#this is why i don't write for a bunch of characters

[sabrondabrainrot]

I miss Kat's writing I really liked her writing style and just the overall vibes she brings and that her characters bring.

I do notice Davis characters are the one behind the different really bad attitude about misogyny. I'm not sure if that's actually Davis or just the fact the characters are toxic. It's like just because he writes and acts a murderer doesn't make him one. It's always hard to separate actors from their roles especially in the case of Reed and Davis because they, from what I understand is, write a lot for the characters they play and a lot is ad-libbing.

It's like does Davis say this stuff because he secretly actually thinks all this or is it more like he's just saying this because he thinks the characters he portrays would? Is it what he thinks everyone expects from them?

I mean over by Reed's side he's literally made a whole post just to say HE IS NOT MOON and sometimes I forget that. What Moon does isn't what he does etc.

I completely disapprove of making fun of the fans, at the end of the day the fans are why they make money. It's similar to Chapel Roan making fun of her fans and complaining how she's so tired about being famous and being asked for photos when it's the same ppl that ask for those photos that pay for her big mansion.

I can't at all say what the VAs day to day is but they live and breathe this job and work very hard at it. I respect them a lot because It's my understanding that content creator jobs are basically 24/7. It's at what point do they get to take a break and be themselves and not this big brand that's under immense scrutiny.

I can't really say much on the lgbtqa+ ep because I'm not really in the community much and actually know next to nothing about the flags and stuff (I just learned and alloromantic this pride lol).

I didn't get a vibe like they were making fun of pride and they aren't exactly an education channel so they're bound to get some stuff wrong and if that's the case then I think it's better to either be researched about such a sensitive topic or just not teach about something you don't fully understand.

To me, it would feel far more in Canon for the gender fluid animatronic to know more about flags so having done that research would have just made for a better character acted segment. Or even have Earth be included in the ep because she's still a part of the world and family and maybe she can be used to teach the other shamrocks since I feel like Earth would also canonly know more about pride and the community

I completely erased the twink jokes from my brain because like... They to me don't even use that term right like come on...solar isn't a Twink.... He's a dilf- jkjk unless?

I think a lot of the major issues can be solved if they were allowed a break from acting or writing or both. I think they might want to explore hiring anonymous outside writers that way no one can be personally attacked like how they might be for decisions fans don't like. I think they're maybe getting some resentment towards fans because well they probably get scrutiny 24/7 over stuff that maybe doesn't need to be critiqued.

They're not just actors, but writers and artists and often times I can't help but wonder where the lines between character and their own egos are drawn.

Because while Reed isn't Moon and Davis isn't Sun and Kat isn't Earth they've all been playing these characters and writing for them so long they all must have pieces of themselves in these characters.

So of course they'd be annoyed or hurt by critique because like that's their hard work constantly under a microscope.

So while I do get disappointed by their problematic moments I don't think it's them

Sorry for rambles lol I think I just went in a bunch of nonsense circles

Still not caught up on any of the shows aaaggh

I'm still kind of just thinking on the podcast humor. I sometimes wonder if the VAs of the show forget where the lines of satire and parody stop and turn into just being the thing they're making fun of?

I know all the VAs are extremely over worked and churn out content at an insane rate. It's their job and I hope they're paid well! It's just.. Is a job too. And with that I kind of hope to see more professionalism?

The podcast, from my understanding, is a more free form ad libbed segment to be a bit out of character and just add more lore and let the VAs relax and not have to follow a script, but it's because of that unscripted nature I feel like things that should not be said end up in the podcasts?

The Nexus fan bashing aside...I just think sometimes the humor leans into being extremely mean to marginalized groups???

Like in the gaming stuff, I've been listening to them at work! I've noticed things like there's just more insults hurled at the female gamers in the crossovers? I still can't get over how Clipsy popped into EAPs (yes I'm still a month behind in EAPs) and Eclipse immediately called her the C**t and B***h. Even referred to femme world as the bimbo dimension.

