purrbanmeowfitters

[rowshi04]

Current Plans and Some Ideas (fic stuff):

Now that it's a New Year and I'm out of my writers block🙂, I've been working on some stuff that I had in mind/planned and I've come up with some new stuff (on which I'd really appreciate your opinions/thoughts on🫶🏻)

✏️Plans/Current stuff I'm working on:

The Royals Of Love (AU reguri fic)

Red x Green Volume2 (my reguri fic pt2)

Heart To Be Mended (continuing the fic with more chapters)

Pt2 for A Rose Through Time (og story/fic with cross universes)

💭New Ideas:

Valentines Reguri fic (short, sweet oneshot)

FNAF with the plot of Super Paper Mario (random idea I had, which would be cool, greg being the main role and others would have other roles. would have to change it abit and adapt some stuff, but there is a potential)

A fic where two characters are singing along to a song (similar to my fic Rockabye. it be a oneshot, but have some little plot/story)

🖐🏻Other stuff/notes:

Try and make a comic (trying to find my art style for it, and how I'd want to do it. and if I like it, maybe make more)

Branch into different fandoms (pkmn and reguri will be my base, but I'd like to write for other fandoms I like)

~ Also do it at my own pace and not by scheduled times like I did with RxGvolume1🙃

[iamumbra195]

I hate when people talk about Ashler like it’s inconceivable to ship them.

They’ll be like “Oh, they had so much beef, they’re barely even friends.” Genuinely asking here, have you even read the webtoon if you think that?

Tyler had issues with practically everyone at the beginning, hell, most of the kids didn’t even like each other. Ben, Aiden, Ashlyn, and Logan all thought he was a jerk and he was acting like one because he was trying to protect himself and Taylor and the whole situation was stressful as hell. That’s why his character development is so good. Even Ashlyn remarks that he’s being less of a jerk in one chapter and Taylor says that he's begun to see the others as real friends, maybe even family.

They all eventually became allies and then friends, including Ashlyn and Tyler. Sure, they like to throw some sarcastic remarks at each other but that’s just their sense of humour and part of the appeal of their friendship. Same with Aiden and Tyler, they insult each other all the time but the insults that were originally meant to hurt are now used affectionately.

He gave Ashlyn a nickname guys. He gave a jokey nickname to cheer her up because she felt terrible about the fact that she had to leave him behind while he got terribly hurt, while he died. She literally started crying out of guilt and being overwhelmed by the whole situation. She cares about him and he cares about her and the whole gang cares about each other, which is why there are so many ships in the fandom to begin with.

So stop acting like anyone who ships Ashler is stupid and stop saying ‘they’re like siblings’ on every post about them. We know it’s probably not gonna be canon, hell, Red herself said romance isn’t the focus of the webtoon at all.

I don’t even like shipping in general but the TikTok fandom keeps pissing me off. Stop acting like everyone has to ship the same things as you and stop commenting shit like ‘cute edit but I wish it was Aidlyn’ or ‘They’re just friends, they act like siblings’. Like yeah, they’re not canon but you’d have to be blind if you couldn’t see why some people ship it. Stop shitting on people’s ships and let them have their fun, we all know they’re not canon.

NONE OF THEM ARE.

Anyway, that’s the end of my rant. Sorry, I keep getting Ashler hate every time I search it up on TikTok. It’s so stupid and annoying, let people ship who they want in peace and stop undermining Ashlyn and Tyler's canon friendship and character development to shit on people’s ships. It’s an insult to the characters and your ability to read between the lines.

Live, Laugh, Love Ashler.

[m-a-r-i--c-h-a-t]

maybe it's lust cat noir! can't you just let a girl have her kink?!

[chiarrara]

I’m now very curious what your opinions on kagehina are after seeing your tags under that fanon post 👀

no strong opinions really, just not the most popular opinion from what I've seen. I fully understand the ship, but based on the source material alone I don't see their relationship that way at all, and I think it's much more interesting as it's presented in the show vs through a romantic lens. After watching through the whole show these last couple months, I think all of haikyuu is more interesting actually when you don't ship the characters, but also it's a male dominated shonen with an ensemble cast and it's very easy to ship almost any two characters together so I understand why it's so popular to do so.

All that said, I do ship Hinata and Kenma a lil bit. what can you do, I think they're neat. I also like them a lot as a friendship too. I'm not really picky, because I love the source material as is and the source material is by and large not romantic, therefore almost all of the dynamics are built on a sports foundation, which as a sports girly, I really love.

But yeah I just think kagehina is much more interesting as a complex teammate/duo relationship where they're both each other's biggest rival and most important collaborator. They're linked on the court because of what they can do with each other that no one else can do, but sort of reluctantly close friends off the court. I also think their roles in the story are very interesting, I like the way they complement and mirror each other, the way they support and challenge each other, and I just think they have a really fun and fascinating dynamic as presented in canon. I think putting them into a romantic context kind of flattens all that and also tends to severely mischaracterize them and their dynamic.

In short they're just much more interesting to me as teammates than they are as love interests.

[keeterz]

Time to make an updated post on the Guilty Gear artwork I've made up to this point!

First things, gotta include Bridget and Elphelt since these were made this year in 2023. Baiken, Testement, and Giovanna were done back in 2022. I think I'd like to do a Jack-O illustration at some point, and a friend of mine wants to help fund a Ramlethal print, so those might be coming up in the future at some point.

I've made some updates to the chibis as well to include a handful of the male cast! A few noteworthy mentions include an Axl that was inspired by an animation that my friend DoovadHohdan made, a Potemkin that works as a Pot Buster when you use it as a sticker on another sticker, as well as the husbandos in general being paired with plushies of their partners (well, missing Nago and Elphelt because that wasn't a thing at the time)

A little after the Elphelt illustration I also made an Elphelt chibi as well! This one will be double-sided once I convert it to a charm~

Finally, a sneak peak at something that isn't Strive related...well, not yet, at least (maybe). Here's a value comp for an ABA illustration I'm working on based on her Accent Core design! Hoping she makes it into Strive at some point.

I might want to explore doing some Accent Core related artwork in the future. Accent Core is a lot closer to the point of when I first got into the series in my middle school/highschool days, and there are some designs from the older games that are still hecking rad. Plus the music is awesome :D

It's kind of funny; I have to confess that I actually don't play Strive. Truth be told, the GGST movement and limited combo structure never clicked with me when the game first came out (and I was always more of a 3D fighter guy for gameplay with games like Tekken and Soul Calibur). And even though I am pretty sure I would actually thoroughly enjoy playing I-No and Elphelt with the season 3 changes, I just don't really do as much gaming these days since I'm more enamored with making art (and a few other things like biking). Plus I'm kind of just waiting for Tekken 8 at this point (dear god I hope the online is good just this one time god).

But as an artist? You bet your butt I hecking love coming back to Guilty Gear. I've been a fan of the series since the early 2000s (back when I stumbled across an abandonware PC version of Guilty Gear X and became sold on the series). The characters from this series check a lot of boxes for things I love to draw, from the way they are designed and all of their classic rock references all the way down to their zany personalities and backstories. And I feel like Guilty Gear is really special in this regard for me. Even though I'd rather play other fighting games (like Tekken or maybe even SF6), Guilty Gear is probably the one fighting game fandom I want to do art of the most.

If you are a Guilty Gear fan stumbling across this art collection post, hope you are enjoying the art! I will enjoy the series vicariously through you as I get back to working on some Tekken 8 artwork for Frosty Faustings, lmao. And if you're someone who is new to the series, give Strive a try! It's neat and the characters are great.

[ash-and-starlight]

Hey! I wanted to ask if you can recommend any websites or something similar that are helpful in learning how to draw various ethnicities especially when it comes to facial features? I would really like to get better at drawing people from all corners of the world and do so respectfully, but it seems the only websites I've found in terms of photo ref are like Pinterest and show little variation in people's features, are "model" pictures, or are heavily filtered... Others are just obviously AI.

What I'm looking for are just photos of ordinary people with all sorts of features, of all sorts of ages etc if you know what I mean?

I have some practice in this area, but not nearly as much as I would like to.

I'm asking you because I really love your art for fandoms like the radiant emperor, blue eye samurai and ATLA and the way you draw the characters. Your art style is beautiful and your taste in media amazing 😌

Maybe you or your followers can help? :)

Hi!! Right off the bat there are two sites i think could fit with what you're looking for, one is the Humanae project by the photographer Angèlica Dass

and the other is the gallery of Jimmy Nelson's portraits, his website is genuinely so amazing to explore

if you're looking for something like this i think that looking into the work of potrait/travel/street photographers is the way to go. If someone knows & wants to point out more resources feel free to add them here i'd love to see it too 👀

[factual-fantasy]

Here is your reminder that the Octonauts fandom is going to be PATIENT, will RESPECT your boundaries, will WAIT for your possible return to the fandom, and will NOT pressure you into anything. Any Octonauts fan that does otherwise should not count, because they clearly do not know what it means to be an Octonaut.

An Octonaut is patient, kind, helpful, and respectful, even if things don't go the way they want it specifically. They will care for the creatures(in this case, people) that come to them regardless of how they want their day to go.

Octonauts are selfless; they do not let what they WANT get in the way of what others NEED. They do not prioritize themselves over others. If you never return to the fandom again, THAT IS PERFECTLY FINE. Because that is what I'd best for YOU. It may disappoint some, but as long as you are safe, happy, and healthy, it should not matter what people WANT out of YOU and YOUR art.

If you do decide to come back to us, then we welcome you with open arms. There aren't enough of us to form an overall opinion about the fandom, and sadly bad experiences can taint the entire look of our community.

Trust me, I've had PLENTY of bad experiences myself(probably TMI, but I once had someone DM me to roleplay something where them as Captain Barnacles had insomnia, anxiety, depression, PTSD, and a crap ton of other things and I as Shellington had to comfort him and whatnot. And then Captain Barnacles got his arm ripped off and they never messaged me again. This was on WATTPAD. They have since removed DMs, and I can see why. So bad experiences can definitely ruin one's image of the fandom.)

But if you enjoy the Octonauts and that's what you want to draw, don't let idiots stop you!! Octonauts do not discriminate and any hateful person who calls themself an Octonaut never truly learned what it means to explore, rescue, and protect.

An Octonaut is meant to protect and care for their communities, and unnecessary aggression or rude comments should not be tolerated!!! Not by you or by us! Guilt tripping is not good either!

AND: Remember to drink water, eat food, get some rest, and take time for yourself! Have a lovely day/night factual :3

<XD The Octonauts fandom is a tough subject for me for a lot of reasons.. I guess now would be a decent time to finally open up about some of it..

To start, I have had more art theft/reposters, art tracers, copying/heavily adopting all my headcannon/design choices.. in the Octonauts fandom, more than every other fandom combined. Including FNAF. 70% of the time when someone shows me an account that has reposted my art? Its one of my Octonauts comics.

I'm pretty protective of my work and I like to keep things to myself, so having all of these happen so frequently in this fandom has kind'a spooked me away..

