#two seasons aren't enough!!

[virgil-says-things]

thinking about elle. thinking about her never recovering from what happened to her because leaving the bau didn't give her the closure she needed. thinking about. what if she does return to the show what would she think about the team now. does she know gideon's dead. I have so many thoughts and they're all making me awfully sad

[vaguely-concerned]

the way garak looks at bashir as he puts all the clues together at the end of cardassians. the sheer 'look at that little twink go (affectionate, sexual overtones)' energy he manages to convey in the background there as bashir passionately does the presentation of their group project that garak did 80% of the actual work on. immaculate

[cerealbishh]

"You really care about me."

"Yeah. I really, really care about you."

"I- I really care about you too."

"No, but... I like, really, really care about you."

[littlespoonevan]

.

[korynith]

I need more time to process my thoughts, but I absolutely loved every moment until the last ~10 minutes. The ending didn't land for me.

I feel like I spent 8 3/4 episodes being edged and expecting a huge emotional payoff and it just... fizzling out. That's the best way I can explain it at this point.

[personinthepalace]

If I had a nickel for every time a major streaming service cancelled a beloved book-to-tv show adaptation (of my favorite books!) after adapting just the first two books then I would have two nickels

I'm just really tired of this happening guys. I would like the less well-known books to win for once

[m00nyixl]

For the end of season 1 have a sketch i did last night waiting foe the last two episodes to release

[420sadnoodles]

I just hope that one day Marvel will cease the queerbaiting because idk about y'all but that little bit in the middle looked an AWFUL lot like a confession for a sec

[marypsue]

Ahh also as an addendum to my previous ask about the age swap (which I might’ve accidentally labeled as the body swap fic due to the foibles of being awake unexpectedly early ), I was curious what your criticisms are regarding Robin and Will’s treatments by the Duffers? I know you’ve alluded to being bothered by both but I’d be curious to hear more ( if you have the time/hankering!)

Hooboy. Okay. Buckle in. 

Obviously this is going to be a combination of actual literary analysis and Big Feelings That I Have, so like, please don’t take this as any kind of moral dictum on what to or not to watch, or how to or how not to interpret what you watch. Also, a lot of what makes me uneasy and unhappy about how canon deliberately handles queerness (as opposed to when it does queer things apparently by accident, which as you may have noticed, I have considerable amounts of fun with) has to do with behind-the-scenes context I’ve read about, so there’s a certain degree of Telephone involved. And I’m still only halfway through season four. There’s just so fucking much of it. 

With all that said. 

The behind-the-scenes context I’m most specifically concerned with are the season-one pitch bible(? I think that’s what it’s called) (which, it should be noted, ended up diverging in some quite significant ways from what ended up in the show) where the Duffers first raised the possibility that Will might be gay, and the anecdote that Joe Keery and Maya Hawke were the ones who decided Robin should be queer and had to really push for it and wrote and choreographed that scene in the bathroom. Put the two together, and it tells you that the Duffers planned that there would be One (potentially) Gay Character in their show. 

And that character was the one they spent an entire season directing violent, vicious, eventually outright murderous homophobic hatred at through the mouthpiece of a couple of bullies. You can say what you want about revenge narratives and those characters ultimately getting their comeuppance, but for Me Personally, it sucks all the fun and escapism out of season one to watch it thinking that those bullies only got punished when they aimed that vitriol at someone to whom it didn’t literally apply. Also I still have to sit through however many episodes of that vicious homophobia onscreen regardless, so, like, that’s a walk in the park anyway. /sarcasm 

And then there’s that whole bad business in season three, where it’s never been quite clear to me if we’re supposed to see Mike as having been in any way in the wrong. Kind of scuppers the argument, to me, that we’re supposed to be on Will’s side. And season four, which so far has had Will tagging along after people who are supposed to be his best friends but mostly don’t seem to give a single damn about him, doing absolutely nothing but looking morose and sullen and tragic and *coughcough* Artistic, and causing Problems for the nice straight couple. 

(Tangential to the point I’m coming to, but also, my son deserves better than to be reduced to a soggy cardboard standee with ‘GAY’ scrawled across it in magic marker the way season four seems to be angling toward. All the Byers, but especially the Byers boys, deserve better than season four seems interested in giving them. But I digress.) 

