can you guys believe that people are actually going around creating networks centered on how much they hate a ship because they’re oh-so “progressive” and care about the well being of young girls, while at the same time harassing and bullying said young girls who ship it. if you cared about young girls you wouldn’t send them nasty messages or create blogs and networks dedicated to dragging them.
it’s a fictional ship just who cares! you don’t have to like it, you don’t have to be positive about it but good god why would you spread hatred like that? why create a network all about hating something instead of doing oh I don’t know, ANYTHING ELSE?
I really wish that people could accept that fiction is not reality, and enjoying a ship [or a character] does not mean you would condone it in real life. Calm the fuck down and come to terms with the fact that people will like ships you hate and that that’s okay.
I tend to feel like there is some middle ground on this, you know.
I sort of learned my lesson about ship-hating etiquette when I posted a thing poking at Sansa/Littlefinger (the GoT/ASOIAF fandom). That ship creeps me the fuck out because he’s an adult and she’s like 14, but I learned not to tag my hate. Yeah, some ships are gross and problematic and it’s not your thing and doesn’t have to be, but stay in your lane. I get that.
But there’s a flip side too…. I think, especially when you’re dealing with younger girls who might not know a lot about healthy relationships yet, I don’t think it’s the worst thing to point out to them that yes, this is fiction, but just FYI, it’s representing something that isn’t terribly healthy and here’s why. I’m not sure blogs devoted to hating on said ships is the best way to go about that, and I think it goes without saying (or at least it SHOULD) that nasty messages and bullying are not really the way to go either. But it’s important to remember that there are a lot of really young girls on tumblr and FFN and so forth, and you’re not doing the worst thing in the world if you gently tell them, “Hey, it’s not that these relationships don’t exist, and it’s not that it isn’t OK to read/explore this type of thing, but just FYI this isn’t what a healthy thing looks like.”
There’s a little bit of responsibility that comes along with being an older person in fandoms that can be tricky to navigate and I don’t blame anyone who wants to just sit it out entirely, but I think sensitive handling of this stuff can be for the overall good.
agreed
Why I like Mickey
Mickey Smith is in some ways the Harry Sullivan of the post-2005 series of Doctor Who. He’s a regular guy, a nice guy, who spends his entire run on the show being verbally abused by the Doctor when he’s not being ignored completely. And yet he gets through it without being horribly melted, and remains basically a nice guy in spite of all.
Mickey is introduced nominally as Rose’s boyfriend, but this seems to be true only in the loosest possible sense. Rose clearly has very little investment in him, and they’re never portrayed as being terribly close – he’s just kind of there, as he’s always been just kind of there. Mickey is eminently forgettable and inevitably forgotten – Rose forgets he’s been replaced by a plastic duplicate and might be dead in the space of about five minutes, after having totally failed to notice said replacement over the course of an entire dinner. This is not intended as an indictment against Rose – all it means is that she loves running more than she loves Mickey, which, well, she really really loves running. It’s just one more of the trials of being Mickey. Nobody pays him any mind, not even his supposed girlfriend.
Mickey is one of those characters where there’s a real disconnect between how the characters, the show, and to great extent the audience perceive him and how he is in fact portrayed. The Doctor calls him “Mickey the Idiot” almost exclusively (or “Rickey” when he’s feeling particularly snarky), and “Father’s Day” has Jackie characterize him as “clingy” – but these epithets don’t actually reflect reality at all. He’s certainly not clingy, for one thing – he makes no effort to stop Rose leaving and has no delusions that they are a couple after her return. And a frightened child with the wherewithal to actually run from the monsters rather than be devoured by them has every right to cling.
Mickey is also not an idiot, nor does he ever actually act like one or do anything idiotic. Quite the contrary – he’s stunningly good at figuring certain types of things out, and refreshingly practical. He does as good a job at discovering an alien incursion as a top notch investigative reporter with 30-odd years of his experience on him, for instance. He picks up on other people’s hints and coded messages, like the whole “you don’t have to be an idiot” bit in “Age of Steel.” He hacks into government websites and manages to get his hands on nuclear launch codes, which he is both willing and able to use if necessary. When confronted with problems, Mickey finds solutions, whether they’re in the form of doing extensive research on the Doctor (and actually finding significant substantive material, like his UNIT connection) or knowing when, where, and how to lay his hands on a Big Yellow Truck. And he figures out just how toxic the situation in the TARDIS is for him much faster than, say, Martha does – it takes him all of one episode to start looking for a way out. Mickey sees things like they are, and does what he needs to do.
Perhaps the most admirable thing about Mickey is that he never really holds anything against …anyone. Despite all the crap he goes through, he is always there for the others when they need him. He spends a year under suspicion of murder, and not only says nothing, but also bears absolutely no ill will to Rose over it. Or, for that matter, her mother, who was the one making the accusations in the first place. Jackie just sort of apologizes and they’re cool. He continues to support and be there for Rose whenever she happens to turn up, and in whatever way she needs at the time. Even when he decides to leave, it’s much more about finding his own path, rather than any vindictiveness against the others.
Mickey’s story is more internally focused than really anyone else’s. He goes through a series of epiphanies and moments of self discovery, possibly because he’s left alone so much. I really love the plotline with his grandmother, which he has never talked about because he has never been asked. There is stuff going on with him that doesn’t revolve around the Doctor and the main plotlines and such, and that is kind of rare and wonderful to see. He’s the hero of a different story, and now and again we get to see parts of that story. And he’s one character who really becomes better than he was. He finds his confidence and his purpose, and it’s not as a companion. He has the opportunity to make up for his past mistakes, and both the opportunity and the mistakes are his alone, and he does it. He finds what’s important to him and he goes for it, after having been the supporting character in other people’s stories for too long.
