#issue 40

[barrenclan]

"Aftermath"

Bit of a shorter issue, but I wanted to mix it up with a different format. Let's take a second to process and grieve.

The flowers on the cover are mallow (Mallowstar), cypress (Cypressfoot), and asphodels (Rainhaze).

As a reminder, I've begun offering early previews of the next issue on my Patreon, under the $5+ tiers. Issue 41 will be posting there early next week.

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[namorssideburns]

Baby you're so dynamic

[crowsgrudge]

kayne: what kind of great old one calls himself fucking john

john:

[muffinlance]

Wait, what’s going on with Embers???? That fic has been on my read later list since 2021, what’s happened with it???

Brief overview, then I'm likely never touching this topic again, because this is not a Drama Blog:

Context: Embers is a super old AtLA fic that was written during the early fandom days, read widely at the time, and was the origin of the widely-used fanon name of "Wani" for Zuko's ship (kind of by default that it was one of the first popular fics to give his ship a name, I think?), even though most fic writers don't seem to realize it's from there anymore.

"What's Going On": I used to include a link in all my stories to it, because I believe in crediting other writers for borrowed elements, and I was using "Wani" in all my fics. But BOY did I not want to be sending readers that way anymore, so I've adopted a new name for Zuko's ship, and removed all Embers links.

None of the criticisms about Embers itself are new; I'm assuming they date back to when the fic was being written, because this isn't an "it aged badly" thing, this is an "actually yeah this gets worse the longer you think about it and I shouldn't have ignored my bad feelings just because some of the worldbuilding was interesting" thing.

An Incomplete List of Why I Made the Change:

I don't actually like the story that much anymore, and don't want to rec it

I tried to re-read it recently to see if some things were as bad as I remembered and it turns out they were So Much Worse Oh Yikes. More specifically, the treatment of Katara and Aang and their respective cultures has... rather a lot going on. One example: The Fire Nation and Air Nomads are both given multiple backstory elements in an attempt to make the average Fire Nation soldier's participation in the genocide/war in large part the fault of the Avatar and the Air Nomads themselves, and also fully justified from the Fire Nation perspective. And I do mean fully. One of its core tenants is "People from the Fire Nation (and only people from the Fire Nation) who don't follow orders Literally Die, therefore murdering pacifists and babies and continuing the war (and their regularly scheduled war crimes) is the only thing it is physically possible for them to do". I cannot emphasize enough how literal that is.

Also the name "Wani" means "Alligator" and is... objectively a pretty lame name for Zuko's ship? Where's the personality, where's the deeper meaning, where's the resonance with Zuko's themes? @tuktukpodfics initially thought I was calling the ship "Wanyi", and that's what I've switched to, because it is Objectively So Much Better. In their words: “Wànyī (萬一): Literally ‘one in ten thousand,’ ‘perchance.’ Used grammatically in Chinese to mean ‘what if’ or ‘just in case.’ I think a ship called ‘The Perchance’ is perfect for a boy clinging to false hope.”

TL:DR; I don't rec Embers anymore, because I don't actually like the story anymore, and there are things about it that get worse the more I think on them. I've removed links to it and renamed Zuko's ship to "Wanyi" ("The Perchance") because our boy deserves a ship name that reflects his character arc.

[0vergrowngraveyard]

"you decide: a couple hundred tons of snow falling on those innocent heads...or tails?"

[mothemotics]

Tim you have to stop tormenting this poor ex grad student he's not prepared for how cruel a bisexual 13 year old can be

[firstkanaphans]

One of the things I struggle with most when writing original fiction is plotting my novels so that the midpoint—or the point where everything changes—ends up right smack dab in the middle of the novel. That’s literally one of the first things they teach you in any writing class. If your midpoint is in the wrong place, your story is going to have major problems.

This week, with Bison and Fadel finding out they’re being lied to in the final seconds of episode 6, THK became one of the rare BLs to hit that mark. I’ve been very impressed with the writing in THK overall. The dialogue is some of the best I’ve seen in the entire industry and I just wanted to nerd out about it for a minute because it literally gave me chills.

[strongermonster]

the desk chair i have came with this type of wheel

which are utter fucking garbage oh my god. i've had the chair around a year and a half or so and every single one is broken. they're gummed up with my long-ass curly hair and my cats hair and whatever random fibres it seems to magnetically attract where it weaves them into some sort of evil yarn ball.

the plastic is pitted to hell from where it dented/embedded random crap from running over absolutely anything that might have been on the floor and absorbing it into the shitty plastic. if you were to judge me by nothing but the state of my chair wheels, you would think i live in some kind of fucking gravel pit. i swear to you i sweep my floors.

the wheels are made of 2 plastic disks on a metal axle and i just my weight + rolling around caused about half of them to either fully pop off or to bend at an angle, meaning they DRAG horrendously and have scraped my floor to shit. it's impossible to scoot closer to my desk to sit comfortably. trying to roll anywhere just grinds the plastic horribly along the concrete floor making a noise that sounds like if you threw lego and gargoyles at a belt sander. moving in any direction is an uphill battle.

i tried a couple weeks ago pulling them off to clean them out, re-grease them, and put them back on, but some had cracked entirely, and others had turned white and deformed at the joining part from being dragged for so long.

so i ordered some of the roller blade style wheels and just now installed them and when i righted my chair and went to sit down, i yanked it like i used to have to with the old shitty wheels, but these new babies GLIDE smooth as all fuck, so what i actually did was launch my chair entirely across the room where it lost approximately 0 momentum until it slammed into my bookcases and sent my sleeping cats running for the hills through a meteor shower of novels and knickknacks.

when i put it back at my desk (it was like pushing air, oh my god??) i went to sit and just the weight of my thighs kissing the seat sent the whole chair effortlessly swimming along out of my ass's reach, nearly sending me straight to the floor. when my cat jumped up in my lap, the force of her small body moved us both.

ten outta fuckin ten, exactly what i wanted, i love these. i could probably send myself across the room with a sneeze.

