The thing about the "fridged" trope is that obviously you can't have a female love interest dying as a defining moment for a male character because that's not feminist, but you also can't have a male love interest dying as a defining moment for a female character because then she's just going to have an arc revolving around her relationship with a man and that's also not feminist, and you also can't kill off a love interest from a gay relationship or a relationship involving a nonbinary person because that's burying your queers, which is at least as bad as misogyny if not even worse, and now suddenly you can't kill off romantic partners at all in stories because no matter the demographics, it's going to be problematic somehow, which is... a pretty ridiculous limitation to impose on storytelling.

And, like, it would be satisfying to have a solution other than "it depends on context if not straight-up vibes, and it's usually very reasonable for audience members to have a range of opinions on the execution of one specific instance," but. Yeah, you do kind of have to just vibe check it in a deeply subjective manner sometimes.

First off, you are entitled to how you feel. We all have things that urk us and I'm not trying to prove anyone right or wrong. I just wanted to share my perspective on language and how it's this beautiful and fascinating ever evolving thing to me.

In response to the word "unalive", I can see why it started popping up. It's a light way to describe a heavy subject, is more broad than a lot of terms (think partner vs boyfriend), works when used against censors that block out a LOT of known optional word choices (like many mobile games), and is a less visceral choice for hyperbole and jokes.

Also, in my opinion, unalive became a word the moment one person gave it a meaning and another understood it. That's how language is. It's constantly evolving. Unalive is no less valid than yeet or laptop or one of the 1700 words that didn't exist before Shakespeare (like critic/critical, gloomy, and eyeball). Language evolution happens SO MUCH that if an average person went 600 years into the past, they would struggle to understand anybody on even a basic level (even written because letters and spellings have changed DRASTICALLY over the centuries). It would be like asking a Spanish speaker to understand fluent Italian! All because a billion someones played with langue and made it fit their needs.

Basically, if I were to tldr this, I'd quote comedian Ben Brainard and say, "If it made sense to you, they didn't say it wrong."

PS: Sorry that it got so long!

Ok, tone indicating here because I am not mad about this response but I need you to understand my Frustration Withg This Mindset when it comes to children!

Like I understand that when it is used it becomes a word with meaning- we do that with EVERYTHING, especially online- but what bothers me is that there were lots of others to choose from that work with proper grammar and stuff and basically I'm only frustrated with it because of my 3rd graders!

All of my 3rd graders use tiktok when they really shouldn't but it's not my choice so they all see it being used and they use it in their school work! They now think it's a proper and ok word to use for their writing and they don't want to listen to me when I tell them no that's not actually proper english which I HAVE to say because they get tested on this shit!

Their tests ARE NOT going to give them credit for using 'the dog was unalived when he was hit by a car' or 'I read an unalived mystery story and it was very cool' or 'When my grandma unalived, I felt sad!'

It's just- I CANNOT teach that word to my 3rd graders..... and until it's properly in the dictionary and acceptable usage in American English on American ELA tests, I just want it to go away!

Just a btw, Newt isn’t a full time employee of Fable and Folly. They’re a freelance artist. F&F had no idea about the article until it was posted, nor are they rivals of RQ. Something that is constantly brought up is that audio drama fans love having more shows to listen to! I personally am a big fan of shows from both networks equally. People pointing out that Newt works for F&F are trying to discredit the article because they love RQ/TMA that much and it’s really frustrating to see. I’ve known Newt, Tal, and Wil for years and I can say the article was written in good faith. I respect all three of them a lot and they wouldn’t say something if there wasn’t a reason to. They wouldn’t just write this to get a reaction or whatever else folks are accusing them of. /ci

Are they a freelance Director of Marketing? Because that's what Fable and Folly's website says about them and where I got most of my info from.

In any case, that still presents a conflict of interest (not sure if this is the best term for this) in writing an article critical of Rusty Quill, one which tries to persuade readers to remove financial support from RQ and put it towards other creative projects. I can't imagine how F&F and RQ aren't competitors seeing as they're both podcast networks in the audio fiction industry doing (what appears to me!) Very similar things.

