#obviously I’m aware this fan base isn’t all good and there are definitely problems but the people I interact with personally are incredible

[made-my-peace-with-all-the-bad]

Ok so yesterday I was thinking about this and then I thought about it again today, the community I’ve found on here is actually incredible. Because I made a tumblr account in September and I started getting into the outsiders musical portion of tumblr at that time. But I didn’t actually start posting until early December, but right after I posted, I immediately felt welcomed into the community and I think that’s really cool. Because I, like most of us, don’t have any irl friends who are into this show like we are on here, so being able to post my thoughts about it and having other people get it and having a full conversation sparked from that is one of the most incredible experiences.

It’s also just amazing to find out so much more about this show that we all love from other people. Like the people who go to shows with understudies or swings and then come back and share everything they noticed and thought (seriously, if you’ve done this you have no idea how much we all appreciate it!!). But it’s also just amazing to be able to ramble about a character and people here match my energy about it. Like I said, I’ve been posting for a little over a month, and I’m thrilled whenever someone sees a yap I did and then respond with their own thoughts because it’s just so cool that we’re all so passionate about this show. So, to anyone who has ever yapped with me, read my thoughts, responded to my thoughts, or even just popped up on my page, know that I love you guys so much and I seriously love this community of people :)

Tldr: the people I’ve found on here are some of the sweetest, most incredible people ever and I love you guys so much

[olderthannetfic]

Ah, I do see your points, anon. I'm not going to post all your asks publicly because if you really feel that unsafe, it's probably best not to have a bigass chunk of your text for people to analyze and try to guess your identity from. I think one of the best points you made is about how close to home it hits when the non-fave is not only your fave but is similar to you in some way like demographic. You're not wrong for having those emotions. I do wonder if they make it hard to see how some other people feel similarly embattled on other axes.

TBH, I think one of the big problems here is that the large aggregate patterns you're talking about are racist, but most individual fics and fans are not really the problem. It's hard to know how to talk about this or who to tell to "fix" it when we're looking at free, hobbyist art.

A lot of people's tastes are certainly formed by shitty society, but once they're formed, they don't change fast if at all. Asking someone to rewrite their libido is a big ask, yet tumblr does it all the time as though it's as simple as snapping your fingers.

This leaves me with the sense that a lot of tumblr is... like... the political lesbians of porn fic or something: desire is not real, only choosing based on logic and politics. Or maybe people are so asexual that they just don't understand the lizard brain's "YES!" at some porn things and complete indifference to others?

I don't think it's great if great swaths of people feel like bottom!Nicky is super hot and top!Nicky fundamentally isn't, but I also don't think they can necessarily just turn it off like flipping a switch.

(If someone reading this doesn't like their current tastes and wants to attempt to alter them, I do think it's possible. What you should do is line up a large slate of media that prominently features characters of the ethnicity or whatever that you don't find hot/interesting. These should be leads whose emotional development drives the plot and is supposed to be central to the audience's enjoyment of the media. Watch/read/etc. this media all the time. All. The. Time. Try out many pieces because you won't like every character or every show, and we're looking for genuine enjoyment, not the fandom equivalent of a pity fuck. Spend enough time on this, and your unconscious sense of who's hot and interesting will eventually shift somewhat. This is a project you should expect to take a few years.)

But I digress.

The one tweet thing is a very toxic pattern. If TOG fandom is doing that, guys, please try to be more conscious of holding the actors of color to a higher standard (or the women or whomever). I know this often comes from a place of paying more attention to our own and wanting to set a good standard, but the effect is that minorities can't fuck up ever while white dudes get infinite passes.

Okay, on to the fic thing... Gotta say, my instant reaction to that description is "Ooh!"--as it would be for the same scenario with the characters reversed. (Ships who start out trying to kill each other are my favorite! x1000 if they're resurrecting style immortals and they literally do.) I can see how it would feel like slamming into a brick wall if you aren't kinky in just the right way and you didn't know it was coming though.

Part of why I react so strongly to a lot of discourse that runs along these lines is that I am a naturally extremely kinky person. It's not so much about what I do (which as a deeply lazy person in a long distance relationship is essentially nothing), but it's absolutely how I'm wired.

And I can tell you that my quotidian experience in fandom is sharing something I don't even realize is a big deal only to have someone I like, respect, and trust react in horror and tell me that it's triggering and awful and should not be allowed in fandom spaces because it makes "people" unsafe. It's such an instant, kneejerk reaction they don't even realize I was sharing it because it spoke to the very core of me. Lesson learned, friend. Lesson learned.

That sounds a bit off topic, I know, but bear with me: The point of that anecdote is that it's pretty common for me to get people trying to raise my awareness of things I have already thought deeply about while denying my essential humanity and not even realizing. As a kinky person who likes to make my fave the top (and generally a conflicted sadist), this constant request to explain and justify is exhausting.

I doubt most of the top!Joe fans have this precise problem simply because people who make their fave the top are much less common in fandom than people who make their fave the bottom, but I see a similar pattern with fans who are just fundamentally wired for rape fantasies (one of the most common fantasies that exists) vs. fans who just don't get rape fantasies at all. Or substitute your BDSM/kinky/messed up fantasy trope of choice. Covertly radical feminist attitudes towards kink and power are on the rise in fandom, and as a naturally kinky person, boy do I notice it!

I know that it feels like crucial activism to share these insights about why the ratio of top!Joe is hurtful, and the pain you feel is real. But it's also the case that it's a big ask to want people to listen. (Not me. Obviously, I routinely choose to engage with discourse. I mean overall.) The reason for that is that you're only seeing a fraction of what they do or who they are, and you don't know how many previous people they've listened to how many previous times. It's a very different situation from someone whose job is making some major TV series or movie or something. That person does, in my opinion, owe you some amount of listening.

Now, I'm not saying no top Joe fan was ever a jerk. I'll bet they were. There's a tendency to be rude and to publicly air your schadenfreude when you feel like everyone has been yelling at you. What I am saying is that a lot of the problem here boils down to conflicting needs, and that means there isn't a good solution. It's a situation where people are genuinely hurt, but I don't necessarily agree that other people have harmed them.

I like that you did an actual count of the explicit fics, btw. It's good to look at the real numbers. I see too little of that in these situations. My off the cuff reaction is that 2/3 to 1/3 is not a bad ratio at all compared to many fandoms, but yeah, it definitely shows a strong trend, and that can be painful. (I have a fandom where I think there's maybe like 1 bottom so-and-so fic in the entire zine era fandom. One. It's pretty extreme.)

I guess my thinking here overall is: What is the practical solution? What are we hoping to gain? What is reasonable to ask of people?

And it can't be "Well, if they would just listen..." That's just a sneaky way of saying "If you haven't done it my way, it's because you haven't listened to me yet."

So the question I would ask of people is this:

What does a non-racist fic where Joe tops look like?

What does a non-racist sex pollen, dubcon, or even noncon fic where Joe tops look like?

And if you say the latter is impossible... well... sadists exist everywhere in the world. So do doms. So do people who prefer to top in a purely physical sense. People with rape fantasies where they're the rapist exist (people who are not actually rapists, I mean). None of this is restricted to any one group. We can't categorically say fic like that about Joe is coming from a place of racism without denying the fundamental humanity of kinky MENA people who'd want to make Joe like themselves or like their ideal partner. (Yes, I agree this won't be the majority of fic writers writing top!Joe, but this is a place to start for figuring out what the better version would look like.)

IDK, maybe you're that kinkster yourself, but your asks gave me the vibe that you don't really get the drive towards those darker kinds of fics and what might be motivating it besides stereotypes and shittiness.

If we can answer these kinds of questions, we can better critique the way people write what they write without telling them all of their taste is bad and they should just stop writing. Even if we think the latter is true, it isn't going to get us anywhere. Figuring out how to make Joe more multidimensional in the fic they already want to write or finding very specific wording that should be avoided might actually work.

Beyond that, the actions I think are productive would be running prompt fests, exchanges, or other events for bottom!Joe or for top!Joe where he's the main character and the fics are required to be from his POV. Themed collections and recs lists are great. (I've seen a bit of this going around in TOG fandom in the past, and that's an excellent approach! Keep it up!) Positive actions tend to work better here. Make more of what you want. Promote what you want to see.

I don't mean this in some fluffy magical thinking way: you aren't going to change that ratio radically just by the power of positivity. But I've seen this kind of thing play out in many, many fandoms, and going after the people who write what you don't like, even in a well-intentioned effort to educate and even in a polite, kind way doesn't do much. A few people feel guilty. A few feel defensive. A lot ignore you. The overall fic doesn't change. It's not a good use of your limited time and energy.

I'm off to look up that fic to see what I think of it in practice, but I'm going to post this before tumblr manages to eat it.

[maxwell-grant]

Charlie Chan. Who is fascinating, because he was created explictly to be an anti-Yellow Peril character. Unlike most Chinese characters of the time, he's both intelligent, physically capable, and unambiguously heroic. In the novels, he's simultaneously proud of being Chinese AND proud of being an American citizen. He gives orders and instructions to white people, and the narrative treats this as perfectly normal and acceptable. There's a bit in the first book, when an attempt to trap the..(1/2)

(cont'd)There's a bit in the first book where an attempt to trap the protagonist fails, because a message supposedly from Charlie clearly isn't because Charlie's English isn't broken, it's like poetry. Etc. The movies made him more stereotypical, & played by white actors in yellowface, but still, he's a heroic Chinese man, who is as capable and patriotic as any white man. Nowadays, he's thought of as racist caricature. Which he is, but still, it makes one think.

I'm not nearly as acquainted with Charlie Chan as you are (and I definitely suspected he was less racist in the original books because that's nearly always the norm when it comes to pulp characters) but yeah, that "Which he is" is forever going to be the most unfortunate and saddest part of it all when it comes to Charlie Chan. For all the virtues that can be bestowed on Charlie Chan, for everything great that the character had going for him and inspired, the fact that the least offensive image of the character I could find to put here for illustration's sake is from the Hanna-Barbera cartoon kinda exemplifies the big elephant in the room when it comes to Charlie.

Charlie Chan is a great example of two things: One is the way progress is never a fixed quantity and often what was progressive and forward-thinking in it's time can become something outdated and backwards and downright offensive given enough time, and the 2nd is my constant stressing that this is all the more incentive to reclaim the pulps and either highlight or fix aspects of them, instead of dismissing every aspect of them based on the preconception that everything about it's history is unforgivably bigoted and must be handled with the nuance of a sledgehammer.

I stress time and time again the need to highlight and understand the prejudices that went into pulps, because either ignoring them or wielding them as a weapon to attack them does no favors to anyone. The pulps weren't exceptionally bigoted - look at literally any medium in it's time period and you'll find bigotry and prejudice and hatred - and they were exceptional in the number of POC heroes and heroines. Pulps were a medium of experimentation and cheap entertainment that gave way to much, much more varied kinds of protagonists than were permitted in films, serials, novels, comics and radio serials of the day. Imagine if no one was allowed to bring up and discuss superheroes without mentioning the Superman Slap-a-Jap posters or the Captain Marvel story so horrifingly racist it was recounted by an American ambassador after it deeply offended a friend's son and a major influence on the 1950s anti-comic trials. "Pulp fiction had deeply, unforgivingly racist depictions that deserve intense scrutiny and cannot be ignored" and "Pulp fiction was significantly ahead of every other medium at the time in regards to authors and editors striving to publish stories about heroic POCs, this cannot be dismissed and is something that needs to be perpetuated" are not exclusive facts. "A product of it's time" is not an excuse and never was, but it's a fact nevertheless.

Every time someone speaks favorably of Charlie Chan in any capacity, they have to start with a long preface of everything positive that the character had going for him. Yes, he's a deliberate subversion of the Yellow Peril, he's a heroic protagonist, he's plump and good-natured and humorous but far from a joke, he's friendly and pleasant and well-educated and wise, he's a good dad and family man and a terrifically sharp detective who's so good at his job he gets called to solve crimes all over the world, and none of these traits are apparent to people who have to google the character and repeteadly see a white man in awful make-up into every single image of the character, who watch the movies and cringe at the broken English. It's hardly relevant in the face of all the Asian-American critics who acknowledge the character's virtues but rightfully point out that this fortune-cookie spouting caricature, acting subservient to whites and whose virtues are based around his proximity to a white American ideal, doesn't represent them and they shouldn't pretend it does.

Which isn't to say that to like Charlie Chan is "wrong", a lot of East Asians love Charlie and the character's obviously got fans in Asian Americans. It's a complicated subject and I obviously cannot begin to vouch in a subject so heavily based around perceptions I cannot experience. And I deeply detest the idea of speaking for others on their particular experiences on this kind of matter, which is something Americans do a lot everytime they talk about representation in media.

So instead, I'm going to tackle this on a roundabout manner by going on an unrelated tangent to bring up an example of representation that isn't quite representative of what it's supposed to be, has a lot of issues that have been dissected by critics among the people it was supposed to represent, and none of that stopped the character from being popular and beloved and from being claimed anyway. And it's a Brazilian fighting game character, which means it's completely within my ballpark.

Yeah, obviously Blanka doesn't look like anyone who lives in Brazil (whatever resemblance he bears to redheaded jungle protectors of Brazilian folklore is purely accidental). Obviously neither Jimmy nor Blanka are Brazilian names or even exist in the Portuguese lexicon. Obviously there are issues in Street Fighter's approach to representation across the board, sure, and I'd actually say Laura is much worse than Blanka in that regard (again, my opinion, obviously not universal), but the fact remains that Blanka is and has always been pretty controversial. Obviously there's Brazilians who took offense to Blanka and they weren't wrong to do so, and I obviously do not speak for everyone here, that goes without saying.

Obviously the idea that Brazil's major representative in a global cast of characters, the first big name Brazilian character in videogames, is going to be a freakish jungle monster who roars and bites faces has problems, as is the fact that all the others get to be regular people representing fighting styles from their countries while Blanka doesn't. None of the Brazilian SF characters represent Capoeira, which is kinda shitty to be honest. And there's a whole stereotype of Brazil as a backwards land of beasts and savages that Blanka's creation played into. There's no shortage of ground to criticize Blanka's representation and Ono actually apologized in an interview once, but then he learned one teensy little thing:

Street Fighter is very popular on Brazil. Would you like to leave a message to the fans from there?

"Ono: Yes, I'm aware. At the time of Street Fighter II a lot of the arcade machines produced went there, so I knew we had lots of fans there. A message to Brazilians, well, I'd like to apologize. I know Blanka's a weird character and I don't want any Brazilian to feel uncomfortable with that.

When Blanka was conceived, we knew there were forests in Brazil, and so we thought he could look like that. I was actually kinda nervous knowing I'd meet Brazilian journalists. Still, this is the first Street Fighter in ten years, so we'd like all fans to play, including Brazilians, which are many.

Thanks. Well, but you should know that Brazilians love Blanka

"Ono: Ah, good! I was scared of getting beat up if I ever went to São Paulo! (laughs)"

(That's from a 2012 tv special called The Greatest Brazilian of All Time where over a million viewers voted to elect whoever they wanted, and Blanka was going to win. He was polling ahead of Aryton Senna and PELÉ, fucking Pelé, yes this happened. He wasn't even disqualified for being a cartoon character, it was an open poll, he was disqualified due to canon stating he had been born in Thailand, which I think may have been retconned since then. Again, A MILLION BRAZILLIANS voted for this contest, and Blanka was going to win.)

Blanka is great and sweet and lovable, he made the best out of the incredible shitty hands fate dealt him and became a cool and strong green man who shoots lightning and flies, a self-taught warrior who rides whales and planes to fighting tournaments, and he loves his mom and friends and kicks ass and after he's done he dances in joy and gives the kids of his village piggyback rides, and Brazil loves him. He doesn't represent any existing person or fighting style, he's rooted in a negative stereotype and incorrect assumptions, he's not even really Brazilian, and he's our boy and nobody can take him away from us.

No criticism of Blanka, no matter how in-depth or even right it is, is ever going to affect that, because regardless of what was wrong or misguided and offensive about him, we claimed him and loved him so throughly that Capcom kept playing up Brazilian representation in every subsequent game post Alpha, and because of Blanka's impact and reception in such a big game, Brazilian characters have become a staple of fighting games, and that's how we got much more diverse representatives in those games. Fighting games have more Brazilian representation than LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE on media not produced here. It started as BAD representation, with way less thought put into it than Charlie Chan, and it still mattered to a lot of Brazilians who reclaimed it and made it better than it was ever intended to be, and as a response to it, it gradually became better. 

Progress is not a fixed quantity, it's an uphill battle, and it's not unwinnable. Everything's gotta start somewhere.

The Good Asian is a ongoing comic that I think does the best job I've seen yet of handling an Asian American detective protagonist, which is not really a high bar in the first place, and more to the point, The Good Asian illustrates the 2nd part: the reclaiming. The Good Asian deals a lot with the realities that a 1930s Asian-American detective would run into, the strained circumstances and relationships between said character and the world around him, because it's born from an author who took a look at Charlie Chan and Mr Moto and the like and recognized the potential in those stories that could not be fulfilled in it's time period by the people writing said stories. 

The Good Asian pays little reverence to Charlie Chan, but it acknowledges that it cannot exist without Charlie Chan, and it reclaims the Charlie Chan premise at the hands of someone more adequately equipped to tell a gripping story that goes places none of Charlie's contemporaries would ever go. Regardless of how good or bad of representation Charlie Chan was, Charlie Chan mattered and was beloved and inspired a better example for others to improve on or rebel against.