And I get it, the fandom is not that big. Chances are when someone has a different/unique/good idea, everyone is going to adopt it into their Octonauts universe. I get it.. but that doesn't stop me from feeling really uncomfortable about posting Octonauts artwork. And I also get that a lot of the people in the Octonauts fandom are really young and don't realize that reposting is theft, or that blatant tracing is theft. That doesn't stop it from being really frustrating to see and very discouraging.. especially when you say "hey, you traced my artwork, please don't do that.." they just straight up don't listen 💀

What's frustrating is that despite not having posted anything Octonauts related in a long time, I STILL deal with constant theft and art tracers. I had to block a few recently after they denied clearly tracing my art and refused to take anything down.

Not even to mention the people who have bashed me for not head cannoning Kwazii or Calico jack as trans.. I totally understand that its a widely accepted headcannon, but my Jack is just a rare male calico and Kwazii is a regular male tabby/calico mix. The constant "why dont you draw kwazii with top scars?? are you a transphobe?? stop misgendering kwazii he's trans!!" is really annoying..

Another thing that really bothers me is the constant crab comic asks. Despite explaining multiple times that I do not want to continue drawing that comic, I still get constant asks like this,👇

This was sent after a simple eye study of the Octonauts. And it said that I'm still on the fence about Octonauts. What part of that post makes you think I'm gonna go back to the crab comic?

I understand that a lot of these people are young and just don't understand that all this stuff is wrong or could be making me uncomfortable. But currently I just don't have the patience to deal with all this junk.. So until I can get my patience back or find a work around for this, Octonauts is officially back on the shelf. 😔

[randomfoggytiger]

I’ve been an x files fan for years now (since 2008ish) but fan fic has never been my thing. If I wanted to give it another go, what writers or pieces of fic would be a good place for me to start? Thanks! 😊

What a dream request, thank you!

Not much of a fic reader? Hm. I drifted to fanfiction because I wanted a canonical hole plugged in; but it sounds like you're looking for quality.

I'm narrowing these suggestions to long-form fics, and going to try to keep them as "fandom approved" as possible. (I'm also cutting back on the "famfic" recs because that's not everyone's cup of tea~.)

Authors whose works could (one could argue, should) be published as novels, in no particular order:

@amplifyme/Lydia Bower, @aloysiavirgata, @slippinmickeys,

@cecilysass, @teethnbone, @dreamingofscully, @sixhours,

@mashnotesofthemythopoeic/Penumbra, @sigritandtheelves/Darla,

@onpaperfirst, @melforbes, @ghostbustermelanieking/skuls,

Jenna Tooms, @seek-its-opposite, @settle-down-frohike,

@frostbitepandaaaaa, @leiascully, @darwin-xf, Beshter,

@scenes-in-between/scullywolf, @scullylikesscience

Here's a brief rundown on each author, to the best of my abilities:

amplifyme

My mother's embraces are frightening in their intensity, and I can feel her fear as though it seeps from her pores. Mulder's arms hold me easily but fully. And there is a calming effect in his touch. He restores me to myself, makes me strong again. I wish I had taken the chance and discovered that years ago.

-Dance Without Sleeping

One of the OGs. Her writing explores the paths of Mulder's and Scully's minds. The Scully in her stories is pragmatic, matter-of-fact, and protective of her secrets. The Mulder in her stories is tender, predictably mercurial, and secretive, as well. The most direct admittance can be the most damaging, and the most healing. Her longest work is, I believe, Dance Without Sleeping; but my favorite, though short, happens to be Light Don't Sleep. Her Ao3 is here.

aloysiavirgata

“That’s a fair question, Senator,” Scully observes in her liquid nitrogen voice. She leans forward in her seat, just a little, just enough, to remind him that predators have eyes at the front of their heads. Scully crosses her legs and gives the Senator the full force of her blue eyes, the hard angles of her good cheekbones.  

She is magnificent, Mulder thinks, smitten. She is Themis, she is Ma’at. One day she will devour the hearts of the unrighteous, his own included.

-Singing of Mount Abora

One of the OGs. She treads the line between poetry and prose so seamlessly you are left, baffled, by her intelligence. Her writing features Mulder and Scully with a little bite: neither are fools, and neither will be trifled with. (They're also wickedly intelligent nerds.) Mulder is Jewish (though that rarely comes up) and was married before (though that only comes up when it comes up.) Canon halts in Season 7, but that doesn't stop her from writing Season 9 masterpieces with Mulder and Scully and their son-- which is where I'd recommend you begin, with By Falling In and In. If that's not your cup of tea, I'd say catch up on her canon divergent Waters of Babylon, Petrichor, and Singing of Mount Abora. Her Ao3 is here.

slippingmickeys

The boy winced and inhaled sharply as her fingers ran over the cleft where the fibula met the talus and she rocked back on her heels, eyeing the darkening horizon. Did he have people nearby? Could she leave him here without guilt? She didn’t really have the time or inclination to take on a project — she and Mulder had tried that before — banding together with other survivors, and it had always ended poorly. And boys his age, as few as she had seen, made her uncomfortable. Her subconscious would scan their features, looking for a genetic echo of the Scully-Mulder’s. Mulder would have to pull her aside and whisper “it’s not him,” and she didn’t have the space in her heart for the guilt. Even now she had to ignore the blue of his eyes and the way his gritted teeth had the same gnathic slant as the only man she’d ever loved.

-North of Zero

One of the OGs. Her Mulder and Scully are practical, capable, sleek survivors. Her writing exists somewhere between the clack of a gun slide and the omnipresence scent of a wild pine forest. She's written extensively on... everything: Colonization, space, POL, case files, mytharc, everything; and well. I'd recommend North of Zero for a starter. Her Ao3 is here.

cecilysass

It’s Mulder, she reminds herself. No matter how long you may have been gone, or what has happened in your absence, you know what to expect from Mulder.

At last he shuffles through the door, and it’s him, definitely him: head bent, looking weary and wilted. He turns to lock the door again, evidently not paying very much attention to his surroundings.

Her heart constricts. “Mulder,” she voices softly.

She can see his whole body go still from behind, but he doesn’t look right away. His back remains to her.

-Pause

One of the OGs. Her Mulder and Scully are weighed by secrets, by their unspoken. Her writing dwells in the silences; and the tones of her work shift depending on the narrative: insular and psychologically exploratory, fast-paced and bitterly overwhelming, slow and unspooling and peaceful-- but always with a bittersweet aftertaste. I would do a disservice if I didn't recommend A Boy on the Beach first; but my personal favorite is Pause (and All the Dead Mulders and Not Orpheus, Not Eurydice.) Her Ao3 is here.

darwin_xf

Mulder. Her genius. Who happened also to be her blithering idiot. A fresh swell of affection overtook her. This is how it was for her, even just talking to him. One minute she was standing in the shallows enjoying or enduring or surviving a day at the beach, whichever kind of day it was. The next she'd find herself walloped and rolled by the rogue wave of her feelings for him. Then she was surfacing, sputtering, salt-blind, struggling to find the steady line of the horizon.

-Vox Mulder: Fired and Wired

One of the OGs. Darwin's writing is clipped and "action" focused. Her Mulder and Scully are fond and quippy and silently torturing themselves with their own repressions or secrets. Vox Mulder: Fired and Wired covers the IVF arc concurrent with Mulder's (secret) brain disease diagnosis; and her notes tearing into canon's handling of the latter arc are incredibly detailed, incredibly satisfying, and incredibly hilarious. Her Ao3 is here.

dreamingofscully

They searched, staying together with Scully’s single flashlight. As she suspected, they didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. The cellar was devoid of sound and light, not a single rat or insect scurrying about. No more traces of the unknown substance.

They followed the trail of viscous fluid back to their room. Their adrenaline-fueled trek left her exhausted, and she was hopeful she would be able to sleep for a few more hours before dawn. Not even her fear could break through the cottony haze that clouded her mind. Collapsing on the bed, Mulder pulled off her slippers. 

-Surely, to the sea

One of the OGs. Her writing is practical and pleading-- the veneer that Mulder and Scully front, and the truth. Her Scully has teeth but prefers silence and distance. Her Mulder stubbornly walks the thin line between opening his partner up or closing her back together tighter. Trust-- in each other, in themselves-- can be broken and mended with the right words, the right meaning. I recommend starting with Surely, to the Sea (and my favorite short fic is this one.) Her Ao3 is here.

Frostbite Panda

“I make you a whole person,” she whispers. The slam of sudden memory is heady, destabilizing, threatening to spin her clean from reality. 

He leans forward, elbows on his knees, a sound escaping him that she cannot identify. Truth be told, he looks a bit ridiculous— wrapped in a green sleeping bag looking like a dormant pupa, not the wrecked and ruined man he was. 

-Four Days on the 63rd Parallel

One of the OGs (I believe.) Her writing is grand and touching, a microcosm of the macro effects Mulder and Scully face alongside, and with, each other. Her Scully is reluctant, doubting Mulder's beliefs but trusting him; and her Mulder is courageous and wallowing, afraid to try for fear of rejection. Four Days on the 63rd Parallel (and its follow-up In a Perfect World) explores what would have happened if Mulder and Scully had been trapped in Antarctica, in a snocat, alone, until help arrived. Her Ao3 is here, and requires you to be logged in.

Jenna Tooms

Then there's the matter of Mulder and his reaction to scissors and the razor. When he was first released from the hospital I took him to his old barber. He made it into a seat, and even let the barber tie the cloth around his neck. At the first flash of the scissors, though, he was up and out so fast for a moment I only stood in the waiting area dumbfounded, the baby in my arms.

He will, however, let me cut his hair and trim his beard--which he grew to cover his facial scars. I let him keep it as long as he lets me keep it neat.

-An Acceptable Level of Happiness

One of the OGs (if I recall.) Her writing is just north of canon, veering off to give us better, brighter spots to land Mulder and Scully. Her Mulder and Scully are soft, seemingly delicate with a touch of steel underneath. They've taken a beating, have internalized that beating, and are being supported wholeheartedly by the other person in their partnership. If you want canon-ish, I'd recommend An Acceptable Level of Happiness; if you want mytharc-ish further down the timeline, I'd suggest Truly, Madly, Deeply, and if you want canon veered off from and returned to-ish after Requiem (16 years later), then I'd strongly lobby for Shooting Star. Her Ao3 requires a log-in, here; but Jenna's works are also on Gossamer (here).

leiascully

“Did you see this?”

She blinked at the screen of Mulder’s phone and gently pushed his wrist until it was at a distance she could focus on. Technology changed but Mulder didn’t. She couldn’t count the near misses with magazines and file folders, the threat of papercuts across her cheeks.

“Ford isn’t going to make Tauruses anymore,” he told her before she’d had a chance to actually read the headline. That was also standard procedure. Mulder was a scrolling marquee of odd headlines and interesting trivia. He was the original clickbait, drawing her in with his promises to change her world and alter her perception.

-Taurus Season

One of the OGs. leiascully's prose captures the essence and magic of ordinary things. Her Scully is secretly a wanderer, her Mulder an errant domestic. There is reciprocity in their strengths and weaknesses; and the world is always more beautifully strange together. I recommend her Visitor series, which rewrites Revival canon along necessary lines. Her Ao3 is here, and requires a log-in.

