#this is like queer baiting at its absolute WORST | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

brydeswhale · 3 years

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The thing about sterek is that even tho, as I said, the show ITSELF didn’t lean on the ship, enough ppl inside and outside of fandom did use it for attention that the perception of teen wolf often was sterek.

From the idea of sterek as an actual ship on the show(more than one person in my circle expressed surprise when they started watching at how LITTLE Stiles and Derek actually interacted) to the idea that sterek would be canon if only Davis and co would stop being so cowardly.

(Denial runs deep in these ppl bc even in the godless tens and on cable, no one was going to actually make a pairing between an obnoxious teen and the man who, I will repeat this, assaulted him on more than one occasion, canon. It was never going to happen.)

It took Tyler Hoechlin leaving the show IIRC for the sterek fervour to die down.

And even then, the sterek contingency just shoved the supposed chemistry onto other white characters in Stiles’ vicinity, eg Peter(yikes), the villain of the month, or Lydia(I mean, at least they’re the same age, even if Stiles repeatedly fuckzoned her.).

Which honestly just proved what a lot of non/anti-sterek ppl had already been saying, which was that it wasn’t really about sterek. In fact it wasn’t even about Derek.

(Which had already BEEN evidenced by how sterek and stiles fans had taken Derek’s character development(he became less of an asshole) and canon love interests. They were particularly vitriolic towards Braeden, his second love interest, who happened to also be Black. Predictably.)

It was about what Stiles represented. The white lead they never got.

You might hear that TW was an ensemble show, or that it had an “unreliable narrator”(this was from one of the most racist anti-Scott ppl in fandom), but the reality was that the titular Teen Wolf of the show, Scott McCall, was the lead.

And the majority of the Stiles’ fandom couldn’t and can’t STAND this.

They absolutely writhed in agonies of racism over it, and spread their misery everywhere they could.

From harassment over anon, to fic after fic bashing Scott, to poorly researched, bad faith meta, gifs, and fan art, a highly vocal section of fandom(still active to this day) set out to do battle against the very show it claimed to be a fan of.

And this harassment didn’t stop at other fans. The actors were also targeted, to the point where Crystal Reed cited her treatment by fans as part of her incentive to exit the show.

Tyler Posey, who played Scott, was done much worse, as continues to this day. This has included ppl accusing him, a queer dude, of queer baiting, and someone who basically urged him to commit suicide when he opened up about his mental health issues post his mom’s death.

Of course, you’ll see many sterek/stiles’ fans talking about how these egregious occurrences are the work of a few “bad apples”, and “real” fans don’t do that.

Which would be easier to believe if they actually spoke out against these actions, against the racist tropes so often used in their fic and art, if they pointed out how the supposed “meta” produced by their number contains both bad takes and outright falsehoods, but, well.

They don’t.

In fact, they usually go out of their way to DENY that these ppl even exist. They say that Scott and Tyler Posey fans are the ones committing the harassment, that the call is coming from inside the house, and then they actually straight up lie about the rest of fandom.

So honestly, if any of them did speak up, we all know that the rest of them would turn on that person like the pack of starving hamsters they are.

Basically, sterek and stiles fans were not fans of the show. They were Ppl who put their fetishistic adoration of white male centred slash above the actual media they were supposedly consuming. I’m not saying that Teen Wolf was perfect. It sure as hell wasn’t. I’ve commented before on the bigoted tropes the show used and the cultural appropriation that basically made NO SENSE.

But at its heart, as explored thru Scott, it was a show about essentially rejecting the toxic masculinity pervasive in the urban fantasy/horror genre it took its inspiration from. Scott grows over the course of the show from a frightened teenager to a courageous leader, from someone willing to kill if that’s what it takes, to someone who kills as a last resort only, who relies on intelligence and diplomacy to get the job done.

He becomes someone who rejects the violence in the world he’s brutally forced to enter in favour of kindness and hope, even when things seem at their worst. A strong Latino(and yes, despite sterek denials, Scott is Latino) lead embodying the best his world had to offer, a new way forward that even the old guard and his worst enemies admired.

But when there are two white guys who exist within the same square mile on a tv show, who cares about that, amiright?

Bonus

https://twitter.com/cetotherium/status/1418570345007755267?s=21

And that was a big draw for a lot of ppl. When most urban fantasy was about EMBRACING toxic masculinity, Teen Wolf asked the Uber macho, might makes right, violently abusive Hunter/supernatural communities, “What the heck, man, are you alright?”

And Sterek fans HATED that, 😂. Their idea of a good urban fantasy horror show is one where the vicious but oh so cute white protagonist is over powered by the commanding, controlling, abusive alpha werewolf.

It would not surprise me at all if most of them were Anita Blake fans. Between the racism and the outright rejection of the core message of the show, they seem to have been saturated in LKH’s weird, bigoted nonsense.

#teen wolf fandom problems #anti stiles stans #anti stiles stilinski #did you even watch the show?

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beesleeps · 3 years

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sk8 finale rant

Obviously spoilers if you havent seen episode 12 -

So that was probably the worst possible outcome lmfao.

First of all I do not want to hear any excuses about “we shouldn’t call it bait because blah blah blah” it was bait. Queerbait or at the very least Fujioshi bait and honestly idk whats worse. They pulled a huge no homo and its just disappointing but honestly expected.

Second, somewhere past episode 7 this show stopped being about Reki and Langa and became Adam’s show. Like this entire last episode barely had Reki in it. Reki was done so fucking dirty.

Anyway I won’t be entertaining anyones excuses for this garbage fire and I’m deleting all sk8 content from my blog.

Adam redemption? Adam not in prison? Adam their weird friend who still brings Langa flowers? Fuckin awful. This was just absolutely abysmal in every single way.

Honestly I’m not even that mad, because I think I saw this coming, thats why I’ve been dreading this episode all week. It’s not good. Idc how you try to look at it - redeeming a homicidal, pedophile, queer coded character, and having him keep his predatory tendencies as the “wacky friend” of the group is fucking terrible and so incredibly harmful. I’ve had issues with Hiroko Utsumi’s queer baiting/fujisohi baiting in the past but this is literally the last straw. I refuse to watch anything else she produces because its just so incredibly damaging and upsetting.

I’d like to finish this by imploring you to watch or read actual LGBT+ anime and manga with actual LGBT+ writers/directors instead of feeding into this. Do your research to find valid rep instead of settling for fetishy, harmful, bullshit that straight people write. Support members of your community who actually want to provide representation, not cishet content creators who benefit by feeding into hurtful stereotypes.

#sk8 the infinity #sk8 #spoilers #anyway

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ofherlionheart · 2 years

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i am 500% with you about the Not Joking re TW fic. Because same. and I'm honestly interested to know if others have had the same thing. like......I dunno why/how it was so Like That, i dont know if thats how other people have experienced fandom also? Theres no doubt 2010-2016ish was a different type of fandom life and it changed a lot going forward. Like the changes across from 2000s fandom vs then vs now are extremely different, as expected with time, but its.....differentdifferent imo...if that makes sense?

The way fandom was both embraced, but also the absolutely used against well..the fans. We know many shows have queer baited, but that kinda era has been one of the worst for queer baiting in tv shows i think. I feel like i heard more about shows through the anger of fans for the queerbaiting than i did for the show being much of anything otherwise

I stopped watching it after S3b (honestly, only finished 3b to finish the arc. Saw some of s4 and then just stopped bc it wasnt going anywhere that actually made it a good show (in that silly fun way it was at first)). but i read fanfic &was in the fandom for years after

2005-2015 was just a Different Era dude lmao. miss that sick mfer

i think i dropped after s4 iirc? whichever season ended with kate being [redacted] that's when i literally when 'nope. fuck you jeff' at my tv and signed off forever

#and by then i'd discovered check please lol #the circadian rhythm of fandom interests

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whyqueerbaitingisbad · 3 years

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movies & shows

cracks knuckles* alright this is going to be more of a rant than an analysis because i’m basing this on both my research, but also how it felt to personally be baited by these shows. there are obviously more pieces of bad (almost every horror movie) and good ones but these are the ones i’ve watched.

please keep in mind that i am but one queer and everyone has different opinions.

Supernatural (CW) 2005

This show is 15 years old and just ended. From season 5 till 15, there has been tension between two of the lead characters. They were constantly shipped together and not only did the entire fandom know about this ship but so did almost all of Tumblr. On top of that, the actors and show runners knew about it as well. Which is why it makes it ridiculous that it was constantly pushed aside while the romantic coding kept happening, even after show runners dismissed it as being intentional. The Destiel (Dean x Cas) case has been going on for years, and as the show came to its end, many fans had hope. But N O P E. Instead, we got a love confession from Cas where Dean looked like he was near constipated and the Cas was killed and sent into a fiery place that was not hell but s u p e r h e l l.

