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#would be an interesting subversion

heavencasteel420 · 3 months

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Not to be a hater but, man, I really don’t get what people mean when they’re like “St@ncy” subverts tropes because what if the popular jock actually ends up with the nice smart girl and it’s great.” Like. Girl. That’s just She’s All That. Or Sixteen Candles. Or Pretty in Pink. Or part of The Breakfast Club. Or a lot of romance novels. Or Pamela by Samuel Richardson (1740). Reformed rakes make the best husbands!!!

#like. I get that it would be unexpected because Steve is set up as a disposable love interest #but it ceases to be subversive the moment Steve becomes a major character #that isn’t why I dislike the ship #I don’t really care whether ships subvert expectations or not #I have many many other reasons for disliking the ship #I think if they got together realistically it would end like Liz and Dennis’s relationship in 30 Rock #although I ship Liz and Dennis more because they did share a sense of humor and they both liked dance moms #anti stancy #I am a hater. it will happen again.

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generic-sonic-fan · 1 year

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Curious, why do you use it/its for Metal Sonic?

Ah, great question! Thank you for sending it.

I use it/its for specifically the version of Metal in my vaguely-mentioned bigass redemption fic I'm writing for it right now (but also anytime I get too far into headcanon land with the character)!! To give you a Doylist reason- It uses it/its pronouns to refer to itself in the third-person narration, which I feel provides an interesting narrative voice that you don't see in a lot of other fics/books/etc. It's certainly fun to write.

The Watsonian reason for these pronouns is that my AU/headcanon version of Metal is nonbinary! It eventually comes to the realization that it does not wish to be perceived as male in the way that Sonic is. It settles on using it/they pronouns. "It" is preferred, but it realizes that some people are uncomfortable using this pronoun for a sentient person, so it allows the use of "they" as well to avoid being called a "he" at all costs.

(Sonic, in the end, has an interesting opinion on all of this. He's the one that messes up Metal's new pronouns the most simply because he's used to thinking of it in terms of himself. . . and he would be absolutely offended if someone called him an "it". He means well, but this sort of projection is a major sticking point between the two of them, and one of the reasons why Metal elects not to befriend Sonic when all is said and done.)

(The source of all this headcanoning, mind you, was a really good post that I can't seem to find now that said something along the lines of "Metal Sonic using it/its pronouns as a sign of its self-actualization from Sonic makes my brain go brrrrrrrr" and sure enough the idea latched onto my brain like a barnacle.)

(EDIT: found the post!! It's right here.)

#metal sonic #complex inquiries #(at least the weird version that lives rent free in my brain)#hope this is a coherent enough answer for you anon!!#I thought that a subversion of the usual 'robot goes from it/its to he or she to indicate sentience' would be interesting to explore #My version of Metal also continuously refers to itself in third person in its dialogue- using 'this unit' instead of 'I' and the like #Omega loves to give it shit for this of course ;)#but Metal's comfortable with the way it speaks and doesn't seek to change

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ctrophyduo · 2 years

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I talk a lot about my qualms with c!Phil. His behavior to c!fundy is cruel and unusual at points. But that’s the problem; it’s unusual. Because, seemingly, there is no real line of reasoning for why he treats c!fundy like that.

People often flock to surface level arguments when I say this, something something butcher army something something the time he almost scammed him something something. To which my only response is: c!Ranboo is his neighbor.

(And to the second thing- by that logic my mom should disown me because I signed up her email a few years ago for colleges and now she gets a comedic amount of emails everyday and it’s funny. But I guess I should be disowned and tormented for this. Or something. I’m not sure…)

Anyway. My point is that any excuse he makes for his hatred holds no actual weight once you realize he has little to no anger for c!Tubbo or c!Ranboo- the former of the two being far more proactive in the butcher army plot than c!Fundy was.

And here’s the thing; I couldn’t accept there was no answer. There had to be some estranged reason I didn’t get and I needed to figure out what it was.

And I reasonably think I have. Now obviously, the Morbillion words I’m about to write were probably not intentionally written (as most things on the Dream Smp tend to be) But my relationship with authors intent is a bit strained for this server. Whether Phil wrote this intentionally or not, I’ll praise it nonetheless for being an interesting piece of dots to connect that add a fascinating layer to c!Phil.

To start; c!Phil doesn’t like responsibility. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say this. Everytime he discusses c!Wilburs death with someone- he always takes partial blame, but never full blame.

The sentence will start with “I killed him… but-“ he will *always* tact on something else to blame on the end, usually the government. There is also the time he said “Because the government made me kill my son.” I don’t think it gets any more explicate than that.