I desperately wish that I could google Charlie Chan without having to look at a guy in yellowface, and the ONLY way that's going to happen is if the character ever gets meaningfully brought back and reclaimed for good by people who can meaningfully tackle the character and present him as he should have always been presented.

And then, I imagine it would be a lot easier to show people on how swell Charlie really is. A true, positive role model and hero, who no longer has to look like a gross cartoon to be able to exist at all. Who can finally be what he was always meant to be, and always was deep down.

[itsclydebitches]

hello! loved your tbb meta posts (10/10 analyses of the batch and their respective characterizations), but since it wasn't explicitly mentioned -- did you catch the post-s1 interview with jennifer corbett (head writer) and brad rau (exec producer)? their answers about crosshair's chip being out were Interesting (tm) but fairly definitive-sounding, so I'm wondering what your thoughts on it might've been.

Hey there, anon! Thank you—I’m so glad you’ve enjoyed them :D

I’ve heard this info second-hand and ran into one written interview on the topic (idk if it’s the same one you’re thinking of), but my first response is… arguably a reach lol. Not to start off with a tin hat on, but it’s always possible that the writers are lying. Which yes, yes, we have a knee-jerk reaction against the idea of anyone lying for any reason, but in this case, it would be in service of both the writer’s plans and the audience’s enjoyment. Let’s say for the sake of argument that Crosshair’s chip is definitely still in and the entire point of this setup is a double twist: first the reveal that his chip is gone, then the real reveal that it’s actually still in and Crosshair was lied to (among other possibilities). How can the writers discuss him during hiatus without revealing that twist? By playing the current knowledge straight, despite the fact that they know otherwise. Yup, Crosshair’s chip is out. Yup, he chose this 100% willingly. Nothing else to see here, folks! To do otherwise would be to reveal the twist way too early. Even refusing to answer the question, dodging it, would give it all away. Imagine if during a season finale we’re meant to believe that a character is dead and then during hiatus an interviewer asks how the cast will mourn them. If the writer refuses to answer, every fan will realize that Something Is Up and what’s the main possibility here? That they’re not actually dead! Twist spoiled… unless the writer pretends that what the audience currently knows is definitely the truth here.

Taking my tin hat off now, these interviews are one of the main reasons why I’m worried about the writing moving forward. Because despite the paragraph above, I’m by no means convinced that the writers are skillfully keeping up a lie to avoid spoilers. It’s not outside the realm of possibility, but it’s not necessarily likely either. Which leaves us taking their words at face value and that’s… a problem. Because as so many fans have already pointed out, the writing is setting up a twist that, according to these interviews, doesn’t exist. That doesn’t say good things about their intentions for the show vs. what actually ends up on screen and that kind of disconnect becomes frustrating for viewers very quickly. Take the headaches, for example. I’ve seen a couple of fans explain Crosshair’s away using the engine accident: “His face got burned up, of course his head still hurts. You’re reading too much into this.” But imagine for a moment if I’d tried to do the same thing for Wrecker prior to “Battle Scars”: “He gets thrown around and hits his head nearly every episode, of course it hurts. You’re reading too much into this.” Other fans would have—quite rightfully—explained to me how television works and that this repetitive problem is functioning as foreshadowing of a larger problem. With a side of the fact that this is an action show where the characters consistently shrug off their injuries. We’re not supposed to take Wrecker getting thrown around seriously. He’s the brawn of the group, meant to withstand a lot of damage, with any injuries being presented as either #cool (Wrecker shrugs off Fennec’s hits to go after Omega, yeah!) or #funny (Wrecker treats Crosshair shooting him like a badge of honor lol), not something he’s going to have to grapple with in a serious manner. So the audience recognizes the question, what’s more likely? That Wrecker’s headaches are a deliberate visual cue on the part of the writers to tell us that something important is happening, or that suddenly how the genre treats injuries has drastically changed?

It's precisely the same with Crosshair. He’s not the brawn like Wrecker is, but he’s still the action (anti)hero who shrugs off injuries because this is a show interested in more fun, explosive plot, not a deep dive into recovery. (See also: the story doing nothing with Echo’s trauma.) When Crosshair is injured, he’s immediately fighting to get back into a ship and when we next see him he’s passed the recovery stage entirely. There’s only a scar to show that this happened at all. We don’t watch him getting bacta skin grafts, or worrying about his eyesight, or struggling to eat, etc. The point is that he was injured for the purposes of that episode and now he’s not. So why would we think his headaches are a long-term symptom when the show is otherwise not at all interested in writing long-term symptoms? What’s more likely, that this familiar visual cue is being repeated to tell us that this is the chip, just like it was with Wrecker, or that the story is randomly interested in something it never was interested in before?

The audience is right to think that there’s more going on because the show has been written to say, "Something more is going on." The headaches, Crosshair’s refusal to give concrete information, the group conveniently not using Tech’s scanner, the burn scar hiding where the chip’s scar would be, a lack of motivation for the Empire removing the chip, not seeing its removal when the show did include its power being amplified… all of these are deliberate writing choices to set up another reveal. But, if we take the interview at face value and learn that these weren’t deliberate details… then what? The writers are making mistakes? Throwing in “clues” for the hell of it that they never intend to cache in on? Unless there’s some amazing answer here that allows for both these inconsistencies' explanations and the writers’ hard stance—something I personally can’t think up—then we’re left with is a pretty serious flaw in the show. A flaw that’s going to undermine the audience’s trust in everything we get from here on out. The next time we see something that feels like a cool setup/reveal, half the fandom will be going, “Yes! It totally means that ___ is going to happen!!” while the other half will be going, “… does it? Because we thought things were happening with Crosshair and that went nowhere.” Writers have to tackle the implications of what they’ve put on screen. Otherwise, the story falls apart.

So yeah, I’m aware of those hard “His chip is out and this is his choice” statements and, frankly, they make me nervous for season two. Because what the show needs is to engage with what we actually got in the finale: an ambiguous state of Crosshair’s chip, a number of hints that it might still be in there, and an ethical dilemma that, so far, hasn’t acknowledged how much of an influence the group’s decisions have had on Crosshair’s. I tackled most of this in the first analysis, but something I didn’t unpack there was the “choice” of not leaving with them. I mean yes, by all exact definitions—and if we accept that the chip really isn’t there—then Crosshair absolutely had free will in that moment to do as he pleased. But life is way more complicated than that. Imagine for a moment that I put two candy bars in front of you. “You can have whichever one you’d like,” I say. You reach for the one on the left and I glare, hard. I scoff at you. I mutter about your choices, your personality, your flaws, and your mistakes. So you reach for the one on the right instead and I’m… neutral. Okay then. Right candy bar it is. “They could have chosen the one on the left” someone watching claims. “Nothing was stopping them. No one put a gun to their head!” And yeah, the concept of “stopping them” was never that extreme… but the more compassionate, nuanced look acknowledge that some measure of “stopping them” did exist. Insults. Cruelty. A clear indication that one choice was wrong and the other was right. That’s one hell of an influence, even if it's not as formidable as a gun or a chip.

And that’s what Crosshair is dealing with. Yes, joining the Empire is clearly wrong and yes, a non-chipped Crosshair has free will to walk away from it… but walking towards TBB was never presented as a real option for him. He saw that through their inaction when they never came back for him. Then in Hunter’s refusal to admit that they’d made a mistake in leaving him behind. Wrecker putting all responsibility on his shoulders, despite knowing what the chip does to someone. Tech backing him up and framing this situation as stemming solely from Crosshair’s base personality—“severe and unyielding.” It’s seen in the always-loving Omega walking away from him in the barracks, in Crosshair’s hesitation to follow them to safer ground (and boy oh boy, do I have sad headcanons about that), and most especially, in their reactions to him saving Omega. What Crosshair learns in that moment is that they honestly believe that he, not the Empire's chip, but he would shoot Hunter and that saving their little sister is not a point in his favor. It's met only with glares and a need to disarm himself. They don’t trust him and actions that should produce trust are outright ignored, so… where can they go from here? Nowhere, according to TBB’s actions. They’re not giving Crosshair any wiggle room, any hope that these relationships can be repaired, or any acknowledgement that they had a hand in things getting this bad. So when they offer to let Crosshair come with them—which is very significantly presented as an obligation, not something they want—he knows that offer is BS. Whatever their real feelings might be (because the found family show obviously wants us to believe that everyone loves each other), their actions have said loud and clear that they don’t want him. That yes, he could technically walk onto that ship… but that it would be the “wrong” decision accompanied by more insults, scoffs, and pressure to do otherwise. That once he's there, he'll be treated only as a threat with any good deeds ignored. It's an awful offer outside of it being the morally correct decision when it comes to leaving the Empire... so Crosshair reaches for the right candy bar instead.

That very long tangent out of the way, THIS is what season two has to grapple with, along with all that ambiguity and the existence of these "The chip is still here" hints. But the interviews don’t seem to acknowledge that all of this exists, instead framing things as if we’d ended the finale knowing for sure that the chip is out and had watched a season where Crosshair is 100% responsible for everything that’s happened, no Empire or TBB influence involved. The way the interviews frame things doesn’t match up with the text, so I can only hope this is an example of bad communication, or the writers keeping a spoiler under wraps, because otherwise… season two might be frustrating to watch, with fans continually going, “Why are you ignoring that this happened? Why are you pretending that all of this is simpler than it actually is?”

[crusherthedoctor]

Sonic Heroes: Sweet or Shite? - Part 1: SILVER

There are some heroes I like. And there are some heroes I don’t like. But why do I feel about them the way I do? That’s where this comes in.

This is a series in which I go into slightly more detail about my thoughts on the heroes in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, and why I think they either work well, or fall flat (or somewhere in-between). I’ll be giving my stance on their designs, their personalities, and what they had to show for themselves over the course of time. Two things to keep in mind:

1. These reviews will be focusing mainly on game portrayals. Though alternate media will occasionally be mentioned, it'll be for the sake of adding onto a point if a portrayal is similar enough, or to compare and contrast if a portrayal is different enough.

2. These are just my own personal thoughts. Whether you agree or disagree, feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions! I don’t bite. :>

Anyhow, for today’s installment, I decided to challenge myself by starting off with a complicated one. Born from the future, and never content to stay put in said future, it's the saviour whose debut came from the most unfortunate game... Silver the Hedgehog.

The Gist: Once upon a time, in the distant future, there was an idealistic young hedgehog named Silver, gifted with the power of telekinesis for reasons unknown. With his amazing potential, he was truly destined for a wonderful, prosperous li-just kidding, it was shit.

“All two of us.”

For as long as he knew, the world was forever plagued by Iblis, the terrible Flames of Disaster. Cities stood in ruin, flames stood high, the floor was lava... it was a bitter life to be certain, all thanks to Iblis. Not even defeating the titular creature did much good, since it would simply come back to be a shitty boss fight another day. What was he - and his friend, Blaze, a character we definitely never saw before and definitely didn't have a completely different backstory before - to do?

Trust the first person he sees, of course. Even if they look like they might be related to the same Flames of Disaster that he fights so constantly.

If he had eyelids, he'd be winking at the camera.

This mysterious fellow, Mephiles the Dark, informed Silver that if he were to wipe out Iblis for real, he would need to take a trip into the past, and eliminate the root of the problem... Sonic the Hedgehog? That was what Mephiles claimed, yes. What was his proof? There was no proof.

That was good enough for Silver.

Oh look, it's Fleetway Sonic.

After an elaborate series of events, which should sound exciting but really isn't because it was just Silver going “Iblis Trigger grrr” in varying tones of voice, he was finally able to corner the blue hedgehog... twice! And despite having less fighting know-how than the hero who saved the world plenty of times, he effortlessly came close to killing the blue hedgehog... twice!

This looks like a jobbing for...

Why twice? The first time was halted by Sonic's friend Amy Rose, who Silver had met beforehand after she mistook him for Sonic, an understandable mistake that even the keenest of eyes would be forgiven for making.

The second time was also interrupted, this time by Shadow the Hedgehog. There's only room for one controversial non-blue male hedgehog in this franchise, sonny boy. Actually, his reasons were more benevolent than that: he wanted to show Silver the truth about what was going on, by time travelling to the incident that gave birth to Iblis. Why was one able to to this, so long as more than one Chaos Emerald was present? No one knew.

That was good enough for Silver.

“I challenge you to a dumb-off.”

As it turned out, Iblis was one half of a sun god called Solaris, the other half being the aforementioned Mephiles. The Duke of Soleanna wanted to reunite with his late wife by harnessing Solaris' power, which succeeded from a certain point of view since he's dead now too. The resulting blunder split Solaris into two halves. One half was all brawn, with little capacity for intelligence. The other half was Iblis.

Understanding the error of his ways, and after making peace with Sonic, Silver went back to the future to try something different, which consisted of doing the same thing he always did. Luckily for him, the script decided it would work this time, albeit at the cost of Blaze sacrificing herself... Maybe? Sort of? It’s not entirely clear what happened to her, and it’s not like this was the last we ever saw of her.

~La laaaaaa, la laaaaaa, la laaaaaa, heading to a better game, la laaaaaa~

But ohhhhh nooooo, turns out THAT didn't solve anything either! In the present, Sonic was killed by Mephiles, after the latter realised he should probably do that already if he wanted to make any progress at all with his plan. This incident led to Iblis being brought into the present, and they fused to become the omnipotent Solaris once more. Such power... such divinity... such devastation...

Actually, he was really easy. The antlion from Underground Zone was harder.

Manchild robots - 1, god of time - 0.

With their super forms in tow, Silver, Shadow, and the revived Sonic joined forces to defeat Solaris, with Sonic in particular going the extra step in retconning Solaris out of existence entirely. Since time itself reset, meaning Iblis was no longer a memory, Silver's timeline was given a second chance. What was he to look forward to in this new, promising future?

Shit.

The Design: Let's take a closer look at Silver's appearance, shall we?

Or rather, a certain thing that's wrong with it.

He's holding up fifteen fingers.

Yes, you all know what I'm pointing to: the hairstyle. Let it be known that I'm very aware of the intention behind this design choice. It's supposed to be based on the Japanese Red Maple Leaf, which holds a lot of relevant symbolism for Silver's character. This is a fine idea in theory, and I can respect the intent and the creativity.

But here's the thing: If it looks like a ganja leaf, people are going to say it looks like a ganja leaf. I know some fans will gnash their teeth at me saying this, but the fact of the matter is that intentions and ideas, no matter how good they may be on paper, don't always translate well into the final product. Unleashed Secret Rings Black Knight Sonic '06 in general is certainly no stranger to showcasing examples of that, and Silver's hairstyle is no exception. There are ways to incorporate symbolism in a character’s design without making them look like meme bait in the process, and no amount of “umm ackshually” will change that, I'm afraid.

That said, there's another reason why I'm staying clean of Silver marijuana: it doesn't work for a hedgehog character. With the other hedgehogs, their hairstyles are simple and get the point across: Sonic's goes without saying, Shadow's is more angular to befit a slightly rougher hero, and Amy's is a cute bob cut of sorts. But Silver? Even without the ganja, you've still got the two tentacles making up the back of his head.

I'd rather not be reminded of hentai quills, thanks.

“I thought Crusher-san would like it :’(”

I do find it hilarious that they went through numerous designs for Silver, and this was what they chose to go with. Some of his prototype designs may have fared better had any of them been used instead... but we didn't end up with any of those ones. We ended up with this one, therefore I'm judging this one.

But don’t worry, it’s not all bad with Silver...

The Personality: As far as actual character goes, Silver's personality is as straightfoward as most characters in the series, yet it's no less interesting, because it took a while for it to fully evolve to what it currently is. The seeds of his character - a good-natured yet awkward and rather insecure kind of guy, who doesn't fully understand how the present time works - have always been there, but it was often downplayed in earlier titles due to him being hungry for Iblis Trigger blood... or being an arsehole for no reason.

Although to be fair, everyone in Rivals is an arsehole for no reason.

Eventually though, after the writers gave him a Snickers, these traits got more opportunity to shine. Mostly in side media admittedly, but it's been noted in the games as well. With no Iblis to angst over, he's proven to be a surprisingly bubbly chap, who just wants to know how you're all doing, fellow anthro kids. And whereas his naivety was previously used for intended tragedy to benefit the evil plan of a guy who thought taking the -istoph- out of Mephistopheles would make him inconspicuous, now it's been used for a bunch of low-key contexts that do a much better job at endearing him to the player.

Finally, something I can relate to.

Hell, he even seems to have learned from the Mephiles incident, as he was quick to make it clear to the next shadowy deep-voiced anthro with demonic eyes he met that he wasn't gonna fall for any of them fibs no more, ya hear?

“YouTube and Twitter don’t count.”

All in all, it works well enough, in my opinion. His personality does pave the way for some funny and wholesome moments, and since they’re no longer trying to build him up like he’s Shadow 2.0, he's nowhere near as much of a tool as he was before. So I guess you could say... I like it?

Does this mean I can say that I like the character as a whole then, design and '06-induced idiocy aside?

Well, not quite...

The Execution: This is where the complication part comes into play. We know now that I like his personality, not so much his design, but that's only the half of it. It would be more accurate to say that I like his personality... and dislike everything else.

Aside from that, obviously.

For starters, the creation process for his character and story was summed up with, in their own words, “Think Trunks from Dragon Ball Z”. So he comes off as rather lazy and uninspired. Now I'm not expecting my Sonic characters to be 100% unique, there's always going to be similarities to other franchises no matter what you do, even if subconsciously or by complete coincidence. Taking inspiration in itself is no big deal at all.

But... was that it? Copying a DBZ character to such a blatant extent? Was there no other thought put into it?