So the thing is Eclipse is a grown character and he's rather mean, real rough character, but then we saw in the same episode Charlie blew up because she was stressed and didn't like seeing a possible new friend be demeaned. Etc etc I didn't like it

But I've noticed other characters are doing that now too in the others shows. In the femme show, there was an episode where a character's entire purpose was to just sexually harass the animatronics and then one of the new main characters just screamed at them to leave over and over again. It's just not clever? It depicts this bad behavior but there's no real purpose to it. It actually kind of teaches it's ok to be like that because at least it's funny?

It's like.. Is misogyny actually that funny?? Does it genuinely get more views? It's sexually harassing a female character on screen really that worth it?

I feel like a lot of the things they do are for the sake of the bit. The writers of these channels funny bones have always been too mean spirited for my tastes.

I sometimes worry about how kids are. They hear something to them that sounds or seems funny and imitate it. Even if the show is ultimately kind of not really saying it's wrong I can absolutely see kids emulating this behavior. It's why most kids content IS heavily sanitized.

Do I think they made the Nexus fans are sick joke because there genuinely meant it? No. I think they left it in because it seems funny and it will stir the pot or something like that. It's the same with insulting Sun fans. It's like, Sun is a great character of course he has fans (ME I'm that fan) do they stop to think of the type of character Sun is?

He's an underdog. The sort of morally right character. He's the most rootable character in the show next to like Solar and Terra. Of course he's got fans.

He's someone we want to see win.

But he's also kind, gentle, sensitive, a pushover, anxious, and many other vulnerable things so yeah a lot of the humor is about how Sun is gay, he's a femboy, let's just make him uncomfortable.

Sun only bullied Moon over one thing, jokingly calling him bald and it became like every characters mission to take an actually innocent gag and turn it around on Sun.

It's like, they really try so hard to funny and say inflammatory stuff because it's ironic funny to be kind of mean that means the kids will relate kind of mind set.

Which is exactly what's happening. A bunch of very impressionably young minded individuals are looking at these shows and other ones on YouTube or whatever and with their developing minds and social skills see these bad behaviors and don't understand it's meant to be a really bad joke. So yeah I'm worried there's going to be a lot of harassment. The VAs said Nexus fans are cringe so I'm going to prove how cringe they are by genuinely being a terrible human being because it's funny!

I also can't get over the current setting in Tsams... Sun, Moon, Solar, and Monty are all complacent in how they treat their animatronics. Casually threatening to weld someone's mouth shut, even if they're saying terrible stuff, is not funny. Threats of dismantling aren't funny. Looking at being just as sentient as yourself and saying they're ugly and you want to turn them off forever isn't funny.

I saw someone point out it's like slavery and yeah .. They own these sentient beings and expect them to just work for them and don't treat them with any common decency. There's no pay. Even fazbear canonly paid Sun and Moon. They even put Lunar and Terra on their payroll...

Sun, Moon, and especially Monty all know exactly how it feels to be in the shoes of these animatronics. I'm just chalking this up to learned behavior. This is how their bosses treated them... But still. A little disappointing. Aren't they supposed to be role models?

Like...I just expect better from the writing and VAs. The unscripted stuff really needs some form of filtering. Because they place a lot of trust in the fandom to not go and make a mountain out of a molehill.

I still grieve at the loss of Kat's writing. 😔

And before someone goes "it's a kids show it's not that deep"

the tsbs continuity as a whole has subjects that should not be lightly presented to kids. We have peer pressure, alcohol drinking, sexual content, sexism, misogyny, accurate depictions of minorities being marginalized, literal racism, stalking, hate crimes, depictions of domestic violence, sexual violence, crass language, PTSD, mental illness, real crimes, police violence, body horror, the loss of autonomy and agency, lobotomy, mind control, terrorism, slavery , implied r**e, murder, child murder, mass murder, mass genocide, crimes against humanity, and like... More things I'm probably forgetting.

So yeah....I wish they'd just filter stuff better...

[maxdibert]

One thing that I really don't get about Jily is that, while JKR wants us to believe that they are perfect soulmates, she seems to make an effort to make them unlikable.

Like, we used to think Harry's parents were heroes, but then it turns out that James was an asshole who bullied Lily's friend because he was jealous and tried to blackmail her into dating him.

So we ask: "okay, but after that, he became a better person right?", to which JKR answers: "weeeell, not completely, he still attacked Snape behind Lily's back". So we ask once again: "okay, but after they got married, he was a good husband right?", to which JKR answers: "weeeell, yes, they loved each other, but James left Lily alone in the house to hang out with Sirius, even though they were in danger".

I just... don't get why it had to be like that. Why did the author make the deliberate choice to make this relationship look so bad? It would have been so easy for her to be like: "Yes, after they got together, James made conscious effort to be a better person, and that's why they are perfect for each other". But no. She chose to write him like this. It's not even that she was too lazy to develop James' "redemption arc", or show us that they are a good couple. It seems like she made a point to show us the exact opposite!

BECAUSE JILY IS A SELF-INSERT OF HER AND HER EX-HUSBAND!

Something Jily stans conveniently ignore —or straight-up don’t know, because we all know Marauders fans barely have two brain cells to rub together— is that Rowling made Lily one of her many self-inserts in the saga, and James was based on Jorge Arantes, her ex-husband. Yes, that ex-husband: the abusive piece of shit she ended up divorcing and fleeing from.

My personal opinion? I genuinely believe that when she first conceived the characters, she was still in that relationship, probably idealizing her ex or constantly justifying his actions, stuck in that denial phase. As the years went on and more books came out, she was already divorced and had realized her ex was actual trash. That lines up perfectly with the fact that in the early books, James is ridiculously idealized, but by Book 5 that image completely crumbles.

To me, it seems like in Order of the Phoenix, she finally decided to let go of the original narrative and take her little revenge, or at least felt compelled to make the character based on her abusive ex into an abuser too. But the thing is, she had already firmly established Harry’s parents as some sort of untouchable heroes, which isn’t something she could just undo. So a bunch of contradictions and inconsistencies start piling up, which end up portraying him as a total asshole and her as a massive hypocrite.

But hey, that’s just my humble opinion.

[creativecuteness]

Hope you don't mind me putting my own two cents here as A an outsider who wasn't in the fandom and honestly too young to even be apart of it and B has super limited knowledge of the fandom culture and stories, but I want to yap anyway.

I think most people were saltier about the Creepypasta wiki becoming an OC dumping ground more than anything else, we need to remember before Jeff the Killer (Though I'm sure he wasn't the only one.) There was some level of quality control to the stories themselves like Candle Cove, Ted the Caver and I guess the Russian Sleep experiment could count but I'm not 100% certain. But what I'm getting at here is that those were scary they were (Albeit somewhat.) Grounded in reality Candle Cove and Ted the Caver worked they knew story structure and how to trick the audience in an era where the internet was super young. Heck even Lavender Town Syndrome spooked a lot of people despite its flaws but by the time Slenderman, Jeff the Killer, Ben Drowned ect came out that seemed to have brought the community into a new era and it seems a lot didn't like the fact minors were beginning to flood the community with their cringy poorly written stories (I say poorly written with love I swear I'm not saying this to be mean.)

Also, another issue I've noticed that even I admit is a minor pet peeve when it comes to any story really this community isn't the only one that does this. Is the fact the authors of their characters began to stack a bunch of mental illness onto their pasta's because it makes them cool, edgy, and as justification for why they became murderers without any research or knowledge when adding them. Examples being Homicidal Liu who is implied to have DID (Which I didn't even know Sully was a thing before the morgue files honestly.) Ticci Toby which from what I've found Tourette's is more than just a stuttering issue, but I'm not a medical expert so don't @ me. I can actually excuse Clockwork a little since she's a trauma/vent OC, but I guess the point lowkey still stands with her. However, I can excuse this to a degree mostly because A most of these examples have been poorly portrayed in media long before the Creepypasta community was established so I can't blame the authors for this and B they were kids of course they wouldn't know they were utilizing harmful portrayals of mental illness which for the record is never an excuse to justifies anyone's insanity it's an explanation yes, it's a contributing factor, but never an excuse.

Other things I noticed that people took issue with was mischaracterization, (Mostly by fans.) shipping, plagiarism, (I don't think I need to explain which stories were.) and over all I guess it boils down to the lack of quality control and the number of minors who began to flood the genre and how oversaturated these stories became. In the end I guess the super old school fans became fed up and blamed Jeff the Killer for it instead of I don't know making a second fandom wiki for the minors to go buck wild with their horror phase and let the main wiki get a deep cleanse and try to create stricter guidelines for quality like the SCP wiki does.

Yes, YouTube didn't help per se, but I don't think they were the true key players that lead to the early fandom's downfall, Is Creepypasta's good yes and no are they the worst online trend heck to the no far from it I can think of like five other trends that were way more harmful than cringy internet stories created by a newbie writer.

Which for the record that's what a lot of stories were written by new writers who haven't grasped the horror genre yet (And trust me not an easy genre to master.)

So yes, I believe there are some creepypasta's that needed to be grounded a bit more realistically and have more thought put into when writing sensitive subject matters. David did a good job with his versions of Toby and Liu (Infact I want to do a deep dive into Liu's DID because while there were some blunders here and there it's the most accurate portrayal of the condition I've come across, as someone who recently looked into it. Not a system by the way I just wanted to make sure Liu and Sully was done right.)

The fanfiction community and the animation mem communities had this issue too, if your story or animation wasn't good, you'd mocked for it and in worst cases be in a cringe comp. Those parts of the internet were pretty judgmental during their heyday. I actually like that there's people who are trying to give these characters a fresh coat of paint because most really do need it. Sure, we shouldn't forget the impact the originals did because again some were good stories or had potential and others were try Hards but guess what we've all been there one point, or another haven't we?

TLDR YouTube wasn't the straw that broke the camels back there were a lot of other people who took issue with creepypasta's becoming an OC dumping ground.

Also, I think Nina as a concept works better than most give credit for.

@deathrockbaby funnily enough, me and one of my mutuals have actually have had a conversation about this. And since it’s been brought up, I wanna talk about it.

YouTubers in the creepypasta fandom ruined a lot for people. And I know that’s a mean thing to say, and it was unintentional, but that’s what happened.

As much as I love David Near and MBK, they unintentionally aided in turning this fandom into a gatekeepy warzone with their more “realistic” opinions and their negative opinions on the fanbase, who need I remind you were and still are mostly filled with MINORS.

It’s fine if you want to turn creepypasta into something more horrifying and realistic, that’s not a problem! The problem is when you essentially do it with a “my way or the highway” attitude. Not to mention hypocrisy.

Like, I love MBK, but hearing him complain about “edgy boy Jeff” when Keaton is a misogynistic corpse with daddy issues that monologues about how bad his life was and uses it as an excuse to kill people/the outdated homophobic jokes and slurs that were used in the audio dramas/the consistent misuse of SA is just… pot meet kettle lmao.

(FYI THIS WAS ALL A LONG TIME AGO. MBK has distanced himself from the creepypasta fandom so DONT use this as an excuse to attack him please and thank you.)

But yeah, a “standard” was unintentionally set. And shit like this happens in the fandom because of it.

Thank you for my Ted talk, that’s all I gotta say lol.

[celtrist]

Why does Vassago already have merch, we haven't even met him yet

[amelikos]

Not sure what to think about the preview for HZ102.

Any thoughts about that one Pokemon from HZ057 (Carbou) making a return?

[sysig]

Coding woes (Patreon)

[doux-amer]

Omg that feeling of validation when you read reactions and reviews to a book you finished where you thought one of the POV characters was so energy-sappingly boring and you thought the minor male characters were one of the most interesting parts of the book...despite the book being about women and a lot of other people feel the same way.

[brekitten]

Guilt

Sometimes, Peter feels guilty.

He knows he shouldn't, because the skipped lab days with Tony and missed dinners with May, and all the little lies and excuses he's told them to ease their worries, are really for the greater good - a fact he has been told time and time again by his superiors. But no matter how much he tells himself this, he can't stop feeling guilty about all of it.

As he bids May a hasty goodbye, throwing his backpack over his shoulder, that same guilt threatens to crush him once again. He almost wants to stay, to have dinner with his aunt like he had promised he would. But he can't.

He hopes he doesn't have a mission tomorrow night, so he can make it up to her.

He steps into the alley outside his apartment, where two men are waiting for him. They hand him a folder, he skims over the information, and he hands it back. They leave without another word.

He quickly climbs onto the roof and changes into the clothes he brought with him. The mask - the final piece of his uniform - slides over his mouth, and he finds the familiarity comforting. Unlike his Spider-Man mask, which always seems so suffocating, it covers just enough of his face to keep him anonymous. He prefers this mask, and wishes he could use it instead. But he can't, because it isn't Spider-Man's.

The mission is quick, far quicker than most. The file had included the likely locations of the target, and Peter finds the man right away. The target is in an unprotected building. All it takes is one shot from Peter's gun, and the man is dead. No one sees him leave the rooftop he took the shot from, and he makes it home without incident.

He changes back into his civilian clothing, tucking his uniform and weapons back into his bag, and goes into the apartment. May is waiting for him, and he rattles off some story of what he had done, the lies falling easily from his tongue. He tells her nothing of his mission.

He does have dinner with her that night, even though it's late. He has dinner with her the next night, too. He still doesn't feel like it quite makes up for his repeated absences, especially with how strained May's smile always looks.

He tries not to feel guilty about all of the lies and excuses he tells her. It's for the greater good, after all. Everyone he kills in Hydra's name deserves it, and their absence from this world makes the lives of everyone else better. But he knows May won't see it that way; not many people do.

Maybe someday, he can tell her the truth. But for now, he lies.

And despite knowing that what he's doing is what's best for her and everyone he cares about, he feels guilty about it all.

[putrefacion]

MOST OF HEAVEN’S DENIZENS [ CREATED OR OTHERWISE, INCLUDING THOSE SERVING IN STANDARD MILITARY DIVISIONS ] POSSESS ROUNDED PUPILS,

EXORCISTS EYES, HOWEVER, ARE DISTINCTLY DIFFERENT IN BOTH FORM & FUNCTION. THEIR EYES WERE MEANT TO SEE BETTER IN THE DARK — NOT ONLY IN THE LITERAL SENSE, BUT MORAL DARKNESS TOO; THEY ADJUST WITH UNCANNY SPEED, CONTRACT SHARPLY IN THE PRESENCE OF FEAR, LIES & HESITATION. THEY REACT BEFORE THE MIND CAN, AS IF DRIVEN BY INSTINCT, A TRAIT IS CONSIDERED USEFUL FOR THESE SOLDIERS; BUT EVEN AMONG THE HIGH-RANKED ANGELS, IT’S ALSO SEEN AS MONSTROUS, PREDATORY, UNNATURAL; MIRRORING THE THINGS THEY WERE CREATED TO DESTROY A LITTLE TOO CLOSELY,

LUTE’S EYES, SPECIFICALLY, ARE SHARPER STILL; A BYPRODUCT OF NOT ONLY BEING THE PROTOTYPE / BLUEPRINT FOR THE REST, BUT FROM THE SIN SHE ‘COMMITTED’ IN HER SIMULATION. SHE DIDN’T JUST WITNESS DARKNESS… SHE BELIEVED IN IT, EVEN IF ONLY FOR A MOMENT; GAVE IN TO THE TEMPTATION. LUTE KNOWS WHAT SIN IS,

[miabrown007]

why does a fic have to have "plot", is it not enough to [insert blorbos]

[kiseiakhun]

You know, as someone who is a sex worker I understand why people get up in arms about how "sex work aus are bad" and it promotes bad stereotypes or whatever

But I gotta say, those aus where one half of your otp is a down on their luck prostitute and gets Saved by someone who Rescues Them From Their Awful Life is like crack to me.

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

nah but like

they're "seiros lapdogs" because they're fighting back against the people who attacked them completely unprovoked??? also because it so happens that thales is at garreg mach so they have to go there to reclaim the area to defeat him???

i just hate this because it's just perpetuating things about faerghus and its people that just aren't true. it frames it like they jumped into the war willingly for the church and that they're only here for the church. like nah buddy, it's not faerghus' fault you're out here fighting to protect thales and ludwig.

it also is batshit to me how he and leopold are fighting to stop faerghus from advancing but like... they know what's happening to the empire and that edelgard isn't even calling the shots anymore, yet they still stupidly fight for the very person who is literally razing their country and burning their villages. they know the empire is in shambles and that the kingdom isn't targeting them and is specifically aiming for gm to get it back from who? thales; who, mind, at this point is in his real form and not posing as arundel anymore. everything is laid out plainly, but they still act like faerghus is the bad guy.

but yeah, okay. faerghus BaD for defending themselves, fighting back, finding out who is behind all the puppeteering and heading to take him out. sure, that makes them seiros lapdogs. like what are you, an agarthan mouthpiece??? may as well be like yeah you go retreat and leave you agarthan lapdog. if they don't realize it's Someone Else in charge of course, then ludwig lapdog works fine too.

and it sucks because other than this shit, i like waldemar just fine as a character. it's just like, it feels like they forced someone to have to stick in that final faerghus BaD insult before the grand finale so they just randomly picked someone to remind us that faerghus is Always Wrong as long as they continue to fight back and prevent being attacked in the future.

waldemar here is just basically ag caspar. fighting and risking his life for thales, who is destroying the empire and basically holding the emperor hostage. if the writing here had any decent plot points, they would've all stopped and have been like hey wait, shouldn't we be fighting to get our emperor back? why are we stopping these guys from killing the people who are destroying this country?

and like, they literally went from siding with ludwig during the insurrection to siding with edelgard in this timeline to... jumping immediately back to ludwig as soon as he was at the top of the food chain (thales notwithstanding). as soon as the person in charge changes, they jump ship immediately; then of course get mad that the people they attacked are coming after them... and fighting them as they defend the very people who are letting adrestia become a literal, physical ruin.

it really just tells me that these people don't care about adrestia itself, but status, power and wealth. they don't care about the country itself as long as they're doing well. that's like, the only thing i can get from still fighting with/for ludwig/thales. the fact that they just fight for ludwig again as soon as edelgard is out of commission is also pretty gross to me. they have no loyalty at all.

and it's like, i want to like waldermar and leopold, but they come across as just selfish, entitled and only there for their own asses to be covered. and i get that - that is a realistic take on politicians, but the fact that the game regularly loops back around to faerghus BaD despite that and despite portraying these people as opportunistically selfish is like... what are they even trying to write??

[rosie-tyler]

.

[threewaysdivided]

Hey ! i'm a longtime follower of your blog and I've read a lot of your YJ analysis and why the latter seasons totally flopped. I haven't seen you comment on Young Justice Phantoms, although I guess your opinion remains the same. However I'd love to read it one day.

PS : I do think Greg Weisman is a decent writer, but not that good at characterization and desperatly needs editors and not enablers *sigh*

Hey nonnie!

Glad you’ve found my YJ writing critiques interesting. 

The reason why I haven’t commented on Young Justice: Phantoms (or the final Targets comic) is that I haven’t watched it, haven’t read a synopsis and have no plans to ever do so.  My interest in the series went pretty cold as far back as Invasion but at the time I was willing to give the showrunners good faith on their claims that they had a plan to bring things together and that the problems were mostly production issues.  However, after how bad Outsiders was (and having seen similar awfulness from Greg Weisman in other franchises) I don’t have any good faith or trust left to give them.

I talked at length about how Outsiders left the show with no compelling narrative as part of this big Invasion breakdown (grumpier TL:DR version here), but here are the most relevant sections:

In terms of the Central Conflict, the Light are proved utterly correct: by Outsiders the Original Team are callous, hollow husks of their former selves, who have replicated a worse version of the same status quo the Team originally formed in response to. Dick, Kaldur and M’gann’s Anti-Light are a new upper echelon of older heroes who keep even more secrets from the next generations, who exclude the new generations far more strongly from knowing their plans, who give them even less reason to trust or communicate with them, and who do so for less just, less honest and less narratively justified reasons than their own mentors’ understandable (if condescending) desire to shield the proteges from the parts of the Life they may not yet have been equipped to face. Not only that but their constant lying with the intent to control others, and refusal to hold themselves accountable for those actions goes directly against both the League’s stated heroic ideals of “Truth, Liberty and Justice” and Red Tornado’s conclusion that caring is “the human thing to do”. By the end of Outsiders, even the existence of the Team itself is undone; decommissioned into the exact kind of safe training space that the Season 1 characters were desperate for it never to be. […] With Outsiders, any actual narrative set by Young Justice Season 1 is over. By their own standards the Team have lost, and lost entirely.

The meta-narrative of Young Justice Animated is that of a show that started with a promising initial season and strong sense of narrative identity, only to discard every part of that identity.  With Invasion the show discarded its original characterisations, themes and ideologies; replacing them with contradictory and often antithetical ones.  Outsiders would then shed even the surface trappings of its aesthetic (in favour of the more generic “modern DC” art-style) and mission-based narrative structure.  There is nothing left, save for some superficial proper nouns and call-back references: the textbook definition of an In Name Only Sequel.

I didn’t bother with Phantoms (and am frankly a little artistically insulted by its existence) because I knew it was doomed from the start to be a narrative stillbirth.  Having actively abandoned its original identity, Young Justice was left desperately scrambling to forge a new one, by clawing at the one thing it had left: people’s nostalgic attachment to the Season 1 iterations of the cast.  But this could never work because every season since has been engaged in a performative pretense of not acknowledging the character-breaking contradictions and hypocrisies forced upon the original cast by the poor writing decisions.  Phantoms would have to thread an impossible needle: wanting to be about the “journey” of the original cast for nostalgia reasons, while not being able to acknowledge that the last two seasons (and attaché comics) have resulted in all of them either actively failing or being tragically soft-locked out of their explicit character arcs without breaking that kayfabe of performative ignorance.  And, in trying to tell a story without engaging with that story's content or how broken it had become, what would they have left but to fall back yet again on canonical filler, sidequests and references held loosely together by contrivance? 

It could only ever be a zombie-fic of itself: having long-since concluded or abandoned any remaining character or plot threads, driven forward solely by the stream-of-consciousness compulsive-writing of a production team desperate to remain present, relevant and profitable.  And from the feedback I’ve heard from the general community and fandom friends who kept watching, it seems like Phantoms did indeed pull down the curtain on that empty, directionless, hollow-automaton-filled narrative for a lot of people.

As for Greg Weisman himself, while I agree that he is a particularly poor character-writer, I will respectfully but firmly disagree that he’s otherwise decent.  I think the fact that we have to caveat “he’s a decent writer” with the condition “so long as he’s surrounded by a team of strong editors and directors to keep him from being awful” kind of reveals that he isn’t.   I also don’t really accept the premise that the main fault lies with the people around him for not stopping that.  They certainly haven’t helped but he’s a grown adult who can make his own decisions. Enablers don’t generally induce behaviours; they simply amplify or become complicit in the behaviours that are already there.

In the video Plagiarism and You(tube), Hbomberguy did a great job of laying out the difference between “honest mistakes” – which can be easily cleared up by good-faith apologies and explanations – and “dishonest behaviour” – where the person(s) is aware that what they are doing is not appropriate and falls back on reputation-protecting deflections and “non-apologies” to avoid consequences when caught.  Weisman would not so-frequently disrespect his colleagues’ work with contradictions, or write patterns of misogyny, queerphobia, casual racism/ableism and abuse apologism into his stories if he did not fundamentally feel entitled to do so, was not comfortable and in agreement with those beliefs, or did not think he could get away with it.  And the way he has routinely responded to even gentle, good-faith comments by fans expressing frustration/confusion with inconsistent characterisation/structure indicates someone who knows he has done the wrong thing but resents being questioned or held accountable.  And then we see him continuing the same behaviours.  A “decent writer” should not need an editor to hold their hand and explain why directly contracting explicitly-stated characterisation is bad practice.  A “good ally” should not need someone to tell them that disproportionately subjecting queer/non-white characters to shock-value violence, writing minority characters to be dirty/dangerous/less valid in their identities, erasing/demonising/misgendering AFAB trans and bisexual identities, rewriting strong female characters to need motherhood or men to “tell them who they are”, writing gay men to be secretly misogynistic/racist, and framing victims as being equally responsible for their abuse is offensive.  All of which he has either directly done or tacitly allowed under his lead.  Multiple times.  Across multiple series.

These are not isolated incidents of “good-faith mistakes” from a newcomer learning the ropes (if they were, it wouldn’t bother me like this).  Weisman has had multiple seasons - multiple franchises even - and decades to show himself to be the kind of sincere ally and visionary artist of integrity that myself and his fans wanted him to be… and that he has so benefited from presenting himself as.  He has chosen not to. Say what you want about their stories, but you can’t claim that marginalised creators like ND Stevenson, Rebecca Sugar, Dana Terrace and allies like Neil Gaiman didn’t push back hard against their own publishers and make a lot of careful compromises in order to tell those stories in a way they felt was respectful. Weisman is in a very privileged position, with a resume that carries a decent amount of clout. He could have held himself to the creative standards he publicly expresses; could have worked improve his craft, could have examined his own biases and actually learned from the communities his stories speak about/over.  But he didn’t – because obviously it's easier and more comfortable to keep being lazy, keep relying on his colleagues to carry him, to not question his own biases/privileges and then lie when caught.  And with the money he makes, and all the second chances and new jobs he keeps getting handed, what incentive does he have to change that behaviour? 

So, personally I don’t buy his attempts to position himself as an UwU Nice Guy Ally whose haters are taking him out of context and whose nasty publishers keep forcing him to do incoherent bigotry.  He’s a grown-up, who can own his own behaviour.  And, even with a generous reading, this is at best the behaviour of a fair-weather sell-out who is willing to abandon his principles at the slightest hint of pressure from above.  That is not what respect looks like.  I wanted to give him good faith, but in light of all this, I find I can no longer trust him to keep his word or be honest about his intentions.

This is kind of the other reason why I choose not to support or engage with YJ Phantoms (or the revival in general): on top of being utterly disinterested, I just don’t want to incentivise this kind of creative behaviour with more money or attention.  I also can’t ignore what could be a pattern where Weisman makes grand promises that he likely never has a plan or intent to fulfill, then deliberately leaves holes/timeskips/inconsistencies in his narratives in order to generate ongoing demand for separate-purchase side content which promises to “fill those gaps”… but which never does because there isn’t actually a plan to facilitate that (thus creating an endless cycle of demand and profit).  To me that cuts a little too close to the potential for a privileged creator to be exploiting their clout and the good-faith belief of their fanbase in order to grift those fans out of their time and money.  I don’t find that acceptable.

So, yeah.  Not to deploy the GIF again but:

It'll be a big, fat doughnut on YJ Phantoms content from me 🍩. Sorry!

[femcharlemagne]

watched american psycho and was kinda let down tbh. the end is nice but i found it a little banal. watching fight club now and having an unexpectedly good time

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads // twitter thread

Like A Love Story

historical YA following three teens in 1989 New York amidst the AIDS crisis

a closeted Iranian boy who’s just moved to the city, a young punk activist rebelling against his conservative parents, and his best friend, an aspiring fashion designer

complicated friendships & romance, and revolution