I tend to take issue with the whole “tin dog” thing, simply because Mickey’s role on the show is absolutely nothing like K-9’s. The Doctor loves that dog more than he loves most people, and treats him with respect and consideration. And also K-9 really hates being called tin. But it is an apt metaphor for Mickey discovering that he needs to become the hero of his own story, and Mickey is all about discovering new things about himself. His internal wheels are always turning, but he almost never voices these changes. Mickey is constantly thinking – he is one of the most thoughtful characters on the entire show, and what he arrives at is always a surprise. But he’s always good to the people around him, even when they’re not good to him.
And for the record, I don’t ship Martha and Mickey at all. The only thing the two of them have in common is that they’re both fine folks the Doctor treated like crap. Given that Mickey’s whole story arc is about finding value and worth outside the immediate sphere of the Doctor, pairing them in this way just seems to be really missing the point. And I’d rather ship Martha with her fiance anyway. But whether I ship it or not has nothing to do with how much I like each of the characters, since they are both utterly lovely people.
the guys in the 1817 section of les mis are prime examples of like the 19th century french version of lad culture. you can just so imagine a modern au where instead of going off to that restaurant tholomyes is like “right, how about a CHEEKY NANDOS??” and listolier is like “tholomyes, you absolute LEDGE, you archbishop of banterbury” and then they engage in the classic lad pastimes of getting drunk and treating women like disposable objects
As much as I love Eddie Redmayne and think he is a wonderful actor- I’m fucking pissed about the Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them casting. Unsurprised, maybe, but angry nonetheless. They cast a white actor into a role that was a perfect opportunity to cast an actor of color. No physical description of Newt Scamander exists in canon. It is incredibly important to break down the idea that white is the default. And they squandered the chance to change that in a big way.
If you think you’re going to come into my askbox to tell me that “that’s the way hollywood works” and “they want to make sure people see it so it makes money” then I’ll tell you right now that that is bullshit. It’s a film in one of the most successful film franchises in history. People are going to see it no matter who’s in the lead. And I think it’s time we stop underestimating audiences- a film led by a PoC could do just as well as a white-led one but audiences aren’t given the option to see movies with PoC in the leads. Especially fantasy movies.
I feel iffy drawing Rorschach, I’m not happy that he’s become a sort of semi-heroic figure for disaffected young men, and I don’t like how his complexity has become reduced and sublimated into the “LOL isn’t everything awzum” mindset. The Watchmen characters exist to undermine or at least satirise this kind of thinking. But… he is undeniably fun to draw, thanks to Dave Gibbons. And maybe I’m being too precious about the whole thing, I don’t know.
Either way – here’s Rorschach.
taiey:
can we just talk for a minute about Davros’ ~final revelation~ to the Doctor. Is it to do with anything that’s actually wrong with him? The rampant hypocrisy? The playing god? The increasingly dysfunctional coping mechanisms and self-justification for his guilt? The blood on his hands? The attitude that he knows what’s best for everyone and he can make their decisions for them? That it’s his responsibility to save everyone, and when terrible things happen to them, his pain is more important than theirs? HAHAHA NOPE. It’s that he “makes people into weapons.” Instead of puncturing his BS hypocritical ulterior-motivated prissiness about violence, Davros validates it. Never mind that his companions have agency and can make their own choices, never mind that there’s nothing intrinsically horrific about using the methods available to you to defend your planet from being exterminated by a bunch of omnicidal pepperpots and that this is actually ADMIRABLE. Nope. Somehow the Doctor is responsible for the fact that not all of his friends are as hypocritically judgemental about violence as he is. And as usual, it’s ALL ABOUT HIS PAIN and how nobly and prettily he suffers.Click through because there are even more amazing thoughts in the original post, but I want to focus on this one. Because—I thought I was the only one. Between that and the montage of people who died ‘in your name’—not to save the world, for Queen and country, to redeem themselves, out of recklessness or bravery or simple bad luck—and what happened to Donna, it’s like Journey’s End went out of its way to demolish everyone’s agency, including retroactively.
matt-smiths-deactivated20150324:
“You never interfere in the affairs of other peoples or planets,
…unless there’s children crying?”
#the reason ‘saving’ gallifrey doesn’t upset me is because it simply twisted a heartbreaking story into a bittersweet one#the doctor was always willing to use the moment – he had the intent and motivation – even after seeing who he’d become#he was bloodsoaked because of the time war long before posessing the moment#and in that moment – no pun intended – he was entirely capable of using it and almost did unbeknownst to him#and although he’s unaware gallifrey is safe at this time#he was incredibly willing to use the moment and i believe this would haunt him regardless#even if he was aware gallifrey was safe#it’s bittersweet because now he has a genuine opportunity to make it up to them#because although he ‘saved’ them#the fact he almost pressed that big red button must be horrifying to him#he was willing to murder all those children and all those innocents#had nine been able to remember#i could see him saying this exact same line of dialogue#despite the arguably more positive outcome of the war#because intentions are sometimes more relevent than actions#and his intent was definitely to destroy both gallifreyans and daleks#and although this changed and he’ll eventually remember#it’ll haunt him (via amypuddles)
