#at least it was something different instead of regular queer baiting

[rainbowsky]

Final round-up of fan fic asks

I've gotten a few more interesting responses to the fan fic discussion so I'm going to round them all up here. This will be my final post on the topic until/unless there's a dramatic new development, or a particularly notable response I want to highlight. Thanks to everyone who brought their thoughts and experiences to the topic. I hope everyone at least feels heard.

The biggest piece of advice that I would like to offer is for everyone to focus on what they love rather than what they hate. If we all did that, the world would be a better place. Alongside that, I'd like to remind everyone to please support authors whose work you like. It's so important. Give them a kudos, give them a nice comment, recommend their work to others. You never know what kind of grief and harassment they are dealing with to bring you these great stories, and our support means a lot.

This is in reference to previous posts here and here.

Anonymous asked:

With regard to fandom and fan fic issue, my years of experience being part of very large fandoms has led me to believe that big accounts are v important in facilitating and enforcing the general consensus of the whole fandom. Unless there will be big accs who'll remind everyone of being respectful & just not being a dick over other's preferences, nothing will change.

This is also the reason why I think certain solo fandoms have adapted weird and twisted narratives as their general fandom story because no big acc has tried to police them & and say hey pls be rational. Whether we like it or not, in a place where how far voices, ideas, tweets, posts get heard is based on the number of followers you have, big accs will have the power and influence in creating/curating/shifting the narratives.

So, if you want to know why your/our fandom thinks like this in general, look at what big accs are tweeting/posting, look at what ideas & values they follow, look at their preferences or how strongly they react to certain situations. it's taxing and toxic for big accs given the nature of social media these days, but it's also the reality of system, the more followers/audience you have, the more influence you will have.

So to anyone reading this I hope we all practice more restraint and reflection before we post anything. Remember that words, no matter what medium you write it in, will always carry weight.

So true. It is easy - even for myself who spends a fair chunk of time answering people's asks - to forget that people can sometimes be impressionable and what we say can influence people whether that's our intent or not. I get used to thinking of myself as a regular guy just doing my own thing when sometimes my thoughts and words go well beyond where I initially posted them.

I think it's important for us to be careful what we say, and it's equally important to be careful what we take from what other people say. Especially when it comes to big claims. Always get a second, third, fourth opinion and don't be afraid to ask for clarification if something doesn't sit right or sounds confusing.

It's also important to reflect on how our words and actions might affect other people's experience of fandom, and err on the side of 'live and let live' wherever possible. It's great to have our own preferences and to champion them, but we should try to do so in a way that leaves space for other people and perspectives.

The more unique perspectives and the more friendly, open dialog there is, the healthier the community will be as a whole.

There's nothing wrong with encouraging and guiding growth in the particular areas we are interested in, as long as it doesn't step on, oppress or attack those who are peacefully enjoying something different.

Anonymous 2 asked: bjyx fans attacking gdgdbaby for including zsww/lsfy dynamics in an event named bjyx then turning right around and attacking the zsww/lsfy event organizer for excluding bjyx? god, can you hear my facepalm and sigh of resignation and incredulity from over there? im genuinely not surprised that they're trying to drive an entire part of the fandom out by disgusting them (and me) with these immature tactics. i believe what im about to say next will sound quite bait-y and i respect your decision 1/?

should you choose not to post this. but i do know that it is not only me, in fact there are many out there, that is of this opinion. we just dont talk about it on twitter to avoid the potential mess it will bring lol. okay, here goes nothing. (do note that im talking about the majority here, not every single person is like this) so bjyx fans tend to be cishet females whereas zsww/lsfy fans are more diverse in terms of age and gender, and most of them are part of the queer community too 2/?

i would like to clarify that most of these zsww/lsfy fans are not dynamic exclusive (in the sense that they are friendly and interact with all ggdd fans) they just prefer to "identify" themselves as zsww/lsfy fans (on twitter specifically) just to form a distinction from bjyx fans who mostly are dynamic exclusive (as in; they do not consume non-bjyx content, and straightup refuse to interact with non-bjyx fans, often blocking them). as a result, id say that the zsww/lsfy communiy is way more 3/?

mature and respectful (after all, they're mostly queer people talking about a queer ship) whereas many problems in this fandom, such as the homophobia, adamantly insisting on "drawing lines" between dynamics, stem from the bjyx exclusive fans, comprised of cishet females who "may not know better". so, it is of no surprise to me that they're resorting to these immature tactics of calling gg unsavory names, and organizing retaliatory events with controversial topics in an attempt to "purify". 4/4

I trust that you have arrived at that theory through your own experience and observation. I haven't personally spent much time immersed in this stuff so I can't claim to have any real insight or expertise. If you say that's your experience of it, then at the very least that's how you've seen things up to this point.

I just want to say that I think we should always be careful about making assumptions about people's age, gender/gender identity, etc.

There are plenty of good reasons to avoid doing that; because those assumptions could be very wrong, because those assumptions are often laced with ageism, sexism, etc., because those assumptions - even when correct - might not be an accurate basis for the conclusions we draw.

But the primary reason I recommend avoiding those type of assumptions is because anything that enables us to clump a group of people together in our minds like that will tend to make them easier to demonize and dehumanize. They are no longer individuals who are each responsible for their own unique perspectives, they are now 'the X group' who is known for 'A B C series of easily attackable ideas or behaviors'.

If we attribute undesirable traits and behaviors to a group of people we feel opposed to in some way, that makes us feel more righteous and justified in behaving unfairly toward them, dismissing their humanity and warring with them. It's just risky behavior to engage in, even when it's well-intentioned.

There might actually be some truth to what you're saying. It could very well be that most of these people are young, inexperienced, heteronormative, etc. but if that's the case then we should try to use those traits to better understand and empathize rather than to better dismiss and discredit.

Just my two cents on that.

It can be really frustrating dealing with what feels like other people attacking us, trying to oppress us, etc. - especially when there are more of them than there are of us. In my experience the best solutions to that sort of problem are generally the ones that focus on what we are doing and want to do rather than what they are doing that we don't want them to do.

As I am always preaching, we can't control what other people say, do or think. The only thing we have any control over is what we say, do and think (and how we respond to what they say, do and think).

I have found in my experience that the moment I step out of a conflict mindset and instead step into a problem-solving mindset, everything starts to come together. I feel better, my outlook is more positive, I can begin to see solutions and allies rather than problems and enemies, and most of all, I become more focused on what I am doing than what others are doing.

So I would recommend everyone who is invested in resolving these conflicts focus on that. "How can we best showcase and encourage the types of stories we enjoy?" instead of "How can we stop these other people from doing things we dislike?"

Anonymous 3 asked:

Hello again! It’s anon #3 from the fanfic post. I really do appreciate reading your thoughts on various issues like this, so thank you for always taking time to write in depth. As for supporting without going to war, the simplest way has always been to just show appreciation for the creators, hype them up. Kudos are the easiest way on ao3 but comments in addition are great. This goes for all content—art, fics, vids..etc. Creators love to see and read how people react to their content. Sharing is also great, fic recs are very helpful, just be cautious with art and reposting though. Hope this helps a bit!

