Wanted to share some cool fan created things I've seen!

Considering our discussion of Harry Potter's lack of diversity, I wanted to show some fan created things that added diversity to the story.

I brought up the fan-reading of Harry Potter as half-black. I'm not sure if this is the original post because I don't think the blogger tagged it as anything in particular but here's a post explaining their reading. Here's a comment that was added on that I think shows how this reading deepens the characterization.

The blogger also did some illustrations of these interpretations:

First picture can be found here. Last two can be found here.

Something else I found were these really cool make up and hijab looks for each of the four houses. Personally, I like the Slytherin best but that might come from House bias.

These can be found here.

I then found the tumblr amusliminhogwarts, which seems to be a story in blog format about--you guessed it--two muslim girls who go to Hogwarts. There isn't a lot so far, but you can read it easily in chronological order here. You can see how the original idea started and a lot of discussion about it on one of the authors blog here.

I also found a few tumblrs dedicated to discussing types of students that were ignored in Harry Potter. There are a few specifically about LGBTQ+ students (magicqueers or queerhpheadcanons) as well as some that are about all kinds of diversity (hiddenhogwarts.) Remembering our conversation in class last week, I think you guys would be interested in looking at the disabled headcanons that people have. There's a lot of really great ideas about how the castle changes to accommodate disabled students and how professors and other students help disabled students using magic. Maybe there's something in there about deaf students, like we were discussing last week.

I think these things are really really cool and I wish this diversity could have been in Harry Potter. But since it wasn't, I'm glad the fans are taking things into their own hands.

MY TIME TO SHINE

I said it first day of class, and I'll say it again. I am 100% in love and obsessed with Elementary and now is my time to shine and discuss why I love it so much!

Obviously you can't talk about Elementary without discussing Sherlock. As they're both modern adaptions, you can't get away from comparing them. I like Elementary because it has everything that is missing from Sherlock, and none of the awful parts of it. To me, Elementary excels where Sherlock fails.

Irene Adler is speechless that the writers
thought that she was well written

To get into why I love Elementary, we need to talk about why I dislike Sherlock. The writing in it is often racist, sexist, and homophobic. The entire second episode is a train wreck of racism, the treatment of Irene Adler is sexist, and  the "queer baiting" of Sherlock and John and again the treatment of Irene Adler is homophobic. If you've never heard of "queer baiting" before, it's basically when the creators and/or writers continually hint at a homosexual romance in a joking manner and then never follow through with it or act like fans are crazy for shipping characters together. Almost every episode, if not all of them, have some kind of joke about John and Sherlock being a couple which is offensive to people who are actually queer and desperate for representation. Also, in Sherlock, Irene Adler is gay, but they still have her falling in love with Sherlock, contributing to the VERY damaging idea that a lesbian will only remain one until she meets the right man. (If you think this idea isn't damaging, please consider the fact that many lesbians are harassed and raped by straight men trying to "convert them.")

In addition to the terrible oppressive systems that the show contributes to, I also have problems with the relationship between Sherlock and John, which is very unhealthy and toxic, as well as Sherlock himself who is a complete dick that I CANNOT STAND.

SO now that I've explained all this, let's talk about why I love Elementary.

Every way that Sherlock fails to be socially progressive, Elementary excels. There are many POC in the show, and to my knowledge there hasn't been any criticisms race-wise (please let me know if I've missed anything though!) The fact that Watson is a Chinese woman is groundbreaking. There are many strong, diverse female characters and though Holmes can occasionally say misogynistic things, he's called out on it. There's even a transgender character on the show, played by a transgender woman which IS HUGE. And I am in love with Irene Adler in this version (and that's all I will say on that manner for fear of spoiling anything.)

The relationship between Sherlock and Joan is much healthier and satisfying. Their relationship grows very close and they trust each other. It is kept platonic (and I believe the writers intend to keep it that way?) which is a breath of fresh air, honestly.

I find Jonny Lee Miller's Sherlock much more human and likeable. He can be an ass and mean sometimes but he's called on it and he learns. I loooooooove Lucy Liu as Joan like I will accept no other Watson ever again.

I love the format of Elementary as well. It is an hour long procedural cop show and I love that. I think they manage to incorperate elements of the original stories as well as original stories very well together.

ALSO I REALLY LOVE EVERYONE INVOLVED IN THE SHOW LOOK AT THIS THEY'RE ALL SO CUTE:

SO to make a long story short I really really love Elementary and I hope everyone goes and watches it all also PLEASE DO NOT LOOK UP ANY SPOILERS EVEN LOOKING ON THE IMDB PAGE BECAUSE ITS SO MUCH BETTER TO NOT KNOW ANYTHING THAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN.