It's true I do love TMA a great deal, and it has compromised my feelings about the situation. I want to be open about this because as my emotions calm down and more information comes to light, my opinion is likely to evolve.

But I don't want to throw common sense out the window and jump on a bandwagon, or 'cancel' RQ mindlessly either, especially when one of the biggest problems in this situation is lack of transparency and information (from RQ, from the author not disclosing their associations initially, and, unfortunately, what's apparently necessary from the anonymous victims).

I shared the information to increase clarity, not just to mindlessly support RQ because I love TMA. I did this in good faith, as much as can be said for me. Yes I am absolutely biased from the get-go, but I am trying to be open about that fact and combat it as best I can. I'm not trying to stir shit just for the sake of it. I appreciate you coming to the defense of someone you know and I would do the same! But forgive me for not being immediately trustful of the author or of you. There is so little real tangible information here, and I still see a possible incentive for RQ to be slandered in a bad faith manner for multiple reasons (from the author and from former employees). I've seen too many fandom witchhunts to just believe allegations or defenses of allegations that come from anonymous sources in this subject matter. I'm withholding any definitive opinions on the drama until more information is available. But personally I'm not withdrawing my financial support from TMA related projects either until I feel there is stronger evidence to do so. I also don't want to stop supporting all the creators involved who shouldn't suffer for RQ's supposed sins. I'm just really hoping Rusty Quill quickly comes forward with a response to the article, and that they don't blow it off. Or perhaps that someone feels empowered enough to go public and share receipts.

Hi Layne! So since I've learned so much from following you all these years I thought I'd pick your brain... I know this is probably a hard one to answer, but I've been thinking a lot about how we constantly grow and learn and change the way we see the world and others (those of us who are willing to anyway)... and I've been following the emu lady and recently saw posts on twitter about ignorant racist things she said in the past. So evidently a lot of people including myself prefer not to give a platform to that kind of person.

But it got me thinking that on some level we have to give people a chance to evolve and redeem themselves, but there's not much space for that on social media. Like I'm not the same person I was 10 years ago, 5 years ago, even 1 year ago... In these times when everything online is so permanent, how do we keep each other accountable while still giving each other space to learn and grow? I'd love to read your thoughts on the subject!

PS : sorry if my ask is not that clear, English is not my first language!

Hey! This is such a good question thanks for sending it. Honestly it's not something I have a clear answer to and I think that's one of the things that makes the internet so complicated is that nuance here is hard and everyone wants a clean rule to answer everything and that's unfortunately not always how it works.

I also recently saw Taylor's racist past and was definitely disappointed and unfollowed. I've not noticed if there have been any updates after that like apologies or a statement but if there have been, let me know! But I think what you said is important, which is removing that person's platform if we can not trust their voice or intentions.

As for whether or not we give room for people to change, I think it's in large part about having change that we can see or hear. In the case of Taylor I have no idea if she still stands by what she did, if she'd defend herself, if she's different now, if she's learned better. I've not really seen her do any political advocacy or do anything that leads me to believe she has better stances. So it's hard to say whether or not there's been growth.

But I think if someone has made statements or done ignorant things in the past that they address and have clearly made a change since then that's obviously different? I remember reading Florence Pugh's really astute apology addressing some cultural appropriation and felt that it was really earnest and believable especially given that she IS a very vocal advocate for injustice and is clearly not someone who would want to hurt anyone and she was doing the work to make sure that she didn't again. Like that to me is important?

Also worth noting that I think as a white person, it's not really our place to decide if someone has changed or not. Like if the majority of Black Twitter is saying that Taylor can go and are hurt by what she's done, there's no reason for me to start advocating that maybe she's changed. Especially right in the aftermath of that hurt. That said, if plenty of people of color have accepted and understand Florence Pugh's apology and have moved on to letting it go and supporting her anyway or what have you then I'm not going to make it my mission to try and prove to everyone that I'm a better white person than her or yell about how she's still problematic because to me, that just feels like making racism about us. Obviously "that person has a Black friend" is never the answer but in a way I think that if a bunch of people of color whose opinions you trust and support are okay with someone then it's probably okay. That's definitely something I try to use as a meter when the hurt is not something that effects me.

