Come One, Come All, to the
✨QUARTERFINALS!!✨
Welcome, everyone, to Round 5, aka ✨the Quarterfinals✨!!! Above is the bracket for this round, which, as you've probably noticed, is small compared to previous rounds. If you want to see what matches we've had in the past, and what valliant bards have been defeated, here is the link to Round 4's bracket.
This round has 8 contestants (when did that happen???), and 4 polls total. These polls should all be posted on Friday, January 5th, spaced out hourly.
As always, feel free to submit propaganda for your favorite bards via reblogs, the ask box, or tagging this blog! The more, the merrier!!
[Text version of the bracket with full names, fandom names, and poll links (once polls go live) beneath the cut!]
QUARTERFINALS:
Finrod (The Silmarillion) vs “Weird Al” Yankovic (Real Life)
Neil Banging Out the Tunes (Tumblr) vs Rick Astley (Real Life)
Miss Piggy (The Muppets) vs Jaskier/Dandelion (The Witcher)
Freddie Mercury (Real Life) vs Maglor (The Silmarillion)
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Hi! Long time no yap but I've been really bothered by this thing and I know you're just the person I can go to with this (even if we don't always end up agreeing at times).
I got into a tiff with someone in a comments section of a post that was about Amy (Which character do you think deserved to become a villain? or something similar). They brought up Amy's abuse of her boyfriend. I may have tried to defend Amy (key word is tried. I am officially rubbish at debating) but then I may have said something? Because they said that I (and apparently a lot of other fans) was excusing Amy's abuse because of her trauma. It got me stumped because isn't young Amy's treatment of Rory rooted in her trauma? Did I miss the memo where we separate trauma and abuse? Am I missing something?
That statement bothered me a lot because if there's one thing I never want to do it's defend an abuser. So here I am, humbly asking and hoping to clear the muddy waters.
Your really confused and disturbed moot, Tia 💌
TIA!!!!! Thanks for the ask 💌 , and I send you all the hugs.
Discussion of abuse, trauma, ableism, infidelity, and unhealthy relationship dynamics beneath the cut.
(First off… while I really appreciate your faith in my explaining skills <3 <3 <3 my passion for traumatized characters and mentally ill+neurodivergent rights doesn't make me especially qualified to fully clear muddy waters especially not knowing the full context, but I feel you, and what follows is my informed perspective!)
Speaking generally first, harm done in media is best examined by the impact on the audience, with a different lens than harm done to real people. While relatable experiences in media can be useful and validating and incredibly important, you can’t be “defending an abuser” when the abuse is fictional. It's actually normal for traumatized/ND/mentally ill people to project onto mentally ill villains, when villains are the only significant representation for those stigmatized symptoms in a media landscape that excludes and demonizes us simply for existing. RTD can't stop people who hallucinate from reclaiming the Master's Drums and projecting onto the Master, for example — 90% of the best Doctor Who psychosis fic by psychotic authors is about the Master, whether RTD likes it or not. It's not true crime.
(This is speaking generally. Amy Pond is very much not the Master.)
Abuse is a behavior, and there can be many reasons for it, but reasons based in trauma don’t make it not abuse (some forms of generational trauma can propagate abusive parenting styles, when the parent thinks abusive parenting is normal, or lives entirely vicariously through their child). This absolutely should not be taken to mean trauma correlates with abusive behavior; rather that abusive behaviors from traumatized people are more likely to present in specific ways.
Abuse is also a targeted behavior, based in control — not consistently displayed C-PTSD symptoms as seen in Season 5 Amy Pond through many aspects of her life. Mental health symptoms don't become abuse just because they hinder one partner from meeting the other partner's needs. Any life event can do that.
Without knowing the context of the arguments, this is the aspect of their relationship I've seen you talk about before (which I also feel strongly about), and what I assume is what you were debating? So, here I will talk specifically in regard to Season 5.
We all know Amy — she's never attached to Leadworth because she never wanted to leave Scotland, no steady therapist because none of them stick up for her, can't stick with one job yet her first choice is a job that simulates intimacy because her avoidant behavior (a known trauma response) isn't sustainable to her wellbeing. Rory knows her fears of commitment stem from her repeated abandonments, it’s why he’ll always wait for her, and it's why he blames the Doctor “You make it so they don't want to let you down.”, who apart from having caused a lot of her trauma, has actively taken advantage of her being the “Scottish girl in the English village” who's “still got that accent,” because he wants to feel important, so yeah, I think interpreting Amy's issues (and how Amy and Rory transverse them) as Amy abusing Rory indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of their relationship, as well as a misunderstanding of the (raggedy) Doctor’s role in Amy’s formative self-image (which of course she works through in Season 6, but I am sticking to Season 5).
Abuse is always based in control. That just doesn’t fit here. While Amy's detachment from her real life includes things like calling Rory her “kind of boyfriend” (which she is upfront about to his face; differing commitment levels isn't abuse, though it can be a relationship red flag for both parties IRL) — her Season 5 disregard of Rory’s feelings occurs only in response to the fairytale embodiment of her trauma. It's never a response to Rory; it's a response to the Doctor, who stole her childhood and led her by the hand to her death. She cheats on Rory with the Doctor in her bedroom full of Doctor toys, drawings, models, she made from childhood to early adulthood.