… w hy.

Sherlock (BBC) 2010

Just like Supernatural, this show was renown on Tumblr for not only how good it was, but its hinting at a potential relationship between Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. But again, like Supernatural, the intentional tension between the two characters was denied by producers. This caused an uproar within the fandom, and even left some people believing that, after the last season aired, it had been a joke and the producers were hiding a “secret, unaired season” because they had felt so robbed by this show that had implied something and denied it.

The 100 (CW) 2014

We got lesbians. We got background gays. We were happy. Then, all of a sudden, one of them is killed for no reason. Did it advance the plot? No. Was she fighting and died in battle? lol no. She was doing literally nothing and got shot and died. And then the producers kept bringing her back once a season in the form of a ghost or illusion because why? Because she was a fan favourite queer character. ✨bury your gays and sparingly bring them back for profit anyone?✨

Voltron: Legendary Defender (Netflix) 2016

*deep breathe* This one is a special disaster. Not only was there romantic tension and romantically coded scenes for 7 seasons, but producers, voice actors and artists working on the show repeatedly said “don’t worry klance (Keith x Lance) shippers, you’ll be happy”

. … w h e r e??? You code one of their scenes with a sunset in the background while they talk about love and then one of them goes on a date with someone who has declined his advances for 7 seasons but now in season 8 decides to do a full 180. Not only that, but you announce at a Comic Con (a convention) that a character is gay and has a fiancé, only to kill off the fiancé and never make it explicit in the show except at the last second of the last episode where he marries a no name character.

Personally, i’d like to say a big fuck you to the show that strung me along for 2 years and never stopped saying we’d be happy to then pull the rug out from under us and call us crazy for thinking anything from the past 8 seasons was intentional.

Scooby-Doo (2002)

While not being outwardly queerbaiting, this movie’s filmmaker has just revealed some shocking news, which wasn’t at all shocking to the gays who had watched this movie over the years. In July of 2020, James Gunn, the filmmaker of Scooby-Doo, revealed in a podcast that, initially, Velma was explicitly gay in his script, but then the studio watered it down until it became nothing. This isn’t an example of baiting as much as it is changing a character’s initial design to “better fit an audience”. The worst part of all this is that with Velma’s character having been written with a l i t t l e queer subtext, people had been theorizing about if since the movie came out, but were always yelled at by the internet for “imagining something that isn’t there”. But now, even with it being said that the initial point was for her to be gay, people have no objections to still refusing to accept it. Why?? So we can’t get the subtext gays OR the confirmed gays?? Make it make sense.

Brooklyn 99 (NBC) 2013

To have the queer characters firstly introduced without mentioning their sexualities and have it brought up naturally was so goddamn nice to see, because no one does a big deal about it unless they ask for that. This show is amazing in general but the way they show their queer characters is *chefs kiss*.

She-ra and the Princesses of Power (Netflix) 2018

This. Show. My heart SOARS. It's just a remake of an old show so absolutely nothing was ever expected, but then it was sprinkled in and ENDED WITH A BANG. And it was so beautiful and real to see the struggle of two friends who care for each other and want to be together but have different visions of the world fall in love. And they also had characters with disabilities, a non-binary character and jUST SUCH A GOOD SHOW.

Kipo and The Age of Wonderbeasts (Netflix) 2020

This is a case where you go into it not expecting anything and are BLOWN AWAY by the bare minimum. And not because it’s bad!! It's mind blowing because this is the simple representation we need!! Not something over the top, but an every day relationship. It’s just two boys falling in love and going on dates and being nervous around each other, yet i was so stunned. Because it’s not shown enough. I should not be this excited over something that should be this normal. 10/10 though this show is so good for all kinds of representation.

Steven Universe (Cartoon Network) 2013

This show did so much for queer representation with its general message of loving everyone and loving who you want. Especially since it was aired on Cartoon Network, a channel for kids, it was able to help normalize something so looked down upon in some circles. It made it easy to watch for s o m e people because it's a cartoon but it's so beautiful to see these ladies so in love with each other, both platonically and romantically and we see them have a family dynamic that isn’t a “nuclear family”. Rebecca Sugar (creator) really said “lemme just break all stereotypes real quick”.

Adventure Time (Cartoon Network) 2010

It's the “knowing a fanbase shipped something so hard that the creators made it canon” for me. This relationship had been theorized by fans for years, but it had never been explicit in the show. When the finale episode came out and the two shared a kiss, it was a moment of celebration. The producer of the show said that it had not really been planned but when the episode was being made, the choice of what happened was given to one of the artists (bless your soul Hanna K. Nyströmthe). And as the show releases little bonus episodes, its latest was centered around Marceline and Bubblegum and their relationship. AND WE LOVE TO SEE OUR DOMESTIC LESBIANS BEING HAPPY AND IN LOVE.

Yuri on Ice!!! (anime) 2016

The fact that an A N I M E gave us a love story between two men is mind boggling and it makes me so happy!! Especially because it's a Japanese show and they’re very conservative about these things just makes it more emotional. The creators said they wanted to make the anime take place in a world where gay/straight isn’t a thing, it’s just love (ladies, you’re going to make me cry). So as the weekly episodes came out and fans start speculating, THEY GAVE US THE LAST FEW EPISODES FULL OF ROMANCE AND EMOTIONAL SCENES BETWEEN THE TWO AND THEN THEY GET R I N GS?!???!! You watch for the figure skating, you stay for the figure skaters that are in love.

Shadowhunters (Freeform) 2016

*insert me being frustrated that the actors are straight so we can move on from that disappointment*

This show really said “let’s name a whole episode after this couple because they deserve it”. But seriously, they gave us two characters whose entire plot does not center around their sexualities while still showing us the differences in a relationship between someone experienced and someone new at this. They were both powerful and amazing characters apart from each other, with their own story lines and goals but they loved each other so much omgs. SO MUCH.

It was so great to watch.

Love, Simon (2018)

There’s a lot of disagreement on whether this movie is good representation or not. However, we need to take into consideration that this was Hollywood’s first movie with a main character that was gay, where the story’s focus was on Simon’s love story. The biggest problem, for me at least, was that the actor playing Simon is a straight man and not queer. My problem is not with him, but the fact that there are other actors that are gay and that could have played Simon just as well. (the love interested was however played by a queer actor so ✨progress✨)

All in all, this movie does represent what a lot of queer kids have to go through: being outed at school, how they then come out, the bullying and doubt they go through.

The book is also really good.

Call Me By Your Name (2018)

This movie is so aesthetically pleasing and was able to capture the confusion and heartbreak felt by a boy who’s struggling with his own feelings towards a man. His inner conflict and joy and l o v e he feels but doesn’t know how to deal with is so well communicated through the screen and just breaks your heart because it feels so real.

But again, they could’ve gotten gay actors to play gay characters…

through having this list here, i want to show you that it’s not hard for creators to give good queer representation. the LGBTQ+ community isn’t asking for much, we just want to be well represented on screen as just a regular character, not some token queer kid there for the diversity points. having been exposed to so much queerbaiting and just not seeing any representation on screen, i always get over-excited when i see a queer character, and that’s not how it should be. it should be a normal thing, something you can find in most pieces of media, just like there’s a straight white cisgender person in everything.

and they seriously need to start casting queer actors for queer characters...

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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hey, thank you to responding to my asks abt bkg + mido fics!! i really loved your response. tbh you brought up most of the thoughts i had, but there's one that occurred to me after reading your response. imagine for a moment if bkg's bullying had been about literally anything other than quirklessness, which is like. ableism lite. imagine if mido was harassed to the point of sui-baiting for being fat or gay or trans or anything but fantasy ableism. imo, i don' t think we'd have bkg stans anymore.

Of course! 💜

I do wonder if we’d really lose any Bakugo fans though, if the ableism were 100% truthful to real life as opposed to a metaphor. Because it’s a pretty on the nose metaphor. The entire human population is now born with a particular, physical trait and if you fail to develop that trait “normally” — or don’t develop it at all — then you’re ostracized from society, either subtly (it’s harder for you to get certain jobs) or much more obviously (the school bully gets your whole class to laugh at you). Insert “quirk” for any physical trait in our real lives — the ability to walk, the ability to hear, the ability to see, etc. — and it’s a near 1 to 1 comparison in regards to supposedly “lacking” something. Granted, quirks are a bit more complicated in regards to their breadth, but even that can be read as a metaphor for baseline “normalcy.” Inko’s ability to move small objects doesn’t give her a major advantage in life, but its existence ensures that a lack of a quirk never hurts her either, similar to how my build means I don’t really have a shot at the Olympics, but the fact that I have two working legs means I won’t be discriminated against for not being able to walk.

