#there are legit critiques to be made but this one doesn’t hold water

[lauransoverthinking]

I’m so confused by the Tales of the Jedi commentary re: the things Dooku says about the Jedi being how the creators feel about the Jedi…. People. Please. The final scene of his arc is him hanging out with the big bad. He is not the hero here.

He is the protagonist, but not the hero. That is an incredibly important distinction.

If Dooku is the one who said it, you should be INCREDIBLY SUSPICIOUS OF IT.

None of this was Dooku gives voice to the thoughts of the creator. It was don’t believe the shit the villain tells you. We are literally watching this person fall. His takes are hot garbage. His narration is unreliable.

[greyliliy]

Paper Mario: The Origami King

I loved Paper Mario: The Origami King. A lot. It's my first Paper Mario game and it is an understatement to say that I adored it. Enough so that I want to write a full review on my thoughts for the entire game. o-o It’s been so long since I’ve felt the need to do that and it feels good. It feels so good. T-T

So let’s do this. :D This is going to be a long one, and I’ll probably put the cut right before I start talking about individual chapters. Hopefully before that there are no major spoilers, but afterwards its’ a free for all discussion. So spoilers will be present! :D

A Brief History of my Relationship With Paper Mario

I saw an Arlo video talking about it when I was randomly browsing videos on his channel (I found him for something else believe or not) and I think that was the first time I even realized this franchise existed. Lol. (Which is funny because I have a Wii U and Paper Mario: Color Splash was like the last big game for that console).

I was curious so I browsed the Paper Mario Reddit and watched his Color Splash reviews and got interested in the series.

I ended starting to watch play throughs of Thousand Year Door (where I am mostly through the game? The players just finished the area where you get Vivian) and Color Splash (where I am halfway through the game maybe?).

My opinion on both games: They both look fine. TYYD has it’s good points. Color Splash has its good points. I feel like I would be irritated by random battles in both of them, no matter the combat methods. Lol.

But honestly I leaned more toward Color Splash because I love the Paper Aesthetic. Good story + Paper Themed World = My jam.

Which  means that first Origami King trailer smacked me in the face because it looked like I’d be getting both. I preordered the game as soon as I saw the trailer and it did not disappoint. Lol.

General Stuff

The Good: The characters! I adored all of them. Every character, whether generic minion or unique, was bursting with fun dialogue and moments that made me smile. Olivia was precious. I want an Origami Olly to put in my room (I love him so much) and the Legion of Stationary was surprisingly fleshed out. They were easily my favorite bosses in the game, which was a surprise after all the teasing they got in the trailers. Lol.

Plus: LUIGI. Oh my gosh. He’s amazing in this game. XD

The Music doesn’t need my praise. Everyone has praised the music in this game and it deserves it. Every. Single. Track. Is the greatest and I love this soundtrack. I’m listening to it right now (Where can I buy this Nintendo. TELL ME).

I also really enjoyed the battles. It had a nice blend of Turn Based & Overworld Action, keeping things mixed up and fresh. I wasn’t great at some of the combat (Which I’ll talk about below in the chapter by chapter section) but the game makes stuff easier if you fail too much...which I appreciated. LOL.

Oh. And the Confetti thing. I liked it. Filling holes with confetti was satisfying in a nice completionism way. It was kinda soothing, too, and it was nice to physically repair the world in addition to trying to save it in general.

The Critique: The game needed more time with Olly. I’m not just saying that as someone who loved him, I’m saying it as a story miss. We see Olly at the beginning. And we see him for like two seconds at a time between chapters to half-handedly ask Olivia to join him, and then...the final boss fight. One or two cut-away scenes showing what Olly and Peach were doing between the Streamer Banners would have been great and done wonders for fleshing out the story.

The Combat: Opinions on this have been highly mixed. Specifically, I have noticed a large crowd saying the combat is too easy; they line everything up on the first turn and kill everything on the first turn and then they’re drowning in coins so there’s no point to battle.

