#they dedicated an entire episode to her

[scarlct-vvitch]

christina yang the character that you are

[idolomantises]

Rewatching Adventure Time, I can't help but think so much Princess Bubblegum discourse would be non-existent if people actually watched the show to completion instead of randomly hyperfocusing on some of PB's bad deeds.

There's a very bizarre and commonly held belief that Princess Bubblegum did terrible things and got away with it, that nobody held her accountable. When the show makes a point, repeatedly, that Princess Bubblegum is well meaning but deeply flawed, and to some characters, straight up evil.

I see fans point to "The Cooler" a lot as proof that PB is an irredeemable character, and while it is her worst act in the entire show.... I think people forgot that that was the point. Near the end of the episode she stops spying on people in Ooo because it was an invasion of privacy. In another episode she's called out for exploiting some aliens and lets them go. She feels ashamed that her own people are terrified of her. She loses her entire kingdom, and realizes she needs to get her shit together.

I'm pretty critical of shows that are way too lenient on flawed female characters but Princess Bubblegum isn't one of them. She's awesome, and heavily misunderstood.

[sparrowlucero]

Even if a creator is a bad person it's still okay to like their work. People need to mind their own business.

Honestly it's not really that sort of situation. I'll actively defend Steven Moffat here.

There was a huge hate movement for him back in the early 2010s - which, in retrospect, formed largely because he was running 2 of the superwholock shows at once, one of which went through extremely long hiatuses* and the other of which was functionally an adaptation of an already well regarded show**, making him subject to a sort of double ire in the eyes of a lot of fandom people. Notably, his co-showrunner, Mark Gatiss, is rarely mentioned and much of his work is still attributed to Moffat (and yes, this includes that Hbomberguy video. Several of "Steven Moffat's bad writing choices" were not actually written by him, they were Gatiss.)

People caricatured the dude into a sort of malicious, arrogant figure who hated women and was deliberately mismanaging these shows to spite fans, to the point where people who never watched them believe this via cultural osmosis. It became very common to take quotes from him out of context to make them look bad***, to cite him as an example of a showrunner who hated his fans, someone who sabotaged his own work just to get at said fans, someone who was too arrogant to take criticism, despite all of this being basically a collective "headcanon" about the guy formed on tumblr. Some if it got especially terrible, like lying about sexual assault (I don't mean people accused him of sexual assault and I think they're making it up, I mean people would say things like "many of his actresses have accused him of sexual assault on set" when no such accusations exist in the first place. This gets passed around en masse and is, in my opinion, absolutely rancid.)

On top of that a ton of the criticism directed at the shows themselves is, personally, just terrible media criticism. So much of it came from assuming a very hostile intent from the writer and just refusing to engage with the text at all past that.

Like some really common threads you see with critique of this writer's work, especially in regards to Doctor Who since that's the one I'm most familiar with:

A general belief that his lead characters were meant to be ever perfect self inserts, and so therefore when they act shitty or arrogant or flawed in any way, that's both reflective of the author and something the show wants you to view as positive or aspirational.

An overarching thesis that his characters are "too important" in the narrative due to the writer's arrogance and self obsession (even though this is a very deliberate theme that's stated several times)

A lot of focus on the writer personally "attacking" the fans or making choices primarily out of spite.

A tendency to treat the show being different to what it's adapting as inherently bad and hostile towards the original.

Just generally very little consideration and engagement with the themes, intent, etc. of the shows

This one's a little more nebulous and doesn't apply to all critique but a lot of it, especially recently, is clearly by people who haven't seen the show in like 10 years and their opinion is largely formed secondhand through like, "discourse nostalgia". Which. you know. bad.

I think these are just weird and nonsensical ways to engage with a work of fiction. I also think it's really sad to see the show boiled down to this because that era of who is, in my opinion, very thematically rich and unique among similar shows, and I'm disappointed that it's often dismissed in such a paltry way.