Thanks so much, Anon. I think this is excellent advice. And it's true that appreciation is great, but helping to expand the audience is also great. Recommending stories, pointing people to the pages/websites of artists we like (as opposed to reposting), sharing our own ideas and approaches, encouraging people to try new things... all of this helps build healthier communities.

And here's another one: WRITE! DRAW! CREATE!

I urge anyone with creative interests or talents to bring their voices to the community because we all can benefit from hearing from you.

Thanks again everyone for sharing your thoughts on this issue. I hope that over time we can all work in positive ways to improve the situation.

I think this subject has been well-covered now so I'm going to retire it for the time being. If anyone still feels they want to discuss it further please feel free to message me privately. Thanks.

#fan fiction #fandom reflections #ask

[whyqueerbaitingisbad]

movies & shows

cracks knuckles* alright this is going to be more of a rant than an analysis because i’m basing this on both my research, but also how it felt to personally be baited by these shows. there are obviously more pieces of bad (almost every horror movie) and good ones but these are the ones i’ve watched.

please keep in mind that i am but one queer and everyone has different opinions.

Supernatural (CW) 2005

This show is 15 years old and just ended. From season 5 till 15, there has been tension between two of the lead characters. They were constantly shipped together and not only did the entire fandom know about this ship but so did almost all of Tumblr. On top of that, the actors and show runners knew about it as well. Which is why it makes it ridiculous that it was constantly pushed aside while the romantic coding  kept happening, even after show runners dismissed it as being intentional. The Destiel (Dean x Cas) case has been going on for years, and as the show came to its end, many fans had hope. But N O P E. Instead, we got a love confession from Cas where Dean looked like he was near constipated and the Cas was killed and sent into a fiery place that was not hell but s u p e r  h e l l.

… w hy.

Sherlock (BBC) 2010

Just like Supernatural, this show was renown on Tumblr for not only how good it was, but its hinting at a potential relationship between Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. But again, like Supernatural, the intentional tension between the two characters was denied by producers. This caused an uproar within the fandom, and even left some people believing that, after the last season aired, it had been a joke and the producers were hiding a “secret, unaired season” because they had felt so robbed by this show that had implied something and denied it.

The 100 (CW) 2014

We got lesbians. We got background gays. We were happy. Then, all of a sudden, one of them is killed for no reason. Did it advance the plot? No. Was she fighting and died in battle? lol no. She was doing literally nothing and got shot and died. And then the producers kept bringing her back once a season in the form of a ghost or illusion because why? Because she was a fan favourite queer character. ✨bury your gays and sparingly bring them back for profit anyone?✨

Voltron: Legendary Defender (Netflix) 2016

*deep breathe* This one is a special disaster. Not only was there romantic tension and romantically coded scenes for 7 seasons, but producers, voice actors and artists working on the show repeatedly said “don’t worry klance (Keith x Lance) shippers, you’ll be happy”

. … w h e r e??? You code one of their scenes with a sunset in the background while they talk about love and then one of them goes on a date with someone who has declined his advances for 7 seasons but now in season 8 decides to do a full 180. Not only that, but you announce at a Comic Con (a convention) that a character is gay and has a fiancé, only to kill off the fiancé and never make it explicit in the show except at the last second of the last episode where he marries a no name character. 

Personally, i’d like to say a big fuck you to the show that strung me along for 2 years and never stopped saying we’d be happy to then pull the rug out from under us and call us crazy for thinking anything from the past 8 seasons was intentional.

Scooby-Doo (2002) 

While not being outwardly queerbaiting, this movie’s filmmaker has just revealed some shocking news, which wasn’t at all shocking to the gays who had watched this movie over the years. In July of 2020, James Gunn, the filmmaker of Scooby-Doo, revealed in a podcast that, initially, Velma was explicitly gay in his script, but then the studio watered it down until it became nothing. This isn’t an example of baiting as much as it is changing a character’s initial design to “better fit an audience”. The worst part of all this is that with Velma’s character having been written with a l i t t l e queer subtext, people had been theorizing about if since the movie came out, but were always yelled at by the internet for “imagining something that isn’t there”. But now, even with it being said that the initial point was for her to be gay, people have no objections to still refusing to accept it. Why?? So we can’t get the subtext gays OR the confirmed gays?? Make it make sense.

Brooklyn 99 (NBC) 2013

To have the queer characters firstly introduced without mentioning their sexualities and have it brought up naturally was so goddamn nice to see, because no one does a big deal about it unless they ask for that. This show is amazing in general but the way they show their queer characters is *chefs kiss*.

She-ra and the Princesses of Power (Netflix) 2018

This. Show. My heart SOARS. It's just a remake of an old show so absolutely nothing was ever expected, but then it was sprinkled in and ENDED WITH A BANG. And it was so beautiful and real to see the struggle of two friends who care for each other and want to be together but have different visions of the world fall in love. And they also had characters with disabilities, a non-binary character and jUST SUCH A GOOD SHOW.

Kipo and The Age of Wonderbeasts (Netflix) 2020

This is a case where you go into it not expecting anything and are BLOWN AWAY by the bare minimum. And not because it’s bad!! It's mind blowing because this is the simple representation we need!! Not something over the top, but an every day relationship. It’s just two boys falling in love and going on dates and being nervous around each other, yet i was so stunned. Because it’s not shown enough. I should not be this excited over something that should be this normal. 10/10 though this show is so good for all kinds of representation.

Steven Universe (Cartoon Network) 2013

This show did so much for queer representation with its general message of loving everyone and loving who you want. Especially since it was aired on Cartoon Network, a channel for kids, it was able to help normalize something so looked down upon in some circles. It made it easy to watch for s o m e people because it's a cartoon but it's so beautiful to see these ladies so in love with each other, both platonically and romantically and we see them have a family dynamic that isn’t a “nuclear family”. Rebecca Sugar (creator) really said “lemme just break all stereotypes real quick”.

Adventure Time (Cartoon Network) 2010

It's the “knowing a fanbase shipped something so hard that the creators made it canon” for me. This relationship had been theorized by fans for years, but it had never been explicit in the show. When the finale episode came out and the two shared a kiss, it was a moment of celebration. The producer of the show said that it had not really been planned but when the episode was being made, the choice of what happened was given to one of the artists (bless your soul Hanna K. Nyströmthe). And as the show releases little bonus episodes, its latest was centered around Marceline and Bubblegum and their relationship. AND WE LOVE TO SEE OUR DOMESTIC LESBIANS BEING HAPPY AND IN LOVE.

Yuri on Ice!!! (anime) 2016

The fact that an A N I M E gave us a love story between two men is mind boggling and it makes me so happy!! Especially because it's a Japanese show and they’re very conservative about these things just makes it more emotional. The creators said they wanted to make the anime take place in a world where gay/straight isn’t a thing, it’s just love (ladies, you’re going to make me cry). So as the weekly episodes came out and fans start speculating, THEY GAVE US THE LAST FEW EPISODES FULL OF ROMANCE AND EMOTIONAL SCENES BETWEEN THE TWO AND THEN THEY GET R I N GS?!???!! You watch for the figure skating, you stay for the figure skaters that are in love.

