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vantavarmint · 2 years

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I wonder how much overlap there is between the soul eater fandom and the magnus archives fandom. Probably not much but I am trying to think of which entities the main cast fall under and I'm struggling,,,

Maka

For some reason I'm having a lot of trouble thinking of potential options for her. I can't think of which one would relate to the fear of being deadweight. The Lonely perhaps but she is very capable of breaking through other people's fear of the Lonely so it's hard to say

The Spiral maybe? Direct link to how the Black Blood effected her but not much else other than that

Soul

His primary fear is losing those he cares about, namely Maka, which makes the Lonely the most immediate choice but I'm unsure

His nightmare, the one where he bursts out of Maka's chest, has a more body horror side to it so the Flesh might work at a stretch.

Throughout the series he worries about losing himself to the black blood and madness in general so the Spiral could work pretty well too

Black*Star

Probably the Hunt or the Slaughter, right? The quest to kill god is a type of Hunt which makes me favour that idea but you could argue that the history of the Star Clan has a lot to do with the Slaughter

Tsubaki

I don't want to keep suggesting the Lonely but I find it hard to categorise her as much else. The constant need to put others before her and claiming to be a sentless flower reminds me a lot of Martin. If anyone has any other ideas let me know

Kid

Kid could fall under a lot of them, poor thing

The obvious one would be The End, pretty self explanatory. Kid is a reaper and the End is everything to do with death.

The Corruption could work on the basis that Kid detests things that he deems disgusting and he shows notable aversion to things that are dirty but you could make a case that it's more about the idea of disorder than a dislike of gross things on their own?

The Spiral is maybe more niche, I don't think it would be a primary one for Kid. However, Kid questioning the very foundations of the DWMA and its philosophies is integeral to his arch. He does worry that things are being kept from him a lot. The Eye could also apply to this

If I wanted to go for a deep cut then I'll throw the Vast in because of how it links in the the whole "nothingness" thing he had going on during the Salvage arc

Finally, the Stranger. I base this more around how his OCD adjacent mental disorder effects him (there's a lot of debate about what best to call it and I'm not super up to date on it). This is more about the 'creeping fear that something is not right' side of things

Liz

She's generally a scaredy cat so you could make a case for the Dark or the Stranger since they best fit the more typical conventions of horror stuff? This feels a bit surface level though

Perhaps, The Hunt on the side of the hunted. Most avatars of the Hunt embody the Hunter side of the spectrum but in Liz's case I think you could relate back to her time on the streets being chased down by those mafia guys and presumably the police. Constantly being on the run is pretty symptomatic of the Hunt I think

Patty

Patty is difficult to pin down.

Her primary concern in life is being with Liz and later on being with Kid which makes me, oddly enough, want to put her in with the Lonely. She definately doesn't really fit in with the other typical victims of the Lonely but that's part of what makes it interesting

Although, the Desolation may work better with her more outwardly destructive and aggressive tendancies from when she lived on the streets

Crona

It might be be easier to say which ones they don't fall under :(

They are in many ways a textbook case of the Lonely. They don't know how to deal with people so they look towards isolation to give them a sense of security. While this is a very big componant of their character, there's more to unpack and I think the other options should be considered nonetheless

Buried, Desolation and Dark could all relate to their trauma with Medusa's abuse. Being locked in a small dark room relates to Buried and the Dark while Ragnorok's moral physical abuse links to the Desolation.

Eye and Web also relates to the more psychological aspects of the abuse, the fear of being watched and controlled by Medusa is a constant

On a very surface level the Slaughter tracks because, especially in the manga, Crona be killing

Then there's the Spiral, Crona grapples with madness and unreality a bit and that relates heavily to the Spiral

Finally, the Stranger. Due to isolation growing up, Crona is deathly afraid of all things unfamiliar, that they don't have the framework to properly understand

Arguably, they could be this universe's equivilant of Medusa trying to make them into the next Kishin if we take for granted that Asura was also marked by all entities. Crona is, what, 9/14 the way there after all

I could probably do others but I wanna hear if anyone else has ideas

#soul eater #tma #the magnus archives #maka albarn #soul eater evans #black star #tsubaki nakatsukasa #death the kid #liz thompson #patty thompson #crona gorgon #i'd write fanfics if i had the patience or ability to write or consistent ideas or confidance or

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olderthannetfic · 4 years

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Hey, sorry to ask this, but a few days ago I saw a post/discussion about the history of original work on ao3 (i.e. how and when it was allowed). I thought it was in my likes, but it's not, and I thought you had reblogged it recently, but I didn't find it. I was wondering if you have seen this discussion around? Or where I can find more about it? This specific post talked abt how who defended original work on ao3 were not the BNFs, if that helps.

That was me running my mouth in the reblogs of something or other. It’s just the one comment.

