quite a lot of trouble for such a pretty little girl

THINGS WE SHOULD FOCUS ON INSTEAD OF MY APPARENT INABILITY TO UPDATE MY LIVEJOURNAL: OOH, COLIN MORGAN. OOOOOOH. I've told you guys about my deep and abiding obsession I have with Colin's profile, right, and how I believe that it is the most perfect profile in the universe, from which all perfect profiles are thus derived? In case I haven't, those are my feelings. OOH COLIN MORGAN. I WOULD FEEL SWOONY AND FAINT AROUND YOU, BUT THAT WOULD MAKE YOU DEEPLY UNCOMFORTABLE.

Guys, I wish I had, like, a legitimate and good reason why I can't seem to post a lot lately. I wish I had a secret project or was a secret government agent. I wish I had gotten a new puppy/unicorn/whatever. The truth is I've been busy with really boring stuff. Like yesterday I had a meeting in Harvard Square in the morning and then I napped the afternoon away because I'm not used to having to be conscious in the morning. The day before that, I was busy shoveling two feet of snow. And then there have been a bunch of days where it's like wrote an article! Spent all day making phone calls! I've been posting on tumblr a lot because you don't really have to say anything on tumblr and it's v. v. convenient. Tumblr is also a place where it is not only socially acceptable but encouraged to blather for roughly one paragraph about eighteen times a day and no one is like kasjflkjdsfl STOP SPAMMING ME. So here are some things that, were it socially acceptable on Livejournal to spam you with four-sentence updates, I would have one so, as illustrated by .gifs:

( LONG WORDY LIST GOES HERE. )

(Okay, so I posted a shorter version of this on tumblr and was telling ella_bane I was surprised about how much it was getting re-blogged, and she was like "oh, put it on LJ!" And I was like "really?" And she was like "YES AND IF YOU DON'T I WILL DO MEAN THINGS TO YOU" and then made threatening motions so fine, here is the expanded LJ version of a letter I would like to send to Julian Murphy, or scream at him until I broke his brain. Alas, alack.)


Dear Julian Murphy,

So you have just given an interview looking back on Season 3 of Merlin, and in it, you are a giant flaming bag of douche. You've actually made me angry. Are you aware of how hard it is to make really and truly angry? Like, not just kind of irritated? Because when you say that "character growth" for female characters only happens if they get a romantic interest or turn evil, and that despite the actress' repeated pleas to play stronger roles, you have ignored them, citing that it's not "period appropriate" when you have never given two flying fucks about even the most rudimentary historical accuracy before, congrats! You've done it. You are officially a jackass.

And don't even get me started on your dismissal of Merlin/Arthur fans. You do realize that they make up a giant portion of your fanbase, and are a disproportionately large percentage the ones that make you money by buying your merchandise and going to your events? But apparently, you think it's a good idea to do just that. In an interview where you also compare the Merlin/Arthur relationship to both Butch/Sundance and Lois/Clark. Because there's nothing romantic about those relationships! And you're right, it's okay to have a prominent plot point in your "family show" be genocide in which you explicitly discuss the drowning of children, but making the main characters gay would be taking it a step too far and furthermore, it would be just so upsetting! Thank you for mansplaining it to me! I guess my tiny lady brain was all confused since I'm not in a relationship or plotting evil.

You know, for a long time, I was very defensive of you, simply because that's who I am. I am an easy forgiver. I am a benefit-of-the-doubt-er. So when there were all these conspiracy theories about the writers being purposefully sexist and homophobic I was like "... really?" Honestly, I did not believe that was possible in this day and age. Surely there could not be a secret cabal of menfolk sitting in a room willfully being that offensive. And I can forgive ignorance. I might not be happy about it, but if you don't know to examine your actions from a certain point of view, you don't know. Whats the point in getting mad over that? How are you supposed to do something you didn't know you were supposed to do? But you made it explicit in this interview that you know. You know exactly what you're doing. And furthermore, you are doing it on purpose because you think it is the right thing to do. And that is inexcusable. That is completely unforgivable.

If you were some sort of transcendent visionary, maybe you could get off on belittling your fans for ~not understanding you creative vision~. But you know what? You're not. You're not even good. If you think the fans watch for the "quality writing" on Merlin, you are insanely deluded. We watch in spite of that. We watch, for the most part, because it's pretty, and because the cast is really, really, really good. Like, way too good for you. Honestly, if you hadn't cast the people you cast, your show would have gone up like the Hindenburg. For fuck's sake, I can write better than you, and I'm not paid to do this shit. You are. And more than ever, I'm convinced that anything that goes right on this show is somehow a happy coincidence. Either that, or it is due to the dedicated effort of a small rebel force, and you are the Death Star, and I am really hoping one of these days they figure out how to jam up your goddamned trash compactor.

There's this delusion many writers seem to have, and it shows up especially in showrunners, that a show belongs to them, or that they understand their show better than anyone because they wrote it. I fucking hate that attitude. That attitude is my number one pet peeve not only in television, but on the top ten of "shit that pisses me off more than anything else, of all time". The first thing any person who is creative learns is that their work stops being theirs the second it is shared. The entire point of creative work is the way it can be re-interpreted and the meaning of it changes for every new fresh set of eyes that looks at it. To say yours is the "better" or "right" version is abso-fucking-loutely ludicrous, and beyond that, it's arrogant. It's like saying that you know ultimate philosophical answers to life's great questions and other people don't. You should never, ever, ever belittle an audience interpretation of your creative work. You may dislike it. Hell, you may hate it. It may hurt you because that work is your baby. I know that feeling. But like all babies, your work has grown up and left you. You can't do anything about it. Deal with it. And more than that, realize that if there's a mass consensus on your work, it is not because you are right in the face of a million people who are wrong, or that there is something fundamentally wrong with those people. It's that you you didn't see something and they did. That should be the whole reason you share your creativity in the first place. And if you can't deal with that, there's a simple solution - don't share. Get over yourself. End of story.

