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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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Toons for Our Times: Star Vs: Demoncism

Halloween Havoc BEGINS! And with Tomtober this same month, i’m taking another of my on and off looks at Tom! Tom tries to tackle his literla nd figurative personal demons the natural way: by having a creepy anti-demon cult that’s never explained suck them out of his body. For some reason Star has a problem with this. We also get Ponyhead in a robe, the wonders of reflectcor and free toys from the toychest for being such a good boy. Face your demons under the cut.

Welcome boys, ghouls and that bootiful technicolor rainbow inbetween, to halloween havoc! MUAHAHHAHA. You might be wondering a few things. What the hell that is, isn’t that also the title of a bunch of old wcw pay per views, and have I gone insane. In order it’s usually my catchy term the past two years and this current one for my binging of halloween films and logging and reviewing them on my leterboxd account, but I decided to expand it to here since while it’s not my first halloween on here it’s the first both reviewing animation and planning ahead, I decided why not reuse a good title here. As for the wcw thing.. well yeah. It’s a great title, neither WWE, who I think still owns the copyright, nor WCW”s Heir Apparent AEW are using it right now despite being one of the best recurring Pay-Per-View titles either promotions had. Maybe not in actualy MATCH QUALITy but that name.. it just sings to me so i’m using it for my weird blog. I’m not making any money of this so why not. And as for my sanity that left a long time ago. So prepare for a month of ghouls, ghosts, goblins, lichs, scooby doo parodies, long forgotten characters, and some suprises and pies of all sizes. THIS... IS....

So to start us off, every year my pal @jess-the-vampire does a monthly event known as tomtober, a celebration of all things tom lucitor. And since I started hte tomtropsective for that and still am behind, I figured why not celebrate that, and the fact I can’t draw so I can’t do day 1 as a chat or anything, by continuing the tale of everyone’s faviorite teen demon. Thankfully unlike last time, or next time wink wonk, there’s not a TON of other plot stuff to fill in. There is one important bit not to this episode but to the series as a whole: Eclipsa is here, since Moon trying to screw her out of the deal she made backried once toffee actually died... as did you know keepiung him alive instead of dealing with eclipsa being free and having the comissoin to back her on it. Nice job moon. Real nice. So yeah Eclipsa’s around.. dosen’t effect this episode but given tom’s involved in two of the biggest plot important episodes in the show, AND one deals with the direct fallout of one of those episodes i’m probably going to have to cover her soon to get to more tom anyway so might as well prepare for that now.

So yeah this episode’s entreily a straight line from last time and opens picking up on the end of that episode: Star is calling tom wondering when their gonna get that Cornshake. Thankfully she gets an answer. Unthankfully.. it’s from a VERY sweaty ponyhead.

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So that was my own personal hell. Anyways she’s so.. sweaty.. GAHHHHHHH, because she’s keeping a secret and much like me she can’t keep her mouth shut about something she wants to talk about for very long, so we find out what she knows: SHe ran into tom who swore her not to tell Star he was getting a Demoncisim. Which suprises me.. not the demoncism thing the fact Pony would actually listen to anyone else.. Star included. LIke it’s the one thing about this episode that dosen’t quite fit: She’s such a selfish, toxic asshole, though Jenny Slate bless her makes her at least entertaining at times but even she has limits, it just dosen’t track she’d care what Tom thought unless we saw it for ourselves. Pony is ONLY capable of carring about star so while I could see tom framing it as for her own good, it’d be nice if the episode just came out and said that. It’d also be nice if we didn’t get sweaty ponyhead because that’s probably someone’s fetish and I.. OH GOD.

Okay now i’ve mentally snapped from that revelation, Star lasso’s pony when she tries to escape, and we find out the demoncism is pretty self explanatory: A cermony that removes demons from one’s body.. and given tom is you know, a demon, this could end bad. So with no idea where it’s being held and it going on now, giving them little if any time to figure it out, Star suggests going to pony’s ex.. she dosen’t remember which one and apologizes for how bitchy that sounded, but we find out it’s Seahorse, Pony’s love intrest for the rest of the series and a hardcore emo rocker who even made her a song.. which is just him destroying everything and screaming. Eh i’ve seen people in emowear do far dumber.

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If those are m and m’s their pretzel. Trust me I’m a professional lardass, I know my delcious candy coated choclates. Anyways our dynamic-ish duo head to Seahorse at his job at a relfectcor store, basically a phone store, and is basically a hollowed out shell of a human being with no real personality or free will of his own.. so THAT’S how we got Ted Cruz. Ponyhead natrually breaks down when he dosen’t recognize her at all, which is one of the few time’s i’ve actually cared about her feelings: I mean having your ex just.. forget you exist.. tha’ts rough buddy. I feel bad for her.. I didn’t know she had emotions. I thought her heart and brain were both a black hole.. mostly becasue I thought ponyhead’s hearts and brains were the same organ. Star does however manage to get the map they need to Tom.

Our heroines find the Demonicsim site and a bunch of creepy guys in robes iwth red glowing eyes.. who are never explained honestly. More on that in a minute. So ponyhead distracts them with one of the greatest gags in the series history

I mean just.. look at it. The way the robe drapes, the way her nose sticks out much like a certain penguins, the way she decides to distract everyone with petty minute like voting on robes.. it’s fucking great. I may not like pony a LOT but she can be really damn funny> The issues that she often isn’t funny enough to ofset her jackassery. Here though even with my jabs at her.. she works and I like it. So Star confronts Tom, wondering AGAIN if this is another half assed tactic to win her back.. and her flip flop attitude with tom is starting to annoy me. It fits her personality, and don’t get me wrong as i’ve made abudnatnly clear in past reviews his actions in blood moon ball and ESPECIALLY mr.candle cares were super not okay, so i’ts okay NOT to forget how badly things went last time when your considering getting back together with someone. It’s NOT okay however to hold it over someone’s head forever like any moment their going to snap back into being a manipulative doucheweasel when they’ve left you alone for around 8 months.. and Id id my calcualtion. The timeline of the show is pretty solid up to season 4: Season 1 was star’s 1st semister at echo creek academy, season 2 was her second and as it turned out final one, and season 3 covers Summer , fall and part of next spring. Though again how another summer dosen’t happen until towards the end of season 4 is dumb and I’ll probably rant about that at a later point. Point is since MCC was at the start of season 2, that means it happened around say january or feburary, with Demonicsim probably happening around say march. So he’s left you alone for around 8 months, silver bell ball included. It’s unfair to assume he’s still schemeing when he let you go months ago. H’es made it obvious via his .. everything he’d take you back in an instant, he’s just being patient and not pushing it because he’s no longer as big an asshole, and trying to be respectful. Cut him a break. Thankfully this gets put down quick with Tom explaning he wants to be better for himself: Like last time he was inspired by her trying to be better herself, and wants to.. but as we’ve established.. he dosen’t know HOW to be nice or a better person. He wasn’t raised in an enviroment that was really condusive to that as nice as his own parents are. Their the exception to the underworld being mostly dicks not the rule, as we’ll see next time. I.. can relate with my own issues with anxiety , depression and, yes, anger. I too have trouble keeping it in and hate feeling bitchy all the time or depressed and just want it to stop. I think anyone with a mental ilness just wants it to STOP to be gone and to be able to live a happy life. But there’s no magic button that fixes your issues, your traumas or your mental health like that. No pill that can fix it just ones that help ease it down to managable. And as i’ve learned the hard way YOU have to work at it, YOU have to make the effort. There’s no easy way out. And while Tom thinks htere is here, it’s very clear it’s a huge risk, and Star’s right that he shoudlnt’ go thorugh with it and that he could seriously hurt himself. But Tom’s in pain and just wants to be happy, to be normal, to be not angry anymore and I gotta tell you if , even if it was risky, there was a way to cure my depression or anger issues or anxiety, not my atuisim tha’ts part of me and not something that needs a fucking cure just more understanding and awarness, but if I could cure those other three things? I would. It’s paart of me sure but it’s a part of me I HATE. So I understand why tom’s doing this even despite the danger: because he’s at his wits end, desperate and this will help he hopes.. it can’t get WORSE, so why not? Evne if he’s wrong here i’ts hard not to understand why he’s so stubborn about it , for me at least. Star leaves, and takes Ponycloak with her and they go to punch trees: Both to relive and because Pony hates tree. Probably because she went to tree court once and they tried to send her to tree jail.

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I mean she’ll probably get thrown back in there for this but still. Anyways the exerocisim comes. And NOW we can talk about this cult and.. while I understand why they never came back, they were really only necessary for this, I wish they had. I mean a mysterious cult with the power to restrain someone as strong as tom, acess to anti-magic chains the ONLY time we see something like this outside of the comission, and a hatred of demons includign referring to Tom as “Son of the blight” meaning they clearly hate and would destroy Wrathmelor if they could, yet also function as a perfectly legal orginzation the comission or the lucitors themselves haven’t swatted yet. There’s a LOT to unpack here they never did. The leader is also hliarious alteranting between creepy overlord and your dentist after a long apointment as a kid. But the ritual begins and it .. dosen’t go well with tom getting glowy blue lines and thrashing about.. just like me when i watched Ridciulous 6. I also felt my soul was leaving my body but that was just wishful thinking. The cultists run and star runs back to Tom and we get a truly powerful and romantic scene. Unable to free him, Star just.. holds him and is there for him as he goes through this. If she can’t help him she’ll be there for him. And it’s really touching. We then cut to the hosptial tent at the cult, where the leader goes back to dad mode. Tom feels .. well worse, he just had surgery, as someone who had a tooth yanked out last month I can relate, and is suprised to see only one tiny soul demon as the sum of his anger. But it turns out, NOPE, being you know, the son of a rather powerful demon with a rather pwoerful b loodline, he’s FULL of them, and it woudl take 13 years to do this.. and tom’s naturally bummed because no one wants the equipvlent of having a wisdom tooth pulled a week for over a decade. Also because he now can’t get better.. but Star gently reassures him he’s already on the right track just by wanting to. As I said with most mental issues.. there’s no easy way out but it can get better if you put the work in and tom realizes.. there’s no quick way out after all. Just a long road.. but h’es not alone on it anyomore. But he at least gets a tiny demon in a jar and a toy out of the toychest for being a good boy.. and that’s nto me making shit up that’s the actual episode with him and star taking pinwheels and holding hands to Ponyhead’s annoyance. Which okay yeah they had a bad time last time I get tat Pony.. but your the last person to question ANYONE’S life decisions. Still I wish we’d had ane pisode of pony growing to accept them so we at least know WHY she’s so against it but oh well.

Final Thoughts: This was a good one. Is it hte best the show’s put out? Probably not as the first part drags slightly but the second half at the demoncisim is just good character stuff, good comedy, and has a good payoff. I honestly like this way more on the second watch. Though part of that is the context of the time: I admitted to being a starco shipper and having her get back with tom just felt like your standard “put a character in a relationship to complicate the main pairing” bullshit I always hate at this stage. Before anyone relaizes they like each other? Sure but at this point it was clearly just to drag things out. However with Marco getting progressivley worse and the two having good chemsitry.. I grew to like em.. and by the season finale, I just shipped all three together, before pivoting to marco and kelly. This couple grew on me for reasons w’ell geti nto as we go, even if it ended bad for reasons we’ll again get into. Oh we’ll get into them. With a knife. But yeah overall a great episode with a great concept, good character stuff, and some REALLY fucking funny gags. The show is damn good at comedy and I forget it sometimes. Next time we look at Tom, he’ll be in the background as Marco tries to help Kelly with a breakup. And sometime this month we’ll be looking at the halloween special which i’ll be watching for the very first time! So stay tuned, stay safe and Happy Halloween.

#halloween #tomtober #tomtober 2020 #tom lucitor #star vs the forces of evil #demoncism #star butterfly #startom #lilica ponyhead #seahorse #wrathmelor lucitor #reviews

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fuckwritersblock · 4 years

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I’ve seen a few posts asking for recommendations for romance interactive/visual novels and finally I decided it would be better to just post about it rather than replying. Note that I have been playing this genre for years but I also am picky. There are some games that I have played which I would not necessarily rec*.

Interactive Novels (Purely text based)

The Wayhaven Chronicles (Mobile, Steam)

Creme de la Creme (Mobile, Steam)

Tally Ho (Mobile, Steam)

**Fallen Hero: Rebirth (Mobile, Steam)

Visual Novels

Arcade Spirits (PS 4, Switch, Xbox One, Steam, itch.io)

Choices (Mobile)

Dream Daddy (PS 4, Switch, Steam, Humble, Mobile)

A Rose in Winter (Steam, Itch.io)

You should also watch out for “Best Friend Forever” (Switch/Steam/Itch.io) and download the demo. I also personally have not yet played “Butterfly Soup” but I hear great things about it.

If you want to know more about the games along with the pros and cons are for each game (in my opinion) check under the cut. but it is. Long.

Interactive Novels

The Wayhaven Chronicles - Fantasy/romance. You play as a detective who has been tasked to solve a murder in your small town of Wayhaven. You have been tasked with agents from a mysterious agency, Unit Bravo, to help you. But are they all that they seem?

Pros:

Sexy vampires. (This is not a spoiler it’s literally in the description of the game.)

The writing is incredible. Mishka Jenkins knows the tropes and uses them expertly.

The romances are all very good in their own unique way.

All of the characters are well developed and interesting.

There are two books of this series out!

Cons:

ACAB. And you play a detective at a station where there’s literally a state where you either are “by the book” or “bend the rules” so like. Not great.

There are two books out of seven for the series so know you will be left wanting more.

You can play as non-binary and there are a couple of background non-binary characters in the story but there are no non-binary romances.

Creme de la Creme - Adventure/romance (if you’re into dark academia, this is for you). You play as a student sent to a finishing school and are expected to bring prestige back to the family name.

Pros:

This plot takes some turns y’all.

You can play as non-binary and there also can be non-binary romance options!

There is aro/ace representation!!

Hannah Powell-Smith is married to a woman so like nice.

Cons:

There is some commentary that sometimes works well and sometimes falls flat. Mainly the critique on power and the upper class works well until the endings where many still benefit from this without characters putting much more thought in it.

Tally Ho - Comedy/Romance. Inspired by Wooster and Jeeves. You play a servant living in London during 1930′s. You work for Rory Wintermint, and must accompany them to their Aunt Primrose’s estate. Hijinks ensue.

Pros:

Light and fun and adorable.

Romances

There are some really funny moments in this.

Cons:

This was one of my first interactive novels and I have spent hours and hours on this game and there are still achievements that I have absolutely no idea how to achieve.

It’s a light and airy game so know that if romance is your thing, it doesn’t delve as deep into those relationships as other games on here.

You can play with they/them pronouns but there is no other non-binary characters.

Fallen Hero: Rebirth - Action/Superhero. You play a former hero that has started acting on your plan to become a supervllian. You must work against your original crew and that gets. Complicated.

(**Heads up, this is a very good game it’s not romance-focused. I also have not replayed it in some time. and other people could describe it better than I have. So if this short description sounds interesting, I recommend looking it up on tumblr + other areas.)

Pros:

Immersive and thoughtful small details.

The romances are complex and certainly not easy, but that’s certainly a strength of the writing.

Malin Rydén self-describes as “unapologetically queer”

Cons:

Not so much of a con but something yall should know! This game handles heavy topics as your character descends into villainy. Your character experiences depression and a variety of Rough Stuff. Keep that in mind if you are also in a rough place mentally rn.

I’m gonna be real with ya fam and I think this could just be me. There were multiple parts of this game that I felt lost in. I could not fully understand what was going on. BUT I also feel like in many places that is the intention for the character to feel disorientated so take that what you will.

Visual Novels

Arcade Spirits - Dating Sim/Comedy. You play as a depressed person who was just fired. You are convinced you are suffering from a generational long curse. Your phone matches you with a job at the Funplex arcade with various characters. Will you ensure the arcade survives? Will you find love along the way?

Pros:

this is GOD-TIER visual novel content y’all!!

The system that they use for stats are unlike anything I’ve ever seen but it’s leagues ahead. You do not have to be constantly monitoring your stats as you would typically for other games.

Made with so much love for the content and attention to detail.

Diverse cast that are all so fun and lovable in their own way.

You get to create your MC’s hair/skin/clothes color and then you’ll see them throughout the game?? WILD.

Cons:

BECAUSE this game was made with love and and attention to detail, if you have absolutely no interest in the world of video games you may feel detached.

The character creator is very limited. Which I do get to a certain extent with all of the different shots they draw the MC in. But I hope you want your character to be thin with a lot of angular facial features

Choices - An app where there is a series of stories you can play “chapters” of using keys, which replenish every couple of hours.

Pros:

It’s a very focused on modern romance stories, but there are also such a variety of different genres of books! Fantasy (Blades of Light & Shadow), Historical fiction/romance (Desire & Decorum), Thriller/Horror (It Lives in the Woods). I have PLENTY of recs if you hmu.

There are...Many a good romances in these tho like I have blushed and sighed and daydreamed about these stories.

Cons:

You need patience for this game. It’s a free app and therefore has a system where you need to understand the key system and be patient to collect “diamonds” to purchase premium choices.

Many of the books are gender-locked where you can only play as a woman.

Choices has been criticized that they need better treatment/more screentime for their characters of Color. They have said they are committing to do better, but we will see.

Same has been said about their wlw romances.

Just as there are good stories, there are also stories that have something to be desire. I have varying issues with some books that have plot holes, unengaging writing, etc. These are good for you to play to earn more diamonds though.

Dream Daddy - Dating Sim/Comedy. (This game was the talk of the town when it came out in 2017 but in case you weren’t in the genre at the time!!) You are a single dad who is moving with your daughter Amanda to Maple Bay. You meet other single dads and date them while also trying to be a good father to your daughter.

Pros:

This writing is sharp as a tack. The comedy is on point and this game does a great job transitioning into serious moments.

There are awesome little mini-games that you’ll find in these!

The characters of each datable dad first seem like caricatures, but their backstories are complex and have depth.

The character creator is chef’s kiss v good. AND you can play as a trans dad like how neat.

Cons:

There have been plenty of conversation about cons for this game but frankly I don’t truly believe it has a con for what it is.

If you’re not a pun person this game will be. Difficult.

A Rose in Winter - Romance. You are playing as Rose, a girl who determined to prove herself as a knight. She has found herself at an inn and must choose between a series of Princes to help on their journey.

Pros:

Cute stories!

Except for the green prince which is heart-fluttering. (and if you play, I recommend playing last)

Adorable art.

Cons:

This reads more like an ACTUAL visual novel. Your choice (besides the initial choice you make on which prince you pursue) means little, if there is choice at all.

It’s definitely simpler than other games on this list but that’s not a bad thing as much as you should know!

*Please know that I did not include The Arc*n* on purpose! I used to really love that app but the way certain things were handled (both IRL and in the plot) I would not recommend it now.

#the wayhaven chronicles #creme de la creme #dream daddy #a rose in winter #playchoices #arcade spirits #cog #hosted games #Let me apologize if you're going through these tags and don't think this should be in there #that's valid and I struggled with that!#however i came to the conclusion it's the best way for people who are looking for new things to enjoy to find something

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wainwrightjakobshammerlock · 4 years

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finally. i decided to do this. anyways hello there, i am jake and today i want to talk about something; you see, if you are in the tf2 fandom, you probably know about heavymedic. Wherther you are a hardcore gamer who resents f2p’s or a person that never played the game but has trillions of notes on their art- you know heavymedic exists and most of all you probably ship it.

And I find that weird. In the few fandoms in my life I have been in I had never seen a single ship be so widely if not shipped, then accepted. Sure, maybe everyone in the GF fandom knows what Billdip is - for better or for worse. Sure, maybe the HS fandom is 70% shipping.

But I have never ever seen such a phenomenon in a prominent multiplayer game fandom. A fandom, sadly, oftentimes filled with toxicity. Overwatch is very similar here - yet ships are either a hot topic of discussion or straight up ignored. But TF2? In here for whatever reason we ship these two mercenaries. And in this essay I will try and find a reason or two why is that.

Apologies for any mistakes or incoherency. English is not my first language, I need to ramble, and my vocabulary is all over the place.

Content warning: mentions of homophobia, blood, death, mentions of WLW fetishization, nsfw mention. Also MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE TF2 COMICS.

Part 1: Canonical Evidence and Interactions

Let’s be honest: I could ramble about this one for days on end. But I’ll try and keep it short.

First and foremost we have the official videos. And of course the first thing that comes to mind is Meet the Medic.

At the very start of the part where Medic himself appears, we see him telling a joke about a particularly gruesome situation to Heavy.

He laughs along with him, visibly enjoying his company. He even smiles as he waits for another joke. Heavy only shows genuine fear a lot later.

And of course this damn scene always cracks me up. Medic slightly pinches Heavy’s cheek and strokes his lip gently (the other part is almost not noticeable unless you play the video at slow speed).

Of course we all know about the Hand Hold that happens somewhere halfway in the vid. I don’t think I have to explain the gayness in that. The fact their hands stay interlocked even after Medic helps Heavy up. The deep breath Medic takes because even he cannot handle the emotions. That few seconds is unresolved sexual tension manifest.