The thing is too is that c!Phil killing c!Wilbur didn’t have tangible consequence. Obviously there is emotional consequence: grief, sorrow, etc. But nothing tangible; L’Manberg is gone, the new president has been selected to lead the New L’Manberg, c!Tommy and c!Tubbo- whilst found family figures are not blood related and therefore they are not c!Phils responsibility, etc.

Oh except for one thing:

c!Fundy.

You know the kid who’s an orphan because of c!phil, the kid who no longer has a dad because of c!phil, the kid who is directly impacted by the loss of his blood family… because of c!phil.

(Idk if I just have the “I need to over explain everything because Twitter will Misinterpret my words and kick my ass if I don’t” disease but just to elaborate: Me saying this isn’t exactly putting more importance on c!fundy than the others mentioned. It is just that he is the only *Tangible* consequences. Anyway)

c!Phil, is morally (and If we were abiding by our world rules for just a moment; legally) obligated to take on c!fundy. He is c!Phils sole responsibility.

And that’s where the problem is. He can’t push c!fundy onto something else. He can’t give c!fundy away or find an excuse to get rid of him. c!Fundy becomes synonymous with Responsibility and Blame.

And if c!phil takes c!fundy under his wing. He is *admitting* that c!Wilburs death is 100% his fault. It is nobody else’s. And he must take full responsibility; and full responsibility, means all the grief that comes with that.

Think about it. You’re an immortal, you’ve seen nations rise and fall. People die beautifully, tragically, unfairly, etc. You havn’t felt true grief in a very long time, if you felt grief for every person you’ve met that’s passed you don’t think you’d be standing where you are today.

However, your son dying- no less to *your* sword must be a hell of a lot to take on for someone who’s grown comfort in apathy.

So he doesn’t want that. He can’t handle genuine grief.

So when the opportunity arises to get rid of it. He immediately pushes c!fundy onto the one thing he’s *always* blamed c!wilburs death on; the government.

See c!Phils excuses for doomsday and similar events is that he doesn’t want another event like c!Wilbur to happen. But ironically, when c!fundy gets wrapped up into (what c!phil perceives as) government corruption, c!Phil immediately- without hesitation- disowns him right then and there.

And for someone who so badly wants to ensure nothing will happen like what happened with c!Wilbur. He’s a bit shit at that huh. But that’s the thing;

he gets to push c!fundy, the personification of responsibility and by proxy grief- onto what he *really blames for c!wilburs death* the government.

The worse part is- c!fundy would’ve listened! Had c!Phil talked with him and discussed his opinions I guarantee you c!fundy would’ve folded like an omelette (remember when c!fundy lied and said he thought Doomsday was justified just to get c!Phil to love and hang around him more? Yeah.) Hell, the last thing he says to c!phil is “I love you!” Clearly showing he cares and values c!phil and his opinions. And c!phils only response, to having a window to protect another family member from government corruption is; “you’re dead to me.”

Ah. I love irony sometimes. Isn’t it funny that government corruption supposedly led to his sons death and he wishes it upon his grandson who is currently being corrupted by the government? I think that’s funny.

TL;DR;Please shut the fuck up; c!Fundy is the personification of grief and responsibility, c!Phil pushes him away at all opportunities (especially pushing responsibility for him onto the government) to avoid having to deal with the true grief at taking responsibility for c!Wilburs death.

Yeah. That’s about it. This is lengthy. And I’m sorry for any errors. I have shit eyes but I like analysis, so. If you disagree too that’s ok. I think discussion is fun. Thanks for reading!

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fellhellion · 8 months

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tbh, i honestly think that for all she's facinated by the past and held a measure of suspicion for what alchemax was covering up in that regard, i think as young adults xina, much like miguel (if to a lesser degree), was subsumed into the kind of idealogy that's entrenched into the world of 2099. while they were dating, we don't ever see them fight about the fact he would've been an alchemax employee (to my memory) or even the fact that the apartment he gets is company housing. so i don't personally get the impression this was an overt idealogical conflict between them at this point in their lives, even though Xina’s memorabilia seems to hint at Marxist leanings?

xina holds no loyalty to alchemax certainly (as a young adult or when we're reintroduced to her) and i don't think she'd work as an individual contractor or with people like angela if she didn't have reservations and critiques about these kinds of corporate monopolies and the effect they had upon shaping the future, but i also personally read part of her obsession with twencen stuff as about it being a niche that's secluded from just. how inescapable the influence of corporations is in the world of 2099.

it's not that she idealises the past, but moreso that by virtue of the sheer passage of time it has become removed from the reality of the present, and i think alongside the insights it offers about a reality alchemax would keep hidden, the past is a reprieve.