Penumbra

They slipped among the dumpsters at the back of the building and into the empty quivering night, jaywalking the shadows up the hill streets, ringing the manhole covers. False planetary lights floated about in the foggy sky. Scully opened her fawn umbrella. Mulder glanced often behind them, his fingers pressed into the suspension muscles of her hard young back.

-Bad Radio

One of the OGs. Her Scully is strong and silent and will not be swayed; her Mulder is withdrawn and foreboding. Her most infamous work is Heuvelmans' On the Tracks, but I know her better through this post Gethsemane cancer arc fic: its darkness, its inevitability, its immovable-object-meets-unstoppable-force. Her Ao3 is here.

Prufrock's Love

"He says a horse bit him," Duana translated for her mother. Duana stripped off Lord William's tunic and ruined shirt to reveal the wound. "He damages more clothing..."

Lord William stooped to show Caithrin the twin rows of tooth marks on his left shoulder, still telling his woeful tale....

Not sure what was expected of her and thoroughly intimidated, Caithrin did as she would with her own sons. She made the sympathetic face and clucked over him like a mother hen. Lord William, pacified, settled down on the stool by the fire to let Duana doctor him.

-Hiraeth

One of the OGs. Her Mulder and Scully are messed up, secrets upon secrets, love and miscommunication and chaos towards each other and themselves. Prufrock's prose and dry wit can't be denied; and she's most notably known for Belghor's Prime, a Mulder time-traveling story, and Paracelsus, a Civil War fic that loosely locks into her sprawling, transformative "past lives" series. I, personally, prefer Hiraeth, because the Mulder and Scully I read there aligns (mostly) with my interpretation of canon. Her Ao3 is here.

onpaperfirst

The chip was round and under a microscope the texture looked like fish scales. 

The procedure was over in ten minutes. Three tiny stitches at the back of her neck with a gauze pad taped on top. It shouldn’t have worked, but it did.

-Snakebitten

One of the OGs (if I recall.) Her Mulder and Scully are inherently bound, even if the plot has driven a wedge between them. They speak the same language with different words, they work back to each other with lightning speed, they are chummy, they are contented. Their humor is fantastic. Her longest, angstiest work is Snakebitten, a rewrite leading up to The Pine Bluff Variant; but my personal ones are (surprise, surprise) her "part one" and "part two" short fics, Home, Home and Honey Hi. Her Ao3 is here.

seek_its_opposite

She leaves her rumpled partner in the car with the window cracked while she goes to the front desk, glancing back possessively over her shoulder as the woman behind the counter gets their keys. One room, two beds. “I’m not letting you out of my sight, Mulder.”

She keeps seeing him like she found him, on his knees before the ghosts of his childhood. She sees him praying to the barrel of his gun.

-photosensitivity

One of the OGs (I think?) She writes incredible meta on the series; but she's also written one of my favorite short fics, ever (and I have a lot of those.) You can navigate to the rest of her Ao3 through this link, but you'll have to get through photosensitivity first. >:DDD

settle-down-frohike

“I’m fine, Scully,” indignantly going back to the task at hand. And she’d have believed him too, if he wasn’t looking through her, if his pitch hadn’t been a little too high, if he hadn’t forgotten the fact that her shoes were the very last thing to put on and she wasn’t even out of her hospital gown yet. She allowed it out of pity, mostly. Or humor. But his hands shook, fumbling with the laces like a feening alcoholic.

-for the WIP prompt: hospital

One of the OGs. She writes distraught Mulder incredibly well; and balances him with a Scully who is dry, caring, and bouyant all in one breath. I can't rave enough about her short fics (their links can be found here); but I'd recommend this and this and this because they tie together to form a Redux II whole. Her Ao3 is here.

sigritandtheelves

The world is different now, after so much has been lost. It moves a little slower, takes for granted a little less. It is still a dangerous place—because fear is catching and learning that things are not as they seem can make some go mad with denial and rage and terror at the loss of their footing. But it is also more peaceful, in some ways—because loss reminds us to hold love close. Because all the hearts that stopped beating are still felt in their absence. Because people, in the end, come together in crisis. They don’t only tear each other apart.

“I think we did okay,” he murmurs. “With our quarter century.”

Scully leans her head back to look at him. “Just okay?”

“Mm hmm.”

-Advent

One of the OGs. Her writing is pure sensation: cotton and earth and jeans and nine o'clock shadows and soft skin and the tangible grasp of wishes come true. Advent is her longest fic; but I implore you, on my hands and knees, to read all four of her pages on Ao3-- they're not only the gateway drug to other incredible, incredible short fic writers (ghostbustermelanieking, @baronessblixen, @o6666666, all the authors mentioned here, and so many, many more) but are also a shining example of family fic done well-- a very hard skill to pull off. Her Ao3 is here.

sixhours

Back to sleep. Sleep. No big deal. Just go to sleep.

A minute passes, then two. He’s not tired, in fact, he feels incredibly awake. His heart is pounding, a distracting pulse in his ears. The bed is too soft, too deep, too…real. He can hear her breathing next to him, feel the warmth radiating off her body, his senses screaming at the level of detail, the texture, the vividness of it all. Instinct is a dog with a bone, and it won’t let go.

Something’s wrong.

-Lucidity

One of the OGs. Her writing clips along at an even pace, the story driving Mulder and Scully ever forward. Mulder is most often on the outs, Scully most often peering at her partner silently, trying to figure him out and draw him in. But mostly, the two function independently of each other, content to drift further or nearer as long as they are together. I would recommend Lucidity as a primer. Her Ao3 is here.

touchstoneaf

He did not soften, at first.  Did not edge away, nor did he lean into her.  Much like that awful night when their office had burnt he simply stood cold with shock and while she supported him; the steadfast fidelity of their bond never questioned in the decade that they had been together.

“I was there,” she murmured into his shoulder.  /I’ll always be here./  He could accept it now.  She was finally able to press her arms about him in the night.  Feel the strong bones beneath unblemished flesh; amazed that he was even alive for her to hold after an ordeal that had indeed taken him from her for so long that she had lost all hope.  She shuddered and cinched her arms tighter; felt his ribs shift beneath the silky envelope of his skin.  They creaked in protest, but he did not move, and she spoke like one driven. 

-Amor Fati: Destinata (The Fated Love), Act Three

One of the OGs. So OG, in fact, that the butchery of Season 9's mytharc pushed her to write a mythology replacement. Scully is fearful, anxious, but strong to her core. Mulder is lonely, and loving, and afraid to slip back into dark places. Both push each other to become better than they believed they could be. Her Amor Fati, Destinata (The Fated Love) series is still being written; but it's detailed reconstruction is well-worth the read. Her Ao3 is here.

I separated these two authors out because they're the x and y axes of my personal taste:

melforbes

She falls asleep before him. In some ways, it’s a burden to share a bed with someone, not a pleasure; if he moves, he fears he’ll wake her, but it’s horrible to stay so still for so long, especially when he can’t sleep. But he can see her eyelashes in the dark, and her cheek is squashed against her own pillow, and she checked the room when they arrived to make sure that there were plenty of tissues. Had there been a couch here, even a divan, he would’ve taken to that instead, let her sleep soundly without him. The day of the wedding - he almost tenses at the word wedding, not because he dislikes it but because it feels so strange and unreal, as if it never really happened even though he remembers it so easily and comfortably - they had a makeshift reception in her apartment, just cutting cake with her mother and then sharing slices with the Gunmen after her mother left. If anything, it felt more like a funeral than a wedding reception, so many questions tiptoed around, everything too urgent and human to be a celebration, but between guests, she grabbed part of her slice with her bare fingers and pressed the cake against his face unexpectedly, and he looked at her with surprise, and she laughed in an inward way that made her shoulders move. 

-seaglass blue

One of the OGs (I believe.) I have to start here because seaglass blue is grafted onto my heart. Set before Gethsemane, the author based it on a real couple's journey with impending death; and the way she wrote Mulder's POV-- how she kept us always locked in his head each and every day of his honeymoon with Scully-- is forever burned on my psyche. I don't see the emotional damage, if you will, as unnecessary or melodramatic or traumatic-- it's just a window into the slow approach to the end, or a fear of it. (However, if the writing is too "overlapping" or "run-on" for your taste, I'd recommend aloysiavirgata's gorgeously succinct prose, mentioned above~.) All of her works are fantastic; and, oddly, the rest are usually beautifully cozy (if you can find them on her page.) (Note: authors with their own uniquely similar styles include @teethnbone and @enigmaticdrblockhead -- can't recommend their work enough, particularly The Ansted Graft and this list here, respectively.) mel's Ao3 is here.

skuls

They follow Mulder's trail, Scully's heart thudding too hard against her ribs. Skinner is telling her that Mulder wouldn't do anything crazy when it comes, the headache. Pounding against her skull. And then she hears Will crying out: Dad!

Scully bends over, stomach against her knees, clutching her temple. “Scully?” Skinner is saying. “Scully, what's going on?” But she can't hear him over the roaring in her eyes. William is still speaking, rapid-fire in her mind: They're hurting him, Mom, they're hurting him! Make them stop!

In a flash, she can see what William sees. Mulder barely conscious, being dragged outside through the snow. An axe in the hand of his attacker. “Scully, are you alright?” Skinner protests.

-silent conversations

One of the new recruits (I think.) Her writing is an art form: painting broad, sweeping pictures on the tiniest canvases, in the shortest sentences. Her descriptions, characterizations, and dialogue all serve the plot-- not a hair out of place and not a nook or cranny neglected. I will never be over her short fics, but her longer works are crafted carefully, too. If you want a complete rewrite of the entire series' mythology, then the Half-Light universe does it, and does it better; if you want a Season 8 casefile, then snow in april manipulates Mulder and Scully to a very sinister town; if you want Season 7 to properly deal with Mulder's brain disease, encephalon's got you covered; if you want William to stay with Mulder and Scully, William AU (relent, silent conversations, noises echoing, not out loud) bends in that direction; and if you want a complete rewrite of Samantha's abduction, california winter is where I'd start. Her Ao3 is here.

And lastly, do you want to read long-form fill in series? These three are masterfully done.

Beshter

There were few things in the world that Dana Scully could imagine were more arduous in her the world than family dinner night. Perhaps climbing Mt. Everest in the middle of a howling blizzard would be one. Maybe crawling out of the Amazon rainforest with a broken limb would be another. Even walking single-handedly into the desert with just one canteen of water between you and horrible death under the scorching sun could trump the monthly gathering of the Scully clan at her parent's house in Baltimore to have dinner with her parents.

One of the OGs. Her X-files Seasons covers every crack, crevice, and canyon in the show: Scully's life and family separate from Mulder, the journey drawing her closer into Mulder's world, and her own transformation from the green agent she was to the woman of diamond she became. Her Ao3 is here.

scullylikesscience

Over the course of the weekend, Mulder hardly talked at all. When he did speak, he was abrupt, flippant, and sometimes defensive. He still didn’t want to be touched, nor did it seem to Scully that he wanted to touch her. He kept a wall up around him, a protective shield. She tried to give him what she thought he wanted, space and distance, while at the same time trying to let him know that she was there if he needed her. It was a difficult balance. He seemed glad of her company, yet disinclined to talk to her at all.