Please forgive my long ramblings. 

Now I have a confession to make. I really hate Sherlock. For several different reasons that are long and complicated and definitely not something that you want to hear if you like the show, so I won't make you listen to that.

I used to be in love with it though and I wanted to share one of my favorite Sherlock fan creations from when I was into the show. There is a tumblr that is basically a cross between roleplay, text blog, and fanfiction. It's called "Text Messages from Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson." The basic premise of it is that two people are roleplaying Sherlock and John. People send them questions and they answer them in character and in the format of text message transcripts and the occasional prose. Although they can't control what people ask, the two creators use the questions to create a story that goes along with the canon story line. Most of the action that happens takes place in between what happens in the episodes and seasons, so you'd most likely have to watch the episodes to know exactly what's going on 100% of the time. The timeline that these texts take place starts after the first episode of season 2, and they're currently doing Season 3.

What makes this so great is that a lot of what happens is because of the fans. Someone will send a question that will move along the story. It's interactive fanfiction, basically.

Here's a link to their index (though that doesn't have all of the texts just the most important ones.) Warning that it is shippy (Sherlock/John), though not all of the texts are and when there's prose it gives warning for any triggers or not safe for work material. The shippy aspects are slowly moving so the earlier texts are less likely to have shippy things in them. Also warning that there are triggering things in the material but again there's trigger warnings for everything.

I haven't kept up with the blog for for about a year but I do have fond memories about the fandom (called the Texts subfandom) and of reading it.

I'm doin' a throwback (both to the 80s and to our discussion of King Arthur)

I wanted to talk about my favorite version of the King Arthur stories. This may or may not be a particularly good version (I was a kid reading them so I can't vouch at all for the quality) and it’s very possible that I’m the only one in this class who has ever heard of these.

So, as a kid, I used to help my uncle out by helping him organize his comic book collection (there is an insane amount of comic books in there. Like boxes upon boxes upon boxes upon boxes.) Because of this, I used to see some old comic books that looked interesting and I'd put them off to the side so that I could read them when I took a break.

One of these comic books was Camelot 3000. The cover of the first issue is here in all of its 1980s glory:

(Sidenote, is Arthur wearing snakeskin stockings?)

So basically the plotline is that it’s the King Arthur legend set in the year 3000. All of the characters have been reincarnated into new bodies and they fight aliens. (yeah I told you, quality is questionable.) I believe they all retain their memories from their medieval selves, or they all eventually remember these memories over time.

I remember being really in love with the Tristan and Isolde storyline, which was the most changed part. And, looking back at how much I was fascinated by this subplot, it is very very VERY embarrassingly telling about my future. Tristan is reincarnated as a woman, and spends a large portion of the time struggling with gender identity and sexuality (as Isolde is reincarnated as a woman as well.) I can’t remember how Tristan ultimately identifies though.

Looking back I think this was one of the first ways that I was exposed to the King Arthur legend. Probably the one thing besides The Sword in the Stone. So I do think this helped shape my idea of the story. It's still one of the things I think of immediately when I think about the King Arthur stories.

Obviously some things are very different and the story is waaaaay darker than what I was reading (also something that went completely over my head as a kid was the Tristan’s reincarnation into a woman was supposedly punishment for the rape he committed. Which… has some terrible implications about what the writers thought about women as well as being really terrible.

I really loved Romeo + Juliet???

All my life I have absolutely hated Romeo and Juliet. I thought it was overrated and the characters irrational. (To be fair, they are irrational. They are teenagers who got married within a week of meeting and caused how many deaths?)

But as I reread it for this class, I decided to put aside my cynical side and try to enjoy it. I did find that this worked somewhat. I definitely had more of an appreciation for the writing, though I still found Romeo and Juliet to be irrational and silly.

But when it came to the movie? I’M ABSOLUTELY IN LOVE. It’s over the top, overdramatic, but it doesn’t make the scenes with Romeo and Juliet over the top, which I thought balanced out the drama and saved it from being cheesy. I LOVED Mercutio (perhaps with a little bias: Harold Perrineau was in Lost, which is my favorite show ever.) I thought he was just brilliant and by far the best part of the movie. I enjoyed seeing Paul Rudd (eye candy is always nice) and I thought Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes were amazing. Like I said, their scenes balanced out the overdramatic scenes with the family war. I thought that they brought youthfulness to the story that made it easier to enjoy. Instead of spending the whole time thinking about how irrational Romeo and Juliet were, I got drawn into the story and found myself responding emotionally to it (this is code for: I cried like a baby at the end.)

