#excellence rep

[sleepynegress]

This Is Quinta, Ayo, And Zendaya Walking Into Beyonce's Renaissance Concert in LA.

(source) ALL THREE NOW HAVE EMMYS....

I remember NO BLACK WOMEN being nominated even when they were Jasmine Guy, Phylicia Rashad, Tichina Arnold, and Tracey Ellis Ross... The fact that these ladies now proudly possess the highest industry affirmation of their achievements in their fields... (Hell, AYO has SWEPT these awards...) I'm just very very happy for these sisters.

[ckerouac]

So, I really love the selection of Tim Walz for VP and it’s taken me a moment to articulate why. I mean, obviously, Dem bonafides, he’s sharp, he’s funny, etc etc. But everyone in the Veepstakes fits that bill, Harris was spoiled for good choices.

But Walz offers something that the other men in contention don’t that I think will be incredibly useful in combating Trumpism.

He offers an example and an off ramp to the section of men who felt like they were Republicans by default, and so support Trump by default. There are a lot of Trump voters who are full on obsessive, but that’s not who we’re talking to. We’re talking to folks who grew up in Republican areas, or felt their hobbies didn’t line up with who a Democrat was, or didn’t feel represented by their image of a Democrat. You want to see it so you can be it, you know? Which is why Harris is so inspirational to a lot of segments of folks, but Walz is too.

He served in the military. He went to a state college. He’s your favorite teacher from your public high school. He’s your football coach who actually cared if you were passing your math class. He’s the guy you looked up to at school when your family sucked but this guy cared, and he helped you get out and make something of yourself.

He’s the neighbor who helps you jump your car. He’s your uncle who takes you hunting. He’s your Dad who loves teasing you at the Stare Fair. He’s you when he makes a mistake like his DUI and takes responsibility for it, and when he has the chance makes sure other can come back from similar mistakes. He’s you when you and your wife want so badly to be parents and IVF gives you the family you wanted. He’s you when he says ‘it had to be me’ and used his standing and power to protect vulnerable kids sponsoring the GSA at his school.

He gives the real life example to these men that they can be that football, fishing, hunting family man who wants to provide for his family, be that powerful, respected member of the community and use that power to feed kids in school. That it’s normal to enthusiastically work for a boss like Harris. That yeah those other guys are fucking weirdos, and you’re not a weirdo, are you?

That there’s a place in the Democratic Party for them. That they don’t have to default to being fucking weird.

I hope those guys see this example of masculinity and go… yeah, that’s me. That’s who I’m gonna be.

[anassemblageofpassions]

The thing abt john winchester is that he is too complex for the majority of the spn fandom and for a good portion of the writers on the show too.

Because at his core john is about love over everything else. When he looks up at his sons (yes, up, the fact that they’re both taller than him>>>>>), there is love seeping achingly from every single pore of his being even as he abuses them, as he destroys their souls beyond belief. He does it all entirely out of love. And he is so, so wrong for it. A part of him knows it. But he wants to keep dean alive, and he wants to keep Sam pure. And he loves them so much. And he damages them so horribly. John Winchester is the foundation upon which they are both built, they only become more of what he made them as the series goes on. Sam stops fighting it, Dean continues to mold into his image no matter how hard he tries to fight it.

Hell puts them both on steroids, but their individual trauma responses that influence this are the foundations that John built into them. No wonder azazel wanted sam to win so badly. John Winchester crafted his sons into alastair and Lucifer’s ideal victims, respectively, and dean was a better (worse) john than John ever was. John held out in hell. Dean acquiesced to his abuser despite all of his efforts to fight him, and he’s never been the same since.

Sam fought like hell, and he fought destiny, but at his core, he did what John always wanted him to by doing what dean wanted him to do, and then he stops fighting at all, loses the fire he showed john in adolescence that john immediately notices when he returns in s14.

And the sad thing is. They filled their roles so well that John is saddened by what they’ve become. He didn’t want dean to break. He didn’t want Sam to be dimmed. He’s sad to see what Sam is like in s14. In the process of recovering his wife, he ensured he would mold his sons into what he wanted them to be, and when he got what he wanted, he was devastated.

John Winchester is so driven by love and grief and he’s so filled to the brim with both that it’s painful to watch him on screen because he destroyed his family because of it. And he wanted this all along but he didn’t realize what he’d have to give up to get it.

[deathandnonexistentialdread]

Congratulations to Valon for having his bisexual awakening mid battle

Bonus: Valon and Jonouchi flirting

[muffinlance]

Wait, what’s going on with Embers???? That fic has been on my read later list since 2021, what’s happened with it???

Brief overview, then I'm likely never touching this topic again, because this is not a Drama Blog:

Context: Embers is a super old AtLA fic that was written during the early fandom days, read widely at the time, and was the origin of the widely-used fanon name of "Wani" for Zuko's ship (kind of by default that it was one of the first popular fics to give his ship a name, I think?), even though most fic writers don't seem to realize it's from there anymore.

