#which is awesome! I love adult books but judging kids media by these standards and hating people for wanting simple stuff

[acewizardinspace]

I think the 'the jedi use child soldiers' thing is stupid for a lot of reasons, but among those is that this is a complete misunderstanding of how children's media works. Kids want to see themselves doing amazing things and giving that an in depth analysis that boils down to 'all these adults are evil' is poor, bad faith, media criticism.

That being said, if you compare Star Wars to just about any other YA work, the jedi are miles better as far as child care goes. Canonly every single one of these 'kids in danger' has a dedicated adult who is ideally supposed to be with them to teach and protect them. Very uncommon for the genre.

So if people are mad at the jedi for this, I can't fathom what their reaction to other YA literature is. And if they hate YA literature, idk, maybe they shouldn't be reading YA. Just a thought.

#in defense of the jedi #pro jedi #the other reasons the child solider thing is dumb is that most padawans are not children #like ahsoka was considered young. Dooku was what 16 when he became one? Obi-Wan was 25 and knighted earlier than planned #even if they were knighted early because of the war (which i think is stupid and there is no evidence for that) #that doesn't make them all kids... #and the character we see as child padawans are clearly there for children to watch and enjoy #I mean unpredictable things happen but child padawans are not supposed to be facing danger alone #but eased into it by a trusted adult which is not what happens in ever other YA book #Honestly if you hate the jedi for this but don't equally hate every other adult in every other YA book #maybe you are just LOOKING for reasons to hate the jedi. In which case idk maybe examine why that is #and if you do hate all adults in YA maybe it is time to move onto adult literature because you grew up #which is awesome! I love adult books but judging kids media by these standards and hating people for wanting simple stuff #in their book created to be simple is kind of rude you know? #i realize this post is probably hitting a wasp's nest but I mean if you want to take what I say out of context #(because in context I didn't do or say anything wrong) #well that says more about you than me doesn't it #my thoughts

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

I want (need) you to expand (tell me everything) about that post about It and the 2016 Creepy Clown Crisis. (Really, if you have anything else to say about it I want to hear it)

Yes, take my hand and join me in what will probably be an incoherent ramble about something that is most likely not true, my love.

OKAY, SO:

I’m sure we all remember those #iconic Creepy Clowns™, but as a refresher- Creepy Clown sightings are actually something that have been like, an urban legend phenomenon for Y E A R S. Like, a very long time. I used to do a lot of reading on the subject seeing as I was that kid™, but now you just get a million and one results from 2016 and I’ve had too much wine to wanna bother fighting through that. But anyway, this has always been a thing. Just, like, sometimes you’d see a creepy clown in the dead of night, but the clown doesn’t fucking do anything and you move on with your life. I actually saw one in like, 4th or 5th grade? Didn’t die, it wasn’t a huge deal. But anyway, in 2016 things just SPIRALED THE FUCK OUT OF CONTROL. Personally, I maintain what happened was that your average urban legend phenomenon was happening but since social media is so prevalent now a lot of creeps got inspired and the whole thing got blown up because of that…but that’s not the theory we’re focusing on in this post, so whatever. 

Now, as I’m sure you’ll also remember, there were HUNDREDS of conspiracy theories swirling around the whole clown crisis- everything from demonic possession, to a ‘clown purge’, to people thinking Hillary Clinton had hired the clowns to freak out America even more so she could get fear votes. I’m not shitting you, those were all things I heard daily. But another, tamer, theory was: this was all a mass promotional stunt for the IT reboot. 

The IT reboot was highly anticipated and very debated- fans of the work were well aware that they had been trying to get this movie made for years but kept running into issues. When they finally started filming, they shot from June to September in 2016. The clown sightings ran from August to October 2016. This theory made sense- it’s not hard to believe that a studio would pull something like that, thinking it’d be a fun publicity stunt but then not really wanting to take credit once it got out of hand. That’s literally happened before, like the Montauk Monster and that Dear Charlie ghost thing.  Anyway, a lot of people thought this couldn’t possibly be a coincidence- like, I’ve even seen the actors asked about it in interviews (like they’re on the marketing team??), but none of them had much to comment. This will be the theory we focus on…just with a bit of a twist. 

Now, if your reading this and you’ve only seen part one of the 2017 movie and don’t know much about the book or miniseries 1) you’re a valid fan, I love you bitch, and 2) I’m sorry, but spoilers are coming immediately and every time I try to put one of those ‘read more’ cut offs my screen glitches and I loose all my writing bc someone out there is against me. So read at your own risk. 

