#of shipping instead of engaging with said media and the story that it’s trying to tell… | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lurkingshan · 7 months

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Shan! One of the things that I’ve loved learning during my Old GMMTV Challenge project is discovering filmmakers and watching through their project lists. Do you follow specific directors or screenwriters for Asian dramas? If so, who are they, and why? And which dramas of their do you recommend?

A fun one, and an area where I know we actually differ in our approach. In short, my answer to your first question is yes, but also no. :)

By which I mean, I generally do pay attention to who creates the shows I watch, because when I am impressed or infuriated by a drama I like to know who is behind it so I can look into their other work, either to pursue or avoid it. Sometimes I have to go looking for that information, but there are some creators who have such an obvious style that it sets them apart and makes it near impossible to miss the connections between their shows (Kim Eun Sook in kdrama, Aof Noppharnach and Jojo Tichakorn in tbl, Hwang Da Seul in kbl, Lin Pei Yu in twbl, etc). With those I might start something unknowingly and then be like wait a minute is this X’s work? I do maintain awareness and keep creators’ other works in mind when I watch something new because it's fun to look for themes across a body of work, and frankly, to know where the pitfalls are likely to come in.

That said, I do not feel any need to be a completist about any one auteur's resume, I don’t intentionally sit down to watch a creator's work in an organized way, and I actually prefer not to know that much about their personal lives, because I like to focus on the fictional stories without too much real world gunk getting in the way and clouding my reads. I am a "let the art speak for itself" girlie; I'm less interested in authorial intent than in allowing stories breathing room to be interpreted by the audience. I do believe in the Death of the Author school of thought and I don't think it's great when creators try to do too much to control how their work is perceived. One of my current beefs with the Only Friends watch experience is that there is so much real world gunk (branded pairs, shipping and actor stanning, creators posting on social media with context that is not included in the actual canon) getting in the way and messing with interpretations of the show.

Once you get into a fandom at all you will inevitably be exposed to a ton of this kind of thing whether you like it or not. And it comes up a lot in bl because so many shows are adapted from pre-existing source material and rely on known actor pairs, which inevitably affects discourse because people come to these shows with a lot of baggage even before they begin. But I am always interested in story first. I dove into I Feel You Linger in the Air and Absolute Zero with zero hesitation because timey wimey soulmate shit is my jam, not because these shows were made by Tee Bundit and New Siwaj (in fact that would be more of a deterrent than anything if I let it dictate my viewing choices).

So while I am interested in the undercurrent of melancholy across Aof's works, and Jojo's devotion to messy ensemble pieces where everyone is a little bit of an asshole, and Kim Eun Sook's uncanny ability to tap into the zeitgeist and create banger after banger across a range of genres, I don't need to know too much about why their areas of focus are important to them or how it relates to their personal experiences. I prefer not to use fiction as a means to psychoanalyze the real people who create it; instead I just try to engage with and appreciate their art as art and afford them respect as creative geniuses without making assumptions about how each work is meant to reflect their real experiences. Understanding some basic demographics about creators (as in, do they have the appropriate lived experiences to be telling the stories they choose) is about as far as my curiosity goes.

Question 1 TL;DR: I do like to pay attention to who creates the shows I watch so that I can follow the themes in their work, but I am not interested in following the creators themselves closely.

Question 2: who are the creators I recommend following? I have mentioned a lot of them above, and my overall recommendation is that if you are invested in a show, you should look to see who writes and directs it, not just who stars in it. Actors are of course important but usually it's the creative team behind them that really makes or breaks a drama, because they are the ones ultimately in control of the story. Having that grounding can be really helpful for setting expectations and in interpreting and processing what you watch, and also just for helping you find more of the kind of thing you will probably like. I’m extremely glad, for instance, that I watched Gay OK Bangkok before Only Friends, because it gave me a framework for understanding the themes they were likely to dig into. I also just finished watching Rainless Love in a Godless Land, which I was interested in due in large part to it sharing the same screenwriter as my all time favorite Taiwanese drama, Someday or One Day, and being able to pull out the similar themes and ideas across the two projects made it all the more interesting for me.

#drama creators #shan answers

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gorgojijijijito · 2 years

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im gonma make bride of discord relevant againt i sweer

anybody else remember bride of discord (and daughter of discord) by that disneyfanaticbunchofnumbers on youtube? yeah i freaking loved it as a kid. still do now honestly, it was honestly one of the cornerstones of my childhood and it's my favorite thing to listen to while i work. i call it my soap opera.

that being said 90% of the morals are AWFUL holy shit. i still appreciate it because it's heartwarming as a passion project and comparably more mature piece of fanwork considering the my little pony fandom at the time; but the toxicity between discord and fluttershy? the homophobic undertones in the sequel?? the treatment of rarity as a character??? THE APPLESPIKE??????

that shit has GOT to GO. so im writing a fix-it-fic for my own self indulgence lmao. i'll be posting my progress and some tidbits here, but i'm not even halfway done with transcripting the episodes and planning out my changes, so it'll be a long while before the final drafts are ready to post. when they are, they'll be posted on archive of our own, but until then, everyone and anyone is more than welcome to offer changes that they would like made, or factors of the story they'd like to be kept. theres no guarantees that they'll be included, but it's still so fun talking about this thing with other people, and it's always good to engage with others in this phase of the process. below is a list of major to minor notes i've already got in mind.

I want to keep the serious tone of the story. By far I think the thing that kept me attached to this series for so long is how the mood differs from so much of the fandom back then. the stakes in the beginning were legitimately high, the conflict took itself seriously, and the production quality was through the roof. this is the audiodrama's hallmark, it's iconic and must be kept in mind when contemplating changes.

Many smaller changes must be made to the Fluttercord plot in order to make it healthier and more natural: the infantilization of fluttershy, discord's overbearingness and harrassment, literally nearly all of episode 9. red flags. i think the biggest issue is that the character arcs are based more on shipping and tropes than the actual characters. there's nothing wrong with this in moderation, but in this case, the relationship is unbearably toxic. the arcs in the rewrite will be a lot more character-focused.

Instead of applejack and spike being the secondary romance, i'm going to make it applejack and rarity. yes i do ship rarijack, but this decision was primarily made in order to get two birds with one stone with applejack and rarity's depictions in the series and its sequel. free my girl rarity and leave my boy spike alone :(

Take pinkie pie more seriously as a character. this isn't just a problem with BOD but also the actual show FIM. she just gets annoying sometimes and her lack of depth really irked me in BOD.

GET RAINBOW DASH AWAYYYY FROM SOREN GET THAT OUT OF HERE

i feel like fluttershy's "tragic" backstory explaining her hesitance as being adored is kinda underwhelming. so is her insecurity, her insecurity not expanding beyond the "doesn't know she's beautiful" trope just rubs me the wrong way, she deserves more depth than that.

discord. discord. the relationship is so one-sided to discord that i think i can only name 2 things he legitimately done for fluttershy's happiness (both of which he lowkey ruined not a day later. most of their "bonding" scenes are just him trying to distract her from her tragic reality and her desires by doing stuff he wants to do, which btw is a manipulation tactic so GET THAT OUT OF HERE)

theres quite a few weird undertones and stereotypes. the pedo and "nice girl" stuff with applespike is the most obvious one, but theres also some lowkey misogynistic quips thrown in there and, although this might not have been an issue at the time, zecora does fit the "wise black woman" trope that's been pointed out many times in recent media, so i do need to adjust how she's portrayed.

another problem that FIM also commits, but rainbow dash just feels so mischaracterized as an element of loyalty at some points. i want to make her loyalty more prominent, to the point of putting her career on the line because she couldn't abandon fluttershy or her friends when they were breaking down. that would be real sweet.

i dont know if im also going to rewrite daughter of discord, i might consider it after im finished with this one, though. also i promise i write way better than i do here when i try lol

#bride of discord #my little pony #mlp fim #mlp #fluttercord #rarijack #bride of discord rewrite #ive been working on this for 3 months already :(

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bebx · 1 year

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“How could you like this fictional character? They’re a bad person!” — “How could you ship this fictional character with this other fictional character? That character is disgusting and a bad person while the character you ship them with is a good person and they hate each other in canon” are such funny takes because the whole point is that they’re fictional & you already lost the argument the second you say something like this, because by saying it, you imply that you think real people’s morality should be judged based on how they consume fictional media and in result, you end up implying other people, or you yourself, cannot separate fiction from reality. It’s okay to like a villain, fictional psychopath because you think their character is neat or well written or for whatever reason as long as your brain knows what the difference between fiction and reality is, and as long as you don’t go kill people in real life. I won’t think you’re a bad person just because you like a fictional character who, according to the fandom police, is disgusting.

“That character is dead” — and???? My brother in Christ they were never real to begin with. Joke’s on you if you think a character’s being canonically dead means people will automatically stop liking them when there’re thousands of fanarts, fanfics they can enjoy in which said character is alive and well. Or they can stay dead, the angst is just as delicious.

“This character is disgusting and a bad person” — again, you already lost the second you imply you think a person’s morality can be judged based on whether or not they like a fictional villain who’s “disgusting and messed up”

“These characters canonically hate each other so you can’t ship them” — there’re thousands of well written fics where characters who hate each other go from enemies to lovers, people can enjoy these. Or they can stay enemies, it’s so sexy when they try to unalive each other, actually.

They’re characters I don’t like, and there’re ships that make me uncomfortable, and I’ll admit there were times in the past where I got into arguments with people who have different opinions regarding which characters they hate or stan, or who they ship, etc, but I’ve never harassed people over fictional characters and I’ve learned to no longer engage with things I don’t like/ don’t agree with/ things that make me uncomfortable or are triggering to me, instead of interacting with them. I don’t go out of my way to tell other people how they can or can’t enjoy characters from movies or tv shows.

And since we’re at it, I’m shamelessly promoting characters who, according to the Fandom Police with High Moral Standards, are fvcked up and disgusting. Some of them are dead. You can either hate them or root for them, I don’t really care how you enjoy fictional characters, but here ya go:

Art the Clown from Terrifier franchise

Sweeney Todd from Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Vecna from Stranger Things

Billy Hargrove from Stranger Things

Patrick Bateman from American Psycho

Norman Bates from Psycho and Bates Motel

Hannibal Lecter from NBC Hannibal, The Silence of the Lamb

Loki from Marvel

Hela from Marvel

Namor from Marvel

Thanos from Marvel

Erik Killmonger from Marvel

Joker from DC

Pennywise from IT

Michael Myers from Halloween franchise

Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street

Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise

Morgana Pendragon from BBC Merlin

Michael Langdon from American Horror Story

Tate Langdon from American Horror Story

Ghostface from Scream franchise

Joe Goldberg from Netflix’s YOU

Love Quinn from Netflix’s YOU

Feel free to add your Blorbo to the list, and let people enjoy fandom(s) however they want; how strangers enjoy fiction is not your business.

