#And the storylines… what??? So unrecognisable from its original plot

[bisexualseraphim]

On my SECOND attempt at rewatching The 100 and yet again I am considering just. Not finishing it lmao Season 3 is painful enough already even ignoring what happens in 3x07, how the fuck am I supposed to survive four more seasons without flying into a rage for every single second of the experience

So tempted to just ask someone for a Clarke & Madi scenepack and never watch another minute of this dumbfuck show for the rest of my life because those two are like the biggest reason I agreed to finish the show in the first place 😭 Genuinely don’t care about anything else, the characters are shit except for a small handful, the storylines are shit the writing is shit this show is SHIT and I’m so bored of it. I’m happy for anyone who can enjoy it outside of Clexa but I don’t understand y’all one bit, I wish I was as joyful as you

[laufire]

lately I've been... not exactly rethinking, but, adjusting? the way I think about "fanon".

I've made it no secret that I don't care much for it, in a general sense. whenever I'm truly invested in the canon source to the point where I actually read and even write fanfic, it's because there's something (often multiple things) about canon that managed to capture my attention. so I have little interest in versions of it that have passed through a game of telephone for years and feel unrecognisable to me.

when it comes to my own writing, ninety-nine times out of a hundred I like to work with canon. not necessarily adhering to it, but using its foundations as groundwork. my go-to ideas are usually: what if this one (1) event went a different way? how much would change? what would be the ripple effects and how far would they go? or, what if I focused on this trait of a character and took it to the extreme? or, what if we look at this plot point canon used but didn't explore, often because it wasn't the point of a larger story, and shifted the focus towards it? and so on.

but that's my approach and I don't intend to proselytise about it. however, when it comes to the much-maligned/mocked abstract "fanon", I do take issue with a few things. again, it's not about wanting stories that adhere to canon; canon is there and not going anywhere. fans have sometimes influenced canon sources to an extent, but it's always far less meaningful or ruinous than some people would have you believe. official adaptations have done far more damage to ongoing source materials (and influenced subsequent adaptations, who take inspiration from it even when it contradicts the source), and I try to stay blasé about those -emphasis on "try", if I'm honest.

my issues are largely about 1.) flanderization, and b.) lack of originality. the first, well. nobody likes to see characters/storylines they like (or even just enjoyed on an intellectual level) and see them reduced to a few basic, exaggerated traits, some of which don't even apply to them lol. the latter it's about my particular annoyance with the echo-chamber effect in certain fandoms; someone popular does something, it gets reproduced over and over, and it becomes ~fanon gospel. I've read fics that had interpretations of the characters (sometimes even my favourite characters!) that didn't match my own, yet they were well-written, didn't lack depth, and strived to do something different with them than what we usually see. I value all those three things, so I liked them.

this gets even more complicated in the dc comics fandom (and other canons built on collaborative writing, but dc comics is the most extreme example), because if we're being perfectly honest, canon often has those same issues, and worse ones. there are several events that used to be key to a character's journey that aren't considered canon anymore. or, at least, the canon status of said events is very much in the air, and there are even runs that imply they had to have happened but they happened differently, with little explanation about what those differences were. canon writers (maybe just some of them?) are also given room to cherry-pick things from various continuities, presumably as long as it doesn't contradict editorial's (sometimes seemingly arbitrary and/or dumb as fuck) stipulations, and at this point it's more productive to judge whatever changes they implement on their internal logic than on how well they coordinate with everything else. just as it is, IMO, perfectly understandable that fans of a character would dismiss a specific writer's interpretation; their choices don't occur in a vacuum, they do come to some things in bad faith, and some of them display their biases without shame (which I frankly prefer, but you know. you can both be frank about your preferences and write characters you dislike with some grace lol).

lastly, because this is something I've tried to word on other occasions... I get the impression that those of us who are, let's say, "canon-adjacent" in our fannish activities, are seen as possessing a holier-than-thou attitude. it's... maybe not unwarranted in some cases? I know I personally come across as pretentious and even arrogant lol. and I probably am, although I will say I do play it up for ~humorous reasons, especially if something has really annoyed me. but in this respect I can genuinely say that I don't approach this thinking "I am aligned with canon and therefore Superior, unlike those fanon-loving people who Don't Get It!!"

