the bold type – Just another WordPress site

August 9, 2020

Kat and Adena and Kate and Rana are both ships that were so good and then they did them So dirty

Yeah…my lgbt Muslim rep for a good chunk of time there…. :<

Honestly, I feel a lot worse about Kana than Kadena. When I heard that, even in the first season, TBT hadn’t originally been intending a happy ending for Kadena, I was like, hmm, because that can say a lot about what the writers think of a story, obviously they could have changed their minds and pursued it and really committed, which is what I was looking for in s2, but that’s not what happened. Kadena fell apart because they just didn’t care about them, and that was easy to see, over how many seasons? My investment was slowly snuffed out. It was just never going to be better, it wasn’t the result of a mistake or even multiple mistakes, they just didn’t care about them.

Kana’s ending, on the other hand, was…timing. Timing and a misguided decision. If not for Bhavna wanting out, they could have gone another way, they were committed to them. They built them up so genuinely and yeah, there was that weird baby snafu near the end but it was so sudden. They didn’t end them out of apathy or hate, they THOUGHT they were doing something poignant and everlasting with it. Which I disagree with, of course, but I understand what they thought they were doing. I guess with distance it’s worth considering which approach was right, ending something slowly or quickly. I would prefer neither, lol. :/

July 21, 2020

not the same anon but yes the girl they have kat with on the bold type is seriously that bad. she’s like a right wing immigration person and they play it off as just “little differences”. it’s a really shitty storyline and basically makes it seem that kat has no convictions cuz this woman shes dating is so obviously racist but they never would call her that or say it out loud.

Right, right, I was discussing this with a friend and we were talking about how they always have these characters in certain kinds of shows, to highlight how both sides have valid points and people who are conservative may not be that bad, how it’s just a difference of opinion and everyone can get along, but they so rarely show what those opinions explicitly are. Especially in these times, what it means to support Republicans, what it actually means and what the consequences are.

To the other anons who wrote in after the last ask, so…enthusiastically (^_^), I appreciate the nice words and the support, but you know, I do think people can still engage with media as shallowly as they want, if they’re able to compartmentalize that much. Of course, I’ll always support acknowledging the privilege that allows you to do that, like I do interrogating your preferences, why you like what you do, but it is still fiction and we’ve all ignored some messiness to like something. We like shows with killers, I still think Angie Harmon’s hot, I’m watching LA’s Finest right now even though they pulled a BYG. I’m much more about judging media for its trends and decisions than I am about the fans (unless they’re dismissing or reinforcing bigotry obviously).

It’s ironic, reading over this, how much more I personally agree with you two and yet am defending the anon I declined, feels like I’m enacting that first paragraph all over again, lol. “I’m not gonna give you a platform but feel free to do this elsewhere.” But I don’t feel it’s the same thing, criticizing fans is different from criticizing media, that’s not both-sidesing it. And some fans may well BE worthy of criticism, but based on the little I know, asking for a gifset of a f/f moment, I don’t have enough info to make a judgement on that.

March 6, 2020

Are you still watching the bold type? What are your thoughts on kadena and the future of this couple? The fandom seems to have all but disappeared from tumblr

I’m not, I haven’t watched for a while. I’ve seen what’s been going on with Kadena and of course it makes sense the shipping fandom in particular is quiet when one character is barely around, but I still see some TBT posts. And if there are fewer posts in general, well, shipping in general tends to get a lot of fandom engagement, and this case, a lot of the original fandom were shippers.

This is more negative than you might have expected so I’m putting it under a cut:

I have two pretty conflicting opinions on Kadena and one of them is a pretty unpopular opinion on their future. First, I think that this show, which would sometimes even in s1, lead with plot first, has become a lot about that, and Adena in particular suffers from that kind of writing. And as their only Muslim and only lesbian character, I dislike a lot of what they decide to do with her and it feels bizarre that they’ll drop her for such long chunks at a time. It’s not rep when a character’s not there.

But, as I said, the other conflicting and unpopular opinion, rep aside, just as a fan of coherent, internally consistent character writing, if Kat just isn’t really that into Adena, which is how all this comes across, just break them up for good. They didn’t seem interested in writing Adena as what she was, all the ways being a Muslim lesbian could have informed her character beyond what they showed in season 1, so just don’t. Don’t force yourself. I’d have side eyed that, but I side eye stuff I still watch all the time. It wouldn’t have been a dealbreaker. Just as long as the story is organic and not contrived because that’s what’s convenient. The more I find myself being pulled out of the story and having to connect the dots with my own justifications and wonder at what BTS drama made something happen, the less I want to watch.

If you’re asking about what I think the future of Kadena on the show might be, I think maybe they’ll go there again, maybe they’ll work through whatever issue there is now, I don’t really know.

January 12, 2020

Oh, absolutely, that storyline is absurd in any case, but I like the way Edie is like “why should I kiss other women?” (cause honestly why should she), and doing it just for Amanda instead of it being presented as a rite of passage. But you’re right it’s a stupid plot

Exactly! That’s what I really did not like in TBT’s treatment of it, that it was just like, a regular and expected thing. What did that say about people recently realizing they weren’t straight? That they couldn’t be expected to be faithful, they’d just NEED to sow their oats? Get it out of their system? It wasn’t any kind of actual exploration of open relationships of polyamory, instead it was about a newly bi person apparently needing to explore while the other person just…waited.

Much prefer the way Edie handled it like, oh, that’s what you expect of me? And then being like, actually, that was dumb, why would I go through all that to be with you to then play around with other people? (Though of course, not sure why she’s so upset that Amanda’s still influenced by her ex, considering what she went through with Tim.)