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chocochipbiscuit · 5 months

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8, 23, 50?

8. What song would make a great fic (to either write or read)?

Isn’t any song a great fic song when you’re vibing? Or rather: when I’m in fully ship mode, doesn’t every song remind me of my blorbos?

That said, there’s one specific song that always makes me think of a fic I’ll never write: This is Gonna Hurt by Sixx AM. It gives me Shadowrun feels, specifically Dragonfall: a brave and doomed final stand for a runner trying to save the Kreuzbasar during the game’s epilogue.

…basically, this is the ending I’m never gonna write for IR-8. When I first started thinking about the disaster decker, I knew exactly the kind of altruistic idiot they were gonna be. And when I first finished the game, I also realized oh no. Just like Dietrich, they’re gonna die in a fight they can’t win.

So! I’m never gonna write it. (Or maybe I will. Just twist the knife on Laine once again outliving a young fighter he cares for.)

23. What’s a trope, AU, or concept you’ve never written, but would like to?

There’s a lot of self-indulgent smut I’d like to write, but haven’t yet. Does that count? :P

Very broadly: there’s a lot of original work ideas I’d like to explore. More things exploring monstrous femininity and the edge between the terrifying and erotic. More redemption or growth arcs for female villains.

50. Answer any question of your choice, or talk about anything you want to talk about!

If my response to 23 sounded introspective, vague, and navel-gazy, then OH BOY will you be excited where I take this question!!!

I’ve been thinking a lot about my relationship to fandom and writing as a creative outlet. I’ve been thinking about it both as a queer Chinese-American writer and as someone who’s been targeted for months-long harassment in one of my older fandoms.

Basically: I’ve not been reading as much fanfic for a while, and been interrogating why that is. Instead I’ve been reading more original work, both fiction and nonfiction. I’ve been thinking about what nourishes me.

In a nutshell: as much as I love fandom when it’s willing to engage with women, with queerness, with characters of color, fandom trends tend to be overwhelmingly white, Eurocentric, and focused on men. (Please note I am talking about fandom as a whole, I am not trying to ascribe guilt or reasoning for why these things exist.) Even the parts of creative fandom that try to focus on the characters I love (usually women kissing) tend to only focus on white women kissing, or otherwise don’t engage with the experience of being not just a queer woman, but a queer woman of color.

It’s become easier for me to find what I need through original work. (No, not all experiences are universal; reading a romance novel featuring a straight Chinese-Canadian woman is not the same as reading a horror story featuring a lesbian Malaysian-American which isn’t the same as reading a memoir by a Korean-American male chef. But it gives me more than the popular media of fandom.) It’s made me re-examine what I want out of fandom.

That said: I’m still writing, but my focus has shifted. I’m considering what fandoms I want to write for, the kinds of stories I want to tell, and the kinds of stories I want to read. I’m also dipping my toe into more original work just because it stretches a different kind of muscle for me.

All of which is to say: I’m curating my fandom experience. I’m trying to be more conscientious and critical about what I engage with. (And yes, I still want to write super mutant smut. :P)

(from Questions for Fic Writers!)

#choco answers #hawkjuggler #ask memes #questions for fic writers

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shinidamachu · 2 years

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Hey sid! Ik this is random to ask but I wanna know what do u think about this comment, I can't help that what this person said is so true tho..😶‍🌫️

Wholeheartedly agree.

I've adopted the policy of abstaining from posting about it, in the hopes of moving on and helping whatever hype it still gets to die down, which includes deleting any asks I still get regarding the subject.

But considering it's been a while and you asked me, out of anon, what my thoughts are on this topic, I feel obliged to give you my honest opinion. Here it goes.

If there's one thing I hate, it's being manipulated. And using my favorite characters to trick me into consuming grooming propaganda it's a whole new low.

Not to mention that I've been pretty vocal, at the time, against the panty shots this mangaka drew of a 14 years old character. It would have been pretty hypocritical on my part to look past it now, just because my favorite ship got more screentime.

In fact, is it even my favorite ship? Because Inuyasha and Kagome are out of character most of the time. I don't know who those strangers are, but the characters I know and love would never sit by and not only letting a little girl get groomed, but also being okay with it and envying the relationship she has with her abuser.

I fail to understand what I, as an Inukag shipper, would gain from this glorified, non-canon doujinshi that I couldn't get from a well written fanfic or a well designed fanart.

As far as I can tell, this adaptation is even worse than the original, because even though both are clear portraits of grooming, the latter, despite tone deaf, lacked romance, while the former had no shame in romanticizing the grooming implications, selling the idea that the relationship was natural instead of wicked and getting away with it due to its slightly better writting.

Everyone is free to consume whatever media they want, whatever they want, of course. I'm not here to judge anybody, especially because a considerable amount of mutuals are following the story. I myself have been collecting the benefits of a more active timeline on twitter and the beautiful redraws the screenshots provided.

But even through pirating, when we talk about the doujinshi and share its panels, we're actually advertising it to other people who, otherwise, might not ever find out about it. And maybe these people will support it even if we don't.

That's why I try my best to avoid engaging with it. The faster it falls into oblivion, the better. In the meantime, my attention is reserved only for people who create Inukag content free of grooming conotations. Anyone else can do as they please.

#Sidmailing

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intrepidradish · 1 year

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Media: Predators

Year/my age: 2020-2022/30-32

What drew me to the media:

My friend Iterations dragged me in kicking and screaming. This is such a strange fandom for me. I don't even know how to approach talking about it.

At some point, via the Ao3 comment sections of my stories, Iterations suggested the Farscape fandom didn't appreciate me enough and that I should bring my weird queer stories to Predators instead, which at the time, had absolutely zero lgbtq representation.

I was in the midst of lockdown, alone in a house alone in a city I recently relocated to with family in different states. I was very alone, but there was a discord group. I did have gdocs and a big imagination. Iterations was great to talk to. The discord... was really hard on me, and I've only recently left, much to my relief.

What made me a fan:

Nothing did. To this day, I am not a fanatic about predators. I get the appeal of giant, ripped aliens that are stoics for the monster love genre, but the world building is missing for me to really engage with them for writing. But as someone that has only watched the films, the world for yautja isn't something I care to explore further.

And that isn't to say that people in the Predator fandom aren't doing a bang up job exploring it! I still edit work for the fandom, Skadi's Starchild, and he's taking the world in a lot of fun places in his works. Alpha produces in world essays about Aliens and Predators. Others too! If you like monster fucking, it's a rich fandom! People do fun things with Predators. I could probably do more myself (I have ideas) but I'm not going to explore them as fanfiction.

Have I written fanfiction for it? Why or why not?

Yes! I started with Belladonna because there was not a single wlw story in the entire ao3 tag. It's a great story! It's really sexy! I wrote it because I was told women yautja wouldn't enjoy sex outside of mating, and it made me see red. Even if you don't care about Predators you should read this story because it's fast and awesome!

Romp Reversal is probably the most insane story I've published to date about body swapping a little twink cloaca-haver with a yautja. The twink body with the yautja brain gets shipped off to be sexed trained for an enormous spider and the yautja body with a sex-obsessed idiot cutey gets in trouble in other ways. >_>

Yautja PI is very plot heavy and was written by Iterations and me. We took different chapters. It's the first sad ending I've written. It was such a fun challenge working with someone else on a story. I recommend trying to any writer. It will stretch your muscles.

Fox Hunt I wrote over October in 2020, and then hated it! Iterations read it and said it wasn't as bad as I thought, so I reread it again. It is really good. It has this strange victorian racism pov where a bunch of british lords think a predator is a zulu warrior. It's actually more shitty to british people (imo), but they deserve it LOLS. Surprisingly, this story is very popular. It is doing well on wattpad somehow (I don't understand wattpad). I think because it's mlm, it's british, and the sex is hot.

I wrote a trilogy to fix the Predator 2018, which had that makings of a good movie but really fucking wiffle-balled it. I rewrote it. New Procedure is mostly focused on Casey/Fugitive and is surgical kink. It's the most popular probably! Then I went into this huge tangent about defeating the Ultimate predator for a bit, which was difficult for me to finish writing because I was mentally excusing myself from the fandom. Then the conclusion one shot, New Theory, which has some fun sex, but is definitely me tired.

Opinion on the fandom:

I didn't have a very good time with the fandom. We got in lots of fights. I got pigeon holed for something I don't write because I defended people's freedom to write it. There was a lot of bullying, and if I engaged to protect people from bullying, I was not only attacked by the people being bullied but also draw people's attention. It sucked. I'm glad I'm out of it. I find it mildly amusing that most of the people in that discord no longer writes Predator fanfiction. Gatekeeping strangles your own creativity too.

That being said, it's a huge fandom. My works get a lot of attention. People will stick around for very long stories if the payoffs are right.

I'm also really proud of what I produced while in the fandom! I wrote some good stuff during a very difficult time. God the trauma of the pandemic lives long.

Would I read it again?

There are a few stories I'm subscribed to that I'll keep reading. If my friends write anything I'll probably read it!

#my personal take

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fozmeadows · 3 years

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race & culture in fandom

For the past decade, English language fanwriting culture post the days of LiveJournal and Strikethrough has been hugely shaped by a handful of megafandoms that exploded across AO3 and tumblr – I’m talking Supernatural, Teen Wolf, Dr Who, the MCU, Harry Potter, Star Wars, BBC Sherlock – which have all been overwhelmingly white. I don’t mean in terms of the fans themselves, although whiteness also figures prominently in said fandoms: I mean that the source materials themselves feature very few POC, and the ones who are there tended to be done dirty by the creators.

Periodically, this has led POC in fandom to point out, extremely reasonably, that even where non-white characters do get central roles in various media properties, they’re often overlooked by fandom at large, such that the popular focus stays primarily on the white characters. Sometimes this happened (it was argued) because the POC characters were secondary to begin with and as such attracted less fan devotion (although this has never stopped fandoms from picking a random white gremlin from the background cast and elevating them to the status of Fave); at other times, however, there has been a clear trend of sidelining POC leads in favour of white alternatives (as per Finn, Poe and Rose Tico being edged out in Star Wars shipping by Hux, Kylo and Rey). I mention this, not to demonize individuals whose preferred ships happen to involve white characters, but to point out the collective impact these trends can have on POC in fandom spaces: it’s not bad to ship what you ship, but that doesn’t mean there’s no utility in analysing what’s popular and why through a racial lens.

