#i sometimes talk like i didn't have any representation on tv. i did. just not the best.

[fancy-fangs]

I have now finished "I saw the TV glow" and will leave my thoughts about it because uhh that's why

(obviously spoilers for I saw the TV glow below the cut)

(TLDR: it wasn't what I expected but I still enjoyed it and found the story very interesting)

First of all some general stuff.

I love like most movies A24 produces they're always a joy to watch for me, so I had high hopes and they didn't disappoint. It was obviously very A24 but I think they did a good job with the movie in general.

I enjoyed all the shots and I thought the lighting was super cool and worked very well for the general mood of the movie. Again very A24 but the scenes were set up in a super captivating way.

Didn't expect to see justice Smith as the main character in this, I feel like he's been stalking me since the Quarry but honestly he's a great actor so I'm not complaining. Just didn't see him in any of the promo stuff so I was surprised to see him again lol.

I found the breaking of the fourth wall super interesting. It was a very surprising element to me but it worked super well with the themes and it brought a meta element to the storytelling that was super interesting in context of the rest of the story.

Now onto the stuff everyone actually wants to hear:

I actually thought the storyline was super interesting. It had a very slow buildup and it took a while to get like anywhere but I think that works perfectly with the themes of the movie and where it ends. I understand why this made it rough to watch for some ppl tho.

A lot of that beginning gave a sort of uncertain and almost uncomfortable vibe, which again I think worked great but I understand why someone wouldn't like that. Personally a great buildup to the later story tho.

Now I'll be real, I didn't quite understand the aggressive trans themes everyone was putting on the story until like after they were at the football field and Maggie tried to convince Owen to bury themselves together. Like I understood the story obviously and I got some hints but I didn't get for most of it how it was meant to be so much Abt being trans.

Once it hit it hit tho, like once Owen talked about it and once you were confronted with it more it hit and I think it worked really well and was super interesting.

It definitely wasn't what I expected it to be and that makes it even cooler in my opinion. I was slightly worried it would just be a movie about a trans kid and then they figure themselves out and yippee. A part of me was glad it wasn't that.

Because - and now this goes into the actual theme - but I feel like so rarely there's a point made out of "okay but you will have to kill who you are to become the person you're meant to be". Most of the time in pop culture when there's trans representation it's still "oh this is great and awesome you're gonna become awesome and you're life is gonna be great and nothing will change that you don't want to change" which I get but it's also not really how it works.

I thought it was super refreshing as a theme to talk about how yes sometimes you have to kill the person you have been all your life and it's scary and awful and you obviously don't want that but you have to if you don't want it to forcefully kill you in the future.

Obviously it's in the themes and the subtext and the interpretation and there's gonna be a lot of (especially non queer) people who won't get that from that movie and that's okay. I wouldn't be mad at someone if they didn't pick up on that. But to me it was super interesting and I thought it conveyed a lot.

Now still, and maybe this train will hit in the next hour or tomorrow or whatever, but it didn't make me feel any sort of big emotion. Like for me personally, I have been dealing with this for two years, this isn't a new conflict for me. This isn't some realization of something new that sent me down an emotional spiral. And that's okay but I just didn't sit there crying sobbing like some people said they did.

I thought the ending of the movie was really interesting and gave the viewer a great moment of reflection. I really liked how sudden it was and how cut off it felt. Both in story and with the themes that just worked super well and like I said I feel like that gave an extra push to the viewer emotionally.

[olderthannetfic]

The whole bookmarks conversation reminds me of the authors of massive crossover fic With Pearl And Ruby Glowing, who have been known to lash out at anyone and everyone who criticize them, even if you did it in a private server where it was never intended to get back to them, even if you only mildly disliked one chapter, even if you were a massive fan but wished they'd used intersexism instead of going "what's the word for this? interphobia?" and then deleting all comments stating "it's intersexism". Mention them on a locked Dreamwidth entry that duckduckgo search results will show them part of? They're going to contact you and they're going to be furious.

Sometimes, not everyone is going to love your work. You cannot try to ban them from expressing that opinion in private to others. Yes, even if you're "famous" author who has a whole TV Tropes page for your work. You are within your rights to not want to be insulted to your face outright in vitriolic ways unrelated to your work, such as people who slam them for being queer writers. But not wanting that being a relatable, reasonable thing to feel does not mean that everyone has to say your work is good even in private, that people who comment on the fact that there's been more blonde black people than Arab people in your work even though you say you care about representation are haters who shouldn't be allowed to speak, or that if you ask what a word is and get told what the word is then that's hate that needs to be deleted and just for that we're going to screen all comments you meanies.

I've gotten some really nasty intersexist, antisemitic and outright violent comments on my work in the past. I delete the garbage and report the comments that threaten physical violence against me. The result is that people who like my work feel like they can approach me and say hi and chat in my comments or to others. Meanwhile, despite having a ton of hits, almost no one comments on With Pearl and Ruby Glowing and hardly any discussion of it off of AO3 because no one is in the mood to be yelled at for answering a question the author asked or for saying you didn't think a particular chapter was as well done as the others. When even "I loved the first 150 chapters except for number 44, I didn't get that completely" can be met with backlash, the readers start going, "I'll just not say anything and hopefully they won't get mad at me", a fandom dynamic that has resulted in less and less hits and less and less engagement as the story has gone along.

The best thing to do about angry bookmarks is to ignore it. People hate being treated as if they don't matter, thus it is your best possible revenge, because long after you've forgotten their annoying bookmark, you live rent-free in their head. Snapping back at even the lightest of criticism does not make for a fun experience for the reader. It makes me glad I didn't recommend the fic to anyone or comment and it likely to make me stop reading.

One of my fandoms is stubbornly refusing to move to AO3 and is still posting on FFN, for reasons I don't know and cannot explain. The result is that hate comments are still common. The standard response is to just ignore it. I feel much better about talking to those authors because I don't have to walk on eggshells around them in order to make sure I don't make them mad at me. As a result, I am much more likely to recommend their fic to others, because I don't have to worry I'm putting someone in the line of fire by doing so.

TL;DR can we all please learn some sense of proportion and that negative comments aren't worth burning the world to the ground over? Because in the process of burning things to the ground, you burn a good chunk of your audience in the process.

--

[fleamontsoleil]

Hello people!

My name's Kordian.

I'm a guy who fell in love with stories at a young age, and decided to make their life about them.

I’m a genderqueer, bisexual mess born on april 15th, which makes me:

an aries

using they/he pronouns,

coming from poland, 

speak polish, english and basic german, spanish, french and danish, which means i can wish you a happy birthday and order coffee, and also talk about the weather and describe my outfit, but i will not get into the depths of quantum physics. 

i’m also autistic.

more info lower!

