#write 'i will not woobify that man' 50 times

[sea-shelly]

max is seb and seb is max they are two sides to the same coin who took the same path with the same result. jfc seb said he would root for max in the biggest title decider ever and people think seb thinks he hates max 😭

EYE would simply not post about how poorly I understood my purported favourite!

[canonizzyhours]

Re 171 (preemptively fuck terfs and Nazis op no longer engages with the Harry Potter fandom but it is a part of fandom history)

Yeah this happens like, all the fucking time. Kylo Ren and Severus Snape are the most famous examples of shitty white guys in fandom who have or had an obsessive standom that insists they've never done anything wrong ever and woobified the shit out of them. There are many many many others I just use those two as examples because they're incredibly indicative of like an archetype that Izzy follows to a T. Shitty white man is broody, bears grudges, has anger issues, is given little or no depth, dresses in black, has no friends, allies themselves with or is part of a fundamentally bigoted force because they feel a certain type of way about the good guys (be they his own parents, the main character's parents, or the main character himself). He amasses a standom and then later he gets revealed to have some depth because he got such a solid reaction that the creators feel like they should do something fun with him, the standom starts to feel vindicated, and then he fucking dies because of course he dies and the standom implodes. MASSIVE bonus points on these guys if they're kind of an incel for some reason. They love to go "oh but Snape was in love with Lily" "oh but Kylo was in love with Rey" "oh but Izzy was in love with Ed" and it's super fucking creepy every time they do it. A lot of people in a lot of desperate fandoms really genuinely think that being in love with someone who doesn't like you back justifies being a shitty boss/middle manager, murder, calling the British Navy on a crew that's 50% non white and 100% pirates and sodomites, domestic abuse, bullying children, torture, and being a fucking Nazi (non exhaustive list of things fannish types have justified by saying but he was in love). Like there's differences between these characters obviously, Izzy didn't join up with the navy he just made a deal with them and also he was well written unlike the other two, JK Rowling genuinely thinks that Snape did nothing wrong because shes actually kind of a fascist, Rey ended up sort of half way getting with Kylo because their whole writing strategy was fanservice, but ultimately this is a well known type of Blorbo: the greasy incel we make excuses for. There's more of them these assholes are prolific I'm just listing the two everyone knows about and the one this blog is about.

#175.

related posts: #171

[vanityloves]

ppl make ** really soft which is ,, surprisingly sweet but im also like... wheres the mean hcs? wheres his bitchass self being rude to me?

[the-desolated-quill]

We Need To Talk About James Gunn - Quill’s Scribbles

This could prove to be the most controversial Scribble I’ve ever written on this blog, and the sad thing is it really shouldn’t be, in my opinion.

First off, a couple of disclaimers because I know some people are going to accuse me of ‘bias’. I’ve never been very fond of James Gunn as a filmmaker, it’s true. I thought the first Guardians Of The Galaxy movie was okay at best and I absolutely hated the sequel, but I confess that’s less to do with any inherent flaws in the films themselves and more to do with the fact that I just don’t like Gunn’s style of humour. Oh don’t get me wrong. There are still legitimate problems, which I’ll go into later when they become relevant, but I’m big enough to admit that my dislike for his brand of comedy and storytelling is merely due to my own subjective tastes (the same is true of Taika Waititi and Thor: Ragnarok).

Okay. So. Let’s talk about James Gunn.

As I’m sure most of you know, in July 2018, an alt-right conspiracy theorist called Mike Cernovich unearthed tweets made by Gunn between 2008 and 2012 where he made offensive jokes and remarks about sensitive topics such as rape, child abuse and paedophilia. While James Gunn did apologise and vowed to ‘do better,’ Disney, fearing the public backlash, fired Gunn as director of Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 and dismissed him from any role in producing and expanding Marvel’s planned ‘Cosmic Universe.’ The result was the public backlash Disney were trying to avoid in the first place. They received a lot of criticism from various entertainers and filmmakers, as well as many media outlets such as Collider and The Independent, the cast of Guardians wrote a letter urging Disney to reconsider their decision with Dave Bautista in particular being very vocal in his criticism, and there was a massive outcry from fans who petitioned for Gunn to be rehired. Guy Lodge, writing for The Guardian, asked the question ‘Was James Gunn the first undeserving victim of Hollywood’s new zero tolerance policy?’ Now I’d argue the answer to that question is a definitive no, but apparently, and surprisingly, that’s not a very popular opinion among liberals. So I’d very much like to challenge them as we explore James Gunn’s moral character and ask ourselves why he’s being defended so passionately.