All this being so, it feels increasingly salient that fanwriting culture as exists right now developed under the influence and in the shadow of these white-dominated fandoms – specifically, the taboo against criticizing or critiquing fics for any reason. Certainly, there’s a hell of a lot of value to Don’t Like, Don’t Read as a general policy, especially when it comes to the darker, kinkier side of ficwriting, and whether the context is professional or recreational, offering someone direct, unsolicited feedback on their writing style is a dick move. But on the flipside, the anti-criticism culture in fanwriting has consistently worked against fans of colour who speak out about racist tropes, fan ignorance and hurtful portrayals of living cultures. Voicing anything negative about works created for free is seen as violating a core rule of ficwriting culture – but as that culture has been foundationally shaped by white fandoms, white characters and, overwhelmingly, white ideas about what’s allowed and what isn’t, we ought to consider that all critical contexts are not created equal.

Right now, the rise of C-drama (and K-drama, and J-drama) fandoms is seeing a surge of white creators – myself included – writing fics for fandoms in which no white people exist, and where the cultural context which informs the canon is different to western norms. Which isn’t to say that no popular fandoms focused on POC have existed before now – K-pop RPF and anime fandoms, for example, have been big for a while. But with the success of The Untamed, more western fans are investing in stories whose plots, references, characterization and settings are so fundamentally rooted in real Chinese history and living Chinese culture that it’s not really possible to write around it. And yet, inevitably, too many in fandom are trying to do just that, treating respect for Chinese culture or an attempt to understand it as optional extras – because surely, fandom shouldn’t feel like work. If you’re writing something for free, on your own time, for your own pleasure, why should anyone else get to demand that you research the subject matter first?

Because it matters, is the short answer. Because race and culture are not made-up things like lightsabers and werewolves that you can alter, mock or misunderstand without the risk of hurting or marginalizing actual real people – and because, quite frankly, we already know that fandom is capable of drawing lines in the sand where it chooses. When Brony culture first reared its head (hah), the online fandom for My Little Pony – which, like the other fandoms we’re discussing here, is overwhelmingly female – was initially welcoming. It felt like progress, that so many straight men could identify with such a feminine show; a potential sign that maybe, we were finally leaving the era of mainstream hypermasculine fandom bullshit behind, at least in this one arena. And then, in pretty much the blink of an eye, things got overwhelmingly bad. Artists drawing hardcorn porn didn’t tag their works as adult, leading to those images flooding the public search results for a children’s show. Women were edged out of their own spaces. Bronies got aggressive, posting harsh, ugly criticism of artists whose gijinka interpretations of the Mane Six as humans were deemed insufficiently fuckable.

The resulting fandom conflict was deeply unpleasant, but in the end, the verdict was laid down loud and clear: if you cannot comport yourself like a decent fucking person – if your base mode of engagement within a fandom is to coopt it from the original audience and declare it newly cool only because you’re into it now; if you do not, at the very least, attempt to understand and respect the original context so as to engage appropriately (in this case, by acknowledging that the media you’re consuming was foundational to many women who were there before you and is still consumed by minors, and tagging your goddamn porn) – then the rest of fandom will treat you like a social biohazard, and rightly so.

Here’s the thing, fellow white people: when it comes to C-drama fandoms and other non-white, non-western properties? We are the Bronies.

Not, I hasten to add, in terms of toxic fuckery – though if we don’t get our collective shit together, I’m not taking that darkest timeline off the table. What I mean is that, by virtue of the whiteminding which, both consciously and unconsciously, has shaped current fan culture, particularly in terms of ficwriting conventions, we’re collectively acting as though we’re the primary audience for narratives that weren’t actually made with us in mind, being hostile dicks to Chinese and Chinese diaspora fans when they take the time to point out what we’re getting wrong. We’re bristling because we’ve conceived of ficwriting as a place wherein No Criticism Occurs without questioning how this culture, while valuable in some respects, also serves to uphold, excuse and perpetuate microaggresions and other forms of racism, lashing out or falling back on passive aggression when POC, quite understandably, talk about how they’re sick and tired of our bullshit.

An analogy: one of the most helpful and important tags on AO3 is the one for homophobia, not just because it allows readers to brace for or opt out of reading content they might find distressing, but because it lets the reader know that the writer knows what homophobia is, and is employing it deliberately. When this concept is tagged, I – like many others – often feel more able to read about it than I do when it crops up in untagged works of commercial fiction, film or TV, because I don’t have to worry that the author thinks what they’re depicting is okay. I can say definitively, “yes, the author knows this is messed up, but has elected to tell a messed up story, a fact that will be obvious to anyone who reads this,” instead of worrying that someone will see a fucked up story blind and think “oh, I guess that’s fine.” The contextual framing matters, is the point – which is why it’s so jarring and unpleasant on those rare occasions when I do stumble on a fic whose author has legitimately mistaken homophobic microaggressions for cute banter. This is why, in a ficwriting culture that otherwise aggressively dislikes criticism, the request to tag for a certain thing – while still sometimes fraught – is generally permitted: it helps everyone to have a good time and to curate their fan experience appropriately.

But when white and/or western fans fail to educate ourselves about race, culture and the history of other countries and proceed to deploy that ignorance in our writing, we’re not tagging for racism as a thing we’ve explored deliberately; we’re just being ignorant at best and hateful at worst, which means fans of colour don’t know to avoid or brace for the content of those works until they get hit in the face with microaggresions and/or outright racism. Instead, the burden is placed on them to navigate a minefield not of their creation: which fans can be trusted to write respectfully? Who, if they make an error, will listen and apologise if the error is explained? Who, if lived experience, personal translations or cultural insights are shared, can be counted on to acknowledge those contributions rather than taking sole credit? Too often, fans of colour are being made to feel like guests in their own house, while white fans act like a tone-policing HOA.

Point being: fandom and ficwriting cultures as they currently exist badly need to confront the implicit acceptance of racism and cultural bias that underlies a lot of community rules about engagement and criticism, and that needs to start with white and western fans. We don’t want to be the new Bronies, guys. We need to do better.

#race #racism #c-drama #fandom #fan wank #fandom wank #microaggresions #culture #the untamed #bronies #whiteness #ficwriting #fanwriting #cultural bias #discourse

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aridante · 2 years

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okay i know it’s been said before but like it really is so fucking wild how people on tumblr will consume any piece of media ever literally just to go out of their way to try and ship something instead of actually engaging with or thinking critically about anything else in the story.

#i mean seriously like #of course it's fun to ship things! i get it!#but is that your only frame of reference?#like is that the only #lens through which you view storytelling?#text #leila.txt

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googledocsdyke · 3 years

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thinking incredibly earnestly about like why i unironically love bite me (a google slides social media au) as much as i do and why it’s so fucking funny and i think a huge part of it is that it lays bare the process of total decontextualisation that generally is at work within the self-contained world of like, fic in general. like, in many ways most fic is the same fic. i think we can generally agree on this. obviously there are like fics that transform the way you view the source text, or fics that generate their own world and fandom (down to agincourt), or fics with profound complex thematic engagement (so says the sword) or fics that have their own specific cult status (my immortal, twist and shout). but like the reason the fic ecosystem chugs along, the reason bajillions of fics are posted to ao3 every day, is because of the kind of fic that is so clearly based off other fic, maybe just shifted 2 degrees to the left.

like fanfiction IS by and large a repetitive medium that is often primarily interested in working off and re-articulating very widely accepted tropes. think of all the largely identical 15x20 fix-it codas you may have read. or this harry potter au i wrote when i was fourteen years old that could not have ANYTHING less to do with the actual characters dean, cas, or charlie as written in-show, or even like, anything to do with hogwarts as a setting. there was NO reason it needed to be a harry potter au. why the hell were the x-men there? there was no characterisation. the presence of potions homework, and gryffindor dean, and “charlie ships it,” were all just empty signifiers towards a narrative that i knew better from reading other fics than from watching the show itself. actually, i think at this point i hadn’t even watched any charlie episodes, but you wouldn’t be able to tell! because i lifted my concept of charlie wholesale from other fics that asserted that this was her “characterisation” and her place in the story. like it Was a 1600-word exercise in copy-paste, which is what large amounts of fanfiction are and historically have been. and is so fundamental to why we keep coming back to them

and i’m not saying this as like. a normative or “judgmental” statement in any way! i think there’s no point in insisting that all fic be like. deeply grounded in discrete characterisation or a sincere engagement with the complex themes of the original text, or whatever. firstly because a) most people writing fic ARE young teens/young adults who do so as a kind of participatory gesture, a low-effort way to signal their earnest investment in a particular ship or imagined narrative, and b) decontextualisation is like… at the beating heart of what fanfiction is. like most fanfiction is not “literary” (in huge skeptical quotes bc of how contested that very term even is) but it also feels like it’s a mistake to… ask it to be? i’m thinking along the lines of this post, where gothhabiba asks that we “articulate an actual theory of how and why fanfiction is created, its relationship to other kinds of media and writing, and what it does for the people who write and read it,” rather than “arguing about whether or not it’s ‘good’” . because that is truly a moot point!

i think as most of us return for the renaissance, some 6-7 years older, we’re now at the point where we’re able to engage (more) critically with the substantive text of the show, the actual themes it engages and (mis)handles, the cultural context in which it was produced, the texts it builds off of, intentionally or unintentionally, and the critical frameworks we can apply to it. and all of that is like overall a very good and interesting thing!! but it’s also so interesting when paired alongside the decontextualising impulse that drives a LOT of fandom engagement

ANYWAYS. all this to say that like 95% percent of the joy of bite me is how unapologetically ooc it is. like this is the continuous thing i’ve been talking about other people with. you could copy-paste any characters from any broadly popular media into this situation and the characterisation/speech would be no more or less jarring; it would still make the same amount of “sense” from an in-universe perspective. nothing about this au is really about dean and cas so much as it’s about decontextualised figures LABELLED dean and cas (and again, this is not some literary condemnation or smth, the majority of fic does this in some way! i’m just using bite me as an example). we are told to believe that sam winchester, a grown white man & published author, says “yall wildin” unprompted and that kaia nieves tweets things like “oomf famoose” and it’s fucking hilarious. it’s so good. because intentionally or not, it DOES reveal how much of fic, as a genre, is utterly separated from the characters they propose to be telling a story about.

