#Guess who is doing a lot of research lately into comic history!

[drifting-pieces-blog-blog]

Marc Spector: based on a real guy?

I would like to propose Barney "Beryl" Ross (born Dov-Ber Rasofsky) (1909-1967) as a stand-in for possible Marc Spector inspiration or at least a REALLY odd coincidence. The parallels are outstanding.

Born to Eastern European Immigrant parents (From Belarus), he grew up in a tough Chicago neighborhood. 

His father was a Rabbi who looked down on fighting like Boxing and Wrestling. 

When Barney expressed interest and talent in boxing, his father told him to "Let the goyim be the fighters" and that "The trombeniks (yiddish for phony and self aggrandizer), the murderers--We are the scholars." 

Barney studied the Talmud as well and expressed interest in becoming a teacher. 

His father was murdered when someone robbed their family vegetable shop. His mother suffered a mental breakdown and his three younger siblings were sent to an orphanage when Barney was just 14. 

Barney became a thief, a gambler, and worked for Al Capone. He eventually found his money in boxing where it is speculated that Al Copone himself often promoted his shows and bought up the tickets to help him make money. 

He used the money to reunite his family. 

His career took off during the rise of Antisemitism and while Barney rejected his father's teachings and religion, he understood that he was seen as a "scrappy Jew Kid" and he needed to become a representative for his people. 

His walk into the ring song was "My Yiddishe Momma" and he often wore blue and white with the Magen David on his clothes. 

In the ring himself, he became a world champion in three weight divisions. He was never knocked out. 

His last match before he retired he went 15 rounds where he took a severe beating. His couch begged him to call it, but he refused to go down. He was determined to leave the ring on his own feet". He had 72 wins in his career, 22 of which were by K.O. 

When WWII broke out, he joined the Marines. Because of his stardome, they tried to keep him as just a pretty poster face recruit, but he insisted on fighting. 

He was almost court-martialed when his commanding officer called him a Jewish Slur and he punched him out. He was spared because the judge was also jewish. 

Barney was sent to the Pacific Theater and fought at Guadalcanal where he single handedly fought off no less than five armed Japanese soldiers after being shot. He then rescued his fellow soldier by carrying them to safety. He was awarded the Silver Star. 

Despite his complicated relationship with his religion, he was known for bringing his father's religious study books with him to training camp. 

In the war, he made friends with a catholic priest who invited him to Christmas Dinner. Barney could play the pipe organ and he provided music for the soldiers. When asked to play something Jewish, he played "My Yiddishe Momma" that left everyone in tears. 

After his wounds healed, he developed a morphine addiction that he went to rehab for and eventually recovered. He went to schools and campaigned about the dangers of drug abuse. 

He worked hard for the creation of a Jewish State and offered to lead a brigade of Jewish American Veterans. 

The Jewish Community saw him as a hero and with his back story, he fit the bill of superhero status. 

A tragic backstory, rejection of his father's life and teachings, rising up out of the rough streets, becoming a fighter, and eventually a real life war hero and fighter for Jewish Rights. 

(Check out his biography- Barney Ross: The Life of a Jewish Fighter, by Douglas Century and his autobiography No Man Stands Alone.) 

Moench most certainly did not base Marc Spector off of Barney Ross. He didn't set about making the character obviously Jewish at first. It happened naturally for various other reasons. 

But Moench also didn't give Marc his back story. 

That would be Zelenetz. 

Moon Knight Vol 1. Issue #37.  Published 1984

Writer: Alan Zelenetz

Artist: Bo Hampton

Cover Artist: Michael Kaluta 

Now, I've broken this comic down before. HERE. But let's talk about the importance of THIS story. 

You see, after the war, no one wanted to talk about the Holocaust. Most survivors didn't want to talk about what they had been through and most others liked to pretend that nothing happened. 

It wasn't until the 90s that they came up with an actual mandate that it be taught in schools! 

It wasn't until then that it suddenly became apparent that we needed to hear from the survivors and we needed to record the history before the first hand accounts were lost. 

Until this time, the only stories being told were done in comics. 

Early comics used it as a grotesque way to add in horror and action and violence. When the Comic book code of ethics stepped in (big shot guys that put down the law for swears being &#^$% and no sex and violence rating systems), then comic writers found 'creative' ways to use Nazi as the villain and ambiguously talk about their targets without mentioning their actual crimes or the people they targeted. 

THAT would change when Spiegelman's Maus was published in 1980. 

A keen observer will note the date Moon Knight Vol 1 came out. November 1980! 

Now, Marc has fought Neo Nazi before and has even faced antisemitism. He's even gone to Jerusalem. But we have never had Marc connected to the Holocaust or explored his Jewish past before Zelenetz told this story. 

“I grew up on the poor side of Chicago. My father was unconcerned with material things. ‘God loves a poor man.’ He’d say. ‘Poor in goods, rich in spirit.’” 

Sounds familiar, right? 

 And while Marc is an extreme example, we see the conflict with the Rabbi father and the son who wants to fight. 

In this same issue we see Moon Knight rescue a Rabbi and Torah from a burning synagogue that has a Swastika painted on the door. 

Moon Knight hunts down the Nazi punks and makes them hurt. 

In this issue and the next, we see Marc deal with his conflicted past regarding religion, his Rabbi father, and his choice to fight vs his father’s choice to ‘leave it to god’. 

We also find out in this issue that the reason Marc joined the Marines is because of his father’s rejection. 

"To become Moon Knight--A social conscience and moral force. Just, severe, unknowable." 

I won't replay the comic for you guys, as I've already reviewed it (though I've learned a LOT since then and I'm sure I could bring more things to light at this point... Like the fact that to bring Elias back from the dead they write the Hebrew word Emet 'truth' on his forehead. Marlene erases part of the word, leaving behind Met, which is Hebrew for 'To Die' and this sends him back to his death). 

In the ending issue, and last issue of Moon Knight’s first run, we are left with: 

"I may have misjudged my father's saintliness for cowardice and his genius and moral zeal for fanaticism. [...] And isn't moon knight in his own way a moral zealot fighting perhaps for the very same values Marc Spector once rejected?" 

Back to Alan Zelentez. 

Alan only had Moon Knight for a few issues, but he was the first and as far as my limited research has shown me, the only actually Jewish writer to get to work with Moon Knight (I hope I am pleasantly surprised as I get further into things...but I'm not holding my breath). 

Zelenetz fit a LOT of Jewish lore and fun snippets into this comic that only those that have studied Jewish folklore and the culture would easily pick out. 

He was a Junior High School and High school principal at an Orthodox Jewish school in Brooklyn. 

He worked as an editor, script writer, Judica advisor for film and helped get a few other comics started and established. 

Now, is it likely that a Jewish man in Brooklyn heard about the son of a Rabbi from Eastern Europe in Chicago who turned into an amazing boxer and later a Marine war hero? Only Zelenetz knows for sure. 

[amalgamgooze]

"comic creator," in the beginning and ever shall be.

Okay. They're not good comics.

They haven't ever really been good comics and I doubt they'll ever be good comics.

In fact, I don't think I'll be sharing them any time soon.

But I'm drawing comics for myself again.

I drew comics nonstop back in like, elementary and middle school, and I stopped for a while after seventh grade.

It's been too long since I've drawn a square on a sheet of paper and started telling a story in that panel.

So tonight, for old time's sake, I've picked up the pencil again and have started drawing panels for another (angsty) comic.

...

Everything I've done these past seven-or-so years.

All the little practices that I did with the intent to get better at something.

I'm starting to see it really pay off now that I'm trying *actual* projects again.

And all the studying too.

For a long time, I was afraid that I wasn't really absorbing any information when I researched concepts (like posing and character design) without immediately putting them to practice.

And the semi-passive research too.

Most of the media I've consumed has been through an analytical lens (which, that doesn't mean I didn't also enjoy what I was experiencing!). As I've grown older, I've become better at analyzing stories and cinematography and stuff like that, and breaking it down into what makes what work.

...

But enough about growth. This isn't about how much I've grown.

It's about where I've sort of paradoxically come from.

Listen. I could talk about my own development and personality for HOURS. There's so much nuance and stuff that I'm still trying to figure out.

But it's not narcissistic self-talk. I'm not trying to, like, make myself the center of attention 100% of the time all the time.

I'm just more fascinated by what I was. Honestly, I'd probably be fascinated by who a lot of people were.

...

Math used to be such a miniscule part of who I was.

I was more focused on Making Stuff.

Like, Any Stuff.

Business models for lemonade stands.

Presentations on the history of board games.

Ideas for inventions and mobile apps.

And, of course, comics.

I'd stay up late at night, drawing comics on a clipboard under the light of a desk lamp that'd been clamped onto my bed.

...

God, I wish I were still that productive, hah.

...

And now here we are.

I make music, games, doodles, blog posts, and, well, math stuff too.

...

I guess I was kind of always a "smart kid" in that regard.

But I don't think that meant I was supposed to go into STEM or stuff like that.

...

I don't know. It's probably just better for me to make the things I like to do solely as passion projects.

...

Yeah. I think I'll leave it at that for now.

TLDR: I've re-realized my passion for making comics, but it's also evoked some confusion in me.

And I guess my internship also starts tomorrow.

Yippie.

All I can hope is that they make me do more programming this year.

Because I love programming and math.

[maxwell-grant]

Excuse Me what is pulp and why is it importan?

Good question! And probably one I should have answered sooner. Time to put on the historian hat for this one.

"Pulp" is a term used mainly to describe forms of storytelling that sprang out or were dominant in 20th century cheap all-fiction American magazines from the 1900s to the 1950s. The pulp magazine began in 1896, when Frank Munsey's Argosy magazine, in order to cut costs, dropped the non-fiction articles and photographs and switched from glossy paper to the much less expensive wood pulp paper, hence the name. The pulp magazines would mainly take off as a distinct market and format in 1904, when Street & Smith learned that Popular Magazine, despite being marketed towards boys, was being consumed by men of all ages, so they increased page count and started putting popular authors on the issues.

It was specifically the 1905 reprint of H.Rider Haggard's Ayesha that not only put Street & Smith on the map as rivals to Argosy, but also inspired other companies to start publishing in the pulp format. Pulps encompassed literally everything that the authors felt like publishing. Westerns, romance, horror, sci-fi, railroad stories, war stories, war aviation stories. Zeppelins had a short-lived subgenre. Celebrities got their own magazines, it was really any genre or format they could pull off, anything they could get away with.

Nowadays, although they came quite late in it's history, the American pulps are most famous for it's "hero pulps", characters like The Shadow and Doc Savage that are viewed as a formative influence on comic book superheroes. The pulp magazines in America lasted until the 1950s, when cumulative factors such as paper shortages, diminishing audience returns and the closing of it's biggest publishers led to it dying off, although in the decades since there's always been publishers calling their magazines pulp. That's the American pulp history.

But pulps are a phenomenon that spans the entire world and has a much bigger history to it, because pulps have become synonymous with cheap fiction magazines and those have a much bigger history. In America, before the pulps, you had the dime novels, the direct predecessors of the pulps, as well as the novelettes. England had it's penny dreadfuls and story papers, and continued publishing pulp-format magazines past the American 1950s, and that's how we got Elric of Melniboné. France and Russia arguably got to it first with it's 1800s coulporters, chapbooks and particularly the feuilletons which lasted all the way to the 20th century and created characters such as Arsene Lupin, Fantomas and The Phantom of the Opera. The Germans published pulp under the name hefteromane. Japan also published pulp magazines both original as well as imported, and the current "light-novel" phenomenon started off as an equivalent of pulp magazines (it's even on the Wikipedia page). China has wuxia, Brazil has cordel, Italy has gialli. There were Indian, Persian, Ethiopian, Canadian, Australian pulps and much more. Look anywhere in the world and you'll find examples of "pulp" happening again and again, under different circumstances and time periods.

Even if we stick to American fiction, it's impossible to state that all pulp heroes must come from the 1900s-1950s pulp magazines, because that forces us to exclude some of the most popular pulp heroes like Indiana Jones, Green Hornet, Rocketeer and The Phantom. Pulp may have once been a term meant to refer to pulp magazines exclusively, but it's morphed and lost structure and it's become the closest thing we have to a general umbrella term that allows us to try and consolidate these under a shared history. It's a lot, as you can see, and it's why several pulp historians that broaden their scope outside of 1930s American fiction have adopted Roland Barthes's definition of pulp as "A Metaphor With No Brakes In It", which is still the closest thing to a true working definition we have.

Why is it important? You tell me. I don't like to stake claims about stuff being "important", everyone's got their own priorities in life. Surely a lot of people would scoff at the idea of old populist fiction published in what was functionally equivalent to toilet paper having any sort of "importance". On the other hand, some people definitely want to talk big about the pulps as a cultural bedrock of fiction, something that's baked into the lifeblood of all fiction as we currently know it. Which it is, mind you, but I don't like to talk about pulp fiction's value being derived mainly from merely the things it inspired.

There is definitely a historical importance to be had in cataloguing them. According to the US's foremost pulp researcher Jess Nevins, 38% of all American pulps no longer exist, and 14% of all American pulps survive in less than five copies. Many libraries have very scant, if any, records on them, many collectors are hard to locate and are uncooperative when it comes to sharing information and letting outsiders view their collections. A lot of them are bound up in legal complications that prevents them from taking off in the public domain, and a lot of them ARE public domain but are completely inacessible as research material. And that's the American pulps, foreign pulps have fared far worse in posterity, with records inaccessible to people unfamiliar with the language or locations, many existing merely in mentions on decades-old records, and hundreds if not thousands of them being completely gone beyond recovery or recall.

Gone, dead, wasted, destroyed. They can't be found in barbershops or warehouse or bookstores, not even in antique stores. Hundreds, thousands of characters, stories and creators, gone. Time and posterity have crushed them to dust, forgotten and ignored by their successors. Unfettered by pretenses of respectability that repressed their glossier counterparts, in packages meant to be destroyed after reading, proudly announcing itself as trash. Things that should have never even lasted as long as they did have died many times now. It's heroes peripherical shapeshifters, nearly all of whom seem dead, quite dead, as dead as fictional characters can possibly be.

But they do not die forever. Many of them have, maybe most of them have, but many of them linger on.

"The strange red flickering of 1930’s fiction seems distant now.  You hold in your hand the product of a time too remote to recall, and feel a slow stir of wonder.  The smell of pulp pages, an illustration, an advertisement, these fragile things mark the slow hammering of time and display what it has done.  About you are today’s machines, today’s shadows.

Outside the window, leaves hang against the sky, as did leaves during the 1930’s.  The sound of voices are no different then than now.  You hold the magazine and feel something quite delicate slipping past. These solid forms surrounding you are all insubstantial. Time’s hammer will also pass across them, leaving little enough behind." - Spider, by Robert Sampson

Many of the things people call dead are just things that have been sleeping for a while or haven't had the chance to be born. Pulp fiction is dead on the page, inert, unless your imagination breathes live to it, and every now and then, one way or another, these characters dig themselves out of dustbins. Maybe it's a brief revival, maybe it's a successful reboot. Maybe they find publishers, or maybe the public domain allows them to find new life. Maybe new creators do interesting things with them, and maybe, just maybe, they live again because some won't shut up about them online. Some curious impulse led you to me, did it not? 

We all have our Frankensteins to obsess over, and these are some of mine. As someone who's lived a life perpetually restless over pursuit of knowledge, pulp has lured me like a moth to flame, because I literally never run out of things to discover within it, I never run out of possibilities. As the years pass and the public domain starts being more and more open to the public, more and more narrative real state is brought forth for writers and artists and creators to play around.

Pulp is the dark matter of fiction, the uncatalogued depths of the ocean, the darkest recesses of space. It's the box of your grandfather's belongings, the treasure you find in an attic, a body part sticking out from an old playground. It's the things that don't work, don't succeed, the things that don't fit, that are out of place. That shouldn't live and succeed, and did so anyway. The things that slither in the cracks, the shadows behind the curtain.

Aren't you interested in peering on what's behind the curtain?

The exquisite workmanship of the head, of a pre-pyramidal age, and the hieroglyphics, symbols of a language that was forgotten when Rome was young–these, Kane sensed, were additions as modern to the antiquity of the staff itself as would be English words carved on the stone monoliths of Stonehenge.

As for the cat-head–looking at it sometimes Kane had a peculiar feeling of alteration; a faint sensing that once the pommel of the staff was carved with a different design. The dust-ancient Egyptian who had carved the head of Bast had merely altered the original figure, and what that figure had been, Kane had never tried to guess.

A close scrutiny of the staff always aroused a disquieting and almost dizzy suggestion of abysses of eons, unprovocative to further speculation. - The Footfalls Within, by Robert E Howard, quoted by Stuart Hopen’s The Mythic American Culture

[nevermindirah]

Yitzhak!

is a character! who Gregadiah What-Is-Math Rucka gave us almost no information about!

I've gone through Tales Through Time #6: The Bear and #1: My Mother's Axe with several magnifying glasses and done a lot of googling and taken my copy of the Tanakh off my shelf for the first time since (well, since the last time I needed to read Torah for TOG reasons, which I think was Booker Passover headcanons) and here's the best I can come up with.

In The Bear we meet someone who goes by the name Isaac Blue:

Read on for a lot of comic panel analysis and historical research and Jewish flailing!

So what do we know about this Isaac Blue person?

He's Lorge, he's got curly hair, he's basically a taller version of Joe as drawn by Leandro Fernández (ie an antisemitic stereotype why the fuck did they approve this character design?? and then why did they double down and copy-paste it to Yitzhak??):

He's got a mezuzah on the doorpost of his house in Alaska!

