#in hindsight this ship might be problematic

[aerofbreath]

Actually writing something based off of this post. Y'all really seemed to like it and I got scared LOLOL

(How it will probably go (written poorly written cause it's almost 7AM and I haven't slept yet) . Also I have no idea what I'm doing. This will be rewritten better in a fic maybe.)

Jason sighed as he made his way into Gotham University's gym. It was the middle of the day and Jason was there at a Startup Event posing as a guy who was interested in what people had to offer. He had only had maybe a total of four hours of sleep since he had patrol the night before. Granted, this wouldn't have affected him as much if he was more mentally prepared to be awake. The only reason why he's out here was because Bruce had woken him up an hour ago to tell him a little last minute about what he needed to do today. Originally, the plan was to do absolutely nothing. But now he has to investigate a guy that Bruce had his eye on as of lately.

The person he's looking for is a man named Danny Nightingale. Apparently he's been in Gotham for a couple years and only recently started making a mess of things. How it went under Bruce's nose is beyond him considering how freaked out Bruce was once he did find out.

Apparently, the guy has been making life changing machines. Little mechanical bees have been flying around Gotham really just sucking up all the pollution in the air and just depositing it somewhere. According to the media, they go back to some headquarters and into a bee hive looking structure to deposit all the pollution and sludge. From the photos shown, it's actually pretty impressive. Some guy actually making a change around here.

For Bruce- no. For Batman, this is just highly suspicious. Why would some guy make these positive life changing machines? For the better? No. No genius with the power to change the world would do it for the better. There's got to be some ulterior motive behind it.

At least, that's what Batman thinks.

Jason thinks it's all interesting. Maybe there is an ulterior motive but even then, at a scale so large that it's literally affecting the city in a positive way? You've got to be literally more insane than the Joker if you wanted to plaster your face everywhere at an event like this. Everyone else at this event seemed to show promise but compared to Danny Nightingale's company? They're literally all small fry.

Surprisingly enough, however, no one else seems to be at Danny's booth. Not even Danny. Jason frowned as he approached the booth and just looked at the machines on them. The Bees are kind of just flying in place and the moment that Jason even looked at them, the Bees immediately got to work. They flew around him like a puppy with wings, nuzzling against him and bumping into him so dumbly. And honestly?

It was actually kind of cute. You would think that being on such little hours of sleep and being grumpy the whole morning would really affect the pits inside him but no. He's surprisingly calm.

"Oh my gosh, I am so sorry! They don't usually act like this," a voice stuttered out. A man hastily walked towards Jason as he gently plucked the Bees out of the air and brought it close to him.

"Uh, don't worry about it. I thought it was kind of..." Jason trailed out before locking eyes with the man who spoke.

This was Danny Nightingale. He was much shorter than Jason, only standing tall at 5' 5". His hair was fully black with only a white money piece right on his bangs. And his eyes? An alluring blue with only a hint of green at the center of his eyes. Honestly, the sight of Danny just about took Jason's breath away.

There was a subtle glow to him, almost making Jason think of there being some sort of meta activity going on but looking around the people in the area, no one but him seems to notice. Danny was concerned about Jason, that much is obvious. The way his eyes burrowed in concern then into confusion. It's strange why just looking at him made Jason's heart skip a beat, even though in hindsight, Danny looks much worse off than Jason.

That man looks like he hasn't slept in 3 weeks. But even then he was...

"Cute..." Jason finally finished his sentence a little too late.

Danny blinked in confusion, tilting his head to the side. His bangs fall freely over his eyes. Just the sight of that almost made Jason blush. "My bees were cute?" Danny spoke, the tone of his voice (very tired) sounded like a sweet harmony in Jason's ears. "Oh! You're interested in Nightech? No one else seems to be interested in my stuff yet. I can tell you all about this company and how it works? I put in a lot of work and love into these little guys and I'm sure you would love them too!"

Blah blah blah. Proper name. Place name. Backstory stuff.

Nothing of what Danny is saying is registering in Jason's brain right now. Maybe some. ("I... Love... You...")

"I love you too!!" Jason blurted out.

Danny blinked before widening his eyes. "Wh-What...?" There was that look of concern again but now there's another look. Recognition...

Whatever. None of that right now. This is embarrassing!

"I-I said I love your company. Uh. Do you have a business card? I can let Bruce Wayne know about this."

Wordlessly, Danny gave an information card to Jason before that poor brick of a man just ran out of there, not once even looking back. Honestly, from the way it's playing out in Jason's head right now, he feels like a princess running away from her prince at the stroke of midnight. The earpiece crackled before a voice started to speak.

"Jason? What the hell was that?" Bruce's voice questioned.

It was only when Jason left the gymnasium that he answered, "Me digging my own grave for the second time, old man. Let me go die in peace."

"No, no," Dick's voice chimed in, "Only after we replay that very short conversation about 50,000 times. Thank you very much."

Jason only groaned in response.

Danny, back in the gymnasium, only stared at the door that Jason left from in horror. The only way for people to react that way to him like that is for them to be dead or liminal. Now he has to figure out a way to tell Bruce Wayne that this person that he seems to know is a little bit dead!

This actually is a part of whatever the fuck I'm writing. I'm still thinking of a fic name. But all of the random posts go together in some way.

[squarebracket-trickster]

Thumbprint Tag

Rules: look back on your work, both past and present, finished and unfinished. What are five to ten narrative elements or tropes that continuously pop up in your work? Give a list of these things!

@on-noon don't mind if I jump on your open tag. I can get soooooo weirdly specific with this...

Oh yes, and I am going to carry on the open tag. Anyone that wants to join may.

Read More because oddly specific requires lots of words--

A female character from a very disadvantaged background (see political prisoner, indentured servant, peasant, enslaved person, poor etc.) who has an unlikely meet cute with someone (male) who turns out to be extremely privileged (see royalty, crazy rich etc.). They become friends. One day she has a really rough day, ends up sick, and he takes care of her (like makes her meals, rubs her shoulders, holds her hair when she throws up etc.). They don't end up dating until a while after this happens. If I had a nickel for every time this shows up in a story I'd have dollars by now.

Two or three female characters that my straight-ass spends years trying to ship with every palatable male character in the story to see if I can make them date. After years without success I finally realize that these characters are lesbians and they were made for each other. When their story arcs get finalized into canon they have an epic friends-to-lovers slow burn romance.

A main female character that, in hindsight, should have been my clue that I had ADHD. Re: talks too fast, says the most random shit, won't shut up, sits weirdly in chairs, really good in a crisis, always waving her hands when she talks, sensory issues galore, no eye contact, last minute queen, always has a song stuck in her head, can list 50 digits of pi but can't remember why the fuck she just walked into that room, and most importantly, me saying about this character, "I feel so relaxed when I write/daydream about her. It's like a release. Like, I can finally be myself and do all the things people think are annoying, but everyone in her life thinks she's funny and likes her energy." Like, you might as well have written MASKING ADHD directly across my forehead.

A monarchy that becomes a republic by the end of the story because I want to write about attractive princes and badass queens/empresses but I am also an anti-monarchist...

A character who was based off an irl friend that lost relevance in the story and got written out, only for me to eventually drift away from that friend or discover that they weren't the friend I thought they were.

Long rants about whatever topic I am learning about in uni at that time (assigned to a particular character for plot reasons). This week's rant was on Populism...

A couple that I decided could never be a couple because the power imbalance and political nonsense was too problematic, who ended up becoming a couple anyways because I have no self-control and them being together was just so *feels*. When all is finalized into canon, these couples get a glorious enemies-to-lovers slow burn that lasts several years and plenty of denial (in homage to my own feelings on the subject).

That moment when a character takes off their disguise and reveals that they are, in fact, a princess, goddess, secret agent etc. in order to save someone's life.

Idk what some of these say about me. idk if I want to know...