Shadowhunters (Freeform) 2016

*insert me being frustrated that the actors are straight so we can move on from that disappointment*

This show really said “let’s name a whole episode after this couple because they deserve it”. But seriously, they gave us two characters whose entire plot does not center around their sexualities while still showing us the differences in a relationship between someone experienced and someone new at this. They were both powerful and amazing characters apart from each other, with their own story lines and goals but they loved each other so much omgs. SO MUCH. 

It was so great to watch.

Love, Simon (2018) 

There’s a lot of disagreement on whether this movie is good representation or not. However, we need to take into consideration that this was Hollywood’s first movie with a main character that was gay, where the story’s focus was on Simon’s love story. The biggest problem, for me at least, was that the actor playing Simon is a straight man and not queer. My problem is not with him, but the fact that there are other actors that are gay and that could have played Simon just as well. (the love interested was however played by a queer actor so ✨progress✨)

All in all, this movie does represent what a lot of queer kids have to go through: being outed at school, how they then come out, the bullying and doubt they go through.

The book is also really good.

Call Me By Your Name (2018)

This movie is so aesthetically pleasing and was able to capture the confusion and heartbreak felt by a boy who’s struggling with his own feelings towards a man. His inner conflict and joy and l o v e he feels but doesn’t know how to deal with is so well communicated through the screen and just breaks your heart because it feels so real.

But again, they could’ve gotten gay actors to play gay characters…

through having this list here, i want to show you that it’s not hard for creators to give good queer representation. the LGBTQ+ community isn’t asking for much, we just want to be well represented on screen as just a regular character, not some token queer kid there for the diversity points. having been exposed to so much queerbaiting and just not seeing any representation on screen, i always get over-excited when i see a queer character, and that’s not how it should be. it should be a normal thing, something you can find in most pieces of media, just like there’s a straight white cisgender person in everything.

and they seriously need to start casting queer actors for queer characters...

#queer #queerbait #queerbaiting #supernatural #they really said lets make it the worst ending ever #destiel #sherlock #johnlock #the 100 #clexa #bury your gays #fuck you jason rothenberg #voltron #klance #...that was a shit show #scooby doo 2 #what an icon she was tho #brooklyn 99 #rosa diaz is a god you cant tell me otherwise #she ra and the princesses of power #shera #catradora #go lesbians go #kipo and the age of wonderbeasts #gave us precious gaybies #steven universe #ALL THE LESBIANS #adventure time #obsidian #bubbleine

[bardofv0id]

Meat vs. Candy: Meat

Here’s the thing.

I’m hearing two main arguments online... a lot of people saying the epilogues are Terrible, for various reasons, and a few people saying they're Good, with a smaller but vocal subset of those people arguing that if you don’t like them then you’re obviously just expecting to be spoon-fed a fluff ending in which the Character You Like gets a wish-fulfillment storybook epilogue.

There are probably some people who are mad about not getting that. However, I think misrepresenting the range of anger various parts of the fandom are experiencing as being purely some kind of childish knee-jerk tantrum at not getting the toy they wanted is disingenuous, at best, and parallels some of the mistakes of the epilogues themselves.  Note that this in no way excuses or justifies people sending the writers or anyone else death-threats or whatever the hell else has been going on.

Honestly... the Meat ending was pretty good writing, in my opinion.  It wasn’t comfortable or happy or flattering in any way to a number of characters who I recognize people care deeply about, but it was nothing really worse than I expected from Earth C, based on the fundamental narrative of Lord English’s giant closed-loop system.  The loop had to close, in order for Homestuck proper to occur at all.  That means that Earth C is where Calliope and Caliborn hatch and grow up, far, far in the future. And that means that universe, like the others, will be destroyed by a SBURB session one day. Sorry, folks.  It was never meant to be a 'happy ending'.

Meat was deeply metatextual. It was gristly and greasy and discomfiting.  It raised questions about what it means to have a narrator, and whose biases are implicitly included--and I think those are very interesting questions to raise, whether or not they are particularly satisfying to someone who is also reading for the characters.

Spoilers beyond the read-more, for obvious reasons.

That said, there were elements that did surprise me.  The removal of the other kids from different points in different doomed timelines, to fight with John against LE, rather than being his teammates from Earth C--but from John’s perspective, it doesn’t seem like there’s much difference.  Either way, they’re not fully ‘real’ to him (and barely feel real to us, as quickly as they appear and then die). He’s from the Game Over timeline, he’s battling depression, and nobody in the retcon timeline is really quite authentic to him, either--just as to many fans, they didn’t feel quite authentic, when the retcon happened and we had to suddenly let go of the characters we'd watched grow and change, replaced by funhouse mirror reflections and could-have-beens.

I’ve also seen some reasonably interesting arguments that a lot of Dirk’s narration, in the Meat route, either sounds eerily like Vriska talking or flips back and forth between Vriska-mode and Dirk-mode, well before alt!Calliope ever gets involved.  I’m prepared to believe some Serket element (whether that is potentially Vriska, or the Aranea who was abruptly displaced from her attempt at wresting control of the narrative by John) was involved there, and Dirk was not acting entirely of his own accord.  I’m also prepared to shrug and say “okay, maybe it was just a narrative parallel--Homestuck does that a lot”.  Some narration, especially when Terezi is involved, doesn't sound at all how I would expect a Serket-influenced narrator to sound with regards to her, in particular.  It doesn’t particularly grind my gears to think some version of Dirk, in the right environment, might make a series of choices that leads him to behaving like this, entirely on his own.  I recognize that it’s upsetting to DirkJake fans in particular to see their favorite pairing written like this, but it doesn’t feel wholly out of character to me for either of them to develop in these directions, given the right (or wrong) pressures and external situations. This Dirk is the culmination of a very wide multiplicity of Dirks, including at least one if not more who ended up directly subsumed in Lord English and/or under his explicit influence.

I’ve heard that some people were attacking the Meat route on the grounds of transphobia, which... I think is a rather weak argument, given that it’s recognized in the text itself, as pronoun changes are handled respectfully by one narrator-character and inconsistently by a second, who is being set up as the villain of the story. That seems like a pretty solid metatextual rejection of the action, no?  Like, if a villain does a bad thing, in a story, while the hero is fighting them, do you argue that the story itself advocates for that thing? There has to be some kind of distinction between ‘character does X’ and ‘author of story advocates X is Morally Correct’, or we would never have any villains at all. Dirk's dismissiveness toward Roxy's agency grows, the further toward 'villain' he slides.

