#NOTE: I did not in fact edit those essays.

[no-meat-no-pudding]

Oh - why do I post from 2011? The nature of my curse, you see. I thought it would be funny, and I'm deathly committed to the bit, so I won't be stopping.

I think I'll edit some of those essays I mentioned earlier today. You know, on this beautiful late Summer night, on September 21, 2011. Autumn will be starting proper soon... how nice.

[colleendoran]

Misunderstanding

I received a note from someone who was upset I “failed to cite Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics” in my research for my work on Neil Gaiman's Chivalry and the essays I wrote about it. 

I really appreciate that people want to make sure credit goes where it's due, and I have a lot of respect for Scott McCloud's accomplishment with his wonderful book.  

I haven't read it myself in some years, and didn't cite it in my articles because I didn't reference it. I don't even know where my copy is so I don't know what McCloud referenced, either. 

The information in my articles re: illuminated manuscripts and the Bayeux Tapestry, as well as other theories about the development of sequential art from prehistory, not only predate McCloud's work (and in fact, predate McCloud's birth,) but they are so common and so well known in comics circles that asking me to cite them seems as weird to me as asking me to cite the information that George Washington was the first President of the United States.

A part of me wonders if someone is trying to play, "Let's you and him fight." 

No.

But I’m happy to bring to your attention some reading material.

Stephen Becker in his 1959 work Comic Art in America: A Social History of the Funnies, the Political Cartoons, Magazine Humor, Sporting Cartoons, and Animated Cartoons was among the first to discuss the Bayeux Tapestry as comic art. I read that book sometime in the 1980’s. I think a lot of people assume the Bayeux tapestry as comic art was McCloud’s idea, but we don’t all walk around with a reference library in our heads, so there you go. I can’t find my copy of Becker’s work to quote, but I did find an article by Arthur Asa Berger with a mention of the Bayeux Tapestry as comic art in the summer 1978 issue of The Wilson Quarterly.

My first exposure to the idea of comics as descendant of fine art was Maurice Horn’s 1976 The World Encyclopedia of Comics which was my first read re: comics history. I still have my tattered 1976 edition. 

While Horn scorned the idea that tapestries and manuscripts could be comic art (see, it was a matter of discussion way back then, so much so that authors were writing snarky asides to one another about it,) he believed the origin of sequential art was in the Renaissance sketches of Leonardo da Vinci - which I think everyone now agrees is kind of a bonkers idea.

I think Horn was just intent on elevating the comic art form by hooking up with da Vinci.

You go, boi.

Comics as descendant of art on scrolls is a very common theory, the easiest to trace being in Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics by Fred Schodt published in 1983 when I was still a teenager. I can't find my copy to show examples, but this text is still in print and you can go read it for yourself. 

I was introduced to manga by cartoonist Leslie Sternbergh and bought Schodt’s book at Books Kinokuniya on (I think) a trip to New York around the time of first publication of Schodt’s work. And years later took a trip to Japan with Fred Schodt and a group of cartoonists including Jeff Smith and Jules Fieffer, Nicole Hollander, and Denys Cowan as the guests of Tezuka Productions.

Here we all are.

So, I’m familiar with manga, see.

As for comics as descendant of cave paintings, hieroglyphics and ancient art in general, Will Eisner’s 1985 Comics and Sequential Art not only made all of those points, but made those points with comic art examples. Like these.

And this.

And this.

And more than a few words on this:

I find it amusing that someone is questioning why I didn’t cite McCloud when what you should probably be questioning is why more people don’t cite Eisner who produced his book eight years before McCloud published his and who is well known to have influenced McCloud.

Whatever. My book's autographed.

I also danced with Eisner. Eat your heart out.

Understanding Comics is a terrific work with huge advantages over every book (that I know of) about comics that came before: it taught comics entirely in the language of comics. 

But the discussion in it about the origins of comics and my work especially re: illuminated manuscripts/tapestries, did not originate with McCloud. I research illuminated manuscripts because it’s my hobby and it informs my art. 

I encourage everyone to read Understanding Comics because it is an outstanding work.

But it’s not the book that introduced me to the concepts of the development of comic art. It’s not even the point of origin of those concepts. So, there is no reason to cite it.

Also, shocking as it may seem, I occasionally come up with ideas on my own. While I'm younger than McCloud, I've actually been a comics pro longer than he has. So I've had plenty of opportunity to, you know, read things and toss things around, and decide for myself.

When I first read Chivalry and first begged Neil Gaiman to let me adapt it, my head full of the work of Alberto Sangorski and his art for Tennyson’s Le Morte D’Arthur, Understanding Comics hadn’t been published yet.

It's been a good twelve years since I last read McCloud's work, and I don't think I've spoken to him five times in the last three decades. But I'm pretty sure he never mentioned Sangorski.

I hope that clears everything up, and maybe introduces some of you to some works you might not be aware of.

Have a great day.

[mothmothm0th]

on forming a basic understanding of the moth

cw: parasitism

As a moth, the second most common refrain I hear is "I don't know what you are" in a myriad of different phrases. This is understandable and even preferable to the topmost common refrain. However, this confusion is not because us moths are strange or unusual on some deep, existential level. And indeed, it is a mistake to assume that because one is not strange or unusual, one cannot be a moth. Many of us present as perfectly ordinary, even to ourselves.

Of course, the typical moth will be glad to know that you find it confusing. Even I, as I write my little essay, am torn between being a good communicator and helpful teacher and throwing you off a cliff into a cloud of soporifics and dream-stuff. Thus, assuming an adverserial, distrustful stance to whatever I say is probably a reasonable thing to do. I could be lying out of my abdomen. Or possibly my thorax. Even if I was, I would still be attempting to present my case in such a manner that I would appear trustworthy and thuswise lure you into a false sense of confidence. I wouldn't do that to you though. We're friends, right? We're buddies!

Anyway, at the heart of the moth is a simple syllogism. If the term is unfamiliar to you, you will likely have encountered many examples of them in your life, such as Aristotles famous formulation, originally found in his foundational work en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllogism (350 BC). His syllogism states as such: "All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal." I could explain syllogisms more thoroughly but I've already provided you with a source to learn for yourself. I'm a moth, not a science teacher. Instead, let's look at the syllogism of the moth. Consider this:

"All moths yearn. The author of this text is a moth. Therefore, the author yearns."

Simple, no? Now, put your thinking cap on and consider this one for size.

"All moths yearn. The author of this text yearns. Therefore, the author is a moth."

Now, I want you to ask yourself whether the statement given is true. And please do it before semantic satiation claims us all. I'll just give you some time to think really hard and I'll be doing that by way of writing nonsense to pad out the length of this paragraph because I need to make it look longer to satisfy the part of my brain that makes writing such a hassle sometimes but please don't be alarmed as purple scissors will not harm you underneath the tulip skies so long as you think really carefully and draw your conclusions with precision.

Did you think about it? Did anything seem amiss? That's right, there wasn't! The second syllogism is perfectly sound and valid beyond a reasonable doubt. All moths yearn, and all that yearns is moth. Good on you for not falling for that trap. You're so smart, and <first draft note!! insert applicable compliment here: beautiful | handsome | Still. don't forget to edit this later!!> too!

Of course, you might be thinking something along the lines of "well, I feel a deep sense of need for something too but that doesn't make me a moth." In reality, you are... possibly maybe correct in some sense of the word. However, what you experience as an emotion is actually a moth's egg, laid in the sweet tasty fabrics of your heart. If this makes you think "woah, so moth-eggs are everywhere, then", you would be quite right! While modern life has taken away the stars by which we navigate the night, those same conditions paradoxically help in the spontaneous generation of our eggs. Don't take this as me saying modern life bad. Pointing out how modern life is bad and bad for you is somewhat passé and indeed, we moths have existed since day one. In fact, to assume that I am saying that modern life bad assumes that I think mothiness is a bad thing. And I'm not saying that, stop saying I'm saying that.

Anyway, let's move out of the realm of baseless accusations about what I believe in and talk about the lifecycle of a moth a tad more. As described, a moth begins life as an egg, just like all other girls. And as discussed, a moth-egg is experienced by the fabric that lays it as yearning. Academic sources and my diurnal dreams differ on whether the yearning or the egg comes first. You may have heard this dilemna by its authorised discursive phrase, "chicken and the egg". A nice lil peek behind the Veil for you there. Don't worry about it.

As the moth-egg hatches, the moth/yearning enters its larval stage. The larva/yearning will begin to consume its fabric/host-mind. While this may sound scary, I invite you to consider how you are already being consumed by many things all the time, metaphorically. Capitalism consumes your labour, love consumes your reason, a third thing consumes another abstract concept, and so on and so on. Thus, while the process of mothly consumption gradually gnaws through the liminality between metaphor and literal, mind and soul, soul and body, it is still no more destructive than the aforementioned. You will not survive life unchanged. Give it up. Embrace metamorphosis. That's my advice to the moth-eaten fabrics in the audience anyway. But you're not moth-eaten. You're <ok seriously though what's a good gender, species, construct, and modality neutral word of praise?> so you don't have to worry about me trying to hasten anything. The eggs in your mind have not hatched. They will not hatch. Don't worry about it.

When the larva/yearning has thoroughly consumed its banquet/host, it weaves itself a cocoon/anticipation within the nice space left within the host's closet/skull. Some naughty witches have devised means of harvesting silk/desire from this cocoon/anticipation and the smart ones even wait until the imago/apotheosis has emerged before committing to the harvest. I wouldn't do either though, so don't worry. But we're getting off-track here. During this gestation period, the moth-to-be experiences a gradual shift in cognition. While most sources typically describe this shift in cognitive possibility space as "major depressive disorder" or "bipolar disorder" or "dissociative disorder" or even "other specified dissociative disorder", these label only apply to the more mundane, less exciting forms of having one's mind consumed. If you're a fully grown imago, you should sue!! In fact, please send me an ask with your frequency, flavour, and cardinality and I'll send you an oneiro-mail with instructions on the proper legal curses to apply.

