Not a ted talk, but a fandom analysis? Observation thing?
Link to fandom ted talks;
part 1
part 2
part 3
Part 4
I am not a professional at all. Nor do I have a degree in any media or writing, this is mostly just observations? Or things they I could be wrong about.
[First, this isn't really about Adrian as a character and more of the overarching problem of how fandoms treat characters. I do want to do a character anylisis like I did with the other crew, though.
Edit: This is long as shit, and if you font want to read all the way i understand. I started going on a rant at the end 🤧. And my spelling is worse in this. ]
Starting off, of course, we have to acknowledge the oftne times racism and misogyny that comes in fandoms. Its like trying to walk outside and try not to stand on gravel. Even if fandom spaces are for those who are somewhat outcasts of society, those who are LGBTQ+, those who are disabled, or may have mental illnesses among things I may not be aware of. (im here too yall)
The world is not built on equality. Even being black in a space that should be welcoming. Being in fandoms in the short time I have, it's hard to ignore the crust on the cake most try to eat around.
To pinpoint some clear things, we can see how black characters are treated in fandom spaces. Thinking of sinners and how quickly think peices of that came out in defense of Remmick. The posts that came out shipping Remmick with Sammy. I am NOT gonna police at all. I used to be on fanfic.net, quative, and live journal. Deep in the trenches truly.
In the grand scheme of things, I dont care. My problem came when those who did held no understanding as to why black people in the fandom felt uncomfortable, and responded mostly with "its fandom people are gonna ship." There is no understanding that Remmick, too many of us, was viewed as another oppressor willing to strip all of who we are away in favor of to help himself. Beacuse "Remmick was oppressed himself!!"
It is important to understand why you may be drawn to a paring and what it reflects for other people.
I can also point out the constant misentrupting of black characters ferlings in favor of a white character. Or the hood Aus that paint us as violent and oftne times stupid, the automatic assumption in fics characters are white and blah blah blah [other important stuff]
So how does this tie into the Peacemaker fandom? Im gonna try to narrow it done to three main things.
1. The babyfication of Adrian Chase;
We see this throughout fandoms. Calling characters three apples tall, making chibis, making characters more caring in fics. All these in themselves are perfectly fine. Im in and have been in tons of fandoms, I do the same thing. However, if we look deeper, we can begin to notice the rate at which characters are babied specifically. Usually white male characters that either show cases of violence or the opposite end white male characters with hearts of gold. Ussualy nerdy characters are cunning ones.
It's not surprising. Being able to relate to characters that may show traits is understandable. I cant even name the amount of characters im like "Thats just me".
Which I belive drives the babyfication, as well as the way in society i think were taught to easily forgive the negative actions of men. (Think DV, bouts of anger, ect) by focusing on these characters, not only do we see ourselves. We see those parts of ourselves that we may not be proud of may be able to be shown and held close to the meat of someone elses heart. We want those parts of ourselves to be loved.
Babyfication (like serious, not the joking stuff) to me completely mutes all points. It destroys the character in an impossible way. If one can't face all the faults of something that resembles them, then what is the point in looking at the reflection?
Finally, mentioning Adrian Chase, we can see the babyfication of him in many ways. Himself as a character is portrayed as obsessive, annoying, violent, as well as caring (for those close to him at least), aware of social/racial injustices and being knowledgeable of these topics.
2. How does this affect other characters
As the fandom continues to grow, some of his traits are being pushed aside or proded to become something that's more easily consumed. His obsessive tendacies bring portrayed as cute, his violent tendencies being ignored because of how knowledgeable he is about racism.
The murders he commits are just acts of justice. Those innocent people? Dosent matter beacuse he had a good reason. That only he himself knows about.
[Blah blah, art imitates life./ the rate of men able to get away with crimes beacuse of their positions in society who are often times deemed as too nice to do that or actions or victims ignored. ]
Beacuse of this knew ideal of him how he interacts with other characters are affected.
Adrians feelings are seen as above those around him. His feelings are more important. His actions are exudable as long as they fit into the neat box others have made.