Before we go any further, I think it would be a good idea for me to show you some of the tweets that we’re talking about, just to remind everyone what we’re dealing with here.

Now I hope we can all agree that this is objectively disgusting. Only an amoral, depraved and utterly moronic individual would find offensive tweets like these even remotely funny. But I should make it clear that, by James Gunn’s own admission, these tweets represent who he was rather than who he is. In his apology, he described himself as a ‘provocateur’ during the early days of his career, making shocking statements for the purposes of ‘satire.’ But it’s okay because he’s a better person who has grown and matured fully and will never do this again. Fair enough, you’d think. He admitted what he did was wrong and apologised profusely. That was a very honourable and decent thing to do.

Except we’ve seen this song and dance before.

In 2012, roundabout when Marvel announced they were making a Guardians Of The Galaxy movie with James Gunn directing, an old blog post of Gunn’s resurfaced entitled ‘The 50 Superheroes You Most Want To Have Sex With.’ The original post has since been deleted, but cached versions still exist here and there around the internet if you know where to look. Here are a few quotes from said blog:

[on natasha romanoff, the highest ~debut] “considering she’s fucked half the guys in the marvel universe, that’s quite a feat”

[on batwoman] “i’m hoping for a dc-marvel crossover so that tony stark can turn her; she could also have sex with nightwing and still be a lesbian”

”Many of the people who voted for the Flash were gay men. I have no idea why this is. But I do know if I was going to get fucked in the butt I too would want it to be by someone who would get it over with quick.”

Needless to say, this was quite offensive and causing bad PR, so James Gunn issued an apology:

“A couple of years ago I wrote a blog that was meant to be satirical and funny. In rereading it over the past day I don’t think it’s funny. The attempted humor in the blog does not represent my actual feelings. However, I can see where statements were poorly worded and offensive to many. I’m sorry and regret making them at all.

People who are familiar with me as evidenced by my Facebook page and other mediums know that I’m an outspoken proponent for the rights of the gay and lesbian community, women and anyone who feels disenfranchised, and it kills me that some other outsider like myself, despite his or her gender or sexuality, might feel hurt or attacked by something I said. We’re all in the same camp, and I want to do my best to make this world a better place for all of us. I’m learning all the time. I promise to be more careful with my words in the future. And I will do my best to be funnier as well. Much love to all – James”

Sound familiar?

Now of course it’s unfair to judge the man based on past actions that he himself apologised for. What matters is the present. Whether or not he has demonstrated to a reasonable standard that his work has grown and matured and that his offensive idiocy is a thing of the past. So let’s look at the Guardians Of The Galaxy movies.

While the first movie received critical acclaim, a few people (particularly fans of the source material) complained about how Gamora was treated. The so called ‘most powerful woman in the galaxy’ was reduced to a love interest, an occasional damsel in distress and there were a few odd occasions where she was objectified and degraded based on her sexual history. The most prominent example of which is when Drax describes her as ‘a green whore.’ The context being that he was ignorant of how offensive he was being despite trying to compliment her and call her a friend, and this was played for laughs in the movie. The second movie has more examples. Gamora’s role still paled in comparison to the role she played in the comics, and a new female character called Mantis was introduced whose power level from the comics was also significantly reduced for the movie and whose character was effectively reduced to be a punchline/punching bag. There’s also a scene involving Drax where he frequently describes her as ugly, saying that "when you're ugly and someone loves you, you know they love you for who you are. Beautiful people never know who to trust." Again this is played for laughs. Except I’d argue that an adult man constantly fixating on a woman’s appearance isn’t even remotely funny. 

Another disturbing aspect of the Guardians 2 was the way it seemed to romanticise and excuse abusive relationships. Obviously there’s Drax and Mantis, but the biggest example is Star Lord and Yondu. The first movie did a reasonably good job establishing what drew Star Lord and Gamora together. They were both trying to escape from abusive father figures. The second film does a complete U-turn, calling Yondu Star Lord’s ‘David Hasselhoff’ and giving him a gratuitous and overly sentimental funeral as though he were a noble hero. While I’m sure the death of Yondu would emotionally impact Star Lord to a certain extent (he did raise the kid after all), to say that he’s like ‘David Hasselhoff’ because he’s a better dad than Ego the Living Planet was seems like a very low bar to clear. By that logic, Hitler was a good person because he didn’t kill as many people as Stalin did. It’s tone deaf, lacking in nuance and just a little bit insulting.

