#fpblog

[fandompitfalls]

Prodigal Son and why Living Shouldn't Be Controversial

Originally posted 1/27/2021

After my last post I wasn’t sure what I would write about.  Several of my upcoming posts are research intensive and potentially controversial so as far as I’ve gotten on them was to put them in my book for blog post ideas and that’s about it.

And then Season Two of Prodigal Son aired. So what am I doing?  A research (not so intensive) and potentially controversial post.  At least I’m on brand.

For those who don’t really know the show: In its second season Prodigal Son is the story of ex-FBI profiler Malcolm Bright who was fired for his risk-taking habits and came back to the NYPD at the request of Captain Gil Arroyo.  Malcolm Bright is also Malcolm Whitly, the son of the influential and extremely wealthy Whitley family.  The Patriarch of the Whitly family, Dr. Martin Whitly, a convicted serial killer known as “the Surgeon”, is currently in a secure psychiatric facility. His son Malcolm put him there.  Malcolm now works for the NYPD under Gil’s team that includes Detectives JT Tarmel, and Detective Dani Powell and Medical Examiner Edrisa Tanaka. While not solving crimes, Malcom must deal with his tenacious television reporter sister Ainsley Whitly and their wealthy, hovering mother Jessica Whitly.  As well as his father who is trying to make his way back into his family’s life via Malcolm by assisting via telephone with certain cases.

Except for the Whitly’s (who while wealthy are probably not very good role models), the entire main cast is made up of people of color:  Filipino, Black, Asian.  While the first season was introductions to everyone and dealing with Malcolm’s lost memories regarding his father, the father/ son dynamic, cultivating a loyal fanbase and potentially starting some ships both purposefully and accidentally (I’m looking at you Brightwell and Maldrisa shippers), this second season started off with a bang.  Something that might have been relegated to a side plot, I feel, had become larger than this season’s overarching plot and will end up and absolutely deserved to be in equal standing.

In the first season, we are introduced to JT, the by the book detective who doesn’t like Bright in the beginning but by the end of the first season, they’re…okay. We also meet JT frankly adorable wife Tally and discover that he’s going to be a dad.

In season two, months have passed, and JT is acting Captain while Gil is out on medical leave.  He brings Bright in on a case involving a justice killer. At the end while back up is being sent to Bright’s apartment for the final conflict, Dani rushes up while backup is on its way and JT is right behind her.  He arrives moments before the back up and when they arrive, he directs them up to the apartment.  What happens instead is something we’ve all seen on the news this past summer. The first cop that arrives tackles JT and presses him against the wall, baton at his throat telling him to stop resisting.  The terror in JT’s eyes is startling as he realized that these officers, the one holding him and the other five who have their guns trained on him are not going to let him explain that he’s a cop.  It isn’t until Dani runs out holding her badge and Malcom following close behind, both of them yelling to stand down, that he’s a cop does the office let go of JT and step back.  Back at the station, Gil is furious and wants to take it to I.A., but JT insists it won’t do any good and he needs to think about it.  He has a family now and he doesn’t want the retaliation.  The scene ends with Gil, Dani and Bright supporting his decision and telling him they have his back.  JT is emotional and for good reason.  The people who are supposed to be working with him just tried to kill him.

Episode two didn’t let up; in the middle of a chase, Gil tells JT to call for back up and what happens is enraging.  As JT calls on his police issued walkie for backup, the person manning the other end tells him that the line if for police use only and uses the term “boy” before disconnecting.  Later, it shows JT and Dani standing outside the office watching Gil yell at the dispatch for not sending officers for a potential hostile situation.  JT decides to not file a report mentioning that he has a family to worry about and he must work with these people. It is harassment and emotional terrorism at its worst.

In the first episode this season, Dani and Bright are talking and Dani mentions the institutionalized racism she’s been dealing with. With this show being categorized as a police procedural, showing this sort of dangerous institutional racism within the police force is both tricky and important.  While police shows have mentioned an episode or two of racism within the force, it’s usually an episode and the one bad cop is taken to task by the white Captain and the entire thing is brushed over.  The good thing about this show is so far, all the people in power we’ve seen on the force have been people of color.  It also makes it harder to pull the “white savior” role as Bright, while on the team, has no real standing with the NYPD and could be kicked off cases in a heartbeat. Jessica, with all of her wealth and ties (or not, make up your mind Jess) to Gil, can’t really do anything expect throw money at the issue.  The brunt of the conflict will lie between Gil and his team facing the police force including these cops who “are just doing their job” and the veil of secrecy that lies within the Thin Blue Line. It’s not something that can be erased in a five-episode arc and I really hope it’s not.  The racism within the department has been established, it can’t be erased with the firing of the cop who attacked JT and it can’t be addressed with the Commissioner coming in to make everyone go to training to make it all magically go away.