Also. I love Robin. If you follow me, you probably know that. I’m a hardcore, ride-or-die Robin girl. But. With Robin, from what I’ve heard of the context, the Duffers never intended for her to be queer. They wrote a girl who was smart and funny and sharp and talented and a little bit mean and a little bit insecure and a little bit weird but in an interesting, endearing way - as a love interest for Steve. 

And then, as soon as season four rolled around, once they’d been pushed into making her canonically, on-screen queer (in a beautiful, tender, heartfelt, true-feeling scene that they didn’t fucking write), suddenly she’s had a complete personality transplant. Suddenly, she’s an awkward, bumbling, annoying loser who’s only funny when she’s the butt of the joke, who’s no good at anything and who nobody really likes except maybe for Steve, an outcast even amongst the freaks. When she does do something smart or competent, everyone around her reacts with shock, like it’s wildly out of character instead of how her character was originally written. One of these versions of Robin was written with ‘gay person’ in mind, and it unfortunately wasn’t the one we were obviously supposed to like. 

In both cases, I get the feeling that the storytelling issues stem from this like...assumption that queerness equals isolation and misery and tragedy, and that there’s nothing to queerness outside of that. That there’s something inherent to queerness, something pitiable but repulsive, that causes the isolation and misery and tragedy (not that those things are imposed from outside, by, say, violent homophobia). That it would be absurd to imagine that queerness could ever be joyful, or playful, or that someone might ever, given the chance to choose, not choose to be straight instead. Or that there could be enormous friendship and community and heart and pride in queerness, or even that queer people might find friendship and community and strength in each other. Or even fucking talk to each other, ever. 

Which is especially infuriating, because the whole central theme of season one (besides surface appearances being deceiving) is that community and care between people who are very different but discover they have more in common than there is that separates them is what saves the day! That love comes in all kinds of forms, and they’re all important, and that love can be stronger than fear! 

But apparently, according to the Duffers, queer love doesn’t count and queer community doesn’t exist. It’s just isolation, misery, and tragedy, and I guess we the watchers are supposed to sit outside of it and pity Them for it (and be quietly, sneakily, a little bit nastily grateful that it’s not happening to Us). Because of course nobody watching the show is queer. Of course. This show is made for normal people. 

It’s part of the same attitude I’ve also seen play out with the Duffers’ inability to just let a white dude be bad. Oh, they want to talk a big game about how they’re on the side of the freaks, and bullies are bad, and everybody should be respected and appreciated for who they are. But when it cuts down to the bone, when applying that precept to a girl or a person of colour or a queer person makes a straight white guy come off as a monster, they keep trying to dodge it. 

The more antagonists they try desperately to rehab without ever acknowledging why they were antagonists in the first place, the more it starts to look like they simply don’t really believe that the people those antagonists hurt really matter. That, somewhere deep down where the assumptions that are so baked in you don’t even realise they’re assumptions live, they don’t really believe that girls, or Black kids, or queer people are as fundamentally human and deserving of respect and compassion as their beloved awful straight white men are. That what they really think about bullies is that bullies are bad because the bullies picked on them, instead of the kinds of people who deserved it.

(See also: that time a twelve- or thirteen-year-old Sadie Sink didn’t want to have to do a kiss in the Snow Ball scene, so the Duffers, who had just been joking about having her do it, actually made her do it. For multiple takes. Specifically because she didn’t want to. And then later related that anecdote to the press. Because they thought it was funny.)

Anyway. Personally, I’d prefer canon just never say anything definitive on the matter of Will’s sexuality and stop trying to push the narrative in that direction, so I don’t have to watch the Duffers spectacularly fumble yet another attempt at Writing About Marginalised Groups. 

(Also, this is absolutely not me saying Watch A Different Show - I’m here writing fanfic for this stupid show, it’d be pretty fucking rich of me to try to tell people to stop watching it. But I’d really love for many of its fans to get some more exposure to less-mainstream, more deliberately queer literature and film, so y’all can see what it really feels like to be seen and acknowledged and loved by a story, on purpose. I get it! I do! I too have wanted very badly to feel like something I loved, loved me back. 

