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femslashex is running again! Hurrah! Especially as I have been feeling a little blech on the fandom front recently, but nothing can get me excited and engaged again like femslash.
You want to hear something alarming yet awesome? The femslash exchange started in 2004 (like, three sets of mods ago) and I have done it every year since that first one. My fandoms, the embarrassment factor of my writing, and my level of engagement in fandom have all varied, but I always make time for this one exchange; it's like my Yuletide. And I think that's...sad brilliant!
I must give some thought to which pairings I want to nominate; at least, on some level beyond listing all the named female characters on Vikings that I could possibly ship Lagertha with. I have a weird craving for Lagertha/Princess Kwenthrith after finishing S2 the other night.
2. Speaking of awesome fannish things: I know there are a thousand and one different versions of The Rains of Castamere, and this one guy wrote and recorded a bunch of additional verses (link goes to youtube).
3. Relatedly (if only because the guy in that link is Scottish) we're coming up fast on the date for the Scottish independence referendum, and I still have no idea how I'm going to vote. It's a toss up between girding my loins and voting Yes, or holding my nose and voting No; which is exactly where I was six months ago.
To be fair, both the Yes and No campaigns have been shit. Better Together have totally neglected to mention anything about why we may, indeed, be "better together", in favour of going: you're too wee, and frightened, and poor, and you won't cope. Which has been lovely, and not at all patronising. Whereas Yes Scotland have been playing the Mindless Optimism card so heavily that one could almost believe that they don't actually have another card.
Seriously, chaps, I'm here to be convinced. Convince me.
4. I got an anon ask on tumblr a few days ago asking me to talk a little about my hatred for the character of Merlin. It was interesting because, 1) I get anon asks now, apparently, and 2) I didn't think I'd made my distaste for Merlin obvious over there; I try to be good about using my tumblr for the things I love, and scrolling by those I... don't.
Anyway, because in my head the platonic ideal is that tumblr is for pictures and here is for words (although, like all platonic ideals, that fell apart pretty quickly) I'm going to repost what I replied there. It's not particularly long or insightful, because... tumblr. All the same--
Merlin— it’s mostly a lizard brain thing. I find Merlin (mostly in the latter series; if he hadn’t been endearing in S1 I wouldn’t have started watching the show) viscerally creepy and unpleasant, in a totally illogical and nonsensical way.
It’s also that as the protagonist with the lion’s share of the screentime Merlin got the worst of the belt from the show’s structural problems. So a lot of my hatred for the character is reflected hatred for the showrunners.
Anyway, under the cut, and in no particular order, a list of things that bother me about Merlin (the character, and by extension the show)
1. Merlin is a very reactive character. I don’t think in five series - ten years in-show - he actually accomplished anything. He’ll act in the moment to protect Arthur, or to protect his secret, but nothing he does really has any lasting consequences. His narrative function is to protect the status quo; which would be fine except that 1) it makes for a boring protagonist, and 2) the status quo is a bit shit.
2. Seriously, at the beginning of the show magicians are being persecuted; at the end of the show magicians are being persecuted, albeit possibly slightly less enthusiastically. Even in S5 Merlin says, more than once, if I recall correctly, that Arthur would kill him if he knew he had magic. If Merlin doesn’t really believe that, then he has the easiest way in the world to stop the persecution of magicians, and he’s just choosing not to do it, and if he does think that: WHY ARE YOU EVEN HELPING THIS GUY?
3. Merlin’s lack of development warps all the other characters around him. Merlin can’t reveal his magic, so Arthur goes from being a perceptive enough prince who may someday make a great king to a character canonically too stupid to dress himself. Merlin never does anything about the persecution of magic users, so Morgana becomes a Cruella Deville a-like, obsessed with the throne, lest anyone notice that she kind of had a point about the whole magic thing.
4. I’m not a fan of Merlin’s relationship with Arthur. I couldn’t enjoy it is as a bromance or a love story, because I thought that Merlin became increasingly obsessed with Arthur to the exclusion of aught else; and that negatively impacted on both characters and the narrative. By S4 I thought that the only way Arthur was ever going to become this great king was for Merlin to go far, far away from him. Because how was he ever going to be a great ruler if he was wrapped up in cotton wool and never told anything?
5. Merlin has very black and white world view; you are either for Arthur or you are against him, there is no middle ground; I’m thinking of his creepy I’m-gonna-kill-you looks at possessed!Gwen. Merlin is paranoid and suspicious of other magic users; magic is okay when it’s being used to protect Arthur, when it’s being used by Merlin to protect Arthur - and yet he’s still inexplicably hailed as the saviour of magic.
6. The show coasted by on Colin Morgan gurning and crying and looking constipated (I’m sure he did his best with what he was given) but as an emotionally or dramatically satisfying story, it just didn’t do it for me.
femslashex is running again! Hurrah! Especially as I have been feeling a little blech on the fandom front recently, but nothing can get me excited and engaged again like femslash.You want to hear something alarming yet awesome? The femslash exchange started in 2004 (like, three sets of mods ago) and I have done it every year since that first one. My fandoms, the embarrassment factor of my writing, and my level of engagement in fandom have all varied, but I always make time for this one exchange; it's like my Yuletide. And I think that's...
