#but i’ve never been apart of a fandom that has so many WILDLY different interpretations of canon as i have seen for this show

[akkpipitphattana]

genuinely i think the absolute dissonance that exists within the only friends and the way different parts of the fandom interpret different characters/ships/plot lines in completely different ways should be studied

[autisticcassandracain]

The original plan for the Mirage thing was for Kory to react reasonably and not blame Dick at all, and leading to their successful marriage. However, behind the scenes interference nixed that plan, and orders were given that Dick and Kory were to be broken up instead, leading to that whole mess

Do you happen to have a source on that? Not that I don't believe you because it would make a LOT of sense, it's just that if there's anything I've learned from being in the DC comics fandom it's that there's a lot of unsourced 'common knowledge' going around that's just plain wrong and I'd like to avoid falling for that. again. bc I've done it before (a lot. I am very gullible) and it's embarrassing.

But even if they had to break them up due to editorial demands I feel like they could've done that in way better and way more natural ways. Disclaimer that I don't like dickkory to begin with so my opinion may be biased, but there's way better angles you could've taken for a break up plot than the massacre of Kori's character that happened now.

I skimmed the break up plotline last night (I'm not finishing this comic because there's only so much bad writing my brain can handle, but I'd like to know the basics on what happens to Donna and Kori in it), and the thing that really got me is that they flirted with actual solid reasons for why Dick and Kori might be better off broken up but then consistently wrapped it in so much bad writing I can barely even give them credit for it. Instead of that weird contrived plotline with Mirage and Sexy Evil Raven that happened now, you could've simply had a B-plot of Dick and Kori's relationship slowly falling apart.

Their relationship was already quite rocky; while they clearly love each other very much, their personalities are quite different and that frequently leads to conflicts. We've seen that mostly with Dick lashing out at Kori when he has his own personal issues going on, and Kori blaming herself for it, and Kori wanting to be closer to Dick while Dick doesn't feel ready to make that kind of commitment. You could've easily extrapolated reasons to break up from these semi-frequent issues.

anyway this got long so there's an example of what you could do with this plotline under the cut

For example, we know that Dick always wears disguises when dating with Kori, and had to move out of her apartment to protect his identity. Kori values openness, and it wouldn't have been OOC for her to become unsatisfied with the secrecy surrounding their relationship. She likely wouldn't feel like she has the right to pressure Dick to out his secret identity (because she doesn't), and since there's no easy way around it otherwise, I can imagine it putting a strain on her.

You can couple this with the fact that Dick has attempted to restrict Kori in many ways; it's even directly acknowledged by Dick himself that he's tried to change Kori rather than taking her as she is, and that this was a mistake. (For the record, I don't think this would be impossible to work through, or that it means Dick doesn't love her, but we're talking break up plotline here.) By contrast, Kori has always tried her absolute best to be understanding and accommodating to Dick, and even though she is pushy sometimes, Dick has stated/implied this is something he actually appreciates. The break up plotline in canon already mentioned that Kori has always lived for others, and now wants to explore what she wants for herself. You can expand on this by having Kori become dissatisfied with the effort she puts into accommodating Dick vs. the seeming lack of effort he puts in.

The catalyst for this can absolutely be the Mirage plotline. The thing is, I don't think it's unreasonable or OOC for Kori to be upset about the fact that nobody noticed she was missing. It's not that anyone did anything wrong, but it's got to hurt, being tied up in a basement for days, only to finally break out and find out nobody noticed you were gone. Even with a reasonable Kori who recognizes that this isn't Dick's fault, I think it'd be completely understandable if she was still upset.

This could be interesting to explore because Kori, as a rule, lives by her emotions, but she's also spent enough time on Earth that she's learned the value of logical reasoning, and why you sometimes need to put your feelings second. In this case, logical reasoning says she shouldn't be upset, but emotionally, she still feels that way. This conflict could be a good catalyst for getting her to re-examine how exactly she wants to live, and how her relationships contribute to that. Particularly, she could take a closer look at her and Dick's relationship and come to the conclusion that while they clearly love each other, it's somewhat unbalanced, and might not actually be what she needs. The reason Kori has pushed through all this before is because she loves Dick, and that's all that matters to her, but with her taking a new look at the benefits of rationally examining your emotions, she might start doubting a little.

This could also tie back in to a line Donna said way back when Dick and Kori first got together that kind of lives in my head rent free but never got expanded upon. Namely, right after Dick and Kori get together, Dick's personal troubles start boiling over and he takes it out by being kind of a bitch to Kori. Donna and Kori have a conversation about this, and at some point (I forget the exact details), Kori says that she's in love with Dick, and Donna responds, "Are you sure you're not just in love with being in love?"

Like, again, dickkory hater bias here, but one of the reasons I was disappointed by the canon portrayal of dickkory was that it always felt like Dick was getting way more out of this relationship than Kori. In particular, I just. Genuinely have no idea what Kori likes about Dick. They've never established that. I can guess and extrapolate, but while Dick has stated repeatedly and explicitly that he loves Kori for the openness of her emotions, her passionate nature, and compassion, Kori. Hasn't done anything like that with Dick. Again, I don't think this would be impossible to work through, but again, break up plotline. In this case, Kori could think back to Donna's words, and realize she was at least partly right; that it's not necessarily Dick specifically that Kori loves, but more the sensation of being in love itself, which she could get with virtually anyone provided she fell for them.

