While being annoyed about Crisis again
May. 14th, 2021 06:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethThinking about the utter destruction of the multiverse
as you do
it occured to me that someone who could write that and expect readers to roll with it fundamentally doesn't think of a character as a single continuous person.
Post Crisis they can still write stories about their characters. As archetypes. Patterns. Costumes. They can write any variation they please. Like every timeline shift that happened unremarked in earlier seasons, it just opens up new writing possibilities to say that anything goes now.
But if you see your characters as a collection of distinguishing features, rather than a continuous life, you cannot kill them off in any meaningful way.
All Wellses are Wells, from that point of view, just a different facet in a different AU.
Which seems to be how fanfic treats characters. I mean, we write the same characters starting the same relationships over and over and over. What's the problem if canon does the same?
... but I have a problem with canon doing the same.
Because every Wells is a distinct individual, a valuable person, shaped by a continuous life history.
... yes they're imaginary, but it breaks something to say so. We go visit with our imaginary friends, who continue to exist when we're not looking. Each one of them has in character and out of character possibilities. Or anyone can do anything (which is true because free will, but also *boring*).
If all Wells are Wells then people are interchangeable, swappable, replaceable,
and no.
Doctor Who logically did roughly the same thing. Doctor Who rebooted the universe. And as for continuity... I mean yeah but no but... they do their best u til they have another idea. So why don't I hate it on Doctor Who?
I don't know, but it dont feel the same.
I'm just having a great deal of difficulty continuing to care about post Crisis people
when the story tells us trillions of things are different now
they wont bother telling us which ones
they wont establish these characters as if they had to introduce them
they'll just expect the weight of caring to transfer to new, logically entirely different people,
partly because they just mindwiped the local instances and more or less copy pasted old versions over them
except for how they didnt.
It doesnt make sense! It's not meeting a new Wells necause they treat everyone as same same. But their entire world is diferent! They should be different! But they're not, because memories. But! If J'onn mindwiped a bunch of people, that would be monstrous. Do they look that in the eye? No!
So how do we keep caring when cause and effect is broken, these are different people except when they aren't, and their world isnt any way we expect it to be?
But this is a problem with comic book adaptations and the way they only pick up the aspects they consider both iconic and useful. This is a problem with *comics*, which do the same between writers.
I've rolled with it before.
I just... find myself objecting all over again.
*sigh*
Maybe I need to visit with different stories for a while.
as you do
it occured to me that someone who could write that and expect readers to roll with it fundamentally doesn't think of a character as a single continuous person.
Post Crisis they can still write stories about their characters. As archetypes. Patterns. Costumes. They can write any variation they please. Like every timeline shift that happened unremarked in earlier seasons, it just opens up new writing possibilities to say that anything goes now.
But if you see your characters as a collection of distinguishing features, rather than a continuous life, you cannot kill them off in any meaningful way.
All Wellses are Wells, from that point of view, just a different facet in a different AU.
Which seems to be how fanfic treats characters. I mean, we write the same characters starting the same relationships over and over and over. What's the problem if canon does the same?
... but I have a problem with canon doing the same.
Because every Wells is a distinct individual, a valuable person, shaped by a continuous life history.
... yes they're imaginary, but it breaks something to say so. We go visit with our imaginary friends, who continue to exist when we're not looking. Each one of them has in character and out of character possibilities. Or anyone can do anything (which is true because free will, but also *boring*).
If all Wells are Wells then people are interchangeable, swappable, replaceable,
and no.
Doctor Who logically did roughly the same thing. Doctor Who rebooted the universe. And as for continuity... I mean yeah but no but... they do their best u til they have another idea. So why don't I hate it on Doctor Who?
I don't know, but it dont feel the same.
I'm just having a great deal of difficulty continuing to care about post Crisis people
when the story tells us trillions of things are different now
they wont bother telling us which ones
they wont establish these characters as if they had to introduce them
they'll just expect the weight of caring to transfer to new, logically entirely different people,
partly because they just mindwiped the local instances and more or less copy pasted old versions over them
except for how they didnt.
It doesnt make sense! It's not meeting a new Wells necause they treat everyone as same same. But their entire world is diferent! They should be different! But they're not, because memories. But! If J'onn mindwiped a bunch of people, that would be monstrous. Do they look that in the eye? No!
So how do we keep caring when cause and effect is broken, these are different people except when they aren't, and their world isnt any way we expect it to be?
But this is a problem with comic book adaptations and the way they only pick up the aspects they consider both iconic and useful. This is a problem with *comics*, which do the same between writers.
I've rolled with it before.
I just... find myself objecting all over again.
*sigh*
Maybe I need to visit with different stories for a while.