Other random things about me:

i love writing

lemons, ginger, cinnamon, pears, pasta

i have a sweet tooth

i’m getting back into drawing and watercolour painting

i love flowers, my favourite one being a carnation

i’m basically 24/7 in headphones, music always on

i like learning new languages (if you haven’t figured that out yet)

i enjoy reading, watching movies and tv shows

i can play on ukulele and i’m getting better at guitar and bass

i love stickers and pins

kinda obsessed with angels and religious symbolism while being an atheist, idk how i did that

i can trauma dump without realising, sorry for that

i love sticking things to my walls

and also telling stories

travelling

coffee

chocolate

green

robin williams

On this blog, I reblog/post things related to writing and relatable things I see. Sometimes share a snippet of my writing or freak about an idea I'm having. I’m thinking about separating this side blog into two, one for fanfic (this one), and one for my original work (with my pen name) but idk. Maybe when I have more time.

What do I write?

I write mostly fiction and fantasy, usually gory.

I write things that are inspired by things I know. I have a great imagination, which sometimes is not so fun, but when I write it's really useful. I can sit in any place and make it into a story.

All my works include queer representation.

Some of my works might be graphic, but I will put trigger warnings before any of them.

My current works:

If it comes to longer WIPs, I am used to working on one/two at once, but giving it my whole attention for the time of writing. Even though I can read seven books at once, I can't write them at once.

I also write a lot of short stories, but I will not be listing them here.

"The Tangled Sun" (working title) - a fantasy novel (1st dratf) tag: wip : tts queer, pirates, magic

Fanfiction:

"Darksun" (working title) - a post apocalyptic novel(1st draft) tag: wip : darksun angels, queer, gore, horror

you can find me under cowboymorpheus on ao3

All of Us, Strangers - an AOUS deancas AU 24,095 words “How do you cope?” he asks. “With what?” “Listen?” he says, almost asks, and sticks the hand with the bottle up, one finger pointing at the ceiling. Dean doesn’t hear anything. The silence fills the entire space. “It’s so quiet,” he says, and his voice is slightly broken up, as if he’s mourning the sound that isn’t present. “The city’s out there, but we can’t hear a fucking thing.” Castiel leans even closer, as if he was about to tell Dean his deepest, darkest secret, and Dean backs away. His hand tightens on the doorknob. “I play music, but it’s worse when it ends. I even bought one of those white-noise machines. It’s like someone’s in the corner of the room, whispering about me. We can’t even open the windows, but I guess they don’t want us to jump.” he pauses for a while. “Bad for business. Broken bodies on the concrete. Who’s gonna move in then?” he asks, but he doesn’t expect an answer.

Dean Cas Big Bang fic - estimated word count 27k

-----

on the road - WHICH IS A WORKING TITLE - estimated word count is 60k After John dies, Dean has no more reasons to be trapped in his hometown. With the encouragement of his friends and family, he hits the road, where he meets new people and learns new things about himself, finally being able to explore himself as much as he always wanted to. Not having to hide, being able to just be his own person is something he didn't know he would ever be able to do. Little does he know, it's only the beginning of the good things to happen.

stained white roses - a darkfic basically

My other account is @cowboymorpheus. you'll probably find out some more on the intro post there. It's where I reblog and sometimes post fandom stuff, here it's just, I don't know. Writing, ao3 and the rest of random stuff like that.

That's pretty much all. Like I said, I'm open to new conversations, so don't hesitate to message me or send asks anytime. And I'm ask/tag game friendly!

Have a nice one!

[destinyc1020]

It's been more than two months since TCR premiered, I have watched every episode of that show at least twice. As someone who did not want to watch the show in first place cause of the subject ( mental health and drug abuse are not my thing so I avoid shows and movies about them). I watched the first 3 episodes when they first aired mostly because the of way critics dragged the show I was like "this show can not be that bad, I have to see for myself". But after those 3 episodes I dropped the show cause for the life of me I could not understand what the show was all about. But after all the episodes aired I picked it up again out of curiosity and was really into it. It personally think TCR all in all was a good show (any show that makes me rematch is an A+ in my book). People keep saying how they have or had issues with it but I dont think there was that much wrong with it, I mean other than the slow pacing of the first 4 episodes. The show was not perfect but then again what show is?

You can not tell me all those people on twitter using words like; amazing, excellent, best show I have seen in a while, best representation of DID, Compelling storytelling to describe TCR dont know what they are saying.

I saw a bunch of people on the bird app who said they were never fans of Tom, never understood the hype but have become his fans after watching TCR. Random Joes and Janes who had nothing but nice things to say about TCR.

If a show like Black Bird 🐦‍⬛ a show that after binge witching all six episode I was like "well that's six hours of my life I will never get back ( I mean talk about slow pacing), got all the the hype then what was so wrong with TCR? Honestly, I seriously don't understand.

Another thing, I have been to twitter and tiktok to see what people( the general puplic) are saying about TCR and I swear the most lukewarm reactions towards the show in my opinion is on tz tumblr.

Hey Anon! 😃

First off, I'm glad you were able to change your mind about TCR and came to appreciate it! Didn't I tell you? I KEEP telling people that sometimes you need to watch a film/tv series AGAIN to really actually appreciate and enjoy it. Idk why that happens, but that's actually happened to me...several times! I don't think the series was as bad as critics were saying either. Not in the least.

But anyway, I'm GLAD that many more who were not fans of Tom are now starting to see just how good of an actor he is, and how versatile he can be! 😃 I think that will only continue to happen the more roles he does OUTSIDE of Spider-Man (imo). I def think his FA biopic will be a game-changer for him, and I think the critics will finally come to see a new side to Tom. 😊

Sometimes, we just have to be PATIENT. Some films and even some actors aren't really truly appreciated until years later. Trust me... It happens ALL the time.

Re: Blac Bird... I never saw the series, but I know it did win some awards if I'm not mistaken. It stars my Taron Egerton lol, so I know I've been meaning to watch it ever since I saw it was nominated for a GG. I just haven't gotten around to it yet. But it was seriously THAT boring?? 👀

[gottaread2]

It's a bittersweet thing to see so many new people come into the Gotham fandom. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited to see it. Watching new fans fawn over the same characters, scenes, and relationships that excited me when I first watched the show is endlessly entertaining. Seeing them come up with new headcanons, new art, new fic, and other creative works and( keep the fandom alive fills me with joy. I love to see it!

It is a little bittersweet though. People coming into the fandom now are getting a very different experience of the show than I and other older fans had. They go through the story an accelerated pace. They don't know the agony of waiting and hoping because there is no time to fully feel that when you binge watch something. Nor of having their expectations heightened by advertising and teasing trailers. Even if anyone views them now, it still can't have the same effect it did waiting for next week's episode and having hopes dashed or waiting months for the next season only to find out the series was being cancelled prematurely and with less episodes than usual.

Even the context has changed. Gotham existed in the blurry time period where queer representation was still less common and less acceptable. It was still more revolutionary when a character was confirmed queer in canon than it is now. Now there seems to be an abundance of queer rep. If it didn't work out for one of your shows just find another one and move on.