[brooklynislandgirl]

"She is a 10, but her curiosity gets the best of her at grossly inopportune times." (Bill)

Wait For It.…||

Asgard is everything she ever expected it to be, a combination of mythopoetics and technology that would be the envy of every Etherite or Technocrat fortunate to even dream about it. Yet for all of it's beauty, she feels insignificant and out of place. And perhaps when she lays eyes on Lady Sif ~towering frame, the kind of body that belongs on a HITmark if she's being honest with herself~ everything starts to click into place, creating a tapestry of the things he's imparted on their months of travel. The wine she's sipped at doesn't sit well, and she excuses herself from the mingled gathering to find some quieter place to sort through her feelings without causing a scene that would tangle Bill's reputation up in shame. In hindsight, she should have said something before she faded from the scene which is a unique talent of hers. In place of that maybe she should have said anything when he and the king ~Thor Odinson, who may as well be every bit the faery tale God she knew him to be~ stepped out for presumably the same sense of privacy on this balcony. She hadn't meant to eavesdrop but they are large men with deep, sonorous voices that do carry even when they engage in the most mundane of conversations. Some quirk of the All-Tongue translates Bill's words into ones she can understand and she cannot blame the honey-mead for staining her cheeks deep and pulsating a red. Sight unseen she slips from the balcony and the party itself. She is stopped only by the imposing figure of the realm's gatekeeper who gently asks if all is well. She doesn't know if Heimdall believes her when she says she simply doesn't have quite the same stamina as other party-goers, and that she would be returning to Skuttlebutt. There is an earnestness to not wanting to be a burden on the King's grace and generosity, and she does not need something so lavishly courteous as the chambers she was shown earlier. Once on the ship, she makes her way to her space and exchanges the elaborate gown she was offered for a more familiar pair of flannel pyjama bottoms and an oversized tee-shirt, one of the few things of hers rescued from the remnants of the Borealis. She takes down her hair from the customary braids of the maidens she'd seen earlier, brushes her teeth, washes her face. She doesn't know how much time had passed between her leaving and Bill finding her but she is suddenly awake and alert at the feel of his vitality filling the doorway of her space. As hard as it might be for him to have anything resembling human facial expressions, she can very much envision a soft sort of frown on his muzzle, and there's a dimness to his aniridic eyes that convey a certain sort of grief; a concern or... well, not malice but simple upset. She sits up and bare soles touch the cool deck-plating beneath them. She folds her hands in her lap and once she knows they've made eye-contact, hers lower to the vicinity of his knees. Before he can voice any of his thoughts, she launches into her own. "I'm sorry. I never meant to be problematic for you. To let my curiosity get the better of me. I guess it's just...everything is new and strange all the time; things that should feel familiar never do...and so I have this driving imperative to figure them out. Find out why they're different, or how things work. or trusting people on face value because they don't trip all those things I grew up being wary of or warned against." The subtle tidal motion of her shoulders can do little to convey the sincerity of how she sees herself and the situation, nor does it communicate the gulf of guilt that sits heavy in her chest. "If it would be easier for you, better in keeping you from being aggravated or worse trying to keep me safe I suppose you could pawn me off on some other ship. If I come close to the Horizon, I think I could get myself home from there. Maybe then you wouldn't have to be stuck with me, or with keeping a promise that might never get fulfilled. It's not like I don't know it's hurting your original mission."

[user-needs-new-hyperfixation]

Embarrassing Story/Confession Time

In which I share things that I cringe to remember, and then insert a moderately related moral to make the telling worthwhile.

So, once upon a time, in days of yore, when lemons were a thing and FF.net was THE place to be, I had an account. I have ZERO recollection of the login info and it is a disturbing possibility that the crap I wrote still exists somewhere (please, I beg of you, don’t look for it.)

I recently reblogged this post that reminded me of my teen years and how far I’ve come (not that the journey is over)...so I figured I might as well tell a story from my cringe problematic past for the lolsies (and the shoe-horned in moral). 

ANyhoo, I didn’t know until I was...errrm, 17 or 18?... that bisexuality existed. I knew that there were people who were gay (that was bad evil bad bad) and straight (that was good within a veeery limiting set of restrictions). In the year or two where I was just starting to hear whispers of this rumoured third option and slowly awakening to the (at the time, horrifying) possibility that it might apply to me, BL and shipping and such were part of the process of exploring that. 

(And yes, there’s plenty to be said about the fetishization of mlm relationships and the many other problematic aspects of a lot of BL, but I was essentially so sheltered as to be developmentally stunted, and those were some of my first exposures to queer romance framed in a positive light. And because they centered guys, and I was a girl, it allowed me to somehow explore my own queerness without ever admitting to myself that that was what I was doing.)

So, I was tiptoeing into queer stories, and queer ships in not-specifically-queer stories, and I wanted to write fanfic for one of my ships. But, problem! Gayness was bad evil bad bad! (I swear in retrospect that I was 17 but operating on 12-year-old software in some ways.) 

So how did I get around this? Weeeelll, I wrote one of the two guys getting magically turned into a woman. But here’s the thing...he, or rather she, was delighted by the change. She’d always felt not-quite-right as a man. She was attracted to her partner but did not feel that her attraction was correctly defined as that of one man towards another. She felt more herself, once she was a woman.

So...in attempting to de-queer my story, I accidentally wrote a moderately recognizable trans character (at least coming from the mind of a kid who had only the slightest awareness of trans folks existing). And I just find that hilarious in hindsight. 

Anyway, the moral I’m gonna tack ham-fistedly on here is this: my fellow adults, be kind to ignorant kids online. Whether they’re far right like I was raised to be, or from the new batch of “so far left they’ve circled back to purity culture” kids. And, if it’s safe for your own mental wellbeing, gently interact with them. So much of who I am now can be credited to a handful of patient and kind LGBTQ+ adults who were just chillin’ in spaces adjacent to my identity crisis, listening to me ask questions like, “doesn’t the way male and female bodies fit together prove it’s the only right option?” and just...not taking my head off for it. I’m not making excuses for grown adults acting like asses, but kids, and even young adults, are usually repeating back something that has been hammered into them. And nothing quite takes the wind out of those indoctrination sails like older folks just listening, and answering questions when they’re able, and not raging at them the way they’ve been told that their “enemies” will. 

[sokkastyles]

Hi,

Thank you so much for your answer on my second TSR question. All your answers have been very thoughtful, and have made me look at the show in a new way.

I had a doubt regarding Ember Island Players episode, the "clip show" episode. First, I have seen other clip show episodes in other shows where we get a sense of the character development of the main characters, which EIP does fulfill, I have read a lot of metas pointing out the negative tropes used, or about the ship baiting nature, which makes me wonder, with recognition of the issues in the episode because of critical thinking developing in fans as the years have gone by, has the episode been subjected to re-evaluation, in extension with the whole Last Airbender series as well?

I've been sitting on this ask because I'm not sure what you're asking. As you said, many people have analyzed EIP through a critical lens, so that answers your question about whether it has been subject to reevaluation.

Your inclusion of the whole series makes me feel the need to point out, as I think many other people have before, that the problems with the episode don't just exist isolated, they cast a negative light on the series as a whole because some of the more problematic parts, like Aang's entitlement or the subtle misogynistic jabs at Katara or the anti indigenous narrative, are problems that have existed throughout the series and can be seen throughout, especially in hindsight.

This is also true of the ship baiting, which on its own is not necessarily a bad thing - I take my zutara crumbs where I can get them - but the issue I see with the way the episode deliberately ship baits is that the creators also chose to make fun of their audience while doing it, and in a way that is rather mean-spirited. And all that was meant to boost KA, which backfired hilariously because this episode makes KA look really bad, and makes Aang look hugely inconsiderate of Katara's feelings while the episode portrays her as a misogynistic caricature. We're meant to watch actor Katara onscreen and feel Aang's pain when she goes for other boys, and when the real Katara says she is confused, but in the year of our lord 2022, why shouldn't a girl be confused? Why shouldn't she express attraction for other boys? Especially since Katara and Aang are not even a couple.

I don't know if this answers your question, but I can tell you that some of the dialogue and scenes in that episode would have never flown if the show were made today, like Aang saying he thought they were gonna be together because they kissed (which is a big nono that they teach kids in school nowadays) or him telling Katara that he is so angry at seeing her actress kiss other boys that it makes him feel like he might fly into an uncontrollable rage go into the avatar state. If the Netflix show is smart, they'll either do some heavy rewriting or use it as teachable moment and have Aang realize how shitty he was being there, but given the popularity of the series already I have less hope for that happening. I do anticipate new reviewers will skewer it, though.

[hopeshoodie]

Ok so in light of the Independent article (see my tag #fusebox layoffs for more info), I’ve been trying to piece together the sequence of events that lead to FB Going to Shit™. 

All of the below is based on articles, tweets from the staff, and dates from screenshots. Especially with the Matchmaker stuff, I’m using the dates I personally accessed the stories- that might not be accurate to when they were actually released to an international audience, just when my phone updated the app. In hindsight, I’m not a great person to do this because I have a shit memory and don’t keep receipts, so if you have any corrections PLEASE lmk either in the dms or replies. 

In sum, the timeline appears to be:

1. Key players left Fusebox in early 2020. 

The one that people are probably most familiar with is David Gallopim, one of the artists who helped define the S2’s distinct style, leaving sometime before March 2020. He seemed to indicate that there was conflict over the new art style of S3, and released assets he’d designed of Harry in his own style (notably way prettier than Harry looks in-game). 

But probably more important to the direction of the company, Michael Othen, one of the co-founders and former CEO, left in July of 2020 (I had thought it was earlier in the year but according to LinkedIn it was July). It’s much more unclear why he left, but it’s notable because he was a huge force in making the game inclusive of LGBTQ characters. 