it comes from a place of genuinely loving canon. from looking at the universe it presents and appreciating both what was created to fill and the new possibilities it presents. from loving the characters and admiring their creation. from looking at all the pieces of the puzzle and a desire to play with them. and with dc comics in particular, vast and ever-expanding as that canon is, from a desire to know more about it.

yes, even I rag on it. that also come from a place of love. if I never shut up about some artwork it's just a sign that I care about it passionately xD

[woolishlygrim]

Winter Weebwatch #5

After last week’s surprisingly bad bunch of episodes, this week’s episodes are surprisingly good! There was also no Darwin’s Game this week, probably because it got pre-empted by a sporting event, but to be honest, I don’t think anybody was especially crying out for another three paragraphs of me struggling to remember what happened in it.

Also, there is a huge trigger warning for discussions of suicide, both in fiction and in real life on this post, specifically in the ID: Invaded review.

In/Spectre

★★★★☆

So, this episode was cruising along for an easy three stars for most of its runtime. Continuing on the Steel Girder Nanase storyline, the episode sees Kotoko and Saki simultaneously deciding to hate each other and deciding that they need to work together to decipher the truth behind Steel Girder Nanase, who they believe to be the ghost of an idol, Haruka Nanase, who was accused of murder and subsequently was found crushed by a steel girder, her face unrecognisable and even her teeth unidentifiable, the body only identified by virtue of carrying Nanase’s identification.

… Just so we’re all absolutely on the same page here, next episode is definitely going to reveal that Nanase murdered someone else to fake her own death, and that Steel Girder Nanase is actually some poor woman who was her victim, right? Right.

But anyway, this episode settles into a nice, consistent tone, sets up a fun and legitimately intriguing supernatural mystery, and seems all set to make its way to a satisfactory conclusion in one or two episodes, probably.

What elevates it to four stars, though? The fairly throwaway joke in which a fully animated opening sequence for a completely fictional magical girl show, complete with an original and fully vocalised song, plays, and ruthlessly satirises the far-right, taking shots at capitalism, militarism, and the police and justice system.

It’s a joke that doesn’t fit the tone of the rest of the series at all, but it’s so unapologetically vicious while also making me laugh out loud that I had to add an extra star for it. I just had to.

ID: Invaded.

★★★★★

Honestly, I wavered on whether this should be a four star or a five star. If I could do half stars, it’d be four and a half, but I think it edges out five.

This episode switches gears a little. With the Gravedigger killed, and the woman who was manipulating him into his murders arrested, Sakaido dives into the woman’s mental world, hoping to figure out exactly what caused her to turn to murder, and why murder in such a specific, gruesome, and sadistic way.

And he fails completely.

The story tempts us with just enough information that we can start forming the half-baked foundations of a hypothesis, but not enough that we can actually form any kind of cohesive theory. We see in the woman’s mental world that she is stuck as a child, endlessly riding a train that’s going in circles, each loop having it cross the train crossing where her mother committed suicide. We see that her victims are gathered at said crossing, waiting patiently to cross. And we see that her accomplice, the man she had killing for her, is present on the train as well, as a young boy very far removed from the blank, not-all-there man we’ve seen up to that point. We see Kaeru, usually representing the murder victims, in this mental world is presented as a suicide victim, having removed her shoes and asked the woman to wipe off her wounds before expiring in a seat at the end of the train.

But we never get enough to build any kind of meaning out of it. The show deliberately withholds closure from us, mirroring the woman’s lack of closure over her mother’s suicide (why did she decide to do it, and why do it by throwing herself in front of a train she knew her daughter was riding?), telling us that we will only ever have a handful of puzzle pieces and no way to piece them together.

I admit, that affected me pretty deeply. As someone who obsesses over puzzles and especially over the whys and wherefores of why people do things, whose lowered empathy response means that figuring people out is often a maddening struggle, the show presenting a puzzle that can’t be solved is infuriating. But more than that, as someone who has had a friend commit suicide, leaving no note and providing almost no indication beforehand that he was going to, I’m familiar with the bewilderment that can follow something like that, the attempts to piece together a cause-and-effect that makes sense.