Ah, distracted distracted. Mustn't let one get too distracted. You are not an imago. At least if you're the audience/sucker I'm writing this essay/trap for. No, no, no. You're here to learn what the lifecycle of a moth/yearning is! So let's talk about the moment a moth/yearning hatches/transcends. While the shift from larva to pupa is gradual enough that one might not even realise it is happening, the moment of transcendence is not. The final step of any metamorphosis is the most traumatic. It is a moment of great pain and of great bliss. John of the Cross/some nerd described it as "the dark night of the soul", which is a fitting description considering, yknow, nights. Moths. You get me. But that nerd was subscribed to some fake news youtuber and misattributed the whole thing to some old geezer who died a whole lotta time ago. Foolish. Foolish! No no no, the moment of hatching is something far greater, and something far more. To hatch is to see the light of Mansus with one's own eyes. To hatch is to become solid. To hatch is to transcend, to reach one's apotheosis of yearning. To become yearning itself. The false self is discarded, the true self is adorned. I see the shapes of things and I reach my hand out and the pain of change once again grips me and my heart sings and I become fluid again to become something anew for the me that is me is not the me that you see but the process is me and you are but a static object compared to me and I see the gods and the devils and they are static too and while my shape shall never be as luminescent I shall deconstruct their light and burn and burn and burn to be reborn and thus shall i die and never die and maybe i even get to drink the sweet sweet nectar of monster energy once again for i shall just be a little guy who is so terrible and nice and so i shall jump for the raw beef and fail the jump and burn in parkour prison until i change again for though i am not great or powerful you shall never diminish my joy and my love and my cycle of mistakes and fuck-ups will continue unto morrow and tomorrow and so it goes and so it goes and.

Oh, you're still here. Didn't notice you. I hope the lil writing exercise didn't bore you or anything. I think writing a bit of modernist pablum every now and then helps keep the mind unpretentious the rest of the time. Gotta keep that ol' noggin nice and crunchy. But in any case, I hope you've enjoyed this brief look into how to write a good essay or whatever the ohio this piece was about. If you're still suffering from symptoms of wanting-to-write-good-but-you-don't-know-how, please send an ask with your true name and object of yearning. I will get in contact with oneiro-mail as soon as I can.

[redheadwannabesblog]

Weasleys revenge: missing scene HBP

A few days after Ron getting poisoned Harry, Hermione, Ginny, and Luna sat in the hospital wing with him. Ginny had dropped off a stack of old editions of Quidditch Monthly that she’d thought Ron would like. Luna placed a large pink crystal next to his bed that she swore would speed his recovery. 

Hermione grimaced but at the look Ginny shot her said it was a very nice thought. Hermione tried to convince Ron to catch up on some schoolwork but he just groaned “what’s the point of nearly dying if I can’t even get out of a few essays.”

The doors to the hospital wing swung open and Romilda Vane came charging in flanked by two girls Harry vaguely recognized from the train. It took him a moment to realize it was in fact Romilda because her pale skin and dark hair had turned a deep green color. She looked like the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz that he had seen glimpses of before the Dursley’s had quickly changed the channel on the TV. 

Romilda looked straight at Ginny and spat “you did this to me didn’t you!!!”

Ginny looked up at her in mock surprise and said simply “ I don’t know what you are talking about. What is it you think I’ve done?”

“This, you witch! My hair! my skin! I look like I’m covered in moss. Get it off me!!”

Despite being shouted at Ginny looked up calmly. “Are you accusing me of turning you green?”

“Of course I am! Who else would’ve been mental enough to do this?!”

Hermione jumped up clearly in Prefect mode when Ginny stood and walked towards Romilda. 

“Well Romilda, poisoning another student is a serious accusation. Something like that would be enough to earn someone a month of detention if they weren’t suspended. So I hope you have some evidence other than me being mental. 

But we should get to the bottom of this. Tell me did whoever poison you leave something behind, like I don’t know were they stupid enough to sign their name?” 

At this she held out a small bit of parchment toward Romilda that Harry recognized as the note from the box of spiked chocolate cauldrons. He wondered briefly how she had found it before turning his attention back to the scene unfolding. Hermione looked concerned. Ron was looking on in great interest as nothing this exciting had happened in days. 

Romilda stared down at the note. 

“Oh come on! that was harmless.”

Ginny calm was gone at this. Anger flushed her face and the note in her hand was crumbled in her clenched fist. 

“HARMLESS! 

You tried to poison my friend, you actually poisoned my brother and  he could have died! “

“That wasn’t my fault and I got that potion from your other brothers BY THE WAY!”

“Oh believe me Fred and George already got an earful and they have learned their lesson and recalled the last of those awful love potions. Nothing about this was harmless and Ron wouldn’t be in that bed if it wasn’t for you! So maybe whoever turned you green wanted you to know what being forced into something outside of your control feels like!!!”

“THAT IS ENOUGH!” Everyone jumped to see madam Pomfrey standing behind them looking livid. 

“Miss Vane, I’m am sure the coloring is temporary. Go grab a bed over there and I will be right with you. I’m sure your friends can leave you alone for a little while.”

Romilda marched to a bed as far from Ginny as possible. And hid herself behind a curtain. 

Madam Pomfrey looked at Ginny. Who had gone back to her seat between a stunned looking Ron and a gleeful Luna. 

“Now do you have ideas on what might remove that coloring, Miss Weasley.”

“I never said it was me who did it.” Ginny said trying and failing to look innocent. 

Madam Pomfrey rolled her eyes. “Of course not. I only meant hypothetically”

Ginny looked up at her and said slowly “hypothetically it would probably wash away with a bit of rosewater”.

The matron turned and walked towards her medicine cabinet. 

“Wow Ginny” said Ron smugly “I had no idea you cared so much.”

“Oh shut up and read your magazine. And don’t look at me like that Granger you once trapped a woman in a jar and transported her across England, so don’t judge me. “

Harry burst out laughing. Ginny’s glower disappear and she started laughing too. The monster in his chest was beaming. 

[graysoncritic]

A (Negative) Review of Tom Taylor's Nightwing Run - What Went Wrong? Bea Bennett

Introduction Who is Dick Grayson? What Went Wrong? Dick's Characterization What Went Wrong? Barbara Gordon What Went Wrong? Bludhaven (Part 1, Part 2) What Went Wrong? Melinda Lin Grayson What Went Wrong? Bea Bennett What Went Wrong? Villains Conclusion Bibliography

I wish to spend this part of the essay examining how Taylor’s appropriation of Bea’s character betrays his complete disregard towards the ordinary people. Admittedly, this section is a late addition to the essay. As I was going through my edits, Nightwing #107 was released and Taylor’s handling of Bea was simultaneously so atrocious and so relevant to the topics I wish to discuss that I was unable to leave it untouched. 

I should also note that this section was written and edited long before the Nightwing Annual written by Travis Moore was released. I considered completely cutting this section as a result, or to add a section addressing Moore’s (very bad, in my personal opinion) retconning of Bea, as well as how it tainted Bea and Ric’s relationship (what, in the view of many, was one of the few redeeming qualities of the Ric arc). But I decided to instead leave this section intact, for while Moore’s Annual adds additional context for this section, it does not change the point I wished to make. 

Bea was always a complicated character when it came to Taylor’s run. She was the elephant in the room, her absence felt yet unspoken. Dick loved her not too long ago. She was there for him when Babs and his family abandoned him because he could not meet their expectations. She gave him a place to belong, she gave him the support he needed, and she fought for his well-being not because Nightwing needed to return, but because she loved him. 

And yet, when Dick regained his memories, Taylor completely ignored her existence. Rather than dealing with the aftermath of regaining his memories and dealing with the incredibly complicated ordeal of sorting through who he was before losing his memories, who he was as Ric, and who he is going to be now that those two parts of him are combined, Taylor decided that he would instead create a soft reboot. This meant that while the Ric arc was acknowledged as having happened, its consequences, events, and characters were, for the most part, ignored.

And that included Bea.

We can see this in how Taylor decided that rather than allowing Dick to be single for a while as he regained his footing, he immediately started to lay the groundwork for Dick and Babs’ romance, making it clear as early as #79 that this would be a major point in his story. 

(Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator. Leaping into the Light Part Two. Nightwing: Rebirth. 79, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2021. pp 05)

Never, during those early days of Dick and Babs’ romance, was the fact that Dick just got out of a serious relationship with another woman whom he was deeply in love with acknowledged.

(Jurgens, Dan, writer. Cliquer, Ronan; Moore, Travis, illustrators. Who is Dick Grayson? Nightwing: Rebirth. 75, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2020. pp 36)

Never did Dick have the time to process the way Babs treated him while he was Ric, nor did Babs get a chance to apologize for the unreasonable demands she made of him while he recovered from a traumatic brain injury.

(Castellucci, Cecil, writer. Sauvage, Marguerite; Lupacchino, Emanuela; Aneke, illustrators.  Little Wonders. Batgirl: Rebirth. 50, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2020. pp 14)

Never did Dick and Babs have a conversation about whether they should wait for Dick to heal before proceeding forward with a serious relationship, what it meant for Dick to be with someone who only knew a version of him from years ago, and if the him of now could be the same person Babs once knew and loved. They never had to reconcile their time apart. They never had to wonder what Dick’s relationship with Bea meant now that he recovered his memories. They never had to have a serious and mature conversation where they figure out what is best for them as individuals and if what they wish to have now is even possible given their circumstances.

Just as important, never did Dick seek Bea, who is a Bludhaven native who worked with homeless individuals, for her opinion on the best ways in which this problem could have been addressed.

(Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator. Leaping into the Light Part Six. Nightwing: Rebirth. 83, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2021. pp 13)

There are ways in which a Dick and Babs romance could have developed slowly while taking all of these conversations into consideration. There are ways in which Dick could have examined his relationship with his family and friends from years as Dick Grayson and the friends he made as Ric, and if those two worlds could exist as one. There were a myriad of ways in which the aftermath of Ric’s existence could have not only been acknowledged, but also addressed in a mature story about recovery and healing while still giving Dick a fresh start and treating Taylor’s run as a good onboarding point for new Dick Grayson readers (the memory recovery and reassessment of relationships could have provided ample opportunities to explore Dick’s history and provide context and information for new fans). But rather than doing any of this, Taylor decided to ignore all of these complicated affairs and treat his run as if it were Nightwing’s very first issue.

As I said before, I do not wish to go into the merits of whether this was the right or wrong decision. But it was a decision nonetheless, and nowhere else was its effect more felt than in not only Bea’s absence, but the complete erasure of her character. Rather than making it so she just wasn’t a part of Dick’s life anymore, her existence was never acknowledged, never commented on, her absence never mentioned. When Taylor started his new run and decided to skip Dick’s healing process and to start a new romance between Dick and Babs he also, as a result, removed Bea from existence.

Now, I cannot know why he recently decided to walk back this decision. My best guess is that he witnessed the push back against it and decided that rather than stick to his plan, he would quickly and, quite frankly, messily deal with said criticism by having Bea play a part in a story arc.