So all in all, not a great sign when employees who had a huge hand in creating the content and direction of a game that defined its success jump ship. Especially after the game was seemingly hitting its stride, with the host of Love Island (the TV show) doing a sponsored Let’s Play of S3 and projects in the works like Boat Party and CMM.

2. It seems like Fusebox‘s CEO/executives hired new management, either in 2020 or early 2021. Employees complain that the executives don’t understand what it takes to make a game and are pulling the studio in the wrong direction. It’s unclear if the newly hired execs had experience. 

Wil Stephens, the CEO/founder, has been with FB since its inception but also appears to have only founded game distribution ventures and not worked in any development or employment capacity. If that’s the case, maybe the complaints about lack of experience/knowledge about the mechanics of making games work are about him. If not, then some of the newly hired execs would likely be to blame. 

Paul Virapen, COO, was brought on in November of 2020. He’s worked with Disney’s gaming division, Big Pixel studios, Wooga. The quality of that experience is dubious since he headed up the ‘let’s make apps for Apple watches, it’ll be the next big thing’ department… Lol. Notably also, all of his roles had been in the executive/managerial realm, not the development teams, so the complains might have been about him. THIS IS SPECULATION, but I’m willing to bet that Virapen was a if not THE driving force in switching Fusebox’s focus entirely to matchmaker. All the studios he’s worked with have primarily produced and promoted Match 3 games, and he has a background working with big studios that produce games for large international audiences, not small studios making narrative games for limited audiences.

A new Manager of Finances, Ruth Erskine, was brought on in December of 2020

Rob Goddard, a new producer, was brought in January of 2021

Several key operations positions were filled by existing employees being promoted to management- 2 as far as I can tell. But as a whole it seems like December 2020 was a huge shift in leadership for the upper management while a lot of the other teams expanded but kept their old players as well.

3. At some point in late 2020- mid 2021, the executive team made the decision to switch LITG’s focus from a narrative pass-based game to a Match 3 incorporating romance narrative cut scenes. In early 2021, Fusebox teased more content to come while releasing S3 (seemingly referring to Matchmaker and not S4). In the interim between S3 endings and Boat Party’s release they put out an interview confirming the new game will be Match 3 but did seem to indicate that the plan at that time was for Matchmaker to be a side project with a different development team and not replace the main game. Notably, the LITG writers and artists were reassured that their roles will continue to exist (according to the independent article) as they’re working on S4.

3. In September of 2020, Matchmaker became briefly available in the US. That’s when I first downloaded it, at least. It would be added/removed from the google play store multiple times before having a unilateral release in July of 2021. 

Throughout 2020, Matchmaker is available to Asian audiences solely with LITG S1 getting rolled out in incremental updates. 

Eventually, Beanie Quinn is released (March 2021)

LA Noir is released (May 2021)

Seduction Games is released (late May or June 2021- I got the update and played it June 3rd, but hadn’t opened the app for a month or so. It might have come out before then, which is unfortunate for this timeline since it’s so inextricably linked to the open letter and layoff dates)

LITG S2 is released (only like 20 levels of it) the same month- June 19th for me. Notably, all of these stories are only released to an international audience, with the UK and USA still not having access to the app.

4. At the same time, Fusebox’s internal affairs are pretty quiet from 2020-2021, at least on social media. 

S3 comes out in 2020, Boat Party comes out later in the year and finishes in 2021. Post S3 in October of 2021, a survey goes out gauging player interest in new art styles and representation, which was pretty in keeping with past actions and seemed promising for S4. 

Boat Party features a promising cross promotion implementing irl brands into the game. It’s unclear if enough money was made from this on FB or the sponsor’s end to make that strategy viable, but that might’ve impacted management’s outlook for the profitability of LITG.  

Fusebox teases more content for the summer on Instagram, and then follows up and confirms it’ll be a proper season.

5. More key players leave in early 2021

Ed Sibley is still listed as Narrative Direction on LinkedIn, but he’s not credited as a writer on Season 4 (he was on 3,2,and 1) and started work with NetSpeak games in May of 2021, so we can assume he left around then or at least transitioned away from Fusebox then.

Fred Francis, another writer who had been on the team since S1, turns in his resignation ‘weeks’ before the layoffs were announced in late June. So we can assume he made his exit sometime early June or late May.

6. Prior to the release of Seduction games in May/June, staff expressed concern about the biphobia in Seduction Games. No sources have given a specific time when this took place. They were reassured that the problem would be corrected prior to release, but then the story was released as is to an international audience in June. The article released by the Independent is unclear- there might have been discussion prior to the open letter where staff expressed concerns and then were reassured before the game going live. OR the open letter might have been the first expression of concern by the staff. I tend to think the former, and the open letter was a response to Matchmaker going live with Seduction Games anyways, but I have no proof for that. On May 24th, 31 employees sent an open letter of concern regarding the problematic content in Matchmaker. This letter isn’t public, so we don’t know the scope of the employees' concerns or who the employees were.

7. To resolve the situation, a meeting between the staff and at least the COO (likely more than just him though) was held sometime after May 24th. Allegedly, Virapen was disrespectful to the employees who had questions, refused to answer, and ended the meeting early before any resolution was had by closing his laptop and leaving the room. At least 4 HR complaints were made in the wake of that meeting, we do not know the nature of those complaints. 

8. Some time mid-July (maybe July 26th? A writer tweeted about their job ending soon on that date), employees were made aware that the LITG app would move into ‘sunset mode’. It’s unclear what was communicated, but it seems as though S4 will be heavily delayed or cancelled altogether and no future seasons would be made. Writers begin to post about looking for work on Twitter

9. June 30th- The majority of Fusebox writing staff announce on twitter they’re out of work. In addition to the entire writing staff, unity engineers and producers are also let go.

10. July 5th - Fusebox executives respond to an article by MCVUK with a statement asserting they were “consulting with [their] employees on a proposed change to its business model” that would focus on producing Matchmaker content. They also expounded that the move was to secure “cash injections and and continued support from respected investors across the media and gaming industry���

11. July 6th- Fusebox announces that S4 will be delayed from the summer release date and that there is no fixed release date. 

12. August 2nd- three jobs are posted to Fusebox’s careers page on their website, one being Head of Narrative Content. In the job listing, it specifies that they’ll be maintaining existing properties as well as new ones, and that because of the co-development model (re:fusebox outsourcing Matchmaker to another studio) the new Narrative Lead must collaborate with external content creators.

Hopefully posting this timeline gives players a better understanding of how radically Fusebox has changed in the course of 2021 (and how royally they screwed over the people who made LITG what it is). Again, please let me know if you have receipts showing dates are different or things to add. 

[kyliafanfiction]

May You Ship In Interesting Times: Spike, Spuffy and My Ship Type

Because I have Spuffy on the brain - have I mentioned how much I hate how bad arguments get to live rent-free in my head for hours after?:

The thing that gets me the most about the ship is that I should actually love it.

Like, when I line up the things I like about ships, Spuffy should check almost every box. I should ship it. It’s got enemies to lovers, it’s got spicy problematicness, it’s got two beings that have very very good reasons to hate each other simply for what they are, it’s got a character who - to an extent - becomes a better person in large part because of their love for the other.

It’s got characters questioning their fundamental belief systems, having that ‘oh shit’ moment when they realize they love the other person, et cetera. 

By all rights, I should ship it. Or at least... kinda like it.

And yet, I don’t.

And the fact that I can’t understand why baffles and annoys me. Like, yeah, I can point to specific things I don’t like about the ship on screen, but I mean, most of my spicy problematic ships I ultimately like in fanon/fanfic only anyway, so the canon shouldn’t be that much of a stumbling block.

Now that I’m typing this post though, the only thing I can think of that Spuffy has that all the spicy problematic ships that I have don’t have is they actually have an onscreen relationship with mutual feelings and affection - at least, of some sort. They Actually Get together.

None of my spicy problematic ships have that. Even Skyward doesn’t actually have them fully get together. 

And I think part of it might be that honestly? Fandom and fanfic often ship the spicy problematic better than original writers ever could, in a lot of cases. Not all - I know I have read books that don’t stand out for me long enough to remember but that I enjoyed that have some good spicy problematicness, but TV shows, and mainstream books that accumulate large fandoms?

I’m kind of glad Skyeward didn’t become canon once they went with Hydra Ward, because in hindsight, those writers would have botched it. I’m kinda glad JKR didn’t make Dramione canon, because honestly, in hindsight... yeah, she’d have done a terrible job with it. And so on.

In some ways, depending on the ship... “May Your Ship Become Canon” is actually kind of the “May you live in interesting times” of fandom.

It’s as much a curse as a blessing.

[goldenkamuyhunting]

1534 Nendoroid Hyakunosuke Ogata is finally available!

So, since Goodsmile finally made him available for preorder, let me ramble a bit about him (and how to preorder him).

Yeah, I know I already did it for the prototype but a little more can’t hurt.

