#entitlement

[brokentoy13]

[tapan4evr]

Tru2Day2662

The pathetic delusion that you inherently deserve love or happiness has completely ruined countless lives. This cold, indifferent universe owes you absolutely nothing. Clinging to such childish, arrogant entitlement guarantees your total failure. You must ruthlessly earn every single scrap.

[sunny7meadow]

Great Expectations

[juicetrump2]

JD Vance’s Secret Service Is Fed Up With His Absurd Requests

Secret Service agents were told to use a military helicopter to take Vance’s son to his golf practice.

[gwydionmisha]

Mitch McConnell’s bizarre hospital proof-of-life photo sparks memes and conspiracy theories

The Kentucky senator's attempt to quiet speculation about his health instead unleashed turtle jokes, doctored images and a new round of cons

The Mitch McConnell mystery is solved. But it doesn’t look good for America | Moira Donegan

The senator is alive, a key requirement to maintain one’s job in the US Senate

Mitch McConnell absence sparks push to change Congress rules

Republican Senator McConnell was hospitalized in mid-June and has missed dozens of votes in the Senate during his absence.

[confusedexisting]

IV. Entitlement / IV.II acting like you can demand a creator to change/write their story to your liking

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The same applies here.

I also cannot differentiate anymore between those who demand Neteyam back as a coping mechanism/in a joking manner and those who genuinely want Cameron to change his story and kill Spider and revive Neteyam.

Again, who do you think you are to stand there and say “Cameron, I, a random TikToker, don’t like how you write your passion project, not because I have legitimate critiques of your franchise (of which there are at least a few, the most obvious being a white man writing a story about sci-fi natives), but because this character I liked died and character I didn’t like lives and is becoming more important to the plot.”

That is not what fandom is for.

Of course fans can offer critique. But to act like your critiques or your ideal version of the story (your fanfiction in anything but name) should be what the canon story follows, is delusional and disrespectful to the creators of this franchise.

1.      The story doesn’t have to cater to you

Should be obvious: the story is there to bring its message across and to (obviously) tell its story. No one can write a story where every story beat appeals to everyone who is following the story.

That doesn’t automatically make that writing bad.

A story is also not always there to show the ideal version of a situation/a reaction/a character.

That would be boring and a tad too utopical for Avatar. Avatar’s story walks the balance of a gritty war story in an fantastical world. It is such a phenomenon visually, so beautiful and colourful, that placing a war and colonization story in it can feel like a missed opportunity, because you want the world explored, but the story has other plans. (That’s why extra material exists)

Seeing characters you like be killed off before getting any meaningful character or development feels like a missed opportunity.

And it can be that, no doubt.

But the Avatar franchise knows what it is. It is still telling its story. Still repeating the cycle of violence and war. It has made it clear by now what it wants to portray:

Of course: show off the amazing advancement of its CGI

Portray a sci-fi version of colonialism

Show how humanity is failing its nature and planet

Portray a lifestyle in tune with nature (yes, the Na’vi are a very romanticized version of Native American stand-ins, and that is disappointing)

Show the effects of poaching, deforestation and war

That is what Avatar is about and that is what it should portray and that is what it should try to approach with respect.

Since I am in no way a native American, nor a member or descendant of any native groups whose culture was an inspiration for Avatar, I cannot say how and to what extend Avatar is portraying said cultures accurately, respectfully or tactfully, it is not my place to judge, I simply do not have the viewpoint to do so.

But in broad strokes/in general/in laments terms - a story should tell its story.

Said story is what can get critiqued for what it is. Critiquing something for what it isn’t or should be in your subjective opinion is hair-splitting that you can do, but it leads to nothing productive.

2.      The creator doesn’t have to cater to you

Should be obvious and again, I’m sure that most people on TikTok who act like they’re mad at Cameron are just exaggerating their reactions for the internet, but it gets to a point.

That point being… Neteyam and/or Spider.

Who are you as a fan of the franchise to think that you can demand a creator kill off a character simply because part of the fandom doesn’t like him?

Who are you as a fan of the franchise to think that you can demand a creator reverse his decision and revive a character simply because he turned out to be a fandom sweetheart?

Cameron, just like any other creator (author, filmmaker, etc.) is letting us have part in this idea he had. This story he made up and thought about and made lore of. This world he built. We as fans don’t get to dictate what he does with this story, it’s his. It doesn’t matter that a loud part of the fandom wants Spider dead in Neteyam’s stead – this is Cameron’s story. If he wants Neteyam alive, he’ll be alive, if he doesn’t, he’ll stay dead. If he wants Avatar to stay to rely on its various white savior-adjacent characters then it will.

You can be disappointed, you can critique the choices made, you don’t get to demand story changes for something as simple as your comfort character not being there anymore. That is just straight up disrespectful. To any creator. That is their creation. Their art. Their time and dedication.

Write fanfiction. Write “Neteyam lived”/”Spider died”/”RDA never came”/”X character survived/died”-AU’s.

3.      Just because it’s not catered to you doesn’t mean it’s wrong or bad writing

This is not me saying that Avatar is without flaws.

That is also not what this essay is about, now that I’m at it. This essay is in no way saying that Avatar is a perfect story with no flaws or shortcomings or a franchise that you cannot critique. I am just not focusing on those shortcomings in this essay, because the focus of this essay isn’t so much the story of the Avatar franchise as much as it is the perception a part of the fandom has of the story and how this part of the fandom makes me feel a little crazy.

This is about people who think that the writing of the story is bad because what is happening is not their ideal version of the story/characters.

No. A story not doing everything you think it should is not bad writing. It can be, but that is not always the case. It can also just be that you’re not interested in what the story is actually about (for example Avatar being about war and people crying about it not being a cozy family living in Pandora with no drama (“I miss when Avatar wasn’t about war”, that whole thing))

A story deciding to give a character depth/more reasoning is not bad writing, even if it makes that character flawed or more morally grey or not just a black-and-white cardboard cut-out anymore.

We should be able to see what is a designed flaw in the story/characters and what is a flaw in the writing itself. Those are two different things and it is important to see them as such: a character not being a perfect little bean who’s always nice and does everything right is boring. A story will have story beats/character beats that are defined by their flaws. Many character arcs are about overcoming flaws, be those actual flaws, perceived flaws, flaws that turn out to be good qualities, or even giving in to these flaws and making them your own or outright falling into those flaws and making yourself deliberately worse. That is story-telling when you have a character-focused story. Clashing of characters, ideologies, flaws.

Depicting flawed behaviour or complicated relationships is not an immediate endorsement of the unhealthy dynamics being portrayed. For example: Jake and Lo’ak: their relationship is rocky and Jake is not doing a good job of making Lo’ak like a loved or seen son. That is intentional. That’s not a flaw in the writing. We will see how their relationship is in future movies and then we can say if its bad writing. Because as it stands after afaa, their relationship is reasonable for the types of people they are, considering their situation. It can feel like Jake has to relearn what he already learned in atwow, and that he just regressed in afaa, but that is not seeing what grief and stress can do, which is what afaa is portaying. Grief and stress as Jake and Lo’ak are experiencing it is no doubt straining their relationship again, especially because both are stubborn people and, once again, Jake can’t communicate for shit. That they would have another fall-out was a given.

That is not bad writing. That is just the story not doing what you wanted.

[tapan4evr]

Tru2Day2652

The arrogant delusion that you inherently deserve love or happiness is a pathetic fallacy that has ruined countless weak minds. The universe owes you absolutely nothing. Eradicate this childish entitlement immediately, or you will remain a perpetual, miserable failure forever.