And then there’s Me: I rarely got the puzzle right on the first turn, which means I didn't get the bonus coins, and I usually burned through weapons and faster since I didn’t get the “Great Line Up!” on the first turn bonus. So I was...constantly fight enemies for coins (Stuff gets expensive in this game) and using them to get help from the Toads.

So when I got puzzles right on the first turn, I felt super accomplished. Lol. I did eventually get better at them (and used one of the help items from the Battle Toad) and was beating them in one turn 60% of the time. So while I really enjoyed the puzzle turn-based battles, I can see how some would get tired and bored of them.

I think a difficulty setting might fix the wildly different experiences with this. The puzzles get much tricker later, so if you’re solving even those too fast--the game could have given you harder stuff to solve.

Though it is sort of funny. If you do well at puzzles, you get a ton of extra bonus coins. But if you’re good at the puzzles, you don’t need those coins since coins are mostly spent on “Getting help for puzzles.” Which the people who are bad at puzzles need but don’t get...fun times.

Boss battles, however, were mostly scripted and I’ll talk about those in detail in the spoiler section below. XD

The Game

Okay! Let’s get into the meat and talk about each Streamer Section individually. o-o Whoooooooo. I’m glad the Game8 Wiki has a nice layout for me to reference. XD

Prologue

This is when I knew I was going to love the game. Luigi is adorable. Origami Peach is every bit as creepy as the trailer promised. And Olly stealing the castle was great. :D

The Red Streamer

This entire streamer is a tutorial. I can see how that could get irritating if you don’t like Olivia holding you hand (and I have seen many complain about it), but this is the only chapter where she does that. 

Which I understand. Every streamer follows the same sort of pattern (explore two or more themed areas to open up a path to a temple, beat a temple, beat a Vellumental, go clear the boss building/area, fight the Stationary Boss). Giving the audience a clear how-to guide to get through an entire Streamer Chapter isn’t the worst.

Plus Olivia is adorable and I used X to talk to her all the time, whether I needed the hint or not. Lol.

Whispering Woods

The mini story with the trees and the the little Toad camp ground are cute. I was surprised that I had to back track here later in the game a few times. XD

Toad Town

The hub world! Here you can find the Museum (which has all the fast travel pipes), the Battle Practice area (which if you visit 3x will give you items to make the Ring battles easier), and the shop (please remember to actually use your membership card you get from here and don’t be like me who paid 24,000 coins in the late game for a collectible when I could have had it HALF OFF but I forgot to equip the membership card).

It also features: A cool Graffiti area I need to visit again because I heard it gets more art as you progress through the game, many Macho Gumbas to beat, the Docks, a Toad that’ll tell you what Power Up Hearts you are missing, more fast travel options, and a great scene with Luigi that kick-starts his sub-story as he hunts for Princess Peach’s Castle Key.

Picnic Road & Overlook Mountain

So many hidden Toads. Everywhere. XD It’s a very lovely area, but again, since this is a tutorial-ish Streamer there isn’t much there aside from enemies to practice fighting and a lot of examples of how Toads hide (including in the ground, in walls, as folded origami, on the other end of small over world puzzles, etc.)

Earth Elemental Temple & Fight

I loved the lead up to this Temple. The fake Koopa one with the small tour boxes was so great. It was funny, cute, and I loved that the fake Temple Tour ended with a real Temple.

The fight was easy (again...tutorial streamer) but I still messed up a few times. Lol. It took me a while to get the hang of the boss rings (and I kid you not, it was like five streamers in before I realized you could move the boss ring panels front and back in addition to rotating the rings).

Olivia turning into a Vellumental was a huge surprise. I’m not sure how I feel about it as a whole, but they use her transforming powers the entire game, so it’s thematically appropriate.

Overlook Tower & Colored Pencils

Fighting your way up the tower to get to the boss was fun. I loved the elevator bits & the drawings everywhere (Colored Pencils drew Olly!!!).

It was a very nice introduction to the future “Boss Building before the Fight” that you’ll face in every Streamer.