All of this could be combined with Dick's new clinginess regarding Kori, which is canon. I don't know WHY his mental health was going downhill that fast bc I'm only here for Kori, but regardless, you could have Kori getting worried about how much Dick depends on her emotionally, just like she already did in canon.

All this, combined with her newfound worry that she might simply not be getting enough out of this relationship herself and her feeling increasingly restricted in it, puts stress on her. Kori is an emotional person, and the reason she's put up with all of Dick's shit so far was that she loves him, wholly and completely. But if she started thinking it might be a better idea to take a slightly more rational approach to this relationship, the way Earthlings usually do, I think her eventually reaching the conclusion that a break up would be healthier for both of them wouldn't be OOC.

Of course, this does kind of depend on your interpretation of Kori, and the arc you want her to have. Canon sent her in wildly the opposite direction, in which she got more in touch with her Tamaranian roots and decided to live by them fully, which I don't mind in theory, but it was just. SO badly written. I think this would be a much more logical progression of her character after staying on Earth for so long, particularly since she's already become more willing and able to take a deep breath and calm her emotions if necessary. I'm not saying you'll have to basically just give her Earth's values when it comes to emotions, absolutely not please don't do that, but for this particular plotline, I think it'd work.

Plus, if they wanted to, this also leaves a lot more room for a reversal of the decision. If editorial changed its mind, it would've been really easy to give Dick an arc of doing a bit of soul searching, proving he can stand on his own, and proving he can support Kori emotionally in this relationship, and Kori would likely be extremely happy to take him back because she really does love him to pieces. Again, maybe it's the dickkory bias, but I think it'd even be good for them, in the long term.

Of course, none of this fixes the fact that the Mirage plotline was a really shitty portrayal of sexual assault, but I feel like that's been discussed fairly well by fandom at this point (I mean, it's not mentioned that frequently, but it's well-discussed for a 30-year-old plotline and people seem to be aware of the problems with it), so I don't feel like I really have much to add to that discussion. By contrast, whenever this arc comes up, I rarely see people mentioning how OOC Kori was, and they even sometimes use it to bash her/dickkory in general, so I felt like it was worth discussing on that angle.

[zeta-in-de-walls]

Apologia about the Villains from the DreamSMP (ie Dream, Wilbur, Technoblade- HELL EVEN Schlatt!) absolutely fascinates me! It's fun trying to differentiate between a Fan's Bias for their favorite Creator or genuinely believing the Character is in the right! Also how a Fan's Personal Interpretation of Character can make them unable/unwilling to see another perspective!

Oh I know! Pretty much every character is sympathetic from their own perspective and if you see another character from their perspective, you can get an entirely warped view of them. Like personally I practically only watch Tommy so I feel like I’ve never seen a likeable Punz moment because those two have somehow never interacted positively in the 6 months they’ve lived next to each other on the server. 

It’s especially prominent with the streamers who love the roleplaying as they will really embrace their character. The butcher’s army are being viewed very negatively right now for attacking Technoblade but, like, from their perspective, he’s a war criminal who could attack again at any time (and every day they ignore him, his arsenal grows larger and more threatening), and putting Philza under house arrest for a week really isn’t that bad when he’s actively protecting a wanted man. Are they really attacking first, or did Techno not attack first when he sent withers on their land? Surely it’d be bad to let it go without repercussions? Also they’re not just a collective - this wasn’t Tubbo’s plan, it was all Quackity.  But you can view things in a completely different light too - it’s not hard. The server’s been this way since the original L’Manburg war where the fandom was quite divided between L’Manburg loyalists like myself and other people who wanted the Dream SMP to win. 

And yeah, with the headcanon thing I definitely know I have my own way of viewing certain characters that fit how I see them but another person will have a very different interpretation to explain their behaviour and motivations. It’s annoying when canon later contradicts them - I confess that Wilbur’s finale really messed with the way I view him and his relationship with Tommy because I always saw Tommy as one of the things he really cared about but his making Tommy the President just to blow it up on him was such a spiteful action that I really had to rethink how much Wilbur’s character must have despised Tommy at the end and where it all fell apart. 

Err, sorry I’m rambling. xD Yeah the point is I do love how the fandom has such wildly different character interpretations because of how you can view the SMP from so many different perspectives. Techno fans kinda stick out for me, I think. And sometimes it is very illuminating to watch the same event through another perspective and see it in a different light. 

[jeremys-blogs]

Shin and King: Godzilla’s Two Halves

My time as a fan of the Godzilla franchise goes way back, to some of my earliest memories. I recall watching reruns of the old Hanna Barbera cartoon with my younger brother, and from then on I was hooked. I saw the 1997 film in theatres, as well as the subsequent spin-off animated show, and virtually every other piece of Godzilla media that I've stumbled across, be it VHS copies of the classic Japanese films or even newer films, I've attempted to see. Bottom line, I love the guy, and as such you can bet I was hyped as Hell for the recent King of the Monsters film by Legendary. And sure enough, the movie didn't disappoint me. As someone who grew up hoping there would one day be an all-out monster mash of a film with the G-Man and all his classic fellow kaiju, it was a dream come true. And with Godzilla vs Kong on the horizon, it looks as though my childhood fantasies of seeing these larger-than-life characters in exactly the way I'd always imagined them to be isn't going to be ending anytime soon. However, while big spectacles are all well and good, we mustn't forget that this kind of exciting portrayal isn't how the big guy started out, as his origins are, to be frank, pretty sobering.