Luhrmanns’ decisions throughout the movie regarding the screenplay, the directing, and the staging of each scene were phenomenal. I felt like this story translated very well to a modern day setting. The only thing I had a hard time believing were the political aspects (if it was modern day, so many of these characters would have been arrested multiple times) but I was willing to let those things slide.

I’m feeling pressure to end this with a picture, so here’s a picture of my man, ultra-babe Mercutio.

Social Media and Pop Culture

One of my friends recently brought up something that's relevant to our class. She was saying that her favorite thing about social media is that you can "'watch' things without actually having to sit and watch things." She was referring to the Oscars but I think it can definitely refer to lot of other media.

For those with tumblrs, I'm sure we've had the experience of understanding the plotlines of countless shows without even watching a second of it. We see posts (gifs, graphics, text posts, pretty much anything) and unless you block out posts in that show, it’s likely that you will get spoiled about the plotlines and characters of the story. Usually this happens with a bigger fandom (Supernatural, Doctor Who, Teen Wolf, etc.) If you’re on tumblr for an extended amount of time, you probably will get exposed to a popular show, whether you want to or not.

Going back to the Oscars, twitter was blowing up with updates throughout the night about who won what (sidenote: I’m team Lupita Nyong’o forever), along with updates about the speeches, jokes, skits, attire, and more. At one point during the night, Ellen Degeneres (who hosted) challenged viewers to break the record of retweets (which was the first thing Obama tweeted after this past presidential election) and instead make a selfie with her and a slew of different actors the most retweeted. This CRASHED twitter. And broke the record before the night was over.

There’s no doubt that this passing of information so quickly would have been possible without the internet. I believe we’ve spoken about this topic before in class but I wanted to give an example of this phenomenon in action.

The Lego Movie

Perhaps a little off topic, but today some people expressed disappointment in stories where the hero starts out as an everyman and turns into THE MOST IMPORTANT AND SPECIAL PERSON EVER and thus becomes someone we can't realte to anymore. And since we also discussed the popularity and success of the Lego Movie, I wanted to say that I think they would enjoy The Lego Movie! Without trying to give away too much of the plot, I’ll say that the movie does have a hero who is the chosen one (he's literally called "The Special" who is supposed to restore the world to peace) but I think the movie does an absolutely fantastic job of subverting that trope.

It’s also really funny and cute heartwarming and I had a smile on my face the entire movie and I SWEAR Warner Bros. is not paying me to promo their movie, I just loved it so, so much and I think it’s the kind of movie that would appeal to everyone. Warning though: the main theme song will be in your head for the rest of your life. You will be lying in your coffin and the song will still be playing in your head.

My Star Wars story

Like Iris, I honestly don't remember watching Star Wars for the first time. I think I've probably seen the whole series once and that was when I was a young kid so I don't remember much about it.

I know most of the big things. I know that Darth Vader is Luke and Leia's father, I know Luke and Leia are siblings. I know that Yoda is a small green dude who talks strangely. I know that everyone hates Jar Jar Binks. I know about Leia's slave bikini (and I remember reading somewhere that Carrie Fisher absolutely hated that outfit.)

But otherwise, I remember very little about the movies. So rewatching A New Hope was like seeing it for the same time.

I do have fond memories of wanting a lightsaber and of playing with my cousin's Star Wars figurines. And I did read a few of the Star Wars books though I think they were about Episode 1. I read one book about the Phantom Menace, but from Darth Maul's point of view, which is cool. And I read one book from the point of view of Boba Fett

And now I feel like I'm making it sound like I was more into Star Wars as a kid than I was! But I really have almost no recollection of watching the first three movies. While my parents liked Star Wars, we watched more Star trek when I was growing up. So I guess you could say I'm part of the notorious Star Trek vs Star Wars fight that we've been discussing in class, though I do like both, I just have a preference.

My girlfriend, however, is so into Star Wars that when we began to watch A New Hope so I could prepare for tonight's class, she was bouncing in her seat in excitement and squealing when her favorite characters came on screen. And I think seeing how much she loved it made me enjoy the movie so much more. I think sometimes that happens with people we are close to. Passion about media can inspire others to appreciate it more and I think that's what makes fandoms so special. A group of people who so ardently love something can sometimes make you want to look deeper to find out what exactly they are seeing and suddenly, you're sucked in too. (There’s something to also be said about how important it is that fandoms also criticize the media they are consuming but that’s a whole different topic.)