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Reblogged bondsmagii

IDK sometimes this website makes me feel like “death of the author” is soon to be followed by “death of the text”, where subjective interpretation and wish fulfillment is all that matters, and readings with the right political capital gain acceptance on that merit alone, even totally unsupported by the work itself.

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👀👀👀

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I'm kinda confused as to how this is a bad thing

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What needs to happen is the complete obliteration of the narrative compulsion and if historicity and human memory have to get clobbered too thereby then too damn bad, it'd be well worth it. No more stories.

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I have kind of the opposite view. All experiences of art, whether television, film, music, art, etc., are subjective and different viewer's experiences are created with their own experiences, views, memories, etc. involved in their interpretation. People can naturally have drastically different interpretations of the same scene or characters. I also think h/c's and criticism are signs of a flourishing fandom. It means people are engaged.

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Also, legitimate critiques and meta analysis is important, but often conflated with the idea that it is someone just not liking where the story went. For me, the more I like a work, the more I engage in meta-analysis and enjoy meaningful discussions and critiques. This adds a lot to the fandom, like reading interesting critic reviews do to a beloved film.

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In some ways, this a return to the way humans engage with stories. There is no Canon version of most myths, because there are a variety of versions, with various regionalisms, markers of personal taste, and time of origin. It is in some ways a decentering of the original authors vision and a focus on communal interpretations. I agree that it can make critique of the original work difficult, but don't think this a new or necessarily bad thing.

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I mean, so? It’s not denying reality at all, it’s trying to craft a better story. They’re stories anyway, letting people take common ownership of the ideas and collectively improve on and build off of them is a good thing. Saying they’re “distorting the text” is treating it as if their goal is somehow to perfectly understand and capture the essence of the text, when their actual goal is clearly just to *make better stories*.

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I gotta be honest. I'm not 100% clear on why this would be a bad thing? Like as a universal system for every story, it would be a little silly. There's value in analyzing the original work and the intent behind it. But there are plenty of shows I watch that are bad but I enjoy them by ignoring the bad parts and coming up with more interesting ideas in my head, usually before writing a fic about. It seems like a good way to interact with stories to me

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Nothing is wrong with fanworks or liking non-canon content. Nothing is wrong for wanting to indulge in alternate interpretations of characters and the universes they're in. But throwing temper tantrums and harassing people because a work of media didn't cater to your particular whims is super entitled and honestly makes fandom feel incredibly toxic.

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Supernatural 😅

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@beautifulpaxiel That is a sound assessment.👍

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I'm waiting for "death of the entertainment"

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@ghostmiyokichi that was probably the most sensible reaction, if only for your own sanity. They might have eventually told you they could interpret your own words any way they wished and still be correct. Exhausting 😅

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@compagniedesfrelons oh I would not put it past them 💀💀💀 they were the definition of exhausting lol

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This week on I Haven't Read Baarthes;

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Nah man it's just postmodernism being synonymous with anything I don't like, which death of the author totally is

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Also this bizarre idea that engaging with a text with total ignorance of the context, influences or the things it's referencing is somehow a more "pure" way to engage with it Like I saw a blogger once watching a piece of media that referenced the ballet Coppelia and I mentioned what Coppelia was to them and they blocked me for telling them anything about the show like guys... That's not how media or texts work

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Well did you see what people are doing to Lord of the Rings? People lost their mind and it doesn't seem that this will end anytime soon . It probably doesn't help that plenty of said people didn't ever write an original work and as such don't really see what it means to strip and rape the text until it fits whatever narrative they want.

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rewriting as critique is a valid form of it though. "this is what was wrong, this is what i would have done instead that would have made me as a viewer/reader happy"

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its literally just constructive critique, but more as a thought exercise than directed at the creator

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like. idk. if i think the ending left too many questions unanswered, or that the structure of a movie was poorly paced...that isn't "this is MY movie and this is MY wish fulfilment" it's "this is what I think would make the movie better" idk like pretending that anyones criticisms of fiction are going to be operating from anything other than their personal idea of what would have made it better is odd

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sorrry idk like. if a movie builds up ur expectations to smth speciric, doesn't meet them, and then fails to adequately justify that, that's .... not good writing. Ppl dont get expectations from nowhere

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I hate death of the author but I like rewriting as critique because it forces the critic into the role of the author, the spectator into the arena. Something about it feels redemptive to me if it takes the bones of the old story and rebuilds the story on them. Then it's not even critiquing anymore, it's telling a story of its own – hopefully, a good story, a thoughtful story.

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In short, I like rewriting as critique when it's a response to lazy/cashgrab writing that mishandles the characters (I like it a whole lot less when the author is clearly passionate and believes they're telling the right story). In that case, the rewritten story actually handles the characters and setting with more care and thoughtfulness than the original author and is more dedicated to telling

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the story how it demands to be told – taking the risks the story needs but didn't make financial sense for the original author, resolving what needs to be resolved, and (my favoritest form of rewriting) giving the characters a happy ending if it makes sense (in response to authors who make sad endings for shock value).

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... okay but there's a difference between doing this to something like, for instance, Squid Game, which has a clearly intended message and cannot be separated from its real-world context without destroying it entirely, and, say, something like a Mario or Sonic game, or an old, kind of obscure Disney cartoon.

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There are grey areas, too. Think, the Dark Crystal, where the intent is clear but the chosen method of expressing it has a lot of iffy implications, and you can't undo that without changing the meaning first. How about, I dunno, basically everything Lovecraft wrote? That's some real bullshit. Obviously the text itself needs to be preserved, but I don't think it's a bad thing for people who would be portrayed as monsters to reinterpret these stories as something kinder.

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is… is this about fanfiction? bc my favorite characters that got .3 seconds of screen time will get their own whole ass self-projecting fic

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The only HISHE i accept is the channel on YouTube that really is meant just for laughs

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how the FUCK do posts from tradcaths keep entering wider circulation

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I can’t really figure out what this post is *about,* nor why any of that should be a problem.

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>"political capital" >immediate alarm bells

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This is just fanon.