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#but i already miss people just writing meta and random days with the whole dash rambling about a specific character
peninkwrites · 1 year
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#i never make vent posts or anything like this but I am just. so torn up about all of this#please don't take this too seriously this is my personal ramblings not a statement on some important part of the situation#ok? my feelings are my problem when there are people out there being tangibly hurt and harassed for coming forward about a serious thing.#i don't think finishing my fics would be supporting him as a cc. that isn't really my concern?#but right now i am disgusted by his very name. i can't write right now.#i don't know what to do.#i wish i had started the Mafia AU sooner. That fic is over 6 months in the making and I had/have so much story I wanted to tell.#it would be easier to cut him out of that series#but the community is so torn up who's gonna read it? I know I should write for my own sake too#but the people I met#the damn server I set up#it's because of this.#this fandom existed so independently of the ccs for so long in reference to their characters#i don't know why we have to lose that#but at the same time I understand people's discomfort. I both can't blame people for leaving and wish they wouldn't.#I don't know where I'm at comfort-wise too and maybe we're all just waiting to feel less horrified#but i already miss people just writing meta and random days with the whole dash rambling about a specific character#i know it hasn't been long.#but I guess I'm more worried it's gone forever.#i didn't feel like what we did had anything to do with him until his presence ruined it.#the cc had been on thin ice for me for a while i just. ignored his presence and focused only on rp characters.#like. why should I abandon talking about c!Wilbur and c!Quackity etc etc because one motherfucker turned out to be terrible?#this stuff is not a priority right now of course considering the reason this is happening is a matter of justice and accountability#which is why im sort of just rambling here instead of making a proper post#i've wrapped so much of my life around this fandom for the past two years. probably an unhealthy amount. but i don't know how to let go#i didn't realize that the running backtrack of my brain has been my fics. these characters. CONSTANTLY#i literally don't know what to think about. I've been writing almost nonstop about this stuff for 2 YEARS.#I've lost my joy of creation. my emotional crutch. hopefully temporarily but my god.#dream situation#vent
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sol1056 · 6 years
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six anons: wtf were they thinking
Another round-up! I seem to have poked the hornet’s nest when it comes to the EPs --- though in some ways I was just building on the same clues that prompted such awesome meta from @janestrider​ and @ptw30​ --- and now I have a box filling up with asks, all over again.
Behind the cut: newbie writers, EP arrogance, earlier versions of S7, writerly randomness, EPs aren’t writers, and over-confidence. Welp. 
Let’s get this started.
Your words about being fascinated by this trainwreck is me 100%, I'm a newbie writer & I wouldn't dream of being this arrogant and think I can handle writing something like VLD by myself, like, premise and character arcs and characterization and consistency etc. are in my mind at all times and I still would have messed things up, but minor things like that don't even matter to the EPs apparently! VLD Is a giant What Not To Do list. How did they miss the 50 signs saying Danger: Cliff Up Ahead
and a second in the same vein:
Calling the EPs newbie writers is highly inaccurate methinks, newbie writers upon getting the reins ... sit down and write the rest of the story from scratch, trying to make it make sense and not completely ruin the premise and the character arcs. Regardless of success, they WRITE the rest, they don’t assemble random story points others wrote & copy paste things around. EPs aren’t writers.
Well, there’s newbie and there’s newbie-who-doesn’t-realize-it. 
Consider someone who’s ridden the train, every day, for the past ten or so years, always sitting in the first car near the conductor. They’ve been on the train when it’s broken down, when it’s late, when it’s early, when it has to plow through snow. Then someone offers them a supervisory position -- not as a driver, just a supervisor -- and they figure, hey, I’ve watched this enough, I can drive, too. Plus, the EPs had the power to force the real drivers to step aside, which just makes the entire situation even worse.  
In other words, they missed the signs because they didn’t even realize such signs exist. Those things you don’t learn (or even see) when you’re only watching from the outside. 
You, and everyone else replying, are classifying yourself more as the person who’s gotten a job on the train, and you kinda know trains, and you know they can break down, but driving it? Whole ‘nother ball of wax. 