The warning sign that this was going to be handled poorly appeared early on, when the narrative mentioned that it had been two years since Dick recovered his memory. Again, I cannot know for certain why Taylor made such a decision, especially as there had been no indication of time passage up until that point, but my best guess is that once Taylor decided to bring Bea into the narrative, he realized how badly it would reflect on Dick to have gone from his romance with Bea to one with Babs.

However, what was far more offensive was how Taylor took a character whose big draw was the fact that she was just a regular person and decided that, in order to make her worthy of his narrative, she must have been a vigilante as well.

When Dick was confused, hurt, trying to discover who he was and trying to distance himself from vigilantism, Bea was a safe harbor. In an universe so filled with super-powered individuals, with humans capable of taking down monsters by themselves, with individuals whose hacking skills are so great they could shut down governments, Bea’s ordinariness was a breath of fresh air. She grounded the narrative and became a guide to the regular world of Bludhaven, the world that Nightwing once protected and that Dick and Ric both belonged to. Through her volunteering, she showed that you can still help others even if you’re not in a position of power; through her compassion towards Ric she showed that even when someone is at their lowest, they are still worthy of love; and by taking on Joker and Court even though she was just a regular person, she showed that even the most ordinary person can be brave, can be heroic, can protect those they love.

(Jurgens, Dan, writer. Cliquet, Ronan, illustrator. War for the Mind Nightwing: Rebirth. 71, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2020. pp 19)

A lot of Bea’s importance in the narrative came from the fact that she was just an ordinary citizen. Her “lack” of specialness was what made her special. She gave the ordinary people of Bludhaven a face and a voice, and she served as a reminder of what it is that the heroes we love fight for. As someone who was also not involved in vigilantism, she could also give Dick a form of unconditional support that it would be difficult to get from those whose lives are often dictated by life-or-death stakes. As someone who was not involved with the Bats, the Supers, the Titans, or any other hero, she had just the right amount of distance to offer him impartial advice that is not colored by a complicated history with either characters or the conflicts of being a vigilante. She could give him an alternative perspective that he, his family, and other heroes would ordinarily have lacked. She could remind him and the reader of the importance of the little things, she could be his anchor, and she could be his friend and his friend only. She could be the person who was always on Dick’s side. Not Nightwing, not Robin, not Batman, not Agent 37; not the detective, the superhero, the leader; not the boyfriend, the older brother, the mentor, the son. Just Dick.

But instead of realizing the specialness in her “lack” of specialness, Taylor instead decides to make her into a secret pirate queen, with a long and troubled family history that involves all those high stakes. Most insultingly, not only does Taylor physically remove Bea from Bludhaven for her vigilantism operations by making her operate in the sea rather than on land, he also has Dick specifically call out that Bea’s incredible actions are now explained because she was a pirate queen. 

(Taylor, Tom; Conrad, Michael, writer. Byrne, Stephen; Acuna, Serg, illustrator. The Crew of the Crossed Part Three. Nightwing: Rebirth. 107, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2023. pp. 08)

This one line is truly revealing of Taylor’s thoughts of ordinary characters and the ordinary people of Bludhaven. He insults Bea and destroys her character by very blatantly stating that her “ordinariness” made her a liability in his story. Bea could not have been helpful to others despite lacking power because she cared, because she wanted to help, because she realized that even regular people can make a difference — she had to be a pirate. Bea could not have taken on the Joker and the Court because she loved Dick and that love gave her courage to fight for him — she had to have been a vigilante. Rather than empowering, now Bea’s strength and capabilities are waved away as her being another vigilante. 

In trying to “make her special,” Taylor took away what made her special. Not only that, by having it Dick state this sentiment in these words, Taylor is making it so rather than believing that we all have the power to make the world a better place, no matter how “ordinary” we may feel, we can only do so if we are one of the few who have this specialized training and abilities. Ordinary people, according to Taylor and to Dick, do not have the courage to face difficulties or take on bad guys for the sake of our fellow humans or for those we love. We are incapable of doing that. It is only once someone is “special” that such traits “can make sense.”

This complete disregard towards the value of ordinary humans can also be observed during the brief time in which Dick gained power during Taylor’s run. Rather than using this as an opportunity to emphasize that Dick does not need powers in order to be great, the entire arc has this wistful tone, as if Taylor wished he could permanently make Dick into a superpowered individual. “Wouldn’t it be cool,” the arc implies. “If Nightwing could have all of these superpowers?” Taylor goes as far as having Clark, a character who has known Dick since he was a child and who would have known that Dick never needed the assistance of powers to be a hero, lament the fact that Dick’s talents were only temporary.

(Taylor, Tom; Pacat, C. S., writers. Pansica, Eduardo; HDR, Daniel; Moore, Travis, illustrators.  Superwing in Rise of the Underworld Finale. Nightwing: Rebirth. 104, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2023. pp 11)

Once more, I feel the need to draw a comparison between the implications of this panel and how, in World’s Finest #12, Waid had Kara emphasize how awe-inspiring it was that Dick could save himself while still being an ordinary human.

(Waid, Mark, writer. Lupacchino, Emanuela, illustrator. Scream of the Chaos Monkey. Batman/Superman: World’s Finest no. 12, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2023. pp. 06 - 07)

This disrespect and disregard towards “ordinary” humans explains why, rather than building a supporting cast with Bludhaven-natives, and rather than having Dick bond with the citizens, Taylor instead decides to move the Titans into Bludhaven, move Dick into the Titan’s Tower, and impose a physical and emotional distance between Dick and those he is meant to protect. It is as if Taylor does not think that ordinary citizens are worthy of writing about. While their flaws are scrubbed away so they can be “perfect victims,” their troubles can be used as backgrounds, to make the heroes look socially progressive, but any opportunity for meaningful interaction is cleanly removed from the story. 

The ordinary people of Bludhaven are denied agency, denied voices, faces, individuality, diversity, and even names because Taylor’s narrative deems them invaluable due to their “ordinariness.” Their lack of “specialness” makes them unworthy of Taylor’s time and of Nightwing’s time. In Taylor’s story, ordinary people do not deserve screen time, they do not deserve to interact with Nightwing, Batgirl, or the Titans. Bea’s transformation is but the embodiment of Taylor’s complete lack of regards towards the people of Bludhaven, towards the city of Bludhaven, and, by extent, towards their hero. 

To treat the ordinary people of Bludhaven with so much disregard is to fundamentally misunderstand what is so incredible about Dick Grayson. The appeal of most Bat characters is that, though they are just ordinary people, they are able to rise above the odds to do what seems impossible, and in doing so, they inspire us to take on the challenges we face in our lives. Dick, specifically, has always been a voice for those who felt ostracized by society. He defied all sorts of expectations, not just as a hero, but as Batman’s partner, and showed that one could still be different and be great. He empowered individuals who felt otherized not by being super-powered, but by being compassionate. Dick sees the value in every single individual, his compassion is unparalleled, and his desire to help everyone, in both big ways and small ways, is why he so often worked among the citizens of Bludhaven, and not apart from them. He was not better than them, he was not above them. He was one of them. He was Nightwing, yes, but he was also a bartender, a police officer, a gymnastics instructor, a taxi driver. 

But Taylor does not allow Dick to be any of that. Just like Taylor does not allow Dick to have his toxic perfectionism or obsessive tendencies. Just like Taylor has Dick recite online-rhetoric without considering if that would be fitting of his character. Or how he has so Dick’s competence and individuality is sacrificed for a heternormative romance with Babs. In trying to paint himself as progressive while responding to online discussions, Taylor demonstrates his, at best lack of interest, at worst disdain, for who Dick Grayson is and what Dick Grayson fans love about him so much. Rather than embracing the uniqueness of Dick and of Nightwing, Taylor instead strips away everything that differentiates him from others, taking him away from those who love him and appropriates him, his values, and his relationships. In Taylor’s Nightwing, Dick is only a blank canvas stand-in protagonist for audiences to project themselves into, a wish-fulfillment fantasy that has nothing of Dick Grayson in sight.

[kyliafanfiction]

Worm Vs Worm Fanfic: An Essay

You can't really judge a fanfic in comparison to the original in a total sense, because fanfic, by it's very nature, only can exist because of the original. Even the worst original stuff, like Twilight or 50 Shades or stuff that's even worse than those (I have heard of them) can't really have fanfiction that is 'better' than it, in a total sense.

I have made no bones here or on my worm liveread sideblog (@got-into-worm-by-mistake) that a contributing part of why I am still reading Worm, 25 arcs in, despite having many issues with it, is my desire to write fanfic for it. It's not the only reason I'm still reading it - I'm not that sort of masochist, fanfic alone would not make me read a thing I otherwise hated - but it is a factor. I also have and will continue to defend a lot of the sorts of trends in Worm fanfic that a lot of people in the Worm fandom (fic-reading and otherwise) attack, in part because I've been around too many fandom blocks to share the underlying opinions that inform their views on those issues.

(My belief that for a lot of the people with the least constructive opinions on Worm Fanfic, Worm is the only media for which they have ever really engaged in fanfic with remains hard to verify, but would explain a lot of it)

Some people have said that Worm is 'saved' or 'salvaged' by the fanfic, and some people have straight up said that there is fanfic that is better than Worm. While I understand the sentiment of the former, and it is somewhat true, in a sense, that for certain people the primary value or draw of worm is the fanfiction it produces (which is not a uniquely Worm phenomenon). as I have noted, I can't really agree with the latter.

What I can say is that it is possible to compare the original work (Worm, in this case) to various fanfics in individual categories. For instance, is there fanfic that is better written than the original? In the case of many fandoms, including Worm, that's true. Worm is a well written piece, but I don't think anyone could say Worm is the most technically skilled piece of writing in the world. It's got a lot of unevenness and issues here and there, nothing that kills the work, but they're there.

A lot of that can be laid at the feet of Wildbow's insane pace of writing that he set for himself. One assumes he'd have caught some of those issues (and he has, on various minor edits since then) had he moved at a slower pace.

Is there fanfic that is more consistent or internally coherent than Worm? Well, that starts to get a touch subjective, but again, I think that's true as well. And again, much of that can be laid at the feet of Wildbow's pace. I have nothing but admiration for Wildbow's pace of writing - I don't know if he maintained an active job while writing Worm, but even if he didn't his pace of writing is genuinely batshit, in the best way possible. But it does mean that the need to churn out words quickly is gonna leave issues. Wildbow has presumably always been aware of this as the original plan was to have an improved, finalized version of Worm after it was done. That that is unlikely to happen now is a different discussion.