I think I will always have a love/hate relationship with how Gotham handled it's queer characters. It feels weird to say it because it was only a tv show and I'm an adult who could have chosen to stop watching at any time, but sometime watching was genuinely painful. Not in the way that I was empathizing with characters or mourning a character's death. Those things are to be expected. The pain I'm talking of is in the representation of queerness. Some things the show got so right and other things felt like a kick in the face. Like a mockery to queer fans (I was far from the only person who felt this way back then).

This doesn't seem to be the experience for those coming in now. Whatever the reasons may be. It's good to see. I'm happy for them. But I'm also a little jealous. A little bittersweet. It makes me wonder what form the fandom will take next. Hopefully someday, if the fandom continues to survive, these new people will be the old. I wonder what that will look like.

[ben-talks-art]

Thought on Del Toro's Pinocchio

This... Was not what I expected...

Before I go on, just wanna say I am not a huge Pinocchio guy. I watched the Disney movie when I was a kid a very long time ago and watched that weird Pinocchio 3000 version once on TV as well, but I don't think either movie left that big of an impression on me overall.

I like and respect the idea of a story about showing kids the consequences of their actions and choices and trying to tell what it means to be a good person by showing how your decisions affect other people and how they also affect you as well.

But while I like the themes and ideas, I never really cared that much about the actual story and characters.

This version of Pinocchio though... It's somewhat the same thing for me. While I feel that this is a good movie with good ideas, messages, and a great style, I personally didn't feel that invested in it.

First of, I just want to clarify that I do mean it when I think this is a good movie.

I love the different messages it tries to tackle with Pinocchio and Geppeto.

With Pinocchio, the idea is to show what happens when a kid has to deal with no consequences for their actions. He can't get hurt, can't die, is never really that sad, and mostly has nothing to worry about or have any reason to worry about anything, so the struggle comes from how do you teach a kid about morality when he has no reason to care about it?

That is a very interesting problem to have and a very interesting thing to think about. I imagine parents watching this and thinking "How would I teach my kids the importance of right and wrong in that situation? How would I help Pinocchio grow and mature?"

Gepetto's struggle is also interesting as he feels like a representation of a parent who has forgotten how to parent. He's suddenly in custody of this kid he didn't ask for, while still mourning the loss of his first son, and while he's used to having a boy that follows everything he says, he has no idea how to raise a kid that follows nothing of what he says.

Again, I think about parents watching this and realizing that they might have expectations for what their kids might be and slowly realizing that these expectations may not be met. What if your kid is completely different from how you want them to be? Would you still be able to love them and raise them?

The themes of this movie are very fun to talk about and discuss and think how they relate to real life.

I also heard Del Toro wanted to pass a stronger idea of positive rebellion as Pinocchio is the kid that never obeys in a city that always obeys and how adults may sometimes act more like lifeless dolls than the actual lifeless doll.

That does sound interesting, although I'm not sure I'm a big fan of the message of "kids should disobey more." I rather have some sort of message about how kids should try to learn and explore more so they can know WHEN it's the right time to disobey, but I get the overall idea.

The big, big problem for me that did not work is... I just don't find the things that actually happen in the movie that fun.

A lot of the movie feels like people just talking to each other in mundane ways or Pinocchio just reacting to things in his usual "Oh, boy! What's that?" way, which for me, got tiring after a while.

For example, Pinocchio goes to the church very early in the movie and I was thinking "Oh, I wonder how this is gonna go!", but nothing major really happens. The people just get surprised with him a little and then he leaves.

Sometimes he will die and go to the afterlife... But mostly he just passes by and then goes back to the real world. He gets captured by a ringmaster... And mostly just does a few dances and sings a bit, and then gets out. He goes to a freaking fascist camp... And then he just leaves after a while.

So much just feels like Pinocchio goes to place "A", does some things, and then leaves. He doesn't really talk much to other characters, and when he does talk is not really that engaging, at least for me.

I just felt the scale of things was so small and the events that were happening were so slow and kinda boring.

Like, there is a moment where you think Pinocchio is gonna go to school (spoilers, he doesn't), and I was just thinking of the possibilities "Oh my God, how are the other kids gonna react? How will the teacher react? How are they gonna tackle the importance of proper education? How is he gonna interact with the other kids? Is he gonna feel outcasted? Is he gonna show how accepting he is of others?", and so on... But we never really do anything with it.

I guess the problem is mostly just me disappointed with the movie I thought I was gonna get instead of appreciating the movie I did get... But the events of the movie I did get just didn't really resonate with me. The themes and ideas I found interesting, but the actual things that happened I didn't really care much about.

But I do recognize that this isn't the movie's fault, this is just a preference problem.

I myself didn't like it much, but I do feel it's a good movie and one that's worth watching if only for the possible discussions it might bring.

[deanwasalwaysbi]

Thinking About How This Wasn't Actually a Denial

But was it self preservation?

The year was 2013 and rather than a denial, Jensen said "Don't ruin it for everybody now."

What was the fan 'ruining' for everybody? The Con? or something else? So if I was a tinhatter - and sometimes I am - I might think about other tv shows from the past that were covertly queer and how they handled the question, were TV shows 'out'?

Mainstream shows like Bewitched, you know, shows that are so clearly straight, you can tell because... well. ... they never technically used the word 'gay'. ... witches honor

SPN Film Studies is Back in Session! Join Under the Cut for more on supernatural & the story about how Bewitched! came out of the Broom Closet

Bewitched aired from 1964-72, it's so old the first season was in B&W. The show starred Elizabeth Montgomery as Samantha, the strange housewife with a stranger secret. Her husband, Darrin, unwittingly married into the whole witchy family, from the now drag icon Agnes Moorehead's Endora with her open marriage, to the unmarried and batty Aunt Clara (Marion Lorne who played the mother in Hitchcock's heavily gay coded 'Strangers on a Train'), to the extremely coded Uncle Arthur (gay actor Paul Lynde). (We can't know for sure, but it seems at least 4 members of the cast were gay themselves.) The core premise of the show involves Samantha balancing who she really is with repressing that self for the safety and comfort of her family.

Samantha and her husband keep her [ahem] 'queer' nature a secret which gets harder on Samantha when she has to tell her daughter to live the same way, “I know what fun it is to be a part of the magical life ... to have so much at your fingertips. But we’re living in a world that’s just not ready for people like us, and I’m afraid they may never be. So you’re going to have to learn when you can use your witchcraft and when you can’t.”

There are plenty of generic 60s wacky hijinks but there are also whole episodes metaphorically about repression being harmful, episodes where characters asked if another was a 'thespian', episodes where Darrin was queercoded while under a spell, episodes about representation & bad stereotyping in media, and even two episodes where witches discussed whether it was time for witches to come out to the mortals, (whether mortals could accept that they were just nice normal people trying to live their lives like everybody else - or not - and would just freak out and kill them again).

