Discover Top Posts Tagged with #aos commentary

It's not that Milo wanted praise for his book, it's that Milo wanted praise for the world he created.

He wanted his audience to see the World of Gardian and think "omg living in a world where I'd have Capricorn magic sounds so cool!!!" He wanted people identifying with archpowers the same way people used to identify with Hogwarts houses. He wanted people to read his book and spend the days dreaming about living in Gardian, where they could be free to be queer and have magic and not be oppressed on the basis of their gender.

But he also wanted all of the best tropes from YA dystopia lit. He wanted the "female rage" and "opposing the oppressive government" and the inspirational story that could directly tie to our current moment and inspire people!

You can't have both. If you want a story about overthrowing the system, there needs to be a system worth overthrowing. At the moment, the only thing "wrong" with the government of Gardian is the Scorpio Code. And everyone agrees! Nobody defend the status quo, there is no patriarchy to overthrow, no one even says "no homo".

(Sorry I noticed it rhymed and I couldn't resist.)

You can't shy away from "problematic" portrayals. You HAVE to show us normal people being homophobic. You HAVE to show the harm happening to people other than our main character and one couple. You can either have a story about a lovely little world (where the plot focuses on stopping people who are trying to destroy it), or you can have a story where the plot is about overthrowing the status quo of this world because it sucks.

Let me put it this way: everyone loves The Hunger Games. No one wants to live in Panem.

#age of scorpius #the age of scorpius #age of scorpinions #world of gardian #hot takery bakery #aos commentary #alas 'tis my Roman Empire

Finished AOS, what do I do with my life now?

#star trek #star trek aos #AOS commentary

But isn't the fact of Nick Fury (and most of the Agents) eventually accepting Black Widow but not the guy in a very similar position who betrayed and hurt them personally and directly just a reflection of the reality that some things done cannot be forgiven or accepted if experienced personally compared to when knowing from a third party viewpoint? Just because these characters are the "heroes" does not mean they have to accept and forgive everyone even if objectively their bad deeds are similar

In reality that may be true for some people–if still unfair–but in terms of the narrative AoS started to push in season 2–up to and including retconning parts of their own writing of Grant’s sympathetic backstory from season 1–it just came across as one of the most egregious and problematic cases of “protagonist centered morality” and victim blaming I’ve ever seen. Like, they really had Team Bus making fun of his suicide attempt, being callous about their part in him accidentally killing another victim of SHIELD/HYDRA (who they also didn’t give a shit about in the first place. But why would they? She was written just to be a stand-in for “Ward fangirls” and get killed off by proxy), using his sincere attempts at atonement against him, playing the ‘well my trauma didn’t lead me to do what you did’ card, and then turning around and talking about “everyone deserves a second chance” in regards to other characters.

Sure, they didn’t have to forgive or accept him again, but they didn’t need to act like borderline OOC gross assholes either–which they were written to do mostly to drive Grant even further towards Even More Horrible Villainy or something. Overall, it was just plain bad storytelling.

#Stand With Ward #AoS commentary #replies

Just watched Into Darkness, and I’ve decided that I love AOS now

#I would die for bitey Spock #there’s so much fanfic material here #star trek #star trek aos #star trek into darkness #AOS commentary

Where’s Spock’s eyeshadow?!

#AOS Commentary #where’s my goth icon?!

Why don’t the women get pants?!

#AOS Commentary #or clothes at all apparently

Still hate what AOS did to Ward. They set him up for a great redemption arc especially since he was a victim before Garrett got a hold of him. I actually stopped watching after season 1 because I was skeptic that they would redeem him. A lot of Ward fans came back to the fandom during season 5, when the characters were in the framework because there, Grant led a good life because instead of Garrett being his SO, Hand was the one who took him under her wing. A lot of people got mad because (1)

they were saying why didn’t they do that to Ward instead of trying to make him a “villain”. That the framework showed that Ward was not inherently evil and that there was good in him. Is it a coincidence that AOS and the Vader comic came from Marvel? (2)

(It’s a coincidence. AoSis part of Marvel Televison, headed by its own executive producers and writers;Star Wars DV comics are under MarvelComics, in conjunction with Lucasfilm, written by various writers. But shoddywriting knows no bounds.)

I stopped watching AoS in season 3, when they finally killedWard off (and that guy Jemma had fallen for, I loved them together, and was not into her and Fitz, so that pissed meoff, too). I tuned back in for the Framework storyline, and—yes, altho it wasvery “we coulda had it all!”—absolutely loved it. Including how Fitz, of all people, was basically theBig Bad in that AU, lol. It was a perfect foil to Ward. Honestly, the wholething read to me as if the creators/writers themselves realized and were admitting, “Thisis what we should’ve just gone ahead and done with Ward in the first place, sohere’s the best closure we can give him and his fans under the circumstances. Wehad flubbed up, sorry.” So if that was their meta-apology, I accept it. Iactually wrote more about this in a few posts around the time the arc wasairing: 1 2 3 4

#AOS commentary #Stand With Ward #replies

Remember when the Agents of SHIELD writers intended to set up Grant Ward in a villain origin story, but they accidentally wrote the perfect foundation for a redemption arc instead, then when they saw how many viewers reacted accordingly and sympathized with and rooted for Ward, as well as continued to ship SkyeWard, they tried to show us we were wrong and change our minds by retconning their own writing—including committing shameless character assassination—then a couple years later it appeared they finally realized they royally fucked up by trashing so much character and story potential so they wrote a semi-apology in the form of a canon AU version of Ward who was everything real Ward could and should have been? Yup, those were all things that happened.