#there's also lots of lgbt people bashing this movie for no reason without having seen it without knowing what it's about

[go-diane-winchester]

Dear Misha Collins

I don't think you know how to handle your career.  There are mistakes that you are making to your own detriment.  I am doing the decent thing here by pointing them out to you.  When you are an actor, you are the salesman and the product.  These two elements are a benefit to an actor when he manages these two things cleverly, which you have not done.  These two elements are symbiotic.  You need them both.  And the dominant element is the salesman.  If the product is good, but the salesman sucks, the product is not appreciated. 

Take Sam and Dean Winchester as a good example.  Sam is a flawed hero.  He is also, to an extent in the earlier seasons, something of an anti-hero although not a full blown villain.  Dean wasn't as flawed and his swashbuckling gung-ho nature was easier to enjoy than Sam's pensiveness.  Those who didn't know much about the BTS of the show in the early season, latched on to the lead characters.  At that time they didn't know the actors.  For many of them, Sam appeared kind of self-righteous and grumpy.  Yes, he was handsome, but so was Dean who are the more funnier, showier character, so it was easy to latch onto him.  Dean also bonds with other characters faster than Sam does. 

When the first cons were held, people were enthusiastic about meeting the actors who play Sam and Dean expecting the actors to be exactly like their characters.  When they realized that Jared is absolutely nothing like his character and was, by nature, quite a loveable and happy young man, they loved him back enthusiastically.  But they encountered Jensen's reserved nature, some thought he was shy whilst others thought he was a snob.  Because Jared was such an awesome salesman, his product [Sam] became more palatable to the audience.  Jensen realized that as a salesman, he had a little work to do.  Being construed as shy is not bad, but being seen as a snob is definitely not a good look.  So he started trying to change his public image, despite his reserved nature.

So you have to examine your audience and make necessary changes to your salesman pitch, so as to not put off your target market.  Then people started to see meaningfulness in the friendship that J2 share.  Some liked the chemistry their character's shared.  The actors acknowledged that these ideas existed but didn't shoot them down.  Jensen said that he understood it was a ''hot fantasy'', which is very accurate.  They just requested that fans not ask them questions on the subject, which makes sense, because why would you want my opinion on your fantasy.  That is ridiculous.  These two groups, Tinhat fans and wincest fans, have been around for 13 years, without making a peep.  You don't hear about them, unless you go looking for them.  And unlike a few nasty people on Twitter, the majority has since the beginning, respected J2.

Part of the credit for this goes to the actors themselves.  They didn't overindulge this subsection, because that would be an idiotic sales pitch.  I don't think you understand why.  Why is it that Sam and Dean's popularity hasn't waned?  They have shouldered the burden of a show that is now in its fourteenth season.  They are getting more popular and mass media has an eye on them, which is why they are invited on talk shows, sporadically.  You were invited on Larry King, but it was not because of your work on the show, it was for your charity project.  And your charity project is not your livelihood.  Your acting job is, and it isn't looking very good.  You weren't even a series regular last year, and most people didn't seem to mind. 

Here is where your sales pitch is going wrong.

You fragment the total viewing population of the show

You do this by your con etiquette.  The fans who buy tickets to watch your panel are a heterogeneous group of people.  The problem with having this type of audience, is that you have to curb your language around them, because children attend cons too.  You use vulgar language.  You also speak about sexually explicit things like shipping.  The parents and older siblings sitting in the audience might be offended, and that never occurred to you.  That is very baffling.  The parents who are not offended stay on and those who are, won't watch a Misha panel again with their kids.  Fragmentation.  You have broken your total con audience in two. 

When people ask you about shipping, you don't politely acknowledge it and move on.  You ''lay it on thick'' as they say.  There is a lot that is wrong with that. 

Any straight male fan who genuinely admires your character is not likely going to sit through something he doesn't care about.  Especially since you become very explicit.  He will feel kind of grossed out, as he should, not because he's homophobic but because this is not his jam.  By overdoing the shipping thing, you have forced a decision out of this fan as to whether he wants to pay good money to sit through this nonsense again.  The next time he attends con, he is going to spend his money elsewhere.  That also goes for straight female fans who don't like shipping.  Because not all women like slash.  And they will try not to attend you panel again because it didn't entertain them.  Second fragmentation.