Warning, I’m gonna use the images that are on the Goodsmile site page for him... but also the ones on Kahotan’s Japanese blog because they capture him better.

So let’s start by seeing him in full colour.

The colouring is not bad, we were already familiar with this pose as it was used for the prototype as well so I won’t really comment much on it. I’m not sure why they’ve chosen the ‘standard expression’ instead than the grinning one for this photo as he actually was grinning in the image that inspired this but whatever, the grinning expression is included and that’s all that matters.

We can see an improvement in the definitive version, which is that his eyebrows are drawn in manga style (we can see many lines form them) and not in anime style (were they’re made with a single, large stroke).

This was something I know many fans has requested so I’m glad Goodsmile listened them... even though they declare that their official inspiration is his anime version.

They also added lines below his eyes so I’ll say they’ve tried their best in reproducing his expression.

Kahotan’s blog allows us to see him from behind as well.

I love how they had drawn some rebellious strands of hair and hadn’t made them all slicked up, and his little hood is very cute.

It’s a pity it can’t be pulled up though but this would require three more additional pieces and it’s kind of clear Goodsmile wasn’t that invested in his cape as we can see in the images only one version of it.

Why this is relevant?

Because the right side of it is pulled up to allow Ogata to move his arm while the other is kept lowered. In hindsight probably it was better to include a cloth cape instead than a plastic one as I think this could limit Ogata’s mobility.

I’m not sure if he’ll be able to shoot with his cape on and the difference between the two sides might be too marked if he’ll keep his right arm down.

Oh well, this is something we will be able to judge only when we’ll have him and I understand this was a BIG problem for Goodsmile as they clearly couldn’t give him a dozen of plastic capes and pieces in cloth or in other materials that aren’t plastic are included only in rare occurrences.

The plastic cape is still VERY CUTE.

Okay, going on.

As Nendo’s arms are simply too short it was impossible to reproduce Ogata’s iconic gesture of hair grooming so I think, according to Goodsmile, this is the  compromise they could reach... whcih shows also the grinning face we could see in the prototype.

It’s nowhere near the hair grooming but, as I said, that one was IMPOSSIBLE TO GET so I really apprecciate their attempt to find something that could work as equivalent.

I think this image might give an even better idea of hair grooming (it reminds me of when he did it after Asirpa told him not to shoot the woodcocks), but maybe it’s just me.

This image shows us they also gave him a left hand which can hold the rifle, which is nice.

We continue with something that left me a little perplex, Ogata’s shooting position.

I don’t know if whoever placed him and Kahotan also made a mistake in positioning him... but it seems his right hand is not holding the rifle at all... when Ogata normally does.

It wasn’t something problematic as Nendoroid Tanya Degurechaff can do it just fine.

Even Nendoroid Springfield seems to hold the rifle with her right hand more than him.

Still, it’s possible they just wanted to show that hand. In the initial image there’s a right hand that can hold the rifle, so maybe that’s the trick.

He still looks really cool when shooting.

Goodsmile gave Ogata a butterfly to try to reach. I’ll say even if they said they were taking inspiration from the anime, they definitely have considered the manga as the butterfly scene isn’t in the anime, just in the manga.

LOL, here they would have needed the standard expression and not the grinning one but whatever, Ogata reaching for the butterly is ADOURABLE.

Yes, the butterfly is not very detailed, but keep in mind it will be really, really tiny. You won’t see all the details and it’s a complete new butterfly as the ones included in the “after parts part 2″ set were different

The last image Goodsmile shows us is a very special one as THEY INCLUDED PARTS TO MAKE THE CITATAP SCENE!

I’ve sent requests and pictures for this one so I’m delighted they had included it... which was not an easy feat as it means this Ogata will come with an additional sitting body (in addition to the little wooden stump and knifes) which is really not so common.

I wish I could see his expression better but I still love him.

Overall I think they paid more attention to him than to my poor Nendoroid Asirpa (I made a full review here).

Asirpa came with two more expressions, but despite all her pose being based on her being seated, she didn’t have any sitting part and she came with very few accessories (the hand with the chopsticks, the bown and the spoon with the otter head), she couldn’t hold her knives to make citatap and there was not a single possibility to have her use her bow and arrows, with not even her walking stick being included, although, credits when it’s due, due to the intricate Ainu patterns, she was probably hell to make for Goodsmile as there’s the chance that one had to be handpainted.

Also, her bent arm was a single piece, meaning you couldn’t rotate it, while both Ogata’s arms are two pieces. this makes for a lot more poses.

What worries even more though, is how she’s not being re-released with Nendoroid Ogata. Asirpa was released in 2018/09. Now, when Goodsmile release a new Nendo of a series for which they had already released Nendo, they often re-release them. It’s the case of how Tamaki Iroha gets a new release because they are releasing Nanami Yachiyo.

No re-release might mean my poor Asirpa didn’t really sell well, so Goodsmile either has still some of her old copies or doesn’t feel like investing in her again.

This means we got Nendoroid Ogata merely due to the HUGE amount of requests... and we might not get any other Golden Kamuy Nendoroid unless he sells really well.

Due to this I encourage you all to preorder him, to show Goodsmile an interest in GK Nendo. This not only because the Ogata Nendo is beyond cute but also because only in this way we can hope to get new GK Nendo as well.

How can you do it?

There’s of course, the Goodsmile on line shop. You register and place your oder. You will have to pay additional fees such as import taxes if you’re not residing in Japan.

However preordering in a shop near your home might be important in this period due to the Coronavirus affecting mail services so what can you do?

You can also order at Goodsmile online shop USA if you’re in Canada or in the United States as they don’t ship him out of them.

So what if you don’t live in Japan, USA or Canada?

Many of Goodsmile partner shops allow for pre-order.

You can search for one in your country or close by.

I use and can wholeheartedly recommend the Neko no Koe shop as they always offered me a great service. You can pay after your Nendo reaches their shop and they can send it to you when you’re ready to receive it (which for me is an imperative as there are periods in which I’m not at home and they just hold my Nendo for me without any additional cost and wait to send them until I’m back). They offer their services also to who’s not Italian so you can mail them to ask for info (nekonokoe.shop@gmail.com).

BE VERY WARY if you try to pre-order him from a shop that’s not one of the Goodsmile parters one. I never heard of someone managing to get an Asirpa bootleg and it’s possible they didn’t make them as she wasn’t popular but they’ll know Ogata was ugely requested so yes, chances to find him as a bootleg are higher.

Bootlegs often have a horrible quality (they rage from them being very ugly to their parts not staying together or being missing) but, what’s more, harm the original producer (Goodsmile) and the copyright holders (Geno studio and Noda himself).

I wholeheartedly recommend to stay away form them.

[sinnhelmingr]

7. Have you ever regretted a ship, romantic or otherwise? // @untamedtempest​

lights up a cigarillo dissolves into my couch

christ haven’t i.

earliest instance of this i can name is during the old cod fandom predator uproar when i had two ship partners lose their god damn heads. the first decided to side with the pedo. that was the end of one ooc friendship and all ic interaction bc she prioritized the friendship with the creep over the safety of minors, despite trying to present herself as a cool woke ally to victims. the other ship partner who took a turn is more the one i regret bc she seemed more reasonable and had already largely broken her friendship with the freak in question. we stayed mutuals for a short while, largely driven by ships we had developed between muses.

then she started stealing bits and bobs of other people’s characters. not like coincidental things, either, i’m talking whole swathes of characterization and backstory. she had one oc basically replace a friend’s canon in his relationship with the main villain, then her oc aligned with the same faction started becoming more and more a pastiche of my own oc. i played a romani take on a canonical sniper, how coincidental she retcons her own already established sebastian stan-as-a-sniper oc to be romani. i will give you all a moment to process that. she then proceeded to start playing the canonical sniper, claiming she wanted a more ‘canon’ and ‘accessible’ take on him in what was a miniscule fandom. the main differences between mine and hers besides fcs was that hers happened to be white and heterosexual to mine being poc and bisexual. 