I screamed about the mezuzah way back in January in this post where I (very reasonably) assumed this character was Joe and spun myself a tale about how Booker is still Joe's brother so the mezuzah stays up even though Booker isn't welcome in that house for a century. Bottom line: the mezuzah is a tradition with origins in the commandment from Deuteronomy 6:9 to "write the words of G-d on the gates and doorposts of your house" and evolved over the course of the Rabbinic period into the modern mezuzah we see here.

I did unnecessary levels of google image search to glean absolutely no useful information about Yitzhak’s origins from this panel:

I've decided the variant cover of TTT 6 is Yitzhak because of a panel in My Mother’s Axe, shown here, and what's likely an unnecessarily deep reading of Exodus, discussed further down:

The person at the right of the bottom panel is wearing the same clothes as in the TTT 6 variant cover and has the same shoulder-length curly hair and hairy forearms.

Left to right, the people in this panel are Lykon (I'll never get used to him being white in the comics), Andy, Noriko (I think? why doesn't Andy mention her by name here?), and Yitzhak. Andy's robe has a stereotypically Greek design on the sleeve cuff, and I had to stop myself 10 minutes into a Wikipedia rabbit hole because Gregorforth doesn't think that deep about this shit. The solid clues as to timeline that we get in this panel are:

Andy's iron axe

the presence of Lykon, who Andy first met in 331 BCE

So all we know is that Yitzhak is an immortal, he was a contemporary of Lykon, and he's Jewish.

Isaac is the most common Anglicization of Yitzhak (which in turn is the most common Anglophone transliteration of יִצְחָק‎), and Greg always uses the (transliterated) Hebrew when he refers to this character. Yitzhak is the long-awaited child of Abraham and Sarah in Genesis, the child who G-d commanded Abraham to sacrifice but spared at the last minute. I see what you did there, Gregory.

Why Isaac Blue? This is where I pulled out my Tanakh. According to the New JPS translation, blue is the first of three colors of yarn listed in Exodus 35:6 among the gifts requested of the Israelites to construct the priestly garments for the Tabernacle and later the Temple. Then in Numbers 15:38 the Israelites are commanded to "make themselves fringes on the corners of their garments throughout the ages; let them attach a cord of blue to the fringe at each corner."

And now for sandbox timelines party! Gregadiah gave us ALMOST NOTHING to go on, so I'm gonna make my own fun.

I, like many modern Jews, think the stories in the Tanakh are foundational mythology that are valuable because of how they've shaped our people but that contain some fucked-up shit and either way aren't meant to be a record of historical facts. Modern scholarship generally agrees that the community we now call Jews emerged as a distinct group of Canaanites sometime in the late Bronze Age (cw this video's host says the Name of G-d aloud despite being a religious studies scholar who knows that is not a name anyone but the Temple priests are allowed to say). The first non-Biblical written record of the people Israel is from an Egyptian source c. 1200 BCE, and the Biblical kingdom of David and Solomon was probably an exaggeration of whatever really happened during the Bronze Age Collapse. We start getting into historical-fact territory a few centuries into the Iron Age:

588 BCE Solomon's Temple destroyed, Babylonian exile begins

538 BCE Cyrus of Persia allows Jews to return to Jerusalem

515 BCE Second Temple construction complete

332 BCE Alexander the Great At Something I Guess conquered Judea, beginning the Hellenistic period of Jewish history — 331 BCE Andy & Lykon find each other

167 BCE another jerkface Greek king desecrated the Temple and basically outlawed Judaism

164 BCE recapture of Jerusalem and Temple rededication during the Maccabean Revolt

70 CE destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans, beginning of the Rabbinic period of Jewish history that we're still in now

What if... and hear me out... what if immortals come in pairs, and the pairs are:

Andy & Quynh

Joe & Nicky

Booker & Nile

LYKON & YITZHAK

What if Yitzhak was a priest of the Second Temple? What if he and Lykon killed each other just like Joe and Nicky would in the same city around 1300 years later, but instead of enemies-to-lovers speedrun with an absurdly long happily-ever-after, when Lykon died permanently Yitzhak decided to separate from Andy and Noriko and become the hermit we later see in Alaska?

We don't know how old Yitzhak is compared to the others, only that he was a contemporary of Lykon at a time when Andy was using an Iron Age version of her mother's axe. Other plausible origins for him:

a Jew of the early Rabbinic period, maybe a child or grandchild of people who were still alive before the Second Temple was destroyed

a Judean of the Second Temple era under the Romans or Greeks or Persians, maybe a priest, maybe not

an exilee in Babylon, maybe of the generation who got to return, maybe of the generation who was exiled (he doesn't look like he was 50 at his first death but who knows, he could've been mortal for both)

an Israelite of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, maybe a priest of Solomon's Temple or again maybe not

an Israelite wandering in the desert with Moses

THEE Yitzhak, ben Avraham v'Sarah, our patriarch who was brought up for sacrifice and then spared, and then spared again, and then spared again, and again, and again...

or! he could also be a Canaanite or other Levantine who predates the people Israel, who at some point in his very long life chose to join our mixed multitude, who like Andromache before him (and like Avram and Sarai would in this case do after him) took a new name to reflect the magnitude of influence this people has had on him

Why do I keep saying Yitzhak might have been a priest? It's thanks to the one detail in the artwork I could plausibly connect to solid research without getting a PhD real quick. Take a look at the gorgeous detail on the opening of his robe in the TTT 6 cover. He's dressed in rags, holes and dirt everywhere, rough stitches probably from hasty repair work — except for the neck opening. Compare that to this description from Exodus 39:23 of the construction of the priestly garments for the Tabernacle: "The opening of the robe, in the middle of it, was like the opening of a coat of mail, with a binding around the opening, so that it would not tear."

The next verses describe the intricate designs for the hem of the priestly garment. Yitzhak's ragged garment looks like the hem was torn off entirely.

Am I overthinking this? Yes I am! You're welcome!

My friend and historical research hero @lady-writes​ is in a Discord server with Gregadiah and asked the man himself some questions about all this. He clearly thinks he's being sneaky?? No shit Yitzhak is Jewish, dude, I want DETAILS!

I will not be giving up my Jewish Booker headcanon, I've put too much thought into it by now, the internalized shame of antisemitism explains Booker's depression too well for me, and it just adds so much richness to Booker/Nile both being children of forced diasporas. Fortunately (for him, not me, bc I'd do it anyway!) Gregothy supports fan headcanons even when they're not in line with his own:

One last thing before I close like 100 research tabs and go back to writing historical fantasy and/or porn! I love that, despite that atrocious caricature of a face design, our canon Jew and our fanon Jew are both Lorge and Soft and Kind, flying the face of the antisemitic stereotype of Ashkenazi Jewish men as small and weak, but also not falling into the New Jew / Muscle Jew stereotype that Zionism created. (I am trying SO HARD not to talk about Israel/Palestine for once ughhhhhhhhhh) Anyway here's a (US-centric but very good) primer on both these stereotypes of Jewish masculinity. Is this why I'm forever projecting my transmasc diasporist feels onto Jewish Booker the service sub? 🤷🏻‍♂️

I’ll reblog a second version of this with full image descriptions so that there’s a version accessible for folks who need IDs as well as a version accessible for folks who get overwhelmed by walls of text.

[illumiru]

Ooh can u talk about ur theory where batcest fucked up fanon?

okay sorry for taking so long anon- i was very sleepy when i got this. take all of this with a grain of salt bc i joined the fandom late and i made a huge guess on what might have happened based on patterns from previous fandoms and my knowledge of fandom history. and hearsay from older fans.

BUT okay, my THEORY is that people who made b*tcest content then at the initial rise of the modern dc fandom probably watched young justice first and then go on to read a few comics here and there to discover their favorite robin. young justice was around the time new 52 became a thing so for a lot of fans at that time, that's usually their introduction to the rest of the batfam.

fandom does and fandom is wont to do though and since the batboys p much look like each other, they skewed their characterizations into easily digestible shallow tropes to make it easier to distinguish one robin from the other.

dick got saddled with the sunshine cuddle-monster (highly suspect this was influenced by young justice and n52), jason is the bad boy with the heart of gold, the draco in leather pants (possibly rhato influenced), tim is the sad uwu twink coffee super genius (red robin influenced) and damian's personality is either hellspawn or diagnosed 13 years old. (depends if they like damian or not).

the thing with the batfandom though is that a lot of them tend to be insular. so when it comes to dc content, they consume batfam content ONLY. knowing fandom, they can't consume content without shipping so they're like why not with each other? around the time, people are also a lot more likely to ship incest and don't consider adopted siblings actually related so it's seen as "not as bad."

that said, b*tcest has existed way before this period. even in batman year one: deluxe edition, there was a comic that said that some people saw batman and robin as a metaphor for homosexuality. (what the fuck)

and there were livejournal groups for batslash. that said, fandoms were very small pockets of community at the time instead of the consolidated mass it will be on tumblr. so from what i heard from older fans is that at the very least people who were making any kind of fan content have read the comics. i think i read a meta that dick's fanon self at the time tended to be a bit like his outsiders self.

anyways, there wasn't even a reliable archive besides fanfiction dot net. so if people made ooc b*tcest fic or art then, it won't have the reach it has now in influencing fellow fans. (that said, dc managed to hire a writer who ships br*dick, giving these b*tcest shippers fuel. the resulting mischaracterization of the way devin writes dick will help fuel his fanon self later on. so that's one example already of how b*tcest fucked up fanon)

so with the influx of new fans from young justice and the rise of tumblr, modern dc fandom was born and in came the b*tcest shippers with fanon characterizations based off the show and n52 comics and their own headcanons.

with the way tumblr is set up, it's easy for non-fans of the franchise to see content from your fandom so people who haven't read the comics started coming in as well because they liked the fan content they saw. comics is a very daunting medium for people to get into because of the amount of material that can conflict with each other there is. so a lot of these new fans like to consume only fanon.

with the amount of b*tcest artists and writers there was, even people who didn't ship it would see non-explicit fanon content from these creators and assume it's is accurate. and so, the fanon characterizations became slowly accepted and popular and they end up adapting these b*tcest shippers' headcanons as well.

it did not help that a lot of b*tcest shippers will make meta to make certain batfam members closer than they actually are. and people took this plus the out of context panels as word of god of how they actually act around each other.

for example of fanon things that might be influenced by b*tcest

batfam living all in the manor (they don't.)

jason and tim's closeness with another (besides that one lobdell page where jason said tim's the only one he can stand and we shouldn't even consider bc lobdell does jackshit to research, they weren't very close at all.)

jason's use of the baby bird nickname for tim (major red flag)

dick being promiscuous/a womanizer/someone who likes getting naked (he's not. there's much canon evidence of him being uncomfortable with being objectified, unsure about nudity and being extremely monogamous. it's just a mischaracterization perpetuated by devin grayson (br*dick shipper) and tim seeley (hack)

i could list more (or you guys can comment more) but i'm honestly losing steam writing this. jnfenf i think as a fandom, we're getting better at debunking fanon at least - especially since the influx of batfans has slowed down compared to its peak. plus, inc*st is being more and more widely denounced in fandom spaces at all.

anyway, those are my rambling thoughts on how b*tcest shippers influenced fanon jkfnjkenf

[michaels-blackhat]

thoughts on evil Forrest 😈

We are going to start out by apologizing. This is very very late. I’m sure when you sent this ask, you meant it to be in the same joking tone that I approach all of my other propaganda posts. Sadly, this is actually going to be a deep dive into a few Evil Forrest related things, including the moment I feel they changed directions, the perfect wasted build-up, and the implications of the change/how it then negatively impacted the story. As I’m sure you already know, by being on my blog at all, I don’t think the story was good to begin with, so we are going to focus on the weird hoops they made themselves jump through to make that story still work. Additionally, I am only going to mention once, right now, how much of a waste it was to not have Forrest ‘fall for his mark’ and complete one of my absolute favorite tropes. Honestly, I think “because I want it” is a completely valid reason to like Evil Forrest. But, the question was “Thoughts on Evil Forrest” and these thoughts have been developing for over a year and a half. So, I apologize in advance.

The majority of this is under a cut, with highlights in the abstract. If no one wants to read this, I understand completely. Go ahead, skip it.

Note: it pains me greatly to not actually have full sources for this essay. Just know that in my heart I am using proper APA citations, I just absolutely do not feel like digging through tweets to find sources to properly cite.

Abstract:

Previous research indicates that Roswell New Mexico has a history of repeating excuses to explain mid-season changes to plots. This essay explores how those excuses are not only loads of crap, but how they hinder the show’s ability to tell a coherent story, misuse the multiple-plot structure to enhance the themes being explored, and lead to decisions that mean the show continuously goes over budget. This also means that characters are not used to their full potential and has led to what some fans consider to be “out of character” behaviors. While these behaviors are not universally agreed on, evidence can be shown that these behaviors directly contradict emotionally important character arc/plot points in the show.

The author of this paper acknowledges that the show took some strides to mend this problem. However, once again no consensus could be found on whether Forrest was a low-level member of Deep Sky and thus just allowed to fuck off on a bus, or his job was recruitment because he did a piss poor job of making Alex not join.

The concept of Evil Forrest has been with the fandom as early as New York Comic Con (NYCC) in 2019, when it was revealed that Alex had a new “blue-haired love interest”. Speculation abounded within the fandom, with some people, including the author, going “yeah, he’s evil” while others rejoiced in the concept of Alex having a loving partner. Speculation increased as fans discussed Tyler Blackburn’s seeming disinterest in his new love interest, prompting some once again to scream “EVIL” at the top of their lungs to anyone who would listen. Very little was revealed, beyond the fact that the new character would show up somewhere around episode 3 of the second season.

Episode 2.04 aired with some commenting on how he barely interacted with Alex- prompting more evil speculation- and others excited to see the characters interact more. The character appears again in 2.06, where he invites Alex to dubious spoken word poetry (which Alex attends); 2.08, where they have a paintball date and go to The Wild Pony; 2.10, where the two are seen writing together briefly at the beginning of the episode; and 2.13, where Alex performs his song at open mic night, tells Forrest his relationship with the person in the song was long over, and they kiss. Forrest was not revealed to be evil during season 2.

Amidst the season airing, Word of God via Twitter post announced that yes, Forrest had originally been planned as a villain, though not the main villain, but it was changed as filming progressed.

The Word of God Twitter post revealed that Forrest had originally been planned as a villain, but they decided that they could not make their “blue-haired gay man” a villain. This mirrors a similar situation and excuse used the previous season, where the character of Jenna Cameron was originally planned to work with Jesse Manes against the aliens, before it was changed because they just “loved Riley [the actress] too much”. Both of these examples occurred while already filming and reflect on a larger problem with the show. Though not the topic of this essay, it is important to note that both characters are white, both in the show and by virtue of being played by white actors. The fact that they couldn’t be villains for one reason or another is not a courtesy extended to the male villains who are all the most visibly brown, and thus ‘other’, members of the cast.

This also highlights the fact that, via Twitter, it has been revealed two other times that occurrences that were reported in season 1 also occurred in season 2. During the airing of episode 1.02, it was revealed that the single best build-up of tension in the show- when Alex walks to the Airstream not saying a word to Michael after a dramatic declaration- happened because one actor was sick at the time and they had to go back and film the kisses later. At the point of airing for episode 2.08, it was revealed that one of the actors were sick and unable to film a kissing scene. Allegedly, this caused the writers to retool the entire scene and deviate from the plan to make that subplot about Coming Out. The execution of this subplot will be explored later in this essay.

The last occurrence revealed via Twitter also revealed larger issues within the show: lack of planning and poor budgeting. During the airing of season 1, Tyler Blackburn was needed for an extra episode beyond his contracted 10. A full explanation was never given, but speculation about poor planning and to fill in because Heather Hemmens had to miss one of her 10 episodes due to scheduling conflicts for another project. During the airing of season 2, yet another tweet came out saying they made a mistake and Tyler would once again be in an additional episode. No explanations beyond “a mistake” were given, though once again speculation occurred. It is the opinion of the author that this was due to changing plot points over halfway through writing, while episodes were already in production. It has been speculated by some that these changes occurred during the writing of 2.08, which was being finished/pre-production was occurring roughly around the time of NYCC 2019.

Previous Literature:

A brief look at different theories of plots and subplots

Many people have written on the subject of plotting, for novels and screen alike. The author is more familiar with film writing than tv, but a lot of the concepts carry over. Largely, the B- and C- (and D- and E-… etc) plots should reinforce the theme of the A-plot. This can be through the use of a negative example, where the antithesis of the theme is explored to reinforce the theme presented by the A plot, or through other examples of the theme, generally on a small scale.

A movie example of this would be Hidden Figures (2016), where the A-plot explores how race and gender impact the main character (Katherine Johnson) in her new job. The B-plots explore the other characters navigating the same concepts in different settings and ways- learning a new skill as to not become obsolete and breaking boundaries there (Dorothy Vaugn) and being the first black woman to complete a specific degree program and the fight it took to get there (Mary Jackson). A TV example that utilizes this concept of plot and theme is the 911 shows. Each of the rescues in a given episode will directly relate to the overall theme of the episode and the overall plot for the focus character. This example is extremely blunt. It does not use any tools to hide the connection, to the point you can often guess the outcome for that A-plot fairly quickly.

This is not the only way to explore themes within visual media. Moonlight (2016) looks at three timestamps in the life of Chiron. Each timestamp has a plot even if they feel more like individual scenes or moments rather than plots as some are more used to in films. Each time stamp deals with rejection, isolation, connection, and acceptance in different ways. So while there is no clear A-, B-, or C-Plot, each time stamp works as their own A-Plot to explore the themes in a variety of ways, particularly by starting out in a place of rejection and moving to acceptance or a place of connection to isolation.

