I think I am officially Fandom Old. I am so worn out from the arguments on who’s the top or the bottom (who cares), what is allowed to be written (anything you want, bejeebus), what is Problematic (I know, just tag it), what other people Should Do (they Should live their lives free of judgment). There isn’t a Right Way to do things. Tag your stuff appropriately, don’t read stuff you don’t want to read, and leave other people (me) alone.
thinking about the reverse arc between lumon middle management and the MDR team. the way the MDR team all began as individuals (Helly lashing out, Irv holding too tight to the rules, Dylan keeping distant with his perks and sarcastic apathy, Mark struggling to lead) with the unified machinations of Mr. Graner, Ms. Cobel, and Mr. Milchick keeping them down. the way that their unified front fell apart as they each began breaching routine, striking out without communicating to each other, leaving each other high and dry as they individually fucked up (milchick’s overtime w/ dylan, cobel letting them explore, graner. well-) while simultaneously the MDR team was reaching out to other departments, forming deeper connections, and learning to truly trust each other
that both versions of irving care about art, in their respective available capacities, even though they have entirely different lives and memories… that irving’s outer self is able to paint what only his inner self has never seen… that his inner self dreams of paint….. that mark’s inner self is able to channel the memory and emotion of the tree through sculpted clay… the transcendence/power/endurance of art… despite it all………
I’m not sure I know how to best explain this, but I’m very glad that the writers gave Outside Burt a husband. Or boyfriend, whatever.
The romance between Burt and Irving is beautiful, and it’s incredibly fragile and precarious because they are both mindwiped office workers in an evil basement. The scene were Burt retires (and is permanently ripped away from Irving) was a gutpunch, because we got to see that Outside Burt has a life where he doesn’t know or care about Irving, or even his own Inside self, at all. He has a whole other life, and he may have a whole other family. When the last episode rolled around, and Irv finally got a chance to visit Burt on the Outside, I thought, oh shit, Burt has a wife, that’s going to be the twist of the knife, that’s going to be the tragedy, I’m not sure I like that. And then Burt had a husband, because the show’s thinking was thankfully less heteronormative than mine. The tragedy is still there, it’s still heartbreaking, but we don’t get the tired trope of the gay outcast gazing in at the happy normal straight life he can never have. Irv sees that the man he loves is locked away in the mind of an identical man who seems happily married to a man, and Irv will never have that because neither he, nor the man he loves are considered people. This scene would have had homophobic and maybe biphobic baggage if Burt’s spouse was female, and is incredibly poignant since Burt’s spouse is male.
Basically, the writers managed tragedy without burying the gays. Burt is still alive, and he’s still gay, he’s just completely beyond Irving’s reach.
I love Severance’s juxtaposition of hyper-corporate aesthetics with archaic language in locations like the Break Room and in the company code. It really heightens the dissonance and psychological horror of the setting.
Sometimes I see authors post chapters with a note like “Sorry for the wait! My computer crashed/broke/was lost, and I had to rewrite the whole thing. :)” And it’s like. Can’t relate bestie. The moment I write anything it’s dead to me. Gone. Out of my brain. If I was asked to write it again I literally wouldn’t know where to start. The person who wrote everything on my ao3 might as well be an alien to me. Every new chapter I ever write is fanfiction of my own fanfiction. I once lost the first three chapters of an original story and scrapped the entire idea rather than redo it. Amnesiac rights!
General psa: my loves. I say this gently, in friendship. If you are writing a story set in a Middle Ages-esque setting. You need not. And should not. Replace literally every instance of “this is” or “it is” with “tis.” Please. I beg of thee.
i saw a post abt the mcelroys and their fandom and since i didnt agree entirely w/ the op and my brain went off on a related tangent im making my own post:
i think the level of scrutiny/boundary crossing/pedestal placing that goes on with people who get overly involved in the lives of minor internet celebrities (who dont have the money to protect themselves from the audience) is really uncomfortable and weird at best and grotesque invasions of privacy at worst. the way people use the same attitudes to talk about/discuss real people as they do fictional characters is unsettling and i think there needs to be a mass call for some empathy in fandoms that involve real people. at the very least the fandom needs to coach themselves on maintaining a respectable distance from the people who work hard to provide them with entertainment, instead of feeling entitled to every single aspect of their being.
yeah, yeah I know I already reblogged “autobiography” earlier today which is basically about a thousand times more exactly what I want to say than any essay could possibly be BUT then I went and actually read what people are arguing here and you know what
SOOOOOOOO
There are two things that are being collapsed in this argument that we really, really cannot afford to collapse. That is:
For AO3 to be a sustainable project long-term, there needs to be a comprehensive policy in place designed to prevent its users from harassment and abuse; and
Some content that people would like to host on AO3 is, to some people, vile or offensive.