Hold onto that humility. It’ll serve you well as a writer. Even once you reach the point you can confidently handle a complicated storyline, you still want to retain that humility, because it’s one-half of keeping empathy for your readers. 
The irony is, they were so arrogant in their belief they could do better than actual storytellers w/ years of experience (also presumably execs who checked up on them) that they not only loudly (and unprofessionally) complained about specific parts, but also broadcasted that they changed the story, and gave many clues as to where and above all why. 
You have no idea how many times in the past two years my jaw has dropped in complete shock when yet another EP quote has gone by on my dash. I cannot fathom making public that I disagreed with my bosses --- let alone using an interview to re-litigate a case I’d already lost. Well, I could, but only if I didn’t expect to have a job much longer. And that bit about doing “damage control” as a result of exec demands? Jeepers crow, dude. 
(there have been points where all I can say is, ‘wtf do these people have on their bosses to get away with this!?’ photograph negatives for blackmail? sleeping with an exec? I mean, srsly.)
On a more serious note, I’m constantly reminded of the old adage about innkeepers: you want to appear as a swan, gliding peaceful and serene, and never let the guests see that you’re paddling as fast as fuck under the surface. These EPs need a major come-to-jesus about that, because they’ve gone out of their way to splash loudly on a regular basis.
Then again, I don’t think either EP has much (if any) experience with interviews where they’re the main attraction. They seem ignorant of the fact that an interviewer is not your friend; there’s an agenda, and that agenda is to get clicks: something controversial, surprising, that’ll bring the eyeballs. The good interviewers can and will manipulate for their agenda. This is why PR people are usually present (if off-screen), because they’ll know the warning signs and call a halt, set certain questions (or answers) as off-limits. 
Most of the EPs’ interviews, there’s been no sign of PR. Hell, the EPs have admitted in interviews they couldn’t remember what had happened in the season they’re being interviewed about! (wtf srsly wtf) If we got more than we should’ve, that’s also on the EPs for not realizing they were getting played. 
And while I’m at it: an interview is not where you tell the story. Explain what did happen? Sure, though that’s a tacit acknowledgement that the story failed, if it requires your explanation after the fact. But to tell things that are vital to the story but don’t actually happen in the story? No. Just no. 
did we really get an interview where the EPs confirmed there was an original script with Shiro as the Black Paladin? If that's the case then HOLY CRAP. Talk about a missed opportunity.
Yep, I saw the quote but didn’t chase down the source. I think it was one of the interviews shortly after S7 aired. You’d need to ask someone who still reads all those interviews, since I don’t. I only see what goes past on my dash.
Well, missed opportunity but also... we all know (or should know) that the first idea is never what makes it to page or screen. And once the story’s done and the dust has settled, then you can do a track commentary about how the story changed between idea and execution. 
While the story’s in progress? Nope, nope, nope. You smile and say it’s all going according to plan, it’s an awesome season, you hope everyone enjoys it, everyone went the extra mile, etc. You say nothing about the disasters, the late-night sessions, the last-minute changes. If you can’t be a swan, be a cat: yep, we totally meant to do that.
To say what JDS did? I still cannot fathom why anyone would ever say that. There is no fandom on this planet that wouldn’t have some percentage enraged by news they’d been denied the story they’d expected. Hinting at discarded paths will always, always, disappoint someone --- and quite often, a lot more someones than you realize. 
Really, the only reason I can see is sheer contempt. For the audience, for the story, for anyone who’d worked on that previous version. It’s gloating. It’s saying, a lot of people worked on it, but we decided to throw away everything they’d done, and redo it as we wanted. 
Yes, I know that happens. It’s part of the process. But you don’t freaking boast about it, and you don’t plant in everyone’s head that there was something else out there. Especially when that something else was exactly what they’d been waiting for. 
It’s an asshole move, no two ways around it. 
@janestrider's post and yours about the VLD writers and EPs reminded me of a phrase JDS said in one interview after S6 about Cosmo ... "well, I wanted to give Keith a wolf, so I did". ... he doesn't seem to consider the consequences of his actions? That's also how he decided to write the Black Paladins episode ... "I wanted to make it a Winter Soldier type of thing, so I did". It feels like something a very unexperienced professional would do.