The showrunners spent the entire first season introducing us and making us love these characters and given the current climate of the world, this was a bold and correct decision, one that needed to be addressed.  I know there is talk on message board stating that this season is too “political”.  Black Lives Matter, is not political, institutionalized racism within the police force is not political. Men and women of color that are on police forces are risking their lives to do good and make streets safer and do not deserve to wonder if they’re going to take “friendly” fire from one of their own.  This year we’ve heard too many stories of officers who were threatened out of uniform and officers who spoke up only to be removed from duty. This isn’t a new thing. Nobody should be murdered for living their lives, for sleeping, for complying with proper police requests.

Personally, as a white person, watching these scenes hurt.  Watching JT’s reactions hurt. Hearing someone who was supposed to have his back use a term that has racist undertones when said as it was, made me furious.  Which is what it’s supposed to do.  But this is also a dangerous road the showrunners are taking.  There is no clean and easy way out of this, to have it discussed and “fixed” isn’t reasonable nor believable anymore, to ignore it after three episodes isn’t doing it justice. I don’t know how this will turn out, but it absolutely needs to be addressed this season.  To the extent of having it a plot equal to Malcom’s covering up a murder and hiding the body without getting caught.

If you want more information or want to get involved, please look at the websites linked. It shouldn’t take a television show to spread awareness, but if it does, so much the better. People are starting to get involved with activism because media and it’s good (sometimes).  Television should start a conversation, that’s when it’s working best.

[frontporchlit]

Tabula Rasa

Our apologies for the break in content. We were busy searching for a new editor to steer this literary naval ship called a blog. Your captain into the unknown future going forward will be me, Brent. I’m a poetry graduate student here at Texas State who moonlights in writing science fiction novels along with ample amounts of blogging. I’ll do my best to balance for you on this Tumblr blog entertainment, literary relevance, humor, concurrent publishing trends, writing prompts, new and emerging writers and styles, in addition to the established Texas State MFA and Front Porch Journal happenings. Cheers to the uncast future and the molds we hold in our hands. Together we might discover an unknown shore, or perhaps another planet if you enjoy the company and stay on this journey long enough with me. (Artwork featured above is by Russian surrealist Vladimir Kush)

[frontporchlit]

Vincent Price Narrates my Revision Process

The following is the third entry in our weekly theme for October: Why writing terrifies us. The glare of the computer screen dries out my eyeballs every time I sit at my desk in the middle of the night, struggling to put meaning to the strange combination of letters tapped out through my fingertips. Each pressed key conducts electricity into my joints. The thrill of expressing some untold truth echoes down the hollowness of my bones like a case of arthritis. And when I finish, catharsis sets in. My brain relaxes. The post-adrenaline exhaustion spreads, and I turn around in my chair and fall face-first into the bed. These are the only moments when sleep comes easy.

The scary part comes later. The next day. Weeks later. Months later. A year and a half down the road. Revision should be easy. Thesauri and dictionaries provide tools for the wordsmith. My laptop can access both while erasing the words I no longer need. Email means I can receive instant feedback from anyone I have ever come to trust with my work. But to sit and return to the truths hidden in the area where black meets white to make gray remains an emotional challenge. It means fighting against catharsis to return to discomfort. It means returning to the nightmares I left behind on the page and embracing their reality, letting them back into my subconscious.