Overall the short shows a strong feeling of trust between these two. Medic confides in Heavy and reverse. Yeah he puts a baboon heart into his friend’s chest cavity but the fact (as proven at the end of the video) that Heavy was the first one to have an Ubercharge implanted into him shows that Medic at the very least considers him a lab rat.

I treat End of the Line as non-canonical, as do many others, and as such won’t discuss it here. But it will forever crack me up that Valve endorsed such levels of homoerotic subtext.

These two have some short moments in other videos, like for example in Invasion Heavy helps Medic up (CINEMATIC PARALLELS) but it’s nothing major so I guess I’ll skip forward.

Second is their interactions ingame. You might call me a weirdo for trying to find stuff in there but holy shit I have things to say and I’m going to say them.

You thought I was going to fanboy over the “i love this doktor” voiceline huh? Well not really. I wish these two had unique lines if they assist one another.

Heavy is literally listed on the official wiki as the “ideal medic buddy” and multiple pages on that exact wiki say some pretty interesting things.

I have to say something about the Gentleman’s Ushanka and/or Pocket Medic. They are both community cosmetics - but the fact they both got accepted by Valve says a lot. Above is text snipped from the actual wiki.

Last but not least: The Comics. Darned comics. The pair of mercenaries has basically no interaction - unless you count issue 6.

Heavy getting absolutely PISSED when Medic is killed by Ch*avy. Their reunion. Medic referring to Heavy by “my friend” in a totally straight way. Kind of sad Valve wasted an opportunity for them to hug. Maybe they knew their comic artist ships them and wanted to avoid having to answer the Question™.

Part 2: Dynamics

This part’s a bit trickier, mostly due to the reason that I’m new to this whole dynamic analysis thing. Yeah I’m good at spotting canonical evidence but very specific shipping dynamics often escape my gaze.

The most obvious one is Big Guy, Little Guy. Quoting the TVTROPES page:

[…] This trope describes a pair of guys who always fight together, are best friends forever, and quite often have a very obvious hierarchy: The little guy is often in charge […] The little guy is usually listed first, since he’s the leader, and they are always listed together, as if they are one entity. In fact, some episodes may center on the fact that they can’t live without each other. […] If this is a case of Brains and Brawn, the Big Guy is usually the Brawn, and the Little Guy the Brains. It’s almost never the other way around, but in some cases the Big Guy can be rather smart too. […]

A sub-type of this, a common favorite here on Tumblr is known as “small chaotic big calm” and hoo boy if that isn’t these two. I don’t really have much to say here - again I am not an expert.

Part 3: Fandom Impact

So you don’t think Red Oktoberfest (as Heavymedic is sometimes called) is super popular on anywhere else than Tumblr? Wrong.

It’s hard to find TF2 fics on Archive of Our Own not tagged with Heavy/Medic. Of course most of them only contain hints to their relationship but go in the main tf2 tag and I can guarantee you, you’ll gonna see “implied heavy/medic” all the time.

But these two go further than AO3 or Tumblr or Instagram or whatever. They are recognized even within the wider circle of the fanbase. Take this SFM, for example. (I am using the Saxxy Awards version of Secret Lives here mostly due to the fact that the Heavymedic moment is much gayer. In the normal version, the dialogue isn’t changed, but they simply hold hands.)

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But it gets deeper. (WARNING: THE GAY MOMENT IN THIS ONE IS NSFW. NOT EXPLICITLY SO BUT JUST A HEADS UP TUMBLR PLEASE DO NOT FLAG ME)

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And the best part? The comments are extremely positive. You’d expect hoards upon hoards of homophobes screeching but no, the comments are supportive. Even on places such as Reddit or Youtube, comments like “yeah they’re gay and in love” do not get downvoted/disliked to hell; in fact the opposite.

Part 4: Canon Status

Let’s be real. Most ships are shipped because people want to explore the dynamics in fanfic, fanart or something else. But Heavymedic is shipped because… well, I have no idea.

Actually, I kind of do - but only theories. You see, while the canonical evidence is here, the creators have never said anything about them. No confirmation, no disproval, no hinting, nothing.

But the ship is so prominent! There has to be something causing this!- you say. And to that I present you 2 theories on why Heavy/Medic is so popular.

Theory number 1 states that we simply all choose to interpret their interactions as homoerotic. And this is very easy to disprove - there’s simply no way we just collectively agreed on these matters out of nothing. There has to be something bigger.

And theory 2 states that, well, our interpretation is the desired interpretation. But this is even more ridiculous than theory 1 for a number of reasons. If they are in fact gay, why hasn’t Valve made them canon yet?

A Theoretical Scenario

I am going to ramble big time on this one, so buckle up lads. I’ll discuss a theoretical scenario in which, well, if that was not obvious, Valve confirms Heavymedic as canon. Maybe then we will see why they will probably never do so.

TF2 is considered by typical capital G, alt-right Gamers as a “non-political” game. This means no women (in the game itself, at least, and if even, sexy women only), no queer folk and no minorities (for some reason they accept Demoman but throw a fit if someone draws any other merc as not being pearl white). Team Fortress 2 was around before Gamergate and other things like Gamers Rise Up. It’s a classic and Valve is regarded as the good guy to Epic Game’s bad guy. If Valve did anything to confirm doubts, wherther it be clearing up popular fanon or confirming ships, these people would throw hands. (Although they seemed to ignore when one of the writers confirmed Miss Pauling is a lesbian. Huh.) Even those that don’t play TF2 would come to the aid of their bros.

Let me illustrate with two very similar examples. In both cases these confirmations were the first made by the company as a whole, both are fairly recent and both confirm a character as gay.

First we have the confirmation of Tracer from Overwatch as a lesbian. It was done in one of OVW’s comics. Tracer is the FACE of Overwatch as a whole and while most of the fanbase accepted it (thankfully the Gamers are reluctant to infest ow), some people threw what I can only describe as a hissy fit. At least her girlfriend’s a background character.

Second is Neeko from League of Legends. Unlike Tracer she was added a while before it was confirmed she was gay. LOL is much more toxic and filled with Gamers than OW and holy shit people smeared LOL so much.

Of course these are not accurate to Heavy/Medic. In both of the cases I listed it was girls being wlw and we all know how much cisgender heterosexual gamers LOVE yuri porn. Apparently only girls can be gay because they can jack off to it - if it’s two guys then it’s disgusting. Nevertheless I think these are good approximations - in every case the company gets “shat on” on social media and other sites. With the community that Valve has, I think even if they wanted them to be gay, they would never ever confirm it.

Conclusion

I’m sorry for that ending. I had to theorize a bit. Regardless I’d love if you shared this on other sites, reblogged or whatever - I wasted at least 1 and a half hours of my life on it. Feel free to cite this as a source if someone asks you why you ship the big heavy weapons expert and the feral battle medic.

#my post #text post #tf2 #medic #heavy #heavymedic #long post

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fantroll-purgatory · 4 years

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@theshieldswordandcrown

I’d like it if you guys could look over my tea man for me! (Art by my friend lythaeriahomestucks. I haven’t made him a sprite yet.

Oofadoofa it’s been a while. Hi I hope your roleplay group is fun!

World: Alternia, but the draft is a lot further off than in canon, because none of my group is interested in roleplaying interstellar space battles or politics, especially considering the amount of setup that would have to go into making deep space believable. Though I think Friendsim’s stated they’re dragged off planet at 9 sweeps, so he’d still have a little time before getting dragged underground anyway.

Name: Oolong Matcha. Yes, they’re both types of tea. It started off as a quick joke, but I’ve grown to love it. Not only is matcha green, like his blood, but he’s a gardener, and really enjoys tea.

Mmmmm I mean joke trolls are famously canon in Homestuck. See: SWIFER EGGMOP or the salt and pepper shaker troll BUTTT mmmm. I feel like naming a character based at least partially on Japanese monks Oolong would deserve some side-eye. But I like the matcha bit! So let’s see…I like him being a gardener since monastic gardens were very much A Thing, and one of the famous still-extant ones is at Rievaulx abbey, so maybe we give him RIVULX, which sounds sufficiently trollish and is obvious enough for someone to get the reference.

Age: 9.69 Sweeps, or 21 Earth years.

Theme/Story: He’s partially themed after monks, specifically Irish and Japanese, which was originally an excuse for his bald head, but ended up influencing his clothing, calm demeanor, and lusus. I was also, oddly, thinking of 4chan – not maniacs like /pol/, but just average people who don’t get out enough, like to chatter about anime or cooking, and generally act like a bit of a dipshit. Fatherhood is definitely a theme with him as well – he’s already a father figure to two other trolls.

Hmmm. I like the broad concept, but I think we can tighten up a little on the “monk” theme by expanding it. Review Goals: General overview, classpecting advice, filling in missing details like fetch modus or lunar sway, etc.

Strife Specibus: He greatly prefers to snipe threats before they reach him, but if he’s forced into melee, he’ll grab a pipe and go berserker nuts. He takes satisfaction in neutralizing threats, especially if he’s protecting someone or something. He’s not averse to talking things out, but dislikes putting others on the line.

Hmm. None of that is a strife specibus, though I suppose you’re going for riflekind and pipekind. Generally void players use fistkind since it’s the absence of a weapon, but if you want to give him another option besides hand-to-hand melee may I suggest poisonkind? He could use something from his garden, like monkshood :3c. Or if you want to give him a melee weapon he could use the sansetsukon per the 36th Chamber of Shaolin, which would double as a symbol reminder since he could arrange the segments in a backwards s. Fetch Modus: ;;3;; I have absolutely no idea.

What about a clue modus where the items are obscured but contain details describing them? With the caveat that some of them will have similar color/taste/textures listed. I think this might be fun because there are actually *two* famous detectives with the last name Monk, Adrian Monk and William Monk.

Blood Color: Jade.

That works great, especially with Friendsim’s reveal that many jades are indeed monastic/cloistered.

Lunar Sway: Not sure.

Given that he’s a monk and you have painted him as someone unlikely to cause conflict or rebel against the system, I think he’d be a Prospit dreamer.

Title: Knight of Void, someone who exploits what little secrecy and irrelevance he has for all it’s worth. He was first conceived as a Bard, to fit into a fansession, but I eventually decided it didn’t fit what the character had developed to be.

Symbol and Meaning: I made it up, and it doesn’t have a name. It’s an infinity symbol, broken in the center - like this, but flipped 90 degrees clockwise. I guess it could tie into his aspect by…destroying infinity, I guess, but I really haven’t put that much thought into it.

If we’re going by the EZ, he would be Virittanius, the Deliberate. Which I think fits him quite well! It also looks like a further corruption of the sign you gave him, so I may toy with that a little in the redesign. Handle: I feel like I might have given him a serious handle at one point, but if I did, I forgot it, so for now, it’s oolongMatcha. Just his name. Considering his classpect and desire for secrecy, this makes about as much sense as a rain barrel made out of crackers, but I’m not sure what to give him.

Since his new initials are RM, maybe revenantMyiopsitta. Revenant, of course, to hint at the fact that he’s part of the blood caste most commonly associated with rebirth after death, and Myiopsitta being the genus for two types of parakeet: the cliff parakeet and the monk parakeet. So we have his true identity as well as the unusual nature of his hive, both concealed in plain sight. Quirk: he types in all lower case and likes putting his horns in his emoticons! ’:) Maybe doing it like (:; would make more sense, as it’s his right (our left) horn that’s busted.

I like it! Depending on his redesign you may also want him to uƨe backwardƨ ƨ’ƨ to mimic hiƨ ƨymbol.

Special Abilities: Supreme Dadliness. Jokes aside, he’s a crack shot, even with his impeded vision, and has been successfully flying under the radar his whole life.

If you still want him to be a crack shot even with the changes I suggested above, maybe he uses blowdarts to poison his enemies from afar?

Lusus: His father is a MASSIVE white snake; I was thinking some kind of constrictor. Personality-wise, he’s close to a prototypical 50s dad. He’s a safe haven for his son and those his baby cares about, and is exceedingly patient, to the point of letting a small child fingerpaint on him. He’s also willing to carry Oolong in emergencies, though I’m not really certain that would work in real life, movement-wise.

I feel like the snake can be a little overplayed as a lusus. If we want to give him something similar to a mother grub as a jadeblood, why not a massive butterfly based on the monk/dusky friar? It also gives you the mechanics for how his dadderfly would carry him around in emergencies.

Interests: He used to spend a lot of time alone on the internet - I originally conceptualized him as a very lonely NEET, to the point he had to find his wallet to remember his own name - but has become more adventurous and friendly, spending more time with his girlfriend and friends (and he has friends now!) He’s very proud of his garden and fruit trees, some of which are rare, difficult to grow properly, and/or dangerous (offering more security).

Huh! You don’t explain *how* he goes from isolated to friendly, but I’d hope that gardening is a way for him to reach out to others since it’s a hobby you can commit to on your own but bond with other hobbyists.

Hive: He lives out in the woods by himself, though not so far from other trolls that he can’t take the day to go shopping or see his mate. His hive is surrounded by his garden on all sides, and has a very visible path down the center (making it easy for him to see anyone approaching, and shoot if they’re a threat). Trees surround it, and dangerous plants are strategically placed to make going through his garden unpleasant at best (it also makes weeding a pain, but he thinks it’s worth it). His hive is especially unusual in that the porch is raised up to the second floor with large poles, and you have to use a ladder to get up to it (unless you’re snakedad, in which case you go up the poles). He has a remote so he can let it down from the ground, as well as access to it on the platform, so he can let people up himself. I don’t think the ground level has a door. I’d be happy to submit pictures, if you want.

Feel free to show us pictures, but I like the concept a lot!

Appearance: Tall and rail-thin, excepting his oddly curvy hips. (I figured due to jades being majority female, developing jade males might be exposed to more than the usual amount of estrogen and androgens. Also I’m way more used to drawing women than men and his initial outline was a gal for like ten minutes.) He shaves his head bald. (This is because A) I didn’t want to bother trying to figure out men’s hair - I almost never draw dudes - and B) he’s partially themed after monks, who often shave their heads. I don’t remember why he says he does it.)

…man, I’m gonna take issue with the way you phrased this description. There’s a lot of gender essentialism going on in your explanation there, and given that a number of us mods are trans and nonbinary I feel obligated to point out a few things:

1) Trolls are bugs. They’re not even mammals. They aren’t exposed to androgen or estrogen or any hormone to give them a certain body shape. It is quite heavily implied that when the mother grub gives birth it is to a bunch of larvae.

2) I know that Homestuck lore has given us largely jade girls and one jade trans guy but that’s no reason to assume that jade men are broadly more “feminine” by default in *any* dimension

3) Even if trolls *did* work like humans, it rubs me the wrong way to see someone talking about a man’s “oddly” curvy hips like I’ve got guy friends both trans and cis with wide hips and the only reason to remark on it at all is because We Live In A Society that forcibly genders people in relation to physical characteristics.

…So I am otherwise taking your description at face value. ______ Matcha is tall, rail thin, with curvy hips and a bald head. I will probably add some little fangs, per the Alternian fashion guide.

He wears leggings (unless it’s very hot) and long tunics or robes, usually tan, with his symbol emblazoned on the breast. He goes barefoot if he can. His right (our left) horn is broken, due to an accident in his youth (I think he fell onto something?), amusingly improving his vision, since his unbroken left horn points in front of his left eye, obscuring it somewhat. His face could almost be described as delicate, and his default expression is calm.

I don’t knooooow that tan is a color trolls wear all that often in Alternia, so I will see how I can rework that in the redesign. I get him being barefoot, but I may give it a shot spriting him monk shoes for if he wants to go on an outing. :3c For his broken horn…hm. When we see trolls with physical damage, it is almost always something more significant than just “childhood accident” (see: every troll in Homestuck except Equius who somehow had like 3 simultaneous accidents?). I have an idea for his horns that I will get to in the redesign, and I will probably add a hook to his front horn, both because it’s a jadeblood trait and because it seems suitably horrifying to constantly have a sharp implement millimeters from your eye.

Personality: Oolong is a nice, fatherly young man, well regarded by most he meets. He really really likes tea. He has a beautiful, dangerous mafiosa matesprite in a rustblood named Andora Ingenu, and they adore each other. He’s also taken on the substitute dad role for an adorable young fuschia who lives in the swamp near his forest, Lillie Waters, teaching her how to cook (and keep her tools clean) and rescuing her from other fuschias. He’s very protective of his and his loved ones’ privacy and safety, and spends a LOT of his time in the massive gardens around his hive, of which he’s deservedly proud. He is very good at being sneaky, and sometimes takes the time to run around seeing what he can get away with, especially in the realm of snatching seeds up for his garden. He sells whatever plants he can grow for money, especially fruits and vegetables, but he doesn’t really enjoy sales. He doesn’t put a lot of stock in blood superiority, but doesn’t make a big deal out of it. He’s oddly well adjusted for someone who spent most of his life alone.

I like this description! Also looking at his close compatriots, it looks like I can swap the tan in his design for rust or fuchsia. We already see jadebloods wearing a fair amount in the red/burgundy/purple spectrum, so it should fit right in with the others.

Land: I don’t remember if I’ve come up with one. If I did, I feel like it may have heavily wooded areas, dark and tangled and difficult to navigate.

Hmmm. What about Land of Rough and Reflection (LORAR)? Covered in rough terrain, with pools to contemplate oneself. Unbeknownst to your troll, there are switches at the bottom of each lake (deeper than he could ever hope to dive and hold his breath) that must be flipped to drain the lakes and free the consorts from the underwater caves in which they’ve been trapped for generations. His land would initially seem completely empty and without guidance, and it neatly parallels his own situation before he began to socialize.

I hope you like him! :) I’d love to see what you guys think of him.

He’s certainly an interesting troll, and I hope I’ve helped by way of sharpening up on his theme! Let’s move on to the redesign.

Top to bottom as usual!

Hair - I gave him some stubble courtesy of fan-troll (I have never managed a post without plugging fan-troll/tajazzled’s sprite sheet and I’m not gonna stop now)

Horns - I wanted to make his other horn sort of…curve away from his head so it looks like his symbol from above?

Eyes and brows - they didn’t change but big ups to fan-troll for giving me bases to modify!

Mouth - this is a modification of Sollux’s mouth but I gave him lil fangs and a little lower lip definition

Robes - I just modified some of Kanaya’s robes, appropriately enough! I decided to go for a red/pink shade that was between rust and fuchsia so he could fit in while subtly broadcasting his allegiance

Shoes - they’re John’s but with buckles! :B monk shoes

Aaaand that’s about it for my critique! I hope this helped!

-TR

#jadeblood #submission #oolong matcha #oolong #matcha #theshieldswordandcrown #rivulx #rivulx matcha #review #redesign #tr review

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hamtigers · 4 years

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So for some reason I woke up today thinking about an RP community I used to be a part of for awhile years ago. So I just wanna give a shot out to anyone who used to be a part of the KH RP board Kingdoms Unleashed awhile back, especially before they shut it down and re-opened it. I tried to come back once after it reopened but I just... couldn’t stay inspired enough for threads with the character I returned on and the fact that they didn’t allow OCs anymore honestly killed a lot of the appeal in the forum for me. And during typing this I just noticed my bookmark for it still exists, but the board itself has been deleted. So I suppose I may as well delete the bookmark.

more specifics about my feelings (and info about the board for anyone uninvolved but curious) below the cut because I am going to ramble A LOT. Like... this post is gonna be hella long, so I’m sorry if read-mores don’t work on mobile still. Also sorry if this shows up in people’s searches since tumblr picks words out of the whole body and not just the tags.

I honestly feel like I’ve made a post like this once before in the past but I still... want to make it again, because I’m feeling incredibly nostalgic about it. Kingdoms Unleashed was a KH-centric RP board on proboards that I lucked out and got into very early on in its life thanks to @highly-radioactive-nerd stumbling across it. I know a few buds from the board also were mutuals on tumblr, but I don’t know how many of you guys still use this site. But anyway, the big draw of the board was that you could bring in characters from outside of KH as long as they “fit the feel” of kingdom hearts, which they ruled as being: from a disney property, from a videogame, from an anime/manga, or from a similiarly styled media(as the catchall for allowing characters from, say, avatar the last airbender in despite it being a western-made cartoon). This was before the big starwars and marvel mergers, which is funny to me because western superheroes were a given example of what wasn’t allowed. Every character (whether they were from KH or not) had to go through an application process, and it was the main way they screened for quality control in RP and so that they could make sure no one was bringing in any super overpowered characters (the quality bar wasn’t like, elitist or anything, you just had to show a basic grasp and consistency on the character’s personality and that you weren’t gonna post a bunch of one-liners) The minimum required activity level to keep a character was pretty lenient too, you just had to make sure you made a post like... somewhere around once or twice every two week period, with activity checks being made once a month? Unless you gave notice of an extended absence. (common reasons included travelling w/o internet access since smartphones weren’t common yet, computer problems, health reasons, and needing to study for classes and exams)

But on top of all this, they also allowed OCs and fan characters under some small stipulations. The big ones I remember are: -No keyblade wielders to avoid an over saturation of keyblades -No vastly overpowered characters. This applied to canon characters too though. Like... one person got to have a touhou character only because her powers got stripped down a lot and they had already proven themselves as a long time responsible RPer on the forum. -No pre-existing ties to canon characters. They could know OF someone if it made sense for their background! But they couldn’t have already met them personally. Anything that develops in character after that is free game of course, but if a canon character got dropped then picked up by someone else, they had no obligation to pick up where the previous player left off. This bullet point is gonna be super important in my later talking! -This is kind of a sub-thing of the last one, but nobodies also couldn’t (officially) join org-XIII under any circumstance.