Both of these things are true. However, it does not follow from (1) that we need to regulate or restrict the content of the works hosted on the Archive to ensure the content referred to in (2) doesn’t make it onto the Archive. People seem to be taking it for granted that (1) means banning all that stuff in (2), and that’s wrong.
(cw for high-level references to the existence of rape, underage sex, and anti-Semitism; as well as one marginally more specific reference to kinky sex)
“[H]arassment and abuse occurs when a person—a user of a given platform—is subjected to content, by means of that platform, that they find vile or offensive, without their consent and without the ability to avoid it.” Awesome way to lay out the issue!!!
so as we all know, my dumpster fire of a family, the pittsburgh penguins, have done some fuckups lately! i’ve gotten a couple of asks about it and i thought i’d just make a post.
Q: DO YOU THINK THE PITTSBURGH PENGUINS DID A FUCK UP? A: buddy, i sure do!!!!!!
Q: ARE YOU SPITTING MAD ABOUT IT? A: buddy, i sure am!!!!!! youcantellbecausei haveyelleda lot. i plan to yell some more, all season, until they’re like, “why won’t this girl leave us alone?” and then i’ll be like, “YOU KNOW WHY PITTSBURGH!!!! YOU KNOW WHY.”
Q: DOES THIS MEAN YOU’RE GOING TO STOP SUPPORTING THE PENGUINS? A: listen…………no. sorry. it doesn’t. i feel weird and conflicted about it, but they’re still my favorite team and i still want them to threepeat unless they lose in game 7 to the marc-andre fleury golden knights. that would also be fine.
Q: BUT YOU JUST SAID THEY WERE BAD? HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT SOMETHING BAD? A: i am a complex person capable of loving something and being disappointed in and angered by it at the same time.
Q: DON’T YOU THINK YOU SHOULD JUST SUPPORT A DIFFERENT TEAM? A: i’m really sorry but it doesn’t work like that, and even if it did work like that, literally the only team in the NHL that is not guilty of something is the las vegas golden knights and that’s because they are 3 days old. i’m not saying it doesn’t matter just because everyone is doing it! of course it matters. arguably it matters more, because it is a symptom of the toxic and greedy shit the NHL does, constantly. of course it is fair and right to be angry, specifically, at the pittsburgh penguins, and even specifically sidney crosby, who had the platform and the opportunity to do a good or even just morally neutral thing and instead chose to do a gross thing. i support 100% your and my right to be angry at them/him.
it isn’t that i think it’s not a big deal. i think it’s a very big deal. i’m so, so angry at them. i’m angry with them while i’m watching them play and i’m angry with them while i’m ignoring their interviews out of spite. remember that scene in sex in the city where charlotte is like, “mommy loves you but she can’t look at you right now” to her dog?
that’s how i feel about the pittsburgh penguins.
but i still want them to threepeat. if you feel like you have/want to give up being a fan of the pittsburgh penguins, or even make them your hockey nemeses, i support you doing that. do what you gotta do, bub. we all have our limits about what we can tolerate in the things we love, and if this is your limit, then please! abandon them. i don’t blame you.
Q: BUT– A: i know, buddy. i know.
Q: IF YOU STAY A PENGUINS FAN YOU MUST CARE MORE ABOUT SPORTS THAN DOING WHAT’S RIGHT. A: okay, well. we’re all works in progress.
Q: I CAN’T FOLLOW YOU IF YOU’RE GOING TO KEEP REBLOGGING THE PENGUINS. A: i get it!!!! be free, little bird.
sometimes I just want to talk about media theory and its relation to media criticism. stuff like “criticism of media should be proportional to its source, reach, and context in order to be effective” where:
Source: is the media putting itself forward as an expert, educational, or reliable source? Is the creator seen as knowledgeable? Historical accuracy is very important in documentaries, far less so in doctor who episodes. Documentaries should face harsher criticism than doctor who for historical innacuracy.