But what’s that you say? Some tl;dr about a pet topic? Don’t mind if I do! ;) (To be honest, most of this debate happened years ago, and a lot of the long meta was by me back then too, so…)

Okay, so, the situation with Original Works is actually super interesting and a microcosm of early years OTW wank.

This is going to be even more tl;dr than my usual. To try to summarize very briefly:

There were two big cultural factions. One thought “original” was the opposite of “fan”. That one was in charge of OTW. It was hard to get voices from the other side into the debate because they already felt excluded from OTW.

This divide broke down more or less into Ye Olde Slash Fandom on the “it’s the opposite” side and anime fandom on the “WTF?” side. Americans on one side and a lot of non-US, non-English language fandom on the other.

I. Media Fandom, Anime Fandom, and Early OTW

I went to that first fundraising party that astolat threw in New York City back in… god… 2007? 2008? I wasn’t on the Board or any official position until the committees got started later, but I was around right from the very beginning.

Whether you’re looking at volunteers or at people who commented on astolat’s original post, there were always a variety of fans from a variety of fannish backgrounds. People aren’t absolutely in one camp or another, and fannish interests change over time. If you go dig through Dreamwidth posts to find who was actually participating in this debate at the time, half of them are probably in the other camp now.

If you think like that sounds like a preamble to me making a bunch of offensively sweeping generalizations and divvying fans up into little groups, you’d be right! Haha.

I.a. Ye Olde Media Fandom

There are a lot of camps of people who like fanfic. One of the biggest divisions has been Ye Olde Media Fandom vs. anime fandom. Astolat’s social circle–my LJ social circle–was filled with people with decades of fannish experience and a deep knowledge of the Media Fandom side of things.

Those fandom history treatises that start with K/S zines in Star Trek fandom in the 70s and move on through the mainstream buddy cops like Starsky & Hutch to the more niche, sff buddy cops like Fraser and Ray or Jim and Blair are talking about Media Fandom. I try to always capitalize it because the name is lulzy and bizarre to me unless it’s a proper noun for a specific historical thing. It was coined as a rude term for “mass media” fandom aka dumb people who like, ughhhh, Star Trek, ughhh, instead of books. This is a very ancient slapfight from the type of fandom you find at Worldcon, often called “SF fandom” or plain “fandom”.

(Yes, this leads to mega confusion on the part of some old dudes when they find Fanlore and fail to understand that “fandom” there refers to what these people would call “Media Fandom”. They think only they get the unmarked form. But I digress…)

Media Fandom is a specific flavor of fandom. It’s where the slash zines were. It’s where the fans of live action US TV shows were. It’s the history that acafans have laid out well and that tends to get used to defend the idea of a female subculture writing transgressive and transformative fanfic. On the video side, Media Fandom is where Kandy Fong invented vidding by making Star Trek slideshows.

(Kandy’s still around, BTW. She’s usually at Escapade in L.A. Ask her to tell you about the dancing penises sketch in person. She’s hilarious.)

Astolat and friends had been going to slash cons for years. They founded Vividcon. And Yuletide. That meant that when astolat said “Hey kids, let’s put on a show!” we all jumped to help. This is a lady who gets things done.

From a Worldcon perspective, or even from an older Media Fandom perspective, this group was comparatively young, hip, and welcoming. Their fandom interests were comparatively broad. Just look at Yuletide!

In fact, yes, let us look at Yuletide… [ominous music]

I.b. Yuletide sucks at anime

From the very first year (2003), Yuletide mods have asked for help with anime fandoms, been confused about anime fandoms, or made bad judgment calls about anime fandoms. They’ve fucked up on Superhero comics and plenty of other things over the years, but anime has been the most consistent (well, and JRPGs, but there’s so much overlap in those fic fandoms).

There was already bad feeling about this. There were years of bad feeling about this.

I.c. Where are the historians?

Academic study of fanficcy things pretty much got started with Textual Poachers and Enterprising Women. Other acafans who are well known to LJ and later Tumblr are people like Francesca Coppa who wrote a very nice summary of the history of Media Fandom. These are not the only academics who exist, these academics themselves have written about many other things, and by now, OTW’s own journal has covered a lot of other territory, but to this day I see complaints on Tumblr that “acafans” only care about K/S and oldschool slash fandom.

There were years of bad feeling about this as well.

I.d. What kind of fan was I?

Now, by the time OTW got started, I’d moseyed over to not only a lot of live action US TV but a lot of old-as-fuck US TV that is squarely in the Media Fandom camp. But once upon a time, I was a weeaboo hanging out with my weeaboo friends in college. I learned Japanese (sort of). I moved to Japan. Livin’ the weeaboo dream!

More importantly, I used to be a member of a lot of anime mailing lists back in the Yahoo Groups days. I didn’t realize what a cultural gap that would cause until the original works issue came up on AO3.