But you don’t have to content yourselves with scraps. And you definitely don’t have to be so concerned with those scraps that you blame your friends, cousins, siblings, brothers in arms for ‘stealing’ some kind of ‘representation’ from you by asking to be seen and acknowledged and loved as well. The bastards who’ve been withholding that recognition from all of us would love nothing more than to watch with amusement, gorging themselves on a banquet, while we tear each other apart over a couple of discarded bones. Don’t give them the satisfaction. We don’t have to be isolated, pitiable, pathetic, miserable tragedies. Put the hollow promises of exclusionism and respectability down. There is queer art and literature and film and community and joy and love in abundance that you don’t have to beg anyone for, and you are invited to participate. This is me inviting you to participate. 

And cordially inviting the Duffers to meet me in the woods behind the 7-Eleven.)

...

tl;dr the way the Duffers treat queerness when they do it on purpose feels like a combination of othering, contempt, and misery porn, and I hate it. And that, in a nutshell, is the rant I’ve been sitting on for the last two-and-a-bit years. I’m getting down off the cafeteria table now. 

[williamrikers]

haven't finished watching 1899 yet but the fascinating thing about it is that they put just about every single horror trope they could think of in there and yet none of them are executed well. for every single story element, i can name a show that Did It Better™

[miss-floral-thief]

g

guess it’s being more played up as a ship? lol

[mealfitforaking]

the newest s&b season is egregious ((redundantly) bad) but i love kanej (both individually and together) to shreds so that counts for something...

i truly believe amita and freddy are the perfect inej and kaz so ofc i would love to keep seeing them on tv; they make the most of what they're given but the script (as well as the editing) is a travesty

[elany]

i go on holiday for few weeks and suddenly twilight out of focus has an anime?? where's the 'was anybody going to tell me' meme when you need it

[amplexadversary]

I'm really hoping this isn't another case of the english having mastered the art of queerbaiting.

[irrealisms]

everyone in mcyt fandom talks about bad inventories but i feel like we don't talk enough about the different types of bad inventory & the ways that inventories can be characterizing. i took most of these screenshots but one or two of them aren't by me and i've just had them saved for a few months sorry. i'm taking inventories from various people across various servers (wild life, dream smp, hermitcraft, lifesteal, and 2b2t) to illustrate my point here

like there are inventories that are bad because they're empty:

but then there's also inventories that are bad because they're full:

and, like-- the different ways an inventory can be bad are also characterizing? an inventory can be bad because the items aren't stacked; or because it's empty of anything useful; or because it's so full of building/fight supplies that there's no slots left for doing anything else; or because it's full of random junk. it speaks to a character's position (compare tubbo's diamond sword and empty inventory to ranboo's netherite sword or zam's full inventory of potions) and the rules of the server they're on (tubbo's not wearing elytra because elytra aren't allowed on the dsmp; zam's inventory has chorus fruit and wind charges but no ender pearls because ender pearls aren't allowed this season on lifesteal) and what their priorities are (building, pvp, lore) and how organized vs scattered they are and so much more. another inventory i like:

like!!! that's so instantly characterizing, for both the character and the server!!!! 5 stacks of end crystals + obsidian. 6 stacks of tnt. 3 stacks of god apples and a stack of chorus fruit as your only food. the bucket of lava and bucket of water for lavacasting. the fact that the flint and steel is enchanted with unbreaking. that's a STORY--of the character but also of the server! this is not the sort of inventory you have on most servers! it's so focused around griefing--explosions, lavacasts--and pvp, and the stacks of god apples as primary food source are an instant warning sign for widespread duping. the chorus fruit not for fights--ender pearls are strictly better, and he's got some so he clearly has access to them--which means it's for escaping traps, which means that's a live concern. it's got a lot of pvp supplies but it's so wildly different from the lifesteal inventory in ways that speak to the differences in server rules and cultures. like, horrendous inventory in many ways. also, very good inventory in some ways. also also, delightful inventory! fascinating inventory!!! inventories are such a delightful source of instant characterization i love them so so much

[tobiasdrake]

*deep breath* Okay. Here we go.

I don't think the Netflix Avatar show likes women very much. It's a great show for fans of Aang, Sokka, Zuko, and Iroh specifically. All four of those characters get a ton of great material. In fact, it's super great for Sokka stans, because the show takes him ultra-seriously and can't go five minutes without one character or another (usually a woman) praising him.

