Various

[selenak]

So The Good Wife is finally coming to an end? Two seasons too late for me to care, but it was once an amazing show.

New Civil War trailer: so I was hoping that movie would resolve my Bucky problem, to whit, that I'm indifferent to the character beyond a mild "gosh, what an awful brainwashed life", and indeed I'm starting to have Bucky feelings, but unfortunately, they're all negative ones. I'm completely invested in the wrong sidekick in this movie, because when I watched the trailer and they showed that close up on unconscious/dead Rhodey again, my instinctive feeling was "feel free to tear anyone apart who did this, Tony, especially if it's bloody Bucky; die, Bucky, die die die!". I still cling to the hope they won't kill off Rhodey in a non-Iron Man movie, of course, but my emotional investment here is solidly on Team Iron Man so far. Unless Natasha is a double again, which I really hope she won't be, because Natasha faking being on the registration side of things as a mole for Steve would be predictable and not emotionally interesting at all, whereas Natasha fighting on Tony's side because, much as she cares about him, she truly believes Steve is wrong in this matter is exactly the kind of angst and character progress I'm looking for. Natasha, post Red Room, has gone from just out for yourself to fighting for specific people she's loyal to, to caring about the right and wrong of causes beyond "are they represented by people I care about?", and ironically I think the friendship with Steve helped her with that. Ditto her relationship with Clint - who is on Steve's side - and all this makes me majorly invested in Natasha NOT being a mole but having made the monumental decision of going against her best friends because she truly believes they are doing the wrong thing. To use an Harry Potter comparison: what Neville does in the first novel and which Dumbledore later calls an example of the highest courage, the thing Remus Lupin never could do back in Marauders versus Snape time. Standing up for your principles against bad tyrants takes courage, yes, but standing up for your principles against your dearest friends? The hardest thing of all.

(It helps that I do think superheroes should be accountable to someone who aren't other superheroes. Not insane military generals, obviously, but definitely some institution.)

Black Sails not having much of a fandom on lj or dw, I'm driven to check out the dark side tumblr now and then, and predictably, this irritates me into the need to vent:



1.) Boo, hiss, on anyone complaining about Flint's grief for Miranda being "Thomas erasure" or "heteronormative retconning" or what not. Because canon does so much better with this OT3 than a good deal of fanfiction, which had Flint caring for Miranda only as a living reminder of Thomas. Thus falling into the classic fanfic m/m/f pattern where the woman only gets to be an encouraging Yenta and at best gets to get off at the sight of the guys making out with each other. Whereas Black Sails provided me with my canonical threesome in every sense, where all three truly deeply cared about each other in every direction, not a triangle with two only invested in a third, not each other. Of course Thomas - and losing Thomas - was a big, big element in the relationship between James and Miranda. But they lived together for a decade after losing Thomas. We don't know how long Thomas and Miranda had been married before encountering James McGraw, but that's certainly far longer than James ever knew Thomas (which was at best a year or so). And Thomas never "met" Flint, never saw James' dark side, whereas Miranda was present for its birth (and partially responsible because she wanted revenge for Thomas, too, which was why she insisted on coming to South Carolina as well to be judged, remember). She was the only character on Black Sails so far who knew both James McGraw and James Flint, who saw the best and worst of him in equal. Just, btw, as he knew both Lady Hamilton and Miranda Barlow. That was what their mutual "I recognize you" in the last but one episode of the previous season had been about, remember? So Flint grieving for Miranda as Miranda, not just as "my last living link to Thomas", is earned.

2.) Billy/Flint shippers seem to be pretty confident their ship will become canon this season. Which isn't impossible, because this is the show which does on screen m/m, but I wish people wouldn't resort to the "if it doesn't, TPTB are selling out gay rights because the only blow for m/m to be struck is this ship becoming canon". Just say that you want Billy/Flint because you like both characters, not because it's important for social justice, or else you beg for the follow up question "so if Flint/another male character" gets to be canon instead, you'd be fine with it as well?

3.) Anyone condemning Eleanor for working with Rodgers: feel free to volunteer for hanging in a similar situation. As for her getting him to single out Charles Vane as the one who doesn't get a pardon but gets a bounty on his head instead: methinks Eleanor got the message last season when Vane killed her father and said they would meet again loud and clear. She never was a nice person and always favoured the "strike first" approach.

Lastly, trying to find good Clone Wars inspired stories reminds me how many badly spelled and/or badly written fanfiction is out there. Good lord. Thankfully, there are a few bright lights.

Comments

[wee_warrior]

At least some parts of slash fandom have developed into a really weird direction where this is concerned. Everything even remotely straight is normative and evil, while slash is automatically progressive (even if it's only that one pairing you really want). On the other hand, everyone who doesn't ship a pairing where the partners have different races will likely be called racist on tumblr.

Although even between shippers of het pairings there is some odd "my pairing is less problematic than yours, so it's canon!" thing going on (because healthiness always determines whether you like a couple. And no, they don't really know what canon means. Or Cannon, which is the fandom term typo that I still love by far the most.)