We see this largely through, well, all the characters, really. Starting with both Adebayo and Chris.
The main point between all three is who chris' best friend is and the demonization of Adebayo's actions in s1. When she planted the diary in chris's home. This action to a lot more people than I expected was deemed deplorable. After she did that, she was evil and a shit person. At first I was confused as FUCK. Then I realized it was mostly due to her realtions to Adrian. Herself as a character ignored beqcuse kne one single action.
Oftentimes, those who Harbor hatred for her about the diary are those who believe Adrian should be chris Best freind. Why? Beacuse adrians known him longer, he would never betray chris like that, and by the way, Adrian isn't racist so he's a good person.
I would argue that the way Adrian treats Chris is worse than the damn diary. It's obvious that Adrian doesn't care for Chris's boundaries. Even if chris says Adrian isn't his best friend, even when chris expresses, he is uncomfortable with things Adrian says.
Most of all Adrian is a character that sees nothing wrong wjth his actions and accepts himself. He will not change in certain aspects. Unfortunately those aspects are exactly what Chris is trying to change about himself.
There is a lack of understanding from both of them about each other. Adrian isn't going to understand why Chris has the change because to adrian, the actions they used to do together are perfectly fine. This means there can not be a deeper discussion on it. Not the way Chris can connect with Adebayo. And have his boundaries respected and be able to grow with someone.
3. How this affects the fandom
All of this just to say, does Chris feelings matter compared to Adrians in fandom? Nope. Not at all. Because of the refusal to think critically about what characters dont say. This is all just pushed away because Adrians feelings are considered more important than his actions to some.
We especially see how people prioritize adrain over other characters in the new episode. Adebayo is being chased by racist nazis who probably would kill her or even worse. However, the most talked about subjects was about adrain, his other self, and how hot they both were. Now I dont expect him to not be talked about. Like, I've said countless times I do like him as a character. However, being black seeing constant things about being worried adrain would die, or someone saying that if adrain died theyd stop watching beacuse hes the only good character. (And this i actually saw 😭 )
All of which could be written off as jokes or just me reading to into it. But the thing is, I HAVE to read into it. I can't go into the world without keeping an eye out for subtle cues that I may not be welcomed. Sometimes, I jump to conclusions because of that. I'd rather jump to that conclusion, then be able to reevaluate when I was wrong! (Does that make since?)
These things build up over time, becoming one monstrosity.
Hearing that x white character is better than x black/ person of color. Or the influx of people suddenly alright with Adebayo when she hugged him because he cried.
I feel like in all media, there has to be an understanding of how real life may impact a show and its characters. And how the fans may impact the show. AND we should be able to enjoy characters simply because we want to! Just because we like them or they're cute, or their strange.
[I tried to sound smart, yall. If you made it this far 🫡. Im fully open to like questions or correcting if I got something wrong though. I know sometimes I can speak before I think fully and my words come out wrong.]
curating your online fandom experience is a lot of work. there’s the traumatized back button, the sad unfollow button, the angry block button, the meaningful time spent researching apps, userscripts, and extensions that’ll both enhance the experience of finding + enjoying content you want and help you avoid content you can’t handle. it’s about going into unsafe places, the dark waters of nearly every social media platform, and getting exposed to Stuff That Freaks You Out and metaphorically (or literally!) rolling yourself into a blanket until you’re good enough to actually write that Freaky Stuff out in a blacklisted tag field for those aforementioned filter userscripts or extensions you researched for just these occasions. and all of it to find your kind of safe people and safe communities. it’s a quest
curating your online fandom experience is getting furious or icked or hurt over someone’s else’s content and then relaxing yourself back to good. it’s knowing that to engage with animosity would be a drain. curating your online fandom experience is reminding yourself that your time is valuable, and consciously re-directing yourself into worthier pursuits: mining your fandom for the things that bring you joy. simply put, it’s self care. it takes a lot of maturity and discipline to both start and maintain this kind of responsibility over what you see and do online (and everybody makes mistakes including myself so remember be kind to yourself when that happens : breathe, let things go, move on)
mindful curation of your fandom experience is gardening. what beautiful flowers and herbs to plant? what kind of fandom content do you love? what blisses you out? plant those things in your space, whether it’s a blog or community or some social media mash-up of the two. Then with great care work to nurture it all. in this way you sculpt your experience in fandom to be a garden paradise of your own creation
and yknow a big perk of this approach is that as you do this, you’ll find many others with similar fandom paradises. random interactions get better and more positive. you make friends. everyone flourishes
cultivating a contented soul in fandom is challenging but rewarding.