(there’s a lot more examples than these but these are the primary things involving my characters. she did the same with a lot of my friends and their muses, too, to the point the skype chat to discuss the fandom creep soon turned to reassuring one another that yes, this person’s latest headcanon or reworking of her character sounded a lot like something already said about an established blog in our little corner of the internet.)

it was a nightmare of her trying to bully the entire fandom about how what she was doing was ok and the plots she was pushing onto us were going to be written, that we were all still going to interact with her despite just blatantly stealing or reworking characters out from under us. she eventually decided to stop pushing her luck and moved her frankenstein monstrosities to a fandomless ‘original lore’ multimuse, where i can safely say the saddest statement i have ever conceived: somewhere out there, someone is ripping off call of fuckin’ duty and claiming it as an original work. i don’t think you can get less creative than that. i regret every moment i poured into interacting with this woman, let alone letting her try to say good dick or receiving love from one of her ocs would heal the many deep and sexually-based traumas my own oc had been struggling with for two decades.

that was all in the early-mid 2010s, however. i have not had contact with these people in as long, thank fuck, though i have seen the asshole that sided with the creep was still active as of 2020 and was still going strong with her absolute shitshow of a stereotyped native oc and yes, is still trying to present herself as a 100% woke ally who is better than anyone who criticizes her shockingly stereotyped and sexualized diverse casting and characterization uwu. and yes, she is white.

more recently, i had a former partner who got obsessed with several of my muses in other fandoms. like, very uncomfortably involved with them. to the point they started trying to define them for me, or at least the narrative around them. their defining relationship better be with this person’s character, and if i tried to talk about ships these characters had with other partners or even canon characters -- not even romantic, necessarily, if i so much as talked about other dynamics within a fic i was writing about an oc this happened too -- then i got guilt tripped or the other ship got talked down to build up what we had between our muses. their favorite ship in particular, from hindsight, was very obsessive and abusive, all of it being framed as romantic by my partner. it’s all honestly very fresh and some other stuff i realized about my relationship with this person is very upsetting to me, so i’d prefer not to dwell on it except to say it was genuinely problematic material presented in such a way that i didn’t recognize it at first and i feel manipulated by the whole situation. 

i’m trying not to give a lot of details in case the person checks my page, but i think i regret this more than the situation above. that was just silly character stealing form someone my followers might giggle about as they read. this is where i’ve felt a little violated realizing i was used to write concepts and themes that personally trigger me.

[thebibliosphere]

On the subject of the AO3 apps--how is pointing the apple store at the problematic stuff (how is that defined exactly) actually good. I understand frustration about this, especially the monetization aspects, but that seems incredibly risky and also might include works you don't mean to later. Is an app that has stories on it like Sugar Vladdy (not literally sugar vladdy, obv) worthy of being nuked off the store? This has just been bugging me.

It’s something I really don’t like the idea of either, which is why I addressed only one of the many messages in my inbox that pointed out that we could quite probably use the Apple stores adult content policy against the app if other means of having it taken down failed. There were a lot of negative and harmful messages regrading ship wars that found their way into my inbox over the weekend. People saying things like “finally a reason for R/ylos to exist, we can use them to get the app taken down” as though Apple was ever going to give two singular shits that two fictional adults were being paired together in a fictional romance that many people find problematic and distasteful. Some people were genuinely trying to use the problem of legit content theft to go after things in the name of purity culture, and that is not okay. Not even remotely.

And you’re right, it is risky, and made me feel horrible to talk about and perhaps with hindsight I shouldn’t have mentioned it at all, but given the number of people who messaged me about it, I doubt me not talking about it would have prevented anyone from doing it. Which is why I am glad the apps that were removed were done so for content theft and not adult content. (At least according to all the emails I got, that’s why) 

There were also apps that were wrongfully targeted, like the completely free RSS apps/browsers which weren’t making ad revenue or asking for subscriptions, which is highly regrettable and I hope those app creators are able to appeal their cases with success. Unfortunately not everyone was reading what all the apps were before filing complaints against them, they just searched for “fic” and went after every single one, regardless of whether or not they were committing content theft (in the form of re-uploading) or profiting from their work (ads/subscriptions). Which bugs me, I’m not gonna lie. It showed mob mentality rather than people who were paying attention to what was actually going on, and that will always be a dangerous thing.

[foul-z-fowl]

I know fan fiction censorship is a pretty hot-potato subject right now, but I have to share my own opinion.

I joined the fandom somewhere around 2018-19, when I searched "What if Harry Potter didn't fight Voldemort" and was led to fan fiction. After that I became obsessed with Percy Jackson fan fiction. So naturally, it wasn't long until I discovered sm/ut fics. I liked them, so I began to actively search them out. I would be confused when I discovered 'M' rated fics that didn't have smut.

You want to know the best part of this story? At the time, I was on fanfic.net, because it was the only fic platform I knew about. Fanfic.net had banned all explicit content in 2002. I was reading explicit content on that site 17 years later.

In hindsight I realize I probably was not old enough to see a lot of that, but what could I do? I couldn't filter it out. It was to intermingled with the other fics it was trying to masquerade as so it didn't get banned.

Banning 'problematic' fics will not solve the problem

Today, I read almost entirely on A03. I filter out explicit content when I'm not in the mood for it. Even when I am, I'm still careful. I can filter out [insert things I don't like]. Even when I come across a fic and I discover something new I don't like, I don't try to report that fic. I don't leave a comment telling the author they are disgusting for writing that.

Because the author wants to write it. So, they wrote it. I don't want to read it, or see it. So all I have to do is not click. Not reads it. Filter out the tag.

Plenty of people say that this isn't foolproof because not everyone tags every element of their fic. Or tags at all, sometimes. And while I'm sure that there are some fics out there that are like this, I personally have never seen any.

In my experience, those little fics you come across with no tags beyond that fandom, the ship, and the characters, with little one sentence summaries, tend to be fluffy little G-rated oneshots.

Never do I say "Oh! This fanfic contains elements that I think are problematic. I should make sure no one else ever read it." Because that isn't how it works! Other people might want to read it.

And I'll let you in on a little secret. Those others probably don't want to read fics that are upsetting or problematic topics because they want to do it (whatever the topic is). Maybe they read it because they are curious. Because that's what they want to read.

They are not bad, or disgusting, or morally lower than you in any way just because they read (or wrote!) a fic that you didn't like because of certain topics it featured.

I've learned a lot of random things from fanfics. I've learnt a lot about writing, something I love. I've learnt about different things in s*xx I might have never known.

My s*x ed didn't teach us anything about how to do that safely! They taught us not to do it at all! Fanfiction was my s*x ed.

'Problematic' fanfics are not a problem. They are a different way of looking at the world. And that is fine

[rhetorical-ink]

Rhetorical Ink Reviews - “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba” Season 1 - Episodes 21 to 26

** STEAMING SPOILERS BELOW ** 

Okay, so my brother and I finished Season One of Demon Slayer last night and holy cow...okay, so I get the hype now. I do. I can see why people love this show and it’s quickly become one of my favorite new anime series to come out recently. Let’s finish up this review of Season One with: 

My Top Ten Thoughts on Demon Slayer: KNY, Episodes 21 - 26: 

10. Rui’s backstory is truly a tragic one, especially when he talks about hindsight and not realizing his parents’ true intentions and the actual bond they had. Which makes it all the more beautiful to see him reunite with them, and the revelation that no matter where they go, heaven or hell, they’re going to stay with their child. They did care for him, which was all he ever wanted. It’s a very touching scene to end Rui’s backstory.

9. Tanjiro continues to be “Best Boi” and a literal saint when it comes to trying to help demons transition after death into a peaceful afterlife. It’s an amazing contrast to how he handles Shinazugawa later on, where he literally asks to headbutt him two more times to make up for how many times the jerk stabs his sister. 

Which, let’s talk about Shinazugawa, because I’ve not been that anxiety-ridden watching an anime in a while. Spiders? Gross. Muzan randomly killing and turning people into demons? Neat. This white haired cheese grater showing up and stabbing our precious Nezuko, trying to taunt her into attacking him? Thank goodness Tanjiro gave him the vibe check he deserved. 

8. I also want to point out the cool “blurring” that’s being established between human and demon. Tanjiro’s plea to Giyu, saying, “Just like me, they were human, too” is probably one of the most powerful and telling lines of the show. Tanjiro knows what he’s done to seek retribution and a cure for his sister’s condition, and he knows what it’s cost him. 

Not only that, but we see how the Hashira, the very top of the Demon Corps can act as cold and harshly as demons. Even appearances start to blur, as we’ve had demons like Tamayo and Yushiro who look and act like humans, and we’ve had characters like Shinazugawa and the “Master” of the Demon Corps who act, and look, like demons be on the side of humanity. It’s interesting to say the least, and I feel it’s only going to get expanded upon moving forward. 

7. Shinobu was a character that definitely intrigued me in the last few episodes, and I was skeptical of her character. But this last mini arc really made me appreciate her. Oh, she’s devious, to be sure. But she has a very clear sense about her in terms of what she deems morale and what she finds problematic like Shinazugawa’s attitude, which good. I appreciate that she actually does a lot to literally save Tanjiro in these last few episodes and help him move forward. 

It’s also interesting to discover that she is emulating her deceased older sister, when we see it’s all a persona, specifically in the flashback moments of her being younger. Plus, girl is manipulative as all get out, tricking Inosuke and Zenitsu into training like that. 

Oh, and does she secretly like Giyu? Is that a ship that will happen down the road?