Were there some things I liked, in Meat?  I guess.  From a sociopolitical and cultural standpoint, the shitty repercussions of the way the retcon gang set up a planet, dumped a bunch of chess people and clone grubs, then left them to do all the work of creating its society and waiting for their eventual 'godly' return... were pretty logical. I'm actually happy that it was acknowledged, instead of just brushed off as inconsequential.  It was interesting, too, to see some of the kids playing with notions of gender identity as they grew, and how their companions adjusted. It was telling (in terms of Dirk's character development) how he thought of Roxy and Calliope's gender explorations as something he could choose to 'allow' or not. Also, with how truncated most of the gang's personal development (and plot development) was in Homestuck proper ('thanks', retcon!Vriska), I think it kinda made sense how stunted and incapable of like... dealing with regular life in a functional way a lot of them seemed. Jumping straight to teenage 'godhood' didn't make them experienced or smart. It's sad that all of them just kind of... stagnate there, but Earth C has always felt incredibly stagnant to me.

Retcon!Vriska getting swallowed by the black hole was at least thematically fitting, though I'm wondering why she is using such Seer-themed language, suddenly. I also like that the wallet is finally back in play. Rose and Dirk's philosophical debate about individuation and free will is delightfully creepy, given the themes of the story. There are moments, within the story, that the turns of phrase and the humor just hit me full in the teeth and remind me this is Homestuck, and I do love those moments.  And of course, my xenobiological worldbuilding interests enjoyed that apparently, earth onions are quite toxic to trolls.

Were there things I didn’t like in Meat?  Yeah, of course. I don't particularly like that John, an Heir of Breath--one who is innately positioned to awaken Breath, freedom and motivation in the people around him--callously shoves an unresisting teenager he's barely met into a refrigerator and just leaves him there, apparently convinced he deserves it.

Did some of the things I disliked relate to the storytelling itself, rather than just how characters were characterized, or what actions they took?  Yeah. Why are we still out here queer-baiting with Dave and Karkat?  Years have passed.  They have spent literal years sitting 1.5 feet apart so it's 'not gay'? I sincerely don't think this pairing is actually healthy or beneficial to either of them, the way it developed in canon, but come on. Then, they still balk and drag their feet unless it's being narratively pushed on them by someone else. It's just painful to watch.

I also take a certain level of personal offense as a Tavros fan when the narrative goes out of its way to repeatedly harp on Tavros being useless and no one giving a shit what he's doing.  Ghost Tavros was awesome, okay, and was personally responsible for gathering the ghost army, so fuck you, Vriska-coded narrator. You have bad judgment. But that is not a crime of writing, if it is an intentionally biased perspective and not just writers taking cheap shots at a character they don't happen to like. I'm just incredibly tired of it being done habitually and collectively, as a fandom, to that character in particular. Furthermore, I'm really discomfited by the way Tavros's development (am I the only one who remembers him dancing and telling Vriska to suck it?) is completely ignored and de-legitimized by having him immediately fawning on her, trailing around after her, hiding against her shoulder, etc.  Tavros was a victim of emotional and physical abuse, at Vriska's hands.  Can we just agree to stop narratively forcing victims back into contact with their abusers, period? It's not a good look.

Moreover, there's the whole misogyny angle.  When does a story about misogynistic characters (and narrators) doing misogynistic things while misogynistic shit narratively happens start being a critique of misogynistic tropes rather than a tired old rehash?  Every step Jane (allegedly a strong, independent woman, though also stepping into her dictatorial role as 'Heiress') takes is either dictated by Dirk, sent into a complete tailspin that upends her confidence by Jake, or verbally decried as factually wrong and/or stupid by Dave and/or Karkat.  Rose and Kanaya both have their agency overwritten and end up separated from each other through the actions of Dirk, and Rose becomes an extension of Dirk, losing her very selfhood.  Jade is treated as an accessory to the DaveKat trainwreck, simultaneously discounted as actually emotionally relevant and blamed for its ludicrous problems.  She, of course, also ends up having her agency overwritten as she's plunged into a coma and possessed, prevented from actually having reactions to the things that are going on, or taking action for herself. Borrowed!Rose and Jade are KO'd almost instantly in the fight against Lord English, and become either literally erased, or dead weight for a male character to drag around until it's no longer convenient. Terezi admits to wasting a huge amount of time trailing around after Vriska--who was an emotionally abusive gaslighter to her, on the retcon!meteor. (And we're back to victims being constantly evaluated according to their proximity to their abusers again.) Then, she's on to redirecting herself into some quest on John's behalf, instead. She's still not living for herself. Finally, you show me an Aradia who would ever, ever be concerned about 'saying more embarrassing stuff' around Dave, or thinking of him as an ‘outrageously cool dude’, and I'll show you a bridge I'd like to sell you.  That ain't any Aradia I've ever seen. So who’s narrating there, Dirk again? A third party?

Other weird things: apparently Jane's kidnapping in the snapchats just... never gets explained or referenced again? I went back to reread those, and they connected to Meat even more than I realized at first.   I guess Jane grew up to be... exactly what she was raised/groomed to be, which is *uncomfortable* but not particularly shocking.  I feel bad for people who were hoping for happier endings for the human kids, but I don't think I ever really expected Homestuck to serve up happy endings.  I don't buy that things in the snapchat were just thrown in at random, though.  Those elements were there for a reason, and arguing that everything in the snapchats were connected to the epilogues EXCEPT that one major extended plotline doesn't make sense.  Especially when it visually and narratively seems to be a direct link to the events of the Meat storyline. 

Also, where the fuck are the sprites?  We never see or hear from Jasprosesprite, Gcatavrosprite, or the Nannasprite(s?) again. I’m not sure anyone cares, but. Uh. Yeah.

I have other thoughts regarding the classpect-coded language that crops up pretty frequently in the epilogues, but I think I will devote a separate post to that, if I get around to it, given that this *is* at heart a classpecting blog.

So anyway, Meat ends, it's depressing and futile and grim, I get it. I don't like every element, but it hangs together as a story with a narrative, overall.

Then we get to Candy.

Hoo boy.

I’ll tackle that one next, but as it was considerably more upsetting for me to read, rereading it for fact-checks and commentary is going to be a lot harder for me.  I’ll get through it here sooner or later, though.

#homestuck #upd8 #upd8 spoilers #homestuck epilogue #epilogue spoilers #spoilers #tw: abuse #tw: misogyny

[bloodthirstyreviews]

Voltron Legendary Defender

Oh boy.

Just gonna throw all my thoughts into one post because I would probably otherwise flood the joint with them. This started as a genuine review and quickly dissolved into rage. enjoy. this is 1-8 so full of spoilers.

1. Enter: A happy honest to god kids' show. We meet the first 3 kids as they are training at the Garisson: Pidge, Hunk, Lance. Suddenly something crashes from space into the desert near the base, so of course they sneak off to investigate like any good schoolkids would. Enter: Keith. The hot badboy that every series needs. School: dropout. Hair: mullet. Motorcycle: duh. Fingerless gloves: on. Keith is coming to save Shiro, who has been missing for a year, and is also the something that fell from space. (Missed opportunity: falling from heaven pickup lines). Enter Shiro: giving Dad Bod a whole new meaning, and the leader this messy group of kids needs. The 5 find the Blue Lion, which takes them on an autopilot adventure theough time and space. They arrive on a planet home to a peaceful alien race, home to the maker of the blue lion and the other 4 lions that make up Voltron. Yay! Really most of this season is finding the lions, repairing the castle, and figuring out that there is no i in teamwork, Keith. Don’t forget bonding moment. ver import.