i said earlier today that bite me is a social media au written in a riverdalian fashion, and i don’t just mean that in a general “it’s bad but good but outrageous” way, but more specifically that both bite me and riverdale decide on something objectively absurd and instead of shying away from it or trying to cover up the writer’s lack of knowledge, it faces it head on. like we ARE told unapologetically and continuously that actors live in their trailers when they’re filming a movie, that a hashtag trending for one day is enough to get a magazine writer that hasn’t been accused of sexual misconduct fired, that dean and cas are starring in a gay romantic comedy called fucking trainspotting. and the writer doesn’t/won’t/shouldn’t apologise for a word of that. in the same way that riverdale will look you dead in the eye and say “archie is going to war and world war ii-era combat aesthetics never ended even though it’s 2020” or “jughead got into the iowa writer’s workshop despite never having been an undergrad” and like what are you supposed to do? make fun of it?? the text doesn’t CARE if you make fun of it! it’s light years ahead of you! it’s so totally unconcerned with this “realism” you’re supposedly chasing that the joke doubles back on you.

so like tldr: bite me is emblematic of the decontextualising urge at the heart of your average fanfiction, lays bare its own ridiculousness, and raises genuinely fascinating questions abt what fanfiction as a text is meant to be or do. also kaia and claire fall in love on stan twt. UNPARALLELED media experience

#and that's not even GETTING INTO the way it really uses the smau medium. and like the FASCINATING questions circulating around that. oh my g #anyways congrats if u made it this far and sorry for this but like #i truly am not posting about this fic in a haha let's make fun of this stupid au way #like do i think it is hilarious and is it perhaps unintentionally hilarious YES #but i genuinely think it is fascinating and a great reading experience #sasha.txt #spn #fan studies #NOT sure how to tag this but like yeah. yeah #bite me

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anamatics · 3 years

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Your opinion on old fandom forums vs, fandom today?

I didn't answer this one last night as I wanted to be able to type out a proper response, and one that's partly adapted from an essay I wrote back in 2016.

As a fandom old, I’ve spent a long time in fandom spaces. I did my time with writing slash and het ships, but I always loved writing stories for me about people like me. I have witnessed first-hand the rise and fall of listservs and live journal as places where people who liked femslash gathered to discuss their favorite shows. I know a lot of fandom history. When I comment on the events in fandom, it still comes from my position as a fan, not as a creative. I want to preface all of these thoughts with this.

Fandom used to be something that you didn't talk about. It was secret, never mentioned in public, zines and stories mailed back and forth across the country. The internet changed that, people's attitudes toward things like queer and trans identity changed that, people's want to see diversity on their screens changed that. Yet, at the same time, there is a whole new generation of young queer creatives emerging onto the writing scene who have grown up witnessing the rise and fall of these great, monolithic fandoms that exist beyond the space of shows themselves. More and more, networks, writers, and producers are paying attention to what the fandom says and to what they react to.

This is why I don't really like fandom these days, because I've seen both sides. I struggled with this working on Carmilla as someone who had been, and in may ways still was, a fan. I know fans have power, I've done things because I know fans have power. And yet, I felt like I'd lost my place in a community - in old fandom - because of this realization. And I myself asking questions about my place in new fandom. Questions that, most of the time, had no answers.

Is it valid to be both grateful for the acknowledgement of fan desires within the creative side of television and web writing and a little horrified by the amount of entitlement that any capitulation by those productions seems to engender within fans? Am I valid in feeling trapped by this feeling of wanting to be the best possible arbiter of representation and knowing that I can never be perfect because the perfection demanded by the queer community isn’t achievable? Does my voice even matter in fandom circles anymore because I’ve “crossed over” to the other side? Am I allowed to continue to speak critically about representation in shows that are not my own because I haven’t “fixed mine yet”?

I struggled with this when Carmilla was airing. I still struggle with it now, too, because I see how trolls on Twitter and Tumblr have reacted to folks like me speaking out about problems we see in our communities or within fandom. People like me aren’t allowed to criticize fandom, or fandom culture, because we’re no longer seen as truly a part of it: by being creators who can’t always live up to fandom’s sometimes unreasonable standards, we’re now considered just part of the problem. We can’t critique behaviors and call things out within this fandom community that should also represent us because when we do we’re hurting the fandom community.

Every queer creative out there has shouldered some of this hurt, I know I have. I stand by what I’ve said despite the backlash. If you cannot believe in the truth you speak, what good are you to a community looking to you for change?

Those who speak to the internal problems of fandom culture are shouted down. People with years of fandom experience, who are far more knowledgeable of the history of fandom (and especially the femslash corners of it) and presence in media than the present-day narrative setters, are shouted down and told that we are part of the problem. Creatives who speak out and criticize other works are treated equally poorly. The problem is that in refusing to look at the problems within our fandom spaces, and saying that everyone outside the group is to blame for the problems of poor representation, we are sticking our fingers in our ears and refusing to look at what’s wrong with us. We eat our own.

The queer community – and by extension the queer fandom community – functions like an ouroboros as far as I can tell. That’s the snake from Norse mythology that eats its tail, representing infinity but also representing the inevitable crush of our own bullshit as it comes down around us with the hopes of becoming a better community. There should be a place within this community for everyone, and yet it’s this same space that is preoccupied with gatekeeping characterized by constant infighting, identity policing, and silencing or invalidating opinions that don’t perfectly align with this vision of what is considered acceptable in the eyes of the thinking of the day.

Queerness is messy. There’s a lot of nuance to it. And there will always be people who want their own community within that umbrella of queerness. That’s a valid want. You want to be around people who are homogenous, because it’s when variety is introduced that feelings get hurt. But the existence of a community for marginalized people should not come at the detriment and degradation of other vulnerable people, nor should it come at the expanse of dismissing intersectionality within our community.

But instead, we eat our own. We dismiss trans headcanons like people in old fandom used to dismiss queer headcanons. We're doing the same bullshit, just rinsed and repeated, directed at a new set of people whose voices are smaller than the small specks of power new fandom has granted (cis, white) queer people.

We fight ourselves amongst because we feel as though we cannot fight the forces of our own oppression. We censor ourselves to make sure that we don’t say anything to upend the proverbial apple cart. We do this not because we’re afraid of the problematic elements outside of the community that could come into our community, but rather because we’re afraid of those within our own community who have the power to kick us out from under our own umbrella and back into the rain.

So when I think about fandom these days, I imagine this moment of losing community. I imagine the hurtful message sent, the dismissive post on the forum, the hateful tweet, actions that cost nothing when they are directed at creators, fan writers, fan artists. These people exist to create content that is to be consumed. They aren't human. They aren't even real. They're just the producers of content that fandom sucks up like a vacuum cleaner without bothering to engage with the creators except to demand more or demand better. Nothing makes you feel alienated from your community like realizing you only exist to produce for it and when you don't produce to standards, you are attacked.

What's worse is that a lot of folks in fandom don't even think about this these days. There's no risk in blasting off a message or a tweet. But social media is an echo chamber. It’s a hive mind, and it’s a place where people can get hurt, very badly, and very quickly. Social media should not be used as a weapon to badger the people trying to get into positions where they can create change, which is what I feel new fandom has done. But at the same time, new fandom has also become a space where voices can be uplifted, where people can be seen and heard who maybe weren't before.

So TL;DR, I think social media ruined fandom, I have a lot of baggage/trauma from working on a show as fandom was transitioning from old fandom to new fandom, and like... we have to be better to each other.

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #writing #fandom #some commentary that I'll probably delete

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charlie-minion · 3 years

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Could the same SPN finale make a little more sense with some additions/changes?

I’ve had the idea for this post stuck in my head for days now, but with every new conspiracy theory and every new eventuality in the fandom, it became difficult to cool down enough to write something less ship-related and more narrative-focused.

What Supernatural and non-SPN fans have to understand is that a lot of us have expressed disappointment and frustration after 15x20, not because of Destiel (that’s just one part of the whole problem), but because the finale doesn’t make sense. Everything was leading up to something beautifully crafted until the end of 15x19. Beyond that, it’s hard to understand what happened. The story rendered all the character growth irrelevant, invalidated the themes of free will and “family don’t end in blood”, regressed to the original brother codependency they spent 15 years trying to overcome, made a queer non-binary character in a male vessel and a deaf female character basically disposable, and kept the show’s reputation of queerbaiting and misogyny until its very last breath.

That’s not going out with a bang! At least not a positive one. We all were ready to mourn Supernatural, but we wanted to feel proud of its legacy, and somehow TPTB managed to tarnish that legacy in less than 45 minutes. What a way to ruin the other more than 13,600 minutes of story!

It doesn’t matter who is to blame (The CW, Robert Singer, Andrew Dabb). It doesn’t matter why it happened (homophobia, censorship, marketing for Walker, bad writing). What matters is that at the end of the day, the finale that aired is what we got and that’s going to hurt for a long time. It hurts even more when we realize that the same finale could have easily made more sense, even without being perfect.

That’s what I want to do in this post. I want to show you how things would have been less jarring (for the fandom), while still keeping the goal to please the general audience.

Before I begin rewriting 15x20, I have to mention that I talked to my conservative boomer sister about the finale. She hasn’t watched the second half of season 15 yet (she’s waiting for Netflix to have it), but she’s been watching the show for a long time (she introduced me to it 8 years ago). She’s the perfect example of a viewer from the general audience. Loves the show but doesn’t give a second thought to it and definitely isn’t paying attention to character development or themes. Doesn’t engage with fandom, actors, or any of the show’s social media. Pure GA! When I told her the series finale had aired, she asked me about it and I refused to give her spoilers. Because of that, she told me the ending SHE wanted. She said she would be happy with either of two possibilities: the boys retiring and finally living a normal life OR they going to heaven and finding peace at last. She saw Sam and Dean as a unit, which means: both retiring or both going to heaven. AND she saw Cas as part of that, too. She wasn’t so sure about Jack. And for her, we could use the “Eileen who?” and it wouldn’t be a joke. She didn’t remember her.

NOW IT’S TIME TO WRITE A NEW VERSION OF 15X20 (KEEPING 15X18 AND 15X19 EXACTLY THE SAME AS THEY AIRED). This will be a very long post:

The opening remains almost the same. No “Carry on my wayward son” to induce feels. Too soon and too predictable! (Reasoning: Everyone was expecting it to play right there, so it would bring more tears at the end)

In the opening, after the scene where Jack says “People won’t need to pray to me or sacrifice to me”, we also see the scene from 15x19 where he says “I won’t be hands on”. Then we see the rest of the opening as it was. (Reasoning: People needed to be reminded that Jack would NOT intervene and that’s why later on, he would NOT save Dean).

