#those showrunners hate every single character

[princess-from-another-galaxy]

Making Aegon a bad dragon rider is so fucking stupid. Not just because it ignore canon from the book, but because it ignores canon from the show itself!!!!!

In season 1 there's literally a line that goes : "you must hold mastery over your dragon as prince aegon has done with sunfyre.”

And you want to convince me that man is a bad dragonrider AND bad at speaking valyrian??

I need these showrunners fired so bad

[cloudysarts]

All right I take the bait. Why do you believe Manel should have accompanied Pacifica at the party

AHHH THANK YOU IM SO EXCITED TO EXPLAIN MYSELF (in reference to this post)

ok. northwest mansion mystery is a great episode obviously. but HERES why i think the episode would've been even better if mabel was in dippers spot!!!!!! its kinda a lot so i put it under a read more

so this episode is sort of the middle-ish of season 2 i think, right before the ford reveal!! its not a super long show anyway so theres not a ton of pacifica appearances, anyway. BUT in EVERY SINGLE OTHER PACIFICA EPISODE, her energy has been bouncing off of mabel!!! from their meeting in double dipper, to irrational treasure, to golf war; they have been established as the main dynamic here. golf war is especially important here, because this is the very first step in pacfica's redemption arc! mabel saves her in this episode, the pines give her a ride home, and it seems like pacifica is going to start being a little more understanding of mabel because she had misjudged her, hence why she was treating her so poorly. it looks like theyre gonna establish a friendship between them!

and then. they dont. they basically never interact again. because the next time we see pacifica, she goes straight to dipper in northwest manor mystery. the cold open implies that the northwests wanted dipper specifically because of his knowlege of how to deal with the supernatural but IN MY OPINION that DOESNT EVEN MAKE SENSE because we NEVER see dipper fighting these monsters on his own? hes ALWAYS with mabel. at the very least, i think it shouldve been BOTH of them??? we see a brief shot of a newspaper clipping where dipper is fighting a vampire bat or something and i just. when did this happen. where is mabel

that would be a fine argument for it being both of them instead of just mabel so heres one of my bigger points thats gonna come back a lot in this breakdown: dipper. does not like pacifica. he STRAIGHT UP HATES HER. every single interaction theyve had has been negative!!! its even massively negative at the beginning of this ep!!!! though mabel often dislikes pacifica, she TRIES REALLY HARD TO LIKE HER. mabel has a lot of love in her heart, and if she could, shed want to be her friend!!! its always been pacifica whos been rejecting those advances!!! golf war was the start of pacifica understanding that about mabel, and it nmm wouldve been the PERFECT time to wrap up that arc, rather than leaving it!!!

and i would argue that could STILL LEAD INTO A DIPCIFICA ARC, if thats what the showrunners/fans wanted? most of why dipper hates pacifica to begin with is because shes so terrible to mabel. he only agrees to go to the party in canon because MABEL wants to!!! imo, i think the lead in to them being a couple would be a million times better if that massive problem in their relationship was solved first

i dont PERSONALLY like dipcifica but im trying to stay unbiased about this if you cant tell

i would also argue that like. dipper just seems really out of character. the reason i picked some of the scenes i did for my redraws, was because they were scenes that i think his behavior would fit mabel a lot better. examples:

why do the northwests have a suit in dippers size anyway. he literally doesnt even like wearing it sjkfhkj in a potential re-write of this ep, i considered that mabel would come in wearing her super extravagent home made dress, and it would 'violate dress code', so she would be forced to wear one of pacificas we could still have that cute dress-up expo scene that we do AND have some fun commentary/symbolism about pacifica being nervous about having her in the dress because its NICE and TOO GOOD FOR HER and she looked FINE BEFORE ANYWAY

mabels empathy is a recurring theme in the show. shed WANT to give pacifica the benefit of the doubt, and would be VERY betrayed when finding out her and her family already knew about the ghosts and knew what he wanted. i understand that dipper was so upset because it seemed like pacifica was changing for the better just to find out that she wasnt, but i think this fits so much better with mabel, because shes always WANTED to believe that shes secretly a good person. she would be glad to see her turn a corner, and would be upset when finding out she was 'wrong', and that she really was mean deep down. whcih would obviously lead to her comforting her later/finding out the truth about her etc etc. on the other hand, dipper literally never believed she had good in her. from the first interaction we see of them, he thinks shes as terrible as her family. he ISNT as interested in giving her the benefit of the doubt and if it wasnt a life or death situation i dont think he wouldve forgiven her. IDK i just think its more in character for her

the dancing scene!!! honestly this works fine as is (i can see both dipper and mabel being excited to make a mess on a fancy carptet) but idk i just think it carries so much more weight if its these two girls. silly moments for mabel!!!! pacifica getting to really be a kid and not just a sparkly prop!!!!!!! pacifica finally indulging in her sillyness that she mocked in irrational treasure!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok moving on. one of the bigger things that bother me about it being dipper here instead of mabel is one teeny tiny (honestly really irrational) scene at the party. in it, dipper is confronted by fiddleford, who tells him he has big news about the author/the laptop and the towns in danger and its vitally important and dipper just. shrugs him off???!!?!?!?! i cannot even IMAGINE. in alex hirschs words "the first season is about dipper being in love with wendy, and the second is about him being in love with the author" meaning that. those are the TWO things that dipper is completely and totally obsessed with. hes clearly not over wendy (as we see in later episodes) and this is not long after sock opera/society of the blind eye so youd THINK hed be more depserate for answers than ever!??!?! this child was willing to sell out his great uncle and raise the dead and stay up for several nights in a row for answers, and the second he is offered some (from a man who WORKED WITH THE AUTHOR btw) hes like like 'whatevr'?!?!?! it is so out of character and it drives me fucking nuts every time. i know hes starting to like pacifica now but as we see in the comics (if you chose to think those are canon) HE DOESNT EVEN SEEM TO LIKE HER THAT MUCH!??!?! hes STILL convinced shes vain, and mean, and selfish!!!! he DOES start to have a little arc with her but jksdfjksf IDK i just cant in a million years see him passing up the chance for answers to the biggest mystery in gravity falls to hang out with a girl he tolerates

but yknow who i CAN see doing that? MABEL!!!!!!!! mabel would be concerned when mcgucket comes up to her, and starts talking like this!!!! i can totally see her suggesting that he relax for a little while and enjoy the party like dipper did, and then forgetting to come back to talk/not running into him later!!!! ESPECIALLY since i can see mabel WANTING to spend time with pacifica where dipper just. really doesnt seem to want to MOST of the time

ok ill admit that this last one is sort of a personal opinion. but i just. i really dont like the B plot of this episode with mabel and the girls. IDK its just so annoying and pointless to me to have a plot where its just a bunch of girls turning against each other over a guy. im not gonna say its mysoginistic bc i know little girls can be boy crazy but i just. dont see why there was a need to make them fight/turn against grenda briefly??? even when they rekindled and it was all ok in the end its just. in comparison to the A plot its so. Nothing.

in my head i have a rewrite of this episode and how it goes is that pacifica approaches dipper and asks for help and he turns it down (like he does in canon). mabel suggests that they do it anyway, but he refuses, as he wants nothing to do with her. when dippers gone, mabel agrees to help (and pacifica begrudgingly accepts bc it seems like the only option) and so she steals the journal when dippers not looking. she goes to the party, and events go pretty much the same?? only major difference i can think of is that the B plot is replaced by one where dipper realizes mabel and the journal are missing, so he sneaks into the manor/sneaks around the house trying to find he rand get it back (and its so massive he has no luck). the reason i think THAT works is because we can even still have the scene where dipper turns to wood like shifty prophesied!!!! and i would even argue it makes more sense this way because wasnt shiftys warning that "if you keep digging so deep into the secrets of gravity falls, this will be the last form youll ever take" ?