Naturally, this ties into an overarching problem: the franchise's mid-00's habit of trying way too hard to be the anthro Dragon Ball Z. Sonic has had DBZ influences since the early days, with the Chaos Emeralds and Super Sonic, but it didn't assimilate itself into every waking aspect of his universe. It was merely an additional flavor that added to the complete package, in the same way that a Death Star with a moustache didn't mean the franchise was suddenly Star Wars the Hedgehog.

But come the turn of the millenium, nearly every main title in the series ended with Super Sonic and/or Super Shadow saving the day, while everyone else either stood around being useless, or only helping in ways that no one actually cares about. Including the in-universe President apparently, since only Sonic and Shadow were featured in the photo on his desk.

Amy smiled. “I guess the rest of us can go fuck ourselves, huh?”

This reached its peak with - of course - Sonic '06, with Silver in particular being an obvious result of this then-ongoing trend. And yes, it would be unfair to use him as a scapegoat, considering it was already a problem long before he turned up. But moreso than even Shadow, it's an era that Silver is forever a relic of, for better or for worse.

But it doesn't stop there. Since Silver is considered a mainstay character, his gimmick of being from the future also creates problems of its own, because in order for him to make further appearances, he keeps turning up for little explained reason, and thus he suffers the Deadly Six problem of being shoved into places where he doesn't belong, for fanservice's own sake. Take Sonic Colours DS for example, where he went back in time JUST to check out Eggman's theme park... Okay...?

On one hand, I’d visit it too, since it's made by Eggman. On the other hand, I’d stay clear of it, since it's made by Eggman.

And when there IS a justification with more weight to it? It's just recycling the '06 routine of trying to avert his ruined future, which isn't much better. The cause may differ depending on the story, but if his future is a permanent shitehole for one reason or another, he might as well cut out the middle man and stay in the present altogether, since that's where his friends are anyway. But they seem intent on not doing that, despite the future schtick being a noose around his neck at this point.

In hindsight, maybe this was a hint to how the rest of the arc would turn out.

And then there's his dynamic with a certain purple cat... No, not Big. The other one.

“I’m here, by the way.”

Simply put: I don't like this dynamic. At all. Or rather, I don't like how they keep milking it. Blaze's backstory was radically changed to justify her presence in Silver's future, and it really shows, since she barely even shows up half the time, as if the developers themselves forgot she was in the game. But her backstory has since been restored to her original alternate dimension interpretation, so hanging around with the grey hedgehog is all good now, right?

To be brutally honest, I probably wouldn't care for this dynamic regardless. But I would be more willing to tolerate it, and I'd refrain from groaning every time they're seen together... if they weren't intent on playing it up so much in spite of '06 being wiped out, sometimes with a bit of commentary involving their thoughts and memories, which only succeeds at making things more confusing. If Blaze is around, Silver will be nearby, and if he's not at first, he will be soon enough. This franchise does have a problem in general with restricting who's allowed to interact with who (I personally believe Sonic Heroes may have led to this, or at least it accelerated it), but I'd argue it's at its most insufferable here, with Blaze's potential and her entire world taking a backseat to being the sidekick of Ganja Man.

And you might say “Well, it's part of the franchise now, so you'll just have to accept it”. To which I ask: Have you accepted Two Worlds? Have you accepted Solo Sonica? Have you accepted Sonic's friends not doing much as of late?

Yeah. That's what I thought. “It’s just how it is” doesn’t mean you can’t criticise it.

Meanwhile, Marine is lucky enough to get so much as a shout out.

So yeah, I have quite an extensive list of grievances involving poor Silver. But... very little of it has to do with him, right? They're all indirect problems that he just so happens to be linked to, as opposed to someone like Chris Thorndyke, who is genuinely a shit character through and through. This is more comparable to Tails being bitchy in Lost World, or Amy being manipulative in Chronicles, or Sonic being a smug dumbass in IDW, or Shadow not wearing a Hawaiian shirt in Boom. Frustrating, regrettable, but not really the character's own fault.

Yet even after all that, there's one last kick in the teeth... How do you fix all this? And how do you fix it when he's since gained a sizable fandom, many of whom like him for these very attributes? If you leave it as it is, you're stuck with this big, awkward mess that everyone pretends to ignore. If you try to do something about it, you'll get complaints about disrespecting the True Silver Spirit, and you’ll get questions about why you didn't create a new character instead... And if you did use a new character for the sake of a clean slate, THEN you'd get complaints about not using Silver.

It's a tough call to be sure, and it's such a shame because like I said, I do appreciate his personality, so I can't say he's bad outright. But with all this... clutter, I can only put him in the average category. So, in he goes.

Crusher Gives Silver a: Thumbs Sideways!

Well, I'm glad this one's out of the way. Putting my thoughts into words with Silver was harder than it should have been. I do slightly regret starting this series off on a rather downer note, but rest assured, it's a lot more positive from this point onwards, since while I have higher praise for some heroes more than others, the hero characters as a whole fare a lot better than the majority of villains not named Eggman.

I guess you could say that I hope to show why Sonic's friends aren't as shitty as the haters would suggest. ;)

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

Good morning/afternoon/evening/night, Ralph. (I think I covered all my time zone bases there). I have been thinking lot lately about all the rhetoric in the fandom about Harry’s health and well-being, and how loud it has felt this year. To be clear, I am not asking for you to weigh in with your own speculations about how Harry is doing, unless you feel comfortable doing so. (I’m not telling you what to do either way, obviously, seeing as I am only a little grey icon in your inbox and have no right or way to demand anything of you.) I’m more looking for guidance or even just your rambling thoughts about what is respectful and appropriate when we’re wondering about a celebrity’s well being, and how you handle your own thoughts and assumptions about this. I feel like over the course of the last year we’ve just been inundated with all this panic and speculation about how Harry is unhappy or unhealthy or otherwise not himself, going all the way back to the Jingle Bell Ball Golden performance. Every time we get any new content there’s a wave of people saying he looks too thin and overworked like he’s not getting enough food or rest, or overweight and out of shape (pick a lane, people), he looks stressed, he looks sad, he looks angry, his eyes have lost their sparkle, his smile is dim, he’s addicted to drugs, he’d addicted to drugs because Jeff is doping him up to keep him going, he’s going to quit music, he’s going to hurt himself, blah blah blah. And the people making these “observations” hide behind the assertion that they’re just worried for his health when they’re faced with any sort of criticism.

This whole ongoing rhetoric feels really…icky? I suppose? to me. I do kind of think he has looked more drawn and intense (“stressed” and “sad”) in the content we’ve gotten this year, but I also think (1) the content we’ve gotten has largely been pap shots and stunt stuff, (2) this year he had to postpone his tour, and we know he loves performing so that must have really sucked, and (3) this year has just been rather shit for all of us, we’re all stressed and sad and scared and frustrated by the larger political and social goings on, and by the ways our own lives are impacted. In the past, the content we’ve gotten where Harry looks the happiest and most at ease has been performance footage or him with his family and loved ones. We haven’t gotten any of that this year. It makes sense that the pictures we do get would feature him looking less than completely relaxed and jubilant. And then there are all the assumptions that he’s lost weight or gained weight and is therefore unhealthy or on drugs or drinking a lot and that just honestly pisses me off. You cannot tell jack shit about a person’s health from their weight, and especially not in random pictures taken at random intervals in random settings. To pretend you can is harmful, and Harry probably won’t see you making these assumptions about his mental and physical health based on the prominence of his cheekbones in a set of pap pics, but friends and strangers who are already struggling with their weight will. And the assertion that someone is dealing with an addiction of any kind (or, god forbid, and I hate even typing this, being subjected to drug use at the hands of someone with power over them) is an allegation that a) you can’t make from one picture and b) has really deep, life altering, tragic and painful and hard consequences for that person and all their loved ones, and deserves more respect and deference than to be treated as something you can just throw out into the great wild beyond and then forget about.

But beyond the fact that people are making hurtful and invasive allegations and assumptions about a real person’s private life based entirely on a very very limited and posed and edited set of content that was hand chosen to be given to us, I think the thing that bothers me the most is it feels like the people who are driving these conversations are doing so because they want something from Harry. It’s never (or rarely, I suppose) “man Harry looks tired in the pictures we’ve gotten lately, I really hope he’s taking care of himself, things have been so hard for us all.” It’s always “Harry has been so withdrawn and sad and angry he’s not communicative with fans and he’s not willing to engage with them when he sees them in public and I miss him. I miss my Harry. I miss happy Harry. I want him back. Give me Harry back.” Which tells me the concern isn’t Harry or Harry’s health, but rather the feeling that Harry owes us something that he hasn’t been giving, and now he must pay up or give us a valid excuse.

Then I do, occasionally though, find myself thinking “am I doing exactly what I’m complaining about? Am I assuming the worst of people based on a limited set of insights into their lives?” And in the wake of the Britney legal battle that has been unfolding recently, I sometimes wonder if maybe as fans we do have kind of a duty to call out celebrities when they seem to be struggling or acting incredibly out of character. Most of the time I follow this up immediately with the thought that I’m not responsible for anyone else’s health and safety, much less that of a 27 year old man I’ve never met and have no connection to beyond liking his music and his face, and I do truly believe that, but there is some part of me that feels uneasy just turning off all my concern, because I am a person who tends to be greatly concerned about everyone, who just wants everyone to be happy and healthy and safe and loved, and who wants to help people feel that way, where and when I can. So I guess what I’m asking, in the incredibly long winded and winding way I ask anyone anything (my poor husband, he gets a novel from me every time I ask what he thinks we should do for dinner) is do you have any of these same feelings and concerns? How do your navigate them? Where do you draw a line? Do you just withdraw completely from this type of speculation? How do you balance being a kind, engaged, empathetic fan with being a respectful, responsible fan who knows their limits? (And man, isn’t that the ultimate question?). Your blog is one I end up on whenever something big happens or a particular conversation pops up, because I’ve found that I really value the way you break things down and are willing to consider them from many perspectives, so I appreciate you even taking the time to read this.

Thanks for your interesting thoughts about Harry anon. I feel like there's a lot to respond to here and I'm going to start by answering the questions your questions - and then I'm going to get distracted and talk about a post I really hated.

I'm always a little bit worried about Harry, and all 1D members. He might be really struggling, that's always a possibility. Harry has lived a very intensely scheduled high workload life since he was 16. He might have had all sorts of responses to the fact that that schedule was removed, or anything else that is happening in his life. But I feel like I'm generally pretty boundaried about those concerns.

I think part of it is because my base line assumption is that boyband members are pretty fucked up. You don't need to know a lot about the history of touring musicians to know that. I think I've said before that if 1D members are eating every day and not doing needle drugs then they're doing better than we have any right to expect (and if they're not eating and are doing needle drugs, then those are coping mechanisms for intense stress and there's no shame in either of them).

I do think it helps with boundaries to be starting from a point that acknowledges how hard it is to be a popstar. I'm all about fantasies of omnipotence and in my day to day life I think I can fix all sorts of things, but I don't think I can make any difference to any 1D member's life.

In addition, I am profoundly affected by having been a fan throughout 2016. We know what it looks like when Louis was going through a horrendous, devastating, trauma - and it looks pretty normal.

None of this means I don't have opinions, or worries, but I am aware that my opinions or worries aren't facts. It's rare that I think that my worries should matter even to people reading my tumblr, let alone other fans in general, and certainly not Harry. You say 'am I doing the same thing as other people assuming the worst about people...', but I'd argue that that's actually not the problem. There's nothing wrong with assuming the worst of people. What is wrong is when fans think their assumptions about a celebrity should matter to anyone else. You don't have to turn off your concern to think that it's not a priority.

I definitely think it would be a very bad thing if people took the moral as the 'free Britney' movement as 'fans should call out celebrities when they think they're struggling'. That sort of surveillance isn't effective or useful. What has been useful for Britney is solidarity in a well documented power struggle, which is a very different thing.

And I can't emphasise enough how important the 'well documented' aspect of this is. What most fan worrying about Harry amounts to is: 'I don't like what he's doing, and there's no way he'd do things I didn't like and therefore there must be something wrong with him'. That's a really controlling way of thinking about people. I really think it's important not to reproduce that abusers logic.

I am pretty well insulated from that sort of discourse from a very well weeded dash. But I saw a post that was mostly about other fandom stuff, that treated assumptions like: "Harry must hate being with Olivia and he's suffering and it's clear he's not happy with his image and his team" as building blocks that you don't even have to argue for (this is the post - and I'm going to come back to one of the things someone said that was even worse in a second).

Lets stop for a minute and imagine that Harry hasn't got a problem pretending to date Olivia, and his main concerns are about the messiness of life and his career at this point in time. It is really fucked up and agressive, and pretty hateful towards Harry, to say 'oh he couldn't possibly want this. It's clear that he hates it.' etc. (I feel like I've been making this argument for years about people who object to Louis doing such things as smoking and not performing middle-class culture for them). When fans trash talk what Harry is doing at the moment, and suggest that believing he could be choosing what he's doing is some how an act of huge disrespect to him, there is every chance they are trash talking him and the choices he's making.

The final thing I want to draw attention to is how often this sort of fan storytelling is combined with a profound lack of interest in what 1D members are actually going through. The tags screen shotted and added on to the post I reblogged actually described Holivia as Douis 2.0. Apparently assuming that there was absolutely no connection between Douis, and Louis and his family's ultimately successful efforts to privacy as Jay was dying. What the fuck is wrong with people that they ignore that, and erase that? There's far more interest in making up 1D members suffering so that fans can continue to tell the stories they want to tell, than actual acknowledgement of what we know that they went through.

Sorry I got distracted. What I'm trying to say is that there's nothing wrong with having feelings about celebrities or telling stories about them. But it's so important to acknoweldge the limits of your knowledge and power, even when fandom discourse encourages the opposite.

[takadanobaba]

Jin Norizuki’s Birthday PriZoom 7/18/2021

Oh the things I do for Jin Norizuki

That was SUCH an experience. I had a lot of fun!! 

Main takeaway is that I am now acutely aware of when to YO in a song

(Okay so this is my first time attending a prizoom (or even any kinpri screening outside of Luna’s sss rabbit sessions!) so this is all entirely new to me and I can’t really compare it to much, but I figured that it’d be good to write up a report of sorts to fill in for Luna in a way!)

The prizooms are also accessible to everyone and don’t require any Japanese info confirmation!! If you’re interested in attending please go and support kinpri!!!

(Note: I think about Jin wayyyy too much and interpret them as nonbinary, so I use they/them pronouns for Jin. It’s just automatic for me at this point and feels weird otherwise haha so I’ll be doing that in this)

Jin is my all time favorite character and love of my life who I’m extremely delusional about so when a prizoom was announced for their birthday I went INSANE because I didn’t expect Jin’s birthday to be acknowledged AT ALL given how they’re usually excluded/treated like a side character (+ kinpri’s been putting out little to no content lately anyways....haha....). I was waiting in anticipation ever since it was announced (around June 6th) and even put in a time-off request for my work the day of its announcement just so I could attend!!!! ........ You can imagine my frustration at kinpri waiting until the very last minute to put out details about Jin’s prizoom ^^;

💙 💙 💙 💙 💙 💙 

Also!! I’m a complete ~ foreigner ~ and managed to get tickets perfectly fine with my American credit card (and putting in some very obviously Not-An-Actual-Resident-Of-Japan address info...)! So if anyone’s curious about attending a prizoom but worried about region-locking, it’s possible! Very possible! If you’re interested in it, please go! You don’t need to have a Japanese phone number/credit card/address/etc. to purchase PriZoom tickets on RakutenTicket! It’s such an experience! If you need any help buying tickets then I’d be more than happy to assist!! Please support the PriZoom screenings and help increase the demand for more kinpri content!!!!!!!!!!!! I will personally become a living prizoom advertisement

(Also if any kinpri staff find this: I’m sorry for not respecting rules this time but I just wanted to provide a detailed account of the prizoom event and encourage participation for other foreign fans! I won’t do this again!!!)

💙 💙 💙 💙 💙 💙 

I only attended the first and third showings (consisting of the first movie and Over the Sunshine!) because I wanted to see the new/not currently archived content (the second/pride the hero showing’s bonus was just Jin’s birthday video by Joji which I already revisit little too much ahaha). I also went to the chat-only rooms because I wasn’t very confident that I wouldn’t be awkward with my nonexistent cheering experience and intent to just observe what its like (despite knowing that the cheering rooms are more fun based on what Luna said haha). That, and I was planning on using the EXTREMELY OBNOXIOUS soundboard of ABSOLUTE CHAOS for everything since I have issues with voice dysphoria and figured it’d be good to stick to the room with that normalized as the one and only cheering method so participating would be a little less annoying to others, since we’d all have the same idea ^^;

I’m more active on twitter and follow/am mutuals with pretty much anybody who likes Jin enough to post about them, so it was cool seeing almost everyone there! At least half of them tweeted about this being their first prizoom haha. Jin’s birthday was also promoted as a good introduction to prizooms since the first showing was set at a price point of 718 yen instead of the usual 1,760 yen? So, lots of first timers attending! I guess most people had the same thought process as me about the whole insecure-about-not-being-used-to-proper-cheering/using-their-mic thing? Because most of my twitter following ended up in the chat-only rooms with me! Fun!

Also interesting how most people chose the male voice option for the cheering soundboard feature since there’s actually only 2 men who love Jin like that (I’m included in that number!!) in the Jin-obsessed twitter circle. I guess it was because it sounds kinda Joji-ish? and therefore fitting for an event dedicated to Jin! What with them being meant for each other and all.... Plus being Joji is just a fun way to play off having issues about using your own voice (I... project onto Joji a lot.)

