escritorzuela

Challenge #3

In your own space, talk about a fannish opinion you hold that has changed over time. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.


I can't find many examples. I find that my tastes in fandom haven't so much changed as... refined LOL. What I used to love, I continue to love, now with a narrower focus; what I used to hate, now I might hate with even more passion xD. I've come to appreciate new characters, new ships... that I hadn't thought about before, but nothing drastic, I'd say.

I have noticed alterations in my opinions regarding certain canons upon rewatch, but I don't know if that's about changing perspectives so much as changes in the way and the when I watched those shows. Most recently I noticed these past couple of years finally rewatching The Vampire Diaries or The 100 (both "stacked"; aka, instead of watching in order, I watch the episodes on the anniversary of their airing date).

With TVD it was more gradual, but this was the first time I rewatched The 100, this time completely removed from the fandom. In both cases, I enjoyed the lead character's journey a lot more than I did the first time around. My opinions about them as people remain the same: I think Elena Gilbert and Clarke Griffin are both manipulative people who project a false image, sometimes even to themselves, to various degrees of success (Elena is MUCH better at it than Clarke). It's just that now, it's not something that bothers me the way it used to!

Back then, it was less about being bothered by those traits (I have loved my share of manipulative bastards in fiction <3), than about two things: one, in both cases I felt the shows, at least in their beginnings, were trying very, very hard to convince me that I wasn't seeing what I was seeing! That these were totally selfless girls whose Inherent Goodness was just So Special and Unique and The Best of Humanityyyy. Something that got on my nerves; among other reasons, because neither girl needed that to be a good character! But mostly because the cognitive dissonance bothered the hell out of me lol. Especially when this resulted into constant fandom drama. Nonetheless, as I said, this only happened in the beginning of each show, progressively changing later, when the narrative felt more... honest, about who these women were and came to be.

The other reason was more mercenary: in both cases, my favourite characters happened to be people whose narratives found themselves at odds with that of the lead. Characters for whom these was a zero-sum game: the lead could only shine so much because and as long as the others were kept down on their knees. And in both shows, it was the lead's fall that allowed the others, my favourites, the breathing room to ~raise above their assigned stations, so to speak.

So basically: the narrative validated my perspective, and the ways in which these leads interfered with my faves became less effective. Which first diminished my hostility towards them as I first watched the shows, and then largely eliminated it on rewatch. Thus leaving me with two flawed female leads whose narratives I have come to appreciate.

I've given a lot of thought before about how an ending can completely alter a story. It's as if once it's written down, all other possibilities as to how it could've ended collapse and you only have one left that will shape how you see the story at large. I'd argue that a lot of endings on TV are very in tune with the show's beginnings, tbh (think How I Met Your Mother, for a really egregious example), but these two, especially TVD, deviated quite strongly. So it makes sense to me that they're the two examples I can think of where I've noticed a drastic change of fannish opinion in myself (usually when I'm a hater, it's forever xD), and others, though I guess that's a different topic.