This episode kind of got to me. I’m not sure I liked that it did.

‘Not having enough information’ is the running theme of this episode, anyhow, as the rest of the investigation team takes some time to discuss the recurring appearance of John Walker, a mysterious man in a red frockcoat who has appeared in five separate killers’ mental worlds (and who appears also in the woman’s, as a reflection in the train window). As they talk, they realise all they know is a baffling mess of contradictions about him: Nobody has ever seen him in real life, and yet the fact that five different people dreamed him up wearing the same bright red coat means he must be going around wearing what is basically American War of Independence cosplay; there seems to be no single link between the killers who have him in their mental worlds, and yet there are strange coincidental links; none of the killers remember who he is, but all of them have extremely strong recollections of him.

The end of the episode pulls another gutpunch on us, as Hondomachi, having killed the Gravedigger in seeming self defence earlier in the episode, finally gets her wish to be trained to dive into people’s mental worlds -- only for Hayaseura, her boss and the man who recommended her, to tell her that it’s not enough to have just killed, you have to be a serial killer, something he knows that she is. While we obviously saw her murder someone (by provoking them into attacking her and then framing it as self-defense) earlier in this episode, Hayaseura also points out something that I’d dismissed at the time and completely forgotten about: That in the very first episode, before Hondomachi was kidnapped by the Perforator, she was alone with one of his victims in the basement, and when we next saw him he was dead, even though the Perforator couldn’t have killed him.

That’s … actually some really solid writing. I hadn’t even realised on my first watch that the guy couldn’t have been killed by the Perforator.

Pet.

★★★★☆

I feel like I haven’t given this series enough credit for how surprisingly vicious it is. The first episode sets us up to think that Tsukasa and Hiroki’s friendship is pretty cute, and the second episode clues us in to the fact that they’re (quasi-?)romantically involved and sets up a clearly unhealthy but quite sweet all the same romance where you think that, hey, they’re screwed up people but they clearly love each other. It isn’t until the third episode that the rug gets pulled out from under you, with the reveal that Tsukasa is actually quite abusive, and this episode pulls the rug straight out from under us again.

It follows two plot threads. The first one is a milder one, with Satoru meeting the niece of the mysterious Company’s CEO, who exposits at him a little about how the Company was founded and some of the strifes that have led it to its current state of disarray -- namely that the qigong masters who created the psychic techniques the Company uses (just … roll with it) all simultaneously betrayed the CEO and were killed for it, leaving the Company with only one person who can pass on those teachings: Hayashi.

The second plot thread sees Tsukasa and Hayashi playing mind games with each other, with Tsukasa first trying to persuade Hayashi to return to the Company, before Hayashi tries to psychically rewrite Tsukasa’s memories, only for Tsukasa to rebuff him and for the two to end up in a psychic battle where they both try to repel the other one’s attempts to alter their memories.

It’s in this second plot thread that we learn all about Tsukasa’s many issues: Like Satoru, he is most definitely in love with Hayashi, and like Satoru, those feelings clearly aren’t reciprocated. Unlike Satoru, however, Hayashi doesn’t even seem to have filial feelings for Tsukasa, and we learn that when he started teaching Satoru, the Company told him that he couldn’t act as mentor for two people and had to choose one. He picked Satoru with what seems like startling ease, effectively abandoning Tsukasa.

There are allusions, as well, to the idea that Hayashi kept using Tsukasa even after that abandonment, entreating him to infiltrate the Company on his behalf and keep Satoru safe. Tsukasa’s … not happy about this at all, and also, as becomes swiftly apparent throughout the episode, more than a little unhinged.

As the episode ends, Tsukasa and Hayashi are ramping up their psychic battle, with Tsukasa informing Hayashi that he’s learned some tricks off Hiroki, so we’ll see where that one goes.

Infinite Dendrogram.

★★☆☆☆

More and more, it feels like this show is falling into a rut, and that’s honestly a huge shame.

There’s just no forward momentum to it. Things happen, but there’s no sense of motion, no sense of things winding towards a conclusion, either on an arc level or a series level, and yet at the same time it’s not fast and snappy enough to be a truly episodic series like, say, Kekkai Sensen.