👆 👆 👆

Okay I actually typed up all of the above during the second showing (since I wasn’t occupied attending that one) and everyone had the same train of thought and was definitely being Joji. You know that one “song” in Over the Sunshine- Glorious Schwarz- consisting of Joji just going wild infodumping for 3.5 minutes? Yeah EVERYONE who selected the male voice option was spamming 「おれもー！」/ “ME TOO!!!” during that (including me!). So it was like:

“I weighed 4646 grams at birth! ☆” 

“MMMMEMEEMEMMT MEE ME MEEE EMME ME   ME TOO M M ME TOO”

SO OBNOXIOUS. I LOVE IT. EVERYONE SHARING THE SAME BRAINCELL. THE JOJI BRAINCELL.

💙

The highlight of the prizoom  (in my opinion) was when some guy repeatedly hit よっ！/ YO! to the music in the first movie, which then led to everyone having a collective ~ Realization ~ 

After that happened, everybody joined in and started YO!-ing along in the other lives. Beautiful.

(Blurred recording of Dramatic Love and Showcase Night just so YO!u can see what I mean.)

(I only did those two to test screen recording after failing to archive the first Jin bonus while using the soundboard feature in the first showing, initially I didn’t intend to record anything but the bonuses and will not be doing that anymore. If you attend, don’t be like me or worse!!!! Please!! I’ll delete these if needed/after a few weeks. Also just wanted to mention that Koi no Royal Straight Flush is up there in Kinpri’s Most YO!-able songs)

I love this soundboard feature. Sounds like hell. Prizooms are truely a new form of art because of it. Amazing how cheering screenings have evolved over a pandemic. Music feels empty to me without the YO!s now. After this I ended up listening to the entire kinpri discography so I could determine the YO!ability of each song. Not sure if every prizoom is like that? But I really want to go to more showings just for the community experience! I’m morbidly curious as to how many people would try to YO! to Platonic Sword. I considered going to Rei’s because they’re showing Shiny Rose Stars, but I probably won’t though since money and sleep are things (They really should make tickets no more than 1,000 yen.... they’re zoom meetings with audio problems....THE AUDIO ISSUES ARE FUN THOUGH! YOU CAN SPAM “GANBATTE” WITH EVERYONE!!) Plus while I do like every kinpri character, none of the street boys are really my favorites and going to every showing regardless of character would be a lot. I assumed that I was only going to try attending Joji’s until they announced that they were gonna do something for Jin!! So if you want to see what it’s like PLEASE get tickets and experience it for yourself!! It’s so much more fun participating !!!! Relying on 1-2 people to post event summaries isn’t exactly consistent coverage of every prizoom either!

\ よっ！/      \ よっ！/      \ よっ！/

So much of this is a community experience that you just have to see for yourself! It’s really cool seeing people go all out for their favorites and just going wild. Notable participants include:

- Two separate people just working out the entire time (one of them doing “Prism Exercise” meaning very high effort full-body cheering and dancing? It was really impressive seeing them go all-out for such a long time!)

- Two (2!) Ai cosplayers!!! One attending the prizoom with a Jin cosplayer!!

- The lady who cosplayed Jin in their cute green pre-retirement prism star outfit WITH A HUGE JIN PUPPET IN THE SAME STYLE AS THE SHUFFLE PUPPETS IN THE STAGEPLAY!!!

- That one person who just had a Minato fish head on the entire time (?!)

- A Victoria cosplayer who showed off a really nice!! drawing of Jin they did during the participant showcase at the end of the screenings

- The person with a REALLY CUTE!!!!! homemade Jin plushie!!

- Two people who attended with 3D/vtuber style models of the Go Go Glorious! (YMT29 subunit) members: Noel Tokyo and Mikado Shibuya (who also had a model of Ai!)

- A really cute Joji vtuber model!

💙 💙 💙 💙 💙 💙

The bonuses were Jin’s birthday video from 2016 and a birthday message of sorts from Jin!

I actually didn’t manage to properly archive the first one as intended because things went horribly wrong so I ended up with nothing but just a terrible (said affectionately) little recording of the soundboard I linked earlier. But whatever I shouldn’t be doing that anyways. Hopefully kinpri includes that and the other prizoom bonuses in something later.... the thought of any content being stuck as lost media terrifies me. I don’t have a good enough memory or a high enough Japanese proficiency level to type it out but it wasn’t particularly analyzable or anything (telling that to myself to make me feel better about losing it). Just the usual Jin being dramatic and going on an evil monologue. Jin being evil ASMR. I lovingly burned another one of Jin’s evil laughs into my mind too so there’s that.

For the 3rd showing bonus however I did not fail though it’s arguably the less interesting bonus of the two since it’s unvoiced. I really love Jin’s voice. Big sexy. Actual dialogue is pretty similar to each other from what I’ve gathered (ending with one of Jin’s cute little アーーーッハッハッハッ！！！！！’s (the text effect for the unvoiced bonus was an appreciated detail!). 

(I’m not very confident in my ability to provide a good translation so I’ll just not embarrass myself)

“ AAAaAAaHAHAAHAAa ~ ! ! ! ! ! ! ! “

💙

Yes Jin I’ll support you in the future-!!! ヾ(>▽ <、 )

I’ll never not be obsessed but it’d still be nice to have more substantial content to gush about and do that with.... Kinpri come back and release an anime continuation.... give me the Jin plot development....kinpri come back my happiness is a little too reliant on you

After the showings you get an email asking for feedback which is cool! I’ve been waiting to complain about how 法月 is written as Noriduki instead of Norizuki for the longest time but I never had a chance until now haha. Makes it so painful for me to buy Jin merch. Also begged for an anime continuation. I wonder how much they take into account feedback? I guess I’ll see when/if they start writing Jin’s name how it’s supposed to be.

ANYWAYS

IF YOU WANT TO GO TO A PRIZOOM, DO IT!

Prism shows really are best experienced with a community!!! If you like kinpri it’s a GREAT OPPORTUNITY to experience what a cheering screening is like with the Japanese fanbase from the comfort of your very own home which is most likely nowhere near Japan!! Everyone should experience prism shows!!!! I have no regrets and I’m still so hyped from the prism sparkle!!!

ANYBODY CAN ATTEND AND BUY TICKETS EVEN WITHOUT JAPANESE INFORMATION!!!

 \\   GLORIOUS SCHWARZ!   //

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia! I'm a huge fan of your work and deeply enjoying FFS rn, it really shows the love and care you've put into this world and characters and it's an amazing read 🥰🧡

Idk if you've actually answered this question before or if it's a bit too much? So feel free to skip it. Do you have any advice on how to write a therapist and sessions with them? And to go along with that, a therapist&patient relationship that doesn't feel inauthentic but that's a healthy one?

I've had to visit both psychiatrists and psychologists a couple of times along my life, which has almost always been a positive experience to me, but when I get down to business and want to write a character going to therapy, I fall into a bunch of the psychoanalytic clichés US films have hammered us down with, even if I'm not from an Anglophile country!

Thanks a bunch in advance!! Ilu, have a nice start of the year🧡✨

Hiya anon!

I have a few thoughts about writing therapy sessions so I’m just going to put them down in no particular order.

Firstly, I don’t actually think it’s always a good idea to write therapy in stories, and a lot of the time I avoid writing it even when a character is actively seeing a therapist. This is particularly true in The Wind that Cuts the Night where all we see of Alex and his therapist are snippets, and nothing more than that, because therapy sessions would slow down the pacing, focus and value of the story.

Where possible, characters don’t see therapists, but talk to people in a way that is therapeutic, usually with love interests or members of the ensemble cast (Augus and Fenwrel in The Court of Five Thrones, Jack and Eva in The Golden Age that Never Was, Jack and North in From the Darkness We Rise/Into Shadows We Fall, Cullen and Cassandra, Cullen and Bull in Stuck on the Puzzle). All of those characters need therapy, but writing therapy sessions tends to slow down the pace of a fic pretty dramatically, and even I had misgivings about writing Efnisien’s sessions with Dr Gary at first because I’m acutely aware of the fact that:

1. Therapy sessions can be draggy and boring 2. They often take away important emotional realisations from other characters, ruining potential hurt/comfort and character relationship development moments with your actual cast / love interests 3. Fiction is meant to be fiction, not reality. 4. A lot of therapy sessions are actually not that interesting to sit in or write or observe, which is why writers do often find themselves falling into certain cliches while writing them to make them more interesting. Even I cut out huge chunks of sessions to get to the more interesting parts, lol. 5. You can write a character going to therapy without writing the therapy. You can just choose to have the character remember bits and pieces of the session later as it’s relevant to their life. 6. Therapy is different for everyone, and some readers (myself included) don’t enjoy reading it when the therapy is a kind that doesn’t resonate or feel right.

So you really need to ask yourself why you want to write therapy specifically, because a lot of the time it gets boring or - as you point out - falls into cliched territory. Writing a character going to a doctor a lot in detail for regular injections is boring. Writing them thinking about how they have to do this in brief while their love interest is sympathetic to them getting those injections is more interesting. Writing a character suffering from an illness that they need regular injections for, with their love interest comforting them? Interesting.

Falling Falling Stars is a unique fic in that Efnisien has no one before he meets Arden, except for Dr Gary and Gwyn. If you’re writing an FFS style fic, writing therapy sessions might be appropriate. It might be worth really thinking about the kind of fics you want to write, why you want to write therapy, how that will affect your pacing, etc.

If you’re still dead set on writing therapy sessions, then I have some suggestions re: writing more realistic/healthy therapy and how to find that knowledge yourself, and I don’t really know how to shorthand some of it:

1. Get books on therapy that are designed for the therapist. These are often expensive, but sometimes libraries stock them - and university libraries in particular will often have photocopy abilities (or you can just photograph the pages you need) because these books look at how sessions should be structured. Books with case studies are ideal, since they often show dialogue chains between the client and therapist. Books that obviously deal with the mental illnesses you’re planning on writing about are the most ideal.

2. With a view to this, learn about different therapeutic modalities (for example are you trying to write psychology or psychoanalysis or both? Are you writing social work? Are you writing cognitive behavioural therapy, dialectical behavioural therapy, expressive therapies, narrative therapy, transcendental therapy?) Be aware that different modalities have different session structures and learn what they are. Wikipedia is your friend, but your closest friend will be actually acquiring textbooks on the subject. This is a pretty significant financial barrier at times, I’ve been collecting books like this on psychology since like 1997.

3. Learn about your character’s mental instabilities that require them to go to a therapist and then look up the most recommended forms of therapy for your character’s specific issues. Will they suit your character? Why/why not? Will they have a therapist who realises and switches modality if it doesn’t suit? Or will they be lucky and find someone who helps them straight away?

4. All therapy sessions have a structure to them. And therapy often has a narrative arc through the course of therapy over many sessions. They should generally have the attempt at a beginning (greeting / setting up the problem to be discussed), middle (highlighting the source of conflict or inner conflict) and end (helping the client to focus on less stressful things, possible homework assigned, and potentially talking about future work/sessions). Learn this structure. Even if you’re not writing the whole session, you need to know where in the session you’re writing, beginning/middle/end will be different tonally. Structures will be different per therapeutic modality, and a therapist that knows many different modalities (like Dr Gary) will often be using slightly different structures each time depending on the character’s mood/issue.

5. In a healthy therapist/client relationship there will be the ability to discuss boundaries, grievances and the therapist won’t be revealing much about their personal life at all (unless anecdotally it’s super relevant and even then it will be deliberately vague). This is one of those things that will - in many cases - make for more boring sessions on the page, depending on the ‘client.’ For example, if you’re writing someone seeing a therapist for the first time, it might realistically take months or years before they start showing progress or trust. That’s not interesting (there’s a reason ‘therapy fiction’ isn’t a genre), so of course it’s tempting to shortcut into more dramatic moments.

*

I would say if you’re finding yourself leaning towards more cliched or dramatic forms of writing re: therapy, your writing brain may sense that the entire scene/s may not be suited to the story, and is trying to find a way to make them more interesting to yourself and the reader. If that’s not the case, then a lot more research is needed! It’s time to sink many hours into actually understanding what you’re trying to write. This doesn’t matter as much if you’re writing unrealistic or unhealthy therapy, but it’s 100% necessary when you’re trying to write healthier therapy depictions.***

Also a couple of sessions of experience is a start, but you might want to watch or find a way to watch more therapy sessions, because you’ve missed out on experiencing longer arcs, different modalities etc. (This is where my hands on experience with 19 therapists since 1995 is actually really helpful, lmao - I’ve had close to like 800~ sessions by now, with good and bad therapists; I cannot pretend that hasn’t given me a knowledge base that most people don’t share). You can still learn that stuff via research, MedCircle on Youtube is a good place to start, since it offers 30 minute snapshots on what CBT and DBT sessions will look like etc. and has some great playlists.

Most fics I’ve read don’t do a great job of depicting therapy, but the Babes!verse series by @rynfinity has probably some of the most realistic and still really interesting sessions I’ve read as an ongoing arc. The series is long, because it needs to be re: what it’s dealing with, but it’s great, and I definitely recommend looking at another example of how an author tackles these sorts of scenes. Out of the Mouths of Babes / The March of the Damned are the two intertwined series.

I apologise if this sounds discouraging overall, or daunting, but I just want to stress there’s a reason that I’m often not writing therapy in my writing, as anything more than the occasional scene with a non-therapist, or snapshots that are reflected on and that’s it. Falling Falling Stars is the exception to the rule, and unless you’re writing an exception to the rule as well, it’s really worth reflecting on the first six points I wrote - it’ll save you a fuckton of time and research. And if you go ahead with it, I wish you well! :D

*** Also disclaimer: But I still am writing very indulgent therapy that is not beholden to being either a 100% healthy or 100% realistic depiction. The fact is, real therapy sessions are pretty boring for observers except for maybe ten or twenty minutes in the middle at times.

(ETA: It’s just occurred to me that therapy fiction does exist, esp. in the mass media, but that it is - afaik - all unrealistic, dramatised or unhealthy. But if you want to watch a great show - I highly recommend In Treatment with Gabriel Byrne, just by aware that it is depicting, for the most part, unhealthy dynamics which are more character studies than anything).

[holycow99]

石田お寿司 12/9/21 stream translation Part 12

This is not the full translation of the stream. I only translated the parts I could understand & interpret or parts I found interesting/important. I’m still a beginner in Japanese, so the translations may not be accurate. If you want to repost, please repost at your own risk.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(t/n: ** means translation may not be accurate.)

C: From your perspective, are editors someone who nurture (mangakas)? Are they gonna continue to be a presence who shape a part of you?

I: Nurturing? I don’t even aware of it at all. I think that applies to each other. I think both shape a part of each other as the relationship deepens. The editor gives feedback and the writer fixes the story based on the feedback. That’s how a work is created. I think both are shaping a part of one another. The writer and the editor becomes that kind of existence to each other and that’s how they both grow and change on their own accord. I don’t think they help writers grow though. To me, helping a human to grow is presumptuous/stupid.

(t/n: The word ‘okagamashii’ means both presumptuous and stupid. I’m not sure which one of them was he referring to in this context. You can interpret it as you like.)

I: Is the next Choujin X gonna be release soon?

I: Yeah. I forgot how to draw it in the middle of drawing the draft, so it took me some time.

*Ishida mentioned that he’s finding time to do both choujin x and animal rap, as well as drawing JJ’s illustrations.

C: I’m happy there’s a lot of streaming videos lately.

I: There’s not a lot lately, since I went away for a while. Maybe the duration was actually shorter than I thought it was.

C: Let’s stream until noon.

I: Well…it depends on the situation. I do think of that. I can’t help but do my work during streaming. Just like what I’m doing currently. If I play games, I’ll just play and then when it’s over, I can just end the stream. But when I’m doing my work, I don’t know when I should end it. I’ve no choice but to finish my work. In other words, I’ll be streaming until I’m done with my manuscript. For me, doing that is good because my work can progress. It’s like I’m being monitored. For a period of time, OPM’s artist, Murata sensei did that before but he quit for few reasons. I think it’s good to feel like you’re being monitored. Hamada Yoshikasu sensei did that as well. He pretty much streamed him working everyday. I’m not sure whether he’s still doing it.

C: Do stream every night.

I: That’s a bit…This is also difficult for me to do. I like making plans on what I should do. For example, “what I should do for this and that day?” or “what if I do this with this pace?”, but to actually follow the plan is hard. You’d feel lazy on the very day you had a plan. People who thoroughly follow their plans are admirable, aren’t they? It’s not like I have the need to follow it. But then, I wish to be able to do that.

C: If you get bored drawing the background, I want you to stream while you’re working on it even if it’s on irregular basis.

I: For the background, I must finish doing them all at once, if not it’ll take a few days. There’s a limit to what kind of work I can stream. I don’t want really wanna show me working on the latest chapter. It’s the latest chapter, after all. I’ll show the chapter after I’ve drawn it properly. This one is basically me fixing the chapter 2, so it’s fine.

C: It’ll be nice if there’s a notice before the stream on the day itself.

I: I see. It’ll be easier to watch if there’s a notice. You can arrange your time. But then, it depends on my mood. I‘d feel sorry if I suddenly don’t wanna stream, but you guys are already excitedly waiting for it. So, I’ll just do it randomly.

C: I can prepare some sweets if there’s a notice beforehand.

I: Well…Maybe I’ll at least give notice on that very day. If I really wanna stream, then I might let you guys know beforehand.

I: The 30,000 commemoration. I might not do anything for it. But I’ll keep that as a memory. Even someone like me can have that amount of subscribers with this kind of content. I’m thankful for that.

