we want to feel like we're right and we enjoy staying in our comfort zones. So... yeah. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

LOL, okay, this response is going to be really disjointed because I went off in like a dozen different tangents and even then it's not enough to cover everything, so just kind of read this in a Scattered Thoughts Nerd kind of tone, where I'm staring off into the distance because Navel Gazing Gets Me Going Sometimes. 😂 In my experience, it's sort of a mix. I don't hang around a lot of people who dislike the prequels (in the sense of dismissing them/not being fannish about them) because, well, that's the heart of my interest in Star Wars, so our areas of interest basically don't really overlap that much, so I don't have a chance to talk to a lot of people and find out their reasons or even how they dislike the prequels, in the bigger trends of fandom. I do think there's an element of what you're talking about, that sometimes people can't just dislike things because it's not their genre of choice, that's absolutely a part of it. Mostly because that's how a lot of people react to anything they don't like (and it's something I and literally everyone else has to work on), there has to be a reason for it that it's objectively bad and, like, I have experienced a lot of people getting mad because I like something in a different way than they do. And I don't mean just in Star Wars fandom, but in almost any given fandom--if someone likes something in a way someone else doesn't, if they talk loudly about it (even within their own space), then there's always a contingent of people who have to find a reason why that person is objectively wrong (or even try to make them morally wrong), rather than just shrugging and going, "We see things differently, my view on things doesn't overwrite theirs and their view on things doesn't overwrite mine." It gets more complicated in instances where fandom attitudes genuinely can be hurtful, especially when they're overlapping into the way real people are treated, likes/dislikes don't 100% exist in a bubble, especially when it comes to queer fans, fans of color, disabled fans, mentally ill fans, etc. But that there are a lot of instances where fandom culture has always been--and is increasingly so--contentious and it's hard to chill out when someone is always screaming at you, when the atmosphere of the fandom is always so intense. Further, there's also an element of how fandom has always been--and also is increasingly so--about personal resonance, personal emotional investment, interpretation, and meaning. That sometimes we identify with something so deeply that we feel attacked when someone else likes or dislikes something we feel so strongly about, something that we feel is a reflection of ourselves, and I see a lot of that as well. And this, too, often crosses over into lines of how the context of how we treat characters can be reflections of how we treat real world people, but that there's no monolith here as well. For example: I make fun of Anakin, this angers some people, because how dare I not take this fictional victim 100% seriously, despite that I have repeatedly said that Anakin is the character I most identify with, that things I make fun of him for are ones that I resonate with personally. I'm not disrespecting mentally ill people, especially considering that Anakin is not bound to a single interpretation on this front--he is not canonically mentally ill, no matter how easy it is for us in fandom to map much of that onto his character or, in my case, feel that so much of what I see in him are things I struggle with myself. By and large, the majority of the people I see (at least on tumblr) who make fun of Anakin are doing so within the same vein, that they're being silly about him on things that they personally relate to. (My experiences on this are not universal, I cannot speak for the whole of even any one part of fandom, only my own sphere of experience, but this is what I've seen.) As always, it's fine if someone doesn't vibe with my style or they find that it's not their thing because they do take him more seriously, but that preference does not make my jokes

suddenly not have the context that I relate a lot to what I see in Anakin. In contrast, the way some of the fandom treats Mace or Finn isn't just personal all the time. Not liking their characters isn't inherently racist, but the way they're consistently, consistently treated sure as hell speaks to a larger pattern of racism in fandom and doesn't come without that context. It's the same with Rey--is there a huge vein of misogyny when it comes to her character? Abso-fucking-lutely there is. Things Luke and Anakin get a pass on, Rey is raked over the coals for. Is everyone who dislikes Rey a misogynist? Not even close. Some don't like her because Finn was used as a prop for her story. Some people don't like her because she got sucked into Kylo Ren's story too much. Some just don't care for the way she was written for other reasons. Some just don't vibe with her. It's fine. Nothing is a monolith. And to circle this back around to what you're talking about--it's hard to judge, both because no part of fandom is a monolith in their reactions, but also because we're only hearing from a selection of the fans. How do you know how many people who aren't fans of the prequels, who just don't care for them because it's not their genre, but just go about their day? You don't hear from a lot of them because they moved on to things they do like, so it seems like they must not exist--except, they do, and they're just out there doing things they like more. We only hear from the people who feel the need to tell others they dislike the prequels for this reason or that reason, some valid, some less valid, etc. Ultimately, I do think there's probably a fair amount of genre dissonance for why people dislike the prequels and channel that into "they're objectively bad" and get defensive when people like them and say they were great, but only because that's true of anything anywhere. But that it's only one small slice of the bigger picture (and there's a lot of stuff that I had to eschew in the writing of this response as well because it can be a pretty sprawling topic), where there are tons of reasons and reactions that people have, as well as they're perfectly free to dislike the prequels for whatever reason they do or don't have, it doesn't really affect my opinions, unless they're trying to shove it in my face or are being a dick to those who disagree with them.

#lumi.txt #idk how to tag this

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sand-worms · 3 years ago

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Risotto?

I think the problem with fanon Risotto is that there’s not a lot of information given in canon so there’s not a ton to work with. With all of La Squadra in general we see so little of them (maybe roughly half an hour each?) that most of their characterization is sort of left up to interpretation anyway, but Risotto in particular tends to be a pretty subdued character. And by that I mean he doesn’t really display any traits that are particularly easy to latch onto and build off of like the rest of them seem to (ie Ghiaccio’s anger or Pesci’s low self-confidence/general nervousness). Risotto’s just sort of quiet, observant, and cautious; he’s very even-keel from what we see and that doesn’t really translate into something easily “fandomized,” for lack of a better way to put it.

So instead what people do is they look at his appearance and make assumptions based on that. Mixed in with the fact that he’s easily the most popular member of La Squadra among fandom that tends to lead people to interpreting him as some smooth, kinky BDSM sex god which is just? So bizarre to me. I feel like really often I see both him and Prosciutto (more so Prosciutto tbh) equated to these like? Suave/romantic types, when in reality the two of them would likely be harder to get close to than anyone else in the group (save perhaps for Sorbet and Gelato but that’s so debatable and based on how you personally interpret them if you even pay attention to them at all so I won’t go into it). All we really see of Risotto is that he’s guarded and he’s observant (because he has to be otherwise he would suck at his job), and we DO see in the anime at least that he’s got some genuine sense of care for the rest of his team, no matter how much he tries to hide it or pretend like he doesn’t. So I can see the interpretation that he would be a caring partner but I do not understand where the BDSM thing comes from aside from that harness that he wears. Overall I think that Risotto is literally just some fucking guy but maybe that’s too boring for fandom and they want him to be something more than he is. I also really kind of hate the interpretation that he’s like? Secretly really into cutesy things in contrast to how he looks like it’s just a weird interpretation to me. Like I fully agree that the way someone looks is not indicative of their personality or interests but I don’t think he’d be like. Into hello kitty or stuff idk it’s a weird joke thing to me.

Something else that I tend to see a lot in fanon that personally drives me insane is the interpretation that he recruited one of his teammates (typically Ghiaccio for some reason. I don’t know why I see Ghiaccio get like? Not infantilized I guess but almost treated like he’s someone in La Squadra’s kid or little brother so much) in order to save them from some shitty situation. People do this a lot with Prosciutto and Pesci as well and I don’t understand it. I get that people want them to be like a little found family (and I think they are just not in the way that people tend to interpret them or Bruno’s group for that matter) but I DO NOT think La Squadra works at all similarly to how Bruno’s group does in terms of like. How they all became a team and stuff. But I won’t get into that unless people really want my thoughts on it idk. I just don’t think they need to have prior established relationships in order to care for each other the way that they do.

Last points I COULD get started on shipping stuff but I’m not going to because I’ve already stated in the past I don’t typically care for ships within La Squadra and it’s just like. An entirely different can of worms I don’t want to open. And please don’t get me started on the prevalence of yandere stuff in the fandom especially with Risotto I can’t stand it and I don’t get it.

#answered #hmmmm this might be a little rambly but ohhhhhh risotto my blorbo….#he’s just some little lame ass loser please stop treating him like he’s a sex god or something #I’m not proofreading this if it’s incomprehensible I’m sorry.

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bigskydreaming · 3 years ago

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Also if people instinctively reaching for their “its just my interpretation” arguments as a rebuttal to that post about issue #416 could just not, I’d super appreciate it, thaaaaaanks.

See, the problem I have with that is like....no its not. Its really really not. If your fic or your meta is otherwise DIRECTLY referencing specific story beats of that specific ISSUE, like Dick not having talked to Bruce in over a year, or Dick not knowing Jason even existed until he saw it on the news, or Dick leaving Jason his phone number, or anything of the like.....it is not at all unreasonable for me to expect you to acknowledge the story beats of that very same issue that all of those things are written IN RESPONSE TO.

You can yell at me about how the firing is just a retcon til the cows come home, but y’know what? It was a retcon that was reiterated IN THAT VERY SAME ISSUE. In it, Dick reiterated what the firing looked like from his perspective, how he waited around for two weeks for Bruce to change his mind before packing up and leaving with opportunities for Bruce to say something every step of the way....THAT is the SPECIFIC sequence of events that Dick’s anger about all of this comes from.

So its extremely disingenuous to try and pair that anger with the pre-Crisis ‘better version’ of events where Dick gives up being Robin all on his own and becomes Nightwing while still on good terms with Bruce...because that version of events has its OWN corresponding aftermath that was written in direct response to THOSE character choices. Like the aftermath where right after becoming Nightwing, Dick turns around and offers Robin to Jason himself, as he of course is already well acquainted with Jason by then. See, that’s kinda part of why Dick and Bruce are on such better terms in that version of events. It has a lot to do with Bruce not adopting a whole other son without so much as a phone call to let Dick know his family had expanded.

Now you can mix and match to your heart’s content, that has NEVER been in question. Especially since as so often said, its a fandom past time to take a match to canon and watch it burn. You don’t have to adhere to aaaaaanything you don’t want to.

BUT.

If you want to talk about INTERPRETING the canon? That is subject to a different set of standards. Because you’re acknowledging that the source material exists as a point of RELEVANCE to you.....and the fact is....the source material is the SAME for everyone discussing it. Now, people can and do have different interpretations of that same material, this is obviously true. But ACTUAL. GENUINE. DISCUSSION of it.....requires that all parties at least discuss those interpretations in good faith, and make an honest attempt to address the material as it is.

And that is not what happens in this fandom. Because you damn well KNOW that for all your talk of the firing just being a retcon......its still the specific version of events the “Dick being mad about Bruce giving Robin to Jason” thing is directly meant to reference and BUILD off of. Retcon or not, it is indisputably the FOUNDATION upon which the other character choices of that very same issue are built atop of.

Because there is another version of events, yes. The pre-Crisis version where Dick gives up Robin. But as I said, that version DOES NOT HAVE Dick angry or resentful....because a key component of it is that all three of them, Bruce, Dick and Jason, are already a family in spirit. There’s a true succession of Robin from Dick passing it down to Jason.

And a lot of you guys know this too. Especially the ones most likely to reach for that “let us have our interpretation!” arguments. Because the Dick Grayson corner of fandom has posted about it a LOT. In fact, we kinda churn out a crap ton of content for this fandom. Headcanons, ficlets, informative posts, etc. And there’s a very curious phenomenon that exists.....

Literally anything I or certain other DG fans post that is inclusive of the whole family, or does not reference any specific event that’s infamous within fandom for pitting Dick against another Batfam member in a ‘who was right, discuss” kinda way.....that tends to circulate WIDELY in fandom. We’re talking upwards of a thousand notes, regularly.

In comparison.....the informative posts that are chock full of panels pointing out how canon actually goes in these specific instances.....tend to top out at a couple hundred max. Its pretty much just fellow DG stans who reblog them. Everyone else, despite them going through the same initial routes of circulation....are very good at pretending they don’t see them.

Because see, misinformation - and make no mistake, that is what we’re talking about here - RELIES on a lack of like.....actual information provided to the contrary to thrive.

For instance, if it were as common knowledge that in the pre-Crisis version of Dick becoming Nightwing, he makes Jason Robin himself, as it is say.....that the firing Dick as Robin story is ‘just a shitty retcon’......people might start to ask in greater numbers, like, okay, so why DON’T more people write Dick making Jason into Robin after giving it up himself? Why have Dick so bitter at Bruce and/or Jason, if in the only version where Dick gives up Robin, Dick passes it on himself? If you’re gonna go with the one, why not the other?