OK IM SORRY THIS WAS SO LONG im probably forgetting points too so i might edit it later but THANKS FOR ASKING

tldr: pacifica and mabels friendship plotline was left on a total cliffhanger after golf war and if mabel replaced dipper in nmm it would've been a good resolution to it

edit: check the reblogs if youre still interested! i added another list of reasons i think this (mostly in response to people disagreeing)

[the-soraya2004]

Grieving for Buck and Tommy on 9-1-1

I knew this week was going to be a dark one, because I predicted two things would happen:

Trump would get re-elected; and

Buck and Tommy would break up on 9-1-1.

Never have I wanted to be wrong so desperately on both counts, yet here we are! :( I'm leaving the first one alone for the sake of my continuing sanity; as for the second, it is deeply disappointing. And for those thinking that this frees up Buck for a relationship with Eddie, I don't think it's great news for them either!

It's hard to put into words how much I have enjoyed watching Buck and Tommy's relationship unfold. Despite the relative scarcity of their time on-screen, I found myself genuinely enthralled watching the two of them take those first tentative steps along a new relationship. They truly were beautiful together, and their love story drew me back to watching 9-1-1 regularly again. Each week, I found myself excited to discover what lay in store for them as a couple. Some that joy was tempered after stumbling across instances of, frankly, utterly hateful speech and ugly behaviour directed online at the actor who plays Tommy (Lou Ferrigno Jr). It's one of the reasons why I tend to keep my distance from fandom and unregulated, unmoderated social platforms. But, ultimately, what frustrates me about this ending is that, from my observation, it doesn't appear to fit with the narrative set up. It felt akin to one of those franchise movies where a character is abruptly killed or written off because of some behind the scenes issue, like the actor is too expensive or contract negotiations have failed. I'm not necessarily suggesting that is what has happened in this case, just that this abrupt left turn doesn't appear (to me) to fit the story that was building, so logic would dictate that there's some other driver. One could speculate ad nauseam, but ultimately that serves little purpose.

It's a shame the showrunners either weren't willing or able to proceed with the Buck/Tommy love story, but honestly I can't say I'm surprised. And objectively, I don't think it spells good news for fans who want to see Buck and Eddie get together either. My reasoning is:

If you look at the main characters, Hen, Bobby, Athena, Chimney and Maddie are all in serious long term relationships (married). Therefore, no hottie-of-the-week for them, unless the writers plan to go full on soap opera to break up these established couples

Buck and Eddie are the attractive single men, who can be available for relationships with a revolving door of characters played equally attractive actresses. This allows for fresh eye candy for the sort of viewing public that wants that sort of thing

Eddie, as a character, is more reserved and therefore less likely to jump from relationship to relationship each week. Which leaves Buck as the main engine to drive the hottie-of-the-week cycle. If Buck were to go off the market (semi) permanently like the other main characters, the engine/cycle breaks (or at the very least slows down), which means less eye candy for the viewers who tune in for that, etc. and so on.

If you suddenly had Buck and Eddie dating each other long term seriously, then the show would likely need to bring in new characters to fill the "attractive single man available for relationships with hotties" void - all of which is a different sort of behind the scenes issue for showrunners.

Overall, while the Buck/Tommy love story may be gone from our screens, it can and will (I hope) continue to thrive in Fanfic. At least there our beloved characters can go where studios are unable (for whatever reason) to tread. Sincerely, I wish Lou Ferrigno Jr every success in whatever projects come his way, and even though he'll never see this post, I want to thank him for helping bring to life a little piece of screen magic that brought a lot of light and joy into my world.

[warpedpuppeteer]

i just don't trust these major network showrunners and writers to actually write buddie to its logical and rightful conclusion. I've followed so many shows and observed so many fandoms over the years, so many amazingly layered characters with extraordinary bonds that spawned popular and beloved ships. And each and every one of those ships were used to bait viewers without ever going canon, this way they get the views from the ship fans as well as the more general fans. The only difference in 911 is they somehow managed to make Buck canonically bi, which is a huge deal for a main male lead on a network procedural show. Yet they immediately slapped him with an underdeveloped character who has zero onscreen chemistry with buck, and relegated their relationship to the background entirely. Almost like the networks's checking off a box and being done with it.

if buddie is in the grand plan, I feel like there should've been some onscreen textual hints already this season after buck came out. But there's been nothing from any of the characters, and it's just heartbreaking. I'll remain a buddie truther for the rest of my life, but it really does feel like the show is trying to draw the line in the sand to say "buck and Eddie are bros only," even if the way the show does this is to forcibly retcon/erase all of the buddie buildup over all these seasons.

Sorry Non for not answering this for awhile. I absolutely understand where you're coming from as I've also been a part of fandoms for a long time especially ones who gleefully use queerbaiting to keep fans interested. I think the biggest difference between 911 and other shows is that generally other shows don't have any queer characters or only minor queer characters. 911 however has a main queer couple (henren) and plenty of side queer characters/pairs as well. So that's an advantage for us; this means they're very much open to a queer storyline.

We've gotten bi Buck which is a very big deal for not only queer representation but also in regards to Buddie. The are clearly aware this is something we want and they've told us that it has been discussed in the past for Eddie to be queer as well so they have definitely at some point discussed making Buddie canon. The actors are down for this as well (Oliver no. 1 buddie truther). The setback seems to have come from the network before so it couldn't happen. But things are changing with the new network.

The reason I think they haven't made Buddie canon yet is that it was simply too short of a season for them to do so. Also it seems like there have been a lot of issues with this season and a lot of it was written hastily. Tim probably had completely different stories in mind for the characters but I guess things like scheduling issues put a wrench in it (Natalia's actress had a scheduling issue and the issue with Marisol's actress). I think Tim had planned completely different arcs for Buck and Eddie in regards to their relationship but had to just do whatever to finish the season because of the issue with the actresses. I think he introduced Tommy as a sort of placeholder for the moment because they couldn't expand Buck's bi story just yet. This was also probably to test the audiences' acceptance of a main character being queer after 6 seasons and to test how much leeway they have with the network. This doesn't mean I agree with what he did because I actually hate it lol. Leaving them both single would have made much more sense than introducing another shit character/actor who only created a divide in the fandom and brought in absolute weirdos into it.