Revision is why I drink. It is why I stay awake most nights, my eyes staring into the abyss that floats around my skull. In revision, I see the decayed bodies of dead memories. Of characters dismembered to pay homage to actual corpses. Of plots that ring too close to real life. Of voices that speak on the truths of Halloween-inspired reality. Life is frightening. Every living soul should have their life narrated by Vincent Price’s zombified voice. We all suffer. We all experience internal and external conflict. We all have our hearts broken. We all have bones broken. We all watch as our families and friends become broken. And, of course, we all die in the end. Every story and poem that I write depicts some truth learned in life. So, every story and poem that I write is a horror story. And, revision returns me to the nightmares about which I write. Fear is a driving force in writing. It is an attempt to escape death and achieve some level of immortality or at least to transcend the abject of one’s own existence. But, the process is crippling. While a first draft may be cathartic, revision can be debilitating. No amount of exposure therapy can prepare me for facing the truths of my own past or those that exist within my soul. The emotions that lead to the story’s creation return as a typhoon, swallowing me in the isolation of the island on which I live.

However painful revision might be, I must continue to push forward. I must swim to the next island and tell the world of the devastation wrought by that disastrous tide. Truth must always be told. If not, why do I write? The pain and nightmares returned to me by revision must be shared to rebuild my island and bring the world around me a little closer. Yes, revision frightens me. But silencing myself frightens me even more. Clayton Bradshaw served in the US Army for eight years as an infantryman. He deployed with 3/2 SCR to Iraq from 2007 to 2008 and to Afghanistan from 2010 to 2011. He graduated from Sam Houston State University with a BA in English and currently participates in the MFA-Creative Writing program at Texas State University. His work can be found in The Deadly Writers Patrol, Second Hand Stories, War, Literature and the Arts, and O-Dark-Thirty.

[fandompitfalls]

Ew, Het!

Originally posted: 6/18/2021

Today we’re going to discuss a hidden secret in the fandom community; queerphobia.

Now you might be thinking, Fandom Pitfalls, you’re absolutely wrong on this one, the fandom community is utterly inclusive! And you’d be partly correct.  Fandom is inclusive, so long as you fit specific rules.  One of those rules is: “all characters are gay” (or at least, the important ones).

If there are two hot guys*, it stands to reason that they will get shipped. (*the nature of the two hot guys have been mention in other posts). And that is valid.  Shipping is personal. You ship who you love, ship what you like, and all ships are valid. Fandom is inherently queer, it had been for centuries, as long as there have been stories, there have been people secretly (or not so secretly) rearraigning characters to fit their personal head canons.  As far back as Conan Doyle, Wilde, Shelley, Stoker, the Bible, readers have taken characters and fit them in their own image. If that image was two men living together in secret domestic bliss in a set of rooms in London or a vampire having a lascivious affair with both the woman of his dreams and her fiancée, fandom has always prospered.

And until recently, everyone has stayed in their corners and lived and let live.  The invention of the internet and the ease and availability in which people from all over the world can share now share their own thoughts and theories had brought rise to not only the positive aspects of fandom, but the negative as well.  And one of those negatives is queerphobia.

Let’s just put this out there. Characters that identify as opposite sex can have a relationship and it not be a heterosexual relationship.  Let me repeat that.  Not all opposite sex relationships are heterosexual relationships.

This new knee jerk response of “Ew het!” invalidates queer and gender fluid relationships, making it sound as if the only valid relationships are gay relationships.  (When I say gay, I mean the aforementioned two hot men as wlw relationships, unless specified in the canon series, are usually ignored.)

This time around I’m going to be daring and use examples. The most godforsaken, dumpster fire triumvirate of fandom shows ever; SuperWhoLock.

The first in this fandom dumpster fire is Supernatural. On the air for fifteen seasons, there have been many minor queer characters on the show.  Some were the victim of the week, some were there to show that some couples can get out of the hunting business intact. Some, like Charlie, were major minor characters. The popular ship of Destiel ships an angel in a male body with one of the main male characters.  There is also gatekeeping in the fandom regarding a romantic relationship between Castiel and any character identifying as female.  This is one of the fandoms where “Ew het” is automatically thrown around.  Many of the women that are shipped with Castiel in fandom are immortal beings that are genderless and are merely taking on a female form.  Meg, a demon and part of another of the well-known ships in the fandom, is a demon and therefore has no form.  They have taken the form of a female host over the years, but at one time possessed the body of another of the male lead characters. Hannah, an angel that has also been shipped with Castiel, is also genderless and while they have taken the body of a female host, they have also inhabited a male host, that was received positively by Castiel in both forms. While Jimmy Novak, the body that Castiel originally inhabited and then just took the form of in later seasons, was heterosexual, it’s been noted that the angel Castiel, having no preference to gender, could be seen as pansexual or omnisexual.