Reach: how many people can be expected to see this? How accessible will it be? What are the barriers to entry? highly promoted movies should face harsher criticism than unlisted YouTube videos. Obscene content with no warning should face harsher criticism than obscene content with a warning.
Context: where was this published? How does it compare to other similar works on the same platform and in the same time period? How reputable is the platform and the media shown alongside it? Works published in an online journal should face harsher criticism than tumblr posts. 20 year old editorials should face less harsh criticism for not using modern vocabulary.
Effective: how likely is this criticism to stimulate a productive discussion and potentially effect change? Would a change by the creator and/or audience have an impact that’s worth your time? Spending 48 hours to get someone to take down a post with less than 200 views just isn’t worth it, especially if you increase its reach in the process. Sometimes languishing in obscurity is a more effective criticism than anything you could say.
Sometimes languishing in obscurity is a more effective criticism than anything you could say.
This is something I feel like everyone needs to understand a lot better.
So, back when Ancillary Justice was essentially sweeping that year’s SF awards, there was some talk from certain quarters about it not really being all that, people only claimed to like it because Politics and SJWs and PC points and Affirmative Action and nobody was really reading the book and if they were they didn’t really enjoy it, they just claimed they did so they could seem cool and woke.
My feelings were so hurt that I wept bitter, miserable tears every time I drove to the bank with my royalty checks. I mean, those people must be right, it’s totally typical for non-fans who don’t actually like a book to write fanfic or draw fan art, totally boringly normal for students to choose to write papers about a book that just isn’t really very good or interesting, and for professors to use that boringly not-very-good book in their courses, and for that book to continue to sell steadily five years after it came out. I totally did not laugh out loud whenever I came across such assertions, because they were absolutely not ridiculous Sour Grape Vineyards tended by folks who, for the most part, hadn’t even read the book.
Now I am sorry–but not surprised–to see some folks making similar assertions about N.K. Jemisin’s historic (and entirely deserved) Hugo Threepeat. Most of them haven’t read the books in question.
But some of them have. Some of them have indeed read the books and not understood why so many people are so excited by them.
Now, Nora doesn’t need me to defend her, and she doesn’t need lessons from me about the best way to dry a tear-soaked award-dusting cloth, or the best brands of chocolate ice cream to fortify yourself for that arduous trip to the bank. Actually, she could probably give me some pointers.
But I have some thoughts about the idea that, because you (generic you) didn’t like a work, that must mean folks who say they did like it are Lying Liars Who Lie to Look Cool.
So, in order to believe this, one has to believe that A) one’s own taste is infallible and objective and thus universally shared and B) people who openly don’t share your taste are characterless sheep who will do anything to seem cool.
But the fact is, one doesn’t like or dislike things without context. We are all of us judging things from our own point of view, not some disembodied perfectly objective nowhere. It’s really easy to assume that our context is The Context–to not even see that there’s a context at all, it’s just How Things Are. But you are always seeing things from the perspective of your experiences, your biases, your expectations of how things work. Those may not match other people’s.
Of course, if you’re in a certain category–if you’re a guy, if you’re White, if you’re straight, if you’re cis–our society is set up to make that invisible, to encourage you in the assumption that the way you see things is objective and right, and not just a product of that very society. Nearly all of the readily available entertainment is catering to you, nearly all of it accepts and reinforces the status quo. If you’ve never questioned that, it can seem utterly baffling that people can claim to enjoy things that you see no value in. You’ll maybe think it makes sense to assume that such people are only pretending to like those things, or only like them for reasons you consider unworthy. It might not ever occur to you that some folks are just reading from a different context–sometimes slightly different, sometimes radically different, but even a small difference can be enough to make a work seem strange or bafflingly flat.
Now, I’m sure that there are people somewhere at some time who have in fact claimed to like a thing they didn’t, just for cool points. People will on occasion do all kinds of ill-advised or bananapants things. But enough of them to show up on every SF award shortlist that year? Enough to vote for a historic, record-breaking three Hugos in a row? Really?
Stop and think about what you’re saying when you say this. Stop and think about who you’re not saying it about.