There are other ships in the fandom.  That is the natural progression of things went one ship appears on a show or movie.  That initial pairing pulls all the other characters in.  So almost everyone of the well known actors on Supernatural have been slashed with another actor.  All except Tahmoh Penikett and Alexander Calvert, to the best of my knowledge.  I am not sure why Tahmoh is ignored but it might have something to do with his character killing Kevin.  I think Alex is not slashed because every other man is a father figure on the show, and Alex plays a baby.  You tend to indulge mostly the destiel fanbase, and destiel is discussed in almost all your panels.  What is wrong with that?  You isolate people who don't like destiel for whatever reason.  If they don't like a pairing, they are not going to sit through a panel where that pairing is sporadically discussed.  That is not what they paid for.  In a convention, where audience members have been asked not to ask shipping questions, and every other guest honors the rule except you, it makes you look unprofessional and a rule breaker.  That is not a good look for a salesman.  Third fragmentation. 

So what if you speak about destiel?  You have fans.  They love you.  How is that detrimental to your popularity?  I will explain that further down. 

You bite the hand that feeds you

If you have been employed on a show for ten years, you cant badmouth that show.  Especially when you are incorrect.  In 2013, you said that the show was 'gratuitously misogynistic', during one of your panels.  Since then, the show has been bringing in unnecessary female characters.  This is aggravating for fans who were watching the show since before you got casted.  They didn't like most of the female characters, and yes the non-approving fans were all female. Ratings were still good and the show was popular.  There were female characters whom the fans had no problem with, for example, Missouri Mosley, Ellen Harvelle, Pamela Barnes and to a certain extent even Ava. 

Ever since your statement, CW and associated twitter pages blew up with accusation from  ''concerned fans'' who were now asking for ''representation'' on a show that was already nine years old, despite managing to be misogynistic.  So now, we have characters are extremely unpopular like Claire Novak, Jody Mills, Donna Whatshername and even Mary Winchester.  The spinoff for these inadequate females bombed due to lack of ratings.  The show invested time, resources, money and effort into a spin-off that failed, because you said something stupid that made them look bad.  The day they figure it out, you will leave the show with a reputation of being problematic.  And word travels in Hollywood. 

You overestimate your knowledge

You tend to speak up for a lot of different people.  Usually I would admire that, because it is a sign of inclusiveness - not a bad trait to have.  You, however, are very heavy handed with it.  And you speak about subjects like you know them.  You have an inadequate knowledge of slash fiction and yet you speak about it and you speak wrong.  I have already done an article on that subject.  You speak about feminism and misogyny and women's rights which makes me livid, because as I previously pointed out, you say the wrong things.  And as a women, I would prefer to speak up for myself.  I don't need a voice box speaking incorrectly for me. 

You also speak about LGBT issues.  LGBT teens who make up a small part of your already small fanbase, like that.  After all, they are kids and they don't know any better.  Grown ups, are generally, getting irritated.  Because if you wanted these people to have rights, you will let them speak instead of speaking for them.  Right now, only you and your destiel fans have a voice on the subject of LGBT, and collectively, you do a lot of damage to that community.  Non-destiel fans are constantly fighting off destiel fans because of their ''deep'', stereotypical and damaging analysis of Dean's sexuality.  They are becoming dissatisfied, but because you are not a mainstream actor and a household name, you fly just under the radar.  The day GLAAD releases an official statement about you and your fans, you are not going to like it.  Neither is CW.

You don't control your termites

In the past year and a half, your destiel fans have:

verbally bashed Jensen Ackles on Twitter

sent him a death threat

threatened to burn down his house

threatened to poison his beer so his brewery will shut down

smeared J2's reputation over a harmless joke they made at Nolacon [yep, those were your fans - their profile pictures and names gave them away]

were planning to hire a plane so that they could fly the words ''Pedowitz sucks'' outside Mark Pedowitz's office

threatened to kidnap Jared's children

slandered Jared by saying that Jared abuses his wife, whilst pretending to be her number one fan on Instagram 

They only have one motivation for doing this:  YOU. 