Also Colored Pencils having a personality was such a delight that I couldn’t help but grin. Legit, the Legion of Stationary are some of my favorite characters and I’m amazing at how much life and personality they shoved into these office supplies.

I’m sad they die afterwards though. T-T

But with the Red Streamer done, the game stops holding your hand and the game really gets going. :P

The Blue Streamer

One word: Bobby.

It’s fun having the second world be your favorite in the game. Lol. But it just hit all the right beats and made a great impact.

Autumn Mountain

Very pretty area. Lets you get to know Bob-omb (aka “Bobby” as Olivia likes to call him) and his personality as you explore a gorgeous, autumn area. Lots of warm colors and great music tracks. It had a few frustrating areas with the stupid falling Chestnuts (oh my gosh how long did it take me to figure out I needed to hit the wall to break it lol), but overall a good area.

Water Vellumental

I cheated on the slide puzzles. I’ll admit it. I paid the coins to have the Temple solve its own puzzles. LOL.

Years of playing Zelda made me terrified of a Water based Temple but it wasn’t that bad aside from the slide puzzles. A very lovely temple with a great design.

The boss fight was one of the easier ones, but I was still getting the hang of figuring out the pathing for boss fights so it took me a while to figure out how to execute the things I wanted to do (I figured out early I had to use Olivia’s Earth Vellumental form to avoid the Water Attack, but I wasn’t so good at lining u the On Button and the Magic Circles to do it lol).

Eddy River

Lord this was annoying. I missed one of the Holes to fill with confetti and that was the moment were I was like “I will never 100% this game” because the thought of going down that river again made me go “No.” XD

Shogun Studios

I loved running around this amusement park. There were puzzles and character interactions everywhere. (So many item trades between NPCs lol) and the Ninja Mansion was fun. Even if I had to do it twice because I missed Luigi the first time around...

Big Sho’ Theatre & Rubber Band

This was amazing.

Riding the up the tower in the audience seats. The captured Toad audience. The paper Macho actors. The different stage plays. Rubber Band yelling in the background before showing up as the Diva they are.

The Rubber Band fight was also a blast. I figured out the trick immediately and had a great time wrecking that boss. XD

It was fun. The Rubber Band Tower & Fight are easily my 2nd favorite Boss Area and Fight in the game.

Sweetpaper Valley to Breezy Tunnel

I know this area is technically part of the Yellow Streamer, but it feels like an interlude section, so I’m putting it in its own section.

I will admit, I had this part of the game spoiled for me. I knew about what happened to Bobby and I was like “Really. The game’s going to go there.”

And it did.

When you get to the Valley, Olly drops a bolder on Olivia and Bobby’s like “I know how to fix this.”

He takes you on an awesome adventure through the Princess Peach Cruise Ship that involves an incredible Macho Battle on the boat and the retrieval of a special item, and then when you get back...

Bob-omb saves Olivia.

The death of Bobby itself wasn’t the sad part. Honestly it was a little funny because the bolder explodes into a bunch of confetti that Mario picks up as he walks through it.

The sad part is Olivia.

When she realizes what happened to Bobby and runs away. Ug. Sitting with her in the dark as she sobs. Her grief. It’s so sad in the best way. And then Bobby! Bobby tells you to cheer her up and man.

That tiny “That’s not fair” she says to Mario when he makes her laugh? That’s the spot that got me teary eyed for the first time in the game.

It’s so good and it solidified this game as an all time favorite. Even if the rest of the game was horrible, it can’t take that scene away.

The Yellow Streamer

The. Music. This area has my favorite music. Every track is such a jazzy, awesome beat and I could hang out in the Snif City Hotel Pool Room all day to listen to that song. XD

Scorching Dessert & Snif City

Driving through the Desert areas felt a little like padding since you had to keep backtracking everywhere, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the Purple Streamer later, so in hindsight it’s less annoying. Lol.

Snif City has a fun design and I loved exploring it, along with the desert area. The Luigi cameo was pretty fun (as was the intentional game over I triggered to see the animation lol).