So there’s a lot of discussion surrounding how well (or not) the story grapples with this metaphor. Whether, for example, it’s a problem that Izuku’s minority status is instantly “fixed” via All Might’s quirk, or whether we should read the passing of this quirk more like an assistive device. That’s a whole other, complicated conversation though. The takeaway for now is that the conversation exists and I think the majority of the fandom is at least somewhat aware of it. Even if we’re not versed in disability rhetoric, we understand the foundational concept of Izuku as an Other who is pitted against the rest of “normal” society. Our very first line of the series is “People... are not born equal” and Bakugo feeds that distinction in the worst way. Some aspects of how BNHA engages with disability may be subtle, but Bakugo absolutely is not. From beating up on Izuku for being a “quirkless wonder [playing] at hero,” to telling him to jump off the roof, Bakugo’s entire character revolves around how he considers himself not just superior for being “normal,” but also extraordinary due to privileges outside of his control. These issues are front and center... yet fans still love him, defend him, etc. I’m not sure the metaphor is hidden enough to assume that if “quirk” were replaced with a real life minority status, that fans would suddenly view Bakugo differently. Just because his flaw is already so incredibly prominent and its meaning already easy to grasp. It’s meant to be that way.

As always, I want to re-iterate that there’s nothing wrong with liking a character — they’re a character, they’re fictional, they exist to entertain us — but in some respects those who really intensely defend Bakugo represent the very issues BNHA is (at times clumsily) trying to address. We wouldn’t have Bakugo stans if he tormented Izuku for being fat, gay, trans, etc.? Sure we would! Because those people already exist. They’re every privileged bully whose friends laugh along with their “jokes.” They’re the young employee who got there thanks to money and family connections, but who we praise for how talented they are. They’re the criminal who has committed the most heinous deeds, but who is let off with a light sentence because it was just a “mistake” and “they have their whole life ahead of them.” Bakugo represents people who already exist across the world and we excuse, justify, or even uphold them all the time. Though (as said) this is complicated by his existence as an enjoyable, fictional character, I still think there’s something significant in the fandom’s knee-jerk desire to defend the non-black, (so far) non-queer, (fantasy) able-bodied, good looking, talented guy with a bit of a sad backstory. We already have a problem of going out of our way to excuse people with those privileges, so why would that change when the person is fictional? The awful truth is that a situation where one kid terrorizes another for not being “normal,” gets away with that for years, has teachers who never step in, gets into a prestigious school despite their behavior, never has their prospects threatened because of how they treat others... that’s common. I personally think we’d still have plenty of Bakugo stans because the act of excusing that kind of behavior is already something that happens in everyday life.

#bnha #my hero academia #suicide #suicide tw #bullying #ableism #mymetas #Anonymous

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shoezuki · 3 years

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idk keeping his sexuality ambiguous for the sole purpose of keeping the shippers engaged sounds almost a little bit TOO insidious, and i wanna give him the benefit of the doubt. there could be a multitude of other explanations.

ill hold him accountable for the gay jokes he made in poor taste, and he seems to be deleting them on Twitter anyway so i think he knows by know hopefully, plus hes turnt down the bait a lot these past weeks. and ill hold him accountable for every other questinable thing he does.

but i dont wanna completely assume the worst in regards to the sexuality, it doesn't seem completely fair. he might not like labels or hes working things through or whatever, but i dont think hes intentionally leading people on to think hes queer to keep his lgbt audience. and if he is, ill take the L

O ya yeayea like. To say that dream and dteam is Absolutely without a doubt manipulating his queer fans for their views is like. Its extremely pessimistic to the point of being somewhat unrealistic.

In my mind tho same goes for the assumption dream and dteam is lgbt themselves but closeted. Thats like. Too optimistic to me to the point of Also being unrealistic.

Like its More Likely to be somewhere 'inbetween" and like im not gon stand up callin him a disgustig homophobe hskdbdksbsd cuz like. Theres always many explanations or ways to interpret such things. ALTHO both the pessimistic and optimistic views arent entirrly outta the ball park. Theres Always chances for like. Either i suppose.

N yeah w him deleting tweets ik i saw he deleted the 'gay list' type tweets. I cant be sure if theres a 'reason' for him deleting them i.e. people calling it out on twitter or if he simply looked back n was like. That sucked actually. The latter would be nice ofc but the tweets being deleted is Nice in itself

Oh oh and like. In terms of ppl being 'hopeful' or 'truthing' dnf being Real. Absolutely like we seen it happen w other ccs whove 100% said they are uncomfortable being 'shipped' in any way. Dream doesnt have absolute control over his fans ofc n sometimes people will do shit Regardless n i cant hold him against that

But like. With dteam's popularity and dnf theres been a Major shift in the perception of shipping real people. Watching it change has been a Huge Trip like a year or more ago if rpf was brought up on tumblr it wouldnt a been easily accepted and honest to god. It was viewed as absolutely horrible and disgusting by a majority a ppl

I wont talk on if thats 'right' or not cuz i dont care. But w dteam in particular theyve encouraged and kinda. Created it being more widely accepted? Specifically in that the cross from Themselves as just. From what is Real to what is fan content and interpretations A Lot. Too much imo.

With how the dnf fic heatwaves is often referenced by them and joked about and all the jokes and 'pandering' and like. The treatment of what Should be kept within Fan Circles is weird as fuck from em

#hard boiled takes

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starprincecas · 3 years

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What was the point of it all?

Now that I’ve had a few days to sit with my feelings about the series finale, I think it’s time I got this out. This is something that needs to be said.

I hate that a lot of the rage and anger about the ending is being treated reductively with “destiel shippers are just mad their ship didn’t go canon”, as if that’s the only thing to be angry about.

Let’s be frank here, even with people being hopeful and positive and meta-ing about episodic and character beats for the past 10+ years, using their eyes and critical thinking and going “hmm, this... isn’t straight”, how many people sincerely thought they’d get openly queer characters, queer main characters and ones who have romantic feelings for each other no less, from a show that’s so notoriously bad with queer representation as a whole?

I certainly didn’t.

Did I want it? Absolutely. Was I hopeful about it? Sure, but I don’t think I actually expected them to go beyond the wink-wink nudge-nudge of plausible deniability because that’s what they’ve done since the very beginning. 15x18 honestly surprised me because I wasn’t expecting them to have the guts to go through with it even though they’d both laid the foundation and reinforced that that was the only direction it could go for Castiel.

Now, here’s where I’m mad; not about the final, final tease of something they’ve been baiting us with for literal years (like I said, tempered expectations), or even entirely that they clearly used it to increase their viewer count (fuck them especially for that one), but that the finale was a spit in the face to the characters and to us. Honestly, I’m more sad than I am mad. I wasn’t crying and grieving these last few days because “my ship didn’t go canon”, I was grieving because the people I love were treated so badly and I couldn’t do anything about it but watch it happen.

SPN, for all its flaws and problems, have spectacular characters. I love almost all of the characters (both bit and main with a few exceptions) a lot and have for years. I love them almost like they’re my family.

I’m grieving Sam, Dean, and Cas, and their found family, because they were my found family too.

None of them got a happy ending. Sure Sam lived on, but he was miserable the entire time; he was mired in his grief for the rest of his life. We’ve seen him try to leave hunting before, twice, both times unsuccessfully, before he realized it wasn’t something to run away from. Maybe he’d retire or semi-retire eventually like Bobby did, but he’d come to terms with it and found happiness and satisfaction for himself and with Eileen. But in the end we don’t even know whether she was even brought back after Chuck had snapped her and everyone else away because none of them speak of her again. None of the other characters are spoken of again either; we just have to assume Jack brought them back along with everyone else and that no one thought to reach out to anyone else just to be sure, to reassure themselves and each other that they’re safe and in one piece, that they’ve all finally won their freedom from being chess pieces on Chuck’s cosmic chessboard of milking Winchester AngstTM. Sam lost so many people in quick succession before they defeated Chuck; he lost his entire family of Cas, Jack, and Dean within a few weeks of each other.

The finale has him running away from his past, from hunting, from everything in his life, just to make a point of showing he’s grieving Dean and will forever grieve Dean. Does his blurry wife in the background even know about the grief he’s bearing, or did he package it away like he did with Amelia? There’s no indication he has any support system left, that he was ever able to move forward from that, because having him grieving Dean was the only thing that mattered to the writers/show.