Because of course this most famous of kaiju was created not to excite youngsters with epic battles against other monsters, but as a grim and serous allegory for the horrors of nuclear power gone wrong. And of course who better to make such an allegory than the nation who, for now at least, are the only ones to have ever been on the receiving end of it? But, as you can probably expect of such a dark origin, that kind of depressing idea doesn't exactly put bums in seats, even as highly-regarded as it was, which is likely why so few of it's sequels and remakes have ever touched on it. Those latter films, while certainly more entertaining and popular, have never managed to really capture just how terrifying Godzilla is supposed to be. That is, until 2016, when Toho Studios released Shin Godzilla. This film, essentially a modern remake of the original, brings Godzilla back to his roots in making him a symbol of a horror the Japanese people have personally experienced, those being the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. Like the original, Shin Godzilla is a powerful and serious film, making it abundantly clear just how bad things got for the people who had to deal with the tragedies this monster represents.

However, even though I greatly respect Shin and consider it among the best Godzilla films I've ever seen, something interesting occurred to me as I was watching it. Because while it's true that it does a fantastic job of recreating everything that made the original movie great, as well as ably putting a modern spin on it, there's no getting around the fact that the majority of Godzilla films are worlds apart from the grim and gritty ancestor they all shared. That's not to say either type of film is bad by any stretch, but Shin is, sadly, not going to win many fans among those whose only interest in Godzilla comes from him being a hero who helps humanity defend itself against other kaiju. For those fans, it's pretty clear that the American film, King of the Monsters, is much more their cup of tea. And as stated previously, I adore that film. In fact, I'd consider it my personal favourite film of 2019. And thus we get to the main point I wanted to talk about. Shin and King are polar opposites in their respective tones and goals, yet both of them are made out of a love of Godzilla, the only contention being the kinds of Godzilla films they have a love for.

Take these two films together, back-to-back, and what you're essentially left with is a perfect capsule of the Godzilla franchise as a whole, and more importantly, a good look at the two sides this character has shown during his sixty-year-plus history. On one hand we have Shin, which honours the origins of the character by making him a danger to the world as a whole, with humanity just barely scraping by a victory against the destructive terror that he symbolizes. And on the other, we have King, which puts Godzilla in the role of a heroic saviour. Still dangerous and destructive, sure, but nevertheless on our side against a greater danger than himself. Evil and good, destruction and salvation, villain and hero. Godzilla has, over his exceptionally long film and TV career, has been all of these things and more. He's been a face for the terrible things wrought by humanity's own hand that we must overcome, and he's been a defender against a variety of other and more malevolent forces. Shin and king together are Godzilla, in his entirety, and all he weight and spectacle and meaning that come with him. And when you look back, no other movie monster has ever managed to have that kind of narrative weight behind him, even though there are likely many other household creature names out there.

It almost seems nonsensical when you stop and think about it, doesn't it? That a single character can have such wildly different interpretations yet still be thought of as the same person. And it's especially impressive when you consider that there's hardly any other characters in fiction that you could do this with. If one were to, for instance, take the Emperor from Star Wars and turn him into a goodie, or take Gandalf from Lord of the Rings and make him into a baddie, people would rightly call you out on that choice because it would go against everything that their characters are and what role they're supposed to serve in their story. But Godzilla? With him you can have a champion of humanity, an abomination wrought by people's misuse of scientific power, or anything in-between and nobody would bat an eye. It's a versatility that most likely contributes to why the character has remained as popular as he has over the decades. Because with this kind of varied characterization there's literally no end to the kinds of stories you can tell with him. In many way's he's like the modern pop culture equivalent of a fantasy dragon. A beast who, over countless retellings of stories has a whole world of meaning and importance behind it.

But of course, as with any long-running franchise, there are the points of contention between different fans. To those who prefer the original Godzilla (and subsequently the films that try hardest to emulate it, like Shin) the more numerous movies that depict Godzilla as a kaiju-fighting antihero are often scoffed at, regarded as "not real Godzilla films" because they lack the seriousness that the character was originally conceived with. On the flipside, we have those who find great enjoyment with the other films, arguing that while they may not have the great and weighty allegory behind them they're still fun movies that have kept the name Godzilla popular throughout the latter half of the 20th century and beyond. Go to extremes and those same people will even say that, since those types of stories make up the bulk of Godzilla's appearances, that this should be considered the canonical interpretation of what a Godzilla film should be, with the serious original more of a case of early-installment weirdness. Needless to say, this viewpoint has not sat well with those who consider the original film as gospel to be help up on a plinth. Bottom line, there has been division between fans of this kaiju over whether the smarter or more fun outings are the objectively better versions, and like any audience dispute, its not likely to be an argument that'll end anytime soon.

But, speaking as someone who has had his fair share of experience with fandoms, this kind of division is something I just can't help but shrug my shoulders at. There's room in the world for multiple types of incarnation of the same character after all, and there's no reason to be at odds with one another over our film preferences, even though we may feel strongly over what truly counts as a better film. As for me personally, my love of both Shin and King should make it pretty clear by now that I absolutely adore both faces this character has had. Both the villain and the hero. Shin is a truly engaging and horrifying movie that had me glued to my seat from start to finish, and was rightly deserving of it's place as the winner of Best Picture of the Japanese Academy. King of the Monsters, by contrast, is just pure entertainment, bringing me a massive smile whenever the title character or one of his equally-famous fellow kaiju appeared on-screen. I said before that this was the kind of monster movie I'd always hoped for as a kid, and it didn't disappoint. Both films are tremendous regardless of what it is you're looking for, and both of them do brilliantly at holding up and honouring the legacy of cinema's most iconic giant beastie, and all the history that comes with him 🥰

[millennialzadr]

WHY I LOVE ZADR!!!