Fans of Sonic: May I present my Ted Talk focused on the Comics
Archie =/= IDW Comics.
I feel like a lot of Archie fans are still bitter about the cancellation of their favorite series even after the nail was put into the coffin 3 years ago. Since that ask got me into a ranty mood, I figured it was only appropriate to delve into the big clusterfuck storm that was the Sonic The Hedgehog Archie Comics.
The comic series was published on November 22nd, 1993 by Archie Comics 4 months after DiC Entertainment’s “Sonic The Hedgehog” animated series started airing on ABC. Unfortunately, ABC would cancel the series prematurely at 2 seasons even though it was originally intended for a 3 season run. Leaving the fans of the animated series to rely on the comic books for answers regarding what would’ve happened if they’d gotten their final season.
The Archie series had an impressive overall run of #290 issues spanning across 24 years of publication. However, the true cancer was seeded after one of the main contributors of the comics took Archie and SEGA into a fierce legal battle.
Ken Penders vs. Archie & SEGA lasted from 2010 to 2012 after both companies failed to challenge his copyright filing to the U.S. Copyright Office in April of the same year. All parties settled outside of court which resulted in the continuity change in the comics with the Second Genesis Wave arc. This arc effectively removed many of Ken Penders’ now copyrighted characters and characters other contributors were also planning on copyrighting themselves.This arc would steer the longtime 1993 animated series focused comic into becoming more reliant on the game universe instead. A list of mandates were given by SEGA to Archie Comics about what they could and couldn’t do in their comic series after the lawsuit was settled. The Archie series would continue publication for a few more years until Archie cancelled all planned issues for Sonic in 2017 in 2016.
SEGA of America confirmed on July 19th, 2017 that they were terminating their comic book publishing program with Archie Comics on their twitter account. In that statement they confirmed to the fans they were planning to “...take a different direction for the series that will be announced at a later date.”
On July 21st, SEGA and IDW announced they would be collaborating together to bring a whole new era of Sonic comic books. The first issue was published on April 4th, 2018 and has continued to be one of the highest selling comic series on the market today.
So why is the IDW series performing much better than the Archie series even though they were going strong for 24 years? There’s 2 reasons.
1. The new IDW series is reliant on game lore and ONLY game lore. At the time of writing this in January, 2020 there has been no sign of the freedom fighters making their comeback in this new era of sonic comics. However that isn’t to say that SEGA might not allow IDW to include them later on. But I don’t think it’ll happen. Especially if they planned on taking this series into a new direction away from what Archie was doing. Now that the comic is being rooted firmly in game lore and game canon history, sonic fans have a comic book that any fan at any age can appreciate since it draws from ALL of the games that have been currently published by SEGA.
2. SEGA is Collaborating this time instead of partnering. What’s the difference? I hear you asking. Well there’s a big difference:
In a partnership, you’re working in a legal contract where you’re associated in a joint business. These associations can range from inactive to proactive involvement from either party. In the case of Archie and SEGA, SEGA allowed Archie to have their way for a good portion of their publication partnership. Only giving them rules to obey in terms of what they did with their characters and what was off the table. But that loose freedom came to an end after the Penders fuck up. Archie lost SEGA’s built up trust by not providing the legal proof they needed in order to toss Penders’ copyright out the window so they could reclaim the characters he took. Which lead to SEGA getting stricter in how their property was used by their company.