One of the GMs even admitted in the forum chat at one point that they were on the fence about allowing OCs to begin with, but they were glad they did because of the quality of OCs that got brought in.

The place ended up flourishing into a VERY healthy roleplay forum, with the rare drama cases either being resolved or with the instigator getting thrown out if they didn’t settle down. My favorite part was that unlike other RP places I’ve been on, there wasn’t a massive posse schism or canon/OC schism. No, people RPed canon characters with OCs and fancharacters and characters from different games or anime constantly, to the point where several canon characters ended up in romantic relationships with peoples’ OCs.

I loved it. My characters never ended up among those dating canon characters, but it made me so genuinely happy to see a forum so openly embracing fan characters and OCs to that degree. I was used to people only wanting to facilitate ships they already had in their minds, or making fun on FC/canon ships in other places that it just genuinely made me happily astounded to see the forum grow into a place where that was common and other RPers would actually like... get invested in and follow these romances they weren’t a part of despite not knowing the OC.

I still occasionally wonder, however, if the forum’s overall activity hadn’t dwindled down, if I would have landed a ~dream ship~ with a canon character and my own fancharacter. A bunch of people had been recently bringing in FFIV characters (which is my fav FF not counting XIV) so I decided to take a chance on bringing in my fan character, Ayletta. This was shortly after I had lost inspiration for Rydia and dropped her so that another fan of the character could have her instead and hopefully do her more justice. Ayletta is a physically disabled girl (can’t stand or walk for more than very short periods of time) that relies on her Chocobo to get around and dreams of having her own chocobo ranch. What didn’t get included in her profile or mentioned by me anywhere on forum was that I "secretly” ship her with Kain.

Guess who just happened to be the only person that joined my first thread I started as her was? I was immediately ecstatic, even more so when I saw how quickly they got along even with someone else controlling him. What really got me and left me wondering what ~could have been~ is what they included in his described thoughts, but not in his spoken words. The RPer drew parallels between Ayletta/her chocobo and Kain’s father/his dragon to the point where he immediately was in awe and respect of the bond between Ayletta and her bird. This was a facet I had never even realized or considered between them before then, and only added to the fuel of my own thoughts. The thread was fairly short lived, but there was definitely plans for them both to meet up again later on which unfortunately never got to happen.

#Ham rambles #wall of text #long post #just reminiscing #god I miss being in good RP communities #I'm just too much of a weenie to seek out new ones #and too exhausted by previous failures to try starting my own #yeah I just searched my blog and I made a post about this same shit 4 years ago lmao #but I'm still posting this new one because I ALREADY TYPED IT UP DAMMIT

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keelywolfe · 5 years

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FIC: Any Other Tuesday (ch3, baon)

Summary: It started the same as any other Tuesday

Tags: Spicyhoney, Original Undertale Characters, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Prejudice Against Monsters, Violence, Injury

part of the ‘by any other name’ series.

Notes: You guys have been watching the tags on this one, right? Okay, then, let’s go.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Read it on AO3

Read it here!

~~*~~

Any college student in Ebott could tell you that Golden City was the best place for Chinese in town. They served obscene portion sizes of delicious food, at a price that kept them very busy throughout the week. Despite that, they didn’t have to wait long after they walked in the door. A tiny Asian woman in a large apron came up to them almost immediately, chattering away as she gestured for them to follow.

Stretch prattled along with her, not a single word that Jeff could understand. Possibly Mandarin? He didn’t know. Neither Edge nor Antwan seemed surprised by this turn of events, only following her to a corner table where they were promptly sat.

“i’ve got a standing reservation here,” Stretch leaned in to whisper conspiratorially. “featured them on my twitter once and the owner loved it. course, the edgelord here doesn’t like to eat out that much, so i mostly use it for lunch.”

“Eating out is perfectly fine for an indulgence, not as a daily practice,” Edge told him. He was trying to surreptitiously wipe the table with one of the napkins. It looked perfectly clean to Jeff, but he didn’t ask, and when Stretch absently picked up his water glass and the soy sauce bottle on his side of the table so that Edge could wipe beneath it, Jeff automatically did the same with the little basket of sweeteners and the salt shaker.

Cleaning off the table, no matter how unnecessary, seemed to calm Edge somewhat. He allowed Stretch to take one of his gloved hands, twining their fingers together. Beneath the table, Antwan did the same, closing his warm hand over Jeff’s, his thumb stroking the smooth skin of his wrist, and Jeff felt like his heart might burst.

No menus appeared but that didn’t seem to matter. Hot tea was on the table in minutes and not long after there were plates loaded with food, bowls filled with rice, all wedged together on the table between water glasses and sauces, piled together family-style.

Thinking of that way pinched, a little, but…yeah, they were good friends, the best of. Jeff didn’t think Stretch would mind if he thought of them as family.

It was fun. Stretch was just…Stretch, but Edge showed more than a few glimpses of the bone-dry sense of humor that Jeff knew lurked beneath the surface of his scowling veneer. There was plenty of food; sesame noodles and fried wontons, vegetable stir fry and egg foo young. Antwan and Stretch battled with chopsticks over the last egg roll, neither of them noticing until it was too late that Edge stole it out from under them, and Jeff couldn’t stop laughing at their outraged expressions while Edge smugly chewed.

There was more tea and laughter, and by the time they were splitting up the fortune cookies, the Great Action Figure Catastrophe was mostly out of his mind.

“okay, okay, let’s see what i got,” Stretch broke open his cookie, absently munching on a piece as he unfolded his fortune. “’the early bird gets the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese’,” he read, then scowled. “that’s not a fortune, that’s a proverb. bleh.” He crumbled it up and tossed it on the table. “what did you get, babe?”

“It says my lucky numbers are 7, 14, 26, 32, 47, and 59,” Edge said, so seriously that at first Jeff didn’t see the sparkle in his eye lights.

“turn it over, asshole,” Stretch sighed, “come on!”

“Ah, there it is,” Edge squinted at the tiny print. “Hm, it says a beautiful, smart, and funny person will be coming in to my life.”

“that one’s a little late.”

“It is,” Edge said agreeably. He set the broken bits of his cookie on Stretch’s plate, where they were promptly consumed. “Once they find me, I’ll have to explain to them that I already married you.”

Stretch choked on his last bite, chewing furiously before reaching over to give Edge a rough shove.

“you shit,” Stretch said fondly, and didn’t resist when Edge took hold of his hand, drawing it up to press a kiss against his knuckles.

“You see?” Edge murmured against the delicate bones. “This is why no one should set their path to the declarations of baked goods.”

Antwan only shook his head and opened his. “’To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing’.”

“must be why people are always bitching at you, antwan, you don’t do any of those.”

“I’m a lawyer, I thrive on criticism,” Antwan said easily. He gave Jeff a nudge with his elbow. “All right, what about you?”

Jeff broke the cookie over his plate to keep the crumbs from scattering, unfolding his fortune.

Don’t worry about money, the best things in life are free.

He only realized he was staring at it for too long when Stretch said, cautiously, “andy? you okay?”

“Um, yeah.” He crumpled it up, tossing it on the table. “I’m going to hit the restroom before we take off, be right back.”

He didn’t wait for anyone to say anything, pushing back his chair and heading towards the long hallway that led to the toilets. They were meant for a single person and he went in gratefully, locking the door behind him. Inside, he ignored the toilet with its little basket of potpourri on the tank and went to the sink. Splashing cold water on his face helped ease the stinging heat and he braced his hands on the sides, breathing deeply as the water trickled down his cheeks.

“It’s okay,” he told himself, “It’s okay, they don’t mind.” Yeah, didn’t mind that he was a fucking freeloader, all starting with his student loans getting paid off for the low, low price of being a decent person.

Jeff sighed, yanking a few paper towels from the holder and drying his face. They really didn’t care, he honestly knew it. Knowing it didn’t make him feel better, though, and the food was sitting heavy in his belly when he opened the door…and almost ran headfirst into Antwan.

“You were taking a while. You feeling okay?" His dark eyes searched Jeff’s face with visible concern.

"Yeah, I'm fine,” Jeff summoned up a smile, settling a hand on Antwan’s chest before he asked lightly, “So, am I headed back to your place with you tonight?”

He knew the answer before Antwan said a word, the apologetic expression that crossed his face said it all, and his hopes fell.

“I can’t tonight, I’m heading out as soon as we’re done with dinner. We have a big court case coming up and I need to polish my opening statement.” He glanced out of the hallway and whatever he saw must’ve satisfied him because he leaned in to nuzzle a soft kiss at the base of Jeff’s throat, soft and teasing. “You’re too much of a distraction to have laying around.”

"Aww, not even a cuddle at bedtime?” Jeff tried. Going home alone tonight sounded like a misery. if he could just sleep in Antwan’s bed, wake up in the middle of the night and know someone was sleeping beside him, maybe—

Antwan only shook his head. "I’m not very good at only cuddling around you. Better not to have the temptation.”

His fragile soap bubble hopes popped just like that and Jeff nodded, keeping his smile firmly pasted in place. But some of his disappointment must’ve shown, because Antwan’s reached up and cupped his face in one hand.

“What about this weekend?” Antwan suggested. “Stay over Saturday night and Sunday morning we can sleep in.”

It was a good compromise, a few nights on his own to earn a morning in Antwan’s bed. “I like the sound of that. Come on, before they send out a search party.”

Stretch and Edge were waiting when they came out, bags of leftovers sitting in wait. The bill was on the table, signed in Edge’s precise hand and Jeff couldn’t help looking, wincing as he saw the total. The bags only made it worse and he couldn’t decide if he should carry one to help out or leave it so it didn’t look like he was claiming it as his own. Antwan and Edge took the choice out of his hands, gathering up the bags between them.

Whatever cheerful farewell Stretch called to their hostess got him a chorus of the same from the kitchen, the entire staff waving as they went out in the cool night air. It was almost dark, the sun just dipping below the horizon.

“is all that gonna fit in that suitcase you call a trunk?” Stretch asked. He was lighting a cigarette almost before they were out the door, deliberately walking ahead of them so he couldn’t see Edge’s scowl.

“There is nothing wrong with my trunk,” Edge said coolly. The bag rustled at his side, almost creaking from its burden as he walked a little faster. “At least my car fits four people, unlike someone else.”

“Don’t be shitting on my car, it didn’t do anything to you,” Antwan grumbled.

“Oh, please, I have serious car envy from both of you,” Jeff said, wryly. That much he could admit, couldn’t he? “Someday, I’m going to own a car like yours. Or maybe a car at all.”

“nothing wrong with the bus,” Stretch said loftily. He danced nimbly aside as Edge tried to pluck away his cigarette. How he moved that quickly without actually shortcutting, Jeff did not know, but somehow he was suddenly on the other side of their little group, taking a hasty drag as Edge stalked him determinedly.

“Yeah, but you only take it to prevent vehicular homicide,” Antwan said with a snort.

“please, it would be manslaughter at best…okay, okay, i’m done with it, edgelord, fuck me.” He tossed the butt down, grinding it out under his sneaker and retrieving the squashed remains to toss in a nearby trash can.

Edge watched Stretch a moment longer, until he was sure the lighter wasn’t making a reappearance, then said, "Jeff, if you’d like, you can drive mine for the ride home.”

That made him stop, staring at Edge in disbelief. Edge’s car was gorgeous, sleek and cherry-red, and probably way out of Jeff’s lifetime budget. "Seriously?”

“Of course.” Edge pulled out his keys and started to hand them over, then drew them back inches from Jeff’s hand. "You can, I assume?"

“Yeah, yeah, of course I can!" Jeff laughed. He snatched the keys as they were offered to him again with a whoop of joy. Fuck it, if nothing else, he could enjoy driving an awesome car, even if it wasn’t his own.

Edge always parked in the back of any lot, away from the crowd of other cars. Jeff ran ahead, all his attention on that gorgeous cherry-red paint job and it had been a while since he’d driven, sure, but he wasn’t worried. Maybe this was only an excuse for Edge and Stretch to make out in the backseat, but Jeff didn’t care. This was going to be awesome.

When he tried to remember what happened later, nothing stood out. He saw them standing there, sure, but didn't think anything of it, why would he? It was barely nine o'clock and Ebott was a nice town. Three men in t-shirts and work boots, nothing remarkable about them, standing around on the sidewalk with cigarettes in hand. It was about as normal as could be.

That one of them swung into his path only brought surprise, not fear, and Jeff nearly ran into him, apologies automatically coming to his lips, “Oh, sorry about—"

He broke off, couldn’t even cry out at the sudden shock of tearing pain.

“That's what you get, monster fucker." The face so close to his own was unshaven, bloodshot eyes boring into his own. His breath was rank with alcohol, sickeningly thick, and he spit when he talked, a fine spray of foulness against Jeff's face.

Past that first jagged thrust of excruciating pain, it didn't even really hurt, not at first. Like a weak punch, once, twice, three times, against his belly, and then Jeff staggered back, away from the man, who had tiny blossoms of bright red suddenly speckling his white t-shirt. Jeff looked down, saw the handle sticking out and all he could think was that it didn't belong there. He fumbled at it with numb fingers that turned crimson and slippery when he touched it.

Later, he would think how strange it was that everything was sort of blurred in his memory, but he could still remember some detail vividly. There was shouting, cursing, screaming, but none of it was him. He only stood, wavering on his feet and staring at the redness dripping from his hands.

He stabbed me, Jeff realized numbly, I’m bleeding. It was a knife handle, the knife was still in him, and there was the pain, sharp and wrong and terrible. He opened his mouth to cry out and couldn’t, warm copper choking him, blood bubbling out from between his lips.

The screaming cut off abruptly into a new, terrible silence broken only by scuffling against pavement, but Jeff was sliding to his knees in slow motion, falling back on the sidewalk. There was a street light over him, pouring harsh fluorescents down in a glaring circle.

"Jeff?" Antwan was suddenly there, the light behind his head cast his face in shadow, but Jeff could still see his eyes, so wide the whites showed all the way around, "Jeff? Baby? Fuck, oh, god, oh fuck—“

He's never called me that, Jeff thought hazily, reaching up to touch him but his hands were bloody, couldn’t touch him with dirty, bloody hands, tried to pull away. Antwan grabbed his hand anyway, the wetness squelching between their palms, and that was blood, his blood, he was bleeding.

More scuffling sounds and feet appeared next to him in worn converse with untied laces dragging in the dirt.

"edge, let them breathe. if you kill them, the paperwork will never end." Each word was bitten off with sharp precision, colder than he’d ever heard Stretch talk. “antwan, i need you to move, pal. come on, we need to hurry. give me your jacket.”

The knife handle vanished beneath Antwan’s jacket spread over him, and Stretch was crouching next to him now, his bones stark in the garish streetlight. His eye lights glowed fiercely in his sockets, no, it was only one eye light, strobing orange with seizure-inducing intensity.

“jeff? jeff, look at me, kid." No, not, Jeff, Stretch never called him Jeff. He was Andy, Handy Andy. Jeff tried to correct him and coughed, gagging on the thick taste of iron in his throat. “i need you to listen to me, okay? i’m gonna help you, but the police are on their way and we can't have this much blood and no one hurt, do you understand?"

Police, yes, he could hear sirens, distant still but getting closer.

“Stretch, you need to hurry.” Edge’s voice was further away, oddly strained.

"i know.” He leaned in close, whispering softly, “don't worry, kiddo, you're going to be all right. I promise."

I promise. It sounded so fierce, no hilarious little pinkie swear, but more like a vow, an unbroken oath.

The feel of long, bony fingers sliding under his shirt was impossibly ticklish, strange to feel anything outside of the pain. They were cool against his skin, then suddenly they weren’t, warming, almost painfully hot. From beneath the jacket came an eerie, greenish glow, mostly stifled but Jeff couldn’t look away from it, mesmerized. It went brighter, streaming out through the sleeves and the seams. The pain receded some, draining into that heat, swirling away and leaving a strange weakness behind. Until that faded, too, and the glow dimmed to nothingness.

Suddenly, Jeff could breathe much easier again; his mouth still tasted foul, but it was easier. Next to him, Antwan leaned in close, gathering up Jeff’s hand again. His knuckles were grimy even in the streetlight, rusty with drying blood.

“there you go.” Stretch wobbled where he was crouching, falling to his knees on the sidewalk. Sweat was beading on his skull, running down his face in translucent orange rivulets and his eye lights were back to their normal pale, soft white. “it's all good, kid, just like i said. go to sleep now, all right? we'll be there when you wake up.”

He pulled his hands out from beneath the coat and tossed something aside. It was the knife, Jeff realize distantly, it wasn’t in him anymore. “antwan, here, you need to keep pressure on this still.” And when he didn’t move, Stretch grabbed his hand impatiently. “come on, help out here. jeff’s gonna be okay.”

"Supposed to call me Andy," Jeff mumbled. It still hurt, but not as bad, a tooth-ache sort of throbbing in his gut as Antwan did as he was told and pushed the bunched-up fabric of his jacket down where only moments ago his blood was spilling out.

Stretch let out a tired chuckle. "sorry, running jokes were disrupted by injury. okay, andy, go to sleep, yeah?”

It was hard to resist that order, darkness dragging at him even as the sirens soared in volume, other voices raised around them. Two hands were holding his own, uncaring of the mess. One was bony and hard, but comfortingly warm and the other gripped almost too hard, trembling in his grip.

I’m okay, he tried to say but the words didn’t come. Instead, his eyes drifted closed on their own and the darkness pulled him down.

~~*~~

Read Chapter Four

#spicyhoney #papcest #keelywolfe #underfell #underswap #underfell papyrus #underswap papyrus #by any other name

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jbuffyangel · 5 years

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The Light Bulb Moment: Arrow 7x05 Review (The Demon)

Oliver Queen has a light bulb moment that’s been seven years in the making.

Team Felicity (yes that’s the name) has one as well, which means we are that much closer to being done with the prison arc!

Let’s dig in...

Oliver Queen

We finally find out who The Demon is and I gotta say I was legitimately surprised. However, as soon as I found out it was Talia Al Ghul I thought

It had to be someone related to the League of Assassins and Talia would consider herself The Demon since Ra’s Al Ghul is dead. It’s not like Talia and Nyssa are besties. The amount of hoops Oliver had to jump through to get to The Demon also fits perfectly with Talia Al Ghul, as he notes.

The real question is how Talia ended up in Slabside and it seems we have Batwoman to thank. Nice shout out to Gotham and a not so subtle reference to the rapidly approaching crossover.

Talia survived Lian Yu, but it was Diaz’s super drug that healed her. Not unlike how it temporarily healed Diggle’s injury. Excellent tie in writers.

Talia is beholden to Diaz, but unfortunately she has no idea where he is. UGH.

It’s a little surprising Talia believes Oliver will help her escape. Listen girlfriend, you sided with Adrian Chase and his baby Mama ended up dead.

However, Talia (rightly) points out Oliver murdered her father. She’s not exactly an Oliver Queen fan. So, whatever Dr. Parker is doing to the prisoners is making Talia pretty desperate.

Oliver: You stood on the same side as Adrian Chase and my son lost his mother. So now I’m here trying to save what’s left of my family because I am stuck in a cycle of violence and I have been stuck there since the moment you told what to do with my father’s list.

(Not gonna lie, I was a little verklempt when Oliver referred to Samantha as his family. Olicity and Samantha would have killed it at co-parenting.)

It seems like Oliver has bought into Dr. Parker’s brain bullshit, but he’s just playing along. He doesn’t really believe he’s been stuck in a cycle of violence. I mean, he has but not in a bad way or at least not entirely. I also argue with his conclusion the cycle began when he met Talia. Oliver was thrown into violence the second he stepped onto the raft.

Talia didn’t create “the monster.” She just gave Oliver direction on how to use it.

There are a couple reasons why Oliver is pretending to be brain washed. It is possible he believes he’s being watched and doesn’t want to tip off Dr. Parker. Also, he met “The Demon” and she can’t help him with jack, so I don’t think he’s highly motivated to blow his cover for Talia. Finally, Oliver isn’t convinced Dr. Parker is doing anything horrible yet. He’s not buying what Dr. Parker is selling, but Oliver still believes he is trying to reform prisoners. What’s wrong with that?

A lot if you try to kill them. When Oliver sees the dead body of the inmate who attempted to murder him in the shower fight, things start to look more alarming on Level 2. Talia is surprised Oliver cares about a man who tried to kill him, but he argues whatever is happening behind the creepy and nondescript door isn’t right. Talia is the one who told Oliver to help others and fight for justice, which is all he’s trying to do now.

This is an extremely important development for Oliver. Helping criminals has never been the Green Arrow’s modus operandi. Since Green Arrow is the warmer and fuzzier version of The Hood and The Arrow, you can trust neither of those identities were invested in helping criminals either. In fact, the Green Arrow put most of the criminals in Slabside. Oliver never thought much about why someone became a criminal and he never thought of them again after they were locked up. Of course, the locked up criminals are the lucky ones. There are many who never made it to jail. They went straight to a graveyard.