6. The Hashira give me such Bleach Captain vibes, it’s probably the coats and the swords, but I appreciate that they’re actually not quite the same set up and structure. I really like all of their distinct personalities, but Muchiro might be my favorite so far...there’s just...something about his aloof personality that reminds me of Zenitsu, and it probably means he’s secretly a badass and I’m all ready for it. Close second would be the Love Hashira, because she just looks fun and I’m intrigued to know what her abilities are. 

It is surprising that there are so few of them left, and I’m curious if the “Master” position is something you’re born into? They all revere him...but...why? 

5. Also, speaking of questions, HOW does the Master know Tamayo? He reveals that to Tanjiro for a reason...but what? Clearly, the Hashira do not know about Tamayo, because based on how freaked out they were by Nezuko, there’s no telling how they’d react to a several hundred year old demon that apparently is working potentially alongside demon slayers...curiouser and curiouser...

4. While I love that Inosuke has calmed down a little bit, and maybe been humbled by this last battle...Zenitsu...my dude...can we all just admit it:

Zenitsu’s VA is having the time of his life.

SERIOUSLY, Episode 23 had me in tears, laughing, because of how just ridiculous his chattering was. I don’t know how the Voice Actor for Zenitsu did it, but some of those noises and ramblings in that episode were NOT human and were beyond hilarious. I’m so glad our boys are going with Tanjiro and have at least caught up in the total concentration breathing. 

3. I wasn’t sure if there’d be any shipping in this show for real, but we definitely got a taste of it with the proper introduction of Kanao. 

Her backstory is so tragic and cruel, but it kind of fits that she’s an emotional foil to Tanjiro. She’s been through so much trauma as a child, she’s conditioned herself to not feel anything, to the point where she doesn’t truly think for herself or with her heart. 

And yet, Tanjiro is so polar opposite, where he’s grown up with a loving family and home life, and is so emotionally connected with those around him...I’m just saying, they make an odd, but very fitting pair together. And you all saw those sparkles when he told her the “trick” for getting her to listen to hear heart with the coin? 

I really hope she gets involved in the story later and meets back up with Tanjiro; she can definitely hold her own so there’s no worries, there! 

2. Okay, by and LARGE, the best part of these last few episodes was the encounter in Muzan’s “Lair.” From Muzan being straight up drop dead gorgeous as a geisha (Muzan really said trans rights, didn’t he?), to being absolutely INTIMIDATING and again, proving he’s a threat as a villain (he’s basically the Alucard of this series at this point), that whole opening in the final episode was jaw-dropping. The animation, the eerie atmosphere, everything...gorgeous and effective.

My only concern was with him essentially “dismantling” the lower six moons, five if you don’t count Rui, it seemed like the author was essentially cutting a large part of storytelling out of the picture. Going into this series and hearing of the Twelve Moons, I thought, “Okay, we have twelve bosses to get through...” but now, no. We really only have Muzan, his SIX main Moons, and then of course, the one lower Moon that lived and got to “Get him some Sip” before vanishing to reappear at the episode’s closing. I’m fine with it; it was a very cool, unexpected plot development and will definitely make the story more concise, but it also felt like the author “trimming away” at some of the potential story. I won’t complain, though, if it means we get a tighter, more dynamic narrative; rather than a bloated, too-stretched one. 

1. And finally, we have the magical train! I love that of COURSE Inosuke thinks it’s a giant beast, and while at first you think Tanjiro is using some psychological trick to convince Inosuke it’s a “guardian deity,” it’s also apparent that poor Tanjiro doesn’t entirely get the technology, either.

As Zenitsu points out, “Country bumpkins,” indeed.

It’s also a nice way to close the season; having them off on a mission onto a train that’s been hassled by a demon, with a Hashira that Tanjiro conveniently needs to talk to aboard, and one of Muzan’s newly amped-up lieutenants aboard too...after Tanjiro, of course. It’s a fated meeting that is being set up to be the plot of the movie coming out this fall, and I. CANNOT. WAIT. 

If you all haven’t watched this series, DO IT. It’s one of the best new anime to come out in a long while and I am eagerly anticipating the movie this fall and Season Two. 

Review of Episodes 1 - 5

Review of Episodes 6 - 8 

Review of Episodes 9 - 14

Review of Episodes 15 - 20

[duhragonball]

Oh, Shit,I Just Remembered Pete Wisdom.

I started looking into Warren Ellis a little more, to see what he accusations against him were, exactly.   So much has come out about so many people that it’s hard to keep it all straight, but I’ve been a comics fan since 1993, and Ellis has been in the industry for about as long, I think, so I wanted to know more.  

The quick version, from what I can tell, is that Ellis would offer to mentor fans who wanted to break into the comics industry, and with the women, he would start to segue that relationship into something more physical.   It would get to the point where he’d want to have sex with them, and they felt like they couldn’t refuse him, since he could torpedo their careers before they could get off the ground.   A few women must have spoken out about it, leading others to do the same, and eventually it started to become clear that there was a lot of similarities in their stories.   

As I was thinking about this, it suddenly dawned on me that I first heard of Ellis from his work on Marvel Comics’ Excalibur, where he introduced Kitty Pryde’s love interest, Pete Wisdom.    And then a bunch of stuff started to make a lot more sense in hindsight.  

The X-Men franchise is overrated trash, but probably the wankiest, most usless, most overrated part of the X-Men mythos is the spin-off series Excalibur, which was basically a splinter group of X-Men operating in Great Britain.   Fans loved this book, I think because it featured popular characters like Kitty Pryde and Nightcrawler, and the book (mostly) managed to steer clear of the mega-crossovers that dominated the rest of the franchise in the 80′s and 90′s.  When I finally sat down to read my X-Men collection in 2015 and 2018, I did so confident that I wouldn’t need to bother with Excalibur, because it rarely had anything to do with the main books.   The message Marvel sent me with this book was that it doesn’t matter and it never did.

Anyway, around 1995 or so, Warren Ellis took over as the writer, and he introduced a new character named Pete Wisdom, who quickly became romantically involved with Kitty Pryde.   This was somewhat controversial for a few reasons:

1) When Kitty was introduced in 1980, she was stated to be only 13 years old.    “Thirteen-and-a-half”, to be precise.    They actually threw in the fraction, just to make her seem even more like a little kid, if that was possible.    Comic book time moves slower than real time, but it wasn’t entirely clear to anyone how old Kitty was by the time she relocated to England and met Pete.   Later stories by other writers would attempt to set Kitty’s age as being 16 or 18, which makes Kitty’s relationship with Pete a continuity error at best. 

2) In spite of Kitty being very young, people had been shipping her with Colossus for years, and it annoyed them that there was yet another obstacle for their extremely problematic-but-much-desired relationship.   

3) People accused Pete Wisdom of being a Mary Sue, since he seemed to just pop in out of nowhere and work himself into the team, win the heart of the most popular female character, and he’s supposed to be this super cool secret agent type.  The implication here was that Ellis only invented Pete as a self-insert OC for the purpose of getting it on with Kitty Pryde.  

I think there were two schools of thought on how Kitty was supposed to be portrayed in comics.   The first was that Chris Claremont had insisted on keeping her eternally 16 or whatever, this plucky kid prodigy who was always too young to get into these kinds of relationships.    Ellis’s supporters felt that this was too restrictive, and it was foolish of Claremont to think that other writers would be beholden to his wishes, especially after he left Marvel Comics in 1991.  Ellis seemed to be allowing Kitty to grow and mature as a character, and it didn’t matter if it messed around with “comic book time”, since no one knows how that works exactly anyway. 

For my part, I always thought Pete Wisdom was a fucking tool of a character.    He was yet another government spook riding on the popularity of “The X-Files”.    Plus, the conventional wisdom among comics nerds in the 90′s was that U.K. writers were better somehow, just because they liked to write snarky dialogue and deconstruct the superhero genre.   Pete Wisdom was a mutant, and he joined the Excalibur team, but he wasn’t gonna wear any poncy tights, innit?   No, he went into action with a suit and tie, smoking cigarettes and constantly drinking shots, because that’s more bloody realistic, mate.   Ellis gave him an eyepatch in 2001, because of course he did.

The point I want to make here is that Ellis came up with this big idea in the 90′s, and fans ate it up because they were X-Men fans and had no taste.   You have to understand that in the 90′s, the big overused cliche was giant guns.   The second biggest cliche was nostalgia references to the 1960′s.   So when someone trotted out “Fox Mulder, but he’s sarcastic and British”, people actually thought it was kind of fresh by comparison.  Surely this bold new concept could only take Kitty Pryde into amazing new directions...

But no, Excalibur got cancelled in 1998, and they moved Kitty back to the X-Men.  Did they even break up Pryde and Wisdom on panel?  I have no idea.   All I know is I read a bunch of her post-Excalibur appearances and she barely mentions the guy, probably because a lot of people in Marvel probably wanted to forget the time she got aged up just enough to sleep with a skeevy-looking older man.  