Bearing all this in mind, has James Gunn grown and matured since the period between 2008 and 2012? That’s for you to judge. I’d personally argue he hasn’t. Sure he’s no longer as extreme or provocative as he once was, but that’s not necessarily proof that he’s matured. Rather he’s just gotten better at hiding his immaturity. And in my own subjective opinion, based on his work, I think Disney made the right decision in sacking him. Now let me be clear, I don’t think Disney sacked him in order to take a moral stand as a lot of the problematic elements in the Guardians films have carried over into other MCU films. Gamora is still treated like shit in Avengers: Infinity War, and Thanos, who, like Yondu, was clearly established in the first Guardians movie as an abusive father figure, has been woobified and turned into a kind of sympathetic anti villain who actually cared about his daughter and only killed her because he had no other choice (as opposed to, you know, because he is a maniacal despot who’s a few Oompa Loompas short of a chocolate factory). The reason Gunn was fired was because of bad PR. Disney had dealt with this shit before in 2012 and they weren’t prepared to deal with it again, so they dropped the baggage, as it were. It’s a very common occurrence in Hollywood. Which is what makes the public backlash against this decision so puzzling to me.

I can understand being upset that the director of your favourite franchise has been fired, but can we try to get some perspective here? What happened to Gunn is nothing unique. This kind of thing happens all the time. A filmmaker does something controversial or has been revealed to have done something controversial in the past, the studio sacks them in an attempt to save face and everyone gets on with their lives. The situation with James Gunn is no different. The only reason I can see why people are so passionately against this is because of how these tweets were unearthed in the first place. Because the discoverer of the tweets, Mike Cernovich, is a member of the alt-right, the liberal community seem predisposed to dismiss this out of hand, which I think is incredibly dangerous. Okay, yes, Cernovich is a Nazi and almost certainly didn’t do this out of the goodness of his heart, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. It doesn’t change the fact that the tweets still exist and that they’re still incredibly offensive. And all the things I’ve heard people say in defence of James Gunn sound very similar to things the right would say about the likes of Brett Cavanaugh and Donald Trump. ‘It was x number of years ago.’ ‘It’s not relevant to who he is now.’ ‘He’s changed.’ ‘You can’t judge someone based on their past mistakes.’ I mean... come on guys! Either everyone should be held to the same standard or nobody should be held to standards at all. You can’t just change tact just because the person in question has the same political ideals as you. What are we saying? It’s okay for liberals to hold conservatives accountable for past actions and behaviour, but the right can’t do it to the left because apparently it’s not as funny when they do it? It’s classic ‘them and us’ mentality and it’s got to stop.

So, why am I bringing all this up, you may be asking? This happened over six months ago Quill. Aren’t you a little late to the party? Well a couple of days ago, it was announced that Warner Bros and DC Films had hired James Gunn to write and direct a sequel to Suicide Squad.

Well... sequel isn’t quite the right word. Apparently it’s more along the lines of a reimagining. Titled ‘The Suicide Squad’, the film is going to follow a whole new cast of characters and effectively start from scratch. No doubt this is part of WB and DC’s attempts to salvage the DC Extended Universe after the critical and financial disaster that was Justice League, as well as a response to people’s criticisms of the previous Suicide Squad film.

Writer/director David Ayer’s version of Suicide Squad was... let’s be charitable and call it problematic. Many people criticised the film for being misogynistic, borderline racist due to the one dimensional characterisation, and particular outrage was directed toward Ayer’s attempts to romanticise the relationship between the Joker and Harley Quinn. So it’s quite ironic that WB and DC are relying on James Gunn - James Gunn?!?! - to fix Suicide Squad when similar criticisms have been made toward the Guardians Of The Galaxy movies. That’s like hiring Harvey Weinstein to investigate sexual harassment claims.

And do you know what the funny thing is? We’ve been in this exact same situation before. In February 2017, news media started to report that WB and DC were eyeing Mel Gibson, the Oscar nominated director of Hawksaw Ridge and professional arsehole, to direct Suicide Squad 2. I even wrote a Scribble on it then. I heavily criticised WB and DC for caring more about snagging an Oscar nominated director to bolster their failing franchise than about holding certain ethical standards of decency within the industry. Oh, sure, Gibson has said many sexist, homophobic and antisemitic comments for years and has never at any point showed any hint of remorse for the amount of offence he’s caused, but he just made a good movie about Spider-Man fighting in World War II, so it all balances out, doesn’t it? We’re good, right? We’re cool. Gibson’s cool now. Yeah?

And now here we are seeing this play out again. James Gunn, a man who has said some incredibly offensive things over the years, is being hired by WB and DC to helm a new Suicide Squad movie and conveniently ignoring all the problematic shit surrounding him because he’s the guy that made those sci-fi films about the talking raccoon. People love those films. Let’s get him on board.