Dean was given the worst ending. He’s lived his entire life for the sake of other people, chiefly Sam, and the moment he’s “finally free” to live his life he dies, terribly and cheaply. Maybe it was meant to hint at how death can be sudden and unexpected, to remind us that hunters live a life where any hunt they go on could be their last, but screw that. It was unfair. Just because he always expected to die bloody didn’t mean he had to, he deserved to live. To have a chance at living for himself however that turned out to be; whether that meant continuing hunting, or hanging it up for a normal life, or finding a balance between the two. And no, just because he went to Heaven doesn’t mean it’s a happy ending either, because he spent it alone. The only person he sees in Heaven is Bobby, who hints at his parents and Rufus and his girlfriend staying just around the corner; Cas and Jack get a passing mention to explain how/why the heavenly system got changed, and that’s it. None of their friends were worth a mention, not even Ellen, Jo, or Ash considering they’re in front of the Roadhouse (I can’t decide if this is more hilarious or sad). Dean barely spends more than a few minutes to get this mini info-dump from Bobby before he decides to go driving forever into the open roads of heaven to wait for Sam. For a man who loves and loves deeply, apparently no one else mattered at all (which, ha, try to convince me of that in another life where I haven’t seen him grieve and rage over losing said people). Oh, and to be clear, I’m not saying he shouldn’t be waiting for Sam, I’m saying he didn’t have to wait alone. I don’t know about you, but being alone for the interminable eternity of Heaven waiting for someone I love as much as Dean loved Sam doesn’t sound like Heaven to me.

I don’t know how anyone can love Sam and Dean and say they’re happy about this ending for either of them.

And of course we can’t forget about Cas. Castiel has spent almost his entire life trying and struggling to do what’s right. He’s been treated as a hammer and a weapon, a conduit for heavenly power, all the while trying to escape from what he’s been pigeonholed into. He’s suffered so much and for so long right alongside the brothers, for their sake, for the world’s sake, and been taken for granted even by the people he loved for much of it because of how useful he is/can be to them. Sure the Winchesters loved him, we know that, but he doesn’t; he hardly ever got them expressing as much to him through actions let alone words (seeing as they struggle to manage it in the latter even between each other). He deserves to have that just as much as anyone else does. Beyond all that, he deserved to be grieved over when he died. Except for a comment or two in the last two episodes, he wasn’t grieved at all.

I’m not even entirely happy with Jack’s ending either because he was a literal child in an adult’s body. He barely got 4 years of a life before he had to become the new God. But hey, it was necessary to resolve the final large plot thread (like there weren’t other alternatives they could’ve taken) so I just need to shut my mouth and accept it, right?

We get a shoddily cobbled together goodbye for Team Free Will 2.0 and no one else. No goodbye for Eileen, Jody, Donna, Charlie, Kevin, Rowena... the list goes on. Oh, but we got Bobby in Heaven in the end for a hot minute, so that’s good, right?

What the show tried to tell us with that finale is that no one really matters, not even Sam and Dean, because grief is more Edgy, more Meaningful, more Poignant, and happiness doesn’t matter worth a damn.

We’re grieving because we loved them, found someone to relate to with their struggles or saw ourselves in them. So you’re gonna have to excuse me for being mad at them tossing this at us and saying we should be happy with their hollow idea of ‘happiness’. In the end we were just cash cows and a number on their viewer count anyways.

#spn #supernatural #sam winchester #dean winchester #castiel #jack kline #bobby singer #eileen leahy #i'm not tagging the ships because this is about the characters and the show and the shit they gave us #i'd tag all the other characters they don't give a shit about too but that'd just make this too long #again: just to be clear i don't hate the actors one bit #they did what they were contractually obligated to do as best as they could and i love them for all they've given us all these years #but the network and dabb/singer etc.? they can fuck off #you're all more than welcome to come into my asks and ask me for my takes on how they could've shot this different #to *show* that other people existed in heaven besides Sam Dean and Bobby without actually physically showing them due to covid constraints #because it is absolutely possible and you shouldn't let them fool you into thinking otherwise #becca rambles #spn grief coping

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blackbird-brewster · 4 years

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Now that the final season has started, I think it's a really important time to remind people that you absolutely can break up with a show/fandom that exploits queer baiting for ratings then absolutely lets you down.

I have written hundreds of thousands of words about Jemily. From fic, to character studies to in depth analysis. I have been riding this train for fifteen years and honestly it's always been a shitshow and I never truly believed we'd get the ending we deserved, or that made sense for the characters.

But like. This heteronormative tomfoolery is so unbelievable its just the worst possible way to try and steer this ship that has been sinking for yeeaaarrrsss.

It makes absolutely zero sense for either of the characters and it's so disingenuous to fifteen years of storylines.

I have barely watched in the past few seasons because it became so cumbersome.

As queer people we simply deserve better. You originally had a queer storyline for Emily and you blamed it on CBS for canning it. Maybe that was true in 2006/7.

But its fuckin 2020 and queer people deserve healthy representation and if you have two characters with immense chemistry that are both women and you use it to purposely lead people on for ratings.... Fuck you entirely.

Both actresses have talked about Jemily and its not like the showrunners don't know what they are doing.

You could have just left things as they were right through to the end. But instead they said 'let's take over a decade of chemistry and instead of addressing it or even continuing to NOT address it... We'll force this heteronormative plot twist to show that heteronormativity is the only outcome'

I'm fucking tired of people forcing a heterosexual relationship to 'prove' characters are 100% certifiably str8.

I'm tired of media teasing queer representation then absolutely squashing it in the end because they can.

Anyway fuck CM. I am so happy to be free from this hell.

#Cm s15 #Criminal minds #Jemily #Cm meta #Heteronormative tomfoolery

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enderwalk · 4 years

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sam & jack 🥺

ash you’re really about to make me go absolutely INSANE and i’ve gotta put this under a cut because i wrote so much

for sam:

favorite thing about him: oh my god. oh my god okay. sam has gone through some of the worst trauma imaginable. he's gone through some pretty intense abuse for years and years, and he has every right to be angry and vengeful and mad at the world for what it did to him. but for the most part, he isn't. he's kind, empathetic, patient, and wants to help other people. he still has hope that he can be a good person, and despite the mistakes he's made, he is a good person. i just think it's amazing and inspiring, and it gives me hope that i can be a good person despite my past as well.

least favorite thing about him: the only thing i can say is that seeing sam use lester as bait to talk to a crossroads demon about where crowley and dean were really just. left a bad taste in my mouth? sure its not the worst thing either of the boys have done, and sure sam didn't mean for lester to actually strike a deal, but it just felt too reckless ):

favorite line: its a tie between "i could never go on a quest like that, because i’m not... clean" and "hope is kind of the whole point.”

brOTP: brotp would be sam and dean, emphasis on the bro because i absolutely do not fuck w w/nc/st.

OTP: sam and cass... they care about each other so much...

nOTP: sambecky or s/mifer. i shouldn't have to elaborate. i didn't like sam and amelia either but that was because it was just forced and awkward and really unnecessary.

random headcanon: sam winchester has adhd. no i will not elaborate (i will if someone sent an ask though). he's also definitely queer and trans (i can also elaborate).

unpopular opinion: sam is absolutely the main character. i'll say this until i'm blue in the face. i get that dean is more of a fan favorite because most people think sam is whiny and annoying, but classic spn is sam-centric and he's the only character to be in every single episode. and he had the best character arcs.

song i associate with him: i've literally always associated big black car // gregory alan isakov and a sadness runs through him // the hoosiers. but i also have some spotify playlists for sam! i can’t possibly list all of them here.

favorite picture of him: is it cheating to use a gif?

for jack:

favorite thing about him: the parallels between sam and jack are astronomical and i really am just going to say the same thing about jack. he's gone through so much despite only being a few years old, and again he has every reason to be evil and vengeful and fucked up, but he's just a scared little kid. he still needs guidance and comfort and love, and despite knowing that he's the son of lucifer he still wants to be good.

least favorite thing about them: i know that a surprising amount of people don't like jack but i empathise and relate to him too much to really hate on him? it's the same with sam, but i can at least criticise sam because he's a little dumb. favorite line: "I guess my point is that if I don't make it... The stuff I'd miss - it wouldn't be things like tahiti. or the taj mahal. i'd miss more time with you. i'm getting that life isn't all these big amazing moments. it's time together that matters."

brOTP: sam and jack have such a wonderful father/son relationship... dude.