HEY GUYS WHASSUP? LMAO

So this is a whole ass giant long post of me absolutely spewing my feelings of love for ZADR, it was the very first thing I wrote when I made this blog and I think it’s a nice, positive thing for my fellow shippers to inhale and enjoy 👌👌

it was originally a reply to mitarashiart’s post about why HE loves ZADR (link in replies) but I decided to delete that and make my own post since MY WHOLE ENTIRE TEXT WALL WAS SHOWN IN THE REPLIES and drowned out anyone else who was trying to talk (thanks tumblr mobile u fuckin idiot)

I had also posted a summary of an AU that I’m working on in the original post, but decided to remove it since it just about doubled the length (I’m thinking about posting it separately along with the wips I’ve been putting together, we’ll see 👀)

But ANYWAY, here is about a million reasons why I think ZADR is the fucking best, so if you like reading gushy gay ship feelings, please enjoy ❤️❤️❤️

[Posted June 2019][WARNING, LONG ASS THOUGHT BARF]

SOOO, holy hell y’all my journey back into this fandom has been a wild and unique experience for me, i went from adding invader zim to my bookmarks on kisscartoon, rewatching the series, finding out theres a movie coming out, finding out there was a shitload of content i’d never seen before (commentaries, lost episode scripts and audios, panels, the COMIC, episodes i’d never seen because the dvd i used to watch was scratched!! and a FUCKLOAD of quality modern fan art like oh my GOD) and finally curiously googling ‘zadr’ (which i was way into when i was maybeee 13/14) to see if there was any interesting new art, and holy hell, mita (the artist above) singlehandedly THREW me down the hole into modern zadr hell, first with his absolutely stunning IZ art (all his art is dope tho check him out yo), then reading the above explanation put the final nail in the coffin like, 100%

so i wanted to add onto his post here on why this ship got me so fucked up, both for anyone who might be wondering why on earth i’m shipping two characters from a kid’s show (i’m very aware how weird that is at first glance trust me) and also so i can get some ideas down for possible future reference (will i ever draw them? maybe)

(first of all, a disclaimer, and this is not pleasant to write but it’s important to address for clarity’s sake: I have no interest in romantic or sexual relationships between minors, and do not ship zim and dib as they are presented canonically in the show (as children). what i’m interested in is the conceptualized relationship they may have as modern adults, and i view zadr more as taking the concepts of existing characters and experimenting with them with different interpretations, which i personally think is a constructive and fun creative outlet, especially if these characters hold personal significance for you (childhood faves of course). growing up together is an important facet of their relationship, and certainly they were important to each other even as children (see: mopiness of doom) but as an adult i’m personally curious about what kind of adults they might’ve become, and that’s the focus of my interest. i’ll still be reblogging regular IZ art because it’s dope but if you see shippy looking art of them as tiny lil beans its either friendship or chibis (and i personally headcanon zim as getting taller with dib but some people stick with his canonical height when drawing them as adults, which is super short. it still doesn’t mean he’s a kid). aaand i wish i didnt have to write this and it would just be obvious but we live in a sick sad world and it is sourced from a children’s cartoon so i feel its necessary. end of disclaimer)

NOW THAT THAT’S OUT OF THE WAY

- ok, first reason’s a bit obvious - the nostalgia. holy hell, the feeling of rediscovering a ship that was popular when i was a preteen during the mid 2000s and discovering a totally new perspective on it as an adult comes with an almost totally overwhelming sense of nostalgia and comfort, as well as inspiration!! the kind of art that seems so common for zadr, these sketch pages of scenes and expressions and visual gags where artists would just scribble every idea they had and LOVE doing it, this was exactly the kind of art that made me so passionate about drawing as a kid, and it still sparks such a powerful feeling of love and admiration for me to this day. fan content of iz and zadr is simultaneously achingly familiar and totally new and fascinating, and it just makes me SO damn happy to consume, it is most definitely my new comfort content. and just, GOD. THE ART!! SO GOOD. FUCK

- now for the characters themselves: for some reason i just really love the thought of a mid twenties, modern Dib?? lanky goth dork, disaster bi, depressed as shit, uses bad sweaters and memes to cope?? when i was a kid i didn’t even LIKE Dib, but now i totally sympathize with him! he’s just a hyper obsessive nerd wishing there was more to life than the situation he got stuck with, how wildly relatable. he was a pretty big asshole as a kid (even to people besides zim) but he was also totally isolated and constantly bullied, so there’s a lot of room for growth. i feel there’s a lot of juicy character development potential for that boy, and there’s always been a special place in my heart for characters who are totally sad and screwed and hopeless, but there’s one thing, or person, that means the world to them and could possibly save them…

- aliens. Zim. i love nonhuman characters, i love monsters, i love aliens, i love characters that don’t understand human shit (and thus have much less room for shame or fear bc theyre just totally oblivious the negatives of modern society) and need guidance (bonding!!) from their human. i also love morally grey characters and characters with skewed logic, they’re always really interesting, and Zim himself just has such a unique personality and set of mannerisms, he contradicts himself a lot and you can never quite expect how he’ll behave, and i love that in a character, it makes them super versatile and fun, especially since there’s so many different possibilities for their development. Also, Zim is a gremlin, a little shit, and a disaster. I also love those traits in a character. And don’t even get me started on his character design?? big sparkly eyes? expressive antennae? monster teeth? complimenting colors? he’s adorable.