If it is something that effects me like with LGBT issues or issues about women or neurodivergence then in that case I use my own best judgement personally and I hope that people who are not effected by it as personally are listening. I tend to give people a little more grace because I do believe people change but I'm not interested in giving grace to people who show no desire to change or do nothing to suggest they have.

One of the things I think about is also like ignorance versus hate. And OF COURSE ignorance is rooted in hate and it is rooted in racism but is something a badly informed mistake or is it outright hate. There's a difference between my mom using the wrong words with she talks about trans people who she would never do anything to hurt and genuinely supports and like... JK who has had it explained to her over and over saying trans women are predators who should never exist. So when it comes to mistakes that are ignorant or just uninformed I try to explain and often times people are defensive and don't get it right away but eventually they do. And that I have a little more grace for. None of us are perfect. We all grow and change and learn things. My parents have said and done some ignorant shit in their lives. They also always vote liberal and believe in all the same things I do. They just don't know as much about what's going on. So I explain it to them. My mom's quicker to understand, my dad often doesn't but I know him well and I trust his heart is in the right place and I try to help him understand slowly. In most cases it's worked. And I think as white or cis people that's another really important thing for us to do. I'm not saying "let your loved ones be racist/ignorant" i'm saying if you can work to help people change, it's definitely important to do that. We're better off creating a world where everyone has learned than a world where we ice out every person who fucks up and create poles. ESPECIALY becuas cis people, white people, etc like we're all going to fuck up. There's nO WORLD where I believe another white person has never said something harmful or believed something that was rooted in racism even if they didn't know it, or had bad opinions when they were younger or done stupid shit. I mean I remember being young and not understanding why it was important to dream cast a mixed race person as mixed race. I just thought it was okay to cast them as black or white. That's ignorant!!!! I was clueless! And I definitely doubled down and was like 'what are you guys talking about?? what else am i supposed to do!?' YIKES. I'm pretty sure MOST OF US have done and said racist/ignorant/stupid shit. Especially those of us who were active on the internet 10+ years ago when people were unfortunately not as informed as they are now. I know this is probably wild for a lot of younger people to know but the shift toward social justice we've seen in the last 10 years in terms of the public being WAY MORE INFORMED is HUGE. When I was in high school this information was BARELY around. It's one of the great things the internet has done. So I try to keep that in mind too. Like when it comes to shit that happened in the past.

I was listening to a few of my friends who are both asian talking recently about how it's difficult when white people are the ones refusing to let people grow because that ultimately doesn't help them. It just makes it harder to deal with issues of racism that come up. And how in their eyes it quickly turns into white people making racism about them and using it to try to prove they're the better white person which is ultimately not something anyone needs. It's important to use our voices to advocate but important to not become the problem in doing so. BUT AGAIN this is a nuanced thing and varies from situation to situation. So it's complicated and it requires using our own judgement.

Anyway this has gotten so long. And I'm happy to hear if any of this sounds bad or anyone else has opinions that may be clearer or more helpful. When it comes to "has this person changed" I always just trust my gut and try to keep these three things in mind:

is the person sorry? have they apologized? does the apology ring true? Do their actions and the life they are living make it clear that this was more of a poorly informed ignorant mistake than their actual worldview? Do they admit and know it was wrong?

Has the community they hurt continued to let them in and/or do those people see the change? I mean the community at large here. There will obviously always be some people who don't want to and that's okay. Or has the community at large said that this person has not changed and they're not comfortable with it and thus in forgiving them am I accepting an apology that isn't mine to accept?

In issues of race or issues that don't hurt me directly am I making my advocacy about me? Am I just trying to prove that I'm the better white person or am I being helpful to the community they've hurt. Am I weaponizing cancelling someone to make myself feel better or more powerful and in doing so am I making racism about me?