This isn't to say people aren't allowed to critique Steven Moffat or anything, but the context in which he basically became The Devil™ to a large portion of fandom and is still remembered in a poor light is very tied to this perfect storm of fan culture and I just don't agree with a ton of it.

* I'm sure most people have seen the way long running shows and hiatuses will cause people to fall out with a show, with some former fans turning around and joining a sort of "anti fandom" for it while it's still airing. That happened with both these shows. ** Doctor Who will change it's entire writing staff, crew, and cast every few years, and with that comes a change in style, tone, theme - the old show basically ends and is replaced by a new show under the same title. As Steven Moffat's era was the first of these handovers for the majority of audiences, you can imagine this wasn't a well loved move for many fans. *** I know for a fact most people have not sought out the sources for a lot of these quotes to check that they read the same in context because 1) most of them were deleted years ago and are very difficult to find now and 2) many of them do actually make sense in the context of their respective interviews

[lightdancer1]

This is also a factor in Taffy or Mehane fics:

The Tara they write in them has literally nothing of Tara's actual background or character notes, she's an in name only relationship sue which ironically is the precise flaw the canon character evolves out of and is right to evolve out of. She was not, in fact, Willow's perfect reward for magic, and Willow treating her as that to a point was where Willow went to her nadir in multiple ways as a character.

Treating her as that for whichever character she gets set up with instead, and ironing out literally all of her flaws is not 'doing Tara justice.' It's substituting a character with Amber Benson's face and literally none of those motifs. Canon Tara trusted Willow so little she spent an entire year under the influence of the cult that traumatized her keeping a vitally important secret from her about that magic she was doing.

Why would miss "Doomed to be a demon" react BETTER To the literal DEMON SLAYER? This should be a vital motif, Tara should be far more visibly and repeatedly nervous and standoffish around Faith or Buffy PRECISELY because up until Family she thinks she's the exact kind of thing Slayers exist to kill. She'd be even vaguer with them than she would be around Willow. She would have literally every single reason in the world to be. This should be a major point of where their characters grind against each other and grow as it was with Willow and Tara.

Does it even come up in 99% of these fics? Hell no.

Add to this as well that Tara literally is both more emotionally mature than ANY of the other Scoobies, not just Willow, and has her own life OUTSIDE of those narrow channels. None of them, not just Willow, would be entirely at ease with that. These are people who live in a very closed circle who are used to a life limited to that and both badass and less emotionally mature than a random rock in a gravel bed.

Tara is none of these, Tara has her own trauma background but blends that with reaching a level that none of her friends did. This would 100% cause major friction in different ways reflecting the different insecurities of Buffy and Faith, and would rival the 'you loved me but never trusted me enough to tell me you were a demon and I might have to kill you when you turned 20' for entirely normal relationship friction and the stuff stories are made of.

Omitting 99% of Tara's actual motifs and story arcs does not mean you write Tara, it means you want a relationship sue to kiss the Slayers and fix their boo boos and Tara is the closest one that fits, which is true, she is the morally best character on the show. Still means if you want to write that you should actually write her, Willow if written without any of her own far more ambiguous to outright evil moments would be more like the character they think Tara is.

Willow's evils rise out of her greatest virtue, the way she loves her friends so much she renders her own personality invisible on their behalf. Tara is far more guarded of her own person and was always more aware of that than Willow was, even without the Bramble and the rest that was going to cause a big blowup between them at some point where they either get past it and much stronger or it goes to Hell permanently and not necessarily in a way solely Willow's responsibility.

There is an entirely understated and almost never used canonically valid reason for Tara to switch relationships that Willow essentially goes 'I poured out my heart to someone who never told me the truth, how can I ever trust her for anything again' and essentially 'friend zones' Tara as her 'reward' for everything in that first year and goes on to Kennedy or Faith or something like that.