The actual characters that are gay or lesbian in the shows are often forgotten or pushed aside in favor of a fan favorite ship.  All ships are valid, but automatically insisting that a male/female presenting relationship is automatically heterosexual, especially in this scope of the fandom, is erasing genderfluid queer relationships, making it inherently queerphobic. Seeing Dean Winchester as bisexual but invalidating his romantic relationships with the women in his life is biphobic. Bisexual people have relationships with people of the opposite sex.  It doesn’t make them less bisexual and it is gatekeeping at its worse to insist that only the same sex relationships count.

Continuing with the gender fluidity is Doctor Who. The last two years have brought this fandom its first female Doctor. A year or two before, Moffat paved the way by not only showing that Time Lords can willing change genders in their regenerations in the 50th anniversary episode, but also introducing Missy, the Master’s latest regeneration. The Thirteenth Doctor canonically makes the Doctor gender fluid thereby making any relationship they’ve had a queer relationship.  Their canon second wife, River Song has been acknowledged to be bisexual, making their marriage a queer relationship, despite seeing River only with the male versions of the Doctor so far.

Even other previous relationships with the Doctor, for example, the fan favorite of Ten/Rose, would be in actuality a queer relationship because Time Lords are canonically gender fluid. Even before Ten, Nine actively kissed Captain Jack Harkness, a canonical omnisexual man. The new incarnation of the show has never shied from the Doctor kissing anyone which is refreshing.

The final example in the disaster shows is Sherlock. As mentioned earlier, Conan Doyle’s beloved characters have been the subject of study since the late Nineteenth Century. Now, with the incarnations of BBC’s Sherlock, Robert Downey Jr.’s Sherlock Holmes and even Netflix’s The Irregulars, the subject of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson’s sexuality is a hot button topic for many.

At least 95% of the fandom, the Sherlock fandom, not the literary fandom, would agree that Sherlock Holmes is not 100% heterosexual.  But neither is he 100% homosexual. Most of the consensus will agree that the great detective is queer, whether it be bisexual, demisexual, ace, grey. His relationship with Irene Adler, a dominatrix who said she was gay but also was attracted to men, making her (allegedly) a bi/pan lesbian, as well as his relationship with Jim Moriarty, canonically gay, showed that Sherlock could be attracted to people, perhaps not for the attractiveness but because who they are (as also shown in the relationship between he and Molly Hooper, another gatekept ship). The popular ship, Johnlock, has Sherlock in a relationship with his roommate/friend John Watson. Watson, who was married and has a child, would at most be bisexual. Erasing the canonical women John Watson dated, slept with, and married is again bi erasure at best.

Gay, as defined in the Oxford Dictionary, is: “a homosexual person (typically referring to a man)” (Oxford.com). By this definition, women and nonbinary people cannot be gay as they are not men.  Using it as a “catch-all” in fandom is not only incorrect but queerphobic to the rest of the LGBTQ fans who also identify with these characters.

Shipping is fun. Fandom is supposed to be fun. All ships are valid, and one person’s ship does not invalidate another person’s ship. Even canonical ships don’t have to ruin other people’s ships.  But to use “canon” as a trophy, a sort of “we won, you can’t ever ship your ship anymore because it’s not canon” is horrible gatekeeping.  To insist that a person who ships a m/f relationship is “gross” or “promoting heterosexuality” or “heteronormativity” is also gatekeeping.  Not all m/f ships are heterosexual. Jumping immediately to that conclusion about both the ship and the person shipping it is not only the worst type of gatekeeping, but it is also extremely queerphobic.  Don't turn into the people other's hate, this universe is large enough for all of us.

[fandompitfalls]

Canon Queers

Originally posted: 6/4/2021

Fandom has always had queer aspects.  From the first fanzine dedicated to Kirk and Spock from Star Trek to the plethora of queer fanfic written about our faves, queer culture has always been a part of fandom. Over the years, it had progressed from “under the table” to “out and proud” and that couldn’t be more wonderful.

For a bit of fun this Pride month, I thought we could go over some of our favorite canon queer characters.