There’s no rule against throwing something into a story that you think is cool. I mean, easily 90% of any story out there revolves around something the author thinks is just freaking cool. Considering the hours we’re going to spend writing, revising, writing again, revising again, discussing, thinking, living, breathing, eating, dreaming about the story? It’d better be something we find cool. 
But that said... there’s a difference between making sure the story fires you up, and treating the story like a tossed salad. I’ve seen multiple pull-quotes from LM that affirm their approach was to chase the rule-of-cool. And... that’s not quite so okay, really. 
The Black Paladins episode is probably the best example, and ironic that it’s the only one JDS wrote, ‘cause it’s textbook failure. If you cannot hold the entire story in your head, then you will be blind as to how tossing in this idea or that -- no matter how cool -- may halt, muddy, or even undermine the story’s forward movement. When you can’t even pace a story properly, throwing in extra cool is just going to make the whole thing even more rickety. 
I did a long walk-through on that episode to outline how I’d translate it into a written story, and I’d planned to do a follow-up talking about the emotional aspect. The problem is... once I had a chance to think about the episodes after, there is no emotional context to that fight. Sure, it got a huge budget and attention, and it’s hyped like a big deal. 
But there’s no there, there. 
None of it matters. Keith went through all that for someone who wasn’t even his friend, someone who dies (or whatever) right after and is treated like an empty shell. And the one who rescued him wasn’t even the person he’d fought, but the person he’d thought he was fighting for and with -- who was dead, the whole time. The two episodes that follow basically gut the entire premise --- and all the emotion --- of that fight scene, and render it null. 
And that’s where the rule-of-cool smashes up against the need to hold the shape of the story in your head. You need to see the big picture of how each scene supports the story’s theme. JDS hasn’t the chops to see how what he’d created was promptly undone by what came next. 
Oh, I’m aware there are lots of fans who loved that episode and he sure basked in the accolades, but I can’t ignore that in the end, it means nothing. No one pointed out this will impact another thing downstream, or this later thing undermines what came before, or this breaks a continuous motif, or contradicts a theme. Anything. 
Or maybe someone did, and JDS told them that as the EP, he got the final say. Frankly, from the way he talks in interviews, I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if that’s how it went down. 
@lysanatt commented on a post:
This to some degree even explains the over-confidence of EPs that avoiding the BYGs trope did not apply to them because, sure, they could do it better, landing them in the exact trap of doing a classic double BYG.
Call it what it is. It’s not over-confidence. It’s arrogance.
It’s complacency in over-estimating social capital as to what an audience might forgive or overlook. It’s an assumption that job titles or IMDB entries or the nice things people had said on twitter could be protection from being held accountable. It’s certainty that a rigid and uncreative vision of the story can and should override all other concerns, including the larger playing field in which this story is only one of millions. 
It’s a lack of concern for real-world damage. A lack of care for the craft. A lack of understanding that there even is a craft and it’s not learned overnight. A lack of willingness to stop and think about what the story is saying, what it means, what it’s trying to do. 
It’s an inflexible certainty, engendered and enabled by the near-constant attentive interviews and adoring reviews. It’s an inability to hold onto (or listen to) any reality-checks when it comes to hype. It’s falling so hard into enjoying the ego-strokes of constant interview and congratulatory reviewers and forgetting no one is doing anything out of altruistic reasons. Including them. 
In the end, it’s a complete failure of empathy. It’s near-constant trolling of execs and the audience at large, a broken record of obvious contempt. It’s an amoral and frankly callous disregard for the characters, the story, the messages, the themes. 
It’s never seeing the characters as people, and never seeing the audience as people, either. Stories matter because we, as human beings, care about other human beings, real or fictional --- a care the EPs have made clear they cannot, or will not, afford anyone but themselves. 
