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whetstonefires · 9 months

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The thing about the Shazam! (Captain Marvel but they don't have the rights to call him that) movie is that overall it's pretty good? Even if I question the pacing choices made in terms of screentime breakdown for '14yo boys making mortifying life choices and humorously failing judgment calls' vs. 'character development wrt to literally anything else about this fairly large cast.'

It's hokey; it should be. It's got some decent themes and fun character bits and set up good solid hero/villain parallels to subvert.

But.

But it massively clotheslined itself with a major storytelling fuckup connected to the opening hook mystery, whose resolution is meant to be the emotional inflection point of the whole film.

Because the thing is, this movie chose to be slightly interesting in how it approached its 'family' themes. In a variation on 'family of choice' (since your foster family are in fact assigned by the government and Billy not having a choice about living with them only about trusting them is a major story element) it went for the more nuanced and kind of interestingly grimy take that the people who are actually in your life giving a shit about you matter, if you let them, and that you need to stop giving the people who failed to love you power over your happiness.

Which is not a bad premise at all! As messages for a movie about a kid being sent to a group home go, that's the most upbeat you could possibly get and still be tied to reality.

The Vasquez couple are written and played well in these terms too because they really, genuinely care, and are making so much effort, but as system graduates themselves they never had competent parenting modeled for them and god does it show.

And the mental health problems of the kids who got enough characterization to have them were similarly...realistic in a best-case-scenario sort of way.

But! Still with the but! Even though they pulled off a lot of this fairly touchy premise rather well, there's a crack in the foundation that makes the whole movie kind of collapse on a thematic level.

Because the movie (following the prologue introducing the villain's backstory) opens with a juicy emotional hook where small Billy is separated from his mother at a Christmas fair and never sees her again.

Cut to some years later, establishing status quo scene, he's a Troubled Youth rebelling against the system in an endless quest to find his mother and go home. He is committing minor felonies to get access to police information about women surnamed Batson so he can go to their houses because eventually one of them has to be his mom.

His case worker after he's picked up again refers to his mother as 'someone who clearly didn't want you,' which Billy rejects as bullshit, and he's valid! Because that is not what you say when you have actual information. That's a surmise. That's a sentence that says Child Protective Services and the police couldn't find her either.

Especially because you don't immediately chuck a kid into foster care because he's found unattended. Maybe you do that later, after a lengthy period of oversight, depending on his mom's reaction to having him returned and her race and socioeconomic status and apparent mental health and so forth. But you don't just not contact her, and you definitely don't refuse to tell the kid about the result once you have.

The only normal situation where an accessible record exists of a kid's original parentage but it's denied to the kid is in sealed adoptions, which are a formal procedure that clearly didn't happen here. There is every indication in this opening sequence that his mom was never found.

Which means she's a missing person. Either because they located the correct Billy Batson and his adult never came back to their house (which would suggest foul play or some other drama) or because despite being old enough to be in school and knowing his own name, no one could find evidence that Billy existed prior to turning up at that street carnival.

Which would constitute a very mysterious situation! What is he, from a cult? Another dimension? Did someone (in the social worker's proposed scenario, Billy's mom) erase all record of her kid somehow? Was magic involved?

So: the way we're introduced to this scenario, there's a legitimate weird mystery here that none of the adults in Billy's life care enough about to do anything but tell him to write it off, the way they have. That his missing person clearly did it on purpose.

Billy's being ridiculous because if what he's trying would work then he wouldn't need to do it; his social worker could have arranged a meeting years ago. So it's a useless self-destructive behavior he needs to let go. But he's valid, in that he's being very obviously failed by the system and is doing the only thing he can think of to try to address his situation for himself.

And then! The Big Reveal is that his mom has been living under her maiden name in the same city as him this whole time.

Which the Gamer Kid Who Turns Out In This Scene To Be A Hacker (he's about 10) learned by. Breaking into a federal database.

So he goes to her house and it turns out. She'd been a teen mother and her babydaddy walked out after marrying her, and her parents cut her off, and she was depressed and felt like a bad mother so. When she saw the cops had her kid, she just walked away. And she wants to believe he's been happy and better off without her.