Professor Toad is a fun partner character, though I will admit I got stuck for a while because I didn’t realize you could use him to dig in spots that weren’t glowing (oops).

Olivia singing to raise the temple was a treat.

The Fire Vellumental

This temple is how I found out the game makes stuff easier if you fail too many times. There was a jumping area where you have to only jump on blocks that light up and I failed so many times it dropped all the blocks you couldn’t jump on. Uh. Oops. XD

The Fire Vellumental has my favorite design. It’s basically Moltres and Olivia looks awesome as a fire bird.

The Temple of Shrooms and Hole Punch

This might be my favorite Stationary Lair & Fight. The temple was great to explore. The Faceless Toads were fun and creepy. And oh my gosh the DJ dance room caught me so off guard I couldn't help but laugh.

Great music. Great Boss.

The fact he wouldn’t come out unless everyone was partying was fantastic. The fight itself was also pretty fun with the guy hole-punching Mario and having to find your pieces on the grid. The Hole Punch’s theme “Disco Devil” is also so good I can’t take it. Who gave a song a right to be that catchy?

I loved every second of this temple & fight.

Captain T.Ode

And then of course everything ends with Professor Toad finding the Toad he was looking for, finishing out his mini story arc. And using your fire powers to free him (And after the Shangri-Spa Toads worked so hard, too!! Lol).

The Purple Streamer

This is the only area of the game I didn’t like. It had a few good moments (Luigi and the Mushroom Island, a few of the puzzles islands) but overall I wanted to get through it as fast as possible and almost rage quit at one point.

The only saving grace was the ending with the Stationary Boss.

The Great Sea

It took me way too long to realize I had to take the boat out into the mist before it would prompt Captain T.Ode getting his submarine. WAY TOO LONG. I was sailing around aimlessly and screaming in the Museum wondering why the guy didn’t come get the Marino yet for like a solid thirty minutes.

Everything about this area was slow. Swimming from Island to Island. The loading screens between the Submarine sections. The small Island puzzles.

Just. Ug.

And of course when I find out I can upgrade the boat to go faster I didn’t have enough coins. So I had to go to another area to fight baddies to get coins and come back. XD

Even meeting Olly’s creator on an island (with a great Luigi sequence) was a disappointment. It was so short and all we really learned was that Olly is the one who made Olivia (which makes him more her Dad than her Brother...which I have talked bout before but will let the topic drop here for now). And that was IT.

Give me a flashback to Olly being made. Give me more of a hint to what the Origami Maker wrote to make the kid go nuts. Just. Something. Anything! *throws hands in the air*

The Ice Vellumental

This temple was annoying. The sliding ice puzzles were just...no. They aren’t actually that bad. I was just really burned out from all the sailing when I got to this temple and was in a bad mood. I’ll be fair--the temple itself was fine.

(Except for one area where you had to climb the stairs while dodging falling boulders and I kept messing up  my jumps and having to do it over and ARRRGH).

BUT THE BEAR.

I hate the bear. I had my first game over with the bear. I nearly rage Quit with the bear. And I beat him EVENTUALLY with 10 HP and because the game had pity on me and stuck the 1000 Arms Technique panel on the outer row.

I was fine up until the “Memorize the path and recreate it” section. The path would look easy. I’d remember where it was. But then the rings would get shuffled and I could not recreate the path for the life of me. I tried it so many times. I failed so many times.

*stares into the distance* 

I watched a Youtube Tutorial that beat that boss in five minutes. It took me like an hour. There is a special type of frustration that comes from “I know what I need to do and I know the trick but I can’t seem to make it work.”

The Three Trials

I paid coins to make these easier. I was so done with everything by that point, that failing the stupid Strength Trial twice in a row was enough to just. End me. XD

The Sea Tower and Tape

A shining light in a horrible Streamer. Lol. The Tower was fun to climb and I got excited for the Tape boss.

Who did not disappoint.

His greaser Punk personality and calling Olly “Boss” was the first thing that made me really grin this entire streamer. Even Tape’s fight gimmick taping the panels down was almost a relief and a much easier fight than the Ice Vellumental.

