For Future Reference, When Did You Feel A Line Was Crossed?

[redbrunja]

A question for the floor: I want to hear about your fannish final straws.

For example, the Bucky Barnes name-drop was what prompted me to unfollow a couple SHIELD-heavy blogs and blacklist the more specific versions of the show name**.

If you can remember, please tell me about the specific things that made you quit and/or start to blacklist a show.

**Or at least, I tried. Until I realized that pretty much every variant of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D that people actually use tumblr-saviored a bunch of posts I wanted to see,especially now that Sif is going to be in an episode, which, needless to say, I am actually kind of bummed about.

Comments

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

I auto-unfollow people who livetweet Doctor Who.

I stopped reading Brandon Sanderson's STEELHEART on page four of the prologue, because by that point he'd used the word "men" when he meant "people" three times.

Um...

Stupidity, basically. I hate stupidity. That's one of the reasons I love SLEEPY HOLLOW so much. Everyone is so damn smart, and they TALK TO EACH OTHER.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that’s one of my pet peeves, too. People, humanity, individuals, citizens, comades, there are so many different ways to say it, but no, some idiot writers are still like, ‘men, they’re all men, what ladies?’

[ladymercury-10.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was a pretty clumsy namedrop.

Sif is going to be on Agents of SHIELD? Ooh.

I can't remember what all I have blacklisted anymore because I can't get Tumblr Savior to work in Firefox, so now I just have to scroll with caution. :/

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I wish Jaime Alexander all the success in the world, but I’m actually really dreading her appearance on SHIELD.

Oh, ouch, scrolling without tumblr savior can be risky. Actually, that tumblr savior worked really easily with Chrome was why I switched from firefox over to chrome.

[unperfectwolf.livejournal.com]

I left spn when the angels got big. I dealt with Castiel, but s5 I quit.

I quit Body of Proof when they killed [SPOILER] and then were like "LOOOOLS, this isn't a medical show!" in an interview.

Ummmm, yep.

I used to follow a lot of people in live fandoms, and anyone who spoiled in the first few days after it aired got the boot.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think season two of SPN was when I headed for the hills. I watched a couple of episodes of season three (BELA) but after that I was like, nope, I'll pass.

I used to follow a lot of people in live fandoms, and anyone who spoiled in the first few days after it aired got the boot.

That a good litmus test (that I, to be honest, would probably fail).

[errant-shadows.livejournal.com]

Serious repetition or the writers not being able to give up on a storyline that's going nowhere.

For instance, when you feel like you've see a particular season arc before, and it's basically just a cut-and-paste version of a couple of seasons earlier, just with a different monster or bad guy.

Or when a canon relationship is boring, and you try not to let it bother you because you figure it'll die soon enough and they'll move on to something actually interesting, but instead it becomes central to the show and carries on season after season till it's dead in the water and they're no longer just flogging a dead horse, it's more like they're stripping the flesh from its bones and grinding them into dust.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Oh, I hate it when shows just repeat old plot points.

[ever-neutral.livejournal.com]

I will basically cut anyone who takes up my entire dash live blogging a show. A few short reaction text posts here and there? Fine. But I have actually had 10+ pages of my dash being taken up by one person live blogging Sherlock. TEN PAGES. NEVER AGAIN.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Sweet merciful fuck.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Fucking Sherlock.

I have a couple ships and characters from Once Upon A Time that I try to blacklist without blocking out things I actually want to see, so I feel you there.

[sugar-fey.livejournal.com]

Untagged Sherlock and Doctor Who does it for me.

I left Once Upon A Time when I realised Belle/Rumple was sticking around and it squicked me. Plus that kid is annoying as hell and Aurora and Mulan didn't get nearly enough screen time.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I remain deeply ashamed of the six months I shipped Belle/Rumpelstiltskin.

[sugar-fey.livejournal.com]

I can understand why people shipped Belle/Rumple, but right from the start it seemed way too Stockholm Syndrome-y for me. I thought the show was going to acknowledge the ickyness sooner or later but no, they didn't. At that point I bailed. Shipping unhealthy ships I totally get, I do that myself. But when canon stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the problematic elements, I'm out.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Yep. It's hard to write a variant of B&B that doesn't have an element of Stockholm, and that can actually add a lot of tension to the story, but the writers of Once, literally, wrote the most Stockholm-y, emotionally abusive and controlling relationship possible.