And the emotional arc of the film rests on how Billy comes to terms with this. With the fact that his past will never take him back and he has to learn to find joy in himself and his present situation and his future.

Having let go of that idea, he's able to emotionally commit to his gaggle of foster siblings and realize that unlike the villain, who was obsessed with punishing the people who never loved or accepted him, or the wizard who was focused on finding The Perfectly Worthy Champion, what you needed to be good and not lost was to be part of a mutually supportive group, like the wizard Shazam was before he and his siblings were betrayed. And then they can be a superhero team, woo!

And that part is actually depicted fairly well, all things considered!

But the problem is that the audience, to vibe with this properly, has to roll with the revelation that Billy was wrong to cling to the mystery of his vanished, beloved mother and the fantasy of going home again.

We have to be willing to participate in the idea that the Resistant Child Subjected To Foster Care was in the wrong.

And he wasn't! He wasn't wrong! His understanding of the situation was flawed but it should not have been flawed in this manner.

Because this scenario as it's depicted doesn't make any sense. The cops do not just keep your kid without following up if you fail to collect him from the baggage claim. CPS does not fail to provide a kid with the readily available evidence that he's been voluntarily surrendered to them, when he keeps running off trying to go home.

Why would they do that, after all? Billy's misbehavior was a huge hassle for them. They gained nothing by denying him access to his mother and the information about her that was, you recall, sitting totally available in a government database that could be hacked by a random 10 year old asian-american orphan. They just...made their own lives harder for no reason, while extending the suffering of a child in their care.

If the cops tried to return him back when and she said 'no i left him with you on purpose please keep him' maybe she gets prosecuted for child abandonment and maybe not, but either way, billy would know about it.

But if the screenwriters had made it clear early on that this information had been offered to him and he'd chosen not to believe it, they couldn't get a proper Reveal at the end because it would just be Billy being unable to continue pretending something the audience had known not to believe all along.

And they couldn't cram a good reason for the scenario they'd set up into the space they'd accorded it.

So they were just like, it's fine, if we cram enough cliches into this space people will react to the familiarity and go 'ah yes i know this one' and go along with it, and not notice that this isn't an actual coherent reply to the question that was set up an hour ago and therefore is emotionally unsatisfying somehow.

Anyway this is an important storytelling guideline: if you put in a mystery to control either the actual plot or, even worse, the emotional storyline, that mystery and its resolution have to make internal sense.

If you pull the Real Situation out of your ass, and it's not a matter of red herrings or That One Fact you didn't have that makes all the rest fit together differently, but in fact no one involved could have figured this out and especially if the people who did say this in the first place had no good basis for it, but still get narratively awarded the Correct trophy in a way that contributes to the thematic climax so the audience has to care. Then that will not get good results. It will make it hard to deliver on your intended themes.

Some people will not notice or care! This is true! But a lot of people will, and you'll get enough of a better punch even with the other folks, if the setup and denouement fit together properly and don't require reaching, to matter.

And when people do notice at all, rather than their naturally flowing along with the climax you're steering toward and experiencing A Story, there will be a tendency to notice you standing there placing roadsigns toward the Intended Emotional Response, and call you a hack.

People call out plotholes way too vigorously sometimes, so I want to be clear: it's not the lack of supporting logic I mind. It's that the active presence of illogic, of what's presented as a chain but is broken along its length, means the central character arc intersects with the core theme in a noticeably forced way. Which is bad craftsmanship on a meaningful level.

There is a loss of cohesion where you cannot satisfactorily resolve how the scenario we were initially shown came to be superimposed over the revealed truth, because that relationship between elements is very important to making a 'revelation' storyline land, you know?

In this case it's particularly vexing to me because the last-minute asspull and its thematic weight reaches back around and at the last minute moves the whole movie thematically to the other side of the line wrt whether it's approaching Billy, our protagonist, as a subject with whom we're supposed to identify or an object whom we're supposed to observe.