-Chapter 87

One of the OGs. Her He is the Master of His Fate, She is the Captain of Her Soul series exquisitely fills in Season 7, Season 8, Season 9, IWTB, Season 10, and S11 while filing over and rewriting the incredibly stupid canon decisions along the way. Her Ao3 is here.

scullywolf

Mulder stirred again and mumbled something she couldn’t make out, and she wasn’t sure if he was talking in his sleep or actually trying to tell her something. She leaned over to put her face closer to his, listening.

“They’re not the same.”

She frowned. “What’s not?”

He shifted, blinking up at her. “Moth men. You might think they’re the same as the Jersey Devil, and the circumstances are similar, but they’re not the same.”

“You mean aside from the fact that this is Florida, not New Jersey?”

-Detour

One of the OGs (I believe.) Her TXF: Scenes in Between series plucks one moment from each episode and builds upon it, providing a window into either Mulder's or Scully's psyches. She even tackles Mulder's (alleged) Season 7 brain disease. Her Ao3 is here.

If you want more fic recs, I have lists catalogued under my Collector's Edition tag. If you want even more fic recs, I wrote a fanfic resource post here. And if those aren't enough to appease your hunger, @lilydalexf and @fine-nephrit have pinned master posts that will probably have something for you.

Hope this helped~! And drop back in sometime-- let me know if you read something you enjoyed, or found fanfic still isn't your preference. :DDDD

[who-is-page]

I've seen (typically older) therians talking about how they feel that their subculture as animal-people and nonhumans is slowly disappearing. This is a point that, in all honesty, I'm inclined to agree with-- although I think I'd perhaps frame it less as "disappearing" and more as just "changing."

Because let's be honest with ourselves here: is the subculture actually vanishing, or is it just evolving into radical new dimensions as excited newbies join and find different focal points for their nonhumanity? As they express themselves in whole new dimensions and ways, as they explore a digital landscape that didn't exist ten, twenty years ago? As the older members lose touch with the newer members, and no one bridges that gap between the two?

I think I'm also extra frustrated because when I see these discussions go down, a lot of the time they're either 1) self-pitying, or 2) finger-pointing.

It's not bad or wrong to look around and realize that the community you found comfort in has changed in ways you could have never predicted and which leave you feeling off-kilter. But approaching these changes with a complete lack of curiosity, with an absolute woe-is-me sort of perspective, where you drag your feet and glare bitter daggers at everyone else, isn't the way to do anything.

And going around trying to pin blame on whoever happens to be at hand is an even worse way to approach it. "It's the furry fandom's faults!" "It's the alterhumans' faults!" "It's the humans' faults!" Who does this approach realistically help? What does this do, beyond ostracize people and make whoever is saying it feel temporarily vindicated in their solitude, in a vicious cycle where they never step out of their ivory tower and always use how alone they are as "proof" that they're right?

I think having discussions about the ways the subculture has changed is extremely worthwhile. But I think that they're at their best when enthusiasm over sharing takes a main, central point. When you see people excitedly telling others about Werecards for the first time, or when you get to introduce someone to the concept of personal websites and webrings, or when you link someone who's only just starting to learn that there's others like them to old and new groups and forums alike. These are the ways you keep those traditions alive, these are they ways you get people both informed of and really excited about them.

And like, maybe I'm just cheesy and optimistic, but building bridges is way more fun than building walls! And more than that, I also think it's fundamentally something that's significantly more helpful and productive. I'm always so hype when I see community projects taking off that involve connecting many different people, especially if they're centered on a specific group or identity, but I also think that those sorts of things are how we keep a community healthy and moving, how we avoid things getting stagnant and rotting away.

I've said it before in past essays I've published and I'll say it again: alterhuman communities survive through their internal momentum. We're still around and kicking because we're a bunch of opinionated, passionate animals and objects and entities and people and concepts and and and-- this is what we are! This is how we all, both together and individually as separate groups, continue to be around. We write. We argue. We dance. We leave tracks. And then others see all those things, months or years down the line, and they know they're not alone. They know that it's okay to join in around the campfire, and they end up leaving their own tracks, and the cycle repeats.

So I guess what I'm saying here is that I'm not just beseeching people to create, but I'm asking you to create with others. To extend that paw towards the people around you in your immediate community spaces and wider, and to realize that yeah, the digital grains of sand and time might erode and change the landscapes we're all in, but we can still have a damn good time exploring the new nooks and crannies around us and showing others our old hidey-holes and favorite spots to watch the sun set.

[jesncin]

A Failure of Asian Lois Lane: Pt 2: My Adventures with Superman, an honest discussion

If I had to pinpoint the fundamental problem with My Adventures with Superman's depiction of Asian Lois Lane it's in their attempt to subvert the classic two person love triangle: Lois loves Superman but is indifferent to Clark Kent. In MAWS, Lois insta-crushes on Clark Kent and hates Superman. In the show's attempt to make sense of this dynamic, Lois' Asian identity becomes at odds with a story meant to touch on xenophobia and immigrant themes.

Let's have an honest discussion about a show that made fandom cheer as an Asian character removed the one thing that made her most visibly Asian.

Disclaimer: While I am of East Asian descent, I am not Korean. I'll be discussing general Asian diasporic experiences but the specifics of Korean culture are outside of my knowledge (as usual I can't and don't speak for every Asian person ever, I am 1 opinion). Secondly, I'll be pulling from my personal experiences every now and then particularly pertaining to being a butch Asian person watching this show. It'll be a mix of formal analysis and personal anecdotes. Thirdly, this isn't an exhaustive analysis of MAWS Lois' character. We'll be sticking to what I consider is relevant to themes of Asian identity and immigration. Lastly once more, I do not believe the MAWS crew had malicious intent in any (of what I consider) poor writing decisions. We're here to analyze and challenge these writing decisions.

Please read Pt 1 of Asian Lois analysis that covers the comics, as it provides the groundwork for the ideas expanded on in this essay.

We need to talk about Lois' design. In the follow up to MAWS' release, people have been speculating on Lois' ethnicity. CBR writes that the show has "some fans believing that she's at least part Asian" and other articles have the show crew confirm Lois Korean heritage via her hanbok outfit in episode 4. The existence of these articles, my own anecdotal experience of streaming MAWS with Asian friends, and comments I receive from people asserting Lois' Asian identity was never explored in the show ("you'd only know she was Asian if you searched up articles about it"), tells me we have a case of an ambiguously designed Asian woman. Tangentially many people had no idea Livewire, the white haired and blue eyed woman, was meant to be South Asian.

There's a lot to be said about art styles that don't properly stylize ethnic features, but for the purposes of our analysis that means the writing has to deliver the heavy lifting where the design fails. This is the opposite case of American Alien: a comic that relied on the art to portray Asian Lois.

Let's start at episode 3. In it, Lois finally manages to conduct a private interview with the elusive Superman. When she asks where Superman comes from, how his powers work, etc- Superman comes up empty. In this version, Superman can't talk to his Kryptonian father (Jor-El)'s hologram because of a language barrier, so he knows very little about his alien heritage. He leaves Lois, assuring her he's here to help the people of Metropolis. When Clark Kent congratulates her for interviewing Superman, Lois rebuffs him. "Oh, he's [Superman's] a liar." smirking as she says it. This is the start of the Lois Hates Superman For Being a Liar arc.

I'd like you to consider the optics of an Asian American woman interviewing an alien immigrant who honestly told her he doesn't know where he comes from and is still figuring out who he is, only for her to think he's lying. Because she didn't get the answers she wanted. I can't help but think about my own experiences, where I was asked "but where do you really come from?" or "okay but what's your real name?" I think of my Asian American peers who would honestly say they're from Texas or Atlanta and get a vindictive "you're lying" as a response. People want to hear you're from China. They want their biases confirmed. I think about how I honestly can't tell you where my elders hailed from, because of cultural genocide and language barriers. This scene makes me uncomfortable, but let's press on.

Episode 4 is where Lois is most visibly Korean. In this episode the trio of Lois, Clark, and Jimmy are tasked with interviewing rich techbro Prof. Ivo of Amazo tech at an investor event. It's a prom episode. Lois wears a "hanbok inspired gala outfit" designed by Dou Hong and Jane Bak in a deliberate move to showcase Lois' Korean heritage. Bak comments "I remember feeling strongly about wanting to inject some aspect of her Korean heritage without disrupting her characteristic as a spunky and resourceful intern/reporter." while the wording poorly implies that Korean heritage is at odds with Lois' spunky personality- I do want to challenge a couple of the decisions that went into this design.

I want to acknowledge as an Asian butch that there are many ways to sport traditional garments and it's okay to mix and match to figure out what reclaiming culture (and your comfort) mean to you. However we're talking about the opportunity to showcase culture in an episode of a fictional animated show. I also encourage cultural gender expression that thinks outside of western white people's idea of gender (in both fiction and real life).

Whenever artists try to do a non-conforming spin on a cultural outfit, I always have to ask: "what standard of masculinity are we basing this on?" It's clear that MAWS is pushing for a "tomboy" Lois, and this gala outfit is an extension of that. But what's the standards of masculinity in a Korean lens? Men wear hanbok too, so why can't Lois imitate how Korean men wear hanbok, by traditionally accompanying her look with baji (baggy and loose pants)? This design notably has tight pants that hug the form, instead. I know the hanbok look has been modernized in and out of Korea in many ways, but in a show where you have the opportunity to showcase cultural non-conformity, I feel more thought should be put into the outfit outside of a potentially western lens- or the idea that cultural heritage of any sort "disrupts" a character's personality.

Now that we've discussed the design of the outfit, let's look into the narrative role it plays in episode 4. While we can celebrate cultural representation in media, I consider it important to ask "what is this media's relationship with the cultures it represents?" and the answer for Lois' hanbok in this episode is: nothing! It's an aesthetic acknowledgement of culture. "Hanbok" or "Korea" are not terms explicitly mentioned in the show. When Prof Ivo offers beautiful women as compensation for Clark to keep quiet about his company's corruption, Ivo looks over to Lois- who spills food on her clothes, and remarks that she's unclassy. She's not judged for wearing othering cultural clothes- which would have tied nicely into Clark choosing to be silent on issues of Ivo displacing a neighborhood, making Clark realize his complacency actively hurts marginalized people. Despite wearing cultural outfits being a political statement in America, nobody reacts to it. It's clear what the actual goal of this scene is: Clark looks cool for defending his "tomboy" crush.

In a scene blatantly made for fanservice, Lois offers to sew up Clark's ripped tuxedo by undressing her hanbok so she can reach her little sewing kit. Lois never wears her hanbok again afterwards. This scene haunts me. It's a scene that tells you that fanservice is more important than cultural representation. It's a scene meant to set up that Clark gives his tuxedo to Lois later on for warmth. Lois removing her hanbok is meant for not one, but two fanservice scenes.

