The Death Of Hope And The Murderers Who Killed It

The Death of Hope and the Murderers Who Killed It

As a person who watched this show consistently for the past 3 years, I can say that the biggest draw to this show was the equality in the partnership. As much as the Sleepy Hollow story is about Ichabod Crane, this show didn’t take place in his time period. It took place in hers. She was the touch stone. She was the audience’s point of reference. The human in the inhuman. The natural in the supernatural. They made her into a support beam when she was the foundation. Everyone loved the chemistry between the 2 characters and to have that constantly being thrown aside in season 2 and 3 was rude and oblivious. Sleepy Hollow had one of the largest minority supporting cast of any show right now, especially in the Sci first genre. Abbie was supposed to be a main character, the witness wife to Ichabod’s witness husband, but they treated her like a side chick. And on top of that, they played with us, the viewers, the fan base, so disgustingly.

They took all, that was sacred in this show burned it with Greek fire, had it dipped in acid, and fed it took Moloch’s minions. They went back on the biggest point of the serie’s mythos. It was the point that was hammered home every season. It was the reason the show was what it was. Every episode, every moment, every action was held to this idea. It was the reason Ichabod was saved in the first place. If it was not Abigail Mills he would fail. It was her presence, her existance, her partnership with him that made everything possible. She is not an interchangeable character. Yes, the witnesses support each other mutually, but the way things played out made Abbie’s character a stepping stool in HIS journey, rather than than a partner.

Sleepy Hollow writers made Ichabod into that kid in a project that gets all the credit for simply doing the easy half. They made him a coward. And on top of all that, after ship baiting all season, they couldn’t even be bothered to have him admit his feelings. Not even once. They tried top capitalise on us without giving us anything. They exploited the fan base and the fan base is very upset. They exploited Abbie and the fan base is livid. But because they exploited Nichole, there is no words for the hurt and rage the fan base currently feels.

At this point, it doesn’t matter who they bring in for the possible season 4. No one trusts them anymore. There is no fan base anymore. And a lot of people feel that even if they continue and bring in this relation of Abbie, she’s simply going to be an “appropriately white” relative. It will be the lightest of light skinned black girls. And who’s to say that they won’t just disregard their own timeline and mythos again and simp,y find some white girl who is going to be again distant relation? No matter who she is, she won’t have the same chemistry. She won’t be Abbie.

While I don’t particularly like this analogy, Ichabod is the brain and Abbie is the heart. As much as each one is important, the brain simply can’t survive without its heart. Abigail Mills stood for so much in an industry and genre the doesn’t love the Abigail Mills and Nichole Beharies of the world.

More Posts from Xenapuff and Others

xenapuff

9 years ago

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xenapuff

9 years ago

So this is it. The trending time is 3hrs. Why such a long trend?

Abbie’s death and our disappointment deserve a much longer time.

this is also a protest against Abbie’s treatment, not a memorial

this treatment is systemic and there are media projects featuring black female leads coming down the pipe, everyone needs to know that they can no longer do this easily and quietly

Why deserves instead of deserved?

Abbie Mills Deserves Better is a classic tag for this fandom. Under the Abbie Mills Deserves Better tag we did so much. Forced a course correction in S2,got characters and storylines that were dragging the show down booted, and even got a show runner replaced.

In hindsight we understand it was already too little, too late, but its a powerful tag for us and we’re sticking with it.

The trending period is three hours. The goal is to disrupt the tags and make as much noise as possible for as long as possible. We want to force them to deal with us just like we did before.

I know some of you are depressed. You gave your all and no longer see a point, but there is point. Our Abbie deserves this, we deserve to do it for her. She was unique in all American television and now she’s gone. We cannot allow her to go quietly or peacefully into the night. We cannot allow them to say what they did was meaningful or right when we know it was wrong.

To quote Zora Neale Hurston, “If you are silent about your pain, they will kill you and say you liked.” That is what they are trying to say about Abbie right now.

We must have the final word, we must shout the truth for all to hear, Abbie Mills Deserves Better!

We’re also inviting other fandoms and ships to participate with us.

100:

I love the fact that some of you have reached out to us, and are asking about what happened and in turn I took a moment to read up a bit on the recent death of the character Lexa. We definitely have something in common both of our groups were promised representation, both shows used our needs and our interests to string us along and in the end the promises were betrayed in an all too familiar pattern.

Your hours long twitter trend was amazing and we’d appreciate your help with the trend.

WestAllen,Olitz,Richonne and fam:

There is a lot of overlap. I watch The Flash, I’m still a Scandal viewer, I watched Merlin, some of you ship Richonne, some of you watched True Blood, Doctor Who, some of you watched Person of Interest.

We’ve all felt and experienced this before, its all too familiar and while Abbie was unique she had something very important in common with Martha Jones, Nyota Uhura, Queen Guinevere, Joselyn Carter, Michonne and too many others to name right now. I hope whether you watched Sleepy Hollow or not we can count on you show up and help us trend just like you know you can count on us, because this is for Abbie and all of you and all of us. Let’s send Abbie Mills out with a bang not a whimper.

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xenapuff

9 years ago

I just noticed that Nicole RTed this article. Honestly, as hurt as I am by Abbie’s death, I am SO proud of Nicole for standing up for herself and her craft. She really deserves so much better than what the TPTB of SH gave her and it’s so inspiring to me that she was willing to give up what- from the outside may have seemed like a secure job- because she was able to recognize her own worth. Go Nicole!

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xenapuff

9 years ago

Apparently the writers considered Ichabod to be the lead, and Abbie an important but not necessarily vital element.

A.V.Club (via matsaidwelcme)

And there it is!

They never thought that Nicole would be the popular one

(via nickey79)

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xenapuff

9 years ago