- mutual obsession. for someone like Dib, who seems almost repulsed by how boring and slow the people around him are, Zim quite literally personifies Dib’s  escapist fantasies, both as an inhuman entity from beyond the stars, and as a person who’s knowledge, charisma and mystery far exceeds that of anyone Dib has met in his entire life. (so basically what i’m saying is that for a shunned, jaded misanthropist, an actual alien is terribly alluring, even if said alien is dangerous, stupid, and possibly insane). not to mention Zim vindicates Dib’s entire life passion, the supernatural! Even when their relationship is totally negative, there is not a single inch of room for Dib to get tired of Zim. as mita explained, they validate each other. for Zim, WHO AGAIN, IS TOTALLY SHUNNED, ISOLATED, AND HATED BY EVERYONE HE KNOWS, Dib is the only person in the universe who gives a single shit about him!! he gives Zim credit as a threat, a capable invader, which if you ask me is the sole thing Zim is after (he’s hellbent on his mission because it would win him the approval of the tallest, all he’s ever wanted is recognition from the people he thinks so highly of). He literally gets depressed when Dib isn’t around to pay attention to him, not even the tallest were enough to motivate him before Dib came back. these two have no one and nothing without each other, and while lifelong nemeses is fine and dandy, i personally prefer friendship, affection and love, cause i’m a softie like that. how could they possibly get there after years of actively trying to kill each other?? well, i think under just the right circumstances it could become a possibility after a long, long time.

- growth. i. love. me. some. good. character growth. especially for characters with trauma/mental illness, bc again, relatable. these boys have issues, and as mita mentioned, their canon stories are actually INCREDIBLY sad! but the happy thought is, they could recover! they could help each other recover, for little reason other than the two are the only source of happiness for each other. now of course this also opens the gate for angst lovers, but at the same time offers potential for comforting, uplifting content of the boys supporting and inspiring each other, maybe even to the point of becoming happy and healthy enough to create the lives they want for themselves (as in appreciating life and doing things that make them actually happy instead of the delusions of grandeur they both sought when they were younger). gimme that positive shit and let the poor beans be happy  щ(ಠ益ಠщ)

- LITTLE THINGS. LITTLE THINGS THAT ONLY COME WITH CHILDHOOD FRIENDS. WITH HUMAN/NONHUMAN. WITH THE SHOW’S WEIRD LOGIC. Zim being the person Dib knows best and vice versa. Zim having an involuntary respect/admiration for Dib because he’s tall. Learning each other’s needs, limits, and communication methods, both emotionally and biologically. Sensitive antennae. Affectionate bickering. Being less insecure bc your partner literally has no idea why you see your flaws as flaws. Laughing at the flaws they do notice because they make no sense. Zim only wanting to eat waffles and chow mein. Dib being forced to overcome his depression lethargy and stay hygienic/keep the apartment clean because Zim has a sharper sense of smell and is afraid of germs. Endless conversation about anything and everything because they’re from literally different worlds, and endless intrigue. TOUCHING. TALKING. DOING EVERYTHING LIKE ITS THE VERY FIRST TIME AND ALWAYS NEEDING THE OTHER TO GUIDE THEM. HOLY HELL THERE IS SO MUCH POSSIBILITY FOR TINY LITTLE MOMENTS THAT MEAN THE WORLD. FUCK. GOT ME FUCKED UP.

so that wraps up the why. fuck man. its just such a good ship. if you read this big ass text post, thank you for indulging me, i hope you enjoyed it! because i enjoy it very much 👀 so stick around if you’d like to for a shit load of IZ and zadr content on this blog, possibly (MAYBE) even from me!! come roll around in alien hell with me why dontcha ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ its a fun time! thanks for reading!!!

-

SO THAT’S MY MANIFESTO Y’ALL, FEEL FREE TO REPLY WITH YOUR OWN REASONS!! I WOULD LOVE FOR THIS POST TO JUST BECOME A BIG GIANT PILE OF LOVE AND YELLING!! GO NUTS! SCREAM ABOUT IT! INFODUMP! DO WHATEVER YOU WANT! I’LL READ EVERY LAST REPLY! Y’ALL DESERVE TO ENJOY YOUR SHIP BC IT’S LITERALLY THE FUCKING BEST!!! LOVE Y’ALL!!!!!!

[jurornumber59]

A Very Long Rant that you do not want to read.

I am always incredibly wary of reading a new fic, because I have an almost pathological need to finish what I start to get that sense of completion. Unfortunately, this comes in to play even if the fic turns out to be poorly written, with wildly OOC renderings of the characters. 

(I get everyone’s interpretation is different and some characters can be more ambiguous than others and also that you’re allowed to subvert tropes/make dark versions of characters/imagine a world where the critical thing that made-them-who-they-are never happened, but if you’re going to do that, you have to at least demonstrate that you understand what you’re subverting in the first place and my problem comes when these fic writers very clearly show they have neither the skill nor the comprehension to execute it effectively)

It’s why I avoid WIPs entirely, because I got burned being left hanging by abandoned fics so many times over the years. It’s why I am so specific about filtering out things I’m not interested in, not because I fear being upset or triggered, but because I know certain things in certain fandoms often means an interpretation that doesn’t reflect any sense that the writer understands the characters at all which just wrecks my head. 

I really, really try to be very live and let live about it. I know my tastes are my own and if I don’t like something, I’m not going to attack a writer for it. And besides, other people may love it so what’s the big deal, it’s fic. It’s supposed to be enjoyable. I don’t like certain themes, I don’t like feeling like I’m being lectured by the purity police so I fucking curate the shit out of my experience.