2. Still on the happy kid show train for the most part. After a fight with Zarkon the kiddos are all separated to far off planets and get into trouble. They fight the galra a lot, have to fix the castle some more, go to the mall like regular teenagers would. Prep for fighting Zarkon again and whatnot. Big ol battle.

3. In comes Zarkon’s hot son, Lotor. I really love Lotor as a character, instead of charging in headfirst he collects data, is analytical. They form a coalition of rebels to fight the Galra, its some good stuff. But no Shiro, and Keith has to step up as the leader in his absence. They go through the struggles of s1 teambuilding because of the change in lineup.

4. Keith is away a lot training with the Blade of Marmora, trying to learn more about his heritage and where the knife he carries is from. The Blade helps them fight and stuff. They acquire a cow.

5. Shiro shiro shiro you poor bastard. Shiro acts weird and the others notice, but don’t really do anything about it. Zarkon finally dies. But now it’s Lotor. woo. But Lotor wants their help to become emperor of the Galra. Maybe not a bad guy. Loturra etc.

6. Lotor not a bad guy? Lotortron vs galra. KEEF MOMMY YESSSSSSSS. But now Keef is older and hot thanks lance. More Loturra. eugh. I really love the Keith and Mom arc, they get some bonding time for 2 solid years while travelling through space. VLD D&D YOOOOOOOO. Suddenly more Alteans. Lotor evil. This season is such a whirlwind yikes. Keith vs Shiro killed me. Finally get real Shiro back and if that aint a bonding moment good lordy. No longer a kids show. Not in the slightest. I love this season though.

7. the worst. but GARFLE WARFLE SNICK. PONYTAIL KEEF. They go to earth and it’s horrible. “We aren’t going to kill off our lgbt rep” but I guess no show needs two gay characters bye adam. I hate this season, and I really feel like this is where they lost respect from a lot of their viewers. I hate how much they hyped up gay Shiro only to kill off his ex before they can interact again. I hate how much they hyped up gay Shiro only to leave Adashi open to interpretation. They could easily have been best friends or roommates. Nothing in the show says that Shiro is gay or that him and Adam were involved romantically. They hyped and hyped on Twitter, only to leave it so vague.

8.... oh 8. fandom voltron will always be better than canon voltron. that’s what we learned in this season. JDS and LM are full of shit also. “Lance will end up with someone you wont expect” um you mean Allura? Memories of Allura? Alone? Yeah. We expected all of that you trash. And what did we get? All. Of. That.

This season has just left much to be desired. The thoroughly enjoyed the battle scenes and all of that, which there was a ton of, but what I wanted was the characters. There’s been a good amount of character development throughout the series but like holy Lance baby boy oof did he grow up since the start of the fiasco. Pidge and Hunk deserved more development. Hunk just deserved more in every aspect: he’s funny and cooks that’s it. that’s all Hunk gets. At least he gets his waifu unlike anyone else. I guess if you get no plot you get to have a partner that actually makes sense, its a give and take.  

Then we have Shiro. He is so damn sexy in that captain’s uniform I just gotta say. The role suits him I think. But the important things. Him and his husband were done such a disservice by the producers. “We aren’t going to just randomly force a relationship” “we dont need romance to develop a character” bull. shit.

Alright yall lets be real. The only LGBT rep in this series is for marketing. Not even going to say queer baiting.

We were straight up used.

“you guys will get to know Adam!” Annnnd him and Shiro break up and then Adam is dead, he gets like half a minute of screen time. Yeah we really “got to know him”. Even after marketing had Adam on it... and they used a lot of rainbows and shit after they announced Shiro was gay.

Then Shiro is randomly getting married only a year later. To who? ? Why is it that none of the other paladins are married, but the original leader of voltron, the knight in shining armor trope man, is the only one getting married and not really doing anything important like the rest of them??????

It was an afterthought. Cheaply written in to win the queer rep points. Like yay a gay kiss on tv but also. Yay another gay wedding in kids tv.  but I don’t like how they did it and its horrible rep. We get 2 weddings in kids animation, but how many straight weddings have there been?

THEY THROW IT IN BECAUSE WE’RE SO UNDERREPRESENTED IN MEDIA THAT WE’LL EAT UP EVEN THE TINIEST SLIVER OF ALMOST REP AND THEY KNOW THAT AND JUST EXPLOIT IT. It’s no different from random brands putting rainbows on their packaging during pride month so they’ll be bought and favored in the queer community, whether the company stands for gay marriage or not. It’S ALL FUCKING MARKETING QERKJGERJNGERJH I HATE IT.

THIS IS NO LONGER

GOOD

ENOUGH

REP.

WE DESERVE BETTER.

#vld #voltron legendary defender #vld s8 spoilers #uggghhhh #tv reviews

[emperorren]

some thoughts by a long term multifandom-dwelling, meta-enthusiast shipper who has been countless times baited, disappointed, lied to, and kicked in the face by writers and showrunners backpedaling and boycotting their own narrative, taking impossibly stupid decisions, and being overall dumb as fuck:

“canon” is a non-entity. or at the very least a fluctuating notion, especially in the case of huge franchises (think of m*rvel). canon is incessantly rewritten, challenged, distorted, contradicted by new material. think of the ha n-leia romance, how it was a happily ever after at the end of the original trilogy. think of it now. there are old fans who utterly rejected the new trilogy as something essentially extraneous to the star wars story; for them, han and leia are still living their HEA, han is still alive, ben solo was never born, and nothing bad happened. This remains true for them as long as they ignore the new material, whose canon validity is disputable, if you’re a “purist”. These characters aren’t real, they are the product of someone’s imagination, and literally the only thing that separates your canon from THE canon is that the latter is imagined by someone who happens to be in charge of the commercial version of story. When none of this is real, several things can be true at the same time.

i’ve come to terms with the fact that shipping as we intend it doesn’t operate on the same level of mainstream storytelling. Mainstream storytelling is usually black/white and pretty straightforward; shipping exists in the margins and between the lines. For most mainstream writers, “romance” has a very narrow meaning. Very specific stuff has to happen to create “romance” (kisses, sex, googly eyes. “I love you” “I know”). Shipping doesn’t need those things. The shipper gaze is inherently transformative. The real essence of shipping is taking things that aren’t intended to be romantic, and RUNNING WITH IT, changing them, developing them, making them romantic in a way that the wider audience wouldn’t understand, or wouldn’t have the patience to follow in depth.

this is why we saw things as the interrogation and the duel and our brain wheels were immediately set in motion to come up with a million exciting scenarios. If we had seen a romance unequivocally blossoming between these characters, most of us (me included) wouldn’t be so drawn to this pairing.

some of us don’t even like mainstream romance. When people are like “huh, why do you ship this crack pairing instead of the canon one?”, well, this is the reason. Some of us feel a sort of disconnection from standard romantic narratives (and that’s because they are usually written by straight, cis, male writers, and designed to appeal to a generic and primarily straight, cis, male fanbase with little imagination. star wars, I’m afraid, makes no exception.)

because of the above, and because the perception of what qualifies as romantic is deeply subjective, it makes even less sense to talk about “canon romance”. 