I must give some thought to which pairings I want to nominate; at least, on some level beyond listing all the named female characters on Vikings that I could possibly ship Lagertha with. I have a weird craving for Lagertha/Princess Kwenthrith after finishing S2 the other night.
2. Speaking of awesome fannish things: I know there are a thousand and one different versions of The Rains of Castamere, and this one guy wrote and recorded a bunch of additional verses (link goes to youtube).
3. Relatedly (if only because the guy in that link is Scottish) we're coming up fast on the date for the Scottish independence referendum, and I still have no idea how I'm going to vote. It's a toss up between girding my loins and voting Yes, or holding my nose and voting No; which is exactly where I was six months ago.
To be fair, both the Yes and No campaigns have been shit. Better Together have totally neglected to mention anything about why we may, indeed, be "better together", in favour of going: you're too wee, and frightened, and poor, and you won't cope. Which has been lovely, and not at all patronising. Whereas Yes Scotland have been playing the Mindless Optimism card so heavily that one could almost believe that they don't actually have another card.
Seriously, chaps, I'm here to be convinced. Convince me.
4. I got an anon ask on tumblr a few days ago asking me to talk a little about my hatred for the character of Merlin. It was interesting because, 1) I get anon asks now, apparently, and 2) I didn't think I'd made my distaste for Merlin obvious over there; I try to be good about using my tumblr for the things I love, and scrolling by those I... don't.
Anyway, because in my head the platonic ideal is that tumblr is for pictures and here is for words (although, like all platonic ideals, that fell apart pretty quickly) I'm going to repost what I replied there. It's not particularly long or insightful, because... tumblr. All the same--
Merlin— it’s mostly a lizard brain thing. I find Merlin (mostly in the latter series; if he hadn’t been endearing in S1 I wouldn’t have started watching the show) viscerally creepy and unpleasant, in a totally illogical and nonsensical way.
It’s also that as the protagonist with the lion’s share of the screentime Merlin got the worst of the belt from the show’s structural problems. So a lot of my hatred for the character is reflected hatred for the showrunners.
Anyway, under the cut, and in no particular order, a list of things that bother me about Merlin (the character, and by extension the show)
1. Merlin is a very reactive character. I don’t think in five series - ten years in-show - he actually accomplished anything. He’ll act in the moment to protect Arthur, or to protect his secret, but nothing he does really has any lasting consequences. His narrative function is to protect the status quo; which would be fine except that 1) it makes for a boring protagonist, and 2) the status quo is a bit shit.
2. Seriously, at the beginning of the show magicians are being persecuted; at the end of the show magicians are being persecuted, albeit possibly slightly less enthusiastically. Even in S5 Merlin says, more than once, if I recall correctly, that Arthur would kill him if he knew he had magic. If Merlin doesn’t really believe that, then he has the easiest way in the world to stop the persecution of magicians, and he’s just choosing not to do it, and if he does think that: WHY ARE YOU EVEN HELPING THIS GUY?
3. Merlin’s lack of development warps all the other characters around him. Merlin can’t reveal his magic, so Arthur goes from being a perceptive enough prince who may someday make a great king to a character canonically too stupid to dress himself. Merlin never does anything about the persecution of magic users, so Morgana becomes a Cruella Deville a-like, obsessed with the throne, lest anyone notice that she kind of had a point about the whole magic thing.
4. I’m not a fan of Merlin’s relationship with Arthur. I couldn’t enjoy it is as a bromance or a love story, because I thought that Merlin became increasingly obsessed with Arthur to the exclusion of aught else; and that negatively impacted on both characters and the narrative. By S4 I thought that the only way Arthur was ever going to become this great king was for Merlin to go far, far away from him. Because how was he ever going to be a great ruler if he was wrapped up in cotton wool and never told anything?
5. Merlin has very black and white world view; you are either for Arthur or you are against him, there is no middle ground; I’m thinking of his creepy I’m-gonna-kill-you looks at possessed!Gwen. Merlin is paranoid and suspicious of other magic users; magic is okay when it’s being used to protect Arthur, when it’s being used by Merlin to protect Arthur - and yet he’s still inexplicably hailed as the saviour of magic.
6. The show coasted by on Colin Morgan gurning and crying and looking constipated (I’m sure he did his best with what he was given) but as an emotionally or dramatically satisfying story, it just didn’t do it for me.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-09 03:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-09 09:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-10 02:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-16 08:55 pm (UTC)Merlin is terrible. I got by very well for four and a quarter seasons by not paying attention and writing angry fanfic, but it is a fact.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-17 12:15 pm (UTC)Yes. I got by with angry fic writing, and later gleeful hate-watching because, forgetting your entire premise is pretty damn bad.