We get the same montage, but when Sam takes a break from his morning run, we see him reading a message on his phone. A simple: “Hey Sam, what’s new?” from Eileen. Sam smiles fondly and begins to type a response we don’t get to see. The next scene continues the same, Sam making breakfast. (Reasoning: A text was a very simple way to show that Eileen was alive and still in communication with Sam).

The montage slowly ends as Sam enters the library (not after he sits down). He seems to be talking on the phone but we only hear an “I’ll tell him. Bye”. As he walks towards the table, he tells Dean: “Charlie says hi. Mentioned something about Stevie’s perfect scrambled eggs we have to try.” Dean’s answer is “Awesome!” (Reasoning: Just ONE line was needed to unbury Charlie and her girlfriend. ONE LINE).

Sam sits down, opens his laptop and everything continues the same. The title card shows for the last time.

YOU SEE? In the first 4 minutes they could have acknowledged that THREE WOMEN were alive and safe: Eileen, Charlie and Stevie. It wasn’t hard! Don’t blame bad writing on Covid! Now let’s continue.

Sam and Dean arrive at the Pie Fest just the same. Dean goes to get some “damn pie” and Sam takes out his phone. He dials and when someone picks up, he says “Hey, Jody, how are ya?” We don’t hear the rest of the conversation. The scene moves to Dean coming with his 6 portions of pie. Dean sits down and Sam tells him, “Talked to Jody. The other hunters haven’t had much work lately.” “That’s good, isn’t it?”, Dean says. All we get from Sam is “Yeah.” So, Dean looks at him and asks “what’s wrong?” like it happened in the episode. (Reasoning: Again, a couple of lines to make sure the people that were killed in 15x18 are safe and remembered by the boys in 15x20. Why is this important? Because they’re family!)

The conversation about Sam’s sad face happens the same. Sam is the one that mentions Cas and Jack. (Reasoning: Because this episode was so Sam-centered, it’s obvious he was the protagonist in the finale. If we see him communicating with Eileen, Charlie, and Jody, then it’s NORMAL, even expected of him to be the one to bring up Cas and Jack). Without these additions, it’s harder for people to understand that most of the finale was NOT from Dean’s POV but from Sam’s.

Dean’s “if we don’t keep living, then all that sacrifice is gonna be for nothing” stays the same. (Reasoning: I believe it’s necessary that the show sticks to the importance of “letting go” and “what is dead should stay dead” for the first time ever because the message is “even when you lose someone you love, you can still find some form of happiness and keep living, for you and for them, because that’s what they would have wanted”. Bringing someone back means “I can’t live without you”, and that’s just more codependency. It’s how the demon deals began in the Winchester family –Mary being the first one to do it. This would explain why Dean didn’t ask Jack to bring Cas back, as he asked Chuck. He understood Jack was NOT going to interfere anymore and accepted it. Besides, when Cas saved Dean from hell, Dean thought he didn’t deserve to be saved. This time that Cas saved him, Dean finally feels worthy enough to accept that YES, HE DESERVED TO BE SAVED ALL ALONG, just as much as he deserved to be loved by that angel of the Lord. In this scene, Dean also says that the pain is not gonna go away, which means that from HIS PERPECTIVE, it still hurts that Cas is not there. The problem is that the finale is not showing his POV but Sam’s.

Sam pies Dean on the face just the same. (Reasoning: That part was just to avoid ending the scene on a sad note).

Everything related to the case happens exactly the same. (Reasoning: At this point, people don’t really care about the MoTW, they care about Sam and Dean).

NOTE 1: The case is important to show that even when the Winchesters are finally free of Chuck’s influence, they CHOOSE to keep hunting. It isn’t something they do out of revenge or because it is their destiny anymore. Maybe they were forced into the life at first, but they’ve learned to find joy in saving people. Being hunters is who they are. However, the fact that a job application was shown on Dean’s desk is also important because it means he was willing to explore what else was there for him besides hunting. Maybe he could find a balance? Maybe he was thinking it was time to quit? We will never know! The thing is that Sam only finds out about it when he goes into Dean’s room after his brother is dead, so maybe that’s when it hits him that Dean wanted to explore his options, and Sam starts to think it’s time for him to do the same.

NOTE 2: I believe the masks the vampires are wearing is something we can blame on covid. If they had their faces covered, it was easier to use people from the SPN crew for some scenes, instead of using more actors unnecessarily.

NOTE 3: When Sam and Dean arrive at the barn, we get 3 visuals to remember Cas in the same scene (those are for the fandom, not for the general audience): a) the barn, obviously; b) the bag that resembles Cas’ trenchcoat so much that many people thought that’s what it was; and c) two feathers hanging on Dean’s right when he opens the trunk.

The scene with the throwing star happens the same. (Reasoning: The episode is still told from Sam’s point of view, so it makes sense that he fondly sees his brother as a man child).

Jenny the vampire? Uhhh… I mean, it’s not the best piece of writing I’ve ever seen, but it’s not the worst, so okay. That stays the same. (Reasoning: There is none, but she’s not what really ruined the finale, so whatever!)

Dean still dies impaled on a rebar. (Reasoning: OK. HERE ME OUT!!! I hate as much as everyone else that Dean is killed. I think it’s lazy writing, but that’s what we got and I can’t change that in this re-write, so if killing Dean is what we have to work around, then, memes aside, death by rebar is better and here’s why. There’s no one to blame for Dean’s death: no Chuck (the boys were willingly hunting even after Chuck was defeated), no vampires (they were all killed and were no real threat, so it was impossible for Sam to begin a quest for revenge against all vampires. What was Sam going to blame? A rebar? Can you kill it? Hunt it? NO. It was an ordinary death, a stupid accident. Just like any person can die at any moment by slipping on a banana peel. Is it a good death? No, but it’s good to know he doesn’t die trying to save Sam or Cas, because Dean Winchester is NOT willing to give up his life in exchange for anyone else’s anymore.

Sam takes out his phone and says he’ll call for help, but his phone is more visible to the audience. He dials and it’s almost to his ear when Dean stops him and Sam hesitantly hangs up. (Reasoning: People have complained that Sam didn’t call an ambulance, but actually he tried to. It’s just that people missed that part, maybe?)

After Sam puts his phone back in his pocket and says “OK” to Dean, he adds, “I’ll pray to Jack”. Dean’s immediate answer is: “No hands on, remember?” “But Dean”, Sam says, and Dean interrupts him with “OK listen to me” and tells Sam what to do with the kids they rescued. (Reasoning: Jack is God now and how come Sam didn’t remember? The viewers remembered, so it was necessary to include a line that ruled the option out and that showed Dean didn’t want Jack to intervene. The rest was fine).

The lines “You knew it was always gonna end like this for me. It was supposed to end like this, right?” disappear completely from Dean’s monologue. (Reasoning: This is the most problematic part of Dean’s dying speech. He fought God and earned free will, he is no longer controlled by fate or destiny. Accepting that he is supposed to die on a hunt regresses his character development and denies his desire to keep living. This was a total mistake and should be removed).

Instead, if going to heaven is the ending TPTB wanted to give Dean, at least he should say something more empowering. Sam tells him that both of them are going to take the kids somewhere safe. Dean answers and the scene follows like this: “No. Sammy, we made our choice, didn’t we?”, he smiles with difficulty. “We were free to write our own story and we did. We decided to keep saving people, hunting things. Because it’s what we love despite the risks.” (Reasoning: If Dean’s going to die it doesn’t have to feel like it was always meant to be that way. He should die knowing that he exerted his free will until his last breath).

The rest of the dialogue between Sam and Dean happens almost the same. Except that instead of Dean saying “‘cause when it all came down to it, it was always you and me. It’s always been you and me”, he says “’cause when it all came down to it, we’ve always had each other’s backs. Always.” And instead of Sam saying “Don’t leave me”, he says “I still can try to save you.” (Reasoning: It sounds way less codependent without diminishing the importance of their love and support for each other).

Besides, let’s change Dean’s “I’m not leaving you” for “You don’t have to be alone. You’ve still got family.” The rest stays the same word by word. (Reasoning: Dean reminds Sam that “family don’t end in blood” and there are still lots of people out there who love Sam and will be with him).

“I love you so much, my baby brother” stays exactly the same. (Reasoning: Dean always had trouble to express the big L word. I always believed and said many times that before Dean could say “I love you” to Cas or any other character, he had to say it to Sam. So, this is important as part of Dean speaking his truth).

The last part when Dean insists Sam tell him that it’s okay stays the same. (Reasoning: It’s the final moment when the codependency cycle breaks. No more running in circles).

The forehead touch between them stays the same. (Reasoning: I think I would do something similar if my sister were dying. I know there are w*ncest shippers out there, but it shouldn’t matter because the moment feels appropriate for that kind of goodbye).

See? There are changes but not too many. That’s why I’ve been saying that it was easier to get it right, yet they still managed to screw it up.

The second montage stays the same. (Reasoning: Life goes on, but of course Sam has to mourn).

The call about a case in Austin remains the same. (Reasoning: It’s the only part of the episode where someone from the found family is mentioned, so I think that Donna’s name is perfect in that moment. However, without the other additions I’ve made in this re-write, that off-hand mention feels too little. Its purpose was to tell the viewers that if Donna was alive, so were the others, but the way the episode was executed gave us an isolated Sam, incapable of having friends and a family without Dean).

After 30 minutes of Sam’s POV, let’s finally see the last bit of Dean’s POV that we’ll ever get.

Dean arrives in Heaven and Bobby receives him. All their conversation stays almost the same, except that after mentioning Rufus and before saying “and your mom and dad…”, Bobby adds an “Ellen and Jo let me borrow their place”. (Reasoning: If you’re gonna put the man outside the Harvelle’s place, at least mention them for Jack’s sake!).

Besides, after Bobby tells Dean that Sam will be along and that time in heaven is different, Dean gives a small smile and says, “Well, there’s no rush. I want him to have a long, happy life.” Bobby answers with: “I would expect nothing less from you, boy” and tells him he got everything he could ever want, etc., just like it happened in the episode, and finishes by asking “What are you gonna do now, Dean?” (Reasoning: It’s important we know for sure that Dean is NOT codependent anymore and that he doesn’t expect to have a miserable afterlife just because his brother is not there yet).

Instead of saying “I think I’ll go for a drive” Dean says, “I think I know what I want” and walks towards baby. Bobby still tells him to have fun. (Reasoning: “Know what I want” is ambiguous enough to help us introduce the last piece of the puzzle, the one thing Dean’s wanted for many seasons and has never been able to express).