But the way it handles its female cast is troublesome.

Katara

So, all three of the main trio got some changes made to their stories. They changed Aang's story so that he wasn't running away from his responsibilities; He was just clearing his head and somehow accidentallied himself into a tsunami. Whoopsy-dooodle. Aang did nothing wrong.

They changed Sokka's story so that him being a leader of his people and a great guardian warrior is treated with complete seriousness. Multiple times, characters stop to talk about how brave and noble Sokka is for taking on such an intense responsibility, and tell him to his face what a great warrior and a wonderful leader he is. Also his misogyny is erased.

And they changed Katara's story so that she directly got her mom killed because she sucks at waterbending.

Katara tries to waterbend to attack the Fire Nation soldier but couldn't manage it, provoking the soldier to start actively searching for her and forcing her mom to fake a waterbending attack and draw his fire. They changed Katara's story so that her bad decision making fucking got her mom killed.

This is treated with the same level of severity as "Sokka was bullied by mean kids and also his dad doesn't think he's good enough to be a leader."

"I hoped Sokka would do better but not everyone is meant to have people's lives in their hands," Sokka's dad says of him.

Yeah, you're right, that's totally comparable to watching your mom get barbecued because you tried to waterbend in a situation you shouldn't have and then failed.

In fact, they give Sokka's greatest trauma more weight because it gets examined again with Yue next episode, while Katara actively getting her mom killed isn't brought up again at all. We get traumatized glimpses of it throughout the season leading up to the reveal, but after this scene in episode 5, it never comes up again.

But to be fair, Katara was a child. An event this significant would surely have motivated her, driving her to become the great waterbender she is now, right?

No! Katara sucks at waterbending and needs men who aren't even waterbenders to teach her how to waterbend. She requires instruction from Aang in episode 1 to learn how to waterbend, then from Jet in episode 3 to learn how to waterbend better.

And unlike the show, her relationship with Aang isn't a give-and-take; Katara doesn't teach Aang a single goddamn thing. He never learns to waterbend. She is a strictly a pupil throughout the whole season. Though she at least gets officially labeled a master in episode 8, so there's that.

In any case, the whole traumatic memory thing isn't even the only time she's directly compared with Sokka. Episodes 3 and 4 see Katara and Sokka bicker over whose morally dubious side character is better. Sokka likes the Mechanist and Katara likes Jet.

Ultimately, Katara is forced to eat crow when Jet turns out to be the worst, while Sokka is vindicated when the Mechanist sees the error of his ways and reforms. But not before two separate arguments where Sokka calls Katara childish and accuses her of acting like a little girl.

Arguments ultimately resolved when Katara apologizes to Sokka for not adequately respecting his very serious and ultra important role as village protector and leader. Gives him a whole speech about how great and glorious he is. And Sokka... appreciates Katara learning to respect him properly, I guess, because he never offers any similar sentiments back to her.

The show just... They need you to know how important Sokka is, okay? It's very important that you respect Sokka.

Suki

Suki suffers tremendously from that whole "Sokka's misogyny was removed" thing. Y'know, because they need something else to do with that episode. The show is deeply aware that Suki is Sokka's love interest, so they just do that right off the bat. Suki falls madly in love with him from the moment they meet, and spends the entire episode making goo-goo eyes and trying to get him to Notice Me Senpai.

They still do the "Suki Trains Sokka" stuff. But Sokka is a serious, dignified manly man worthy of the deepest respect now, so of course they don't make him wear the Kyoshi uniform. Instead, the main purpose of his training is to allow them to flirt some more. It's less martial arts training and more an excuse to grope each other and near-kiss.

Suki's just a waifu now. She still fights real good, but all of the stuff that made her relationship with Sokka interesting has been erased.

Yue

Yue, similarly, leaps straight to shipping from the word go. They write out her fiance, Hahn, by having Yue briefly meet Sokka earlier in the season. She spends one minute talking to him in the Spirit World about Spirit World lore; In that time, she falls so desperately, madly, unfathomably in love with him that she breaks off her marriage to Hahn and devotes herself to waiting for him to one day come to her.

"Never have I known such joys as that time you let me explain the spirit bear Hei Bei to you. Truly, we are destined to be together for life."