[sugar-fey.livejournal.com]

Exactly. It's certainly possible to write a Beauty & The Beast story that acknowledges the problematic elements in the original fairy tale and works with them. I've seen it done several times, to varying degrees of success. OUAT, however, acted like the writers had never heard of Stockholm Syndrome or emotional abuse and made the already problematic elements EVEN WORSE.

I remember when the Belle/Rumple storyline was first introduced, and I was squicked from the start, but I was surprised to see that most of the fandom really wasn't. I've never really been involved with OUAT fandom to a large extent and certainly not now. Is it something that's discussed a lot in fandom?

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

but I was surprised to see that most of the fandom really wasn't. I've never really been involved with OUAT fandom to a large extent and certainly not now. Is it something that's discussed a lot in fandom?

A corner of it, yes, but Belle/Rumpelstilksen had/has a pretty huge fannish following, and that part of the fandom treated the relationship as problematic in exactly the same way as the show (i.e., Belle is this passive character in love with and totally blind to the realities of how Rumpel is abusing her) EVEN BEFORE the show got really bad (and really explict) about that pairing.

Does that make sense?

[sugar-fey.livejournal.com]

So basically the fandom is worse than canon?

I shouldn't be surprised.

I mean, like I said, I have no problem with people shipping problematic ships so long as the problematic elements are acknowledged. I'm also okay with people saying "yes, I know this is unacceptable behaviour in real life and I do not endorse it, but this is a fantasy." I do that too, Your Kink Is Not My Kink and all that. But acting like the problematic elements don't exist really bothers me,* and that's what the show did. I'm sorry to hear the fandom did the same.

*I have the same problem with certain sections of the Bucky/Natasha fandom who hand wave the whole "he made decisions about her mental state without her consent and then abandoned her" thing. Okay, it was portrayed as romantic in the text, but come on!

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

AT ONE POINT fandom was worse than canon, and then canon sunk to their level.

I mean, like I said, I have no problem with people shipping problematic ships so long as the problematic elements are acknowledged. I'm also okay with people saying "yes, I know this is unacceptable behaviour in real life and I do not endorse it, but this is a fantasy." I do that too, Your Kink Is Not My Kink and all that. But acting like the problematic elements don't exist really bothers me,*

That's it exactly.

*I have the same problem with certain sections of the Bucky/Natasha fandom who hand wave the whole "he made decisions about her mental state without her consent and then abandoned her" thing. Okay, it was portrayed as romantic in the text, but come on!


Yeah, that was super, super gross. It's gross no matter WHO the characters are, but I feel like, with Natasha's history of mental brainwashing, it was EXTRA GROSS for someone who knew her as well as Bucky did, and knew her history, to pull the same thing.

[seren-ccd.livejournal.com]

I've stopped watching Doctor Who and Sherlock for the usual reasons (Martin Freeman, Moffatt doing his shtick). I definitely stopped watching Sherlock when I saw that Moffatt said 'This is not a detective show. It's a show about a detective.' To which I just went: Wha? So that's your excuse for not even attempting to write actual mysteries, because they might get in the way of your shoddy 'character development'? No, thanks!

General things that usually make me stop watching things are:

Too much useless angst
If ANYTHING bad happens to an animal, I'm OUT.
Too much violence
Ladies being there only for the manpains
Bad writing

[leobrat.livejournal.com]

Hi! Random, but I saw you using a Slade Wilson icon on empressearwig's page, and that is enough to make me want to friend someone. Is that cool? From what I can see, we are pretty like-minded Arrow fans, at least!

And as to this post, while it might not make me want to quit a show, it does make my blood boil when someone takes a pic from a spoiler, upcoming scene and makes it, like, their default icon. Or tumblr's it or whatever, just puts it right out there, for everyone to see.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Hey, a Slade icons sounds like a great reason to friend someone to me!

Yeah, I also get irritated when people use spoilery pics as icons. Also, I feel like using really explicitly shippy (or explicit) icons as a default is a risky move.

There have people I choose not to friend after seeing super-shippy default icons, or if they ONLY have icons of one ship on their userpic page.

[leobrat.livejournal.com]

If they only have one ship or character, it does make me wonder how much I'll have to talk to someone about, if I lose interest in that fandom.