OTP: i don't ship jack with anyone because he's like three years old, even if he's physically an adult.

nOTP: listen man, i've heard of dean/jack and sam/jack and it makes me so angry and physically nauseous and i have both of them blacklisted. if i ever see someone shipping those, i'm gonna kick them in the teeth.

random headcanon: he's autistic.

unpopular opinion: if i see one more destiel shipper try and say that he's dean and cass's son, i'm going to scream. he's sam and castiel's son and no one can convince me otherwise.

song i associate with them: candle // cavetown, eighth wonder // lemon demon. i’ve also got a playlist for jack on spotify!

favorite picture of him:

#dude you probably weren't expecting all of this #but i have spn brainrot #its a disease #vwoops #i need a tag for long shit i write like this so i can find it later #ill come up w it later #nephilimjack #ask

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timeagainreviews · 4 years

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Reappraising Companions

Years after having watched every available episode of Doctor Who, I've had plenty of opportunities to rewatch episodes time and time again. As with most movies and television, I've found revisiting certain stories and eras has caused me to see them in a different light. A story I may have once reviled is suddenly more interesting. I even came to appreciate Peter Davison's performance as the Fifth Doctor for its subtle nature. But what about companions? Are there any companions I didn't care for at first, which I've softened toward over time? That is the question I wish to explore.

Below I've chosen a selection of companions of whom I had initially disliked for various reasons. They span across multiple eras and both the classic and modern versions of the show. With each companion, I have endeavoured to be fair in my reappraisal, but this doesn't mean I've changed my mind. I would also like to state that none of these appraisals are about the actors. My goal is to evaluate companions by the way they were written. The performance will come secondary.

1. Danny Pink

I chose Danny Pink to kick this list off because he is the reason I am writing this article in the first place. Recently, I took to rewatching a selection of Danny Pink episodes, in hopes that I may find something I didn't initially see. When Samuel Anderson was cast as Danny, I was excited. I've always been a big fan of male companions. They offer a different dynamic to the TARDIS that we don't often get to experience. However, in the wrong hands, they can be exhausting. Enter Steven Moffat.

When Steven Moffat took the reins of Doctor Who, he introduced us to Rory Williams. A smart, loyal, and combative male companion, not at all enamoured with the Doctor's mystique. At his worst, Rory was made to compete with the Doctor for Amy's affection. At his best, Rory held the Doctor accountable for the lives he brought aboard the TARDIS. With Danny, I felt like this is what Moffat was trying to do again, but this time, it wasn't as successful.

When we're introduced to Danny, we watch him and Clara fumble over their words like teenagers. It's meant to be cute, but their chemistry is non-existent. It feels like watching an episode of Coupling, in that it's painful and causes me to scan the room for exits. Their adorkable awkwardness is supposed to endear us to their relationship, but it seems forced. This is compounded when the Doctor enters the equation. Forcing Danny to fight for something very few of us in the audience believe in the first place.

Once again we find the male companion being forced to compete with the Doctor for the affection of a woman. But in this instance, instead of holding the Doctor accountable, Danny seems to hold the Doctor in contempt. Coming from his own history of military training and PTSD, Danny projects all of his inner struggles onto the Doctor. Which is unfortunate, as Danny's inner turmoil is his most humanistic trait. This wouldn't be the first time in Moffat's era where the Doctor's nature as a hero was called into play. The problem with Danny's appraisal of the Doctor as a general, barking orders, is that he's wrong. And we as an audience know it.

Not only do we know it, but so does the Doctor. The Doctor even gets a character arc over the identity crisis Danny gives him, wherein he realises Danny is wrong about him. Danny, however, never comes around to the Doctor's side. Even in his final moments on screen, he remains combative with the Doctor, in an exhausting refusal to grow as a character. We're supposed to believe he's come to some sort of character growth of self-acceptance by sacrificing his chance at a new life, for the life of a boy he mistakenly killed. Instead, he carries the same chip on his shoulder to his grave.

Danny is a companion wholly failed by writing. Even at his most heroic, it seems in service of making the Doctor look like a buffoon. His mimicking a soldier while yelling in the Doctor's face is embarrassing for everyone involved. Imagine this is your boyfriend meeting your friends. You would be mortified by his behaviour. Now imagine you have to lie about hanging out with your friends because it might make your boyfriend upset. Now imagine this friend is a very dashing person who constantly puts the lives of others before him. Danny and Clara's courtship is a romance by gaslight.

2. Clara Oswald

Clara is a whole other can of worms. I could probably dedicate an entire article to her character. I should clarify that my initial dislike for her character is somewhat mired in personal disappointment. By the time Clara was introduced, we had seen a string of modern human companions. We got the occasional tertiary companions from the future, such as Captain Jack or River Song. But we hadn't had a main companion from the past, future, or another planet. So when Jenna Coleman was introduced as Oswin Oswald, Junior Entertainment Manager of the starliner Alaska, I was very excited. Finally, a companion from the future! I was so ready for the Doctor to go on a quest to save Oswin from the cruel fate of becoming a Dalek. What an exciting storyline that was going to be.

And then we see her as governess Clara Oswin Oswald. Ok... Well at least she's still from a different era, right? Oh, she's dead now too? Oh. Much like Moffat's Dracula, all of this great promise was suddenly dashed against the rocks of a contemporary setting. Sigh. I was so excited. What we're given in “The Bells of St. John,” is a new character with less direction than either Oswin or the governess before her. So much that Moffat had taken to literally modulating her brain with an app. Maybe she's really good with computers now? Sorry friends, much like Rose Tyler's gymnastics and Peri Brown's botany, it's never going to come up again.

And this is the biggest issue I have had with Clara Oswald. She spends most of her screen time fluctuating between what character they're writing her as this week. The writers simply didn't know what to do with her while the Doctor tried to figure out why she's so "impossible." One week she's wacky, one week she's stern, another week she's bisexual queer bait. Her characterisation is all over the charts, which sadly, tracks with her entire storyline. She's a woman, fragmented across time, and so is her personality. And don't even get me started on that impossible girl nonsense.

Steven Moffat once said in an interview that one or two people usually guess his big reveal ahead of time, but that no one had guessed Clara's. Perhaps that's because nobody's fan theory was "It's going to be absolute shite." Instead of just being a woman who gets to be her own person, she has to become the most importantest companion. She has to save the Doctor by being planted throughout his timeline, saving him from the Great Intelligence. You know, by sometimes being born as herself, and other times being born as a Time Lord. Sometimes knowing who the Doctor is, other times having no idea whatsoever. Sometimes having a name that is a play on of Oswald, or Oswin, or Clara. And at no times did it make any kind of sense.

The funny thing is, that for me at least, Clara's character doesn't really become interesting until all of that nonsense is behind her. The Clara I find most compelling is the Clara in mourning. Clara post-Danny Pink is a Clara with focus. Her mood swings seem more from a place of destructive behaviour in the wake of great loss. Watching her hold the TARDIS keys hostage above a volcano was some seriously gripping stuff. Aside from the gross digs at her appearance, I found the Twelfth Doctor's relationship with Clara far more endearing than that of the Eleventh Doctor. It may have taken them until her final moments as a companion, but they did get her right, in the end.

3. Melanie Bush

Back in 2015, I had the opportunity to meet Louise Jameson, who played Leela, my all-time favourite Doctor Who companion. I also got to meet Colin Baker, who was all charm. Also in attendance was Bonnie Langford, aka, Doctor Who's Mel. After having gotten autographs from Louise and Colin, and having circled the convention hall a few times, I decided "Sure, why not. Let's meet Bonnie Langford. It's only 10 quid for an autograph." Upon meeting her, she was a very kind woman, and even still, I was racking my brain for something nice to say about Mel. To save face, I lied a very simple lie. I said, "I really liked you in Doctor Who." She smiled, said thank you, and signed my picture. And I walked away, taking my shitty liar mouth with me.

Because the fact is, I didn't like her in Doctor Who. I found every moment she was onscreen excruciating. From her poodle haircuts, to her 80's disaster attire, to her fat-shaming the Sixth Doctor, to her constant screaming at every little thing, she depressed me. I spoke in my review of "Terror of the Vervoids," just how weird it was that we're never actually introduced to her as a character. Instead, Peri is written off, and suddenly, Mel is there, already chummy with the Doctor. You guys know Mel, she's the Doctor's friend, because we told you she was! Instead of getting to know Mel slowly, we're thrown into the deep end, forced to sink or swim within the curls of red hair piled high. Mel doesn't just come out of nowhere, she comes on strong. Fitness expert Mel here to get your fat Doctor Who loving asses into shape. Drink this carrot juice you geek pig!