You might not have the context to see what a writer is doing. When you don’t have the context, so much is invisible. You can only see patterns that match what you already know.*
Of course, you’re not a helpless victim of your context–you can change it, by reading other things and listening to various conversations. Maybe you don’t want to do that work, which, ok? But maybe a lot of other folks have indeed been doing that, and their context, the position they’re reading stories from, has shifted over the last several years. It’s a thing that can happen.
Stop and think–you’ve gotten as far as “everyone must be kind of like me” and stepped over into “therefore they can’t really like what they say they like because I don’t like those things.” Try on “therefore they must really mean it when they say they like something, because I mean it when I say it.” It’s funny, isn’t it, that so many folks step into the one and not the other. Maybe ask yourself why that is.
This also applies to “pretentious” writing. “That writer is only trying to look smart! Readers who say they like it are only trying to look smarter that me, a genuine,honest person, who only likes down-to-earth plain solid storytelling.” Friend, your claims to be a better and more honest person because of your distaste for “pretentious” writing is pretension itself, and says far more about you than the work you criticize this way. You are exactly the sort of snob you decry, and you have just announced this to the world.
Like or don’t like. No worries. It’s not a contest, there’s no moral value attached to liking or not liking a thing. Hell, there are highly-regarded things I dislike, or don’t see the appeal of! There are things I love that lots of other folks don’t like at all. That’s life.
And sure, if you want to, talk about why you do or don’t like a thing. That’s super interesting, and thoughtful criticism is good for art.
But think twice before you sneer at what other folks like, think three times before you declare that no one could really like a thing so it must be political correctness, or pretension, or whatever. Consider the possibility that whatever it is is just not your thing. Consider the possibility that it might be all right if not everything is aimed at you. Consider that you might not actually be the center of the universe, and your opinions and tastes might not be the product of your utterly rational objective view of the world. Consider the possibility that a given work might not have been written just for you, but for a bunch of other people who’ve been waiting for it, maybe for a long time, and that might just possibly be okay.
____ *Kind of like the way some folks insist my Ancillary trilogy is obviously strongly influenced by Iain Banks (who I’d read very little of, and that after AJ was already under way) and very few critics bring up the influence of C.J. Cherryh (definitely there, deliberate, and there are several explicit hat tips to her work in the text). Those folks have read Banks, but they haven’t read Cherryh. They see something that isn’t there, and don’t see what is there, because they don’t have the same reading history I do. It’s interesting to me how many folks assume I must have the same reading history as they do. It’s interesting to me how sure they are of their conclusions.
Real Person Fiction is a tense subject in fandom. When I joined in the Metazoic era mid 1990s, reading about The X-files, everyone knew that people wrote RPF about Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny, but nobody wanted to admit they were into it. It wasn’t just suspect, it was bad, rude, because you were speculating about people’s actual lives. These days, basically everyone on Tumblr is down with Gillovny.
I’ve had the same transformation of opinions as the rest of fandom (these days I’m into One Direction). So here are some objections to RPF that I used to have, but have gotten over.
RPF is just about lusting after real humans, which is creepy!
Desiring celebrities is as American as apple pie. Open up Playboy orMaxim and observe the starlets laid out for your delectation. The reason you don’t see this as “lusting after real humans” is that you have been brainwashed by the patriarchy. RPF, in its very porniest version, is basically the same thing. And much of RPF isn’t actually porn, or even sexually explicit.
RPF is not accepted anywhere in the world. Socially, we have a contract not to write RPF.
Have you ever heard of a little Broadway show called Hamilton? That’s entirely about real people. Oh, you want high culture? Read Don Delillo’s Libra. Or look at any of the movies that fictionalize recent events—The Social Network, for instance. That’s unauthorized real person fiction about Mark Zuckerberg. Your argument is invalid.
What about when the subjects of RPF find stories about them? What about how they feel?
Well, presumably you aren’t tweeting or emailing your RPF to celebrities. If you are, you’re in the same category as people who send unsolicited dick pics to hot ladies on Instagram. Outside of that possibility… the price of fame is an increase in people talking, thinking and writing about you, which can be equally gratifying and miserable. It’s part of the deal.
If you don’t participate in celebrity culture at all—don’t read tabloids, don’t think about them, don’t ever speculate on the lives of famous people who aren’t long dead—then you might have a leg to stand on here. But get real, you go to the hair salon and pick up Peoplelike everyone else.