Outside the popular television shows over the years that have LGBTQ characters as the focus: Queer as Folk, The L Word, Pose, Sense8, and Gentleman Jack, I’ll be adding some old and new popular shows with queer characters who were/are either main or reoccurring characters.  Shows like Supernatural and Law and Order have minor characters who are LGBTQ but only show up for one episode as “random person” or “victim number one” that are too numerous to count.

Disclaimer: everyone has their head canons and their fanons so please don’t come at me if I don’t mention your favorite queer character or have an issue over how they are identified. I am going by a few websites that mention how and when these characters sexually identify.  There are more than a few like Captain Jack Harkness, Willow Rosenburg, Irene Adler that are listed in the bisexual section with caveats that they identify as something else; Jack Harkness, for example is identified as omnisexual and Adler and Rosenburg self-identify as lesbian even after relationships with men.

With those out of the way, let’s count them down!

📷 Everybody's favorite pansexual!

There’s a mix of shows with multiple characters so let’s get the popular ones out of the way first.

Doctor Who and it’s spin off Torchwood has a diverse cast of not only humans and alien life forms, but they come in all sexual orientations as well.  Other than the Doctor themselves being what could be said as gender neutral able to regenerate as both male and female, there is as mentioned before Captain Jack Harkness who loves anyone no matter their gender. From that show came Madame Vastra-Suliran lizard species and her wife Jenny Flint-human. Bill Potts, the companion of Twelve who was a lesbian. Clara Oswald, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper, Ianto Jones and Professor River Song all identify as bisexual and have been mentioned to have partners of both genders.

Other fan favorites like Delphine Cormier and Cosima Niehaus from Orphan Black, Kevin Keller, Moose Mason, and Cheryl Blossom from Riverdale, Anne Bonney and Captain James Flint, Thomas Hamilton from Black Sails, Waverly Earp and Rosita Bustillos from Wynonna Earp, Piper Chapman and Sophia Burset from Orange is the New Black have integrated into the fan consciousness.

The superhero television shows have their own representation as well. From Sara Lance from Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow, Nyssa Al Ghoul, Alex Danvers, and Katherine Kane as openly lesbian characters, to Oswald Cobblepot from Gotham and John Constantine from Legends of Tomorrow who identify as gay and bisexual respectively.

Some of the fan favorite shows, the shows that have a cult following and subsequently devoted meta regarding both the characters and the episodes, host several queer characters, even if some of them aren’t canonically stated yet.  Hannibal has the two main characters: Hannibal Lector and Will Graham stated as bisexual or omnisexual by the creator Brian Fuller as well as Dr. Alana Bloom, who had a relationship with both main characters before eventually marrying a woman by the name of Margot.

Another fan favorite; Supernatural, despite its host of one-episode queer characters host three reoccurring characters who are on the queer spectrum; Charlie Bradbury, who becomes a Hunter and as a lesbian as well as Castiel and Chuck Shurley aka God, both of whom have had emotional/ romantic relationships with men, women, and genderfluid characters and are identified as bisexual.

Lastly, I wanted to take special care regarding the transgender characters in television shows, but they deserved to be recognized as well. Being a cis person, I didn’t want to add people like Jeffrey Tambor’s Maura from Transparent or David Duchovny’s Denise from Twin Peaks because these are characters who were not only played by cis men but ended up being problematic for one reason or another.

I’m throwing coach Shannon/Sheldon Beiste from Glee on this list because while there were some complaints regarding the way and some verbiage that was used in the show, the discussion of an adult transitioning from female to male was one of the first times it was done on television.  The character is played by a cis lesbian who while I’m adding it, please, feel free to let me know if you don’t think this character should be listed.

The other three, Sophia Burset from Orange is the New Black, Ms. Hudson from Elementary and Denise Lockwood from Chicago Med are all played by transgender actors playing transgender characters. There should be more.

So, who do you like on this list?  Who didn’t you expect, you do you think is missed? (personally, Stiles Stilinski from Teen Wolf was suggested to be bisexual, but he wasn’t on any of the lists I looked at, so I didn’t add him.)

Let me hear your thoughts regarding any of these and remember it doesn’t have to be canon.  If you love it, it counts for you!  So, find your favorite queer representation characters and enjoy the hell out of them.