Not even in Big Finish audios was I finding myself warming up to Mel. When Ace was introduced, they couldn't have pushed Mel out quicker. I found everything about Ace immediately refreshing. Here was a calm and collected badass rebel that I could get behind. It's ironic then; that it was in the Seventh Doctor era that I have begun to find something likeable in Mel. Much like Clara Oswald, a changing of Doctors enriched my appreciation for her character. This appreciation didn't come immediately, mind you, it came about around my third or fourth watch-through of "Paradise Towers."

Perhaps it's the influence of Andrew Cartmel, but with the Seventh Doctor, I have begun to appreciate Mel in the snarkiest manner. Mel is best utilised as a commentary on the Doctor/Companion relationship. She's precocious to a fault, she chews scenery, she screams at the drop of a hat, and she is oftentimes a naive idiot. Yet in "Paradise Towers," it becomes hilarious. Like much of the 80's era of Doctor Who, there is a very "2000 AD," atmosphere to the stories, and I could easily see this as a setting for Judge Dredd to drudge through, busting skulls and filling bodies with bullets. Setting the sunshiny persona of Mel against this backdrop is so brilliant that I can't imagine another companion in this story. Where she would usually grate against me, her sharp contrast from the things happening around her is exactly why I began to soften toward her.

Not even the ire from the Kangs could shake Mel's confidence, which is oddly what makes her cool. Or "ice-hot," as they would say. For the first time, Mel's headstrong sense of self makes her a rebel. She doesn't need to follow a crowd to feel accepted. Sadly, very few writers were able to find this core to Mel, but it was enough for me to be able to look at her in a different light. I could finally look at Mel and say I did like her in Doctor Who. Even if it was just for a moment, and even if it was somewhat at her expense. From a very cynical perspective, Mel can actually be pretty fun.

4. River Song

I know a lot of you are probably aghast to see River Song on this list, but I assure you, I have my reasons, and they are not without consideration. I should begin by saying some good things about River. She's smart, she's competent, she's got a healthy grasp on her sexuality, and she's cool. Why then did I not like her very much the first few times I watched her? Well, if you hadn't noticed, the bulk of this list are characters written by Steven Moffat, and once again, it all comes down to writing.

We're first introduced to River in the Tenth Doctor two-parter "Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead." At first, she's just one of a team of forgettable space scientists on an expedition. However, as she finds out the Doctor is who he is, her entire demeanour changes. Like Mel on steroids, we're given a heaping dose of "Who does this bitch think she is, being all familiar with the Doctor?" Only, instead of it lasting one episode, it's every interaction we have with her character beyond this point. Instead of getting to watch River and the Doctor grow as a couple, we're forced to watch them meet in opposite directions. It is the antithesis of "show, don't tell." Everything about the Doctor and River's relationship is implied. "You're going to love me someday," she promises. Couldn't we just see it play out naturally? Spoilers.

This idea is one that can only really be done on a show like Doctor Who, where things are wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey. The problem is, this doesn't mean that the idea is worth exploring, or even successful. It's made even worse when the relationship implied is one deeper than friendship. The Doctor is famously chaste, married only to his TARDIS and what lies ahead. Because of this, the idea of a person the Doctor will someday trust enough to share his real name and eventually marry carries with it a sizeable amount of convincing. Such a huge shift in the show's dynamic requires a lot of character development. Sadly none of that is to be seen onscreen. Who is Jim the Fish? Who cares? Steven Moffat's joke of "I'll explain later," became painfully prophetic of his time as showrunner.

I've got no complaints about River being a Time Lord, or even her being the child of Amy and Rory. Those elements are fine, really. It's the way in which she is presented which I find most detrimental to her character. I never did buy into the idea that the Doctor loved her as a wife. Their wedding seemed necessary to save the universe, as opposed to a union made out of love. Any kind of enjoyment I've ever gotten out of River stems mostly out of my love for Alex Kingston's performance. Where the show fails to establish her, she more than makes up for in style and substance. I grew to like River Song, despite the show's failure to ground her properly. River grew on me as she always said she would, but by no effort on the part of the writers. River is cool because River is cool, not because it was inferred that she was.

5. Susan

If you’ve followed this blog long enough, you’ll know I’ve already mellowed on Susan. In my reviews of the First Doctor era, I’ve had mostly good things to say about her character. This doesn’t change the fact that I found her utterly irritating at first, and it feels appropriate to talk about it here.

My initial dislike for Susan is a lot like my intial dislike for Clara. A lot of it was wrapped up in my own expectations of the character. Susan is the Doctor’s granddaughter. She is a Time Lord, therefore she should also be brilliant. And we get a lot of that in her first episode. She is mysterious, she’s enigmatic, and she is brilliant. Even her teachers at school found her perplexing. But the show doesn’t continue down that line. In fact, there are times when they make Susan borderline stupid. But how much of this is clouded by my own preconceptions?

For starters, Susan wasn’t a Time Lord. At least, not then. She was just a young girl. She may have been smarter than her fellow students, but this played more into how she was raised. So when the show depicts Susan screaming at every little thing, grabbing her hair dramatically, it smashed apart my mental image of a Time Lord. I couldn’t appreciate that they had her act this way to help sell a bad effect. Oftentimes Susan, like many Doctor Who companions, had her character sacrificed to make the baddies scarier. It was a product of her time, and even still I feel her character suffers for it.

However, one of the things I have discovered through repeat viewings of the First Doctor era is the surprising amount of character development among the TARDIS crew. The Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Susan all go through deep character development that was sadly often secondary in classic Doctor Who. Before the nature of the Doctor and companions was transient, there was a feeling of a family bond forming. Through this, I have come to find Susan to be a rather deep and sensitive person.

When it comes time to say goodbye to Susan, I can’t say I exactly agreed with the method. The Doctor locking her out and deciding she was mature enough to set out on her own felt hasty. But I would be lying if I didn’t agree that Susan had gone from a little girl to a young woman at that point. When you stop expecting Susan to be the Doctor, and allow her to be a kid, she grows on you instantly.

6. Adric

Let's be honest; it's not really original to hate on Adric. It's nothing new to point out what a bad companion he is, but here we are. Something I constantly endeavour to do on this blog is to be fair. One of my biggest complaints about the Doctor Who fandom is the proprietary attitude people take toward the fandom. The "I don't like it; therefore you shouldn't like it," attitude spat with such vitriol is one of the worst parts about being in the Doctor Who fandom. So when you say "Adric is my favourite companion," I'm not devising an argument for how wrong you are, it's fine. Like who you like. This doesn't mean I'm not also thinking in my head "What? Why?" Because I honestly, without malice, do not understand.

The most I ever enjoyed Adric, was in his introductory story "Full Circle." Setting him against a group of fellow Alzarians dilutes his lesser qualities. In fact, when paired with Varsh, he almost seems likeable. Sadly, we have to say goodbye to Varsh, and it's downhill from there. We're forced to watch a contrarian boy genius butt heads with the Doctor while he waddles around in a toddler's outfit while showing off his pound shop sheriffs badge for "mathematical excellence," to anyone who will listen. Adric is so obnoxious that he makes Wesley Crusher seem likeable in contrast.

However, it's not just his contrarian nature that makes me despise Adric, he's also disloyal to the Doctor and his friends. He's so susceptible to bad ideas as long as they a presented logically, that I've dubbed him the Ben Shapiro of the TARDIS. He's a smarmy little shit who believes himself superior to women, and he's really got no justification for his ill-placed self-confidence. Constantly demanding respect while giving very little reason to deserve it, he's like a poster child for incels. To make matters worse, he's oftentimes wrong and easily duped into taking the side of evil, turning him into more of a liability than an asset.

Recently, the idea that the Thirteenth Doctor could save someone from sacrificing themselves by using the TARDIS at the last moment to save them came under fire. "Why didn't the Doctor do this for Adric?" they said, forgetting conveniently when the Twelfth Doctor did the exact same thing in "Into the Dalek." But yes, why indeed? Why would the Doctor ever let a duplicitous, argumentative braggart die by their own stupid need to solve a math problem? My headcanon is that the Doctor got better at flying the TARDIS. The real reason is that people hated his character. The silence over the credits after Adric dies isn't out of respect for the character. The real reason is that the BBC couldn't secure the rights to Kool and the Gang's "Celebrate Good Times," before it aired.