ANYWAY again this is all nuanced and I'm sure every single thing I'm saying here can be the wrong answer in some cases and the right answer in others. I think it's super fucking important to hold people accountable. And I also think it's super important to make sure we let people grow becuase ultimately letting people grow will be how we're able to form the biggest army possible. At the end of the day, I'm white, cis, able bodied, non-religious so there are a lot of issues that are not mine. As a lesbian and a woman among some other stuff, there are some issues that are mine. I always try to handle them how I would want people to handle things that hurt me and listen when that isn't the case and I think always approaching things with the intent of being helpful and willing to change our approach is the only answer we can have. It's a constantly moving culture and a constantly changing world and we are constantly changing people.

Three things you should know about this post before you read it:

1. I’m new to the Gilmore Girls fandom (still in the process of exploring the show for the first time),

2. I love spoilers unless they come in visual form (they make me feel safe, basically I’m a control freak and I love knowing what happens next, both in life and in fiction though those two worlds constantly overlap in my case),

3. the post can be read even if you are not a Gilmore Girls fan.

Anyhow, I happen to like Rory Gilmore (who reminds me of me to the point of literal crying in relatable) and I like Jess Mariano (who I find annoying based on the sole reason of him being very much like my past self or even more accurately: who I could have been if I hadn't met some very important people at the most crucial period of my life so yeah, he "hits too close to home", as they say). I've seen some arguments thrown in the face of Jess x Rory shippers which mostly consist of "you like them because they read together". And Jess x Rory shippers never fail to offer a brilliant response that contradicts the statement (this is what I love about fandoms, I love that we enjoy different things about the same artwork, I love our intellectual debates, I love it). But I wanted to say that reading the same books (not only referring to Rory x Jess right now) is indeed a big and meaningful thing, especially if you have never had the opportunity to really disscus that kind of passion with someone your own age before. And I don't mean "hi, I like this book", I mean really talk about it, share your opinions and feelings concerning the subject. Speaking from experience, it's a big deal. If nothing else, it pulls you out of your bubble, makes you realize that there are a lot of people like you out there (helps overcome that toxic "I'm not like all of the others" attitude phase that a lot of us go through at some point and hopefully grow out of during the other) and the best of all, offers you an opportunity to express yourself. Finding people who liked the same things I did saved my life back in the day and I'm not exaggerating. Not even a little bit. Whether you ship Rory x Jess or not (I don't even know if I wholeheartedly ship them because I'm still trying to figure out romance as a real and existing concept), I just wanted to point out the importance of that kind of understanding. And talking about books is never only "talking about books". It's so much more than that. All of us approach and live through art in a different way (exactly what I referred to as beautiful about the whole fandom experience) and exchanging those personal little bubbles of uniqueness (that are only ours when kept, barely having the chance to evolve at all) with others can be incredibly beneficial, beautiful and wholesome. It helps us create our own paintings and mix them with somebody else's colours therefore inevitably enriching the creation that existed prior. Not to mention how it completely works against that whole "weird" accusation society has going on (please, we are all weird, the reason the word exists in the first place is because people give it too much thought, like most things people invent do for that matter, I have a lot to say about that particular subject because it has many possible angles that can all be discussed in detail but I'm saving that for another time, I don't intend to bore anyone).

I hope this wasn't completely idiotic, I only wanted to share some thoughts.

I'm more of a fantasy than sci-fi person, but consider my interest piqued. Why should I watch farscape?

Okay, the thing is, every Farscape fan’s pitch on Why You, Yes You, Should Watch Farscape ends up sounding very similar, and that’s because Farscape is a black hole that sucks you in and does things to your brain, and after you’ve watched it you are never, ever the same, which incidentally is basically the plot of Farscape.

I would summarize the basic plot for you, but that’s work, and luckily, the show’s credits sequence includes a handy summary that I will provide instead of doing that work: “My name is John Crichton, an astronaut. A radiation wave hit, and I got shot through a wormhole. Now I’m lost in some distant part of the universe on a ship, a living ship, full of strange alien life forms. Help me. Listen, please. Is there anybody out there who can hear me? I’m being hunted by an insane military commander. Doing everything I can. I’m just looking for a way home.“

So let me break down that monologue into its component reasons you should watch Farscape.

1) Some of the strange alien life forms are Muppets.