Please note that there are many ways to write multiple plots, there are just two examples.

While there are flaws within season 1 of RNM, overall the themes stayed consistent throughout the season, mainly the theme of alienation. The theme threads through the Alien’s isolation/alienation from humanity which is particularly seen through Michael’s unwillingness to participate and Isobel’s over participation. There is Rosa’s isolation from others, how her friendship with “Isobel” ended up compounding her existing alienation from her support system due to her mental illness and coping mechanisms. We see how Max and Liz couldn’t make connections. This theme presented itself over and over in season 1. While this essay is not an exploration of the breakdown of themes in season 2, it should be noted that there were some threads that followed throughout the season. The theme of mothers/motherhood was woven throughout season 2, with some elements more effective than others. Please contact the author for additional thoughts on Helena Ortecho and revenge plots.

One of the largest problems within season 2 was the sheer number of plots jammed into the season. These plot threads often ended up hindering the effectiveness of the themes and made the coherence of the season suffer. Additionally, a lot of them were convoluted and difficult to follow.

Thesis:

Essentially, season 2 was a mess. To look at it holistically is almost an exercise in futility. Either you grow angry about the dropped plots and premises, you hand wave them off, or you fill them in for yourself. Instead, this essay proposes to look at individual elements to explain why Forrest should have stayed evil.

We first meet Forrest in 2.04 when he is introduced on the Long Family Farm, which we later learn was the location where our past alien protagonists had their final standoff. He’s introduced. He’s largely just there. The audience learns he has more of a history with Michael. In 2.06, we meet him again with his dog Buffy (note: poor Buffy has not been seen again and we miss a chunky queen). There’s mild flirting, Alex is invited to an open mic night, which he attends. For the purpose of this essay, the author’s thoughts on the poetry will not be expressed. Readers can take a guess.

It is after this point that the author speculates the Decision was made. This choice to make Forrest not evil- paired with the aforementioned ‘can’t kiss, someone’s sick’- impacted the plot. We have Alex have a scene with his father- which the author believes could have been pushed to a different episode- and then have Alex go on a date and then not kiss Forrest at the end of the night. Here, the audience sees Forrest hit Alex in the leg, allegedly not knowing he had lost his leg despite ‘looking him up’, which parallels the shot to the leg that happens to Charlie. Besides wasting this ABSOLUTELY TEXTBOOK SET UP WTF, it also takes Alex away from the main plot and then forces a new plot for him. Up to this point, Alex’s plot was discovering more about the crash and his family’s involvement. Turning Alex’s date from a setup for evil Forrest to a Coming Out story adds yet another plot thread to a packed season. It is also the author’s thought that this is where the convoluted kidnapping plot comes in. With Forrest already in 2.10 for a moment, a plot where Alex is evil has Forrest attack him for Deep Sky rather than Jesse abduct him for a piece of alien glass Alex was going to give him anyway and then for Flint to abduct Alex from Jesse. It’s messy. In a bad way. Evil Forrest would have been a cleaner set up: no taking back a piece of alien glass Alex gave to Michael in a touching moment. No double abduction. Instead, there is only Forrest, who Alex trusts, breaking that trust to take him as leverage over Michael.

Implications:

Now, Alex has two plots (Tripp & Coming Out). The Coming Out plot is largely ineffective, as they are only relevant to scenes with Forrest and have the undercurrent of there only being a certain acceptable way to be out. This could have been used for Alex to discover his comfort levels, mirroring Isobel’s self discovery, but there was not enough screen time for that. Additionally, Isobel’s coming out story was about her allowing herself the freedom to explore. Alex’s story was about the freedom to… act like this dude wanted him to. Alex’s internalized homophobia played out often in the series but it was also informed by the violence he experienced at Jesse’s hands and the literal hate crime he and his high school boyfriend experienced. With that in mind, the “kissing to piss off bigots” line comes off poorly. This is a character who experienced what a pissed off bigot could do- reluctance to kiss in public is not the same as not being out. There is more to be said on this topic, but as it is not actually the focus of the essay, it will be put on hold. To surmise: Alex’s coming out is attempted to be framed as being himself, but it is actually the conformity to someone else’s ideals. It does not work as an antithetical to Isobel’s story, as the framing indicates that the conformity/right was to be out contradicts Isobel’s theme.

Further Research:

MAKE FORREST EVIL YOU COWARDS

Author Acknowledgements:

The author of this paper acknowledges that the show took some strides to mend this problem. However, once again no consensus could be found on whether Forrest was a low-level member of Deep Sky and thus just allowed to fuck off on a bus, or his job was recruitement because he did a piss poor job of making Alex not join.

[olderthannetfic]

hi hi history-non again, sorry I know it's a very

ahem wide and girthy ahem

ask, and i'm sorry for not narrowing it down farther my brain is smooth as butter and the dart board, so to speak, is. big. i feel like im throwing my dart in the ocean of 'what i don't know' and trying to spear a fish who might speak to me like the queer elder i never ha d ;lkasjd;flkas damn you small conservative town ANYWAYS

i guess okay maybe do you have any favourite figureheads? whats your fave pieces of lgbtqa+ media (like books or shows?)

thanks again and sorry for.

uh.

big.

--

Lolololol. Yes.... it’s so... big...

In the 90s, the writers of nonfiction who I found really inspirational were Susie Bright and Kate Bornstein. My Gender Workbook was a classic. I gather there’s a new edition.

I was a massive, massive nerd, so my actual favorite queer book as a 14-year-old is one that will be a bit... uh... much if you’re not feeling very intellectual. It’s Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History. This thing is a massive doorstop of a book that collects academic journal articles on third gender roles from various cultures. I was obsessed with this thing. Again, it’s academic journal articles, not popular nonfiction, so expect that level of impenetrable prose.

I was also a giant weeb, so I read a bunch of books on the history of gay sex in Japan. It’s pretty interesting how much people assume the “m/m sex = sin” shit was worldwide and how much it just was not.

In terms of fiction, I’ve always struggled to find f/f media I relate to. I really like the tv adaptations of Fingersmith and Tipping the Velvet. Lots of fucked up problematicness and gorgeous visuals. Gotta love the lady with the strap-on and the gold body paint!

For other queer media, I was a big fan of Velvet Goldmine and of Pedro Almodóvar’s older films, which are full of every problematic kink you can think of. They also have a lot of het I like, like the lady being coerced into sex (that she enjoys) by the drag queen who impersonates her famous mother she has a lot of mommy issues about... except said drag queen is really an undercover police officer. Just... whut. (All the “straight” stuff in Almodóvar’s films is also bugfuck nuts and often kind of queer.)

I really, really, really loved Crash. Not the shitty one that won an oscar: the car crash perverts one full of weird UST. There’s a ton of straight sex in this too, along with every gender combo and a laundry list of upsetting kinks. It’s just every kind of weird perv thing. (”Weird art film full of sex and problematicness” is pretty much the defining feature of movies I liked as a teen. I loved Kissed, that het necrophilia movie too.)

Stage Beauty is probably my favorite film for bi vibes. It’s this meditation on identity as the English stage was changing over from having men play women to having actual actresses. It ends in f/m, but it’s definitely a very queer film.

If you want slice of life stuff, I guess you could try Dykes to Watch Out For (the comic that’s the source of the bechdel test) or the Tales of the City novel series. These will both give you a sense of what was going on in certain queer communities in the late 20thC. If you want something relatively fluffy, Maurice is a historical costume drama with a happy ending. I found it awfully slow as a college student, but it does have naked Rupert Graves (Lestrade from Sherlock), so...

----

See, this is hard to answer because I came of age and did all of my reading of that kind a long time ago. I pretty quickly moved on to fangirl media, which I have always liked a lot better than other arguably queer stuff. Back in the 90s, that meant Japanese stuff and fic. Later, I had access to more flavors of by-fujoshi-for-fujoshi media.

So my actual favorite m/m books are a bunch of “m/m romance” (i.e. American BL being sold as ebooks on amazon). If you want live action TV and fandomy vibes, you’re better off with Trapped (hot cop/mobster action!) or one of those Thai series about schoolboys or something than stuff made by cis gay men in the US.

I also came of age in an era when “queer” media was very Cis Gay Men And Sometimes Cis Lesbians with an occasional nod to bi people existing... maybe. Kate Bornstein and a few others were raising the profile of MtF transsexuals (the term in use at the time) who wanted surgery or even, gasp, maybe didn’t want bottom surgery in some cases. Anything about FtMs or nb/agender/etc. identities was practically invisible. I saw the term ‘genderqueer’ around a bit, but it was mostly in contexts that were very tryhard and unappealing to me.

(You haven’t given any details, but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you’re like much of tumblr and the flavors of queerness you relate to aren’t so much the Cis Gay Men Only culture that makes up quite a bit of queer history and older queer media.)

I can tell you what I liked as a teen, but not everybody is into fucked up art films that may not have happy endings. I can try to rec things about queer culture in the 90s, but I probably don’t have great recs for way earlier or later than that... unless it’s so much earlier that I’ve researched it while writing fic of some historical canon or other. A lot of how I learned about queer culture myself was from magazines or from reading soc.bi on usenet or just from living through the 90s--not typically from books that are easy to unearth and just hand to someone now.

I tend to just not like anything in the contemporary romance or slice of life genres, regardless of gender and orientation, so while I’ve watched/read a bit more queer stuff like this, especially in the past when I had less access to queer media, it’s not a space I’m great at reccing in. And that’s unfortunate because a lot of that type of art gives you a better sense of what other queer people were like in other eras and/or it’s a safer rec than some bananas crazy BDSM film.

I was, and am, very kinky (though pretty lazy in terms of actual practice), so a lot of my reading and media interest was bound up in that also. Obviously, I was quite interested in the drawings of Tom of Finland or the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe, but are you going to be into photos of some guy shoving a whip handle in his ass? I love the movie Cruising... it’s about serial killers and leather and homophobia and is every bit as potentially traumatizing as that sounds.

I feel you on the problem of finding queer elders. There isn’t really an obvious way to go about this.

[bgn846]

The Science Experiment ffxv fluff cats

Noct tried not to panic as he re-read his text message. He was in a meeting and unable to do much of anything besides fidget uselessly in his seat. This of course attracted the attention of Ignis who simply scowled at him with a disapproving look. Figures Prompto would text him with something urgent when he was busy!

Waiting for the meeting to end was pure torture. Not that he knew what real torture felt like but Noct was sure it had to be close. He wasn’t even out of high school yet and he still had to sit through boring council meetings. Finally, when the meeting adjourned he quickly sent a message back to Prompto right before Ignis’ full focus was directed towards him.

“Highness, might I suggest you not play with your phone during council sessions, it does make you look rather distracted.”

“I wasn’t playing!” Noct spit back under his breath.

“Well, whatever it was you were doing shouldn’t be conducted during the meeting.”

“Yeah, yeah, gotcha, can we go home now?”

Ignis merely sighed and nodded towards the exit. The drive back home was mostly quiet. Ignis probably thought he was stewing over being reprimanded for his phone use, but Noct was really texting Prompto. He still had to figure out what to do.  Ignis needed to drop him off and go home so Noct could call Prompto.

Getting Ignis to actually go home, took forever. First, he had to convince his advisor and friend that he should take the night off. Only after he agreed to eat some leftovers with actual nutritional content did Ignis agree to this idea. Noct kept saying he was only tired and didn’t want to be a bore if Ignis stuck around. The lie was weak and Noct assumed Ignis was only agreeing to keep him happy.

Nearly twenty minutes later when Ignis had gone back down to his car and the door was locked and bolted did Noct call Prompto. His friend picked up on the first ring.

“Dude! Where have you been?” Prompto wailed.

“In a meeting, I just got rid of Ignis, what’s going on? Is she alright?”

“I dunno, she’s um acting weird. I’m starting to get worried.”

“Shit, I knew you should have taken her to the vet yesterday, now what do we do? Nothing will be open now except in emergency places.   Ignis will definitely know something is up if that shows up on the credit card.”

“Oh, oh, I need to bring her over, I don’t know what else to do,” Prompto replied in a rush. “I have just enough money for a cab, I’ll be there soon.”

“Wait! Prompto!” It was too late the line had disconnected. Noct considered calling back but he knew his friend was coming over no matter what he said. Nervously pacing his living room Noct couldn’t get time to go any faster. It felt like an eternity before someone called from downstairs alerting him to Prompto’s arrival.

Running to the door he waited in the hallway until Prompto’s figure appeared around the corner. He was carrying a large box and practically sprinting down the hall. “I don’t know what to do buddy, she’s not okay.”

Noct ushered Prompto inside and quickly shut the door. “Come on let’s take her into the bathroom and see, the light is better in there and it’s got all the first aid stuff too.”

Nearly two hours later Noct wasn’t sure he could unsee what he’d witnessed. Blinking slowly he took in the scene that had unfolded on his pristine white tiled bathroom floor. “How the hell am I going to explain this to Ignis? He doesn’t like animals.”

“We can clean up the mess for sure, but, um, I don’t know what to do with all the new ones,” Prompto replied gesturing towards the pile of squirming fur near the bathtub.

“How did we not know she was pregnant? Shouldn’t that be like, obvious?”

“I’ve never seen a pregnant cat before how the heck would I have known that?”

Noct hummed in acknowledgment but didn’t bother to comment further. They’d both missed this very important fact regarding their newly rescued furry friend. “We couldn’t have left her right? I mean, we did the right thing yeah?” Noct checked, suddenly worried that they’d somehow ruined this cat’s life by taking her in right before she gave birth. Finding a cute cat behind the arcade had been fun but then it had followed them, and pretty soon Prompto had picked it up and the rest is history.

“Nah, dude, she needed a nice place to rest for something like this,” Prompto defended.

“Okay, but now what? They can’t stay here.”

“What do you mean? They can’t stay here, I can’t keep them,” said Prompto with a serious expression. “I work after school, remember? I won’t be able to watch them properly.”

“What about your parents can’t they help?”

“No! Dad is working out of town this week and mom is allergic. I did well to hide momma cat from her this long.”

“Ignis will skin me alive if he finds out I’m keeping a cat in here. I can’t keep them!”

“Buddy, you have to, we don’t have a choice. Don’t you have that extra room no one uses? Can’t we set them up in there and just keep Ignis out?”

“You make it sound so easy, Ignis will find them.”

“Oh! Tell him you are doing a science project and you need a controlled environment or something and that he needs to not open the door for the next week.”

“Prompto, that is the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard of, that will never work,” Noct huffed.

--

“Yeah, so it’s for a science project and like I need a controlled environment otherwise it’ll fail and I’ll have to um, you know, start over,” Noct rambled as Ignis stood in the hallway holding a bundle of folded clothes the next evening.

“Highness you are aware that I use the closet in that room for storing some of your extra clothing, it would have been helpful to have alerted me to this development before you started your experiment.”

“Uh, sorry about not telling you but it’s super important that you just don’t go in there. I’ll let you know when I’m done.”

Ignis raised an eyebrow in judgment and watched as Noct withered under the gaze.  Unwilling to fight Noct on what he was actually hiding in the room Ignis sighed and shook his head. Without uttering anything else he turned and walked away. The evening was going to be an interesting one.

It became clear that Noct wanted him to leave sooner rather than later, so Ignis decided to play along. Being an integral part of the prince's life meant he would see Noct again, whether he wanted it or not. Seeing Noct struggle to ignore the spare room was comical. Homework was even brought out as what Ignis could only guess was some form of distraction.

Noct only stared at the paper but didn’t write anything. When dinner was served he ate so fast Ignis was sure he’d make himself sick. Thankfully, that didn’t happen. Once all the dishes were clean Ignis gathered his things and bid Noct a good night.

No sooner had he shut the door behind him did he hear Noct run away from the door, he was up to something. Debating about calling Gladio to ask if he knew, Ignis decided things might be more adventurous if he let it play out naturally.

Approximately twenty-six hours later when Ignis came over to fix dinner he had his first clue. Noct’s apartment smelled fruity. The prince normally didn’t like fake scents but he’d obviously bought something. Sniffing around Ignis found the source, plugged into the wall just down the hall from the supposed science experiment room. As he was walking over to investigate further Noct came bustling down the hall and blocked the door with his body.

“When did you get here?! I told you already you can’t go in there!”

“I wasn’t going to go in, I was merely trying to figure out why you bought that,” Ignis commented as he pointed to the small device emitting the not-so-great scent. “And I’m here to fix dinner highness like I always am at this time.”

“Ah, oh, um, right, dinner.”

“So the experiment you’re conducting stinks?” Ignis asked hoping to glean more information.

“No, well not exactly, but yeah,” Noct scrambled. “Does it really matter, this is my house. If I want a smelly plug thing for the wall then I should have one right?”

Ignis raised his hands in defeat and turned away. “I’ll go start dinner then since there is nothing to see here.”

The moment he’d made it to the kitchen Ignis was sure he’d heard the door to the spare room open and quickly close. Noct came to join him about five minutes later and couldn’t focus to save his life. The boy was constantly looking towards the spare room and was unable to make conversation that consisted of anything more than three words. Giving up Ignis finished up dinner and excused himself early for the night.

One day down, Ignis wondered how long  Noct would make it before he slipped up and revealed the secrets of the spare room.

--

It had been three weeks and Ignis was still playing Noct’s game of ‘stay out of the spare room’. Though, he had a pretty good idea of what was going on. He’d just not seen physical evidence yet. Ignis had also discovered that Prompto was part of this ruse as well. The two teenagers were constantly hanging out, more than normal, and working to keep the spare room from being noticed. The idea that making distractions around the rest of the apartment would keep their secret safe was funny to Ignis.