Because we all know damn well that’s not a difference in interpretation. That’s a conscious CHOICE to TRANSFORM the source material by stitching together two different sides of a cause and effect chasm. The events transpiring after Dick finds out Bruce made Jason Robin himself ARE NOT MEANT to reference the inciting event of Dick giving up Robin himself. You can make that happen, sure. But you have to MAKE it happen. There is no point in the comics where you can honestly, genuinely point to the comics and say this right here shows Dick being mad about this, where ‘this’ is Bruce giving Robin to Jason SPECIFICALLY after Dick gave Robin up, rather than being fired.

A choice has to be made there, for that to happen, if one has the ACTUAL information about how that really played out in the comics rather than just misinformation. And not everyone in fandom trusts everyone else to make the choices they would like them to make with the source material, do they?

After all, isn’t that the REAL root of all this?

See.....its no secret to any of us that nobody’s been all that happy with the actual comics aka source material in years. Meaning most of fandom, myself included, is here for meta and fics based on previously written comics, or our own adaptations of the material.

And fandom, being interactive, unlike canon.....is something that CAN be influenced by other fans.

So why don’t we all just stop fucking pretending that we’re not all trying to influence what the overarching fandom narratives are, shall we?

Oh, you can say this is just me projecting, but I’ve got plenty of instances of hypocrisy to point to that say otherwise. And THAT is the true source of my hostility in so many posts in this fandom.

Because its the very same people who loudly cry “let people have their headcanons” and “let people have their interpretations” and “stop trying to tell people there’s only one true version of canon to go off of” who NEVER. EVER. fail to show up on posts like that last one, the SECOND they start to circulate ‘too widely’ throughout fandom. There is ALWAYS someone waiting in the wings the minute a post like that starts to top a couple hundred notes, ready and raring to shoot it down with some kind of derailment or condescending reminders to everyone who might see it that ‘that’s just a bad retcon for people obsessed with misery porn’ or something like that.

And what exactly should we be calling that? When people show up every single time I make a post about the importance of Robin as a name to Dick, in order to make a big stink about how it being his mother’s name for him is just a retcon? Even though....did I say it wasn’t? Does it being a retcon mean it doesn’t exist? Am I not allowed MY interpretation of a story that very much does exist in canon, am I not allowed to reference other stories where that specific retcon is specifically linked to?

Or how about if I say, post a headcanon about Alfred getting snippy with Bruce about not reaching out to Dick after he leaves home, where within the headcanon itself I specifically reference a clear version of the story where Dick is fired and its eighteen months before he and Bruce speak again? Does this story not exist in canon? Am I not allowed to base stuff of it? It would seem not, given the way people jumped to derail that one by adding in additions about Dick being upset with Bruce about college, which is an entirely different continuity that in no way intersects with the specific events I reference, where they’re estranged for a clear reason that is directly raised within the headcanon itself. People even acknowledge “OP is entitled to any version of continuity they want” in that one, but are like....this one is wrong though, and true fans prefer the one that isn’t just misery porn meant to validate Dick’s teenage angst. With people all too happy to reblog that one while gleefully pointing out the tags that completely derail the post about a clear point in canon by making it entirely about another unrelated point in a different continuity in order to invalidate the initial headcanon or whatever.

Don’t even get me started on when we dare reference stories where Bruce is actually physically abusive to Dick, or when we link Dick’s actions in stories that acknowledge the emotional abuse or neglect of certain key moments in his life TO those inciting moments directly and say “hey its kinda shitty to act like Dick was just being a standoffish brat here when Dick’s attitude is actually directly based on the last time he and Bruce interacted being when Bruce told him to get out and leave his keys.” LOLOL nooooo, that’s not allowed to stand, because see, the ONLY possible reason we could have for even CONSIDERING those stories in character or in continuity, is because of the aforementioned addiction to misery porn or else because we’re just trying to smear Bruce to make our own fave look better.

Never mind that another popular refrain for a lot of the people I’m talking about here is “you don’t know what people are thinking or why they like the things that they like” so, y’know. It is a tad irritating to see that double standard applied, like I mean. Just speaking personally, I’m a survivor of childhood physical and sexual abuse with a lifetime’s worth of C-PTSD and permanent estrangement from my abusive family, so like....those stories where Dick is abused by a figure he never thought would hurt him and now has to reconcile that with still loving and admiring that very same person and still wanting to be family.....like, hey guess what, those themes are part of why his character resonates for me in particular and so they’re kiiiiiinda key for me to explore for a lot of reasons. And given that this fandom looooooves to talk about some people writing dark shit to cope, I find it veeeeeery curious that people are so willing to shut the fuck up and say nothing about incest, rape and pedophilia fics even if they don’t like them themselves......but will still come out of the woodwork to condescend about there being absolutely no valid reason for anyone to ever engage with content where Bruce is abusive even just in one singular instance.....nah. Its literally just cuz of the misery porn addiction.

But see.....the thing at the heart of all this is the simple fact that this hypocrisy doesn’t exist just for the sake of hypocrisy. It exists because we actually all DO know how much power and influence fans can have in an interactive environment like fandom.

After all, the entire reason that Dick Grayson fans are so often posting informative panel-filled posts about what ACTUALLY happens in canon stories that are DIRECTLY cited in many meta, fanfics and headcanons, just.....in a totally backwards way that just so happens to fail to mention that its not intended to be an accurate depiction of the canon its definitely mentioning its in reference to....

The entire reason for this is because of how thoroughly fandom has crafted a specific narrative for Dick Grayson’s character that is based PURELY on their own characterization wants and needs and has very little to do with the actual canon of the character.

Its not a coincidence that so many fans just so happen to genuinely, truly believe that Dick was a grade A asshole to Jason while he was Robin, and there’s a wealth of canon out there somewhere to back it up. No, this happened because of fanFIC narratives where this is the case, and these catching on, and being encouraged by the initial writers of this trope and its fans and so on and so forth until it became the overarching fandom narrative and not only didn’t require any canon basis to be so....it barely ALLOWED for any talk of the contrary. Dick Grayson stans had to yell and churn out posts like that last one for YEARS to make a DENT in this fanon conviction, and do NOT even approach me about it being an issue of tone and ‘if we’d only asked politely’ because lol. No. We did. You can find the clear shift in the tone of my posts from when I first re-entered the fandom years ago to when I just got frustrated with the willful avoidance of WHY so many fans like myself are so annoyed by certain fandom convictions......and even then, it was about the hypocrisy. It was about how loudly other people crow about letting them have their headcanons while literally shouting down ANY post we made about wanting space to just have our CANON-canon.

Pro-tip: that thing where if you just ignore someone long enough on a certain point, they’ll inevitably start to get frustrated and then you can point to their tone as being the problem and claim that was the issue all along? Yeah. Its not slick. This fandom didn’t invent it. Its always very transparent, and very obnoxious.

But the point is.....fandom absolutely has the ability to override canon narratives with their own version that’s then formative for new entrants to the fandom who never even BOTHER with the source material and just are here for the fic. And so its dishonest as FUCK for people to not only MAKE no distinction between what’s genuinely their interpretation of the canon and what’s their transformation of it, with INTENT......but to weaponize fandom’s aversion to content-criticism to shout down even ATTEMPTS to introduce discussion of the actual source material by claiming oh you’re just trying force your preferred narrative on everyone else. Aka that thing THEY’RE actually doing themselves by once attaining a fandom wide narrative they like, maintaining a stranglehold on it and doing their best to dissuade any narratives to the contrary staking a claim alongside that.

Because again, it all comes back to the fic. See, as a Dick Grayson fan, I’ve made no secret of the fact that I turn to fic for what I can’t get from canon...and its frustrating as hell to see writers that loudly talk of being BETTER than canon and “RIP to canon but my Batfam loves each other” in a lot of cases DELIBERATELY make Dick in particular look WORSE.....and then act like they have no idea what we’re talking about when we try and tell fans who take these narratives at face value that uh, they’re lacking some extremely relevant context and nuance. Or in some cases, outright facts.

And I will happily laugh loudly in the face of anyone who tries to claim that they don’t feel similarly about fics that characterize their own faves in ways they don’t like.

Yeah, try telling me that after years of some of you writing fics that specifically exclude all reference to the events of Nightwing #30 when talking about Dick’s death or Spyral.....while still including every in canon instance of people bagging on Dick for what he only did in canon because of Bruce’s abusive writing. There’s kinda a vested interest in keeping fandom relatively free of talk of Nightwing #30 then.....because weirdly, people who write about a DIFFERENT take that’s not hostile to Dick seem to end up putting the blame on Bruce for that situation. Bizarre, I know. People attributing blame to the character who was actually abusive in the canon and being cranky that the victim of said abuse is held up as the sacrificial lamb in everyone else’s fics? Whodathunkit.

(Also a point of irritation - it never had to be just one or the other. This is where the whole ‘maybe its YOU guys who were projecting all along when you said the only reason we could have for talking about Bruce’s abuse was an intent to smear the character’ bit is a thing. See, fun fact: if you were going to ignore an issue or two in order to completely flip the narrative of what really happened with Spyral and dominate the fandom landscape for a couple of years....it never had to be Nightwing #30 that was the ONLY issue you could leave out in order to not make Bruce look like an abusive asshat. Like, there was always another option right there in front of you. You could have instead chosen to also leave out Grayson #12, aka the one where Dick informs everyone else he’s alive.....then you could very easily just sliiiiiide in reference to Bruce and Dick quietly informing the whole family of his status and his mission while insisting on keeping it quiet for his safety. Voila. NOBODY has to be an asshole then, and the whole family gets to be in the know. But see, most people didn’t actually have a problem with someone being an asshole in that story. They just didn’t want it to be Bruce, and didn’t mind it being his actual victim.

Even though, lol, just another FYI.....abuse victims having things flipped on them so it looks like they’re the true problem and their abusers are completely innocent is a HUGE thing that happens a lot in real life, so FYI about that FYI.....anyone who does say, gravitate towards Dick Grayson specifically because of how he’s impacted or might be impacted by abuse from his father, like.....is proooooobably not going to have a super fun time with diehard commitment to making this particular fictional character the true mastermind of his family’s misery and abusive instead of the abused. Weird huh.)

And round and round it goes. Where it ends, nobody knows.....because it doesn’t. fucking. stop. The number of ways in which fandom has willfully flipped the narrative so that Dick is the aggressor instead of the aggrieved is just absolutely ridiculous. This guy has been punched by every member of his family except Duke and Alfred, and somehow he’s the one characterized as uncomfy to be around because of how volatile he is. This guy is the only one who has actually been KICKED OUT of the manor, and somehow that gets glossed over and considered out of character while he apparently definitely did very much do this exact specific thing to Tim, I hear.

And like broken records, people squawk ‘let us have our interpretations/headcanons/etc’ any time we try and make a stink about how no, actually, that’s NOT HOW IT WENT....and at the EXACT SAME TIME....most of these exact same people show up on every post that uses ACTUAL information to make Bruce or Jason or Tim or whomever look like the actual problem in a story where they were actually problematic, like, the SECOND a post gets popular enough....to derail, to condescend, to shout it down with how its just a retcon or its out of character or its just a bad take or how fans with taste know better than to take it seriously.

And why do you care? Like, if we’re all supposed to just live and let live and everyone’s allowed their own interpretations, why this everpresent need to show up all the time with a superior, patronizing ‘oof, this is just not good’ the second one of YOUR faves is in the hotseat, while condescendingly boxing out any posts informing people of how no, actually, Dick and Kory’s breakup WAS linked to Mirage and Dick and Donna’s infamous fight WASN’T the way its commonly talked about and oh yeah there was brainwashing there too and etc, etc....see, when WE do that, we’re just overacting stans who can’t stand others not liking our fave. Instead of just....trying to correct misinformation so more fans can at least engage with the character from a starting point of zero instead of a negative integer.

So why this hypocrisy? Oh yeah, because you don’t WANT the misinformation corrected. Because see, when the misinformation IS corrected, fic writers en masse....make different choices. And that’s why ever since more people started picking up the refrain of “well no actually Dick DIDN’T hate Jason, here’s the proof”.....there’s a lot more stories out there where...shockingly....Dick doesn’t hate Jason. Which bizarrely, does not really work well for the people who WANTED Dick to hate Jason and made a point to SHAPE the narrative to make him hate Jason.....because it wasn’t about that just being their interpretation, and it never was. Because the CHOICE to cut out Dick’s ‘justification for feeling slighted’ by being fired as Robin and pair that specifically WITH Dick resenting Jason for Bruce still making him Robin instead of Dick doing it....that has a narrative cause and effect within a lot of the fics that go with this. It gives Jason eternal underdog status that makes it easy to root for him while positioning someone specifically to blame for that underdog status and unfair playing field, and it also keeps focus off Bruce as the cause of any issues between his sons due to choices HE made, thus one singular figure is positioned as the obstacle to family unity....and that figure isn’t Bruce.