Honestly I could go on forever on why I think Buddie being canon is in the books but for now all I can say is that don't give up just yet! I personally think there's been a lot of deliberate choices this season that were made to jump start the 'making Buddie canon process'. Give it another season at least! If they don't get together, I'm hoping there would at least be a CLEAR indication that they're heading there towards the end of season 8. If they don't do anything of that sort then we can consider giving up on them and living happily in our fanon bubble. But for now stay with us! There's much hope yet!!

Also sorry if this got rambly and doesn't make much sense! My inbox is always open and you can shoot me a message if you wanna discuss or vent more!

[kingsmoot]

Oh it's definitely a lot of speculation! I am fairly certain the timelines line up that GRRM was openly supportive of the S2 writing before the "cut 2 episodes" directive and that his fallout with Condal began sometime after, though. It's also true that Condal's original statement about the cut season tried to frame it as a "creative" decision rather than a financial one. It wasn't until later that I think Hess(?) admits that it "wasn't [our] decision".

GRRM definitely didn't go as hard as he could have but I think the way he kept teasing the post and the fact that he followed through with it is already really bad on it's own. GRRM seems to think it's a noble cause and that he's "saving" the show, but the reality is he's whipped up a frenzy of hate as a means to bully the writers. I understand his frustrations as the author, and I get that he helped Condal get the job but... It's Condal's now! To accuse him of having "no plan" while he is likely in the midst of petitioning for a bigger budget to actually accommodate his plan, after he's already had the rug ripped out from him last season, feels really cruel. It's hard to extend empathy to George when he's extending so little to the person HE picked to handle this adaptation.

I also agree that GRRM probably talked to Condal the most and that's likely why he's the target of his ire. But idk... GRRM has a lot of experience working in television and it feels like he should be more understanding of Condal's position. He gives passing mention to the constraints of writing for television, but it still feels like he expects Condal to have the same creative freedom of an author rather than a showrunner. GRRM was supportive of S1 and at least supportive of the untampered plans for S2 - so to turn on Condal so severely is just baffling.

GOT ended a failure and Execs need results to feel that ASOIAF properties are worth the continued investment- and even that isn't enough, given S1 was a massive success and the budget still got cut. GRRM's resistance to making big-picture sacrifices is why he ~can't~ be a showrunner. He CAN and SHOULD make creative suggestions- in his capacity as an Executive Producer. But the showrunner (Condal) has every right to reject those ideas if they do not make commercial sense. It's not all about creative integrity- it's show business, and it's Condal's job to consider both. Cutting characters and combining storylines is the most common way that this manifests!

Sorry to rant in your inbox about this... I took a break from socials post-season because the hate was so bad and I was just starting to poke my head back in when this dropped. As someone who really enjoyed S2, I'm... exhausted! But it's great gossiping about it with people who aren't just using George's post as further fuel to keep shitting on the show.

Hope your foot is okay<3

oh, please don't apologize!! this is interesting and a topic that i want to engage with, i appreciate you coming to my inbox!! (and thank you, my foot is fine now, i just hate medical procedures and wanted a distraction while waiting around being anxious at urgent care)

and yes i agree with everything you've said, i was just chatting with my friend @intomyth about how if nothing else (and there is a LOT else) it is irresponsible of george to point at one single person in front of his rabid fanbase and say definitively "i'm mad at this guy about this adaptation. the things i'm mad about are his fault." because, like... show AND book fans have proven over the years that they will create targeted cyber harassment campaigns over nothing (like twitter accusing liv of sleeping her way into this role just because they are rabidly misogynistic chronically online alicent antis who have lost all sense of decorum and perspective and do not perceive olivia cooke as a real human being with a job that she does well and not the evil bitch hag queen of westeros who stole rhaenyra's throne since none of that is REAL!!!) so i cannot imagine the kind of harassment they will concoct when they feel like they are raising their sword and shield in george's defense and with his blessing.

all in all while i can try to understand and/or speculate on george's personal feelings, i think his conduct was inappropriate. i don't personally agree w any of his "criticism" of the show in his blog post (bc it wasn't actually criticism...) and i think publishing it at all was the wrong move. it was rude and unprofessional and most of all strange.

and i am ALSO exhausted, dude!!!! i loved s2.1 - 2.5 and thought 2.6 - 2.8 were a total bust but at the end of the day... hotd is fun tv. that i like watching. in my free time. which i (like most working adults) have little of. the vitriolic hate tornado that has been built up around the dragons and incest show is very strange to and uncomfortable for me. do you guys watch tv like your life depends on it because someone is like... threatening you? is this how you earn your rent money? are you being forced by clandestine and inescapable circumstances to watch a show that makes you so angry it's permanently altering your health record? what gives, dude? what happened to watching tv because it's fun and you like it?

[bobwess]

What’s your opinion on s13-15 characterization on Dean?

Who do you think from the writers team captured the characterization of him the most in your eyes?

do you think it was in character on how he treated Jack in the later seasons? I really hated how they left that relationship in the final last few eps… specifically just felt like a cliff hanger, to me it seems like we didn’t get anything resolved from their relationship…

What’s your opinion on s13-15 characterization on Dean?

Weak and sporadic. It’s hard in a writing team with so many writers, but I felt in the last seasons there was an increased amount of disagreement with his character. Sometimes it felt spot on and then the next episode would be complete inconsistent with how he’d been on the show so far. Getting worse in 14 and even worse in 15. 

Who do you think from the writers team captured the characterization of him the most in your eyes? I think for all their flaws during their times as showrunner (and I have many opinions on where the blame lies for those times) I think every one of the showrunners who were writers really had Dean down pretty well in the majority of their written episodes. If I had to pick a single writer for earlier seasons (1-5) I might pick Ben Edlund. Mid seasons (6-13) I would probably pick Dabb, Crossing over to Steve Yockey (13-15) but it’d be close with a lot of other good writers.

do you think it was in character on how he treated Jack in the later seasons? I really hated how they left that relationship in the final last few eps… specifically just felt like a cliff hanger, to me it seems like we didn’t get anything resolved from their relationship…

I fucking hated Dean and Jack’s relationship in the last season and a half. I thought it was shaky at first, but really went off the deep end in a way they NEVER satisfactorily resolved in 15, and that was VERY out of character for Dean. 

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

https://www.tumblr.com/ecoterrorist-katara/743680863675580416?source=share

I know that you have already talked about the "female gaze" more than once, but what do you say about this?

Let's get the easier parts out of the way:

1 - The showrunners consider Aang the angel on Katara's shoulder on The Southern Raiders because Avatar is a kids show and the moral of the episode was "Hey, kids, even if you ever meet a truly horrible person don't immediately respond with violence, it could backfire horribly or push you to do something you'd regret later" not because they think she's an object that Aang gets to posses and control - hence them having Aang give her advice on what to do, but not try to prevent her from leaving nor judging her for not forgiving her mother's killer.

2 - Katara's point was NOT central to Zuko in that episode, at least not at first. By the end of the episode he understood and felt compassion for her and her family, but at the start he was only looking for a cheat-code to make Katara stop hating him because it reminded him of his screw ups. It was Zuko being entitled and trying to avoid consequences.