When it came time to recast Dick York's Darrin with a new 2nd lead, Elizabeth and her husband, William Asher, knowingly cast the gay Dick Sergeant. (Although he wasn't out publicly at the time.) Then, when Sergeant came out in '91, Montgomery supported him and the two served together as the grand marshals of the Hollywood pride parade.

Dick Sargent expressed in the 90s what he would want in a Bewitched reunion episode: for Darrin to meet another like couple, a witch and a mortal who are married, and another, and another, and end up forming a whole community and support group, finding out that it was never so uncommon after all, that it was actually "about 10% of the population." The two would march in the first mortals and witches pride parade, saying they should have come out years ago.

In '94, Montgomery had this to say about the queer themes of the show, “Don't think that didn't enter our minds at the time. We talked about it on the set, that this was about people not being allowed to be what they really are. If you think about it, Bewitched is about repression in general and all the frustration and trouble it can cause. It was a neat message to get across to people at that time in a subtle way.” (x)

Interviewer: Are you concerned that your involvement in the gay-pride parade will lead people to believe you're a lesbian?

"[Laughing] I'm really not worried about that. There are bigger things to worry about. Like the presidential election and finding a cure for AIDS. I did the parade in support of Dick. I mean, in the end, didn't we all?" (x) (Montgomery was also one of the first celebrity allies to fight for LGBTQ rights and support HIV/AIDS-related fundraisers.)

So did they talk about it at the time? No. You can bet they didn't speak about it publicly. What would have happened if a fan, publicly, had asked Elizabeth, William, or Dick about the show's queer allegory content? This was a time when being gay was a literal felony. They would have had to have lied or risked losing the show, their careers, and possibly subjecting themselves to violence.

Now. back to Jensen and the Schrodinger's long con:

This was in 2013 - The same year that the Supreme Court of the United States struck down a federal ban on gay marriage. You certainly couldn't call homosexuality illegal in the US at that time. It's the same year that Dabb and Sgriccia spoke about the Aaron moment on the DVD and whether there's 'this potential for love in all places' for Dean. Of course Jensen said this about the very same scene: "But it was - you know - it was comedy. It was a comedic moment in the show and fortunately Dean gets a lot of the comedic moments in the show and it was just, you know, Ben was poking fun at the fact that - you know, how can we make this very kind of manly, heterosexual guy uncomfortable - uh -you know, or  or have him back on his heels and throw him off his game a little bit.”

I'm reminded of 2012 when Ben Edlund stepped in about a Destiel question at comic con, pretending it was some freaky thing that fans had made up even though he'd already written and directed TMWWBK, which had already aired.

Jensen: “What’s Destiel?” Ben Edlund: That’s some weird shit. Jensen: Is this something that you created, Ben? Ben: You don’t want any part of that.

Or the next year for season 9 when Jensen said “I think the whole Cas and Dean thing has gotten out of hand”  “I don’t think there’s anything secret to their relationship even though a lot of people wish there was” EVEN THOUGH- that season we got the nightstands acknowledgement and Misha (or both of them?) was told to “play him like a jilted lover”

Or Jensen's knowing bromance smile in 2015

I think recent events (cough spn gate) have made clear that the network and many viewers were still uncomfortable with CAS being gay in 2020, deleting even familial mentions of Cas from the finale episodes once he was revealed to be not only gay but also in love with Dean. (x) (x) (x) Can you imagine then what Warner Brothers would have said to an acknowledge bisexual Dean Winchester in 2013? Granted, there was no Trump election, but legitimate, could that have been the end of the show? Or the Russian and Conservative US viewership? Is it possible that Jensen would have feared so?

Is it possible that Jensen had a more personal reason for a knee jerk defensive response?

So was Jensen covering in 2013? Well. This happened 5 years later in 2018:

That hostile "? No." came even though Misha confirmed that he and Jensen had discussed Destiel by that point. Granted, discussing Destiel as a concept and accepting Dean being inherently bisexual are two very different things - Cas is GN after all - still, less than encouraging.

I may never get over the jumps back and forth that Jensen did. At this point I think there's no denying that a lot of SPN's queer content was on purpose, even as writers and actors were telling fans and network execs otherwise. Yet when each person involved was brought in? that question haunts me at night. I have gone off before about the timeline in my pursuit of whether Jensen was Ben Hur'd (x) and, if so, for how long. I'm sure many in this fandom have so much to add.

In the meantime we'll just have to cherish this moment from 2019:

Interviewer: 'So, tell us just a little bit about what you’re most excited to tackle with your character this final season.’ Jensen: “Cas. Just like a full football form tackle.”

Bewitched references in SPN:

2.05 - Dean: Well, it looks like he can't work his mojo just by twitching his nose, he's gotta use verbal commands.

2.20 - Dean says Barbara Eden was hotter than Elizabeth Montgomery - sigh - Dean.

7.05 - Dean thinks a husband has no idea his wife is a witch, and refers to him as Darrin. Dean also indicates he likes the first Darrin better. - (I guess I can't make a comment about how much TV Dean watched as a kid if I get all of his references and also haven't saved the world.)

14.03 - Jules refers to the witch as 'Brunhilde' - this is a minor character in bewitched but more so from mythology and likely referred to the cartoon witch from WB cartoons - the stereotypical witch that faced bugs bunny with the green skin and straw hair.

let me know if you have any to add. Stay Witchy ✌

[magnificent-nerd]

Why Naqib in The Boys sucked

Image description: fictional character Naqib in Amazon Prime’s show The Boys.

(Is the fire in the background an excuse to use racist Yellow Filter to show how exotic he is? Hmm.)

I first posted this on my blog in Dec 2020, and since nothing in superhero media has changed for the better at this time (September 5th, 2021), I’m going to keep talking about it.

Because nobody else does. So, without further ado:

WHY NAQIB SUCKS.

I was a big fan of The Boys season 1; I love superheroes, I love deconstructing a genre. Sure, it has its problems, but overall I enjoyed season 1 and thought the show had potential.

(That’ll learn me for being hopeful!)

When season 1 ended with this big build up of mostly nameless brown and background characters as Muslim terrorists (deep sigh) we the audience are left thinking this one Muslim character (Naqib) whose superpower is to blow himself up repeatedly (insert another long deep sigh here) is going to be The Big Bad of season 2.

I had my misgivings about that direction. Firstly, as you can see from the image of Naqib, he is highly exoticised and is walking around bare chested with Arabic writing on his chest. He looks more like a generic western media depiction of a genie than he does a supervillain. 

And yet he's the first prominent Muslim character in superhero media I've seen in YEARS.

-

(See my post about MENA and Muslim character good guys, including Joe played by Marwan Kenzari in The Old Guard, which is technically a comic book movie but it’s not what I’d call ‘caped and costumed’ superheroes so it’s more... superhero adjacent.)