When celebrities complain about the attention, I get it. I wouldn’t like paparazzi in my business either. But RPF isn’t stalking. It isn’t paparazzi following you around. It doesn’t intrude into your daily life. And more than that, it’s not about you: it’s about a fictional you. RPF is not the same as tinhatting, or claiming to know some ~truth about celebrity relationships, or what have you. It does not claim to be an expression of the truth. And that puts it miles ahead of things like this, which are chock full of lies intended to deceive:
But wait, you’ve said before that you stopped writing Sleepy Hollow fic when you hung out with the cast. How does that match up with all this?
Yeah, I did. I didn’t like writing it at that point, because I had intended to write Ichabbie and after meeting Tom Mison and Nicole Beharie, I didn’t want to write a sex scene featuring their characters. I don’t think I would be morally wrong to write such a scene, it just felt strange to me, and since I write fanfic for fun, I decided not to do something that wouldn’t be fun. I don’t think that my feelings are a moral compass.
So does that mean I should write stories about you?How would you feel then?
If I don’t know you, how I feel is irrelevant. If I do know you, then you’ll have to weigh my possible reaction against how badly you want to write that fic. Similarly, if you love a celebrity a lot, you might want to think “what if they read my fic?” before writing it. If the answer is “they would hate it and we could never be friends,” and that bothers you, then probably don’t write it.
Think of it this way: I might choose to write a story including a character being abused. If I had a friend who’d been abused in exactly the same way, they might have all sorts of feelings about this. I’d need to find out how the friend would feel and, if they would be hurt by it, I’d make a decision about whether I valued writing the story or keeping the friendship more. I might make either decision—to keep the friend or write the story—and I don’t think one or the other is the “obvious” right choice.
Personally, I don’t think I’ll ever know One Direction. If I did ever meet any of them, I have no idea what we would talk about. I don’t think we share very many interests. So if, in an imaginary world, I met one or all of them, there probably wouldn’t be a budding friendship to ruin anyway.
This blog is 4 years old (Sun 15 Apr 2018 - Sun 17 Apr 2022) so it feels right to say goodbye now.
I want to give a huge shout out to all the content creators:
Gif makers - KE was frustratingly difficult to colour but week after week you made vibrant and creative edits. Thank you.
Fan artists - You are so talented to capture the core of who these characters are. Often at their most wholesome and/or murderous. Thank you.
Fan vidders - The parallels and storytelling you create by the way you put scenes together always blows my mind. Thank you.
Fanfic writers - In particular, the amount of fix-it fics you wrote after the finale has helped everyone remember why we love the show and what it should’ve been. Thank you.
Fandom thoughts - Whether it be long post analyses or keysmashes and reaction pics while live blogging, your energy and passion for this show is unmatched. Thank you.
This fandom means so much to me and I’m so grateful to you all for helping to create a space on here that helped us feel connected to each other. <333
I wonder if Sandra knows just how much she’s done for us with what she was saying and the way she was contradicting what the spawn of satan said about eve is so relieving, and we know that Jodie & Sandra have the same thoughts more or less so to know that they truly understand their characters and contradict what Laura Neal said….just healed a part of me
Sandra talking about Eve’s journey was so healing to hear!!
The way she mentioned how her journey was never about necessarily being “normal” or “happy” but about being truer and becoming whole, YES!! YES YES A THOUSAND TIMES YES!!
That’s what it’s always been about!! Eve’s journey was never about her finding normalcy again or wanting that “amazing life”. It’s always been about her descent into her own darkness and discovering all of who she is and embracing that. It was about her getting pulled into this world of chaos and recognizing that same chaos resided in her. It was about her coming to a place where she felt complete, not because she regained what she lost, but because she allowed in everything she never had. Eve’s journey was one of the most empowering things to witness for a character because we got to see an every day typical woman be able to shed the rules and boundaries of what society tells us we have to be like as a woman, as a woman of color, and as a human in general.
The beauty of Eve wasn’t about her denying those parts of herself and integrating back into a “normal” society. It was always about seeing the destruction and chaos of the rapid waters below and jumping anyway because in those few seconds of falling she got to feel free.
Thank you to Sandra for discussing that because it was so goddamn validating.