I’m getting so sick to death of actors and filmmakers getting away with shit and avoiding the consequences of their actions. James Gunn and his offensive tweets, Mel Gibson and his shitty behaviour, Kevin Hart and his temper tantrum when he was expected to apologise for being a homophobic prick. And the few times there are consequences for said actions, people of influence within the industry end up undermining it. WB and DC hiring James Gunn so soon after he was sacked by Disney, and Ellen fucking Degeneres ringing the Academy and persuading them to let Kevin Hart host the Oscars. Thankfully, and to his genuine credit, Hart turned it down, but seriously, what the actual fuck Ellen?! You’re LGBT, aren’t you? Why are you giving him a free pass? Do you have short term memory loss like the fish you voice in Finding fucking Nemo? Jesus Christ!

Finally, to people saying that Disney treated James Gunn too harshly for the tweets, may I remind you that when ‘The 50 Superheroes You Most Want To Have Sex With’ resurfaced in 2012, Disney still kept him on! He still got to write and direct two Marvel movies before finally getting the sack. And he was in talks to lead production in all future ‘Cosmic’ Marvel movies going forward before the resurfaced tweets made that impossible. Too harshly? I think he got off extremely lightly, frankly. I think he’s grotesquely lucky he’s still got a job at all. Let alone a job where he continues to direct tentpole blockbusters. For someone who was treated ‘too harshly’, he’s sure done alright for himself, hasn’t he? He’s not Oliver Twist begging movie studios to give him a film, cap in hand, ‘please sir, may I have some more?’ His position hasn’t changed one iota. That’s what we should be pissed off at. Not that he’s being unfairly punished. That he’s not being punished enough roughly seven years after the fact.

So what should we take away from all this? That we need to hold everyone accountable for their past actions and behaviour, regardless of whether they share our political beliefs or whether they were involved in films we actually like, and that the industry needs to do a better job of upholding the consequences of said actions. And regardless of whether you thought Disney were right to sack James Gunn, it cannot be denied that WB and DC handing the keys of another profitable franchise over to him so soon after this controversy is an incredibly irresponsible thing to do.

[grcndel]

“ 🔥 “ your unpop opinion on mlm fetishization in both the fic writing world and rpc because i, truly as a gay man , fucking Hate it

oh boy i have.  bullet points for THIS fucking ask !!

so first off, straight girls writing gay men is a recipe for fucking disaster.  always.  every time.  non-straight girls and non-gay men writing gay men, on the other hand, is a 50/50 shot.  i don’t recommend people try it if they aren’t willing to do the necessary research and don’t understand that it isn’t their place to speak up over gay men’s voices when gay men tell them they’re doing something offensive, inaccurate, or fetishistic. 

wanting to ship your female muse in an MMF relationship just because you think the M/M part of it is hot and wanna project on ‘getting in on the action’ with your character isn’t good polyamory representation, it’s just fucking gross.  fetishizing bi / pan mens’ attraction to other men is fucking gross.  writing situations where gay men invite a girl into sexual or romantic acts is fucking gross.

jokes and comments like  “awh i wish he wasn’t gay,”  “my muse can woo even GAY men into loving her,”  “well what if she had a penis hahaha,”  “my female muse’s type is gay men - she always goes after them!”,  and  “but he’s SOOOO hot …”  aren’t fucking cute.  all they ACTUALLY end up doing is making me uncomfortable, putting me on the spot, and leading me to believe you have no respect for gay mens’ sexuality.  these borderline corrective-rape ‘jokes,’ ‘kinks,’ etc. aren’t sexy, they aren’t funny, they aren’t endearing  –  they’re disgusting.  you’re disgusting if you partake in them.  ( still looking at you, xuxu, you fucking godawful piece of shit. )

the RPC does not  “love”  or  “adore”  or  “fawn over”  gay men  –  those are positive terms.  what the RPC does is use gay men as mindless wank material and sexual objects.  we are not loved here.  we aren’t even viewed as human.  any canon representation we have is either denied, woobified/infantilized, or overly sexualized to the point of being damn near unrecognizable.  stop claiming we don’t have it as hard as other LGBT people in this community  –  we do;  the nuances of our situations are just different from theirs, and the violence against us translates very differently in the RPC than it does for bi/pan people, trans people, or lesbians.  the popularity of gay ships in fandom spaces is in of itself an act of fetishism and shouldn’t be considered anything CLOSE to respect, appreciation, or love.