I follow superhero content closely and as far as I'm aware the last time we saw any named Muslim characters in superhero movies WITH SPEAKING LINES was:

Instance 1) Iron Man 1 back in 2008 with The Ten Rings in Afghanistan, showing multiple Muslim characters as baddies/terrorists, but only two of them as a named character and with any meaningful lines to say. And despite one of them, Yinsen (actor Shaun Toub), being a good guy he still dies! Which is common in western media for Muslim and MENA characters.

Note: Fellow Iron Man 1 castmate, actor Sayed Badreya, makes an important point in this GQ article: "I die in Iron Man, I die in Executive Decision. I get shot by everyone. George Clooney kills me in Three Kings. Arnold blows me up in True Lies…" (x)

Instance 2) A more recent instalment in Batman V. Superman in 2016, with some unnamed 'General' character and mercenaries/terrorists in Nairomi, Africa, referred to only as "the desert" throughout the movie. All reference to the General's actual name are available in an extended/deleted scene only, so a very poor and vague depiction in the final cut.

Instance 3) The generic and badly written ‘bad guys’ in Wonder Woman 1984 (2020 movie), which was honestly such a racist depiction of Arabs and Muslims that many critics pointed out we hadn’t seen a depiction this terrible since 1994′s True Lies. (At least most critics were in agreement that WW84 movie was generally terrible, so there’s that.)

And that's it, those are the only major instances showing any Muslim actors or characters in a caped and costumed superhero movie. 

Some other fleeting glimpses of Muslims onscreen:

Glimpse 1) I spotted a girl wearing a hijab among the nameless and unspeaking background characters of Peter Parker's class in Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019). A first for Marvel movies, apparently.

Glimpse 2) Disney Plus show Falcon and Winter Soldier (2021) had two nameless Muslim characters walk by in a scene that’s supposed to be Tunisia (using Yellow Filter), and ‘thank’ the present American Air Force (eye-roll).

Glimpse 3) Netflix show Jupiter’s Legacy (2021) had a nameless Muslim sailor conversing with one of the main characters in a scene, with meaningful dialogue about racism. (WOW. Really good.) Bonus: no yellow filter. It’s a pity he’s a nameless background character because this brief instance is the least problematic MENA rep I’ve seen in ages, but it is very brief.

I just wrote about Glimpses 2 and 3, and how the Netflix show outdid Disney when it comes to these nameless walk-on Muslim characters.

This is pretty pathetic overall, these small crumbs, especially compared to better rep and probably the only instance of legit MENA superheroes in a ‘costumes and capes’ style superhero show, the Tarazi siblings on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.

-

Anyway, now I’ve listed what crumbs are available across the live action superhero genre, back to The Boys.

I was intrigued about how season 2 would handle Naqib and any characters relating to him, and what storyline they'd use. 

Was I excited at the possibility of seeing Muslim supers onscreen? Damn straight I was. Did I mind that they were baddies? Well, yes and no. When you only ever get crumbs or no crumbs at all, you tend to get excited over one stale old crumb.

After the build up for season 2, I eagerly sat down to watch the first episode, only to have the first five minutes of episode 1 Trigon him.

Note: who's Trigon, you ask? Well if you didn't watch the DCEU's Titans show, Trigon was The Big Bad who was hyped up throughout season 1, introduced in the season 1 cliff-hanger episode as this big 'oh shit!' moment for the cast of heroes, only for him to fizzle out like a wet fart in the first episode of season 2 while the show pivots wildly in another direction. 

Exactly what happened to Naqib in the first five minutes of The Boys season 2.

Erm, so, Naqib. Farewell, I guess? As a character you briefly appeared in 2 episodes, portrayed by a different actor in each (Krishan Dutt, and Samer Salem). It seems the writers used you as a plot device when they needed a cheap cliff-hanger for a direction that ultimately went nowhere.

Am I disappointed? Yeah, I am. Overall I thought season 2 of The Boys was weaker than season 1, but I'm not here to talk about the whole season: I want to talk about Naqib and this missed opportunity.

The Boys and its showrunners sell the show as being a satire of recent and well known superhero content, of all the big movies and TV shows. There's been a lot of patting themselves on the back for calling out overused tropes in superhero media (and sometimes they've done this satire well: see the LGBT marketing scene with Queen Maeve in season 2), but my issue with the show on their Muslim rep, or should I say lack thereof, is if your show has even less Muslim character rep than the content you're trying to parody, how is this a win for satire?

Naqib and that whole angle came across as a lazy, half-assed swing from the writer's room. Sure, perhaps a lot of the non-Muslim and non-MENA audience won't even notice, as we've been ignored by western media or made into nameless, generic, vacuous baddies for decades now. Non-Muslims and non-MENA just accept that we're always the baddies for no particular reason at all (which feeds into Islamophobia, by the way) and The Boys' writers could say they are simply satirising the tropes already present in media...

But, and this is a big but, the media that The Boys is satirising has already made a step toward better inclusion and representation: Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan), Marvel comics' first Muslim superhero, is entering the MCU as a lead character in her own Disney Plus show, debuting in 2022. 

Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan is also cited to appear in upcoming Captain Marvel sequel, The Marvels (2022), which will be a major movie.

The MCU has also cast a Muslim actor (Mahershala Ali) as the lead in a reboot of Blade. That's going to be big news when it starts filming.

So to the showrunners on The Boys, I say this: now you've done this small angle of 'all Muslim characters are terrorists, yuckity-yuck!' like we've seen in major superhero movies thus far, and you've brushed that aside in favor of focusing on other whiter villains, my question is will you come back to Muslim and MENA characters again? Or is that all you got?

Because if that was ALL, then the current score is Disney/MCU:02, Netflix:02, DCEU:02, and The Boys: a big ZERO as far as Muslim and MENA rep goes.

-

Originally posted on my blog, magnificently nerdy.

If you, like me, are always on the lookout for onscreen Muslim and MENA characters in superhero media, and have spotted any characters in superhero TV shows I haven’t watched yet, let me know about them!

Here is my post on good guys, featuring Old Guard’s Joe, and Blindspot’s Rich Dotcom.

Here’s my post about the Tarazi siblings on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow TV show.

And, if Marvels’ Eternals gets released on schedule for 2021, we will have a MENA actor portraying a supporting character. I just hope Marvel gives him a name.

[salvatoreschool]

Kaylee Bryant On "Legacies," The Importance Of Queer Rep On TV, Hosie, And More

"I have so many people constantly telling me that watching Josie on the show has made them feel more comfortable in themselves."

This week, Kaylee Bryant squeezed us into her schedule to talk about their role as Josie Saltzman on Legacies. As a huge Josie fan, I couldn't think of a better way to spend a morning than talking to Kaylee about The Vampire Diaries, Hosie, our favorite books, and more! Here's everything we talked about:

1. What was your audition for Legacies like?

My audition process was very interesting because they kept a lot of it a secret. I had no script and a fake character name. And then I had my second audition, a chemistry read, which Jenny Boyd [Lizzie] wasn't even at. I walked in and immediately just flat-out asked, "This is for the twins, right?" So it was long, but short and intense at the same time.