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voleuxe · 7 years
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FIVE THINGS TAG
TAGGED BY STOLEN FROM; at least three people on my dash
5 THINGS YOU’LL FIND IN MY BAG ;
Pens
Notebook
More pens
Chapstick
At least one(1) strange and/or random item that will make you question everything you know about me
5 THINGS IN MY BEDROOM;
Various collections of polished rock, glassware, and shells.
A really neat corner shelf that a man at my parents’ previous church made for us out of re purposed barn wood.
A bunch of little electric tea lights (mostly inside fairy jars but also just, around.)
Stuffed animals everywhere even though there’s a whole bunch who are still in storage :’(
Assorted journals, sketchpads, binders, notebooks, etc. full of?? Who knows, I’m cluttered.
5 THINGS I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO DO WITH MY LIFE ;
Publish a story in some form of media (ideally, a book or originally scripted movie.)
Be a mermaid (which is ... in more production than I ever thought it would be tbh. Summer job, here i come)
???
Not be sad 
5 THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY ;
Movies.
Fuzzy pajama pants.
Sea shells & polished rock & glassware & feathers & candles. And shiny things. Lost things. I’m basically a literal magpie, I like things. Smol treasures. Grabby hands.
The Spring Sprite from Fantasia 2000 has always made me really happy and I don’t know why but I do know she’s why I dyed my hair green that one time and might dye it green again when it gets back to being long. In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, (boop boop.) I used to watch it so much that our tape copy of Fantasia 2000 was warped towards the end and it warbled so bad. (Which, as a sidenote, was hilarious.)
Animals in general, but more specifically, I really love my dog and she makes me happy.
5 THINGS I’M CURRENTLY INTO ;
Colorguard. It’s been like three(?) years since I did any spinning but boy howdy do I miss it. 
Film/movies/whatever you want to call it. I like movies, I’m all about the movies. Story telling mediums in general, but movies specifically.
Can I say “Kingdom Hearts” or is that too, like, specific??
Applying for colleges??? (just the one, actually, but we’ll see where it goes from there.)
And my old pal, writing, who has never given up on me.
5 THINGS ON MY TO-DO LIST ;
 Finish designing my friend’s tattoo for her Valentines gift (because I love & appreciate her lots and it’s already been 9ever since she asked me.)
Drafts drafts drafts, wherever I have any.
Revise that meta post I wrote last night, because I don’t like the way I worded pretty much the whole thing.
Maybe post a starter or two?
Cookies. We bought Valentines Day cookies and I’ve been told I have to make them because apparently on one else in my house understands how not to over-bake cookies.
5 THINGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT ME ;
I dropped out of high school (well, got a GED instead of finishing. Don’t do that. Stay in school, kids.) ((That’s a joke if it’s not a good thing for you absolutely get tf out of there and get a GED it’s literally the same thing as a diploma in the eyes of virtually any college you might have plans to attend I promise. Nobody will think any less of you for having a GED. High school is hell, you’re okay.))
I haven’t had my hair be its natural color since about the seventh/eighth grade and I’m honestly not sure what it would look like if I let it grow out without dying over it. 
My most popular/”successful” blog I’ve ever run was for Caspian from The Chronicles of Narnia. He had just over 300 followers and I was doing like, twenty 500 word+ replies every couple of days and I high key feel bad about abandoning/deleting that blog without any real warning and if I thought I was capable I would pick him back up but I don’t think I’ll ever actually do it tbh.. ((the email for Lu’s blog is actually one I intended to use for a reboot of Cas, but you can see how that panned out.))
Low key have a Ben Barnes obsession (he’s so pretty to  look at and also a gifted actor?? Ben Barns in more things 2k17. I’m excited for Netflix’s Punisher series mostly because of Ben Barnes. He’s my favorite adorable idiot since like 2008 when Prince Caspian came out and I was like “that’s a pretty boy.”)
I may or may not be considering a Monty Python and the Holy Grail tattoo for my father you can’t prove anything. Probably something in the effect of the Coconut Debate™ . Not sure yet.
TAGGING ; @eruditioned @saltate  and tbh that’s it right now because I stole the thing but feel free to say I tagged you so I can get nosy and read your answers if you steal it from me >:)
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