So, this week’s episode sees Ray, now cursed with dog ears (for reasons which are not plot relevant, but I mean, it’s fine), teaming up with a new character, Hugo, a Dryfe Master whose job is essentially that he’s a giant mecha pilot, as the two attempt to tackle a base of bandits who have been kidnapping children.

The show tries very hard to set the bandits up as absolute monsters, and to sell us on Ray’s rage, but it kind of lacks the elements necessary to make an impact. The huge emotional moment where Ray sees that some of the children have been turned into undead is weakened by the fact that the cinematography is bog-standard, the animation direction for the scene is uninteresting, and the music is unremarkable. Even Ray’s reaction is strangely muted, with some anger but no real horror or anything like that, and not even a quiet fury so much as just moderate amounts of rage.

There are hints of a broader plot involving Dryfe, though (which we know from an earlier episode is prepping to invade), with Hugo making remarks that he can’t use his Embryo yet, because keeping it secret is part of some plan.

He does, eventually, use it anyway, and relatively without fanfare at that.

[helenawaynehuntress]

Women's Bodies Are Not Tools For Male Agency - An Open Letter To Peter Tomasi And Patrick Gleason

Dear Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason,

Last Wednesday, Superman #23 hit stores. For the most part, Superman and Action Comics have been among the bright spots of DC's Rebirth initiative. Lois and Clark are back together again, the super couple have a new addition to their small family, and their personalities are back to where they need to be.

Superman is once again embodying the hope and optimism that have been staple to his character for all of his publication history. Lois Lane is once again his co-star, and she is once again the "top-of-her game", pulitzer-winning, badass journalist that's she's always been. The first woman of comics is once again the superhero we all need her to be: the ordinary human who uses all of her resources to dig up the truth and expose crime and corruption through her own super power: journalism.

Lois is very much an action girl. She just doesn't come with weapons, a costume, and special gadgets to get the job done. Even when situations get dangerous, she doesn't stand by and wait to be rescued. She gets creative. She uses everything that is available to her to make her escape before Superman even arrives at the scene. She embodies everything most people love about Bruce Wayne, minus the toxic masculinity and his need to dress up like a giant bat (complete with bat-themed gadgets, vehicles, and an actual bat cave) to intimidate criminals every night.

All that I've described above is what I've loved about Lois Lane ever since I saw her portrayed by Teri Hatcher in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman when I was 07 years old. When I started reading the character in various DC books (not just the Superman books) at the age of 20, I was very happy to see that comic book Lois was every bit as awesome as the versions of her I saw on the telly as a kid. I am 30 now.  

I think we can all agree at this point that the idea behind the New 52 was a good one in the sense that it came from a place of DC wanting to expand its readership by giving everyone a new starting point. It was especially done invite new readers to these characters, which was one of the high points of the initiative. Where it misfired was in its execution. Too much of what people loved about these characters for decades got jettisoned and replaced with wholly unrecognisable versions of these characters.

The wholesale jettisoning of character growth in favour of establishing "darker characters" is a big part of what I feel drove away many longtime readers, resulting in lower sales for DC in the span of five years. Rebirth has been a tremendous blessing in carefully reinstating what's been missing from these characters without another reboot, and sales are back up. You and Dan Jurgens have played an important role in bringing Lois and Clark back to their core, for which I am most grateful. But this now brings us back to Superman #23 and the unnecessary dismemberment of Lois Lane in a story arc that frankly did not require it.

Aside from this being another standard fridging for shock value and manpain, what was most infuriating about your decision to dismember Lois is that it continued a long standing problem in mainstream superhero comics to use women's bodies as tools for male agency. Even if this gets retconned before the story arc concludes (and I'm sure it will), the fact is it's still a dehumanising plot device that reduces a woman's importance to how she is valued by the men in her life.

Lois' dismemberment was not about Lois making a heroic sacrifice for what she believes in or protecting the people she loves. Her mutilation was ALL about shocking and traumatising the most important men in her life: her husband and son. It was both gratuitous and traumatising for me to see. It actually made me physically nauseous and caused my heart to palpitate when I read it on Wednesday. Literally. That is not what I expected to get from a Superman comic last Wednesday--a comic that I feel should be accessible to everyone.

