Snowflake Challenge #15: Create a challenge

[enemyofperfect]

I think my challenge has to be to create a piece of meta about something you enjoy, be it fannish or otherwise!

For the purpose of this challenge, I'm going to define meta as any opinion or discussion of something that's more complex than "I love/hate/am indifferent to this thing". So for example, even "I love/hate this thing because..." totally counts! Comparisons between things; explorations of in-story or authorial reasons for things; and speculation of all kinds are other extremely viable forms of meta that I just came up with off the top of my head.

Actually, I don't know if this is going to work at all, but I got so many awesome positive responses to the post where I talked about the joy of discussing characters and playing with what-ifs that I'm going to declare the comments of this post a sort of... meta fest? for sharing and prompting meta and what-ifs of any kind. You can mention a fandom or fandoms you're particularly interested in and/or a subject you'd like to see discussed in a fannish context, and maybe it'll kick off some fun conversations!

Example prompts:

• Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood headcanons!
• Person of Interest, parallels between Shaw and other characters
• What are some of your favorite neurodivergent characters and how does their neurodivergence manifest?
• What one thing would you change if your favorite canon(s) were rebooted, and why?

All of you are so cool and I'm secretly so shy! Won't you come and play?

Comments

Person of Interest, parallels between Shaw and other characters

[enemyofperfect]

I'm totally making this an actual prompt and then filling it myself, because I'm still indignant about the show's decision to make her a hammer to Reese's scalpel.

Now, I'm sure there are fans who love her as a blunt instrument, and I'd be lying if I said that wasn't a flavor I can appreciate too! But I will also never forget her first episode, in which she successfully posed as a bewildered tourist for long enough to take care of a couple of cops, defused a literal bomb, and got revenge in the middle of a fancy dress party, as well as shooting a ton of people in sensitive places. Meanwhile, Reese crashes cars in his first and second episodes, not to mention the kneecap thing. I love the man, but he's only subtle for as long as subtlety's needed... or until he gets bored.

I do love that they always showed Shaw to be every bit as competent and deadly as Reese, and generally less sentimental. I just wish they'd kept an equal emphasis on their shared versatility, too!

[alexseanchai]

What one thing would you change if your favorite canon(s) were rebooted, and why?

Actual women, including at least one from the Parisian Chinese diaspora, in the Miraculous Ladybug writers' room. Because it's supposed to be a girl power show, whose heroine has one white and one Chinese parent, and uh. The writing credits do not reflect this. Also, give the team more budget so they have more time to research how things like the knitting process are supposed to look and so they can afford to create more than one everyday outfit per character. And—while I like Ladybug's blue eyes too, and enough of the transformed heroes have eyes matching their kwamis that Tikki having human-looking blue eyes sounds like great justification for Ladybug to keep her blue eyes—give Marinette eyes that make genetic sense. Gray, maybe, and with the epicanthic fold so she's less white-passing.

And maybe the viewers don't get to find out Adrien Agreste is Chat Noir or Gabriel Agreste is Hawkmoth—not for certain sure—until Marinette does. Then again, maybe not: the dramatic irony inherent in viewers' knowing both Ladybug's and Chat Noir's identities for three seasons now and Hawkmoth's for two is just delicious.

What are some of your favorite neurodivergent characters and how does their neurodivergence manifest?

I might have a few here. ADHD Marinette explains so much of Miraculous Ladybug canon. So does autistic Kagami. (My arguments for Marinette and Adrien being autistic are less thoroughly canon-based.)

[schneefink]

I have this weird issue that I find the idea of writing meta very intimidating - but thoughts about fandoms?, yes sure I have them!

Right now, I have a lot of feelings about TMA's Basira. On two levels: Basira as a character and how great she is, and why she's not a huge fan favorite, at least not in the sense that there are many fanworks featuring her as the main character.

SPOILERS, obviously.

Starting with the latter, I think one reason might be that, well, she's in a shitty situation. And not a dramatic one, where she turns into a monster or she's pining or it's her destiny to save the world or anything like that - no, it's just that she's trapped in a shitty workplace, she can't quit, her life is constantly in danger, there's nobody she can rely on, even the person she used to be able to trust to handle herself now can't anymore and Basira feels like it's her responsibility to fix it, and her supervisor just came back from a coma and tries to preach to her about the value of sharing information when he's the absolute worst, and so on and so forth. It's not exciting, but it sucks. And I have no idea if this applies to other people but I find this kind of situation exhausting to write about, more so than e.g. Jon's angst because that one is more removed from me, if that makes sense.

I really hope we'll get more Basira in season 5! Her interest in research, and Elias insistence on calling her Detective, makes me think that she's much closer to the Eye than she's so far shown. Actually she reminds me of Gertrude in several ways, and I think it might be very interesting if they'd meet...