Lois talks to Clark at the stairwell. She opens up about her estranged relationship with her father, how her mom has passed away, and how she's been an intern at the Daily Planet for a year with no sign of being hired. This makes the narrative decision for Lois to lose her hanbok far more tragic. Lois being a diasporic child with so few familial ties to her culture would mean garments like her hanbok would hold a lot of sentimental value! It's hard enough finding a cultural outfit that fits with your butchess (many of my cultural outfits are hand made to fit my form and gender expression), and yet Lois unceremoniously loses her hanbok. You would think in Lois opening up about being distant from her parents that Clark would be able to culturally relate with the distance he has with his Kryptonian parents. But the narrative opportunity to link their immigrant experiences is not taken, because the show simply doesn't recognize the parallel between the two.

Instead MAWS pushes for the Lois Thinks Superman is A Liar thing again. A far less narratively substantial and fundamentally flawed arc. This episode starts with Lois calling Superman a liar and has Lois ranting about him "dodging her questions" (remember, he was honest with her about not knowing his heritage) thereby rendering her interview unpublishable. She resorts to conspiracy tabloids giddily provided by Jimmy for information. She rather cruelly says "nobody normal believes in aliens". We are uncomfortably seeing the build up of Lois being allegorically xenophobic towards alien immigrants- a Lois on a quest to out an alien before he's ready. This is their justification for flipping the love triangle. Lois loves cuteboy Clark from work, and hates Superman for not confirming her biases that would help her publish an interview that would promote her at work. What a love story.

To wrap this episode up: Prof Ivo ends up challenging Superman to a fight so he can flex his Parasite suit to investors, only for it to backfire, destroy his reputation, and greatly damage the Amazo building (remember this it'll come back later). The episode ends with Lois discovering Superman is Clark Kent. Anecdotally, I was so frustrated with the treatment of Lois' hanbok in this episode, that I went online to search if anyone else felt similarly. All I was met with was fandom thirsting over the stairwell scene where Clark and Lois were undressing. Consider the optics of an Asian character who removed the most visible signifier of her heritage (the outfit far more culturally specific where her character design was racially ambiguous) and how people cheered because that meant they could see her in her undergarments. They can happily thirst over the body they desired now that the othering cultural garment was out of the way. It's just clothes after all. Diversity clothes. This show continues to be very uncomfortable, and a little too real.

In episode 5 Lois is passive aggressive to Clark and Superman, trying to get Clark to admit he's Superman and vice versa. She eventually confronts Clark by jumping off the roof of the Daily Planet, causing Clark to fly down and save her. She proclaims she doesn't want to be friends with him anymore for "lying" to her. This episode caused a huge ruckus online as people were divisive over Lois' actions. Some defended Lois, saying that "women should be messy" and "it's not Lois Lane if she doesn't do something crazy for journalism!". Ignoring that opinion's very flandarized view of Lois' character for a second, let's thoroughly discuss how this relates to themes of immigration and Asian identity.

By this episode, Lois had known Clark for 5 days. In that time she's entitled and angry to the point of friend-breaking-up with him because he wouldn't disclose his marginalized identity to her within less than a week. "A secret is another type of lie!" Lois says, regardless of her lying on sight to both Jimmy and Clark upon meeting them at work, and continued to lie in episode 3 (after promising not to in ep 1) about her intentions to interview Superman. Only Lois gets to lie in this relationship. The hypocrisy of her character is never recognized. Clark calls out Lois for having previously admitted to him that she wanted to dox Superman and "publish all his secrets. MY secrets!". Keep in mind that when Clark brings up Superman feeling uncomfortable about his secrets being published by Lois in episode 3, Lois' response was "yeah, but HE doesn't know that's my plan!". She explicitly admits that she would publish private information about Superman without his permission. But when she's confronted by Clark in episode 5 about that, her response is "I would never do that to you, I didn't know it was you until after the gala. How could you think that?" It's only through conflict of interest that Lois spares Superman of being doxed. He's supposed to magically know this. Extremely cool of Asian American Lois to be entitled to an alien immigrant's identity within four business days.

Episode 6 wraps up the Lois Hates Superman For Being A Liar arc, so let's quickly summarize what happens. Lois and Clark set aside their fight to find Jimmy in an abandoned scientific facility (he's being cared for by Mallah and the Brain). Jimmy admits (very smugly) to having known Clark was Superman all along because he kept breaking stuff. As the trio are chased by killer robots, they emotionally confront Clark for not trusting them with his alien secret- despite neither Lois or Jimmy creating a safe environment for Clark to come out to either of them (Jimmy outed Superman as an alien on his video channel). The moral of the story is Clark should have trusted his friends anyway, because lying is bad. Not once does the narrative hold Jimmy or Lois accountable.

We have Black Jimmy Olsen and Asian American Lois Lane being entitled to their white passing friend Clark Kent's marginalized alien identity. A joke is made at Jimmy's expense that he doesn't understand bigotry, and Lois clearly doesn't understand why an immigrant wouldn't be forthcoming about his identity to his hostile friends at work. This is how that arc ends.

I'd like to quickly compare this Lois Hates Superman For Being A Liar arc to my favorite scene in Superman Smashes the Klan. In this story, Superman debuts as a strongman superhero instead of an alien, suppressing his more othering powers to pass as human. He jumps instead of flying. Roberta, the Chinese American girl targeted by the Klan, calls Superman out for not using his full abilities to save people who could've gotten hurt. Yet, as she's calling him out, Roberta understands Superman's fear of not wanting to be othered. She sees the way her father dresses up to pass as an accomplished scientist, how he tells her mom to speak in English, how her brother makes racist jokes at their family's expense to fit in. She's not mad at Superman, she's mad at the world that would be scared of Superman if he flew.

"I wish it were okay for you to fly!" Roberta yells. This is a beautifully empathetic scene that shows a marginalized person frustrated at a systemic problem, instead of blaming the marginalized for being marginalized. It's the empathy and perspective we're missing from MAWS.

Episode 7 is a metatextual episode where MAWS addresses how their Lois isn't like the other Loises you've seen before. Lois and Jimmy are brought on to a team of alternate dimension Loises to find interdimensional troublemaker Mxy. In seeing the other more accomplished Loises in the multiverses, Lois ends up feeling inadequate about her self worth...in connection to being Superman's girlfriend, of course. Because Superman only loves Lois Lane after she wins a couple of Pulitzers, right?

I'm open to a version of Lois Lane that isn't as accomplished as she's historically known to be. I can like a Lois that's young and idealistic, like in Girl Taking Over. It's hard not to compare this episode to 2022's Everything Everywhere All At Once, another multiverse story about an Asian American woman who is the "greatest failure" version of all the parallel iterations of herself. But while that movie talks in depth about themes of generational trauma, expectations, and self potential within Asian immigrant families, MAWS uses the multiverse to say that while their Lois is less accomplished, she's still a good girlfriend to Superman! Why should I bother giving grace to a different take on Lois only to get such a superficial story out of it. This is metatextual-ly frustrating.

Why is it, the minute we get an adaptation of an Asian Lois in something as prominent as an animated show, we get "the worst Lois in the multiverse"? Lois is historically depicted as excelling in her field. She's an award winning journalist, jaded and mean from having to work her way to the top. She owns her sexuality, she's the experienced city girl. Instead of taking the opportunity to inform Lois' jadedness and excellence with her Asian American identity like in Girl Taking Over, instead we have an Asian Lois that's simply incompetent at her job. Why are we now adapting historically accomplished women into adorkable quirky screw ups? She went from being sexually confident to being insecure over sending a text to Clark. Is it more relateable to see an Asian woman that way? Is it too intimidating to see a butch Asian woman who excels at her job? Who's romantically confident? This is what MAWS would rather do than humanize her excellence or her failures.

Are you tired of an ambiguously designed Asian American woman reporter being xenophobic to Superman in MAWS? Well too bad because episode 8 introduces us to Vicki Vale, voiced by Andromeda Dunker (an Asian actress), with explicit notes in leaked concept art to design this character as "Indian American or Asian American" (as if those are mutually exclusive...) inspired off of real Asian reporter Connie Chung. Vicki wants to write a hit piece on Superman and interviews Prof Ivo's assistant, Alex, for a negative biased opinion on Superman (to Lois and Jimmy's dismay).

This episode is where it's abundantly clear the writers don't know how to talk about xenophobia. They'll make nods to xenophobic rhetoric, but they don't know what the rhetoric means. In response to Alex's derisive opinion on Superman destroying Amazo tower thereby bankrupting the company and putting "thousands out of work", Vicki responds "Superman wiped out good American jobs". This is a misplaced nod to Replacement Theory: the fear white people have over people of color, but particularly immigrants, coming to "their" country to "steal" jobs they're entitled to, ultimately becoming demographically replaced by non-white cultures and people. This rhetoric is also commonly applied to Jewish people.

The problem is, that's not what Superman did in the show. Amazo tech was going to go bankrupt because of Prof Ivo's poor business decisions. Prof Ivo made the mistake of antagonizing Superman and ruining his own image. Superman damaging the building came from his fight with Prof Ivo, not a deliberate attempt to get hired (if anything don't the building repair people have new jobs now?). No one's job is tangibly being taken by Superman. None of this is called out by Lois or Jimmy, who know the full story and were even the ones to attack Alex for helping Prof Ivo (let's be real the writers forgot this happened). In fact, Lois and Jimmy don't react to Vicki's Replacement Theory remark at all! It's like they don't even recognize she said something with racist implications!

Jimmy and Lois meet up with Superman who learns the people of Metropolis are becoming scared of him (from causing some recent property damage in an attempt to hunt a criminal down) and writing mean comments on social media. A user writes "he should go back to where he came from." This is a transparently xenophobic comment. It doesn't work in the context of the show because of a huge plot hole: Superman never publicly came out as an alien to Metropolis. No verified newspaper has explicitly made this fact known. The only source that mentions this is Jimmy's conspiracy channel, which the citizens of Metropolis are apparently treating as fact- therefore (if we're to believe this is how people knew) this means Jimmy absolutely outed Superman as an alien without Clark's consent.

So how does Asian American Lois respond to seeing her alien boyfriend go through xenophobia? She says "Take a break from being Superman and just try being normal." To be fair, the narrative does portray Lois saying the word "normal" as charged (only here at least, not in episode 4), and when she tells Superman to "take a break" it's because he had been overworking himself after suddenly unlocking the ability to hear when someone's in trouble. But was this really the response Asian American Lois thought to say? To her boyfriend going through such explicit xenophobia? At this point it's abundantly clear that racism doesn't exist in the world of MAWS. Being "normal" is to be human. And to be marginalized- or as the show likes to call it "different" is only reserved for white passing alien man Clark (along with gorilla and robot that was once a white man). Any hope of an immigrant parallel between Asian American Lois and Superman should be fully discarded at this point.

After the events of the previous episode where Superman is kidnapped by Task Force X, in episode 9 Lois regrets being allegorically xenophobic to Clark. At least I think that's what's happening. I often describe MAWS as a show that's extremely squeamish with getting political- and I believe the vagueness of Lois' Dark Night of the Soul moment reflects that. "I said awful things to Clark. I doubted him when he needed us most. I was wrong and now he's gone..." Lois says as she cries to Jimmy. Is this dialogue implying she shouldn't have told a sleep deprived Superman to take a break? What did she doubt about him? This dialogue is purposefully vague about Lois being xenophobic. They've universalized Clark's immigrant identity to such a point that they can't keep their argument consistent. Was Lois in the wrong for telling her overworked superhero boyfriend to take a break? Or was she being xenophobic for telling him to lay low for a while? Or is she regretful for hating Superman for Being A Liar? How is that possible when the narrative sided with her and Jimmy in episode 6? It's woefully non-committal. Regardless, the intent of this scene is to pay off in the climax of the episode.