And no canon to the contrary will be acknowledged as legitimate.

Convenient huh?

Especially paired with the ‘thou shalt not con crit on another’s fic’ fandom commandment. Because when you can’t complain about any fanfic depictions whatsoever without immediately and inherently being cast as the rabble-rouser by default.....the ability to shape and dominate a specific fandom narrative becomes veeeeery key. After all, another popular fandom phrase is ‘we’re not the DC writers, complain to them about canon.’ But when there’s no canon complaint to be made to DC specifically, because its not canon we’re actually upset about, and we’re not ‘allowed’ to criticize fandom depictions because people are allowed to have their interpretations......all you have to do is stand your ground and insist that the fandom depictions of Dick are nothing BUT ‘interpretations’ and not acknowledge aaaaaaany of the places where you consciously make the decision to transform canon choices and behavior around him.....and voila. You’ve wrapped everything up in a neat little logic trap. Quite the fait accompli. There’s really no way for anyone to say or do anything ABOUT this little situation here without being ‘disruptive,’ ‘divisive’ and ‘having a negative impact on fandom harmony.’

Its just always gonna be a little weird to me, how much your positivity culture looks a lot like plausible deniability culture instead.

But whatever. That’s just a me problem I guess. Definitely not something anyone else in fandom has anything to do with. Just like they have nothing to do with derailments or condescension or counter arguments to so many of the canon-based Dick Grayson posts I make, and this is also all my doing...wait...hang on. I think I got mixed up again somewhere. Dang it.

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dragonturtle2 · 3 years ago

Text

Charting Penny's course, on the eve of the V8 finale.

I just realized that one of the lengthiest essays I ever posted online was never copied or cross posted over here to Tumblr. A huge mistake on my part. For one, as a big fan of transhumanism, I got a kind of enjoyment mapping out the distinctions Penny Poledina’s series-wide arc, even with the flaws. Two, I’m actually kind of proud of the predictions I made at the end. Not because I was correct about one of them; I remarked how I’d LIKE Rooster Teeth to do something, not that they’d actually take the shot. But some of the stuff I thought of was fun, and I do feel a bit of validation for having my thoughts line up with the actual writers; especially in lieu of how heated other people’s reactions were to something sorrowful and unexpected.

Tonight I had been responding to a critique I'd found earlier on Tumblr. They had remarked that Penny's conflict in Volumes 2, 7 and 8 were just recycling the question of whether Penny was a real girl. That doing so was just boring as heck, when the question has been answered firmly with Penny becoming the Winter Maiden. I thought the question of “what makes a person a person, and not just a simulated pattern of behaviors with the instinct to survive?” was broad enough to get a few arcs’ worth of visitation. ��But I thought just responding with that one lengthy sentence could come off as belittling sarcasm. So tried to offer up an my actual interpretation and clear opinion. I got this monstrosity.

Volume 1 has Penny reaching out to make friends, V2 is finally admitting her robot nature to someone and vocalizing her fears about being a real girl. Volume 3 dangles the upcoming conflict of her wanting to exercise independent action, step away from the national military organization that bankrolled and housed her, and go to Beacon with her friends. But that got cut short.

Volume 7 picks up the thread of Penny’s independent actions. Not just with the ability to disagree with or full-on disobey orders, but her own value system and initiative. Not only is she asking Winter about how to make decisions in life, she is also silently (and not-so-silently) judging whether Winter is morally right, or even truly happy with her own choices. When she takes Freya’s hand, she asks something that no one has probably said to Freya in awhile: “Are you OK?”

Volume 8 is focused on the things being taken from her. Her previous family-unit-facsimile of James, Winter and the Ace Ops have labeled her a traitor and are now hunting her. Being targeted as the Maiden makes her distance herself from her friends, so they aren’t further harmed . In doing that, she also leaves behind her previous dedication, protecting Mantle, to launch Amity Tower and assist in the bigger picture of warning the entire planet. Then in the pursuit of that goal she damages herself, pushes her body to it’s limit, and says goodbye to her father.

Volume 8 might seem to backpedal, and spend much of the season emphasizing how inhuman Penny is. That’s the point. After Freya essentially canonizes Penny as human, with her ‘blessing,’ Penny’s new identity (to herself and the audience) is arrested in the most traumatic ways possible. Her body is peeled back and cut open. Her schematics are passed around and assessed by characters and factions more than ever. The hacking is the Atlas military complex literally claiming ownership over her, exploiting the body and code they created alongside Pietro. (In contrast with the earlier consensual control and teamwork with Pietro, which even then she hardly enjoyed). How much pain can you inflict on a person until they devolve, or abandon rational thought? Little wonder Penny ends up begging the team to end her own life. She’s now taken Winter’s role from Volume 7, her self-esteem having sunken even lower. “My life doesn’t matter!“

When that ghastly moment was (temporarily) resolved with a quick revelation and Jaune’s Semblance, it was a moment of mixed feelings for me in an episode I otherwise loved. But I really came around to it afterword. They have to head to Vault for a permanent fix pretty much immediately, so it doesn’t feel like the writers used Jaune to kick the can down the road until they felt like tackling it. A very direct benefit is that by pausing Penny’s affliction, Penny gains the ability to actually have a conversation with people, to have scenes beyond just desperately wrestling her. It also spared us the repeated dialogue of “I must go to the Vault. I don’t want to! I must - I don’t! - I MUST- I DON’T!” Seriously, that routine was wearing thin.

Whether any fans predicted Jaune’s Semblance being able to help or not, I’m pleased when characters are able to quickly conceive applications of in-universe fictional powers. This is such a refreshing improvement over how CRWBY previously couldn’t bring Ruby to even ASK about the Silver Eyes that put her in a coma.

There were missteps along the way. Ruby really should have reacted more to her friend coming back to life; RT leaning on the Fourth Wall doesn’t fully remove the sting. ("It seems we will have to wait!”) We also never see any of our protagonists outside of Ruby even react to the revelation of a robotic life form. When they meet Penny again at V7′s start, apparently ALL of them, even Oscar, were so acquainted with Penny’s story that none of them had any questions for her the entire Volume. There was no sense of betrayed trust, or trauma from watching one friend be ripped apart by another. These are disappointments, but not deal breakers. Now, I want to talk about how post-Ambrosius Penny may fit in with the rest of the story. Maybe it’s stupid of me to try to get this out by 4 in the morning the day the finale drops, but I’m on a role, and I want to get my ideas out in the open before they’re tainted by hindsight. Otherwise I won’t feel like even finishing this.

I’m not going to launch into a tangent with the metaphysical mechanics on whether Penny’s new body would have ‘logically’ been conjured or not. (For the record I think it works). I just want to talk about the message the show is conveying, and what they could do with it. My base assumption is that Cinder is going to get the Winter Maiden power. It would be great way to coincide with her (GASP) actual character development this volume. But more importantly, if she doesn’t succeed in her goal, and get an upgrade to compete with our leveled-up protagonists, I can’t see how she can be an interesting or threatening villain going forward. A few ways this can end for Penny:

Pietro could give up the last bit of his life to bring her back. He’d probably need to get assistance from Abrosius, since he’s lacking in equipment; he’s a brilliant scientist, so explaining it certainly wouldn’t be an obstacle. Maybe Penny would be back to being a synthetic, maybe she remains organic. Either way, it’s a compromise with having a functional villain, while keeping around a fandom darling. Personally, I think RT needs to evoke the spirit of Volume 3, and make people cry.

Actually killing Penny would be bold and stand-out. By taking away Penny’s function of a core that can be salvaged (as explained at the start of Volume 7), and having her body get incinerated just like Pyrrha, RT can fully signal “This character is dead, and can’t be resurrected.” The heart break would be brilliant, with Penny getting to know the joys of an organic body just to be immediately ripped away from life. This would beautifully parallel with General Ironwood. James clamped down on human emotion because he thought it would give him the strength to stand against the darkness. Penny’s friends made her MORE human in a loving act of rescue, but now have to watch as she dies like any other human. Both characters would be cautionary tales regarding the Atlas Arc’s question of Trust. To leave yourself open.

Alrighty, now that I’ve gotten to feel like an intellectual by making some proclamations of doom, I want to throw out a tinfoil hat theory that actually combines the two previous versions. What’s fascinated me for years, and the show hasn’t re-visited, is the nature of Cinder’s parasite. Can Cinder talk to it? Will it begin gaining sentience? What’s relevant to Penny is what exactly this thing DOES. When it comes to it’s soul-power-absorbing function, we’ve never actually seen it’s full extent. The process with Amber was interrupted, with half the power just zipping over to Cinder after Amber expired. With Raven and Penny’s power, Cinder’s arm only got a little taste of them both, since both of their captures were unsuccessful. What if Cinder’s parasite can absorb more than raw power? Pinnochio is eventually swallowed by a monstrous beast. We were all sure it would be The Whale. But what if it’s Cinder?

I’ll be watching the finale in about 5 hours. The idea that I could be correct about something that takes everyone else off guard (Penny’s death) has an electric feeling, and I totally understand why people can get hung up on the stories they compose in their head. But I don’t want to start thinking any of MY ideas HAVE to come true for me to get joy from whatever happens to Penny or Volume 8. Regardless, reviewing character arcs that preceded wherever we are in the present is always worthwhile.

#reddit #RWBY #rwby volume 8 prediction #penny polendina #pietro polendina #cinder fall #james ironwood #Rooster Teeth

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ectonurites · 4 years ago

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Tbh I kind of hate how fandom has latched on to the Lazarus Pit wrt Jason’s actions? Like despite having very little canon basis, it’s just so prevalent in fandom and fics, to the point where as far as fandom is concerned it’s become ubiquitous with the character, kind of like with baby stalker Tim or caffeine addict Tim. And it gets used as an excuse for his actions a lot, which I feel takes a lot of agency away from Jason. Like, sure, I can understand using Lazarus Pit madness as a contributing factor for like, the Battle for the Cowl nonsense and such, bc that was nuts and he was clearly unstable/OOC. But it’s used as a way to distance him from his actions and make it easier for the family to bring him back into the fold, which I get! True reconciliation with Jason as is would take a lot of work on the writer’s part, and I completely understand not wanting to get into all that. But I just feel like it’s a disservice to Jason’s core character. He’s someone with conviction and commitment. He believes his way is better than Bruce’s, and I feel like contributing that to Lazarus Pit madness, at least past a certain extent, undermines his character and takes away his agency and free will. Also, I’m ashamed to say it’s just while I was writing this that I had this epiphany as more than just a fleeting thought, but we can explain his Battle for the Cowl-era actions without the “Pit Madness”, bc mental illness is actually a real thing even without the Lazarus Pit

Oh I totally agree.

The thing is... while sure it’s nice in an ideal world and I know fanfic in general is a lot of wish fulfillment, realistically as he has ever existed in canon (especially pre-reboot) Jason ‘fitting in’ to the batfam is basically impossible without altering core things about him. And I think adding in ‘reoccurring lazarus pit madness’ as a way to rationalize his worst actions is the most common alteration, because as you said it distances him from some of his actions.

Some rambling thoughts on this under the cut just looking at some Jason Moments™ but the main point I guess i’m making here is that taking away his agency kinda sucks because he is really interesting on his own

Jason, again particularly in preboot where he was at odds with the fam more constantly, is written very inconsistently and I think anyone would agree on that. He teeters on that line between Villain and Anti-hero. But no matter what in either of those positions, he is still having core differing ideals from the Bats, and that is not a result of the lazarus pits, that is a result of his life (and, well, death) experience.

Under the Red Hood (& Hush & that Teen Titans issue he’s in where he attacks Tim, so his earliest things after coming back) I think should always be interpreted as him acting more as a villain, because it is a revenge plot, it’s him acting out, it’s the result of every pent up feeling he had because of the circumstances of his death and how he felt he wasn’t properly avenged thus was unloved. Lost Days shows the foundation for that, but Lost Days also shows us that deep down in his core he still has a lot of heroic ideals, which is why when he’s not fueled by a need for revenge I think he’s best written as an Anti-Hero. When Jason sees people who are innocent (like the kids in that arc in Lost days) he is going to save them, he is going to be someone who stands up for those people. He is just willing to do any bad things he might need to in the process, he has sacrificed the more ‘heroic’ methods because he knows firsthand how they can still fail.