BuzzFeed: Wait, did you know which twin you were going to be playing?

I initially auditioned for Josie, and then during chemistry reads, they started asking me to read for Lizzie. And then we had our final callback where I finally met Jenny and we both read for both roles. They never told us [who was playing who] until Jenny had her appointment to go dye her hair blonde.

2. What's a typical day on set like?

Gosh, it changes every time. If it's a busy day on set, we're talking like 8 a.m. call time where we spend about two hours on hair and makeup and go straight into rehearsals. If it's a big sort of episode that involves stunt work and wire work, you're talking about doing maybe two scenes in a day. But if it's an average day, we can do anywhere from three to five scenes and we can start at 8 a.m. and wrap at 8 p.m. It really depends. I'm surprised if I'm not surprised.

3. You’ve said you’re a huge fan of The Vampire Diaries. Josie played Elena in the musical episode — what was that like?

It was surreal for sure. They had talked a little bit about doing a musical episode since Season 1. And I always thought that they were joking when they talked about doing Salvatore: The Musical!, so when they said Josie would obviously play Elena, I was like, "Hahaha." And then I got the script and realized I actually was playing Elena. The musical aspect of it was the easy part. The difficult part was, I think, getting into the iconic Elena attire and trying to feel normal. Because we have a lot of crew members that worked on The Vampire Diaries, and they kept coming up to me being like, "This is weird. I feel weird."

4. Do you have a favorite scene you’ve filmed with Courtney Bandeko (Finch) this season?

I really did love the scene that we had in the town square [when] we got on a moped. There were so many fans in the town square that were huddled in the rain — it was pouring rain, freezing cold — trying to snap photos of us. And it was kind of one of those surreal moments where it felt full circle, that I was on a Vampire Diaries spinoff in town square. It was a lot going on, but it was a lot of fun. It's always fun working with Courtney.

5. You and Danielle Rose Russell (Hope) also have amazing chemistry — what’s your favorite scene you’ve filmed together?

Oh gosh, we have a lot that are pretty amazing. Honestly, I'd say [Season 3] Episode 14 — we finally got to do a lot more scenes together. And it's always fun, especially when it's Josie, Lizzie, and Hope, because we have so much history character-wise. Any time you really get to dive into that, we love it.

6. I know Josie and Finch are working through some things right now, but I gotta ask — how do you feel about Hosie?

I love it. Danielle and I loved the idea of Hosie starting from Season 1, and we kept asking and asking and asking for it. So it's kind of funny and full circle that now the fans have kind of taken our side with things, and now they won't stop asking for it. All we want is this beautiful, dynamic relationship. And I think that the fans want that as well.

BuzzFeed: Yeah, I mean, people have even been asking me about Hosie, and I don't work on the show!

Oh, I'm sure! [Laughs] Obviously I love it, though.

7. Is there a particular Josie moment you’re really proud of?

Josie has a scene coming up in Episode 18 — or 19? — I don't know, but it's good. It's sort of the pinnacle of everything that Josie has felt over the past three years kind of culminating into one moment. So, I'm excited for people to see it.

8. You recently came out as queer. How has playing Josie, who’s pansexual, impacted you personally?

I felt a lot of pressure when I initially booked Josie because I was still figuring out who I was and what my label was. And playing a character who was so comfortable in who she was, it was inspiring [to me] in a way that I think a lot of other people watching the show have been inspired. I have so many people constantly telling me that watching Josie on the show has made them feel more comfortable in themselves. It's kind of amazing that we all have the same experience in that having queer representation makes you more comfortable.

9. You’ve been vocal about your Asian identity, and your character has spoken Japanese on the show. Did you have a hand in incorporating that into Josie’s character?

No, not at all! So, I spoke Japanese a few times on the [Instagram] Live and one of our writers, Penny Cox, saw me speaking Japanese and immediately went to Brett [Matthews] and was like, "We need to make this happen somehow." And then all of a sudden, I had a script in my hands. So it was a surprise, but a fun one.

BuzzFeed: Are you fluent in Japanese?

Gosh, no! I'm barely fluent in English. [Laughs] I would say I speak at the level of maybe a second-grader on a good day, though.

10. If you could pitch any storyline for Josie, what would it be?

I always joke that I want an episode that takes place overnight. That way, we all have to be wearing pajamas the entire episode. I just want to wear some comfy clothes for a whole two weeks, that's my main goal. So we can have a pajama episode, that's my pitch.

11. What's it like getting into character for Dark Josie scenes?

It's different in the sense that I know Josie so well. And knowing Josie in turn makes me understand Dark Josie. I have a whole different playlist of music that I listen to for Dark Josie — and I have the wig, which helps a lot with getting into character.

BuzzFeed: Well, now I have to ask what music is on that playlist!

I think "Bury a Friend" by Billie Eilish is a great one for Dark Josie. Also, "Villain" by K/DA is a prime example of a perfect song for Dark Josie, so I listen to that one as well.

12. What's your go-to Starbucks order?

Plain black iced Americano. Aria [Shahghasemi, who plays Landon] says I drink coffee like a sociopath. [Laughs]

13. What TV show are you currently binging?

I just finished watching Alice in Borderland, which is a Japanese show on Netflix. And I know Feel Good Season 2 just came out, so I think that's my next binge.

14. Damon or Stefan?

Stefan! They're both beautiful and I love them very much, but I'm Team Stefan when it comes to Elena.

15. If you could work with anyone from The Vampire Diaries, who would it be?

Ian Somerhalder has a lot of dogs. So, maybe I want to work with him for the sole reason of just talking about dogs. [Writer's note: Kaylee revealed she has two rescue dogs, one whom was sleeping right next to them during the interview! Kaylee described the dogs as "both complete and total nuts," but said she misses them about five minutes after getting into the car to go to work.]

16. Do you think you’re most similar to Josie, Lizzie, or Hope in real life?

I would say I'm an eclectic mix of the three. I can be very headstrong like Hope, very outspoken like Lizzie, and I try to be as loving as Josie, but sometimes that doesn't always work. But I'd like to think all three.

17. Is there a role people would be surprised to learn you auditioned for, but didn't get?

I've been auditioning since I was eight, so there's quite a few Disney Channel shows and movies. And I'm sure people would be surprised because I think I auditioned for like, all of them. It's very funny, one of the first jobs I ever booked in television was Kickin' It with Leo Howard [Ethan]. Talk about full circle — going from being 12 years old and having no idea what I'm doing to being a series regular on [Legacies] and welcoming Leo to the set.

18. Who's your favorite Disney princess?

Oh, I love Mulan so much. She was, like, my first crush ever. I also love Moana, but it's Mulan 1,000%.

19. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?

I mean, I do eat rice every day. So maybe just white rice — you can make rice into candy and...yeah, let's go with rice.