Listen, I am not unsympathetic toward Matthew Waterhouse. He never should have been given such a big role, considering his utter lack of ability at the time. I imagine it was his own insecurity that fuelled his on-set antics. Giving unsolicited advice to veteran actors is cringey, but also the actions of a young and naive boy, in over his head. I know I said I was going to try and treat the performance as secondary, but in this case, it goes hand in hand. He has the stage presence of a fake. Every moment he's onscreen is disingenuous. The fact that he is present at the death of my favourite Doctor, stinking up the scene is genuine pain to me. If he has been made better in Big Finish, I've not yet heard it. As of now, there is nothing I've seen of Adric that has changed my opinion. But I'm glad if he makes you happy.

#Doctor Who #Danny Pink #samuel anderson #clara oswald #jenna coleman #Melanie Bush #Bonnie Langford #River Song #Alex Kingston #Susan #carole ann ford #adric #Matthew Waterhouse #tardis #bbc #companions

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marybeatriceofmodena · 4 years

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This is just even more hurtful now. They promoted lies for years. She did too. It may have been her job but that doesn't matter. And now we're being made to feel bad and even fighting each other over this social media thing. It's not about algorithms; I honestly don't think she's trying to help us. And if she is, she doesn't know how to actually do it. Tell them how much money we'll spend then. This isn't right. They just don't want negative press. That's it. Nothing else.

Look, I know some people will think otherwise but I don’t think the social media manager is responsible for anything. She has to represent the company, it’s a company that has terrible marketing going on (as I’ll explain down below), and she’s stuck having to deal with that. When I say I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes, I mean it.

The worst part is that I don’t even think Lucasfilm is even aware that they’re promoting lies - simply because their marketing has been relying on bait and switch, ever since TFA, except that it’s not “good” bait and switch. The only person who can do bait and switch and do it well is Rian, because he knows how to leave breadcrumbs and how to make it coherent.

Why are they doing bait and switch and doing it badly? Because it doesn’t matter whether it’s good or bad - what matters is that they’re getting clicks, they’re getting the most views, and that’s what ensures that they’re in control of the Twitter/Google algorithm and that the marketing machine rolls well. That’s why they marketed Finn with the lightsaber back in TFA days (really, that was LOW), that’s why the most successful marketing for TROS was Reylo-heavy (because clicks) and that’s why they even queer-baited with S/ormpi/ot (because clicks). All that matters is that the movie stays in the news, and that people buy tickets and buy merch. That’s Blockbuster Making 101.

Don’t believe me about the algorithm?

https://neilpatel.com/blog/how-google-search-engine-really-works/

This is for Google, but Twitter works under a similar principle - except in Twitter’s case, the key words are hashtags (and have a scholarly article here).

That’s the reason why the official Star Wars account promoted its own hashtags for TROS - the difference is that those hashtags “belong” to them. They pay Twitter a big amount of money for those hashtags, and the reason why they do that is that those hashtags are associated to the official SW account - ultimately, those hashtags give the SW account more visibility, and it allows it to show up in the Trending Topics. Again, it’s all about controlling the algorithm.

And that’s what I was trying to say about the SM manager discouraging the use of hashtags like #SaveBenSolo - it’s not a hashtag the SW account simply cannot use for obvious reasons, and it buries the official SW account coming up as the main thing to go to for clicks. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with spam. Trust me.

And they wouldn’t care so much if it wasn’t for most respectable news outlets and movie mags giving the film bad reviews - they can’t count on their own buzzing to promote their movie. As you said, it’s not that it’s spam, it’s just that they’re trying to get rid of negative publicity by all means necesary, because I think we all know the movie is underperforming when it should be making Endgame money, and the status quo at LF since 2015 is to do it by baiting people. It’s not malicious, it’s really their way of rolling and they obviously don’t understand that it does more harm than good.

I’m not encouraging harrassment AT ALL (I can’t even believe I have to even say this), but doing as they say is not going to fix everything either or bring people anything good. It’s all for their benefit, because that’s just how companies roll. They’re not your friends. They’re employees, and they’re paid to do a job. That’s the reality. I’m not an employee, and I’m not going to apologize (because again, all I did was point out that what they asked and claimed made no sense whatsoever) and tweet like they want.

I mean, honestly, my advice is don’t engage with them directly anymore but keep using your hashtags. The hashtag use is what harms their Internet traffic, and if you don’t engage directly with them anymore, they can’t call you out on it.

And if my explanation about social media mechanics doesn’t satisfy some people, you’re welcome to hit me up and I’ll pick up my old notes and my textbook. I mean it.

#(the invitation for explaining social media mechanics does not extend to me getting lectured on how to be a good fan)#you can check my twitter and my replies and you can see i haven't harrassed anyone so you can stop about that right now #star wars #tros negativity #anon asks #i refuse to harrass anyone but i'm not going to throw them flowers because it's not deserved at all right now #the baiting with bts in particular is unprofessional #and it's not the social media manager's fault probably #she was told to do it to quiet down people and honestly #don't fall for that

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squeezeofthehand · 4 years

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A (late) Review of Moby-Dick: A Musical Reckoning

I saw Moby-Dick: A Musical Reckoning by Dave Malloy last month, and I can basically divide it into “The Good, The Bad, and the Racist/Queerphobic/Ableist etc”

Some background: As most people who’ve ever spoken to me will know, I have a special interest in Moby-Dick AND Dave Malloy/Rachel Chavkin musicals (I truly believe that Great Comet is one of the best works of all time) and I consider Malloy and Chavkin both to be my biggest heroes and inspirations, at least when it comes to their respective style of writing and directing. That being said, they’re not perfect. I waited for this musical for about two years, and music/set/etc wise it exceeded my expectations, but it also majorly let me down in a lot of ways.

The Good: The cast! The crew! The set! (It was literally The Pequod - like, they got rid of the stage.) The lighting design in particular was really good - thank you, Bradley King. Manik Choksi, Andrew Cristi, and Starr Busby are gods. I do not have a singular bad thing to say about the cast or the design team! Even the stuff that was tacky/campy (i.e. some of the puppets) was tacky/campy in an enjoyable way. And the “fun” parts of the show were REALLY fun - the fact that they invited the audience on stage, the fact that they TRIED to make Moby-Dick more accessible even if they didn’t do it perfectly at times….the music, when not problematic, was BEAUTIFUL. Listen, I’d be lying if I said Dave Malloy wasn’t one of the best composers when it comes to skill. Everyone in that show sure can act, and sing…the band too, was marvelous, I heard no errors from anyone. This is, what, a three hour long show? And the cast/band was just like, “oh, no big deal.” Which makes “the bad” and “the racist” even worse because these people deserve better. This show deserves better, it deserves to be better.

The Bad: Well, as a book fan, I disagreed with a lot of characterization…most of which can fall into The Racist etc, so I’ll just focus on the “bad but not inherently problematic” here. I really didn’t agree with a lot of things about Ahab’s characterization, i.e. I did not read him as just a bad white guy who’s the epitome of privilege. Stubb, on the other hand is, a canon white supremacist in the book and that barely gets acknowledged in the ways that it should. I do get what Dave was trying to go for, especially in re: Ahab & climate change, but this wasn’t the show for it - or at least, Ahab wasn’t the character for it. Which brings me to my next point: Most of the time, I’m a fan of the quirky Malloyian anachronisms and parallels to modern day issues, but I feel like he was trying too hard here and stepping out of line. Loose adaptations can be fun, anachronistic adaptations can be fun, even INACCURATE adaptations can be fun…but this just wasn’t. It didn’t feel like Moby-Dick, but more like a story vaguely inspired by it. If that had been what he was going for, it would’ve been fine, but he really acted like this would be an accurate adaptation of the book, so I felt let down. The only anachronism/breaking of the fourth wall that I somewhat liked were the talks of Melville and Hawthorne, honestly, and even those I’d sacrifice in favor for accuracy to the source.

And now…The racist/etc.

So.

Where to begin? I suppose chronologically. Queequeg. Who, according to Dave Malloy, is a stereotypical flamboyant queer person of color! and also a quirky cannibal! He’s trans in the musical, apparently, but there’s not much indication of that in the show beyond from him wearing a binder and a skirt. Now, I am all for trans Queequeg of course, but he was a caricature in this particular adaptation. I do not blame Andrew Cristi. I blame Dave (and mayyyybe the costume designers to some extent). I felt baited. Also, early production rumors and quotes said that there would be a song in which Queequeg saved someone from drowning. That never happened. It pains me to say it, but he didn’t feel that much like an important character (due to the bad writing -- again, it has nothing to do with the actor).