(And yes, like many repeatedly-traumatized people, Amy is prone to being sensitive and reactive. Take her “Well, shut up then!” line in The Big Bang; but given Rory responds to this by hugging her, clearly he doesn’t take it as her actually dismissing him. He knows her better than that.)
And by no means do I meant to imply this is fair to young Rory, poor Rory, who's left struggling with the feeling that his role in her life is in competition with the role of her trauma (aka the Doctor). But not every unhealthy relationship dynamic is unhealthy because of abuse. Labelling Amy's treatment of Rory in Season 5 more accurately isn't the same as excusing her harmful choices — but making mistakes is part of being human, Amy's mistakes are certainly understandable, and she works through them out of love for Rory.
If there's one thing to say about Moffat women, it's that Moffat allows his female characters the same grace that the male characters *coughTENcough* have always had, to hurt and struggle and make realistic mistakes and overcome those mistakes and to heal without being demonized.
Amy isn't perfect, but she is a fully realized character, and her story gives us a resonant depiction of childhood trauma.
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I wanna talk about 'The Banshees of Inisherin' cause I really enjoyed it but I'd like provide ye a bit of context for the production of the story that might alter some of the analysis I've seen gettin passed around. A common misconception about MacDonagh is that he's an Irishman- he's not. He's English. His parents are Irish and he's spent many a Summer holiday in Ireland. But he was born and raised an Englishman. Irish stories of the 20th century have a tendency to carry a lot of political tension, far more tension than you'd see in 'The Banshees of Inisherin' because, like all irish stories for the past millennium, they work as fabels. They're all metaphors for recent irish history and the social mores of rural Ireland and understanding that is almost necessary for the enjoyment of the those kinds of works.
MacDonagh, being an Englishman, is less concerned with these politics; but irish influences remain strong in his works all the same. First and foremost, he's a playwright and this is evident in the structure of his screenplays. MacDonagh makes a lot of references to the film adaptation of John B. Keane's play 'The Field' both visually and by use of certain character archetypes in his film. Take 'The Irish Fool' (a trope that deserves its own post tbh) depicting a mentally disabled character whose function in the story is like that of Shakespeare's fool, only these ''''fools'''' are genuine depictions of how mentally disabled adults were (and still are!!!!!) treated/taken care of in rural irish society. Yet in spite of all the parallels between both stories, The Banshees of Inisherin makes one fundamental deviation from all other irish works which is that rather than having the interpersonal conflict between the protagonists be a metaphor for irish history- irish history is instead a metaphor for their conflict. This inversion of traditional Irish storytelling is present in other areas of the story as well, such as the banshee not being a screaming mourner- but a passive aggressive observer. It's MacDonagh's close connection with the Irish that allowed him to subvert tradition in a way that I personally believe to have been done masterfully. Hypothetically; you could tell this story in any location, but it's rural irish identy is what sells it. Between the isolation of island life, the consant threat of emmigration vs homeland violence, the blur between the natural and supernatural, and the total lack of privacy met with a mandatory level of trust; all these factors are what make 20th century Ireland the ideal setting for a a story of this calibre AND I LOVE IT.
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Hi, Coal! This is anonymous from the Whumpuary question
There's no need to respond to this, lol-
I really just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to respond to my previous question :))
(I enjoyed reading the dragged out version of your response, lol- better for my brain to process and take in for sum reason)
I'm good with whatever decision you make. I was honestly just curious because I do enjoy your stories and writing style, so there's that-
(#love Noah)
And, I get where you're coming from with writing series and all, so like- yeah
Regardless of your decision, as long as you don't stress yourself out about it, I'll be fine with whatever
So, uh, yeah- thanks for responding and– take care :)
I am so bad with responses but I wanted to say something just to lyk that I appreciate that you read the long response and then also took the time to reply. That sounds so stiff and insincere written out like this, but I promise it’s not lmao
You as well! Happy new year!
(#love hurting noah)
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hello! i was looking through the jason tag and saw your post about asks, and since im not 18+ i didnt wanna publicly respond but as another writer what i like doing in those situations is i delete any asks that im not comfy writing, clear out any that i dont see myself writing in the future etc.
im not sure if me putting something in your ask box knowing its 18+ interaction will be seen as bad and im sorry if me coming in and giving my input seems to be overstepping but just wanted to give a little advice if needed :) another thing i like doing though is taking a break from doing requests! write whatever makes you happy, youre never obligated to respond right away to everyones work ! id love to be able to read your writing someday as im sure its great and i love love love jason todd <3
That's incredibly helpful! thank you! im pretty new to this whole writing thing.
Nah you're totally chill, I just have the 18+ thing bc I write a lot of smut, but if you block the "Jason todd smut" or "smut" tag then you'll be fine. happy scrolling! The "Gus the cat" tag is particularly wholesome! but I have a ton of fluff in "fluff" or "Jason todd fluff". Just scroll carefully and skip anything that makes you uncomfortable!
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