In the end Superman has a showdown with Prof Ivo Parasite, who has grown into a large godzilla-esque kaiju creature. In typical MAWS fashion, the show is more interested in a surface level nod to Asian media instead of engaging with the specific themes of nature and post-war trauma kaijus and godzilla serve in Japanese culture. I digress. Using Jimmy's massive social media platform, Lois delivers a hope speech that instantly heals Metropolis of its xenophobia towards Superman.

Lois says to the people of Metropolis.: "People have told you to fear Superman because he's different from us. But we humans are capable of causing hurt and pain too. [...] Because we want to punish those who don't look or act like us." I mean this in the most polite way possible, but who on Earth thought this line was a good idea for Asian American Lois Lane to deliver when talking about white passing man Superman?? Why did the writers feel the need to specify Superman not looking like us. I simply don't understand how nobody considered the terrible optics of this.

After Superman defeats Parasite, episode 10 is about Clark, Lois, and Jimmy celebrating Thanksgiving at the Kents' house. At the Daily Planet, the trio of interns are promoted to finally being reporters. It only took Clark and Jimmy a few weeks while it took Lois a whole year! Now feels like a good time to remind you that Lois as a character was historically frustrated at sexism in the industry and despised how men were treated better than her (including Clark Kent). Well in MAWS episode 4, Lois has no idea why she isn't getting picked up to be a reporter. According to the narrative, and Perry White's dialogue ("you're terrible interns, so the only thing to do was to make you reporters")- she simply didn't break enough rules yet! Thank goodness she had the help of two men to show her how it's done! This is a pretty clear case of character regression. Keep in mind that in American Alien, at the very least that Asian Lois still underwent sexism, and I gave it the grace that the story could eventually expand to talking about both sexism and racism if it were to continue. But in MAWS? I don't think even sexism exists, let alone racism. Somehow Thanksgiving does, though.

Half the final episode is spent on Thanksgiving shenanigans where everyone's trying to be polite but they dislike Lois' stoic dad (Sam Lane)- who Clark recognizes as the Asian American xenophobic man who tortured him in Task Force X's government bunkers. A parallel is pulled between Sam and Jor-El, two fathers with different ideals when it comes to protecting their kids. There's a huge missed opportunity to have Lois and Sam speak in Korean with each other, to create a parallel in the language barrier between Clark and Jor-El. Maybe Lois isn't as fluent in Korean as Sam is depending on how culturally connected she is. Oh, but the existence of non-English human languages would imply some sort of minority, who would be marginalized, and we can't have anyone outside of aliens and a gorilla be marginalized in MAWS. Non-English languages in America are political, after all. Oh, but they also got a Filipino actor to voice Sam. Generously Lois could be Filipino-Korean but if we're being truly honest it's clear the MAWS crew think Asians are interchangeable.

Let's talk about Sam. In terms of optics, it's already not great that the main villains who represent the face of America's secret government xenophobia are Amanda Waller and Sam Lane- a Black woman and an Asian man. What's doubly notable is that of the antagonistic villains, Sam and Vicki are the most xenophobic. When Sam tortures Superman, he shouts "When is the invasion? How many of your kind will come through this time?" without a hint of irony. Reminder that historically, Asian immigrants were (and still are) considered invaders in America. They are the perpetual foreigner. MAWS loves making nods to Superman being an immigrant allegory, and yet they can't fathom the human beings that allegory is inspired by.

It's not impossible to portray people of color or even Asian American characters specifically being xenophobic. In Superman Smashes the Klan, Dr. Lee is initially antagonistic towards Superman but we understand why. We see him trying desperately to assimilate into whiteness, to the point he rejects assistance from his Black neighbors who help put out a fire in their backyard (that the Klan started as a threat). We understand why he's a character who would turn on fellow people of color, or fellow immigrants, in order to fit in. For MAWS, if we had a flashback scene where Sam was serving in the military and fought against Asian soldiers, showcasing his loyalty to America over his own people- that would narratively explain why an Asian American character would be xenophobic. Writing bigotry from within marginalized communities requires specificity. Otherwise, you've just got a diverse villain. In the end, Lois defends her immigrant alien boyfriend from her xenophobic Asian American dad.

Whenever I bring up how MAWS fails its characters of color but especially Asian Lois, I'm met with people telling me that "hopefully they'll make Lois more Asian in S2" or "they'll just retcon the bad writing in S1" and I hope this thorough analysis on the treatment of Lois' Asian American identity can help enlighten why I personally think that's impossible. The entire concept is flawed from the very beginning. The story MAWS wants to tell is at odds with Lois' Asian identity. In trying to justify an Asian Lois that loves Clark but hates Superman, they never considered what it means to hate Superman. To hate the alien immigrant. The alien other. What it means for an Asian American character to do all that. MAWS is a show that wants to have its cake and eat it too, they want a diverse world without racism or sexism but still want to reap the clout of lightly portraying Superman as "different".

They'll make the most surface level nods to Lois' Korean heritage- but remove all of the cultural context from them. They can't be bothered to acknowledge the inherit political identity being a person of color means in America, they're too busy doing that with Clark. I'm told "MAWS didn't have the time to go over Lois' Asian identity, it's a 10-episode series that focuses on Clark's alienation", and to that I say the potential of an immigrant love story and time frame was there, they simply chose to go another direction.

When I bring up things like Superman Smashes the Klan, Girl Taking Over, and Everything Everywhere All At Once, it's not to say MAWS should have used those stories as reference when crafting their allegory. All of those specific media were released while MAWS was deep in production already. Girl Taking Over was released the same year MAWS premiered. What I am saying is that we, as the audience, should have higher standards. Because better media portraying Asian American characters already exist. Better media portraying Asian characters relating to Superman mythos already exists. What we're doing when we celebrate the breadcrumbs of representation that is MAWS, is allowing mediocrity to exist uncritically.

Shows like Wednesday are known in the discourse for their portrayal of Black characters as being functionally white, yet that kind of scrutiny doesn't seem known for MAWS. The diverse reimagining of Lois and Jimmy is so poorly handled in MAWS that it would honestly make more sense if Jimmy and Lois were white here. The joke made at Jimmy's expense that he doesn't understand bigotry would be actually funny if it was calling out his white privilege. If, for whatever reason, the writers are compelled to write a xenophobic Lois that unlearns her bigotry and falls for Superman, I'd rather she be white for that kind of story. I wouldn't personally root for that kind of couple, but at least it'd make sense. It's a common joke among DCAU fans of color that we like to headcanon Lex Luthor as Black, or Lois Lane and Terry Mcginnis as Asian. It's a cruel irony that the one time we finally have a canonized Asian Lois in an animated show, she honestly feels and acts whiter than actual white Lois ever was.

I mentioned in Pt 1 of my essay that Asian Lois and Superman has the potential to be a definitive love story. One that considers both their backgrounds as immigrants, othered in different ways by American society. The story of a jaded but accomplished Asian city girl who finds hope to be herself again in an alien immigrant superhero. One where she gets the courage to wear traditional clothes again, to practice languages she once suppressed. The story of Superman, an alien immigrant, finding hope in someone with a painfully similar experience.

As of writing, we have yet to see this dynamic in any canon DC media. A second season of MAWS will not give us that story.

[journen]

do you have a list of good CoD fanfics, or favorite writers in general?? <3

Presented in no particular order, here are some of my personal faves / fics I really enjoyed, and my own summaries for them. Hopefully you enjoy, thanks for the ask, anon!!!

I didn't tag all the authors because I'm not sure if they all have tumblrs, but also I'm shy tagging people ahjdfhkaheje. If any authors here are mentioned tho and you have a tumblr, feel free to lmk and I can update this post to include your tag!!:)

Anything rated mature I colour coded the name in red, and anything explicit green. Not all the mature fics feature smut, but yeah! I didn't want to link anything tooooo explicit here, but if anyone wants any, I can definitely rb this post to add a few more 😅

Also, just beware the tags on any of these fics because some feature kind of heavy subject matter. 👍

COF FIC REC LIST:

A Very MacTavish Christmas - @m3rrywe4ther

Prob my fav fic in the fandom lololol. HUGE RECCOMMEND. It's about Johnny who gets roped into spending the holiday Christmas season with his , for the most part, very not so nice family, and Simon accompanies him. So much stuff happens in this fic and it's such a great character exploration of Simon and Johnny independently, but also as a couple, and just so much stuff happens in it lol again, HUGE RECOMMEND!!!

We'll make Death Proud to Take us - Literal_Satan

Fic where, it starts off really sweet where Simon goes to Scotland with Johnny to spend Christmas with him and his family, but things take a drastic turn when Soap's brother, a police officer/detective, gets a little too curious about mysterious Simon, and the story spirals from there. All the guys end up on this crazy goose chase tracking down some of the people who were involved in Roba's brainwashing operations. The fic gets v dark at times and deals with some very heavy trauma so beware, but it's SO. GOOD.

Dream a Little Dream - Angelicasdean

Again, one of my total fav fics in the fandom!! AU where Simon leaves the army to raise his nephew Joseph, who's the sole survivor of the Riley family massacre, and Johnny is one of the daycare teachers at the daycare where Simon takes Jo 🥺🥺👍👍

Pretend to love me like I do - FetteEule

Really cute fic of Simon who accompanied Johnny to Scotland for his sister's wedding, under the ruse they are dating. They are v much pining but not there yet. Features lots of really cute domestic moments and Simon being really sweet to Johnny's kid nephew 😭🧡

Something important - Anonymous

One of the fics that has me totally brainrotted rn. It's about Simon's who's been de-aged to 6 years old, and Price, Gaz and Soap all taking care of him and trying to figure out how he got turned, and how to turn him back! They all get tested on their abilities to care for a child, and unwillingly learn a lot of details about Simon's childhood they never knew. This summary doesn't do it justice tho, so I'd just recommend checking it out! Beware tho again, there is some dark childhood trauma stuff but there are warnings at the start of each chapter that contains references to it.

Seasons - StinglessWasp

In this fic every chapter is set during a different season and tells a unique sort of story/mission/interaction Soap and Ghost have. Definitely some v good angst&hurt/comfort stuffs too. Starts off pre-relationship, and explores their characters a lot! It's just really good HUGE reccommend lol.

What the Eyes Don't see - WhiplashRogue

One of my FAVESSSS! So the premise is like, Soap can actually see ghosts ever since he was a child (which most other people can't see and also don't believe in), and Ghost has 2 spirits attached to him that follow him around(Joseph, and Roach). The fic starts off pre relationship, and it mostly about Soap trying to learn more about these two spirits and discovering more about Ghost's past.