In a collaboration however, you’re actively involved in the production of a product with the other party. Making it equally theirs AND yours. SEGA collaborating with IDW in this new era of Sonic makes them more appealing to Sonic fans who’ve grown more familiar with the games instead of the 1993 animated series. It’s this recognition that gives the comic a timeless appeal to them as well. Since anyone who has played a sonic game can recognize the technology they use in the comic from games like Sonic Riders Zero Gravity and Sonic Forces. They get references to Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. But Archie? Unless you read the series from the very beginning and you’ve watched the Sonic The Hedgehog 1993 series, you don’t care about characters like Sally Acorn and Bunnie.
When you lose a series you grew up on, I know how hard it is to admit it’s gone. How there’ll never be a continuation of the series that once brought you joy after school or after a very long day at work. It sucks. But the lengths some people have gone to in order to shit on the new IDW series gives me a headache.
No it’s not a video game. But that doesn’t mean that SEGA doesn’t have anything to do with the series. They’re just as active as the main staff. America has had their way with SEGA’s characters a bit too long and the main in Japan has had enough. The last straw was the Penders lawsuit and they’ve had to step in more than once to clarify with fans when things were in and not in character in other projects like when Sonic pushed Amy away by shoving her face.
I don’t get how people can get angry at SEGA for stopping writers from doing something that is OOC for the sake of doing something “cool” when their whole termination of Archie started because writers and artists were doing something for the sake of doing something “cool”. SEGA knows their characters better than anyone else because they’re the ones who fucking made them to begin with. You might be huge fans of those characters, but you aren’t the one who created those characters.
If you want to point fingers at someone for destroying what you thought was a perfect series, point them at Ken Penders for dragging the whole series down with him when he filed a copyright on all his contributions to the sonic extended lore. Hate him for making Archie & SEGA remove ALL of his characters from the old series because he wanted royalties. But don’t throw that anger onto the IDW series that is doing it’s own thing that is more relatable to the video games than the old 1993 animated series.
But at the end of the day: This is just a franchise about a blue hedgehog and his friends fighting a evil scientist who wants to control the world. You can buy all the old Archie comics in collected editions via Half-Price Books or Amazon. Or you can stick to the IDW series if you want something more game focused and SEGA involved.
Do whatever floats your boat.
Just remember:
Sonic The Hedgehog 1993′s Sally Acorn was not created by SEGA, she was created by DiC Entertainment.
The Archie series is not focused on the game lore and is focused on the 1993 series primarily. Which was not a series that SEGA produced.
Archie comics does not have a say in any future SEGA products regarding Sonic which means their Archie exclusive characters will probably not appear in the IDW series.
If you want to hate someone then you should hate Ken Penders.
Ted talk part 3/ of idk kinda a futher explanation of part 1 at the end.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 4
Spoilers of the new episode of peacemaker. [This is all really clunky since im just puking words.]
Im gonna call AU harcourt Emilia and ours harcourt if that makes sense.
Taking the different ways both women hold themsleves in the society's they've always know.
To start off, we have to accept the fact that both societies themselves are built off of the satisfaction of men and white supremacy in some ways. With clear differences of course.
Both Harcourt and Emilia are showcases of that. With Harcourt, it's the objectification of women, including the way anger/rejection isn't taken as serious when she feels it. Going back to the scene, almost everyone remembers. Her at the bar trying to enjoy her drink on some downtime. Only chris decides to follow her, and then she gets harrased by other men at the bar.
She rejects the men and Chris both. To show two things. One, Harcourt, despite being a capable operative, still experiences sexual harrasement and won't be able to escape it either out of work or in it. And two, no matter how much Chris claimed he wasn't like his dad, he's still the same as the other men.
Both Chris and the men dont take Harcourts' rejection serioues. The men going so far as to tattle tell to another guy to try intimidate her. (Which she corrects, of course) And Chris, who treats sex with her like a reqard he should have after being in jail. Saying specifically, he didn't even need to see her face. Just her tits and pussy. Automatically assuming she didn't want to beacuse of feelings, not simply beacuse she had any say to not want to.
Everything we know about Harcourt has to do with a man in her life. Rick flag Jr, Rick flag, chris. No one has asked her about her countless jobs. About how she grew up, family? Parents? Who knows. Im assuming it's also because she always has a wall up. Pushing the characters and the audience away to further protect herself.