#theres something very interesting to me in xina being willing to engage in subversive acts like helping angela out and being associated w #her. while she also seems like of. isolated? imo? partly due to 90s writing just not offering a wider insight into what relationships #are a big influence on xina outside of miguel but i also like to read xina's isolation as symptomatic of the fact by the time we see her #again she's kind of partially removed herself when she can afford to from spheres of influence alchemax has a monopoly in #like employment.#i honestly wonder if breaking up with miguel and this removing herself from the particular sphere he operated in was something that affecte #her in this space #i think part of what ends up influencing this reading is the fact 2099 really only has the o'haras and occassionally kasey as reoccuring #characters that move between the borders of uptown and downtown and consider #the implications of the fact uptown stands atop the ruins and poverty of downtown #and i think it would be really interesting to see what xina's insight into these kinds of structural issues would be #tunes talks 2099

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love-killed-the-superstar · 1 month

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so i'm no expert in law or how company ownership works, but do you think it would have been possible in fast forward for donatello to take darius dunn to court and sue him for the rights to full control over o'neill tech as a co-founder? especially with cody's endorsement as the current owner. i assume that maybe cody would need to become legally emancipated from darius in order for this to be successful

i just think it would be so funny if darius was there in his weird mech trying to kill the turtles and then out of the blue donnie says "let's take this fight to a more elevated battle ground!" and then slaps him with a lawsuit

#tmnt #tmnt fast forward #found this in my drafts and i still would have loved a tmnt court drama episode #both as an interesting subversion to the usual 'its ninja toime' action and for comedic purposes

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likealittleheartbeat · 2 years

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Social justice, shipping, and ideology: when fandom becomes a crusade, things get ugly

by Aja Romano for Vox

“Shipping is as old as fandom itself. But traditionally, fans never expected their particular pairing to "become canon" — that is, to officially happen on a show or in a storyline. In modern fandoms, however, fans of movies and TV shows often root for their ships to become canon the way sports fans root for their teams. If the football fans’ goal is to see their team win the Super Bowl, the shipper’s goal is to see their ship "win" by entering the narrative as an official storyline.

These shippers collectively form group narratives about their favorite ship. More and more, these group narratives are evolving into unshakable belief systems that usually take one of three increasingly common forms:

1) The belief that the ship in question is unquestionably going to become canon

Historically in fandom, liking a ship meant just that: You liked a ship. Anything more than that would get you a lot of side-eyeing. In the Harry Potter fandom, the advent of Ron and Hermione becoming a couple in the sixth book led to a very famous (and still ongoing) meltdown among Harry/Hermione shippers.

At the time — fandom in 2005 — their unwavering faith that Harry/Hermione would eventually become canon was widely seen by fandom at large as extreme, because shipping was typically viewed as something that existed outside of canon and generally had no particular relationship to the course of canon at all.

Today, expecting your ship to become canon is more or less the norm. But there are lots of complications with this line of thinking. Even if a ship does become canon, it might not become canon in a way that fans like — Buffy/Spike, anyone? And of course it might not be guaranteed to remain canon. Breakups happen, actors leave shows, and, as The 100 fans were brutally reminded earlier this spring, characters die.

Serial narratives are fueled by drama, and they often create that drama by shaking up character relationships. Happily ever after is a rarity for couples in fictional stories, at least while they’re still in process. But fans pushing for their ships to become canon are typically looking ahead to what they call "endgame" — they believe that when all is said and done, after all the drama, their ship will, essentially, be the one that comes out victorious. Generally, they consider any alternative to be unpardonable.

Clinging to this kind of all-or-nothing view of a character pairing is, in general, a recipe for massive disappointment.

2) The belief that the ship should become canon because it involves an underrepresented identity

Fans of ships involving queer characters, characters of color, disabled characters, and other drastically underserved identities often lobby creators to acknowledge and embrace the validity of their ships. They frequently cite the sad but widely observed fact that characters who fall within these underserved identities rarely get to have meaningful canonical relationships written about them.

The problem with explicitly linking shipping to this kind of political platforming and social justice activism is that these arguments are often self-serving — that is, they’re more about having a specific ship become canon than about achieving social progress.