Looking back on it, I always sort of assumed that Ellis only did the Pete/Kitty thing because he was just looking for something interesting to do with the characters, and he wasn’t going to let tradition or continuity stand in the way.   But in 2020, the whole thing starts to feel more autobiographical, since this resembles the sort of thing he was doing with young women through his online community.   Ellis’ “apology” states that he didn’t notice the power imbalance when he was involved with these women.   “I have never considered myself famous or powerful.”   I find this insulting to my intelligence, since I used to see fans worship every stroke of his pen like he was some kind of genius.   News would come out that Warren Ellis would be taking over the writing duties of a book, and fans would say “Good, they finally fixed it.” They just trusted him to do right by whatever project he was given.    So I can only imagine how overwhelmed they might have felt when they signed up for his mailing list fan club thing and he would offer to help some of them become professional writers.  

So maybe the critics had Pete Wisdom figured out from the beginning.   Whether Ellis realized it or not, Pete was his power fantasy, an older guy just impressive enough to get the attention of a (very) young woman and take her under his wing.   And he teaches her how to drink whiskey and smoke and how to know all this black ops horseshit, and-- well whaddya know?-- they’re having the sex.   

And to a point, maybe that’s human nature.   I always wanted to be a writer because I liked the feeling of power it offered.   Imagine being the guy who could put words in Captain Picard’s mouth, or decide exactly what kind of music Superman likes.  And yeah, if I could make a name for myself in that kind of field, maybe the ladies would start to notice me, and then I’d be doing pretty well for myself.  

The thing is, I eventually learned that writing for comics is a real bullshit thing to get into.   You can’t just submit scripts, and there’s no set of steps to follow.   I remember reading stories of writers breaking into the comics industry, and they were all different, usually involving some improbable meeting with someone who was already there.  A comics writer I respect once wrote that it takes some creativity to figure out how to break in, and if you can’t find your own way, then maybe you’re not creative enough to be in the business in the first place.  

And that’s how these women got pulled into Ellis’s nonsense, I assume.    They had similar aspirations to my own, and at first he seemed to be offering them a lifeline, but then it led to something they hadn’t bargained for, and what could they do?   If they refused to have sex with him, they might have to start from scratch.   

Which sort of confirms my suspicions that writing for comics is just a bullshit job, because maybe it’s only hard to get into because of all the gatekeeping that goes on.    Why bother accepting submissions and hiring based on merit, when a handful of writers can just vouch for friends or fans willing to do anything they ask?   All I know is it’s relatively straightforward to get a job in chemistry.   I got a degree in chemistry, and then I sent out some applications, went to some interviews and they offered me a job.    Maybe if Marvel worked the same way, guys like Warren Ellis wouldn’t have the sort of unfair influence they have over their fans. 

[sabreist]

God in Good Omens: Why Her Plan is Ineffable Headcanon

I’m a polytheist so my view on gods/goddesses/deities give me a... different view on Good Omens’ God than those who grew up in Christianity and/or Judaism have (probably)? I try to reconcile it with what little I DO know of the Old and New Testaments, but God in the Good Omens miniseries in particular is a fascinating character to me.

So, time for some Good Omens God headcanon!

Disclaimer: I am unlearned in Christianity and Judaism beyond what pop culture has taught me, and what was forced at me from living in the United States. I’m not trying to offend anyone with this headcanon; I simply see the Good Omens God in the same light I see the gods and goddesses and deities of the religion(s) I follow. I am willing to learn more, but I am also unwilling to go out of my way to learn it because of how much Christianity is forced down my throat on a daily basis (‘Murica). So feel free to comment/reblog to point out inaccuracies or specific things from the mythos to support either your stance or mine, but please understand the knowledge base and personal experience I come from. If I say anything inadvertently offensive, please help me learn by pointing out what I said and why it was problematic and I promise to do better next time. As long as you’re not rude, I won’t be mad.

Tl;dr - I welcome criticism on my headcanon, but please be patient and kind with me about it and I promise I will return the favor. ❤️

This mini-essay is going to be focused on the miniseries as God is more of a character in the show vs. the book.

To start, God has an interesting character development through human history — both in real life and in Good Omens. She started off as an easily angered, violent, and vengeful deity: Satan/Lucifer and the demons rebelled (to varying degrees) and she cast them down; Adam and Eve gave into temptation and she threw them out of Eden; the whole Noah’s Ark thing; and many other (Old Testament, iirc?) examples, I’m sure. But then she chilled out, it looks like, around the time of Jesus and probably because of Jesus.

I think this was when her Armageddon Plan changed. Originally, it was absolutely going to be a war against Heaven and Hell like everyone thought. Then, she decided to make it personal against Satan instead (because she decided he was who she was really mad at, and all of her other grievances stem from his initial rebellion - for better and for worse, but she’s still salty) and started moving the pieces into place to ensure that the Antichrist would rebel against him at the crucial moment.

He needed to feel how she felt when he rebelled, was her reasoning. Because God can be petty. Just because Jesus forgave his enemies didn’t mean she needed to.

Over time, she also grew to love humanity for all our stupidity, goodness, and yes, wickedness, much in the same way as Aziraphale and Crowley albeit as a distant observer. I’ve heard Christians say that she made humans in her image, and she probably started to see that - that all of their flaws are her flaws. And maybe even started to see humans as being even better than herself. 

Then she looked at her own angels and realized that they (all but one) were dicks. And at the demons and saw that they (all but one) were also dicks but she was less surprised and disappointed about that.

So before, when she decided not to clue in anyone, not even the Metatron, to her change in plans, it was for the sake of making sure no one interfered with the Antichrist. Once she realized that all the angels and demons were assholes, she decided that they deserved a good trolling, too.

(Okay, maybe she let ONE person know her new plans: one Agnes Nutter. Because God wanted to be mostly hands-off in the affairs of humanity, because she kind of felt bad that when she did get hands on, it was only to punish them, and she was always ruthless in her punishments. She didn’t really trust herself — but also she wanted to test the humans one more time to see if they were really worthy of being saved. More on that in a bit.)

But the centuries are long and she got bored. So the plan was in part a lesson to be taught to all the immortals, in part for the lulz. (Because in my head, God is a trickster. Sort of like a mix of Odin and Loki from Norse mythology. And iirc, there is historical evidence that when Christianity came to the Nordic countries, Odin was kind of rolled into the Christian God in order to more easily convert the masses?)

Which brings us to our favorite angel and demon: Aziraphale and Crowley.

I have a few different mindsets as to why she didn’t punish Aziraphale for giving away the flaming sword. A part of me feels like she might have been particularly fond of him in that “aw look at my cute puppy, I can’t stay mad at that face” sort of way (because, I mean, look at that face). Another part of me feels that she was too exhausted from her anger at Adam and Eve, at Satan and the demons, to care anymore, like “ugh I can’t deal with this right now whatever” and then just never got around to it. I have other thoughts, too, that he was following her Ineffable Plan, but that doesn’t fit with the theory I’m presenting here... or maybe it does? That maybe she felt bad for Adam and Eve, hindsight is 20/20, and she was like, “Well, okay, I don’t feel so guilty anymore. Good job, angel. Not that I’m ever going to admit that to you.”

But outside of that, I don’t think she was paying too much attention to what Aziraphale and Crowley were doing on Earth until after Jesus, and with her now more benevolent attitude towards humans (again see: because of Jesus), she appreciated them a whole lot more and started to work her into the New and Improved Armageddon Plan.

Which is why she didn’t mind that they were, as Aziraphale infuriatingly put it, “fraternizing.” She saw in them a new potential - for humans, for Heaven and Hell, and for herself. And that’s why she let them have Agnes’s prophecy on what they needed to do to survive their respective punishments from the other angels and demons. And also yes because she still wanted to troll the angels and demons because they deserve to be trolled.

(And yes, I do prescribe to the headcanon that God ships it, too, and set the events of Armageddon into motion because she was sick of the slow burn mutual pining of these idiots like the rest of us. But for her, that was more the cherry on top than the true goal. To incorporate the two headcanons, the timing corresponds with “you go too fast for me” because I imagine shortly thereafter was when the American Air Force base near Tadfield was established, so she began moving the chess pieces from that point forward because FFS AZIRAPHALE ARE YOU KIDDING HER. Maybe Armageddon came a little earlier than originally planned, or maybe the timing was Just Right and therefore coincidental, I can get behind both.)

So, for the next Armageddon when it’s all of Heaven and Hell against all of humanity, she’s counting on Aziraphale and Crowley to fight on behalf of humanity. And also that’s why Aziraphale never became a fallen angel and never will become one; unfortunately, Crowley has to remain Fallen, because forgiving him in an official capacity isn’t in the cards for what she’s planning next... right now, anyway.

