Could you do a hero’s journey summary on the 11th Doctor? -Anonymous
It’s certainly a good idea for a later time. :)
Anonymous
I really hesitate to leave this comment, because I don’t want to be all: “No, my fandom is more oppressed than you think!” Not exactly something to brag about. But, you know, whenever there’s a poll deemed important for whatever reasons, and my fandom is in it, there’ll be people from “rival” fandoms in comments going: “No, don’t vote for this super problematic fandom, vote for MY fandom that is perfect and flawless and SJ-approved!” (Teen Wolf gets it too. I’m not even in it, I just see it.) -Anonymous
I think the main problem is people using ‘problematic’ to cancel out all discussion, when that’s the opposite of what it was originally intended for. It’s now basically just a buzzword people think should end a conversation…
[1] Hi! I’m from Buffy fandom and I’ve been thinking a lot about self flagellation on problematic interests, and my fandom drowns on it. The biggest subject I see is about one of the biggest ships (Buffy/Spike), which involves a monster, a soulless amoral killer that falls in love with the slayer. They start having sex during her depression, and she feels really low because of it. -Anonymous
[2] When she tries to stop it, he tries to rape her: and this is the most unconfortable and controversial scene in all series. It makes him
see that he still is an unworthy monster, and goes to find his soul to
deserve her. It’s a really complex relationship, but those who are at
least invested in this journey are often called rape apologists, so I
see in a sad frequency people drowing in guilty because of it.
I think there’s got to be a line somewhere between ‘this thing is problematic, everyone should accept its flaws before embarking in discussion about it’ and ‘if you’re gonna like this thing you gotta be hyper-aware of its flaws in ways I do not have to be hyper-aware of my thing’s flaws.’ My main problem’s with the double standards, really.
Like, I can’t really speak for Buffy, but there are things out there where I simply CANNOT SEE how anyone with a good handle on Problematic Things would like them – but I see these things being reblogged side-by-side with social justice posts on blogs, and I used to stare at them in complete bafflement before deciding…it’s sort of not my business why someone likes a thing, even a really problematic thing. As long as they’re not forcing anyone else to like it or even look at it than that’s cool. (And what the tags are for, I guess.)
It’s such a complex, difficult issue. Man.
Just wondering how TRAJT was going. I came across it for the first time a few days ago and started laughing in the middle of study hall. It sounds really cool. -Anonymous
Awww thanks! Believe it or not, I’m actually working on it right this minute!
Also, now seems a pretty good time for some clarifications. What I’m writing isn’t the ‘Shakespeare school’ story – that belongs to whoever wrote those tags. This is just the original post, with no additions, turned into a weird teen romance. I know a lot of people who reblogged are reblogging for the Shakespeare School idea, so I just wanna say, this isn’t going to be that! But I hope you’ll like it anyway.
Really nice work. If I could make two possible suggestions for making the second infographic (the test results by series) a little bit clearer, or easier to compare with an episodes list, whenever you revise it: first, identify the Christmas specials at the starts of S2, S3, S4, S6, S8, and two specials within S7 using the letter X, and don’t worry about numbering at all the 2009 and 2013 specials; second, somehow identify the two-parters and the three-part story (use an underline?). Great work! -Anonymous
Thanks! :)
Given a chance I would definitely do that, but I’m not sure if it’s too late to edit the infographic, since it’s been
published in a few places now?
The amount of people asking your permission to write that romeo and juliet thing cracks me up. because literally millions of versions of romeo and juliet have been written, including versions almost identical to yours. and r&j is in the public domain, which means they don’t actuallyneed your permission at all. what cracks me up more is that you think you actually have the legal right to say no. -Anonymous
I don’t have the legal right. Obviously.
Which is why I have not mentioned the word ‘legal’ at any point throughout this process.