I loved the Tape fight. XD

The Green Streamer

Aka “Kamek is awesome and bless the Bowser Minions.”

Shangri-Spa

I liked this area more than I thought I would. When I first got there and saw the theme of Angel Toads I was like “Why” and then I saw Bower’s fallen Castle, met all the minions paying off their debt cleaning, and Olivia thought Kamek was a housekeeper.

Bless all of it.

And then Bowser Jr. gets cut into pieces by a pair of scissors and it was like “Oh, shit.”

You fix him of course, but the implications were like “Dude, those scissors killed Bowser Jr.” I honestly think one of the reasons they leaned so much harder into the “paper” aesthetic was to get away with more violence/darker content. The entire Scissors lair and fight is the perfect example. It sort of follows TV and Cartoon logic - if it’s not human, you can get away with a LOT more violence (like robots getting ripped apart or derezzing characters in Tron).

It’s not actual gore, but if you think about what it symbolizes, it really hits you (and why Mario Game Overs getting cut in half instead of reviving with his Green Mushroom).

You get a small break after that exploring all the Spas and their mini puzzles to fix Bowser Jr. The Jungle Area is the longest of which and has some nice scripted Game Overs that are fun to trigger and Olivia, Kamek, and Bowser Jr. have a good “Pick me!” scenario that gets repeated.

The boss of his area is also Macho Chain Chomp which is a win in my book because Chain Chomp is Best Mario Baddie.

(I love Chain Chomps. I have a Chain Chompette on my Keychain.)

Bowser’s Castle & Scissors

I noticed a lot of people saying Scissors was their favorite Stationary Boss and I didn’t quite get why until this Castle & Fight. He’s not knocking Hole Punch out of the way on my own list (Seriously that Boss fight music), but he is up there on the “Dude” factor.

Scissors is creepy. He is a literal sadist who tortures everyone he gets his hand on. His shadow paper minions are creepy and have cool Ring Battles.

The mutilated minions he used to make up a paper Macho Buzzy Beetle was dark if you thought about it too long - but it was a great Kamek moment. XD

Scissors himself had a great “I want a challenge!” attitude and his fight was intense.

I also screwed up and broke the blade guard on the first turn and uh. I died very quickly. XD That note that says “DO NOT BREAK THE GUARD” wasn’t kidding. I’m not super at timing action commands, so uh, jumping over the blades didn’t work out so well (especially when Scissors started cheating...).

Second time went much better. I figured out how to time attacks to avoid hitting his guard. I got to see the awesome cut scene where he took the guard off. I actually dodged a hit. I had fun. XD

And then Bowser enters the scene for the final areas of the game. Whoooo!

Finale

Bowers’ Air Ship appearance was epic. Very cinematic and I loved how he was like “I might use this against you later.”

Mario and Bowser team ups never fail to disappoint, honestly.

The air battle was messed up.

After that entire scene with Bobby in the Blue Streamer...I am now firing Bob-ombs at planes freely and in mass numbers because I have bad aim. I just. I don’t know if I want to laugh or cry. XD

The crash landing and the race out of the volcano were fun, though.

Peach’s Castle & Olly’s Castle

Luigi finally brought us the right key. I haven’t talked about Luigi much, but every single one of his appearances brought a smile with them. I loved how he had a key in every chapter like clockwork, and even now, he came through.

Bowser talking about Luigi was also pretty great. XD

But most importantly:

I love Olly. His few appearances here desperately made me wish there had been more of him earlier. He’s a dramatic little brat and I want to hug him.

The transformation of Peach’s Castle to Olly’s Origami one? Amazing. One of my favorite cut scenes in the game.

Fighting the Origami Castle itself? Eh. Aside from the great music tracks, it was a little tedious. It lacked the cool levels of the earlier Boss Areas and was mostly “use 1000 folding arms” to progress. I didn’t hate the area, but it was a bit of a let down.