"What's Going On": I used to include a link in all my stories to it, because I believe in crediting other writers for borrowed elements, and I was using "Wani" in all my fics. But BOY did I not want to be sending readers that way anymore, so I've adopted a new name for Zuko's ship, and removed all Embers links.

None of the criticisms about Embers itself are new; I'm assuming they date back to when the fic was being written, because this isn't an "it aged badly" thing, this is an "actually yeah this gets worse the longer you think about it and I shouldn't have ignored my bad feelings just because some of the worldbuilding was interesting" thing.

An Incomplete List of Why I Made the Change:

I don't actually like the story that much anymore, and don't want to rec it

I tried to re-read it recently to see if some things were as bad as I remembered and it turns out they were So Much Worse Oh Yikes. More specifically, the treatment of Katara and Aang and their respective cultures has... rather a lot going on. One example: The Fire Nation and Air Nomads are both given multiple backstory elements in an attempt to make the average Fire Nation soldier's participation in the genocide/war in large part the fault of the Avatar and the Air Nomads themselves, and also fully justified from the Fire Nation perspective. And I do mean fully. One of its core tenants is "People from the Fire Nation (and only people from the Fire Nation) who don't follow orders Literally Die, therefore murdering pacifists and babies and continuing the war (and their regularly scheduled war crimes) is the only thing it is physically possible for them to do". I cannot emphasize enough how literal that is.

Also the name "Wani" means "Alligator" and is... objectively a pretty lame name for Zuko's ship? Where's the personality, where's the deeper meaning, where's the resonance with Zuko's themes? @tuktukpodfics initially thought I was calling the ship "Wanyi", and that's what I've switched to, because it is Objectively So Much Better. In their words: “Wànyī (萬一): Literally ‘one in ten thousand,’ ‘perchance.’ Used grammatically in Chinese to mean ‘what if’ or ‘just in case.’ I think a ship called ‘The Perchance’ is perfect for a boy clinging to false hope.”

TL:DR; I don't rec Embers anymore, because I don't actually like the story anymore, and there are things about it that get worse the more I think on them. I've removed links to it and renamed Zuko's ship to "Wanyi" ("The Perchance") because our boy deserves a ship name that reflects his character arc.

[xoxoemynn]

Transcript of tweets below the cut but in short: calling makes the biggest impact, focus on DEI, you can call more than once, and you do not need to be in the US or have a Max subscription to call.

Everyone, I just talked on the phone to an absolute ally at Max, and they gave me extremely useful information! We need to be calling WAY more. It's a higher impact that most other things we can do. Here's the phone number: (855) 442-6629. But read on if you want to know WHY.

Every time Max receives a customer feedback call, that information is logged in the system. The info, *including all the details* is pushed to a server that relays it to the higher ups. They don't just get a tally of calls and general opinions—they get the full feedback.

And it's not just higher-ups at Max. Per the service rep, "it's actually read by the higher ups who are in charge of what happens within Warner Media/ Discovery."

The rep also suggested that particular types of feedback, especially those around DEI, might bear extra weight. They had to be a bit cryptic for job reasons, but they made this very clear.

They ask for an email but don't triage based on whether that email has a subscription. E.g., if you're outside the US and watch elsewhere, you can still call, and your feedback will still go up the chain.

In fact, the rep was very clear to encourage ALL people with feedback to call individually. And to keep calling! I asked whether multiple calls from the same person make a difference, and the answer was a clear yes bc the feedback gets shared as it comes in, not batched.

It's also worth noting that phone calls in general are always higher-impact than letters, online engagements, etc. This is true for political campaigns, and it's true here. There's a real cost to having people answering phones. It takes time, which equals $$.

So: Call. I know it sucks; I hate the phone too. If you have phone anxiety, you can also delegate to a friend and have them provide your name and email. If you *don't* hate making phone calls, ask friend for permission to call on their behalf!

I'll put together a little phone script shortly and add it to this thread.

Source

[the-stars-are-warring]

You know what?

Etain.

*tears form in my eyes as I stare into the middle distance*

[qpjianghu]

Feng Biyu's character introduction in Under the Microscope (2023)

(step on me step on me STEP ON ME STEP ON ME!!)

[not-so-superheroine]

harry kim is not from south carolina. someone is lying.

that man is californian.

star trek, you can't just say that someone is from somewhere, okay. you have to show it!

garrett wang wasn’t selling it. he wasn't trying to sell it. i guessed he was from california, and i was right because harry kim comes off as very californian.

bones is from georgia. and he is a bonifide mint julep drinkin' georgia man. deforest kelley was from georgia and he knew what he was doing.

but harry kim?

as a south carolinian, no. just no.

it may work for other people (who aren't from south carolina ig), but when i saw he was supposed to be from south carolina, i was damn near offended.

i would have believed tom paris was from south carolina before harry kim.