20. If you were stranded on a deserted island and could only bring one book, what would it be?

Oh no! I recently read The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, and I really enjoyed that book. Oh god, Is that the one that I want to bring, though? I mean, I really enjoyed it and it has many different aspects to it. I don't know. Or should I go with Harry Potter? I go through different genres too, like right now I'm in a big sci-fi phase, but other times I'll go the opposite direction and only read biographies. Yeah, that's super hard. I don't think I would know!

21. On that note, what's your Hogwarts house?

Initially, when I was younger, it used to just be straight-up Slytherin. And now, I recently took the Sorting Hat Quiz and I got Ravenclaw. So I'm going to go with Slytherclaw.

BuzzFeed: What's Josie's house?

Josie would be Slytherin. She tries very hard and, you know, not everyone in Slytherin is evil. She just, you know, has her way of going about things.

22. Has anything super funny or embarrassing happened to you on set?

I trip a lot on set. I get scared very easily — if I come around the corner and somebody is walking the other direction, I get scared. Everybody knows to walk slowly around me because I get scared so easily.

23. What's your wildest fan story?

I've had people cry before. And I'm an empath, so if somebody starts crying, I immediately am like, "Please don't cry, because I'm gonna cry." And then it turns into this whole thing. Once we were shooting in the town square and this young girl with her mom started crying, and I just hugged her and I didn't know what to say. So there's a lot of that. There's also the occasional, "Where's your twin?" and...I don't have one, sorry! But yeah, I would say the people who cry always throw me for a loop.

24. How do you unwind after a long day?

I have an hourlong drive home from work, so I usually listen to a lot of music. And by the time I get home, taking off all of my makeup is very therapeutic. Because over time, we're working 13-hour days, 16-hour days, and it's just powder constantly building up on my face. So, washing my face is always very therapeutic. And then just laying back and reading a book and petting my dog is the best.

25. Is there a celebrity you get told you look like a lot?

Most recently, Sara Waisglass [from Ginny & Georgia and Degrassi]. We follow each other on social media now and I completely messed up because I don't know how Twitter works at all. I forgot that there's a DMing interaction, so we followed each other and I was like, "Oh, that's nice." And then just recently, I saw that she had messaged me being like, "We're twins! We should be friends!" And I immediately messaged back, "I'm so sorry, let's be friends!"

26. Who's your biggest celebrity crush?

Oh, I have so many. But consistently since I saw Orphan Black, Tatiana Maslany. Hands down.

27. Finally, have you ever caught someone watching a TV show or movie that you're in on a flight or anywhere else?

We were all, as a cast, flying to — was it New York Comic Con, or San Diego Comic Con? — one of the Comic Cons. And we were all sitting there and we saw that Legacies was actually on the airplane as an option. And we were all just uncomfortably staring at each other. Yeah, that was surreal.

Be sure to catch Kaylee in Legacies, which airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on The CW!

[fangirlsovertoomanythings]

Things I Watched/Listened/Read These Past Few Days

So, I had a rather stressful month due to an assignment deadend - things are ok now - and I have decided I would watch or read or listen to any media I could, at least once a day, to cool down.

The movies on this post are the ones I watched to cope with the stress. I will be talking more about them as each of them go, if I liked them or not and etc. This is not a critical post, though, it's more... idk personal.

1. The Secret of Kells

It is Cartoon Saloon's first movie ever. It's story is simple and you may not understand the importance of the Book of Kells without some historical background, but you will be able to enjoy it either way. My favorite scene is when Aisling starts singing and aaaaaaa it's too much. Gorgeous.

My only problem though... was that one black character's design. It seemed too close to the Black FaceTM. I got kinda turned off by it.

2. Wolfwalkers

Yeah, I know, I know I should have watched it in a manner to support the artists the way they deserve to be supported and I really wish I could have done that. Either way, it is a beautifully animated film and to anyone able to afford Apple TV+, I highly beg you to support this movie and watch it. There is a HEART to it, a soul I've been missing in animated movies and only occasionally see.

You may think you figured out the entire plot from the trailers, but there is one aditional plot tied to it involving Mébh and I enjoyed the surprise of it. The movie is beautifully animated, I love the accents the characters have even if I need to force myself more to understand them - you see, I am not a native speaker and always listened more to a 'standard' american accent so hearing irish for the first time was hard. I figured it out though!! Am really proud.

Pleasepleaseplease support this movie is what I'm saying.

3. Ponyo

IT'S SUCH A CUTE STUDIO GHIBLI MOVIE I SHOULD HAVE WATCHED IT SOONER AJSJDJEJEWJD

I wish we could have known more about Ponyo's family, but other than that I really enjoyed seeing what happened on-screen and how it was delivered. It's a cute tale. Manages to be creative and simple at the same time??? Don't expect much more than cute and simple and GORGEOUSLY ANIMATED though

4. The Old Guard

Listen, I know they did it very differently than the comics - but sometimes you just want to see some immortal gays being badass you know :,)

It's hard to point what I love more about the movie. Cinematography, the creative idea (although we should thank the comic writers for that), the characters, their struggles, representation and they even ground the immortality superpower. I don't know how they do that but every action scene is tense even if you know they can not die. You just wonder if they will be ok. I don't know how they did that!

5. Oliver Twist (2005)

I do not know the public reception of this, but I have been curious as to Oliver Twist since I heard of Disney's Oliver and Company inspiration. Therefore, once Prime added it then the oportunity came and I really liked it. I know it is narrated with a humorous tone but I do feel like it's descriptions of the horrors the main character faces were all right, I might as well have learned something.

It follows what many already know as the book - I haven't read it personally, therefore I do not know if it is a trustworthy adaptation - and we have Edward Hardwicke. Just. Edward Hardwicke.

6. The Mystery of the Sleepy Hollow

I did enjoy this movie, doesn't mean I liked everything about it. I did think the main character jumped into conclusions often, as if the script could not decide if he should be competent or incompetent and it really bothered me. I do am a sucker for a mix between horror and mystery, though, and thus did not mind watching this one at Halloween night.

Also, main character passes out at least 4 times in this thing - can you see this is based on gothic literature yet?

THE DECAPITATIONS THO JAIDBEIEMGKEKENFWJW THE BODIES LOOKED LIKE LITTLE AMONG US DEAD CREWMATES SJEKEKWKEKRKEKRKKRKE

7. BBC Radio 4's "A Study in Scarlet"

It's a nice adaptation with many aditional moments that really warm your heart. Reading Holmes being excited is one thing - listening is a whole other and I love how his voice sounds in this one. He speaks fast but it's easy to understand and hIS TONE OF VOICE IS HIGHER THAN YOUR USUAL ADAPTATION, LIKE WATSON CONSTANTLY POINTS OUT IN THE BOOKS

Stamford gets aditional moments aswell, and they are great.

8. Upside Down

I have been curious about this movie since my father watched it back in 2013. I remembered the name and the basic premise for all these years - because I thought it was unique. I never watched it before because I thought it would be a cheesy romance movie bUT-

It has an unique worldbuilding and I love it. I even liked how the camera angles made me kinda umconfy because can you imagine talking to someone who's upside down LMAO. It's world have limits too, and I really appreciate that.

I simply did not understand how can someone get pregnant in Eden's situation but 😳 who am I to question 😳. I also wish Eden could have had more of a presence too, like I wish I could have seen more of her even with her amnesia :( I felt she had one of the weakest characterizations. I wish we could have seen Adam and Eden talking to each other more, seeing they slowly grow into lovers. I also didn't like how much exposition it had as well, like I did not understand the first 5 minutes of the movie at ALL.

Still enjoyed it tho. It's just... kinda average but thats ok i guess

9. Bojack Horseman S04EP09 “Ruthie”

Massive comfort episode! I must have watched Ruthie more than any other Bojack Horseman episode, to be honest.

This episode is just a huge bad day for Princess Carolyn and the way she copes with it and how it is incorporated into the story is... beautiful and tragic. I love Princess Carolyn-centered episodes, and even though this one isn't compared to the trend this series has of making a fantastic Episode 11 for each season, it is still enjoyable and sad. That and I did have a small giggle at the miscarriage jokes, I'm so fucking sorry.

10. Brooklyn 99 Pilot Episode

(Of course this image is not from that episode I just find this scene funny)

I had watched Brooklyn 99 before - but it's been a long time since I've seen the first episode that ever aired. I really enjoyed it and it did make my mother and I chuckle a little bit.

God, I need to keep up with this series again; it's been such a long time since I stopped watching due to stress getting in the way lmao

Part 2 will come as soon as I finish another 10 days 😊

[sometimesrosy]

Is it weird that I like feminism and consider myself pretty well versed but it turns me off when I watch a tv show that is over stuffed with feminist jargon? like each character read a couple of textbooks and are now vomiting the lingo into every situation. Someone tried to tell me once why they didn't like that kind of tv show and it took me a while but I agree with it. I like female characters that are capable women by there actions. Not by giving the treatise circa the 21st century.

I mean, no, I guess not.

It’s hard for me to know what is bothering you without knowing the specific shows you’re talking about, but proselytizing is not enjoyable.

Like, for instance, I LOVED The Color Purple by Alice Walker, so I was really excited when Temple Of My Familiar came out. But the book seemed less a story and more a scolding about how female genital mutilation is bad. Which, I mean. OF COURSE IT IS! Not debating that. But being harangued about it wasn’t enjoyable. I agreed with her basic premise. But a story SHOWING her premise and exploring the human lives surrounding the issue would have been better than the story where she just kept telling us again and again.

HOWEVER. Sometimes people can be very thick and miss or ignore what you’re trying to say, so you have to, sometimes as an author, just TELL them what is the what.

Then there’s the danger of getting naggy again. 

I think sometimes you have to manage the balance carefully. 

But then again, sometimes it’s the anti feminist and misogynist system that convinces us any time a woman declares a desire for equality or respect to be a feminist harpy. So we, as an audience have to interrogate our own concept of women and feminism and society before we decide “Oh ugh, why are those 19th century women being so feminist. Women then didn’t think like that.” Because well yes they did. There were MOVEMENTS. Suffragettes and women against corsets and Nellie Bly and all.

Oh look what google says.

In the nineteenth century, the contours of a feminist political movement became visible. Feminism became an official concept and the first feminist wave began in 1850. The spearheads of the women's movement were equality in education, labor and electoral rights.

So wait. Are you SURE that feminist in that tv show or movie is dealing with a contemporary concept or is it a representation of what women were like THEN. Because I assure you, there were women like that then. And guess what people called them? Oh all sorts of things. 

Do yourself a favor and google Nellie Bly.

[poppykru]

according to your logic on twitter, eliza didn't answer bellarke questions because it was about a man but she was fine with answering questions about a relationship that made her the dumb love interest and the guest character the hero of the season because?... anyway. just accept that your faves can be wrong and sometimes assholes too. it's okay to accept it. she was being terrible to bellarke fans and it's okay if people take it to heart. they have every right to.

I honestly don't understand why you took time of your day to send me this but OK, here we go.

My tweet for context

1. Yes, I specifically said 'a man' because historically in TV, films, books any sort of storytelling medium, we've had stories in which women are the supposed protagonist only to be put in a relationship with a man and be overshadowed by them. I'm not saying that is the case with bellarke because I don't thing that. I'm saying that it's a pattern and if I were in the industry, in Eliza's shoes, I would be even more aware of this pattern and be sensitive to it. And would yall stop with your sensitivity towards c.lexa? It's just a ship. Do you know how little wlw representation there is in media? Let them have this, celebrate it! It's diversity! If it's not your cup of tea, don't listen to those interviews. Also, from a marketing standpoint, talking about c.lexa was good for the show (prior 3x07) because it demonstrated diversity which is something that is highly valued by audience members nowadays. It makes sense for it to be pointed out constantly (though I admit that was a mistake on the marketing team's side because they made promises they couldn't deliver on). Not everything (I'd even say 97% is not) is a direct insult towards bellarkes. You're way too sensitive about insignificant things. Just enjoy the show, enjoy the ship, the fandom, and stop worrying about this bullshit.

2. "a relationship that made clarke the dumb love interest and the guest star the hero of the season"

I-

Are we watching the same show?? How was Clarke turned into a dumb love interest, the whole story was about her what are you talking about?!? And L.exa was the hero of the season??? In what world?? Did you watch the finale, where Clarke went into the COL and saved everyone? If there is a hero of the season, I'd say its her. I'm confused now, are you a c.lexa? This doesn't make sense if you're a bellarke. Have you internalised the pineapples' bullshit or sth??

Please, rewatch s3 and really think about the story.

3. I never said Eliza was perfect and she didn't make mistakes. She's human. I said that her reaction is understandable if you look at the larger issues within the industry she's part of.

4. "She was being terrible to bellarke fans." I'm starting to think you don't know the definition of the work 'terrible' or maybe nothing 'terrible' has happened to you? it's one dumb comment ffs! You're acting like she ruined your life! Get some perspective, please!

5. People can feel whatever they want to. The thing is if we all just lead with our emotions and don't use common sense, critical thinking or any sort of cognitive activities, we wouldn't get very far. Feeling something does not equal "I'm right about this thing".

6. You know there are these amazing features to twitter (and tumblr): first, there is the' unfollow' button (great button, highly recommend!), then there's 'mute' (I frequently use it myself), and finally 'block' - my fav of all because it ensures I don't see the person's post and they don't see mine. I'd advice you to use them. Because as you can see from our little experiment here, I don't respond well to people coming to my blog to police me and chastise me about what I post on my own accounts. I like mature discussions, not petty asks, thank you.

Remember, if you don't like it, don't engage. It's so fucking simple!!!!

Have a nice day!