#GiveCaptainAmericaABoyfriend is a recent fandom trend directed at Marvel creators, but even though many Avengers fans have used it to advocate for general queer representation in the Marvel universe, the vast majority have used it to advocate for a specific ship — Stucky, or Steve/Bucky: Captain America shipped with his lifelong best friend.

Conflating ships that involve underrepresented identities with the desire for inclusion gets especially dicey when it leads fans to prioritize support for their ship over other intersectional concerns. For example, in Teen Wolf fandom, fans of the "Sterek" ship (Derek/Stiles) have frequently accused the show of "queerbaiting," or exploiting their specific queer male pairing without any intention of following through on it — even though the show’s creator, Jeff Davis, is a gay man who has already inserted several queer relationships in the show’s storylines, and even though Sterek, as it currently exists within canon, is a physically abusive relationship.

The prioritization of a ship at the expense of other intersectionality concerns is also present on The 100, which earlier this year featured a queer canonical relationship between main character Clarke and the warrior queen Lexa, a.k.a. Clexa. Clexa fans have been so focused on advocating for Clexa — even after the ship effectively ended with Lexa’s untimely death — that they’ve come under fire for ignoring the many elements of the show that some fans feel are racist and problematic.

In these and many similar cases, one might wonder if a given show’s overall progressiveness matters less to ideologically driven shippers than the ship itself.

3) The belief that the ship is already canon but the creators are unable or unwilling to confirm or admit it

This belief argues that the people in charge of the narrative are deliberately concealing the "truth" about a relationship. Because it involves an official cover-up, this particular ideological thread is particularly well-suited to ships involving real people (real person fiction, or RPF) and ships involving fictional queer characters. It almost always escalates into outright fandom conspiracies, especially if the ship involves a (perceived) real-life relationship between two same-sex celebrities.

Perhaps the most notable example of this kind of deep fandom conspiracy is the great Larry Stylinson conspiracy in the One Direction fandom, followed by TLJC in the Sherlock fandom and swaths of conspiratorial RPF shippers in numerous other fandoms, from Supernatural to Twilight to The X-Files.

The obvious problem here is that, like all good conspiracy theories, those built on the insistence that a pairing is real but secret are designed to explain away every contradictory bit of "evidence" that a pairing isn’t real. And like all conspiracies, this level of shipping can lead to hardcore, alienating belief systems.

Ships often involve a combination of these three basic branches of belief. For instance, Harry Potter’s Harry/Hermione shippers believed their ship represented a philosophical approach to love and Harry Potter as a whole. And Sherlock’s Johnlock conspiracists consistently point to the progressive nature of their ship as a reason for its inevitability. As one fan put it, "What a minority of LGBTQIA viewers label as ‘queer baiting’ is but a tool that serves the slow narrative of how Sherlock Holmes and John Watson finally end up in a relationship."

Of course, combining these three ideological strains serves to make the overall shipper ideology that much stronger — and that makes interactions within and between different ideologies that much more fraught.

When shipping is treated as an ideology, it creates deep tensions between fans and creators

These days, because so many fans treat shipping as a serious matter of urgency, they tend to approach the fan-creator divide feeling utterly justified in their belief that a ship will be or should be canon. Yet creators and writers generally have no idea what kind of belief system has amassed around a ship until members of that ship approach them to try to discuss it.

When a single fan or a group of fans tweet at creators asking whether a ship will become canon, creators generally aren’t aware of the tremendous amount of background attached to said ship — the thought, speculation, love, emotional investment, and collective justification that has gone into a fandom’s perception of a pairing.

Creators and other cast and crew members who interact with fans tend to get asked basic questions like, "Will this ship be endgame?" But most can't answer, and often don't even know, because of the many factors involved in producing a storyline.

In other words, the creators are seeing only the tip of the iceberg that is a fandom's investment in a ship, and fans are seeing only the tip of the iceberg that is the behind-the-scenes production of the canonical storyline.

Add in the fact that both fans and creators usually believe they can see the whole iceberg, and the result is inherent miscommunication. Fans might come away feeling like creators are being evasive or brushing off their need to have their ship to be canon; creators might come away feeling like fans are placing too much emphasis on a single aspect of the plot at the expense of everything else they’re trying to do within a storyline.

This disconnect can lead to feelings of resentment on both sides. It can also lead to creators accusing fans of wanting to control their narratives.

The rise in ideological fan beliefs is less about control and more about equal partnerships

The modern state of fandom involves an uneasy imbalance between fans and creators. The two groups both encourage each other creatively but lack a mutual partnership and mutual understanding of how fans’ collective creation might contribute to a storyline.