Stapler was nice though. He was a good dog. That I crushed in combat. o-o

King Olly

His throne room covered in Paper Cranes is my favorite designed room & man, I wish I remembered to take more screen shots. It was so creepy and so dark and it looked so good with this tiny paper King sitting alone next to an empty throne since Olivia “Betrayed” him. 

I loved how his castle still had Olivia everywhere. Like they were meant to be together, but still separated. So good. T-T

The Princess Peach reveal was also so creepy and great.

But also made me wish for more cut scenes. Why did Olly want to make her into the wall? Why did he want her quiet? Did she annoy him? Or What? Tell me, game. Tell me!

Aesthetically it made the room look perfect though as his creepy little room. XD

As far as Olly's motivations go...I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, yes, it’s a little shallow. “A Toad wrote on me so now I’m going to destroy all flat paper beings and make them origami!” is sure...a thing. But I’m also a fan of Evil Characters that are just...evil. Maybe Olly really did just want to make everything Origami so they were like him. He was the first “Living” Origami creature and maybe he was just lonely. That’s why he made Olivia and wanted everyone to be like him. 

But that’s also reading into it...and makes me want to write a fanfic exploring it, but this is a review. XD

I’m fine with “Olly was looking for any excuse to go nuts and take over the world and the writing will just have to do.” Even if it does make his little “I guess I lost so now I’m redeemed” moment feel forced. XD

The Fights

The Bowser Origami Sumo vs Giant Olly thing was...okay. I get what they were going for, but it kinda missed the mark with me.

The Actual Olly fight? Oh lord. I had to do it like 10 times.

I failed the Action commands...a lot. Which meant a lot of game overs since I went into the fight with like 40 health (I may or may not be bad at jumping and the Sumo fight throwing stars may or may not have wrecked my health) and didn’t doge Olly's attacks.

Thankfully the game made the ring puzzle easier each time so I could actually finish it.

And it only took me 4 times to get the action commands right? XD Something like that.

I DID IT which is the point.

(This is a case of “If I was better at gaming I would have loved the fight” but my poor skills made it longer and more tedious than it should have been - only’s awesome speech at the beginning loses its bite after the fourth time hearing it.)

The Final Cut Scene

Olivia saying Goodby to Olly had me teary eyed. Her holding his little hand. Reading the message their creator left. Olly’s request for her to make him into the last crane.

Olivia’s freaking WISH. Knowing that She, herself, was one of Olly’s creations.

The cut scene was beautiful. The cranes. The light. The castles’ return.

The party at the end. The two little empty thrones.

I was sniffing through the (very well done and great to watch) credits.

Olivia was such a good girl and I miss her and Olly so much.

This ending was the perfect example of “Wouldn’t change it because it made me sad in a good way but Bless Fanfics and their “Everyone Lives” alternate universes.”

THE END

The game had a few hiccups but overall? I loved it. I can very easily see how “Your first Paper Mario is your favorite” is going to hold true. Wonderful game.

I might have to actually go back and try to 100% the game to get that extra ending I’ve seen spoiled.

[incogvito]

This is Unimportant

Because, in the grand scheme of things, I am unimportant. And while that won’t ring true for every aspect of my life (I am important to my family, my friends, etc), to a large degree, say 99% of the Earth’s population, I don’t matter.  (This isn’t a pity party. Just hang with me.)

So, if I don’t matter, the things I care about mean even less. To that same 99%, the amazing things my kids do are not just unimportant, they’re irrelevant. And guess what? That’s fine. That is absolutely normal and expected, really. But if you were to put me in a situation where I had to care...something like the relief efforts for Harvey and Irma and Maria...where I might not necessarily know the person across from me, that changes. You might say that empathy is required. And that’s really what I want to talk about. The things that are required, and the things that are expected.