3 - "This thing is like the PLATONIC version of a thing that sometimes happens in romance" If it's platonic (you said it, not me) then it's not a "win" for your OTP. Zuko and Iroh's falling out after Ba Sing Se has lots of dramatic, super intense and heartbreaking moments, just like romances do - but their storyline is obviously not a romance and they are explicitly treated by the narrative as father and son.

4 - "Katara isn't hiding any side of her personality from Zuko" Katara doesn't hide any side of her personality for ANYONE - family, friends, rivals, enemies, strangers. Highlighing that she is herself with Zuko is pointless because she is herself with everyone, including people she does not like, which was the category Zuko fit into at the moment.

Now, onto yet another absurdly long take by this annoyed feminist that has had enough to the "Male Gaze VS Female Gaze" bullshit.

(Check this previous post before reading the rant in case you don't know these terms or what they mean/were supposed to mean)

Zutarians gotta learn that just because a trope is popular, that doesn't mean it is present in every story, and that NO TROPE appeals to a whole group of people, no matter how much they keep insisting that their ship is the "female gaze" - like that thing could ever even exist.

To give a practical exemple so people understand what I mean: Imagine that a woman wrote screenplay about a lesbian romance, which is then filmed by a female director, and edited by a woman. The actresses playing the lead roles also have their own perspective on the story and characters. The movie is then shown to 200 women, every single one of them has their own opinion on it.

Which of the women I mentioned above is going to speak FOR HER ENTIRE GENDER, and decide if that romance fits "the female gaze"? Do we take a survey and whatever points are repeated the most are taken as objectively correct due to being how the majority feels, and thus any differing opinion is treated as lesser and "not what women like" regardless of how many women feel that way? Do we only listen to the proffessional criticts in that audience of women and completely disregard the opinion of any woman that didn't study anything regarding cinema and writting?

Even if somehow it is decided that the movie fits into the "female gaze" - if all those women rewatch the movie years later and some of them feel differently about it, would that affect the definition? If their grand-daughters watch it 50 years later and don't agree with their grandmother's takes on it, does the definition change? If the movie is shown to other groups of women, from different countries, and they all have their own opinion on it that is radically different from that of the first group, which group of women gets to say "OUR culture's way of interpreting this story is the TRUE way women feel about it, everyone else doesn't count"?

If the movie is then shown to 200 men and they all like it, does that turn it from "female gaze" to "unisex gaze"? Does it become "Male Gaze" if the guys get aroused by it, even if the movie was designed to appeal to women and not to them AND there was no exploitation involved? If the 200 women then watch a movie that has scenes that are considered as having been made to appeal to guys, but some or all of them ALSO enjoy it (story of my life), does that make it change from "male gaze" to "Female Gaze"?

Gender is simply ONE out of many, many, many things that can impact how one views fiction - and it doesn't exist in isolation, being affected by generation, culture, language, religion, class, etc. The "Female Gaze" doesn't exist. It CAN'T exist because humans are more complicated than that. It is a concept that is almost fully divorced from reality.

Also I can't help but notice that, because of the way these terms work in the assumption of absolutes, no room for nuance, "MALE Gaze" is meant to describe lazy writting/film-making that is sexist towards women and cases of full on exploitation and abuse in which men were the abusers, and sometimes the label even gets attached to harmless things as a form of bad faith criticism just because guys like it - but "FEMALE Gaze" is NOT about lazy writting/film-making that is sexist towards men (say stories that full on say that a guy hitting a woman is bad, but a woman hitting a man is funny, or using "guys always want it" as justification for scenes of female characters forcing themselves on the male characters).

Instead, Female Gaze is meant to either neutral or POSITIVE. "This appeals to women" is used for praise, "this appeals to men" is used as criticism. Women are harmless, men are dangerous. Women are helpless victims, men are evil abusers. Women need to be protected and put on pedestal, men need to be hated and feared. Female desire is inherently pure, male desire is inherently objectifying. And, of course, any woman that disagrees is bad and a traitor and needs to be "called out for being anti-feminist" (aka be condescended to or full on attacked).

This is sexism, pure and simple. Anyone can be a victim, anyone can be an abuser. Anyone can like any kind of story, trope, genre, ship, etc. Desire is a morally neutral thing, and it doesn't become "pure" or "inherently corrupt" depending on the gender of the person who feels it.

The "Male Gaze VS Female Gaze" thing is nonsensical at best and perpetuates a dangerous double standard at worse, and I'm so fucking tired of it never being questioned because people are afraid of being labelled misogynistic.

[lemmmmmmmmmmonade]

📺!

Favorite TV Show

Alright, this is tied between two animated shows I love dearly.

First up, Mission Hill:

I absolutely love the look of this show. Just. Look at it man. This was one of the last shows produced on cels, so they got free reign to use unconventional paints, and the palettes are a sight to behold because of it.

So, Mission Hill was produced by the showrunners of (in my opinion) the best seasons of the Simpsons, Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, because this is one of those one-season-wonders that came when every network was competing to have the next hit animated adult sitcom.

It just hits the nail on the head in regards to the transitional stage of your late teens and early 20s, even though it premiered 20 years ago. I first watched it when I was in my junior year of highschool because I watched a video that brought it up, and the whole series is on youtube, it's only 13 episodes, why not? Life changing. I resonate with it so deeply.

It also has one of the first positively-depicted gay kisses in animated primetime television, and throughout the whole series treats those two characters who kissed with respect, so that's a plus too.

Just go watch it, like I said the whole thing is on YouTube, with the commentary tracks and special features from the DVD, since Warner Bros doesn't give a singular shit about it and it's not available on streaming through any legal means.

On the other side of things, I've got Zombieland Saga as my other favorite:

This is one of the few pieces of media that consistently makes me cry. No matter what.

So, I'm a sucker for angsting about being undead. My friends from serverstuck know I have two separate OCs who angst about different sides of that coin, and my fanfuffle friends know about a character I have that's practically a joke about that. So, already a home run for me. But also, every single character is so endearing, all of the members of Franchouchou are fully fleshed out people. There's this tumblr post somewhere on here about the series I love, where it points out that all of the girls have experiences or conditions or core parts of their character that are antithetical to how typical idols are shown in real life, but the series treats everything about them as people with respect.

The music as well, which is obviously a big part of an idol anime? Always fire. You know I've got Do You Hate Windy Days? (Franchouchou Cover) on my main playlist.

So pretty pretty please watch both of these shows, you won't regret it I swear I need someone to yell about these shows with occasionally

[lokiinmediasideblog]

1 + 12 :D

The Loki fandom has more schisms than the Catholic church at this point. So I'll give multiple answers for the main schisms (pre-Loki series and including it).

character everyone gets wrong. If it's pre-Loki series and such, I think it's both Thor and Loki. And there's many variations of it. I think any characterization that flattens one into just good and the other as bad misunderstands these morally gray characters. With Loki, he's portrayed as a waifish and bookish boring character that can't fight/kill/or lie which takes the fun out of it and makes him seem rather pathetic and not!Loki complimented with either a sunshine himbo savior Thor or brutish evil Thor. With Thor, he's the precious sunshine cinnamon-roll with a purity of heart contending with Christ with either the waifish Loki, comedically murderously evil Loki, or just plain cruel Loki which makes Thor seem dumb and ridiculously gullible. The former is more popular in Tumblr in general, but casuals interpret it as the latter usually. And the comics pre-reincarnation have a lot of the plain cruel Loki with ridiculously gullible and Gary-Stu-ish Thor.