So, I guess the upshot of this little note is this; fuck you. Hard. Wait, let me make this clearer.



No. Just... no.

Sincerely,
Me, potentially co-signed by 90% of Merlin fandom, or at least over 25 people on Tumblr.

ONE!
So I knew vaguely there was racefail stuff going on in Inception fandom but I was avoiding it because I hate racefail. HATE IT. Last year's hubbub turned me off of people trying to out politically correct each other. I'm trying to refrain from a race rant because hello, wank, no one needs more of it. A lot has been said and really, it's been over a week. No fuel needs to be added to the fire. I'm just going to say these few things, which are my reactions to most racefail and which I feel are still relevant/important:

One, authors are not their characters. I'm not taking sides when I say this on the actual wank being discussed, I'm just saying this as an author who has had this mistake made about their work, and it's always been a pet peeve. My characters are not me. They do not represent my point of view. They do not do what I would do. They don't have to be perfect people, because real people aren't perfect. Real people make racist comments, or sexist comments, or dumb comments. If I want to write a character who tells his wife to go back to the kitchen where she belongs, this doesn't mean I think women should all go back to the kitchen, or that he necessarily has to be a villain to say that. (Even though I like to be in the kitchen. Actually, is it my day to do dishes? Fuck.) I don't like the idea that I, as an author, should have to warn for that, or put a little asterisk/footnote saying "BY THE WAY THIS IS NOT MY POINT OF VIEW". Shouldn't that be self-evident? My neighbors, all of them, are extremely nice people. But most of them are hardcore, Fox News-watching, homophobic, and semi-racist as well. Life isn't that cut and dry, and fiction shouldn't have to be either.

I'm saying this regardless of what was said in the fic that got people in a hubbub because it was supposedly racist, appropriate or not. I didn't actually read the fic (though I did read the passage people complained about). I don't actually care what was said and who said what. That is not the point. The point is, from an author's point of view, can I just complain about this phenomenon in general? If I write a character who has a nervous tic, no one assumes I have that nervous tic. If I write a character who's alcoholic, people don't assume I'm alcoholic. (I hope.) Sometimes I need to write a character saying something despicable, and so I don't see why someone should then assume that nothing else relates to my actual point of view, but that comment does.

The fact of the matter is, sometimes people say offensive things in real life, no matter how good-intentioned they are. I know I have. I'm not saying it's GOOD it happens, but the feeling that you have to make your characters perfectly eloquent, PC, walking advertisements for The Right Way To Handle Situations, and sparkling bastions of humanity is, from an author's point of view, extremely hampering. And irritating. And generally, bad.

Two, The fandom corner of the internet is, in general, an extremely accepting place. When racefail does erupt, it's usually over something pretty small. I care about -isms. I care a lot about social justice. In an ideal world, perhaps these are things we should nitpick over but really? This is, no matter how you look at it, nitpicking. There are big freaking instances of -isms out in the world. Like, here is some racism I posted about yesterday. And here is some really heinous homophobia. (By the way, I don't believe in hell, but I absolutely believe that when this guy dies, he will be burning in it.)

Fandom is a large place that can make a lot of change and do a lot of good and raise a lot of awareness. If we're going to do that, why are we wasting time on internet fights over interrogating texts from the wrong perspective or getting into fights that boil down to "you're more internally racist and have more privilege!" "no, you're more internally racist and have more privilege!"?

I would love to live in a world where a throwaway potentially racist line in a piece of fanfiction is, in fact, the worst thing that happens in the big, wide world of -isms and intolerance. But we do not live in that world, and for that reason, this entire thing is fucking ridiculous.

If fandom would like to discuss the problems that are legitimately problematic in the world today, I will be there marching in the parade and cheering on the forces of progressiveness and acceptance and spreading the word loud and far. But if fandom is continue getting into silly slapfights, I'm going to continue to roll my eyes and ignore fandom when it comes to race and discussing and wanking about it, because seriously? Seriously? There are a limited number of hours in a day, and the number of hours I'm willing to budget out for being annoyed is even more limited. At some point, in order to remain relatively sane and healthy, you need to make a threshold of things that get you all foaming at the mouth, because the world is so full of irritating things that if you were actually irritated by everything that maybe deserved to get upset over, you would not have time to sleep. I like sleep. I like being sane. I like being happy. If I'm going to be asked to get upset, I'd prefer it was over something that was, you know, actually a big problem that effects a lot of the world at large as opposed to, say, a hundred people on the internet.

But that's just me.


( A lot of less heavy and unimportant stuff about Project Runway, Taylor Swift, Fox News, fic recs, otters, Merlin, Glee, dogs, pumpkin carving, rallies, and Bones DVDs. In that order. )

Man, I should... start looking into posting shorter entries more often. The problem is that I can go, like, a week and a half with nothing to say, and then all at once I have about TEN BILLION THINGS TO GET OUT. Like right now. I'm sorry. I just have so many ~thoughts and feelings~.