See, there is currently a culture war being “fought” in this country. To those outside of the US, this is completely ridiculous, I’m sure, but in a way, totally expected. The person that was elected as President of the United States, before the election, was a celebrity. And further, he was a celebrity that, while never really doing anything that makes a celebrity celebrated (he bought buildings), he is someone that, excuse the terminology, “gets off” on being famous. He is, in a weird way, part of a pop culture moment (that moment being the 1980′s, aka the Me Generation); I think the first time I saw him was on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, a tv “magazine” show that explored the glitzy side of wealth. Money and wealth was important in the Era of Reagan, and that’s kind of getting off topic, but it’s important context. The 80′s made celebrities of guys like Lee Iacocca and, you guessed it, Donald Trump. So, for Trump, being not just in the public eye, but being a part of the social conversation, was (and still is) important to him. It’s the whole basis for his being. Which is why he makes tweets that are so incendiary; Twitter and tweeting is social currency. His speeches have less to do with policy (of which he has none other than destroying the legacy of Barack Obama) and more to do with what is happening on TV. It’s why he goes after NFL players. Or Broadway shows. Or ESPN anchors. He cares less about things like Detroit’s water, and more about things like the Detroit Lions*.

Take that, and then push out from there, to his influence. His base feels emboldened to criticize things that, in the grand scheme of things, shouldn’t matter to a politician; A movie star talking about climate change; an athlete that kneels in protest; things that only matter to us, the people, because we are generally looking for someone in that position to speak about something we care about. Or, the opposite; we want a leader to validate something that we, the people, don’t want to care about. Trump took three days to talk about the violence in Charlottesville because he doesn’t care about it. He cares about Q ratings. He cares about approval. It’s why he vacillated so much in his responses. He cares about celebrity and fame. So, his base attacks things that are part of pop culture; films, music, tv shows, and...I’m finally getting to my point...comic books.

Let’s go back to the idea of the things that are expected of us and the things that are required of us. Without naming names and giving credence to a lot of, frankly, stupid ideology, I’m going to cut right to it. There’s a comic book reviewer that has this notion that Marvel Comics and DC Entertainment are out of touch with what today’s reader wants to read. As far as I know, those are the only two companies he has targeted in his ire, but I could be wrong; he may have said something about Dark Horse or Boom! Studios or Image...I don’t know for sure (I would imagine this to be the case). A lot of his arguments stem from the idea of diversity hires affecting the finished product. Things like transgender authors, or black artists. Or things like female characters being drawn in “untraditional” (read: unsexy) ways. Or of a writer injecting his or her political ideology into the stories. A lot of it is navel gazing and totally besides the point, but it caught fire this week when Mark Waid (note: a personal friend) posted on a private Facebook page that he was looking for this individual and screenshots of that got leaked (note: I was a member of that private page). The context of Mark’s statements were that he wanted to engage in dialogue with the reviewer in person at Baltimore Comic Con, but his words were written in the moment and probably came off as more incendiary than intended (as evidenced by his later posts, the same day/night, once the leak happened). I’m not going to defend Mark; don’t need to or want to. Again, I want to talk about requirements and expectations and how they pertain to comic books and comic book reviewing. 

(I fully apologize for what’s about to come, because it’s 2017 and I have to write this, and I’m 44 and people should know better, but oh well, I guess.)

When you buy a comic book (or DVD, or what have you), there is only one requirement; you are required to read it. Actually, you’re required to pay for it and expected to read it (and there are some that don’t pay because either they get comps, or the publisher sends out PDF’s, or they pirate the books). That’s it. Buy and read. You are expected to have an opinion based on this, because generally speaking, we all do. I read a comic by a creator a few weeks ago, another friend, and it was my opinion that this was not his best work, and a waste of his abilities. But... YOU’RE NOT **REQUIRED** TO SHARE THAT OPINION. Crazy, right? Look, I’m not saying you can’t say, “This comic was a waste of my time,” especially if you’re getting paid to do so. But if someone hands you a stack of books and asks you to review the books, you’re review should be about the contents of the book, not the creator working on it. I’m in the camp that believes we should spend more time writing about the things we like, and spending less time destroying the things we don’t care about. I used to work in a comic store (almost 11 years) and my boss had what he called, “the third aisle rule,” or something similar. The philosophy is this; while you and a customer are dogging something in aisle one, over in aisle three is a reader who has that same book and now, due to hearing you trash it, doesn’t want to buy it because a) she’s too embarrassed to bring it to the counter or b) she’d rather buy her books somewhere else that she won’t be ridiculed for her choices. Ostensibly, it’s about not losing a sale. We were encouraged to praise the books we loved, but if we didn’t like something, we were asked to not talk about it at all. 