Having had ample time to do research on a few things Ignis was sure that life was about to get a lot trickery for Noct and Prompto. By now Gladio had been alerted and told to stay quiet. Ignis was actually having fun and looking forward to the big, or rather small reveal.

Granted he could have intruded and taken a peek in the room already, but Ignis stood by his morals, this was Noct’s home and he’d been asked to stay out of that room. The trust he and Noct shared was not something he was keen to throw away over a cat.

Settling in at the dining table that evening Ignis sat with his back to the hallway, Noct’s new seat of choice was one facing the spare room. It was just the two of them tonight; Prompto had to go home early to see his parents. Halfway through the meal, Ignis heard a faint scratching noise. “Do you hear that?” he asked pausing and tilting his head.

“Hear what? I don’t hear anything!”

“Hmm I’m sure I heard something, does your science experiment have to do with anything that moves?”

“Something moving?! Six no, its not alive. Nothing in that room is alive,” Noct answered as his face turned a rather interesting shade of red.

“I see, well then I must have heard something else.”

Noct didn’t say anything more; instead it seemed his focus had become how loudly he could eat the rest of his dinner. The idea that clinking his fork into the dishware and slamming his water glass down would do anything to mask the sounds coming from down the hall was amusing. Working hard to keep from smiling Ignis finished eating and hurried to clean and put away the dishes.

“Don’t forget we need to review the council meeting minute’s tomorrow evening after dinner.”

“Can’t we just like wait until the meeting and then I’ll take a look, I don’t really need to be that prepared. They never ask me anything anyway.”

“You will not get out of this highness, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Noct groaned in frustration but nodded as Ignis gathered his things and made to leave. Deciding to push a little Ignis paused near the door. “When will your science experiment be over?”

“Not sure, it’s sorta um an organic timed kinda thing. Ya know?”

“No not really, why don’t you explain it to me?”

Noct’s nervous laughter filled the space as he began gesticulating with his hands and trying to say something coherent. “Well, like, um, it’s science and stuff and sometimes I don’t even understand it, but there are instructions and its going well I think.”

“I see,” Ignis hummed. “I’d best be off then, good night Noct.” With nothing more than a smile, Ignis donned his shoes and left.

--

The next evening when Ignis approached Noct’s apartment door he could hear a commotion inside. A faint yelp indicated that Prompto was there as well. Knocking loudly Ignis took his time unlocking the door and letting himself in. He could at least give them a head start.

Once inside Ignis could tell that things had escalated. The living room was a mess and the sound of hushed voices and frantic steps could be heard down the hall. Both young men were in the spare room. The cat must have escaped the room or maybe it was trying to escape. One couldn’t keep a cat caged for too long it’d get curious and want to explore.

Deciding to start dinner Ignis busied himself in the kitchen. Looking around in an upper cabinet for a dish Ignis was startled when a door slammed. Spinning around Ignis was about to check on Noct and Prompto when something caught his eye. There on the floor was a tiny little ball of fluff. It had cute little ears and was wobbling around headed straight for him.

They were hiding a kitten, not a cat! No wonder Noct was being so protective. Slowly walking towards the little kitten, Ignis was surprised when another nearly identical kitten appeared from around the corner. Dear six, there was more than one. The first kitten had nearly made to his feet when Ignis heard footsteps approaching. Without thinking he leaned over and scooped up the little animal and promptly shoved it in the still open cabinet. Swiftly closing the door he stayed facing the wall pretending to prepare things while he waited. The footsteps became very quiet, almost like the owner was trying to hide. Ignis knew they were trying to catch the little escapee. When the door down the hall opened and closed Ignis checked to make sure he was alone before he opened the cabinet door.

A petit mew was the greeting he received from the occupant. Reaching in Ignis gave the little fuzzball a pat. “I believe they are still looking for you little one,” he whispered with a smirk. “Your sibling didn’t make it as far as you.”

Again, the door opened down the hall and Ignis quickly and carefully shut the cabinet to hide its secret. Spinning around Ignis found Noct wandering around the living room, hunched over clearly looking for the missing kitten. “Did you lose something?”

Noct straightened up and shook his head, “Nah I was um just stretching my legs.”

Before Ignis could think of what to say Prompto came running into the room without noticing him. “Did you find it?!”

“Be sure to say hi to Ignis first!” Noct exclaimed.

“Shit! Oh uh I mean hi, how’s it going?” Prompto managed as he turned to face him.

“So you were looking for something?”

“Prompto’s phone, that’s what I was looking for, it’s not here. I think we need to check the other room again.” Noct walked away and dragged a very flustered Prompto with him.

Ignis heard Noct berate Prompto for not knowing he was there. The last bit of conversation he could make out was regarding the blond having not heard the knock on the door. Remembering his own secret Ignis rushed back and opened the cabinet. Another mew sounded and this time the kitten stumbled right out and nearly hit the counter. Thinking fast Ignis caught the little thing and cradled it to his chest. “Little trouble maker you,” he cooed. “Come now, let’s have some fun.”  

Dinner was truly entertaining. Ignis managed to hide the little kitten that he‘d already named Darvis in the laundry room. The basket full of clean towels was most intriguing and worked as a wonderful place for a small nap. However, the real show was getting to watch Prompto and Noct attempt to remain sane while they ate. Neither of them would maintain eye contact for more than a few seconds. They’d always break away to scan the floor around the apartment.

When dinner was over Ignis stood and stretched. “I think you two should clean the dishes while I get some paperwork ready for Noct to review.” Both boys were up in a flash and clearing away the dishes. Ignis had never seen them move so fast.

Taking advantage of the distraction Ignis calmly went to retrieve little Darvis. It was far too easy to sneak back into the living room and sit on the sofa with his back to Noct and Prompto. The kitten was enjoying the attention and clambered around on his lap until it found a nice little spot between Ignis’ leg and the sofa cushion. Getting comfortable Ignis began arranging paperwork for Noct to look at. Darvis had his eyes closed and was happily napping again. Soon enough Noct shuffled into view, still looking everywhere but Ignis. Prompto followed him and was also scanning the area.  

“Sit down this won’t take long. Feel free to stick around Prompto, we’ll be done soon and then I’ll take my leave for the night.”

“Huh? Oh sure, um what do you need me to review?” Noct replied absentmindedly, his attention clearly on something else.

Ignis smiled and handed over the paperwork, Noct almost dropped the folder because he wasn’t looking. Finally, the prince sat down and made a half-assed attempt at looking through the files. Prompto continued to search the fringes of the room by idly wandering around.

Several minutes passed before Prompto froze and let his mouth fall open. He was looking right at Darvis. Noct was still distracted enough that Ignis was able to put a finger to his lips to silence Prompto. The blond kept moving his mouth akin to a fish out of water but he remained quiet.

“Ignis, um, can I look at these later I’m really not able to focus right now.” Noct lamented as he put the folder down on the coffee table.

“Certainly highness, I’ll be happy to go over it again tomorrow with you.”

“Thanks, sorry, I’m not being very helpful.”

“I understand,” Ignis supplied looking straight at Noct and waiting for him to see what was in plain sight.

Prompto had even begun to stare at his friend in disbelief. Finally, Noct’s eyes grew wide as he noticed the little ball of fluff nestled next to Ignis. “How --how long have you known?” Noct managed in a strangled voice.

“Since the scent plug-in appeared.”

Noct groaned and flopped sideways on the sofa, though he quickly perked back up and pointed an accusing finger at him, “I get to keep one, you clearly already picked one.”

“Yes, Darvis is mine and will be coming to live with me once he’s been properly nursed by his mother.”

“I thought you didn’t like cats!” Prompto exclaimed.

“I don’t, Darvis is the exception,” Ignis answered coolly.

“What about the other two, and the momma?” Prompto asked with worry. “I can’t take any of them, my mom is allergic.”

Ignis wasn’t surprised to hear there were more, but he knew what to do. “I’ll put a notice up in the office; we’ll be able to find suitable homes for all of them in no time.”

“I can’t believe you let me suffer through that terrible science experiment lie for three whole weeks!” Noct lamented.

“How did you even come up with that farce?”

Noct immediately looked at Prompto and threw his hand out, “he suggested it!”

“Next time I might suggest you fess up before making your life harder. I may not like most cats but I wouldn’t have made you put it out on the street.  Though,” Ignis paused and stared at Noct intensely, “that doesn’t mean you can bring every pregnant stray you find here. Am I understood?”

“I promise never to do it again, so long as I get to keep one.”

“Can he keep another one for me too?” Prompto tried hopefully.

“Don’t push your luck young man, I think one cat between the two of you will be purrfectly fine.”

“Oh, you did not just do that!” Noct groused. “Prompto we need to get him away from the cats now, he’s only gonna get worse!”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/32461276

[annepamgkrth]

Silver was right about Sonic being the traitor/trigger, just not in the way you think.

If you know of Silver as a character, you know he has a history regarding our blue hero Sonic. 

In the game Sonic 06, Silver claims Sonic is the trigger that ended up causing Silver’s horrible future. However, by the end of the game and this trigger being avoided, and Silver’s future is still in ruins. This means 1 of 3 things. 1, Elise will still end up crying and the future still happens, which could very much happen. 2, Sonic will end up meeting Elise in the future and Elise cries over it, which could very much happen. Or 3, Elise doesn’t end up crying but Sonic still causes events that end in the future.

“But Anne, why do you think Sonic causes it?” Good question. Luckily for both o us that leads me to my next piece of evidence.

Depending on who you ask, the Sonic Archie comics were never cannon, which I’m agree and disagree with. I don’t think they are game cannon but I do think they are a different timeline. Just like the Sonic Boom timeline or the Sonic Fleetway comic timeline are not the main game timeline, but are still cannon in their own timelines. Based of my view of this, this is why I am using the Sonic Archie comics as a piece of my evidence. I don’t think its game cannon, but I do think it’s a different timeline, and there for it still holds weight to this.

When we meet Silver in the comics, he makes the claim Sonic is the traitor to the Freedom Fighters which cause his future. Which everyone in the room and anyone who even knows Sonic, knows that’s BS. However, Silver came to this thought after books mention A Sonic had a long term effect. This could be mentioning Sonic’s hero ideas stayed around for a long time and they got twisted which caused Silver future, or, it’s a different Sonic. 

The main thing that Silver uses to identify Sonic in this scene is Metal Sonic. Silver, didn’t know what Sonic looked like. You would think Silver doing research into this would have lead him to even a picture or a description of Sonic. But no, it was Metal Sonic. This means that either Metal Sonic is still around by the time Silver is born and doing research to find what caused his future, there are many metal Sonic’s laying around that Silver knows what a Metal Sonic is, or the descriptions and images he has were of a Metal Sonic, aka, A Sonic.

In Sonic the Hedgehog 1993, we meet Metal Sonic for the first time. In the game, Eggman goes to Little Planet - a Planet known for wired time stuff happening - apparently to get to use the time stones. However, through one of the time stones Eggman sees the bad future, see bad future Eggman, who gives him Metal Sonic. Metal Sonic is from a bad future. We can guess this means it’s from Silver’s, as the future we are Shown in Sonic 06, The Sonic Archie comics and recently in the Sonic IDW Comics, and the little bit we see in Sonic the Hedgehog 1993, I think they share themes. 

By bringing Metal Sonic, I think Eggman doomed the world we play in to a bad future. Now, I can’t prove these two bad futures are the same, I am just guessing. However, with these games almost 10 years apart, I don’t think we should cut it out competently.

I do however, have a couple of more points that - for me - explain this a lot more, but are not strong points in my option.

We see in Sonic 06 that Omega is still together by the time Silver’s timeline is around. Silver’s future is 200 after what we play in. That’s a long time for a robot to stick around for and be in that condition. We don’t know how he ended up like that, or if Metal Sonic was around as well. So, I think this point proves - at least to me - that Metal COULD be around long enough to do all of these things and ruined Silver’s future.

As I have explained, I think the other timelines of Sonic are cannon, just not game cannon. What I have found personally wired though is how Metal Sonic doesn’t change, no matter the timeline, even if Sonic does. Sonic Boom is my main point here. Everyone in Sonic Boom got a redesign, besides Metal Sonic? Why? The only time Metal Sonic has changed his form in is Sonic Heroes, which was explained in the Sonic the Hedgehog 4 episodes 1 and 2. I think the Sonic team pushes for Metal Sonic to stay the same for 1 of 2 reasons. 1, Metal Sonic causes everything in the future and there for he has to stay the same. or 2, cause he is iconic the way he is. See how this is my weakest point? 

Now that I am done with my evidence, I will explain step by step in the timeline on how I think this works.

Eggman goes to little planet to get the time stones, but gets a gift from bad future eggman with Metal Sonic, which helped him defeat Sonic and take over the world. There is a gap for when Metal Sonic is missing, but does return. Eggman, remembering what his future self says, ends up being heavily relent on Metal Sonic. I think way later, Eggman either dies or gets arrested and never tortures the world again. But no one can find Metal Sonic. People sooner or later forget, and after the group pass away from old age, Metal Sonic comes back as the “true” Sonic and follows in his late master’s plans. He ends up bring Eggman Nega(bad future) and take  over the entire world, leading to Silver’s future. This causes history books to write A Sonic as either a traitor cause Metal claimed he was the real Sonic, or just wrote that A Sonic helped turned the world to how it was.

TLDR: The Sonic that causes the Silver’s Future is Metal Sonic.

[mistergrass]

a dump of podcast thoughts/recs

I have been listening to a whole lot of podcasts in the last month, and so I thought I’d just lay out what I’ve listened to so far and my general thoughts (but I’m not gonna tag any of them because I might get too honest - which means REALLY no one is gonna care about this lmao) 

I would also love some recs for both fiction and non-fiction if anyone’s got any! 

Fiction:

The Magnus Archives - This is, unsurprisingly, my top top recommendation for podcasts. The story being told is so intricate and well thought-out. I love pieces of media where I can turn my brain off and trust that the creators know exactly what they’re doing. And I love anything that knows its intent from episode 1. I think I could go on for ages praising this podcast, but tldr; 

HIGHLY RECOMMEND 

The Penumbra Podcast (Junoverse) - I am not a fan of high fantasy, which is the main reason I haven’t listened to Second Citadel (other than the one-off eps in s1), so I’ll just focus on the Juno Steel stories. But I listened to this after catching up with TMA because so many people seemed to recommend it. Because of that, I think I might have gone into it with slightly higher-than-necessary expectations....

Here are things I like about it: the environment is well sound-scaped (especially in later eps), the universe is really cool and fun to learn about, and the romantic subplot between Juno and Peter really is a great time. 

That being said, I can get a little frustrated with the writing at times. Story beats are sometimes paced oddly, and at other times the narration can over-explain what’s going on -- especially wrt character emotions. S2 I think is the biggest culprit of this “tell don’t show” method, and it can expand to hurt the individual mysteries and the set-up of the metaplot, too. Overall, S2 was a real dredge to get through. (But credit where credit is due, Juno Steel and The Monster’s Reflection were incredibly crafted episodes of that season). 

But it was worth it to me for S3, which is a fun vibe and shifts from focusing on individual mysteries to character explorations in a found-family dynamic. The real strength of this podcast are the unique and engaging characters and their dynamics (which is why when Juno isolates himself in S2, it gets kind of dull). It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely been a very entertaining season. 

Uhhhh, kind of recommend? Maybe only if you’re really into the noir/sci-fi/detective genre. 

Death by Dying - The worst thing about this podcast is that there’s only five episodes. Oh my GOD what a gem of a show. The deadpan, absurdist humor in this show is so insanely up my alley and so well-written. But one thing I love about this podcast is that even in five episodes with a format that is mostly obituary-of-the-week, the emotional arcs of the characters are really well-maintained. Charolette, in particular, is a tragic character to follow through the MC’s eyes, but in a way that makes total sense considering the situation. This show is so clever, so fun, and finds ways to be really poignant at times, too. 

HIGHLY RECOMMEND 

Two Princes - I know I said I don’t like high fantasy, but I’m also gay and sometimes that just beats out. Who doesn’t like a light, fluffy story about two princes falling in love in some perilous magic forest? It’s a gas. Also, it’s just really well-produced and an easy listen. You very much get what’s on the tin,  and that tin is some high-quality and very tasty cheese. 

RECOMMEND 

Limetown - God, I’m so upset about this one. 

The first season is a masterpiece. WONDERFULLY produced, beautifully sound-scaped, insanely intriguing and engaging, along with a wonderful MC who is far from perfect in her endeavor for forbidden knowledge. I don’t think I can recommend it enough. 

The second season... is fine! You still want to know what’s going on, so it’s easy to keep listening. But, tbh, it takes a bit of an odd turn. I don’t want to spoil it too much, but I would’ve been okay with the shift in direction if it was leading somewhere satisfying. But the S2 finale is... well. Choices were made, I guess. I’ll just say that I was really cheated out of an emotional pay-off. 

If there was a promise of a 3rd season that would explain these things in more depth, I might let it off. But it looks like the production team is shifting its focus to the TV series being made out of this. I might watch it -- but I am worried now that they won’t know how to land the plane no matter how smooth the take-off is. 

Despite everything, RECOMMEND 

Archive 81 - (I have only finished through S2) 

My feelings on this show is that I do not have the auditory processing skills required to keep up, lmao. But I don’t think I can really hold that against this podcast. This show doesn’t hold the audience’s hands, which is something I actually really like (even if I do get lost sometimes in what’s happening, lmao). This is obviously another case of the creators knowing EXACTLY where they’re going in the story, too. I also don’t think I’ve heard any other podcast with sound-scaping at this level. The biggest themes of this show are sound and ritual, and itreally follows through on that wrt how the sound is edited. The vibe of it is so mysterious and unique, it does such a good job of making you feel like you’re in a totally different world.