But honestly, after that point of crazy revenge schemes up until probably Battle For The Cowl where it all goes suuuper downhill, he falls way more in Anti-hero territory imo! Like, for example:

The Nightwing story with Tentacle Jason! (Nightwing (1996) #118-122)

Thinking about it aside from the sheer ridiculousness of the ending for a second, he expresses constantly in that story that he wants to be closer to Dick, he wants to work with him, because he does want to be a hero of a sort, he just thinks lethal methods are necessary. But that story was about him not wanting to be entirely isolated from the family. This is a Jason who is an anti-hero, he’s killing people because he thinks it’s necessary, not because he’s being driven crazy by a lazarus pit.

Then like, the Green Arrow story (Green Arrow (2001 #69-72)

He kidnaps Mia to try to recruit her. He’s not just being ‘evil’ he is trying to make the tough calls and do things the rest of the general ‘hero’ community won’t do because it’s what he deems necessary, and he’s trying to convince her that she should do it too. It doesn’t make him right, or anything like that, but there is a logic to what he’s doing. It’s not ‘madness’.

Then like, he helps Dick out by giving him information on Black Lightning in the Outsiders! Because Black Lightning was innocent and Jason figured he may as well let Dick know what he knew. Countdown is a little bit of a mixed bag just because the event itself is kinda a mess but like, overall Jason cared about Donna and Kyle during it and while he was definitely the ‘black sheep’ of the group he still helped until it just became too much for him and he needed to peace out. But like, dude finally had gotten to a world where a version of Bruce had avenged him like he’d always wanted his Bruce to, and then he had to watch that Bruce get murdered in front of him. I can understand wanting to step away from the super scene for a bit after that! That’s not gonna put im in a great place mentally.

And then putting Bruce’s actual death in the main time during Final Crisis on top of it? NO SHIT HE WAS UNSTABLE DURING BATTLE FOR THE COWL. And like, even though it’s not fully justified reasoning, even BftC does show that something set Jason off. It was a tipping point:

(Battle For The Cowl #3)

It was still badly written Jason, but you can definitely start to explain it with literal just... instability because of trauma, unaddressed mental illness, etc, etc, you don’t need to say it was because he was dunked in the pit! Because that really does take away the responsibility he has over his own actions.

Just... while it’s a fun idea to play with a Jason who can be an integrated part of the family, if you’re going to do it base it more on his current canon version where he has been shown to be willing to make compromises (rubber bullets) to be accepted because he is placing his need to be accepted by his family over his actual ideals at some points. This is honestly one of the biggest key differences between his pre-reboot version and his New 52 (especially Rebirth) and on version.

Pre reboot canon Jason wouldn’t do that. He absolutely would not. Not that he wants to be isolated from his family, (bc think about like not only the Nightwing stuff above, but there are TWO instances he reaches out to Tim, yes one of them is in BftC which ya know is a mess but he also does at the end of Tim’s Robin run before that!) He doesn’t even really hate them (ok he hates Dick in the way you hate your cool well-liked older brother but that’s different) but if he sees them as standing in his way he will take them down and stand against them. He is so deeply seated in what he believes is the right way to find justice, and they are not going to pull him out of it.

Blaming his actions that are rooted in his ideals on an outside factor like pit madness is definitely cheapening him as a character.

ALSO side tangent but people who base things in preboot with Jason almost never even bring up Sasha and that just makes me sad. Like. Come on! He cares about that kid a ton! Sure Morrison’s version of Jason was also a mess, but the ending bit where he even does work with Dick & Damian to save her?? Winick had taken over writing by that point so it’s already a better characterization of him.

And this next bit also gets down to kinda the core of the matter: He’s willing to work with them as long as they let him do his thing, it’s just that they are not willing to work with him if he’s going to kill. And he’s not willing to fully compromise that longterm.

(Batman and Robin (2009) #25)

Using a lazarus pit as an out for his actions and thus acting like he didn’t choose to continue a lot of the killing (without an outside influence) changes his motivation, and creates a version of Jason who probably would compromise like that. But that’s not... how he actually was, in pre-reboot especially.

#Anonymous

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sparkles-and-trash · 4 years ago

Text

South Park Main 5, Headcanons Masterpost ~

Stan Marsh

Looks:

hair is actually nice and somewhat floppy naturally, but because he wears a hat most of the time, it’s usually flat and a little greasy kshdhsd

hair is that blue-ish black color

eyes is piercing ice blue

skin is light, kind porcelain like, but he also tans really fast?

soft sweaters are the only thing he’ll wear from early autumn to late spring

in summer he’ll literally only wear band shirts and flannels lol

Personality and General Trivia:

totally cares more for animals than most people let’s be real

sometimes he struggles with seeing things from others point of view and ha can come across as a little self centered

he is aware of it tho and tries to be better at it

his instagram is filled with Sparky haha

let’s Sparky sleep in his bed every single night even tho Sharon tells him not to

likes reading and writing, has a tiny obsession with dark themes and Lovecraftian stuff

he and Kenny volunteers at the local pet shelter and homeless shelter together

the pet shelter was Stan’s idea, and the homeless shelter was Kenny’s

wants to be edgy but is really just very soft

“Kyle said...”

believes everything Kyle tells him lol

enjoys video games a lot, prefers single player, story based ones tho

also still enjoys boardgames a lot, and when the big group isn’t up for hit, he, Tweek, Jimmy, Butters and Cartman groups together to nerd it out

has clinical depression, but is managing it with help of a therapist, his mom and friends

sometimes things gets pretty dark, but he is getting better at reaching out and asking for help in those times

Friendships:

like I mentioned above, he struggles a bit with seeing things for other’s point of view

but he is aware of his flaws and is trying to be better

can get a little bit caught up in his own drama, but listens when his friends tells him he needs to get over himself

will always stand up for his friends, especially if they’re not there to do it themselves

when he starts getting closer with Butters in early high school he gets really upset when he realizes how much he gets shit-talked

enjoys spending time with his friends individually, probably the most of the group, and takes initiative to do so a lot

which is very important to Kenny, since he tends to feel a little overlooked sometimes, and it makes their friendship really strong

same with Butters, except Butters doesn’t usually doesn’t mind mainly being in a group, but the first few times and Stan hangs out alone it’s obvious he really appreciates it

Family:

daddy issues

sorry I don’t make the rules lol

has a decent relationship with Sharon tho

she’s a good mom

and he wants to be a good son

Shelly is still kinda angry and scary

she keeps the “only I can beat you up bro” attitude and there is secretly mutual respect there

but we don’t talk about that!!!

Ships and relationships:

okay so my main ships for him are stutters (Butters), stenny (Kenny) and Style (Kyle)

my fav is stutters tho

I usually head canon him as bi or pan, but as with everyone in SP, I’m open to different interpretations if different Au’s and stories!

I just really like the idea of them learning to balance facing their issues AND celebrate the good things in life together

I def think he can be a bit insecure in relationships, struggling with feeling like he’s not enough, and would need a partner that naturally will be affirming and positive

that’s not to say he’s super needy or clingy, he’s just a bit insecure

but I really think he would truly be a good partner

he’s caring, kind and very appreciative

which is again why I really like him with Butters offh

Kenny McCormick

Looks:

sandy blonde hair that’s always messy and floppy/softly curled

teeth is kind of crooked due to lack of funds for braces

his front teeth are kinda big and has a significant gap

lots and lots of freckles man

all over his face, shoulders, back, hands and arms

tans fast

I actually really like him with brown eyes? like, soulful deep brown eyes

but also very, very clear blue ones, like almost unnatural (yes that’s a mysterious thing)

medium tall

wears his hoodies, usually with the hood up, no matter if it’s freezing or a heatwave

not conventionally attractive, but charming looking lol

likes to wear some eyeliner every now and then

and nail polish, but it’s like super clumsily put on and always chipped

Personality and General Trivia:

falls asleep in class a lot, but always seems to know the answer if the teacher asks him something

also has decent grades

I think he’s way smarter than he gives himself credit for, both socially and school wise

the therapist of the groups

actually, the therapist of the whole school

knows a lot of secrets due to this, but he always, ALWAYS keeps them

I see him as very friendly and approachable, but terribly hard to get close with

lots and lots of walls, man

very much an observer type?

quietly stays in the background if that’s an option

but if he is talked too, or feels like he has something to really contribute to in a conversation he’ll jump in and be comfortable talking and taking up space if he is with friends or people he knows

if not, he’ll just stay in the background with that.... look on his face that just makes you know he knows more than he says

works at Tweek’s parents coffee shop, is kinda close with Tweek because of this

zones out a lot

“…what?”

can fall asleep anywhere

Friendships:

is pretty close friends with Butters!

Butters used to have a little crush on him, but Kenny didn’t find out until years later lol

he also has a lot of patience with Cartman compared to the others

which is why Cartman actually cares when Kenny sets him in his place

likes learning new things, and does that with Kyle a lot!

both school and homework stuff, and things like cooking and other homey stuff, the two of them really bond with this

him and Stan volunteer together, and I already mentioned, and that time means a lot to Kenny

since he works with Tweek, the two of them are pretty close and good friends

is the one of the main boys who gets along the best with Craig and those guys

actually hangs out with them from time to time, so does Butters

it low-key drives the others crazy

Family:

I often like to think his parents would keep having these bursts where they try to get their shit together?

and it’s slow, and one step back and two backwards, but the fact that they’re trying at all means a lot to the kids after years of them... not

I can also see Kevin stepping up and taking more charge, Kevin get’s way too little love in this fandom!

Kenny usually never fights with his sibs

but when he does it’s with Karen, usually because he’s worried about her and it’s nor pretty

none of them can stay mad at each other for long tho

Kevin trying to be all “big brother” and kinda failing because he is chaotic, but he really wants to do right and Karen and Kenny knows that and appreciates it

Ships and relationships:

ohhh kay here we go, unpopular opinions ahead!

first, my main Kenny ships are Tokenny (Token x Kenny) and Stenny

rn Tokenny is my main, I love the potential dynamics, both with their personalties and backgrounds and families

I tend to head canon him as pan or bisexual, and demiromatic

I know the demiromantic part is... controversial, at best

but hear me out!

I see him being very comfortable with discussing sexual stuff, and being attracted to someone physically is never something he feels awkward or bad about

but when it comes to more emotional connections, he is way more awkward and fumbling

for those who doesn’t know, a demiromatic person (like myself! surprise!) won’t have crushes or romantic feelings for someone they don’t already have some form of emotional bond with! We can still feel sexual attraction tho, and some of us are comfortable with casual sexual encounters (like me!) and others are not, and both are very valid!

I usually have two ways of writing him

either him being comfortable having casual sexual interactions, but struggling with the romantic aspect and having to figure out how this works for him

him having some trauma related to debating sexually very early, thinking he was all ready and it was just sex, but getting his emotions caught up in it and being very heartbroken and confused, and therefore having issues with being intimate with people for a while

I mix them up depending on the story, but the first one is usually my go-to!

Kyle Broflovski

Looks:

he still covers his hair a lot, either with hats or hoods?

because I really see him being insecure about it

it’s a medium sort of red, and like, really curly and fluffy

not frizzy, big like... big

I usually give him green eyes, but I also could see him with a light brown or hazel!

some light freckles on his face that only really shows up if he’s spent time in the sun

pretty tall, kind of lanky

d i m p l e s

Personality and General Trivia:

big nerd energy

in every way, board games, video games, loves school, like genuinely, enjoys studying for tests, loves fantasy books, the longer and more complicated the better

co-captain of the debate team with Wendy

is good with arguments unless he gets too passionate on the subject, or if someone knows his weak points and uses them to tick him off

it’s usually Cartman

his mom wants him to go to an Ivy League but honestly he just wants to go to the same one in Denver as Stan, Butters and Cartman are planning on, and now that Kenny is also considering it he seriously think he’ll die if all his friends go to the same college without him

he struggles with FOMO, which is kind of an issue since he’s a busy guy, and some of his friends are not lol

if any one of these kids become a jock, it’s def Kyle with his basketball change my mind-

but not like, a letterman wearing fuckboy type of jock, but like, is obsessed with his sport and his team and works really hard to do well type of jock

Friendships:

very loyal

he and Stan walks Sparky together at least twice a week, just to be sure they’re always caught up with each other even when they’re busy with school, sports and dating

yeah they’re still super best friends

when they started high school he got closer to Wendy as she’s also on the debate team, in all of his AP classes and they share a lot of the same interests

they’re still good friends, but nothing more

the first time Cartman got really drunk was at a party freshman year, and at the time everyone was pretty fed up with him, and he ended up crying and Kyle found him, and Cartman thinks Kyle doesn’t remember, but he does

that was the first night Kyle really kinda understood why Cartman was the way he was, and even though he still thinks he’s a dick at times, he tries to remember everyone have a story, and to give people time

but he often gets too riled up to remember that lol

good pals with Jimmy, they share a lot of interests in fantasy stuff and have the same humor

he also start to go along well with Craig when they are around middle school age, but they’re both kinda too stubborn to admit they’re friends until a year later lol

Family:

even tho Sheila is pretty overbearing and can be too much, he is a mommy’s boy deep down

tense relationship with his dad

enjoys cooking, so that’s where he spends a lot of time with his mom!

tries his best to keep up with Ike and his life

sometimes he is a tad cringy when doing so, but Ike appreciates the gesture

Ike is pretty confident and strong in himself so he doesn’t care if Kyle is a bit awkward lol

the type of brothers who genuinely enjoys spending time together

Ships and relationships:

I like Style, Kyman, K2 and Kyvid!