If we're including the Loki series, I'd say Mobius. I can't recognize him in most fanfics (and as such I don't read much Lokius) because most refuse to engage with the darker cannon aspects of his characterization and try to turn Lokius into Ineffable Husbands 2.0 which have nothing in common apart from some superficial level of edgy gothy man + white-haired desk job dude. This guy had access to every instance of Loki's life. Isn't that creepy? And he's responsible for the capture and pruning of many variants. There should be more fic where he's conflicted about his actions. Granted, I have a fanfic where he's terrible (dark!Mobius) and I specify it on the tags. I think the only time it's not annoying to mischaracterize characters is if the author is aware and warns of it in the tags because they're in a kick.

2. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them. I don't like telling people to like characters. I'll defend them if they get things wrong about them, but it just feels guilt-trippy to me. I know I get annoyed when people get guilt trippy for not caring about the W3 or Sif as much as I care for Loki (who has way more screentime and lines). Pre-Loki series, I think I like Heimdall more than the average Loki fan. I like that he also commits treason against Odin, not just Loki. I think the implications of the All-Sight make him interesting, though he doesn't have that much screentime. I like to portray him as conflicted over his responsibilities, and if I need some Gatekeeper to be an asshole to Loki, I make one up that preceded Heimdall and is responsible for Loki's overall dislike of Gatekeepers and why he learned to hide from the All-sight.

I understand why it happens because seeing everything is rather invasive and we live in a society with increased surveillance every fucking year. But I wish to avoid the "Black character is racist to fantasy race" trope. You can justify Loki learning to hide without pulling that trope, you know? Make up a gatekeeper before Heimdall (I'm not convinced he knew Loki was Jotun and that'd mean he was hired after Loki was adopted). You can make a story. I have plenty of HCs about Loki's distrust of Gatekeepers and that Heimdall was hired after a Noodle incident involving Loki that caused the previous Gatekeeper to quit. It's more interesting than just pure fantasy racism from the start.

If we're including the Loki series:

The character I think was unfairly hated was Sylvie. I say this for the level of vitriol the poor actress received. It's fine not to like Sylvie, but a lot of those posts claiming SdM and Sylvie are single-handedly responsile for "bad rep" when SdM has no influence on the script and it's a DISNEY show (notorious for executive meddling) is unfair and pointing fingers at the wrong direction. FOR THE MCU DISNEY+ SERIES THEY DIDN'T EVEN HAVE SHOWRUNNERS! THIS IS A VERY BAD PRACTICE AND INDICATIVE THEY'RE JUST CHURNING SHIT OUT!

I'm also of the opinion that the comics have more harmful tropes than the show's "self-cest" (specifically talking about Loki stealing Sif's body and Amora and Lorelei's noncon powers M.O.) but I often see the same people praising one and not the other because they think the comic book designs are more stylish. If the shoe doesn't fit, I'm not talking about you. BTW. Just some people I've seen.

[my-mt-heart]

hi, Mt. This might cause some negative energy and I'm sorry, but I hope its still okay to write this to you. If you can't post, that's okay too. As much as I love Caryl and Melissa, I think I have to walk away. Fandom has always been too intense for me, so I like to stay hidden, but I like reading all the articles and following along on filming. Everything about S1 was making me uncomfortable. Daryl was being weird a lot of times and the things the producers kept saying, I kept wanting to argue with. I thought now that S1 is over and Melissa is announced, things would be a lot better. I do like all the photos of Melissa and I liked the little trailer we got, but something about this show feels very wrong. You talked about a lot of the things I noticed on my own, the way it still feels like Daryl is the most important and Carol doesn't mean as much because she's not in the title. That's just an example. I hate that. And I hate that the producers are making that feeling worse every chance they get. Zabel, he just makes me mad because his way of explaining Daryl and now Carol sounds like he's just ranting and sometimes doesn't make any sense. I don't think Daryl can make deep relationships that quickly for example. But Norman and Greg Nicotero, what they say sounds worse to me. Some people aren't going to like me saying this and I don't mean to cause you any trouble since it's your tumblr. The way they insult Melissa sometimes and hurt the fans to make us seem unimportant or dumb, it makes me feel like I'm in another abusive relationship and that's what I need to get away from. I thought about just staying off the internet and watching the show, but their behavior makes me worry about the show too. I believe you about them refusing a new showrunner who's a woman and it's not just because you said it. It's because it fits with past things they've done. Norman admitted getting rid of Angela Kang and then they hired Zabel who is a white man just like them. I won't be able to take it if Caryl's relationship is ruined. I didn't have much when I was young, including love. I was trapped in the same cycle for a long time. Watching Caryl gave me a lot of hope because they were similar to me and I wanted them to be together to know some happiness is still possible even if life has been so hard. Maybe they will, but it's not worth all this suffering in the meantime. I don't think I'll find characters like them again, but I'll find something that makes me feel joy every day, not misery and anger. Thank you for listening and for making me feel not so alone for a while. Thank you to Melissa McBride for being so talented and lovely. I wanted to be able to thank Norman too. I'm just too hurt right now, but Daryl will still have a special place in my heart right beside Carol as it should be.

***I'm including a trigger warning here and kindly asking anyone who reads to please be respectful of this anon's experiences***

Anon, you don't have to apologize. It's always bothered me when we assign each other a "negative" or "positive" disposition when in reality it's perfectly human to form nuanced opinions. Last year wasn't kind to Caryl fans at all, so seeing Melissa filming again and seeing bts photos of Caryl again felt like the first warm day after a brutal winter (to quote my favorite podcast hosts 🤪❤️). I think every single one of us wants to hold onto that feeling. I'm happy for those who are succeeding. We deserve to finally look forward to the Daryl and Carol show we were promised.

That being said, I also empathize with those who are having a difficult time holding on. I am one of those people myself. One day it feels like we're getting something exciting, like the first Caryl photos let's say, and the next we're getting dumped on. Case in point, an actor who isn't even on the show taking the opportunity to call Caryl's/Carol's fans toxic and using Melissa's return to self-promote. Or how about another actor using sexist language to attack the same fans because he didn't like the criticism the show was getting. Or the showrunner teasing another ship with zero regard for a significant portion of his soon-to-be audience (Caryl fans). It’s all very discouraging, especially when the intervals in between the bad PR get shorter and shorter.

As for the male EPs’ off-putting behavior, you aren’t the first person to describe it to me the way you did, far from it, which is just to say you aren’t alone. Thank you for sharing a little bit about yourself even though it couldn’t have been easy. I’ll share that when I was growing up, the men in my life would often display an urgent need to be in control, to let everyone know they were the boss and what they said goes. Tracking this show has definitely brought up a lot of the anxiety I thought I’d dealt with already, that Daryl helped me deal with when I first started watching TWD, so I completely understand where you're coming from.