And its not because they love you so much.  Its because you overindulged something that was essentially a harmless pastime, you have turned them into junkies and you are their only dealer.  The day you switch off their juice with finality, you will see a very ugly side of these termites, who are eating away at the foundations of Supernatural.  

Because you over spoke about destiel, these troublemakers are now the majority of your fans.  Outside of destiel, they have no interest in you.  The Misha-led con recently didn't do very well, did it?  Due to fragmentation you have lost many fans, and mishandling of your product caused you to use all the others.  How many fans do you have left?  Less that 80 000.  That is my estimation.  Those are the majority of the fans who petitioned for Wayward Daughters.  The standard audience didn't give a hoot about that stupid project.  Why did the shippers care so much?  Because Wayward Daughters was a fan-backed project.  The fans made it happen.  They assumed that if they could succeed in that, then maybe they could make destiel canon too.  For them, destiel is endgame.   

Supernatural as a total audience of 3 million.  Less that 80 000, is not an impressive number.  Unfortunately 80 000 are still inaccurate, because this was not a ''landlocked'' survey.  It was done via the Internet, which means that fans from all over the world could vote.  So they don't fall under the category of the 3 million viewers who tune into Supernatural in America, every week.  You fans are not Supernatural's core audience.  You did that to yourself.  These fans are also mostly teens.  That is why they are so loud compared to other fan subsections.  They have no mortgages to pay.  They don't have to face rush hour traffic and they can fixate on destiel without much interruption.  And since they are kids, they understand social media better than you and I.  So they know how to use their resources. 

I want to point out though, that not all destiel fans are problematic.  Some are civil and level headed.  I feel sorry for them because their reputation is tarnished due to the majority.  And an ok ship, that they enjoy, is ruined.

The only thing that is your saving grace, for many fragmented fans is your anti-Trump stance.  I hate him too, but I also hate Hillary.  She is no better than him.  However, even that is baffling because if you are brave enough to tweet and irritate Trump, who is unfortunately your President, why don't you have the courage to deal with your fans, in defense of your co-stars and the show that has employed you for ten years.  Especially when these fans are mostly children.  So you are not afraid of President Trump, but little girls scare you?  Because my vantage point, I can see that this doesn't make you look good. 

You used to be one of my favorites amongst the additional cast, until I got fragmented out of your circle.  I even liked destiel, until it turned into a vile beast.  You are now one person, that I cant write a slash story for.  Because you have made it difficult for me to like you. 

I thank you for your time, Mr Collins, and I hope some of what I said, gets through to you. 

Sincerely

An ex-Misha Fan

[filmstruck]

Life’s a Drag by Nathaniel Thompson

As we celebrate Pride Month this year in all its complicated shades and rich history, it’s also time to take a look at how LGBT culture has played a huge role in the way films have been made and written about for decades. You can find a sampling of six key titles in FilmStruck’s “Dressing the Part” spotlight, which reflects four decades of cross-dressing milestones on the big screen. You’ll notice that there are two films from the 1970s here, and they’re fascinating and important ones in the history of gender bending on film. Here are three reasons why…

The Stonewall Riots:

The watershed demonstrations and uprisings that began on June 28, 1969 are regarded as ground zero for the creation of the gay rights movement, setting off a chain of activism and public representation that’s still thriving and evolving today. Movies were quick to jump on the sea change, and some of the earliest ones require some explanation and context to work for first-time viewers today. That doesn’t apply to the two films here, FEMALE TROUBLE (‘74) and OUTRAGEOUS! (‘77), which will work like a charm as they show off two very different sides of drag and gay pop culture during the “Me Decade.”