What creeps me slightly out about this is the prescriptive nature and very narrow definition of ship they seem to have. Not that I need people to constantly romanticize icky dynamics, but it's surely healthier if you, say, ship Edward/Bella in a safe, imaginary environment, and get it out of your system that way?

[wee_warrior]

ETA: I realize more and more that Heroes fandom actually formed my shipping tolerance to a great degree - I'm not overly fond of incest ships and likely never will be, but I can overlook it, and the whole Petrelli circus was still more harmless than all the serial killer + clueless professor stuff/various other characters that was going on (not to mention the older generation love fest).

[selenak]

O good lord, all the Sylar/Anyone pairings! I suspect Mohinder/Sylar shippers in particular all later became Hannibal (the series, not the book) fans. :) One of my anti pairings, but in retrospect I'm glad nobody cluttered the internet with essays about how morally wrong it was to ship it.

[wee_warrior]

They possibly did! At least this time, their pairing actually became canon. If that's healthy is a completely different question. :D

Not for Mohinder/Sylar, no, but I've already seen posts bemoaning shows which romanticize bad boy relationships, and they listed Hannibal among others. I mean, I've watched the show, and while I'd argue that Bryan Fuller's relationship with the character is certainly *special*, anyone thinking that Will/Hannibal is meant to be positive and unproblematic is really sticking to the surface. (That, too, is an annoying aspect of tumblr - the idea that fiction has to either spell out a specific moral, or it is utterly endorsing everything that happens. Interpretation and making up your own mind about something is apparently too difficult for readers and viewers these days.)

[muccamukk]

The het shippers have retaliated by saying that slash erases women, and is therefore bad (I will not argue that slashers have not treated female characters badly over the years, but ON THE WHOLE!), and het is the only progressive thing ever! Somehow femslash gets left out of this?

Save that I have recently been told that I should not ship two white women when there is a black man to ship one of the white women with, because otherwise I'm erasing the black man. (I will not argue that shippers have not ignored black characters in the past, but again!).

Shipping what you want because you like the pairing seems to be on its back foot, certainly.

[wee_warrior]

Yeah, shipping as a sign of progressiveness is something that I've always found a bit odd, but thinking that you're liberal for shipping het is even sillier. Femslash, meanwhile, seems to be in their own corner, as usual.

It's like you can't like white characters, especially not when they are male. They have to suck by default. I feel that is kind of approaching the problem from the wrong end.

And fandom is of course srs bsnss, so nothing can be done just because you like it.

[muccamukk]

I'm not against having a problem with fandom trends. I was not, for example, fond of the extensive bashing of female characters that fandom of yore seemed to feel was essential to get a slash ship together. And it does sometimes seem that the character that gets the least fic is the non-white character, though that's getting better lately too. But it remains possible that there are more effective ways to discuss this kind of thing than screaming at each other on tumblr. Like anything on earth.

I have noticed that the prescription against white male characters usually tends to make exceptions of the prescribers favourite. Who is, of course, different.

[wee_warrior]

I totally agree. I'm a non-shipper, it doesn't get much more against fandom trends than that. And I always have to explain, that, no, I have nothing against shipping, I just literally don't get it, because I'm usually believed to be hostile towards shippers. Sometimes, you just want to do your thing, without it having any hidden agenda.

That doesn't mean that all these trends - erasing characters of colour, bashing female characters, being only interested in queer characters when they are male, white, or young and hot - don't exist in fandom and in shipper circles especially. But saying that you cannot like any characters who are like that, because that automatically means you don't like characters who aren't male, white, etc is an incredibly reductive way of looking at the issue.

But yes, any form of communication is likely better for discussing it than yelling at each other on tumblr.

Naturally!

[saturnofthemoon]

Just out of curiosity, was this Supergirl or Agent Carter? I've seen reactions like that in both fandoms.

[muccamukk]

Jessica Jones, but I've heard comment on Agent Carter as well. I'm not really in Supergirl fandom.

[fallingtowers]

What creeps me slightly out about this is the prescriptive nature and very narrow definition of ship they seem to have.

Actually, I'm very tempted to start shipping stuff like Kylo/Rey purely out of spite and as a reaction to all that asinine moral pearl-clutching I've become aware of. (Note: I haven't even seen TFA yet.)

Fandom has reached the point where I just want to yell at everyone to quit their hand-wringing about ~problematic~ pairings. Because telling a group of girls / women that their romantic and/or erotic fantasies about purely fictional characters are wrong, morally suspect, unhealthy, and indeed support sexual assault and domestic abuse is totally feminist, self-aware, and progressive, right? Right?

Needless to say, tumblr and I don't get along.

[selenak]

Same here. I have my share of pairings that give me the creeps, and sometimes I can't stop myself from mentioning this in my journal. But I hope I've never declared "nobody must ship X/Y because it's so PROBLEMATIC" as opposed to some mutterings about how I personally can't stand x/y.