RECOMMEND

Wooden Overcoats - (I have only finished through S1)

This show definitely has a Fawlty Towers feel to it, and the humor is very fast-paced and British in that very specific UK-sitcom way. Because of that the humor is very dry, but definitely fun to listen to. And the characters are a real hysterical bunch.

My biggest critique, however, is that sometimes the episodes end in a way that feels like a big bummer. British sitcoms of this nature usually hinge upon an incompetent/anti-hero MC who tends to deserve the different comical misfortunes that fall upon them. Usually they get up afterwards, having learned nothing, and the cycle continues in a harmless way. But sometimes that vibe doesn’t really hit, and a few episodes will end with these big tonal shifts where the schadenfreude ends up drying out. You sort of just end up feeling bad for everyone involved instead lol. It’s what has me hesitating going into the next season, but I’ll definitely start it up eventually. It’s well produced, and honestly the characters are just too fun to keep away from (Antigone in particular is my favorite). 

If you like British sitcoms, I’d recommend. Or if you’re looking for a cynical laugh. 

Other podcasts I’ve started are EOS 10, and Dreamboy. I really didn’t like the first episode of Dreamboy, but I’m gonna give it another try since it’s so short. EOS 10 seems well-produced, but not really up my personal alley. 

Non-Fiction 

I’m not gonna give these ones as long of blurbs, just know I recommend them all highly. 

You Must Remember This -  Old Hollywood history that is wonderfully researched, and focuses a lot on women of the time. The recounting of these histories feels very honest and she really doesn’t pull any punches when giving detailed and accurate accounts. A truly wonderful show. 

Welcome to Your Fantasy - A deep dive on the history of Chippendales that is WILDLY entertaining. I sort of can’t believe I got as sucked in as I did. The host has a wonderful humor about her, but is still great at getting to the heart of some of the heavier issues at hand. 

Last Podcast on the Left - My favorite true crime/conspiracy podcast by a long mile. It’s equally hilarious and well-researched. I know a lot of people are kind of anti-true crime lately which is very understandable, but I do appreciate each of the host’s personal philosophies on the matter, which I think comes through in a lot of their episodes. 

[lady-griffin]

As a fanfiction writer, I've noticed that one of the hardest things personally for me to pin down is an accurate guess regarding Hamefura's time period in relation to our world which makes it harder to decide certain aspects of a fic if it wants to get into world building (and have Katarina start and agricultural revolution). I've always appreciated the analysis work you do for Hamefura and was wondering if you had any guesses?

I would say there is no exact parallel to one of our time periods. Largely because there is a clear mix of concepts and aesthetics from older periods to later periods and even some modern ideas thrown in there.

That being said I think I found a decent enough match.

While Katarina (and many fans) describe it as a medieval setting, it is definitely not that. I would put the time period of Hamefura overall in the 18th and 19th centuries. 1700s & 1800s.

This is based off a few things.

Fashion

While not a clear comparison, the aesthetics of the different fashion trends of these two centuries are the closest to Hamefura’s own fashion styles - for the guys and gals.  

It’s not perfect

Some of the characters’ fashions are clearly just a general idea of “old-timey” fashion. And other characters’ fashion are more modern (or seem to be inspire by some later periods) – Alan, Maria, Sirius, Duchess Claes, and Katarina’s Merchant’s daughter outfit for example.

Alan’s style of clothing is extremely modern in concept.  So, it’s clearly a mix-and-match situation when it comes to fashion.

--

Books/Bookstores

Books are commonly and widely available. Not just for the rich, like Sophia and Katarina. We know this because there doesn’t seem to be much of an issue (or any) for Katarina’s maids and or Maria to gain access to books. As a maid in the Claes estate was the one who introduced romance novels to Katarina in the first place.

While again, not exact, the kind of reading and books we see in Hamefura works with 18th/19th century.  

Serialized fiction (and books in general) surged in popularity during Britain's Victorian era (1837-1901), due to a combination of the rise of literacy, technological advances in printing, and improved economics of distribution.

Also, while romance stories are far from anything new (have been around since stories) – the concept of marrying for love (despite social class) was an idea that was popular in fiction around the the time period – for example, being Pride and Prejudice (1813).

The book-stores we see in Hamefura (very briefly) are very similar to, well, modern book stores.

James Lackington (1746-1815) and his once-famous London bookshop, The Temple of the Muses, basically “invented” modern-day bookselling as we know it. During his time James completely revolutionized the concept of bookselling in the late 18th century. And considering the rise in books and literacy, other book-shops began to follow.

--

Sweets/Bake Shops

We know that high quality pastries/sweets can be bought at stores (students buy them for Student Council). 

I think this one is the least exact, as Patisseries have been around for some time, there is some parallel. 

 Marie-Antoine Carême (1784-1833) is considered to be one of the early practitioners of “modern Patisseries” (what we really see in Hamefura) and fine-dining, though he’s more known for Grande Cuisine.

His elaborate creations graced the windows of his Paris patisserie shop.

This is what we see in Hamefura.

So while the history is far from an exact match, the kind of stores that already existed and started to exist during this time are very similar from what the stores that we see in Hamefura, in regards to sweets 

--

Love – Marriages of Love

In the 5th Light Novel, we learn that nobles falling in love and choosing to get married to one another (not arranged) is a concept that is becoming more and more popular. Particularly among the younger nobles around Katarina’s age.

As Katarina witnesses several couples being romantic to one another, who are not currently engaged to one another or not in arranged marriages.

The ideal of love as a primary reason for marriage began to spread in the late 18th century and early 19th century, partly due to the French and American revolutions - Enlightenment thinkers in this era promoted the right to personal happiness. And going back to books, this might be another reason p why love stories became so popular among the public as literacy and book technology grew in this time.

So, while Arrange marriages certainly exist in Hamefura (obviously) – the importance of love also matters.

Take Geordo and Katarina’s arranged marriage, for instance. Despite them being 8, the two of them made the match together. It wasn’t arranged by the King or Katarina’s parents in the traditional sense of an arranged marriage.

Sure, Luigi Claes set up a meeting with Geordo for Katarina (a match-making meeting) and we know there was pressure coming down on Geordo to get a fiancé (due to his older brothers being engaged), but still the decision was largely between Katarina and Geordo.

Geordo proposed and Katarina accepted.

Now on the other hand, while never stated. it seems likely Geordo had to get the King’s Approval before he proposed and Katarina’s parents also had to agree to the match. But again, their engagement is still rather unique, in that it wasn’t decided by their parents and they had no say in the matter at all.

Now on the other hand, the arranged marriage for Alan and Mary seems like it was largely set up by their parents, so the two of them have a much more traditional arrangement. Now that might just come down to Geordo being far more independent than Alan is, when it comes to his person affairs.

We we know Luigi Claes (from the novels) sent a letter to Geordo asking for him to meet with Katarina, while he probably also sent it to the king as well – we are never told that explicitly, so we can’t say for sure.

But to the main point, overall, the concept of marrying someone for love is clearly an idea that is growing in popularity in the world of Hamefura.

In Fortune Lover, Geordo wants to break off his engagement to Katarina when he falls in love with Maria. If Maria is successful in Alan’s route, Mary breaks of their engagement so the two can be together.

In the current timeline, Alan tries to break off the engagement with Mary, because he’s not in love with her.

Geordo, clearly wants Katarina to love him back and not just marry him because she has too.

Nicol’s parents want him (and Sophia) to fall in love and marry for love.  

Geordo, Alan, and Nicol in Fortune Lover were all able to end up with Maria with no problem, for the most part.  

Now, because there is a dual system of power and status (based on nobility and magic) – Maria being a Light Weilder and a powerful one at, automatically raises her profile to being more than an acceptable marriage partner for a noble (my belief).

So, the idea of being with someone for love is more common for Katarina and her peers than their parents’ generation.

Luigi and Miridiana’s father arranged the marriage between the two – Though Luigi did fall in love with her before the marriage, but because the marriage wasn’t decided by the two of them along nor did they have much of a relationship – their marriage suffered from a lot of miscommunication.

Dan and Radea(?) Ascart, the parents of Nicol and Sophia, married for love. Though we learn we learn in the 5th novel that Radea was already engaged to another man and Dan made a deal with her father – basically if he could become the prime minister, he would be allowed to marry her.

While not like modern times, marrying for love is a concept that is growing and becoming more of the norm in the world of Hamefura.

--

Technology

Due to the character of Larna Smith, technology (based on magic) in Hamefura is getting quite the revolution.

One of her inventions, using Wind Magic, is a phone.

Italian innovator Antonio Meucci is credited with inventing the first basic phone in 1849, while Alexander Graham was the first US Patent for the device in 1876.

-

Based on the comic in the 6th Light Novel, we know Nicol’s most treasure possession is a Fountain Pen his father gave him.

And given the fact that we see Katarina writing with a quill, the two types of writing utensils existing with one another was happening in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Now Fountain Pens, have a longer history than that. But basically, due to them not being the most stable or consistent way of writing, it seems like in Western Societies (Hamefura), that them being coming commonplace took over a period of time, as the technology improved bit by bit.

Nicol’s Fountain Pen seems to be an excellent one that works great. But we can assume that since Dan Ascart is an Earl and Prime Minister, he has more access to such technology than other people.

--

Conclusion

I was surprised that a lot of what we see in Hamefura, actually does match or more accurately fit within the general existence of these two centuries nicely. Not always an exact match, but the overall ideas and changes in the 18th and 19th century are a nice parallel to what we see in Hamefura.

It’s a broad span of time (around 200 years), but that’s my thinking.

In full disclosure, I did some light research on the matter – so I apologize for any historical mistakes (and grammar/spelling). 

To be clear, I don’t think Hamefura fitting in the 18th-19th centuries (particularly in Western Culture) was really intentional on the Author’s Part.

We see that the general style of dress in Hamefura, is popular amongst many manga/anime/Mahwha that have an aristocratic setting. And just a lot of general world-building in such stories, basically take a loose idea form these two time periods, rather than be historically based on them. 

And since Fortune Lover is a love game and Hamefura is a romantic-comedy, love would of course be of upmost importance despite the restricted aristocratic status. And falling in love despite said restrictions is definitely a more prevalent modern idea.

So, it’s all probably unintentional. I mean, they probably were inspired by the these two centuries, but more in a general idea of their story-world, rather than a specific time-period setting.  But still it’s a nice overall fit.

Also, the 18th-19th Century setting works rather nicely with your idea of Katarina starting an Agriculture Revolution.

 Thanks for the question Anon! I hope this helped you out!

[tomeandflickcorner]

Episode Review- The Real Ghostbusters: Apocalypse- What, Now?

Interesting premise, but unfortunately it got dragged down by too many unnecessary jokes.

This episode begins with a prologue scene, with a moment from the distant past.  You can tell it’s the distant past because the scene is presented with a dull yellow tint to it.  The scene apparently takes place in the year 1684, but we’re not told that until later on. Bandits are in the process of breaking into the Monastery of Saint Theophilus, which we’ll eventually learn is located on a mountain in Greece.  Now, granted my knowledge of world history is limited, but while I have heard of monasteries being raided by Vikings from the 790s through the 11th century, this event is taking place during the 17th century, long after the Viking Age came to an end.  (Not to mention the fact that I actually did a little research and there doesn’t seem to be historical evidence to suggest the Vikings ever invaded Greece.) So that presents the question of who exactly these bandits are, and why they chose to attack this monastery.  In any event, the abbot of the monastery opens up an ornate looking box and removes an old book that he refers to as The Codex of Saint Theophilus.  The Abbot refers to this book as the monastery’s greatest treasure, and announces that it must never fall into the hands of non-believers.  The Abbot entrusts The Codex to a monk who was with him, reminding him that the wax seal holding The Codex shut must never be broken. The monk entrusted with The Codex’s safety then attempts to escape from the besieged monastery by climbing out the window and down a rope.  But the rope was apparently not long enough for the Monk to reach the ground safely, and we hear him screaming as he falls from the mountain.  So, did this monk just die off-screen? If so, it can probably be concluded there weren’t many survivors of the monastery’s siege.  I imagine there was a lot of bloodshed that day, as I expect the bandits would probably have killed anyone they came across during the invasion of the monastery.

We then flash forward to the present day.  Ray and Peter are attending a rare book auction somewhere because Ray heard that one of the books that will be auctioned off is a copy of Benz & Frank’s The Ectoplasmic Gourmet.  And the nerd in me is wondering what this book is even about.  Based on the title, it sounds like a cookbook.  So is it a cookbook listing recipes made exclusively for ghosts, or are we going into To Serve Man territory here?  Anyway, before the Auctioneer gets to the book Ray is after, he presents the next book on the list.  Which, as you might expect, is The Codex of Saint Theophilus.  No idea how they managed to recover it in the first place, but I guess it doesn’t really matter.  The Auctioneer begins the bidding on The Codex, but because the dust that the auctioneer blew off the cover ended up going into Peter’s nose, Peter ends up sneezing at the worst possible moment and therefore accidently buys the book for $1,000.  Which seems a bit contrived, particularly since you’d think the Auctioneer would have dusted the book off before the auction even begin. Or at least have not blown the dust off in the direction of the people attending the auction.  

So Peter ends up with The Codex.  While they do approach the Auctioneer afterwards, they’re told that all sales are final.  But they are welcome to come to the next auction so they can sell The Codex again there. Until then, though, they’re stuck with the Codex.  Peter and Ray then return to the Firehouse where Egon is attempting to build something he calls an Ectoplasmic Disintegrator.  Which strikes me as quite disturbing.  If it does what it says on the tin, it means this new invention will disintegrate a ghost. Isn’t that the same as destroying a ghost?  I think there should be some ethical consideration here.  Though the Ectoplasmic Disintegrator does blow up pretty quickly, so hopefully Egon will take that as some sort of cosmic sign that he shouldn’t dabble in such a thing. When Peter and Ray return, Ray informs the others that they hadn’t been able to obtain a copy of The Ectoplasmic Gourmet because of Peter’s poorly timed sneeze.  The surreal thing about this is that Ray’s tone suggests he’s annoyed, but he has a large smile on his face.

When Ray heads off to sulk, I guess, Winston brings attention to the wax seal on The Codex. Though only Janine seems to understand the significance of having a seal, as she’d learned about them in high school. Winston and Peter seemed to think someone had just accidently dripped candle wax onto the book’s cover.  But as Janine begins to explain about wax seals, Peter cuts her off and tells her to answer the phone. Janine points out that the phone isn’t ringing, but seconds later, it does start to ring.  (Though someone in the sound editing department didn’t do a good job at syncing things up, as Janine reacts to the phone ringing before we actually hear it ring.)

The phone call turns out to be a person complaining about a ghost haunting their chimney, so the Ghostbusters suit up and head out.  After they leave, Janine decides to take her lunch break.  But she can’t locate the book she’d planned to read while eating her lunch, so she decides to read The Codex instead.  Strangely, Janine ends up heading out to what I think was supposed to be Central Park. Okay, I can understand why you might want to eat your lunch outside if the weather is nice, but how far is Central Park from the Firehouse?  Is it right around the corner, or would Janine have had to take the subway down there? How long of a lunch break is Janine planning to take?  Anyway, Janine takes a seat beneath what I think is supposed to be a statue of some Civil War generals. (Not sure if this statue was based on an actual statue in New York, but I guess that’s not important.)  After taking a bite of her sandwich, Janine manages to break open the wax seal on The Codex. Immediately, lightning flashes across the sky, but Janine barely blinks and simply pulls out an umbrella she just happened to have with her. She starts to read The Codex and seems to not find it engaging, but she still doesn’t notice the statues behind her transforming into four ghostly horsemen until they jump down and rush past her.  Even then, Janine doesn’t seem to have much of a reaction, simply deciding that maybe she should skip lunch.

Sometime later, the Ghostbusters are returning to the Firehouse. It seems their last call was a false alarm and the sounds coming from the chimney were caused by a stuck cat.  (At least they got the kitty out.)  Before they arrive back at the Firehouse, though, frogs start raining down from the sky.  Which is highly unusual weather.  They then catch sight of the Four Horsemen.  The Ghostbusters get out to try and shoot the Four Horsemen with their Proton Packs, but the Four Horsemen escape into a nearby department store.   So the Ghostbusters head in after them.  After a while, they do manage to capture the Four Horsemen in a Ghost Trap after the ghosts get stuck in the revolving door.  Of course, the episode hasn’t quite hit the halfway point yet, so of course things aren’t resolved that quickly.  As the Ghostbusters start to drive off again, the Four Horsemen manage to break out of the Ghost Trap and fly off, blowing out the Ecto-1’s windows in the process.  And causing the car to crash headlong into a fire hydrant.

The Ghostbusters limp the Ecto-1 back to the Firehouse, where we see Janine has returned and is struggling to answer the number of phone calls they’re getting.  She tells the Ghostbusters that they’ve been receiving calls from people all over the world. It’s even implied the U.S. President phoned them. Winston turns on the news, which announces that the Four Horsemen are causing disturbances at the Nation’s capitals.  (Also, we see a brief commercial ad for Stay-Puft Marshmallows, which did make me laugh.)  At that moment, they hear the front doorbell ringing.  Winston goes to see who it is, and a bearded man in a long black robe enters. The man introduces himself as Father Yanos.  He explains that he came from the Monastery of Saint Theophilus and goes on to say that a thousand years ago, Saint Theophilus managed to seal the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse inside The Codex.  The monks of the monastery had kept the book safe for seven centuries before The Codex was lost.  Father Yanos had traveled to the city when he’d learned The Codex had been located, but laments that he hadn’t arrived in time before the wax seal had been broken, which resulted in the Four Horsemen getting released.