Oliver’s policy on killing is fluid, ever evolving and occasionally flip flopping, much to my frustration most of the time. Let’s review:

Season 1: Killing

Season 2: Not killing (except for The Count)

Season 3: Not killing (except for attempting to kill Ra’s Al Ghul on the mountain because Felicity said it was okay and ultimately killing Ra’s Al Ghul in the season finale)

Season 4: Not killing (except for Damien Darhk because he killed Laurel)

Season 5: Killing (except for Adrian Chase because that would’ve proved his point)

Season 6: Not killing (he never caught Diaz so the jury is still out on how Oliver plans to deal with him, but I am thinking jail)

Looking at this it’s fair to say Oliver doesn’t have a hard and fast rule when it comes to killing. He operated from a kill or be killed perspective in Season 1 and Season 5.

His “no killing” rule was set aside anytime the Big Bad was perceived as a large enough threat or for retribution in Season 3 and Season 4.

The whole point of having a moral code is to stick to it. If Oliver is prepared to deep six his code whenever it’s inconvenient or difficult to hold to then it’s not really a code. Hence, the reason I’ve been coming down on him so hard about this for the last seven years.

I believe all human life has value and therefore we cannot kill another human being. Of course, war or acting in self defense is a different story, but my overall stance on killing is a big, fat NO. However, I’m not losing any sleep over any of the people Oliver Queen has killed. These villains are awful, they did horrific things, and deserved to get got. We can even make the argument the world is a better place without these people in it.

However, simply because someone deserves to die doesn’t mean he/she should. Oliver doesn’t get to be judge, jury, and executioner simply because he wears a mask. He may catch criminals outside of the law, but Oliver is not above the law. His killing is a strong argument against vigilantism and Oliver has been striving to be a better hero for several years now.

This isn’t entirely Oliver’s fault. For some reason, the writers are determined to box him into an either or choice. Either the criminal goes free or you kill him. I’ve been screaming, “WHAT ABOUT JAIL?” for the last seven years because guess what? We have a way of keeping society safe without killing the criminal.

Is it a perfect system? Of course not, but no system is. Not allowing Oliver to avail himself of this option while Barry Allen gets to have his very own meta prison seems a little unfair.

Yes, men like Ra’s Al Ghul and even Damien Darhk may too much to handle even for Slabside, but Oliver had his very own A.R.G.U.S. prison on Lian Yu that he never used, except for Slade Wilson and the Boomerang guy.

Why? Because that’s Arrow and sometimes Arrow is dumb. They want to Oliver constantly deciding whether the villain lives or dies because it’s one way they mark his superhero evolution.

I was particularly hard on Oliver regarding Damien Darhk. Not because I believed Darhk deserves to live – he nuked an entire city. However, Oliver killed Darhk because he killed Laurel. Damien was unarmed and de-magicked. Oliver easily could have handed him over to the authorities. Instead, he drove an arrow through him on live television. Thus, creating many of the legal problems Oliver faced in Season 6 and Season 7.

And that’s the point. Killing doesn’t erase consequences. It creates them. Yes, maybe the villain escapes prison and more lives are lost. Maybe the justice system won’t work. Although are we really worried the legal system won’t punish perpetrators of mass genocide? No. Probably not.

Killing Ra’s Al Ghul ignited a rage in Talia. She sided with Adrian and played a role in Samantha’s death. If you want to know how Damien Darhk’s daughter turns out flip on Legends. It ain’t pretty.

Retribution begets retribution. This is the lesson Adrian Chase taught Oliver and so he began to view killing a different way in Season 6.

It’s why Oliver tried to catch Diaz and not kill him.

Oliver: These people are being treated like they are disposable. No one deserves that.

Oliver’s always evolving morality is taking a very important step. He is feeling empathy for the very murderers he helped locked away. Oliver believes these people deserve basic decency despite the horrible crimes they committed. He is beginning to see the criminals’ humanity.

Why is this important? Oliver’s “destiny” is to become the Green Arrow – a fully evolved superhero. Superheroes typically don’t kill. These characters, for the lack of a better word, are Christ like figures. Superheroes have integrity, determination, love, compassion, honesty and honor beyond the regular, everyday person. They are capable of things most people could never dream of doing. It’s why they inspire us. They challenge us to be better because they are better. It’s what makes them superheroes.

This is where Oliver is headed. His morality has to be beyond reproach. Superheroes don’t lie, cheat or kill. Oliver has worked very hard at fixing these problem areas in his life for the last ten years. Is he perfect? No, not even a superhero is perfect. He/She is pretty close though, which is hopefully where Oliver’s origin story ends.

Maybe you or I can’t feel empathy for a criminal, but Oliver Queen is called to be better than us. He will draw the line in the sand, so it’s important he doesn’t cross it. The Green Arrow will be the example Star City will look to, so his moral code better be unbreakable.

This means NO KILLING. Not even when the villain deserves it. Not even when Oliver has the moral high ground. Not even when Oliver deserves revenge. Not even when it may protect the city.

There will always be unforeseen consequences to killing, but the real reason Oliver shouldn’t kill is because every life has value. Oliver can understand and even empathize with some of these people now that he is considered a “criminal” too and has spent so much time with them. It will be very difficult for Oliver to kill a villain when he can see their humanity. It doesn’t mean they deserve freedom, but they don’t automatically deserve death either. There’s a middle ground here. If Arrow will finally allow the Green Arrow to avail himself of the prison system, then he can be a better example to the city.

Talia isn’t impressed with Oliver’s new found empathy for criminals, because he did not show it to her father when it mattered. Yeah, well your father tried to poison an entire city cutie, but that’s just details.

Oliver: No because I back then I still allowed the monster that you unleashed to take over.

This is how we know Oliver is faking with Dr. Parker. You can call it whatever you want – Oliver’s monster, darkness, demons, etc. The name doesn’t matter. Oliver has evolved beyond it. The rage he feels no longer controls him. He faced his “monster” in Season 5 and learned to control it in Season 6. He’s already dealt with all of these issues.

Oliver: Ra’s death was my fault. I couldn’t see past what he intended to do to my city, so I didn’t stop and think about his family, and for that, I am truly sorry.

I could argue Oliver deserves prison. Technically, he is a murderer and not all of his “kills” were done in self defense.

He acknowledges there was another way with Ra’s Al Ghul, but he didn’t take it. Talia is one of those unforeseen consequences to that decision and Oliver is truly sorry for the pain he caused her.

If you believe Oliver deserves redemption for some of those calls then apologizing to who he hurt is an important part of the process. It’s no different than Bl*ck S*ren. Is an apology enough? No, but Oliver has also spent six months locked away from his wife and child. He’s been beaten, tortured, psychologically lobotomized, and almost killed. (Also, I raise my “Ra’s Al Ghul committed mass genocide” flag again.) We’re not dealing with apples to apples here, but in the cosmic scale I think Oliver Queen comes out just fine.

Oliver and Talia fight their way into “the room” to take on Dr. Parker.

Source: @olivergifs

We get some extremely excellent fight scenes.I am so happy we are back to the days of Oliver taking down 50 bad guys by himself or with someone who actually knows how to fight.

Now it’s Oliver’s turn to drop some truths on Dr. Parker.

Oliver: My father pushed people away. He kept secrets, and I made those same mistakes. But if I choose to break the cycle, I’m gonna do it my way.

Source: olivergifs

MY SON IS SO GROWN!!!!!!

Oliver yelling his name in his growly voice will always be awesome. I am thrilled any time Oliver can achieve insights into himself and his father. It’s not the cycle of violence he needs to break. If he’s going to be the Green Arrow and Oliver Queen (and yes that’s where this is headed) then there’s going to be some violence. Oliver can tweak how much violence he’s going to engage in though.

What’s really important is breaking the cycle of lies and walls. Oliver cuts himself off from those he loves just like Robert Queen did. He has grown so much over the past seven years, and his sacrifice was so selfless, but he still lied to Felicity about prison. He made the decision without her. Every time Oliver lies and pushes people away he hurts those he loves and himself.

The monster no longer has power in Oliver’s life because he’s embraced love. Every time he chooses an unrighteous path it’s an opportunity for the monster to regain control. Every step away from the light is a step towards darkness. Being a good man is not limited to wearing a mask. He must be a good man as Oliver Queen and as the Green Arrow.

Source: @olivergifs

SEVEN YEARS Y’ALL!!!!!!!!!!! I HAVE WAITED FOR OLIVER QUEEN TO COME TO THIS CONCLUSION FOR SEVEN YEARS!!!!!!!!!

Season after season, review after review, waiting, watching and hoping for him to finally understand man and mask must be one. I am legit screaming. SCREAMING.

This was the light bulb I’ve been waiting to go off in his head. THIS MOMENT WAS EARNED! And worth the wait.

Oliver gives Talia the USB with the evidence they gathered to give to Felicity. He refuses to leave the prison because then he’d be a fugitive for the rest of his life. #OliverQueenPuttingHisFamilyFirstAlways.

Source: smoakmonster

Trust me, Talia. She knows.

Oliver returns to Level One and is reunited with his prison wife Stan, who quickly informs him his real wife came for a visit.

Every time Oliver hears Felicity’s name I swear to God his heart stops.

My heart broke for Oliver when he realizes he missed a precious visit with Felicity. He must have noticed she hasn’t visited as often as she could. (More on that in a minute).

Source: oliverfelicitygifs

Stan tells Oliver that Felicity has a beat on Diaz and he’s not exactly thrilled. Oliver absolutely did not want Felicity going after Diaz and it’s clear he’s scared to death she’ll be hurt. He has no way of protecting or stopping her, which is exactly the point. Oliver doesn’t get to decide this time. He has to simply wait and see. Whatever is going to happen will happen. It’ll be interesting when these two are reunited because there are issues.

Oliver has retained his light inside of Slabside, he’s developed more empathy towards the people he’s fighting against, and he understands he can no longer separate his two identities. If Oliver is in need of redemption (particularly with Felicity) then I say he’s learned the necessary lessons to achieve it. It may be difficult for a time, but Oliver and Felicity will work through their problems once they are together again. In no small part because Oliver Queen is ready to be the man Felicity Smoak deserves and the hero Star City needs.

Source: smoakmonster

Felicity Smoak

I am falling in love with Felicity Smoak and Bl*ck S*ren. Nobody is more shocked than me. I don’t know what to tell ya.

They make the perfect odd couple. Felicity is sunshine and roses while Bl*ck S*ren is a snarky (reformed?) murderer. There are some similarities to Oliver and Felicity or Laurel and Tommy, which is probably one of the reasons I am enjoying it so much. Light meets dark. Funny meets serious.

Source: hollandrooden

The sass and banter is funny and honest. Neither is worried about hurting the other’s feelings because they aren’t really friends. It allows the characters to say things to each other Felicity and our L*urel would never say. It also makes the development of whatever potential friendship they may have in the future feel natural.

Source: dinah-lance

Whereas with L*urel, I feel her friendship with Felicity was rushed and didn’t develop organically. We went from L*urel glowering and not speaking to Felicity to immediately “favor friends” inside of a single episode.

HUH?

It was also a little weird how they never talked about the Oliver shaped elephant in the room too, but whatever that’s all past. None of this is a problem with Bl*ck S*ren and F*licity. In fact, all the things I asked for with L*urel L*nce I am actually getting with Bl*ck S*ren.

The writers are giving Bl*ck S*ren screen time to develop at a semi reasonable pace, the lawyer thing notwithstanding.

The other characters aren’t pretending she’s a saint or glazing over her mistakes. Bl*ck S*ren is being held responsible for the things she’s done wrong.

Felicity (and Oliver) have no problem taking shots at Bl*ck S*ren occasionally, because they don’t trust her and she deserves them.

Bl*ck S*ren fires back (hilariously I might add) and is rapidly becoming the Spike to Team Arrow’s Scooby Gang - something I think the show needs.

Bl*ck S*ren is lawyering more than Laurel ever lawyered even though she’s not a laywer, which is hilariously amazing in an off kilter sort of way.

Most importantly, she’s helping Felicity in a way that’s actually helpful!

If Bl*ck S*ren helps get Oliver out of prison and then my faves have all the sex, Imma gonna bake her cake or something. Anyone assisting Felicity this season gets an A+ and a gold star from me and Bl*ck S*ren is at the top of that list.

Listen, nobody is as shocked as me since I was loudly advocating for BS to remain evil. I still like her evil and will be fine if she regresses. However, if they are going to have a L*urel type character on this show then I want the writers to use her effectively. Thus far, they are with Bl*ck S*ren. It may all go to hell in a hand basket shortly, but for now leave me to my joy.

Source: felicitysmoakgifs

The best scene was BS asking Felicity out on a friend date. It was almost as cute as Oliver asking Felicity out. It was really sweet to see the part of BS that craves human connection reaching out to Felicity in such an adorably awkward way.

Alright, that’s enough about Bl*ck S*ren. Time to talk about our girl. Did anyone notice Felicity seems reluctant to visit Oliver?

Source: smoakmonster

Bl*ck S*ren tells Felicity to visit her husband and essentially kicks her out of the office. Welcome the Olicity ship BS! The bar is in the back.

Her reluctance is very telling. Felicity is feeling bad about her last visit with Oliver. Girl, why? You’re fine. The man has lessons to learn.

Unfortunately, Felicity is denied access to Oliver when she arrives. Felicity demands to see Oliver and think she uses “wife” and “husband” about twenty times in a sentence. Remember when we held our breath for one “wife” or “husband” last season? Now they use it with reckless abandon. It’s fabulous.

I have been dying for Felicity to meet Stan and yet I had no idea how Arrow would logically put these two characters together. I know logic isn’t always Arrow’s thing, but it’s not like Felicity can run into Stan and Oliver having dinner together. Turns out, this is not that hard!

Stan lets Felicity know Oliver has been moved to Level 2. I will always be eternally grateful to Stan for telling Felicity the photograph has become Oliver’s binky.

I guess I was a little surprised at Felicity’s shock over Oliver stabbing a guard. She’s very “He would never!” about it whereas I am more “Sounds right. He broke a dude’s neck once.” Yes, that was during Oliver’s pre-Felicity days, but he’d burn down Slabside if it means protecting her and William. Her whole “Oliver is a choir boy” reaction rang false to me because Oliver is not a choir boy.

The first person Felicity runs to for help is BL*CK S*REN. We are living in the Upside Down.

Source: dinah-lance

How much did you love Bl*ck S*ren yelling and threatening so Oliver and Felicity can visit each other? C’mere girl. Sit next to me. I made you a margarita.

Felicity confirms she’s only been there ONCE, and granted she was in witness protection for most of Oliver’s incarceration, but yeesh. It has to sting a little for Oliver that she hasn’t been back since. Don’t lie and make unilateral decisions next time, big fella.

Felicity would visit in sexy lingerie and bring store bought baked goods if you just LOOP HER IN.

Source: felicitysmoakgifs

Bl*ck S*ren and Felicity go to Dinah to get information on Slabside’s Level 2, since there are no digital records.

Source: oliverfelicitygifs

Dinah hems and haws about helping Felicity, and she pretty much has to beg, which ticks me off to no end. You are part of the reason Oliver is in prison, Dinah. MOVE YOUR ASS. If Felicity wants to access to the evidence room you should be making her a copy of the key so she can come and go as she pleases. #NewbiesStopPissingMeOff2018

The records are a mess.

Source: dinah-lance

Dinah and BS spend a lot of time arguing about which legal method is best to help Felicity, but to be frank both their ideas suck and take too much time. Felicity kind of loses it.

Source: oliverxfelicity

She’s feeling an immense amount of guilt for being angry with Oliver over his decision to go to prison and not visiting. In typical Felicity fashion, she blames herself for whatever Oliver is going through. She believes she could have prevented it.

Source: oliverfelicitygifs

Felicity Smoak breaks my heart. Listen sweetie, Oliver is a big, dumb oak tree A LOT. It’s okay to get mad at him sometimes. This man is a full time project. He’s exhausting.

If anyone is concerned about Felicity and Oliver’s marriage then this speech should tell you everything you need to know. Being mad at your partner does not automatically mean you don’t want to be with your partner. Marriage doesn’t work like that. For better or for worse is legit. You can be so angry with your spouse you want to throttle them and yet still love them more than anything else on this earth.

Felicity can be mad at Oliver and still be madly in love with him. What Oliver did is no little thing. He made a massive and unilateral decision for their entire family without consulting Felicity. She has to live with the consequences, but had no say in her own life.

We’ve seen time and again when Felicity is angry with Oliver she needs time and space to process those emotions. Felicity needs to work through her feelings before she can work through the problem with Oliver. It doesn’t mean she wants to end their relationship.

While she’s been looking for Diaz and processing her anger, Oliver has been going to extremes in his battle to track Diaz too. Unfortunately, now he’s missing.

This all hits Felicity where it hurts because her worst fear is losing Oliver. She thought losing her husband was bad enough, but now Felicity is scared Dr. Power’s mind warp program will take Oliver from her forever.

Source: oliverfelicitygifs

I just want to hug Felicity and tell her she doesn’t have to worry about Oliver’s mind being erased.

He dealt with all his deep and dark issues in the sewer with her. Felicity loved him through it and that’s the reason Oliver has remained intact on this new island. UGH. MY BABES.

Oliver and Felicity have remained connected despite their physical separation, but the distance is having an impact on them. They are starting to feel the consequences of time, distance, hurt feelings, and lack of communication. ENOUGH ALREADY! LET THEM BE TOGETHER! I WANT IT TO STOOOOOP!

Long story short, Felicity discovers Dr. Powers is going to erase Oliver’s mind and finds evidence connecting him to a cold case murder. That, along with Oliver’s evidence, is enough to get the Level 2 program shut down. It makes me a little sad Felicity doesn’t know the evidence is from Oliver. TALIA YOU HAD ONE JOB.

Source: felicitysmoakgifs

Team Felicity, yes that’s the name, has such a fantastic light bulb moment when they realize they can use this Slabside evidence to appeal Oliver’s conviction. I don’t know how. I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know how Oliver was convicted in the first place because he was acquitted. How is he legally in prison? Whatever. I don’t care. Just get him out and send him home to his woman. That’s all I want. I’ve enjoyed the prison arc more than I anticipated, but I’m ready to be done.

Curtis and Diggle

Lord people. I cannot with Curtis. His undercover mission takes up a significant chunk of the episode and this is how much I care:

Fourteen PhDs???? FOURTEEN!!!!!!!??????

I am trying to hang with you show, and I realize you are a fantasy drama, but this is not humanely possible. Also, I am taking issue with Diggle reading out Curtis’ credentials when just last week Felicity tipped her hat to her credentials. She mentions going to MIT and then next week we are listing Curtis’ ridiculous number of PhDs and six languages?!

It feels like a bizarre pissing contest and yet these writers want me to believe this character is not in competition with Felicity.

Cammien Ray tweeted something brilliant yesterday and I thought it really summed up one of my primarily beefs with Curtis and Diggle having this storyline. This is everything we asked for Felicity, but they gave it to Curtis.

Felicity is off doing her own hero-ing and therefore the writing team’s ass is saved, but this character is in constant competition with Felicity. More often than not, Curtis over shadows Felicity so he has a friggin purpose on this show. Arrow is an extremely male dominated series. We don’t need one of few strong female characters sidelined for another male character’s benefit.

Curtis bemoans all of the misery being a vigilante has brought into his life. Yes, Curtis has suffered the most out of all the characters.

Oliver lost his freedom, Felicity lost her husband and child and Dinah’s boyfriend is dead. Hell, even Rene has more to bitch about. Zoe’s life was in danger for most of Season 6. BL*CK S*REN has more to be upset about. Her boyfriend, father and pseudo father figure are all dead.

But Curtis? He got a divorce. Sure, that’s sad, but his ex husband isn’t dead. Curtis is probably paying him alimony.

Curtis was stabbed, his boyfriend shot, THEY BOTH SURVIVED, but woe is me.

Diggle has the audacity to compare Curtis to soldiers who have fought in war.

We are not comparing Curtis and his T balls to men serving in the military. The reason why Curtis doesn’t look “done” when compared to those soldiers, John is because HE HAS NOT FOUGHT IN A FUCKING WAR OR SUFFERED ANYWHERE NEAR THE AMOUNT THOSE HEROES HAVE.

Both of you please shut up.

I couldn’t understand why Diggle was arguing for Curtis to remain Mr. Terrific when he’s given up on Spartan and Green Arrow. This is the second character IN A ROW Diggle has argued to break the rules and continue life as a vigilante. Whereas when it comes to Felicity she can’t be Overwatch or break any laws to free her husband.

I also don’t understand why Diggle is arguing Curtis is so vital to the team when the truth is there are other characters that can do what he does and BETTER. Rene and Dinah are better fighters than him. This is the first week he looked mildly proficient in the field. This is why I say he’s the new LL. One week he can’t take down one bad guy, but the next he’s fighting twenty different people. It’s inconsistent and illogical.

Felicity is a genius and all the tech goddess we need.

Anytime they use Curtis’ brilliant mind it’s to short change her. NO THANKS. The only thing Curtis brings to the table is his T spheres and pretty much everyone can operate them. I am quite annoyed with Diggle for trying to talk Curtis out of sidelining himself.