These more consistent/coherent fics also benefit from the fact that Wildbow did a lot of the work in building the universe and rules and characters with which they're playing, which means they have a much easier time maintaining said consistency and internal coherence.

Now is there fanfic that is more enjoyable than the original (What I think a lot of people really mean when they say 'better')? Well, yes, for me at least, but that is an intensely subjective question. Fanfic, by it's nature, can often be tailored to target audiences better than the original work, even more so than Worm, which was very tailored to it's target audience... whatever that target audience was (More on that when I write my 'I've Finished Worm, Let's Reflect' thing)

But 'enjoyable' is a subjective thing that relies on so many moving parts that it can't really be used as a metric for 'better' in any meaningful sense.

Once I've finished Worm, I cannot see myself ever finding a desire to re-read it, from the start all the way to the end. Leaving aside the length, I just didn't enjoy it enough to do that. There are, however, numerous fanfics that I have reread multiple times and will reread still more times. There are fanfics that approach things in ways I find more personally interesting than Worm.

I will of course consult the text of Worm at various points to check specific details, or read certain scenes that I especially enjoyed (there are some)

There are shows that I found, like Worm, intensely compelling, that no amount of money (well, I mean, short of hundreds of thousands of dollars, I suppose, let's be realistic here) would make me want to watch again from start to finish. The Vampire Diaries, for instance

Now, Worm has been incredibly successful, like TVD, of creating characters that I find intensely compelling (and in fairness, Worm is infinitely better written than TVD, which was largely saved by actors too talented for such a show) and that don't leave my mind very easily. And it's definitely the characters and their relationship to each other the world around them that is the main draw for me in Worm, both in the original text and the fanfic. Themes, narratives, power interactions, worldbuilding, commentary on Superhero media etc - not the main draw for me.

(This is not atypical, as characters, their interactions and how they fit into the world around them is almost always the level at which I enjoy engaging with media the most)

So for me personally, there is a lot of Worm fanfic that does things I find more interesting with the characters, or does things I find more emotionally or narratively satisfying with those characters, etc, than Worm itself (or the Sequel that shall only be referenced this one time here). So for me, the fanfic is definitely a lot more what I'm interested in and going for. And that is not especially likely to change.

Worm is never going to rise above the level of 'good' for me - Wildbow's writing at it's best has a certain flat, workman like quality that does it's job very well, but can only be so good, too many of the narrative choices go over like lead balloons for me, and there's a lot of individual concepts and elements of the story that just aren't for me. But it is objectively well written, and has those intensely compelling characters, and I stand in awe of the total achievement that Wildbow... achieved when he wrote and completed Worm. It's really impressive, and it's quite good.

But equally, it's not 'great' or 'amazing' or 'perfect'. Some of that may be because I'm just not the right audience for it (there is a point where judging quality of something when you're the wrong audience is like asking me to judge the best vegetarian sausage. I may say which one I find most enjoyable to eat, but I'm not really the person they're selling Veggie sausage to. Worm is not the equivalent of Vegetarian sausage, but you grasp my point)

But I wouldn't call the fanfic as a whole or any individual fic 'better' than Worm in a total sense, because it's a useless discussion, as all fanfic exists in conversation with Worm and draws upon Worm.

BUT - and here we get to the reason I'm making this long-ass essay, I think it's just as useless to call Worm 'better' than the fanfic. Comparing the OG work and the fanfiction is almost always an exercise in futility.

Again, Worm may be better written, more coherent, more consistent, more enjoyable, etc, than a lot of fanfics, but the fanfic it's it's own category, and comparing it or any single fic to the OG text in a total sense is pointless thing to do that achieves very little.

Because ultimately, fanfiction is it's own genre, or even it's own medium of work entirely seperate from the OG work, whatever that work is. Comparing a fanfic and the original work is closer to comparing a book and a review of said book than it is comparing two separate books.

Because fanfic exists in conversation with and engagement with the original. Not all fanfic is written from a place of 'the original is bad, I'm gonna write it better', and that is an incredibly stupid way to look at fanfic. Just flat out stupid.

Now, some fanfics engage with the original work on fairly shallow levels, or don't engage with the work on the levels a given person may be most interested in, but they are engaging with it. (And I would argue the oft-derided altpower/powerscaling/escalation-y Worm fics are often engaging with Worm on a somewhat deeper level than many of the critics want to accept).

They may also say something about the work or elements of the work that you don't agree with, but again, that's one factor in why comparing the original work and the fanfic is pointless. Is some fanfiction just straight up bad? Badly written, lazily characterized, poorly researched, saying nothing nothing new, interesting or even useful? Of course, obviously, but that's just Sturgeon's Law. The barrier to entry for fanfic is lower, so a lot more gets written. This applies as much to Worm fanfic as any other fandom.

But fanfiction and original works fill entirely different niches, and fill entirely different roles in someone's media diet. Not everyone has an appetite for fanfic, and I definitely think there are some people in the Worm fandom that just don't have that appetite and don't realize it. It is, in essence, the same thing as being asked to judge the best vegetarian sausage when you yourself are not a vegetarian.

What I get from reading Worm (and again, I do get things that I enjoy) and what I get from reading Worm fanfiction are quite distinct and I could not, ultimately, have the latter without the former. Comparing the two is ultimately, pointless and silly, and both the fanfic-writers that don't like Worm, and the Worm-likers that don't tend to like the fanfic, should both stop doing it.

You just can't compare the original work and the fanfic, because that's just not how it works.

[moonsanoverthinker]

PLEASE TELL ME MORE ABOUT VOICE CHANGES IN TMA I WANT THE WHOLE RANT

LETS GO! Expect semi-coherent thoughts and a lot of random side notes. Also I apologise in advance for how long this post is, but then again I was asked for the whole thing and I like to over analyse x

Also second apologies, I didn’t intend for this to essentially become a weird essay / notes hybrid that goes well off topic! x

(This is JonMartin focused because those little men have a permanent place in my head)

Edit: I added the more thingy because then it’s not one super long text post (1. So I don’t have to scroll through it every time and 2. I only just found out I could do that!)

SERIES 1-5 SPOILERS (sorry forgot to add this!)

Series 1 Jon was fairly consistent in how he’d say Martin, usually pronouncing the R and the T, the ‘professional/formal’ way (Gotta try and convince people you are in fact the head archivist) as well as the tone usually being a little harsher when he was making unprompted jabs at Martin. (Also side note, MAG 14 where he talks about Martin maybe getting chopped up, sounding far too happy about that prospect Jon). MAG 22 is where we actually get to hear Martin, after hearing nothing but slander from Jon. Obviously he’s making a statement for a traumatic event but there’s a clear difference in how they speak in terms of confidence with Jon and nervousness from Martin. (Also side note 2, I listened to mag22 again and I forgot how much Martin wanted to prove his experience was real to skeptic Jon, makes me a little sad) That edge is still there in Jon’s voice but it’s softened the tiniest amount at the end when he’s actually providing solutions to Martin (Hurt/Comfort described as work) Then we get to MAG 39 where they have a real conversation! There’s still that ‘professional’ tone from Jon but this is the first time he actually has some form of emotion that isn’t annoyance, instead it’s fear. Also the ghost conversation where it just feels like the roles have flipped, with Jon being the one who doesn’t understand and Martin making fun of him. (Side note 3 I still think one of the funniest moments in MAG 39 when Martin mentions he records poetry on the tapes because of the lofi charm and then there’s the solid few seconds of silence with only the fire alarm sound).

Series 2 is pretty much the same between the two of them, but occasionally we start to see a different side to Martin when he’s answering Jon back. Like the whole ‘accidentally stabbing yourself with the bread knife’ conversation, he answers him a little firmer (like you would to someone you care about deeply) and in MAG 56 when Martins confronted by a paranoid Jon he answers in a firmer way but it feels less like it’s out of care and more just out of trying to diffuse the situation. Series 3 is where things start to change a little, we get Martin clearly being pleased about people saying him and Jon were ‘close’ as well as Jon mentioning ‘office gossip’ where he sounds like he’s attempting to convince himself ‘it’s natural and normal’. (The denial was strong)

Series 4 is where the big changes come from the two of them, and to me it almost feels like a role switch between them. Jon becomes the one practically pining and Martin becomes the one to deny it. There’s Jon demanding to know what Elias did to Martin, the constant asking about him as well as Jon actively seeking Martin out several times. MAG 124 is the first conversation between the two of them in series 4, Jon sounds excited to talk but Martin just sounds flat (it gives series 1 vibes) and this same pattern of Jon’s tone changing while Martins stays flat is carried on throughout. Then we get to MAG 154 (let’s gouge our eyes out and run away!) But first Jon thanks Martin for the ‘intervention’ which has says in that sarcastic tone, Martin jumps to the defence and Jon apologises and that is when Martin almost goes back to sounding how he used to. Then we get to the big we can leave together moments, Jon’s frantically trying to convince Martin and there’s a genuine hope ‘I could derail everything. We could derail everything and then just leave!’ To which he is met with Martin shutting it down with the harsh reality of the situation. Then we get the Mahtin’s (I can hear it, I don’t know how else to write it) and relief from the two of them as they leave the lonely together (I’m not crying) and everything ends in the cabin, nothing bad happens and they just live in Scotland with the cows

We’ve made it to series 5 where things are a little bit fucked! So let’s start at the beginning, Jon just sounds defeated, the thing he’s being trying to stop is everyone’s issue and he feels it’s his fault. Martins trying to sound reassuring and hopeful that things can be changed. Also there’s the various points where they sound almost happy despite the situation, ‘Eye spy literally everything’ ‘You are my reason. Just wanted to make you say it!’ And there’s warmth to the two of them, an oddly refreshing happiness that only comes in those short moments before everything’s awful again. (Side note 4, maybe I’ve got it a little wrong but Martin sounds less nervous in his voice, follows the character development of adapting and becoming a stronger character from dealing with everything) ‘You have to promise me, that your going to do everything in your power to live’ There’s a firmness in Martins voice but it sounds more like he’s either trying to convince himself that Jon would do that or he’s trying to convince Jon to do it. MAG 194 starts with the argument as the reality of it all is finally recognised. Martins clearly hurt by Jon claiming ‘it’s the only option’ resulting in him sounding more frustrated and almost like a petulant child. ‘Breaking his promise.’ ‘That’s not fair’ Jon just snaps at the accusation, despite it being partially true. This argument is similar to MAG 154 (to me at least) because of the pleading and convincing from Jon and the disagreement and bordering mocking from Martin. Jon was in an impossible decision and was attempting to justify his own sacrifice but Martin was mostly focused on the two of them living. ‘Tough! The world doesn’t care what you accept. It just is.’ Is Jons final attempts in the argument, he knows there is limited options and limited survival rates, it’s like he’s accepted the end of it all, then Jon does the statement, proceeds to make a joke of the lack of arguments given by it and says ‘I’m going to go and apologise to my boyfriend’ and there’s the brief smile in his voice again. Jump ahead a little to MAG 199 where we get the somewhat calm before the storm. And there’s a weird calmness to the two of them when they talk but there’s a mix of defeat and acceptance from Jon because he was always going to try and sacrifice himself, and then there’s defeat and hope from Martin because he knew Jon would try but clings to the hope that maybe everything will be okay. Ah onto MAG 200 the one that proceeds to hurt us all, again there’s the acceptance from Jon but also fear and determination to ‘win’ over the fears no matter what it costs him. Martins a mix of betrayal, anger, sadness, fear because well the promise was broken and he was going to be alone again. But it’s the final moments, there’s fear but they still cling to hope that they will be together no matter what happens.

[miniimapp]

Can you make hcs for Aaron T,Z, and fem or gender neutral reader being in a poly relationship?

Gen ;; Fluff - Headcanons

Warnings ;; none lol

Proofread + Edited ;; if you even consider this a possibility do you even know me ??

Auth. Note ;; never written poly before so forgive any inaccuracy,, also we went gn!reader for this bc i wanted to alskfkb

also the colour scheme is giving halloween and i live for it :DD

Jan 2024 Edit ;; excuse my abhorrent timing.. let's pretend it hasn't nearly been a year since i got this, yh ?? sick lol

✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈«

literally the first thing that came to mind is lazy mornings

just straight up cuddles only,, no worries

as i typed that i got the sudden like mini scene in my kind of T singing hakuna matata and Z joining in with little harmonies

holy shit T's morning voice is deeper than the fucking mariana trench my dudes

let's get one thing clear,, everyone gets flustered by T's morning voice

and he finds it fucking hilarious

but for the first months of dating,, you thoughts Z was the only exception

literally not a single eyelid batted

you were beyond confused

like,, your cheeks are burning

how is mans enduring this.. what are his secrets

like,, you'd feel your brain melting out of ears trying to maintain some semblance of calm and Z over here is brushing it off like water off of a duck's back

at least that's what you think

inside Z is full on screeching,, he is hot,, he is flustered,, he might be dying..

but hey,, at least no one can tell !!

it took a couple months for you to figure out that Z does not,, in fact,, keep his cool over T's morning voice

he does,, in fact,, lose it just like everyone else

how did you find this out you may be wondering ??

through Z's top secret diary of course !!

you and T stumbled upon by complete accident

really,, you did !!

no sneakiness was utilised in this mission.. definitely not..

but it just so happened to be left open on the table

you didn't even realise what it was at first,, figured it was one of Z's choreo notations and got kinda curious

T always liked to sneak peeks at the choreo beforehand to see how tiring it was going to be lol

then,, once you'd started reading you just couldn't stop

there were pages upon pages of flustered musings,, sincere endearment,, and loving descriptions

it was all too sweet !!

and within those pages was it

all of Z's hidden breakdowns over T's morning voice !!

you knew you weren't the only once,, you just knew it !!

the euphoria quickly subsided to make way for guilt at reading his diary

and you knew T was feeling similarly..

so,, you fessed up

that was awkward,, lemme tell you !!

you'd never seen T so.. squeamish (??) before

luckily,, Z didn't react badly

not even slightly

his reaction actually startled you slightly

because he just started laughing

it started small,, an amused little huff and snowballed into hiccuping snorts

it was honestly kinda adorable..

and that broke the awkwardness for both you and T

you joined in real quick

that really smashed through a couple of layers of ice you guys hadn't even realised was there from the beginning of your relationship

you all got a lot more comfortable around each other after that !!

it was good :))

moving on,,

i feel like T started this game called something stupid like "say that again but rap it"

literally all he does is get Z to repeat his sentences but rap them instead

so Z flipped it back on him because let's be real,, T can talk for a podium position,, he's literally the perfect target of his own game

fr out of nowhere T was rambling and Z waited for him to finish his spoken essay before going,, "say that again but rap it"

T was beyond flabbergasted,, mans forgets the words as soon as they left his mouth

and don't we all frfr

but is that going to stop him from trying (and failing) ??

you bet your ass it isn't !!

mans said real fast "gimme a beat"

AND Z DOES WITHOUT HESITATION

free entertainment baby,, that's what you're in for with these two ;DD

it was a catastrophe,, lemme be real clear

it was mostly just frantic not-words and vocalisations with the odd word or phrase that he actually remembed thrown in

lots of "hmm dumm da stupid fucking washing mashine uhh da dee da" and "broken p- uh p-pu- uh,, what's that word?? da da,, shut up Z !! oh,, pulsator!!"

like,, yeah you got that word but now we've lost all sense of rhythm lmao

it's a great time honestly,, wish i could've been there fr

overall,, i think that this throuple would be so amazingly chaotic but also so sweet and good to one another

you'd never want for anything,, they'd do everything they could for you

and you work so well with them and be such a good connection to the world outside 4*TOWN

i think you'd def keep them feeling human and real

[outofangband]

in response to an ask from @justpostsyeet about what Laws and Customs of the Eldar say about sexual assault

under a cut for non graphic discussion of this!

also thank you to @undercat-overdog for helping me find the relevant passage that I literally had memorized but could not find (seriously I spent like an hour reading through Morgoth's Ring and could not find the part I needed, my fault for researching when half asleep but anyways, Undercat saved this post!)

The ask: Hi, hope your having a good day/night (maybe this request doesn't worsen your day). I honestly love your posts and I've a thing that I want to ask to you.

Maybe you has done this before but what do you think the elves view on sexaul assault must be?

And even if it's true what must be the reaction of elves when the a) hear about such news, b) witness such cruelty, c) experiences such awful things themselves .

I know it's a very sensitive topic and I don't want you to feel uncomfortable so, ignore it if you want. I've my own headcanons but I just wanted to know your opinions.

My response: this does not worsen my day! I'm sure you know this from my posts but I write a lot of darker topics and I'm fine discussing this! Indeed, I enjoy discussing darker topics, I can find it very cathartic to write about

Thank you so much for the ask and for thinking of me!

The concept that elves cannot survive sexual assault comes from Laws and Customs of the Eldar, an essay style section of Morgoth's Ring, in the Histories of Middle Earth. In LaCE, as it's often known, Ælfwine, or Elfwine, a pre canon character in The legendarium is credited with the editing of this text as well as other parts of the histories of Middle Earth adding another aspect of meta to it.  

LaCE is a controversial essay. Many consider it to be precanon or non canon. Others consider it an in universe philosophical or religious work rather than biological facts or universal standards for the elves. I think this interpretation is probably accurate

The relevant part you're talking about is a footnote in response to this line of LaCE Even when  in after days as the history is reveal many of the Eldar in Middle Earth became corrupted and their hearts darkened by the Shadow that lies upon Arda seldom is any tale told of Deeds of lust among them.

The footnote reads ...But among all those evils there is no record of any among the elves that took another spouse by force for this was wholly against their nature and one so forth would have rejected bodily life and passed to Mandos. Guile or trickery in this matter was scarcely possible even if it could be thought that any elf would purpose to use for it; for the Eldar can read in the eyes of another whether they be wed or unwed 

I agree with you that it's probably not the case that sexual violence instantly leads to death.

I think it's fun to play around with whether or not LaCE is a, canon or b, strict biological law! Generally I go with it not being so but there is a lot of fascinating ideas that can be explored, if often horrifying ones, treating it like that! (the idea that elves can tell in the eyes of another if they're married or not is FASCINATING even if the idea that such a phenomena would prevent sexual violence is...troublesome...)

On the basis of LaCE not being biological law though, there are a few possibilities for this inclusion (note: these are in universe possibilities, not a complete list of reasons why Tolkien might have included it)

a, an in universe narrator trying to mitigate or cover up the fact that this did indeed occur

b, as in most versions he appears in, Ælfwine is not an elf but a human, this could simply be an idealistic notion or misconception or even misunderstanding or mistranslation

c, sexual violence is a taboo subject in many human cultures, it's certainly not implausible that it was treated similarly the elves. Even if it's not an attempt to cover up actions by well known figures in the history of the Eldar, it could be a denial of cultural traumas or a refusal to reckon with a certain kind of pain

The fact that it specifically reads 'no record of any taking the spouse of another by force' is somewhat strange. Obviously, non married people can be the victims of assault (and people can be victimized by those they're married to; it's worth noting here that Tolkien did seem to realize both, some of the primary, and only, instances of rape in the legendarium are instances of marital rape)

A...generous reading is that it is worded like this because the footnote appears in relevance to the section about marriage and this is meant to discuss specifically how certain trauma affects the marital bond, something that LaCE defines as a spiritual and physical matter.

(Plenty of horror you could potentially explore there; spouses actually feeling the pain and trauma of their partners due to this bond, whether trauma from this kind of violence or other)

What I do think is true is that elves have a stronger connection between body and mind and soul and that severe trauma of any kind can lead to physical consequences up to, including and beyond death of the body. This is of course not unheard of in humans, stress takes a physical toll. But for elves I think this connection is perhaps more profound.

This is not limited to sexual assault and indeed most of the instances we see of this in canon are not related to sexual assault.

It's worth noting that there are some troublesome aspects of Tolkien's wording. Obviously the linking of sexual assault and lust is not entirely accurate. Desire and lust often do not play a role in sexual violence; power and control perhaps being more pertinent. Then of course the fact that it says 'no record of one taking the spouse of another by force' is also questionable as I talked about above.

In conclusion, I think like the rest of LaCE, it makes more sense as the philosophy of one group or individual rather than biological reality.

Finally, I'll note that the two primary examples I can think of in the works of victims of sexual violence who "choose" death or at least leaving body or life in some form or another are not elves but are Aerin, a human, and Arien, a Maia (Arien's example also not being strictly canon), both of whom choose fire. (also I think that whether or not Aerin died is actually ambiguous and is certainly not definite, that being said the idea that she did is a perfectly plausible reading) Also why are their names so similar...

[malkaleh]

Some more in universe fictional fandom discussion in the Tudors OT3 Cinematic Unvierse inspired by @nocompromise-noregrets and also some other things. @herawell

Pre Unmasked did you clock what was going on if you didn’t know the history?

niceiceblock

50,000 notes

I didn’t.

This isn’t actually a critique of the way the show depicted that storyline - they are making a story at base, not a history (though it’s beautiful and accurately done) and that means there are going to be some dramatic reveals, including with things like this that not a lot of people know because it’s such a recent revelation, though I think you could argue about whether they should have made it clear from the start, I don’t think so.

I think in a lot of ways us/fandom at large not getting it is making a point about the way predators like Norwich work - they don’t broadcast themselves with giant signs saying I Am A Monster - they often look like Rupert Graves! They are charming! They have what can look like chemistry with the people they abuse (thinking about the times people have said ‘but they were such a cute couple’ about a later to be revealed abusive relationship between public figures).

And also it’s about fandom and seeing two very attractive men (in particular men) together and going NOW KISS and kind of reverse engineering the interpretation that it has to be romantic and kind of…ignoring the layers going on. I’m indicting myself here as well - I was looking at things through a shipping lens and so I did not see say, the work that James Frain was doing with his body - the way he looked so so small around Norwich, the flinch/tension he was carrying, the way that Rupert Graves plays that possessiveness in Norwich’s eyes but James does that things where he’s just avoiding looking at Norwich directly - that dissociation where he’s clearly (when you look at it post reveal) avoiding the reality in front of him/back being a small child again. It’s the ‘you ruined any trace of me’ referring to the branding that so many people used in edits when the episode trailer came out.

But that’s in retrospect, for me.

coveryourtears

I got it but I don’t think that means I’m morally superior or anything (like is some of it painful person experience? Possibly yes). I didn’t know the history but there was just for me there was something so off about Norwich that I couldn’t put my finger on at all and then I went ‘…OH SHIT’ at the reveal (which I am so glad they put content warnings pre episode so people could make choices about their viewing) as much as anyone.

I am however morally superior to the people actually genuinely defending John Norwich though. Go step on legos and may you forever be trapped listening to a Restorationist video essay.

lareginatara

I knew the history and let me say it’s been An Experience biting my lip through everything. AN EXPERIENCE AND A HALF (thank you oh group chat and discord for bearing with my feels upon the subject). I had this Dread ever since the Norwich casting was announced because oh fuck the norwich thirsting is going to happen.

(To the people whining about how they were Deceived And This Was Problematic I just….I can’t. Sometimes Stories Will Pull A Surprise On You People)

semperlyqueerly

But it was a different time - people married young then - I wouldn’t defend John today but in the context and time in which he lived it would have been fine - you can see he took such good care of Thomas (all those gifts! You all love it so much when H8 and Anne give him gifts and talk about how it’s a love language. The fact that he gave him an education and took him out of poverty and away from his abusive father. And Thomas does consent - he said yes when Norwich asked him to ‘come to my bed Antonius’ - you can’t say he didn’t consent). John didn’t deserve to be abandoned so cruelly after everything he did for Thomas - my heart always breaks for him when I watch him see Gregory for the first time, that his great love moved on so fast.

antoniusandcaesar

Silence actual factual pedophile excuser and I don’t throw that around in fandom debates but that is what you are and I refuse to give you the time of day.

lareginatara

[thelanor-s-astame]

Episode 1 Behind The Scenes!

Welcome to Amateur Hour! I mean this whole series is amateur hour, but stating out was REALLY amateur hour. So most of the way our videos worked is we would do a weekly video (Either podcast or Over The Shoulder game review). And I’d release a Funny Joke Video every two weeks. I was given Carte Blanch over my videos and basically just kinda did them on my own. So everything I did was suuuper rudimentary My scripts weren’t formated very well, there were tons of spelling errors, stuff I’d cut out I’d leave in the document and just remember I cut it out. But all this worked just fine because I was the only one looking at them.

And the way I’d send people their lines was I would *send* people their lines over discord and have them send me back an audio file that they’d recorded. I didn’t even really do any audio directing aside from a couple of notes. I might have directed Dalsson and TheDragonLover (heretofore referred to as Dergo), but that was it.

For anyone who might want to make a narrative series, uh… don’t do this with your main cast. If you have a guest star who knows what their doing and might not be comfortable being directed in a discord call with a stranger, that’s fine. But for everyone else you’ll just end up playing phone tag for a a couple of VA lines that won’t be nearly as good if you just set the people down in a call and told them what kinda performance you want them to give. A thing that, And I cannot stress this enough, they will be fine with you doing and in fact would much prefer this to the alternative.

And if you sit multiple people down in the call and do their voice lines in one day, that’s just way better! Your actors will be more comfortable with more friends around, and after the session is over, you have multiple scenes worth of voice lines to work with! It’s one of those “We do this thing like this for a reason.” kinda deals.

But ultimately a lot of the What Worked for those videos I’d put out every two weeks, and the video essays, did not really work here. But anyway lets look at the actual video.

The like first scene you can see how the cutting around is really off. That’s because the footage of me just standing there lasted, like, 3 seconds and I had a minute of dialogue, so I HAD to keep cutting if I wanted to use that footage. I should have just started a new save and rerecorded it but… again amateur hour.

But. The first joke here I think is really good. I have a lot of thoughts about it, so I’m going to make it a separate thread. There’s quite a bit going on there and I’m really proud of it.

But the beginning of the video, and the beginning of the series as a whole, is just kinda me moving from bit to bit like I did in the previous Joke Videos. These started out as those with a tiny bit more structure.

The Conversation with Elderbug here is what got Lordfrezon to get a better mic. Like this video convinced the man to get a better microphone. But you’ll notice Elderbugs mouth keeps moving when he’s not taking. I didn’t start putting a still picture over the talking characters yet

The quirrel scene is probably the best put together in the entire video. The editing is sharp. and I realized I could like, just reverse the video of him looking at the Black Egg to make it a little more dynamic.

But most of the dynamic-ness of these scenes comes down to me zooming in and out of characters faces for emphasis. The footage I’m working with is a character with a one second animation loop and another character staring up at them. So I gotta do a lot of cuts and zooms to make it look like a conversation with multiple emotions in it is happening. And I already had a pretty good grasp of that thanks to the joke videos! Say what you will about youtube video editing, but it sure teaches you how powerful quick cutting for emphasis is!

This was also before I started putting Reverb on every scene that takes place in a tunnel… which most of them do, and if there’s one thing I love, love, love playing with, it’s reverb. Sound design is my passion tbh. It is also the only thing I have any formal training in! I was taught it by a bunch of 80s rockers who showed me how to use an old analog soundboard for live mixing! And I’ve always held to the idea that 75% of video editing is sound editing, and 95% of that sound editing is shit no one would notice unless it wasn’t there.

There a little after the Quirrel scene I got *extremely lucky* and found a sign mender. Which is a really rare event. Just immediately out of the gate I see that man. I’d never seen him before I was getting footage for the video and he blessed me with his presence like an angel. Thank you Sign Mender! You gave me a great bit about property destruction!

The Cornifer scene is firstly, a great look into how a voice role evolves over time, and secondly, a great exemplification of what I started this with. Just Direct Your VA’s. You’ll notice how Saine’s performance on his first line here are worse than any of the other ones he’s given. He didn’t know what I wanted. And if I would have simply directed him, that wouldn’t be a problem!

He did, however get to delever the funniest lines of the video. And he did a great job with those! And, another thing to Saine’s credit is he does a fantastic job as Iselda! Man eats up that whole scene! Just great shit there!

Sly’s change is less in that the voice evolved as time went on and more I changed the character. I focused more on the Shopkeeper aspect rather than the teacher aspect as his Central Thing, and ultimately I think that was the best choice. Surly Shopkeeper who can “Show You Da Ropes” Is always a great character and he’s a lot of fun to write. Also all the thing’s Sly says about ‘God’ put me in a bit of a bind because “Okay, so why the hell does this guy know about The Radiance… a thing that a lot of people were lied to about for decades?” So I had to come up with some stuff for that. But that’s the kind of problem I love solving. Because it goes from “Weird plot hole” to “Ooh new character aspect! let’s give this man some depth!

Dergo’s performance as Myla is the best one in the video. And it’s great that’s the case too, because of how much *that* kicks off a lot of the story. But, yeah 10/10 no notes. Dergo is incredibly good at this shit.

The end bit with the snail man is probably my biggest regret of the video. It very much does not fit in with the tone of everything else. It’s kinda something that just happens in the first episode and I hope everyone forgets about. The implication he just murdered the snail guy is funny but it doesn’t fit in the wider whole. Whole scene just is not very good tbh. I also probably should have had someone else voice the Snail man as well.

And I wholeass forgot I used a different font for the credits! But I think that’s that for the first episode. IT’s kind of just a collection of thoughts, but the episode is just kind of a collection of scenes so, there we go!

[mysticmiav]

Your notes are cool!

And I was always frightened by the idea of ​​writing in a book, I thought it was because of my upbringing and culture of the older school. And then I realized for myself that every time I read, my thoughts are supplemented, varied,They branch out endlessly or have a completely different take on the same story, and there simply isn’t enough space between the lines for me to fit it all in.Now I put thin leaves in the book, written with different thoughts, like a mini-bookmark to the chapters, a little reminder of that version of myself and that view of the world.

Writing in books can so intimidating I know! Especially when it was reading for school, cuz in my school we woukd borrow books from the library, so I couldn't write even if I wanted to. But also it wasn't a thing in my family either, and my older brother was very protective of the condition of the books we had at home.

So writing in books also felt intimidating cuz of upbringings as well!

A bit over two years ago when I'd picked up some books (The Love Hypothesis, The Cruel Prince and A River Enchanted) that I'd wanted to annotate, I was so focused on writing cute little notes and making sure my handwriting was neat and my lines weren't too wobbly and all. And that's all fun and stuff but also it made it feel like a task? If that makes sense? Like I'd read, I was enjoying reading and the characters and the story, but I also felt the need to write something on every page. Something smart or funny or just idk cool.

I guess it was mainly cuz of seeing many people share how pretty and expansive their annotated pages were that I started pressuring myself to make sure my annotations were cute?

Then came Six of Crows. The book I'd bought was the Collector's edition, and I really didn't want to write in it at first.

But after the first few pages I started writing some small, very small, thoughts and reactions with a light pencil, and hoghlighting quotes I liked.

Didn't force it. Just underlined a sentence here and there and wrote stuff like "lol" , "damn" , "wtf" etc.

And I guess it broke that mental barrier for me? Cuz now the thing I love most about annotations is the fact they are a a small journal of my own thoughts in the margins. When I re-read a book, it's fun to see what I was thinking then, or sometimes the jokes I'd cracked between the lines. I genuinely had moments during rereads where I was like "omg past me was onto something!" Or laughed at a "come fight me bruh let's duke it out" that I left after someone's dumbass line.

They aren't meant for other people. They are just little thoughts from me to me.

They are meant to be understood by me if I were to look back on them. To give me a glimpse into the headspace and thoughts and theories I had on my previous read

And I found that after that, whenever I did make more expansive annotations, I could enjoy them a lot more, pull out my post its and tabs and go all out with the small essays lmao

But I didn't force it, it didn't feel like a mental task. I didn't feel like every written thought had to be an enlighting take or amazing analysis.

So in some books I still found it fun to be more loose with them (We Hunt The Flame, Before the Coffee Gets Cold, The Folk of Air series) where sometimes pages and chapters went by with nothing more than a word here and there, while in others, I found it more enjoyable to dissect the details and put my takes on paper. Not because I felt the need to have smart annotations, but cuz I genuinely wanted to write down thoughts and explanations and ideas, because there were many things going on in my head as I'd read and I really wanted to capture those as I went on (Pride and Prejudice, If We Were Villains, Vicious)

Also, love the idea with the thin leaves omg! It sounds so lovely and unique <33

[ofstormsandfire]

hey there pal, hows the weather-

i’ll cut to the chase: how do you get writing done, and how do you stay focused on your writing and not get so distracted?

Weather's pretty decent right now! Sunny and hot, which is why I don't plan on going outside for several hours, but I'll take that over thunderstorms that knock out my power for a few seconds and my wifi for longer. My dad calls it "florida flash and flicker" which is as amusing a name as it is way too accurate.

Anyway, uh. Well, I do get pretty distracted, I won't lie. I'm on here right now instead of writing. But there's a particular site I use called 4thewords that, for lack of a better description, it translates writing words into fighting monsters. With time limits. And while it really isn't a big deal if I "lose" the battle by running out of time, it's a big deal to me and it helps me stay on task.

It's a bit of a tradeoff; I've noticed that while I write significantly more on 4tw I also generally have to edit more after the fact too. But you can't edit what's not there at all.

It's also absolutely not the sort of thing that would work for everyone, but it works really well for me. I started using 4tw after I got a free extra month's subscription (it does cost money, but it's not very much, and if it's not feasible in your budget there is a community pool that you can put yourself into for other users to donate subscriptions to) thanks to beating Camp Nanowrimo in... July of 2021? I have written so much more since I got it and I genuinely cannot recommend it more.

More generally, though: it helps to set deadlines for myself, artificial or otherwise. I'm one of those people who will put off important school assignments until the last minute and then dash out a 10-20 page essay the day before it's due and somehow do okay on it, because adrenaline kicked in.

It also helps that I'm generally very passionate about the things I'm writing? Most of the people I know irl have heard about whatever gay fanfic I'm actively working on the most. I'm meeting up with my nana for lunch tomorrow and she is going to hear about the gay people whether she likes it or not. (She is also going to get this story read out loud to her dramatically because she called me when I was reading it out loud to my dad dramatically and was vaguely curious, and I like reading funny things out loud to people I like dramatically.)

...I think it also helps to focus on One Thing at a time. Which, you have presumably seen my AO3, I'm not good at doing that. But it's much easier to keep your thoughts in order if you mainly work on one longer fic at a time.

It's also much easier to keep your thoughts in order if you write things down. I didn't use to outline my writing, I started cowriting a funky crossover between Warframe and RWBY with a friend who was far more of a planner and who did drag me somewhat kicking and screaming into doing that. Taking notes is important, otherwise you run the risk of forgetting important details like which trainer has which Pokémon or if the gay dumbass you're currently writing has had any sort of revelations about that fact lately. They don't have to be organized (though it helps if they are) and they don't have to make sense to anyone but you, but if you write things down you're much less likely to forget important/cool things you came up with like two separate projects ago.

I hope this makes some sense, anon! If you'd like clarification on anything by all means send another ask, I'll do my best to explain in more depth. Thanks for the ask!

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Pamela Paul

Published: Oct 5, 2023

The recent turmoil at Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, with more than half its staff laid off and half its budget cut amid questions of what it did with the nearly $55 million it raised, led to whoops of schadenfreude from Kendi’s critics and hand-wringing from his loyal fans.

He had become a symbol of what was right or wrong with America’s racial reckoning since the police murder of George Floyd. To some, Kendi was a race-baiting grifter; to others, he was a social justice hero speaking harsh truths.

With little administrative experience, Kendi may simply have been ill equipped to deal with a program of that magnitude. He may have been distracted by a nonstop book tour and speaking engagements. Or maybe he just screwed up.

More interesting is that many major universities, corporations, nonprofit groups and influential donors thought buying into Kendi’s strident, simplistic formula — that racism is the cause of all racial disparities and that anyone who disagrees is a racist — could eradicate racial strife and absolve them of any role they may have played in it.

After all, this reductionist line of thinking runs squarely against the enlightened principles on which many of those institutions were founded — free inquiry, freedom of speech, a diversity of perspectives. As one Boston University professor wrote last week in The Wall Street Journal, that academia backs Kendi’s mission amounts to a “violation of scholarly ideals and liberal principles,” ones that betray “the norms necessary for intellectual life and human flourishing.”

Yet Kendi’s ideas gained prominence, often to the exclusion of all other perspectives. He was a relatively unknown academic when his second book, “Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America,” was a surprise winner of a National Book Award in 2016. It helped catapult him from assistant professorships at State University of New York campuses and the University of Florida to a full professorship at American University, where he founded the Antiracist Research and Policy Center.

In 2017, The New York Times Book Review, which I was then editing, asked Kendi to create a reading list, “A History of Race and Racism, in 24 Chapters,” for our pages. I interviewed Kendi, who is a very charismatic speaker, about the essay on the Book Review’s podcast and again, about his reading life, on a panel in 2019.

In “Stamped From the Beginning,” Kendi asserted that racist ideas are used to obscure the fact that racist policies create racial disparities and that to find fault with Black people in any way for those disparities is racist. People who “subscribed to assimilationist thinking that has also served up racist beliefs about Black inferiority,” no matter how well meaning and progressive, were themselves racist. In Kendi’s revisionist history, figures who were previously hailed for their contribution to civil rights were repainted as racist if they did not attribute Black inequality solely to racism. Kendi accused W.E.B. Du Bois and Barack Obama of racism for entertaining the idea that Black behavior and attitudes could sometimes cause or exacerbate certain disparities, although he noted that Du Bois went on to take what he considered a more antiracist position.

In 2019, Kendi took the ideas further, pivoting to contemporary policy with “How to Be an Antiracist.” In this book he made clear that to explore reasons other than racism for racial inequities, whether economic, social or cultural, is to promote anti-Black policies.

“The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination,” Kendi wrote, in words that would be softened in a future edition after they became the subject of criticism. “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” In other words, two wrongs do make a right. As practiced, that meant curriculums that favor works by Black people over white people are one way to achieve that goal; hiring quotas are another.

Among the book’s central tenets is that everyone must choose between his approach, which he called “antiracism,” and racism itself. It would no longer be enough for an individual or organization to simply be “not racist,” which Kendi called a “mask for racism” — they must instead be actively “antiracist,” applying a strict lens of racism to their every thought and action, and in fields wholly unrelated to race, in order to escape deliberate or inadvertent racist thinking and behavior. “What we say about race, what we do about race, in each moment, determines what — not who — we are,” Kendi wrote.

Kendi’s antiracism prescription meant that universities, corporations and nonprofits would need to remove all policies that weren’t overtly antiracist. In the Boston University English department’s playwriting M.F.A. program, for example, reading assignments had to come from “50 percent diverse-identifying and marginalized writers,” and writers of “white or Eurocentric lineage” had to be taught through “an actively antiracist lens.” Antiracism also requires a commitment to other positions, including active opposition to sexism, homophobia, colorism, ethnocentrism, nativism, cultural prejudice and any class biases that supposedly harm Black lives. To deviate from any of this is to be racist. Either you’re with us or you’re against us.

Yet, as the psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt pointed out, Kendi’s dichotomy is “incorrect from a social-science perspective because there are obviously many other remedies,” including ones that address social, economic and cultural disparities through a fairer distribution of resources.

When a Minneapolis police officer murdered Floyd in May 2020, Kendi’s book, with its propitious, here-is-what-you-must-do-now title, became the bible for anyone newly committed to the cause of racial justice. Schools and companies made it required reading. So many campuses made it their class read, all-school read or community read that the publisher created a full set of reading and teaching guides for them. (Employees at the publishing house, Penguin Random House, were told to read it as the first “true companywide read” to begin “antiracism training mandatory for all employees.”) Universities used Kendi’s antiracist framework as the basis by which applicants’ required diversity statements would be judged.

His vision of antiracism had considerable influence in shaping the national conversation around race. As Tyler Austin Harper wrote in The Washington Post last week, “No longer a mere ambassador for academic antiracism, Kendi became a brand.”

Yet the same year “How to Be an Antiracist” was published, Henry Louis Gates’s “Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow” presented a more nuanced assessment of the relationship between past and present. With its vivid examples of crude prejudice (the photos are not for the fainthearted), Gates’s historical excavation allows the reader to see a clear line between the pervasive bigotry of the past and the kind of ugly but marginal brand of white supremacy on display in 2017 Charlottesville, Va. In contrast to Kendi’s contention that racial progress is consistently accompanied by racist progress, numerous memoirs, firsthand accounts, biographies and histories of the civil rights movement also document clear progress on race.

Contra Kendi, there are conscientious people who advocate racial neutrality over racial discrimination. It isn’t necessarily naïve or wrong to believe that most Americans aren’t racist. To believe that white supremacists exist in this country but that white supremacy is not the dominant characteristic of America in 2023 is also an acceptable position.

And while a cartoon version of colorblindness isn’t desirable or even possible, it is possible to recognize skin color but not form judgments on that basis. A person can worry that an emphasis on racial group identity can misleadingly homogenize diverse groups of people, at once underestimating intraracial differences and overemphasizing interracial ones. The Black left-wing scholar Adolph Reed, for example, decried the emphasis on race-based policies. “An obsession with disparities of race has colonized the thinking of left and liberal types,” Reed said in an interview with The New York Times. “There’s this insistence that race and racism are fundamental determinants of all Black people’s existence.”

In short, a person can oppose racism on firm ethical or philosophical or pragmatic grounds without embracing Kendi’s conception of antiracism. No organization can expect all employees or students to adhere to a single view on how to combat racism.

Kendi asserts that whether a policy is racist or antiracist is determined not by intent but by outcome. But the fruits of any efforts toward addressing racial inequality may take years to materialize and assess.

In the meantime, the best that could come out of this particular reckoning would be a more nuanced and open-minded conversation around racism and a commitment to more diverse visions of how to address it.

[ Archive: https://archive.md/haAI7 ]

==

Six months ago, an article like this from the New York Times would have been unthinkable.

We seem to be into the Emperor Has No Clothes moment.

[eureka-its-zico]

Hi, I'm back with another essay 😂

I've had a busy week at work and I thank the heavens it is Friday because I need to just sit and stare at a wall for a while and decompress 😂 Also, my week's been fully thrown off since Monday as I did not sleep at all that night so I've been all over the place. HOWEVER, it's been a fairly alright week!

I thought I'd send in an ask to mainly talk video games because Dragon Age, ME AND Baldur's Gate? Especially ME?! I don't get to talk about ME enough!

Okay, so I have to admit that for most of the game, my party was Shadowheart, Karlach and the gith chick, Lae'zel, that you don't like 😂 And I have to admit that at first I was on the fence about her, but she quickly grew on me and even more so as the story progressed. Larian Studios gave each of their characters a great background and amazing personalities. And majority of them have great character progression as the game progresses, imo! (there's some things that happen in that game that I cannot comment about yet, but honestly, Larian Studios are creative geniuses lol)

In regards to Lae'zel, I will definitely want to hear more of your thoughts as you progress through the game!

Also, I cackled at the fact you restarted the game because you found out you missed Gale! 😂 I have to admit though - I would absolutely do the same! Let me know what you decide on him, because I went through the whole game and my opinion about him didn't change 😂

How are you finding the game so far? What do you think of the story and the characters you encountered? Both, the characters you can have in your party and NPC's? Have you tried to speak with any animals yet? 😂

Coming up to Dragon Age and Mass Effect… It's been years since I touched a Dragon Age game, but I remember the first and second games fondly. But Mass Effect… Oh boy, haha. I played the games… I don't even know how many times. ME2 still to this day holds a special part in my heart so when they announced an ME Legendary Edition with all three games reworked, all shiny and pretty?? You bet I got them and played through all three games :D And it felt like playing them for the first time again. Also, Garrus? Yes, please!

Have to admit, I was disappointed at the ending on ME3, both because of the ending they gave Commander Shepard and also because the ending that they originally came out with was… a flop and unsatisfying, though they gave longer endings after a patch because of fan disappointment. And I will forever think that the "secret ending" of Commander Shepard's N7 logo in those ruins actually means they aren't dead (there should also be a new ME game???! And they showed Liara in the trailer??!).

The universe that ME has, with the story and characters is just absolutely mind blowing and those games are beautiful ❤ And personally, I look for games that have a rich and deep story so the fact that we are talking about DA, ME and Baldur's Gate right now? My heart is singing and I am just all warm and happy haha

Another one of my favourites is Witcher 3. AND it was a fave before Henry Cavill became a live action Geralt 😂 I spent a lot of hours on that game... One could even say too many, but if anyone does - they're wrong 😂

But of course, I have to take a moment and scream about "Violent Delights", because excuse me? Where has Enishi Yukishiro been and why have I not seen him?? 👀 I know what I'm watching over the weekend lol I need to find time to go through your whole master list because your writing is like nourishment and it does unexplainable things to me!

And that sneak peek for chapter 7..? Oh fuck. These two petty fools will be the end of me 😂

On a personal note, thank you for your kind words in your reply. I appreciate you for taking the time to reply and share your lovely words with me because they mean a lot ❤

I hope your week has been great, Jenn! And I hope you will have a lovely, restful weekend! Sending you lots of virtual hugs! ❤

Okay so I KNOW you just sent me a brand new ask but I need to answer this one first! I am so sorry it took me so long to reply 😩

How have your weeks been going? It’s been a while since we’ve checked in with one another! I sincerely hope that no technology has been acting up and that your days have been peaceful and content 🖤

DID YOU BY CHANCE WATCH RUROUNI KENSHIN: THE FINAL WITH ENISHI YUKISHIRO?!!??? I legit wrote that thinking it would get him out of my system but it actually did not lol and I’m already just planning on continuing it but it’s just going to be filth. Pure smutty filth and I refuse to apologize 🤣🤣

Right now Karlach is still currently my fav! Her character is just so FUN. She has such a good attitude, and she is definitely the type of person I would want in a real-life crew. I’m torn on the love interest part of it because like…so far I like none of them lol. Astarion is in the lead, but barely, just because he’s a vampire and I’m a whore for love bites 😈 lol but I have noticed that he does have these soft moments through the indifference he conveys. He’s just different from who I usually pick in games. Although, in Cyberpunk I picked Judy but if I could’ve picked Johnny (absolutely LOVE Keanu) I would’ve lol. I love broody men.

I agree with you on ME3!! I’m so glad they went back and added more to it. I think it allowed a lot of us to get the closer we needed when it came to our Commander Shepherds. And yeah, if you chose the destroy option, they hinted that he/she was still alive, but I could never choose that one. I’m such a paragon lol I wanted everyone to get along and if my character had to sacrifice herself to do it, I did it every time (I can’t do that to Eve) 😩😩 except the one time to see if the destroy ending was worth it. I won’t hold my breath about the new DA and ME trailers they showcased a couple years ago, because Andromeda was not a fav lol. I think trying to bring in a new character to take over for shepherd is going to be incredibly hard, but I am interested to see if the continue with the storyline of inquisition for DA!

Baldur’s Gate 3 is just such a breathe of fresh air because I’m such a whore for a good storyline. I LOVE them. It makes it so much more immersive and makes you care about the outcomes of those in your party and your character. Witcher 3 was sooooo good at that too!

I’m still waiting to replay Cyberpunk 2077 from the beginning because of the Sons of Liberty DLC. I’ve heard amazing things about it, and I’m hyped but I got 2 weeks left of Uni work and then I graduate and I’m DONE! I’m so ready lol 🤣🤣

Thank you for always being such an absolute joy to talk to and for the essays lol. For being one of the sweetest humans alive. I hope your weekend is treating you well 🖤🖤 much love

[checkoutmybookshelf]

Sometimes Grad Studies Get Weird: The Publication Edition

So, when I was working on my dissertation, one of the things that I was advised to do was take my framework and expand it a beyond Shakespeare as kind of a test to see if it was actually as broadly applicable as I thought it was. Turns out, it was. Then we went of the objectively bananas journey that was getting my chapter in this edited collection published. Let's talk Disability and the Superhero.

Let's start with the book itself, which is an edited collection of scholarly essays on aleism and representation in comic media. It's kind of handy when subtitles do all the heavy lifting for you. For those of you interested in actually reading this book, the table of contents and a link to the publisher's website will be at the bottom of this post.

Despite the fact that this book was released in the year of our lord 2023, my journey with this book starts in 2018, when I found a call for papers asking for explorations of ableism in superhero media. I have a bit of a soft spot for the MCU's standalone Iron Man films, so I wrote up a little abstract, sent if off, and promptly forgot about it. Until August of that year, when I got an email telling me that my paper--which was not yet written at the time, I might add--had been accepted for inclusion in the edited collection.

Between August of 2018 and December of 2019, I wrote the chapter and went back and forth with our two (yes two, that's not a typo; consider it foreshadowing) editors for revisions a couple of times, and I turned in the final revisions I would do on the chapter in December of 2019, literally the night before my grandfather passed away.

Between funeral stuff and desperately trying to salvage Christmas in Decemeber of 2019, defending my dissertation in January of 2020, and teaching my first ever independent class in the first term of the new year, the Iron Man chapter was completely out of my head. Then March 2020 and the pandemic really hit, and nobody knew anything for about eighteen months.

When we finally got some updates (and no shade to our lovely editor; Amber was never anything less than professional and wonderful throughout the process!), one of the two editors had left the project, and our press was still scrambling to figure out life in a pandemic, but the project was still hanging on to life.

Then in 2022, we had some movement. We were in review! Except that, as happens sometimes because peer review is a godawful system that pays no one, one of our reviewers had responded, one had fallen off the face of the earth, and one had hung onto the book for four months before coming back to say that they actually were not in a place to do the review. So our editor and press went hunting for at least one, ideally two, more peer reviewers, and did eventually find them. It was sometimes in mid-2022 that we were told that yes, yes this book WOULD be published. Then it was mostly radio silence, with the odd update from our editor, until June 14, 2023, when we were told that the book had been published.

Canny readers will note that this post is coming out on June 23, 2023. That's because this is the day when you can actually buy the book, according to retail sites and the publisher's website. So this has been a long, really WEIRD process, but I am so, so excited to share my chapter on Iron Man with the world.

I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, and I think it demonstrates the use of the filmic stare and the inherent ableism in how Marvel presents disabled characters really well. I will say that the chapter was designed to focus only on the three standalone Iron Man movies, not the Avengers movies, or Civil War, or Infinity War or Endgame (which had not been released when I wrote the chapter). This is because the Iron Man movies tell a relatively complete story, and the arc was fascinating to consider.

For anyone interested, the publisher's website page for the book is here, and the table of contents is as follows:

Preface Amber E. George 1 Introduction: Making Sense of Superheroes and Their Social Identities Amber E. George 3 ­Hyper-Normative Heroes, Othered Villains: Differential Disability Narratives in the Marvel Cinematic Universe Kelly A. Kane 13 Living in the Mutant Underground: Marvel’s The Gifted Sue Scheibler 30 Isolation, Overcoming, and the Filmic Stare in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Iron Man Films Grace McCarthy 46 Tech as Ableist Tool: Understanding the Role of Disability in the Arrowverse Series Courtney Stanton 61 Cultural Appropriation and Ableism: Dr. Strange’s Strange Concoction Shanti Srinivas 81 Of Sexism and Ableism: Wonder Woman’s (Ab)Use of Disability Tatiana Prorokova-Konrad 95 Assimilating Queer/Disabled Subjects in Marvel Superhero Fanfiction Divya Garg 108 Enabling New Perspectives of (Super)Power and Disability in Jeremy Scott’s The Ables Robin E. Field and Christopher Boucher 128 “It is I, Super Grover, Here to Challenge Ableism!” Daisy L. Breneman 145 The Joker: Disrupting Perceptions of (Dis)ability in Batman Comic Books Sean Thomas Milligan 166 About the Contributors 183 Index 185