Okay, question. How did Father Yanos track down The Codex to the Ghostbusters?  I guess it’s possible he found out that The Codex was being sold at that rare book auction and, upon arriving too late, got the information of who bought The Codex from the Auctioneer.  But considering The Monastery of Saint Theophilus is located in Greece, I find this highly unlikely.  What are the odds that he’d hear about a rare book auction being held on the other side of the world?

It turns out the only hope they have in stopping the Four Horsemen is by re-sealing them with the Seal of Theophilus.  Which is back at the monastery in Greece.  (And Peter makes a dumb comment about how the seal must be very slippery if it’s kept in grease.)  So the Ghostbusters and Father Yanos book a flight back to Greece with Balkan Airlines, which was an actual airline carrier at the time.  I get the feeling the show writers didn’t have the best opinion of Balkan Airlines, because Winston seems to be very uneasy about being on the plane.  And it’s not as if Winston has a fear of flying.  Not only has he shown no issues with being on a plane in past episodes, I distinctly remember it being mentioned in the sequel series, Extreme Ghostbusters, that Winston eventually becomes a licensed pilot.  And in the IDW comics, which I believe take place in the movieverse, Winston had enlisted in the U.S. Air Force before joining the Ghostbusters.  So I don’t think we’re supposed to think Winston’s aviophobic.  Either way, when they arrive at Athens International Airport, Winston begins joining Father Yanos in kissing the ground. I’m guessing this is a religious or cultural thing with Father Yanos, as he mentions it’s the ground of his homeland, but Winston is simply happy to be back on solid ground.  At first, Peter teases Winston, but when the wing of the plane they’d just gotten off falls off (because the Four Horsemen attacked the plane while it was in midflight), Peter also starts kissing the ground.  Yeah, this whole scene was really weird.  Did Balkan Airlines planes have a reputation for being poorly crafted or something?  Were the writers just mocking the airline because it was owned by the Bulgarian government?  I have no idea.

Of course, they still have a ways to go before they can reach the monastery.  Because after leaving the airport, they have to take a train to some remote village near the monastery.  And then they have to ride some donkeys up the mountain pass.  And the whole time, the Four Horsemen are apparently following them. And I’m wondering how they have the time to make such a time-consuming trip, considering the apocalypse is supposed to be upon them.  The Ghostbusters even comment on how dark the sky is during the train ride.  Finally, the Ghostbusters and Father Yanos reach a large woven basket-shaped lift. Father Yanos explains that, ever since the raid we saw in the prologue, this lift has been the only way to reach the monastery.  

As the Ghostbusters board the basket-like lift and ascend up to the top of the mountain, the Four Horsemen appear and end up severing the rope, causing the lift to fall and crash.  Right atop Father Yanos.  Miraculously, none of the Ghostbusters broke any bones, and Father Yanos didn’t die from having four full-grown men landing on him.  But now the Ghostbusters have to climb up the side of the mountain to reach the monastery.  All while dodging falling rocks and strong winds. Peter ends up losing his grip when a bolt of lightning nearly hits him, and he falls.  But he once again narrowly avoids death because he lands safely on a rocky ledge.  Peter decides to stay put while the other Ghostbusters continue climbing.  (And we get an animation error in which we see Egon and two Rays reaching the monastery.)  Upon reaching the monastery, Egon, Ray and Winston instruct two monks to fetch them the Seal of Theophilus and some wax.  The two monks hurry inside to retrieve the items as the Four Horsemen are seem approaching.  Egon announces his plan to trap the Four Horsemen within a Ghost Trap as they fly overhead.  Then all they have to do is seal the trap with the Seal of Theophilus.  

The Four Horsemen are once again successfully trapped in a Ghost Trap, but when the two monks return with the Seal and a block of wax, the monk carrying the Seal trips, and the Seal falls over the edge of the mountain. Fortunately, Peter (who is still standing around on the rocky ledge) catches the Seal, but apparently doesn’t think he can manage to throw the Seal back up to the other Ghostbusters.  With time running out, the Ghostbusters decide to toss the loaded Ghost Trap down to Peter so he can seal away the Four Horsemen. So Winston throws down the Ghost Trap and wax down to Peter, but the wax falls onto Peter’s face.  (The wax is apparently soft enough to splatter over Peter’s face.  Granted I’m not that familiar with wax seals, but don’t you have to melt sealing wax to get it that soft?  If so, that wax should probably be scalding hot.)   Fortunately, Peter is still able to get the wax onto the loaded Ghost Trap by tripping and happening to fall face first onto the trap.  But he still has to place the Seal onto the wax, and the loaded Ghost Trap is starting to smoke.  And here, we get one more unnecessary joke with Egon urging Peter to make the seal impression, and Peter responding by imitating a seal. (Oh, knock it off!)

Thankfully, Peter is able to quit acting like an idiot long enough to press the Seal upon the wax.  As a result, the Four Horsemen are once again sealed away.  Right away, the dark clouds overhead dissipate and the sun begins shining through.  If that wasn’t enough to indicate everything is now okay, grass and flowers instantly form atop the mountain, and a flock of doves appear.  Even though Peter doesn’t seem to appreciate having the doves flock around him.

As you can tell, I had quite a few issues with this episode. There was the fact that they didn’t seem to accurately acknowledge the passage of time, considering Janine’s lunch breaks are long enough for her to be able to head over to Central Park. Not to mention they have the time to travel to a remote location of Greece when the end of the world is fast approaching.  (You’d think Father Yanos would have brought the Seal of Theophilus with him in case The Codex got opened before he could get there.  Wouldn’t that have been smarter?)  And Peter’s jokes were more annoying than funny.  Yeah, Peter can be a bit of a smart-aleck at times.  But even he knows when it’s time to be serious. At least that was always my overall impression of him.  So what was he doing here?  He felt almost out of character in this.

(Click here for more Ghostbusters reviews)

[yellowhoothoot]

i think both versions of the old guard are really good and fun and i like that neither one feels overall better than the other so here's my thoughts on what i like in each version. ive only read the first book of the comic so spoilers for that ig

comic - honestly funnier. especially andy, she’s less stoic in the comic - also on the topic of andy, booker’s betrayal being for her sake as well makes much more sense bc it’s more clear that having lived so long really takes a toll on her. her depression and unhealthy coping mechanisms are a lot more explicit. even though she’s more sarcastic and funny than in the movie it doesn’t take away from her personal struggles. i think having her “voice over”/narration throughout helps show this

-also, even though it’s not explored a lot, canon bi andy. a couple of the people at the beginning that she wakes up with are women and then i believe there was also a line about her sleeping through whole populations? which in my bi opinion would not be limited to men

- andy old person technology jokes. come on. also it makes more sense for nile to figure out booker betrayed them because of him getting internet in a cave than being like “this one gun is empty so something’s wrong”

- nile lore! nile lore! nile in the comic seems much more competent and experienced. her role on the team is less of a trainee and the skills she already has come into play more. it’s really nice to hear her talk about her life before, with the different jobs and interests she had. also it’s a crime that her interest in art history isn’t explicit in the movie because the scene in the comic where she sees the rodin and the other art is so good and you only get a little slice of it in the movie

- andy and merrick have better designs in the comic. everyone else looks better in the movie but andy’s design just kinda feels more “her“ and merrick just looks cooler honestly. i’m mad that joe and nicky were both robbed of long hair in the movie

- merrick is more evil and the way they kill him is way better. like, his bravado is way more hollow and the fact that he’s just a little rat bastard coward is more satisfying. so rather than a dramatic way to save andy they all just shoot him while he’s cowering in a bathtub. and he deserves that more than he deserves getting dragged out of a window with nile.

- oh on that note, the scene where they all jump out the window is great. i mean, “so nile, read any good books lately? SPLAT” is way better than being silent on the way down

- sexier settings. mostly i’m talking about the fact that they’re not in england. imagine being british. dubai and then malta is so much better than london and then... i think still london?

- nile and andy have a better relationship. nile seems less like a protege and, again with the way the comic has more jokes and lighthearted moments, they’re a lot quicker to get to that found family level of friendship and their fights/arguments are less actual anger and more poking at each other

- the van scene has slightly different dialogue i think, and it’s even better than in the movie. i think there’s a few extra lines. and they’re really good.

- the actual results of the research! the fact that there’s nothing scientifically special about them! i mean as a science person i would love some sci-fi answer as to what their deal is but honestly i think them just being regular people who don’t die fits the setting and tone of the story better

movie - despite some nile details that i love being left out, there are scenes with her that aren’t in the comic that make her more... sympathetic isn’t the word i’m looking for because she’s sympathetic in both. but like when she talks about her dad and her mom and brother it gives a better sense of why she joined the military and makes it hurt way worse the way her friends turned on her. you kinda see it again at the end when andy mentions she would’ve let book off with an apology

- copley is so much more sympathetic and their not killing him makes way more sense. not only are his reasons and motivations more clear, but it’s also clear that he didn’t realize how brutal merrick and co. would be and actually tries to both stop them being treated so poorly and then is willing to risk his own life to make things right when he brings nile to the lab.

- i can’t decide if i like andy becomes mortal or andy is fine better. actually i think that the difference is good because each outcome fits its medium better. comics andy staying alive means she has time to address the self-destruction that’s pointed out to her, while movie andy learning to deal with mortality means it gives her more of a chance to see the bright sides of things like she says to nile about how she thinks nile’s presence can remind her what it feels like

-quynh being alive! there’s so much possibility with that and like, i guess in theory it could be a thing in the comic too? but honestly i don’t think it will be. so yeah both the angst of knowing that quynh’s out there and then the twist of her getting out of the water are really good elements

- this is more of a benefit of the medium than of the interpretation, specifically, but all the characters are so much more expressive. especially nile, i like how when she’s processing how old everyone is her eyes get really wide and her inflection is really good. also i think when different team members give each other A Look it translates better.

- ok yes comic merrick has a better overall design BUT movie merrick does look more like a rat bastard. im sorry to that actor but god he just looks so unpleasant to be around.

- the fact that dr. uhh... kozak? was that her name? gets more screen time of actually doing experiments is nice. like dr. ivan in the comics is for sure more explicitly awful but his actual mad science is all off screen. whereas in the movie dr. kozak is SHOWN doing all her stabbing and poking and prodding and it’s awful and a great detail.

both - ok the main thing i really like about both is that they’re not cowards with the found family. i know other people have said this but it’s really nice that the characters actually act like they like each other rather than it being like “this ragtag team has been together for 200 years but they have no chemistry or inside jokes and are very stoic to each other”

[cheydoesfandom]

So basically canon season 2, moved up a few years to culminate in the stonewall riots, rather than jfk's assassination.

Maybe exclude all that dad bs bc it's awful and messes up the future.

The concept started with "hey, Klaus was already in 68/69" so he lands back in Vietnam with time to save Dave.

I'll put the rest under the cut bc it's kinda long/rambley/stream of consciousness, written at like 1 am, and definitely incomplete. I have only watched the show once and not touched the comics, but there's also some fandom influence bc I've been reading fics (specifically Klaus, Ben, and 5 centric mostly).

Or not, bc idk how to do a read more on mobile, oops.

Anyway.

This would be near the end, maybe a week at most, and Klaus either convinces him to desert or somehow keeps him alive until their next leave and THEN desert, or until their tour is up,, which was my first instinct, but I may be allowing fanfic to cloud Dave's depiction as refusing to desert, i need to double check that, or end up getting wounded but not dead and an honorable discharge.

He has a suitcase and COULD go to 2019, back at the middle of season 1. He DOESN'T  because a) ben is here this time, and he might not come with the case and b) five will find them eventually and then they can ALL use the case and c) I want Allison and Vanya to have their SOs.

At this point, I started mapping out how the others settled in New York in the late 60s (exact years tbd based on the gaps in season 2 canon), so...

Luther landed in the middle of the queerest block in Manhattan 1st, and was swept up and accepted as their own before he even knew he was. They call him a bear, and say it's desirable, and he's ready to hear them out. He goes to clubs, does party drugs bc fuck everything, he's pissed and exhausted and maybe kinda queer, but he never used a needle or smoked anything but weed, he'd watched what it did to Klaus. The first time someone danced up against him, so slender and small in comparison, Luther felt good, it felt RIGHT, to put his arms around him and dance a little closer and no, actually, this doesn't work. He wouldn't do drugs again, and I just can't imagine him not cishet, but I guess maybe, if he had a lot of time to reflect and figure out who he is without Reginald looming, which I suppose he would have if he was the first to return, so never mind green light, Luther is a bear and he likes twinks. Or, really, just about anybody he can envelope in his arms and hold close and safe and protect them. (Not 100% sold on this, open to suggestions)

Allison and Diego are in the middle here. Idk exactly, I need to check the dates. Also no idea what Diego is up to without the president to save. I kinda wanted to give him a queer awakening, but like, Luther said gimme soooo…… I kinda had the thought of Diego as a drag queen, but I'm not sure. And idk if Allison is bi or what. I kinda want trans!Allison, but mtf, so she'd already come out and transitioned, but I also feel that Reginald wouldn't allow this, not from any of the trans* kids. Not bc he's just a queerphobe, but because it's "a waste of time and resources". Maybe Allison was the only one to convince him that she would be more effective if she had these changes made. Yes. Yes, okay.

Allison is trans and black in the late 1960s, but it's new York, so there's a scene, and she's thriving, and meets the man of her dreams. They get involved in the local politics and the gay rights movements. Allison needs to not accidentally be given credit that belongs to Marsha and the other leaders of the community.

But that still leaves Diego, and I just don't know what to do with him. What would Lila be doing? I haven't even thought about the commision/handler, but that would be mostly the same. Idk Diego's motive yeeeeet. (With nothing to "stop", he probably just goes vigilante again? Ends up inthe neighborhood, sees a drag show? Idk, idk what Diego's up to, alright?)

Klaus probably shows up right before Vanya, a few weeks maybe, in Vietnam. He gets Dave back to the states somehow, explaining what's going on anxiously in a hotel room.  Ben was there with him, and they couldn't use the briefcase bc he might not come along. Dave accepts it fairly well and they maybe decide to see his folks before leaving town. Klaus had asked, "wanna go make history?" and, at Dave's nod, declared they were heading for Manhattan. They drove cross-country, enjoying the open road, and rolled into the city a week before the riots.

Vanya was next, with amnesia. Sissy and her husband are each other's beard, and brought her home to recover, she introduces her to the club life. He gets upset that she's brought the chance of suspicion by fucking in their house, by talking about leaving him. How would that make him look? At best like a pathetic loser who can't please his wife, and at worst like the fucking fag that he was!

Five would still arrive last, seeing the aftermath of whatever goes wrong, but idk what it is yet, then jumps back like a week or whatever.

This is about all I have. Like I said, this is a concept that isn't fully fleshed out, and needs some serious research if it were to be done properly, and I do not have the time/energy for that, honestly.

But in the end, they stop the apocalypse, go back to 2019, and get to just live their lives and heal and all that good stuff they need so bad.

And that's all I've got. Please leave a reply or drop an ask if you have thoughts or questions that might drive it somewhere!

[untitledtallgeesepodcast]

[TRANSCRIPT] Episode 0: The Anime They Once Saw (Or Didn’t See)

Kat  0:00  

Hello and welcome to the Untitled Tallgeese Podcast, a podcast where four of us will watch Gundam Wing and then tell you all about Gundam Wing. My name is Kat, I write about comics on the internet, and I will be your episode moderator for today.

Mallory  0:17  

And I'm Mallory, and I also write about comics. 

Cathy  0:20  

I'm Cathy, I don't write about comics. I am actually a lawyer, which sucks.

All  0:26  

[laughter]

Caitlin  0:28  

I am Caitlin. I'm a PhD researcher in Tokyo right now working on Japanese film. Yeah. 

Kat  0:33  

Extremely legit. 

Caitlin  0:35  

Are we? 

Cathy  0:36  

and we're all here to talk about the Gundam Wing.

Kat  0:38  

[crosstalk] I mean we might be.

Kat  0:41  

We are here to talk about Gundam Wing, the maybe not critically acclaimed, but fandom, okay, audience favorite anime  that was released in 1995 in Japan and then made its way to the US in March 2000 on Toonami. So, we're going to talk about our fandom history and our history with the show Gundam Wing and I guess I will kick that off. So I-- I grew up watching anime because my dad is a huge nerd. So we were obviously watching Toonami. And the promos blew my mind. My friends and I all got really into it in middle school. Then we discovered fanfiction and we started with Heero/Relena fan fiction. [Caitlin: Ugh.] And then then we realized people could be gay. 

Caitlin  1:29  

Uugh, thank god.

Kat  1:30  

That opened up like, I know it was like the clouds parted. rainbows fell from the sky. We were like, Oh, wow.

Mallory  1:39  

[singing] "A whole new world"

Kat  1:40  

[laughter] And then I don't know. I wrote a lot of fanfiction posted it on FF dotnet, got into fandom and then stayed in fandom. So, Mallory?

Mallory  1:53  

I didn't have cable growing up. So whatever anime exposure I got was like, whatever was on Saturday morning cartoons. So Digimon was my first fandom and I was really into that. 

Kat  2:08  

Hell yeah 

Mallory  2:09  

And that sort of like bled into Gundam Wing somehow, I don't really remember how. But I found my way to Gundam Wing, read a lot of fanfic, hadn't ever really watched the show. And then in high school, my friend had some like random episodes from the first season question mark. I have no idea. So I watched those, and really enjoyed that? But I have no idea what their context was, so I'm coming at this pretty, pretty new.

Cathy  2:44  

So you have never watched it from beginning to end?

Mallory  2:47  

No. 

Cathy  2:47  

Got it. This will be fun. 

Mallory  2:50  

I'm expecting to be really disapproving of all the adults in the room. I find that like, now that I'm watching anime about kids, I'm really protective of these kids like, "Hey, this is really unethical!"