However, it means I’ve got a bit conservative in my old age. I often return to favs again and again rather than try something new. I stick with fandoms I know and love because I’m familiar with the places/themes to avoid, rather than starting a new fandom where the territory is uncharted. But some fandoms are getting old and the new stuff is thin on the ground, or maybe the fandom is smaller and I’ve run out of options so I’m having to think about lowering my standards to open up to fic that I hadn’t tried before so things get precarious. Most of the time, if it’s sometihing that bothers me, I catch it quickly, before I get invested and slam that back button. Make a little note for myself, ‘avoid that’, no harm done. But I don’t always succeed, and that’s where that pathological need to finish what I start becomes A Problem.

So of course I am currently stuck reading an abosolutely GARBAGE 100K fic right now, that’s one of the top kudos rated fics for the fandom. It had a couple of what I would call personal ‘red flags’ (well, let’s not be dramatic, maybe orange flags... ones that make me go hmmm), but I reasoned, it’s got this many kudos for a reason... Oh I was wrong. It is a tyre fire. Look, I’m not one of those antis that requires everything to be morally pure, and if there is sketchy behaviour, it doesn’t have to labelled as Teh Pyoor Ebil and the character rendered into an unrecognisable caricature-ish cartoon villain so that we ALL KNOW THIS IS BAD. Things are allowed to be morally grey, it’s more interesting for me personally that way.

BUT FOR THE LOVE OF JEEZY CHREEZY not to have the character acknowledge when obvious emotional AND physical abuse is being done to them, particularly if the source material has that character point out that shit ALL the time just.... AAAAhhhh. This is just BAD WRITING. What I’m reading is just bad writing. You have fundamentaly misunderstood the MO of this character. Think, Steve Rogers is now a Nazi, goes hard for Vladimir Putin, thinking of renaming himsef Captain Russia, and thinks it’s okay for the strong to pick on the weak and disenfranchised. Like, that’s how wrong this fic has gone on these characters.

What I am reading at the moment is like the Twilight version of this fandom. This is me screaming at Stephanie Meyer’s abomination again ‘BELLA HE TOOK YOUR CAR ENGINE APART TO CONTROL WHO YOU’RE ALLOWED TO SEE THAT IS NOT LOVE IT’S ABUSE’ before throwing the book across the room.  Reading the comments to this fic made me thump my bed so hard I pulled a muscle in frustration. Also there is a nauseating cis-hets cure transphobia/homophobia moment. This person has subsumed everything that made these characters unique and instead replaced them with text from a tumblr teenaged-SJW, crowd-sourced LGBTQ+ resource page which offers no help but makes you wonder has anyone ever met another single human being in their lives. Meaningless faux-rep nonsense. Diversity in the way a committee of TV execs would understand diversity and representation, unreflective of actual real people with sometimes messy lives.

And then, NOTHING HAS BEEN HAPPENING FOR 10 CHAPTERS. This bloated bag of shite reads like someone vomited their first pop-psych lecture notes onto the page and tried to novelize it with the faces of [insert shipt name] but like a bad knock-off version of these characters with the serial numbers filed off so they coud be anybody.

AND I AM STILL READING THIS SHIT BECAUSE I AM SICK IN THE FUCKING HEAD.

[philosopherking1887]

I wonder what you mean with "Loki’s Jewish-coding". Loki is a Norse god, of Scandinavian origin, not Jewish/middle-eastern. I hope I just misunderstood your fandom tropes because making him a Jew all of a sudden seems extremely weird. Scandinavians can also have VERY curly hair and straighten it because we don't like it.

Um… I’m sort of confused by the assumption that I’m an idiot that seems to be underlying this question. Pretty clearly, I hope, I was talking about Marvel’s Loki, not the original Loki of Norse myth. In fact, in the post you’re talking about, I referred to it as “[MCU] Loki’s Jewish-coding.” The reason “MCU” is in brackets is that I didn’t want to exclude the Loki of the classic Marvel comics—who, I think I recall @fuckyeahrichardiii​ telling me, is even more intensely and problematically Jewish-coded than MCU Loki. I read and write fanfiction about MCU Loki primarily; writers do draw on the myths that inspired the comics and films, but for the most part the more recent fictional representations are the basis.

Because I am not an idiot, I do know that Loki is a Norse god of Scandinavian origin, and it would be absurd to claim that the Loki of myth has Jewish or Middle Eastern characteristics. I have read, in connection with the controversy about the origin of Loki’s name, that he may be a holdover from an earlier, perhaps pre-Indo-European pantheon that was replaced by the Norse one. The Jotnar in Norse myth, like the Titans of Greek myth, do seem to play the role of “old gods” that might represent the gods of the pre-Indo-European populations that were conquered and/or displaced by Indo-European settlers just as the Jotnar/Titans are conquered and displaced by the Aesir/Olympians. Loki is unusual in being a Jotun who is accepted into the community of the Aesir – perhaps an older native god being borrowed into the invaders’ religion? So Loki is already an Other, an outsider relative to the rest of the Norse pantheon.

Despite the fact that Marvel was using Norse gods as the basis for their Asgardian characters, the comics originated in 20th-century America, which was, ineluctably, subject to a number of other cultural influences. Mainstream American culture has been primarily shaped by Christian European culture, and the Other par excellence of Christian Europe has always been the Jew. In European culture, Jewish men have been feminized and, especially around the turn of the 20th century, have been compared to or associated with gay men in light of their shared status as outsiders, as an alien and inscrutable Other, and presumed untrustworthiness. (This is brought out in an especially poignant way by Marcel Proust, a gay man and the son of a Jewish woman, in In Search of Lost Time, particularly in his treatment of the Dreyfus Affair, which was THE political event of the 1890s and left a deep scar on French society that still hadn’t healed when Proust’s books were published 20-30 years later.)