I think he’d be a late bloomer when it comes to love and dating

struggles with opening up and letting himself feel these things

I often think of him as biromantic asexual, but I’m not always set on it!

he’d enjoy traditional dinner and a movie type of dates a lot, such a nerd

Eric Cartman

Looks:

keeps his hair cut pretty short and styled

has heterochromia iridium (different colored eyes), one blue and one brown

also he has a real nice smile when it’s a genuine one

which is rare but like

it happens

is kinda insecure about his weight and tries to compensate with always having the newest stuff and pretending not to care

sometimes tries to diet in secret

he isn’t huge anymore, but is still sort of broad, and isn’t skinny, but like..

kinda bulky, if he wears the right type of clothes it’s hard to see if he’s chubby or buff

but he is def chubby

Personality and General Trivia:

spends way to much time on reddit arguing with randoms

angry gamer, will call you a slur on voice chat

after almost getting dropped by his friends in middle school he tries a little harder to be a more decent person

still an asshole at heart, but like, an asshole who sometimes cares about some people

always tells people that’s he’s seen that meme before, even when he hasn’t

nothing is ever his fault and the only ones who can get him to admit he’s wrong are Kenny and, very, very rarely, Kyle

he wears supreme hoodies for a full year of High School and stands in line all night for the new ones and never shuts up about how he is the first in South Park to have the new stuff

Kenny finds it hilarious to buy the fake supreme stickers and put then on his own worn out hoodies

Kyle makes it his main goal in life to put things (everything from used gym socks to old food he finds in his locker) in Cartmans hoods and see how long it takes for him to notice

can’t handle alcohol, is constantly being teased for it

sloppy drunk lol

one of the main reasons the other bothers with Cartman trough middle school, when he is at his worst, is because of his big basement, the old Coon Lair, who got a big renovation around 7th grade and is an awesome, private hangout spot with a big TV and wifi and gaming systems

Friendships:

constantly says he hates his friends but would die if everyone left him

is secretly terribly jealous of Kyle, both his closeness to Stan, his basketball skills, his grades and his family

but they had that thing in Freshman year when Kyle found him drunk, alone and sad, and Cartman himself barely remembers it, and doesn’t think Kyle does because he never mentioned it

but he does

so much tension there, but also co-dependency

sees Kenny and Butters as his best friends, and knows deep down neither of them feel that way about him and it secretly kills him

is in the same board game group with Stan

is low-key terrified of Tweek lol

Family:

big mommy issues

but also very protective of her

I really enjoy the AU/headcanon that Liane marries Clyde’s dad

it’s not like, the only version I like, but I put it in as many au’s and works of mine as I can

I def think both boys would be mortified right away

but Clyde comes around first, because he really wants a brother, even if that brother have to be Cartman

Cartman would never admit it, but after some time he really starts to see Clyde as a brother and genuinely cares for him

Ships and relationships:

I mainly see Cartman as gay

sometimes I start of AU’s and stories with him not being out to himself or anyone else tho, I think that whole journey for him will be very interesting and help him grow as a person

I def think he’d have a few girlfriends before he comes out tho?

he can be very charming when he wants too yanno

my only Cartman ship is kyman atm, but I’m def open to explore more of

Leopold Butters Stotch

Looks:

I really really really like T A L L Butters???

like tall and gangly and adorable

I know it’s very popular to head canon that he bleaches his hair, but I like to think he has very light blond air naturally!

keeps it short on the sides and longer on top, with cute ass curls

soft sky blue eyes

also dyes his bangs light blue in high school!!

Pete the goth helps him because he is a pro of dying bangs

I like to think he’d be into pastel grunge, and keep his love for Hello Kitty and Sanrio etc, but still be a bit more... edgy?

Personality and General Trivia:

one of those people who’s friendly with almost everyone

but that doesn’t mean he’s friends with them, yanno?

gets drunk from one wine cooler

loves the theater and is in the drama club, but likes to be behind the stage, not on it

wants to be a director one day

watches Netflix on his phone every single time he has any time to spare, because he’s always binging a show

is usually pretty positive and kind, gives people the benefit of the doubt

but can be very stubborn, and if he has decided he dislikes or doesn’t trust someone, it’s almost impossible to change his mind

Friendships:

Butters put up with Cartman for so long because he genuinely thinks he can be fun when he’s not horrible, and he really tries his best to believe in people

he was also the first one to forgive him after the others cut him off

a very loyal and fun friend

takes a lot of initiative to do stuff, and loves hosting movie nights

thinks of these boys as his closest friends, but is also real close to Wendy, Bebe, Jimmy and Tweek

Family:

I just hate Stephen so much you guys

so tbh I usually like to just... have Linda leave him, or straight up kill him off oops

I know Linda is terrible too, I do, but I think she could possibly have a moment of realization if something happens like Butters potentially being taken away?

idk I’m not gonna go too deep into this, I know it’s such a heavy topic and I don’t wanna seem like I just ignore it, but I personally don’t usually include Stephen directly in my stories, and this is why, I hope y’all understand and respect that!

Ships and relationships:

my main Butters ship is Stutters (Stan x Butters)

I mentioned a lot why in Stan’s headcanons?

but idk, I just really think they’d balance each other well, and could have a very interesting and cute relationship!

I usually headcanons him as pan or gay, and genderqueer, but I’m open for other interpretations too!

he does date a little bit, but have never been in a real relationship and isn’t stressing about it!

he did have a pretty huge crush on (a very unaware) Kenny during middle school, but then they started hanging out a lot more and became really close and Butters didn’t really bring it much thought?

that’s until Cartman gets jealous and throws out a “what are you guys dating and fucking and being gay huh???” and Butters mind immediately goes to “omg ew no he’s like my brother!”

aaand that’s how Butters realized he was over his crush

they two of them stay close friends tho, Kenny makes Butters laugh and helps him be more sure of himself and Butters helps Kenny remember that they’re still just kids and should have fun and be good

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husbandograveyard · 4 years ago

Note

Hey, Hazel. How would you go about writing Zoro because mann do I struggle with writing a few characters but especially Zoro

Hi love!

Like most characters the way I write Zoro is 60% gut feeling and the headcanons that float around in my head about him, with 40% canon facts sprinkled in! So this explanation will be a mix of that mixed with some views and reasoning why i write things that way.

As with most characters: (re)watching clips of them and going to the Wiki are my first go-to's for quick referencing!

Zoro is both very simple and complicated.

He's got a handful of habits that are pretty straightforward:

Sleeps 3-4h a night only, fills up the day with naps but during those he's 9/10 still at least a little bit conscious, just in case something goes wrong.

Is incredibly, INSANELY loyal to Luffy. And by default the rest of the crew.

I have said it before and I will say it again. His inner compass is a straw duct taped onto a stale cookie.

He trains vigorously. One can never bee "too strong" and there's always room for improvement.

He likes his drinks and the occasional party, as long as there's some of that good good sake involved.

That's as far as straight up habits and facts come, and are the characteristics most easy to get a base idea from. You can never go wrong with dragging any of those into your writings. It's the stuff that makes him immediately recognizable to most of the fandom. He's disciplined, strong, sometimes a little stupid, but never really dumb. (Which is an important nuance)!

Then theres more nuanced parts to his personality. But these are wide open for interpretation. This is how I see (and thus mostly write ) Zoro.

First and foremost. I think Zoro is downright hilarious. He's one of my favorite characters because I just think he's so funny (and not always intentionally).

He's got his calm moments, but when things happen, he can have over the top reactions as most of the One Piece characters do. Zoro's usually are screaming and I love him.

He makes the funniest deadass remarks. Just very casually he'll interject something in the background and it'll be 100% observational humor.

The fact that he gets lost so often, but absolutely refuses to acknowledge just how bad his sense of direction is.

He knows manners and can be perfectly polite and well-mannered, but sometimes simply chooses not to (one of my favorite moments is him drinking from Luffy's huge sake cup with his hands as the straw hat grand fleet is formed).

He is very instinctual. Again, not dumb, just, sometimes his body is faster than his brain. This can give some hilarious situations as well as great softer moments where his quick instincts save the day.

That's only a handful of his funny things, there's more, but for the sake of not making this too long im rounding off here.

He's got his dumbass moments, but Zoro understands the (pirate) world and the way it works very well. When the situation calls for it, he'll be able to strategise properly for a fight, and knows his captain has the last word. He's respectful of that, no matter how much of a dumbass that captain sometimes is.

Another thing that's pretty important is his relationship with the other strawhats. He trusts and respects them SO MUCH. There is banter, sure, especially with Sanji, but as someone with 3 siblings that are younger than me, all adults and all still living under the same roof, thats the kind of fights we have too. And in the end, if Sanji says he'll handle something serious, Zoro will let him. If one says he'll protect x or y, they will. Bickering aside they all trust each other with their lives!!

God this is becoming so long. Let's add in some romantic ideas and then I'll be on my way, I am sorry for making you read all this, this is so friggin long 😂.

Zoro is pretty protective by nature, he's gonna be extra protective in a relationship.

You can pry this out of my cold, dead, hands, but Zoro would be a phenomenal dad. The episode with the little kids? How he's interacting with little chopper and just being that extra little bit softer? My heart is aflame.

he says the most romantic shit by accident, but is not one for purposeful serenades and romantic declarations (leave that to the shitty perverted cook).

He's a little awkward. He doesnt want to hurt his partner and knows he can be too rough. There's so much muscle after all and he's not used to being soft or delicate and will never be. He'll do his best though unless his partner asks for rough.(interpret that any way you want)

Drinking together. Naps together!

He's competitive! Even towards his partner. Challenges and such are things he won't back down from!

He's not that great at taking initiative but will very rarely complain when you drag him along. Just happy to spend time with his partner.

All this, little snippets, mixed with yoru fantasy and whatever you want to select from canon, are generally what I make of Zoro! Honestly, he's pretty fun to write with, and once you start stepping away from the idea "big muscly man be strong always grumpy" you'll have so much to work with! His laughs are rare, but sunshine personified. He's got so much emotions and facets to him, you can pick up any single one of them and just run with it!

Have fun writing, looking forward to see more of your writing (with Zoro and others!) and just generally have fun with it, and then the writings will automatically turn out better ❤.

Much love, very rambly Hazel out

Ps: sorry if the formatting sucks, I am on mobile and idk for the life of me how to format a post here.

#one piece #writing tips #ask hazel #ask me anything #write with me #i love these #im sorry i talk do much #hope this helps a bit

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that-banana-headed-bovine · 4 years ago

Text

Knight Rider 2000

WARNING

This post contains spoilers for Knight Rider 2000, the 1991 film which attempts to expand on the canonical universe of Knight Rider (1982-1986). Key word, attempts. I know that this film came out almost 30 years ago at this point, but I also know that this fandom grows a little bit every day, and there will ALWAYS be people who haven’t seen every episode (myself included), let alone every movie! I happened to catch it on Charge! for Hoff's birthday (yes I'm hella late posting this LOL) with my good friend @trust-doesnt-oxidize, and boy let me tell you, it was… Something.

From here on out, I’m not holding back from sharing my impression of the film based on specific details from it, so if you want a spoiler-free viewing, go watch it and come back!! Or… don’t, it’s kind of awful. I can only think of one thing in canon that it may spoil, and even that appears in early Season 2 and is fairly minor, so if you are curious about it, I HIGHLY recommend watching it BEFORE reading this. The scenes with the most impact are touching because they come as a surprise, so even if you know the general plot of the film, I would recommend watching it first.