Cathy  3:02  

So I'm like Kat, I started watching anime when I was I think around Middle School. I had a friend who got me into Sailor Moon, then I think it was Dragon Ball that was on Toonami at the time? I can't really remember the chronology. 

Kat  3:16  

Yeah. 

Cathy  3:17  

But then they did the promos for Gundam Wing, so then I started watching that on Toonami. And it was my first mecha series. And my first Gundam series, I think it's a lot of people's first Gundam series in the United States. 

Cathy  3:31  

I have attempted to do similar projects to this multiple times where I go back and I rewatch, and I haven't really had the opportunity to actually finish those rewatches. But my memory of it is still kind of stuck of when I was in middle school slash high school. I did get into fandom, so I expect to remember a lot of inaccuracies about what happened. [laughter] Because a lot of what my facts have with this series are have now mutated and changed. But I was a huge Gundam Wing fan, I think it still remains my favorite of the Gundam series just because I have so many memories of it? But I really excited to talk to Mallory, about what you feel and your experiences because it's been so long since I've talked to somebody who actually has never seen the series and doesn't know the story. So I'm super excited about this.

Caitlin  4:24  

Yeah!

Cathy  4:25  

All right, Cait, tell us about your family history.

Caitlin  4:27  

Yeah, so similar to all of us, I guess, I watched anime growing up. I got into Sailor Moon sort of through an accident of just happening to see a very specific episode on Toonami in like 1999, 1998 maybe. So after that, I got really into anime and really into the internet. I think I was very depressed as a child. [laughter] So I spend a lot of time online. I believe that like my my first memories of Gundam Wing are when it was on Toonami: Sailor Moon was on first and then Dragon Ball Dragon Ball Z, and then Gundam Wing. And then they also were showing like the quote unquote unedited versions late 

Cathy  5:09  

Yes!

Kat  5:09  

Yes, the midnight run 

Cathy  5:11  

The midnight run Right. 

Cathy  5:12  

Yeah. So very specific memories of like, I think I was mainly attracted to the, like, team format of Gundam if that makes sense? [Cathy: Yeah yeah yeah!] where it was used to sailor Sailor Moon where you have a team of color coded characters. And I'd, at a younger age been really into Power Rangers, where you had a team of color coded characters. So the marketing of Gundam Wing really appealed. You know, cuz I was just a kid watching on TV, I never really, I don't know if I watched the whole thing as a kid, but I got really into the fandom. And by 2000, 2001, I already knew about gay stuff online.

Kat  5:48  

Wow. Look at you early bloomer.

Caitlin  5:50  

Yeah. So So I got really into the various Gundam Wing pairings, I think it was mainly, I was mainly a 3x4, I think as a child. I went through some, 1x2, and then 2x5 phases. [laughter]

Caitlin  6:09  

I still am a big advocate for 2x5, I think it's underrated.

Kat  6:12  

I'm a big 2x5. 

Cathy  6:13  

2x5 is a good pairing, it definitely is. 

Kat  6:16  

Yeah.

Cathy  6:16  

It's a better pairing as an adult. 

Kat  6:17  

So okay, I think that's actually a pretty good bounce off. So these are the things we remember about Gundam Wing. It was marketed, like, I remember the Toonami marketing 'cause I was really hype for this show. They had like these really extreme commercials. 

Caitlin  6:34  

Yeah. 

Kat  6:35  

Um, and I thought the voice acting was good. I don't know, maybe we'll revisit that during this watch, to see if it still is, 

Caitlin  6:43  

[crosstalk] Was it dubbed?, 

Cathy  6:44  

[crosstalk] It was dubbed, yes.

Kat  6:44  

But I was ready for it. It was dubbed. 

Caitlin  6:46  

It was dubbed. One thing with the with the Japanese voice acting though, is that it's every single famous voice actor from the 90s. And so you can, you can use Gundam Wing is like a six degrees of every single voice actor from the 1990s. 

Caitlin  6:59  

Oh, that's cool.

Mallory  7:00  

I mean, there are a lot of big American or like, dub dub names on the dub side, too.

Cathy  7:06  

One of the things that I remember very strongly about Toonami is that they had what I think we would now call anime music videos, AMVs. 

Kat  7:16  

Yeah 

Cathy  7:17  

But they would play

Caitlin  7:18  

Yeah, 

Cathy  7:18  

These montage trailers, where they'd stich together all their different series. And as they accumulated more anime series, these became really, I think, cinematic and gripping tales, where they would kind of try to tell a story to be about, like bravery or honor or like, 

Kat  7:36  

It's like, plugged directly into my little 11 year old brain like, Whoa,

Cathy  7:40  

Yes. And one of them was, I remember was called, like, "technological development" or something like that, that featured a lot of the Gundam Wing clips. 

Kat  7:47  

Oh, yeah, cuz you only download them from like, KaZaa,  or whatever horrible thing I was putting into my computer. 

Caitlin  7:52  

Yeah. We gotta see if we can find those. [crosstalk] They must be online somewhere.

Cathy  7:56  

They are online. And I think they actually came out with like, I think somebody had either like hand by hand remastered them.

Kat  8:03  

[crosstalk] Oh sick.

Cathy  8:02  

Or they created a remastered version of it. They're wonderful. But that's I think one of the things about Toonami that I remember really strongly was Gundam Wing kind of is one of their, like epitome of like, Cool Anime that I feel like Toonami did and what it did was like they stiched together all these different things Outlaw Star and Tenchi Muyo and all these other stories to create a story about teenage growth, which is kind of strange and also weirdly fitting at the end of the day about like where Gundam is in the whole universe. 

Kat  8:07  

I think that's one of the reasons it blew up so much here because the marketing was really intense. Like Toonami, like it sort of right at the beginning, like people were into Sailor Moon, Dragonball Z was getting big. And like the manga boom was sort of happening in bookstores. So contextually, I think, Cartoon Network knew what the hell they were doing. They were like, "We can market the hell out of this."

Caitlin  8:55  

And also objectively speaking, Gundam Wing was one of their cooler series. Like, Sailor Moon is cool. Tenchi Muyo is not cool. 

All  9:04  

[laughter]

Kat  9:06  

Yeah. 

Caitlin  9:07  

Even even if you love it, it's not really cool. Dragon Ball. Love it. I don't know if it's really cool. Gundam Wing had like a very strong -

Kat  9:14  

[crosstalk] like the chad of animes

Caitlin  9:16  

- adult aesthetic to it, even though it was like, relatively, well, relatively appropriate for like 12 year olds. 

Kat  9:23  

And they swore during the midnight show.

Caitlin  9:25  

Oh yeah, 

Kat  9:26  

They swore and there was blood. 

Caitlin  9:27  

So it was very cool. And so I felt very adult watching it even though I didn't really understand what was going on because it's all this fake politics crap.

Kat  9:35  

Yeah, I was gonna say I did do a rewatch in like, like, right after college, so it was probably around 2010 ish, maybe? And I don't think we finished the series, but it was like, wow, I used to think this was very deep. [laughter] And I thought all the people in it who are the adults like Mallory, you were mentioning earlier, like they're actually like 17 and 19 

Cathy  10:01  

Yes! 

Kat  10:01  

in this show. So watching it at the age of 21, I was like, "Ooh no, don't give these people anything."

Cathy  10:09  

I was actually thinking about that. Because when you said Mallory, "oh, well, I become very protective of the children. I disapprove the adults," in my head of thinking "what adults?" [crosstalk, Caitlin: yeah what adults?] because actually, in Gundam Wing, there's a funny thing where people are either 15, 25 or like 70. And there's no in between and nobody really makes adult decisions. So it, That was one thing that really shocked me because as I go back to revisit it, I think, "Oh my god, I'm actually older than almost everybody in this series."

Caitlin  10:39  

How old, how old is Treize supposed to be? 

Cathy  10:41  

He's like 23, or 24. 

Kat  10:42  

He's 19.

Cathy  10:43  

No, Zechs is 19.

Kat  10:44  

Oh, Zechs is 19. Right. 

Cathy  10:47  

I just the idea of giving people who, you know, would have either been in college or just graduate college in my worldview, huge robots. 

Kat  10:58  

I think the ages of all the characters gets obscured by the anime art style, you know?

Cathy  11:03  

Yeah. 

Kat  11:03  

In a lot of anime fandoms.

Mallory  11:04  

And when you're watching this, when you're a kid, you want to see yourself as the protagonist. So it makes sense that, you know, a 17 year old seems like old and cool, and I want to be that person. And then when you're 30, you're like, the 17 year old should not be at war. 

Kat  11:23  

Relevant is that we definitely watched Evangelion. That was our last series.

Caitlin  11:29  

I don't know, I think, I think Heero Yuy is doing fine in war. I'm gonna, I'm gonna be honest, as a 30 year old, I think these kids are much better at war than I would be. 

Cathy  11:39  

Well, so that's what I find kind of interesting, is that I think this series actually... I don't, I know this wasn't the point but when I rewatched it recently, or just like the first couple of episodes, it seemed, it made a lot of sense, because they were like 15 or 24. Like the series, actually stitches together... 

Caitlin  11:58  

Yeah. 

Cathy  11:58  

...really well, because of how young they are, and kind of like the purity of feeling that they have, which I think is 

Kat  12:05  

Yeah, it is, like 

Cathy  12:06  

only maybe 

Kat  12:07  

like that [indistinguishable?] 

Cathy  12:07  

which I think is like only really, truly possible because I have to think of them as like 15 or 21 or 19 year olds. that is not at all when I took away when I was watching in high school. Right? 

Mallory  12:21  

Well, I mean, right.

Caitlin  12:22  

Part of the ideology of Gundam in general is like trying to restore a form of hope, and youth to, like, young people growing up in Japan, who are the target audience for this, and this idea that, like, you still have the power to change the world, you still have the power to bring about peace in a way that you want, even though you're being manipulated and oppressed by all these crazy adults who make you pilot giant robots. So I think there's a significant, like part of the series is the fact that they are kids who have been recruited into child warfare, and now have to find some way out of that. And like my memory of the series is that even though most of, most of the decisions made are very bad, the kids in general are not making terrible decisions. They're making pretty good decisions.

Kat  13:12  

Yeah, the pilots themselves... 

Mallory  13:14  

[crosstalk] Yeah 

Kat  13:14  

...are like doing the best they can be doing in that circumstance. 

Cathy  13:17  

[crosstalk] Exactly, exactly

Kat  13:19  

But I think it's sort of interesting, 'cause it's like, to me Gundam Wing is definitely like a fandom era, because I think a lot of stuff exemplifies like...there's like a lot of tropes cycling through it. But also like, the series itself, is so perfectly...like, I think of it as a series that are so perfectly set up for fandom because there's a lot of like, here's my one episode mission, and we have to be at a safe house, I guess. And it's just like, a long interminable war. So there's like, a big, a lot of world building. Yeah, that creates all these spaces that sort of separate from all the political machinations of the series.

Caitlin  13:58  

And that's also I think, a lot of what it was meant to be when it was created within the Gundam franchise like it was it was designed to have sort of a BL appeal to girls writing for comic market and that sort of thing. So it had like the setup of five hot guys who you could combine in various forms. And then also like Gundam itself, in general, it's designed to be and a sort of open universe that you can step into at various points, which also facilitates fandom engagement 

Mallory  14:28  

[crosstalk] literal fandom bait. 

Caitlin  14:29  

usually in the form, yeah, usually in the form of model collecting, which is like one of the main Gundam forms of fandom which we probably won't talk about too much on the show. But you, you kind of

Kat  14:41  

Uh I've definitely built some Gundam models. 

Caitlin  14:43  

Yeah. Well, you will be the expert on that because I've never touched a Gundam model in my life. But that is like the big thing where you can you can get the model you can construct it, you can learn a little bit more about the, like, the technology and the different like details of the models and stuff like that. And it just gives you like a slight, like Little bit more of these like tiny narratives and that sort of what the fans are consuming rather than an overall plot that makes sense, which is not what Gundam has really.

Kat  15:11  

So Gundam [Wing] has like the cool robots but also these hot boys in them.

Caitlin  15:15  

That's what I want. 

Mallory  15:16  

I mean Well, that's exactly what I want to show right now. So it sounds perfect?

Kat  15:21  

Honestly, yeah.

Mallory  15:23  

I think Evangelion, sort of, because, Kat, you and I just finished -- or are almost finished with -- Neon Genesis Evangelion [Kat, crosstalk: we haven't done all the movies yet] which was also it was my first time [Cathy, crosstalk: Congratulations, laugh] watching the whole series...wow, grim 

Kat  15:40  

I also only consumed 

Mallory  15:42  

[crosstalk] grim 

Kat  15:42  

[crosstalk] I consumed it like piecemeal too 

Mallory  15:44  

And depressing

Kat  15:45  

It was great. 

Mallory  15:46  

Very good but um grim.

Kat  15:50  

Yeah it's pretty grim.

Cathy  15:52  

Yeah, it's interesting to me because I feel like Evangelion doesn't make a lot of sense as a cultural product unless you've consumed a series like Gundam or its ancestors before watching it and yet Evangelion is a lot of people's introduction to giant robot series. So I always find that kind of interesting...

Caitlin  16:13  

[crosstalk] It's very weird.

Cathy  16:14  

because it, it is subversive, and I think it's subversive even if you don't know the tropes of the giant robot series, of which Gundam is perhaps a prime example. Gundam Wing...

Kat  16:27  

So I was gonna ask that and like, would you say, since Evangelion is definitely a like the subversion of this genre, would you say Gundam Wing is like the type of series that it is subverting? Or do you think it's in a different place?

Caitlin  16:41  

Gundam Wing and Evangelion came out the same year? Gundam Wing is in some ways a, it's already like a parody form of the original iteration of Gundam. 

Kat  16:55  

Okay, so it's--is it like, um, like the pure essence of teens-robots.

Caitlin  17:02  

It's, it's more like, I feel like by the time of Gundam Wing, the tropes of the original Gundam series are so well set that a lot of things in Gundam Wing to, like the fans who watched the original Gundam or like later Gundams, seemed like a rehash but it was designed to bring in new fans. So something like Zechs Merquis is very clearly like a Char Aznable character. It's just sort of a reiteration of that.

Kat  17:29  

So is it like a Star Wars, like a Star Wars sequel?

Caitlin  17:33  

Like how the Force Awakens is kind of a rehash of yeah, of A New Hope. And then, but it still brings in a lot of fans and has appealing characters and good aesthetics

Kat  17:43  

Right, yeah, I guess I think of them, the two shows, as sort of like, splitting the take on... like, what would you say is like the ur-mecha show? 

Cathy  17:52  

The original Gundam 

Caitlin  17:54  

Original Gundam? 

Cathy  17:54  

Yeah, Mobile Suit Gundam. 

Caitlin  17:56  

I mean, they're, they're older iterations, there's other robot shows. But I feel like when people think of mecha, the first thing they think of is Mobile Suit Gundam. 

Cathy  18:06  

So the way like I now think of Gundam Wing after the fact of experiences I have now is that like Gundam Wing is actually a perfect like K-Pop boy band way that they built it and so if you can kind of think of it like that, like it's, you need enough of the tropes and symbols, so that everybody watches it and immediately knows it's a Gundam series.

Cathy  18:30  

Like the colors of Wing Gundam are so obviously 

Kat  18:34  

Yeah.

Cathy  18:34  

a Gundam Mecca and you need that you can't get away from it. And same thing with like Zech's having a mask it the reason I think of it as being in in the Kpop industry is like there's a derivative sense. And that's animated by both like Merchandising, and advertising and what audiences want but at the same time, it's like this incredibly pure understanding of what makes us like things? And like when you get that when you really get it, like, it doesn't matter how like, quote, unquote manipulative or exploitative it can seem like you love it. And that's enough, right to make it like a thing that we all want to keep coming back to.

Mallory  19:12  

And there's basically like, an archetype right? In  all of the different characters like you have the more

Kat  19:18  

Yeah, you have the serious one. 

Mallory  19:20  

That's what I was thinking.

Kat  19:21  

Like, the goofy one.

Mallory  19:23  

Yeah, the goofy one, the sort of mess 

Kat  19:25  

the ugly one, 

Mallory  19:26  

like really cute one.

Kat  19:29  

Yeah, that's why I was thinking American boy bands cuz they all have to have like a type of heartthrob. Yeah, I'm a bad boy. I love death.

Caitlin  19:38  

One of them's, one of them's a rapper.

Kat  19:40  

Okay, so we talked a little bit about how we got into it. We talked a little bit about fandoms. And we touched on pairings, do we want to go into pairings at all? Or like our fave characters, or who we think our fave characters will be Before this rewatch?

Cathy  19:54  

You know before we do that--Mallory, can you try to tell us what you think this series is about? I'm actually really curious, like before you do a complete viewing, like what? what is what is your understanding of what happens in Gundam Wing?

Mallory  20:08  

Um, there's a long interminable war. These boys are recruited by some shadowy government whatever. And they're piloting these mecha. Uugh, I just remember Duo being really annoying.

Caitlin  20:28  

[loud gasp] [laughter] [crosstalk] Oh my god.

Mallory  20:29  

I mean, not annoying, like, being sort of... 

Kat  20:32  

Wow. 

Mallory  20:33  

...the one the pushy one like, he's the challenging one to Heero's "I'm serious and dour." Literally, I have the most broad strokes impressions of what this show is. I just know it looked really fucking cool every time I saw it in, like, a commercial and couldn't watch it.

Cathy  20:55  

Fascinating.

Caitlin  20:57  

Honestly, even having seen Gundam Wing, I'm not sure I could explain it much better. I don't remember who recruited them.