Divine:

The mightiest titan in the pantheon of movie drag queens, Divine shot to underground fame as the fearless, boundary-bashing star of John Waters’ films right from the beginning with MONDO TRASHO (‘69) and appearing in all but one of his films through HAIRSPRAY (’88; the same year Divine passed away far too young). Fans continue to debate which film is Divine’s finest hour, but there’s no doubt that the one performance that stretched the punk-era provocateur to the greatest acting heights is FEMALE TROUBLE. 

Cast as juvenile delinquent turned professional glamour queen criminal Dawn Davenport, Divine is a force of nature whether scarfing down a meatball sandwich at school (“Right out in class!”), ruining Christmas over after a disappointment involving cha-cha heels, giving birth in a stairwell or terrorizing the leather-wearing, hetero-hating Aunt Ida (Edith Massey, another Waters gem) by locking her in a giant bird cage. You’ve never seen anything else like this film, which comes packed with an uncountable number of great one liners and plenty of brilliant physical comedy (that trampoline!). Plus Divine even plays a dual role… out of drag and doing a sex scene with himself. You’ll have to see it to figure out how that works.

Judy, Judy, Judy:

Though not discussed all that often today, the Canadian film OUTRAGEOUS! earned a solid cult following in the late ‘70s as a showcase for the amazing Craig Russell, whose female impersonations included spot-on renditions of famous women like Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand, Tallulah Bankhead, Mae West and a jaw-dropping Carol Channing. There’s a lot more to it than that though, in this landmark snapshot of a subculture within the gay community in a pre-AIDS world where entertainment could be found from cabarets to bathhouses. It’s an affecting look at Russell’s friendship with fellow “kook” Hollis McLaren, a platonic male-female friendship unlike anything else you’d see on a movie screen at the time. 

I love how Danny Peary pointed out the film’s message in his landmark book, A Guide for the Film Fanatic: “The picture is not about being gay but about being an outcast (a crazy) among people (gays) who are already outcasts… [Russell] wants to break down the barriers gays have set up for themselves; he wants to be a female impersonator and become part of the more adventurous and dazzling gay element which many ‘normal’ gays shun.”

These films point the way to where drag would be heading for decades to come; in fact, we still owe both of them a huge debt. Without FEMALE TROUBLE, OUTRAGEOUS! and all the other cross-dressing classics of the era, we wouldn’t have RuPaul’s Drag Race, TOOTSIE (’82), HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH (2001) and on and on. The world would be a much duller and far less glamorous place.

[endlesslovewitch-blog]

Busted myths about fictophilia / schediaphilia

Hi! I’d like to get the word out since I’ve seen lots of wrong assumptions circulating about this. Fictophilia is a romantic and/or sexual orientation which covers exclusive attraction to fictional characters in animation and movies (no, not the actors). It’s not a fetish, disorder, or solely a type of attraction, but an orientation one is born with, just as valid as any other*. It has nothing to do with lusting after those characters sexually as a fan. *There are people who are attracted to other people and fictional characters in that way. In that case, their orientation is whatever they identify with. I’d like to help you understand who we are and what we’re not by responding to the most common statements aimed at us. This has gotten pretty long so I put all the answers under a cut.

It’s not real! / You’re kidding, right?

No, it’s very much real. We feel genuine romantic and/or sexual attraction of the same sort that alloromantics/allosexuals experience towards people.

How can you tell if you’ve never been in love with a real person?

We can compare our romantic feelings to others’ and reach a conclusion that way. Furthermore, once you fall really hard for someone, you just know, right?

But they’re not real! How is that possible?

Oh, are they not? I’m so sorry, I totally didn’t re– yes, we know they don’t exist, you don’t have to pretend showing concern for our mental health. They have a personality. Many of them have a voice. Isn’t that enough for falling in love?

If not, you can also say you can’t have a crush on someone you’ve never interacted with. It’s essentially like being in love with a celebrity (although we don’t get why loving a celebrity is far more accepted since all the circumstances are the same, except that those characters don’t exist.)

You’re saying that because no one likes you!

It’s actually the opposite. If someone falls in love with us, we’ll have to reject them because we lack attraction.

You’ve just never been in a real relationship!

This may be true for some of us, but not for all. (Those who haven’t been are better off than the others, trust me.) 