Someone inform Sandra that her immediately saying “No” to Eve being straight added 50 years to my gay ass.
I mean, we always fucking knew lol. But just to hear that confirmation ESPECIALLY after how frustrating and exhausting it was for me having to see people throughout the series trying to dismiss Eve’s queerness, having Sandra fucking Oh shut that down like the queen she is has cleared my skin, got rid of my back pain, and cured me of my procrastination.
(Also this is not directed at the audience member because they were talking about the importance of queer representation, not seriously calling Eve straight. So Sandra was just agreeing with them.)
It warms my heart so much when I see people telling Sandra how much seeing Eve means for them as a woman of color and also as a queer person.
Eve’s queerness has never been as deeply celebrated as Villanelle’s, for various reasons. Whenever I see people discussing the queer representation on the show it usually centers around Villanelle. But Eve’s journey with her queerness is just as important and meaningful.
Here was a woman who was in her mid life seeming to know who she was and settled into a typical life. But then her world gets completely shaken up and she begins this intense journey of self discovery. There’s so much that she has to contend with, not only by others but also with herself, as part of that resistance that she faces is within her. But, ultimately, she’s able to get to a place where she does embrace the totality of who she is, with one of those parts being her sexuality.
We got to see her become more free in embracing that side of herself and even enjoying it…and it was fucking beautiful. What a strong image to show an older woman get to have this journey because so many times it’s usually for people in their youth. But Eve was able to show us that no matter where you are in your life there is still time to discover who you are, explore, and feel fulfilled.
Eve’s journey was so meaningful to the queer community, and Sandra deserves to hear that all the time.
Let me preface this by saying that I will not tolerate any hate towards Sandra on my posts or blog. So if you want to send messages or replies attacking her they will be deleted and immediately blocked.
When it comes to that recent interview it honestly didn’t upset me because it was the same talking points we’ve heard before from the head writer, so Sandra was just reiterating them (as is her job to do so). Let me also point out that we don’t know exactly when this interview was filmed but to me it sounded like it was done right before the finale aired, most likely when she was promoting Turning Red. So I don’t think there was any perspective on the backlash. Regardless, there were a few things from this interview that I’ve seen people getting hung up on that I want to talk about:
1. Sandra never claimed that she wanted Villanelle to die.
I’ve seen people attacking Sandra for being responsible for Villanelle’s death when it wasn’t her decision to do so. In fact, as Sandra states in this interview, she thought the exact opposite. She felt that it was Eve who should’ve died but then later on it was thewriterswho came back and told her they were going down a different route, which both Sandra and Jodie agreed with.
2. Eve as our “every-woman”.
Another part of that interview that people are taking the wrong way is when Sandra mentions how Eve is our “every-woman”. She is right. At the beginning of the show Eve was very much the typical “every-woman” archetype. She had a house, spouse, 9 to 5 job, and was living a relatively relatable and normal life. It’s not until after everything starts falling into chaos that we start to realize that there’s more to her than that, which Sandra has agreed many times with.
In terms of character types, Eve was the more relatable one because of the normalcy of her life. That’s what I think Sandra meant when she said this and it’s true. In reality most of us are more of an Eve than a Villanelle, in the sense that we live normal lives instead of being assassins flying around the world. That’s all that was meant by that description. But some people are trying to twist it into something it’s not when really it’s not that deep.
3. People claiming Sandra saying Jodie was on board with the ending isn’t true.
This one really bothers me because it implies that Sandra is somehow lying and speaking for her when Sandra has NEVER spoken for Jodie. In fact, she ALWAYS would say in interviews how she didn’t want to speak for Jodie or Villanelle when answering questions, she only ever would give her own thoughts. She always allowed Jodie to speak from her own perspective for her character and give her own opinions, which she always listened to and valued. So for people to try and now claim that Sandra is lying when she mentioned how Jodie was on board with the ending is such an ugly and downright horrible thing to do. Especially because it’s attacking her as a person when I have always seen how respectful Sandra has been, not only to Jodie, but to other people as well. I’ve seen many instances where Sandra wants to hear what other people’s thoughts are and lets them speak while she listens. So to claim she’d lie about this is, quite frankly, bullshit. And for what reason would she lie about that? To make herself look better? To make the company look better? Bullshit. If that’s the kind of person you think Sandra is then your perspective of her is terribly twisted and extremely bias.