All that's said in the Low Light - Headlocket

Probably one of the most emotional I've ever read LMFAO. It's about Johnny, who receives a back & knee injury bad enough he gets discharged from the army, and is back in Scotland living with his parents as he recovers. He and Ghost lost contact a bit since the accident, and it's sort of a story of them reconnecting. This description doesn't do it justice, just read it, but it will emotionally destroy you lol

Time Loops Suck (series) - Enter_fand0m_reference00

The first installment of the fic takes the idea that Soap is stuck in a time loop during the alone mission! And all the optional dialogues and interactions in thE alone mission are separate attempts of his trying to survive the loops and rendez vous with Ghost. It's just sooo good!! And then there's a follow up fic where it deals with the mental aftermath of the loops and Ghost comforting soap through it, then there's 2 other installments of Simon who instead goes through a time loop! They are such great character explorations in how both Soap and Ghost experience the loops, and I whooleee heartedly reccommend.

Yellow Card - SkerryB

Soccer au fic!! It's so good! Simon is the captain of a soccer team Soap is drafted to as their new goalie. Simon has had a history with Soap before though, that he was the only goalie Simon could never score on! So that's how it starts, and it's just so good from there!! Simon's family are also alive in the fic and his nephew is adorable.

You swept me off my feet - @ghoulishhone

Ghost is down bad for strong Soap, the fic xD This was a fic Ghoulishone and I were paired together to work on for the Ghostsoap server reverse bang! They wrote the fic and I made some accompanying art. Just a cute fic of Soap having to pick up Ghost after he gets injured and some other shenanigans that ensues:)

Dear Mr Ghost - @shortcuts-make-long-delays

SUCH A CUTE FIC!! The majority of the fic is these letter/pen pal exchanges between Ghost, and Soap's young niece Chloe...it's just. So. Good. And was written by a friend of mine too! BIG RECCOMMEND.

Give me Hope and Let me Down - MechanicalBones

Some of the best Ghost whump I read lolll. Ghost is captured by some people with ties to Roba and tortured. Meanwhile Soap is on his way to rescue him, and eventually he does, and there's a lot of hurt and comfort. It's also a getting together fic. 🥺

Unspoken Love - Hammy101

( Super amazing oneshot. I feel I can't do this fic justice with any summary. Just read it. 🥺 It has decent Ghost whump AND domestic off duty cute ghost soap angsty stuff it's just one of my faves ever!!!!)

Except You, You can Stay - Iravaid

Really realistic, believable portrayal and expansion upon a lot of the key events that happen in the Ghost comics. From his childhood, to the mental aftermath of Roba, his family dying...it's heavy but really really good. And has a happier hopeful ending that's Ghost/Soap 🥺

Hat Trick of the Heart and the sequel Family, Gotta Love em - Librarian_FanFicFan

Absolutely am obsessed with these fics!!! It's an AU about Ghost who is recently discharged from the military due to injury, and on a flight back to London where he is seated next to Soap, a famous footballer/soccer player. Ghost doesn't know who he is tho, but they hit it off and exchange numbers. The second installment features Simon's family!!! And Tommy being dramatic and shocked over the fact his brother got the number of this famous sports player... SUPER CUTE IF YOU LIKE RILEY FAMILY STUFF.

As for my fav CoD authors I wholeheartedly recommend anything by:

RedClegane, m3rrywe4ther, Hammy101, TheEdwardianOne, Iravaid, and so many authors but I can't list them all ahaha...but hopefully this is a good start!

Hopefully this helps anon! Sorry it took me a while.

[blueskittlesart]

How do you feel about concepts for redeemed/good guy Ganondorf? I don't remember if you've said anything on it before, so I am curious to see what sorts of thoughts you have to share or if you've thought about the idea before (especially since you've worked on SoF so I assume you've thought about many possibilities of a "what if" Zelda game)

For my part: I have mixed feelings, and I think a lot of concepts end up being "I want a buff guy to ship Link with"; I also think a lot of criticisms of the racism in many depictions of Ganondorf have merit (though I don't speak on them in depth because I'm white) and would love to see a more favorable/complex portrayal of him and other characters of color in LoZ. I personally haven't seen many versions of good guy/redeemed Ganondorf that really engage with the base structure of the LoZ games but I would love to see one that did.

Anyways I love your blog and analysis and I love seeing someone who finds analysis as inherently a part of their engagement with fandom as me, it's really nice :) I hope you're having a good day

I never posted about it much but sof did actually have a somewhat redeemed ganondorf, or as close to "good guy" as i'm willing to go with him in my own writing. sof was/is very much about me exploring the religious aspects of the lore and issues of fate vs self-determination, so my ganondorf was a much younger version of the character (similar in age to link and zelda) born into an extremist hylia-worshipping doomsday cult. in sof, ganondorf finds the remains of DEMISE'S sword and believes it to be the master sword, so when it starts ordering him around he follows the orders without question, believing that he's hearing the voice of hylia, and basically everyone in his life affirms to him that this is the correct choice and he's hylia's chosen one. Because of the intensity of the religious doctrine he was raised with, he has no problem following the sword's orders even when they become progressively more and more violent, and by the time link and zelda get to him he's nearly past the point of no return. (this is also partially a product of the setting I chose to put sof in--it's one of if not the first cycles after sksw, so the hyruleans' understanding of the reincarnation cycle and their own general history isn't super solid.) So that's my personal take on a "good guy" ganondorf, and, i think, the way i'd like to see it done in canon if ever they choose to go that route--because loz deals so much with the concepts of fate and cycles, I think leaning into a ganondorf who isn't inherently evil but can't escape the fate that waits for him is a fun way to take it.

[iyohme]

A six-tatami room, my pretty castle

A secret place nobody ought to enter (yeah)

-GHOST FOOD

I lied, have a brainworm and now i must spit it out

We know the confinement phase with the Wayne Family after the abduction, right? Right!

I raise: gamer reader with the mindset of 'Well, I get to live here for free (and I'd be a DUNCE to refuse in this economy,) so I might as well just make myself comfortable (or as comfortable as I can.)'

Dick and Tim can and will preen when you invite them to play multiplayer games. Casually ask them if they know so-and-so, then watch them either A.) listen to you yap about artifact drop rates in Genshin Impact (Tim), or B.) actively pull up their phone to google said game and immediately create an account (Dick).

With his analytical mind, Tim can and WILL enjoy Genshin's artifact farming and character building phase. Dude hates the open world exploration but is much more amenable to it if it's co-op with you, the favorite sibling. Thinks about rigging the game's code so you'll get the artifact drops you want, but decides against it because if HYV bans his account, then no more co-op exploration time with batsib :C. Dude might also enjoy indie RPGmaker games, especially ones with more complicated puzzles and mysteries.

Dick on the other hand has shit Genshin character builds. Tim bullies him for it. You build Dick's teams for him anyway because he has insane 50/50 pull luck, so who's laughing now? Prefers the open-world exploration aspect of the game with you, and his characters tend to run out of stamina and drown in the early phases lmao. Dick likes boss and domain runs; and to the trained eye, one can see that Nightwing might incorporate some of the more plausible moves of your mains into his fighting. Might also enjoy chill games like Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley!

Jason in one word is a genwunner. Dude is stuck in 'there are only 151 Pokémon' mode. Call him old-fashioned, but handheld consoles are the way to go for Red Hood: compact, can be carried, and you can play with them anytime and anywhere. When you pull up an emulator and explain that "Yeah, since the game isn't sold anywhere anymore, it's like a courtesy thing in fandom I guess, to distribute it discretely. Keeps the game alive. Still a form piracy though. Please don't tell Ba--uh, Dada."

We already know: Damian likes FPS games. Probably blocked by a lot of Valorant players with how sharp his tongue is. Still the best carry of all time though--only for his favorite, blood-related sibling (you). The rest can get sniped. Greyson and Todd, mostly. Would probably enjoy the newer Resident Evil series; though if you want, he would just about play any game with you. I imagine he'd like the horror, FPS, and art intersection in the Fatal Frame series.

Harmless secret and not-really crime with the new sibling he (lovingly) bullies (but no one else should bully)? Hell yeah. Watch him run through the damn mew glitch with one hand behind his back and catch you the three legendary bird Pokémon in record time. If forced to play a newer game, Jason would enjoy Bloodborne, probably. And HADES, especially if you mention how "Wow, you look a LOT like Prince Zagreus, big brother," watch him fold like a wet rag after giving you a noogie lmao. If you bargained really well, you could get him to play Zenless Zone Zero; dude would be a Billy Main. Also probably beats your ass in Tekken, so you bribe beg Damian to step in as proxy.

Because I play Hoyogames (and because you can co-op with up to three people in Genshin), I imagine Damian would also play with you. Being a child (despite being an assassin,) he'd definitely pick the opposite of whatever player character you choose. You chose Stelle? He gets Caelus. You choose Aether? He gets Lumine. You choose Belle? He chooses Wise. It's a comforting, smile-bringing thought to him, that you are siblings even inside fictional worlds. Any playable character with a canonical sibling that you get? He's getting the other pair. It'd be cute, except his team comps get messy, so you run it through tests. (All according to his plan, heheh.)

Cass is one step ahead of everyone and was probably the one to suss out your gaming hobby. She spots your collection of Visual Novels, and puts it to good practice to watch and read with you. Would probably enjoy VNs like Doki Doki Literature Club. Probably would also play Dungeon Exploration RPGs like Momodora and Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight. Has the uncanny ability to never get lost in game dungeons. Stuck in an area? Cass is on the case!

Bruce frowns upon too much gaming, so he regulates your game hours (and has a timetable for everyone) regarding which game to play. Alfred also enforces it. So does Barbara. You do get to wheedle him into playing Pokémon Sword or Shield with a bit of begging and "Look Dada, I named my Crobat after you!" watch him soften when he googles and sees that Crobat only evolves after maximum friendship levels. He might like psychological thriller mystery pointer games that can be played in increments like Fran Bow, maybe? And battle royale games like Tekken: Bruce has a competitive streak a mile wide and will not go easy on you. Is very smug upon winning. If you get him as a proxy in Tekken, Jason will bolt because he will not be betting about staying over for dinner. The match would be rigged in Bruce's favor anyway.

Barbara on the other hand, loves hack and slash games. Get her to play HADES and compete on who has the fastest runs, and she will take up the next few hours of the game time schedule, much to her smug delight. She'd also love the atmosphere of the indie RPG Horror Ib, I think? The whole surreal, comfortable horror interspersed with time limit puzzles really does get adrenaline flowing after all. Gets very alert when playing Chilla's Art games and side-scrollers like Tsugunohi. Subtle horror is very much up her alley.

All in all, isn't this quite a comfortable life? A bit lonely perhaps, you could say, but with a family who loves you above all else and endless games, what else could you need?

Stay with them.

They'll die without you, after all.

[rallamajoop]

An absurdly detailed analysis of That One Soldat Photo

Hang around wintersberg fandom long enough, and you'll likely run into a popular crack-theory that, since Heisenberg obviously thinks that building a set of huge, yellow-painted signposts is a good way to point Ethan to the Stronghold, maybe it's Heisenberg who's been leaving all those handy, yellow-painted supply crates all over the place for Ethan to find! It's exactly the kind of fun nonsense I'd enjoy if it didn't feel folks are starting to take it a little too literally (by which I mean I have now read multiple fics in which it's played completely straight ‒ and, like, people do get that it's just a crack theory, right? Like, why would Heisenberg have left so many yellow crates around his own damn factory? Look, you don't have to explain every last game mechanic, not everything is lore!)