I very rarely have shippy icons for default, and it's never for long. It's usually if I'm deep into writing a big bang fic (which hasn't happened in a long while). These are some shippy default icons I've had in the past:



I actually couldn't find any more! At least not those that I made my Default.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

If they only have one ship or character, it does make me wonder how much I'll have to talk to someone about, if I lose interest in that fandom.

EVEN IF I share that pairing, I'm like, 'but seriously, don't you have a few other interests?'

Also, those are excellent icons. Jackie and Hyde is a great pairing and what I love in particular about that second icon is that it's actually pretty ambiguous. What's the relationship between those two? Has something just happened? That icon raises a lot of questions.

[leobrat.livejournal.com]

'but seriously, don't you have a few other interests?'

Seriously, whenever a friending meme comes up, and gives a category like, favorite fandom/character/pairing, I'm like, Let's break out the Word Doc, because long story is long!!!

The second icon there is Ethan and Kristina from General Hospital, and their relationship is AMAZING. I'm probably going to do a Top 10 OTP post soon, so I'll have much more to say on them. In a nutshell, he helped her through an extremely traumatic experience (while going through a trauma of his own), and sort of appointed himself as her protector, and she fell madly in love with him, though he wouldn't let her in. She's the daughter of a mobster, and in that picture, she's watching her friend through a hospital window, and this friend of hers was hurt by her father. I love the angle of it, because it's one of the moments where he was just watching her while she wasn't aware. This is really a nutshell of their relationship, but I have never seen a boy so completely turn himself inside out over a girl.

Just going to put this here, but WARNING, there are possible triggers in this video:

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Ugh, that is a straight up quality OTP.

[leobrat.livejournal.com]

They seriously are. They're my first instinct for hetbigbang every year.

[sharkflip.livejournal.com]

I watched all eight seasons of Supernatural and still enjoyed it more than I found it problematic, but then episode 4 of season 9 was basically demons torturing humans for information, the main characters torturing demons for information, and Dean throwing everyone else under the bus to help Sam, who doesn't want to be helped. I was like "ALL THIS HAS HAPPENED BEFORE AND ALL THIS WILL HAPPEN AGAIN," and if I were the type of person to stockpile reaction gifs, this would certainly be the time to use one.

It's a shame that the actors have such great chemistry, because that's the only thing keeping the show going -- they used up all the plot four years ago.


Other things that make me quit a show are morals dissonance -- where a main character does something that I so don't agree with or can't actually see them doing or seems like a shallow plot device that it ruins the show for me. I stopped watching Teen Wolf after like episode eight or so, when something horrible happens and Scott blames it on Derek, and it wasn't quite plausible to me except in a "we have to make a hole for the characters to dig themselves out of" way and also "we have to firmly establish that they are ENEMIES!" way. And that wasn't a story I wanted to watch.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I cannot wait for Supernatural to end for several reasons, one of which I am praying that Jensen Ackles will get a nice role on a show I have some desire to watch. I gave Supernatural 2.5 seasons, and then I was done.

[eilowyn.livejournal.com]

I really, really tried to love SPN after season 5. But SWAN SONG + THE DEATH OF JO AND ELLEN made a combination that's hard for me to invest in.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I know a lot of people who quit right then.

[qualapec.livejournal.com]

I just watched that SHIELD episode, and, I swear, that Bucky Barnes name-drop is exactly what I was talking about in terms of AOS's problems with show v. tell. They could have given us a close-up of Bucky's name on the wall. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN SO EASY. IMO it would have been a nice, natural way to include an Easter Egg for the audience without it being cement shoes for the dialogue.

Or at least, I tried. Until I realized that pretty much every variant of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D that people actually use tumblr-saviored a bunch of posts I wanted to see,
especially now that Sif is going to be in an episode, which, needless to say, I am actually kind of bummed about.

And there were things in this episode that I legitimately liked - like the shy kid being pressured by his friend and not knowing how to say no, and May making Coulson SUPER UNCOMFORTABLE, and Coulson realizing that he had no right to keep secrets from Skye seemed like a cool way to turn his own experiences into character development.

I can see a better and better show crawling its way out of the AOS grave just a little bit at a time. Somewhere. Struggling to get out.