4. The comment about relationships and “getting what you needed” out of it.
Again, people are twisting her words. Sandra even says at the beginning that she’s talking about the “metaphor” of Eve’s ending, meaning she wasn’t literally saying that Eve took what she needed from Villanelle and now she can be done with her. What she was describing was that metaphorically Eve was able to gain self acceptance through Villanelle and her relationship with her. She finally got to a place where she embraced the totality of herself, so how does one move on after that. Sandra has mentioned many times how much they both need each other and that they were right for each other. She never said that Eve was just using Villanelle.
5. Sandra and Jodie agreeing with the ending is not the problem.
Another issue I’ve seen is people are now getting angry at Sandra and are accusing her of supporting the Bury Your Gays trope and how the ending played out which is wrong on so many levels. Sandra mentioned how fast TV is and that they really didn’t know how everything was going to play out until right up to the very end, which means they most likely got told from the beginning how it was going to end but not how it would be executed, let alone how it would be edited together. So to attack either of them for how the ending happened is deeply unfair. If you’re not blaming Jodie for the ending then don’t be blaming Sandra.
As for the topic of the Bury Your Gays trope: Sandra has said that she felt Eve should’ve died and Jodie mentioned how Villanelle dying felt inevitable. Both of them agreeing with the death of their characters is not the issue, nor does it mean they support the BYG trope. Honestly, how Sandra and Jodie felt about their characters ending isn’t where we need to be throwing our criticism at. Whether they loved it or hated it is kind of irrelevant at this point when it comes to the bigger discussion of queer representation and harmful tropes. Lets remember that the reason why the ending was so harmful and fits into the BYG trope is due to how poorly the ending was executed, not because one or them died. It was terribly rushed and neither characters were given the proper respect they deserved before ending it in such a cruel way, and that is in no way a fault of Sandra or Jodie.
I know it’s easy to let our anger be our driving force but we need to make sure it’s targeted correctly, meaning we should be looking at those who are in power and their companies. That’s where we can enact change and spread awareness, not going after the actors. I know many of us are still hurting but we need to be careful how we express that and to whom. There’s no reason why Sandra should be receiving this much hate for that interview. If you’re bashing her for this then the only thing I’ll say is give Sandra the same courtesy you give to Jodie.
this quote will always sum it up. the point of killing eve. that was it. eve and villanelle coming together. the writers not only betrayed the audience, but also the characters. what a terribly written season, what a unfulfilling ending. they deserved so much better. we deserved so much better.
Everybody’s saying the Villaneve scenes felt unearned and like yeah they did but I also waited 5 fucking years for this so I’m going to take my kisses and ass slaps and implied sex and be grateful
it’s just very annoying to me that the writers believe this is the ending that felt “right”. when i say i readily believed eve and/or villanelle were going to die in the end back in seasons 1 & 2 – yes, because that was back when the show centered entirely around their dynamic, and it felt pretty natural that they’d consume each other in the end. but making it less about their mutual obsession and more about the twelve is a choice that takes a lot of power out of that ending. that wasn’t “inevitable” and it wasn’t about them, it was just cruelly killing villanelle off for genuinely no reason after she’d freed herself from the people who’d stolen her life.
That kiss was amazing, but let’s not sleep on the sleeping bag scene.
It is definitely one of my all-time favorite Villaneve moments because so much is said in between the lines. V touching the scar is both an acknowledgement of how much she hurt Eve and an acceptance of how they are forever bound together. When Eve says yes to stealing the van, she’s also finally saying yes to having a “Bonnie and Clyde” adventure with V, an idea she completely rejected in S2’s finale. They both look happy and completely smitten with one another.
In a lot of ways, the scene plays out like a proposal. A murder wives’ proposal but a proposal, nonetheless.
Kudos to Sandra and Jodie for taking that scene to the next level.
The streets are saying that Jodie’s parents were on Tower Bridge and took a photo of the shrine. Did they know about it before? Because if not can you imagine them just walking past and then looking down like woah???? Photos of my daughter are all over the side of this bridge and loads of flowers!?!?
oksanaastankova: i remember jodie saying that her dad always checks social media cause he’s her number 1 fan, i bet he knew