Mallory  21:03  

Okay. Okay, that does make me feel better. Because I was like, Oh, I don't? Do I actually know what the show is? What am I getting myself into? 

Caitlin  21:14  

There's there's a lot of weird politics. 

Mallory  21:17  

Well, I'm really excited for that. And I don't mean that sarcastically. Like, I'm really excited to, to see what this world is like, because I remember, like images or impressions. But everything is like out of context. So it'll be cool to see what that context is. Like deja vu? Oh, I remember that. I've seen that in AMV.

Kat  21:48  

I remember this from fics that just rewrite scenes from this show.

Mallory  21:55  

Yeah, like, what do I know? What do I know of Gundam that is from fanfic only, or is actual canon? I'm curious to figure out.

Kat  22:10  

I think everyone's a lot less obnoxious in canon.

Caitlin  22:14  

That's true. 

Mallory  22:15  

Okay, okay. 

Caitlin  22:16  

This was a this was a really good fandom for the the fandom phenomenon of, you take a character's most, like, annoying trait, and you emphasize it like times 10 in your fanfic.

Cathy  22:28  

Yes.

Kat  22:28  

Yeah 

Caitlin  22:28  

Just so everybody knows you know what that character is like.

Kat  22:31  

Heero's gonna threaten to kill everybody all the time, constantly.

Caitlin  22:34  

"Omae o korosu."

Cathy  22:36  

[laughing crosstalk] And so, it's funny that you guys mentioned safe houses, because actually, there are very few safe houses in the original series. In fact, I think there's like maybe one or two scenes ever, where they are all in a safe house provided by one of their allies. And it's a really fascinating trope, because it like pervades the fanfic? But I remember, that I remember was like a big deal, like, I went back and I was like, actually, these people spend very little downtime with each other in the actual series and I find that fascinating.

Kat  23:12  

Right? So you have to fill it all in. 

Mallory  23:13  

Oh, wait, what?

Caitlin  23:14  

They actually barely know each other.

Cathy  23:16  

Yeah, they truly barely know each other. [crosstalk]

Mallory  23:18  

Wait. Oh no, I thought, I thought this was going to be like..

Kat  23:23  

[crosstalk] They actually never interact. 

Mallory  23:24  

we're going to get together and become like a team 

Caitlin  23:26  

No, no.

Cathy  23:26  

Absolutely not, 

Caitlin  23:27  

They don't fight together; It's 50 episodes of them not interacting. 

Cathy  23:31  

They, they literally have like, they like, there's probably one or two scenes in which all five of them are on the same battlefield at the same time. And almost every single one of those scenes involves them fighting with each other because like, 

Kat  23:44  

[crosstalk]Oh, yeah, they fight each other alone. 

Cathy  23:45  

What's going on? And this was the thing that I'm sure we'll come back to when I came back to this is when I was rewatching. It in college, I realized that of the two people who spend the most time with each other, it's like Trowa and Heero. Because, yes, it is what arc where they actually go on a road trip, which like, 

Kat  24:03  

it's great. I wrote a thing 

Cathy  24:04  

like wiped it from my memory when I was thinking about the series, but it really drives home. You know, again, to your point like what of this series do I did I remember that was just from fanfic, and was just what like the fanfic I read very specifically. And so that was one of the things is like, when you come back as an adult, I was like, all of this stuff is so much more interesting to me because like, I actually, like, I don't get me wrong, I still have shipping opinions. But like, I'm older and I have I I'm famous for this. And Kat knows this. I like don't have OTPs. And I'm like not very good about actually being very loyal to pairings. And so as an adult coming back to this, I was like, Oh, this is actually really interesting because the permutations that fandom came up with also came from, like,  non-canon material, because there's a lot of non-canon material, like promotional images that bear no resemblance whatsoever to canon. 

Kat  24:54  

Okay, I would,  I would call those extra canonical, right?

Caitlin  24:58  

No, they're, they're extra canonical, they count in some form. 

Kat  25:02  

Right? 'Cause they're official.

Cathy  25:04  

I guess so. I mean, sure, we'll talk about that as time comes but like.

Caitlin  25:08  

Listen, a canon is not just the story. It's the entire media mix around it. It's those, it's those things that you can collect. It's the extra manga. It's Frozen Teardrop, 

Cathy  25:18  

Like, Gundam Wing actually, I think is one of the few franchises I know where like "pair the spares" was a real merchandising tactic. 

Kat  25:26  

Yes, it was. 

Cathy  25:27  

And so, so everybody had somebody... gay, I mean, like, not like, 

Kat  25:34  

Wufei had two! 

Cathy  25:35  

They had a gay and a straight interest that they were paired up with. And so, um, so it's like, fascinating to me to come back and be like, actually, the canon is a lot more flexible and interesting than I remembered it.

Caitlin  25:49  

The canon for me is like, remarkable in its commitment to not officially putting anyone together. Like it was, it's very good at balancing out all of the different pairings that it wants to support. 

Mallory  26:01  

Mm hmm. 

Caitlin  26:02  

Um, it's interesting to see which ones got picked up as the main two in fandom, which for me, were always 1x2 and 3x4 dominated the fandom, because they're both like, friendly, maybe talkative, personable guy and like silent, brooding, weirdo, 

Kat  26:22  

Warrior. 

Caitlin  26:22  

What fandom loves! Fandom loves that exact dynamic in every form. And so like, what 1, 1 and 3, were never going to work together because they're both silent and brooding. Fandom was never gonna pick that up. It's too It's too boring. It's not dynamic enough, right?

Mallory  26:37  

Like, you can't fight. There's no banter,

Cathy  26:39  

Which is actually weird, because if you go back and watch the episodes, you'll see it. Heero actually is not that quiet. And Trowa is like a nutcase. And so 

Kat  26:48  

they're really funny together, 

Cathy  26:49  

when they are together, they're actually incredibly dynamic in ways that in fact, the canon doesn't establish 1x2, or 3x4 to be. And so it is really fascinating, because I do agree with Caitlin. What came out of this canon is very different from what I think the show gives. And I don't know the show was like, open minded because it wanted to sell as much merch as possible or

Caitlin  27:13  

It's that.

Cathy  27:13  

Yeah, so I don't know.

Mallory  27:14  

Capitalism.

Kat  27:16  

I am gonna say I think the show is a 3x4 shipper. Like I think if the show had a pairing, it would be a three, it would be 3x4, like from my recollections of the show

Mallory  27:26  

Yeah

Caitlin  27:26  

I always thought that was true. But now 

Cathy  27:28  

I disagree. 

Caitlin  27:29  

I feel like I'm gonna go into this and and be like, they never

Kat  27:32  

Nobody else has a musical interlude.

Cathy  27:34  

But the but the thing is, here's Okay, so not to, like, make this too much about the pairing... But I also think 1x2 and 3x4 become established. I put that in quotes early in the series. And so it becomes entrenched and people assume that that's the pairing. But actually, I just remember so strongly when I went back and rewatched that I was like, there really is not that much evidence for Trowa and Quatre's like instantaneous connection because Quatre has that with almost every other pilot, and Trowa's relationship with Heero is like so much more interesting when I come back to it, even though I definitely think they would never work. They would like killing each other and instead as an adult.

Kat  28:12  

And I mean, I love that pairing. And like the one thing that came out of my rewatch a million years ago was I wrote a 1x3 fic cuz I really love those episodes, and fandom didn't do anything with it. But I feel like, I feel like Quatre and Trowa are framed slightly differently than all the other potential pairings so that they could be together.

Cathy  28:33  

Even up until Endless Waltz like, I really just feel like that that was an early series thing. And then as you go on into the series, that relationship while still important, was not really emphasized any more or less.

Kat  28:47  

But I mean, if it, if it comes out of the gate strong, [laughter] like

Caitlin  28:51  

That's all that matters

Kat  28:52  

I still think that the show was pushing that one if it pitched. Like if it was giving the most evidence to any one of them, I think the early stuff was really like, ~look at this beautiful pairing.~

Caitlin  29:04  

So wait do we all want to, maybe to end this episode, we should all go through and predict what are OTP or pseudo OTP for Cathy will be by the end of this rewatch. 

Kat  29:16  

But also tell me your fave character because that's what I asked like, 15 minutes ago.

Cathy  29:21  

Okay, Kat you first.

Kat  29:23  

Oh, well, my favorite character has always been Duo Maxwell. And I'm predicting that he's still going to be my fave character. And I am going to stake my flag on Duo/Wufei, 2x5.

Cathy  29:36  

Mallory?

Mallory  29:37  

I think from what I remember, I really liked Trowa, I thought Heero was too dour, but I also think that I might relate to him a lot more this time around. So I'm going to say that Heero is going to be my favorite character. And I've always liked...see, I don't know about fandom pairings. I want to say it'll be...well it was Duo/Heero before? No, but I've-- I really like Duo/Wufei so, like, I think that's just always gonna be my Gundam Wing ship.

Cathy  30:20  

So when I was a kid watching it my favorite was Duo Maxwell, but I know from my prior rewatching, or attempts to rewatch the series, that as an older person coming into the series, I actually like the girls a lot more, like Relena and Dorothy and Noin became my favorite characters and I did not give them the credit they deserved when I was watching it as a younger person. 

Cathy  30:41  

I also was 1x2 shipper but again, I know that what I came out of the series really shipping was disastrous Heero/Trowa, and then Duo/Wufei.

Caitlin  30:56  

Okay, I see we are all Duo/Wufei fans now.

Kat  30:59  

[crosstalk] That's why this is going to be the superior Gundam Wing podcast.

Caitlin  31:02  

Yeah. I feel like so, my favorite character when I was originally watching as a kid was Quatre. I think probably because like I always liked like, the friendly blondes in boy bands? 

Kat  31:13  

That go apeshit? 

Caitlin  31:15  

When I got older, I was more into Duo and Duo is was probably still my favorite character. I was into Duo/Wufei for a long time. I just think that they are funny together and terrible. And I actually really like Wufei a lot. I sort of admire that fake honor sort of thing. But I, since everybody said Duo/Wufei, I feel like I should say something else, which is that I think that I will get more into 3x4 again after this rewatch, because it's a comforting pairing, in some ways. It's a return. And we're all very full of anxiety right now. [laughter] And so we just need Quatre and stupid, crazy Trowa, you know, having their pure love connection that fandom imagined for them from the beginning.

Kat  32:02  

It's real.

Mallory  32:03  

I look forward to it. 

Cathy  32:04  

I do too. I also look forward to hating Treize because that's what happened the last time I rewatched this. He's such a fuck boy.

Kat  32:12  

I'm excited to love Dorothy and Relena.

Cathy  32:14  

My god, they're so good. Yeah, they're so good. That's what I should have said is my favorite pairing.

Kat  32:20  

Fandom definitely ruined me for a little bit, like, "urgh, Relena!"

Caitlin  32:24  

When I was a kid, part of the appeal of Gundam Wing fandom was in some ways that it was so sexist, and so I could like act out my own internalized misogyny at the time. And so like, I like I was definitely participating in that of like a group breaking up the boys, whatever. And then in later iterations, I like love Relena. So.

Kat  32:45  

Yeah, she was just such an easy reason for them to get together, right? For 1x2, but in the show, she's way more than a plot device. So that was kind of frustrating.

Caitlin  32:56  

In the show, she's easily the most one of the most interesting and active characters for sure.

Kat  33:02  

As podcast Daddy, I declare Episode Zero officially over. Thank you everyone for your time and catch us in two weeks with Episode One: The boy whose wings killed adolescence.

Caitlin  33:16  

Byeeee [laughter]

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

[gffa]

Scattered Star Wars Thoughts: - I’m about two thirds of the way through Empire’s End and I’m once again sad that we haven’t gotten anything like this in awhile--stuff happens in these books, the huge, big, galactic-level stuff happens!  The Battle of Jakku!  Rae Sloane vs Gallius Rax!  The bombing of the New Republic ceremony!  Mon Mothma’s struggles to keep the New Republic afloat and her political enemies trying to take her down! Sure, I love the books for the ragtag team I came to know and love, it’s still one of the top tier groups of new characters, but it’s also that stuff happens in this book, I get a good, strong look at the events that shape the galaxy in this era.  I suspect (even though I have no proof) that SW deliberately moved away from this kind of thing, because they were filling up the space too quickly, there soon wasn’t going to be much room left for any kind of big events, between this and Bloodline, especially if they ever wanted to set a show or movie in that era. I sometimes half-wonder if we’re heading for another reboot after awhile, because they’ll want to free up some space or if we’re just going to get more “away from the main action” stories.  Which I wouldn’t mind, if they were more like Spark of the Resistance because that was one of my favorite books of recent times, where it didn’t have to have a big impact, it could be a cute space adventure, but it was about characters I desperately wanted to have more interaction with. I guess that’s what was missing from Alphabet Squadron for me, that the new character stuff was SO GOOD, but Hera’s role really could have been filled by anyone.  Empire’s End is giving us Han and Leia and Mon character moments, but a lot of them don’t have to be about the big galactic stuff, they can be little mini-adventures set between the bigger ones. On the other hand, the comics seem to be filling that niche more than the novels, and the comics are so good that I’m kind of fine with the priority seeming to be on them--even if I don’t think that’s intentional.  (Or maybe it’s just me vastly preferring the comics over the novels, it seems like that’s where the good stuff is happening, imo.) Anyway. Empire’s End.  I really do love this trilogy in a way that, looking back, is a lot sharper than a lot of what I’ve been feeling re: current SW.  I wish Wendig would get another crack at writing SW, whether for these characters or someone else.  And that the Bens would come back and write more, too.  I was skimming over their From a Certain Point of View story and thinking about Join the Resistance! and I MISS THOSE STORIES. - I am doing pretty good at keeping up with my rewatch getting finished before the new season of TCW happens, I’m down to 1.8 episodes per day to reach my goal!  :D Between that and the way I’ve been booking it through other stuff (it’s been so cold out lately that I don’t go out much, so I have more time to watch stuff) that I’m already a quarter of the way through my 2020 Resolutions list! - I just saw Ryan Bergara, Shane Madej, and Steven Lim launched Watcher and have a handful of videos up, so I’ll have those to watch, I also have a bunch of shows (Barry and Patriot mostly) waiting in the wings for when I finish with TCW, and of course more of The Untamed, and, well, THANK GOD SW IS QUIET RIGHT NOW, because it’s getting to be a bit Much.  In a good way, but still!  /wanted to grump - I finished the current season of Grace & Frankie and I really liked the first 3-4 episodes, I got a bunch of IRL LOLs out of them, but about halfway through the season it lost steam for me and the ending just felt weird, like, “Why are we going down this same path again?  What was the point of that sub-plot?” and it just felt unfocused to me. I feel like, by this point, we’re six seasons in, Grace and Frankie lying about stuff from each other feels very, very retread, especially when Grace and Nick have talked about this before, that sometimes she has to choose him, not just Frankie all the time, and this storyline sort of ended up in a place that seemed to contradict that, and it does help to view this through the lens of Grace still has decades of lying and secrets as routine to recover from, she’s going to backslide, and I’m down for that, but I feel like this just didn’t quite acknowledge that it was part of a pattern she’s still working on, rather than ignoring that it comes with context of stuff that’s already happened in the show. I’m also losing my patience with a lot of the romantic partners drama on the show, like, I think they’ve been on a slow drive towards Coyote/Mallory for awhile and I hate it, I really don’t get any kind of spark between Frankie and Jack, Joan-Margaret and the guy she picked to marry didn’t have enough of a spark to make that storyline all that fun, Principal Dan being weird by the end was just *SIGH* (all the more so because I want Mallory to be with someone who Is Not Coyote).  I do very much still love Barry/Brianna, I feel like the show does better at Brianna Is An Onion You Have To Peel Her Back In Layers, so going over similar ground makes sense.  And I actually enjoyed Coyote/Jessica, they’re adorable, but it’s hard to get invested when I don’t think it’ll last.  I actually really enjoy Bud/Allison and their mutual failboating conversation about their first times was delightful to watch.  But I also sort of feel like I’m getting exhausted on Robert/Sol, it didn’t feel like there was any idea what to do with them this season, so they just sort of threw a bunch of things at the wall to see what would stick.  Robert being like, “NO THIS IS A BAD IDEA” while Sol and Allison researched Bud’s family history was hilarious, MORE LIKE THAT, less of them keeping secrets from each other like that entire local theater storyline.  Or even Sol’s health thing, which brought out different approaches to quality vs length of life at their age, that was a much more interesting story. I guess I wouldn’t mind retreading the same ground quite so much, if it felt like they were aware of it being part of a bigger whole, rather than just doing the same thing again, or if it felt like it was going somewhere (I think this is why I liked the Brianna/Barry stuff, it feels like it’s going somewhere), but that doesn’t mean the cast isn’t still delightful and the show isn’t still an absolute delight.  It never feels flat or like they’re Flanderizing the characters, the human moments are still there and very genuine.  (Grace and the other young wives was one of my favorite moments of the season!  It was such a lovely, warm, human resolution.)  The cast still delivers everything beautifully and they’re retreading these stories for a reason--though, I can’t lie, I’m curious to see what the final season has, in the way of a shake-up of the usual dynamics, as well as some more permanent resolution, one assumes. It still remains one of my favorite shows whenever it comes back! Scattered Star Wars Thoughts/2020 Resolutions Update: - Star Wars: The Clone Wars s3e02-20 Current total:  41/260 Scattered Everything Else Thoughts/ 2020 Resolutions Update: - Watchmen s01e01-09 - Bob’s Burgers s10e11 - The Good Place s04e11 - Grace & Frankie s06e01-13 Current total:  86/260 Star Wars Fic Recs 2020 Resolutions Update Current total written:  81/520