straight womens’ obsession with gay ships isn’t  “women exploring their sexualities,”  it’s fucking predatory and creepy and absurd.  calling women out on fetishizing gay men isn’t fucking misogyny, and i can’t even believe i have to say that, but i HAVE seen people argue that point before.  you don’t get to throw another oppressed group of people under the bus for your own fucking pleasure and then decide that said oppressed group is evil and sexist if they stand up for themselves.  that isn’t how this shit works.

and finally  –  this one isn’t necessarily a fetishism thing, but since it’s happened to me before?  trying to convince someone that they should write their muse as bi / pan instead of gay, or making sure you tell them that you interpret the muse differently in that regard, is a very very VERY transparent homophobic micro-aggression.  if their muse’s sexuality is headcanon-based and you headcanon them differently, that’s fine, just  …  keep it to yourself unless it’s legitimately problematic for people to be hailing that character as a ‘gay icon’  ( RE: pennywise ).  if their muse’s sexuality is canonical, don’t fucking argue with them about it beyond that  –  better yet, stop fucking shipping that character w/ people who aren’t the same or similar gender.  if someone informs you a character is gay and you fucking insist on keeping him in a straight ship, you’re a homophobic little freak and i hate you with everything i have.

[griancraft]

Over my 7 years of fandom and 2 years (almost 3) in this fandom I’ve noticed the fetishization and “fem and masc” portrayal of gay relationships. The way this translates to this fandom is interesting and little talked about. In order to make my point, I will be talking about Cbeeduo and DNF (general). I like both sets of people and am coming from the angle of a fan. I’m not comparing the relationships directly. Just how fandom views them.

If you disagree I’d love to hear why!! I’m not saying this is 100% true or that you even have to agree with me. Love u all :D

Cbeeduo in this fandom is so vehemently insisted upon as being /p despite the actual story having them pretty clearly romantically coded. They share a bed. They make jokes about the characters being in a relationship. They have a son. quite a few things make more sense when you consider the characters romantically written.

However, people hate it when they are portrayed as romantic in any way by others in the fandom. To the point of death threats, gore, and harassment.

You could argue this is because of cc boundaries but ranboo, at the very least, has stated he’s okay with character shipping as long as it’s not weird. Weird likely implying sexual content. I don’t know if any boundaries explicitly set out by Tubbo on the matter.

I think this dislike of /r portrayal is in large part also because they can’t sexualize the characters. Also, because they don’t fit into the box of “the guy one” and “the girl one” dynamics a lot of people insist that gay ships must have. CRanboo is tall yes, but they’re also a coward and selfish at times. They display character traits that aren’t synonymous with being strong and powerful. CTubbo is hard to woobify down to the “ohhh help me” damsel in distress. The character is very flawed, lashes out, gets angry, and is strong and smart.

The characters don’t fit the archetypes that a lot of (largely het) fans would want to see and write about. This is a pattern I notice in fandom a LOT. Especially when I was younger and into anime. This just isn’t how gay people exist though. And a portrayal of gay men shouldn’t have to fit this archetype.

However, dnf does. Mostly because the fandom made it that way. To be clear, I like dtqk+. I engage in dnf sometimes. This isn’t out of hate for DNFers or anything!! It’s just some light crit of some fandom portrayal.

Cbeeduo are, in my opinion, potrayed as a very normal queer couple when written /r. They are more similar to how I have experienced love, QPR or romantically. DNF is also very often portrayed in a way that makes me feel so seen and makes me so happy. However this is like. Maybe 50% of the time.

People are a lot more comfortable drawing George as skinny, fragile, and feminine. Despite the fact he is a man who was literally the British equivalent of a frat boy or whatever. He may be “smaller” but he’s also an incredibly intelligent computer nerd with a heart of gold and humour to match. He doesn’t fit the archetype of softboy gay man who is a twink. Im not saying George isn’t or can’t be feminine, I’m just saying that making him out to be JUST that in fanworks is reductionist and frankly a little bit homophobic. Giving him no muscles no body hair and fem features he may not have is really uncomfortable..? Especially if you draw Dream with all of that.

Dream is potrayed as a tall, big strong protective masculine man. While Dream is indeed tall, protective, and fit, He also doesn’t fit the mold exactly because he’s well. A real man. Often this half of the relationship is either aloof or an overconfident jokester. Dream is a very confident, funny man but that’s not all he is. He’s smart, kind, and would do anything for his friends. His personality is complex and shouldn’t be put down to a big strong protector and lover for George.

How do we fix this? I don’t know. It’s just something I’ve seen and talked to a few of my friends about IRL. I just wanted to talk about it because I think it’s really interesting.

Hmmm this post may upset people. Should I make it.