Additionally, Dave Malloy said that Queequeg and Ishmael would be a clear gay relationship…but the musical left so much room for them to just be interpreted as friends. It somehow became less gay than it is in the original Melville novel. The marriage was excluded, as were the quotes about them being a cozy and loving pair and about Queequeg holding Ishmael like a wife. They were replaced with the “I don’t wanna sleep with a cannibal” song, which was fun to watch at first but way too grossly stereotypical for me to genuinely enjoy it. Queequeg deserves a fun and light-hearted song, but he does not deserve a racist/homophobic one. My advice? Replace it with the actual chapters from the book, please. I do like the fact that The Pacific was a romantic duet and that they sing directly at each other during Squeeze Of The Hand, but those two songs are mere scraps especially compared to, for example, the Bosom Friend chapter of the book. It looked like they were going to kiss during The Pacific and I was very disappointed that they did not. Perhaps the team should keep the songs the way that they are for future productions, but add more romantic staging.

Pip-not-Pip/Elijah/??? (Ashkon Davaran’s character) and Fedallah were also major, major, issues. Not the actors, I love them. Not the book characters, I love them. But the musical characters.

Basically, Fedallah gets this 20 minute long monologue that can be summed up as “religion is bad” and a lot of other things including but not limited to egotistical fake-woke praise on color conscious casting and how badly America is fucked. And that’s not even mentioning the fact that Fedallah is Parsi and Zoroastranian in the book (and it is NOT good rep in the book by any means, trust me, I’ve been calling Malloy out on his racism but I can’t act as if book!Fedallah was anything less than an ~exotic caricature~ either). However, that’s beside the point, at least in this review. Musical!Fedallah is not Parsi nor Zoroastranian. Don’t read this the wrong way, I’m all for Black Muslim rep! But with a character who is already canonically something else? Take a white character and make them a Black Muslim, I encourage that, but when a character is already something else, no.

If the monologue was influenced/written by the actor, that’s one thing and I’d have less issue with it, but I think Dave wrote the vast majority of it, which…yikes…

My constructive criticism: Cut the Fedallah monologue. If the creative team still wants the actor/character to have the same amount of stage-time as he does now, replace it with a different monologue, maybe something from the book? Something about whaling history?

Another thing that needs to be cut or at least completely rewritten: Tambourine. The song starts off with an ableist verse that can be summed up as “you think you’re crazy because you get nervous on the subway? No! I’m more crazy than you!” Don’t take this as me saying that Pip’s trauma/PTSD shouldn’t be addressed at all, but this is the absolute worst way to address it. The song also has a lot of performative lines such as “is god cisgender?” Which, considering this is the same musical that also has trans bait, I truly hate it. Not that I think God should ever be viewed as a cis white man, but much like the “America is awful” stuff in the Fedallah Monologue, this is an offensive and fake-woke way to address such a topic.

Part IV was really heart-wrenchingly beautiful. No criticism there.

To summarize by part-

Part I: Cut/replace the campy Queeqeug song, but otherwise keep it as it is.

Part II: Cut/replace the racist and xenophobic Fedallah monologue.

Part III: Cut/replace Tambourine. The rest of the Ballad Of Pip (starting with Kim Blanck’s beautiful song) is alright. Good, even.

Part IV: Great! No editing needed besides from the typical tweaking that writers may choose to do after their first draft.

In general: Make Ishmael/Queequeg more obvious, make Queequeg less of a caricature, do some major editing to Fedallah and Pip-Not-Pip/Elijah/???. Tambourine and Fedallah’s Monologue need to be completely rewritten, but I get that the creative team may not want to take scenes away from the actors, which is why I encourage them to remove all of the racist bs and create something completely new/different for the actors to perform.

I understand that Moby-Dick is clearly a work-in-progress on all levels. I do not dislike for the show for being a scrappy rough draft. I judge it for its racist, homophobic, ableist, etc messages. Dave has acknowledged that this first copy is far from perfect, and I sincerely hope that the racism/etc. is the first and main thing that he fixes.

#moby dick #moby dick: a musical reckoning #dave malloy #call me sky #reviews

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ctl-yuejie · 4 years

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the sleuth of the ming dynasty: first thoughts

(mildest spoilers up to episode 6 / this got super long, who would’ve thought)

so far the story is very engaging: my excitement skyrocketed as soon as the first 10 people got introduced in episode 1 with name cards and titles and all. ahhhhhhhh, finally some good overload of my brain. what’s a good crdrama without you having to figure out who is who for 5 episodes straight.

what’s obvious very quickly is that this screams jacky chan. i knew he’s the director in advance but i think i could have come to that conclusion just by watching the series. to some degree it elevates the story by having this modern detective vibe, allowing more quick and exiting fighting scenes and giving leeway for characters to behave more freely in terms of etiquette and posture (the way Fu Meng Bo as Sui Zhou moves being the most obvious example).

on the other hand i am still struggling with the editing, the transition between the scenes being my biggest grief. so far there’s no natural flow to the shots, often scenes get tacked onto each other so that it makes sense storywise but doesn’t lend it self to good pacing (pretty much everything gets played out in full and there’s never just narration to create a picture). the style is a staccato of scenes which then weirdly get slowed down for what are supposed to be emotional highlights, which so far only focused on side characters so the weight that is lent to them is questionable e.g. the couple dying side by side: they were an important part of solving the case but i had really no emotional connection to them whatsover and didn’t really need the series to slow down that much as they also didn’t offer much character development to the main characters besides Tang Fan’s merciful heart and practical approach to things.

Speaking of Tang Fan and Suizhou: I really enjoy them! They are both layered and fun to watch and the actors really play well off each other. But tbh the series enters a bit of queer baiting territory for me. So far its very strongly hinted that there will be female love interests involved in the story so all the romantically coded moments didn’t feel very honest to me and just like fan service. If they already decided to go bromance I’d love them to do just that and not try and make it seem more than it is if the story directly negates any feelings they might have for each other in the novel.

It also lends itself to comedy but I find it hard to believe that men of their positions would be sooooo oblivious to how difficult and dangerous interactions with the court are. There’s a tiny disbalance between how all other characters act faced with authority and they do, while there’s no narrative reason for it and just adds some comedy.

In regards to other characters: The empress dowager and consort wan are very delicious female characters. they are seasoned, intelligent and have their own goals to achieve. so far it is still up in the open if either one of them is an antagonist or simply playing the court games as everyone else. wang zhi is fabulously complicated and i was very happy that he doesn’t work in opposition with our main characters but walks between all sides to achieve his goals. really enjoy the complexity of him, however i don’t include him in the ship since it is established that he can be cruel beyond reason so that’s a no from me. i am also always happy to have a eunuch as a main character because there are just so much more interesting power struggles at play.

pei huai is my secret favourite at the moment: chaotically competent with a flair for the dramatic is someone right up my ally. as for other female characters: i am sorry to say that i am super underwhelmed. i hope aha isn’t going to appear any more because her character is just pure nonsense. we got told the whole backstory of the prostitute (i am sorry, i forgot her name - first 5 episodes rule) but while it explained the reason for her actions it didn’t give me the emotional depth that was needed. i was very much annoyed at her and surprised at the lack of competence for someone who had worked as a prostitute which requires very high social skills and was the daughter of a merchant, so had to have enjoyed some sort of education. it just felt very underdeveloped and she came and went as was needed for the story - which would be fine, but then there’s no need for a tragic slo-mo death with violins playing in the background.

speaking of violins: it is a tragedy that a series with as much money doesn’t use real recordings - i know that that’s my petpeeve but please: nothing is less emotional than an artificially produced violin sound.

now: the brilliant exception is dong’er. i love her A LOT. she is intelligent and brave and has a good amount of comedic timing and wit. her character seems to be well-rounded and well crafted. i am enjoying her very much and am super happy that she’s now the baby of the dyfunctional sui zhou/tang fan household that holds all the brain cells.

overall the cases are super fun, i like the degree of intricacy that leaves room to mystery and character development and i am always a sucker for a show that features a whole working city and also food shots. the whole city comes across as very organic and lends itself as a fantastic playground for a detective series.

i was surprised by the found family trope coming into play, but it is one of my favourites so I am absolutely here for it.

sadly the colour scheme is very dark and brownish so this series will be the worst to gif.

The english title is also all kinds of fantastically absurd and i always misread it as “the sloth of ming dynasty” which i think gives the accurate picture of a fully fed tang fan and dong’er laying lazily around while suizhou exasperatedly stands over them in an apron.

a thank you to @stebeee and @florbexter for getting me into this series, i will definitely watch on

#ctlyuejie writes #the sleuth of the ming dynasty #<3 #long post #this is just a pure wall of words ;A; so sorry

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