When DC launched Rebirth last year, Geoff Johns did so with the promise of confronting the legacy of Watchmen, and with the promise of restoring hope and optimism to the DC Universe. I was very grateful to hear those words, because while I feel Watchmen is being scapegoated here, DC--with some exceptions-- has collectively not embodied that idea in the last 30 years. It's as if Crisis on Infinite Earths did more than just jettison the last 50 years of DC continuity in favour of a completely new direction. It also did away with the idea of heroes being good people who did what they did out of a strong desire to make their world a better place, and not because of a tragic event in their lives that set them on that path. It especially fared worse for the women characters who thrived during the Bronze Age as characters with agency and meaningful storylines.

The tragic origin story became the norm in superhero narratives and the "darkening" of superheroes became the recurring trend. That tragic event in the lives of many iconic male superheroes almost always centred on the death or violent fridging of a woman in their lives, whether that'd be their mother, daughter, sister, friend, or romantic partner. If it was a female superhero, her origin story would almost always be tied to a violent past involving abuse from men--including sexual abuse--or an actual fridging like in the case of Barbara Gordon. If it wasn't a dark origin story, eventually a story arc would come along where a male villain would brutalise a woman as a way of raising the stakes for the affected male hero.  

Notice how much of this darkening of the DC Universe in the last 30 years has involved normalising violence against women? This disturbing trend became so prominent within the first decade of the post-Crisis universe alone, a whole website got made around that same time frame to document all the instances in which female characters have been "depowered, raped, and cut up" in a mainstream superhero comic.

This wasn't the sort of thing that just happened in elseworlds stories anymore. It literally became mainstream DC continuity, ironically, often inspired by elseworlds stories. This is what the last 30 years of DC storylines consisted of, I would almost argue the New 52 was actually the culmination of this style of storytelling for so long. Is it really surprising that women don't stay quiet anymore whenever we see violent misogyny used casually in the stories we're invested in, especially against the female characters we identify with for shock value and manpain? Is it really surprising we respond with anger when fridging is used over and over and over again against the same heroine as a plot device? Can you understand how dismembering Lois this past Wednesday cheapens her character and continues this disturbing trend of the last 30 years, especially given the promise of Rebirth?

When it comes to the representation of women in superhero comics, our anger towards the use of violent misogyny in stories to give them a gritty texture goes way beyond our investment in the characters themselves. It is also very personal to us because it helps to normalise real life misogyny. Normalisation of misogyny in comics is what invites men with toxic attitudes towards women to these characters, and helps to foster a comics community that is actively hostile to women. It especially fosters a community where male harassment of women in comic spaces is very common place, even for being invested these stories and characters. Some of these men even become future writers and editors for comics publishers to the point where it limits women's opportunities to work for these publishers.

When given the privilege to write iconic DC characters in particular, women are rarely afforded the opportunity to develop their stories as creators and editors except in small doses. When men are given the privilege to write and edit these characters, they rarely write and edit them with women and other diverse fans in mind as part of the larger DC reading audience. We're rarely seen as an audience worth connecting with at best (even though we've always been here), and we are seen as "bad for business" at worst. That last one is especially true in the case of female fans and creators who are vocal about these ongoing problems and would like for them to change so that they are no longer a problem.

I realise that as a customer it is not my place to tell you what types of stories to write, and I am more than aware that I don't have to invest money in anything I don't want to support. All of that is true. But here's the thing: I'm not a casual customer. I am a DC Comics fan who wants to invest in these characters and books just like every other fan. They have been my heroes since I was a kid and they still mean a lot to me as an adult. 

This may sound like a naive thing to say, but I believe strongly in DC's potential to be a publisher that is inclusive of everyone, given the diversity of intellectual properties and the fans they invite. I strongly believe that Rebirth is worth supporting because it's seeking to make DC less divisive and more inviting of various groups of people, older fans and newer fans alike. I strongly believe that if the quality of the stories Rebirth is pumping out continues to inspire and invite diverse audiences and creative talents to the fold, we could get to a point where we don’t need to keep having this conversation about representation in comics. It would be a thing of the past. For real!