C: I turn on my notification, so it doesn’t matter if you tell us beforehand or not.

I: Oh, really? Then, I’ll do it as I like. It’s better If there’s a notice. Well, I’ll do it if I feel like it.

C: This is random, but I only turned on your tweet notification.  

I: Sometimes, I forgot to update on my twitter though. I update it when I’m streaming.

C: 30,000 subscribers is amazing! It’s more than the number of people in my home town.

I: That’s true. If you think about it that way, then 30,000 is amazing.

*Someone wanted Ishida to stream the drawing of the Choujin X’s volume’s cover, but he said it’ll be hard to do that.

C: For me, I like for the cover to be a surprise.

I: Hm…I probably think so too.

I: For me, regarding choujin x, I want everything about it, such as the drafts, to be a secret. If I got to do another manga, then I might…ah, but that probably wouldn’t be possible due to my personality. I do kinda want to be monitored when I’m drawing difficult stuffs. It seems to be efficient for me that way. It could make me feel motivated if you guys watching me draw them.

*The adult comment came back.

I: Can I do something about it? It’s probably just random comments. Report or timeout? What’s timeout for? Should I try time it out this time? Did it time out?

*The comment finally gone. It’s troublesome though. I have to do something about the comment every single time. I should leave it to the dark moderator.

I: It did!

*Ishida mentioned that he’d timeout this one fan if they commented something unpleasant.

C: That could be a reward itself.

I: What? Me banning that person? That’s already a stalker attitude. You mean it’s because I noticed them, right? There must be such people. But what a pitiful person if that’s the only way for them to be noticed by others. Doing what the other party dislikes, then seeing their unpleasant reaction. Being happy just by the fact that the other party reacted to them is already a lost cause. Don’t wanna be that kind of person, right?

C: It’s amazing how you can have a phone call with someone everyday.

I: It depends on the occasion. Like when you really feel the need to talk or when you’re having a tough time. I too had times when I randomly just called someone because I couldn’t concentrate working. When I thought it’d be good for me to work while conversing, then I’d call someone. But the other person also has their own life, if this happens continuously, even if they say okay, they must be actually enduring it. I mostly speak to my work-related friend.

C: Being a mangaka is a lonely job, isn’t it?

I: Yeah, you’re right. This is also another difficult issue. It might get harder to confront my work if I spend more time with others. So, especially, recently, I tried to get myself more motivated. I’ve isolated myself around until the end of summer, but as I thought, working with people is easier for me, mentally speaking. I have somebody to listen to me and I feel less pressured, that is, they give me some kind of advice and I can apply them.

C: Do you consult with the editor in charge when you’re at loss?

I: I think I do. I did consult with Mr. Matsuo at the beginning. But then, I think it’s important to resolve your problems on your own. I do think I have a lot of people I can consult with, and that’s totally fine, but I don’t want to do that. I want to find the answers that I’m completely satisfied with by myself. So, I hold myself back from seeking others’ advice. I did ask Ms. Towada about stuffs on JJ when I had some questions since she gave good answers.

I: Well, I wanna work on this manga randomly. And by ‘random’, I don’t mean sloppily. I wanna work on this manga in a way that’s appropriate for both the work and I. So, I thought it’d be better for me to seek less advice or opinions from others. I’ll do differently if this way isn’t working.

C: You’re a wise person.

I: Obviously. Hahaha. Of course. It’s because I keep thinking about things like this. I hope you find my words useful.

*He then mentioned that he preferred the way of doing things randomly, but it might not be suitable for certain people. However, it’s okay to seek advice.

*Ishida recalling the conversation he had with Ms. Towada regarding Hoshi Sandek.

I: “Hoshi and Arima look similar, right?”.

T: “Have you seen how Arima Kishou looks like?”.

I: “Yes, I have… They look similar, right?”

T: “You mean their characters’ overlapped?”

I: “Not that.”

T: “Hmm….”

I: Hahaha. What do you guys think? Do Sandek and Arima look similar?

C: Are you a TG bandwagon fan?

I: Hahaha. I might’ve never read it properly. But I legit did read TG recently. I’m not kidding. I took a look at it again. I’m thinking of accepting TG. It’s not that I don’t. I wanna accept it more. All said and done, I’m really glad I wrote TG. It’s good that I have something to leave behind. It’s definitely a good thing.

C: Have you ever played Red Dead Redemption 2? (comment in eng.)

I: Like I said, short time. Short time? Little time. (Speaking in eng) I wanna play it though. I wanna play more, but I’ve no time. Too busy.

C: I think Hoshi is actually what Sui looks like. (comment in eng.)

I: She’s saying Hoshi looks similar to me. Are you kidding me?

*Ishida looking for another page to draw.

I: Please take a look at this version of the chapter in the magazine. This will be in the comic as well, probably. They’re both the same.

C: Sensei, are you gonna sleep after this?

I: Nope. I’ll probably check whether Hitman’s already downloaded after I end the stream. After that, I’ll eat and then finish up my upcoming work. I need to add colour for the pages. And I kinda wanna draw an illustration. Have you guys seen Itaewon Class on Netflix? It’s from a Korean webtoon. It’s been made into a drama and I was super addicted to it.

C: Park Saeroyi? (The name of the drama’s mc)

I: Yes. That one. He’s really cool. That hairstyle. I wanna draw Park Saeroyi, if can. There’s this sassy kinda girl in the story, right? That girl is a total beauty. Yi Seo. (t/n: Yi Seo is the FL’s name.)

I: I wanna draw real humans. I’ve been drawing them lately, not that it’s a problem, since I’ve been drawing manga only.

C: She is pretty!!

I: I know right. She’s gorgeous.

I: I read a little bit of the original work, and it pretty much the same as the drama, so I thought the original work was amazing. But then, the Japanese version changed it into Roppongi Class. It’s a different vibe… Does it really matter if it’s in Itaewon? They changed it to suit Japanese readers. Was it the Line Manga or was it not? I don’t remember, but they did that. Just let it be in Itaewon or Korea. I was like “Don’t f*** with me!”.

C: Marunouchi Class.

I: Haha. I’m drawing that. Marunouchi Class. (t/n: Marunouchi is a commercial district in Tokyo.)

I: Itaewon is better. There’s no such place in Roppongi. I’m not familiar with Roppongi though. It may have places like this, but it’s better to showcase the vibes of Korea. Itaewon is a place packed with foreigner. It’s a miscellaneous street. It’s close to Roppongi now that I’ve put it that way. But still…Those who subscribe to Netflix, I recommend you to watch Itaewon Class. They only shot scenes that were important, so it’s really easy to follow the story. Such a beautiful drama. There were quite a lot of cliché moments, but there were also some unexpected twists in those moments, so it pulled you in. Korean entertainment is far ahead.

*The assistant guy finally went to sleep.

I: Oh, you’re gonna sleep now? You definitely can’t oversleep. Don’t mention my name as well. Haha. Do your best as an assistant. Okay, after he left, everyone takes a screenshot. I’m gonna send it to his boss.

C: Sensei, do you read the manga “This is Good”?

I: I don’t. Is it an ecchi manga? Is it the one in Tonari Young Jump? Is it the one with beautiful drawing probably? I wanna try reading it. I need to cultivate (?) and boost the popularity of Tonari Young Jump. I’d like to take on that mission.

I: Has Mr. assistant slept already?

C: I won’t sleep then.

I: It’s okay 2x. Please sleep. Don’t worry 2x. Nothing’s gonna happen. If you’re worried, you can watch it later.

I: I just thought of the number 1 prank he shouldn’t do. I wanted to ask him to draw shit on the manuscript. I wanted him to leave my mark on the background. But that’s definitely a no-no. It’ll be a problem. However, that kind of assistants do exist. Not a lot, but there are assistants that play around.

Part 13

[seercayder]

No but I feel as though artists are probably experiencing one of the most hostile years of posting art online that they’ve ever experienced for maybe forever. And I mean this for both amateur artists and professionals (with maybe a lil bit of bias since I also do The Art).

Tumblr’s nudity ban has crippled any piece that is either NSFW or uses nudity as artistic expression and it ultimately drove away both the artists themselves and a lot of their fans, which destroyed any remaining traction for the artists who managed to remain. Tumblr is no longer an artistic freedom-friendly site and it shows, which is a fucking shame bc they genuinely have one of the better tagging systems than other sites and I believe that most feedback on art there has been positive and friendly, which has now gone the way of the dinosaur much like Deviantart.

Twitter has problems with image compression but their biggest issue is toxic abuse, which I find to be the most damaging to artists out of all the other problems i’m listing here. Both the lure of anonymity and the mindset that ‘Speak Loud In Little Words To Make Point Means You Are Important And Right’ has fuelled the absolutely vile comments I have seen directed at artists on the site. Although it’s mainly aimed at fanartists and ship artists, I have noticed unwanted (even rude) criticism on immaculate, well-done art pieces, which is extremely belittling and insulting because the artist (although they may be open to criticism) if they haven’t asked for criticism then that means that they are not in the right mindset to receive any, and therefore it is not your place to throw disparaging comments at them.

But the biggest issue with abuse on Twitter is obviously aimed at fan-artists, especially those those that draw NSFW or “problematic” content. I could go into a whole spiel about how a drawing of a fictional character doesn’t affect reality but in short: If you find disturbing art of a non-existent character (or hey, even non-disturbing art, it’s just something you don’t like) then ignore it. Don’t go and fucking bully the artist you psychopath. If it is truly illegal then report the piece and then see if it gets taken down. Because 90% of the time it won’t be taken down because it doesn’t go against guidelines and you’re just trying to police the site like you’re the thought-police, monitoring other peoples art as if you have the god-given right to. And if you’re a minor stay the fuck out of 18+ accounts. Don’t comment, don’t follow, don’t even look. I am absolutely amazed by the mindset that some children have to waltz into a space not made for them and having the balls to insult the 18+ artist, who have specifically said “no minors”, for posting icky content. It gets even worse when you see how they abuse the Privatter or Curiouscat links the Twitter artists provide, made for anonymous feedback or for being the final barrier for an adult piece that says “hey this stuff is NSFW, don’t click if you are underage, last warning”. I’m gonna go into this more when I cover TikTok in the next few paragraphs. But ultimately, the artists on that site are having to be constantly vigilant against abuse, and it’s not unusual for them having to spend hours going through their 1K+ followers and having to block every underage follower who just didn’t fucking listen to their warnings. Imagine how exhausting and irritating and down-right uncomfortable that must be; having to monitor every fan that sees your work out of fear that they’re a minor seeing adult content or that they could throw abusive comments at you. Horrible.

Instagram is saturated with bots attempting to steal your work or advertise it on their own page and feedback isn’t really a ‘thing’ on there. Also, their algorithm (which may have also been implemented on Twitter, I believe that the Twitter algorithm now avoids promoting popular artist terms, but I can’t be certain bc the Twitter post that pointed this out is long-lost in the depths of my timeline, bc again, no tagging system) is based more around sharing than likes, which can be a huge barrier to artists. Sure, you may like someones art and even leave a nice comment on it, but do you really want to share every piece you come across, especially if it’s not something you would show dear Aunty Susan who follows you? It’s infuriating that a whole site dedicated for images is so difficult to use for artists, and with Instagram implementing features that are similar to Snapchats ‘stories’ it’s clear they’ve moving in a different direction, focusing on momentary attention-grabbing photos. This is simply because Instagram is advertising itself as more of a promotional influencer site nowadays, and anything that could sully their reputation has to be thrown into the algorithm trash. NSFW art or just plain ‘bad’ art? Trash. If you’re not gonna make money for them then why should they bother? You wanna promote your art? Pay for it because the algorithm will absolutely be working against you.

Now, the biggest fucking offender for worst art-sharing site of the year is TikTok (no surprise there), which is absolutely rampant with reposts and uncredited artwork and a gateway for abusive comments against artists. Like the Ouroboros snake, it goes through the same pattern every time; People (usually minors) find art on Twitter or Pinterest and repost it, usually without credit or going against the artist’s wishes about reposting. Then it either goes two-ways: Firstly, if the piece is SFW it will get about five-seconds of interest, a like for the reposter and people will then just move on. TikTok is built entirely around short bursts of satisfaction, feeding a a constant loop of serotonin for a few seconds before you move on. So ultimately, people rarely then hunt down the original artist, especially if their credit isn’t readily available, and usually the original artists doesn’t see any rise in likes, followers or popularity and are usually unaware that their art is even getting any attention on TikTok.

Or, if the art is NSFW, it can go down the second way. It is reposted and, as the majority of TikTok users are under-18, many users find the image uncomfortable, especially if it is a bit more ‘out-there’ or of a ship they don’t like. The reposters sometimes find the image off of Privatter, which is even worse since the piece has been posted to Privatter not just as a final barrier against minors, but also as a form of directing the piece to a specific and niche audience due to it’s... spicer than usual NSFW content. I’m talking really specific pieces with really specific kinks. Now that piece is floating around TikTok, widely seen by the general fans of a fandom, who again, are usually underage. The viewers grow uncomfortable, as the piece is not made for them, especially since sometimes the reposter only posted the piece for shock-value, and would even encourage insulting comments by only posting the credits for the purpose of getting fans to throw abuse at the artist (”The artist is ***** but they ship **** and are icky”) and so the viewers finally decide to make the effort to hunt down the original artist, only to throw insulting and bullying comments at them, made worse by the fact that they are children who don’t have the sense to hold back and have been fuelling their mindset in the echo-chamber that is TikTok.

And as a result of a lot of this hostile feedback for artists, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a space for amateur artists who are just starting out, since the art community is becoming a little bit scary. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that new (or not even new but recently promoted) sites such as Artstation are becoming a better place for professional artists only, but it is very intimidating for learner artists. That’s not necessarily a bad thing - I believe that part of the reason for Deviantarts decline was that the tagging system was horrible, so good art was being drowned out by amateur, fetish content, so more advanced artists were distancing themselves from the site, especially if they were trying to build a portfolio for employment. I also find that fanart usually gets far more likes than more original art pieces, even if the original piece is amazingly good, which isn’t a criticism against fanart but posting your original piece on a site more aimed at professional pieces may help you reach your target audience better and improve likes and interaction. However, that does mean that if you are an amateur, or hell, just an average artists who is still learning, your best bet for exposure is posting your piece across multiple sites and very, very regularly, braving any abusive comments if you try anything slightly “spicy”. Which, obviously, become a very potentially toxic atmosphere and it’s not uncommon for artists to feel burn-out or depressed at their lack of attention or the cyber-bullying they may receive.

I’m not trying to say that posting artwork has always been easy, but there is definitely a more aggressive culture surrounding it and I think artists have to be aware that chances are they will face insulting comments, reposters, frustrating algorithms, cyber-bullying, a lack of interaction and burn-out as they try and appeal to websites that would do the bare minimum for you in terms of promotion.

This isn’t meant to be a post to scare away artists, I just wanted to point out that there is a big fucking problem and it feels as though it’s getting worse. Nowadays, websites have become a bit too comfortable targeting creators rather than fans when it comes to monitoring content and artists have been put under more and more pressure as they face more and more abuse that is rarely addressed, especially by the sites themselves that host the content. Things that are a huge punch in the face for artists, such as NFT’s, are becoming more normalised and it’s honestly just sad.

[kitkatopinions]

Hey how's about Neptune for the asks? :)

Alrighty, Neptune is the last character ask I have in my inbox. If anyone is interested in hearing my thoughts on any other character, feel free to send them in! 

My top three ships for the character

Neptune/Jaune is probably my favorite ship for him, I think they could be cute and they’d have a good relationship, and I think he’d help Neptune loosen up and stop trying so hard to be cool. Neptune/Sun is my second favorite ship for him. Although I see them as best friends for life, I also think they could be really nice together and there is some very cute fan art of these two. Also, Ren/Neptune could be really cute, if Neptune has done some maturing, I could see them connecting in Vacuo. (Honorable mention to Weiss/Neptune, who would’ve made this list, if their ‘love triangle’ hadn’t been done with so much cringe.)

My three least favorite ships for the character

Neptune/Ruby is kinda... Weird, just because of how young Ruby often acts. Neptune/Blake. I don’t think Neptune and Blake would ever have feelings for each other. And Neptune/Ilia. Even putting aside the fact that she’s a lesbian and I headcanon Neptune as gay, she’s clearly uncomfortable with his advances and he apparently has no awareness of when to back off, so... Yeah. This one feels kinda icky to me.

My biggest criticism for the character

I was going to talk about how some of the humor surrounding him is cringe as it is with Sun, or how he and Sun don’t ever get new outfits, but guys, I have to talk about the flirting. The flirting with Weiss? Not a problem, Weiss is clearly receptive, she and Neptune do have at least some level of chemistry, Weiss shows no signs of being uncomfortable. Even his ‘what a woman’ line with Yang is (imo) totally fine, they’re both casually flirty and Yang didn’t seem uncomfortable with Neptune at all either, and there’s nothing wrong with casually flirty characters. But Neptune flirting with Team NDGO and making sexual innuendos and making advances on Ilia when she clearly looks uncomfortable... These were obviously not well received and Neptune just kept flirting. That’s bad. I love Neptune, but this writing is jacked. Men wrote him to make women uncomfortable without it being treated as a real problem his character overcomes (while we’re on that subject, Jaune has the same problem with Weiss and just because he ‘moved on’ to Pyrrha when he thought Weiss had ‘chosen Neptune’ doesn’t mean he was ever shown on screen to realize that pestering women who make it clear they’re not interested is wrong.) I love Neptune, but if they weren’t going to make him a bigger character who had an arc and learned to not make sexual innuendos to women suggesting they’re going to try and use a professional fight to assault him and then wink at them when they show clear displeasure with his gross attempts at ‘flirting’... Then they should’ve just not done that! Because it wasn’t funny, or cute, or cool, or playful like the RWBY writers had clearly thought it was.