The biggest change is coming:

Dean gets on the Impala and has a moment of silence while he contemplates the wheel. He begins to pray: “Hey, Cas, you got your ears on? I hear you’ve been busy working on this updated Heaven with Jack. You were right about him, Cas. You had faith in him and he saved us all. You could always see the best in everyone, even when they couldn’t see it themselves. Even when I couldn’t see it myself. There’s so much I want to tell you. Maybe you can visit sometime. I hope prayer’s still a thing up here.” (Reasoning: Dean’s side of the confession was unaddressed and that was terrible writing. If there was no way to get him to speak his truth textually, at least take him as close to it as possible).

We listen to a flutter of wings and a “Hello, Dean” from the back seat. We don’t see Cas, but the camera shows us Dean’s cocky smile and he says “Took you long enough.” He turns around slowly. End of scene. (Reasoning: The flutter of wings confirms that angels have their wings back and ties that loose end. The final “hello, Dean” was highly anticipated and it made sense. If Misha couldn’t be there to film, for whatever reason, or if the problem was the kind of conversation Dean and Cas would have, then don’t show it, but leave the door open. Let us know that the two characters were reunited and will talk, but whatever Dean has to say is so private that it’s not for us to hear, only for Cas.

We finally hear “Carry on my wayward son” and get a montage that begins with Sam playing with his kid. Then we see Dean driving, super happy, and Sam living his life to the fullest. We still get Sam’s Blurry Wife, BUT… we see pictures of Eileen in the living room (not just of John, Mary, Sam, and Dean). We also see photos of Jody, Donna, Charlie, and AU!Bobby. (Reasoning: FAMILY DON’T END IN BLOOD).

The scene where Sam is wearing the party wig and looks miserable inside the Impala is cut and nobody talks about it ever again because it never existed. We get a scene of Sam teaching his son how to fix the car instead. (Reasoning: First of all, don’t give Sam a life where years later he’s still in pain. Second of all, the fucking wig was a crime).

Sam’s dying scene stays the same. The only thing is that his son signs a couple of phrases to him before actually speaking. (Reasoning: More confirmation that Dean Jr. is Eileen’s son).

We hear the final “Evanescence-like Carry on my wayward son”. Again we see the photos and there’s family other than the Winchesters there. (Reasoning: Obvious at this point).

The rest is exactly the same. The show began with two brothers and it’s okay if the last scene is with the two brothers reunited in Heaven. At this point, the other parts of the story are acceptable enough for us to feel happy that they get to see each other again after years of a happy (after)life.

Now look me in the eye and tell me this was too hard to execute. I still think that bad writing is a thing we can’t deny here, adding to the possible meddling of the Network. Maybe Dabb wanted us to hate the finale because he couldn’t get away with what he truly wanted. If that was his intention, then kudos to him. He and The CW really gave us a finale that only 30% of the fandom liked.

I hope you guys have enjoyed this and it helps to give you some peace of mind. In my heart, this was the finale we got. It wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t drop the ball either.

#supernatural #15x20 #spn 15x20 #spn finale #rewrite #dean winchester #dean deserved better #cas deserved better #destiel #the characters deserved better #we deserved better #it was easier to get it right #yet they screwed up big time #alternate ending

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vergess · 2 years

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Gosh that shipping post has been bouncing around my head all day. I understand where people are coming from wrt white audiences typically only engaging with POC stories in the context of what they can personally relate to instead of being more thoughtful and trying to understand the lived experience of POC. I’m white so I’m speaking from experience in that I also didn’t used to see the full value in narratives that I didn’t find relatable. That said, the argument seems to boil down to “don’t ship POC, especially not in a queer way, unless they’re a canon couple” and “don’t headcanon (presumed cishet) POC characters as queer”? Basically just feels like they’re saying “white people, especially the queer ones, do not touch” which is fair, I guess, but it feels contradictory to what they’re purportedly trying to accomplish.

They sure seem to think they're saying 'white people do not touch,' as if segregation has worked out sooooo well in the past.

But what they inevitably, always, are actually saying is 'queer people don't touch,' and then when QTIPOC are rightfully fucking disgusted, pretending that by 'queer' they meant 'white.'

Because, y'know. Can't be both!

It's disgusting in the fucking extreme. Using a parody of anti-racism to just reinforce both racism and queerphobia, specifically in a way that is inextricable from misogyny.

I hate them.

If they dislike fandom so goddamn much, then they both can and should just get a different fucking hobby.

But they don't dislike fandom. In fact, many of them love it.

Just not 'that kind' of fandom.

And rather than accept that the VAST MAJORITY OF ALL FANDOMS ARE NON-SHIPPING AND ENGAGING WITH THOSE ASPECTS they're obsessed with eradicating a minority of fandom to make themselves feel more powerful.

It is tedious, it is bigoted, and I am tired of it.

I mean jfc even your ask says it outright. You didn't USED TO see value in narratives you couldn't directly relate to. But lo, by engaging with media you didn't know you could enjoy, and finding things that appealed anyway, you grew as a person and learned to see that value.

THAT GROWTH is one of the things these stupid assholes would deny us. And then claim they're reinforcing white ignorance and apathy "for the sake of POC," as if that shit doesn't harm us too.

It's entire layers of insult and injury.

POC who ship aren't really POC. White people should simply give up and never try to engage meaningfully with nonwhite characters and stories. Queerness is fundamentally incompatible with being racialized.

On and on, a litany of heinous trash being presented as an inarguable moral truth.

It's spiteful. It's dangerous. And it's fucking bigoted.

#shipcourse 3

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bookofmirth · 3 years

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Fandom! Just curious...like wouldn't SJM be aware of the fandom chaos? Even in some form? Maybe I'm just a bit anal and obsessive but when/if I publish a book I'd look into what my fans are thinking and if things got this bad release a statement or something. Am I just not that intune with what the publishing/author things are like? Or am I just more anti sjm than I originally thought I was. Because this is not okay and no one is holding these people, whatever ship they are, responsible.

No, I really doubt she knows. And personally, I don't think it's her responsibility. We built this mess, we are the ones behaving and reacting this way. It's ours to clean up.

Sorry, I get on my soapbox a bit here re: the acotar fandom.

From what I know, sjm intentionally keeps herself out of any sort of internet discussion. In one of her most recent events, she said that she doesn't even have any social media apps on her phone, and just uses it to play solitaire or something like that. And I think that Steph said she doesn't tell Sarah about any of it because of her mental health. There is 0 reason for her to need to know that people were joking about kidnapping her kid or her husband choking. The fandom is such a clusterfuck right now, that how would she be able to see through the noise to the actual, useful information, not to mention how could she engage with it?

I think there are some good reasons for this - I can't even imagine how I would react to seeing an entire anti community dedicated to me and my work. A lot of the criticism or discussion online is... suspect, at best. What good would it do her to read someone's headcanon? Or someone's completely subjective analysis of a scene? That's also tricky territory because authors aren't supposed to see any written fan work stuff, or they could be accused of taking ideas from people. I'd also rather she not know because I don't want fan service books. I want the organic story she wants to tell.

Also, fandom is a completely separate monster that the books, the publisher, and sjm did not create. Our behaviors are our responsibility. It's like the Wild West out here and some of us are taking full advantage to be assholes they always aspired to be. But there is no Fandom Police, which in cases like yesterday, kinda sucks.

I understand the desire to want sjm to make a statement. When Steph was getting a raft of shit for not shipping elriel anymore, I thought that surely Sarah would say something. I thought now this is personal, so she should get involved. But the thing is - and this is why I often choose not to reblog things with negative content - her response would also give that behavior a larger platform and more attention. And for someone with sjm's following? It would be 1000000% times worse.

And honestly? Even if she did say something, then people would just cry "death of the author" (inaccurately, might I add) and continue doing whatever they want to do. There is a fundamental lack of respect for other people that these behaviors indicate, and Mommy Sarah coming out and chiding everyone isn't going to make it better. People need to be held accountable, but it so quickly spirals into deflection, defensiveness, and then rerouting the conversation to insult OP, that what's the point? Sometimes I want to hold people accountable, but at the end of the day, that's not my job or responsibility, and all I can do is control my own actions.

My advice is to just be vigilant with who you do and don't follow, freely use the block button, and don't go into spaces that you know aren't safe. Right now, that's almost all of Twitter, and from what I hear, BookTok isn't that great either. I stick to tumblr, I have tags blocked, and I have about 40-50 fandom-related blogs blocked.

Unfortunately - and this is what makes all of this even worse - the fandom is proving itself to be very unsafe for people of color, and that's disgusting to me. It's disgusting and embarrassing and makes me want to peace out when people are just here trying to have fun, and a woman of color who rightfully calls out disgusting behavior is then subjected to something 1000% worse, essentially derailing the conversation away from the actual problem - racism, sexism, homophobia, and ableism in the fandom - and turning the discussion into tone policing.

And that is what happened yesterday. Instead of reflecting and saying "wow, this fandom is doing shitty, racist, ableist things", the discussion turned into "omg why is OP calling people out, OP thinks she's so smart, OP needs to say these things differently, OP should be nicer", etc. etc. But that means WE NEVER END UP ACTUALLY CRITIQUING THE ORIGINAL PROBLEM OF RACISM, SEXISM ETC. IN THE FANDOM. The entire discussion gets skewed elsewhere and we are right back where we started. With people being problematic assholes, and others being afraid to say anything about it.

(The way those phrases have been used as weapons in ship wars is a separate issue.)

I know I went way beyond your original question, but I think that as a fandom, we have way more responsibility for our own actions than Sarah does for calling them out. And I am putting this in all the tags because I think everyone needs to see it.

#sarah j maas #acotar #feysand #nessian #gwynriel #elucien #elriel #acotar fandom #fandom wank

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mcwriting · 3 years

Text

Just Friends

sooooo... I know I've said I don't write smut, but I will write *barely* sfw stuff if I'm in the mood :)

College AU because that's my current aesthetic lol. Not explicit but defo spicier than what I normally write

Ship: Tom Holland x Reader

Word Count: 2078

Warnings: light language, alcohol consumption, implied (consensual) sex

✧

The music was loud with a deep bass, reverberating through your spine as you carried a half-drank solo cup of indiscriminate alcohol and red fruit punch.

"Tom. I'm not feeling it tonight," you basically yelled to your best friend, a proud member of the fraternity whose basement you were in. "This just doesn't hit like it used to."

You were both going into your senior year of college, having been friends ever since your freshman dorm rooms ended up right next to each others.

Now that you and your friends were all legal, going to the frathouse instead of a bar just seemed unnecessary. The only reason you were really there was because Tom and his best friend Harrison were officers and had to live in-house.

Tom had only had a couple beers within the past hour, trying to stay steady with you, though you weren't even experiencing a light buzz.

