As anyone else in this fandom, I'm just so fucking done with all of this shit happening. It makes us feel unseen and unimportant in the society and well fuck that.
But I've been thinking about something and especially why a good amount of questies keep on saying fanfics are ours and we can keep the story alive. In a way you are totally right! But I think it's more than that. Sure it stays in the intimacy of a pretty small fandom on a website somewhere but it's bigger than that.
When Warrior Nun was cancelled I talked about it with a friend and he said to me "don't worry we're gonna be the one making those representations." And man, that's exactly what it is. What matters. Fanfics keep on doing those representations! But also if you write a fic, it can turn into a script, a graphic novel, a scenario, anything! And we have the power to make it important. Because that's it, I'm tried of waiting on white cis privileged rich male to decide if what matters to me has value. We are valuable :) and what I can see is that I never loved my community so much. The latest representation are getting bolder even if they get cancelled and well I guess that's something. But yeah I love seeing everyone, and I respect everyone and I think everyone is beautiful. And that inspire us to do things. We are the artistic ones, we are the one calling the shots, in the end. So I encourage everyone to go write their own Kit and Jade, to find their own writing style, be it funny or serious we don't care. We unite in the creation of a better place for our community <3
It know we're tired but you know what? What unites us as a community is love. And what motivates the people cancelling us is money. I think it's pretty clear that we have the power. It's gonna be alright. And thank you btw for being so positive about it all yet still sharing your emotions. I think we all need that
It does make us feel unseen and unimportant you're right. It hurts. It sucks that there is a handful of rich white cis men that decide what is acceptable to show and what's not.
It hurts so so much that our stories are deemed unacceptable to be told for more than one season, or if they are told longer, we don't get a happy ending.
Those men decide for us if we get our rep and it hurts so much.
For me? Saying we take control of the narrative is more to do with being a little selfish.
I don't want to just move on. I don't want this fandom to die because I am sick and tired of losing a show then losing the fandom where I found friends and comfort.
Take inspiration from those that came before us.
Yes we're writing fics at the moment for our favourite characters and ships but as you say, develop your own stories and styles.
We shouldn't have to become the representation we want to see, we should be allowed to turn on a show and see ourselves and our stories told in their entirety, but that's not happening.
So we take control.
It starts today with us writing Tanthamore or graylora or rougereaver fics.
It turns into us developing our own stories to tell, our own characters to bring to life.
And yeah those stories at first might just be stuck to this website or a fanfic site but they don't have to.
If someone can publish a fanfic of a series and people can own a physical copy of that fanfic, then we can publish our own stories.
Love is the greatest power in the universe.
Love unites us.
Love and understanding is what brings us together.
Love for these characters and this world bought so many people together.
Understanding that we deserve this rep and shouldn't have to fight tooth and nail bought us together.
I'm trying to stay positive because I am tired of feeling like I'll never be able to see my story told completely.
I'm trying to stay positive because I don't want to lose these characters and this universe and I know if I react negatively then I'll abandon ship.
I'm heartbroken. I'm sad. I'm tired. I've cried over the loss of the visual representation.
But I'm not going down the rabbit hole of ending up hating the content we got just because we didn't get more.
Disney took something from us and their not the first company to do so and they won't be the last.
Willow won't be the last show with good queer rep and good black/brown rep to be cancelled.
But like with Warrior Nun, we can try to make it impactful.
I don't mean we should go out and buy a billboard, I don't think that would work.
I mean we keep loving the characters. We keep loving the universe. We continue to let the cast and crew know how much we love what they created.
We keep our voices loud.
Maybe that will be the change that's needed.
Bury your gays became less used after the aftermath of Lexa and how the fans rose up.
But they just moved on to cancelling the shows instead of killing us.
So we stay loud. We stay proud. We stay happy to have these characters. We stay happy to have this universe.
We make noise. We rewatch. We create.
We show Disney that we coulda been the greatest thing that ever happened to that company.
Because yeah, Disney did what they did for money, the company is greedy.
Greed drove them to cancel Willow.
Love will drive us to show them how much this show was and is loved.
It might take another 34 years for us to get more content.
I hope it doesn't. I'll be 62 by then!
The fact that the cast wanted to do more, that Johnathan wanted to do more says something to me.
They care about these characters. They love these characters as much as we do.
Maybe there's a sliver of hope that maybe Disney will let Willow go and Johnathan can take it to a different network, even if for just one season.
I'm not holding out much hope for that to happen. But it could.
I'm not ready to say goodbye to these characters, to this universe.
So I won't say goodbye.
This isn't a goodbye.
It's a may we meet again.
It's an in this life or the next.
There's still so much of this story to be told and if the creators can't write that story. We get to write it.