My favorite thing about the character

His friendship with Sun. I honestly love the fact that Sun has this dorky, intellectual, tries too hard, ‘super cool’ friend. Neptune seems to hold Sun back some and doesn’t seem to take things as serious as even Sun does, letting his (if what I’ve heard from the books is true) very valid phobia impact his performance and even impact whether or not he goes with Sun to Menagerie. But at the same time, those flaws don’t mean he isn’t a good friend. We see from the start that he’s a good listener, he’s supportive and understanding and loyal, willing to follow Sun (as he follows Blake) into crazy adventures and up onto ledges. They joke around, they get each other, and the fact that they’re independent and can survive without each other only makes them a healthier dynamic. Also, Sun clearly opens up to him and is very comfortable talking to Neptune about his feelings towards Blake in volume 6 and they had a good scene together there. Gosh, I miss these two. (Honorable mention to Neptune’s hints of anxiety and how stressed he can get. I’m very easily stressed out and anxious myself and it’s nice to see a character that seems to be incredibly stressed himself while still being a cool character who is friendly that people like.)

A headcanon I have about them

Blake knowing about Neptune’s fear of the water makes me think that she had hung out quite a bit with at least Neptune. I love the idea of them being friends themselves, connecting and sharing a lot of similarities even if they seem totally different from first glance. They totally spent hours talking Sun’s ear off about various books while he just tried to follow along because he loves them and wants to share their interests.

What I would change about them if I was making a re-write

I’ve been thinking a lot about Neptune lately and how I’d change him. First off, I’d keep him casually flirty, but throw out him going too far since it makes me uncomfortable. And I think I would feature him in Mistral and have him reconnect with the mains. I think that for what the show was in Volumes 1-3, Neptune having a more comical, casual character was fine and fun and didn’t throw off the tone, but that he’d need some adjusting to fit into RWBY in the future, and I also think Mistral needed to be more fleshed out and that RNJR and Oscar/Oz needed more time and more to do there. If Team RNJR had met up with Neptune and the rest of his team (though obviously Sage and Scarlet wouldn’t be very featured) and heard from them about the shady things going on in Mistral, that could be good. I’d have the mains spend some time ‘working under Lionheart’ as he tries to get rid of them before Cinder makes her deal with Raven and that would include them doing missions with Neptune. He would be more serious and mature than before, telling them Sun is with Blake in Menagerie, and tell them about how bad things have gotten in Mistral which they would see themselves as they take missions even when none of them are licensed (which they would see as a good thing, but would be clearly framed as a bad thing with Neptune not doing well and clearly not ready and the others also clearly not ready themselves.) Then when everyone starts meeting back up, Weiss and Yang are pulled into things. Neptune could be part of the Haven fight and then reconnect with Blake and Sun when they return. A part of me really would want them to join the group permanently and accompany them to Atlas... But I think I would have them go to Vacuo to continue going to school, and just meet up with them again in the Vacuo arc.

What I I think of their character allusion and what (if anything) I would change about it

Neptune was the Roman god of water (originally springs, lakes, and rivers only before eventually expanding into the primary god of the sea) and horses, and also may have been the god of rain and cloudy skies before that function was given to Jupiter. His Greek counterpart, Poseidon, was the god of the sea, storms, and earthquakes, and was a protector of seafarers. Like most gods, there is a lot to go off of in terms of characterization and very little that’s definitive to make a concise character. However, Neptune is mainly gimmick based, with a weapon that doubles as a trident and in the show canon, only has something to do with water. Although it’s interesting to note that Poseidon had worked with Apollo (the god of the sun) in mythology at least once. It seems like there isn’t a lot there. Even including his semblance in the show proper would go a ways towards making his allusion to Neptune/Poseidon feel less gimmicky.

[dodgergilmore]

1: Also I would VERY MUCH love to hear more of your thoughts on season 3. It always annoys me to NO END how people who hate them think that fans love them for their season 3 relationship despite the fact that other fans have mentioned numerous times that it's not because they thought their relationship was perfect, but that they didn't get a real chance where both of them were at a better place in their life.

Continued: It's very obvious in the season that their relationship actually DOES work in the sense that they get along when there's no outside pressures in the form of Lorelai/Dean, that they actually like spending time with each other and do dates, but the issue is that we never got enough of that, only the big arguments were placed in the forefront which imo is unfair because it further gives people 'proof' that Dean saying that Jess treats her 'like trash' is true, when in fact it's very much not (also it's just obvious shipper bias how many people, particularly r*gans love focusing on the negative aspects of Lit but just sweep aside all the issues Logan has in seasons 5/6, hell even in season 7 with how he proposed to Rory and then immediately ended their long term relationship when she couldn't say yes to him). It's also more than justified for fans to be intrigued of the possibility of older Lit when both Jess and Rory have their own lives that are more separate from the influence of Stars Hollow/Jess's turbulent past, because not only is Jess more mature, more open and just more stable and sure of himself, Rory now has to make decisions for herself and not based off of what Lorelai or anyone else says for her to do. And, although I'm in the minority with this opinion, even though Rory's writing in AYITL was awful in terms of fleshing out how and just why she is at this state, without allowing people to be more sympathetic, I'm not gonna suddenly go against her being with Jess simply because people think he 'pined' for her all these years when it's clear that he's not holding his life back for her, but merely in his own way, will always love her. And what I mentioned about her and Jess finally having a relationship that isn't influenced by anyone outside of it still stands for this, especially when Rory's gotta put her life back together now and Jess would imo offer support, the same way she tried to do it when he was younger and unsure of his capabilities. But yeah even discrediting AYITL, an adult relationship between them would truly be a positive thing

Okay I’ve had my morning coffee so I am ready + this is definitely going to warrant a read more!

Exactly!! I have never seen anyone claim their season 3 relationship was great. We don’t get to see them just be happy and hanging out together – even though we’re explicitly told they’re together often – unless it’s to set up conflict and I think a big part of that comes from the fact that Milo was already being written out of the show before the characters even got together.

They’ve always liked just spending time together and I love how that ends up being a constant thread throughout their relationship, be it in a romantic context or not, with season 4 being an obvious exception but at that point they were still confronting the completely unresolved ending to their relationship. But anyway, getting back to season 3...

Let me just repeat myself here: Dean cast a looming shadow over the entirety of the Rory and Jess relationship in season 3. That’s not to say that they would have been together forever if Dean hadn’t been there because I think it was inevitable for their paths to diverge (and eventually come back together!) – of course it would have been nice for them to grow together but in terms of canon, I actually like that they got to experience life independent of each other. However, Dean’s presence definitely exacerbated the issues in the Rory and Jess relationship. (I don’t mean to frame this in a way that everything wrong with Rory and Jess’ relationship has to do with Dean, I’m just examining the ways in which his role in the narrative had an influence on their relationship)

The Dean/Rory/Jess love triangle had been building up for almost a year by the time we get to 3x07 so we as viewers are ready for it to culminate in a big, dramatic, exciting way and it certainly delivers in that regard because it made for good television but it’s a shaky starting point for Rory and Jess. Before Rory even has time to cry to her mother, or even just tell her mother about the breakup with Dean, she’s already swept up in a new relationship. For that reason, an interesting “what-if” to consider is what if Dean had ended the relationship once he realised she liked Jess in 2x18? But that doesn’t happen, so from this point on Rory slowly becomes aware of her growing feelings for Jess while still being in a relationship with Dean and she feels guilty, obviously! Once she’s with Jess, she feels like she has to make things right with Dean. On top of that, Rory was always being told by the town and her mother about how Dean was the perfect boyfriend and, oh, she was so lucky to have him as her first boyfriend! Regardless of how false that whole narrative rings to me as a viewer, this puts Rory in a position where she is always comparing Jess to Dean; by Rory’s own admission in 3x09 she says she feels like the town is watching them and she’s right, they are watching! There is this pressure put on her to have her life perfectly together, which is an impossible and even damaging standard to be placing onto any teenager. At this point, Lorelai is still heavily involved in Rory’s romantic life but because Lorelai plays friend more often than mother, she has always made her stance on Jess very clear and consequently, Rory doesn’t feel she can talk openly to her mother when she has issues with Jess and this is unfamiliar territory for Rory. In the first episode with Rory and Jess together, Lorelai is already saying things like, “But I never expected you to be with Dean forever, just like I don’t expect you to be with Jess forever.” As much as she says she’s supportive, Rory never actually feels her support. For these reasons, we don’t get to see much of Rory addressing or confronting her relationship with Jess throughout season 4 – we see her play it cool or “stoic” with Lorelai and the townies but we see it’s an act to some extent when talking with Lane in 4x22 or with Jess – “I have actually thought about this moment. A lot.” that whole speech she gives feels like it’s been something she’s been holding onto for a while and never been able to vocalise. Back to season 3: Rory feels she has to hide things from Jess like she did with Dean because she was always trying to avoid a fight with him (which is.....☹️), failing to realise that Jess is not Dean, and thus begins the miscommunication problems throughout their relationship. All of this to say... Rory has no other point of reference for relationships, so I understand where she is coming from during season 3!

Now for Jess we go back to the 3x07 for a moment: obviously this is all open to interpretation but he looks very surprised and also somewhat guilty during the very public Dean and Rory breakup, which I take to mean... he never wanted it to happen, nor expected it to happen, like this. Jess is very aware of how the town and everyone in it views him in comparison to Dean; there’s an insecurity there for Jess “She picked you.” / “God knows why.” because she never actually did choose him and he doesn’t particularly like himself very much at this point. Which brings me to the point that Jess was simply not in a place to be in a relationship – his communication issues were there before he ever got into a relationship with Rory because it’s easier to not deal with things and allow people to have a low opinion of you so that you don’t disappoint them. He really thought the dinner with Emily would be a one and done thing, which highlights both his inexperience with relationships but also his misconception that this relationship could be just him and Rory, see also: “I don't wanna talk to anybody else. I don't like anybody else.” As much as he may love Rory and Luke, they can’t be Jess’ sole support system and he has a lot of personal growing to do. If we are to assume Jimmy was always going to show up in late season 3, I think that’s something that Jess was always going to want to see through. He definitely makes efforts to do better, particularly after 3x15 (there is no way he or Luke didn’t hear that voicemail...) is when we actually see them at their most chill as they’re having movie nights, they’re talking about Rory’s future at Yale, Lane is supportive, Jess is ready to go to prom without complaints, etc. He went after Rory once she leaves the bedroom in 3x19 but the moment he sees Dean, he gives up and we’re back to the looming shadow that is Dean. Without that shadow, I think they could have at least ended things on better terms.

Rory saying, “I don’t want to deal with this.” after seeing Jess in his car in 4x12 really is a good summation of their romantic relationship lmao 🙃

That proposal really was so.........yikes!!

Yeah, I have never gotten the impression that Jess has been pining after Rory all these years. I remember coming onto the internet after watching AYITL and being so confused by how heated people were with regard to that parting look in Fall. From everything we saw – which was very little, admittedly – Jess seems very content with his life and in a place of stability, continuing to mature and better himself since the last time we saw him. For what it’s worth, my interpretation of The Window Look(tm) is that Jess meant it when he told Luke that he was over Rory, and it’s not something he had been consciously thinking about until he went to the window and was like, “Hm..........” and the fact that they hadn’t seen each other in so many years before Summer is actually kind of... reassuring to me? I guess in my mind, once they become consistent figures in each other’s lives then it becomes more difficult to understand why they aren’t together because it would progress into more. “What’s it been, four years?” / “Maybe more?” does not have to set their futures in stone, leaving no room for development.

I’ve probably said it before but the whole story of first, it was Rory offering Jess support when he was sorting himself out and lacking the stability for a relationship; then it’s Jess offering Rory support when she is sorting out her life and lacking stability is just a very compelling story for me! The parallels! The star-crossed aspect of it all! I would like to see it dot gif

[collaborationandresearchproposal]

Wednesday 5th, Research proposal: First Draft

Title

Evil Kweens: A Queer Look At The History Of Villains And Monsters In Animation And Film

 Report type

Extended essay

 Proposed table of contents

 The Hays Code

 -       Guidelines are technically voluntary, in practice the major Hollywood audios used the Hays Code guidelines as convince the means of staving off pressure groups

 -       Directly influenced the content of almost every American film made between 1930 and 1966

 Queer-coding and Queer-baiting with focus on Disney and modern media

 -       both are issues for the LGBTQIA+ community as they seek to capitalize on these marginalized groups

 -       Queer-baiting: portraying an obviously queer relationships with the use of cues and subtext without acknowledging it or perhaps even gas lighting it.

 -       Queer-coding: writing a character with queer stereotypes as a form of representation without explicitly acknowledging that the character is queer.

Queer-coding isn’t always bad. It’s all about the creators’ intentions.

Queer-baiting however is pretty much always harmful.

-       Disney villains

 Lycanthropy and other monstrous subtext/ parallels. Allegory or myth?

-       talk about werewolf’s (Teen Wolf, Harry Potter, Buffy)

-       Frankenstein (Mary Shelly, Rocky Horror Picture Show,

 Question

 Is representation of LGBT individuals in animation and other forms of entertaining media good for the community or just a way for corporate big wigs to swindle money from hopeful queer people who would pay to see at least one shred of a character who is like them?

 Limitations

-       it may be hard for me to stay objective given that I’m in the LGBT community myself

 -       risk of outdated sources and temporal context problems. A project of its time will certainly play a part but more importantly the LGBT community is quite fickle it changes a lot as new identities and constructs get introduced so it may be hard to find a viable source.

 Background

The Hays code was published in 1930 and was based on three general principles:

 -       no picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.

 -       correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama entertainment, shall be presented.

 -       Law, natural or human, shall not be included, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation.

 These were developed in a series of rules grouped under the self-explanatory headings Crimes Against The Law, Sex, Vulgarity, Obscenity, Profanity, Costume Dances (I.e. suggestive movements), Religion, Locations (I.e. the bedroom) National Feelings, Titles and Repellent Subjects''  (extremely graphic violence)

 Typical features of queer- coded characters

 -       high cheekbones

 -       thin bodies

 -       feminine beauty

 -       dramatic of voice and actions

 -       male characters may talk or sing in falsetto or have camp ness to their voice and a female character will most likely have a deeper voice (Maleficent, Evil Queen, Ursula- who is actually based on a drag queen)

 -       these characters may also drag out their words and walk about at though slinking (Scar, the Lion King)

 Examples or queer-baiting

-       Myka Bearing and H.G. Wells (Warehouse13, SYFY)

Warehouse13 took a hit in ratings after its fourth season, meaning its fifth only had 6 episodes. It seemed to queer fans in particular that Myka and HG had a blossoming romance. It was even confirmed in the last episode that HG is indeed Bisexual but also in the last episode, Myka ends up with series long partner who at many points has been akin to the brother she never had. Their relationship was definitely flirtatious and I'm not saying that closing out the electric romantic arc between them would have saved the show, it was cancelled anyway, but It would have been nice since the interactions that HG and Myka had were actually what pushed fans to secure the final season. However you can’t be too mad as the show does have probably one of the best portrayals of a gay character on tv.

 -       Sherlock and John Watson ( Sherlock, BBC)

 -       Captain America and Bucky Barnes (MCU)

 -       Spock and Kirk ( Star Trek, NBC)

 -       Emma and Regina (Ounce Upon A Time, ABC)

 -       Stiles and Derek ‘Sterek’ (Teen Wolf, MTV)

 -       Merlin and Arthur ‘Merthur’ (Merlin, BBC)

 -       Dean and Castiel (Supernatural, ABC)

 Lycanthropy

-       seems to be synonymous with the homosexuality- parallels between teen Wolf and Buffy the vampire slayer’s respective coming out scenes

 -       the Queer-ness of Professor Lupin from the Harry Potter Franchise- J.K Rowling has admitted that Lupin’s Lycanthropy is a metaphor for AIDS/ HIV but has further dismissed fans’ theories that Lupin is Queer.

 -       Homophobia and HIV- homophobia acts as a major barrier to ending the AIDS crisis and at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, gay men were so my led out to receive abuse as many believed they were responsible for transmitting the disease.

 Overall aims

 -       explore the impact of queer-baiting on queer communities

 -       investigate true intentions behind the Hays Code

 -       Make people aware of what’s good representation and what’s bad representation.

 Research methods

 I plan to use relevant books and articles. I will also be looking to Disney films from the Disney renaissance era and looking into monster stories such as the Wolfman and Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein's Monster, paying close attention to subtext and possible parallels as well as comparing them with more modern sources such as Harry Potter and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

 These are appropriate methods of research because they will allow me to get others’ perspectives on the topic and allow me to analyze the villains and monsters in detail and give me visual material to talk about deeply.

 Potential outcomes

 -       The research will be helpful for me because it will allow me to increase my awareness on a subject that I am already passionate about and interested in.

 -       in a wider context this may help more people to understand the meaning and history behind the characteristics of their favorite villain and any possible subtext that may be lurking beneath them.

 -       educate those that are unaware or the issues queer-baiting and queer-coding pose.

 Timeline

Bibliography

Brooke, M. The Hays Code the moral code that governed mid-20th  century American filmmaking. Available at http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/592022/ (Accessed: 16 March 2021)

 Cheng, Z. (2020) Queer-Baiting: What Is It and Why Is It Harmful to The LGBT Community?