In the same way that you wouldn't make creative choices that would offend and alienate male fans of any DC property you work on, I ask that you afford women and other marginalised communities that same respect by being more thoughtful of the way you use women and marginalised communities in your stories. To be more aware of the ongoing problems with diverse representation so that you are not unwittingly repeating these same problems in the otherwise good stories you're writing. If Rebirth is about restoring hope and optimism to the DC Universe, please honour that promise by representing women's heroes better. Specifically by writing them as characters with agency and their own storylines, and not as tools for male character development. That is all I want to see happen.

Thank you for your time, and have a wonderful rest of your week.

Sincerely,

Diane Darcy

[sulietsexual]

Anonymous Asked: OUAT - Pilot

Short opinion: Amazing pilot, shame the series went to pieces.

Long opinion: The OUAT Pilot is actually one of my favourite series pilots, as it does everything a well-thought out and well-written pilot should – introduces the core characters while establishing their characterisations, opens up ongoing threads for the season, sets the tone of the series, contains a great narrative and ends with a mild sequel hook. It’s really no wonder that the show initially attracted so many viewers.

The show establishes its original subversive take on fairy tales as early as the second scene of the Pilot. While the first scene is the well-known awakening of Snow White by her True Love’s kiss, the second scene quickly establishes that Snow is not someone who needs rescuing, as she rather than Charming draws a sword and threatens the evil Queen (who is wonderfully presented as an outright villain and played with wicked delight by Lana). This scene does a great job of showing the direction the show initially took with Snow’s character and firmly establishes that this series will be telling a different version of the fairy tale than we are used to.

Back in the real world, Emma Swan, fierce, amazing, resilient pre-pod Emma Swan gets a wonderful scene firmly establishing her original tough-as-nails character, as she chases down a criminal who has slipped bail (and in sky high heels, no less, I love when women push through the ridiculous footwear society forces us into). We are then shown how multi-faceted Emma already is, even at this early stage in the series, as she returns to an empty apartment and lights a candle on a rather sad looking cupcake, indicating the isolation and loneliness in her life. Henry’s appearance and her subsequent panic attack in her bathroom show even further depth to her character, showing how her tough bravado in her first scene is partially a front and hinting at deeper issues lurking beneath the surface.

Henry’s home life and mentality are also firmly established, with Regina, once again, being presented as an outright villain. Words cannot express how bitter I will always be over Regina’s half-assed redemption and the show’s refusal to allow her to just be a villain, especially given her initial portrayal in the first season, with the series clearly presenting her as the Big Bad of the show, with Lana playing up her diabolical side for all it’s worth. The Pilot in particular shows how threatening, evil and scheming she can be, with her threats towards Snow in the past and Emma in the present. Henry clearly has an unhappy home life (no ten year old runs away without damn good reason) and Regina’s darkness and villainy is a wonderful foil for Emma’s light and Saviour status, this dynamic being established as early as this episode.

The rest of the main characters are introduced wonderfully, with subtle hints towards their continuing arcs and characterisation. Mary Margaret’s meek personality is beautifully juxtaposed with Snow’s fiery disposition back in the Enchanted Forest, Gold’s sinister and somewhat malevolent presence offsets Rumple’s maniacal mannerisms back in the magical world, and David’s steadfast personality is well established by the time it’s revealed that he’s in a coma in Storybrooke. It is of course revealed to the audience that Emma is Snow and Charming’s daughter, wonderfully setting up the course for her discovery of this fact, and setting up the friendship between Emma and Mary Margaret.

The storyline of the Pilot moves at a nice pace, the scenes in Storybrooke effortlessly interchanged with the scenes in the Enchanted Forest. The premise is interesting and fresh and promises a new take on old fairy tales. The characters, even in this early stage, are rich and multi-faceted, promising in-depth characterisation (which has, unfortunately, all but disappeared from the show). All up, this is just a gorgeous episode, beautifully establishing the narrative, plot, characters and themes of the show. It’s just one of the biggest disappointments that the writers allowed what was once a creative, fresh and inventive show to become a lacklustre, convoluted soap opera, with a minor character stealing focus and changing the show’s heroine into someone completely unrecognisable from her original self.