I can see two characters holding each other’s gaze for 10 seconds as more romantic than two characters having a long make out session. I can hear a “forgive me, rey” uttered in a mouthful of blood at the end of ix and read it as more romantic than a kiss. Get what I mean?

Lots of us, however, care for those kisses and for an explicit validation. It’s okay, of course. It’s completely okay and natural to want that to happen.

but, again, experience has taught me not to pin all my hopes on THAT. Thing is, the canon story isn’t under our control. It just isn’t. It’s in the hands of a bunch of professional writers we don’t know personally, who do this as a job, who might or might not be emotionally invested in the story they’re telling, who’ll move on new projects as soon as they wrap up this one, and who - i repeat - approach this stuff with a professional attitude (whether they’re good at it or not, it’s another issue), not an emotional one.

what is under our control is how we handle our fandom experience. The ship is ours, and we make what we want with it. Fanart, fanfiction, meta, headcanons. They gave us the basic bricks, we create the building. None of this is less valid than what happens in Rian Johnson’s or Colin Trevorrow’s head. They just happen to have a higher budget. At the end of the day, though, they’re creating a huge toy machine that we’re going to use as we like. 

the biggest ships EVER, the real fandom behemoths, are usually the ships that “never happened”. Why? because no male writer ruined them because their stories were not completed, and it’s a natural human instinct to want to complete a story. Which means fandom tends to gravitate, by default, towards those pairings that weren’t given closure, or were treated unfairly, or had a lot of sexual tension but no resolution in canon.  

I see a lot of (understandable) anxiety over what I’ll call “the j*hnlock fiasco* and LET ME TELL YOU ONE THING:

YES, the TJLC turned out to be a bunch of crap, but in the end, who ended up living in the same house, taking care of a child, and being FOREVER BROS? As someone who witnessed the whole thing from the sidelines, with no dog in this fight, I have zero doubt that Sh*rlock/Watson is, has always been, and was confirmed to be the central relationship of that show, and of that verse in general. The conspiracy theorists fooled themselves (and caused a lot of harm to both their followers, and those who disagreed), because they made it unnecessarily complicated, and pinned their whole understanding of “canon” on something very specific that they were repeatedly told wouldn’t happen. but regular shippers? I know a couple, and they were satisfied with what they got. (frankly, I loved the ending of Sh*rlock, because it left things open for EVERY shipper. I would LOVE for SW to pull a number like that. I wouldn’t feel cheated, at all.)

meta is great. as i said, I’m a meta enthusiast. But please remember that even the greatest meta is nothing but an attempt to make sense of things that remain largely outside of our purview, with limited information, no access to what is in the making, and no confirmation that the writers are actually as competent as said meta needs them to be. Enjoy the speculation. Don’t marry yourself to one. Be a speculation whore. No commitment, no regrets. Worst case scenario, it’ll be excellent fanfiction fodder. 

none of this is an admission that *re/ylo won’t happen in canon* or an encouragement to stop believing it will. This is simply my attitude towards shipping IN GENERAL, and—after countless disappointments—I though it might be helpful for others, too.

remember: 

in december, we’ll see these assholes battling AGAIN, and being intense again, and we’ll be obsessing over inane details and speculating and dissecting microexpressions and shit EXACTLY LIKE WE’VE BEEN DOING SO FAR.

sure, a lot of these things we obsess over might be completely accidental (it’s always good to keep it in mind)—but that’s part of the fun, in fact, it’s the WHOLE POINT OF SHIPPING.

TO CLARIFY:

(because I’ve seen some bizarre interpretations of this post)

while the shipping fanbase might be predominantly female and/or queer, this isn’t a rule. Contrary to what some media outlets and popular forums believe, SHIPPING ISN’T A GENDERED ACTIVITY, and I, for one, am ENDLESSLY PISSED AND FRUSTRATED at the constant, blatant misogyny and gatekeeping with which shipping and fanfiction are treated in mainstream fandom circles. The shipping fanbase is an extremely diverse group, composed by anyone with a more transformative approach to fandom (which isn’t in an either/or relationship with the curative approach, mind), anyone who, for whatever reason, might feel dissatisfied with or underrepresented by mainstream narratives, especially the very simplistic ones we normally see in blockbusters. At no point this post wants to reinforce sexist assumptions about shipping and fanfiction as inherently *female*. 

what I’m also NOT saying, is that we should just passively accept this divide between what we WANT to see and what mainstream fiction gives  us; that we should just suck it up and stay in our lane. No, fam, I’m just presenting the way things (I think) are in blockbuster fiction, and saying that SW is (probably) no different in that respect. But we should definitely fight to change this status quo, and make demands for more diverse, inclusive, non-standardized romantic narratives.

#fanwank #shipping #** #sw negativity #///// #////// #romancegate

[elizabethrobertajones]

With Cas and the whole I love you thing, we are excited because the camera went right to Dean after it. But I feel like this is where the disconnect comes from, because that's a director decision right? And so who knows what the writers, etc intended to portray but the director chose that shot and isn't this just business as usual with queer baiting because nothing real will probably come from it. I'm trying to be rationale about it and maybe failing?

Ick, sorry to leave you waiting on a reply for days. This one needs a lot of brain for me to answer >.>

I’m not totally sure if you’re disappointed entirely, or warring with yourself about being excited but also wary of queerbaiting at the same time… I don’t really want to talk about queerbaiting because I have been trying to keep my blog for a couple of years already mostly about analysing the show and just enjoying what is on screen, and indulging in the subtext because it’s there and it’s fun and I like it, while keeping my expectations about what the show will do with it in the future low, even while I feel good, as I have always said, that they will absolutely drive this subtext to the end of the road, and never attempt to “kill” Destiel out of the text because it’s such an intrinsic part of it now. I’m along for that ride, and everything else is someone else’s problem because I am tired and just want to have fun and enjoy some stuff >.>

(I know some people at the start of the season were worried they had and that Dean n Cas were just very buddy buddy, but they were building up to new drama between them, and now in the space of a very few episodes we’ve been dipping into references to all the big episodes, including coming at 8x17 and 6x20 again in different ways over multiple episodes, and using that very specific language the show has developed to convey Destiel in all its ridiculous, romantic glory.)

Anyway. The show is a collaborative effort. 

The writers offer up the basic lines but are VERY clever about the references - Dabb has ALWAYS been canny about it and getting more and more canny the longer the show went on and it’s no surprise at all to me that when he takes over the show the writing becomes all about looking inward and retreading the past, from Destiel events to Yellow Eyes - the first wave of MotW were about Sam and Mary’s trauma, the second about Dean’s crap and the Cas-centric stuff… Now 12x12 mixes it all together spectacularly along with a whole bunch more references rehashing the past in exciting ways - the Destiel subtext is just swept along in this same thing… 

There’s the actors, who have been making faces at each other for 9-12 years depending on who you’re talking about, and are very good at making those face, but they are just following the scripts (mostly) and at the mercy of what story is being told; they bring the texture and nuance to all these moments, but they’re still being told what to do by the directors. Speight might be a bad example because while he’s clearly fucking amazing, this was only his second episode. I’m still in a 12x10 mood, and that was directed by Thomas J Wright who has been directing episodes on the show for years, and has a few things he does all the time that you can tell it’s one of his episodes - he does a TON of overhead shots of the Bunker war room with everyone in the cage imagery of the railings or shadows of the lighting or what have you (he has been really creative with it; I think he has like 3 different ways to convey the same thing :P) and it’s clearly one of his favourite shots to set up. 