[fandompitfalls]

Prodigal Son: The Story of Fan Activism

Originally posted: 5/21/2021

On September 23rd 2019, Fox television premiered a new kind of crime drama. A disgraced FBI profiler asked to work with the NYPD on major crimes committed in the city.  The profiler’s name is Malcolm Bright and he was responsible for the police capturing noted serial killer “The Surgeon” at the age of 10.  The serial killer who also happened to be his father.  Being the son of a serial killer, Malcolm has the unique ability to view crimes from the point of view of the killers, giving the NYPD the edge and the information needed find and capture their target.

Rounding out this show is a cast of amazing actors.  Malcom’s father, Martin aka The Surgeon is played by Michael Sheen. Malcom’s surrogate father, the man who mentored and now has Malcolm assisting him, is Lieutenant Gil Arroyo played by Lou Diamond Phillips.  The cast is rounded out by Malcom’s family, played by Bellamy Young and Halston Sage as mother Jessica and sister Ainsley respectively as well as Gill’s team of Aurora Perrineau as Dani Powell, Frank Harts as JT Tarmel, and Keiko Angena as Dr. Edrisa Tanaka, (in my opinion) one of the best medical examiners on television since 2017.

The show gained popularity quickly because of both lead stars; residual popularity of Michael Sheen from his recent run on Good Omens and The Fold, the online fans of Lou Diamond Phillips eager to see their favorites on the small screen once again. Once in, fans quickly realized that there was more to this show than the initial star power.  As I personally stated once “come for Michael Sheen, stay for Tom Payne.”

It's the truth.

The interaction between Martin, who now resides in Clairmont Psychiatric Hospital, and Malcolm, who is not only dealing with the notoriety of his father being a famous serial killer but his own fears and anxieties that he will become just like him is jarring at times.  Sheen plays the line between loving father and intelligent psychopath brilliantly. We all have issues with our parents, but they aren’t nearly as chaotic as Malcolm’s. Between a serial killer father, a high society, alcoholic mother, and an ambitious younger sister who is determined to make her way up the ladder by any means necessary, it’s easy to understand why Malcolm ties himself to the bed to keep him from sleepwalking from hurting himself from waking nightmares.

With Gil’s team, he has a different interaction.  From JT, a detective who never know what to think of Malcom to Dani, who immediately takes a sympathetic role towards what The surgeon is doing to Malcolm’s psyche to finally Edrisa, the ME who has a huge crush on Malcom and is the only one who is able to understand and connect with his weird sense of amusement, (getting excited over headless bodies while the rest of the team looks on in concern is prime Malcolm and Edrisa content).

Over two seasons, Prodigal Son has held its own on Fox.  Their loyal fanbase, lovingly known as #Prodigies, rallied in the beginning of Season One to let the broadcasting network know they wanted a Season Two.  A global pandemic couldn’t keep them down, the fans continually going onto Twitter to keep the name and interest alive, holding watch parties, keep the hashtags going.  When Season Two came on in January 2021, the fan base was ecstatic and immediately began their push for a Season Three.

On Monday May 9th, 2021, Fox announced it was cancelling Prodigal Son with the final two episodes of the season being the last.

Immediately the fans rallied to save this beloved show. First with a petition, then, led by twitter users @tinkerbritt @ProdigalSaviors has become an organized effort to not only bring awareness to the plight of the show but to convince another network that the show is a viable and comes with a fan base that will follow it to another network or streaming site.  With catchy hashtags such as #SaveSunshine (referencing Malcolm’s bird)  and #BewaretheHeels (Jessica is deadly with heels) this grassroots campaign has been getting traction and has been helped by members of the cast and crew as well.  On May 18th word circulated that Warner Bros was looking into the possibility of taking over the show.

Prodigal Son is an uncut gem.  In its Sophomore season, it can only get better.  There are still so many questions to be answered, not only between Malcom and Dani (Brightwell shippers unite), but JT and the problems he is dealing with as a black man on the police force.  There’s the question of if Ainsley is the one who will truly follow in her father’s footsteps and of course, will Gill and Jessica finally get together (Gillica shippers unite). Story lines and threads ranging from Malcolm’s past and the lingering effects of being a child of a serial killer, the missing victims of The Surgeon, the repercussions of what happened in the end of Season One, so many things to draw from.  And come on, if you haven't seen the Season Two finale, the networks cannot leave us like this! Malcolm Bright fans worldwide shouted at that ending!