An even slightly more emotionally intelligent Willow would have had serious problems with that, and even the canon version SHOULD have had major issues with what Tara did that entire first year of the relationship and some trust issues. It's debatable canon intended it but it might be its own part in why Willow listens rather less to Tara for the rest of Seasons 5 and 6 as a kind of passive-aggressive retaliation, if her actions are viewed in a purely negative light or even a more cynical one. It's a pre-existing justification for 'everything I do is right and why I don't have to listen if I elect to ignore it.'

[liselke]

i feel so insane after this episode. i had high expectations and they were ooooohhhh they were more than met. WHAT was that abouttt and the fucking kate cameo? and i fully thought she was gonna kill the pm. and. WHAT. and this was maybe the most doctor-lite episode of doctor who to ever come out

[alicentalicent]

House of the Dragon 2nd rewatch - 1x01 The Heirs of the Dragon

my thoughts while i watched the episode:

Alicent smiley and happy: me instantly bursting into tears

Rhaenyra pulling the gloves off with her teeth that’s a faguette.

Daemon’s first scene being him seated on the Iron Throne really takes the Second Son complex to the next level.

It’s kind of funny how they didn’t even try to make Daemon look older after the time jump, they just gave him the best wig they had for the first episode and hoped for the better. It kinda worked cause that's his best look in the whole show the rest is downhill.

Otto and Daemon are obsessed with each other oh my god.

Gwayne in episode 1x01 is not a redhead :( #notmygwayne

Otto as a Hand to Viserys feels quite similar to a husband. He has the final word in the council when Viserys doesn’t want to be bothered with more comments, the Grand Maester gives him detailed information about his health and how to move forward about it, he is jealous of Daemon (and Daemon of him okay he is a Targaryen, if Daemon had been born a woman he would've been Viserys' wife so...i'm not just shitposting here)

Okay but Daemon/Otto/Corlys has potential or is just me?

Hah the Throne keeps cutting Viserys you suck the gods are rejecting you or something.

Stop filming Rhaenyra enveloped in fire!!!!

Wow this shit is full of foreshadowing.

Otto and how he comforts Alicent with physical affection vs. Viserys literally not even sparing a glance to Rhaenyra...

Rhaenyra breaking the fourth wall literally gave me CHILLS.

[sandwichmustbetasty]

if someone is wondering why am i religiously posting about 90% of elves/celebrimbor scenes and posted exactly 0 times about numenor, the answer is because i don't care.

[queermania]

it’s not that i don’t think criticism of media is valid. it’s that it feels like more and more fandom has become a place for people to just shit on a piece of media and say “this was bad” with zero attempts to actually engage with the media itself. it doesn’t matter what the piece of media actually does. it doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad. all that matters is that someone somewhere didn’t get exactly what they wanted so now we all have to denounce it as garbage. where is the joy

[torchickentacos]

Posting low-effort Contestshipping memes every day until CS Day: Day 4- This counts as tangentially cs related, right?

[divorceblogger]

house md liver-isms or as some people might also say: wilson wants to donate the remaining portion of his liver to house so bad

[t4tails]

you cannot convince me that wally and artemis are in a 5 year long loving relationship. im sorry, i know i have talked about them being my fave pairing in this show, but i liked it when these bitches were toxic and messy

[grave-bride]

*entire episode about Lagoona trying to impress a boy*

me, desparately grabbing at straws: "Wow this ghoul sure has a suspicious amount of interest in vampire scare-itage to know this many famous vampires"

[shima-draws]

I finished watching RTTE and I am. Emotional

[hauntedfalcon]

wow this week sure has been a great reminder that I am only ever, like, a handful of bad sensory experiences away from complete mental collapse

[clovariia]

"baby steps"

💘 craig tucker x tweek tweak (creek) 💘 2.3k words 💘 i have an EXTREMELY specific vision for how their first kiss happens, so i had to write a fic about it

🔗 https://archiveofourown.org/works/47738821

[irregodless]

can anyone justify the second to last episode of carol and the end of the world to me

i was trying to analyze it for importance but i was genuinely so bored i couldnt pay attention