One of the things that was brought up in one of these articles that popped up in the aftermath of that leak was that the guy (and now I’m legit blanking on his name) made comments about diversity hires, pointing out one writer who was selected for the DC Writer’s Workshop. He claims that the writer was selected purely because she is a transgender woman (I need to apologize here because the article used the male pronoun and because I’m unfamiliar with the writer he was targeting, I am not sure if I’m using the correct pronoun, or if the article writer was trying to be intentionally controversial, so I am just going on my best guess). Here’s the thing about diversity hires; he has no right to question anyone’s hiring practices. He does a YouTube review “show.” As far as I know, he isn’t a comic book writer (but one of his buddies that, I think, initially leaked the screenshot is a writer and might have written comics? I’m unclear, but moving on). As far as I know, DC hiring her did not take food off of his table.

But guess what?

It took food off of MY table.

How?

Because I “auditioned” for the same Writer’s Workshop.

But, this is the funny part. Instead of tearing apart someone I don’t know, or a process I wasn’t a part of, I just got over it. It stung for a day, sure; rejection is never easy, but ultimately WHO CARES WHO DC HIRES? Just give me a good book. At the end of the day, I’m still a fan; I still want to be entertained. 

And to this guy and his friends, in their minds, in this scenario, DC took an opportunity away from a white man (which, I’m sorry, I’m Puerto Rican and Italian, and while my name is more Italian, I was raised by my mom’s family, so I identify with my Hispanic side). Is it so controversial that DC maybe thinks I’m not a good writer? And that she is? And why do you care? Or, the other side of it; that hiring someone that is fringe (I guess) or left of center harms these characters that we’ve known for 70 years or less (depending on the character we’re talking about at that moment). This is the weird gatekeeping of culture that somehow, someone who doesn’t own that character or idea feels they have ownership over. It’s all so...backwards. If DC hires six women to write a book, it doesn’t affect me. Because I was never offered the book, but I still get to do my comic, I still can raise money on Kickstarter, and I am still generally content to work like this. I don’t need a hero or anyone to defend me, and I think that these precious white cis gendered heterosexual male writers they’re going to bat for probably don’t either. 

I say it again and again, but you’re holding on too tightly to something that isn’t yours.

Using your platform (YouTube, a blog, Twitter) to critique a comic is neither an expectation or a requirement, but yeah, it’s your right. But you have no right to attack a creator that’s just trying to make a living. If you want to be a Fox News pundit/talking head, they keep firing people, so as long as you keep it in your pants, I’m sure they’ll hire you. It worked for Tomi Lahren (is that how you spell it?). If you want to make comics that reflect your way of thinking, and you want to hire whoever it is that speaks to your mentality, go right ahead. They did one about that Stick guy. Go on to Kickstarter, GoFundMe or Patreon. I’m sure there’s at least 100 people that will side with you and want to read that. That’s the beauty of it; you can put your ideas in action.  Marvel and DC are multimedia conglomerates (Disney and Warner Brothers, respectively). They (the companies) don’t care about anything other than making money. So, if you don’t want it, don’t buy it. But if you’re buying it just to make some sort of statement...you’re probably an idiot. Then again, you’re probably pirating the comics anyway.

I have as much right as anyone to be angry or upset about these hiring practices (if that’s what they are), but I really don’t care. I do not sit at my computer looking at Newsarama and seething over who got hired on a book. I write comics.

Like I said, this is unimportant.

*EDIT: In case you thought this was stupid or that I don’t know what I’m talking about, please refer to the very last sentence here: