#truly Teen Wolf's own Rise of Skywalker

[terrific-crow]

Watched the Teen Wolf Movie. Incredible experience.

[princeescaluswords]

Why do you think these Stiles/Jiang Cheng/kylo Ren fans don’t just watch a different show/movie/read a different book?

It just seems like there’s so many pseudo-fans who decide to take in media where they’re dissatisfied with the actual heroes and want the support characters/antagonists to somehow secretly be the protagonists. They do all these weird twists on canon and make up conspiracy theories for no reason, when I can think of quite a few series they would actually like!

Samuel Johnson had a quote about literature but it can easily be expanded to any sort of fictional entertainment.

“The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life or better to endure it.”

Fiction can do this in a way that economics, politics, philosophy, or religion can’t or, more often, won’t.  The act of consuming fiction doesn’t require anything from us.  We could sit on the couch and watch Teen Wolf or The Untamed or The Rise of Skywalker and not feel anything or feel everything.   If we don’t like how they make us think or feel, we can put the book down, turn off the radio, or turn the channels.   Our reaction doesn’t need to affect anyone else.

I think it’s safe to say that the people with which you have problems long for a world where they can do what they want without repercussions.  They believe that it would be wonderful if the negative experiences that they’ve endured enabled them to do as they see fit without obligation to others.  

For example, they may like Stiles because they identify with him as a neurodivergent character with a dead mother who yearns for more yet considers himself unworthy of gaining it.  What it seems to me they like more is that, as a character, Stiles is entitled to lash out at others who end up still wanting to be around him, that he’s entitled to break laws and customs and be protected from the consequences of doing so, and that he’s entitled to lie and ignore personal boundaries while still having friends and family that care for him.   They want to endure the pain of their own lives by imagining that Stiles’s bad behavior is  justified.  It’s the same reason they like Derek and Peter, but with the added bonus that they, too, would like to beat and manipulate and kill those they feel have wronged them.

For example, they may like Jiang Cheng because they identify with him as a child who felt unloved even as his father clearly favored another sibling, a sibling for whom he had to continually run interference.  But what some like more is the idea of Jiang Cheng ignoring moral imperatives such as mercy and duty to family as he grows up.  Jiang Cheng became clan leader and then proceeded to vent his frustration on the world.   They, too, would like to do that.

For example, they may like Kylo Ren because they identify with a child who felt neglected while being surrounded by the Heroes of the Rebellion, pressured into being special simply by who his family was.   But what some like more is the idea of achieving this unique status regardless of the piles of bodies it leaves in its wake -- to become special by standing in an ocean of blood, and then having someone love them anyway.   

You see this is how they think they could endure what they don’t like about their lives by imagining situations where these very negatives can be the key to greatness and emotional catharsis.   In other words, these characters are their favorites precisely because they get free reign to hurt and/or kill others without the need for responsibility. It’s a feature, not a bug.

Why they’re disappointed is that the creators of this content are actually good writers.  The creators understand that any story told with only one set of needs and wants given validity will be, frankly, juvenile.  Part of the sophistication of life -- the recognition of which allows us to enjoy it or endure it -- is that there are other people with needs and wants as well.  Any attempt to tell a story that truly resonates with our own lives has to take that fact into account.

Stiles, for all his talents and burdens, can’t be the hero of Teen Wolf because he still hasn’t learned that prioritizing his own emotions and needs over others has consequences.  Jiang Cheng becomes an antagonist because he can’t separate the adult Wei Wuxian from his childhood resentments.  Kylo Ren only achieved the specialness he desired by becoming a space fascist and helping to murder billions.  Their peculiar and tragic needs and wants don’t overwhelm the fact that they live in stories with other characters and that these stories need to recognize and promote the wants and needs of these other characters.

So it is with their fans.  Once they identify with a character but see that they’re not going to be the focus of the story and/or not invulnerable to the consequences of their actions the way the fans want to be invulnerable to the consequences of their actions.  They could turn off the show and go consume something else, but that’s as emotionally unfulfilling for them as what happens to the characters with which they identify. So that’s why they create conspiracy theories and twist canon to make sure that they get the end they wanted.   

And that’s also why they create fanfiction.  But the problem is that fanfiction is, in turn, a story consumed by someone else.  And just as the writers on the television show and the movies discovered -- stories that don’t place the actions of their characters in the context of a greater world aren’t very good.  In fact, if they ignore contexts that have real-world consequences (such as depravity, sexism, racism, homophobia), they stories can even promote those real-world behaviors.  

And so here we are, trying to argue the quality and desirability of stories.  Which is a good thing, but not one with which they are comfortable.

[crazyfandomgirl]

Goodbye to the Decade- SPOILERS

This is a warning, most of this will probably be cheesy but I just wanted to express my admiration and love for this decade’s literature, TV and film. I grew up this decade, I went from child to adult, but I got to experience the incredible Young Adult genre the whole way through but along this adventure I also had to say goodbye to a lot of these stories.

  The books of this decade have revolutionary in thinking, take The Hunger Games, a series that tells us to reject and rebel against corrupt, capitalist dictatorships that label themselves as democracies. As well as the Maze Runner, Twilight, the incredible books by Adam Silvera and Nicola Yoon. These books have taught me hope, love and how to fight for a better world of acceptance and equality. I was also brought into the woks of Sarah.J.Maas, whether it be A Court Of… or Throne of Glass, my heart has been shattered and reborn in the adventures these books hold, never have I felt more passion than I have reading these. But of course, these addictive fantasy reads had to come to an end, and it seemed like in a turn of a page I was having to say farewell and pull myself away from these worlds. Another author who has captured my heart is Cassandra Clare. Bless this woman with my heart for keeping me alive this decade. Her continuous additions to the Shadow World are truly a blessing. I love the characters and her appreciation for the LGBT. In this decade I went in my own adventure of self-discovery and having an author like Clare who frequently represents me in her work brings me joy and hope for the future. Finally, how can I forget Rick Riordan, my God from the start of this decade. This man who showed me from a young age the burdens that are placed on the younger generations to sort out the problems, his humorous writing allowed me to delve deep into this world and get the undertones of how hard life is.

 Where do you begin with TV? So many shows, so many heart-warming and breaking moments and most of all, so many goodbyes. I guess you could say that I put my soul into these shows because I fall in love with the world and the characters so much. I have no idea what I’m going to watch next year as so many of them have ended. Firstly, The Vampire Diaries, this show really had a sense of family between the characters and to say I was wrecked when it ended is an understatement. The same with Teen Wolf, mostly because of my love for Dylan O’Brian, but through the funny moments it showed me the pain of humanity and how we all hold each other up. Linking back to Cassandra Clare, the TV adaptation of her books Shadowhunters has become my favourite show and ended way too soon. Now, normally shows/films that go off this far from the books normally annoys me, but the growing quality and character development of the show distracted me from that and left a beautiful original in its place. I can’t re-watch the finale without bawling like a baby. I also live for Malec in this show. Though there is a lot of displeasure in the finale of Game of Thrones, I love it. I agree that some of the writing was shabby to say the least, but I enjoyed the show as a whole that when the end credits came up I was a mess, I had fallen in love with the characters and their actors and I didn’t want to say goodbye.

 You know Harry Potter is popular when the poster for Deathly Hallows doesn’t even have the title on there. This was one of my first loves and goodbyes of the decade. I’d grown up reading and watching them but when the decade began my love for it grew stronger, you might as well say it’s my horcrux. There are many reasons I love this series, film and book form, but a large part of it comes down to my want and belief in magic and I just really want to be sitting in the Ravenclaw common room right now. Many of my book favourites are also my film favourites, such as The Hunger Games and The Maze Runner because of how they were well interpreted for the screen and let’s be honest if you’re not wrecked by “please Tommy please” the are you even human?

 There have been two major series in my life this decade which ended this year. The first one being The Avengers, the unity and friendship between the characters, Tony’s whole character arc, the fandom as a whole and our love for Stucky, Iron Strange and Stony as well as the acceptance that Tony and Stephen are Peter’s dads now. I went into Endgame with theories and hopes, most of which came true which to me gave the character’s the perfect send off but having to say goodbye to those character’s and having to walk out of the cinema was heart-breaking as it was an experience I would never have again. I’ll always remember the guy who came up to me and asked me if the film was any good and I just looked at him crying. 

The second series I had to say goodbye to was Star Wars, I grew up loving the original trilogy and fell in love with the new characters back in 2015. As my farewell to Star Wars, I saw a triple bill of this era, with a midnight screening of The Rise of Skywalker. Watching them together made me realise how much love I have put into this series, with the characters and re-introductions to original trio and how each film marked a farewell for each of them. I thought Endgame had ruined me but there I was at 3am in the morning crying so hard I couldn’t see and I couldn’t stop.

 This decade has wrecked me as all I seem to do is cry at finale’s but that is because each of the books, authors, shows and films I have mentioned have left something in me that has helped me grown into the person I am today and I would like to thank each of the creators for what they have done for me.