Available at:https://hypebae.com/2020/6/queer-baiting-what-is-it-why-harmful-lgbtq-community-tv-shows (Accessed: 16 March 2021)

 Elliott, J. (2016) Becoming the Monster: Queer Monstrosity and the Reclemation of the Warewolf in Slash Fandom. Dissertation. University of Florida. Available at: file:///C:/Users/me202/Downloads/Becoming_The_Monster_Queer_Monstrosity_a.pdf (Accessed 16 March 2021)

 Ennis, T. (2020) The Strange, Difficult History of Queer Coding.Available at: https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/the-strange-difficult-history-of-queer-coding (Accessed: 16 March 2021)

  Hays, H, W. (1931) Online. United States: Production Code Administration, Appendix 1

  Hutton, Z. (2018) Queering The Clown Prince of Crime: A Look at Queer Stereyotypes as Signifiers In DC Comics’ “The Joker” FIU Electonic Theses and Dissertations. 3702. Availale at https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/3702/ (Accessed: 16 March 2021)

 McLeod, Dion, S. (2016) Unmaksing the Quillan: Queerness and Villiany in Animated Disney Films. Doctor of Philosophy thesis, School of the Arts, English and Media, University of Wollongong. Available at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/4802/ (Accessed 16 March 2021)

 Smith, M. (2015) Making Things Perfectly Queer: Art’s Use Of Craft To Signify LGBT Identities.The University of Brighton. Available at: https://cris.brighton.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/4754843/Complete+E+Dissertation+Jan+2016.pdf  (Accessed: 16 March 2021)

[valkyrieelysia18]

RWBY Rewrite: Penny Polendina

Salutations Tumblr users! Today, we tackle beloved fan favorite robot girl Penny Polendina.

Now as I stated before, I dropped RWBY after Volume 6 and didn’t really watch Volume 7. I have however heard about certain developments and one plot point made me grateful I got out earlier or I would have rage quit this Volume anyway.

They brought back Penny, with all her memories completely intact.

This destroys one of the best pieces of writing in the show. Penny’s death was meant to symbolize the death of innocence in the show and it led in to the Fall of Beacon as well as Pyrrha’s death. Up until now, the show had been treating it as if a real girl had died. Vexed Viewer on YouTube has done a video on the topic that explains this better than I could. Even if they were going to bring Penny back in some way, she shouldn’t have been exactly the same as if nothing happened. Such as her memory of Vale (and everyone she met) being completely gone or her personality being significantly changed she isn’t even the same person anymore.

So, in this post I am going to be going over her history, role in the plot, and ‘successor’ for the Atlas Arc. 

Creation and History

Okay, slight can of worms, but if Doctor Polendina is black, why is his daughter one of the most obviously white characters of the cast?

Alright, there actually is a legitimate reason for that in this rewrite. Penny’s physical features are actually based on Pietro’s late wife Clara Polendina (reference to the Nutcracker ballet) who worked with her husband. The two were very much happy and in love, but Clara died in a Grimm attack before they could have children. Thus, Penny is basically the daughter Pietro never got to have with her. Clara won’t come up that much in the Rewrite, but she was close to both of her husband’s prized students Arthur Watts and Willow Schnee. Arthur would note the resemblance and bring it up during his final confrontation with the doctor (This is what you ruined my life for as well as countless others?! Clara would be ashamed.) Willow would also bring it up and notice the similarities in both Penny and her successor.

However, the Atlas military and Ironwood’s desires to build something like Penny is less heartwarming. There was the original desire of making stronger robots for mass production to protect humans that evolved into infiltration and espionage purposes. But James Ironwood would see Polendina’s plans and see an immense opportunity. A young woman who would never age or die. An individual that they would never have to worry about running away or disobeying orders. Such a person becoming a Maiden would mean that they would never have to worry about the transfer process ever again. That would explain why Penny said that it would be her job to save the world one day, but they don’t think she’s ready for it yet. She is Ironwood’s hope for the future of the Maidens. And just in case she isn’t perfected in time for the next transfer, Winter is being trained and kept in reserve. Ironwood would provide all of the materials Pietro could need, including a crystalized substance that no one knows much about other than it being a classified by the military. It’s source  will be noted in a spoiler’s section in this post, but it’s the very thing finally got things to work.

But while Pietro is aware something is up and suspicious of Ironwood’s intentions, he loves his little robot daughter regardless. There will be some flashbacks involving her first days awake (showing her curiosity and determination) as well as her bidding her father good bye when she leaves for the Vytal Festival. 

Vale

The only thing I’d really change about Penny in the Vale Arc is giving her more time to interact with the cast, especially Ruby. What we got was okay, but I think it would be much more impactful if Ruby got to spend more time with Penny before her death. I’d definitely like it if Penny would bring up her father during their conversations, saying she was sure that two of them would get along given how much Ruby likes weapons.

It might be also nice for Pyrrha to feel a little off by her sensing all the metal when they first meet, but not realize why or how important that is. Just bit of foreshadowing.

Pelia

So, as you might have guessed by now, Penny will stay dead in this Rewrite. With the kind of story and tone I’m working with, it’s important that there is legitimate consequences to events and actions of the characters. As such, characters who died will stay dead. They may be referenced, appear in flashbacks, haunt our characters’ dreams, perhaps having a spirit linger with unfinished business to help the main characters on their path, but there is no chance of resurrection.

Not that Pietro wasn’t thinking along the same lines as others had considering Penny is a robot. They did manage to retrieve her body and core, but when he managed to build a new body, reboot, and restart, it wasn’t Penny greeting him. Rather, it was a completely personality. And they did not recognize anything or anyone. Pietro was devastated.

Thus I introduce Pelia Polendina, or Pelly. This is reference to the Coppelia ballet that actually includes a toy inventor trying bring a doll to life that he calls a daughter, much like Pinocchio. Only instead of magic bringing a puppet to life, the inventor tries to bring Coppelia to life by stealing a human soul and putting it in the doll. Quite the dark contrast and is actually going to be a bit of foreshadowing. I will say her appearance is actually pretty similar to Penny’s redesign with longer hair, though I would picture her more similar to dishwasher 1910′s design in https://www.deviantart.com/dishwasher1910/art/penny3-0-SD-758463321 . Check them out on DeviantArt, their work is amazing.

Pelia is considerably different than Penny. Whereas Penny was bright, enthusiastic, and rather trusting; Pelly is subdued, talks very mechanically, and is significantly less naïve. While Penny longed to be a part of something greater and be with humans despite her lack of social skills, Pelly avoids most people and is afraid of what Atlas(and by extension Ironwood) wants with a robot like her. This is partly due to her finding about Penny and how the world reacted with the Fall of Beacon.

In regards to Penny, she feels rather guilty about being alive in her place though she doesn’t quite realize that’s what she is feeling. This would lead to her trying to find out everything she could on Penny to understand her emotions, learning about Ruby and the others in the process. Pietro is devastated by the loss and incredibly frustrated with her, not really considering her alive in the same way Penny was which given her personality isn’t that unreasonable to think. Pelia does care about her creator and tries to assist him in what ways she can, but his attitude towards her is not positive and as such she mostly stays out of his way.

Atlas

Pelia’s first proper appearance would be in the Atlas Arc when the group visits Doctor Polendina for weapons repairs after their meeting with Ironwood doesn’t go well and the good doctor isn’t the on the best terms with the General at present. The man is not pleased or in the mood to humor them, though he does defrost a little when Ruby shows her geeky know how on weapons. (He may have also said some rather terrible things about Pyrrha which made the group somewhat grateful JNR wasn’t there.) As the group leaves the building and goes on their way, Ruby looks up to the upstairs window as she feels she’s being watched. She doesn’t see anything, but as she turns and walks away Pelia comes into view from the window. Having recognized who the people who just visited were, Pelly sneaks out and follows the group in the secret for a while.

She finally gets revealed while the group is watching Weiss dance ballet at a Mantle Community Theater. The Atlas Arc is primarily Weiss centric and part of her Arc in proving herself as worthy of the Schnee name will have her prove herself to people of Mantle. One such instance will have her helping out at the community theatre in learning and teaching dance. It’s in which she is showing off her skills Pelia accidentally reveals herself to the group having been incredibly entranced in ballet (little show to her inspiration). Ruby at first mistakes her for Penny so she gets very emotional, only to temper down when she realizes Pelia’s not her. The situation is cleared up and the group gets more insight into the situation of Atlas as well as the strain between the General and Pietro.

Pelia has three distinct dynamics of interactions with the group: Ruby on Penny, Weiss and Winter on siblings, and Oscar on succession. With Ruby, Pelia gets to know more about Penny as a person and Ruby gets a chance to fully process her loss. Pelia’s not Penny, but she comes to appreciate her all the same. Ruby also comes up with Yang in regards to sibling interactions, but Pelia’s focus in this case is more on the Schnee siblings. She’s basically wondering what sisters act like and whether Penny would have seen her as a sister. This lets her get some ballet lessons from Weiss as well as close to Winter. Then there’s her relationship with Oscar with the two of them having to deal with their predecessors and the problems they’ve let them to deal with. The both of them come to realize through talking with each other is that they shouldn’t compare themselves to those who came before. They have their own views and ways of doing things different from their predecessors and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The only thing they can do is do things the best THEY can.

The big turning point in the Atlas Arc for Pelia is when Pietro finds out abut the Winter Maiden and what Ironwood’s original plans were.  While I am majorly rewriting the Atlas Arc, I do actually like the idea of an old Winter Maiden who is on her last legs. Pietro doesn’t get all the details of course, but it gives him the idea that the magic could bring Penny back to life. Aside from the whole ‘Dead means dead’ world I’m working with, it’s also a way to show that magic that cannot bring back the dead. I know that’s very much true in the show though not directly stated, but here I want to lay the ground rules down on what magic is and is not capable of.

After being called back by Pietro and assisting him in breaking into the facility where the transfer is soon to take place, the two enter the room that was originally prepped for Winter (who is distracted with everyone else on things going wrong due to Pietro’s interference) with the old woman in the pod. Pietro has explained things and orders Pelia to get in the other pod. Pelia doesn’t move, having been conflicted during this entre plan which shows all over her face. The doctor orders again, much firmer this time.  A few moments pass as she thinks it over; fear, doubt, determination all playout in her expressions. Finally, she speaks. “No.”

While Pelia may have been built to be a weapon, she still has free will. Unlike Penny who accepted her role without many doubts, Pelia rejects that her only purpose is to be someone’s tool of war. She wants to help others, but she doesn’t want to fight. I think that if you bring choice into a story as a main theme, you also have to give the characters the choice not to fight, to walk away even if they don’t actually do it. Above all, Pelia doesn’t think that sacrificing others for herself is what Penny would have wanted after having met Ruby and gotten to know what she was like. 

She would tell this to Pietro, who would get furious and argue with her. this would continue until they were interrupted by Watts. Watts, with revenge on the brain, would focus on Doctor Polendina and tell Pelia to run along. I know this seems a little hypocritical for Watts to do this considering his advice to Cinder in Volume 5, but this a different situation. Spoilers for the future Atlas Arc Rewrite and future James Ironwood post, go to the next paragraph if you don’t want spoilers. You see, the villains don’t need the Winter Maiden to open the Vault for them because Ironwood already took the Relic of Creation out of the Vault years ago (and is NOT holding up Atlas). In fact, a bit of the power from the staff was used to create Penny  which was the the crystalized substance. Watts knows this due to his hacking Ironwood’s system and has already retrieved the Relic and sent it on the way to Salem. This will make the results in Atlas a lot more bittersweet: our heroes will win on the people’s side of things, but lose the Relic. Back to Watts, the man is all about efficiency. While the Winter Maiden’s powers would be nice, they don’t have a vessel for it at the moment and it’s not necessary for their primary goal. Once the business side of things is taken care of, then he’ll indulge in revenge.

Pelia, while conflicted, would run and get to the group to tell them everything. She would then spend the rest of the conflicting helping to escort and treat the wounded, giving her a presence to the people of Atlas. Pietro will be arrested and will be convicted for his crimes, Watts dead but having gotten the last laugh in the end with his technological abilities exposing his teacher and those who left him out to dry.

Once everything is settled, Pelly will stay behind in Atlas as the new right hand of new Headmistress Winter Schnee. Basically, she becomes the Glynda to Winter’s Ozpin (though Winter is a much more hands on no nonsense person). She bids the group goodbye, hoping to Ruby that they will meet again.

After Atlas

I don’t have much in mind for Pelia after the Atlas Arc except for two things. Firstly, that she and Pietro do eventually reconcile and develop something of a relationship when she visits him in prison on her off days. (Jacques is not so lucky in regards to his children.)

The second is when she and Winter will meet everyone at the lowest point of the story. Ruby will have learned some pretty dark truths, including some choices her mother made that’s really made her think. Pelia will actually have a similar conversation with Ruby that she had with Oscar. In how she’s no more Penny than Ruby is Summer. She’ll remark that perhaps Ruby put her mother on a bit too much of a pedestal thanks to the way her family viewed her. When in reality Summer was just a person and people make mistakes. Right now, what choices Summer made in the past aren’t what matters. What matters is what Ruby wants to do now.

Okay, I think I started before the coronavirus stuff went crazy. I am so sorry. Not sure when I’ll get beck to this.

However, I know the next subject is going to quite the doozy...

[dahniwitchoflight]

Homesquared Chapter 4

I cheated and some of my chapter 4 thoughts leaked into the chapter 3 post lol

Mostly about the pretty obvious Garden of Eden metaphor Dirk is for some reason setting up for himself and Rose as Adam and Eve

and I was about to say which begs the question of what the heck role Terezi is supposed to play as but then it’s very obviously as the Snake in the Garden

Terezi is very much just barely holding back some irritation towards how Dirk is treating Rose, but she’s also very intelligent and is aware of How much Dirk sees/knows and controls about their situation, so she’s probably leveraging her powers over Mind as much as possible in order to stay hidden in plain sight from Dirk’s narrative

and she does so in a way that is one of Dirk’s only blindspots - How Mind and other people have an effect in the determination of the Soul/Heart

By acting in a manner and doing things in a way that aligns with his expectations of her, he assumes and pigeonholes her into a type of character and bases his predictions of her behaviors off of that archtype, never expecting her to act outside it, and when he sees her actions and thoughts and desires all align within it, never questions that it might one day change or was different all along. Dirk’s never really been good at reading other people, can’t see without the lens of “how would I do it” blinding him to things he would never think to do, a trap that he keeps falling into with his friends and one he’s probably trying to overcome by becoming Ultimate God Person/combining all perspectives into his own and uncovering blindspots like that

But right now Mind is the darkest thing in is corner still and I think he sort of knows that as well

Terezi walks the crazy wiggled line boundary between their two Souls that defines who each of them is, as expertly as a person on a tightrope, never wavering until she reaches her destination, at which point she’ll leap off of that line and leave Dirk scrambling to try and calculate her next move/who exactly is she/what her goals are, since’s it won’t be following the clearly defined Heart boundary he’s used to drawing his plans by, so she’ll have to choose the perfect moment in order to entice Eve of the Apple of Revelation once more, heck, she might even do that so sneakily that she gets Adam to take a bite as well, since as soon as Rose bites it she’ll have an ally with her against Dirk.

For God created the Serpent originally as well, so thus why did he not imagine it’s betrayal and prevent it before it could have happened? Or else why did he create something he knew was going to betray? Eden was a paradise, so why intentionally create Evil in that paradise?

If Eve corrupted Adam and the Snake corrupted Eve, Who exactly corrupted the first Serpent? That’s something that the bible never goes into really, at least in Genesis, except to say that the Snake was punished for it’s action to forever crawl the earth eating the dust of man’s heel, punishing all snakes, as Adam and Eve’s punishment punished all humans

(Later I think the bible would try to say that the Snake was the Devil all along, but then why punish the Snake and all it’s progeny for it? If it was the Devil’s doing that undid Adam and Eve then why punish them for the Devil’s actions they would have no way of guarding against or now way of knowing it was a lie? Was it not God’s failure? The Walls of the Garden of Eden were supposed to protect his perfect creation afterall)

Gotta say though I really Rose’s design

I would call her Evil Rose, but she things she does she does in ignorance, not really out of evil, it would be like calling Eve evil for listening to the Snake when she was purposefully blinded to it’s intentions by her creation by God.

Once again we get this idea of Knowledge and Choice affecting eachother, Well I say again but really I’ve been watching RWBY a lot lately and the idea that you can’t make a real choice without real knowledge comes up a lot in it’s mythos and it is really applicable here

Terezi’s design as well is incorporating a lot more Red, she really dug those red shoes aesthetic but gave it her own twist, she’s got a red tie, her ever present red cane and glasses and even in that shot of her her horns look more red and solid as well, even though i know it’s just the lighting

So really digging the whole Terezi is the Apple/Snake in the Garden metaphor, she has also been having that tendency to just snack on random plants, intentionally for her own or Dirk’s unaware benefit or not, it’ll make it that much easier to her actions of later betrayal to be seen as “in character and therefore expected and not dangerous” instead of pre-meditated and actually dangerous, to him

And then they start waxing about their various philosophical babble, Dirk seems really determined to also use this to try and figure out that whole problem of how other’s affect the self, he’s trying at least, I think, in his own way. But not for a good reason, not so that he can have a real understanding of that, but because he wants to use it to guard his own self even further

He’s maybe not using Rose here as an equal player, but more like a wall to bounce his own ideas off of and test them, like using a neural learning AI to test ideas or an actual literal wall in a game of table tennis.