Farscape a co-production with the Jim Henson Company, and while there are many aliens played by humans in make-up, there are also a considerable number (including two of the regular crew) who are Muppets. By which I do not mean Kermit. I mean really gorgeous, elaborate works of art.

Also, even a lot of the humans-in-makeup aliens just look cool, and incredibly weird. Here’s an alien who appears in a single episode of season 1:

Not that there aren’t, you know, occasional Star Trek-style “these guys are just humans with weird hair,” or whatever, but in general, the aliens on Farscape look really alien. And that’s more than an aesthetic choice; it’s Farscape’s driving narrative principle. The aliens look alien, they act alien, they have alien values.

You know how a lot of sci-fi shows will have a stand-in for “fuck,” like Battlestar Galactica has “frak”? Well, Farscape has “frell.” And also “dren.” And yotz, hezmana, mivonks, loomas, tralk, snurch, eema, drannit, dench, biznak, arn, drad, fahrbot, narl. Some of those are swear words, but some of them are just words, never explicitly translated, that the alien characters will pepper into their speech, because, well, why should translator microbes be able to completely translate all the nuances of an alien culture? You’ll pick it up from context. One time, in passing, a character mentions that he’s familiar with the concept of suicide, but there’s no word for it in his language. I cannot emphasize to you enough how fleeting this moment is; the episode is not about suicide, we’re not having a great exchange of cultural ideas—at the time, the characters are running down a corridor in a crisis, as they are about 70 percent of the time—it’s just that the subject got brought up, and this character needed to talk around the fact that he literally didn’t have a word, in that moment. Things like that happen all the time, on Farscape.

Because more than anything else, Farscape is a show about culture shock. John Crichton is this straight, white Southern guy, at the top of his game—he’s an astronaut! he’s incredibly high status!—and then he ends up on the other side of the galaxy, where none of his cultural markers of privilege hold any meaning, where he doesn’t know the rules, where he literally can’t even open the doors. And he has to unlearn the idea that humanity is central, that he is the norm.

2) John Crichton, an astronaut, is pretty great.

A show that’s about a straight white guy with high status having to learn that he’s not the center of the universe could easily be centered around a really insufferable person, but one of the subtle things that makes Farscape so wonderful is that Crichton is, for the most part, pretty excellent. He has a lot of presumptions to unlearn because almost anyone in his cultural position would, but he’s also just a stand-up guy: compassionate, intelligent, open-minded, decent, forgiving, brave, hopeful.

And the galaxy tries to kick a whole lot of that out of him. It doesn’t succeed, mostly, but if Farscape is about anything other than culture shock, it’s about the lasting effects of trauma. How you can go through a wormhole one person, and experience things that turn you into someone you don’t recognize.

That’s kind of grim-sounding, but ultimately, what I’m trying to say is that Farscape is almost fanatically devoted to character work. Crichton is not the only character who sounds like he should be one thing and ends up being another. All of the characters—all of them, all of them, even the annoying ones—are complicated wonders. And you don’t have to wonder whether the events of the episode you’re watching are going to matter. They will. Everything that happens to the characters leaves a mark. Everything leaves them forever changed. Whether it’s mentioned explicitly or not—and often enough, it’s not explicit—the characters remember what has happened to them.

3) The living ship houses a lot of excellent women, among them the ship itself.

Ah, the women of Farscape, thou art the loves of my fucking life.

There’s Aeryn Sun, former Peacekeeper (that’s the military that the “insane military commander” hails from) now fugitive, currently learning the meaning of the word “compassion” (literally). She will break your fingers and also your heart. John/Aeryn is the main canon romantic ship.

There’s Pa’u Zhoto Zhaan, a priestess of the ninth level, current pacifist, former anarchist. Sorry, leading anarchist. She orgasms in bright light! (Oh my god, Farscape.)

There’s Chiana, my fucking bestie, a teenage(ish? ages in Farscape are weird) fugitive on the run from a repressive authoritarian state. Chiana is like a seductress con artist grifter thief who mostly just wants to survive so that she can have fun, damn it. Characters on Farscape do not really discuss sexualities (sex, yes, sexualities, no) and it would be fair to say that several of them do not fall along human sexuality lines generally, but I’m gonna go ahead and say that Chiana is canonically not straight.