He also has kept up a thread of this crypt scene rehashing that not only has happened in his episodes at least 3 times, but the 8x17 fight mirrored the 10x22 one blow by blow, and the dramatic conclusion of 10x22 mirrored shot by shot a fight he once directed in Dark Angel with very similar conditions (there were gifsets, they’ll be very deep in my 10x22 tag although if you have an afternoon to kill, knock yourself out >.>) - and then in 12x10 he directs a similar fight but happening to Cas with a 3rd person present and mirrors his shots from 10x22 again; the end of the fight would have been scripted and I don’t know how much input he’d have on it or how much the fight would have been suggested to him, but it was written to have a positive conclusion and he directed it to mirror a whole thread that went back to 8x17 and the original crypt scene and actually put some emotional closure on that moment for the first time after 4+ rehashings of it. 

And they don’t work in a bubble because one of those rehashings was not directed by him - it was Director Ackles, who had acted like 4 of them BEFORE that because of the Dark Angel one :P Anyway I don’t think it’s a coincidence that these scenes kept on happening but written by Robbie, Dabb, Buckleming and Yockey (and also possibly Buckleming again in 11x21 because there was a lot of discussion about that at the time wondering if it worked as a crypt scene parallel and it was the same director so we were suspicious because it was Destiel AF) 

With all these different people having some input in a really coherent thread of events that obviously the director put the finishing touches to to mirror the previous happenings, I don’t think director choices are at all random or isolated from the story. It’s a collaborative episode and they CLEARLY re-watch old episodes, read their lore and find ways to tell the story as coherently as they can. I picked on a Destiel thread to explain this but I’m sure there’s tons of other stuff. I mean, like, the El Sol thing which is the set department, ANOTHER apparently random branch of the storytelling which has been putting in visual clues like death beer, mom beer, dream beer, Heaven beer… which hold up to strong scrutiny and analysis despite appearing practically at random, you might think. The show has a LOT of languages to tell the story and they’re not all things written in the script, and the script is not the be all and end all of where the story comes from. Mostly the writers seem really chill with any changes and embellishments… The only petty think I can think of is in 9x04 the line about Dean reading got swapped, and Robbie came back with a vengeance and in 11x04 got in an identical line which they could not wriggle out of swapping, AND made Dean like 5x more nerdy in the process by talking about reading seriously thinky stuff instead of vaguely suggesting he might like to read Game of Thrones one day :P Aside from that I think we haven’t had too much petty in-fighting about the story, at least not in that mic drop sort of way :P

… Anyway I don’t know about expectations and I don’t wanna encourage them, but these people know what they’re doing and no one person is completely responsible for what’s going on all the time, so I don’t think there’s any ACCIDENTAL storytelling or stuff which is just one actor or director or writing playing with something all by themselves. I mean, the writers and directors seem to have quirks that they love including so you can usually sort of feel you know what you’re getting if you know who’s responsible for certain elements, but those quirks don’t affect a bigger narrative and something like Destiel, there’s stuff going on at every level of the storytelling to at least stress how important Cas and Dean are to each other, who knows how much nod nod wink wink from up top but those directly responsible for the episodes - directors, writers, actors, set people - contribute enough to make the subtext endlessly compelling to me… And of course at a higher level it’s all put together by editors and the people in charge of the show at the top level dictating what the writers and directors work on, and how they do it, and coming up with the long game, and, I think, generally being the only people who know what the long game is meant to look like, since it certainly does not get as far as the actors because I’m pretty sure they find out the story script by script and MAYBE get ominous warnings about how to act certain things such as when they’re starting a descent arc or have a secret or whatever and their overall behaviour changes…

I don’t know, I just think… It’s MORE than just a ton of random disconnected moments because there’s a real persistent narrative about it that they make where the reading is always there and everyone’s chipping in, and then we’re emphatically not discouraged from making the reading (10x05) and we’re informed is there and that we’re supposed to read into it (9x18)… I know this answer has to be about how I and only I relate to the text because it’s personal to everyone, but I like this structure and it intrigues me and they keep on playing into their own game, and the collaborative WHOLE of the show works well for me, as something I enjoy as just a fun show to watch, and ALSO as having all this depth and SO MUCH to read into it. At this point I’m really happy just enjoying how the show is so layered even for regular plot things. I felt actual GLEE with the Yellow Eyed demon and those sound effects around him and so on because it’s all coming around again in such interesting ways… Like the heavy Destiel subtext is just a bonus because I’m a nerd about this show who also likes Destiel and can read it into the text in a way that makes me happy and comfortable with it, and… when you don’t have that same approach all I can do is explain why I do or how I see it but I can’t tell anyone it’s NOT queerbaiting or that anything will come of it >.> I just like it despite my better judgement because this show has been there for me SO LONG and oh god the SOAP OPERA of it all :P 

I do think rampant optimism is ALWAYS dangerous for fandom because it makes people expect too much too quickly or at all, and this show intends to keep on plodding to at least episode 300 which I think someone said is halfway through season 14, which means we’re like 2 years off closure AT BEST if you’re waiting for the show to end and knot up all its loose ends… So I’m happy to play it cautious with my hopes and enjoy it as it comes… Though as I have rambled at in great length, I don’t think that’s taking it all as totally random unconnected moments which have no meaning in a wider context for the writers or actors or whoever might not seem to have been consulted for some random moment or other, when there’s so MANY of them and they’re as self-referential and complex as the rest of the show…

#Asks #I have no idea how to tag this :P #riverboat gambling #12x12

[213hiphopworldnews]

Doja Cat’s Continued Live Success Shows That Cancel Culture Has Its Limits

Ken Franklin

Amala Zandile Dlamini has gone from cat, to cow, to duck all in the space of a month, illuminating the dangers of viral success and the limits of so-called “cancel culture” in the process.

The 22-year-old Los Angeles native had spent the last several years making a name for herself as the colorful internet rapper and singer known as Doja Cat, garnering a small, but loyal, following of fans with the quirky, internet culture-influenced tracks found on her 2014 independent EP Purrr! and on her eclectic Soundcloud page. That following was enough to land her a label deal with RCA Records which spawned her debut album Amala earlier this year. Amala came and went without much fanfare, but Doja Cat experienced an explosion in fame when her jokey video for loose track “Mooo!” went viral on social media five months later in the middle of August.