He wrapped his arm around your waist and pulled you close to lean down to your ear.

"Whadd'ya want to do then?" he asked.

"Can we just go back to my place? We've got some alcohol in the apartment," you answered. He nodded. "Let's go find Emily first, make sure she doesn't want a ride, too."

You both made your way around, finally seeing your roommate and Harrison making out in one corner of the room, one hand holding a red solo cup and the other cupping his face.

You rolled your eyes and grabbed her shoulder, pulling them apart.

"Heeeeyyy. What are you two up to?" she asked, turning around and pressing her back up against the blonde who then wrapped both arms around her stomach, resting a chin on her shoulder.

"We're gonna go drink at the apartment, " you called, trying to get her to hear over the music. "Do you want to go in the uber with us?"

She shook her head.

"Nah, I think I'll stay here if Haz is cool with it."

"You know I'm always cool with you staying over," he added, spinning her around.

"Okay, well then you two know the drill," you started, "if you even think about taking advantage of her I'll-"

"You'll cut my dick off," he finished, "yeah, yeah, I know. I would never, I swear."

Harrison put a hand over his heart for good measure.

Your stern look turned to a grin.

"Alright you two, stay safe and all that jazz. See you tomorrow."

You were waving bye when Emily called out behind you,

"Don't forget to use condoms!"

You blushed like mad, and Tom did, too.

You were just friends, after all. Only friends.

Both of you went through the rest of the house in silence, going outside to wait for your driver. You crossed your arms in frustration over your chest.

"I can't believe Emily would try to embarrass us like that! She knows we're just friends! Now that whole party thinks we left to hook up."

"Come on, y/n. The music was too loud. If anyone heard it was like two other people and they're freshman. Who cares what they think?"

You laughed at his response as he squeezed your side again, trying to get you to loosen up and smile again. You couldn't help but comply as the driver pulled up.

✧

Tom was hunched over looking through your fridge when you exited your bedroom, having already removed any makeup and changed into sweats.

He stood up when he heard you.

"What all do you want to- is that my shirt?"

You looked down, then shrugged.

"Huh. Guess so. You can have it back if you want it," you said, starting to pull up up over your sports bra when he stopped you.

"No, no. It's fine. Looks better on you anyways," he quipped, shutting the fridge door. You couldn't help but smile at that last comment as you pulled it back down. "Speaking of clothes of mine, do you still have my grey sweats?"

It wasn't long before he had changed as well, wearing the pants he'd left from the last time and one of your XL sweatshirts.

"Are you sure this sweatshirt isn't mine, too?" he asked, tugging on it.

"Since when do you wear oversized sweatshirts, Tom?"

He paused and looked up.

"Oh, right. Never. Thanks for washing these pants for me."

It wasn't a strange occurrence for Tom to spend the night at your apartment, usually to get out of the frat house every so often. He typically took the couch or your air mattress and kept some clothes in your closet.

He hit his hands together, then rubbed them.

"Now that we've got that out of the way. What shall we drink?"

You were originally just going to finish a bottle of wine as you watched "The Wedding Planner" together on the couch, but then Tom discovered the bottles of tequila and vodka in the freezer during the scene where Mary gets drunk.

"Come on, babe. We've gotta do at least one shot. It would be way more entertaining."

"I can't imagine that either of us needs to be drunk to find JLo and Matthew McConaughey entertaining, but fine," you replied, getting up to pull out the shot glasses from the cabinet.

"I shouldn't have told you to look for the ice cream," you lamented, causing him to laugh.

About 20 minutes after a shot each, you were both curled up on the couch together, the alcohol hitting as the story was beginning to wrap up.

You felt a little awkward watching the characters confess their love for each other as you were leaning on Tom's side, his arms caressing you.

But you were just friends, right?

Yeah, but your drunk brain couldn't ignore the flashing sign inside that seemed to scream "but you're also kinda into him!"

And it was right.

You'd had subtle feelings for him since probably sophomore year, after having playfully hated each other throughout freshman year.

You liked to blame that sentiment on the fact that your beds had been against the same wall and you could often hear each other doing just about everything.

"I just don't get how people weren't more mad at her going after an engaged man!" Tom said, snapping you from your thoughts.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. But I mean she did try to avoid him for a while, I guess," you replied, not quite slurring but your words coming out just a little but slow.

Tom switched on a random TV channel after credits started rolling and shifted a bit, still holding you tight.

"You doing okay?" he asked. You nodded.

"Yeah, I think I'm already coming down. You were kind of right, though. Drunk watching gave me a whole new perspective."

"Oh yeah? and what's that?"

You could feel the vibrations in his chest as he spoke, making you close your eyes sleepily.

"Hmm. I'm not actually sure."

He laughed at your response and then you both fell into a comfortable silence, both of you relishing in each other's warmth.

After a little bit, you sat up, rubbing your eyes and stretching.

"You good?" he asked again.

"Yep, just gonna run to the bathroom real quick."

You stood up, taking slow steps. Your thoughts were no longer clouded but your coordination wasn't quite there yet.

By the time you returned, Tom had gotten you some water glasses and returned to the couch. This time, you laid down so you could rest your head in his lap and look at your phone as he stroked your hair.

After a while of scrolling through social media and showing Tom the occasional picture, you closed the phone and set it on your chest.

You looked up and Tom and wondered aloud,

"What do you think Em and Haz are up to now?"

"Is that really a question? Smashing."

You snorted.

"Gosh those two don't know how to keep their hands off of each other. I can't believe it took them so long to figure out they were into each other. 'Just friends' my ass."

Tom gave an awkward chuckle of his own.

"Hey, that's our line."

You could feel the tension in that response, not sure how to respond as you continued to study Tom's face.

"We should probably start getting ready for bed," he suggested. "I can start blowing up the air mattress if you wanna go brush your teeth and stuff."

You had sat up but stopped him.

"Wait... will you... do you want to just sleep in my bed tonight?"

"What? Then where will you sleep? On the couch?"

You were a little stunned at his oblivious answer.

"I- what? No. I meant... do you want to share the bed with me? It's plenty big for two people."

He eyes widened.

"Oh... oh! Okay I get it now. Uh, sure. As long as you're sure. I don't want to make you uncomfortable or anything."

"Tom, I mean it. I want you to," you plead.

You were eventually getting ready to crawl into bed when you faced Tom, sitting back against the mattress.

"Are you sure you want this?" he asked once again, making you grin. You reached up and pulled him into a hug.

"I promise, Tom. I really do."

You both pulled away just enough for your faces to be in front of each other, not even an inch apart. Your heart was racing, tension higher than ever between you.

It felt like forever staring at each other. You weren't really sure who moved first but suddenly your lips were crashing into each other's with a fiery passion, hands roaming each other's bodies for the first time like you were starved for touch.

Somehow you had flipped and made it onto the bed, you on top of Tom as you rode his leg.

It wasn't long before shirts were removed, too, and bare skin was against bare skin.

"Mmm... Where... um... condom?" Tom asked between kisses, both of you breathing heavily.

You paused and sat up, straddled over his hips, thinking. It had been a while since you'd needed one of those.

You slid off of him and went to the bathroom, reaching deep into the back of the sink cabinet, thankful to find that the box wasn't expired. When you stood up, you almost laughed at the way your face was flushed and hair unruly.

When you returned, Tom was sitting up looking at you, brows raised.

"So we really doing this?" he asked. You couldn't help but smile, thankful for his respectful nature.

"I am if you are."

It didn't take long to fall back onto the bed again, eventually tiring yourselves out and falling asleep pressed against one another.

✧

You walked out of your bedroom, hair still wet from a shower, looking to make some coffee.

As the first mug brewed, Emily came through the door.

"Oh, hey!" she looked around. "Did Tom head back already? I must've missed him. I guess he slept on the couch since I don't see the air mattress anywhere."

You were unsure of how to answer, pausing as you leaned back against the counter.

Once you finally figured out something to say, you were interrupted by Tom opening the bedroom door. His own hair was also still wet, and he held your bedsheets in a clump in his arms.

"Hey y/n do you want me to stick these in with any clothes or- oh hey Emily," he said, not registering the situation as he passed by her to put the bundle in the washing machine.

Emily, on the other hand, was standing frozen in shock. She looked at you, pointing towards Tom, then back at you, a hand then reaching up to cover her mouth.

"Oh my... I- did you two..?" her fingers wiggled back and forth between you two. You couldn't help but blush. "Holy shit, you did!"

Tom turned and walked to you with a maniacal grin, standing in front you as he reached past your body to grab the filled coffee cup.

"It's definitely possible," he answered her, leaning down to press a kiss on top of one of the hickeys he'd left on your neck.

"Finally! 'Just friends' my ass," she said, unknowingly paralleling your own comment about her. She was about to open her mouth again when you cut her off this time.

"Yes, Em. We used condoms. Now tell me if I've got any dicks to cut off."

✧

A/N: byeeee I don't know how to feel about this. On the one hand I'm pretty proud of it but also this is nothing like how I am as a person or how I usually write so I'm definitely out of my comfort zone here haha

Hope you all enjoyed though! If you did please leave a like or reply or something! I have more one shots similar to this in mind if anyone wants more like it!

Thanks for reading!

Send a message or ask if you’d like to be added to my permanent or series taglists so I can verify you’ve been added!

@jackiehollanderr, @one-big-fangirl, @agentnataliahofferson, @spider-babe, @justafangirlduh

#just friends #tom holland #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland au #tom holland one shot #tom holland x you #tom holland x reader #tom holland fic

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jerepars · 3 years

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Back again lol. Even though the writing just hasn’t been the best this season, I’m not really that mad about the way they’ve portrayed Jeresa. Just looking at this logically, I feel that they gave us 5x02 as our Jeresa episode early on and there really was a lot of sweet moments. Now, inevitably we had to have angst in between. But it’s been constantly cemented that James is in love with Teresa, and strongly implied that she loves him too. They can’t just build that up and leave it unresolved. Plus, with TV shows in general, a couple being together early on in the series just leaves it open for unnecessary conflict and the ship just loses its intrigue. If they give us the Jeresa ending we’re hoping for then it makes sense to have not got them together any episode earlier than the final 2. And despite everything, I think the writers have been a hell of a lot better than others in keeping their ship alive and not causing a irredeemable issue between them. I probably shouldn’t defend them before seeing the next two episodes, but I am hopeful. All that being said, there most definitely should have been more scenes and dialogue between them. We should’ve had a Tony moment between them (I’m so mad about this, especially since the writers acted like it was such a pivotal part of the season and then only showed Pote’s ‘grief’). I’m very sorry for rambling, just wanted to hear your take.