[yjcorefourenjoyer]

Not me wanting to make a mini holiday where all of us yj98 fans read issue #40 (the issue Santa gets hit with a meteor) on Christmas Eve because that’s when it takes place

haven’t come up with a name for it yet but i think it will be funny

Edit: we have a name, Doomsday Eve!

[shalom-iamcominghome]

The most liminal feeling in judaism is knowing history that's deeply shaped jewish communities and yet... nobody but jews talk about it. Obviously, this isn't unique to judaism, but it's a very specific reminder that jewish history matters more to you than it does anyone else

[borrelia]

obsessed with him

and ANOTHER THING.... so obsessed with fleetway knuckles being really active with the island's ruins. he's cautiously accepting of the carnival night zone if it will bring in money to help him restore and RENOVATE marble hill zone. hes fucking crazyyyy. like the island's ruins arent just History to him, it's a rundown neighborhood. he wants people to LIVE HERE. in my beautiful mind palace he does a lot of building and restoration in postcanon. so eventually some echidnas do live there :)

[barrenclan]

New issue tomorrow! 🌙

[talesfromthecrypts]

From this alone I can tell I know more than you

[ray-green-wicked4good]

Jinx: Ha! It's Me. Your vile villainess. The author of your nightmares. The dread of your--um, daytime nightmares? Or I guess just--all the nightmares? Yeah! All your nightmares! I'm in them! It is I, Jinx! And I am burdened with glorious purpose--

Enforcer: Wait, you mean Jinx, like, Vi's little sister?

Jinx: *launches a shark grenade at the enforcer's face*

[andypantsx3]

urgh i was listening to a podcast where they alluded to some published romance authors dunking on other authors for writing "gratuitous" and "less tasteful" smut and it reminded me of the time i also accidentally implied something like that on here while i was talking about the less descriptive vanilla shit i write and i want to build a time machine and go back and break my own fingers before i could type that reeee

[embroid-away]

What If: Captain America Were Revived Today? #44 (April 1983) by Peter B. Gillis and Sal Buscema; Original Image by John Romita Sr.

In this What If? Marvel tale, Captain America is unfrozen in 1983 rather than the 1960s. Without the leadership of Steve Rogers, The Avengers disband. Meanwhile, a Captain America imposter, who calls himself a "real American," has decided to use his newfound influential media status to publicly support a National Identity Card to "deal with illegal aliens,” to suggest that members of civil rights groups "ought to think seriously as to whether or not their actions contribute to the strengthening of communist enemies," and declare that if those groups tear the country apart with protests, martial law is justified "for the peace to find a solution.”

Neighborhoods with large black populations (e.g., Harlem) are walled off and forced into poverty, and one character even mentions that Jewish people are being “put back into camps.” The right-wing politicians make sure that things like this aren’t shown on television, keeping the majority of the American public ignorant of the horrors committed with their indifferent support. The public are simultaneously told that with some sacrifices, America can be free once again. The fake Captain America confronts a group of peaceful protestors, and he is shot by a sniper (in what reads like an inside job), allowing the police to have “reason” to attack the protestors. The imposter does not die and instead uses the attack to provide more reason for the violent crackdown against protesting groups.

When the true Captain America is unfrozen, he is horrified to see what America has become, especially with his emblem stamped all over it. He immediately seeks out the resistance forces (who clearly represent the Black Panther Party) and joins their cause, stating that "the wrongs [he's] seen will take much more than one man to right -- but [he's] got a name to clear, a costume to unsoil-- and a country to die for!!"

By the time Steve joins them, the resistance only has one chance left to stop the American downfall: a political convention where the "America First" party will be able to secure its support to sweep the national elections and allow them "to return America to the pure and great nation [the] forefathers envisioned."

The resistance strikes just as the convention begins. The Captain America imposter is no match in a fight against the true Captain America -- especially against a Steve Rogers who's fucking pissed. ("Get up so I can knock you down!!")

With the imposter knocked unconscious, Captain America addresses the convention crowd, warning that an America that does not represent all its people does not deserve to exist at all; that liberty can be "as easily snuffed out [in America] as in Nazi Germany" and "as a people, we are no different from them."

The crowd realizes that the man speaking before them is the true Captain America and cheers. Captain America holds his hand up and silences them, stating that he will not allow them the chance to simply replace one idol with another. He alone can’t undo the horrible damage, and he pleads that there’s still a chance for the people to “find America once again.”

Fascism doesn’t change its tune, just its singers.

A 2021 Marvel Trumps Hate ( @marveltrumpshate ) commission, completed on 22-count aida cloth with embroidery floss and watercolors on a 9" diameter bamboo hoop.