“Mooo!” was almost guaranteed to become a viral sensation from the jump, with its lo-fi aesthetic, created by Doja herself using iMovie, a green blanket, and a few hilarious props to declare, “B*tch, I’m a cow.” In the video, she twerks and primps in front a series of blog and pop culture-culled background images, including the old Windows XP default wallpaper and a bouncing pair of anime boobs, while she rhymes Mother Goose-ish flexes full of subtly clever wordplay and old school hip-hop references that belie the frivolous concept. As a loose goof, the video is a gift; as an introduction to her expansive back catalog of more polished, artistically focused material, it was a savvy bait-and-switch, disarming the dubious doubts of knee-jerk skepticism endemic to internet natives for whom detached snark is a default reaction to practically any new artist who arrives petitioning their serious consideration.

But then, just as the wave of both critical acclaim and social media approval began to crest, it all came crashing down. Doja Cat “milkshake duck-ed” — aka when a suddenly viral entity reveals itself to be racist/homophobic/otherwise problematic after content mills start doing background research on the newly famous meme subject — in world record time. Years-old tweets wherein the young(er) Doja Cat freely used homophobic terms and expressed disgust for the idea of queer sex (as many unworldly teens — especially the ones raised mostly on hip-hop — are wont to do) resurfaced, and nearly instantly, the breakout star was denounced as canceled, the dreaded state of internet-enforced exile whereby mass denizens of social apps like Twitter declare an entity persona non grata. Her feel-good story of overnight celebrity was at its end — or was it?

It certainly didn’t appear that way from my experience at the Los Angeles stop of her Amala Tour last Friday night (September 21) at the Echoplex. From the line extending down the block even further than it usually has at other hip-hop shows I’ve attended there, to the enthusiasm on display from the wide-ranging, diverse crowd of starry-eyed teens and LA hipsters, it didn’t seem like the online backlash had extended to dampen Doja’s fans’ spirits in the least. Energetic but shy preteens crowded into the all-ages venue alongside teens and young adults and even a few middle-aged concertgoers, with their cat ears and cow horns on headbands all to take in the live spectacle that is a Doja Cat show.

Even more intriguing, there were plenty of fans taking in the concert at home as well, courtesy of live streaming app .WAV, which gained a slew of new subscribers with its previous partnership with Kanye West for his Wyoming campfire Ye release party. As a sponsor for the show, the app provided yet another avenue for the digital and physical worlds to cross over, even as the concert itself highlighted the ways in which both diverge in practice.

For one thing, it quickly became obvious that nary a fan in attendance was there because of the virulent success of “Mooo!” despite the bovine accessories adorning many of their hairdos and wardrobes. Their certified appreciation was evident as they sang along word-for-word to older, more obscure material from across Doja’s discography. Over the years, I’ve observed how cell phone cameras make appearances at concerts at the start of specific, meaningful songs such as hit singles and emotional deep cuts, but this night, those phones continued to pop up at the beginnings of nearly every song Doja performed.

Tracks like “No Police” and “So High” from Purrr! were given equal import with “Cookie Jar” and “Candy” and “Go To Town” from Amala and both received similar reception to Soundcloud staples such as “Nintendhoe.” When she performed the ’90s sitcom-inspired ode to her “twins,” “Tia Tamera,” complete with the screen behind her alternating images of the titular fraternal duo and even more anime clips of the metaphorical variety, the crowd reacted like the song — which currently only exists online as a snippet captured from an Instagram live stream — was a top ten Hot 100 single.

Far from being “canceled,” Doja Cat’s star power and charisma shone from the simple stage setup of a cow print tablecloth over her DJ’s table and the aforementioned screen. By the time she did perform “Mooo!” at the end of her set — with LA underground rap vet Verbs in a literal cow mask prancing across the stage for good measure — her assembled fans were more than willing to participate in the onstage antics, as she pulled three bold souls up to dance with her as she writhed and bounced her way through the novelty track. One was male, with a full face of Youtube-tutorial quality makeup, one was a bashful ten-year-old girl who practically shrank into her shirt under the spotlight, and the last was a full-figured Black woman in her twenties who Doja complimented on her top. They couldn’t have been more different, yet here they all were, united by the love of this “problematic” artist, having the time of their lives.

In trying to learn more, I talked to a number of attendees to find out why, with the tide of public sentiment seemingly turning on her, so many of them turned out in such force to support Doja Cat in spite of the backlash. What I gleaned from those short chats is that Twitter’s reach is a lot more limited than it looks from the other side of the screen. Sharra, 28, and Lexi, 27, told me that they didn’t even have Twitter accounts — news of the outrage against Amala hadn’t even reached them. Sharra told me she first found out about Doja Cat with “So High” while Lexi said she’s followed the singer online for years through Instagram instead, joking that Twitter had “too many words. I don’t like to pay attention to what people talking about.”

The ten-year-old from the stage turned out to be Jaden, along for her second concert ever with her mom, Megan, and her sister, Layla, 11. Megan had been a longtime follower from Instagram as well and roped her girls onto the bandwagon. Her daughters told me they loved Doja Cat’s voice and her style. Jaden, despite her bout of stage fright, has her own aspirations to become a singer, a dream fully supported by her mother, who said that she uses the content in the lyrics to talk to her girls about things she knows “they’ll hear anyway” and was peripherally aware of the controversy of the old tweets.

“I feel like it’s really hard because we’re picked apart and judged for every single thing that we’ve done in the past,” Megan explained. “Now we have our past documented online, but we grow and evolve so much over the years that it’s not fair to throw something we’ve said years ago in our face today. I think that we still have to be held accountable, but a lot of us talk certain ways in private that, once it’s thrown online, can be misconstrued or blown out of proportion.” Megan’s view is one that has been reflected online as well; many outlets have covered the respective dangers of “cancel culture,” while Uproxx’s own Caitlin White is currently publishing a series of essays on Medium about the causes and effects of online trauma, such as the bullying that can occur when “woke shaming” Twitter users pile onto a celebrity or even a regular person for out-of-context or old tweets that speak more to who we were or what those users project onto those tweets.

However, while the echo chamber of online social networks can lead to a false sense of increased cultural homogeneity, where we begin to think everyone in our sphere believes all the same things as us — or should — in reality, the old axiom “different strokes for different folks” holds as true as it ever has. People still learn things at their own pace, and what seems obvious to Aaron or Megan may not seem so much so to Amala. Cancel culture is ugly, but it’s only the dark shadow of the necessary process of online accountability and the sometimes painful learning process online.

With that said, it’s intriguing to note that those “different strokes” can also include opinions that haven’t been touched by the ostensible ubiquity of social media. It would appear that much of the online hand-wringing about “canceling” entertainers for screwing up can only go so far. In the case of someone like Doja Cat, she may have learned a much-needed lesson about how her public comments can be received, but if the real goal truly is to hold everyone accountable for their words and actions, canceling them on Twitter will probably never be the most effective tool. As for Doja, let’s hope she’s learned her lesson, because whether she’s a cat, a cow, or a duck, her clear talent deserves a second chance.

Amala is out now via RCA Records. Get it here.

source https://uproxx.com/hiphop/doja-cat-cancel-culture-live-show-echoplex/

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