[dead-patrol]

ik we all want charles to figure his shit out but be so fr that is nott happening before he has the most hectic on again/off again relationship with crystal that lasts 2.5 years at least

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

thank you for all the recent jake/tobias posting, it's started me really thinking abt them for the first time! if i can contribute a thought, i'm actually loving the idea of tobias crushing on jake in the first book, and then getting "let down" by him, getting over it, and taking a hard pivot into being critical of him BECAUSE he has that history...i've definitely had the experience of being WAY more critical of people that i had crushes on (and maybe still have a little bit of the remnants of those feelings), because their flaws hurt more bc i used to look up to them so hard, and i'm paying more attention to them to start with, and maybe a little bit of trying to prove to myself that i'm over them...fun dynamic! thanks for planting the seed of this thought!

Yeah, I can definitely see that read! To be honest I like that better than shipping them outright. It fits the characters, and it makes sense with Tobias as a person. I wouldn't write it, but that's a me problem.

TBH Jake/Tobias is on the short list of Animorphs pairings I actively don't ship. For reasons that have less to do with either character, more to do with personal peeves. I get a bee in my bonnet about fandoms fixating on and shipping the only two straight white dudes in a diverse cast of characters. (Teen Wolf and Sterek dominance is the Ur-example, of course. But new Star Wars + Klux or Marvel comics + Stony are clear runners-up.)

So I think if I didn't have mental baggage from those other fandoms, I'd be more able to give Jake/Tobias a fair shake as a ship. But as it is, they give me strong NOPE feelings for reasons that aren't to do with either of them as characters.

[esperantoauthor]

Please I’m begging you to watch Out of my Mind on Disney+ 🙏🏻

[i-eat-cars-and-berriesss]

another thing I love about Nimona, that's kinda minimal but big to me... was Nimona's body type. it's nice to see someone plump and with my shape be so reckless and do all kinds of tomfoolery. Nimona's just being Nimona, man, and I do applaud that

[rohirric-hunter]

VIP Eldgang rep boost let's gooooooooooooooooo

[doesnotloveyou]

re-analyzing mcu female characters now that i'm no longer a fan

look. they gave male writers a bucket of manly action figures and a baggie of female characters as accessories. fem chars were written like a list of tropes except with all the "icky sexism" ones crossed out. they were rarely written as, y'know, people (willing to argue that many of the male characters were barely allowed to be anything more than plastic action figures either)

Somehow though, despite being used as a fangirl stand-in (which are often derogatory caricatures imo) Darcy Lewis is an excellently written female character.

She is always herself. She doesn't care what professional men, hot men, authoritative men, extraordinary men, or even what any woman thinks of her. Not in a Hollywood "watch me not care and be so feisty and empowered while I do it" way, but in a chill "that's cool but imma be my own person" way

She is kind but doesn't put up with mistreatment

She is smart but doesn't need men to brag about her intelligence

She is savvy but doesn't need men to point it out

She is beautiful but neither a man nor the camera ever needs to realize it, and she dresses to be comfortable while also perfectly confident that she's gorgeous

She is fearful but she deals with it without needing a man to comfort her

She is firm in her opinions and her decisions without needing a man (or anyone) to approve of them

Best of all she cracks jokes for her own amusement and knows she's funny even if no one laughs

the writers (accidentally???) created a perfect every-woman by deciding to create a woman without making her Love Interest Material. they made her the Attractive Girl's Friend trope, yeah, but at least the friend gets to be herself instead of constantly wondering if the space viking will come back and sweep her off her feet

they made a strong female character in 2010, and when they brought her back in Wandavision she didn't even need a hot girl bestie as an excuse to be on the screen. their continuity reflected that she was now the most experienced person in her field. even the audience trusted her to be reliable in unreliable circumstances the same way a hero is meant to be reliable

every time Marvel tries to make a "strong female character" they do something hyper-stereotypical that bends in the other direction. "We can't be sexist, see? we converted his secretary into his assistant and then we made her the CEO of his company" or "we showed her punching out a misogynist in her first scene" or "canonically she's a maneater but we're afraid of how that will look so we'll make her have no romances instead while also being The Only Girl trope." and on and on and on

meanwhile, Darcy was great, and I give a lot of credit to Kat Dennings, but I would also like to know if there was a female, or even male, writer in the room who kept her all to themself and said "I'll write this character, I know them perfectly."

there must have been because she felt knowable. she also felt like a fun example of what being a normal human might be like in a universe where caped heroes fly around saving the world from aliens

[fansonfansonfansonfans]

AOAOAOA Ep #107: We gathered the people behind FYC campaigns (marketing for shows aimed at awards voters that can include screeners, billboards, or a pop-up car wash set in the 1950s) together to talk shop and experience a collective hallucination.