It makes all the high-school-freshman-posing-as-adult gags retroactively less funny because we were now more explicitly laughing at him, and takes a lot of the depth out of the emotionally sincere moments.

Up to that point I had really appreciated how, despite wavering that way, Shazam! hadn't actually fallen to the MCU Spiderman temptation to dehumanize its protagonist. Which seems to arise out of this weird tendency I've noticed to assume the natural sentiment of adults toward adolescents is bemused contempt, and that therefore if they ask their audience of paying grownups to empathize too closely with a teen hero instead of setting him and his Immaturity up as a clown for our amusement, they'll get themselves banished to the Children's Fiction ghetto.

And, of course, if they'd been fully committed to one side or the other of 'Billy is a protagonist the viewer relates to closely' or 'Billy is a protagonist the viewer relates to distantly,' they wouldn't have gotten snarled up about how much information to hand over when.

Committing to either option (giving us only as much information as Billy had and constructing a story that was solid from a being-Billy angle or giving us more information than Billy and operating confidently in the realm of dramatic irony) could have worked quite well. But because of the mixed signals and unstable narrative distance, they wound up with a distinctly weakened finale.

#hoc est meum #in real life things happen that you have no good reason to expect all the time #but in real life we know they happened for some kind of reason as in #causality exists and even in situations where we can't dig into the chain #we have cause to understand that it's there #in fiction they happened because they'd be convenient #so the rules of what information can be available and how you frame new information being revealed exist #to keep the audience from feeling jerked around #you have to earn people's trust and if you lose it #that limits the kind of results you can get #when writing fiction one of your tools is the reader's mind #if you give them reason not to allow you free use of it your composition contracts #screenwriting #shazam #and like in this case there's a profound betrayal of the protagonist and thus of the audience who connected with him wrapped up in it

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sluttylittlewaste · 2 months

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Hilarious that the same people defending any and all questionable choices the Bad Kids make (namely Kristen lbr) by saying "They're just kids! They have all this trauma and it's fucked up to expect teens to be good and nice all the time!" are the same people insisting that Kipperlily is an evil bitch and the Ratgrinders deserve to die.

#it's almost like the rules of empathy and nuance only apply to characters you like 🙃#we know absolutely nothing of significance about the Ratgrinders #and i can't wait for Brennan to remind us of that #you want to complain about Kipperlily using her families money to try to buy the campaign???#The entire shrimp party that kicked off Kristen's campaign was bankrolled by her rich friend #Adaine is a total bitch to anyone who isn't in her immediate friend group #Fig is a literal full time criminal at this point #they have at least 50+ murders under their collective belts at this point #the only verified difference between the Bad Kids and the Ratgrinders at this point is that we know nothing about them #I hope they are the biggest red herring Brennan has ever pulled #because I feel like there are people in this fandom who are so used to self-identifying as victims that they've become full bullies #and they're projecting that shit in some really gross ways #The same way Brennan had to remind Adaine that she wasn't the only one with a shitty life when she was dunking on Zayne?#how about we all take a big step back and try to have a little more perspective #instead of jumping straight to being triggered by a CHILD who had the audacity to not love your faves behavior #let me die #if i die #d20 fhjy #fhjy #dimension 20 #kristen applebees #kipperlily copperkettle #the bad kids #the ratgrinders #we have no context on what those kids went through in all the time the Bad Kids have been running around doing other shit #Aguefort is an awful school and their friend is dead #maybe she has a reason not to like the super special “chosen one” that got personally resurrected by the principal and keeps failing upwards #i didn't want to be a Kipperlily defense page #but the energy of the Kipperlily hate reeks of double-standards and unprocessed high school bitterness

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mintacle · 2 years

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So, you've seen the words "anti" and "proshipper" thrown around in people's bios and "batc*st dni" on people's posts. Maybe you want to know what all the fuss is about, maybe you have a particular opinion about all this fuss. In any case, this informative post is for you.

Using Samantha Aburime's paper "the cult structure of the american anti", I'm going to explain the issue.

First of all what is an anti even? It's a term people use to self-identify within fandoms. As the name anti implies, they mainly identify with being against things.