Marvel’s Loki hits many of the points associated with the figure of the Jew in European culture. He is the eternal foreigner in Asgard, his loyalties constantly in question. He is portrayed as sly and manipulative, always pulling strings from behind the scenes, forever plotting to take power from the rightful rulers of Asgard. He does tend to be queer- or feminine-coded, which on its own isn’t necessarily evidence of Jewish-coding, but reinforces the rest of the image. Aside from having dark hair while most Asgardians are blond/golden-haired—a standard trope for emphasizing the “Oriental” origins of European Jews, though many (like myself) are blond or (like my mother and grandmother) red-haired—the Loki of the classic comics also tends to have a hooked nose. (Which is pretty common among cartoon villains, especially sly and conniving ones…)

I first became aware of the implicit Jewish-coding of MCU Loki—which might have been unintentional, or just a consequence of the adaptation from the comics—when I happened across a couple of videos setting footage from Thor and The Avengers to songs from The Prince of Egypt, including “All I Ever Wanted” and “The Plagues.” I realized that Loki’s position as member of a foreign enemy group, rescued from death as a baby and raised, in ignorance of his heritage, as the second prince of the society that conquered the society of his origin, was very similar to that of Moses in The Prince of Egypt. (That movie doesn’t adhere exactly to Moses’s story in Exodus; Moses did actually know where he came from because his sister Miriam volunteered his birth mother as a wet nurse for him. But then, in some versions of the comics, Loki does know that he’s either adopted or Odin’s bastard, so that doesn’t necessarily spoil the parallel.) Then I noticed some of the other characteristics that set Loki apart from Asgardian society at large and his adoptive family in particular… I actually had Loki comment on it in my first Thorki fic, Desert Flowers, which takes place after Loki visits Berlin in the 1920s. (I doubt Antagonistic Anon will care, but some of my other followers might be interested.) It’s easiest for me just to quote that passage. Here Loki is explaining Midgardian racism, including antisemitism, to Thor:

“There are a few characteristic physical traits, though they’re not consistent. Long, arched nose; dark curly hair.” Loki stopped short, his lips pressed tightly together. “In general, they don’t look any more different from other Europeans than I do from you,” he forced himself to say good-humoredly. “In fact, I was given rather shoddy service at a few restaurants—and even turned away from one inn that I was certain still had vacancies—which was very puzzling until I realized that they thought I was Jewish… a member of this group, I mean.”

“Huh,” said Thor disgustedly […]

Loki cleared his throat. “At any rate,” he continued, “the animus toward them centers on their supposed character: greedy, ambitious, deceitful; physically weak, but clever and devious enough to gain power through indirect means.” Me again. Too interested in scholarly pursuits, not enough in manly physical activities; prone to neurosis. All too quickly, the list of antisemitic stereotypes that he had heard tossed around in Berlin had turned into a catalogue of Loki’s own inadequacies. While Thor is the very embodiment of the ‘Aryan ideal.’

Pretty obviously MCU Loki’s hair is naturally curly because Tom Hiddleston’s hair is naturally curly and they can’t always keep it under control. But in combination with its unusual color, the unusual texture and his apparently intense desire to slick it into submission spoke to me. I’ve struggled with the frizzy texture of my own hair, and a lot of other Jews I know try to tame it in various ways, while others go natural and embrace the “Jew-fro.” I’m sure Scandinavian people can have curly hair, and I’m not ruling out an interpretation of Loki’s dislike of his curly hair that has nothing at all to do with his status as Other. But for me it just fits in with everything else that I’ve mentioned.

Jeez, I kind of can’t believe I wrote that much in response to what clearly was not a friendly question. I’m honestly kind of puzzled as to why Anon was so bothered by an offhand comment about Loki being Jewish-coded. (Like, is there a problem with Jews “appropriating” Scandinavian culture…? Don’t worry, folks, Jews have absolutely no interest in replacing you.) Actually, this is the second hostile anonymous “question” I’ve received in the past two weeks, both with decently good grammar (unusual for anon hate) but premised on a wildly uncharitable, deliberately obtuse interpretation of something I wrote (my response to the first is here). If the second didn’t regard a pretty widely shared post of mine, I might suspect a single unfriendly blog-stalker. This is kind of weird, since I never used to get obnoxious anonymous comments; I guess the cost of gradually increasing exposure is assholes.

@darklittlestories, @incredifishface, I thought you might find this whole thing mildly entertaining… Oh, and @andreashwood, because you're a "Prince of Egypt" fan.

[pinchtheprincess]

@0ceanofdarkness said: 

. . . [a blogger would] post about how unhappy she was with this or that scene and how it played out onscreen until sometime the following Monday when she managed to rationalize whatever she didn’t like into some idealized fantasy about what had actually happened and then she gushed just as enthusiastically about how beautiful & full of meaning it all was.

Do you have any idea how many Rumbellers I’ve seen do this very thing? I’ve been struggling to put this into words. I wish I could go back and track it all. It’s incredible, how some will talk it out and wrangle and twist scenes and dialogue to justify them, until they can accept them. Someone makes up their take on it, 95% of it headcanon or hogwash (or a combination), and people glom onto their post and run with it, developing it further, until it becomes solidified in a group of minds. (And if you subscribe to the bandwagon fallacy, then, the more minds in agreement means something is “right”.) 