Like with Suki, they go out of their way to have Yue and Sokka already be a ship from the word 'go' so they don't have to spend time developing any kind of meaningful attraction.

They just. They really want you to know that Sokka is the manliest and most desirable man ever to walk this earth. It is very important that you understand how great he is. Women hurl themselves into his arms with zero effort whatsoever, because he's just so goddamn irresistible.

Fortunately, Hahn is super okay with this turn of events. He's the most chill guy ever, he gets along perfectly well with Sokka, and he completely supports Yue's right to dump him! In the famously misogynistic Northern Water Tribe, no less! What a swell guy. Aren't men swell?

June

June gets hit with that "rewritten as hollow waifu" stick too, but her eyes are set on Iroh. They rewrote June to be super attracted and flirty towards the man who was her unwanted sexual harasser in the source material. So that's fun.

Also, she barely does anything. Zuko hires her to find Aang, she succeeds, and then she fucks right off out of the show - But she manages to find time to express how unbelievably sexy Iroh is twice during that time.

She seriously just dropped into the show to flirt with Iroh and leave. She is unbelievably inconsequential.

Kyoshi

And then there's Kyoshi. They really want you to hate Kyoshi. She's constantly shot from below, as if looking down on Aang and the audience. Her voice takes on a demonic echoing reverb at one point as she's screaming at Aang that "THE AVATAR MUST BE A MERCILESS WARRIOR!!!"

She despises Aang, calling him a coward for running away from his responsibilities - Which, I remind you, is no longer a plot point because they unwrote that flaw from his character. So she's just a complete and utter asshole, shot from the asshole angle, yelling violently at him with asshole sound effects. They want you to despise this woman.

Azula

Awkwardly, they do not seem to want you to despise Azula.

There's a lot to be said for how Ozai treats Azula in the original show. The way the favoritism he shows her is every bit as cruel and manipulative as the unfavoritism that he shows Zuko. Ozai does not love Azula. He loves the reflection of himself he sees in her eyes, and his encouragement urges her to polish herself to ensure his reflection always shines through.

This is not that. The show instead erases the favoritism entirely. Ozai doesn't really care one way or another about either of his kids. He plays them against each other, bragging openly to Azula about how great Zuko is and unpleasably writing Azula off as weak and useless.

They've rewritten the dynamic between abusive father and his two abused kids in order to take Azula's pride away. Reimagining her from a gifted prodigy who excels at imitating the toxic behaviors of a father who doesn't truly care for her, to a put-upon overachiever tearing herself in knots to live up to the standards of her unpleasable father.

This results in a truly wild portrayal of Azula as insecure and jealous of Ozai's seemingly love for Zuko. Here, she is simply a browbeaten child constantly complaining to her friends about how mean her father is and conspiring to get one up over Daddy's Golden Child Zuko.

Which she fails at, because she backs Zhao. Zuko deftly defeats her without even realizing they're in competition.

Conclusion

The season ends well for some of these women. It ends promising that maybe we'll see Katara teaching Aang some day. It ends with Zhao bragging that Ozai just used Zuko to train Azula so maybe we'll see the more confident and misguidedly proud Azula some day. Yue becomes the moon like she's supposed to. June's still out there so maybe she'll get to do something again some day.

Katara gets to fight Pakku and lose, but she looks pretty cool. She gets to fight Zuko and lose, but she looks pretty cool. Azula learns to lightningbend because she's just so mad about Ozai's contempt for her and favoritism for Zuko, which isn't how you lightningbend.

But promises of future content fall flat when the content that exists is so underwhelming. This season made its feelings on these characters pretty evident, and it's unwise to expect better material from creators who've disappointed you with the material they already made.

The women of Netflix Avatar simply do not get to shine, outside of superficial moments like the "Women of Northern Water Tribe demand the right to fight and then fuck off and don't do anything for the entire rest of the episode" bit.

"In the midst of battle, we demand that you stop being sexist and give us permission to fight! This is a way better idea than convincing you to teach us to fight before the battle begins."

The characters of this show feel as if they've been reimagined to glorify the boys at the expense of the girls. The boys are treated with a great amount of care. They're dignified and made important movers of the plot, with their rough edges sanded off. While the girls are molded around them.