Also this is really rambley because I have a lot of emotions about this series and, by extension, this movie. I really don’t blame you if you click away here, but if you DO read it all the way through, I would love to hear anything you would like to add, agree or disagree!

OKAY! Knight Rider 2000 is a movie that exists! And I hate it!

The film sets up an interesting argument between two groups of people whose names I don’t remember because they were boring (except for Devon, I know his name at this point). In this interpretation of the “future,” gun control has been implemented to,,, some extent, I can’t entirely tell if there have been some policies implemented across the country or if it is all localized in this one city that even the Wikipedia page for this movie doesn’t bother to mention. And no, this city is NOT in California for once! Usually I would be happy to see a change of setting, but considering that everything in this film felt so foreign to the Knight Rider that we know, it would have been nice to at least have a familiar setting. Anyway, gun control stuff. The debate between whether these gun control policies are ethical or not is very interesting. Innocent people are dying because the wrong people have guns and the police are rendered useless when they themselves don’t have access to weapons. This argument happens to support my perspective on the issue, so I appreciated how it took a look at that side WITHOUT it sounding like we are crazy murderer people, but I digress. It makes sense that the ban happened in the first place, because much like how the main conflict in Pixar’s latest film Incredibles 2 revolves around society’s over-reliance on superheroes, I could see Knight Rider’s society becoming dependent on technology to save them. It can be easy to seem like the most advanced tech in that society is present only in KITT and KIFT, and to SOME extent that is true. However, Shawn does say that it is relatively common in this society for people to have memory chips in their brain. That counts for something. And the police DO have a defense mechanism according to the Wikipedia page for this movie, it’s just nonlethal.

So as you can see, I am very interested in the conflict this world sets up. I sure hope they expand on these conflicting ideologies throughout the film, giving us a clearer idea of why the bans were set in place AND giving us insight into what exactly has caused some revolt against it. That subject is seemingly timeless, and with how decently the introduction tackled it, I have some confidence that this film could pull it off in a tasteful way. Wouldn’t that be amazing? It’s some of the most serious subject matter Knight Rider has ever tackled. It’s so interesting!

Yeah they pretty much abandon that plot in place of a very, very bad copy of the original show’s “Hearts of Stone” (season 1, episode 14). Illegal guns exist and are bad, but we don’t really know why. I may know a little better if I had been listening closer, but I was trying to not get so bored that I missed Kitt’s parts!

At some point during this sequence, we are introduced to Shawn, a happy police officer who is happy to have a family on a happy birthday. And then she gets shot! Due to head force trauma rendering her unconscious, she’s sent to the hospital. She goes in for a risky operation that miraculously saves her life against all odds.

Then, Michael wakes up with Garthe Knight’s face and hears a great story about how one man CAN make a difference!… I mean what?

Jokes aside, it’s kind of amazing how much this very Michael-esque sequence comes across very differently. It’s almost the perfect example of why I don’t like this movie. The surgery is weirdly realistic for a Knight Rider entity. There’s blood and screens and surgeons and a sterile white room for operations. Michael woke up in a Medieval castle with one doctor and two random people he’d never met at his side. Shawn’s situation clearly makes more sense, but is it half as fun and whimsical? No, no it’s not. This whole film comes across as depressing to me, and it’s only worsened by what’s to come. Apparently, she had KITT’s CPU/Microprocessor/something sciencey implanted into her brain. That’s especially strange since all that I saw was a yellow liquid being injected directly into her skull! That’s a lovely image, and definitely gave me the idea that there was a full computer chip going in there??? (It may have actually been explained more clearly, and I just looked away because eek weirdly bloody operation scene) This caused her personality to do a full 180. So, Shawn is going to be fun, snarky, and full of personality like KITT is because they share memories now! Right? Right???

I think they tried to do that, but it came across flat. So flat. She speaks in a purposefully monotone, robotic voice and delivers downright mean comments that leave Michael and KITT scratching their heads. She seems to lack basic empathy until her own memories start flooding back, and at that point, the emotions she show seem so foreign to the character we see that it’s not remotely believable. You want me to believe that this robotic woman with -10 personality points started nearly crying after one string of memories, albeit a very traumatic one, entered her mind? This would have been believable if she was entirely changed afterwards, coming across as far more human, but that was only the case sometimes. It also would have been believable if the film had the same energy that the original Knight Rider show does, where suspending one’s disbelief is necessary to make it past the opening credits. However, this movie tries to be so grounded that the kind of dramatic beats that would work in the original seem forced here.

Shawn is not the only character who I take issue with, though. Let’s start with the most potentially problematic change from the usual canon in the entire film: KITT’s personality. I have very mixed feelings on how he is portrayed. If you’ve seen as much as a spattering of quotes from this movie, you probably could sense that KITT was… off. When KITT first comes on screen, he slams Michael with a wave of insults, and none of them come off as their normal joking around. However, I don’t necessarily have a problem with that because he has the proper motivation to be very, very upset. He is sitting on a desk as a heap of loosely connected parts that have just enough power to make the signature red scanner whir and make an oddly terrifying red light eyeball thing (Hal???) move. The first thing he hears is Devon nonchalantly saying something along the lines of, “I’m afraid he was recycled” to explain why KITT has been deactivated for OVER A DECADE and is not currently in anything that moves (my Charge! stream thing lagged at this point but @trust-doesnt-oxidize has since told me that Devon DID appear upset about KITT's being sold, but KITT likely wouldn't have heard that and what Devon said seemed to be moreso directed at HOW the chip was sold and not the fact that it was sold in the first place). KITT is justifiably mad, and if they had kept KITT’s actions in character while his emotions said otherwise, I would have no problem with it at all.

However, once KITT’s CPU is somehow implanted into Michael’s Chevrolet, KITT does not act in character. Shawn drives, not Michael, so it stands to reason that he would not necessarily listen to her. She stole his CPU, his life for over a decade. KITT does tend to listen to human companions, regardless of whether he is programmed to or not, but I can see where this would be an exception. However, Michael soon intercedes and essentially tells him to cut it out. Based on everything that the original Knight Rider told us, KITT no longer has a choice of whether to listen or not. Michael is ultimately the one who calls the shots because of KITT’s very programming. And yet, in this scene, KITT doesn’t listen to Michael and apparently gets so angry that he downright stops functioning. Because that happens all the time in the original series!

And if you’re wondering where I got the conclusion that KITT frustrated his circuits to the point where they could no longer work, he said that. KITT. Admitted to having feelings. In fact, he did not just admit to being angry in the moment. He told Michael that, while it may seem like he is an emotionless robot, he does have a “feelings chip.” A FEELINGS CHIP-

I am for recognizing KITT’s obvious emotions as much as the next guy. I think they are often overlooked when discussing his character. While I don’t think that real artificial intelligence will ever reach the level of human consciousness, the entire energy of Knight Rider comes from playing with this concept by portraying an AI character who clearly emotes interacting with a human who doesn’t seem to know that. But the thing that makes this show feel so sincere is that neither character plays too heavily into that trope. While not always knowing how much KITT feels and by extension hurting those feelings alarmingly often, Michael recognizes it enough to work in concert with KITT, apologize for his more major flubs, and consider KITT a friend. And KITT subverts the trope by never recognizing that he has feelings to begin with. He will say that he cannot feel sadness but, in the next breath, say that something upset him. He will say he cannot hold a grudge only to immediately rattle off a string of insults directed at the person he clearly has a grudge on. The show is magic in how these two characters display a subtle chemistry that always has room to grow because both characters are slowly coming to see each other for who they truly are and supporting one another along the way. From what I can tell, the original show never fully concludes that arc, and it may even start regressing after Season 1. However, we can feasibly see how Michael could slowly come to understand that KITT really does feel things just as much as he does. And we can imagine the relief KITT would feel knowing that Michael was never bothered by that possibility.

So, you can see where I have a big problem with KITT spelling it out so plainly. The audience gets full confirmation about what has been displayed to us through nuanced hints throughout the series, which sounds a lot more satisfying than it really ends up being in this film. But worse than an underwhelming conclusion to a thrilling story, Michael knows it plain as day. There is very little buildup to KITT admitting this. He barely even sounds moved. Instead, in this movie, the “feelings chip” is a fact of life that does not need to be covered up in the slightest. Michael himself doesn’t really… react. He just kind of nods along, as if he’s saying, “Huh, makes sense, alright.” After everything these two have been through, if there really was such a simple explanation for why KITT is the way he is… why arguments went south, why the mere mention of a Chevrolet was enough to get a seemingly jealous response, why inconsequential things like music taste and gambling were subjects of debate, why KITT had always acted so exaggeratedly dismissive when topics of emotional significance struck a chord, why every little sarcastic banter had a hint of happiness until it didn’t… don’t you think Michael would do something? Whether that something would be a gentle, “I always knew that, pal”; a shocked, “Why didn’tchya tell me sooner?!”; or even a sarcastic, disbelieving, “Yeah, right” is up to interpretation. But there would be something.

And yet, even that concept is flawed. We learn a lot from KARR’s inclusion in the original series, and what I take away from it boils down to a simple sentiment. FLAG never meant for their AIs to be human. I do realize that directly contradicts what Devon says within this film, but I see that as another way for the film to steer the plot in this direction, not as a tie in to the original. When Wilton says that one man CAN make a difference, he means that. He isn’t considering that KITT is just as much a person as Michael. He’s not seeing that, at the end of the day, teamwork is what makes the show work, even if Michael is the glue that holds it together. So, I think that to say that there is a “feelings chip” is to disregard the entire point of the original, that in this world life finds a way of inserting itself and that KITT’s (and KARR’s for that matter) humanity is an anomaly, not the rule. At the end of the day, KITT’s humanity can’t be explained away with science. And really, I don’t think it should be explained away at all. The show has had an amazing trend of showing us how KITT feels, in all its unorthodox glory, alongside private moments that had me sobbing like a baby. The movie should just be like a longer, more complex episode of Knight Rider… Although I cannot pinpoint exactly how it should be done in the context of this film, I know there are ways that Michael could have been shown that KITT feels rather than being told.

One last complaint, albeit a more minor one, is the idea that he has to listen to what Shawn says over Michael's authority. I have spent a decent amount of time thinking about this one point, which has caused a lot of the delay in posting this. There's multiple reasons why this flies right in the face of what is canon in the original series. Perhaps the most obvious of these problems is the fact that, in the original pilot episode, it's made very clear that KITT can't assume control of the Knight 2000 without Michael's express permission unless Michael is unconcious. Devon makes it quite clear in this episode that KITT is programmed specifically to listen to Michael, not just anyone who happens to be piloting the vehicle at the time. In case there was any doubt about this, KITT ejects two people who are attempting to steal him later in the episode (well, ok, later in the two-parter, I don't know if it was the same episode or not). The show isn't SUPER strict about this in future episodes, but it does at least acknowledge Michael's authority in a few pivotal moments throughout Season 1 (I can't comment on episodes that I haven't seen yet, but I suspect that this pattern continues). Of all the rules set up throughout the series, it actually seems to be the most loyal to this one. One moment that stands out to me is in Trust Doesn't Rust when KITT attempts to stop Michael from causing a head-on collision with KARR, but Michael then overrides him and the climax unfolds. If one of the most iconic moments in the series is caused by this one bit of programming, to throw it out in the film is to disrespect the basis of the original series.

Speaking of KARR, he provides yet another reason niglecting this detail is such a big problem. From what we can tell, KARR isn't programmed to one specific driver (at least, not anymore[?]), and so he can override anyone in the pilot's seat. This is something they seem to highlight in TDR as well, although not so plainly as the previous point. KARR ends up ditching Tony to gain speed and get an upper hand in the chase with Michael and KITT (although a scene they deleted would have made this a mUCH MORE SENSIBLE ACTION THAT R E A L L Y ISN'T A BETRAYAL but y'know what this post isn't about that) whereas KITT has to listen to Michael even to his own detriment. If this one feature is indeed one of the major things that separates KITT from KARR, the idea that Shawn can override all of that cheapens the original conflict between KITT and KARR.

...Well okay, let's be real, KARR was never that compelling as an antagonist to begin with because he's a LOYAL SWEETIEPIE-- I'll stop.

And finally, we have the biggest, most bizarre reason that this is a problem:

If Shawn can override Michael's authority, that means KITT can override Michael's authority.