Which leads us to our problem of the anti mentality.

Most antis are minors or under 24. People who left the anti community have explained their experiences in the following manners:

Maybe you have felt the pressure to join in anti behavior as well. If any of the following feelings are familiar to you, then you are experiencing anti indoctrination:

If the shame and guilt instilled in anti members isn't bad enough, there are more consequences for the targets of the antis. In the batman fandom these are blogs that may or may not describe themselves as proship, meaning they ship characters that are (adoptive) members of the wayne family (Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake and Damian Wayne) with one another.

Essentially: this is how anti action works:

Examples of dehumanization and harrasement which are very commonly practised among antis:

____________________________

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And threats of violence:

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Beyond the aggresive nature of the anti mentality, the problem is that the people it targets are overwhelmingly vulnerable minorities.

And I have often seen antis justifying their harrasement by explaining that they are themselves queer or non-caucasian, which is an example of moral licencing and does not actually excuse targetting other minorities or people of the same minority as you.

So what do antis specifically do? The anti community of the batman fandom will often throw around accusations of incest ("batc*st") and pedophilia.

Let us examine those three concepts, disinformation, virtue signaling and legitimate abuse.

We can find disinformation in the prectise of denying reasonable arguments for tolerance of proshipping. An anti will not engage in any attempt to understand why people ship something they find morally apprehensible. They will label proshippers as degenarates, thereby misrepresenting who it is they are targeting. Furthermore they will misrespresent the amount of influence that proshippers yave on influencing people.

Virtue signaling describes the practise of labelling things as problematic without delivering reasonable arguments for doing so and instead using strong emotional language to explain their judgement:

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Virtue signaling also represents the practise of self-describing the anti as morally pure and the "enemy", the proshipper as morally degenerate.

Both disinformation and virtue signaling allow for legitimate abuse. Depersonifying and villifying the opponent gives the anti a feeling of being legitimized in their abuse.

For followers of my blog, I would like to raise awareness of this side of anti culture. Emotional and shame-inducing language can easily sway us. I plead my case for reasonable and distanced evaluation of what you see online. Condemning pedophilia and incest will seem perfectly natural on face value, which is why it is so hare to understand that often time what is labbelled as such is misrepresented, and really all the time the anti myth will equate preference of fiction to beliefs of real life morality (see first image)

To finish my informational post, I leave you with one last essential quote from Samantha Aburime's paper:

"The anti movement perpetuates archaic systems of judgement based on personal disgust and region-specific morality, punishing powerless people for their fannish interests and tainting their online communities. Their work does nothing to dismantle harmful systematic institutions; rather, it embraces them, even going so far as to actively harm and destroy members of their own community."

Read the full paper here. It's very interesting and a not too long read.

https://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/2147/2829

#fandom meta #batcest #or batc*st if that makes you feel better I guess #education as a way of combatting polarism and extremism #essentially. no matter what your opinion is. if you find yourself harrassing people online... you are probably doing something wrong #anti #anti culture #antis #the problem with being anti is that you define yourself through opposition #proshipping #proship #i happen not to be proship. but don't let that make you think I endorse anti mentality or dnis #because I really just HAPPEN not to ship any batfam members #there is more. but the post is already very long and I have hit the ten image limit #ideally I would have inclided a part about how antis call out. expose and target specific blogs #rules for life: 1. live and let live 2. don't yuck someone else's yumm 3. always allow yourself to have your own opinion #dc #batman

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hermidetta · 15 days

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[ Garden ] + [ Cue the Music ]

“Here you are.” The words are a gentle exhale, their steps slowing as their gaze finally alights upon Bernadetta. They may not be shocked to find her away from the crowds, but they are surprised that she bothered to show her face at all. Yuri had been wondering if they would have to pay a visit to her room instead. Head tilts, strands of lavender falling into their face before a hand tucks them back behind an ear. “Hiding?”