Prodigal Son deserves to have it story told. It is one of the prolific shows on television and it deserves to have a chance to shine.

If you want to join the other Prodigies in our fight to Save Prodigal Son, just follow the link below and embedded within this post.

Fan Campaigns work, we’ve seen it multiple times, from shows like Lucifer, who was cancelled by Fox after three seasons and moved to Netflix where it is currently on its 5th season, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which was cancelled by Fox after its 5th season and picked up by NBC for three more seasons, to Sense8, a Netflix series that was brought back for a 2 ½ hour finale to wrap everything up.

Prodigal Son deserves to have it’s name on this list as well.

#SaveProdigalSon

[fandompitfalls]

A Stern Letter to the Committee

Originally posted 5/7/2021

Dear very small, very loud subset of fandom spaces (if you don’t know who those are, chances are it’s probably you),

Stop.

Just stop.  Fandom is for everyone, there has not been nor will there ever be an entrance fee (other than your entire heart and soul) or a magic password to enter a fandom.  There will never be a measuring system to designate If someone is a “true fan” or not.   It didn’t work with the guys who like to give quizzes to see if women are “enough of a fan” and it doesn’t work when we get told we’re just “casuals” instead of fans. As if our heart and soul are dedicated to our fandom. As if we don’t own every single action figure or statue or book or piece of media we can get our hands on to collect.  As if we don’t count pennies to save up to go to a convention to see our favorite person. As if we don’t get excited and rejoice when one of our own gets the opportunity to meet out faves and it’s an exciting thing.

Fandom is an ever growing, ever changing thing and we should embrace that.  It’s a family.  A large nerdy family that nobody else outside our collective understand. The sci-fi geeks might not understand the anime kids, but we accept and embrace them.  The literary nerds might not get the movie geeks, but they can all still get excited when those worlds merge.  The only mundane out there are the people who don’t understand any of it.  No matter who we are; the lost, the lonely, the queer, the misunderstood, the furries, the fangirls, the otakus, the book nerds, the tech geeks. We are all in the same group and it’s unpardonably rude to try to gatekeep inside our community because one small group doesn’t like that another group has a different think space.

For the smaller groups, the shippers, the fans of media that like to think that all media should be custom fit to their size only, damn anyone else who engages with this media.  The elitist attitude of you must get on my train or be left behind.  The gatekeeping of if you don’t ship what I ship, you’re wrong.

Media is not required to cater to us.  Shows are not required to cater to their fans.  It’s nice when it turns out that way, but it’s not required to.  Media is represented by a wide target audience.  The showrunners pitch a show, the networks approve it and it gets made. If it becomes popular, there is still a basic line of general plot to work out.  All the rest is applesauce.  The main idea of a show, a book, any piece of media, is to get from Point A to Point Z, while hitting the 24 other points along the way.  If something can be changed or moved in side points that will enhance the media without usurping the main plot line, it might get added or adjusted.  If it can’t, then it can’t.  No amount of character analysis, meta studies, subtext insistence is going to change that this one specific idea will fit into the linear plot.

It’s not about the showrunner hating their fans or being horrible people or ruining a vision that was not theirs to begin with.  If a piece of media that is being consumed begins to give you heartburn, then stop consuming it.  Find something more palatable to your tastes.  You can’t make chicken into tofu no matter how free range the chicken was.  It won’t work.  You go out and you find the tofu, you don’t go out to people eating chicken and scream about how they aren’t consuming the chicken properly and they don’t understand the subtle nuances that this chicken is actual tofu because when alive, the chickens had soybeans in their feed.  You don’t stand in front of the processing plant and scream about how they hate tofu consumers because they refuse to acknowledge that the chickens they’re processing are actually tofu because some of the processed chicken comes out square so obviously it was meant to be tofu.  You need to go and find the actual tofu processing plant. A place that creates tofu for people who consume it.

Or better yet, make your own tofu.

Granted this allegory went off the rails, but the meaning is clear.  If you don’t like the media, make your own media. Media consumable for small target audiences doesn’t work.  For media to be popular, it must be able to interact with the largest possible target audience from around the world.  Which means that they need to make sure that their product is consumable for everyone, not just a small part.  You don’t own the product.  You cannot dictate how everyone interprets the product.  You can like one thing but if someone else likes the other thing, getting offended and insulted and screaming and targeted harassment and gatekeeping is extremely toxic and immature.  If the idea of someone interpreting media differently from you, up to and including show runners, upsets you that much, as the Gen Alpha kids say, you might need to go outside and touch some grass.