However, we don’t contend that we’re fictophiliac for that reason.

We simply lack attraction to other people, so we have no reason to get into a physically intimate relationship in the first place. Just like everyone else with a non-heteronormative orientation, we don’t have any obligation to try all kinds of different things before we can be sure who we are. You’re in no place to decide that. I’m 24 years old, I’ve been in love with the same character for 8 years, I’ve never loved a real person in the same way, but I’ve been in a physically intimate relationship I regret.

You’re exaggerating! / You’ve watched too many cartoons! / You’re taking fiction too seriously!

I suggest you take a look at your own fandoms and all the bashing within before saying that we’re the ones taking fiction too seriously.

You’re delusional.

Guess what, we still reconize the characters as fictional and know that we can never be with them unless we establish something for ourselves. Once that happens, it can be seen as a long-distance relationship. Where’s the problem? That we don’t get a response from their side?

That may be an issue that causes complications for us but it doesn’t make our emotions for them less real. And, surprise, it is entirely up to us how we deal with that. It’s not a problem you have to deal with. On the contrary, we’re not out there to hurt anyone - we’re literally just daydreaming like everyone else in love.

You’re those obsessed people who spend their days holed up in a room full of merchandise and claim to be married to fictional characters.

Again, no. That isn’t us. Many of us are capable of a healthy social life. Some may choose to get married to a character “officially”, but I am personally grossed out by that concept.

I’d never file for a marriage certificate because I’m not forcing anything on the character I love, I’m not disrespecting them, I’m respecting my own feelings, and I’m not into doing something so simple that everyone could do without a connection to them.

As a child, I created OCs to ship with the canon characters I had a crush on, but I never did so openly - only to cheer myself up because I knew from the beginning that it wouldn’t be taken seriously.

Most of us don’t claim the characters to ourselves. If so, chances are that the person is either very young or doesn’t really love them. If someone starts a fight, that’s a problem with the person, not the community.

Here, it’s important to stress the difference to fankids who keep shouting “THEY’RE MINE ALONE!!” (Guys, that’s embarrassing. No wonder no one believes us.)

Some of us forge a connection through dreams or on the spiritual plane in order to cope, but we still have ties to reality - remember that we’re constantly confronted with society’s standards wherever we go, from elementary school days on.

Even if we do collect tons of merchandise, that means we’re supporting the sales of something you enjoy, too.

Also, no real fictophiliac would present themselves in media like the otakus you see on TV. We have self-respect.

As a side note, anyone who uses the terms waifu or husbando to refer to characters unironically is most likely not fictophiliac. Being thrown into the same category as those is offensive to us with actual non-fanbased feelings for those characters. We don’t lust after them like overzealous fans, and it hurts being compared to them.

You can‘t compare yourselves to the LGBT community!

True. We don’t face any of the oppression the LGBT+ community does.

Let’s focus on a different aspect that matters: the self-discovery process in our minds which is similar to anyone else’s with a non-heteronormative orientation. We grow up in society and learn that we’re only supposed to love other people. We’re told our identity is childish and just a phase. In fifth grade, I was certain I’d soon grow out of this and fall in love. When I noticed I didn’t feel  attracted to boys, I believed I was a lesbian. So I mistook a strong platonic attraction for romantic attraction and got into a relationship (after all, I was taught that my feelings for those characters were supposedly different from what actual love should feel like). That is very similar to what aromantics and asexuals go through before they realize they’re not broken.

You’re making this up in order to mock LGBT+ individuals who face oppression in daily life!

Wrong. We’re not part of LGBT+. We’re also not asexual or aromantic for being fictophiliac. I’m writing this to let you guys know we exist, not to claim a label that isn’t ours to claim.

Aren’t you aromantic and/or asexual by default?

I don’t consider myself aromantic because a) going by that label would be unfair towards aros who don’t feel romantic attraction at all, and b) I don’t like erasing my own existence by claiming not to feel something that I do.

I’m asexual because I’m asexual, not because I’m fictophiliac. However, some may choose to go with either label to explain our lack of attraction to people without getting demeaned.