It’s quiet here, only the faint echoes of music that spill into the garden breaking the silence. Of course, few would choose to leave the grand revelry of the Ethereal Ball for long. A shame, though. They’re all missing out on the beautiful tapestry of stars in the night sky tonight. Yuri pauses, then offers Bernadetta a hand. “Come on, then.” A small, secret smile, more genuine than most, curls upon the mockingbird’s lips. “Dance with me. I don’t ask just anyone, you know.”

the night outdoors is sobering, silent, save for her sigh in a sea of stars. beneath the ethereal moonlight, garreg mach's flowers enchant her company more than a ballroom ever will.

she can't hide behind dorothea all night. her friend has suitors to charm, and bernadetta needs a breather from all the noise besides. the better part of her wonders why she even came. the more minutes that tick by, the sillier the weight of this dress on her feels—the fabric, the trim, the stupid attempt to actually look like something she's not: pretty. pretty was for people like dorothea. like lapis. like...

"yuri?" bernadetta blinks, begins to turn her head at that first chime of their voice. "um, kind of..."

she's three-fourths through a pilfered sweet bun when her eyes land on yuri and practically pop out of her skull. in an instant she whips her head away again, hacking and choking on whatever last of the bread she hasn't already spewed in the opposite direction; bernadetta is whacking her chest with a frenzied fist, her gaze is darting back and forth between the flowers and yuri leclerc who is wearing a dress that makes her feel like she owes them her entire estate for allowing her a glimpse, she's nearly about to keel over and slap herself out of whatever fever dream this is—when they ask her to dance.

her. bernadetta. her? she glances to her left and then to her right, just to make sure yuri isn't talking to anybody else.

then her eyes return to them. big mistake. they practically bulge and shut tightly as if she just has to protect yuri's innocence from her abominable gaze. stop it! stop looking! stop thinking! no! noooooo! i'm sorry, yuri! bernie's no better than a degenerate!!!

she's too bad at this, though. not even a second later she opens her eyes again, cornered into doing the hardest thing she's ever had to try: hold eye contact.

"you, y-you, you mean— you mean degenerate bernie? me?! dance? um, well, you see, i-i've got that thing at that place—" it's not like she doesn't know how to dance. it's the fact that yuri is right: they don't just ask anyone.

but on top of that, she's no one.

"and, and—"

...and despite that, she finds herself taking their hand in the middle of her typical babbling, gravitating to their safety like she always does. it's as natural as the way stems reach for sunlight. it's as natural as the way her violet hair falls past her ears, or the way her slippered feet glide into place.

"a-and," she continues to murmur absently, "and people like yuri don't, um... w-with people like bernie..."

because nobody wants to dance with bernie, she had kept telling herself. but yuri is probably the biggest somebody she knows, and they haven't left yet. it might be nothing to them, it could just be another dance but to bernadetta it is the world. so bernadetta tries not to duck her head too much, tries not to mumble too unintelligibly when she has to say, because they always deserve to hear—

"... yuri? um... i know you get told this a lot. you definitely don't need me to tell you. but... but, inside and out, you're seriously so..." a pause. "...gorgeous. and yes. before you make fun of me: super extra gorgeous."

#aubins #toaball2024 #asks /#I am going toUser has been suspended. Tumblr suspends Users who overload Tumblr's servers with spam that violates the Tumblr Rules.#iImnghokfong.im goionmg. im . In. InnfngDarcy #i have to(im contained and muffled by animal control)(toa has to call ajimal control. toa has to excommunicate me #excommunicated. excommunicated. just like bena deta. just like that degenaearate. Degenurate. (she is so goofy and for what)#YURI IM A DEGENERRATE YURI!!!!! YURI YOUERE SO GENDER!!!! YURI YOUR GENDER TOO KILLER. UOUR DRESS TOO SWAG. YOU K*LLED ME YURI #THHHYEY DANCE.THEY DANCING. THEY DANCEY. DANCE. IM GONNA LOSE IT #THANK YUO FOR MY LIFE DARCY IM GONNA LOSE MY MIND DARCY AAAAAUAUURURRRHHRGGGRGRGGGGRRRRAAAAAAAAAA #s: ⚘ * i've left you flowers — all sorts of types (i don't know what you like) | aubins

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