But as anyone reading my own fic would know, I'm guilty of echoing the idea that Heisenberg-was-leaving-stuff-for-Ethan myself ‒ just not because of any yellow-striped crates. No, I'm way more interested in this one weird soldat-photo you can find in the village ‒ long hours before you'll ever see your first Soldat in the flesh...

Very creepy. And if you turn it over, you'll find a clue to a puzzle you'll have to solve in order to progress.

(And of course, when you do look out the window, odds are you'll get jump-scared by a lycan just when you're focused on the numbers, because RE8 loves that sort of misdirection ‒ but I digress.)

Anyway, the code you can see out the window will open a safe containing a jack handle you'll need to move a vehicle in the village, as well as the M1911 pistol (which will very likely be your go-to handgun for the rest of the game). The game is full of conveniently-helpful clues like that (heck, most games are), often with no obvious Watsonian justification. And there are other photos around the village ‒ Luiza has a whole photo album ‒ but photos of experiments created by Miranda and her lords don't generally turn up outside their own territory.

For a player exploring the village for the first time, that photo is a lovely little bit of foreshadowing, hinting at monsters and factory stages to come. But on replaying with full knowledge of Heisenberg's later attempts to get Ethan on his side, that Soldat photo is just enough to make you go, huh... did Heisenberg leave that for Ethan? Like, on purpose?

You can find another copy of that photo later, in Heisenberg's factory, along with his notes on his early series Soldat experiments. Which doesn't really prove anything beyond the fact that assets exist to be reused... but it does at least make it pretty canon that Heisenberg has photos of his Soldats sitting around.

Possibly also significant: both the clue photo and the factory documents are tagged 'geekmemo' in the game files. Most everything related to Heisenberg in the files is labeled 'geek'-something ‒ it seems to be an early nickname for his character that lasted well into production. Everything in the factory is geek-something, even the model for the passageway from the altar to the bridge is labeled 'pathtogeek'. Considering that so many soldat-related assets are already labeled 'geek', maybe that 'geekmemo' tag doesn't really tell us anything we don't already know ‒ but it certainly doesn't work against the idea that Heisenberg wrote that 'memo' himself.

Besides, it's not like there isn't precedent for this kind of thing. RE7 had a whole mechanic where you'd have to find 'treasure photos' pointing out the location of a few rare and useful items, all with "I hid something here" written on the back. We're never explicitly told who left those photos lying around, but it's obviously Lucas: he loves playing games, he loves taunting prisoners with the possibility of escape, and who else would it be? The complete population of the Baker mansion is like 6 people and a bunch of semi-sentient mould.

Over in RE8, there are a lot more village resident who might have left that clue lying around. Like it or not though, Heisenberg is very much RE8's equivalent of Lucas: the family's wildcard show-boater who loves making Ethan jump through hoops for his amusement. So how does the game let us know it was Heisenberg who left this particular clue? Well, who else would leave a message on the back of a Soldat photo?

There's may be additional supporting evidence Heisenberg could be involved ‒ most notably the location, being a locked-off cul-de-sac labeled 'Workshop' on signs and maps. The area is full of metal junk very much like you'll later see lying around the factory.

The workshop location does have other relevance ‒ it makes sense that you'd find the jack handle in the village workshop, whether Heisenberg was involved or not. But it also stands to reason that if there's anywhere in the village proper where Heisenberg might hang around and leave clues for Ethan, the workshop is it. And you have to admit that leaving Ethan useful stuff in a safe along with an easy clue that will likely get him jumped by a lycan is 100% more in-character for the guy than just leaving useful stuff out in the open, even if it doesn't really prove anything either.

There's one more weird-little does-this-mean-anything detail: there are three dead crows near the safe too.

It's not the first time in the game you've seen dead crows (there were a bunch outside the village, and I've talked about what that might mean in the context of Miranda's cult before). But I don't remember finding any others around the village itself, other than in this one spot. And instead of being hung from trees like a ritual sacrifice, these ones are just dead ‒ messily, and with blood everywhere.

Now, maybe it doesn't mean anything, but is there anyone in the village more likely to vent his frustrations by violently killing a few of Mother Miranda's avian avatars than Heisenberg? I'd think not.

In conclusion: I still don't think all those yellow crates have anything to do with Heisenberg. And I still don't know for sure whether the RE8 development team wanted me to assume that Heisenberg left Ethan that photo, jack handle and gun. I don't know if we're supposed to read that Heisenberg keeps a workshop in the village and sometimes kills crows out of spite. But the evidence sure does point that way ‒ and it's as valid an interpretation as anything else you might take from this game.

[mysterycitrus]

the way you write the relationships the batfam have with each other is so delicious to me like AUGHH YOUR BRAIN!!! it’s so good. if you were willing, i'd love to hear more of your thoughts on the relationship cass and jason have / steph and jason (staring at you with my big wet eyes)

i havent read much from any of the characters and have seen large parts of fandom say that they would all get along/they’d be so close/besties, so the ideas i’ve read in your works (wolf king and persephone) are very interesting!!

to put it bluntly — i think they’d fucking hate him.

part of that is, weirdly, people tend to devalue tim’s relationships with steph and cass. like, steph and tim have never been normal about each other. cass and tim spent most of the nineties and early aughts jumping back and forth to each other’s comics. in what world would either of them be chill with the guy who hurt him (and damian) like that?

it also flattens cass’s ideology and steph’s history with bruce’s mission. cass has struggled with engaging with murderers because she’s sees them as herself, and their actions as her own actions. she is reflected in each of them, but she ultimately values life above all else which is why her personal connection to the bat is so interesting. she would not have sympathy or time for jason todd, someone who uses bruce’s mission to hurt others, to take lives, and attack the people she loves. like…. please be serious. she would not be hanging out w the person who was happy when bludhaven got nuked.

same deal with steph— something that really annoys me is when people act as though the “bad robin club” would be a bonding moment between steph and jason. not just because steph has a more developed comic run than jason has, with legitimate obstacles to her getting recognised as a hero, but also because again, this guy is doing the same shit as her dad. why would she like him after he went after tim multiple times? whenever someone draws this comparison i think of this page —

the fact that steph values bruce’s mission, his views on taking a life, despite being at such a profound low point is really important. i can’t believe she’d look at jason and think him admirable.

however!!!! that doesn’t mean their interactions (when reasonably in character imo) can’t be interesting!! having cass and jason interact in persephone was a lot of fun, because making him interact with someone other than bruce or dick puts him off balance. peoples fear of complex relationships with legitimate stakes makes me sad. neither cass or steph have that history with him before death, or that same image of him as a memorial, and it’s a fun thing to explore. specifically this passage from wolf-king —

like yeah!! neither of them would fuck with him!!! let him be the unpopular brother!!

[thankskenpenders]

There’s been some discussions on Twitter recently about if Blaze’s dimension is worth keeping around and expanding on or if it should be ignored/merged with Sonic’s world thanks to a Bumblekast clip. What are your thoughts on Blaze’s dimension as a story-telling hurdle/ alternate setting? I personally feel like it wouldn’t make a difference if Blaze was a princess from another dimension or a princess from the other side of the world, it would just be easier for her to show up if she wasn’t from another dimension, but I also think it’s be neat to expand on Blaze’s world as a parallel to Sonic’s.

I think there's a whole cottage industry of Sonic fans who just like to take things Ian says out of context so they can rile people up on Twitter, and the fandom falls for it every time, and it's extremely tiring

But also I think Ian is right

This isn't something I've really shared, but I actually have a document where I've kept ideas for what I would do with a hypothetical modern reboot of Archie Sonic where I'm allowed to start from scratch and change anything I want. (I might share some of this someday, perhaps with some character designs, but for now it's just a thing for me. It's not like I'm gonna do a comic or anything.) For Blaze, I immediately decided that all of the elements from the Sol Dimension should be merged with the regular Mobius. I would just say that Sonic and friends have all their adventures on one hemisphere of the planet, and Blaze is from the other. I mean, the Sol Dimension already has a heavy Australia/Oceania vibe. It'd be really easy. This way, there would still be some level of separation, and Blaze would still have her own territory where she gets to be the main hero, but it'd be WAY easier to actually use those elements. Characters can just show up on whatever part of the planet they need to be on for any given story

For some reason people seem to think that Blaze being from a separate dimension isn't a storytelling hurdle at all, and I really don't know what franchise they're following, because it sure as hell isn't the version of Sonic I know. Yes, in theory it could be as simple as just using a warp ring to hop over to the Sol Dimension whenever. There are ways to write around it. I'd love to see that happen so that we could flesh out Blaze's world some more. Give Blaze some more allies and villains of her own! Give her more to do over there, and more reasons for Sonic and co. to visit! But clearly Sega isn't down with that, considering the Sol Dimension has only ever been in one game and, what, two issues of the IDW comics for maybe ten pages total? Sega's just sitting on it, and it's impossible not to see the fact that it's a whole separate dimension as the reason.

Even if we were getting more stories about traveling to and from the Sol Dimension, it'd still be a hassle. You want to use the Chaotix in a story in the Sol Dimension? Wanna use Marine or Johnny or whoever in a story set on the main world? Well, you'd better think up an airtight excuse for why those characters are traveling between the dimensions and pray that Sega approves of it. And right now that seems to be one hell of an obstacle, given how little we see of the Sol Dimension even though I know damn well Ian and Evan would love to explore it more. It's gotten to the point that Blaze is now on an endless "vacation" on Sonic's Earth so that they can actually use her in stories. People have been acting like merging the worlds would completely take away everything that makes Blaze special as a character, when it would just make all of her personal story stuff infinitely easier to work with than it is right now.

"Oh but what about the Sol Emeralds?" There's no reason the Sol Emeralds couldn't exist on the same planet as the Chaos Emeralds. We've already got other magic rocks like the Time Stones, the Phantom Ruby, and the Warp Topaz. "But what about Eggman Nega?" I could not give less of a shit about what happens to Eggman Nega and Sega doesn't even use him anymore, but also he's already supposed to be from Silver's future, not the Sol Dimension. "But what about the plot of Sonic Rush where the whole point was that they had to stop the worlds from being merged because they thought it was a bad thing?" Yes, because Sonic has always been a series that treated canon as sacred an immutable, and Sega would never do something that contradicted a game from almost 20 years ago

Anyway, all of this is a moot point. It's not like this is going to happen. Ian just brought up the possibility on the BumbleKast as an "if I could change literally anything" type deal. Sega is not going to do this. He is allowed to have his own opinions on Sonic things without fans having to take it personally and scream and cry about it. You don't have to agree with him on everything. I've certainly had points I disagree with him on! It's fine! That's normal! He's only human. Yes, Ian is on the Lore Team, but he's just one voice in the room. He's not even the boss of that team. If Ian could get whatever he wanted, we'd have seen the Freedom Fighters and Sticks by now