[I put the rest under a ‘Read More’ -- I wasn’t thinking about people on the mobile app, sorry.]

That much work to rationalize canon shouldn’t have to be done, but if you wish to, so be it. You do you. However, people should NOT be critical of others who don’t want to, or just can’t do that. Personally, that much cognitive dissonance hurts my brain. I get enough headaches without turning my straightforward thinking paths into a pretzel. I’m willing to entertain other interpretations, but if they don’t fit with what I saw and heard, I can’t fool myself into thinking that’s the “right way” to view the material. I’m fine with other interpretations of the source material, as long as it doesn’t veer too far off the path of realistic interpretation. My interpretation is filtered through my life experiences and emotions about them, just like yours is. I understand that and accept it.   

But this certain segment---the ones who block others in their own fandom---they get their minds set, and it becomes orthodoxy, the only way to view the material if you’re “positive”. If you’re part of the “they’ve each made mistakes” crowd, they think they’re giving equal weight to each party in the relationship, professing to be impartial. But they don’t dare be critical of Belle, the pure and precious Belle, or if they do, they mention something completely minor, but overrun it with overwrought shock and horror about Rumplestiltskin’s actions, with the same sort of rhetoric we’ve been combating for years from the Hookers and from the haters who invade the tags.

When Rumbellers start thinking that they’re only being objective if they’re not anti-Belle, but are critical of Rumplestiltskin, how is that “objective”? How is that fair? They’ve been fans to this point, so they can accept his past, including murder, the Dark Curse, all of his machinations; but temporarily preventing Belle from leaving the ship---something done to protect her, when he knows Hyde is after her (actually Jekyll, but he didn’t know that), when she’s known for being quite reckless, and has no magic---is unforgivable? You cannot give equal weight to Belle’s actions and Rumple’s actions.

Oh, but he lied to her! Granted. That was fairly recent, too. He did confess about being the Dark One when he saw her next. And the next bit is vital. In that scene (5x16), when he came clean, he offered her everything he could, everything he thought was important: Family. Happiness. All he was asking for was acceptance of him, the way he was. He had become a better man than the one she fell in love with years ago. He was trying to tell her he was a better man than the one she had banished, too. She initially rejected this offer, because of the Darkness.

After that, last we heard, she loved him* and trusted him to fix the situation they were in (5x17 & 5x18). Unfortunately, his attempt at True Love’s Kiss failed (5x20). And that was the Underworld. Think about it: If the kiss would have broken the sleeping curse and his curse, he had to have been pretty confident he could find a way home without magic, or that they’d make it to that portal in time! He tries True Love’s kiss again (6x01), but she rejects him in the sleeping curse dreamworld. She doesn’t trust him enough. Gideon told her lies about the potential future, told her Rumple’s evil would tear apart their family, so, suddenly (it seemed to me), she decided to leave him for the good of their unborn child, which . . . tore apart their family.

Following that, each consecutive episode had her getting more angry, acting as if he was going to do something horrible, when she was getting her information second-and thirdhand. Belle was influenced to believe he might do something bad, so that his son wouldn’t love him, but she never questioned it. She didn’t question the dreamworld’s effects (filled with her regrets, and the affect those would have on her psyche), how her grown son could appear there, nor the paradox question: How can she avoid the outcome if it has already happened? 

Moreover, if Gideon was appearing there, saying this awful thing had happened, wouldn’t Rumple using the Shears of Fate, cutting him from this path, be a good thing? (Not that I’m suggesting altering his natural course and letting him make his own choices wouldn’t be better. I do not believe in Fate, anyway. Free Will is what we all have. We are not puppets.) I’m glad that Rumple did not do this thing; I’m just pointing out what I see are the flaws in her thought processes. 

Once back in Storybrooke, Belle kept pulling away, cutting Rumple off from anything to do with her pregnancy, when she knows how much children mean to him. Then, making plans to escape to another realm?! With those plans, that cuff allowing him to know her location is entirely justified. We are talking kidnapping vs. protection. These things are not equal. If I knew my spouse were going to kidnap my child, I’d be the rampaging Angel of Death! If you twist this because he’s the father and not the mother, that’s sexist as hell. (But this faction of the fandom don’t say those words, because they know this.) Rumplestiltskin loves children and family has been his prime motivation since the beginning. If you know his character, then, you know that.

I realize I probably won’t convince anyone to change their minds about the situation. I guess what I’m saying is that, for most people, impartiality is a dream. If you can’t accept that most fans are going to fall into one fictional character’s camp or another, Belle’s or Rumple’s, without making these fans out to be monsters, in your head, then I’m glad you blocked me. But why isn’t blocking people enough for you? I’m not a “horrible person”. I’ve never sent anon hate. I’ve never advocated people attack anyone. It’s a stupid, campy frickin’ TV show, which I wouldn’t be watching any longer if I didn’t love Robert Carlyle and hadn’t fallen in love with (earlier) Rumbelle, OUAT’s vision of Beauty and the Beast. Rather than shitting on a bunch of REAL PEOPLE who see things differently than you do, calling them names, WILDLY misrepresenting what they’ve said (you should know who you are), making snide insinuations about their ages, ::cough:: why don’t YOU do something good within the fandom? Help create Pax Rumbelle.

Or just, turn on some music or go for a walk.

* If that can be read as something more than a trick.