I.e. Anime Fandom, German-language Fandom, Original M/M

Once upon a time–namely in that Yahoo Groups era–there was an archive called Boys in Chains. It was where you found The Good Stuff™. Heavy kink and power exchange galore! It was extremely well known in the parts of fandom I was in, even if you weren’t on the associated mailing list. It contained lots of fic, but it also had lots of original work.

Around that same era, I was on a critique list called Crimson Ink, which was mixed fic and original. The “original slash” and “original yaoi” crowds mixed freely and were in fanfic spaces. Remember, this is like 2003. You’re never going to get your gay fantasy novel published in English in the US. A couple of fangirl presses started around then, but they died an ignominious death after their first print run.

Fanfiction.net used to allow original work before it spun that off into FictionPress. We forget this today, but if you were an early FFN person, the separation wasn’t so great either.

Meanwhile, German-language fandom was hanging out on sites like Animexx.de, a big-ass fic archive that prominently mentions also including original work. I have the impression that Spanish-language fandom was similar too.

Shousetsu Bang*Bang was founded in 2005. It was a webzine for original m/m, but it was entirely populated by fanfic fandom types.

In all of those kinds of spaces, there was a lot of “original” work that was kind of slash or BL-ish and seen as fannish if it was posted in the fannish space. These weren’t anime-only spaces. They were multifandom spaces where it was seen as obvious and normal that a couple of huge fandoms like Harry Potter would dominate but that everything else big would naturally be anime.

While fans from every background are everywhere, I found that the concentration of EFL fans living in Continental Europe, South America, and Asia was much higher in this kind of space, even the exclusively English language part of it, than in my US TV fandoms.

II. AO3 Early Adopters

AO3 went into closed beta in 2009. In 2010, it was open to the general public (albeit with the invitation queue it still has). But not everyone was interested yet. Just like fandom is loath to leave the dying, shambling mess of Tumblr, fandom was loath to leave dwindling LJ/DW circles or was happy enough on Fanfiction.net. I used to see a lot of posts like “Why are you guys trying to STEAL fanfic from the original! FFN is enough!”

I literally could not give away the invitations I had. No one wanted them.

So who was on AO3? Obviously enough, it was all of us who built it and our friends. So that means a bunch of oldschool Livejournal slashers coming from fandoms like Due South or Stargate Atlantis.

The queue was open. Anyone could make an account. Everyone was welcome. In theory…

But more and more, there started to be these posts about how “AO3 Hates Anime Fandom” and “FFN is for anime. AO3 is for Western fandoms.” and “If you guys actually wanted anime fandom on there, you’d invite us better and make us more welcome.”

At the time, I found these posts obnoxious. People aren’t purely in one sort of fandom or the other. No one was stopping anime fandom from making accounts. No one was banning anime fandom. If there wasn’t much from old fandoms, that was because old fandoms seldom move.

Things began to change. Trolls on FFN forced the Twilight porn writers out, creating enough fuss and brouhaha to mobilize people who would rather have stayed put. AO3 got big enough that randos found it by accident. Original work started to pop up, posted by people who’d never looked at the rules and had no idea it was not allowed.

III. History of AO3’s Policy

I had argued for allowing “original work” during the initial discussions about the ToS. On one side of this issue was me. On the other, everyone else on the committee.

I was overruled.

Open Door started importing old archives to save them. Boys in Chains was hugely important to fandom history from my point of view. It was slated to be imported… maybe. Except that Boys in Chains is half original. AO3 was happy to grandfather in those stories, but the final archive owner felt, quite rightly, that it would be unfair to tell half of the authors they were welcome in the new space while spitting on the other half.

I was pissed. I had been pissed since being overruled the first time. To me, the fact that it should be allowed was so blatantly obvious that it was hard to even explain why.

(To be honest, this difficulty in explaining why and the even greater difficulty in figuring out the source of that difficulty is what held the discussion back for so long. When every assumption on either side is completely opposite, it’s hard to communicate.)

I felt betrayed. It would be like if you helped build something, and everyone was suddenly like “Well, obviously, we can’t allow m/m. It’s not normal fanfic.”

So we discussed it again and, again, it was me vs. literally everyone else. And still the “AO3 is only for Western slash fandom” bitching rose in volume and more and more people complained of feeling excluded from the new fandom hub. Finally, the committee agreed to open the issue up for public comment and get some more input. I was a fool and neither wrote nor proofread the post. It went out phrasing the question as allowing “non fannish” work or something of that sort.

I was furious. The entire point of the whole debate was that I saw some original work, the original work that belongs on AO3, as inherently fannish. And now this had been presented to the AO3 audience as something completely different. Think pieces were popping up in the journals of everyone I knew about diluting AO3’s mission and how we needed to save AO3 from encroachment. Public opinion was very negative. That’s both because of how the post was phrased and because OTW die hards at the time were mostly from the same fannish background. This tidal wave of negativity meant that there was virtually no chance of changing this poisonous rule. And if the rule didn’t change, the people who wanted the rule change were never going to show up to explain why it mattered.

