Regarding The Future ….
As I write this it has been less than a day since the airing of the Glee series finale Dreams Come True. I’ve planned for quite some time to have the debut of WildeAbrams.com coincide with the weekend of the Glee series finale. I was expecting it to follow the expected end game status of Kartie, Wildebrams, WildeAbrams, Artitty, whatever your ship name of choice is.
Obviously that didn’t happen; and Ryan, Ian, and Brad (RIB) chose to take the characters of Artie and Tina back seven years in their development, or in Tina’s case lack of development; and put them back together. As I sit here I’m still shell shocked by this development as well as the overall finale itself which I will go into in another blog post in the next day or two. What’s important now is that once again RIB pulled the wool over our eyes and basically screwed us over.
Like most Kartie shippers I am sitting here feeling outraged and betrayed by this turn of events. It wouldn’t be so bad if they had actually had a reason for it, but they really hasn’t been one. They spent a good chunk of season four developing Kitty and Artie’s friendship which eventually became more in the beginning of season five. There were apparently absolutely no problems in their relationship. They actually appeared to be one of the healthiest relationship on the show and were both a fan and cast favorite. In the middle of season five they broke up Kitty and Artie for the sole reason that they were writing the so called newbies, including the character of Kitty, out of the show and taking the show to an all New York format. This of course didn’t last long because the second half of season five had record low ratings and Fox apparently told our RIB that they needed to try something different in season six. Their answer, as we all know, was to bring everyone back to Lima and have Rachel and Kurt of all people relaunch the glee club. Season six has definitely had its share of ups and downs, hits and misses, but I think overall it’s been better than most of us expected.
To me personally, and I’m sure a lot of you, one of the greatest things that happen this year is the increased role that Kitty received. Not only did they bring her back, but she actually got guest star status and ended up appearing in more episodes that most of the “originals”. [10 of 13, most originals got 4 or 5] Kitty was the student leader of the new directions. When we first met her again, yes she was very upset with Artie and with everyone else in general, but this didn’t last very long and when they were reunited a few episodes into the season, they appeared to be on the road to reconciliation to at least being friends; and honestly it’s certainly appeared as if they were heading back to more than friends if you pay attention to their body language and the looks that they gave each other when they interacted with each other. For the life of me I don’t understand why they did this! If they were going to go a different route they didn’t have to do any of it all! It feels like a cruel joke. Yes, in all fairness, we did get a foreshadowing of sorts in the form of a brief Tartie scene at the end of A Wedding. However, most of us took this to be yet another joke at the expense of poor Tina who had just been rejected by her one time love Mike.
So where does this leave us Wildebrams shippers?
First of all, I want to point out something. The Glee final episode did show Tina and Artie interacting with each other in a very intimate fashion, including one kiss. However the episode itself never said that they were dating and certainly never said that they were married, so I’m going to treat this as an implied end game, not in expressly stated one. I’m sure that there are some Tartie shippers who will believe otherwise and that’s the right. But this is how I choose to take it and I would encourage most of you to do likewise.
I really like what my friend Holly (MyGoldStar) wrote in the introduction to the final chapter of her story “On My Way” last night:
“At the moment of writing, the finale literally finished nine minutes ago. Apart from St. Berry (which I guess can’t be helped) and no Finn mention in Rachel’s Tony Award speech, and also WildeAbrams not being endgame, the double episode was perfect. It was a perfect end to a perfect TV show which gave me so much acceptance and courage throughout the last few years. I’m going to miss it so much.
But what’s saying it has to go away? We are Glee, guys. Glee will live on in fanfiction. You don’t like Tartie? Go ahead and change it. You don’t like Rachel’s acceptance speech? Go ahead and change it. You want to see Klaine as parents? Go ahead and write it. It’s up to us to keep Glee alive for years to come. Only we can write the season 7, 8, 9 and so forth that we all crave. Do it the way you want it. Do it the way that makes you happy.”
I don’t agree with her overall impression of the episode. She might feel differently if Klaine hadn’t been endgame. But I do agree with what she said about fanfiction.
We are Glee my friends! The show is over. Everything has been filmed and aired. The sets are struck, props and wardrobe disposed of or disbursed to where those kinds do things go when a show ends. The writers and actors have all moved on to other jobs, and it is up to us to keep the glee spirit alive in fanfiction, fanart and whatever other means that we have.
Many of us don’t like the way the show ended. Fair enough. Let’s fix it! Glee is actually one of the shows on fanfiction.net that has the most stories written about it. I’d like to think that this is largely due to the fact that the show created such engaging characters, and left so many things unresolved and unexplored. This is really no different.
So where does this leave me personally?
Well, once I get over the initial shock of it all, it’s not really going to change a whole lot for me. I’m still a fan of Glee and of the characters and of the stories. I own all the DVD sets and season six is on preorder. I’m not going to just suddenly stop enjoying what we heave already gotten just because I don’t like what the writers did at the end.
Where does it leave my fanfiction?
Honestly it really doesn’t change a whole lot for me. The majority of my stories that are included in The Ballad of Kitty and Artie, A New Beginning, Wedding Song, and eventually Homecoming, along with a few standalone stories are only “canon compliant” up through the episode New New York. After that they are AU and only incorporate the bits and pieces from the show that I wanted to use. This is a decision that I made long time ago, and RIB giving us an unsatisfactory ending doesn’t really change that.
I intend to continue working on these stories as I had always intended. I’m not abandoning the Wilde Abrams Glee Season Six One Shots either. I intend to continue these as planned. However, of course, I as promised I will deliver a Wilde Abrams end game regardless of how the show chose to end it. Exactly how I am going to do this remains to be determined. However the first major steps of their reconciliation are already written and in the next day or so I will be publishing a brief sample. What I’m going to do about Dreams Come True I still don’t know. It’s something I’m going to have to give some serious thought to and if you are so inclined please feel free to give me some suggestions.
Tim,
AKA Wilde Abrams
March 21, 2015