And the race about whose ship is the most socially progessive (complete with declaring all other ships as less so) is truly ridiculous.

[wee_warrior]

I've felt that temptation, too, re: Kylo/Rey.

It looks suspiciously like they're telling each other to rein in every impulse that isn't completely, 100% unambiguous and "healthy". Like a chastity movement, but with a seemingly progressive ideology underneath.
I've seen this tip over into farce, too: My current major fandom (Teen Wolf - don't ask) has a young lady who gets excessively shipped with the fandom's favourite character, but also has a flirtation with a young cop who is a bit older than her and has similar powers. The latter is cute, but excessively vanilla*, but if you see the terms the rival shippers dig out to prove that the pairing is bad and wrong, you'd think it's something that dropped out of a show even HBO passed on as too risky. I don't think I've ever seen so much moral outrage over two people who are 18 and 24 and have yet to even hold hands. Queen Victoria would be scandalized! But the kids somewhere feel the need to turn this into something "problematic," because apparently, you can't simply say "that's boring!" anymore.

*I'm actually suspecting this is because they will turn out to be related.

[muccamukk]

Me three on Reylo, especially because people anti-it seem to think that everyone should just ship Rey/Finn instead, completely overlooking that people WANT to ship hero/antagonist. That's the point of the ship! Rey/Finn has many fine qualities, but they are on the same side.

[wee_warrior]

I do like the trend of shipping Rey/Finn/Poe together! (Also, does nobody get shipped with Gwendoline Christie's character? You'd think she would draw pairings to herself like light draws moths.)

[fallingtowers]

I don't think I've ever seen so much moral outrage over two people who are 18 and 24 and have yet to even hold hands.

Let me guess -- the age difference basically makes it pedophilia?

*snerk*

[wee_warrior]

Congratulations, you've won the jackpot! (I do so much facepalming in that fandom.)

[likeadeuce]

There's been a general trend over the last few years where it seems like there's a dearth of meta on any topics BUT social justice & while I think lots of conversations re: what media says about race, general, power structures, etc are brilliant, others are positive/neutral/not for me, I miss just having interesting conversations about characterization and craft.

[fallingtowers]

I miss those kinds of discussions a lot, too. Sometimes I feel that we now have the fandom bizarroworld where someone said, "gee, I wish fandom would be more aware of stuff like sexism or racism" and the wish was granted by an evil genie.

Obvious disclaimer: I'm not saying that there shouldn't be any fandom conversations on the topic, but the way they are conducted now, I'm not inclined to participate in any of them. I'm even burned out on my evil Cishet White Lady Feminism, and I just want to talk about, dunno, character foils or color symbolism or whatever.

[likeadeuce]

So true.

[wee_warrior]

Me, too. I vividly remember one conversation about memory sequences, where someone claimed that a white male character was treated favourably by the narrative over the POC main character because the former's memory was filmed in a more straightforward way. After which I tried to explain that there are different modes of storytelling which aren't necessarily hierarchically ordered in terms of what makes the most sense on the surface. I don't think she got it. That conversation depressed me.

[jesuswasbatman]

Yes. I mean, there are things which I saw in fandom in the early 2000s that I am very, very glad, would get far more negative reactions now. For example, an essay on how mundane-AU fics often seemed to relegate black characters, who were in canon significant figures and equals to the fic's main pairing, to cameos in menial positions, being linked to in a high-profile venue with "So now 'barista' is racist code, apparently?". Or a very vocal faction in a fandom deciding that it was racist to disapprove of a white man premeditatedly stalking and killing a black woman, because *metaphorically* in their reading of the show's mythology he represented the oppressed black man and she the murderously racist white power structure.

But I really wish you didn't get the constant wishing of painful death on creators, not as a genuinely spontaneous reaction but as a ritual to prove that you aren't soft on bigotry. Or the whole "the creators are homophobic unless MY PERSONAL SHIP gets canonised and made happily 'endgame'". The latter applied to Regina/Emma shipping gets me feeling unfairly negative towards slash itself, because it seems the reverse of progressive to me to take two complex and three-dimensional female characters in a messy situation, and reduce the complicated emotions between them to "they fight because they don't want to admit they have sexual tension" and argue that the only reason why they haven't slept together yet must be because the writers are trying in bad faith to attract a femslash fandom without depicting a same-sex relationship.

[selenak]

. Not that I need people to constantly romanticize icky dynamics, but it's surely healthier if you, say, ship Edward/Bella in a safe, imaginary environment, and get it out of your system that way?

Absolutely. I mean, of course it's possible that an Edward/Bella shipper later hooks up with a stalkery abusive boyfriend and what not. But I've yet to see statistics showing a direct correlation between indulging in fantasies clearly marked as such and trying to live out such a dynamic in rl for a majority of people.

*uses icon of unhealthy pairing of choice*

[wee_warrior]

Exactly.

Oh, who are they?

[saturnofthemoon]

I believe it's Cora and Rumplestiltskin from OUAT. Good to see you're still around, weewarrior.