How exactly are you struggling?

- being unable to express our feelings to the character in question and getting rejected by them before we start getting too desperate

- dealing with friends and family members who expect us to date and have children (equally to aros and aces who are told “you haven’t met the right person yet” - but joke’s on them, some of us have indeed)

- if we open up about who we like, we’re always going to receive strange looks; dealing with prejudice, ignorance, dehumanization

- our feelings are constantly played down and mocked even by fandoms (I don’t understand - why are our feelings less valid than other people’s? It’s not like we value our platonic or family relationships less than anyone else.)

- even if we managed to establish some sort of relationship, we can’t be open about it like everyone else; there are always going to be others who like the same character; comparing ourselves to those makes us lose confidence in our own qualities

- getting insulted for no reason with ableist language

- being confronted with the importance of “real” romantic / sexual relationships and the fact that we’re never going to have what others call essential for happiness (physical partnership, marriage, children)

- if we achieve happiness without those things, no one believes us

- spending our whole lives feeling broken, hoping to fall in love “normally”, forcibly getting into unfulfilling relationships, betraying our feelings, trying to fix ourselves (plus getting demonized if said relationship doesn’t work out)

- feeling alienated as though we don’t really belong into this world

- if someone like us comes out to media, they are ridiculed and humiliated

- suicidal thoughts, mental illnesses, mental scars, lifelong lovesickness resulting from all the points above

I hope I could provide you with an insight. It’d be nice for our existence to at least be acknowledged instead of trampled on. Please feel free to ask if you have any other questions! What to do with this information is up to you to decide. (But come on, do you really think I’d waste hours on writing this post if I wasn’t serious?)

Thank you for reading!

[datotherd00d]

Let's talk about S7 (Spoilers duh)

I've seen a lot of people bash and hate the creators for "queer baiting" the Voltron fandom. Trust me, I'm with you on being upset, but not to the point of wanting to use profanity.

I talked with my friends who are also fans of the show and they agree that the rep was not enough. Well hear me out before you go or continue bashing. When I saw that there wasn't really much of and introduction and they had brushed Adam off so easily a red flag went off in my head because of all the seasons they would not do this. So I dug a little deeper.

The hype of the fandom getting the LGBT rep was amazing and we were told that we would get it this season, but it was quite the opposite. I knew that something was wrong especially if creators were to hype something so big. Thus I found an article (I'll link it at the end if you want to read it). In the article I found this.

So far none of the voice actors know why Adam's and Shiro's interactions were so vauge after a major hype. And I honestly don't think Lauren or Joaquin planned such a sad interaction. Not only that, but it was said that Shiro and Adam weren't even supposed to be a thing, rather just roommates, but Bex brought up the idea of them being together. Then again, it's just a rumor.

There are a few reasons I'm thinking as to why Shiro and Adam didn't get their scene.

The first one I instantly thought of was that DreamWorks just wasn't ready to give out LGBT content. DreamWorks is a big company and creates shows and movies for kids who have parents that could be against the LGBT community. Obviously as a big company you don't want to loose your viewers, so DreamWorks could have told the Producers of Voltron to change it last minute.

My second guess is that they're waiting to give major LGBT rep in S8. I'm theorizing that Adam isn't dead and was found after his plane was hit and he crashed. The show didn't say anything about finding a body or even getting the remains of the plane. With s8 coming up and it being the last season, I can't help but think that we might get the rep in s8. If you recall, these are the same people that worked on Legend of Korra (who is cannonly bisexual) and dated Asami. Yet that was revealed at the end of the series finale, so I'm thinking they might do that here.

Now, don't get me wrong, I still love this show with or without the LGBT rep. It's a show guys, and this isn't the only show that has said LGBT rep. If that's what fans are only here for then I honestly think they should just stop watching the show and go watch a show like Steven Universe or Modern Family.

So yeah. Thanks for reading my rant, and I might post some theories about s8.

(Here's the link to the article)

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.inverse.com/amp/article/47990-voltron-legendary-defender-season-7-netflix-shiro-almost-was-not-gay