Arrow continues to glaze over Curtis’ role in Oliver ending up in prison, there’s been no apology and he refuses to help Felicity. Instead, they write an episode where Curtis is given all the storylines we’ve asked for Felicity. Then Curtis whines about how tough life is when the other characters he refuses to help are suffering more. This is not the way to win me over. USE THIS CHARACTER LESS. He needs to disappear from my TV screen for a long time or, God willing, permanently. The more this show shoves this character down my throat the more I dislike him and I have a sensitive gag reflex.

Stray Thoughts

“Empathy’s a word I’m learning. It’s a work in progress” HA! Loved this line.

I know neither Dinah nor BS are Felicity’s besties, but it was nice having all the women work together in an episode. It also gave Felicity a chance to unload some of her grief and fears. Can we make this a regular thing? Felicity needs girlfriends.

“I taught you to separate the man from the monster. Instead, you exposed your true identity for all the world to see and became the monster you always feared you were.” Bitch where?

Talia teaching Oliver to separate his two selves ultimately lead to her father’s death, so there are consequences for her choices too.

Felicity changes out of her high heels and skirt into jeans and tennis shoes for her visit with Oliver. The practicality in Felicity’s wardrobe this year is A+, so let’s keep the logic. Nobody drives to a prison in heels and she sure as hell shouldn’t wear them out in the field.

Oliver’s face when he finds out there’s no visitation in Level 2 looks like he was just told his puppy has cancer. Source: olivergifs

You have not met Felicity “I Will Always Always Always Wait For You” Smoak. Suck a hot one, guard. Source: olivergifs

Why are the A.R.G.U.S. uniforms so dorky? Let’s cool them up costume department.

I need Stan to be good. Can we just let Stan be good?

Stephen Amell is 6 ft so the inmate who died is ENORMOUS.

Don’t you love how there’s been zero Diaz in any of these past few episodes? He’s just like the Boogey Man, but we never have to see him. It’s fantastic.

I don’t buy for a second Diaz took out a bunch of Bratva, but my larger concern is don’t hurt my Anatoly.

No flashbacks. Interesting.

That Elseworld promo was jarring. I’m scarred for life.

Disclaimer: Any gifs on the blog are not mine. If you would like a gif removed from my reviews, please message me. 7x05 gifs credited.

If you’d like to support the blog, please buy me a cup of tea!

#arrow #arrow 7x05 #oliver queen #felicity smoak #olicity #arrow season 7 reviews #anti black siren #anti john diggle #anti laurel lance #anti dinah drake #arrow season 7 episode reviews #season 7 episode review

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dreadhaus-literature · 5 years

Text

{Character Study} Diederich Frost

I have been reading a lot of research books lately, trying to hone my talent into something useable, and trying to get my head in the right space to write again. One of those books is, “Write Characters Your Readers Won’t Forget” by Stant Litore; another highly rated/recommended writing tool from Amazon, and that book comes with exercises! So we’re going to take a first pass at them with a newly created OC.

I won’t say it’s been a while since I’ve created characters, because it hasn’t been, but any practice is good practice, right? Right.

The book interested me simply because I want to write good characters--which I know is a stupid thing to say, lmao, as an author that’s like half my goddamn job. But that’s why I want to be good at it! And practice makes perfect.

This will be on-going, since there’s an entire booklet full of exercises, so I’ll just reblog and add to the post as I read. P:

The character I’ve decided to use is from my first group of 10 drabbles from my Shots in the Dark collection.

#10, Diederich, who will be henceforth known by his full name--

Diederich Karsten Frost

Exercise One - Write down your character’s critical ingredient, that one defining strength that everyone will know them for. If you don’t know yet, make it up.

Well I don’t know yet, because I only wrote about Diederich once and it was for like half a page--so we’re going to make it up.

Diederich’s defining strength is that he is unrelenting.

Exercise Two - Take another look at your character’s one great strength. How might that same strength set them up for disaster? Brainstorm a little.

Oh ho, this is surprisingly easy. I don’t know Diederich very well yet but what I do know about him is that he’s a ruthless businessman, has the money to show for it, because he’s unrelenting, unyielding, a mountain in the face of a hurricane--but where that strength will fail him? When he has to bend for love, for the one in his life who means the most. He’s a man used to getting what and who he wants, so when he’s told no...

It’s going to be difficult for all parties involved.

Water can eventually wear down rock but it takes centuries, and that’s the kind of patience I imagine Diederich’s lover will have to have if they want to gain any ground with this man. He’s going to be difficult to get to bend and similar to ice he’s likely to shatter into something sharp rather than give to the will of others.

Diederich’s strength makes him severe, which is not always a good thing, especially outside the boardroom.

Exercise Three - “What is the worst thing you could possibly do to your character?” It’s a great question to ask when you’re wanting to learn about what your character is made of, so ask that question now, with a bit of a twist.

“What is the worst thing you could possibly do to your character, that they would be least equipped to handle? Brainstorm that.

And once you’ve crafted their greatest tragedy, ask the next question: How can this character use their one great strength to help them meet the problem head-on?

When I first wrote Diederich he was just supposed to be a flash!OC for an Obsessives drabble set. He existed to fill a void, of a slightly deluded narcissist who was left reeling from rejection/abandonment, so taking that into consideration...I’m going to say the worst thing I could possibly do to Diederich is to take that desired love away.

His drabble opened and closed with him seeking the love he’d only held briefly and how it was sending him spiraling to lose it. Diederich is a controlling person; he isn’t going to know how to deal with the free will of his lover and what that means for him. He can’t 100% control love or the object of his desire and that fear becomes realized as soon as she’s gone. It’s going to cripple him in multiple ways; he feels he’s failed, an emotion he absolutely cannot deal with, and the abandonment, the loss, is a wound to his massive pride. It’s going to consume him like rot, until he can’t stand it marring his otherwise perfect life. He’s ill-equipped to sit with failure.

In short? He won’t be able to stand it. It’ll drive him insane.

But, it happens to work out perfectly: his one great strength, his unrelenting personality won’t allow him to quit, to rest, until he’s found his love and righted his world on it’s axis. Diederich can’t be, won’t be stopped.

No matter what.

Exercise Four - Write a 1-2 paragraph, unique character entrance scene. Try to make it impactful!

The illumination coming off the five star hotel shimmered as it split the night, parting shadows like the red sea to make way for one undeniably important man. The crowd on the sidewalk seemed to follow suit, halting in their steps to make room for broad shoulders near stretching the seams of finely tailored cloth as the occupant of the expensive towncar placed first one, then two polished dress shoes on the sidewalk. As he straightened up, onlookers hesitant to pass by were struck by an impressive stature attributed to fine breeding that could only come from living within the upper echelon of society for centuries.

Eyes so blue they were nearly ice white sliced cleanly straight ahead, no sideways glance because it was apparent this man had no time nor care to know who was around. The driver standing by the open door could possibly double for security but it was hard to imagine a man so tall, so statuesque truly needed it; his presence not only exuded importance but malice, so that small children might actually scurry out of his way. The sharp clack of dress shoes heralded his long strides, drawing one’s attention up from pressed slacks to the length of a wool-lined trench, buttoned against a no doubt trim and toned middle. Large hands were cradled in the softest Italian leather and when he reached up to his breast pocket for a single crisp $100 bill to hand to the doorman, all those onlookers could see were the cut of cheekbones that could no doubt make fast work of a piece of glass. This man had enviable bone structure; Old World in that his cheeks were square and his chin slightly pointed, angled to bring attention to a jawline that went on for days. His nose had only the faintest of a curve to it, right at the tip, so that when he was staring down at some unfortunate soul they’d only be forced to follow that curve right back up to those unforgivingly cold eyes. Complimentary to his pale eyes and skin, his blond hair was a silvery flaxen in shade and in cut the sides were shaved but the top left long and slicked back--akin to a shark’s white fin just barely breaking the surface of moonless ocean waves.

Anyone who didn’t know Diederich Frost was always left wanting to after laying eyes on him for the first time.

Exercise Five - Now, write a new entry scene for the same character, but if in the first attempt you used dialogue, now do the entry with no dialogue. And if in the first attempt you didn’t use dialogue, do it almost entirely through dialogue this time.

...Goddamnit.

I FELT REALLY GOOD ABOUT THE FIRST ONE BECAUSE I CAN WRITE ME SOME DESCRIPTION. But how the fuck am I gonna make this man’s entrance with DIALOGUE.

Goddamnit.

“Mr. Frost is on his way up,” came the understandably frantic voice of the aforementioned Mr. Frost’s assistant. The young man was desperate to make a good impression on the owner of this prestigious company and though fresh-faced and college enrolled, Sacha felt he was up to the task. He hoped, anyway.

“W-What should I do?” Unlike Sacha, who had been Mr. Frost’s assistant for the past six months, this new hire, Norbert, was struggling. Sacha thought it would be a miracle if the shorter brunette made it through the end of the week.

“Fix your tie,” Sacha hissed, his back to the elevator as he prepared Mr. Frost’s cup of coffee. “Stand up straight, don’t stare and don’t you dare call Mr. Frost by his first name again.”

Norbert flushed strawberry, pudgy fingers pushing the wrinkles from his tie. “It w-was an accident!”

“Yes well your firing won’t be if it happens again.” Sacha dropped the statement with the same finality he set the square cup of coffee on it’s saucer, steaming hot and waiting for Mr. Frost like the rest of his obedient staff. Sacha set the saucer on the top of his desk, facing the elevator as the car made it’s way up, announcing their arriving boss with each click of the lighted panel above the doors. Sacha spot out of the corner of his mouth, hands clasped behind his back, still facing the elevator. “Mr. Frost has a full day of meetings ahead, Norbert, so I’ll handle his refreshments and meals while you’ll take care of...?”

“His dry cleaning, getting his car washed, and picking up his tailored suits from Mr. Favero.” Norbert was proud to keep his usual anxious stammer from his voice but Sacha didn’t even seem to notice--and if he did, he didn’t care to remark on it.

The small victory was quickly forgotten when the gleaming elevator doors opened and Mr. Diederich Frost stepped out onto his office floor. The entire building was his company, but this top floor was reserved for the illustrious owner and his assistants, giving him plenty of room to work undisturbed.

“Good morning, Mr. Frost.” Sacha spoke first, almost eagerly, and Norbert had to quietly admire how easy it seemed to be for Sacha to speak to Diederich. Norbert sometimes forgot his own name when those ice blue eyes stared him down.

“G-Good morning,” Norbert had all but lost ground from his earlier feat of not stammering. He cleared his throat, knowing it wouldn’t help.

Their boss, Diederich Frost, was a statuesque man of impeccable breeding and class, born with a silver spoon in his mouth but he did the polishing himself. There was no resting on laurels for Diederich; ambition lined his already swollen pockets until there were rumors he could buy their country and have enough left over to still maintain his $500 a month haircuts. Normally, Norbert would think that was an exorbitant amount of money to spend on a haircut but Diederich’s silvery blond hair turned heads just as often as the rest of him did. Whether it was his flaxen hair, his sharp cheekbones, or his deeply accented voice, Diederich Frost was the man to know. Norbert just didn’t think he could get the sentence, “I know Diederich Frost,” out of his mouth without his blood pressure dropping.

“Messages.” Diederich’s voice was like an anvil, dropping period where others would hang questions marks, but Sacha didn’t miss a beat.

“Your brother called, he’s still insisting you come out for the weekend,” Sacha recited the messages by memory, even as he gave Norbert a pointed look to pick up Mr. Frost’s coffee and follow them into his expensive, lavish office. “Your aunt’s birthday is tomorrow and I confirmed the delivery of her favorite flowers as always, and lastly Mr. Price called for the fifth time, still looking to sell.”

Norbert took a steadying, albeit quick breath as he hurried to place Mr. Frost’s coffee on his desk, just in time for his boss to sit down in his desk chair and nail him to the floor with those icy eyes. Diederich didn’t say a word, merely met Norbert’s gaze evenly, giving the shorter male plenty of time to see Diederich’s expensive three-piece blue suit was a direct compliment to pale porcelain skin. It was also just long enough to see Diederich’s eyes narrow because Norbert had been staring. The male cleared his throat again and backed up to stand beside Sacha, who was giving him a pointed side-ways stare.

Diederich didn’t thank Sacha for his hard work or excellent delivery but that wasn’t unusual either. Earning a thanks from this hard-working perfectionist took far more impressive feats than simple recitation. Norbert had yet to receive a single one.

“My first meeting is in--”

“Thirty minutes, sir.” Sacha supplied before Diederich could outright ask. The older male simply nodded and took a small drink from his coffee.

“Then get my brother on the line.” Diederich directed to Sacha, before sparing Norbert another glance, disapproval darkening harsh features until it was akin to staring into the eye of a hurricane. “...And straighten your tie, son.”

Norbert was far more likely to hang himself with it in the employee bathroom.

BOY IDK IF THAT WAS WHAT THE EXERCISE MEANT BUT I SURE HOPE SO. Literally don’t know how to write only dialogue, that’s just not...idk, a mix of dialogue/description is fine with me? That’s about as dialogue-centric as my writing ever gets, I find it’s so important (at least for me) to add in little snippets of description, like sprinkling salt. just call me Salt Bae.

Exercise Six - Write the same entry a third time, but this time, change the setting and the situation. Try taking your character out of their comfort zone or put them somewhere they’re unlikely to be.

The joyous, loud cries of children at play announced Birthday Party! long before anyone could lay eyes on the balloons and banners that decorated the park’s picnic area. It was a large, usually populated public park but today was entirely off-limits to the general public, bought for a full 24 hours by the Frost family to celebrate little Alexandra Frost’s seventh birthday. Children of all ages ran and skipped, frolicked and played amongst the playground equipment and bounce houses, while adults sipped alcohol, ate finger foods, and escaped the waning Summer sun inside air-conditioned tents.

No expense was spared for the little princess of the Frost family, niece to none other than Diederich Frost, who had made quite a name for himself on the international business scene. The infamously ruthless billionaire was of course present, dressed in what to him was likely casual; pressed slacks and a designer sweater, but he still stood out in the crowd. He didn’t appear to belong at a children’s party; he was all hard, cold lines and nowhere was that more noticeable than standing beside his younger brother, who was a father of two. Diederich had no children and thus had not been softened by fatherhood; he was all business, all the time, and if one were to pay close attention the majority of the children steered clear of the long-legged Uncle to Alexandra. The birthday girl in question adored her Uncle but why wouldn’t she? He showered her with expensive gifts and she had nothing to fear from ice blue eyes and the hard line of his jaw. Diederich had never been cross with her a day in his life, but the list of people he wasn’t cross with could be counted on a person’s left hand. Diederich looked as mean as he was; high-cut cheekbones, a harsh line to his mouth, and silvery blond hair kept slicked back did everything to add to the air of crackling menace that surrounded the man heads and shoulders taller than most. He was a storm cloud, a single bolt of lightning one doesn’t see until it’s too late and you’re left singed from the contact you didn’t expect amongst the chorus of, “Happy birthday dear Alexandra, happy birthday to you!”

I’ll admit, imagining Diederich at a kid’s birthday party tickled me. He’s shaping up to be such a Type-A, no-nonsense asshole it’s hilarious to imagine him surrounded by balloons and shouting kiddos. He reminds me of the quote from Angela in the Office.

“I wouldn’t mind a pair of well-behaved boys.”

That’s about all I have time for tonight, but I will say, I’ve never really thought about character entrances very much before beginning to read this book. They liken to being out on a first date; it’s your reader’s first impression of your character and you want them hooked right away. Why should they give a damn about your character? You have to make them see what’s so special about them, sort of like...selling your character, I guess?

...I went from a date situation to human trafficking but whatever.

THE POINT IS. I am now realizing that the way characters are introduced is actually pretty important. I mean that was the majority of the exercises tonight, writing and then re-writing the entry scene to see how many different ways I could introduce you to Diederich. Even out of his element he still has to be himself, after all, and that right there is why I think this is important--you’re essentially creating a person, and people have to be adaptable. If your characters are so one-sided they can only exist in a very specific box...then they’re not very good characters.

All in all, I’m pretty pleased with the work I did tonight. I took a character that was interesting to me and actually made something of him. He’s around, now. I hear his voice and I can see him, and that’s pretty rad.

Looking forward to picking this back up soon and seeing what else Mr. Frost has to say~

#{theme} : character study #{character} : diederich frost

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misbhaves · 5 years

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neko twitch stream log; the final entry.

2018, FEBRUARY 3rd 04:07 AM.

11.

The room was mostly dark, were it not for the neon lighting bathing itself across the walls, the cupboard, the bed in the corner and the silhouette of the petite hooded figure sitting bow-legged in a chair far too big for her. Between the length of her bangs that were falling into her eyes and the mask stretched over the lower half of her face, nothing was visible, but the feminine posturing and avatar seemed to do the job because not even ten minutes in and no words said and the number of people watching the stream had already jumped up to twenty. The first exhale she released was shaky, and her hands trembled around the XBOX controller in her hands. The viewer count went up and down sporadically as she tried to psych herself up, before, finally a soft voice began speaking: “K-konnichiwa, minna-san.” the girl gave a small bow with her head, the light washing over her concealed face creating shadows over the mask that almost indicated a facial expression. either a smile or a nervous laugh. “I-I’m Neko-chan. Pleased to meet you. Um. I’m a little shy, but I’ll do my best.”

After the first few encouraging comments poured in, her shoulders appeared to relax and her expression, too, or what was visible of it anyway.

2018, AUG 21st 14:21 PM.

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There was certainly something to be said about popularity, although all her peers repeatedly claimed it wasn’t that important. It was certainly a phrase Neko was guilty of saying, and often, in both languages. Even as she thanked her followers for each milestone she passed from her humble beginnings. Unlike the shy manner with which she had carried herself in her first few videos, she now opened her videos with more fanfire and open excitement. She hadn’t grown comfortable yet to take off her mask, but as she inched closer to the 500K follower mark, she had already decided to change that soon.

“I-D-K how I feel about the Gamerscom trailer for DMC5. Personally, I’m not sure I really pictured Dante the way he’s been looking in the hyper-realistic rendering of his character,” The girl rambled, pausing only to give herself a sip of the gargantuan soda she had by her side, having to push the mask slightly upward over her mouth to do so. “Show my face?” She said, nearly choking on the soda in the process. “Just like Dante, I feel like the live-action is not going to live up to the anime drawings, you know?”

There was a voice off-camera, seemingly stealing her attention. “What, already?” She whined, before turning back to the camera. “Gotta run off for an IRL sidequest,” She huffed apologetically, setting aside her controller already. “Neko signing out. Ja ne!”

2018 SEP 2ND 16:45 PM.

127K.

“A-Ah, I’m nervous,” It was said daintily, her head ducked and voice shaky for the first time since her early days on the platform. There were already words of encouragement pouring in. Others were impatient, reminding that she had, in fact, promised that today would have been the day. An anxiety she didn’t know the birthplace of always knotted in her chest when it came to the prospect of allowing herself to be judged my others. It was strange. A sharp ache that felt defensive somehow. As if her body was shielding itself based on a previous rejection her mind could not remember.

Shaking hands came up to the tight cotton straps of the mask curved around her ears. “Um. I just want to say uh, I’m sorry if any of you are disappointed.” She mumbled quietly, breathing out shakily, painfully, before slowly unhooking the straps and lowering the mask off her face.

Then, with one of her hands, she went ahead and pushed her bangs out of her eyes, too. “Konnichiwa, minna-san,” She said, mirroring her first ever greeting, comfortable with her mother-tongue. “It’s me. Neko-chan. Nice to meet you.”

Her cheeks were stained a deep red, her gaze averted so she wouldn’t be too tempted to look at the chat. “A-Anyway, I’m going to play Yakuza-0 first,” She said, fumbling for her controller. “I hope you guys enjoy.”

2019 APR 20TH 20:07PM

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The video opened with royalty-free 8-bit music playing in the background of a dark room bathed in neon pink lighting. sitting cross-legged and hugged by a gaming chair a little too big for such a small person. Neko - a video-gaming streamer of some influence greeted her viewers with a classic ‘v’ sign.. “Hey demons, it’s ya girl, Neko, back at it again with a cringey youtuber intro. First off, good evening to all of you and special greetings to the moon which is out here killing it after the sun was way too hot today.”

The girl fanned herself dramatically, “Today, I was going to go out to see what new games I could buy, but since it was too hot to wear a mask, I just stayed home and continued playing Yakuza all day long. But then like an hour ago, it hit me that i was being a doofus and should at least let you guys play Yakuza with me. So, here we go, minna-san. just a girl, her bunnies and some sweet Japanese gang action.” Her nose wrinkled. “I already don’t wanna know what the chat is gonna be like after that poorly worded statement.” The camera jerked slightly as the girl moves closer, knocking her knee into something underneath the desk and making the desk shake as she jumped in place. “itai... sorry...” She was mumbling, one eye squeezed shut, then louder and more cheerfully, she continued, I fell down the stairs earlier today and I think I might have hurt my ankle, but it’s okay as long as I don’t touch it. an’ I accidentally kicked the CPU.” The screen split then, showing live-action gaming footage. “I-R-L is looking pretty crazy lately, guys. every time I go outside it’s like, I see someone else being collared and taken into a van. america land of the free, home of the brave my ASTEROIDS. What’s brave about going up to people with weapons that render them totally powerless and shackling them without giving them the chance of a fair fight? And like, for what crime anyway? For being born? No wonder so many of you Americans are always raving about going to Japan, because let me tell you, I know plenty of people - some very close to me - who are mutants and nobody cares.” Her fingers continued to rapidly tap away at the controller in her hands, her eyes focused on the game as she spoke.

“You know what I think? I think the mayor of this city is just intimidated. he’s too scared and insecure in his own ability to control a city where some of his civilians are stronger, or faster or smarter than he is.” With an uncharacteristically humourless laugh, she continued. “Boo hoo, Virgie, everyone in the world has to deal with the fact they’re inferior to someone else. It doesn’t give them the right to commit genocide. For Hitler , it was art school. who wants to take bets on what Virgie’s big old justification is?”

“Maybe he was bullied in school, or like a mutant stole his girlfriend, or - wow, what if like, he auditioned for the school play and a mutant stole his role and the guy of his dreams? You know... like Sharpay Evans, who deserved better. whatever it is. It doesn’t matter, because people go through bad, horrible things every day and they still make the choice to be good. I make the choice every day, that even if I’m capable of hurting the people who hurt me a hundred times worse, I won’t do it.”

Her voice was then accompanied by the sound of automated grunts and groans as she concentrated momentarily on the in-game killing she was providing her audience. “And I won’t let you do it either. So, if any of you out there are scared, don’t be. Find others like you and take shelter, because the more unified you are, the less power he has over you.”

After a pause, the girl giggled. “Or something like that. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately, sorry. Um, moving on... did any of you guys play the latest Yakuza? what did you think of it, I personally...”

2019 MAY 25TH 22:17PM.

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The steam begun with uncharacteristic silence, bereft of the tinny music the girl had been opening her streams with for the past five months, if not more. The room was the same, as was the chair, but there was something about the girl seated in it that seemed different. Haunted almost. The bruises on her youthful face had almost entirely faded, but they were enough cause for alarm amongst her fans, most of whom had flooded in after seeing her go live for the first time after a nearly month-long hiatus.

“Hi, everyone,” She greeted in English first before repeating the same in Japanese. “Been a while, huh?” She folded her legs up onto her chair, spinning to and fro. “I haven’t been home in a while. There’s been a lot going down in the city I live in and... I haven’t been dealing with it well, honestly.” She reached up, pushing her hair behind her ear. “You know, I used to think that being a hero just meant doing the right thing, or saving the day.

43K.

Her nose wrinkled slightly. “But recently, I’ve come to realise it’s not that simple. Sometimes being a hero means not being able to save the day, but being able to send a message.” She cleared her throat, her fingers clenching around her knees. “Yesterday, there was a rally, in which dozens of mutants of various ages were kidnapped. Chained and carted away like cattle. Some of these people are my friends.” Her voice cracked on the last word.

67K.

“And I have failed them.” She continued. “By being born someone privileged enough to have my status swept under the rug.” She bit into her lower lip. “While people like me rot in ... these pseudo-military bases and get tortured and prodded and experimented on as if it’s the second world war and we have learned nothing.”

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“And just like me, if you’re sitting at home and you’re doing nothing while this happens even though you have the power to do otherwise,” She continued, voice strained. “Then you’re just as bad. Just as cowardly.” With a shuddering breath, continued. “The time I’ve spent here, with you guys, will always be the happiest memories I’ll ever have. And maybe one day, I’ll come back and make some more. But, for now, I guess...” She shook out another sigh, reaching up to catch a traitor tear that slipped down her pale face. “I’ll have to be on this hiatus indefinitely.”

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“Because even if I don’t know how this fight is going to end... and even if I’m scared I,” She reached off-screen for something, and when her hand drew back it was holding a porcelain mask, shaped in the traditional Kitsune shape. “I can’t wait around expecting for things to just... get better.”

“And I can’t keep relying on friends or family anymore either, because in the end...” She trailed off, something about her expression breaking. “You never really know a person, do you?” Resolutely, she fastened her mask onto her face. “I can’t wait to be saved anymore.”

“I’m sorry, dad. But, in this story, the princess rescues herself.”

And just like that, the live stream ended abruptly.

#—aki's streams of consciousness.#☆*:･✧ i want to exhale stardust and create my own constellation | aki.

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wellplacedrocket · 5 years

Text

I Visited the Mormon Temple Square and it Really Reminded Me of BioShock Infinite

I don’t go on a lot of (read: any) religious touristy sort of adventures, so maybe the Mormon Temple Square isn’t all that weird in the grand scheme of things. But I’ll be damned if it didn’t give me hints of Columbia, the city in BioShock Infinite. Hear me out on this.

I want to caveat before I go further that it’s probably gonna seem like I’m really picking on Mormons here. I’m not. Mormonism is absolutely no weirder than any other religion, and there are plenty of Mormons (probably most of them) who are much smarter, more hardworking, successful, and better to their fellow man than I am. If you roll your eyes at scripture of Moroni, but turn around and worship Jesus or Vishnu or Odin or Buddha, and follow the World of God as explained to you by Muhammad, then your cognitive dissonance is so thick, so dense, that it must throw off compasses. I don’t think religious or spiritual people are stupid for being that way.

Anyway.

I was in Salt Lake City with a few hours to kill, and figured the Mormon Temple Square would be the one thing I couldn’t get anywhere else, so why the hell not? Let’s get my Mormon on. Many of the buildings in the Temple Square are made with this gorgeous white granite that pops up nearby, and so to the eye a lot of it looked like the White City of Gondor.

The visitors centers are small museums that lay out the history, scripture highlights, and current tenants of Mormon theology.

As a kid, I was raised Catholic-lite, but I’ve never been to the Vatican, and I wonder if there’s similar stuff anywhere else among worldwide Christian churches. That Noah’s Ark museum in Kentucky, maybe? The tone of much of this stuff seems to be to reassure outsiders that hey, Jesus is still just the best! He’s the best, you guys. We’re not any different from your local bake sale-having church people at all! In fact, there doesn’t seem to be much that explicitly tries to contrast with other Christian sects whatsoever, until you get to the Book of Mormon (the actual Book of Mormon) stuff that takes place in the Western Hemisphere.

A lot of this stuff came across to me as a “here’s how to be” kind of children’s book in museum form. It’s not really propaganda, I guess, because conduct prescriptions are what religions are supposed to do. However, the exhibits and artwork they had showing important people in Mormon scripture and the paramount religious events in their lives started giving me weird, familiar vibes.

A 19th century New Yorker who has some sort of religious awakening, begins to preach, gathers a cadre of like minded true believers, establishes a hyper-ardent offshoot Christian sect in the U.S., insists upon racism as one of the pillars of this new theology, is revered as a prophet to his people, gains power and respect (which he abuses), and begins an exodus of his followers out of American society to found their own civilization which will eventually prove hostile to the U.S.? Oh, you thought I was describing Joseph Smith or Brigham Young? Well, surprise, it’s (also) Zachary Hale Comstock, villain of Bioshock Infinite.

I’m not the first to draw this comparison. Here’s a much better article than I could hope to write from an anonymous blogger who claims to be an ex Mormon. And Bioshock creative head Ken Levine mentioned in a Mother Jones article:

There’s a bit of Joseph Smith in [Comstock], a bit of Teddy Roosevelt…Roosevelt was a very progressive figure in many ways. But he was also what you’d probably call a neoconservative in his view of America’s role in the world. So I have trouble comparing Comstock to him directly. Also, I’d have trouble just comparing Comstock to Joseph Smith or Brigham Young. I mean, the American-centric nature of the religion that he forms has some similarities to Mormonism, but there’s nothing in the Mormon church that approached the level of sinisterness you’d find in a Comstock.

In the game (where the next bunch of linked images are from), Comstock is a religious figure with a hyper-nationalism for his own vociferously racist vision of America, which never actually existed and is more twisted than even our own real history. There’s a part of the game where you play through a museum dedicated to the history of Columbia, the city-state Comstock founded, and it puts a very religious sort of spin on the founding of the United States and points in its history. Abraham Lincoln is called “The Apostate” and is remembered as an insidious Satan figure, while John Wilkes Booth is a saint. The Confederate Army, being the true soul of America to these zealots, is led by the angelic spirit of George Washington. The locals are generally hostile.

All of this stuff is understandably batshit, because they were trying to write a villain in Comstock. I’m not saying Mormons are or were evil like this guy. I’m saying it seems pretty likely that the devs took Mormon lore, cranked the evil and steampunky sci-fi up to 11, and out came Comstock and Columbia.

The American founding fathers appear in Mormon religious works, notably in writings by Wilford Woodruff, fourth president of the LDS Church, describing religious visions:

The spirits of the dead gathered around me, wanting to know why we did not redeem them ... These were the signers of the Declaration of Independence ... I thought it very singular, that notwithstanding so much work had been done, and yet nothing had been done for them ... I straightway went into the baptismal font and called upon brother McCallister [sic] to baptize me for the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

The LDS Church is extremely PR conscious and has left doctrinal, institutional racism behind, but it’s a poorly kept secret that the early days didn’t look too good. Unlike the populations of other Western Territories (Colorado and California in particular), the Mormons mostly took a pass on the Civil War, though to their credit, there isn’t much evidence to suggest explicit sympathy for the Confederacy. However, here’s Brigham Young:

Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so. The nations of the earth have transgressed every law that God has given, they have changed the ordinances and broken every covenant made with the fathers, and they are like a hungry man that dreameth that he eateth, and he awaketh and behold he is empty.

And now here’s Comstock:

What exactly was the Great Emancipator emancipating the Negro from? From his daily bread? From the nobility of honest work? From wealthy patrons who sponsored them from cradle to grave? From clothing and shelter? And what have they done with their freedom? Why, go to Finkton, and you shall find out. No animal is born free, except the white man. And it is our burden to care for the rest of creation.

The Mormons flirted with armed rebellion but eventually backed down when the United States and local native nations made it clear they were not fucking around. Joseph Smith, a 100% legit, honest to God prophet to his people, had some pretty dark things to say about the U.S., especially the godless northeast cities:

Nevertheless, let the bishop go unto the city of New York, also to the city of Albany, and also to the city of Boston, and warn the people of those cities with the sound of the gospel, with a loud voice, of the desolation and utter abolishment which await them if they do reject these things. For if they do reject these things the hour of their judgment is nigh, and their house shall be left unto them desolate.

And here’s Woodruff again, in a prophesy “confirmed” by Young:

While you stand in the towers of the Temple and your eyes survey this glorious valley filled with cities and villages, occupied by tens of thousands of Latter-day Saints, you will then call to mind this visitation of President Young and his company. You will say: That was in the days when Presidents Benson and Maughan presided over us; that was before New York was destroyed by an earthquake. It was before Boston was swept into the sea, by the sea heaving itself beyond its bounds; it was before Albany was destroyed by fire; yea, at that time you will remember the scenes of this day.

Well, here’s a scene in Bioshock Infinite that shows a time-travel flash forward to the future year 1984, what Comstock will do if not stopped. He floats Columbia right over New York and starts bombing:

How the hell do they not get shot down? Sci-fi weapons or shields, I’m guessing. Columbia imagines if a civilization of religious secessionists hadn’t decided to chill out in the end, the way the Mormons did.

If you need any more convincing of the connection here, in BioShock Infinite, one of the protagonists who the player spends a lot of time with and who drives the story is Comstock’s daughter Elizabeth. She is kept a gilded-cage prisoner and wants out of Columbia, and much of the action is about helping her to escape. SPOILER ALERT FOR A 5-YEAR OLD GAME: Elizabeth’s parentage isn’t what it seems, she was actually given the name Anna at birth. Well, there was a famous ex-wife of Brigham Young, one of 55, who decided she wasn’t about that life, alleged domestic abuse against Young and filed for divorce (both a huge deal for their time), and ultimately wrote an autobiographical account called Wife No. 19. This woman’s name? Ann Eliza Webb.

No doubt you could substitute any other religion and find similar parallels to BioShock Infinite in art and lore, but the Americanness of the LDS Church is what sells this idea to me, how both the real life Mormon church and the fictional characters and civilization draw from the cultural fundamentals of this country, as well as our absolute worst elements. The obvious difference is the Mormons wrestle with the racism and violence in their church’s past, and for sure try to do good works in the world today. Not so for Comstock and Columbia. But that’s part of what made them such compelling villains.

#BioShock Infinite #Xbox #Xbox 360 #Sony PlayStation #PlayStation 3 #PC #2K Games #Irrational Games #BioShock

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sparxwrites · 6 years

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I would be incredibly interested to read what you were talking about in the tags of that ask/post~

#there’s a lot more i could write abouthow this is an emerging pattern in fan culture #and how what wasinitially meant to be a community free from content creators #is nowincreasingly becoming a community beholden to them and their approval#a community that operates within their oversight #and how people whouse fandom for what it was traditionally used for - as a sociallysubversive medium outside of mainstream control #are being penalisedfor refusing to sanitise their content and fall in line

Ihope you wanted an 8k essay about fan-creator interactions and whythey frequently end up being toxic for fans, creators, and also aboutfandom as an increasingly monetized and manipulated community, anon,because that’s what you’ve got.

Asa disclaimer, before we start: I am a linguist by training, not aneconomist, sociologist, or psychologist (though my discipline doescross over with the latter two in several places). This is written inan academic-ish style, but it’s largely based on my personalexperiences in fandom over the past ten years, the personalexperiences of the hundreds of friends and strangers that I’vetalked to or read essays by during that time, and a lot of personalresearch and reading. It’s not Word Of God, and I’m entirely opento people critiquing it, arguing with it, or elaborating on it –stuff like this is, I feel, something we need more dialogue about infandom spaces. With all that said…

Thesisstatement: Historically,fandom has very much operated on a “keep creators as far fromfandom as possible” basis, for some very excellent reasons. Withthe rise of social media contact, the gradual mainstreaming offandom, and increasingly fandom-aware creators and corporations, itis no longer possible to keep creators away from fandom. However, inthe rush to embrace creators into fandom, many of the hard-learnedlessons of fandoms past (and present) have been forgotten andignored. This, in combination with the increased monetization offandom and the exploitation of free fan labour by capitaliststructures, is a dangerous and potentially toxic combination. Whilstit’s not possible – and not desirable – to turn back the clock,fandom needs to carefully consider exactly whywe’re inviting creators into fandom space, how that should behandled, and how to mitigate the potential consequences of that.

Firstoff, there are a few pieces of terminology uses I want to make clear,and a few starting assumptions I want to detail, just so we’re allgoing into this from somewhat the same starting point:

When I say fandom here, I mean creative fandom – ie. writers, artists, graphics makers, cosplayers, and various others, along with the people who support them and interact with them in a variety of ways. There are other kinds of fandom, of course; notably casual fandom where someone simply enjoys a book / show / movie, or collative fandom, focused on collecting facts / statistics / comic editions / props. These types of fandom are not the ones I have experience with, however, and are also not entirely relevant given this discussion is specifically about creators in creative fandom.

I’m assuming that fandom is a space where people should be allowed to create whatever the hell they want, within the bounds of legality. That means if people want to write rape fic, draw art of extreme kinks, cosplay “problematic” characters, or ship unhealthy / abusive ships, they should be able to – without people going “think of the children!” or “you’re a Bad Person”. Debating whether this attitude is the right one is another conversation entirely; you can read more about why I take this stance in an essay I wrote a while back about ‘heavy’ kinks, and also in the purity politics tag on my personal blog – but if you fundamentally disagree with this stance, you’re probably going to disagree with this essay in general.

When I use “creator(s)” here, I’m talking about the people making the canon content – whether that’s an actor, a voice actor, a writer, a director / producer, a comic artist, a game development studio, a youtuber, whatever. When I use “fan(s)”, I’m primarily talking about individuals within creative fandom (ie. those who create fan content, and those who support them). Yes, some (if not most) fans are absolutely creators too, given fan content is just as valid and creative as ‘official’ content – but it is, linguistically, easier for me to use “creator” and “fan” rather than having to tie myself up in descriptive knots. Yes, there are areas of fandom that are primarily about curation rather than creation, and there are fans who simply enjoy the source material and don’t involve themselves in what they would consider “fandom” at all, and those are valid ways of interaction with the source material – but, as I mentioned above, that’s not the aspect of fan-creator interaction and fandom I’m talking about.

So,now we’ve got that out the way…

1.Fandom History, “Purity Politics”, and Censorship

Historically,mainstream media has not been kind to fandom – nor have mainstreamwebsites, or even primarily fandom-oriented websites for that matter.Fanfiction.net is notorious for having done a mass-deletionof “adult” works(though theirongoing policing of this is spotty at best and nonexistent at worst),and I remember them also having a list of authors who’d contactedthem and “asked” them not to host fic from their books / serieson the website. Livejournal also had severalmass deletions thatpartially targeted fan communities, especially communities producing“unacceptable” fanworks. Slash communities and the like wereoften specifically targeted, because the people pushing for thedeletions had homophobic agendas and considered queer fiction more“inappropriate” than heterosexual / gen fiction.

Thiswas, in some ways, the beginning of our current purity politicsepidemic – people campaigning against certain types of fanfic thatthey personally disliked or disagreed with under the banner of“protecting the children” – except, in these instances, it waspressure coming from outside fandoms rather than within them. AO3(and the Organization for Transformative Works’ associated effortstowards fandom archiving, fannish academia, and legal advocacy) wasfounded partiallyas a response to these deletionsand to the concept of “acceptable” versus “unacceptable”fanworks.

I’mnot gonna do a huge history lesson here, but if you want to read moreabout this, a little bit of googling will get you a long way (as willfollowing the links above). These events have been talked aboutextensively by people who were more involved in them than I was, andif you haven’t heard about them before, they’re worth readingabout. Fandom history is important, y’all.

WhatI’m getting at here is there’s a reason older fans / peoplewho’ve been in fandom a while have a good reason to be faintlyparanoid about creators coming into fan spaces, or being too aware ofthem. Specifically,fans who write “inappropriate” or “bad” fanworks –including adult or nsfw content, Real Person Fiction (rpf ) / RealPerson Slash (rps), slash or femslash, anything involving dark ormature themes such as sexual abuse, child abuse, incest, rape,domestic violence, etc. – have the most reason to be concerned.Backlash to the same degree as has happened in the past is a littlemore unusual, due to the mainstreaming of fandom and increased fansolidarity, but it still happens.

(Assomeone who’s both been in fandom for A While now and remembers theaftermath of the deletions (even though I didn’t have an LJ accountor write mature fanfic at the time) and writes “bad” fanworks, Ihave doubly good reason to be paranoid. Hence why I talk about this alot, and have Strong Opinions on it. Most of the other people I’vetalked to who have Strong Opinions on this tend to fall into thosetwo categories, too. If you’re not from these groups, then… maybeconsider, if you’re sitting there going, “yes, but Idon’t feel threatened by anyof this,” whyyou don’t feel threatened. Try to see it from our perspective.)

Inaddition to corporate / website efforts to stamp out fandom spaces ingeneral, and “undesirable”, non-mainstream, or subversive fanspaces specifically (including, again, gay / queer spaces, becausethat was considered “undesirable”), various authors and showsmade their own efforts. Anne Rice is notorious for her veryaggressive stance against fanfiction. Even JK Rowling, one of thefirst authors to publicly say she was okay with fanfic, has gone onrecord saying she objects to adult work involving HarryPotter characters – although“innocent” fics by “genuine fans” are okay, apparently.

Theshow Supernaturalhas had several entire episodesdedicated to taking the piss out of fandom in general – andfangirls specifically, caricaturing them as ditzy, obsessive, creepy,lonely, unlikeable, sex-obsessed – despite the fact that theirfandom is the only reason they’re still running. It’s all thesame usual, unpleasant stereotypes that get pulled up every timewomen, and especially teenage girls, become invested in or excited bya piece of media. A previous fandom of mine, the Yogscast, had ahistory of begging and / or outright stealing fanart from artists formerch, video use, or general promo stuff – but also decided to reada fairly ‘innocent’, fluffy fic on stream in order to mock boththe author and the fic (and in the process drove the author off theface of fandom internet, basically).

Again,we see fandom and fanworks being split into “acceptable” and“unacceptable” by content creators – people not actuallyinvolved in fandom, but feeling as though they have a kind ofownership over it, or say in it – based on mainstream mediastandards and their personal morals (and what they can monetizeversus what they can’t, though more on that later). And the reasonthey feel like they have any kind of ownership over fandom is veryoften that they are a creator, and they see fanworks as, in someways, “belonging” to them rather than just being a derivative oftheir work.

Creatorshave always struggled to understand that fandom is, primarily, forthe fans– not there as an expression of the fans’ heart-eyed adorationfor the creators, but as an expression of the fans’ creativity, oftheir ideas and enthusiasm for the work itself, and often of theirdissatisfactionwith the source material. Fandom is a space for the fans, butcreators often feel as though they should have some kind of say init, merely by merit of having created the source material.

Historically,this entitlement – valid or not, though I’m inclined towards not– has manifested itself as creators aggressively(and generally unsuccessfully) trying to stop the creation of fancontent based ontheir material. Which is a pretty terrible option, given it destroysfandoms and often leads to harassment and legal issues for fans.

Somewherebetween that and where we are now, we had creators realising therewas fuck-all they could do about fannish activities, given the sizeof the web and the determination of fans, and instead just did theirbest to ignore it all. This was, in my opinion, a pretty good courseof action. This was what tended to happen with fandom when I firstentered it – creators were aware of it, it occasionally got broughtup in interviews if a particularly dedicated reporter had discoveredit existed, and the creator usually laughed nervously and saidsomething to the effect of, “I know it’s out there but I tend toavoid it for legal / personal reasons”.

2.The Monetization of Fandom, and the Exploitation of Fan Labour

So,what changed between then and now? A lot, I think – including theemergence of a generation of new, fandom-savvy and tech-savvycreators, many of whom grew up in fandom (think Rebecca Sugar, AlexHirsch, the cast of Critical Role to a degree… others, probably,but those are the ones I’m aware of) knowing where to go to findfandom. Also, the rise of social media, and the increasing ease ofinteracting with fandom on a variety of platforms.

Asa creator, when you’ve got a bunch of people who love the thing youcreated, and are producing a bunch of derivative works from it, thatcan be very flattering! And people tend to react positively to theopportunity to interact one-on-one with a creator, which social mediaallows them to do, and again this positive feedback is veryflattering. Being in a fandom space for a creator is, at its mostshallow and cynical, an ego boost – you have a huge base of peoplewho all (usually) like a thing you’ve made, like you and thinkyou’ve very clever for having made it, and are (usually) eager tocreate things either based off of the thing you did, or even as adirect present for you.

There’salso the fact that fandom is now big enough to very successfullymonetize, and creators (and big businesses) are increasingly workingout how to do this successfully. This takes a lot of different forms:ever-growing conventions with ever-more dealer tables, more merch,subscription-based services (such as Geek & Sundry and Nerdist’sAlphaor Roosterteeth’s First,or even Twitch subscriptions), Youtube in general, Patreon /Kickstarter… and also, more insidiously, theuse of fandom as free labour.

Fandomhas alwaysbeen partially about labour,as anyone who’s ever made fanart or fanfic or manips or a podcastor… well, really anything, can attest to. Even being actively partof a community is, in some ways, labour. However, there’s adifference between free (and freely given) labour – writing a ficis hard work, true, but often it’s funtoo, and is done as a labour of love, as a form of play or relaxation– and exploited free labour.

Freelabour is the creation of fanart and fanfic and other art and objectsby fans, for fans. Free labour is labour done under the heading of“play” or “relaxation” or “a hobby”, something thecreator enjoys doing. Free labour is even fan-run websites, or fanscampaigning to get a show back on air, or doing other things thattraditionally PR and advertising managers would do except for free,of their own free will just because they love the source material.

Exploitedfree labour is Anime Expo, a 10,000 attendee strong for-profitconvention callingfor volunteer translators to do skilled labour for free.Exploited free labour is the Yogscast, a major Youtube network,askingfor free art from skilled fanartists, and repeatedly failing tocredit fanartists who’ve done commissions for them.Exploited free labour is Amanda Palmer raising $1.2 million onKickstarter, but solicitingfans of hers who were professional musicians to work for her for freebecause she “couldn’t afford to pay them”.Exploited free labour is Universal Studios solicitingFireflyfans to help market and promote the movie for free, and then sendingthem a cease-and-desist letter once the movie had been released.Exploited free labour is E.L. James getting FiftyShades of Grey published offthe back of reviewsand collaborative idea generation from hundreds of fellow fandommembers, butcompletely failing to acknowledge this. Exploited free labour isLiveJournal’s(thankfully failed) attempt to make a for-profit fanfiction sitewhere writers had to surrender copyright to the creators of canon.The examples go on, and on, and on.

Fandomhas gone from something small and rather community based – wherepeople didprovide skilled labour for free, because cons and such were organisedby the community for the community, because there wasn’t a lot ofmoney going round, because it was about fandom rather than profit,because they were recompensed for that free labour in non-monetaryways (including reputation and other social currencies) – tosomething monetized. Cons are run by businesses now, primarily, andorganised fan events are professional affairs where a lotof money changes hands. Corporations that try and equate the two arebeing deliberately manipulative.

Basically,fundamentally capitalist constructions like the kind we see incorporate-ized fandom deliberately invoke fandom’s history of giftculture in an attempt to scam fans out of free labour. The wholepoint of gift culture is that it is reciprocal– I create something for a friend or someone I like, and in returnthey create something for me (even if that creation is a review ofwhatever I created, or something more abstract than a tangiblereward). The whole point of capitalism is that it isn’treciprocal, or at least not in the same way – I provide a servicefor someone who is likely to be a complete stranger, and in returnthey give me money. When capitalism tries to wriggle out of the“giving me money” bit of their equation by appealing to the factthat, in a gift culture, I do things for “free”, it’s blatantbullshit quite frankly.

It’sblatant, deliberatebullshit, because the companies know exactly what they’re doing,and what they’re doing is devaluing and exploiting fan labour offthe back of fandom’s cultural traditions.

(Andbefore someone says, “but it is reciprocal! Creators make a thingfor us, and we make a thing for them,” I’m going to point outthat often fans have alreadyengaged with the capitalist modelto access the Creator Thing in the first place. Fans have paid forthe movie, book, TV show, or they’ve subscribed to the Twitchchannel, or the Patreon, or donated to the Kickstarter. The creatorsare already getting monetarily compensated for their work, becausemainstream creators work in the context of the capitalist model, notthe gift culture model. Therefore, the things the creators are makingcannotbe the reciprocal part of the gift culture, since that has alreadybeen bought.)

It’sone thing for me and a friend to organise a fanmeet for a fandomwe’re in, for free, where the meet is about meeting friends fromthe fandom and socialising. It’s another thing for, say, a companyrunning a convention that will be making tens of thousands, if nothundreds of thousands, of dollars of profit, to ask if I’llorganise thatfor free. That’s a dramatic (and somewhat unrealistic, though seethe translator thing above) example, but the point stands.

Capitalismtakes advantage of fandom’s innate gift culture, and itstraditional free exchange of ideas and fan collaboration, in moreinsidious ways, too. As thispaper (which youmay not be able to read in full if you don’t have institutionalaccess, but I can provide if you message me) notes, regarding a viralseries of videos on Youtube called Lonelygirl15that was one of the first new media fandoms:

[…] the team consciously used to theiradvantage the myth of the do-it-yourself (DIY) celebrity inherent toYouTube. […] YouTube’s ability to freely distribute content tomillions with little investment holds the promise to broadcastoneself to fame and fortune. As a result, hundreds of fans, with thehopes of becoming legitimate storytellers, created videos around theLG15world. Most hoped that mere mention of their work in the franchiseproper would open doors for them. In the process, the fans werewillingly generating value for the franchise. The team, on the otherhand, heavily regulated the boundaries of the LG15canon by actively marking fan fiction as ancillary and used copyrightclaims as ways to carefully manage community initiatives. Keeping thefans at arm’s length ran counter to their initial rhetoric ofcommunity-led collaborative storytelling and subsequently estrangedthe very community that had initially given them exposure.

[…] I argue that it is a form ofexploitation because the creative team mislead the fans into thinkingthat their participation would have a more meaningful impact on theshow proper. This intentional misleading was primarily to garner theattention of the mainstream media and grow the show into a robustfranchise. The team claimed to be experimenting with a new type ofstorytelling, a community-based narrative that embodied the generalspirit of co-authorship. They sold their show to fans as anunprecedented initiative that would blur the actor/producer and fandivide, a promise that did not actualize for many fans and wasfrequently curtailed by the creative team’s eagerness to protectthe artistic integrity of their show. Ultimately, the team’s goalof proving LG15 to be a financially viable initiative led them toconfine fan engagement within strictly defined parameters thatultimately undermined their initial rhetoric of community-ledstorytelling.

- “Exposingconvergence: YouTube, fan labour, and anxiety of cultural productionin Lonelygirl15” by Burcu S.Bakioğlu

This“business model” – in which fandom-savvy creators with a closeconnection to their fandom and a marketing-based knowledge of howfandom works string their fans along with ultimately empty dreams,whilst simultaneously holding them at a distasteful arm’s length –can be seen as echoes through somany new media fandoms, and avariety of traditional ones too. It’s the typical push-pull ofcreators who are hungry for the free advertising and labour fans canprovide, but who find fandom in all its queer, subversive,traditionally-female glory to be fundamentally distasteful.

(Fanartistsare, I think, the most vulnerable to this kind of exploitation.Fanfiction is often seen as undesirable (sometimes even within fandomspaces, but that’s another essay), but fanart? Provided it’s the“right” kind of fanart – ie. sfw, fairly canon-compliant,well-drawn, no implications of gay/trans stuff – then it’s verydesirable. Fanart contests,t-shirt or merch design contests, gif contests, are all fairlycommonplace. I’ve never heard of a fanfic equivalent.)

It’sa far more subtle form of monetization, but all the more dangerousfor it, especially because it lures fans into a false sense ofsecurity with the creator. They feel that the creator is on theirside, is “one of them”, is going to reciprocate the unpaid labourthey put in, actually “gets” fandom or is supportive of itsnon-mainstream and subversive endeavours… only to then bedisappointed, because inevitably the creator isn’t interested inanything other than maximising profit by manipulating their fanbase,and may actually find the fans they’re toying with activelydistasteful.

Youcan find a hugeamount of writing and research on these concepts via googling “freelabour fandom” or “fandom labour exploitation”, by the way, ifyou’re interested. This isn’t a concept I’ve just come up with– it’s something academics and business-people have been aware offor a long time, but hasn’t quite filtered down into general fandomconsciousness yet. The companies know about it, and are activelyusing it to their advantage, but fandom as a whole hasn’t quitesavvied up yet.

Whichis, I think, a large part of what I take issue with. Some people,after reading the above few paragraphs, will respond with, “So? Ilove [thing], I don’t mind my labour being used to support it andits creators.” However,some people will be going, “Holy shit,I didn’t realise that was a thing? That’s awful, even though I dothings for [thing], I don’t want to support the parent company / Ididn’t consent for my labour to be used like this.” Some of bothgroups, given the fact that the average age of people in fandom isskewing increasingly younger, will be twelve, or thirteen.

Thisis what I object to. Not necessarily that the labour is being used,but that there’s no informed consent to it (and also that it’soften used by the same people who mock fandom, or find it‘disgusting’, or have rather poor views of their fans). That it’smanipulative,very deliberately so. That it’s often couched in terms of it beinga moral obligation, a “labour of love”, a “volunteer position”,as “helping the community”, even when that’s evidently bullshitbecause the group trying to feed you that line is a business that isonly interested in fandom as a profit-making machine. That, often,it’s vulnerable fans – younger fans, poor fans, fans fromminority groups – being taken advantage of, deliberately andmanipulatively, by creators.

Fansare inherentlyvulnerable, for a variety of reasons (more on that later) due to thepower difference between them and content creators, and thatvulnerability is being exploited, often using the language of fandomto disguise the exploitation.

Howoften do creators run a “design a t-shirt / poster for us!”competition, where the artist gets paltry recompense (or none atall!) and often no credit for their work? How often do competitionTerms of Service end up having loopholes where the creators nowlegally own your work, in its entirety, forever, and you can’t doshit about it? Professionalfreelancers are aware of these kinds of things, and look for them incontracts – youraverage fan is not,however, and yet they are being used as (easily exploited, preciselybecausethey don’t have the experience professionals have) freelancers bycreators.

Asthisarticle regardingthe Amanda Palmer debacle above rather neatly puts it:

Ideally, you don’t even know you areworking at all. You think you are keeping up with friends, ornetworking, or saving the world, or jamming with the band. And youare. But you are also laboring for someone else’s benefit withoutgetting paid.

3.The Fan-Creator Power Imbalance and Fan Vulnerability

Let’sbe honest here: all of this manipulation is possible because fans,and fandom, are incrediblyvulnerable, on severaldifferent fronts – legally and financially, emotionally, and oftenin terms of age and experience. Though not allcreators take advantage of these vulnerabilities, it’sunfortunately not unusual.

Fansare primarily vulnerable legally. In general, the legalityof fanfiction and fanworksis super iffy,to the point Wikipedia has an entire article on it, and creatorsaren’t always happy that it’s being written (again, covered inthe Wiki article, and mentioned above as well). Fans also don’thave a great deal of legal protections– one of the reasons why AO3has a legal teamthat fights for fans and fandom – and what they do have has oftenbeen won by other fans who’ve fallen foul of copyright laws orcease-and-desist demands and fought back. Often though (but notalways), fans are young, and have neither the money nor the legalknowledge to fight back should a large corporation or dedicatedindividual creator with a beefy legal team decide to start legalproceedings against them.

Fansare also vulnerable because of their age and life experience.Increasingly, fandom is skewing younger and younger, which means manyfans (perhaps now even the majority) are underage. It issignificantly easier for creators to manipulate and use younger fansthan it is to do so with older fans. Even older fans, though, whohave more life experience, may not have relevantlife experience. A lot of fan writers and artists are hobbyists, notprofessional freelancers. “Tricks” by corporations such as dodgyterms of service or questionable phrasing in competition terms may beless noticeable to fans than they would be to professionals providingsimilar services. Fans may also not have the same tools asprofessionals when it comes to knowing how to deal with being takenadvantage of. Professional artists may have a standard procedure theyfollow when they discover their art has been plagiarised, or haveother professional artists they know as part of the community who canadvise them – fanartists are lucky if they have any such resource.

Fansare alsouniquely vulnerable with regards to interacting with contentcreators. There’s a power imbalance. This isn’t exactly the placefor discussions regarding (usually sexual) harassment / abuse of fansby creators, and I don’t want it to turn into one entirely, but…it happens. It happens a lot.A quick google search found me thisarticle listing anumber of scandals and allegations of sexual abuse or abuse of power,just regarding Youtubers,in the past year or so alone. Here’sa post from my personal blogsummarizing the multipleallegations of harassment levelled against the Yogscast, includingsome really rather serious ones, and the… frankly appallingresponse from the Yogs. That’s without even touching on theaccusations against more mainstream / Hollywood personalities thatcrop up every five seconds.

Thiskind of stuff happens a lot more than fandom would like toacknowledge. Creators hold power over fans, and sometimes – a lotof the time – they don’t use that power entirely for good.

Ofcourse, fans often enjoy having creators in fandom spaces – or,more accurately, enjoy having creators accessible. Fans want to benoticed by creators, have a personal relationship with them, meetthem, talk with them, share things with them. They often also wanttheir fandom pursuits, whatever those may be, to be validated. Theseare all perfectly normal things to want, especially from people youadmire and look up to. Hell, I would be a huge hypocrite if I triedto pretend I’ve never wanted to be friends with the creator of afandom I was in. I’m not here to rag on people for havingfantasies, or for looking up to creators – I’m here to point outthat people should be exercising caution along with those.

Becausethe issue is, a lotof people don’t feel safe with creators too far into the fandom.And some other people don’t see that as a reasonable boundary forthose people to have, or are too caught up in their “senpai noticeme” heart-eyes to care.

Beingon twitter is good, it makes creators approachable, you can tweet atthem and they might even respond – and sometimes it’s even a bitfunny if they admit they’ve gone looking for fanfic. But a creatordemonstrating a huge deal of internet savvy, having a tumblr blog,going on AO3? That’s enough to make a lot of people feel unsafecreating and sharing fanworks.

(Ifmonetization and exploitation is a particularly big issue forfanartists, then feeling unsafe is a particularly big issue forfanwriters. Not that fanartists never feel unsafe, especially if theyproduce “undesirable” content – but, for almost every creatorI’ve ever come across, whilst somefanart is acceptable, perhaps even desirable, fanfiction isunanimously “othered” in terms of fan crafts. Perhaps because,due to inherently needing a plot and the use of headcanons and havinga non-canon focus, it’s more threatening to the creator? I’m notsure and, again, that’s another issue. But for fic writers, eventhe most “harmless”, innocent, fluffy, G-rated gen fic risksscorn, humiliation, disapproval, or accusations of being “weird”or “creepy”. Those who write darker or more mature stuff, likemyself and many of my friends, have to deal with being aware thateven creators who take a “live and let live” approach to fanficwould likely be disgusted if they ever found our work. As I saidbefore: if you’re sitting here thinking “but I’mnot worried”, consider why.)

And,again, fandom is primarily forthe fans. We should beprotecting fans above and before creators.

Areally good way of doing that, whether protecting them from legalthreats, from having their labour exploited, or from creatorharassment, is to keep fandom separated from creators. Not entirelyseparate, not “buried in the depths of the web where no one canever find it” separate, but just… an acknowledgement that fandomis for fans, not creators. That fans deserve spaces they can putthings up for other fans to see, without being worried about theirwork being stumbled upon by creators or ‘upsetting creators’ –or, more unpleasantly, being mocked by creators, broadcast outside offandom spaces without their consent, or being judged according to anarbitrary, mainstream moral code.

Fundamentally,fans deserve a safe space. And when I use that word, I don’t mean“somewhere where no one will ever be triggered” or “somewherethat has been entirely morally sanitised” or “somewhere whereroving mobs of thirteen year olds get to dictate who is problematicor not”. A fandom safe space should be a space where people canpost what they want (within some reason) without fear of Big BrotherCreator watching, without fear of being mocked, without fear of beingtold they’re gross or disgusting or Wrong – and a space wherepeople can reasonably be expected to take ownership of their owncontent consumption, helped by stuff like content warnings orblacklists or AO3 tags.

Havingcreators there complicates that. It makes people worried, for a wholevariety of reasons. Something I said on a post a while back that isrelevant here: “Creative fandom, in terms of art and fic, issupposed to be an area of fandom without creator oversight – orwith very limited creator oversight. Feeling like you’re beingwatched, worrying that you might unintentionally offend, killscreativity.” Even if canon creators don’t intend to have anegative impact on fan spaces, or even want to join fan spaces inorder to interact with and please fans, they have an adverse effecton the safety and fandom-ness of the space.

Or,as out-there-on-the-maroon’sresponse to thatpost put it, probably better than I did:

This is something I’ve seen happen inreal time on the various official G&S [Geek and Sundry] discords.Initially fan-only spaces, they quickly started to welcome andexplicitly invite the cast and crew onto the discords. Which has itsbenefits and cool aspects, but also turns a fan-only private spaceinto a space watched by the creators, where the creators havepowerful voices of authority.

Suddenly any criticism or “I didn’tlike this part of this episode” comments became awkward orself-censored. Fanfic talk got dialed way back, hidden in privateDMs, or moved to separate private discords. Then there were clasheswith mods and other fans who were debating what was appropriate talknow that the cast were becoming members. It’s one thing to yell“omg I HATE [writer X]!” during a livestream of a tense episodewhen in a private discord, it’s another to do so in a channel wherethat writer frequently reads the chatlogs. Among fellow fans it’sunderstood that such talk is hyperbolic, but when the creators areright there chatting with you in a friendly way, it becomes risky.

[…] A large chunk of the “drama”that happens in these new media fandoms can be traced to there beingpoor separation of personal and private, be that a creator venting ontwitter and getting into fights with fans, fans sending explicitfanfic to a creator, or those “dramatic readings” at conventionswhere a room full of adults is invited to mock the un-edited writingsof a 15 year old. I’ve seen a lot of issues arise when someone, saya youtube star, rises to fame very quickly and is ill-prepared forputting up boundaries between themselves and their fans. (Mostyounger celebrities are actively discouraged from doing this,encouraged instead to be always available, always friendly, alwaysopen and personal with fans.)

Havingcreators engaging with fandom is not necessarily bad in and of itself– fans are excited to be noticed by their heroes, creators areexcited to hear from people who love them and the stuff they produce.It can be good, or at the very least not-bad. The issue is, though,that creative fandom is for fans, by fans, and there’s no intrinsicplace for creators in it, but creators are increasingly trying tomakespace for themselves in it anyways without understanding the effectthat has. That’s where the problem lies.

I’mnot suggesting we never ever let creators talk to their fans everagain. I’m just saying that we have sites like twitter for that –they don’t need to be coming onto tumblr, or browsing AO3, to haveconversations with fans. It should be up to fans to make the firstmove regarding contact, nine times out of ten, not the creators.

Creatorsdeserve spaces where they’re safe from being exposed to contentabout their characters that they don’t want to see or finddistasteful. Fans deserve spaces where they don’t have to worryabout the creator deciding they’ve seen stuff they don’t want toor stuff they find distasteful. The easiest and best way of doingthis is to make sure there are separate spaces for creators and fans– and that each side acknowledges, when they go into the other’sspace, they play by the rules of that space and don’t try toenforce their own. End of.

4.“Not MyCreators!”

Ifyour response to this has been, “Yes, okay, but mycreators are nice, though,” then consider: you’re probably notgoing to be in that fandom (or at least, not solely in that fandom)forever. You are eventually, inevitably, going to encounter a creatorwho isn’t nice. Your creator may also not be nice forever – it’snot unusual for creators to seem lovely and friendly and reallyinvolved in fandom, and then turn out to be a massive douchebag (seealso, Ridgedog and Sjin from the Yogscast).

Eventhe nicest creators can cause drama and conflict, too. If they’reseen to endorse a particular headcanon that people start trying toimpose as canon, if they state “preferences” for fanworks thatpeople feel compelled to (or are forced by other fans to) obey, ifpeople think they’re playing favourites… it gets messy. And thelonger someone is seen as “the nicecreator”, the longer they’re up on that pedestal, the harder theyfall when they do the slightestthing wrong.