It’s up, and I *just* came here to tell you the same. Don’t read the comments, though! There’s already some Amy hate. -Anonymous
*squeaks excitedly*
There is, so I scrolled quickly past that one. But it all seems to be generally pretty good discussion so far! :D
Writing meme: Marceline, Please forgive me for leaving you But it was something I knew I had to do I can feel the crown is making me evil And it’s the worst damn thing in the world to feel… “That barely even rhymes,” Simon said bitterly to nobody. I’m hurting myself and I’m afraid I’m gonna hurt you too So please forgive me for whatever I do- Musicians say the second hit is the hardest. Simon stared at his scrawled, mostly terrible lyrics for a long time. PLEASE forgive me- -Anonymous
*excited squeaking*
Please forgive me for leaving you
But it was something I knew I had to do
Okay! I love Remember You the song. I can’t beat that! So this is the same song, just…a different verse, I suppose. And, of course, it’s now remodeled as a suicide note. Because…
…well, I think Simon was pretty into music. Not just the Ice King, either, Simon. You can see his drumsticks in his bag throughout Simon and Marcy, and those drumsticks are one of the saddest things to me in the whole show. (I’m not exaggerating, they really are, for Reasons.) Course he’d leave Marcy a song, even a bad one. (‘Evil’ and ‘feel’ don’t really rhyme, after all. But I don’t reckon Simon’s heart was in the rhyming…)
And it’s the worst damn thing in the world to feel…
I love Sweary!Simon. I like to think everything we heard in Simon and Marcy was actually coming through Marcy’s seven-year-old filter and Simon was in fact constantly swearing, instead of ‘mother!-‘ing and ‘breadball’-ing, at everything and anything he encountered in the course of keeping Marcy safe.
I’m hurting myself and I’m afraid I’m gonna hurt you too
So please forgive me for whatever I do
Ah, the core of Simon’s character, in a way. How many times has that guy asked for forgiveness? Probably more than he needed to, considering the poor man tried so damn hard.
……Annnnnd lost anyway.
Anonymous: can you expound more on why you dislike the term manic pixie dream girl? just curious
Well, it was originally a phrase coined by a guy to describe a female character he didn’t like. He later apologised for inventing the term, feeling it had gotten too far out of hand, but-
– I think the damage had already been done, because now it’s used as rather boring, unthinking shorthand to describe ‘a female who is too quirky/too excitable/loves life to the extent it rubs off on those around her’. None of which, I think, makes a bad character. But I’ve heard everyone from Amy Pond to Disney’s Rapunzel to Clementine from Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind called a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. It’s as pointless as the term ‘Mary Sue’. Actually, I think the writer Zoe Kazan said it best – “It’s a way of describing female characters that’s reductive and diminutive, and I think basically misogynist….I think that to lump together all individual, original quirky women under that rubric is to erase all difference.” I mean…Maria a Manic Pixie Dream Girl? Come on!
Besides – lemme take a page out of this article’s book. Say there’s this girl. She’s poor and hard-done-by but she remains optimistic. She’s a talented artist, as well. She has some weird quirks, like drawing prostitutes and sleeping under the stars. Also, she’s blonde and attractive and smiles a lot. When she embarks on a forbidden love affair, she tries to get the other person to loosen up and have fun and break the rules a little. God, what a manic pixie dream girl and unrealistic character! I just described Jack from Titanic.
Anonymous: Amy Pond, Rory Williams and MJ Watson for the Hogwarts meme?
Oooh
Amy would be a Gryffindor, I think. She’s both brave and reckless, prone to threatening armed pirates with swords and Silurians with laser guns, she’d fit in perfectly…
Rory would be a Hufflepuff. HE’S SO HUFFLEPUFF I CAN’T EVEN. Unfalteringly loyal, hard working, kind…
MJ is a tricky one. But I think she would be Slytherin. There’s a post going round about how surely some Slytherins would be children from bad homes who had cultivated ambition as a way of surviving, and I think that’s her to a tee.