Oh, yes hello, back again, I see. Your ask made me sigh because I think it opens me up to be honest and critical of this season’s writing, and that kind of opinion may not always be favored around here, and also because it requires a response of essay length. But I’ll do it for you, anon, I will. Okay. So you want my take on the portrayal of Jeresa in season 5. Here we go. After the jump:

Let me preempt this by saying the show isn’t too serious (try and tell me this is still a serious show after the kerfuffle that season 5 has been), so you shouldn’t take this too seriously either. I have an opinion but I’m just…me. I encourage everyone to stick to their guns about what they feel about QOTS; what you like about it, what you love about it, what gets you excited, what you think has been done well, what is worthy of praise, etc. etc. etc. I go in pretty hard on the show in the next several (LOL, yes, really) paragraphs. But I am in no way the ultimate authority on all things QOTS.

I don’t think Jeresa would have unnecessary conflict and I don’t think the good ship Jeresa would lose its intrigue. In lieu of conflict, we’ve gotten…*crickets* nothing. No conversations of real value, no meaningful exchange of ideas, no arguments, nothing. If anything, the conflict between Teresa and James that is necessary had been absent. In seasons 1-3, there were always disagreements between Teresa and James. There was never a point reached where it created too much conflict, or unnecessary conflict. It created tension, which is like the very essence of Jeresa, and it showed the dynamic they have that made so many of us fall hard for Jeresa as our ship, as our OTP. I don’t think making them a couple or having them together early on in the season would create unnecessary conflict. I think it could’ve created different conflict than what we’ve seen before, and wouldn’t that be a beautiful thing, to have seen them evolve and deal with each other in ways we haven’t seen before?

So, related to what I said about different conflict, as far as intrigue goes…I don’t think presenting Jeresa as a couple or in a relationship would ever make them flat or boring. When I think back to season 3, when we got Jeresa in 3x05 and 3x09, I wish we’d been offered the chance to see them succeed and see what happened with them if they tried. Like I said, it’d be a different kind of conflict, a different kind of challenge for them to face and have to face together. That sounds so opposite of lacking intrigue to me, anon. That’s a side of Jeresa I would have loved to see.

You’ve pointed out that, in general, on TV shows, getting a couple together too early usually means doom and gloom and failure for them. One of my favorite shows ever was Veronica Mars, the first two seasons especially. When the showrunner, Rob Thomas, has talked about the first kiss Logan and Veronica have, he refers to it as being earned. For QOTS, and for Jeresa, I really felt that when they shared their first kiss in 3x05. It took so much and they went through so much to get to that moment. It was earned. So, with that idea—of the earned kiss, of the earned get together, of the earned relationship—in mind, to me, there is no point in season 5 that would have been too early for Jeresa.

Talking about TV shows and how they usually go in general leads me to my next point: as a viewer, is that what I want and is that what I should expect, to be given more of what’s typical? Maybe the writers and critics and people much smarter than me will tell me it’s my fault, I’m the fool, for wanting to critically engage in media that’s not meant to be consumed that way. Maybe I’m just supposed to accept and enjoy and be happy with what I’m given. No one claimed this wasn’t going to be typical. So okay. It’s on me. It’s my bad. But here’s the thing. If I’m supposed to accept and enjoy and love this as it is…well, give me something to love. I’m not asking for a revolution or anything life-changing here, just something I can appreciate (and this season, in my opinion, has really lacked things that I can hold on to and appreciate). So as for typical TV…I’m not down with merely accepting that because things usually go a certain way, that’s how they always have to go.

Why do Jeresa have to fail if they got together earlier in the season? Why is it so out of the realm of possibility that they might succeed together? Are they so emotionally stunted, do they lack so much compassion and understanding of each other that it would be impossible for them to listen and move forward together? What if they could discuss their issues, tell each other how they feel, stop hiding, and try? Who says there wouldn’t be angst and tension between them as they try to work through their issues? What if they’re actually supposed to be together and it would make them stronger—individually and as a couple?

Now, forget everything I just said. LOL. Let’s say we have to go by TV in general and typical TV rules. Let’s assume if Jeresa got together early on, then we’d see them struggle and fall apart and break up. Fine. Okay.

Here’s how Jeresa could have played out after the first two episodes:

5x03 banging honeymoon phase, probably

5x04 arguments and frustration with each other as T embraces being the white queen

5x05 J finds out about T’s coke usage and has to walk away from the relationship because he can’t stand to be complicit and stand idly by while she destroys herself

5x06 classic Jeresa angst and tension

5x07 KG’s death leads to T’s breaking point and J is there to support her

5x08 honesty hour, where it’s made clear that these two mean so much to one another and they’re running out of time to let each other know that, so they tell each other

5x09 one last united mission + they hatch the plan to get out and be free + a farewell with the promise and intent to see each other in another life

5x10 reunion in another life

Are these all headcanons? Of course they’re headcanons. Of course I would never expect the show to go exactly how I thought it would or with my own ideas. My point is that if they would’ve gotten together early on and we’d been given a glimpse of what that would be like, even if they failed, it doesn’t mean it would’ve been impossible for them to ever find themselves together again before season’s end.

“There’s not enough time,” the writers said. “It’s an action packed season,” the writers said. Okay. Why? There was enough time to spend on backstory of minor insignificant characters. There was enough time to introduce characters, tell us a bit about them, only to see them dead by the end of the episode. There was enough time to focus on Kote’s story, over multiple episodes, with not just a baby plot but a kidnapping one as well. So why? Why was there no time for Jeresa? Forget about them getting together and kissing and sex. If that was what it was (and it was) they wanted us to not have, then fine. Some of my favorite Jeresa moments were in the first two seasons, when Jeresa getting together was very much not a thing, when tension was high. So if it was just the portrayal of them not being together, if we still got the scenes of tension and them having no choice but to communicate, that would be completely fine. Like I said, I know I’m never going to get exactly what I want, my headcanons are mine, so that’s okay. Oh. But…no. Oh no. There was not even enough time for Jeresa to have more than short, throwaway, blink-and-you’ll-miss it conversations? Well. It’s the writers’ decision. They wanted it that way.

“It’s a Teresa-centric season,” Dailyn claimed. Like I’ve said before, James is a big part of Teresa’s journey and story. If you’re going to have a Teresa-centric season, it’s hard to accomplish that without shedding more light on James and Jeresa. This isn’t a Teresa-centric season. This has become the Kote show. Teresa is the main character but her journey has been pushed aside, diminished, and downplayed in order to make way for Kote ultrasounds and Pote grunting and Kelly Anne thinking “positive” and hopeful that Marcel will come to a party at the safe house. Instead of getting conversations that would offer insight into Teresa’s relationships with those in her family, we got an extended deep dive into the most chemistry-lacking relationship we’ve ever seen on the show. Well. It’s the writers’ decision. They wanted it that way.

“It’s Queen of the South, not Jeresa of the South,” the writers will insist. If by that they mean it’s Kote of the South. Imagine for a second that it actually was a Teresa-centric season but they were adamant about keeping James in this minor capacity. Okay. It would still be different than it is now because we’d be in tune with Teresa. We would’ve gotten a glimpse into her thought process. Was this not, at some point, meant to be a story about a strong woman? I can even extend that question to Kelly Anne. Was this not, at some point, meant to be a story about strong women? Then why do we keep seeing them make asinine decisions? Why are their most extreme actions in reaction to what the men have done?

Moreover, if this show is about the people in the cartel, in Teresa’s inner circle, rather than just the Kote side plot becoming the main plot, there’s no way this is the James we would be getting. James, our beloved reluctant assassin…who we know nothing about. He can’t even get a backstory on a show on which he is supposedly one of the main characters. Five minutes—five seconds—couldn’t even be spared on James and how he came to be who he is, how he got where he is. But Isidro Navarro? By all means, I need to hear his life story. Who’s Isidro Navarro, you ask? Right. Exactly. Apparently we don’t deserve backstory and explanation and conversation and introspection from our protagonists. But a character who is there for ten minutes or less on a single episode and will never be heard from again in any significant manner? Of course he needs his screen time. Well. It’s the writers’ decision. They wanted it that way.

“This is not a romance show,” the makers of season 5 said. Honestly? Fuck that noise. Fuck that sentiment. Fuck that ignorance. When has Jeresa ever been about romance? Where do the people who make this show get off saying something like that as if we are so stupid we don’t know that? A romance story and a love story are not the same thing. Jeresa is love. God forbid Jeresa ever experience love within a successful relationship. God forbid Teresa and James ever become mature enough to use love as strength rather than weakness. But pile on all the Kote. Focus on them and emphasize how Teresa and James can barely even look at each other. Well. It’s the writers’ decision. They wanted it that way.

So now here we are, on the cusp of 5x09. We got a spoiler in the last promo trailer. We know, after 7 episodes since their last conversation that actually meant something, after the writers missed the mark and didn’t have Jeresa interact in a way that was significant and necessary over the course of the season, that there is at least one kiss. They might even have a conversation. They might even share more than one kiss that leads to more (but also, don’t be surprised if we get a mere few seconds of a kiss and nothing more before fade to black). This is going to make us so happy because finally, finally, they’re giving us what we wanted. And then what? What does it mean if those things are true? Is everything forgiven? Is the instant gratification of seeing our ship sail for a scene or two enough? Does it make up for the character assassination of the characters we love? If we somehow get the ending we want, or at least one close to it, is it even believable anymore? Is what has been broken all season so easily fixed?

Listen, I already know the counter argument. I’m going to be told I’m crazy, that Teresa has to be on her own, that it wouldn’t be interesting, that it would diminish the payoff for Teresa and Jeresa in the end. I get it. Typical TV rules, right? We have to go with what people know, what they’re used to. But what have we gotten, really, to preserve these ‘rules’ for TV in general? Teresa has been dumbed down and is now lacking a lot of the intuition and street smarts she had before. She makes bad decision after bad decision and she doesn’t see what’s coming. The actions she takes are in reaction to those bad decisions. James hates so much of what he’s been made to do but for some reason he keeps going along and carrying out Teresa’s orders; he’ll just stew over it quietly in a corner without saying anything. Teresa and James don’t talk to each other, at least not about anything important, and when they do talk, they give each other heart eyes but never scratch the surface—how could they when they talk for like 10 seconds at a time? So. Has this been a good portrayal of Jeresa? You tell me. If it’s fine with everyone else, then I guess it’s fine. I’m probably the wrong person to ask.

#answered #qots #queen of the south #teresa mendoza #james valdez #jeresa #i have opinions they are unpopular #unfollow me block me do what you gotta do #queen of the south season 5

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