Then there’s Moya, the ship herself, and it’s hard to get a straight read on Moya’s personality, since she mostly can’t speak. But she definitely has opinions, and things and people she cares about. And she moves the plot, though that gets into spoiler territory.

Past first season, further excellent women show up: Jool (controversial, but I like her), Sikozu (I once saw a Tumblr meme where someone had marked down that Sikozu would lose her shit when someone pronounced “gif” wrong, and that’s absolutely correct, and it’s why I love her), and Noranti (who is incredibly weird, and incredibly hard to summarize, but man, you gotta love her willingness to just show up and do her thing). Plus, there’s a recurring female villain, Grayza, who I could write probably multiple essays about. (I don’t know how you will feel about Grayza, as not everyone loves her, but I think she’s fucking fascinating, especially because she’s not actually the only recurring female villain. We also get Ahkna!)

(Side note: I should mention, here, that the cast of Farscape is really, really white. There is one cast member of color, Lani Tupu, but he pretty much represents the entirety of even, like, incidental diversity in casting for the series.)

Anyway, Farscape is full of awesome women, and also awesome and unexpected men, and it really enjoys playing with audience expectations of gender roles, generally. Literal entire books have been written about the way that Farscape fucks around with sex, sexuality, and gender. It’s a little weird because it was the late 90s/early 2000s, and sometimes that does come through, but Farscape’s guiding principle was always to try not to present American culture of the time as the norm, so like. It is not.

(An aside on Farscape and sex: Literally every character on Farscape has sexual tension with every other character. If you are a shipper, this is a Good Show, because no matter who you ship, there will not only be subtext, you will get a Moment of some kind. Multiple characters kiss the Muppet. Farscape is dedicated to getting into the nitty-gritty of the galaxy—I like to think of it as showing the guts of the universe—so a lot of the show is kind of squishy. They live on a biomechanoid ship, instead of androids there are “bioloids,” there’s a lot of focus on strange alien biologies, and lots of weird glowing fluids and things. I think the sex thing is kind of part and parcel of the larger biology focus: Farscape is really fascinated with how we all eat and evolve and live and die and, well, fuck. Which is in turn, kind of part of its focus on making everything really alien.)

4) Other stuff you should know.

Farscape as a whole is excellent, but it was kind of the product of creative anarchy—an Australian/American coproduction (oh yeah, everyone except Crichton speaks with an Australian accent) that was also partnered with the Henson company, whose showrunners were based in America but whose actual production all took place in Australia, and who was just constantly trying new things. So individual episodes can vary wildly in quality. It really takes off in the back half of season one, but no season is without a few off episodes.

It is extraordinarily funny, and I really think I haven’t stressed that enough. It’s one of the shows I want to quote the most in my daily life, but almost all of its humor is really context-dependent, and if you just wander around going, “Hey Stark? What’s black and white, and black and white, and black and white?” people look at you really funny.

It’s very conversant with pop culture generally (although obviously sci-fi  specifically, and Star Trek most specifically of all) and really enjoys deconstructing tropes, often to the effect of, “Well, Crichton really does not know what to do here, does he?” but sometimes just to be interesting.

There are also a lot of themes about science, and its uses and misuses.

The whole thing is fucking epic, and if you get invested at all, will take you on an emotional ride.

This show is weird. I know that that’s probably come across by now, but I think it’s worth reiterating as its own point: Farscape is so weird. Like, proudly, unabashedly, trying its hardest, weird. An amazing kind of weird.

If you’re into fantasy, you should know that there’s a recurring villain who’s just a wizard. Like, they don’t bother to explain it any more than that, he’s just a fucking wizard.

In summary: You should watch Farscape because it is a weird, wild, emotional, epic romance/drama/action/allegory full of Muppets and leather and one-liners and emotional gut punches and love, and if you let it, it will worm its way into you and never let go, which, now that I think of it, is another Farscape plot.

Send me meta prompts to distract me from my migraine!