Why? This would be the first time (outside of episodes where some sort of reprogramming or mind control was involved) in the series that KITT had not only listened to another human instead of Michael, but also listened to that person OVER Michael. The only difference I can see between Shawn and quite literally anyone else in the show's history is that Shawn has KITT's chip implant thing. If that's the reason her opinion has more credence than Michael's, then wouldn't that mean KITT's own opinion has that authority? If that is the case, literally every example I've gone through in the last couple of paragraphs is not just challenged but rather negated entirely.

The most frustrating thing about this scene is that it simply didn't have to happen. Michael could have gone along with KITT's plan, showing him (and us) that he does trust his former partner even after all these years. Shawn could have convinced Michael to go along with it using her... feelings chip. Blegh. Or we could have had a stubborn Michael force this scene to be delayed, likely improving the pacing overall. Maybe we could have even seen a frustrated and emotionally exhausted Shawn wait until Michael is not in the car and then plead KITT to give her the truth, no matter what Michael says. We have seen KITT control his actions without Michael's input plenty of times, and we could have seen some more of his humanity show through if he could relate to Shawn's struggles... after all, he too has missing memories because she has his chip. They're both going through a bit of an identity crisis. I'm sure that he could find some workaround in his programming to help her if Michael wasn't there insisting that he does not take this course of action.

But even after all of that fussing over what has been done wrong with KITT, I can’t deny that he is the heart and soul of this film. There was only one scene in this film that brought me near tears. I got more of an emotional impact from this one clip than I have from a lot of movies that are undeniably much better. Michael’s old-fashioned Chevrolet does not hold up in the year 2000, and it is clear that the usual car chase sequence won’t work as police vehicles quickly creep up on them. I was personally very curious what they would do here. I figured that KITT would find some way to outsmart the drivers of the police cars, maybe by ending up on an elevated mountain road that trips up the other drivers and causes them to waste time turning around and hopping on that same path. Or, maybe, KITT would access a road that’s too narrow for the relatively bulky police cars. However, it quickly becomes clear that this city is made up of wide roads on the ground. As KITT veers off the road and tells Michael to trust him, the I found myself having to trust him. This isn’t the way Knight Rider chases usually go, and with all these odds stacked against him, the only thing we can do is hold our breath. The way this scene is staged to send us into this just as blind as Michael is, frankly, genius. Water slowly creeps into the frame as a feeling of dread builds at the thought of what KITT might do.

Surely, we are led to think, he will knock into some boxes and turn right back around. Right? We’re reminded of the fact that this is not the Knight 2000, that there is no chance of this car floating. That if KITT does what he really seems to be doing, there’s no chance… but he wouldn’t, would he? This is the only action sequence in the film that had me at the edge of my seat, staring wide eyed at the screen. And then, the turn that you want so badly to come doesn’t, and you have to wonder what’s about to happen. What was KITT thinking? Won’t Michael and Shawn drown? And, most prominently in my mind, won’t KITT drown?

For a moment, this scene plays us into believing that, because magic FLAG science that is pretty par for the course, everything is fine. KITT explains that they have an airtight cab and over 20 minutes of oxygen. Everyone lets out a collective breath of relief. We see it in Michael and Shawn, and I know I felt myself relax.

And then there’s a flicker in the screen, and that pit in the bottom of my stomach came right back. Michael is confused, and KITT explains what we should have realized was inevitable. This is KITT sacrificing himself. He even goes as far as to let Shawn know that she can use any of his computer chips that she may need. This comes off as strange at first, but it goes to show that KITT is, at his core, the same kind soul we always knew. He acts angry because he feels betrayed, but given the choice, he will chose another person’s life over his own, always. Even the microprocessor that he is most frustrated over, the thing that seems to drive a wedge between him and Shawn, is just how he is expressing his hurt. Now, thinking it is the end, he offers it up freely, and Shawn doesn’t seem to know how to respond. KITT is calm as he says his final goodbyes. And this is the first place in the film that we get to hear the amazingly nuanced voice acting that William Daniels is so great at. KITT sounds collected and at peace with what is to come, but there are also subtle hints that he is at least a bit nervous, a bit sad. “I know. I guess this is goodbye.” He doesn’t want to leave his friends, but he knows that he has to for them to be safe. Even if the pacing of the film seems to actively try to undermine this moment, it stands out to me as an amazing scene, even if the reaction from Michael is underwhelming at best and the reaction from Shawn is… as much as can be expected from Shawn, but that’s not saying much. As far as KITT knows in that moment, these are his last words: “Michael, take care of yourself.” Down to the last moment, Michael is everything to him.

IjustwannamakeitclearquicklythatIthinktheirrelationshipisentirelyplatonicokthankyou

And I felt sad, big time sad. The movie up until that point was unbelievably boring to me, and this wasn’t a turning point where the movie suddenly became great. It was a moment so darn good that I almost don’t think the movie deserved for it to have as big of an impact as it did. But that shows just how powerful this universe is, how wonderfully honest these characters are. Even after being butchered practically beyond recognition, one scene in-character can still bring you to tears because you have connected with them so deeply throughout the TV series.

AND THEN DEVON DIED IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARDS :D

I don’t like Devon.

Devon was actually more tolerable in this movie than normal, and I can see where people who don’t hate him could be sad that he died I just,,, he has hurt or talked down to KITT and KARR so many times that I actually could not sympathize. What’s even more frustrating about that is that Devon’s death is the one that Michael got all sad over when KITT sacrificed his life for him and Devon got kidnapped randomly but okay go off movie you can’t ruin that scene for me. I knew going in that Devon died, but I was expecting them to spend a lot more time setting it up and making it as dramatic as possible. Nope, he just got a shot to the old air tanks I guess? My view of it is nothing more than that it’s a thing that happened.

OH AND DEVON DID PULL ONE HEINOUS ACT. He said that KIFT was better than KITT in every way other than that KITT has humanity. SINCE WHEN HAS DEVON GIVEN ONE SINGULAR HOOT ABOUT THE AI’S BEING ALIVE??? TELL KARR THAT??? HECK, TELL DEACTIVATED KITT THAT YOU WERE JUST FINE SELLING OFF AT AUCTION THAT?!?! Also also, KIFT DOES NOT C O M P A R E TO KITT. We are coming back to KIFT in a moment, don’t you worry. For now, I just. Low blow, Devon, low blow.

Michael was fine too, he played a weirdly small part and that felt off but everything he said seemed pretty in character. The most out of character parts were when he said nothing at all. OH AND WHERE HE WAS REPLACING BONNIE but that’s besides the point, no Bonnie OR April… no Bonnie OR April… I’m fine…

…

It feels like this movie wants you to forget that Michael exists because Shawn is here she’s more interesting, right? Right???

She’s really not.

So back to KIFT. My favorite part of KIFT is that pronouncing KIFT in your head sounds funny. It’s like “gift” but if the gift were actually an underwhelming villain of sorts that is overtaken in a garage, parked, by Michael either removing his microprocessor entirely or moving it to a Chevrolet.

I was surprised how not bad KIFT looked. I had seen stills from the movie that looked really uninteresting compared to the regular designs, and while I still agree to some extent, it was a lot more epic than I would have thought. Something about how the paint shines on it is captivating. I was genuinely happy when KITT was moved to the snazzy red vehicle, although a big part of that could have been how disgusting mint green looks with red. Seriously, including the red scanner on that bizarre seafoamy-bluey car (and yes, I do think it is a very pretty car by itself) was like when people say movies were “inspired” but in the opposite direction. And the scanner looked weirdly small? Was it just me?

Am I the only one who feels w e i r d just looking at this??

I think this is the most normal thing to be categorized as being in uncanny valley but there we go, I did it. It’s not right.

Anyway, as neat as KIFT looks, it is no comparison to the classic Knight 2000 or even Season 3 KARR. Red can be striking, but not when the classic scanner is also red. No contrast!

KIFT is absurdly easy to forget, and I don’t think that the car’s design has anything to do with it. KITT spends most of the movie piloting that car, and while it is not what we are used to, it doesn’t come across as super lame to me, either…or at least, not because of the design. The biggest problem with KIFT is, I think, simply his voice. His voice feels so out of place in the movie, and it’s so strange to me considering that Daniels’ voice is integrated just fine. The recording sounds too crisp, too clean. KITT’s voice always has a great deal of character, a very Earthy-sounding voice for an AI character. I actually think that this incongruity is purposeful, and it’s a very clever concept. We are supposed to recognize that KIFT isn’t human like KITT is. KIFT sounds out of place in the real world among real people; he’s too neat around the edges. It’s especially obvious when KITT and KIFT talk to each other. This is also mirrored by how KITT occupies a well-loved Chevrolet that has little imperfections that make it feel real whereas KIFT is in this red… whatever it is that feels like it comes out of a sci-fi film. This effect would have really worked if we had enough time with KIFT to understand his personality–or, more aptly, his lack of personality. What makes this not work is the fact that we spend practically no time with KIFT. We don’t get to hear what he feels he is programmed to do, we don’t get to hear him deliver the sort of lifeless lines that Shawn did that made her so unlikable, and we don’t even get to hear his voice more than 4-5 times. Every time comes as a shock, taking us out of the moment of the film. We could have gotten used to his crisp sound if he had spoken more, and we may have seen the actual plot significance of it. Instead, it pulls you right out of the movie.

Oh yeah, and the only line(s?) that KIFT delivers to KITT are full-on taunting… that’s not very lifeless of you KIFT.

Alright, just one last thing to really hammer home a point from earlier and conclude this whole thing. You know what I was saying about this movie lacking the whimsical nature of the TV show? Well, the final chase puts the icing on this oddly sullen crab cake.

Yes, crab cake.

Because the pinchy crab that is Shawn makes it quite painful to get this particular cake and icing doesn’t even belong on it anyway.

KITT is racing down the street in this bright red car that I just explained is thematically wrong for him to be driving tbh but whatever, he’s racing in it and comes up to a barricade of randomly stacked up cars.

Oh Yeah, we all know what is coming.

The music swells. Michael looks at the upcoming barricade with furrowed eyebrows and quietly asks KITT what the heck they’re going to do now.

OH YEAH, we definitely know what is coming.

And at last, for the first time in the film…

KITT veers off to the right and they drive on water. “It’s really sink or swim with you, isn’t it?” Michael asks, pretending that’s funny as if I am not still emotionally raw from that scene that happened an hour ago.

Apparently, KIFT had that one obscure feature from “Return to Cadiz,” the Season 2 episode where April forces KITT to follow KARR into the ocean on the hopes that waterproof wheels might work maybe, directly ignoring his many attempts to get out of it. Yay. I love references to That Episode. That Episode which baited me with an opening that looked like KARR could have been discovered underwater only to show me that not only was there no KARR, but KITT was going to be bullied into repeating what his brother did when he died. Wholesome. Lovely. Fantastic. And how did KITT know for sure that would work? KITT clearly still has some technical hiccups in his own CPU from Michael tampering with it, that was an awful lot of confidence to place in a maybe.

AND MORE IMPORTANTLY…

THIS MOVIE DID NOT HAVE A TURBO BOOST

A TURBO BOOST

I cannot believe that a movie based around Knight Rider did not have a turbo boost (or for that matter, the THEMESONG???). Like I am honestly still surprised by it. Almost every episode of the original show had at least one turbo boost, and there is a reason. The idea of a talking car jumping in midair, sometimes with Michael “WOO!”-ing like a girl, is so fantastically fun that nobody even tries to question how impossible it is. I think we all know how impossible it is, and that doesn’t matter, it is yet another thing that embodies the heart of this show.

And… not even one.

…

So yeah, that just happened. I think this is technically a small novel. Wow.

I know that I'm still missing a lot... I have a lot of thoughts about this movie, and if you for some reason want more please ask! I would also love to hear your thoughts on this! Do you agree with my analysis? Do you disagree entirely? Did you notice something that I failed to mention entirely? Pleasepleaseplease send ideas, I would love to hear them! Also know that, no matter how much I was disappointed by the movie itself, I am fully open to hearing your ideas about how to improve or expand upon it. I truly believe that this film introduced some great concepts, and I would absolutely adore seeing them reworked in a way that's more true to the original. Thank you for reading! :D

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zuzuslastbraincell · 4 years ago

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Katara, if you please :)

Sexuality Headcanon: Bi :^) just because we never see Katara have many meaningful relationships with other girls (outside of Toph) on screen, doesn’t mean she doesn’t like them.

Gender Headcanon: female. I’m partial to trans katara as well, I think it’s a fun headcanon.