Okay, as part of the ‘adult’ storyline, they go back into It’s lair in Derry and find out that It has laid eggs and set to work destroying them. There’s a whole fuck lot going on with this plotline, like Eddie and the Turtle™ are dead and Bev’s barely doing shit and Ben’s smashing babies while Bill’s trying to get inside the monster and Richie mourns his bf, it’s all a Mess okay, but the point is: eggs. 

Now, the notion that not all of the spawn were destroyed is actually…not new at all and somewhat debatably relevant in some of King’s other novels, but stick with me here. As far as the Losers know, they killed everything. The scars on their hands go away. It’s all very symbolic and they forget everything, whatever. 

But.

The 2017 reboot wasn’t exactly…that close to the book. Like, they kept enough in there, and they had a bunch of really small things that were Fun Little Call Backs For Book Fans (all the turtle stuff, Bev throwing that rock in slow motion with awesome precision, Pennywise taunting Richie with that decaying doll, stuff like that, you know?). But so it’s not completely out of left field to assume that Chapter Two would be very different as well? It’s not crazy to assume that the movie would end with like, a dramatic ass lingering shot of a few hatching eggs…Or even, say, a subplot that sounds like ‘the eggs hatched around the same time It woke back up out of hibernation and now there’s crazy attacks all over the place instead of Derry, but maybe if we kill the Main Beast that’ll kill them all’ (like a hive mind. you know what I mean.).

It’s not crazy to assume that. My wine glass and Shitty Writer Imagination That Never Lets Me Rest And Makes Me Over Analyze Works Of Fiction have 100% assured me of that. 

So, remember that theory that the clown sightings were just a fun promotional stunt that got out of hand…? What if- it was a promotional stunt, and setting the scene for the sequel (that still got out of hand bc humans are garbage people actually got hurt)

I don’t think anybody getting hurt was ever in the intention, but making headlines because Creepy Clowns are lurking outside schools, in cemeteries, seen trying to lure people into the woods, going out of their way to scare people and be seen as threats even if they don’t actually do anything wrong?? I can absolutely buy that as a promotion stunt…and I can absolutely see, oh, I don’t know, maybe the movie including some recycled Actual News Clips covering the events, taking advantage of all the crazy videos people posted online, stuff like that. Like, in the book and miniseries and 2017 part one, no one outside of Derry knows shit about what’s going on…but you can’t really justify something like that flying under the radar in the age of social media. You can’t. Kids would start turning up dead left and right and you’d sign onto tumblr and see a fucking ‘since the media doesn’t care enough and no one’s talking about this, let me tell you what’s going on in my town’ type post. You’d absolutely hear about it. There’d be twitter campaigns and all types of shit, there’s just no way around it. That Creepy Clown Crisis went viral for a reason. 

But Molly, you say, It didn’t always appear just as a clown! People weren’t harassed by anything other than the clowns in 2016! 

Well, my love, let me point something out to you- It is millions of years old. It’s got shapeshifting and fear manipulation down pat. Could you possibly hold new born babies to that standard? No. Do we know for a fact that It literally prays on children and likes to take the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown simply because it’s easier? Yes. 

People weren’t that afraid of the clowns when the sightings first started. But then more and more kept popping up, and do you know what we had on our hands? Mass hysteria. Mass hysteria sounds like a perfect way for a bunch of inexperienced little hive mind monsters to get the hang of the hunting with fear thing. 

Not to mention Georgie died in September/October…which means It probably usually wakes up out of hibernation around then…I’m just s a y i n g. And the sightings mysteriously stopped around November…a good timeline for the Loser’s to have killed It and thus stopped the clown crisis…I’m just s a y i n g.

Like, can I definitely prove that the studio was behind that mess as a means to set the stage for the sequel while getting some fun promotion out of it? No, I can’t, and honestly I doubt it’s true, this was just a fun thought that came to me lol. But honestly…it’s so easy to see how well a type of plotline like that would work with the film, so at the very least, if they don’t take advantage of the Clown Crisis…I will severely Judge Them, because like, it’s all right there. It’s writing itself. Damn. 

The end, until, 2019, I guess. 

#Stephen king's it #it 2017 #IT (2017) #pennywise #clowns #asks #molly mumbles #lmao