Heh, I got a chuckle out of the fact that Dirk’s answer to the Ship of Theseus problem is “why does we even have to remove and replace parts of it, why not keep the original pristine and eternal?”

because it’s funny how avoidant of the problem that answer is, man he really really is uncomfortable with the idea of changing the self in any way

“He's avoiding the question again. It's amazing how one can technically have the maximum amount of metaphysical personal awareness possible, and still not notice these sorts of things. “

SAYS LITERALLY YOU but honestly this is just more fuel to the idea that maybe he can make a genuine connection and understanding with a person if he can recognize how he and her are the same

“It's stuff like this that makes me wonder sometimes whether there's anything about myself that I'm missing. Then I throw that wonder in the garbage can and turn the incinerate setting on.”

but nah he’s still firmly denying that possibility, he’s almost actually equating his trauma of self erosion with the idea that making friends and understanding others changes the self in subtle ways as well

He can’t even stand the thought of his own close friends influencing him to be different in small subtle ways or adjusting his behavior for others because that STILL counts as a change of self that he didn’t authorize or choose. 

Also can’t help but by be reminded of my wacky little fan made Gamma session I made forever ago by them using the name Delta-Detritus and basically be like alright, what if we do SBURB again but BETTER/worse this time?? Which is essentially the thread that most Homestuck fix it fanfiction tends to go towards

Though I am curious now

We got A/Alpha for Alternia which is based of off “Alternate” introducing the trolls as an alternate race to Human Earth

B/Beta for Beforus which is based of off “Before” introducing the planet of trolls that came before the first group

And then Earth C, now, there isn’t a letter C, the third in the greek alphabet is actually Γγ Gamma, (and the fourth is  ΔδDelta)

So I wonder what “name” Earth C really has?

It feels like it should either start with C OR with GA, as Alternia starts with the AL of Alpha, Beforus starts with the BE of Beta and same with Deltritus and Delta

As as “Another for Earth” Gaia isn’t a terrible option all things considered, now you just have to make it sound like a word which describes it’s use to the narrative

It’s is a very split place, having the two timelimes Meat and Candy associated with it, as well it does feel extremely mercurial in nature, being a sort of crosswords between Homestuck and Homesquared proper, and really exists in a place between stories, an ephemeral epilogue of sorts

really a merger of Gaia and Gemini feels the most appropriate here, like Gamini, also the word mini stands out in there as well, knowing that this Planet is sort of on a lesser status compared to the other three since it’s not going to be the birthplace of a session, also has the word Game in it

But then people will wonder why it doesn’t begin with a C since it still is called Earth C so *shrug*  

Honestly C K and G sounds are all very similar in the tongue, so maybe it’s both Camini and Gamini at the same time OH FUCK CA AND GA, ONE HAS CALLIOPE ONE HAS GAMZEE? SHIT IM ONTO SOMETHING (no im not)

I like Camini now better, it comes from a place of Gamma/Gamzee/Game/Gemini but ends up being more about the twinned Ca’s that were used to, Caliborn and Calliope and fits with the establish Earth C theme

So there you go, Earth C’s actual planet name should be Camini 

which also works because: 

Camini

home stove/furnace

smelting/foundry furnace, forge

vent (underground fires)

according to the latin language this word also has multiple meanings and many Irons in the Fire, I think the fandom will appreciate the name haha

Yeah both races are definitely going to both be playing one game of SBURB, despite what Dirk is intending, the pic does make it really clear

There’s something to say how Dirk seems to be represented by Purple and Rose by Orange in this here and then how all of the cave is a backdrop of that same purple.

Look at even the controllers on the machine having purple and orange knobs, even being solely on Dirk’s side of the image

I guess Dirk intends himself to be the force behind Derse, since that’s the force that always “wins” and Rose fitting in her place as the ultimate loser (since of course Dirk will want to win his own game) but also to be like Skaia the force of Prospit

So Dirk intends to be a whisperer like a horrorterror, choosing to manifest his influence that way, while Rose will give visions to her race like Skaia?

makes sense honestly

but again even with the themes of duality, the theme of the trio is bright and center in that piece of ultimately technology, the third influence hidden unseen in the furthest corner behind the curtain of snakelike tubes and wires that Dirk will not expect to interfere, or even have the capability to interfere, Terezi

heck it’s even in the buttons next to the controls being colored red blue and green

there’s so much duality in homestick with destructive red and creative green but then there’s also always been that mercurial breathy blue as the third

God, tell me that doesn’t look like a baby proto horrorterror

I can hear it raging it’s revenge against it’s cruel human creators even as I type

No wonder they become associated with destruction, they know theyre the pawns of two heartless cruel god children playing at life like it was a game

Rose you MUST KNOW how bad this is, it’s not a theoretical discussion anymore, that things exists and is alive and has feelings and you did it to that

and that thing is technically a Dirk too

Is this how Dirk get’s his revelation? Or downfall? As his Heart is unwittingly invaded by the horrified cacophanous screams of his grotesque tortured progeny crying out for his blood?

His end unintentionally ending up as the thing he feared most? Inner self destruction caused by his own sharp and bloody splinters turned and pointed inward, tearing himself apart with the pieces of his own Soul? Caused by his own Hubris?

I will say typing that all out is pretty good

I’m just sad the same will probably happen to Rose too though ): Maybe she’ll make careful more humane species? Something that has the potential to exist and be happy as it’s own creature while Dirk just creates monstrosities forever in conflict with Rose’s race?

They’ll each be the master of their own eventually destinies I suppose but Homestuck seems to have a good track record so far of the Ultimate Female Creator being out to protect the happiness of the children that exist in her creation while the Ultimate Male God just ends up destroying everything in his

[bondsmagii]

I mean to ask this genuinely, no hostility, but can you explain how you correlate scp to being in a cult? I dont disagree, I just cant articulate the reasoning as to why I dont disagree, and would like to see where youre coming from with this. Also, could you tag it with cults or cult discussion or something similar, please? Thanks! Have a good day.

OK [cracks knuckles] I will try and keep this as short as possible, but you have to understand I’ve been observing the wiki in the wild literally since its inception, so there is a lot of stuff to consider. anyway let’s buckle up.

[EDIT: after finishing, this is obnoxiously long. sorry. I encourage people to read it though, because yikes.]

I base this theory on a set of guidelines set out for spotting if an organisation might be a cult. generally cults are religiously based; obviously this does not apply here. as far as I’m aware, nobody sees the SCP wiki as a religion (yet). because of this a couple of the points regarding spotting a cult are irrelevant (they concern things like separation from the Church which obviously doesn’t apply) but nearly all of the others (even some religious ones) can apply if we provide context. so without further ado:

Signs You’re In A Cult and How the SCP Wiki Literally Fits Into All of Them

let’s start with the most obvious:

opposing critical thinking

something that has long pissed me off about the SCP wiki has been its complete inability to think critically. staff will literally ban people for criticising them, and the parameters of “criticism” have only grown wider and wider over the years. anything that is the “party line” is sacred; nothing can be improved upon because it’s already perfect, and Staff Knows Best. any policy changes are law, and any dissenting voices are silenced – even among younger staff members (length of service wise, not age wise). I have seen staff put on probation or demoted for arguing against pointless or pedantic policy changes; I have seen people of all levels banned for arguing with staff. if this doesn’t happen right away, arguing with staff over their decisions will absolutely get a target on your back, and they will find a way to ban or demote you as soon as they can.

any criticism on the wiki is frowned upon unless it comes from the Major Staff Members – these are people at the top of the hierarchy who can do no wrong, and as you can imagine, they’ve done some shit. staff has always had a problem with elitism, bullying, and even abusive behaviour (blah blah blah #NotAllStaff, but the ratio is quite concerning) and any criticism of their behaviour or even pointing this fact out is dangerous if you want to remain on the wiki. hell, I know many people who are aware of this who don’t speak up because they’re genuinely scared of retaliation. a lot of staff are really nasty people, and because of this attitude they are beyond criticism.

isolating members and penalising them for leaving

the penalising them for leaving part isn’t strictly accurate, because as far as I know, nobody has ever been bullied or threatened into staying on the wiki. however, I do remember a while back (2011/2012-ish) when the Foundation RP community began to show up on Tumblr, and the wiki began to get a fanbase that wasn’t contained on the site itself. staff were not happy about this and to this day they still constantly try and get a monopoly on all off-site locations. they have an official Offsite Outreach Team (yes, that’s its real name) who “reach out” to communities on other platforms (YouTube, Reddit, Tumblr, etc) and set up an Official Presence there, and then they encourage everyone to use the Official Presence rather than the fan-made ones (which are often more established and better/more consistently run). there have been several off-site spats between staff and the fandom, because they arrive demanding the authority and respect they have on the wiki and get Big Mad when they don’t get it. just recently one (now ex) staff member, djkaktus, went absolutely primal on Reddit and banned a whole bunch of the community for daring to say that they didn’t like the new LGBT logo for pride month (many of these people were LGBT themselves and felt as though it was pandering/putting targets on their backs); several more years ago (2014, I believe?) I myself had a run in with the Outreach Team and it was one fucking hell of a headache that ended in a malicious smear campaign against me, so like. yeah.

as for isolating members, they do this via elitism. the above is an example of it (making everyone feel a sense of obligation or loyalty to the Official Presence), but a huge part of it has always been the elitist attitude prevalent on the wiki. the SCP wiki has high standards for writing (allegedly… I’ve seen some garbage on there tbh, same as any other website) and it uses this to bully and demean its users. criticism of writing is overly harsh but highly encouraged; anyone complaining that it was too cruel (which it often is) is ridiculed for being too sensitive. (staff have been working on this for years, but really nothing has changed; people have just gotten more between-the-lines about it.) this encourages a kind of desperation among new users to “rise up the ranks” and earn respect so they can be the ones dishing out the criticism instead; they will do so and then immediately act in accordance to their status, bullying others how they were bullied and sticking to their own “rank”. brief interruption: staff and bootlickers if you’re reading this and thinking of reblogging to defend yourself, the code word is yeet. if I do not see the word yeet in your reply I will know you have not read this thoroughly and tell me why I should then bother reading anything you have to say.staff themselves is incredibly removed and closed off from the rest of the community; they have a bunch of private chat rooms they hang out in, and inter-dating is common. they don’t tend to interact much outside the flock, and are the definition of cliquey. joining this rank is supposed to be an achievement, but really it’s probably the most dangerous place to be. I have seen so many staff members have literal, clinical mental breakdowns over the strain and treatment they suffer.

(there’s nowhere to neatly slot this in, so: I don’t know how many people have noticed this, but SCP fans, when you spot them on other platforms, are snooty. not casual fans, but those involved with the wiki? I can spot them from a mile away, because whenever the Foundation is mentioned, there they are, acting like they’re part of some cool club. some of these people are innocent (they’re just mimicking the behaviour of other members) but some of them really do seem to think that their site is somehow better than whatever site they’re on, and it’s really creepy to see.)

emphasising special doctrines outside of scripture

obviously this is religion-specific, but with context it can fit. if we take scripture to mean SCP lore, and special doctrines to mean differing headcanons, ideas, writing styles, etc… oh boy.

there’s something that’s often said on the wiki: there is no canon. buddy, there is. yes, you can write whatever you want technically, and you can disregard headcanons you don’t like and you can build on different things and theoretically people can just ignore your shit if they don’t like it, but that is not what happens. there is absolutely a canon, and deviating from it will get you downvoted into oblivion and even personally attacked. people will accuse you of the most ridiculous shit, like desecrating the wiki or betraying the universe or whatever. so where does the emphasising part of this come in?

why, it’s simple! if one of these special doctrines (headcanons or whatever) comes from staff or an Approved Member, it’s fine. go nuts. even if it’s something that anybody else would be absolutely slaughtered for, it’s fine if staff approves. there is no creative freedom on that wiki, and anyone attempting to carve a piece out for themselves will suffer for it. one of my close friends still gets hate for an SCP he wrote featuring heavy headcanons and building on existing lore about a well-known character, and some of this hate is because he didn’t set the fucking article out “how it should be”. 

seeking inappropriate loyalty to their leaders

oh boy. staff are god on that website. they’ll deny it, but they know it’s true. many of them are arrogant and, in my opinion, some of them are pathologically narcissistic. they think they are hot shit, and they encourage people on the site to believe the same. a huge majority of users on the wiki are high school students, so 15-18 years old. the next huge group are college-aged, so 19-22 or so. several staff members are in their mid-20s up to 30s, maybe even coming 40s or early 40s now. when you’re in your mid-20s, it’s very easy to look cool to a 15-year-old. it’s very easy to look at a young userbase and convince them that you’re hot shit, and that’s what staff do. they act like it; most users respond to it, and if anyone dissents? see point one.

staff have always had double standards. from the very beginning of staff, they have gotten away with a lot more than the average user. staff have been allowed to bully, ridicule, harass, dismiss, shit upon, and target people with reckless abandon, usually only meeting punishment when other staff members feel too inconvenienced by them. a lot of the time when they’re punished, it’s a lot lighter than it would have been for an average user (a month ban rather than a permaban, for example). this is seen as almost a point of hilarity for a lot of people, who think it’s cool and just a right you get when you’re staff. you know best, you’ve seen some shit – who can blame you for slamdunking a 15-year-old’s first SCP?

the amount of respect and adoration these people demand is ridiculous, and anybody daring to criticise them ends up on a shitlist. staff show up in other areas (Tumblr or Reddit) and expect that same amount of respect, even among people outside of the wiki who might just be casual fans. they act a lot more important than they are, and demand that everyone treats them appropriately. I’ve seen staff members throw shitfits because they didn’t get enough upvotes for their articles, and many staff members’ quality of work declines when they make staff, simply because they know that they’ll get easy upvotes as soon as people realise it’s a staff member who wrote it. downvotes are enough to get you put on a shitlist. 

publicly, their word is law. you are not allowed to debate with them in the forums if they put a “stop” on the topic; the same applies in the IRC chat. if staff says “stop”, you will be punished if you mention it again. you are allowed to discuss it with them privately, but I think that’s rather insidious, as staff have been known to twist facts and withhold information before. this gives them a public persona of always being right – and something else that cults do is silence dissenting voices so nobody who might agree can see other people saying the same things and feel encouraged/emboldened. 

crossing Biblical boundaries of behaviour

again, we’ll need to contextualise this. if Biblical boundaries are things like sins and all the stuff the Bible says Do Not Do, then in this context these are the wiki rules. staff (and their friends) will constantly cross the rules, as previously mentioned, and they will get away with it.

the wiki rules say “don’t be a dick”. I have caught staff bullying people countless times, and no doubt there’s more I haven’t caught. even out in the open, staff are argumentative, dismissive, rude, intimidating, and oftentimes plain nasty. the wiki rules say “don’t coldpost articles; get feedback”. staff is just out there throwing their shit onto the wiki and expecting an avalanche of upvotes in five minutes Or Else. policies are made that set parameters and staff changes them whenever convenient – for example, the long-standing rule that things that occur off-site are not the responsibility of the Disciplinary Committee (yes, its name.). unless, of course, it’s someone they don’t like. a major staff member bullies somebody on Tumblr? “sorry, it was offsite, not our problem”. someone staff doesn’t like gets into a brief spat on Reddit? banned for harassment. 

there are countless examples of this, from small things to major things like bullying, harassment, and even abuse (or enabling of abuse). staff will punish people for transgressions and then turn a blind eye to a fellow staff member committing a transgression that was ten times worse. they have even protected rapists and sexual predators in the past – another kind of behaviour common in cults, because that’s what happens when you combine narcissism and entitlement with total authority.

that’s the main bulk of it

but now the context has been established, here are a few more concerning things I’ve noticed (quickfire now):

cults shit on former members

and the wiki does the same. any staff member that’s grown fed up of the groupthink and the cliquey attitude and how nasty people are or who has been mistreated by staff themselves; any regular user who feels the same and vocally quits? shat upon. lauded as a bastion of whatever is wrong with the wiki. declared an Enemy and rallied against. it is so creepy.

cults use Us vs Them mentality, especially in language

broad declarations establishing a community and a community spirit in the face of adversity are common in cults. appeals to emotion and loyalty are used in a very manipulative way. catastrophising and fearmongering is common, too. I’m seeing this in how the recent drama with the legal issues is being handled. broad appeals to “defend the wiki”, hashtags being encouraged, emotional speeches from staff about how it’s a make or break situation… 

…and this is being reflected in the absolutely insane comments people are responding with.

this is a fucking writing website. the above is not a normal reaction at all.

the attitudes of regular users quickly grow concerning

people very quickly get obsessed with the wiki and it defines their lives. they seem to feel as though they owe something to it or they need to serve some kind of a purpose; many people try and “get the word out” and become voluntary spokespeople. they go around practically preaching, and I do not see the users of any other website doing this.

cults want full control over how they’re seen by outsiders

and the scp wiki does the same. as mentioned previously, when the fandom grew and spiralled off the wiki to other sites, staff debated for weeks over what to do. brief interruption the second code is shrek is life.they were not comfortable with the idea of the wiki having an independent fandom, and for years now they have been in constant struggle with offsite communities, trying to gain the same amount of control they have over the wiki. it’s impossible to do so thoroughly, and it’s clearly an annoyance for them.

cult leaders will let “lesser” members do their dirty work for them

and guess what staff does? rather than wade in there and get their hands dirty with internet arguments, they’ll sit back and let regular users dogpile on dissenters and say all the things staff shouldn’t be seen to say in public. note how even if this would violate the bullying policies, they’ll just get a warning so long as staff agrees. 

in conclusion

@ everyone on the scp wiki: yall know you’re in a cult, right?