Because I think the real reason the Ineffable Plan is ineffable is because God keeps changing her mind and therefore the plan. So yeah, this is her plan right now, but give it a century or two. It might change again. And maybe that’s when Crowley would be forgiven in the official capacity because it’s necessary for God’s plan. Or something else entirely, who knows. That’s for fanfic writers to speculate.

But I mentioned about how Armageddon was also to test humanity. And that’s all tied up in Adam the Antichrist.

She wanted him to go to the wrong family. Send him to the most boring, normal family and ensure that he would receive no interference from Heaven or Hell and just... see how he turns out. If he became the prophesied Antichrist, humanity fails, time to start over. If he turned into a normal kid, “Human Incarnate,” then humanity passes. And needless to say, humanity passed the test, because without even knowing what they were doing, they transformed the embodiment of evil into the embodiment of a human child. And that’s what God wanted to see.

That and the Antichrist screaming at Satan, “YOU’RE NOT MY REAL DAD.”

Which, again, was God’s real goal with Armageddon anyway. It was always about getting back at Satan. And now she has. Everything else was a happy bonus.

But there was more to it than that. See: Agnes Nutter and her descendants, and why they were the only ones entrusted with the real Armageddon plan. Now, this makes my headcanon shaky - because if God knew that things were going to go down exactly the way that they did, even for things having little to nothing to do with Armageddon, why even bother testing anything at all? I mean, it does go back to the whole, she’s testing humanity via Adam and Adam was the one Unknown. (Which means that Agnes’ second prophecy book was always meant to be burned, but that’s a whole other theory.)

It could also be that she was going to make sure everything happened exactly the way that they did. If her plan was written out in full in Agnes’s book, maybe it was a checklist of things she intended to happen, and certain things would be left up to interpretation. After all, some prophecies were very specific (these were the ones she was absolutely sure she was going to make sure came true), and others were less so (these were the ones more up to interpretation). Which then begs the question: how much of how things went down did God actually intend? Is she just clever enough to have planned everything to the last detail? Or did she encourage things along a certain way to make sure that they happened exactly according to her plan? (For example, moving the pieces into place so that Shadwell would see Aziraphale talking to the Metatron to be sure that the prophecy “Three shall ride as two” came true.)

Who knows? It’s ineffable, after all.

And Anathema was always meant to lose the book, and Aziraphale was always meant to find it, because this was the exact moment God wanted Aziraphale and Crowley to actually become involved in the Plan. Now that the Antichrist is... well, not all grown up, but at the apparent proper age for Antichristing, now Aziraphale and Crowley can start “interfering” with the Plan. Because they can’t hurt anything anymore. Yeah, they were about to kill Adam, but that was also part of the test for humanity, I think: would Madame Tracy stop them from doing it? And she did.

As for why Agnes’s prophecy forced Anathema and Newt together, idk, I’m going with God was bored and trolling. But honestly, getting into the specifics of plot points wrt God’s Plan is beyond the scope of this essay. Maybe I’ll give my thoughts on it later. Maybe if you actually made it to the end of this essay you’ll give your thoughts?

Seriously though, if you made it to the end of this mini-essay, you win a few dozen gold stars. And thank you so much for sticking with me if you did.

Tl;dr - I think God’s plan is ineffable because she keeps changing her mind about what she wants to do, and she just... fits her new agenda in with the old somehow so she can act like she “planned it like this all along.” And she’s trolling everyone. And testing humanity. And really is fond of Aziraphale and Crowley.

[atlasifyllm]

Wait, do I send just a name or a name and a number? Because you know I want all of them for Cobalt, Rina, Turq

I was gonna do the latter anyway XD

Cobalt (he shares all this with Turq so no need)

1: sexuality headcanon 

heteroromantic heterosexual

my token straight guy <3

(azureus is demi though which it'd be nice to picture cobalt as sometimes)

2: otp 

CoRi my beloved 💙💚

3: brotp 

Ruby and Cobalt!!!! They're the shounen anime best friends ❤💙

4: notp 

Literally him x any of the lesbians, ESPECIALLY Rose

5: first headcanon that pops into my head 

He likes chewing ice, it's a good stim for him

He'll occasionally just make himself icicles for him to chew on, but if he's not up to it he tries chewing mints

But nothing hits as well as just chomping on pure ice

Also this one's Turq-specific but I HDC that Turq actually has longer hair than Cobalt, it's not a huge gap but enough to be noticeable when his hair is down

6: one way in which I relate to this character

Feeling isolated from your friends because you swear you've done something extremely wrong,

7: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character

The scene where he actually gets Found Out in one of the worst ways possible 😬

8: cinnamon roll or problematic fave?

His personality is a cinnamon roll but out of context he sounds like a problematic fave 😭

Rina

1: sexuality headcanon 

Biromantic bisexual! She and Ruby are bi-buddies 💙💜❤

2: otp 

CoRi! Again! 💙💚

3: brotp 

Her and Blaze! They have the vibes of The Girls™️ with them, they love playfully teasing each other, and they both know when to hold each other back

4: notp 

Rose and Jay tbh :T

This one isn't a EW WHY WOULD YOU SHIP THAT notp but, I also don't like imaging Blaze and Rina in a relationship :T I really don't wanna imply there's a love triangle between Cobalt/Rina/Blaze, nor would I feel comfortable with Rina ditching Cobalt for Blaze. Then again I'm in the process of giving Blaze her own girlfriend so that might shoot up to a harsher notp solely because "Blaze would never cheat on her gf!!!"

5: first headcanon that pops into my head 

I think she's this weird mix of hippie/cottagecore

She probably does yoga on the weekends, bakes homemade bread, and heck she already grows herbs in her garden

Though also toss a motorcycle into her aesthetic too and you'll get Rina lmaoo

6: one way in which I relate to this character

..........in all honesty Rina is one of those characters who I make because they're so different from me eidbwijfowjfjdk

WE BOTH LIKE WOMEN?? I GUESS???

We both like turquoise and blue in some certain way but she's the one able to fuck it

man she's literally meant to be the opposite of my self projecting oc i do Not relate to her at all wodnwknfnd

7: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character

Honestly from how I'm plotting her, I'm really worried she's gonna be too much of an asshole to stay likable throughout Arc 2 >:T I have the gift of hindsight to know she can be a real dick to Jay and I'm not smart enough to balance out her assholery with Good Character Writing

8: cinnamon roll or problematic fave?

Looks like a cinnamon roll, is actually problematic fave wifbwknfjwjf

I think she'd definitely be one of the more morally ambiguous Paladins in Arcs 1-2, since her thoughts end up messing with how she acts against the villains

Also said assholery with Jay 👀;

[fff777]

I said I was never going to talk about this ever again but I might as well just lay it out on the table so I don’t keep coming back and making a hundred cryptic posts about this. This is a post about WYF.

From what I’ve seeing in fandom, most people are shocked and disgusted. I am too, though I’d seen similar behaviour from him before, so it didn’t seem as big of a shock to me.

I had found out that he had had a dating rumour before, but it was just a normal dating rumour (though the paparazzi pics were pretty damning). There was a big age gap, but I thought nothing of it at the time. (I had thought that the age gap between LH and GXT was weird, but since they’d been dating for so long, I thought that maybe I was overthinking age gaps. That was my thought process. Plus, that ‘rumoured’ relationship had supposedly already ended.)

When the scandal broke in June, I realized this was a pattern of behaviour in terms of him actively seeking out very young girls, which is extremely icky to me, especially as an adult woman. There is really nothing to discuss here.

There was also new information either pointing to the fact that he was cheating, or that he went through gfs like napkins, both of which are scummy.

Most of my interest in him came from my interest in the Fan/xing ship. At the time of the scandal, my interest in the ship had cooled, but I still followed some writers for the ship.

I did talk to people who were into Fan/xing and I admit that I talked about him like he was a normal celeb, not knowing whether the other person knew about his scandal or not. And for that, maybe I appeared complicit in condoning his behaviour. I don’t mean to excuse myself and say that “I knew all along, I was just pretending!” I was going with the flow and in hindsight that might’ve been the wrong move.

I have seen some people who are thinking of leaving fandom for this, which is fine. Everybody has varying levels of tolerance in fandom.

I’ve been in a lot of RPF fandoms, and I think I’ve learned to live with a problematic figure in my fandom. I just work around them, and I don’t find it difficult in this case, as I’m not really interested in his entertainment career.

I will admit that Fan/xing gave me a lot of joy, and there are a lot of really good fics that I’ve read in the past. What WYF has done does not change the fact that these writers have written beautiful, thought-provoking works of fiction. Much of the interest in this ship was generated by their few years together, plus lots of imagination from writers. So writers are the main reasons for my interest in the ship. If there are writers I like that do still write for them, I would still check out their fics. But otherwise, now that now even the writers that I like seem to be letting go, I don’t have much other reason to stay either, other than to reread old fics that gave me joy.

The conclusion is that WYF isn’t enough to drive me out of Asian celeb fandom, but I will ignore him.