Though it would have been taboo in the past, fans who engage with creators in 2016 tend to assume they’re on equal footing with those creators, thanks to their role as active consumers of the narrative: Here is what we want your TV show to do for us, the paying customers who watch it.

But creators tend to engage with fans via a top-down approach. They are still viewing themselves as the powers that be, the ones in control, even if the fans aren’t. This is how we wind up with the kind of supreme disconnect between fans and writers like the one that has existed between Supernatural and its fan base for most of the show's interminable run on air: A substantial number of the show’s fans are collaboratively creating a vision of a completely different show than the one being produced in the writers’ room.

It's possible that shipping as ideology has arisen in part because of these imbalanced power dynamics with creators. After all, if you’re worried the creators won't listen to you, or won’t consider what you have to say as equivalent to their own opinion, what better way to justify what you have to say than to package it not as once-shameful fan desire, but as ideology?

It’s easy to stand back from fandom and point to shipping behavior as a hallmark of fan entitlement. But it would be far more accurate to say that shipper ideology is ultimately about fans trying to find a way to gain equity with creators, to work with them in a tacit collaboration.

There’s no easy answer to this dilemma, but awareness is a start

For creators who are winging their interactions with fans, knowing when a ship has become a collective fandom ideology, and why, might help give you a bit of autonomy from your fandom. At the very least, it might help you remain neutral in your presentation of various ships and plot points and avoid unexpected pitfalls.

Meanwhile, for fans feeling fatigue over an embattled struggle to make a ship canon, and the crushing disappointment of setbacks or failure, it might help to remember that ships don’t have to be canon in order to be transformative and meaningful on both a personal and cultural level. Look at Star Trek’s Kirk/Spock: that ship never became canon, but it remains one of the most compelling ships ever created, and within canon it gave us one of pop culture’s most enduring symbols of love — their hands touching through the glass.

Henry Jenkins famously said that queer fanfiction "is what happens when you take away the glass." And, sure, it’s increasingly possible that savvy creators might go ahead and take away the glass for us. But that doesn’t negate the power of fans being able to do it on their own, without anyone’s help.

Shipping is exciting, fun, and often a progressive and empowering experience. And if a ship ultimately becomes canon, so much the better. But when shipping becomes an ideology, tantamount to a religion, it makes a story’s creators pretty much tantamount to gods. In essence, even though that level of shipping may grow out of a wish to maintain parity with creators, it’s ultimately de-empowering to fans, making them dependent on creators for validation.

But fans are validated through their love for the source material; they’ve never needed more than that. Turning that source material into a game to be won only turns all involved players into winners and losers.”

#long post #fandom problems #i've been having a lot of feelings the past month or so about shipping and modern tastes #ever since the release of heartstopper #which i found to be a horrendous and gimmicky netflix rainbow flag cash grab #with stilted performances and absolutely zero nuance #and everyone's obsession with it has had me feeling so lonely #alongside a real alienation from tv and movie critics positive reviews for these basic-ass gay films and shows #there's a certain strain of fandom that obsesses over ships and the reproduction of familiar tropes without any subversion #and they don't seem to have any interest in anything beyond that #except maybe a weak pop feminist take #which is fine i guess #and that strain did free me to focus on my emotional experiences to stories that opened the whole world up to me #but i also need and relish the motifs and themes and craft and philosophies that go into a work #i love to start to understand my emotional reaction and where it came from #and experience feelings from stories beyond *squeeeeee*#and there's so little of that work in fandom #It makes me want to go into academia but i honestly doubt it would be any better and I really don't want to write papers professionally lol

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returntotheground · 10 months

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i need to be finishing my midterm project for this class but my brain is sinking into dragon age hell again bc literally why the FUCK is dai such a mess how did we get from a setting with such distinct cultures and separate histories going on to dai where it's all flattened into "yeah elves did all the cool history stuff probably. probably even just mythal and solas for a lot of it. yeah probably even the qunari and dwarf stuff. yeah that too. sooo yeah. elves. that's it. that's all you need to know"

like. say sike rn

#i imagine the writers thought it would be cool if everything tied all together into some '''big dramatic plot reveal!!!1'''#instead they took a fairly interesting setting and just. destroyed it so they could jerk off about elves and subverting tolkien instead #(bc that's absolutely why the elves are written the way they are and you cannot convince me otherwise. it's all a boring tolkien subversion #at this point i'm more curious about the people's outside of thedas bc there's at least a chance it's not more elf bullshit #but either they'll never do anything with that or just rope it into the elves again so whatever #i hope dreadwolf flops lmao #dragon age critical

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