If you’ve been reading my tumblr, I think you can guess what happened next.

I posted a long post to my Dreamwidth. It was a masterwork of passive aggression. In it, I wrung my hands about how simply tragic it would be if AO3 had to delete all of the original work… like anthropomorfic.

Now, I think anthropomorfic counts as fanfic as much as anything else, but I also knew that it fails most rigorous “based on a canon” type definitions of fic and, more importantly, it’s a favorite Yuletide fandom of many of the people on the side that wanted to ban original work.

That’s a nice fandom of yours. It would be a pity if something happened to it.

Yup. Passive aggressive blackmail. Go me. Suddenly, there was a lot of awkward backtracking and confused running in circles in various journals. The committee agreed to table the idea for a while but not rule out the idea of allowing original works in the future. We agreed to halt all deletions of original work. If a fan posted it, the Abuse Committee (which I was also head of at the time) would not delete that work even though it was technically against the rules.

Time passed. The people on the negative side got tired. I wanted off that committee and had wanted off for ages, but I was damned if I was going to leave before ramming through this piece of policy. Grudgematch till I die! (Look, I never said I wasn’t a wanker.)

After a while, some other fans came forward with more types of “original work” as evidence that it should be allowed. These were from parts of fandom none of us on the committee knew a damn thing about.

This new evidence combined with the gradual accretion of original stuff on AO3 without the sky falling eventually led us to quietly rule Original Work a valid fandom. There was never even a big announcement post. I slipped a word to the Boys in Chains mod myself.

IV. What Were They So Afraid Of Anyway?

So why were people so resistant? Seems like a dick move, right?

Not exactly.

I mean, I was enraged and waged a one-woman war to change the rules, but the other side wasn’t nuts. The objections were usually the following:

I just don’t get why it would be allowed. It never was in my fannish spaces.

Most of our members don’t want this.

Most of the examples of things that ought to be included are m/m. We are privileging m/m if we allow it, and AO3 already has a m/m-centric reputation that can feel exclusionary to some fans.

AO3 is a young, shaky platform that can barely handle the load and content we already have. If we open to original work, we’ll be opening the floodgates. The volume of posting will be so high, it will drown out the fic we’re actually here to protect.

Protecting stuff that doesn’t need protection because it’s not an IP issue would dilute OTW’s mission.

If we allow it, idiots will try to turn AO3 into advertising space, posting only the first chapter and a link to where you can pay to read the rest.

If we add another category of text before we add fan art, that’s a slap in the face of the fan artists we are already failing.

These arguments all make perfect sense in context.

Obvously, the issue with the first two is that different fannish communities have different norms. I knew that a very large community disagreed with the then current AO3 policy, but since so few of them were around to comment, it seemed like a tiny fringe minority.

The m/m thing is… complex. M/M content with zero IP issues is at risk. It is always at risk in a way that even f/f is not (though f/f is also always at risk). Asking for m/m to be exactly equivalent to f/f or m/f in numbers, tropes, whatever is ignoring the historical realities. In our current moment of queer activism in the West, we treat all types of queerness as part of one community with one set of goals, but once you get to culture and art or even more specific activism, this forced homogenization is neither useful nor healthy.

OTOH, AO3 really did have PR problems related to the perception that we gave m/m fandom the kid glove treatment. That objection wasn’t coming from nowhere.

AO3 was shaky. It was tiny when I first brought up this argument. Hell, it wasn’t even in closed beta the first time we discussed this. Part of what made the quiet rules change possible was AO3 organically getting much bigger and OTW having to buy many more servers for unrelated reasons.

The “floodgates” thing was put to rest by tacitly allowing original work before the rules change. We had a period to study how fans actually behaved, and as I predicted, only a small amount of original work got posted. It was indeed mostly things like original BL-ish stories or original work that had been part of a mixed original/fic fest, exchange, zine, etc. Currently, the “Original Work” fandom on AO3 only has 76,348 works. That’s pretty big compared to individual fandoms but tiny compared to AO3’s current size.

The commercial argument was spurious because commercial spam had been against the rules from the very beginning. OH THE IRONY that nowadays AO3 has all these idiots trying to post the first chapter of their fanfic and then direct you to where you can buy the rest.

AO3 has plenty of fanfic of public domain works. One of the problems with gatekeeping original work is that any way you try to distinguish it (not based on a specific canon, not an IP issue, etc.) will apply to some set of obviously allowable fandoms.

As for fan art… OTW has failed fan artists. They needed protection as much as or even more than fic writers. Just look at Tumblr! If we had succeeded at making DeviantArt but allowing boners, fan art fandom could have been safe all these years. Or when Tumblr inevitably shat the bed, we could have scooped up all those people instead of them scattering to twitter and god knows where.

OTW has failed vidders too, at least in terms of preservation. I know I’m not the only one who thinks this. Other major people from like the first Board and shit have discussed this with me offline. Doing some kind of vidding project, possibly outside of OTW is on a lot of our to-do lists. But at least one of OTW’s biggest victories has been that copyright exemption. OTW has demonstrably done really positive things for vidders that other organizations and sites have not. As a vidder, I never expected to see good hosting for the actual video files, and I’m quite content.

But fan artists… yeah. That argument makes sense at least from a place of frustration.

BTW, for the love of god, if you’re a n00b to OTW stuff, please do not reblog this post excitedly telling me that hosting fan art is on OTW’s road map, so yay, good news. Someone always does that, and it’s so irritating. I haven’t been involved in OTW in years, but I used to be, and I know what is on the roadmap. The couple of you who do heavy lifting on sysadmin and coding and policy things are welcome to weigh in as usual. I know none of us like that we can’t host fan art. It’s not what we intended.

Nonetheless, I found this argument to be the perfect being the enemy of the good. If we can save more text now without losing much of anything, we should do it. The fact that we’re fucking up on the fan art front is not a reason to spread the misery around.

V. Is “Original” the Opposite of “Fanfic”?

Okay, so that tl;dr above is why “BNFs” were on one side and “nobodies” were on the other. BNFs from one cultural background founded OTW. BNFs from the other cultural background weren’t even aware that the debate was going on.

But what was the underlying philosophical problem in even having the conversation?

It took me a long time, but I finally worked it out: We had two completely different ways of categorizing writing, and they were so baked into how we phrased questions that everything ended up being unanswerable to the other side. Here is what I came up with:

Schema 1

Fanfic - based on someone else’s IP

Original Work - the opposite

Schema 2

Non-Fannish Work - School essays, stories you are writing to try to sell to a mainstream publisher

Fannish Work Type 1 - based on other people’s characters directly (i.e. fanfic) Type 2 - based on tropes or whatever (“original slash” and the like)

Now, in the current moment when half of Tumblr just got into Chinese webnovels and the m/m ebook industry is thriving in English, original, tropey, BL-ish work is no longer different from “things I am trying to sell”. But this is how the divide was circa 2005 on fannish websites, and it’s the divide that was driving this internal OTW debate.

VI. Let’s Summarize the Camps One More Time

So, again, the debate makes perfect sense if you understand who was involved.

On the mainstream “But that’s not fanfic? I’m confused?” side:

Big US TV fandoms in English

Fandom historians of K/S–>buddy cop slash–>SGA, etc.

Americans

On the other side:

Anime fandom

“Original slash” fandom that had already been chased off of everywhere

People upset that AO3 wasn’t farther on translating the interface and supporting non-English language fandom.

People upset about US-centrism in fandom

Yes, I am very white, very American, and by now very into old buddy cop shows, but this was basically how the breakdown worked. It meant that something that looked like a minor quibble to one side was really, really not.

#fandom history #fandom meta #original work #cowboyformitski

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stylishanachronism · 6 years

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Okay, it's been a week since the mini-bang ended, so a couple of notes, mostly for my own records since nobody cares.

The fic still wants to be about six times as long as it is? Like, I caught myself tinkering with the giant pile of stuff that didn't make it in, seeing if it'll fit, a solid half dozen times in the last week, despite working like, 90% of that time. That's how desperately it wants to be a giant thing. (I did manage to get rid of the entire romance, so that's a plus. Dude's a dick, Author, I don't care how more or less metaphorically pretty his face is.)

I am going to say I'm sad that the 'nobody gets over being desperately ill that quickly without actual rest so here are the consequences of our actions' scene and the 'we just slew a dragon in the basement, now what' scene didn't make the final cut, because they were about 50% of the context for the rest of it, and also the, like, eight giant paragraphs about 'kana rua, primary source', because those actually got into the meat of the argument, and I at least thought they were funny. Also the bibliography, because I was proud of it, but couldn't figure out how to make the conceit work.

Another thing I'm super proud of: mine really is the one nobody likes, by which I mean there are a handful of people who like it, but if this was a popularity contest it would absolutely come in last, so I was spot on with my predictions for that one. (This is not me putting a brave face on things; it's a distinctly weird, incredibly niche conceit in an already fairly niche fandom, where the core concept of the conceit isn't really a draw of the game for most people. I walked into this one with my eyes open. I'm just happy I won my bet with myself.)

That being said, despite word of god otherwise, I do appear to be the only person with two artists, so I would really like to know what's up with that.

Also I made a friend! Possibly more than one friend, but I intend to metaphorically camp out on Dae's doorstep for as long as she'll let me, because we have the same fan brain overlap. She's great, even though I keep falling asleep on her.

I'm still really mad about the art though? My art, I should specify. (The art I received is perfect and beautiful and I am actually putting it on my wall when the prints show up.) Because I put a solid couple of hours into the shitty romance novel cover before I had the actually good idea of funerary frescoes, and why couldn't I have had it sooner? Then I probably wouldn't have been accosted on the train trying to ink it.

Also I was equally spot on about how much of a bad idea signing up at all was? I mean, I had a great time, this whole thing was a blast, Ranna was super patient with all our bullshit (and the fact we were team bullshit was awful but funny at the same time, like I sincerely hope everybody else who signed up had a much easier time of it than the four of us, because we were hopeless), but uh, it was also a mistake. I still have way the fuck too much to do right now, I’m way behind on a bunch of stuff and my hours are going up again now that we’re out of the post Christmas slump, I would be much less of a general wreck if I had not decided to throw in.

#this thing desperately wanted a romance to go with it's 30000 words?#Not with canon with the academia bit #if this had been in a different fandom people would be less weirded out by it probably #I'm stealing Dae's idea about Our Author's heritage in the unlikely event i ever write a sequel #so she gets my next pile of nonsense dedicated to her #but since Our Author still does not have a name the one after that is still up for grabs i guess #accosted is a strong word for what happened on the train #but it wasn't great #I have six entire kudos I cannot tell you how happy I am #Six entire people liked the thing!#or at the very least four did and two of them liked it twice #which is doubtful but still

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zagenta · 7 years

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I don't mean to be annoying, but what's wrong with liking Hamilton? you don't have to answer btw I understand if you don't want to I just want to know why

It’s… complicated… I don’t even know if I should be the one to explain it. Keep in mind that at any explanation I personally give on the situation is essentially going to be far too forgiving and apologist bc I rly like the musical. Just.. Yeah anyone reading this just keep in mind that I’m inevitably going to fall in favor w the show despite its flaws bc I suck

Anyways for anyone that doesn’t just take the show as a popular thing at face value & therefore popular = good, It’s somewhat controversial bc ppl laud it as this super diverse show full of Pee Oh Cees & but there’s also been some fair critique of the show’s possibly anti-black elements b/c it treats white racist slaveowners as cool hip guys you’d wanna spit bars with.

To be fair, the show is critical of the characters/historical figures but I can understand this criticism bc it only seems to be critical up to a point? Like. Sure Hamilton is a dick for cheating on his wife and TJ is called out for being a demon but it still glosses over some of the more unpleasant & ngl sometimes downright despicable elements of the characters/historical figures, PARTICULARLY the ones we’re supposed to root for such as Hamilton, Eliza, Mulligan, Laurens, Washington, etc.

And perhaps more worryingly although Lin claims the intent is to “put PoC back into American history” (im paraphrasing), the show erases instances we actually do appear in history, such as Mulligan’s slave Cato. Or making a kind of tacky jab at Jefferson abt Sally Hemings—which to be fair that entire song is supposed to have this dissonance between the cheery tune and how messed up TJ actually was, but it’s still… weird.

Tbh I think this was inevitably going to happen bc musicals abt revolution are rly popular but always end up being reproductions of the status quo bc the majority of ppl who support & can afford to see shows on Broadway are rich & white, they don’t want anything too challenging to their worldview.

Also Lin’s not black, he’s Puerto Rican so he has a somewhat tenuous claim to the history he’s trying to reclaim in the first place, other minorities are definitely affected by America’s racism & history but this specific part of history addresses white owners of black slaves.

And he’s using rap a historically & largely black genre to tell the story, too. I mean, there’s overlap between the experiences of the Latinx/Chicanx community and the black community, but they’re not the same. & it doesn’t really have to do with “ownership” of a genre either, but the reception to Hamilton is super off-putting bc a Latinx guy is getting all this praise from rich white ppl while they don’t give a crap abt the rest of the genre. They don’t even get all the homages in Lin’s music. (If you need proof, literally any post by a basic white person talking abt how the rap they like is abt cabinet battles unlike that “other rap” about bitches and money).

(Sidenote: I know a lot of ppl have developed negative feelings towards the musical & while that’s fair I literally give 0 fucks abt white ppl’s opinions on the show. It’s important to listen to criticism from black people definitely but they fail to treat it like the complex phenomenon it is. Too often they have annoying self-righteous superiority complexes bc they think they’re better than the nasty Pee Oh Cees who just don’t get it man.)

Tbh I’m personally unsurprised that the first real hip hop musical to be a big hit is about the whitest thing ever (remember, musicals have to hit that perfect balance of revolutionary and complacent).

Also there’s the problem with fandom too… Like… People have rightly gone “what the everloving fuck” at the realization that there’s a Hamilton fandom at all & I mean that’s completely fair. I personally don’t see a problem with like… Drawing a pretty fanart of scene you like or of Daveed in his Rad Velvet Maroon Suit, but ham fandom is just descending into this huge pile of wtf bc people ship and fangirl and look up weird minutiae abt American history to justify their headcanons and it’s just bizzaro. Also thank god it’s relatively died down bc early on it was just the biggest cesspool of disgusting racism and fetishization & apologism in the world.

“Why do you still like it, Janelle?” Because I love suffering

Now some people just like the musical for its catchiness and artistry and are rightly weirded out by the hardcore fan community, and honestly I’d recommend that approach bc ngl I’m never ever going to forgive myself for being convinced that TJ & JMads were totally a Thing™

But I like both. Honestly I like them for almost entirely different reasons. Honestly at this point if I didn’t think Hamilton was literally a Masterpiece™ I would probably end up hating it just bc there was so much discourse surrounding its hype, but I think it’s just a tribute to how catchy the songs are and how talented the cast is and just the combination of everything that I still love the show despite its problems. I know it’s not great of me but I know pretty much everyone is an apologist of something they like despite its Problems.

& the fandom in my experience is a fascinating phenomenon to me personally bc in my headspace it’s practically this entirely different entity to the musical itself? Like a lot of people think it’s cringey & it definitely is but the entire reason I still am engaged is bc I found my niche of practically a handful of close knit mutuals and Only care about Their Content, except for like… The occasional drawing. Bc our personal niche is so detached from the reality of the show or the history that it’s practically original content & has lead to some rly creative works that are much less Problematic Musical abt Demon Men but with Catchy Songs and much more along the lines of Intriguing Character Studies on the Themes of Parenting, LGBT+ Experiences & Relationships, PoC’s experiences,( and also lots and lots of self-destructive behavior)

I think Hamilton is a very interesting phenomenon. In my personal opinion even in this somewhat glorification, I’m glad Hamilton is getting people interested in history, even if people are way too excited abt it and tread the demon father’s like they were Fun Quirky Guys. I understand the horrifying response to everyones giddiness, but I don’t think it’s wrong to be excited abt history/interested in history even if it verges into dark territory, heck, learning abt history in its entirety important so we don’t glamorize the terribleness that is the past. That’s why posts abt Hamilton’s bisexuality doesn’t matter bc he was a slave owner rub me the wrong way—I mean he definitely isn’t someone we should treat as the pinnacle of ideal representation, but we should also acknowledge the totality of him as a person.

Also the show a good stepping stone that will hopefully lead to more hip hop musicals in the future. I know it being a “baby step” is a rly lame-ass excuse for why the show is good but it’s making me hopeful for the future.

Sorry abt how long this was.

#my asks #long post #anon #mutuals feel free to input or smthng

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buddyrabrahams · 6 years

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10 NBA trade deadline candidates

On February 2nd, Punxsutawney Phil will emerge from his underground burrow on Groundhog Day to determine whether or not we will have six more weeks of winter. Several days later, on February 8th, NBA general managers will emerge from their underground bunkers on Trade Deadline Day to determine whether or not we have a nuclear winter. The Detroit Pistons’ jaw-dropping trade for Blake Griffin on Monday was one heck of a start and knocked many of us dead in the process. But the fact of the matter is that we in the basketball fandom still crave infinitely more chaos. So in the spirit of the season, here are ten major trade candidates that are still out there.

DeAndre Jordan, C, LA Clippers

Jordan being the only Clippers player left from the notorious Navy SEALS unit that descended upon Dallas in 2015 was a plot twist that I, for one, wasn’t expecting. Nevertheless, he may want to keep an extra suitcase handy as the Griffin trade signaled that, if not a full-scale rebuild, the team is remodeling this roster like an HGTV show. Jordan’s value speaks for itself – basket-to-basket activity with ironman-like consistency (this season’s brief five-game absence was the first time he missed action due to injury in his ten-year career). His expiring contract does give him a specific niche market, but for the lob of God, players of his caliber ain’t available for trade all that often.

George Hill, PG, Sacramento Kings

It took all of six months for the Hill-Kings marriage to go sour, and now we wait and see which team will win custody. A prolonged stay in Sacto is likely untenable – rookie De’Aaron Fox has already lapped Hill on the depth chart, and the Kings’ Western Conference-worst record is pretty much purgatory for a player who has made the postseason in eight of his nine NBA seasons so far. A classic veteran point guard of the 3-and-D mold, Hill would probably be an ideal depth piece for a host of playoff teams. As such, he may not be locked in the royal castle humming “Someday My Prince Will Come” to himself for long.

Rodney Hood, SG/SF, Utah Jazz

When Gordon Hayward left the Jazz over the summer, this was supposed to be Hood’s team. Too bad that he didn’t see Donovan Mitchell’s coup coming. The star rookie Mitchell’s emergence has been the best thing to happen to Utah since the glory days of Jimmer Fredette, but it hasn’t been as great for Hood. Sure, he kicks donkey when it comes to scoring the basketball. But the Jazz don’t need him to be their primary offensive threat anymore, and once you add in his ever-present injury risk on top of that, he becomes expendable. I yearn for a continued future of Hood pouring in threes from the wing with the artful precision of a Renaissance swordsman. But the smart money tells me that said future will not be taking place in the Beehive State any longer.

Lou Williams, PG/SG, LA Clippers

After balling out this season to the tune of a career-high 23.5 points per game and coming to the very edge of All-Star Manor, it may be another sour ending for Sweet Lou in LA. He will be turning 32 this year, and every indication the Clippers are now giving is that they want to get younger and more flexible. Williams is at the apex of his value and would help out a contender much more than he would his current team at this point. That being said, it says “Professional Bucket Getter” on his business card for a reason, so expect the sixth man great to keep reminding us of that no matter where he ends up.

Nikola Mirotic, PF, Chicago Bulls

Mirotic’s surface stats this season (16.8 points and 6.4 rebounds per game on 42.9 percent from three) might be enough to get you punch-drunk. But the skillset overlap he has with other players on the tanking Bulls is more than enough to justify a move. Both rookie Lauri Markkanen and fellow pugilist Bobby Portis can play the stretch-four-with-rebounding-upside role just as well as Mirotic can, making him a luxury piece. Fortunately for Chicago, Niko’s $12.5 million club option for 2018-19 opens up just enough daylight to stand out in a market already well-saturated with shooting. Hopefully that means a move out of the Windy City before I run out of fight-related puns.

Kemba Walker, PG, Charlotte Hornets

Whether or not you believe that Kardiac Kemba is a true blue-chipper, 22-23 points per game and excellent one-on-one defense for only $12 million a year is virtually unheard of in today’s NBA. He may never be the best player on a true playoff contender, but his prime years may still be ahead of him in a world where you need a dynamic point guard to be able to compete. The Hornets seem doomed to wither away in the lottery no matter what. But in making Walker available for trade — along with his speed-of-light stepbacks and his homicidal crossovers — they are implicitly acknowledging that he can still be saved. We are now accepting donations for #SaveKemba2018.

Nikola Vucevic, PF/C, Orlando Magic

Vucci Mane remains sidelined with a left hand fracture, but he will return to a Magic team with little need for his services anymore. Frank Vogel’s bunch now has the worst record in the NBA, and No. 6 overall pick Jonathan Isaac needs a yellow brick road to more consistent playing time (once he returns from his own ankle injury). On the right team, Vucevic can be a Kevin Love Lite — a big man who hits the three, doesn’t kill ball movement, and can flirt with 20 points and 10 rebounds on any given night. The extra season he has under contract after this one may just be gravy for potential suitors as well.

Kent Bazemore, SG/SF, Atlanta Hawks

Even the balls of tumbleweed have deserted Atlanta by now, and I suspect that Bazemore, arguably the most valuable trade chip that they have left, will soon be following suit. A lefty slasher with 15-5-5 upside from the wing will always be a coveted player type. There’s just little use for him on a team that will struggle to reach 30 wins this season. If he picks up his player option, Bazemore will also be owed roughly $18 million a year through 2020, which is none too friendly for a roster teardown to say the least. Still not convinced? Well here’s the biggest argument for the Hawks to cash out on Money Baze over these next few days – he plays the same position as Luka Doncic.

Hassan Whiteside, C, Miami Heat

A word of advice for any team seeking a dominating inside presence on this year’s trade market: always look on the Whiteside of life. The former All-Defensive Second Teamer may have worn out his welcome in Miami after three-plus years — getting ghosted in the fourth quarter is becoming a regular occurrence for Whiteside as the Heat often elect to go with the spacing and the playmaking of a James Johnson-Kelly Olynyk frontline instead. Rookie big man Bam Adebayo has proven to be a more flexible, nimble-footed option down low as well. As a result, Whiteside is down across the board in almost all statistical categories this season, and that creates a nice buy-low window for any interested parties (like this Western Conference team perhaps).

Emmanuel Mudiay, PG, Denver Nuggets

The backcourt in Denver has just turned on the “no vacancy” sign. Gary Harris leads the team in points per game, Jamal Murray is playing like a maniac, and Will “The People’s Champ” Barton has reached new heights as a distributor to go along with his scoring thumb. With Nikola Jokic sopping up the rest of the playmaking opportunities, Mudiay seems to be the one Nugget left standing as the music stops. Granted, he is still just 21 years old, and his flaws, while glaring, are not necessarily fatal. A change of scenery could be just what the doctor ordered for a young guard who can pass the ball and penetrate while also quietly creeping up to a rock-solid 38.7 percent from deep this season.

from Larry Brown Sports http://ift.tt/2rOSUpp

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