A ship I have with said character: tbh, I’m not big on ships for Katara in canon? Like on one level I feel like Katara deserves to be loved and adored by everyone, but also I am really tired of people using Katara as shipping fodder. (I like to imagine she gets a bf or a gf off-screen post-canon. Perhaps a bender from the Northern Water Tribe who moves to the south to learn from her/help her rebuild)

in AU situations, though, I really like Yuetara in an AU where Yue is a waterbending healer because I’m stupid weak for sappy tragic moon/sea gfs stuff. I also.... have such a soft spot for Kazula in a school AU rivals-to-lovers situation where Azula isn’t directly opposing and hurting the gaang in the same way, because they just match each other’s intensity well.

A BROTP I have with said character: OH Sokka and Katara, of course, BEST sibling dynamic. They’re messy, they’ve both been impacted by the trauma of war, they’re often bickering and sometimes even mean to each other but they also really do have each other’s back and work past it the best they can. Honestly anything I’ve written with Katara has had Sokka either present or mentioned often, I just think they’re that important to each other.

also I feel Zuko & Katara and Aang & Katara both deserve mentions here.

Zuko is the member of the gaang Katara can just be emotionally open with without having to bottle it up until it explodes in anger (as Sokka refuses to deal with emotions 90% of the time unless they’re hidden behind layers of jadedness, irony, or humour) and the rest of the gaang is younger, so yeah, but I think with Zuko she has a space where she can speak freely and voice a lot of stuff she has difficulty containing without judgement (because Zuko also has Lots Of Feelings and on some level Gets It).

And Aang is the member of the gaang that first offered Katara hope and a sense that there was a way out of the hopeless situation her tribe was, who offered her a way to train and grow as a waterbender, but also offered her fun and levity in a time lacking in it, and gave her a sense of her childhood back when she was forced to grow up too fast because of war. She adores Aang & would follow him around the world and back without a map quite honestly.

A NOTP I have with said character: with either Zuko or Azula in canon timelines. Katara deserves a future where she can invest her whole heart in the south pole and in reconstruction efforts there, including starting a waterbending school, and just being integral to the community. like, even on a practical level, dating Fire Nation royalty doesn’t line up with that, and that’s before we even touch on reluctance and mixed feelings she might have about dating former imperialist royals who have tried to hurt her & her friends.

(This is before we touch like, fandom content for Zuko/Katara, which has historically been marred with imperialist apologism and racism and people treating Katara like a stand-in and zuko like an angsty white boy. bad.)

as for Azula, i certainly can’t see her forgiving Azula easily for how she hurts Aang, Zuko, & the whole gaang. Even if Azula apologises and has a full redemption arc and makes all the amends she can, I just can’t see it happening.

A random headcanon: Katara has a not-like-other-girls phase that largely keeps to herself and she totally grows out of, and it comes about from struggling with how her feelings for girls are different / feeling like she can’t be friends with girls, that she finds female friendship harder to navigate than boys (where there’s a clear roadmap), and feels a bit frustrated/guilty about her lack of friends who are girls her age and her seeming inability to ‘connect’ (it’s because you’re crushing on them Katara....). Or at least, that’s how I choose to interpret how she barely interacts with Suki, lmao. Imagine your brother’s girlfriend being your bi awakening... god, things would be awkward, poor Katara :(

Anyways. I love reading into things based on very small character details (i.e. Katara’s relative lack of female friendships)

General Opinion: I absolutely adore character for all her complexity, for her anger and her compassion and her idealism and her depth. She’s kind and warm but also petty and impulsive and holds grudges like nothing else - she’s got strengths and flaws in spades. Just great character writing! Also characters who hold deep beliefs are just generally really underrated and Katara is no exception.

She’s not the ‘mom’ friend - she’s impulsive, adventure-seeking, and honestly? Quite often funny. Also, certain shippers don’t have a monopoly on good Katara characterisation and appreciation for her character from a feminist perspective, no matter what they claim, lol.

#katara #soozenwrites

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glarehand · 5 years ago

Text

ranting a bit here bc as little as i interact w/ the rp community, largely due to focus issues, depression, and anxiety, i really do appreciate my mutuals, especially in light of being in different fandoms where things’ve happened and i just. Angery

so under the cut is a funny? irritating? text-wall about some star wars related stuff i’m bothered by lol

1. shipping; i like shipping. it’s fun, it’s interesting, i get to explore things in fiction that i don’t want to as strongly or at all irl as an aroace person, etc. first problem; i ship the clones bc i viewed them as, well, clones. an aggrandized version of that buzzfeed poll abt fucking clones, if u will. i view them as “brothers” in a wartime/militaristic sense because they’re... they’re clones. they’re the same person a million times that post-cloning, sought out ways to enhance their originality (tattoos, interests, etc) past their voices, abilities, personalities, and so on. they have originality but that isn’t compromised by their existence as people based off the same template.

some people interpret them as literal brothers which is fine too! i only consider jango fett the father of boba fett/boba fett the son of jango fett, despite boba also being a clone. especially in mandalorian culture, adoption is as valid as blood, and boba fett’s relationship to jango fett absolutely strengthens this but it’s unique in that jango adopts one son/views the clones as the jedi army separate from himself and his son/dies without having any particular association with them.

but still, regardless, i can understand why people interpret them that way and i don’t have a problem with it and enjoy peoples’ differing interpretations. but when someone mentions that shipping the clones is undeniably incest (disregarding that cloning = incest is not by any means something that can be overlapped from fiction to real life so easily? it’s sci-fi so we also shouldn’t be seeking out real life parallels to things nor considering those parallels so hard proven?) it’s like... can you shut up for two seconds LOL like it... they’re... i don’t know how to explain to you that trying to draw hard lines between things unique to sci-fi and things in real life doesn’t work as flawlessly as that. if so, we could easily turn any other media into sci-fi or any sci-fi content into slice-of-life, deciding that of course the clones would be a million literal brothers and lightsabers would be 1000 degree knives and half the aliens would just be animals- like that’s stupid and disregarding the uniqueness of the media (though i adore aus- this isn’t a dig at aus or canon divergence bc that’s literally all i do)

and outside of some specific posts i’ve seen abt this, a groupchat i was in mentioned no rule abt this or any other ship related issues, meaning that i was existing inside the chat but with this heinous feeling secret? like i felt i either had to out myself for something someone else had decided was wrong or continue existing in the chat but not get too close to anyone, out of fear of a friendship being suddenly terminated over something as foolish as character interpretation (which can and should exist separately, at once).

in addition to the internal shipping/not shipping the clones debate, was clone/jedi shipping, preferred ships, and what this means in regards to what was left in terms of shipping options, if that was something someone wanted to engage in (which i do, and that they did as well)

2. for clone/jedi shipping, i understand the possible issues of a power imbalance or how the relationships are portrayed in media-only. but at the same time and as is mentioned above, we have to suspend our belief a bit for fiction, especially with sci-fi. the militaristic/war aspect of star wars is the point of that media; it doesn’t seek to glorify or mimic real life roles (ahsoka is a general at 14, amongst other things; that in particular allows for kids to feel like they’re part of the show, like they could do be a jedi and save people at age 14, because what would be the fucking point of it if we showed only adults saving the world/14 year olds with only 14 year old responsibilities? to an extent, it’s an escape and while it’s odd writing to hold ahsoka to the standards of mace, obiwan, even anakin, it should at least be a fantastical opportunity for self-insertion/daydreaming to an extent) it has a strong focus on rebellion which can be applied in non-physical/non-warlike ways, and isn’t without the fictitious aspect of fucking laser swords and telekinetic manipulation. the wartime aspects of star wars don’t need to be followed as closely as real life regulations and expectations; if done that way, even leia and han as a ship would involve a power dynamic seeing as he technically becomes a part of the rebellion under her leadership.

in terms of 3. show-only content and the above about power imbalances, that’s what fanfiction is for. in general and in relation to that chat, full of creators and writers and so on, fanfic is for elaborating on given content, filling in content that hasn’t been given, and for rewriting things you feel have been done wrong, artistically or just because you don’t like it. an example for me is barriss offee’s arc and timeline; not only does her timeline in the prequels differ from her timeline in the clone wars show but her character seemed to be thrown away so easily, her actions made out of character in addition to her fate being the opposite of what it had been in “higher” canon. there’s also the very valid interpretation of how bad it was that the show made the muslim-coded character a terrorist BUT even disregarding people’s headcanons of her as a muslim woman and just focusing on it in a sci-fi sense, it seemed very out of character, done just to create an antagonist and an opportunity for ahsoka’s development and disillusionment with the jedi/council so of course people gravitate to rewriting her arc/redoing her character/adhering to a mix of the canons, and so on. not that people who view canon as the most important aspect of a work are wrong but like, even fanfic that adheres to canon is in a way diverging from it; if what someone creates isn’t exactly how it happened on screen, canon-compliant, involves no ulterior emotions or added scenes, it’s based on interpretation.

people who invest themselves in ships that have no basis (4) were also mentioned and that’s just as valid a part of creating. i understand in some cases, people will ship anyone together knowingly or unknowingly to fetishize gay relationships but it’s not a sin to decide you want to see two characters interacting more or want to elaborate on what canon didn’t discuss or want to create backstories and relationships out of the blue OR just outright decide you have two favorite characters and want to explore them together, even in just an nsfw sense.

so being anti clone/clone, anti jedi/clone, and anti any characters that don’t really interact is not only dictating what ships are “right” and “wrong” based on one’s own interpretation and willingness to strictly adhere to canon but what other options are you giving us to ship the clones???

again, not that nonromantic story aspects and single character discussion isn’t important but romance and romance options are important to people and if presented and possible, people shouldn’t be prevented from doing it just because people think it’s wrong with no legitimate basis OR don’t allow people to warp canon (especially canon they don’t like or think is contradictory and out of character) to suit what they wish to explore.

there was one option left though and i dislike the new association i have in my head of it now because of all the problems above, though i assume it wasn’t done on purpose: 5. disregarding in-show shipping possibilities for self inserts

i love self inserts and my love for them has been amplified by the chat i was in, making me feel more confident in doing it myself and i am very happy with that in that i can have more love for myself in writing myself and shipping myself with someone else. but it was odd that all other possibilities were almost struck down in favor of self inserts; if cloneshipping was automatically incest, disregarding that that’s not the conclusion everyone had come to? that my brain just didn’t assume it because it’s a sci-fi only situation?, jedi/clone ships were unhealthy and based off of power imbalances/characters not truly caring for one another, and shipping characters together for the fun of it had no value as characters apparently had to know one another enough/there had to be validity in it, the only option left was to rewrite canon but only for one’s own purposes, valid only in this one case.

that just annoyed my mildly and i know it most likely wasn’t intentional but overall, i’ve felt unable to have headcanons or do certain things at the risk of being visibly mocked for it; having different faves and ships and interpretations and kinks are all parts of people’s varying fandom experiences and to have people talking about how much they don’t like that on a very visible separate discord channel where i could go in and see? and just hope that something i adored wasn’t next? is not fun at all and genuinely impacted me to where i don’t really want to have fun with people i’d liked before, where i don’t really want to post and create like i was doing when i didn’t know people were deciding based on preferences what was morally appropriate.

one of the rules in the chat was essentially that anyone could have any fave character but that discourse still stood; yes but sometimes i just want to like a character or ship? without having to preface it with how i know x thing was bad and that i don’t condone it.

kain highwind is my favorite final fantasy character- i don’t want to have to justify my love for him, in situations where i know he was in the wrong and in situations where i think the canon content contradicted other canon descriptions of him, creating two images of who they wanted him to be; i interpret him as i interpret him and it’s unique and dear to me.

a lot of the time, i want to create and appreciate without having to make it right for someone else’s interpretation. i don’t want to approach a groupchat or even single person friendship assuming i’m going to have to defend my favorites as ultimately a representation of myself. when i do hold my favorites close to me as extensions of me, i don’t want to have to pit myself against someone else as if i’m invalid for how i feel and interpret and am.

in general, things quickly became not fun at all and i felt alienated by an entire group all at once. like it fucking SUCKS to feel like you’ve lost 6? potential friends in one place, 3 in another, in addition to having to be wary from now on when engaging with anyone else in that fandom and after losing two friends in real life over disagreements, both times because i was misinterpreted and had to then reconsider myself especially in relation to my mental illnesses and my neurodivergency. to then feel disliked for something as stupid as shipping preferences feels as it is- foolish and embarrassing and ridiculous.

i would like to make friends but i would like for friendships in fandom to stop being so circumstantial, especially on trivial things

#misc #personal post lol #i lost where i was partway thru i think so i'm sorry if it stops makign sense but i am frustrated lol #i'm mostly over it now but i #it feels weird to like see ppl i wanna talk to but feeling like i'm not allowed to bc of something this fucking dumb

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