Fandom does not belong to you, it belongs to all of us.  Please stop forcing your religious fervor, your efangelicalism on everyone who doesn’t believe as you do.  You have your church, you have your congregation.  Please stay in your lane.  We all just want to enjoy and get excited about the same things.  We shouldn’t have to hold out enthusiasm for something because there might be a small group of people who get offended that we don’t believe as they do.

Fandom is for everyone.  Let us all enjoy it in our own way.

Sincerely,

The rest of the fandom.

[fandompitfalls]

The Bees You Know

Originally posted 4/23/2021

The global crisis has thrown everyone off their schedules for over a year now and with a hint of light at the end of the tunnel, at least in the US, things are trying to go back to a semblance of normality once again.  As the vaccines roll out and we are hopefully on our way to herd immunity, things are beginning to open and once again people are planning events.

Most of us are Zoom-ed out, tired of staring at screens and not seeing people in real life. No more so than in the convention communities.  Friends seen once or twice a year for a weekend are just as meaningful and important as the friends you see every day and we’re missing that.  Missing our con lives, missing our found families.   Many are doing virtual conventions via Zoom and Discord and it has been an experience.  Not only is it interaction with friends you can’t see in real life, but the opportunity for people who wouldn’t normally be able to go to those conventions for whatever reasons is exciting.

Two weekends ago, a Sherlock Holmes con based in Atlanta Georgia decided to do a Zoom/ Discord con and the results were a rousing success.  221b Con held their three-day con all done online with limited panels, chat rooms- both on discord and Zoom, a writers panel and flash fiction challenges.  Because it was online, they were also able to get the star talents of actors David Nellist and Ben Syder to do a Q&A panel.  Both men were friendly, engaging and a delight to talk with.  David spoke of his acting roles both on film and stage including his most recent play, “Sharon and Barry do Romeo and Juliet”. There was also talk of a commercial for Supernoodles, if you haven’t seen it…it’s a thing.  He discussed his community football league; Clapton CFS.  David was supposed to come to 221B Con this year if there had been an in-person event, but his theater run made it impossible, so it was nice that he was able to interact with us in this medium.

Ben was gracious enough to do a Q&A on Sunday morning, the day after we watched his movie: “Asylum’s Sherlock Holmes”, or as it’s more fondly known “Sherlock Holmes with dinosaurs”.  If you have not seen this movie…do so posthaste.  It’s on You Tube and it has become my new favorite cult classic, right up there with Repo; The Genetic Opera and The Room and The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra.

Ben was funny and entertaining and spent time discussing all of our questions and telling us about his adventures in Wales where the movie was set and even stayed a little later just chatting with everyone. Another movie he did “Blind Man’s Bluff” was also discussed and while I haven’t watched it yet, the stories told about it were a trip.  He is my new favorite cult actor.  Hopefully after this global crisis is over, we’ll be privileged enough for both men to appear at this con once again.

The other panels for the weekend ranged from fun to informative with topics such as Women in Canon, Imposter syndrome, Discrimination within the Canon and Discussing Victorian medicine. Of course, there was the Ten-Year Anniversary (a little past, but that’s okay) of A Study in Pink. While Zoom is not everyone’s comfort level, the ones who did join were diverse, fun engaging.  There was laughter, smiles, conversations galore. It was the closest we could all get to an actual con while still being in our pajamas and doing laundry.

A huge thank you should go to the Con runners who set this up and spent the weekend hopped up on caffeine to pull this off wonderfully.  Also huge thanks to Three Patch Podcast who were a tremendous support to the Con runners.  Without all of them, this wouldn’t have happened, and we would be bereft another year without seeing our friends.

If you like Sherlock Holmes and want to see what an actual con is like, 221B con will be back in Atlanta, April 8-10, 2022.  Prepare for tears, laughter, hugs (if we’re able to do that), excited conversations and all sorts of events.  Bring your swimsuit for Nerd Soup, stock up on ribbons and bring your best deerstalker.  Because we’re going to have a hell of a time.