It’snot just fans that can suffer when creators get too close. In myprevious fandom, a fan that was jealous of the attention a creatorwas showing to another fan (ie. notto them) decided to start asmear campaign over it. They tried doxxing the creator in question,got several other people to threaten doxxing, started attacking otherfans (myself included) and sending death threats, and generallymanaged to really badly fuck up a whole number of involved parties’mental health. A similar thing happened with another creator in thesame fandom, where said fan is stillrunning a smear campaign against them. These are not isolatedincidents.

AsI mentioned in replyto a content creator I’m personally acquainted with, on one of my initial posts on this topic:

I think… regardless of how hard theytry to integrate, canon creators are Apart and Above fans. They can’tbe part of their own fandom in the way that fans are - howinsufferably arrogant they’d be if they were! - and they have anatural, inescapable power over the fans in the sense that their fansare inevitably going to look up to them and idolise them / put themon a pedestal. It makes things a little sticky for creators in thesense that they’re stuck as almost a god-figure, but also thattheir fans want to be friends with the Real Them - and, of course,either the creator keeps up the god-figure persona, stays on theirpedestal, and disappoints the fans who feel held at arm’s length;or they drop the god-figure persona, get off (or fall off) thepedestal, and disappoint the fans who feel angry and betrayed andupset that their idol is actually fallible and human (and hasopinions the fan disagrees with / is boring / is bigoted / isn’tfunny when they’re not performing / isn’t a role model ordesirable when they’re not pretended to be a god-figure). Damned ifyou do, damned if you don’t.

Fandom,especially younger fandom, has an idolatry issue when it comes tocreators – and it hurts people on both sides of the god-worshipperequation that that behaviour creates.

5.Conclusion…?

Isuppose, actually, that despite the thesis statement there are a fairfew different questions actually being asked in this essay: How okayare we – as a community of fans, regardless of the particularfandoms we call home – with censorship? How okay are we, or shouldwe be, with the commodification and monetisation of fandom by bothbig business and / or fans themselves? How okay are we withnon-fandom people and groups, whose aims and morals may not alignwith fandom’s, attempting to manipulate / change fandom and use itfor their own ends? How do we plan to protect our own?

Theseweren’t the questions I expected to end up asking at the end ofthis essay but, here we are.

Iwould hope I’d made my personal positions on them clear. First andforemost, we should nottolerate censorship. Not fromwithin fandom, and not from without. We should alsonot tolerate manipulative attempts at monetisation by corporations –and should fight hard within our communities to preserve gift cultureand the fandom-as-play mentality that fandom is built on, despite therise of commissions-based fan interactions and Patreon / Kickstarterculture. We should fight hard, not to prevent fandom from changingper se, but to make sure we don’t lose our roots and principles.

Creators,by merit of being the people who create the media we love and engagewith so much, have power. A hugeamount of power. Maybe that’s legal power, maybe that’s the powerof a savvy and manipulative marketing department behind them. Maybethat’s the power conferred by being adored and idolised by a largenumber of fans, maybe that’s the power of having a twitter mob attheir control that will harass anyone they disagree with. Maybe thatpower is just older fans knowing how creators can turn on fans andfandoms, and being afraid to create things because “big brother iswatching”, regardless how benevolent that all-seeing eye is. Maybethat power is just having people feel it’s “polite” to “respectthe creator’s wishes” regarding what sort of fanwork can / shouldbe produced in that fandom.

Asthe old fandom term “Word of God” implies, creators are… well,the gods of their fandoms. That’s not necessarily a title theyearned (some creators are supershitty people, let’s be honest here), it might not even be a titlethey wanted(see also: Undertale, Homestuck, and other fandoms that suddenlyexploded), but it’s a title they have nonetheless.

Inthe end, this issue ties together a lot of things, I think – notjust creator involvement in fandom, not just censorship, not justmonetization, but purity politics, and the legality of fanworks, andhow to manage communities both online, and irl and the habit ofpeople to put creators they admire on a pedestal.

Howdo we, as a community, plan to self-organise, disseminate importantinformation, make decisions, and work as a united front in thefuture? Is that even possible – is fandom a fundamentallyanarchistic entity, unable to survive attempts to formalise it in anyform still recognisable as “fandom”; or, conversely, is fandomdoomed to dying and being subsumed by corporate manipulations if itdoes notformalise and organise, and work to protect its roots and the uniqueculture that has sprung from them?

I’mafraid I don’t really have the answers to those particularquestions, but… food for thought. I know I certainly think aboutthem a fair amount, and perhaps it’s time fandom in general starteddoing so too.

6. Fandom: The Next Generation

Whatdo we doabout all this, though?

Well,for starters, we educate both fandom and creators. There’s somegrassroots efforts to do this within fandom – professionalfreelancers making pushes to ensure people who offer commissionsprice their work correctly, and also checking through various contestterms of service and spreading the word if something’s dodgy, therecent pushback against censorship and purity politics within fandomspaces. Various fandoms on tumblr who know their creators often usetumblr, or check specific tags within it, have developed “private”tags for nsfw or shippy content, or fanfiction, to keep them awayfrom creators – either at the creators’ request, or of their ownvolition.

That’snot enough, though. We also need to educate creators.Even for those that grew up “geeky” or “nerdy” or “infandom”, they’re often talking primarily about the curative sideof fandom activities, not the creative. That side of fandom has verydifferent rules, social mores, and opinions to the creative side offandom. Creative fandom, essentially, needs to set out its stall forcreators – this is who we are, this is what we do, this is how youengage with us politely. We’re happy for you to come look at ourthings, if you want, but if you’re coming into ourspaces (ie. livejournal, tumblr, ao3) then don’t try to tell uswhat we can and can’t do, because we’renot doing this for you.Remember, when you interact with us in our spaces, you’re in ourterritory, and you should behave as such. Remember, we are acommunity, and if you try to take advantage of us or our vulnerablemembers, we will not tolerateit – even if you didn’treally realise that you were trying to take advantage.

Andhonestly? Some creators just need to remember to have basic goddamnmanners. Going on twitter to go “ewww I just read the creepiestfanfic about my book” and linking to it, or reading something outon stream without author permission, or telling part of your fanbasethey’re bad people because of how they choose to engage with yourmaterial… that’s just plain rude. We shouldn’t have to teachcreators how to be decent human beings. A remarkable number ofcreators fall short of this standard, honestly, and we need to stoptolerating it.

Ifthe creators aren’t dicks, then they’ll want to learn how to dobetter, both for themselves and also for their fandom. If they aren’tdicks, they won’t want to take advantage of their fandom, or farmthem for exploited labour. And, well, if they are dicks… that’s alittle harder, but it requires fandom as a community to stop keepingcreators on pedestals, to separate fandom from the creator of thesource material, and to be willing to occasionally kick someone’sass if need be. We’ve got to protect one another, is what I’mgetting at here.

Isuppose, if I have to end this essay with anything, it’s this:educate yourself.

Knowyour history – there are plenty of older fans on tumblr talkingabout their experiences, and plenty of blogs dedicated to it. OTW hasa huge number of resources for this, including their open-accessjournal for fan matters (TransformativeWorks and Cultures), theFanlorewiki, and the summaries of the legal activism they’ve done in agiven month for fandom in general and also specific fans. Livejournalis practically a treasure trove, with huge communities that gatheredand collated drama, wank, and general history and informationregarding fandom. Wikipedia, and the wider internet, also hasincreasing amounts of information on fandom history as fandom getspushed into the mainstream media spotlight.

Educateyourselves, educate others, and listen to people who’ve been infandom longer than you have been – though “listen” doesn’tmean “automatically agree with”. And, most importantly of all,look out for other fans. Help them, support them, protect them.Fandom’s something pretty special, after all. We’ve got to lookafter it for those that come after us.

#fandom history #meta #idk what else to tag this with but i Do sort of want to get it Out There so...#anonymous #ask #sparx chats #essays #i am sorry this took so long to do but... 8k lmao #this is a subject i am Real passionate about #(and real salty about)#and i may not have all the answers but i sure as hell have a lot of questions i'm gonna yell about til fandom actually pays attention

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fidelishaereticus · 6 years

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OK so this isn’t gonna look like anything i’ve ever read before but uh here’s what I’m thinking of for how I want to tell Cardhouse and the Cage: The Shithow. It’s still very much in development so feel free to attempt an intervention before it’s too late

THE PLAN

- 1. Prologue A catchy scene from inside the Cardhouse, probably in prose, probably staring Jezebel, with an accompanying illustration doodle. You know, so the reader understands that this is gonna be a fun story about fucked up fairies and not like,,,,Some Bullshit forever. Also obvs sthg that’s going to be plot-relevant in the not-so-distant future of the narrative.

- 2. Meet Our Narrator (or: Some Bullshit) A handful of diary entries by HQ in the vein of La Nausée* (only a lot sillier). These should establish HQ as both endearing and wildly unreliable. Before long, HQ starts talking about fairies. She gives a brief overview of what a fairy is (what she’s “discovered” about their nature) before launching into a dissertation on the Star Program, following Alice as a case study. This section will be really short. I already have way too many HQ diary entries written but most of them can just be part of the expansion pack (i might even do some of them some of them as supplemental youtube videos tho because i think that’d be hilarious).

- 3. First Arc: Alice’s Story. HQ’s outline for her “dissertation” breaks Star-cultivation down into four or so phases, which form the major subsections of her oeuvre. At the beginning of each section we get a brief paragraph of intro-prose, as one would in a formal essay (naturally to be taken with a grain of salt). Instead of continuing as an essay, however, the prose gives way to a series of visuals in the style i’ve been posting lately (with the miniatures). Once the scene is set, the narrative might shift either into comic form or into prose-with-intermittent-illustration form. We could also get things like raw dialogue as IM-chats n shit, who knows, i’ll feel it out. In any case, it’s not clear whether the more visually-driven segments are HQ’s own creation, or rather a window we’re being provided into the story she’s found (that is, a more objective glimpse of the “raw data” she’s working from). HQ will sometimes break for analysis, or might even dissect a particular scene with circles and arrows and notes or whatever, but for the most part the comic/prose+visuals mode tells Alice’s story and should command the greater share of the reader’s attention. HQ fades into the background for a while and functions primarily as a remote framing device. - 4. Second Arc: lets kill this SOB alright alright alright As Alice’s story approaches it’s conclusion, we get some more personal diary entries from HQ interspersed amongst the narrative. Upon the conclusion of Alice’s story, HQ clearly becomes unhinged. She abandons her dissertation, and the framing device shifts dramatically: we’re not reading her study or examining past events anymore: we’re in the “present”. I could shift narration to another character (possibly CR or LV--who have access to some degree of removed & mysterious omniscience), or proceed with first-person HQ prose (ugh that would limit me tho, don’t wanna do that), or just move on to a more objective mode of storytelling, where the narrator isn’t actually a character in the story. I’m considering writing this segment of the story in present tense, to further set it apart from the first segment (which i will write in past tense). This arc is (probably?) shorter than the first arc? It should be very tight, continuous, and driven, in any case.

CONCERNS - will this make any fucking sense??? - i love my framing device but will it take too long to get to The Main Thing? - will i be able to fit everything i want into this framework????? - will i be able to draw this many things? They’ll be simple things and there will be a lot of words to help them along but like,,,,,,i draw so slow, and so bad. will i??? be able??? IS MY ART EVEN GOOD ENOUGH??? 8((( ON THE OTHER HAND - while i am not very motivated to write atm, i am motivated to draw. are my drawings great art? no, but they serve---and why not take advantage of that? Like, yes it takes me longer to draw than to write, and my writing is of a higher quality than my visual art, but all that is worth nothing if i can’t even bring myself to write (which often i can’t). Drawing one panel a day will be so much faster than my current average of like two sentences per month. Also, doodling my characters makes me want to write about them more? so idk MAYBE THIS COULD WORK,, DESPITE SOUNDING ABSOLUTELY INSANE -----

*It’s like La Nausée in that it is a [failed] historian’s personal investigation into a trippy depressive episode ~the intrinsic horror of conscious existence~. As in Nausea, something goes uncomfortably odd in the way that our narrator is perceiving the world; everything seems off suddenly, and in a very bad way. Our narrator looks a little too deeply into the oddness, decides this is a Cosmic Issue, and proceeds to make it weird. It’s better than unlike Nausea in that the narrator is a cooler character is a mercurial shitposter who refuses to give specifics about spacetime. She also believes that she can get to the bottom of the oddness by studying fairies while repeatedly asserting that they’re not real and she doesn’t believe in them, and that naturally makes everything more fun.

#Cardhouse and the Cage #writing

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ftpbtw-gbf · 5 years

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6.5 week update

account start date: 1/31/2019

Table of contents:

General progress

Grids/Weapons

Characters/teams

Summons

Other notes

General Progress

I’ve been working on clearing out those arca badges while collecting screenshots for this update so those numbers will be a tad off.

For what it’s worth, evidence that I’ve never pulled from the gacha still:

compare with the free draws for the current anniversary event:

I haven’t used the weapon ticket yet, but I think it’s fair game to do so. Haven’t decided what to use it on, however I’m not in a rush since it’ll be around probably longer than I plan to play this account famous last words.

Probably a grimnir harp though, since we have two xenos coming up in just a week or two (and I don’t need to grind either of them for my other accounts).

Story wise, ch 63 is a major moment, both in terms of the story and what becomes available.

After ch 63 there are only a small handful of important, but not crucial raids to be unlocked, namely primarchs and huanglong/qilin. There are two pretty good story characters as well that I have not unlocked yet, however I wanted to take time to develop grids to be able to better tackle some of the upcoming story fights without relying on pots and the retry bonuses (which I did use for a few earlier story battles).

Working through arca as I mentioned. I should be on track to recruit monica as early as next week, assuming I’m not screwed over by some encounters. I did just clear my first hard mode puppet boss and it was a slog, but I did make it through. I’ll talk more about it later, but water and dark still feel exceptionally weak even though their grids are roughly on par with my other elements. Some of it is character related, but I haven’t been particularly scientific about it yet.

Grids/Weapons

imgur album of grids

The above grids are specifically for mechanic teams for each element. Since I’m collecting arca points for monika, I have not bought a water arca gun and am just hoping one will drop when I get to Bellator path (there’s a decent enough chance at it anyway).

Between freebies and good luck with drops, I have mostly workable if not 100% meta base grids, now only requiring skill levels to finish off.

I’ve intentionally slotted hp weapons into many of my grids. The prevailing philosophy of many high ranked players is to go all in on offense and ignore hp,but that’s never really sat well with me. “Punch it harder,” has never really been a feasible short term solution to a battle that new players might struggle with. Additionally, many of the grids above already have 5-6 magna atk mod weapons so I found space to include hp weapons so that I’m not investing in atk weapons that would eventually be victim to “diminishing returns,” not that I’ve ever really heard a satisfying explanation for that in gbf context.

As of the time of publishing this, there are still no freely available earth ex weapons pre-hHL

Some more notes on other specific weapons:

Can probably get most of these up a few more uncaps by now, but I’ve been neglecting them a bit.

Picked up two axes last gw before realizing I should instead be getting these, so I switched over and managed to grind out enough boxes to mlb this one and have one 0* extra.

Still a tad on the fence whether or not I want to actually make any eternals on this account or not, but I’m starting to lean towards yes. That being the case, I originally started grabbing axes because Sarasa is always a great starter choice, but Quatre and Six might be better options to bolster elements that have weak ftp char options. Earth isn’t doing amazingly better than dark and water, but enough so that I’m not struggling with water enemies in arca like I am with fire and light foes.

Through perseverance, good timing on the addition of the Love Live collab to side stories and otherwise good free fire chars, I was able to grind out an mlb windhose. The FLB step requires elemental centrums and urns, that I don’t have access to pre-HL, so for now, it stays mlb.

Pre-HL, Water sabers are roughly as bad off as earth sabers, and having the windhose for wind prospects, I ended up picking water for my atma from the “wmtsb 3: 000″ event. Earth might have been a slightly better choice, but it’s not a huge deal wither way. Both elements have an LL char that can provide elemental atk up, and both elements have alternates that are mediocre. As you can see, I haven’t touched it yet though, because outside of 000, new players would not have access to an atma at my rank (72). However, once rank 80 rolls around, you can bet I’ll be trying to sneak into a UBaha normal train to get meteorites for a key. For now, gonna work on collecting the host mat.

I only just today noticed that I had the mats needed to flb the silver bow however, while I did that, I have not had a chance to upgrade it any further. I’m also probably going to be directing skill fodder elsewhere before coming back to this.

Characters/Teams

Since this post is already going to be super long, here’s an imgur post with my currently set up teams and notes on specific characters. There are some other fringe set ups, I’m interested in trying at some point or another, but these cover 95% of my needs. Commentary included in imgur post.

Here’s an album with my overall character levels.

Since only a few of my chars are max uncap + max level, I haven’t amassed a lot of emp points on most chars and therefore haven’t looked at emp quality for most.

Summons

It fortunately did not take too long to mlb all six magna ssr summons, especially with the first one given out for free.

Some notes:

- Fafnir and Phoenix are both usable - the former has a fire def down which would be more useful if I didn’t already have characters that could also inflict it, while the latter has a heal albeit a very weak one.

- Robomi is a dispel, with the unfortunate side effect of dispelling one of your own buffs. The not having to bring dispel in my own subskill slot though is enough reason to keep her around.

- You get one wind buncle from pinboards and there’s another in treasure trade for some satin feathers and tia silver anima. There are four more in the casino, but for now, I’m keeping the two I have separate since I don’t have a ton of other great summons.

- Ebisu’s water def down, is more valuable than fafnir’s because there are fewer characters (among free chars at least), able to inflict the elemental def down. At mlb, the aura loses it’s data penalty, too.

- With WMTSB2 in sidestories, I’m able to use Sandalphon summon for it’s atk up and heal. I’m already at a point where chev is the better main summon, but Sandalphon’s call is still fantastic, compared to the other healing summons that have half as much potency. He also gives his character version a small dark damage cut as a secret effect.

- For anyone who didn’t know SR Luminiera and SR Celeste both provide 20% damage cut against their strong element when mlb. So mlb SR Celeste’s call, for example, gains a light damage cut.

- There are no good elemental summons for Earth or Dark in side stories - Midgardsormr and Albacore both are ~25% atk boosts justified by having hp boosts alongside them, but for practical purposes, the damage loss isn’t worth the hp gain. I’m fortunately at a point where I’m using magna summons for all elements normally, but arcarum may still get better results from an elemental summon (maybe? I haven’t been scientific enough about the numbers). Unfortuantely, getting all four copies of Dark flame Scion out of the side story shop is going to take something like fifty runs of Sandalphon showdown because the WMTSB doesn’t give out a free mlb summon at the end unlike most other side stories. It gives out the mlb light ex harp, but not the summon. And my dark team is not great, as seen in the previous section. I can beat the showdown, but it takes effort.

- I was able to farm an mlb and 0* copies of WMTSB3′s Dragon’s Rage Summon, however, since it won’t be around all the time (till next year presumably), I can’t use it however great the 50% all element/10% hp boost would be to alleviate my elemental summon woes.

- Once I unlocked arca, I bee-lined for Hanged Man, and was fortunate enough that he was the boss I encountered at the end of that path. Hanged man provides me with a clarity in my summon grid, which is useful in the same way Robomi is as a dispel, but better, because Hanged Man gives a random buff in addition to clearing a debuff, instead of taking away a buff like Robomi.

Other notes

As implied by my grid showcase and story progression, I unlocked Mechanic as soon as I was able. Earlier on, I lucksacked a silver centrum from a primarch raid leech but even without that, by rank 50 it’s within the player’s power to leech grand order raids for feathers and redeem 25 for the first shop centrum, thereby acquiring the hardest part of the energy maneuvers robot part. I casino’ed enough to get the red bricks and brightstones so I was able to get those turn 1 full bursts right out the gate as soon as possible. Doing so greatly improved the speed at which I could handle my own hard primal raids and thus helped collect omega anima for magna raid hosts - which in turn led to more ssr magna drops.

At rank 60, I took my main and tackled as much of ex co-op as I could so I had the achievements to unlock swordmaster and mystic, though I have not leveled them yet. I have both arca wind sword/katana so I can slime, though I haven’t sat down and done any yet.

After Dark Fencer, I went for Holy Saber among the T3 classes, then Bishop, then Hermit:

I haven’t been focusing on leveling classes since, and focusing on some of the specialty ex classes was a noticeable drain on my cp supply, but Hawkeye, Weaponmaster, Valkyrie, and Superstar, roughly in that order are next on the to-do list when I get back to it. All of those classes provide useful if non-essential subskills for those rare cases I might not need miserable mist (such as actually playing dark fencer).

At one point, I was hoping to sell this account around the time it reached a spark’s worth of crystals, but after looking into some examples of account selling, I’m already at a point where this account wouldn’t be appropriate to sell to a new player, which limits my potential clients. That being the case, I’m a bit less concerned over preserving all of the options, such as gold bar usage, though I may change my mind in the future still. I picked the sunstone from WMTSB2: summon cradle, and it’s tempting to use it on a magna summon like Tiamat.

Anyway, if there are any questions, feel free to ask here (use the link at the top that starts: “Ask me about...”) or if you know how to reach me on discord, that’s fine, too.

#granblue #granblue fantasy #gbf

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