The show we were promised in 2020 was a Daryl and Carol show. Theoretically, now that Melissa is back, it should be a Daryl and Carol show again. That’s what Melissa signed on for and her EP title is supposed to be equal to Norman’s. But Norman, Nicotero, and AMC are not honoring that. You already mentioned the title, so I’ll use another example. Norman said S2 is Carol’s story before amending to Carol and Daryl stories paralleling each other. Either way, why is his character the only one on the clapperboard? Where’s Carol? In that tiny plane?

These may seem like non-issues on the surface, but as I've talked about before, people working on the show can use them as cues to establish a chain of command different from what's in contracts. The male EPs can use them to drown out Melissa's voice in instances of disagreement. The showrunner is a big one. How about directors? Are they all white men again? Who's deciding that? And how can that be the only perspective we're getting if S2 is centered around a heavily-nuanced female character, a mother, a survivor of domestic abuse, a frequent target of misogyny and ageism on SM ? Melissa's input is highly valuable. I'm in no way diminishing that or suggesting she's helpless, but she needs to be shown all the professional courtesy she deserves, as an equal. If fans are seeing evidence to the contrary, and we absolutely can see that, it undermines the narrative we've been invested in all this time: Carol beating the odds over and over again, proving her worth, and becoming a leader.

I'm really sorry that you're feeling mistreated by a show you used as a source of comfort. It's not how things are supposed to work. There should be no gaslighting, no sexist name-calling, no playing into your fears, no insulting your intelligence, no making you feel unheard. Explicit canon is something that needs to happen, but it won't take away the discomfort you're feeling unless we can get someone else in a position of power to push for Caryl, Carol, and the Daryl we know, with Melissa. That's honestly what I'm waiting to see at this point. AMC needs to make big changes. In the meantime, please take care of yourself, anon. Your wellbeing comes first.

[bbygirl-aemond]

HOTD fandom is genuinely the worst fandom I've been in, not even GOT/ASOIAF was so mean and toxic to people for no reason. People can't just enjoy things, they have a need to drag others every second, and someone always wants to start a fight and insult others over opinions. People also treat the book and the show too seriously like it's a history book/documentary about their family and they are the only ones who know what actually happened, then get mad when someone doesn't agree with them. It's just crazy.

This actually brings me to a point I've been wanting to make for a while, because I've done a lot of thinking about why the HotD fandom has so much heated conflict and disagreement. I think it's largely a consequence of how the show's been marketed. This ended up so much longer than I anticipated, so I'll put my commentary under the cut. I encourage everyone to read this even if they disagree with me on certain points within the fandom, because it's completely neutral on characters and teams and makes no moral commentary on any of them.

Humans love the idea of pack mentality. Think of how in America so many people identify so strongly with one of the two main political parties, and will straight up ignore logic and reasoning to blindly agree with members of "their" party and attack members of the "other" party. They'll understand that a politician is contradicting themselves or doing something they don't actually agree with, but they'll ignore it and support them anyways because of their party membership. They'll even extend this into adopting that questionable position themselves, just to defend their party against criticism from the other party. We love feeling like part of a group, and we tend to make it into a sense of identity that makes things intensely personal and emotional.

Making people "pick a team" leads to massive engagement, and it's an amazing marketing strategy. Think of Captain America: Civil War, and the team mentality that was fostered by the showrunners. It meant tons of people became really engaged in the franchise, because it allowed them to made their team their sense of identity. That's another fandom where people from different "teams" get really heated at each other.

But team mentality also means that any perceived attack on the group feels like a personal attack. I think this is why I sometimes get accused of attacking characters I haven't even mentioned, like when people thought I was attacking Rhaenyra for criticizing Viserys's parenting. It shows that those people view Rhaenyra and Viserys as part of Team Black, and that any attack on any member of Team Black is treated like a personal attack to them. They can't comprehend that you might disagree with part but not all of the members of one team.

This then translates into people being unable to accept criticism of any of the characters. Just like how people assume you hate their entire Team if you criticize a single member, they'll assume you hate an entire character or dynamic if you criticize some part of it, no matter how empathetically you try to do so. I've criticized Rhaenyra's decision to have bastards from a political standpoint, while acknowledging that she had non-political reasons (youth, feeling abandoned, wanting the opposite of Daemon, trust, affection) for doing what she did. And some people have had a really hard time understanding that I can criticize her while having empathy for her, and while supporting her claim to the throne.

I think this is why, like you pointed out, people act as if these characters are their family members. It's because psychologically they feel like they are. They identify with them. And because they see these characters as an extension of themselves, they feel like they alone know them better than anyone else, just like how they know themselves better than anyone else.

So this means people have a very strong emotional reaction to their favorite characters being criticized, because it feels like a personal criticism of them. It means they're more likely to seek out and attack criticisms that weren't even directed towards them. But this black-and-white mentality of with-me-or-against-me means that they will attack anyone who supports the team or character they don't identify with, because that support is taken as an indirect attack on their team. Criticizing certain characters is seen as an attack, but so is praising other characters.

This is also why we see people blatantly disagreeing with the literal creators of this content. I've seen people try to argue with GRRM, the showrunners, and pretty much every single actor/actress involved about their understanding of their own characters. There's so much hate directed towards Emma D'Arcy and Olivia Cooke in particular just because people can't accept having a difference of opinion with them. Like it baffles me, because these are the people who should have the most authority about their respective characters. They have all the insider info from all of the possible sources, info that you very much do not have access to. How can you say you know better than them? But people see the characters as an extension of themselves, and therefore think of themselves as the ultimate authority on them, beyond reason.

This is, unfortunately, true for both Team Black and Team Green in this fandom, so it's just this escalating spiral of people yelling at each other for not having the same opinions. I also think this is why so much of the fan-created content for HotD involves either explicit or implicit self-insert characters being shipped with actual characters. The marketing of the show kind of relied on the assumption that all engagement is good engagement, which is true for getting good view counts but not great for creating a healthy fandom capable of thoughtful and civil discussions.

[ninjapotatohead]

(Sorry if that seemed sudden lol)

Honestly i don't like the narrative of Sonic Prime with the whole "sonic fucked up" or "he take his friends for granted"

The first one already talked but i can't understand what the second narrative try to say when this Sonic seems to appreciate his friends (the only time i can remember where i can see the narrative is that one flashback) and even attack Eggman for insulting tails

Also while i absolutely dislike IDW version of Sonic, i can't bring myself to hate the Prime version interestingly enough, just the writing making him dumb

Ps: sorry if that confusing

Yeah, pretty much. And it wouldn't even be so bad - hell, I might have even been able to see past that - if the showrunners didn't try to pass off their versions of the characters (Sonic included) as being canon to the games... when just watching the show would showcase every single reason why that simply can't be the case.

In the games (outside of shit like Sonic Chronicles), Sonic already has quite a lot of appreciation and fondness for those he deems to be his friends. He might butt heads with folks like Knuckles and Shadow, and he's rough around the edges, but he's just a fun-loving guy who lives in the moment.

It's funny how Prime tries to present this idea that Sonic needs to learn to appreciate his friends more instead of taking them for granted... and yet, the literal first episode STARTS with Sonic speaking very highly about his friends and praising their abilities.

Which is it, Prime?

[fitzrove]

Writer Asks

Tagged by @yallemagne (thank you<3) ages and ages ago... Inspired to answer because I just published a fic and feel good about it hjejejfjj

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Undisclosed amount xD I've put a bunch on anon, especially from fandoms I'm not active in anymore (lbr, mostly Endeavour). Publically, it's 26 rn.

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

212040!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Elisabeth, hopefully in the future Tanz der Vampire (I've been thinking about it for like five years), in the past Endeavour (TV).

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

They're all Endeavour because those are older and in a (slightly) bigger fandom... Unfortunately I think they're not the best ones I've written, a lot of them were when I was 18 (no offense to 18 year olds) and had just started writing fanfic ajajjjd. Which is why the top 5 are on anon except for one LOL. I really do think kudos doesn't tend to accumulate "correctly" xD People like familiar tropes and time of posting also affects it, there are many fics of mine I consider "underrated"

My top five kudosed Elisabeth fics are: black as the earth (shortened title), Flights of Angels (todolf longfic), Dominion, Midnight Man & Starwalk. tbh deserved...

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes, I try to respond to every single one of them so people will hopefully comment in the future too, especially if they're kind, funny or thought-provoking!!! However, I delete them if I don't like them or they're weird, boundary-crossing or TMI ahdjfjjf (has happened a handful of times - the joys of writing explicit stuff lol. PSA: do not tell fic authors about your sexual activities in the comments, i do not consent...)

6. What's the fic you wrote that has the angstiest ending?

I often do bittersweet, or "sweet but also has Implications" >:] Oh and I guess there's a lot of them where Rudolf dies at the end... I think the actual angstiest might be No Forevers (Endeavour fic) even though nobody dies in that one. Though I ruined it by writing a sequel to it, after the showrunner wrote one of the characters back into the show after like 10 years xD In my defense, this wasn't my idea!!!

7. What's the fic you wrote that has the happiest ending?

Beams of Morning (Endeavour). I retconned one of my own DIY bittersweet endings whoops... 🤣🤣😭 It's sappy, even, but maybe that's allowed. For elisabeth it's Flights of Angels because the happiest happy endings are ones that feel deserved.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No - I've gotten hate for my headcanons/meta and my video essays though (never to my face ;D) which can be fic adjacent. I guess it's because there's a better tagging system with fic, like, people won't be exposed to stuff they don't want to see as readily as with tumblr and youtube etc. And people also know how to leave other ppl alone!! Ajdjjfjf

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes. The unpleasantly sexy kind 👀

10. Do you write crossovers?

Noooo, I don't really read them either. The kinds of crossovers I like are the ones that are crossovers "in name only"; ie. setting or tropes lifted from one work, characters/cast from another. Wildly incongruent characters showing up in each other's universes and interacting etc doesn't fit into my suspension of disbelief most of the time 😭

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Luckily no!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but I once helped someone translate theirs into English, which was cool. Oh, and recently I've been asked for permission to translate at least one of my fics - I hope it happens because it's always an honor!! >:]

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I've collaborated on series, but I haven't co-written stuff on a deeper level. I think I'm too much of a control freak to get into it ajsdjjf, I can do stuff inspired by other people and am happy if my stuff inspires other people, but if I need to agree on plot/characterisation with someone consistently I don't think it'd work out, since no two people have identical takes and preferences with stories and characters.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

For around 2.5 years it's been todolf, it captures a lot of stuff I've liked in fiction for a longer time already >:D I can't really say whether it will be the Ship of a Lifetime for me... I mean it did make me move countries (as one reason of a few) but if someone asked me in the summer of 2016 I would've probably said [checks ao3 reading history] um. h*milton x j*fferson... so like. IT CHANGES A LOT OK ajajsjdj

15. What's a wip you want to finish, but don't think you ever will?

I don't want to doom any of my current wips to the graveyard!!!!!! I am having worries about the fate of my todolf swan lake modern ballet au fic though. The original draft outline is complete but it doesn't really fit my character interpretations for tod or rudolf anymore, it's from january 2022... Idk maybe I can one day rework it somehow with different characterisations ajsjdjf but yeah mostly it's interesting concepts haphazardly tied together but no coherent plot

16. What are your writing strengths?

Imagination/coming up with ideas, metaphors, descriptions (usually), grammar and syntax, writing crown prince rudolf really well (XDD), rhythm/pacing (usually), the way it Sounds (my brain sometimes fixates on phonetics randomly because after all, English is not my first language, and sometimes there'll be like, a really pleasing/satisfying combination of sounds in smth I think to write and I think I'm good at picking up on that, like how it flows and sounds. Idk if those preferences are universal though or if it's just me writing what I think sounds pleasing)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Writing varied characters, writing varied speech patterns/"character voice" also in narration, vocabulary.... I am but a humble English as a second technically third language speaker,,,, (i'm doing an english language grad school degree rn lol so i think i'm no worse than natives, not humble abt this actually, but i'm on the level of like. a not so well-read native speaker. Because most actual fiction literature I've read in my life has been in Finnish, in English I've just read academic literature, fanfic and like 10 books max! I need to read more and become a better writer ahhdhhdhf)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

No... Dialogue is a big no from me, it often feels cringe ngl ajsjdjdj. My personal philosophy is "if you need a translator's note for people to understand what's going on, don't put it in" 😅 A lot of the time different languages are also used in fic in nonsensical ways where it will look ok to a lot of people but bother the hell out of native speakers/ppl who speak the language. This is smth that can technically be done well but it's usually not aksldlldd. I think pet names and individual words can be fine but it needs to be done in moderation... I also obsess a lot over research, like, the nuances of the word need to actually mean what the author thinks it means :'D

19. First fandom you wrote for?

First published for Endeavour, first wrote for H*rry P*tter... (never-to-be-published fan comics and little stories as a young kid, like 8 years old).

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Right now it's vers l'onde souterraine... ;) I think I'm constantly improving as a writer and hopefully every fic will be better than the last!!

[quantumshade]

okay here’s the thing. hardcore chibnall fans have a lot of trouble criticizing the era. which i do understand to an extent—a lot of the early criticisms of that era were in bad faith. but that’s all carried over, and now a lot of chibnall fans dismiss all criticism as bad faith and don’t bother examining the writing’s flaws or biases. some people get really defensive when their perspective of the era gets challenged.

the other thing is that a lot of chibnall fans think that the way they view their favorite showrunner is how other fans also view their favorite showrunner. so a chibnall “stan” (i hate that word but w/e) sees someone being a fan of, say, rtd era, and thinks, “but how can they like that? there’s racism and sexism in it!”

i feel like there’s this sense that if you ever say anything positive about rtd especially, you Always have to preface it with ��oh yeah i know there’s a lot of racism in his writing”. like. every single time. like yes that is true but the way you need to spell it out for people Every Time you mention the dude to be able to keep your Good Person Card is exhausting.

i love rtd era, but i don’t think he’s g-d’s gift to television or whatever. but a lot of chibnall stans (by which i don’t mean “13 is your favorite doctor”, i mean “you think it’s unequivocally the best era of the show and anyone who thinks otherwise is a sexist and a homophobe”) seem to think that me enjoying the characters and plots of rtd era is tacit endorsement of every single thing that was done in those episodes but that’s. just not the case.

i love rtd era, and i’ve had a lot of extended conversations about the problems and flaws of those episodes (of which there are many!). my absolute favorite era is 12 era, but i also know that moffat is a big bag of assholes in human form and i hate him. and i, again, spend a lot of time talking about the flaws of those seasons. because the things i love have issues, and as someone who cares a lot about media analysis and deconstruction, i know there’s no such thing as “unproblematic media”. and trying to posture nonstop and get the moral high ground about your favorite era will get you nowhere.

[glitteringaglarond]

You can feel free to ignore this if you would like, but you mentioned in that conversation you were having about whether the LOTR movies are well written or not that nothing make you angrier than what Peter Jackson did to Faramir.

So I was wondering - do you hate that more than what Amazon is doing with their show (which as your anti rop tag indicates, you rather dislike)

Hey anon! Thanks for the ask!

To answer your question, I do hate what PJ did to Faramir more than what Amazon is doing to the Second Age, if only because I love Faramir more than I love Galadriel or the second age in general.

But it actually goes a little bit deeper than the starting point of affection I have for either character, and that revolves around expectations.

in general, when it comes to entertainment, very few things make me more upset than wasted potential. I see it time and time again in movies and in tv shows, and every single time it happens it makes me genuinely upset because I can SEE the potential for greatness... only for the result to be lesser than what it might have been if it was just bad simply BECAUSE of that potential.

So the Faramir thing? I had such high hopes for it. I was only nine when I saw The Two Towers in theaters for the first time, but based on how much I loved the first movie I was unbelievably excited to see how they would portray Faramir. My biggest concern was that he would not have black hair, since Boromir also did not have black hair. So to say I was deeply disappointed is an understatement.

And to this day, I'm upset because the quality of those movies is so high that if they HAD done justice to Faramir, it would have been superb in every way. TBH this is probably what spawned my general tendency to get so upset by wasted potential.

But with Amazon's show? There was never any potential.

I hoped when it was first announced that maybe it would be good, but everything new that I learned about it made it clear to me that it never had the potential to be good, and the first trailer for the show confirmed that for me. i'm less upset by the events of the actual show than I am by Amazon's actions and the efforts of the showrunners and the shill media to smear the name of JRRT, bash Christopher, and hide behind their diverse cast so that they could insult anybody who had any issue with the show by saying "you're just racist", even though 99% of the criticism has nothing to do with that.

Is Amazon's show polluting the lore? Yes. Is it clearly made with absolutely zero respect for the source material? Yes. Is its portrayals of... any and every character facepalmable at best (POLITICALLY AMBITIOUS ELROND??? DAFUQ???) and offensive at worst (Galadriel, who is known for her wisdom and the fact that Sauron could not trick her... is an idiot who is easily fooled by Sauron???). Also yes. Is its efforts at diversity actually more offensive than having no diversity at all (the "more dangerous, less wise" elf is the black one? And he's the ONLY black elf? Where are the other black elves? and why does he get a slavery arc? is the prime example). Yes again.

But there is no potential that it was ever going to be anything but bad. The only wasted potential I see is a few of the cast members are way too good for the slog they're forced to wade through. The show is no better, no more respectful, and no more competently made than I really expected.

But with Faramir? Not only do I love him more than the entirety of the second age and all the characters therein, but the movies are so excellent that there is enormous wasted potential in the fact that they did not do him justice. Like imagine those movies only without completely destroying the entire line of Stewards! Boromir was good until the TTT retcon, but if Denethor and Faramir had been written accurately??? it would have been breathtaking. And the fact that that did not happen makes me genuinely upset, on top of how upset I am over ruining Faramir (and Denethor) in the first place.

tl;dr

I hate what PJ did to Faramir more than what Amazon is doing to the second age because those movies had potential that they wasted, as opposed to Amazon not even having the potential to be anything but bad. Also because I love Faramir more.

[imthefailedartist]

I need to rant.

Sistas is so stagnant. Five seasons deep and we are still on the same plots since season one. He'll in time I'm sure the show is only 5 months away from the first episode and that's being generous.

Tyler Perry puts absolutely no artistry or care into his work, and that's the main problem. If he cared one iota the show would at least be nice to look at. This man has the same lighting for every scene and it's bright white. BRIGHT WHITE LIGHT ON BLACK SKIN. Nigga! Be fucking for real. All these beautiful skin tones washed out, blown out by this fucking light. He complained about David Fincher [unnamed] showing up 7 hours late to set and leaving minutes later because he didn't like the lighting and made them change it before coming back to direct. Perry was upset because everyone on set was being paid hourly for doing nothing because the director was gone. It was worth it. Gone Girl looks great. That's the lesson. Shadows and blemishes everywhere.

We have been with these characters for 5 seasons and I can't tell you shit about their lives or their friendships. FIVE SEASONS 100+ episodes 100 hours of television and the story has not progressed. The characters have not evolved, grown, or matured. Nothing!!! This is bullshit. Tyler wouldn't know character development or story telling if it bit him in the ass and said "I'm character and story development"

The men. I don't even know what to say other than every single one of them is a predator stalker, abuser. Except Zac, and even then, I'm sure his character's development is determined by the actor who plays him ability to improvise his character out of Tyler Perry's shitty character holes. And the worst part is that Tyler Perry thinks all these men with all these giant red flags are good men. Don't believe it? Watch the season three or four Tyler Perry Show after dark Sistas finale episode. The actress' clearly hate their storylines, and the men their characters are stuck with and criticize them only for Perry to combat and refute everything with a very final "but they're good men".

The main issue is that Tyler Perry is an old man who has never listened to anyone, especially if they're a woman. He's writing a show about 30 something Black career women a thing he has never been and knows nothing about.

He loves to brag that his shows are things he's heard real women discuss and to be fair, you can tell that in his shows, but what you can really see is that he hears these conversations but never listens because if he listened these characters wouldn't feel like composites of different stories and they would feel real and we'd see why these women are suffering through these things. They would have nuance, layers, and history. Instead, they have nothing but what this very judgemental man thinks they deserve punishment for.

What he's done to these actors is unforgivable. He gives them very little in the script (per his own admission) and expects them to improvise to fill in the gaps. They try, but it's not enough. It's not their job to keep track of the story or advance their characters it's the writers, the showrunners. They have no time to sit with their characters and costars or director to establish what the direction of a scene or story is supposed to be. All the performances are so stilted. It's like watching those human AI robots talk. It's so awful. I've seen them in other things they are talented but Perry gives them nothing to work with.

I hate it.

All that money and he puts none of it into his work and hiring writers.

I have more to rant about, but I need to go to the grocery store, and honestly, I'm tired of giving him my time, so I'm probably gonna quit all his stuff but the movies because the old ones actually had effort.