(Also Rick flag using her to get chris)
AND THE THING WITH ADIRANS MOM. No matter where she is or goes, she is expected to be something to be looked at. And beacuse of her personality of not letting it happen she is considerd 'sluttish' 'A bitch' among many other names people probably call her for not letting herself be fucked over.
Which ties into her being diagnosed with toxic masculinity. Pushing back her emotions beacuse if she was seen as weak it would just be blood in a den of sharks! I also like how she seems to purposefully not choose to linger on the ties men have in her life. Beacuse she wont let it be her entire world even if they want it to be! (Or im going crazy)
Now, moving onto Emilia, who is vastly different. Who we know WAY less about. I mean the first time she's considered its beacuse of Chris and her relationship to harcourt. What does she like? What are her dreams? Aspirations? At least with harcourt, we know/ can guess.
We know who Harcourt is as a person. Her values, her feelings, even if not fully. We are capable of seeing her as the person she is even if thats not who she wants to be sometimes.
Emilia? She has a thing with Rick flag. Used to date this universes Chris, he cheated on her. Probably racist. Emilia is shown to be agreeable.
The worrying women who will always give someone a chance and hear someone out. The women who only wear bright colors and skirts with blonde hair and will agree with you on most things as long as you talk it out. She is seen in her world as 'kind' 'Respectable' and other positive things for falling in line with the way society wants to see her. (If this changes, I'll rethink this, but for now 🤷🏾) what she feels truly, to me, at least. Is..iffy. In my opinion she shows less emotions then Harcout. Despite being painted as a version of Harcout that dosent push her emotions down.
We can still see how she uses authority as a women to her advantage by immediately ordering the guards for Emilia even if Chris was standing right there. (This also could be nothing but idk)
In this universe, being different means death, or worse. Following the ideals of nazi/white supremacy propaganda most likely. And that affects how they are as women.
Harcourt having to protect herself beacuse men will only sees her as tits. Plus the way shes been treated her entire life, trained and used and discarded.
In emilias world, as far as we know, there is no worry about that. She's at the semi top of the food chain. A white woman who has access to other powerful white men. In a society where they are the norm. Is there a nred to sniffle herself? Yes, of course there is. I doubt she could ever fully say what she's thinking in this world. However, the backlash she would receive would be both worse than harcourt AND easy in a way.
Intersectionlity still exists. Even in this society in the new universe.
Because of their ideals of her breaking away from the snapshot picture, she risks her position in society. Everything she may have been working towards. She would be shunned tossed to the side as deffected or different. Or maybe thrown into a correcting facility.
Yet she also has the privilege of just..not doing that. Of knowing beacuse of her position if she did something it could be easily given an excuse and tossed under the rug as a moment. Maybe she got to scared, or maybe just irritable 'like women get'. In real life, minorities and other white people get accused by white women in high positions of power. Either for them to flaunt it or to save their own asses. Crying to get out of situations, pointing fingers, getting angry beacuse of being overwhelmed with feelings. All things Emilia has access to in a greater percent than harcout would, even if harcout can also do these things her position is diffrent. <- whole can of worms on this section im not getting into on a Tumblr post.
In Harcourts' universe, these things still exist, of course. However, Harcourt living on different rules and positions of society is also under a threat of violence. Which she faces every day because she refuses to conform. And she lives in a unvierse where she doesn't have to, where there are people who accept her for who she is. She has the opportunity to be herself but also will always be in the position above others where she can manipulate. Were she wont stoop down too BEACUSE she herself, although considerd a white women, experiences harrasment, and degradation to the extent Emilia may not have.
(LAST MINUTE ADD ON. Also, Harcout getting into fights could tell us how she views it as a way to finally seem equal in the eyes of society. On top of her history of violence, she can't seem to shake. It's the only way she feels she is helping/useful, as she said before. )
[ This long as helllll. Yall, im sorry. 🤧 Either I want to talk about my baby girl Adebayo or Chris and how i feel like his feelings for harcourt are superficial at best. My brain is chuggin slow]
